X-COM OpenXcom Thread

[Damned Registrations]

Recently discovered the x-piratez mod. My new favourite game. Missions, weapons, strategies, tactics, all have massive variety, and it's balanced well enough to be incentives to not just do one thing over and over. Even when I lose some of my best units in this game, I can't even stay mad because the mission structure was such a novel experience. Coming after trying to get into Xenonauts it's such a breath of fresh air, cured my 'maybe I just don't like games anymore' ennui.

 

[overtenemy]

hardware

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'm not even sure if that thing is OP or not to be honest. I've been playing totally blind on supermutant difficulty with ironman saves. Had a ton of initial false starts, then finally got a run going that lasted a few years once I learned how to manage infamy and tech to primitive interceptors sooner. That run has more or less fallen apart though (wasted a bunch of time after getting complacent and then got all my best Gals wiped in some ill-prepared missions vs enemy bases and a stargod landing site.)

Latest run seems to be going well, trying some new stuff and doing a better job of beelining the rights techs and investing in a second base earlier, but have had worse luck in general (facing more raiders and less hapless loot pinatas.)

If my current run goes tits up (or I win, but I suspect that to be less likely and might take a month or more IRL) I think I'll do a LP of it and name the characters and take some strategic advise and such. Still having a blast. Playing a game like this blind is just heaven for me. Constant drip of happy brain chems when I figure out new stuff, woven between spikes of panic and relief when new threats are discovered and dealt with.

 

[overtenemy]

You're going to have to play quite abit to beat it in but a month, brother. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll make it before I die.

Since you're playing blind and ironman I'll refrain from saying much but a few things bear mentioning. Using the in game ironman has potential to fuck you. The game's length is extreme and losing yours to a bug down the road would be devastating and the possibility is definitely there.

I've mentioned about the informative tips the game gives you from researching discs, prisoners, grrl guides, etc. These contain good info on both mechanics and UI that I guess I won't spoil, but to my knowledge there is no entry that details the entirety of the armor damage system. If you're not familiar with it already from Openxcom it's good to read about. You can't call it spoilery because as you can see in the second screenshot I posted, the game freely gives you all of the information. You just need to know what you're reading. In this example, a 50% armor pre-damage multiplier is very crazy.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think the info is in there from the tips I've gotten it's just broken up into pieces. From what I've put together so far, the pre damage multi reduces the enemy armour stat before actually dealing the damage. And it seems to do so with a separate RNG roll from the damage itself. So the above weapon reduces armour by 30-90 points on hit (or perhaps 0-120, not sure if it matches the weapon spread, my experiments have been limited so far, but mind probes are a great tool for checking. There seems to be some sort of threshold or something as well, based on the fact that not all hits that can deal armour damage will. Or it's just keep track of decimals and only displaying the armour damage when it rolls an integer over.) and then deals damage to hp in the same hit with a different roll. And the damage calcluation factors in the resistance multiplier of the armour before the flat reduction, so a 50% cut resistance armour with 90 frontal armour can just outright shrug off a 180 damage cutting attack from the front.

Still some mechanical details I'm fuzzy on, but again, mind probe is a great tool for checking stuff and I plan to exploit it. Learning that stuff on my own makes me happier for some reason. It's funny because I used to enjoy reading about it too back before wikis and such existed. Maybe it feels too easy these days, whereas before it felt like a task in and of itself to find such details by trawling through some 600 page walkthrough on GameFAQs or an unsearchable forum.

And yeah, I fully expect to eat shit and die from a bug at some point. For a lot of games I'd keep backups for that purpose, but I've found this game is so replayable the prospect doesn't even bother me that much. Would be the least satisfying way to lose, but I've still got a couple dozen "What if I tried doing it this way?" plans floating around in my head regarding the first month of gameplay. Haven't even tried all the starting locations yet, and some of them do crazy stuff. Turan, Thebes, Romanica and Fuso are my top picks for a restart after I finish trying new countries out. Also maybe Death Lands again. Location feels like it influences the types of missions you tend to recieve early on, and a more primitive monster hunt focused run would be awesome. Feels like a shame there are so many primitive weapons that become obsolete before the game even starts. I assume some previous versions didn't start you off with the old earth lab or such easy access to guns and aircraft.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Welp, so much for that run. Inexplicably couldn't unlock some key tech, and some of the optional stuff seemed very weak compared to other choices I've made before. No matter. Going to start up the LP run. If you want a soldier of some sort or want to suggest the starting location, come visit the playground! No spoilers please if you've played before.

 

[overtenemy]

ITS MINE
Spoilers hence, you are warned

hueg spoiler

 

[oasis789]

new xpiratez is out https://www.moddb.com/mods/x-piratez/downloads/dioxine-xpiratez-n6-03-oct-2023-zany-cats

v.N6 03-Oct-2023 Zany Cats
- OXCE update to 7.9.10
- Fix: Cydonia mission button launch not appearing
- Fix: Battle Cab added to lists of allowed crafts in various envinros
- Fix: Cat Oni Armor: special attack can be made without VSKL requirement, also added the missing gauntlet
- Fix: Added missing gauntlet attack to Neko Peacemaker Gear (and Termicator bc. they use same built-in wpn.)
- Fix: Region data leaks from the original game files causing Geoscape crashes (hopefully they stop now)
- New Missions: Demon Bait (4 variants), UAC Shelter
- New Enemy: UAC Security Drone
- New Craft: Firefox (by Solarius Scorch)
- New Craft Weapon: Nekomimi Prowler Cannon
- New Craft System: Hellerium Supercell
- New Armor: Flycat (For Catgirls, based on original design of 'Catnapper' armor by Miz Mayhem)
- New Weapons: Nekomimi Marksman Laser (by Solarius Scorch), Cursed Rifle, Mega Ax (Blood Orb, Gold Codex), Hellfist (Blood Orb, Red & Gray Codex)
- New Path: Cats 4 Life.
- New gfx: improved Blood Hound (by Mikkoi)
- New features: Slave Soldiers and Peasants have distinct names and flags based on the place of recruitment (based on expansion by OAK group, implementation made in cooperation with Solarius Scorch).
- Lessened February score hits caused by bandit activity
- Witch Quest frequency increased
- Small rework of Drakkar map. Also Drakkar got its own sprite (by AlexD)
- Statistical bullet saving added to most of the light craft cannons
- Some rebalancing to Beam Laser (buff) and Plasma Beam (bit less range, bit more acc)
- Beast den +5 animals cap (now 30)
- Repentias and Weirdgals enhanced
- Swiftsuit: scouting goggles added
- Car/AGL weapon buffs
- Most ballistic and some other pistols have their long range ACC penalties increased
- Smart Pistol even faster, but has lower Snap range; gfx updated
- 'Mutant Porn' changed to 'Zany Zines' to better fit what kind of resource it's supposed to be
- New music theme for Red Mage events
- GMTACTIC4 replaced
- New city: Marrakesh
- More events
- Tech tree polishing, minor weapon/armor tweaks, other adjustments
- More hidden movement backgrounds
- Minor fixes (maps etc)

 

[Damned Registrations]

- New Path: Cats 4 Life.

Well shit, guess I've got to start the LP over from scratch, that's clearly the best option.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

- New Path: Cats 4 Life.

Well shit, guess I've got to start the LP over from scratch, that's clearly the best option.

It's a never ending cycle.

 

[Average Manatee]

There's gotta be some kind of downside to that

 

[Damned Registrations]

There's gotta be some kind of downside to that

The ends will justify the means!

(I suspect the actual drawback is needing to hold off on the recruitmet tech until you actually have a catgirl, which could take quite a while. Would make for a very rough start.)

 

[Average Manatee]

Aside from the two countries that start with one.

 

[eXalted]

Ah, shit.

Here we go again.

New Game.


I was checking just 2 days ago if there is a new version

 

[Jaedar]

How hard is it to migrate saves?
Although I guess it is not huge changes so might not be worthwhile. Crash fix sounds good, but I also haven't had any crashes.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

How hard is it to migrate saves?
Although I guess it is not huge changes so might not be worthwhile. Crash fix sounds good, but I also haven't had any crashes.

Sometimes impossible, depending on versions.

 

[Gumsmith]

How hard is it to migrate saves?
Although I guess it is not huge changes so might not be worthwhile. Crash fix sounds good, but I also haven't had any crashes.

Very easy in my experience, you just move the saves from one user folder to the other, but it does often break battlescape saves so make sure the files you want to use are on the geoscape.

It can create quirks like being able to research something you shouldn't but usually nothing major.

 

[lightbane]

There's gotta be some kind of downside to that

It's impossible to acquire right now due bugs, and even assuming it works, to recruit catgirls, you have to hold on to the "who to recruit?" research path until you research certain comms tech, which will take a while, making it a very rough start indeed.

Also, according to the currently impossibility of the Catgirl path due bugs, Dioxine has to say this.

Spoiler

I made this whole path in one evening while drunk.

Best dev. Didn't he stop posting in the openxcom forums after the wokes sabotaged the Discord servers though? I guess he's back.

I'm torn between playing Piratez or XFiles, both are waaaay too long games.
For now I tried these two mods meant to be short:

https://mod.io/g/openxcom/m/unexcom-directorate-17

https://mod.io/g/openxcom/m/unexcom-bureau-11

I'm not sure if these two can be finished, especially the first one, which has special game overs at least, but no idea about a final mission. No idea about the second one.

 

[Efe]

getting cats 4 life does not give you ability to recruit catgirls immediately
edit: there is a newer version on moddb that fixes it and I was suffering for no reason

 

[Jaedar]

For xpiratez, is there a way to check how a craft looks/functions on the battlescape before buying/researching it? The tech tree viewer shows all the other specs, but what I really want to know is how many windows/lamps/exit options it has.

 

[AgentFransis]

For xpiratez, is there a way to check how a craft looks/functions on the battlescape before buying/researching it? The tech tree viewer shows all the other specs, but what I really want to know is how many windows/lamps/exit options it has.

Quick Battle in the main menu. You can select any craft and mission.

 

[Jaedar]

For xpiratez, is there a way to check how a craft looks/functions on the battlescape before buying/researching it? The tech tree viewer shows all the other specs, but what I really want to know is how many windows/lamps/exit options it has.

Quick Battle in the main menu. You can select any craft and mission.

Man, why do all the codex crafts I have access to have so many suicide lights? Either directly on disembarking or allow disembarking in shadow but not moving away from the craft. Seems like suicide on night missions compared to the airbus, and the airbus has so many windows to get shot through it's not even funny.

 

[Covenant]

For xpiratez, is there a way to check how a craft looks/functions on the battlescape before buying/researching it? The tech tree viewer shows all the other specs, but what I really want to know is how many windows/lamps/exit options it has.

Quick Battle in the main menu. You can select any craft and mission.

Man, why do all the codex crafts I have access to have so many suicide lights? Either directly on disembarking or allow disembarking in shadow but not moving away from the craft. Seems like suicide on night missions compared to the airbus, and the airbus has so many windows to get shot through it's not even funny.

Dioxine has a noticeable aversion to making craft that are actually good; the best you'll get is different flavours of 'not terrible', or, more likely 'only the one crippling flaw'. That's why it's pretty common to see people use a decent early craft (e.g. the Jellyfish) well into the Higher Studies era.

 

[Average Manatee]

Airtruck is really, really well designed and can be beelined for quite early. Can threaten ~320 degrees around the ship while still safely ending your turn back in the ship, and even the front is safe from snipers because you can stand atop the lift.

Otherwise I agree. Aside from the suicide lights I can't take craft with <8 crew seriously. At least two 4 man fireteams is what I want to run unless the mission is a total cakewalk. And with how XP works in Xpiratez more spots means more gains. e.g. when I unlock skyranger I just throw anywhere from 2 to 8 retards in the back in the nude, their morale drops and they gain bravery + all the general stats like TUs/Str/Stamina/HP. Pays off when your newbies become 95+ TU gods by the time you actually need them.

 

[Jaedar]

Jellyfish

I tried this, I find it to be a deathtrap. You start up in a lit area, and enemies don't. The floors can be shot through even when you can't take the lift down and due to lighting difference and lines of sight its easier to be shot through the floor than it is to shoot through it.
I switched to the shadowbat, which also has many egregious flaws, but it's also really hard to shoot into.