Messages

46

Open Feedback / Re: Alien sight range annoyance

« on: October 19, 2013, 07:25:31 am »

I remember aliens doing this in the original. It's probably due to another alien spotting for the shooter (if aliens work like that).

That's a possibility. My mistake, then.

47

Open Feedback / Alien sight range annoyance

« on: October 19, 2013, 01:39:16 am »

I've found something weird and annoying about alien sight range. Even in the day, they seem to be able to see at least 1 or 2 squares further than X-COM troops, and that's already cost me a handful of lives: shots from the fog of war in broad daylight, from a place the soldier was directly facing.

I'm not sure that's how it worked in the original. As far as I recall, during the day, if they could see you, you could see them if you were looking their way.

Within visible range
     Visible range for X-Com soldiers is 20 tiles during the day and dawn/dusk, 9 at night
     Aliens are not subject to the lighting penalties and have a 20-tile range at all times

48

Suggestions / Re: Elerium 115

« on: October 18, 2013, 06:48:25 pm »

Thing is crashed UFOs have a significant chance to generate in the battlescape with their power sources blown, regardless of whatever stats you might want to give Elerium.

I haven't checked the ruleset, but maybe what you could do is give other UFO "furniture" an Elerium component so you get some units when said objects are salvaged. You know, just like the game calculates the alien alloys salvaged from spacecraft hulls.

49

Offtopic / Re: beginner's question

« on: October 18, 2013, 04:58:10 pm »

Soldiers are cheaper then tanks and can carry more firepower per space on skyranger, rookies are pretty cheap when compared to tanks, the only reason to really use tanks are using them as mobile shields for important soldiers, although really you can also use rookies as mobile meat-shields for your vets as well.

Rookies are indeed nature's kevlar.

Well, no, while HWPs are far more expensive than rookies, when used properly there's a place for their exceptional mobility and staying power in the form of armoured recon. Firepower isn't much of an issue since, ideally, you'd avoid exposing the platform, and use its weapons only when there's no soldier that can take the shot and it's imperative someone (or something) takes it that turn.

HWPs really shouldn't be judged like line combatants, so to speak, because their high cost makes them non-expendable.

50

Offtopic / Re: beginner's question

« on: October 18, 2013, 12:00:54 am »

Keep in mind HWPs are quite expensive (over $400k, 10 times the price of a rookie), so just because they can soak up some measure of punishment doesn't mean you should expose them recklessly.

I haven't been using them all that well lately, precisely exposing them too much, but I suppose the key is to use them as spotters and keep them hidden while the aliens take their turn.

51

Troubleshooting / Re: Difficulty bug, perhaps.

« on: October 17, 2013, 11:58:01 pm »

Might want to put this on the bug tracker.

52

Released Mods / Re: Improved Interceptor

« on: October 17, 2013, 05:43:28 pm »

Updated to fix a minor palette issue.

53

Offtopic / Re: beginner's question

« on: October 17, 2013, 04:11:38 am »

cool I'll have to try that.   So is there any other tips you can give me? i'm playing on veteran

You might want to hop down to Beginner until you get used to the game's flow and mechanics. Don't worry, despite being the easiest level, it's not easy at all. That's X-COM, baby.

As for smoke, I supposed I've never used it extensively, mainly because its effects have remained largely unclear to me. It's always felt like a difficult, double-edged tool. Yes, it blocks line of sight and all that, but that works both ways. If you pop smoke at the base of the ramp, and within the Skyranger as well if things are hot... sure, the aliens can't see you, but how can you see past the smoke yourself to get the drop on them? Can units in a cloud of smoke see outside more easily than those who would try and see into/past one?

That's why I'm generally uncomfortable using smoke grenades, because I feel they'd hamper me as much as they would the aliens.

stay in groups of 3+

Actually, careful with that. Aliens use their fantastically destructive grenades far more often in OpenXcom than they did in the original game, and won't hesitate to hurl them if they spot teams of 2+ troopers. It's become quite tricky since grouping is necessary to keep soldiers covering each other and advancing safely.

The only advice I can provide, taking that into consideration, is to avoid staying in too tight groups in built-up areas like the urban environments in terror missions: the amount of clutter represents a problem to line of sight, and being around multiple corridors/alleys increases the chances of aliens popping around corners to lob their explosives.

54

Released Mods / Re: Helm-off Power Suits (inventory screen)

« on: October 16, 2013, 11:38:05 pm »

Might be possible, but I believe you'd have to rename the SPKs so that the game properly interpreted these graphics as variants of each type of armour.

That requires a bit of know-how the average player doesn't have, so my adaptation is more user-friendly.

55

Released Mods / [GRAPHICS] Helm-off Power Suits (inventory screen)

« on: October 16, 2013, 05:18:19 pm »

This mod basically changes the inventory screen sprites for troopers wearing Power/Flying Suits, following the later Terror from the Deep helm-under-arm style that preserves the individuality of each soldier.

Actually most of the graphic work is Bomb Bloke's, so big kudos to him. I just adapted the whole thing to OpenXcom and fixed some tiny pixel inconsistencies.

As usual, extract the .zip file to your OpenXcom's data folder and append options.cfg accordingly. Enjoy!

56

Released Mods / Re: Improved Interceptor

« on: October 16, 2013, 03:43:13 pm »

Not bad ideas, but ultimately outside the scope of this mod.

57

Released Mods / Re: Sectopod HWP OXCOM0.9

« on: October 16, 2013, 03:01:37 am »

Looks very neat! I like the X-COM touch provided by the Personal Armour-like blue and the custom red "visor" thing.

Might I suggest that, considering Sectopods are very powerful (even compared to the most advanced HWPs), you add an actual Sectopod corpse to the manufacturing requirements? It'd be an interesting touch, to convey the fact X-COM is repurposing extremely advanced alien hardware, more than building it from the ground up in this case.

58

Released Mods / Re: Improved Interceptor

« on: October 16, 2013, 02:53:24 am »

Balancing aside, off the top of my head, it should be possible to add an Interceptor to the manufacturing requirements, but I'm not sure how the game would handle that since aircraft aren't quite like other items. How would the game decide which fighter to remove from its corresponding hangar, if you have more than one Interceptor?

And there's also the fact there might be some transformation taking place when one such craft is delivered to your base. You buy a generic Interceptor, but when it arrives it becomes more unique and given an individual name (i.e. INTERCEPTOR-1). I'm not sure the game would recognize an individualized aircraft as valid manufacturing material.

A third problem might arise from the game's need to have a free hangar to manufacture a new fighter, even if in this case the "upgrade" would be replacing one instead of building one from scratch. The game probably wouldn't know the difference. It's likely that, for instance, if you had two hangars and two Interceptors, you'd need a vacant third hangar to be able to improve a fighter. And that's not very elegant.

59

Released Mods / Re: Improved Interceptor

« on: October 16, 2013, 12:55:30 am »

It's done!

Thanks for the offer, MKSheppard, but I managed to sort it out in the end. Had to settle for a less purple-ish blue, but it doesn't look half bad.

60

Released Mods / [CRAFT] Improved Interceptor

« on: October 14, 2013, 09:54:37 pm »

Research topic: Improved Interceptor (requires Alien Alloys and UFO Navigation)
Manufacturing requirements: $200,000 + 25x Alien Alloys + 1x UFO Navigation, 32 Workshop space, 5000 engineer hours

Localised for: English (UK), English (US), Español (AL), Español (ES)

While playing on Veteran level, I figured it'd be nice to have a mostly conventional stepping stone towards the Firestorm, given it takes a while to be able to develop and more importantly maintain an Elerium-powered fighter craft. The Retaliator is a fairly modest improvement over its Interceptor cousin, performance-wise, but its primary advantage is that it can be built in X-COM bases and therefore not incur any rental fees.

Tested most of the graphics and even an interception in debug mode. Everything should work correctly, but some testing of the research requirements wouldn't go amiss.

Attached the mod. Extract it to your OpenXcom's data folder and enable the Retaliator ruleset in options.cfg. Enjoy!



PS: Yes, I later read the name "Retaliator" is used by one of X-COM Apocalypse's aircraft, but boo to that!