OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: jackmoodles on October 30, 2022, 02:30:35 pm
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Ok, got to end of May 97, research going well. Completed almost every mission given to me but funding was cut completely due to (I think) about -2000 each month as the bad guys factions kept appearing randomly on screen giving me -300 each time (red dawn, black lotus etc)
Help!
Love this game but don't know how to progress
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You didn't lose founding so much as you automacilly lost the game for two consecutive bad ratings.
Might I ask what difficulty you're playing at?
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Thanks for the reply.
I'm on beginner. Completed about 7-8 missions per month in pretty quick time.
Had negative ratings every month (ie terrible) as the minus 300 about 5-6 times a month due to pop ups from the New Dawn etc .
I'm only gaining 8-10 points for a successful mission.
How can I get a "good" month?
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Just tried a restart from an earlier save.
End of April 97 approaches and I get "Iron Eagles shot down" -150 points, "Shadow of Lotus" -300 points.
End of month report -955.
Next month I'll get shut down again! How can I stop this?
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Ask Solarius to turn down BS random events that serve no actual purpose. Or edit the rul files yourself, seeing how it's all plaintext.
"Shadow of Lotus" points to you being behind on cult network research. Which cults do you already have research/which cult members have you interrogated?
Might help if you upload a save file.
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Bad events happen from either ignoring missions and letting them expire, or waiting too long with research (Like cult networks)
Though, one pure bullshit thing is that the cult apprehensions have a penalty of 200 points if you ignore them and you only get 10 points if you capture targets alive, any deaths from your guys means negative score.
Meaning ignoring 1 cultist apprehension is equivalent in doing 20, successful, casualty less ones.
And these missions dont spawn once per month, but multiple times.
I have attached the modified txt file to this post if you want it the simplest way. It changes all cult apprehencion penalties from negative 200 to 10
Just replace the file in Mods/XcomFiles/Ruleset
(Alien deployment)
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Thanks guys. I seem to have got through this by researching something the UN approved of.
They are now more supportive of xcom despite my negative monthly scores!
Thanks too Mrvex I'll try that modified txt file if (or when!) this happens again
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I have attached the modified txt file to this post if you want it the simplest way. It changes all cult apprehencion penalties from negative 200 to 10
Just replace the file in Mods/XcomFiles/Ruleset
(Alien deployment)
You my friend are a life saver.
I'm going through the exact same thing as the OP. So glad I found this thread. I didn't know the research would negatively effect the score (get me all those -300 warning points).
Love this game, I just couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
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You my friend are a life saver.
I'm going through the exact same thing as the OP. So glad I found this thread. I didn't know the research would negatively effect the score (get me all those -300 warning points).
Love this game, I just couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
The "warnings" are intended to push the player towards advancing the cult storylines, but apparently they either aren't clear enough, people don't read the briefings/ufopedia entries or stumble into these and can't recover. Still think Solarius should turn the penalties down.
What was unclear about the connection between cult research and the warnings / what prevented you from pushing research into that direction?
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Ye I lost game once on some high difficulty due to absurd ammounts of "kill-x-animals" missions on same time spawning/despawning.
You just have to get over with it. Some days you will be seeing nearly zero mission spawns, top weapons/armor and yet still no Ethereals...
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What was unclear about the connection between cult research and the warnings / what prevented you from pushing research into that direction?
Honestly ? It's slightly embarrassing to admit. It's just me.
I am severely dyslexic. Have reading comprehension issues. It takes me several times reading a document to understand it.
Little did I know as a youth, I gravitated toward music (playing violin at 7 years old) and then became a Mastering engineer (Audio) in my late 20's. That's my day job now.
What I lack in "eyes to brain" comprehension, it is 10x fold stronger in my "ear to brain" comprehension.
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I'll write here too: maybe it's irrelevant, but please check the OXCE version you are using. I had tons of those -300 random events, and they fell back to normal, manageable numbers when I updated mine to 7.7.3.
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You my friend are a life saver.
I'm going through the exact same thing as the OP. So glad I found this thread. I didn't know the research would negatively effect the score (get me all those -300 warning points).
Love this game, I just couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
Researching something doesnt directly give you negative score with the exception of MAGMA deals, given you arent far enough in the mod, MAGMA is a Russian weapons and tech manufacturer and it will trade with XCOM, they generally provide hard hitting weapons that are heavy to carry and use, but hit hard as a truck. As you research advanced tech, MAGMA will send you offers for their exclusive merchandize in offer for alien tech, if you do give them what they want, you instantly get hit by a score penalty and for the rest of the game, random, negative events will pop up from time to time, so its nessesary to pay extra vigiliance and do one extra job to keep the council happy if you happen to get hit by one of these events.
The other thing is, while this is metagaming of the highest degree, but researching new "story arcs" opens up new missions (And negative events) that will start spawning until you resolve the WHOLE arc, opening up...too many cans of worms can lead to you being overwhelmed with missions, this can be both good and bad (Alot of oportunities for good score, experience and loot, but your own sanity and your soldiers life is at risk) but some of the missions and the gear required to completely resolve it are two completely different tech levels.
For example, the Shogg Arc
You initiate it by investigating caves and discover that there is a underground world waiting to get explored, once you get the first research, from top of my head, 3 missions will start spawning, you can get this thing pretty much around promotion 3, by the time, you will be lucky you have the tactical heavy armor for most of your troops (This is an advanced infantry armor that has the bulk required to withstand most firearms without being scratched, once you get this, anti-cult missions will become super easy because only high caliber weapons can even hope to scratch your dudes).
So, you have your metalic armor, blackops weapons and then you start getting these missions
1) Raid
Underground craft spawns in a village with a squad of aliens, armed with gauss weapons, that will one hit KO your soldiers from frontal hit from full HP unless they roll for ULTRA low damage (The weakest gauss weapon hits for 80 dmg) Gauss Weapons are strongest kinetic weapons in the game and they are meant to be used against things like.... tanks and power armor. Not people.
2) Depthpocalypse
Avoid at any cost, do not, this is mission with difficulty worthy of end game gear, extremely heavily armoured enemies, lots of them and all armed with hard hitting weapons, this is pretty much terror mission by the time you dont even have laser weapons.
3) Croc Assassination
How about the Raid, but instead, you can only take concealed equipment.
There is a silver lining though, the gauss weapons and a new resource type you can get from these missions (esp the raids that are the easier thing here) can be used by humans if you just run these weapons thru research, so if you can bite it down, you can get access to extremely hard hitting weapons relatively early on, you just cant make ammo for it and the raids will be your main source.
And these missions are just the surface of opening this story arc, there is alot more here, but you shall see it for yourself.
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I've hit Depthpocalyse twice now, because it has a -750 score penalty if you let it expire, and something like -300ish if you go in and immediately lift off. I don't remember what I did the first time, but the second time I went in with advanced rocket launchers and shot the motherfrakking lobstermen with motherfrakking tritanium shrapnel rockets.
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Deathpocalyse is those Lobster Mans?
They can be killed by sniper rifles. Normal gauss and lesser sonics are not working against them.
ps. by the way why their death/sound is not from regular game?
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Everything can be killed with sniper rifles because these are triple-dipping the three main damage increase mechanics.
The Lobsterman death sound seems to be the original ;) Celatid death sound? IDK, I play with Ksenni's mod and they have their own sounds there.
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I'll write here too: maybe it's irrelevant, but please check the OXCE version you are using. I had tons of those -300 random events, and they fell back to normal, manageable numbers when I updated mine to 7.7.3.
Thanks man. This definitely helped. I updated to 7.8 and no more -300 events!
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The easier the mission, the bigger penalties are for not doing it. This was n fact Dioxine's idea. :P But I think it works well as an incentive to develop a rudimentary structure to respond to missions around the globe.
We are talking about the easiest missions possible, which can often be completed with one unarmed agent, especially on the lowest difficulty. It's not a matter of tactical prowess, it's a check to see if you have enough teams and range.
Ask Solarius to turn down BS random events that serve no actual purpose.
How about you stop and think about what you just wrote? The cringe is hard.
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That was sarcasm Solarius.
Of course these events serve a purpose - they make the game worse. I am hardly the only one, nor (by a long shot) the one most qualified who's pointed out that randomly punishing the player is bad game design. This is also not the first time that (new) players are struggling with this. And, as it tunrs out (yet again), the additional penalties for missing missions just compound on this. Inflationary use of points is a sign of bad balancing. Story telling is nice. "Story telling" as implemented in the game which fucks over new players is detrimental.
Looking at the changes from 1.8 to 2.5 for example demonstrates that the balance of events has become even more lopsided. Where before negative point events totaled approx. -6000 they now total -8000, while the overall total of negative and positive events has shifted from -5000 to -7000. Are you honestly surprised that especially new players are reporting issues stemming from this imbalance? As fun as getting fucked over by RNG or lack of knowledge regarding optimal base placement is, I'd wager earlier versions of the game where more approachable for new players.
If you want to incentivise early game progression, maybe having some carrots to go with the stick might be a good idea.
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I dont actually mind the RNG events that much as it keeps me from doing the bare minimum to get a pass from the council, it taught me to, just in case, do a few missions more than i would do normally.
But the penalties being based on difficulty is not true
I pulled up the alien deployments ini to see all the mission penalties
Terror missions are very hard AND it has a large penalty for ignoring it, but i can understand this one given its a total PR nightmare
Reptilian assassination squad is hard mission (because its a concealed equipment only against enemies armed with weapons that will kill your agents in one hit aka gauss weapons) and you cant bring real weapons here to solve the problem with superior firepower. Has high penalty
Jarhead factory has as much of a penalty as ignoring a terror mission
Cyberweb missions entirely have really low score penalties and cyberweb isnt difficult and some of this, like missing missions about whole factories cyberweb has has like a penalty of -50, yet ignoring a Jarhead factory is negative 1000 slap, the first mission about cyberweb has despawn penalty of 20, despite having 1 humanoid enemy and some rando drones Blackops weapons will crush with no issues, the only caveat to that mission is that terrain generation can fuck you over but you will probably have dynamite and the mission has the manners to actually warn you beforehand that they might be needed.
Some Hybrid missions have really low despawn penalties even if they are super easy (Talking about non-hybrid bases, those are hard) ever since Advent clinics have been yeeted (That, while they were present, were super hard and had massive penalty to boot) Hybrid farm has penalty of 50, yet who is stationed here is barely fuckall with crap weapons that wont even dent your tactical suit plating. Hybrid purge has despawn penalty of 10, yet its another snooze fest of nobodies getting strewn across the field by blackops weapons, Chemtrails site has penalty of 120, despite being super easy AND being a bad thing for XCOM mission in general.
Alien Hybrid storage, penalty of negative 10
Barn of gore, human enemies armed with crap weapons with no armor and in low number, penalty of 100
Really if anything to say, i originally thought that penalties were entirely based on how politically damaging the event is to XCOM if it came to pass, but alas, its only half truth.
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Im in 2003(and seem theres no end atm) and only do very large ships/bases. Ignoring almost everything that pops up. And still end up with +5k rating each month!
By the way anyone got tech tree image? I'm stuck on 85% now :(
Need Ethereal Legate/Servitor/Eliminator/Keeper/Sentinel/Speaker/Knight/GMaster
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That was sarcasm Solarius.
Oops, sorry then. But sarcasm doesn't work on the internet - you wouldn't believe how many times I've read such things written in full seriousness.
Of course these events serve a purpose - they make the game worse. I am hardly the only one, nor (by a long shot) the one most qualified who's pointed out that randomly punishing the player is bad game design.
Why? They are fine in games like Master of Orion or Heroes of Might and Magic. These recommendations are good enough for me. I've played these games a lot, you know.
This is also not the first time that (new) players are struggling with this. And, as it tunrs out (yet again), the additional penalties for missing missions just compound on this. Inflationary use of points is a sign of bad balancing. Story telling is nice. "Story telling" as implemented in the game which fucks over new players is detrimental. (...)
Honestly there is no balancing in the mod at all. I'm not sure what balancing even means in a single player game.
From the context I assume you propose that the player loses too many points from random events and common missions to stay afloat.
If you want to incentivise early game progression, maybe having some carrots to go with the stick might be a good idea.
...and give more good stuff, right. Like what, more positive events?
OK, I am not against adding more positive events.
But also I don't feel that the game is too hard... Since there is no score financial bonus, the goal is to stay above the water line, not score as many points as possible.
But the penalties being based on difficulty is not true
I pulled up the alien deployments ini to see all the mission penalties (...)
You're right, but I was talking specifically about starting cults and their missions, not the whole mod. With later missions it indeed becomes more complicated and the points costs are assigned based on different needs than in early game.
By the way anyone got tech tree image? I'm stuck on 85% now :(
Need Ethereal Legate/Servitor/Eliminator/Keeper/Sentinel/Speaker/Knight/GMaster
Most of these are exclusive to some very late missions.
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I'm not against events applying negative score: they make the world feel more alive, and they keep the player on their toes. The problem IMO comes with excessive randomness, when in one game you get -200 and in another -2500, during the same first month (even though that excess could have been due to an older OXCE version).
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Why? They are fine in games like Master of Orion or Heroes of Might and Magic. These recommendations are good enough for me. I've played these games a lot, you know.
I also happen to have played a lot of MOO/MOO2, and none of the random events in those was an automatic "game over". Because random events either affected all players equally (e.g. hyperspace distortion) or affected only single planets or systems.
Neither Master of Orion nor HMM (at least the parts of the series I remember playing) had any kind of score system that lead to an automatic game over when you had to many "bad" turns. MOO2 had the "election of galactic emperor" thing, but even there the player had the option to simply not respect the decision (and turning all other parties hostile mind you).
The thing is that all of these were designed and balanced with negative and positive events in mind. None of these were automatic game overs and the player had an option to deal with the fallout. X-Com/XCF doesn't have any of that. On the one hand you have RNG mission generation that give you bad ratings even if there was no possible way you could have reached the sites in time and you have RNG events that can screw you over. How are you even supposed to recover when you have no option to raise your score out of the negative because RNG decides that you get no other missions until the end of the month, or not enough to balance out the score?
The thing is that the metric here is detached from what the player can influence. Random events in MOO could impact your economy, research, fleets etc. - but not some abstract thing that was primarily dependant on RNG events like monthly score.
Plague on one of your planets? Get scientists to work on it.
Pirates raiding your freighters? Sent combat ships to the system.
Virus resulting in a one-time research points loss? Focus on research.
Earthquake destroys buildings? Rebuild.
None of these are simply something that "happens" to player. They are incentives for player interaction because the game gives you options to deal with them. The game is *engaging* the player. Randomly deducting points from the player in XCF is the exact opposite, because you are dependent on RNG mission generation to offset point loss, and you can - through no fault of your own - get into a situation where you can not offset negative points becasue the game doesn't give you an opportunity to.
I mean random credit deduction can at least be countered by selling items - not that you have a realistic option to create income via manufacturing anymore.
The point is not that random events in general are bad, the point is that they are bad as they are implemented in XCF, because they accomplish the opposite of what they do in the games you're referring to. What am I to make of some crop circles that the game didn't tell me about? Nothing. What am I to make of some planes getting shot down half-way accross the globe that again the game doesn't tell me about? Nothing. What am I to make about aliens abducting a child that I had no way of preventing? Nothing.
No player engagement, no active option to counter or to offset. Just wait for next RNG misison generation that might or might let you offset these.
The idea behind random negative events isn't to punish the player. The idea is to engage the player.
You are not engaging the player if "engaging" equals "wait for next RNG event". Because unlike MOO and HMM X-Com doesn't have an option to seek out the enemy. The game decides when you get an opportunity to engage, not the player.
Contrast to this for example Finnik's FtA which let's you sent out agents to actively generate engagements.
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Most of these are exclusive to some very late missions.
Yes, but can you please give a spoiler when this mission popups. Because for like 5-6 months nothing serious happens. Yet I have seen several Ethereal(normal ones) ships, and 1 base. Ethereal Commander is of course researched.
edit: I just watched several youtube videos of Xcom files and it seems I'm missing Alien Astrometrics to craft AVENGER. People got it way earlier, so I'm kinda worried where are my Ethereals!
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Maybe it would help if there was a least a limit on how many negative events (of the "x happened, you lose 200 points" variety) you could get per month. It could start very low in the first month and gradually increase as the months pass, so that players can't be randomly slammed by thousands of unavoidable negative points in the first two months, but can still receive some negative events then, and more later, if you really want to keep them in their current form.
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I don't mind the RNG events, positive or negative. More occurrences would be fun from my POV of the game. If possible, maybe have them triggered/script as an RNG flag resulting from certain missions/activities, if they aren't already. I don't expect this engine to be capable to have RNG that can be affected by your actions like MOO/MOO2.
I see them as flavor to the world/lore regardless of the outcome. More will always be better to me, long as they fit/make sense to the game. Unfair or not. :P
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I also happen to have played a lot of MOO/MOO2, and none of the random events in those was an automatic "game over". Because random events either affected all players equally (e.g. hyperspace distortion) or affected only single planets or systems.
Neither Master of Orion nor HMM (at least the parts of the series I remember playing) had any kind of score system that lead to an automatic game over when you had to many "bad" turns. MOO2 had the "election of galactic emperor" thing, but even there the player had the option to simply not respect the decision (and turning all other parties hostile mind you).
The thing is that all of these were designed and balanced with negative and positive events in mind. None of these were automatic game overs and the player had an option to deal with the fallout. X-Com/XCF doesn't have any of that. On the one hand you have RNG mission generation that give you bad ratings even if there was no possible way you could have reached the sites in time and you have RNG events that can screw you over. How are you even supposed to recover when you have no option to raise your score out of the negative because RNG decides that you get no other missions until the end of the month, or not enough to balance out the score?
The thing is that the metric here is detached from what the player can influence. Random events in MOO could impact your economy, research, fleets etc. - but not some abstract thing that was primarily dependant on RNG events like monthly score.
Plague on one of your planets? Get scientists to work on it.
Pirates raiding your freighters? Sent combat ships to the system.
Virus resulting in a one-time research points loss? Focus on research.
Earthquake destroys buildings? Rebuild.
None of these are simply something that "happens" to player. They are incentives for player interaction because the game gives you options to deal with them. The game is *engaging* the player. Randomly deducting points from the player in XCF is the exact opposite, because you are dependent on RNG mission generation to offset point loss, and you can - through no fault of your own - get into a situation where you can not offset negative points becasue the game doesn't give you an opportunity to.
I mean random credit deduction can at least be countered by selling items - not that you have a realistic option to create income via manufacturing anymore.
The point is not that random events in general are bad, the point is that they are bad as they are implemented in XCF, because they accomplish the opposite of what they do in the games you're referring to. What am I to make of some crop circles that the game didn't tell me about? Nothing. What am I to make of some planes getting shot down half-way accross the globe that again the game doesn't tell me about? Nothing. What am I to make about aliens abducting a child that I had no way of preventing? Nothing.
No player engagement, no active option to counter or to offset. Just wait for next RNG misison generation that might or might let you offset these.
I believe I understand your all points, it's a a well-presented argument. But also I feel like the whole problem is blown out of proportions. You don't lose a campaign because of a single -200 event, or even several negative events in a row. It can tip you over if you're already in deep shit, but normally it's just flavour.
Speaking from my own experience of course, not an analysis.
The idea behind random negative events isn't to punish the player. The idea is to engage the player.
You are not engaging the player if "engaging" equals "wait for next RNG event". Because unlike MOO and HMM X-Com doesn't have an option to seek out the enemy. The game decides when you get an opportunity to engage, not the player.
Contrast to this for example Finnik's FtA which let's you sent out agents to actively generate engagements.
All well and good, but many of these events are impossible to affect on purpose. They are literally part of a greater world beyond your reach. And they are there to specifically for this reason. You're not supposed to be able to prevent them, the world doesn't revolve around X-Com, it's not a grand strategy. It's more like a roguelike.
You speak a lot about player engagement, and I don't intend to shoot it down; this is indeed important. But it's just one particular perspective. If you look at horror genre, there's another well-known rule: once the character (or in case of games, the player) gets a gun (or any other means to actually fight back), this isn't horror any more. If you can do something, then you're not really that oppressed.
Besides, I don't think giving the player tools to solve and prevent any problem is healthy. I'd rather have the player under pressure than obsessed with numbers and mechanics.
Yes, but can you please give a spoiler when this mission popups.
Which mission? Any Ethereal mission? Or some specific mission?
edit: I just watched several youtube videos of Xcom files and it seems I'm missing Alien Astrometrics to craft AVENGER. People got it way earlier, so I'm kinda worried where are my Ethereals!
This entire arc is crap. :P I need to make a lot of missions to fill the gaps.
Maybe it would help if there was a least a limit on how many negative events (of the "x happened, you lose 200 points" variety) you could get per month. It could start very low in the first month and gradually increase as the months pass, so that players can't be randomly slammed by thousands of unavoidable negative points in the first two months, but can still receive some negative events then, and more later, if you really want to keep them in their current form.
It'd be very hard to do while retaining a sufficient level of randomness, and randomness is important to me.
This is why so many events have like 3% chance per month...
I don't mind the RNG events, positive or negative. More occurrences would be fun from my POV of the game. If possible, maybe have them triggered/script as an RNG flag resulting from certain missions/activities, if they aren't already. I don't expect this engine to be capable to have RNG that can be affected by your actions like MOO/MOO2.
Well, they can be enabled/disabled primarily by:
- time (months passed)
- research topics
- last month's score above or below a certain value
- money above or below a certain value (checked at the start of month)
- item present in the base (checked at the start of month)
- having a base in a given region
I see them as flavor to the world/lore regardless of the outcome. More will always be better to me, long as they fit/make sense to the game. Unfair or not. :P
I'll probably add more with time. :)
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I was thinking if some sort of "favour with the council" as resource type could be used as very limited way to prevent game overs from game fucking you over, i had few campaigns that could have been lost with no fault of my own because the game kept throwing me crap missions with low point rewards, bunch of negative events, some missions i couldnt even fathom playing (Depthpocalypse) with my current gear or simply missions not spawning enough or my favourite one, the Jarhead factory that has a penalty as if you ignored a terror mission. I had to resolve it by loading a way earlier save to prevent a softlock of the campaign.
Like to explain what i mean as resource type, reaching promotions 1, 2 and 3, solving major plot arcs could get you a item you could redeem in the engineering (or just research) that would simply give you reputation points with the council, so if you had particularly bad months with no way to solve it, you could burn through your favors to pass the month and carry on. Make the way to get favour with Council to be super rare you player cant just slack off for multiple months and can only use it in most dire circumstances.
I know research, or dossiers, or maybe both do work like this that they give you a trickle of points you can use to keep above water, but these numbers are very low and you need to spend scientists in mass to make any difference. And the research giving you a big point boost that can change the ratings wouldnt be new actually, i use the Metamorph research as that, given it gives you a really thick point rewards and you can actually see how much it gives you. So i save that research for the most dire months to keep above water.