Canny and CC with the assistance of Modding

This weekend I will get Steam release, and try to mod it heavily using Nexus Mods :slight_smile:

I see a lot of fun coming! Alltogether worth as new paid DLC :slight_smile:

a) Phoenix-Point-Retrievable-Items
Makes it so enemies always drop their items if they’re not destroyed beforehand. Note that you’ll still need to manually retrieve items when you’re defending a faction’s haven
or if you’re evacuating from a mission.

b) No blanks n ambushes when exploring

No Ambush

This mod disables random ambush, no question asked.
Previous versions, which worked only for out-of-mist sites, is available below.

Scavenge missions are still possible, so an exploration may still results in an encounter, but you can step back from Scavenge mission by
pressing Esc.

Does not affect chances of other events and non-random ambushes.

No Ambush Out of Mist

Disable ambush for all unexplored sites that are not in mist.

Sites that are in range of a mist repeller will also enjoy the protection as the panadorans retreats.

Otherwise same as No Ambush.

No Nothing Found

Disable the “Your soldiers spent a few hours looking around and found nothing” random event.

In vanilla game, as you explore the globe, the event pool shrinks and you have a higher and higher chance to get this event.

This mod makes sure that all explorations give you something interesting until the event pool runs dry:
Haven discovery, events, savaging, or ambush (if No Ambush mod is not used).

There are a few events that have a story, but does not do anything. They only happen once each, and are not disabled by this mod.

c) Unlimited deployment

This mod removes player deployment caps on all missions.

Just move multiple aircrafts to the mission site, and deploy as many soldiers and vehicles and mutogs as you want to.

Vehicles (since mod version 2.0):

Normally, you are capped to one vehicle per mission. This mod also removes that cap.

However, on many maps the vehicle deploy zone fits only one vehicle.
So, when you try to deploy multiple vehicles, this mod will allow them to be deployed with the infantry.

This will cause some vehicles to be deployed further back, mixing with soldiers.
And if you bring a lot of vehicles, it is still possible that there is not enough space for them, and/or they leave insufficient space for soldier.
Those who can’t find a place to stand will be… watching on the planes. They won’t be deployed.

In theory, it is possible to claim and/or expand deployment zones when the space ran out,
but the current workaround is the solution I’ll settle with after spending three days on this single issue.

Note:

Deploying from multiple aircrafts is a vanilla feature. This mod merely removes squad size cap. Each aircraft is still limited to carry one vehicle.

Does not affect NPC deployments or reinforcements.

d) Limit Fraction War

This mod tune down inter-faction wars in various ways, and can optionally mitigate alien invasion on npc havens.

Features:

Make faction war destroy the invaded zone, which can be rebuilt, instead of whole haven.
(Can be configured to cover Pandoran attacks too, or only Pandoran attacks.)

Raise raise the faction’s alertness level when it has been invaded.
(Can be configured to raise only the haven’s alertness.)

Prevent factions from starting several attacks in a row.
This is a simple implementation, not always works, but enough to stop a big wave of one-sided attacks.

Limit numbers of attacks by difficulty.
Rookie, only one attack can happen at the same time.
Veteran and below, only one attack per faction can happen at the same time.
Hero and below, factions will not attack when they are being attacked by pandorians.

Boost defender strength by various factors, such as alert level.
The level of boost is lower than the old “Better Defence” mod, but can be configured.

(Optional) Prevents Pandorans from attacking Phoenix Point base. This is disabled by default.
Scheduled attack will remains, but when the timer is up the mission will disappear without side effects.

Each and every feature can be totally disabled. To config the mod, use Modnix to create a config file and edit it.

Note that haven attacks will take a toll on the haven, esp. its population, and a haven that has a zero population will still be destroyed

SKIP ANIMS

This mod can skips these videos:

  1. Unity logo, Wwise logo, and Snapshot Games logo, only when using Modnix.
  2. “Phoenix Point Araise” intro video, only when using Modnix.
  3. “Hottest year in history” intro video.
  4. New game intro video. (Opt-in through config.)
  5. All aircraft landing videos.
  6. Curtain animations of loading screens.

Yes. No one made a tool that allows me to properly skip intro, so I wrote one.

This mod should not affect save games.

FULL MUTATIONS

Current Phoenix Point release is limited to 2 body parts only allowed for augmentations.
This “mod” allows all three body parts to receive an augmentation.

INFILTRATOR TOOLKIT

Links the class icon’s color to the actor’s current state.

For Phoenix Project:

  • a yellow class icon means that the enemy has “located” you.
  • an orange icon means that an enemy has “revealed” you.

For the enemy: a purple icon means that they are alerted.

The crossbows are now silent weapons. This means that you can shoot at targets while staying hidden.

There is a minimum perception of 5 tiles. That means that having a stealth of 100% doesn’t bring full invisibility. It is still usefull
against those pesky “double perception” tritons.

No need for a new game.

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I would be grateful for the offtopic long post under the spoiler. Thank you for understanding.

Wont happen again, dont worry. However, I am glad modders grasped nicely what can be refined to players enjoyement.

They might do the porting, but unless they rework the game too, SG must design the game in a way that it’ll work on consoles (see the Controller in options, which is nonsense for a PC only strategy game), and that can affect how easily moddable the game is.

Ok! So I am not going crazy. Being in lockdown, with no tv, computer nor company sometimes I don’t know what was real anymore :sweat_smile:. I tried to find it, but it being audio it’s easy to miss without listening through the whole thing again.

For someone with more patience:

https://www.gamereactor.eu/phoenix-point-released-for-xbox-one-next-year/
Xbox_on1

It was already in the Phoenix Point - Backer Build “Zero - Pre-Alpha”.

It wasn’t off-topic. He was talking about what mods are already available.

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Microsoft have provided us with resources needed to develop an XBox version (which is required to be on the XBox Game Pass).

A game working on XB Game Pass usually means less moddability, due to the store’s built-in “features”, which is exactly my point. A Dev team can’t justify spending resources on Steam Workshop or similar, only 1-shop-can-do modding when they have 3-4 other platforms (PP is/will be on Epic, GOG, MS Store, Stadia in addition to Steam) and the players will feel even more betrayed by platform-exclusive developments.

Not sure if you mean the one called “Demo” (as the first version called Backer Build was “One”), but they started the development with the knowledge that FiraXCOM was released on consoles, I do believe they planned for that just didn’t have the resources to announce it officially before the deal with MS was made public.

Backer Build One https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DutuQlmcIhk
=
EGX Rezzed 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYI6vZ_wjGc

April 15 - 2018 (EGX18) there was already controller support. Resources for Xbox One were given in June 2018.

Promises (fixed/ registered) regarding Modding with:

  • Crowdfunding on Fig (in Steam, Gog)
  • When an exclusive Epic is announced (on phoenixpoint.info page or in the EGS)
  • Gollop’s last interview (+ Stadia)

I didn’t get it.

The most relevant playerbase for PP is FiraXCOM, a decently made PP should reach the same crowd, so if that game could be successful on consoles, having plans for the same with PP makes sense.

Modding is such a broad term that any kind of “promise” for “modding support” is meaningless without details, especially as we all know how other “promises” of PP went through the iterations…

Considering PP is on MS Store, it will be probably some built-in mod-browser solution (AoE2DE modding comes to my mind first, it being on MS Store and having some modding capabilities), which needs more development resources (compared to just having the code be more “accessible for modders”), and I think we can both agree that the devs priority should be the base game for now, fixing what’s broken before going for the extras.

“Official” mod support is not needed for a great modding scene, unofficial help can go a long way and might be even more efficient for both parties, even if less marketable. That does mean having some discussion with devs, which is way rarer now than before (the epic shitshow didn’t help the relations at all), but it can work.

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IMHO, the audience of FiraXCOM to finance the project, the “UFO audience” is the core audience for the long life and progress of the game.


That is why I do not believe in “PP2”. The resources of the Active Community have been wasted.

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And that I also consider worth implementing, at least as OPTIONS in game (skip anims, unlimited squad …) or per difficulty level e.g.
ROOKIE unlimited squad size, unlimited mutations and cybernetics
VETERAN more limited squad size, 2 mutations
HERO and LEGEND as now limited squad, 1 mutation

At least here, and on Canny, by opinions, I see quite a lot of original UFO-TFD players.

I would also like to see Linux version once console one is done and game finetuned, no rush.
Unity engine itself originates there and Steam is availiable.

I wouldn’t like it. In my opinion, higher levels of difficulty shouldn’t limit the player’s options even more than they already do. I already only play at the veteran level, with your suggestion I would probably go rookie in the future so as not to be restricted in my own possibilities. That can’t be right …
Higher levels of difficulty should make opponents stronger and more numerous, perhaps more intelligent, but not restrict the player’s options. For me this is the worst way to develop difficulty levels for a game.

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AI modification would be the best, but its not the case, and is nowhere on horizon. Its not the numbers only, its that enemies are playing similarly on all difficulties. That makes e.g. Palace mission or Citadels on Rookie quite difficult for beginners.

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Actually, NexusMods does have a fully fledged installer that works for most of the 1k games they support. Vortex is a fully supported installer that not only helps manage hundreds of mods for each game they support, but also allows for multiple mod profiles for the game, archiving, etc.

Someone mentioned partnering with Nexus Mods and that is very difficult. When I was responsible for the UGO dot com’s old Games Network (prior to Hearst then IGN acquiring the domain) we and many other ad network sites (e.g. Crave, IGN, ZiffDavis) tried to seduce Nexus Mods and get them to become a partner. The founder is extremely business savvy and asks for a lot for Nexus to be involved in anything - as he should given that site over the past 16 years has become “the” destination for quality mod content. Given the pedigree of Julian he may have better chances than a group of ad networks hoping to ad Nexus to boost their sellable ad inventory.

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Might be, the few games I used nexus for are the ones not really supporting it then, or at least the modmakers were always telling me that I should rather not use them for that… but that’s offtopic enough.

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Which is why I constantly bang the drum of Second Wave Options… :smirk:

Like you, I don’t play on Legendary because I find it limits the options I enjoy in the game too much.

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mods can make or break a game… look at rimworld, they pretty much built the game for him. same for new vegas, morrowind, starsector, WoW.

dota 2 and lol(which is basically a dota lite for casuals, made by an original dota dev) are some of the biggest games for years now and it all started with a custom map in warcraft 3.

also the new xcom games long war mod… I can’t even fathom not having mod support for PP. it’s like tying it’s shoelaces, pulling it’s t-shirt over it’s head and asking it to fight mike tyson. just, why ???

I know there are mods for PP, but they are not that much updated. devs need to do more to encourage it. idk what to say.

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Tried mods for PP, they can break the game, since havent been updated.

I vote for way more in game options, like custom difficulty - some options can be civ like. Mods point the proper way:

Max squad size
Ambush Y/N
Max mutations
Speed of enemy mutations
etc.
Whereby these could be done only on rookie and would be more limited on veteran.
Hero and legend would remain much limited. These would enable even easier game for beginners and make level differences even bigger.

Updated on 30/12