OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: ubai on March 10, 2020, 06:04:34 pm
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I just started a new game and my two agents are panicking even though they have seen no enemies and have high bravery. What is happening?
Thanks,
Matt
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is it their first mission? or have they been going on many without resting?
it sounds like it could be the new readiness mechanic. they could be just rebelling cause you've driven them too hard,
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oh whoops I'm a moron. I didn't read the title of the post when I was typing that. my bad.
yeah that's weird.
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give them drink rum! vodka :P ;D lůl
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Definitely doesn't seem normal... Unless you do nothing and just click through dozens of turns.
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May be it is because of low readiness?
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It may be the morale mechanic in the mod, I am losing 10 morale every turn no matter what. Since my agents are brand new, it takes them longer to move so they panic before they have done anything other than move away from their car. Also, high bravery doesn't seem to affect morale loss in any way.
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I'm against the use of "mana".
Too restrictive and illogical. ::)
So I deactivated this option and now the game is perfect. ;)
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About that: Where's the Freshness mechanic located at? Which file? Just to know in case I wish to tamper with it.
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It may be the morale mechanic in the mod, I am losing 10 morale every turn no matter what.
No, you are losing 1 morale every turn.
I'm against the use of "mana".
Too restrictive and illogical. ::)
So I deactivated this option and now the game is perfect. ;)
I won't argue the logics. But it was the only way to curb bad player behaviour, and also force the player to respect the agents.
About that: Where's the Freshness mechanic located at? Which file? Just to know in case I wish to tamper with it.
Every X-Com armour entry.
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No, I'm sure it's 10, I have been checking each turn.
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No, I'm sure it's 10, I have been checking each turn.
Ah sorry, I thought you were losing Readiness.
What's your Readiness level?
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Not sure, but it's their very first mission ever, so whatever the default readiness is. Also, I can't figure out how to check readiness. :P
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I won't argue the logics. But it was the only way to curb bad player behaviour, and also force the player to respect the agents.
When I say "illogical" it's just about the fact that XCom soldiers, even novices, are supposed to be experienced (very?) soldiers compared to ordinary civilians.
If your soldiers lose their cool in the field, without a fight just waiting to see the enemy, it's because you think that the front line regiments of any country in the world are actually wimps.
Something I'm far from thinking. So this management of preparedness is "illogical".
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Quand je parle de "illogique" c'est juste sur le fait que les soldats de XCom, même les novices, sont censés être des soldats expérimentés (très ?) par rapport aux simples civils.
Si vos soldats perdent leur sang-froid sur le terrain, sans combat juste en attendant de voir les ennemis, c'est que vous pensez que les régiments de première ligne de n'importe quel pays du Monde sont en fait des mauviettes.
Chose que je suis loin de penser. Donc cette gestion de la préparation est "illogique".
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I won't argue the logics. But it was the only way to curb bad player behaviour, and also force the player to respect the agents.
Really? But, isn't using bad rookies as cannon fodder a proven and true method present in all X-COM games? The medal system makes you care a little more about each meatbag that seems to be worthy. The fatigue system merely provides more micromanaging as you have to add a third team to rotate with your other two favorites.
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I think only a very small minority of modders wants to stay true to xcom1994.
Which is absolutely OK... modding = changing to your desires.
I would however welcome a small disclaimer in the description of each popular mod saying what kind of game genre they are aiming for. E.g. instead of being a strategy game, they want to make an rpg game, or a puzzle game, or a nucom clone, or a storytelling game, etc.
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Not sure, but it's their very first mission ever, so whatever the default readiness is. Also, I can't figure out how to check readiness. :P
It's the big bad blue bar. ::)
When I say "illogical" it's just about the fact that XCom soldiers, even novices, are supposed to be experienced (very?) soldiers compared to ordinary civilians.
What mod are you playing? Because obviously not X-Com Files. You really should specify that.
Really? But, isn't using bad rookies as cannon fodder a proven and true method present in all X-COM games? The medal system makes you care a little more about each meatbag that seems to be worthy. The fatigue system merely provides more micromanaging as you have to add a third team to rotate with your other two favorites.
Let me put it like this: I'm in late 1998 now and I've never, ever, ever even noticed that the Readiness is a thing. Not even once it became remotely relevant. In fact I've been thinking about increasing its effects, because what good is a mechanics which doesn't impact the gameplay? But on the other hand there are reports saying otherwise, so I'm not eager to make changes here. (lso, it's a lot of work.)
And it's not like I'm that good at playing my own mod either, people on XCF discord are way better than I. After all, I don't play that much.
I would however welcome a small disclaimer in the description of each popular mod saying what kind of game genre they are aiming for. E.g. instead of being a strategy game, they want to make an rpg game, or a puzzle game, or a nucom clone, or a storytelling game, etc.
That is definitely a good idea, and not only for X-Com mods - entertainment products should be at least somewhat labeled. It's an art though.
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What mod are you playing? Because obviously not X-Com Files. You really should specify that.
It is true that they are not elite commandos, but on the whole they are better than civilians! 8)
CIVIL SOLDIER (mini-max)
TU 46 45-55
Stamina 40 40-65
Health 35 25-35
Bravery 60 10-60
Reactions 30 30-60
Firing 40 45-65
Throwing 30 35-55
Strength 30 20-40
PSIstrength 35 0-100
PSIskill 0 0-6
Melee 30 20-60
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I've never, ever, ever even noticed that the Readiness is a thing. Not even once it became remotely relevant. In fact I've been thinking about increasing its effects, because what good is a mechanics which doesn't impact the gameplay?
This is true. I'm not an X-Com veteran and never played above Experienced in vanilla. X-Com Files is my first ever mod that I play and until now, a year and a half in-game time, I have never felt Readiness to have any impact on my soldiers. I mean, are you moving your soldiers only one step per turn?
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while one step per turn would be an exaggeration, it does sound to me like the most likely cause is a difference in playstyle.
I would guess that the people who are struggling with it generally take more time in tactical missions for whatever reason, and the people who don't notice it tend to be faster.
I don't see a reason to penalize the people who take more time, not for the sake of better gameplay or for realism. theoretically, a longer (by a minute or two if you convert turn time to real time) and more careful mission wouldn't hurt someone's readiness more than a fast and furious one.
this is why I'm on board with the suggestions later on in this post:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,7775.15.html
specifically, the altering of readiness based on xp gained, and possibly total morale lost as well.
I plan to try and hack together something like this over spring break/quarantine if I have time.
anyone have suggestions for how to get started?
i've already got the mana and ruleset documentation, and if I remember correctly solarius said readiness is attached to armour.
anything else I should know?
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I am not trying to penalize slow players. But they are already at a big advantage, so I don't mean to make life even easier for them... :)
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It is true that they are not elite commandos, but on the whole they are better than civilians! 8)
CIVIL SOLDIER (mini-max)
TU 46 45-55
Stamina 40 40-65
Health 35 25-35
Bravery 60 10-60
Reactions 30 30-60
Firing 40 45-65
Throwing 30 35-55
Strength 30 20-40
PSIstrength 35 0-100
PSIskill 0 0-6
Melee 30 20-60
wow. with these stats hiring civilians doesn't even sound that absurd...
what about hybrids?
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I am not trying to penalize slow players. But they are already at a big advantage, so I don't mean to make life even easier for them... :)
fair enough.
i'll still try to do what I was thinking. I think it could still be better (by which I mean less arbitrary) if balanced properly.
I'll try making morale lost have a greater impact, so that longer missions (especially against psionics) still have a slightly greater penalty than short ones.
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Actually I'm having some thought about emphasizing the readiness status as less "combat fatigue" and more "mental damage from contact with the supernatural". You know, Cthulhu style.
What I'm thinking of is leaving everything as is, except on missions with no "supernatural" enemies (aliens etc.) you don't lose Readiness. This can be done by applying an effect every turn which adds +1 Readiness, thus cancelling out the loss.
Bear in mind it's a just loose idea for now.
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Since we are again at the topic of changing the readiness system, I'll throw in my 2 cents.
My favourite thing about readiness is, how it forces you to rest your soldiers between missions, like in Long War. In vanilla X-Com it has always bothered me a bit, how you could just throw the same small group of people into battle non-stop, 7 days a week and more, with no regard for their well-being beyond getting wounded.
If it was up to me, this aspect could be even more pronounced.
Limiting readiness loss to missions with "supernatural" enemies would also affect the need to rest your troops, right? That would be bad.
And really, if you are being loose with the definition, most enemy groups could be called "supernatural". All of the wild creatures and zombies fit the bill, don't they? The various cults also do to some degree. I mean you are fighting creepy fish-people, russians on alien steroids, and freaking ninjas. They are all weirdos except for Exalt and Osiron.
I would like to propose, that readiness depletion simply be slowed (how much? dunno, half maybe?), to accomodate slower players and that readiness regeneration in the geoscape is then also slowed (by the same factor or even more).
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Actually I'm having some thought about emphasizing the readiness status as less "combat fatigue" and more "mental damage from contact with the supernatural". You know, Cthulhu style.
What I'm thinking of is leaving everything as is, except on missions with no "supernatural" enemies (aliens etc.) you don't lose Readiness. This can be done by applying an effect every turn which adds +1 Readiness, thus cancelling out the loss.
Bear in mind it's a just loose idea for now.
And when your mind got too twisted you´re out of readiness you´re gonna succumb to Khorne? ^^
Or Nurgle maybe ;)
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I can't reduce the Readiness effect, because it's already at 1 per turn :D
If I wanted to, I could double the Readiness meter and the daily regeneration... But I see no reason to at this point.
As for the "supernatural" thing, the main problem is that when not fighting the supernatural, you would gain 1 Readiness per turn, which would be... bad.
And when your mind got too twisted you´re out of readiness you´re gonna succumb to Khorne? ^^
Or Nurgle maybe ;)
Any of the four is possible, but for a random mortal it doesn't really matter, as the result is Chaos Undecided in your head :)
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One way it could be done by counting number of "abnormal" enemies each turn (humans 0, aliens 1, ghost 4 and Cthulhu 100), store it in global variable and on next turn subtract this value (probably divided by some factor) from all xcom units "sanity".
I would need check this, but calculation could be affected by "visibility" of alien. Or on other hand only your soldiers that was that are know by "it" would be affected by this insanity.
btw how about random switch of sides if you are insane? In some context I could easy change side of unit.
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One way it could be done by counting number of "abnormal" enemies each turn (humans 0, aliens 1, ghost 4 and Cthulhu 100), store it in global variable and on next turn subtract this value (probably divided by some factor) from all xcom units "sanity".
I would need check this, but calculation could be affected by "visibility" of alien. Or on other hand only your soldiers that was that are know by "it" would be affected by this insanity.
Interesting, but there are many, many logic questions to be answered. What are the conditions for this effect to take place? For example, do you need to see the monster?
btw how about random switch of sides if you are insane? In some context I could easy change side of unit.
Hmm, could it be used to make an encountered civilian your own unit?
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Interesting, but there are many, many logic questions to be answered. What are the conditions for this effect to take place? For example, do you need to see the monster?
Dummy version would simply count live aliens, more complex would need checking state that is still not avaialbe in scripts.
Hmm, could it be used to make an encountered civilian your own unit?
Yes, and no, problem is definition of "encountered", scripts need be aware of this to make it work. Right now one way would be "smack" them with your weapon when they will follow you for for some time.
To implement this I would need check when is safe to change unit fraction and not break game.
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The idea of readiness as sanity does sound cool, but if that's all it was I think you'd have to rename it to sanity because of how different it is.
I'm currently gathering data (i.e. having a blast punching wolves and cultists) for my own thing. I'll make a new post if/when I get something presentable done.
maybe the two could be combined somehow. once readiness gets low enough from being driven too hard/seeing too many unnatural things/having buddies die, you lose your sanity and that's when you start to panic really easy and shoot your comrades in the back.
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Yes, and no, problem is definition of "encountered", scripts need be aware of this to make it work. Right now one way would be "smack" them with your weapon when they will follow you for for some time.
That would work, we could have X-Com ID cards to wave in front of a civilian :)
The idea of readiness as sanity does sound cool, but if that's all it was I think you'd have to rename it to sanity because of how different it is.
If we ever go down this route, then I absolutely agree.
I'm currently gathering data (i.e. having a blast punching wolves and cultists)
I totally get ya :)
maybe the two could be combined somehow. once readiness gets low enough from being driven too hard/seeing too many unnatural things/having buddies die, you lose your sanity and that's when you start to panic really easy and shoot your comrades in the back.
Feel free to present a model or something, I'll be interested, but no promises. Building the current model was a lot of work and I rather like it.
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It does seem that readiness system does require quite a lot of fiddling. I mean, I voiced similar concerns and had issues with it before, which led the whole conversation to even get its own thread (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,7775.0.html) but I am unsure whether any improvements were made on the basis of feedback of various folks there.
I am curious about the idea of turning it off altogether as while I do like the idea and understand the reasons behind it, it seems to disrupt the game more than it helps anything.
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I am currently in the process of overhauling the Readiness system to something quite different. Just wait and see :>
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I am currently in the process of overhauling the Readiness system to something quite different. Just wait and see :>
Can't wait! Not because I find it annoying but because I don't notice it at all.
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Actually I'm having some thought about emphasizing the readiness status as less "combat fatigue" and more "mental damage from contact with the supernatural". You know, Cthulhu style.
What I'm thinking of is leaving everything as is, except on missions with no "supernatural" enemies (aliens etc.) you don't lose Readiness. This can be done by applying an effect every turn which adds +1 Readiness, thus cancelling out the loss.
Bear in mind it's a just loose idea for now.
Maybe rename readiness to something like "stress", "paranoia", "calmness" or "uneasiness" so that it makes more sense, since readiness doesn't really seem to explain that well what the mechanic does and fits more with what you want to do. Do note that "stress", "paranoia" and "uneasiness" should use an inverted logic from the current one because the more of those you are, the more likely you are to react unexpectedly to stimuli.
I don't think the analogy to Cthulu does make sense, though, as non paranormal events could cause such reactions from soldiers too, that's just my opinion, though.
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That would work, we could have X-Com ID cards to wave in front of a civilian :)
If we ever go down this route, then I absolutely agree.
I totally get ya :)
Feel free to present a model or something, I'll be interested, but no promises. Building the current model was a lot of work and I rather like it.
OR HAVE THE NEURALYZER FROM MIB COULD BE USED INSTEAD OF THE ID BADGES!
Imagine an undercover mission where you meet the MIB and they start converting civilians to fight with them!
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Maybe rename readiness to something like "stress", "paranoia", "calmness" or "uneasiness" so that it makes more sense, since readiness doesn't really seem to explain that well what the mechanic does and fits more with what you want to do. Do note that "stress", "paranoia" and "uneasiness" should use an inverted logic from the current one because the more of those you are, the more likely you are to react unexpectedly to stimuli.
I don't think the analogy to Cthulu does make sense, though, as non paranormal events could cause such reactions from soldiers too, that's just my opinion, though.
Already done. in the latest github commits it's called sanity.
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Already done. in the latest github commits it's called sanity.
Sanity...
It's better, but that does imply that XCom soldiers go crazy and, as far as I am aware, going insane is a one way ticket trip.
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Sanity...
It's better, but that does imply that XCom soldiers go crazy and, as far as I am aware, going insane is a one way ticket trip.
Ever heard of things like battle fatigue?
Ever been to a psychiatric ward?
Ever (actually) read Lovecraft?
:)
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Ever heard of things like battle fatigue?
Ever been to a psychiatric ward?
Ever (actually) read Lovecraft?
:)
No, no and no.
Anyway, was a good talk.
Have to update OXCE, though... Got a real old version running currently, but I want to finish my vanilla+ playthrough first...
:(
Also, me loves the XCom Files. Just a curious question though...
What is the XCom Files modlist? There are some features that I would love to have on my gameplay, but as separate items, like the bigger Skyranger with backdoors.
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Unfortunately mods won't work with XCF, unless they are general mods (meant to work with anything) or made specifically for XCF.
Of course, a mod can be edited to make it compatible.
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Unfortunately mods won't work with XCF, unless they are general mods (meant to work with anything) or made specifically for XCF.
Of course, a mod can be edited to make it compatible.
Noooooooooooo...
Didn't mean that. I was asking where I can get the mods that are a part of XCF, like the MiB stuff, for example, so that I can play with it stand-alone.
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Unless Solarius is nice enough to package it up for you, or if he took another mod and incorporated it, which is a portion of the content but definitely not all of it, your best option is to look through the rulesets and steal what you can. ;)
Luckily, the rulesets are very well organized and the strings are coherent so a simple find tool in many text editors can work wonders. I think MIB is already a mod for the vanilla game that you could find, but searching the rulesets for MIB, brings up most of it.
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Unless Solarius is nice enough to package it up for you, or if he took another mod and incorporated it, which is a portion of the content but definitely not all of it, your best option is to look through the rulesets and steal what you can. ;)
Luckily, the rulesets are very well organized and the strings are coherent so a simple find tool in many text editors can work wonders. I think MIB is already a mod for the vanilla game that you could find, but searching the rulesets for MIB, brings up most of it.
Do you know where the post for, let's say, the alternative troop transporters are?
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Do you mean the different crafts?
That'll be in crafts_XCOMFILES.rul
After you open the mod, go to the ruleset folder and scroll until you see that ruleset.
I haven't actually looked in it, but I assume that that should have all non-vanilla x-com crafts in this mod.