[COMPILATION] Final Mod Pack (FMP)

[Recruit69]

I covered that in my newest post. Most of the weight is from the equipment carried into battle is from other equipment. See my post for answers.

This is quite OTT....

It's only a game!

I guess OpenXcom should begin with a warning "The nature of this videogame is not designed to stimulate real-life".

[Dioxine]

Yeah you've cited a lot of wiki but there is a serious flaw in your logic, if not outright misinformation. Basing on YOUR OWN WORDS: How 7.5 pound rifle (11 xcom weight loaded) should weight MORE than a full interceptor body suit (circa 30 pounds)?

And yeah it's not a simulation and weighs are skewed to keep game balance (I tend to see weapon's weight as combination of actual weight, ease of carrying and recoil), but even without that, something is wrong with someone's logic here.

[XCOMFan419]

Yeah you've cited a lot of wiki but there is a serious flaw in your logic, if not outright misinformation. Basing on YOUR OWN WORDS: How 7.5 pound rifle (11 xcom weight) should weight MORE than a full interceptor body suit (circa 30 pounds)?

And yeah it's not a simulation and weighs are skewed to keep game balance (I tend to see weapon's weight as combination of actual weight, ease of carrying and recoil), but even without that, something is wrong with someone's logic here.

Right. Getting information without books is hard (I lean more towards heavy armour, aircraft and missiles rather than infantry equipment)

But this is FULL body armour, not in Final Mod Pack. I was just adding it in for reference. FMP, to my knowledge (last used in 0. has a few armours that cover the torso. The fact that they weighed as much as a rifle bothered me. I could get that the Hazmat suit weighed something, but a simple Kevlar vest? Nah mang nah. I just don't like it how people are adding weight to the armours when the Vanilla game doesn't. There's simply no point to them since there are better armours available basically from the getgo if you are smart about it with alien alloys. Sure, this is a better strategy, but some people like variety. I LOVE variety in my games. That's why I like this modding community, because it adds so much more colour than the old Gray/Brown combo of the vanilla game. But when there's something useless in the game that could add variety? That just pushes my buttons.

Either way, doesn't matter to me. I'll take the two hours to find every weight value of the armours in the ruleset and take them out. I will do that it takes to get my variety, one way or another.

[Dioxine]

You've spent 2 hours learning (which is never bad) but you haven't bothered to even check the FMP and find out the Weight 8 body armor provided there quite reliably protects against rifle hits, which places it in the same ball park as 30-pound Interceptor body armor.

[XCOMFan419]

You've spent 2 hours learning (which is never bad) but you haven't bothered to even check the FMP and find out the Weight 8 body armor provided there quite reliably protects against rifle hits, which places it in the same ball park as 30-pound Interceptor body armor.

To put this in perspective, I like to bring up the average of good soldiers out there. I use Warboy's statstrings instead of the ones supplied since I don't want to bring up a notepad document translating every number, letter and symbol used in it. That being said, over around 20+ games (only 9 of which completed) I have accumulated a small, but promising number of good soldiers to bad soldiers.

1:3.

1 out of every 3 soldiers purchased are actually worth it. While this may seem trivial, most of them - when equipped with armour - only have enough to carry a loaded rifle. (Most soldiers I purchase have ~25 strength value because of RNG). 8+11=19 strength points used. I have roughly 4-5 left over for a magazine or a grenade. During terror missions, this is not enough. And I am not going to sit there all of the first month purchasing and selling soldiers if they have ~30 weight value when they are recruited due to money and time constraints with UFO's flying all over the place. So not only is it convenient for weight armours to be taken out of FMP and most armour mods, it also makes my guys look better compared to the old brown coveralls which are...brown. 

[Solarius Scorch]

I never understood the good/bad soldier discern. Well, maybe for the Psi Strength, yes. But other stats? They depend on experience. All soldiers of the same level are similar.

[Harald_Gray]

Everybody has his/her playstyle and there's no "wrong" way of winning the game.

In my experience, the first deciding stat is FA. There's a *huge* difference between FA 45 and FA 65 and I'm not going to wait fifteen mission for a soldier to improve to a value I can get from a rookie. Plus I don't want to endanger my other soldiers by placing weak links into my teams. So I tend to become more and more selective in my hiring process as I'm getting richer and richer. I take everybody in January but come say July, I've got a base or two dedicated mainly to screening rookies. I'll hire fifty soldiers and sack everybody with a low FA or strenght under 25. And keep the rest, because the other stats are not that important. After all, I've already got a group of veterans, I do have some specialists already, so all the rookies have to do at first is shoot things and get some experience. This first selection process means I keep say twenty soldiers out of fifty.

The second deciding stat is (obviously) psi strength. When I play with little to no savescumming I tend to retire my soldiers after fifteen missions. I keep them (by this time I can easily afford to pay for them and they're far better garrison troops than rookies anyway) and wait for Psi-labs. Which is where I learn which three quarters of my veterans better stay out of any combat that might send them against psionics again. Those twenty rookies in my recruiting base get tested too and I sack those with too low psi scores. I tend to be rich enough to be able to field two teams of psi-strong soldiers so there's no point in giving experience to soldiers I won't be able to send to any mission I might have to. So, out of fifty hirees, I get half a dozen combat-ready rookies.

Some of you will surely say that spending about half a million to get one rookie is not that efficient. And I know it isn't and I do know that this is a game. But I don't like losing my soldiers and I do tend to have this kind of money available so I do this anyway and feel better about doing my best for making sure as many of my guys as possible come back from a mission.

[Dioxine]

Some of you will surely say that spending about half a million to get one rookie is not that efficient.

If I were a Council Member politician I'd only say, "See? I was telling you XCom is getting way too much money! We should at least put some tax on these Laser Cannons, for God's sake..."

[Falko]

Everybody has his/her playstyle and there's no "wrong" way of winning the game.
[..]
 So I tend to become more and more selective in my hiring process as I'm getting richer and richer.

as far as i see it the balancing issue is not soldier selection but easy money
but that there is an balancing issue here is also a matter of opinion

[MeatLoaf]

I doubt you'd be able to reach a balance in the games finances, you could possibly do it if OXCOM 1 was split into 3 different games which 3 different geo-political landscapes and financial situations. If you included TFTD (which would make so much more logical sence if it came before EU) it'd probably end up at 5 chapters (First Contact, Turning The Tide, Reinforcements, Burning Skies, Killing The Hive).

Oh and if you guys are having trouble early game I just threw this together:

Rocket Tank - power increased to 100 ammo reduced to 6 (35% 1 shot chance against cyberdiscs)
GL Tank - fires (18) 40mm grenades and takes the role of the vannilla rocket tank
Auto Cannon Tank - 'Cause 3xHE is better than a single AP shell right?

[Solarius Scorch]

Nice! But it should be noted that the tank in the FMP was modified to fire HE ammunition. (And the tank launcher has an "auto" mode firing 2 missiles.)

[MeatLoaf]

Lol sorry I havent actually tried out the tanks, it was just one of my peeves about the vannila game (and if I had any graphical talent the gren tank would look like this). Also it may have been inspired by a bit of vodka while reading hobbes' work

[RSSwizard]

In regard to the armor discussion

Most soldiers are expected to carry 80 to 150 pounds of gear. Which does include their armor.
The Strength stat in xcom is highly unrealistic as far as how it pertains to the gear they carry around.

Armor weight shouldn't even enter the equation, just forget about it. Maybe for a specific, very heavy armor that doesnt support itself like a bomb disposal suit.

We can just say that all of that extra weight they are expected to carry, like the millions of dollars it takes to tunnel out your building facilities and procure your aircraft which you never see either. And their Strength stat represents "how much over that" they can handle.

These guys are Spec Ops out of the box . . . Navy Seals . . . Spetznatz . . . they carry logs up and down the beach for miles.



And by the way why is the Minimum Weight of all items at least 3?

I remember if I modded items to have weight of 1 in vanilla the game had problems calculating throwing arcs for them. But presumably that shouldnt be a problem anymore.

Last I checked a hand grenade weighs 1 pound and so does a pistol magazine. IRL.

I wouldnt mind being able to make some items simply weightless in mods too (maybe ill try that). They still take up inventory space anyway.

[XCOMFan419]

Lol sorry I havent actually tried out the tanks, it was just one of my peeves about the vannila game (and if I had any graphical talent the gren tank would look like this). Also it may have been inspired by a bit of vodka while reading hobbes' work

Ah yes something that won't embarrass me.

The M50 Ontos was a close support weapon that was used during the Vietnam War, roughly 300 were made. The concept was to use Recoilless Rifles so they could stick as many damn guns on it as possible to support troops in battles\. While inaccurate because of several issues involving vehicles with more than one gun, it did not see service past the Vietnam war. However, Xcom could use such a weapon for inaccurate - yet powerful - fire support when engaging the Alien threat due to the Recoilless Rifle's spread.

Hell, a Recoilless Rifle little line could be interesting. Sure there would only be a HWP and a small rocket launcher that resembles a Recoilless Rifle (eg. Carl Gustav) but it could add a little bit more to the game in terms of explosives.

[Solarius Scorch]

In regard to the armor discussion

Most soldiers are expected to carry 80 to 150 pounds of gear. Which does include their armor.
The Strength stat in xcom is highly unrealistic as far as how it pertains to the gear they carry around.

Correct. That's why, in my opinion, the armour's weight does not correspond directly to its mass, but is rather a function of how much it slows you down due to its mass.[/quote]

Yes, but where do you draw the line? I assume a "non-armoured" agent is wearing such a non-weight armour, as is indicated by the stats. However, a Personal Armour is a goddamn plate mail; I understnad alloys are light, but there's no way it doesn't slow you down.

Having said that, some of the armours that are coming will not have weight despite being reasonably full-body, like the flexible Synthsuit (Muton-based).

These guys are Spec Ops out of the box . . . Navy Seals . . . Spetznatz . . . they carry logs up and down the beach for miles.

And here, my friend, our opinions differ. In my world, supported by evidence (starting stats), these guys are hardly trained soldiers, they're field agents that take up weapons. Few of them seem to have had significant military training, no?

And by the way why is the Minimum Weight of all items at least 3?

I remember if I modded items to have weight of 1 in vanilla the game had problems calculating throwing arcs for them. But presumably that shouldnt be a problem anymore.

Interesting, I should try it myself. Thanks for the info.