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

[psavola]

(On Natasha Morozova mission spawning early. Theoretically you could get it already in Feb 1997...)

By your own example, it can be done. Sure, it will be much harder when done early, but I know some players who would get angry if I removed the option to do it.

In another test run the Morozova Dossier popped from the first Secret Files, in Jan 1997. Let's see when the mission spawns.

As you apparently don't want to change how the dossier can be obtained early from interrogation of second level cultists and mission spawning, at the very least, I'd suggest moving Morozova to "Top Secret Files". All the dossiers that result in mission spawns are at least in Top Secret Files (Wilheard is in Ultimate Secret Files). So that would be consistent with the rest of special dossiers.

[Irismono]

Throwing my two cents into the craft landing zone/enemies close to craft debate:

Occasionally I find that enemies spawn a little close to the early game cars and vans. This is challenging, but not unmanageable, and mostly occurs on a) Strange Life Forms, where skipping is at most a 90 point penalty and most enemies are melee only and b) missions with large numbers of human enemies, which you shouldn't be taking on with anything short of a Humvee or Chopper in my opinion. Most high point value missions managable by small vehicles are ones with either a small number of enemies to a large number of civilians (Lunatics, Reptoids, etc.) where you're unlikely to encounter the foe turn 1, or ones with lots of both civilians and enemies (Gang war for example), in which case you really are rolling the dice.

Having lots of empty space is not fun in my opinion. Jungle Maps are their own special hell due to dense foliage yes, but the biggest challenge with missions like the Durathread factory or ice sheet UFOs is all the open space. Smoke mitigates, but from a tactical perspective I prefer having cover and LOS blocking terrain. If the enemy can see you and doesn't have stuff blocking their shots you're in trouble. X-COM usually wins at Sniper duels.

Early game it's definitely a challenge, but that's part of the trade-off for using exposed vehicles. The single biggest upgrade I experienced craft-wise was the Osprey and Dragonfly level where I finally had craft with corridors. Side doors on the Skyraider and Skymarshall were another upgrade, but that initial security from enclosed craft is as valuable as the extra units in my book.

[remiz]

Having lots of empty space is not fun in my opinion. Jungle Maps are their own special hell due to dense foliage yes, but the biggest challenge with missions

Cover is always pain to find, most textures that look like cover does not work, aliens just shoot at you. i am not sure if all trees work, cause you can easily mitigate tree stump cover.


PS: how do you get gang wars missions? i might have jump over them, those are very fun to watch

[Juku121]

how do you get gang wars missions?

Randomly. What kind of mod do you think you're playing?

[Irismono]

PS: how do you get gang wars missions? i might have jump over them, those are very fun to watch

They can spawn any time Red Dawn is active. They're pretty uncommon but odds are you'll see one during the first few years.

[hairybert]

X-Com Files is an incredible mod. It's such a tense game; from the first second on, your are stressed by and frightened only from sensing what might happen next.

Among the things I don't like that much, my favorite is probably the randomized starting point of the mission, occasionally placing you in the middle of the map surrounded by enemies. It just feels unrealistic and unfair, and much more like a buggy/unwanted program behavior than clever game design. From the discussion above (which made me write this comment) I learned I'm not the only one feeling this way.

X-Com Files draws its difficulty and nerve-wrecking tension from superb modding design and a big (but amazingly well-balanced) variety of sources of trouble, and of course from the whole atmosphere created by the artfully woven story lines and the music. Also in that light it's just completely unnecessary to draw additional difficulty from potentially disastrous starting positions.

I understand that the roots of this issue go back to the original XCom game. (Which I played in the 1990s, but in the original setting it never felt anywhere near that bad to me.) Also I notice that there seems to be some commitment to have this "feature" in the game along the lines "It's original XCom as it always was; if you don't like it, you don't have to play it". But isn't it safe to say that this dubious feature is not exactly the main reason why so many people liked and still like original XCom?

A few spontaneous thoughts on how to fix (or soften) the problem:

• Always place the starting point of the mission close to the border of the map.
  Feels more logical to me also from realism point of view. (I know, the whole "approaching the enemy site" thing has more severe realism issues, but still...)
• Add doors to the car/van and start the mission from within. Again more realistic, also for the triggering points for aborting the mission. One could even put the extra gear in the back of the car with an additional tailgate.
• Increasing the size of the maps should be avoided.

I understand that the first point might actually be a feature request for an extra option in the OCXE engine.

[psavola]

I will just make a note on the second suggestion (craft doors). Some further along the line have something at least resembling to that (e.g. Kitsune, Lightning). But my main comment relates to how this affects the gameplay. Compare vanilla TFTD to UFO. In TFTD all crafts have doors. This results in being able camp there through almost every mission (waiting for the scouting phase to start in turn 20) and shoot out/throw grenades out of the craft (among other things). You don't necessarily need to deploy out at all. If you had, the game would be much more difficult (e.g. the early game terror missions are brutal in TFTD if you don't use the cover of the craft). On the other hand, UFO had an open-ended craft which was not protected unless you spawned at the right end of the map (and not completely even then).

All in all, whether the crafts have doors or not (or in general how well they are protected) may result in completely different playstyles and subsequently how the modder should adjust the difficulty. I suppose many XCF missions would be much easier if you could just stay in your craft for a few turns if you don't get a good spawn. Imagine how much more difficult XCF would have to be otherwise if the crafts had doors that allowed camping.

[Solarius Scorch]

Regarding the building positioning: OK, I will give it more thought. But please don't hold your breath, I can't see a good solution right now.

[Juku121]

You could ask CrazedHarpooner for their mapscripts, perhaps something gan be gleaned from there.

[hairybert]

I will just make a note on the second suggestion (craft doors). Some further along the line have something at least resembling to that (e.g. Kitsune, Lightning). But my main comment relates to how this affects the gameplay. Compare vanilla TFTD to UFO. In TFTD all crafts have doors. This results in being able camp there through almost every mission (waiting for the scouting phase to start in turn 20) and shoot out/throw grenades out of the craft (among other things). You don't necessarily need to deploy out at all. If you had, the game would be much more difficult (e.g. the early game terror missions are brutal in TFTD if you don't use the cover of the craft). On the other hand, UFO had an open-ended craft which was not protected unless you spawned at the right end of the map (and not completely even then).

All in all, whether the crafts have doors or not (or in general how well they are protected) may result in completely different playstyles and subsequently how the modder should adjust the difficulty. I suppose many XCF missions would be much easier if you could just stay in your craft for a few turns if you don't get a good spawn. Imagine how much more difficult XCF would have to be otherwise if the crafts had doors that allowed camping.

The doors of cars / van should have windows of course, easily breakable. Also, they should have a front window and the car should also have a rear window. You won't be safe inside.

[CrazedHarpooner]

You could ask CrazedHarpooner for their mapscripts, perhaps something gan be gleaned from there.

Funnily enough I already decided to attempt to make a submod for this. Currently pretty barebones as it covers only a few scripts but it's working. Also available to view how I've approached the task. Available in this post: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=12106.0

[Irismono]

The doors of cars / van should have windows of course, easily breakable. Also, they should have a front window and the car should also have a rear window. You won't be safe inside.

I currently can't think of a way to make this work in an elegant fashion, simply because of how X-COM's art works. Any vehicle would end up looking more like the initial craft from X-Piratez and not like a typical earth car.

map cell placement seems like a more likely solution, but I'm no technical expert so I'll leave that to those who are. For what it's worth, I've found map placement to be very impactful even in UFO defense. The main difference is that UFO defense's progression is much faster, with smoke grenades available from the start and tiered up weapons and armor available early on.

[Solarius Scorch]

Since there's so much interest in map scripts, let me explain how they work using the example of forest terrain.

Code: [Select]

  - type: FOREST <-- script name
    commands: <-- this is where the scripting starts
    - type: addUFO <-- place the UFO (or building); no extra positioning parameters, so it spawns in a random place; landing block will be placed under it
    - type: addCraft <-- place the X-Com vehicle; also no positioning; landing block will be placed under it
    - type: addLine <-- place road
      label: 1 <-- conditional label, used later
      direction: vertical <-- road's direction 1
      executionChances: 12 <-- how likely it is for this command to be executed, in %
    - type: addLine <-- place road
      label: 2 <-- conditional label, used later
      conditionals: -1 <-- this command can only be executed if the command with label 1 is not executed
      direction: horizontal <-- road's direction 2
      executionChances: 10 <-- how likely it is for this command to be executed, in %
    - type: addLine <-- place roads in both directions, with a crossroad
      conditionals: [-1, -2] <-- this command can only be executed if the commands with labels 1 and 2 are not executed
      executionChances: 15 <-- how likely it is for this command to be executed, in %
      direction: both <-- both directions
    - type: addBlock <-- place a map block
      size: 3 <-- ...with size 30x30
      groups: 0 <-- default group for normal blocks
      executionChances: 75 <-- how likely it is for this command to be executed, in %
    - type: addBlock <-- place a map block
      size: 2 <-- ...with size 20x20
      executions: 4 <-- ...and do it 4 times
    - type: fillArea <-- place map blocks to fill the entire map; no size means only 10x10 blocks will be used

Now, what can we do with this to improve the situation? We could expand the commands like this:

Code: [Select]

    - type: addUFO
      rects:
        - [0,0,3,3]

This will cause the UFO to always spawn in the top corner of the map, no further than 40 tiles from it (since we count starting with 0). Why 40 tiles and not for example 10? Because that area would be too small for anything bigger than 10x10 to spawn, so we need to ensure enough space.

Even if we do that, we still need to control where the X-Com craft spawns, otherwise it may also be spawned near the same corner. We can, of course, do something similar:

Code: [Select]

    - type: addCraft
      rects:
        - [4,4,2,2]

So it will spawn at least 50 tiles from the upper corner.

Problems:
1. Depending on map size and UFO/craft involved, this will often result in a crash, when the engine cannot place the UFO or craft in the specified location.
2. Even if it worked, every mission would have both objects placed in roughly the same places, which would be repetitive and go against the design of X-Com.

I hope this clarifies the matter.

[Juku121]

CrazedHarpooner's scripts more or less solve both problems (well, you can still get the occasional inability to place either, but then it defaults to vanilla rules). But they come with the added problem of being quite complex and needing several scripts per original script. And there are lots of map scripts in XCF.

[CrazedHarpooner]

A little clarification: all of the "split" scripts could be merged into a single one. I've opted for the 4-split design to prevent the number of checks and conditionals in a single script growing into an uncomfortable number to keep track of, even if documented. For me it's much easier to handle 4 small-ish scripts, than 1 probably overwhelmingly large script that can handle all the cases the other 4 do. Thank goodness for the mapScripts property in the terrain ruleset.

Most of the complexity of the scripts comes from the number of differently sized maps, the more sizes you want a script to cover, the more checks and labels you need to keep track of them. But yes, adapting the already large list of scripts in XCF to behave in this way will take a while.