Re: The X-Com Files - 3.5: Whispers In The Dark

[oldxcomfan]

The only insight I can offer is that Alien Origins are 'required'. Perhaps you researched your leaders before you got Alien Origins, so you didn't unlock 'leader is researched' because you were forbidden to do so before, leader or no leader.

Thank you for the insight, i just checked, i have researched "alien origins" a while ago, and i'm pretty sure i researched other leaders since [edit]  < -- WROOOONG (see below)[/edit]

Spoiler:

I think i have a bug with the "alien leaders researched" like i had one with the human ghost (i did all the researches when i entered the ghost phase, was able to extract ectoplasm from all types of ghosts, except the human ones, i had to edit my save to unlock it)
I'm gonna research another leader just to be sure,

[psavola]

For whatever it is worth, I currently have a somewhat similar problem. I've researched Technomads for all they are worth, except they could still tell me about Cyberweb Battery. I do have a Technomad in the prison, but it does not show up for research so that I could get that final topic.

I'm not sure if this is a more general issue or caused by me using various versions of the mod (updating from github ~weekly) and that way having gotten stuck somehow. I suspect the latter. As this has no real impact on the game, I have at least not yet bothered to investigate further. I attach a save (the technomad is in the US base) if someone is interested in looking into this.

[oldxcomfan]

Dude, you're a boss. I just fast forwarded my game to check your hypothesis, and you were right, i unlocked it all just by researching another leader.
I think anyway electronics should've been unlocked as soon as I researched "alien origins" , since the other prerequisites were met
I love this game, but the tech tree is really a pain 

[Juku121]

Poltergeists have 8 camo.

Oh, yeah, and it's absolute camo, too. Shows that I haven't fought them myself.

[Warface]

You don't go to manors with 10 people. You'll need Osprey (16 seats)

I think my biggest issue with the Osprey was range. I've been running almost every mission with the Skyraider. I run 2 fire teams of 5 each with 3 infantry, 1 medic and 1 heavy in each fire team. It works great even for large numbers as long as there aren't 10 or so in the open. I could have done the manor using cover and smoke if not for the reinforcements and their free turn. They rendered the map impossible. This was in an uncluttered map.

So 20-30 preprimed smoke grenades should be enough (I usually give each agent either 2 or 3).

When you have killed most of them using grenades, dynamites and hi-ex (pre-prime at least some of them)

Where are you getting the strength to carry all this stuff? Do you carry medical, extra clips, flash bangs, motion sensors, stun clubs?
Enough explosives for 60-70+ enemies? How?

Infantry: Rifle, 2-3 clips, stun club, first aid or healing spray, smoke, frag, flashbang, motion sensor.
Medic: Rifle, 3 clips, stun club, medipak or healing spray, smoke, flashbang.
Heavy: Grenade launcher with 5 HE, pistol with 3 clips, stun club, smoke, flashbang.

I think you're behind the tech curve if you use Galils. You'll want BO sniper rifles or auto-sniper rifles.

I have access to both BO snipers but I like the 4 attacks per turn the Galil affords. The 105% aimed shot is enough for a trained soldier to hit 100%+. I get lots of kills with it including in the manor. Of course the damage is only around 35-37 so it won't work as well against armor.

Most of the times the battle is over in 10-15 turns.

I'm not a huge fan of forced rushing of battles. In reality a turn would be several seconds. 10-15 rounds is realistically a minute and a half. There's no reason to expect reinforcements to arrive that quickly. I do feel the same way about the "stress" system in xpiratez.

[Juku121]

For whatever it is worth, I currently have a somewhat similar problem. I've researched Technomads for all they are worth, except they could still tell me about Cyberweb Battery.

Well, the Technomads don't tell you about Cyberweb Batteries, they just allow you to start researching them when you find some.

I have access to both BO snipers but I like the 4 attacks per turn the Galil affords. The 105% aimed shot is enough for a trained soldier to hit 100%+.

Sniper rifles shoot through smoke and across the map, though. That's their point.

In reality a turn would be several seconds.

Eh, I think that's been something no-one has reached a particular consensus on. From one point of view, you can run several hundred meters (in full gear, no less) in a turn. From another, pressing the trigger half a dozen times should take a few seconds at most.

There's no reason to expect reinforcements to arrive that quickly.

They were notified when your craft was spotted/logistics information was compromised, and were already en route? Granted, IMO this is mostly a gameplay thing, but it's not totally unrealistic.

[Warface]

Eh, I think that's been something no-one has reached a particular consensus on. From one point of view, you can run several hundred meters (in full gear, no less) in a turn. From another, pressing the trigger half a dozen times should take a few seconds at most.

A square in X-com can't be much more than a meter. With 60 TUs you can run 20 squares. So not several hundred. Just saying.

I'll give the sniper rifles a try though. They don't weigh any more than the FAL which I was using until I got the Galil. Aside from the lack of sniper cheesiness they both make great standard infantry rifles.

[psavola]

I think my biggest issue with the Osprey was range. I've been running almost every mission with the Skyraider. I run 2 fire teams of 5 each with 3 infantry, 1 medic and 1 heavy in each fire team. It works great even for large numbers as long as there aren't 10 or so in the open. I could have done the manor using cover and smoke if not for the reinforcements and their free turn. They rendered the map impossible. This was in an uncluttered map.

You should build bases in other continents (at least 2-3) which have at the very least a hangar, storage (preferably two) and living quarters. Then you can fly-transfer (or even regular transfer) osprey there and go to the mission that way. Almost all the early game missions have a rather long duration and you can deal with these this way. I have not usually even built skyranger. After a while, you get kitsune and you no longer need the transfer hack (or sky* at all).

If you don't have enough bases or transferring the osprey to some location seems too big an issue at the moment, you can just use a private car to go to any far-away mission and abort. Almost all abort penalties are very small compared to despawn penalties. I certainly haven't bothered with all the missions.

Where are you getting the strength to carry all this stuff? Do you carry medical, extra clips, flash bangs, motion sensors, stun clubs?
Enough explosives for 60-70+ enemies? How?

Infantry: Rifle, 2-3 clips, stun club, first aid or healing spray, smoke, frag, flashbang, motion sensor.
Medic: Rifle, 3 clips, stun club, medipak or healing spray, smoke, flashbang.
Heavy: Grenade launcher with 5 HE, pistol with 3 clips, stun club, smoke, flashbang.

At this point, all the agents participating in the mission should have about 60 strength. If you equip some with heavy tactical suit for safety, you'll lose some though.

For missions that require a lot of gear, you should research and manufacture healing gel. It's very lightweight and then you don't need medi/traumapacks.

You don't want grenade launcher in these missions at all. If you use it, the snipers start sniping and grenading you. With BO sniper/auto-snipers, you require at most 1 extra clip.

If the main purpose of the missions is throwing a LOT of grenades, dynamite and hi-ex, the "specialist crew" approach is not really the way to go.

For example, you could equip each agent with 1 hi-ex, 1 or 2 dynamites and the rest would go for grenades (maybe 6-7 each). So the team will then be carrying 10+ hi-ex, 15-20 dynamites and 50-70 regular grenades.

Well-placed hi-ex could kill 10 enemies in one go. Usually, if the manor house is nearby, sooner or later you blast open its wall and the enemies come pouring at you. With big explosives you could end up killing 10-20 enemies per turn.

I have access to both BO snipers but I like the 4 attacks per turn the Galil affords. The 105% aimed shot is enough for a trained soldier to hit 100%+. I get lots of kills with it including in the manor. Of course the damage is only around 35-37 so it won't work as well against armor.

That's precisely one of the big selling points of BO sniper/auto-sniper. They have good damage and also have sufficient armor penetration so that you can harm essentially anyone regardless of their armor. Also you can also shoot two snap shots quite far.

Well, the Technomads don't tell you about Cyberweb Batteries, they just allow you to start researching them when you find some.

Oops, I misread the tech tree once again. 

[Juku121]

A square in X-com can't be much more than a meter. With 60 TUs you can run 20 squares. So not several hundred.

And then your shopping malls and cinemas and apartment blocks also fit into a 30x30 or maybe 50x50 m square at most, assault rifles don't shoot much further than 30-50 m, and nobody sees beyond 40-50m for some reason.

It's an abstraction problem pretty much any tactical squad-level game that wants to fit the combat onto mostly one screen has. That, and the issue of people running across most of a rifle's range in a turn. 3D games can give you a soldier's view to offset that to a degree, but 'realistic' ranges are pretty much never used because nobody really wants to play or make huge maps that mostly don't matter at all, with the action concentrated onto small hotspots.

[SamWiseTheMoose]

Wait, so does using grenade launchers just make the cultists more likely to chuck bombs at you, or is it cuss of the universal vision they get from hitting with a projectile?

[psavola]

Wait, so does using grenade launchers just make the cultists more likely to chuck bombs at you, or is it cuss of the universal vision they get from hitting with a projectile?

Yes (compared to throwing grenades). Shooting, meleeing, rocket/grenade launching and anything else except throwing (non-instant) grenades that hits/splashes on an enemy unit defined as 'spotter' makes the enemy units defined as 'sniper' able to to shoot, throw grenades, etc. at your that unit (even without any visual contact etc.). The chances that the sniper chooses 'sniping' behaviour and how many turns it can 'snipe' depend on the rulesets.

So, to avoid being barraged by sniper shots, grenades, rockets, etc. you'll either have to kill the 'sniper' units first (though most of them are also 'spotters') or kill 'spotters' using grenades. The alternative is to use cover, take your chances, etc.

So if you really want to maximize the chances of your survival, especially with higher difficulties and/or ironman, or avoid save/reloads, it is very important to know which units are which. https://xcf.trigramreactor.net is an excellent resource for this so that you don't need to read the rulesets manually.

This tactic is extremely effective against the so-called sniper/spotter logic, which is an optional (somewhat illogical) feature that some mods use (vanilla does not have that) to make the AI tougher.

[SamWiseTheMoose]

My god, considering I'm just about to go into the Dagon high temple, this is crazy useful info. Also, if I stop the Dagon cultists, is there anything I need to make sure I have researched before, to not be locked out of any tech?

[Juku121]

except throwing (non-instant) grenades

I think when I tried testing this, I was not 100% sure, but instant grenades seemed to behave just like regular grenades.

Splash damage also seemed safe, but since it's kinda hard to reliably score splash hits without hitting anyone directly, it's still better not to rely on such weapons.

Also, if I stop the Dagon cultists, is there anything I need to make sure I have researched before, to not be locked out of any tech?

It's not quite 'locks you out' territory, but do capture and research a live Gillman Deep One.

[Warface]

And then your shopping malls and cinemas and apartment blocks also fit into a 30x30 or maybe 50x50 m square at most, assault rifles don't shoot much further than 30-50 m, and nobody sees beyond 40-50m for some reason.

Building scaling is a little weird but not hundreds of meters weird.

Rifles shoot all the way across the map. Most of them don't even lose accuracy before the bullet goes beyond the edge. The ranges given are only for accuracy dropoff. In reality a pistol has an "effective" range of about 50 meters according to multiple sources. So some of the weapons' accuracy dropoff is a little inaccurate, but not by hundreds of meters. I figure the length of a turn according to what a soldier can do. Fire three snap shots, run 20 meters, prime and throw a grenade, etc. These things take a few seconds.

[Juku121]

Buildings are off by a factor of at least 3, since these cannot be made strongly out of scale compared to soldiers. Outdoors are off by more.

At best, rifles lose aimed accuracy a lot at 40 tiles, and snap shots go only for ~30 tiles or so before starting to get noticeable dropoff. IRL, aimed shots are something like ~200-500 meters, possibly more, and snap shots should happen for at least 100, possibly 200.

50m for a pistol is pretty nominal and requires a very good shooter and a special pistol. In reality, a generic handgun will get you more like 10-20m, especially when someone is shooting back at you. Look at how policemen regularly miss at practically point blank range. Competition shooting is commonly at 25m and former 'free pistol' was at 50. And these guys train for this all their life.

I guess pistols are the one thing simulated pretty okay with your interpretation. As it should be, pistols are short-range.


If 20 tiles are 20 meters, everyone is blind as a bat, can only sprint for something like 15m at a time without needing a breather, knives lose most momentum at ~10m and bows at 50m, etc.


I would say a tile is more like at least 3m or so, personally. But tile scaling in isometric squad-level games has always been a lost cause.

Scaling by TU use vs number of shots is certainly more realistic.


Edit. People have tried various assumptions. Ufopedia has one guy who lists possible estimates for several possibilities. Possible results go from ~5 seconds to ~26. I've read several discussions of this sort (not necessarily about X-Com, but similar games), with quite variable opinions, but that was years ago and I'm not sure these forums are even around any more, even if I managed to remember them (which I don't).