Idgy

Are the issues fixed in 0.74? Or do I need to move to earlier versions instead?

Instead of necro'ing this thread I thought I'd be better off starting a new one. I've never played with the "research help from captured aliens" option before, and I'm curious to know if captures only help currently active topics, or if the research bonus applies forever foreward. For example, if I'm researching Medi-Kits and I capture an Engineer, it cuts the remaining scientist-hours for Medi-Kit by 50%. (Right?) But once I finish that, if I start researching the Laser Rifle, does the Engineer I already have also reduce the scientist-hours required for Laser Rifle? Or do I have to go capture another Engineer to get a research boost for new efforts?

Right. I really didn't think tha tthrough, did I?

Update: still a problem. I was able to see the original crappy base layout and regular farmhouses by playing a new game from my "XCOMorig" folder. Then I ran XComUtil, choosing (among other options) to use the improved farm and desert terrains and to randomize ship layouts (once during XComUtil, not every time). Now I get the same ships as ever, but borked farmhouses. So, it seems that running this version of XComUtil (9.6) in this version of Boxer (0.87, which uses DOSBox 0.73) on a v1.4 UFO:EU executable under OS X 10.5.8 will repeatedly produce this issue.

I solved my previous XComUtil issue by finding an untouched install to start from. But now I have a new problem. When I run XCUSetup, there's a specific option - I think the "Improved Farm and Desert Terrain" or whatever - that throws up a bunch of java errors. As in, it has no idea how to call java from DOSBox. Is this a limitation of the OS X flavor of DOSBox, or the frontend I'm using (Boxer)? Or is this a problem with the way OS X and Macs implement java nowadays? Getting the updated terrain isn't critical to my enjoyment of X-COM, but if there's some easy fix, I'd love to hear it.

Problem solved. (HAH! No. See below.) I went back to my original, un-Util'd files and started a fresh game. The base layout was XCU's "improved starting base," and the farmhouse tiles were identically jacked up with Skyranger parts. So I must have run XCU on those files at some point. So it's not some bug with XCU... or maybe it is. But to track it down, I have to lay hands on my original game files. Where the hell did I tuck those? Edit: Oh sweet, a folder called "XCOMorig". How thoughtful of me. Only had to dig through 3 hard drives to find it!

XCU 9.60. I think. md5 of the XComUtil.exe is 06216452564dbd31eb586b705467c55f. What do you mean by re-install? play a fresh copy untouched by XComUtil? Or try to revert the .xcu backup files in the directory that I'm playing from?

I decided to play with random UFO layouts for the first time. I took what I think is a fresh copy of X-Com, packaged it into Boxer (DOSBox frontend for Mac), and ran XCUSetup, choosing not to randomize alien craft layouts each time, but rather to randomize them once. Then I started a new game, and fairly shortly got a grounded scout to go intercept. When I got there, I found the same old scout layout: square ship, one room, seats and displays in the expected spots. But the farmhouses - hoo boy. They were made entirely out of Skyranger tiles, and there was no way to move up from the ground floor. Has anyone else had this problem? What can I do to get the standard terrain tiles and buildings, but new alien craft layouts?

I didn't get it through Steam, but I can confirm that once you have the DOSBox-ready files on Windows, you can transfer over to Mac no sweat. I played for a while on DOSBox/XP, then when I got a Mac, I downloaded Boxer (it's a DOSBox frontend). Rather than copying over from my CD and starting fresh, I just put the files on a thumbdrive, dropped them in the Boxer directory, and picked up where I left off in the same savegames. No need to do extra configuration or mess around with permissions or whatnot. So you just need to download it onto a Windows machine (do you have your Steam account installed on one?), and then move the X-Com directory to your Mac.

Are there particular files I can rename/delete in order to play the game with sound, but not music? I want to listen to other things in the background. I'm playing UFO:EU in DOSBox 0.72, so if there is a setting in the DOSBox configuration that disables music but preserves sound effects, that would work fine too. Thanks!