OpenXcom Forum

Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: sedygrizly on September 05, 2019, 01:49:35 am

Title: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 05, 2019, 01:49:35 am
Hello guys. First of all, this mod is great, i've played FMP before, but didn't even got to that content yet :).

Its very long time since i've played X-COM, so i am not even sure how it was done in vanilla... anyway I have Dragonfly, and i have Medical drone.... but i have found no way how to assign drone to craft. If i recall correctly, standard HWP was assigned at equipment tab (or how is it called in eng version... that tab when you assign all weapons/ammo etc). But i can't find my drone there... what am i missing? I remember i used some kind of scouting drone at FMP, why do i have problem now rofl? :D I'm sure its obvious and that i'm retarded, anyway i've tried for half hour, so it's time to ask stupid questions... :D

And one side question, how am i doing? I'm playing Superhuman, end of May 1998, 2 bases, 15 scientists (and room for 25, waiting for new month to hire some), 5 engs, no money.. also i used to have more agents :D. Untill last month or two i was doing quite well i think at missions, but now i'm mostly getting tough missions like cult fortresses, defense of politic etc. I've managed to win fortress just once, runed away or get slaughtered at other tries. I've even invaded Black lotus sanctuary, got to hit "boss" few times...but failed, such missions are too tough for 6 soldiers :(. Even at cult hideouts (i've researched "operations" of two cults, so other two are still active) i'm getting serious losses sometimes, and with "easy missions" becoming rare last month, i ended up with terrible score and financial loss. When i've thought that i'm done, i've researched Dragonfly, so now i believe with proper craft with safe deployment and 2 extra soldiers i can take down fortresses reliably. But i would really love to get that drone to my missions.
EDIT: forgot to say, i'm at 2 ?stage?. I'm using black ops assault riffles currently.

I hope this first playthrough of mine is worthy continuing, i know invasion starts soon, but i believe that now i can loot fortresses to get enough money to get extra 50 scientists, and with that i'm hoping that i can prepare well. What do you think?

EDIT: Tried fortress mission with 8 guys.... lost 6, defeated 65 enemy to get.... huge pile of worthless junk. I guess i will have to do one or two each month to keep score, but other than that i will try to avoid all hard missions. Thanks to lack easy missions im running out of experienced guys...

I guess Superhuman is too hard with unknown tech tree. So many pointless researches, which seems good at first place. I will keep playing as logn as i can just to get to known tech tree, but after some time i will have to restart probably.
PS: nothings better then when you reseach high rank cultist to finally get "operations" research...and as a result you get another "we need better cheesseburgers" report from your base staff. (i guess i ran out of dossiers.)
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on September 05, 2019, 01:54:41 pm
But i can't find my drone there... what am i missing? I remember i used some kind of scouting drone at FMP, why do i have problem now rofl?

You should buy 'Basic AI Unit' first. When it will be delivered, equip it on your craft like a soldier and change its armour to medical drone.

And one side question, how am i doing?

Don't worry, play for your pleasure. I was quite in the same situation when I had my first walkthrough and I won (and feel myself very confident after victory with only 2 soldiers left on Cydonia's assault). I was on superhuman too (+ironman). I'll not spoil you all the upcoming fun, suprises and butthurt ;) but it is winnable, believe me. Just play 'safe game' and it will be all right.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 05, 2019, 02:18:18 pm
Ok, thanks :).

BTW any of you know some reliable stratagy for mission, when you are surrounded by 30+ enemies at landing? I know running is probably only possible strategy, just asking in case somebody thought of some superior tactic :).

With dragonfly I've decided to try ?hard fibers? factory. Classic first turn, kill one enemy, blast smoke grenade. After 10mins of shooting second turn starts with only one of my soldeirs slightly injurned. Tried classic, got all my crew out of dragonfly, killed around 8 enemies, survived next bullet storm somehow, but ofc in the end they swept me with grenades. 
So i tried getting only half of my crew out, using ramp as coverage. Conclusion...ramp is not a good coverage, and no help against grenades as well.
Another try, staying in dragonfly, hoping enemy would run out of ammo :D. Well maybe they would, but i've ran out of medical supplies much faster.

Not sure what else to try... i will just abort that mission and hope next time that idiot pilot won't land at factory front door.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on September 05, 2019, 02:54:09 pm
Ok, thanks :).

BTW any of you know some reliable stratagy for mission, when you are surrounded by 30+ enemies at landing? I know running is probably only possible strategy, just asking in case somebody thought of some superior tactic :).

Be wise to follow Gandalf's hint 'Run you, fools!'  :D This is like in Long War - you should decide what can you handle and what not.

Classic first turn, kill one enemy, blast smoke grenade.

Smokes are not so effective like in vanilla. They could be of some use only against humans, against aliens they are useless.
1) You should stay deeper in the smoke cloud to be cloaked (from 3 or more tiles from cloud's edge).
2) Remember, that many of enemy soldiers provide squadsight to their comrades so they can shoot you from the outside.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 05, 2019, 03:44:31 pm

Smokes are not so effective like in vanilla. They could be of some use only against humans, against aliens they are useless.
1) You should stay deeper in the smoke cloud to be cloaked (from 3 or more tiles from cloud's edge).
2) Remember, that many of enemy soldiers provide squadsight to their comrades so they can shoot you from the outside.

Oh, didn't know that. :O So i'm f*** when invasion starts :D. Definitely wont make it in my first run.
Y, i noticed that when you shoot enemy out of your sight, spotted by somebody else, accuracy is reduced to half... didn't think this was in vanilla, but could be wrong. I just hope it applies to enemy as well.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: TheCurse on September 05, 2019, 04:12:01 pm
Ok, thanks :).

BTW any of you know some reliable stratagy for mission, when you are surrounded by 30+ enemies at landing? I know running is probably only possible strategy, just asking in case somebody thought of some superior tactic :).

With dragonfly I've decided to try ?hard fibers? factory. Classic first turn, kill one enemy, blast smoke grenade. After 10mins of shooting second turn starts with only one of my soldeirs slightly injurned. Tried classic, got all my crew out of dragonfly, killed around 8 enemies, survived next bullet storm somehow, but ofc in the end they swept me with grenades. 
So i tried getting only half of my crew out, using ramp as coverage. Conclusion...ramp is not a good coverage, and no help against grenades as well.
Another try, staying in dragonfly, hoping enemy would run out of ammo :D. Well maybe they would, but i've ran out of medical supplies much faster.

Not sure what else to try... i will just abort that mission and hope next time that idiot pilot won't land at factory front door.

from my (little) experience, if you do that mission without alloy vests its gonna be a lot of wounded soldiers.
my pilots happen to prefer such landing spots as well.
Recommendation: use miniguns. and aim for people standing behind other people, so you´ll kill multiple per salvo.
doesn't help against grenades (they hit me hard too, especially since usually all my soldiers are standing close), but they can't throw nades if you kill them first...
throwing range is kinda insane though.
also a nice possibility: use incendary/napalm grenades. if someone is burning they panic and can't throw stuff at you ;)
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on September 05, 2019, 04:22:58 pm
Oh, didn't know that. :O So i'm f*** when invasion starts :D. Definitely wont make it in my first run.
Y, i noticed that when you shoot enemy out of your sight, spotted by somebody else, accuracy is reduced to half... didn't think this was in vanilla, but could be wrong. I just hope it applies to enemy as well.

Yes, it applies to enemy too. You need a very high accuracy and sniper rifle to shoot successfully with provided squadsight to you.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: tarkalak on September 11, 2019, 04:08:39 pm
Smoke has a certain value (that represents density) for each tile, that diminishes each turn. The higher the Smoke density the more line of sight is lost. Sadly, a tile with 1 and 100 smoke in it, will look exactly the same so it is hard to keep track of how much cover you have.

In the 8 vs 30 scenarios you can try nighttime. It is my favorite against the cults. It turns like the bug hunt missions where things get scary only when the cultists get close.

Unfortunately some of the higher tier units get better night vision. And with the Draginfly there are craft lights that illuminate the surroundings (except for the inside, under the craft and around the ramp) so you have to mind that.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Meridian on September 11, 2019, 07:17:51 pm
Sadly, a tile with 1 and 100 smoke in it, will look exactly the same so it is hard to keep track of how much cover you have.

The smoke density is between 1 and 15, not 1 and 100.

Also, it will not look exactly the same... there are 3 different visual representations of smoke (thin, normal and dense), 4 frames each, see: https://www.ufopaedia.org/images/c/cb/Smoke.gif
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 29, 2019, 07:27:53 pm
Sooo... is it normal to have 1000 (one thousand) UFOs at May 2000? Never ending swarms,  easy +136k month score, but pain in hand and melting mouse, was playing one month for three days lul. If this is normal, i don't see any reason why to keep playing, this isn't a game anymore. Swarms are still coming, no end to it... Ofc i don't have to shoot down every UFO, 99% is just fly overs, but if i don't reduce those swarms, i suppose there would be no way how to make it through to reach missions.  And i don't like the idea of skipping some part of game to make my brain survive it... The main idea at XCOM for me was perfoming without flaws, with patience, achieving best possible results. Not letting UFOs take over all skies...
Not mentioning i haven't seen battlescape for looong time, and i'm also kinda stuck at research. I believe that i how to progress, just if game allows me by not sending 30+ UFOs each day.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 29, 2019, 08:58:41 pm
Ok, i've tried ignoring all fighter ufos, going only for interesting ones. Ridiculous... in exact 24 hours i had 159 new UFOs incoming.  At every single one you have to check its mission, and confirm pop-up.  Ofc it is so easy to miss interesting UFos, i spotted science ship by chance when it landed, missed detection report for that one. (and thats only interesting ship I spotted that month, excluding battleships) And i expect numbers to increase, i had 1k UFOs last month, at this rate i'm going to have over 3k this month, can't imagine what numbers i will have next year. In miracle case that i will click through to the end of game, i really doubt that my LMB won't break in process.

I wanted to judge this mod after i play through it... but its pretty obvious now that for highest difficulty its terribly broken.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on September 30, 2019, 08:01:41 am
but its pretty obvious now that for highest difficulty its terribly broken.

Indeed. The mod is balanced for veteran difficulty. I've done the game on superhuman/ironman two times... And then tried to check it on veteran (last version)... Piece of cake in comparison with superhuman. :) Maybe it is okay when you are initially play on veteran, but after superhuman this looks like easy mode.
I'd recommend you to leave current campaign and wait for the release, which is coming soon. I heard that spam-rate of UFOs should be decreased there.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 30, 2019, 11:20:33 am
Indeed. The mod is balanced for veteran difficulty.

Wish somebody have told me that 3 weeks ago :/.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on September 30, 2019, 11:51:56 am
Maybe i will start new game at veteran difficult then... but first i want to ask whats recommended settings. I see that some settings are forced by mod, but there are still some interesting settings available to player. Like sneaky AI, alien retaliation, field promotions. Sneaky AI is really important one... i feel it is already modified by mod, becouse i can feel differences between humans and aliens sneakiness, but i can be wrong.

Same go for mods, its confusing.... i have enabled X-files only, but for example aliens still pick weapons, even when i don't have that enabled. It is cool, but i wonder what happens if i enable that, what that conflict will do. And at FMP i've played without psionics, becouse for experienced player it causes little trouble, but gives huge advantage at later game.  What happens if i disable in mods, will it work...and is it adviced to use it or not? Also i would like to activate Gun Melee.

Maybe i'm dumb, one would expect some Recomended settings to be available somewhere... but i didn't manage to find it.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on September 30, 2019, 12:19:31 pm
Wish somebody have told me that 3 weeks ago :/.

Initially, I didn't know about it too and begun a new game from superhuman (I though that it shouldn't be problematic after Final Mod Pack experience)... Well, my firs walkthrough was long, masochistic, buttheartiuos, but very fun :D The second one was pretty well while I knew all general features and tech tree.

Maybe i will start new game at veteran difficult then... but first i want to ask whats recommended settings. I see that some settings are forced by mod, but there are still some interesting settings available to player. Like sneaky AI, alien retaliation, field promotions. Sneaky AI is really important one... i feel it is already modified by mod, becouse i can feel differences between humans and aliens sneakiness, but i can be wrong.

Same go for mods, its confusing.... i have enabled X-files only, but for example aliens still pick weapons, even when i don't have that enabled. It is cool, but i wonder what happens if i enable that, what that conflict will do. And at FMP i've played without psionics, becouse for experienced player it causes little trouble, but gives huge advantage at later game.  What happens if i disable in mods, will it work...and is it adviced to use it or not? Also i would like to activate Gun Melee.

Maybe i'm dumb, one would expect some Recomended settings to be available somewhere... but i didn't manage to find it.

You guess right: many tweaks are included in this mod. You can use my file with options here from attachment (put it in 'user' folder). If you want detailed info about settings, just open it with 'Notepad++' editor and you will see there every parameter :) Anyway, this is not a recommended settings, it's an adjustment for my own preferences.

Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Solarius Scorch on September 30, 2019, 09:56:51 pm
Wish somebody have told me that 3 weeks ago :/.

This is the middle difficulty.
What the fuck did you people expect???
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on October 01, 2019, 01:50:08 pm
What the fuck did you people expect???

The closer release is, the angrier Sol becomes :D
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: JustTheDude/CABSHEP on October 01, 2019, 02:08:25 pm
This is the middle difficulty.
What the fuck did you people expect???

I can only guess that most of them played X-Com with beginner bug, so they all think that when they picked up superhuman, it was too easy, so the mod should behave as well.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on October 01, 2019, 02:10:18 pm
X-Com with beginner bug

What is it?
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Solarius Scorch on October 01, 2019, 08:56:12 pm
It used to be an issue in the original game. No matter which difficulty you chose, after the first mission it reverted to Beginner.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on October 02, 2019, 06:58:10 am
It used to be an issue in the original game. No matter which difficulty you chose, after the first mission it reverted to Beginner.

Funny :) I've never heard about it.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 02, 2019, 02:16:09 pm
This is the middle difficulty.
What the fuck did you people expect???

WTF lul? I've played FMP at superhuman, not vanilla.
And i certainly didn't expect clicking through 160+ UFO sightings report each day (later in game possibly way more). No idea what you don't get about that.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Solarius Scorch on October 03, 2019, 02:09:11 pm
WTF lul? I've played FMP at superhuman, not vanilla.
And i certainly didn't expect clicking through 160+ UFO sightings report each day (later in game possibly way more). No idea what you don't get about that.

I play pinballs at high difficulties. It doesn't really say much about X-Com Files.
The FMP is just expanded vanilla with very little changes to how it plays. You can't really make it much harder than vanilla, unless you make the enemies stupidly overpowered, which is neither good nor creative design. The XCF is a completely different game, with lots of new facets and mechanics, so it canmot be compared at all to vanilla.
What's hard to get?

Anyway, it was THE PLAYERS who convinced me to change the alien retaliation from X-Com base assault to air domination. They didn't like defending their base twice a month, and I agree.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on October 03, 2019, 02:45:35 pm
Anyway, it was THE PLAYERS who convinced me to change the alien retaliation from X-Com base assault to air domination. They didn't like defending their base twice a month, and I agree.

Is that means you will not reduce UFOs spam rate at late game stage?  :'(
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Ridаn on October 03, 2019, 03:18:47 pm
Is that means you will not reduce UFOs spam rate at late game stage?  :'(
Ctrl+click will ignore consequitive UFO pop-ups.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Meridian on October 03, 2019, 03:51:54 pm
Ctrl+click will ignore consequitive UFO pop-ups.

To correct your statement a little bit: "Ctrl+click will ignore consecutive pop-ups of the same UFO. It doesn't affect any other/future UFOs".

In XCF, this option makes no difference, since you start with HQ that has global range and it is not possible to lose track of an already detected UFO.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 03, 2019, 05:28:53 pm
I play pinballs at high difficulties. It doesn't really say much about X-Com Files.
The FMP is just expanded vanilla with very little changes to how it plays. You can't really make it much harder than vanilla, unless you make the enemies stupidly overpowered, which is neither good nor creative design. The XCF is a completely different game, with lots of new facets and mechanics, so it canmot be compared at all to vanilla.
What's hard to get?

Anyway, it was THE PLAYERS who convinced me to change the alien retaliation from X-Com base assault to air domination. They didn't like defending their base twice a month, and I agree.

About difficulty it was answer mostly to JustTheDude, who was kinda suggesting we are noobs etc... without getting what are we complaining about.

I have no problem with player base air blockade, i even like the idea. Problem is that at superhuman difficulty it turns into player SCREEN blockade, at thats just wrong.

Is it possible to adjust it somehow? Ok, if you send less UFOs, it decrease difficulty... so what about instead of sending 150 small harmless fighters send like 50 medium fighters? Medium fighters damaged my Storms in like 50% of fights, caused many hours or even day of repairs. Or few more battleships, in general send less but stronger UFOs? That small harmless fighters is also kinda pointless, its just req huge missiles managment, becouse it requires too much storage, so you have to keep rebuying like crazy (if you use those when swarms starts ofc, but with missles your craft is invincible to small fighters, so only refuelling/reloading time limits you.).

I just pointed out that superhuman difficulty is broken to almost unplayable state, so i was quite surprised by angry reactions i received...


Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: X-Man on October 03, 2019, 06:11:56 pm
Ctrl+click will ignore consequitive UFO pop-ups.

Thanks! A useful feature indeed.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Meridian on October 03, 2019, 06:32:25 pm
Thanks! A useful feature indeed.

As I described one post below the original post, in XcomFiles this feature does nothing.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Solarius Scorch on October 03, 2019, 07:46:47 pm
Is it possible to adjust it somehow? Ok, if you send less UFOs, it decrease difficulty... so what about instead of sending 150 small harmless fighters send like 50 medium fighters?

Is it really that many? That mission only has 12 UFOs. Understandably these can pile up if you shoot down many UFOs...

I just pointed out that superhuman difficulty is broken to almost unplayable state, so i was quite surprised by angry reactions i received...

Sorry, but this wasn't clear to me at all. Only now I understand the issue.

I'll think about it, but can you please attach a save with an example? I want to see how many UFOs there are and where they came from.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 03, 2019, 08:24:18 pm
I wasn't exaggerating. I checked clock, started count UFO sighting reports, stopped counting after exact 24 hours. 159 reports. Sending my save after that test when i abondonded the game. 99,9% of them are ?alien  flew over? mission.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 08, 2019, 10:52:17 am
So alien assault on your base is now rare or totally out of game? Good to know if i should be aware of my base layout and build defence etc.

Btw what about that ufo spam...is it normal, bug, thing to change or...?
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: JustTheDude/CABSHEP on October 08, 2019, 11:33:36 am
So alien assault on your base is now rare or totally out of game? Good to know if i should be aware of my base layout and build defence etc.

Btw what about that ufo spam...is it normal, bug, thing to change or...?

Literally check first page of this thread.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 08, 2019, 02:53:18 pm
Literally check first page of this thread.

Nothing at first page, maybe you mean second. Which is why i asked. Or i missed something, happens.

BTW do you write some not offensive posts sometimes too?
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: JustTheDude/CABSHEP on October 08, 2019, 04:31:30 pm
Nothing at first page, maybe you mean second. Which is why i asked. Or i missed something, happens.

BTW do you write some not offensive posts sometimes too?

Please, don't hurt me! *defensive stance*

"Sooo... is it normal to have 1000 (one thousand) UFOs at May 2000?" First page question. Answer on Second page.

Don't play Superhuman, or be build an Ark as the world will be caught in UFO flood not for 40 days and nights, but for eternity.

Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 08, 2019, 05:37:11 pm
Please, don't hurt me! *defensive stance*

"Sooo... is it normal to have 1000 (one thousand) UFOs at May 2000?" First page question. Answer on Second page.

Don't play Superhuman, or be build an Ark as the world will be caught in UFO flood not for 40 days and nights, but for eternity.

Cool. But now i'm not asking about UFO flood, i'm asking about base assault.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: Solarius Scorch on October 08, 2019, 07:00:16 pm
Base assaults are rarer, but they definitely still happen.
Title: Re: Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.
Post by: sedygrizly on October 08, 2019, 07:06:31 pm
Base assaults are rarer, but they definitely still happen.

Big thanks man.