Staged Progression or Timed Progression?

[U.E. Admiral]

General question. In poking around the tech viewer, a number of techs are listed with "Affects game progression!"

My first expectation was that researching or otherwise acquiring that tech advances the series of events, and that avoiding such techs can lend extra time to build up bases and research lesser techs like crossbows. Under this imagined paradigm, the new mission types don't appear and the alien invasion doesn't arrive until the requisite "stage" has been reached by the player.

After thinking about it more, and the style of game that is X-Com, I question whether those notes are more to say "research this to get better stuff" and that events are just going to happen when they happen regardless of whether the player has "progressed" or not.

Which paradigm is in play?

[Meridian]

Researching those topics may disable some ongoing missions and/or enable new missions.
It may also disable some ongoing events and/or enable some new events.

It may be both cosmetic or necessary to win the game.

The tech viewer just says that it does SOMETHING, not what exactly.
It has been added, because people were seeing research topics that (supposedly) didn't do anything... and annoyed the living hell out of me asking why does it not do anything every other day... no other reason for its existence really.

[U.E. Admiral]

That's useful information, thank you.

Still, it is unclear to me what paradigm is used in X-Com Files: progression in stages in response to player activity only, progression at designated times, or perhaps a mixture? An example might help me explain what I mean:

If the player were to avoid researching any tech of any kind that "affects game progression," could the player theoretically play for a decade of in-game time without the game scenario moving forward? Just two guys in a car with pistols and tasers rounding up the occasional monster and cultist, racking up monthly cash the entire time?

Or . . .

Does the scenario advance at predetermined times? I'm not very familiar with the scenario so hypothetically, does Cult activity ramp up at a particular date like April 23rd 1998, and does the alien invasion inevitably occur on January 1st 1999? And if the player hasn't advanced his "game progression" sufficiently by these timestamps he simply gets trounced because he's still running around with Day-1 Pistols?

Or . . .

Is it a mixture wherein, say, Cult activity responds to player progression--ramping up as the player tries to destroy them--but the Alien invasion occurs like clockwork on January 1st 1999 irrespective of player's actions or progress?

Does this clarify my question a bit better?

[Meridian]

The OpenXcom engine allows all of the scenarios you mentioned.

I know very little about exact implementation in XcomFiles, so you'll need to wait for XcomFiles author or XcomFiles gurus to answer.

[tarkalak]

The invasion starts in January 1st 1999. If, at that time, you are not prepared and didn't advance far enough, *shrug*, shit happens. There is some minor penalty for not destroying the starting cults at that point. I haven't played up to that point though.

If you don't deal with the cults you will start getting more bad events that simply lower your score. Otherwise, if you don't advance a Cult's plot, they will not bother you.

So to sum it up, you can take it slow until 1999, then the shit hits the fan. You are expected to have Promotion III at that time, although you might be able to live for a while without it.

[Solarius Scorch]

The general philosophy is this:
- Progression by time: only for processes which are irrelevant of any X-Com actions, like the alien invasion itself. Few things work like this.
- Progression by research: most missions and some events work like this. These missions either are provoked by X-Com activity (for example, you pissed someone off, or scared them into action) or they show up because you discovered some new conspiracy and are now aware of some illegal activities. It may also be limited by time passed (so you don't get very hard missions before a certain date), but not often.

[U.E. Admiral]

Cool. That answers the question nicely. Thank you for the responses, folks!

[Bananas_Akimbo]

There are some cases, in which it can be advantegous to delay some research.
Say for example, that you are having trouble dealing with a certain faction. You might want to avoid doing research, that triggers new, presumably harder, missions for that faction until you are better prepared.
Or you might want to continue doing some easy missions, that generate good income, before advancing.
But usually such considerations require a bit of prior knowledge about the game. No need to overthink this.

Your main concern is to be prepared for the alien invasion around January '99. That one happens no matter what.
Your goal should be to build up your organization to a level, that is equal to or better than X-Com at the start of the vanilla game by that time and also to destroy the cults.
If you haven't destroyed a single cult before the end of '98, you are doing poorly.

The tech viewer just says that it does SOMETHING, not what exactly.
It has been added, because people were seeing research topics that (supposedly) didn't do anything... and annoyed the living hell out of me asking why does it not do anything every other day... no other reason for its existence really.

I'm glad this feature exists.
X-Com unfortunately doesn't have a research preview description like many more modern games in the genre. You only know the effects of your research, once it is done. In vanilla X-Com that didn't matter yet, since all research topics were pretty self-explanatory and the research tree was rather small, anyway. Complex mods like Piratez or XCF, however, really benefit from being able to hand out some extra info.

Perhaps having it say "Affects mission/event selection" instead of "Affects game progression" would make it a bit clearer for new players?

[Solarius Scorch]

I personally think the Viewer is already too informative.

BTW fair warning: delaying the moment of dealing with a faction when you already are ready to do so carries a risk of unpleasant surprises.

[anothrgamer1234]

There is some minor penalty for not destroying the starting cults at that point. I haven't played up to that point though.

Those would be the "Slander Missions". They carry a steep score penalty if you don't complete them (same as an expired Terror Mission), they're concealed equipment only, and they expire almost as soon as they appear on the geoscape. So unless you know exactly when and where they're going to spawn and send a van or Land Rover there in advance, you're going to eat that penalty.

They also show up if you share techs with M.A.G.M.A, so unless you don't want to be able to use pulse weapons or alien alloy rounds for the cannons you'll have to put up with them.