[COMPILATION] Final Mod Pack (FMP)

[TheProfessional]

X-Com has a fixed palette. See the zip I attached (for Photoshop, no idea if Paint.net will read it):

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. I was already worried that my game is broken.

I did take a look at your big X-files project, and you seem to have quite a bit planned. Gonna continue nontheless though, i have some unique stuff in mind, like the Fusion Weapons for endgame, more grenade launchers and a few more weapons per tech tier, armors with body shields, exosuits, stuff like that.

Thanks for your help at the start, i think i am gonna be heading into a thread of my own. If you are interested in some assets, just ask, i guess; ill be doing the same.

[Solarius Scorch]

Psi Amp's costs are at fixed 25 tu, both Mind Control and Panic. I assume those are the vanilla costs. However, if I get a high tu (veteran) unit and put them on the Synth Suit (+20 tus), I can get up to 100 tus, which means 4 Mind Controls. On a high strength/skill soldier (over 80 strength, over 50 skill), that means 4 aliens controlled each turn. The 4 psionic soldiers in my ship made every single other soldier completely obsolete, as dogs are better scouts. Not complaining. But that might affect the balance you seek for the mod.

Well, at least it gives you the option to use the Synthsuit. I think balance depends on options: if you play with direct line of sight for psionics, this means you can still do so but must put you psion in danger, since the Synthsuit is hardly as tough as power armours.

Gazers are, I suppose, a mid game combat race. They got a reasonable armor (can be pierced by focused Gauss fire, though) which makes them challenging, but I find their health pool a tad bit excessive, as they more often than not shrug off High Explosives direct blasts with over half their health. In other words, they are just too tough, even against plasma. So maybe taking out 20 life points or something like that from the base stats would be nice?

I think that'd make them too tame. But the most important thing is that how Robin made them, and I generally don't alter what doesn't need altering. I promise I'll think about it though.

[NotCIAAgent]

Well, at least it gives you the option to use the Synthsuit. I think balance depends on options: if you play with direct line of sight for psionics, this means you can still do so but must put you psion in danger, since the Synthsuit is hardly as tough as power armours.

Rather interestingly, that would make the Psions play more like scouts or, at least, second line scouts. They would move around the battle field, spot an enemy, and mind control it, more often than not using it to kill other enemies. Interesting, but a little problem: it would reduce the enemy's psionic danger significantly. Maybe a loopsided option where only the player would need LOS to use psions would make for a more challenging alternative, possibly justifiable (we are not as skilled as the inherently psionic aliens, after all).

[Solarius Scorch]

AFAIK it can be done, isn't there a mod for that? I think so at least.
Anyway, psi is always a problem to balance. Actually, nobody's has ever satisfactorily resolved it yet. So eventually I too the position of "if people want to abuse it, they will abuse it, so if they have it a little easier it doesn't matter much because they're abusing the system anyway".

[Cooper]

isn't there a mod for that?

https://www.openxcom.com/mod/customizable-psi-blaster-balance

[Arthanor]

It can certainly be done. You can set the LOS requirement can be added to mind probe, the alien psi-amp or the human psi-amp to do what you want. For humans, you can even have multiple psi-amps to establish tiers. Something like:
- t1: requires LOS, high TU cost;
- t2: requires LOS, low TU cost;
- t3: no LOS req, high TU cost;
- t4: no LOS req, low TU cost (ie the original!)

I've attached a mod for two tiers (t1: LOS required, fast, based on sectoids; t2: vanilla psi-amp, based on ethereals) that I worked on for the XAE before Piratez abducted me. Would be cool to see something like it go into the FMP.

[NotCIAAgent]

Is this already integrated on FMP's research tree? As in, is it compatible?

[Arthanor]

The mod Cooper linked to should be compatible. Just load it after the FMP (use the arrows to put it in the list lower down).

I don't think the mod I liked to is compatible with the FMP, as they both modify research. If you load it after the FMP, it should work and replace whatever the fmp does for psychic stuff, but I don't guarantee anything. The research tree is huge and there might conflicts, or it might just not fit the mood properly. Best wait for Solarius to look at it unless you want to make a FMP mod yourself.

[Devon_v]

I find LoS Psionics to be the best way to play because it eliminates OP X-Com psions and prevents every Ethereal mission from being a stupid panick fest.

Gazers are only strong mid-game, IMO. High Explosives wreck them and alloy swords will eventually become auto-kills. I had one late game synth-ninja cut down three of them in one turn.

If there's something OP in the game, it's High Explosives. Once you have a character wih good strength and throwing accuracy you can kill anything other than a high-flying Cyberdisc. My best grenadier ended up with flying armor, pinpoint aim, and could carry seven charges to start the mission. Double throw kills anything.

[hellrazor]

AFAIK it can be done, isn't there a mod for that? I think so at least.
Anyway, psi is always a problem to balance. Actually, nobody's has ever satisfactorily resolved it yet. So eventually I too the position of "if people want to abuse it, they will abuse it, so if they have it a little easier it doesn't matter much because they're abusing the system anyway".

I think i actually managed to balance it out to some degree.
I increased PSI Defences for all Aliens and made Ethereals and some other lategame units immune to mindcontrol or nearly immune. I also made the PSI Amp very hard to get via the research tree. You can still get access to the Psi Lab very quickly to actually screen and train soldiers passivly, but active PSI usage in the lategame is restricted towards early game races, so you can mop up those mission quickly. But you still need to fight normally vs PSI hardened or immune Aliens.

So it makes PSI still powerful and it helps to speed up missions against psi weak aliens, but you still have enemies which are not effected by this.

I actually do not like the Psionic Line of Fire thing. Psi Aliens and Soldiers are better kept in the background doing their attacks from there. It also impacts the alien usage of Psi greatly, since Sectoid Leaders/Commanders usually reside in a Commandcenter or Navigationroom, far away from your Soldiers.

So in essence Psionic Line of Fire makes the games way to easy, since the alien usage of Psi is basically nullified.

[R1dO]

So in essence Psionic Line of Fire makes the games way to easy, since the alien usage of Psi is basically nullified.

If that is your biggest gripe with Psionic Line of Fire you can opt to limit it's effect to humans (psi-amps and optionally mindprobes) only.
If i've read that specific ruleset correctly .. that is

[Arthanor]

yup, you can require any of the items to require LoS. I like applying it only to an early version of the psi-amp, then later in the game enable the player to develop a second version that doesn't require LoS. A mind probe that requires LoS is fairly useless (rarely where you need it and you rarely need it enough to bother bringing it to where it could be useful) and as hellrazor said, it hinders the aliens a lot.

[gix]

Hi
I would like to report a little bug/incoherence in FMP. Although Hawkeye&Darkstar aren't available from starters, they're shown in the base information's monthly costs panel. This is happening because those crafts lack the corresponding requirements in craft_FMP.rul:
crafts:
  - type: STR_HAWKEYE
    requires:
      - STR_IMPROVED_RADAR_CRAFT
  - type: STR_DARKSTAR
    requires:
      - STR_ULTIMATE_RADAR_CRAFT
The corresponding ufopaedia's are good, they have the same requires...

[Solarius Scorch]

Good catch, I somehow missed that, thanks.

[ycom]

I've spent two months waiting for a sectoid base/terror mission/base attack so I could get alien electronics to build the avenger and finish the game. The game finally gave me two sectoid base attacks in a row but neither had any cyber disks to drop the electronics. Please add alien electronics to more enemies (other than MIB agents they haven't been giving any either) or provide a way for the player to manufacture it themselves because as it is the game isn't ending until RNG allows it.