yeni

Ahh yes, Moo 2, one of the few games i always play on max difficulty ( meaning the AI races get about 6 race pick points added for free, semi randomly - some of those can be BRUTAL ) Also worthy of mention is one of the best custom race systems I've seen in a game, I almost never play stock races anymore A few observations that might be helpful, either now or in later games On the tech window, you can click the tech field name to see current and future techs in that field. Outpost ships have 2 main uses : One, they give you a spot from which to extend your ship's reach, and Two, if you outpost then colonize a planet, the new colony has a Marine Barracks built already (not so useful under Unification and Democracy, decent for Despotism, and very nice for Feudal governments) For early scouts, i don't use bombs on them, i either leave them unarmed (less cost to build and more maneuver in combat) or give them a 2 shot nuke missile rack, so they can actually kill other scouts. For monsters, if you're willing to spend more construction effort, most monsters can be killed with 1 battleship filled with 2 shot MIRV nukes, though i do normally have battle pods to use there - this does only use 4 command points, instead of 8 to 15. To get a missile to be able to have the MIRV modification, get its tech field 2 levels past where you learned the missile.

In my observations, best to use lasers on beastmen (human lasers do better damage), or maybe gatlings/sniper rifles. Best for retuculans IMO is simple sniper rifles, even without scopes - the Ret armor seems resistant to laser to me, and i want to take them down at range. For martians, Silencer is dead on, they seem extra vulnerable to melee based damage - though i did kill one once with plain ammo in a sniper rifle (doing called leg shots over and over to keep him busy until someone else could help, but help was not needed LOL) I think lasers might be decent against them as well, or anything flaming! Heavy armor is not only a lot more protective than light, but it also seems to help stabilize you against knockdown from the alchemist grenades (not immunity, but without heavy armor i often train Major Stability first..) My usual weapons plan is to try to have snipers and gatlings before the purple color faction arrives, If the yellow faction trades me metal initially it's doable, i aim for 2-3 gatlings and the rest snipers (1 gatling guy carries a warp cannon for demolition). I'm unusual in this, i think the Shotgun Rush is the most favorite tactic I know you clearly state that you're playing vanilla, but you might consider a visibility mod from the files section here. I think there were several that came out very quickly after the game's release, so I assume that quite a few players felt that the sighting needed to be changed. *beats head against desk* WHY DIDN"T I REALIZE THAAAAAAT!!!!!!! (thanks silencer)

No, actually at the start of a game I decide whether I'll be using heavy or light/medium suits and put everyone in the best on each line that's available - There are high end suits in each line with decent carrying capacity, IIRC. Only exception to this is in the very late endgame, when I'm using the weapon that requires Minor Driving training, THEN I use transport suits for the people using that because it's massively power hungry.

for modding, the tool you always need a VFS file packer/unpacker, and those seem to be the same for all 3 versions of the UFO After... games. I think there are several of those to choose from, and i can verify that Sigget's VFSTool has worked fine for me for all 3 games (though it is a DOS command mode interface) beyond that, what you need depends on what you want to mod, the only things i've done have been text file based edits.

@lucifear - the turtling is a result of the martian assault mod, not the martian rebalance mod - the 2 can be separated safely, OR there's a (text format) configuration file for the assault mod that can be used to tone down the extras to taste (it should be found in the main game directory and in the zip file, along with instructions). Also, regarding Rita, my friend that introduced me to the series claimed in vanilla to have got all the kids to join up over time without losing anyone in battle. @wintermist - if you want to use the assault mod but still limit leveling speed better, i found the EXP per level in a moddable file, you could alter that so levels take more EXP (though that would slow science/tech advancement as well) regarding matriarchs staying at range with guns under the total rebalance mod, i usually deal with them using snipers doing aimed Body location shots with laser sniper rifles - but i'm usually running with at least 4 snipers to fire in groups too

I know of no mod that allows pure soldiers to use medkits. There is only 1 medkit, but there are 2 grades of "first aid sets" (AKA medkit ammo) , the advenced set needs major medic training In my unpacked copy of Gamedata.vfs, trainings.txt is under units/configs. I had been looking at tthe possibility of making pure soldiers able to heal last year, when another of the forum veterans was ranting about this game, but without any luck then. I didn't see this idea then, it just might work! I don't know if there's a way to totally avoid sending a sentient on a mission with drones, but i would think you would want to send scientists and/or technicians sometimes, to collect the extra experience for the science/technician classes that you are given on some missions. Also, drones do not have all weapon types available (like sniper rifles)

Personally, I keep the first reticulan alliance until the second group arrives ( before that, there's expansion in other directions ), and I try to pick one territory for the new arrivals to own that I'll have surrounded by my lands - so no expansion for them! I do let Tab (the english nickname for the original pure soldier reticulan) die on the first aqueduct mission, mostly as a point of style to rename that territory (Tab's Song sounds much better to me than Acid Plains for what will eventually be an ocean next to your base..). The original reticulan soldier/scientist will leave as soon after war is declared as he can, but he can't leave while he's assigned to the science car and it's outside the base (i guess because noone tells him about the Great Yellow Reticulan War, lol) As for the level of new arrivals, the kids are usually level 2, the nonhumans you get later are higher levels (and not all the same level), but i've never had them be high enough level to compete with my main squad's levels (level 8 when you're 16 just doesn't cut it), and with the limitations they have in suits & equipment, I just use humans all the way through usually. The new arrival levels could be edited in the character stats files, as I remember, just don't forget to make their stats match their level unless you want them to have too high or too low stats I have had in mind a mod to make the human built robots available from the start and cut WAAAY back on the number of human soldiers (to 4 total, i think), so you can't field a full team without robots (or having both rets and martians on your team). I envision the typical team in that being 5 robots, 1 soldier/scientist, and 1 soldier/tech. I just don't know yet how to mod the weapons file for the initial robot scientific laser that would be needed. One other point, remember that you collect resource units, but use resource levels - it takes 20 or 21 resources coming in to get resource level 7, for instance. I try to not trade away any resources to anyone i plan to stay allied with, because you're trading away a resource level - unless i am SURE I'll never need that resource at level 7. The overview has a summary of the units you collect and the levels that translates to, with trades also shown, down at the bottom left - i think the unit totals needed for the levels are 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 21, going from memory.

there's no way i know of to change the base difficulty level, but the "martian assault mod" http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=549 from the files section here can give you a very *cough* "target rich environment", and i think it can be added to a game in progress, as it just changes the amount of enemies created when a tactical map starts up

As for the burning of the CD, I think it's a good idea - it ought to be very therapeutic! Not to mention it usually doesn't hurt to observe traditional rituals Enjoy!

One other game that deserves mention for being a quality game to play with average graphics even for its time - Sid Meier's original Civilization (and the original Colonization was about as good looking, for that matter) Personally, i value gameplay a lot more than graphics - otherwise, I'd never have even tried the original X-Com, as I had several newer and clearly better looking games in the general genre before i got around to it

1) mod the weapons files, if you know how (i don't) 2) change the weapons firing mode (main combat screen, in the individual portraits, there should be a single bullet in rectangular box icon, clicking that cycles thru the allowed firing modes for that weapon, and every weapon i know defaults to its slowest but most accurate firing mode (except for the sniper rifle with scope for a trained sniper) 3) i haven't noticed, but weapon skill might speed up firing speed, and for some weapons there are trainings that make you shoot faster also, don't forget to get a couple soldiers to raise scouting above anything else, if you see it further out you have more time to shoot (in the base game, i think spotting is seriously underpowered, you might consider a visibility mod from teh downloads section here)

I recognize most of those items from shadowarrior's weapon rebalance mod, i might not have researched the couple items i didn't recognize - what they might be doing in an ACM build is beyond me

a few ideas that might help, in the order they occur to me : 1) XP SP3 might make a difference, i'm using XP Pro with SP3 (since my last reinstall of windows, lol) and had no real troubles 2) i think there's a "run in windowed mode" shortcut in the start menu folder, when i first tried AL i think i needed to use that 3) video drivers updated, and directX ? 4) video modes might be an issue, especially if your monitor is a 16 x 9 aspect ratio, not the 4 x 3 that the game is written for originally (i know it can work, i have a fried that runs AL on a wide screen style monitor - if that's an issue, then i can ask him how his is configured 5) once in a while turning off other running programs in the task manager can let a troublesome program run

I suspect that it won't work because for humans, there is the Constitution secondary stat, while the bots don't have a HP related secondary - though I could be wrong in how the drugs work. yeah, I use the martian assault mod (yay for target rich environments, ) and the advanced missions mod, unless I'm trying to play a straight vanilla game - though when i do use the AMM, i tweak its settings file (i make the capture/assassinate targets a lot less chicken, and i turn off the allied reinforcements, as i've had pathing problems with them on the map (edited - messed up the quoting)

As for the character mod, what I do is try to apply some common sense changes - some helpful, some not so much - one thing I do is make all the humans be not pure soldiers, the reasoning being "you're in command of a base with 5000 (or is it 50.000 ? i've forgot which) humans at the base, most in cold sleep. Your task (up until the point of the tutorial mission) has been solely scientific and technical, not military, so there is no need to keep dedicated military troops as non-popsicles, therefore everyone awake will have science or technical levels" (but no more than 10 max soldiers available, kids included - so less room for error and more likelihood of using the alien soldiers). For similar reasons, I have all the kids available on day 1, all soldiers are reduced to level 1 with no trainings, and *evil grin* soldier stats are reduced further, so it's impossible to max all stats - plan your stats carefully for your role! For the robots, I don't know if the mods you're envisioning are possible, again going on memories of shadowarrior's mod - the HP for bots seems to be linked to the base chassis, of which there's only 1 type of human bot in the game, so changing HP might have to be emulated by raising armor ratings instead - or maybe it's possible to add a 'heavy wheeled chassis' that's required for the heavy turrets? That might be complicated, as i think I've seen bots in some of the race files as well.... A healing bot is a rather interesting idea, but what about a bot repair kit for a bot? That could allow people to run all-bot teams - and there's the idea I've had on a back burner for a while, to look into a mod witht he ability to make bots on day 1, but you only get about 3-4 human soldiers (as medics and bot repair crew, mainly) - for that, I see the best initial bot weapon as a weakened bot laser rifle, call it the bot science laser

Wow, you're a lot more ambitious than anything I've done with AL modding - my limits are more like changing the characters (yes, Yet Another Character Mod, lol) and changing the starting base layout to sort the buildings how i want them in the People screen. What I was thinking was more that you're adding things similar to what Shadowarrior had added in his rebalance mod, and I remember some of his discussion in threads here and there about difficulties and limitations he's faced - he did successfully add new weapons and new types of weapon slots in there, but I don't understand all the details. I know it would be a lot of reading, but you might find some good tips reading thru the forum threads about his mods, both here and (mostly) on the official AL forums.

Some of the weapons you list are very much endgame weapons - things I've not researched sometimes until I was ready to attack the main enemy base to end it all - but others are basic and early enough that it's probably a problem of some sort, My first guess is that you might have multiple mods installed, or that it's a game that was started without the rebalance installed. If neither of those is the case, it might take more information to find the problem. (p.s., sorry I didn't reply sooner, i was busy with that darned RL thing )

I suspect that you know more about modding AL than I do, but from where it crashes, one thing to investigate might be how the weapon addon slots are set up, as that's handled on the storage screen?

A couple possible ways to handle this 1) Grenades lobbed onto the roof - if it's the tree-like building I think it is, it's bowl shaped up there, nowhere to run. (In the mod I'm currently using, I have someone carry a grenade launcher with a spare 6 shot clip, just in case I get this problem - a dozen grenades ought to do the job!) Note that this is the surest way I know to not have anyone on that roof, lol. 2) Set snipers a ways out from the building and spotters in close or even inside the building, and wait until the matriarch stands still long enough for you to get a shot off. ( This is how I handle them most often, to be honest. )

one minor point: that sounds more like aftershock, in afterlight your stats max at lvl 24, give or take a level, and you can max the 10 secondary stats 2 levels earlier (by leaving strength and intuition one level short of max)

I think I remember that both of the above are items added in mods - after checked the changelog from ShadoWarrior's rebalance mod, available here in the downloads section ( http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=546 ), both are added in it using those names. One or both might also be added in other mods, i'm not familiar with the other major weapon rebalance mods for the game - but those weapons are not in the base game, with or without patches. although, personally in that mod, I haven't bothered with rockets, and by the time the anti material rifle comes out, I've gone to using laser sniper rifles on my sniper trained people

From what I recall of that mod, it has a specific installer and instructions, it's not just drop in the mod VFS file like most mods are. One thing might be to uninstall the mod and redo the install, also if you swap localization files then it might need the install run again. As a further note, I recommend tweaking the configuration file for the mod, the targets of capture/assassination missions are far too likely to run away in my experience, and I also stopped allied reinforcements from being used because of pathing bug issues i encountered.

If you really want to promote universal peace in Ascendancy, don't use the AI patch and play the Balifids - the last time i played them, i never colonized or invaded any planets, i just tried to make everyone ally to everyone else (it took 3000 odd turns..) It's just a coincidence that they look like rats with forked tongues P.S. - if i was going to play tree-huggers, i might have picked Arbryls, since they are trees, even if their power isn't nearly as useful as Gaiafication.

and as i recall, the lightning ball launcher is not a beam weapon at all, but does require research of both plasma and EM topics (and it required a soldier/technician with a specific technician training to use it...), and yes the name is confusing as there is a martian lightning gun as well. Come to think of it, there's a chance it's not in the base game at all, as i've only got it in modded games - going to play vanilla thru again and see if i can get it Annihilator is the name you're thinking of, it's in my research queue in my current game.

interestingly, my usual tactic didn't get mentioned here yet, i use snipers in precise shot doing the high chance to hit body shots to take down matriarchs, while the gatling / minigun kind of people keep other enemies from closing - or they take out spiders at longer range, since they are unusually easy to hit. the "Boss" enemy/pet is pretty easy to deal with, i usually use warp cannons on them just to help conserve ammo (i also use the warps to finish off wounded rollers, sometimes - i have 2 gatling gunners carry the warps) plasma - i don't think i've used any plasma myself, unless you count the lightning ball gun in late game - that one's a blast, if you get to it! ( i didn't on my first run thru the game )