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X-COM OpenXcom Thread

Joined
Jul 4, 2014
Messages
1,563
Just finished a playthrough on superhuman and (self-enforced) ironman. There seemed to be a lot of interesting additional options, but I wanted the authentic experience. May have to try them later. Anyways... this really is one game where ironman works really well. You can take punches in the face, but still come back. I lost my main base three months in and had to relocate to my bare-bones second base (single hangar, stores, living quarters, radar), and my A-team got wiped out completely or almost completely several times. You can't crush our human spirit, alien scum!

Perfect modernization of this game.

Minor annoyance: when you lose a base, you also lose everything associated to it. Why can't the Skyranger full of soldiers returning from a mission re-route to my other base? :cry:
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,331
Just finished a playthrough on superhuman and (self-enforced) ironman. There seemed to be a lot of interesting additional options, but I wanted the authentic experience. May have to try them later. Anyways... this really is one game where ironman works really well. You can take punches in the face, but still come back. I lost my main base three months in and had to relocate to my bare-bones second base (single hangar, stores, living quarters, radar), and my A-team got wiped out completely or almost completely several times. You can't crush our human spirit, alien scum!

Perfect modernization of this game.

Minor annoyance: when you lose a base, you also lose everything associated to it. Why can't the Skyranger full of soldiers returning from a mission re-route to my other base? :cry:
I think one of the optional features of Open Xcom is to be able to give new orders to your planes mid flight. I am not sure if that also helps with giving them new places to return to. That might only work with transfer order directly from one base to another.
 

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
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Has anyone tried the UFO Redux mod?

edit: Or The Final Mod Pack?
 
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Trash

Pointing and laughing.
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About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Love OpenXcom and some of the mods are good fun. However a word of caution. Lots of mods fuck with the balance that is so important for the game. I for instance got an extra interiors for UFO's mod. Which seemed like a fresh breath after playing UFO for 20 odd years. Loved the new challenge of entering new UFO interiors but noticed a big problem as the game went on. Vanilla is balanced so that you won't get a gazillion research options and won't get rich on selling scrap from the get go. This mod gave me lots of research options and a shitload of gear to sell. I basically got ahead of the research curve and got a supurbly equipped squad that made mincemeat of whatever aliens it encountered.

Made me realise once more how brilliantly the original is designed. Personally I just play the game as vanilla as possible with the added goodness from OpenXcom and perhaps the mod that adds the groovy alien from the original boxart. Otherwise I'd be very wary of modding the game further.
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
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Messages
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Codex 2012
l6MYxvL.png


ZBYSFU9.png


gr2v39O.png
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
21,331
Love OpenXcom and some of the mods are good fun. However a word of caution. Lots of mods fuck with the balance that is so important for the game. I for instance got an extra interiors for UFO's mod. Which seemed like a fresh breath after playing UFO for 20 odd years. Loved the new challenge of entering new UFO interiors but noticed a big problem as the game went on. Vanilla is balanced so that you won't get a gazillion research options and won't get rich on selling scrap from the get go. This mod gave me lots of research options and a shitload of gear to sell. I basically got ahead of the research curve and got a supurbly equipped squad that made mincemeat of whatever aliens it encountered.

Made me realise once more how brilliantly the original is designed. Personally I just play the game as vanilla as possible with the added goodness from OpenXcom and perhaps the mod that adds the groovy alien from the original boxart. Otherwise I'd be very wary of modding the game further.
Actually in vanilla from the get go (as soon as you research medkits) you can manufacture stuff and sell for the profit and the profit get bigger as you get access to better stuff. You just build for yourself what you need and use the rest of your engineer time to make you rich.
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
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Messages
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About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Know that one. The difference is that this is a bit of an exploit to those who know and only gradually becomes a moneysink. Me taking down my second or third UFO and getting my hands on ridiculous amounts of research and materials is what made me step away. The profit was enormous in the second month already to the extend that money never was any problem. I could ploink down as many bases as I wanted within 4 months. Selling med kits for profit that wasn't.

Ah, seems Awor Szurkrarz is a big fan of the whole 'we had to destroy the village in order to save it' school of thought. Got to love that about UFO.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
15,269
Know that one. The difference is that this is a bit of an exploit to those who know and only gradually becomes a moneysink. Me taking down my second or third UFO and getting my hands on ridiculous amounts of research and materials is what made me step away. The profit was enormous in the second month already to the extend that money never was any problem. I could ploink down as many bases as I wanted within 4 months. Selling med kits for profit that wasn't.

I've always found that Vanilla already gives too much money even when refraining from manufacturing stuff for profit. Average small UFO is like 2 Million in cash, that's ridiculous unless you are somehow losing half your team of armor-equipped soldiers to do it.

I think its best played with alien gear auto-destruction setting so you won't simply get rich selling plasma guns early on.

This OTOH really screws the economy and makes the game way too slow and unfun when missions are often a net drain of cash. I wish there was a way to make it so gear destruction left weapon fragments like nuXcom which would reduce the net value by a decent amount and be unable to be reconstructed into a new plasma weapon until you had captured an intact sample.
 
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Messages
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I dunno, when I played the Final Mod Pack it worked for me, I really had to care about keeping the Founding Nations happy and going after stuns and diminishing casualties was more important than ever. It does constrain behavior a bit - tanks don't seem much worth it, maybe except as base defense devices. Considering you get a lot of nifty new tools, I think its fair.

I haven't played more than a few minutes of Final Mod Pack to see what it adds but in vanilla it sucks hard early game until you get the Small Launcher, then you just use the Small Launcher for everything. Small Launcher is actually a pretty OP weapon (Takes down most enemies but usually doesn't even stun through power armor if you get mind-controlled and cause friendly fire) and forcing players to use it on most of their soldiers makes the game quite easy. Before that turning every mission into a banzai charge under smoke cover is... lacking tactical options.

I'm sure its better if you are manufacturing for profit though.
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
21,899
Codex 2012
Know that one. The difference is that this is a bit of an exploit to those who know and only gradually becomes a moneysink. Me taking down my second or third UFO and getting my hands on ridiculous amounts of research and materials is what made me step away. The profit was enormous in the second month already to the extend that money never was any problem. I could ploink down as many bases as I wanted within 4 months. Selling med kits for profit that wasn't.

I've always found that Vanilla already gives too much money even when refraining from manufacturing stuff for profit. Average small UFO is like 2 Million in cash, that's ridiculous unless you are somehow losing half your team of armor-equipped soldiers to do it.
The main problem with UFO economy is the scaling of prices. IRL a F-22 Raptor costs 150,000,000$, while a SWORDS UGV costs about 150,000$.

Looking at the recovery value:
Medium Scout

Total Aliens
Beg./Exp.: 3 - 6
Vet./Gen.: 4 - 7
Super.: 6 - 9

Item Sell Price Quantity Value
UFO Power Source $250,000 1 $250,000
UFO Navigation $80,000 2 $160,000
Alien Alloys $6,500 11 $71,500
Elerium-115 $5,000 50 $250,000
Corpses $20,000 3 - 9 $60,000 - $180,000
Alien Armament $180,000 3 - 9 $540,000 - $1,620,000
Total $1,331,500 - $2,531,500
A large part of value comes from weapons. With a more realistic price scale, the problem would simply disappear.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
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Keep in mind that X-Com doesn't buy aircraft, it rents them on a monthly basis (and apparently gets really, really good insurance deals). This can be gathered from the fact that the monthly upkeep is the same as the initial cost, and X-Com-produced aircraft have no upkeep.

It's true that weapons are expensive, but that's probably pretty reasonable for that kind of tech. Arguably the profit from selling items should go down over time but that's a bit too much unneeded complexity.
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
21,899
Codex 2012
Keep in mind that X-Com doesn't buy aircraft, it rents them on a monthly basis (and apparently gets really, really good insurance deals). This can be gathered from the fact that the monthly upkeep is the same as the initial cost, and X-Com-produced aircraft have no upkeep.
Renting is obviously a pretty stupid idea, so it should go away. If cost of planes would go into budget, missiles would have appropriate cost, etc. base building would probably also be more expensive, it would be more realistic.

It's true that weapons are expensive, but that's probably pretty reasonable for that kind of tech.
Small arms still shouldn't be the biggest part of profits. These power sources should be worth the most since they require 16 units of Elerium to build. Elerium itself should also be worth a lot.
Following from it, alien ammunition should be more expensive than weapons themselves.

Arguably the profit from selling items should go down over time but that's a bit too much unneeded complexity.
Most of alien technology depends on rare Elerium whose only source is aliens. It's possible that alien alloys would eventually get reproduced and become mass manufactured, though.
 

Endemic

Arcane
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
4,450
Are there any bugfixes I'd need on top of openxcom? Any good sprite\map packs?
 
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Jan 7, 2012
Messages
15,269
Get the data fixes download from the Extras tab on the openxcom page, otherwise you're good as far as having a bug free game.

I'd not recommend any mods if its your first game. Even simple terrain packs change the gameplay quite a bit with added terrain types being significantly more difficult.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Are there any bugfixes I'd need on top of openxcom? Any good sprite\map packs?

If you wanna play a great mod, and I mean great. Go for Final Mod pack. X-com remains the same, but the game is expanded in so many way. Many new weapons, aliens, areas, research and so on. The best thing about this mod is that it makes research harder. So you will have to use human weaponry a-lot longer, which I like. In the original you maybe used basic weapons like in 2-3 missions, here you are stuck with them for a pretty long time. But don't fret! You can research new and improved ammo for those weapons, like alloy ammo and such. It's really cool.

http://www.openxcom.com/mod/final-mod-pack

Actually. Final mod pack reminds me of playing JA2 with 1.13 patch. It is that good :)

Edit:

8SI3YFh.png


Took a screenshot from my current game. Just look at all those yummy weapons. We have shotguns, assault rifles, tactical sniper rifles with explody ammo, flamethrowers, large medicits, incendiary grenades, machineguns, grenade-launchers, revolvers and swords.
 
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ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,331
Does that Final Mod pack also give us different types of Laser and Plasma weapons?
I played some mod that gave me all these kinds of different base weapons but as soon as you research laser and plasma it plays like standard Xcom.
 

Alienman

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Yes. Even the aliens use lasers. But there is plasma sniper, shotgun, some kind of rocket launcher. I recommend using the options that weapons gets destroyed if you kill the alien. So you need to capture an alien alive to get the weapon. Makes it more hardcore and difficult :)

Edit:

I also recommend using the new movement system. Think they call it "alternative movement" or something like that. It makes melee weapons usable/good. With the new movement system you can sprint (move further) but you use energy. So it is pretty well balanced.

One more thing to answer your question. I find normal weapons still usable after discovering plasma, because of the different ammo types.
 
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Alienman

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They call it "alien laser". Not the same laser humans can develop.
 

Endemic

Arcane
Joined
Jul 16, 2012
Messages
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OpenXcom comes with some extra sprites for more soldier variation. I don't know of a mod that upgrades them.

I remember seeing some screenshots of a sprite mod on the forum that sharpens them up, but no download link.
 

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