Messages

1

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [DONE] New experience award system / accuracy training system

« on: November 08, 2021, 10:28:10 pm »

Sorry, I thought I had done that in the pseudo code I posted above.

Let's consider a hypothetical rating of IQ. Let's further say that the average for humans is 100, that a moron is below 70, and that Einstein is at 160. Let's also agree that we aren't allowing any morons into the Agent team, so 70 is the absolute floor for IQ.

How difficult is it for the Moron to increase his IQ? Relatively easy. If he just memorizes that 2+2=4, his IQ might be 71 instead of 70. Likewise how easy is it for Einstein to increase his IQ? What book does he read; who knows enough more than he does to give him a boost?

Programmatically, I might say that the minimum IQ is 70 and the absolute human maximum is 170. (Gotta give Einstein at least some hope for improvement.) For each event where the subject might gain an IQ point:

IF (CurrentIQ-70 < RND(100)) CurrentIQ++;

In English, if the subject's current IQ minus 70 is less than a random number between 1 and 100, then increment his IQ by one.

Examples: Consider a subject with an IQ of 100 who does something that MIGHT raise his IQ. 100 minus 70 is 30. A random number from 1 to 100 has a 70% chance of being greater than or equal to 30, so the subject has a 70% chance of gaining a point.

Consider Einstein. 160 minus 70 is 90. A random number from 1 to 100 has a 10% chance of being greater than or equal to 90, so Einstein has a 10% chance of gaining a point.

The closer you get to perfection, the harder it is to get better.

It just seems to me (and it's been my current experience) that if you send your players to the same training, they tend to look like carbon copies of eachother, hitting the training max value. With a system like I have suggested, there will be some variation, even if you are able to keep the same avatars alive for the entire game.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.9: Free Falling

« on: August 13, 2021, 05:41:01 pm »

I'm with Juku121 on this. There's a youtube video where the commetator rhapsodises on how brutal the game is, and that having faceless people dying constantly is a feature of the game. I am a soldier and any commander who treated me like that would have to grow eyes in the back of his head.

I also do a certain amount of editing, buffing up the initial collection of soldiers so it's more like an RPG [i.e. most of the initial set survive for the final mission], but pretty much allowing new recruits to go unbuffed. (I call mine Red Shirts, like Star Trek's cannon fodder, instead of Lemmings.) However I do adjust the character generation to not allow cowards (below 30 bravery) or wimps (below 32 strength) on my teams.

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OXCE Support / Re: Miles and more

« on: August 13, 2021, 05:12:29 pm »

By the way, nautical miles are not equal to american mile. It is a meridian length of one arc minute size. Useful for those who navigate over the globe. But hard to understand to surface people.
Nevertheless I prefer kilometers too.

That's the modern definition, but you can't possibly believe that in the days of sailing ships they had sufficient instrumentation to calculate how many arc-minutes a ship had travelled or was moving at.

A seaman would throw a log over the side, tied to a rope with regularly spaced knots, the earliest version being every 100 feet. (After all, who wants to divide 5280 by 60 and then pace off that amount of rope? The calculation is just as sticky in meters.) The sailor counted how many knots when through his fingers in 1 minute, and that was the ship's speed. X knots per minute = X hundred feet per minute, or X times 6000 feet per hour, or X Knots.

Sometime later (undoubtedly AFTER someone was able to accurately calculate the length of an arc-minute) a knot was standardized at 1852 meters or 6076 feet. Interestingly enough, the US and the UK were among the last countries to accept the international definition, in 1954 and 1970 respectively.

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OXCE Support / Re: Recommendations for higher quality graphics

« on: August 09, 2021, 11:40:00 pm »

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

5

OXCE Builds & Ports / Re: Installation location on Linux and mod questions for OXCE

« on: August 09, 2021, 11:36:09 pm »

I similarly run multiple mods on Ubuntu, I put a single installation under my home folder that also contains OXCE's user/mods and config folders. That is, everything OXCE is all in one directory. Then I just run the program with different command line options:

Code: [Select]

./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config" # for UFO
./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config_40k" # for WH40k
./OpenXcomEx -user "./user" -config "./config_xcomfiles" # for X-Com Files
# ... etc.


Thanks, ohartenstein23 for your excellent suggestion. This would actually allow me to play games simultaneously, which of course means I have to be careful to name my save game files so I don't load them into the wrong mod set. Just expanding on your idea, but you could define an alias in your .bashrc for each entry you have above, and then have unique commands.

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OXCE Builds & Ports / Re: Installation location on Linux and mod questions for OXCE

« on: August 09, 2021, 11:19:32 pm »

Sidepoint: "/usr/share" is normally the domain of the distribution. For files you put in manually it is better to use "/usr/local/share", less chance that a system update messes with your files (although unlikely for this specific use case).

As for the PSI. You can make your own submod forcing "LOSRequired" only for equipment used by x-com, for example (vanilla UFO):

Code: [Select]

items:                                                                                             
  - type: STR_PSI_AMP                                                                               
    LOSRequired: true
Downside of this is that you first have to find out which mod items you have to override. Those are likely mod specific.

Thanks, R1dO for the excellent information.

Many years ago there was a PPA for OXC and it placed things in /usr/share. Just wanted to know if that was any kind of standard.

As far as PSI goes, I want LOS for both sides. It was fun to return some of the grief that Commanders do to my soldiers from the safety of their cubicle, but doesn't make the game more interesting or playable to me. It's time they came out and faced the music.

I think Ethereal provided the answer in another thread, which suggests modifying ALIEN_PSI_WEAPON in the items.rul file.  I don't suppose I actually have to search for that much, since any PSI weapon I don't get modified, I wasn't planning on using anyway.

Thanks again!

7

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [DONE] New experience award system / accuracy training system

« on: August 09, 2021, 07:42:46 am »

If I understand correctly, each event that constitutes training has a set percentage chance of increasing the corresponding skill.

I was a member of the 5th Army Rifle team, and as such, I did a lot of quality shooting, However, having already been pretty good, it was hard for me to get better, whereas I could easily add 15 to 30 points (7% to 14%) to the scores of relatively untrained shooters through an hour or so of coaching. What I'm suggesting is that the better you are, the harder it is to get still better.

Pseudo code might look something like this:

For each event which might produce an increase in skill:
      If ( Rnd(100) < (MaxSkill - CurrentSkill) then CurrentSkill++

The higher your current skill is, the less likely you can increase it.

There was an earlier discussion from 5 years ago about whether bravery could increase by killing things.

Even though I was scared of heights, I went to Airborne school, thinking that would be the way to overcome it. Jumping from the 34 foot tower, I had my eyes shut every time and was dogged for it. I finally was so mad I psyched myself into thinking I would plant my feet in the Instructor's chest. Of course, I didn't get within 6 feet of him, but I was able to keep my eyes open. I had 82 parachute jumps over 21 years, and I'm still scared of heights.

I suggest that Bravery increase (limited as above by how close you are to MaxBravery) for each time you are wounded or are psychically attacked. In each case, if you survive, you know it's possible to do things you rightly should be afraid of, which is what bravery is all about. Killing things doesn't increase bravery, any more than shooting targets increases bravery.

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OXCE Builds & Ports / [Solved] Installation location on Linux and mod questions for OXCE

« on: August 09, 2021, 07:03:02 am »

I'm installing OXCE and am interested in playing XComFiles, War Hammer 40,000, and XPirates, not all at the same time, but selectable. Do I need 3 separate installations? I can manage this easily enough, but I was hoping for one location and the ability to turn on the appropriate mod from the rule set selection menu. (/usr/share/xpirates, /usr/share/wh40000, and /usr/share/xcomfiles will work fine [I assume] but it does seem wasteful.)

Linux users, do you place OXCE in /usr/share/openxcom, or in your home directory? Suggestions? I assume the $XDG_DATA_DIRS variable from OXC doesn't work for OXCE.

Are some of the mods available in the Hardmode Expansion available in XComFiles? In particular, I like the harder research tree and expanded weapons. I also think PSI needs to be limited to LOS. I just finished an OXC game where I PSI controlled a Chrysallid, marched him to an Ethereal, controlled him and marched him to the Brain's lair, controlled a second Ethereal, and he auto heavy plasmaed the brain. Cute and amusing, but unrealistic and not rewarding, especially since my PSI characters were halfway across the base.

Thanks

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OXCE Support / [Answered] Recommendations for higher quality graphics

« on: August 09, 2021, 05:17:10 am »

I've been playing XCom since it was first released, and I keep coming back to it. However I really don't like the blockiness of the graphics. (I realize I'm in the minority, especially considering the number of people who like 8-bit Minecraft, and further Meridian has clearly stated that 320X200X8 is not going to change.)

What I'm asking is if anyone has a recommendation for graphics settings to use. I'm currently using 1440x900 on my 1920X1080 monitor, which keeps me from having to squint at a tiny window on my screen, but as said, the blockiness is severe. Would like to know what other people use.

Thanks!

10

Open Feedback / Re: Help for the new guy?

« on: September 17, 2020, 04:00:54 pm »

First of all, you are correct: the aiming times in FMP are indeed different from the vanilla (Rifle: vanilla 80%, FMP 70%). After like 5 years I can't remember the change, but I probably wanted to make more room for sniper rifles.
Still, I don't think we're speaking the same language... Of course the actual action costs a certain number of TUs. What else would it be? And that number of TUs is a set percentage of your soldier's total TU. In case of the Rifle (in FMP), it's 70% of your soldier's total TUs.

Ah ha! After all this time playing, I didn't realize that the TU was calculated based on the percentage, which explains why everyone's is different, but not much different.

I certainly approve of the Aimed TU reductions as well as making the Heavy Laser useful.

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Open Feedback / Re: Help for the new guy?

« on: September 17, 2020, 02:02:38 am »

So the screenshots say something different than you (see above).

On the screenshot the Aimed Rifle is 30 TU and your soldier has 55 TU... so it does not exceed maximum TU of the soldier.

Apparently the stats did change from original UFO. Used to be: Aimed Rifle 80 TU. Aimed Heavy Cannon 80 TU. Aimed Auto Cannon 80 TU. Check Xcom1Ruleset.rul

Besides, as I said in the post, I used Vim to send my soldiers to basic training. (I buffed them up, but not so much to make them invincible.)

Anyway, the point I was making is that TU is not a percentage. It's a flat deduction from your character's TU.

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Open Feedback / Re: Help for the new guy?

« on: September 16, 2020, 10:22:15 pm »

Here's an example of TU.

SnapshotPU confirms that 15 TU are required for a snap shot.
SnapshotBefore shows TU of 55
SnapshotAfter1 shows TU of 40 after 1st shot
SnapshotAfter2 shows TU of 25 after 2nd shot
SnapshotAfter3 shows TU of 10 after 3rd shot

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Open Feedback / Re: Help for the new guy?

« on: September 16, 2020, 10:16:54 pm »

First, I wasn't complaining. Just chatting. I have no problem with the game.

OK, here is the weight before picking up the dead floater (weight in yellow)  and weight after (in red.)

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Open Feedback / Re: Help for the new guy?

« on: September 16, 2020, 09:26:34 pm »

TU cost is a percentage of your full Time Units, so it's literally impossible to get above your full TUs.

Moreover, all these weapons are vanilla weapons. I don't think they were in any way adjusted.

The jumpsuit was good enough for vanilla X-Com. At least in FMP you can quickly develop something better.

Soldier stats are unchanged from vanilla.

Good luck

Hate to disagree with someone who produced such interesting mods, but in spite of the percent sign, the TU is a count. I just verified it. Player had TU of 42, taking snap shots with a laser rifle with a TU of 14. First shot missed, his TU dropped to 28. Second shot missed, TU dropped to 14. Third shot hit, his TU is now 0.

Heavy Laser was adjusted, and it's a good adjust. Before it was useless, damage not much more than Laser Rifle, no Auto, and similar hit probabilities. New version has double the damage of the Laser Rifle. I don't know (yet) if other weapons were modded.

I used to play a lot, and I'd forgotten how useless the coveralls are. I saw something about a flak vest mod, but couldn't find it. When I was in the Sandbox, I had a vest made of 17 layers of kevlar. It was proof against the Angel King, but wouldn't stop anything bigger. Plus a helmet. I really think it wouldn't break gameplay to have something similar. (Perhaps armor points of 20, 15, 15, 15, 10.)

Soldier starting stats are unchanged, but I still think they should be. What kind of fighting force takes people with a bravery of 10? I'm not a big guy, but I used to have to carry the M-67 antitank gun (replaced the bazooka, something like the Heavy Cannon) plus my M-16, rucksack, and so on. If you can't function with a minimum of 45 pounds plus weapon, you don't belong in the Army.

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Open Feedback / Re: Help for the new guy?

« on: September 16, 2020, 08:35:52 pm »

Perhaps the soldiers are overloaded with equipment and don't have their full TUs? You can turn on a setting to be able to see the soldier's carry weight vs. weight limit in the equip screen.

Nope. The inventory screen changes the load to red (from yellow) when you have overloaded the soldier.