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.
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!