Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.6: Life Will Never Be The Same

« on: December 02, 2020, 04:02:10 pm »

Seconded Cool! (for the sudden 1.7 release).

And thanks to Termidor for that detailed analysis, and Solarius Scorch for replying with balance

I am still in my first game (circa 1997) of the mod, and have no real detailed feedback to give yet, other than i am loving it and finding it hard (even on easy!) as an X-com gamer from the Amiga days!

But at some point i will feel i have the experience of the mod to comment and post something constructive, because i feel Solarius Scorch you have here one of the best X-com games around in terms of a cohesive and believable storyline that leads upto the original game start.

My X-com life will certainly never be the same again

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

« on: November 27, 2020, 02:00:02 pm »

Ah yes thanks. I did just get a Chief Engineer and the option to research a workshop. I was just curious about the facilities i have not working or it being as intended.

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

« on: November 27, 2020, 10:30:58 am »

(Using xfiles_1.6b version)

I've just researched Nobelon and got the message that we can now produce it in the workshop. However when i go there (via the 'manufacture' button) it is not listed and when i look into the details in the workshop screen it has 'workshop' as a requirement. I can't even build a 'workshop' currently (and not sure how to be able too) but i guess the 'workshop' space (15) provided by the X-com Headquarters or the 5 engineers i have (to unpack crates of weapons etc) is not enough to be able to produce Nobelon?

Not sure if this was a small bug or working as designed?

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

« on: November 16, 2020, 01:05:08 pm »

It would be possible, but some regions are already called "Indian Ocean" and such, while some are "Arctic".

I could change the naming convention, but I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle, considering other weird semantics which may show up in other places.

Ah ok got it. Yeah not an ideal system to have to mess around with! I just was not sure if this was a 'mod' bug or a 'game' bug, as the later we can just shrug and move on. Thanks for looking into it

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

« on: November 15, 2020, 10:49:56 am »

Interesting. That should do it for that specific quest event:

"A ship was found drifting in the {Arctic/Pacific/Atlantic/Indian/Southern}" - sounds a little better than it was, but i don't suppose that form has a space to add 'ocean' at the very end of it does it?

e.g. "A ship was found drifting in the {Arctic/Pacific/Atlantic/Indian/Southern} ocean, with its crew missing etc"?

---------------------

Just noticed this:

General Store vs Large Storage Facility. UPDATE - ignore as General Storage is 50 units (not 150!).

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

« on: November 14, 2020, 01:57:20 pm »

Typo report:

'Ghost Ship': A ship was found drifting on Arctic, with its crew missing etc.

Should be: A ship was found drifting in the Arctic,.

Or if string length is a problem it could be re-formated to something like this:

Ship found drifting in the Arctic: Crew missing. There are no signs of struggle etc.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Making money

« on: November 10, 2020, 10:29:30 am »

This is something you run into in base X-com too. The solution is either start a new game and NOT build up as much (ie control your finances better), OR keep your game but sell off bases you can't afford to keep, transfer staff and equipment to the bases you want to keep.

As the manufacturing process works a little differently in this mod, you can't rely on that early step of making medipacks to sell for example.

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The X-Com Files / Re: X-Com Files Copyrighted music

« on: November 08, 2020, 08:50:48 pm »

Yeah i can see this being a problem for me later on if i do some let's play coverage of it too.

Ok i agree that the quality of the music UFO Cydonia's Fall is excellent, like really good. It available from here for others that do not know it:

https://openxcom.mod.io/ufo-cydonias-fall-ogg-music

Excellent work by Lorcán, and i assume 'free' to use from copyright issues for streaming/youtube etc (give the guy some credit in your video description!). Not a lot of info in the file you download, like no 'readme' or anything but i did find this on the OpenXcom wiki about music placement:

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/OpenXcom

Look under the 'Audio' entry.

Now do we have a source to match up the music in The X-Com Files to cross reference with so we can try to match the music to play where it should in the game etc? What would be the best way to go about that?

9

The X-Com Files / Re: Too much research...

« on: November 08, 2020, 06:46:57 pm »

"Not enough research" was my common complaint of other X-com games (or just having one base etc etc). The Meta game in the original games were just so perfect for a young hungry mind to get really into back in the day

Oh also i forgot to mention the Terror from the Deep influence you also put in this new starting period (to go along with the 'sects' stuff from Apocalypse). It's a really nice nod to those games and all fits nice and neat in this new Xcom Files parcel.

---------

Edit a little later added question on the theme of this thread in general:

Q: Why have these items appear as topics to 'research':

1. Wrench
2. knife
3. Iron pipe
4. Wooden club
5. Baseball bat
6. Pitchfork
7. Money
8. Money briefcase
9. crowbar

Do some of those require a research 'unlock' to other things? Not all of them though, so do you research those 'redundant' items or leave them be? I tend to be a bit OCD with game offerings, so i find it hard not to research the Iron Pipe for example, even though i know it leads to nothing? I like to clear it off the list.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Vehicle Fuel/Transport Costs

« on: November 08, 2020, 06:40:44 pm »

I'm trying to run some tweaks and test around this kind of thing, craft related changes (small ones). So i have the crafts_XCOMFILES.rul file in the Ruleset folder and can see the various stats for the vehicles.

The problem is i'm not seeing the changes i make here show in the game, and i start a fresh new game, but the values remain as default in the mod. Is their another file i should be changing values in (i've been through all the files in the 'Ruleset' and wider 'XComFiles' folders and so far not seen anything?

So far i've changed (in crafts_XCOMFILES.rul):

line 9: fuelMax: 100 (was 50) - this is for the Mudranger and 50 gives 540km's of range so 100 should cover the whole of your initial 'economic zone' and mean you get to use the vehicle a bit more often?
line 18: costBuy: 500000 (was 90000) - just to give it a 'military' price tag to reflect it's non civilian nature and offset the improved range. It's an investment.

Any pointers? As looking through the other costs (for hummer and private planes etc) for some of the non starting vehicles, i could see some excess money being controlled via higher up front costs around this maybe. I just need to be able to tweak the values to test.

EDIT: lol total newb mistake. I was editing that file in the unpacked mods location, NOT in the XcomExtended install path where the game runs from!
I got it working now.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Too much research...

« on: November 08, 2020, 08:40:53 am »

That sounds great, and also an interesting coincidence - the first serious modding project I made together with Dioxine was a megamod for Call to Power I, "Forever Future". If you are into CtP, then you check out this - I guarantee it's worth it (contains the link).

Hey thx I loved CTP when it came out, it was the right kind of spin on Civ for me at that time and i had moved onto CTPII (bad AI!) when i got into modding, so had not looked at any of the CTP mods. I'll look for my CD of CTP and make some time to give your link a go

I did not know about UFO: Exteraterrestrials either, was that not related to the other UFO games (Aftermath etc)? I found that series too 'action' focused (as i do the new Fireaxis Xcom games) in general and as typical for games of that era the 3D camera angles had to be fought etc. Anyway another new game to look into (with the mod you mention obviously!) when my run(s) of OpenXcom+The X-com files finds a pause.

Considering how small a space (2-3years) in game time you have to squeeze the 'X-files' influences in, and the changes in the game process to fit those kind of changes (i mean you basically bought in the 'factions/sects' aspect from X-com Apocolypse and grafted that nicely into X-com, and it feels more natural and organic than that game did to me!!) and the different kind of 'flavour' you've been able to create from that.......i'd say (from my 12hours or so playing so far (i've re-started twice just to test stuff!)) that you have pretty much nailed your objective. Obviously nothing can be perfect (unless you build a game from scratch yourself etc!) but it is quite amazing what you've managed to do here. It's tough as nails often (those undercover missions kick my butt nearly every time so far!) but i'm making progress and starting to better understand the path forward to 1999, what to take on and what to leave alone etc

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The X-Com Files / Re: Too much research...

« on: November 07, 2020, 12:22:13 pm »

I think it's fine to stumble in the dark. This isn't a race. Do research at your own pace, just make sure you don't lose.

Yeah I'm absolutely loving your creation here Solarius Scorch. Not sure why it took me this long to find your mod in truth, as i've been playing OpenXcom pretty much religously since the 1.0 was released.

I never really liked ANY of the other X-com variants since the original game, they all just streamlined too much or had focus on the 'wrong' things (looking cool over being cool etc). The Long War mod just about saves the newer Xcom game (the hyphen matters!), but they are still shallow, reduced games compared to the classic original imho, and OpenXcom and the mods for that have breathed new life and personality into one of arguably the most amazing games ever made.

So thank you very much for your efforts and the awesome game we (original X-com fans) get to keep playing and for free via this amazing mod work

I've been in the modding scene for many years (I was part of the team that got the source code released for Call to Power II on the Apolyton forums years back, and helped design the religion system we have in Civ IV's Beyond the Sword expansion) and am looking forward to giving you constructive feedback and questions on this mod once i got the feels for it

X-files AND X-com just makes so much sense, i can see why you wanted to explore that.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Too much research...

« on: November 06, 2020, 10:32:48 pm »

Dont bother researching "ordinary" items, unless you intend to use them in the field. You can use most convential weapons without researching them anyway.

I'm putting together a 'list' of items i'm struggling to understand why they are in the research list at all. Is there a reason for that like maybe if i really WANTED to use a Pitchfork i can't until i have researched it? I can see you can't buy an item until some research is done, but i seem to be able to get a bunch of pitchforks/wrenches/baseball bats/lead pipes etc from missions and equip those right away.

So why are those items in the research lists? Just wondering aloud

You need to increase your research capabilities asap. You can get a bio lab (5 scientists) and intel centre (5 scientists) early on. Research lab comes later to bring you up to 40 scientists. You cannot build multiple research labs in one base... so it might help to get another base up sooner rather than later.

I seem to be very bad at this, like i'm not sure what i should be doing to get to a stage where research can be weaponised. I have the HQ (5 scientists) plus a recent bio-lab (5 scientists) and no clue as what to do next (nothing showing in my current available research topics to give a hint etc).

Could we have some dialogue from the base staff (those fun additions when they pop up and give advice - i love it!) to maybe better guide the player here in the early game? Sure we can use forums and wiki's etc, but it always feels mos natural when the game guides you (the original game was quite genius in this). I can see these staff topics are triggered by stuff so i was thinking have an extra one from the Scientist that triggers sometime after 'Promotion 1' with more details on how to organise your science (like "ok we got some recent UN recognition for our work, so to make sure we get my teams working full speed on our research we need x,y,z and the best way to get there is to do missions x,y,z and get [live captives/ new tech/ etc]").

Something along those lines, and in-game clue on how to progress etc. I'm just currently fumbling around not really sure how to get a science lab to be able to employ 40 scientists etc.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Too much research...

« on: November 04, 2020, 10:10:30 am »

Lol, Please dont judge me...

I have 156 topics in my research list.

Dont bother researching "ordinary" items, unless you intend to use them in the field. You can use most convential weapons withou researching them anyway.

You need to increase your research capabilities asap. You can get a bio lab (5 scientists) and intel centre (5 scientists) early on. Research lab comes later to bring you up to 40 scientists. You cannot build multiple research labs in one base... so it might help to get another base up sooner rather than later.

Oh i was not judging you, just relishing having a big research tree in the game Having said that i do feel your pain, as i'm still on my initial 5 scientist HQ limit (have a bio-lab 11 days away) in 1997 and have about 30 topics to research already!!! Thanks for the tips to from you and other posters also, this part of the mod (how best to organize and run research) is hard to work out.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Too much research...

« on: November 02, 2020, 09:40:46 pm »

Lol! did not think i'd see a long time X-com fan complain about having too much research!!! What i would have given for much more research in the original game - it was one of the best bits, just not enough!

Anyway i'm just in 1997 of my first game of this mod and i just want to thank Solarius Scorch and others for creating such an amazing transformation of one of the best games of all time. Absolutely loving it so far, and yes i'm drowning in research options also, but no complaints here (just need more than 5 scientists somehow?). However, do i need to research a 'wrench' or other such base items (pitchforks, crowbar etc) to unlock stuff? Or is it just flavour and making them a purchasable item in the lists?

Good awesome ultimate X-com fun.