Squadron attack coming soon

[szmind]

EDIT: And there it is https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/710
Anybody reading this is kindly informed that a new mod to Long War 1.0 is coming soon on nexus
Features:
- sending multiple interceptors at once
- quasi-formation management
- pilot rank meaning sth more than just a badge
- interface tweaks (like selecting ship by clicking the 'big-ship-card' instead of 'small-launch-bar')
- possibility to configure most aspects to your individual preferences
I was just about to prepare release when I discovered that accidentally I had enabled damaged ship launching. So a little more work on certain conditions and obviously penalties and this will also be possible.

Check nexus for new mods around March 5th-10th I guess.

[szmind]

UPDATE: Generally finished coding. For the sake of completeness I am only implementing gamepad controls for selecting ships - which I have to simulate with keyboard cause I have no gamepad

UPDATE: Phew, implementing gamepad support I screw mouse interface . 2 days lost but fixed and already preparing nexus mod page.

Little teaser :

ENGAGEMENT
1. At start of combat name of leader, its stance and weapon will be displayed.
2. Rest of ships are presented by name, ship icon and HP bar in order of aggro (same as prior to launching). They are called supporting ships.
3. Modules are activated by current leader so their availability depends on his stance.

NEW STANCE MECHANICS
1. Stance of attacker and of target ship can be different. Therefore stance no longer implies symetric aim penalty/bonus to the opponent.
2. Symetric penalty/bonus to opponent has been replaced by other buffs/debuffs.
3. Leader/UFO on DEF has 30% chance to dodge any hit.
4. Leader/UFO on AGG has 30% chance to 'be hit by a miss' - that is 30% chance that a miss against him will turn into a hit.
5. These are customizable parameters.

CROWD IN THE AIR AND QUASI-FORMATIONS
1. Beware 'lone bullets'
2. When UFO misses the missed bullet is considered 'lone bullet'. It missed the leader but it can hit supporting ships!
3. Supporters on BAL stance have 20% chance to be hit by a lone bullet (customizable).
4. Supporters on AGG have 40% chance to be hit by a lone bullet (customizable).
5. Supporters on DEF are safe from lone bullets (hard coded).
6. You can now think of quasi-formations like:
a. Tanking (easy) - leader on AGG, supporters on DEF (or BAL). UFO picks AGG with +15 penalty so rather hits leader, producing few lone bullets.
b. Mice and cat (difficult) - leader on DEF, supporters on BAL/AGG. UFO picks DEF with -15 penalty, rather missing leader and producing many lone bullets. Beware supporters!
c. Evasive (easy) - all ships on DEF. Lots of misses, lots of harmless lone bullets but jets have greatest chance of returning untouched.
d. Blitz/Berserk (easy) - all ships on AGG. Similar to tanking but whole squadron on AGG hits as hell with 30% chance of turning any miss against UFO into a hit. So does UFO...

[rift]

This sounds really interesting, but I don't quite understand what the mod actually does..
It says "sending multiple interceptors at once", but are they actually all engaging the UFO at the same time? The extra jets are not actually visible, so it's just their names shown with health bars?

Do you actually have any control over the supporting jets during the combat? On the video clip on nexus I saw the supporting jets disengage. Do you do that manually, or is it automated?

I think a little more detail about the basic functionality would be helpful. It says things like "quasi-formation management
or pilot rank meaning sth more than just a badge"... It just sounds a little too vague. What does it mean exactly?

Anyway, thanks for your hard word, and once I know more about it I may give it a try.

[szmind]

This sounds really interesting, but I don't quite understand what the mod actually does..
It says "sending multiple interceptors at once", but are they actually all engaging the UFO at the same time? The extra jets are not actually visible, so it's just their names shown with health bars?

Do you actually have any control over the supporting jets during the combat? On the video clip on nexus I saw the supporting jets disengage. Do you do that manually, or is it automated?

I think a little more detail about the basic functionality would be helpful. It says things like "quasi-formation management
or pilot rank meaning sth more than just a badge"... It just sounds a little too vague. What does it mean exactly?
.

Have you read the mod's description on the mod site? I spent 200 hours coding + a few hours writing descriptions. Be so kind to read them It takes whole 5 minutes and all the answers are there.

[rift]

Well I thought I did, and then I realized there was a lot more after the Credits paragraph (most mod description pages end with the credits). I would suggest a slight rearrangement of the page - move the important stuff like Basic and Advanced concepts to the top of the page, and all the technical stuff like installation, compatibility, and credits to the bottom where they usually go

Otherwise, good work! And thanks.

[szmind]

Well I thought I did, and then I realized there was a lot more after the Credits paragraph (most mod description pages end with the credits). I would suggest a slight rearrangement of the page - move the important stuff like Basic and Advanced concepts to the top of the page, and all the technical stuff like installation, compatibility, and credits to the bottom where they usually go

Otherwise, good work! And thanks.

The most important staff are Credits - because you get it FOR FREE. I do not care that other modders neglect the fact and put it at the end. If you do not pay - you should firstly know who you owe it to Same about installation and compatibility - there is no point in installing not compatible mod and there is no point in studying concepts of a mod you would be unable to install cause e.g. "oh, dear, what is that PatcherGUI, I give up".

[rift]

The most important staff are Credits - because you get it FOR FREE. I do not care that other modders neglect the fact and put it at the end. If you do not pay - you should firstly know who you owe it to Same about installation and compatibility - there is no point in installing not compatible mod and there is no point in studying concepts of a mod you would be unable to install cause e.g. "oh, dear, what is that PatcherGUI, I give up".

Interesting take. I understand it from your point of view. Credits are indeed very important.

Now let me give you a slightly different perspective. From the point of view of an average mode user, why would I care about installation, compatibility, or credits, before I even know what the mod actually does? I don't, so I'll skip them at first. Once I know more about the mod, if I'm interested, only then I will read how to install it and everything else (the reverse doesn't make sense). In fact, installation instructions are mandatory for anyone who wants to install it, so that's a good argument for putting installation instructions on the very *bottom* of the page, to incentivize the user to read everything else before it, after they know they want to try it.

Just giving u my 2 cents. Again, thanks very much for the great mod!

[szmind]

(...)
Just giving u my 2 cents. Again, thanks very much for the great mod!

There is reason behind your 2 cents Some changes made - say 1 cent in

[rift]

haha awesome, I love it You can pay me back the 1 cent later..

[Tanalbi]

ATTENTION TO ALL TRANSLATORS:

This multiple Interceptors per battle mod also has decoded the pilot ranks for us to translate which gets done by installing the mod in PatcherGUI along with some other text files, in that way the game/mod will be completely translated and our job would be done. Just something to consider

[szmind]

ATTENTION TO ALL TRANSLATORS:

This multiple Interceptors per battle mod also has decoded the pilot ranks for us to translate which gets done by installing the mod in PatcherGUI along with some other text files, in that way the game/mod will be completely translated and our job would be done. Just something to consider

Not really - there are also officer ranks displayed in message pop-ups on battlefield during overwatch shot. I have of course decoded them as well though without redirecting to localization file (cause this was my very, very first mod). I will publish this mini-mod in a bunch with some other staff - cause creating nexusmods site for so little seems like overkill

[Tanalbi]

ATTENTION TO ALL TRANSLATORS:

This multiple Interceptors per battle mod also has decoded the pilot ranks for us to translate which gets done by installing the mod in PatcherGUI along with some other text files, in that way the game/mod will be completely translated and our job would be done. Just something to consider

Not really - there are also officer ranks displayed in message pop-ups on battlefield during overwatch shot. I have of course decoded them as well though without redirecting to localization file (cause this was my very, very first mod). I will publish this mini-mod in a bunch with some other staff - cause creating nexusmods site for so little seems like overkill

Dammn. Well, i can already see that ranks weren't completely decoded yet, since they don't appear in my translation, i dunno if i've been doing something wrong or anything

[szmind]

Dammn. Well, i can already see that ranks weren't completely decoded yet, since they don't appear in my translation, i dunno if i've been doing something wrong or anything

EDIT: oops (updated the code, did not work) tested and works.
Grab the code here https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QBTDu ... G4yFr6bZUy
"OfficerRankNames_LOC_Exposed".
I actually redirected pilot ranks to m_arrMedalNames which are already localized for officers in barracks Therefore only officer ranks for tactical game must be translated in the hardcode.

You can also consider "SmartPilotRenaming" - so that renaming a pilot does not reset his rank-label to "F.O." till nearest battle. Instead it is kept during renaming.

[Tanalbi]

Dammn. Well, i can already see that ranks weren't completely decoded yet, since they don't appear in my translation, i dunno if i've been doing something wrong or anything

EDIT: oops (updated the code, did not work) tested and works.
Grab the code here https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QBTDu ... G4yFr6bZUy
"OfficerRankNames_LOC_Exposed".
I actually redirected pilot ranks to m_arrMedalNames which are already localized for officers in barracks Therefore only officer ranks for tactical game must be translated in the hardcode.

You can also consider "SmartPilotRenaming" - so that renaming a pilot does not reset his rank-label to "F.O." till nearest battle. Instead it is kept during renaming.

Tested the mod. Bugged out my game until i uninstalled it in PatcherGUI. It looks like it freezes the Geoscape map after confirming the loadout

[szmind]

Tested the mod. Bugged out my game until i uninstalled it in PatcherGUI. It looks like it freezes the Geoscape map after confirming the loadout

Hmm, could you elaborate? Which of the mods have you tried? Both OfficerRanks and SmartPilotRenaming do not touch Geoscape related functions. Do you mean SquadronUnleashed? If so - I would advise the last version on nexus rather than the one from GoggleDrive - it was pre-release and might contain bugs (though it was stable to me).

[Tanalbi]

Tested the mod. Bugged out my game until i uninstalled it in PatcherGUI. It looks like it freezes the Geoscape map after confirming the loadout

Hmm, could you elaborate? Which of the mods have you tried? Both OfficerRanks and SmartPilotRenaming do not touch Geoscape related functions. Do you mean SquadronUnleashed? If so - I would advise the last version on nexus rather than the one from GoggleDrive - it was pre-release and might contain bugs (though it was stable to me).

Oh, so you're saying that the one that i've been using and that i downloaded from the Drive link you've provided me via PM is too old, and that the one in Nexus is newer with bugs corrected and solving my translation problems? If it's so, then i've got some words for it: Friggin' rad!

SquadronUnleashed, yeah.

EDIT: Installed the newest version and... yeah, solved my problem, it was the Skyranger bug. Thing is, by skipping the Skyranger geoscape travel, it seems it's kinda a bug, so taking off that skip solved that problem, at least for me

[szmind]

Oh, so you're saying that the one that i've been using and that i downloaded from the Drive link you've provided me via PM is too old, and that the one in Nexus is newer with bugs corrected and solving my translation problems? If it's so, then i've got some words for it: Friggin' rad!

SquadronUnleashed, yeah.

EDIT: Installed the newest version and... yeah, solved my problem, it was the Skyranger bug. Thing is, by skipping the Skyranger geoscape travel, it seems it's kinda a bug, so taking off that skip solved that problem, at least for me

Well, yet another major update is quite ready, so follow the site. I will PM you when it is released. ETA: this weekend (May 12th) - probably (maybe tomorrow). I just need to put it all together and update configurator. There was still a nasty 'unseen' bug: aim penalty for damaged ships has not been actually applied Shame on me

This will be the last pseudo/hex based patch. Cause with help of AzXeus I have already moved to scripting with UDK directly and that will finally allow separate .ini and separate .loc files and total freedom in code creation. I am hoping to spawn and easily manage multiple ships on engagement screen with that.

[Tanalbi]

Oh, so you're saying that the one that i've been using and that i downloaded from the Drive link you've provided me via PM is too old, and that the one in Nexus is newer with bugs corrected and solving my translation problems? If it's so, then i've got some words for it: Friggin' rad!

SquadronUnleashed, yeah.

EDIT: Installed the newest version and... yeah, solved my problem, it was the Skyranger bug. Thing is, by skipping the Skyranger geoscape travel, it seems it's kinda a bug, so taking off that skip solved that problem, at least for me

Well, yet another major update is quite ready, so follow the site. I will PM you when it is released. ETA: this weekend (May 12th) - probably (maybe tomorrow). I just need to put it all together and update configurator. There was still a nasty 'unseen' bug: aim penalty for damaged ships has not been actually applied Shame on me

This will be the last pseudo/hex based patch. Cause with help of AzXeus I have already moved to scripting with UDK directly and that will finally allow separate .ini and separate .loc files and total freedom in code creation. I am hoping to spawn and easily manage multiple ships on engagement screen with that.

My translation isn't still stable