Re: The X-Com Files - 3.5: Whispers In The Dark

[RolandVasko]

its not that simple at all.
Not only the power source, but also proper materials.
Sure we could do now a gauss rifle (and put it on a power cord...), its just gonna weight a ton. Mass accelerators have the problem of wearing out really fast. As in "shoot once and spend a lot of time preparing the thing to ever fire a again"...

here we go: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=railgun+test

*ElMag railGun, "electro-magnetic"

[Bobit]

That doesn't really prove anything because there are military laser prototypes too.

[Solarius Scorch]

..or, even better, with tank°ish´flamenthrower, - just as exist such tanks in realy, or also as in CC.games, too

(Command & Conquer series)

What's wrong with the one already in the mod?

Scorch, I want to reset you again about an important topic for me.

...BRZZZT... Resetting...

GOOD MORNING MASTER. WHAT IS YOUR QUERY TODAY?

Will the system for opening Gauss weapons be reworked?

Yes, probably. But not very soon, I'm working on the Apocalypse at the moment.

[BlindWatcher]

I hardly need to tell the team XCOM Files is my new addiction, but that new addiction comes with one very severe frustration: namely, the research bottleneck created by Chief Engineer.

On paper it's simple enough. Get Reaper corpse, research 'cool alien gadget', then get Chief Engineer. Very simple.

In practice I have spent several games completely dry of Reapers up until the 1999 invasion, at which point I just quit in frustration. It seems to be pure luck whether you get the right 'strange creature sighting' mission or not, and I tend to get nothing but zombies. When I first started playing, I loved the sheer variety of these cryptids, but now I utterly hate them because these missions don't advance the tech tree in the exact but extremely necessary way that I need it to; and I'm just sitting on several (military assisted) crashed UFOs with parts and corpses; none of which seem to be interesting enough to any Chief Engineers because the right "cybermutant" hasn't come along.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the logic here. But please hear me out on my proposed solution:

The following are the dependencies for 'cool alien gadget':
- Obliterator (don't know why this is so low in the tech tree, never seen one)
- Reaper
- Sectoid Autopsy (surely seeing a literal alien that clearly cannot survive without artificial means given its vestigial organs should get SOMEONE curious as to all the alien tech out there)
- Orison goon, or related Orison object (this faction is the 'humans with tech too advanced for them' group, so why not have them segway into the alien tech tree)

I do think that you should earn your way up the tech tree, be reasonably able to make it to Promotion II before 1999, and furthermore not be conditioned to hate the cryptid missions simply because the sheer variety they offer is in any way a "distraction". I think we can all agree that the player should not sit there and say to themselves "if I don't get a reaper in this mission, I'm just going to turn off the game" over and over again; because that was very much my experience. Increasing the frequency of Reapers is not desirable to me, as I feel that Reapers should be a rare "wild" alien early in the game; despite the tech tree problems that rarity brings. Expand the prerequisite options, don't diminish the wow factor of Reapers.

Edit: It's a bug apparently.

[X-Man]

I hardly need to tell the team XCOM Files is my new addiction, but that new addiction comes with one very severe frustration: namely, the research bottleneck created by Chief Engineer.

On paper it's simple enough. Get Reaper corpse, research 'cool alien gadget', then get Chief Engineer. Very simple.

In practice I have spent several games completely dry of Reapers up until the 1999 invasion, at which point I just quit in frustration. It seems to be pure luck whether you get the right 'strange creature sighting' mission or not, and I tend to get nothing but zombies. When I first started playing, I loved the sheer variety of these cryptids, but now I utterly hate them because these missions don't advance the tech tree in the exact but extremely necessary way that I need it to; and I'm just sitting on several (military assisted) crashed UFOs with parts and corpses; none of which seem to be interesting enough to any Chief Engineers because the right "cybermutant" hasn't come along.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the logic here. But please hear me out on my proposed solution:

The following are the dependencies for 'cool alien gadget':
- Obliterator (don't know why this is so low in the tech tree, never seen one)
- Reaper
- Sectoid Autopsy (surely seeing a literal alien that clearly cannot survive without artificial means given its vestigial organs should get SOMEONE curious as to all the alien tech out there)
- Orison goon, or related Orison object (this faction is the 'humans with tech too advanced for them' group, so why not have them segway into the alien tech tree)

I do think that you should earn your way up the tech tree, be reasonably able to make it to Promotion II before 1999, and furthermore not be conditioned to hate the cryptid missions simply because the sheer variety they offer is in any way a "distraction". I think we can all agree that the player should not sit there and say to themselves "if I don't get a reaper in this mission, I'm just going to turn off the game" over and over again; because that was very much my experience. Increasing the frequency of Reapers is not desirable to me, as I feel that Reapers should be a rare "wild" alien early in the game; despite the tech tree problems that rarity brings. Expand the prerequisite options, don't diminish the wow factor of Reapers.

No-no-no, forget about reapers and others. The easiest way to get a cool alien gadget is to loot psiclone from EXALT soldiers. There are also another CAG-items in the game, check tech tree (press Q on geoscape screen).

[vadracas]

No-no-no, forget about reapers and others. The easiest way to get a cool alien gadget is to loot psiclone from EXALT soldiers. There are also another CAG-items in the game, check tech tree (press Q on geoscape screen).

How do you not have psiclne before 1999?

[krautbernd]

Yeah, unless something has changed recently there are other options than the reaper corpse (how is that even a gadget?) the unlock the chief engineer.

[Mathel]

Reaper corpse is on the list, but the list is very long. Plasma weapons, Laser weapons, various tools, robots, weapon clips, acid weapons, UFO components, Psi weapons, Sonic weapons...
Strangely, Boomer organ and Reaper corpse are there too, even though they do not seem like gadgets.
The easiest to find are probably the Psiclones (already mentioned), Alien Communicators and Black Lotus Psi weapons

[Solarius Scorch]

Reaper Corpse being a prerequisite to the Cool Alien Gadget is a bug. No idea how this has happened, probably some trivial copypaste issue.

And yeah, in 95% of cases the Psiclone is your gateway tech to CAG.

[BlindWatcher]

Reaper Corpse being a prerequisite to the Cool Alien Gadget is a bug. No idea how this has happened, probably some trivial copypaste issue.

And yeah, in 95% of cases the Psiclone is your gateway tech to CAG.

If it is a bug, then how do I fix it? Reinstall?

[vadracas]

If it is a bug, then how do I fix it? Reinstall?

It literally doesn't matter, you only need to get one, and, as you said, reaper corpse is very unlikely to be the first.

[krautbernd]

Solarius, are any of the "random events" mandatory to advance the storyline or research?

[TheCurse]

pretty sure no.
they may help with some things though...

[Thunderwing280]

Most of the random events are pretty minor it seems, maybe -50 or so points which by lategame mean nothing.

Also some should be phased out the further you get into the game getting 'old crop circles' when you've done dozens of them and are at promo 3 makes little sense when you are a massive international organisation fighting bigger threats.

[Solarius Scorch]

Solarius, are any of the "random events" mandatory to advance the storyline or research?

No, or at least nothing meaningful.

Also some should be phased out the further you get into the game getting 'old crop circles' when you've done dozens of them and are at promo 3 makes little sense when you are a massive international organisation fighting bigger threats.

Yeah, but as it is, you get crop circles indefinitely. When I decide to remove this mission after a certain months has passed, I'll do the same with this event.