Messages

46

Work In Progress / Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens

« on: August 25, 2014, 03:19:34 pm »

Sorry for that, I plan to add a gaz-mask but for now there is not and it can be a real problem. With 200% penalty, the smoke was not a problem and gas-mask not needed. with 500%, you can't stay in smoke more than one turn and need to launch smoke on alien or in front of your squad but not at your feets as we previously do with nearly no stun effect by smoke. I have let 500% for testing it myself and see if it is playable (and I think it is, but smoke usage is different than in vanilla's).

You can change the 5.0 to 2.0 for soldiers and personnal-jump armors and see if this feel you better.

For reapers. They are now "terror" weapon so it should be normal you lose some soldier the first time you encounter them. But they are easy catch with icendiary grenade (often OS them) and other IC ammo. Because small HP Pool, floatter also can be killed with IC. Try it and tell me what you think. Also they love to attack HWP and they do nothing to them (for now, I still ask myself what to do about that).

They come from wiki, I noticed there is some difference, but never investigate why.

ps : I add rulseset with HC-AP corrected, and smoke damage at 200% only for x-com soldier. download the 1.5b in mod site, and replace ruleset by this one.

Thanks.  The wiki stats difference is weird but not an issue.  It just confused me and made me wonder if I was reading the ruleset correctly.  I created my own "patch" ruleset to change the smoke damage to 200% and I was much happier with that.  500% is an interesting idea and I see how it would change tactics, but I think for me, without gas masks it's just too much.  I think the problem with the gas masks is that you'd probably have to create them as an "armor" which then cannot be removed during the battle.  I assume there would be some accuracy/stats penalty for wearing them and so your troops would be saddled with those penalties the entire battle whether you needed them or not.  If it was something you could remove, then it would be an acceptable trade-off for me.

Started new game, still veteran but not ironman and had a much better time.  Even survived my first Floater terror mission.  Terrain was very congested so the Reapers didn't have a lot of chances to get to my guys so really can't compare it to the last terror mission I had.  It's actually nice that the Reapers are a threat ... remember old vanilla games where they just kind of wandered back and forth acting as target practice.

As for the HWP invulnerability to Reapers.  I understand the thought behind it, but think it might be a bit cheap.  Maybe consider that the Reapers are the same size as the HWPs, so perhaps the Reaper is strong enough to flip it over or bash the weapons off of it and thereby effectively render it KO.  The Ethiopians defeated Italian tankettes prior to WWII by flipping them over so it's got precedent.

Only other thought early on is that I haven't found Shotguns to be of much use.  Two shots at fairly close range (3-5 tiles) don't come close to taking out a Sectoid.  Up close, I think I'd rather have a Machine Pistol.  Haven't had a chance to try Shotguns against anything else yet to make a final judgement but not sure I want to trust my soldier's lives with them at this point.

Appreciate the mod even if I'm not in 100% agreement with it.   Thanks for the update.

47

Suggestions / Re: Weapon has Capacity for multiple Ammo Mags

« on: August 25, 2014, 06:38:23 am »

(on a sidenote, I cant seem to find how the HWP Cannon is able to define a capacity of 30 shots for HWP Cannon shells, yet unlike all other weapons "HWP Cannon Shells" ammo is only ordered 1 shot at a time - - thats what reminded me of this suggestion because it looks like the HWP Cannon already does this by accepting up to 30 magazines of HWP Cannon Shells at a time. The aircraft cannon works in a similar way, allowing up to 200 shots, but that means accepting up to 4 magazines of Cannon Rounds which each have a capacity of 50 shots)

It's under items:  clipSize is set to 30 for STR_HW_CANNON_SHELLS and similarly for the other ammunitions, not the weapon itself.  I'm not sure of details, but I think it works slightly differently than the craft weapons.

48

Work In Progress / Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens

« on: August 25, 2014, 03:12:00 am »

I also noticed that UFOPEDIA initially doesn't list an HC-AP ammo for the Heavy Canon, yet it can be purchased at game start.  This is with no other item mods enabled.

Also, to use the Men in Black mod with yours, do you enable their MiB ruleset, men_in_black.rul, or just your ruleset, men_in_black_LBR.rul?

Thanks.

49

Work In Progress / Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens

« on: August 25, 2014, 02:36:07 am »

The current aliens stats after some ingame tests :

So, I'm a little confused.  I decided try your mod again as is *except* without the punishing smoke damage.  So, I'm looking at your chart above and it's not matching what I am seeing in your ruleset.

First off, the original aliens stats in your chart seem completely different from what I'm seeing in Xcom1Ruleset.rul.  Are these "original" stats from somewhere else?  While confusing, those "original" stats probably don't matter much.  Now, for your modified stats, they seem to match your 1.5 ruleset *except* for the Smoke modifier.  Your chart indicates 200% but your ruleset has a "- 5.0" which I believe means 500% damage.  Am I reading this wrong?  Perhaps this is why I'm not happy with the smoke effects.  I'd be willing to give 200% chance a shot, but 500% isn't fun.  Was the 500% an experiment and you settled on 200% and forgot to update the ruleset, or am I just really confused?

Code: [Select]

  - type: SECTOID_ARMOR0
    damageModifier:
      - 1.0
      - 0.6
      - 1.0
      - 1.0
      - 1.5
      - 0.6
      - 1.2
      - 1.6
      - 1.0
      - 5.0

'Course, the stats I'm most interest in are for my soldiers, but don't want to be unfair to the aliens, either.  Thanks for any help.

50

Work In Progress / Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens

« on: August 25, 2014, 12:41:10 am »

Well, this is an interesting discussion, but it doesn't seem to matter much to me as I didn't get past my first terror mission.  Deployed right in the middle of a hornet's nest.  I was surrounded by about 6 Floaters and 5 Reapers.  Gotta say I'm not real fond of the issue with Smoke as it stands.  Maybe I'm just not very good at this game, but without being able to cover yourself with smoke to exit the Skyranger, I just got torn to shreds.  So I threw the smoke anyway, and then of course some of my guys passed out while the Reapers ate half my squad.  I don't doubt somebody else could have done better with that situation, but I don't think I'm up to it.  There's no fun in just running away hoping for a better situation next battle.  This was on Veteran Ironman so no opportunity to see if I can do better.

Maybe I'll give it another shot on a lower difficulty and not ironman because I think I like the theory of not using smoke as cheap armor.  But, the practice doesn't seem to agree with me.

Thanks.

51

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: August 24, 2014, 05:09:26 pm »

The direct links are still up on the first post of this thread

Ah.  Thanks.  Checked a few pages back but forgot about the first post.

52

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: August 23, 2014, 05:47:01 am »

Has the mod been temporarily removed from the mod site?  Tried to download the latest version and nothing happens.  I've downloaded other mods, so I'm thinking it's not the mod site itself.

Thanks.

53

Work In Progress / Re: [BETA] Rebalance aliens

« on: August 23, 2014, 02:23:12 am »

I've tried to install v1.4 of your mod, and OXC won't start and gives me an error that it can't open "Resources/Aldorn/HWPLaser_SpriteSheet.PNG".

I've checked and there is no such file in the indicated folder but there is a HWPGauss_SpriteSheet.PNG file there.  I created a duplicate and renamed it to the file it was looking for just to see if it would at least run, and then it indicated another file that was missing, Toxigun.gif. 

Is there some things missing form the install or does another mod need to be installed for this to run?  I didn't see any such mod indicated as required.

Thanks.

54

Work In Progress / Re: [RESEARCH/PROGRESSION] Lasers from Heavy to Pistol

« on: July 26, 2014, 04:06:12 am »

This is interesting. My only issue with it is then that it seems pointless to bother with the pistol. If its at the end of the chain then I would skip it in favor of plasma pistols of which you would have  quite a collection of by then. And even if you were forced to research to access something else down the line I doubt I would bother to manufacture any of them.

That said I do like that it helps the heavy laser and laser cannons which I've always liked on general principle if not due to effectiveness.

55

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: July 18, 2014, 04:09:54 am »

Nevertheless, there's no problem with running the FMP and the Commendations mod at the same time; they shouldn't conflict with each other.

I run them both without any problems.

56

Offtopic / Re: How "disposable" are Xcom troops to you?

« on: July 17, 2014, 11:15:10 pm »

really, I have no patience to have to wait for new soldiers to grow their TU stats again!

To each his own, but to me the constant save-reloading would require more patience than taking some losses. That said, everybody has their limits.

57

Offtopic / Re: What's your final verdict on Firaxis' X-com: Enemy Unknown?

« on: July 16, 2014, 07:40:10 am »

Haven't voted yet because I can't really decide how I feel about it.  I've played through once completely for both Enemy Unknown and then Enemy Within.  It was certainly fun and worth playing the once.  I played on Normal.  Problem with subsequent playthroughs is that normal is too easy and boring as a result.  However, I have tried numerous times to play on Classic difficulty and it simply kicks my butt repeatedly and brutally, which is not much fun to be honest.  I really think it needs a difficulty in between Normal and Classic and then I'd probably be happy and rate it at least Good.  Every once in a while I give Classic another shot and give up again in frustration a few days thereafter.

58

Released Mods / Re: [STAT TRACKING] Soldier Diaries 1.0

« on: July 05, 2014, 12:35:10 am »

Personally I'd also remove the Honor Cross (or whichever) that everyone gets; it feels cheap.

Yeah, perhaps.  But, it is a common thing for military personnel as far as I understand it.  For example, the American Campaign Medal recognized American military service members who performed military duty in the American Theater of Operations during World War II.  If you're interested, you can find info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Campaign_Medal.  I'm sure there are hundreds of other medals or campaign ribbons like this throughout military history.

So, I can see on the one hand how it's a little silly because "everybody gets it" but it's cool and it's consistent with military history.

59

Offtopic / Re: UFO: Alien Invasion

« on: July 04, 2014, 04:12:16 am »

As for UFO: Aftershock, it is widely believed, and it's also my opinion, that it's way better and more mature than UFO: Aftermath. It is simply a superbly designed game, not overly flashy but extremely fun to play, combining complexity with smooth gameplay. Certainly in my top three of all times.
Also, I find UFO: Aftershock way more enjoyable with Okim's ACM mod, thought it may be too frustrating for a newcomer (those Cultists are gonna f*ck you up).

As for the next game, UFO: Afterlight, it's certainly very good, but many people disliked its stylistics. It's way more cartoonish.

I have all these games but have only done much with Aftermath.  I've never finished it and usually fizzle out when the game starts kicking my butt all over the map.  Maybe I need to learn to pick my battles better, or something.  I tried a mod that sounded really good, but after several tries in very early missions where my entire squad was wiped out within seconds of spotting the first transgenant, I gave up on that.  Started vanilla game up again just recently to see if I fare any better this time around.

Never gave Aftershock much of a chance due to my "need" to play things in order.  That and the controls seemed to throw me off but that could just be because I never put much effort into it because I felt I needed to play the earlier game first.

Afterlight, hearing from many that it was the "best" ... I don't know what it is but I just can't figure it out.  Something is just not clicking for me about the interface and how soldiers/scientists are managed and the like.  I've tried a few times but never got anywhere with it.  Could also be party due to similar issues with Aftershock.

One similar game I haven't seen mentioned is UFO: Extraterrestrials with the B-Man mod (the Gold version is the mostly the same but with some copyrighted features removed).  I tried it with the Combo mod but it made some weird changes to the game that I didn't care for.  It seemed a case of "too much of a good thing".  I really like it with the B-Man mod, though the game can get quite dragged out due to the need to research Commanders to progress in the tech tree.  B-Man allows you to increase the frequency of commanders appearing, so that can help with that issue.  Still, I've never finished the game ... but actually not finishing games is not uncommon for me as I guess I get bored and move on to something else for a while and then cycle back eventually, which I have done again recently.

Made the mistake of trying to play UFO:Extraterrestrials without the B-Man mod just to see what that was like.  PAINFUL!  Don't even bother if you're tempted.  Just get the B-Man mod and don't look back.  That said, I did have to disable the original XCom aliens as it made the game much more difficult for me.  Looking forward to UFO: Extraterrestrials 2, but not sure if that's vaporware or not at this point.

60

Suggestions / Re: [SUGGESTION-UNCUT][#050] HWP - Minimal ammunition

« on: July 04, 2014, 03:37:01 am »

You can easily do that by putting

STR_TANK_CANNON: Tank/Cannon(need 30)

under extraStrings: in a ruleset.  Problem is, then it shows up in the UFOpaedia in that manner because it uses the same string in both spots.  Haven't tried to manipulate it to see if you could create separate strings for these 2 things, but I suspect not unless the code is changed, which would then affect everything else.

It'd be nice, but it really is only a problem when you first jump into the game.  Once you've been playing a little while, it becomes second nature.  That said, I have seen Let's Play video where this has been a problem.