X-COM OpenXcom Thread

[Demo.Graph]

Surprised your dudes are running flashlights, I only use flashlights on monster missions at night.

For some reason, I expected monsters to be able to see in the dark better than normal humans. Maybe it's all those B grade movies.

 

[lightbane]

I've tried it in December and even considered making AAR out of it. Played it for 2-3 months up to the first XCOM upgrade.
I had about 20 missions per month, 10-20% were too hard to try. Game forces you to conduct a lot of small missions (craft is small, 2-4 agents per mission). Missions become samey very fast, so I got bored and dropped it.
I must say the balance provides for a very different experience from vanilla and xpiratez. I think I'll return to the mod some day.

Sounds like the same as when I played it about 3 years ago. The newest update to the formula are the random events IIRC.

For some reason, I expected monsters to be able to see in the dark better than normal humans. Maybe it's all those B grade movies.

They usually do, so careful. Aliens, or at least Sectoids, also keep their perfect night vision, along with new tricks such as Psi-Vision that can see through walls.

 

[Covenant]

Speaking of: How is XFiles these days?

It seems to be playing 'Follow the leader' with Piratez, to be honest. They recently added faction 'manors', which are kind of similar to the Airfields/Outposts stuff in Piratez.

I think the problem with Files at this point is content bloat more than anything. The pre-invasion section of the game is arguably the best, and then the invasion happens, the economy falls apart because UFOs are a gold mine (and there's nothing worth buying anyway), and 'progression' basically becomes 'Capture UFOs/engineers 50 times until you suddenly unlock the highest tier of gear'.

That said, Files has had some great ideas that Piratez went on to copy. Stat-granting commendations for one, and the transforming your agents thing was a really great idea. From what I understand the intention is that eventually all the side-arcs will grant their own cool transformations (similar to the Zombies one). I think it'll need some tweaking because you generally reach the end of the side-arc when you're about done with the game anyway, but the potential is there to make a fun, tiered system out of it.

In terms of the random events, they're not so bad - I think the worst one is 'You decided to spruce up your office: -50k', or something like that. Whereas in Piratez you have 'Earthquake/giant space mold/fire/devil spiders: -200k' (very painful with Piratez being the more economic game of the two).

And yeah, a mod thread sounds like a good idea.

 

[oasis789]

I've been playing Piratez after not having checked out the last few versions, and wow, what happened to the comfy feeling it used to have? There was something really fun about building up your gals from simple thugs bashing people over the head with baseball bats, where all your early victories like beating a Warehouse Wars were really exciting. But that seems to have been put aside in favour of making the whole experience a stressful rush with all the Sky Ninja changes. If it's not a ninja attack on your base before you're even halfway through the first year, it's hunter-killers popping up out of nowhere and blowing up your ship with no chance to escape, because they're 3x as fast as you. Or just your score being tanked from the skies being full of enemy craft that you can't hope to shoot down until you get a codex craft. It's not about beating the new mission anymore, it's about constantly maximising your points on every mission by capturing everyone, and desperately trying to stay ahead of the curve of being able to somehow beat a ninja base before it evolves into a fortress.

I'm not amazing at the game but I'm not bad at it either. I've beat it on Davey Jones Ironman previously. But the experience then and now was like night and day. Perhaps the design philosophy has changed so that save-scumming's now intended. Whatever it is, it's a lot less fun than it used to be.

having played the ninja update for a while I actually think it makes the strategic layer more interesting and interactive. In the past it was mostly passive, but now there are these active adversaries on the map looking for you, and also targets you can actively mess with, kite around etc.

balance was always going to be very difficult in a game with a) a tremendous amount of randomness in both directions, and b) the fundamental issue that every enemy is also a resource. If something is too trivial, b) makes it just a loot and ransom giveaway, but a) makes it hard to tune. so it was always going to be a seesaw between everyday christmas and JA2 Drassen counterattack.

 

[Endemic]

I dunno, are they?

Gauss rifle has better aimed accuracy, and if I'm at mid range then I'm calling in grenades/snipers/torpedoes rather than chancing a shot.

It's usually better to fire more snap shots with pistols or rifles, in my experience.

Grenades are indeed good for ranged attacks, but not if you're trying to avoid collateral damage on a surface mission.

Also equipping a whole team with sonic weapons is going to mean 1-2 less radar bases on the map.

Not really, they rain on you in Superhuman difficulty, every other aquatoid or gillman is carrying one early game. You can potentially have sonic pistols researched before the first terror mission (RNG permitting) so I don't bother with gauss. Perhaps if nearly every enemy didn't have resistance to gauss damage, the category would be more viable.

 

[octavius]

Reached the second level of the second Alien base in TFTD. It's bloody annoying how the game splits my squad in two, with all my point guys and tossers in one group and all the heavy hitters (not one of them with a motion detector) in the other.

 

[octavius]

Getting to second base was easy. Conquering it was more difficult (still no advanced melee weapons!). Ironman is now rusted for good, and on the first attempt I lost 8 men, but managed to capture a Lobsterman Commander. On second try, when I knew what I had to do, I only lost my scouts, but got no commander. Oh well, there will be more bases.

Looks like bases and artefact sites are the only places to snag a Commander in TFTD? I seem to recall Very large ships had Commanders in the base game, but no Commander appeared on the kill list after boarding a VL ship.

 

[Alienman]

TFTD bases are nightmarish.

 

[octavius]

OTOH boarding grounded ships is more fun in TFTD, I think. It helps that you can more easily control the situation by blocking telepads, while in the base game there would always be aliens on the upper level shooting down throught the telepads.
I like the Triton better than the Sky Ranger as well.
But otherwise I must say I'm much more tempted to replay the first game than TFTD.

 

[Average Manatee]

I like the Triton better than the Sky Ranger as well.

Oh yeah, Triton is godly. I love quickly putting a sniping squad on the roof of the triton with a smokescreen. Often they can cover most of the map.

Looks like bases and artefact sites are the only places to snag a Commander in TFTD?

I think so. TFTD alien races and ranks are much more strictly confined to certain missions for some reason.

 

[octavius]

It's July 26th and I still haven't faced a single Calcinite. But I got an autopsy report on one by interrogating an Aquatoid Medic. However, the Vibro Blade (of which I have some) does not turn up as researchable. Should I be worried?

 

[octavius]

I got a bit tired of TFTD, especially the contrived research tree which means it's extra punishing to play it blind.

So I started a new game of the first game, highest difficulty, Ironman.
Settings/mods: Alien weapons break, no instant grenades, explosion height 2 (I wish the overall radius would have been reduced somewhat to compensate).
Self imposed rule: no smoke grenades. It's my least favourite aspect of "correct" play. Without them, cover will be much more important and things will get more exciting. Besides, the aliens don't use them.

First mission reminded me of the one second thing (after non-blockable telepads) that is more difficult in the first game: the open troop transport. So you can't sit out the first turn inside the ship. It also landed right next to a house with 5-6 Sectoids. So three men died before they could even get off the ship. In the end I lost six of eight men, but I won.
After that things improved. A night terror missions in Los Angeles near the end of the first month went very well:

Thankfully there were only two CyberDisks.
Also it's interesting how much weaker the aliens are in the first game compared to TFTD. They (the Septoids, at least) miss more often than they hit, and when they hit it's not even a guaranteed kill. In TFTD trying to save civilians is almost a joke, since most of them will be killed in the first round with no chance of saving them.
Another difference is how much more useful a tank is in the first game. It soaks up a lot of damage, but unlike the TFTD counterparts it's also useful offensively.

I was waiting eagerly for the end of month report, when the aliens attacked my base.
I'm quite well prepared, though (I hope...).

 

[Endemic]

Seems you rolled low on the possible enemy count. I've had up to 6 cyberdiscs before on superhuman terror missions.

As for the difficulty in EU vs TFTD: Ethereals are far more dangerous than Tasoths and enemy psi is not that strong in TFTD generally. You also don't have to face Tentaculats on terror missions, and they can't hurt tanks either.

 

[Alienman]

octavius Have you played Final Mod Pack?

 

[Alienman]

Highly recommend it. It's the Jagged Alliance 1.3 patch but for X-com. It keeps the normal game, but expands it in a lot of ways, weapons, monsters, etc. No bloat.

 

[octavius]

unlike the TFTD counterparts it's also useful offensively.
I was waiting eagerly for the end of month report, when the aliens attacked my base.
I'm quite well prepared, though (I hope...).

Nothing like Rocket Launchers with 85% chance to hit hitting corridor walls instead. Not just once, but twice, killing most of my squad. Suing the manufacturers of the Rocket Launchers seemed like futile actions when the aliens conquered Earth...

Next time I will not place my RL'ers at the end of the corridor.

 

[Endemic]

Nothing like Rocket Launchers with 85% chance to hit hitting corridor walls instead.

Kneeling gives +15% to hit, by the way

 

[octavius]

Nothing like Rocket Launchers with 85% chance to hit hitting corridor walls instead.

Kneeling gives +15% to hit, by the way

I know, but it eats up TUs. 12 TUs just to get down and up, 8 to go back and forth from cover, 2 to turn, which does not leave enough for an Aimed Shot.
I'm not using Smake Grenades, so I need the cover.

 

[octavius]

It's interesting to compare YouTubers with myself.
In TFTD I did the second Alien Base in July, still limited to Plastic Armour and only the basic melee weapons and tanks, while the YouTubers attack the same base in the autumn, have all the best equipments, but their soldiers (which YouTubers always rename) are much less experienced, with like 10 missions only.
Compare with my best guy after the second alien base:

 

[Average Manatee]

>best soldier
>MC strength: 3
The curse is real.

35 missions sounds like you're really going after every mission. Usually I stop doing that eventually once manufacturing is providing enough cash. At that point ground missions are for captures or for getting Elerium from landed ships (ideally supply ships).

 

[octavius]

I play with line-of-sight Psionics (combines well if using a self imposed no smoke grenades rule), so the MC strength is not that important.
And I guess I don't have to do all the missions, but letting aliens subs/ships get away is like choosing the Flee option in a CRPG; it feels like more than half a defeat.

 

[octavius]

I'm continuing my attempt at winning Enemy Unknown on SuperHuman Ironman with the following mods and settings being the most noteworthy ones:
Custom initial base
No instant grenades
Explosion height 2
Alien weapon self-destruction
Psionic line of fire

And perhaps most important: self imposed rule of no use of smoke grenades at all.

In the first game my European base was captured and I learnt a lesson about the safe use of rocket launchers in narrow corridors.
Second game with an North-American base my whole squad was wiped out on a terror mission. 5-6 Cyber disks was just too much, and I ran out of rockets and still had only basic weapons.
Third attempt with a base in Asia is going well so far:

Biggest setback so far was losing two promising soldiers on the night mission.
First terror mission was against Floaters and Reapers, the second against Septoids and CyberDisks. At both I was lucky and faced only about 13 enemies in daylight.

 

[Alienman]

I have compiled a couple of mods I have made and use for OpenXcom Extended with the Final Mod Pack for, in my opinion, the Ultimate X-com Experience™. This compilation include two mods that I have not created, but from my knowledge there is no other way to get them, in a quick workable way at least. Credit to cevaralien & Daedalus!

First you need OXCE.
Then you need to download FMP.
When that is done, it's time to install my little mod pack, which you can find here.

So, what does it all do, and why would you want to use this setup?

Well, OXCE is just OpenXcom expanded that allows for more features, and options.
FMP is the main mod, it's basically vanilla X-com, with that I mean it remains the same thematically. It just expands the game in several ways, like having more aliens, more weapons, crafts and armor.
Then to my little mod package that consists of four mods, which are:

Helmet Medals - This mod fixes an issue with unfinished commendation art. It replaces the placeholder graphics, and this is thanks to cevaralien on the OpenXcom forums. Unfortunately, he never compiled it as a mod, so I did.
Helmet Ufopedia - This is a mod I have made. It changes all the custom ufopaedia art to be "immersive", and actually fit the setting. All joke and anime stuff is gone.

Examples:

Spoiler

Helmet Sounds - Another mod pack I have made. This focuses on sound. It changes most of the weapon sounds, reloads and explosives. FMP use mostly uses vanilla sound effects, which is not the greatest. This fixes this issue, and hopefully enhances the game.

Examples:

Spoiler

HQSounds FMP - This is the last mod in the pack. It's not a mod made by me, and the reason I have included it in the pack instead of just providing a download link to it, is that it doesn't work with the latest version of FMP unmodified. I have fixed the issue, and decided to include it as a "complete package". It's another sound mod that I think compliment the one I have made very nicely, with enhanced death screams, impact sounds, etc. Credit goes to Daedalus!

----------------------------

Now to options, and settings!

As you might have noticed there are two extra mods activated in the picture – UFOextender: Psionic Line Of Fire, and Aliens Pick Up Weapons. These mods are included in the OpenXcom package, and as part of the ultimate X-com experience they should be activated. Having psionic require line of sight makes it a bit easier at parts, but I think it’s worth the reduced challenge because it removes the exploit/ez-mode of having your PSI-soldier mind-controlling aliens from the safety of the ship. The other mod has the aliens pick up weapons after waking up from being unconscious, making knocked out aliens still a threat.

• Retain interrogated aliens (you get to keep the corpse of the interrogated alien)
• Field promotions (only the agents on mission gets promoted)

• UFO Extender accuracy (accuracy drops of after distance)
• Inventory Stats (show stats when you equip your men)
• Explosion Height [3] (explosions explode in 3D, instead of a flat surface)
• Auto-end battle (ends the battle when the last alien have been killed)
• Smooth Bullet Camera (has the camera follow the bullet)
• Disable auto-equip (disables the auto-equip function)
• Alien weapon self-destruction (alien weapons self-destruct unless alien is captured/stunned, increases the challenge by a lot)
• Allow psi-capture (allows for capture through mindcontrol)
• Allow psi-Strength Improvement (has psi users increase their stats by using psi skills)

• Suppress panic messages for aliens (removes knowledge of panicking aliens, unless you have direct visual)
• Alien bleeding (aliens can now get deadly wounds and bleed out)
• Wounded defend [70] (lowered from 100% health to 70, so lightly wounded can join the defense)
• Play Briefing music longer (plays music during certain scenes longer)

---------------------------

That is everything for the Ultimate X-com Experience™. Enjoy, and good luck commander!

 

[Alienman]

I wonder if there's a mod that makes human psi line-of-sight but alien psi being able to be employed anywhere from anywhere. That would certainly balance it while keeping the aliens stronger still - which they should be ,being that they are an ancient race that forgot more about psionics as a science than we ever knew.

Yeah, that could be interesting, but I think it would still just degrade into a lot of meta gaming, like having low psi def soldiers as bait. If you could have a random effect on who they try to mindcontrol, it would fix it I guess. But I have no idea how to make a mod like that.

 

[Cael]

It is already bad enough in the original where people started using low psi baits just to get by.