Messages

1

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

« on: January 20, 2020, 07:12:51 pm »

Decrypted Alien Embassy Keys being consumed on non-embassy missions?

I was going to raid an embassy and equipped a decrypted key to my Skymarshal, but then a quick hybrid convoy mission popped up and I did that one first. It looks like it consumed my Embassy key even though I was going on a mission that didn't require it. Is that the intended behaviour? It looks like as it stands, one should only add a key to the craft inventory in order to use immediately, or else it will be wasted. Wouldn't it be more convenient to be able to just keep a key on the craft and have it be consumed when required?

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

« on: January 06, 2020, 08:02:32 pm »

I've upgraded from 9.9e to 1.1.2 (and newest version of OXCE) and although my saved game is working largely intact, I did notice that in my three bases that each had a Hovertank/Laser with an Alien AI operator, the AIs and tanks have all disappeared. My savegame originates from before 0.9.9e, possibly to before the AI types were merged to allow experience from the beginning (per changelog).

I was gonna speculate, I'd guess maybe the Alien AI support still existed in 0.9.9e and allowed the Alien AIs in my savegame to be "grandfathered in", and maybe that legacy material was removed in the 1.0 cleanup? Just curious, I don't expect there's anything to be done about it.

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

« on: December 20, 2019, 04:36:06 am »

Not sure if this is the right place for this but I seem to have generated a mission where the tileset has laid out in such a way that some of the play area and enemies are isolated/inaccesible. Is this supposed to be possible? Save file attached -- Chtonian minibase mission.

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The X-Com Files / Ammo names and categories

« on: October 18, 2019, 06:32:29 am »

Is there value added by separating Batteries from Ammunition as an item category? I feel like the intuitive thing is to look under Ammunition for most items that are considered Batteries, especially when their item name still calls them "clips".

I suppose calling all sorts of ammo items from batteries, to box magazines, to ammoboxes, all "clips" is a nod of fidelity to the original XCom, which committed the common sin of referring to box mags as clips. Any yet that only holds for about half the ammo types I've encountered; there are many ammo units referred to as "ammo" or "shells" or "drums" or "ammo boxes" "ammo packs" or "flasks", etc. Particularly weird is the autocannon, with six types of ammunition, half of which are called "ammo" and half of which are called "clips" even though they all look the same with different colour accents.

Small things, doesn't really impact gameplay much (except where it took some time to figure out that Sonic Shotgun clips and Heavy Sonic Cannon clips aren't manufactured under Ammunition), but it strikes me as something that could use a polish sweep for internal consistency.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Commissars

« on: October 18, 2019, 12:57:02 am »

Comissars are a holdover from 20th century european military police doctrine, AFAIK, a good deal of which got adopted into modern police forces in europe, but most were little like the 40k comissar, those are mostly based of the worst stories that soviet soldiers told of their experience with russian komissars, who would shoot fleeing soldiers during the siege of stalingrad and whatnot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Detachment

Although arrest and conviction for cowardice (sometimes leading to execution) was ten times more common... apparently over a thousand were summarily shot at the front for retreating. Yikes.

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

« on: October 18, 2019, 12:33:01 am »

@Solarius: the tiles making up the craft seem to have wrong armor value (0), for example at tile [14,32,1]... pls check

Thanks for checking this out, you're a good man Charlie Brown!

Edit: By the way, more on the topic of taste and streamlining than bugs; is there value added by separating Batteries from Ammunition as an item category? I feel like the intuitive thing is to look under Ammunition for most items that are considered Batteries.

7

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

« on: October 12, 2019, 06:59:53 pm »

I have a save with an example of a consistent freeze/crash (save and screenshot attached). I'm playing 9.9d, so disregard if you aren't interested in bug reports from previous versions, or if this issue is known to have been corrected.

Situation summary: Thunderstorm has landed next to a shot-down Very Small UFO and a "1 unit vs 1 unit" battle ensues. Agent encounters alien too tough to shoot with his weapon, but agent is packing a High Explosive and attempts to use it to kill the alien.

State of play: Agent has High Explosive primed in hand and is in a position to throw it at the enemy.

To create freeze: Throw high explosive at alien and end turn.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Early-mid-game terrestrial rifles -- dmg tweaks?

« on: August 28, 2019, 10:18:17 pm »

You're right, the 0.1xFiringAccuracy bonus on the 7.62 NATO rifles gives them an actual damage range of 32 to 40 for agents with accuracy from 40 to 120. I never noticed that in my campaign because I discounted them as soon as I saw they had 28 base damage and I was getting much more effective weapons around the same time anyway.

Similarly, the WW2-era rifles with 30+0.15x have a range of 36 to 48 dmg. Your explanation has given me a better idea of how they are balanced in this game, particularly WRT to making the powerful precision rifles more deadly in the hands of skilled users.

The only thing i can still point to is the AK74SU's light-caliber round doing 30 damage along with the medium-caliber AK47 and Groza.

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The X-Com Files / Early-mid-game terrestrial rifles -- dmg tweaks?

« on: August 20, 2019, 06:26:03 am »

I discovered this mod a couple weeks ago and am having a blast with it, really digging the influences and how everything is blended into XCom. The scale of it is great and the amount of customization and content is the best use of the classic XCom software I've ever seen.

What's bugging me just a bit are the relative damage values with regards to the three main families of Earth-based automatic rifles that are available to players.

5.56 NATO family (L85, M16, Steyr AUG -- all 26 damage)
7.62 NATO family (FN FAL, Galil, M14 -- all 28 damage)
AK-derived family (AK47, Groza, AK74SU -- all 30 damage, a value shared with a variety of other high-end bullet-type rifles)

The 5.56 family I think has perfect stats; it is definitely a lighter-power round than any flavour of 7.62mm and so the 26 damage value is appropriate. The other two flavours of rifles should really have their damage values swapped, though: the 7.62x51mm NATO round fired by the FAL, M14 and 7.62 Galil ARM is a much more powerful round than the 7.62x39mm "short Russian" in the Groza and AK47/AKM series. The AKs should really have the middle value of 28 damage, and the powerful 7.62 NATO rifles should get the 30 damage.

It should be noted that the AK74SU doesn't even use the 7.62x39mm round; it is chambered for the 74-series 5.45x39mm round, which has comparable ballistic performance to the 5.56. The AK74SU should really have 26ish damage; certainly it's the gun least deserving of the big 30 damage value. If you want it to be consistent with the other rifles using AK mags, however, this could be easily tweaked to be called the AK-104: a shortened carbine version of the AK74 chambered in 7.62x39mm. This would allow it to be consistent in hitting power with the Groza and AK47/AKM, while maintaining the TU/accuracy characteristics of the shortened AK74SU.

Last but not least; the more powerful bolt-action rifles (such as the Mosin in 7.62x54mm "long russian" or the "Bolt-Action Rifle" that appears to be a German 8mm) should have their power tweaked up just a SMIDGE from 30 to 31 so as to reflect that these rifles are firing a bullet more powerful than the 7.62x39 or 7.62x51 used in the automatic rifles.

This is just a stack of tweak recommendations in the interest of better-reflecting the real-world performance of all these rifles that have been stacked up next to one another. If this doesn't fit with the equipment balance model employed in the game, fair enough, but I feel like so much effort is represented in the mod's content in terms of real-world hardware that it's worth being dialed in.

An example of a place where realism could conflict with balance: I would suggest the SKS be dropped from 30 to 28 damage since that's the damage value I've already recommended for its 7.62x39mm ammunition, but this might make it so weak it's not really useful at all. I hope to hear what perspective Solarius has on all this.