If you're going to restart, might I interest you in trying out my altered version of X-Com Files? The primary reason for this would be to identify which of my changes have a broad enough appeal that I can lobby Solarius to add them individually, instead of just dumping all the raw changes at him. The latter did not work, and I'm not blaming him for it either.
If you're game, give me a day or two after Solarius releases 0.4 to merge in the new stuff. If not, well, I'm happy enough with it myself, but I really think at least some of my work is clearly an improvement and it'd be a waste to just let it fade away on page 17 (double the page count, already? 
)
I certainly don't mind, if there is interest. But I think our differences are mostly around basic gaming concepts, like "should armour have weight", in the large picture there shouldn't be much differences. But it also depends how you'll approach 0.4, which is pretty much done.
BTW: It's your call Juku, but like before, I really recommend writing a separate mod to XCF rather than changing the master mod, since the thing is a nightmare to work with.
Well, I implemented something along my original ideas. Most corpses give something (Alien electronics, Alien Alloys, Synthmuscles and Grav Modules are largely unchanged) and the primary new resources are:
- Alien brain tissue (Sectoids, Cerebrals, Ethereals), which is required to build advanced psi-amps, psi-weapons and Psiclones. Basically a way of turning corpses into (more) money via Psiclones and a speedbump for building psi-amps. Finally, this could also be turned into 'ammo' for psi-amps etc, but I don't personally like that idea. And dead Ethereals are still a resource for building Psi-Suits.
- Alien blood serum (mostly reptile Aliens: Snakemen, Tasoths, Reptoids, but also Chryssalids), which is used to build advanced medikits and perishable combat drugs, which are basically 'stims on steroids'.
That is, they are one-use items that regenerate a lot of energy, remove stun and provide some TU, but are consumed after use and the resources to build them are comparably as limited as Elerium is for general use. - Alien acids from Celatids, Spitters and their ilk, used by bioweapons like Toxiguns, Dart weapons; Acid grenades, rockets and other munitions. It is possible to synthesize these after extensive research (basically, research all Aliens, their autopsies and bioweapons), but in early and mid-game you have to scavenge.
I agree with the principle. Not really convinced by alien brain juice useful for psionics, since it has to do with complex information patterns, and that's highly unlikely with chemical molecules - otherwise we'd have moldy food leftovers go sentient.
And other such components are often easily enough synthesised on Earth. But I'm all for the general idea.
As an aside, Commendation triggers seem to be quite buggy. Off the top of my head, people get IED medals for no reason (smoke grenades?), I-stunned-all-Aliens-myself medal is given out left and right, the kill-by-ranks medal is also too frequent.
This is a general issue; when Yankes merges current nightly, hopefully it'll be fixed.
I thought the idea was to keep the timeine similar to the FMP for January 1999 onward? The Kiryu-Kai research states that the invasion starts on the same date as vanilla and discovering that ethereals, no less, are running missions in December 1998 was just shocking for me. But maybe that's me misunderstanding the intent for the later game.
Yes, you are correct: the aliens start the invasion at that date.
I very much liked the idea of XComFiles covering the pre-invasion part and thought that your success in the two early years could explain why the aliens decide to come to Earth themselves and terrorize it: you foiled their more insidious appempt with cults to deliver them the world peacefully. But if the cult activity is just masking the invasion which proceeds any ways from the start and it's just that I can't tell since I have no radar it's a bit less empowering.
It's not exactly that the aliens suddenly changed their plans because of X-Com, the invasion would happen anyway. The cults etc. are only a part of it, but in fact they constitute a majority of invasion forces.
I kinda like the idea that doing well with the cults would push the alien invasion further; it's a cool mechanic, if done right. But I don't know if I can do something like that with what we have. I could make some research prerequisite to alien missions, but it would destroy the feeling of inevitability of the invasion.
Nevertheless, cults, hybrids etc. make so much ruckus that without your effort, the Earth would be much more weakened.
To me, getting ready to welcome the aliens on January was a great driver for trying to develop and build as much infrastructure as possible. Usually I take the game as it comes and progress along at a pace I find reasonable without trying to exploit the game, but in this mod I had a drive to push my development as far as possible. To discover that aliens are already running about and I was a clueless chimp is a bit disheartening. A few sectoids doing stuff for crop circles missions is cool and ties in the age old ufo reports. Ethereals, which I take to mean every other race since they are the last to show up usually, already being about makes all this talk about a start date much less relevant. It's already started.
No, that's not true: the aliens really start their shit in January 1999. There are
some alien vessels before, basically research, but they are only occasional at best. To get such a ship, much less an Ethereal one, before 01.1999, requires much luck (lol).
Anyway, today I rebuilt the missions to make sure that Ethereals appear much later... At least on normal missions.
Actually, the alien invasion will probably be less intense than in vanilla, since you have so much to do on the other fronts. For example, only 20% chance for an Alien Terror each month - but you also have other difficult missions. Thisgs will be balanced further if necessary.
You're welcome! It was a very entertaining experience. Well done on designing the first two years. In fact, if you implement more early arcs, I'd almost suggest making it 3 years before the invasion so we have time to delve into the arcs properly instead of having too much unfinished business when the aliens show up.
I'm considering it. There is much more early content in 0.4, and also even more content once you discover the Hybrids. For now, we stay like we were, but with softer invasion.
I think that the intent was to only draw the longest range but in this case I agree that excluding global coverage would be good.
I don't want to abandon my HQ "radar" idea (which is really just some people waiting at their phone lines), so I guess we'll have to live with it for now. I'll ask Meridian later if we can have all the circles displayed. Frankly, this is something I already wanted before, X-Com HQ aside.
