Mods And Promotions

[Guest Karadoc]

I was just wondering if there are any modding programs that some kind gamer has made available for Xcom3. All I want to do is make the game a bit harder...

 

What I had in mind was this:

less starting equipment (no intercepter).

increase alien's health.

slow firing rate for toxin guns

(and the real killer: ) toxin guns effected by disruptor shields.

 

I like games to have a difficulty setting that is so high that I can't beat it.

In 'Superhuman', the aliens are much harder to beat in the air (ie UFOs) but on the ground they still no trouble at all. The problem is in the toxin guns. They are just too powerful. I always get a good supply of toxin B just before the aliens get the shields, and so I don't even notice that they have the shields! Basically the aliens are just bringing me a good supply of shield at no cost.

So yeah... I want to make a few gameplay changes to make the game a bit harder. Can anyone help me get started?

 

 

Also, I've been wondering about promotions, I've read the stuff about 1 squad leader per 4 squadies and all that, but it doesn't seem to fit in with what I get.

What's more, I've only even seen an agent ranked above 'Sergent' once!

So tell me, exactly how does the promotion system work?

[[NKF]]

Ranking is probably handled in a similar manner to that of UFO and TFTD. Quantity.

 

No, you cannot just buy hundreds of soldiers and instantly get promoted to commander (at least, not in theory). All the rookies need some combat experience and a few kills under their belts (just for good measure). So, with so many underlings of certain ranks, you should get an officer of a certain rank, and so on all the way up to the rank of commander.

 

Like UFO/TFTD, you don't need enormous numbers of troops to be in employment just to have the commander. You just have to have the right distributon of certain ranks. Numbers help, but once you've acheived a certain rank, you always stay at that rank, regardless of the number of your underlings.

 

---

 

As for making the game harder, you could obtain Overkill and edit the toxigun, though I don't know if that edits the rate of fire.

 

Apart from that, there are plenty of ways you can make the game harder without even having to use a third party utility. Just make up some new challenges for yourself and perhaps some self imposed limitations and you're all set.

 

Though these may seem forced, some of them can be fun (if not tedious/challenging). I'll suggest a few that come to mind:

• Fire some of your starting staff.
  
• Scale your weapon power down. Instead of using devestators, use disrupter guns. Instead of using toxiguns, use law-pistols. Look at it this way, instead of leaving the weapons as they are and making the enemies harder, we use weaker weapons to fight the same enemies. Same effect, less effort.
  
• Sell your interceptor (as a package, do not sell it in parts - you tend to lose more money when you sell it as a package).
  
• Dismantle some of your starting facilities. Gyms and the med and repair bays come to mind. Then rebuild them.
  
• Keep restarting the game until you get a building site that you hate. i.e. a combination of slum block and bad base layout.
  
• Stop using the toxigun. If you find it makes the game too easy - you'd probably be happier with a plasma gun. Not as powerful, but still decent enough to be a weaker version of the disrupter guns.
  
• Swap all humans and hybrids with androids. (or vice versa, depending on your play style)
  
• Swords and stun grapples. Try getting through an entire superhuman campaign with them as your only ranged weapons. (I have - well, almost)
  
• If you play with small squads - experiment with very large squads. If you use large squads, try managing small squads. Heck, try solo missions once in a while. It's not impossible. You just have to approach the battle in a different manner.
  
• Try and defeat the entire group of UFOs in the alien dimension with the smallest fleet of Explorers you can manage. I'd recommend at the very least, three. This is a little crazy, but I was able to shoot down a battleship with a carefully piloted trio of explorers. They ended up with heavily damaged shields though none were lost, so I suspect it is possible to clear the entire alien dimension of UFOs with a slow and methodical assault (or at least several trips).
  
• Play hot-seat turn-based co-op with another X-Com fan. Not really a challenge - more a test of patience. Great for parties.
  

In the end, this doesn't really answer your question. But it does offer an alternative.

 

- NKF

Edited January 20, 2004 by NKF

[karadoc]

Yeah. I don't really know what my problem is with ranks.

I had no problem getting high ranking troups in XCOM1, but in this, it just doesn't happen.

 

As for your difficulty suggestions.

I have tried giving self inflicted disadvantages, such as trying to play in real time without ever pausing (in the tactical part only), and not using certain bit of equipment etc. But in the end, I get sick of it. I feel like I'm not making the game harder, I'm just playing worse. See what I mean?

There is a certain skill in getting those toxin guns up as quickly as you can while still managing to keep up in other parts of the game.

I sometimes make it into a bit of a roleplaying game, where I force agents to do raids solo to prove their worth to xcom or whatever.

 

Yeah, so I guess the only suggestions that I'd go with are the firing starting staff and stuff like that. I was thinking about starting the game by attacking marsec or something crazy like that... that could give a challange for the rest of the game. But I would rather the difficulty was built into the game, just for neatness if nothing else. And I would like it if toxin guns were stopped by the shields. I should look into this 'overkill' thing. I've never heard of it. I'll try to find a copy tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the reply.

[[NKF]]

As I said, they do feel forced.

 

But after playing an android-melee campaign, my eyes have really opened up at the all the various strategies you can pull off successfully if you just tried them rather than hold back. Normally you wouldn't even dare have all your soldiers run right up to a multiworm, since you don't want your super-soldiers to get hurt and miss out on all those important training hours in the gym. There's a sort of throw-away quality to the androids that let's you safely experiment tactics you wouldn't normally use with your humans/hybrids. (I mean that in a good sense)

 

Overkill probably won't run on more recent systems - at least I've had a bit of trouble getting it to run.

 

As for ranks, even though you can equip multiple units at the same time, it seems it's harder to deal with larger groups of soldiers than it is to manage smaller groups (And the fact that the hire pool is often limited) in Apocalypse than it was in the two earlier games. The game almost seems to be geared towards using smaller squads.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Don't mind me. I'm one of these crazy nutters who loves finding out whether or not it's possible to knock out a tank with a mushy pea.

Edited January 20, 2004 by NKF

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Well, there is apocutil or whatever STJones' apoc version is. I've never tried it though.

 

Now if it is too easy for you, restrict yourself artificially with these exciting game modes! (Based off the Xcom 1/2 ones that Scott T Jones invented, found on his website.) Or mix and match, so you are a Claustrophobe/Peace Corps member!

 

1. Claustrophobic- Your guys are not allowed to wear any armor, ever! Plus, your guys are forbidden from using explosive ammo in cramped areas like the water purifiers.

 

2. Aerophobe- Your guys have a morbid fear of flying. The only time they will get into a flying vehicle is when they need to either A: Go to a crash site or B: Go to the alien dimension. They are also prhoibited from using marsec chest armor.

 

3. Peace Corps- Your men are not allowed to intentionally kill any living creature. You must use stun weapons unless you have to blow something up (Alien dimension.) You are not allowed to use security stations as these kill innocent sentients. You are also only allowed to use lasers and autocannons on your vehicles, because the other weapons cause mass colateral damage (which results in even more deaths.)

 

4. Toxiphobe- You are not allowed to use toxic weapons at all. Nor are your men allowed to use organic weapons (due to the fact that they are organic, and may be toxic to your men, so no alien disruptors.)

 

5. Purist- You can only use basic human infantry. Hybrids and Androids are not allowed into Xcom's ranks.

 

6. Sectoid Wannabe- You can only use hybrids. Humans are to be dismissed as soon as possible (not counting scientists/engineers)

 

7. Sentient Engine Liberation Group- You are determined to make androids into respectable workers. You can't use humans or hybrids (exception: Scientists/engies.) In addition, due to the android production ban, you are only allowed to bring 6 androids in a tactical mission.

 

8. Corporate hater- You hate Corporation X (Marsec, Megapol or Transtellar) and you go on raids there constantly. You do not buy from them due to a distrust of their products.

 

9. Killonator 9000- You are only allowed to use big guns (Autocannon, Machine gun, nades, mines, dimension missiles. No other weapons.)

 

10. Shy Agents- Your agents are shy and fear large weapons. You are not allowed to use anything explosive except stun grenades, and you aren't allowed to use devastator cannons and machineguns either.

 

11. Godzilla!- Whenever an overspawn lands, you allow it to run its course. You can't attack it due to a belief that only another monster can kill it. (Godzilla, where are you when we need you!)

 

12. Lightning bolt survivor- You are not allowed to use anything that requires electricity. Including Shields, Cloak, lasers, plasma, disruptors, and marsec/disruptor armor. (Exception: Vehicles)

 

13. Lone Ranger- You can only send one agent to a mission at a time. Works best with a blazer turbo bike.

 

14. Holy Popper- Poppers aren't allowed to die. If they do, the agent(s) who allowed it to die must immediately leave the map so they can be punished (happens off screen.) You must stun poppers.

 

15. Nice Guy- You are an overall nice guy, you always have enough alien containment. You try not to anger other corporations, you pay their settlement fees, even if it would put you dangerously low on cash. You don't even raid the Cult because you respect their right to have (stupid) beliefs.

[Guest Shoji]

Alternatively you can play iron-man turn-based WITHOUT reloads. That will be hard enough.

[j'ordos]

the megapol savegame in the forums here is meant to be harder, but then it's only harder in the beginning as you lose all marsec produced weapons/vehicles).

APOCutil can randomize the effect weapons have on aliens, so this would surely make the game harder.

 

overkill runs fine here and can be found on this site : http://www.dwcs.net/xcom3/

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Hmmm. I used overkill a bit and it can change a lot of things, so you can make a lot things weaker to make the game more challanging.

 

You can change rate of fire, damage type and range of weapons. For toxiguns, you just need to change their ammo to AP so they hit the shields (although it may not work, I can't be sure).

 

The thing is, overkill can not remove certain features, so it may not be able to remove the shield penetrating ability of toxiguns. I tried making my stun raids easier after other organisations started using shields, I changed the incendiary ammo of mini launchers to stun gas, and the scenario below happened:

 

X-Com: Hey, can we use this new stun weapon on you during this raid?

Marsec: Sure fire ahead.

*X-Com soldier fires the mini launcher, the missle hits Marsec soldier in the chest.

*Marsec soldiers coughs up stun gas and blood as the missle is stuck inside his chest.

Marsec: That... hurts...

X-Com: Oh, my bad...

*Marsec agent dies.

 

Apparently you can't remove the AP damage of mini launcher missles, so they make bad weapons for stun raids.

[Robo Dojo 58]

Apparently you can't remove the AP damage of mini launcher missles, so they make bad weapons for stun raids.

Maybe they have another value for that. It'd be pretty hard to find, though.

 

If Toxin ammo can go through shields, is it possible to make the stun grapple go through?

[j'ordos]

if you change the stun damage to toxin damage yes

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

But then what's the difference between toxigun and stun grapple?

 

BTW: So it is the "toxin type X" damage type that can penetrate shields? So if you change the ammo for toxigun to anything else, it will be stopped by shields?

[j'ordos]

If you do that there won't be a difference (aside from weight/cost/RoF/...)

I think that damage type also determines wether it can pass shields or not, but I haven't tested yet...

[Robo Dojo 58]

Is it possible to change what the damage types do? Like, whether or not they can penetrate shields?