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ACM (UFO Aftershock)


Okim

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the mod is great!! i wanted to make my own mod, to rebalance some things and make gameplay more demanding. but your mod has everything i wanted and much more. im gonna drop my project and wait for You to finish this masterpiece :laugh: cultists really can tear your soldiers apart in matter of seconds.

 

Love the idea of cyborg-only weapons but they need blancing imo :D didnt go as far to have all chipsets and such but a heavy gunner/technician cyborg couldnt kill a wargot scout using the cyborg minigun becouse the huge recoil. after few shots chances of hitting the target drop to 0% even if you stand like 3 meters to the target. I think You have to look into this.

 

and i couldnt find how to make underbarell weapons. got few messages during game that i can research these, but couldnt find them. dont know if i made something wrong or was this a bug (fixed in 0.91 maybe? - didnt try it yet)

 

rest is great - new models, new sounds, new enemy equipment - great! ^^

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the mod is great!! i wanted to make my own mod, to rebalance some things and make gameplay more demanding. but your mod has everything i wanted and much more. im gonna drop my project and wait for You to finish this masterpiece :laugh: cultists really can tear your soldiers apart in matter of seconds.

 

Love the idea of cyborg-only weapons but they need blancing imo :D didnt go as far to have all chipsets and such but a heavy gunner/technician cyborg couldnt kill a wargot scout using the cyborg minigun becouse the huge recoil. after few shots chances of hitting the target drop to 0% even if you stand like 3 meters to the target. I think You have to look into this.

 

and i couldnt find how to make underbarell weapons. got few messages during game that i can research these, but couldnt find them. dont know if i made something wrong or was this a bug (fixed in 0.91 maybe? - didnt try it yet)

 

rest is great - new models, new sounds, new enemy equipment - great! ^^

 

Well that`s a beta after all.

 

Minigun really requires some more attention, however minigun equiped cultist and local cyborgs are cutting my soldier quite effective...

 

All underbarrel weapons, mew grenades/mines and missiles now require their own blueprints. Thus an underbarrel shotgun will require an "underbarrel shotgun blueprints" research that will be unlocked after researching "shotgun blueprints" and "firearm accessories blueprints". All these special techs for underbarrels, grenades, mines, cyborg/drone weapons will take form 1 to 5 hours of research.

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Hey Okim, any chance of Space Marine-style bolt weapons? You already have power swords, chainswords, and plasma pistols and a few bolt weapons such as bolt rifles, bolt pistols, and possibly a heavy bolter would round out the assortment of SM weapons perfectly. My Cyborgs would need them for the ultimate SM badass-ness. For balance you could make then Cyborg-only (which they would need to be as a bolt rifle is .95 caliber) and expensive to produce, especially the ammo as they shoot miniature rockets. They would be useful as anti-Wargot weapons due to their extreme damage, but would be overkill against anything else that isn't wearing gobs of armor.
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Hey Okim, any chance of Space Marine-style bolt weapons? You already have power swords, chainswords, and plasma pistols and a few bolt weapons such as bolt rifles, bolt pistols, and possibly a heavy bolter would round out the assortment of SM weapons perfectly. My Cyborgs would need them for the ultimate SM badass-ness. For balance you could make then Cyborg-only (which they would need to be as a bolt rifle is .95 caliber) and expensive to produce, especially the ammo as they shoot miniature rockets. They would be useful as anti-Wargot weapons due to their extreme damage, but would be overkill against anything else that isn't wearing gobs of armor.

 

Ahh. I hate SM. Imperial Guard is whom i was taking my imagination from.

 

Currently gauss weapons and heavy weapons along side with rg6 and AGL launchers fit the role of wargot slaughters quite well.

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Ahh. I hate SM. Imperial Guard is whom i was taking my imagination from.

 

Currently gauss weapons and heavy weapons along side with rg6 and AGL launchers fit the role of wargot slaughters quite well.

Ah well, even if you don't include bolt weaponry I'll still check out this mod. If its half as good as the other ACM it looks to be quite a treat. I have a feeling you will under go much feature-creep and re-balancing during this mod's progress.

 

And if you really wanted this mod to be like the IG, you should have the player would outnumber the enemy 5:1 and still lose half their soldiers each battle. That's the Guard way.

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And if you really wanted this mod to be like the IG, you should have the player would outnumber the enemy 5:1 and still lose half their soldiers each battle. That's the Guard way.

 

A little difficult with 7 soldiers in a squad...Don't you think? :laugh:

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finaly had a little time to download ACM for AS and give it a try. only played for short time, only conquered about 8-10 territories and 3 bases (starting one + stuttgart and london) ... and just spotted cultist province on the map, although there are some neutral provinces between them and my territory. so I'll hopefully have some time to tech up before they come seriously kick my ass

 

 

the beginning is a bit hard ... i was fast running low on ammo for the reticulan rifles and for a while I was worried I'd have to resort to beating enemies with sharp sticks ... all I got from missions was 1 SPAS shotgun with 20 ammo ... and I ran out of that right in next mission ... although i have to admit that the shotgun won me that mission. oh, how I miss morelmans armed with shotguns (and carrying spare ammo). having no way to manufacture own weapons in the beginning is in my opinion bad ... yeah, i guess the laputians don't know how bud as soon as you help the locals (humans / cyborgs) then they could either give you at least some basic blueprint for some low-power pistols (maybe something like the glocks but without burst fire mode) or give you couple weapons and ammo as a thank you. for 50 resources they give you soldier that stay with you untill the end, so why should they be so reluctant to give you couple low-power guns?

 

 

or another way: if i remember right, right now the research is:

ballistic weapons, then firearms (which unlocks pistols for manufacturing), and then the shotguns & smg & assault rifles

 

if it is possible to scale what weapons enemies (especially cultists) carry, then I would suggest changing the techs to this instead:

ballistic weapons (unlocking pistols), then shotguns & smg, smg unlocks assault rifles research

 

of course, with research times tweaked .... lowering the time for ballistic weapons (to be able to manufacture pistols soon), increasing (probably a lot) to compensate for the "missing" firearms tech plus the lowered ballistic weapons tech research time

 

the goal would be to be able to manufacture basic weapons (at least pistols) sooner, and forcing player to research and manufacture / use smgs. in my game when i researched firearms i went directly for assault rifles ... needed good weapons asap, so i ignored smgs / shotguns and researched AR. and with 4 research labs I researched the tech before I even finished manufacturing first batch of pistols to arm my team with. I'll try smgs later when i have spare time to research them and manufacture them, but at that point it'll be just trying those weapons for fun. having to use pistols and smgs for longer time would mean more interesting fights against mutants and reticulans in the beginning, instead equiping team with assault rifles and mowing everything in sight

 

of course it depends if it is possible to give cultists a bit weaker weapons in the beginning too (don't know what - if any - triggers can be used ... like pistols/smg armed cultists until day X, assault rifles after that) ... smg armed soldiers meeting horde of cultists with assault rifles, MGs and sniper rifles would end up pretty badly :laugh:

on the other hand, if it cultists weapons can't be scaled down, it could make up for some pretty interesting (meaning desperate) fights early on, abandoning/losing territory to them before having good enough weapons to fend them off

 

 

btw, whenever I had mission to help humans/cultists against mutants, before I even got close to the soldiers i should help/protect they usualy already blasted the attacking mutants to kingdom come and I was just chasing couple stranded ones, or the mission ended right away

 

anyway, so far i really like this mod, the new models are really great

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I though and even tried to line up firearms research in your fashion (firearms -> smgs ->assault rifles). It took me too long to get assault rifles and i was forced to revert to reticulan weapons when cultists appeared as their snipers raped my smg equiped soldiers. BTW combination of smgs and reticulan lasers is a good way to withstand most of the cultist attacks before you get better weapons.

 

Faction equipment is devided by phases. there is no way to introduce new phases. First is called "explore". It ends when cultists appear, Second is "cultists". This one lasts for a longer time and ends with wargot arrival. Third one is "wargot". This is the most playable phase as its end is triggered by "cultist-wargot collaboration" research. The phase is a good way to tech up before assaulting the myrmecol.

 

Mutants are currently the minimal threat in the game. I`ll try to increase their number by 1.5 in 0.92. Currently they are just a good target practice and hunting fun :laugh:

 

some pretty interesting (meaning desperate) fights early on

 

One of the ideas was to increase average difficulty of the game. Fighting outnumbering enemy with several smgs and very limited ammunition forces player to go in tactics. I once was forced to fight the 20x sized cultist assault squad with only 4 soldiers equiped with 1 smg, 2 glocks and a ret laser rifle. The first enemy wave (3 soldiers) was trapped inside the small building and massacred in seconds. They provided me with some akms and colts with which i was able to cut other enemies group by group. That was a great fight as i picked up everything that i could use and rushed for every medic i spotted just to get some extra healings :D

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the mod is great at the beginning. i personally had to use the supplied iron poles in one mission, couse i managed to run out of reticulan batteries. but later on in the wargot phase the game starts to get a bit boring. by the time i had my soldiers equipped with some good assault rifles and heavy armor i stopped using all my man, couse it took one trooper to roam the map and kill all wargots.. so what he was showered with bullets when after hes job was done he had lost maybe half temporary hp and recived few permanent damage, nothing a 2-3 hour nap wouldnt fix. i was wondering if making better armours actually give a bit less bonus to defence would help - player would still have to watch out where hes ordering his man to go even when they have better armor. or maybe make weapons deal more permanent damage. this way players would have to watch out even more not to get hit too hard and maybe even make use of the possibility to have few squads and use different team when the last used is recuperating? it would also slow down leveling what in my opinion would be nice, becouse lvl 3 trooper/heavy gunner is like immortal.
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i was wondering if making better armours actually give a bit less bonus to defence would help - player would still have to watch out where hes ordering his man to go even when they have better armor. or maybe make weapons deal more permanent damage. this way players would have to watch out even more not to get hit too hard and maybe even make use of the possibility to have few squads and use different team when the last used is recuperating?

 

Hmm. Both ideas are good. I`ll consider them.

 

Wargots are dumbs by default. There is nothing could be done with them exept increasing their armor durability and numbers :laugh:

 

I`m trying to figure out where i can set enemy agressivness values - the ones that describes how often enemies are going to attack you. Haven`t yet found anything.

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ACM AS 0.92b is available.

 

Archive (~20mb) - linky

 

List of changes:

 

- some local troopers wielding dual weapons were using only one of them.

- fixed instant techs that were not working properly.

- model for rpg-7 was added.

- underbarrel airgun tech had invalid requirements.

- grenade and missile launchers accuracy was maxed out to make them more deadly.

- fixed cyborg and drone minigun and BMG types. They are now considered as 5.56 and .50cal weapons and can unlock AP ammo tech.

- fixed issue with undentified technology. It is now proper displayed and has proper requisites.

- improved minigun a bit. It now should be more accurate and deadly.

- improved browning heavy machinegun.

- replaced all defence "cupture a commander" missions with "kill them all" and "aid our troopers" missions. Capture mission are available only when your are going offensive.

- slightly increased numbers of local defenders in AID type missions.

- fixed requirement for special ammunition blueprints. This tech now requires a 7.62x39 weapon in addition to others.

- underbarrel plasma gun had a wrong tech requirement for production availability. Fixed.

- increased confusion and paralyzer darts cost and production time.

- adjusted underbarrel airgun`s range and accuracy.

- fixed requirements for gauss weapons tech. It now require energon battery blueprints.

- increased defender core research time.

- reduced icon size for sonic gun from 5x2 to 3x2.

- adjusted drone weapons research.

- adjusted scar-l and scar-h recoil.

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is new game required, or can saves from previous version be used?

 

 

No, you can play your previous ACm game :laugh:

 

Restarting is only required when researcg is modified and new items are added. These are not planned in near future.

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need a bit of help here .... looks like the mod directory isn't packed into .vfs file in the zip archive

 

the install instructions for 0.92b say that there should be acmod.vfs ... but instead of acmod.vfs there is ACM directory in the zip archive ... when i just unpacked it into UFO AS directory (and replaced the localizationpack.vfs) , nothing changed, unnamed tech still there

 

went through the modding tutorial on Altar forums and tried to pack the directory using vfstool ... it looks like the 0.92b works (at least the unnamed tech disappeared, can't easily verify other changes), but the acmod.vfs i created using the vfstool is a lot smaller than the 0.91 one. i had a bit trouble figuring out the syntax for using vfstool, so i'm not entirely sure I did everything correct ... so i guess i'll wait for fixed version

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need a bit of help here .... looks like the mod directory isn't packed into .vfs file in the zip archive

 

the install instructions for 0.92b say that there should be acmod.vfs ... but instead of acmod.vfs there is ACM directory in the zip archive ... when i just unpacked it into UFO AS directory (and replaced the localizationpack.vfs) , nothing changed, unnamed tech still there

 

went through the modding tutorial on Altar forums and tried to pack the directory using vfstool ... it looks like the 0.92b works (at least the unnamed tech disappeared, can't easily verify other changes), but the acmod.vfs i created using the vfstool is a lot smaller than the 0.91 one. i had a bit trouble figuring out the syntax for using vfstool, so i'm not entirely sure I did everything correct ... so i guess i'll wait for fixed version

 

Oops.

 

I`ve pack a full ACM folder not a working vfs file... Sorry.

 

Archive has been reuploaded.

 

Sorry once again.

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Hello!

 

 

I'm really glad to see that Aftershock wasn't forgotten (it's still one of my favourite games) and still great mods are created for it. Keep up the good work, Man and don't stop! :D

 

I've just downloaded this mod and I'll try to send some feedback soon :D

 

P.S. Are there any unofficial patches for AS? There are still some bugs in 1.2... :laugh:

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I'm really glad to see that Aftershock wasn't forgotten (it's still one of my favourite games) and still great mods are created for it. Keep up the good work, Man and don't stop! :laugh:

 

Thanks. I`ll try to update the ACM faster, but currently i`m busy with some models for WH40K tabletop tournament... So there will be a delay before further updates.

 

Sorry.

 

P.S. Are there any unofficial patches for AS? There are still some bugs in 1.2... :D

 

IMHO If they were created then they should be defenetly available here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, I've played the mod a little (so far to the Wargot arrival). I must say I'm really impressed by new models, especially by human laser weapons :) I like many new ideas, like Wargot weapons restricted only for Cyborgs. I must try to use drones, as the cultist drones I had to fight seemed very powerful :)

 

The beginning is indeed interesting, but hard. How about giving some mutants reticulan power cells, so the ammo won't run out so fast in case all begining missions will be against mutants, not Reticulans (there cound be some explanation in glossary that for unknown reasons mutants like to collect and carry reticulan power cells :) ), or equip mutants with some basic pistols and ammo, but don't allow them to use it (don't know if this is possible...).

 

I've also found some minor bugs:

 

-Morelman melee weapon (visible when capturing one of them in mission) is called "Rostya punch attack"

 

-Game still displays "New technology availible" for Drone Autodestructor

 

-Barret cannot be fired from prone position (tested with Psionics, not sure about other races). Is this intentional?

 

-Also, have you thought about changing or removing Atoll from the game? Right now it often spawns in buldings (which doesn't look good as it is supposed to be biomass fragment), and it's turning toward the enemy, which also look kind of... :\ It posesses almost no threat, so I think most players won't even notice that it's removed.

 

 

 

Generally speaking, I think this mod is great :) I hope, you'll find some time to further improve it :)

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