Topics

1

XPiratez / Hole in Science Vessel

« on: July 11, 2021, 01:51:49 am »

Not sure where to place this exactly, since it's kind of a mechanics question.  But the hole exists in a ship for this mod, and I guess that counts as a bug, so I'm putting it here.   Anyway, I have a question and a report.  The report is there is a hole in the Science Vessel that allowed a shot from the left corner of the northern open inside wedge, on level 3 (from a unit flying or standing on the hull "north" of that space) - see screenshot #1 - to inside of the ship on the ground floor of the lift area - see screenshot #2 - the selected unit is the one that got shot.

So that hole is probably on level 1 or 2.  I have a save from just before shot was taken, that's where I got the screenshots.  Here's my question - how can I use the first person view screenshot to find this hole?  If I take one from the target square, looking "west", it only shows me what's on that level, not looking upwards - screenshot #3.  Do I need to use a flyer to scan from those two levels to see about finding the hole?  I can do that in debug mod, I think, or just burn a few turns getting a flyer over in position.  Or are those green walls in the screenshot transparent?  I'm not too familiar with the first person view shots, so I don't know what the green walls mean.  It may just indicate the fact that they are diagonal.

2

XPiratez / The Scarab?

« on: May 07, 2021, 07:20:33 pm »

Having a hard time figuring out where the utility of this ship is (this discussion assumes you get your Codex ships early enough to be useful, ie, before you develop your own other aircraft).  I picked Red, so I have a choice between it, the Snake, and the Scorpion.  Given the following, I didn't even buy one yet, because I don't see it being useful.  The Scorpion is obviously the main transport, happens to be fast enough to keep up with the Runabout, and catch the slower Megapol/Bandit/civvy stuff (although vs Megapol and Bandits, it's probably better to use the Snake to avoid damage).  The Snake is a good multi-role ship, serving as light transport/intercepter, being durable enough with its shield to deal with most interceptions without taking (much) damage, although being slower, it can't catch some things.  I had exactly one Heavy weapon (the codex choice) until eventually unlocking the contact to buy the Ramjet, which has expensive ammo.  So the Scarab's two heavy weapon slots don't seem that great early, I've put my one heavy weapon on either the Scorpion or one of my Snakes as it is. It's slow, so it can't catch anything but slow civvy traffic, although I could see maybe using it to escort the Scorpion vs something with radar.  And the Snake does that better anyway (and can easily handle most of the small ship crews by itself anyway).  The Snake is even better as a pilot trainer too, since it uses 3 instead of 2.

Does it become more useful after I start unlocking STC modules and other upgrades (I think some of those fit in Heavy slots, so that could come into play then)?  The boosted power/damage from its special ability seems to imply it should be used as a heavy intercepter, but that seems a little insane until I get better weapons (and its lack of speed works against it there, too) and by then, I'll probably have better aircraft.  I don't even see a way to maybe "improve" it to the point of where I think it would be worth having, although maybe increasing the armor from 6 (the lowest weapon power of enemy craft looks like 15, I'm guessing they do the same 50 to 150% possible damage roll?  Or do they work differently?).

What am I missing here?

3

XPiratez / Question about wall-breaching

« on: May 05, 2021, 01:39:07 am »

Searches has mixed results, since apparently a number of things have changed over time.  Meridian pointed out to me in a comment on his Youtube that melee weapons only recently have affected walls/fences.   Since I've been using axes or tech blades as breaching tools with good success, I'm wondering whether rippers, chainsaws, and the auto-ax are still worth lugging along?  In admittedly limited testing, they do not open walls as easily.  In fact, since I just got the auto-ax recently, I have never had it successfully cut a wall for me.   Last night, I was even trying it in an Infested Cellar where my starting staircase was actually sealed up completely from the rest of the map.  The pickax worked well, the auto-ax made a nice noise, but didn't otherwise do anything.  I will admit I didn't really expect it to do anything to the dirt/stone tile, but I was curious.   I was more disappointed that it didn't open up a brick wall I tried it on last weekend (as advertised in its pedia article), or even what looked like a lumber wall (side of a house).  Is it just a flashy (splashy?) melee weapon, rather than an actual breaking & entering tool?

Maybe rippers are just a nice melee weapon for infiltration missions?  Too bad the aqua ax wasn't a hatchet instead.

4

Open Feedback / Game Mechanics - reaction fire

« on: February 17, 2021, 08:02:42 am »

understand original reaction mechanics quite well, and must say the alternative movement option is a huge change in OXC to be able to sidestep around corners or through doors!  The ability for other units to open a door by right-clicking is also huge! I’m wondering whether there are any changes to those mechanics that I have yet to discover, in both OXC, and OXCE (the answer might be different between them). Specifically the following questions (but any other key thing as well):
1) Does vertical movement now trigger mutual surprise (it did not in UFO)?
2) Can player-controlled units react with other than snap-fire or melee (melee is new, but I saw that one in the “differences” page)?  Or can that be changed by mod or script?  I see a lot of mod weapons with no snap fire.
3) Any change in the “alert” mechanics?
4) I think I had one about whether the bug about Incendiary damage not triggering reaction was fixed, but I think I've already confirmed that in game for myself.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Thanks for any thoughts you share and for reading!

5

Playthroughs / Reaver Faithful's campaign

« on: February 16, 2021, 06:05:21 am »

This is going to be more "after-action" reports, since I haven't really tried recording much.  However, I might try to record a few interesting battles.

Starting a playthrough on Veteran of Reaver's Faithful megamod.  I was experimenting with some changes to the starting base, and realized how broken they were, so I'm starting over without using those (starting with a large living quarters was a horrible idea, because I was able to buy more scientists and engineers immediately, which led to me having laser weapons researched and deployed before the first terror mission).  The only change I've made to the starting base was layout, to allow for more defense and to have room to safely build large living quarters and labs, and I've removed one hangar, because I also prefer a personal mod of allowing 2 crafts per hangar.  This may prove broken too, but I like a large airforce.

Opening month, initial base is in SE Europe, near Istanbul.  Immediately started construction of a second base in North America, in MN/WI area.

Destroyed first UFO, a very small.  Shot down a small for the first recovery mission, cost me 2 rookies.  After radar in NA got built, but before hangar, a large was detected flying around.  Next UFO detection was a grounded small (large scout) in Europle, recovery there cost me another rookie, but I have first elerium and power generator secured.  The report on that mission in the soldiers' diary said it was landing site 3, so I'm thinking I missed 2 out there somewhere.

Ending play session by flying towards opening month terror mission, Havana.