Author Topic: Best mods for OXCE 2023?  (Read 10227 times)

Online Meridian

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2023, 06:51:27 pm »
I'm surprised why the X-Com Files is not mentioned in this list.  What is your rationale for not including it?  I'm asking from the standpoint of a user and modder who appreciates the richness of playthrough and story that was enabled by XCF and which the vanilla is missing.

Also, I wonder if FMP is actually a part of XCF?  That's been my impression after reading descriptions at the mod.io, and playing through the whole XCF oncee.

The quoted list are just my personal top 3, it's nothing official.
XcomFiles is not there, because I don't like it.
Many other people like it, and it could even be on place 1 for some people.

XCF loosely contains FMP, but it's a completely different experience than playing just FMP.

Offline zee_ra

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #16 on: April 01, 2023, 01:26:38 am »
The quoted list are just my personal top 3, it's nothing official.
XcomFiles is not there, because I don't like it.
Many other people like it, and it could even be on place 1 for some people.

XCF loosely contains FMP, but it's a completely different experience than playing just FMP.

Than you for sharing this.  I am looking for a good mod to play-through and to have even better experience than with XCF.

Could you please suggest which mods have all of the following?
  • Highly devious, smart, and sneaky, extremely evil AI.
  • Advanced intermediate crafts like Thunderstorm fro XCF.
  • Advanced armors like Shock Armor and Juggernaut Armor from XCF.
  • Ideally both land and oceanic bases.
  • Sophisticated, well developed story in which both cyborg and psi lines are included.
  • Tactically, have shields available that work on top of armor (like e.g. Ethereal's Grand Master in XCF).
  • Large tactical maps.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2023, 01:46:37 am by zee_ra »

Offline Slow

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #17 on: April 05, 2023, 03:24:47 pm »
Than you for sharing this.  I am looking for a good mod to play-through and to have even better experience than with XCF.

Could you please suggest which mods have all of the following?
  • Highly devious, smart, and sneaky, extremely evil AI.
  • Advanced intermediate crafts like Thunderstorm fro XCF.
  • Advanced armors like Shock Armor and Juggernaut Armor from XCF.
  • Ideally both land and oceanic bases.
  • Sophisticated, well developed story in which both cyborg and psi lines are included.
  • Tactically, have shields available that work on top of armor (like e.g. Ethereal's Grand Master in XCF).
  • Large tactical maps.


Dude, you asking like there's a choice from tens maybe hundreds of big mods for OXCE.  ;D

The truth is, there's only like 5 or 6 mods that suit your requirements: XCF, FMP, Xpiratez, Warhammer stuff, World of terrifying silence, Reaver's mod and UNEXCOM. And some them are unfinished or abandoned.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2023, 03:26:29 pm by Slow »

Offline mutantlord

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #18 on: April 05, 2023, 03:51:22 pm »
Brutal OXCE combo with other mods are the best,

Offline Juku121

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #19 on: April 05, 2023, 07:32:45 pm »
Well, the answer to 1. is only Xilmi's Brutal AI. Nothing else touches the computer opponents in a significant manner apart from making more and more elaborate setpieces for it to play in.

The other answer is XPiratez. The vast majority of game mechanics XCF uses, Piratez either did it first or took notes from XCF.

If you want both land and sea, I don't think anyone's made a full conversion yet. Maybe Precentor Apollyon's mega-megamod, but we don't mention him in these parts, I think?

FMP lacks many of the things one has become accustomed to in more modern mods. Warhammer is perhaps too focused on being, well, Warhammer. Same goes for X-Chronicles, Robin's Apoc mod, the Dune mod and other, similarly thematic mods. UNEXCOM isn't quite as full-fledged or developing as the bigger mods, from what I've seen.

Basically, if a mod has its own subforum, it's likely significantly bigger and more sophisticated than the rest.

Offline mutantlord

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2023, 02:18:29 pm »
One man’s notoriety and ego was his own downfall.

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #21 on: April 10, 2023, 06:08:28 pm »
1: Xilmi's Brutal AI, you can apply it along with other mods.

2-3: I don't think I have yet seen a megamod which doesn't add more intermediate-tech content. And most of the more developed mods also add further advanced tech. These are something of a given.

4: Hybrid mods are hard to come by currently, however they do exist.
 - Apparently XCF has underwater bases, according to one of the comments here?
 - I think Piratez was trying to head in that direction though I am skeptical it ever got there.
 - The Hybrid Mod by Precentor Appollyon is an unfinished abandoned project which is technically a functional hybrid mod but it is buggy, underdeveloped, and lacks direction.
 - The Hybrid Mod Megamod by Mutantlord is a project attempting to combine Precentor's Hybrid Mod with Hobbes' Terrain Pack, Reaver's Faithful, The World of Terrifying Silence (TFTD), and Final Mod Pack. I don't know very much about it yet but it is probably early in development. And given how ambitious it is, odds are it'll never truly finish.
 - Community Map Pack has a hybrid globe and you can load it with another megamod, but it can cause conflicts and also you won't get very much use out of it if the primary megamod doesn't make use of both land and water features.
 >> Most megamods simply don't have that yet, as until relatively recently nobody had even successfully made a proof of concept of the hybrid capability.

5: Plenty of mods have a sophisticated and well-developed story. But what do you mean by both cyborg and psi lines? It sounds limiting and like something you're unlikely to find outside of Piratez, XCF, 40k Mod, and maybe From the Apocalypse or Area 51.

6: Combat shields for soldiers show up in a few mods. I'm not well-referenced on the specifics but the following mods may or may not contain them: Piratez, From the Apocalypse, 40k Mod, XCF, FMP, TWoTS. Other mods probably do not, for the most part. Reaver's Harmony has shields on aircraft and alien spacecraft but not on soldiers or alien units.

7: Most mods don't really expand the map sizes above Vanilla. Some mods which I know contain larger maps are Piratez, XCF, 40k Mod, Harmony.

- - - - -

If you want something which matches all of these, the closest I think you'll get is X-Piratez with Brutal AI. It likely doesn't have proper hybrid integration and underwater bases but I think it might contain some earlier iterations of trying to push the concept. X-Piratez is a total conversion which takes place far in the future after the first war ended in defeat: the aliens took over and the world is drastically different. The mod combines serious and silly elements, and at least according to some people, it is filled with dangerous levels of boobage. This is the largest mod in the community and contains tremendous amounts of content, with nearly every feature which existed during its development (and some that didn't) present in the mod.

If you're willing to let go of hybrid integration, shields, and/or cyborgs, then there are more which I can recommend to you:

40k Mod is a total conversion set in the Warhammer 40k universe. The mod is well developed and features some of the most advanced use of OXCE scripting features I have seen yet. As a player, you will be able to do many things you can't do in most other mods, such as place a soldier inside a larger combat vehicle or use a bipod-mounted weapon.

From The Apocalypse is or very nearly is a total conversion which takes place at approximately the timeframe of the alien invasion during X-Com: Apocalypse. This mod is only available from the forum. It features tons of original spritework done in the style of Apocalypse as well as many items, techs, aliens, etc. which may be familiar to anyone who has played Apocalypse. But it goes well beyond simply recreating Apocalypse but rather greatly expands upon the concept. It is currently a work in progress but it has been in high-paced development for quite some time and it is in a high quality and very much playable state.

The World of Terrifying Silence is the only big and popular TFTD megamod in the OXC modding community thus far (though one or more others are in the works). It is designed in the vein of the original TFTD but greatly expands upon the concept and adds many new and terrifying enemies and things to encounter, maintaining the theme of being loosely based on the C'thul'hu mythos.

UNEXCOM is a megamod which re-imagines the alien invasion as having taken place during the Cold War, and thus the available technology as well as the political scene is significantly altered. The politics side of things also takes a more significant role in UNEXCOM than it did in the original game. In addition to this, the mod features many improvements and diversification of options and gameplay. It is not as strongly story-directed as some, but it has a distinct focus. It is complete but not fully polished, though it is fully playable and should be generally bug-free.

All five of these mods are well-developed and story-driven for the most part, and in my opinion stand above the rest of the community in terms of offering fresh content and a unique feel. There may be others which would fit here as well but which I am just not familiar with.

- - - - -

My own mods Reaver's Faithful and Reaver's Harmony have been mentioned here already, but I wish to clarify:

Harmony isn't what I would say offers a sophisticated story-driven experience like the five above. Much to the contrary, its sophistication of story is in cleaning up the haphazard mess of the original game's story and polishing it up into a more cohesive hard science fiction narrative. Based on what players have told me, Harmony is arguably the most well-polished and well-balanced megamod in the community and it offers more-or-less the feel of the original game with expanded content and a better grasp of gameplay mechanics. It is also a much less frustrating experience than most (where XCF is known to be arguably the most frustrating megamod), though the predictability of gameplay has led at least some players to find it easy even on the hardest difficulty. (Harmony also greatly extends the difficulty range from Beginner through Superhuman.)

Faithful is an earlier step in the development of Harmony. It exists at a point in which I chose to add far more unique content than I had originally intended, and that is why I switched development to the name Harmony, because I knew several players would not appreciate the new direction. Faithful is, as named, more faithful to the original experience. It is well balanced, pretty well polished, and generally complete but simply with less fresh content. It is, more than anything else, the original game but way less broken. To that end, Faithful still has plenty of fans who prefer it over Harmony.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2023, 10:20:16 am by The Reaver of Darkness »

Offline Juku121

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #22 on: April 10, 2023, 11:20:29 pm »
XCF doesn't have underwater bases or anything remotely like hybrid terrain, unless there's been a recent development. It does its underwater stuff via indirect means.

Cyborg and psi refers mostly to soldier types and armours, maybe some equipment like big Psi-Amps. There are also enemies who are cyborgs or psionics without being aliens. All in all, I don't think there's a strong storyline attached to these two specific aspects, there are just a number of arcs that play with one or the other to some degree. I don't see how it's limiting except in the sense of limiting the number of applicable mods, and the requirements outlined in the OP are pretty tight either way.

Shields refer to, well, mostly psionic shields/energy fields, not handheld combat shields. Both Piratez and XCF have a lot of those.

Otherwise, excellent post!




Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Best mods for OXCE 2023?
« Reply #23 on: April 11, 2023, 10:25:07 am »
Cyborg and psi refers mostly to soldier types and armours, maybe some equipment like big Psi-Amps. There are also enemies who are cyborgs or psionics without being aliens. All in all, I don't think there's a strong storyline attached to these two specific aspects, there are just a number of arcs that play with one or the other to some degree.
Ah. I think there are plenty of mods which have at least some exploration of these, including probably every megamod and total conversion listed in this thread.