Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: STR_PERSONAL_ARMOR_OLYMPIAN_UC issue

« on: August 11, 2022, 10:28:36 pm »

Well, I meant X-Com Files, but close enough.

Otherwise, I already confirmed the error, made a report here and suggested what I think is the issue. I don't think Solarius needs a save now, just some sprite work.

2

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

« on: August 11, 2022, 09:57:13 pm »

Moonkid just reported that Olympian Personal Armour crashes the game and I can confirm. The likely cause is a lack of flying frames in the original sprites.

[Spoiler]

3

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 2.5: Silent Run

« on: August 11, 2022, 09:55:52 pm »

...an alenium shart . I don't know what this is and how to get it.

It's a dormant alien AI crystal or something like that.

Spoiler"Where are the shards?":

You get your first three or so from the Kiryu-Kai research. Alien bases (including anything else using some of their map blocks, e.g. Hybrid Embassies) can have shards as loot, and so can Osiron Haciendas, Osiron crates and Jars of Grey Goo (which come from Haciendas in the first place). The bases are probably the most reliable source.

I can I get a new AI unit?

What do you mean? You want a return to the 'muggle' and 'wizard' AI dichotomy?

4

The X-Com Files / Re: STR_PERSONAL_ARMOR_OLYMPIAN_UC issue

« on: August 11, 2022, 09:31:14 pm »

That seems more of an XCF issue.

You do have the XCOM_1.PCK file, case-sensitive since you seem to be on Linux? If so, can you post your armors_XCOMFILES.rul to the XCF bug report thread?

Edit: Yep, the Olympians are probably trying to fly and the original personal armour spritesheet doesn't seem to support that.

5

The X-Com Files / Re: Best way to manually find a cult manor?

« on: August 11, 2022, 09:52:48 am »

Have you tried drawing a line from the 'something' to the helicopter(s) and checking the cities close-by?

Even cars/vans/hummers have a somewhat passable base detection radius (3-5 times the radar circle). The fighters and transport planes can have continent-spanning detection.


Off-topic, but IMO this is silly, and I removed detection from what's essentially someone else transporting you, and slashed base detection compared to on-board radar for actual aircraft. Because how exactly do you spot one house among millions? Radar at least has relatively fewer targets, clear hostile trajectories and transponders for civilian craft. Not to mention the air game is less interesting if everything has a biggish radar. That's what probably killed the AWACS.


Finally, if you're bored of checking cities one by one and the bases no longer really challenge you during that, what I do to skip the tedium is make a waypoint, copy the base coordinates over from 'alienBases' and use that to check the right spot.

6

The X-Com Files / Re: Xcom Files: Why so many UFOs?

« on: August 10, 2022, 10:49:36 pm »

The problem with mansions is that tier upgrades are more or less coordinated to happen at the same time. I think even August would be fine if mansions weren't both upgrading to and spawning as exclusively tier 3. There's some delay for the newest of existing mansions, but that's not a lot of consolation.

As far as I understand, Solarius wants the remnants to stick around as mostly an immersion thing. The cults themselves are dead at that point, and their place is taken over by the bigger conspiracies.

7

The X-Com Files / Re: Xcom Files: Why so many UFOs?

« on: August 10, 2022, 09:55:01 pm »

Yeah, I agree that this stealth moving of goalposts is a bit underhanded. On the other hand, do you really want the invasion and the cultist ramp-up to coincide? I don't know, the cults don't really seem to get their marching orders from the aliens. Well, not the regular aliens, anyway.

Reinforcements hitting you hard from the word go I actually even like. But not if there are 20 mansions already swarming with regular cultists where it happens. And if you don't play ball, good-bye non-chartered transports. At least the MiB are avoidable.

Solarius wants the cultists to stick around and I like the idea in general. It's sort of interesting that you still have to wipe out the remnants and can't just do a decapitation blow. I imagine the reasoning goes that they more or less retired from Red Dawn or whatever and became local warlords or something. This is actually kinda believable for Russia (and especially 90s Russia), possibly also China, definitely Africa, large chunks of Asia and South America. It's the US EXALT, Japanese BL and European RD/Dagonites where this line of reasoning fails.

8

The X-Com Files / Re: Red Dawn accuracy

« on: August 10, 2022, 06:14:50 pm »

Can you post a save? This sounds like an interesting thing to take a look at.

Also, what version are you playing?

9

The X-Com Files / Re: Red Dawn accuracy

« on: August 10, 2022, 06:00:19 pm »

Are they actually counter-sniping or just burying you in lead? If you play the lottery enough times, you're bound to win at some point. Only Red Ops and Coordinators have moderately good accuracy, the rest are just as bad as pretty much any other cultist.

And, well, reports of Sectoids sniping your soldiers through three windows, and around a corner, using a plasma pistol, in pitch black darkness, with one hand tied behind their back have been around forever.

10

The X-Com Files / Re: Xcom Files: Why so many UFOs?

« on: August 10, 2022, 05:39:24 pm »

...these manors are currently killing me, I have around 20 according to my save game and 6 of them just in europe...

...you're fucked.

...including one next to my main base and one manor and embassy in the same spot.

I just had the same situation and I think it's probably Solarius ignoring the warning and 'weird shit' happening as a result.

[Spoiler]

11

The X-Com Files / Re: Xcom Files: Why so many UFOs?

« on: August 10, 2022, 07:51:55 am »

Spoiler"Manor mechanics":

Cult manors spawn in three 'waves': Oct 1997 - Feb 1998, Mar '98 - Jul '98, Aug '98 - whenever you destroy them. Each 'wave' only spawns the corresponding tier of manors. It takes a manor quite long to actually upgrade: 30% chance per month starting from the fifth month of being active, 100% chance on the 10th month. And that then repeats if the manor was originally low-tier. So the spawns usually outnumber upgrades for new tiers.

Once they hit 6 months on the highest tier, there's a small chance of progressing beyond manors: Hybrids, Golden Academy, Dagon High Temple (apparently you can have several of those at the same time?).

So I think the data supports you in that the manors spawn too fast and too tough. Despite the manors supposedly only being punishment towards the end of 1998, if you haven't killed off the cults by August 1998, you're in for some hurt.

The teleporting reinforcements are a pain. If they got delayed to severals turns in like the farmer MiBs, maybe. I could go with that speed of reinforcement for the HQs, but since you have to play ball with manors a lot, that's a bit over the top, too.

All in all, manors are kinda like the Ninjas of cult mission progression.

12

OpenXcom Extended / Re: [Suggestion] Amiga thinking...

« on: August 08, 2022, 07:09:24 pm »

Is it likely to work okay, or like this?

13

The X-Com Files / Re: Considerations for the THUNDERSTORM craft configuration options.

« on: August 07, 2022, 12:33:16 pm »

That's why I suggested the 'Heavy Pike Launcher', which would also be a second project. All of these have the drawback of not displaying the second Ufopedia article, even those already in the game.

There are two easy solutions I see: either add some scientist-hours to all the 'Heavy' projects (I mean, someone still has to design the thing, or at least negotiate a contract). Or make a pop-up event where a staff member tells you about it. Since the latter opens the door to doing this all over, I suppose it's not a terribly good idea from a dev POV.

Or just leave them as they are. I don't think it's such a big deal since the game still reminds the player that they can now buy/manufacture both weapons, so the curious can go check out the Pedia and others can skip straight to acquisition.

14

The X-Com Files / Re: Considerations for the THUNDERSTORM craft configuration options.

« on: August 07, 2022, 10:42:25 am »

Depending on where on geosphere this event occurs and how simultaneously they land it may be possible to apprehend them all with single craft.

Unless they land close by, it isn't. Base missions have 6 UFOs, most of which land for 2x4 hours, and the Battleship lands only once for five, so it's got to be the first or second target. Even the Avenger can fly to about a quarter of the globe (which I think is a reasonably average distance) 4-5 times in 8-10 hours, and then needs most of a day for refueling (and at least three hours for another mission if you launch it early, so the UFOs are most likely gone by then). Unless you want to waste time and fuel tailing them to get a leg up on the first mission, which is worse. And of course the aliens will choose to build their base nowhere near where the Avenger is currently stationed , so getting 4-5 out of 6 UFOs is not a guarantee.

The Ironfist has twice the flight time so can only do two missions, though it refuels much faster. Maybe three if the stars align.

The Kitsune goes the same distance in about five hours and can do it twice, so you get maybe two UFOs.

The aliens can also happen to schedule another mission at the same time, so that's another UFO or two somewhere entirely different.

So unless you use the Avenger, it's not even close.

Or just leave them alone, you cannot prevent base construction anyway, and it is not strictly required to get them all.

No, but I want to loot them all for cash, Elerium and score (I get paid by score ).

And this event is quite rare.

About 10% per month once your're well into the second year of the invasion. Kinda rare, yes.

And who will be in additional crafts? Rookies?

The second and third strike team and/or their backups. You spread your missions around with multiple strike bases. Rookies with training and transformations are also kinda passable.

Seriously, why Kitsune is in a game in the first place?

AFAIK, it's something Solarius either made up or adapted from somewhere obscure. Why it comes when it does, well, he's kinda attached to it.



As an aside, I'd like more multi-UFO missions. I was a big fan of the UFO 'swarms' back in UFO:ET's Unimod/Bman's mod. Xenonauts also hits you with a bunch of them in close succession.

15

The X-Com Files / Re: Considerations for the THUNDERSTORM craft configuration options.

« on: August 06, 2022, 02:57:52 pm »

I assume we play different games.

We actually do. Mine is somewhat modified, including changes to many craft. Although Osprey is still quite close to what it's in the base mod, only somewhat slower.

I never had a problem with doing all landings/crash sites with just one craft (Kitsume, Iron Fist and Avenger).

What do you do when 6-8 UFOs land during e.g. a base-creation mission? A single craft won't have time to go through even two of them before they take off again. Maybe you can get a second one with one of the endgame craft and a third-fourth with a second landing, but that's that.

When it happened to me in the first few months of the invasion, I already had the Kitsune, and still had to scramble half a dozen Skyrangers and Skyraiders to go along.

I have also come close to missing monster terror sites even with near global coverage with both Ospreys and Dragonflies (and my Dragonflies are close to identical to vanilla ones). I did manage to do all the 'site' missions while I had the Kitsune, but Kitsune is just too good.