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Topics - Fomka

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I have a question on "New Battle" option in Open X-Com with X-Com Files mod.

The game offers a possibility to play any type of battlescape mission right from the first menu -- with the "New Battle" button. This message describes how to quickly find needed mission type -- https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,9510.msg137189.html#msg137189

I'm trying to play STR_CULT_INVESTIGATION_ZSRR "Cult safehouse" mission with STR_ZSRR "Red Dawn" faction. Sometimes new battle crashes before equip screen, sometimes not. In the latter cases the terrain is not OK -- it is Moon. Moreover, unit placement is strange: big group of them is placed outside of safehouses.

Is it possible to train that Red Dawn's safehouses via New Battle just like they appear during normal play?

I'm on X-Com Files v2.4.

2
There is a possibility to put your craft on patrol just over some landed UFO in the popup that asks "[craft name] ready to land near [mission name] Begin Mission?".

Press CTRL and click on PATROL button that appears.

That's cool but there is a small bug here. The PATROL button can behave like the replaced NO button. Steps to reproduce on Windows 10 with OpenXcom Extended 7.5.3 (v2022-02-07):
1. Press and hold CTRL but do not click on PATROL.
2. Simultaneously press ALT + TAB and switch to another window.
3. Switch back to the game and click on PATROL.

Not a big deal, but it exists.

3
The X-Com Files / [submod] Battle Scars That Hurt
« on: June 07, 2022, 04:04:17 pm »
This mod changes Battle-scarred and Patient awards to give penalties to agent stats, not bonuses, in X-Com Files Mod.

Instead of receiving an increase of +1 health point per Battle-scarred award your agents and dogs will receive a reduction to their health. In addition the Patient awards will not give stun recovery bonus anymore, they will reduce time units and stamina.

The penalties will not end in negative stat values, I've checked this. If an untrained agent or dog with minimal starting health value of 25 will somehow achieve the tenth level of Battle-scarred award with 31 hp penalty the resulting health will equal 1, not -6.

Installation is simple: just unpack the attached archive into "/user/mods/" folder. In the end there must be at least two folders side by side there: XComFiles and BattleScarsHurt.

Enjoy the scars that hurt after hospital!

Details
To start making this mod I've looked for strings "STR_MEDAL_PURPLE_HEART*" and "STR_MEDAL_CRIMSON_HEART*" in files "soldierBonuses_XCOMFILES.rul" and "commendations_XCOMFILES.rul", for strings "timesWoundedTotal" and "daysWoundedTotal" in savefiles. Below is a table with comparison of this mod effects with the unmodified X-Com Files. I've tested the mod on X-Com Files version 2.4 but I presume it will work on any version.

Battle-scarred Award
Mod on/offSoldier ParameterLevel 1Level 2Level 3Level 4Level 5Level 6Level 7Level 8Level 9Level 10
The mod is OFFTimes Wounded1247101520304050
Health+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10
The mod is ONTimes Wounded12345678910
Health–1–2–3–5–7–10–14–19–25–31

Patient Award
Mod on/offSoldier ParameterLevel 1Level 2Level 3Level 4Level 5Level 6Level 7Level 8Level 9Level 10
The mod is OFFDays Wounded Total1530601001502003005007501000
Stun Recovery+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10
The mod is ONDays Wounded Total153045607590105120135150
Time Units–1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10
Stamina–1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10

4
Hello! I was inspired by tarkalak's Ironmanish X-Com Files Mod playthrough and decided to publish some notes and screenshots about my own play through that mod.

The main goal is to see how many years I will strand as the Commander of X-COM on the hardest setting. The nearest goal is to achieve Promotion III ingame as fast as I can. I want to see for myself how cults work after their boost in 2.3 version (2.3: Rise of The Cultists).

The settings and handicaps
I'm playing on Superman difficulty, in Ironman mode (no manual saves), with some handicaps. The mod version is 2.4.

Firstly, I will apply neither for Machine Guns License nor for Explosives License. I imagine that X-Com enemies in the Council would use the possession of such licenses as a strong foundation to achieve a closure of the project: "Look, this task force should be clandestine, but with that licenses it can stash explosives and will surely make too much noise in every corner of the globe"
Any machineguns and explosives acquired without license will be OK to use. We will distract any checking committee visiting our bases' stores with something.

Secondly, I want to nerf down awards for injuries: nullify bonuses awarded for being Battle-scared or Patient from all agents. It can be surely done via save fiddling. I will give more disadvantages for higher level of that medals, starting from the 3rd bronze pin level. Explanation? I just don't like the approach when someone was heavily injured, spent 20 days in clinic and then is able to run and shoot as usual (with even increased Health). Real fatal wounds are more serious than that.

Thirdly, I will use only the following Transformations: Bio-Enhancement, Combat Pilot and Martial Arts Training, Gun Kata, Eat the Cake. Do not like the idea of transhumanization (Install TNI) or zombiefication (Protean Revival), even for just cause.

The start
It is the 22nd of May 1997. I have 2 bases with 3 hangars each. There are 20 agents and 4 dogs, 5 scientists and 1 engineer. Church of Dagon Network is being researched. I'm ready to research two of four recruitments needed for Promotion II. See the attached savefile. The play will start later.

What do you think about all that? Does anyone know how to nerf bonuses from Patient commendation automatically?

5
Open Feedback / Reaper corpses overlay incorrectly
« on: March 07, 2022, 11:02:37 am »
A bugreport here. Once upon an Alien colony assault in X-COM Files I've seen such a picture: a burning reaper fell unconscious on another reaper's corpse. The bodies overlaid incorrectly. I expect the floor underneath them to be fully covered, but it is visible and one body is partly invisible.

OpenXcom Extended v7.4, the save is attached.

6
Hello!
Am I right thinking that a 2x2 sized tank is weaker against explosions compared with a 1x1 sized unit with same armor values? I suspect that any explosion can apply onto a unit several times, depending on affected tiles.

To be more specific, I wonder what does a destruction of my Tank/Rocket in Plasma Grenade explosion in the X-COM Files mod mean: a very bad luck or an ordinary event? Just a single grenade and the poor tank collapsed. Maybe infamous Enforcer would have been more durable?

7
Is it possible to achieve victory in X-COM Files (1.8b) without a deep research of the Shogg, the Hybrids, the Syndicate and the UAC? I have a game in the middle of 1999 and want to win the game faster, measuring the real time. Some Alien commanders were captured and are awaiting their research. No Ethereals between them.

I've tried to investigate my situation with the Tech Tree Viewer and have found that there is "UAC Case Resolved" topic that "Affects game progression". Am I right assuming that the game is unwinnable without having every and one such "affecting" topics researched?

8
Only one Unidentified Aerial Phenomena out of 144 collected for 17 years by trusted sources was identified (as a balloon), the Office of the Director of US National Intelligence (ODNI) stated in its report to US Senate. The unclassified report was published on 25th of June 2021 by the ODNI.

The link — https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf

The report says, in particular:
Spoiler:
"Limited data and inconsistency in reporting are key challenges to evaluating UAP. No standardized reporting mechanism existed until the Navy established one in March 2019. The Air Force subsequently adopted that mechanism in November 2020, but it remains limited to USG reporting. The UAPTF regularly heard anecdotally during its research about other observations that occurred but which were never captured in formal or informal reporting by those observers.

After carefully considering this information, the UAPTF focused on reports that involved UAP largely witnessed firsthand by military aviators and that were collected from systems we considered to be reliable. These reports describe incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2021, with the majority coming in the last two years as the new reporting mechanism became better known to the military aviation community. We were able to identify one reported UAP with high confidence. In that case, we identified the object as a large, deflating balloon. The others remain unexplained.
• 144 reports originated from USG sources. Of these, 80 reports involved observation with multiple sensors."

So, US military and intelligence are developing the mechanism of standardized reporting of UFOs that was established in 2019 by the Navy. The DNI underlines that it has insufficient amount of data and states that it will need additional investment to bring everything in order.

What do you think about it?

I do not know the exact description of those 144 UAPs reported by trusted sources, but I think the number is too little to speak of existence of UFOs.

9
Maybe I misunderstand something, but extra fuel tank for X-COM Aircraft adds very little amount of fuel. Interceptors have 1000 units of fuel by design (look here), and the fuel tank adds 20 more (here). It is a tiny gain of 2%! Very little and 100% useless.

What if the tank can be attached to a mudranger, the craft with the minimal fuel capacity? The gain will be 20/140=1/7, not bad, almost useful.

Maybe the fuel tank addition must be 20%, not the flat 20 units?

10
Looks like it was not intended by design, but I've managed to get the ultimate Red Dawn artifact on the 5th turn (e.g. very fast) during their Headquarters Assault. Only one person and one dog were killed. Amazing, isn't it?

Here is this short story...
Spoiler:
1998.03.02 04:00:00
The intelligence unit of "X-COM: Paranormal Security Agency" revealed the Red Dawn HQ on an island near Tiksi town in Russia. Agency's helicopter arrived near the HQ in the dark (at around 19:00 by London's time) and 6 figures descended onto a special guest area surrounded with wooden fence: three men, a woman, a dog and a robot on tracks. A lonely Red Dawn lad happened to be nearby as a greeter. He turned his back to the guests, unfortunately for him, and fell down.

The guest team hid inside their wood-fence bordered compound and sent out some illumination a.k.a. electro-flares. The roboscout and the dog were also send out. A couple of turns passed with the great human force with one machine gun, some SMGs and many, many incendiary grenades hiding behind the fence and the feeble scout team made erm, scouting outside. No enemies were seen, but a lot of door opening sounds were heard. Yeah, the underground base with the troops moving some levels lower than the guest team, right. But the HQ was also introduced by the intelligence as a heavily defended area... What's the trick?

Soon the trick showed itself. An armored car announced its presence with twin loud but inaccurate machine guns and was spotted in, erm, spot of light on the ground.

"What the hell, we have no tools for such an enemy!" a commander of the squad may had thought.

Was it this thought or another, but the guests began to retreat. No way, a magnum bullet came from the dark and downed the dog. The killer visited the place of crime, was spotted standing near the dog's corpse and was identified as a lonely Red Dawn Coordinator that needs some enlightenment. So, on the 4th turn the Coordinator (and the car) was set on fire and became very angry -- because the attackers hid!

On the 5th turn the lonely Coordinator was standing only three squares away from the wood fence, burning brightly in the night (the car also had advanced towards the fenced area but was burning farther away, at the distance of, like, 15 squares). He was surrounded by the three figures that jumped out and stroke him with heavy Xeno shields into full unconsciousness. They looted him, took him up and retreated -- all on the same 5th turn.

The flame on the car had not expired, the door-opening mega undeground force did not get near the guest land, the corpse of the dog did not get cold -- but the Helicopter somehow was filled with the returned team that exchanged the dog for the Coordinator, and the agents of the Agency started their trip back to their base.

The Coordinator brought with him The Red Dawn Memory Card that has a price of $100k on Gray Markets and is invaluable for the Agency in its mission of containing Red Dawn and other cults.

So, in short, I did not get much opposition at the HQ, and the Ultimate Red Dawn artifact was brought to me by the high-ranking Red Dawn, who advanced to my position alone, without support.

The question is -- is such a way of solving HQ problem a bug or a feature?

PS.
Spoiler:
The vent surrounded by metal fence is very attractive as an extra entrance. It also is very nice at the night -- you can see brightly lit corridor beneath the vent at night.

PPS. Sorry for grammar mistakes, the English is not my native language.

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