Messages

31

OXCE Suggestions NEW / Re: [Suggestion] PageUp / PageDoown hotkey in lists

« on: September 15, 2024, 01:33:49 pm »

Now that this has been mentioned, I must admit scrollwheeling larger lists can be a bit tedious and even tolling for wrists at times.

PgUp/PgDown seems like a good solution. No preference whether a button just does one scroll, or there would be behaviour for holding it down.

An alternative approach might be holding down some keyboard button + scrollwheel would scroll whole screen at a time, instead of one entry at a time. This would be in line with some other such keyboard + mouse combinations.

32

The X-Com Files / Re: X-Com gameplay and setup questions

« on: September 15, 2024, 07:01:08 am »

A) The description is vague, but you're probably referring to the middle mouse button (MMB). You can check the enemy unit's weapons and whether it's bleeding etc. that way.
B) You need to be on the same tile as the loot pile.
C) Why make it more complicated with submods if you're a newbie? Just play the main mod at first. Though you could try Resound mod (adding more variability to gun sounds etc.) if you wish.
D) XCF is difficult compared to vanilla games in the sense that you need to learn new battlescape tactics due to special OXCE features it uses (at least if you want to play it without save scumming). BOXCE is even more difficult in this aspect and is constantly evolving. Based on your starting level you'll likely be screwed playing XCF at Genius unless you do quite a bit of save/reloads.

33

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [DONE][Suggestion] Keyboard Shortcut to Add Indicator over a Soldier

« on: September 14, 2024, 08:05:09 pm »

This is a more general question. Would it be possible to trigger the build process automatically for tagged subreleases, say 7.14.1, 2, etc.?  So that users could grab the latest subrelease from https://openxcom.org/oxce/release/ (or some other site or directory) to more easily test new things. As far as I understand currently you would need to compile it youself, which is a high bar for most people.

34

The X-Com Files / Re: Help with Troop Ship mission w/ 15+ Cyberdiscs

« on: September 14, 2024, 06:15:17 pm »

The base damage of nitro express rifle with 100 ACC is 33+40=73, but armor effectiveness is 1.5. Take for example BO sniper rifle, which with 100 ACC would be 30+25=55, yet armor effectiveness is 0.75. So against 20 armor, nitro and BO sniper are essentially equivalent. But if the enemy has 30, 40 or 50 armor, nitro becomes essentially useless while the sniper rifles still punch through.

It's fine if you haven't been able to scavenge more laser rifles / laser sniper riles. Typically you could have improved lab (and thus access to laser manufacturing) up by 1999, but it's no big deal if you don't. You could just stick to promo II era sniper rifles until you do.

Turrents are 'sniper' units. It means that if any alien unit that is a 'spotter' (almost all of them are) sees your unit or you hit one directly during previous 1 or 2 turns (depending on the unit), ALL the sniper units will be able to fire at the spotted unit even though it doesn't see the unit. Smoke only helps for direct line of sight, but that is not the main thing to worry about here. There are various tactics to avoid this and you can read about them in this forum. The best would be running back to the craft or behind some cover. But if you are not aware of this, you're very likely screwed given how underdeveloped you are to deal with alien laser turrets. You really want to have shrapnel rockets or charges.

35

The X-Com Files / Re: Help with Troop Ship mission w/ 15+ Cyberdiscs

« on: September 14, 2024, 04:16:04 pm »

Just run. You are way behind in the curve. A good player could possibly salvage the mission, but the odds are very much against you.
- Nitro Express Rifle is useless against armored units and rather inaccurate. I guess it could have some niche use against sectoids. I never even bother with it, the sniper rifles are much better in that respect (having 0,75 armor resistance and bonuses to accuracy as well as damage).
- The base damage of star musket even with 100 PST is about 50, which is not all that much, compared to what you have.
- Trasher heavy shotgun can work against lightly armored foes, but it's overkill against sectoids. I have found it to be most useful in the Zombie Reactor mission with lots of megazombies etc, because it can give good DPS. Otherwise I don't use it at all.
- I have never bothered with sonic pistols either (in underwater blasta rifles or the x-com sonic tech are a better option). There are better options for overground combat.
 
So in general I'd advise to stop carrying around old junk from 1997ish era and try to arm your squad with more modern tech. For example, you'd be much better off equipping all soldiers (all should have at least ~90 ACC) with laser sniper rifles. To deal with the turrents, you'd really be best off with a few (advanced) rocket launchers with shrapnel rockets.

36

The X-Com Files / Re: Tips for cave missions

« on: September 12, 2024, 11:09:51 pm »

I think all caves have light level 7 or 9. You really don't need to bring any extra light at all - even though it's dark, you can actually still see quite enough. Usually there aren't even enough tiles on a direct line anyway.

In general I'd usually recommend taking 4-5 dogs to various caves (assuming you have kitsune or osprey caliber craft). They are more dispensable and in close quarters reaction barking can be useful. Weapons with reasonable reaction fire is often also useful. If the mission is not an important one, or you don't want the excitement, it may be worth skipping some of those missions.

As far as I recall, the Dimension X cave layout is basically the same, or at least the path to the exit nodes is easily recognizable. It can be difficult to find every enemy unit (2x2 units can also be stuck somewhere) and most of the times I just go straight to the exit point, not even trying to find and kill all the enemies.

As for Chtonite Minibase Assault, one way to deal with silacoids is a high-explosive. Though it could make some parts of the caves inaccessible. Melee weapons work rather well. It's relatively safe to melee them because they have no ranged reaction shots and their bite is abysmally (but not completely) inaccurate against a good reactions agent. In later game if you have developed strong psionics you will want to MC them. Mind-controlling them and their psiVision 20 makes the Chtonite Minibase Assaults much easier and can help you avoid nasty surprises.

The next parts of Going deeper (Shogg village) are very easy; you may need to repeat them multiple times. Only the last part of the arc (reptoids) requires a little bit more care.

37

The X-Com Files / Re: Any downsides to requesting Veteran agents? Also 1 handed gun + shield choice

« on: September 12, 2024, 10:45:37 pm »

Is there a way to see which missions are locked behind a set date? I tried checking the data viewer but couldnt see it mentioned, but a few events did mention needing specific months like the Golden Academy.

You have to look manually at the ruleset files. The missionScripts file is the most important one, but there may be something of interest in eventScripts file as well.

Checking the boxes I didnt see it from Osiron but did see it from Land Survey but its less than 1%, but might try to get some from cycling my other boxes for the sake of it, as would be fun to try out EMP as never did that damage type before, or bio, or chemical, or anti-E115. I mostly just stuck to Kinetic, Laser, Plasma and Cutting with electric / stun. I was never sure if EMP would be worth it or not since the robots have some resistance to it, but I guess the ignoring armour mentioned in the description helps bypass that?

Just looking at it can be deceptive. For example MIB Heavy Trooper takes 50 % damage from EMP which looks really bad at first sight. But for example EMP Mine the armor effectiveness is 0,25, it has damage 100, and it has 400% stun damage. One EMP mine will stun (sometimes also overstun, leading to its death eventually) usually take down any enemy unit which takes even a little damage from EMP. Within MIB Stealth Bombers if you are not susceptible to EMP yourself, you could just go next to one, drop the mine and move to trigger it, and watch the MIB heavy go down. No need necessarily to even throw it and wait for the end of turn.

CHOKE (e.g. gas grenades and mines) is another extremely effective damage type, one that can be overlooked if you don't look closely.

38

The X-Com Files / Re: Any downsides to requesting Veteran agents? Also 1 handed gun + shield choice

« on: September 12, 2024, 07:01:52 am »

You get EMP from Jarheads. The most reliable way to get them is let a Dagon manor proceed to level 2 and then dealing with that. Starting from month 20, there's also 7 % chance of a Jarhead terror mission (and Dagon HQ now has a minuscule 2 % chance of spawning such a mission).

39

The X-Com Files / Re: Any downsides to requesting Veteran agents? Also 1 handed gun + shield choice

« on: September 11, 2024, 10:33:18 pm »

Dealing with heavy MIBs essentially requires EMP grenades/mines or ghost arc weapons. Hadriex gun can work, with patience, but one or two katapeltes blob shots will stun or kill a heavy MIB. And a good PST agent with Manus will kill anyone with one hit.  There are some additional options to killing heavy MIBs, but you want to capture most of them alive if you can, to steal and use their heavy armors yourself.

40

The X-Com Files / Re: Any downsides to requesting Veteran agents? Also 1 handed gun + shield choice

« on: September 11, 2024, 09:30:10 pm »

I've been using the BlackOps Pistols into BlackOps Smart Pistols so far for the quickdraw and for shield agents and have found them to be very effective against things at the Promotion 2-3 point. I'm currently facing MiB and Syndicate where they have lost their edge and not sure if its worth investing into Mass Driver Pistols or to hold out longer for Turbolasers and Gauss and continue using Blackops Auto-Sniper Rifles without a sidearm since I don't have shield agents anymore

There are multiple options after BO (smart)pistol era that depend on what you have obtained. For example, BO Macro SMG is a reasonably good choice and usually will punch through eventually, but when you get it depends a bit on RNG. Even if you don't have it, you can still mostly use sniper rifles. In particular .308 Cal has extremely accurate snapshot  once the agents' Bravery has improved a bit (say 50,60+, while allowing for some movement.

I have never bothered with Mass Driver weapons for soldiers (the tech is useful yo research for other progress, however). Researching it requires capturing a live alien. But when you have done it, you can also progress down the laser path. If you play your cards right, you will have scavenged some  laser weapons from MIBs. And you don't even need to research anything to use them. The lasers are efficient against armored human enemies, because most of them have some resistance to kinetic (requiring effective regular weaponry to be effective), but not lasers. So if you're experiencing difficulties delivering damage, those may be worth checking out.

As for MIBs, the best way to deal with them is TAC grenade launcher + gas grenades on open maps. Their crafts are also a goldmine. There is usually just one MIB outdoors, everyone else is cramped indoors, and they get out usually one by one. With a few dogs you may want to more or less rush to the craft and block the exit with reaction barking. Once they get out one by one, stun and/or melee them. Capturing live MIBs when you have not researched that specific type of MIB also gives you huge number of points. But watch out, you need to pick the location carefully. In the worst case one MIB will open a door while the other will blast you through the open door, if you pick a spot where they can do so.

41

The X-Com Files / Re: Is grenade launcher damage nerfed?

« on: September 07, 2024, 10:19:59 pm »

Thanks for tip! Which I assume related to any shooting weapon? In any case this make throwing grenades even more overpowered than I thought.

Yes, it affects any shooting weapon, and melee as well. It does not apply to "area effects", so thrown grenades or splash damage from grenade launchers, rocket launchers, etc. does not trigger this behavior.

Yes, I have seen these numbers too. May be some mechanic has changed from OXC? In FMP grenade launcher do well even on aliens which are much better protected than early x-files scum.

Let's take a look at first-level cultists in XCF:
- Red Dawn Ganger: 50 health + 5 armor
- Supporter of Dagon: 40 health + 5 armor
- Black lotus follower: 35 health + 5 armor
- Exalt infiltrator: 30 health + 5 armor

So it's unlikely that you kill even an initial RD ganger with one grenade, you'll need to roll quite a bit higher than 100%. For the rest a 100 % damage roll is enough, and with some by quite a large margin. None of them are guaranteed however. In vanilla and FMP, sectoids are 30 health and 2-4 points or armor. So they are essentially comparable to exalt infiltrators. A very likely kill with one, but not guaranteed. In XCF sectoids are tougher, because they also have PSI shields.

42

The X-Com Files / Re: Is grenade launcher damage nerfed?

« on: September 07, 2024, 08:41:15 pm »

Grenade damage is 50, grenade launcher HE is 48. This has not changed in the last couple of years at least. I have not played FMP, but looking at the rulesets, those are the same. So there's no real difference, though the blast radius of grenade is 5 instead of HE grenade's 4. Both have damage spread of 50-150 %. With this kind of damage you can't really depend on even weaker cultists dying of one hit, though the weaklings often do.

BTW: it does not make sense to directly target enemies with grenade launcher. If you score a direct hit, your unit is marked as spotted and enemy sniper units can fire at the unit or throw grenades at it even though they don't see your unit. Throwing grenades does not have this issue, and you can also target an adjacent tile.

43

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [DONE][Suggestion] Keyboard Shortcut to Add Indicator over a Soldier

« on: September 06, 2024, 10:44:24 pm »

I've gotten used to using ALT very extensively. If you have a scaled battlescape, as I suppose essentially everyone has now, it's not really many screens to scroll to see everything even on, say, 60x60 map (in contrast to OG). Usually I only use the minimap in bug-hunt mode or check how far I am from the borders of the map (also by pressing ALT on minimap to see the borders, if I recall correctly; easily checkable with scrolling as well). Instead of minimap, it's way more convenient to just  press ALT to spot the units (also scanned ones), including which way they are facing just to be sure (especially important in mods like XCF where at start you might have tons of enemies looking at some direction and sniper/spotter mechanics make it essential to know which ones have spotted you). This is also true for missions which have multiple levels and you want to quickly go up/down levels with PgUp/PgDown and check which level had the enemy units (that you see with PsiVision for example).

The problems with minimap are that
- it's slow to switch back and forth (multiple times per turn)
- it can be very difficult to spot the units with certainty, especially the blue dots can be really difficult to see if they are standing on top of some item
- the colors on it can be really messy and ugly, I suppose depending on terrain.
- you don't get the precise location so easily if you want to target some unit or its adjacent square (e.g. with a grenade)

It's no big problem for me to get used to pressing two keys instead of just one, given that CTRL and ALT are so close to each other so you can do the pressing with one hand (I have used little finger and thumb myself in my testing) in any case leaving the other, right hand free to do something else, like scroll the map.

I suppose it would have caused least surprise and thus would have been most logical to preserve the existing behaviour with ALT, yet add the new feature using a different keybinding, like CTRL+ALT. But whether it makes sense to change it back this way, or some other way, is maybe another question.

44

The X-Com Files / Re: Is there a mod for streamers? If not...

« on: September 06, 2024, 06:13:00 am »

YouTube-friendliness was one of the reasons for Stone Lake's remusic submod, maybe you should check that out: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,11629.0.html

As for repetitiveness, the monster missions incur despawn penalty but have zero abort penalty. So you go check them out if they're worth the time. Many are over relatively quickly. It's some other missions that can drag out more.

45

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

« on: September 05, 2024, 02:42:27 pm »

Not sure if this is a bug, reporting it anyway.

After destroying two ghosts (bug eye ghost and/or spectral entity) with a flame glove, the agent is still listed as "no experience" by Ctrl+E.

Flame glove trains PSI SKILL. If I'd have to guess, the agent's PSI skill is still zero and can't learn improvements to PSI SKILL yet. I don't know if you should still get experience for secondary stat gains, though. So I guess this would be more of an OXCE question rather than a mod issue.

PSI skill is a special case among the stats, because in vanilla even unsuccessful attempt at PSI attack gave you experience. But I wonder if anyone has considered how a "firing weapon" that trains PSI skill (but does not require PSI skill to use) should behave.