1) Add turnLimit 12 and chronoTrigger 2 to strange lifeform missions. After turn 12, all remaining monsters flee. Reducing the mission frequency was a nice touch, but this would make the missions strategically interesting instead of a spamfest where only mid-long range assault rifles (or pistol equivalent if low-tech) are used.
2) Under difficulty settings, increase difficultyCoefficient or defeatScore, so that it is possible to lose in the early game on higher difficulty levels, rather than just giving up because you will suffer from having less veterans later. Maybe reduce number of enemies and increase number of monster terror missions, so that instead of being a grind, hard difficulties are actually hard to survive in. Buff score technologies so players can sacrifice their research to hold on, plus it would be nice for non-promotion-related researches to be more useful.
3) Give less (or equal?) score for arriving at a mission and aborting it than not arriving at all. From a gameplay perspective, missions where you arrive only to abort when it gets intense are not fun, and aborting is super OP. Thematically this could be seen as a failure of the project.
4) I would prefer less minor missions to shorten the game a bit. If you could implement a setting for that, that would be nice. Right now, it's a bit too easy to get a full squad of 100%-TU agents with 100% of available research covered, yet you still have to do every safehouse and such if you want to play well for EXP reasons.
5) Buff reactions/bravery melee (and slight melee in general), light armor, throwing (especially knives which seem much worse than stars), rats, dog armor, flashbangs (enemies outnumber you), civilians, lone madmen, dagon in general (so easy), bolt-actions, explosives, drone armor, reactions training, heal gel, cannons (except for explosive automatic and buckshot non-automatic), hazmat, skulljack, maybe kneel accuracy. Nerf shields, FAL and similar mid-long-range automatics, enemy dodge (makes swords much better for them than you), stims (increase cost, probably too spammable, basically just ammo for the flame glove instead of waiting for recovery for example), agent bravery (non-psi panic seems too rare).
6) Unit pages on UFOpaedia could be better. I don't really care about armor, I care about resistances, dodge, stats. Dunno why there are so many pages for civilians. But I could be wrong.
7) How about adding transformations? There are four cults, why can't I resurrect people or turn them into 10-bravery 90-psi tentacle monsters, lol. Plus I think being able to bring back a veteran soldier at a high price if you recover the corpse is pretty neat.
2) Okay, but could you do something about the difficulty? Because no matter how hard the missions are, the early game is still unloseable. And I imagine a safehouse where you fight 20 enemies is not much more fun than fighting 10. If you don't want to make difficulty balance more complicated, can you just make all difficulties possible to lose early? Or if not to lose, to receive any sort of punishment that doesn't involve losing your agents? It's not a very healthy mechanic when the mission doesn't matter at all and you just play passively as possible to train your agents (by extension having rookie suicide screens for your vets). I suppose increasing the score penalty for retreating as in #3 would do that a bit.The whole point of early game is to build up your agents and your whole organization structure. I've played multiple games so far, and I've never had the same early game progression twice. Upping the difficulty means running the risk of encountering missions and mission combinations that are unwinnable and will brick you progress early in the game without having the means to correct that. This might lead to very frustrating playthroughs for people who are just starting out and don't know the mod. If I had to choose between an 'easy' early game and making the game 'more difficult' for experienced players I'd choose the the former.
5) Wow, nobody uses stims? They're amazing for sprinting and reviving k-o-ed agents, and absolutely crucial for melees. Only downside I can see is that they replace grenades, but if you're only using flashbangs, or you already have 3-6 grenades on the agent, what's the point? They also replace healing sprays, but those are very expensive and only stop the rare bleedout death fmpov. Flame gloves are a great 1x in your squad so long as you consider stims ammo, oneshots everything, highly accurate, arcs. Reload rate is slow and you can't carry enough stims to reload forever, range is bad. Wasn't advocating for a direct flame glove nerf, just it seems a little silly that psi weapons don't actually use your natural recovery but just rely on stims. Guess that's not really a fixable "problem" unless you have a "psi suit" with high stun recovery. that's probably the real solution here.I've never actually used the flame glove either, and i'd agree that most of the stuff you've listed is situational. IMHO early game armor (including heavy tactical vest/tritanium vest) is overpowered when you compare it to later armors. In my experience explosives don't need to be buffed at all, either. I'd agree with you on the stims, though i don't abuse them as much (mostly for fluff/immersion reasons). Why does the healing gel need to be buffed?
Long range weaponry seems better than pistols for a short amount of time but more importantly the long-range auto rifles tend to beat out the real long-range bolt/semi rifles by quite a bit, at least until auto-snipers and MGs. I've never really seen shotguns do great, I'd much rather use a shield+SMG for most close range, as I've taken entire bases with shield+SMG rookies. Maybe shotguns are more TU-reliant in terms of avoiding danger?I've never used shields or SMGs for close range. Either magnums+melee when i can't bring bigger guns or melee all the way in late game.
About the dodge, I just proposed it as a method of buffing player melee without enemy melee. Guess that's kinda the same as lowering enemy melee. I'm not sure if it's just because I don't reflex-train my soldiers much. I'm not sure I would prefer points in reflex over accuracy anyway though. Classic XCOM I guess.The only time i've found myself matched (or overmatched) was by Black Lotus Assassins and (sometimes) Red Dawn elite troops. Otherwise i've found the tritanium knife (or sword, if you can spare the space+TUs) to work extremely well. Get into melee range and you can almost always avoid damage if your agents are trained. This also works against aliens, especially in early game sectoid encounters. If you manage to blindside them they are practically helpless and asking to get shanked.
The pages on the UFOpaedia which describe, for example, a Red Dawn Grunt, show stats involving their armor. This might be difficult, but it would be neat if they showed more useful stats, like Reflexes.Not possible with the current mechanics, unless you enter them manually for every enemy. I don't think it's worth it.
I never tried to suggest buffing grenades/armor(?). I'd rather carry 1 stim + 3 grenades than 4 grenades, so I'm surprised no one uses stims, that's all. What you say is understandable.
5) Buff reactions/bravery melee (and slight melee in general), light armor, throwing (especially knives which seem much worse than stars), rats, dog armor, flashbangs (enemies outnumber you), civilians, lone madmen, dagon in general (so easy), bolt-actions, explosives[...]
DynamiteWhy?
What explosives do you feel need to be buffed, and why?
As for me, I'd like to see more types of scenarios, more missions for hunting down dossiers, more USEFUL artifacts and more complicated, interesting and logically righteous way for gathering coordinates of Cydonia:
1) Defeating Syndicate should give us clue how to find Cydonia.
2) Defeating Advent's Government (and researching at least one alien brain) should be necessary too.
3) MIB arc. Oh... There is endless way to use it's potential, which is useless now. Covert operations, outposts, labs, bases, unique techs, persons and artifacts... And the main base, of course, which should be captured for gathering another part of Cydonias's puzzle. ;)
Well, this one doesn't make much sense, as Syndicate wouldn't know anything about this.
I thought the same, but what if there are no infiltrations?
I can't find any mention in the lore about the Syndicate cooperating or having any prior knowledge about the aliens, yet alone a possible connection to Mars/Cydonia. As far as I can tell they are exclusively interested in 'uplifting'(?) humanity, genetic experimentation and causing chaos using monsters to further their goals. Even the Syndicate CEO isn't extraterrestial in origin, or modified using alien technology - it's an 'enhanced' human, modified by exotic chemicals.
Is there any information I'm missing concerning the Syndicate having connections to the aliens?
I'm not arguing about CURRENT lore. Read my previous post here about modified Syndicate's lore. It was olny a suggestion to creator of the mod.
Why not? Syndicate is subordinating to aliens, isn't it? Why not to make some mighty alien which commands all this structure from behind?
wasn't about current lore? Because to me it sounds like you're basing your suggestions around this. Again, I have been unable to substantiate any of this. I'm asking whether or not I've missed something while browsing the language file. Your suggestions only make sense if there's some established connection between the aliens and the syndicate, and as far as I can tell there isn't one. Their goal is connected to genetic modification and enhancement of of terrestial creatures. They are not in contact or subordinate to the aliens as far as I can tell.
Why not? Syndicate is subordinating to aliens, isn't it?
Basing on current mod's factions, the general chain of Cydonia's Puzzle, IMHO, should be look like this: http://prntscr.com/p2b365
Could it be really possible? I'm playing the 3rd campaign (0.9.9c, 0.9.9d and now 0.9.9e) in a row and every time the first infiltration was made at the end of January 1999. The second differs from February to April. If the chance of avoiding (aborting) infiltrations is currently exist now, so it should be decreased to zero due to necessity of researching of alien brain for Cydonia's quest ;)
We're in the spoiler territory
Well, sure it's possible, if you play too well. :)
Wouldn't be possible to make refueling faster? With 3-5 UFOs coming every hour it doesn't matter how many aircraft you have, you simply keep running out of fuel at those swarm days/weeks. (and ofc when you refuel some aircraft and send it to fight, you manage to find only battleship at that 40+ UFOs present at globus :'( )
Or better, make her recruitable as a high end agent. The old chinese master could be recruitable too.
Once I do something serious with UAC, I'll make these weapons a bit harder to get (excluding Cult of Apocalypse missions).
Ad. 2) UAC Rifle. I realize that most UAC weapons are a bit too good for their role. It's because the UAC arc doesn't exist yet, but the weapons are already the game. Once I do something serious with UAC, I'll make these weapons a bit harder to get (excluding Cult of Apocalypse missions).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the point of all the UAC weapons is that they're optimized for microgravity/vacuum use, yes? A brief readaround suggests to me that conventional ballistics would work fine for combat in such conditions as well.
My suggestion instead would probably be to do something funky with damage types, armour, and resistances, e.g. a UAC rifle does "GYROJET" damage that is very low normally, but all the space-based enemies have a weakness to GYROJET damage that makes it competitive or superior to regular KINETIC/etc. weapons.
It is generally true, but there are various additional considerations related to vacuum and 0-g which makes firing normal guns complicated. Besides, it's simply a design feature - not an ass pull by any means, but a simplification (like firing standard guns underwater is also impossible in XCF).
Sorry, but this is completely out of touch with physical reality. Bullets don't become magical in space.
So are handheld laser and plasma weapons depending on who you ask, because of things like the plasma projectile wanting to decohere and the energy consumption. Yet we accept them because they're common scifi and gameplay staples, and elements that already exist in the game.
Sure, one of the considerations for micrograv/vacuum combat is recoil, so you're probably going to use a lower-velocity round (so lower base damage) or one that can accelerate in-flight (hence gyrojet). It's probably going to be a relatively large and heavy round as well, which would limit capacity (but the UAC guns are largely already low-capacity, so that's covered). All in all, not great at punching through conventional body armour but fine for use in space against targets that are probably going to be quite lightly armoured.
Iunno, I'm mostly just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. I realize some of it is going to be a little "out there" or more game-vs-reality, but that's just a side-effect of differing design styles and mindsets. The only other stuff I can think of basically requires whole new engine features or extension of existing ones, and this isn't the place to ask for that.
Unless I'm mistaken, space missions appear late, so it's perfectly possible that by the time you do these, you have access to energy weapons, making the use of UAC weaponry redundant. Worse, so far space missions are limited in scope, no abandoned spaceships exploration yet, unlike Piratez.
I hope we get some of these missions at some point, it would be cool to explore a seemingly abandoned alien ship emitting a distress signal, only to stumble upon Xenomor- I mean Chrysalids.
Is it possible to add on this screen the whole existing locations (regions) in the game? Even those which have 'zero' missions by current soldier? Also, it would be nice to add special borders of each region on the globe. Since we have some significant commendations, which are depend on regional missions, such improvements could be very helpful.
Is it possible to add on this screen the whole existing locations (regions) in the game? Even those which have 'zero' missions by current soldier?
Also, it would be nice to add special borders of each region on the globe. Since we have some significant commendations, which are depend on regional missions, such improvements could be very helpful.
Do I look like an X-Com developer?
Almost to 1999 on my first campaign and I'm loving it so far, especially the Red Dawn.
Might it make sense to tie in the Red Dawn to the history of Posadism? Given that there was an actual communist ufo-worshiping death cult on Earth, drawing a link between the two could be a fun way to flesh out the setting.
It would be nice if the Female Red Ops unit had a detailed sprite with visible chest armour like the male sprite. This would make it obvious without research that the unit has elevated front armour, and make it even more clearly distinguished from the female Pioneer for new players.
Also, I'm confused by the UFOpedia entry for X-Com Bio-Enhancement. It mentions veterancy as being a requirement, so I assumed it was something you did to qualifying soldiers individually, like a transformation in XPiratez. But it doesn't seem to have unlocked anything like that, so is it some sort of passive effect, like a change to skill growth to all units? Or is it supposed to unlock a transformation menu and it's bugged/I'm missing it? I'm just not sure what it's actually doing for me.
Uh.. Any spriters here? Because this is would be a total redraw...
It requires Med Bay, which I haven't explained properly in the Ufopedia article. I guess you're missing this facility.
Mission "Syndicate Assassination". Please, make Council Commissionaire controllable by player, like you did with David Vincent.
No. It would be too trivial, not much of a mission at all.
So, do you like stupidness of civilians' AI?
I'm playing 0.9.9e.... i've recently managed to capture Cyber battleship, text said that Council took its command and moved it to dim X base to defend it. I thought thats end of Dim X missions, or at least end to some kinds, so i'm quite surprised that i'm still getting "defend Dim X base". It doesn't make much sense and i think that should be changed... unless Council lied about that battleship, everything is possible at X-COM files :D.
Everything is okay. After that you defend your base against common monsters of Dimension X, not Cyberweb. Just imagine, what would be if you didn't interrogate anthropod before and Dimension X arc closed forever?
But if say that... Start a new game with 1.0. There are much differences between 0.9 and 1.0. in global scenario. 0.9 left in the past... ;)
Well i can't remember interogating anthropod gave me anything...
Uh, i can't imagine start all over again... are you sure its worthy? Btw what difficulty should i start? Veteran was challenging a little bit at start, but quite fast it became very easy. I've played superhuman before, but that made some missions "first turn unsurviable" and i had incoming UFO every 30mins, so game was unplayable totally.
When you shoot down last guy, he goes down alive, bleeding...why is he counted as dead when battle ends? When someone is bleeding for 2 turns or more and battle ends, he is captured, isn't he?
When you shoot down last guy, he goes down alive, bleeding...why is he counted as dead when battle ends? When someone is bleeding for 2 turns or more and battle ends, he is captured, isn't he?
Is newest version playable?