Updated: April 26, 2006

Team: , Caelum (), Dakkhon (gfx/model), DaX (sfx), drake88 (code/gfx), Laureati (), nonorobot5 (), psychophat (code/gfx), rman (code/model), shadowkeeper (code), ShadoWarrior (), Tubal (gfx), Yunn (),

UFO Aftershock Unleased MOD/TC
Variant: Aftershock UNLEASHED full MOD/TC features:
(full version download, total conversion mod)

To TEAM: Please skip this section for now and read variant 2 so that we could begin.

Version 0.1
- . . .
- (team kindly suggest future items to be added here)
- (please refer to storyline or expand the story-line to)
- (provide base story for our mod)
- . . .
- more harder to kill enemies in missions (diff. resistance, armor/hp)
- XP system based from unit kill than total mission score
- complete new interface
- WR base mod/additions/tweaks
- (kindly comment/suggest changes to our future mod)

Story-line: The year is 2057. Fifty-three years ago, something terrible happened and the surface of Earth became uninhabitable. The remnants of humankind escaped to an immense flying island, the Laputa. However a revolt against increasingly rigid and corrupt human leadership of the island escalated into a conflict that eventually destroyed it. The survivors of the survivors fled to not so distant space installations and stations like the Laputa.

Some eagerly ventured to earth, but to demise met a horde of remnants of the past and some anew which ended their quest to take back earth after their year or so long fighting.

You are among the others who took refuge on the other stations, but your group wasn’t as lucky as the others to venture to earth so early, your group had prioritized the health, well being of your fellow survivors and learning some of the old technology you’ve stumbled on the Black N.E.S.A. vessel.

Black N.E.S.A.: The New Earth Station Astronomical vessel is an early prototype of the Laputa and is one of the early earth’s military space stations joint projects which was scrapped and was later converted to somewhat a time capsule of 20th century technology, weaponry and other relics. From your group’s exploration of this vessel you’ve gathered a lot of earth technology to be learned from like books, diagrams, manuals and other data stored on numerous storage discs.

Some vaults within the Black NESA hold several types of armors used by military factions on early earth and there also some experimental armors, battle suits and heavy Mech gear which you have no clue as of yet but with hard research you will soon find use for these.

The Black NESA also holds a wide array of early 20th century weaponry from ammunitions, handguns, machineguns and other military and non-military equipment used by 20th century combatants. There are also some discontinued prototypes like gauss, laser and plasma that with little modification and with some research you will be able to manufacture for your future incursion on earth.

Last communication with other survivors: From the last report we received from the other survivors who ventured back to earth there are several new factions which have dominated the other races. Alien technology pirates and cultist have reigned over and exterminated most of the Biomass Mutants and left for dead those left over Reticulansof the past. The Wargots and Starghosts were almost wiped out by them too.

-- End of Transmission --

But we cannot be certain that these other alien races have truly disappeared. For now, these pirates and cultists are our primary concern to deal with when we land to earth. Best thing is to get accustomed to the 20th century arsenal that we have for we have a great deal of these for the moment.

Now, you’ve manage to learned some of early earth technology and adjusted to the systems of your station the time has come for your crusade to take back mother earth.

Will you meet the same faith as them or will you prevail in your crusade to take back earth? And will you be able to eradicate the menace that have plagued earth for far too long and those who will try in the future?


To TEAM: Suggestions for item/weapon/world theme: I would like to suggest we incorporate the world of Aliens and Fallout to the XCOM world. Kindly expand the story to match the in-game videos but do incorporate the world ideas of Aliens and Fallout or other game worlds to our mod's base story and theme. But I would like to suggest greatly to stick with the idea/theme of post-nuclear/apocalyptic, alien resurrection, new alien invasion . . . and a like.

suggestion/sample: A new enemy appears which had totally exterminated several of the earlier laputian earth expeditions, (rman's Wargot Digger) <new enemy in-game name> . . . . (your story base for this new enemy).

suggestion/sample: Basic earth weapons replaces reticulan lasers, low-level earth tech are available and other earth tech are quickly research on new game of mod, why?

Based from story: The survivors took refuge on another station which was a storage of 20th century stuff . . . (ShadoWarrior's WR mod).

Kindly expand the story-line above to add your mod suggestions or modifications based from the story-line you've created.

To TEAM: This is my way of making something up, story-based style. I do hope you guys would appreciate the weird way I make stuff up, RPG style even. Kindly do take time to write some fantastic short story lines for the additions. My deepest thanks team and to all who are supporting this project.

And do kindly post your each and own Work List and Notes so that the team would have a idea of stuff to take up or to do. We'll compile the work list and split it to sections so that somebody will take over sections for faster development.

(please post ideas, comments or suggestions to further hasten our mod development)[/size]



Weapon Rebalaced MOD Plus
Variant: Original WeaponRebalanced features:
(for WR users who prefer lite download and max WR compatibility)

- uses original WR base mod
- custom skins for WR items/weapons/etc. additions
- custom menu for WR (ref. main_menu proposal)
- custom interface modifications lite-version

Work list:

- full addition of models .txt files based from current WR v.3.14 or latest WR in-game items
- items must refer to custom skins
- .txt files under models directory should reflect custom skin paths
- (other additions please ask for ShadoWarrior's approval for in this variant its all WR)

Notes: Average code work here, lots of renaming and minimal skinning in this variant but modifications made here will be used as foundations on our actual project mod.

To TEAM: Kindly please create the list of items to be skinned based from Weapon Rebalanced MOD v.3.14 or upcoming release. Skinners on team please refer to list, if list isn't yet posted please work already on the items skins even if it replaces the original ingame we'll rename them later when the referring code has been posted or code part has been finished.

Kindly do post screenshots of the skinned items to show current progress, also it can be approved by all team members, ShadoWarrior and others viewing this topic. We'll do the checklist as we go day by day.

Would anyone volunteer and post the list of model duplicates that needs to be skinned in WR?

Would anyone would like to volunteer and do the code part and hexing of the .txt files under the models directory?

Refer to this topic link if lost regarding adding multi-model with unique skins.

I'll proceed to finishing the sample menu and lite interface changes for ShadoWarrior's approval and team. Then provide assistance to the code work, skinning of untaken models and hexing of .txt files if not yet done.

We can do this in a week or less, okay guys . . . hoorah !!!

Thank you again to my fellow teammates and to all who would like to lend a hand.

It is called armor_sr.txt. One entry for male, another for female and all other subraces (see subrace.txt) you'll want to look different with same equipment.txt entry.

IDEA POOL
below are the snippets of your posts:
(if you have comments, suggestions to things below the format or whatever please do tell, this will be a long list and updated day by day, this should be summarized more)

rman - post#16 - How about taking cultist medium armor (it exists as
stand-alone model), removing its helmet (1 mesh less), and replacing texture for it. You'd got truly unique model for armor this way. I know that is possible, because that is how I created my suit of Plassteel Armour.

mailor - post#17 - And can you make different armor types for his duralloy armors as well?

psychophat - post#25- this gives me an idea for a mod . . . maybe something like a half-breed of:

Weapons and armors: Aliens vs Predator, Flashpoint, Rainbow Six
Enviroment and enemies: Fallout, XCOM
Unit pharapernalia effects: The SIMS

rman post#30 - So, I've checked stuff I have, and found the following.
1. Workable changes in text for enabling Wargot Digger. No side effects. Plan to release it as stand-alone mod this evening.
2. Various models for gauss weaponry, warp weaponry, minigun and something that looks like lightsaber. 3 armor models that basically modified actor and cultist models. Some are good, some are ugly, some are buggy.
3. A way to enable terminal_04, port_small_05, port_big_06 and freighter maps. My approach to do it revealed game-stopping problems (you're unable to finish certain type of missions), and other funny behaviour, but at least it follows 'MORE MAPS' motto.
4. Interesting interface tweaks. Inventory screen, mainly. No side effects.
5. Some interesting equipment tweaks (such as knife that can be used stand-alone or as underbarrel addon).
Graphical inconsitencies mainly, no side effects most of the time.

I suggest changing mod name to 'Aftershock Unleashed', and use all this.

psychophat - post#31- I've been trying to use the model for the browning and still trying to understand which codes to replace as to make the model browning knife be available as under-barrel

psychophat - post#34 -
- Audio Re-mastered AS voices with radio hiss effect
- glow sticks? Can the lamp post light effect be used on a small model to represent a glow stick.
- Explosive item Claymore or satchel use briefcase model or somehting pouchie
- enemies have a more dangerous VARIATION <- different skin and same model.
- invisible enemy units yet?
- new face skins to the array?

rman post#35 - Wargot Digger is a monster. You can kill it, research it's corpse, but you can not make armor from it (Well, technically you can use digger model instead of armor one. When I first saw the result, my first desire was to eat my own eyes).
Also, reusing cultists armor models is silly IMO. I propose changing models for cultists armor, keeping the originals, and using modified ones for new armors.

psychophat - post#36 - How about a new item like advanced radio/communication system which boost soldiers something that the leader gives.

I found the texture for the Laputa? What do you want to do with it? I was thinking of making more realistic like in the intro movie. And bigger and more detail compared to the circle that floats.

laser, microwave based stun weapons . . . Pulsed Energy Projectile.

How about future research on making advanced bullets, which may damage them eg. using the Pulsed Energy Projectile as ammo for normal earth weapons. Good alternative for those who use human weapons and just adding enhancements and none laser, plasma users.

Avenger - I remember going on missions in EU and being geninely afraid of chrysalids, or feeling daunted by the presence of ethereals, with the threat that they could take control of even my best troops easily.

drake88 - post#44 - Someone put a post out the other day saying that they don't like how the enemy forces are always at the other side of the map. Now that I think about it, I did like it in X-COM where the aliens were right out the back side of the drop ship and you had to fight your way to cover.

rman - post#45 - good news, that Piezer shotgun ammo is complete and functioning. Needs model, though.

Yunn - post#49 - are there any voice actors who can replace the sounds of the soldiers in the game? They have a terrible attitude problem. Can't they be nicer and more professional?

Preda - post#55 - Here's some Creative Text on the digger; I thought that it's better to put it here, although I'd like it implemented in the Digger restoration mod firs, please:

Before research:
These animals were encountered by our troops in the Wargot ship, and we beleive that it would be worth taking a look at them.

After reasearch:
These mastodonts, which we came to call wargot diggers, ...

drake88 - post#57 - Just a couple of ideas regarding new types of weapons/armor:
Reflec Armor - does well against laser weaponry/but average against all others.
Steath Armor - would be good for a stalker
Powered Assault Armor - heavy duty combat armor
Combat Armor - another different type of heavy armor
Powered Battle Armor - top of the line heavy armor

Weapon ideas
XM10 (or something like that) - take the XM8 weapon and have it fire the guass ammo that ShadoWarrior created.
Laser Machine Gun

Mirari - post#59 - has a good idea for stun weapons

Laureati - post#60 - Seems a few strings aren't used in the .txt files and maybe we could employ those to make different groups of enemy. I doubt we can add new strings but I suspect we can change the existing specific troop types in the associated group strings (if you know what I'm talking about) to increase enemy variation (e.g. create another mutant army group by modifying one of the unused groups to create ... a flatster swarm (20-50 flatsters on a feeding frenzy)? or a morelman army? (20+ morelmen with assault rifles and rocket launchers)? or brainmen zombie horde (group of very powerful brainmen controlling a human zombie army).

Yunn - post#69 - for me it's not so much of the words, but rather the tone. if you play republic commando, you'll know what i mean, because the 4 clone commandos are.. well... CLONES, but each of them have such a distinct difference in personalty that you have no trouble telling apart.

DaX - post#71 -True but i dont think that it would be fairly hard to attach a string in the mod, that would make them use a sound like they normaly do in other occasions, so that they WOULD be saying enemy down or target down, when there target is either unconsius or dead

--- old post moved down ---

See, Laputian Human Male, according to subrace.txt is 'Male'. Laputian Human Female is 'Female'. Laputian Psionic is 'Seer'. Cultist human is 'Fanatic'. Etc. Normal human being is unable to remember (I, at least, am unable to) all these internal subraces names, so I suggested you to look in subrace.txt (and do not modify anything there).

Look at armour_sr.txt as override file. You define base model for armor in equipment_txt (model shown when you upgrade armor and iface_model for that small inventory picture), and then you want same armor look different on males, females, your allies (so called Local Humans), cultists, you got the idea.
So, in armor_sr.txt you define in-game armor model as separate entry for each subrace you want to override.
To get the idea how things are done, look for example for all entries containing 'Light Armour' (or 'Light Armor', unable to check it now). There sould be at least 3 - two for your soldiers (Male/Female), and one for Local Humans (CivMale).
For each of your armors you'll need to add similar entries (do not forget to increase counter at top of the file!).

Sorry if that was more confusing than helping, I'll try to be more specific when I'll get home and get my hands on my instance of armor_sr.txt (4 to 6 hours to go).

Old first post
Up top will be the title if I end up making a separate mod of my intended add-on mod. Basically I'm making a skin-mod, but would like to wait for ShadoWarrior if I can do an add-on mod for his mod since I've grown to like playing his mod.

While I'm waiting for a response I've already created a mod based from the info provided from "Adding a new weapon" by drake88, nusku, ShadoWarrior and shadowkeeper. As a pre-test I've successfully added my different skins to the game. So currently in-game you're able to create:

Human:
- Light Armor (original unmodded)
- Light Helmet (original unmodded)
- ACU Digital Desert Light Armor
- ACU Digital Desert Light Helmet
- ACU Digital Woodland Light Armor
- ACU Digital Woodland Light Helmet
- British DPU Falkland Light Armor
- British DPU Falkland Light Helmet
- German Flecktarn Light Armor
- German Flecktarn Light Helmet

Psionic:
- British DPU Falkland Light Psi Suit

But I'm still testing the female side of it and getting some issues . . . PMS with the female model I think. I can't seem to find the line that indicates the female side. Anyway this is just a pre-test of my add-on mod for other mods. Future updates to be made on my site and skins are as follows:

- ACU Digital Desert and Woodland light armors will be re-skinned for I'll be using my recomposed base Light Armor template. Both will be re-textured for added detail and realism for better camouflaging when used on designated terrain (desert and woodland of course)
- British DPU Falkland light armor's color scheme will be readjusted cause I've noticed some whitish non-specular effect that I neglected before
- German Flecktarn light armor's detail will be heightened just a bit
- Delays on the others skins will still remain just for awhile while I finish my first Psionic skin
- 3 re-skinned weapons intended to be used for WeaponRebalance 3.14 mod or other mod that may use the same model
- 2 enemy re-skin (just some minor tweaks)

I think some people would . . . heheheh . . . like my first Psionic skin, basically I'm all human when it comes to XCOM/UFO but with this skin I'm beginning to like using the Psionics . . . hehehheh. I'll post a bo*bshot of it, eeps I mean a skinshot of it along side the others skins in-game. Right after I finish up with hexing the models.txt (crap I didn't know that I'll be making a lot of copies of this binary text file). Dang if I knew that it will be this complicated I'd just stayed on playing. Anyway I'll post some screenies here and full screenies on my UFO Dermal Labs skin site within this week and one or two here after a few hours from now.

Second post moved here
I also added those values at "armor_sr.txt" . . . let me re-check again. Will post screenie later of the problem. Ah what do I need to look or modify under "subrace.txt"? . . . help!

EDITED:
Yes I've done that part already got it right the first time:

skin1 male armour
skin1 male helmet
skin1 female armour
skin1 female helmet
skin2 male armour
skin2 male helmet
skin2 female armour
skin2 female helmet
and so on . . .

Only 2 for I'm only testing with the light armour and I left the copy of the original light armour, ah wait are you saying that I should do the CivMale too? I'm thru with this file right cause I can see the skins in-game do I have to modify something else?

Only if you want your armors to look different on CivMales. How about sending me armor_sr.txt and equipment.txt on my profile e-mail so I could look at them?

edit: more clarity

Okay will send let me just finish with the hexing, don't want to get lost count. Thank you again for taking time and reminding me to look into stuff.

Can't send thru your profile its "private"

You have PM.

edit:
Looks OK, except for one thing. You see, most of the time game references entries in text files by their POSITION in file, not by their ids. Why did devs used relational DB for their work AND referenced rows in table by their position is beyond me.
I kindly suggest you to move entries from Falkland LA to Flecktarn LH to the end of the file.
BTW, you've promised screenshots showing what is wrong.

Yes I will capture one a bit later, when I get home from work I'll immidiately post it. If you have comments on what should I look into do post it I'll follow them when I get back.

Great job psychophat, you beat me to the punch. Last night I downloaded your Falklands, Flecktern and Woodland skins. I added them to my game and they look SWEET!!! But I wanted to be able to manufacture each kind so I can have several different armor suits on the field of battle at one time.

OR, have different sets in the equipment locker to be used depending on the terrain I was going into. I was going to create these tonight when I got home. But it looks like you beat me to it.



I am going to add them myself anyway because I want the practice modding these files.

Once again, GREAT JOB on the camo!

ShadoWarrior, I would cast my vote to adding these to your mod as well. I cannot play the game now without your mod and all the cool things that it adds.

I also really like TUBAL's wargot skins as well. So I would vote for his stuff too!

Project Add-on MOD: The SIMS for Aftershock
updates, test phase and whats baking

Image below is my first try to skin the Psionics, its not yet finished but I was having fun skinning the torso part. Heheheh heh . . . dang. I'm spending so much time looking at it than composing the section. Hihihihih . . .



As you can see I've included in my test mod the British Navy DPU Falkland and German Flecktarn, both helmet and armour are available in the manufacturing section. Also I've slightly modified the information regarding the added items. The screenshot above shows (from left to right):

- Psionic (first skin trial, adult content will be minimized in the final release)
- Human male wearing original light helmet and DPU Falkland body armour
- Human female wearing DPU Falkland light helmet and German Flecktarn body armour
- Human male wearing DPU Falkland light helmet and original light armour

Image below is a in-game screenshot of the squad area:



The problem that I've spoke of in the earlier post was the skin texture was wrong, I loaded the ACU Digital Desert instead of the DPU Falkland . . . My bad, apologies about that rman, anyway I'll also include all of the skins that I currently have plus future things, I'll also add Tubal's skins to the mod with his consent of course.

On the Chopping Board this week are as follows:
- based from my previous things to do are to reskin the current skins
- add/open the weapons section and enemies section
- and finish my first psionic template without the adult content

I'll try to finish a beta version of this while I still await for ShadoWarrior's blessing to do the add-on mod. If you have suggestions or comments that would be beneficial kindly do specify them . . . maybe lets just all help each other out and make a super mod with all the stuff we like in it.

P.S. I got side-tracked again and added another section of work to do, geez I got a lot of ideas and so little time to do them and now there just pilling up. Okay its about the Splash screen after the intro movie, I'm done a scratch look to it, for short remade it so that in case that later if everybody decides to just make one uber mod we have a cool splash screen with each of the mods indicated. This will tell the user which mods and versions are inculded in the uber mod. All the creator and contributors will be in the loading screens, heck we could put advertisements there. I'll post an unfinished sample later in the day for you guys to think over.

Regards,


Patrick Grey

Doohhh!!!

Thinking about things in your head at work is so much easier than late at night once the family has gone to bed.

I have created a new type of armor which I called Plasteel (copied the light armor and made some minor modifications). Plugged it into the game and I was good to go. First step completed!

My idea was to create this armor and then point it to the dds files that psychophat created for his DPU Falklands armor. Then I could create one set of normal armor and one of the Falklands camo.

The problem that I have run into is that nowhere in the equipment.txt file do you reference a .dds file. In my armor, I reference:

model STR "tactical/models/units/humans/human_light_male.txt"
iface_model STR "tactical/models/armors/humans/l_armour.txt"

When I went to both of these files and opened them in Notepad I got a lot of crud. What kind of editor do you use to read these types of files?

Anyway, psychophat it looks like you have already added several of your sets of armor to a mod. Do you have time to enlighten us with your wisdom?



Or at least give us a hint?

I tried to get it to work by doing the following. I renamed your .dds files to "lightsoldier2.dds" and so on (since I figured the game would look for the "lightsoldier.dss" for the regular armor). I then opened both the "human_light_male.txt" and the "l_armour.txt" files and changed (in Notepad) the reference at the top to "lightsoldier2.dds".

I was not very confident that it would work; but I was able to go in a create a set of Plasteel armor. Which was cool; but when I tried to equip one of my guys with it, BLAMO game crashed.

Dooohhh!! Any help or hints are much appreciated.

Drake88

Having them under the model folder tells us that they are binary text files. Basically some text editors would do it, but most won't like wordpad, notepad for they contain binary data. I suggest you use a hexadecimal editor some text editors have support for hex and some don't.

Oh, don't put a number at the end like . . . soldier2 instead make it like this . . . soldie2. For in the binary file it would be much safe to edit on character instead of inserting another for it might just screw the whole thing up.

YOU ROCK!!!

Nice job psychophat, your screenshot is awesome! If I can ask a favor and add another thing to your pile, ..... do you have time to tell us how you added the armor??? Please....

Hey, count me in to help out in any way that I can. My modding experience started last week; but I am willing to learn. All of the stuff I have done before is in the Aurora engine for Neverwinter Nights, C++ and stuff.

Let me know what I can do to help.

I too am also new to modding this game, but I do learn quick. I'll post a full tutorial on this sometime this week when I completed atleast one of my tasks.

Bro, if I could just get everybody's attention to work on an UBER mod which has everything we liked . . . that would be absolutely fab!!!

I would like to think that this game could be like THE SIMS, heheheh . . . where we can dress up whatever we like on any day or bu*t naked and bring whatever we like. Then we could BLAST something up along the way.

*** We need get everybody's attention first, then make a group, then make an IDEA POOL . . . get them to input ideas on what they like, we like and the people might like and try to make it happen. Err . . . Afterlight might come out soon and we might have little time but if we already have a team by then we could port our work to the next game and so forth.

I would like to contribute to this wonderful pool of ideas. How about taking cultist medium armor (it exists as
stand-alone model), removing its helmet (1 mesh less), and replacing texture for it. You'd got truly unique model for armor this way.
I know that is possible, because that is how I created my suit of Plassteel Armour.

Is this compatible with shadowarriors rebalance mod? If not, can you make it compatible? And can you make different armor types for his duralloy armors as well? I know I ask a lot, but I can't do this myself, because I suck.

Quite likely no, they are not compatible. psychophat's mod changes equipment.txt and armour_sr.txt, and Weapon Rebalance does the same. Weird things are possible when you mix these two mods.
Merging them is possible, yes, but of course it can only be made with ShadoWarrior's permission. See this link for progress.

I think it could be a great mod.

Did someone already try to made custom models?
Is it possible? If yes what, soft can be use?

Yes somebody do that one too . . . wait I'll ask someone how he added the flamethrower model and other sniper model in-game. Man my german sucks its going to be hard talking to that guy, but I'll do what I can.

Even if he just ported the model it would still be very useful to many.

Flamethrower model was made by Altar, just not used. Same goes for napalm cylinder, and their glossary pictures.

Oh, well a friend sent me his mod which has different models in them which I'm on side skinning. Its for UFO Aftershock too . . . there are laser weapons, some other models I've only seen in his mod and weird looking armour . . . looks like a blob armour . . . like the one in XCOM.

Check picture below these are among the cool stuff is in his mod:



Plus other stuff . . . which I like and some not that much. Altogether I'm testing it and its cool . . . there another armour which I don't know where it is . . . the blob armour looks like bunch of yellow mud balls. Heheheh

WOW, is that Cyborg using 2 M-60's?? How is that done?

Oh, I bet he modded the weapon so that it can be used single handedly. Man, that would be a powerful character. With something like that, I would think that you would need some type of powered armor and a high STR.

By the pictures above, he is obviously adding new models to the game so it can be done. Sounds like another "How to" topic in Modding needs to be added.

The work that is being done here is really nice. Good job guys.

Psychophat, thanks for offering to put out a guide on adding additional armours to the game. I am sure that I am not the only one who will enjoy learning how you did it.

FIRE UP the IDEA POOL!!! Sounds like a great idea.

Sorry to ruin your day, but there are no new models in this screen.
From left to right.
1. Change twoHanded BOOL TRUE to FALSE in equipment.txt and possibly shape INT 7 ;"5x2" to shape INT 4. Same result, and as far as I can see, doesn't involves new models.
2. Looks like tactical\models\units\wargots\wargot-priest.txt for armor model with two Wargot Machineguns.
Again, no new models here.
3. That is tactical\models\units\cultists\cultist-medium.txt armor model or similar. Then again, in-game model.

Apologies I've only played this game nearly half-way even if I've had this game for sometime. Basically I've seen some of the items, weapons and enemies but not all.

I just liked role-playing this game like its was FALLOUT, AvP style on XCOM world. Didn't rely on tech too much and having a hard time playing on super human mode but altogether fun it was to rely mainly on old human weapons and military strategy vs relying on TECH and races.

Ah . . . AvP . . . I liked that game too.

You might notice that I enjoy using just the light armor for takes me back to Flashpoint/Rainbow Six versus terrorists (cultist) and then you add some aliens (reticulans).

Heheheh heh . . . this gives me an idea for a mod . . . maybe something like a half-breed of:

Weapons and armors:
- Aliens vs Predator
- Flashpoint
- Rainbow Six

Enviroment and enemies
- Fallout
- XCOM

Unit pharapernalia effects
- The SIMS

Hmmn . . . err, we can do this if I can find people to team with. Ahem* . . . help

And how do you subscribe to the hidden modding support where modding/terms and other information is kept?

I didn't. I'm just a guy who looks at datafiles of this game and makes assumptions. Sometimes they are right, most of the time they are wrong.
Take, for example, My little mod. Know how I did it?
Took sigget's vfstool, Shai Hulud's MeshConverter, made text files from models, when by trial and error reduced 2 of 3 vertex coordinates. For each of vetixes, of course. If not that Open Office Spreadsheet thingie, that would be much longer and much more boring. Converted them back - and presto - nice new models.
My job helped here a lot. See, when you work as Oracle Support Analyst (I'm NOT Oracle corp. employee), either you learn how to find undocumented features and workaround bugs, or you change job.

Okay I'm pleading to you all that may read this:

I would like to make a mod which has lots of stuff and new feel to the game based from what the players post on the wishlist. What ever is possible we might be able to provide in one mod. and may also be a custimizable mod.

I wish also for everyone to team-up, production will be faster and better ideas and stuff will be accomplished rather than single person working alone.

rman your much familiar with the code maybe if you have time please aid . . . code, ideas, stuff

mailor can you contribute stuff like ideas stuff

drake88 you mod too right and skinning

tubal if you have time please aid in skinning

shadowarrior if you have time too please give advice on code stuff

other people not mentioned please aid in stuff that you know

Sure, friend. Tell me what needs to be done, and I'll look into it. I don't have much spare time, but I'll try.

Nice, we have a coder . . . now for the others to say yes

Then we can proceed to the thinking pool and start thinking of something nice.

I'll go read more on the wishlist . . . under the general section and try to make a summary of stuff we can think upon if its possible to do or whatever.

Then I go back looking for the dds and txt file for the interface part.

Kindly do post any ideas and stuff . . .

So, I've checked stuff I have, and found the following.
1. Workable changes in text for enabling Wargot Digger. No side effects. Plan to release it as stand-alone mod this evening.
2. Various models for gauss weaponry, warp weaponry, minigun and something that looks like lightsaber. 3 armor models that basically modified actor and cultist models. Some are good, some are ugly, some are buggy.
3. A way to enable terminal_04, port_small_05, port_big_06 and freighter maps. My approach to do it revealed game-stopping problems (you're unable to finish certain type of missions), and other funny behaviour, but at least it follows 'MORE MAPS' motto.
4. Interesting interface tweaks. Inventory screen, mainly. No side effects.
5. Some interesting equipment tweaks (such as knife that can be used stand-alone or as underbarrel addon).
Graphical inconsitencies mainly, no side effects most of the time.

I suggest changing mod name to 'Aftershock Unleashed', and use all this.

Yes this is good now look up top how do we make it clean, sectioned to which goes in first?

Yes I've been trying to use the model for the browning and still trying to understand which codes to replace as to make the model browning knife be available as under-barrel. No success yet . . . will continue as of now on the splash screen changes and locations

Count me in!
Well I like such project, I could give a hand for the skinning and evetually for the modeling if someone tells me what is the procedure to import models, and what modeling soft to use(Milkshape3D as for UFO:AM?).

Welcome, now what ideas should we put on the table. Kindly post whatever comes to your mind. Feel free to post ideas okay.

I'll be reading in several forums and in international forums for wishlists and request stuff. Will post pictures tomorrow of the following:

- sample pic of a splash screen replacement
- sample loading which will contain the credits of the people in projects updates and notes
- sample minor interface changes
- also some skin templates which I haven't tested in my mod as of yet

Okay I go read on now

Are these okay?

01. Audio Re-mastered AS voices with radio hiss effect

02. How can we make glow sticks? Can the lamp post light effect be used on a small model to represent a glow stick.

03. Explosive item Claymore or satchel use briefcase model or somehting pouchie

04. Any ideas on how we can make the enemies have a more dangerous VARIATION <- different skin and same model.

05. Are their invisible enemy units yet?

06. How can we add new face skins to the array?

Can you please change this? Wargot Digger is a monster. You can kill it, research it's corpse, but you can not make armor from it (Well, technically you can use digger model instead of armor one. When I first saw the result, my first desire was to eat my own eyes).
Also, reusing cultists armor models is silly IMO. I propose changing models for cultists armor, keeping the originals, and using modified ones for new armors.

edit: next one. Maps aren't new. They exisist in mod_gamedata2.vfs, just not used by the game. Freighter maps, for example, can be seen on early game screenshots. Person who shows me reliable way to edit maps will have my eternal gratitude.
But I have something to add in maps section. How about 'Improved Wargots on Laputa' and 'Mad Scientists Revolt' events?

How is this again we change the cultist armor to something else, right? Then keep the original for our use right?
If I'm correct their model is better and look good like Enviromental Suit or something.



You take care of this one, this is good.



Yes this I like improved enemy.

How about a new item like advanced radio/communication system which boost soldiers something that the leader gives.

I found the texture for the Laputa? What do you want to do with it? I was thinking of making more realistic like in the intro movie. And bigger and more detail compared to the circle that floats.

Add more as I think and remember the old XCOM days.

I failed in face skin array but just using the current one will do but not exactly what I have in mind. I wanted to add the old man to the game. Besides he looks cool to add an eye-patched face and one with a cig.

Mirari has a good idea for stun weapons here are some links to his idea:
http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffictio...leyden_jar.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser#Electrolaser
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys.../ground/pep.htm

What do you think of them laser, microwave based stun weapons . . . Pulsed Energy Projectile.

You know I'm behind in the enemy listing, can the enemy use the drones? How changing one whole race into mecha race and use the drones and 1 wargot model?

Just a couple of more reads and I'm done for the day.

- Will do a reskin of X8 gun to look like the assault rifle from AvP humans.

From Avenger


This is good eg. ordinary human weapons can't kill them right or has no effect? How about future research on making advanced bullets, which may damage them eg. using the Pulsed Energy Projectile as ammo for normal earth weapons. Good alternative for those who use human weapons and just adding enhancements and none laser, plasma users.

This is much work already for me. Ah ey, anyone out there wanna contribute some good list of weapons which have some resemblance to the current models in-game. So that the skinning would do the look changes.

Okay I've finished my Tutorial Guide to adding stuff with custom skins and waiting for the upload of my sample_armor_mod to finish. Also waiting for PlacidDragon to pin it. Okay I'll wait for awhile longer for him . . . sleepy now, done quite some progress with the first splash screen where you click load, save, exit game, etc.

Will post preview for approval tomorrow . . . will wait some more before going to ZzZz . . .

Sure, why not. But.. all of them AND yours? That's going to be a pretty hefty mod

Ok, let's get this party started.
First, good news.
1. Digger
2. For taste of things to come (uses excellent Tubal's reskinning mod for better looking)
Models
Photobucket just keeps throwing MySQL errors at me. So much for free DBs...


They call it actor.txt . id 5 codename 'Mark'


Will look into it. Should be easy to implement, although making models could be painful.


Please name specific type of enemy and drone model. Only wargots currently use one dron codenamed 'Wargot scout', I can look into adding another.


This is something needs to be thought seriosily. Thing I learned back into my D2 and NWN days: immunities, especially weapon ones kill fun very fast. They add more annoyance than difficulty.
You cannot add more hp, more damage and say 'Hey, now that is difficult'. Combination of hp, damage,resistances, detection modes, movement speed, ai - all this together makes more difficult, frightful and fun to kill adversary.

Welcome, to our new teammate Tubal now there are three gfx people this will be fun and progressful.

Tubal > Yes, hihihihih . . . I know . . . heheheheh . . . anyway, do post stuff you find we can do manipulate and ideas that you might think may be fun.

Oh wait if we somewhat pull this off it won't be a MOD anymore right?

It'll be more like a TC, Total Conversion.

rman > I'll look into trying to add him as accessible face to the unit list.

For the ammunition what model? No worries here my good friend, will just use ammo models and skin them differently. DONE!

Enemy Drone: Am not sure actually haven't produced Drones yet in my game sticked to old fashion weapons and lots of mine planting . . . heheheh. But as I've seen it, its the one with pointy legs like a spider with 4 feet. If that is the one we could skin him to look a mutant spider with some weird weapon on top or something that people may fancy as alien looking.


Ay, we play the same list of games . . . I understand very well, well we will think of something to balance him while making him ultra tough to kill. Yes I agree fun killer for some, but for tacticians and strategist this will be a WHOLE NEW WORLD to ponder on. And maybe we'll keep his stats a secret . . . hihihihih

Geez . . . I thought of something for the SOUND ALTERATIONS I'll extract them from Doom3, Quake4 WC3 and mix them with the enemies, that and one's for the player units. Hmmn . . . I'll test that one out on Sunday and see what weird or horrifiying sound I could conjure up.

Buddy, that's bad idea. Unsure about id software, or Raven, but Blizzard and Vivendi are known for shutting down mods faster than you blink an eye for such things. As they say in VTM:B, 'we all living in an age of cell-phone cameras, f###ups aren't tolerated'.
I do not ask you to respect copyrights, I ask you to respect other people's work.

Okay . . . scratch that idea I'll just use the plug-in to tweak and compose a new layer of reusable sound templates. Geez, you make my work pill higher than it is. Its making me all excited about doing this the hard way.

All I can say is ever heard of bnetd? It's creators got them sued, so I heard. Ever considered that 'gauss rifle' term is basically Fallout series ones, and it is Bethesda who owns this title now? Trust me, Beth guys are rough when it comes to copyright violation. And if we speak about Doom3 there was so called 'Razor Trent Sound Pack' (or somesuch). Guess what? It exisisted basically a week, and then go poof...
I can only repeat - respect other people work, and respect yourself in first place.

And let us keep this pile of ideas low. For now. Time to start working, make prototype, and then add new content.

Count me in for what it is worth. WOW, I go to sleep and then to a client all morning and look at all the fun stuff that you guys have come up with.

If you need someone to research weapons and armor, I can come up with a "wish list" that we can go over.

I implemented my multi mode burst weapon last night and that opens a good possibility of options for new weapons as well.

rman have you seen anything in the code where it talks about placement of enemies? Someone put a post out the other day saying that they don't like how the enemy forces are always at the other side of the map. Now that I think about it, I did like it in X-COM where the aliens were right out the back side of the drop ship and you had to fight your way to cover.

Let me know how I can help.

While I haven't seen this in the code (reverse enginering isn't my trade), I recall seing similar things in *.arm and *.plt files (those are in mod_gamedata2.vfs). Placement of enemies is possibly defined by map.
I'm sure that placement of your soldiers is.
And I have to confess, changing these files is beyond my skills.

In a good news, that Piezer shotgun ammo is complete and functioning. Needs model, though.
In another bad news, adding new drone types didn't work for me so far. Possibly will take whole week for me to do it.

Newsflash: "gauss rifle" is older than Fallout, tracing back in computer games to X-COM2 (and perhaps X-COM1). "Gauss rifle" cannot be copyrighted because there is a TON of prior art that makes it public domain. It has been used in quite a few novels and RPG publications, all by different authors.

Welcome bro to the team, kindly do post any ideas you may come up with however it may be and I'll put in the IDEA POOL on #1 post. Then the group will do comment for alterations in the pool.



I haven't slept in almost 3days composing and re-composing images and pasting codes in my notes. Okay you guys I go sleep now . . . when I wake up I'll post my sample for you approval.

I go ZzZz now . . . just don't want to dream about rman's Digger mod thou . . .




ShadoWarrior hi bro, would you grant us to re-mod your mod or something near to it? Thank you . . . sleep me now. Thank you again all.

if you wish I can help with the coding part of this mod (adding/changing items playtesting and debugging)

Hi, since you guys are taking suggestions, are there any voice actors who can replace the sounds of the soldiers in the game? They have a terrible attitude problem. Can't they be nicer and more professional? I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way.





"What? Do I have to get them all?"

XCOM2 if I'm not mistaken. You're right, of course, but I recall one one or two year old story about one Russian company trademaking Counter Strike (yes, that Half-Life mod), and trying to shutdown counter-strike.ru. They nearly suceeded. Or another strange person who copyrighted smilies.
If something is public domain it means it doesn't trademarked/copyrighted yet, not that it can not.

edit: shadowkeeper - that would be great. Can you please (pretty please) test for starters Digger Restoration Mod?