Topic: Addicted....to....the...new...XCOM Enemy Uknown

[Phoenix7786]

Heya all!
I've been recently playing the new X-com Enemy Unknown and having been a fan of the original 3 I love this re-envisioning. I didn't think it was possible to do justice, but Will Wright Sid Meier one of the best hopes. He's an old-school developer, has the clout, finances, and skill to make bold and ballsy moves and stand by them. But the game itself is great. It offers enough difficulties to satiate everyone, from the "please be gentle it's my first TBS game", to the "Oh I played the original this should be fun" to the hard-core masochist who beats the originals on the hardest difficulties with the default gear (i.e. no researching or adapting technology).
If I was to list why I loved this game so much this post would never end. In short, if you are a fan of TBS or liked the originals, then this is your game. If you have to, just download the demo.

EDIT: Freudian slip with Sid Meier's name.

[X]

I've yet to try this game but I hear it's good. I am also a fan of the original game (the PSX version) as that one had the creepy atmospheric music playing. X-Com TftD was okay but it was just the same engine with different graphics and sounds. Not all too impressive but different. Apocalypse imo was terrible (the story anyways) so in my mind that game never happened. And I hope they don't follow the same path with the new X-Com either.

[Phoenix7786]

Yeah about the only complaints that can't be changed with mods are the lack of multiple alien bases and multiple X-com bases.
Modders have found ways in the games config files to enable random council funding, the ability to shoot down abduction site UFO's and terror site UFO's.

[Kale]

Have mods been able to stop weapons from being destroyed on kills? And with that, the ability to sell the weapons in the stupid "gray" market.

[Beaumont_Belmont]

Heya all!
I've been recently playing the new X-com Enemy Unknown and having been a fan of the original 3 I love this re-envisioning. I didn't think it was possible to do justice, but Will Wright was actually my best hope. He's an old-school developer, has the clout, finances, and skill to make bold and ballsy moves and stand by them. But the game itself is great. It offers enough difficulties to satiate everyone, from the "please be gentle it's my first TBS game", to the "Oh I played the original this should be fun" to the hard-core masochist who beats the originals on the hardest difficulties with the default gear (i.e. no researching or adapting technology).
If I was to list why I loved this game so much this post would never end. In short, if you are a fan of TBS or liked the originals, then this is your game. If you have to, just download the demo.

Erm...I think you mean Sid Meier, not Will Wright. Firaxis is Meier's company.

I'm pretty addicted to it, too though. Wonder if we'll get a Terror From The Deep sequel if it does well...

[X]

Sid Meier did purchase the rights and he even has a cameo in-game sprite of himself 

[Phoenix7786]

Have mods been able to stop weapons from being destroyed on kills? And with that, the ability to sell the weapons in the stupid "gray" market.

For starters I messed up on the name so I corrected that.

As far as the modders go there actually IS coding enabled for all sorts of stuff that was actually turned ON by DEFAULT but then deactivated and removed from the game's options menu. Odd.
The list is

(click to show/hide)

Updated to version 1.2
Includes new patcher and profile.bin which goes into your save files so that you can access the second wave options as seen above without beating the game. Plus fixes some bugs if you use this one since it should give you every option that I listed below.


While going through the files I found the second wave options and after a little bit of testing with them enabled they appear to work BUT I can't vouch they will all work perfectly. The menu with the options works just fine. You will have to complete the game before these options will show up.

To access the new options you need to first beat the game and then start a new game, you'll notice the options will be there where you pick the difficulty for the game. The new options for second wave are:

WORKS Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage

New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized

WORKS Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats

Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly

BUGGED Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission

Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit

The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien

BUGGED. GAME UNWINNABLE Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete

Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases

WORKS High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized

WORKS Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built

The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack

More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare

Now once again I can't promise that each and every single one of them works since I haven't tested them all.


Also included is a optional version that will include the second wave options as well as also including the ability to find and shot down enemy terror / abduction UFO's.

NOTE: This mod is not compatible with the balance mod as these both change the same exact EXE file.

Installation: Unzip the file and run patcher.bat. It will edit your exe and make a backup copy of it in your steamapps/common/xcom-enemy-unknown/binaries/win32 Then just run the game via steam like normal or use a steam desktop shortcut. Attempting to run the exe file by it's self will not run the game.

Take the profile.bin file and copy that over to your documents/mygames/xcom-enemy-unknown/xcomgame/savedata folder. Replace your old profile.bin or save your old file and use the new one. It won't change your keybindings or setting it will just unlock all the second wave options.

Uninstall: Delete Xcomgame.exe in the above mentioned folder and rename 'xcom-original' to 'xcomgame'

Link: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/7/

The above mod looks like it has an updated version.

(click to show/hide)

Updated to version 1.4 now.
Now includes updated patcher which should solve some problems. Also I included some optional downloads that will include the balance mod with second wave options if people wanted to use both of them.

Updated to version 1.2
ISSUE WHERE GAME STOPS WORKING SHOULD BE FIXED NOW!! IF NOT PLEASE COMMENT

Added a optional file that only now lets you shot down terror and abduction UFO's without editing anything else for those that just want that fixed.

While I was going through the files for the game I noticed a few things that struck me as odd. In the code there is a line that allows players to detect UFO's that are conducting terror missions as well as abduction missions but for some reason it's turned to off by default. I can only guess the reason why is because they assume the game will be too easy if you can find all the UFO's that are conducting these missions. I on the other hand disagree with that because from my own testing I found that it makes the game harder since you have to deal with more UFO's.

Instead of just getting a pop up of three places to save from abduction missions you will now have the chance to find the UFO's that are doing this. If you don't have any satellite coverage in the area then you won't find them of course and there is always a chance you just won't find it. The UFO's that conduct these missions tend to all come around the same time so you'll have to deal with a potential of 1-3 UFO's all within a 2 day period (roughly). This means you have a lot more work to do and a higher chance of losing soldiers. On the plus side it gives you more UFO's to shoot down and more combat with the chance of stopping panic from spreading. On the down side it gives you a much higher chance of losing soldiers and spreading panic if you're unable to deal with the extra UFO's. For every UFO that you deal with that is going to do a abduction mission means one less place to choose from when the game forces you to pick a abduction mission to do. I've been able to get it down to just choosing one place instead of three!

Included with these changes is a small change to the reward that you get from doing the abduction missions. Instead of getting 4 scientists or engineers I rounded it up to 5 because this game likes to work with combo's of 5. It made no sense to me to have 9 engineers when I needed 10 to make new buildings and I felt trolled so I fixed that. I also made the monetary reward from 200 to 250 to make it slightly more tempting to choose. Be warned though, for every abduction UFO that you shoot down means one less to choose from which means you won't get that reward. Your reward in that case is stopping the panic spread and lowering the panic via shooting down the UFO.

I also lowered the amount of time that it takes to make a satellite from 20 days to 10 days. It always bugged me that making a firestorm which is a combination of alien and human tech and highly advanced only took 14 days to make but a simple satellite took 20 days. You're still limited to making only as many as you can cover though so while you can make them faster you can't make any more then normal.

Health for soldiers is also normalized in this to their base health of 5, which translates to 6 in the game since the base armor gives +1 health. This is changed from the -1 health in classic and -2 from impossible. While looking over the files the aliens all give a health bonus in classic (a small one) and in impossible (a huge one) and if you hired new soldiers they all came with base health of 5 I didn't see why you needed your starter soldiers to be 'gimped'. I will have a version up though if possible that doesn't include the health changes in case someone doesn't want this or they fix the bug later down the line. In case you didn't know the bug is that if when you hire new soldiers they all come with 5 health instead of the lowered health of your starter soldiers.

I also slightly balanced out the rewards you get per satellite over counties in classic mode only. In the files it has the rewards for easy and normal being the same and classic and impossible mode being the same and there is a steep difference between the two. All I did very, very slightly increase the rewards (not the money just the scientist and engineers) in classic mode so there is a clear difference between normal, classic and impossible. At most you get +1 scientist / engineer per continent which isn't a huge deal but I wanted to balance everything out.

Installation: Unzip file and run patcher.bat It will edit your exe file with the changes and then make a backup copy in: steamapps/common/xcom-enemy-unknown/binaries/win32/ labled 'xcom-orignal'

If installing the second wave optional file, please take the profile.bin file that is included and move it to your mygames/xcom/savedata folder and replace your profile.bin file. This won't reset any of your options or mess with the keybindings, it will just update your profile to have beaten the game.

Uninstall:
Delete XComGame.exe in the above mentioned folder and rename 'xcom-orginal' to 'XComGame'

Running: To play just use steam to play or use a desktop shortcut. Double clicking the modified exe file will NOT run the game.

Thanks to Dreadylein for his help in getting this to work via his patcher that he made.

Link: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/5/

The other popular mod includes

(click to show/hide)

This mod does:

- all aliens now play with default aim and critical hit values on classic difficult
- ufos prepare for terror and abduction missions
- second wave is enabled
- halved construction time of new satellites

Hi there,

i love playing on ironman + classic but i realy hated the cheating AI. It gets +criticalchance and +aim% on classic, which leads to unfair gameplay. In one ironman classic game, i had 3 sectoids one shooting 3 vets from me in one turn while they had full cover and 10+ tiles distance.

With my mod, i removed the +criticalchance and +aim% from all aliens on classic difficult. You now get the full alien AI, without any cheating. I changed NO other values.

The game is still alot harder than normal difficult because the AI is fully active and the alien groups are way bigger. You will mostly notice that your soldiers now take 1-2 hits before they die, because the aliens wont crit like crazy anymore. The aliens will still have an allmost 100% crit chance if they flank you.

This mainly remove the unfair shots, like a sectoid one shooting your guy (crit) in full cover from across the map. It can still happen but it will be more rare.

You are also now able to intercept ufos that prepare for abduction and terror missions. Its pretty funny, cos the feature was completely in there, it was just disabled.

What does it do?

Before a terror or abduction mission happens, a ufo is spawned. The ufo now needs to fly to its destination...if you have satelite coverage, you can intercept it. If you shot it down, the mission wont happen after all.

On abduction missions, there are 3 ufos because of the 3 abduction sites which you usualy select after the abduction mission takes place. If you shot all 3 ufos down (very very hard to do), there will be NO abduction mission at all. If you shot down 2 of the 3 ufos, you still get the abduction mission but with only one of the 3 locations to select. This means that even shooting 1-2 ufos of the 3 down, will lower the panic spread by alot.

Its pretty realistic and i just love it.

You think that would be to easy?

This modification makes the game MUCH harder. Because these abduction and terror ufos are not destroyable with the starting interceptor. This means you get +2 panic for every ignored ufo and +1 panic if you attack it but fail to destroy it. These new ufos will also destroy your satellite network and finaly give you a reason to put some money into the interceptor stuff.

To counter the new panic spread, i halved the construction time of new satellites from 20 to 10 days. i first played with the old construction time but it was WAY to difficult.

I also think 10 days is much better because a brand new firestorm takes 13 days to build, so why does a satellite take 20 days? o.O

Second wave is also enabled which basicaly gives you the option to play a newgame+ with custom mutators.

Installation:

Extract the archive and just run modpatcher.exe and it should modify your game!


Have fun
Link: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/10

If anyone wants to look at ALL the little mods made the homes site is http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/categories/

[Kale]

Nah, I've checked those... I was wondering if there were others that did what I asked... I want to go rogue!

[Gunlord]

Wow, sounds like fun But I got the game on the PS3, and I'm enjoying it. Pretty good remake.