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

[Juku121]

There is no proto-Osprey for you, because it was a private change I made (one of many).

Better/extra labs you gotta research yourself. Getting new types of labs up and running (as well as building new bases to create more lab space) is a major strategy in and of itself.

[psavola]

Thank you. I try to find that proto-Osprey. I hope some way of lab appear soon because I got tons of stuff to investigate and just 5 people.

As Juku hinted, you're going to have a very uphill battle if you intend to go for osprey with only 5 researchers. Your primary focus at start should be at expanding the research capacity to 15 via intelligence center and bio labs ASAP (ideally within the first couple of months). Then you can relax a bit and focus on researching the other useful stuff. Depending on circumstances (such as RNG and money), the next step is either to build more bases, possibly with more researches or wait for science lab (additional 25 researchers, costs 2M to build and scientists also a lot, so it may make sense to save your pennies in preparation for a while). You can get science lab after promotion 2 so before OSPREY (which also requires having all cult 'operations' researched ie. successful cult outpost missions with 'leader' captured, while Promotion 2 does not).

[Belcanzor]

As Juku hinted, you're going to have a very uphill battle if you intend to go for osprey with only 5 researchers. Your primary focus at start should be at expanding the research capacity to 15 via intelligence center and bio labs ASAP (ideally within the first couple of months). Then you can relax a bit and focus on researching the other useful stuff. Depending on circumstances (such as RNG and money), the next step is either to build more bases, possibly with more researches or wait for science lab (additional 25 researchers, costs 2M to build and scientists also a lot, so it may make sense to save your pennies in preparation for a while). You can get science lab after promotion 2 so before OSPREY (which also requires having all cult 'operations' researched ie. successful cult outpost missions with 'leader' captured, while Promotion 2 does not).

I just unlocked the buildings for extra scientist but I dont have money because I made another base :p I need like 2 month of savings. I love it.

[Chuckebaby]

I just unlocked the buildings for extra scientist but I dont have money because I made another base :p I need like 2 month of savings. I love it.

The beginning and early mid game are tough times (money wise). It's what makes the game more challenging. At certain junctures of the campaign it feel like you're fighting elite enemies with only wooden spears and rocks.

My advice is to sell, sell, sell. Sell anything you are not going to use. Stockpiling/hoarding is useless in this game because of storage limits. Knowing what to sell and what to keep though, that in itself is an art form.

[donk]

So I read the tech tree wrong and thought you needed to beat all 4 cults to get prom. 3. So I didn't go for alien containment and when I realized I had already defeated Dagon. Now I'm in november 98 and I get no Deep One spawns.

How screwed am I?

[psavola]

So I read the tech tree wrong and thought you needed to beat all 4 cults to get prom. 3. So I didn't go for alien containment and when I realized I had already defeated Dagon. Now I'm in november 98 and I get no Deep One spawns.

How screwed am I?

You still have a monthly 20 % chance of 'Deep Ones Rituals' mission if you have researched Messegers of Dagon (which you can get as you have researched Dagon Sorcerer). So you should still be able to unlock the underwater plotline (not that you need it, but there are some benefits). Only 20 % chance might mean that if RNG is unlucky you might have to wait for it for half a year, even a year in the worst case.

[Stone Lake]

How screwed am I?

In what regard? To get containment? There's plenty of opportunities for this.
To get deep one? Like psavola writes, not very likely, but there are some options.

[donk]

In what regard? To get containment? There's plenty of opportunities for this.
To get deep one? Like psavola writes, not very likely, but there are some options.

You still have a monthly 20 % chance of 'Deep Ones Rituals' mission if you have researched Messegers of Dagon (which you can get as you have researched Dagon Sorcerer). So you should still be able to unlock the underwater plotline (not that you need it, but there are some benefits). Only 20 % chance might mean that if RNG is unlucky you might have to wait for it for half a year, even a year in the worst case.

I was worried about beating the game. Didn't know under water was optional. Cheers.

[Chuckebaby]

I was worried about beating the game. Didn't know under water was optional. Cheers.

Your good. I've beat the game several times without going underwater once. The despawn penalty's are low enough to ignore the occasional ones that pop up.
The only real ones you can't ignore are

Spoiler:

the 4 main cults, The Syndicate, Men in Black and all Aliens. You can also throw Osiron, Cult of Apocalypse and the Hybrids as well. Those aren't necessarily mandatory, it's more of a score hit

.

[0xEBJC]

To follow the recent discussions, I'm curios to hear other opinions about what necessary or not for completing research topics?

Reason I'm asking is that I've come to the conclusion "in my opinion" that a lot of the research is intended to be skipped... by design you play the game first go around... and research everything... fall behind in progress to the timeline when aliens attack and ultimately have to restart a playthough knowing what is junk and what to skip... this may take multiple iterations too for success.

Anyway, I've started a request to Meridian for OXCE+ to support hiding research topics, so I could hide and ignore junk topics or just never look at them again.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,11593.0.html

Feel free to comment there as I think the more agreement might spur a decision to implement it.

[Juku121]

Eh, I think the multitude of research options, the giant lore section and the need to priotitise your topics are part of the charm. And also more 'realistic'. Ain't nobody gonna tell you their research project sucks IRL.

Honestly, all the baseball bats and minor cultists can be covered so quickly that there's no great need to filter them out. And the actually meaningful topics you don't want to remove, unless they absolutely don't vibe with your tactics. What would be really useful to hide are repeat aliens, MiBs, BO purchases etc that take a long while and are random at best and inconsequential at most.

Plus, you can already use the existing toggle, 'show only new' and queing up important topics into the base's own list to achieve most of this functionality. With some base inventory management (deciding who to keep imprisoned and where, and shipping off currently useless artifacts to a deep storage base), it can be improved even further.



TLDR: It would be a somewhat handy feature, but not as handy as it looks like at first glance.

[donk]

I have researched the HQ upgrade and I want to replace the old ones, which worked, but I had to reload a save and now the main base says that the facility is in use so I can't upgrade or remove it. It worked in an other base, but no matter what I do I can't upgrade in the main base. I tried to cancel all research and remove scientists but it keeps saying it's in use. What can I do?

[Belcanzor]

Refuse/Accept trade with weapon dealers as consequences? I mean the "evil" ones.

[Stone Lake]

I have researched the HQ upgrade and I want to replace the old ones, which worked, but I had to reload a save and now the main base says that the facility is in use so I can't upgrade or remove it. It worked in an other base, but no matter what I do I can't upgrade in the main base. I tried to cancel all research and remove scientists but it keeps saying it's in use. What can I do?

HQ gives: 25 storage, 3 prison space, 5 scientists. Need to free that up.

Refuse/Accept trade with weapon dealers as consequences? I mean the "evil" ones.

Small one-time score penalty/reward

[Juku121]

Ninjad by SL. 😢


Note that the 'prison' is 'live' robots, not cultists, animals or aliens.

I mean the "evil" ones.

What's 'evil' here? The refusal, the traders, the consequences?


As already said, trading or not trading with the cultists gives/removes some score and, well, gives you access to their shopping list.