XCOM 2 Catch-All

Malor wrote:

The good news: Tkyl's mod works!

The bad news: It doesn't work with the 'relaxed timer' mod.

Oh, also.... Tkyl: when I was trying to figure out what the problem was, I spotted an error in your provided INI file... the 'enable' setting for your mod is missing the N, so it says something_eable_somethingelse. Since it defaults to on, probably nobody has noticed yet... but I suspect that, if someone tries to disable the setting, it won't disable.

I looked at the mods, in the hope that I could combine the two into one, but it looks like the key files are in binary. Can I combine and regenerate them myself with the SDK, or am I stuck with one or the other?

Unfortunately, you're stuck with one or the other, as far as I am aware. Each mod is overriding the same base class, so which ever is listed first is the one that takes precedence.

Each mod is overriding the same base class, so which ever is listed first is the one that takes precedence.

Right, okay, sure, but I don't think the settings are *actually* incompatible; they're just overwriting the same file twice.

So, presumably, I should be able to combine the two mods into a single changed file, no?

edit: in other words, I should be able to make one mod that does both things? And can I get what I need to reverse engineer both with the SDK?

Malor wrote:
Each mod is overriding the same base class, so which ever is listed first is the one that takes precedence.

Right, okay, sure, but I don't think the settings are *actually* incompatible; they're just overwriting the same file twice.

So, presumably, I should be able to combine the two mods into a single changed file, no?

edit: in other words, I should be able to make one mod that does both things? And can I get what I need to reverse engineer both with the SDK?

Sorry, misunderstood you. Yes, that is absolutely possible. Though you will need the source files for both. I don't think the SDK allows you to reverse engineer the compiled script files.

RPS posted a Performance Guide with some good suggestions. Everything from standard in-game settings to graphic-card driver tweaks. The latter sounds promising as I have yet to meet satisfactory success with in-game settings alone.

Aaron D. wrote:

RPS posted a Performance Guide with some good suggestions. Everything from standard in-game settings to graphic-card driver tweaks. The latter sounds promising as I have yet to meet satisfactory success with in-game settings alone.

And, scraped from the comments there, pcgamingwiki has some great info, as well, with some benchmarks (on a 650Ti) and visuals:

http://community.pcgamingwiki.com/pa...

I still haven't figured out how to get the GWJers in the character pool. I thought I found the right directory in Steam, extracted the thing, yet I only have access to demos and devs.

In related news, I need to reinstall Windows 7 on my desktop. With Mommy Brain in full effect, I don't have the capacity for messing with Linux.

Tamren wrote:

Just beat the base defense mission for the first time. Spoilers ahoy!

Spoiler:

I should start this off by explaining that I'm playing the game with a modded squad size. Specifically I have 8 members max in my squad, I believe this was experimented with at one point in the game's development because the skyranger actually has a 4th row of seats in it and you can see the extra soldiers when the camera moves back. In order to compensate for this advantage I went and modded the aliens to have larger squad sizez. I basically just went into the mission config fire and increased EVERY number by 1. This increased the minimum and maximum alien pack size to 3 and 5 respectively. If you've played the mission before you know what's coming.

You can probably imagine the look on my face when I stepped out of the deployment zone and saw the 9 codexes, with a berserker no less. And that was just the left flank! My ini changes were designed with a squad of 8 in mind and I only had access to an initial 6, not a good situation.
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/495763483654908830/74ED917FB66A9F3508EDF129F36766BA3E8C45B9/)

No one died on this mission and I didn't save scum during the mission itself. I did however reload the start of the mission about 4 times as I slowly got over the initial OH GOD WHAT THE f*ck and figured out an opening move that didn't just end with my team slaughtered on turn 1. There were four clutch moments that got me over the initial hump:

1. My sniper shot 13 aliens in a single turn, set half of them on fire with dragon rounds and touched off what I can only describe as the "codex apocalypse".
2. My ranger activated Reaper and chain-sworded 10 codex and codex clones in the same turn, diving deep into enemy territory and curving around in a horseshoe shape until he ended back where he started. If he hadn't missed the 11th target he might have gotten 12 in a row!
3. My psion mind controlled a berserker and bought me one more precious turn of distraction.
4. The second soldier I received as reinforcement was my OTHER medic specialist, that really saved my bacon.

Here's a look at the map right before my ranger went on his killing spree.
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/495763483654909042/FF865F3C08119AB0D8C6090BCBD18F1F67CF756C/)

Once my ranger was able to thin out the codexes the situation stabilized for me. I was still facing something like 7-20 odds but now they were all attacking me from the same direction. My flanks were secure and they were also standing rather close together! This is the first time in my campaign that I rolled with a squad of all Colonels and they kick ass like you wouldn't believe. Two turns of grenade spam, rocket spam, and even a tossed proximity mine later the enemy was looking rather thin.
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/495763483654909232/4BD664E966995BDDFDFCE4AC86EA06006B993A56/)

By the time they started calling in dropships to reinforce the situation was well under control. Here's a picture showing the battlefield the turn before I evacuated the site. Funny footnote to all this, my ranger had his gun disabled by a codex on the first turn. He spent the entire mission with an unloaded gun because he was so busy dashing all over the map and swording stuff. The one time he stopped and had a spare moment to reload his gun, He couldn't. Because he was on fire.
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/495763483654909410/350DF50B543F0799BAD2C9F25E728DE5BF4035A4/)
IMAGE(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/495763483654909492/7795493CDBB88A025ACDB9623A9A78D54D76503B/)

Wow! Fantastic work, Commander! I would have Nope Nope Noped right out of that campaign. Well, maybe after a couple tries at it, but my XCom luck is that whenever I get a situation like that I ran with the wrong squad. So, for me, I would have been missing the Reaper ranger to clean up. Still, great work there.

Does the Avenger defense come more than once? I got it early, and am deep into late game (I faffed about for a long time, not really understanding how Resistance Coms worked), but haven't had one since.

So I've been trying the hack the planet plan I mentioned previously. Basically been hacking everything and gathering tons of intel. It's really risky because going heavy on specialist is tough. That said when robots enter the field I soon have a small army. So far it's working nice and I've been able to buy most the things for the black market. The extra supplies, engies, and scientist are nice. Might need to modify my group though. 3-4 specialist seem like the max. Still not bad since that's 60-80 intel per mission.

master0 wrote:

So I've been trying the hack the planet plan I mentioned previously. Basically been hacking everything and gathering tons of intel. It's really risky because going heavy on specialist is tough. That said when robots enter the field I soon have a small army. So far it's working nice and I've been able to buy most the things for the black market. The extra supplies, engies, and scientist are nice. Might need to modify my group though. 3-4 specialist seem like the max. Still not bad since that's 60-80 intel per mission.

What is this hack the planet plan? I need intel bad!

Balthezor wrote:
master0 wrote:

So I've been trying the hack the planet plan I mentioned previously. Basically been hacking everything and gathering tons of intel. It's really risky because going heavy on specialist is tough. That said when robots enter the field I soon have a small army. So far it's working nice and I've been able to buy most the things for the black market. The extra supplies, engies, and scientist are nice. Might need to modify my group though. 3-4 specialist seem like the max. Still not bad since that's 60-80 intel per mission.

What is this hack the planet plan? I need intel bad!

Take a couple of specialists on all missions and hack everything that can be hacked. Sometimes the bonus will be caches of alloys or intel. Other times it can make your team concealed after being spotted or any number of nice bonuses. I stopped this tactic as I seem to have the absolute worst luck with hacking mechs. I almost always fail to take them over or even shut them down. I have decent hacking scores, but that's just XCOM being XCOM.

Balthezor wrote:
master0 wrote:

So I've been trying the hack the planet plan I mentioned previously. Basically been hacking everything and gathering tons of intel. It's really risky because going heavy on specialist is tough. That said when robots enter the field I soon have a small army. So far it's working nice and I've been able to buy most the things for the black market. The extra supplies, engies, and scientist are nice. Might need to modify my group though. 3-4 specialist seem like the max. Still not bad since that's 60-80 intel per mission.

What is this hack the planet plan? I need intel bad!

As Grenn said it's basically hacking and skullmining everything. Four specialist with four skull jacks can net you a decent amount of intel per mission. It's really risky though and you run an rather imbalanced squad. Also hack ever normal thing you see. Either those towers or the occasional chest. They always provide a nice reward. If your really desperate for intel remember you can get it at your base.

Personally I'm just doing this for fun. I want to try an all psychic build and an all heavy build. Not sure if the former will work but the latter will be fun. Explosions for everyone.

master0 wrote:
Balthezor wrote:
master0 wrote:

So I've been trying the hack the planet plan I mentioned previously. Basically been hacking everything and gathering tons of intel. It's really risky because going heavy on specialist is tough. That said when robots enter the field I soon have a small army. So far it's working nice and I've been able to buy most the things for the black market. The extra supplies, engies, and scientist are nice. Might need to modify my group though. 3-4 specialist seem like the max. Still not bad since that's 60-80 intel per mission.

What is this hack the planet plan? I need intel bad!

As Grenn said it's basically hacking and skullmining everything. Four specialist with four skull jacks can net you a decent amount of intel per mission. It's really risky though and you run an rather imbalanced squad. Also hack ever normal thing you see. Either those towers or the occasional chest. They always provide a nice reward. If your really desperate for intel remember you can get it at your base.

Personally I'm just doing this for fun. I want to try an all psychic build and an all heavy build. Not sure if the former will work but the latter will be fun. Explosions for everyone.

How do you get intel at the base? buying it with supplies?

Researching any datapads dropped. Also, scanning at your headquarters gives you intel.

:'(

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/YmsIZG5.jpg)

Happens whenever I load a save. And I've made such progress!

master0 wrote:

Personally I'm just doing this for fun. I want to try an all psychic build and an all heavy build. Not sure if the former will work but the latter will be fun. Explosions for everyone.

I've only got one magus with every skill, but I'm going to guess that six of those in war suits would just cackle their way madly across the battlefield while everything around them dies.

peanut3141 wrote:
master0 wrote:

Personally I'm just doing this for fun. I want to try an all psychic build and an all heavy build. Not sure if the former will work but the latter will be fun. Explosions for everyone.

I've only got one magus with every skill, but I'm going to guess that six of those in war suits would just cackle their way madly across the battlefield while everything around them dies.

Yeah if you could get six I imagine it would be complete overkill. I just figure the training would take to long. So far I still haven't been able to train a single one. I beat my entire game last time without any of them.

mr_n00b wrote:

:'(

Happens whenever I load a save. And I've made such progress!

I remember reading that there was something that could cause save files to become corrupted. Found it:

"it's apparently an issue with Retaliation missions and Chrysalid hives- if one is present on the map and you save your game, you can't load saves."

Judging by the fire it applies here.

edit: reddit thread with info

master0 wrote:

"it's apparently an issue with Retaliation missions and Chrysalid hives- if one is present on the map and you save your game, you can't load saves."

Definitely sounds like a bug in the program. *rimshot*

They found a way to make Chryssalids even worse. O.O

Gremlin wrote:

They found a way to make Chryssalids even worse. O.O

*sigh* too true.

And it definitely was a Retalliation/Chryssalid mission, wish I'd known sooner :/

Hey, there's a working Windows 7 partition on my old Mac Pro. The game (kind of) runs on a 10-year-old machine with a 6-year-old graphics card.

Well here's a new one: Steam keeps crashing out from under XCOM 2. That wouldn't seem to be a problem except I'm still playing with the Steam Controller, which doesn't do anything when Steam isn't running. Relaunching Steam causes XCOM 2 to crash. Or it could be that Steam terminates it.

So far the autosaves + persistent random seed have prevented this from being a real problem.

So far Rookie has been mostly a cakewalk for me. I might have to go back to Veteran now that I have a better handle on the economy and such. I'm afraid if I play too much more on Rookie I will pick up too many bad habits.

sometimesdee wrote:

I still haven't figured out how to get the GWJers in the character pool. I thought I found the right directory in Steam, extracted the thing, yet I only have access to demos and devs.

In related news, I need to reinstall Windows 7 on my desktop. With Mommy Brain in full effect, I don't have the capacity for messing with Linux.

If you extract the .bin files to documents > my games > xcom2 > xcom game > character pool > importable, that's the correct place. Then once Xcom 2 has loaded, click the 'Char Pool' button at the bottom, then click 'import', and any new groups should show up as importable.

Gremlin wrote:

They found a way to make Chryssalids even worse. O.O

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xco...

Well ****.

mwdowns wrote:

Does the Avenger defense come more than once? I got it early, and am deep into late game (I faffed about for a long time, not really understanding how Resistance Coms worked), but haven't had one since.

They foreshadow the mission heavily in multiple places so it's not really a surprise when it eventually happens. That said:

Spoiler:

I'm pretty sure you can only get shot down when UFOs begin to appear and I only saw them after doing the codex gate mission. I dragged my feet a lot on that mission and didn't get to it until after I already had plasma weapons.

mr_n00b wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

They found a way to make Chryssalids even worse. O.O

*sigh* too true.

And it definitely was a Retalliation/Chryssalid mission, wish I'd known sooner :/

Don't throw out that save.

Someone on the workshop made a mod for the Proving Ground that added a second engineer slot. The slot costs a small amount of power and supplies, comparable to the upgrades on other buildings. With one engineer in place build speed is doubled, with two engineers build speed is tripled and things complete in a third of the time.

This mod is for me just what the doctor ordered, I only wish someone had made it a week ago.

I feel like it's not balanced in that sense. My research team have barely researched a thing for ages, just data pads, but I've got so many things queued up in my Proving grounds.

Also, I'm still running with the second grenade launcher... is there a third one?

davet010 wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:

I still haven't figured out how to get the GWJers in the character pool. I thought I found the right directory in Steam, extracted the thing, yet I only have access to demos and devs.

In related news, I need to reinstall Windows 7 on my desktop. With Mommy Brain in full effect, I don't have the capacity for messing with Linux.

If you extract the .bin files to documents > my games > xcom2 > xcom game > character pool > importable, that's the correct place. Then once Xcom 2 has loaded, click the 'Char Pool' button at the bottom, then click 'import', and any new groups should show up as importable.

search the computer for the "Developers.bin" file and it will be in the right place.

BlackSabre wrote:

I feel like it's not balanced in that sense. My research team have barely researched a thing for ages, just data pads, but I've got so many things queued up in my Proving grounds.

Exactly, the proving ground is forced to do too many things. You need it to produce plot items, you need it to produce new armoured suits and you also need it to produce special items which are a bit of a gamble. It would make much more sense if the Proving Ground was for prototyping only and the workshop made the rest of the items. That would eliminate the huge bottleneck and also get rid of the frustrating randomness as to which special item you get. You would still need elerium cores to produce more of the same item it just wouldn't take so much time. Some of the proving ground items already work like this such as the anti-mech rounds. I just wish they all did.

It took me over 60 hours of playing this game to figure out that the Proving Ground DOES have a build queue. You would hardly notice it because elerium is hard to come by and you rarely have the opportunity to queue up multiple items, but is is there. If hidden away in the corner of the screen. This is an other UI thing that could be better explained, like how during missions you can hover your cursor over a soldiers weapon to see the currently equipped ammo and attachments.

And that's another issue, the tech progression feels super short. Minor spoilers:

Spoiler:

Compared to the first XCOM there is very little for the lab to do. Sure we have more aliens, but no live captures and interrogations. So the number of alien related research is cut by half. We also have zero techs related to air combat because the whole air war is gone too. On top of this the really plot important stuff is shunted off into the shadow chamber. And you don't even get to see any scientists other than Tygan working in the lab. The whole thing feels very anemic.

tbh i didn't even build a lab

Chimalli wrote:
davet010 wrote:
sometimesdee wrote:

I still haven't figured out how to get the GWJers in the character pool. I thought I found the right directory in Steam, extracted the thing, yet I only have access to demos and devs.

In related news, I need to reinstall Windows 7 on my desktop. With Mommy Brain in full effect, I don't have the capacity for messing with Linux.

If you extract the .bin files to documents > my games > xcom2 > xcom game > character pool > importable, that's the correct place. Then once Xcom 2 has loaded, click the 'Char Pool' button at the bottom, then click 'import', and any new groups should show up as importable.

search the computer for the "Developers.bin" file and it will be in the right place.

I did. Now GWJ Conference Call.bin is in the same folder as Develpoers.bin, but when I load XCom2, it doesn't show up; only Developers and Demos do. I have no idea WTF I could be doing wrong.