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1
The X-Com Files / Re: Endgame tips?
« on: May 03, 2022, 07:04:20 pm »
Apologies, you are right! I just switched to Windows to check, none said 100%. I must be misremembering when I saw 0% and assumed it meant "no adjustments". :-)

2
The X-Com Files / Re: Endgame tips?
« on: May 03, 2022, 01:30:49 pm »
Thanks, that's really interesting. So for my own armours I should favour things with the lowest % possible, whereas for enemies I should try and use weapons where their autopsies show they have a high %. I probably interpreted it the wrong way sometimes. :-)

Trying to get my head round it, it looks like many armours roughly balance out. My old system was Juggernauts for top rankers, Power Armour for everyone else. I switched to Shock armour for KYB, and Stormtrooper for everyone else. But maybe I should drop the Shock armour, since only a few can wear it, and the Juggernaut seems just as good. So leaders get protective Juggernaut, everyone else gets Stormtrooper (so they can fly).

If an armour or enemy armour has no entry for a type, does that mean 100% (normal)? It is confusing that sometimes the UFOpedia lists a type at 100%, sometimes they don't mention it at all.

3
The X-Com Files / Re: Endgame tips?
« on: May 03, 2022, 11:19:25 am »
Interesting re: lasers. I had trialled the Heavy Turbolaser, but stopped using it because it seemed inferior to other guns (e.g. against Ethereals) and had no autofire. The Scatter Turbolaser became one of my key Ethereal killers. But I never thought to use it against Sectopods. Maybe I would need my people in pairs on those missions, one with a Heavy turbolaser for Sectopods, one with a Scatter Turbolaser for Ethereals.

Also about the Multi-Phased PSI Amp. I see it has a sanity hit - perhaps that's another reason I stopped using it after a few missions. In the original game I don't think it had any penalty like that, it just used time units?

Is it safe to sell the Viper after making an alliance with Shogg, or is it worth keeping (does it have other uses)?

Lastly, I have never understood armour resistances. hey say something like "Electricity 10%", but the wording is ambiguous. Does that mean you only take 10% of the damage from any electrical weapon (which would be great, 10 damage rather than 100) or that it only reduces damage by 10% (so you take 90 damage rather than 100)? I tried comparing stats for different armours, hoping it would be obvious, but I always find it a bit hard to parse.

Thanks!

4
The X-Com Files / Re: Endgame tips?
« on: May 01, 2022, 07:46:00 pm »
Thanks everyone!

In vanilla UFO and TFTD I always used PSI a lot. I did experiment with it a bit in X-com Files but I assume there have been lots of changes, and I found it too fiddly e.g. I think I needed line of sight to use it? Also some people would be in PSI training for months and it didn't seem to boost their skill. In the end I decided to keep it simple, but this shows maybe I shouldn't have given up on it so quickly.

However, the nobelon is likely to be a game changer. I manufactured a load, and it did help survive a fair bit longer on some missions, so that may well be enough to help me tackle the larger missions. Back when I developed it I probably didn't need it much (lots of human enemies missions that didn't effect sanity); then I probably forgot about it, lumped with "items that have negative effects so I will not bother". The reminder here has led me back to it, and I hope it will be enough to help me get through some missions with careful planning!

Still, Sectopods are always a nightmare and kill a few troops. They seem immune to multi blaster bombs, and unscratched by EMP, grenades and mines. So I generally attack with a scatter laser, usually lose the shooter to opportunity fire, and hope the second soldier's volley is enough to finish it (often it takes three).

Still, I have hope again now. Ta!

5
The X-Com Files / Re: Endgame tips?
« on: April 30, 2022, 11:33:06 am »
I'll switch to Windows and load it now, see what the UFOpedia says. It may be something I discounted when I discovered it. Thanks!

6
The X-Com Files / Re: Endgame tips?
« on: April 29, 2022, 08:04:51 pm »
Update! I played for a few more hours, got the satellite mission again. I didn't have much hope so just kept firing blaster launcher weapons from my Avenger. I don't know if I was just lucky, but they took out the turrets AND every floater came outside and got hit, so I went to the next stage! Unfortunately, because I hadn't expected to win, I just had a few blaster guys in stormtrooper outfits, and a few in default space uniforms with no armour. The six of them explored and killed a whole lot of aliens before taking losses and running out of sanity and retreating. Three survived (though the good three soldiers who died were the best ones, who'd been training for months). Still, it looks like I might have a chance at this if I do this tactic again and make sure everyone has stormtrooper armour, and I spend a few months grinding people through simple missions to try and get their morale up. Fingers crossed.

Still, if I have missed any decent tactics or research, feel free to let me know!

7
The X-Com Files / Endgame tips?
« on: April 29, 2022, 11:45:45 am »
Hi,

I've been playing a single campaign for over a year now (our time, probably 6 years game time). I think I've done 82% of the research, so there is rarely anything else for my 100 scientists to do.

My problem is just that I am now just cycling through months, doing missions for the hundredth time to boost soldiers, then I often lose them all on one of the key missions I need to tackle, back to square one, and probably weeks of real time to get some decent soldiers again.

I'll give you a summary of my tech and tactics. It may be I am missing some game changing tech (such as something that blocks sanity loss). Or I have overlooked an obvious tactic.

Okay. There is only one alien base in the world. Ethereals at the north pole. I've destroyed every other base, embassy, colony. For some reason I lose each time I tackle this one, but maybe it is only a matter of time.

I have eight bases. Most have Tormentors and mass drivers. As soon as I detect an alien craft I launch one or more. A single Tormentor can take down anything except a battleship, so for those I launch three and let them wait in a huddle in the battleship's path. It attacks, they blow it up. So I totally rule the skies.

I generally blow aliens up over sea, since I have researched all the basic stuff, and often can't face doing the same ships for the zillionth time! Plus new versions of the mod have added turrets which seem really tough, so previously doable ships often lead to me losing soldiers, and that means more weeks to get new ones back up to speed.

I do most missions in a Lightning, since it's quicker to pop up and down and do crowd control at the start, especially if there's a sanity timer ticking away.

My standard armour is the Stormtrooper one (black, lets you fly), which I use as an upgrade for power armour. It has the advantage of working fine in zero-g. Any troops that do KYB training get to wear Shock Armour as our heavy stuff, so they carry the heavy gauss weapons, multi-blaster launchers, scatterlaser cannons (with a pistol in the other hand for opportunity fire, which they drop when they need to use teh scatterlaser). Troops have a range of grenades and mines on them for different situations, plus handcuffs and incapacitation stuff like stun maces and stun grenades. I am switching from alien plasma weapons to the X-com ones with grenades - any alien clips I find I now just send to my manufacturing base to strip for Elerium.

I think there are three big missions taht come up every month and need to be resolved.

- Vampire castle. I captured a vampire queen but I can't research her yet, needs a vampire knight. I know I researched dead ones, looks like I need a living one too. I'll try and get one next time. A tricky mission because of the rapid sanity loss. I tried sending in only an Enforcer AI, since he never went mad, but he got overran. In the old mod I could make new Enforcer armour without a shard, but now I need one shard to make it and one to put in it, so it's really rare I can make one. In fact, I have none in any of my bases at the moment, since alenium shards are so rare. I liked the Enforcer as, if it died, I could carry the body back and rebuild it. It's one of the reasons I hate 2x2 AI armours, as if they die in a lucky shot there's no way to bring them back apart from completing the mission, and since I am mostly left with the rock hard missions, that means a waste of another AI. Downside to the Enforcer is that if can't fly, so no good in zero-g.

- An alien satellite mission comes up every month. I have no idea how to tackle it. There's a huge wall embedded with doors and turrets. If I leave my ship and fly towards it, I get battered by turrets and floaters. If I stay back and use blaster launchers to take out all the turrets, then by the time that is done I have lost a third or half of my sanity, so I'm at the point where I need to retreat. If I started flying over I'd lose a few to floaters, get there with my morale dropping, and still have to face what looks like the largest multi-level base yet. I haven't even got halfway to it yet, after multiple attempts, and have lost my best soldiers that took months to build up more than once. So I have no idea how to tackle this. I can't use Enforcers (even if I had any left) because of zero-g. I could use the plasma hover AI armour, but if it is hit by a weapon then that will be lost for good too, and it is too big to fit in the base. Plus, unlike an Enforcer, it can't stun anyone and bring them back for research. Totally stuck here! I now just ignore that mission (since I still get such a big score for shooting down ships each month that I get positive scores and max money, and have over 2.5 billion in the bank - that's what I mean about me being in a stable setup that the aliens can't defeat, but I am not sure how to advance).

- I also have been making missions on the moon. I've now reached one that involves attacking a core alien base. But it is packed with Ethereals and Sectopods, so is worse than a normal Ethereal base. I just get battered. I don't have any tactic that really works well. Blaster bombs often don't even scratch an Ethereal when hit directly, and because they sometimes don't follow the route accurately, they can be a hazard to my own troops. Sectopods seem unharmed by EMP grenades and mines. My onyl way to bring them down is multiple bursts of a scatterlaer (or plasma weapon) at almost point blank range, but that usually means death to whoever shoots at it first, as it turns and fires, one hit kill often, even if my person is in shock armour or stormtrooper armour. And because I need the higher sanity from experienced troops, they're the only ones I can use on an Ethereal mission. And so, a single Sectopod might take out one or two good troops, setting me back weeks. Maybe there is another weapon I should be using against sectopods and ethereals. At present, I don't see how I can complete this mission, apart from grinding for months, have a stab, repeat the process.

- The shogg stuff seems finished - we have a sort of alliance. Can I sell the Viper now, or does it have other uses?

- Before I upgraded X-com Files I used to do all the troop boosts, such as TNI. They really helped make troops tougher, quicker. But the new version has a hit to sanity (or bravery) for most things, so I can't use them any more. I think there are about five boosts I don't risk. Because touch missions have a sanity drain, they basically have a time limit. The higher the sanity, the more time I have, and fewer risks I need to take. So I can't risk anything that actually lowers sanity, and therefore makes hard missions even harder, (If it wasn't for sanity I could probably do the hard missions above by careful use of defences and taking my time, but the sanity mechanic forces you to spread out and move fast, which makes you much more vulnerable.)

So, have I missed some killer tactic? Is there something I need that I haven't got? Or is it just the case of keep grinding, get troops to an even better level, then hope for luck on a hard mission? Any help is gratefully received! I have attached yesterday's save if it helps!

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The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 12, 2022, 05:41:30 pm »
Many thanks! I'll give it a go later when I next boot into Windows.

This game has entertained me for over a year! And before that I was obsessed with X-Pirates. In both cases, if I lost the game, I started a new one (even though sometimes that meant months of play down the drain). Both are a significant challenge, but X-COM Files is perhaps more difficult due to the invasion date in 1999, and the sanity mechanic which makes some long missions really hard. But it has been fun, and each week (real time) something surprising and new will occur. It's bizarre that I first played UFO on my Amiga 1200 and then moved on to the PC version on my first PC (a 486) yet still play the game now! I doubt if I could ever play the base campaign again, but in depth mods like this make it all fresh. It's funny - I have a new PC with a GTX 3060 Ti, and yet I mostly play X-COM mods and my C64/Spectrum/Amiga emulators! The graphics power is mostly just used for 3D rendering.

9
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 12, 2022, 10:58:18 am »
Latest save attached.

10
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 12, 2022, 10:56:53 am »
"you don't have the Moon Flight researched,"

Interesting - my old save didn't have that as a research option (even though I had already been to the moon and done a mission there - saving a base from space nazis?) But as you say, it's now one of the options in the new save. So maybe it just turns out my old save was impossible to complete because that option never appeared?

Anyway, I did that research (which now says I can send Lightnings to the moon, even though I did that a few months ago!); then I did another new one about Alien Flight Maps that had appeared, and it now finally let me research a lunar launching facility, which is in the process of being built. I finally feel like I am making progress again!

In fact, it's kind of fun having new messages pop up that are from the start of the game, but obviously weren't created yet in the version I was playing before. Reminds me how far I have come. And the OXCE engine is so much better 0 at last, I can see if someone si encumbered from the loadout screens! I used ot have to guess based on strength, then drop items after the mission began if it was too heavy. Now I know in advance! Also the auto-sell items is now active, I used to have to manually do it after every mission. The other OXCE chaneg is ambient sound effects during battles. Fun, though the bird sounds keep confusing my cat.

So it looks like I'll finally be able to complete the game on this new save, with the latest versions of the mod. :-)

I am still getting STR_ADVENT craft buzzing around though.

"STR_ADVENT no longer exists; it must be a very old save. I recommend removing it from the save."

How do I do that? It's probably worth me doing, so they don't generate a base assault at the start of a month, and put me into an irretrievable crash situation.

Thanks!

11
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 11, 2022, 09:39:24 am »
I normally play X-COM Files every day (maybe a couple of times a day, a few missions each time). I've not played since my firts post since I don't know which of my two installs to carry on with. It's weird not being able to play!

So, to recap:
A - I have my original install (old OXCE and XCF, save is attached to my first post).
B - I have the latest OXCE and XCF, but with a save from my ongoing game.

The old one (A) works fine (but is obviously missing a lot of things to research, as shown by opening the save in the latest version of the game, but as long as it includes a complete way to end the game I don't mind. The issue with continuing with that one is I have no idea how to launch the satellite to continue with the game. I suspect I need to capture an Ethereal Commander, but I have spent weeks of real time trying just to do that, and not even getting close, so it's beginning to wear me down. If someone told me "Oh, you only need to do x and y" and it wasn't too difficult then I'd maybe just continue with that game before I lose momentum.

The new install (B - save is in my previous post) introduces loads of new things to research, which is exciting, but the game crashes if I interact with one of the races. A comment above suggested removign that race, but I have no idea how to do that. There is also the possibility that there may be other issues like this, due to using a save from a previous version of the game? Also, I still have no idea how to launch the satellite, so unless it is easier to achieve in the latest version of the game, maybe I should just go back to my old save and old install (A).

Any help is appreciated, it feels very strange not being able to play the game every day! It's swallowed all my gaming time for over a year! Wonderful fun (as was X-Pirates), though I also look forward to reachign the end now, so I can move on to other games (such as replaying HoMM3). :-)

12
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 09, 2022, 08:18:03 pm »
Save attached (latest OXCE and X-Com files).

13
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 09, 2022, 01:00:27 pm »
No, I haven't got an option to build that facility. That's why I wasn't sure if the kit had to be present in a base to build it, or if I needed to research something else - as I mentioned in my first post, I had a suspicion I needed an Ethereal Commander, but I have been trying for weeks now just to do that one thing - for every couple fo hours of play I might get a chance to try, but I generally lose good soldiers and get set back a month, having to build up another load of troops by getting them to do easier missions first, to go through the upgrades to stats etc to give them a chance. It's kind of wearing me down! I thought I'd seen that newer versions of the mod didn't have that requirement, which is why I went through the reinstall of OXCE and the mod, hoping there'd be some way to progress. I'm kind of lost as to what I need to do.

14
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 09, 2022, 10:47:37 am »
Aye, it is old - I started the game maybe 12 or 14 months ago, maybe longer. It's all I've played, pretty much! Obviously if ever I started a new game I'd use the latest version.

How do I remove STR_ADVENT ? That might be safest - even if I ignore their ships, if they somehow force an interaction (e.g. battleship attacking a base) I might be caught in an inescapable crash on each load. Do I just look for that line in the save (opened in Notepad) and delete it?

Also, do I have all I need in that screenshot to launch a satellite, or is something missing?

Thanks!

15
The X-Com Files / Re: Updating the game to 2.4 - error?
« on: April 08, 2022, 04:38:51 pm »
Despite the STR_ADVENT crash issue, if the rest of the game is stable, then I still have the question about what I need to do to launch the satellite. The image shows I have a Lunar Satellite Launch, but I can't seem to take it in a ship to launch it, or to build anything in my base to launch it. What should I be trying to do here? Or do I still need an Ethereal Commander? Thanks!

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