OpenXcom Forum

OpenXcom => Offtopic => Topic started by: michal on June 06, 2010, 11:39:59 am

Title: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: michal on June 06, 2010, 11:39:59 am
Hello,

What do you think about this game? Clearly, it isn't as popular as x-com 1&2 - for example no one is trying to remake it.

In my opinion, it was pretty nice game, it had nice features (equipping aircrafts with shields, engines, etc). Also factions was interesting idea.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: luciderous on June 06, 2010, 12:51:49 pm
The game was so-so. Yes, it had many improvements, like polished character stats (+medals, etc), better R&D whatever. But the problem is - it did lose the "magic" of the previous two installments altogether. It is hard to distinguish what to blame in particular - the lack of globe, or distasteful art style, or maybe the aliens that were just too "alien" to my liking in their representation and thus uninspiring - I don't know. Perhaps all those little failures together piled up to what we received as a result.
Anyway, the aforementioned "wow" magic was missing. And that was a good lesson for all "improve-that" devs - don't try to fix what ain't broken. Actually, the only two spiritual X-COM sequels I can almost tolerate today are UFO:Afterlight and UFO:Extraterrestrials. Both with their own pitfalls of course, but that is completely another story.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: SupSuper on June 12, 2010, 06:20:42 pm
X-Com Apocalypse is interesting and does have a bunch of nice features like the improved battlescape and faction relations and closer cityscape view, but a lot of those things just made it harder for you (pretty easy to get anyone pissed at you) and the bland pre-rendered art style went a long way into making the game lose its charm and feel a lot more boring.

Also I haven't seen anyone try to remake X-Com 2 either so I think fans are just purists. :P
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on June 12, 2010, 07:07:46 pm
The thing that also affected how much I played it was the immense difficulty.

I remember the first mission, coming across a multiworm, after killing it, and instantly under attack from 4 hyperworms, I was pretty stuffed. At least in your first XCOM (1&2) missions you only had 1 or 2 aliens to deal with.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: luciderous on June 12, 2010, 08:17:16 pm
Also I haven't seen anyone try to remake X-Com 2 either so I think fans are just purists. :P

BTW, I loved X-COM 2 a lot better than the first part - it was more balanced (no infinite laser weapons), more polished and the overall atmosphere was a lot more creepy. Thus I really hope that in time OpenXCOM will make it possible to play TFTD as well - the engine should be mostly the same anyway. Well, I keep my fingers crossed  ;)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: SupSuper on June 13, 2010, 12:59:25 am
Also I haven't seen anyone try to remake X-Com 2 either so I think fans are just purists. :P

BTW, I loved X-COM 2 a lot better than the first part - it was more balanced (no infinite laser weapons), more polished and the overall atmosphere was a lot more creepy. Thus I really hope that in time OpenXCOM will make it possible to play TFTD as well - the engine should be mostly the same anyway. Well, I keep my fingers crossed  ;)
I already mentioned this elsewhere, but X-COM 1 and 2 are virtually the same so supporting both eventually shouldn't be too hard (also I imagine it'd be a lot more popular without bugs and being able to tweak the extreme difficulty). :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on June 13, 2010, 02:03:29 am
Clearly, it isn't as popular as x-com 1&2 - for example no one is trying to remake it.

You know, that sounds like a challenge. If I've not thought of my next project after finishing Cyborg Cop. I might look into this!
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: hsbckb on August 01, 2010, 04:17:34 am
My crazy idea is to remake XCOM 3 and make it similar to XCOM 1. The game will have geoscape of the Earth or Mars.
We can tell different stories at the same period of the third game in the same universe.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: battlesquid on August 01, 2010, 11:09:11 am
The thing that also affected how much I played it was the immense difficulty.

I remember the first mission, coming across a multiworm, after killing it, and instantly under attack from 4 hyperworms, I was pretty stuffed. At least in your first XCOM (1&2) missions you only had 1 or 2 aliens to deal with.

I feel that's the same "uh-oh" first impression you'd get from zombies/drones in xcom 1/2. The hyperworms are very hard the first few games, then you learn keep some agent with explosives and enough TUs close by at all times in tactical missions. I usually set up groups of three or so in that game, whereas in xcom 1/2 i usually went with groups of two.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: battlesquid on August 01, 2010, 11:40:31 am
My crazy idea is to remake XCOM 3 and make it similar to XCOM 1. The game will have geoscape of the Earth or Mars.
We can tell different stories at the same period of the third game in the same universe.

That sounds very fun! The plan for OpenXcom could be to implement XCOM in sequence 1,2,3. Of course, XCOM3 would have to be totally different from what it is today. Here's some of the challenges
There are more challenges I'm sure, but I haven't been playing XCOM3 for a while.

Heres some thoughts of how XCOM3 can be compromised into OpenXcom XCOM1/2 style of game:

Like I said in my crazy-idea-post earlier, I'd like to see XCOM3 features incorporated too. But I think we'll have to be patient. It could be mostly data-changes (like new research tree, etc). Graphics can be produced, but takes a lot of time to get decent set of good quality sprites (eg. every unit has to be made in 5 facings; front, back, side and diagonal front/back). Not to mention the "boring stuff" like walls, roofs, floors, etc.

Anyway, there's so much graphics that would have to be produced in order to do it, so it's IMHO somewhat unlikely this will happen in a long time, if ever...
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: battlesquid on August 01, 2010, 11:45:47 am
BTW, I loved X-COM 2 a lot better than the first part - it was more balanced (no infinite laser weapons), more polished and the overall atmosphere was a lot more creepy. Thus I really hope that in time OpenXCOM will make it possible to play TFTD as well - the engine should be mostly the same anyway. Well, I keep my fingers crossed  ;)

Yeah, like you could have guessed from my avatar I think TFTD rocks so I hope so too! Would be nice to play a bug free TFTD. I still have to go between the game and utilities to repair bugs sometimes, and admit I frequent this page https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TRTBAG (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TRTBAG)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on August 01, 2010, 09:44:52 pm
I've been giving it a quick run-through again. Here's a few things I think made the game awkward:

That last one might be a bit nit-picky, but I couldn't remember how you did it and didn't have the manual to hand.

Speed is definately an issue though IMO (generally in relation to tactical mode). I think this combined with the more intense searching makes the game feel long winded.

If I were doing a remake, I'd set (or at least have an option) to prevent brainsuckers from hatching the same turn they were launched.

Heres some thoughts of how XCOM3 can be compromised into OpenXcom XCOM1/2 style of game:
  • Use the geoscape globe, but make large wastelands cover most of the globe. Allow building new bases only in the habitable zones?
The only way I could see of pulling that one off, is making it a two-tier geoscape.

Tier 1: Globe - Same as UFO/TFTD; All megacities (or whatever they were called) show as the base markers from UFO/TFTD. Clicking on one goes to Tier 2.
Tier 2: Cityscape - Same as Apoc. When launching vehicles, you see them ala Apoc, once they reach the border of the city they technically transfer to the Tier 1 map

Each tier has a their own set of time controls (T1: 5m, 30m, 1h, 1d, T2: 0.5s, 5s, 10s, 1m, 5m). This gives you the fine level of control when battling UFOs in cityscape, but allows you to pull back when nothing much but research is going on.

You could also generate a "cityscape" of the wilderness should you send craft to intercept UFOs in the Globe view.

I wish I didn't have so many projects I wanted to work on, I could actually do one of them  ;)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: battlesquid on August 07, 2010, 10:33:20 pm
I too wish a week would have 14 days so I could have time to live my life on 7 of them, and sped 7 to do all kinds of programming projects of my dreams...

Yeah, one of the main grievances of this game is the lengthy searches. Though I'm playing TFTD now and frankly the searching can be quite exhausting in certain missions there too. Like the shipping route attacks for instance.

I agree that gameplay options are good, like in JA2 where you can set some options like "realistic/tons of weapons" and so on.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: hellblade on January 12, 2011, 07:02:09 pm
This is a must-reply-posts for any x-com fan in my opinion,  ;D

The game was great fun actually.  You just have to forget about X-Com1&2.

You can enjoy the game by ...
1. Ignore fighting missions against aliens because they were boring and the graphics are terrible
2. Ignore the terrible turn-based combat and play real-time instead

So if you want to enjoy it, just kill humans parties instead.  Whether it's massive geoscape wars or massive battlescape firefights.

The most-fun way to play the game for me was ...
1. Carpet bombing from above
V-line of flying soldiers dropping grenades & incendiaries down every square they pass.   Creates spectacular visuals.
2. Have a Crawling row, crouching row, and standing row of soldiers
Each equipped with autocannons (incendiary/explosive) ammos in one hand and machine gun in the other.
Turn soldiers to auto-shots so they miss most of the time.
3.  Let the fire!!!

Trust me, it creates stunning visuals and plenty of adrenaline.

BTW, the computer starting having carpet bombers of their own after a while - proof that it's evolutionary AI DOES exit.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: alienjon on March 05, 2011, 07:38:36 pm
I think Apoc lost some appeal because it was hard to relate to.  In the first two we were fighting on Earth in the 'present' and near future.  The overarching story wasn't all that strong though, IMO, so when Apoc came into the picture and the whole planet is essentially unlivable I think it's a hard concept to jump to after doing planet-wide protection.  I think I would have rather (or maybe expected) the series to go into more of a: "when humans develop the ability to travel to distant solar systems the come across the origins of the Cydonia aliens and engage them from that vantage point."  X-Com 3 was almost a hokey concoction of Mad Max meets Sim City.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Daiky on May 28, 2011, 12:46:39 am
Ok, I now have played it too.... and even though it has good ideas in it. There are lots of things that makes it not so enjoyable as x-com 1&2

The game was great fun actually.  You just have to forget about X-Com1&2.


Ok, that last one is actually the hardest part :)

I think the posts of pmprog and alienjon describe the same feeling I have about apoc.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: hellblade on May 28, 2011, 05:05:24 pm
too true, but there are core ideas that aimed to improve & expand X-Com1&2 were on the right track

1) expand geoscape to allow multiple craft battles, not just 1 ufo against 4 x-com crafts
2) expand battlescape to allow multiple craft to enter the same battle
3) expand battlescape width depth and height
4) perfecting the transfer and buy&sell screens
5) saving equipment according to soldiers and not crafts

4&5 we already have in openxcom.  And for 1, just imagine that multiple ufos battle multiple crafts at the same time.  It could be 2d with just diagrams, something like the radar in Independence Day.
And if our battlescape was large enough.  We could incorporate large city maps (both xcom1&2 tiles) and have terror missions featuring 2 ufos.  Like a Terror Ship and Battleship attacking the same city.  And we could deploy more than 1 craft.

The programming should not be hard ... nevermind, I'm dreaming too much, lol
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on June 02, 2011, 07:42:34 am
I also love the original X-Com: Enemy Unknown, but X-Com 3: Apocalypse was great ! As said previously, you just have to turn on the realtime combat and play. For me it qualifies as a full X-Com game.

What do you all think of the UFO After-series? I hated Afterlight for two reasons:
1) The entire game is on a time limit
2) Cartoony graphics (compared to Aftershock)
I take Aftermath as a average game, due the biomass crap and also the game going from extremely easy in the first half, to almost unplayable in the second (rather slowly, starting with special story missions)
Hovewer, there has been a mod (I've played it like before 4 years) that changed Aftermath into X-Com: Enemy Unknown (no, I do not mean UFO: Extraterrestrials or any other game ..), with fully 3D rendered Etherals (with capes, wohooo) and stuff with superhuman difficulty (lets say you are a band of survivors with several pistols,rifles and steel pipes, and an army of sectoids, floaters etc with plasma guns and blaster launchers is standing against you ..... let's just say you will have alot of casualties). I will maybe post a link to this mod if is somebody interested (and if I can find it)

And the best UFO strategic game in my opinion? UFO AFTERSHOCK WITH TONS OF MODS.
Seriously, the graphics are great, everything is allright, paced right ... used mods to add alot of real-life weapons and many sci-fi ones etc .... the only thing that bothered me was psionics (useless in Aftershock) and the guy doing Weapon Rebalance mod (that rebalanced absolutely everything including making better wargots and solving some bugs and glitches) stopped doing it, and the next thing in his list to do in his new version was to make better psionics, psionics weapons, etc. Dammit. The Shock game didn't have as many patches (Math had 1.4 ; Light had 1.5 + 1.6 official fanbased but Shock has only 1.2) as the original creators wanted to make it really like UFO:Defense, having sooo much things in it, but they got bankrupt :-(  because of that.

So my favorite UFO games:
1) UFO: Aftershock
2) UFO: Defense (X-Com: Enemy Unknown)
3) X-Com: Apocalypse
4) UFO: Aftermath and Afterlight (both had their faults)
[I haven't played Extraterrestrials or any of the spin off games like Interceptor and Alliance]

And now the main reason Afterlight sucked - NO CUSTOM NAMES WHATSOEVER !
Among other things like fairly limited soldier pool etc, etc.
The main reason why Aftershock sucked for most people - Extremely glitchy and crashy, could crash anytime, even the most up-to-date version had bugs that could randomly prevent finishing the game (the mothership bug, the starghost bug, the acces item by raiding a cultist temple bug) ...
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: hellblade on June 02, 2011, 07:16:36 pm
rofl, be careful ranking anything without X-Com1 on the top.  You might get skinned alive ... here or in other websites.

As for me, I believe everybody has different opinions because people are just different so nobody's right or wrong.   For me, the atmosphere in the new series was just not as engaging as the original.

I keep saying to people, nobody makes games with their hearts poured into the design anymore.  Games like Baldur's Gate2 is like a piece of artwork.  Games like Dragon Age is obviously made for money making.  Even WoW is no where as perfect as older Blizzard games, because it's been designed with a different purpose.  What else da ya expect?

And if you scrutinize X-Com like you scrutinize artwork, there's really not much you can complain about it.  For example, look at the "countries" in X-Com2.  The designers predicted the European Union years ahead of it's time!  They predicted that Taiwan would never reunite with China before 2039, and it looks to be true!  It's all these little bits that makes an observer (of an artwork) appreciate and indulge in the game completely.  It's like reading a Crichton novel - you know it's science fiction, but damn does it feel like it's real.

And what we strive to do here?  This is artwork.  It's restoring lost art because the owners (2000 Mxxxn) are uncultured swine.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on June 02, 2011, 10:23:09 pm
rofl, be careful ranking anything without X-Com1 on the top.  You might get skinned alive ... here or in other websites.

As for me, I believe everybody has different opinions because people are just different so nobody's right or wrong.   For me, the atmosphere in the new series was just not as engaging as the original.

I keep saying to people, nobody makes games with their hearts poured into the design anymore.  Games like Baldur's Gate2 is like a piece of artwork.  Games like Dragon Age is obviously made for money making.  Even WoW is no where as perfect as older Blizzard games, because it's been designed with a different purpose.  What else da ya expect?

And if you scrutinize X-Com like you scrutinize artwork, there's really not much you can complain about it.  For example, look at the "countries" in X-Com2.  The designers predicted the European Union years ahead of it's time!  They predicted that Taiwan would never reunite with China before 2039, and it looks to be true!  It's all these little bits that makes an observer (of an artwork) appreciate and indulge in the game completely.  It's like reading a Crichton novel - you know it's science fiction, but damn does it feel like it's real.

And what we strive to do here?  This is artwork.  It's restoring lost art because the owners (2000 Mxxxn) are uncultured swine.

Yeah the reason X-Com 1 wasn't on top of my list was probably the AI, pathing of units, and so much losing soldiers. I like having one set of soldiers, which I level up, the entire game and that was really hard to do with X-Com 1 ... I don't mind some casualties, but it was soo random in X-Com 1 .., like when my soldier misses at point black range (I thought it was impossible beforehand) and friendly fire shoots other guy standing beside the alien (WTF ... I was soo sure it wasn't possible in the game engine, LOL)

You just need not to compare the atmospheres of X-Com and Ufo: AFterseries ... Afterseries was like your group being equal to aliens, and fighting them equally, resisting .... but X-Com was full of despair and fear of unknown ... you must not compare them to enjoy them both !!!

Also loved bullet time in Afterseries ... being able to watch the action but still be able to think about everything thrice before doing so and give commands.

The Baldurs Gate series was really great, like the other Infinity games (Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment) and Neverwinter Nights series, Fallout 1+2, The Fall, Earth 2150: The Moon Project (a strategy, LOL), Fallout Online: 2238 (nice MMO game, check my youtube channel for my LP of it - browse youtube for Templayer FOnline ) Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil, Jagged Alliance ... so many good games out there ! I'm going to LP them all !

Dragon Age 1 was rather good, but it was limited compared to BG, and the options were like Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral .... nothing else :-( , I wished for DA 2 to be less limited, but instead they limited it even more and now it sucks a**.

Anyway, I enjoy such conversation, I like to share my gourman opinion, and to read the opinions of others (if they aren't like "YOu suck, the game <insert game name here> is tha best !!")
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Daiky on June 02, 2011, 11:20:46 pm
Yeah the reason X-Com 1 wasn't on top of my list was probably the AI, pathing of units, and so much losing soldiers. I like having one set of soldiers, which I level up, the entire game and that was really hard to do with X-Com 1 ... I don't mind some casualties, but it was soo random in X-Com 1 .., like when my soldier misses at point black range (I thought it was impossible beforehand) and friendly fire shoots other guy standing beside the alien (WTF ... I was soo sure it wasn't possible in the game engine, LOL)
Maybe OpenXCom will become top of your list then, because the annoying "bugs" you name there are solved in OpenXCom. :p
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on June 03, 2011, 06:41:12 am
Maybe OpenXCom will become top of your list then, because the annoying "bugs" you name there are solved in OpenXCom. :p

THATS THE REASON WHY I AM HERE, LoL ! :D

Anyway, check my AMV fan video called A Tribute to Enemy Unknown (HD AMV) !
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Istrebitel on August 02, 2011, 12:43:35 pm
Apocalypse was very good game idea that lacked polish/balance.

The game had very interesting cityscape fighting.
Very interesting battlescape fighting.
Very interesting item progression (with stealth fields, energy shields, teleporters, and personal anti-alien weapons...)

What it lacked - simply balance

* Organisations got pissed very easilly, coupled with that you can ONLY get crucial wares from ONE organisation (only transtellar will transport your items and personell, only megapol will sell you heavy armor, only marsec will sell you light armor, only nutrivend will sell you medikits...) this made it really annoying to fight aliens in cityscape. You basically could not afford to fight them after certain time into the game, unless you start by expanding to max engineer count and start mass manufacturing for profit to fuel your bribes. Boring, annoying, and stupid
* Organisations relationships were flawed in that "enemy of my enemy if my friend" made the city very soon turn into two big alliances. At start only some organisations are at war, but then they start liking other orgs that harm their enemies, and so on and so forth and then the whole city is divided. Problem is ALIENS also are an organisation. What this means is that the more aliens deal damage to the city, the more organisations hating those who receive damage start LIKING aliens. I had both megapol and government allied with aliens just because overspawn seriously pwned their opponent's buildings. THat was insane!
* Weapon balance at start was comparable to X-Com1 where you also use select one or two type of guns with addition of some heavy weaponry perhaps, but was very annoying because of limited clip supply - you had to stock worser weapons just because your favorite's ammo supply was out
* Weapon balance later was too screwed by the allmighty toxigun, which only came in one variety. At least they could have made it in a sniper variant in addition to the minigun variant (that looks like pistol but fires faster than marsec minigun!...)
* Excessive use of explosives by aliens freqeuntly dictated the squad tactics. Since aliens liked to throw grenades right in your face, corner ambushes and close quarters combat in general meant you will get close to no loot from a battle - since one unlucky grenade will screw everything. This also meant you couldnt afford to have those rockets hit walls - had to lure and even take the hit instead to save loot (!).
* Alien item progression was not balanced. The idea of score making aliens bring new items was good, but the idea of speeding it up on superhuman made aliens go almost instantly from devastator through shield, stealth, vortex to entropy. Which wouldnt be a problem if entropy wouldnt be completely negated by shields. This meant that if you're lucky to research shields before they get it - its easy, if not - its insanely hard.
* Shields overall made your squad nearly invincible and changed tactics considerably. Carrying two shields and throwing away one in case its almost depleted meant you could withstand even rocket fire. From the moment you got shields no soldiers never had hit point loss till probably last game missions.
* Personal teleporters were so imbalanced it allowed you to finish all alien buildings in one real life hour. Aliens were completely not using them to their advantage, and you could just destroy aliens by having more than one on person and doing blink-in and blink-out.
* Money balance was also screwed - in the beginning you have very hard time affording anything, and once you researched biotransport you have like infinite money. Its not even remotely comparable to laser canons of X-Com1 - this was just insane amount of money, enough for you to start bribing whole city to be allied to you.

Overall, the game idea, engine, variety of items, storyline, idea of having 10 distinct endgame missions was great. Balance was not. It could easilly be fixed, and attempts were made, but nothing could fix the endgame where you just dominated aliens like crazy (their toughest unit could go down from toxin c without a single shot done by it - compare it to fucking superhuman sectopods...)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on August 02, 2011, 01:09:56 pm
Apocalypse was very good game idea that lacked polish/balance.

The game had very interesting cityscape fighting.
Very interesting battlescape fighting.
Very interesting item progression (with stealth fields, energy shields, teleporters, and personal anti-alien weapons...)

What it lacked - simply balance

* Organisations got pissed very easilly, coupled with that you can ONLY get crucial wares from ONE organisation (only transtellar will transport your items and personell, only megapol will sell you heavy armor, only marsec will sell you light armor, only nutrivend will sell you medikits...) this made it really annoying to fight aliens in cityscape. You basically could not afford to fight them after certain time into the game, unless you start by expanding to max engineer count and start mass manufacturing for profit to fuel your bribes. Boring, annoying, and stupid
* Organisations relationships were flawed in that "enemy of my enemy if my friend" made the city very soon turn into two big alliances. At start only some organisations are at war, but then they start liking other orgs that harm their enemies, and so on and so forth and then the whole city is divided. Problem is ALIENS also are an organisation. What this means is that the more aliens deal damage to the city, the more organisations hating those who receive damage start LIKING aliens. I had both megapol and government allied with aliens just because overspawn seriously pwned their opponent's buildings. THat was insane!
* Weapon balance at start was comparable to X-Com1 where you also use select one or two type of guns with addition of some heavy weaponry perhaps, but was very annoying because of limited clip supply - you had to stock worser weapons just because your favorite's ammo supply was out
* Weapon balance later was too screwed by the allmighty toxigun, which only came in one variety. At least they could have made it in a sniper variant in addition to the minigun variant (that looks like pistol but fires faster than marsec minigun!...)
* Excessive use of explosives by aliens freqeuntly dictated the squad tactics. Since aliens liked to throw grenades right in your face, corner ambushes and close quarters combat in general meant you will get close to no loot from a battle - since one unlucky grenade will screw everything. This also meant you couldnt afford to have those rockets hit walls - had to lure and even take the hit instead to save loot (!).
* Alien item progression was not balanced. The idea of score making aliens bring new items was good, but the idea of speeding it up on superhuman made aliens go almost instantly from devastator through shield, stealth, vortex to entropy. Which wouldnt be a problem if entropy wouldnt be completely negated by shields. This meant that if you're lucky to research shields before they get it - its easy, if not - its insanely hard.
* Shields overall made your squad nearly invincible and changed tactics considerably. Carrying two shields and throwing away one in case its almost depleted meant you could withstand even rocket fire. From the moment you got shields no soldiers never had hit point loss till probably last game missions.
* Personal teleporters were so imbalanced it allowed you to finish all alien buildings in one real life hour. Aliens were completely not using them to their advantage, and you could just destroy aliens by having more than one on person and doing blink-in and blink-out.
* Money balance was also screwed - in the beginning you have very hard time affording anything, and once you researched biotransport you have like infinite money. Its not even remotely comparable to laser canons of X-Com1 - this was just insane amount of money, enough for you to start bribing whole city to be allied to you.

Overall, the game idea, engine, variety of items, storyline, idea of having 10 distinct endgame missions was great. Balance was not. It could easilly be fixed, and attempts were made, but nothing could fix the endgame where you just dominated aliens like crazy (their toughest unit could go down from toxin c without a single shot done by it - compare it to fucking superhuman sectopods...)

Yeah, the X-Com: Apocalypse did need alot of polishing (very much as UFO: Aftershock, which had bugs that could cause you to start all over again, the entire game), but as you said, it is still a nice game. I think it is because they lost alot of time doing a new engine (instead of using the one from the first and second game) and so they couldn't balance alot of things. Isn't there a mod around which rebalances, and "polishes" the game? On strategycore ? Should I PM you a link if I find one ?
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 18, 2014, 08:33:18 am
hi..sorry for resurrecting the post!..i totally agree with you...apoc is a nice game and need and they needed a little of polish and care...i dont like that style they took...and dont misunderstood i love that "OPTIMISTIC RETRO-FUTURE" of the fallout saga(one of my fav game beside xcom) but here...is i dont know...silly...or dumbest i dont know how to explain it...the more lacking thing i found...was variability...only three armors(i love the "individual part system" tho)some little weapons,and the best weapon in the game is just a overpowered small sidegun,and a couple of aliens are not good enough :c


* Organisations relationships were flawed in that "enemy of my enemy if my friend" made the city very soon turn into two big alliances. At start only some organisations are at war, but then they start liking other orgs that harm their enemies, and so on and so forth and then the whole city is divided. Problem is ALIENS also are an organisation. What this means is that the more aliens deal damage to the city, the more organisations hating those who receive damage start LIKING aliens. I had both megapol and government allied with aliens just because overspawn seriously pwned their opponent's buildings. THat was insane!...

uhmm i dont think this is correct...actually the organisations becomes hostiles from aliens  (i get the cult of sirius FRIENDLY because a crazy overspawn come there a destroy two of their temples  :o )


i love the fact that suckers come so early...i mean...the first time i was like...ohhh loook thas pretty little harmless blue aliens :3...i guess they are  the ol' floaters chumps of this game.....wait....oh dear ....

well if anyone want to play it...i have it right now i guess someones had problems running in dosbox(i did :c) but i have a original copie(a cd-rom i mean) so a good friend was tired i call her every time i want to run the game so we took the cd,make a ISO(actually is a bin archive) so she create a CONF  archive and a couple of dll((grabing a little of help from the good google)and make a "unpack and run" folder for me (you dont need to do anything,even doosbox...just unpack and run it...without pain...headache..just click and play xD) ,i can upload it here for you and also a couple of good mods that makes the game much more playable,if you want to try it(i  read the game  become freeware a couple of years ago...and also i buyed(actually my older brother did it) a original copy not so long time ago so i think this is legal right?)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on March 18, 2014, 02:45:38 pm
i can upload it here for you and also a couple of good mods that makes the game much more playable,if you want to try it(i  read the game  become freeware a couple of years ago...and also i buyed(actually my older brother did it) a original copy not so long time ago so i think this is legal right?)
You are mistaken. XCOM Apoc is not freeware, and uploading it would be breaking copyright laws
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on March 18, 2014, 03:20:01 pm
You are mistaken. XCOM Apoc is not freeware, and uploading it would be breaking copyright laws

X-Com Apocalypse itself is not, but he can upload the launcher he made with his friend freely, same goes for the mods.

hi..sorry for resurrecting the post!..i totally agree with you...apoc is a nice game and need and they needed a little of polish and care...i dont like that style they took...and dont misunderstood i love that "OPTIMISTIC RETRO-FUTURE" of the fallout saga(one of my fav game beside xcom) but here...is i dont know...silly...or dumbest i dont know how to explain it...the more lacking thing i found...was variability...only three armors(i love the "individual part system" tho)some little weapons,and the best weapon in the game is just a overpowered small sidegun,and a couple of aliens are not good enough :c


* Organisations relationships were flawed in that "enemy of my enemy if my friend" made the city very soon turn into two big alliances. At start only some organisations are at war, but then they start liking other orgs that harm their enemies, and so on and so forth and then the whole city is divided. Problem is ALIENS also are an organisation. What this means is that the more aliens deal damage to the city, the more organisations hating those who receive damage start LIKING aliens. I had both megapol and government allied with aliens just because overspawn seriously pwned their opponent's buildings. THat was insane!...

uhmm i dont think this is correct...actually the organisations becomes hostiles from aliens  (i get the cult of sirius FRIENDLY because a crazy overspawn come there a destroy two of their temples  :o )


i love the fact that suckers come so early...i mean...the first time i was like...ohhh loook thas pretty little harmless blue aliens :3...i guess they are  the ol' floaters chumps of this game.....wait....oh dear ....

well if anyone want to play it...i have it right now i guess someones had problems running in dosbox(i did :c) but i have a original copie(a cd-rom i mean) so a good friend was tired i call her every time i want to run the game so we took the cd,make a ISO(actually is a bin archive) so she create a CONF  archive and a couple of dll((grabing a little of help from the good google)and make a "unpack and run" folder for me (you dont need to do anything,even doosbox...just unpack and run it...without pain...headache..just click and play xD) ,i can upload it here for you and also a couple of good mods that makes the game much more playable,if you want to try it(i  read the game  become freeware a couple of years ago...and also i buyed(actually my older brother did it) a original copy not so long time ago so i think this is legal right?)

I am interested in these mods. Could you upload them here? With a description on what they do ?
Also, as was said previously, the game is not freeware as of yet. (however because you can't buy it in Czech Republic, I don't give a damn about pirating it myself). I don't need the copy or the launcher, but you could upload the launcher here (with a tutorial) for other people like you.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 18, 2014, 08:13:19 pm
oooooooooooooh okey okey i get it i get it, yikes i was wrong then...well the dll was modified from some patch to running in xp so they now make "apoc" portable (like the collectors gold edition from the xcom 1 and 2) and the conf was made by my friend so i can give you those...and the mods are a recopilation of a intensive searching in the web xD...mostly from strategy core (kind of fun is that one of the best is allocated in the ufowikia page too xD) okey so i'll translate it to english and then try to explain it for your...
by now what we do(in a nutshell) was :

1.Make a .bin and .cue of my cdrom

2.then make a folder with our "homemade" patch and also one folder with the bin image and also the root folder of the game...

3.and...yes...weell that is all...the config run using a .bat file who get the game running with a route who only needs the "cd game" and the main folder

i would explain better how we did it but the only thing i do was keep asking her for one hour "ITS DONE YET?"  xD, i suspect that this should work with a STEAM VERSION of the game...give me a minutes and i put the "patch+mods" ok?
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: LouisdeFuines on March 18, 2014, 08:55:00 pm
For me, I loved that game :-)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 18, 2014, 09:33:37 pm
okey dont expect so much...there are basically seven mods..(well two are the same but need to install both of their own to get all the "things" and two are tools set for editing savegame and so make your own adjust...think about it just like when you adjust the RULESET here in oxc)

they are basically rebalance mods...make the game a looooooooot more playable in turn base mode,make the organization a little less angry for stray shoots (at least do you really make a massive damage on their buildings) and also...do you remember how easy it was that your almighty powerfull tank....get destroyed because the Road tile was so fragile? well it fix that making the ground vehicle more usefull, a little tweaks on the weapons so they become more usefull,a lot of rebalance of the toxiguns (the first time i played it i get it in just two weeks of game or sort of and are so overpowered that become the rest of the game pretty boring  :( ) a more logic and also challenger tech tree, and also a really interesting mod that let you play as megapol, xcom failed so is time that megapol make a steep foward and stop the invasion, is kind of fun but i dont use it right now (im playing with the rebalace mod and i have to say that they make the game more interesting)

so here is:
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 18, 2014, 09:45:04 pm
Yup, I'm using Roadwar and some bunch of other mods. Having 20 heavy tanks roaming the streets makes the game much more fun.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 18, 2014, 09:52:24 pm
and here are the patch...sorry the double post...but i forguet about the limit of the maximun individual size :c
so i basically explain you how use "my patch" all the mods have a txt explaining how to install so is not so hard to know how :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Sharp on March 18, 2014, 10:40:07 pm
Yeah J'ordos's Road War is amazing, he did another mod I think which I think bundled with roadwar later where you could modify item stats and stuff.

Laser sniper rifle needs a big buff on projectile speed as otherwise it's really hard to hit anything in Real-Time mode as there is no target leading, actually increasing projectile speed for everything balances the game because I would just get my agents to go prone whenever a spitter would attack to dodge it all the time, increased projectile speed means it's much harder to dodge and basically means if you would get hit in turn-based then you would most likely get hit in real-time.

And I think I buffed up lawpistol damage and price because I always thought it looked cool getting an agent to dual wield law pistols then jump from above John Woo style (if only could fire while moving :( )
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 18, 2014, 11:10:53 pm
yup...roadwar is really cool...and there are a couple of patch that do that...especially karadoc mod...but it does enhance the game for the turn based mode...i played in RT and  is also usefull...but i still preffer TB,and yes the sniper rifle neeed a uber buff because  it is disappointingly weak and slow fire rate  :-\
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 18, 2014, 11:32:21 pm
Yeah J'ordos's Road War is amazing, he did another mod I think which I think bundled with roadwar later where you could modify item stats and stuff.

Yep! I have it, although I only modified some starting weapons (I think I buffed up the laser sniper rifle).

Laser sniper rifle needs a big buff on projectile speed as otherwise it's really hard to hit anything in Real-Time mode as there is no target leading, actually increasing projectile speed for everything balances the game because I would just get my agents to go prone whenever a spitter would attack to dodge it all the time, increased projectile speed means it's much harder to dodge and basically means if you would get hit in turn-based then you would most likely get hit in real-time.

Forcing your soldiers to prone is still meaningful, as you lose mobility. Spitters were never meant to be threatening, they're mostly to slow you down and distract you, so they retain their function. I think there's no harm.
On the other hand, lasers could use some speed alteration...

And I think I buffed up lawpistol damage and price because I always thought it looked cool getting an agent to dual wield law pistols then jump from above John Woo style (if only could fire while moving :( )

You can fire on the move, just not while running.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Sharp on March 19, 2014, 04:19:57 am
Sorry, meant firing while jumping :P I loved that you could vault over those ledges and drop down a level instead of having to take the grav-lift or stairs, bonus points for jumping on enemy and knocking them unconcious goomba style. It would be John Woo style to be able to fire while jumping down into a pit of cultists blasting away with akimbo law pistols. Haven't played Apoc in a while but if I recall you can't even fire when changing height level on grav-lift or jetpack.

By increasing projectile speed for everything I mean for alien weapons/attacks as well, it's silly that so many attacks can be dodged and weapons at range are useless. Real-time mode is so easy to abuse so increasing projectile speed makes tactics a lot more interesting instead of just getting one guy to dodge all weapons fire while everyone else unloads on the aliens.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 19, 2014, 01:42:46 pm
I loved that you could vault over those ledges and drop down a level instead of having to take the grav-lift or stairs,

wait...wat ?????...how you do that xD?,all this time if a click a under level to "drop" the soldier, he just turn arround and move to the "closer" (like 5 mapblocks away) gravlift or stair to get down   :'(.....oh men my life is a complete lie :C!..and yes real time are such more easy,the brainsuckers and the poppers arent even a threat  :-\ (except for the most inept soldier you can have)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 19, 2014, 01:53:54 pm
and yes real time are such more easy,the brainsuckers and the poppers arent even a threat  :-\ (except for the most inept soldier you can have)

True. However, conventional weapons are deadly in real time; when playing turn-based, disruptors and devastator cannons seemed to be there only to be seized and researched by X-Com. :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on March 19, 2014, 01:58:18 pm
X-Com Apocalypse itself is not, but he can upload the launcher he made with his friend freely, same goes for the mods.
True, I was under the impression blackwolf was talking about uploading the game (because he mentioned the game was made freeware, which hasn't happened).

wait...wat ?????...how you do that xD?,all this time if a click a under level to "drop" the soldier, he just turn arround and move to the "closer" (like 5 mapblocks away) gravlift or stair to get down   :'(.....
Press 'J' to get your unit to jump
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 19, 2014, 02:07:50 pm
True, I was under the impression blackwolf was talking about uploading the game (because he mentioned the game was made freeware, which hasn't happened).
yeah,sorry about that, i searched again and i was wrong  ::),but i posted that launcher because i was sick of using dosbox(it use a "PORTABLE" version of it...but i mean...you dont need to propmt anything >_>)

Press 'J' to get your unit to jump

i feel like a moron....oh dear all this time...all those brave soldiers...please give me a second :'(
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on March 19, 2014, 04:55:36 pm
i feel like a moron....oh dear all this time...all those brave soldiers...please give me a second :'(
To be fair, I didn't know this for a long time, and in a way, I feel like OXC has kind of got this too, what with straifing and forced shots with no UI to easily indicate it's an option. Obviously there's no standard UI for this, because it wasn't in the original game, but it is easy to forget it's there
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 19, 2014, 05:22:45 pm
I never knew about the jump command either...
To get down, I just destroy the entire catwalk. :D
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 19, 2014, 05:44:19 pm
yeah there is a lot of features that arent show in the ui,that its like the manual driving for the vehicles....do you have tried it? its cool,and usefull sometimes, but the isometric view make the task a little hard...especially when you click to move :T
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 19, 2014, 06:15:06 pm
yeah there is a lot of features that arent show in the ui,that its like the manual driving for the vehicles....do you have tried it? its cool,and usefull sometimes, but the isometric view make the task a little hard...especially when you click to move :T

Nope, I had no idea. Frankly, I can't see any use for this right now, but possibly I would if I was playing...
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 19, 2014, 07:55:55 pm
press M when you select a vehicle and you have total control of it...you can increase or decrease the speed... adjust the altitude...yaw ...and "fire on point"...you shoot in the point you click...is really usefull to destroy buildings aiming in their weak points (pillars on slum buildings for example) or shoot foward the movement of ufos (very usefull in the alien dimension where the danger of stray shoots damaging property doenst afect your relationships with the city organizations)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 19, 2014, 08:43:13 pm
press M when you select a vehicle and you have total control of it...you can increase or decrease the speed... adjust the altitude...yaw ...and "fire on point"...you shoot in the point you click...is really usefull to destroy buildings aiming in their weak points (pillars on slum buildings for example) or shoot foward the movement of ufos (very usefull in the alien dimension where the danger of stray shoots damaging property doenst afect your relationships with the city organizations)

Awesome. :) Thanks.

On a different note, I believe X-Com Apocalypse would really benefit from a modding scene, and actually much more so than the first game. The reason is simple: X-Com Apocalypse is an unfinished, unpolished game that needs more development love. I hope I will see an OpenApocalypse one day.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 20, 2014, 12:00:38 am
i totally agree with you....

The initial game design was definitely too ambitious and too complex. The aim was to recreate in some detail the events, organisations and personalities within a futuristic megalopolis. Each corporation had a leader who could be tailed, arrested, interrogated or assassinated. Organisations could buy and sell buildings as their financial fortunes changed. X-Com agents could spy on other organisations to gain valuable information. A sophisticated diplomacy display allowed the player to instigate aggressive or defensive alliances with other organisations. There were multiple alien dimensions, generated pseudo-randomly, and the aliens gradually expanded their empire as the game progressed.

geez,the game sounds amazing especially because i imagine it with a pseudo cyber-punk thematic just like "syndicate" (the old game from BULLFROG..that's another of my fav games ever :D) with coorporate fighting and struggling in un-ethic business meanwhile an alien invasion attack  the city on the same time...its so sad  u_u
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 20, 2014, 02:55:48 am
geez,the game sounds amazing especially because i imagine it with a pseudo cyber-punk thematic just like "syndicate" (the old game from BULLFROG..that's another of my fav games ever :D) with coorporate fighting and struggling in un-ethic business meanwhile an alien invasion attack  the city on the same time...its so sad  u_u

Amen, bro. Amen to your words.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on March 20, 2014, 12:55:01 pm
I would like to thank Blackwolf for sharing his stuff and also all the other people for additional information (weapon speed with snipers too slow for realtime .... because I play ONLY in realtime in Apo).

I do plan to make a Let's Play / Walkthrough of X-Com Apocalypse with mods, but currently I'm doing the Afterseries, UFO Aftermath with the Combo Mod (alot of mods combined into one) to be more precise. (after the afterseries [lol], I will do the original X-Com series with mods) and it isn't getting many views, exceptionally so when compared to my other walkthroughs. If you are interested, here is the link to the walkthrough's playlist. Don't forget to watch in HD (same visual quality as when I've played) and turn on the commentary (by enabling the CC subtitles in the lower right corner of the youtube player window). The walkthrough has already been finished (raw footage on my harddrive) so it is now a question of me uploading it and making subs. Same for the two sequels (Aftershock with Total Rebalance mod and Afterlight with Reticulan 2.0 mod). Here is the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYl6bTZe5Zy6pWgcwl7rjsAfMeKU4_ZKa (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYl6bTZe5Zy6pWgcwl7rjsAfMeKU4_ZKa)

If you enjoy mods, you will enjoy this. I've also edited out some boring sections (doing the same type of missions again and again, while adding some funny moments, like my first encounter with the Etheral Morelman hybrid, dubbed Etherlol by me :D )

Also if anybody is frequently watching the progress of OpenXcom project ... I fell behind, could somebody tell me a brief summary of it's progress ? Is it finished / playable ? Useable for making a video series ?
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Warboy1982 on March 20, 2014, 12:59:22 pm
brief summary? for all intents and purposes it is feature complete and fully playable, just make sure you run with the nightly build.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on March 20, 2014, 01:16:49 pm
brief summary? for all intents and purposes it is feature complete and fully playable, just make sure you run with the nightly build.

NICE. THANKS ! *starts drooling*
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 20, 2014, 05:11:21 pm
i almost do nothing...but thanks anyway  :)...oh yes the after-X series was good...specially the afterlight,if you havent played it..then i  recomend you the "TOTAL REBALANCE MOD" and the "MARTIAN RESKIN" they both are amazing and add a lot of good stuff (the first add more tecnologies and..well make the game more balance...the second give you a recolour of all the armor...a "sand-ish martian red" first ..but later you can switch to another two colours,a grey urban like camo...and a green(still in beta...i keep the gray).
 and sure i'll watch your vids, i enjoy the walkthroughs xD..and in a side note just because we are talking about oxc mods...warboy is there any posibilitie of integrate the "medals and soldier diaries" mod that Shoes did in the main code   ::)? ?
(sorry if you aswered this before but i have been busy so im a little disconected from the forum themes  :-[)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 21, 2014, 12:41:35 am
Yay, thread derailment.

When it comes to Aftershock, I stick to Okim's Advanced Combat Mod (https://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/acm-total-conversion-ufo-as/). If anyone can prove that other mods are better, I'll be grateful. :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: blackwolf on March 21, 2014, 01:18:48 am
oh goooood...that armor retexture....its kind hot o.o!!! it remembered me the GDI troopers for the c&c tiberium saga :Q___
i'll try it,thx michal :)!
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: robin on April 10, 2014, 11:47:07 am
X-Com Apocalypse is a missed masterpiece.
Without the troubled development (switched producer 7 times IIRC) it would have been as good if not better than UFO.
As of today it is still the most evolved incarnation of original UFO formula. And actually the only evolution of it really, all the other games just remix the original formula, they're a variation of the theme; Apocalypse instead is "the next step". I'll always be convinced that a true new X-Com game must start from Apocalypse.
But yeah you can feel it's unaccomplished.
Also the game was meant to be realtime only; turn-based option was added later. And you can see it: all the weapons stats are balanced for realtime.
I also love its retro-futuristic style. Still very unique and memorable.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: LouisdeFuines on April 11, 2014, 02:39:01 am
Also the game was meant to be realtime only; turn-based option was added later. And you can see it: all the weapons stats are balanced for realtime.
I also love its retro-futuristic style. Still very unique and memorable.

This you can clearly see, when fighting brainsuckers. In Realtime: No problem. In turn-based: You watch it climbing onto an completely not moving target and suckin its brain...
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on April 11, 2014, 03:28:17 am
This you can clearly see, when fighting brainsuckers. In Realtime: No problem. In turn-based: You watch it climbing onto an completely not moving target and suckin its brain...

On the other hand, devastator cannons in turn-based seem to only be there for capture and research. In real time, they deal death.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: LouisdeFuines on April 12, 2014, 02:26:05 am
I liked the alien weaponry, but more love the toxi gun ;)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Mr. Quiet on April 12, 2014, 04:31:54 am
Would it be possible to add the very interesting layer of strategy of the Cityscape into OXC? Like bringing in some of these Organizations and the relationships you have with them throughout the game. I'd love to see them with main bases on the geo and you can go hit them if they're trying to bring you down, or you can defend them, and so on.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Mustang on May 08, 2014, 04:45:16 am
It's a controversial opinion but Apoc is my favorite X-COM (though that doesn't mean I don't love 1/2). From what I understand it hasn't been remade or patched to the extent of the first more because it's source code is unavailable or convoluted and difficult to change. Is it even available? I'd love to see a revival of Apoc with all of the features it was supposed to have (like multiplayer) and you can see vestigial parts of the UI designed for such features, but the game's so old and unloved now that I think even with the resources it wouldn't be worth undertaking a serious project for.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 08, 2014, 02:29:08 pm
I'd love to see a revival of Apoc with all of the features it was supposed to have (like multiplayer) and you can see vestigial parts of the UI designed for such features, but the game's so old and unloved now that I think even with the resources it wouldn't be worth undertaking a serious project for.

How could you. D:
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Angelus_EV on May 08, 2014, 05:40:59 pm
I think it is best to do a full conversion as the Piratez mod, with new background screens, metallic interface and soldiers and aliens sprites. can even use the Battlescape tilesers from Apoc.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: LouisdeFuines on May 08, 2014, 10:22:17 pm
I vote for OpenApoc :-)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 08, 2014, 10:27:19 pm
I vote for OpenApoc :-)

If there's a voting system, I vote twice. ;)

I don't really care about TFTD, it always gave me the impression of a poor man's UFO: Enemy Unknown. Apocalypse, on the other hand, is an ambitious and deep project that demands love.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: SupSuper on May 08, 2014, 10:37:33 pm
OpenApoc would be better suited for a separate project. :P
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on May 08, 2014, 10:42:56 pm
OpenApoc would be better suited for a separate project. :P

Of course.
And? :D
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: SenniTrebor on June 29, 2014, 03:13:35 am
Y
I also love the original X-Com: Enemy Unknown, but X-Com 3: Apocalypse was great ! As said previously, you just have to turn on the realtime combat and play. For me it qualifies as a full X-Com game.

What do you all think of the UFO After-series? I hated Afterlight for two reasons:
1) The entire game is on a time limit
2) Cartoony graphics (compared to Aftershock)
I take Aftermath as a average game, due the biomass crap and also the game going from extremely easy in the first half, to almost unplayable in the second (rather slowly, starting with special story missions)
Hovewer, there has been a mod (I've played it like before 4 years) that changed Aftermath into X-Com: Enemy Unknown (no, I do not mean UFO: Extraterrestrials or any other game ..), with fully 3D rendered Etherals (with capes, wohooo) and stuff with superhuman difficulty (lets say you are a band of survivors with several pistols,rifles and steel pipes, and an army of sectoids, floaters etc with plasma guns and blaster launchers is standing against you ..... let's just say you will have alot of casualties). I will maybe post a link to this mod if is somebody interested (and if I can find it)

And the best UFO strategic game in my opinion? UFO AFTERSHOCK WITH TONS OF MODS.
Seriously, the graphics are great, everything is allright, paced right ... used mods to add alot of real-life weapons and many sci-fi ones etc .... the only thing that bothered me was psionics (useless in Aftershock) and the guy doing Weapon Rebalance mod (that rebalanced absolutely everything including making better wargots and solving some bugs and glitches) stopped doing it, and the next thing in his list to do in his new version was to make better psionics, psionics weapons, etc. Dammit. The Shock game didn't have as many patches (Math had 1.4 ; Light had 1.5 + 1.6 official fanbased but Shock has only 1.2) as the original creators wanted to make it really like UFO:Defense, having sooo much things in it, but they got bankrupt :-(  because of that.

So my favorite UFO games:
1) UFO: Aftershock
2) UFO: Defense (X-Com: Enemy Unknown)
3) X-Com: Apocalypse
4) UFO: Aftermath and Afterlight (both had their faults)
[I haven't played Extraterrestrials or any of the spin off games like Interceptor and Alliance]

And now the main reason Afterlight sucked - NO CUSTOM NAMES WHATSOEVER !
Among other things like fairly limited soldier pool etc, etc.
The main reason why Aftershock sucked for most people - Extremely glitchy and crashy, could crash anytime, even the most up-to-date version had bugs that could randomly prevent finishing the game (the mothership bug, the starghost bug, the acces item by raiding a cultist temple bug) ...
Yes please give me the mods names so I can find them. For all three games that is.


[EDIT] found the combo mod for aftermath.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 07, 2014, 12:35:38 am
I might just leave this here as a teaser...  ;)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Warboy1982 on July 07, 2014, 12:52:35 am
you crazy S.O.B.
i love you.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Muukalainen on July 07, 2014, 01:16:28 am
This game had so much potential. But I think they ran out of resources and had to scrap a lot of what they designed and rush it.

Number one reason why it failed was: Tim White and the aliens he designed. The art style was horrible and bland.

This is his site. His style is very far away from X-Com or Laser Squad.
https://www.tim-white.co.uk

I think the best part was playing with real time and fighting against the other organizations. Remake would be very nice as with mods it could be what they wanted it to be.

Here is something from wikipedia about the problems they had:

Quote
During the creation of Apocalypse, Mythos Games created the game but MicroProse wanted to create the graphics.[1] Julian Gollop called the relationship "disastrous", and said of the game "It was a disaster area. Apocalypse was quite a sophisticated and ambitious game, but it was a big mistake from our point of view. In retrospect, we should have originally agreed to do a sequel in six months, and spent a year doing it, like they did! It would've been a lot better."[1] Gollop recollected:

"After completing this game I know how Francis Coppola felt after filming Apocalypse Now. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and the amount of effort required to pull it into shape was immense. After three years of hard work and five different producers X-Com: Apocalypse finally hit the streets. The initial game design was definitely too ambitious and too complex. The aim was to recreate in some detail the events, organisations and personalities within a futuristic megalopolis. Each corporation had a leader who could be tailed, arrested, interrogated or assassinated. Organisations could buy and sell buildings as their financial fortunes changed. X-Com agents could spy on other organisations to gain valuable information. A sophisticated diplomacy display allowed the player to instigate aggressive or defensive alliances with other organisations. There were multiple alien dimensions, generated pseudo-randomly, and the aliens gradually expanded their empire as the game progressed. The game also featured a scenario generator and multiplayer options using a hotseat turn based system or a real time LAN option. Most of these features were implemented to some degree, but were finally stripped out due to the horrendous amount of work involved in QA and debugging."[2]

"On XCOM: Apocalypse the team size for that actually was 5 of us at Mythos Games working on it and there was a team of artists at MicroProse working on it as well. Again, it’s a similar arrangement to the first game where we were doing the programming and MicroProse were doing the artwork. But it was a disastrous project, even from the beginning, because one thing that happened is that the MicroProse art team were trying to change the design of the game. Then they were failing to actually deliver anything that they promised. They just couldn’t get the isometric graphic system sorted out in their heads. They did things which just didn’t work, like they hired a guy whose name I forget to design the aliens, and this is a well known science fiction artist and he built these big models of the aliens and the idea was that they were going to scan them and put them into a 3D modelling software. It just didn’t work. He had all this fine detail in these models and this scanning system just wasn’t good enough. Then they had to recreate them basically in a 3D software they were using at the time. Yeah, they were awful, blobby things. They were nasty. Terrible graphics. It was very difficult."[3]
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Arcalane on July 07, 2014, 02:05:04 am
Half the fun in Apoc was the pseudophysics on the battlescape/cityscape, let's face it.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: robin on July 07, 2014, 02:05:28 am
I might just leave this here as a teaser...  ;)
holyyy shiiiittt
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Sturm on July 07, 2014, 02:15:26 am
I gave up on apoc long time ago. While stuff like weak weapons can be fixed by modders, other stuff like horribly bad AI, unfinished cityscape with unbankruptable, unsurrenderable, invincilble, forever farmable organizations are just too much for me.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 07, 2014, 03:21:47 am
I might just leave this here as a teaser...  ;)

I feel... teased. Very efficiently. :)

(trying to contain screams of anticipation)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 07, 2014, 09:13:44 am
I wouldn't get too excited yet, I don't have an abundance of time anymore, and at the minute I'm just writing loaders for all the different Apoc resources. Currently I can load sounds, fonts, and the PCXs (which I didn't even have to write any code for).

One of the problems I've got, is that I can't find any information what-so-ever on any of the formats. PCKs don't seem to load in the UFO tools, so I'm assuming the format has changed.

Somebody must know how the PCKs are formatted, because there have been graphic mods (unless I just have a bugged version of PCKview?)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: luke83 on July 07, 2014, 09:17:35 pm
I wouldn't get too excited yet, I don't have an abundance of time anymore, and at the minute I'm just writing loaders for all the different Apoc resources. Currently I can load sounds, fonts, and the PCXs (which I didn't even have to write any code for).

One of the problems I've got, is that I can't find any information what-so-ever on any of the formats. PCKs don't seem to load in the UFO tools, so I'm assuming the format has changed.

Somebody must know how the PCKs are formatted, because there have been graphic mods (unless I just have a bugged version of PCKview?)

HAve you spoke to BombBloke, i am sure he has looked at the formats before as his toolkit can export them...
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Sharp on July 07, 2014, 09:32:33 pm
or j'ordos, he is also a font of apoc knowledge
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: robin on July 07, 2014, 09:34:20 pm
The description for XeD editor says it can export/import graphics:

https://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/xed/

(I can't even run it, so I don't know)

Edit:
Also found this.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pckview/
It opens cleanly only the agents portraits. For the rest: errors and psy-palette.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 07, 2014, 11:30:26 pm
HAve you spoke to BombBloke, i am sure he has looked at the formats before as his toolkit can export them...
Nope, have you got any contact details? does he visit these boards?

or j'ordos, he is also a font of apoc knowledge
Got the fonts bit sorted, as you can see from the screen, but thanks anyway :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 08, 2014, 12:05:29 am
Nope, have you got any contact details? does he visit these boards?

No, but he's been active for years on https://www.strategycore.co.uk/ in the forum section. He hopefully still is.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Sharp on July 08, 2014, 01:14:08 am
Got the fonts bit sorted, as you can see from the screen, but thanks anyway :)

I meant he has lots of knowledge, he made many mods including the amazing Roadwar and the brilliant editor Apoc'd and probably knows more about the inner workings of Apoc then many others.

https://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242028524

I dunno if he is still active though but he did an update Jan 2014 so might be able to send him a message or something, I think he might be on strategycore forums as well.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: SupSuper on July 08, 2014, 04:23:37 am
I wouldn't get too excited yet, I don't have an abundance of time anymore, and at the minute I'm just writing loaders for all the different Apoc resources. Currently I can load sounds, fonts, and the PCXs (which I didn't even have to write any code for).

One of the problems I've got, is that I can't find any information what-so-ever on any of the formats. PCKs don't seem to load in the UFO tools, so I'm assuming the format has changed.

Somebody must know how the PCKs are formatted, because there have been graphic mods (unless I just have a bugged version of PCKview?)
I don't think PCKview loads the new Apoc formats, but they are documented: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Image_Formats_(Apocalypse) (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Image_Formats_(Apocalypse))

There's also the abandoned remake's code: https://github.com/hallor/ufo/tree/a60e23bed768c95a7992098e20f1e96611fe593f/unpacker
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: michal on July 08, 2014, 06:26:05 am
So, should we already make a board for OpenApocalypse? ;)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 08, 2014, 09:44:14 am
No, but he's been active for years on https://www.strategycore.co.uk/ in the forum section. He hopefully still is.
I meant he has lots of knowledge, he made many mods including the amazing Roadwar and the brilliant editor Apoc'd and probably knows more about the inner workings of Apoc then many others.
Thanks, will keep those in mind.

I don't think PCKview loads the new Apoc formats, but they are documented: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Image_Formats_(Apocalypse) (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Image_Formats_(Apocalypse))
How the hell did you find that? I'm sure I searched ufopaedia... obviously I just did a bad job... hmmmm... doesn't bode well


There's also the abandoned remake's code: https://github.com/hallor/ufo/tree/a60e23bed768c95a7992098e20f1e96611fe593f/unpacker
Has anybody built this remake? I keep meaning to try it. But I couldn't find any loaders... ahhh, that's because they were (re)moved from the current master (I can't seem them under here (https://github.com/hallor/ufo))

So, should we already make a board for OpenApocalypse? ;)
I was going to stick one on my website, but I guess it saves people having another forum login if you want to. There's not really much to put in it yet though.

In case anyone is wondering:

I'm using VS2008, and Allegro 5.1.6 instead of SDL. Allegro gives me some nice tools that I prefer over SDL's offerings. I also have built me a standard framework that I use in most of my projects, however, I think I need to change it for Apoc (it will frameskip to run the game at a constant rate, but with the collapsable buildings, it'd be better the game slows down than skips).

Source code can be found at https://github.com/pmprog/OpenApoc

Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: luke83 on July 08, 2014, 01:55:39 pm
BombBloke is still active, i had a PM from him on Strategy core last week.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: michal on July 08, 2014, 05:22:21 pm
I was going to stick one on my website, but I guess it saves people having another forum login if you want to. There's not really much to put in it yet though.

Remember that OpenXcom also started soon with forum ;)

Anyway, great project. I hope you will continue it and will find help.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 09, 2014, 12:11:05 am
In case anybody is interested, I've set up a forum for OpenApoc here:

https://openapoc.pmprog.co.uk/index.php

Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 09, 2014, 12:18:52 am
In case anybody is interested, I've set up a forum for OpenApoc here:

https://openapoc.pmprog.co.uk/index.php

How do I register? It asks me to "enter the password from the forum". What bloody password? Where is it? Am I really too stupid to register, or is it missing? :/
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Arcalane on July 09, 2014, 12:38:23 am
Forum Registration Password Thread (https://openapoc.pmprog.co.uk/index.php?topic=2.0).

Probably better to have a seperate header and set of forums on here, though.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Muukalainen on July 09, 2014, 12:42:35 am
How do I register? It asks me to "enter the password from the forum". What bloody password? Where is it? Am I really too stupid to register, or is it missing? :/

There is 2 posts on the whole forum. You can find the password on the other one.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 09, 2014, 12:45:52 am
There is 2 posts on the whole forum. You can find the password on the other one.

Ah thanks, I was looking all over the menus and on various pages, but looking through posts never crossed my mind.

I'm glad it wasn't in ROT-13 or something. :P
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 09, 2014, 12:46:54 am
Probably better to have a seperate header and set of forums on here, though.
Possibly, I did think about that, but at the same time, these boards are for OpenXCOM, and I don't have any ownership of OXC or these boards.

At least on my own server I can make any changes I require
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 09, 2014, 10:56:33 pm

Hmmmm....

https://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/topic/10969-openapoc/#entry134611

I have no answers :(
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: michal on July 10, 2014, 09:02:40 am
Well, having open sourced engine gives couple possibilites:

I think it's nice things to have. And those are IMO enough to reimplement engine.

We don't know what crazy things happen with OpenXcom in couple of years. Also, you can't know possibilites of OpenApoc - there are probably so many. Think about total conversions, etc.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Arcalane on July 10, 2014, 09:44:20 am
Agreed.

Remember that Apoc was never as well-liked as the originals; don't expect people to be hugely hyped up about OpenApoc at first.

That said, I will not miss having to use DOSBox to get Apoc and some of the modding tools for it to work.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Muukalainen on July 10, 2014, 12:43:56 pm
I would play the first two X-Coms even without Openxcom.

Sometimes I try to play Apoc too, but I can't remember ever finishing it. It has a lot of potential and it is screaming for mods.

I would say that it has a great engine ( i mostly played it on slow real time with pause ), but they failed to make the actual game interesting.

So in some ways Apoc needs the remake even more than the 2 first X-Com games. With mods it could maybe even be more popular than the other x-com games.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on July 10, 2014, 01:18:25 pm
Perhaps a correct approach to get the community interested in the project would be "completing" the game, with the goal of making it look as it was intended (based on interviews with the creators)?

It would be a bit cheeky, but hey, it's marketing. :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: luke83 on July 10, 2014, 09:27:16 pm
From my perspective, Apoc had all the right features (real collapsible buildings, choice between real time and turn based, factions system, cool story, it was just implemented wrong ( and the aliens real sucked). If you head down this path and rewrite the engine, you have my support as a Modder to help make this project what it should of been, the BEST xcom game ever!
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Falko on July 10, 2014, 09:39:53 pm
my pet peeves with apoc:
bad AI/mapplaning (=run to the exit of an ufo, wait until the aliens come to you, kill all)
unbalanced toxigun(B/C)
streets blow up (too easy) and make tanks useless
diplomacy not fully devoloped
end missions too linear and no real challenge if you have toxigun/shield and worse teleporters :)

but it has enough positive sides to still be a fun game
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Yankes on July 10, 2014, 10:29:07 pm
BTW do you will reuse some code form OpenXcom? Mostly operating system handling. Lot of work was used to made it portable and would be waste if you do it again form scratch.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 10, 2014, 11:00:33 pm
BTW do you will reuse some code form OpenXcom? Mostly operating system handling. Lot of work was used to made it portable and would be waste if you do it again form scratch.
Probably not. Firstly, I'm planning on using Allegro instead of SDL. Allegro is already available on Windows, Linux, Pandora, and Android. I'm a lot more familiar with it, and it does a lot more than SDL out of the box.

Gamewise, there isn't really all that much overlap on the projects. The file formats are completely different; Apoc Cityscape is nothing like UFO's Geoscape; Apoc's Battlescape requires realtime support.

The portable aspect will be there in OpenApoc, don't worry about that.

Edit: And thank you to everyone for their feedback
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: robin on July 10, 2014, 11:16:05 pm
From my perspective, Apoc had all the right features (real collapsible buildings, choice between real time and turn based, factions system, cool story, it was just implemented wrong ( and the aliens real sucked). If you head down this path and rewrite the engine, you have my support as a Modder to help make this project what it should of been, the BEST xcom game ever!
And my axe! I too believe that Apocalypse had all the right things to be the superior x-com game.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: davide on July 10, 2014, 11:32:28 pm
it is a very interesting project

I like very much XCom apoc too

but in my opinion there is the true risk that community
cannot support an other project in this moment.

There are a lot of pending requests on modding/improvements OpenXCom,
OpenTFTD, or Hybrid Xcom 1+2,
is in early development state too ...

I ask if is better complete project one at once
and after move all on the next project.

"Divide at impera" when the active human resources are limited it is not a good strategy

The best solution to speed jobs could be to reclutate again veteran xcom modders on strategic informer and https://www.xcomufo.com/
and ask they to help the community on these family of project.

If we split our forces/efforts on different project could produce the risk to run out energy or slow down progression so that
peoples could loose interesting about projects.

it is only a my little opinion about that and i do not want offend no one.
Each one is free to spend his time as it sees fit
Thank to all for their efforts





Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 11, 2014, 09:36:30 am
but in my opinion there is the true risk that community
cannot support an other project in this moment.

As Bomb Bloke said:
Quote from: 'Bomb Bloke'
Apocalypse, on the other hand, is an entirely different game, so one way or another it'll need a new starting base. And it doesn't really matter when that project starts, as odds are there are coders available now who aren't interested in working in the current OpenXcom project, and odds are there are coders working on that project who won't be interested in moving on to Apoc later.

Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: luke83 on July 11, 2014, 10:59:05 am
As Bomb Bloke said:

I agree, i use to get sick of playing ufo and switch to Apoc for a different experience.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 11, 2014, 06:39:52 pm
More teasing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGvXrLUW44

I'll try and keep most OpenApoc stuff over on the other forum now :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Muukalainen on July 11, 2014, 06:45:04 pm
More teasing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGvXrLUW44

I'll try and keep most OpenApoc stuff over on the other forum now :)

Please post some news here, for us too, who are too lazy or busy to follow many forums.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: hsbckb on July 12, 2014, 05:14:14 am
Thank to your efforts and I really hope this will be another successful project like OpenXcom ;)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 14, 2014, 11:03:02 am
Please post some news here, for us too, who are too lazy or busy to follow many forums.
Okay, but it won't be as often, or as much :)
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on July 16, 2014, 11:42:16 pm
I set up an official FB page - https://www.facebook.com/openapoc
I'll undoubtly attempt Twitter at some point, and I'll probably set up an "official" OpenApoc YouTube channel too
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on August 26, 2014, 09:33:39 pm
For those interested about OpenApoc, there's some (not great) news

https://openapoc.pmprog.co.uk/index.php?topic=41.msg236#msg236

Quote from: pmprog date=1409077887
Over the last couple of weeks, there have been some rather significant changes in my Real Lifetm. As such, I'm not going to be doing as much in OpenApoc. Seems rather silly, considering the project is in it's infancy, but that's the way it goes I'm afraid.

Anyhoo, before you get upset. JonnyH is still going to continue working on the project, he has full access to my Git repo; and I will be around to help where I can.

It's not the greatest of news, I appreciate, but I am thankful that JonnyH is still interested enough to help see if we can push this a bit further. So please all get behind him. I will still be here, and hopefully I'll still get some development done, maybe just not as much as I originally hoped.

Thanks
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: ivandogovich on August 26, 2014, 10:12:03 pm
You guys still have my full support.  I know that there is not much other than moral support that I can provide right now, but I just want to reiterate how exciting this project is, and how thankful I am that you started it.

Cheers, Ivan :D
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pmprog on September 22, 2014, 10:32:42 pm
If anyone here is still interested, we've got a first look at the Cityscape!

https://openapoc.pmprog.co.uk/index.php?topic=49.0
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Falko on September 22, 2014, 10:41:14 pm
do i need an forum account to see the image?
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Sharp on September 22, 2014, 10:42:54 pm
To see attachments yes, I think that applies even here
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Falko on September 22, 2014, 10:45:20 pm
it does not apply here
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: ivandogovich on September 22, 2014, 11:06:39 pm
Nice Progress, pmprog!!  So much Excite!
Cheers, Ivan :D
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: sectoidwhisperer on May 09, 2015, 12:36:44 am
I am very simple, I love Xcom and I love the graphics but when if you keep Xcom just the way it is and the way it plays EXCEPT for making the graphics like Jagged Alliance 2 or something with crisper textures?

SectoidWhisperer
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Jo5hua on May 30, 2015, 06:53:32 am
There is now a new official OpenApoc site! www.openapoc.org

JohnnyH plans to do weekly updates on the site.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Kosti on May 30, 2015, 08:11:41 am
Yes, great thing they got openapocalypse started! Hopefully they stil keep the fifties-styled xcom craft as an option. And maybe add some variety to the xcom starting armour (which to me looked a bit like vintage Soviet uniform, no offense inteded) and also variety to the aliens maybe. Many things were mentioned here earlier, like the closed city as a limitation. Would be interesting to see improved faction action also. Hopefully we will see progress soon!
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pilot00 on May 30, 2015, 03:31:47 pm
Yes, great thing they got openapocalypse started! Hopefully they stil keep the fifties-styled xcom craft as an option. And maybe add some variety to the xcom starting armour (which to me looked a bit like vintage Soviet uniform, no offense inteded) and also variety to the aliens maybe. Many things were mentioned here earlier, like the closed city as a limitation. Would be interesting to see improved faction action also. Hopefully we will see progress soon!

Well as far as I understand the project will be like openxcom, an attempt to recreate the original as close as possible. That said, I agree on the armors bit, nothing a mod or two cant handle.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: JonnyH on June 02, 2015, 03:32:55 am
Well as far as I understand the project will be like openxcom, an attempt to recreate the original as close as possible. That said, I agree on the armors bit, nothing a mod or two cant handle.

That's correct - the plan is to try to make a 'faithful' re-implementation, but leaving the option open for people to add new mods to the game. Still a long way off, though, and if we don't get help w/development it's unlikely we'll actually get anything done in a realistic timeframe...

*puts up 'HELP WANTED' sign*
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: pilot00 on June 02, 2015, 03:03:15 pm
That's correct - the plan is to try to make a 'faithful' re-implementation, but leaving the option open for people to add new mods to the game. Still a long way off, though, and if we don't get help w/development it's unlikely we'll actually get anything done in a realistic timeframe...

*puts up 'HELP WANTED' sign*

Wish I Could help man, really do, but I have not the slightest idea of these things. If I did I would fix happily jump on the cause, and fix that damnable thing that for one month doesnt allow me to play openxcom :(
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Templayer on November 23, 2019, 08:23:28 pm
YYes please give me the mods names so I can find them. For all three games that is.


[EDIT] found the combo mod for aftermath.
ShadoWarrior's Total Rebalance mod actually does far more than rebalancing Aftershock, it adds new weapons, research, items, etc.
For the Aftermath I used the Combo mod you have mentioned.
And then Reticulan 2.0 mod for Afterlight.

And it took me just five years to reply. :D
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Nikita_Sadkov on November 24, 2019, 09:16:47 pm
I believe Apocalypse is the best Gollop's game so far and the best game in the genre. I doubt even his current Phoenix Point is going to surpass XCOM Apocalypse. My only nitpick is graphics, was was a bit rushed, and a few systems not balanced enough, but everything else is clearly a huge improvement over the first two XCOM games.

Recently they reverse engineered it:
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Meridian on November 24, 2019, 09:28:07 pm
I believe Apocalypse is the best Gollop's game so far and the best game in the genre. I doubt even his current Phoenix Point is going to surpass XCOM Apocalypse. My only nitpick is graphics, was was a bit rushed, and a few systems not balanced enough, but everything else is clearly a huge improvement over the first two XCOM games.

Hmm, never thought I would see such a statement anywhere.
I personally find xcom1 clearly superior to apoc in basically every aspect.

Can you give 2 or 3 examples of what is better in apoc compared to xcom1 in your opinion? I just can't think of anything (not joking).
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: robin on November 25, 2019, 12:35:20 am
Hmm, never thought I would see such a statement anywhere.
I personally find xcom1 clearly superior to apoc in basically every aspect.

Can you give 2 or 3 examples of what is better in apoc compared to xcom1 in your opinion? I just can't think of anything (not joking).
In terms of systems/mechanics (whatever you want to call them) the game is afaik exceptionally more advanced than UFOEU. They did an unbelievable job at bringing forward the formula in basically every aspect.
If we want to talk about examples:
- "reaction evasion" mechanic, bullets have speed and enemies can get out of the trajectory of bullets if they're reactive-fast enough.
- Prone stance, walking/running/crawling.
- Scientists are present during base defense and must be evacuated or protected.
- Structures collapse if supporting parts are destroyed.
- Several alien items you research offer new tactical options rather than being overpowered versions of the human ones (personal teleporter, boomeroid, entropy launcher, cloack, shield)
- The air combat is just plain better, and it looks great; I guess this could be a matter of taste, since they're so different, but the gigantic expansion it underwent is undeniable (in all aspect: graphics, sounds, stats, vehicles, craftweapons, interface).
- The geoscape is significantly more developed too, mechanically.

That said, I do prefer UFOEU too; but as explained above there are several aspects in which Apoc is clearly (to me at least) superior to UFOEU.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: BlackStaff on November 25, 2019, 11:35:07 am
Personally I prefer Apoc but with a short head thanks to the arrival of OXCE.
But if I compare the basic versions of Apoc and UFO then the head is much bigger!
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Nikita_Sadkov on November 25, 2019, 02:29:23 pm
Hmm, never thought I would see such a statement anywhere.
I personally find xcom1 clearly superior to apoc in basically every aspect.

Can you give 2 or 3 examples of what is better in apoc compared to xcom1 in your opinion? I just can't think of anything (not joking).
The best example of XCOM Apocalypse doing things better would be the ordering of new equipment process: first, you need to be on good terms with the corporation making the product. It can get infiltrated by aliens, or just get mad at you for blowing up its building while trying to take down that alien craft, or damaging it while on the mission (if its factory got destroyed and employees killed it would be unable to produce the stuff). Then cargo vehicles will deliver the ordered product, directly from the storage building of that corporation. They will be displayed on the map, and vulnerable to damage from UFOs and crime gangs active in the cities. You can reduce the crime rate by raiding gang headquarters, and also getting some drugs for sale as the loot.

That is several orders of magnitude more complex than the original XCOM economy, or all the XCOM clones after it.

Of course many people will dislike that, because it is less about simple tabletop wargame, and more about the simulation of complex integrated systems. IIRC, Sid Meier said that there is a complexity line when game stops being a game and being fun. Maybe that is why XCOM Apocalypse got cold reception.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Countdown on January 10, 2020, 07:06:50 pm
Recently they reverse engineered it:[/youtube]
Oh cool, didn't realize that Open Apoc was finished. I remember seeing it as something they were working on years ago, but haven't kept up. I'll have to check that out eventually. I've actually never played XCOM Apocalypse even though I own it.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on January 10, 2020, 08:18:56 pm
It's not finished... But they devs are getting there.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: bulletdesigner on January 11, 2020, 01:43:08 am
Giving my opinion, I think the biggest flaw in apoc is the end game becomes ultra boring in the alien dimension and toxigun completely op. Also not showing craft in geoscape is a big let down. The biggest strength is the city, discovering all the buildings and do some crazy raids on factions is fun. But in the end I manage to end tftd several times and return to it, apoc in the other end only finish once and I give up middle campaign all the time.
Title: Re: X-com Apocalypse
Post by: Solarius Scorch on January 11, 2020, 03:47:43 pm
Giving my opinion, I think the biggest flaw in apoc is the end game becomes ultra boring in the alien dimension and toxigun completely op. Also not showing craft in geoscape is a big let down. The biggest strength is the city, discovering all the buildings and do some crazy raids on factions is fun. But in the end I manage to end tftd several times and return to it, apoc in the other end only finish once and I give up middle campaign all the time.

Indeed you're right. (I never finished it, despite so many restarts.) But the subject of fixing this has been on the table for years among the OpenApoc people, so I think it has a fair chance to be fixed after the basic game is done.