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

[NuclearStudent]

btw, is there a quick way to check whether a base facility can be destroyed in a Base Defense?

[psavola]

btw, is there a quick way to check whether a base facility can be destroyed in a Base Defense?

This is how it goes (or is at least documented) with vanilla OXC: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Base_Defence#Destruction_Of_Base_Facilities - some facilities are special.
The rulesets don't seem to include anything that relates to the destruction of facilities. Therefore I think how the tiles are marked in each base facility must be examined from the maps files. So I guess the answer to the "quick way" would be no.

[Solarius Scorch]

I confirm; this information is coded in MCD files (terrain properties). There is no other way to check, you need to examine the files with MCDEdit (or some other program, if it exists).

[kevL]

I confirm; this information is coded in MCD files (terrain properties). There is no other way to check, you need to examine the files with MCDEdit (or some other program, if it exists).

McdView in Mapview2 package -- it's a standalone app or it can be opened from TileView (for quick inspection of MCD data, and it should work for quick edits also). backup yer data, I haven't tested it much ...

re. destruction of XCOM base facilities: unless an aLien is engaged in combat it paths to the closest routenode that has a nonzero BaseAttack value. From there it looks for content-tileparts that have the isBaseObject (#60 Xcom_Base) flag set true. If the aLien is equipped with a proper weapon (i saw non-HE in the OxC code) it attempts to shoot the object; if enough objects in a mapblock get destroyed, that XCOM Facility gets destroyed at the end of the base defense mission. And if such destruction isolates any other Facilities from the AccessLift and/or Hanger(s) they get destroyed also.


presumably if a Facility has no base-objects it can't be destroyed (haven't checked that though)

[NuclearStudent]

Ty!

It seems safe to build corridors from access tunnels...probably. I will be very sad if I lose a base but that's xcom, baby.

[OwenQ]

I just want to double check that I'm understanding the early-game transport craft progression and haven't missed one somewhere in the labyrinthine tech tree. (As far as I can tell, there is no CRAFT category on the wiki?) I've listed what I deem the last/hardest dependency to get for each and what I understand their strengths/weaknesses to be.

LOGISTICS gets you the Public Van, doubling capacity but costing you a lot of speed. The Van also seems to be the largest transport available for several mission types.

In Promo 1, BASIC FLIGHT TRAINING unlocks the Helichopter, which is another 50% capacity, good speed, at the cost of only covering half-ish of the globe. It also seems to be able to access a handful of mission types the Dragonfly can't.

MILITARY ENVOY gets you access to the Humvee, which is like a faster van that can technically do interceptions and has room for one more soldier. It can also go to any special mission the Heli can except the Ski Resort evidently?

In Promo 2, CONTACT: UAC gets you the Dragonfly, with 8 soldier capacity and half-globe range. Also has lights that are great for getting shot on night missions. It seems to be the largest transport available for a handful of the 'infiltrator' type missions, though it misses out on stuff like the Beaches and Ski Resort.

All four [CULT] OPERATIONS gets you access to the Osprey, with its whopping 16 soldier capacity, but has a bit less than half a globe's coverage and can't go on any special mission (assuming from the wiki entry). Also obviously can be an RNG pain to get, and requires you to progress beyond the cult-safehouse-farming part of the campaign.

The Mudranger and airborne Mudranger seem to be very expensive ways to drop double-digit numbers of soldiers by creating a forward base near a known target (or perhaps brutally overwhelming that occasional cultist apprehension that happens to spawn near your main base)

It seems like after that it's managing to get alien tech to make the Skyraider for full global coverage of double-digit soldiers and then into normal-ish game progression?

[Juku121]

As far as I can tell, there is no CRAFT category on the wiki?

Apparently not.

You can do a Quick Battle and check X-COM VEHICLES instead.

I've listed what I deem...

Seems accurate enough.

You can also get a speedy car for covert missions after Promo I, which might see some use in cases requiring a rapid response. And a faster 5-person van after Promo III, which is usually way beyond when it'd be of much use unless you like farming the covert missions.

It seems like after that it's managing to get alien tech to make the Skyraider for full global coverage of double-digit soldiers and then into normal-ish game progression?

Well, there's a special one-off craft called the Kitsune that will almost trivialise early mid-game as far as transport capability goes. And an alloy Skyranger comes online soon enough that you might not want the regular Skyrangers all that much. Skyraiders, yes, these come earlier and are kinda fast so have their own niche.

[Raptor29a]

Xcom Files Notes:
Sorry for the long post it's a document I started when first playing this game in version 2.2 January 2022. I spent 4hr per weekend, excellent mod/game. I had played oringal xcom and thought why not give the most popular mod a try. (So below is my 1.5 year in the making opinion)
-The game flowed really smoothly for the first few in-game months. Things made sense. Then I felt lost in research, (like where is any of this going? how is any of this connected?) Cults, Dossiers, monsters... well I guess I'll find out.
-Then, I accidentally found the middle click button... I should've read button config. Thusly, things started falling into a rhythm, which was cool. I do like how early on there is no penalty for aborting a mission. Like showing up in a car with 2 agents armed with glocks and being surrounded by 30ish snakes. I killed one, picked it up, and was like "nope not today" and left without penalty.
-Getting a van was very exciting I called the van the A-Team van and another the Scooby-Doo Van and a third the Ice Cream Van. The Cultists can't aim, but neither can Xcom (good ol' stormtrooper shoot out, highly enjoyable). The myth and lore throughout has been very interesting, and the disguise missions were well done also. Nothing feels out of place, except the Humvee; it came in way too late, because the Dragonfly was unlocked shortly after (it is the same research tree/tier). So I never bought a Humvee, but if the Humvee unlocked sightly sooner (like before Promotion 2), I would've bought one.
-Wow, Promotion 2 was big.-
There was a mission where the enemy had an Armored Car in the first month with combatants throwing grenades. Its like once you get black Ops weapons, the enemy brings thier out their commandos (they know how to aim). Although I do wish the mansion seige (more like armored car seige) was tied to explosives licensing and not Promotion 2. Eitherway I still squeeked by on that mission. (Shooting the enemy once they got inside and using thier grenades helped.) Yea I thought bio-exosuits were awesome... till grenades and full auto weaponry came on the scene.
- lol, just realized if I held down ctrl the agents sprint (should've read the tip/help pages)
-After 4 months into Promotion 2, I started wondering about the dossiers from the cults and did they play a roll in anything or are they just a token part of research. (Until Natasha's, lol)
-At the beginning I thought the monsters were just fun fiction added to spice things up, but wow excellent job in keeping their backstory secret. (I like the plot twist, no spoilers)
-On a sidenote, its too bad feral Lobersterman Corpses can't be used for Carapus plates.
-Another thumbs up on the MAGMA missions. I won't give spoilers, but I will say, very entertaining, very fun. (Monster tank shootout, lol yes)
I was impressed the game has an extra smooth transition into promotion 3
-Promotion 3-
-The invasion was fun, the large number of scouts, it gave me a panic/challenge. Although the mutons showed up... sectiods taking a break, but leathal bullet sponges are fully ready to bring your bravado down from your chin to your ankles, but *spoiler* the threat is nothing that flame throwers, napalm, and mortors can't solve... also flame glove= life saver. But just as I repelled the invasion, the second month hits me with two colonies. As a sad joke, I unlocked the CF arrow, right after finishing researching the Raven.
-Month three after invation, the Aliens just sent scout after scout, and I unlocked the Improved reseach center and built one. Month four was an abduction storm and the eventual loss of another nation to infiltration. (Lost china and russia, wow)
-Looking back I think I chose the wrong difficultly, instead they should read: first time?, experienced, challanging, hard, and good luck.
-I never built a hawkeye, because I felt they were a waste of alien alloy since they have completely identical stats to the AWACS (except for carrying soldiers...why? especially when you have a skyrider available?).
-A shout out to the Kitsume, best addition for surviving the battlescape (especially hiding from plasma snipers). It's design has saved my butt multiple times.
-I felt game quickly jumped from using Tri-titanium ammo on missions to using rockets/motors and mass drivers. I didn't get as much time with Tri-titanium ammo because I unlocked mass driver weapons shortly after. I was also disappointed I couldn't reverse engineer a syndicate walker (oh well, there's always Sectopods)
-A Big Big Suggestion, I made the mistake of eliminating the black lotus early on. There should really have been more distiction between The Ninja Assassin and the basic Black Loctus Warrior. They look completely identical, I thought they were the same thing, and I didn't realize my mistake before terminating the black lotus. (Well there goes ninja training and helix warrior)
-I got excited after doing all the research to get the Medi-Kit, yet I was hoping there would be an Advanced Sick Bay. An Advanced Sick Bay could give me a purpose/reason to research examination room (since it has a depency of nothing. And would fit well on top of the Medi-Kit tech tree.) An Advanced Sick Bay would help with high health agents and thier plasma burns.
-Holo-grenades require optronics and not optronic parts which I am still confused about. So I've been surviving without them.
-Also, Fun fact, I learned how to gain the system/buy time. The mutons had already influtrated four nations (including USA), so I decided to research anything and everything that said *effects game progression.* And suddenly the UFO attacks slowed/paused. And oh crap, three months later the Aliens went from Mutons to Ethereals. Xcom files never ceases to surprize me.
-Something strange I'd like to note, by the time I get an advanced lab, gain access to plasma weapons, and gain access to the cyberdisc plasma... I unlocked the plasma tank and hover plasma tank. I rarely made use of the Cyberdisc plasma, except for the fact it does 5 more damage than the hover tank plasma. Cyberdisc laser is the best use for a cyberdisc, because it can be achieved much earlier in-game (and does same damage as a laser tank, but flies). I did use the cyberdisc plasma to kill turrets due to its high damage.
-Looking back, I appreciate the subtly of the game going from mutated rats and bats, to awesome killer dogs, then to AI robots. Eventually I had to let go of the rat and bat agents because they are wayyy too fragile. Sadly, I worked hard to max the stats of 2 bats and 2 rats (can't they at least get neoderm transformation?). As for dogs... still debating keeping them. Their use is almost end game worthy. I would often use dog and tank combo (hide dog behind the tank to get close enough for dog to then ambush and crew up my opponent's front line).
-I found an awesome combo, Juggernaut Armor plus carapus plate means and agent can take a rocket hit to frontal armor and still remain undamaged. It was glorious. Also immune to plasma grenade splash (for those times when the aliens occasionally miss).
-Also I like the juxtaposition of uncover missions once plasma weapons are unlocked. It's like you have the ability to land an Avenger (a heavy armored ship) overwhelm your opponent by sheer force and technological prowess, but for the sake of the council's money and the image of your organisation to said council... you have to go in with a few agents armed tasers and plasma pistols, without any armor, and pulling up in a land Rover. (Gotta love irony)
Nevertheless still able to rock out the undercover missions with a team of skilled agents (I challenged myself and almost knocked out every combatent there... hows that for low profile. One agent punched so hard it killed).
-Also spoiler alert! But I didn't realize the cults were tied to organizations till the end. Spoiler: Apocalypse was tied to UAC, Dagon tied to T'Leith, Exalt tied to MiB, Red dawn to Osiron, Zombies to MAGMA, Monsters to Syndicate, and Black Lotus to... don't know at this point.
-I got to the moon! Hovertank/Carrier not allowed in space or moon... not sure why. Also conquered underwater city, UAC aerospace lab, and finished many story arcs. Strangely, I'm running out of items to research. Also suddenly mib has taken interest, maybe moon base = new threat to mib. Also secured dimension X plot line but no dimension X wrapup it said I am missing securing ancient alien shipwreck (hmm...) that might also explain why I can't process mib shock armor. (Or get dimension X exploration. Or unlimited supply of acid grenades)
-In hindsight should've done easy for first time play through. Thinking because I mastered vanilla Xcom I should start upper mid difficultly was an error.
-I've been visiting the xcom files wiki page to learn more about the mod. I think I haven't gotten the spartan upgrade, nor syndicate package maybe on the basis of not wanting to finish up the monsters story arc.
-Oh once you are in space then floaters, and chasers show up... fascinating.
-also the gap between lunar suberbia and lunar control room seemed quite long.
-Thank you so much for all your hard work creating this game. It is how Xcom should've been when it was released in 94. (If they had the coding ability back then with MB processors)
Other Suggestions: Samurai power suit, (+20 tu, +30 stamina, good armor-50ish, resistance cutting)
Maybe starting sooner to allow more time to build up to the alien invasion, unless the two year sprint is intentional (or maybe I should've done easy first time around)
I'll download the lastest version soon, I'm guessing a lot has happened in 1.5 years since its now 2.9 when it was 2.2.
-If you've read this far you have my respect-

[Raptor29a]

Sorry to double post forgot to add Suggestion: maybe side doors or roof hatch to Avenger (missing the door action/escape plans I used to make with the SkyMartial)

[psavola]

Should there be some trigger which will turn off ghost events as you complete the arc? There doesn't appear to be and IMO there should be. Though I suppose some could use these for training purposes and not complete the arc on purpose if there was a way to do it.

If I recall correctly, SS already said this arc is kinda incomplete at the moment. And I think someone also said you can just skip everything by not researching cover: scientists (which also skips most of the zombie arc?) to better focus on the main game. And it's certainly debatable, as the loot from the arc (certain PSI weapons, mostly) are not so useful as to make it worth it.

For a simple solution - while waiting for a completion of the arc -, getting "Residual Psionic Artifacts", which you can get by getting the three items from ghost missions, could turn off the ghost missions. After that you could no longer get ectoplasm though. But I'm not sure if anyone would want to use equipment using it in the longer term anyway. Currently researching that subject is a dead-end.

[OwenQ]

Is there some trick to telling what the light level of a tile is? I actually enjoy night missions, but I'm starting to feel like I'm going nuts, parking myself in a tile that *looks* dark but then getting shot by non-sniper units from well outside their alleged range (and sometimes out of the direction an agent's looking at!). I'm sure sometimes I'm just underestimating the distance or where the enemy is, but I've also had instances where I counted tiles and was *definitely* outside the attacker's  night vision range. But also a couple of times where I realized I was standing under a streetlight that just... wasn't very apparently luminant.

Night vision seems to arbitrarily light up all tiles in a radius around you, and fiddling with the Ctrl End levels makes the contrast a bit more apparent but still unreliable.

[Stone Lake]

After that you could no longer get ectoplasm though. But I'm not sure if anyone would want to use equipment using it in the longer term anyway.

There's some very good (or at least fun) spoiler equipment (not from the ghost arc) that you'll need ectoplasm for.

[Vakrug]

Is there some trick to telling what the light level of a tile is?

No. Top authorities believe it is cheating...  :'(
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10898.msg150927.html

[Solarius Scorch]

Thank you for the thoughts! And for mentioning that problem with tanks being unavailable for some missions, it was a bug.

Spartans were introduced 10 days ago, so no wonder you didn't find it. Same with Infernals, which I added this week.

About that Samurai suit, can you please specify it further? Howe does it compare to the Synthsuit and the Assault Suit?

[Raptor29a]

Sure to specify further
Synthsuit
Armor 40, 35, 35 ,30
Kenetic 80%, 130% incendiary, 80% consussive, 110% laser, 110% plasma, 70% cutting, 120% chemical, emp 10%, 0% anti-E.
+20 TU , +30 STA

Assaultsuit
Armor 70, 50, 50, 40
+10 TU, +10 STA, +10 STR
20% incendiary, 90%Concussive, 80% stun, 0% choke, emp 40%, electric 35%, Warp 85%, anti-E 0%.

Samarisuit ( Or Spearman/bardiche/Axesuit for lack of better phrase. Provably shouldn't use Samerai because some blades are one handed)
Armor 75, 55, 55, 35 (change my mind on 50 armor points explination below)
No backpack/limited space (sword, grenades/throwables, and stims. Pistol if need be. So hands and belt)
+20 TU, +1 Energy regen or +20 STA
Weaknesses (Kenetic, Electric, EMP, Warp)
Kenetic 115%, Electric 120%, EMP 60%, Warp 110%, plasma 85%, Concussive 90%,

So the Synthsuit was great for cutting down cultists if you could get it early enough. The added stamina helps cut down on stim use. But it's major downfall was anything plasma, laser, chem, or warp (although warp isn't accurate). So anything Alien/MiB/UAC/Dim X/Alien hybrids could one shot kill (not to mention reaction fire of any splash weapon when melee engaged).
 -Assualtsuit is great mid game for sword play. anything below plasma rifle can be blocked by armor, which is sectiod (pistol/subrifle), or UAC (light/reg plasma rifle), and Cyberweb Ion Blaster attacks. But I don't see a listed resistance against plasma. Thus not as useful for swordplay late game when aliens have fast reflexes, great accuracy, and powerful plasma weapons. The Assualtsuit is great for snipers, rockets, motors, fusion launchers, supply support, because of the backpack space, extra strength, and extra TUs for the aimed shot. (So yes they do have many endgame tactical uses).
-Strangely the Juggernaut unarmed has great melee stats, because their unarmed is very powerful (average~80 stun after modifiers and armor effective 150%) the energy/stamina regen is good, but the issue is closing the gap between and attacking with ver few TUs, makes the melee option not viable as a primary strategy.
-So the idea was energy/stamina boost + TU for swordplay, but no backpack/less space as to discourage rockets/motors/ Fusion launchers, because there is no room for ammo. . The backpack could be a generator of some kind (Elerium or Zrbite). The higher armor stat is due to the high reaction stats of Aliens. (Could be terebite/aqua plastic/ alloy mix). The main problem I have with chopping up aliens is thier reaction fire often hits me first. So most of the time I'll have Juggernaut/flying/tanks leave Avenger first and fire to soak up reaction fire and then assualtsuit agent would find cover. Next turn I use main Force to shoot at enemy incase of reaction fire, then send in assualtsuit agent if main force didn't kill off the enemy. The main issue is after cutting down an opponent I either equip pistol for reaction fire (usually not enough TUs) or use the little time left to try and hide the exposed agent. It would be nice to close in the gap, hit the opponent, and then hide. Often I can reach the opponent, but after killing it, I'm a sitting duck (sometimes also out of stamina, but after using a stim I have no TUs left). A glancing plasma rifle shot will still kill Assualtsuits, so it must be slightly stronger than an assualtsuit to close distance.