Author Topic: Re: The X-Com Files - 3.5: Whispers In The Dark  (Read 2457516 times)

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #1995 on: August 15, 2018, 05:17:22 pm »
What is an easy way to get the chief engineer? I've found ethier finding psyclone or durathread is my best shot but that is a bit RnG for me, any better ways?

RNG? Like tkzv said, the Psiclone is literally everywhere on EXALT members. Durathread is also fairly abundant, half the Red Dawn people drop it after death. And there are many other items too.
I am only repeating after tkzv in case we are misunderstanding something.

Hello there! It's wuite a while since i don't play openxcom files (since the 8.x branch) but i remember that the mission "crop circle" and "slien abduction" were bit too common, for the next version are pkanned more divesifyed starting missions? And new soundtracks?

Not that much diversification of early missions I'm afraid. I am busy on other fronts now. But I want to make more early missions when I can.


Offline Thunderwing280

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #1996 on: August 16, 2018, 03:58:38 pm »
RNG? Like tkzv said, the Psiclone is literally everywhere on EXALT members. Durathread is also fairly abundant, half the Red Dawn people drop it after death. And there are many other items too.
I am only repeating after tkzv in case we are misunderstanding something.

Yeah that was my main strat and for the most part it worked out. I guess it was just me feeling that it was a bit rng. I am a pretty big noob at the mod so I guess this was just me.
Also how do you progress on the mutant arc and how do you find caves where you would find shoggath? It just feels like I go nowhere and do the same missions over and over again.

Also what do you think of cults fighting each other? I mean I could see The Curch of Dagon and Red Dawn fighting and Red Dawn fighting Black Lotus as well for influence over their reigions.

And what about Mutants or cults attacking military bases?
« Last Edit: August 16, 2018, 04:17:01 pm by Thunderwing280 »

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #1997 on: August 16, 2018, 05:53:14 pm »
Not that much diversification of early missions I'm afraid. I am busy on other fronts now. But I want to make more early missions when I can.

ok, i'm absolutely looking for these! No chances gor the 0.9.5 i guess...but in the meantime, as a bit of realism, may vdhicle have people carrying capacity kinda real life, eg car max 4, van and hummer ax 6 snd so on, whatever, i'll bive a shot to futher version when will come. Over and out  :)

Offline Mathel

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #1998 on: August 17, 2018, 09:00:12 pm »
Having fun shooting sectoids and having sectoids shoot sectoids with this mod.

Interesting fact: quarter of a cyberdisc does not count as a cyberdisc item.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #1999 on: August 18, 2018, 11:27:05 am »
Having fun shooting sectoids and having sectoids shoot sectoids with this mod.

Sama as in vanilla! ;)

Interesting fact: quarter of a cyberdisc does not count as a cyberdisc item.

Sama as in vanilla! ;)

(Otherwise you'd get 4 cyberdisc wrecks from 1 cyberdisc.)

Offline swivelchair

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2000 on: August 21, 2018, 10:07:31 pm »
Okay I destroyed the Tasoth factory, it is still not letting me research "Atlantis Temple Rumors". Is this a bug?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2001 on: August 22, 2018, 03:23:59 pm »
Okay I destroyed the Tasoth factory, it is still not letting me research "Atlantis Temple Rumors". Is this a bug?

To be honest I can't remember what else is needed; the tech tree viewer should help.
But I haven't heard any complaints about this arc, so I assume it's not bugged.

Offline swivelchair

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2002 on: August 23, 2018, 05:59:08 am »
To be honest I can't remember what else is needed; the tech tree viewer should help.
But I haven't heard any complaints about this arc, so I assume it's not bugged.
Huh, the tech tree viewer doesn't show any other requirements for researching it. Maybe I'm just overlooking something, anyway thank you for the assistance.

Wait is the Stone of Atlantis thing the same thing as the Atlantis Temple? Since I got the Stone of Atlantis for Cydonia or Bust, but I assumed the the Atlantis Temple was the next step in the T'leth story line. But maybe I'm wrong and I already finished the temple thing and it just isn't showing that I researched the rumors. Is there a better thread for me to be asking questions? I would really hate to be bothering you.

Offline justaround

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2003 on: August 27, 2018, 03:04:55 pm »
Hello, I love the work on this mod - it's something I found not long ago and certainly a thing that I wanted to play since a very long time. In fact, something that I always wanted to play and which X-Com covered only partially - a more indepth, paranormal investigation organization done in X-Com style but not focusing solely on aliens as much as on many weird, dark dangers. Less huge pauldrons-wearing and steroid-filled supersoldiers and more realistic black ops, X-Files-like investigations etc.

You've made the game much bigger and better than I initially assumed and I thank you for it, Solarius Scorch.

Still, the reason I am here is not just to thank you, but to provide feedback on things that'd use improvement. Since I like to be thorough and there's a lot to cover, it will be big. I also don't claim that my take is the only correct one by default, merely that you'll consider it as simply the feedback it is.

Spoilered because it is huge. But please, bear with me - it may seem haphazard but some consideration and time went into it.

Spoiler:
A sort of "sort agent by" in vehicle crew view would help, rather than requiring me to go to agents screen, sort agents and then add them to the vehicle or to look at them one by one.

Some vehicles have no description or stats listed (private car for example), there's no explanation of difference between private and public transport later in the game, just some stats. Probably rented public cars, for all their value once rented, should have lower or no maintenance since it's not X-Com that maintains them and certainly less buying price. It would also help against being stuck early game if someone loses vehicles but has almost no money to keep going.

Public Transport description is kinda inadequate. Works well for first two vehicles but then it fails to explain how I can travel overseas with a humvee or other such things. Maybe changing the entry to simply "Overseas transport" with description that even land vehicles use variety of civilian and contracted seafaring transporters to travel (with speed dependant on what they are to transport) would be more informative, as now it basically tells me what speed of a public car/van is (a thing I can check at their own entries).

I like the fluff research but perhaps add slight council rating to every research and write it in the researched thing (tiny bit, just council appreciating you furthering knowledge). Perhaps it is already so but sometimes I get otherwise interesting dossier but it feels like it's pointless, council doesn't care. A mention that council appreciated my cooperation with Interpol and other such groups would be good.

Far faster mundane item research - it shouldn't take more than a few hours for a researcher, yet alone a half a dozen of them, to check out some common rifle or a pistol model and test its ballistics and handling on the range (though probably it should have sharply diminishing returns when researched by more than three researchers) or to ask some organization that "yeah, we'd like those special shotguns we've just discovered you have in stock due to finding one on some cultist corpse - why didn't you tell us?". Those techs often have no in-game explanation and could use some one-liner like "BlackOps admitted that some of their experimental not-yet-in-regular-sale CAWS were stolen. Seeing as we now know our enemies use them and they're functional, they offer to sell us some models too." or even better, connecting to the "need to ask for specific rifle" bit in their contact tech fluff "Now that we know they're a thing, we can order this highly specialized piece of their hardware."

Decrease slightly armor on unarmored, human or not enemies - on 'experienced' it's weird when it takes several high powered rifle (say, nitro elephant gun) shots to take down an oversized wolf etc - I understand that it may make some enemies weaker but frankly, even a very angry rat, zombie or a yeti should be a sort of thing a squad of equipped professionals should take down with ease and it should be something one can send rookies (as there always is the need for them given agents die all the time without savescumming) to train on. They'd be still dangerous (especially human enemies, with their own guns) if a player makes a mistake and will allow them to attack - but if shot with military or big-game hunting rounds, they should feel it more (slight decrease of armor could be paired with more armor penetration on those high-caliber guns?). I mean against some the really powerful but human-tech stuff doesn't do anything - and sure, lobstermen, armored zombies ("vampire knight" but called a "zombie" when checked on the battlescape - also, unresearchable?) and other such enemies should withstand quite a few shots, but let's not go too far with it. Certainly regular big spiders/rats should go down with a single or a couple of regular handgun shots, the threat they pose fully lying in sneaking on agents, not withstanding fire once found.

Ghosts could look more human.

There also are folklore tales about consecrated weapons helping against ghosts, crosses, salt, holy water etc - maybe ghosts could be more of an early game thing, but there could also be early game research about fighting various paranormal creatures (after a few various ones are seen) with some potentially-worthless weapons thrown in into the mix. A special artifact/item priests could have? Sure, holy water will do absolutely nothing against giant spiders attacking the city or some such, but they're welcome to try.

Could the part about solving highly exotic equations in psionic tech be reconsidered? It's interesting, it figures in well with the whole idea that world can be represented by math so by doing math you can affect the world but it doesn't explain how those equations actually change reality and if they're done subconsciously and can be done even by creatures completely unable to do math the scientist should have no idea there are any equations at all.
Just mention that apparent perception and force of will reinforced by a set of exercises engages certain mechanics (that will probably take many more years of dedicated research to fully understand) that allow one to utilize such abilities and that said abilities on their are hard to reliably use and control with enough strength in high-stress scenario and thus need additional crutches in form of devices such as psiclones.

Speaking of the psiclones, they're kinda bad just as a panic weapon and often not worth inventory space. Maybe they could also allow an additional, more mundane stun/kinetic short-range attack? Kinda an alternative to tasers but quite stronger when used by psionically-inclined (of course usable only after relevant tech is discovered) - yet at the downside of how much harder to acquire they are and that only psionically gifted will benefit from them.

X-Com psiclones probably also should be hidden till X-Com discovers how to use psionic/psychic abilities. I recall having them mentioned quite a way before despite my organization having no idea about using psi - sure, there's the "Need To Know" tech to kinda explain such cases, but I don't think psiclones would apply, otherwise it suggests the council already knew all about psi - in which case, why the hell would they allow me to waste cash researching what they already know? Anyway, having regular psiclones be described as simply surprising part-alien tech causing various effects and selling for a lot due to aforementioned tech would be enough.

I am not sure what's the point of weapon slot on Humvee since given its overall stats it's really unable to fight any UFO and I am unsure how - if at all - one can employ vehicle weapons on the battlescape. Is that just a fluff thing? The first vehicle weapon that I got, a cannon, is also considerably more far in game, maybe some vehicle-mounted machinegun would be possible if it is to serve any purpose?

And when we're at the topic of items and vehicles - is it possible to make the tile rest of vehicle's equipment lands on sorta invulnerable to anything? It's less noticeable late game when vehicles have an interior but in the beginning all the stuff in the vehicle is dumped on the ground near it which would be fine if not for the fact that a single stray grenade, an exploding creature nearby and so on can ruin it all.

My BlackOps pistol clips keep disappearing despite me barely ever using those guns.

I'd strongly limit base building early game, when you're just a budding initiative even more than actual independant organization. Have the command facility come in two-story form with a bit of space for items, for the personnel (able to handle 15 people total, perhaps?), improvised lab and workshop as it does now to make it a tiny base seed all in itself, add a jail, animal pen and a small (new) one-tile hangar or two. Yes, just 4 - 5 small tiles but it'd make the future expansions more noticeable, helping the player see how their base grows. The rest, including things available by default like dedicated personnel quarters and storage, should be something one may want to invest in.

Now, small hangars you ask? Many vehicles are small, they shouldn't need a landing pad a big plane would take. Early game it should be just tiny facilities for smaller vehicles to send many tiny groups of agents to study various paranormal happenings Mulder & Scully style and only later one should need to invest in bigger hangars able to hold bigger vehicles housing bigger groups sent against bigger threats. Certainly few first (cars, vans, probably also a humvee and a helicopter) shouldn't require anything bigger, probably some later game but tiny interceptors could fit into those too.

Only a couple of agents show in sell list for sacking, the rest is in agents tab. Would be good if all be in the latter. At the same time, AI should be left in the sell screen and perhaps provide some cash upon sale. Same with non-public vehicles X-Com buys for quite a lot but then has to give away for free.

An important but neglected thing: more mission descriptions. When I send agents to investigate some sightings or reports, whoever reported it could at least give slight hint if it was many animals or some single huge one, or that they've seen some weird humanoids. Sometimes I land my craft just to be surrounded by zombies when I should've known they're zombies, given I just landed in the middle of a group of them.

Same with cults - I should get at least basic intel that in that outpost or whatnot is some high-ranking cult member. Because now I often just land (sometimes next door being surrounded by cultists from all sides which is a thing that could be improved as well) and only then notice there's something interesting.

Also, a bit more peculiar items and loot at cult places? Having a couple of dead farmer corpses/'bone' items at a cult of Dagon's (to simulate sacrifices) or a madman's diary would be an interesting gimmick. Same for a stash of BlackOps ammo magazines/guns for variety of rifles at EXALT outposts. A shipment of drugs at Red Dawn's or documents giving easy interrogation-like info on dossiers etc at Black Lotus. And so on.

Speaking of bones, boomboxes and other such items - they also should be almost immediately identified in research (span of hours if possible). It doesn't take often more than a glance to figure out an item such as a cellphone, yet alone too much tests by a dedicated researcher (and that's what we have - professional researchers we dedicate to study a thing). Some of them maybe could be an optional prerequisite to some research as well, or allow additional boons (like allowing bigger variety of smaller weapons in covert missions when police IDs are researched).

Oh, by the way, yeah. Most of the clips you have in game aren't clips, they're magazines. It's a bit pedantic and I know many people do not differentiate (it's not a big deal for me either) but I know some more technically-inclined would make such an amateur mistake in official item listing/reports/descriptions of special ops organization immersion-killing.

Rather than developing many arcs, consider polishing current ones. It really would be nice if interrogations of various cults and groups would provide more items specific for them, more lore. Currently there's so many groups and so many of them so shallow in depth (I can hunt and interrogate EXALT members but if not the fact they're based on XCOM2012 I'd have barely any idea what they are, what are their goals, reach of their organization etc) that it'd use some work.

Also, some sort of end-game "the world is saved" I hope will not depend on win over any particular group but on keeping all of them either eliminated or scattered. I also hope they won't be all connected. Right now, it seems that all weird creatures, gangs/cults are somehow stemming from aliens. I don't mind some connection but I also would enjoy if a lot of it would be just "Earth is a much stranger place and there's a lot of weird to it beside alien visitations".

Consider making flashlights less expensive (seriously, a couple of thousands for even a super professional and sturdy spec ops grade maglight or whatever is a stretch) but add some automatically working armor-clipped ones (give light even when not held in hand) that should be crafted at a small expense of time and funds for example after the first promotion. Not only it will encourage hiring a few engineers early game to steadily produce those, it will encourage players to actually try fighting at night without being at huge disadvantage (because that's what it is) rather than just wait till the day. Some expensive (dozen of thousands?) BlackOps infrared goggles to help in the dark and to disable Black Lotus Warrior (ninja) and similar creatures' stealth would be also nice.

Like I've said, awesome idea of sending small teams to handle small sightings of weird stuff, using human weapons. I'd like more of it thorough the game. It'd still serve purpose, diverting craft and making player prioritize but could also be both small leg up on some materials and whatnot, ways to acquire people to interrogate and generally balance out the experience (I miss the first missions of hunting single one, two cult/gang members, even though I understand rationale of moving to bigger things, too). Though make sure that bigger variety doesn't mean much bigger frequency - sometimes I already have several missions going at once and while from time to time such hectic moments are nice if I'd be flooded with missions all the time, it'd quickly tire me.

Some items found during the mission aren't brought to X-Com. While I can understand the logic behind not grabbing every surf board in a beach resort, having them be worth a few hundred dollars and sellable as a loot would be good. Or brought to bash eldritch abominations with on another mission, I don't judge.

Alternatively, consider allowing some unprocessable items that bring no benefit to left for the council salvage teams to dispose of in general. If those farmer corpses yield nothing useful, I shouldn't need to take and then pay a lot of cash to get rid of them. The NPCs already died during my mission and the council penalized me for it in the scores. Same for the single, random bones and other such stuff that has no monetary value, leads me to no technological discoveries, cannot be used in any form, just saps either storage space of money.

Possibly it's more of a suggestion for the Extended modification, but it'd be awesome if buy/sell screen would be merged into one, where everything is listed and can benefit from the buy/sell arrows even above/below quantity that's currently at base for buying.

Also, another thing that may be an Extended issue but something I certainly would see as welcome in the X-Com Files - when in the aftermission loot screen, specify which items are to be market as autosell by right-clicking there, not at base. A smaller list to deal with that way and it can be its own category of "Marked for sale" instead of "Hidden".

During "military fighting against the monsters" mission, add some military. All I've ever seen was police and they took more time during the turn shooting at various creatures without any effect than it took them to actually die once the monsters retaliated. Which is fine if it's meant to be regular cops but when it's governmental military operation or full-scale town defense they should be better equipped and able to put up more than a token resistance (actual military in kevlar and with military rifles, police in riot gear etc). Would also tie well with the issue of how little such missions pay - sure, there are corpses but that's often, given how hard those missions can be - more of a consolation than good pay for the good work.

Storm Rose didn't show up at my craft for agent to equip it for haunted location mission even after I've researched the tech to use it. Flame glove works fine. Shouldn't both be useful and usable against ghosts, being psionic devices? If it's due to the rose dealing electric damage and ghosts being seemingly quite resistant to it, I wouldn't mind their electricity resistance to be lower. Just make them die/perform very weak one tile explosion so they can't be stunned/shocked (unless their susceptibility to it can be simply disabled).

Parapsychology in general probably could start a bit earlier, especially if you'll introduce ghosts into early game. Currently it's kinda weird because my scientists keep mentioning in their live specimen research that some enemies, including animals seem to have supernatural abilities, but we didn't even study existence of those. Parapsychology doesn't add any in-game benefits anyway, is merely one of the prerequisities for other research topics IIRC so it shouldn't be too bad (the Parapsychology prerequistes could be moved into Metapsychology tech to have it still appear at the point in the game it's at).

Psionic training should probably only start happening after Metapsychology discovery. With certain Extended settings, it seems that agents grow in psionic strength/experience with their 'work' experience and training, which is fine, but that shouldn't start till relevant tech is discovered. Instead, upon researching it and getting info on psionic abilities in my roster, it turned out much of my more experienced agents were already powerful psychics.

Parapsychology and Metapsychology relations are kinda weird in general. The former basically seems like just admitting "oh hey, we conclude that magic's real, now let's design a few tests to figure out how to use it" but it's the latter that actually does it. So, I'd make Parapsychology some very quickly researchable thing because it's more about asking questions than figuring things out and rename Metapsychology to Practical/Applied Parapsychology to underline how it is actually about using psychic abilities.

Refactoring parapsychology research could also help with abovementioned ghost idea - have the parapsychology pretty early tech after fighting a (nerfed) ghost or other such paranormal creature, which could also lead to anti-ghost weaponry research.


Whew, that was quite a thing to write and I am sure that it took a bit to read as well. I understand if some of those things would require some work to do and I don't expect you to do it straight away - I just ask you to keep this list somewhere and correct things as you go along. Adding new stuff is more exciting for many, but I always prefered to have things work great before getting more things that may need polishing in their own regard. Anyway, thanks again for your time and your work.

Edit: There were typos. There's less of that now.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2018, 05:19:31 pm by justaround »

Offline Mathel

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2004 on: August 27, 2018, 05:20:51 pm »
I need help with the T'Leth arc. I did look what I still need for the Atlantis mission to spawn, and progressing backwards trough research topics ended at Tasoth Creation Data Pad. I get Deep One Rituals, Deep One City and Deep One Village missions from time to time, but none of them has it.
Also, I have yet to see a Tasoth. (In this game)

Offline krautbernd

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2005 on: August 27, 2018, 10:58:08 pm »
I had a more elaborate reply typed out, unfortunately the board decided to glitch out and reset it before i could post it, so i'm going to cut this a bit "shorter" (no spoiler though):

A sort of "sort agent by" in vehicle crew view would help, rather than requiring me to go to agents screen, sort agents and then add them to the vehicle or to look at them one by one.
But you can already sort agents in the craft screen?

Some vehicles have no description or stats listed (private car for example), there's no explanation of difference between private and public transport later in the game[...]
The lore article states that private transport is faster and the public transport article mentions how your agents rent vehicles once they've arrived at the target destination. Yes, having stats for private transport would be a nice addition. Maintenance basically covers unlimited flights per month as well as car rental and logistics.

I like the fluff research but perhaps add slight council rating to every research and write it in the researched thing[...]
Checking the ruleset almost all research has a points value attached, but interrogations don't get you that much. Adding council fluff to dossiers is strikes me kind of redundant seeing how they already state that Interpol has been notified or that the target is under surveilance.

Far faster mundane item research - it shouldn't take more than a few hours for a researcher, yet alone a half a dozen of them, to check out some common rifle or a pistol model[...]
Research progress is only checked at midnight each day. Even if the items in question would have been completed beforehand you only get the reports at midnight.

Decrease slightly armor on unarmored, human or not enemies - on 'experienced' it's weird when it takes several high powered rifle (say, nitro elephant gun) shots to take down an oversized wolf etc[...]
This is probably due to how xcom calculates damage rolls (0-200%). Not sure if decreasing armor is the best way to fix this. And yeah, some enemies are extremely hard to kill by conventional means, but they are (usually) susceptible to other damage types.

Could the part about solving highly exotic equations in psionic tech be reconsidered? It's interesting, it figures in well with the whole idea that world can be represented by math so by doing math you can affect the world but it doesn't explain how those equations actually change reality and if they're done subconsciously and can be done even by creatures completely unable to do math the scientist should have no idea there are any equations at all.
Then again only humans seem to need PSI-Amps to actually make use of PSI attacks. Maybe the article is specific for humans and describes the closest analog as to how humans can access PSI? Maybe other creatures use other areas of their brains for it?

I am not sure what's the point of weapon slot on Humvee[...]
Good point, i've been wondering about that too. Making use of the turret on the battlescape would be nice, but i'm not sure it's possible to implement.

And when we're at the topic of items and vehicles - is it possible to make the tile rest of vehicle's equipment lands on sorta invulnerable to anything?
You can make the tileset indestructible, but that won't save your items. For that you'd have to make every item indestructible, which kind of defeats the point.

My BlackOps pistol clips keep disappearing despite me barely ever using those guns.
Strange - of course they shouldn't disappear when you're not actually using them. Otherwise, have you tried enabling statistical bullet saving in the options?

Now, small hangars you ask?
A lot of people have been asking for this, but it's not practical as long as we can't assign "large" and "small" to hangars and crafts. Right now every hangar can house any vehicle. Wait for whenever this is implemented in OXCE+.

Only a couple of agents show in sell list for sacking, the rest is in agents tab.
Items and personal assigned to crafts can't be sold afaik.

Same with cults - I should get at least basic intel that in that outpost or whatnot is some high-ranking cult member. Because now I often just land (sometimes next door being surrounded by cultists from all sides which is a thing that could be improved as well) and only then notice there's something interesting.
Cult missions always spawn the highest ranking enemy for that mission, according to the size of the base/outpost.

Speaking of bones, boomboxes and other such items - they also should be almost immediately identified in research (span of hours if possible).
See research mechanics.

Oh, by the way, yeah. Most of the clips you have in game aren't clips, they're magazines.
And they'll probably always be called clips because X-COM. You can of course replace "clip" with "magazin" in the localization yaml if it bothers you  ;)

Rather than developing many arcs, consider polishing current ones.
I think it's more about making sure that all arcs work as intended at this point. Yeah, additions would be nice, but implementing them probably takes more time than adding lore articles. Also -> "Note that 100% does not mean there will be no changes or additions, only that I consider this arc done and fully functional."

Also, some sort of end-game "the world is saved" I hope will not depend on win over any particular group but on keeping all of them either eliminated or scattered. I also hope they won't be all connected. Right now, it seems that all weird creatures, gangs/cults are somehow stemming from aliens. I don't mind some connection but I also would enjoy if a lot of it would be just "Earth is a much stranger place and there's a lot of weird to it beside alien visitations".
Have you checked the requirements for Cydonia or Bust? Terminating the cults is completely optional (right now at least).

Consider making flashlights less expensive (seriously, a couple of thousands for even a super professional and sturdy spec ops grade maglight or whatever is a stretch) but add some automatically working armor-clipped ones (give light even when not held in hand) that should be crafted at a small expense of time and funds for example after the first promotion.
Personal lights are already implemented, though not all armors have them. You can check the armor Info tab to see what light/vision sources they have. You can also enable/disable personal lights (see keyboard shortcuts).

Alternatively, consider allowing some unprocessable items that bring no benefit to left for the council salvage teams to dispose of in general[...]
COnsider them fluff and auto-sell them.

Possibly it's more of a suggestion for the Extended modification, but it'd be awesome if buy/sell screen would be merged into one, where everything is listed and can benefit from the buy/sell arrows even above/below quantity that's currently at base for buying.
Not sure if that's even possible UI-wise.

Also, another thing that may be an Extended issue but something I certainly would see as welcome in the X-Com Files - when in the aftermission loot screen, specify which items are to be market as autosell by right-clicking there, not at base.
Not sure what you're asking for, you can already sell (and auto-sell) items from the end mission screen.

Storm Rose didn't show up at my craft for agent to equip it for haunted location mission even after I've researched the tech to use it.
Because Storm Rose isn't concealable while the flame glove is.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 01:09:36 pm by krautbernd »

Offline justaround

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2006 on: August 28, 2018, 04:57:47 pm »
But you can already sort agents in the craft screen?
That's true! I am not sure why it was in my notes for the report - maybe it glitched out or I didn't notice it?

The lore article states that private transport is faster and the public transport article mentions how your agents rent vehicles once they've arrived at the target destination. Yes, having stats for private transport would be a nice addition. Maintenance basically covers unlimited flights per month as well as car rental and logistics.
Yes, and it still doesn't address some of the issue, like how it doesn't explain flying/swimming humvees. Thus the idea to adjust the description as proposed.

Checking the ruleset almost all research has a points value attached, but interrogations don't get you that much. Adding council fluff to dossiers is strikes me kind of redundant seeing how they already state that Interpol has been notified or that the target is under surveilance.
Hardly redundant. The fact that Interpol is notified may mean nothing for the council - Interpol is a different organization and they do not directly provide you any boons for cooperation, so it may very well be suggested that the dossiers etc are just fluff and no one cares about you pushing it further to the Interpol - you're doing that out of goodness of your heart.

Research progress is only checked at midnight each day. Even if the items in question would have been completed beforehand you only get the reports at midnight.
Which is fine, as long as the research times are still adjusted to just a few hours for a weapon/mundane item research/acquisition so they'll get completed comes the closest midnight (assuming it's not around in just an hour or so).

This is probably due to how xcom calculates damage rolls (0-200%). Not sure if decreasing armor is the best way to fix this. And yeah, some enemies are extremely hard to kill by conventional means, but they are (usually) susceptible to other damage types.
The latter part is nice but it merely slightly makes up for the first part which is the issue. No matter how much a beetle or a giant rat is vulnerable to fire, it certainly still should go down with one, two bullets from a passably good handgun (the former probably more likely than the latter). Same goes for sleeveless shirt wearing gangers and other such humanoids, especially when they are able to do the same against my rookies in light armor, using guns worse than those of my rookies.

Then again only humans seem to need PSI-Amps to actually make use of PSI attacks.
Yes and no. Quite a few characters that are quite human, in the dossiers and combat reports are mentioned as able to utilize certain, even if very limited in power or utility psychic abilities even without the tools, just through natural ability or training. There's also mention of how humanity has likely some ethereals genes which may be (though doesn't have to be) the source of human psionic potential in the first place. Sure, it can still mean it's flawed and thus my suggestion for explanation that amps are required to be able to use those abilities in combat scenario to any useful degree rather than make them seem necessary to use any at all - to keep in line with those articles.

Maybe the article is specific for humans and describes the closest analog as to how humans can access PSI? Maybe other creatures use other areas of their brains for it?
I'd suspect that genetic counterpart to whatever spiritual aspect that governs such abilities would be expressed in similar way - that's how genes work. Plus no matter the function, the point is that the researcher is at best clumsy and at worst misleading by describing the mechanics of such abilities as exotic math skills when it's not the case (or if it is the case - the researcher shouldn't know that) and it's merely the closest analog they could imagine - but they don't underline that.

Good point, i've been wondering about that too. Making use of the turret on the battlescape would be nice, but i'm not sure it's possible to implement.
I mean, it's remade and heavily recoded X-com. While out of scope of this mod, in general sky's the limit. Possibly could be hacked by making near invulnerable, friendly, psionics-resistant multitile autocannon creature shooting things and looking like a part of the vehicle on the battlescape.

You can make the tileset indestructible, but that won't save your items. For that you'd have to make every item indestructible, which kind of defeats the point.
Shame. Probably another thing that'd have to be suggested as something for OpenXCom/Extended to do.

Strange - of course they shouldn't disappear when you're not actually using them. Otherwise, have you tried enabling statistical bullet saving in the options?
Am playing with that option since a bit. Will report if the issue will still keep happening. There does seem like there are weird things still going on with the game, still. For example, some injured agents are fine but some keep getting stun damage every turn desptie being out of harm's way, requiring steady doses of stimulants to not lose consciousness - and some of those who lose consciousness, despite having no bleeding damage can die after a dozen or two of turns. Some floating point in damage calculation somewhere?

A lot of people have been asking for this, but it's not practical as long as we can't assign "large" and "small" to hangars and crafts. Right now every hangar can house any vehicle. Wait for whenever this is implemented in OXCE+.
Will do. I just hope Solarius Scorch will keep it in mind for implementation if/when it'll ever get in. I really think the initial base should be smaller and not require dedicated storage/crew quarters for the first few agents one gets making such additions part of the early-game progression.

Cult missions always spawn the highest ranking enemy for that mission, according to the size of the base/outpost.
True, but my point is that it should be ensured, especially as new early-game missions will come in - that type of POI/enemies is mentioned, both in cult missions and regular strange life form or whatnot ones.

And they'll probably always be called clips because X-COM. You can of course replace "clip" with "magazin" in the localization yaml if it bothers you  ;)
That's a cop out answer, don't you think? We could also say that you have to play as sci-fi supersoldier organization using oversized guns only since it's X-COM, but this mod offers an alternative and it's all that much better for it. Again, it's not a big deal either way, but certainly I don't see any good reason, beside possible effort that'd have to be involved, in changing clips to magazines.

I think it's more about making sure that all arcs work as intended at this point. Yeah, additions would be nice, but implementing them probably takes more time than adding lore articles. Also -> "Note that 100% does not mean there will be no changes or additions, only that I consider this arc done and fully functional."
I did note it and still undelines how I like certain things and would like more of them over some others, as per the function of a  feedback :)

Have you checked the requirements for Cydonia or Bust? Terminating the cults is completely optional (right now at least).
That's good, though you didn't address the first part of the issue I have with win conditions in general, like the fact they all seem to be based on a particular group of aliens (well, or two, not sure about connection of Deep Ones with ethereals/sectoids).

Personal lights are already implemented, though not all armors have them. You can check the armor Info tab to see what light/vision sources they have. You can also enable/disable personal lights (see keyboard shortcuts).
That's great ot hear, I'd just hope for similar functionality to be available no matter the armor, with motion sensors, seeing-through-invisibility and light being passive effects of items a character is carrying around.

COnsider them fluff and auto-sell them.
Fluff is good, but then some of those items are so random they shouldn't be collected or researchable. And I certainly shouldn't need to steal a corpse of some farmer and then pay to get rid of it, effectively being penalized for the death of said farmer twice (on top of mission score penalty) when I don't want it at all and it should be something for council cleaners to deal with.

Not sure if that's even possible UI-wise.
I mean, the functionality is all there, but yeah, possibly would need some code adjustment.

Not sure what you're asking for, you can already sell (and auto-sell) items from the end mission screen.
I can sell things alright but the is not consistent. I'd like to be able to right-click it into autosell category, the way normally there's a hidden category for buying/selling from base. Not a big deal, either way, just a suggestion to consider.

Because Storm Rose isn't concealable while the flame glove is.
Ah, good to know.

Also, since I am already making this, a few more points of feedback, plotholes:

Aforementioned article mentioning ethereals - must be above my confidentiality access rights since I didn't see an ethereal - would be nice for council to share all they know about those if they are aware of their existence and I got enough promotions to be global humanity defense force. Combat analysis and autopsies may be a stretch (plus, after all, it's not assured council has that data) but some fluff article at the third promotion along the lines of "it's time to declassify the last bits of knowledge this council has about aliens themselves - we know of such and such, known for this or that, we dealt with them in such particular ways". No particular details, just certain idea and a warning that the data may be outdated or we may be dealing with a different beast altogether this time.

I'd also enjoy a better name underlining global position of X-Com. Maybe "X-Com: Global Paranormal Defense Initiative"?

Is stumbling upon outposts and bases of eradicated (with confirmation through confirmed research) faction intentional? On one hand I can understand if some small pockets are still functional, but on the other I was told that it's now a matter of council shock trooper squads/cleaners so should I still be getting those? Not that I mind, more of the loot and whatnot. I just hope not doing those missions doesn't impact my ranking negatively either.
I'd prefer repurposing them - same map, same enemies but different fluff in mission details. "We found a remnant outpost which survived the chaos engulfing the [organization] and our following strikes against it. It's still defended too well for regular council cleaners to be able to take it out without suffering casualties so you're offered to neutralize it as a second-priority mission." would do well.

Some research seems unrealistically gated. For example, I can study the corpses of trooper zombies but I cannot check their chips till I will interrogate Osiron boss. I can acquire certain rifles from various cults/gangs but I cannot study them, despite them lying there gathering dust in my storage because they require promotion level higher than what I have (in some cases despite them being outdated models/alternatives to guns I already employ in my squads!) and in general, I'd like a bit more fluidity here.

I'd really recommend letting one acquire a corpse after a study on a live monster/non-human enemy. It's weird I cannot simply dissect some creature because I previously looked at how it behaved when alive. It disappears afer that and I assume I don't simply let it go free so probably it did end up dead. Let me have the corpse. Given how certain missions and unique creatures in them are very hard to stumble upon twice (spider queen, certain strange life mission creatures, other such stuff) it only makes it more troublesome when I am forced to get living and dead specimen separately.

I wouldn't mind it if certain unique creature analysis could be acquired through other sources, though. For example, secret documents or research notes could be a loot item that provides certain research, including research on various creatures at random, the way interrogation can lead to random dossier. Maybe cult of Dagon has documentation on gilldogs, maybe black lotus is spying on everyone else, maybe some alien tech could gleamed from what one could retrieve from EXALT bases. It could be a whole venue of covert missions, too - infiltrating research centers, illegal labs, dwellings of some minor civilian occult groups that got to study something they shouldn't have, getting research data and objects but having all enemies (at least the human ones from among them) considered civilians and thus penalizing the agents for killing them, forcing one to either grab the stuff and run to particular location (I know such functionality exists) or be forced to taze/knock out everyone. An easy, but tricky source of intel, research, more exotic (though not necessarily powerful) items. The mission ending with interrogation of syndicate scientist who has a chance of divulging creature entries is a step in that direction. A good step that should be expanded upon.

The above could also add some functionality to documents, madmen diaries and other such items we currently have which are semi-rare (at least I very rarely get mission about hunting maniacs) but less interesting than they'd seem.

At the same time, I wouldn't mind if there'd be alternative technologies stemming from the more rare of findings. Aside from mundane weapons employed by various cults/groups, the weapon progression is pretty linear. But what if after studying some particularly interesting strange lifeform which one may but doesn't have to encounter one can develop new interesting weapon alternative? I recall once finding those floating red things zapping me - maybe study on them could lead to improved tasers. Bullfrog poison seems like a great alternative way of developing dart guns with stunning toxin. Seeing how abominations are good at assimilating things, maybe a defense against it could be developed that would also work against zombie infectors - making the agents killed by them not raise as zombies themselves (which at that point would be just a gimmick, but still, something new to research).

Speaking of dossiers and other such stuff - it seems there's nowhere can I check if a particular apprehended type of a person has still something to give. I see that certain cult/gang members offer no option to be interrogated but I cannot easily compare what they provide since other higher ranked members can still be interrogated, there's still dossiers they can give etc. I believe that basic fluff, like those dossiers should be something every basic trooper of a type can provide, with 'high-ups' offering more practical info regarding functioning of the organization or unlocking very much optional, 'bonus' missions ("We're learned from this higher-up about a few planned shipments of weapons/important and valuable relic location/dead drops for money and other small tidbits. The details are hazy due to secrecy and frequent changes in response to our infiltrtion, but we will notify you should we pinpoint one out").

Anyway, krautbernd, thank you for addressing some of my points. I still hope that Solarius will address the rest (or those of the points you've addressed only partially) in both of my posts now or at least drop a word of acknowledgement so I can go my merry way knowing that whatever issues I have/had were at least seen and considered.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 10:59:20 pm by justaround »

Offline Mathel

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2007 on: August 28, 2018, 08:46:39 pm »
Am playing with that option since a bit. Will report if the issue will still keep happening. There does seem like there are weird things still going on with the game, still. For example, some injured agents are fine but some keep getting stun damage every turn desptie being out of harm's way, requiring steady doses of stimulants to not lose consciousness - and some of those who lose consciousness, despite having no bleeding damage can die after a dozen or two of turns. Some floating point in damage calculation somewhere?

The amount of stun damage that disappears per turn is a function of HP/max.HP. The exact function depends on armor and can be found in its stats for nerds. It  usually zeroes out higher than at 0HP and when your HP is lower than that value, you gain stun damage (fall into shock from blood loss). If your stun damage is too high, you instantly die (die from shock).

Offline justaround

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2008 on: August 28, 2018, 10:51:45 pm »
The amount of stun damage that disappears per turn is a function of HP/max.HP. The exact function depends on armor and can be found in its stats for nerds. It  usually zeroes out higher than at 0HP and when your HP is lower than that value, you gain stun damage (fall into shock from blood loss). If your stun damage is too high, you instantly die (die from shock).
The 'zeroing out' seems iffy since it does look like my agents who lose consciousness despite not bleeding, just from increased shock die over time later, by the stun damage increasing slowly over number of turns rather than just hitting some high value to be really fitting for dying of shock. Anyway, thanks for explaining it.

Offline legionof1

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.4: We Need a Bigger Gun
« Reply #2009 on: August 28, 2018, 11:41:52 pm »
What is going on is 2 separate effects. First is that a character with less hp then a threshold % of max HP,defined by armor, will gain stun each turn rather then regaining stun. Second is that once stun accumulated stun exceeds a multiple of current hp you begin to take hp dmg each turn.

The total result is that the more damage you have taken, even if you have healed all wounds, the more likely its is your going to spiral towards injury and death. Particularly if your in a smoke effect as that will continually inflict stun.