Messages

31

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: October 21, 2019, 12:53:55 pm »

Events are not meant to have a great impact either way. They're there mostly for the fluff, with only some secondary effects on the gameplay. They're not there to give you a win or a loss, but to provide some context, some lore, to flesh out your role as an X-Com Commander. So, what do you mean by, "it's just a click, so it's meaningless"? From this perspective, books in The Elder Scrolls are pointless, since they "only" give you a +1 to some skill, so what's the point in having all those letters and sentences forming whole stories to read? It's enough to click them!

I'm quoting Ridan because he's spot on. Gameplay mechanics effects are minor, it's mostly for storytelling. In many respects, simply events do it better than missions. That's why I asked for this feature in the first place.

I'm reminded of something, then. Those who played the first XCOM remake might remember that there was a news ticker in the Situation Room (the one that showed you an overview of Panic/etc.) that had a rolling stream of comments on world events, colour-coded (grey-blue for neutral, green for good, red for bad).

Imagine, on the top or bottom of the geoscape, a rolling stream of comments ticked up by world missions and general filler, e.g.:
... /// 'CROP CIRCLES' SIGHTED IN MIDWESTERN AMERICA /// ABDUCTION REPORTS SKYROCKET AFTER 'FLOATING LIGHTS' SEEN IN SOUTHEAST CHINA /// FRENCH BEACH-GOERS REPORT SEEING 'FISH MAN' ACCOMPANIED BY 'BLUE-ROBED CULTISTS' /// RUSSIAN GANG VIOLENCE ESCALATES TO RUNNING THREE-WAY GUN BATTLE IN STREETS OF VOLGOGRAD, CASUALTIES UNKNOWN /// POLICE AND UNKNOWN MILITARY PERSONNEL SEEN ENGAGING SWARMS OF GIANT SPIDERS IN CHICAGO STREETS, CIVILIANS SAFELY EVACUATED /// ...

Another similar 'concept' is the Council Requests, where a country would come to you and request something in exchange for something else (e.g. give 10 alien alloys to get a scientist). So if an event comes up, instead of being "you lost points, press OK to continue", some could be "Russia is requesting assistance with personal protection for their military personnel" and if you commit resources then you get a small bonus but if you don't then you get the score penalty or whatever instead.

More engine-side feature requests, I know, but the could probably fit into the same niche without being a popup?

Not really. I just prefer more estimatable battles, and that is about all games, not only X-Com. Maybe it is some kind of a quirk of old chess player like me...  Anyway, possibility to enable TFTD damage model suits me and I have nothing to wish more.

My words didn't expect any argue. I'm just thinking about different aspects of the game and asking some questions from time to time. We are who we are - a true fans, who trying to get to the bottom of every detail of beloved creature    Do you agree with me, Mr. Krautbernd? 

Not having those 200% rolls is gonna hurt later, if I remember how tough sectopods could be in vanilla.

And whilst I do hate the variance at times, I can't deny there's a certain energy in seeing a soldier eat half a dozen shots to the face at point blank only to have tiny amounts of health damage and no mortal wounds.

(so it's raining cats and dogs outside)

And I decided to play with the G-11 rifle a bit. I never liked the proportions, so I took the image and reworked it a bit. Added a firing sound just because.
@ Solarius: For your consideration.

Looks pretty good to me, and the G-11 seems like a neat fit for an organization like XCOM. I admit I might be biased; I think caseless weapons don't get enough love/attention.

32

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: October 18, 2019, 01:02:46 pm »

Hmm...wonder if enabling armor to modify dogfight parameters might be a worthwile idea to look at in itself. Maybe even requiring certain 'armors' to pilot a craft?

Having pilots wear suits while piloting a MIG or other high-performance crafts does seem kind of strange.

At best, I'd think you would have a custom flight suit* and most ground combat armours would be blacklisted. Fighter cockpits are... let's say space-efficient, and full of a lot of small controls - you wouldn't have the space for some kind of super powersuit, especially not one that inhibits manual dexterity. You sure as hell wouldn't have much space for weapons or other personal supplies either.

Just look up the interior of any reasonably modern fighter jet, really.

*Which could be interesting in itself, if you could (or even needed to) develop special high-tech piloting suits.

33

The X-Com Files / Re: Want to help?

« on: October 11, 2019, 06:32:44 am »

I don't know if you're taking music recommendations, but this seemed like the place to put it. Anyway - some of SWAT4's music might work well, e.g.;

Auto Center - Stealth

Depending on the tracks (and there are quite a few if you count all the stealth/action variants), could either work for early anti-cult/anti-hybrid missions, or more general ominous mystery stuff maybe.

34

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: October 10, 2019, 07:38:13 am »

Nothing strange with progression of transport. Each craft has it's own parameters. Yeah, some of crafts are almost useless, but it should be so - that's the basic point of 'choice'.

The really question is why some crafts has opened front door? These f@cking enemy grenades inside the craft which destruct all the equipment... Arrrggghh!

I believe that's intended, to discourage you from taking so much stuff. We might not be living in the days of the 80-item limit any more, but that's no reason to cram your craft full of things so that you're ready for any given situation.

Speaking of craft though, it'd be really nice to have a 1x1 Garage that can hold stuff like cars or pickups or vans, but not larger vehicles. I imagine this is a technical/engine-side kinda thing though.

35

The X-Com Files / Re: Minigun seems OP

« on: October 09, 2019, 09:38:51 am »

I 100% agree with Hadriex' analysis.
Also I wonder if sniper rifles shouldn't have better snapshots...

I think the minigun itself actually holds a potential solution here; kneel bonus multiplier (at least if it does what I think it does).

Reduce the TU cost and base accuracy of aim/snap modes for snipers, and give them a high(er) kneel bonus multiplier. Might be worth experimenting with?

36

The X-Com Files / Re: Industrial investigation missions

« on: October 06, 2019, 06:48:03 pm »

Hey, not all of them! I'm just cautious and the couple I have done haven't really seemed to be worth the risks so far.

Given the wide array of 'covert' item categories, I can see these getting to be a headache in a hurry though. Hold up whilst I load a helicopter with valid gear for every situation...

37

The X-Com Files / Re: Industrial investigation missions

« on: October 06, 2019, 03:39:43 pm »

Any weapon or item marked >Concealable in the ufopaedia should work, not just spypistols. I've smuggled dart pistols into Osiron beach missions in order to take some of them alive, for instance.

You can also take some medical gear, but keep in mind that you won't have much inventory capacity for stuff in general.

38

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: October 05, 2019, 09:56:07 pm »

From the ufopaedia wiki;

Surrendering, Bughunt
surrenderMode    Allows enemies to surrender (they will be taken as prisoners). Possible options:

    0 = no surrender
    1 = if all remaining standing enemies can surrender; and they want to surrender at this very moment (their current status is panicking or berserking)... end the battle
    2 = if all remaining standing enemies can surrender; and they have panicked/berserked at least once or have been stunned at least once... end the battle
    3 = same as option 2, but enemies must also have empty hands

In all 3 cases, enemies marked as "auto surrender" are not checked and count as surrendered.

XCF uses surrenderMode 2 (..\mods\XComFiles\Ruleset\vars_XCOMFILES.rul, line 26), so for enemies to surrender all currently-living enemies must have panicked or berzerked at least once. EXALT Infiltrators have 80 bravery (..\Ruleset\units_XCOMFILES.rul, line 942) which means that their fellow EXALT goons being wiped out doesn't really scare them too much. Odds are they'd have to be the last man standing of a large number.

If you really wanna make 'em surrender (rather than killing them or taking them alive with tazers/etc.) you'll need to hit them with psi panic until their morale breaks.

39

The X-Com Files / Re: Exobiological contamination, MP5s, and explosives

« on: October 05, 2019, 07:18:50 am »

A few questions. First, are there normal 30 round mags for the MP5s, or only 24 rounds? Second, how do I buy explosives? I have some dynamite and grenades, but I' not able to research them.

Only 24. For more powerful explosives you need Promotion II, which is acquired by acquiring all important members of staff - the Researcher, Xenologist, Military Envoy, and Engineer. If you're really stumped, hit Q to bring up the Tech Tree Viewer, search for "Promotion", and look for what you're missing; click on something on the left to see what it needs, and keep digging until you find what you're missing.

Once you hit Promotion II your armament options will open up fairly significantly in general. Prior to that the best guns you're going to get are via Contact: Cult Arms Dealers and various levels of research into each cult, most likely. Dagon/EXALT/Red Dawn will get you assault carbines (M16/L85/FAMAS/AKSU), Black Lotus can get you a sniper rifle.

And finally, I got an exobiological contamination missions that turned out to be swarms of insects, and I had to abort because I didn't have any flamethrowers or anything else that could do much damage. Will that missions come up again at some point?

Yes, there are multiple types of exobiological contamination. They're one of the rarer mission types though I think.

40

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: October 01, 2019, 12:28:04 am »

Sorry, but it's a horribly immature recommendation. Will you complain the same way if you get a positive score from an event (which is often the case)? I don't think so.

Nah, I'd just be confused.

Anyway, I think the argument "I am being punished unfairly!" is asinine. Who on Earth has ever said that the game is supposed to be "fair"? To make the mod "fair" you'd have to get rid of all randomness, starting with map arrangement (some setups are clearly advantageous to others), alien equipment (these Sectoids had plasma pistols before, now they have heavy plasmas, CHEATERS!), and so on. Let's not imitate Blizzard.

Also, while I need to work more on the presentation, this is a mod about global conspiracies. Feeling like you're in control of anything as a player would mean I did this wrong. The world is supposed to be unfair.

Of course, having said all that, I understand that the game can't be too frustrating to be enjoyable... But let's not lose shit over something silly like 100 points.

Nah, escalating difficulty is fine (otherwise you have no challenge), otherwise fair points. There should totally be curveballs, and things you aren't in control of initially, but the trick is finding something that's challenging but doesn't feel like bullshit, you know?

But let's be real-- if you were imitating Activision-Blizzard, you'd be charging us $60 just to download the mod and we'd have to pay $20 for each story arc, nevermind the $10 M.A.G.M.A. DLC or BlackOps Weapons Pack...

Yes, some remnants of the Black Lotus still exists in some way (there are other situations where you can find them, like the Assassin Clans). The shrine missions is pretty relaxing though, not hard.

I figured that there would be remnants of such factions still hiding out even after the main power structure was taken down and noticed it's still tied to Game Progression techs via the , but I wanted to be sure it wasn't a mission generator hiccup.

41

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: September 28, 2019, 08:14:31 pm »

Certainly doable, but would clutter lists.

Yeah, like I said, not elegant at all. If I was confident in my own sprite-tweaking skills I'd do recolours myself, but that wouldn't solve the clutter issue without some major tweaks to OXCE itself.

But this already exists as the Jumpsuit... I see little space for anything similar.

Ah, I'd... actually forgotten it offered some stealth improvement. I see on rereading the ufopedia entry that it does, so 100% my bad on that. Still kinda unclear on how the Stats-for-Nerds visibility values correlate to default values and actual visibility in the battlescape but I'll definitely give them a whirl in future ops to see how they perform.

Yeah, I could do that. Or I could leave it as is, because I made it when I was sober and knew what the fuck I was doing.
Honestly, the nerve of some people...

...excuse me, what? I was just offering some feedback on the idea. It's not a personal attack or an insult, I'm certainly not implying you're under the influence of anything, and I'm not demanding you change it this instant or I'll stop playing XCF or not recommend it to anyone I know ('cause I've already recommended it to a couple people).

My concern is simply 'can this event be countered directly?'. Whether that's by shooting down more UFOs or kicking in some MiB office doors or making sure that a crop circles event doesn't expire. In the latter case if it pops because the event expired then it's actually a pretty good idea because it outright tells you what you lost for ignoring it, without you having to dig through the manual/UFOP/forums to get that information.

Compare; an alien base in vanilla generates 150 negative points every month it's allowed to exist. You can stop this by blowing it up. Any UFO generates negative points for completing a mission. You can stop this by... blowing it up (or ambushing it on the ground but same thing in the end really). In both cases you have a clear case of losses that are preventable through direct action, though they may not be easy.

If it's merely points loss because RNG decided you lose points and there's nothing you can directly do about it, then that just leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth, is all. End of the day it's really not that many points, so I'm not going to be particularly upset by it.


All that aside, is the Black Lotus shrine mission still supposed to be popping up after clearing their HQ? I'm not looking forward to dealing with a ninja-infested jungle. Half a mind to pack as many incendiary grenades as possible and just burn it all down to stumps, really.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: September 28, 2019, 05:29:47 pm »

I could add a new armour

I'd say not so much entirely new armours as colour and headgear variants of existing combat/alloy/etc. armour sets. Stuff like officer suits that have no helmet, or berets/caps instead of helmets, medic suits that have white or pale green undersuits/plating and green cross decals, etc.

Though, for whole new stuff... I'm sure nobody's made sprites for them, but ghillie suits and other effective camo would be pretty neat. Maybe nothing as crazy as Lotus ninjas, but something that makes your scouts harder to spot would be pretty slick. Maybe some high-tech active/adaptive camo at later stages as well.

Obviously, neither kind would have very good protection values, and I realize that this is all, y'know, fairly time-consuming given the amount of sprites that would need to be made.

military interception

Neat! Anything that makes things feel more 'alive' is good in my books. XCOM aren't the only ones fighting this war after all. Is this only an early-game thing, or will they even manage interceptions late-game too?

old crop circles

Not so neat. Arbitrary loss of points because 'RNG said so' is kind of uncool, even if the point loss is just a slap on the wrist compared to how much you can make for cleaning up a bunch of zombies or whatever.

That said, you could keep this and remove the points penalty, using it as a way to hint at UFO/MiB/etc. activity outside radar range - similar to how you can read the activity graphs for past months to see where they're active.

ninja arts

oh, so are the ninja scrolls and lo wo's secrets finally going to have a use?

43

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: September 28, 2019, 01:53:00 pm »

Nevermind that they're vastly different in scope, which only takes about five minutes of checking out Area51 to show. A51 is an expansion pack; XCF is really more of a total overhaul/rework.

Both mods have their place within the 'ecosystem' and merging them would be pointless. Nevermind it looks like XCF already has most of A51's content.

The only thing that really leaps out at me is the officer suit/flight suit stuff. It'd be kinda nice to be able to tell some of my soldiers apart a little easier at the point I'm at (everyone's wearing the green combat armour) but I know classic XCOM really doesn't support customization nearly as elegantly as its recent successors.

44

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: September 24, 2019, 12:20:28 am »

It's a GL, not a RL It HAS to shoot with arc trajectory because of ballistic law. You can knee and this will increase shooting range for a few tiles.

Even so, the ballistic arc shouldn't be that aggressive, surely. I probably could've thrown grenades more effectively than using the 46mm launcher, which is kind of daft, because it implies that if you aimed the thing horizontally and fired, the round wouldn't go more than a few feet/meters before hitting dirt.

Hey, I'm just starting out and am still have to use cars and vans for transportation, and my weapons are handguns, shotguns, and a couple Calico SMG's I took from cultists. How do I fight sectoids? It seems like they take my guys out in one shot as soon as I start. If I shoot them, it doesn't put them down and their reaction fire instantly burns through any cover and kills in 1 hit. If I try to move from the starting position, their reaction fire hits my guy and kills them in 1 hit.

In regular Xcom, you start with several guys and longer range weaponry. How am I supposed to fight them with 2 shotguns or 2 pistols? Do I just have to avoid them until I get explosives?

'Just starting out', yet you're encountering aliens at... what month/year exactly? Sectoids have a psi-shield that absorbs a limited amount of damage per turn, so you need to focus them down with accurate fire from carbines or assault rifles at the very least.

Focus on the cults, as they're your main means of getting access to better equipment early on.

45

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'

« on: September 23, 2019, 03:40:19 pm »

Passing thoughts; I just turned the Black Lotus HQ inside out, and the low ceilings in the base corridors really made the basic grenade launcher nigh unusable; I couldn't shoot them more than about three tiles in any direction which is obviously A Problem when using any non-smoke rounds. Am I missing some kind of 'flat trajectory' fire mode, or is the basic GL just not suited for indoor use at all?

Wasn't really a huge problem as my "grenadiers" could run around being medics and grabbed guns off the fallen footmen, but it was still kind of annoying. (But not as annoying as the outrageously inconsistent corridor widths!)

Bonus "sucks to be you guys" and sprite bug screenshots;