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

[yrizoud]

Can you please tell me which ones? I'm hunting down remnants of this bug.

Oh it's actually flares which are not loaded (STR_FLARE_PISTOL_CLIP). STR_FLARE_PISTOL also seems to have 3 recovery points, but it doesn't cause the same behavior (I had it researched)

[Solarius Scorch]

Oh it's actually flares which are not loaded (STR_FLARE_PISTOL_CLIP). STR_FLARE_PISTOL also seems to have 3 recovery points, but it doesn't cause the same behavior (I had it researched)

Got it. Thanks!

[Kjotleik]

This looks awesome, man!   

I must admit that during the first few "start a new campaign" moments, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. And it turns out it is amazing!
I got killed off easily (night missions, flares didn't do me much good) in the jungle with a two-man team.

After I figured out I could get a four-man team with a van, things started to go a little bit better (a later game, I lost the first two/three as I didn't do anything but run around being amazed by the new (very dangerous, at least on superhuman difficulty) and weird Strange Creatures.

Also, I love the fact we have more than just one gun to choose from in the beginning. Having slightly different alternatives makes for good role-play. I could give soldiers their "native" guns, for starters.

Nice idea with the flag, by the way. I hope you get it for all nationalities in the not so distant future. I must admit I like it so much that it is a letdown when I hire a soldier with no flag on the soldier-screen now. 

And those...

Spoiler:

bats

...are crazy numerous. One of them is too easy to handle, but I experience them just swarming towards the van in such huge numbers, even my four-man squad is unable to take them out quickly enough. I still haven't managed to get one of those corpses back home (I've had to just abort after shooting down three/four in the first few turns).

I have only experienced a crash once. Unfortunately, there were no game-crash screen. So I don't know what caused it. And since I haven't been able to reproduce it, I'm in the dark about the reason. Probably not a runtime-error. I think Windows would warn me about that, if it were the case. I'll see if I can make it happen again, but I doubt it.

In short: I die A LOT! 
From what I've seen so far... I LOVE THIS MOD!   

[JeyP]

Always wanted x-com (like) game like that. Starting as a small agency trying to solve "unsolved cases" just to find out later on that "aliens" stand behind all these supernatural phenomens. After that proper x-com begin, world change, big factions are created to fight with global threat. I want x-com (like) game almost to be a grand strategy with tactical turn based squad combat (real tactical gameplay with proper turn based combat with speed factor no that stupid "I Go You Go" system). Probably not going to happen...someone have phone number to Paradox?

About the mod, beggining is great. Really like "2/4 man team" it's hard to survive and its satisfying when you make it. Smal squad force you to play more carefully and care about your squad members (when you have 12 and more people in normal x-com, rookie meat shield is common tactics This is first time for me in x-com that i care about characters and feel attachment to them, even "roleplay" a littlebit becouse of possibility to choose they nation flag and even appearance. Portraits in tactical missions helps too. Gym ruined first impresion. Becouse i work hard with 4 guys in mission to survive and get exprience/stats increase just to find out that 10 guys in base increased a lot of stats peacefully. Gym (maybe change name for training facility or something less generic) should have 4 spaces (or maybe make two variants with 3 and 6 spaces, something like large living quarters) and train stats a lot slower. For me stats should be trained only in combat so i would change gym for shooting range thats train only shooting accuracy. Don't play OXC/x-com to much becouse it have to simplistic approach to tactical gameplay but i will definitly play full version of this mod. Even in this early state show great attention to details.

[Blank]

Funny you mentioned paradox, I was thinking a cool build feature would be painting the countries different colors as they get infiltrated so you can visually see the alien's presence spread. I think those grand strategy elements are the things many of the later clones and sequels missed out on.

But yeah there's something that feels right about this mod that brings to mind other similar games of the era.

[Solarius Scorch]

Thanks for the posts guys! I'm really happy the mod works in idea and execution. And I'm also happy people share my taste in games!
About the gym, I had my reservations too, it but it is necessary to maintain game balance. Furthermore, it's logical. After all your team consists of pretty random people who are a bit...unpolished despite being government agents. I mean, just look at their mugs! They mostly look like this:



Or this:



Or this:



Or this:



Certainly not best of the best if you ask me. But they can become these if they just get off their asses and concentrate on their training!
This was done to justify their incredible stat advancement, which wouldn't be possible on already trained people. So I rfeally recommend training everybody rather than dividing your men between the combat team and the training team. Because training is essential.
Having said that, this system will be improved when the code is in place. For now I think it's the best I can do.

As for the colouring countries, this is certainly a good idea, but not really my area of expertise.

The next release will take some time, as I need to make some additional armours (god-damn diving suits!) and this is always slow. So please be patient!

[JeyP]

Well i can always don't use gym at all or restric myself to use less spots, no big deal.

1) Ther are around 33 blank spaces in flag selection, probably they are waiting for new flags but its always posiblity that this was not intended.
2) To much money at starts and after first month. We are a new organisation but all countries are like "shut up and take my money". But this kind of balance probably bettert to leave for full version of the mod.

I am curious abaut "transition" from x-files to FMP we wil have a super soldiers back then so game could be very easy or we wil have a better aliens from the beggining and it will be still hard? Mod is in rough state so don't want to "waste" time on proper playthrough to check that out.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well i can always don't use gym at all or restric myself to use less spots, no big deal.

Sure. Or if you want you can also regulate how good it is, on a 1 - 100 scale - right now it's at 30%.

1) Ther are around 33 blank spaces in flag selection, probably they are waiting for new flags but its always posiblity that this was not intended.

Yeah, I didn't have the time to address it yet. The number of flags corresponds to the number of name files, so I'm not sure what is different...

2) To much money at starts and after first month. We are a new organisation but all countries are like "shut up and take my money". But this kind of balance probably bettert to leave for full version of the mod.

Yep, this is still to be balanced.

I am curious abaut "transition" from x-files to FMP we wil have a super soldiers back then so game could be very easy or we wil have a better aliens from the beggining and it will be still hard? Mod is in rough state so don't want to "waste" time on proper playthrough to check that out.

I'm curious myself. I need testers!

[JeyP]

1) Mudranger purpose? It's useless, am i missing something?
2) Blackops Smart Gun - no magazines and ufopedia entry.
3) Would be nice to have number of bullets in magazine in ufopedia weapons entries.
4) Starting weapons like Makarov, Tokarev TT-30 can be researched after enemy drop them. Research don't give any new info.
5) Some encounters are imposible to win (Super Human). I'm okay with that but we can always talk about better balance.
6) Hard to stun ? Easiest oponent take 4-5 hits with electric club next one take 8-9 hits.

[Solarius Scorch]

Hello and thanks for feedback.

1) Mudranger purpose? It's useless, am i missing something?

No, it's actually quite hard to use. You can get lucky and have a mission close enough, and therefore take more people, but it's rare. Still, you can try "abusing" it by keeping it in a base that you know is near something important - should be helpful with HQ raids, for example.
Anyway, the Mudranger is pretty experimental. An upgrade is planned, where it has much better range (after a research).

2) Blackops Smart Gun - no magazines and ufopedia entry.

Yeah... Something's wrong here. I'll investigate.
EDIT: Found the error... One magazine type was missing and it broke the entire Ufopaedia entry.

3) Would be nice to have number of bullets in magazine in ufopedia weapons entries.

Yeah, maybe it can be done automatically somehow... I don't feel like adding it manually.

4) Starting weapons like Makarov, Tokarev TT-30 can be researched after enemy drop them. Research don't give any new info.

Yes, their Ufopaedia entry should be unavailable before research. Fixed in next version.

5) Some encounters are imposible to win (Super Human). I'm okay with that but we can always talk about better balance.

Sure, the mod turned out to be hard. No need to go Superhuman to get some adrenaline. But it can be done.

6) Hard to stun ? Easiest oponent take 4-5 hits with electric club next one take 8-9 hits.

That's probably very bad luck, as long as all these hits landed. Sometimes one good hit is enough to down a Black Lotus Follower, sometimes three hits... Hitting them is the problem.

[TheProfessional]

*starts up mod, face brightens up as i read through the ufopedia entries*
*lets out a laugh as my agents enter a "flight" to south Africa, to investigate cult activity*
*gets greeted by 20 green hooded cult members that are running around a warehouse*
*my agents start gunning people down, taking captives is no longer of concern*
*an madman survives two shotgun reaction shots and slays my one agent with an axe*
*I just tell my other agent to run away to extract as he is surrounded, and imagine that he drives them over with the car while fleeing*

10/10 Best mod ever

[Solarius Scorch]

*starts up mod, face brightens up as i read through the ufopedia entries*
*lets out a laugh as my agents enter a "flight" to south Africa, to investigate cult activity*
*gets greeted by 20 green hooded cult members that are running around a warehouse*
*my agents start gunning people down, taking captives is no longer of concern*
*an madman survives two shotgun reaction shots and slays my one agent with an axe*
*I just tell my other agent to run away to extract as he is surrounded, and imagine that he drives them over with the car while fleeing*

Nice, that's how you're supposed to play this! (In the beginning anyway.)

I'll probably release an update very soon. I don't exactly want to, because I'm halfway through the next arc (Tleth), but there are too many important fixes. The only problem is that you won't be able to finish that "sub-quest" yet.

[yrizoud]

I'm not sure what is the intended "scope" of this first episode. Cults have their research/mission tree, but it seems to reach a dead-end.
Zombies/mutants open up some stuff, but with no facility to manufature (extract), I guess it's unfinished.
So, after 6-7 months, I feel like I'm running out of stuff to do. Missions starts getting repetitive, always the same 4 cults, and the same dozen of strange creatures appearing. No covert operation so far.
Note, some species indicate vulnerabilities, but there's no related weapon (smoke, fire).
In any case, the gameplay with a limited number of agents is really ace. My only critics would be :
- magnum range seems absurdly good. It seems to outclass two-handed weapons like SMG, AK, and even the basic hunting rifle for long-range shooting, and this is counter-intuitive. (I actually unlocked the gun pretty late, when all active agents have 90-100+ accuracy)
- the mechanism of shotguns works very bad with the extended range. The AI keeps shooting even with zero% chance, and I don't think I have ever had an agent wounded by shotgun, ever.

[Solarius Scorch]

I'm not sure what is the intended "scope" of this first episode. Cults have their research/mission tree, but it seems to reach a dead-end.

Well, you can destroy all four cults (except for EXALT, because it's currently bugged). It's pretty difficult, but perfectly doable.
Researching cults will also give new stuff, like "deeper" factions, but it's not there yet.

Zombies/mutants open up some stuff, but with no facility to manufature (extract), I guess it's unfinished.

Correct. This arc is also half-done. The next steps are planned and it'll be epic.

So, after 6-7 months, I feel like I'm running out of stuff to do. Missions starts getting repetitive, always the same 4 cults, and the same dozen of strange creatures appearing. No covert operation so far.

Yeah, there's not much diversity now. But bricks are slowly falling in place.

Note, some species indicate vulnerabilities, but there's no related weapon (smoke, fire).

Such weapons generally require second X-Com advance (STR_MILESTONE_2), but sometimes can be found earlier.

- magnum range seems absurdly good. It seems to outclass two-handed weapons like SMG, AK, and even the basic hunting rifle for long-range shooting, and this is counter-intuitive. (I actually unlocked the gun pretty late, when all active agents have 90-100+ accuracy)

I'll think about it. I have very mixed feelings regarding Magnum.

- the mechanism of shotguns works very bad with the extended range. The AI keeps shooting even with zero% chance, and I don't think I have ever had an agent wounded by shotgun, ever.

I think it's not as bad, though indeed they rarely hit. But the only thing I can do is removing pellet weapons from their inventories, and that's out of the question. I prefer to accept that sometimes they're not very effective.

[yrizoud]

By the way, there was a very hard fight (parked by the front door of a ganger outpost, no cover at all, easily 12 shooters by turn 2) that I have been able to turn around by choosing a "fighting distance" carefully :
I walked away to a spot, where the chance of pistol snap shots got down -30 (the dropoff is a flat number, not multiplicative).
At such distance, my marksmen's chance got down from 60% to 30% - but the opposite gangers are less accurate, so their chance dropped from, let's say, 40%, to 10%. My effective firepower was halved, but theirs was divided by 4 - and the AI kept shooting instead of rushing my agents, since they were "in plain view".
This let me finish the mission with no dead, though the entire team was wounded (78 days for one agent  )