Messages

91

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: March 27, 2021, 04:56:48 pm »

Triton and this particular Mansion floor tile set both produce same walking on water sfx.

92

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 27, 2021, 10:08:06 am »

Don't know if ship stealth can be modded in but from my experience unexpected interception (of unarmed transport full of Gals) happened only once and mostly because of jerky passage of time. Handful of times I had to manually intervene to change ship course. The one time HK mechanic is always ignored is when ships are returning from a mission, so called "homebound" state. So with that in mind two ways of adding stealth comes to mind: always set houmebound to desired ships (likely making them unresponsive), or removing HK altogether. If there's a middle ground I can't say. Also note detection isn't instant but occurs at fixed intervals (30m for base, bit less for ships) so it can happen that fast HK simply flies through if you apply head-on approach with high enough speed delta.

Much better care-free long-term payoff way of achieving radar coverage is simply by building more bases. I plopped them in zones with highest enemy activity at the time with consideration of future placements (for eventual max coverage) and thought of doing it by micro-managing ships never entered my mind (despite some guides recommending it). This if for medium difficulty, can't speak for higher ones though. Hangars are better utilized for essential crafts only to free up space for billion buildings the mod eventually throws at you. With Alenuim facility becoming far more useful in latest patch it's now possible to cover pretty much everything.

Well time to revise my base coordinates to finally encompass Hawaii hehe. Happy post-release day to you too! It's the 4th update in my own playthrough and has always been a great constantly improving experience.

93

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: March 26, 2021, 09:03:16 pm »

First word in new L8 facility needs to be in past participle.
Alenium radar became HWD but kept fickle 80% detection.

Master of the {0} condemnation: remove "instead" word.

94

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 26, 2021, 05:43:52 am »

@Dogbarian
Someone said UFO/TFTD engine is actually 3D despite looking archaic. If you select a soldier and hit first-person screenshot (F10 default) and then open in it some picture viewer you will get some idea how game interprets stuff. If your solder is looking at small/medium/large units when you screen it you should be able to understand what relative unit sizes pertain to. Personally I never gave enough of a damn to investigate myself as it never played a noticeable role in actual gameplay. But if anyone can be bothered to display hitbox diagrams for comparison in the future I'd be interested to see that. Anyway I don't remember sizes being explicitly explained anywhere in-game besides for immersion sake in occasional armor description. If it were really that important I wager it would be a proper stat, like resistances.

95

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: March 24, 2021, 08:54:52 am »

Couple old ones I didn't report before:

Eridian Beastmaster and Warchief don't have their own paper doll with armor resistances. Assuming they share those stats with regular Warrior, which does have a doll, there's one slight issue even in that case: if player kills all Warriors on the map and continues the battle next day it becomes difficult to remember or examine what he is dealing with when all that's left are Beatsmasters and a Warchief.

Iron Wind targeting reticle always shows 5-10 damage if ALT is pressed, when it should be closer to 320 in my example. Found out the hard way when I tested it inside my Fortuna some time ago. Dayum. Wonder what was the inspiration for this weapon coz it reminded me similar one from a book I read long ago (same goes for Flechette guns).

96

XPiratez / Re: Bugs & Crash Reports

« on: March 23, 2021, 08:59:25 am »

In my infinite wisdom I unintentionally concocted some weird Masochist/Witch synergy where Witch serves as meat shield with TU/morale drain from Wand of Pain warfare, followed by a Masochist replenishing all of it using Blood Magic. Theory mostly checks out but in practice the Morale of targeted Witch unit is also drained instead of being replenished. Looked in rules and couldn't explain why this is happening so I removed the "-" from "ToMorale: -2.0" and then it started replenishing Morale as expected. Strangest thing is TU behaves normally as one would expect of Morale. Now I'm bit confused if all Morale affecting tools are reversed in such way.

To reproduce: load save, use Hell Jill's Blood Magic on Spotty Rifle, as shown in the picture.

97

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 22, 2021, 12:13:00 pm »

@Dogbarian
Np, it's been ages since I've been there so it nostalgic to remember all but forgotten early struggles. You even made me notice I missed one of early tweaks in this update so I must go about researching it.

My pre-codex interceptor progress went AIRCAR > SHARK JETBIKE (great little thing). Transports went AIRBUS > BLOWFISH (underwater capable) > PACHYDERM.

Once you get more bases going (radar coverage is essential) you can start experimenting with other vessels. LITTLE BIRD felt weak so I didn't use it. Also, don't expect for shipyard to magically unlock new ships (I fell into that trap) - it's main use is for post-Codex ship parts. After Codex and first proper interceptors are built the air war is basically won, with rare exceptions for comfortable period.

98

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 22, 2021, 07:56:03 am »

Yea it's very possible Dio tweaked things around. It's done every update. Research Tree of Life must grow.

Shadowmasters were marked as important even since I started playing 5 months ago in all guides I looked. But what isn't for a newbie? Interrogations are best path forward, not only can you get lucky but they also yield a lot of important stuff and can save a bit of time when a low research cost prisoner rewards more costly topic (later on even more time can be saved by patiently targeting interrogations).
Funnily enough I didn't pick a Codex until much later because I mistook manufacturing rewards for raw material requirements, lol. My Shadowmasters were long ago researched and forgotten by then. Red is a good choice btw, even best my most people's account. Just continue following your intuition :)

99

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 22, 2021, 12:56:26 am »

Not sure about base. I'd say successful defense 'resets' their awareness until they find it again in some later crackdown mission. At least that's how I understood it from my experience. I vaguely remember it was explained for sure before so someone might follow up more precisely.

Extended hit log: CTRL+ALT+H (HIT = damage > 20% of total HP)

While we're at it, other undocumented but useful keys I found:

Code: [Select]

Pan Geoscape - left/right buttons also scroll through BootyPedia
CTRL+MMB - force bootypedia entry if researched and available
ALT in minimap - map borders
CTRL+END - two brightness levels, alternative to night vision
RMB on approach type icon during interception - orders ALL vessels simultaneously

100

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 18, 2021, 01:03:22 am »

End justifies the means eh, damn son. Unfortunately losses are unacceptable for me (and Betrayer debuffs kinda suck)
but
Thanks to you I went through all other condemnations and found few better candidates:
Warlock
Puppetmaster
Battlemage (looks best, includes half of MAGITECH stuff; Wand of Pain levels Warlock too)
Succubus
Never even occurred to me VS could be leveled up that way. Fingers crossed it works.

UPDATE: Apparently, since OXCE 7.0, it is no longer possible to level up V.Skill from 0 via combat experience alone. All armor and soldier bonuses are ignored. Only soldiers with at least VSK of 1 can gain further XP via combat, meaning a Voodoo School facility is required to get things going. SOURCE.

101

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 17, 2021, 03:27:37 am »

As promising as it sounded it appears it's no longer working.

If it did work as explained outfits with VP/VS buffs would cover all my VS training needs without using facility but quickly found out VP-only don't work. VS buff outfits are so rare only 1 exists (RAVENCLAW) and is restricted to Damsel/Peasant, so Lokks and Slaves couldn't be used to train VS above 0. However even that didn't work. Sad face. At least Greater Mage's Hand provided some amusement.
SAINT is the only other VP+VS buffed but both hands are occupied with other experience type weapons so even it did work there's no way to do it. Besides VS facility but too late to cba building one now.

Thanks anyway, I wouldn't have thought of trying that. Will try last few VP/VS training stuffz before calling it quits.

102

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 16, 2021, 09:35:22 pm »

But from 0? I'll try with Firebolts & Pain which I haven't used yet. Although Airlessness & Peace (Rod of Hellfire too) never triggered increase from 0 in over 1000 tries. If they fail as well last ditch effort is trying every last available item with "experienceTrainingMode : 26". Something to do while preparing for Mars I guess. Grrr I'd be over 2 months ago if these annoying little goals just stopped popping up in my head.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: March 16, 2021, 07:27:57 am »

Remember someone asking before but can't find it: is there a weapon/tool that would train V.SKILL up from 0 value, but for non-Gal soldiers?
For Gals "Powers of Seduction" did the trick but others can't wear that outfit (Lokks and regular Humans).
Wish to avoid VooDoo facility training method if possible.

While on the subject "experienceTrainingMode" would be a useful search parametar in online pedia.

104

OpenXcom Extended / Re: OXCE (OpenXcom Extended) main thread

« on: March 13, 2021, 11:51:12 pm »

Great update from what my puny brain understands. I especially like base/craft reordering. Craft thingy actually wrote off an item from my own personal QoL wishlist. Base would probably end on it too had I played enough times to repeat base placing/purpose mistake so props for making those.

Couple of quick questions:
Is Craft reordering only a visual change (when looking at base layout) or does it also include functional reordering when intercept popup is pulled from Geoscape? For example when player wants to have Interceptors followed by Transports within same base listing. Cannot begin to explain how much extra time I spent building an extra hangar in another base just so I could transfer craft away & back again to fully reorder them.

From something I read (probably miss-read) on Discord a ~month ago: is NV a persistent on/off setting now, kept inside the save? Rather than depending on map lighting amount and being turned on/off (depending on threshold value in options) automatically when battle is started/reloaded.
Someone asked where NV setting was and you responded it will be replaced by something better, or something along those lines. Hoping it's an option I missed coz it would be of great use to me. Happens rarer now (since sweet spot treshold=9) but I still occasionally fight with auto-NV setting, turning it on or off manually because threshold value isn't universally viable in all situations. If on/off toggle is part of save then it'd sufficient to toggle it at start of battle and only if I don't already agree with what threshold decided.
I'm pushing my luck but maybe CTRL+END setting could override NV and vice-versa depending which was set last. It does look more beautiful than NV in some cases. Setting would also be persistent in battle saves until a new battle was started (not reloaded) where threshold would take priority. Well so much for being quick about it, sorry!

105

XPiratez / Tiny help with tiny XPZ sub-mod

« on: March 12, 2021, 07:36:28 pm »

Excuse me if I missed the right place to ask, feel free to move where appropriate.

Been trying to isolate Landing Alert from fixed user options and change it to "true" via my own sub-mod rather than changing core "Piratez_Globals.rul", in order to avoid editing the string every time XPZ gets updated. Sub-mod file content looks like this:

Code: [Select]

fixedUserOptions:
  oxceUfoLandingAlert: trueThe problem is that engine uncharacteristically assumes I've deleted every other fixed entry and un-grays it from in-game advanced menu, free for user to change or even see what was fixed. Defo not what I want to do.

If I just dump the whole fixedUserOptions section while changing only Alert:true then it works as expected but two more undesired problems arise. If down the line Dio changes what is fixed option my sub-mod will override it, and if a completely new fixed option is created it will appear un-grayed as it wasn't part of the section when I created the sub-mod. I wouldn't notice any of that unless specifically comparing the core against my own section. I won't remember to look in couple of weeks let alone years when I come back to complete fully finished XPZ. Just want for everything to wait my arrival neatly organized so I don't have to worry about anything and re-learn all this stuff.

What's puzzling is for every other change I made it was sufficient to put section string followed by string I wished to change. Omitted strings were unaffected and taken from core. This is the only exception and I'm not sure what to do. How to keep the file minimalistic and future-proof, while having Alert:true grayed out along with other set fixed settings? Am I making sense?