Very odd music bug -- and mechanics questions.

[Orz-Brain]

Hi! Just found this forum and have decided to ask some questions that have been bugging me for a while. I appear to have the Gold versions of Xcom and TFTD... I presume that is Collectors edition. I think I downloaded them from the website that cannot be named... But it's been a long time, so I don't really remember.

 

(1)An odd music bug I notice in both EU and TFTD (I should note that these work well on my xp comp, with exception of EU having the squashed 4 screens at the top, which I fixed with a loader) is if I alt-tab out of EU or TFTD at any time and then alt-tab back in, the music changes. No, I don't mean it's busted after, or that the track changes -- the actual way the music track is played changes. It seems to drop a good bit in pitch and a little in speed, and possibly pick up a channel which is otherwise inaudible. As an example, take the ufo crash site music in battlescape from EU. Normally it is a repetitive low pitched hard to describe zip zip sound which I always figured was either big alien crickets, alien mind noise interfering with my solder's thought processes, or the alien power plant idling. After I alt-tab in and out of the game in the battlescape, however, it transforms into a repetitive one or two note low piano sound being tapped over and over. I should note that this only lasts for that single playing of the sound file, and when the sound file resets it goes back to the cricket sound and I have to alt-tab to get it to turn into a piano again.

The fact I can recognize the piano sound, but the "normal" cricket sound is odd when one thinks about it, leads me to believe the piano sound is likely how it should be, and the cricket sound is a speeded up version with part of the sound information missing.

This affects all parts of the game, not just the battlescape, including, oddly, the opening cutscene (although the files for the cutscene are many parts, and you have to alt-tab after each part starts to hear the slowed down version). Interestingly the alt-tabbed version of the cutscene has new melodies in it, non random, which don't sound to me just like a consequence of slow down.

I went into the sound folder in Xcom, and played the sound file for the battlescape (GMTACTIC.MID) with windows media player, and midia player gives the cricket chirp version! I find it hard to believe that it's a coincidence that the sound turns into a perfect piano sound when alt-tabbed.

Is the game supposed to do something to the music files, which for some reason it generally doesn't? Perhaps some processing to keep the size down? I should note I have tested this on two computers, with very different sound cards, and in both EU and TFTD, and it does it on all of em.

 

(2) What is the effect of having both hands occupied while using what should be a two hand weapon? I always give my troops a grenade or stun rod in the off hand, no matter what weapon they use. I've tried a few tests, and have seen no TU use penalties, and can't seem to notice accuracy changes. What's with this?

 

(3) Am I right in thinking that if I sold all my sonic pistols in the early game, and the TFTD aliens have started carrying cannons, I am NEVER going to see another sonic pistol, and will never be able to research craft sonic weapons?

 

(4) Has anyone ever released a patch (hack) that makes later crews occasionally use sonic pistols and rifles, makes a Deep One be occasionally included on regular ships of various sizes and races throughout the game, dito for Calcanite, made it so you can research a live Deep One out of order and still get the sub tech, made it so you can research the MC Lab without having a MC Reader and not get stuck, and made it so you can research Trans Resolver without Sub Construction and not get stuck? If not then why? Lack of source code?

 

(5) What's up with XcomUtil? I installed it (that is I copied all the files into my base Xcom directory... I guess that's what I'm supposed to do... The files don't have paths on em in the archive) and TALK about buggy! In TFTD it didn't work at all, just made it gives me illegal operations every time I go into a battle or exit the program. None of the options work.

In EU the base redesign appears to work... But NOT the stat string soldier names... And when I had it "use the new desert and farm tiles," the first mission mission in a farm terrain had my Skyranger BURIED IN SAND with no way to exit! WTH? Do I need a different version of Xcom, or install it differently or what?

 

(6) What does crouching do, anyway? I tried to look in the wiki, but couldn't find much. Does it really boost accuracy? Make a smaller target?

 

Thanks!

[NKF]

A few minutes away before I leave to work, so I'm a bit rushed and will fire off a few quick notes.

 

1. Not overly technical, but I think this may just be a soundcard issue with how its handles the midi playback. There will be a bit of distortion between alt-tabs, but will correct itself before long. Some programs supply their own midi synthesis table so the playback of some midi notes may sound different.

 

2. Two-handed weapons get a -20% penalty to their accuracy. Doesn't affect melee weapons or one-handed grip weapons.

 

3. That's correct. Sonic pistols are great weapons but their supply is very limited.

 

4. Source code would help, but it may be possible to fiddle with the crew and weapon loadout as these are stored in the executable.

 

5. XComutil doesn't always work for everyone unfortunately. Myself included - at least the functions that I would've like to use.

 

6. Crouching lowers your profile, so you're a smaller target. Your sight and the origin point of where the bullet leaves your weapon drops too, so you be able to may see and fire through gaps in some terrain features. It also adds a 15% increase to your overall accuracy.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

I always hear the low pitched "dom-dom-dom" sound in missions. Never heard the "cricket chirp" version, and I've played both Windows and DOS versions of the game.

 

Try grabbing the Geoscape remixes from the Cydonas Fall website. They sound somewhat different to the originals in terms of instruments etc, but the timing is about the same - the first few bars sound nearly identical. May shed some light on the matter for you (plus they sound pretty cool anyway ).

 

Yes, XcomUtil + TFTD CE = error messages between missions. Should still work, though. In addition to extracting the archive, you need to run "xcusetup.bat" before you can actually use it.

 

Once you start a research project, you can sell any items associated with that project and still continue the research. You can have as many projects running at any one time as you like (or at least, I've never managed to have too many), so feel free to start projects for everything you want removed from your stores. You can leave them sitting there with no scientists assigned until you're good and ready to work on them for real.

 

Blade wrote a tool that helps with TFTD's buggy research tree.