Author Topic: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion  (Read 72805 times)

Offline Unmadesoldier

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #75 on: January 12, 2022, 04:53:16 am »
>i still haven't figured out how to get plasma working yet. I know i need some sort of implants but thats about all i know LOL.

You need to research/interrogate a live alien engineer to unlock plasma weapons among other things.

Also, word of advice: the plasma devastator beam weapon for your interceptors is arguably better than the medium plasma beam. Rate of fire is very important in this mod, somewhat more so than range.

Offline Chuckebaby

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #76 on: January 13, 2022, 03:25:21 pm »
>i still haven't figured out how to get plasma working yet. I know i need some sort of implants but thats about all i know LOL.

You need to research/interrogate a live alien engineer to unlock plasma weapons among other things.

Also, word of advice: the plasma devastator beam weapon for your interceptors is arguably better than the medium plasma beam. Rate of fire is very important in this mod, somewhat more so than range.
Ahh, thank you my friend.
I've captured, medic, navigators, leaders but yet to capture an engineer.

Will keep trying. thanks.

Offline Cristao

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #77 on: January 15, 2022, 11:54:32 am »
My thoughts on this mod.

The Good

1. It is a very beautiful well put together mod
2. There are a lot of variations from vanilla. Weapons, Armor, Aircraft
3. I love the armours variation. I noticed from Hadriex's playthrough that you made some tweaks to armours. Those were very key.
Best armour for me - the PSI armour. I never got to use the red armour mod. I would like to borrow some graphic assets to develop my personal flying armor mod (eyes the assassin armor).
4. The PSI game was interesting - I use the first tier to continually train soldiers that were good i.e. panicking the enemy. By the time I got the amplifier I had some very strong soldiers. I had stopped panicking aliens unless they were inside ships. I had stopped panicking every alien as the side effect was them panic shooting my soldiers. I was shocked at the TU cost in the PSI disruptor. I felt the stun cost was a bit high but it can be justified. The TU cost of mind control using the disruptor meant that I kept the amplifier around.
5. Paladin and Assassin armour were justifiably expensive and solid.
6. The game is great at showing the importance of funding. You want to improve your capability? Get more research done and more monies. I looked at the initial amount and similar to Hadriex went - wow i can build about 3 bases. Boy did I learn quickly. Money is the greatest weapon in this game.
7. The UFOpedia was updated with lots of text. I liked the briefings on the alien races.
8. I liked that we could hire different types of soldiers. That was very helpful.
9. Weapons were good. I must confess that I added my current favorite weapon - the Stoner auto rifle from the UNESCO mod. The Plasma Auto-cannon is the hero of this mod. With that weapon ... all my troubles were almost all kissed away alongside the blaster and the Rocket. AE grenades were .. used a lot alongside smokes. Funny it was in your mod I learnt that Cyberdiscs can see through smoke. Previously I thought smoke helped against them.
10. Air game - Totally awesome. I avoided the Mothership at all cost except when it was landed then it was a player's wet dream. One had to be deliberate about upgrading crafts and weapons. I was confused to why some mods didnt work with some craft - it wasnt clear. When I looked into the code, I wondered if there were items missed.
11. I loved base defences and deliberately didnt build facilities to bring down ships.
12. I loved the mixture of different alien bases. It was a pleasant surprise when I first encountered the Alien Outpost. The Snakeman base was a horror. LOL!! I think this is something other mods should replicate.
13. Additional comment. On second playthrough - I encountered the Redshirt armour. I used it for the first time in Alien Outpost. This with heavy lasers and the psi fear tool .. absolutely lovely.

Cons

Not enough clarity on the aircraft mods. I found myself wondering what AL and AT meant and which was better until it hit me that AL was alloy and AT was Alien Tech.
To be honest, perhaps the later game needs some looking into - it turns into space management by the end. One needs to build a storage base (I had 3 nos), training base (I had 1 no.) and a factory base (I had 1 no.).
Could we increase the number of spaces in alien containment? Perhaps 7 is a good number.

Infact, I am currently starting another playthrough on it.

Selfish question - is it possible to make two different colours (i) a white and (ii) a dark blue version of the assassin armor.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2022, 12:38:51 pm by Cristao »

Offline Chuckebaby

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #78 on: January 18, 2022, 06:18:28 pm »

Not enough clarity on the aircraft mods. I found myself wondering what AL and AT meant and which was better until it hit me that AL was alloy and AT was Alien Tech.
To be honest, perhaps the later game needs some looking into - it turns into space management by the end. One needs to build a storage base (I had 3 nos), training base (I had 1 no.) and a factory base (I had 1 no.).
Storage also had me confused I had no idea what to keep and what to sell. Not like vanilla where you knew you could just sell some stuff.

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #79 on: January 25, 2022, 10:35:06 pm »
Update 1.0.4 for Harmony is out!
This patch makes a ton of small changes. Most notably, lower difficulties are easier, and managing storage and money are also easier!
Alien health has been reduced on lower difficulties. It is MUCH lower on Beginner now. Refer to the graphic for how alien health has been changed. In case you have any difficulty with aliens being vaporized too frequently, melee weapons now will never vaporize a target. But I also made it probably less of an issue even on Beginner.



Corpses and most UFO components now take up less space, but General Stores facilities provide more space.
You will now be paid extra money any time you end the month with a positive score. This bonus is in addition to your funding increases, if any. I've also made a handful of small changes to enable getting your manufacturing for money off to a quicker start. Also, scientists and engineers are now slightly cheaper.

There are lots of other bug fixes, graphical improvements, and balance tweaks which should smooth out gameplay in general without having any huge impacts!

Yes, my first or second mission, I lost the whole crew and mammoth (had to restart and skip mission (it was a small craft) but it was launching a blaster bomb or something into the craft on 1st or 2cnd turn.

I'm up to July now in first year and learning different things. i think the thing I have to get used to is this is a little different from vanilla and FMP. I actually like this. It is nice to have something a bit different.
I really enjoy your research tree (a bit slow) but very interesting. So is your flying craft upgrades and base facilities.  Hospital, training, etc. this stuff is genius.
Thanks! I'm so glad you are enjoying it!
It sounds like an alien may have been slinging a grenade into your craft. I haven't had that happen so much, but nonetheless I reduced aliens' throwing accuracy on lower difficulties. But the most important thing is to set up your defense as quickly as possible, so that they can't do this! (Smoke rockets are one of the easier ways.)

Hey Reav,
Been playing your mod now for a week or so and I really love this mod.
It is a little confusing because I'm so used to the vanilla and FMP but you have thrown some features in this game that are so awesome.
The PSI armor (where solders can see through walls) OMG, the coolest thing ever.
i still haven't figured out how to get plasma working yet. I know i need some sort of implants but thats about all i know LOL.

Thank you so much for a great mod.
:D
You can now tell some ranks apart visually. It won't highlight engineers, but it may be a lot easier to figure out where they are. But use a mind probe to find them!

Storage also had me confused I had no idea what to keep and what to sell. Not like vanilla where you knew you could just sell some stuff.
I increased storage space a lot. You'll still have to decide what to keep and what to get rid of, but it is far more manageable now. Makes sense I think, when looting a single alien base can easily net you more than 100 space units of stuff!
You can see how much space things take up by looking in [ BASE INFORMATION ] ==> [ STORES ], and get rid of whatever is hogging the most space. But don't be afraid to get rid of anything that you find in abundance. Worst case scenario, you can just get more of it. I made sure that resources never suddenly stop showing up later in the game, like what happens in some other games.

Also, word of advice: the plasma devastator beam weapon for your interceptors is arguably better than the medium plasma beam. Rate of fire is very important in this mod, somewhat more so than range.
Yes! Several factors influence the power of a weapon: range, damage, rate of fire, accuracy, pylon size, ammo capacity, and price of the weapon/ammo!

Funny it was in your mod I learnt that Cyberdiscs can see through smoke. Previously I thought smoke helped against them.

11. I loved base defences and deliberately didnt build facilities to bring down ships.

Cons

Not enough clarity on the aircraft mods. I found myself wondering what AL and AT meant and which was better until it hit me that AL was alloy and AT was Alien Tech.
To be honest, perhaps the later game needs some looking into - it turns into space management by the end. One needs to build a storage base (I had 3 nos), training base (I had 1 no.) and a factory base (I had 1 no.).
Could we increase the number of spaces in alien containment? Perhaps 7 is a good number.
Thanks for such well thought out feedback! I'm glad you liked it!
Actually smoke works great against cyberdiscs in vanilla, it is my mod that changes them. Smoke still works against them, just much less than how well it works against most things.
I changed the equipment tags from AL and AT to instead be T1, T2, and T3 which should help make it clearer. Any advice on how to clear it up further would be much appreciated! Communication is not my best subject.
Storage should be a lot easier now. Let me know if it's still too hard, or too easy now! But I think it should be about right.
It should be easy enough to build two alien containments. And if you build a large containment, you will never have to worry about space in there again!

Selfish question - is it possible to make two different colours (i) a white and (ii) a dark blue version of the assassin armor.
I made you some mods which will apply the colors to the armor. They work just like the redshirts mod, so you can only apply one color at a time, currently. It is possible to make multiple color options for each armor, but I haven't done it before and don't feel like learning a new technique at the moment.
They aren't quite as good looking as the originals since the colors aren't balanced quite perfectly. I could do better but its tedious. The white armor is particularly difficult, so apologies if it looks kind of grey. The dark blue was very easy!

Offline Cristao

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #80 on: January 26, 2022, 11:43:26 am »
Thanks Reaver - the blue and white colours look very good. I appreciate the responses as well. I will give the new version a try later on - currently in the middle of another playthrough.

LATER EDIT: I tried both armours. I preferred the white Assassin to the blue Assassin. It fit the image I had so much better.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2022, 08:05:45 pm by Cristao »

Offline Chuckebaby

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #81 on: January 26, 2022, 03:22:12 pm »
Thank you Reaver. still playing. I'm in Sept of 2001 and still havent seen the cydonia or bust research yet. Ive built the  huge space craft out of components that took months to collect and assemble. Will update with this new one. again, thanks for keeping up on this. Some really fantastic ideas in this game.

Offline Unmadesoldier

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #82 on: January 27, 2022, 03:33:57 am »
Reaver, out of pure curiosity, what are your plans following the advanced alien plasma rifles? It would be neat if we could manufacture some kind of new weapon out them?


Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #83 on: January 28, 2022, 04:33:58 pm »
LATER EDIT: I tried both armours. I preferred the white Assassin to the blue Assassin. It fit the image I had so much better.
If you want to give me a more in-depth description of your mental image, I can try to replicate it. I feel that playing around with the colors is fun. And since the mod is already made, all I have to do is edit the images and send!

Thank you Reaver. still playing. I'm in Sept of 2001 and still havent seen the cydonia or bust research yet. Ive built the  huge space craft out of components that took months to collect and assemble. Will update with this new one. again, thanks for keeping up on this. Some really fantastic ideas in this game.
Thank you! Best of luck! (If you need help on researching Cydonia or Bust, check The Martian Solution UFOPedia report. And if you don't have that yet, check Alien Origins.)

Reaver, out of pure curiosity, what are your plans following the advanced alien plasma rifles? It would be neat if we could manufacture some kind of new weapon out them?
The plans are already implemented as far as Harmony goes. There may be more to come in my TFTD mod (if I ever make the thing!!) There is a weapon you can manufacture which requires the advanced plasma weapon. It's pretty late-game so if you don't have it yet, just hang tight, keep researching everything you come across, and you will get it eventually! ;)

Offline Chuckebaby

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #84 on: January 29, 2022, 01:10:44 am »

Thank you! Best of luck! (If you need help on researching Cydonia or Bust, check The Martian Solution UFOPedia report. And if you don't have that yet, check Alien Origins.)


I was missing a commander interrogation. I guess I needed another one to get Cydonia or bust.
just got done finishing the game. it was great. TBH, I almost gave up. Part 1 of Cydonia was unreal. there were probably around 40 aliens that needed to be neutralized. that was a surprise.
Part 2 was interesting finding my way around that maze to find the brain.
Heard a lot about Redshirts, didn't know what that was ? I had pink amour (the PSI amour). but no redshirts.

Anyway thanks again for all your help, responses. great mod.

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #85 on: January 30, 2022, 05:41:09 pm »
I was missing a commander interrogation. I guess I needed another one to get Cydonia or bust.
just got done finishing the game. it was great. TBH, I almost gave up. Part 1 of Cydonia was unreal. there were probably around 40 aliens that needed to be neutralized. that was a surprise.
Part 2 was interesting finding my way around that maze to find the brain.
Heard a lot about Redshirts, didn't know what that was ? I had pink amour (the PSI amour). but no redshirts.

Anyway thanks again for all your help, responses. great mod.
You have to research a commander after The Martian Solution, even if you had already researched one before. It can be a bit confusing.
Part 1 of Cydonia is easier if you head straight to the exit instead of trying to kill all of the aliens! :P
Redshirts is a mod I made for Hadriex which colors the psi armor red and renames it to Redshirt Armor. He was using it on soldiers as cheap protection for rookies who were just going to die anyway. It turned out to be pretty successful! Redshirt is a Star Trek reference!
13 The invasion begins? - Xcom Reaver's Harmony mod.
Memory Beta: Redshirt

Offline Chuckebaby

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #86 on: January 30, 2022, 07:04:31 pm »

13 The invasion begins? - Xcom Reaver's Harmony mod.


Yes those videos on YouTube were super helpful. I read all your comments in those videos as well to help me when I got stuck. I subscribed to his and your channels.
Loved the videos.
Thanks again for everything.
I'm going to try your TFTD mod next.

Offline Unmadesoldier

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #87 on: February 21, 2022, 07:13:58 pm »
Reaver,

I am having absolutely ridiculous hidden movement alien turns that lag my computer to ridiculous levels on Cydonia. It's so bad that I often have to wait half an hour just for the aliens to end their turn!

I don't know why this is.

Any help/suggestions?

Offline The Reaver of Darkness

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #88 on: February 22, 2022, 11:02:34 am »
It's so bad that I often have to wait half an hour just for the aliens to end their turn!
That is much longer than it is for me. I am running the game on Windows 10 and it takes about 3 minutes for me on Superhuman--which is already much longer than I would like it to be. When I made it, I was using Windows 7 which ran much faster, with alien turns being under 1 minute.

It's most probably due to exponential scaling, where the large number of aliens on the large map with increased vision range all contribute to long turns. As for why the time scaling varies so drastically from one system to the next, I couldn't tell you.

I will try to research this and find solutions. For now, I have a few suggestions, roughly in order from most likely to least likely to help:

 A.) Go into debug mode and teleport-kill any aliens that are far away from your position, just to reduce the number of units on the map. Then save and re-load the save to exit debug mode. This has the downside of spoiling the alien locations and revealing the map, but the upside is it's fun! (At least I think so.)
To use debug mode, you must first have debug mode enabled in the options.cfg file in your openxcom folder. Then once you're in the mission, press ctrl+d to enter debug mode. Once you are in debug mode, press ctrl+w to warp the selected unit to the cursor and refresh their turn. Units will not expend ammo in debug mode, but beware because aliens can still reaction fire. If it's too difficult, you can pass the turn and at the end of the aliens turn (in debug mode) you will be able to execute move orders to the aliens. You can freely teleport or kill any aliens without fear of reaction fire.

 B.) Only if your save is on the geoscape before the mission starts: edit your copy of the mod to reduce the number of aliens on the map. Open alienDeployments.rul from the mod folder (in notepad++ or your favorite text editor), navigate to
Code: [Select]
  - type: STR_MARS_CYDONIA_LANDING and change the lowQty, highQty, and dQty values under data. lowQty is how many aliens spawn for that rank on beginner/experienced, while highQty is how many spawn on superhuman. Veteran and genius spawn halfway between the values rounded down. dQty then rolls randomly from 0 to the dQty value to add extra to that rank. So for example with lowQty: 2, highQty: 5, and dQty: 3, then you get 2-5 aliens of that rank on beginner/experienced, 3-6 on veteran/genius, and 5-8 on superhuman. To keep it simple, just cut all the lowQty and highQty numbers in half and reduce all dQty values to 0. Downsides: time and possible frustration, less aliens makes the map easier than intended. Upside: experience modding!

 C.) Use debug mode to end the mission by pressing ctrl+k. It will kill all aliens on the map. Instructions for entering debug mode in suggestion A. Upside: it's fast and easy. Downside: it trivializes the first part and makes your soldiers fresh instead of battle-weary for the second part. I wouldn't worry too much, the second part is harder than the first but is smaller and has less enemies.

 D.) Also only if your save is on the geoscape before the mission starts: edit your save file and change this line to:
Code: [Select]
difficulty: 1 -- this will switch your game to Experienced difficulty. Upside: minimum number of aliens on the map, and is a lot easier than suggestion B. Downside: greatly reduces alien health, psi strength, armor, and other major factors, making the game much easier. You can switch it back up to a higher difficulty at the end of the first part before you load the second part.

 E.) Play the game on Windows 7 if this is an option for you. I don't know why but it just seems to go way faster.

Offline Mewtastic

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Re: Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion
« Reply #89 on: March 11, 2022, 07:28:34 am »
Hey Reaver, started playing this as my first megamod and have been having a blast! I've only just got to September 1999 on Veteran and I'm rolling out plasma weapons and Firestorms right now, but the attention to detail is very evident in this mod. The balance in particular is amazing and I find myself just barely scratching by each month, operating on break even margins or bleeding money faster than the aliens can kill my soldiers if I get greedy. I can't see myself going back to vanilla anytime soon, it's just a much better game with the mod and it feels right at home, too. I can't wait to see what else the mod has in store and hopefully I beat the aliens before my budgeting skills end the run for good. ;D

Oh and I had a question. When do the aliens complete a mission? If I remember correctly, in vanilla when a UFO landed it would immediately be considered finished, but I raided a UFO with an alien outpost mission on the ground and haven't been able to find the outpost. Is it just more difficult to find bases and outpost compared to vanilla or are the conditions for a completed alien mission different?