Messages

436

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 08, 2023, 03:20:04 pm »

I'm curious if someone has figured out a reliable way to deal with Syndicate HQ mission especially with higher difficulties. The place is literally crowded, and at least if you get a bad spawn location (a corner would be nice..) or tough enemies close by, you seem to be very easily screwed. I suppose the mission would be on the more difficult side even if you weren't restricted to Kevlar Vests and unarmored dogs.

I think I have previously used a 'throw around a lot of pre-primed hi-ex, go back upstairs behind the doors' strategy, but even this doesn't seem to cut it if you get a lot of nasty spawns (minotaurs, CEOs, some supersoldiers) nearby so that they'll have enough TUs and health to swarm you regardless.

437

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

« on: August 08, 2023, 02:54:16 pm »

Syndicate Headquarters mission does not have 'Entrance' squares, all the spawn squares are 'Target Exits'. This means that you can abort the mission, but you lose all the loot pile you brought with you on the craft.

Compare this to Black Lotus HQ which is a similar mission. There all the spawn squares are 'Entrance' squares (I think, based on a quick test with "New Battle").

The squares in Syndicate HQ might be unintentional, and it is at very least unfair, given that mission description and briefing doesn't allude to anything about the diffculty of aborting the mission (to the contrary). I suggest changing all the squares to 'Entrance' unless there is some reason not to.

This seems like a relatively important issue, because Syndicate HQ is one of the most difficult missions especially if you get a bad spawn location or certain enemies spawn close to you (e.g. a lot of minotaurs) and aborting the mission and trying it again next month might be a very viable survival strategy.

438

The X-Com Files / Re: Underwater weapons

« on: August 08, 2023, 10:33:03 am »

The underwater missions are relatively easy so this won't matter all that much. In early game, ADS (against deep ones and gilldogs) or Gas Cannon with AP clips. Landmines in the early game. You get some sonic later (I used blasta rifle in my previous game), but I suppose you might be able to skip sonic completely as well. Once you progress in the underwater arch, and missions with more cover, melee weapons (for example katanas, battle axes, tritanium knives, stun rods if you need a capture) have been my primary weapons. Underwater missions are also a good use for training PSK (dagon's staff) on closer range.

439

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 07, 2023, 09:56:28 pm »

Nevertheless, I think the entire issue is severely overblown. If you stall the mod stalls you, accept the consequences.

Fixed that for you.

440

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 07, 2023, 07:54:38 am »

This is what I mean by min/max and/or rushing strat. There is a ton of stuff to research at this stage of the game, enough that 50+ scientists can't even hope to keep up. Making the "cult operations" a priority means ignoring a massive pile of other research topics. My intent is to research sufficient gear to be able to handle the consequences of "affects game progression" techs. This is not playing slowly. Maybe instead of "affects game progression" it should read "absolutely necessary at the expense of all other techs unless you want the game to take a giant shit on you."

The significant part of this mod is balancing the tradeoffs, especially what you need and can research. Yet you still need to do missions with more risks with 'worse' equipment. That's one of the early-game thrills of the game. The thing is to figure out which risks you should take and which not (for example, attacking cult HQ without Osprey is an absolute no-go without save scumming). I doubt a very conservative play will work.

edit: anyway I've cleared 4 "baby" manors and now have 7 at stage 2 or whatever. Like I said I may be leaving them indefinitely, or until much later when I'm OP. What's the highest evolution of a manor? Turrets? Blaster launchers? Psionics? Chrysalids?

There are only three tiers. On the second, there is only one set of reinforcements starting from turn 5. On the third there, there is a possibility of four waves of reinforcements starting from turn 3. There are also a little bit tougher enemies in the greatest manor, but this is not so significant. Manors also spawn cult mission in the region, and upgrade to the next tier with a certain schedule.

The worst thing is that the greatest manors spawn hunter-killer MIGs if you cross their detection range and shoot down your craft (including your transport craft) if it's not fast enough. None of your early game craft are fast enough. There are bound to be some undetected manors. While minor delay in dealing with manors is acceptable, I would definitely try to get them out of the way before they get to third tier.

441

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 07, 2023, 06:26:16 am »

This may all become moot after I get bigger squads with better gear, but 11 manors is just spam. I kill every single mission, so "insufficient" anti-cult activities is not the problem.

You did mention your underlying problem:

edit: I should add that I have put off the Cult "Operations" tree and the Osprey up until now, as this is my first playthrough and I tend to hold off on "Affects Progression" techs until I've cleared up to a certain point. I'm well past that point now and should have Ospreys online soon. So I'll be fielding more troops etc. but in the meantime I have no interest in trying to clean up 8+ timed missions with 60+ enemies each. Just ugly blips that will be on my globe for months if not years to come.

In XCF certain things pour down on you if you don't progress quickly. Some others have brought up the same issue (would rather play slowly instead of progressing the research/mission tree). You've chosen a strategy that is unsuitable for XCF or at least makes it excessively difficult, because cults keep expanding when you don't go quickly after the root problem. Maybe in a next campaign you can try a different approach.

442

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 06, 2023, 08:09:53 pm »

Yeah I guess I could, but once you have the cult VIP, what's the point? Just finish them.

That's precisely my point. You should significantly increase the chances of Cult Forward Bases until you have researched the Cult VIP, so that you give players a better chance finish the cults.

Currently the probability of Cult Forward Base is relatively low and you may need to wait for the base for a long time, and therefore you cannot finish the cult (except Red Dawn, because you can get the VIP also from Durathread Factory mission).

EDIT: to illustrate the point, the probability of not getting a Cult Forward Base mission for a specific cult in a month is 72 % (until Jan 1999, when the probabilities increase significantly). The probability that you don't get one for three months is 38 % and for six months, respectively, still 14 %. For nine months, it's a bit over 5 %. There's still about 2 % chance that you have to wait for at least a year. Hopefully this shows that getting delayed is not just a RNG glitch but getting significantly delayed (say 3 months or more) could happen quite frequently given that you also have four cults to deal with.

443

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 06, 2023, 04:15:14 pm »

I've been considering that, but I often get complaints that there are too many.

There are a couple of ways to mitigate 'mission spam', but that would require a slightly different definitions in mission scripts.

The first one would be using more 'labels' and 'conditionals' to ensure that you don't get multiple similar missions in a single month. This is used very little in XCF.

The second one would be using 'startDelay' instead of a month-long randomDelay and to more actively stagger the missions. In some other mods (eg. TWoTS) this is actually the primary way to ensure that you don't get important missions that overlap. This is not used at all in the mod.

For example, if one cult base had startDelay 0, the second one 10080 (one week), the third 20160 (two weeks) and the fourth 30240 (three weeks), with randomdelays reduced to 10000 or even kept as is, you wouldn't at the very least get these at the same time.

Another solution would be to just increase the spawn chance of forward bases, but decrease the chance or stop spawning them once you have researched the commander. This is actually the missionScripts strategy for many other missions (ie. high chance at first and the chance is reduced after you have obtained the main thing the mission is for). That way they wouldn't actively spawn for many months until the cult is terminated, but you would still get a good chance to go for the HQ.

444

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 06, 2023, 02:19:31 pm »

No, the entire godamn point of manors is that they are preventable. That's why they were added. They appear when your anti-cult activity in the region is insufficient.

They are not absolutely preventable. The RNG might still screw you. I had to wait for about 15 months for Cult Base mission to come up for two cults. I did everything the game provided and the manors still kept spawning. So I don't think it's fair to say that my anti-cult activities were insufficient.

I realize that I was having bad luck with RNG. But if this can happen for 15 months, it surely can also go on for 6 or 9 months. During which time many manors could spawn and the player can do nothing to prevent it.

To minimize this, I also suggested to significantly increase the chances of spawning Cult Forward Bases so that the mod would actually provide the player with sufficient chance of anti-cult activities to prevent manor spam.

445

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

« on: August 05, 2023, 09:27:03 pm »

There is a bug in 3.0-snap probably introduced Jul 26, 2023 by CAVESDIO_07 commit. You have also added CAVESLAB_07 terrain, but no corresponding map block was added for this (for other terrains there were). If RNG chooses CAVESLAB_07 terrain for example for Syndicate Monster Lab mission, OXCE crashes:

[04-08-2023_21-11-15]   [FATAL] FileRecord::at(MAPS/CAVESLAB_07.MAP): requested file not found.
[04-08-2023_21-11-15]   [FATAL] A fatal error has occurred: FileRecord::at(MAPS/CAVESLAB_07.MAP): requested file not found.

I commented out "CAVESLAB_07" section in the terrains ruleset to work around this for now.

446

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 05, 2023, 06:10:44 am »

Based on earlier discussion, I guess you're just supposed to be able to figure out to take those out with shrapnel rockets or face major pain.

447

Brutal AI / Re: [SOURCEMOD] Brutal-OXCE 7.1.2

« on: August 04, 2023, 09:42:36 pm »

My current hypothesis as for why it supposedly has worked with that version is that there probably was some sort of always daytime mod enabled. This hypothesis is backed by how much brighter it is on Dioxine's screenshot than it is on the second one I just attached when I disable night-vision.

I doubt that; using such a mod would show up in the save -- and you can adjust the brightness of the screen in OXCE, which will make even pitch-dark appear relatively bright (but does not affect the actual visibility). I suspect that's what's going on. Don't know about the rest, though.

448

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

« on: August 04, 2023, 09:20:04 pm »

There is a bug in 3.0-snap probably introduced Jul 26, 2023 by CAVESDIO_07 commit. You have also added CAVESLAB_07 terrain, but no corresponding map block was added for this (for other terrains there were). If RNG chooses CAVESLAB_07 terrain for example for Syndicate Monster Lab mission, OXCE crashes:

[04-08-2023_21-11-15]   [FATAL] FileRecord::at(MAPS/CAVESLAB_07.MAP): requested file not found.
[04-08-2023_21-11-15]   [FATAL] A fatal error has occurred: FileRecord::at(MAPS/CAVESLAB_07.MAP): requested file not found.

449

OXCE Bugs / Re: Inventory access bug in Apoc-style equip mode (7.9.10)

« on: August 04, 2023, 06:21:24 pm »

This thing occurs if the amount of craft items on the base exceeds the number of maximum items on a craft (the items at the end get dropped off). It seems to be an implementation "feature", see the following posts at: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10998.msg154999.html#msg154999

I didn't verify what max-items you have on the craft, but I suspect this is the same (non-)issue.

450

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.0: Beyond Human

« on: August 04, 2023, 06:10:17 pm »

I'm following a game Dioxine plays right now, cults are mostly finished, and I haven't seen a SINGLE manor in the whole campaign. I have no idea how people get so many (when I played last, I got 3 or 4).

What difficulty are you playing on? And what month is it?

Based on my limited experience what affects this most is how soon you get Cult Forward Base mission after interrogating the leader captured at an outpost. (And at what point you go for the outposts.) As I have already mentioned earlier in this thread, in my current SH game it took over about 15 months(!!) to get Exalt and Dagon forward base mission. I got both of them only in January 1999 and I was already starting to wonder if the mission scripts were broken in some way. By that time, those cults had managed to spawn quite a few manors even though I killed them off almost on a monthly basis - the total count is 10 at the moment.

If the RNG does not grant you the possibility to terminate the cult, it's quite likely it keeps spawning manors for much longer than and the probabilities mount up.