The Modified Ships

[teukros]

Wow, just what I need in the week before finals, something that makes XCom harder and more challenging!

 

 

I have a request (if it's not too late for 9.60); could you make it an option to keep the original ship designs? Especially the interceptor and Firestorm. It's bugging me out that high performance fighters can carry up to six troops with equipment!

 

For the time being, is there an easy way to restore the interceptor and firestorm to their default values, or at least to eliminate their troop carrying capacity?

 

Thanks!

 

EDIT: I just realized that the modified interceptor makes the game a little easier in the beginning. Since you can store up to 80 items in each interceptor, you are in effect starting the game with a free General Stores. Storing stuff in the hangar I guess.

Edited December 15, 2004 by teukros

[j'ordos]

Well, I would suppose you could just not load troops into the fighters, but if you really want to disable it, you can edit it in xcomutil.cfg, IIRC.

[stjones]

I have a request (if it's not too late for 9.60); could you make it an option to keep the original ship designs? Especially the interceptor and Firestorm. It's bugging me out that high performance fighters can carry up to six troops with equipment!

 

For the time being, is there an easy way to restore the interceptor and firestorm to their default values, or at least to eliminate their troop carrying capacity?

 

This has been requested several times and I have always given the same answer: NO. There is no reason to disable the feature, since I am not forcing you to use it.

 

I have never been able to understand why this bothers some people. I have played this game so many times that I typically make it more challenging by voluntarily not using one or more features of the game. I just don't know why other people find this hard to do. One of my favorite games of XCOM was the result of NEVER allowing myself to kill any of the aliens, even accidentally. You can learn more about these game variations on my web page.

 

Also on the topic of willpower and self-control, I ALWAYS play at Superhuman difficulty and NEVER reload the game because of combat losses. I only save and restore the game to allow me to stop playing and come back later. In one game I lost 8 entire squads, along with their ships, in attacks on alien bases. As result, the 17 successful base attacks in that game were more satisfying. XCOM is one of those rare games in which you can recover from ALMOST any loss.

 

I have played XCOM more than 50 times and have actually lost the game a few times. In each case, I had a horrible loss on my first terror site and never saw enough other combat to make up for it before the supporting nations killed the XCOM project. Later in the game, it is almost impossible to lose the game unless all of your bases are captured. However, by using careful base design and defense tactics, I rarely lose one of my bases, even to Ethereals.

[[NKF]]

I think it's just more of a case of just wanting the game to be how it was originally.

 

Here's one solution: Install a second copy of UFO in a new directory, and if you decide to install X-Com util on this copy as well, do not select the new ships on your first run of the setup program. (In which case I'd install a third copy of UFO as well and keep this unmodified by any third party tool or utility).

 

As Scott said, you are not forced to use any of the features. But this'll at least give you the best of all worlds. (and probably an extra 20 savegame slots )

 

- NKF

Edited December 24, 2004 by NKF

[j'ordos]

You can't select to use the new ships, it's applied automatically, IIRC.