Author Topic: Re: The X-Com Files - 3.2: The Colors of Sin  (Read 1949889 times)

Offline nicedayright

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2985 on: October 21, 2019, 11:41:31 pm »
Starting a new campaign again because so much has changed. I've gotta say, I really love the atmosphere of the early game in this mod so much. I can just imagine two of my agents tooling around in a car, chain smoking on their way to a reported UFO sighting, bullshitting about idiot yokels high on meth and hallucinating... then the same two agents later that night, slumped down in a truck stop diner, thousand yard staring at a cooling cup of coffee as they brainstorm reports on why there's a buckshot-ridden sectoid jammed unceremoniously in the trunk of their plasma scorched car. Probably my dream job, if I had one.

As a tactical takeaway, the shotgun AP ammo might be a bit strong for the early game: the high innate accuracy of shotguns combined with good damage and no armor penalty makes them, hands-down, better than the available rifles, especially for untrained agents. I might suggest creating two different ammo types: Shotguns Slugs available for normal shotguns early on with a penalty against armor (15%-20% maybe) and then allowing real AP rounds to become available for more advance shotguns, like the Black Ops Shotgun. This would reflect real life, as commercially available shotgun slugs are big, slow and inefficient against body armor, whereas more specialized Armor Piercing shells can't be safely fired from many civilian shotguns.


Offline HT

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2986 on: October 22, 2019, 12:16:41 am »

I never liked how grenades work in X-Com even as a kid, it's silly that you can just carry them around and they don't explode. I have never used them this way, it feels cheaty as hell. I haven't done anything about this yet, though.


I hope you don't then. I always liked carrying prepared grenades like that. One thing I liked doing in X-COM as a kid was having useless agents carrying primed grenades, so that they serve as kamikaze and scouts at the same time. Sadly it's not a cost-efficient tactic to do, but Piratez changed that.

Sadly, IIRC dogs in X-Files cannot carry gear to precisely avoid doing that.

In any case: How many arcs are left? Can we have a estimated date for when will the final version be released? Just to know.

Offline DeltaEpsilon

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2987 on: October 22, 2019, 08:53:49 am »
Explain me, The Enlightened Ones, what is the reason to use napalm grenade instead incendiary??? I'm still do not understand why we need  Promotion III to use a manufactured grenade with lower damage and lesser radius. ???

Napalm nades are equivalent to pre-0.9.2 incendiary grenades: they inflict immediate 40 fire damage and bypass armor, meaning even though the blast radius is lower, the immediate damage is much, MUCH higher. Incendiary grenades simply set the area and units in it on fire, which inflicts 5-10 damage each turn bypassing armor whereas napalm grenade inflict 20-60 fire damage immediately and possibly light the unit on fire.

By this nature, they are much more powerful than incendiary grenades.

Also they pretty much force panic whereas incendiary may not affect morale too much at times.

Offline TheCurse

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2988 on: October 22, 2019, 11:27:22 am »
So what's next, poo on a stick? :)

don't tell me you never threatened someone with a rusty fork... ^^

Offline X-Man

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2989 on: October 22, 2019, 12:36:53 pm »
Incendiary grenades simply set the area and units in it on fire, which inflicts 5-10 damage each turn bypassing armor

So why '60 damage' displayed on IG screen? Is it 'fake news' or what?  :)

Offline JustTheDude/CABSHEP

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2990 on: October 22, 2019, 12:53:44 pm »
So why '60 damage' displayed on IG screen? Is it 'fake news' or what?  :)

Every inciendiary does also damage on hit in addition to damage over time.

Offline X-Man

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2991 on: October 22, 2019, 12:57:20 pm »
Every inciendiary does also damage on hit in addition to damage over time.

So that NG not better, than IG.

Offline Ridаn

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2992 on: October 22, 2019, 01:31:26 pm »
So why '60 damage' displayed on IG screen? Is it 'fake news' or what?  :)
Thats how Incendiary and Smoke define blast radius in vanilla, through power.

Offline X-Man

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2993 on: October 22, 2019, 02:16:29 pm »
Thats how Incendiary and Smoke define blast radius in vanilla, through power.

Hmm... oookay, now I got some point, thanks  :)

Offline DeltaEpsilon

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2994 on: October 22, 2019, 07:49:28 pm »
So why '60 damage' displayed on IG screen? Is it 'fake news' or what?  :)

In vanilla all AoE used power to define their blast radius as P / 20 floored. However, power was also used to calculate damage at any specific radius.
Incendiary weapons and smoke grenades are an exception to this rule: those only use power for blast radius, but have 0 effective damage at any radius.

In XCF, incendiary grenades work with vanilla fire effects, so an incendiary grenade, inflicting 60 incendiary damage, merely sets a circle of radius 3 on fire.
Napalm grenades override this and work like regular grenades, inflicting FIRE damage.

Offline LytaRyta

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Re: Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2995 on: October 22, 2019, 08:46:37 pm »
hey ^^*Summertime!

..but isnt time for Autumn-time ?   (..or even Wintertime, too?

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2996 on: October 24, 2019, 12:28:08 am »
Starting a new campaign again because so much has changed. I've gotta say, I really love the atmosphere of the early game in this mod so much. I can just imagine two of my agents tooling around in a car, chain smoking on their way to a reported UFO sighting, bullshitting about idiot yokels high on meth and hallucinating... then the same two agents later that night, slumped down in a truck stop diner, thousand yard staring at a cooling cup of coffee as they brainstorm reports on why there's a buckshot-ridden sectoid jammed unceremoniously in the trunk of their plasma scorched car. Probably my dream job, if I had one.

Thanks! This was... I suppose cooler than I expected the mod to produce. I love it.

As a tactical takeaway, the shotgun AP ammo might be a bit strong for the early game: the high innate accuracy of shotguns combined with good damage and no armor penalty makes them, hands-down, better than the available rifles, especially for untrained agents. I might suggest creating two different ammo types: Shotguns Slugs available for normal shotguns early on with a penalty against armor (15%-20% maybe) and then allowing real AP rounds to become available for more advance shotguns, like the Black Ops Shotgun. This would reflect real life, as commercially available shotgun slugs are big, slow and inefficient against body armor, whereas more specialized Armor Piercing shells can't be safely fired from many civilian shotguns.

Eh, maybe. But there are many other interesting weapons, I don't think the shotgun dominates that much.

In any case: How many arcs are left? Can we have a estimated date for when will the final version be released? Just to know.

1.0 should still happen in October. But it won't be the last release or anything.
As for the arcs, I have several in mind: Reptoids, Cult of Apocalypse/UAC, Black Sun.

hey ^^*Summertime!

..but isnt time for Autumn-time ?   (..or even Wintertime, too?

Yeah yeah... Soon. :)

Offline TheCurse

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2997 on: October 24, 2019, 01:06:47 am »
Starting a new campaign again because so much has changed. I've gotta say, I really love the atmosphere of the early game in this mod so much. I can just imagine two of my agents tooling around in a car, chain smoking on their way to a reported UFO sighting, bullshitting about idiot yokels high on meth and hallucinating... then the same two agents later that night, slumped down in a truck stop diner, thousand yard staring at a cooling cup of coffee as they brainstorm reports on why there's a buckshot-ridden sectoid jammed unceremoniously in the trunk of their plasma scorched car. Probably my dream job, if I had one.
can totally understand that and your description is awesome  ;D
maybe you could add some background/lore to some stuff (or early game staff events), you seem to be good at that.

for me its very different though. xcom was for me always about starting out weak and low tech and sciencing/improving the shit out of everything until the aliens are just scared on sight "oh shit its those guys again   :'("
which makes the large tech tree even cooler ^^

Offline Arcalane

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Re: Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2998 on: October 24, 2019, 01:14:33 am »
Eh, maybe. But there are many other interesting weapons, I don't think the shotgun dominates that much.

Yeah, the CAWS' AP slugs are pretty beefy and accurate as soon as you get them, but the dedicated snipers you can get around the same time are a much better option for high-cost shooting because most of the good ones get the big damage bonuses for firing accuracy and have much better range.

You know would be really scary? AP slugs for the BlackOps Auto Shotgun.

Offline Joe Cool

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Re: The X-Com Files - 0.9.9e2: Summertime Lovin'
« Reply #2999 on: October 24, 2019, 01:55:36 am »
I am just wondering since a Windows EXE is bundled with the mod (are there source changes? is it on github? I can't find it):

Should there be an issue running the latest xcomfiles 0.9.9e2 on oxce 6.0? It seems to work fine on Win7 and Archlinux.