Author Topic: The final wrench in the cogs!  (Read 2414 times)

Offline opellulo

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The final wrench in the cogs!
« on: March 09, 2023, 02:55:56 pm »
Hi Everybody!
First of all i want to thanks the modders for a great mod that sucked me in during the last weeks. Great job everyone!

And now that the introduction is done i want to explain why i will not probably continue my game, the final wrench has struck in my cogs. I understand that the mod idea is to always force you on your backfoot, to risk, experiment and to react to the unknown BUT in this mod there are IMHO two main problems:
- An over reliance on knowing what YOU HAVE TO do... I personally think this mod is unplayable without the wiki.
- Be at the mercy of the RNG in creating the missions you need.

I appreciate the "quest like" structure of the missions but if the mission you need don't pops out you are effectively struck without your fault. For example in my game (Veteran difficulty because time is scarce) I am curently in July 2000, i got an avenger, a Tormentor, lots of stormtrooper armors, helix knights and plasma in all the variants. I concluded all the cults obviously plus the Cyberweb missions, mummies, Golden Academy (10 kills with a single missile, funny times) Syndicate and Shogg so i only have left underwater and phantoms as side missions.  That would not be bad if i wasn't also struck in the main line: I got a MiB commander and a Floater one (I had put out fire on him, funny story) BUT to continue for the space quest aparently i need an Ethereal commander which spawn ONLY in the Arbiter mission that so far, refuses to show up... And then, yeah you have to down it and hope to stun the right ethereal since the commander is visually like the others. It has been 4 month since i (suppose) met the triggers but yet no Arbiter, only hybrids, ghosts and small ufos.

It's grindy and quite boring, i understand the Lore reasons but if this mission it's so critical isn't there a way to force it to spawn?

Offline Juku121

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2023, 07:54:20 pm »
I personally think this mod is unplayable without the wiki.
I have never looked at the wiki, except once or twice to see what it's about. I do have a code/dataset diving habit. :D


The RNG dependency is sadly very true.

As to your lack of Commanders, do you mean the Ethereal Knight? Or are you doing the MiB moon arc? Because the actual alien lair on the Moon has little to do with regular Ethereals and is the domain of their whitey faction.

To know who to stun, use Mind Probes. Guaranteed to tell you who's who since 1994. 8)

If you need to force spawn the Arbiter, edit your missionScripts_XCOMFILES.rul, find 'etherealRetaliation', change 'executionOdds' from 33 to 100. Don't come back crying when you're drowning in the things. :P

Offline Vakrug

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2023, 09:24:38 am »
- An over reliance on knowing what YOU HAVE TO do...
Oh, that is totally true! But that is partially true for original game also. And with each subsequent playthrough is becomes less issue.
I personally think this mod is unplayable without the wiki.
What wiki you are talking about? I know only a "wiki" where all ufopedia articles are available, but that will not help you with things YOU HAVE TO do.
- Be at the mercy of the RNG in creating the missions you need.
If only RNG was an issue... I believe it is even possible to screw a progression if you do something wrong with research.
BUT to continue for the space quest aparently i need an Ethereal commander which spawn ONLY in the Arbiter mission that so far, refuses to show up...
No, you don't need that. I finished a game without seeing it once.

Offline Juku121

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2023, 09:33:04 am »
No, you don't need that. I finished a game without seeing it once.
Could have been an older save? The Arbiter is a pretty recent addition. Not saying you need one, but previous experience might not apply to 2.7-2.8.

Offline Vakrug

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2023, 10:47:47 am »
Could have been an older save?
Very likely. Sorry. I mistaken that for a gold embassy ship.

Offline opellulo

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2023, 11:15:28 am »
Err... The wiki linked in the pinned thread? That is invaluable because it shows the triggers to activate the missions and clears other "obscured" information. In my case it was the whole MAGMA requests, i would have normally refused them, but once i saw the BEAST that is the Pulse LMG with chem rounds I obliged quickly. Seriously this weapon is OP: it can kill most enemies with one shot and even laser turrets in full auto... And if it doesn't do the job directly it leaves an enemy so weakened that you can get rid of it quickly (I saw a Sectopod stripped of over 100 armor with a burst!) and it also improves with your soldiers skill which really makes the difference in end-game. Also Very few things in the game have resistance to Chem damage so this thing outshines even Heavy Plasmas and it is available way earlier.

Anyway back OT and to the cause of my pain (my game is 2.7 updated halfway to 2.8 ):
Spoiler:
To build the lunar control room you need the "Alien orbital" tech that it is linked to the Master MiB log which is itself in the MiB lunar base that you can access only once you have hacked alien-MiB communication and to do so you need to interrogate a  MiB commander (which i did... At the second try since the one in the first strike ship was killed by reaction fire) and an Ethereal Commander which, according to the wiki, at this stage only spawns in the Arbiter...
This long series of unfortunate long researches is where i am struck at the moment since the last 4 in game months.

About the Ethereal Order: i only downed a single "gold ship" (after a long chase in Antarctica to make sure it was above land) and the 5 Ethereals inside where no match for the tactical grenade launcher stun rounds (gold shield is very weak against it). I think I am going quickly not only for the low difficulty but also because I stun everything it moves. I was lucky enough to find some synthmuscles in an early Osiron crate, and the 3 sythsuits i made, combined with good melee agents and... Tonfas! Created a one-hit stun combo (for the low cost of 8 AP!) that filled my bases with all kind of specimen.

Anyway it's a great mod, it's unfortunate that some of it's most striking elements are also the most frustrating: another example being the Vampire castle, amazing tileset but frustrating long map! I completed my first castle at turn 35+ (and I think something like 2ish hours) with half of my squad already going mad. So the second time i had to face it i change tactic: I located the knights and the queen, stun them (thanks again Chem Pulse LMG) put them in the backpack to go back home: rendition X-Com style... I mean the Castle doesn't even give you any additional loot to complete it so what's the point of this amazing scenario?

...and someone could please spoil me what are the ghost missions for? Once you have access to lasers they become trivial and there are really not that many uses for ectoplasm anyway. Does the quest improve? Have an end? A final prize?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2023, 03:33:52 pm »
Thank you very much for the detailed review and the overall pleasant tone.

I am not going to defend the mod; I think your points are quite valid, at least mostly. The truth is that this mod is more geared towards players who enjoy this kind of experimentation (or at worst, following some ready-made solution). This has never been my goal, and I spent a lot of effort on providing the player with tips and crutches, but it's still mostly true. To be honest, changing this now would be too late - I would have to change it so much that I would disappoint many players. I'd rather use this experience in a different modding project (I have some serious ideas) and leave XCF as is, while polishing some of its details further.

As for the ghost arc, it's in progress, so the current content is some early missions and that's it. I wouldn't say it's useless (ectoplasma weapons have some merit), but it is rather optional.

Also, I don't like the vampire castle either. :P But what can I do to make it better? I'm kind of stuck here...

Offline OXCEForumLurker

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2023, 06:19:26 am »
I was just coming to post my post-completion review.
Reading it over it's all nitpicks so let me say it's a good game.  It's a lot of fun, or I wouldn't have played it to completion.  That said there's SO much stuff that is so frustrating that only the goodness of the rest of the game kept me going.

I got the Vampire Castle, and killed the queen with fire (she fell down the well in the entrance, there was no way to get to her), and all the knights soaked damage and passed out.  So I couldn't research the queen's corpse (no knight corpse) and for whatever reason another vampire castle didn't proc until YEARS later.  I kept seeing the vampire queen corpse in my inventory and assuming I'd permanently missed out.  If you could prioritize the highest level mission on each critical path so it procs every month or two or three at the most, that would be good.  I'm sure it's bad luck but holy shit.  I was going to the moon before I got a second castle. 
As to how to make the castle better - nerf the sanity drain.  It's the only mission where sanity drain makes perfect sense, but it's just not playable as is.  Your first three turns are leaving the tomb you start in, clearing the field, and running to the entrance, assuming ghouls aren't putting up fire from the ramparts and pinning you down.  Then you need to blow the door, and then you can either camp and use the entrance as a killbox, or run into a room where you can be attacked from all directions including above AND below.  Once that's clear, you will eventually have to send teams into all the tunnels to kill the last zombie or two wandering around by themselves, which can take tens of turns.
-More entrances, less windy catacombs, a less wide open killing field to take over in the first turns, or less sanity drain.  And proc more.  Or, put a knight in a hive or catacomb (whichever is bigger).  I got 4 knights in an army-vs-monsters - far too early, Helicopter days, and had to run away, and never saw another till the castle, and then not another for literal in game years.
-The same goes for the UAC moon base mission, btw.  I'm not sure when that's supposed to proc, but I only had a starfighter, and one power suit.  Sent my best fighter up with a flying drone and even save scumming it was unbeatable.  The rate imps spawn alone tells me its intended for more than a 2 man team.  And even with a large team, by the 3rd level down, everyone on the team is going to be going nuts.  Maybe don't let that one proc until there's a larger capacity space vehicle built.  It gives the impression that it's a one-time-only mission so you're tempted to go for it way before you're ready.

Quick hits for the rest - SO much fun to start with and the midgame then it just kinda drags.  You've got more research than you can shake a stick at early, then there's always a big project unlocking a bunch of new avenues, and then towards the end, it's just picking up a random rank of an alien you haven't grabbed before, who has nothing to tell you, while hundreds of scientists sit idle.  I talk about it before but I'd just compress the end so you leave on a high note.

Hybrids are a lot of fun when you discover them, they're basically helpless against even cyber armor with their terrible armaments and their bases are extremely valuable.  It's a nice break from the aliens, which at that point in the game you can barely handle a scout's worth of.  That said, it gets kind of cheesy and pretty soon I was just sending new units with miniguns to spam-train 10 points of 'lucky' on hybrid missions.  I think they should come around earlier, and be done with once you can recruit hybrids.  Play it off as you started a civil war which stalemates the bad ones.  I do recognize I save scummed so they would be valueable missions to level up replacement troops in a way I didn't really have to worry about, but thats about all.  Eventually drowning kittens is no fun.

I got one single golden academy mission the whole time, right before Cydonia. And only then because their academy sent out an interceptor that got on my radar.  Speaking of factions that should be retired early...  Its zero fun to be chasing around Osiron guys with no armor, using gunpowder weapons after lasers and cyber armor are a thing, again, unless they're intended as baby food for new lategame recruits. 
Not sure what delayed the promotion to golden academy, but if they're intended as a very late game enemy, I wasted their base no problem.  The reinforcements aren't able to do anything against power armor, the new Osiron/Lotus units didn't seem that tough, and the only issue was running up the stairs, even with trained melees in synth suits it takes forever.  Might be worth it if you can get more magical weapons.  I loved the storm rose and flame glove and was bummed that I could only draw down my supplies after killing them off.

Which reminds me - please move the equipment staging tile to the BACK of the vehicles.  Too many times a random rocket would just wipe out tons of valuable and irreplaceable equipment.  There's no reason to have it up front, and it gives an enormous incentive to bug out on any mission there might be explosives involved and the placement isn't perfect.

I'd ask for more -explicit- info on what transformations block what others.   Only upgraded one unit with Kyberism because I thought it would block Olympianism.  Didn't give more than a few units Olympianism because it wasn't clear what that got me.  Flying is nice but I had flying armors already.  Only on the Golden Academy mission didn't I realize they get Psi Sense.  Also, is +5 night vision for Kyberi correct (saw it on the wiki)?  That's inSANE.  I'd have run all my characters through that if I'd known.

I got a strong sense Ghosts were a WIP.  Glad to see that's confirmed.  It could be cool, the psi stuff is interesting.  I never managed to use it more effectively than a turbo laser or a punch from a synthsuit.

As to weapons, someone mentions pulse chem ammo.  I never tried it, sounds amazing.  I only ever used the chemthrower cause I got invaded by MiB in a new manufacturing base and couldn't believe how it cut through enemies I otherwise had no way of hurting.  Never would have really used it otherwise.  If the 0% armor effectiveness on that weapon isn't an accident, it should be advertised, close quarters, low level, chem damage isn't all that impressive otherwise.  I think Incinerator grenades do something similar?  I one-shotted two sectopods in a row with them, might have been luck but even shooting them in back armor with tank lasers isn't usually that effective.  I know grenades hit 4 times, but still.  Anyway, be EXPLICIT with what makes the weapons special, there's just too many to test them all enough to get statistics.

I dunno how I feel about the shielded turrets on terror mission ships.  Before I graduated to gauss/laser weapons, they seemed impenetrable - just blasting away with my whole squad using UAC rockets  (multiple shots/turn x 4) and getting nowhere and retreating.  If they're anywhere with a clear field of fire, every civilian is going to die while you deal with them.  They're also really accurate and almost always have full TUs so lobbing grenades is about the only option and that takes literally forever.  They are pretty well armored and have lots of health, I'd say that's enough without bringing shields into it.  Playing peekaboo for four-five turns apiece, and spending most of each turn knocking down the shield that regenerated suuuucks.

Turbolasers seem like the weapon at which to stop on?  Is that intended?  The sniper rifle can fire 3 times a round, the scatter laser shreds sectopods.  I get that making the plasma weapons more deadly is always gonna be a net negative for the human side through the whole mid-late game, just a bummer to finally get them and there's no real use case for them that something else doesn't do better.

I say this as a savescummer, I can't imagine what it's like to play the late game Ironman.  The ethereals are WAY OP.  I get they're the big boss but hear me out.  They all have shields which are resistant to kinetic, laser and plasma, and mainly weak to stun.  They also have crazy reactions, crazy accuracy, crazy time units, and seemingly crazy melee.  They shouldn't be more competent at every form of combat than a Muton.  They also rarely used psi, but as mentioned I savescummed so all my agents had completed training and had high psi scores, maybe that was why.  Anyway, it would be cool if they were more of a glass cannon - highly dangerous psi users, maybe not so great shooting and definitely not hand to hand.  Making every successive enemy just a tougher version of the last one on every axis is boring.
-If I send a guy to bomb them with a small launcher to stun their shields off I get reaction shot-blasted.  If I send a synthsuit in to punch the shield off, I can -just about- (with agents I've savescummed since day 1 so they have inSANE TUs and Reactions) get close without getting shot, and if I don't seal the deal in two hits, they shoot me, CQC be damned.  If I run a synthsuit up, then plink at the shield with rifles, I usually don't throw their aim with CQC and they hit the shooter.
- Basically, the whole thing about them is they've atrophied their physical shells to almost death.  Make them weaker in melee so there's at least some tactics you can use besides wave attacks or save scumming. 

Please make commanders of all races able to start the countdown to mars?  Please make every alien base and colony have at least one commander?  After fighting my way through a colony and not getting a commander (assumed I'd killed them), I mind probed a commander in a base, and he drew fatal reaction fire.  Next base I ctrl-d ctrl-j and no commander.  Same with the next colony.  Eventually I got a species (I think Waspite Commander?) which didn't open up the endgame.  Extremely frustrating, and again I was shortcutting.  That's hours and hours of playing I skipped that wouldn't have paid off.

And the moon stuff, unless there's plans to build it out, ehh.  It doesn't really add much except a fetch quest for one specific type of ethereal after another.  And I was using Mind Probes but that is so incredibly boring to do for every enemy on those levels.  There's so many!  And knights and Speakers are both white, so it's not clear when you see a white one if its a new, third type of one, or if there are more green ones than just the keepers.  Eventually there's nothing left to research but whichever ethereal you haven't got yet, so it's waiting till the mission, grabbing the ethereal, interrogating him in one day, and thats essentially all you're doing for that month - except a lot of busywork to keep your score from going negative.

Basically for cydonia, I crtl-d, ctrl-jed it.  I felt like I'd already done that mission 2-3 times already.  Green/white ethereals, sectopods and elite mutons, whoopdedoo.  Which is a bummer!  It shouldn't feel like the last turn of a crank you've been turning for several months. 

Get us to the fireworks factory and take a bow.  As I said up top, and you could be forgiven for forgetting, I really did like this game.  It's a great rehab of a game I loved from my childhood that nevertheless probably wouldn't stand up to a replay on its own.  It's a crazy amount of work and what you've clearly spent a lot of time on - the early game - is incredible.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #8 on: March 31, 2023, 01:41:20 pm »
Thank you very much, Lurker.

Some points:
* I decreased Sanity drain in the castle. Not going to do any major map changes at this point, as it's too complex. I'd rather tweak other values, like insanity or enemy numbers.
* Assaulting the lunar base with 1 person is crazy, I'd expect at least a fully crewed Lightning. But one can try!
* Hybrid missions were moved back as much as I could. I realise they're mostly one-sided pounding, I need to work on this arc more.
* Golden Academy is a mid-tier enemy; if it spawns that late, it's more of an exception. But it can happen, as lots of parts are RNG-based.
* Equipment tile to the back: sorry, but no. It's a wildly disputed issue with no clear consensus. I personally prefer to not have to walk so far to get a gun. But I can suggest making a simple submod to change this aspect on top of vanilla XCF; I can even make it if there's enough interest.
* More info on transformations: yes, would be useful, but we don't have the space... These descriptions are already pushing the limit...
* The chemthrower was bugged (bypassed armour completely); now fixed.
* Endgame no longer depends on commanders. Instead there is a new "arc" (sort of) with Ethereals. I am also gradually phasing out Ethereals from most regular alien missions (big boss and all).

Thanks for the thoughts and understanding. :)

Offline Juku121

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #9 on: March 31, 2023, 04:39:56 pm »
More info on transformations: yes, would be useful, but we don't have the space... These descriptions are already pushing the limit...
Er, aren't pedia articles scrollable now? What sort of space is missing?

Offline Stone Lake

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #10 on: April 01, 2023, 05:14:49 am »
Quote
I say this as a savescummer, I can't imagine what it's like to play the late game Ironman.  The ethereals are WAY OP.
Late game, they pose no problems. You can easily shank them in melee / shoot them with plasma auto / mind control them. With 20-40 tiles psi sense they make decent scouts...

Quote
* More info on transformations: yes, would be useful, but we don't have the space... These descriptions are already pushing the limit...
I too missed on protean/kyberos transformations my first playthrough - from the ingame it looks like they don't do anything at all, which isn't true.
How about making secondary pedia page for extra text? I think I saw something like this in the mod.
Or like - bind additional research with it's own pedia page which unlocks simultaneously with the primary research. And slap "<Scroll right for details...>" to the first page.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2023, 05:22:14 am by Stone Lake »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2023, 10:48:02 am »
Er, aren't pedia articles scrollable now? What sort of space is missing?

Not in my house, young lady! ;)

How about making secondary pedia page for extra text? I think I saw something like this in the mod.
Or like - bind additional research with it's own pedia page which unlocks simultaneously with the primary research. And slap "<Scroll right for details...>" to the first page.

This can be done, I think. Not super elegant, but better than stealth scrolling.

Offline Juku121

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2023, 11:37:41 am »
You can also slap a 'scroll down to see the juicy bits' message there?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2023, 05:13:11 pm »
You can also slap a 'scroll down to see the juicy bits' message there?



It wouldn't be a good precedence. X-Com articles shouldn't be scrollable. Basic facts.

Offline Apocca

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Re: The final wrench in the cogs!
« Reply #14 on: April 05, 2023, 12:06:04 pm »
Got the Arbiter mission which allows me to continue the story arc for MiB. I'm at the point were I sometimes get mixed crews for UFOs so there is usually 1 Ethereal.
Waiting for the other Ethereal version so I can continue, but at the moment it's quite a grind with all the hybrid missions to just get some score each month.