Feasibility study

[Latino210]

Dear sirs

In the next weeks I will be willing and able to give some time to UFO:AI. I've already posted a nice, little map in Mapping, I hope it will be included in the next release.

I'd really like to make a big, ambitious mod for UFO and I d'like to know if it's feasible to include all those modifications in the game. It's just a "feasibility study", I wish to know if it's feasible or if I should just stick to mapping. Here are the modifications I'd like to make:

A new world map with new cultural/climatic zones. New nations.
A lot of new maps with a really different undertone. I've already designed some of them.
New weapons and equipment, both for aliens and for XCOM. Some of the equipment must be buildable, some not.
Remove the dogfights for some kinds of mission. Some aliens will emerge from underground and the player's only choice would be to do the ground missions. I was thinking about making some kind of UFOS impossibly hard to detect and having them start some specific ground missions everytime.
Human rebels and cultists with human weapons, while the aliens use their aliens-only weapons.
Artillery! Humanity in UFO AI has forgotten the concept of artillery and indirect fire! I was thinking about a heavy artillery fired from far away. The soldier will just "paint" the target with a laser designator and enjoy the fireworks.



Do you think that it will be feasible? Please, keep in mind that I am an electric engineer. I know the basics of programming and logic, but I cannot tell a line of code from a wheelbarrow!

[Mattn]

mods are always welcome.

this sounds like a rather big project to me to be honest. if you have the time and the mood go for it.

and you need patches accepted in upstream to get your mod going... just post them here and we will discuss/apply them.

[H-Hour]

Because we are an open source game, anything is possible. Several of these ideas will require you modify the source code, something that you are freely able to do if you know how to write C/C++ code. But it won't be as simple as adjusting a few scripts here and there. These include humans fighting with aliens, no dogfights on some missions and artillery. The rest can be done entirely through UFO scripts.

[Latino210]

Humans fighting alongside aliens would be extremely simple: simple make an alien race with the same graphics and animations as Xcom soldiers. Is it possible?

[H-Hour]

It is possible, but all aliens are equipped the same. The only way you could get the humans to only use human weapons would be to create a separate "race" for each human which is designated to only carry one weapon type (similar to how the bloodspider only has the bloodspider weapon).

[Nokim]

UFO mission without dogfight... Aren't they already here? I have good map coverage and sometimes ground mission appears without UFO detected in air (landed UFO). By the way it's very strange because according to UFOpedia Scouts anf Fighters can't land - they even don't have landing equipment.

[H-Hour]

Yes, but it is hardcoded to only work with specific mission types and specific UFOs.

[Latino210]

It is possible, but all aliens are equipped the same. The only way you could get the humans to only use human weapons would be to create a separate "race" for each human which is designated to only carry one weapon type (similar to how the bloodspider only has the bloodspider weapon).

Right! This is the sort of advice I am looking for! It will be easy to create several "races" of identical looking terrorist/insurgent/cultist with a different weapon. Every one of them will generate the same UFOapedia entry when killed and dissected.

and you need patches accepted in upstream to get your mod going...

I have no idea what are you talking about. Translate in plain non-geek english, please.

Because we are an open source game, anything is possible. Several of these ideas will require you modify the source code, something that you are freely able to do if you know how to write C/C++ code.

Well, learning a little C++ won't hurt me, I hope. I already know the basics of programming (writing code for automated assembly lines is not easy).

I am almost finished with my first map, I am going to post it in mapping later. Thanks for your support!