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AFAIK in Piratez enemies get random ass 20-25% armor buff on highest difficulty which is almost as elegant and nimble design decision as fucking Oblivion's level scaling.
Early game 30-40 dmg small arms were never that great at getting through the armor of enemies like Osiron Security Guards and Marsec Operators anyways, you're more likely to wound them when you're going up against 40-50 points or armor instead of 50-60 but it was still not that great of an idea when they have a lasgun pointed at you. Javelins and explosives work well enough until you can make the big guns.
The big thing about the difficulty is that it increases enemy count, which might sound frustrating since now you're fighting like 3-4 cyberdisks and their 150 damage plasma shots, but once you get further into the game you'll want those extra di(s)cs because everything else can't even scratch your OP armors.
Like seriously I'm having turn 1 shootouts with Star Gods and Mercs and maybe losing one gal per mission if I'm really unlucky and I actually am playing on JACK SPARROW.
Area 51: http://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/board,19.0.html
Overview- Area 51 is a mod that seeks to add more variety to Basic Xcom. not only there is more weapons they are also new mission parameters like VIP escort and Civilian rescuing that tries to break the monotony of shooting a UFO down them after a couple of months a terror mission blah blah rinse and repeat until you capture and Alien commander and reader to storm Cydonia. Not only that it also includes more weapons, a rebalanced Research development system and the same sort of new maps you would fine in Final Mod Pack and new aliens; with the overlord being exclusive to it.
Pros: More mission variety, New content fits very well with the game and don't feel to other place, It wont overwhelm you with crap like FMP does.
So, i played Area 51 as well, looks like every other clone here plays the same bikini babes mod, so i figured i'd promote this one a little.
In addition to the previous review.
I played in advanced, as i didn't play x-com for 15 years or so.
Aliens : Overall, very nice, some add to the game-play and a couple of them add a lot to the difficulty, if that's what you're after, there's also some upgraded versions of some original aliens.
There's a couple of them that doesn't add much, still, overall, it's really good.
I specially appreciated one of them (the green ones) and the remake of another one are very good looking.
They made the missions more challenging.
Would have been better if they were included in the research tree, unlocking tech but it didn't seem so.
Maps : Amazing, a lot of new maps, maybe they even replaced completely the original maps, i'm not sure but it felt like it.
There's only one in an old factory with an office maze upstairs that annoyed me early on.
Missions : Nice change, the defend a third party base mission is my preferred one, it's a very different gameplay and quite refreshing after a tough battle against phasers or worse, overlords.
Research tree : Seems like some changes were made on how to trigger some mid-game then late research, i'm not sure, might be just my memory, nothing drastic.
Weapons / Crafts : Nice, there is improved alien UFOs and improved X-COM crafts, would have been nice to have a better transport than the avenger, still or maybe i shouldn't have to play with limited craft space, with 12 soldiers, i had to make some choices on what to bring along, nothing i couldn't manage but if you want to bring more than 12, i think you're screwed.
Nice crafts design.
On the weapon side, a couple of improved weapons and 2/3 powerful ones, still, nothing unbalanced.
The human/aliens agents will steal your tech anyway and give it to their masters, so ...
Was the ending different, i'm not sure, i thought it was shorter, there were like 5 screens.
Conclusion : Very pleasant mod, like an extension of the original game, similar game-play with more to discover and an increased difficulty early/mid-game, a lot of new assets, aliens, crafts, maps, missions, if you want to replay UFO without trying something drastically different, just hop-in !
I'd add i played with the psi abilities requiring direct sight option which makes the game a bit harder end-game as you can't control every enemy in one turn like in the original version, it's more balanced that way.
I have everything I need but a Star God Coordinator now. Too bad the Silver Towers seem straight up invincible (2450 shields and hull but 5353(!) shield regen compared to a battleships 2500 shields and 625 regen alongside 7500 hull) so I have to wait for the Star Gods to send in a battleship on a pacification or crackdown mission.
YOu're not meant to beat the Silver Towers, they're a troll element for power gamers. Check for crackdowns, high-tier ships or the Mercenaries, who can kidnap VIPs. There was a mod that expanded said list of VIPs in the same forum IIRC.
Tried the Area 51 mod. It's not good. It's essentially based off FMP, which is an OK mod. It's got all the same weapons, the Alloy-ammunition step before lasers, the new enemies which are basically just palette swaps without much interesting to differentiate them. The problem is in how it does progression and tech.
Essentially Area 51 decides to make tech advance based around these new "council" missions. These are missions that you get 2 or 3 times a month with special objectives, and they are the only way to get specific "intelligence" that unlocks new sections of the tech tree. Have you captured 100 plasma guns and 50 UFO power sources? Can't do shit with em, you haven't unlocked the right intelligence to research. Did you capture a sectoid leader in a February terror mission? Can't research psionics. Well, actually you can research psionics, I did. I got nothing, presumably I need some special psionics intelligence to put it to use.
The council missions themselves? They mostly suck. Really fucking sucky. They are basically terror missions with uniquely asshole-ish conditions and asshole-ish environments. Just to name a few:
- A mission where you escape an underground base. This mission (and all of the "escape" missions) force you to start scattered around a large area and get to the choppah Skyranger in 25 turns. Problem? Well, if it's a night mission and you roll this you're basically screwed with no way to back out like a normal mission. Bye bye to your entire squad, skyranger, and all equipment. If you want ANY loot you have to kill all the enemies in 25 turns, so if you clear the map but miss one enemy then you either risk an auto-loss of the whole team trying to find out and get a reward for the mission or bug out. Apparently not winning in 25 turns causes everyone involved to commit ritual seppku. The underground base specifically has enemies spawn in unreachable spots (vents where they can drop down ontop of your) and they may decide to never leave those vents because X-Com AI. Also your tanks will spawn underground and can't travel up the only staircase to escape, so you can't escape with the tank. That happens in about half of the escape missions.
- A mission where you escape a city on a terror attack. This map is gigantic in size. It has several paths heavily blocked off from each other. It has way too much annoying verticality for enemies to hide behind.
- A mission where you need to empty a warehouse. Warehouse is also gigantic. Imagine a TFTD base except with more clutter and it's all connected through annoying walkways and an open center area so you can be shot across the map. Also built entirely of stone, grenades don't dent it and even Heavy Explosives can only do 1-2 tiles of damage, because this mod doesn't dare let you apply conventional X-Com tactics to clearing buildings. Just gotta charge in and get shot from all sides and elevations by asshole AI that knows exactly what angle they can get a clear shot from.
- A military base under attack. This one is actually almost decent, you are attacked on all sides and just need to survive/clear it out. But again, asshole environment. You are surrounded by a defensive barbed wire/sandbag line... that the aliens can shoot over and you can't. Because, you know, X-Com line of fire rules. Of course it's also heavily resistant to explosives.
- A cruise liner from TFTD... with crysallids everywhere. TFTD was assholish with this mission, but it could get away with it because TFTD tentaclauts didn't appear on land. Area 51 doesn't care, screw you.
- To top it all off, any terror mission can randomly become "escape" type missions. Apparently the intent is to say "fuck you" to players who aren't exploiting the bug to always do missions during the day. Otherwise have fun getting virtually guaranteed mission wipes because the game decided to roll a stupid mission where the skyranger starts on the other side of the map. It's been 2 decades since X-Com was released, everyone knows the avoid night trick by now. Why would you make a mod that just punishes players trying to play "properly"?
Worst of all, these missions don't even reliably reward you with the intelligence. It seems to be a very small chance that you roll a mission with the item to be found. If you don't tough luck. I've unlocked laser weapons and personal armor but nothing else. Just sitting around in April with 200 scientists who can do literally nothing after researching all of the different alien corpses and captures. I've researched Medics so much that I know about Ethereals and Sectopods despite never seeing them. I just destroyed an alien base and captured a commander, can't do shit with them either.
TL;DR it's FMP with additional tedious research roadblocks only lifted by doing dozens of masochistic missions.
The timers aren't even that bad, they are just that extra special shit cherry on top that prove the modder hates the player and any semblance of sensible gameplay when everyone in the squad dies for no reason after turn 25 rather than having a simple "the aliens gave up and left, good job defending". The defense mission type did this and it makes sense, 25 turns is well past the point that the AI generally does its "stop messing around and rush the player" mode, so anyone who can survive 25 turns has essentially beaten the mission. I cheated and edited the savefile to kill whatever enemies were left on turn 24 when I couldn't find them.
The real problem is the environments. X-Com is just not fun with complex 3D stuff with clutter everywhere, bad pathing, and the inability to clear it out with explosives. Most mods add some new terrain that tends to be more complex than the open farm fields of vanilla, but only Area 51 hits the level that I can only describe as masochism. And the research tree means you HAVE to suffer it every other week of game play.
I tried X-Com Files quite a while ago. It had some interesting ideas but also really poorly paced and drawn out early game living as a pest exterminator. Supposedly the modder was looking to improve on this issue but I can't confirm whether its well-polished yet, I've been waiting for a 1.0 release to try it again. The Brazilian Slaughter LPed it a bit
The thing that really annoys me about A51 is the lack of all those QoL features other OpenX mods have like Loadouts and being able to quickly sell worthless stuff.
I can
It's not, you're still fighting 100 zombies in a field in order to stay afloat. (unless you do those month 1 UFO captures, but even then you'll have to do some of that shit to keep your score positive)
The timers aren't even that bad, they are just that extra special shit cherry on top that prove the modder hates the player and any semblance of sensible gameplay when everyone in the squad dies for no reason after turn 25 rather than having a simple "the aliens gave up and left, good job defending". The defense mission type did this and it makes sense, 25 turns is well past the point that the AI generally does its "stop messing around and rush the player" mode, so anyone who can survive 25 turns has essentially beaten the mission. I cheated and edited the savefile to kill whatever enemies were left on turn 24 when I couldn't find them.
The real problem is the environments. X-Com is just not fun with complex 3D stuff with clutter everywhere, bad pathing, and the inability to clear it out with explosives. Most mods add some new terrain that tends to be more complex than the open farm fields of vanilla, but only Area 51 hits the level that I can only describe as masochism. And the research tree means you HAVE to suffer it every other week of game play.
I tried X-Com Files quite a while ago. It had some interesting ideas but also really poorly paced and drawn out early game living as a pest exterminator. Supposedly the modder was looking to improve on this issue but I can't confirm whether its well-polished yet, I've been waiting for a 1.0 release to try it again. The Brazilian Slaughter LPed it a bit
The environment is the main reason why I love Apoc so much more than UFO Defence. The difference is that Apoc's AI is good enough to cater for the extra requirements of a cluttered environment.
Essentially Area 51 decides to make tech advance based around these new "council" missions. These are missions that you get 2 or 3 times a month with special objectives, and they are the only way to get specific "intelligence" that unlocks new sections of the tech tree. Have you captured 100 plasma guns and 50 UFO power sources? Can't do shit with em, you haven't unlocked the right intelligence to research. Did you capture a sectoid leader in a February terror mission? Can't research psionics. Well, actually you can research psionics, I did. I got nothing, presumably I need some special psionics intelligence to put it to use.
The timers aren't even that bad, they are just that extra special shit cherry on top that prove the modder hates the player and any semblance of sensible gameplay when everyone in the squad dies for no reason after turn 25 rather than having a simple "the aliens gave up and left, good job defending". The defense mission type did this and it makes sense, 25 turns is well past the point that the AI generally does its "stop messing around and rush the player" mode, so anyone who can survive 25 turns has essentially beaten the mission. I cheated and edited the savefile to kill whatever enemies were left on turn 24 when I couldn't find them.
IIRC in X-Files the timer is a temporary measure until someone codes the capacity to have the aliens call reinforcements. In Piratez in timed missions you're warned that your troops will be captured and so on. Not sure if any excuse is given here though.
's not, you're still fighting 100 zombies in a field in order to stay afloat. (unless you do those month 1 UFO captures, but even then you'll have to do some of that shit to keep your score positive)
After several playthroughs I recommend to use save editing to give you tons of bucks, build another base with the mini-lab and start researching everything to speed up the tedious start.
Well, timed missions are avoidable, you don't have to do them all and i thought it was fun because it's a change of pace, of course, i wouldn't have all missions timed.
You seem to be focusing about those, what about the new defend the compound mission ?
Also, i've had enough of UFO for a while but what mod would you recommend if this one is so bad ? I mean aside X-piratez (i'm not testing this one)
Well, timed missions are avoidable, you don't have to do them all and i thought it was fun because it's a change of pace, of course, i wouldn't have all missions timed.
You seem to be focusing about those, what about the new defend the compound mission?
You kind of do have to do them all. You need to go there to figure out whether it has the intelligence disk you need in order to continue researching and once you're there the only way out is usually on the other side of the map. If you're not playing Ironman and want to reload saves to avoid bad missions then that works, but I do play on ironman. Plus not doing them means massive score penalties as if you'd ignored a terror mission.
As I said, the defend the compound mission is OK except for the fact that the barbed wire protects the enemies way more than it does the player. I'd also like it more if a third of your soldiers didn't start in vision of the aliens with no good cover (all of the defensive turrets have firing slits, these make it impossible to take real cover and you get shot through them easily). But at least it's a fairly simple and understandable area. You can properly utilize smoke, predict where to place your soldiers so they can have a full turn of firing on enemies, stuff like that.
Mate just play X-Piratez. FMP is also good but it's mainly an expanded vanilla so if you are tired of vanilla you'd probably tire of a longer vanilla game. I'd recommend one of the other X-Com games or X-Com clones if you want something different.
Has anyone played the 40k mod for OpenXcom? It's been in development for a couple of years, no idea what % of it is completed though. If anyone has experience with it, do drop a line,.
You kind of do have to do them all. You need to go there to figure out whether it has the intelligence disk you need in order to continue researching and once you're there the only way out is usually on the other side of the map. If you're not playing Ironman and want to reload saves to avoid bad missions then that works, but I do play on ironman. Plus not doing them means massive score penalties as if you'd ignored a terror mission.
Well, i finished the game with this mod, you need to do 3/4 timed missions.
Besides, i find it interesting in the sake of not always doing the same kind of missions.
About defense missions, that's not my experience but yes, you might have to relocate 30-40% of your soldiers, that's a small price to pay for having a different mission where you have the strong position and aliens have nowhere to go.
Sorry but i'm never going to play x-piratez, first, what i've read about its balance and meta-gaming isn't encouraging and the main dev is a xenophobic moron, i usually don't like what those can produce.
Besides, x-com is about shooting aliens and aircrafts, if i want to play a pirate game, i reload "Pirates Gold", if i want to play a retarded mod, oh wait, i don't want that.
FMP, i hate when people do that but i'll try to keep that in mind and make some research if i feel the urge to replay x-com again.
As for Warhammer 40k, i'm interested as well, i didn't try it because it wasn't finished, just like you.
Sorry but i'm never going to play x-piratez, first, what i've read about its balance and meta-gaming isn't encouraging and the main dev is a xenophobic moron, i usually don't like what those can produce.
How so? I agree he's an autist and said so himself, but I didn't thought he was xenophobic, to the contrary: When someone made fun of the latest unit added (a totally-not cannibal with dark skin and spears), he went into a hissy fit accusing the poster of being nazi, blahblabah.
Not sure what's the hate with FMP, but X-Files is way more serious than Piratez and argueably more balanced. The only downside is that the start of the game si VERY slow and somewhat repetitive, but the rest is quite spot on.
Hating on based Dio who produced mod that we don't even know that we needed and definitely not deserve.
Dioxine autism my be high on scale but that is the reason why his mod is one of the best and full of content and had best lore.
Are you some sort of faggot or just a
Kraut
?
Seriously just shoot yourself with a heavy plasma.
Bought X-Com UFO defense on GOG and installed OpenXcom. Very hyped to play this being a JA2 fan. I would like to try Iron Man mode, do you think is OK for a newbie?
Bought X-Com UFO defense on GOG and installed OpenXcom. Very hyped to play this being a JA2 fan. I would like to try Iron Man mode, do you think is OK for a newbie?
Bought X-Com UFO defense on GOG and installed OpenXcom. Very hyped to play this being a JA2 fan. I would like to try Iron Man mode, do you think is OK for a newbie?
The game is meant to be played without reloading constantly, but pure Ironman might be a bit much. You can screw up on the strategic mapmode pretty easily. I'd recommend self-imposed ironman on the tactical map with a reload available if you fuckup and forget to load ammo in the skyranger or accidentally run into a debt problem at the end of the month.
