Messages

16

The X-Com Files / Re: David stole my files?

« on: July 11, 2022, 09:07:38 pm »

I also had an issue with both David and the Assassin mission which also had the ultra secret files, if I ended the mission without putting them on the ground it didn't get added to loot, but the second time I ended the mission after putting them on the floor it did give them as loot, but after checking my research tree apparently I never researched the ultra secret files... so I don't know what happened there maybe I sold them by accident?

17

The X-Com Files / Re: How do you manage missions with special requirements?

« on: July 11, 2022, 08:50:45 pm »

I went with 1 covert vehicle and 1 main vehicle as constant for the whole game in my main base, then used 3rd hanger for backup global range vehicle to begin with then used it for special crafts for mission requirements.

main vehicle gets everything I ever want to use in a mission including underwater stuff since I just send that to those, covert vehicle gets special stuff needed for covert missions and concealable weapons and some spare main weapons incase need to send it on a non covert mission.

For Interceptors I personally put those in secondary bases one in Asia one in America while main base was in Europe, that way they seemed to work for global coverage since I only really started using interceptors with Raven. Having an interceptor in the main base was just too limiting with space especially when needing to keep things like the Viper on hand while waiting for missions to appear.

As for storage, yeah my main base now has 3 small storage facilities, 3 hangers and the large living quarters and its still limiting on space, in hind sight should have found room for a large storage area in the main base but I wanted to do research in it too. As for animal pens, prison and alien containment...and ghost tank, I ended up having 1 of the main 3 in main base, never bothered with ghost tank since can't afford to waste facility space on it and then made extra prisons pens and containment in spare bases to store bodies for research. In the early game having a second pen and prison in main base can be nice but definitely can't waste space on that later.

I don't know how important base defence preperation is in this mod, I've only had 1 base defence so far at the end of year 2 and I'm on Veteran difficulty. Not sure if just lucky or if it is safe to use the extra 5 spaces I left un-used for a choke point for more facilities. As those extra 5 spaces would help a lot if they could be used.

As for special equipment for special missions, I kept 2 of "everything" I thought I might need for my covert car like baseball bats etc. that could be used in covert stuff then hoped that stuff would be good enough for the missions. I also bought some special equipment like sport rifle and bow etc. but those weapons really suck and not sure if I'd recommend them. Now that I'm near the end I just put tubrolaser pistols in my covert vehicle and overpower them as long as it lets me use them (looking at you Beach mission...)

The biggest change is underwater stuff, to begin with I just used Taser Cannon (still no idea why it works underwater but glad it does) and stun rods / tritanium blades since those worked way better than the speciality early underwater weapons. I tried the ADS darts but they were not worth it and I never bothered using the gas cannon etc. I also found the dart gun to be useless. Sonic weapons were great once I had them but Deep Ones still resist them so much I'd rather just melee them if I can get away with it.

18

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: July 09, 2022, 03:12:56 am »

Noticed the Tritanium Kukri isn't in the listed weapons for the Warrior award so doesn't give the award for using it, just a small thing since everyone else probably used the tritanium knife instead which does give Warrior awards but thought would mention anyway.

19

The X-Com Files / Re: How to get advanced lab?

« on: June 23, 2022, 03:56:52 pm »

I'm not at that point yet so can't speak from experience. But looking at the research needed it seems most of the things can be gotten as a bonus research topic from Engineers / Leaders / Commanders as long as Alien Vocabulary has been researched. While this isn't as efficenent as getting the items themselves it could work as a backup especially if you target the easier races like floaters. As for getting the items themselves, others would need to help with that for which missions can give them.

20

The X-Com Files / Re: [ISSUE] X-Com Files Music Royalty Block

« on: June 23, 2022, 01:03:35 am »

While the UFO Defence stream scene isn't as big as the newer games, there are a few streamers I watch and they tend to be a good place to talk about the game and its mods, so don't worry about the mods not wanting to be streamed as people like both playing and watching the game (especially since watching others suffer from typical XCOM shenanigans is less stressful than yourself)

But as Juku mentioned you do have to be prepared to do some legwork like with any old game to get it to work properly for your recording needs, especially with copyright or potential NSFW issues depending on your audience. (Not sure if twitch / youtube will whine about the Avatar / dead naked bodies). Personally if I get around to recording this mod if I can't figure out how to replace the music being played I'll probably resort to muting it and playing the acceptable music / other music externally, then swap tracks when going into new missions etc. for variety. Sounds like a good fallback approach.

21

The X-Com Files / Re: Instant grenades trigger

« on: June 22, 2022, 11:51:20 pm »

I haven't used the grenade relay / conga line much myself but have always found it a funny stratergy to try to save someone in a bad spot but risking misthrowing it along the line in the process.

Ironically the most exploitable instant grenades might be the smoke being able to throw them out and move in the same turn.

But it would be funny for turning bad grenade throws into the equivellent of accidentally shooting your troop in the back with a rocket launcher. As there's no time to quickly run and grab it before it explodes.

22

The X-Com Files / Re: [ISSUE] X-Com Files Music Royalty Block

« on: June 21, 2022, 06:17:32 am »

'Strategist' is the GMGEO4.ogg track, so it doesn't play during a mission, it plays all the time on Geoscape.
A lot of them. The Thing, Fallout, Emperor: BFD, Frontier Psychiatrist... I think it's a better question which ones don't.

I suppose a geoscape one has a benefit as while it would happen more often there's no worry of losing combat sounds if having to replace game audio for a while. Thanks for listing the ones you knew.

23

The X-Com Files / Re: [ISSUE] X-Com Files Music Royalty Block

« on: June 21, 2022, 12:55:30 am »

Do you know during which missions Stratergist plays and other missions that have copyright music in them?

I was thinking of maybe recording / streaming this myself after vanilla stuff at some point so would be nice to have a list to know ahead of time which missions to put a different track on with the in-game music swapper. Of course can always find out the hard way after the fact and then just edit the video, but if people already know the missions with such music it would be handy.

24

The X-Com Files / Re: Please, change the balance so even I can play.

« on: June 20, 2022, 01:23:29 am »

On the note of Promotion requirements, while it likely isn't relevent to the OP's question, remember you only need 1 of the "promotion prerequesties", not all of them. So don't be like me and think "I will have Alien Origins on slow research while I wait for the other 3 things to appear" and end up getting promotion 3 about 4 months after I could have first gotten it...

Even when following the research trees on the wiki things still end up confusing me...

25

The X-Com Files / Re: Please, change the balance so even I can play.

« on: June 16, 2022, 03:27:08 am »

-Rush for bio lab and intelligence center. Fooling around with only 5 scientists wastes precious in-game time. Getting the small labs quickly means you'll have to make do with cars and starter weapons for the first 2-3 months, but it pays off by being able to get Promotion 2 as early as summer 1997, Osprey in fall and destroying the 4 cults by the end of the year if you so choose.

When I first restarted I made sure to get the bio lab and intelligence centre ASAP, at this point I am starting 1998 with 3 bases with 35 scientists (40 for main due to expensive HQ). Not sure if I went overboard or not, but it still feels like I need more scientists but I am researching a lot of technology I will likely never use.

26

The X-Com Files / Sharing / Selling technology?

« on: June 16, 2022, 02:53:18 am »

I am curious what technology people chose to share and which they chose to keep. I also wanted some clarification for M.A.G.M.A. sharing as under each share technology it lists "affects game progression", is it important to make sure to share them due to this or is it not as important as it sounds? I am guessing looking at the wiki it's just due to 1 or 2 more missions but are those important to get?

So far I've only had 2 options to share, I have shared Tritanium and am currently trying to make the decision for selling Sonic technology as the weapons sound nice but the instant money now sounds better? I have seen there is some good looking stuff for sharing the other technology but not sure what is or isn't worth it. But of course since this is XCOM I'm probably going to share everything since what are morals?

27

The X-Com Files / Re: Can't figure it out

« on: June 15, 2022, 12:54:42 am »

If you go into Options > Advanced then scroll down to Extended section you should see two settings for "Select Night Vision Colour" and "Auto Night Vision Threshold" You can change the threshold to change at what point the game will automatically activate global nightvision for you as the player. I personally use 11 as my threshold which activates in most dim light missions (and 8 for colour for a cool purple as personal preference) You can also force the night vision to activate / de-activate manually by holding down the keybind which I think is spacebar by default unless I changed it to that without remembering.

This won't give your troops nightvision, but will let you see the map with full nightvision to understand the terrain. Your agents will still need their own light source to see better.

As for the problem equiping them onto the craft, I don't know what the problem is there sorry. But if you want to check what is on the craft you can click the "Inventory" button at the bottom of the craft equipment page and it will show you the screen that pops up at the start of a mission showing you everything on the floor of your craft. If the Mag-lite isn't there then there must have been a problem putting it onto the craft. Once it is on the craft you can right click the mag-lite on the ground to turn it on before the mission begins in the same way you can pre-prime grenades.

28

The X-Com Files / Re: Please, change the balance so even I can play.

« on: June 15, 2022, 12:42:55 am »

My recommendation if you are thinking of not playing ironman anymore is to do so. As while in the Vanilla game losing people is mostly seen as a small money and point loss, with all the agent buffing treatments like the Gym and Gun Kata etc. it seems like this mod is designed around keeping your agents alive and losing them is much more costly than Vanilla. I've seen someone stream this mod who would accept a couple of deaths on a big mission but if things went badly would restart the mission, that feels like an ideal middle approach of my current playstyle of reloading if agents die and the full hardcore ironman approach.

As for enemy numbers, the thing that struck me the most odd was having just 1 cultist for the basic cult missions on Beginner. I've only played UFO Defence and Terror From the Deep once each so far on Beginner but due to outnumbering the cultists 2 to 1 on the first missions I restarted on Veteran difficulty only to discover later down the line HQ missions with 60-80 people. So that was a massive spike I wasn't expecting as a previously Beginner player.

Sadly it really does look like everything you need is locked behind promotion 2, I'm guessing its one of the cults not giving you a mission you need to capture someone for the Network? I remember Exalt and Dagon were delaying the promotion for me for a while. The good news is since you do have Alien Alloys already once you do get the promotion you can work towards Tritanium Vests which are amazing against cultists. Just waiting on the promotion...

29

The X-Com Files / Re: How do you complete manors?

« on: June 13, 2022, 07:08:05 pm »

I just did my first Manor which was Black Lotus. I found the Sniper tactic worked well (BlackOps Sniper is pretty much my tactic for most lethal force missions at the moment), I took out the initial threats then when it was safe moved everyone over to a courner and knelt down to shoot everything that my dog and drone could spot. Each turn would move my dog and drone out of cover to spot more things then hide again. I was fortunate to have a map where there was no building in the west courner which helped since I moved all my snipers there to have 1/4 - 1/2 of the map distance between anything coming out of / around buildings. If there was a building in that courer it might have been more problematic to stay safe.

I did get shot at occasionally but sure smoke would have stopped that which I forgot to equip, but luckily tritanium armour and misses kept the snipers safe. The main threat as always with Black Lotus was the jerk assassins targetting my dog and drone.

I had Shotguns in my backpack ready to try the systematic building clear approach too, but found the Sniper route for this specific map at least was much safer letting them come to me.

30

The X-Com Files / Re: Is "farming" cults worth doing?

« on: June 03, 2022, 04:24:26 am »

So in order to farm a Mansion you need to kill a few, but not that many and carry their stuff to the craft.

Feels like way more work than it is worth.

I guess it depends if there are "high value" items, like if mansions have money briefcases / money bags (not done one yet to know) then carrying them out and evacuating could be worth it, but when doing HQ missions theres loads of small value loot which adds up but is a huge hassle to carry back if not finishing the mission.