Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: Edit save to make it think I've done a particular research?

« on: May 21, 2025, 11:58:31 am »

Cyberweb is a not a mandatory part of the game. It's just one of the four paths to get Promotion III. Through them - or from Mashinobi, so in theory you can skip Cyberwebs completely if you depend on capturing one from a Bank Robbery mission - you will get very useful Tactical Neural Implant improvement and other very important researches that depend on it (Helix Knight and Helix Psion, etc.). Completing Cyberwebs also gives you a transformation which you can use for those agents who are weak in PSI strength.

Oh, I wasn't aware. I actually have done Mashinobi as a research option.

The wiki seems to imply that the Promotion III Prerequisite is the Cyberweb Dimensional Portal being taken, Alien Origins being researched, Deep One Communities being researched, and Into The Dark being researched. Is that not correct?

To be clear, I've played this mod on one older save, and had no issues with all of this, had the TNI and Helix Knight all researched and everything.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Edit save to make it think I've done a particular research?

« on: May 21, 2025, 08:11:19 am »

So I'm going through the tech tree. A red dawn coordinator is ostensibly actually necessary, since they are required to get Durathread Origins, which is required to detect Cybermad activity. I haven't even gone down that road at all.

I'm playing on a pretty old version of the game at this point (downloaded back in like, 2023-2024), picking it back up because a friend is also trying it. So I think I'm just gonna restart and go with the newer version, saw him do one of those military vs monster missions and it had a vampire with a greatsword fucking clobber a tank. New stuff looks interesting. It's disheartening that I'm past the point where these guys are common and they just don't seem to spawn but it is what it is, silver linings or whatever.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Edit save to make it think I've done a particular research?

« on: May 21, 2025, 05:54:02 am »

It sounds as if you are missing Red Dawn Coordinator, which can be captured at Red Dawn Forward Base missions or from Durathread Factory mission (which I suppose you have already completed; I always try to capture one from there). For the first 24 months, there's roughly 28 % chance of at least one Forward Base mission spawning. Starting month 25, there are two additional chances of 12 % each of the mission spawning. So you should have roughly 50-50 chance to get a mission each month. Look for CultBaseZSRR repeated 10 times in missionScripts_XCOMFILES.rul.

I will note, however, that you are not strictly required to terminate all cults to finish the game. Terminating at least one is enough in order to get Promotion III (if you have one of the other three prerequisites). Though terminating them is strongly advisable to avoid many, many annoyances. So you really should not have this mess even had you completed Red Dawn. If you don't have Promo III you have other, bigger problems as well (such as not fulfilling the other requirements to Promo III). In addition to dealing with Red Dawn, you should really be looking into why you haven't obtained Promo III already i.e. what you're really missing.

They won't spawn the forward base, is what I'm saying. They refuse. I just didn't nab the guy at the Durathread factory, it was extremely dicey there.

As for the latter half... this is extremely valuable intel. Wonder what else I'm missing. Suppose I'll hop back to it, although if it is possible to convince the game I've done the prerequisite research, that would be very cool to know.

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The X-Com Files / Edit save to make it think I've done a particular research?

« on: May 21, 2025, 03:54:48 am »

The date is Friday, March 26th, 1999. A group of soldiers are set to land in Brazil to deal with a small UFO that has landed. They sling their weapons- shiny and slick but still mass produced earth bullshit. They were told they'd have access to the absolute cutting edge, but all they see are the same dull high-end rifles they've seen for over a year now. The ground combat goes about as well as can be expected at this point- two rookies, clad in ceramic plate, are killed. Matsumura's death is relatively painless, having been vaporized instantly by a chaser with a rifle. Cojocaru was less fortunate, plasma shearing off the side of her head. Several gruesome seconds pass before she falls dead on the ground. All of this will end in a report in some office somewhere, a statistic to be presented at the monthly hearing at the UN where command begs for higher permissions. The soldiers all wonder- what is the point of fighting a war if they can only barely procure permission to do so?

Hi. My save is past the start of the alien invasion, with aliens appearing much more frequently. For whatever reason, the game has not and will not spawn a Red Dawn cult base mission to allow me to capture the highest echelon of their infrastructure. I have tried editing the files to adjust the spawnrate, but this has yielded no fruit: it will consistently spawn lower-tier missions, but this is not necessary: I have up to the Red Ops captured and interrogated, and Red Dawn operations is researched. Promotion III depends entirely upon getting this cult out of the way but it seems impossible to actually get them to show up for me to do that.

I think this is a silly state of affairs, since Promotion III effectively hinges on proving the existence of the Secret War. They are actively invading and have been for months, I have cleared a Hybrid Embassy to prove it. But without the cult gone, I have my hands tied.

Is there, then, a means of forcing a save file to recognize that one research or another is completed? Failing that, is there some other means of getting past this point?

5

The X-Com Files / Re: Research Wall

« on: August 15, 2024, 09:09:37 am »

This could very easily be observed by making a few searches in the tech tree viewer. The mod author thinks it's cheating (strictly speaking), but if that's the case, so would be asking questions here, so.. It is impossible to say for certain without a save, but let me make a few guesses.

It is very likely that you have failed to research an alien leader, engineer and/or navigator, because you're missing essentially all the alien tech. (Tritanium foundry shows you have interrogated an alien though.) Or you have researched just one and thought that's enough. You have likely gained psionics through alien psionics (werewolves, cats and/or Dr. Alpha), not through sectoid leader. But if you have researched the leader, you're still missing the engineer. You'll have to research about three dozen alien engineers and leaders to get access to most of the alien tech (+ a navigator and a medic). This mod is all about live captures and interrogating (there are probably a couple of hundred interrogations you should do), and you have done only very little of this and have just killed the enemy units instead.

You get underwater missions by capturing and interrogating a deep one. It is the easiest to do it before you terminate Church of Dagon, because many missions stop spawning then, but even after it has been terminated, there's still a small chance to spawn a mission or two. And you can get the info from MIB scientist.

Lack of UFOs is a RNG thing. The rate will ramp up rather than go down. You're way behind at this point, but that doesn't really matter. (You can usually complete the game by or about 2000 if you play properly.)

I've done engineers and navigators, actually, but never managed to keep a leader alive. You're correct that I got psionics via Dr. Alpha, rather than a leader. I didn't realize I'd need to be spamming alien captures of the same castes over and over to get tech options, I recognized the need for a leader but haven't had many opportunities where I knew one would spawn (my captures from the alien colony were obviously ineffectual on this front).

All of the cults are wiped out, the last being EXALT after I grabbed their leader on the seventh or so run of the base (he died to tasing a few times, others perished to unlucky reaction shots). I will note that RNG has finally given me a mission to Dimension X, hoping that yields something. I don't care if I'm playing slow, as it is *enjoyable*, and if it takes a long time then I figure I will just enjoy it for longer. But knowing a vague direction is nice.

So, capturing lots and lots of aliens. Will bear in mind, thank you.

6

The X-Com Files / Research Wall

« on: August 15, 2024, 04:29:48 am »

Hey, progress has been good in my save. It seems the game has been updated, so I should say that my current save is from before the most recent update.

I'm at a wall with research in the March of 2000. There's nothing left to research, although I feel fairly certain I don't have it all done yet since I have many weapons I can't make yet- no laser weapons, no mass-drivers, no plasmas. So most of my soldiers are still using BlackOps stuff or Pulse weapons. My armor is capped to Cyber Armor.

I recognize that there's a tech tree, but it's not easily parsable for the information I want, which is essentially what should I be on the lookout for to meaningfully progress? I can upload my save if necessary, but short of that I can say that I've done an alien colony (and thus have the Tritanium Foundry up and running), I'm working on Psi-Amps now as the final research option available across my three labs, I've never gotten an underwater mission and I've done sparingly few ghost missions (enough to get some captives and their weapons, but never anything like the asylum ghosts).

I know for a fact I'm missing a couple MAGMA messages, too. I assume I need to do specific missions for those, one of which I assume is the wretched minitank factory, which if I can get away with it, I will avoid doing forever.

The current main enemies I seem to keep fighting are hybrids (so many hybrids, at least I can still research their workers) and the Syndicate. I've done the Cyberweb stuff to the point that they stopped showing up, although I never did a single thing with their portal network so I have no idea what that's about. It feels like UFOs have slowed down, as I've only seen Very Smalls of late.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The Joy (Pain) of a Terror Ship

« on: July 18, 2024, 12:15:32 pm »

I'm shaking and crying oh my god

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The X-Com Files / Re: The Joy (Pain) of a Terror Ship

« on: July 18, 2024, 09:05:03 am »

I have managed to satisfactorily progress by simply re-applying the smoke grenade a few rounds after the first, as the issue has always seemed to be that it dissipates, allowing aliens coming off the ship to retaliate and the turrets to take pot shots. Even one or two deaths is enough to send the whole thing into a spiral from there, but it's been done. We are successfully escaping the Groundhog Day Hell Cycle.

This still consumes 5-6 shots per each sniper, there being 15 of the buggers shooting at the turrets from two different angles, which is an insane amount of targeted cooperation. But. It is Done.

9

The X-Com Files / Re: The Joy (Pain) of a Terror Ship

« on: July 18, 2024, 02:41:27 am »

In the end, you'll find out that the Omega Mimic Ethereal Masters Solarius made it impossible to win regardless.



Do you have big lasers? These are probably the best direct-fire weapons against the big turrets... Short of shrapnel charges and shrapnel rockets, which are just OP.

No, but I have researched Alien Laser Rifles, and can use the ones dropped by the aliens I kill. At this point I can actually pinpoint which ones have that particular weapon to loot for this purpose.

10

The X-Com Files / The Joy (Pain) of a Terror Ship

« on: July 17, 2024, 10:44:33 pm »

I have been in Hell for approximately 10 hours. During this time, I have re-enacted Tom Cruise' performance in the film Edge of Tomorrow, I believe, with a great deal of faithfulness to the concept. My pawns move in such a way, perfectly predicting that the Chaser will open that door this turn, as he did all of the other iterations. He fires a plasma shot into the chest of my captain, wearing Tritanium Tactical Gear, who tanks it with some loss to the structural rigidity of the armor and responds with a single snap shot from a Black Ops Sniper Rifle. It hits and kills- it always does, and always will, in a profound statement about free will, determinism, and the concept of chaos.

This is Turn 7 of a battle that has raged for hundreds of cumulative turns. Almost every soldier here has felt plasma eat away their lungs and heart and eyes. In extreme cases, the unlucky few have passed by a window, garbed only in an armored vest, and been vaporized by a Chaser that wasn't watching that window in previous turns. Oh well.

The battle does not reset at their death. The battle continues with what resources it has available to it, simulating death until it reaches a point of loss. And then it restarts. The first few turns are a known element: move the soldiers here and deploy these three smoke grenades there so that you can deal with the first two turrets of the terror ship aimed directly at the Skymarshall. It takes a huge barrage of gunfire, and one must adjust on Turn 2 to properly counter the Chaser with a Small Launcher, but what wounds are accumulated from that are acceptable. One must pity poor Makhenkesi, always returned to life knowing that his death is built into the fundamental fabric of The Plan.

The first five turns of this battle are a foregone conclusion. Afterwards, it becomes experimental- the way forward with minimal casualties is not known. Live, die, repeat, over and over until a suitable plan for that turn is found. As the iterations progress, Turns 6 and 7 become more and more stable, concrete, as reliable methods around obstacles are found. If Samuel Hudson crouches rather than stands, he won't be targeted by the Chaser, it will instead shoot at Kim, who will survive and fire back, after which Hudson will also fire...

I give all of this as a peek at my suffering. The horrors are unending and, it is hoped, entertaining. I ask a simple question: how the hell do you reliably deal with Terror Ship turrets with low-tech options? If it comes to a pinch, I can return to the craft (we haven't actually made it far, and of course the iteration may end, prompting a restart), and get what is available. BlackOps Miniguns, High Explosives, a litany of grenades, Taser Cannons... because the usual strategies aren't cutting it, not reliably. It takes too many shots to down and we have to fire blind from the smoke, lest they return fire, leading to too many misses- misses that give the turret time to regenerate its forcefield. An arduous process to destroy even one, much less two to a side.

Are they weak to explosives? I can do explosives, if that would be effective- I admittedly have little success with pinpoint accurate throwing, but is it worth a try? Do let me know. Thanks.

11

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: July 10, 2024, 11:44:08 pm »

@delamer: If I understand your proposal correctly, that'd be an OXCE engine feature request.

@Bambu: This has come up before, and is considered a sort of feature. But you're far from the only one who's had a problem with where your pilots park their vehicles.

If you won't read all the pages, at least read this. A partial answer to your problem is in the QoL section, one that can be tweaked to take away all enemy TU, even.

Super chill of you, thanks much. I may look into it if there's no plans to change the base game in this regard. Like I said, I am having a great deal of fun, it's just some of the features (as I'm told this is one) are so frustratingly unreasonable that it becomes hard to mentally justify it.

I've changed a great deal from my usual approaches to this game because of this mod. Fighting 60+ enemies with a squad of 4-6 sort of demands that. But I hope I'm forgiven for whinging on this specific facet of it, because most of the other stuff makes sense in context (even moreso than the base game, even), whereas this bit just... doesn't.

Anyways. Thanks for the intel, I'll look through the above post later on, weigh whether I want it in, etc. Cheers all.

12

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: July 10, 2024, 03:57:58 pm »

I'd wager anything I could say has been mentioned, but I also think saying something that's already been said to add to the consensus is of value. You'll have to forgive me for not reading through the thread to confirm whether it has or hasn't been said, because the thread is very very long, and I don't dislike myself all that much yet.

I'm playing on Veteran difficulty, having never played before. I can definitely identify a lot of points where I messed up of my own volition- researching a lot of things was probably unnecessary and has slowed my ascent through the game's tech, having only just gotten BlackOps miniguns in early 1999. I still don't even have an interceptor, which I think is an obvious issue. These are all things I recognize that fall to me.

What I want to criticize (and the mod says I'm to send criticisms here...) is the spawning. Specifically, where the dropship spawns (be it the public car or something better). It doesn't make any sense that these things are parking mere feet away from the enemy. This has always been an issue down the two years of playtime so far, where enemies are unreasonably close and can cause immense damage instantly, because this mod has greatly tuned up reaction fire and enemies start with ostensibly full time units on round one (giving them the opportunity for huge barrages of reactions against any small action by my guy, having just stepped out of the Dragonfly). This, respectfully, really sucks. Missions become slogs of finding out how to just survive round one to get into the proper gameplay. Repeating actions in sequence because I found the sequence that works (no save scumming) until the first round doesn't result in multiple deaths because a group of seven Reptoids spawn in ten tiles from the entrance of the ship with 12 shots each of reaction fire to whatever the first poor bastard off the ship does. And if that guy dies in one shot (normally does, only have armoured vests and they don't fare well), then the rest of the reaction shots are withheld for the next guy off. It's just straight up attrition, for no reason, and it makes me want to just not engage with a lot of missions. They become psychologically stressing and it doesn't make sense in-universe for it to be so. Surely the pilot (one of my soldiers) wouldn't park to be fed to the enemies immediately?

I don't know how to fix this, I know nothing of coding and programming and so on and so forth. But, I present my biggest criticism. The spawning sucks, horribly.

(sorry if this comes off as rude, I don't know how to criticize politely, I am a big fan of the mod in general, I've played this game since I was 6 years old and this is an absolute blast aside from these road bumps)