Messages

91

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: July 23, 2014, 06:40:35 am »

So does this mod work yet? It just crashes my game every time I tried to install it. How are you guys using it? AFAIK it won't work with 1.0

It works with 1.0 for me. Are you using a nightly?

92

Troubleshooting / Re: TFTD Implementation

« on: July 23, 2014, 12:28:42 am »

Hi

Is there a way to work OpenXcom with TFTD ?

An open version of Terror from the Deep is in the works currently.

If you meant as in making a hybrid game with the original and Terror from the Deep, that will probably be done by the modding community once OpenTFTD is further along.

93

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: July 19, 2014, 07:34:21 pm »

@Solarius Scorch

Any ideas as to what the next major addition will be at this point?

94

Work In Progress / Re: RMP help

« on: July 18, 2014, 10:13:08 pm »

I agree with moriarty, nice design choice x60mmx.

The vanilla Lightning was pretty much useless

Yes to this, so very much. The only use I could find for it is to pack a bunch of rookies on it to send on small missions, but really it's useless for that too because you can't include a HWP, which is a massive help to inexperienced crews throughout the game. Plus, by the time you get it, you'll already have access to the Firestorm and to the Avenger research.

95

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: July 16, 2014, 07:18:46 pm »

Indeed, randomness is random when it comes to alien races. Just playing with Robin's two new aliens, I got 1 waspite ship in the first 9 months or so and then I suddenly got a wave of about 4 of them.

96

Offtopic / What's your final verdict on Firaxis' X-com: Enemy Unknown?

« on: July 16, 2014, 06:45:56 am »

Personally, I'd say good, though I haven't ran the expanded version yet. The traditional turn-based strategy genre has been rather barren over the past few years (especially on consoles), so it was nice to see Firaxis step up and deliver a solid experience.

97

Offtopic / Re: What do you think has caused OpenXcom to succeed?

« on: July 16, 2014, 01:07:43 am »

As Solarius suggested, the "549,755,813,888 ways to play Openxcom" was a jab at the sort of silly, excessive statistics that get thrown around in commercials and ads. For Enemy Unknown, Firaxis could easily have tallied up their 4 difficulty levels, ironman mode, and 12 Second Wave options and legitimately claimed that there are 131,072 ways to play Enemy Unknown. It is true, but it's meaningless - who's going to play a game that many times? I don't find a stat like that intimidating though, it's just ridiculous.

While the options vs. mods issue may merit further discussion, it's more of a matter-of -onvenience issue at this point than a playability issue. Could the options stand to be cleaned up and reorganized some - probably, but everyone would have their own ideas about how it should be done (as this topic is starting to demonstrate.)

Hobbes, I don't think your fear of overloading the player is baseless, but I'd imagine most new players are probably going to either go with just the vanilla settings until they learn the game or ask around the forum for recommendations. While the many options and modibility are selling points of Openxcom, the game itself doesn't make any effort to push you toward changing the default options. To me, the advance options and mods are something like Second Wave, they're there to give some more variety and customization for people who have experienced vanilla.

i admit perhaps here in "why is openxcom great"-thread  is the wrong place for such

Yeah, this thread is derailing pretty badly.

To tie it back into the topic, I'd say that the fact that we're debating the layout of the options menu as one of the bigger issues of the game is a testimony to the success of Openxcom. Option layout preferences are a pretty big step down from base disjoint bug and 80-item limit.

98

Offtopic / Re: What do you think has caused OpenXcom to succeed?

« on: July 15, 2014, 04:19:35 am »

And I feel that even the current options available should be reduced, or at least, there should be a limit. Because when you get to a point where you have 100 options no one has time to try them all, and even if you try them all, you'll most likely find out that they aren't balanced against one another. Or, in other words, K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).

As of now, there are 549,755,813,888 ways to play Openxcom judging by the Advanced options (should have put that number in the trailer.) I think that the options are more or less done for now, all of the recent additions (the new features brought in from XcomUtil and UFO Extender) are listed in the mod section instead of as options.

99

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: July 14, 2014, 10:36:23 pm »

If this could get stabilized, its worth putting in the build so you don't have to keep updating after various nightlies.

I agree. Having to continuously update for nightlies that don't even affect the functions of the mod has to get old after a while. Unfortunately, merging it with the build might would take some of the creative freedom of the mod out of Shoes' hands.

100

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: July 14, 2014, 10:28:46 pm »

When you say 'not compatible', do you mean they cant be run together at all or just that it cant be included in the compilation and needs installing separately? I've been watching the diary mod progress and it looks fantastic. I always found myself wanting for something like that in vanilla xcom.....too hard to remember who did what otherwise.

I might should have phrased that a bit better.

I really like the Soldier Diaries mod (I'm using it right now) and it is flexible and will run with most mods, probably this one as well. The problems are 1) It will need to be installed separately because it's an EXE whereas this mod isn't 2) Shoes is still ironing out the bugs in the Soldier Diaries 3) Because it's an EXE, Shoes has to merge the mod with nightlies, whereas this modpack works with any nightly release unless something in the build breaks it.

So basically, you can install the Soldier Diaries mod with this one and see how well it works, but that mod can't be merged with this one at the moment, and you'll have to wait on Shoes to fix bugs and merge with nightlies. Probably nothing will go terribly wrong, but there could be some minor issues.

101

Released Mods / Re: [ENEMY] Men in Black 3.8 | Cover Alien 2.1 | Gazer Alien 1.4

« on: July 14, 2014, 10:02:53 pm »

The research topic says that the world elite supports both, but it doesn't say that it's the same government officials/wealthy individuals supporting both. Presumably, the majority supports X-com openly while a shady, smaller group funds the MiB in secret, though there could always be a few people that play both sides figuring they'll just deal with whoever the winner is. Also, given the aliens attempts at infiltration, it's very possible that the MiB is working with the aliens to some extent.

As for killing people, just about every secretive government organization in real-life has done illegal and immoral things and then covered them up, justifying their actions as being for the "greater good" and there have been plenty of governments that knew this happened and were okay with it. Having a government/power elite group "silence" certain people is sadly not too unrealistic.

Based on the information given, the MiB seem to be much more akin to EXALT from X-com 2012, an organization that works with aliens for their own benefit, as opposed to the Cult of Sirius, which is worshiping the aliens and actively hoping for the aliens to win. They want to bargain and work with the aliens, not get conquered by them.

102

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: July 14, 2014, 05:05:54 am »

A ieda for make. When finish a mission see the update of stats on the soldiers. This is interesting for the strategic of the group

Do you mean as in a list of kills for the soldiers like a status report or a chart of how much stats the soldiers gained from the mission?

The first one of those is available here through shoes' Soldier Diaries, which is not sadly not compatible with this mod because it's an EXE: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=1718.0

The second is being worked on by Roujin and has been requested before, but it's still in the experimental phase and may not be stable/compatible with this mod. You can check out Roujin's progress here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=2461.0

103

Suggestions / Having mod/option for psi mind control with LoS and psi panic without it

« on: July 12, 2014, 07:06:28 pm »

There's an option for making psi skills line-of-sight, but I've read that the AI handles this poorly and ends up almost never using psi attacks. Someone made a mod for applying line-of-sight to the psi-amp, but I was wondering if there was a way to have mind-control set to use line-of-sight while still allowing psi panic attacks to be used from anywhere, as I think this could potentially be a way to balance psi attacks.

104

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: July 12, 2014, 03:37:58 am »

Okay, I admit I do not understand, like, at all why everybody wants psi armours. OK, Ethereal robes are a fun idea, but why 80% of suggestions are related to psi?

I can't speak for others, but I definitely don't care about psionic skill being higher, I just threw that in there with the ethereal robe because it seemed consistent with the idea. Psionics are brokenly powerful for ethereals before you get psi-labs, and presumably that's the reason why so many people are requesting armor to neutralize it (that and all the other major ideas for armor seem to be covered.) However, once you start getting very good psi soldiers, they become broken for the human player. To me, flat out turning psionics off just feels a bit cheap and robs the ethereals of their primary trait.

Personally, I think the best way to balance psionics would be to make mind control based on line-of-sight, but keep panic as it is, and then cap psionic skill at maybe 60 or 70 for X-com soldiers. Psionics would still be useful, but it would greatly cut back on the mind control spamming on both sides.

105

Released Mods / Re: [COMPILATION][RESEARCH] FMP Core/Tech Tree part

« on: July 11, 2014, 09:59:42 pm »

Here's an idea for a psionic armor type that I don't think breaks the suspension of disbelief too severely (though feel free to disagree with that assertion.) The idea is basically this - embeded within their robes, ethereals have a small network of devices  that work to further enhance the species' strong psionic and telepathic mental abilities (basically their own version of the psi-amp, except that it enhances a natural ability for the ethereals instead of developing a new power like the psi-amp does for X-com.) These devices cease functioning when an ethereal loses consciousness or dies. However, X-com engineers have developed a method to create a similar "robe" for X-com agents by salvaging parts from the robes of ethereal corpses and augmenting them with psi-amp technology.

Robe of the Ethereal

Requires:
10 Ethereal corpses
1 psi-amp

Front: 40
Side: 35
Rear: 25
Under: 20

Bravery: 10
Reaction: 15
Psionic Strength: 20
Psionic Skill: 15

Robe of the Ethereal Elite

Requires:
25 ethereal corpses
2 psi-amps

Front: 55
Side: 50
Rear: 45
Under: 40

Bravery: 20
Reaction: 20
Psionic Strength: 35
Psionic Skill: 25

Does anyone think this has potential, or is it just a bit goofy?