Strokend

Throughought the game, you unlock a lot of different suit types, with different inventory sizes and such, but... Is it possible for there to be a suit that increases hand size? Some of the beatmen guns were two-handed, but "light enough for the beastmen to hold in one hand;" I'd like to see a suit that mimicks that ability. It might require some resizing so that one-handed heavy guns are only three squares wide, though, so the heaviest still rely on two hands. An "excavation suit" (modeled after the machines they use to carry around stuff at excavation sites) to that specification should be a heavy suit, of course, unless it makes sense with the combined researches to be able to make a lightweight one that reinforces the wearer's strength (would likely require the stimulants research). -------- An additional idea is an excavation drone; contrary to the rover drones, it would be a walker with arms. Picking items up or swaping items would be slower than humans, but have a high weight capacity. Hulls for it would be different from rover drones, just like Expedition uses different armor than Reticulans. Excavation drones could even come in two classes: Centaur and Biped; the centaur design would be learned from martian crawlers, and the biped through the mechs. Centaurs would have the ability to not get knocked down and have a sharper aim, but bipeds can maneuver through areas more easily and even dodge when given the proper upgrades, leaving the player to choose based on the mission they're entering. Both should be fairly bulky in model size, considering they are still drones.

That doesn't sound like it would be very easy, if possible, to code. Even if it were coded, it'd make it nearly impossible to reorganize everything due to lack of space. There isn't even a queue for the hospital ward, why'd you bring that up?

Always save before a mission. Save after a mission. Heck, save when you need to decide what research to do, even. If you've installed a mod like Rebalanced, that makes the game incredibly difficult (unbeatable, it's said), you have to know what you're doing to know how to fit the new researches in properly. As for it taking too long to get the tech you want? You're researching wrong. Get your supplies asap, ignore the first beastmen mission (you'll probably lose some soldiers if you do it too early, and there's no penalty for ignoring it until it goes away), and send a team of well-upgraded drones when assaulting the beastmen. The audiosensors are going to find your enemy faster than any visual (eyes or camera) will. The sooner you can kidnap a soldier, the better. That's all you need, a capture-the-soldier mission.

Well, if there's no way to unlock it... Yeah, that'll be a problem. Try setting the prerequisite to something reasonable, like Reticulan interrogation or osmething.

Didn't the Reticulan mod only add new armors for the sake of your 'cloned' aliens? I don't think that would conflict with Total Rebalance. If it does, it may be good to take a look at each armor from either mod and see how early you get it, what it adds, and how much space it holds. With human advancement comes the idea to research similar enhancements/modifications for aliens. Grab the original armors, make them early stage, and other armors, modified to relate to the human advancements, obtained from research after human research. I'll try and find the time to look into Rebalance armors myself, but I'd be doing so in game and have a high likelihood of procrastination now that I have a reason to play, so don't expect much.

I don't know if it works the same way in Afterlight, but in some games I've tested mods for, meshes will show up just fine, but appear white when they can't load the texture. I'd suggest looking into how the texture is applied to solve it.

Plenty of people have complained about the fact that the game gives you your all-essential squad from the get-go. No ironman, no replacements. I would like to see the game offer replacements/reinforcements to you; people from Earth, extra alien members offered as time passes, all being trained and leveled based on how far into the game you are. I don't mind if they would have to have generic repeating names like the Drones have for this to be done, either, so if that's what it takes to be made, go for it. Is this possible, though?

Dynamite is a timed mine, not a grenade. You can throw grenades, yes, and assault grenades are great for that, but dynamite is a box you have to set up on the ground. If you don't have run yet, send your whole crew to the location, plant the dynamite with whoever has it (use, right-click ground beside target, must be ground you can walk to), then have them all evacuate, far. Once you get run, it's easier to keep your crew apart (they don't need run, just the person planting it), to keep the enemies further back from your tech, then have the tech run off. Keeps you safe in case anything pops up on them; the technician can quickly run up, plant the box, and run away before most enemies realize she's there. If you are having trouble using dynamite, or grenades, or rockets, just use projectiles (NOT lasers!) and attack the 'ground' where the object is, it takes a lot of fire, but you can render it to a pile of scrap with enough bullets. However, I do highly suggest learning to be a professional with dynamite: You can install it at chokepoints when your sniper/scout spots the enemy coming through, get back, and watch it decimate them. Some pros will even kill off the entire first group of beastmen during the portal incident with well timed dynamite, but I've only managed to kill about half of them myself.

If you're asking about the mods, there's a subforum for that. Try posting a thread here along with a prefix in the title along the lines of Afterlight or [AL], you may have better luck finding help there than here. I'm no oldbie to the forums, though, so take my advice with a grain of salt

I believe people mentioned being able to get that armor, or a better one, by trading late-game equipment with them. Martian weapons, for example; the Reticulans are only armed by default to fend off Beastmen and Humans, they need projectiles for robots and electromagnetics for plants. As for why the Rebels can use their armor but not the Expedition: The Biomass on Earth mutated the rebels. They had to modify their suits so that they would support their mutated form. They won't fit the true Reticulans. PS: This is, of course, speculation. While it is proven (from what I heard, anyways) that they are mutated to be less psionic, that may not change them beyond that.

So, you can never receive reinforcements from Earth, then? Because that would definitely help.

I've seen a mod that revives your dead back at level 1, untrained... That's sort of an affordable loss system. A lot moreso than what exists normally.

Personally, my favorite instance when when I had Samantha go on a shotgun run against shielded reticulans. I had everybody else sit at the UFO, which landed in an out-of-sight area, since the wandering reticulans usually use rockets, not Psi weapons. Once I get down to the last four reticulans, Samantha ran around a corner, saw them aiming at her, and dove for cover. I sent her out a few times to see if they were still watching; they were. They had her in their psionic sights. Sent Harold, who had a grenade launcher, over to the cliff beneath Samantha, and shot a defense grenade over the cliff, over the obstacle, and straight into the group, knocking them off their feet, giving Samantha the chance to kill the three that didn't die to the blast. Why is she such a good soloist? The other soloist I use is Pauline, the technician, for any bomb runs, but usually I send them both, since I give them both stalking, athletics, and suit wearing, which lets them scout ahead and take out the alchemists.

Something useful to do is check any alien suits and weapons you get. You can't really get beasman suits, but looking at the reticulan suits is a good way to figure out what they're weak against; looking at the weapons tells you what guns they think are good, perhaps tested on their own kind. Futher, looking at their weapons tells you what armor to bring, yourself. Guns that shoot fast for low damage, you want to just avoid, but those that shoot strong you want to block. Getting those extra resources should definitely help. To make it as simple as possible: (Highlight to read, spoilers) Use heavy suits against the beasmen. They don't shoot as fast, but are very accurate and powerful. Reticulans shoot fast, not so accurately, except for their rockets. Rockets are slow moving, so fast characters can just get out of the way, making light suits great against them. Research into the beastman's anatomy tells you that the matriarchs are weak against laser weaponry, I take that to mean that lasers burn the skin off any beasman. Reticulans, on the other hand, fall to the slightest level of projectile bullets, they've got no stability against the momentum of a solid object. Once they're knocked off their feet, they can't shoot until they get back up, so quick shooters (rifles, pistols) are great. When they start shielding themselves, bring out shotguns or beastman weapons, and they'll continue to fall. A win-all weapon is explosives. Rockets and grenades take up massive amounts of inventory, but here's a trick: You can load up the UFO with spare rockets or grenades, and when your person runs low, send them back to the UFO to reload. To compensate for the missing space in the boot, another tip: When taking the spoils of victory, you can click the character's icon to have them carry the loot instead of the UFO's boot, though it does apply to the UFO's weight limit still. Even robots take some high damage from rockets. Finally, don't be afraid to offer supplies to the Reticulans. Their lasers are much more accurate and powerful than any that you make, and they love to give you bateries or rockets in exchange for your projectile weapons, and especially for beasman weapons, which easily trump yours.

Seeing might be difficult, but if I remember right, I can "hear" a lot of different things as they move about, and start just lobbign grenades in that general direction, or focus-firing on the wall behind it.

Yes, with beastmen, they're vulnerable to laser fire, but will be shooting you so much you need the heavy armor. Bring in any laser type weapons, be they Terran lasers or Reticulan. Stability and toughness should help to, as they keep you from falling. Beastmen are loud, but many of them are camoflauged, so either get a heartbeat sensing drone, or use some goggles (Infrared mostly). For your second add-on slot, either use a shield or smell absorber, as they have good noses. Reticulans, in case you ever have trouble with them, use laser or rocket weaponry. Lassers are incredibly accurate but low damaging to the proper suits, and you wanna get out of the rocket's ways, so bring in light/medium suits. They fall quick to projectile, but are small and quiet, so bring in an audio sensing drone AND infrared goggles. Drones have the additional benefit of being Psi immune, which is the Reticulan's favorite attack form. A beat-all strategy is to carry around grenades or rockets, you can shoot at the ground where you hear something and get out of there. Carry in some spares in your UFO and you can pull them out when your person is up to it. Finally, if attempting to solo a mission, you want to use Pauline with major athletics and stalking, armed to the teeth with dynamite, dynamite, and more dynamite. Beastmen are incredibly slow and stupid, so you can run right past them before they see you, plant the charge, and run right back past them without them managing to fire off one shot. Matriarchs make it a bit more difficult, of course, but having a squad distracting the army while she sneaks in certainly helps. A shotgun as her backup with ambidextry and a transport suit ensures she won't have to worry about being caught, as one blast knocks most enemies down. PS: Don't ask about Martians, their robots are easy enough but the plantmen themselves are brutal and I don't know how to fix that.

Yeah, I was thinking that it was a thing of as time goes on they need more help. What, do you run around in transportation suits? It's kind of odd that that's the only suit with an expanded backpack...

So, while it says Aftermath, the VFSTool is for the whole trilogy? That's good to know.

All of the guides here seem to be done way too unpacked, or too confusingly. I think a single thread from a single guide writer should be all that's needed, stating which game(s) it's for, as well as listing links to downloads that aren't hosted on temporary sites where they'll die in a few months. This would work in one thread because the posts could be edited to link to the later posts, allowing a table of contents to easily direct you to where you left off, or are having trouble at. I'm asking for all of this because, from the looks of it, the modding guides link to dead downloads, and the insane level of searching for the tools on this site result in finding that they're for a game I don't even have, instead of UFO:AL. Additionally, navigating an out of order chapter list is frustrating and I'd rather go to post one for the contents that link to the right post in the same therad. Can anybody help me out here? Can't mod a thing if I don't get help.

Wow, I decided to try it out, and while I find myself highly limited on ammo early on, the fact that I can make a taser makes up for it. I can rapidly stun a whole army and then bash their heads in with the F2000. If only my guys could withstand the bullets in the meantime

Some other threads have pointed out wanting to cease trade without starting a war, but I'm not sure how thorough it's been covered. I've got a few ideas that may solve it, if possible. Break treaty actually breaks the treaty. They become neutral to you, breaking off the trades while not taking back their dudes. New button, "Renounce Alliance." This actually tells them you want to break the alliance. They may request supplies, like they often do when asked for peace or alliance. Returning allies. When you ally with them again later (I know it's possible), they send their dudes back. Is it possible to return a person from the inactive list to the active lists? Replacing allies. Drones come in 'Drone 1, Drone 2,' etc., so is it possible for the aliens to do so? Reallying could get you Oggie 2, for example. New buttons, "Request reinforcements" and "Offer reinforcements." Offering reinforcements would probably just offer drones, but it would give an excuse to pile up a dozen unupgraded drones. Are there any mods that do these, or would it be possible to mod it that way? And since this is already an allies thread, here's some more ideas: Specific requests. I don't like that they will request specific things, but you can't. I'd like to be able to ask for reticulan laser rifles, or batteries, or even a specific resource that I need one more of. "Request aid." Sometimes I've got one Reticulan nation attacking me before I have the leadership to deal with it, and just want to ask the others to take care of the problem for me. I wouldn't mind giving up a few items in exchange for it, even if I gotta control them and lose the items even if they lose the mission. Additionally, if they randomly requested aid, it would be interesting to be able to pop into an ally's territory just to defend their base (Unless, of course, they get to control your squad and have a chance of losing members). Other nations actually take you up on "Offer territory," especially when they're down to one place. I rather dislike not being able to abduct one of a race without killing it off entirely. Yes, I've managed to do that several times, especially with the Martians. NPC ally squads. Tying into requesting aid, or perhaps when assaulting a beastmen camp that the reticulans/expedition are next to as well, allies can pop up in the typical ~7 squad size. Whereas your team gets blue, and enemies get red backgrounds to their portrait, allies would get yellow or green. This would help when you forget to equip your scientist with a medkit, or have a low resistance to the enemy's attack type (Again: Without major leadership you're vulnerable to psionics).