Messages

1

Open Feedback / Re: Returning after a long hiatus, what's new?

« on: March 12, 2024, 05:26:47 am »

Thanks Yankes! Yeah, I'll definitely be reading up on the new stuff in OXCE, it looks pretty cool. I noticed the system where you can improve stats by earning commendations. I always enjoyed commendations, so that seems like an interesting mechanic. I'll take a look at BurtalAI as well. I assumed that was a mod, didn't realize it was its own build.

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Open Feedback / Returning after a long hiatus, what's new?

« on: March 08, 2024, 06:23:05 am »

Hi there. Returning to Open XCOM after a few years away. Was wondering how I might catch up on what I've missed around here? Like updates to the project, added modding options, etc. For OXCE I know that with each new version Meridian posts a list of changes/features added. That's pretty convenient as one can read through the main thread to see what's new with OXCE over a long period.

Does a similar thing exist for the main OXC? Sorry if I'm missing it. I checked out the "changelog" from the latest nightly download and that only lists updates/changes through 1.0, lol. The latest nightly page itself only has the most recent 10 versions and not a lot of details.

Thanks!

3

Open Feedback / TFTD zombies can take stun damage, UFO zombies can't.

« on: October 16, 2020, 03:50:01 pm »

Today I learned that TFTD zombies take stun damage, but UFO zombies don't. It's right there in the armor rulesets, a UFO zombie takes 0.0 stun damage and in TFTD it's 0.9. (If you stun a TFTD zombie, it still dies and turns into a Tetnaculat.)

They are different games and each zombie is created from a different terror unit (Chryssalid vs Tentaculat) so I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised by the difference. But was just curious if anyone knows why this is? I mean, I assume the reason is, "That's how it was in the original games," but wondering if anyone has any insight on this change from either a lore or gameplay perspective. I wonder if that was a conscious decision or oversight by the original MicroProse developers (I know TFTD was kind of rushed out).

4

Suggestions / Re: Should the AI consider enemy range and partial cover?

« on: February 03, 2020, 02:00:28 pm »

This my code, this was added prevent alines from doing stupid things. Player can know after couple of tries that attacking some unit from front is not effective, but aliens do not remember this (and even if remember they can't carry this knowledge between missions).
I agree we should keep behaviors like this to minimum, but in some corner cases we could help a bit AI do not have big disadvantage.
Another place where AI use behavior like this is psi attacks.

As always, question is how much "a bit" is.
One way this both cases could be fixed is count numbers of attack on unit, each time AI have better "knowledge" and can use more units stats to plan next move.
But current TU would not be accessible because you can't determine it without seeing unit movements on previous turn (and this could be only way to know it).

This makes a lot of sense and sounds reasonable. I hadn't even thought of how aliens already do this with psi attacks since they target the mentally weakest soldiers. Good point.

Because:
1/ one oxce dev reverting the work of another oxce dev would just be childish and stupid
2/ Yankes has given convincing arguments to justify it
3/ unless you read the code, you'll never be able to find out that it even exists
4/ my playtests didn't show any increase in AI ability to kill me, so I consider it a "harmless cheat"

Besides, if I removed all features I don't like, I would remove 30% of oxc code, 30% of oxce code not made by me and probably even 30% of oxce code made by me... but I do respect other people's work, opinions and tastes... and life is full of compromises (alternative is a pretty miserable life).

Fair enough, I was just curious. I agree that Yankes' points were a good justification. He convinced me.

5

Suggestions / Re: Should the AI consider enemy range and partial cover?

« on: January 31, 2020, 09:57:05 pm »

That's not vanilla AI.
I have made the same argument for melee dodge (oxce-only feature)... the AI should not know how good a soldier is at dodging, it's cheating.

Just asking out of curiosity, then why not remove it? Is this a difference of opinion with Yankes or too difficult for another reason?

6

Released Mods / Re: [EU and TFTD] Bughunt turn 15 for OXCE

« on: January 12, 2020, 03:04:46 am »

Wish this was an option with OXC, but pretty sure it is only OXCE. I had a base defense mission the other day in TFTD and I had killed all the aliens except 1 that I could not find (I have a big base that is not setup optimally with choke points). I was looking everywhere for many turns. Then finally I went up into one of the upper rooms and on the next turn the Calcinite found and killed my soldier, leaving his squadmate to kill it on my next turn.

What pissed me off though was that I went into debug mode to see what it had been doing up there and there was basically no realistic scenario where I could get to this Calcinite without it killing one of my guys. It was stuck in an endless loop where it would go out a door on the upper floor and then back in again. Even if I waited until after turn 20, it would not come after me unless I had entered that particular chamber. But the problem was there was no way I had enough TUs to get into that upper room and open the door and kill it all in one turn. So even if I had cheated and reloaded, knowing it was there (which I did just for testing purposes), I was forced to sacrifice a man to kill it. Exactly the kind of unfair bs I expect from XCOM though. 

7

Offtopic / Re: X-com Apocalypse

« on: January 10, 2020, 07:06:50 pm »

Recently they reverse engineered it:[/youtube]

Oh cool, didn't realize that Open Apoc was finished. I remember seeing it as something they were working on years ago, but haven't kept up. I'll have to check that out eventually. I've actually never played XCOM Apocalypse even though I own it.

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Open Feedback / Re: Mind Control and LoS

« on: January 09, 2020, 01:45:18 am »

Hi alienjon, I'm actually returning to the game after a couple years away as well. MC and LOS is something I've tested quite a bit and started a thread on back in 2016.

What I found was that aliens can attack any soldiers that have been spotted and are "remembered" as 7Saturn said. But they do have to have spotted them at some point. If they have been in the back of the skyranger and never seen by an alien or one of your mind controlled soldiers, then they can't be the target of psi attacks (until the turn 20 rule comes into effect of course).

Yeah, that's always been a huge problem when they start panicking your guys in the back of the Skyranger. There's no way they could have seen those folks at all.

That isn't actually the case. They have to have seen them at some point. Maybe they were spotted by one of your soldiers when they were mind controlled, or an alien was near enough the open door of the skyranger. But aliens can't launch psi attacks if they've never spotted the soldier.

• Make it so that you can only target entities your own (permanent) soldiers see. i.e. get rid of chain controlling, where you control one alien to scout and reveal more, and then control them, and so on.

I like this idea though since infinitely chaining psi attacks from alien to alien is so cheesy. Alternatively, you can just change the ruleset to make psi amps require line of sight.

9

Open Feedback / Re: Shooting Accuracy

« on: January 08, 2020, 09:03:26 pm »

.

I don't think I've seen this before. That image is hilarious (and accurate ...well, accurate about being inaccurate lol).

10

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: Hunter-killer

« on: October 06, 2017, 05:56:02 am »

What would be the reasoning behind this? With XCom, yeah, definitely makes sense trying to recover crashed UFOs to get access to the aliens technology, but why would the aliens need to assault a crashed craft full of equipped armed troops when they can simply abduct/harvest civilians?

I can imagine a world where the aliens want to actually kill XCOM, not just down their craft. You could think of Hunter-Killers as "search and destroy."

My description in the previous post  is probably a bit more complex than it needs to be.


And if a tactical mission results from getting shot down, (maybe 25% of the time) the combat mission map would be displayed with any leftover Xcom survivors.  As earlier described, no aliens, just hostile scavenging locals.  If you win, you carry out your stuff and whatever can be recovered from such defeated locals (ak 47's etc). If you lose, yes you lose all.
 IF you ABORT  for one reason or another:
 -- ransom offer from locals for return of your soldiers: game determines how much  and if you pay  the soldiers  show up some time later at a base
 --or not pay ransom, and you never see them again.
 not sure how ordering Pizza or cleaning toilets could be used in this context,
 however SEXCHAT brings up another possibility...
 ....yes, instead of that; NEGOTIATIONS with locals to get your guys back:
 this is not a minigame but just another option after you click ABORT:
 
 Abort button (in tactical) clicked goes to another screen with the following options
 >cancel (returns to tactical)
 >Pay ransom to locals [$$game displays dollar amount$$$](if selected and if enough money deducted and return to Geoscape, otherwise message appears NOT ENOUGH FUNDS) soldiers(not gear) return to base.
 >Negotiate (if selected game displays $$$ amount which can be as little as half the amount or as much as triple the amount of original ransom)
 >>YES pay Negotiated ransom (if selected and if enough money deducted and return to Geoscape)
 >>NO do not pay negotiated ransom(return to Geoscape)
 >abandon soldiers (return to geoscape)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but wherever the "too complex" line is, I think you're still way over it.

11

Open Feedback / Re: TFTD bases in battle mode

« on: October 06, 2017, 04:35:52 am »

I think the way to do it would be to edit the battle.cfg file in your Documents/OpenXCOM/xcom2 folder. You can edit your "Facilities" in there to change the base.

I've never tried to edit the base in battle mode, but I have made other successful changes to the battle.cfg file which came through in battle mode.

12

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: Soldier's nationality

« on: October 06, 2017, 04:23:42 am »

Well I really to wish that!  As far as I got searching forum/mod portal seems nationality flag dysplaying is an openxcom extended feature, very kindly provided by Meridian, from openxcom extended+ 2.9 and on

By now there is no nigtlhy  mod for this, please correct me if i am wrong.

Yes, this feature is only in OXCE+ (maybe also OXCE, but I'm not sure). This is not in the Nightlies.

13

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: Hunter-killer

« on: September 25, 2017, 03:33:00 pm »

Just a bystander chiming in. Great job on this feature Meridian, such a cool addition.

I assume over ocean, everyone dies.

Not necessarily. Life rafts/life vests are a thing, even in today's commercial passenger planes.

B. If it doesn't spawn a mission, can we just simplify it that survivors come back home by public transport after certain amount of days?

Sounds like the simplest solution. Lose the craft and all equipment, but have a chance for survival/injury (based on whatever factors you think appropriate ie soldier health, armor, etc) and have them set to return to base in X days based on where they went down. Those that were seriously injured may require extra recovery time.

I agree with those have said that they wouldn't want to lose an entire squad of trained soldiers without even the opportunity for a fight. I think losing the craft and equipment (with the chance to lose a soldier or two ... I'd favor greater chance for survival/injury though) seems like an appropriate negative consequence so these HKs are a big concern, but not game-killing.

Does this actually spawn a mission or is it just a touch-and-go crash site?

A. If it spawns a mission, who will be the enemy?
And should the survivors spawn as xcom and fight as well?
Or should they spawn as civilians you need to save?
Or should they not spawn at all and just be recovered at the end? Or killed if you lose/abort.

If you're to go this route, it could immediately spawn an "escape" mission where the enemy is the race of the craft that shot you down. You have to get all the survivors to the exit and abort, whoever makes it survives and goes back to base. Lose the craft, only equipment recovered is what you had on you when escaping.

If you're worried about farming, make it so even if you kill all aliens on the map, you don't recover equipment/corpses on the ground, only what is on your soldiers. Justification is they still have to "escape" before another alien ship shows up. That said, I think losing a craft and potentially soldiers in the crash is a big enough loss you wouldn't want to use this as "farming."

14

Suggestions / Re: Statistics soldiers

« on: September 19, 2017, 11:46:48 am »

If you fight like this, you can stay without money for a second month. Tell me, you not lose zrbit interceptors? : D

All the same, probably in the concept of my mod. Those. once the aliens have a a society of a bee swarm, then they are fighting more quantity, not quality.Therefore of their number on missions from 20 to small UFOs, to 60 on terror and bases. In the second year of the game, the number of killed aliens reaches 10,000. So, we get an overload of statistics. But since no one is interested in this problem, one has to play without statistics at all.

Well the reason you're having this loading problem and it seems the rest of us aren't is because you're essentially playing a different game than the rest of us. And with 424 soldiers recruited, 2855 alien kills, but not even one casualty, that game you're playing isn't even XCOM.

Of course, you're free to play whatever game you enjoy, but losing soldiers is part of traditional XCOM. Not that you want them to die, but "permadeath" is one of the most celebrated aspects of the entire XCOM series and you're missing out on it.

You should read Meridian's post here about how to make the game harder ... aka enjoy the game more.

Not reloading is the single most effective way of making the game harder. ... Your best soldier dying is part of the game. Your most favourite soldier dying is part of the game ... Soldiers have a life expectancy between 1 and 20 missions. Supersoldiers break the balance of the game. "Allow them to die" for the planet, with honour.

15

Suggestions / Re: Statistics soldiers

« on: September 18, 2017, 07:44:30 am »

Is this slow saving/loading issue a common problem? I haven't ran into it and my current TFTD campaign is extremely long (89 missions so far, 388 soldiers recruited). Although I have way less kills than 20-30 each, so maybe that is why I haven't had an issue.

I don't think it's very common for soldiers to have 20-30 kills each ... probably only my select few top guys have broke the 20 kill barrier. Most die with 1-2 or even 0 kills to their name, haha  . But I'm playing a vanilla TFTD campaign so I'm sure experience with different mods can vary wildly. I haven't played Piratez, but from what I've read the campaigns are much longer.