Reticulan Mod 2.0 (UFO: Afterlight)

[BolaDePel]

UFO Afterlight

 

Reticulan Mod 2.0 (clones edition)

 

This mod is an upgrade of the Reticulan mod 1.0 with several new features. The biggest addition is the technology to create human and beastman clones that can fight alongside with your soldiers.

 

This game does not allow to get any more soldiers than the predefined ones (drones not included). But you can get martian robot bodies after robots missions and repair them after researching the appropiate technology.

This mod uses the same trick: you can produce cloned bodies than can be "repaired", and then you can use them as any other of your soldiers. An annoying side effect of this technique is that the clones are "repaired" with only 1 HP like the martian drones, so they need a lot of healing before you can use them.

 

There are also a lot of other changes in this mod, with new items, technologies and trainings.

 

Look at the included readme.txt for details.

https://www.strategycore.co.uk/site/assets/files/1899/news-thumbnail_swords.jpg https://www.strategycore.co.uk/site/assets/files/1899/news-thumbnail_equipment01.jpg https://www.strategycore.co.uk/site/assets/files/1899/news-thumbnail_production.jpg

 

Click here to visit the download page.

[Slaughter]

That's a very impressive feature list, well done! I've pinned the mod in the files section and added a link to this topic. Also posted it in the news so it appears on the front page.

[Space Voyager]

You could just move it there and have only one topic. Than again, better two than none at all.

 

One Q; what is the clone's (any race) level? Is it stripped of any trainings or can it be cloned with trainings? Asking because of the ironman play, where basic recruits in the middle of the game are not ideal.

[BolaDePel]

The basic clones are level 5 (human) and level 4 (beastman) without trainings.

The advanced clones are level 8 with some trainings. Advanced human clones are created with Olga's special training to be useful when they are available later in the game.

 

There are some limitations to the way clones are created because the game can not handle new subraces, and beastman clones only support one armour each.

 

Maybe this system can be improved someday if PetteriB can fix it in some new patch .

 

PD: Can you add some screenshots to the file download section?

[Slaughter]

Added

[Pawelo]

Hello,

could you tell me how to add new reticulan soldiers? I would like to play reticulan only and add more their soldiers or soldiers/scientists. Also I'd like to know if is it able to add minor suit wearing trainig to work properly with reticulans and/or with martians?

[BolaDePel]

With this mod you can only create human and beastman soldiers.

When you get an alliance with one of the reticulan factions, you will get three reticulans (soldiers and soldiers/scientists).

 

From my experiments and some mails with PetteriB, we found that the game does not handle properly the creation of new subraces, so to create reticulan clones they would be created of rebel or expedition subrace, BUT when you changed your relationship status (make or break an alliance) you would loose them automatically (it's how the game was programmed). The same would happen with martian clones, i guess (i only tested reticulans and beastmen), even if you created martian clones you would loose them when you made an alliance with them (the game would remove them when it detected any relationship change).

The beastmen clones work well because you can never change you relationship with them.

Maybe a future patch of the game can modify the way subraces are handled to make possible to create new types of clones.

 

If you want to try it yourself, feel free to copy wathever you need from the mod files to create your own (or anyone else who wants to create a derivate mod for that matter).

 

About minor suit training, while it would be possible to create such training (and modify their armours to add capacity for the new movement types), they lack the animation files needed to show these stances on screen (a proned reticulan would look the same as a standing one).

 

When the game does not find a proper animation file, it uses the default one, like the beastmen trainings in my mod. The beastmen do not have a running animation, so when the clones run they just move faster, but they look like walking. The same happens with swords, they do not have a melee animation, so they use swords with the same animation they use with rifles.

 

Another possibility would be to create new reticulan characters (like Frankie) to be manually added to your troops when you made an alliance with one of the reticulan factions, keeping in mind that you will loose them when you changed your relationship with them.

That may also be possible to be improved with a new patch of the game, because now Frankie has to be added manually (the game has the characters hard-coded, so it only handles properly the default reticulans).

[Pawelo]

Well, I tried to add new characters (like Frankie) but it just doesn't work properly. what files I should change to properly add them?

[BolaDePel]

You need to add them manually from a script.

You will find the code required in function ReticulanRebels() of the file game\scripts\strategic\meeting.lua.

 

Another possibility that i have not tested would be to create a new reticulan subrace and add some characters of that subrace to the character.txt file with the line:

showtriggerid STR "StartEvent"

that way they would be added to your troops at the start of the game, but i don't know if it would work properly. You would also need to modify file subrace.txt to add the new subrace (maybe a copy of the reticulan rebels, to be able to use the same armors).

[Slaughter]

There are some free software out there to create installers I believe. Something to consider for the mod? Could have it automatically create backup of localization and so on, as well as providing the ability to uninstall.

[BolaDePel]

I will think about it if i make a new version, maybe after a new AL patch.

But it's not that difficult to just copy a couple of files to the game folder, so it's not really a priority.

[Pawelo]

thanks know it works:) I added new characters manually.

[Pawelo]

Hmm now I found out that in this way I can create max 3 additional characters (with frankie) so it will be only 5 reticulans. Do you know how to add more without cloning?

[BolaDePel]

The hard way would be to edit character.txt to create some new characters.

The easy way would be to just add the same character multiple times (there is no limitation about that in the game).

 

But you should be careful about alliances, when you change your relationship with any of the reticulan factions those characters may be removed automatically by the game.

[Pawelo]

I created more characters in characters file but only top 3 of them are joining my team and as soon as i sign alliance with rebels and then 2 original rets are joing. It works fine if i add some aliens multiple times.

[wiequadrat]

a very nice mod. the one that attract me the most is the ability to play as beastman. how come i miss the version 1.