In Progress Let's Play: The X-COM Files 0.8.7 Alpha!

[Average Manatee]

therwise, the tech tree viewer is your friend.

Welp, that helps a lot.

Somehow I managed to July without stumbling across any labs, I've almost unlocked Promotion 2.

In any case not really enjoying the mod. Almost 7 months and most of the missions are "kill 30 scorpions", "kill 25 zombies" and other crap. I sold a stack of 170 scorpions. Is the enemy progression just really slow or is it tied to researching stuff that I failed to get?

I seem to be locked behind finding some alien weapon. Alien missions seem to have stopped completely, am I boned? EDIT: NVM, Psiclone did it.

 

[lightbane]

Unfortunately the mission progression is not as polished as Piratez and has a boring, slightly repetitive start. I recommend you activate Debug mode because there will be missions from time to time that are unplayable for one reason or another (ie: Avoid "Gang Wars!", especially at higher difficulties). You also want to have dealt with at least 2 of the enemy cults by the start of the second year, or you'll be fucked royally due the increasing enemy forces and their scale.
Also, like Piratez, capturing is a MUST!!! Aliens are tricky now, even Sectoids, but necessary to unlock higher tech levels. Thankfully, Promotion 3 is no longer locked behind capturing live Sectoids, which helps a lot. In any case, try unlocking Black Ops weaponry ASAP, they'll be the best you have for a long time.

 

[Average Manatee]

The great change with Piratez is that captures are worth so much (both for research and forcash) that you have a good incentive to take risks and keep doing them. In X-Files it seems there's only specific aliens you need to capture once so far, and when doing dozens of missions with 20+ enemies each you'll get one almost automatically just from the bullet stun damage.

Can't really pick and choose where to intervene, my only funding is from end of month score. It would just be throwing away money. Unfortunately its really hard to gauge what missions give good or poor score. I rolled a mission with 1 enemy and like 12 civilians. An ally dog knocked out the enemy and without any action on my part I got a capture and 12 civilians saved. lol. Other times its a mission with dozens of both and you barely break even, but you gotta go or else the civilians die and you get big negatives.

 

[lightbane]

Like original XCOM and Piratez, getting a functional production line is a must. It takes up to Promotion 2 to do so in X-Files and even more to find something good to mass-produce, but they're there. Watch out though, stuff like Motion Scanners are no longer profitable, so you have to experiment a little. Alien Alloys are a good starter IMO.

 

[Darth Roxor]

 

[Average Manatee]

The great change with Piratez is that captures are worth so much (both for research and forcash) that you have a good incentive to take risks and keep doing them. In X-Files it seems there's only specific aliens you need to capture once so far, and when doing dozens of missions with 20+ enemies each you'll get one almost automatically just from the bullet stun damage.

I think Piratez it is easier even. You'll have melee gals with shields and fistycuffs have an 85 accuracy multiplier so once you have about 80 acc you can go nuts with them. They have something like 0.3, 0.4, strenght, melee damage with 35? percent stun. So when the mission ends you'll have like 3 stunned but bleeding bodies without even patching them up. Its trivial.

After 2 years or so? Sure, but I'm talking about the early game when you are grinding fairly easy encounters and slowly building up your starting base. You don't get effective armor in piratez for a long time, it's mostly the substantial health pool that keeps you alive and that means risky stuff often entails long medbay periods.

 

[lightbane]

Lack of playing interest this killed it. The beginning is a slog. It got better in recent versions, but it's still a chore. I recommend save-edit and give you enough Dollaros to start another base to cram it with scientists to speed things up.

 

[orcinator]

Lack of playing interest this killed it. The beginning is a slog. It got better in recent versions, but it's still a chore. I recommend save-edit and give you enough Dollaros to start another base to cram it with scientists to speed things up.

The legit way to get a cash boost early involves plopping your base somewhere in France to be as close as possible to the first month UFO landings and capturing them with the Mudranger. A guy I watched play it on a asia themed image board got lucky and had several UFOs land in range and he captured all of em, which gave him enough cash to plop down multiple command centers (or whatever they were called). He did this on veteran, I tried it on superhuman and it worked too (one agent survived though I didn't play as patiently as he did).

 

[lightbane]

This is still metagaming and borderline cheating though.

 

[orcinator]

This is still metagaming and borderline cheating though.

It's meta but then you have to earn that cash with rookie blood instead of editing a number.

 

[lightbane]

I'm not sure if capturing a few UFO gives you enough jewgold to build a second or third base with a Command Center, considering that thing costs 3 millions for 5 measly extra scientists. Even worse, pectoids are a real threat now with their shields. Also, even with extra science staff, the beginning still is a slog, as you must investigate lots of stuff to unlock a lab and get milliosn to build and staff it, for not to mention that unlike Piratez you're encouraged to check every mission, as they're your only source of money besides monthly wages at the start. At least now Hangars can hold storage space anda few Engineers, so you can start producing stuff to sell way earlier than before.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I'm down for some anal probing if you are still doing this. The Brazilian Slaughter

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I'm down for some anal probing if you are still doing this. The Brazilian Slaughter

Nice to see you guys miss my LP, that means you guys liked it.

Sorry, I abandoned it because my schedule is kind of hectic - I'm doing a C# Sharp and Visual Studio programming course now.
I still got some unposted updates. Gonna start with posting those.

Well, for starters, I need to update the mod.

 

[orcinator]

I'm not sure if capturing a few UFO gives you enough jewgold to build a second or third base with a Command Center, considering that thing costs 3 millions for 5 measly extra scientists.

You get a couple million per ship if you just sell everything, and you can hit 3-4 or even more ships if you're lucky enough.

 

[Average Manatee]

How the hell do you capture ships when you have 2-4 agents per squad though? I hit one back when I played the mod and fighting a dozen aliens is a bit of a no-no.

 

[orcinator]

How the hell do you capture ships when you have 2-4 agents per squad though? I hit one back when I played the mod and fighting a dozen aliens is a bit of a no-no.

As I said, you use the mudranger which has slots for 12 agents.

 

[Average Manatee]

Don't know if that was an option when I played.

 

[CappenVarra]

doing a C# Sharp and Visual Studio programming course at your age is close to futile, post some updates for our entertainment instead - mkay?