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

[Solarius Scorch]

Even if you add requirements, players will simply beeline to meet them, and give it to all agents anyway. It's just so good.

However, there is a decent solution available already: it's called the rat.

[Juku121]

Fortunately or unfortunately, soldier bonuses can't change visibility.

I wouldn't mind an extremely advanced armour that turns an agent into a super-rat. Aliens with psi vision, urban/cave/base combat with short ranges, and various other things mentioned before would still counter that. And it'd be a way to cut down the lategame tedium. Would likely need a tech level where you could already end the game, or go and research the invisibility suit instead.

Or perhaps a ninja version of Night Ops armour that'd give ratlike night visibility, but no daytime advantage.

Well, not likely to happen in the main game, but if one is motivated enough, they can do their own stealth armour mod.


As an aside, one thing that's been puzzling me for a while: why do aliens not have perfect night vision anymore?

[Chuckebaby]

A stealth armor is a great idea.

[SIMON BAILIE]

Here is a mod I found that I still have a copy of, tested on oxce v7.89. There is a problem with it per log file, not sure how to correct this myself. But it does offer limited stealth abilities.

[Solarius Scorch]

As an aside, one thing that's been puzzling me for a while: why do aliens not have perfect night vision anymore?

Huh? All 5 vanilla races still have NV 20.
Or am I misunderstanding?

[Juku121]

Vanilla aliens had 20/20 night/day vision. Now they have 20/40 or so.

[Solarius Scorch]

Vanilla aliens had 20/20 night/day vision. Now they have 20/40 or so.

Ah, that's what you meant. Yeah, somehow I never even considered extending night vision range as well... Just feels like a weird idea. Doesn't speak to me at all.

[Juku121]

So, XCF replaces the classic "Plasma bolts from pitch black darkness killed half my squad, and I haven't even seen a single alien yet! What gives?!" experience with "The bugs are firing hot flaming plasma at me, and I can't even begin to spot them in the night. Fortunately, sniper-spotter and no-LoS accuracy penalty means they miss!"?

Can't say this change speaks to me, but to each their own.

[amokk_gw]

Is it possible to update the mod in the middle of a save game or does every new minor version of the mod require a new save file?

Also there are certain items, where I have no clue where to find them such as the anti-matter containment. I know you can complete the research by just interrogating a bunch of engineers, but where is the fun in that. Is there a way to look up in which mission items like these occur?

[PPQ]

Is it normal that golden ships just don't spawn? Like I had exactly one spawn in my game, I shot it down over water not knowing that I shouldn't and now a year later I am yet to get another.

[krautbernd]

Is it possible to update the mod in the middle of a save game or does every new minor version of the mod require a new save file?

You can update a save/an ongoing game, but you should not update during battlescape/combat because it can casue bugs and/or crashes.

Also there are certain items, where I have no clue where to find them such as the anti-matter containment. I know you can complete the research by just interrogating a bunch of engineers, but where is the fun in that. Is there a way to look up in which mission items like these occur?

Not all research topics have associated items you can recover, some (most? I have no clue what the actual percentage is) can only be obtained via interrogation.

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

With all the discussion on stealth armour and me being quite a newb at modding, does the camouflage feature work against the AI at all?   Sorry if I missed this already with such a long thread.

I was looking at the X-COM liquidator armor (which looks fantastic btw),  I wish it had a bonus camo perk at night from a thematic standpoint. 

From what I read of it's stats, there really is no advantage over the armored vest other than getting a hold of some early by capturing Exalt Liquidators before being able to research armored vests.

If it had an ability to at least reduce visibilty at night from the enemy (yes work against you too on exalt missions), it would make night missions more interesting on cult raids.  Doesn't get around the sniper-spotter AI stuff I assume, but still.  It could possibly provide another reason to acquire it after armored vests are researched other than saving some cash.

Personally, I'm tempted to change the spritesheet on the armored vest to look like the Liquidator armor, because it just looks so cool

[Juku121]

I know you can complete the research by just interrogating a bunch of engineers, but where is the fun in that. Is there a way to look up in which mission items like these occur?

The fun is in bonking the engineers over their pointy alien heads.

Many things can be looked up by using some sort of grep tool to look through .rul files. Notepad++ is a popular choice, because that's one of its many useful features. The one thing that's really hard to look for is items tied to specific map items/MCDs, because there's no tool for searching the map files themselves.

Is it normal that golden ships just don't spawn? Like I had exactly one spawn in my game...

Yeah. This mod is full of small-percentage stuff like that. The Envoy Ships have an under 3% cumulative chance to spawn per month. But it's random, so you might get three in a row and then go three years without.

With all the discussion on stealth armour and me being quite a newb at modding, does the camouflage feature work against the AI at all?

It does. But there are lots of caveats, many of which I've already mentioned. So you need to be very careful, but if you succeed the enemies are hosed.

I was looking at the X-COM liquidator armor (which looks fantastic btw),  I wish it had a bonus camo perk at night from a thematic standpoint. 

If it had an ability to at least reduce visibilty at night from the enemy (yes work against you too on exalt missions), it would make night missions more interesting on cult raids.

Check my new submod. The Black Ops ninja suit is pretty much Night Ops/Liquidator plus night camo and minus most armour (hey, there's got to be drawbacks!).

From what I read of it's stats, there really is no advantage over the armored vest other than getting a hold of some early by capturing Exalt Liquidators before being able to research armored vests.

It has +3 night vision in exchange for a little bit of extra weight and a a few more points of stat maluses.

Personally, I'm tempted to change the spritesheet on the armored vest to look like the Liquidator armor, because it just looks so cool

There's an IMO even cooler version I'm using for the "We are the UN Black Ops. Fear us!" feeling.

[DoxaLogos (JG)]

It does. But there are lots of caveats, many of which I've already mentioned. So you need to be very careful, but if you succeed the enemies are hosed.

Cool.  Of course I was only thinking of a minor buff, nothing too severe.
 

Check my new submod. The Black Ops ninja suit is pretty much Night Ops/Liquidator plus night camo and minus most armour (hey, there's got to be drawbacks!).

I'll have to give it a shot.

It has +3 night vision in exchange for a little bit of extra weight and a a few more points of stat maluses.

Ah... I missed that part.   I'll have to look it over again.

There's an IMO even cooler version I'm using for the "We are the UN Black Ops. Fear us!" feeling.

Yeah, I just saw that perusing the thread. Looks great.   I feel like this mod needs more black armors

[amokk_gw]

Not all research topics have associated items you can recover, some (most? I have no clue what the actual percentage is) can only be obtained via interrogation.

It says that the research requires the Anti-Matter Containment item, so that's why I'm asking where to find it. You can also get research by just getting lucky and interrogating an engineer, but I'd rather look for the item, that's more fun.