Stupid dummy question... and less dummy questions.

[sedygrizly]

Hello guys. First of all, this mod is great, i've played FMP before, but didn't even got to that content yet .

Its very long time since i've played X-COM, so i am not even sure how it was done in vanilla... anyway I have Dragonfly, and i have Medical drone.... but i have found no way how to assign drone to craft. If i recall correctly, standard HWP was assigned at equipment tab (or how is it called in eng version... that tab when you assign all weapons/ammo etc). But i can't find my drone there... what am i missing? I remember i used some kind of scouting drone at FMP, why do i have problem now rofl? I'm sure its obvious and that i'm retarded, anyway i've tried for half hour, so it's time to ask stupid questions...

And one side question, how am i doing? I'm playing Superhuman, end of May 1998, 2 bases, 15 scientists (and room for 25, waiting for new month to hire some), 5 engs, no money.. also i used to have more agents . Untill last month or two i was doing quite well i think at missions, but now i'm mostly getting tough missions like cult fortresses, defense of politic etc. I've managed to win fortress just once, runed away or get slaughtered at other tries. I've even invaded Black lotus sanctuary, got to hit "boss" few times...but failed, such missions are too tough for 6 soldiers . Even at cult hideouts (i've researched "operations" of two cults, so other two are still active) i'm getting serious losses sometimes, and with "easy missions" becoming rare last month, i ended up with terrible score and financial loss. When i've thought that i'm done, i've researched Dragonfly, so now i believe with proper craft with safe deployment and 2 extra soldiers i can take down fortresses reliably. But i would really love to get that drone to my missions.
EDIT: forgot to say, i'm at 2 ?stage?. I'm using black ops assault riffles currently.

I hope this first playthrough of mine is worthy continuing, i know invasion starts soon, but i believe that now i can loot fortresses to get enough money to get extra 50 scientists, and with that i'm hoping that i can prepare well. What do you think?

EDIT: Tried fortress mission with 8 guys.... lost 6, defeated 65 enemy to get.... huge pile of worthless junk. I guess i will have to do one or two each month to keep score, but other than that i will try to avoid all hard missions. Thanks to lack easy missions im running out of experienced guys...

I guess Superhuman is too hard with unknown tech tree. So many pointless researches, which seems good at first place. I will keep playing as logn as i can just to get to known tech tree, but after some time i will have to restart probably.
PS: nothings better then when you reseach high rank cultist to finally get "operations" research...and as a result you get another "we need better cheesseburgers" report from your base staff. (i guess i ran out of dossiers.)

[X-Man]

But i can't find my drone there... what am i missing? I remember i used some kind of scouting drone at FMP, why do i have problem now rofl?

You should buy 'Basic AI Unit' first. When it will be delivered, equip it on your craft like a soldier and change its armour to medical drone.

And one side question, how am i doing?

Don't worry, play for your pleasure. I was quite in the same situation when I had my first walkthrough and I won (and feel myself very confident after victory with only 2 soldiers left on Cydonia's assault). I was on superhuman too (+ironman). I'll not spoil you all the upcoming fun, suprises and butthurt but it is winnable, believe me. Just play 'safe game' and it will be all right.

[sedygrizly]

Ok, thanks .

BTW any of you know some reliable stratagy for mission, when you are surrounded by 30+ enemies at landing? I know running is probably only possible strategy, just asking in case somebody thought of some superior tactic .

With dragonfly I've decided to try ?hard fibers? factory. Classic first turn, kill one enemy, blast smoke grenade. After 10mins of shooting second turn starts with only one of my soldeirs slightly injurned. Tried classic, got all my crew out of dragonfly, killed around 8 enemies, survived next bullet storm somehow, but ofc in the end they swept me with grenades. 
So i tried getting only half of my crew out, using ramp as coverage. Conclusion...ramp is not a good coverage, and no help against grenades as well.
Another try, staying in dragonfly, hoping enemy would run out of ammo . Well maybe they would, but i've ran out of medical supplies much faster.

Not sure what else to try... i will just abort that mission and hope next time that idiot pilot won't land at factory front door.

[X-Man]

Ok, thanks .

BTW any of you know some reliable stratagy for mission, when you are surrounded by 30+ enemies at landing? I know running is probably only possible strategy, just asking in case somebody thought of some superior tactic .

Be wise to follow Gandalf's hint 'Run you, fools!'  This is like in Long War - you should decide what can you handle and what not.

Classic first turn, kill one enemy, blast smoke grenade.

Smokes are not so effective like in vanilla. They could be of some use only against humans, against aliens they are useless.
1) You should stay deeper in the smoke cloud to be cloaked (from 3 or more tiles from cloud's edge).
2) Remember, that many of enemy soldiers provide squadsight to their comrades so they can shoot you from the outside.

[sedygrizly]

Smokes are not so effective like in vanilla. They could be of some use only against humans, against aliens they are useless.
1) You should stay deeper in the smoke cloud to be cloaked (from 3 or more tiles from cloud's edge).
2) Remember, that many of enemy soldiers provide squadsight to their comrades so they can shoot you from the outside.

Oh, didn't know that. :O So i'm f*** when invasion starts . Definitely wont make it in my first run.
Y, i noticed that when you shoot enemy out of your sight, spotted by somebody else, accuracy is reduced to half... didn't think this was in vanilla, but could be wrong. I just hope it applies to enemy as well.

[TheCurse]

Ok, thanks .

BTW any of you know some reliable stratagy for mission, when you are surrounded by 30+ enemies at landing? I know running is probably only possible strategy, just asking in case somebody thought of some superior tactic .

With dragonfly I've decided to try ?hard fibers? factory. Classic first turn, kill one enemy, blast smoke grenade. After 10mins of shooting second turn starts with only one of my soldeirs slightly injurned. Tried classic, got all my crew out of dragonfly, killed around 8 enemies, survived next bullet storm somehow, but ofc in the end they swept me with grenades. 
So i tried getting only half of my crew out, using ramp as coverage. Conclusion...ramp is not a good coverage, and no help against grenades as well.
Another try, staying in dragonfly, hoping enemy would run out of ammo . Well maybe they would, but i've ran out of medical supplies much faster.

Not sure what else to try... i will just abort that mission and hope next time that idiot pilot won't land at factory front door.

from my (little) experience, if you do that mission without alloy vests its gonna be a lot of wounded soldiers.
my pilots happen to prefer such landing spots as well.
Recommendation: use miniguns. and aim for people standing behind other people, so you´ll kill multiple per salvo.
doesn't help against grenades (they hit me hard too, especially since usually all my soldiers are standing close), but they can't throw nades if you kill them first...
throwing range is kinda insane though.
also a nice possibility: use incendary/napalm grenades. if someone is burning they panic and can't throw stuff at you

[X-Man]

Oh, didn't know that. :O So i'm f*** when invasion starts . Definitely wont make it in my first run.
Y, i noticed that when you shoot enemy out of your sight, spotted by somebody else, accuracy is reduced to half... didn't think this was in vanilla, but could be wrong. I just hope it applies to enemy as well.

Yes, it applies to enemy too. You need a very high accuracy and sniper rifle to shoot successfully with provided squadsight to you.

[tarkalak]

Smoke has a certain value (that represents density) for each tile, that diminishes each turn. The higher the Smoke density the more line of sight is lost. Sadly, a tile with 1 and 100 smoke in it, will look exactly the same so it is hard to keep track of how much cover you have.

In the 8 vs 30 scenarios you can try nighttime. It is my favorite against the cults. It turns like the bug hunt missions where things get scary only when the cultists get close.

Unfortunately some of the higher tier units get better night vision. And with the Draginfly there are craft lights that illuminate the surroundings (except for the inside, under the craft and around the ramp) so you have to mind that.

[Meridian]

Sadly, a tile with 1 and 100 smoke in it, will look exactly the same so it is hard to keep track of how much cover you have.

The smoke density is between 1 and 15, not 1 and 100.

Also, it will not look exactly the same... there are 3 different visual representations of smoke (thin, normal and dense), 4 frames each, see: https://www.ufopaedia.org/images/c/cb/Smoke.gif

[sedygrizly]

Sooo... is it normal to have 1000 (one thousand) UFOs at May 2000? Never ending swarms,  easy +136k month score, but pain in hand and melting mouse, was playing one month for three days lul. If this is normal, i don't see any reason why to keep playing, this isn't a game anymore. Swarms are still coming, no end to it... Ofc i don't have to shoot down every UFO, 99% is just fly overs, but if i don't reduce those swarms, i suppose there would be no way how to make it through to reach missions.  And i don't like the idea of skipping some part of game to make my brain survive it... The main idea at XCOM for me was perfoming without flaws, with patience, achieving best possible results. Not letting UFOs take over all skies...
Not mentioning i haven't seen battlescape for looong time, and i'm also kinda stuck at research. I believe that i how to progress, just if game allows me by not sending 30+ UFOs each day.

[sedygrizly]

Ok, i've tried ignoring all fighter ufos, going only for interesting ones. Ridiculous... in exact 24 hours i had 159 new UFOs incoming.  At every single one you have to check its mission, and confirm pop-up.  Ofc it is so easy to miss interesting UFos, i spotted science ship by chance when it landed, missed detection report for that one. (and thats only interesting ship I spotted that month, excluding battleships) And i expect numbers to increase, i had 1k UFOs last month, at this rate i'm going to have over 3k this month, can't imagine what numbers i will have next year. In miracle case that i will click through to the end of game, i really doubt that my LMB won't break in process.

I wanted to judge this mod after i play through it... but its pretty obvious now that for highest difficulty its terribly broken.

[X-Man]

but its pretty obvious now that for highest difficulty its terribly broken.

Indeed. The mod is balanced for veteran difficulty. I've done the game on superhuman/ironman two times... And then tried to check it on veteran (last version)... Piece of cake in comparison with superhuman. Maybe it is okay when you are initially play on veteran, but after superhuman this looks like easy mode.
I'd recommend you to leave current campaign and wait for the release, which is coming soon. I heard that spam-rate of UFOs should be decreased there.

[sedygrizly]

Indeed. The mod is balanced for veteran difficulty.

Wish somebody have told me that 3 weeks ago :/.

[sedygrizly]

Maybe i will start new game at veteran difficult then... but first i want to ask whats recommended settings. I see that some settings are forced by mod, but there are still some interesting settings available to player. Like sneaky AI, alien retaliation, field promotions. Sneaky AI is really important one... i feel it is already modified by mod, becouse i can feel differences between humans and aliens sneakiness, but i can be wrong.

Same go for mods, its confusing.... i have enabled X-files only, but for example aliens still pick weapons, even when i don't have that enabled. It is cool, but i wonder what happens if i enable that, what that conflict will do. And at FMP i've played without psionics, becouse for experienced player it causes little trouble, but gives huge advantage at later game.  What happens if i disable in mods, will it work...and is it adviced to use it or not? Also i would like to activate Gun Melee.

Maybe i'm dumb, one would expect some Recomended settings to be available somewhere... but i didn't manage to find it.

[X-Man]

Wish somebody have told me that 3 weeks ago :/.

Initially, I didn't know about it too and begun a new game from superhuman (I though that it shouldn't be problematic after Final Mod Pack experience)... Well, my firs walkthrough was long, masochistic, buttheartiuos, but very fun The second one was pretty well while I knew all general features and tech tree.

Maybe i will start new game at veteran difficult then... but first i want to ask whats recommended settings. I see that some settings are forced by mod, but there are still some interesting settings available to player. Like sneaky AI, alien retaliation, field promotions. Sneaky AI is really important one... i feel it is already modified by mod, becouse i can feel differences between humans and aliens sneakiness, but i can be wrong.

Same go for mods, its confusing.... i have enabled X-files only, but for example aliens still pick weapons, even when i don't have that enabled. It is cool, but i wonder what happens if i enable that, what that conflict will do. And at FMP i've played without psionics, becouse for experienced player it causes little trouble, but gives huge advantage at later game.  What happens if i disable in mods, will it work...and is it adviced to use it or not? Also i would like to activate Gun Melee.

Maybe i'm dumb, one would expect some Recomended settings to be available somewhere... but i didn't manage to find it.

You guess right: many tweaks are included in this mod. You can use my file with options here from attachment (put it in 'user' folder). If you want detailed info about settings, just open it with 'Notepad++' editor and you will see there every parameter Anyway, this is not a recommended settings, it's an adjustment for my own preferences.