X-COM OpenXcom Thread

[Average Manatee]

Tanks are super unreliable in OG XCOM due to the 0-200% damage range. They are way better in TFTD with 50-150%, especially since the AI can't autofire so you generally take max 1-2 shots per turn per alien.

 

[octavius]

I found myself not using them in TFTD due to their underwhelming offensive capabilities; either weak harpoons with too low chance to hit or torpedoes which can't be used in terror missions. And due to the contrived research system (which really punishes playing blind) I haven't got a chance to reserach better ones in my last game.

 

[Average Manatee]

I use them mostly as fast scouts that don't run out of stamina. It lets you clear those big UFO maps that otherwise end up taking 20 turns to flush out 6 aliens.

 

[Endemic]

Displacers are great, even if it takes a while to research them. Coelacanths I usually skip.

 

[Norfleet]

So, OpenXcom scales to level?
My tanks are getting progressively weaker, from virtually indestructable to not surviving being shot by a Septoid with a Plasma Pistol. Didn't lose one in my 20 or so first missions, but now I lose one on every mission. The last one took one step and was shot from an inhuman angle.

Enemy weapons get progressively stronger and more powerful. And more valuable. This means that the human tanks actually get better over time. The expensive hover-models don't do significantly better, but cost a hell of a lot more and NONE OF THEM HAVE FUCKING ROCKETS. Meanwhile, the El Generico Starter Rocket Tank just gets better and better. Sure, they die pretty easily, but their low cost (which essentially falls over the cost of the game because their cost remains static while the value of your loot sales increases) and ease of replacement (you just buy them and they arrive shortly, no lengthy production chains) means that they're ideal for scouting. Don't forget to use the rockets to scout, too!

 

[octavius]

I miss the demolition work, with squatters screaming, in TFTD.

 

[Humbaba]

Should I enable any of those mods?

 

[eXalted]

XPiratez Update

v.N1 29-Apr-2022 Every Day Is Caturday

• New Feature: Merged Nekomimi soldier race expansion by OAK Group & friends. Huge amount of content.
• New Feature: Ninja HQ. The first ninja base is different than the others now. It's much tougher, but also much less active, significantly curtailing Year 1 geoscape pressure (much less free-roaming interceptors, lessened score hits, player gets a fighting chance to carve some score back)
• New Enemies: Raider Sludger, Raider Flame Guard
• New Enemy Mission: Ninja Raid vs. Lokk'Naars
• New Mission: Raider Arms Factory
• New Weapons: Mutant MG, Pepper Pistol
• Glamour half-life increased from 7 to 9 turns; added some Glamour to certain missions vs. Factions.
• HMG and LMG can now be used as GR craft weapons
• Gfx improvements to paperdolls: Academy Nurse, Researcher, Medic, Engineer, Esper, Osiron Yeoman, Church Neophyte, Mutant Half-Uber, Brute, Lamia (by Interdictor w/ some slight modifications)
• More weapon sounds variety
• Bootypedia reforms
• Bugfixes

https://www.moddb.com/mods/x-pirate...iratez-n1-every-day-is-caturday#downloadsform

 

[lightbane]

There's that "Ashes" mod in the openmod webpage thing which I recommend to Codexers to try, as it seems to be quite a different experience. AAR are welcome.
Regarding Piratez, I don't understand the need to add interceptor ships back in Year 1, when your ships are barely fly-worthy, and you lack guns to boot. Or at least that's how it was a few IRL years ago.
Moreover, your ships used to have camouflage modules as an excuse to not worry about the interception system.

 

[octavius]

I got tired of my regular OpenXcom game, so I started a new game of TFTD.
I found the game more enjoyable without smoke grenades wankery (which is more difficult in TFTD since it's harder to find cover and the graphics lie about the height of obstacles) and with weapons from killed aliens disappearing, so I'm using the same settings in my current game. This time I'm more determined than ever (as long as it lasts) to play it true Ironman.
One of the results of this policy is "Rocket Launcher Incidents". Just look at what is the "Deadliest alien" I've faced:

 

[Cael]

I got tired of my regular OpenXcom game, so I started a new game of TFTD.
I found the game more enjoyable without smoke grenades wankery (which is more difficult in TFTD since it's harder to find cover and the graphics lie about the height of obstacles) and with weapons from killed aliens disappearing, so I'm using the same settings in my current game. This time I'm more determined than ever (as long as it lasts) to play it true Ironman.
One of the results of this policy is "Rocket Launcher Incidents". Just look at what is the "Deadliest alien" I've faced:

That is more a result of using a rocket launcher as a sniper weapon... :D

 

[octavius]

My current game of TFTD has been a bit of an upstream struggle.

Then this happened:

Spoiler

But I got a lucky break with a grounded Large ship filled with nice, squishy Alienman Gillmen.

One of the artifacts was a Sonic Cannon, so soon I'll have some decent fire power.

 

[octavius]

Hell, that ship terror mission in TFTD is bullshit! At least the freighter one, where there's undocumented design features (not just barrels) exploding everywhere, or even worse, barrels burning and than exploding. And the mission briefing tells you to save civilians, but there are none, so I could just have sat out the first turn in the Triton. This calls for a reload.

BTW, how bad must your rating be before it's "Poor"? I think I may have avoided Game Over by a close shave, after I failed to save Boston from a terror attack (tried to wait for dawn).

 

[Cael]

Hell, that ship terror mission in TFTD is bullshit! At least the freighter one, where there's undocumented design features (not just barrels) exploding everywhere, or even worse, barrels burning and than exploding. And the mission briefing tells you to save civilians, but there are none, so I could just have sat out the first turn in the Triton. This calls for a reload.

BTW, how bad must your rating be before it's "Poor"? I think I may have avoided Game Over by a close shave, after I failed to save Boston from a terror attack (tried to wait for dawn).

That targeting terror sites with multiple aircraft thing still work?

 

[lightbane]

Looks like there's been a shift in gameplay in both XCF and Piratez, by having air battles early. This looks a bit odd in XCF, as having cults possess aircraft breaks the whole "secrecy" thing. If it was regular trucks, armored convoys and such it would be fine, but later on it escalates to helicopters and legit combat planes, which is a bit too much for enemy factions that were supposed to be "entry level" threats, at least compared to the Men in Black, the Hybrids, and the alien themselves. What do you say, Solarius Scorch ? Also, how's the progress with the MIB faction? That's the clooest one so far IMO, but the percentage thing was removed some time ago.

 

[Alienman]

Hell, that ship terror mission in TFTD is bullshit! At least the freighter one, where there's undocumented design features (not just barrels) exploding everywhere, or even worse, barrels burning and than exploding. And the mission briefing tells you to save civilians, but there are none, so I could just have sat out the first turn in the Triton. This calls for a reload.

Cargo, and passenger ships I find to be an absolute pain. It's a cool concept, but after doing them 3000 times it gets a bit old. For some reason, the otherwise excellent mod The World of (Terrifying) Silence for TFTD is ruined a bit because of the focus for these type of missions.

 

[Average Manatee]

That targeting terror sites with multiple aircraft thing still work?

Yep, that "trick" is preserved in openxcom. As long as something is targeting a terror site (interceptors count), it won't despawn.

Hell, that ship terror mission in TFTD is bullshit! At least the freighter one, where there's undocumented design features (not just barrels) exploding everywhere, or even worse, barrels burning and than exploding. And the mission briefing tells you to save civilians, but there are none, so I could just have sat out the first turn in the Triton. This calls for a reload.

BTW, how bad must your rating be before it's "Poor"? I think I may have avoided Game Over by a close shave, after I failed to save Boston from a terror attack (tried to wait for dawn).

I'm not sure on what qualifies as OK/excellent/poor, but the formula for the cutoff at which you can lose the game is at the bottom of this page: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Scoring

I got tired of my regular OpenXcom game, so I started a new game of TFTD.
I found the game more enjoyable without smoke grenades wankery (which is more difficult in TFTD since it's harder to find cover and the graphics lie about the height of obstacles) and with weapons from killed aliens disappearing, so I'm using the same settings in my current game. This time I'm more determined than ever (as long as it lasts) to play it true Ironman.

I tried the alien weapon breaking thing once but came to not like it because banzai charges with stun rods end up being a net win because recruits are so cheap compared to alien weapons. Then as soon as you can research the stun launcher you're back to normal. Stun launcher is honestly the 2nd best weapon in TFTD anyway so being "forced" to use it isn't much of a drawback, but at the same time feels weird.

 

[octavius]

So how come in UFO Defense I can use Alien Grenades to blow up Proximity Grenades, but can't use the same trick in TFTD?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Looks like there's been a shift in gameplay in both XCF and Piratez, by having air battles early. This looks a bit odd in XCF, as having cults possess aircraft breaks the whole "secrecy" thing. If it was regular trucks, armored convoys and such it would be fine, but later on it escalates to helicopters and legit combat planes, which is a bit too much for enemy factions that were supposed to be "entry level" threats, at least compared to the Men in Black, the Hybrids, and the alien themselves. What do you say, Solarius Scorch ? Also, how's the progress with the MIB faction? That's the clooest one so far IMO, but the percentage thing was removed some time ago.

Wow I must be really out of loop with X-COM Files. Early airbattles? That's weird as hell.

 

[octavius]

So how come in UFO Defense I can use Alien Grenades to blow up Proximity Grenades, but can't use the same trick in TFTD?

It seems to work some times. It's a mystery.

 

[octavius]

So how is this possible?
A Deep One is spotted and Dinesh moves in position to snipe it.

Another guy is shot in the back as he rises up.

Where the hell did that shot come from?!? I've already used motion detectors in the area.

Somehow Dinesh avoided sighting a Deep One being in his FOV one square away?!? And the Deep One didn't take a shot at him either. So what gives?

 

[octavius]

Lost half my squad, but finally I completed one of those damned ship terror missions.

And finally a good monthly rating.

Now I just need some easy sub recovery missions to get experience for the rookies and more loot to sell.
But almost a month passed without sighting a single sub (I now have tree bases) when this happens:

Spoiler

 

[Average Manatee]

I think the door is the problem there. Dinesh doesn't see the Deep One originally, then after he turns he both closes the door and steps past it with one action, and you might only get to check for vision at the end of each action. At that point the Deep One is directly left of him and outside his vision cone. It's sort of the same logic for how if you spot an enemy then you can move one tile or make one shot before they can react, because reactions only happen after the end of one of your actions.

Maybe the alien didn't see him for the same reason or Dinesh was too high on the reactions/TU scale for it to be able to take a shot at him.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, that sounds right.
When stepping out through the door the alien appeared not when turning towards it, but it did when trying to move into the same square.

And the second ship was a night mission (you'd think it would make no difference inside a ship). It's suspicious how the site would disappear instantly if Patroling above it, even though it is not too far from All Your Base.
Now suddenly there are civilians milling about being shot, even though the ship layout is the same. And now there's lizards, mini disks and some big brutes to kill...I have a bad feeling about this...

 

[Endemic]

Now suddenly there are civilians milling about being shot, even though the ship layout is the same.

It's a terror mission, why wouldn't there be civilians on the ship? The difference is mostly whether you get a cargo ship or cruise liner, and the type of aliens present.

And now there's lizards, mini disks and some big brutes to kill...I have a bad feeling about this...

Bio-Drones are the cyberdisc equivalent. Pretty annoying when they explode and cause collateral damage, though you can avoid that by tasering them\using the thermal launcher.