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

[Solarius Scorch]

hi compadre, i have to say im thrilled by the idea of the mod, and at first glance look pretty interesting so imma take a look and enjoy the ride .

btw i dont know if is a bug or is WAD but just starting the campaing and looking the ufopaedia you are able to see the underwater advanced operations(one talking about trident submarine)

Thanks! And yeah, sorry, it's a bug. Please ignore it for now, it'll be fixed in the next release.

[B1ackwolf]

glad to help. btw another silly bug , in the  purchase page, gass cannon bullets (ap and he iirc) are aviable from day 1, just below the small shotgun an small shotgun bullets

[Solarius Scorch]

glad to help. btw another silly bug , in the  purchase page, gass cannon bullets (ap and he iirc) are aviable from day 1, just below the small shotgun an small shotgun bullets

Yeah, it's silly... Especially since they aren't supposed to be buyable, ever.

[HelmetHair]

Sol,

First post in a looooong time.

This mod..Wow. I've been thinking about a mod like this since like 1996. I loved the X-files and X-com and always thought how the two kind of played off of each other. I'm actually really excited about this. I've been playing this mod off and on the last few weeks and love the concept, but there are a few quirks that I know will be ironed out.

I've read the rest of the thread and there are a few things I've thought about while playing. I'll outline them here and reasoning behind them and how I believe they would fit into what you are doing. Now, I've not gotten super far, so if I am missing something because I haven't encountered it please forgive me, and correct me. I'm sure that some of this is old hat, but I'll hope you'll understand that I am very enthusiastic about this mod.... anyways.

1. A flashlight
Yeah, I want a maglite. Adding a touch to light radius would be great and would make me happy and I want to smash a cultist in the face too. I'd be willing to trade light radius for this...you know to increase the paranoia of a night mission

2. 1x1 Hanger.
Alright, I say 1x1 hanger but what I really mean is a 1x1 garage. I think of it as a staging area for a particular team so that a team could grab their gear and go using commercial or chartered aircraft etc. the car.... so tiny in this HUGE bay! However, how would this make sense large aircraft? I'm not sure...

3. Replacement of Mudranger with a MI-24 HIND.
just bugs me.... yeah, I know I'm a party pooper. Thoughts?

4. More critters.
Egads more critter types eating folks... soooo good. Creepy. Had a 4 man team drive out to the desert at night once and turned around and faced outward. Moved a few steps out to secure a perimeter and had dudes with Uzis with reaction fire TUs left.

Spoiler:

Creepy crawlies

rushed in and ended all of them in a single turn... My guys all shot back with reaction fire, mostly missing and died. It was glorious. It felt like some true X-Files shit.

5. Scooby needs to be in the mystery machine
I have the gang bouncing out. Shaggy, Freddy, Velma, Daphne...but yeah. Scooby.

6. Slugs for the pump action shotgun.
It would be nice if I could sometime get range with a shotgun, so it would shoot a single projectile. The spread is awful BTW, but you could justify this in game by saying the shotgun has a rifled slug barrel; which in reality turns your pattern to crap when using shot.... but implementation... meh.

7. Subdue kit.
Another one of my wants forever has been a single use item that has a black jack, handcuffs, blindfold and ductape. You know for knocking out a cultist and making them your prisoner... for those smash and grab missions that end up resembling some kind of Waco style craziness like when my two guys roll up at night and then crazy gunfire. One agent was done immediately, and my other agent shot a dude point blank as he tried to bury an axe in her skull I grabbed him and shoved him in the backseat and drove like hell.

8. Gym at anytime
Attrition is high... higher than even the rookies of Xcom have faced. No Cover, No intial way for concealment.... bad news. So yeah, having to wait 29 days to tell a dude to get training because he came in early in the month.... URGH!!!

9. Firing range building.
I'd love something like the gym that focused on firing accuracy ONLY and was expensive to operate and could be enrolled in at anytime.

10. Rifles
seriously....Why can't my quartermaster get M16s and AK47s. Oversight my foot... my quartermaster would be fired for not being able buy something that at the time could be found in an open air market in Somalia for less than a days wages (USD).

11. Kevlar vests.
Same question... but I actually do understand. There is several different levels of body armor available and the amount of protection it provides in real life. Concealable armor makes perfect sense and should be a freebie. I could foresee an oversight in plate carriers yatta yatta but not a simple vest.

Thought?

How can I help you?

[Solarius Scorch]

This mod..Wow. I've been thinking about a mod like this since like 1996. I loved the X-files and X-com and always thought how the two kind of played off of each other. I'm actually really excited about this. I've been playing this mod off and on the last few weeks and love the concept, but there are a few quirks that I know will be ironed out.

I'm happy to hear that, and sorry that this mod is in such an early state.

1. A flashlight
Yeah, I want a maglite. Adding a touch to light radius would be great and would make me happy and I want to smash a cultist in the face too. I'd be willing to trade light radius for this...you know to increase the paranoia of a night mission

Yes, I would like this as well. Maybe someday it'll be possible. A more advanced lighting engine would be nice if it allowed the light to be directional (cone-like).

2. 1x1 Hanger.
Alright, I say 1x1 hanger but what I really mean is a 1x1 garage. I think of it as a staging area for a particular team so that a team could grab their gear and go using commercial or chartered aircraft etc. the car.... so tiny in this HUGE bay! However, how would this make sense large aircraft? I'm not sure...

Yeah, having small hangars for small vehicles has been on my mind since forever. I'd add them if the engine allowed. But I'm also getting feedback that the current system is way cooler, with huge garages and such.

3. Replacement of Mudranger with a MI-24 HIND.
just bugs me.... yeah, I know I'm a party pooper. Thoughts?

Make me a map and we'll see.
No, seriously, I want a helicopter. But making it is beyond my current abilities, epsecially time-wise.

4. More critters.
Egads more critter types eating folks... soooo good. Creepy. Had a 4 man team drive out to the desert at night once and turned around and faced outward. Moved a few steps out to secure a perimeter and had dudes with Uzis with reaction fire TUs left. (...) It felt like some true X-Files shit.

Nice! Just as planned. :q

5. Scooby needs to be in the mystery machine
I have the gang bouncing out. Shaggy, Freddy, Velma, Daphne...but yeah. Scooby.

Dogs are problematic, or actually tanks in general are problematic, since they shouldn't fit in a car and a dog is technically a HWP. What I could do is make dogs a soldier race, but it leads to all sorts of unintended fun, like all-dogs crew in a car or a dog becoming Commander.

6. Slugs for the pump action shotgun.
It would be nice if I could sometime get range with a shotgun, so it would shoot a single projectile. The spread is awful BTW, but you could justify this in game by saying the shotgun has a rifled slug barrel; which in reality turns your pattern to crap when using shot.... but implementation... meh.

I tihnk all other shotguns have solid projectiles.

7. Subdue kit.
Another one of my wants forever has been a single use item that has a black jack, handcuffs, blindfold and ductape. (...)

You and me, man. But that'd be new mechanics, someone would have to plan and code it, and do it well enough for Meridian to add it to the branch.
Cool story though.

8. Gym at anytime
Attrition is high... higher than even the rookies of Xcom have faced. No Cover, No intial way for concealment.... bad news. So yeah, having to wait 29 days to tell a dude to get training because he came in early in the month.... URGH!!!

Wait, doesn't the psi training at any time cover the gym too? I can't remember.

9. Firing range building.
I'd love something like the gym that focused on firing accuracy ONLY and was expensive to operate and could be enrolled in at anytime.

AFAIK it's planned. I need to wait for the code, but I want it the same way.

10. Rifles
seriously....Why can't my quartermaster get M16s and AK47s. Oversight my foot... my quartermaster would be fired for not being able buy something that at the time could be found in an open air market in Somalia for less than a days wages (USD).

It's not that he can't find it, it's that he has trouble getting the permission from the UN. That's why there's so much trouble with military weapons.
Researching cults (and their suppliers) is a good way to get more dakka.

11. Kevlar vests.
Same question... but I actually do understand. There is several different levels of body armor available and the amount of protection it provides in real life. Concealable armor makes perfect sense and should be a freebie. I could foresee an oversight in plate carriers yatta yatta but not a simple vest.

Oh, you'd be surprised...
Fixing it is relatively easy though.

Thought?

How can I help you?

Hmmm... Do you do sprites or maps?

[yrizoud]

"psi training anytime" does work for gym.
It's a "must have" for X-Com files, IMO.

[Dioxine]

That limit for gym is quite crazy since why does it need a month's 'warmup' if it upgrades stats daily, not monthly...

[HelmetHair]

It's not that he can't find it, it's that he has trouble getting the permission from the UN. That's why there's so much trouble with military weapons.
Researching cults (and their suppliers) is a good way to get more dakka.

That's a touch ridiculous... The UN couldn't keep a secret to save their life and is notoriously antigun, you ever seen the statue in New York? Permission is redundant in an international secret organization.

Also, guys like myself have been building guns in their garage since like forever using publicly available plans or reverse engineering. I mean  if a few dudes can literally build guns with hand tools squatting in a bicycle shop, cave, or jungle tunnel complex then building them onsite at modest expense in a modern shop is trivial. It also lets you control identifying marks.

Not to mention the fact that this is only 10 years or so after the closing of the U.S. machine-gun registry. Granted they would be expensive, but publicly available. I mean like pick up a newspaper and read the classifieds type of availability; and 100% above board.

[Solarius Scorch]

That's a touch ridiculous... The UN couldn't keep a secret to save their life and is notoriously antigun, you ever seen the statue in New York? Permission is redundant in an international secret organization.

Well, people who funded X-Com beg to differ.
Why? That will be explained more clearly with time. In short, X-Com has many enemies in the UN and the global powers in general; not just alien lackeys, there are many groups who find X-Com to be a thorn in their ass. Blame all inconveniences on them. That's partially why you need to produce solid proofs of alien activity, so that the UN has no choice but to give you more authority.

Also, guys like myself have been building guns in their garage since like forever using publicly available plans or reverse engineering. I mean  if a few dudes can literally build guns with hand tools squatting in a bicycle shop, cave, or jungle tunnel complex then building them onsite at modest expense in a modern shop is trivial. It also lets you control identifying marks.

Yes, I never said military weapons are physically hard to attain. (Cultists do it all the time.) X-Com just needs to tread very carefully, for political reasons.
Actually, to overcome it is one of the goals of the game.

Not to mention the fact that this is only 10 years or so after the closing of the U.S. machine-gun registry. Granted they would be expensive, but publicly available. I mean like pick up a newspaper and read the classifieds type of availability; and 100% above board.

I don't really understand how it's related... Why would US policy matter at all here?

EDIT: Regarding portable flashlights, there appears to be a light in the tunnel (pun not intended): https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3626.msg67092.html#msg67092

[Jblade35]

I've just started playing this today, I definitely agree it's something special - the very low agent amount at the start of the game has really changed things around a lot as well as all of the other tweaks and changes. I really love the idea of starting from just a car and working your way up from there whilst scrounging up tech and resources. Cultists being melee orientated means I'm more willing to task risks with stun guns and stuff. Those ninjas are a pain in the ass though, right now I have no way to really deal with their throwing knifes.

About the mudranger; I can see why it's so limited since the early game feels balanced towards lower levels of tech and stuff but I think it should at least be able to travel across America. I had it in the centre and couldn't reach the west coast IIRC. The other problem (which I'm sure is more geared towards OpenXcom devs than you) is that there's no simple way of telling if your craft has enough fuel to reach a place or not.

Other than that I'm really enjoying the mod, raiding cultists outposts with body-armour and black market guns feels really damn awesome

[HelmetHair]

Well, people who funded X-Com beg to differ.
Why? That will be explained more clearly with time. In short, X-Com has many enemies in the UN and the global powers in general; not just alien lackeys, there are many groups who find X-Com to be a thorn in their ass. Blame all inconveniences on them. That's partially why you need to produce solid proofs of alien activity, so that the UN has no choice but to give you more authority.

Yes, I never said military weapons are physically hard to attain. (Cultists do it all the time.) X-Com just needs to tread very carefully, for political reasons.
Actually, to overcome it is one of the goals of the game.

Are all of the enemies of Proto X-Com on the security council? Are any? Five major funders are also the five permanent members of the security council... This does not compute. You have an organization that is quite literally on political thin ice, theoretically ignoring the UDHR, but you can't get rifles because of political appeasement... You know I just really thought about how fucked the UN is and this actually made me laugh so hard I cried. Alright.... Ok, I'm onboard.

The sheer confusion of this is actually hilarious because I can see something like that happening. I can see now It's actually brilliant because I've professionally dealt with the half measure ideology that made my eye twitch and that frustration is so real I don't know what else to say.

U.S. policy history was for ease of access example for full auto weapons by me following a mental tangent on to a forum board. 

Now about that flashlight....

O M G.

What kind of sprites and such are you after.


-HH

Edited for clarity?

[Solarius Scorch]

I've just started playing this today, I definitely agree it's something special - the very low agent amount at the start of the game has really changed things around a lot as well as all of the other tweaks and changes. I really love the idea of starting from just a car and working your way up from there whilst scrounging up tech and resources. Cultists being melee orientated means I'm more willing to task risks with stun guns and stuff. Those ninjas are a pain in the ass though, right now I have no way to really deal with their throwing knifes.

Thanks!
As for the ninja, yeah, there's no reliable way of dealing with them. You can spread your people to have as many viewing angles as possible, but 2 or 4 are definitely not enough. Spam explosives on suspected areas if you have them. Don't engage them in melee.

About the mudranger; I can see why it's so limited since the early game feels balanced towards lower levels of tech and stuff but I think it should at least be able to travel across America. I had it in the centre and couldn't reach the west coast IIRC. The other problem (which I'm sure is more geared towards OpenXcom devs than you) is that there's no simple way of telling if your craft has enough fuel to reach a place or not.

Yeah, the Mudranger is highly experimental. I want to give it a "second stage", where it can be dropped from a plane with better range and speed than the Mudranger itself. But it's not in the game yet.

Are all of the enemies of Proto X-Com on the security council? Are any?

Yes, all of them in fact. But remember that the council are just representatives, they can be influenced by such groups but few of them are actually prominent members of Majestic 12 or whoever is behind all this. So everyone involved has some presence in the Council.

Five major funders are also the five permanent members of the security council... This does not compute. You have an organization that is quite literally on political thin ice, theoretically ignoring the UDHR, but you can't get rifles because of political appeasement... You know I just really thought about how fucked the UN is and this actually made me laugh so hard I cried. Alright.... Ok, I'm onboard.

Well, the entire point of this mod, or at least one of its most important features, is world conspiracy. I'm not trying to recreate reality, but a specific genre: a planet of secrets (just like in The X-Files). And it's pretty standard for the genre that everything, ever is controlled from the shadows.
Of course, the actual possibility of things being like this is... very debatable (conspiracy theories are hilarious, I had no idea they would be). But I think we can go with what I did. Remember that X-Com in its earliest phase is just police. You can't give detectives assault rifles. (Well, maybe you can in some countries, but X-Com is global.) In order to do so, the organization first must gain some leverage to be treated seriously by the Council.

The sheer confusion of this is actually hilarious because I can see something like that happening. I can see now It's actually brilliant because I've professionally dealt with the half measure ideology that made my eye twitch and that frustration is so real I don't know what else to say.

I'm sure that would be a good story!

What kind of sprites and such are you after.

Mostly, maps. Oh man, making map blocks takes forever. It's fun though, so help appreciated.

EDIT: I guess more explanation on the political background is required in the Ufopaedia.

[yrizoud]

I really like the idea that X(com)files agents are originally sent to debunk hoaxes and appease hysteric towns, and the chief is stunned when every team comes back with their car trunks full of werewolves, chimeras, and magic gnomes. 

[HelmetHair]

I really like the idea that X(com)files agents are originally sent to debunk hoaxes and appease hysteric towns, and the chief is stunned when every team comes back with their car trunks full of werewolves, chimeras, and magic gnomes. 

Right?

"Yeah, Yeah go out to Kansas and find out about these reports of strange lights from stoned teenagers and hikers". **rolls eyes**


4 days layer via phone

"Heya chief we bagged like 4 of these human wolf things... No, they aren't werewolves because we dumped a few mags of FMJs and they died. No magic against a two dozen gut wounds I suppose. So, we skinned one, and Agent Cruz decided to make a coat out of it. Yes Sir, a coat.  It's quite striking.

[HelmetHair]

Sol,

I started a new game to fart around and after a few missions I've encountered a fatal error.

Basically I have a mission pop up and if I send a van out to it and try to start the mission I experience a crash.

You want the save state to examine it?


Also,

Have you considered only giving like 750K to start with for money? I mean I had so much money it was outrageous really, basically 2 months worth of income to start and it was a cake walk in terms of cash. I didn't feel any pressure from it at all. With an organization that is supported by surly, unreliable,  finicky, chicken-headed mooks. I figured they would basically only drop a dew dollars with a sigh and groan and the selection pressure could be a little steeper IMO.

Thoughts?

-HH