Messages

1036

The X-Com Files / Re: Nice mod !

« on: August 07, 2018, 03:07:56 pm »

Well, you completed the mission, which to me means that the balance is good...

 
Why do you have to be so mean...

1037

The X-Com Files / Re: Just a thought for the beginning

« on: August 06, 2018, 11:29:02 am »

You already get access to better healing items via energetic blood plasma. Splitting up research during that stage of the game would probably be counter-productive if all you get is basically a different version of the healing gel. Werewolves (and all other monsters) are perfectly killable without expensive ammunition. Also, we already have what - 10 different damage types in the game? Do we need another one for one or two monster types? "Silver" would also be kind of overspecific compared to "Plasma" or "Chemical". The new combat analysis screens already tell you what kind of damage enemies are susceptible to once you manage to capture and interrogate live enemies - isn't that what you're asking for?

While i like the idea of being able to dispatch vampire knights more easily (they'd probably be susceptible to silver to i take it?) i don't see how it would fit in lore wise - the syndicate is basically just breeding and introducing these monster to cause terror and unrest - why go through the trouble of making one of them susceptible to one specific type of metal? Also, how would that fit in with the "final solution" you get later on if werewolves are pretty much immune to everything else?

Why should those missions be "more risky" than they are already? So that players can get more frustrated early on? Have you had a bunch of chupacabras gang up on your team before? Yeah, i don't think we need more of that, at least when you're just starting out. It's bad enough running into Reapers when all you have is pistols and the early shotguns - there needs to be some kind of consistency in regards to mission difficulty.

1038

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [DONE] [Suggestion] Shoot down ufo to stop alien mission

« on: August 05, 2018, 05:25:59 pm »

Nice addition

Does this impact alien supply missions in any way?

1039

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.3 alpha: Napalm Death

« on: August 05, 2018, 01:47:37 pm »

But you might have access to the knock-out grenades, but not to smoke grenades... Knockout grenades do not require smoke grenades to be researched. I guess it's an inconsistency actually... I'll fix it.
EDIT: Oh screw that, there's no great reason to keep one grenade dependant on the other.

I guess i remembered this wrong, smoke grenades are tied to Promotion II, not to the explosives license. I guess it would make sense to tie the knock-out grenades to Promotion II as well. Once you get acess to smoke grenades X-COM should also be able to buy the fuzes and other parts needed to construct them.

1040

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: August 05, 2018, 01:41:43 pm »

It's a bug. You can never get Chemtrails.

I tried looking this up myself, but i'm still having trouble understanding how mission generation actually works. Why does the game spawn a chemtrails site but with the wrong deployment? I get that the chemtrails definition is followed by the one for hybrid storage and that it probably defaults to that, but i'd like to understand why that's happening. As far as i can tell they are both properly defined.

1041

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: August 05, 2018, 09:44:09 am »

Yeah missions of a type you close off with tech can still spawn until the end of the month. It's the way the engine works, nothing can be done about it without rewriting the whole mission system from the bottom up.

The Monster Terror missions aren't tied to the same research trigger as the other monster missions are. You can't "close them off" - my question was if this is intended.

Also, for some reason i seem to be getting no chemtrail transfer site missions, only hybrid storage ones. Looking at my current save, i have one that should be markewd as a chemtrail site, but acutally spawns as hybrid storage:

missionSites:
  - lon: 1.2985249634837812
    lat: -0.51661745859032149
    type: STR_CHEMTRAILS
    deployment: STR_HYBRID_STORAGE
    id: 9
    texture: -510
    secondsRemaining: 858600
    race: STR_HYBRID
    detected: true

Is this intended?

1042

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: August 05, 2018, 12:44:52 am »

Something that just crept up:

Monster terror missions still spawn, even after finishing the arc. Is this intended?

1043

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.3 alpha: Napalm Death

« on: August 04, 2018, 08:02:24 pm »

So... the idea is that you could order tritanium shotgun shells from M.A.G.M.A.?
Yes, it's technically possible and not insensible, but... I don't know, this doesn't seem too elegant. Either you produce an item or you buy this item... If feels kinda bad, aesthetically. But I will think about it, give the idea a chance.

Interestingly i found it to be a very elegant solution Think about it this way - if you're a small independent comapny you can punch out some prototypes using a 3D-Printer, but once you grow past a certain point it's simply more economic to outsource the whole thing to a company in china. The way i play the game (head canon wise anyway) is that X-COM starts off as a "small" team of investigators that needs every edge they can get - when you first develop the technology you have to produce the ammo yourself because it's the only option to get ahead. Once you get the relevant contacts you want your engineers to build whatever else you can to get ahead - outsourcing what you can to free up the manpower. But you don't lose the ability to produce what you're outsourcing. It's a fallback in case things do get sour between you and your supplier. So what if they infringe on BlackOps industries patents (can you even patent ammunition in that way?) - how are they going to find out? As far as we know you're the only one prducing and using that ammo. You're simply subcontracting your production to them - if anyone asks your simply renting their workshop space (and their engineers on an hourly basis).

Sorry, what was it about the knock-out grenade?

Knock-out grenades require smoke grenades for production. Would consider simply adding the cost of the smoke grenade to the production costs and tie availability to the explosives license? I like the ide aof building of existing technology, but the way xcom works makes this more complicated than it should be - my engineers should be intelligent enough to order what they need if it's freely available.

1044

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.3 alpha: Napalm Death

« on: August 04, 2018, 05:42:52 pm »

You could outsource everything and just not use workshops at all, but why the hell would I do that?

That's not what i was asking about and i was aware that this would come up, though it's not a valid counter argument. This isn't about outsourcing everything - first off, we can't outsource *everything* (lore-wise at least), seeing how elerium is limited, as is energetic blood plasma. Cyberdisks or Sectopods as well and a number of other stuff. This isn't a slippery slope - don't paint it out as one. We are clearly sharing alloy ammo tech, which is what i'm talking about, and napalm grenades are uprated incendiary grenades. I see no reason why X-COM should have to produce these themselves when can't produce stuff like alloy ammo for MAGMA weapons or certain craft weapons.

This isn't about making workshops obsolete. I simply see no point in regularly setting them up to produce alien alloys and ammo when i could be producing something more worthwhile once we have access to a company that can produce alloy ammunition. On the other hand, why do we have to share the alloy tech with MAGMA to get access to the ammo? Why can't we produce it ourselves beforehand like we can with the BlackOps ammo?

M.A.G.M.A. sells ammo for their own guns. Why would it sell ammo for BlackOps? To promote their competition's product? And to get sued in some shadow court?

Like they are being sued because they are using unlicensed alien tech?
Osiron already has access to other calibers besides those produced by MAGMA, and i see no reason why MAGMA should have any qualms about producing other ammo types if they can sell them to the highest bidder. They could simply license the stuff from BlackOps Industries if that's really a concern.

Because you could have the tech to produce the ammo, but not to produce the alloys.

Point taken, but that's not the case for the knock-out gas grenade.

1045

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.3 alpha: Napalm Death

« on: August 04, 2018, 04:07:30 pm »

You mean you'd like to buy them instead of producing them?
It could be done of course, but IMO we don't have manufacturing projects at that game stage.

Isn't UAC outsourcing (at least for craft weapons) a thing even before getting napalm grenades (Promotion II -> Promotion III)? Not saying UAC should be producing them, but that having the option later on (when you get access to MAGMA) to simply buy them.

And i don't mean that you should be unable to produce them, but giving players an alternative to produce them later on when you actually get the option to outsource production. Keeping multiple bases stocked up with tritanium ammo, napalm grenades and other critical stuff is kind of a chore tbh. That's what outsourcing is for. On that note, i also find it strange that sharing alloy/tritanium tech with MAGMA is the only option to get upgraded ammunition for certain guns while X-COM is essentially building cutting-edge space fighters and fusion explosives from scratch. Producing tritanium ammo regardless of caliber should be a piece of cake, given the technology you have access to.

Also, how come that sharing the tech leads to Osiron having access to most tritanium ammunition when we can't buy that stuff from MAGMA either? Why no let us buy an extended selection of calibers outright (for a hefty markup of course) once we share the tech? I actually find myself ditching alloy ammo relatively early because of the production overhead (i.e. having to transfer or produce alloys before starting production). This wouldn't be that much of a problem if we had an option to "automatically" produce the needed alloys when starting production of items that need them (i.e. by adding the cost and hours to the original item). Same goes for the knock-out gas grenade for example. Why not just add the cost for the grenade or simply outsource it as well?

Should an international para-military organization that does frontline research into aliens, the paranormal and that builds it's own hover tanks and spacefighters really have to produce every bullet their grunts fire when we have access to a company that specializes in doing exactely that? Early on, when you're still trying to get recognition for what you're doing? Definitely. When you get access to a company that specializes in providing *non-standard* weaponry and that you actually shared the that tech with and let's you buy said ammo for some of their guns? I think it's not too far fetched that MAGMA might be more than willing to produce other calibers as well.

1046

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.3 alpha: Napalm Death

« on: August 03, 2018, 11:25:04 pm »

Do you have any plans of letting us *outsource* additional equipment? Thinking especially of napalm grenades and the likes, maybe also additional alien alloy/tritanium ammunition?

1047

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: August 03, 2018, 09:05:19 pm »

Nah, too lazy. Also, already finished the arc in my current playthrough 

1048

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: August 03, 2018, 06:28:32 pm »

I seem to be getting crashes on transitions to new maps in Dimension X, when it first appears. After beating the cave mission, I crash, every single time. After I'd upgraded to a new edition a little bit back, I used an old save in the caves and managed to transition to the new map just fine... except on beating that, I crashed as well.

Just noticed this while trying to add some new missiles:

The backgrund and border colors of ufopaedia images for the craft railgun and the stormlance don't match the other entries, and the stock avalance and stingray images use the wrong palette colors (upper fin on the Avalanche / compare Stingray and Heavy Stingray).

Also, i'm getting a segfault when exiting the "Dimoension X approaches" map by killing all enemies. Evucuating by getting all of my agents to the exit works fine though.

EDIT: Apparently the initial spawn point in the second dimension x map (after exiting the caves) is buggy when using many units and/or tanks - i have 12 agents plus a tank, and loading the map crashes the game ~50% of the time. Works flawlessly when i leave the tank behind.

What the... this was literally five posts ago. I get that people aren't keen on reading through entire threads, but this is just lazy.

1049

The X-Com Files / Re: Nice mod !

« on: August 03, 2018, 06:26:13 pm »

First off, you might want to switch to a lower difficulty if you're having problems - it's called superhuman for a reason. This isn't vanilla X-COM and plays accordingly. Also - at least for me - it's only been hit-and-run in the beginning and when dealing with extremely unfavourable odds. How far do you've actually progressed in the game (and what year are you in)?

Depending on your research you can get access to alternative means of transportion relatively early. HMMWV let's you take five agents, the Dragonfly takes eight, Mudranger a bunch more.

The whole point of the mod is that you start out as a civilian organization. Having access to assault weapons and body armor from the beginning kind of defeats the point of slowly unconvering the alien and cultist plots and being given given more and more authority. Again, if you're having problems, play at a lower difficulty.

1050

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.3 alpha: Napalm Death

« on: August 01, 2018, 04:50:49 pm »

Its very similar to have a launcher dude faceing the ramp of the transport on spawn, except those you can evac and much less likely to occur cause the guy has to be right in from of the ramp facing the right way. In the mansion its one guy in about 1/2 half the map to ruin your day.

Then again, one lone dude with a rocket launcher facing your team is quite different from mutliple dudes with launchers facing your team. Taking out one guy with a launcher before he wipes out most of your agents only take a well placed shot if you're fortunate.

It's usually not the one dude with the launcher that kills you - it's the other dudes with launchers that reaction fire when you kill the first one.