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[MOD] - MIAB - Interface and Balance Mod - V0.9 |
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Moriarty
Colonel
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 1728
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 Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 11:27 pm Post subject: [MOD] - MIAB - Interface and Balance Mod - V0.9 |
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------Moriarty's Interface and Balance Mod------
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Includes EASY Install and Uninstall!
Just download, extract to the UFO:ET directory then run the installer. Then play!
Almost idiot proof! 
This mod contains many smaller mods. I.e., it's a modpack.
Just read the bold bits if you're lazy. Download link at the bottom in large coloured text.
Aims:
To improve the interface.
To improve the balance.
To retain the "flavour" of the game.
Detailed blathering:
This mod mainly focuses on geoscape and alien composition type things. I don't much care about modding the tactical parts of the game (though I have increased bullet speed etc, because that was just annoying).
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Version History:
0.9 Feature release
- "Hyperwave Decoder" functionality
- Soldier pay now based on rank.
- A "sell all researched artifacts" button on the buy/sell screen.
- Rebalanced UFO artifacts so they reflect what you actually see in the UFO.
- You won't get destroyed artifacts (i.e. engines) at the end of a mission.
- Several bug fixes, including a few from vanilla.
- Decreased the cost of the centaurus engines but increased the cost of the generator to a full 3 mill - this way the player will have to save up 
0.8 New features include:
-Merging of Several 3rd party mods into the game.
-Edswors infamous Combat Hotkey mod.
-CrazyDog's mousewheel enhancements to the Combat hotkey mod.
0.7.2 - Bugix. Now includes "Update" installation script.
0.7.1 - Bugfix
0.7 - Release.
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Main features (see below for details):
*Much* improved Budget screen.
New Hotkeys for the geoscape and base screens.
Terror mission that don't just appear - they now come in a UFO just like everything else.
Rebalanced base defences (they are totally pointless in vanilla).
Rebalanced Interceptor weapons - previously the "best" weapons tech wise weren't necessarily the best to use.
Proof-read so the game now uses less-stilted English.
Aliens are now generated with the UFO.
Base section icons (the things in the top left - i.e. research, manufacture) on ALL base screens.
Monthly autosave.
Faster moving bullets/units/innocent civilians etc in tactical missions.
And a whole host of other improvements - See below!
==================================-------------------==================================
Full, detailed list of changes:
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New Features:
New budget screen. Shows previous and current months finance information. Much more detailed and useful.
Examples:
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Hotkeys - There are now hotkeys on the geoscape and base screens. These keys are as follows:
| Code:
Base Screen Geoscape
F1 UFOPedia........................UFOPedia
F2 Goto Geoscape................Goto Main Base
F3 Soldier equiping................-
F4 Ship Loadout ...................-
F5 Research ........................Research
F6 Manufacturing...................Manufacturing
F7 Buy/sell...........................-
F8 Transfer...........................-
F9 Centaurus......................Centaurus
F10 -......................................-
F11 -....................................Monthly Reports
F12 -....................................Intercept!
Esc Options Menu
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Example: pressing F5 will load the research screen from either the geoscape, or ANY base screen.
Note: You will only be able to go to the screen if you would normally have access to it, so no getting to centaurus from a secondary base, or if you haven't done the centaurus research yet.
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Monthly Autosave - Just that - at the end/start of the month it will save in slot 11. You can't save there yourself so don't worry about it overwriting your games.
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Aliens on a UFO are now created when the UFO is created. You will no longer get different aliens if you have cause to re-load a mission site. There are a few exceptions: Base defence missions, Alien base missions and end-game special missions.
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Terror missions now come via a UFO. They are now created by a UFO that has to fly to it's target giving you time to intercept (ala XCOM). Hopefully this will make life harder for the people who let UFO's land before dealing with them.
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It is now possible to have a SECOND support race on battlecruisers, battleship or alien base missions. Not guaranteed, but possible. This should hopefully add a little more variety to the game.
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Captured Alien Count - Clicking on the Alien Containment facility whilst in your base will now show you how many researchable aliens you have in there (if any).
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Added "unpack" and "repack" buttons to the settings menu. These will unpack and re-pack save-games. Probably best to leave them alone if you're unsure. (I added these to make it easier for folks experiencing bugs to fix it themselves, with suitable instructions).
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Numbers are now shown properly, and the currency symbol is now properly placed.
It is now possible to change the currency symbol. I've left the default as dollars, but personally I prefer the Euro (looks cooler ). To change - find consts.xscr (its in the data directory), and at the bottom you'll see CURRENCY_SYMBOL="$"; Just change the $ and save it.
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Soldier pay based on rank. Lowly rookies get paid half what they used to, whilst full colonels (highest rank) get paid 50% more than before. If you do enough mission to level up that much, chances are you can easily afford it
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[b]UFO items (like engines, flight control) are now based on what you actually see in the UFO. i.e, you won't just get one engine even though the ufo has 4. Their Costs have been rebalanced to reflect this. Also - should these objects get destroyed in combat, they will not be available for salvage at the end of the mission.
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Hyper-wave Decoder like functionality (from XCOM). Works as follows: When you have built an advanced lab AND and an advanced Detector at your MAIN base, you will be able to see where the UFO plans for its mission to take place (i.e. which state).
Upon finishing research of "Advanced Flight Control" you will also be able to establish the UFO's mission (i.e. Retaliation) (still requires the adv lab/detector).
Once "Space Flight Control" has been researched you'll be able to see which "era" the aliens are from - i.e. Ion, Plasma etc.
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Enhancements
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Ships now defaults to the agressive behaviour type (thanks to Falesh).
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The Nighthawk can now carry two cannons (or one cannon and one missile as normal). The Stormbringer can carry twin missiles (or one missile and one cannon).
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All text within the game, except the UFOPedia has been proofread. I may not be perfect at English, but I do know that "outcome" is not a synonym for expenses! Plus a couple of personal preference things:
Renamed "productions" to manufacturing.
"Interrogation room" renamed to "alien containment" - ala Xcom. 
"energetic center" now power plant
Soldiers are no longer "On" Hospital. :-/
Used British spellings for things (well I am British and seeing as I was going through it :p )
Many generic improvements to the text - I.e. "ignitable" is now "incendiary", "finance" becomes "cash" etc.
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You will no longer see Vipons or Chasers on era 3 missions. I figured two full eras of them as a main race was enough.  The Preachers remain.
Instead the Destroyers are now a 3rd era main race to join the Preachers.
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The following things have been changed in tactical:
Autocentering on soldiers/takes should be partly off.
Bullets move faster, Autoshoot is smoother (IMHO)
Civvies now run in terror (missions).
All of your units (tanks and plebs) move twice as fast in combat.
The field of view that a soldier can seen has been made wider. It's *about* 70 degrees wide (was 51 I believe, I can't do the maths to give an exact number, but it works ).
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The intro movie will not play every time you start the game. You can still watch it using the "play Introduction" button found on the main menu.
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A button that allows selling of all researhed UFO artifacts at once. Should make life easier.
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Balance Changes
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Base Defence balance Mod included - Now there is actually a purpose to building these things. See this graph for re-worked stuff
See balance-defences-mod-v2.png (picture) for details
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Interceptor weapons now balanced a bit. Previously they were un-balanced (newer tech wasn't actually better). This mod fixes that by ensuring newer is generally better, though with some caveats.
Weapons also now have more "flavour". i.e. The particle cannon now has VERY short range, but it does a LOT of damage in a short period of time.
See rebalanced_ship_weapons.png (picture) for details
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Interceptor re-balance mod. All interceptors have been tweaked a bit, with an aim of "repurposing" a couple. The important changes:
Stormbringer - As mentioned above, can now carry twin missiles. A slightly Lower max speed, armour, monthly cost and production cost help to offset this.
Exterminator - In vanilla it had very high fuel capacity (higher than a jag). I've left this whilst increasing its speed and radar range, making this a great scout / fast intercept craft. Armour was lowered a bit to help balance.
Nighthawk - Seeing as the Nighthawk practically immediatly preceeds the Jag, I decided to try and give the NH a purpose - as stated above it can now carry twin cannons, giving it unparralled firepower. However it now has less armour than it used to. Cost was increased, but monthly maintenence was decreased.
Jag - More armour (to deal with battleships), more fuel, but a smaller radar range.
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Terror missions use a different formula to appear. They should appear more to players who didn't have them before. But as you can now intercept the UFO before it lands....
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UFO crew sizes slightly altered/rebalanced. There are a couple less aliens on smaller ships, more on the larger ships. Crew sizes on ships increase a little with Era (weapons tech), so a scout at the start of the game will have several less aliens than a late-game scout (to give players a reason to do late-game scouts).
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Hallucinoids are no longer a Main race. They are relegated to support roles now. As a side-effect, you'll likely see more chasers / vipons (and commanders) on era 1 missions.
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You should now get more missions where the enemy is of your current era. Previously each era was as likely as any other. Now the newest era is always more likely, though lower eras are still possible.
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Repair speed of aircraft increase by about 50%
Refuel speed doubled.
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Items are now sold for 100% of their cost (was 30%). Whilst you will not be able to make money from manufactured goods, you won't make a loss either (ignoring technician pay). This makes selling out-dated tech more reasonable.
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Lowered the production time for grenades.
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Increased cost of the Centaurus Generator whilst lowering the cost of the engines (overall it is still 1 mil more ).
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Bug fixes (from vanilla UFO:ET)
Fixes the "UFO trying to land at Alien base crashing the game" bug. (Using Bmans)
Fixed akew pistol & rilfe prod time as well as heavy laser ammo cost (thanks bman).
Fixes problem with crashing of game when a ship may have been refueling.
Production time for hvy laser ammo was the same as the plasma. Similarly plasma pistol time was far too high.
Fixed the "go to base that is now controlled by aliens" bug.
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Glossary:
Era = There are four in the game and you start at era 1. The later eras appear as you gain better weapons. As the eras progress, the enemies become more difficult.
Compatibility:
Savegames are 100% compatible with Vanilla!
Files Changed: Lots. Well 27 in this version it seems.
Thanks:
With thanks to all the other modders. Whilst practically all of this is my own work, I have taken pointers from others for a few things.
Especially rick who created the xbig tool and the blank file which are used for this mods installer and made all this modding possible.
I've probably forgotton something.
Now that I look at that list, I'm begginging to realise just how much I've done to the game.  heh
Enjoy.
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3rd Party mods:
Edswors Hotkey mod Hotkeys in tactical, as well as map zooming. See Hotkey List.
CrazyDogs Mousewheel enhancement to the Above hotkey mod.
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License: This mod is released under the GNU GPL. It is totally free to use. Feel free to use parts of it in other mods, but please give attribution and release any changes.
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Download Now
Version 0.9
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(that is the link )
To install - extract directly to your UFO:ET directory, then run the "install MIAB Mod" file.
Last edited by Moriarty on Sat May 26, 2007 12:41 am; edited 8 times in total |
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riggingchimp
Sergeant first class
Joined: 11 May 2007
Posts: 167
Location: Not behind you with a raised mallet... nope...
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 12:20 am Post subject: |
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Nice to see you throwing your hat into the "all singing all dancing mod" ring, question though... is it compataible with other mods?
A lot of your stuff looks very good, but not sure if i'm willing to give up some other mods i have
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Phoenix-D
Sergeant first class
Joined: 07 May 2007
Posts: 145
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 12:35 am Post subject: |
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quite a cheeky uninstaller you've got there. 
riggingchimp: No, it won't be. any mod that covers the same file isn't compatible.
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owl208
Colonel
Joined: 22 Feb 2007
Posts: 751
Location: Waaay back in the Holler
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 12:43 am Post subject: |
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Moriarty--thanks a lot for this mod! I really really wanted to try Bman's mod, but I'm too much of a computer doofus to try & mess with the install of it, so I was pretty much set to wait for the patch. But this mod was soooo easy to install & really had the improvements I was waiting for---so thank you very much. I especially like that it works with my saved games--a real plus cause I don't want to start over--yet again.
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Moriarty
Colonel
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 1728
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 12:54 am Post subject: |
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Cheeky? Me? Never. 
Wiat, that means you uninstalled it!!! Heathen! You got what you deserver!
It won't be compatible with mods that change the same files, no.
It will probably be OK with simpler tactical mods. Maybe. As I haven't changed much in them (apart from unit speeds, which are irrelevent).
Bmans mod it won't be compatible with.
Oh, and just released 0.7.1. Bugfixes.
| Quote: But this mod was soooo easy to instal |
Yep, Bman is going for the "gamer" market, I'm trying for the "doofus" one.
Not quite, but I do appreciate I need something to compete with bmans configerator. I could write my own (or nab his), but that's not necssary at this point.
So ease-of-install it is.
As to savegames - that's the best bit. This mod does actually store extra data in them (as does bmans), but I do it in a way that makes them remain compatible.
Admittedly you will see funky UFO titles should you save a game with this mod and re-load it with vanilla. But that will only be for pre-existing UFO's. So it's all quite safe.
It occurs to me I may need to write an updater.
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Roszczu
Corporal
Joined: 09 May 2007
Posts: 38
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:11 am Post subject: |
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Very nice work, appreciate the effort you put into it.
Those new features are really useful.
On a side note, I have a mixed feelings about any kind of licencing mods, since we are working with developers IP, and have no rights to it whatsoever (I think).
Asking for permission for using other ppls work, and giving credits where due is of course appropriate.
Now I need to go back and do some work with WinMerge...
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Nimo
Corporal
Joined: 04 May 2007
Posts: 50
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:15 am Post subject: |
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The Budget Screen is awwwwsome, and i like the idea with the two cannon and two missle interceptors very much
Unfortunally its not compatible with BMans Mod, which is really bad 
Hopefully your two mods will "fusion", at least those two things.
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Moriarty
Colonel
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 1728
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:17 am Post subject: |
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Well, the license part only covers the changes I made - specifically the ones that are more than a couple of lines (which isn't really enough for copyright to take effect). Anything that is originally from the devs is covered by their copyright.
i.e. I've written several new functions which serve to encode data into a string (used for the aliens-generated-with-the-UFO mod).
Valid observation though.
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Annex
Corporal
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 1:28 am Post subject: |
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OMG youre killing me! Can you merge this with bman's ? So many things I love about your mod and bmans too!
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Moriarty
Colonel
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 1728
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owl208
Colonel
Joined: 22 Feb 2007
Posts: 751
Location: Waaay back in the Holler
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 2:40 am Post subject: |
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Moriarty: I've been playing around with your mod for the past couple of hours and it is SIMPLY AWESOME!! Combat is sooo much faster and I really like that you've tweaked it for secondary aliens....very nice touch. Too many great things to talk about, rather I need to get back and play, so short version in your language:
BRAVO, CHAP!!!
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dwright15
Private first class
Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Posts: 20
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 10:06 am Post subject: |
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Nice, I really like what you've done here great job!
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Kheldian
Rookie
Joined: 18 May 2007
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 11:31 am Post subject: |
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Oh dear.
I installed this with other mods found on this board... And then my Ufo didn't want to work anymore 
Loads the game ok, but when going to a mission: crash
Installing the game again atm...
Btw, someone really should combine this mod with Bman's mod. Both have some cool features the other doesn't have... Now I'm wondering which Mod to install... 
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andre2001
Rookie
Joined: 18 May 2007
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 11:54 am Post subject: |
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It would be very cool, if moriarty cooperate with bman to merge the two great mods!!
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Da_Junka
Lietunant
Joined: 14 Apr 2006
Posts: 429
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 2:21 pm Post subject: |
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Yep we need a MoriBman or BmanMori mod, this is just no good, both have such great features but we cant have them all......................why,why not, I want them all and I want them all now, coz I'm a spoiled super brat and always get what I want.
Oi.....your links busted.
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