Messages

136

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.7: Market Corrections

« on: December 25, 2020, 06:28:08 pm »

I totally understand your arguement and I believe you, but people are pretty uniformly massacred by Red Dawn more than anything else,

I am really baffled   

What Red Dawn doesnt have

- Psionics
- Energy (Laser/Plasma/Electric) weapons.
- Alien troops
- Massed numbers
- Heavily armoured units, even the top dogs can be killed with standard equipment, armoured cars only spawn in one mission.
- Doesnt have any special missions with them like Rituals or EXALT raiding a VIP house. Only the durathread factory, which contains essential tech anyway and wont appear again once you solve it.
- No stealh units like ninjas, no bonus night vision like dagon cultists
- Non of their missions are sanity draining, meaning you can take your sweet time in them.

And they also have the easiest HQ still by far. Outside of the armoured cars who are indeed dangerous the rest of the map boils down to two guys standing with Katanas or other melee weapons at the entrance, by the walls on each side so whenever anyone comes out he will spot them the moment they can attack him.
Put third guy above the entrance with a shotgun and then just skip turns.
Once 30-40 corpses pile at the entrance then rest will just surrender.

So i ask other guys, what makes Red Dawn so dangerous when compared to other cults ?! Like i guess that they have sniper rifles and weapons with long range capabilties could be one factor i see.

137

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.7: Market Corrections

« on: December 24, 2020, 10:04:32 pm »

Does anyone have any advice for dealing with sectopods? They're such a pain to deal with, even with heavy plasma.

Miniguns (Or heavy turbolaser minigun) because they have 95% Armour pierce, but mostly this wont kill the sectopod but it will errode its armour so multiple barrages will erode it further and further, making them more vulnerable to other weapons.
Or heavy gauss cannon if you have it, it can destroy it in one or two hits with good damage roll.

But the best way is to simply flank them with a laser tank and blast them full auto. Sectopods take bonus damage from lasers and laser tank main cannon is already beyond one shot range of most targets in the game and will eat the sectopod quickly.

Sectopods have massive resistance towards plasma on top of a massive armour, making them capable of tanking the heaviest plasma wepons in the game with ease. Make sure to get the wreck in one piece since you can rebuild it and deploy it yourself to hear the lamentation of enemies.

138

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.7: Market Corrections

« on: December 24, 2020, 11:55:53 am »

I would like to discuss early game difficulty and Church of Dagon.
After my fourth playthrough i realized that they are the hardest starting enemy by far. Red Dawn still being the easiest, even with the armoured car suprise outside their HQ.

Some of their alien budies could be toned down. The gillman needs to have its range severely nerfed as it can shoot across the entire map with sufficient damage to one shot your troops in armoured vest if it rolls higher damage, or leaves them at 20 HP. The elecricity attack needs to be medium ranged one or its damage toned down considerably. Or atleast remove the arc from his attack so he needs a direct line of sight to hit someone.

Furthermore, during ritual mass murder events (Or any instance of a map spawning gillmen with ranged weapons) gillman armed with sonic pistols needs to have smaller range too because it does so much damage (capable of full HP one shot). Sonic weapons on surface shouldnt have such range in the first place.

I wouldnt mind this difficulty if other cults didnt have such a drastic spike in difficulty but these instances are quite jarring. One thing i really like in the early game is that fights against cults is about trading blows rather than rocket tag gameplay, something that will disappear the moment aliens with their plasma weapons show up until super-late game when you get power armours.

139

The X-Com Files / Re: Interrogating Natasha Morozova

« on: December 22, 2020, 10:28:39 pm »

When making those guys I was thinking to add something even more special. Glad those missions are that memorable 

Yeah, Master Zhu and him being capable of killing a sectopod in one hit through frontal armor is something i cannot forget.

Or David Vincent, when i had to sell him due to prison capacity and my prison being full of people i rather not sell.
Which is twice the funny from in-game logic. XCOM just saved a scientist... only to like sell him back to the MiB that just hunted him.

140

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.7: Market Corrections

« on: December 03, 2020, 04:27:41 pm »

How does the reinforcement system work ? I assume alot of missions will use them in future, for enemies and allies alike ? (If you are like fighting alongside military).

141

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.6: Life Will Never Be The Same

« on: November 10, 2020, 11:11:36 am »

Also one thing I forgot to ake: What does the gym do? I'm quite sure I got something  wrong, but it seems to be focused on improving experienced agents judging by the + button.

Gym lets 10 agents train which passively increases their stats to a point. You can assign them to a gym via agent menu when you look at your base, -> agent info and you will see a list of what you can do with your men. This is how you can also upgrade your troops via special training or other modifications you discover as you play.

142

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.6: Life Will Never Be The Same

« on: November 09, 2020, 12:48:04 pm »

- Why is the option  for instant explosions  from grenades  not up to the player?

Its possible to do it for yourself and its really easy, just go to the Document/OpenXcom/mods/XCOMfiles/Ruleset/vars and open it with any text editing editor.

There you will see all the options, whenever the game taunts you with them or not. You can also modify certain parameters there that the game doesnt even tell you, for example the threshold for enemies to activate the "bug hunt mode" where they start showing up on the minimap so you can activate it earlier or with more enemies present, this can save alot of time. This is not intended way to play the mod but its up to you, i myself play with the instant grenades and quicker bug hunt mode since that makes the mod more fun and explosives waaaaayyy more useful.

143

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.6: Life Will Never Be The Same

« on: October 25, 2020, 07:45:10 pm »

I was under impression too. It would make sense for them to be remotely controlled given the timeframe and AI self driving tanks is something i am sure we wont even see in 2020. It would also make sense that the operators would improve through combat since AI otherwise should be extremely accurate by itself since it can do calculations within miliseconds, like talking about 90-100% accurate with something like a laser cannon which has no recoil and flies at the speed of light so aiming this thing is just pointing towards the target and shooting. But i guess thats for sake of balance because being able to pump out almost perfectly accurate units that will one shot most enemies in the game would break the game.

Also a side note, i do find it quite funny that tanks/HWP can drive dropships. So can dogs and rats.

144

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.5.1: Around The World

« on: October 16, 2020, 06:45:08 pm »

Reacting to melee attacks ?

As in, they will now try to fight back with their weapons stock (if possible) or shoot at point blank ?.

145

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.5.1: Around The World

« on: September 26, 2020, 11:52:13 am »

You misunderstand, on the Cyberweb Battleship mision I HAD to take a mudranger, even though I used an Avenger to get there, It's on the mission brief, I was wondering why Solaris decided to make it that way

Before this change, you started in the crosshairs of 20-40 enemies the moment the game started, now you atleast have some cover so your tanks can roll out first to absorb reaction fire before your infantry will step out.

146

The X-Com Files / Re: Questions on Promo 3 and relative progress...

« on: September 25, 2020, 01:40:01 pm »

Blackops weapons are solid and will stay with you for some time. If you have access to miniguns then use them in the caves. As weird as it sounds miniguns are a good close range weapon if you step one title away from the enemy and unleash a barrage at them.

Due to how old Xcom's projectile work, it doesnt matter that its 20% to hit, it will hit anyway in this scenario and miniguns have 95% armour piercing, so only 5% of the targets armour does something to the bullet.
What this means is that miniguns will instantly kill most enemies in the game at close range.

Also regarding finishing off Cults

Dagon HQ will be a total nightmare without good armour because its a jungle and tons of enemies and psionics and monsters will barrage your dudes the moment they step out of the vehicle. The easiest one is still the Red Dawn because its an underground base. It has been buffed to not be that easy recently so now they have armoured cars at the surface but you can demolish them with explosives or miniguns (Or rockets if you have them). And once you get that over, you can camp the entrace with two guys with melee weapons and enemies will be walking one by one to their shaking and your guys wont take any damage. And once theres like 50 corpses on the same spot the rest will surrender that XCOM is 2OP.

147

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.5.1: Around The World

« on: September 25, 2020, 01:29:41 pm »

EDIT: So the mission spawned in but why do I have to take a mudranger?

I think you need a space capable craft for it. Mudranger apparently can do it but you are better off with Kitsune since it has massive range and can still carry tanks you will need.

And i mean, you really need them in this mission unless you have high-end armour (Power armour and up). I had sectopods (2x, because Ayys failed to destroy my base twice so i had something to work with). This might be the mission so far in the game with largest body count ever. If i remember correctly, it was either 76 or 96 enemies. On open plain, with almost no cover aside from few rocks, dunes and buildings but that is a long dash while you are in sight of 20-40 enemies at once. So i did well by using sectopods as cover for my troops but this mission took like a hour or two and i had to sped up the projectiles so i wont die of old age as 20-40 enemies will shoot their lasers at long range. Make sure to arm all of your troops with turbolaser weapons due to infinite ammo and the fact that they can incernate enemies so the Cyberwebs technolads wont have 2 lifes.

148

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.5.1: Around The World

« on: August 31, 2020, 09:29:46 am »

Just The Dude said it: early cults have no means to take on X-Com directly. One could argue otherwise, but I had to make some assumptions about it.
Still, this might change in the future, because I like base defences (in moderation). Maybe UAC will be more proactive here.

Base defences could have variations with different possible factions, i have doubts non-Aliens without dropships could be able to land in XCOM's base quickly enough and it would make sense that Cults would try land attack and XCOM would have to defend the surface entrance.  So XCOM would start in the elevator and have access to the surface fortifications so XCOM would have cover and high ground advantage against masses of cultists.

Or if there is like a guided swarm of monsters being lured by Cultists that XCOM decided to ambush them with full might of the base personal in a forrest before they even get close to the entrance.

149

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.5: Shot in The Dark

« on: August 27, 2020, 09:53:32 am »

So I have been enjoying a long campaign so far in 1.5 but I feel like I found a recursive tech dependency and wanted to ask if I am misunderstanding something.
The invasion of 99 is well underway and I am holding on but I am now stuck fighting tiny ships and hiding from anything above small because I can't research further.

Optronics requires Alien Optical Processor
Alien Optical Processor depends on UFO Navigation, Alien Electronics and Alien Multitool
UFO Navigation depends on Alien Power Systems and Optronics.

So in order to progress in the tech tree, I need to research things I need to have already researched in order to research them. 

Most tech comes from RNG rullete from engineer and commanders/leader integoriation. Pretty much majority of the best gear comes from them so keep capturing commanders and engineers and make them talk. Make sure to expend trashy RNG reward like ship types with navigators first before wasting engineers and commanders because they can roll for it too and its quite enraging that you got "Small scout" info when you could have rolled for Anti-matter contaiment...

So get a mind probe to one of your guys and check who is who because the most common alien (Sectoid) is identical to each other before you capture them.

150

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 1.5: Shot in The Dark

« on: August 26, 2020, 02:31:34 pm »

Now i know what "Visual damage indicator" means and good lord it is  a feature i never knew i wanted.

Now i know if i am damaging the target or not... or if my troops will get wounds when the ayy turn ends.