OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: SickBoySid on January 31, 2023, 05:32:19 pm
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Love the game. Wana try to get a few friends into it who is think would really like it. also think a general guide would be pretty cool. But I don't think the average Joe would appreciate the lack of direction in the mod game in general tbh combined with the heavy time investment. So I Wana make it a little less painful with a guide basically stopping at promotion III
I don't want to really tell them the "meta" or step by step instructions, I think the creativity and customization of your tactics/play style is what makes the game. I just want to give a guiding hand & the tools to victory.
You guys got any advice / notes
We often play/stream single player games like fallout new Vegas while in a call together so it be fun to do the same with x-com files
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My advice is to stop at the start of the invasion and not at promotion III. You can get promotion III and still be some time and story away from the invasion starting.
Ideally you should focus on giving us instructions on how to clear out all the cults and have a clean slate before the aliens hit. If that is even possible.
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My advice is to stop at the start of the invasion and not at promotion III. You can get promotion III and still be some time and story away from the invasion starting.
Ideally you should focus on giving us instructions on how to clear out all the cults and have a clean slate before the aliens hit. If that is even possible.
That's exactly the plan. The issue I had on my first run and kind of saw was getting the clut cleaned up before the invasion is in full swinge or you seem to fall behind the curb. With promotion III being a general sign you're on the right track.
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Generally, the issues I have seen have been a) manors, which were recently nerfed to a significant degree, b) not focusing on the four main cults (or RNG preventing you from doing so), which hits you with specific penalties, and c) not focusing on promotions (kinda hard for a first-time player).
You don't particularly need to kill more than one of the four cults by 1999, and the rest can be left alone (that is, unresearched) until you're tooled up and ready. There's no great benefit to e.g. killing off the Syndicate or the Apocalypse guys before the invasion starts. You're more likely to get your good agents killed in an Apocalypse rocket launcher sermon or storming a skyscraper. While there are huge benefits to getting a promotion early.
There have been several threads about these topics, and two (currently abandoned) playthroughs that showcase various things.
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Generally, the issues I have seen have been a) manors, which were recently nerfed to a significant degree, b) not focusing on the four main cults (or RNG preventing you from doing so), which hits you with specific penalties, and c) not focusing on promotions (kinda hard for a first-time player).
Those were the main 2 things right there that tripped me up my first time playing it.
I lost physical sanity on mansions and under estimated the need to get rid the cults. Well that and capture some of their leaders but that is a whole different story.
Also not researching bosses and instead went right for promotions.
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Oh, yeah, there's also the mod's focus on live captures and researching every little thing for score, too. A surprising number of people have been having trouble with score.
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I want to make a guide up to 1999
I don't believe "X-Com Files" needs full separate guide. If having 2 hangars in your base is not big enough hint to acquire additional vehicle, then nothing will help. What it really needs is "list of frequently made blunders". A would add to that list these points:
- Only first spawned manor gets instantly visible to a player. From now on player must check graphs and do patrol.
- If a mission has agent number limitation and you fail that mission, craft you arrived with will be lost despite you brought additional crew members to drive that craft home. Those additional crew members will be lost too.
- HQ is not the only facility that houses scientists. Scan tech tree to guess how to unlock those. Building additional bases with HQ just to increase science is not what game want you to do.
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Only first spawned manor gets instantly visible to a player.
It does? I don't recall that, there's the usual monthly chance of discovering an 'alien base', but that's about it.
Building additional bases with HQ just to increase science is not what game want you to do.
But building more bases with more actual labs is pretty much what drives your tech progress.
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- HQ is not the only facility that houses scientists. Scan tech tree to guess how to unlock those. Building additional bases with HQ just to increase science is not what game want you to do.
But building more bases with more actual labs is pretty much what drives your tech progress.
He is right though. As someone who started the mod recently, it was very tempting to spend 3M in an additional HQ for my second base since I could not figure out how to get any labs.
At some point, I figured out how to search the tech tree and was able to make a better use of the 2.7M I had saved, but I nearly made a big mistake.
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He is right though. As someone who started the mod recently, it was very tempting to spend 3M in an additional HQ for my second base since I could not figure out how to get any labs.
True. But it's quite easy to read "Building additional bases with HQ ... is not what game want you to do." as "Building additional bases ... is not what game want you to do." Which is the very opposite of what the mod actually wants you to do with its one-lab-per-type-per-base model.
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It does? I don't recall that, there's the usual monthly chance of discovering an 'alien base', but that's about it.
:-\ May be it depends on a difficulty. I remember that a couple of times manor was found on start of 1-st January.
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I doubt difficulty has anything to do with it. Most likely it was just the random 'agents discovered alien base' mechanic, since manors count as alien bases.
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You don't particularly need to kill more than one of the four cults by 1999, and the rest can be left alone (that is, unresearched) until you're tooled up and ready.
I might be mistaken, but don't spawned manors result in score penalties which can impact funding? I mean it would at least be beneficial to adress the cult situation as soon as possible as far as funding is concerned and to prevent further manors from spawning.
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Yes, 3-5 points per day per manor. At most a middling mission's worth of score. Worrying if you have dozens of them, not so much if it's just a couple.
There are also other inconveniences, from ongoing mission spawns that either take an assault to resolve or eat some points themselves, to slander missions if you intentionally prolong their demise. OTOH, you can earn a lot of cash, score and cult artifacts from doing even some of the missions.
But my point was that it's not the end of the game nor necessarily even a disadvantage if the cults survive into 1999 and beyond. The biggest worry is the manors overrunning the globe. If you can keep up with those (and there should be a lot more tier 1 manors now so killing them off when they're young should be more viable), it's fine.
Edit: Basically, the only situation (post 2.8 or maybe even 2.7) where I can see killing off the cults being unquestionably beneficial is if you can muster the troops to take their HQ once, with difficulty, yet cannot kill tier 1 mansions on the regular or are so overrun with them you need the break to take 'em all down.
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Edit: Basically, the only situation (post 2.8 or maybe even 2.7) where I can see killing off the cults being unquestionably beneficial is if you can muster the troops to take their HQ once, with difficulty, yet cannot kill tier 1 mansions on the regular or are so overrun with them you need the break to take 'em all down.
so im running 2.7 and ive been takeing screenshots in frustration and took out the 4 starting cults mid 1999 ( im running a bit slow because of manor spam ) and taken out maybe 20 manors in my current playthrough so far only having maybe 5+ active atm,
and i can tell you that the HQs are Significantly easier then the manors. my manors are starting to have 80-110 units vs the HQs 70-100 but theirs alot more reasons why much harder
- reinforcements tend to shoot your units on the turn they spawn in even if your units are looking at all 4 of the corners to spawn getting off free hits. also they have pretty good night vision so its not hard to nab free spawn hits at night
- reinforcements elite soldiers often seem to make around 50% of the units atleast in the late manors according to the elite badges i get after raid . and they spawn throughout the raid. making them a bit harder to P A N I C C A S C A D E . unlike in the HQs where i was generally able to panic most of the units within 4-5 turns
- migs :(
i think the spawn distance is only 10. and if you cover all the spawns they just force spawn even if your troops actively see them spawn. so i watch 3 corners and mid building and smoke the last corner one and that helps out abit
uh my monthly score is 2000-3000 only cus i take out 2-3 manors a month pretty much ironman now. but in mid-late 1998 i had to do alot of save scumming on the missions because i was having to fight manors that had 98 units with my OSPREY and basic armor vests with non bio enhanced troopers with black ops rifles and antipersonnel mines. or my score would be -1000+ ( i quickly realized i had to hard beef everything and eventually got it undercrontrol after alot of pain )
but with the new update im hoping they are more balanced and not rapidly evolving with huge troop counts because id rather fight muttons then manors lol
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2.7
reinforcements
migs
with the new update im hoping they are more balanced and not rapidly evolving with huge troop counts
Which are all hallmarks of being swamped with tier 3 manors. Tier 1 manors have no reinforcements at all, and should make up a much, much larger proportion of manors now. Unless RNGesus hates you, of course. :D
reinforcements elite soldiers often seem to make around 50% of the units atleast in the late manors
More like 45%, but close enough.
they just force spawn even if your troops actively see them spawn.
Reinforcements don't really care if you see them spawning in, AFAIK.
i take out 2-3 manors a month pretty much ironman now. but in mid-late 1998 i had to do alot of save scumming
Which is why I said being swamped in manors might be one of the cases where disabling the cults to prevent more from spawning might be desirable.
because id rather fight muttons then manors
Don't we all?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/28/38/f4283879c36c6a1f8bfdeb39a4882f3d.jpg)
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One thing you might want to include in this guide is a paragraph or two about smoke.
A lot of people probably underestimate smoke seeing it as a defensive tool only. Something you throw to cover your men or draw a line of smoke in the field and call it a day. But smoke is actually a really powerful offensive tool. Especially if you have a mortar or grenade launchers. If you run into tough enemies you can throw smoke in their faces to blind them as you approach. And all sorts of other stuff that even I probably have not thought of.
Also, you might want to clear up one question I always had. Does research pool? As in, if I research the same thing in two bases do the points add up? Like is 10 scientists in one base and 10 in another equal to 20 in one base or is it just wasted?
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But smoke is actually a really powerful offensive tool.
Note that smoke is a lot less useful than it used to be in vanilla. Both because of enemies sniping you from beyond LoS, and because some of them have anti-smoke vision. Meridian, Shadowbats, Owlmen, some undead will all ignore smoke competely, and most aliens have at least some infravision, so you need more smoke against them than you might be used to.
Does research pool? As in, if I research the same thing in two bases do the points add up? Like is 10 scientists in one base and 10 in another equal to 20 in one base or is it just wasted?
Wasted. Research projects progress separately.
If you're about to elaborate on research, it's worth mentioning putting just one or a few scientists on unimportant projects like legacy weapon or cultist mook research. Takes longer but won't waste the overflow.
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Note that smoke is a lot less useful than it used to be in vanilla. Both because of enemies sniping you from beyond LoS, and because some of them have anti-smoke vision. Meridian, Shadowbats, Owlmen, some undead will all ignore smoke competely, and most aliens have at least some infravision, so you need more smoke against them than you might be used to.
True. But it's still very useful against most enemies, especially humans. And especially early on. And especially if you want to capture them alive. A smoke in the face is really something that helps there.
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Smoke
Smoke is VERY powerful at almost every stage. Even if the enemy sniper shoots at you, without LOS it's huge 50% penalty to accuracy. Also, no LOS means to reaction shots.
That being said, it's not that important for saveload enjoyers, as are some things below.
Smoke+dogs/incendiaries is a very effective tactic for taking "Downed UFO" missions at promo I/II. Properly used dogs are OP in general.
Guide-wise. The most important direction of the game, as noted by OP, is getting Promo I/II/III. And along with them, new crafts (van/helicopter/dragonfly/osprey/...), new armors (kevlar/armored vest/...), new labs, soldier transformations (see available transforms) (https://xcf.trigramreactor.net/master/article/STR_SOLDIER). Check research dependencies for those in tech viewer (q at geoscape) or wiki (https://xcf.trigramreactor.net/master).
Another important venue is getting first alien-ish corpse (for alien containment), then live alien, then alien engineer(s)...
Useful for getting through the interface secrets. (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hidden_Features_(OpenXcom))
Soldier transforms are done through base->agents->button below->transformations. The most important one is x-com bio-enhancement: +15 hp, far less likely to get one-shotted by humans. You get it by finding and researching some storm.
Regarding battlescape.
- Most important. Retreat is very viable option throughout the game. Skipping on 40+ chupacabra mission is just a wise thing to do.
- Some enemies have strong armor or resist to a particular damage type. Don't be shy to check the wiki and try to figure out their weakness. The damage formula is, roughly ([a] - ammo/melee weapon, [t] - target):
damage = [a] RNG * [a] power * [t] damage modifier - [t] armor * [a] armor eff
Then there's also corresponding factor to affect a particular target's stat, i.e.:
toHealth = damage * [a] toHealth
toStun = damage * [a] toStun
Using New Battle (from main menu) + debug mode, you can test some weapons/strats directly. - Some enemies have camo, and x-com rat/AI scouts can reduce it's effectiveness. They also see through the smoke fairly well, making it one-sided cover against humans.
Regarding manors. It's not too hard to clear out a manor in general, but it's very hard to do it quickly. Especially manor with reinforcements, even if you go rocket-blasting and all-out aggressive. And the rewards are somewhat pointless (even though it's points!). It's a chore.
The best way to deal with them is terminating the cult(s), preventing additional manor spawns.
Detecting manors is done is either by getting craft randomly attacked while flying by hidden manor or checking region/country score charts - manors generate some alien score. Patrol with any vehicle around expected manor locations for a couple hours, and chances are, it will pop up.
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Anyone got a list for the hotkeys or is the OXCE all the same shortcuts ?
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What do you mean?
You were already linked (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hidden_Features_(OpenXcom)) to some. There's a better list of super-secret-squirrel OXCE hotkeys (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6424) on the forum (read all of it, not just the OP). Anything more common you can just look at or remap yourself in the options.
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What do you mean?
You were already linked (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hidden_Features_(OpenXcom)) to some. There's a better list of super-secret-squirrel OXCE hotkeys (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,6424) on the forum (read all of it, not just the OP). Anything more common you can just look at or remap yourself in the options.
Secret squirrel ;D Good memories.
Super helpful link too. This list of shortcuts is a gem. Thanks.
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How are you supposed to deal with migs?
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MiGs of your own, at least. Kiting. Or use covert craft, if you can pull the mission(s) off with only a handful of agents.
Killing the manors before they sprout MiGs is the best course of action if you have trouble with those. That, and killing off the parent cult to prevent more from spawning.
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Is there a reason why you duplicate your questions?
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How are you supposed to deal with migs?
The little bird or even the Humvee.
The Humvee has one weapon slot that can be equipped with something like an M-60. I believe that's 500 rounds of paper bullets (they don't do much) but will take out a couple.
If there is more than 2 or 3, forget it.
The little bird is used almost like a decoy. Just to buy you some time to slither in there.
I actually find a better route is going stealth mode.
- Don't set your craft's course to the actual destination.
- Instead, choose a point around 300 miles north of the Manor.
- Patrol for a few until you see no crafts flying around.
- Make a dash to the manor.