X-COM OpenXcom Thread

[agris]

Live by the weeb, die by the weeb.

In the past two years you've made 9 posts in this thread. 6 of them were complaining about XPiratez being a weeb mod.

Your persistence is truly inspiring. Like a retard repeatedly running into a closed door.

You follow a thread for a game that is held in high esteem by those in the tactics community. The game, while sporting cutting edge mechanics that spur intellectual engagement, suffers a fatal flaw. It has anime art direction.

Decades later, the game’s engine is recreated and open sourced. The scourge of anime is still present in the game’s DNA.

There is a mod that many love, for reasons that you understand. Tactics, options, gameplay variety. These are gameplay options that you exalt.

You look at screenshots, and are shattered. Anime representation of 10 yo girls. Pedophilia-inspired art design. The community heaps praise on the cultural trash pile that defines your fedora’s jaunty slant.

Outside of your community’s pedophile art connoisseurs, strategy gamers try to understand what makes the hype real. They push against the cultural trends that inflate the sexualization of children.

then the brave codex poster discovers the search function and invalidates all of the previous observations by pointing out that some people, interested in squad based tactics, do not enjoy pedophilia-inspired graphics.

 

[Cael]

Live by the weeb, die by the weeb.

In the past two years you've made 9 posts in this thread. 6 of them were complaining about XPiratez being a weeb mod.

Your persistence is truly inspiring. Like a retard repeatedly running into a closed door.

He didn't run into that door...

 

[Endemic]

Any thoughts on the hardmode mod? https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/board,20.0.html

 

[Average Manatee]

Any thoughts on the hardmode mod? https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/board,20.0.html

I tried it a long time ago and it was bullshit then. Enemies had infinite bravery so that they would never take morale hits. The enemy psi stats are so high that if you run the psi formula they'll have a 100% chance to mind control even super high psi strength dudes from across the map, and it's not like you can even self select for high psi strength soldiers until either the late game or fighting psi enemies. You also seem basically guaranteed to get base attacks very early so you'll be fighting these super-sectoids mind controlling everything.

I'm fine with generally boosting stats and adding more enemies in mods like this (though IMO the better method is nerfing X-Coms stuff and delaying tech progression like other mods do) but the above two things are basically removing anything a player can do to deal with the enemies in certain situations like base defense, large UFOs or terror missions. Not being able to panic-chain the enemy side if you are successful means that you'll consistently spend dozens of turns looking for that one fucking sectoid who is standing completely motionless and invisible to scanners mind controlling a new dude every round without fail. And I fucking hate being forced to use the "trick" where everyone drops their weapon at the beginning of every round to "beat" mind control.

EDIT: Nevermind. I can find my original post about these issues in this thread and a much more recent one where I replayed it. On the replay I think the modder fixed most/all of these issues and it was generally an OK mod at doing what it set out to do. Though it was kind of unremarkable and quickly became a real slog through mission spam with too many aliens that took too long to finish. Keep that in mind if you play it.

 

[Endemic]

EDIT: Nevermind. I can find my original post about these issues in this thread and a much more recent one where I replayed it. On the replay I think the modder fixed most/all of these issues and it was generally an OK mod at doing what it set out to do. Though it was kind of unremarkable and quickly became a real slog through mission spam with too many aliens that took too long to finish. Keep that in mind if you play it.

Thanks for the writeup. Guess I'll stick to content-focused mods for now.

 

[robinox]

The game, while sporting cutting edge mechanics that spur intellectual engagement, suffers a fatal flaw. It has anime art direction.

What do you mean? The original UFO has "American comic book" visual style.
Perhaps Apocalypse took some inspiration for its armors (and weapons, maybe vehicles) from Toku/old japanese mecha.

 

[prengle]

The game, while sporting cutting edge mechanics that spur intellectual engagement, suffers a fatal flaw. It has anime art direction.

What do you mean? The original UFO has "American comic book" visual style.
Perhaps Apocalypse took some inspiration for its armors (and weapons, maybe vehicles) from Toku/old japanese mecha.

MicroProse Presents

X-COM: Terran Defense Force

Shipping the week of May 30, 1994.

MicroProse is planning to release X-COM: Terran Defense Force in
the United States. X-COM: Terran Defense Force is a futuristic
game of strategy and tactical combat in which the player
defends the Earth from alien invasion.

The game involves the player at two different levels:
In-depth strategy as the player controls the operation
of bases that he builds all over the World to cope with
the alien threat and tense "seek and destroy" tactical
play.


Storyline:

It is the year 1999. Sightings of alien craft have
increased dramatically throughout the World. All attempts
at peaceful communications have been met with hostility.
Reports arrive daily of kidnappings, murder, terrorism,
and killings of cattle and domestic animals.

The nations of the world have decided that they must join
forces to combat the alien threat. To this end, a special
defense force named XComm is set up with collective funding
from all countries.

You are the commander of XComm.

Game Features:

- In-depth strategy involving scientific research, weapons
production, resource allocation, and expansion through base
construction.

- Tense tactical gameplay with "Aliens" search-and-destroy
feel.

- Non-linear gameplay for extended play.

- Popular "Manga" look and feel to graphics.

- Numerous mission types: Intercept, Seek-and-destroy,
Base defense, etc.

- Differing terrain according to mission location:
Snowscapes for Arctic locations, Cornfields for the
midwest, Cityscapes, etc.


X-COM: Terran Defense Force, from MicroProse, is expected to
release for IBM-PCs and compatibles in June.

Copyright 1994 by MicroProse Software, SH, Inc.

 

[Cael]

The game, while sporting cutting edge mechanics that spur intellectual engagement, suffers a fatal flaw. It has anime art direction.

What do you mean? The original UFO has "American comic book" visual style.
Perhaps Apocalypse took some inspiration for its armors (and weapons, maybe vehicles) from Toku/old japanese mecha.

Apocalypse is very 50s America. All the vehicles and weapons were designed that way.

 

[somewhatgiggly]

There seems to be a persistent problem with turning Psi off in Openxcom, anyone else getting it?

I just want an alien invasion. No Psi bullshit (thank you, ww2 and post-war scifi hack writers from Fantastic Writers shoving in not!magic bullshit into scifi for *decades*). But when I toggle the turn Psi stuff off, sometimes I have to reinstall the whole mod or play around in the .txt files for it....

 

[Alienman]

What mod? You mean reinstalling whole of openxcom?

 

[Efe]

hes clearly psi debuffed

 

[Endemic]

I just want an alien invasion. No Psi bullshit (thank you, ww2 and post-war scifi hack writers from Fantastic Writers shoving in not!magic bullshit into scifi for *decades*). But when I toggle the turn Psi stuff off, sometimes I have to reinstall the whole mod or play around in the .txt files for it....

Are you using any other mods that affect psi? Starting a fresh game each time?

 

[Alienman]

Kinda forgot how it works, but how many countries can be infiltrated before game over?

 

[Cael]

Kinda forgot how it works, but how many countries can be infiltrated before game over?

Technically, all of them, AFAIK. The thing was that the more countries you lose, the less income you get and eventually you run out of money. However, the fatal flaw was that you can get an infinite money loop with manufacturing and selling stuff with no other input than time, so it didn't matter.

Then again, I have never gotten into that situation, so it is pure conjecture on my part.

 

[Alienman]

Kinda forgot how it works, but how many countries can be infiltrated before game over?

Technically, all of them, AFAIK. The thing was that the more countries you lose, the less income you get and eventually you run out of money. However, the fatal flaw was that you can get an infinite money loop with manufacturing and selling stuff with no other input than time, so it didn't matter.

Then again, I have never gotten into that situation, so it is pure conjecture on my part.

Alright thanks. Was worried that my current 50 hour run would end soon thanks to the damn Brazilians

signing up with the aliens.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I never had a game over because of that as far as i remember but basically, on higher difficulties, countries far away from a base will fall to the aliens...
Rarely the ones within the range of an operating base.
So you're safe.

 

[Luka-boy]

There's also the bug (or feature) with Russia never being infiltrated by Aliens, so they never surrender to them

 

[Average Manatee]

It will be a big score hit though and two months of negative score is game over.

EDIT: Actually it's only -200 (infiltrated + the alien base built) so it's barely noticable really. A single good mission will beat that and destroying the alien base on its own is +500.

Alien bases do generate another +5 points per day for the aliens passively though so if the whole world is infiltrated with bases everywhere and you can't beat them then you'll probably lose.

 

[roll-a-die]

So, I'm craving some xcom, classic X-Com, but don't want to replay the default game...

Of the big mega mods, would people recommend XPiratez, X-Com Files, Hardmode expansion or the 40k one?

 

[eXalted]

So, I'm craving some xcom, classic X-Com, but don't want to replay the default game...

Of the big mega mods, would people recommend XPiratez, X-Com Files, Hardmode expansion or the 40k one?

Xpiratez is pure awesomeness. If you like 475385345 researches, 54354 weapons, 734593485 ways to equip and build your soldiers go for it. It has everything - pulp atmosphere, magic, crazy missions...

X-Com Files - Realy, really good too. Can feel kind of repeating and grindy at some point from what I've seen from other peoples. haven't personally played it much. I will really appreciate it if someone else gives his feedback here.

40k - Make sure to check the ROSIGMA submod too. It adds much much more content and the art is so awesome!

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

So, I'm craving some xcom, classic X-Com, but don't want to replay the default game...

Of the big mega mods, would people recommend XPiratez, X-Com Files, Hardmode expansion or the 40k one?

I would recommend X-COM Files if you want a long but more tight experience. I would say it's like an immense expansion of the original X-COM.

X-Piratez is WILD as fuck, crazy as hell, super random. Very fun and weird experience.

Never played Hardmode and 40k. AFAIK Hardmode is pretty much a harder version of vanilla.

 

[AgentFransis]

40K is good. Piratez is a masterpiece. Both were widely discussed in this thread before, search the thread to read some impressions.

 

[lightbane]

Xpiratez is pure awesomeness. If you like 475385345 researches, 54354 weapons, 734593485 ways to equip and build your soldiers go for it. It has everything - pulp atmosphere, magic, crazy missions...

Piratez is meant to be played with an... Let's say open mind. If you believe a few pics of lolis and anime women are heretical pedophilia (as I've seen some crazy codexers say), then the mod is not for you. It's also pretty much impossible to obtain everything by design, having branching paths, mutually exclusive C&C, and so on. What I don't like though is that the game encourages you to rush missions instead of camping, even though your units are still vulnerable to being one-shot if you rush out. Many crafts are designed with an inability to turtle out on purpose, for good and bad, which means that against enemy factions like the Mercenaries, you'll have to go through pain.
Since it's updated frequently, expect things to be randomly swapped for seemingly no reason, as well as a bloated list to weapons. I recommend to stick to your favorites and forget about the rest (except for plasma weapons, which dominate the endgame as usual). Initially it was quite boring start by forcing you to capture people non-stop to get money by selling your captures, but I read that once you unlock the Casino facility, you can use it (through save-scumming) to get money way more reliably in a less tedious way, supposedly.

The Hard Difficulty mod I read that it's too hard, by having enemy units inflated stats to the point they won't break morally-wise, but I haven't played it.

 

[Endemic]

I'm trying to install X-piratez. I'm using gog version of UFO, copying UFO to xpiratez ufo and game doesn't launch. What the hell I'm doing wrong?

You only need to copy specific data from your UFO install to the Openxcom Extended (which Piratez is based off of) folder.

After the copy, this directory should contain at least the following items:
GEODATA
GEOGRAPH
MAPS
ROUTES
SOUND
TERRAIN
UFOGRAPH
UFOINTRO*
UNITS
*optional

The folders should look something like this:

UFO subfolders:

 

[AgentFransis]

I'm trying to install X-piratez. I'm using gog version of UFO, copying UFO to xpiratez ufo and game doesn't launh. What the hell I'm doing wrong?

Double check that you put it in the right folder (UFO folder in the root folder). Make sure you're using the bundled OXCE that comes with the mod and not a random version. If it still fails look at the error message and/or the stderr.txt file. Ask for help on the official forum, the devs and other experienced players are active there.

What I don't like though is that the game encourages you to rush missions instead of camping, even though your units are still vulnerable to being one-shot if you rush out. Many crafts are designed with an inability to turtle out on purpose, for good and bad, which means that against enemy factions like the Mercenaries, you'll have to go through pain.

Anti-camping != must rush out like a madman. You have a misunderstanding of the anti-camping mechanics. They're there to prevent degenerate camping for multiple turns at a time waiting for the AI to run into your killzone. Normally you have more than enough time to advance as slowly and carefully as you want.

Initially it was quite boring start by forcing you to capture people non-stop to get money by selling your captures, but I read that once you unlock the Casino facility, you can use it (through save-scumming) to get money way more reliably in a less tedious way, supposedly.

You never had to sell prisoners to stay afloat, in fact that's not a very good idea. The infamy system rewards you with bonus cash and interrogating prisoners yields a lot of bonus infamy and also unlocks many techs that you need as prerequisites for future research and purchase options in the black market. Of course it's a trade-off between interrogating and rushing to certain key early techs. In any case it doesn't take too long to balance your budget after you start pimping hoes, setup a second base with plantations and start selling wine.

The gambling system has been revamped and now you can gamble early without a casino, but it costs both money and Jack's bounty tokens and it's not a way to generate money but rather to get some higher grade equipment before you can access it normally or even rare gear that may not be normally accessible at all like golden weapons or codex locked armor. The casino facility unlocks higher grade rewards but is itself is very expensive and locked behind mid game techs so it's irrelevant to the early game. Long before that you should already be in the air game and shooting down crafts and selling engines and/or plastasteel and hellerium for massive profits.