Fnurg

Im gonna be a real git here and say, it'll be out when its done

New models are a problem at the moment. With no way of importing/exporting models for the moment, your just gonna have to make do I hope sigget continues his work on the Lightwave plugin.

I think you should definatly carry on working with it I'd be nice to see someone beat this puppy. Besides, I could probably do some minor model making for the RB mods.

Them there are some interesting ideas. Kinda like the extras I was going to put into the RB mod. Developable modified weaponry. Someone already done this with ammo. Forgive me for fogetting who :o Things such as laser sights, extended magazines (barrel mags!) were on the list. Silencers would be pretty much cosmetic. I cant think of any way in which they'd be helpful. But silenced berretas would look cool indeed Perhaps i'll throw one in just for you BlackAlmaz (if i have time) And sigget is right. Weapon mods have been done to death This will probably be the last major "weaponry based" RB mod.

Hehehe. Glad to know I'm wanted. That'll definatly spur me on to finish this mod! Yea lots to read! Gonna have a look a the poll now. Perhaps even collect ideas for the next RB mod

Hi chaps! Nice to know that theres still a lot of interest in the rebalance mod! Like Aralez said, I was hoping for a pre-christmas release. The 1.3 patch slowed things down a bit and of course, I was spending a lot of time in the pub with my brothers (one of which i only see twice a year ish) over the holidays. I cant remember much about them so they must of been quite good. I'm resuming work on the RB mod tommorow (er, today). It'll introduce a whole bunch of new weapons to experiment with, some are researchable hybrid type weapons. Because of the large number of additions, I'll be begging Aralez to help me balance it (hope thats alright with you mate)

Point well made. I should really have explained that. Thanks Llama8

much better than having a tiny little link hidden away in a massive canopy of hrefs. well done!

oops. my bad. well spotted

Guide 2 : Adding a Weapon This guide will hopefully give you some background information on how to add a simple weapon to UFO. We'll start off with deciding what exactly our weapon will do and then move on to adding the weapon and magazine entry. First thing you're going to want to do is think of what kinda weapon you want to add and what charactaristics it will have. I've decided on an ultra low-tech weapon. The sawn off shotgun The weapon will behave in the following manner : It'll be very low tech and available at the start of the game The weapons range will be less than that of the pump action gun Because the gun is smaller, we can make aimed and burst shots quicker The weapon will be lighter than the pump action You'll need to use 2 hands to wield it. The weapon will only have a capacity of 2 rounds It'll be ultra devestating at close range It'll have a burst mode, which is really firing 2 barrels at once Reload time will be longer than that of the pump action weapon The damage will be based on "Soft" lead pellets It'll have its own icon For the weapon icon, you can download this file. We'll learn how to create our own icons in a later guide. Now we know how our weapon is going to behave, we need to add the details into the game. I assume you have already unpacked the gamedata.vfs, so open up the file tactical/configs/game/listofweapon.txt Given that the weapon is a relative of the pump action shotgun, I'm going to use that entry as a template for our new weapon. Do a search for "pump" in the listofweapon.txt and you'll come across the entry below WEAPON ORIGIN HUMAN TYPE SHOTGUN SHORT_NAME "Pump" ID S-PUMP TECH_LEVEL 1 CLASS RIFLE ANIM_TYPE SHOTGUN PRINCIPLE FIREARM HANDLING NORMAL EQUIPMENT ALL MAG_QUANTITY 10 HAND 2.0 NOTRELOAD FALSE WEIGHT 4.4 ACCURACY_AIMEDA 0.0 ACCURACY_BURSTA 0.0 ROUNDS_USED_AIMEDU 0 ROUNDS_USED_BURSTU 0 POWER 0 DAMAGE 0 TIMES_RELOAD 0.0 TIMES_AIMEDT 0.0 TIMES_BURSTT 0.0 RANGE 0.0 AREA 0.0 PROJ_SPEED 0.0 DURATION 0.0 SEC_DAMAGE 0.0 DTYPE "" EFFECT_FRONT_AIM "tactical/particles/gun groups/human/shotgun_group.pgrp" EFFECT_FRONT_BURST "tactical/particles/gun groups/human/shotgun_group.pgrp" EFFECT_BACK "" EFFECT_IMPACT "" EFFECT_AREA "" PATH_3D "tactical/models/weapons/h_s-pump_3d.txt" VIDEO "strategic/models/interface/equipment/weapons/human guns/h_s-pump_3d.txt" ICON "tactical/models/interface/items/weapons/h_s-pump.txt" PROJECTILE "" PROJECTILEFIRE "" PROJECTILESMOKE "" PARTICLE "" SHAPE "s52" SOUND_NAME_A "share/sound/wavs/guns/pump-a.wav" SOUND_NAME_B "share/sound/wavs/guns/pump-a2.wav" SOUND_NAME_RELOAD "" SOUND_NAME_IMPACT "" END_OF_WEAPON This is the entry for the pump action shotgun and it's what we're going to use for our template. Now would be a good time to have a look at this thread. It explains all the different fields for a weapon entry. When you feel comfortable, come back to this guide and we'll start editing the stats. OK. So I'm going to assume that you know a bit about the various fields in the above entry. Lets get to it then. First off, we need a new UNIQUE identification for our gun. This is used and referenced internally by the game. Change ID S-PUMP to ID S-SAWNOFF In our list of changes, we want our weapon to be lighter than that of the pump action, so lets change the weight. Change WEIGHT 4.4 to WEIGHT 2.8 Theres only one last thing we need to change for this entry. Thats the icon. You did download the weapon icon right? Change ICON "tactical/models/interface/items/weapons/h_s-pump.txt" to ICON "tactical/models/interface/items/weapons/h_s-sawnoffss.txt" And thats all we need to change for the listofweapon.txt entry. Copy and paste your changes into the end of the listofweapon.txt file (in between the lines END_OF_WEAPON and END_OF_LIST_OF_WEAPON). Next comes the magazine entry. This will hold all the information relating to our sawnoff shotgun power, reload times and range. So open up tactical/configs/game/listofmagazine.txt and do a search for "pump" again. This should be what you find. MAGAZINE ORIGIN HUMAN ID MGS-PUMP //id of our magazine WEAPON S-PUMP //which weapon it is attached to TECH_LEVEL 1 WEIGHT 0.38 //weight of each magazine EJECT 1 AMMOID ID_SHOT ACCURACY_AIMEDA 5.0 //how accurate the gun is in aimed mode ACCURACY_BURSTA 0.0 //how accurate the gun is in burst mode ROUNDS_USED_AIMEDU 1 //how many rounds are used up per aimed shot ROUNDS_USED_BURSTU 0 //how many rounds are used up per burst shot DAMAGE 40 //how much damage our weapon does per shot CAPACITY 6 //the capacity of each magazine TIMES_RELOAD 4.5 //how long it takes to reload TIMES_AIMEDT 2.2 //how long it takes to make an aimed shot TIMES_BURSTT 0.0 RANGE 11.0 //range of our weapon AREA 0.0 PROJ_SPEED 0.0 DURATION 0.0 SEC_DAMAGE 0.0 DTYPE "S" //the type of damage our weapon does PATH_3D "tactical/models/weapons/h_mgs-pump_3d.txt" ICON "tactical/models/interface/items/magazines/h_mgs-pump.txt" PROJECTILE "" PROJECTILEFIRE "" PROJECTILESMOKE "" SHAPE "s11" //the size of our magazine in the inventory EFFECT_FRONT_AIM "tactical/particles/gun groups/human/shotgun_group.pgrp" EFFECT_FRONT_BURST "tactical/particles/gun groups/human/shotgun_group.pgrp" EFFECT_BACK "" EFFECT_IMPACT "tactical/particles/hit_effect groups/human_shotgun_hit.pgrp" EFFECT_AREA "" SOUND_NAME_IMPACT "" END_OF_MAGAZINE Just in case you've forgotten what you read in this thread, i've commented a few important lines. These lines are the ones we are going to change. Lets start off with our magazine ID. Change ID MGS-PUMP to ID MGS-SAWNOFF We want our magazine to be used by our new weapon so Change WEAPON S-PUMP to WEAPON S-SAWNOFF Our magazines will only have 2 rounds each (yup, some of you have already spotted the problem with this no doubt ). The template we used (the pump action shotgun magazine) has 6 shells in each magazine. Little bit of a weight inconsistancy here, so lets divide our weight by 3 to get our new, lighter magazine weight. Change WEIGHT 0.38 to WEIGHT 0.13 Now to set up our accuracys. Change ACCURACY_AIMEDA 5.0 to ACCURACY_AIMEDA 3.0 Change ACCURACY_BURSTA 0.0 to ACCURACY_BURSTA 2.0 Change ROUNDS_USED_BURSTU 0 to ROUNDS_USED_BURSTU 2 We also wanted our gun to be a bit more powerful as well so Change DAMAGE 40 to DAMAGE 60 Now your probably going to expect to see the shotgun do 60 damage a pop ingame right? Wrong. It'll actually be closer to 900. And heres why. Open up the tactical/configs/game/listofammo.txt file and do a search for "shot". You should see this entry : AMMO ID ID_SHOT TYPE "FIREARM" WEIGHT 0.03 DAMAGE "S" ORIGIN "HUMAN" PELLETS 15 END_OF_AMMO This is the type of ammo that our sawnoff shotgun uses. Notice that it has 15 pellets in each shot? The pellets field acts as a multiplier for our damage. If pellets was set to 1, our shotgun would only do 60 damage. Instead we do 60 x 15 damage = 900. Thanks to Llama8 for bringing this to my attention Ok, with that out of the way. Lets get back to the magazine. We also need to set the max capacity of the gun (2 barrels = 2 shot capacity) Change CAPACITY 6 to CAPACITY 2 Now for our times Change TIMES_RELOAD 4.5 to TIMES_RELOAD 5 Change TIMES_AIMEDT 1.5 to TIMES_AIMEDT 1.0 Change TIMES_BURSTT 0.0 to TIMES_BURSTT 1.1 And now our last alteration, the range of our weapon Change RANGE 11.0 to RANGE 7.0 Yup, naff range but good damage And thats it! Add your new entry into the listofmagazine.txt at the bottom of the file (in beween END_OF_MAGAZINE and END_OF_LIST_OF_MAGAZINE). Now pack you mod and play (if you don't know how to, this thread describes how to pack and distribute your modification). If you can't be bothered to pack your mod and you just want to see the changes in action, download this Alpine plugin. Coming up in the future modding guides - We'll learn how to add ingame text for our newly created weapon. We'll add our weapon into the R&D tree We'll learn how to make multiple magazines for our shotgun We'll learn how to make our own graphics and how to put the ingame. ---- Its just a quick draft of a guide. I havent put the links in to the various files and references. Any feedback would be greatly appretiated

errm. We should probably split it up. Is it possible to move posts from one topic to another?

hehe. Yea, its not very clear is it A lot of people think it was a squirrel smoking crack

5.4 General Creature Settings Configuration of creatures

5.3 Equipsets How the creatures you encounter are kitted out

5.2 Artificial Intelligence eek!

5.1 Internal Name List The enemies in the game are identified by their internal names. This is a list of what the internal names are translated to in the english version. BEACONS Watcher COCOON Chrysalis CRABCAR Car Crab FLAMER Firetick FLOATING_FISH Ballon Fish FLY Danglefly HEADROOT Tangle foot HIVE Deathbellows JELLIES Jellies LARVA Gobber LITTLE_BIRD Flapper MEDUSA Man-o-War OCTOPUS Octopus PSI_RADAR Jammer PUFFBALL Sporeblower RETICUL Reticulan ROSTYA Morelman SHARP_DOG Chomper SLIMETHROWER Slimethrower SPIKE Muckstar SWARM Swarm TEEMSTERS Scuttlebugs TREE Thrasher TUMOUR Cudgel TURNIP Plecton

2.7 UFO Missions How to edit the difficulty of ufo missions.

2.6 Research \strategic\configs\r&d\listoftech.txt \strategic\configs\r&d\listofobjects.txt These 2 files handle all the research and development options contained within the game. The tech contains the actual research tree while the objects file holds all the various conditions for research. A research/development entry is split into 2 structures. Techno and sub_techno. Sub techno handles all the conditions/requirements that have to be met in order to research or develop the item NAME [string] The name of the item. KIND [SCI, ENG] The kind of item it is. SCI represents a researchable object, such as autopsies and ENG represents a manufactuable object, such as the collapsable rail gun. TIME [integer] How long the item takes to research or manufacture in hours. This is the base figure. Other considerations such as number of bases and difficulty level are applied _after_ this number MFG [boolean] Is the object manufactuable? Always FALSE if KIND = SCI. Always TRUE if KIND = ENG. VIDEO [string] This links to the objects video file (which tells the game which bik movies it should play when the object recives focus. After this follows all the conditions that have to be met in the form of sub_technos ELEMENTS [string] This is the name of the sub_techno which is referenced within the listofobjects.txt file, or a referenced item within the listoftech.txt file itself. REQUIRED [boolean] Is the item required to complete the research or development, or is it optional? VISIBLE [boolean] SIGNIFICANCE [integer] If the user has this object, it will reduce the research/development time by the specified number of hours. The elements field above can be a reference to either an item in the research tree or an item within the listofobjects.txt file. Below is an object structure NAME [string ref] The name of the object. This name is referenced within the listoftech.txt TYPE [LARGE_OBJECT, SMALL_OBJECT, EVENT] This is the type of object. LARGE_OBJECT (alien hulls), SMALL_OBJECT (weapons, corpses) or EVENT (making contact with the greys) EQUIVALENT [reference] This is a reference to an action or an item that is required for this object to be aquired within listoftech.txt. Set to NONE for no equivalent. SHOW [boolean]

2.5 Events Details on the game storyline/tutorials events. ID [string] ID (or reference) of the event TYPE [EXTRA, MISSION, EVENT, HINT] Type of event TRIGGER [TECH, PHASE, SPECIAL, END] Trigger for event to occur VALUE [PHASE, FIRST_MISSION, NEW_TERRITORY, UFO_DETECTION, FIRST_INTERCEPTION,AFTER_DOGFIGHT, FIRST_UFO_CRASH, INTERBASE_TELEPORT, BIOMASS_REPULSORS, CONTACT_WITH_GREYS, RETICULAN_OFFER, SPACESHIP_RETRIBUTION, MOON, OFFER, CONQUEST, FAILURE] Value for the trigger VALUE2 [real] Second value for trigger MULTI [boolean]

2.4 Phases \strategic\configs\game\listofphase_content.txt \strategic\configs\game\listofphase_progress.txt Phases are stages in the game, much like levels. As you progress through these stages, new enemies, weapons and people become available. Below is the structure of listofphase_content.txt It handles how the different phases behave. PHASE [integer] Phase number UFO_MISSION_PATROL [integer][integer] UFO_MISSION_TRANSPORT [integer][integer] UFO_MISSION_INTRUDE [integer][integer] UFO_MISSION_PLANTING [integer][integer] UFO_MISSION_BASEATT [integer][integer] PROBIAS [real] ENEMIES_TRANSGENANTS [integer] ENEMIES_BIOMASS [integer] ENEMIES_RETICULANS [integer] ALIEN_WEAPONS [string ref] Type of weapons reticulans/baddies have at the phase ALIEN_ARMOUR [string ref] Type of armor reticulans have at the phase TECH_LEVEL [integer] Tech level relating to this phase. Affects captured weapon cache content PEOPLE_MIN [integer] Minimum number of people in your pool at all times PEOPLE_MAX [integer] Max number of people in your pool at this phase STRENGTH [integer][integer] AGILITY [integer][integer] DEXTERITY [integer][integer] WILLPOWER [integer][integer] INTELLIGENCE [integer][integer] PERCEPTION [integer][integer] LEVEL [integer] Certain conditions have to be met in order to advance to the next stage. Below is the structure of listofphase_progress.txt This file handles the conditions that have to be met in order to adavance to the next stage. NAME [integer ref] reference number of the phase MIN_LENGTH [integer] unknown. always 1 except at phase 13 within each of these entries are sub entries which contain the conditions that have to be met CONDITION [TECH, BASE] the condition is either based on r&d or # of bases VALUE [integer or reference] Contains either an integer for # of bases or a reference to technology in the listoftech.txt

2.3 Difficulty Settings \strategic\configs\listofdifficulty.txt This files enables the alteration of the 3 difficulty settings (easy, normal, hard) LEVEL [0,1 or 2] Difficulty level (2 repesents "hard") RESEARCH_TIME [float] Multiplier for research times DAMAGE [float] Multiplier for damage your soldiers cause EQUIP [float] RESOLUTION [float] ADAMAGE [float] Mulriplier for alien damage ENEMIES [float] Multiplier for how many aliens you enounter during a mission AIRCRAFT [float] Multiplier for how effective your crafts are

2.2 General Configuration \strategic\configs\geosphere\config.txt This file holds general information pertaining to everthing involved with the geosphere such as biomass growth rates and ufo speeds. BIOMASS_GROW_TRESHOLD [float] BIOMASS_AMPLITUDE_CONST [integer] BIOMASS_GROW_KOEF [float] Biomas growth rate GAME_SPEED_STEP1 [integer] How quickly game passes at step 1 GAME_SPEED_STEP2 [integer] How quickly game passes at step 2 GAME_SPEED_STEP3 [integer] How quickly game passes at step 3 SELECTION_RADIUS [float] SAME_SELECTION_RADIUS [float] SELECTION_TOLERANCE [float] TRANSFORMING_BASE_COEF [float] EVENT_PROB [float] DEF_CHECK_TIME [integer]***** DEF_EXPIR_TIME [integer] DEF_EXPIR_DELT [integer] DEF_FIGHT_TIME [integer] DEF_FIGHT_DELT [integer]Information relating to mission DEF_SOLVE_TIME [integer]duration times and delegations DEF_SOLVE_DELT [integer] DEF_DELEG_TIME [integer] DEF_DELEG_DELT [integer]***** LOSTMORALETIMEAFTERHUMANLASTWINMISSION [integer] LOSTMORALETIMETOONEHALF [integer] FCOE_GOODWILL_BONUS [float] FBEGINNER_BONUS_VALUE [float] IBEGINNER_BONUS_BASES [float] CHANGE_BASE_TYPE_TIME [integer] Time to change base (in seconds) BASE_SWITCH_PLAYER [float] BASE_SWITCH_ALIEN [float] BASE_HIGHLIGHT_THRESHOLD [float] N_AFFECTED_BASES [float] DEF_UFO_SPEED [float] Speed of the ufos DEF_UFO_SPEED_INTERVAL [float] DEF_PATROL_EXPIR_TIME [integer] How long patrols last for (in seconds) DEF_PATROL_CHANGE_TIME [integer] DEF_INTRUDE_EXPIR_TIME [integer] DEF_F16_SPEED [float] Speed of your planes MAX_PLANE_ON_AIR_PURSUE_TIME [integer] How long planes chase ufos for (secs) MIN_LAUNCH_PURSUIT_DISTANCE [float] How close ufos have to be to a base before launch popup appears CHOPPER_SPEED [float] Speed of the chopper N_ZOOM_STEPS [integer] Number of zoom steps KEYB_ZOOM_STEPS [integer] ZOOM_STEPS [float matrix] Camera zoom angles BASE_AIRCRAFT_RECOVERY_TIME [integer] How long planes take to be ready for the next interception (seconds) NEXT_NEXUS_MAX_TIME [integer] MIN_MISSION_DISTANCE [float] BASE_WEAPON_NUMBER [integer] number of weapons aquired after base capture? BASE_ARMOUR_NUMBER [integer] number of armors aquired after base capture? WEAPON_ADDING_K [float]

2.1 Introduction General intro to gameplay and editing gameplay of UFO

1.3 Contribute! How can you contribute to this collection of documents and what are the rules govening posts?

1.2 Tools User Made Tools VFSTool - by Sigget Extracts and creates VFS files. Absolutly Essential! Alpine - by Fulby This tool has quickly become THE mod deployment method. Highly recommended. Official Tools The official modding tools from Altar are still in development.