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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.2 alpha: Snipers in The Night

« on: October 25, 2017, 07:45:02 pm »

Sooo, I played a bit further along. Made it into October, and got my first base attack conducted by actual aliens...and faced effin Etherals
Thankfully they attacked my NA base with the convienient chokepoint set up, and the same issue I had with the Syndicate applied here, too.
I had half a dozen tanks at my disposal, and since I built the large storage facility just beneath the elevator, they had a short drive, haha.
So long story short, I faced 18 Ethereals and 7 Sectopods, and slaughtered them left and right.
I've indicated it before, but during that mission, and a Terror mission with Cyberdiscs, one thing became really clear:
Miniguns are absurdly effective, a little too effective I'd say.
The dynamic of the base attack had it, that the Sectopods didn't show till every Ethereal was gunned down. After that I just parked a Minigun HWP in front of the elevator door, and waited for them to show up. Every turn I opened the door, had a "customer" and killed it with one salvo from point blank range. That went on for 7 turns and was quite hilarious, but also a little too easy.
I mean, it was Sectopods, it doesn't get any harder than that, right?

The Terror mission wasn't any more difficult. I had 2 guys with Black Ops Minigun, and they murdered just everything.
With 30% TU costs you can dish out up to 480 damage with an accuracy of 48%, and the accurate range is almost competing with Sniper Rifles, too. And I can do that 3 times a turn with a single soldier if I stay put.
That's just insane. I'm usually not a guy calling for nerfs, I like awesome guns just as much as anyone, but this is definitely game breaking territory in my book.
I think they shouldn't be that cheap to fire, and also the accuracy of these things is a bit over the top.
 

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.2 alpha: Snipers in The Night

« on: October 22, 2017, 11:38:37 pm »

Damn, this mod is really addictive
Made it into Sep '99 now. I got a bit scared during the first two months of the invasion, as the skies were swarming with UFOs of all sizes, and promptly lost the US as a funding nation. But alien activity slowed down considerably after that. The usual monthly Terror Mission aside, I've been mostly busy with dealing with the Syndicate, and chasing the Zombie Plot.
A couple of observations:

- The AI seems to need a bit of tweaking, especially the Syndicate missions tend to suffer from an overemphasis on self-preservation which often leads to them running around like headless chicken searching for cover instead of actually attacking. It was most obvious during the Base Attacks, where I had them trapped at the classic elevator chokepoint. The pattern was always the same: Syndicate Goon steps through the elevator door, sees half a dozen guns pointed at him, tries to run away. It made every of their Base Attacks a turkey shoot, even though it was a base with Rookie Agents and suboptimal equipment.

- I'm impressed with how effective the "conventional" weapons still are. All the Smart Gun types, the Miniguns and the BlackOps Auto-Sniper Rifles were up to any given task so far. Oh, and the Thrasher with AA BS is just absurd I have already researched and built a whole array of Gauss weaponry now sitting on the shleves bacause I just don't feel the need for them yet. Well, maybe when the T'leth arc continues.

- If you want to shoot down a UFO, don't equip your craft with an Avalanche launcher, because 1 hit with these things is usually enough to outright destroy it.

One thing I'm wondering is, how do you get access to AA ammo for the UAC weapons? The UFOPAEDIA has them listed in the weapon descriptions, but I can't manufacture them so far.

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

« on: October 12, 2017, 09:08:21 pm »

I saw it already reported, my game also suffers from occasional segmentation errors, which occur in bigger missions when someone in a far corner of the map goes beserk.
Also, I'm either blind or the HMG doesn't seem to have an UFOPAEDIA entry.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.2 alpha: Snipers in The Night

« on: October 12, 2017, 08:38:05 pm »

Hi there!

I created an account to salute you for this wonderful mod!(and to have some questions anwered, actually )

First of all, the praise. I didn't expect this to be as enjoyable as it turned out to be I'm usually pretty skeptical when it comes to full conversion mods, as they more often than not turn out to be too bloated and too ambitious for what the game engine can offer.
I tried out Piratez!, and while I was deeply impressed with what has been achieved with it on the technical side, its bloat-factor soured it for me(this, and that it's slightly too silly in its oversll tone for me).

Your mod however, won me over with its great mission variety, and the corresponding variety in the mission dynamics. There seems to be alyways a new challenge around the corner, which I cannot praise enough. Also, you have managed to create unprecedented atmosphere for some of the missions.

A Blood Moon mission which I played just recently comes to mind. It was a true survival horror experience in a XCOM game with plenty of "shitshitshitshitshit"-moments. Pure Gold, hats off, Sir!

+1 for the implementation of some of the best of Mark Morgan's work. Overall, the selection of tunes is great, and adds a lot to the flavor of the mod.

Now off to my questions and remarks about the balancing.
I'm playing a Superhuman campaign, and currently I'm in Aug'98. So far things have been going well, I'd say. I have a good roster of Agents, and I was able to bring 2 real labs online in April, so that I'm sporting 65 Scientists now who tear through the research tree.
I successfully assaulted 3 Cultist Bases with the exception of the Black Lotus, which brings me to

Question 1: I hate these stupid Ninjas. I tried an assault on a Base which was just in reach of my Dragonfly. It started off well, until the first panic wave kicked in among the Lotus, when I suddenly lost half of my team to these damn assassins within 2 turns. Since I had no clue how many more of them were on the map, I cut my losses and bailed.
So, do I *have* to thwart all these cults to progress the game? Because I really don't have a lot of desire to try this again, at least not before I have access to Proxies which I can spam around.
The invasion is around the corner, and I don't want to be stalled in terms of crucial tech.

Question 2: Related to the question above, what is my window of opportunity for eliminating these cults? Do I better do this before Jan'99 or can I wait a bit longer?

Question 3: Surf Time/Ski Resorts. Are these missions important? I find them to be extremely unfair, with questionable value. I did one Surf Time mission, and it required a true save/reload fest to survive it, which I despise. But, since I couldn't bail I saw no other chance.
I got a live Osiron Goon out of that mission, so I'm wondering whether doing another one these would bear any meaningful yields for me.
Otherwise, I'd just ignore them.

Question 4: Facilities like the Intel Center, the BioLab and the HQ. Compared to real Labs those seem to have lost their relevance. Do I need to still run them, or can I swap them out for regular Labs?

Now off to some remarks and observations.

- The risk/reward ratio for the missions seems to be rather off at times. Resolving a piss easy Madman Rampage can easily yield more than 500pts on the scoreboard. Now compare that to the first Dossier mission I got yesterday, which involved "Meridian the Hunter". Freakishly hard, 2 dead Agents and the rest battered badly. I got 50ish points for that, and a fancy Plasma weapon I won't be able to research before I have another 30 of them in my stores.
That was pretty underwhelming to say the least.

- I know, I'm in an absolute minority here regarding the following, but I mention it anyway. I'm not a fan of the idea to bring in just about every real world Assault Rifle, MG, Pistol, and SMG. It works for Jagged Alliance, but here I'm just facing an abundance of weapons with laughable differences clogging up the inventory screens.
I prefer every weapon/item introduced into the game to be distinct(FMP did a great job with that). Half a dozen 5.56mm ARs don't fit that bill. But that's just me, and I know that's not gonna change.

I have more on my mind, but this post is already long enough. Again, thank you for this great effort!