X-Chronicles Release, v.1.5

[murkhach@centrum.cz]

The only way I am getting through months right now is repeated raiding of a Nest in Australia. I can not destroy it, but I can crush it's surface defences and sometimes even clear B1, getting around 300 points each time.

Nests are good source of points. I am able to clean young nest, and clean surface and next  two levels of adult nest (in this case with some saving and lot of luck - crystal with lightning spell is just disaster because I do not see a way how to avoid/dodge/resist it's atack)   

If I compare it to TWOTS (a great mod for  XCOM2-TFTD) I miss several mechanic
1]   damage types
   - in TFTD in a  year you can get a  great variety (melee, acid,  stun, gauss, explosive)
   -  in XCHR you just have kinetic, melle, stun
          (some weaopons have other effect but  uses kinetic melee atributes for checking hit]
2]  tanks
   - in TFTD you get early some tanks that can explore and tank a damage
   - in XCHR i did not find yet (ateter two years) a path to gain tanks
3] effective armor
   - in TFTD you get quite soon  a  good spectrum of armors that can soak some damage and prevent you from being 1 shoted.
   - in XCHR most armors does not protect much (I supose there coud be source of this by  underestimating bonuses from enemies stats ) first hit  cut down (air/water shield ) second one kills .


 

[Nord]

Version 1.3 is up.
Changelog:
- More money;
- Fixed archmage guard;
- Added archmage necro-tower terrain for yard and interior;
- minor bugfixing;

[Mathel]

When I tried to switch version 1.3 on, it told me it requires version 7.13 of OXCE.

But the latest release of OXCE is 7.12, with 7.12.8 as experimental.
Edit: Metadata also says it is version 1.2 of X-Chronicles.

[Nord]

When I tried to switch version 1.3 on, it told me it requires version 7.13 of OXCE.

But the latest release of OXCE is 7.12, with 7.12.8 as experimental.
Edit: Metadata also says it is version 1.2 of X-Chronicles.

Ha.
As you can suggest, i put number "3" in a wrong place. I will reupload file.

Upd.: done, please download updated archive.

[Mathel]

I started a new game to test the new funding.

Whatever is done to make it so missions are required for increase in funding is backfiring.
In the first month, I fled a mission in Germany and lost funding. Okay.

In later months, I have been winning missions all over Europe, but no funding increase. Probably because Europe is not actually covered in funding nations, and the places were usually outside of any funding nation.

[coorta88]

While it is interesting mod so far, few things that annoy me are either multiple minor typos, wrong description for weapons or lacklustre descriptions. For example SWD SR rifle has following description:

STR_SWD_UFOPEDIA: "the 7,62-mm sniper rifle of Dragunov is taken advantage of the Soviet Army in 1963. High precision counterbalances a difficult aiming. clip on 10 cartridges 7,62x54mm.{NEWLINE}Ignores no LOS penalty."

with first sentence not making much sense

Better description would be

STR_SWD_UFOPEDIA: "The 7,62-mm sniper rifle of Dragunov was adopted by the Soviet Army in 1963. High precision counterbalances a difficult aiming. Clip on 10 cartridges 7,62x54mm.{NEWLINE}Ignores no LOS penalty."

Another example is

STR_DIRE_RAT_UFOPEDIA: "The bite of these huge rats often causes blood poisoning."

which is a bit lacking.

What about something like this.

STR_DIRE_RAT_UFOPEDIA: "Enormous rats distantly related to our terrestrial rodents. The bite of these huge rats often causes blood poisoning." (not saying that my version is something genius but it is slightly better).

Another thing that while not typo, or bug that annoys me is in Hint section of Ufopedia. Some articles have names that start with small letter while other with large.

For example

STR_DIFFERENT_DAMAGE_TYPES_HINT: "Hint: multiple damage types"

uses small letter for name of hint while

STR_MANA_HINT: "Hint: Mana"

uses large letter for name of hint.
It would be better if all names of various HINTS were unified.

[coorta88]

Another thing I´ve noticed.

Shouldnt name of Runed spear be rather Rune spear of Runic spear ?

The same with Runed bone knife - correct name should be Runic bone knife.

[coorta88]

One things that is mildly confusing is enemy ship detection. After taking control over first landed enemy ship after you research "sky under control" you get the ability to construct small radar system. Maybe before being able to research sky under control you have to research tech like "Intruder craft detection", which will explain why normal military radars are unable to detect enemy ships and why X-com radars suddenly are able (basically something about intruder ship being made out of wood and that in combination with present magic runes allows enemy vessels to enter airspace of various states almost undetected).

Another thins is inablitiy to use Runic bone knife, rune spear and runic axe without savage magic researched. But why exactly ? Those weapons are not exactly sonic weapons in your (excellent) World of terrifying silence which lacks any parts that would allow normal human to use them. Maybe some explanation about why X-com operatives are unable to use such weapons before savage magic is researched would be nice (maybe such weapons require some maintance - some special cleaning procedure, some unexplainable ritual, without which they will violently release all energy stored in its runes).

[coorta88]

Noticed small bug in description of mad psion female, it starts with : This man has acquired which should be changed to This woman has acquired.

Name of X-minigun ammo uses small letter instead of large one - I mean it should be "Minugun ammo box" instead of "minigun ammo box".

[coorta88]

While mod is interesting so far I noticed that for the first half of year there are basically only two mission types:
a)Monster hunt
b)Marauders/savages attacking city
and it tends to get a bit repetitive.

While I have no skills in creating missions I think that you should add at least two extra types of missions for the first year of game.
a)First one would be about marauders/savages seizing control over remote village and taking all villagers to some unknown place. X-com would be involved after police unsuccefully attempted to free hostages and were repelled by magic skill of marauders/savages. Mission should take place in wilderness, there should be 10-12 hostages present in one area of map and surrounding them should be marauders/hostages.
b)Second one should be about savages/marauders attempting some weird ritual in wilderness to either honour their gods or gain magical power over part of nature to use it for their goals. X-com should be informed about this via something like - Unexplainable patterns in weather are ravaging some area and unknown forces from invaders are suspected to be cause.  Mission should as well take place in wilderness.


Small typo (I hope that it is typo and not me not realising some rule of english language) I just noticed. One technology is incorrectly named "invaders writing language". It should be "Invaders written language".

[Nord]

Thanks, i will think about it.

[coorta88]

Another thing that would help game is inserting extra transformation between rudinentary agents and psions. As it is not that hard to end up with many agents with maxxed skills which basically get nothing from missions. Maybe after player research x-institute there should be option to research bio-enhancements for agents which would allow player to increase skills of his agents by 5 points. Of course this transformation as well as other transformations should require med bay build in base. Bio enhancement should not be required for psion transformation. Description for this transformation should talk about how through best available earth technologies scientistcs were able to devise potent hormonal mix which allows agents to reach above what was considered possible for humans. This procedure should have some problems though as this mix used for bio enhancement of agents was developed so quickly it has some detromental effects - maybe -5 to bravery due to changes in agents brain which makes them susceptible to irrational behaviour.

[coorta88]

So far (almost 2 game years have passed) it seems that undead are utilized rather sparingly, which is shame as I could easily imagine terror missions happening 10 months into start of game which consists of undead beings led by a single dark mage terrorizing some minor city and X-com being called to save the day.

As well maybe 14-16 months into game dead rising from grave missions could be replaced with its tougher version with there being actual dark wizard as well as few extra undead present in the graveyard.


Edit

Noticed small typo in shield of darkness description. Article describes various resistances of shield and kinetic resistance simply says 30 without %.

[coorta88]

Noticed small typo. When clicking on white werewolf during tactical battle instead of displaying its name as "White werewolf" text says "White werewolf corpse".

Another small typo - description of technology Use of scepters speaks in second sentence that "Unlike wands, staves" shouldnt it rather be "Unlike wands, scepters".

One thing I noticed is that despite being present in game large rockets and incendiary rockets can not be researched, manufactured or bought by any way (at least it seems that way so far). Is this working as designed by you or do you plan to add large rockets and incendiary rockets later ?

[Nord]

Is this working as designed.. ?

Yes.