I would love to help but my knowledge of UFO:AS editor is second to none . So I will pray for you guys !!

There is no such thing atm.. (the editor i mean) its called notepad

Some people are already working on one, but thats a completely different story, and noone knows when it will yield something.

BTW, you mean "next to none". "Second to none" means "the best".

Bad idea. The SMGs in the game use 9mm ammo and they are found in missions much earlier than sniper rifles are. Play balance would still be screwed up.

Heh, follow your own advice, go home, and look at the files. I look forward to what you discover.


Cheers.

UFO:AS editor does not exist (as csebal said) so my knowledge of UFO:AS editor is second to none (because i can tell everything about not existing item )

But yes you have a point

There is many problem with this game . I think all laser beside the alien laser and human plasma was underpowered.
What is the point in the original game to research for all these laser stuff when these weapons are totaly useless . Only the plasma gun was good .

As for all other change , i dont know but i think your rockets are going to be overpowered .

How did you edit the VFS file? With what app?

Slowing the missile reload rate more than balances the increase in missile lethality. You need to look more closely at the changes and why they've been made. I recommend reading the thread for Darkreaver1980's laserandmissilebalancemod.


I already answered that earlier in this thread.

Updated the mod to version 1.2!
(please see first post in thread for download link)

Reasons for latest changes:

1. nerfed Desert Eagle damage. (Temporary fix until new ammo is modded in.)
2. adjusted Desert Eagle recoil to reflect a 9mm rather than .44cal round.
3. Barrett range increased. (It should be much higher than this, but I'm hesitant to make it longer than the laser sniper rifle's.)
4. almost doubled the Barrett's damage. (Realistically, it should be about 2800, but I'm hesitant to make it so high without more feedback from players.)
5. increased the time & cost to make Silencers, for play-balance reasons, since they now also act as flash suppresors.
6. adjusted accuracy of laser sniper rifle so that it is slightly more accurate than a MSG90 at the same ranges.

Hi Shado,

Thanks for the mod. I read your thread about having to adjust the accuracy number and the range adjuster, but I don't believe you have it working. I am working with version 1.12 btw.

Here is what I have found, based on the in-game values:

UNMODED
Range Accuracy
Laser Pistol 20 65
Laser Rifle 30 67
Laser Sniper Rifle 70 86

MOD1.12
Range Accuracy
Laser Pistol 30 67
Laser Rifle 50 64
Laser Sniper Rifle 180 53

I know that you have changed the Laser Sniper Rifle accuracy in 1.2, but my bigger concern is with the Laser Rifle, which should be a lot more accurate than the Pistol. BTW, the accuracy of the XM8 is 68 with a range of 40.

Like a lot of others, I am beating the snot out of the Wargots with XM8s, M60Es, and MSG-90s.

PostScript to Shado's explanation below: Thank you for the explanation on range and accuracy below. My one general comment is to keep the weapon stats in balance for the Game, not necessarily reflecting the Real World. You are doing a great job, I greatly appreciate your efforts.

fgbrooks, you've made an understandable and common mistake because of this:

A weapon's accuracy figure in the game (as displayed on the weapon stats window) is at the maximum range of the weapon. In order to compare weapons you must not just look at the accuracy numbers but must also adjust for range differences ...

Laser pistol accuracy at 30: 67
Laser rifle accuracy at 30: ((50/30)*64) = 107
XM8 accuracy at 30: ((40/30)*68) = 91

EDIT: Avenger needs to add this explanation to his Aftershock guide so that folks understand how accuracy really works, and thus can make properly-informed decisions when choosing weapons.

Progress report:
It looks like i was able to add a new weapon and related ammo type to the game.

new weapon:
Desert Eagle .50 Action Express
new caliber:
.50AE
new ammo:
.50AE JHP

question is.. does it work? I was able to manufacture them, now im taking it onto the field ot test some.

Flipside is that i had to modify the localisation text file to add names / descriptions for the new items, and they do not seem to be that well moddable.

EDIT: it works like a charm. Kids, always remember to read the fcking manual before you start something. I spent the last 6 hours (3 yesterday evening, and 3 hours today morning) to get the mod working. Ironically, my first solution was right, except that my vfs file did not have 'mod' in its name, so the game was simply ignoring it... doh. Well, point is:

ShadowWarrior: we can add new stuff to the game. So lets rumble.

Hey, ShadoWarrior.

Can you mod the MP5 and Colt 635 SMG to be used as two-handed weapon? That would be great.

My proposal for new stats are, that you could rise the accuracy and conrtollability with burst fire, and reduce the time to take aim / open fire at the same time for compensate the loss of ambidexterous use.

Those SMGs are Light, ergonomical and stabile weapons that have very low recoil because of 9mm ammunition. At my opinnion, MP5 is really handy and fast to operate and very accurate even with short bursts to short range like 25 meters. But it's DEFINETLY NOT single handed weapon!

Could you also shorten the aiming / fire opening time for AK47? It has open, "trail sights" and it's faster to take decent aim than M4 with diopter sights.

Thanks for the suggestions, Wank. I agree re: those two SMGs, and the AK. I'll make the changes for the next release.

Good damn! Can't wait to see the results!

Actually i would suggest to change the m60 to be two handed as well. First of all, you can't dual wield them anyway. Basically, i would make all weapons with UB slot to be double handed. If a weapon has a long enough barell to fit say an ub launcher, then it should not be held 1 handed anyway. Havent fired grenade launchers myself, but somehow i doubt you can fire them one handed with any decent aim.

Updated the mod to version 1.3!
(please see first post in thread for download link)

The M60, as a machinegun, is already two-handed. If you can name me any weapons that need to be two-handed that I've not already modded (as of version 1.3) please let me know.

While Arnold fires a M79 one-handed in Terminator 2, you're right in that you cannot be accurate doing that. Not unless you're a ... cyborg. Hmm, this game has cyborgs. Oh well. So much for not being able to do it.

Ok you make Barrett more powerful but as we all know sniper weapon in UFO:AS need rebalancing so increase its power without decrease rate of fire /sniper rifles snap shot accuracy/reduce accuracy of called shoots and decrease rate of fire of called shoots isnt in my opinion good/wise course of action.



@csebal

whats news with DE . Mod working ?

First, the Barrett is as rapid-firing as any other semi-auto magazine-fed weapon. You can fire it about as fast as you can keep pulling the trigger (assuming you can withstand the considerable recoil).

Second, I have found no way (so far) to mod quickshot or called-shot accuracy. I assure you that if it can be done, I will do so. I am waiting for an official answer as to whether it can or cannot.

Sniper rifles already are roughly half as fast at firing than assault rifles. Do they need to be slower still? Realistically, (unless you are sighting through a scope) it simply doesn't take several seconds to aim and fire one.

I dont know. You just make sniper weapon more powerful so game will be much easier that way.



You are missing the point . To fully use sniper weapons potential you must lie down , use scope and fire . In UFO:AS you can shoot in standing/ kneeling position from sniper weapons without loss of accuracy. Barrett M82 weight 12.9 kg empty now stand and shoot from it using scope .
Is this realistic i dont think so.

Increasing weapons dmg /accuracy make game easier especialy sniper weapons which are already overpower.


btw. could you put modyfications in separet files ??

Woohoo!

I've been wanting to add a stunrod and advanced reticulan power cells for a while now.
Any tips?

look here :

http://dmod.de/ufoboard/index.php

So everything I might need to modify for such simple mods will be in equipment.txt (Including all the other weapons and ammo so I can get an idea of what all the variables do)?

Sorry for tagging this into your thread by the way but, it isn't like these daft little questions are worth a thread all to themselves

ShadoWarrior, I have to ask is the point of the mods to make the game more realistic or better balanced?

You've redone the barrett sniper rifle to make it more like its real-life counterpart but in doing so you've made an already powerful weapon class more powerful. Now I know that you aren't able to properly bring the weapon back in line (adjusting the accuracy for snapshots, etc) with other weapons but is there any other way of getting around it?

Preferably I'd prefer to have the Barrett scrapped altogether. This is a sniper rifle designed to be used against light vehicles and its included in a game where the only non-infrantry unit (I've seen so far, I haven't raided the WG probe but am up against SGs) is a WG in Power Armour.

The other problems with sniper rifles are the maps, there is far too much open ground and the maps too small. Hopefully when they allow us to build our own maps we can take some of the strategic impact the sniper rifles provide.

Sniper weapons are not currently overpowered. If anything, they are underpowered. They are supposed to do massive damage to unarmored targets. And a Barrett should be an instant kill (without a critical hit) in any spot that's not an extremity, and near-fatal on extremities. My latest change makes that likely, as I intended. The Barrett is portable artillery. It is now treated as such. I do, however, intend to make the use of sniper weapons harder. Please be patient. I am still working on it.

Finally, as we've discussed before, it is the opponents who are too weak, not the weapons being too strong.


Possible? Yes. Will I? No. I don't wish to go through the effort to create and maintain a dozen or more equipment mods. You need to understand that all these changes are made to just one file, equipment.txt, located inside the .vfs. To do what you want I have to create many mods, one for each change or combination of changes. The time it takes to do that I can better spend making more changes ... or playing the game.

Both. I'm still working on the balance part. That's much harder to do and takes longer.


Still working on it. I'm not done with changes to sniper weapons. Making them more realistic is (was) easy and quick. Making them balanced is not.


Believe it or not, I've considered doing that. I have not yet made up my mind on it. One drawback is that I am hesitant to remove an item that may be scripted into missions. Changing the equipment file and research tree files is easy. I don't know anything about the missions.

*EDIT* was posting at the same time so didn't see your post which makes this blurb pointless.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Would this work in addition to your mod? Make the barret a mechanical weapon that requires sniper training. You'd have the increased power that the weapon deserves but you wouldn't be able to abuse it by using headshots to get the excessive damage.

actually, I'm quite sure I had one of my sniperrifles on burst at one time, lemme check

EDIT: the SR-25 sniperrifle has a burst mode

heh, ShadoWarrior was faster

The SR-25 has a two-shot burst. But I intend to completely replace this weapon with a different sniper rifle.

No. Changing the skill used to determine accuracy (by making it mechanical) would not affect being able to make called shots. I'd have to remove the requirement for sniper training. I am investigating whether I can restrict the weapon's use to L3 snipers by requiring called shots skill. Of course, that doesn't prevent being able to make the devastating head shots. It just makes the weapon harder to use because the soldier must be more advanced.

The best fix would be to adjust called shots and quick shot accuracies, especially called shots. I just don't see how to do that ... yet.

I thought if you made it a mechanical weapon then snipers would not be able to use their called shot ability as according to the write-up of their skill it can (or should) only be used with weapons that are classed as long-range.

Sorry, I forgot about that restriction. I'll make the change for the next release of my mod and let you fine folks test it for me.

Thanks.

no no no no no.. turn back the Desert Eagle. that gun is POWERFUL.. its supposed to be powerful..

Shadow,

can u increase the burst value of the pkm and M60? i would like to see cont. fire, but I guess this is almost impossible?

I could, but I'm not so sure that would be a wise thing to do. I'd like to hear several more opinions before I make such a change.

Version 1.4 of the mod includes a new .50cal AE Desert Eagle, with new .50cal AE ammo (courtesy Csebal), along with other changes. Problem is that I cannot get the new weapon and ammo to show up on my manufacture screen in-game. I need help from someone, preferably with experience in modding, to review this new version of my mod and see if they can spot why I cannot get the new gun & ammo to show up. I'd like for the mod to be fully working before I post it, rather than post it as is and then fix it later. Any volunteers?

Before we look at increasing the rate of fire for the PKM and M60 we should look at having larger ammo boxes for the guns. Both guns can be chain fed or use box ammo but we are putting in the same ammo as sniper rifles.

Is it posssible to reduce the reload times for both heavy machine guns or increase the size of the ammo cartridges?

It's possible, but presents problems precisely because it's the same ammo "package" used for sniper rifles. If I make the "can" hold more rounds, then I'd have to balance that by making it take up more space in inventory and take longer to manufacture (since you're making more rounds per "package"). Keeping it where it is now appears to me to be a fair trade-off. But my mind is not closed to the idea. Further discussion may convince me.

BTW, isn't the PK using the wrong ammo? IIRC, in real life it uses 7.62x54 and not the 7.62x39 that the AK47 uses. To simplify the game it appears the devs made the DE (wrongly) use the same ammo as SMGs, and the PK use the same ammo as the AK.

Hmm..

a few things to check out.

for the new caliber (calibers.txt):
1) the beginning of the file



2) the default ammo for the caliber


for the ammo and weapons:
1) check the beginning of the file there as well, make sure to increase the ARRAY count to the proper number

2) the beginning of each equipment entry should have a unique ID


If those things are correct, then it should show up. Unless you change the localization files however, they will have odd names.

ps. Did you receive the mail i sent you earlier today? It contained the stuff i did, all packed and all. Take a look at it.

Some more things:
I think that the manufacturing costs should be rebalanced to a much higher level. Things are ridiculously cheap atm. If a box of .50 ammo would cost say 250 low tech res, people would be forced to play much more strategically and the "STRONGEST" would not always be the best. For example, why waste a bullet costing 25 low tech res on a reticulan, when a shotgun shell costing 5 could kill it.

There comes a point in the game, from which you have an extreme ammount of resources as you produce much more than what you use.

Anyway. resources could be used to counter balance the weapons that are too strong now. Let's make then really expensive and people will think twice before using them. Not to mention the fact, that 'aquired' / 'salvaged' ammo would become significant once again

I also think that adding a continuous fire mode would be nice.

Yes, I received your email (many thanks) and I did a cut & paste of the new stuff, then I fiddled with some of the ID numbers. What I had forgotten to do was update the array count at the very top of the equipment file. It works okay now. New release coming very soon ...

Changed the m60 to use full auto mode instead of burst, and i have to add, it has a certain feel to it. Then again, i should somehow limit the fire rate, as it is pumping out 6.7 rounds / second now, decimating basically anything in under 1 second Not that i don't like it, that way but its a tad overpowered

EDIT: changed the ROF from 100 down to 5, and now the gun has a ROF of around 1.88 rounds / sec. Still a tad high, but is way less than the 3000 dmg/sec full auto madness it was before

Updated the mod to version 1.4!
(please see first post in thread for download link)

Reasons for latest changes:

1. Added new Desert Eagle so that the game once again has a "hand cannon".
2. Desert Eagle (in 9mm) should have a standard large magazine like most other combat 9mm handguns.
3. Requiring the Barrett to have L2 sniper training means you'll need more advanced (higher level) soldiers to use it, thus possibly delaying how soon you can use it against enemies.
4. Changing the Barrett's skill type blocks the ability to do Target Body Parts with it. No more massive headshots.
5. Increasing the burst rate of the M60 and PKM means you should now get almost continuous fire from these guns. Of course, they'll still automatically quit firing when the target dies.
6. I'd overlooked the burst fire damage value of the DE when I nerfed the 9mm version back in v1.2, so I've fixed it.

I noticed an interesting thing. The M60 in full auto mode always hits, even when the chance is down to like 1-2%. sure you get no criticals, and damage is just a percentage of what it could be, but still.. it seems to be hitting 100% of the time. Kinda odd.

M60 and PKM should work like this imho.

2modes, burst and cont. fire.

burst is like it is now. few rounds, moderate accuracy.
continues fire is continues fire (or lng bursts), but seriously decreased accuracy.
This will make this weapon deadly in at close range but wasting ammo at medium and long ranges.
now an added request, can u improve accuracy when prone? like placing the M60 on a bipod?

I think these are more real life values then what we have now.

As i wrote it before, the accuracy of the weapons in full auto mode seems to be 100% hit regardless of the actual accuracy value. Contrary to other fire modes however, in full auto mode, the damage is scaled down by accuracy, so the same full auto fire does 300hp hits on point blank range, and 30hp hits when the enemy is 30 spaces out and the chance to hit is only 10%. In both cases, all rounds hit, just the damage varies. Plus for full auto you must remove the recoil value for the weapon, as after like 20 rounds, the accuracy will be down to 0, but the soldier will keep firing, hitting nothing

Shadowarrior, is it possible to create a new ammo type for the heavy machine guns similar to e-cells or energon and just make it not compatible with the sniper rifles.

Interesting modification..

Hell, I would like to see an Automag V in game (that thing rocks...more powerfull than the DE!)

that said, anyone actualčy tried to add completely NEW weapons in hte game (new models & textures)?
Perhaps we can get some info from the DEV's about hte model format they are using and such...

The reason I'm asking is I have a few neat guns I ported in some other games..

http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vacannon23il.jpg
http://img278.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vasrifle5sp.jpg
http://img278.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vaarifle4uk.jpg
http://img278.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pistolsword5nq.jpg

I added the latest version of the modification as a separate download here (due to the fact that it has to overwrite LocalizationPack.vfs).