Reaver's Faithful MegamodRuns on: Vanilla OpenXcom. This mod is 100% vanilla-friendly and you do not need OXCE to play it properly.I have here a megamod I've been working on for quite a few years now. It changes many aspects of the game with the focus being on preserving the original feel of the game while balancing everything better and providing more options wherever choices were lacking. When you play this mod, you'll always have a choice at every turn. There's always two or three ways to do something, so you can customize your gameplay to what feels best to you.
Minor spoilers ahead, offering a glimpse into the features offered in the mod. You can download the mod on the
OpenXCom Mod Portal or at the bottom of this post.
Latest Version: 1.4.7.1This mod is complete and will not receive any major content updates. If you experience any bugs or imbalances, let me know and I may fix them.
AircraftYou start out with two interception craft, an Interceptor and a Punisher. The Interceptor is faster and has longer range, the Punisher is tougher and carries more armament. You also have two transport craft, a Skyranger and a Custodian. The Skyranger is fairly quick and carries a medium complement of troops, the Custodian is a lot slower but can carry more troops and features rear exits for rapid deployment. There are sixteen total craft and you'll unlock more gradually as the game progresses. Some are mid-tech and you'll get them before the Firestorm/Lightning, others are higher tech than the Avenger/Vanquisher. Each craft is unique and has its own special niche, with plenty of overlap so you can comfortably choose your favorite craft without having to worry too much about what it can't do. The higher tech craft are especially versatile, most of them can do everything you need them to do.
Patrol craft are a thing now, some of the craft you get will have an enhanced onboard radar and/or improved ability to stay in the air for long periods of time.
Get used to your early craft unlocks, because you will have to research Alien Containment and get a navigator before you can start researching Firestorm or Lightning. There are other things to research first, and you will be briefed on the details after you research an alien corpse.
This is the Custodian. It can carry up to 18 soldiers or 3 tanks, and you start the game with one of these.
Base and FacilitiesLiving quarters hold 25 personnel and labs and workshops have 25 personnel space. The research and manufacturing projects still cost just as many points, so it'll be important to build plenty of labs and workshops! There are lots of ways to make good money in this mod. It won't be quite as easy as running lots of UFO sites, but that will get you off to a good start. The best thing to do with all of those surplus special materials you collect is to manufacture them into complex and expensive projects for sale. You can use the auto-sell function to predict how much you'll earn by making a given item, but as a general rule of thumb, the more complicated and difficult it is to manufacture, the better the profit margin will be on it. This does not hold true for ammunition, however.
You can make your base more space-efficient by producing large living quarters or general stores. Each large facility has the capacity of five small facilities, so you get 25% more within the same amount of space.
Air CombatI added several aircraft weapons, so that there's two variants of each type. One variant will be long range and will hit hard, but it will be slow-firing and carry low ammo. The shorter range variant will have more damage throughput, higher average DPS, and higher accuracy and rate of fire so its damage will come out more smoothly. You might find stingrays useful in my mod, but you can still just use avalanches if you prefer. Plasma craft weapons use special ammo that cost elerium to manufacture, so if you're short on elerium it may be better to use laser weapons. Fusion weapons are much more powerful but very expensive to fire.
UFOs have longer attack ranges now, so you'll frequently find that they shoot back during interceptions. Your craft will need to be repaired more often and you may lose a few. Later craft repair each hit point more quickly, so they make decent brawlers with their higher toughness. Larger UFOs have increased hit points, so it'll be more common for your ammo to run out before downing something really big. You might find it useful to bring two or more craft to intercept.
Short video showing the Laser Beam and Pulse Cannon craft weapons in action against a medium scout.
I haven't added any new UFOs but I have made medium UFOs a lot more common. Terror ships are also less common now overall, however some ships that assault your base will be terror ships now. They have the same complement of troops, but are much easier to shoot down with base defenses. I also buffed missile and laser defenses a lot so they aren't completely useless anymore.
New aircraft UFOPedia images and maps from XCom Files make expanding your arsenal more exciting!
Ground WeaponryYou might be stuck with conventional weapons for longer in my mod, but fear not for there are plenty of ways to take down tough aliens with starter technology. If you find yourself fighting any armored opponents, try using a heavy cannon, autocannon, or rocket launcher against them. You can also use assault tanks to punch through tough armor, and there's more information on tanks further down. I've made AP damage type more viable in general, and I also increased the power of most grenades. Incendiary damage has been reworked and now should be particularly effective against both reapers and giant robots. No matter what you're up against, it can be killed with conventional weapons--even the sectopod, though I'm not going to tell you how, that's for you to figure out if you really want to! (I can think of at least three ways.)
All 3 classes of weapon come in pistol, rifle, and heavy with two variants of each: automatic and semi-auto.
Pistols have a very low time unit cost to fire, and are fairly accurate. The plasma pistol is considerably weaker than other plasma weapons, but before you get armor you might find it to be the most fearsome weapon in the aliens' arsenal due to its high rate of fire.
Rifles are all pretty accurate, with high accuracy aimed shots.
Heavy weapons have very high power and are great for punching through armor, but they are cumbersome weapons with slow fire rates. The semi-auto heavy will have a high accuracy, while the automatic heavy will have an autoshot but overall mediocre accuracy. The autocannon has an arcing shot which can be useful in a lot of ways. The heavy plasma has a much lower rate of fire, but it hits a lot harder. This weapon will scare you when you have your soldiers in heavy armor.
It'll take much longer to research Laser Weapons, but when you finally get it, you immediately unlock Laser Pistol and Laser Rifle. You then get the choice of researching Heavy Laser Weapons or Automatic Laser Weapons. Once you have researched both, you'll have unlocked the whole laser weapons tree.
The aliens use semi-automatic plasma weapons. Once you research these, you will be able to manufacture your own versions which will use the alien weapons in the project. Make sure you stock up on plasma clips, as you cannot manufacture your own clips without having alien clips on hand! The aliens will continue using all three types of plasma weapon into the end game, so you won't have to worry about one clip type disappearing. Automatic plasma weapons are specific to X-Com and are more expensive.
You can't manufacture the standard ammo for the blaster launcher or small launcher, but you can manufacture conventional variants. In the event you aren't securing enough ammo from the aliens, you will still be able to use these weapons. In addition to this, the small launcher is now one-handed and quick-firing with cheap lightweight bombs, and you will get other conventional weapon upgrades as you research some alien weapons. Fusion blaster bombs use a containment field to decrease their blast radius, making for a heavily concentrated precision explosive. The conventional blaster bombs do not have this feature so you'll have to collect blaster bombs from aliens if you want to take advantage of it.
The Small Launcher is a one-hand weapon and has low TU cost and weight. You can fire up to 3 small bombs per turn.
TanksTanks come in three varieties: guardian, battle, and assault.
Guardian tanks are tough and heavily armored, but carry weak weaponry. Guardian tank armor is pretty uniform, so it doesn't matter which side gets hit.
Battle tanks are nearly the same as the original tanks, however I have improved their weapons a bit (especially aimed shots).
Assault tanks aren't so tough, but they carry a very powerful weapon which can punch through the toughest armor. Assault tanks have their best armor in front, and they are quite vulnerable in the rear.
Different tank types now come in different colors!
You must research alien alloys to be able to build laser tanks, but they have improved armor and time units now. The laser assault tank's aimed shot has over a 90% chance to hit. New alien explosive rocket tanks have the same improved armor and time units that the laser tanks have, and they require research in Alien Alloys and Alien Grenade.
Firestorm and Lightning BuffedI'm going to leave most of the aircraft for you to discover, but I'd like to mention the Firestorm and Lightning. When you finish UFO Construction, you'll be able to research either New Fighter Craft or New Transport Craft. The Firestorm now can carry 4 soldiers or a tank, so while it makes for an excellent interception craft, it can double as a weak but very fast transport. The Lightning was already able to perform interceptions but I've improved its transport capacity. It now carries up to 16 soldiers or 4 tanks, and deploys them in all directions. If you had any prior reservations about using it as your main transport, you can forget them. This craft no longer carries a heavy cost for its speed. Speaking of cost, the Firestorm and Lightning now cost less elerium to fuel, so they might find a use in your armada even after you've started building more advanced craft.
Soldier ClassesYou can choose to recruit pre-screened soldiers at higher cost and wage. They have the same maximum starting attributes as well as attribute caps, but they will have certain minimum attributes increased to ensure you don't get a lousy soldier.
Breacher: high reactions and health, good for exploring UFOs and going around corners
Ranger: high time units and stamina with a small boost to firing accuracy and reactions, good for exploring large amounts of the map
Sniper: high firing accuracy and reactions, good for camping behind cover with a good line of fire to many areas
Heavy: high strength and health with a small boost to accuracy and decrease to reactions, good for using large weapons and explosives
Elite: slightly boosted starting attributes in all areas.
There are two more soldier classes you can unlock with further research, both are quite expensive but very useful if you can afford them!
Late-game CraftEventually you'll unlock craft even more advanced than the Avenger or Vanquisher. They aren't that much stronger overall but rather they focus on being more versatile, being able to perform many different roles all in one craft. There is no need to have them and they are very expensive, so it's something to spend time and money on if you don't have anything better to do.
I won't spoil these craft too much but here's some external views:
Stalker - excels as a patrol craft and despite using elerium for fuel, it is particularly fuel efficient
Heracles - excels as a ground transport and has a complex interior design
Game DifficultyI made a drastic change to the difficulty of the game. Experienced is now closer to what beginner used to be--not quite that easy but it makes a much more significant difference from Veteran than before. Genius is now about the same difficulty as Superhuman used to be. Beginner is very easy and Superhuman is very difficult. I haven't changed how difficulty affects alien craft spawns or alien deployments (yet), but it now makes huge changes to their time units, energy, health, and reactions. In addition, Beginner greatly reduces alien's armor and firing accuracy (just like in vanilla) while Superhuman greatly increases alien's armor and firing accuracy. Good luck trying to take out Sectopods now. (It's very possible, but won't be easy.) Celatids will probably never miss a shot in Superhuman, so you'll have to use their arcing shot against them. Melee units also have their strength greatly affected by difficulty, so that will affect their melee damage.
edit: I am being told that my mod is significantly more difficult than the original game. Experienced is probably more like the original Veteran, while Veteran is probably more like Genius or Superhuman. Let me know your thoughts on how it compares with the original!I am eager to see someone try to take on my Superhuman difficulty setting. If you know the game really well, you can probably still dominate the aliens, since my mod offers so many resources you can take advantage of. There's always a way to get something done, you just have to figure out how. I guarantee you I'd get pulverized on this Superhuman difficulty. I'm having enough trouble on Genius. But I know it's possible to win, probably even what some of you would call easy.
Other ChangesThere's a bunch of other changes made to the game, and some I'll leave for you to discover.
* Late-game things often cost a lot more money, so you'll find ways to spend your money. Riches won't come easily in my mod.
* The alien races are a bit different, especially sometimes in alien bases. You may encounter mixed race ships later in the game.
* Power suit now has higher armor than flying suit, and both give special attribute bonuses.
* Alien psionics are nerfed a bit so they will feel less cheaty.
- - Your psionics are nerfed even more, so it'll be difficult to build up a squad of psi-warriors.
- - You will need mind probes and ethereal corpses to build psi-amps, but you can get both of these in the late game.
- - Get your Psi Lab built ASAP. Even if you can't use psionic attacks, you can still train psi defense.
* There are six different ships you can take to Cydonia.
* Some of the previously useless alien research (like alien food and alien entertainment) is now used to unlock important technologies.
* startingBase ruleset is altered and gives you a lot of supplies plus a tank.
* You can manufacture heavy armor immediately at the start of the game. It offers +12 armor on all facings and costs 5 strength and 5 TUs from the soldier. It's probably better to wear it, but it's a choice for you to make.
Slideshow demonstrating various explosive devices in my modhttp://imgur.com/a/oIyliVideo showing how to use guardian and assault tanks for best effecthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzLoMC3VFb4How to get shot, and how to not get shothttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOy7Wpy8hvUVideo showing my blue plasma weapons, just ten minutes of me playing the gamehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mj70Dv7ofUFuture ChangesThe mod is essentially finished. There's still things I wish I could have done, but I am moving this project to OXCE+ and am going to make some major changes. I will thus release the OXCE+ version under a new name.
The main things I still wanted to get done:
I'm still seeking improvements to aircraft artwork. I plan to also continue adding art assets to the game as I come across them. The final four aircraft unlocks also need plenty of work; their maps and sprites don't look much alike for one thing. I do not plan to add my own UFO battlescape variants, but this mod is mostly compatible with Luke's UFOs and should be compatible with Darkened UFOs but I haven't tested it yet. I want to eventually compile a set of UFOs from Luke's and/or Darkened mods to ensure compatibility, as I know at least Luke's UFOs mod has some redundant code that can interfere with this mod. I also want to fix research list order because that's currently a hot mess, and I'd like to iterate on the value of various aliens and corpses as well as their special items, making their sell values vary much more.Version changes, credits, and recommended settings are on reply #3.
