Messages

361

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

« on: December 21, 2023, 09:34:20 pm »

I think I found a possibly related problem with surrender.

If the enemies surrender, you don't get "unlockedResearch" reward (the mission doesn't count as success from that perspective?).

I noticed this on an XCF mission that is supposed to run only once (if successfully completed): I got the second time. Looking at the save I didn't get the "unlockedResearch" reward the first time I played this.

Unfortunately I no longer recall whether I played the first time with this fix included or not. I suppose I can try see if this issue occurs again by doing the mission again and trying to get the success by enemies surrendering.

I write this on this thread at least tentatively until I can confirm whether this qualifies as a new bug or not.

362

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

« on: December 21, 2023, 05:23:30 pm »

Yesterday 3.2 introduced a change where more powerful armors (power, flying, stormtrooper, assault) were excluded from underwater missions.

This causes a dilemma with the gillman hero, who is wearing a power suit, but the power suit is currently unsuitable for underwater missions.

Consistency seems to require removing the power suit from the gillman hero. It seems illogical that a gillman-like ex-human could use the power suit while humans could do so. This is a shame, because this was a nice - and lore-wise even a bit scary - thread and a ~guaranteed way of getting a few power suits. But unless the change is reverted (at least as far as power suits are concerned), I can't think of how this would make sense.

363

The X-Com Files / Re: Ok so ... How is superhuman to be played?

« on: December 21, 2023, 02:55:46 pm »

Just got to Jan 99 in SH/IM run. 13.5$m income, 4.5 bases, 143 scientists. Tried somewhat hard, but quite far from perfect run. So psavola's estimate of 200 scientists by mid 99 seems to be on point.

A few observations and questions.

I think you should also be able to get much more than 13.5§m in Jan 99. You seem to skip or abort a large number of missions (even 1/3 or 1/2), even those that could be easily doable without much risks but might be somewhat annoying and/or boring (for example, cyberweb lairs, heists, hybrid farms, etc.). I suppose your main goal has been to just get sufficient score (not maximal score) and avoid sloggish missions. (Personally, I find e.g. cyberweb lairs very easy and also great for training melee; the farms are also very easy and provide great material for reseach - easier by far than other hybrid missions, because none of the enemy units is a 'sniper'.)

If I'd have to pick the sneakiest tricks for gaining XP I've learned it would be barking, popping/dropping/throwing smoke at unconscious enemy units. Putting up smoke is particularly sneaky but logical, because smoke in XCF causes in principle CHOKE damage (in contrast to vanilla where it would be useless I think).

If I'd have to pick one thing I still haven't figured out is how you in mission debriering screen can move on to another bases (for example, if you try to move prisoners there but the containment is already full, so you switch there to clean it up for transfer). I haven't found documentation for this. Or is this also one of your own customizations, like many of the sorting hotkeys appear to be.

Based on my experience of a couple of IM(ish) campaigns, one of the most annoying and micromanaging parts of SH/IM is keeping all the bases prepared for enemy retaliation (after you've pissed off the syndicate). You get a scripted Syndicate retaliation (unless you shoot it down) at some point [I haven't yet got to the point in videos how you dealt with this, I just skimmed the descriptions and I suppose you shot down the scarab, because the base defense would have been a lengthier thing], later you're bound to trigger alien retaliation [you already had one in the latest vids; if it would have been a trickier one than floaters you might have been in trouble, say sectoids with PSI and cyberdiscs], and in the end you get scripted ethereal retaliation missions. Having all the crew (and/or rotating them in and out) and equipment everywhere is seems like a PITA. But I suppose this cannot really be avoided.

364

Suggestions / Re: Feature request technical questions

« on: December 20, 2023, 07:02:15 am »

The engine change would be easy but whether it will be done .. I'd guess the short and blunt answer would be 'no'.

365

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

« on: December 19, 2023, 05:10:53 pm »

that's why I'm asking for a save, to see what it is

I don't know what's a "human ghost", I don't even know if it's a friendly unit or alien or neutral, so no idea what conditions apply

There are two trivially created saves (with 'new battle') in the thread I linked.

Even ignoring 'personal light' behaviour changes, the visibility in smoke is very different in 7.9.16 compared to 7.10.

'Human ghost' is an alien unit. Let's ignore this part of my complaint for now, I may have been mistaken (as I can't reproduce the problem).

366

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

« on: December 19, 2023, 04:21:20 pm »

afaik, there was no change in how effective "darkness" is

you should not need a flare to see something that was visible before

report a bug, with save attached, if you spot something that is "wildly different than before".... to fix or clarify

Darkness and smoke is wildly different than what was before (visibility of 1/2 squares instead of ~5). Already reported in https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,11622.0.html , but Yankes doesn't apparently see this as a problem. I think this should at least have been noted with huge exclamation marks in the changelog.

Regarding ghosts, I can't reproduce this now. I could have sworn they have emitted light in my previous campaigns but it might have been another light source.

367

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

« on: December 19, 2023, 12:09:44 pm »

In OXCE 7.10 (or actually 7.9.17) the visibility calculations changed, for example the smoke and darkness became much more effective. This also affects human ghost visibility. Before, they were shining beacons in the dark and you could spot them from all over the map. Now you may need to throw flares in the dark to spot them.

You may want to consider whether you keep those as-is and as changed by recent OXCE, or try to put in some new variables (or y-scripts as drafted by zsrr I think) to recalibrate these (especially the ghost visibility).

368

The X-Com Files / Re: Ok so ... How is superhuman to be played?

« on: December 18, 2023, 06:02:00 pm »

BTW how do you capture heavy troopers? The most painless way?

Do at least a few missions from the ghost arc. Katapeltes Spiritus one-shots (actually triple shot) to stun them, sometimes if you have to shoot twice, you may end up killing them. Some other ghost arc weapons may also work, but are significantly less effective (like hadriex gun).

Capturing or killing heavy troopers is very easy when equipped with the right ghost arc weapons. If you want to kill them instead, a good PST agent can one-shot them with Thanatonautian Manus.

369

OXCE Suggestions OK / Re: [Suggestion] QOL hotkeys to switch bases while in research/production screen

« on: December 16, 2023, 09:17:44 pm »

I'm still learning of new handy hotkeys and tricks. Too bad it's rather difficult for the players to find out everything they could use.

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Hidden_Features_(OpenXcom) has been a good resource so far - it includes a lot of hidden gems many players do not know - but its focus is on geoscape and battlescape, no word is said about basescape. Yet even that does not include this information, and I suppose there are more. I suppose there isn't any OXCE reference for all the features and the URL I mentioned above is the best general documentation we currently have?

370

Work In Progress / Re: Winter Marshes Terrain.

« on: December 14, 2023, 05:38:01 pm »

Is it intentional that the water is walkable (or are the screenshots from debug mode and teleport)? That would make no sense compared to the other maps. And so, a challenge with the map could be that it could be difficult (or even impossible) to navigate across the map without flying. That might reduce its usefulness.

371

XPiratez / Re: Stuff I'd love to see in XPiratez!

« on: December 13, 2023, 04:11:29 pm »

I haven't played XPZ, but here's a general note. By definition of the OXCE feature, missile strikes destroy facilities or more aptly, replace them with 'rubble' (another facility which can be defined on facility-per-facility basis). If desired, every facility could be defined to form a different kind of 'rubble'. I suppose in theory it would be possible to only destroy, say, a half of the facilities by creating a pre-redefined 'half-facilities'. I doubt very much there is interest to create such facility-specific 'rubble meta-facilities' however. So I'd rather suggest arguing for recalibrating the missile strikes.

372

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

« on: December 12, 2023, 06:16:32 pm »

'Science Gear' (STR_SCIENCE_GEAR) appears to have inconsistent forbiddenSoldierTypes. It forbids AI units and dogs, but not rats and bats. All other starting conditions are consistent in that they either allow all the animals or none of them. This is likely an oversight, because I can't think of a reason why you could take your pet rats or bats to a science mission but not your dogs.

373

The X-Com Files / Re: Ok so ... How is superhuman to be played?

« on: December 12, 2023, 03:18:31 pm »

Oh yeah, I forgot another huge selling point for rats that I had missed. They have psiVision 3 which means they are invaluable in multilevel missions. I will never go to Exalt HQ without one now. (Usually those have been 40+ turn slogs and eventually bughunts.) Also applicable to lesser degree with other multilevel missions (syndicate CEO capture coming to mind immediately, though at that point you already have a hybrid with less efficient psiVision).

374

The X-Com Files / Re: Ok so ... How is superhuman to be played?

« on: December 12, 2023, 10:33:59 am »

The main benefit of rats over bats is you typically get rats very early and it is easier to capture them. It might be a while until you have a shadowbat mission and capturing them alive could also be trickier as they are likely to die (or get overstunned) even with a shot of blunt ammo.

375

OXCE Suggestions DONE / Re: [Suggestion] Hide Research

« on: December 12, 2023, 01:41:28 am »

My understanding is that the research points gained is the value for researcher time, i.e. a research item with 20 takes 5 scientists 4 days to complete, i think that's the calculation works, and thee the awarded points are just the research time "20".  If that's the case then just sort by "cost" which is also sorting by research reward value... although it doesn't give you the value explicitly you know where to start if you want to research low or high value topics.

Research costs (ruleset: 'cost') and points (ruleset: 'points') are defined separately. Some have much better 'cost-benefit' just looking at it from the points perspective than others.