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1

Released Mods / [UFO MEGAMOD] XCR: X-COM Classic Remastered

« on: June 04, 2019, 01:04:14 am »

X-COM Classic Remastered
An OpenXcom mod that rebalances all original features of classic X-COM.
Every existing technology is situational, and gameplay is more varied.

Download: https://github.com/Coincident/XCOMClassicRemastered/archive/master.zip
Mod portal: https://openxcom.mod.io/x-com-classic-remastered
Official manual: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w74mm2hztQEn1fmIWZpCMQYygq-xuDaVMDJ6RyDEJ_U/edit#
(contains detailed installation instructions, research trees, balance calculations, and explanations of all the changes made)

Install:
 - download and extract to mods folder
 - start OpenXcom and go to options
 - activate X-COM Classic Remastered mod
 - set UFO Extender accuracy = YES
 - set Explosion Height = 2

Works with a nightly build of vanilla OpenXcom, or OXCE.



A complete rebalance of all the features in the classic game to sharpen the gameplay experience variety. Designed for people who want to experience only the original content of the game, without the severe balance problems and with enhanced quality. This mod addresses the blatant balance problems of the original, for example: late-game psionics, the blaster launcher, and the plasma beam’s long range making every interception a cake-walk.
No new content is added, and no old content is removed. There are no new weapons*, alien races, crafts or UFOs. There’s some recoloring & new graphics for original content to increase the quality, and the LukesExtraUFOs + Terrain Pack for some more battlescape scenario variety.
The game is a lot harder - if you want to win the war, be prepared to lose a few battles. Each battle is much more important, and has a greater impact on the entire course of the game. Each choice you take is much more important, because there is much less margin for error. As a result, each victory is so much more satisfying - you won’t win just because you have 10 über-soldiers with flying armor and imba heavy plasmas (there is no such thing now).
Make the wrong decisions, and you will lose.
Make the right decisions, and you might win…






So... this has been in the making, off-line, for about 4 years. There were many pauses and interruptions, but I finally took care of the final details and decided to publish it, since I'm taking another break from the game, and will probably not return for another 2 years.
Not sure if this qualifies as a "megamod" or not, but it's a complete remake of the game. I copied literally every ruleset available into spreadsheet formulas to compare and correlate data, and rebalance everything as accurately as possible.
The mod is fully functional and was heavily tested.

2

Playthroughs / Muton-zerg base attack nightmare

« on: August 01, 2018, 02:13:44 am »

3 months in a game, when I still had only laser tecnology and personal armors... and this is how I made my first acquaintance of Mutons (see attachment)
I defended the base with 20 soldiers and 1 tank. After an hour of meticulous shooting-and-retreating-tactics, 6 soldiers survived and killed off the aliens. One of the most challenging missions I ever did.
PS - This is superhuman in a "harder difficulty mod" that boosts the Mutons' armor and resistances to make them similar to TFTD's Lobstermen.

[Spoiler]

3

Tools / Coincident Balancing Tool - Shared Google Sheets

« on: January 08, 2016, 05:44:41 pm »

Have you ever asked yourself these questions:

What is the damage per turn (DPT) of each weapon?
At short range, is the Rifle auto-shot more deadly than the Heavy Cannon snap-shot?
At long range, is the Laser Rifle more deadly than the Plasma Rifle?
What is the chance of killing a Sectopod with a direct Blaster Bomb hit? What about a Heavy Laser?
A mind-controlled soldier fires a Laser Pistol at a Power-Armored Captain. What is the chance of dealing no damage at all?

Why is the Laser Cannon so useless? Why is the Plasma Beam so overpowered?
How many Fusion Missile Launchers are needed to be more effective against a Battleship than an equivalent number of Plasma Beams?
At the beginning of the game, what is the best weapon layout for 2 interceptors? Cannon + 2Stingray + Avalanche, or Cannon + Stingray + 2Avalanche?
If 3 interceptors with 6 Stingrays engage a Supply Ship, on average, how much damage will the fleet sustain?

How many Fusion Defenses are needed to have a 90% chance of destroying a Battleship? What about 99.9%?
Does the Missile Defenses' low maintenance make them more cost-effective than the Fusion Defenses in comparison to their effective power?
What is the most profitable item to manufacture?

I have the mathematically correct answers for all of these questions and many, many more.




I have seen dozens of balance mods, and I believe that 90% of them have been subject to poor choices:
How many balance mods increase the ammo of the Fusion Missile Launcher?
Many.

How many of them have answered the previous question?
"How many Fusion Missile Launchers are needed to be more effective against a Battleship than an equivalent number of Plasma Beams?"
None.

I want to give everyone the correct information, so that hardcore-players can make the best in-game decision to win, and hardcore-mod-makers can make the best game-making decisions for their mods. 




For the last few months I've been working on several Google Sheets with formulas and google scripts to calculate lots of metadata about the original game.
These sheets answer all of the above questions, calculate, and compare all the content in the game.
They are separated in 4 files:

Battlescape - Calculations for every soldier, alien, armor, weapon, ammo, grenade, and equipment. DPT (Damage per turn) for every weapon and each fire mode in the game (assumes the player is using X-COM Extender Accuracy). Kill models for each damage type VS each unit.

SpoilerMore details:

DMG sheet - Regular weapons: DPT calculations. Score of each weapon = DPT + Bonus for TUs left.
For example, if you compare the aimed shot of the Laser Rifle against the Plasma Rifle, the Laser has higher DPT (120 vs 114), but the Plasma has higher Score (102 vs 120). This is because the 2 aimed shots of the Laser leave the soldier with 0% TUs (cannot even turn to face the enemy!), so the Laser gets a Score penalty. However, the Plasma Rifle aimed shot + snap shot leave the soldier with 10% TUs left to move for a line of fire, turn if necessary, or even kneel; so the Plasma gets a Score bonus.

HE sheet - DPT and score calculations for all High Explosive weapons and grenades.
Grenades have a different calculation method: RadDmg = Radial damage = power * radius / weight.
Grenades with higher power or radius have higher scores.
Grenades with more weight will be harder to throw, and have lower scores.

INC sheet - DPT and score calculations for all Incendiary weapons.

STUN sheet - DPT and score calculations for all Stun weapons and smoke grenades.

Other sheet - Comparison of clip sizes and weight of all weapons, grenades and equipment.

HWP sheet - DPT and score calculations for all tank weapons.

Armor sheet - Comparison of all armor values and resistances for X-COM armors, tanks, and aliens.

Soldiers sheet - Comparison of all soldier stats.

Aliens sheet - DPT and score calculations for all terrorist alien weapons. Comparison of all alien stats.

KillModel sheet - Kill models for each damage type VS each unit.

Interception - All X-COM crafts, weapons and UFOs, DPS for all weapons. UFO destroy chances. Full interception simulation models for all weapons VS UFOs, including double and triple interception scenarios. Takes into account craft approach and projectile travel times. Easier to read summary sheets that allow the player to know, for each technology level, what layout of weapons is most effective for 1, 2, and 3 crafts (up to 6 weapon combinations).

SpoilerMore details:

Crafts sheet - Comparison of all X-COM Crafts and UFO stats.

Weapons sheet - Stat comparison and DPS calculations for all X-COM Craft Weapons and UFO weapons.

Weapons VS UFOs sheet - Chance of destroying each UFO with each weapon. Simple Interception Model of 1 Weapon vs 1 UFO. For each scenario: average damage taken and summary of interception outcome.

Interception Simulation x2 sheet - Full Interception Model (scripted) of 2 Weapon combinations vs each UFO. For each scenario: average damage taken and summary of interception outcome.

Interception Simulation x3 sheet - Full Interception Model (scripted) of 3 Weapon combinations vs each UFO. For each scenario: average damage taken and summary of interception outcome.

Interception Simulation x4 sheet - Full Interception Model (scripted) of 4 Weapon combinations vs each UFO. For each scenario: average damage taken and summary of interception outcome.

Interception Simulation x5 sheet - Full Interception Model (scripted) of 5 Weapon combinations vs each UFO. For each scenario: average damage taken and summary of interception outcome.

Interception Simulation x6 sheet - Full Interception Model (scripted) of 6 Weapon combinations vs each UFO. For each scenario: average damage taken and summary of interception outcome.

Early Game sheet - Easy to read summary sheet! "Hey, I just started the game. What weapons should I equip my fleet with?"

After Laser sheet - Easy to read summary sheet! "Hey, I just researched the Laser Cannon. What weapons should I equip my fleet with?"

After Plasma sheet - Easy to read summary sheet! "Hey, I just researched the Plasma Beam. What weapons should I equip my fleet with?"

After Firestorm sheet - Easy to read summary sheet! "Hey, I just manufactured a few Firestorms. What weapons should I equip my fleet with?"

After Fusion sheet - Easy to read summary sheet! "Hey, I just researched the Fusion Missile. What weapons should I equip my fleet with?"

After Avenger sheet - Easy to read summary sheet! "Hey, I just manufactured a few Avengers. What weapons should I equip my fleet with?"

Facilities + Prices + Manufacture - Effectiveness calculations for base defenses. 90%, 99%, and 99.9% chances of defending against invading Battleships. Prices, rents, storage sizes and transfer times. Manufacturing costs, and all profitability calculations

SpoilerMore details:

Facilities sheet - Comparison of all facilities stats. Defensive probabilities calculation for each Base Defenses.

Prices sheet - Comparison of the prices of all items that can be bought or sold.

Manufacture sheet - Comparison of the basic manufacture info of all manufacturing projects.

Profitability sheet - Calculation of profitability for all manufacturing projects, based on the number of Workshops available - takes into account Workshop space and maintenance, Living Quarters maintenance and Engineer salaries.

Scoring + Research - Comparison of all scores that can be obtained from Battlescape and Geoscape, including alien activity. Research times for all research, compared to scores of each research completion. Total research time for the entire game, depending on the number of labs.

SpoilerMore details:

Geoscape sheet - Comparison of scores that can be obtained in the Geoscape (interception results + alien activities)

Battlescape sheet - Comparison of scores that can be obtained in the Battlescape (items, casualties, and mission objectives)

Research sheet - Comparison of research times and scores for all research subjects. Calculation of total months required for all the game's research, depending on the number of labs.

The goals of this project are twofold:
1 - Provide calculated info for vanilla XCOM1 - all the player might ever need decision making in-game. I plan to add much of this information to https://ufopaedia.org
2 - Provide a template that can be copied, and fully re-written for new mod-makers that want to properly balance their game, without having to make / change any complicated formulas - just filling in the basic numbers, and copy-pasting.

SpoilerFuture Plans:

- Adding some graphics to the most important comparison tables (i.e. DPT comparison for all weapons)
- Adding more notes / comments to make the more complicated sheets easier to understand.
- Adding a quick how-to tutorial on how to copy and change the sheets for new mods, without breaking any formulas / scripts.
- Create a script to upload ruleset files, which automatically fills-in all the base info to the sheets.
- Create a generic formula to calculate the number of damage actions of each weapon (still calculated by hand atm).
- Create a generic formula for the chance to destroy UFOs (still calculated by hand atm).
- Create a copy of the sheets for TFTD.

If you have any doubts, if you feel that there is missing information, or if you believe that are any errors, please message me or post in this thread. 

4

Troubleshooting / Sound distortion after interception

« on: December 02, 2015, 09:50:49 pm »

Hello everyone.

I've been getting an extremely annoying problem with the game sound. After an interception ends, all the game sounds and music get extreme distortion (I can hear loud cracks on every single sound, including music). It is extremely disturbing to the ear and makes the game unplayable. The only way to fix the problem is by saving the game, closing OpenXcom, and lauching again - which I have done over a hundred times... (without exaggeration)

I've searched the forums and the bug-tracker and found nothing of the kind - which is strange because it is a very obvious problem that happens in 90% of all interceptions. That makes me think that it might not be a bug, but rather some problem on my machine.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything similar? Any ideas on how I can fix this?

PS - I'm using windows 7, and I've tried several versions of OpenXcom (1.0 and several nightlies), and they all yield the same problem. In the sound options menu everything is at default, I did not change any settings (should I?).

PS2 - I'm currently using a Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card that can emulate binaural sound environments and 7 channel surround sound through headphones. However, I have every feature turned off while I play OpenXcom (with simple 2 channel audio). I think I'll start by trying the on-board sound card to see if the problem still happens.

Thank you in advance for any insight.

5

Troubleshooting / Possible bug in projectile collision detection

« on: November 11, 2015, 08:03:09 pm »

I think I might have found a bug.
I've read about the bug-tracker, but I'm new around here and I'm not sure if this behaviour is intended () or has been reported before (couldn't find anything after searching).
Can someone confirm that this is indeed a bug so I can create an issue on the bug-tracker?


I got save-game where you can reproduce the bug twice in a row (check attachment).

How to reproduce the bug:

 1) Go to options and reduce the bullet speed to the minimum
 2) Still in the options: make sure you save-scumming turned off to use the same random seed as the save-game
 3) Load the save-game
 4) The selected soldier has a rifle.
 5) There is a Snakeman at the top-left side of the screen.
 6) Choose snap-shot, target the Snakeman, and fire.
 7) Repeat step 6: take a second snap-shot.

Both shots will very clearly go through the belly of the snakeman, and hit the ground behind him, making no damage.
It only happens sometimes, and in different maps / weapons / aliens, I'm not sure what are the exact circumstances that cause this.
I think it might have to do with shooting next to that side of the wall. It also happens when shooting next to sides of UFO hulls, and also happens to the aliens when shooting at my soldiers, next to a side wall.
Anyway, it is simultaneously frustrating and strange... 



PS - I'm using the latest nightly build. No mods are needed to load the game and reproduce the bug.
PS2 - This happens both with or without the UFO Extended Accuracy.

6

Open Feedback / Understanding Game Mechanics

« on: October 30, 2015, 05:40:26 pm »

Hello everyone. This is my first post here, so I'd like to begin by congratulating the devs & community on the splendid job you did with OpenXcom

I decided to start this thread after searching around - I didn't find any similar discussion.
The idea is to share/discuss information about the game mechanics and trying to understand the more complex calculations.
The goal is to help people get the right information, so modders can (hopefully) make better game-design decisions.

I will start with two questions of my own:



1 - Base defense damage mechanics:

My base is attacked 2 times by alien Battleships:
The first time, 3 Plasma Defenses hit the UFO, and it is destroyed.
The second time, 4 Plasma Defenses hit the UFO, and it is destroyed.

Is the damage from base defenses subject to a random interval - like the battlescape damage that is randomly chosen from 0% to 200%?
If so, what is the random interval?
From what I've searched, https://ufopaedia.org mentions nothing of the sort: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Plasma_Defences



2 - Stun rod damage mechanics:

The stun rod damage type is Stun, but it is also a melee weapon.
Does melee resistance affect the stun rod damage?
If so - in what order do multiple resistances apply?

To simplify, imagine the stun rod deals 100 Stun Damage.
Now imagine that it hits an alien with 20% melee resist, and -20% stun resist.
Which scenario is correct?
100 -> -20% stun resist -> 120 -> 20% melee resist -> 96 avg damage
OR
100 -> 20% melee resist -> 80 -> -20% stun resist -> 96 avg damage (same as above)
OR
100 -> 20%-20% melee+stun resist  -> 100 avg damage
OR
100-> -20% stun resist -> 120 avg damage

https://ufopaedia.org also mentions nothing about the relationship between the stun rod and melee resistance (maybe that means there is no relationship...?): https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Stun_Rod