Kermel

Hi! Last Christmas I got this game and I thought I would share my opinions here, as it is, after all, a turn based tactical game, and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be selling well. Ok, this is not a new X-COM or Jagged Alliance. I'll begin with the cons: Cons:

Just finished 5.2 on normal difficulty, at last ! Some random crashes had been slowing me down. Well, just in time to begin a new begin with RB Final, in hard mode this time ! Just one question : in the event that you added the Glosary Entries for all the new equipment into a RB Final Extended Edition would the savegames be compatible with this RB Final or not ? Thank you very much and congratulations !

The Conventional Armor must show up right from the start. If it doesn't, then the RB mod isn't working. At least in 5.2 and under, I will try 5.6 when I'm finished with 5.2 (I'm going to do the Retribution mission, so it won't take long ).

I just came up with an idea. Maybe you could remove the smoke area effect left by the silenced browning by making the smoke effect transparent and then adding another effect to the smoke grenade with the smoke visual.

Well, I just tried shooting my own men with the Collapsible Rail Gun. They were all level 10 or beyond, so they would have Hit Points over Very Good, a couple of them being Heroic. Well, the only one who lasted more that one second was the guy wearing berseker armor (he stood there for around two seconds). Combat armor and psicover men fell instantly, while those wearing bio armor or enhaced combat armor stood for around three quarters of second, more or less (well, I didn't actually chrono it ). So, definitely, there is a lack of reaction time.

Oh, I wasn't taking about the new weapons, but the existing deployable heavy weapons, like the railgun. Mmmm, I'm going to shoot my men with one of them, to see how the last. It should be fun Another thing, about psi power. You know, you can always use the Psi Cover armor, which makes you quite invulnerable to psi power. Maybe people should start having their nuker and BFGunner wear them. BTW, some days ago I was defending a base and was about to nuke the lifters when some reticulant went out of a corner and psi-controlled me. I "only" lost three men, but it was fun (of course it was all my fault, I should have cleared the area before placing my nuker in position). More casualties followed, actually all of them, so I was thankful not to be playing in Ironman-mode :)

"Basta" and "Hasta la vista" are spanish : Basta =

Long range doesn't beat anything. Even in a clear open field you can always lay a curtain of smoke grenades and charge : nothing can counter that and the sniper will fall effortlessly. On the other hand I do feel that some of the heavy weapons are too powerful. They take the aliens down in fractions of a second. If they were used against our soldiers, we wouldn't be able to react fast enough, even with the best tactics. I don't know, maybe those weapons should be softened a bit (for both humans and aliens). Also, aliens should have balanced sets of weaponry : it just isn't right to find a whole team of reticulants with missile launchers : there should be one heavy weapon and one sniper for every 5 or 6 of them.

Maybe the sniperhandgun is sooo powerful that you're left paralyzed for 5 seconds after firing the weapon, shocked and emotioned. ;)

Mmm, why don't you unpack everything and then search for the files ? Search for : listofammo.txt for example. It has to be somewhere.

The text files are in /tactical/configs/game. Are you sure you are opening the mod .vfs file ? BTW I feel ashamed that we are posting in this topic, this posts don't belong here (100% my fault, I started the thread).

Ok, I made a stupid mistake when posting the exporting command, just type : ufovfs.exe a -w 55_mod.vfs tactical\configs\game that will do it, you don't even need to copy the file to you gaming folder.

You first need to unpack the .vfs file. It's like a .zip file that contains all the information. Get the Official Modding Tools to do it.

About handguns not having enough range... yes, it's true, but then compare the damage per second caused in burst mode : - AK-47 : 462 - Glock : 1.080 ;)

Mmm, do what you want about the laser pistol, but beware of Reticulants ! ;) You'll find the laser pistol in listofweapons.txt searching for the string lazp.

Changing the range of the Desert Eagle to 30/60 : - open listofmagazine.txt with the Notepad (just clicking on it) - search for the string eagle (Edit - Search, or ctrl+B) - you'll see the following : MAGAZINE ORIGIN HUMAN ID MGP-EAGLE WEAPON P-EAGLE TECH_LEVEL 4 WEIGHT 0.15 EJECT 1 AMMOID ID_45ACP ACCURACY_AIMEDA 8.0 ACCURACY_BURSTA 0.0 ROUNDS_USED_AIMEDU 1 ROUNDS_USED_BURSTU 0 DAMAGE 150 CAPACITY 7 TIMES_RELOAD 1.3 TIMES_AIMEDT 1.1 TIMES_BURSTT 0.6 RANGE 22.0 AREA 0.0 PROJ_SPEED 0.0 DURATION 0.0 SEC_DAMAGE 0.0 DTYPE "U" PATH_3D "tactical/models/weapons/h_mgp-eagle_3d.txt" ICON "tactical/models/interface/items/magazines/h_mgp-eagle.txt" PROJECTILE "" PROJECTILEFIRE "" PROJECTILESMOKE "" SHAPE "s11" EFFECT_FRONT_AIM "tactical/particles/gun groups/human/handgun_group.pgrp" EFFECT_FRONT_BURST "tactical/particles/gun groups/human/handgun_group.pgrp" EFFECT_BACK "" EFFECT_IMPACT "tactical/particles/hit_effect groups/human_small guns_hit.pgrp" EFFECT_AREA "" SOUND_NAME_IMPACT "" END_OF_MAGAZINE Just change ACCURACY_AIMEDA 8.0 ACCURACY_BURSTA 0.0 and RANGE 22.0 to the values you want. Save and export back to the vfs file

Just to show you quickly. In the Official Modding Tools there is a file called UFOvfs.exe, you need to put it in your gaming folder (c:/program files/CENEGA/ufo aftermath or whatever) and type : ufovfs.exe x 55_mod.vfs tactical\configs (or whatever the current mod is called ) then a folder called tactical\configs\game will be created with some txt files in there. Open the one called listofmagazine.txt clicking in it. Most information is there, change it as you wish (you may want to read the documentation in the Offical Modding Tools first). Now, to enable the changes just <edited> type ufovfs.exe a -w 55_mod.vfs tactical\configs\game

Mmm, I didn't mean that you had to do the "ghost" (lacking a better name) right now, Aralez. I suppose that you'll later open a special chapter for new aliens (though you'd probably be better off taking some holidays instead ). I just mentioned it now because it has to do with weapon balance. Lurker : I run Windows XP and have patch 1.3, and I've never found the crash you mention. About the sniperhandgun, I don't want to hurt feelings but it's certainly a weapon that I wouldn't like to be included. It's a matter of flavor : handguns are light, fast and shortrange, sniperguns are heavy, slow and longrange. If anyone could manufacture a handgun that good, why stop there ? Why not make a heavier two-handed version with even better range and damage ? Long guns are already underrated in this game by having low short-range damage (a matter of balance) and unrealistic low maximum range (for better gameplay), so I don't really see the point in humilliating them ever further. On the other hand you can tweak the weapons yourself, it's not difficult. Are you familiar with DOS commands (such as dir, cd, etc.) ? If that's the case download the Official Modding Tools from this very site (under the Tools section) and read the documentation. I'll help you if you get stuck.

Regarding the Psiblaster, it certainly should do more damage. But another aproach would be to drastically reduce psi armor for some aliens, after all in the glossay entry of the Psicrusher it says that psi weapons are useful to penetrate armored oponents. I would like to see an alien which was like a shadow, or a ghost, and which can only be harmed with psi power. That would make these weapons actually useful.

Hi, Jesterific. To pick up the box just move your soldier to the square where the box is, right-click on your solider's face to bring up the equipment screen and then drag the box, which should appear on the right column (things on the floor) to your inventory. Notice that some items like corpses can only be carried in hands, so you'll have to remove your weapon from them first. I don't remember right now if the box needs to be carried in hands as well. I Hope this helps.

Lurker, are you sure aliens do nasty things with Psiblasters ? In my game when I find a reticulant armed with a Psiblaster I can safely ignore it because the damage it causes is so low. Nothing compared to any of the others weapons they carry. But perhaps we should think how could we make the psiblaster unique, and not simply yet another gun.

I wrongly thought that you had substitued the SLAW by the Nuker, but then I've just found the SLAW after the second russian base. I think the Nuker should have a Tech Level higher than the SLAW, because I got it relatively early in the game. Curiously enough, in listofmagazine.txt the Nuker ammo is listed as having TL7, but in listofweapon.txt it is listed as having TL4. A typo, I guess.

Why do you want a Sniper Handgun, Lurker ? It doesn't sound right, IMHO, it would be like a close-quarters sniper rifle. Handguns are supossed to be the best weapons at short range, but if you want something that can shoot up to 60 meters get an assault rifle or a heavy weapon. What I would like to see is more radical armor types for the aliens, armors that protect 80% against Soft but 0% against Laser, that kind of thing, so that you need to use the right weapon for each creature. This way handguns would be very valuable even if they didn't cause a lot of damage (which isn't realistic), because they are light and can be draw quickly if your main weapon is useless against a certain alien. It's frustrating because at the end of the day the best damage types are Soft, against transgenant, and Hard, against armored reticulants; whereas there are a lot of aliens very resistant to the exotic types like plasma or warp. And psiblasters are the most useless piece of crap in existence.

There's something I don't understand. I'm trying to compile all the weapon information from the .vfs file into excel in order to analize them, and maybe tweak them to my own personal liking. I've done pistols, SMGs and assault rifles OK, but when I look at shotguns damage ratings aren't correct. It says that Neostead only does 60 damage ! (listofmagazine.txt, MGS-NEO). What am I doing wrong ?

Oh, and maybe you could enlarge the standard human model, give it green skin and have somethink like The Hulk.