BackstoryThe year is 1975. Unseen aliens visit Earth, conducting bizarre experiments on humans and animals alike. However, governments around the world have been unable to verify reports of an extraterrestrial threat and, despite convening a council of nations to authorise the XCOM project, they are unwilling to offer substantial funding until the threat has been proven to exist.
Your goal initially is to detect and intercept these UFOs, but they are difficult to find with the radar systems you currently have available. You must then assault these alien craft and neutralise the aliens, demonstrating to the council of nations that you deserve additional funding.
Good luck Commander.
Direct download: http://rydersmods.omniloth.net/mod/ufo-retrocom-pack/Requirements: OpenXCOM nightly build.
Mod listCRAFT WEAPONS MODCannons and laser cannons mounted on interceptors have longer range, while avalanches do extra damage. The vanilla range on the cannon and laser cannon was pitiful.
ELUSIVE ALIENSThe aliens will avoid drawing attention to themselves in the early months of the game. They will try to score by doing Harvest and Abduction missions, so you will get more opportunities to attack those Medium UFOs.
Because the alien commanders and bigger UFOs stay in reserve, it takes longer to win the game and there aren't as many big cash windfalls from assaulting UFOs.
HARVEST ABDUCTION SCORE HIGHERThe aliens will be able to score more points by successfully doing Abduction and Harvest missions. This helps the aliens get points in the early months when the Elusive Aliens mod is active.
LESS STARTING FUNDSThe council of nations gives you a smaller starting stipend, $3M instead of $6M.
LONGER ALIEN WEAPONS RESEARCHDoes what it says on the tin. You'll need more scientists or more time to crack the secrets of all those alien weapons. There is no change to the time to research clips or other applications like Plasma Beam or Fusion Ball Launcher.
LONGER LASER WEAPONS RESEARCHLike the previous mod, this makes it take more time to research laser weapons like the laser pistol, laser rifle, and heavy laser. Doesn't change the time to research other applications like Laser Cannon or Laser Defences.
LONGER POWER SUIT RESEARCHThis mod makes it take more time to research the power suit and the flying suit.
RETRO STARTYou start in 1975. The cost of hiring soldiers, engineers and scientists is much less. However, it costs more to buy or make craft weapons, and as a result it will no longer be profitable to make craft weapons to sell.
I recommend you use the updated Amiga Fonts mod to get the full retro effect!
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,1713.msg76884.html#msg76884SLOWER ALIEN WEAPONS PROGRESSIONThe aliens will use plasma pistols a lot in the early months of the game and introduce the plasma rifle and heavy plasma much later on. This means that obviously, it will be more difficult to get the high-end plasma weapons as loot until later on in the game.
SMALL START BASEA bit like my Punishing Small Start Base for OpenXCOM TFTD, this mod makes the starting base very barebones. Aside from the access lift, you'll have two hangars, a living quarters, a general stores and a small radar system. You'll have a Skyranger, Interceptor and a mostly vanilla load of starting equipment.
On the plus side, this means that if you like diversifying your bases from day one, you have no added extras taking up space.
Obviously you cannot use this with the supplied XCOMUtil starting bases, although you can still customise the layout of your starting base if you have the relevant advanced option enabled.
STAT STRINGSStat strings help to summarise what soldiers are good at doing. The game gives these stat strings to soldiers based on their abilities. If those abilities improve, the stat string might change.
Currently this mod gives the following stat strings:
Hv: Abbreviation for Heavy. Given if firing accuracy is 60 or better and strength is 39 or better.
Sn: Abbreviation for Sniper. Given if firing accuracy is 60 or better but strength is 38 or lower.
Re: Abbreviation for Recon. Given if firing accuracy if 50 or better, reactions are 40 or better, but melee accuracy is 34 or less, or melee accuracy is 35 or better but strength is 37 or lower.
As: Abbreviation for Assault. Converse of Recon. Given if firing accuracy is 50 or better, reactions are 40 or better, melee accuracy is 35 or better, and strength is 38 or better.
Sc: Abbreviation for Scout. Given if firing accuracy if 49 or lower, or if reactions are 39 or lower. Most soldiers in XCOM will start with this stat string.
Playthrough notesThe aliens seem to choose locations for harvest or abduction missions at random. So I suggest looking at the alien activity graphs and building new listening posts accordingly if you don't see any UFOs.
The lack of workshop or lab facilities at the start (not to mention the lack of funding for those) slows things down considerably. Don't be too shy about selling things to develop your base of operations.
While you can make quite a bit of cash by selling alien loot, the really big UFOs won't arrive until later on in the game. Be careful that you don't go into the red by expanding too quickly.
You won't be able to snag a Commander until later on, so research anything that you think will help your efforts against the aliens.
