Question About Gauss

[Chris StarShade]

Is it possible to get X-COM Util to give me advanced Gauss weapons without dissing the clips?

 

I mean, I want my Gauss guns to be USEFUL but I do NOT want them to be like super-powered laser guns. I want the vestiges of their Plasma Gunnishness to still be there (and those vestiges include ammo clips)!

 

Oh and, on a side note, is there any editor that can delete UFOs from off the Geoscape?

[[NKF]]

The gauss clips are so easy and cheap to generate too. It's not like you need infinite ammunition - except possibly on a lobsterman cruise ship mission. But then you'd be wise to bring other weapon along as well.

 

It can't be done with XComutil, but you can get an editor like XC2ME2 and open up the weapon editor and modify the gauss weapons to not generate damage (the guns themselves)and then reassign the clips to them.

 

As for geoscape ship removers... Nope, none exist (yet).

 

I'd actually watch out for that. In UFO, I had a similar case where two battleships hovered near Australia. Caused the game to crash after a certain time until I reloaded an earlier save.

 

- NKF

 

edit: geo-, not battle-

Edited September 27, 2004 by NKF

[Chris StarShade]

XC2ME2 ay?

 

As for the anomolous alien subs, I'm not too worried... I'm very close to T'Leth anyway.

[Chris StarShade]

I found the editor, and it works wonderfully...

 

Except that it cannot use any features that requires it to modify geoscape.exe.

 

I suspect the reason for this is that I am using the Windows version, and so geoscape.exe doesn't even exist! I am rather perplexxed at this, actually. I wonder how long before an editor that can modify those for the windows version will appear.

 

I modified them to be comparable to plasma weapons, but not quite. Rather strange how they were in the beginning. In the beginning, only the rifle was equivalent to the laser weapon, whereas the other two were sub-par. Considering these were supposed to be based on the plasma weapons of the first war, it makes the UFOpedia out to be a liar if they're damage quota is less than even the laser weapons.

 

So, I modified them so the damage results are equal to: (Weapon Damage - Comparable Laser Weapon Damage + Comparable Plasma Weapon Damage)

 

The result: Gauss Pistol 51; Gauss Rifle 80; Heavy Gauss: 110

 

Thus, while not equal to the original Plasma Weapons they come pretty darn close.

I left the ammunition available alone.

 

Due to my inability to modify the craft weapons, the Gauss Cannon will be left as is. I guess it will just have to be justified by saying that the water adaptation greatly reduced the range and the damage over great distances, as opposed to the handheld versions.

 

And now, an obdata file for anyone who doesn't want to screw with theirs. To use unzip to the Geodata directory in whatever directory Terror from the Deep is in.

obdata.zip

[[NKF]]

I actually quite like the gauss pistol the way it is. Unedited, I mean.

 

I agree, it's not a powerful weapon, but it makes up for this in sheer speed and clip capacity (not to mention how fast they can be built). Think of it as a sub(haha!)-machine gun. Useless against lobstermen and a few terror units with lots of armour (Xarquids and Hallucinoids), but it can can still make a killing against most enemies (Tasoth even).

 

No real opinion on the rifle, but the cannon seriously needs something to set it aside from the rest. As it is, it's just a bulkier and slightly more accurate (for aimed) equivalent of the sonic pistol with a smaller clip.

 

If you don't mind making a truly radical change, you might even consider turning the cannon into a rapid-fire weapon rather than a single shot weapon. Lower the damage to just below the level of the gauss pistol, then set its burst mode to cost 20% and perhaps a 30% - 40% accuracy adjustment, and increase the clip capacity to... oh say 50. I'm basing this roughly off one of the unused weapons in UFO, some sort of gatling laser weapon. For that, it did a damage of 40, had aim and snap modes that were worse than the laser pistol, but had burst mode that cost 15% and was 50% accurate. Amazing weapon despite the low damage. Try it for fun, but don't use it if you're wanting to play a serious game.

 

- NKF

[Paladin]

Well, balancing the crappy job they did with the starting weapons IS a serious job IMHO...

It's like they cloned the original game's "early weapons suck" principle, without considering that technology had evolved 50 years in between...

[Chris StarShade]

Technology might have evolved 50 years, but, seriously: Would they have worried about water-proofing whatever supped up laser weapons they were probably using?

 

I mean, really! How many underwater wars with INFANTRY have been fought in history?

 

That's the point. Not only is this war against another 'Enemy Unknown' but it is fought almost entirely in 'Battlefield Unknown.'

 

Thus, with water interfering with conventional (and laser) weapons systems the way it does, they are forced to revert to harpoon guns and what not.

 

Also, don't say technology hasn't advanced! Some of that stuff is pretty hot stuff, probably designed by British Hydrospace on the fly (the aquajet torpedoes) or else maybe even an example of water-adapted versions of fairly advanced equipment (the Gas Cannon)

 

In any event, rant over. My biggest problem with the game was: A. You are stuck using water-adapted weapons on land and B. The Gauss game stats didn't match the UFOpedia's description of them being closely related to plasma weapons.

[Paladin]

Yep, I agree with all that, except that if technology have evolved to teh point of living in the oceanic depths, then either it allowed wars there, or it was the result of a war...

 

Besides, there must not be a single whale in the seas, with all those Sonars making so much noise the'yll turn blind or crazy... It's already happening with today's whales and dolphins...

[[NKF]]

Hmm, I always thought gauss guns were just magnetised coils that propel a little pellet at really great speeds. Doesn't matter really what it is. This game's got a lot of pseudo-science in it anyway, so why bother justifying things? What's this? It's a ray gun from outer space. Deal with it.

 

Speaking of the underwater weapons, not only have most of the weapons been scaled down a bit (with a few exceptions), the alien stats have scaled up a bit.

 

So you're essentially fighting stronger aliens with weaker weapons.

 

The Gas Cannon and the thermal tazer are slightly different in this respect. The Gas Cannon is a major upgrade over its Heavy Cannon counterpart. Most obvious is its more powerful shells. The tazer is slower than the stun rod, but it deals more stun damage.

 

So it's not all that bad. It's just the regular use weapons like the dart gun (shudder - the only weapon I truly despise in the entire X-Com series. Oh, I like the gun, I hate the damage) and the harpoon gun that are a bit of a disappointment. But mind you, the point about fighting in a new environment does justify their weakness.

 

- NKF

[Chris StarShade]

Crazy whales from sonar? Odd, since sea creatures have been using sonar for aeons to find their way around. I would have thought there was already too much sonar going on.

 

 

Also, deaf maybe, but probably not blind. Although, a deaf whale is probably as good as a blind man. Maybe by the real 2040 AD they'll come up with an alternative to sonar...

 

As for the Gauss weapons, the idea was that the Plasma Weapons used the power of Elerium to create anti-graviy waves that would contain the plasmatic bolt. (Without the anti-gravity "shell" the bolt dissipates harmlessly).

 

Thus, with Gauss, they mimick the effect but use gauss magnetism to contain the plasma bolt rather than anti-gravity waves. Hence, no elerium is needed.

[Paladin]

"fighting stronger aliens with weaker weapons"

Yep, that's the deal

And it's also why Tftd is tougher, even with the most powerfull armors, and even on beginner

And yes, the Gas cannon is now definitely worth it, esp. above water

(and darts are LAME, as it should be...)

 

Re: Whales, well, why do you think there are so many Whales ending up dying on beaches in this century... It was extremely rare before, but whenever there's a major naval exercise with lots of ships, the dead whales just accumulate...

The thing is, those ships use sonars millions of times more powerfull that the Wahles subtle vocal communications and sonar. they need that to know where they are going, their eyes does not tell them much underwater... Their sonar does.

But how would you find your way in a big city when you have continuous camera flashes right in the eyes? That's how those whales feel...

 

Besides, Dolphin's sonar is so well developped that's the reason they see us as cousins, and not fish, they can see our bone structure is similar, they can even see a women to be pregnant so they'll help her to the surface as they do their own...

 

 

Re: Gauss, I agree, but they should have kept the laser, at least for terror missions over water... It'S frustrating to have weapons that don't work over water, but why not the reverse??

[Chris StarShade]

I know what you mean. I wish someone would hack the source codes of UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep and make a hybrid game. Heh.

 

 

*sigh* Let's have a "It came from the Deeps" expansion for Xenocide when it comes out.

[Paladin]

We'll sure do

Btw, I've heard the source code had been released on Sourceforge, is it only a rumor or what??