Messages

76

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.8.4 alpha: Gauss Curves

« on: February 08, 2018, 01:45:26 pm »

I don't think it would be a bad idea making mutons a little beefier, but only slightly.

I understand what you say about sectoids being better pilots, but this is really like comparing a newbie in a brand new fighter jet to veterans in ww2 fighter planes. The sheer amount of tech in terms of ui, weapons, shields, and nimble steering are far more impactful than raw "reaction time" when you consider they also have neural uplinks which dramatically increases reaction time effectively.

Where as reactions on ground is much more than how quickly neurons can fire, it's about handeye coordination, muscle memory, and practice of instinctive reactions, which i sense sectoids aren't REALLY adapted towards like mutons or other groups. Its like comparing the shooting of a kid on csgo compared to an actual marine who is dealing with the weight of the gun, recoil, combat stress, ect. In other words, aren't sectoids giant space nerds with cutting edge tech?

Though if you want some ideas, i figure giving a muton a heavy alien alloy shield, and a pistol would certainly provide some challenge, and fit the shock trooper role. Especially if you make the shield troop more aggressive while others flank, that would be incredibly scary.

Not sure what could be done for other races that the engine can handle, i thought about waspites hatching into those bees monsters just for the hell of it since those guys seem fragile anyway, but that doesn't leave a corpse does it?

Maybe snake men could be given chameleon like camo, and lower tech to fit the whole hunter vibe? Feel like a hunter joins predator with pet chrysalids...

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.8.4 alpha: Gauss Curves

« on: February 08, 2018, 11:20:30 am »

Alternatively, couldn't sectoids be really lame in terms of reactions and accuracy, acting more like incredibly over-equiped scientists / military officers than troopers? This would make sense, especially with sectoids being higher up in the class hierarchy, and would explain the heavy defensive technology and other abilities, to compensate for lacking cognitive skills of a small, pudgy body. It would be an interesting dynamic, facing enemies who outgun, out Armor out maneuver and out tech xcom in almost every way, both technologically and mentally, but are unfortunately are still outmatched in raw physical ability.

I know this wouldn't be cannon really, but neither is psi shields, and i feel this would give them a bit of a hard counter, abusing the simplely higher stats, while they themselves are horribly over-equiped.

Also, since we have psi shields now, any possibility of infusion of shields on a target psionically, like sectoids on mechtoids in xcom EU? I THINK it would be very interesting to unlock this as an ability, or even face this as a problem, sectoids for instance infusing a weak, temporary version of psi shield on a meat shield chronite soldier, or even shielding a charging chrysalid.  Because nothing would be more terrifying than a sectoid with a pet chrysalid with a psi shield equivalent of combat armor.

78

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

« on: February 08, 2018, 11:06:22 am »

So apparently the 92fs has the same accuracy for aimed and snap...

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

« on: February 07, 2018, 11:40:49 am »

So I'm curious, can you make alien containment function as animal pens / jails? I figure something strong enough to hold ethereals or mutons could certainly hold a zombie trooper, but i was horribly disappointed by the unfortunate truth.

Is it possible to code in, that alien containment functions as a secondary animal pen, only using space if there's no other option?

80

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.8.4 alpha: Gauss Curves

« on: February 06, 2018, 12:49:41 pm »

No weakening sectoid soldier shields?

I almost wonder if it might be better to segregate sectoid soldiers from sectoid security guards, and have much weaker shields on security guards.

Just capturing one is a huge task, and almost everyone I've talked to sees them as a pretty big hurtle because of how tanky they are.

All in all it really radically changes old balance, where taking a small sectoid ufo was a challenge, but nothing big... Now it feels comparable to a chrysalid / snake ship.

If this stays the case, perhaps chronites should instead be the primary first wave, possibly even ships with mix races, like a bunch of chronite soldiers, sectoid staff, and sectoid leader. After all, seems like sectoid soldiers would be FAR more valuable now than some mass produced chronites / blue dudes ( i forget their name) and I'd figure if sectoid soldiers were more dangerous than chronites, they would save them for raids, terror missions, defense of high value ships / missions, or something of more importance than mutilation of cows... Just a suggestion, because I'm pretty sure sectoids are tougher than mutons now.

.... I really wish there was a way to test this, testing ai mutons vs ai sectoids, seeing who wins

81

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.8.3 alpha: It's a Long Way to Cydonia

« on: February 02, 2018, 06:47:41 pm »

I've gotten a ufo with promotion 0/1 guns myself, but it was a suicide mission, and this was well before the shields, so frankly I'm scared shit less to try now.

I suppose it might be possible with heavy shotgun / Magnum use, and serious luck, but its certainly not as simple as pumping a single slug into the sectoid now. Shame because the income increase alone from a ufo early was a huge boon

82

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

« on: January 24, 2018, 07:56:45 am »

I think the scout tank size is GROSSLY disproportional : at least checking numbers from FMP the scout tank is identical in storage space to a full sized tank. I'd suggest making it 1.5 units, rather than 7, considering its significantly smaller in all demensions. Besides, being able to stock some for base defense would be nifty.

On the topic, isn't 15 hp and 6 rounds a little light? The rounds hit hard, but it seems like a single pistol round can put it out of commission on high damage rolls, while anything else almost promises a death. Id figure a jump to 40 hp would be reasonable, after all, its supposed to be LIGHTLY armored, but besides being able to resist ultra light rounds SOME of the time, it seems incredibly fragile at all other times. At least 40 would give it a decent chance to resist a rifle round once without falling apart. on anything but a lowball.

The 6 round magazine also seems a little light. I mean, it can't exactly reload mid mission. What about 8 or even 10 shots?

I also want to say, the sectoid power shields are horribly over powered. It seems they fully restore after a single turn, which means unless you train lots of fire at them on 1 turn, they wont even be hurt. It wouldn't be so bad if the shields took longer (4 turns maybe?) to fully restore, but it seems like it takes several m60 rounds just to break the shield, much less DAMAGE the target.

Generally, I've found the sectoid ships to be ridiculously dangerous, between the shields and psionic attacks. It takes continued grenade launcher attacks, m60 fire, grenades, just to drop a single soldier. I understand soldiers should be a little hardy, but the sectoids are easily several fold more difficult to kill than gazers in FMP. I think either the total shield HP should be lowered, regeneration made slower than instant, or both. Another idea is to make the shield HP take from unit energy, or possibly even deal significant stun damage when it bursts, so at least bursting the shield multiple times will knock out the user, so its not so cheap.

p90 should have its auto fire mode raised to a larger burst size : p90 is known for its fast automatic fire isn't it?

83

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

« on: January 23, 2018, 12:07:08 pm »

I really think the multi launcher could do with being reduced to 65-60 damage. Its currently more compact than the UAC rocket launcher in comparison to capacity, more accurate, has an immense 8 shot magazine, and barely does less than standard RPG rounds. Alternatively, any possibility of seperating them into mini rockets, and full sized rockets? Giving the 8 round drum with a smaller damage, comparable to the heavy grenade launcher, and the standard damage, or even slightly buffed for a 4 round drum? I relied unbelievably heavy on this in FMP, and it was a little cheap then, and I doubt its much better now.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.8d alpha: Stone of Atlantis

« on: December 25, 2017, 05:50:00 am »

Its very playable and beatable. You start off as a small organization and eventually become a global military superpower fighting aliens.

Very enjoyable mod, makes finally getting body armor and assault rifles feel great

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.8d alpha: Stone of Atlantis

« on: December 24, 2017, 11:15:32 pm »

Are medals increasing stats functional yet? I really think it would be an interesting way to have further customization on troops, particularly with medals showing how adept someone is with medkits, pistols, armor, and other stuff.. It would be a good incentive to have for instance a dedicated medic.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.6 alpha: Rapid Fire

« on: December 01, 2017, 04:26:42 pm »

I think maybe the arrival of it is dictated a little bit by difficulty, but also with the tech tree its highly dependent on play style.

On super human with 8 guys, this is the first win (with no captures mind you) I've had, and my goodness it felt exploity. I'll try later with an osprey, see what I can do (hopefully blowing up less buildings containing possible loot)

I have a little more confidence the osprey will work and give me a fighting chance, but i haven't even thought about captures of troopers / megas.

.... Ill need to make a game plan for capturing them, hopefully without a squad full of casualties

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.6 alpha: Rapid Fire

« on: December 01, 2017, 01:01:53 am »

Well, I gave it another whack, and finally did it, albiet with a pretty exploity tactic. I used a high explosive to sabotage the ramp of the dragonfly (and bust out a hold in the side of the right engine) to give myself a platform to fight from where zombies without guns could not reach.

It took 100 turns exactly, and I STILL lost half my troops, but I did it.

....Please do not change the damage values on the dragonfly, as blowing up my own ship was legitimately my only option.

Blowing up your own ship for the win, I guess..

@TKZV : the biggest issue is the sheer amount of melee rush, it feels like I'm roleplaying terran forces fighting zerg while outnumbered out gunned and giving the zergs a few cannons to boot : on SH, the sheer amount means with 8 people its almost impossible to have enough DPS to kill the zombies as they come UNLESS you deny them pathfinding to you, which is why I was successful in blowing up my own ship to survive : no ramp, means no melee threat (though its a horrible waiting game waiting for passing zombies to plink) though the other gunner zombies are a serious threat. I had the first 2 guys with riot shields to help block cannon fire, and while I survived, one guy got killed anyway, and another guy passed out, but lived because cannon fire.

Admitably I probably could of done better, firing a flamethrower out the back of the ship is a bad idea, and got 2 guys killed because flames hitting the sides of the ship, but that really wasn't a huge deal

My conclusion is on super human, its absolutely essential to cut of melee access by any means necessary

As for the numbers, I'm not sure, I know I had over a dozen zombie troopers aand half a dozen megazombies...55 units total I think. Crazy

EDIT : also, apparently I need to capture ALIVE a zombie trooper or megazombie?...not even sure how to go about this, as surviving was hard enough... Maybe I should try the osprey ship to do this, double the amount of troops sounds like it might give me a chance. Though researching that takes a considerable delay past when the missions show up it seems

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.6 alpha: Rapid Fire

« on: November 30, 2017, 04:38:03 am »

Well, at least the ninjas are last, rather than pouncing in the middle of being shot

Explosives work very well for them, incendiary grenades in particular screw ups camo.

Also, if you expose most of the map tiles and have few enemies left, you can scan for enemies in bug hunt mode.


I really do give up with the whole magma labs situation : it seems like the map is just impossible on super human, m60s, flamers, riot shields, explosives, I've tried them all but the battle of attrition is just too much, its too much HP to burn through, with too few agents (8 in the dragonfly) with not enough of a fighting chance

I seriously doubt it can be pheasably beaten on super human, because the aggressive swarp, projectiles, and several infectors / megazombies. At best I've wiped out with roughly half the zombies wiped out

I do wonder what can be done to fix this, maybe a higher density of fences / walls to slow down the zombie swarm, or possibly magma security personnel / drones trying to help the situation some. Just something of where this is beatable, because I honestly don't see it to be possible within the expected timeline : with alloy vests, m60s, rpgs and flamethrowers, I would hope it would be possible, but I just cant do it with 8 men in the dragon fly, I get surrounded and picked off too fast every time, and there isn't enough firepower to kill the hoard as fast as they come.

Sorry for the consistent complaints with this mission, but I sincerely think its flat impossible, or at least highly improbable to beat within that level of tech advancement, and I think its a bit harsh of a wall to hide cannons behind : after all they are an invaluable weapon early on, but even the relatively

Some ideas which might subtly adjust the difficulty
-Drones / turrets / security personnel around the level, similar to military operations, which attempt to thin out a few zombies (but obviously won't do everything). This would help substantially in drawing away enemy attacks long enough to get a breather from the first wave. Especially a few static turrets, or even a machinegun armored car would help, and would probably be trashed by zombies quick enough. A gun turret on a pillar in particular would be interesting, even if just 1, and the infectors combined with a few human personel would more than make up for the difficulty change.
-Restructure the level to be slightly more maze like : the industrial zones of the ghoul people in piratez, where doom monsters spawn is a very good example : winding pathways, lots of fences, stairs, and other obstacles to impeded both the zombies / xcom. A few bottlenecks here and there would go a LONG way in making the difficulty manageable.
-Add some more verticality. The flat, mostly open map gives zombies a huge advantage over xcom especially with the numbers : a few buildings that block pathways like mentioned above, or ditches / walls would help substantially in giving xcom a useful terrain to fight from. Perhaps even an approach similar to the sewer level of the cyborgs, with chemical ditches and bridges would be interesting, and give xcom a slight edge.

Sorry for the bitter complaints, but I really do think it simply cannot be done on super human until much later.

....If someone can beat this on super human, let me know. I'd like to know if I'm missing something here.

89

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.6 alpha: Rapid Fire

« on: November 21, 2017, 09:54:06 pm »

Also the cqc update, wasn't that around v5?

Cqc involves a chance to react to point black gunfire with trying to wrestle the gun away. It involves a check between the shooter and defender, with a successful roll forcing the shooter to shoot left, right, or straight up instead of the intended target, so long as the defender is within 1 tile of the shooter

Pretty good for mixing up close quarters combat significantly, it can either completely screw you over (force you to shoot your allies) or a life saver (avoiding point blank shotgun fire)

It is however tied to melee /  strength / reaction skill, and requires being right next to the shooter, so you can completely avoid this if you simply always fire from no less than 2 tiles away.

Contrary, rushing a gunner with a high melee pawn can be useful in negating a particularly strong enemy, as an enemy with a plasma rifle isn't as dangerous if they miss

There are variables based on strength, facing (the more the person faces the other, the better their role... From behind completely is usually always successful)

... Sorry if you already knew about this, but 2 or 3 versions back i think includes this.

I hope concerned citizens are made a little more scary, last i tried i was incredibly wreck less, and only got one guy knocked out with a bat.

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The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 0.7.4 alpha: Shoggoth on The Roof

« on: November 07, 2017, 10:53:02 pm »

Sounds great, but i need to work to pass a few archs of the game to catch up. Maybe now i can get past the magma industry zombies.

Are throwing knives game for undercover missions?