X-Chronicles Release, v.1.5

[Nord]

...otherwise it's awfully nice of them to just wait for X-Com to get strong enough to deal with them. ...

There is one minor trick... aliens will not wait. They will  spawn more and more hives with no excuses. He he he.

I think one aspect that could be improved would be the maps. I am not a fan of that railway station with a long 2-3 story building across it, for example.

Totally agree. Do you have more maps to include?

[Bonegnasher]

Do you have more maps to include?

I'd take a look at some of those towns with sand and metal fences everywhere, especially the one with a multi-story construction with fences instead of walls in the south-east part of the map and black colored trash dumps around the middle of map.
Monster hunts/rifts: those abandoned zones with red brick buildings might have a bit too many places for monsters to hide while your soldiers sweep the town, especially the one with big buildings on the north-west side of the map.
One mission against spies was a big nice-looking city street with multiple big buildings but all enemies ended up hiding in the one in the northwest corner of the map behind my transport. I didn't end up needing to check all other buildings and I found the enemies pretty quick, but the only way to get to them without trying to make holes in the walls was a door facing the end of the map with two one-tile-wide paths leading to it, one much longer than the other.
Those cool-looking jungle temples might be a bit too large for rift clearing with too many small ruins and impassable vegetation. Also, I was on the first one long enough to activate the enemy search mode because I couldn't see that the big pyramid has tiny doorways to its basement and the last giant was stuck there.

[vjmdhzgr]

It keeps giving me an error when I try to load the mod
"ERROR: failed to load 'X-Chronicles' ; mod disabled
this mod name is already used"

[Nord]

It keeps giving me an error when I try to load the mod
"ERROR: failed to load 'X-Chronicles' ; mod disabled
this mod name is already used"

Maybe you put both archive and unpacked mod in "mod" folder?

[Meridian]

Infinite loop? 0.99.5

0) Load attached save
1) Select batbayar
2) Rotate to point to the legion manipul
3) Take a snap shot

Game freezes just before the projectile hits (but doesn't crash-crash with the crash dialog).

Endless loop during detonation caused by MCDs having zero armor property.

In this case probably BOAT_FURN objects 0 and 17.

But there's a lot more invalid MCDs:

Code: [Select]

[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: XBASE dataset: XCOMBITS object 48 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: RICE_FARM dataset: IDT_FARM object 41 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [INFO] Zero movement cost on floor object:  walk:0 terrain:RICE_FARM dataset:IDT_FARM index:41. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [INFO] Zero movement cost on floor object:   fly:0 terrain:RICE_FARM dataset:IDT_FARM index:41. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [INFO] Zero movement cost on floor object: slide:0 terrain:RICE_FARM dataset:IDT_FARM index:41. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: RICE_FARM dataset: IDT_FARM object 51 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: RICE_FARM dataset: IDT_FARM object 52 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: RICE_FARM dataset: IDT_FARM-WATER object 21 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 83 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 84 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 85 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 86 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 87 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 88 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: IDT_SNOWFOREST dataset: IDT_SNOWFOREST object 89 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DUSKURBAN dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DUSKURBAN_2 dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DUSKURBAN_3 dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DUSKURBAN_UNDVSTEMPL dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DAWNURBAN dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DAWNURBAN_2 dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DAWNURBAN_3 dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [ERROR] Error in terrain: DAWNURBAN_UNDVSTEMPL dataset: DAWNDECOR object 69 has armor: 0. Found using OXCE test cases.
[23-07-2022_10-57-47] [FATAL] FileRecord::at(TERRAIN/BEACH.MCD): requested file not found.

That's also not a complete list, as you can see the test crashed because of missing resources.

And here's the missing resources:

Code: [Select]

[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ----------------------------------------------2. check for existence of mapblock MAP and RMP files
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN00.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN01.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN02.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN03.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN04.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN05.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN06.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN07.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN08.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN09.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN10.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN11.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN12.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN13.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] MAPS/ISLANDURBAN14.MAP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN00.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN01.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN02.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN03.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN04.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN05.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN06.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN07.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN08.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN09.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN10.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN11.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN12.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN13.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ROUTES/ISLANDURBAN14.RMP not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] ----------------------------------------------3. check for existence of mapdataset MCD, PCK and TAB files
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] TERRAIN/BEACH.MCD not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] TERRAIN/BEACH.PCK not found
[23-07-2022_11-03-03] [INFO] TERRAIN/BEACH.TAB not found


[Meridian]

Here's a more complete list of MCDs that need fixing:

Code: [Select]

[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] ----------
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SUMMARY
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] ----------
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] AV2: 72, 73
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] BOAT_FURN: 0, 17
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] CHAIRS: 17, 18
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] CONTAINERS: 10, 26, 27
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] COPTER: 29, 53
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] CRAFTBITS: 0
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] DAWNDECOR: 69
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] GRAVES: 12, 13, 14
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] IDT_FARM: 41, 51, 52
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] IDT_FARM-WATER: 21
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] IDT_SNOWFOREST: 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] LANTERNS: 17, 18
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] LAVABITS: 7, 8, 9
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] MAGIC: 11, 12, 13
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] MAGIC_TOOLS: 4, 5, 6, 7
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] MEDIEVAL: 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] NEST_ENTRANCE: 0
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] NEST_PODS_1: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] NEST_PODS_2: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] NEST_PODS_3: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] NEST_PODS_4: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] NEST_PODS_5: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] PORTAL1: 0
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] PORTALBITS: 0
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] QUEEN1: 9
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SAVANNABEACH: 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_1: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_1_B: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_2: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_2_B: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_3: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_3_B: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_DECK_TEMPLE: 32, 33, 47
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_HULL: 30
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] SHIP_HULL_B: 30
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] TABLES: 32, 33
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] UFO1: 15
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] WALL_DECO: 28, 29, 30, 31
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] WARCAMP_CONSTR: 20, 21
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] WARCAMP_FURN: 2
[23-07-2022_11-21-37] [INFO] XCOMBITS: 48

And more details can be found in the attached openxcom.log file.

[psavola]

Endless loop during detonation caused by MCDs having zero armor property.

In this case probably BOAT_FURN objects 0 and 17.

But there's a lot more invalid MCDs:
...

Seems very likely this is also the cause for the similar bug reported by me last month (the enemy being shot at was standing on the deck of the ship having zero armor properties):

Just noticed something strange. If Irungu Tikolo launches a grenade at a Footman, the game freezes just before the impact of the missile (and you can't do anything). If you shoot the footman twice using rifles, he dies all right. Previously in the mission I already killed a footman with a grenade launcher. I wonder if Nord/OXCE dev has ideas what's going on? I'm using the OXCE snap 2022-06-16. I still have debug enabled in options.cfg if it matters.

[Nord]

That's a lot of bugs. Will do what i can to fix.

Upd.: Most of them are reserved spaces, but some glitches found. Thanks, Meridian.

[Bonegnasher]

Good news for anyone who would like the mod to have a better English translation. I have been helping Nord with the translation (ver. 0.99.4 got a bunch of my corrections for the earlygame content) and I have finally finished making A TON of improvements to it. Don't know when a new version of the mod comes out so I decided to just post my work here in the meantime. Criticism (preferably any missed mistakes and unnaturally sounding sentences or words) is welcome but no need to bother with midgame (training mages and learning magic) and beyond yet, since I am still working on that.

Installation: download the attached en-US.yml file, put it into the Language directory of the XCHR mod and replace the old file with it. Enjoy.
List of changes: 1) pretty much all of the earlygame and early-midgame content translation should now be correct and all grammar fixed, the content beyond that point have also received some love but there's still much to be done.
2) fixed a minor bug with the Ufopedia descriptions for short and poison short swords.

[Scamps]

Good day everyone! Here is a long overdue feedback on mod. I mostly played on 99.2, and a bit on 99.6 (continued same playthrough), so some things may be already changed.

First of all thank you, Nord, for making such beautiful mod in a intresting setting! There can not be enough quality mods!

I don't care much about graphics. They are good and functional IMHO. Only issue I ever had is that in craft interception window cannons on some craft (don't remember which exactly) could be made better visible, easy to confuse it with unarmed barge.

Most of the feedback will be about balance. Sorry if it is all over the place.

Tactical part
- Soldier stat caps are probably the first thing that player sees. And are they low, especially HP! Yeah, this is probably realistic, but requires getting used to. Armour becomes MUCH more important.
- And you don't really have defence against most wands until well in game (I am not there yet). Speaking of which I don't believe I could play this mod on hardcore. Even if I was patient, used smoke cover(which is also an attack) extensively, still there is too much left to chance, and mages have too high reaction and too good shields IMHO. If there are fire mages against exit of the craft, expect to be brutally murdered by reaction fire fire. One somewhat reliable strategy against arcing wands is to hide under the craft. It can not be intended, right? Right?
- Low stat caps don't cripple starting weapons too much, you still get decent accuracy (and it is easier to reach top stats). One exception is Saiga that can reliably miss from 3 tiles (and I am used to perfect close-range precision of shotguns from other mods).
- But melee is near impossible with limited accuracy coupled with dodge mechanic and LOW TUs!!! TUs are IMO more important to melee-oriented characters than melee accuracy. And enemies have much hugher TUs. Only melee weapons with decent accuracy are enchantred spears, BUT they 1) break, 2) don't pierce shields unlike slashing weapons. Second best is composite spear, but hit chances are rather low.
- X weapons. Is this indended that STR influences accuracy more than ACC for all weapons, from pistol to sniper rifle? Keep in mind that they are available well before soldier enchancement, but it is very hard to get decent accuracy from them. I use just one, shotgun. This thing is an absolute shield-breaker and orc/minotaur killer. Pistol and rifle I tried and rejected. The rest I saw in paedia and did not try (I expect perfect accuracy from sniper rifle with its rate of fire).
- Bow fire arrows ignoring shields while tazers do not. Where is concistency? Intuitively neither should ignore shields. Is it posible to add fire damage via scripts only if shield is down?
- Smoke choking friend and foe. While maybe realistic to a degree, it can be used to cheese game in unfun ways. Smoke even affects shelds! On 99.2 where there was a mage camping on lowest deck of a ship, without stairs, killing him was a nightmare. I used grenade launcher to make hole in floor, and then immediatily recieve reaction fire, plenty of it (since guy had full TUs with nowhere to move). Downed him by throwing a smoke grenade through a hole and waiting for many, many turns.
- Shields are generally a pain, they just take so many time to breach with conventional weapons (speaking of legion especially). If there are a number of legionaries around craft, and you can't bring them down fast enough, there basicaly only one option - to retreat. Probably introduce some kind of bullets or grenades or something that would be better against shields, but no effect on enemies (a response using Earth tech, though weaker than magic options)?
- SU-57 widely available in 2021. This makes the mod a fantasy one, not portals or fireballs ;-)
- GM-94 using single grenades along with batches of 3. This does not work very well1 1) you can't load 3 single grenades in a row to get 3 total, 2) you don't have reason to load single grenades, because it is not faster than loading 3. 3) GK-94 autoequip tends to take grenades intended to Grozas. I suggest dropping support of single grenades.

Strategic part
- Item costs are generally lower than in other mods, even craft ammunition. This feels good as you don't feel limited. Earth weapons are intended to be bad compared to magic anyway, right?
- Most of income comes from score and capturing live enemies (and later from flight glyphs). This gives reason to completing missions and capturing enemies, which is good.
- Research pace is generally unchanged from vanilla and here is a problem, because researchers cost the same and are the largest part of player's expenses.  You eagerly expect end of every month to build another lab (or couple, if you did good) and hire scientists. Techs which don't lead to practical results are a pain. Like researching a giant rat or something. Result is like "Just a giant rat", but research costs suggest you probably did a full genome decryption.
- While you wait that much time, there is nothing new to do. All missions have been replayed over and over. You keep downing small crafts to keep money flowing, but this is done with same weapons, against same enemies, again and again. You get at max a couple new toys a month (and X toys are too heavy to enjoy right now).
- All good things are bottlenecked by strong artifact. I looked in paedia browser where I can find it, and it looked like some very hard encounters. I never captured a commander, and never once saw a nest. And have problems with legionarries even. Maybe there could be an event or somethin to spawn the thing if you don't find it in some reasonable time? Continuing the story, it is november 2021, I got 120 scientists and decided to stop wasting time on giant rats and research the artifact after all. After paedia disappointment, I looked in mod files, in hope of event which I suggested above, and found that artifact could also be found in high-level bases.
- Okay, let's find a base. There are some countries with high alien activity, and I saw ships landing in specific places. Let's scan. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. WTF? I opened a save and confirmed there are 3 bases, at least one of them high level. And it is in the same country I am searching. What's wrong? Copy-pasted its coordinates to craft (with some perecision loss), but still could not find. WTF?
- All craft have base detection range 10 km???!!! This is next to nothing. Base radars also don't detect enemy bases. Is this intended? I suppose it could be, bases need to level up undetected, otherwize you won't get the artifact, right?
- Tactical mission was a major pain in the butt, I never savescummed this much. In the end I did not manage to clear the fort, but was lucky that one mage carrying artefact died near my craft, so I loaded uncosious soldiers and retreated. To be researched and continued... Sometime, maybe.

P.S. One tiny thing, if I may. Regarding weapon accuracy. Some examples as composite spear that has 105% * 1.1 * MELEE accuracy. What is the point of 1.1 multiplier? One thing I like in Piratez is that what I see is what I get. Displayed accuracy is chance to hit when all attributes are 100. Even if there are complex calculations. Same applies to X weapons, where 1.5*STR-0.006*STR^2 + 0.2*ACC results in 90 when both STR and ACC are 100. It would be easier to compare weapons Piratez way, and because of that, easier to balance.

[Nord]

Thanks for feedback.
Half of issues, described in it, was fixed (i hope so) on the way to the current version.
Important things i must look at is:
Smoke damage - too harsh for lower hp levels,
Melee accuracy - need to balance somehow...
Research cost. Yep, maybe.
Thanks again, i have things to think about.

[Bonegnasher]

- All good things are bottlenecked by strong artifact. I looked in paedia browser where I can find it, and it looked like some very hard encounters. I never captured a commander, and never once saw a nest. And have problems with legionarries even. Maybe there could be an event or somethin to spawn the thing if you don't find it in some reasonable time? Continuing the story, it is november 2021, I got 120 scientists and decided to stop wasting time on giant rats and research the artifact after all. After paedia disappointment, I looked in mod files, in hope of event which I suggested above, and found that artifact could also be found in high-level bases.

It's a possible reward for a rift mission.

[Nord]

Version 0.99.7 is up.
Changelog:
- Added new primitive race: serpenters;
- Added new undead transform;
- Added new plane: Vulture;
- Added stun batons (i know you wanted it);
- Added many missing ufopedia articles;
- Added new events;
- Improved many ufopedia articles;
- multiple bugfixing and balancing (including less damage from smoke and better melee accuracy);

[Nord]

Version 0.99.8 is up.
Changelog:
- Fixed critical bug with interception sprites;
- Fixed bug with Aliens on flying ships instead of Adventurers;
- Added new units: earth golem, solaris, triffid;
- Added new spell - poison cloud;
- Added new facility - Artifical Sun;
- Fixed Legion cowardness by adding new unit - Legion Saggitarius. Now footmen will rush into melee properly;
- Now player can manufacture lesser wands without scriptor;
- Increased efficiency of stone shield and darkness shield against bullets;
- some new research topics;
- as allways, bugfixing and balancing.

[eclecticbibliophile]

I had this event pop up in the first few months of a campaign, well before I'd discovered any magic. Probably needs to be a check so this only happens after you actually have healers.