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

[tkzv]

What benefit is there aside from little writing snippets for researching the same things multiple times? Generally things like Hunting License, and captured alive things?

It varies. Among those dossiers and jokes there may be several important items. Cultists usually give weapons and some information about their cult. Alien medics and Syndicate scientists give information about alien species and monsters. Alien engineers and Cyberweb unlock technologies. If you are not afraid of spoilers, middle-click the researchable item to find out. (You may need to allow research tree spoilers in options.)

By the way, several dossiers unlock unique missions with expensive prizes.

[thisnameismeta]

Looks like Iceland can spawn with a funding level of 0, which I think would preclude you from ever getting any funding from that country since funding increases are based on a percentage increase. I know they're a poor nation, but it is a little sad to have a game where they can't ever contribute anything to the global defense effort.

[X-Man]

Looks like Iceland can spawn with a funding level of 0, which I think would preclude you from ever getting any funding from that country since funding increases are based on a percentage increase. I know they're a poor nation, but it is a little sad to have a game where they can't ever contribute anything to the global defense effort.

But they have the Eyjafjallajökull! That's more precious than money

[krautbernd]

Looks like Iceland can spawn with a funding level of 0, which I think would preclude you from ever getting any funding from that country since funding increases are based on a percentage increase. I know they're a poor nation, but it is a little sad to have a game where they can't ever contribute anything to the global defense effort.

Apparently not only Iceland, but some of the other 'new' countries as well. Would you kindly re-post that in the bug thread? I'd report it myself, but i think i've reached my submission limit...

BTW, is there any way to atop those 'suspicious clinic' mission atm? I don't mind getting a crap ton of loot, by i swear that clinic is a fucking clown car in disguise and the only remedy is to nuke it from orbit...

[mercy]

SLOWDOWN FIX:

The game was noticeably slowing down "almost to a crawl" that was impeding gameplay. Here is the fix I found:

There are too many checks in the probably unoptimized code for constantly - I mean every couple frames - to check the state of most equipment??!  WTH?? Lot of equipment lying on the floor of any craft is an FPS hog!

As a consequence:
You might notice during equipment loadout and on Battlescape your game has suddenly slowed down considerably.

To fix this:
While you are still on the base, press ALT+CTRL+X to clear all junk from your ship - Voilá! Instant SpeedUp - and then for the mission only pack the very few belongings you need: medipacks, grenades, maybe some ammo, but just a little heap!

As a result the game will be lightning fast again!!  I noticed this on a big map with many monsters & lots of units and smoke/fire explosions.  I thought it was my many units. No! Just heaps of stuff left lying on the ground in my mudranger!!

[krautbernd]

SLOWDOWN FIX:

The game was noticeably slowing down "almost to a crawl" that was impeding gameplay. Here is the fix I found:

There are too many checks in the probably unoptimized code for constantly - I mean every couple frames - to check the state of most equipment??!  WTH?? Lot of equipment lying on the floor of any craft is an FPS hog!

As a consequence:
You might notice during equipment loadout and on Battlescape your game has suddenly slowed down considerably.

To fix this:
While you are still on the base, press ALT+CTRL+X to clear all junk from your ship - Voilá! Instant SpeedUp - and then for the mission only pack the very few belongings you need: medipacks, grenades, maybe some ammo, but just a little heap!

As a result the game will be lightning fast again!!  I noticed this on a big map with many monsters & lots of units and smoke/fire explosions.  I thought it was my many units. No! Just heaps of stuff left lying on the ground in my mudranger!!

Curious, but are you sure it's the equipment causing slowdown, not the maps themselves? I've never experienced any noticable slowdown because of "too much" equipment - only on maps that are 'complex' (i.e. multiple levels, many different tilesets etc.).

Otherwise base defense missions should lag the game out like nothing else, but they don't.

[mercy]

Curious, but are you sure it's the equipment causing slowdown, not the maps themselves? I've never experienced any noticable slowdown because of "too much" equipment - only on maps that are 'complex' (i.e. multiple levels, many different tilesets etc.).

Otherwise base defense missions should lag the game out like nothing else, but they don't.

No. Tested it. As soon as I leave ~ 40 .. 100 pieces of stacked equipment on the floor of my craft the game starts to slow down = cursors lags, etc.. 
As soon as I clear out all equipment, the cursor moves again lightning fast and the game is back to its original speed.

[mercy]

@Solarius Scorch:  I noticed, when I put even one black grenade onto a German shepherd dog, its weight goes immediately from 1 to 3 in red ==> the dogs TUs are down to 30% of the original 100%.  This was a highly unfortunate decision to put it politely.
 This tells me that strong dog breed cannot even handle to carry one grenade without slowing down???  Those dogs are super strong and can carry even a gallon of water!

[Meridian]

No. Tested it. As soon as I leave ~ 40 .. 100 pieces of stacked equipment on the floor of my craft the game starts to slow down = cursors lags, etc.. 
As soon as I clear out all equipment, the cursor moves again lightning fast and the game is back to its original speed.

100 items
or
100 stacks of (many) items?

[mercy]

100 items
or
100 stacks of (many) items?

One page of equipment, where mainly high explosives, dynamites, grenades, stimms, healing stuff stack. Some guns, etc.. I'll give you  save so you can check.

[krautbernd]

@Solarius Scorch:  I noticed, when I put even one black grenade onto a German shepherd dog, its weight goes immediately from 1 to 3 in red ==> the dogs TUs are down to 30% of the original 100%.  This was a highly unfortunate decision to put it politely.
 This tells me that strong dog breed cannot even handle to carry one grenade without slowing down???  Those dogs are super strong and can carry even a gallon of water!

IIRC this is for game balancing reasons. Dogs aren't supposed to carry items. You can change the stats in the rul-files.

[krautbernd]

One page of equipment, where mainly high explosives, dynamites, grenades, stimms, healing stuff stack. Some guns, etc.. I'll give you  save so you can check.

Yeah, please upload the save. As far as i can tell we're notalking about the same lags/slowdowns, as in my case mouse movement isn't affected at all. This sounds like a different issue.

[mercy]

100 items
or
100 stacks of (many) items?

This equipment lying there "on the floor" caused the game & cursor movement to lag: especially the Battlescape was slow!!


..

Deleting all unused equipment speeds the game up nicely:


..


This much unused equipment on the ready is OK. Doesn't slow down the game during equipment phase and or Battlescape




But I have usually this many soldiers, seen on pic.
46 was the max, I think,  I fielded for a large numbers SpikeBOar monster hunt on a large map:

So if the game-code does LOOPS for every soldier and its usually a non-issue, that is because standard squad sizes are tiny, a dozen max.
But in my case: the game-code always doing  loops  for my large platoon size  - it may already lower FPS, but not yet to a noticeable degree. 

The key slowdown is happening, because of unused equipment code-loops!

[krautbernd]

There is no way to reliably recreate the issue by what you've posted. This might be related to terrain or battlescape effects as well, bugged items etc.

Please upload the save in question.

Also, the mudranger has a max. capacity of 12 soldiers, not of 46 or however many you're trying to cram inside. Is this really a issue with the mod? This might belong into OXCE or general development.

[mercy]

There is no way to reliably recreate the issue by what you've posted. This might be related to terrain or battlescape effects as well, bugged items etc.

Please upload the save in question.

The top three pics are from the Geoscape. Select  BASE ==>  EQUIP CRAFT  screen. 
43 soldiers and this much equipment will slow down any map.    As you can see, there are clearly extra loops in the  code section   "listing & checking equipment lying on the ground"  either on base or on Battlescape.