Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: the frustration about base size

« on: August 16, 2024, 09:31:28 pm »

Agree.  You don't need every facility on every base.  I personally have one main HQ/research base with one or two hangars and my main elite 'action squad' based there, one main construction/storage base (usually in Antarctica) with one hangar to build craft, and the rest are interceptor bases with a secondary mission craft function for when the mission is on the other side of the globe from the main base or if there are multiple missions at once.  When you get large prisons one of the interceptor bases can function as the main prison to hold prisoners and send them to the research base to be 'interrogated'.  Before that I have at least one holding facility and animal pen at each base for the 'overspill' from the HQ.

2

The X-Com Files / Re: the frustration about base size

« on: August 16, 2024, 09:27:47 pm »

The current design of facilities provides a lot of tradeoffs. This is a good thing because players have multiple viable options how to go about their bases, not just one or just put everything in it. Because you can have 8 bases and you can cover the most important areas with 4-5 bases, you have some to spare. So actually the answer for you is that you don't need to try cram everything in single base (or all of your bases) but you need some variability.

Agree.  You don't need every facility on every base.  I personally have one main research base with one or two hangars and my main elite 'action squad' based there, one main construction/storage base (usually in Antarctica) with one hangar to build craft, and the rest are interceptor bases with a secondary mission craft function for when the mission is on the other side of the globe from the main base or if there are multiple missions at once.

3

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: August 08, 2024, 04:18:34 pm »

X-Prison allows AIRBUS*058, AIRBUS, AIRVAN, SPECTOR, RAIL POD

Thanks.  Been a while since I did an x-prison, but am near to doing it in my present run.  I don't have a Spector so it's the old faithful Airbus for the extra crew member when compared to the Airvan.

4

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: August 07, 2024, 11:57:38 pm »

Just in case, make a Shipyard/Radar base, and keep the ships you can't manufacture or buy there. As far I can recall you CAN'T use the Faust for X-Prison

The original airbus is the only craft you can use for the x-prison as far as I can remember.  You can sell it/send it to another base for smaller missions after you've completed the prison mission.  Well, you can do it before that, but I like to send my original gals (or whoever is left of them) on the x-prison mission.

5

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

« on: July 20, 2024, 04:49:01 pm »

Hey, having an issue with the game crashing.
This is the error msg:
A fatal error has occurred: Error occurred while trying to determine waypoint for mission type: STR_ALIEN_ABDUCTION in region: REGION_NATASHA_MOROZOVA_HIDEOUT, mission tried to find a waypoint in zone 5 but this region only has zones valid up to 1.

To recreate just load the game save and let the world map run for a bit,  click away the first few ufo sightings.

That's been reported before and it was fixed a month or two ago in the github build

https://github.com/SolariusScorch/XComFiles

6

The X-Com Files / Re: AH-6 weapons

« on: July 13, 2024, 03:28:49 pm »

Blackops miniguns and RPG-7s/rocket launchers are good against cults.

7

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

« on: June 20, 2024, 08:08:07 pm »

getting a crash for Natasha population I believe. Anyway to fix this in text file ?

That's been fixed in the github version

github.com/SolariusScorch/XComFiles

8

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: May 31, 2024, 04:44:09 pm »

Something I thought of, maybe for weapon acquisition, 'local' arms should be acquirable a bit easier. Like if you have a starting base in around the Europe area, you can acquire FAMAS, FALs and other appropriate weapons a bit earlier than normal.

Looking at it, promotion I to II ain't that long or difficult, but could be an interesting flavor to base location choice. Shouldn't be too hard to stumble across some local arms for the shady black project

I tend to do this myself as a 'quirk' of my playstayle.  M16s in the USA, Steyr AUGs in Australia (their army uses them), AKs in Russia and Africa and the FALs/FAMAS/L85s in Europe.  If I can get enough of them from raiding cults that is.

Getting them earlier would be good, maybe gated behind recruiting the quartermaster first (he has certain 'contacts' I suppose).

I move on to Blackops weapons in every base, then Pulse weapons when they become available.  Lasers are the next step.  I haven't played a game long enough to get Plasma weapons as I like to restart when Solarius does an upgrade to the early game (I use the Github releases).

9

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

« on: May 24, 2024, 11:30:11 pm »

I don't know exactly what happened with REGION_NATASHA_MOROZOVA_HIDEOUT, but I see that it had two mission zones instead of just one, so I merged them. Hopefully this will be enough to prevent any further accidents.

I have updated GitHub. To those players who use it instead of waiting for an official release: please test it. (Note that changes will only apply starting next month.)
If this doesn't work, I'll do more extensive fixing.

That seems to have sorted the problem as I had an abduction mission with no problems.  Thank you.

[Spoiler]

10

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

« on: May 21, 2024, 12:43:55 am »

This is true, but the alien abduction missions in XCF have been redifined to have objective: 3 which makes it a site spawning mission and those follow their own rules by what I've understood, rendering the regionWeight irrelevant for this particular mission. I believe the issue lies in that REGION_NATASHA_MOROZOVA_HIDEOUT defines 2 missionZones for reasons unknown to me, perhaps WIP or from an old idea that got discarded, but as far as I could see, the 2nd zone (missionZone 1) is not actively used anywhere, yet for abduction site spawning purposes it's considered valid, at least until it has to spawn the UFOs and then it encounters the issue of no zone 5 (typical UFO entry/exit zones) defined for that region.

The fix in this case should be simple enough if nothing truly requires that missionZone 1, deleting the dash for said zone and allow for its missionAreas to be consolidated into missionZone 0 and thus, the region will no longer be a valid target for abductions.

Currently defined region

Spoiler:

Code: [Select]

- type: REGION_NATASHA_MOROZOVA_HIDEOUT
    missionZones: # European and American mountains, and Ural
      -
        - [142, 142, -73.5, -73.5, -317]
        - [93, 93, -84.5, -84.5, -317]
        - [213, 213, -80, -80, -317]
        - [118, 118, -72, -72, -317]
        - [44, 44, -68, -68, -317]
        - [163, 163, -66, -66, -317]
        - [82, 82, -63, -63, -317]
        - [61, 61, -67, -67, -317]
        - [129, 129, -67, -67, -317]
        - [160, 160, -63, -63, -317]
        - [36.34, 36.34, -68.47, -68.47, -317]
        - [44.81, 44.81, -67.02, -67.02, -317]
      -
        - [158, 158, -55, -55, -316]
        - [105.7, 105.7, -53.87, -53.87, -316]
        - [89, 89, -58, -58, -316]
        - [57, 57, -62, -62, -316]
        - [51, 51, -64, -64, -316]
        - [35, 35, -62, -62, -316]
        - [46.91, 46.91, -60.85, -60.85, -316]
        - [137.64, 137.64, -51.39, -51.39, -316]


Consolidated into single zone

Spoiler:

Code: [Select]

- type: REGION_NATASHA_MOROZOVA_HIDEOUT
    missionZones: # European and American mountains, and Ural
      -
        - [142, 142, -73.5, -73.5, -317]
        - [93, 93, -84.5, -84.5, -317]
        - [213, 213, -80, -80, -317]
        - [118, 118, -72, -72, -317]
        - [44, 44, -68, -68, -317]
        - [163, 163, -66, -66, -317]
        - [82, 82, -63, -63, -317]
        - [61, 61, -67, -67, -317]
        - [129, 129, -67, -67, -317]
        - [160, 160, -63, -63, -317]
        - [36.34, 36.34, -68.47, -68.47, -317]
        - [44.81, 44.81, -67.02, -67.02, -317]
        - [158, 158, -55, -55, -316]
        - [105.7, 105.7, -53.87, -53.87, -316]
        - [89, 89, -58, -58, -316]
        - [57, 57, -62, -62, -316]
        - [51, 51, -64, -64, -316]
        - [35, 35, -62, -62, -316]
        - [46.91, 46.91, -60.85, -60.85, -316]
        - [137.64, 137.64, -51.39, -51.39, -316]


Thanks, I'll try this fix and see if it works.

11

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

« on: May 21, 2024, 12:40:33 am »

I had a crash with that as well with the 3.4 version from github and openexe 7.11, no mods.

I went into my savegame and deleted all references to 'Natasha' missions and that sorted it.  It hasn't returned in three or four game months since then.

Maybe a holdover from something being changed?

You won;t believe this, but literally an hour or so after I posted that I had the same crash and 'repaired' it in the same way.  It's not game-breaking as I delete the missions from the save, it's just a little annoying.

12

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

« on: May 20, 2024, 06:55:29 pm »

Aliens are trying to abduct Natasha Morozova!

I had a crash with that as well with the 3.4 version from github and openexe 7.11, no mods.

I went into my savegame and deleted all references to 'Natasha' missions and that sorted it.  It hasn't returned in three or four game months since then.

Maybe a holdover from something being changed?

13

XPZ Strategy/Tactics / Dealing With Ninja Crawlers

« on: December 01, 2023, 04:14:48 pm »

At first I found these ******* difficult with their turrets, specially on an 'open' map, as my gals got mowed down before getting anywhere near it.  Even panzerfausts and the law-type handhelds took a few shots to get it.  Now I'm up to tactical armour and juggernaut suits and have picked-up some UAC rocket-launchers, so it's rather easier.

I'm using a Fortuna, so I have a one or two gals in juggernaut suits with rocket-launchers at the top hatch, who pop-up and usually one-shot the turret.  Then it's just a matter of the rest of them, with lasers and rail-rifles, mopping-up the remaining ninjas.  In the bigger transporter there's always one hiding in a room with seagull missiles who can sometimes suicide herself - and take-out one or two of my gals - by 'accidentally' blowing-up the missiles!  I even did that myself one or twice before I cottoned on to it!  Take her out with melee weapons to be on the safe-side.  Always try and make sure to knock-out the engineer guy though as interrogating him can be very helpful.

I'm playing on 6.0.7, and I haven't seen any larger Ninja craft than the crawler and transporter yet.  There must be base somewhere in North Africa, but even having zeppelins hovering over the area hasn't located it.

14

The X-Com Files / Re: New Topic

« on: November 24, 2023, 03:39:01 pm »

Probably been covered but, is there any benefit at all into researching "Using flame glove".. Using Dragon staff" "Using Storm rose".. "Using"..etc..etc..
No completed research documentation ever pops for these (Ufopedia) when the research is done.

Look at this way.  You can pick-up a gun - say an Uzi - and fire it even if you've never used a gun before, but it needs a little extra training to know about different settings like auto, semi-auto and single-shot, and how to clean it right to stop it jamming if it gets dirty.  'Magical' items would be more complicated than that.   Sure you could 'use' it, but it takes extra investigation to know exactly what it does and how to use it 'properly' before you maybe blow-up the lab by switching it on!

15

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N6 03-Oct-2023 Zany Cats

« on: November 23, 2023, 04:08:02 pm »

I'm no expert by a long-shot, but I've been playing XCOM & TFTD style games since the original Laser Squad back in the late 1980's, on an Amstrad 464 with a 4-track cassette drive that took ages to load a level!

To me Piratez, and Solarius's Xcom-files, are worthy additions to the original game, unlike the modern XCOM with is just another run & shoot game without a lot of the strategic Geosphere elements that make the game worth playing.  Admittedly I like the house-keeping aspects of making ammo, building ships etc. so I might in a minority!

Modern games are made for the attention-deficit kids of today who don't want to spend the time to build-up their character's stats by slogging through 'bug-hunt' (or Humanist safe-house type) missions or interrogating prisoners to find the clues to move the game on to the next level.  Even then a lot of games nowadays are 'released' in a barely beta state just to make money.  Then there's the 'loot-boxes' that can only be obtained by paying cash.

It would be a shame if Piratez was 'toned-down' to please the modern game-players as it would lose a lot of the core players, and I'm sure Dioxine isn't that kind of developer anyway judging by the way the game has become more involved and complex as it's evolved over the years.

So, yes, it could get 1000s of players by toning down the strategic elements and making it more action-orientated, but it would lose what makes the game worth playing in the first place.