X-COM OpenXcom Thread

[Gostak]

OXCE has problems with the Raven mod STR_IMPROVED_INTERCEPTOR: wrong node type
also has probs with Support drones "the first battle corpse item must be of item type 'corpse'".
WTF I thought this was supposed to enhance modding capabilities, not hinder 'em ...

 

[Gostak]

Got those fixed, it appears it has less relaxed syntax strictness.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Been playing some more Piratez. My initial joy has turned mixed, because its clear this is very unfinished in several places.
Gotta admit, some of these combats against the Sky Ninjas are funny. I shoot an ol' tankbuster at a ninja's behind, a direct hit. Ninja spins around, shoots and kills all my gals, including the ones back at base. Probably just got a bad roll or something.
Sometime later, an ol' tankbuster hits one of my gals from behind, in Durathread armor. She spins around and kills that ninja. I'm starting to suspect the ol' tankbuster is a terrible weapon...

 

[Efe]

effective dmg would be 18-60
a trained gal should be able to take it

 

[eXalted]

I thought dio archived everything obsessively

Seriously, searching through the Discord showed so many tips and suggestions. Kinda sad it's all gone now. Searching for items/weapons to see if they are actually useful or just a meme was nice.

Is there a link to the next Matrix server or whatever that thing is?

 

[Efe]

you can ask baturinsky but he mentioned dio being hesistant to invite people

 

[Gumsmith]

Is there a link to the next Matrix server or whatever that thing is?

you can ask baturinsky but he mentioned dio being hesistant to invite people

It's open to the public nowadays https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,10381.0.html?PHPSESSID=7o9htrj30ss9ihnuj971ji17k3

 

[octavius]

So what is the usual strategy when building a new base?

1. Build a new one ASAP.

2. Wait a couple of months (hoard alien artifacts and spend half the budget on Research) and send half of your crack squad over to give the new base a good start.

3. Wait a couple of months and recruite a brand new squad.

1 is probably optimal, but I tend to gravitate towards 2.

 

[Average Manatee]

I build around the start of month 2 unless I'm somehow really low on funds, but it's only a radar + hanger base until I've got the world mostly covered in radar. I don't really bother managing multiple squads, if I put troops in a base for defense its just a bunch of greens with outdated equipment. And the only reason I'd bother defending a base is if my primary base is full and I want more space for manufacturing or filtering troops to create a perfect psi squad.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, after logging off last night I recalled that in my last playthrough of vanilla OpenXcom I built eight bases, but only built up three of them, the rest being unmanned radar installations.
IIRC I found out that one squad was not enough for all crash sites and for terror sites maybe not even within reach.
Also, playing Ironman I liked the idea of having some backup squads for worst case scenarios.

 

[Alienman]

I always love it when aliens attack your base, and you have to scramble every available soldier. Like that random rookie that only manage to grab a stun-rod, because he was on the shitter when the UFO landed

(Don't ask me why they keep stun-rods on the toilet)

 

[Endemic]

So what is the usual strategy when building a new base?

I wait until month 2, and gradually add to it with the funds from selling alien gear. A second squad really helps for covering the regions opposite your first base.

 

[Cael]

I always love it when aliens attack your base, and you have to scramble every available soldier. Like that random rookie that only manage to grab a stun-rod, because he was on the shitter when the UFO landed

(Don't ask me why they keep stun-rods on the toilet)

Stun rods make great toilet plungers.

Stick it in, turn it on, THOOOMM!!

 

[ArchAngel]

I build around the start of month 2 unless I'm somehow really low on funds, but it's only a radar + hanger base until I've got the world mostly covered in radar. I don't really bother managing multiple squads, if I put troops in a base for defense its just a bunch of greens with outdated equipment. And the only reason I'd bother defending a base is if my primary base is full and I want more space for manufacturing or filtering troops to create a perfect psi squad.

You don't want to put radar+hangar in same base. Aliens will search areas where you are shooting them down from and you don't want them to find your base that has more than aircraft in it.
Radar+production+research is best. Those will never be found by aliens except pure unluck. Put those around the world to have coverage and then have a few with just aircraft (+air defense) that you send to bring down enemy UFOs.

 

[Average Manatee]

I build around the start of month 2 unless I'm somehow really low on funds, but it's only a radar + hanger base until I've got the world mostly covered in radar. I don't really bother managing multiple squads, if I put troops in a base for defense its just a bunch of greens with outdated equipment. And the only reason I'd bother defending a base is if my primary base is full and I want more space for manufacturing or filtering troops to create a perfect psi squad.

You don't want to put radar+hangar in same base. Aliens will search areas where you are shooting them down from and you don't want them to find your base that has more than aircraft in it.
Radar+production+research is best. Those will never be found by aliens except pure unluck. Put those around the world to have coverage and then have a few with just aircraft (+air defense) that you send to bring down enemy UFOs.

I'm pretty sure shooting down UFOs in general is what causes aliens to search for bases and they'll search throughout the whole continent anyway. Can't really hide aircraft on another continent and still have good defense coverage in most cases.

I've never built base defenses, seems like a waste. You don't get loot and the chance of stopping the invasion is low unless you really spam them. + if you are shooting down enough UFOs they don't detect you. Early game your losses are minimal and when you get plasma cannons you can shoot down everything except possibly battleships.

 

[ArchAngel]

I build around the start of month 2 unless I'm somehow really low on funds, but it's only a radar + hanger base until I've got the world mostly covered in radar. I don't really bother managing multiple squads, if I put troops in a base for defense its just a bunch of greens with outdated equipment. And the only reason I'd bother defending a base is if my primary base is full and I want more space for manufacturing or filtering troops to create a perfect psi squad.

You don't want to put radar+hangar in same base. Aliens will search areas where you are shooting them down from and you don't want them to find your base that has more than aircraft in it.
Radar+production+research is best. Those will never be found by aliens except pure unluck. Put those around the world to have coverage and then have a few with just aircraft (+air defense) that you send to bring down enemy UFOs.

I'm pretty sure shooting down UFOs in general is what causes aliens to search for bases and they'll search throughout the whole continent anyway. Can't really hide aircraft on another continent and still have good defense coverage in most cases.

I've never built base defenses, seems like a waste. You don't get loot and the chance of stopping the invasion is low unless you really spam them. + if you are shooting down enough UFOs they don't detect you. Early game your losses are minimal and when you get plasma cannons you can shoot down everything except possibly battleships.

That is what people with much more experience said. I then did this with bases and never had problems. They also never attacked my main base because aircraft from main base only attacked some of the enemy ones.

 

[Average Manatee]

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Alien_Retaliation

According to this hiding the source of the aircraft does very little on higher difficulties (74% chance they search from where the aircraft was launched on superhuman) and the best strategy is just totally shooting down everything, which seems to concur with what I've found.

 

[ArchAngel]

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Alien_Retaliation

According to this hiding the source of the aircraft does very little on higher difficulties (74% chance they search from where the aircraft was launched on superhuman) and the best strategy is just totally shooting down everything, which seems to concur with what I've found.

Well that is what I said, since they look at place where it was launched from, you don't want to have anything in that base except aircraft. And I only played on Superhuman.

 

[Average Manatee]

Sorry, I misread and thought you were trying to misdirect the retaliation the other way around. Still not convinced that splitting up bases like that is a good idea since it costs a lot to build double the bases and means your aircraft take a lot longer to respond from far away.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sorry, I misread and thought you were trying to misdirect the retaliation the other way around. Still not convinced that splitting up bases like that is a good idea since it costs a lot to build double the bases and means your aircraft take a lot longer to respond from far away.

Range of aircraft is bigger than range of radars.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Well that is what I said, since they look at place where it was launched from, you don't want to have anything in that base except aircraft. And I only played on Superhuman.

Seems like an extremely retarded counter measure since the aircrafts are expensive and long to build later on so they're the assets you want to protect the most.
Having radar bases with nothing on it is not going to save your hangar bases.

My strategy is to build a second radar base as soon as possible but then turn it into a functional secondary base and then (or in the meantime) build a third radar base which, in turn, will also be manned and get hangars.

Difficulty table
Difficulty Beginner Experienced Veteran Genius Superhuman
Chance to trigger Retaliation per interception 4% 8% 12% 16% 20%
Chance Retaliation targets interceptor's home base 50% 56% 62% 68% 74%
Latest month at which scheduled Retaliation begins Mar 2000 Feb 2000 Jan 2000 Dec 1999 Nov 1999
Notes

• None of the UFOs performing Alien Retaliation will land. This can be diagnostic of Retaliation activity if X-Com lacks Hyper-Wave Decoders, and also means that UFO Ground Assault is impossible; X-Com must shoot down Retaliation scouts in order to perform UFO Crash Recovery.
• To distinguish between Battleships that are merely acting as scouts for an Alien Retaliation, and those that are on an attack run, pay attention to their flight patterns. A Battleship on a scouting mission will arrive in the targetted zone at Very High altitude and top speed, and then slow down to much lower speeds to perform several passes at Very Low altitude. A Battleship on an attack run will immediately descend to Very Low altitude, and charge straight for the base at a full 5000 knots. This means that an attacking Battleship can only be shot down by an Avenger.
• There is a design oversight in the code that monitors whether an X-Com base has been found and is due for an attacking Battleship. A flag in XBASES.DAT is set when a scouting UFO detects the base, which triggers a routine to spawn a Battleship on an attack run. The flag is removed when a Base Defence mission occurs - and only when that mission occurs. Shooting down the Battleship, or destroying it with Base Defence Systems, will not remove the flag, causing another Battleship to attack a few days later. This will never end until a Battleship is allowed to invade the base.

Also, the wiki source mentions the retaliation flag is only removed when a ground assault on your base is launched so it's clear the best way to keep your bases safe is to man every base you care about and not dilute too much.

 

[Average Manatee]

Sorry, I misread and thought you were trying to misdirect the retaliation the other way around. Still not convinced that splitting up bases like that is a good idea since it costs a lot to build double the bases and means your aircraft take a lot longer to respond from far away.

Range of aircraft is bigger than range of radars.

It takes a long time to fly to other continents and you are gonna spend a whole day refueling if you need to make another interception.

Well that is what I said, since they look at place where it was launched from, you don't want to have anything in that base except aircraft. And I only played on Superhuman.

Seems like an extremely retarded counter measure since the aircrafts are expensive and long to build later on so they're the assets you want to protect the most.
Having radar bases with nothing on it is not going to save your hangar bases.

My strategy is to build a second radar base as soon as possible but then turn it into a functional secondary base and then (or in the meantime) build a third radar base which, in turn, will also be manned and get hangars.

Also, the wiki source mentions the retaliation flag is only removed when a ground assault on your base is launched so it's clear the best way to keep your bases safe is to man every base you care about and not dilute too much.

I'm going to assume OpenXcom fixes that bug but yeah, that's why no one ever used defenses in Xcom circa 1994-2010.

I try to get radar bases building on all continents by month 3-4ish, with at least one hanger and aircraft ASAP. I never post expensive aircraft outside the main base because it's pretty much unnecessary. Plasma beams and avalanches outrange everything but battleships so your basic interceptors can handle them fine (and you only need 1 plasma beam to do so). For battleships all you have to do is send your 2 avengers from the main base in first to tank then have all the interceptors line up right behind it to quickly DPS it down, and Avengers of course are fast enough to quickly get anywhere on the planet before interceptors.

Nice thing about Interceptors is that their order cost = their maintenance cost so if a base is destroyed the replacement is kind of "free" since you just re-build the hanger and then order one again next month.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sorry, I misread and thought you were trying to misdirect the retaliation the other way around. Still not convinced that splitting up bases like that is a good idea since it costs a lot to build double the bases and means your aircraft take a lot longer to respond from far away.

Range of aircraft is bigger than range of radars.

It takes a long time to fly to other continents and you are gonna spend a whole day refueling if you need to make another interception.

Well that is what I said, since they look at place where it was launched from, you don't want to have anything in that base except aircraft. And I only played on Superhuman.

Seems like an extremely retarded counter measure since the aircrafts are expensive and long to build later on so they're the assets you want to protect the most.
Having radar bases with nothing on it is not going to save your hangar bases.

My strategy is to build a second radar base as soon as possible but then turn it into a functional secondary base and then (or in the meantime) build a third radar base which, in turn, will also be manned and get hangars.

Also, the wiki source mentions the retaliation flag is only removed when a ground assault on your base is launched so it's clear the best way to keep your bases safe is to man every base you care about and not dilute too much.

I'm going to assume OpenXcom fixes that bug but yeah, that's why no one ever used defenses in Xcom circa 1994-2010.

I try to get radar bases building on all continents by month 3-4ish, with at least one hanger and aircraft ASAP. I never post expensive aircraft outside the main base because it's pretty much unnecessary. Plasma beams and avalanches outrange everything but battleships so your basic interceptors can handle them fine (and you only need 1 plasma beam to do so). For battleships all you have to do is send your 2 avengers from the main base in first to tank then have all the interceptors line up right behind it to quickly DPS it down, and Avengers of course are fast enough to quickly get anywhere on the planet before interceptors.

Nice thing about Interceptors is that their order cost = their maintenance cost so if a base is destroyed the replacement is kind of "free" since you just re-build the hanger and then order one again next month.

I don't have a clue what you are talking about. You have one hangar facility per continent but you can have as many radar bases as you want. You fill radar bases with production facilities that build and sell stuff for you and with research. Those will never get touched by enemy.
You fill Hangar bases with Base defenses and soldiers if you want. It is a simple tactic, I don't understand why are you all so confused.

 

[Average Manatee]

You can only have 8 bases max, 6 of those are needed to cover continents (7 if you count Antarctica). Also AFAIK aliens will assault any base they detect, and they'll search the whole continent that your hanger base is from. If you have both bases on the same continent then you're just doubling up on the chances of a base being detected before you shoot down the UFO.

 

[ArchAngel]

You can only have 8 bases max, 6 of those are needed to cover continents (7 if you count Antarctica). Also AFAIK aliens will assault any base they detect, and they'll search the whole continent that your hanger base is from. If you have both bases on the same continent then you're just doubling up on the chances of a base being detected before you shoot down the UFO.

That is just not my experience.