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I am still not really active anymore due to many things happening nowadays and simply not having enough time between regular life and other interests but I've found some time to play the new version, compare it to experience from a couple of versions ago and offer general feedback. It's not really just neither only suggestion/wishlist nor a bug report thing, but a collection of thoughts, issues and hopes with/for various aspects of the game gathered over dozen or more hours of gameplay. If it doesn't deserve its own thread, my apologies.
1.8 FEEDBACK
Strange creatures mission division
I still miss how "strange creatures" missions have the generic debriefing description rarely hinting at what one would be fighting. Dividing them into several missions named the same, but with various description giving vague hints of what one would be up against ("fragmentary reports from the area mention sightings of a single/a group of/a horde of wild animal(s)/humanoid(s)/alien beast(s)/giant spider(s)" etc) would be great. I see that you did make some progress in that direction with zombie infestations and other such stuff, but probably most variations of strange creatures missions could have their own stuff, be it spiders, megascorpions or whatever.
Early game knives balancing
Regular knife has considerably better stats than combat knife, at least when wielded by an average soldier, despite the latter being the one meant for combat and more than twice as expensive. Also, regular knife can be taken on covert missions combat one cannot despite the fact it wouldn't be too suspicious in situations where regular knife is allowed.
Zombie missions
Zombies seem more aggressive - and frankly, they're much better now. Some missions with them may be harder, perhaps, as you have actual traditional zombie scenario of whole hordes running at you in numbers greater than what you can quickly dispose of in the beginning, but it also makes the fights more dynamic and not drag as long as before. First time I had to pull agents from a regular "strange creatures" zombie mission as they just got swarmed. Also, first time I found it worthwhile to set up firing zones with flamers and (the agricultural flamer itself seems awful at actually setting zombies on fire, but it does make firewalls zombies avoid). Good change.
However, now that they all rush, they keep making that charge roar all the time. Changing it to something less bothersome when it's repeated 10 - 15 times a turn, some short zombie moan/groan for example would be better. Or even disabling it till replacement will be found.
Also, not sure if intended but now that zombie infestation is its own kind of mission, maybe zombie variant of strange creatures mission where it's not just a couple of zombies isn't necessary?
Madmen' rampages
In several games across several versions, "madman rampage" enemies or "concerned citizens" seemed to be unable to squeeze their missions into the roster and are very rare in general. In current version "strange creatures" mission happens all the time but I had literally one single mission with some "homicidal" type enemy before I moved (without rushing, either) far enough in plot that I didn't even dare to expect they'll show up anymore. And they didn't, that was one, single instance of that mission in whole campaign so far. Never even got to fight other "homicidal" enemies and I recall there being several.
Mission clusters
Missions seems to show up in "clusters" even more so that it'd seem a couple of versions ago. A year without zombie infestation mission and then I suddenly had 2 following about 2 strange creatures sightings, all in a span of one day. Then several days of a pause, then again a couple of missions pop out nearly one after another. Missions shouldn't happen completely regularly, but at the same time having them clustered like that is weird.
Early game and pacing
It seems we get new content but the pacing is still the same as many, many versions ago, which makes it easy to skip by some of content. Extending the early game phase, requiring some more time to get each promotion and pushing the date of official beginning of alien invasion back may help there.
Map size and enemies ambush
Some maps are smaller than before. That's okay. But now there's even more of a problem with how enemies ambush operatives. Far more frequently now there's absolutely no chance but to lose operatives at no fault of the player's - they simply spawn in sight of several armed opponents and get shot at from several directions the moment they as little as even crouch. It's neither fun, nor fair nor well-designed and simply makes save-scumming not even an option but a necessity at times as sometimes missions aren't winnable because of particular enemy strengths but because my agents parked the van in the middle of enemy group with no cover they can ever reach.
It's less of a problem later in the game where one starts inside one's own vehicles but till then, having enemies in such firefight-intensive missions have slightly less TU or even just lowered reaction stat during first player's turn so they don't just take out whole team after one player's click, before the player even gets a chance to do anything with said troops seems kinda necessary if save-scumming is to be avoided. At this point, there's no difference if there'd be a random chance of "after your van left the base the drunk driver crashed it and killed everyone" - would be as silly, but at least wouldn't waste player's time spent reaching the mission and modifying loadouts.
Smoke grenades would be ideal thing for such a situation but they won't work because mechanics-wise grenades explode after player's turn, not during it, making any cover they provide happen too late to be of any use during said first turn. Again, lowering TU and/or reactions for first player turn would at least help players position troops and throw some smoke.
Early game and content
As I've mentioned in the past, early game, when it's more of an X-Files vibe than X-COM one is also my favorite part and what makes this conversion stand out. Together with above idea of changing pacing and extending early game phase, there's a lot of potential here that's simply untapped.
Especially with new mechanics like reinforcements. For example, basic cult/gang mission "suspect apprehension" could very much use it in a way that requires XCOM operative to apprehend the members in several turns or they get reinforced with a sizeable group of other, simialr gang members (which could be even kind of challenge for those hoping to use that ambush to lure additional enemies) with additional variant of this mission where it's friendly law enforcement that shows up as reinforcement, forcing players to apprehend enemies quickly or risk them getting shot by NPCs.
Maybe even easiest apprehension missions could be covert ones, allowing any and all concealable weapons which wouldn't change much early game, where civilian clothing and small arms are the staple of XCOM's equipment, but would still add a bit to the flavor.
Or a mission that's practically unfinishable (a single enemy is hidden somewhere inaccessible to players) where a bunch of covert operatives lands in area full of early game equipment, secret files, small quantities of money and it's up to them to find and gather as much of it as they can and drop it at evac point before escaping, but every few turns a new unit or two of enemies shows up, slowly, if anything making operatives use up all the ammo - fitting for abandoned lab with zombies or other cryptids, for example).
Perhaps even a downed UFO mission where military of some country managed to take down an alien ship all on their own and XCOM under guise of law enforcement managed to get itself in support role - with player being able to see how aliens fare against human military and perhaps gather some loot and escape before said military crumbles. Or maybe said military keeps getting reinforcements ultimately defeating aliens at the cost of many lives, underlining the threat aliens pose - though in such case, no loot beside what's at the evac zone tiles should be available.
There's also other content which could be hinted at early game but isn't. For example, repeating haunting missions with a couple of hostile possessed civilians (who should still bring score penalty if killed) and a single ghost (with ectoplasm unlocking parapsychology research rather than being unlocked by it) at some haunted house would be great.
Civvies nicking stuff
Random civilians can steal weapons from XCOM's spawn. I don't know if it counts as lost at the end of th emission so I tend to stun them and take the gun back but still, I know the items just lie there in the field but it'd be nice to have some way of preventing people from taking them. Maybe it's possible for deployment tiles to be considered something like being on fire as far as AI pathfinding goes?
Another, related issue is civilians wielding picked up alien tech, one even my agents cannot use yet.
Events
As always, events are a really nice addition and I am glad there's more of them, even if most seems rather negative in effect. Two things I'd like to notice:
They all seem to have comparable frequency, when I think some should be much more rare/common than others. For example, attacks by beasts, kidnappings by the deep ones should be more common, but so should be ones where rituals are disrupted (granting that corpse and a spear). I only had one land survey event and frankly, that probably should be far more common thing - rewards in it, the same as in disrupted deep one operation one are really weak, even by early game standard, but they'd add to the feeling that things are happening behind the scenes and balance out the impression that most events are negative.
Some events could very well offer their own research and missions. XCOM got hacked? Maybe it generates a mission next month where one disrupts some minor hacking operation - a completely regular, unaltered EXALT safehouse mission, just under different name, with different fluff, hanging around on the geoscape for long. If one feels more ambitious, changing loot items to a military computer and secret files instead of ammo/weapon boxes or switching EXALT for Osiron goons. A simple thing, again, not very hard nor profitable after early game but at a low work price the immersion and fun's greater.
Lastly, there seem to be almost no events relating to zombies despite how big role they play. Even some just along the lines of "We have multiple reports about an illness causing people to mutate into aggressive beasts not unlike those of classic zombie movies. Despite our efforts, those reports start to filter to the mainstream media and the condition itself may be responsible for disappearances among populations of small villages and remote farms, rumours of which add to the unrest."
Dossier missions
Many dossiers entries could also be done in that way. It's nice that some dossier targets get their special scenarios, but I wouldn't mind simple stuff like, for example CHAD (which could be just a recolor of MiB power-armored unit, totting some hydra laser rifle and with morale/status effects disabled) attacking XCOM base or some civilian facility early game after its dossier is researched, making it a tricky enemy given at what level XCOM is (usually I get CHAD dossier while still running around with hunting rifles, AKMs and similar) but doable. Rewards? Maybe its laser gun and an alenium crystal?
Alenium crystals, disregard if AI units are meant to be limited resource
Speaking of which, some version ago there were concerns about balancing rates of receiving crystals vs losing units (as IIRC the crystal can be lost permanently if the unit is destroyed in a fashion not leaving a corpse or the mission is lost completely). Maybe rather than just giving one usable crystals, some way of slowly gathering resources that can be recombined into such crystal could be introduced? For example, the crystal itself is not be enough, one also needs to have disposable "alien programming lattice", "resonance imprinter" and whatever other pseudotech mambo-jumbo one can think of - and only by combinining them through a simple, short-lasting manufacture order one gets a "functional AI core" item. Such parts could drop from Osiron crates or Syndicate research labs and the crystals acquired from destroyed, disassembled AI units.
Thanks to that there'd be some way of getting more AI units, but it also requires collecting resources over a span of succesful battles - and makes enemy AI units more valuable, upping their value is fair given how often (at least in my case) they require use of powerful explosives to take down, risking destruction of the "corpse".
The informant
Regarding non-dossier special units - the informant mission is yet to make it possible for me to retrieve the informant alive. Almost always, given where he spawns, enemies find him in first one or two turns. Not sure if that's intended or if there's even any value in keeping him alive.
Inventory spacing
I recall long time ago someone adding handcuff graphics that was deemed not as bad as previous iterations but it wasn't still implemented yet and we have bulky two-tile handcuffs still - is it still not good enough even just a temporary measure to change handcuff bulkiness? Also, in general many items seem bulky and spaced weirdly, making it hard to put them in "limb" slots that normally should be able to handle such items easily. Melee weapons like katanas taking more space and being as hard to wield as anti-tank missile launchers. We have one tile pistols, but some extendable, electrified batons (even just a miniaturized version of game-start ones which are supposedly telescopic but in reality are as big as wooden clubs) and better one-tile knives that could be smuggled on any covert mission would be great, make sense and be quite practical. I know that items can change graphics when they're in hand vs when they're stored elsewhere so visuals shouldn't be a problem.
Hydra and laser tech
Rsearching hydra laser should probably be alternative lead to laser weapon technology. It wouldn't unbalance anything since the tech itself is just a prerequisite and one requiring certain lab (and often the player will get alien laser rifles before then) but it'd make sense.
Vanilla aliens vs other enemies and XCOM troopers balancing
A thing I suspected earlier but now confirmed - aliens have stats not balanced well compared to other units.
A series of early and mid-game checks (Veteran difficulty) made me see a puny, thin-limbed sectoid that could:
- react faster than trained, experienced troopers with dozens of completed missions
- repeatedly overpower in "gun struggle" a high-ranked operative with 50 - 60 points of strength and finished training, be they the ones trying to shoot or prevent being shot point-blank
- when shot at from somewhat covered location - repeatedly do a spin in reaction fire and then tap out a sniper from across most of a medium-sized map with just a laser or plasma pistol
Sure the missions are still beatable, but the pure stat difference, no matter RNG luck often makes it seem like the game discourages tactics - it's all about either cheesing and exploiting AI mistakes or just out-tanking most aliens in primitive heavy-caliber slugfest where you exchange hard-hitting attacks till one side has no units left.
I don't want just weaker enemies but more differences between them, greater variation. Strong aliens, weak aliens. Even Storm-taking enemies seemed less purely physically able than those little grey guys - sectoids of non-soldier type shouldn't compare to even rank-and-file human solder by stats alone but depend on their powerful equipment.
Armored units should be very slow but be able to shrug off weakest of weapons.
In general, more enemies, especially stuff like sectoid engineers or just random Dagon priests should be stat-wise very weak as they weren't even meant for combat but still can pack a punch due to their powerful toys, and some combat-dedicated troops should be some danger even when their weapons are rendered ineffective. Especially Red Dawn, due to aforemenetioned Storm, should be much more eager and capable unarmed vs other NPCs and possibly on par with Black Lotus (with former being much less accurate but stronger, while the latter reacts better and is more accurate in melee). Currently most humanoid enemies work the same in this regard and the only difference between them lies in what attack they can do/what weapon they use.
Funnily enough, when it comes to melee even weak, all melee enemies, beasts and human aline, somehow either miss completely or are able to take down my rather healthy, high-rank and somewhat armored operatives with just a few whacks with random improvised weapons, with rarely any in-between (injured, yet still well-capable of fighting) results.
Psionics and the plot
As always, it's nice to see more plot developments/storyline missions but I tend to notice that for how much world-changing things psionics is, it doesn't seem really that much underlined in fluff itself. I am yet to see missions where it'd be the main concern - no homegrown occultists to arrest or perform services for in exchange for mystical knowledge, no books of purely human magical lore to study, no non-Dagon rituals (with exception of that one pentagram at mental asylum) that actually would seem to do anything. It's a pretty good potential plot-driver with its various applications mentioned in many dossiers, hopefully you'll explore it further!
Will write more as I keep going through old and new content in a fresh new game, should time allow. Unless it'll be just bugs, then I post those in the relevant thread.
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I am still not really active anymore due to many things happening nowadays and simply not having enough time between regular life and other interests but I've found some time to play the new version, compare it to experience from a couple of versions ago and offer general feedback. It's not really just neither only suggestion/wishlist nor a bug report thing, but a collection of thoughts, issues and hopes with/for various aspects of the game gathered over dozen or more hours of gameplay. If it doesn't deserve its own thread, my apologies.
By all means, go ahead! But of course other people can write here too.
Also, I can't really reply to spoiler-marked content, so consider this post to be not spoiler free.
Strange creatures mission division
I still miss how "strange creatures" missions have the generic debriefing description rarely hinting at what one would be fighting. Dividing them into several missions named the same, but with various description giving vague hints of what one would be up against ("fragmentary reports from the area mention sightings of a single/a group of/a horde of wild animal(s)/humanoid(s)/alien beast(s)/giant spider(s)" etc) would be great. I see that you did make some progress in that direction with zombie infestations and other such stuff, but probably most variations of strange creatures missions could have their own stuff, be it spiders, megascorpions or whatever.
Separate missions for various species are not planned. Right now there are 80 scripts to run basic monster hunt missions by biome type and deployment size. 80 scripts! I am not going to multiply this number by the number of species. Random race per mission exists for a reason, and it is good enough for me in this case.
But on top of that, some species get special missions, like zombies and werecreatures.
When it comes to briefings, I could add direct info on deployment size, but it would kill the suspense, no?
Early game knives balancing
Regular knife has considerably better stats than combat knife, at least when wielded by an average soldier, despite the latter being the one meant for combat and more than twice as expensive. Also, regular knife can be taken on covert missions combat one cannot despite the fact it wouldn't be too suspicious in situations where regular knife is allowed.
Let's see:
a) Damage:
Regular knife: 20 + 0.2 REA + 0.1 MEL
Combat knife: 20 + 0.2 STR + 0.25 MEL
b) Accuracy:
Regular knife: 90*(0.5 MEL + 0.5 REA)
Combat knife: 75*MEL
I think you're right, the combat knife deserves a bit more accuracy; I'll boost it to 85*MEL. For damage, I decrease knife's base power to 18.
Zombie missions
Zombies seem more aggressive - and frankly, they're much better now. Some missions with them may be harder, perhaps, as you have actual traditional zombie scenario of whole hordes running at you in numbers greater than what you can quickly dispose of in the beginning, but it also makes the fights more dynamic and not drag as long as before. First time I had to pull agents from a regular "strange creatures" zombie mission as they just got swarmed. Also, first time I found it worthwhile to set up firing zones with flamers and (the agricultural flamer itself seems awful at actually setting zombies on fire, but it does make firewalls zombies avoid). Good change.
Yes, I wholly agree. It's all on Meridian!
However, now that they all rush, they keep making that charge roar all the time. Changing it to something less bothersome when it's repeated 10 - 15 times a turn, some short zombie moan/groan for example would be better. Or even disabling it till replacement will be found.
My thought are the same. I'll discuss it with Meridian.
Also, not sure if intended but now that zombie infestation is its own kind of mission, maybe zombie variant of strange creatures mission where it's not just a couple of zombies isn't necessary?
Sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean to say that zombies can be excluded from standard monster missions? If yes, then I guess they could, but why?
Madmen' rampages
In several games across several versions, "madman rampage" enemies or "concerned citizens" seemed to be unable to squeeze their missions into the roster and are very rare in general. In current version "strange creatures" mission happens all the time but I had literally one single mission with some "homicidal" type enemy before I moved (without rushing, either) far enough in plot that I didn't even dare to expect they'll show up anymore. And they didn't, that was one, single instance of that mission in whole campaign so far. Never even got to fight other "homicidal" enemies and I recall there being several.
So? Not sure what you're trying to say. You got some missions, some didn't happen this campaign, that's how RNG works and how it was designed. And what is a "mission roster" - was it a metaphor? Because there is not such thing as a "roster"...
Mission clusters
Missions seems to show up in "clusters" even more so that it'd seem a couple of versions ago. A year without zombie infestation mission and then I suddenly had 2 following about 2 strange creatures sightings, all in a span of one day. Then several days of a pause, then again a couple of missions pop out nearly one after another. Missions shouldn't happen completely regularly, but at the same time having them clustered like that is weird.
Of course "random" doesn't mean "evenly spread", it's actually the opposite. ;) (Well, usually.)
Early game and pacing
It seems we get new content but the pacing is still the same as many, many versions ago, which makes it easy to skip by some of content. Extending the early game phase, requiring some more time to get each promotion and pushing the date of official beginning of alien invasion back may help there.
Eh? Why? I don't get what you're getting at. Why would I want to do that?
Map size and enemies ambush
Some maps are smaller than before. That's okay. But now there's even more of a problem with how enemies ambush operatives. Far more frequently now there's absolutely no chance but to lose operatives at no fault of the player's - they simply spawn in sight of several armed opponents and get shot at from several directions the moment they as little as even crouch. It's neither fun, nor fair nor well-designed and simply makes save-scumming not even an option but a necessity at times as sometimes missions aren't winnable because of particular enemy strengths but because my agents parked the van in the middle of enemy group with no cover they can ever reach.
It's less of a problem later in the game where one starts inside one's own vehicles but till then, having enemies in such firefight-intensive missions have slightly less TU or even just lowered reaction stat during first player's turn so they don't just take out whole team after one player's click, before the player even gets a chance to do anything with said troops seems kinda necessary if save-scumming is to be avoided. At this point, there's no difference if there'd be a random chance of "after your van left the base the drunk driver crashed it and killed everyone" - would be as silly, but at least wouldn't waste player's time spent reaching the mission and modifying loadouts.
This change is what people actually begged me for, so I went ahead with it. There's a saying in Poland "keep the fish or keep the aquarium" - you can't have both. If the mission start is too bad, just abort.
Smoke grenades would be ideal thing for such a situation but they won't work because mechanics-wise grenades explode after player's turn, not during it, making any cover they provide happen too late to be of any use during said first turn. Again, lowering TU and/or reactions for first player turn would at least help players position troops and throw some smoke.
Yeah, I can move smoke grenades a bit earlier. Hell, let's make it Promotion I, as an experiment.
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(continued)
Early game and content
As I've mentioned in the past, early game, when it's more of an X-Files vibe than X-COM one is also my favorite part and what makes this conversion stand out. Together with above idea of changing pacing and extending early game phase, there's a lot of potential here that's simply untapped.
I've been tapping into early game's potential for like 5 years, I'd really like to move the fuck away from early game eventually. :P
Especially with new mechanics like reinforcements. For example, basic cult/gang mission "suspect apprehension" could very much use it in a way that requires XCOM operative to apprehend the members in several turns or they get reinforced with a sizeable group of other, simialr gang members (which could be even kind of challenge for those hoping to use that ambush to lure additional enemies) with additional variant of this mission where it's friendly law enforcement that shows up as reinforcement, forcing players to apprehend enemies quickly or risk them getting shot by NPCs.
Sure, we can make more reinforcements missions... In fact, almost any mission could use it. But we need to draw the line somewhere.
I am open to considering adding it to some other mission too, but the cult apprehension feels too early for an advanced feature like that. Maybe something else?
Admittedly, I like the idea of police arriving to spice things up... But they should shoot you too, and we can't have that! :D
Maybe even easiest apprehension missions could be covert ones, allowing any and all concealable weapons which wouldn't change much early game, where civilian clothing and small arms are the staple of XCOM's equipment, but would still add a bit to the flavor.
Are you talking of something roughly between cult apprehension and cult activity?
I want to make more undercover missions, of course... But most of development time went into early game, why would I pour even more into it when the mid/late game is a skeleton???
Or a mission that's practically unfinishable (a single enemy is hidden somewhere inaccessible to players) where a bunch of covert operatives lands in area full of early game equipment, secret files, small quantities of money and it's up to them to find and gather as much of it as they can and drop it at evac point before escaping, but every few turns a new unit or two of enemies shows up, slowly, if anything making operatives use up all the ammo - fitting for abandoned lab with zombies or other cryptids, for example).
Fun concept, maybe some day.
Perhaps even a downed UFO mission where military of some country managed to take down an alien ship all on their own and XCOM under guise of law enforcement managed to get itself in support role - with player being able to see how aliens fare against human military and perhaps gather some loot and escape before said military crumbles. Or maybe said military keeps getting reinforcements ultimately defeating aliens at the cost of many lives, underlining the threat aliens pose - though in such case, no loot beside what's at the evac zone tiles should be available.
TBH I don't get how these ideas would work. Are we still talking about the reinforcements feature?
There's also other content which could be hinted at early game but isn't. For example, repeating haunting missions with a couple of hostile possessed civilians (who should still bring score penalty if killed) and a single ghost (with ectoplasm unlocking parapsychology research rather than being unlocked by it) at some haunted house would be great.
Ghosts are shelved for now, but of course I'd like to develop this arc at some point.
Civvies nicking stuff
Random civilians can steal weapons from XCOM's spawn. I don't know if it counts as lost at the end of th emission so I tend to stun them and take the gun back but still, I know the items just lie there in the field but it'd be nice to have some way of preventing people from taking them. Maybe it's possible for deployment tiles to be considered something like being on fire as far as AI pathfinding goes?
This isn't a question to me, I can only enable/disable civilians from picking up weapons. I personally like how it works now.
Events
As always, events are a really nice addition and I am glad there's more of them, even if most seems rather negative in effect. Two things I'd like to notice:
They all seem to have comparable frequency, when I think some should be much more rare/common than others. (...)
Of course they don't have comparable frequency.
Some events could very well offer their own research and missions. XCOM got hacked? Maybe it generates a mission next month (...)
There is no elegant way to do so. Well, maybe once (events grants a hidden research, this hidden research enables a one-time mission script), but I don't want to put work into something that happens once per campaign, unless it's important.
Lastly, there seem to be almost no events relating to zombies despite how big role they play. Even some just along the lines of "We have multiple reports about an illness causing people to mutate into aggressive beasts not unlike those of classic zombie movies. Despite our efforts, those reports start to filter to the mainstream media and the condition itself may be responsible for disappearances among populations of small villages and remote farms, rumours of which add to the unrest."
Good point, I'll add something like it, thanks :)
Dossier missions
Many dossiers entries could also be done in that way. It's nice that some dossier targets get their special scenarios, but I wouldn't mind simple stuff like, for example CHAD (which could be just a recolor of MiB power-armored unit, totting some hydra laser rifle and with morale/status effects disabled) attacking XCOM base or some civilian facility early game after its dossier is researched, making it a tricky enemy given at what level XCOM is (usually I get CHAD dossier while still running around with hunting rifles, AKMs and similar) but doable. Rewards? Maybe its laser gun and an alenium crystal?
Yes, more missions are nice and all, and I am not against them, but they're really not a priority.
Alenium crystals, disregard if AI units are meant to be limited resource
They definitely are meant to be limited resource, else you eventually get a robot army (Enforcers) instead of human agents. And that's not what I want.
The informant
Regarding non-dossier special units - the informant mission is yet to make it possible for me to retrieve the informant alive. Almost always, given where he spawns, enemies find him in first one or two turns. Not sure if that's intended or if there's even any value in keeping him alive.
There is some value, but yeah, it's a hard mission. Good luck next time!
Inventory spacing
I recall long time ago someone adding handcuff graphics that was deemed not as bad as previous iterations but it wasn't still implemented yet and we have bulky two-tile handcuffs still - is it still not good enough even just a temporary measure to change handcuff bulkiness? Also, in general many items seem bulky and spaced vertically, making it hard to put them in "limb" slots that normally should be able to handle such items easily. We have one tile pistols, but some extendable, electrified batons (even just a miniaturized version of game-start ones) and better one-tile knives that could be smuggled on any covert mission would be great, make sense and be quite practical.
Cuffs: to be decided.
Better one-tile knives: no idea what would be better than the shiv but not larger. A plasma switchblade?
Hydra and laser tech
Rsearching hydra laser should probably be alternative lead to laser weapon technology. It wouldn't unbalance anything since the tech itself is just a prerequisite and one requiring certain lab (and often the player will get alien laser rifles before then) but it'd make sense.
Sort of planned. As of now, your only option for powering lasers is E-115. I want to introduce more battery types, made with other tech (like UAC magitech, or Cyberweb dimensional batteries, or Black Sun science) and with somewhat different effects, but that's still only a rough idea.
Vanilla aliens vs other enemies and XCOM troopers balancing
A thing I suspected earlier but now confirmed - aliens have stats not balanced well compared to other units.
Ethereals say thanks :3
A series of early and mid-game checks (Veteran difficulty) made me see a puny, thin-limbed sectoid that could:
- react faster than trained, experienced troopers with dozens of completed missions
- repeatedly overpower in "gun struggle" a high-ranked operative with 50 - 60 points of strength and finished training, be they the ones trying to shoot or prevent being shot point-blank
- when shot at from somewhat covered location - repeatedly do a spin in reaction fire and then tap out a sniper from across most of a medium-sized map with just a laser or plasma pistol
Yeah, they've been conquering the Galaxy for the past couple millions of years, if not more. They're pretty good at it. They would be way better at it if they weren't so absurdly paranoid about their own troops.
Sure the missions are still beatable, but the pure stat difference, no matter RNG luck often makes it seem like the game discourages tactics - it's all about either cheesing and exploiting AI mistakes or just out-tanking most aliens in primitive heavy-caliber slugfest where you exchange hard-hitting attacks till one side has no units left.
I don't want just weaker enemies but more differences between them, greater variation. Strong aliens, weak aliens. Even Storm-taking enemies seemed less purely physically able than those little grey guys - sectoids of non-soldier type shouldn't compare to even rank-and-file human solder by stats alone but depend on their powerful equipment.
Armored units should be very slow but be able to shrug off weakest of weapons.
No, there aren't any weak aliens. I mean there are, but not on the battlefield. They're meant to be comparable to high tier enemies anyway, like fully developewd MiBs.
Sure, Sectoids are small and frail, but as you well know they have psi shields. Yes, it's unfair. So what?
As for more variance between aliens, I think they're different enough already. We have weak aliens, strong aliens, tough aliens, squishy aliens, flying aliens, crawling aliens, melee aliens, sniping aliens... Honestly I'm not sure what else is needed.
In general, more enemies, especially stuff like sectoid engineers or just random Dagon priests should be stat-wise very weak as they weren't even meant for combat
Says who?
but still can pack a punch due to their powerful toys, and some combat-dedicated troops should be some danger even when their weapons are rendered ineffective. Especially Red Dawn, due to aforemenetioned Storm, should be much more eager and capable unarmed vs other NPCs and possibly on par with Black Lotus (with former being much less accurate but stronger, while the latter reacts better and is more accurate in melee). Currently most humanoid enemies work the same in this regard and the only difference between them lies in what attack they can do/what weapon they use.
Sorry, but this just isn't true. They are as varied as they can within reason, and carefully designed for it.
Funnily enough, when it comes to melee even weak, all melee enemies, beasts and human aline, somehow either miss completely or are able to take down my rather healthy, high-rank and somewhat armored operatives with just a few whacks with random improvised weapons, with rarely any in-between (injured, yet still well-capable of fighting) results.
Not sure how I should react to this. You know well that the melee stat is a continuum, so are weapon parameters. So I fail to understnad your point, feels more like a rant than anything else, sorry.
Psionics and the plot
As always, it's nice to see more plot developments/storyline missions but I tend to notice that for how much world-changing things psionics is, it doesn't seem really that much underlined in fluff itself. I am yet to see missions where it'd be the main concern - no homegrown occultists to arrest or perform services for in exchange for mystical knowledge, no books of purely human magical lore to study, no non-Dagon rituals (with exception of that one pentagram at mental asylum) that actually would seem to do anything. It's a pretty good potential plot-driver with its various applications mentioned in many dossiers, hopefully you'll explore it further!
Well, what can I say - missions get done when they get done :)
Will write more as I keep going through old and new content in a fresh new game, should time allow. Unless it'll be just bugs, then I post those in the relevant thread.
Many thanks for the feedback. As you see, I took it to heart and even did some changes. However, I have the feeling that you only addressed very early game, which I've been focusing on for the past few years and I really am not interested in developing it further for now, since late game is sorely neglected. Do you even go beyond the invasion phase?
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It seems we get new content but the pacing is still the same as many, many versions ago, which makes it easy to skip by some of content. Extending the early game phase, requiring some more time to get each promotion and pushing the date of official beginning of alien invasion back may help there.
Eh? Why? I don't get what you're getting at. Why would I want to do that?
I could be wrong, but I think what he means, is that with every update we get more and more stuff to research but not more time to actually perform the research in. The concern is, that you will be less prepared once the invasion comes because you couldn't complete key research in time, because the new research took too much of your time. This is something, that I have contemplated myself. I don't know, if it actually plays out that way, though. Haven't played enough.
Even if that really is a problem, I still don't like the suggested solution of pushing back the invasion date. It's already taking a really long time to get to (what is supposed to be) the meat of the game. Other solutions would be shortening research times (don't like it, research times are already unrealistically short), reducing cost/upkeep of scientists/labs (slightly less unrealistic than previous option, maybe) or reducing costs of other stuff or increasing early income (more loot in early missions), so that the player can spend more on research.
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By all means, go ahead! But of course other people can write here too.
Obviously, no issue with that.
When it comes to briefings, I could add direct info on deployment size, but it would kill the suspense, no?
Depends how much info and in what case. A set of vague statements about the mission, be it terrain or describing enemies going from "a creature" through "multiple contacts" to "whole horde" and merely underlining "humanoids", "some sort of animals", "weird creatures" would least make one aware that, for example, it's an area where some type of weapon wouldn't work (sniper rifles in confined spaces, shotguns in vast open plains) and that what they fight wouldn't be numbers of animals (easy to fire, low damage weapons prefered) but something big and mean (hevy caliber rifles necessary). Less of suspense destruction and more of a giving the player the bare info any COC would give its soldier, lest they come shooting at rats with missile launchers, pull out knives against horde of chupacabras they should be able to see outside the window before they even deployed or force player to spend boring time and turns moving each agent to equipment stash near the vehicle and rearm each of them one by one.
Yes, I wholly agree. It's all on Meridian!
Sincere props to Meridian as well, then.
Sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean to say that zombies can be excluded from standard monster missions? If yes, then I guess they could, but why?
It's basically the same mission with similar numbers of enemies under two different names, making it double as likely to show up compared to other missions that could be chosen instead of it. Not a big deal either way, I just thought that since there's already mission like that, why double it? The one where it's just a couple of zombies is a different matter.
So? Not sure what you're trying to say. You got some missions, some didn't happen this campaign, that's how RNG works and how it was designed. And what is a "mission roster" - was it a metaphor? Because there is not such thing as a "roster"...
Ah, if it's intended then nevermind. I was under the impression that the intent is to have every player get a considerable chance at experiencing all kinds of creatures and missions. As for roster, yeah, a figure in speech in that it's not exactly roster but - from what I know, missions that will spawn are decided a bit ahead of time and there's no script running random dice every in-game X minutes to spawn another mission.
Eh? Why? I don't get what you're getting at. Why would I want to do that?
High chance to miss lots of content as the player moves through the game, unless they purposefully wait with promotions to enjoy it (but then that may cripple them later on).
This change is what people actually begged me for, so I went ahead with it. There's a saying in Poland "keep the fish or keep the aquarium" - you can't have both. If the mission start is too bad, just abort.
Yeah, I can move smoke grenades a bit earlier. Hell, let's make it Promotion I, as an experiment.
That's the problem - without saving before first move you don't know if it's too bad. One often doesn't know if it's too bad till they actually start moving on the first turn and realize there's several enemies aiming at them - and then the very fact they made one trooper take one step may lead to them being shot up and then there's little left to abort with. Same problem with smoke grenades: I repeat, because of how grenades seem to work, they're not useful because agents get shot up after making a single move, so before those grenades explode even if one starts the round with them equipped and primed.
I've been tapping into early game's potential for like 5 years, I'd really like to move the fuck away from early game eventually. :P
Hah, I understand. My personal bias speaking because as mentioned, the "special agents in trenchcoats and with normal military hardware uncovering paranormal happenings/conspiracies" is kind of unique yet very much appreciated aspect for me.
I am open to considering adding it to some other mission too, but the cult apprehension feels too early for an advanced feature like that. Maybe something else?
As you've mentioned, nearly any mission could have *some* reason to add such, start-game cult apprehension just felt fitting for me because at this point XCOM is just budding initiative pursuing their first leads wherever they may be and trying to apprehend what's basically simple criminals - so having their gangs send a few guys more if they realize some of their men were attacked/someone went onto their turf or regular police coming in to take care of these criminals seems reasonable to me.
Admittedly, I like the idea of police arriving to spice things up... But they should shoot you too, and we can't have that! :D
In regular cult apprehension, maybe we cannot. I could think of a special mission though where some intelligence agency had secret op to raid some important place housing things not meant for their eyes tied to some council members so rather than going undercover and browbeat their officials to let XCOM in on it, one's forced to crash the party and either fight both groups (with penalties for killing cops) or prepare less-lethal crowd control. Could even underline the aspect of how council isn't really just good guys and we may be forced to do some of a really morally ambiguous, wet work for them.
Eh, I know, ideas are easy but what's the work to put them in!
Are you talking of something roughly between cult apprehension and cult activity?
Wasn't thinking about it but that'd be an option - rather than heavily modifying suspect apprehension mission, one could get its alternative where there's no penalty for letting it slide, but there's additional risks and rewards (in form of more enemies if one takes their time) if they want to get on it (could be easily explained that since local authorities are onto it and the targets are unlikely to be of any great priority, XCOM can let it sort itself out).
I want to make more undercover missions, of course... But most of development time went into early game, why would I pour even more into it when the mid/late game is a skeleton???
Could think of the reasons but as mentioned, I'd rather give you the honest answer of untapped potential and how it's by my absolutely subjective take the most awesome part of the game and its greatest appeal. Of course, I understand if your opinion differs on it, but just there's so much more that could be done so it'll be better (and some of those things with less work required than the others) that eh, it hurts. But yes, I am aware there's a lot of other things to be done in other parts of the game and there's only so much time and will.
TBH I don't get how these ideas would work. Are we still talking about the reinforcements feature?
Yes. All those scenarios are just hypothetical ideas for the ways reinforcement mechanics could be implemented. Be it enemy reinforcements for some gangsters if player is slow to capture enemies the mission begins with, police reinforcement to fight those enemies and thus possibly deprive XCOM of captives (again, should player be too slow) or military reinforcements in a bigger battle against aliens (as the battle keeps raging).
Ghosts are shelved for now, but of course I'd like to develop this arc at some point.
Looking forward to it.
Good point, I'll add something like it, thanks
No problem. Hell, while I am hardly a professional writer, if you want any little text blurbs like that about any little thing for events and whatnot, just let me know what's needed for what and I can probably make several on the fly.
There is some value, but yeah, it's a hard mission. Good luck next time!
Uh, not my point. The mission difficulty isn't what I concentrate on, but it's the fact that the informant doesn't have to be kept alive and cannot be kept alive since he spawns in the middle of enemy location and dies instantly all the time. Sometimes he even appears in mission loadout phase (sometimes he doesn't), sometimes he's not there during the mission, sometimes he's a controllable character, too and sometimes just implied to exist in mission debriefing but not actually appearing on the map. It's a weird mission like that.
Better one-tile knives: no idea what would be better than the shiv but not larger. A plasma switchblade?
We wouldn't even have to get as far technologically though plasma knife which would be basically just a small hilt till it's in one's hand and activated makes sense. I was thinking mostly about absolutely or just somewhat realistic alternatives to shiv which by the name alone usually implies improvised, small weapon mostly made in prisons or other criminal circles - while there's proper, quality folding knives, short, very easily concealable blades for some special forces - and that without mentioning simple, tiny knives once alien or hi-tech materials get researched or XCOM gets into occult.
Plus, there's general a lot of tiny, useful things that should be available to clandestine organisations and fit one slot of covert operative's inventory, not only knives, pistols or telescopic batons. Lethal or disabling agent injectors/syringes? An accurate melee weapon dealing a lot of damage but holding one "ammo" and having hard time with armors, for example.
But the core of the issue is examples that seems to be what I edited in before you started replying, like katanas which because of graphics even when not held take as much space and are as hard to wield (on account of needing to be put in a backpack when not held) as heavy missile launchers. No quick draws possible.
Sure, Sectoids are small and frail, but as you well know they have psi shields. Yes, it's unfair. So what?
I don't mind them being difficult enemies and being defended by psi-shields, when I was mentioning wanting strong/weak enemies with fitting stats I was literally meaning that - some enemies which have to depend on their hi-tech guns, but some that are just beasts in general. Enemies that are frail (but may or may not make up for it with aforementioned tech) and not.
The issue with sectoids are that they're NOT small and frail outside of their graphics and they, as mentioned, seem like any other kind of able enemy: whatever their stats, in examples above, they outmatched strong (for a human!), fully trained, fit adult in matters of purely physical prowess, as if it'd be sectoids who are muscled up martial artists, not operatives fighting them. And that applies even to those sectoids which simply even aren't in combat roles, but merely support. Their performance and warfare experience as a species is a different topic altogether.
Says who?
That's how specialization works. The former are, as you've just said yourself, meant to be small and frail. The latter have no mention of any extensive training and conditioning with their purpose being warfare but are implied to serve mainly as a middle management of Dagon's cult.
Sorry, but this just isn't true. They are as varied as they can within reason, and carefully designed for it.
I'll take your word for it, but from their prowess in battle I am willing to attest that depending on their rank, all enemies seem to be comparably skilled all across the board. If an enemy is a decent rifleman, they're usually also good at bashing my troopers or pushing their guns away in what I called "gun struggle" (trying to shoot next to each other). If they can shoot well, they can also react quickly with their shots - 360 no scope headshot reaction fire seal of excellence. If they're strong, they're usually also pretty sturdy. I am sure there's some variation in their stats, but it just isn't visible during the gameplay when it comes to armed sentients. I have to underline t's better in case of non-sentients like, for example, chupacabras which indeed seem very fast, hit very hard but have merely okay toughness fitting for their looks and ufopedia description.
So I fail to understnad your point, feels more like a rant than anything else, sorry.
No problem, to a degree it is. It may be that the boundary for what's lethal and not for melee is thinner because usually when enemies get into melee range, they exchange several strong hits most armors offer limited protection toward - and thus it looks how it does, with melee attacks either doing nothing or outright obliterating xcom operatives of average health pool.
However, I have the feeling that you only addressed very early game, which I've been focusing on for the past few years and I really am not interested in developing it further for now, since late game is sorely neglected. Do you even go beyond the invasion phase?
Yes and no. I got much further in the game before but as I've mentioned, I wanted this feedback to be about what was very noticeable to me in 1.8 alone. I've started a fresh new game for this purpose, play it when I have time not occupied by anything else (which varies, thus me not being that active anymore) and try to make my remarks on this basis, without mixing in stuff I recall from further down the line till I get there in this new playthrough, since otherwise it'd be unfair as things may have changed by now. Like I wrote:
Will write more as I keep going through old and new content in a fresh new game, should time allow. Unless it'll be just bugs, then I post those in the relevant thread.
So, should I get that sweet, sweet time and IRL won't bother me with tragedies and responsibilities to deal with, I promise to put in at least some of that time in playing and writing more of the feedback for 1.8
I could be wrong, but I think what he means, is that with every update we get more and more stuff to research but not more time to actually perform the research in.
I mean merely access to the content itself - certain missions, enemies etc stop being available with time and progression. I don't think one should get cheaper research just because there's a lot of potential technologies - no one says player has to research absolutely everything before moving on and shouldn't prioritize. Plus, early game the biggest limiter for research isn't even just money (though it is expensive) but number of available laboratories and amount of space for scientists to staff them with. But again, that's not really the issue I talk about.
It may indeed affect one's preparedness for invasion, as with new threats and things one has to deal with they also may suffer more casualties to build up back from but I find it fair - new opportunities bringing new risks - as long as they're not forced onto the player and heavily penalized.
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I could be wrong, but I think what he means, is that with every update we get more and more stuff to research but not more time to actually perform the research in. The concern is, that you will be less prepared once the invasion comes because you couldn't complete key research in time, because the new research took too much of your time. This is something, that I have contemplated myself. I don't know, if it actually plays out that way, though. Haven't played enough.
This might be true. Or not. I am just running another test campaign, we'll see how it goes.
Even if that really is a problem, I still don't like the suggested solution of pushing back the invasion date. It's already taking a really long time to get to (what is supposed to be) the meat of the game. Other solutions would be shortening research times (don't like it, research times are already unrealistically short), reducing cost/upkeep of scientists/labs (slightly less unrealistic than previous option, maybe) or reducing costs of other stuff or increasing early income (more loot in early missions), so that the player can spend more on research.
I also don't like it, because it's really a lot work to change the schedule of all missions and events... And prone to nasty bugs due to sheer amount of data to change. :)
If any corrections are needed, I'd rather modify research costs. It's also a lot of data, but less catastrophic if done wrong.
Depends how much info and in what case. A set of vague statements about the mission, be it terrain or describing enemies going from "a creature" through "multiple contacts" to "whole horde" and merely underlining "humanoids", "some sort of animals", "weird creatures" would least make one aware that, for example, it's an area where some type of weapon wouldn't work (sniper rifles in confined spaces, shotguns in vast open plains) and that what they fight wouldn't be numbers of animals (easy to fire, low damage weapons prefered) but something big and mean (hevy caliber rifles necessary).
I'm afraid we can't have such specific info, since I'd have to completely overhaul the missions structure. And honestly, I don't see enough need to put work in it. I have zero problems on monster missions with a generic mix of shotguns and long range rifles. (Well of course I fail the mission once in a while, but I don't think it's not at all because I didn't have enough info on the enemy.)
Sincere props to Meridian as well, then.
*ding*!
It's basically the same mission with similar numbers of enemies under two different names, making it double as likely to show up compared to other missions that could be chosen instead of it. Not a big deal either way, I just thought that since there's already mission like that, why double it? The one where it's just a couple of zombies is a different matter.
Zombies were at first just another monster type, they only got their own arc afterwards, organically. Some other monsters also have their special missions, though not as developed. So the difference is mostly quantitative.
Maybe more special mosnter missions will appear in time to balance it further.
Ah, if it's intended then nevermind. I was under the impression that the intent is to have every player get a considerable chance at experiencing all kinds of creatures and missions.
We accept whatever RNGesus provides. :)
As for roster, yeah, a figure in speech in that it's not exactly roster but - from what I know, missions that will spawn are decided a bit ahead of time and there's no script running random dice every in-game X minutes to spawn another mission.
Indeed, they are set once per month.
High chance to miss lots of content as the player moves through the game, unless they purposefully wait with promotions to enjoy it (but then that may cripple them later on).
I am trying to minimize it to a degree, but don't care too much. Every cmapign is different and that's okay.
That's the problem - without saving before first move you don't know if it's too bad. One often doesn't know if it's too bad till they actually start moving on the first turn and realize there's several enemies aiming at them - and then the very fact they made one trooper take one step may lead to them being shot up and then there's little left to abort with. Same problem with smoke grenades: I repeat, because of how grenades seem to work, they're not useful because agents get shot up after making a single move, so before those grenades explode even if one starts the round with them equipped and primed.
Okay. For now let's leave it at that and talk after testing the new availability.
Hah, I understand. My personal bias speaking because as mentioned, the "special agents in trenchcoats and with normal military hardware uncovering paranormal happenings/conspiracies" is kind of unique yet very much appreciated aspect for me.
I realize it's the mod's biggest point, and perhaps it shouldn't even include real aliens... But it's too late to change that. I can only keep improving the current model.
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(continued)
As you've mentioned, nearly any mission could have *some* reason to add such, start-game cult apprehension just felt fitting for me because at this point XCOM is just budding initiative pursuing their first leads wherever they may be and trying to apprehend what's basically simple criminals - so having their gangs send a few guys more if they realize some of their men were attacked/someone went onto their turf or regular police coming in to take care of these criminals seems reasonable to me.
True, but you see - I only added this mission because people complained that culthouses were too hard for a first contact with cults. Therefore I added the apprehension as a baby step to allow people to learn the ropes. It wouldn't make sesne to make it a bigger problem than it is.
Adding friendly police forces would be better in this regard, but I fear it would just promote doing nothing.
All in all, don't break what works.
In regular cult apprehension, maybe we cannot. I could think of a special mission though where some intelligence agency had secret op to raid some important place housing things not meant for their eyes tied to some council members so rather than going undercover and browbeat their officials to let XCOM in on it, one's forced to crash the party and either fight both groups (with penalties for killing cops) or prepare less-lethal crowd control. Could even underline the aspect of how council isn't really just good guys and we may be forced to do some of a really morally ambiguous, wet work for them.
Eh, I know, ideas are easy but what's the work to put them in!
Yeah :D
I'll get back to this phase at some point.
Could think of the reasons but as mentioned, I'd rather give you the honest answer of untapped potential and how it's by my absolutely subjective take the most awesome part of the game and its greatest appeal. Of course, I understand if your opinion differs on it, but just there's so much more that could be done so it'll be better (and some of those things with less work required than the others) that eh, it hurts. But yes, I am aware there's a lot of other things to be done in other parts of the game and there's only so much time and will.
No, no, I agree :) But there are simply other priorities. I need to develop the entire mod, not just the "favourite part". Other parts aren't favourite because they aren't developed. :P
Yes. All those scenarios are just hypothetical ideas for the ways reinforcement mechanics could be implemented. Be it enemy reinforcements for some gangsters if player is slow to capture enemies the mission begins with, police reinforcement to fight those enemies and thus possibly deprive XCOM of captives (again, should player be too slow) or military reinforcements in a bigger battle against aliens (as the battle keeps raging).
OK, gotcha.
Frankly coming up with new ideas for missions using this mechanic isn't hard. As usual, devil is in the details... :)
No problem. Hell, while I am hardly a professional writer, if you want any little text blurbs like that about any little thing for events and whatnot, just let me know what's needed for what and I can probably make several on the fly.
Feel free to drop any ideas! I like events, and they're easy to add.
Uh, not my point. The mission difficulty isn't what I concentrate on, but it's the fact that the informant doesn't have to be kept alive and cannot be kept alive since he spawns in the middle of enemy location and dies instantly all the time. Sometimes he even appears in mission loadout phase (sometimes he doesn't), sometimes he's not there during the mission, sometimes he's a controllable character, too and sometimes just implied to exist in mission debriefing but not actually appearing on the map. It's a weird mission like that.
Yeah, there's like 6 variants, but the briefing is always different.
Regarding informant's location, I will keep an eye on this issue. (I need to play more.)
We wouldn't even have to get as far technologically though plasma knife which would be basically just a small hilt till it's in one's hand and activated makes sense. I was thinking mostly about absolutely or just somewhat realistic alternatives to shiv which by the name alone usually implies improvised, small weapon mostly made in prisons or other criminal circles - while there's proper, quality folding knives, short, very easily concealable blades for some special forces - and that without mentioning simple, tiny knives once alien or hi-tech materials get researched or XCOM gets into occult.
Plus, there's general a lot of tiny, useful things that should be available to clandestine organisations and fit one slot of covert operative's inventory, not only knives, pistols or telescopic batons. Lethal or disabling agent injectors/syringes? An accurate melee weapon dealing a lot of damage but holding one "ammo" and having hard time with armors, for example.
But the core of the issue is examples that seems to be what I edited in before you started replying, like katanas which because of graphics even when not held take as much space and are as hard to wield (on account of needing to be put in a backpack when not held) as heavy missile launchers. No quick draws possible.[/quote]
Yeah, I guess the "shiv" implicitly covers other small blade types, which might be a bad idea. Perhaps I should add a more proper small knife along it.
I don't mind them being difficult enemies and being defended by psi-shields, when I was mentioning wanting strong/weak enemies with fitting stats I was literally meaning that - some enemies which have to depend on their hi-tech guns, but some that are just beasts in general. Enemies that are frail (but may or may not make up for it with aforementioned tech) and not.
Yeah, I agre, but for aliens it doesn't seem as fitting - they are varied, but all are reasonably strong and sturdy.
That's why we have other factions, or at least how I see it.
The issue with sectoids are that they're NOT small and frail outside of their graphics and they, as mentioned, seem like any other kind of able enemy: whatever their stats, in examples above, they outmatched strong (for a human!), fully trained, fit adult in matters of purely physical prowess, as if it'd be sectoids who are muscled up martial artists, not operatives fighting them. And that applies even to those sectoids which simply even aren't in combat roles, but merely support. Their performance and warfare experience as a species is a different topic altogether.
Well, Sectoids have 20 basic Strength. Their Melee is a whopping 12. Their only advantage in close combat is good Reactions of 63.
If that's too strong for your agents, then maybe it's gym time? :D
That's how specialization works. The former are, as you've just said yourself, meant to be small and frail. The latter have no mention of any extensive training and conditioning with their purpose being warfare but are implied to serve mainly as a middle management of Dagon's cult.
Generally yes, but it doesn't necessarily extend to Lovecraftian mutants. :)
I'll take your word for it, but from their prowess in battle I am willing to attest that depending on their rank, all enemies seem to be comparably skilled all across the board. If an enemy is a decent rifleman, they're usually also good at bashing my troopers or pushing their guns away in what I called "gun struggle" (trying to shoot next to each other). If they can shoot well, they can also react quickly with their shots - 360 no scope headshot reaction fire seal of excellence. If they're strong, they're usually also pretty sturdy. I am sure there's some variation in their stats, but it just isn't visible during the gameplay when it comes to armed sentients. I have to underline t's better in case of non-sentients like, for example, chupacabras which indeed seem very fast, hit very hard but have merely okay toughness fitting for their looks and ufopedia description.
Okay, I guess I misunderstood. Anyway, of course certain stats correlate in humanoids, you physically can't have a strong but fragile unit... But I'll keep that in mind for whenever I can do anything.
No problem, to a degree it is. It may be that the boundary for what's lethal and not for melee is thinner because usually when enemies get into melee range, they exchange several strong hits most armors offer limited protection toward - and thus it looks how it does, with melee attacks either doing nothing or outright obliterating xcom operatives of average health pool.
Yes, melee must be strong, as it's obviously disadvantaged.
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Melee for dedicated melee enemies tends to hit hard as a truck, Vampire Knight can destroy a Sectopod with 1-2 swings from his sword because he has so much strenght and his sword scales from strenght really well. Same for Minotaurs. Cultists and humans with melee weapons arent as scary and mainly, they are squishy so if a cultist charges you with a iron pipe, he might just die from random reaction hit from someone else,standing 15 metres away from blackops rifle.
Melee needs to be good damage wise because it requires a good setup, ambush and stats and RNG to pull off.
The vampire knight one/two shotting most heavily armoured units might be scary, but the moment when you give your troops flying armours and you turn the Sectopod in to a hover plasma tank ? Well, now he is useless and cant reach you.
So melee seems OK in its intended purpose, yes its weird how someone with a Katana can one shot a sectopod, or Werewolves can rip through a Tank but this is just a case of gameplay and realism departure, for sake of having a more interesting game.
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Well, Sectoids have 20 basic Strength. Their Melee is a whopping 12. Their only advantage in close combat is good Reactions of 63.
If that's too strong for your agents, then maybe it's gym time? :D
I don't know if that is the full picture. They have very accurate weapons and if I am not mistaken they have the spotting\spotter ability? Correct me if I am wrong here, but I do feel like if I am putting shots into sectoids they can pin-point wherever you are and simply rely on their super-accurate weapons to kill your elite snipers. 63 react + spotter\sniper + thermal + accurate weapons is no joke. They also have psi-shields so you need to put some extra rounds in their way. In a world where direct fire is suicide, grenade launchers are king.
I am partially conflicted on where I stand on sectoids. I love how they are actually a huge threat and whenever I see one I start sweating (unless I have disposable rats + grenade launchers). As an alien force that is supposed to be a massive threat, sectoids make up a big "oh shit" factor for me in the early phase.
On the other hand, sectoids -for me- does not fit -my- ideal theme. For me, a sectoid is not a reaction-fire god, but a cheap and sufficient genetic experiment suited for reconnaisance, abductions, diplomacy and other non-combat tasks. Obviously equipped for self-defense with whatever weaponry the Alien Overlords deem fitting for such tasks, but again not necessarily excelling in combat. Being a genetically altered species, a species could have their stats go up through genetic augmentation (reactions, eyesight, strength, armor...), but I also think it fits having some stats decrease. It goes to show how the Alien Overlords have abused genetic experimentation and their degeneracy in controlling and manipulating other species for their own purposes without empathy. A possible grim fate for humanity, having our flesh surrendered and possibly ending up as another degenerate genetic abomination, forever doomed separated from our pure natural origins.
I do think sending sectoids down a notch or two on the "threat-ladder" gives a more fleshed out thematic feel for the alien roster. The primary way for the player to experience (not read ufopedia articles) the contrast between different aliens is how they behave in different gameplay mechanics, such as reaction fire, armor, accuracy, sounds+graphics, speed - but losing an agent to 360 noscope aimbot alien hits harder, and perhaps that should be reserved for the bigger\better toys the aliens will bring on your little planet :)
If I would have my way off the top of my head, I would slightly reduce the reaction stat of sectoids to around the 40-50 mark and possibly tweak the spotting\sniper thingy. I would probably not even argue if their reaction fire was put down to around 20, but that might be seriously overkill. Interested in hearing what other people think, I'm not sure if this is the way to go.
Disclaimer - I love the mod and I'm just putting in my two cents. I love how sectoids are a threat, but I also think their behavior could better reflect their role, at least what role I personally am envisioning them in. Cheers!
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Spotting mechanic isnt actually whats killing your troops, its the "reveal of the shooter" that does it. If anyone (Your men included) hits anyone, he is revealed, through fog of war or any obsctales. So a sniper can quickscope a Sectoid across the entire map and his budy then shoots the sniper with his plasma rifle through reaction shots way beyond his actual sight range.
This is also why in night missions, the moment you shoot someone, the entire map dogpiles on the XCOM soldier because its the only person they can see.
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I don't know if that is the full picture. They have very accurate weapons and if I am not mistaken they have the spotting\spotter ability? (...)
Okay, but the conversation was about melee.
On the other hand, sectoids -for me- does not fit -my- ideal theme. For me, a sectoid is not a reaction-fire god, but a cheap and sufficient genetic experiment suited for reconnaisance, abductions, diplomacy and other non-combat tasks. Obviously equipped for self-defense with whatever weaponry the Alien Overlords deem fitting for such tasks, but again not necessarily excelling in combat. Being a genetically altered species, a species could have their stats go up through genetic augmentation (reactions, eyesight, strength, armor...), but I also think it fits having some stats decrease. It goes to show how the Alien Overlords have abused genetic experimentation and their degeneracy in controlling and manipulating other species for their own purposes without empathy. A possible grim fate for humanity, having our flesh surrendered and possibly ending up as another degenerate genetic abomination, forever doomed separated from our pure natural origins.
But they aren't that good. Yes, they have good Reactions, but nothing "godly"; they are merely compentent.
Aliens in general are too weak anyway, so not a design problem either.
I do think sending sectoids down a notch or two on the "threat-ladder" gives a more fleshed out thematic feel for the alien roster. The primary way for the player to experience (not read ufopedia articles) the contrast between different aliens is how they behave in different gameplay mechanics, such as reaction fire, armor, accuracy, sounds+graphics, speed - but losing an agent to 360 noscope aimbot alien hits harder, and perhaps that should be reserved for the bigger\better toys the aliens will bring on your little planet :)
Maybe I could tone down their Reactions, but I feel that it would be kinda cheaty. Those big brains and big eyes should account for something.
Aliens are supposed to be pretty nasty here. It's not vanilla where you had alien mooks, a bit more competent alien mooks, flying idiots, tanky mooks and Ethereals. Here all aliens are supposed to be bad news.
Disclaimer - I love the mod and I'm just putting in my two cents. I love how sectoids are a threat, but I also think their behavior could better reflect their role, at least what role I personally am envisioning them in. Cheers!
And thanks for your feedback, I really can see where you're coming from. However, it doesn't really fit the concept for reasons I mentioned above.
Spotting mechanic isnt actually whats killing your troops, its the "reveal of the shooter" that does it. If anyone (Your men included) hits anyone, he is revealed, through fog of war or any obsctales. So a sniper can quickscope a Sectoid across the entire map and his budy then shoots the sniper with his plasma rifle through reaction shots way beyond his actual sight range.
This is also why in night missions, the moment you shoot someone, the entire map dogpiles on the XCOM soldier because its the only person they can see.
Indeed that is true, and serves to enforce the aliens' image as an interconnected war machine, developed over eons. And to make them nasty, of course.
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If I might add to this (in regards to Sectoids) - turning them down a notch in melee (point blank shooting/stabbing) would probably be beneficial for early game battles. At that stage enganging them at range is usually a death sentence for the agent who makes the shot (maybe I am just unlucky though). I think there should be some risk/reward balance here. Managing to sneak up on one of the little buggers should not end with them casually flipping away your agents guns or blocking blades bare-handed. Yes, they do have PSI-shields, but they are not Ethereals. The average human should be able to overpower a Sectoid at close range unless mind-controlled/panicked. And dear god is it satisfying take them down with a shotgun at point blank range.
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Melee weapons cannot be blocked, they can only miss or do no damage if armour is high enough (and Sectoids arent armoured).
The main problem is that overpowering is based around reactions and melee, not strenght, Sectoids have high reaction stats so even if Humans are much stronger, they can still fail to Sectoids tiny little arms.
To quote the wiki
". You must overcome their defenses with a special close combat test, based on your and your foe's Melee and Reactions. The test also depends on the weapon you use (pistols are best, heavy weapons are worst)."
The close quater combat needs to be based on reactions AND strenght, this way you can still retain Sectoids high reactions as alien troops should have, but have more sensible gun struggle in general.
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How does strength help in hitting? Is Hulk a better fencer than Musashi?
It would make sense if there was a more detailed melee system, involving blocks and breaking blocks. But it's X-Com and we cannot do that, or minotaurs will be able to school Lo Wo in melee combat.
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Playing devil's advocate here, but as far as I can tell X-Com never encounters Lo Wo and minotaurs on the same map ;)
CQC with guns should not be comparable to fencing to begin with - the point is not to hit your opponent with an edged or blunt weapon. The point is - literally - about being able to point your gun at an enemy.
What exactely does this "special close combat test" account for? Seeing how it only applies during CQC (i.e. standing next to each other) it's not about dodging - otherwise this should apply to long-ranged attacks as well. That leaves grappling (i.e. grabbing your opponent/pushing away your opponents gun). It should be obvious why strength should be a factor here - if you are stronger than your opponent they will have a harder time holding onto your gun/push it away. Reactions can account for your opponent being able to grab your gun, but not for being able to deflect it away if they are a lot weaker than you.
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The ufopedia mentions knocking someone's gun away, rather than grabbing it and the illustration, even if it is from a very silly movie, brings that point across nicely. The way, that cqc plays out on the battlescape also looks much more like just knocking the gun away. You don't need any strength at all to mess up somebody's aim. It is surpisingly easy to miss a man-sized target even from point-blank range. The defender only needs to be faster than the shooter and give the weapon a slight push. Of course the game is totally exaggerating, when it shows the shooter spinning around up to 180 degrees. I understand, that the mechanic has to be visually communicated to the player somehow but that is a bit much.
Anyway, grabbing an enemy or their weapon makes a lot less sense to me from a gameplay perspective. Why would the defender let go between every shot? The attacker would first have to free himself before being able to take aim again. Also none of this would even be possible to begin with, if the defender doesn't have a free hand.
I guess it could be cool to have grappling and even disarming mechanics in the game, but the amount of complexity we have already is sufficient for me.
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How does strength help in hitting? Is Hulk a better fencer than Musashi?
It would make sense if there was a more detailed melee system, involving blocks and breaking blocks. But it's X-Com and we cannot do that, or minotaurs will be able to school Lo Wo in melee combat.
Whole script melee hit chance is exposed to scripts, you could add additional checks that are affected by target and attacker.
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That is why I used "grappling" as a general term to describe both:
That leaves grappling (i.e. grabbing your opponent/pushing away your opponents gun).
Seeing how this is taking place at point blank range, "aiming" isn't really the issue here. I'd argue that the defender would need more than "a slight push" to avoid being hit, seeing how large center of mass (or head of we're talking sectoids here) are at that distance. Even if you have superhuman reactions you would need a very forceful "push" to deflect a shot from a closely and double-handedly held pistol. Even more so if the level of strength between attacker and defender are disparate - more strength also (usually) leads to faster, easier and more stable positioning of a handheld weapon.
Reactions should definitely matter, but so should strength.
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How does strength help in hitting? Is Hulk a better fencer than Musashi?
It would make sense if there was a more detailed melee system, involving blocks and breaking blocks. But it's X-Com and we cannot do that, or minotaurs will be able to school Lo Wo in melee combat.
Yes, because Hulk would slap the air really hard in front of him and kill him with a shockwave. Hulk be a fencing master now. Also hulk is also really quick despite being a large individual so he has both strenght and reaction.
Now with more serious answer
Reactions make most sense when it comes to one handed weapons, but the larger you go, the heavier your weapon is, hell, XCOM has tons of weapons that are heavier than sectoids themselves. Pistols should be easy to push away, but a minigun, heavy MAGMA shotgun, blaster weapons ?. The soldier can push back now since the sectoid cant just slap it away and actually has to push with his inferior strenght. Yes, it being longer would make it easier for someone like a Muton to wrestle with it since he could get a better grip.
And what about the holder itself ? If the soldier is in a power armour, he has an insane grip and a strenght of a forklift and his gauntlet has probably more mass in it than Sectoid's entire body.
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Playing devil's advocate here, but as far as I can tell X-Com never encounters Lo Wo and minotaurs on the same map ;)
CQC with guns should not be comparable to fencing to begin with - the point is not to hit your opponent with an edged or blunt weapon. The point is - literally - about being able to point your gun at an enemy.
What exactely does this "special close combat test" account for? Seeing how it only applies during CQC (i.e. standing next to each other) it's not about dodging - otherwise this should apply to long-ranged attacks as well. That leaves grappling (i.e. grabbing your opponent/pushing away your opponents gun). It should be obvious why strength should be a factor here - if you are stronger than your opponent they will have a harder time holding onto your gun/push it away. Reactions can account for your opponent being able to grab your gun, but not for being able to deflect it away if they are a lot weaker than you.
The ufopedia mentions knocking someone's gun away, rather than grabbing it and the illustration, even if it is from a very silly movie, brings that point across nicely. The way, that cqc plays out on the battlescape also looks much more like just knocking the gun away. You don't need any strength at all to mess up somebody's aim. It is surpisingly easy to miss a man-sized target even from point-blank range. The defender only needs to be faster than the shooter and give the weapon a slight push. Of course the game is totally exaggerating, when it shows the shooter spinning around up to 180 degrees. I understand, that the mechanic has to be visually communicated to the player somehow but that is a bit much.
Anyway, grabbing an enemy or their weapon makes a lot less sense to me from a gameplay perspective. Why would the defender let go between every shot? The attacker would first have to free himself before being able to take aim again. Also none of this would even be possible to begin with, if the defender doesn't have a free hand.
I guess it could be cool to have grappling and even disarming mechanics in the game, but the amount of complexity we have already is sufficient for me.
A lot of good points here and later, all contradictory. Showing that we don't need a change in stats, but a better model. :P
(But I'm fine with the current one TBH... The only thing that bothers me is facing not having an impact, AFAIK.)
Whole script melee hit chance is exposed to scripts, you could add additional checks that are affected by target and attacker.
OK, for the sake of argument let's conveniently ignore the fact that the number of people I know of in the whole world who can into scripting at all is less than 10. :P
Even if scripting was possible, and we had a better model than now, I don't think going over all units in the game to give them a proper script would be a sane solution.
And regarding pushing away heavy weapons: I never said that the CQC check was about pushing weapons. It can just as well be dodging, or I dunno, squatting on top of your opponent's rifle (if you happen to be a catgirl from a 90's anime). It's abstracted.
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(But I'm fine with the current one TBH... The only thing that bothers me is facing not having an impact, AFAIK.)
AFAYK (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5431.0l.html)?
Would be nice though if the default stats (melee+reactions) could also be overridden globally as well as whether attacks from behind should automatically succeed.
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OK, for the sake of argument let's conveniently ignore the fact that the number of people I know of in the whole world who can into scripting at all is less than 10. :P
Even if scripting was possible, and we had a better model than now, I don't think going over all units in the game to give them a proper script would be a sane solution.
This is still at least two times more people than ones who could easy change OXC code :P
And for updating all units, this depend on what exactly this should depend on, if it use only base stats then nothing need be change outside of one global script that affect all units. If each armor rule (as most scripts are linked to it instead of unit rule or solider rule) need some custom handling then it need tag that will toggle this behavior.
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This is still at least two times more people than ones who could easy change OXC code :P
Flawless victory. Fatality. :D
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Victory, yes... But still pyrrhic! :)
But on a more serious note, well, I'd be interested in seeing a better CQC method... It's not about the method, it's about the model.
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And what exactly this model should have? If this is close to current engine capabilities then we could make small tweaks to enable this.
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And what exactly this model should have? If this is close to current engine capabilities then we could make small tweaks to enable this.
The point is, I have no idea, I am happy with how it works now (with minor remarks as mentioned above). But if I were to guess, it's about exposing the CQC formula to ruleset.
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Since you asked for an idea:
Extend the current formula to include strength in the following way.
Strength based multiplier: strMod = 1 + 0,2*((your str / opponent str) - 1)
So your cqc value is [current cqc formula]*strMod. Done for both attacker and defender.
Example calculation:
Lets say agent has str 50 and cqc value 50, while Sectoid has str 20 and cqc value 100.
With strMod this changes to:
Agent 50*1.3 = 65
Sectoid 100*0.88 = 88
Tune the strMod formula if you want more or less of an effect.
This seems to satisfy the requirements.
- You need a somewhat good cqc score to benefit from this. 0 will stay 0.
- Good cqc score is not reduced to nothing.
- Effects are only seen when there is a large difference in strength.
This is probably not the final formula, but good enough of a starting point.
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Sorry, but I have already explained above in details why Strength is not a proper stat to base this check on.
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Sorry, but I have already explained above in details why Strength is not a proper stat to base this check on.
Be that as it may, reactions alone isn't either.
I just tried to subdue a Muckstar - something best described as a floating Piñata that shoots lightning - with a baseball bat. According to you that thing should have a simple nervous system and floats because its interior is filled with helium baloons. It should not be able to dodge ~90% of my melee attacks.
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Muckstar is a flying enemy that can adjust its altitude.
Yes, its probably way too simple as a lifeform to ever think of using that ability to dodge melee attacks.
Really, this is just the case of gameplay and realism segregation for sake of having a game.
(Yes, i would still prefer if we had enemies that couldnt dodge melee, enemies too bulky to be missed like some aliens or vehicles, or enemies too dumb to dodge).
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Played for a few more days, got further so there should be a bit more feedback past initial few organizations. A few things that seem outright janky I reported (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,5047.msg138193.html#msg138193) in the relevant thread.
Answering last replies before moving on:
I realize it's the mod's biggest point, and perhaps it shouldn't even include real aliens... But it's too late to change that. I can only keep improving the current model.
But I do like aliens as well! While aesthetics of many XCOM ones, without severe changes don't really give into the whole mysterious, otherworldly conspiracy theme, better these than none. The major issue with them seems elsewhere, which I'll address in another point.
Adding friendly police forces would be better in this regard, but I fear it would just promote doing nothing.
Quite the contrary! The very idea is that should XCOM not be efficient, there will be a risk of mission ending succesfully, sure, but with severe point decrease due to killed cops and with reduction in live captures as cops tend to outright attempt to murder the enemies. Could possibly also help with the annoying "it's a simple early game round, but it's also turn 40 cause some gangbanger hid in a closet in a top-floor apartment of a building on the edge of the map".
Well, Sectoids have 20 basic Strength. Their Melee is a whopping 12. Their only advantage in close combat is good Reactions of 63.
If that's too strong for your agents, then maybe it's gym time? :D
Had another such situation again, this time I tracked stats more closely:
Two troopers, 52 and 63 strength respectively. A single sectoid next to them fired 4 or 5 shots, none of them succesfully interrupted, both of them accurate, killing both soldiers. At this point no gym will help further, bio-enhancement also won't, I consider just organising X-COM wide program to have my agents snort so much Storm that they won't need any camo when fighting in snowy environment.
More seriously, yeah, just some issues with that. I do understand though that it's very RNG-based and that there's whole discussion about problems with this mechanics you're already aware of so I'm just bringing it up for reference/perspective.
Yeah, I agre, but for aliens it doesn't seem as fitting - they are varied, but all are reasonably strong and sturdy.
In all honesty, it may be that you found the the core of the issue. Aliens, in any amounts and with equipment beyond what smallest recon UFOs provide, usually are a considerable difficulty bump compared to even "second tier" (better equipped, higher stats, not available initially) human organisations. There's no weak alien parties, strong alien parties, alien parties some particular tactics is very useful against - from the most expandable goon to the most treasured commanding officers everyone is an accomplished sharpshooter and martial artist, resistant (though not evenly so) to small arms fire, often equipped in paranormal powers, fought in environment passively messing up troops (which still needs some adjustments IMHO, a thing I'll address later on) with equipment superior to XCOMs.
It makes meh stats of particular units in alien roster mean less when there's several of them pouring still very accurate and very powerful fire (even trained, tritanium-armored operatives still can get one-shot by a sectoid with a plasma pistol), from darkness and distance my operatives cannot even see at despite super sci-fi suits (more on that later) and taking usually several shots to kill by the strongest human non-sci-fi guns available (talking about anti-materiel stuff like barrets and blackops sniper rifles still often needing a couple of shots to take said basic sectoids out). It's not a big deal in every case but when every enemy at that point is treating this level of power as a baseline and only gets stronger from there, the progression is a bit out of whack and again - a lot of it becomes just a slugging match, since there's no tactics, no non-situational weaknesses to exploit, only grabbing the biggest guns, putting on the sturdiest armor and hoping you decrease enemies' health faster than they do so with your agents (which they usually do till you get through that slog and have your own even greater sci-fi stuff to balance it out).
But they aren't that good. Yes, they have good Reactions, but nothing "godly"; they are merely compentent.
That may be aforementioned baseline power issue. Even the weakest, most frail, mass-produced invader, with qualities as listed above is overall at least as "merely competent" as a veteran XCOM operative and still available in infinite quantities (while veteran agents are often hard-won and when lost making XCOM even weaker for future fights). That's, again, is not horrible (minus the "shooting outside of range your agents can even see at in broad daylight", which is just both unfair and unfun), but with addition of environmental benefits (constant sanity drain) and numbers of enemies, becomes kinda meh, at least at difficulties higher than the lowest ones (which also gets the player penalized as less enemies = less loot, points and stat increase).
Alright, enough about this, I bet you get my point. Time to move to other feedback.
Perhaps personal armor luminescence could be upped? It's kinda weird that no matter if one just wears a suit or supertech sci-fi armor, an agent still has to depend on flashlights and flare-derivatives to see things some distance away. I can understand, for the sake of balance, the agents not getting head-mounted lights at the beginning of the game but once one runs with literal sci-fi gear, a person would assume neither an armor-mounted light nor a quality night-vision equipment would be out of reach.
Aforementioned range. Even in broad daylight, enemy units, at least at Veteran difficulty simply shoot from a range on flat terrain that's so great my agents, despite their fancy armors cannot even see (it's still in the black/fog of war) terrain that is there, yet alone enemies on it. Be it aliens or humans, augmented or not - if they can shoot me from a certain range, they will, often even without spotters that could explain their great sniping skills available. Adding on top of that the fact that apparently most enemies have at least some low-level cloaking (as they're not automatically seen even when the terrain itself is unless one gets closer) it makes it kinda annoying at times.
Seems like quite some things are resistant to bio damage or there's something else afoot - despite seemingly better stats of a dart rifle, I had far many more one-shot takedowns with a puny taser. The rifle has better range, is much more expensive to acquire and generally more advanced weapon but all-in-all seems less effective, at least against basic cult/gang/organisation members, sometimes not even penetrating the "armor" of half-naked cult of apocalypse folks or random farmers as reliably as taser seems to do. Talking about toxin A, B seems considerably more effective, at least against regular humans (still takes a bit to take down anything else, but at least it's not worse than tasers).
As I play further I notice many more seemingly direct upgrades to early-game items are not really practical on actual battlefield due to issue I've mentioned last time - their graphic/size is great enough that they have to be put in a backpack, making things like drawing out melee weapons very hard. Even adding one more slot to "quick draw" inventory and having some items more "vertical" (various long knives like wakizashi would take those 3 slots rather than 6) would let it work like a scabbard. At the point when I run around with pew pew laser guns, I am still forced to use start-game electric batons, simply because I can actually pull one out from QD and still have TU to swing it - by comparison all the other rods, stun spears etc are useless in this regard unless one just began their turn next to the enemy (which is usually dangerous and a situation to avoid). Equipping troopers with one-hand firearm and such bigger melee weapons is overall a bad idea - even if the melee weapon doesn't require both hands, so equipped troopers are usually underpowered.
Also, weight similarly seems to be kinda out of whack. Losing troops is to be expected, but the problem is many new ones simply aren't strong enough to really carry late-game weapons, wear armor and still be combat-effective enough to even have a chance of improving for the future and fill in for the loses. And the further in game one gets, rather than be more ergonomic, the weapons become more clunky, with stuff like BlackOps one-handed weapons having the weight of an RPG launcher. And it gets even worse from there. At some point I've noticed that magnetic pistols and rifles are heavier than anti-tank weapons and they're nowhere close the weight of early-game weapons of similar size/designation, but again, I have to underline, it's an issue every better weapon tier keeps getting the further one gets in game, making increase in strength not an actual increase, just requirement so the trooper can keep using new counterparts to their old weapons of the current tier of them.
A minor thing, but, well, noticeable: metamorphs rather than having a lot of health seem to be very sturdy (anti-materiel sniper rifles had to work on some of them for a bit just to start dealing damage) armor - kind of opposite of The Thing.
I've mentioned sanity still having some issues. Ran some missions and parts of them repeatedly to test its effects and drain:
The good:
There seemed to have been some improvement in regards to sanity since I've last played. At the very least, it's less likely for agents in regular missions to freak out without something really dreadful that would hurt their morale happening first, which is as it should be. At least when it comes to missions that aren't long and with severe ambient sanity loss. Generally, an interesting feature slowly starts shaping up. However:
The bad:
It still requires a lot of work. In those of the missions that last long with ambient sanity decrease it still depletes too fast for what the mission requires. Initially over 70 sanity (as checked at mission start), first troopers started panicking around turn 20 when assaulting a big UFO, despite nothing in particular happening. Many, likely most enemies were dead, the casualties were noticeable but neither crippling nor fatal and all those agents took part in assaulting other UFOs before - there shouldn't be anything even very scary, yet alone nightmare'ish (which was how the ambient was described). None of the enemies were of the psychic variety, either. Even the environment the mission was happening in was picturesque in its daylight. The battle seemed almost won and yet in the end drugs had to be taken just to be able to leave it all and get to evacuation area without people freaking out.
Most UFO missions, if the UFO is of bigger size, lead to some, even quite high-level troopers freaking out at nothing, simply because any sort of battleplan that's not dependant on heavy save-scumming or running in guns blazing (which is only possible if you, again, save-scum, smash everything with high-caliber weapon/explosives and/or have already equipment superior to that of aliens) takes too many turns. Actual tactical, logical maneuver of moving the troopers as they cover each other, scout terrain ahead, setting up firing lines etc is just far too slow, and any attempt at setting up ambush points is outright useless.
Alien bases/bigger maps are even worse because how easy it is for some enemy to just get stuck somewhere off the way - I had a situation where most aliens around 40th turn (which, unless I am just bad at it, isn't a long time for alien bases, especially with those enemies getting stuck and if agents aren't suicidally sprinting everywhere) were dead but the mission was unfinishable, as all my troopers and whatever was left of aliens were just panicking and shooting corridors. I watched that for everal turns unable to do anything but trying to make some agents pick up their weapons before considering either just canceling the mission (which would mean big chunk of all my in-game forces and equipment getting lost) or just debugging (cheating in something to counter) it. I won't lie, it's kinda hilarious imagining both a group of mutons and my troopers screaming their heads off, ignoring each other to just run through corridors flailing arms or peeing themselves in fetal positions on the floor - but it does take away both from experience of epic base invasion and from actual ability to progress as everyone turning into a deranged, uncontrollable lunatic, even on drugs, makes sacrifice of time, effort and troopers in the fight so great it's often leading to overall loss one is unable to pick themselves up from (can't even evacuate because uncontrollable troopers won't run to evac zone).
In the end, far too often sanity doesn't increase the game complexity as much as works as a very strict timer or a gate preventing less-experienced agents to be used in the mission at all since they seem to freak out so much sooner and is even more difficult to deal with than aliens themselves (as drugs can take one only so far before they render the trooper useless). Sure, sometimes ones gets lucky, all enemies are quickly found and dispatched (assuming they weren't found because they were surrounding my agents and shooting them up) and at some point one can get powerful and equipped enough to not worry about sanity in most missions and finish them quicker, but then the whole mechanics doesn't cause issues only because it doesn't matter as much anymore.
I'd gladly sacrifice all those supposed fancy-shmancy atlantean magic-tech bio-enhancements for an ability to send veteran operatives to a therapist so they won't freak out in UFOs when they already have the upper hand and plenty of experience with prebvious won battles. Yes, it's that bothersome at times.
I like how humvee's can mount some anti-air weapon. Sadly, they seem unable to fight even the weakest of aggressors, which is understandable as jeeps probably aren't meant to take down sci-fi alien craft. Still, a slight upping of the basic cannon strength against the weakest of drones would be nice, though I also don't mind it being mostly for flavor. I do however recognize that while I run around with laser and mag-rifles and have access to various flying transporters, I get no interceptors among them and that no other vehicle can mount even that symbolic, weak weapon. Even something like a Dragonfly or Mudranger should be perfectly capable of sporting a weapon mount, if only to look cool. Maybe other, non-UFO weak vehicles that such cannons could fight - very, very slow moving terran ones of various factions which leave some small mission when destroyed, equipped with weapons or not, for example. Certainly it'd be an ideal thing for all those convoy missions which currently are just a mission popping up and not moving, but various human factions in general could move around from time to time.
Speaking of cannons - given its UAC, the weapon seems very weak. Weapon at this level that should be probably available the moment one gets a license to use machineguns as it appears to be kinda that - a craft-mounted heavy machinegun, not much unlike what those poor combatants in third-world countries mount on their pickups. Alternatively, even better, adding simple machinegun and pushing UAC cannons till promotion III with increased stats would make for much more smooth and reasonable progression - currently one goes from a very long time of no (yet alone useful) anti-aerial defences to sci-fi anti-UFO weapons. Something between these two points, both in terms of interceptors and their armaments is sorely missed, especially when the invasion starts, UFOs are flying around but unless one was looking up tech leads and going straight for it there's nothing to take them down with yet (there was IIRC a special craft that could be acquired but it was not guaranteed at all).
Feel free to drop any ideas! I like events, and they're easy to add.
A few examples in the next post.
Bonus
Since I felt like it after all this bothersome sanity mechanics testing gameplay, here's an artistic rendition of the epic base assault added as an attachment. I know, gorillion hours in Paint spent. Much time, very effort, such fanart. Hoping to provide some good-hearted laugh at the sillyness I had to deal with.
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Feel free to drop any ideas! I like events, and they're easy to add.
A few considerations:
I've tried to make sure that they're not more profitable or damaging than ones already in game. Some offer interesting rewards but also penalties, others may be positive but have negative counterparts, some offer rewards that may seem of some value, but aren't really that useful at the point of the game where they appear.
The idea is to to even out number of positive and negative events without affecting the balance as the latter seem much more common somehow.
Most of them probably shouldn't kick in more than once and I checked them with character counter to make sure they're not too big for the game's window, albeit they still require formatting.
I want to fill out the early game first since there's a lot of content still barely scratched (various subcultures, for example, often seem to jump at a player out of nowhere all at once) and then go further from there - should these be acceptable, let me know, I'll make more and with time move to other parts of the game (already have some ideas for invasion, hybrid and cyberweb events).
Some very cursory proofreading was done but since it was, well, cursory, some little grammar or whatever mistakes may still lurk. If so, then I apologize.
Normally they would be quite valuable but at this point of the game most players have whole squads of scientists and engineers and may not even need more for quite a few months. Still, a nice gesture from the old, yet spry veterans.
Prerequisites: X-Com History: Kiryu-Kai, X-Com History: Xenonauts, X-Com History: UNIT
"During our investigations of XCOM predecessors, we've learned about and contacted (with the Council's permission) many of their former employees. While most couldn't due to age, state of health or other obligations, a few brilliant minds left their retirement and decided to volunteer for service should we need them (+2 scientists, +3 engineers)"
I've mentioned there being little impact in the world for how ground-breaking and seemingly commonspread psionics or effective occult arts are. Thought I'd try to help it a bit, also trying to refer to some tropes you've mentioned enjoying and ufopedia entries, taking it all into account so it all works well together:
Prerequisites: Parapsychology
"While understanding the necessity of this knowledge and its potential benefits to our cause, certain Council members expressed worries about our forays into what they consider "occultism". They won't interfere but we were informed to exercise extra caution. One provided us with a personal item supposed to help us. (+1 rosary)"
Tried to make this event in a way that it'd hint that psionics indeed is known to others, not merely Council and there are groups out there which may see and practice it differently, possibly developing it in ways so far only mentioned in some dossiers/ufopedia entries of individuals able to invoke powers XCOM cannot. Could be also related to various very powerful, old factions from Ancient Aliens entry. Chosen Flame Glove as the gift as it's one of the first combat-effective psi artifacts a player can get.
Prerequisites: Metapsychology, Using Flame Glove
"A package was left at the edge of our perimeter. After security checks, we opened it to find a small bundle and a letter. Apparently occult practitioners unknown to us keep track of our study of psionics. While they consider our understanding of its mechanisms and our dependency on psi-devices laughable, they provided us with one such device to help. However, the Council is very upset that a third party managed to gain some intel on us. (-160 Council standing, +1 Flame Glove)"
Also, because salvage corps get no love despite all this thankless job of reliably transporting all those alien guts strewn around battlefield
Prerequisites: Psiclone
"An unit of council's salvage corps was sent to investigate a site of supernatural sightings. While they found no opposition, they did uncover a small workshop of an occultist of sorts. The Council denied us most of its content, claiming we don't need the books many of which are available publicly in less valuable editions, but we did acquire some other items found at the site. (+1 knife, +1 psiclone, +1 bone)"
Prerequisites: Parapsychology
"With the raise of supernatural sightings and reports of paranormal events all over the world, global interest in strange and mystical seems to increase together with number of uncovered, questionable occult practices. The Council reluctantly made an additional contribution to our funds expecting us to be ready to combat future new enemies both mundane and otherworldly. (+$100,000)"
Some early game events, so the organisations and subcultures seem to have slightly larger presence in the world
Prerequisites: Subculture: Stormies
"The Council is alerted by the recent rise in acts of violence seemingly involving bio-enhanced perpetrators. It was linked to the circulation of the Storm serum and we are the ones somehow blamed for not stopping it yet. (-20 Council standing)"
I wonder if this one wouldn't be better with some dossier.
Prerequisites: Subculture: Stormies
"A prominous MMA fighting star was recently arrested for using performance enhancing drugs. Council's investigators who already kept tabs on the celebrity due to his sudden raise in popularity found certain quantities of Storm among various substances confiscated by the police. It was sent to us to do with as we see fit. (+1 Storm)"
Prerequisites: Subculture: Pinky Devils
"During investigation of one of the new subcultures, our researchers found information about a club where various prominent figures were sighted enjoying company of Pinky Devils hostesses. Soon after, a group of rather nervous Council members approached our representative to offer a donation, but they also forbid us from looking further into events at this establishment. (-15 Council standing, +$120,000)
Prerequisites: Subculture: Pinky Devils
"One of our civilian employees was found relaying clssified information to his lover who was found to belong to Pinky Devils subculture. While the employee in question was of low rank and didn't know nor could share anything really important before he was taken into custody, the report on the event made us look bad in front of the Council. (-80 Council standing)"
Prerequisites: Black Lotus
"A minor politician allied with the Council was assassinated recently by, according to evidence, a Black Lotus agent. The Council expects us to prevent similar events. We were given the recovered murder weapon as a reminder of the threat Black Lotus poses. (-50 Council standing, +1 wakizashi)"
Prerequisites: Cult of Dagon
"Following a string of reports of paranormal activity in the area of a small, secluded village, the Council's agents found the place deserted, with various markings pertraining to the Cult of Dagon smeared on the buildings and a crude stone altar in the center of the local market. We are urged to double our efforts against the cult. (-50 Council standing)"
Prerequisites: Red Dawn
"The Council's intelligence recently found and shut down a group of freshly created websites and social media accounts belonging to Red Dawn which used them to recruit naive, ideologically aligned youth and acquire financial aid. We were allowed to seize the funds raised so far but also warned to destroy Red Dawn as it no doubt has other, more inconspicuous ways of increasing influence. (-15 Council standing, +$5356)"
Prerequisites: EXALT
"During a drug raid against one of the South American cartels, police unconvered evidence of EXALT involvement on a massive scale. While not surprised, the Council is also not amused by the organisation's growth and expects us to do something about it (-10 Council standing)"
Since we rarely get any corpses or creatures in events, I thought it'd be kinda nifty and also show that they are out there in the world outside of XCOM's missions.
Prerequisites: Zombie Autopsy
"Our intelligence managed to intercept a police report mentioning a heavily ill, aggressive individual attacking citizens of a small town. Upon further investigation we identified the person as a victim of a zombie parasite. The Council's executives convinced local authorities to hand over the infected. (+1 zombie)"
Prerequisites: Giant Rat Autopsy
"During renovation of a minor metro station in one of the European cities, what appeared to be a small nest of giant rats was uncovered. Its inhabitants were killed by the workers in self-defense, although with a few of them sustaining injuries of various severity. As we're certain these animals are similar to what our agents found in the field, we took possession of the cadavers. (+3 giant rat corpses)"
Prerequisities: Giant Spider Autopsy
"A report on a new, dangerous species of arachnids was released by a prominent biologist. Upon investigation, it was found that the researcher was studying corpses of creatures our agents fought before in the field and which were delivered to him by parties unknown even to him. We convinced him to part with the remaining samples. (+2 Giant Spider corpses, +4 Giant Beetle corpses)"
Intentionally made without references to Xenonaut entry hint on the off-chance it wasn't researched yet (which bodes ill for the player but it's not event's role to judge it). No rewards/penalties for this one, as I want it to be more of a flavor exposition.
Prerequisites: Year 1999
"An unprecedented increase in UFO sightings all over the globe throws some of the Council's business in disarray. As current methods of information control and obfuscation start to fail and intelligence reports various countries making contact with extraterrestrials outside of Council's supervision, we are urged to quickly get to managing it."
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Unfortunately I don't have time these days to answer in details, so let me quickly summarize:
1. Civilian support is fun, but must be done carefully. Apprehensions aren't suitable, because if the police is already on their tracks, why would X-Com even be involved? Also any feature promoting camping is best avoided.
2. I'm not too concerned about Sectoids' CQC abilities. I ewant to make aliens more alien, almost Lovecraftian, so a Sectoid shouldn't be seen in the same terms as a skinny gopnik on speed.
3. There should be less anti-alien opertation in the future, or at least they'll be more structured. We'll talk later about balance. Also, aliens only see for 20 tiles at night, so let's not get dramatic.
4. You want shiny armours? So you could be sniped by 40 enemies from the entire map? Would make sense if you could turn them on and off... (You can, but for all units at once, and you start with light on.)
5. Your dudes have sight range of 40 at day. AFAIR nothing in the game has more.
6. No, I'm not allowing rifles on QD, lol. :P
7. Yes, mass driver/Gauss weapons are heavy. Otherwise, not really. But having to buff your troops to let them use these guns is part of the plan.
8. Metamorphs have almost no armour, so eeeeh?
9. Sanity is a controversial issue. I'lll keep testing, but for now it stays.
10. The cannon slot on the humvee is useless, yes... It's mostly there for future possibilities, maybe I'll add weaker UFOs or something.
And now for the fun part. First of all, lovely fan art! I will treasure it forever.
And secondly, great work on the events! Let me list them here with some remarks.
Rise of the Old Guard: "During our investigations of XCOM predecessors, we've learned about and contacted (with the Council's permission) many of their former employees. While most couldn't due to age, state of health or other obligations, a few brilliant minds left their retirement and decided to volunteer for service should we need them (+2 scientists, +3 engineers)"
It's a fun, if relatively meaningless idea. I am not against it, but I'm not sure if it can be done.
Holy protection: Prerequisites: Parapsychology; "While understanding the necessity of this knowledge and its potential benefits to our cause, certain Council members expressed worries about our forays into what they consider "occultism". They won't interfere but we were informed to exercise extra caution. One provided us with a personal item supposed to help us. (+1 rosary)"
Yeah, it's kinda funny :)
Homegrown wizardry: Prerequisites: Psiclone: "An unit of council's salvage corps was sent to investigate a site of supernatural sightings. While they found no opposition, they did uncover a small workshop of an occultist of sorts. The Council denied us most of its content, claiming we don't need the books many of which are available publicly in less valuable editions, but we did acquire some other items found at the site. (+1 knife, +1 psiclone, +1 bone)"
We already have similar ones, so why not. But I'd rather randomize the loot to make it less repetitive. Any ideas for extending the list?
New Age: Prerequisites: Parapsychology: "With the raise of supernatural sightings and reports of paranormal events all over the world, global interest in strange and mystical seems to increase together with number of uncovered, questionable occult practices. The Council reluctantly made an additional contribution to our funds expecting us to be ready to combat future new enemies both mundane and otherworldly. (+$100,000)"
Why not.
Smash!: "Prerequisites: Subculture: Stormies: "The Council is alerted by the recent rise in acts of violence seemingly involving bio-enhanced perpetrators. It was linked to the circulation of the Storm serum and we are the ones somehow blamed for not stopping it yet. (-20 Council standing)"
+1
Winners don't use drugs: Prerequisites: Subculture: Stormies: "A prominous MMA fighting star was recently arrested for using performance enhancing drugs. Council's investigators who already kept tabs on the celebrity due to his sudden raise in popularity found certain quantities of Storm among various substances confiscated by the police. It was sent to us to do with as we see fit. (+1 Storm)"
I think it's more of an event than a dossier. Okay.
A carrot and a stick: Prerequisites: Subculture: Pinky Devils: "During investigation of one of the new subcultures, our researchers found information about a club where various prominent figures were sighted enjoying company of Pinky Devils hostesses. Soon after, a group of rather nervous Council members approached our representative to offer a donation, but they also forbid us from looking further into events at this establishment. (-15 Council standing, +$120,000)
I don't think it's what Pinkies would want to do, they're not really personal service types... A more appropriate candidate would be the Black Lotus.
Tempted: Prerequisites: Subculture: Pinky Devils: "One of our civilian employees was found relaying clssified information to his lover who was found to belong to Pinky Devils subculture. While the employee in question was of low rank and didn't know nor could share anything really important before he was taken into custody, the report on the event made us look bad in front of the Council. (-80 Council standing)"
Yeah, that's a bit more within PD's sphere of influence, but you know who would be even more appropriate? Goddamn hybrids! :) (Or even any of the 4 starting cults.)
Black Lotus Assassin: Prerequisites: Black Lotus: "A minor politician allied with the Council was assassinated recently by, according to evidence, a Black Lotus agent. The Council expects us to prevent similar events. We were given the recovered murder weapon as a reminder of the threat Black Lotus poses. (-50 Council standing, +1 wakizashi)"
Very nice and straightforward.
Altar of Dagon: Prerequisites: Cult of Dagon: "Following a string of reports of paranormal activity in the area of a small, secluded village, the Council's agents found the place deserted, with various markings pertraining to the Cult of Dagon smeared on the buildings and a crude stone altar in the center of the local market. We are urged to double our efforts against the cult. (-50 Council standing)"
Sure, very vanilla. (The players will curse us for all these negative events!)
Crowd-sourced: Prerequisites: Red Dawn
"The Council's intelligence recently found and shut down a group of freshly created websites and social media accounts belonging to Red Dawn which used them to recruit naive, ideologically aligned youth and acquire financial aid. We were allowed to seize the funds raised so far but also warned to destroy Red Dawn as it no doubt has other, more inconspicuous ways of increasing influence. (-15 Council standing, +$5356)"
I'm not even sure if such things were a thing back in the 90's, but I suppose yes... Would need some rephrasing though, I don't think "social media" was a coined term then (I probably heard of it before 2005 or so).
Busted: Prerequisites: EXALT: "During a drug raid against one of the South American cartels, police unconvered evidence of EXALT involvement on a massive scale. While not surprised, the Council is also not amused by the organisation's growth and expects us to do something about it (-10 Council standing)"
Cool.
Patient zero: Prerequisites: Zombie Autopsy: "Our intelligence managed to intercept a police report mentioning a heavily ill, aggressive individual attacking citizens of a small town. Upon further investigation we identified the person as a victim of a zombie parasite. The Council's executives convinced local authorities to hand over the infected. (+1 zombie)"
Why not.
Pests be gone: Prerequisites: Giant Rat Autopsy: "During renovation of a minor metro station in one of the European cities, what appeared to be a small nest of giant rats was uncovered. Its inhabitants were killed by the workers in self-defense, although with a few of them sustaining injuries of various severity. As we're certain these animals are similar to what our agents found in the field, we took possession of the cadavers. (+3 giant rat corpses)"
Also cool.
Big bugs: Prerequisities: Giant Spider Autopsy: "A report on a new, dangerous species of arachnids was released by a prominent biologist. Upon investigation, it was found that the researcher was studying corpses of creatures our agents fought before in the field and which were delivered to him by parties unknown even to him. We convinced him to part with the remaining samples. (+2 Giant Spider corpses, +4 Giant Beetle corpses)"
Cool, but it should be enabled also by beetles. (Which means I'll have to add a separate research... :-\ )
Invasion: Prerequisites: Year 1999: "An unprecedented increase in UFO sightings all over the globe throws some of the Council's business in disarray. As current methods of information control and obfuscation start to fail and intelligence reports various countries making contact with extraterrestrials outside of Council's supervision, we are urged to quickly get to managing it."
Very good.
EDIT: I took a criminally long lunch break and implemented the following events (with minor changes, like adding a city or tweaking point values): Smash!, Winners Don't Use Drugs, Pests Be Gone, Busted, Altar of Dagon, Black Lotus Assassin (with random weapon instead of just a wakizashi), Patient Zero, Invasion (renamed to "Prelude to Invasion"), Holy Protection, New Age. Other events are to be decided, as per my remarks above.
Thanks, man!
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Are these events bound to appropriate research triggers (i.e. appear only if cults have been research and disappear after cults have been destroyed)? I really don't like the idea of non-interactive player punishment systems.
I think the term "social media" was coined in the early 2000's, something more appropriate would probably be a BBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) or something similar. Same goes for crowdsourcing - early 2000's as well.
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Are these events bound to appropriate research triggers (i.e. appear only if cults have been research and disappear after cults have been destroyed)? I really don't like the idea of non-interactive player punishment systems.
Of course, like the ones already existing.
I think the term "social media" was coined in the early 2000's, something more appropriate would probably be a BBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system) or something similar. Same goes for crowdsourcing - early 2000's as well.
Yes, of course I remember the BBS :) Www existed as well, but nobody called it "social media".
I think "crowdfunding" is excusable, even if not 100% historically accurate. It's an article's title, so doesn't have to be perfectly fitting in-universe (as it's not an a document or quote which exists in the setting). So it's okay for, say, some humour value or other artistic expression.
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I haven't gotten super deep into this mod yet, but I feel the issue with melee isn't necessarily just the size of melee weapons because X-Piratez has similar melee weapons, yet they're much more viable. In that mod you have some units with far more TUs and the ability to sprint to spend less TUs at the cost of additional stamina. I don't necessarily think that you should necessarily change the mod to be more like X-Piratez in this regard, you're not exactly running around with genetically engineered mutants here. However, it also feels that a lot of missions just take place in wide-open fields with basically 0 cover, especially with the four initial cults. This admittedly has getting a bit better later in when I'm not dealing with as many outposts but it's still crippling. Smoke cover isn't even as good as you'd hope, given how many enemies can either see through smoke or have sniper behavior. I don't really get why x-com's research team would bother investing in such large melee weapons at all. Guns have ruled combat for many years at this point, and for good reason. Even in the original x-com I never really bothered with stun rods that much, I mostly just waited for stun bombs. TFTD was a tad better in that regard: Captures are much more important, Lobstermen are weak to melee, and there's just more line of sight breakers in TFTD maps.
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I haven't gotten super deep into this mod yet
As more advanced player, i can explain abit
Melee weapons have a certain purpose and they do the job well. They are not a primary tool of killing on a modern battlefield.
To make it short, melee weapons are hard hitting ambush weapons, high risk high reward weapons requiring experienced commander AND soldier.
They should only be used in closed up maps like caves or maps with tons of cover, or as a secondary weapon for heavy weapons soldiers during UFO breaches since you can park them next to a door and they will shank anything that tries to enter the room.
Melee weapons dont wear out or require ammo. They also have a variation of damage types for multitude of targets, lethal or non lethal.
And its damage output usually scales with strenght and melee accuracy, so they get stronger and stronger by the user.
And really, the damage output should not be underestimated, a tritanium sword can pretty much kill most non-massive targets in one or two hits. A noose can kill a lobsterman five times over in one swing (12x damage multiplier towards choking)
And it works on enemies too, Deep One's can destroy a tank with their spear, Werewolves too, Vampire Knight can destroy a sectopod in one or two swings.
Most melee weapons are either cutting or concussive in damage, cutting is generally considered "Armour piercing" since most armours get full damage from it. There are also energy based weapons like Plasma Swords however they are actually crappier than its Tritanium counterparts because :
1) Requires high tech
2) They do more damage, but its plasma now (So more armours will reduce its damage) and the boost is actually rather negligible in grand scheme of things.
3) For some unknown reason plasma sword requires 2 hands to use and costs more TU to swing than its Tritanium counterpart.
So the MvP's of melee weapons are Tritanium swords and knives once you can make them for ease of manufacture, damage output and TU management.
Edit: The most critical feature you need to use for melee to be usable is the Sprint ability, make sure you enable "advanced movement types" in advanced settings which lets your soldiers sprint(costs more energy but less TU) and also you can strafe with soldiers (more TU economic sidestepping from cover). And your tanks will gain the ability to swing their turrets around, independent on the chasis rotation (another TU saving tool, also for looking around for enemies).
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Oh sprint is a setting in this mod? Well I'm somewhat surprised it isn't on by default but that's good to know.
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Oh sprint is a setting in this mod? Well I'm somewhat surprised it isn't on by default but that's good to know.
I can't see how it's more required than in vanilla, so no, I haven't enforced it. Why would I?
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I wouldn't say it's required but it's an excellent option once you know about it. In vanilla ufo defense melee was pretty awful, I almost never used stun rods, maybe just to get a navigator for hyperwave decoder but that's it. In TFTD, they're more useful but it's mainly because Lobstermen are so tanky against most damage types. Having the additional time units allows for melee to be much better. Additionally I feel your units start out crappier than in vanilla and having the extra burst of speed can help reach cover. And as somebody who has played a lot more xpiratez than this, I'm kinda used to sprint being an important mechanic (whether or not one can sprint is armor dependent in that mod). I just wish I knew sooner it was an option that xpiratez just has enforced because I just love playing with it.
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Well, I tend to not force people to anything unless really necessary, but I can add this within a minute if you guys want me to :-*
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Well, I tend to not force people to anything unless really necessary, but I can add this within a minute if you guys want me to :-*
Don't forget recommendedUserOptions are also a thing.
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Well, I tend to not force people to anything unless really necessary, but I can add this within a minute if you guys want me to :-*
Given how much it changes the gameplay for better, makes melee more of a thing i would suggest turning it on by default for everyone. Its not like they will be forced to use it, they need to actually discover that they can even sprint, i havent discovered it till like 15 hours of X-Files played and it changed alot.
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Don't forget recommendedUserOptions are also a thing.
Forget? More like, every day you learn something new... :3 Thanks man.
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Here we go again. As always, please keep in mind that while it may seem mostly like finding issues, I still enjoy the game quite much, simply concentrating on pointing out things that are really janky, going out ot their way to grab my attention or disrupt things - and usually it's just negative things that do so. As before, what seemed to be outright bugs rather than design or balancing issue was posted in a relevant thread.
First, let me address previous answer
1. Civilian support is fun, but must be done carefully. Apprehensions aren't suitable, because if the police is already on their tracks, why would X-Com even be involved? Also any feature promoting camping is best avoided.
Then it shouldn't be a problem. X-Com would be involved because local authorities are one thing, but if X-Com wants to apprehend and fly out enemies for enhanced interrogation and disposal, pulling them out of police custody is not a great thing. As for camping, again it shouldn't be an issue with proper balancing of number of police vs enemies. Two policemen, for example, are unlikely to turn the losing battle, but they may kill some enemies denying the captures or be killed, lowering points. At least they could help one look for enemies in those pesky multi-store-buildings maps. But sure, I understand your concern.
I'm not too concerned about Sectoids' CQC abilities. I ewant to make aliens more alien, almost Lovecraftian, so a Sectoid shouldn't be seen in the same terms as a skinny gopnik on speed.
If we talk ufopedia entries and what one can learn about sectoids, their mentality etc, stereotypical skinny gopniks on speed are already much more alien and Lovercraftian. ;D
Anyway, I understand the intent. But if the enemy is portrayed and described in a certain way, ignoring those to raise their stats appears to me as very artificial ramping of difficulty for difficulty sake and not adding to the impression of fighting some eldritch opponents at all, at least to me.
3. There should be less anti-alien opertation in the future, or at least they'll be more structured. We'll talk later about balance. Also, aliens only see for 20 tiles at night, so let's not get dramatic.
5. Your dudes have sight range of 40 at day. AFAIR nothing in the game has more.
Then there's some bug, because it's not that hard to find oneself in a situation where enemies, not only alien but human as well shoot from beyond the range of what X-Com operatives see, no matter during the day or night. Again, I am talking (flat) terrain still not uncovered (black), many tiles away, on the other end of the midsize map as if AI would use a spotter mechanic X-Com can use (shoot at a target the sniper himself doesn't see, with a penalty) but sometimes without actual spotters being visible either.
4. You want shiny armours? So you could be sniped by 40 enemies from the entire map? Would make sense if you could turn them on and off... (You can, but for all units at once, and you start with light on.)
As long as those can be turned on and off without penalty and whether the troopers are seen or see the enemy depends on whether they have light on at that very moment - it could work fine. Still not ideal and a bit rough, but hey, at least you don't have to carry a start-game flashlight into the endgame!
6. No, I'm not allowing rifles on QD, lol. :P
You're right, that is a problem. Is it possible to make QD slot allow only items with certain tags? That'd solve it. If it's not possible, I guess making at least some of those weapons have smaller graphics - wakizashi, stun rods etc - would make sense.
7. Yes, mass driver/Gauss weapons are heavy. Otherwise, not really. But having to buff your troops to let them use these guns is part of the plan.
Problem with that weight requirement is that rookies are often unable to fight at all as they're unable to wield equipment that would let them do things in mission and get better. It's the problem some other people had with when there's no strange creatures missions anymore - at some point there's no way to effectively bring rookies up to speed in general, while veterans still keep being killed later in the game with no even half as effective replacements despite full gym course done.
8. Metamorphs have almost no armour, so eeeeh?
Must have been very weird rolls or visual glitch as they still withstood shots from M83 Barret and either .308 cal Sniper Rifle or BlackOps Sniper Rifle (don't remember which anymore) without flashing red as it happens when the bullet hits and penetrates unit's armor. Small-caliber pistols (Glocks 18 or BlackOps ones my snipers tended to use as default sidearms at the time) were completely useless.
9. Sanity is a controversial issue. I'lll keep testing, but for now it stays.
Understandable. I, myself really want to like the feature, it sounds nice on paper, it's just I worry it won't work well in the game in the current form, not without being situational and dependant on many changing factors during the mission. And I bring another example of woes I had with it:
Finishing up Black Lotus. Seems like some single ninja survived and his morale is rock solid, despite his glowy idol and all his compatriots strewn all around the place dead. Was looking for him for about 10 - 20 turns on top of about 30 - 40 of the battle itself. Since it's not a tiny map and there's trees, rocks, nooks and crannies everywhere it's practically impossible to find him, especially with panicking troopers. I've set some explosives around hoping he'll off himself but apparently he's never nearby to trigger them. Possibly he's just stuck somewhere and/or goes back and forth as less aggressive enemies sometimes tend to do. Seems like unfinishable mission despite every other enemy dead now unless debugging is done. Now that my troopers are all around the map and I cannot even bring them back to evac zone due to aforementioned insanity panic, it's the alien base raid all over again. I'll spare you crappy self-therapy fanart for it this time.
It seems that the problem is most noticeable whenever it's not a quick mission or one where the enemies gun for one's troopers soon. I probably would leave weakened ambient sanity effect only on the most bizarre, paranormal missions (rituals, hauntings, underground tombs or whatever missions only if they don't require too much navigation of tiny nooks before finding enemies) and make the rest of it additional, long-term damage from morale-decreasing situations or being hit by psionic attacks (to be honest, the stronger of those attacks probably could be buffed vs sanity, rather than morale and lead to a nice trade-off of long-term recuperation vs "mind control is the best ever, in every situation"). A change like that could cancel most of its danger out, but it will also solve the severe problem where both troopers (and the player in front of the screen) go crazy because they have to play hide & seek with some enemy or because the battle itself is just long, even if seemingly few steps from being victorious.
And secondly, great work on the events! Let me list them here with some remarks.
Glad you like them! Of course, if you feel some other faction than the one presented would befit an event more, feel free to make any necessary adjustments, I have no problem with that whatsoever. Also, do tell what's the issue with the events that you didn't mention, I don't mind adjusting them. I also repeat my offer of making events for various parts of the game that you'd want to prioritize, just tell me what would you like to see, about what and/or where.
As for future events, I really liked UAC letter thing that is more than one screen of text. To be honest, as with randomized loot I wasn't aware was possible, I'd like to know what's the limitations of event system so I could make more events and more advanced ones. Also, what are the character/paragraph/line length limits for various messages? I offer to preformat them for the future.
We already have similar ones, so why not. But I'd rather randomize the loot to make it less repetitive. Any ideas for extending the list?
I tried to make it limited to stuff one could expect during some gorey ritual, so probably remains one can sometimes find in the caves could also work. A few suggestions:
Those-remains/piles-of-meat-I-cannot-remember-the-item-name-of. Mysterious skull. Regular skull. Ancient Tablet. Strange Aluminum Tablet. Rusty blade (the one ghouls wield). Dulled Prometheum Crystal.
Outside of cave stuff:
Ectoplasm (especially useful since it's hard to stumble upon it outside of two non-repeatable missions for now), rosary.
The main problem is just the lack of occult items, be they just lore stuff, scientific research items (would help with the fact that one can go usually straight from parapsychology to metapsychology despite how supposedly researchers have plenty of things to investigate in that new field and that there's almost no lore or investigation on dreaming or Children of Aether) or weaker-tier psi-weapons (some charms, ritual dagger with some bonus damage from Psi strength and skill). I had some hard time finding the gift for "package from unknown occultists" event I've made earlier because it's either useless stuff they wouldn't care to send X-Com or either powerful or at least expensive psi weapons with nothing in-between.
I think it's more of an event than a dossier. Okay.
Yes, it is. What I mean is whether it wouldn't be better for there to be a dossier entry on the celebrity that'd allow the event once researched, for example.
Sure, very vanilla. (The players will curse us for all these negative events!)
Hm, you say? I'll try to add a few more positive ones for the future.
Cool, but it should be enabled also by beetles. (Which means I'll have to add a separate research... :-\ )
True. As mentioned I don't know what are the limitations of the events (what triggers them, what they can activate in turn) so I work kinda blind, using the events I've already seen as the basis. Apologies.
(renamed to "Prelude to Invasion"), Holy Protection, New Age. Other events are to be decided, as per my remarks above.
Sure. Though if the event is to be prelude, it probably should be triggered a bit before invasion itself, just when first scout UFOs are being seen (which is usually, IIRC, third quarter of 1998?)
I wait for the remarks for some of the other events I've made and you didn't seem to comment on yet so I can adjust them as well the stuff you've mentioned. A few new ones I'll probably include with the next feedback.
Thanks, man!
Hey, thanks to you. I just do a bit to flesh out what I can.
Now, onto weird stuff I found so far:
- Knockout grenades give "correctional officer", likely due to their stunning nature but almost never "grenadier". In general grenadier progresses very slow because compared to number of times an agent shoots a gun per mission, grenades aren't used as often even if from player's perspective every mission finds some use of them.
- Currently one either has to force agents to use thrown weapons like throwing knives or shurikens or they'll have a very hard time improving throwing accuracy with stuff like grenades as well.
- You can get laser weapons technology lead by researching alien laser rifle, but you cannot do the same with human laser tech (used by MiB), laser pistols, hydra laser and similar if you find them first - they don't lead to the laser tech at all and/or cannot be researched till later in the tech tree than alien laser rifle tends to be.
- Lost CQC struggle with a spider. While using pretty strong character. Spiders and other smaller creatures shouldn't even attempt such thing, not knowing what a gun is. I can understand them generally flailing at whatever is pointed at them and can also imagine CQC involving them jumping at an agent, but they still should have considerable disadvantage.
- Exalt HQ raid is a battle mostly inside a modern, furnished building. It should get many more artificial lights, if only for the sake of defenders protecting it at night.
- One can fly fighter jets (Arrow), make and fly Shyhawk and Skyrider before researching advanced flight training. An early game anti-UFO ship that's dependant on regular flight training would be good, possibly with Arrow pushed a bit further back and slightly upgraded into an actual tech (maybe even making it a choice - one either can unpack mothballed Arrow to get a single fully functional aircraft or research it to design something that will cost time and money themselves). At the same time Helix transformation tech depending on some advanced aircraft flying skill seems kinda weird.
- Many "normal" (as in not energy-blade ones, but tritanium and below, including regular combat ones) knives still unavailable for covert labor missions.
- Muton corpses allow one to extract synthmuscles but mutons captured alive who then turn useless (no new research topics to investigate) can only be sold. An analogy to bioextraction option for zombies, that allows processing of both corpses and alive subjects would be welcome.
- Gillman attack is very strong, while accurately employed as a mortar attack outside of whatever gillman sees. Stuff like cyber armor seems to not really protect against it despite resistances, allowing it to instakill troopers that can tank high-caliber sniper rounds and rarely even energy weapon like laser or plasma (one-shot kills against experienced, 60+ health agents in cyber armor are hardly rare). The ufopedia entry is suspicious in that it's supposed to be 90% accuracy aimed attack but there seems to be no accuracy penalty with distance, allowing gillman that accuracy even when shooting from 20 - 25 tiles away at a trooper hiding in a narrow alley between two buildings. The enemy's pretty alright but if their attack is more powerful than what majority of their compatriots can throw at the player - be they Dagon cultists or Deep Ones - shouldn't they attack in boundaries of what they see or be moved to more strategically important missions like outpost defense (especially since their ufopedia entry claims they're mostly employed for guard duty but I see them in every deep ones raid)?
- Also, I assume it's a matter of redesign and assets, but ufopedia portrays Gillmen as using guns.
Once again, thanks for your time.
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Finishing up Black Lotus. Seems like some single ninja survived and his morale is rock solid, despite his glowy idol and all his compatriots strewn all around the place dead. Was looking for him for about 10 - 20 turns on top of about 30 - 40 of the battle itself. Since it's not a tiny map and there's trees, rocks, nooks and crannies everywhere it's practically impossible to find him, especially with panicking troopers. I've set some explosives around hoping he'll off himself but apparently he's never nearby to trigger them. Possibly he's just stuck somewhere and/or goes back and forth as less aggressive enemies sometimes tend to do. Seems like unfinishable mission despite every other enemy dead now unless debugging is done. Now that my troopers are all around the map and I cannot even bring them back to evac zone due to aforementioned insanity panic, it's the alien base raid all over again. I'll spare you crappy self-therapy fanart for it this time.One way I could see this to be fixed in current engine is count number of enemies each turn and on next turn increase or decease sanity lose for your soldiers.
For now this is impossible do in one pass as script for units is run only once each unit at end of turn.
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Finishing up Black Lotus. Seems like some single ninja survived and his morale is rock solid, despite his glowy idol and all his compatriots strewn all around the place dead. Was looking for him for about 10 - 20 turns on top of about 30 - 40 of the battle itself. Since it's not a tiny map and there's trees, rocks, nooks and crannies everywhere it's practically impossible to find him, especially with panicking troopers. I've set some explosives around hoping he'll off himself but apparently he's never nearby to trigger them. Possibly he's just stuck somewhere and/or goes back and forth as less aggressive enemies sometimes tend to do. Seems like unfinishable mission despite every other enemy dead now unless debugging is done. Now that my troopers are all around the map and I cannot even bring them back to evac zone due to aforementioned insanity panic, it's the alien base raid all over again. I'll spare you crappy self-therapy fanart for it this time.One way I could see this to be fixed in current engine is count number of enemies each turn and on next turn increase or decease sanity lose for your soldiers.
For now this is impossible do in one pass as script for units is run only once each unit at end of turn.
Shouldn't bughunt mode kick in at some point?
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Gillman's electricity attack is pure bullshit in its damage output. I wouldnt mind if they were close ranged enemies that fry you with electricity but the fact that they can shoot across the map and do massive damage at the same time is abit too much for a somewhat early game enemy.
One solution could be to add a padding type against electric damage like Webwear or Carapace plating against electricity, Carapace plate helped quite alot against sonic weapons in armoured vests and turns alot of deadly hits to just major injuries. So atleast with preparation you can do something with it.
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Gillman's electricity attack is pure bullshit in its damage output. I wouldnt mind if they were close ranged enemies that fry you with electricity but the fact that they can shoot across the map and do massive damage at the same time is abit too much for a somewhat early game enemy.
One solution could be to add a padding type against electric damage like Webwear or Carapace plating against electricity, Carapace plate helped quite alot against sonic weapons in armoured vests and turns alot of deadly hits to just major injuries. So atleast with preparation you can do something with it.
...I was indeed wondering why they managed to one-hit my agents so often. Yeah, arcing attacks that do masssive damage are kind of problematic.
Carapace and webwear come with their own problems, one of them being that they have to go into backpacks - which is not only unrealstic but a trade-off with other useful items. I don't built or use them for that reason.
Solarius, are you planning to implement those items in a diffrent way, maybe with an additonal "armor slot" being added to armors (this could extend to having ceramic armor plate inserts or other stuff)?
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Shouldn't bughunt mode kick in at some point?
I far I understand this problem, it is that you can't effective use this as most of your soldiers are "not available".
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I far I understand this problem, it is that you can't effective use this as most of your soldiers are "not available".
Just had look at the settings for XCF:
# bughunt stuff:
bughuntMinTurn: 20
bughuntMaxEnemies: 3
bughuntRank: 0 # commanders are VIPs
bughuntLowMorale: 0
bughuntTimeUnitsLeft: 65bughunt probably never kicked in, seeing how it is (apparently) a black lotus ninja that can move with impunity (more or less).
Yeah, this is down to sanity mechanics and a bit unfortunate (or rather badly balanced). Solarius, is there any reason for that mission (or missions of that kind) to use sanity in the first place, seeing how these are human enemies?
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...I was indeed wondering why they managed to one-hit my agents so often. Yeah, arcing attacks that do masssive damage are kind of problematic.
Carapace and webwear come with their own problems, one of them being that they have to go into backpacks - which is not only unrealstic but a trade-off with other useful items. I don't built or use them for that reason.
Vests consume slots for a reason, you trade in survivalability for firepower and utility and i find this a fair decision making. Having a dedicated slot for it would turn the item in to absolute no brainer to have so there would be only gains from it.
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Here we go again. As always, please keep in mind that while it may seem mostly like finding issues, I still enjoy the game quite much, simply concentrating on pointing out things that are really janky, going out ot their way to grab my attention or disrupt things - and usually it's just negative things that do so. As before, what seemed to be outright bugs rather than design or balancing issue was posted in a relevant thread.
Of course, that's what useful feedback is.
Then it shouldn't be a problem. X-Com would be involved because local authorities are one thing, but if X-Com wants to apprehend and fly out enemies for enhanced interrogation and disposal, pulling them out of police custody is not a great thing. As for camping, again it shouldn't be an issue with proper balancing of number of police vs enemies. Two policemen, for example, are unlikely to turn the losing battle, but they may kill some enemies denying the captures or be killed, lowering points. At least they could help one look for enemies in those pesky multi-store-buildings maps. But sure, I understand your concern.
Sorry, I just don't think it makes much sense to see X-Com taking action in exactly the same time as the local police. It is not only extremely unlikely, but also inexplicably messy. Co-op missions only makes sense when they're pre-arranged.
Also, this particular mission is supposed to put you into a 2-on-2 situation. I am not going to spoil it by adding a pesky third side :)
If we talk ufopedia entries and what one can learn about sectoids, their mentality etc, stereotypical skinny gopniks on speed are already much more alien and Lovercraftian. ;D
A valid point! :D
Anyway, I understand the intent. But if the enemy is portrayed and described in a certain way, ignoring those to raise their stats appears to me as very artificial ramping of difficulty for difficulty sake and not adding to the impression of fighting some eldritch opponents at all, at least to me.
*shrug* It's a matter of personal feelings. I do not feel like they're "artificially ramped up" - I don't do that as a designer. I could reconsider their shield power, it might be too strong on lower ranks, but I don't think they're too good at CQC, honest.
Then there's some bug, because it's not that hard to find oneself in a situation where enemies, not only alien but human as well shoot from beyond the range of what X-Com operatives see, no matter during the day or night. Again, I am talking (flat) terrain still not uncovered (black), many tiles away, on the other end of the midsize map as if AI would use a spotter mechanic X-Com can use (shoot at a target the sniper himself doesn't see, with a penalty) but sometimes without actual spotters being visible either.
This kind of thing can only be discussed with a save game.
As long as those can be turned on and off without penalty and whether the troopers are seen or see the enemy depends on whether they have light on at that very moment - it could work fine. Still not ideal and a bit rough, but hey, at least you don't have to carry a start-game flashlight into the endgame!
I don't think we have the options to do this well... Best I could do is add an armour with big ass illumination, toggable with the 'L' key (along all the other armours which are not lit, except to make them stand out more in the dark, but it's a purely visual effect).
You're right, that is a problem. Is it possible to make QD slot allow only items with certain tags? That'd solve it. If it's not possible, I guess making at least some of those weapons have smaller graphics - wakizashi, stun rods etc - would make sense.
It is possible, but wouldn't look elegant. Anyway, that's not what the QD slot is for. I've considered it many times before and I still don't like it. Even though I agree that swords should fit on a hip.
Problem with that weight requirement is that rookies are often unable to fight at all as they're unable to wield equipment that would let them do things in mission and get better. It's the problem some other people had with when there's no strange creatures missions anymore - at some point there's no way to effectively bring rookies up to speed in general, while veterans still keep being killed later in the game with no even half as effective replacements despite full gym course done.
Well, the gym lets you train them more now, so you don't have to rely on field experience so much. But yeah, it was a huge pain before.
Understandable. I, myself really want to like the feature, it sounds nice on paper, it's just I worry it won't work well in the game in the current form, not without being situational and dependant on many changing factors during the mission. And I bring another example of woes I had with it:
Finishing up Black Lotus. Seems like some single ninja survived and his morale is rock solid, despite his glowy idol and all his compatriots strewn all around the place dead. (...)
It seems that the problem is most noticeable whenever it's not a quick mission or one where the enemies gun for one's troopers soon. I probably would leave weakened ambient sanity effect only on the most bizarre, paranormal missions (rituals, hauntings, underground tombs or whatever missions only if they don't require too much navigation of tiny nooks before finding enemies) and make the rest of it additional, long-term damage from morale-decreasing situations or being hit by psionic attacks (to be honest, the stronger of those attacks probably could be buffed vs sanity, rather than morale and lead to a nice trade-off of long-term recuperation vs "mind control is the best ever, in every situation").
TBH I don't know how to understand your point. You can't lose less than 1 point per turn (which is the case of the BL HQ, due to the presence of star spectres), and I don't know what other long-term effects might be. Please elaborate.
Yankes' post confirms the problem.
Glad you like them! Of course, if you feel some other faction than the one presented would befit an event more, feel free to make any necessary adjustments, I have no problem with that whatsoever. Also, do tell what's the issue with the events that you didn't mention, I don't mind adjusting them. I also repeat my offer of making events for various parts of the game that you'd want to prioritize, just tell me what would you like to see, about what and/or where.
I'm not sure what else I could add - I wrote short remarks on them all. Feel free to ask.
As for future events, I really liked UAC letter thing that is more than one screen of text. To be honest, as with randomized loot I wasn't aware was possible, I'd like to know what's the limitations of event system so I could make more events and more advanced ones.
Everything is here: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)#Event_Scripts
I would be happy to discuss it in more details, but not like this - if you have questions, let's chat on Discord, a forum is too unwieldy to do it efficiently.
Also, what are the character/paragraph/line length limits for various messages? I offer to preformat them for the future.
Sorry, it's not like I know such things in precise terms... I just do shit and then see how it looks.
I tried to make it limited to stuff one could expect during some gorey ritual, so probably remains one can sometimes find in the caves could also work. A few suggestions:
Those-remains/piles-of-meat-I-cannot-remember-the-item-name-of. Mysterious skull. Regular skull. Ancient Tablet. Strange Aluminum Tablet. Rusty blade (the one ghouls wield). Dulled Prometheum Crystal.
Outside of cave stuff:
Ectoplasm (especially useful since it's hard to stumble upon it outside of two non-repeatable missions for now), rosary.
Yeah, it should all work. Not sure about some cave stuff, I'd have to make sure it wouldn't break the plot (like making the game assume you've explored caves when in fact you haven't).
The main problem is just the lack of occult items (...)
I could make a few more simple items if required.
True. As mentioned I don't know what are the limitations of the events (what triggers them, what they can activate in turn) so I work kinda blind, using the events I've already seen as the basis. Apologies.
Like missions, events can be enabled by having or not having a particular research. Can be a combination of multiple researches (like "only fires if the player researched Laser Rifle and Sectoid Soldier, but not Cydonia or Bust"), but cannot be an "or" condition. So I'd have to make a new hidden research, which is automatically enabled when either of its two prerequisites is discovered, and make this hidden research a condition for the event to happen. Not a big deal, just kinda dirty. :P
Sure. Though if the event is to be prelude, it probably should be triggered a bit before invasion itself, just when first scout UFOs are being seen (which is usually, IIRC, third quarter of 1998?)
It's not like the aliens show up on 01.01.1999 with a huge army of conquest, so honestly, doesn't matter. But I personally think the text fits 1999 better than 1998.
- Knockout grenades give "correctional officer", likely due to their stunning nature but almost never "grenadier". In general grenadier progresses very slow because compared to number of times an agent shoots a gun per mission, grenades aren't used as often even if from player's perspective every mission finds some use of them.
Indeed they don't give you Grenadier, they're categorized as stun weapons. Grenadier is for kills, whereas these grenades normally don't kill.
- Currently one either has to force agents to use thrown weapons like throwing knives or shurikens or they'll have a very hard time improving throwing accuracy with stuff like grenades as well.
Why? Is there an issue with grenades?
- You can get laser weapons technology lead by researching alien laser rifle, but you cannot do the same with human laser tech (used by MiB), laser pistols, hydra laser and similar if you find them first - they don't lead to the laser tech at all and/or cannot be researched till later in the tech tree than alien laser rifle tends to be.
Yes, this is planned for the future. Simply WIP.
- Lost CQC struggle with a spider. While using pretty strong character. Spiders and other smaller creatures shouldn't even attempt such thing, not knowing what a gun is. I can understand them generally flailing at whatever is pointed at them and can also imagine CQC involving them jumping at an agent, but they still should have considerable disadvantage.
Movies disagree :D
- Exalt HQ raid is a battle mostly inside a modern, furnished building. It should get many more artificial lights, if only for the sake of defenders protecting it at night.
I dunno, maybe they're in combat mode and lights are off. Anyway, it's not easy to do anything about it.
- One can fly fighter jets (Arrow), make and fly Shyhawk and Skyrider before researching advanced flight training. An early game anti-UFO ship that's dependant on regular flight training would be good, possibly with Arrow pushed a bit further back and slightly upgraded into an actual tech (maybe even making it a choice - one either can unpack mothballed Arrow to get a single fully functional aircraft or research it to design something that will cost time and money themselves). At the same time Helix transformation tech depending on some advanced aircraft flying skill seems kinda weird.
Flying a fighter without training for piloting a fighter would be rather cheaty. A helicopter is one thing, but modern Earth fighter planes are a different matter.
- Many "normal" (as in not energy-blade ones, but tritanium and below, including regular combat ones) knives still unavailable for covert labor missions.
Well yeah, as designed... How would you carry a Rambo knife around a factory floor?
- Muton corpses allow one to extract synthmuscles but mutons captured alive who then turn useless (no new research topics to investigate) can only be sold. An analogy to bioextraction option for zombies, that allows processing of both corpses and alive subjects would be welcome.
OK, I'll note it down for consideration. Though unlike to zombies, Mutons are sentient creatures, so butchering them for parts feels rather... awkward.
- Gillman attack is very strong, while accurately employed as a mortar attack outside of whatever gillman sees. Stuff like cyber armor seems to not really protect against it despite resistances, allowing it to instakill troopers that can tank high-caliber sniper rounds and rarely even energy weapon like laser or plasma (one-shot kills against experienced, 60+ health agents in cyber armor are hardly rare). The ufopedia entry is suspicious in that it's supposed to be 90% accuracy aimed attack but there seems to be no accuracy penalty with distance, allowing gillman that accuracy even when shooting from 20 - 25 tiles away at a trooper hiding in a narrow alley between two buildings. The enemy's pretty alright but if their attack is more powerful than what majority of their compatriots can throw at the player - be they Dagon cultists or Deep Ones - shouldn't they attack in boundaries of what they see or be moved to more strategically important missions like outpost defense (especially since their ufopedia entry claims they're mostly employed for guard duty but I see them in every deep ones raid)?
Gillmen don't appear on Deep One raids.
- Also, I assume it's a matter of redesign and assets, but ufopedia portrays Gillmen as using guns.
Yes, and indeed they can do that, but there's little point, as their built-in attack is superior to almost anything. Still they sometimes pick stuff up and use it.
Gillman's electricity attack is pure bullshit in its damage output. I wouldnt mind if they were close ranged enemies that fry you with electricity but the fact that they can shoot across the map and do massive damage at the same time is abit too much for a somewhat early game enemy.
Vanilla lore! And one I can't see anything clearly wrong with.
One solution could be to add a padding type against electric damage like Webwear or Carapace plating against electricity, Carapace plate helped quite alot against sonic weapons in armoured vests and turns alot of deadly hits to just major injuries. So atleast with preparation you can do something with it.
Maybe, maybe!
Carapace and webwear come with their own problems, one of them being that they have to go into backpacks - which is not only unrealstic
That's a dirty word. It's not unrealistic, it's a simplification, meaning that you can't wear a backpack with this item (or at least a smaller one).
Solarius, are you planning to implement those items in a diffrent way, maybe with an additonal "armor slot" being added to armors (this could extend to having ceramic armor plate inserts or other stuff)?
Onj top of what Mrvex said, there's little space on it in the inventory screen, and we only have two such items now, but in the future it might happen.
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That's a dirty word. It's not unrealistic, it's a simplification, meaning that you can't wear a backpack with this item (or at least a smaller one).
Onj top of what Mrvex said, there's little space on it in the inventory screen, and we only have two such items now, but in the future it might happen.
Yes, badly worded by me, sorry. It's just not readily apparent why an item worn like a shirt should take up space in a backpack.
I haven't tried it out myself, but would it be possible to add a 4x4 slot on top of the soldier avatar? The slot are transparent, aren't they?
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Vanilla lore! And one I can't see anything clearly wrong with.
It is wrong for gameplay reasons, lore be dammed to have a enemy that can one shot your full HP troops across the entire map in missions that arent even mid game when every other non-melee enemy needs to actually hit you more than once to do damage and they have to get a LOS with you.
The massive damage disparity is what bothers me, no other enemy at this stage of the game can do as much pain at such range.
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It is wrong for gameplay reasons, lore be dammed to have a enemy that can one shot your full HP troops across the entire map in missions that arent even mid game when every other non-melee enemy needs to actually hit you more than once to do damage and they have to get a LOS with you.
...You mean unlike EXALT enforcers with grenade launchers? Because they loved to shoot me from across the map.
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Yes, badly worded by me, sorry. It's just not readily apparent why an item worn like a shirt should take up space in a backpack.
Noy "in a backpack", but "mutually exclusive with a backpack".
Is this really that confusing?
I haven't tried it out myself, but would it be possible to add a 4x4 slot on top of the soldier avatar? The slot are transparent, aren't they?
It should be possible, but why would I scribble on the nice paperdoll?
It is wrong for gameplay reasons, lore be dammed to have a enemy that can one shot your full HP troops across the entire map in missions that arent even mid game when every other non-melee enemy needs to actually hit you more than once to do damage and they have to get a LOS with you.
The massive damage disparity is what bothers me, no other enemy at this stage of the game can do as much pain at such range.
Sorry, I need an argument that is a bit more... objective. Because I do not understand why you feel this way. I don't.
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Noy "in a backpack", but "mutually exclusive with a backpack".
Is this really that confusing?
But backpacks are 3x3, while the items in question are 2x2 - so yeah, I'd say it is confusing. The point is that they are not "mutually exclusive" (as you can use the rest of the backpack space) - nor is there any reason given why that should be the case. And unless I am misinterpreting the sprites, soldiers wearing "backpacks" continue to do so (obviously), regardless of them having equipped those items. While I like the idea of additonal armor "modifications", I personally think that these items are badly implemented. If soldiers can not fire guns from their backpack and can not throw grenades from their quick-draw slot, why should putting a shirt in thier backpack protect them? On the same note, what exactely is preventing your soldiers from wearing jump armor on top of an additonal shirt? Yeah, sure, let me just lob around this man-prtable cannon 15 meters up in the air, but that shirt made of spider silk? Nope, too bulky, sorry.
In my oppinion these would either need a separate, special slot (which on the other hand would be pain to implement given current mechanics), or should be implemented as separate "modified" armors - maybe as up-armored coats for undercover missions?
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But backpacks are 3x3, while the items in question are 2x2 - so yeah, I'd say it is confusing.
Backpacks may vary in size. But regardless, you still retain some space... I really can't see anything confusing here!
The point is that they are not "mutually exclusive" (as you can use the rest of the backpack space) - nor is there any reason given why that should be the case. And unless I am misinterpreting the sprites, soldiers wearing "backpacks" continue to do so (obviously), regardless of them having equipped those items. While I like the idea of additonal armor "modifications", I personally think that these items are badly implemented. If soldiers can not fire guns from their backpack and can not throw grenades from their quick-draw slot, why should putting a shirt in thier backpack protect them? On the same note, what exactely is preventing your soldiers from wearing jump armor on top of an additonal shirt? Yeah, sure, let me just lob around this man-prtable cannon 15 meters up in the air, but that shirt made of spider silk? Nope, too bulky, sorry.
I still can't see what's wrong with this... It makes perfect sense to me... And nobody has ever complained before...
In my oppinion these would either need a separate, special slot (which on the other hand would be pain to implement given current mechanics), or should be implemented as separate "modified" armors - maybe as up-armored coats for undercover missions?
This special slot would clutter every armour view ever, usually for no reason.
And modified armours? Seriously, you want to TRIPLE the number of X-Com armours in the game? Surely you must mean something else.
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Backpacks may vary in size. But regardless, you still retain some space... I really can't see anything confusing here!
How then are they "mutually exclusive"? That would mean either/or, not both at the same time. From you saying "mutually exclusive" I take it you mean that they are somehow meant to "prevent" agents from wearing both (shirt+backpack) at the same time, hence them "taking" the place of the backpack. However, that does not seem to be the case either. So yeah, this is - indeed - confusing, unless you literally mean that putting those items in a backpack (instead of actually wearing them) shields an agent from damage. Otherwise, how bulky a shiort made of spider silk that it can not be worn with jump armor (or other armors, for that case)?
This special slot would clutter every armour view ever, usually for no reason.
Yet you seem to have no problem with armors that should - logically - be compatible with those items be incompatible. It also don't have to be useless if the concept is actually implemented in a way that supports multiple armor modifications (like ceramic/ballistic inserts) that have been in use for decades IRL.
And modified armours? Seriously, you want to TRIPLE the number of X-Com armours in the game? Surely you must mean something else.
Indeed that is not what I meant, and I think I stated as much in my previous post.
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How then are they "mutually exclusive"? That would mean either/or, not both at the same time. From you saying "mutually exclusive" I take it you mean that they are somehow meant to "prevent" agents from wearing both (shirt+backpack) at the same time, hence them "taking" the place of the backpack. However, that does not seem to be the case either. So yeah, this is - indeed - confusing, unless you literally mean that putting those items in a backpack (instead of actually wearing them) shields an agent from damage. Otherwise, how bulky a shiort made of spider silk that it can not be worn with jump armor (or other armors, for that case)?
Yet you seem to have no problem with armors that should - logically - be compatible with those items be incompatible. It also don't have to be useless if the concept is actually implemented in a way that supports multiple armor modifications (like ceramic/ballistic inserts) that have been in use for decades IRL.
Indeed that is not what I meant, and I think I stated as much in my previous post.
OK, so my proposal is:
1) Make more such items to warrant adding such a new slot.
2) Add this slot... somehow :)
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OK, so my proposal is:
1) Make more such items to warrant adding such a new slot.
2) Add this slot... somehow :)
...and/or ask for feedback from other players first. I might indeed be the only one affected by this and the work necessary to implent this as a separate item slot is probably non-trivial (to prevent other items from being placed in that section, among other things).
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Most recent versions of XPiratez actually have slots like this but there's a lot more items in xpiratez to be used in these slots. So far though, in XCF I haven't so much had the problem of not enough slots so much as just not enough strength to justify carrying them as opposed to a bigger gun or healing or grenades or whatever.
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*De-lurks*
Add this slot... somehow
Not too hard, if you're willing to live with a cluttered inventory. Witness: a screenshot of my own changes from a while ago, with a jumbo-sized backpack, a vest slot and some more shenanigans. Doesn't play all that nice with shields, but there's a little bit of space left to shift the left side stuff a bit more to the left.
*Re-lurks*
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OK, I'll write it down as a "for consideration" thing.
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Realized why I was so confused that advanced movement wasn't enabled by default, it straight up refers to sprint in the "Hotkeys: Battlescape" entry. Definitely makes sense to have it by default if you're going to refer to it there.
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Realized why I was so confused that advanced movement wasn't enabled by default, it straight up refers to sprint in the "Hotkeys: Battlescape" entry. Definitely makes sense to have it by default if you're going to refer to it there.
I'd second this. If you refer to something in the documentation either mark it explicitely as being optional or turn it on by default.
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It's already set as recommended.
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Hey wanted to leave some notes. Not sure if it is related to 1.8 or earlier ones too. Started game at 1.5 and updated to 1.8.
Played for a year on weekends. I noticed that i had no base attacks and maybe only one terror mision.
I guess my raven-avalanche tactics worked way too great. It just sad :/ i love terror misions and base defence.
It adds extra flavour to game. Maybe we could have forced attack on base if we destroy cultist or sindicate or alien base.
My base has no mind shield no defences, just solders waiting for guests :D
PS: Absolutilatly LOVE this MOD!! ClosetYeti letsplay reminded me about this mod, was fun to get back to it from i guess 1.2.
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Hey wanted to leave some notes. Not sure if it is related to 1.8 or earlier ones too. Started game at 1.5 and updated to 1.8.
Played for a year on weekends. I noticed that i had no base attacks and maybe only one terror mision.
I guess my raven-avalanche tactics worked way too great. It just sad :/ i love terror misions and base defence.
It adds extra flavour to game. Maybe we could have forced attack on base if we destroy cultist or sindicate or alien base.
My base has no mind shield no defences, just solders waiting for guests :D
PS: Absolutilatly LOVE this MOD!! ClosetYeti letsplay reminded me about this mod, was fun to get back to it from i guess 1.2.
Oh dont worry, you will get raided eventually with something you CANNOT shoot down without plasma cannon mounted on shielded Avenger (end game craft and gear)
There are "forced" invasions actually by completing certain missions that will force a faction to retaliate and send a APC to your base.
Though, these are more or less relying on suprise factor because Scarab or Dragonfly will explode to thousand pieces if you intercept it or your base defences hit it.
And, i dont want to spoil but sometimes what you can get will suprise you, the possible combination of visitors is rather large and i hope you have some skills in tank busting in close quaters...
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I noticed that Gertrude Ellison's dossier entry was removed. Is her mission still accessible in the game through some other method, or should I considered it dummied out? I didn't see any problems with the mission in question, and I'm not sure why it would need to be taken out.
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I noticed that Gertrude Ellison's dossier entry was removed. Is her mission still accessible in the game through some other method, or should I considered it dummied out? I didn't see any problems with the mission in question, and I'm not sure why it would need to be taken out.
What do you mean removed? It's there.
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What do you mean removed? It's there.
Huh, I could've sworn you did something with it according to one of the github commits. Maybe it was just my imagination.
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Huh, I could've sworn you did something with it according to one of the github commits. Maybe it was just my imagination.
I made it less easily accessible by removing it from some interrogations.
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I made it less easily accessible by removing it from some interrogations.
Ah, my mistake. Thanks for clearing that up.
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Been distant from the mod a while, felt like popping it back up, updated it and OXCE.
I was like "uh, where did I left off?" then shot and captured some Red Dawn guys on an Outpost. I really got lucky some Sailor mook decided to kung fu my agent rather than shooting him with his makarov. One or two tonfa hits to the back of the head and that problem got solved.
Wow Fire Extinguisher got the big nerf. It went from ghetto smoke grenade to being mostly useless.
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Is there an advised difficulty like with Xpiratez?
IE: like its meant to be played on veteran and superhuman actually makes it easier? (as with xpiratez)
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The mod is not balanced for difficulties above veteran. You can play at genius or superhuman, but your experience will probably suffer.