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

[TheCurse]

they have psi vision, so they can sense your presence through walls ´n such.
however, psi attacks are weaker the further away from target... so it is different from OG.
(would be pretty cool if they´d factor that in when deciding who to attack, but well they do not)

[Mathel]

I made an observation myself.

My standard procedure against PSI enemies is to make sure, that anybody with PSI Strength below 40 is harmless to other soldiers. (Stun and weak weapons only).
But in my last mission, an attack on an Ethereal base, I made sure that everybody had 50+ PSI Strength. The Ethereals did not use Psi even once.

So it seems, that they only try PSI on people with low enough defences.

[HT]

they have psi vision, so they can sense your presence through walls ´n such.
however, psi attacks are weaker the further away from target... so it is different from OG.

I think that last line applies to your troops, not sure about aliens.

I made an observation myself.

My standard procedure against PSI enemies is to make sure, that anybody with PSI Strength below 40 is harmless to other soldiers. (Stun and weak weapons only).

So it seems, that they only try PSI on people with low enough defences.

Did you try to see what happens if you send someone with low Bravery but high to moderate Psi Power?
How does one increase Bravery besides using medikits on other people by the way?

[Mathel]

Did you try to see what happens if you send someone with low Bravery but high to moderate Psi Power?
How does one increase Bravery besides using medikits on other people by the way?

I retroactively checked. The lowest bravery person who survived the mission was Captain Emere Mauwhata.
Bravery: 30
Psi Strength: 72
Psi Skill: 24
I do not know what Psi Power is, though. I will assume you mean Psi Strength.
Also with the Power or Flying suit (I am not certain which he had, but I know he had one of those), his Psi Defence would be 0.2*30+0.2*24+1*72+0.33*Morale = 6+4.8+72+0.33*Morale = 82.8+0.33*Morale, based on current versions stats.

The vanilla way to increse bravery is to go not panic. Every turn a soldier could panic (Morale<50), but does not, their chance of getting a +10 to bravery increases, up to a limit.

[Meridian]

I don't know if this is a mod-specific issue, but I've noticed a few times that some of my agents' deaths get attributed to another agent's (or in one case, their own!) Smoke Grenade. The couple of times that I've observed this were when an agent died from fatal damage from some previous injury while standing or lying unconscious in smoke deployed by a friendly unit. This awards the Betrayer commendation to the innocent agent who just wanted to protect their squadmates, causing severe mental trauma and reducing their Bravery score. Not a huge issue, but I thought I'd report it anyway since it's probably unintended behaviour.

This is not a bug. A smoke grenade "attacks" everyone who is in the smoke zone every turn, and when someone dies from bleeding, then the last "attack" in your case falls on the smoke. This is how the whole OpenXcom works.

Nope, that's not how OXCE works.
Smoke grenade doesn't attack every turn, only the initial blast counts towards any statistics.

And in OpenXcom, not even the initial blast counts... as far as I know.

I have improved the "last attack" tracking somewhat yesterday: https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/commit/98eab651918225660ddf0cacc34c84b3eaed43d3

If an attacker does zero or negative health damage, the victim already has a record of a previous attack and the victim is either on fire, has fatal wounds or has negative health regen... the attacker will not override the previous attack record.

Not 100% foolproof, but it should help in most cases.

[Solarius Scorch]

I think that last line applies to your troops, not sure about aliens.

The formula is the same.

Actually, in OG distance also played a role, but it was very marginal.

[Slaughter]

Hey hey folks, back to this fantastic mod after a good while. Playing this on my Android really helped carry me over when I was computer-less during the epidemic (thanks Meridian for doing the Android version btw).

So, I noticed you changed the attack of the Bombardier Beetle, from that bullshit OP AOE fire attack, to a fire spit. That's fantastic, because every red strange creature having an AOE Fire attack was so much bullshit.

Did you guys do something with the behavior of melee foes? They seem to be more consistently charging and less scared than before.

Would you guys believe my first mission was an Exobiological Contamination? I shot an Abomination, dragged the body and straight-out noped out of there. Didn't even get to see Abominations before, but I have bad recordations of those missions. Too bad for all the civvies there.

[tarkalak]

I also have an observation / question -- are the Cult Safehouses now completely optional? I noticed that the lowest tier cultists that you get from Investigations can give you the Network topic which leads to Outposts. I seem to remember in previous versions that the lowest tier used to only give you the safehouse, and you get the next tier (Exalt Goons, Red Dawn Lads, etc.) would give you the Network.

A long time ago there were no Cult Apprehensions, only Safehouses. The Safehouses are unlocked from the start, but show up later and less often then Apprehensions. It has been like that ever since I started playing X-Com files (1.5 - 2 years ago).

I had the same false memory as you. It is logical, since everything else is unlocked one mission at a time.

[Xenotrenium]

Is Storm used for anything except it's own research? I was stockpiling a lot of Storm, but the Enhancement for X-COM personnel apparently does not need it. The wiki says that Storm is not used for anything - is this intentional or am I mistaken?

[Mrvex]

Hey hey folks, back to this fantastic mod after a good while. Playing this on my Android really helped carry me over when I was computer-less during the epidemic (thanks Meridian for doing the Android version btw).

So, I noticed you changed the attack of the Bombardier Beetle, from that bullshit OP AOE fire attack, to a fire spit. That's fantastic, because every red strange creature having an AOE Fire attack was so much bullshit.

Did you guys do something with the behavior of melee foes? They seem to be more consistently charging and less scared than before.

Would you guys believe my first mission was an Exobiological Contamination? I shot an Abomination, dragged the body and straight-out noped out of there. Didn't even get to see Abominations before, but I have bad recordations of those missions. Too bad for all the civvies there.

Having the contamination as first mission is just cruel bad luck, hell even with hazmat suits and larger crafts like helicopters i rather think twice before doing them because if you get those spitter enemies then it kinda sucks not having toxisuits or...power armour to tank the acid spat at you across the map as your starting weapons only chip their health. Or the swarmids that take little damage from bullets,  my paranoia paid off and those 2 flamethrowers sitting at the pile, "just in case" went to use.

It was one of moments i already predicted going in to this mod for the first time, that the game will throw at me some sort of enemy thats like lol ur weapons are useless, retreat commander !. But atleast mod isnt trying to pull some stupid stuff and resistances do make sense and there was alot of thought put in to it. A giant swarm of insects vs bullets ? Yeah i can see why hitting that with bullets aint gona be easy.

And i also learned that fire = works pretty much against anything but you have limited range, making using it risky.

[Solarius Scorch]

Hey hey folks, back to this fantastic mod after a good while. Playing this on my Android really helped carry me over when I was computer-less during the epidemic (thanks Meridian for doing the Android version btw).

Hey man, welcome back! It's good to see you again.

So, I noticed you changed the attack of the Bombardier Beetle, from that bullshit OP AOE fire attack, to a fire spit. That's fantastic, because every red strange creature having an AOE Fire attack was so much bullshit.

I did? Possibly. I guess it must've been a long time ago...

Did you guys do something with the behavior of melee foes? They seem to be more consistently charging and less scared than before.

If you mean zombies, it depends on the version you're playing. Recently Meridian made some changes to the Leeroy Jenkins mode, making such units more aggressive, but only a few units use it (primarily zombies). I'm not sure whether this change made it to release already.

If you mean other units, then probably no changes.

Would you guys believe my first mission was an Exobiological Contamination? I shot an Abomination, dragged the body and straight-out noped out of there. Didn't even get to see Abominations before, but I have bad recordations of those missions. Too bad for all the civvies there.

Wow! Interesting, and very unique.

A long time ago there were no Cult Apprehensions, only Safehouses. The Safehouses are unlocked from the start, but show up later and less often then Apprehensions. It has been like that ever since I started playing X-Com files (1.5 - 2 years ago).

Yes indeed, except Safehouses do not appear from the very start of the game - you need to interrogate any live cultist of the appropriate faction and then wait for the next month. Otherwise they have no limits.

Is Storm used for anything except it's own research? I was stockpiling a lot of Storm, but the Enhancement for X-COM personnel apparently does not need it. The wiki says that Storm is not used for anything - is this intentional or am I mistaken?

Indeed Storm is useless. The Doctor can make better stuff once she gets the idea how, so you have no need for the Storm, as it's a cheap knockoff.

[Xenotrenium]

Indeed Storm is useless. The Doctor can make better stuff once she gets the idea how, so you have no need for the Storm, as it's a cheap knockoff.

Thanks for the info, although I personally find this somewhat disappointing actually. I love the idea of juggling different non-reproducible resources from missions\raids, at least for a limited time until XCOM can research something they can reproduce. I think there is a mission called Storm Raid or something which I thought would be super cool to have for a sort of scavenger approach. Perhaps you could consider making a use of Storm? Just a suggestion

[Solarius Scorch]

Thanks for the info, although I personally find this somewhat disappointing actually. I love the idea of juggling different non-reproducible resources from missions\raids, at least for a limited time until XCOM can research something they can reproduce. I think there is a mission called Storm Raid or something which I thought would be super cool to have for a sort of scavenger approach. Perhaps you could consider making a use of Storm? Just a suggestion

I understand, but never found a logical solution. I guess I could add a way to refine Storm into something useful, namely an ingredient needed for the Bio-Enhancement... But I wouldn't want the player to be left hanging if not enough Storm.

[Xenotrenium]

How about either of the following?

-New transormation that is unlocked earlier than XCOM one, cheaper in cost (require Storm instead) and less powerful. Also fewer stat requirements. Increase research requirement for regular XCOM-transformation?

-Make XCOM enhancement need Storm (automatic\abstracted refinement\modification for safe utilization by XCOM agents), but make Storm like Durathread and\or Alloys. You can reproduce it AFTER you understand how to USE it, so that in time you will be able to not worry too much about having it, but still go through the early phase of wanting Storm for transformations for your top guys.

No matter how you decide to do it, I am mostly looking for the game-wise mechanic of simply having more stuff to micromanage in a high scarcity environment.


Not to spam suggestions, but I've always thought the guns on the APCs from 40k (the actual XCOM crafts) would be a PERFECT fit for either the mudranger or the humvee. Thoughts on implementing such a functionality? Having a heavy gun like that would go a long way towards making some landing sites more manageable, and perhaps even sensible considering every xcom craft mission landing is borderline suicidal

[Mrvex]

How about either of the following?


Not to spam suggestions, but I've always thought the guns on the APCs from 40k (the actual XCOM crafts) would be a PERFECT fit for either the mudranger or the humvee. Thoughts on implementing such a functionality? Having a heavy gun like that would go a long way towards making some landing sites more manageable, and perhaps even sensible considering every xcom craft mission landing is borderline suicidal

The thing is, how you deal with the ambush is part of the game. Smokes works wonders, smoke the ramp before leaving, also just letting the first turn just pass so enemies can scatter and lose TU to prevent reaction fire before you leaving your vehicle.
With tanks it will be easier since you can roll them out first and let them tank the reaction fire. But the most help will be from certain landing crafts. Not all have one ramp. Some have side doors you can pop up from (and these doors always close at the end of the turn so you can spray and pray and end turn with 0 consequences from the enemy since your troops will break LoS). Some have staircases...
Some even have a benefit of being above ground so you can hide your men beneath it to avoid long range grenade snipes across the map.
For example, Skyrmarshall has 2 side doors alongside the main one.
Ironfist has a staircase to the roof and you can use the staircase to throw grenades out of it. And you can also stand beneath it.