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

[Juku121]

Shotguns aren't very reliable, though.

Lo Wo is a onetime chance (unless you do something about it, like the 'maxrun's mentioned in the other thread), but capturing him doesn't give anything unique or even terribly hard to get otherwise.

Objects are fireproof, even if units and some terrain are not. So burn away to your heart's content.

Don't you have dogs for 'motion' scanning?

Personally, I just taser the ninjas. Too hard to hit with melee weapons. Also, remember that most enemies have less dodge from the sides and especially back, if you want to go the police brutality route.


Dragonfly has a bit more range, you can cover the glove globe with two of them from opposite poles, unlike Ospreys. It's also a bit faster, can be used for a few semi-covert missions and, most importantly, is usually available earlier. But, yeah, generally Ospreys are a big upgrade.

[theophilos]

Oh yea I just liked using shotgun because don't have to get so close to hit with aimed , especially with higher accuracy guys, compared to tasers , can stay at a safer distance, but usually requires 2-3 guys working together

Oh I somehow researched the osprey first lol , I've just been using the helicopter

Is the two handed prod worth it? It seems cumbersome to use,


By the way how do you increase strength besides the gym? Is there a cap on strength? I got a machine gun but it's so heavy only my surviving OG guy can carry it,  if he wears no armor ,

No I never researched the dogs I git distracted by other things although I knew they could motion scan , besides I'm more of a cat person 😂 but I see I could get bats and Rats too. I imagine bat is nice for Scouting

[Juku121]

If you mean the cattle prod, it's indeed cumbersome and will get an upgrade to mitigate that. Still, compared to the basic stun stick, it's much better for avoiding melee reactions (by one-shotting the enemy) and piercing armour (both because of higher damage and armour penetration). It's more of a specialist weapon than the little club you can stuff into everyone's pockets.


Strength is a 'secondary' stat and is increased by doing stuff in combat (hitting enemies, reacting, psi, getting panicked). If you do something, you get a roll to increase strength (and all other 'secondary' stats) at the end of the battle. Unlike 'primary' stats, it doesn't matter how much you do that something, or what exactly, just that you do it.

Strength has a cap, but it can vary between soldier types (basic agents and quite a few others have 50, hybrids have 40, etc), plus armour stat boosts, commendations and transformations can be added to that. Usually, the gym cap is 5 points below the actual cap.


Sadly, no cats in this mod, unlike Piratez. Bats have insane melee dodge and flying/night vision/camo, so can be very useful in some situations. They're kinda hard to acquire and keep alive, though, since they tend to start dying from even the softest touch.

[Solarius Scorch]

I forgot to update the thread name for 3.1. Now fixed.

[theophilos]

Ok ill try out the prod, and it's just called "electric prod" , I havjt found a cattle prod in searches

Ok, I felt perhaps cap was 50. The heavy machine gun weighs 52, I was just trying to think of ways to get another less valuable member to be able in hold it in his birthday suit lol.

Are the "transformations " generally worth it , do they avoid the cap? I can do accuracy transformation,  but I'm getting confused how these work or if it's worth loss in sanity. The eerie places are very tough with low sanity

Regarding armor piercing, I am having trouble understandijg it. Is the ammo stats what to care about? For example if says on ammo "armor effectiveness 85%" does this mean their armor is only 85% of what it usually is ? Or is armor reduced by 85%? Or?

---

By the way it was a HUGE success on LO WU refuge. I had 10 hazmat men with incendiary and gas grenades all activated , throwing fire around. 4 of them had tasers , and Stims all around. 2 agri flamethrower to make fire walls and to have the extinguisher in case VIP burns

5 shotguns of high acc troops with Stun ammo in regular armor, 1 grenade launcher with flash grenades rear guard

Slowly advanced with fire throwing ahead blindly and if any hazmats killed then I would trigger gas and fire grenade dead man switch which wouldn't harm the hazmats

Was able to defeat the ninjas with very few deaths even without motion scanner methods. Hazmat suits are so cool to try things outside box !

[Juku121]

The 'Electric Prod' is essentially a cattle prod without mentioning it. TBH, I'm a bit disappointed that them farmers don't have those.

HMG is really something you use when you have some super-soldier serum in you, or are wearing some kind of power armour, not running around naked. (Light) Miniguns are a similar weapon that's man-portable earlier on, as strange as it might look.

Most transformations are very much worth it. Blood Boosting is of questionable utility, and soldier type transformations are a choice. I think the one transformation that had an immense down time was fixed a while ago, so no hidden traps either.

Transformations and commendations indeed get added to your 'base' stat, so they do avoid the cap. Some transformations also add 'base' skill up to the cap, this is on a separate line in the transformation UI (if it applies, i.e. the soldier isn't maxed yet).

Sanity can go pretty high eventually, but, yes, it's a tradeoff which transformations you take and whether you have  a separate 'sane' team. There are also sanity-restoring drugs.

Armour effectiveness indeed means armour only counts as 85% of its value in the damage calculation, e.g. 100 kinetic damage at 85% armour effectiveness vs 50 armour at 90% kinetic resistance is 100*0.9-50*0.85 = 47.5 damage. Which then probably also reduces armour if it penetrates. Note that pure damage is also essentially a form of armour piercing, and armour tends to get damaged after being penetrated once, which is another sort of penetration.



Interesting tactics with the ninja master. I usually just throw/launch incendiaries like crazy, but I also use instant grenades, so that's that.

[theophilos]

Hi thanks for reply that cleared things up

I remember watching Lewis and Ben playthroigh (0.9 Era patch), and remember they had to fight a lot of deep ones. Yet for me, I have found the dagon HQ yet have never had a deep one raid ? And no underwater missions, it is early 1998

Will I miss out if I defeat the dagon hq before these raids? Also if I dont attack the hq/am defeated, will I locate the hq again?

I have pretty good weapons and armored vests but I remember they only defeated the HQ with 1 person remaiining in similar circumstances...

[Juku121]

I don't remember L&B that well, but AFAIK the Deep One missions are largely the same. They're still very RNG-dependant, so that might be it. And most of them start around Oct-Nov 1997 at the earliest (one earlier, some a lot later), so you might not have had much chance to encounter them yet.

Underwater missions are something you initiate, via research.

Dagon HQ has both paths to unlocking underwater missions within it. If you capture the right creepies. You will indeed lose some of the aquatic invasion missions if you kill the Dagonites off. But assaulting the HQ does not do that automatically, you can delay it and farm the HQ instead, if you wish.

The HQ respawns as long as Dagon cultists are organised and operational, regardless of how your assault goes. Dagon HQ is probably the easiest of the four. Deep Ones Gillmen, dynamite and grenade launchers are the big threats, and there's plenty of opportunity to do indirect fires yourself.

[Chuckebaby]

Trying to capture Lo Wu alive is tough. Not only his stealth ninja minions, that ancient Katana is deadly.
I'd like to see something more gained for capturing him alive. Like one stealth ninja suit (similar to gaining the ancient katana).

[Solarius Scorch]

Trying to capture Lo Wu alive is tough. Not only his stealth ninja minions, that ancient Katana is deadly.
I'd like to see something more gained for capturing him alive. Like one stealth ninja suit (similar to gaining the ancient katana).

I think the katana is definitely enough.

But there will probably be more such rewards added over time.

[Chuckebaby]

Playing this version on experienced for a second go.. The Hybrid "Large landings" (wooden fortress) are insane. They are throwing 3 napalm grenades at me per turn. From like 50 tiles away.
This maybe a bit much ? Almost impossible to go through this mission w/out losing multiple guys And this is only on "Experienced skill level".

[psavola]

Playing this version on experienced for a second go.. The Hybrid "Large landings" (wooden fortress) are insane. They are throwing 3 napalm grenades at me per turn. From like 50 tiles away.
This maybe a bit much ? Almost impossible to go through this mission w/out losing multiple guys And this is only on "Experienced skill level".

Is this vanilla X-Com Files? This doesn't seem familiar at all, and I don't think hybrids ever use napalm grenades either.

[nicedayright]

What's the logic behind the Tritanium Ammo economy? It just seems like it's not worth it to ever spend my precious alien alloys (before I can mass produce them) on ammunition instead of armor or anything else. It's one alloy to one clip, whereas it's only four alloy to make a whole suit of armor. So I could have I could have 24 .44 caliber rounds or a whole bulletproof vest?

I don't think the cost of armor should be increased, considering a whole small UFO may net you under 20 alloys, but shouldn't ammunition be batch craftable? You know, 1 for 5 or even 10 clips? As it stands I'd basically never use alloy ammunition until I have a tritanium foundry and by then I have better options.

[Solarius Scorch]

Is this vanilla X-Com Files? This doesn't seem familiar at all, and I don't think hybrids ever use napalm grenades either.

Yeah, they don't have napalm. Only incendiary grenades, and not that many.

What's the logic behind the Tritanium Ammo economy? It just seems like it's not worth it to ever spend my precious alien alloys (before I can mass produce them) on ammunition instead of armor or anything else. It's one alloy to one clip, whereas it's only four alloy to make a whole suit of armor. So I could have I could have 24 .44 caliber rounds or a whole bulletproof vest?

Truth be told, I don't know what is the "best" usage of tritanium, I'm leaving it to the players to choose. But if you think that the tritanium to clip ratio is bad, then I'm open to discussion - this is not easy to balance.

[psavola]

Truth be told, I don't know what is the "best" usage of tritanium, I'm leaving it to the players to choose. But if you think that the tritanium to clip ratio is bad, then I'm open to discussion - this is not easy to balance.

I've brought up the same thing before.

I think it's fine that in the early parts of the game (before the invasion, even 6+ months after it has begin) no player should waste the alloys to tritanium clips except in exceptional circumstances. You want to preserve it to armors, some minor things (for example, tritanium knives are a reasonable upgrade), a few thunderstorms/ravens, and for at least one improved lab. I suppose this is just something the player needs to figure out (or read from various threads) and no hand-holding is needed.

But after that point - before you get or even need a foundry - you might want to use the excess for some clips if you're still using BO sniper/auto-sniper, shrapnels, etc. A year later, you will have probably migrated to turbolasers and some other equipment, so you won't need tritanium clips in any case, and might use it only for special weaponry (e.g. rockets and shrapnels).

I don't think this would change significantly even if manufacturing alloy clips was easier (for example you'd require only half the current amount), so I don't really see much that could change here.