Thanks for the clarification.
I don't feel you need to remove any terminology, just fix the UFOpaedia text in the screenshot to say "Building it requires: 150 Alien Alloys".
Over the course of my whole game that screenshot was the only use of the term that really confused me. I actually went and tried to find "Tritanium" in the UFOpaedia, thinking maybe it's some kind of new, distinct component. It's a bit unfair that page uses a term that's different from the actual component. I recognize you want to maintain the "engineering" feel of the text, but since it's a footnote anyway is it really that important to use "Tritanium" in the context of the help page?
"Alien Alloys" is an actual item you can find in UFOpaedia, and in your inventory lists in the game. "Tritanium" is not. In my own view this makes the occurrence in that UFOpaedia page a no-brainer typographic error, regardless of the intended interpretation of the words. (I wouldn't care so much if the page was just lore).
I understand the problem, and your argumentation makes sense. Still, I would rather use "Tritanium" in an engineering context. I'll consider the options some more before deciding.
Just obtained Schutzstaffeln Ring from one the three land surveys granted in June 1997. While this does not break the game (you only get parapsychology pre-req for now) and it is not unheard of that such a treasure could be found, I suppose you could also argue that such "quest artifacts" should not be available in the land surveys.
Looking at what else can be obtained, the only other thing that raises an eyebrow is Black Lotus Avatar Remains (though it does not give you anything).
I prefer to keep things chaotic when I can.
The current OXCE provides a possibility to give user a confirmation screen before selling an important item. I suppose that could used for some important items if SS wants to do so. I'm a bit doubtful that SS wants to do so, because you actually want to sell some of those to get rid of the extras (and SS will probably say it would be in principle cheating to give players such a warning).
I don't mind that much either way, but the criteria of what qualifies as a a critical item is not easy. I'd rather make the mod resistant to errors (for example by giving the player an option to redo a mission where you can get it).
Invisible ghosts are emitting light now. They are still invisible, but now it is much easier to find them on a map.
Yeah, but I think it's good.
Earlier it was never so hard to get a Zombie Infector. An underground mission with them (and 1 Strix) no longer in the game (I guses), and chances of "Major Zombie Infestation" (not to be confused with "Zombie Infestation") mission chance is very low. In fact I got "Infector" only from Syndicate Scientist.
I haven't touched zombie stuff in years.
Btw, syndicate underground lab spawned first time... without a lab. Only caves. Second time lab spawned. And spawned differently than usual, that is good. Earlier my troops always spawned at north, but not this time.
That is very strange, never happened to me to not have the HQ. A savegame would be nice.
I tried to rush for Skyraider as mush as I could, but Kitsune still appeared earlier. In june 1998, more specifically.
I'm considering moving it a bit further.
Impulse weaponry is too hard to get and when you do, they are already outdated. Although Impulse Machine Gun with Chem Ammo is still a doomsday weapon!
Shhh! It's a secret!
Same with tritanium ammo. Too expensive at early game and when you do get enough tritanium, you no longer need ammo out of it.
That's why there are extra sources of tritanium ammo (Osiron, MiB).
Reptiloids no longer use Gauss. Instead they use plasma machine guns.
Plasma machine gun? Is it some submod stuff?
Then again, calling dragonreath weapons plasma is not inaccurate.
Very good against Ethereals. Now nobody uses Gauss... Can only be found in crates.
Nah, MiBs use it every day.
New mission "MiB vs Magam Reactor" enabled relatively easy MiB commander capturing. That was needed.
Good to hear. THis mission isn't easy, but I guess at this point it's still easier than doing a MiB base.
In the end I was able to shoot this thing down. Eh... I knew that ground mission with Arbiter would be hard, but not that hard. Also Ethereal Commander is as orange as every other dudes so you essentially need to scan every robe wearer before shooting it. I definitely could performed better, but in the end I lost. I can reload, but the main point of this champagne was to beat the game without reloading. And no, I don't have morale strength to recover, game morally defeated me again...
Unfortunately, this is one of several key missions in the campaign, and it's supposed to be a challenge.
I am slightly missing those lovely sounds like "Braaaaaains!" or "The aliens have returned, run!" or "Why everybody hates me?". Will they ever return?
Doesn't sound familiar, probably a submod?
How do you think, would it be better to allow players to know how mush energy is left in the shield you are shooting? Like in X-Chronicle?
I think it would, bur it's waaaaay beyond my understanding of scripts (which is at about 0).
This lizard running on an F1 track reminded me of how some cryptids look when they're moving in this mod
Haha, you're right - the "animation" looks familiar.
Hi, I am writing to say that I am having a fantastic time playing your mod! I recently finished a long running playthrough of x-piratez and like a siren song this mod called to me. It really nails the gradual build up of power and resources that makes X-Com so great. It's fun to slowly become the X-Com we all know and love. I giggled when I saw the black ops rifle, of course that's what it looks like. It's also a credit to the campaign design that when I finally got my hands on one it was a legitimate improvement. So yeah great job!
Thank you! I really appreciate it, especially from a Piratez player.
So in my current playthrough I'm in difficulty 2, may 1999. I'm a bit ahead of the difficulty curve with cyber armor and tritanium ammo. So I can do most missions without too much risk and have strong interceptor coverage. My guess is that I'm in the early middle game, and that an x-com files campaign is about as long an x-piratez campaign. No spoilers please!
It's not that long.
(hopefully not too spoilery)
My answers below can't be put in a spoiler tag due to quotes, so sorry about that. I will only address the points I have something to comment on, but thanks for all the feedback.
Seriously a big congratulations on how the campaign ramps up. Getting the helicopter and armored vests feels like a legitimate game changer and like you can finally let loose. I love it so much. It's also very smart to start you with the glock, it's a good subtle way to say "hey you want accuracy over power for the start"
Thanks; I also think the late early game is the strongest part of the mod.
It's fun to be legitimate g-men crossing national boundaries to extradionarily rendition fools. Especially when you get sci-fi dart guns. All those conspiracy theories were right! Similarly the messages from the factions were great because they helped to drive home just what X-COM looks like from the outside. I kind of missed them for the factions after the initial four, but it makes sense they have better security or are too loosely organized to have messages.
Yeah, although I can think of writing something similar for at least some of them.
Coming off x-piratez it's really funny how some things get recontextualized by being back in a more mundane setting. The L-85 was just good in x-piratez but I shouted for joy when I got my hands on one here. Similarly I forgot where the standard human TU cap was, and that was a surprise let me tell you. Finally I forgot just how much armor gates the amount of risk you can take.
Indeed we're keeping a certain amount of common ground between XPZ and XCF when it comes to mechanics and lore. We succeed most of times.
It'd gunk up the manufacturing screen, but it'd be nice to have a way to kill captured monsters that you can use their parts for things. Bullfrogs are the biggest one of these. The dart musket rules and is borderline essential, but bullfrogs at least on the difficulty I'm playing are the biggest offenders for getting knocked unconscious for wounds.
I'm trying to be conservative here, but each monster should give something. As of now, Muckstars, Fenrirs, Shamblers and Asmodean Cobras do not, because I haven't had a good enough idea.
Similarly the webwear, so useful oh my god. But it's a real RNG roulette on when you can get it. I don't know if there's a better way to do it, but maybe 3 of 4 of any combination of spider types? Not sure the research system supports that.
Wold be hard, and it's mostly a reward for madmen anyway.
So on my first play through I was difficulty 1, and I really kneecapped myself because I didn't realize that some of the research is literally trivial. I was stuck in the old x-com mode of thinking where you hit every topic with all of your scientists sequentially. Maybe a comment about how you have a lot of ground to cover and most terrestrial objects are a bureaucratic formality? (That's kind of in the manual messages but might be helpful to have in the pop ups.)
That's more or less already written. I can do some tweaks.
The only mission I had a legitimately bad time with was the Dr. Alpha mission. It was just the most tedious thing. A one hit melee could drop from the vents and just wreck someone. Since it's mostly animals you can't win on morale. And I wound up with a low TU beetle stuck in the vents so I had to sweep the whole friggin map twice. Just a bad time, not sure there's much you can do about it with how the AI and spawns work.
Sorry, this kind of things happen. And it's a dossier mission, these tend to be particularly nasty.
It'd be probably more work than it's worth but for mundane gun platforms maybe there's a research branch about making alien fuel trace ammo? You get a small damage boost, but clip size majorly suffers and it's expensive in money and traces? (it's jury rigged technology that only works because we have thousands of cartridges to try with.) It'd honestly probably be a research trap, but my guns!
Interesting, but no; using Elerium as an explosive, even in a primitive way, is a major scientific challenge. Doing something like this in 1999 would be against the lore.
So probably because I was on an easy difficulty but I took the message about when the war was going to start to mean that I needed radar and interceptor coverage by then. I managed it, but I felt super overprepared. Not sure that's worth doing anything on your part, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I sort of assumed the aliens were going to try and knock me out by launching a terror mission or two. In a way like the syndicate would eventually try.
Well, it's mostly a misdirection, although it's not a lie.
Oh the company HQ mission was a test in patience because, that's a lot of stairs. like ten minutes of clicking lots of stairs, like final fantasy 7 lots of stairs. Please a hidden elevator every three floors or something. You can't get the CEO with morale so it was just annoying by the end.
Nah, I think it's just the right amount of suffering, sorry
I'm a completionist, at the same time X-COM files is pushing me to go as fast as I can. This is good, that's the tension of X-COM, you can play quite well but take too long and the aliens will win. The downside is that researching prisoners/aliens/corpses/animals almost always feels like there's not much reward. The x-dimension is the worst for this. Maybe a couple of Technomad files in the dimension X base so if you want to research the dimension x creatures you don't have to fish for all of them?
OK, I guess it's a reasonable idea. Todolisted.
Similarly you could get the files or corpse/captives from the expeditions. It'd be a crappy reward for the cost, but my completionism! (I just saw in a post above this one that land surveys might do the same thing?)
I didn't want to give corpses here because they're pretty much useless once you research them.
I'm sort of surprised you can't get gas masks, as that was how I got around Choking in X-piratez but at the same time I don't want em if it means the enemy gets em. Knockout grenades my beloved.
Yeah, Piratez are a bit more particular about equipment, being a postapoc setting and all. XCF is more standardized, so gas masks, NV goggles etc. simply exist as part of outfits or are not shown within the game engine.
I managed to get a Base Invasion before 1999, which I thought was a great way to say "Oh you want to do interceptions? Why don't you say that to my face."
Bad luck! (or is it?)
Oh relatedly a message in the Osiris casenda mission about how to expect a fortified locked position would be good. I don't normally use explosives and you gotta breach. Flame glove will get you inside though.
Raiding a building without explosives? How strange!
I was sort of surprised you couldn't cut a very expensive deal with the Black Lotuses patron. You want to defend humanity, she kind of wants to defend humanity, friendship! It definitely wouldn't be the most morally ambiguous thing you do in this game.
It's a concept, but would require a major arc. Maybe someday.
(But then people might feel like they have to for completionist reasons? I really hate being locked out of content myself.)
There are already mutually exclusive decisions, so it's too late to worry about this.
I'm gonna wait until I beat the game to ask how it works, but I am so curious how events and missions spawn within the x-com geoscape framework. It's fun system, I love that there are events happening that you can't know about, really ties into the feeling that you are trying to manage slowly spiraling chaos. Similarly it's fun when you get a good event, I'm hoping it's tied somehow to your level of intelligence capability so that investing there has subtle effects.
Generally speaking, most events fire based on a certain research being completed or not, or a combination thereof.
Is that true here? Can I use transformations without making soldiers so sanity limited they are basically useless after 20 turns in the end game? It's a real bother to have to play the whole game to realize you crippled your best soldiers a hundred hours ago.
20 turns is a lot of time, most missions don't take that long. I've never felt Freshness to be a major problem in Piratez, unless I was doing many missions in short succession, and XCF should be even easier. There are obviously long missions with heavy Sanity drain, but they're rare.
Is difficulty 4 manageable if you are good at X-COM but don't know X-COM files like the back of your hand? The nature of long campaign mods like this means that you can screw yourself over and not realize for dozens of hours. X-piratez got around this by making the game basically unlosable past a certain point, I’m doubting x-files is as nice. I'm not touching 5 or 6, I'm neurotic enough about losses, higher difficulty is going to make that worse.
Should be maneagable. It's mostly more enemies with better stats. Up to you if you're into that.
3. Is sneaky Ai recommended? Given the way TU economy works, enemies taking cover around corners does actually make things a lot harder. At the same time it might mess up animals/zombies?
I wouldn't recommend it. In my experience it cripples the AI more than it helps it.
Again thanks for making a really great mod! It's so fun to see how people are pushing the engine in ways I never thought possible.
Peace!
