Editing road constitution and other stuff too

[Pahanilmanlintu]

Now that i finally got Apoc working on my XP, i've been doing a little tweaking to balance it to suit my preferences. I already tuned devastator cannons slightly down and laser snipers slightly up, but there are still a few issues i'd like to tinker with.

 

First of all, i want to make roads much harder to destroy, in order to make ground based vehicles, especially the griffon, useful. Everyone knows how they get destroyed when an ufo tries to shoot them and misses and destroys the road segment under them. And if you're unlucky enough, the vehicle is full of your best troops. And the stupidest part is that the griffon could actually take that damage and much more in a direct hit. Actually even more stupid is the fact that griffon has caterpillar tracks so it's like a tank and since when do tanks need roads anyway?! I tried the Mythos tactical editor, but didn't find any way to edit road constitution with that.

 

Another thing is the personal teleporters, i want to either disable them from xcom troops completely, or make them somehow much more flawed than they currently are. Either way i'd need some editor to make it happen.

 

So if anyone has done something similiar or just knows how to do it, please share the knowhow

[NKF]

In comparison with its two predecessors, Apocalypse doesn't have much in the way of editors. Savegame editors there may be aplenty, but actual game stat tweaking tools are hard to come by (there are a few, but the ones known to me only lightly cover a few specific portions of the game).

 

Road constituition changes would be most welcome. In fact, I'd probably make them so that only the really heavy alien beam weapons can damage them. The Griffon is a vehicle with so much wasted potential. As they are now, they're just a very expensive and very fancy mode of transportation. On the other hand, they're still handy with the tank GLM and tank plasma cannon, both very long range weapons. It's a pity that it's so hard to put the awesome rumble cannon into use without risking total annihilation.

 

One other option would be to completely change all the weapon strengths, shields and default hull strengths of all the vehicles in the game. I.e. everything would be the same, but at a much lower scale. For example, instead of having 100 hit points and a weapon that deals 38 damage, we have 10 hit points and a weapon that deals 3 damage. That might seem like a very bothersome method when you could just tweak the road constitution once. But it's a thought, nonetheless.

 

As for the teleporters: You might as well disable them completely (or don't get your score up high enough to get them). The aliens appear to be at a complete loss on how to use them properly. They may make the aliens a bit more unpredictable what with them teleporting all over the place in short bursts, but that in itself dooms them. The aliens mainly find strength in packs - as most of you probably have noticed. When they are isolated, they are easy to defeat. So, even if you conciously choose to not use the teleporters, they will still make your job just a little easier by disrupting the tight alien packs.

 

I wonder if there's a way to change the tank so that it can move about the map like the overspawn? It would mean navigating the map would involve a lot of crashing into buildings and smashing anything in its path (and blowing itself up by getting hit by falling debris), but it would put the 'all-terrain' back into it.

 

- NKF

[Pahanilmanlintu]

Well i guess i'll just keep from using the teleporters. And yea, i found tons of savegame editors, but the only one that would let me tinker with game balance was called overkill or something. That one actually changes vehicle stats too but not vehicle weapons (the version i have). Well, back to game now->

[M. Hoz]

(*Preapology*)

 

 

I can't-not wonder:

 

Is there an Editor that lets you control the Overspawn?!

[Strong Bob]

Not very likely. In fact, I even doubt it's possible without altering entire aspects of the game.

[NKF]

I'm afraid that my aggressive play style in the cityscape never allows the aliens to send Overspawns in - thus I have no savegames with easy access to overspawns at the moment. But for anyone that wants to give it a go anyway, here's an experiment suggestion:

• When you spot an overspawn, save the game.
  
• Fire up XED, go to the vehicle editor and switch the overspawn's allegience to X-Com.
  
• See what happens.
  

 

- NKF

[Pahanilmanlintu]

What do you mean by aggressive? I've only once seen an overspawn, and i'd like to see another one, cause last time everything went more or less wrong and i reloaded and didn't see it again. So i'm kinda interested in it, like can you research it or something and how do you get overspawns? If by aggressive you mean responsive to ufo sightings, i usully do everything i can to take down every ufo, including placing my vehicles near susceptible (sp?) dimgates beforehand and all that stuff.

[NKF]

Ah, by aggressive not only do I mean I am responsive to all UFO sightings (I do keep my distance if I know I cannot handle them, but that's beside the point), I build a fleet of the earliest interdimensional aircraft I can build that have a hardpoint that fits medium disrupters, such as Explorers then maybe some Retaliators if I can get it researched in time. Then I proceed into the alien dimension and blast the alien fleet to bits with hit and run tactics. Then I keep doing this every week, and voila. It's just a matter of sending in a mop-up team every week, I then have air superiority in the alien dimension.

 

If you're keen on fighting an overspawn, I recall a method on how you can get one. If the aliens have a capital ship (battleship, mothership) floating about in the alien dimension, then you can probably scrum for an overspawn attack (I stole the usage of 'scrum' from a certain rogue-like with a certain dungeon that randomly creates dungeons every time you move up or down stairs).

 

To do this, save at the beginning of a day (or at any time, for that matter - but the start of the day's quite good). Then hit ultra fast and wait for a bit. If nothing happens, reload, then try and try again.

 

The missions that happens on any given day can vary greatly every time you reload (even on the same day!). Sometimes they come in and drop an overspawn. Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes your base gets attacked by a rival company. Sometimes a gang attacks one of its rivals. Sometimes the Apocalypse mission starts (given there's enough alien ships). Sometimes the ufos come in on their regular troop/micronoid rain drops. Just keep this up and eventually you'll find either a lone capital ship or a capital ship with a few escorts. If it seems to be moving purposefully towards some destination or other, then leave it alone and see what happens. If it starts blasting a building to bits - then that's not it. Try again.

 

Hmm, next chance I get I think I'll give it a shot. Would be nice if it was possible to control an overspawn, eh?

 

As for overspawn research - you get nothing. But you at least get the satisfaction of having beaten it (not that you have to do anything to defeat it, but still... ). Some players have been able to stun it and bring it home alive by accident. A noble but very difficult task to strive towards. I haven't.

 

- NKF

[Pahanilmanlintu]

Oh, that aggressive. I kinda tend to do that too, altough it takes the fun out of everything, when you have all that brand new gear and ships and all, and the aliens are all but gone. So you got plenty of fancy new toys and no one to play with. Same thing as in strategy games like the good old civilization or dune2 or derivatives; once you've turned the tide so to speak, there's nothing left but systematic sweep through the whole game area. Well, sure there are still the alien dimension missions, but i feel the decisive battles should be fought with the best stuff. Who needs anti-alien gas in two or three last missions? It's a nice new addition to xcom arsenal offering new tactical options, but the game is pretty much over at that point anyway.

 

I dug apoc up because i was playing aftermath and it kept reminding me of things that make apoc good and are missing in AM, but now that i'm playing apoc i'm starting to appreciate the improvements in AM... Funny or what? Aftermath keeps challenging all the way and the weapon balance got very good with 1.2 patch, excluding deployable turrets (where's that 1.3 patch?). If those two could be combined... wow, but maybe altar has something cooking up, since they've mentioned the possibility of a sequel or an expansion pack on a few occasions. I think with AM they had a little too humble attitude, they could have probably pulled off something a little more ambitious, but on the other hand, however streamlined, at least it's a solid game that actually got finished. So one might say they were realistic.

 

In AM especially the stealth & observation system is great, and the skill system is also better imo than in apoc. Or well, except the training system. And of course the simultaneous action system. And the lack of soldier AI works with max seven troops just fine, but would probably be a problem with twelve or so.

 

Umm, /end of rant... i guess i'll try to attract the overspawn like that once i get that far, i only got the third week going on now.

Edited December 5, 2003 by Pahanilmanlintu

[NKF]

Whoa -- I - I mean... just... woah!

 

I went ahead and attracted an overspawn, then swapped its allegience over to X-Com with XED.

 

Tip, when you reload the game select another enemy vehicle to put the overspawn into your control tab to get the attack and move options.

 

I entered manual control and got it to walk around the wastelands. When left on its own, it wanders about aimlessly. The manual controls act a bit funny (home and end). Sometimes they blow up an entire building in one go (as if the overspawn ran right through it and out the other side - no damage to the overspawn), at other times they make the overspawn dissapear for good and sometimes they crash the game.

 

So, overspawns are controllable. Therefore, the tank can probably be modified to go off-road.

 

The only thing I could not do was to return it to any of the bases.

 

The overspawn knocks down anything in its path automatically - and for some reason, this attack is still attributed to the 'aliens'. I ploughed through a building and on the headlines it mentioned that the building was under attack by the aliens. Ships came out to attack, but none opened fire on the overspawn. I guess the 'knock-down-anything-in-its-path' script is hard coded to attribute the attack to the aliens. Would be fun to destroy the city and blame the aliens for it - but each attack on a large building wounds the overspawn.

 

I checked the overspawn's 'inventory' screen, and there is one. All you get is a black screen, mind, since no image exists for it.

 

For those interested, here are the stats on the inventory screen:

 

Hit points: 1800

Armour: 102

Top speed: 4

Acceleration: 1

Weight: 24000

Fuel: 50k

Passengers and cargo: 0

 

There are three weapon hard-points. Two 4 x 3 slots and one 4 x 4 slot (like the annihilator - though there's nothing in there.). Equipment slots 8 x 3.

 

- NKF

[Alan]

i get the sudden temptation to take control of an overspawn and use it to systematically level the cult of sirius.... :devil:

 

not only to they get decimated, but they blame it on the aliens.... how delicious

[M. Hoz]

So there IS a way to control Overspawns!

How wonderful!

 

I'm not sure it's gonna work with the "Midnight" editor though.

I'll try it anyway.

[Pahanilmanlintu]

Had a few ufo's to shoot down once again today, and all i can say is that it feels like bowling in house of cards really . Why oh why do games as ambitious as this always get published unfinished? IT'S SO WRONG!!!

 

What's the apocalypse mission?

 

Is there a newer version of the overkill troop weapon & vehicle editor than the 1.1beta2? Or anything that changes city block properties or vehicle weapons?

[Bomb Bloke]

Apocalypse... "mission"? https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/eh.gif

 

Or are you talking about the bit where the aliens try to level the city, which usually doesn't work 'cause you've wiped out their fleet. https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/hmm.gif

[Pahanilmanlintu]

Well, dunno really... i'm talking about something that NKF mentioned above

 

Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes your base gets attacked by a rival company. Sometimes a gang attacks one of its rivals. Sometimes the Apocalypse mission starts (given there's enough alien ships)

[Ki-tat Chung]

this is kinda irrelivent, but does smeone have an updated ver of XeD? my one is the one @ "YZour X-com Apocalypse Source", and is 1.4, but it can't edit the vehichle's weapons. well anyway...

[NKF]

The Apocalypse Mission is what Bomb Bloke mentioned . The aliens send in a lot of their more formidable ships and start blasting the city to bits (or at least a number of selected buildings - often friends of yours).

 

If they aren't attacking you, then it's safe to leave them alone and let them do their dirty work. It will cost your score a bit, but the public relations beneifts are enormous!

 

It happens a bit later in the game (about the same time you can get overspawns), but only if you did not wipe out the UFO fleet.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Kitat, can you get me a list of the files in the XED zip file? I haven't got the original zip file anymore, but I could probably just grab the XED files that I've got and send them to you.