OCT 2010 - THE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO IMPROVING COLLECTOR'S EDITION

[ThomasC]

(everything based on pc using windows XP)

 

Hello friends, I've played this game for a long time but only recently found your wonderful site! How I wish I had found it earlier (xcom is so bugged)! I've spent the last six hours dredging this site and believe I have a acquired every useful bug fixer and game improvement for xcom 1 that this community has produced. I am very impressed and you all should be proud (especially Seb76!). The game is essentially twice as good once the best mods have been put it.

 

However I must confess that scraping through seven years worth of posts and 20 odd upgrades, many of which overlap and interfere with each other has been no pleasant task, especially for someone who is essentially computer illiterate. Well, was computer illiterate, I i've learned a lot about unzipping and editing ini. files >_>

 

But I would have loved to have had a post that laid EVERYTHING useful in ONE place with FOOLPROOF INSTRUCTIONS, for I am retarded and lazy and have no desire to improve my computer skills :/

 

So I will do that, if I miss anything, anything at all please tell me and I will edit the post, but I'm pretty sure I've got at least 90% of everything. If I don't include your program don't be offended, the objective of this is to simply create the maximum Xcom 1 experience with the minimum amount of work on the part of retards.

 

1. STEP ONE - BUY XCOM GOLD COLLECTOR'S EDITION

 

This can be bought from Steam or other pay gaming websites. I must confess that I am cheap and tried to find a free copy via googling, but typing in words like download xcom abandonware ufo enemy unknown gold edition failed miserably so I forked over the the 5 dollars grrrrrrrrr

 

STEP TWO - EXTRACT AND INSTALL XCOM GOLD EDITION

 

Create a new folder in c drive labeled "UFO Defense" and extract your download. The whole package should read "C:\UFO Defense"

 

Find the start icon, something like "Gold Edition" or "Ufo Defense" and click it to make sure it runs. You may get a garbled screen, that's fine, we'll fix that, just make sure something resembling a program pops up and doesnt crash.

 

STEP THREE - INSTALL THE MOD CALLED UFO EXTENDER

 

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=F...xtender-src.zip

 

This is the big one, it fixes a lot of bugs and greatly expands the playability of xcom1. The download should be called "UFOLoader." Extract it into the "UFO Defense" folder (THE ONLY FOLDER YOU HAVE). An icon with a grey alien head will appear, this will ultimately be the icon you click to start your awesome modded xcom edition so keep track of it. Another important thing is spit out of the extraction, a notepad with an orange gear in front of it called "configuration settings." This is the control panel for UFOExtender. Click on it. There's a lot of horrible looking gobbledegook but here's the important thing, the first coding

 

[Loader]

Executable=

 

This is what allows UFOExtender to interface with the XCOM Gold Edition. Whatever the "start" execution icon is that came with your gold edition "Start XCOM1" "PLAY XCOM1" "Gold Edition" etc needs to go after the equals symbol. My start icon is "UFO Defense" so the complete, proper code is

 

[Loader]

Executable=UFO Defense.exe

 

I think that "UFO Defense.exe" is the default setting so hopefully you won't have to change anything.

 

The UFOExtender mod is actually like 200 small mods, each one of which you can control in the configuration settings below the "[Loader]" line. Each line of code has a zero "0" after it. This is the off position. Changing it to one "1" turns that little section of the mod on.

 

A readme file that came with the unzipping explains what each little codeline does in detail. The most important ones are the bugfixes, there are about 15 of them. Change every one of the little 0's to 1's. IF the graphics were garbled this should correct them. Another way to tell if the mod is active is that the game's language selections screen will say "all your base are belong to us." Pithy. Do not move on until you are SURE the UFOExtender has interfaced with the game, or you will drown in frustration later.

 

Here's a more detailed description of each little codeline

 

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=User:Seb76

 

STEP FOUR - DOWNLOAD THE COMBO XCOM GAME FOLDER PATCH

 

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=677

 

This one is a no brainer compared to Step Three. Just download the zip file at the bottom right hand of this pages and extract it into your UFO Defense folder. Override as needed. Shazam! You probably just fixed a slew of bugs!

 

STEP FIVE - DOWNLOAD THE TWO PARTS OF THE VOICE MODS

 

For some reason the collectors edition screwed up the voices of the aliens and made them lame and boring. This mod corrrects that

 

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242025565

 

It has two parts. As with step four, all you have to do is download into your UFO Defense folder (YOUR ONLY FOLDER) and override as needed for both. Remember, there are two parts to download and unzip. I believe you can tell whether the mod took effect by listening to the sounds of the intro. They're much more dramatic (a little scary!) once the mod is installed.

 

STEP SIX - DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC

 

The music also sucks in the collector's edition (they just didn't care). LET'S FIX THAT

 

http://www.xcomufo.com/x1music.html

 

Download All 12 files and drop them into your ONE FOLDER CALLED UFO DEFENSE. Create a new folder within UFO DEFENSE called MP3. Dump the 12 songs in that folder. Delete everything in their names but the following:

 

Battlescape1

Battlescape2

Final Briefing

Geoscape1

Geoscape2

Geoscape3

Geoscape4

Dogfight

Debriefing

Briefing1

Briefing2

Mission Accomplished

 

You don't have to add anything to make them look like that, just delete superflous words like "PS Music" or something.

 

Then, if you haven't already, reopen UFOExtender configuration file (the list with 200 lines of code). Go down to the third bracket [Music]. Turn the 0 to 1. DONT MESS WITH ANYTHING ELSE RELATED TO MUSIC. Save the file (save the file after every time you adjust it in fact). To test whether or not you were successful, switch the 0 and 1 of the [Music] codeline back and forth and see if the music's any different when you play the game.

 

BONUS STEP

 

GEOSCAPE ICON FOR THE WIN

 

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?sh...mp;#entry118593

 

Download the little icon and unzip it into your geoscape folder within your UFO Defense folder (YOUR ONLY FOLDER)

 

--------------

 

That concludes my horrible trial, which was well worth the glorious xcom gold edition it produced. Hopefully you will be able to achieve this glory without wasting seven hours of sleep (hooray for work in two hours!).

 

P.S. XcomUtil - as far as I'm concerned, it's unnecessary in terms of game IMPROVEMENT. If you want to dramatically alter the way xcom is played, the XcomUtil is for you, but it's more like a god tool than a game enhancement IMO. It has some benefits but the fact that it cant interface with UFOExtender disqualifies it.

 

P.P.S. Max's 2005 edition is good, but again I couldn't get it to interface with UFOExtender. While they're both good I think UFOExtender covers a lot of what 2005 covers and adds a huge amount of content to boot.

 

That is all, thanks again for all you guys work, if I overlooked anything big or small post and I'll insert it. I probably wont be catching up on my sleep tomorrow (tonight???) since I'll be enjoying my super xcom XD

Edited October 28, 2010 by ThomasC

[Fomka]

Wow, great job!

This is really the one-in-all post.

  ThomasC said:

But I would have loved to have had a post that laid EVERYTHING useful in ONE place with FOOLPROOF INSTRUCTIONS, for I am retarded and lazy and have no desire to improve my computer skills :/

However, that "everything in one place" approach can be taken further. What if to zip all the mods into one archive that must be unpacked over bought X-COM? I mean to take that improved version, find all not-original files (their date of creation may be very different from originals) which can be freely distributed and make an archive of them.

[SaintD]

Nice work sir!

 

Re: XcomUtil, I agree with you and still recomend it if for the DOS version with DOSBOX. However, Seb's extender does everything I needed xcomutil for and more in the windows version.

[Valken]

Great job but please make an "all in 1 archive" and remember to leave the credits in there! Would be way easier for everyone to update their X-Com Collectors Edition.

 

Now if someone could put together a similar thing for TFTD and Apoc!

[he11b1ade]

This guide is completely flawed. Features are incompatible with the Combo and Voice mods.

 

For example, all Extender graphic options don't work with the mods!

 

HQ4x

D3D

D3D Windowed

Screen Ratio

Max FPS

Clip Cursor

Scale Mouse

 

I tried it without the Mods and the game was back to normal.

 

I don't even know if the rest of the Extender changes are working. I really wish I have the time to look into it.

 

Sigh ... this is what happened to my Bauldur's Gate2 after applying like a dozen mods.

Edited April 26, 2011 by he11b1ade

[jaakes]

  he11b1ade said:

This guide is completely flawed. Features are incompatible with the Combo and Voice mods.

 

For example, all Extender graphic options don't work with the mods!

 

HQ4x

D3D

D3D Windowed

Screen Ratio

Max FPS

Clip Cursor

Scale Mouse

 

I tried it without the Mods and the game was back to normal.

 

I don't even know if the rest of the Extender changes are working. I really wish I have the time to look into it.

 

Sigh ... this is what happened to my Bauldur's Gate2 after applying like a dozen mods.

 

 

I tried a new install and put all this stuff on and the thing ran just fine, all those graphics options work(well I didn't try the fps or ratio). Aliens shriek properly when shot. Of course I did download the actual extender not the source file offered in the OP Obviously you figured that out as well if you did get it to work without the mods. Don't know what to say.

Edited July 25, 2011 by jaakes

[Istrebitel]

I must add that XcomUtils DOES work with UFO Extender. The 9.7 beta version that is.

It is beta of course, but the only bug in that version is that if you ever turn on Psi screening "always", you cannot turn it off (its a bug in the batch file that doesnt set MCScr variable to N when N is chosen, but instead does nothing - goto end label- so, it doesnt change anything when you choose N - that gives you N until you choose Y once, after which you can never change it to N... easy to fix by re-installing xcomutils or just tweaking the bat file).

 

XcomUtils gives you:

- very important stat strings (helps alot and saves alot of time, and its fully customisable to the way YOU want it to work)

- saves soldier equipemnt - for an odd reason UFO Extender option doesnt work for me

- fixes alien sounds (no need for other mods)

- overall, xcomutils solution to fixing bugs is better, since it just changes the files for the mission, instead of tempering with the program memory, more safe and stable way to do it imho (of course it is limited as well since you can only add those great functions UFO Extender adds by tempering with memory)

- provides numerous interesting options to enhance your gameplay (which you can easilly turn on and off if you dont like them anymore) namely improved HWP, improved heavy laser, change in laser technology and plasma technology, research help from aliens, etc

 

Also UFO Extender unfortunately has its flaws. Still using it every time i play X-Com 1 though.

But problems include:

- game corruption http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242034894

- for me and alot of people mp3 playing does not work, have to use an iso in virtual drive and play music from cd

- crashes when going from geo to battle

[max paint it black]

I know this post is quite old, but anyways I wanted to thank OP for gathering all this together.

 

Following these instructions I've been able to run XCOM on Windows 7 64bits.

 

Stickying this post could be a good idea.

Edited May 28, 2012 by max paint it black