Reaver's Harmony Megamod - A Massive X-Com Expansion

[viewerx]

Note: my observation is made as a person who has never really played xcom, I have only played this mod. My opinion may be unreasonable due to how unexperienced I am with the game. Maybe this issue is also present in vanilla and isnt simply an issue with the mod.
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After playing ironman genius and superhuman the main issue I find is that use of psionic mind control is beyond a doubt the most optimal way to ensure your soldiers are safe and min maxxed. You are basically forced to use it to play optimally. It changes the dynamic of the game and removes tons of stress/tactics. It makes it kind of boring due to how safe everything gets. It doesnt even make things more fun, if anything it is tedious at best and borderline as bad as save scumming at worse.
    Take for example attacking an alien base: no longer do you need to use tactics to move through the compound feeling stressed about getting ambushed the entire time. Just mind control a unit and scout with him. Unload and drop his weapon and he probably wont even move from where you placed him so you can use him again next turn. Find the control room with MC'd alien and MC one in the control room to shoot a deut pod and kill all of the aliens.
    You can get to the point of MC everything easy by spamming fear projector for a few UFO recoveries, buying the illegal psi combat armour to augment your ability until you unlock the psi attack power suit. 2 psi soldiers was all I needed to trivialize almost all encounters on genius. I never even used the psionic disruptor, I could MC most things most of the time with the normal amp.
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    How to address this problem? I am unsure. Nerfing it by making it harder to land MC on a xeno would just make you be forced to end turns spamming MC until it worked. Maybe there is no way to fix this issue aside from the player choosing not to use psi at all? Is that something the mod envisions and is balanced for though? I am not sure nor am I an experienced enough xcom player to be able to answer that. Just stating my opinion and still enjoy the mod regardless!

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Can you folks tell me, where is a download link for 1.1.0? I can se 1.0.8 in the original post, but no 1.1.0 :/
I think I should be fine with isntallation itself, I'm quite sure there is a guide nearby ;-)

Looks like I forgot to update the forum for 1.1.0. (And the forum was offline when 1.0.9 came out.) I was keeping up to date versions on the forum as well as the mod portal years ago because I felt like the forum community was a unique place and I didn't want to push potential commenters away. But I suppose with Discord and the new mod portal, that's not so much the case anymore. I'll just link to the mod portal so I no longer need to update the mod here.

But I will still be coming back here for comments and I am always excited to hear from you guys! I hope this small change won't negatively affect the community here.

Does anyone know if its better to wait to upgrade your troops to super soldiers? Does transitioning a freshly bought 'Sniper' soldier to the Supersoldier medical procedure have any downsides?

Also im not too sure on how to word this next question but:
I see that the cost of a fresh SS bought off the market has a much higher price and that means it would cost more money per month for wage, right?
example: if I buy a sniper for 80k, that means I pay 80k for it each month. If I transition that Sniper to a SS via the bio lab, does the cost of the sniper stay 80k?

The salary for a soldier is independent of their hiring cost, and is most commonly half of the hiring cost. You can see the salary values in their UFOPedia articles. When you upgrade your own soldiers, their salary increases accordingly, same as if you purchased them at that state.

As a general rule of thumb, there should be no hidden downsides/losses/"you made a wrong move" from choosing something. Anything which comes with a large or permanent downside should have a warning. If you discover otherwise, please report it as a bug. There are some minor differences between buying a super soldier versus upgrading an existing soldier--in particular, you can buy them without a surgical facility in your base, but the existing soldiers may already have experience and increased attributes as a result. Their ultimate maximum potential shouldn't be affected.

Flagships taking 9000 scientist days is really bs. Assuming the "standart" research base of 250, that's 36 days on average. Meaning sometimes you get lucky and do it in 18, and sometimes you get screwed and stalled for 54. Research time randomization works fine for multiple small projects, because luck averages out with enough rolls, but having one super-long outlier project messes that up.

I also feel you've misunderstood the root of the progression speed problem. The aliens don't need to tech up faster, they are fine. Players progress too fast, mostly because they get near infinite money from too many UFO landings. You get like 10 landed mediums every month, plus smalls. It's both tedious, and overpowered for the player, because selling the loot enables degenerate strats, like rushing 500 scientists before the first summer. Instead of making aliens progress faster, they need to spam less landed mediums.

Exploding deuterium pods need to go. It's funny the first time the entire map blows up, but it gets old real fast. Sometimes you literally lose people before the first turn on the crash sites because the initial explosions reach troop transport if it landed right next to the UFO.

I have been bothered by the 50-150% range of research projects, especially with the flagship project. There didn't seem to be much I could do about it, but thanks for bringing it up. Taking another look, I have an idea: I can split the project into three phases which will greatly reduce the odds of a very short or very long project while also giving a much better progress report. But it taking such a long time overall is intentional and is probably best done when you run out of other things to research. I think perhaps I will implement this for the upcoming patch--but it will need some bug testing to make sure it doesn't break existing saves who are currently researching Flagships.

There has been too many alien craft for a long time, but I think I finally tackled the issue in recent updates. (In pre-existing saves it may take a month or more after the update to take effect.) I still needed to increase the progression rate of the aliens. The game was getting stagnant for too long, so it would get pretty boring even if it did take the player that long to progress. I only have about a year and a half worth of content, so it shouldn't take three years for it to all show up.

The exploding fuel was originally supposed to be as an alien killer plus loot denial system for crash sites. It's not supposed to turn the ships into minefields and traps, at least not to the extent that it does currently. I read your post earlier (yes I am just that slow to respond) and had a few ideas to try out. I've got some changes in the next update which so far are helping to contain the blast inside the alien ship while also reducing how much damage is typically caused by shooting them in a landed craft, while also reducing the odds that they go off from stray shots as well. I will continue to seek changes which make this function better. (To any OXCE devs reading this: If I had a way to make custom variants of the UFO power source to explode on crash with a custom power value, this process would be both easier and more successful.)

Are there holes in this craft as troop selected can see 2 aliens through the shut door-see attached? Is this the same for opposite door?

Yes, that is a big gaping hole in the door. This is fixed as of Harmony version 1.1.0.
Also, thank you for the FPSview screenshot. If you find any more terrain/craft irregularities this way, sending me these images will make it much easier to fix them.

P.S.: I see you have a Cerberus tank. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on it!

Note: my observation is made as a person who has never really played xcom, I have only played this mod. My opinion may be unreasonable due to how unexperienced I am with the game. Maybe this issue is also present in vanilla and isnt simply an issue with the mod.
---------
After playing ironman genius and superhuman the main issue I find is that use of psionic mind control is beyond a doubt the most optimal way to ensure your soldiers are safe and min maxxed. You are basically forced to use it to play optimally. It changes the dynamic of the game and removes tons of stress/tactics. It makes it kind of boring due to how safe everything gets. It doesnt even make things more fun, if anything it is tedious at best and borderline as bad as save scumming at worse.
    Take for example attacking an alien base: no longer do you need to use tactics to move through the compound feeling stressed about getting ambushed the entire time. Just mind control a unit and scout with him. Unload and drop his weapon and he probably wont even move from where you placed him so you can use him again next turn. Find the control room with MC'd alien and MC one in the control room to shoot a deut pod and kill all of the aliens.
    You can get to the point of MC everything easy by spamming fear projector for a few UFO recoveries, buying the illegal psi combat armour to augment your ability until you unlock the psi attack power suit. 2 psi soldiers was all I needed to trivialize almost all encounters on genius. I never even used the psionic disruptor, I could MC most things most of the time with the normal amp.
-------
    How to address this problem? I am unsure. Nerfing it by making it harder to land MC on a xeno would just make you be forced to end turns spamming MC until it worked. Maybe there is no way to fix this issue aside from the player choosing not to use psi at all? Is that something the mod envisions and is balanced for though? I am not sure nor am I an experienced enough xcom player to be able to answer that. Just stating my opinion and still enjoy the mod regardless!

I'm glad to hear from someone who started X-Com on my mod! Ideally I want my mod to work well for first-time players, so your input is particularly valuable to me! (Anyone else playing Harmony fresh, let me know when you comment! How I interpret your comments can vary greatly depending on your experience level.)

Yes, psionics is OP in the late game. This is MUCH less true of Harmony than vanilla, but it still needs work. I'm not too bothered with its net power level per se, but rather the lack of alternative valid playstyles. Also, if it ever makes Superhuman easy, then that's a problem. Only Genius and below should ever reach a point in which the player can coast through the game without any difficulty, even for very skilled players. But I do like the inverse difficulty curve as a general principle. I have always felt that the high stress of the early game is too much to want to keep playing if I don't ever get ahead of it. Also, if the player can feel like they earned their progress, then coasting along can still feel rewarding. And I'll still toss the occasional obstacle at them!

You've given me an idea. I had the psi disruptor consuming psi energy faster than the psi amp, but perhaps this is backward. I am going to try greatly increasing the psi energy cost of the psi amp and decreasing the cost of the disruptor. (Plus other balancing tweaks to go with the change.) ((Don't worry, I almost know what I am doing!)) This way, the disruptor will be optimal for a psi wizard to use from a hiding position, while the psi amp will be good as a portable device which a psi soldier can combine with their other combat tactics.

I am open to other ideas as well, and I also will try to find ways to make other tactics more viable in the late game so that they can compete. You can still choose psi, but nobody should feel forced to use it as a primary tactic.

The next version should be coming out soonish...hopefully.

[SIMON BAILIE]

Yes, that is a big gaping hole in the door. This is fixed as of Harmony version 1.1.0.
Also, thank you for the FPSview screenshot. If you find any more terrain/craft irregularities this way, sending me these images will make it much easier to fix them.

P.S.: I see you have a Cerberus tank. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on it!

I'm using v1.10, that's where i took the screenshots from, having been using v1.1.0 from before I put the original message up on 25/03/23. The opposite door still seems to have a hole in it-see attached with trooper olga looking at the closed door. Yes the Cerberus tank is very useful in night missions obviously but I also like the ability to set enemies on fire, particularly sectopods and cyberdiscs. Your mod is very challenging especially on superhuman and playing through brutal ai v4.1.12.

[SIMON BAILIE]

More holes-see attached, trooper hyun in stormcharger.

[Amoebka]

On the subject of super soldiers. While the stat caps and salaries are the same, buying a normie first allows you to pre-screen. An elite with stat boosts from the procedure has roughly the same minimum and maximum starting stats as a store-bought super (health is an outlier, store supers are better in that regard), but if you buy an elite and see that the rolls were bad, you can sack instead of upgrading.

Edit: sharking throught the ruleset, I've found that alien missions stop after ~10 years. I wonder how reasonable "outlasting" the invasion on superhuman is, as a stupid self-imposed challenge...

[The Reaver of Darkness]

More holes-see attached, trooper hyun in stormcharger.

I can't load your save properly because you have a lot of mods in use, some of which I can't even find. But after scanning through all your mods and your save file, it doesn't seem like any of the mods are causing it. Yet the copy of the tileset I have works perfectly. I guess just put this copy down below into your ReaverXcom Harmony\TERRAIN\ folder (overwrite the existing one).

I noticed you were using several mods which you probably don't need and which may be causing other overwrites and possibly errors:

UFOextender_Gun_Melee ver: 1.0 - While Harmony does not have gun melee, it makes so many changes to vanilla weapons that any number of them may accidentally be overwritten by this mod.

XcomUtil_Skyranger_Weapon_Slot ver: 1.0 - I don't think this will even affect the game since the vanilla Skyranger isn't even in it, but the Skyraider and Mammoth already have weapon slots. There could be conflicts since the mod references a craft which Harmony deletes:

Code: [Select]

crafts:
  - delete: STR_SKYRANGER
  - delete: STR_AVENGER
Extra Pockets ver: 1.0 - Is this an inventory mod? (I couldn't find it.) Harmony adds quite a lot of bonus inventory space to soldiers. It should be plenty. This mod could potentially be overwriting Harmony's changes or even causing an inventory conflict.

FireStorm ver: 4.0 - I couldn't find this mod, but Harmony's Firestorm is greatly overhauled and most likely doesn't need this update. Also, several of Harmony's changes to the craft are very nonstandard; a vanilla-style rework will be much less compatible with Harmony's craft equipment system.

Improved Avenger ver: 1.1 - Same as with the Firestorm, but may also cause conflict with the deleted Avenger.

The following list of mods are not likely to cause problems (assuming I understand correctly what they are doing), but are unnecessary nonetheless because of features already in Harmony:

Aliens_Pick_Up_Weapons ver: 1.0 - Harmony even uses improved (generally increased) attraction values.
TFTD_Damage ver: 1.0 - Harmony uses 75-125% damage model which actually works better with Harmony's weaponry options.
XcomUtil_Improved_Heavy_Laser ver: 1.0 - Harmony's Heavy Laser is not this strong but it is much stronger than vanilla and also has armor penetration bonus.
XcomUtil_Pistol_Auto_Shot ver: 1.0 - All Harmony weapons have some kind of 'autoShot' even if it's just a 1x quick shot.
XcomUtil_High_Explosive_Damage ver: 1.0 - AE High Explosive breaks UFO walls. It's not available at start but can be unlocked fairly early.
Boolet (EU) ver: 1 - I might be wrong, but I thought this was default in OXCE.
eleriumflares ver: 1.0.1 - Large Electro Flare is available at game start.
oxceplus-visuals ver: 1.0 - The current OXCE is already merged with OXCE+ so this should be in the client.
Shotgun ver: 1.1 - Harmony contains shotguns.
Viewing Range ver: 1.0 - Harmony already increases soldiers' daytime sight range to 30. Larger values may cause client-side lag.

Some of the other mods could significantly affect game balance, though I'm hesitant to ask you to remove them if you're playing on Superhuman WITH Brutal AI 
Naymore Mine ver: 1.0 - looks very strong
Railgun ver: 1.0 - I don't know what it is but it sounds strong
robin_extra_weapons ver: 1.0 - probably doesn't, depends what's in it, I couldn't find the mod
OpenXCom_Unlimited_Waypoints ver: 1.0 - Harmony actually reduces available waypoints. Yes, it does make it more difficult to land precision long-range hits with these weapons. That's intentional.

And just a few more appear to simply add items which should be fine in terms of balance and likely will not cause conflicts, but I mention them because they won't include some of the weapon updates that most Harmony weapons have, such as armor scraping, armor penetrating, advanced damage types, etc. It's not important, but it will make a big difference sometimes.

dart-rifle-mod ver: 1.6
Electro Shocker ver: 1.0
flamethrower ver: 1.1
STUNBLASTER v1.1 ver: 1.1

The last eight mods all seem fine as far as I can tell. As a general rule of thumb, Harmony doesn't play well with other mods. I'd like it to be compatible with stuff, but I often don't see good ways to implement it. I think optimally you'd do best keeping your mod list trimmed down pretty well when playing Harmony.

XcomUtil_Statstrings ver: 1.0 - Harmony changes soldier base and max attributes so it'll throw off the ratings a bit.
ALLOYS AND E115 ON TOP ver: 1.0
amiga-psx-plus-fonts ver: 1.3
BETTER UI v1.0 ver: 1.0
Varana-EU-MMcolors ver: 0.1
commendations ver: 3.2 - Big mod, I don't know everything it affects. But I don't see any potential conflicts.
V Music ver: 1.0

[SIMON BAILIE]

Have taken a few mods off and overwritten the particular terrain file you provided, still have seventeen mods on but they don't seem to be causing any problems and I'm used to them anyway. Here is a list of the first nine mods I have on in case you want to integrate them into your mod. I will put the rest of the mods on the next post as you are limited to 10 attachments per post.

[SIMON BAILIE]

Here are the other 8 mods that I'm using. I'm not sure myself about the OXCE+ visuals mod and I was under the opinion that the STAT BULLET SAVING mod or Boolet (EU) used to be on OXCE  but was removed and made as a stand alone mod.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I'm not sure myself about the OXCE+ visuals mod and I was under the opinion that the STAT BULLET SAVING mod or Boolet (EU) used to be on OXCE  but was removed and made as a stand alone mod.

It's a rule, and it's off for vanilla but Harmony has it on. I guess the mod is good for any other mod which has not switched it on.

Code: [Select]

statisticalBulletConservation: true
I realize now that the fix for the Mastodon is not applied in 1.1.0 but is coming up in 1.1.1. I had forgotten that it was not yet released. Apologies.

Code: [Select]

# changelog:
#  1.1.1:
#       * Hopefully the hole in the Mastodon and Stormcharger are fixed (properly!)
edit: I took a peek at some of the mods. It looks like none of them are overpowered, in fact they are reasonably balanced relative to Harmony.
The Naymore Mine is comparable to a Demolition Charge but is proximity-activated.
The Railgun is comparable to the Heavy Cannon using HC-AP in overall power but with various differences.
The Shotguns are significantly different from Harmony shotguns though not necessarily stronger.
Robin's Extra Weapons Machine Pistol and Sniper Rifle are a bit stronger than the Auto-Pistol and Rifle (respectively), but much slower firing without having a significant accuracy advantage. The small rocket change may also be nerfing Harmony's Smoke Rocket.
Extra Pockets has slightly fewer inventory slots than Harmony, but that's because Harmony puts more in the backpack and belt. Harmony does not have a quick draw slot.
The Electro-Shocker is much slower and less accurate than Harmony's normal Stun Rod, though I suspect much more powerful because I don't think it will remove several of the Stun Rod changes simply by not declaring them.
Dart Rifle is a fascinating extension to what Harmony offers, and clearly inspired by X-Com: Apocalypse!
Flamethrower also adds something unique to the available arsenal! And with Harmony's buff to fire damage, it would make a very strong weapon at very short range!
And the Stunblaster is unfortunately quite expensive despite being pretty weak by Harmony standards. It also appears to have a defective research setup, and might possibly enable the player to unlock the Small Launcher earlier.

Also all of these items take up way more space in stores than Harmony items do.

[Cristao]

Hi Reaver, I reached the final mission. I observed that the assassin armour in the final mission changed to the space version which reverted its colour to black (I was using the white colour mod). Do you mind updating the colour mod to enable that the space armour is also white for the final mission?

[The Reaver of Darkness]

Hi Reaver, I reached the final mission. I observed that the assassin armour in the final mission changed to the space version which reverted its colour to black (I was using the white colour mod). Do you mind updating the colour mod to enable that the space armour is also white for the final mission?

Sure, no problem! It was an easy update. This also provides example ruleset for coloring the spacerigged variants of any other Harmony armors.

But to anyone making variations on this mod: note that the strings for spacerigged power suits use _SPACE whereas all other non-suit armors are spacerigged as _SPACESUIT. Example:
&STR_ASSASSIN_ARMOR_SPACE_UC
&STR_NIGHT_OPS_ARMOR_SPACESUIT_UC
And if it doesn't work, check the base ruleset to make sure all of your like terms are an exact match, and make sure you don't have any tab indents (only spaces).

[Cristao]

Thanks Reaver.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

1.1.1 update is out! It is available now in the mod portal, link is in the original post.

#  1.1.1:   Distinctive Launchers, Combat Psionics, Brawler UFOs, General Improvements
#       * Increased Grenade Launcher's accuracy and decreased its TU cost to fire.
#       * Increased Rocket Launcher's accuracy and decreased snap shot TU cost.
#       * Greatly decreased Small Launcher's aimed shot TU cost, plus other adjustments.
#       * Incendiary weapons now reduce the target's time units in addition to morale.
#       * Rebalanced psionic energy costs.
#         - Fear Projector panic costs much less TU but more PSE.
#         - Psi Amp panic costs a bit more TU and PSE than Fear Projector.
#         - Psi Amp mind control TU cost unchanged, PSE cost drastically increased.
#         - Fear Projector and Psi Amp weight reduced.
#         - Psi Disruptor has low panic, medium stun, and high mind control PSE costs.
#         - All Psi Disruptor TU costs reduced significantly.
#           - Psi Disruptor is for sustained psi siege while the others are for quick bursts/mixed tactics.
#           - Psi Equipment attack info now displayed in the respective UFOPedia Reports.
#       * Attack rate of Medium Scout, Cargo Ship, Harvester, and Supply Ship greatly increased.
#           - Attack rate of Patroller and Light Destroyer significantly increased.
#       * Did a full rework of Elite UFO attack speed and damage--overall power should be similar to before.
#           - Weaker elites are considerably buffed while the strongest elites are slightly nerfed.
#           - Elite UFOs show up more commonly and in a broader variety, after they start showing up.
#       * Retaliation missions are made even less frequent and annoying.
#       * Ambush Suite speed increased by 200 knots, and 10% damage bonus removed.
#       * Increased Heavy Fusion Ball accuracy.
#       * Increased Plasma Rifles and decreased Heavy Plasmas in the early game.
#       * Reduced weight of all melee weapons.
#       * Added new Combat Shotgun and AP slugs available only via outsourcing.
#       * Tweaked basic and plasma shotgun accuracy and range values.
#       * Power Suit Pistol has been reworked into an autofiring marksman weapon.
#       * AE Grenade Round now unlocks with Alien Grenade Arsenal instead of Alien Explosives.
#       * AE Grenade no longer requires Alien Grenade Arsenal research.
#       * Alien Explosives research is now called Alien Explosive Ammo for clarity.
#       * Alien Explosives manufacturing recipe is now unlocked as soon as you research Alien Grenade.
#       * Rebalanced the costs of inefficient manufacturing projects.
#       * Manufacture categories improved.
#       * New manufacturing recipes added enabling production of tier 2 large craft weapons.
#       * New manufacturing recipes added which make use of alien lasers.
#       * New inefficient recipe for Alien Laser//buy and build now require Heavy Power Suit Weapon tech.
#       * Reduced how frequently green repositories appear on operations vessels.
#       * Reduced TU costs for moving items between Shoulders, Belt, Legs, and Hands.
#       * Fixed bug with Terror Site in which destroying beacon did not give credit.
#         - New bug introduced in which aborting mission after destroying beacon saves all remaining civilians.
#       * Crashed UFOs cause less damage to surrounding terrain. Landed UFOs are less explosive.
#       * North-South and East-West corridors now properly block movement in other directions.
#       * Hopefully the hole in the Mastodon and Stormcharger are fixed (properly!)
#       * Fixed a minor map bug.
#       * Increased Sectopod Plasma and Stun resistance.
#       * Flagship research divided into three portions in order to show progress more clearly.
#       * Research time for data cores and capsules cut in half.
#       * Titan Laser and Rampage Missile UFOPedia reports updated.
#       * Added several UFOPedia reports for UFO and salvage components.
#       * Some UFOPedia text tweaks.

[SIMON BAILIE]

Ever since I updated from v1.10 to v1.11, I'm getting the following errors:

1. The ufopedia article can't be looked at without crashing the game.
2. A lot of the missions are now coming up as STR.....

See attached

[SIMON BAILIE]

A new crash-see attached, when you end your turn.