Topics

16

OXCE Support / [Answered] build-over of research space leads to negative research space used

« on: January 03, 2024, 05:29:37 pm »

When playing XCF and building an Advanced Intelligence Center over Intelligence Center (which provides space for5 researchers), with all the researchers full at work, I got to -5 available research space. So I suppose the scientists can continue working on their on-going projects in the living quarters even if the lab goes under construction.

I recall seeing this before as well. If you reassign scientists, you can no longer go negative. But I do have a recollection that some others things are checked in other build-overs (IIRC for example building over a facility that provides storage capacity requires reducing the used storage capacity first).

I wonder if it's intentional that this is not checked at build-over phase, and prevented - requiring you to de-assign the scientists first?

17

The X-Com Files / Synthmuscles availability

« on: January 02, 2024, 07:45:41 pm »

Another note inspired by Stone Lake's SH/IM run. If you get lucky and obtain synthmuscles (and later alien surgery from somewhere else) early in the game, this can dramatically change the game, even change the game balance. It's a completely different early and mid-game experience to have a number of synthsuits versus having to do without. You can even go through most of the campaign without seeing any of them.

There is about 4 % to get one or more synthmuscles out of an osiron crate. This is a very high chance (among the highest of what you get from osiron crates). If you wanted to rebalance the game to avoid these "extremely lucky runs", I'd remove synthmuscles completely from osiron crates or decrease their chances. On the other hand, the chances to get them from MIB crates could be increased. Given that MIBs actually use synthmuscles themselves in their armors it should be reasonably likely to find them there (currentl it's possible but it's actually more likely to find them in osiron crates rather than in MIB crates).

18

OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE][Suggestion] display craft's estimated flight time (ETA)

« on: January 02, 2024, 10:47:29 am »

It would be very useful to display the estimated flight time of crafts somehow, especially in mods which have slow crafts and missions with despawn timers counted in hours or days (and missions which despawn even if targeted).

This would make it easier to try to figure out if the craft will get there in time. (You can return to base immediately if you're not happy with the result.) This might also help if you're trying to figure out whether it's day or night on the other side of the globe when you arrive there, depending on which you prefer for the mission.

While the speed of craft is not linear due to different values of craft acceleration, for simplicity the estimate could ignore the acceleration and be based on a simpler linear calculation t=s/v (remaining distance over maximum velocity). Especially for missions where this would be most useful this would be a very good estimate.

Without bigger changes to GUI I don't see an easy way to display this information when you're selecting the destination, so I'm not proposing that - but rather an easy way to check it afterwards. So, I have two specific suggestions where to place this information.

1) in craft interception overview.  Where it now says "EN ROUTE", there's some space to add a few bits of information. This could say for example "EN ROUTE (13.7 h)". I would propose using only the hours here, and the accuracy of 0.1 or 1 hour (how it's rounded up/down doesn't really matter). I suppose the estimate is close enough so that you don't need a "~" there. Omit brackets and use just hours without decimals if you need to conserve space. So the most minimal way to display this information would be, for example, "EN ROUTE 2h".

2) in craft destination details. Where it now says "STATUS>(...)", if the craft has a destination, add a row below saying "ARRIVAL IN: 13.7 h.", with yellow and indented to the same level as DESTINATION. If you want, this could also show days, hours and minutes instead of just showing it in hours. ("ARRIVAL" or some other term instead of "FLIGHT TIME" to use a neutral term that applies to all kinds of craft.)

Instead of a new row, it might be possible to add the information at the end of the destination string like in 1), but this might lead to problems if the destination string is long. And because there is lot of free space in this dialog, I'd propose adding a more detailed information as a separate row.

19

OXCE Bugs FIXED / [FIXED][Bug] Needed item coloring issue

« on: January 01, 2024, 08:39:56 pm »

Another change or regression in the screenshot. Previously an unresearched topic would show up in 'ITEM DESTROYED' as pink-ish. Now everything is in white, whether new or already researched. With this change there is no longer (AFAIK) a handy way to check if you have already researched the items recovered from a mission (depending a bit on how what the research gives you is structured - at least those ones that don't open up any new researches but give you a few points).

20

OXCE Support / [Answered] unit visibility stacking dark&smoke since 7.9.17 -> too potent

« on: December 06, 2023, 07:53:35 pm »

There have been recent changes to how smoke might or might not stack with other visibility modifiers, see e.g. Yankes earlier fix with camo: https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/commit/e1f5d582df1ae071d4a441e62c92076c49643e38

This still seems to cause major issues. I just noticed with XCF that in 7.9.20 if you use smoke in darkness, you need to be in an adjacent square to see the enemy unit (without any camo) - one square off and there is no sight anymore. I reproduced this in 'New battle'. See the screenshot (when two agents don't see the enemies).

FWIW, the normal night visibility in suits in XCF is 9 squares, personal light 5 squares.

When I added a flare and so eliminated the impact of darkness, the agent could see the enemy from 4 squares off, from 5 squares no visibility. This seems normal.

I also tested several versions of 7.9.19 and 7.9.18 and all were bugged. When I rolled back to a version of 7.9.16, the visibility in dark & smoke was again the same as in light & smoke.

So I think the unit visibility change refactoring introduced for 7.9.17 in https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/commit/e35c669db14f170adc5b37e609861fb923574b19 is still buggy in this respect.

I don't think a game-changing feature of dark and smoke stacking at all, let alone in this manner, has or at least should have been intentional. This would be a major change from OXC and OG behaviour.

21

OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE] QOL: escorts redirected to the base after the escorted craft's mission is over?

« on: November 26, 2023, 03:41:17 pm »

When a craft is returning from a ground mission, it cannot be attacked by the alien craft. Thus there is never any need for escorts (but the escorts themselves may be in danger of hunter-killers and at any rate, it would make sense to get them back for refueling etc,). Because the escorts are usually much faster than the transports, they should always return home immediately after the craft which had a mission is on the return journey (unless the player wants to give them some other target).

Would it be feasible to make a small QOL improvement: the escorts would automatically be redirected to the base after the craft they're escorting is on its return journey (obviously, the player could redirect the escorts to do something else if needed). This would avoid all the clicking after each mission.

I'm assuring the game is aware that an escort is escorting a craft that is returning from a mission (_craft->getMissionComplete(), I suppose) and actually requires no escort.

22

OXCE Bugs FIXED / [FIXED] multistage mission proceeding to the next stage if enemies surrender

« on: November 12, 2023, 08:31:13 pm »

If the final enemies surrender or get under MC in a former part of a multistage mission, the game proceeds to the next stage as if you aborted the mission on exit squares (= you don't get the equipment on your craft). This should be similar to 'pure' victory.

I noticed this with XCF here:

In UAC Aerospace Lab mission, the final enemy(ies) surrendered and I was moved to the underground phase. However, no equipment (either on the craft or from the enemies) transferred on that stage, so even though I got the chance re-equip the squad, the pool to choose from was empty. There was also no loot pile to equip from anywhere on the floor, as there always has been on multistage missions.

This is likely a bug, but it seems so strange that I have no idea where. Sorry, I didn't save before the first part ended.

When reposting, zRrr was kind enough to reproduce this and provide a save (see on the thread).

This is something for Meridian and Yankes, currently oxce only tests, if all remaining aliens are under mind control, else game treats it as if player moved soldiers on exit tile and aborted. MiB Lunar Base or any other multistage mission with surrendering enemies will have same issue. Probably should be reported under OXCE Bugs.

Anyway, here is save from quick battle. Hit the scientist to get your stuff, press "next turn" to not.

23

OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE] more debug logging for mission scripts processing?

« on: October 22, 2023, 12:16:44 pm »

I've had several campaigns where mission scripts have had really strange RNG, like a mission with 0.33 probability not occurring for 12 months in a row even though the requirements are met (the mathematical probability for something like this being less than 1 %).

Would it be possible to include a debug log, for example before this check in GeoscapeState::determineAlienMissions()? If the debug log showed which potential missions proceeded to the RNG check, at least you might be able to rule out any bugs before that? (Looking at the RNG code it would be far more intrusive and spammy to add debugging there.)

                                // level three condition check: does random chance favour this command's execution?
                                if (triggerHappy && RNG::percent(eventScript->getExecutionOdds()))
                                {
                                        relevantEventScripts.push_back(eventScript);
                                }

24

The X-Com Files / Tamed Minotaur

« on: October 19, 2023, 09:40:55 pm »

Minotaur taming appears to be less useful than I had hoped. In base defense, they wake up from the corpses after turn 1. The "corpses" spawn in some random square with equipment. This is probably due to engine limitations on how it is achieved. This means that they have no useful equipment, and it is essentially impossible to find anything they could actually use (like an axe) from all the loot. Their weaponless attack is puny (about 50% chance). I suppose they could only work to some extent on bases which have very limited amount of loot or storage. Or for scouting. Or your agents will need to prepare by being equipped with a spare weapon that can be given to the minotaur(s) in later turns.

25

The X-Com Files / Weak UFOs

« on: October 19, 2023, 06:56:31 pm »

Now, in the work-in-progress 3.2 tree, hybrid convoys move. However, they do not appear to land, but rather just despawn eventually. And the convoys are so weak (e.g. medium convoy takes 50 damage) that almost any weapon one-shots and often destroys them utterly (for example, Kitsune with either a missile or gauss cannon).

Either the convoys should "land" and the mission could be undertaken that way and/or their damage capacity should be rebalanced. Or is it really intended that you preserve a really weak craft with puny weapons to deal with such things that start occurring only in the middle game?

Essentially the same thing, by the way, with syndicate retaliation missions. For example, medium 'Scarab' can apparently transport almost a dozen minotaurs and 40 human troops, yet only takes 80 damage and you one-shot destroy it with essentially any weapon except the puny useless early-game ones (e.g. regular craft cannon)..

26

The X-Com Files / Surrendering cultists

« on: October 14, 2023, 06:18:49 am »

Whether cult units are able to surrender appears to be somewhat inconsistent. Some of these might be intentional but I suspect for some units this might be an omission. Not taking into account various armored cars:

Every EXALT cult unit (including the Brainer) is able to surrender.

Every Red Dawn cult unit is able to surrender (including the hybrid envoys in the HQ).

Out of Black Lotus units, only the avatar and assassins cannot surrender.

Out of Dagon units, only the disciples can surrender. That is, priests, chosen and sorcerers cannot. Likewise, the alien units gilldogs, deep ones and gillmen cannot surrender.

As said, these might be intentional and there might be lore reasons why some units always fight or flee with zeal to the end. Unfortunately this quite often leads to annoying bug hunts, especially with the BL assassins. Also trying to find the last gillman terrorist(s) for example in the HQ mission, after everyone else has been killed off, often leads to casualties.

I'd suggest adding canSurrender:true to at least BL assassins, and also at least some Dagon human units. This would significantly increase the gameplay experience without detrimental effects (I don't think this would provide a too easy path to obtain a BL assassin for questioning in order to get the martial arts path; you could always capture one with tasers anyway).

27

The X-Com Files / Manor spawning scripts

« on: July 24, 2023, 06:21:40 am »

Starting month 20, there is 8*2 = 16 % chance per cult to spawn a Manor. The spawned manor has 80 % chance to be level 1, 15 % to be level 2 and 5 % to be level 3. AlienBaseUpgrades is defined so that after 5 months, the chance of getting bigger is 30 % and after 10 months it's 100 %.

The chances of even getting HQ Base missions and capturing a commander depend on RNG. In my current game, at month 22, I haven't had any exalt or dagon missions where I would have the chance to go for the HQ afterwards; I only got Black lotus shrine a month ago (all of these after some 9 months of waiting for them). It's really weid that I should have had 6*4 = 24 % chance at these missions per month.

Is it really fair that there is a chance (even a small one, ie. 0.8 % per cult per month) of spawning directly the greatest manor (with MIGs to guard it) even if the RNG has not even offered you a chance to take down the cult yet?

I'd suggest considering some alternatives, for example:
- greatest manors start spawning directly only after you have reseached the specific cult HQ,  but have chosen not to go for it to contain it.
- great and greater manors keep spawning, and they might upgrade a bit earlier to the greatest manor if you don't deal with it quick enough. (There is of course a slight problem of not noticing that a manor even exists somewhere on the globe, but often you get some missions that give you hints or fly by it at some point.)

I would also suggest increasing the chance for CultBase* missions slightly (for example, up from 4 % to 5, 6 or 8 % each) to make it more likely that you'll get the base mission soon after researching the cult operations. After all, if you don't like it, you can just skip it or go there and abort the mission, no harm done.

28

The X-Com Files / Month 0 mission scripts

« on: July 10, 2023, 07:14:02 am »

Reposting a link here. Month 0 (beginning of game at the end of December 1996) spawns a number of missions, which due to very small start delay and randomization crop up in January 1997. But that same month ("1") also spawns essentially a similar set of missions. Therefore you get double the number of missions in January 1997 compared to, for example, February 1997.

I can see no reason why January 1997 should have double the number of missions compared to, say, February 1997. Changing firstMonth: 0 to 1 should fix this bug. Also otherwise, IMHO it would also be nice to give a player a bit slower and easier start (for example, a bit more time to develop early research). If you get crazy RNG (as I had in the post), you could end up having 20+ missions in January 1997 which is physically impossible and you're guaranteed a bad month score.

More details based on geoscape debug log:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4595.msg156282.html#msg156282

BTW: Also 'Shotgun' ufopedia description goes on two pages (not sure if this was the exact same thing as reported before, because this is maybe due to many ammo types).

29

Open Feedback / TFTD cruise ship map bug

« on: January 14, 2023, 08:12:54 am »

I reported this in the context of TWoTS, but this problem originates from vanilla maps. Is there a way to fix the vanilla map bugs so that it's fixed both in vanilla as well as all the mods using vanilla maps, instead of in all the mods?

Another hole in the cruise ship terror mission floor plan. In the square, you get a sighting to the Deep One located one level upstairs from the red square. I recall having been killed before from the outside while in this elevator, but now I got my own sighting on this.

30

OXCE Suggestions DONE / [DONE][Suggestion] scaling up the interception window to show more than 8 craft

« on: October 28, 2022, 05:46:57 pm »

The interception pop-up window shows at most eight craft, for the rest you have to scroll them down. In usual campaigns you'll have more than that (I have never exceeded about 12-14, but I suppose that is possible as well). This is likely a result of 320x200 planescape, where you couldn't fit much more on the screen (maybe one could squeeze in a few more if you took all the screen). I suppose everyone currently plays with higher resolutions and scaling. I wonder if the size of the interception pop-up window could be scaled up so that it would show more craft at once? Or would that be technically unfeasible if you also have to provide compatibility for the 320x200 mode?