Messages

16

Translating / Re: translation in french

« on: December 17, 2016, 12:09:01 pm »

Hello Damyen,

I'm over with reviewing the UFOpaedia (sorry to be so late, but I wanted to minimize the risk of letting typos, etc, behind). I touched virtually every single entry, and perhaps, you could copy and paste any corrected entry you want into your v2.6 version (or be inspired by them). Then, adapting to your own naming (e.g. "Broche à plasma") shouldn't be a tedious task.

There's no concurrence between this file and the one you currently maintain in the downloading section anyways, as it can be seen as a personal mod. I don't intend to play v2.6 until it's packaged for my system (and that means, until it's declared stable), so as far I'm concerned, I will now "work" on another topic.

I may post another version much later, however, in case the recent proposals I submitted on the Bugtracker are taken into consideration a way or the other (if they apply to v2.5), or in case I get returns from here.

I attach a text file to warn about the main changes from the first file (ufoai-fr160803.zip), chiefly about weapons and items' naming. Don't hesitate to be critical if you have look at it.

Now, have good holidays.

17

Artwork / Re: My SWAT's body model, other uniforms and skins v2.4 and v2.5

« on: December 17, 2016, 09:05:57 am »

Everything works fine now.

Sersanara, in case you might work again on the mod, did you notice that in the 31 Skins, the camo textures on medium armors don't look quite the same as on the other armors. It's as if a kind of transluscent mask is applied on top of the textures. As a result, colors are much less vivid. Is it because the armor plates are joined by an invisible "fabric" that is added on top of you "underwear" camo ?
Just compare the pictures you provided right above.

Secondly, what about having more camo on medium and heavy armors? Is it by design or by necessity that the hard nanocomposite plates aren't camouflaged at all. Not even a cover as with irl flack jackets and helmets ? On the other hand, I understand that the same texture shouldn't be applied to every surface, no matter their supposed physical property, and layering. Probably, the work would need two texture files per model (one for the inner suit, one for the outer armor), and that's not possible...

18

Artwork / Re: My SWAT's body model, other uniforms and skins v2.4 and v2.5

« on: December 08, 2016, 12:08:21 pm »

Hi Sersanara and DarkRain,

Thank you very much, Darkrain, good insight!
Sersanara, are you playing on Windows?

Here are screenshots to show how I could have the 28 Skins mod working on my system.
I haven't touched the 31 Skins mod because, despite what I wrote above, there are several more files (starting with all the heads). 28 Skins mod is closest to 9 Skins mod.
After renaming all the basic /female/ .png files and seeing that the game didn't crash, I renamed only the 'arctic' .png files in /femalepower/ and that works! (I'm writing all of this in case it might help someone else in the same case)

19

Artwork / Re: Minor correction ideas for PHALANX existing crafts

« on: December 05, 2016, 10:06:02 pm »

- at base Stingray: missing inner surface (land gear)

20

Artwork / Re: Minor correction ideas for PHALANX existing crafts

« on: December 05, 2016, 10:04:46 pm »

- mouth Dragon: no such mouth?
- at base Starchaser (in flight is the same): closed traps with land gear out.
- at base Raptor: pseudo tail engine, horizontal engines
- weapons layout Raptor: inverted picture?

21

Artwork / Minor correction ideas for PHALANX existing crafts

« on: December 05, 2016, 09:59:57 pm »

Hello,

For now, PHALANX aircrafts seem to each have two UI models, one when at base ("atB"), and one when in flight ("inF"), except that... not all of them. In case it's not known by the team, I review them here.
Secondly, one of those models is displayed as the "Big Picture" of the corresponding UFOpaedia entry. Should it be the "atB" or the "inF" model?
Stiletto and Saracen are okay.

• Firebird
  • "atB" model features opened lateral doors, horizontal nozzles, and no land gear.
    - I don't know if such a craft should at least have landing pods to absorb the landing shock, a little like landing skis for polar crafts, except that they could retract a lot and be barely visible once the landing in over.
    - Also, if the Firebird is deemed to be ready to take off, should its four nozzle be oriented vertically?
  • "inF" model looks okay, but we could have 3-4 plates (or traps) on its otherwise green, bland, flat belly, that would represent its landing pods (just as with the other planes).
• Dragon
  • "atB" model features a triangle land gear, but the rear traps look somewhat weird because they are at the exact engines' locations.
  • "inF" model confirms they are meant to be land gear traps because when the land gear is retracted, the traps disappear! I'd suggest to either get rid of this traps in any case, or we could have these "traps" still visible while in flight, because they wouldn't be land gear traps and would help keeping the engines in place (like claws).
  • Moreover, UFOpaedia tells us that the Dragon was named for its characteristic central "mouth", were are packed its heavy weapon bays. It's not so visible on the model. I know that we can't draw an actual weapon system (because we don't know if it's mounted or not), but we could at least have a kind of a huge, dark, evocative "air intake". Also, the "prongs" of the hull seems to be very bent inward for a plane that is "spitting" its payload fom its mouth. I mean that I'm not sure that a missile could pass through the narrow gap between the prongs. Perhaps  the inner edge of the prongs could be more straight.
• Starchaser
  • "atB" model and "inF" model look the same (as it seems, a model is lacking).
  • "atB" model could have land gear traps opened, and the wings' tips more vertical (like with some naval planes).
  • "inF" model could have the land gear retracted, and the wings' tips more horizontal.
  • Lastly, we can see several traps under its belly. I figure that they are for the weapon bays and the land gear, but it's not clear what is what.
• Raptor
  • It's not clear that there are 4 engines, because the tail seems to hold a fifth engine. Isn't it a rear windscreen/cockpit, instead?
  • "atB" model could have the two bi-engines oriented vertically, ready to take off. It could also feature an open bottom trap (the large one we see closed). All the other transports have their doors open when at base.
  • Lastly, it looks like on the equip screen, the hull background picture is inverted: the weapons point to the right, as usual, but that means that they point backwards. Either the hull picture is flipped and we get the same disposal as with the other fighters, or the picture is flipped _and_ the laser canon is still mounted under  (or over) the tail section, to add some originality (?).
• Stingray
  • "atB" model lacks an inner surface. It's visible when we you look from below: one of the land gear chambers is not drawn and we see the inside of the hull (in blue on the screenshot). Also, perhaps, the nozzles could be slightly turned downward.

- at base Firebird : no land pads/pods, horizontal nozzles
- in flight Firebird : no land pads traps.
- at base Dragon : weird traps
- in flight Dragon : no more traps

22

Artwork / Re: My SWAT's body model, other uniforms and skins v2.4 and v2.5

« on: December 05, 2016, 08:30:04 pm »

Thank you for answering.

Here are screenshots to illustrate the "corruption".

• #1 and #2 are from the "9Skins" mod; it works fine, except that there are no cammos for power armor (as told in the readme and as we can see on the .png files).
• The others are from the "28Skins" mod; no cammo works, only the default "Urban" (a name which is translated in the .po file btw). The corruption seems to be texture-related as we can still see the different armor classes. Note that the corruption is ported to the Battlescape, but otherwise, the game keeps working fine.

Now, if we look at the mods' file trees:

• "9Skins" mod adds two subdirectories in the /base/ directory: /base/models/ and /base/ufos/
  /models/ further goes down to /models/soldiers/[female, femalelight,femalemedium, femalepower,male, malelight, malemedium, malepower], and each one of these subdirectories contains .png files and one body.md2 file.
  /ufos/ contains only one file: skins.ufo, which looks like some kind of declaration (one such field per cammo type : actorskin default {name "_Jungle" singleplayer true multiplayer true})
• "28Skins" mod adds the very same file tree, except that a new subdirectory is added:
  /base/ufos/ui/, which hosts two new, analog files, namely equipment.ufos and team.ufos. Those files seem to be there only to move the "Skinbox" upward, in the base equip and multiplayer equip screens, respectively (because the number of cammos is so large). I deleted the whole /ui/ subdirectory, just to see, and this resulted in  reseting the original Skinbox's position, and keeping the corruption. So, I don't think there's a problem here.
  /ufos/skins.ufo looks very similar to the "9Skins" version, except that the cammos' names are changed.
  All the .png files look "as intended".

Perhaps someone could open the .md2 files in a design tool and see if the viewer displays the same corruption as the game?

23

Translating / Re: translation in french

« on: December 05, 2016, 06:36:27 pm »

Reading your answer, and trying to translate HP "Heavy-weapon Platform" (as I adapted all the PHALANX ID (not the genuine ones)), just made me think about these:

"Human Portable Grenade Launcher"
"Human Portable Missile Launcher"
(perhaps Man Portable would be more correct?)

The easiest to translate however would be:
"Anti-Personnel GL" and "Anti-Personnel ML", given the rockets' lethal components are neither shaped charges nor ballistic penetrators. This then would give in French: LGAP and LRAP (R for rocket).
That is, quite like the irl acronym for anti-armour ML in French: LRAC (anti-tank ML)

24

Discussion / Re: The green smoke waving around

« on: December 05, 2016, 06:12:56 pm »

Thanks for the answer. Since you are aware of the "problem", there's no need for a report, I guess.

25

Feature Requests / Re: variable gl loading

« on: November 26, 2016, 01:56:00 pm »

Hello,

Playing with v2.5 stable.

1) The first feature you think about has quite already been requested, but in a much UI-friendly way:
when GL is loaded with a new ammunition type and the cylinder is not empty, then the old ammunition returns to the inventory for a later use. No complicated fire mode options, or any convoluted loading system here.

However, you understand that:

- the engine must manage a variable capacity magazine, or as many magazine types as there are capacities left (6 types), and this for each ammunition type (hence, 24 types for the GL). For now, we only know that it can manage up to 4 types (e.g. GL) of ammunition for any  given weapon.
- the engine must know where to drop the old, not fully used magazine. Best way (in terme of decision, backpack management, and time units spent) would be right on the ground. Currently, it disappears.

Then, this feature would benefit the other multi-ammo weapons, such as the Riot Shotgun.
It would allow as well to exchange the rocket already loaded in a HPML, without loosing it.
One may ask however if any ammunition not packed into true magazines may be unloaded this way. Can a rocket in a tube be unloaded and stored in the backpack again? Can individual grenades engaged in a rotatory cylinder be removed and stored again in a box (that was kept in the inventory?). If yes, that should take much time (more time than just remove six casings (if not ejected after each shot), take six grenades out of the disposable magazine/box and engage them in the cylinder. By the way, light-weight current 25mm GL are charged with true magazines, which allows the soldier to remove a half-empty magazine at will.

Although this request is not really like yours (a real customization of the cylinder's loading), it would benefit other weapons, and if not not as efficient tactically (one turn would be spent to exchange ammo), it would allow to not waste non shot rounds/grenades, at least.

2) As for the lasers, I feel like they are potent enough, and keep being useful until the end of game. They are very precise and allow weakly armoured soldiers to engage the enemy from afar.
Although they do not perform well against an armoured Ortnok, 12-24 TUs are all that you need to disable a Shevaar or a Combat Hovernet (sniper rifle is good against CHN until the end of game as well). Given they rarely miss, they are a training weapon of choice, too. A squad only equipped with laser rifles (and heavy lasers) can't loose in the late part of the game. Think also that from the end of year 2084 on, many of the aliens you shoot at are already wounded (in campaign mode).

There main concern is that a 8-TU reaction fire is not deadly and let the defender in a critical situation. There are plama blaster and PB rifles (9 TUs) to deal with such situations, or two defenders with 12-TU laser rifles.

As for the magazine's capacity, I'd say it's better like this. Of course we don't want hours-long ground missions, but it's a pity you currently hardly need much more than but one magazine
per weapon (explosives aside). Not really realistic.

Now, if a heavy alien armour  should be added in game, perhaps the lasers could be completely abandoned to the benefit of PBWs (except against robotic units).

26

Discussion / Re: The green smoke waving around

« on: November 24, 2016, 08:36:51 pm »

It's better with a screenshot.
This soldier 's health will be reduced -15 HP per square (in the vicinity of the engine).

27

Discussion / Re: The green smoke waving around

« on: November 22, 2016, 07:22:16 pm »

It's like an invisible fire field; you suffer from radiations circa 15-20 HP/square you walk (in Power Armour). Green fumes particle effects are associated with it, the same as those used to mark a location on the Fuel Deposit map, but you don't have to walk through them. I play on v2.5, and you sure have played such a crash-landed Gunship map, did you? However, the only way to read this sentence is to walk close enough to an engine (or a separated engine). If you use to win those maps ever before one of your soldiers comes close, it's no wonder you never notice it.

Anyway as it appears in English, I wanted to know whether the string lies in the map file or in the source code. And if it could be made translatable. I'd bet there's the same localization problem with the new mission objectives, but I don't play v2.6. I hope I can play the Fuel Deposit map soon again.

Secondly, the Medikit section could be complemented so as to briefly mention that it can't treat radiation sickness effects on the spot, besides the use of painkillers.

28

Discussion / The green smoke waving around

« on: November 22, 2016, 12:02:59 am »

Hello,

Before I post a bug report, I'd like to know if the following text that is displayed in red on some crashed UFO maps (Gunship, at least) when a soldier comes too close to the engines, is correctly translated in other languages in version 2.6.
In v2.5, this string can't be found in the .po file.

"The green smoke waving around this damaged alien propulsion device looks suspecious. Maybe  you should avoid getting to close there."

Btw, "suspecious" could be corrected.

29

Translating / Re: translation in french

« on: November 20, 2016, 05:51:45 pm »

Hello,
Could someone precise those acronyms' meanings, please?

HPGL = .... Grenade Launcher. I know there are High Velocity and Low Velocity grenades.
HPML = ... Missile Launcher. It's not a Multiple Launcher isn't it?
TR = Tactical Rocket?

30

Artwork / Re: My SWAT's body model, other uniforms and skins v2.4 and v2.5

« on: November 18, 2016, 08:52:12 pm »

Hello, I'd like to know if everyone fares well with Sersanara's v2.5 mods.

The "9" mod works fine on my install, but I can't get any of the "28" and "31" mods working and I don't see why.
They look the same in structure and I use same way to install them (always after having emptied ./base/models/ and ./base/ufos/), but I get somehow a texture corruption or something get wrong, as any soldier not in default camo is displayed in reddish-blackish "see-through" texture, although the armor model remains identifiable.

Any hint?