aliens

Author Topic: [UFO] Ryder's RETROCOM minipack  (Read 6880 times)

Offline RemingtonRyder

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[UFO] Ryder's RETROCOM minipack
« on: August 18, 2017, 05:06:15 pm »
Backstory

The year is 1975. Unseen aliens visit Earth, conducting bizarre experiments on humans and animals alike. However, governments around the world have been unable to verify reports of an extraterrestrial threat and, despite convening a council of nations to authorise the XCOM project, they are unwilling to offer substantial funding until the threat has been proven to exist.

Your goal initially is to detect and intercept these UFOs, but they are difficult to find with the radar systems you currently have available. You must then assault these alien craft and neutralise the aliens, demonstrating to the council of nations that you deserve additional funding.

Good luck Commander.


Direct download: http://rydersmods.omniloth.net/mod/ufo-retrocom-pack/

Requirements: OpenXCOM nightly build.


Mod list

CRAFT WEAPONS MOD

Cannons and laser cannons mounted on interceptors have longer range, while avalanches do extra damage. The vanilla range on the cannon and laser cannon was pitiful.

ELUSIVE ALIENS

The aliens will avoid drawing attention to themselves in the early months of the game. They will try to score by doing Harvest and Abduction missions, so you will get more opportunities to attack those Medium UFOs.

Because the alien commanders and bigger UFOs stay in reserve, it takes longer to win the game and there aren't as many big cash windfalls from assaulting UFOs.

HARVEST ABDUCTION SCORE HIGHER

The aliens will be able to score more points by successfully doing Abduction and Harvest missions. This helps the aliens get points in the early months when the Elusive Aliens mod is active.

LESS STARTING FUNDS

The council of nations gives you a smaller starting stipend, $3M instead of $6M.

LONGER ALIEN WEAPONS RESEARCH

Does what it says on the tin. You'll need more scientists or more time to crack the secrets of all those alien weapons. There is no change to the time to research clips or other applications like Plasma Beam or Fusion Ball Launcher.

LONGER LASER WEAPONS RESEARCH

Like the previous mod, this makes it take more time to research laser weapons like the laser pistol, laser rifle, and heavy laser. Doesn't change the time to research other applications like Laser Cannon or Laser Defences.

LONGER POWER SUIT RESEARCH

This mod makes it take more time to research the power suit and the flying suit.

RETRO START

You start in 1975. The cost of hiring soldiers, engineers and scientists is much less. However, it costs more to buy or make craft weapons, and as a result it will no longer be profitable to make craft weapons to sell.

I recommend you use the updated Amiga Fonts mod to get the full retro effect!

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1713.msg76884.html#msg76884

SLOWER ALIEN WEAPONS PROGRESSION

The aliens will use plasma pistols a lot in the early months of the game and introduce the plasma rifle and heavy plasma much later on. This means that obviously, it will be more difficult to get the high-end plasma weapons as loot until later on in the game.

SMALL START BASE

A bit like my Punishing Small Start Base for OpenXCOM TFTD, this mod makes the starting base very barebones. Aside from the access lift, you'll have two hangars, a living quarters, a general stores and a small radar system. You'll have a Skyranger, Interceptor and a mostly vanilla load of starting equipment.

On the plus side, this means that if you like diversifying your bases from day one, you have no added extras taking up space.

Obviously you cannot use this with the supplied XCOMUtil starting bases, although you can still customise the layout of your starting base if you have the relevant advanced option enabled.

STAT STRINGS

Stat strings help to summarise what soldiers are good at doing. The game gives these stat strings to soldiers based on their abilities. If those abilities improve, the stat string might change.

Currently this mod gives the following stat strings:

Hv: Abbreviation for Heavy. Given if firing accuracy is 60 or better and strength is 39 or better.
Sn: Abbreviation for Sniper. Given if firing accuracy is 60 or better but strength is 38 or lower.
Re: Abbreviation for Recon. Given if firing accuracy if 50 or better, reactions are 40 or better, but melee accuracy is 34 or less, or melee accuracy is 35 or better but strength is 37 or lower.
As: Abbreviation for Assault. Converse of Recon. Given if firing accuracy is 50 or better, reactions are 40 or better, melee accuracy is 35 or better, and strength is 38 or better.
Sc: Abbreviation for Scout. Given if firing accuracy if 49 or lower, or if reactions are 39 or lower. Most soldiers in XCOM will start with this stat string.


Playthrough notes

The aliens seem to choose locations for harvest or abduction missions at random. So I suggest looking at the alien activity graphs and building new listening posts accordingly if you don't see any UFOs.

The lack of workshop or lab facilities at the start (not to mention the lack of funding for those) slows things down considerably. Don't be too shy about selling things to develop your base of operations.

While you can make quite a bit of cash by selling alien loot, the really big UFOs won't arrive until later on in the game. Be careful that you don't go into the red by expanding too quickly.

You won't be able to snag a Commander until later on, so research anything that you think will help your efforts against the aliens.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2022, 04:24:15 am by RemingtonRyder »

Offline Yataka Shimaoka

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2017, 05:28:03 pm »
A new mod that did what I have planned, good work!

Offline RemingtonRyder

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2017, 07:46:44 pm »
Happy to help. :)

I've noticed that stat strings don't seem to update though, so I dunno if that's a problem with the latest nightly or my mod. Never mind, I figured it out. The stat strings are quite particular about what you need for each string. For example, a soldier can be classed as a scout if he doesn't have enough strength to qualify as assault, even though he fits the other criteria. I set the strength requirement to 38 because assault guys sometimes have to carry a stun launcher and stun grenades.

What I said was mostly true, but I somehow put a period instead of a comma in the stat strings file.

Anyway, I'm going to test a new file and if it looks good I'll update in five minutes or so. :)


Fixed. Go ahead and re-download.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2017, 08:49:08 pm by marvinkosh »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2017, 08:21:11 pm »
Wow, a new mod out of nowhere! Scratch that, a new modder out of nowhere! :)

Does this mod feature alternate X-Com weapons and equipment? (70's rifles, etc.)

Offline RemingtonRyder

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2017, 08:38:54 pm »
No weapons or equipment, sorry.  I figured that, much like RimWorld, people are going to have their own favourite weapon mods. But hey, there's nothing stopping anyone from coming up with some 70's themed sprites, weapon files, and so on. :)
« Last Edit: August 18, 2017, 08:41:57 pm by marvinkosh »

Offline Yataka Shimaoka

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2017, 02:04:38 pm »
Well your mod is acceptably hard, its not enough to make veterans like me to suffer. If you want, I can upload a ruleset which will make players suffer hard, well of course its your call.

Offline RemingtonRyder

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2017, 03:26:00 pm »
I'll happily take a look. I'm not really going for suffering, though. That's why there's a mixture of things.

Offline SteamXCOM

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2017, 06:14:23 pm »
RETRO is good..

Offline Yataka Shimaoka

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2017, 01:02:52 am »
Here is the said ruleset, you might wanna fix the alien weapons since I removed those because they were substituted with terror units. This ruleset only changes the enemy numbers, not their stats

Offline Yataka Shimaoka

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2017, 05:01:39 am »
Speaking of retro guns, try kappa weapons mod, it has a lot of good 'ol  guns

Offline RemingtonRyder

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Re: [UFO] Marvin's RETROCOM minipack
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2017, 07:02:50 pm »
I made a teeny tiny change to the Stat Strings mod (Heavy had higher priority than Assault, which might that Assault soldiers would turn into Heavies). Download has been updated!

I did have a look at the ruleset you attached but it's a long file and looks very similar to the original. :/