Messages

1

Offtopic / Re: New game made by myself - Imperios Estelares

« on: June 15, 2023, 04:09:07 am »

Looks like an interesting MOO2-esque game, think I will check it out.

Question: Any chance you can allow larger map sizes with more stars and planets? I get annoyed at MoO2 for not letting me do this. I'm the kind of player whose philosophy on 4X map sizes is "the bigger the better". Heck, give us customizable map sizes, I remember SMAC let you make some HUGE maps.

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Work In Progress / Re: [WIP][OXCE] XCOM: The Unknown Menace

« on: February 08, 2022, 08:05:04 pm »

Hey, I remember your novel! Takes me back! It was fantastic! Pity you never finished the TFTD sequel, the direction it was being taken on seemed fairly interesting.

A mod inspired by it can only be good! Watching.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Real weapons overhaul discussion

« on: June 12, 2021, 10:15:32 pm »

L65 is useless? I never got that memo, I often carry it, AFAIK its a good alternative to the other 5,56 rifles and better at bursting than most of them. I consider it an upgrade on the MP5.

I do think some guns seem to occupy some weird niche, where they seem to be "stuck" between tiers. AK47 is one example, if you can get the AK47 you can get the AKM. AK47 is mainly useful as a early drop.

I also think its kind of a meta-gaming issue, because early on you're using your few scientists to do actual research not to look at stats of possibly useless guns and see which one works for you.

One idea I had: If we're going to have weapon customization like scopes and such, why not make it something done by engineers? Engineers practically are there only to open ammo boxes and create alien trace flares early on. I guess pretty mundane changes like scopes would't even require special resources, I mean scopes are just scopes.

Another idea I also had was the possibility of X-COM making Wildcat Cartridges for their own use. Which could end up in some pretty weird and unconventional rounds - like poison bullets, alien fuel tracer bullets, etc. Would need careful balancing, through.

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The X-Com Files / Re: 1.8 Feedback

« on: June 12, 2021, 05:13:31 am »

Been distant from the mod a while, felt like popping it back up, updated it and OXCE.

I was like "uh, where did I left off?" then shot and captured some Red Dawn guys on an Outpost. I really got lucky some Sailor mook decided to kung fu my agent rather than shooting him with his makarov. One or two tonfa hits to the back of the head and that problem got solved.

Wow Fire Extinguisher got the big nerf. It went from ghetto smoke grenade to being mostly useless.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Counter-grenade tactics

« on: February 03, 2021, 07:51:29 am »

Spacing out seems to be the best bet. AI seems less prone to popping grenades then.

Certain map types are better for dealing against grenades, too. Stuff like jungles and other scenarios full of tall trees provide a kind of grenade defense for both sides.

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The X-Com Files / Re: H&K G36

« on: January 19, 2021, 12:00:28 am »

Fantastic seeing another famous gun!

Now we only need the G11 and the Pancor Jackhammer...

Just a thought ...
Pistol Five-seveN is effective and very beautiful

Reminds me of a joke about a guy shooting a robber with a five-seven, then he realized he just shot him with 5.7mm ammo. Should have just give him the damn money lol.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.7: Market Corrections

« on: January 18, 2021, 11:55:59 pm »

Hey hey folks, back to this fantastic mod after a good while. Playing this on my Android really helped carry me over when I was computer-less during the epidemic (thanks Meridian for doing the Android version btw).

So, I noticed you changed the attack of the Bombardier Beetle, from that bullshit OP AOE fire attack, to a fire spit. That's fantastic, because every red strange creature having an AOE Fire attack was so much bullshit.

Did you guys do something with the behavior of melee foes? They seem to be more consistently charging and less scared than before.

Would you guys believe my first mission was an Exobiological Contamination? I shot an Abomination, dragged the body and straight-out noped out of there. Didn't even get to see Abominations before, but I have bad recordations of those missions. Too bad for all the civvies there.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Sanity

« on: June 10, 2020, 08:15:42 am »

Low sanity pretty much nerfs your agents and kills their morale. The ones brave enough not to panic become useless.

I once had to retreat a Cult of Dagon base raid because everyone was running out of SAN. The enemy was on the verge of breaking entirely, I had killed like fifty dudes already, but everyone was losing TU and pannicking. I think I could have beaten it anyway, but the Sorcerer of Dagon I had was getting stun damage from nowhere and going to die from overstun no matter what I did.

Are stunned enemies also vulnerable to the sanity depletion? Because I still have no idea why a perfectly napping Sorceror of Dagon was going into sudden overstun.

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The X-Com Files / Spider Nest Underground

« on: June 08, 2020, 06:19:20 am »

So... How do I beat that?

Beating that onslaught of Spiders in the topside is bad enough but doable. Especially once you kill the damn red spiders.

But the underground seems impossible. No space to move or shoot. And there are stealth spiders. Fighting spiders is bad enough, but these can't be seen, so reaction shots engage too late.

Stealth Spiders seem to ignore fire, too. So no making barriers of fire, either.

Seems like the only way is to use dogs and go full melee. Or create space with High Explosives or something. Only useful guns there seem to be CQC-friendly stuff like SMGs and stuff like Double-Barrel shotties, and barely. Maybe Glock?

Might need better armor, leather coats aren't cutting it. Maybe Jumpsuits, or Bio-Exo when I finish researching it.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Cult safehouses/outposts

« on: June 08, 2020, 06:09:12 am »

Everything normal on my end

11

The X-Com Files / Re: Questions on damage and armor

« on: June 07, 2020, 11:29:57 pm »

I believe that's because there's the "small" issue that alien-tech based weaponry inevitably outperforms human one, no matter what. That's the point.
At best you can create a stopgap with alien alloy ammo, but that's a temporary measure for specific adversaries, one which is eventually displaced once you unlock better alien ballistic-type weaponry (ie: Gauss).

Then, once you get plasma, you can forget about everything else, as usual.

There ARE flechette guns though, but they're a rare alien weapon.

Of course, alien-based tech is better and will eventually supercede our good ol' guns. But I think the beauty of it, in this mod, is that we humans are doing our best to bring our technological A-game and trying to scrap every "super cool but obscure" tech we got, to throw at the aliens and close the gap. Like Pulse Detonation Engines.

Wanna know a common scene in movies that I always hated? Soldiers arrive, fire a few shots from a M16, shots bounce or the thing just regenerates, and everyone declares the monster/alien/super-people are invulnerable. Therefore some general ripper decides to go with nuking. Like, what? Its a freaking M16. We got body armor that tanks it.

12

Offtopic / Re: Footage of real XCom ufo interception.

« on: June 07, 2020, 07:13:06 am »

Meh, Singularity is overstimated. Singularity ignores the fact it is impossible to simply iterate on a technology. Technologies can become mature, or stop advancement because the next step requires a material discovery, or even a paradigm change.

A good example: Guns. Guns in 1900 are all semi-auto, bolt-action stuff, with semi-automatics being relatively recent. By 1950, we had assault rifles like the AK47 and the FN-FAL. 2020 guns are pretty much 1950 guns with lighter materials and extra stuff like picatinny rail, etc.

This is because firearms became a mature technology after WWII.

Computers are also a good example. Computers as we know them came about in the 80s. I am not old, but I lived the nineties and the 2000s. You could buy a top computer, and next year, it would be obsolete junk upstaged by the newest shiny stuff. It was ridiculous.

That stopped in the 2010s or thereabouts. A 2010 and a 2020 computer are pretty much the same thing, but the 2020 computer just has ten extra years of tech. A top of line 2010puter would pass muster today. By comparison, a 1990 top computer would be a museum piece in 2000, and the 2000 topcomputer would likewise be junk in 2010.

I think the biggest impediment to AI is the current computer architecture. Look at the human brain. Faster, better, stores more info than hundreds of hard drives, does actual thought and emotion, small, and barely uses enough power to switch on a fridge light. No computer does this and occupies the same space and has the same use of energy.

We cannot beat the human brain with what we call a computer nowadays. We need a paradigm change here. A quantum leap. Maybe quantum computing is the key.

True AI in 2050? More likely, 2500.

There's the chance the aliens are far older, through. But someone in this forum once pointed out that, if you assume life evolved naturally, and their planet followed a similar time-table to ours, then the time for life to appear in the universe is... Right about now.

This is because you need stars of enough metalicity (AKA materials that are not hydrogen and helium) to get a star long-lived and hot enough, and solid planets with enough minerals and such to sustain life. Then enough time for life to evolve properly.

Then there's the fact alien minds are, well... Alien. We don't know how they think. Alien Intelligences are an enigma.

And there's always the issue of tech. Renassaince Europeans were two millenia ahead of the Amerindians, whose technological level was somewhere between the neolithic and the early bronze age. They pretty much won by accident, because of diseases. Europeans still died to spear stabs and arrows anyway.

If America had large, centralized polities at the level of say, the Assyrian Empire, then it is likely things would have turned differently. Hell, Pizarro pretty much lucked out in beating the Incas, the closest thing. Had they been at full power, Pizarro would have been flattened and so would anyone else before 1650.

X-COM is actually logical: The aliens don't attack directly, because taking worlds is hard. Worlds are immense, full of people. If you want to win without bombing everything, you need hundreds of millions of soldiers, even if the locals folded like a cheap lawn chair, because otherwise they might as well create guerilla cells outside your control zones and local polities might start double-dealing. Far easier to coopt the local leaders, especially if you control minds and can play the long game.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.4: Signs of Apocalypse

« on: June 07, 2020, 01:59:58 am »

Isn't the issue with cult weapons justified as transport as much or more than procurement? I mean, you are basically flying your agents in on civilian airliners and presumably shipping the guns in separately to be picked up on site... That's a lot easier to do with weapons that aren't as iconically military as a PKM.

I always thought the issue is that most countries are iffy on letting X-COM use big guns, due to it being a jurisprudence nightmare that could be used in dirty ways by other council members ("uh, those aren't Mossad agents sneaking around Iranian Nuclear Reactors. Those are bona-fide X-COM members. They got alien skull insignias in their swimwear and everything. They are uh, investigating... Stuff. Explosives are tools of investigation")

That, and the fact X-COM is probably considered a joke until Promo I. There's always some super-skeptical fellow who believes everything cam be "explained logically".

So they don't allow X-COM to buy and use these guns and ammo for those, but the regulations never said anything about taking it from killed cult members. Classic loophole.

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The X-Com Files / Re: Questions on damage and armor

« on: June 07, 2020, 01:08:36 am »

I don't understand what exactly you propose. Care to elaborate?

WTF is that?

These ideas range from "possible" to "possible but silly"

What the hell would these do?

1. More ammo diversity for guns.

For example, handgun bullets usually come in Jacketed Hollow Point (JHP) and Armor Piercing (AP).

JHP bullets don't have pointy or ball shaped points, but rather a hollow point. These are often called "Dum-Dum" bullets. These bullets are meant to break and expand upon entering a body, delivering extra damage.

AP is there to pierce armor, like kevlar. They are crafted to penetrate through obstacles and keep going through.

JHP and other similar ammo is generally used by police forces and found in handguns and SMGs, and in some hunting rifles. They are good against unarmored targets, but they can't penetrate body armor or other obstacles - which is often good for police, because it also means they won't go through walls and hit civvies.

AP is generally seen in armed forces, operators, etc. They go through obstacles, but they can also overpenetrate and just keep, which means they won't impart all energy into the target.

Military Rifle JHP bullets do exist, but because the Geneva Convention prohibits expanding and exploding bullets in war, few militaries stock them. Only a few small factories make that. Besides, military rifles use FMJ bullets and these, at rifle speeds are often strong enough to make JHP unecessary. Besides, JHP would make them lose range and accuracy at longer distances.

(Rifles have JSP instead, not sure how good they are)

There's also +P rounds, as in More Pressure. Every gun can take X pressure before bad things happen to it. But sometimes, the gun can take more pressure than the round makes. Or maybe you brought a stronger gun made for +p ammo. So you buy or make a +P round and fire a stronger bullet of the same round.

There's also ball ammo, but I'm not sure how to rate it.

There's also weirder stuff. Did you know 7,62 x 51 NATO DUDS were made and tested? Depleted Uranium Sabots for 7,62 guns. Aparently, those were great armor piercers.

2. Wildcatting. Ok, so some people load bullets by themselves for reasons, like saving up money. That's called Handload. Some people make their own special, different loads, in small quantities. That's what we call a "Wildcat Round". For example, you could take a shotgun shell, and replace the shot with fewer, bigger balls.

3. Well, those were examples. Soviets made poison gas bullets, for example.

(honestly I just wish we got more cool stuff from autopsies and live captures. I had an idea involving spiders myself)

4. Flechettes. You know, not sure. AFAIK the main advantage of flechettes is that you can carry more rounds, and they are pretty good at penetrating armor.


Honestly, someone very good at this could inform you better than me. Where's the gunloving /k folks?

15

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

« on: June 06, 2020, 03:27:02 am »

I got a Shady Tavern mission and it had a 1/1 turn limit, no enemies other than one Westman I got as surrended/capture, and some nifty stuff. Is that WAD? Seems so.

Btw... What's up with Crop Circles/Cattle Mutilation missions with MiBs? We're told to protect the farmers in order to interrogate them, but we never interrogate any. Yeah I just sell farmers now (exhausted their research), but you know, its weird.