Iceshade posted:

I can recommend ToolBoks, which seems to work without a hitch (for me, anyway) with the latest version. You can make some cool tweaks.

40 Proof Listerine posted:

the boost to Will more than makes up for the loss from being gravely wounded

TemporarySetback posted:

Third I/I run, only now do I learn that the Combat Drugs skill give your smoke grenades a hidden +20 aim effect along with +10 crit and +20 will it advertises. You can kill anything behind full cover with +20 aim! Actually makes you pause when it's time to choose between Combat Drugs and Dense Smoke.

For a turn based strategy game with clearly defined maps and rules, the entire game is oddly ambiguous in its workings. Flanking, LoS, Explosives randomly not hitting targets in the sphere..

Classic XCOM situation: You're all out of moves except for one heavy with a rocket available, and the one surviving chrysallid is one turn away from eating your face. Crap, you think, one rocket wont kill a chrysallid. But wait, it's sitting right next to a car! Since rockets blow up cars right away, you could hit it with the rocket for 6 damage.. and then the exploding car will finish it off with another 6, right?

No. It wont. The exploding car won't hurt it at all. Is it a bug? Do units only take damage from one explosion at a time? Hell if anyone knows!

Cleretic posted:

Doing this. I'm starting with 22 soldiers and almost every country in the blue on panic. I will post again when I've reached critical Oh gently caress levels. I'm even going against myself and not going to reload until I've either won (no chance) or died horribly.

EDIT: Well, this is gonna suck.



This was against a small scout ship. Two Sectoid Commanders and two Mutons did this. Vandal survived with a single hit point.

Wasse posted:

Have there been any updates on additional DLC for the game?

I've done two runs at this point (a casual.. yeah, that was stupid, and a classic). And was thinking about doing another one soon - but if DLC is coming out sooner than later, I figure I might as well wait.

Coolguye posted:

Solomon's said they're working on it, and it's not like Slingshot (presumably it's a larger story arc, or a new major mechanic). We have no other details.

Klyith posted:

The UPK package files that the game uses are only compressed, not encrypted or protected. The UDK is free to download. That's about as moddable as an Unreal Engine gets. If you are expecting mod tools along the likes of Bethesda games, you're going to be disappointed.

Iceshade posted:

As for the mod tools .. Are we going to be stuck with the .upk files and doing minor tweaks forever? Did they say they won't ever bring out proper mod tools for X-COM? Or do they just give a vague answer like "We're thinking about it" which basically means "Never, nope, no way."?

Iceshade posted:

It better not be like slingshot. Solomon even admitted it wasn't what the fans wanted (I can only assume that the publisher had this wonderful idea of what Slingshot was going to be, and the devs just had to go along with it).

Alchenar posted:

To be fair, it isn't like there's really a AAA DLC model for this kind of game. The only other DLC Firaxis have really done were unpopular Map-packs for Civ, which is ironic because that's exactly what everyone wants now.

Iceshade posted:

Speaking of maps, didn't Firaxis say there are around 100 maps in the game, each with rotating/random spawn points (unless they never actually said that)? There only seems to be one spawn position for the player units.

quote:

Since the multiplayer section is kinda bare, I will shamelessly plug my how-to-get-started-in-multiplayer video featuring "XCOM is buggy so turn off your stupid microphone". Also, how not to make the host wait for you while you use the matchmaking lobby to read all the pricing and abilities, and how to make 6 clone troopers that will carry you to victory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq_WfXnOTy8

Azzip posted:

Does the will boost last the entire mission? The text is kinda ambigious on this and the only time I used one I forgot to check.

WeaponBoy posted:

It's two turns, not including the turn where you use it, so maybe it counts as three.

Honestly, the cover system is probably the worst part of this game because sometimes it's just dumb/doesn't work/doesn't make any loving sense. I had two guys on one side of a door and when I opened it a Berserker and Muton were right there. The berserker charges in the door so I get a CC proc and a Headshot crit to take him down. The Muton has taken cover on the other side of the door. I have my Major Assault just walk outside so she's on the same side as the Muton:

code:

X_M   X = Assault   0 = Assault before move
0BY   M = Muton
      S = Sniper
 S    Y = Other dude
      B = Berseker (corpse)

The assault has an alloy cannon and takes aim...45%. What? How the gently caress does he still have heavy cover? So I Run and Gun, put her behind the Muton and do a 98% chance Rapid Fire just in case.

All in all it makes me wish there was a set of rules that got rid of cover as such an absolute. Seriously, ask yourself if you ever, ever move your unit into an area without cover when you aren't absolutely sure there's nothing around (archangel snipers don't count; they get half cover anyway).

WeaponBoy posted:

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

Again, for a tactics game this has a shocking lack of sticking to the rules. It's kind of why I don't want to play Ironman, because sometimes I honestly feel like the game made the mistakes, not me.

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

Again, for a tactics game this has a shocking lack of sticking to the rules. It's kind of why I don't want to play Ironman, because sometimes I honestly feel like the game made the mistakes, not me.

RBA Starblade posted:

Gave multiplayer a shot in a custom game for the first time, it seems barely functional. Overwatch doesn't seem to work (based on my chryssalid surviving walking into an overwatch trap with no one shooting), flying is hosed, I had no control over my drone, and my floaters would get stuck in the level, and it would move units to places I didn't tell them to go, or stop acknowledging my input. I won both games I tried with 2 chryssalids, 2 thin men, a drone, and 2 chryssalids and 3 floaters, but is it always this problematic?

Edgecase posted:

Flying is definitely messed up with the keyboard and mouse interface, plus on one map in particular (Grand Cemetery), the 2nd floor walls of the middle building only pseudo-exist. Overwatch, however, should work normally. Are you sure the other player actually set up Overwatch and wasn't ?

RBA Starblade posted:

He pressed 'Y', mistaking it for the talk button, so yeah. I was also able to see him in fog of war at one point, for a second.

Operant posted:

Ironman is an exercise in frustration but you will never feel better beating a videogame ever.

You can one day be in gravy street with your base, full squad of teched out colonels, and the next thing you know some bullshit battleship mission you lose your sniper to an elite firing from the fog of war, your 90% shot misses, and your veteran colonel panics and shoots his buddy in the head.

And you can't do jack poo poo.

Iceshade posted:

Also when the controls glitch and decides to move my Rocket Launcher one pixel to the left, from 90% to 0% blocked. Bye squad.

Zylen posted:

The cover system makes sense, you just happened to come across the flank bug that seems to be more common since the last patch, particularly when doors are involved it seems. Otherwise that would normally be a flank shot.


Baby.

WeaponBoy posted:

This isn't exclusive to XCOM as you can see it in places like D&D where rolling a 19 hits, but rolling an 18 whiffs.

WeaponBoy posted:

To be honest, I just think the cover system is kind of dumb at times. Part of that is just that I really don't like the way a lot of combat systems use a zero sum equation for determining damage because they breakdown in a lot of situations, especially once you get higher level characters. This isn't exclusive to XCOM as you can see it in places like D&D where rolling a 19 hits, but rolling an 18 whiffs.

quote:

19/01/13 - v0.80
- Mods added:
* Alien Abductions in Nations with Satellite Coverage
* Psi Probability
* Action Cam for Missed Shots
* Action Cam for Every Dash
* Hunker-Down Fix (Custom Mod)
- Added tooltip descriptions
- Minor bug fixes

GenVec posted:

I'd like to know whether anyone has been able to finish a campaign playing under Classic / Ironman with both Marathon and Diminishing returns turned on. I've beaten Classic twice now, but racing to complete satellites that cost up to 2k and require 68 engineers to build (not to mention a month for each uplink) is beyond brutal. I haven't lost a mission yet, but even so it seems like I'm going to lose my eighth country even with a beeline for the "high ground".

Edgecase posted:

XCOM is actually a 3-outcome system (miss, hit, crit), it's just communicated to the player as two "separate" considerations. Further sub-variation in damage is determined by damage ranges.

Firing a laser rifle at a unit will do one of: miss, hit for 4, hit for 5, hit for 6, crit for 7, crit for 8, crit for 9. Exactly how much more representation do you want for the range of possible outcomes?

WeaponBoy posted:

I'd prefer a higher probability of hitting aliens (and a higher chance of getting hit by aliens) but with lower amounts of damage. I'd be totally ok with the enemy defense that muton elites and ethereals have meaning -X damage so shooting them with a basic pistol is pretty much never going to do damage unless you crit. So, I guess, something like this:

peak debt posted:

That would make the resulting game not X-COM anymore. Instead everybody would just tank shots to be healed up again like it was Final Fantasy.

Anyway, imagine the defense bonus like armor class in D&D. Muton Elites don't have one because they're so hard to hit, but because they're wearing such strong armor that half the shots you lob at them don't do any damage.

WeaponBoy posted:

Current:
Plasma Rifle vs. Muton Elite with low cover:
35% chance to hit (85% hit - 20% cover - 30% enemy defense).
Up to 8 damage.
Miss and do nothing.
Hit and do 6-8 damage.

Magical fairy land:
Plasma Rifle vs. Muton Elite with low cover:
65% chance to hit (85% hit - 20% cover).
Up to 8 damage.
Miss and do nothing.
Hit and do 3-5 damage (6-8 damage - 3 from heavy armor)

As it is now I've basically accepted that my entire offensive strategy is based around my one or two colonel snipers basically killing loving everything while anyone below Major rank can't hit the broadside of a bus.