X-COM OpenXcom Thread

[lightbane]

Supposedly intercepting and forcing to crash too many ships eventually spawns a retaliation force, but I'm not sure. The mod looks awesome, but I'll wait a while until the 1.0 version is released.

 

[Alienman]

Make sure not to down government ships also.

 

[Jaedar]

Make sure not to down government ships also.

How can I tell which ships are government ships before hand?

I shot down an elongated blue ship, and realized I got negative score for everyone I killed there, so I stopped shooting them down and raiding landed ones, but how can I tell before I've already fucked up?

Managed to take down a landed reticulan ship today. The single mechtoid claimed many battleSistuhs, before finally succumbing to a combination of panzerfaust, chainsawing, and boarding gun. Even got lucky and managed to snag a live engineer.

 

[lightbane]

I believe guvernor ships have police-style lights IIRC, but that's not always the case. However, that doesn't mean you can't raid them: you can research their stuff and interrogate any prisoners you make, as usual.

 

[Korgan 2.0]

I really love Piratez. Had a really stressful mission with one gal having to scramble up a highrise building, grab the RPG of a killed academy guy there, and take out the two invincible fucking cyberdisks that were cruising above a highway just outside. I dumped a lot of plasteel MG ammo into one's bottom, to no effect, but the RPG one-shot them.

... and now I can make a looted cyberdisk with an HMG! Fuck yeah.

Also base defenses here are AWESOME. The base has really cool grafix and 4-5 levels, so you can launch ambushes anywhere AND attack simultaneously from the maintenance passages above and the radioactive tunnels on the bottom. Was lucky enough to stun a power-armored guildmaster even.

Re: melee - some mission, don't know which one, dropped a fuso sword and I've been using it one one of my gals, it's pretty lethal. Can 1shot a reaper.

 

[orcinator]

I had an early base invasion too but it went okay as I threw explosives at the enemy (being able to throw a bomb straight into an elevator shaft and having a door protecting my gal from retaliation is nice) then a guy with the plasma burner went berserk.

Now it's the end of June and I'll soon have hyperwave decoders built but the girls are still using basic gear and relying on grenade launchers to reliably kill armored dudes since I don't want to use up all my captured gauss ammo and the plasma guns I got from that base defense aren't researched yet. Haven't engaged in air combat in months but I don't want to sell the Bonnie since I really need the extra speed. Just want to wait for more research to finish but I still need to get money, wish I didn't sell half my apples.

Haven't bothered with slavery, do you just enslave someone and instantly get extra space or do you have to do something with the slave you get?


Also did anyone do a mission in a pink desert? There was some creature or effect that made a weird noise and knocked out the enemies wandering in the sand and left my units alone, though I might have just been lucky.


update: aw fuck it's another TFTD terror map, wish the mod would use some of the less annoying user made maps.

 

[Lucky]

http://openxcom.org/2016/04/the-ninex-info-server-team-is-once-again-in-need-of-your-help-6/

The server team for the OpenXcom (and UFO: Alien Invasion) website is doing a donation drive again. They'll pay the server costs themselves if need be, but it's still worth pitching in a bit to keep one of the worthier modding sites floating.

Spoiler

The server is currently hosting Two projects: “UFO: Alien Invasion,” and “OpenXcom.”
To continue providing hosting services we will need to raise funds for the coming year, to pay for both the service and possibly some new hardware, or a new server computer altogether, especially if such services are to be provided free of advertisements on the project websites.

In addition to the two projects mentioned, we also host additional programming and development tools for the community, including a snapshot autobuilder for OpenXcom, and a buildbot for UFO: Alien Invasion.
We also welcome new projects that are freely available and preferably open-source in nature, and hope to continue to provide tools for the community to grow, but we will need your help and support to do so.

Please consider a donation for our cause, which you can give via the following link:

---

We sincerely thank you for any support you provide.

 

[kyrub]

The latest version 0.98F has totally changed the game. It's a brutal survival, especially if you play Ironman.

The main change is the lack of the Bonaventura ship at your disposition. You start with Airbus and you are limited to just 6 troopers (or 5 + parrot as I prefer). Bonny has to be researched... Also the vision has increased to 40 tiles, so no more safe shooting from distance.

What a game! It challenges the original X-COM in innovation and immersion. The only downsides are the cluttered menus and the hyper-gargantuan length. But if you actually don't care if you reach the final mission and just enjoy the moment... wow.

 

[ArchAngel]

I hated that nuXcom and Xenonauts reduced soldiers per mission to pathetic numbers, so I already hate this change even without ever playing this mod.

 

[Average Manatee]

The main change is the lack of the Bonaventura ship at your disposition. You start with Airbus and you are limited to just 6 troopers (or 5 + parrot as I prefer). Bonny has to be researched

heh, looks like I was practicing ahead of time with my "sell the bonny on day 1 for cash" strat. Sad that I'll be missing out on something like 1.2M cash though.

 

[Jaedar]

What a game! It challenges the original X-COM in innovation and immersion. The only downsides are the cluttered menus and the hyper-gargantuan length. But if you actually don't care if you reach the final mission and just enjoy the moment... wow.

Yeah. I also dislike the random tech aspects of it. Some really good stuff is gated behind things you can only get by luck when you interrogate someone (and the ratio of useful tech to meaningless fluff is not very impressive).

 

[orcinator]

Did they make the endgame harder as well? One of the big factors is that since enemies will still use regular guns even after you get power armor, making some missions against the major powers and all missions against certain lesser races and automatic victory since nothing can hurt you. And then there's the BFG.


The extra sight range will be a huge pain on the first turn since you can't close the exit ramps on your ships but after that you should stick to the smoke clouds like before, those spring aliens with the high reactions should...

 

[Average Manatee]

Interesting. Isn't 40 tiles basically the whole map (assuming no LoS blockers)? It's a huge buff to smoke at long range, but might be a huge nerf to smoke at short range. Normally smoke protects you from sight so long as you are about 5-6 tiles from the enemy, if that goes up to 10-12 tiles then smoke becomes really, really weak. And since smoke grenade radius doesn't even reach that far you'll be spotted more like 15+ tiles away unless you carpetbomb the whole area with smoke ahead of time (which kind of defeats the point of smoke).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Some saint is taking a look at the Android port code to port Open X-COM Extended mods like X-PirateZ and The X-COM Files (aka FMP+). The Lord's work, men. May he suceed

keep me updated, and if he will, i'll have my seventhborn son named after you.

edit: no, wait, i lost my job, i don't need this anymore.

 

[NeoKino]

OpenXcom mods you should totally try!

Most of you guys are already familliar with FMP and Sexy bikini Space Pirate fun time mods from the looks of it so I'm going to give a basic rundown of two decent expansion mods, sadly they are currently incomplete.

Area 51: http://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/board,19.0.html
Overview- Area 51 is a mod that seeks to add more variety to Basic Xcom. not only there is more weapons they are also new mission parameters like VIP escort and Civilian rescuing that tries to break the monotony of shooting a UFO down them after a couple of months a terror mission blah blah rinse and repeat until you capture and Alien commander and reader to storm Cydonia. Not only that it also includes more weapons, a rebalanced Research development system and the same sort of new maps you would fine in Final Mod Pack and new aliens; with the overlord being exclusive to it.
Pros: More mission variety, New content fits very well with the game and don't feel to other place, It wont overwhelm you with crap like FMP does.
Cons: New weapons can be more inspired, New aliens don't do much to differentiate themselves from the old rabble.

Hardmode Expansion: http://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3550.0.htm
Overview- Hardmode Expansion is for the guys who though "Xcom is way too Easy", It completely ups the difficulty. Missions are harder with more enemy placement, new aliens are added, and some aliens got upgraded variants with new tools to annoy commanders. Think of hovering above Chrysalids? nope spitter varaints will fuck yo' shit. Research has been balance to take way longer and be more costly and demanding, and common exploits like Psi has been significantly nerfed. New equipment have been added as an equilizer, but it is still incredibly hard. It makes TFTD look like a complete joke and Piratez babies first TBS. New maps are the same fare you would expect from Final Mod Pack.
Pros: Challenging, pretty truthful to the base game, new weapons fit the game very well.
Cons: cheap difficulty, makes annoying rng mechanics much worst.

 

[Average Manatee]

I tried hardmode expansion awhile back and it was just stupid as fuck. I don't think the guy knows how the psi equations work because he had sectoids with a 100% chance (not guessing, I checked the stats and ran through the formula) to mind control most of your soldiers from half way across the map. Instant game over when you get base attacked in the early game and are fighting 3+ of them.

On top of that the aliens all had like 90+ bravery and lots of them had a flat 100 which made them unpanickable, so you can't even go balls-to-the-wall offensive trying to just kill a dozen in the first 2 turns and leave the rest panicking, which is the usual best way to survive vs. psi early on in vanilla.

 

[Mustawd]

I wonder if you're confined to the original X-com's resolution when it comes to creating custom art assets. Would love to spend some time on an HD remake or something.

 

[lightbane]

The main change is the lack of the Bonaventura ship at your disposition. You start with Airbus and you are limited to just 6 troopers (or 5 + parrot as I prefer). Bonny has to be researched

heh, looks like I was practicing ahead of time with my "sell the bonny on day 1 for cash" strat. Sad that I'll be missing out on something like 1.2M cash though.

This seems to be the only strategy to follow now. I made a quick test to see how that airbus played... And well, it's a joke. That thing won't catch anything and the early game doesn't fit well with the greatly reduced number of soldiers pirates you start with now: 5 gals are way too few when you are expected to (ab)use smoke grenades and use zerg rush tactics with hammers, swords and the like. Perhaps the 1.0 version will make this a separate gamemode. We'll see.

 

[Jaedar]

The main change is the lack of the Bonaventura ship at your disposition. You start with Airbus and you are limited to just 6 troopers (or 5 + parrot as I prefer). Bonny has to be researched

heh, looks like I was practicing ahead of time with my "sell the bonny on day 1 for cash" strat. Sad that I'll be missing out on something like 1.2M cash though.

This seems to be the only strategy to follow now. I made a quick test to see how that airbus played... And well, it's a joke. That thing won't catch anything and the early game doesn't fit well with the greatly reduced number of soldiers pirates you start with now: 5 gals are way too few when you are expected to (ab)use smoke grenades and use zerg rush tactics with hammers, swords and the like. Perhaps the 1.0 version will make this a separate gamemode. We'll see.

The airbus doesn't have weapons or weapon mounts unless I'm mistaken. It's not supposed to catch anything. Instead, the game generates warehouse raids and the like for you to go on.

But yeah, original x-com with 6 dude cap is... weird. The skyranger has more slots and somehow costs 75k less, but I don't think you can buy the chemicals needed for fuel at start. Still, one should trade airbus for skyranger asap.

 

[Average Manatee]

The airbus doesn't have weapons or weapon mounts unless I'm mistaken. It's not supposed to catch anything. Instead, the game generates warehouse raids and the like for you to go on.

Hmm? That's interesting. I assume those are lower-difficulty missions of some sort?

If the devs have pushed back the difficulty curve by 2-3 months along with the similar level of nerf to players then it could work. Piratez has always been about weirdness, so starting you in a weird position rather than the comfortable X-Com position (multiple fighters, 14+ crew members all with good weapons, lots of research and funding) is acceptable.

Still, I did fine with a 9 soldier cap but a 6 soldier cap is 50% more work that needs to be done per soldier. Seems excessive unless the early missions are pretty heavily nerfed (better not be any invincible power armor fuckers that take 10 shots and 3 grenades to go down).

 

[Jaedar]

The airbus doesn't have weapons or weapon mounts unless I'm mistaken. It's not supposed to catch anything. Instead, the game generates warehouse raids and the like for you to go on.

Hmm? That's interesting. I assume those are lower-difficulty missions of some sort?

If the devs have pushed back the difficulty curve by 2-3 months along with the similar level of nerf to players then it could work. Piratez has always been about weirdness, so starting you in a weird position rather than the comfortable X-Com position (multiple fighters, 14+ crew members all with good weapons, lots of research and funding) is acceptable.

Still, I did fine with a 9 soldier cap but a 6 soldier cap is 50% more work that needs to be done per soldier. Seems excessive unless the early missions are pretty heavily nerfed (better not be any invincible power armor fuckers that take 10 shots and 3 grenades to go down).

I've not played a lot of the latest version, just one trial mission raiding a church of sirius. It had one "good" enemy in the church priest, the rest were tough guys and altar boys, say 6 of them or so. Then add another 6 civilians.

My biggest issue so far is the civilians. You get negative score for killing them, so you have to render them unconscious instead. But with so few gals and no tech, that's a lot of running around trying to catch them... The maps aren't really smaller than regular ones either, so there's a decent amount of ground to cover.

I think the dev intends to further push back research and early weapon availability. Currently the only change is not having the bonaventura and less starting weapons, but the stuff available in black market is the same.

Also it seems you can't sell the airbus for some reason (I guess you're not allowed to sell your last ship?).

 

[Average Manatee]

I too am waiting for a new version, looks like from the forum activity it will be out soon.

My biggest issue so far is the civilians. You get negative score for killing them, so you have to render them unconscious instead. But with so few gals and no tech, that's a lot of running around trying to catch them... The maps aren't really smaller than regular ones either, so there's a decent amount of ground to cover.

Yeah, its an annoyance with the shitty weight limits too. Hard to carry a primary weapon, secondary weapon, grenades, and potential stunning weapon on characters starting with sub 20 weight limit.

Score isn't that big a deal though IMO. You can take a look at the breakpoints on the wiki, it's pretty generous and usually you'll suffer either no penalty from a minor score change or at most 5%ish in less funding increase. And funding is a bit of a running joke in X-Com since vanilla, most of your money is coming from elsewhere. I don't think shooting civilians can cause base raids or anything.

I think the dev intends to further push back research and early weapon availability. Currently the only change is not having the bonaventura and less starting weapons, but the stuff available in black market is the same.

Yeah, makes sense. I always found it weird that you were started with incredibly shitty muskets (3 ammo capacity LOL) but could buy a whole crew hunting rifles/auto rifles along with some grenade launchers/mortars and an HMG for good measure on day 1 while barely denting the pocket book. If the game is balanced early on for muskets then there's good reason to push the higher stuff behind research obtainable mid january or early febuary.

Also it seems you can't sell the airbus for some reason (I guess you're not allowed to sell your last ship?).

Seems to work for me. Did you have it out side the base?

 

[Jaedar]

Score isn't that big a deal though IMO. You can take a look at the breakpoints on the wiki, it's pretty generous and usually you'll suffer either no penalty from a minor score change or at most 5%ish in less funding increase. And funding is a bit of a running joke in X-Com since vanilla, most of your money is coming from elsewhere. I don't think shooting civilians can cause base raids or anything.

Well, there's also the fact that each captured dude is worth at a minimum 5k. That's not huge, but it adds up, and they're unarmed so there's no reason not to other than the tedium.

Seems to work for me. Did you have it out side the base?

Oh I think I'm just retarded thinking about it further. Sell stuff at fence after all, not black market

 

[Average Manatee]

The new early game in Piratez is pretty good. 6-man squads are IMO better than 14-man squads in the early game since you aren't overwhelmed trying to grapple with the ridiculous list of equipment. You can get a 14-slot ship around March-April, so its pretty fine. Since you aren't able to shoot down ships the time flies pretty fast, just responding to spawned missions of various types which are fairly appropriate to what you can do with 6 men (the Academy with their Cyberdisks are ball busters though). I could see how it would be a problem if you didn't get the right research topics quickly enough, but it worked out for me.

Really liking the vision changes. Night vs. Day now play REALLY differently, whereas before you pretty much just played Night as a slower Day where you threw lights everywhere. For example, in Day city environments I'll get a spotter up top to see 90% of the map, then just chainsaw through walls to surprise enemies in melee. At Night its a fairly brutal building-to-building hunt like its a warzone. On the other hand in open fields day is fucking suicidal to step out of cover and involves lots of grenades and indirect fire, while at Night it feels like I'm playing Jagged Alliance 2, spotting enemies from a mile away thanks to flares/night vision turning the whole thing into a turkey shoot.

 

[kyrub]

Great summary (as usual from you, AM).

The new early game in Piratez is pretty good. 6-man squads are IMO better than 14-man squads in the early game since you aren't overwhelmed trying to grapple with the ridiculous list of equipment.

I'm playing with weapon selfdestruction (XCOM 2012) to prevent the cluttering of items. It works fine and is not as hard to play as they suggest. One just has to improvise more, which is thematically good for the game.