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

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes, precisely. I would have to add special restrictions to all the other missions, and that's insane. Also you would fly these subs around the globe, which is even more outrageous than the car and van (as they're a representation of flying and renting).
I don't like it much myself, but I haven't came up with a better solution.

[krautbernd]

Also you would fly these subs around the globe, which is even more outrageous than the car and van (as they're a representation of flying and renting).

It's not, actually:

NATO Submarine Rescue System

[...]The complete system is fully air transportable in a variety of suitable aircraft (C17/C5/An124/A400M). It is capable of launch and recovery in a significant wave height of up to 5 meter(sea state 6) and can reach any distressed submarine (DISSUB) in 72-96 hours from the alert, dependent upon location. It has limited capability in ice-covered seas.

Granted, the real life equivalent probably needs a support vessel to deploy the submarine, but i wouldn't put it past X-COM to simply shove the damn thing out of the back of a low flying transport aircraft to be picked up at a later date when the actual support vessel arrives on site.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well... This is possible, yeah... But still, there is the first issue to consider.
Also I am hesitant about forcing the player to have yet another hangar. What are your feelings about this?

[krautbernd]

It would of course be nice to have an actual submarine to build and maintain, but i think at this point there is no reasonable way to implement it. It's one thing to prohibit certain crafts from some missions, but adding the afromentioned 'allowedCraft ' entries to all misisons is simply not practical, especially as these would have to be revised as you add more crafts to the mod and/or change missions.

This would hinge on OXCE implementing a way of exclusively allowing crafts on a per-mission basis or (as has been recently requested) tying items to mission spawns (i.e. the player has build a submarine / has one in his base inventory). Another way of implementing this would be to tie base functions to mission spawns (build a submarine 'hangar'/base module).

Adding 'yet another hangar' would probably be less of an issue if we had different craft/hangar sizes. As far as i can tell this is actually on the feature roadmap for OXCE and it would probably play nicely with all the cars X-Com Files has. Using a whole hangar for a Van or a Porsche just doesn't feel right. What we need is a carpark. It would free up three (or four, if you have more than one) additional base tiles per ground craft, if you allow multiple cars per carpark.

[Covenant]

Adding 'yet another hangar' would probably be less of an issue if we had different craft/hangar sizes. As far as i can tell this is actually on the feature roadmap for OXCE and it would probably play nicely with all the cars X-Com Files has. Using a whole hangar for a Van or a Porsche just doesn't feel right. What we need is a carpark. It would free up three (or four, if you have more than one) additional base tiles per ground craft, if you allow multiple cars per carpark.

Do most people have multiple cars at the point they're doing advanced underwater missions, though?

For my part I ditched all my cars/vans as soon as I reached Promotion III. I had to give up on a few missions that needed civilian transportation, unfortunately (like League of Concerned Citizens ones), but I just didn't have the space for another hanger. And juggling my capable agents between my spare bases wasn't really viable, as the transfers take so long the missions disappear. The smart thing to do would probably be to send teams out from different bases right from the early game, training up agents at two or three bases at once, but it seems like that would double or triple the time needed to reach the same point of capableness.

[Alex_D]

Do most people have multiple cars at the point they're doing advanced underwater missions, though?

Yes. I go for as many cars as possible. Once you research a Pickup (5 seater SUV, I wish the string text refer it to SUV), you can ditch all cars (public, van, private). If you want a sixth agent, for some missions (sports, beach), have a Helicopter (it's a bit slow).

In my current campaign, my primary base has three hangars. One for a Sky-Marshall with my best troops for major strikes (large UFOs, alien bases, etc), and another for a Thunderstorm for escorting/local strikes. The third hangar is free for transfers. My secondary base has more troops but they are still in training. That 2nd base however has five hangars: Another Sky-Marshall, another Thunderstorm, a SUV, a civilian Helicopter, and one free for transfers. The rest of my bases have one each a Thunderstorm (escorting/support strikes).  I keep around an Arrow (for nostalgia  ), and a Dragonfly (8 agents) for the odd cover mission to the Syndicate tower.

[krautbernd]

Yeah, i keep vans in my primary and secondary base as well as a helicopter at my recruitment center. Also the occasional dragonfly because i just can't get myself to sell all of my initial crafts.

[...]but I just didn't have the space for another hanger.

Again, multiple hangar sizes would be nice. Storing multiple vans/cars in a 1x1 car park would pretty much solve any space issues connected to hangars (at least for me ).

[BlackStaff]

Again, multiple hangar sizes would be nice. Storing multiple vans/cars in a 1x1 car park would pretty much solve any space issues connected to hangars (at least for me.

+1 ! 

[Solarius Scorch]

Yankes has promised this feature. When it happens, it happens.

[unarmed drifter]

ok, this is probably not the right sub-board to ask, but anyway:
where do i find the soundfile which is played when i successfully finish a mission?
(the happy & fast one)

[Thunderwing280]

I've been playing x-files for a while now and i've only found a shogg lantern once which is the playthrough im doing now which was found in a spiders attack mission phase two. Apparently there are hidden cave missions as well, and I've never seen them in all of my playthroughs, do they spawn independently or is the only way the spiders attack mission?

[Niewiem]

Shogg act is pretty far in the game.

[DevFried]

Hello, great mod, love the atmosphere, enjoying it a lot currently (although its spotlight is mostly taken by piratez it seems). Just had some questions/input:

1. Sometimes in outpost missions enemies can start with like ten enemies staring right into your face on your first turn (especially fun when you have couple of exalt agents with grenade launchers), ready to blast the entire mag at once the second you do anything, you have no chance of survival even with a smoke and killing as much enemies as possible on your turn with grenades or whatever, until later on when you can afford tanking all of the damage with armor.

2. On jungle maps, various plants can block your path around the spawn vehicle and it's not easy to break them, I also had a cult hideout mission with the building placed in the corner of the map with a lake in front of it and the only tiny path it had to it was blocked by plants again, so enemy melee fighters had no chance of getting to me, but so did I. I didn't have fire at the time too. Is it possible to use machete to cut them down?

3. I guess you're not meant to tackle some missions very early on your first year, but I generally did well with everything game was throwing at me, even the early reaper mission with two reapers while I only had pistols and shotguns (captured them both, had a good map where I could shoot them without getting smacked using bait&switch tactics and the fact that they're too fat and couldn't fit between the trees and small lakes), but the only legit mission I had to abort because of how bullshit it was, was the bullfrog infestation mission. The map had like ten of them and they all had insane reaction fire and shoot three-four times a turn across the map with lethal precision, with each of their projectiles instantly knocking you out and burning your TU if you manage to withstand, and I had absolutely no means of dealing with them at that time, I couldn't even kill one with everything I got (reaper-tier health and defenses too?!).

4. Not sure if this is possible to change for grenades only, but I found myself unpriming the grenade too many times on accident when I just wanted to throw it, so I thought maybe switch the action position so the throw action would be the first instead of last for grenades?

5. At one point when I was in a pinch I accidentally activated incendiary grenade instead of smoke and burned my entire squad. May I suggest changing incendiary sprite a little to make it more distinct? It looks too similar to a smoke right now.

6. Flashbangs can be thrown as items farther than being used as bangs which is kinda weird to me. Does it magically become heavier when activated? But I guess that's the quirk of "use" vs "throw" which is boosted by strength.

[Covenant]

1. Sometimes in outpost missions enemies can start with like ten enemies staring right into your face on your first turn (especially fun when you have couple of exalt agents with grenade launchers), ready to blast the entire mag at once the second you do anything, you have no chance of survival even with a smoke and killing as much enemies as possible on your turn with grenades or whatever, until later on when you can afford tanking all of the damage with armor.

Yeah - I don't think it's any change this mod makes (though it's exacerbated by the larger numbers of enemies), but it does feel like the random placement/facing of enemies at the start can make a huge difference - bigger than the number of enemies, or their types/weapons. Which leads to a lot of missions where you land and then just end up aborting on turn 1. Again, not the fault of this mod, but it'd be nice to tone down that RNG aspect without losing replayability if it were possible to do so. Fighting at night might ameliorate this somewhat?

2. On jungle maps, various plants can block your path around the spawn vehicle and it's not easy to break them, I also had a cult hideout mission with the building placed in the corner of the map with a lake in front of it and the only tiny path it had to it was blocked by plants again, so enemy melee fighters had no chance of getting to me, but so did I. I didn't have fire at the time too. Is it possible to use machete to cut them down?

Not really related but last time I played XPiratez, to get the last Academy Researcher or whatever it was on some night mission on a lake map I had to stun one of my girls and then throw them over the water so she could wake up, reach the guy and take him out. I wouldn't like to have to do it often, but it was actually pretty funny at the time.

3. I guess you're not meant to tackle some missions very early on your first year, but I generally did well with everything game was throwing at me, even the early reaper mission with two reapers while I only had pistols and shotguns (captured them both, had a good map where I could shoot them without getting smacked using bait&switch tactics and the fact that they're too fat and couldn't fit between the trees and small lakes), but the only legit mission I had to abort because of how bullshit it was, was the bullfrog infestation mission. The map had like ten of them and they all had insane reaction fire and shoot three-four times a turn across the map with lethal precision, with each of their projectiles instantly knocking you out and burning your TU if you manage to withstand, and I had absolutely no means of dealing with them at that time, I couldn't even kill one with everything I got (reaper-tier health and defenses too?!).

Yeah, those frogs are crazy. I only ever seem to encounter them in huge hordes when they seem like they'd be better like the Fenris Wolf, just one or two on a map. Last time I attempted 'em (with my Promotion III guys) I barely managed to kill one in the first turn, then had to abandon the mission before the remaining dozen turned around and tongued me to death.

5. At one point when I was in a pinch I accidentally activated incendiary grenade instead of smoke and burned my entire squad. May I suggest changing incendiary sprite a little to make it more distinct? It looks too similar to a smoke right now.

Hah, I keep mistaking those two as well. Haven't burned up my guys yet but I have made a few mistakes in the loadout screen because of it.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah - I don't think it's any change this mod makes (though it's exacerbated by the larger numbers of enemies), but it does feel like the random placement/facing of enemies at the start can make a huge difference - bigger than the number of enemies, or their types/weapons. Which leads to a lot of missions where you land and then just end up aborting on turn 1. Again, not the fault of this mod, but it'd be nice to tone down that RNG aspect without losing replayability if it were possible to do so. Fighting at night might ameliorate this somewhat?

There is no magical "keep a distance of X between map objects" command. How maps are generated depends on map scripts. You can (with a lot of effort) force the game to always spawn your craft at certain coordinates, and the UFO/building at some other coordinates, but that would be way too crude.
Also, a lot depends on your playstyle. I think starting next to a cult building is often good, since for example you can charge them with swords on turn 1. It is very relative.

Not really related but last time I played XPiratez, to get the last Academy Researcher or whatever it was on some night mission on a lake map I had to stun one of my girls and then throw them over the water so she could wake up, reach the guy and take him out. I wouldn't like to have to do it often, but it was actually pretty funny at the time.

I have to say, it's the first time I'm hearing of using this method. Kudos, man.

Yeah, those frogs are crazy. I only ever seem to encounter them in huge hordes when they seem like they'd be better like the Fenris Wolf, just one or two on a map. Last time I attempted 'em (with my Promotion III guys) I barely managed to kill one in the first turn, then had to abandon the mission before the remaining dozen turned around and tongued me to death.

You must be very unlucky, since I always find just one or two...