Author Topic: [EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread  (Read 352707 times)

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #570 on: January 05, 2016, 10:46:36 am »
After finished Xops I started to play this one. Nothing fancy untill the month's end except I pillaged a Floater battleship carried 9(!) Reapers... Why is it a Floater ship if there are only 4 of them?   IT'S HARDMODE X-COM BABY!!!

Nevermind.

Then that terror. I mean a Sectoid terror with 11 Cyberdiscs and only 2 Sectoids right at the end of the first month... First I thought it is a joke but no...   IT'S HARDMODE X-COM BABY!!!

I understand the meaning of hard just never thought there is someone out there who can and dare to exploit the meaning of this word so deeply... It were not designed to play on Superhuman, did it?

Please, do not misunderstand this, this mod is cool just surprisingly, well... hard sometimes? Or just weird?

Could you provide me with a savegame? Because those spawns for normal Aliens are way to low. Surprisingly the Terrorunits seem to have spawned with right numbers, even thou those are only minimal spawns.

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #571 on: January 05, 2016, 10:50:07 am »
Suggestion. Something similar to AWACS is required in the early game.

Building Small Radar Outposts will also do.
You can try and activate the Awacs Mod additionally i you see the need, i am not sure if they would work well together, please provide me with feedback.

Offline Cristao

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #572 on: January 05, 2016, 08:44:36 pm »
Will try and see if they are compatible. My own experience is that I have had to use an empty skyranger to pull it off once I had built a second base. It also helps that I dont bother shooting UFOs down. I mostly try to land when they are on ground. Less damaging and more money!! Store Space is a problem especially when one hasnt researched a lot.

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #573 on: January 05, 2016, 09:23:21 pm »
Will try and see if they are compatible. My own experience is that I have had to use an empty skyranger to pull it off once I had built a second base. It also helps that I dont bother shooting UFOs down. I mostly try to land when they are on ground. Less damaging and more money!! Store Space is a problem especially when one hasnt researched a lot.

Well you only need 1 Item of each for researching. And Storage modules are pretty cheap.
Did you had any problems with Spawnnumbers?

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #574 on: January 05, 2016, 09:24:21 pm »
The Docked Cargo Ship decided to bring in some Water:

Offline Duke_Falcon

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #575 on: January 05, 2016, 10:14:49 pm »
Spawning works well. It was my bad that I literally demolitioned everything. Corpses what destroy not recovered. After the high number of terror units I decided to level everything with explosive stuffs. And cyberdiscs frequently explode and kill the nearby aliens. Two such explosion is enough to desintegrate those poor sectoids without even spot them.

I checked that terror in debug mode and yeah, there were more greys just they vanished in the fiery carnage of explosions... Just like those useless civs did... And I admit I forfeit superhuman today and restarted in on lower difficulty. Cyberdics + Chrysalids in a Floater terror was just way to much for my squad and me to bring down the lethality level. Not impossible on superhuman but some surprises are to nasty for my taste.

And it is me or the research times really expanded? It took 15 days for a Sectoid autopsy for 20 scientists (well, 10 and halfway arrived 10 more still it took long). And I like the additional reports following the autopsies. Just one question: If explosive munitions is a research topic why not unlock it HE ammo for other weapons to? Like snipers and rifles? These weapons have explisve munition in RL mostly. It would awesome to have HE sniper rounds.

And did you changed AI behaviour? Floaters and Sectoids seemingly love to use grenades even if they enter a 3x3 room and kill themselves to with those grenades. And is this mod really incompatible with everything else? I mean with TFTD weapon damage mod for example. Well, I think I will try this...

Offline Cristao

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #576 on: January 05, 2016, 10:38:57 pm »
Well you only need 1 Item of each for researching. And Storage modules are pretty cheap.
Did you had any problems with Spawnnumbers?

Oh good!! I dont need to keep some just in case it is needed to make some weapon or armor! Great to know. Spawning works well with me.

Offline Cristao

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #577 on: January 05, 2016, 10:40:44 pm »
Spawning works well. It was my bad that I literally demolitioned everything. Corpses what destroy not recovered. After the high number of terror units I decided to level everything with explosive stuffs. And cyberdiscs frequently explode and kill the nearby aliens. Two such explosion is enough to desintegrate those poor sectoids without even spot them.

I checked that terror in debug mode and yeah, there were more greys just they vanished in the fiery carnage of explosions... Just like those useless civs did... And I admit I forfeit superhuman today and restarted in on lower difficulty. Cyberdics + Chrysalids in a Floater terror was just way to much for my squad and me to bring down the lethality level. Not impossible on superhuman but some surprises are to nasty for my taste.

And it is me or the research times really expanded? It took 15 days for a Sectoid autopsy for 20 scientists (well, 10 and halfway arrived 10 more still it took long). And I like the additional reports following the autopsies. Just one question: If explosive munitions is a research topic why not unlock it HE ammo for other weapons to? Like snipers and rifles? These weapons have explisve munition in RL mostly. It would awesome to have HE sniper rounds.

And did you changed AI behaviour? Floaters and Sectoids seemingly love to use grenades even if they enter a 3x3 room and kill themselves to with those grenades. And is this mod really incompatible with everything else? I mean with TFTD weapon damage mod for example. Well, I think I will try this...

Research is real long in this mod. I am tempted to load up my stun pistol and tough armor for this mod just to get a first pass through it. Did you say cybers and chrysieess!!  :o :o

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #578 on: January 06, 2016, 12:21:43 am »
And it is me or the research times really expanded? It took 15 days for a Sectoid autopsy for 20 scientists (well, 10 and halfway arrived 10 more still it took long). And I like the additional reports following the autopsies. Just one question: If explosive munitions is a research topic why not unlock it HE ammo for other weapons to? Like snipers and rifles? These weapons have explisve munition in RL mostly. It would awesome to have HE sniper rounds.

And did you changed AI behaviour? Floaters and Sectoids seemingly love to use grenades even if they enter a 3x3 room and kill themselves to with those grenades. And is this mod really incompatible with everything else? I mean with TFTD weapon damage mod for example. Well, I think I will try this...

Yes research times are expanded by 1.5 times vanilla values. I recommend to stock up scientists, after you raid your nearby Floater Base, which you need for Alien Containment Research, you should get 100 Scientists to be able to research Lasers some better Interceptors and so on. i recommend to get between 200 and 250 Scientists before you reach November, since Plasma Weapons take a long time to research and are needed against some specific enemies which laugh about Laser weapons.
But remember that you are financially restricted, wages for Scientists, Engineers and Soldiers are 1.5 times the vanilla value. The funding from the Counsil Nations is not enough to finance this intentionally. Earlie in the game you need to raid as many UFO's as you can, to get enough money. After Researching Lasers you also set up a production Base and fire out Laser Canons for income.

I am not planning to add explosive Ammo towards normal Rifles and or Sniper Rifles, it maybe possible for Shotguns in the future.

Research is real long in this mod. I am tempted to load up my stun pistol and tough armor for this mod just to get a first pass through it. Did you say cybers and chrysieess!!  :o :o

You can have a combination of Chryssalids and Cyberdiscs in some Sectoid Terrormissions earlie. Alloy Ammo is the only way to fight even those effectivly earlie on, explosives will also do, but do you really wanna destroy the loot?

There are enough methods avaible to capture alive Aliens in the game, Flashbang Grenades, Taser Pistol and Stun Rod. Later of Course Small Launcher with Stun Bombs or Stun Grenades.

But alive Interrogations only become aviable after you researched the Alien Containment, one dependency of it can only be found in Alien Bases, one exists near your starting Base. Its only a Floater Base. *evilgrin*

Oh good!! I dont need to keep some just in case it is needed to make some weapon or armor! Great to know. Spawning works well with me.
This is only true for the current avaible Version, once i release v0.99 with a lot of Terrain upgrades and some smaller fixes and 2 new Missions, you should collect Blaster Launcher and Blaster bombs, especially Blaster Bombs, since i removed the ability of the Player to produce them, so only captured ones can be used.

If any of you have trouble with the research, take a look on the Research Tree Graphic, which is located in the Mod folder, of course you can also ask questions here.
Starting alive Interrogations, especially of Engineers and Navigators will increase Alien Activity in form of additional Vanilla Missions, so you better get a second combat Team ready to handle those. *grin*

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #579 on: January 06, 2016, 12:32:00 am »
And did you changed AI behaviour? Floaters and Sectoids seemingly love to use grenades even if they enter a 3x3 room and kill themselves to with those grenades. And is this mod really incompatible with everything else? I mean with TFTD weapon damage mod for example. Well, I think I will try this...

AI behaviour is unchanged, since i can not influence it.
It's not incompatible with everything else, you can use small Mods like Items or additional Craft. It is incompatible with Mods which temper with Alien Missions, the ItemLevels and the Alien Deployments.

I strongly advise against useing TFTD Damage Rules, there are Enemies in the Mod which will become extremly hard to kill, i suspect Muton Elite Guards and Armored Sectopods will be nearly impossible to kill with TFTD Damage Rules. But if you wanna increase your suffering fun playing the Mod feel free to do so.

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #580 on: January 13, 2016, 09:51:45 am »
Version 0.99 is nearly finished.

Testing will take some time thou, since i wanna avoid all critial bugs.

There will be no changes which break compatibility with Version 0.98.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #581 on: January 16, 2016, 03:42:40 pm »
I've noticed some transparency issues in your version of MADDECOR terrain, MCDs 43 & 50 (patches of transparent black where some light-gray color should be). SCANG on MCD 50 looks wrong as well.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2016, 03:44:32 pm by Dioxine »

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #582 on: January 17, 2016, 06:09:40 am »
I've noticed some transparency issues in your version of MADDECOR terrain, MCDs 43 & 50 (patches of transparent black where some light-gray color should be). SCANG on MCD 50 looks wrong as well.

Thanks i take a look at it right away, actually those issues also should be in the original MADDECOR.MCD file.

EDIT: I fixed the file, but since i haven't released a new Version of my Mod yet, i posted the fix in the Terrainpack @ Dioxine.

EDIT: Also MADDECOR is from Hobbes...
« Last Edit: January 17, 2016, 02:05:01 pm by hellrazor »

Offline Dioxine

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #583 on: January 17, 2016, 04:11:46 pm »
I know I just opened it up randomly in MCDEDIT after you posted the upgrade :)

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [WIP][EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion - v0.98 Darkened UFO's
« Reply #584 on: January 17, 2016, 06:48:44 pm »
I know I just opened it up randomly in MCDEDIT after you posted the upgrade :)

Jeah here again just in case: