FlyingHigh10000000

Ah, this makes much more sense. Guess I get to start a new game again, and right after I did the first Slingshot mission, too. But I misunderstood how the UFO count worked anyway, so all I was doing was making it easier to bring in more resources from crashed UFOs, which admittedly wasn't much fun. Edit: In regards to the hex changes to get six abduction missions per month, would I replace the 06 at the end with 10 if I wanted ten per month, or have I once again completely misunderstood? :P

That's really helpful, thanks. Doesn't seem quite as daunting now. :)

The ranks, as in Rookie, Squaddie, etc? Just going to throw this out there, but it seems like the DLC added an XComGame.INT and an XComUIShell.INT into \Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Unknown\XComGame\Localization\INT. I noticed it when I was making sure my mods were installed correctly, and replaced it with the one that I'd modified in the game directory. Might try that?(Same method as getting XComStrategyGame.INT to work, really. Could probably also just delete the INT files so the game uses the ones in the steam directory, too, though it's cleaner to just replace both.

Mostly how you guys are finding the exact code to change, amidst the thousands of numbers that seem to translate into a mess of other code. It seems like it'd be nearly impossible to not only figure out what the code the game uses means, but to also find what hex needs to be changed, and where exactly it is, seems downright impossible.

After getting ahold of the upks that seem to be for the sound files, and using Oggextract and UPK Unpack to get the .ogg files out of the things, I figured, "Hey, this can't be /that/ hard. Should be able to just pack them back in there, right?" Oh, how naive I was. After three hours and quite a bit of colorful language, I'm at the point of not knowing what's next. I've tried the following, with "HQSound_InterceptionMusic_SF.upk" : Loading the untouched, default file with UDK. That netted me an error pointing to a mismatch with the licensee version of the UDK, with UDK expecting version 0 of that, presumably because, as I saw in another thread, developer-cooked UPK files are a no-go for the standard UDK. Loading the file after it had been unpacked with UPK Unpack. Again, same result with the licensee version mismatch. I've got a .wav ready to attempt to replace the interception music with, but can't seem to wrap my head around how to actually get it /inside/ the UPK file. Any ideas, guys?

Well, preventing the leaving is very, very easy. Not giving help if there's a satellite, though...that's a lot harder, and out of my reach. Let's see, here's the relevant stuff in DefaultGameCore.ini...I'll add explanations before each "set" of values in brackets, so you know what they do. Just let me know if there's anything in particular you might want done to make the game a bit more bearable.(I hate the default panic system too, btw. Personally, I think it's ridiculous, how easy entire continents will just throw you to the dogs.) ;Panic Values [These values determine how much panic a terror site gives both a country, and the continent it's on. So if Nigeria has a terror site and you ignore it, Nigeria gains 2 terror, and every other country in Africa gets 2 panic. iirc that gives Nigeria 4 panic total. Don't quote me on that.] PANIC_TERROR_CONTINENT=2 PANIC_TERROR_COUNTRY=2 [That's how much panic is changed when you shoot a UFO down over a country.] PANIC_UFO_SHOOTDOWN=-1 [How much panic is changed in a country for claiming a crashed or landed UFO in its borders.] PANIC_UFO_ASSAULT=-1 [The entire continent takes this much panic if a battleship takes out an X-COM satellite over both a continent and the nation the satellite was over.] PANIC_SAT_DESTROYED_CONTINENT=1 PANIC_SAT_DESTROYED_COUNTRY=2 [Panic added for a satellite that you send to a country. iirc it takes effect the moment you give the order, and not when it actually goes online. The Continent one is how much panic is changed across the entire continent a country's in, and is understandable at 0 by default.] PANIC_SAT_ADDED_COUNTRY=-2 PANIC_SAT_ADDED_CONTINENT=0 [Global panic change when you take out the alien base. At -2, this is a damn good event to take into consideration if all seems lost and you're worried that a bunch of countries will ditch you.] PANIC_ALIENBASE_CONQUERED=-2 [if you just straight-up let a UFO go, you get this panic change, /and/ a battleship will show up to blow up your satellite to really put salt in the wound.] PANIC_UFO_IGNORED=2 [Panic change if an interceptor isn't able to take out a UFO, or worse, gets shot down by it. Presumably this only takes effect when the UFO completely disappears from the map, and not just any time it stops getting chased around. So if you manage to get a few interceptors on a UFO, and two of them aren't able to shoot it down, you /shouldn't/ get a bunch of panic from it. Again, don't quote me on that, it's just what I think happens.] PANIC_UFO_ESCAPED=1 [The next few, with the actual order being Easy, Normal, Classic, Impossible, (The devs were a bit sloppy in these files, and left the original difficulty names in.) are how much panic an unchecked abduction mission causes for a country and a continent in turn.] PANIC_ABDUCTION_COUNTRY_EASY=1 PANIC_ABDUCTION_COUNTRY_NORMAL=1 PANIC_ABDUCTION_COUNTRY_HARD=1 PANIC_ABDUCTION_COUNTRY_CLASSIC=2 PANIC_ABDUCTION_CONTINENT_EASY=1 PANIC_ABDUCTION_CONTINENT_NORMAL=1 PANIC_ABDUCTION_CONTINENT_HARD=1 PANIC_ABDUCTION_CONTINENT_CLASSIC=1 [These are the panic change values for a continent and country when you beat down some aliens trying to steal people.] PANIC_ABDUCTION_THWARTED_CONTINENT=0 PANIC_ABDUCTION_THWARTED_COUNTRY=-3 [The starting panic values are, as far as I know, spread randomly through all of the nations at the start of the game. 16 on Impossible can really screw you over, since some countries are already in the yellow right away, most likely.] STARTING_PANIC_EASY=0 STARTING_PANIC_NORMAL=0 STARTING_PANIC_HARD=8 STARTING_PANIC_CLASSIC=16 [When a country reaches the value listed in these, it starts doing checks for whether or not it leaves the council. More on that in a second, but keep this value in mind.] PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_EASY=5 PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_NORMAL=5 PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_HARD=5 PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_CLASSIC=5 [if a country is at this panic value and you brush them off during a mission selection, or fail a mission in their borders(I think. Not sure about that one, actually.) they'll instantly lose faith in X-COM and leave the council.] PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_NOT_HELPED_EASY=5 PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_NOT_HELPED_NORMAL=5 PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_NOT_HELPED_HARD=5 PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHHOLD_NOT_HELPED_CLASSIC=5 [These are the amount of nations that can leave in any given month on any difficulty. I'm pretty sure this only counts for the council review, so they can very likely still leave if you don't help them out when their panic is at PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHOLD_NOT_HELPED. Maybe setting these to 0, so countries can only leave if you don't help them out when they're at the defect threshold would be acceptable, as it makes defection only happen if a nation is absolutely desperate, but still gives you a chance to keep them from outright leaving you for good if you play it smart?(And yes, on Impossible you can have a mass walkout at the end of the month if you really screw up, and lose the game from a single report.)] PANIC_DEFECTIONS_PER_MONTH_EASY=1 PANIC_DEFECTIONS_PER_MONTH_NORMAL=2 PANIC_DEFECTIONS_PER_MONTH_HARD=3 PANIC_DEFECTIONS_PER_MONTH_CLASSIC=8 [Remember the defect threshold stuff I said to keep in mind? This is where it comes into play. If a country has reached PANIC_DEFECT_THRESHOLD, then for every block of panic they have, you add the appropriate percentile up at the end of the month, and if you get a bad die roll,(out of 100, I'd wager.) the country gives up and takes their ball home. The way the default numbers are set up, by the time a country can actually defect at a council report, they're already at a 50% chance to leave. We can easily tweak the numbers here to make it much less likely for countries to walk out on you.] PANIC_DEFECT_CHANCE_PER_BLOCK_EASY=10 PANIC_DEFECT_CHANCE_PER_BLOCK_NORMAL=10 PANIC_DEFECT_CHANCE_PER_BLOCK_HARD=10 PANIC_DEFECT_CHANCE_PER_BLOCK_CLASSIC=10 [Now these...these confuse the hell out of me. If the commented equation listed in the ini is correct, these and the SAT_NEARBY values have absolutely no effect on the game. Not sure why you'd want a satellite to make it /easier/ for a country to defect, but again, I'm just going on the math presented here. Where I come from, * means multiply, so you'd presumably get an equation of 50*1 if you had a country at 5 panic by default, with these numbers. Not even going to bother with them, and unless someone can shed some light on these, I'd advise the same for you, simply because if I mess with these, I have no clue what they'll do.] SAT_HELP_DEFECT=1 ;If country has satellite, "Chance of Leaving"*SAT_HELP_DEFECT SAT_HELP_DEFECT=1 SAT_HELP_DEFECT=1 SAT_HELP_DEFECT=1 SAT_NEARBY_HELP_DEFECT=1 ;Else If continent has one or more satellite, "Chance of Leaving"*SAT_NEARBY_HELP_DEFECT SAT_NEARBY_HELP_DEFECT=1 SAT_NEARBY_HELP_DEFECT=1 SAT_NEARBY_HELP_DEFECT=1 [These are pretty good. Basically, if a country has a satellite, it can reduce panic up to the amount listed on these, in order of Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible, but only if it passes a check determined by how much panic it has. So, by default, if a country with a satellite has 5 panic, on Normal, they will /always/ drop one panic at the end of the month, presumably before any defection checks. For another example, if a country with a satellite has less than 4 panic, it uses the PANIC_LOW number, and has a 10% or 25% chance of dropping its panic level by one, to a minimum of zero panic blocks, at the end of the month.] SAT_PANIC_REDUCTION_PER_MONTH=1 ;If a country has a satellite, it will remove panic once a month, but the chance of this happening is PANIC_REDUCTION_CHANCE SAT_PANIC_REDUCTION_PER_MONTH=1 SAT_PANIC_REDUCTION_PER_MONTH=1 SAT_PANIC_REDUCTION_PER_MONTH=1 PANIC_5_REDUCTION_CHANCE=100 PANIC_5_REDUCTION_CHANCE=100 PANIC_5_REDUCTION_CHANCE=50 PANIC_5_REDUCTION_CHANCE=50 PANIC_4_REDUCTION_CHANCE=50 PANIC_4_REDUCTION_CHANCE=50 PANIC_4_REDUCTION_CHANCE=25 PANIC_4_REDUCTION_CHANCE=25 PANIC_LOW_REDUCTION_CHANCE=25 PANIC_LOW_REDUCTION_CHANCE=25 PANIC_LOW_REDUCTION_CHANCE=10 PANIC_LOW_REDUCTION_CHANCE=10 So, if you feel like a bit of math, we can work that out however you want, or if you'd prefer to just say what exactly you want changed(If you want no country walkouts period, I can do that, but it will make the game almost impossible to lose, and sadly, we can't do the method you suggested of having a satellite force them to not leave.

Just saw something very disheartening about the UPK unpack tool. https://sites.google.com/site/0dd14lab2/upkpacker Right at the top now, there's this: "Sorry.Distribution is stopped for several reasons. It forbids uploading and distributing these programs to other sites." No download links are around, etc. I've got what I think is the last version, and have been using it to mess with the upk files, but the lack of further versions and/or support might be a pretty hard blow for future games that rely on tools like this.

This is a bit embarrassing, but given that I've no experience with hex editing beyond "replace this with that" I'd be interested in knowing how you know where exactly to look. I went through the file, found text from each of the lines you translated, but they're all over the actual hex of the upk, and the rest of it is scrambled characters. Sorry if that's a bit much to ask for an explanation, but for some reason, I really enjoy not only seeing the end-result, but knowing how it was accomplished, as well.

Yep, that's what I had to do a few times when I messed stuff up pretty badly through fiddling with the UPKs and INT files too much. Safest thing you can do is keep backups of every file that you've modified,(The modified versions. I personally don't bother backing up the originals, since Steam will replace them for me, meaning less space wasted on my HD.) just in case you mess up and have to reinstall your mods, or, in my case at least, if you feel like playing some multiplayer, and don't want the game to freak out on you for having modified files.

Really wish I knew. As far as I can tell, the sound files are somewhere in one of the UPKs, and getting them out, then replacing them with something else, would take more skill than I've got. :\ Edit: Did a bit more looking, seems like the music is in the following files, if we go by their names: Strategic music: HQSound_Act1Music_SF.upk HQSound_Act2Music_SF.upk HQSound_Act3Music_SF.upk HQSound_InterceptionMusic_SF.upk HQSound_MCMusic_SF.upk HQSound_MemorialMusic_SF.upk HQSound_SoldierSelect_SF.upk HQSound_YouLoseMusic_SF.upk Tactical music: SoundCombatSoundtrack01_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack02_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack03_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack04_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack05_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack06_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack07_SF.upk SoundCombatSoundtrack08_SF.upk SoundTerrorSoundtrack01_SF.upk SoundTerrorSoundtrack02_SF.upk SoundTerrorSoundtrack03_SF.upk Other music: Sound_CreditsMusic_SF.upk SoundXComMenuMusic_SF.upk That's all I've been able to find, at least. No idea if the huge number of files called "SN____________SF.upk"(with the underscore being replaced by a bunch of numbers) are related, but I'd wager those are sound effect files, and not music. Edit #2: Successfully unpacked at least one of the upks. I used the upk decompresser to unpack HQSound_InterceptionMusic_SF.upk, then used oggextract on it, and wound up with a .ogg file of the interception music. Now, if there was a way to get another audio file into .ogg format, and get it /back into/ the uncompressed upk, then use XShape to make the game read it, we'd be in business, I believe. Oggextract: http://moriya.ca/oggextract/ Edit #3: From what I'm reading about the modding of Borderlands(Another game that uses UE3) packing audio back into the game would require either making the game look for the audio in a directory within CookedPCConsole, or using UDK to pack a file in, which, last I heard, wouldn't work, because UDK-packed stuff isn't compatible with XCOM. Edit #4: Tried loading the upk in udk, didn't work. Going to look around a bit, see if I did something wrong.

Definitely. I get what Firaxis was trying to do, in that they wanted new players to know /why/ it wasn't proper resource management to blow up a bunch of aliens every mission, to have Bradford explain the classes, etc. But they went a bit far. Would have been much better if they'd just kept that stuff strictly to the Tutorial mode of the game, where you get plenty of bonuses and help as it is. Advanced players are, of course, going to get annoyed when the game keeps trying to hold their hand through the first few months, with no way to turn it off.

Good news, this is quite easy to accomplish now, thanks to the efforts of Drakous79. http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/849122-storms-over-former-xcom-members-controlling-abductions/ Look through his posts in that thread and you'll see how to change how abductions are handled. I'm working on a complete overhaul of everything I can reach in the game, atm, and it /should/ be ready for release sometime this week. Still need to test a little bit, and make sure I haven't royally screwed over XCOM or the aliens with my tweaking.

Well, iirc in the original game the aliens mind-controlled the leadership, which was why you couldn't take them back, and if you'd lost the new game, well...you've seen why XCOM is shut down. It's an incentive to hold the aliens off at all costs, and while taking back countries might be a bit above what we can currently do with the UPK, INT, and INI files we're using, you can certainly make it a little bit easier to keep nations. Would that be acceptable?(I can work on some ini changes if you'd like.)

Thanks very much. This completely gets rid of the headaches I kept getting from hearing the most repetitive lines in a new game. :)

Thanks very much. I tend to ignore it as well, and just keep hitting escape when the cinematics play(Though it's easy enough to get rid of those by just removing the .bik files or renaming them entirely.) and, as a bit of a trick, you can skip Bradford talking about the classes, the council yelling at you, etc, by hitting the button to look at the geoscape, then backing out again.

I don't have Marathon on -- I just increased the base research modifier to 15 (from 6.66). I'm usually getting lasers and carapace in time for Mutons (just barely), but I am having trouble getting plasma by the time I get to heavy floaters. But I've only run through a couple of games with these settings (and I'm changing them) so it may just be poor strategy on my part :) Man, if I get this stuff working properly, I'll have a heck of a mod prepared for release, and a lot of people to thank for the help their research has provided.(I know nothing about reading bytecode, or even hex editing, really. I've mostly been relying on the finds of others, with balancing and a lot of INT/ini editing done by myself to get the desired effects in-game.) The ideal end-result is a game as close to the original UFO Defense, with the additions that the new engine/updated graphics added. Edit: Seems I may have finally fixed that html issue I was having. Thanks for the tip, FMod. Drakous79, if I understand correctly, that last edit you posted should make it so that if I set UFOlimit to 12, I'll get anywhere from 2-12 abduction missions per month, and, if I also used your earlier edit to make only one abduction mission at a time, there will only be one launched at a time? And at the same time, if I kept the default abduction setting of 3 per mission, with a UFO count of 50, there could be up to 150 total abduction missions attempted, assuming I shoot them all down?

<br><br>Right, but it's still harder than a satellite preventing abductions entirely, sort of. (The problem is the game will not discriminate between countries with satellites and those without anymore, so you might shoot down three large scouts and get no abductions, as opposed to three guaranteed abductions.)<br><br>I would propose the following for the strategic game:<br><br>* Show UFOs on abduction and terror missions<br>* Abductions happen in countries with satellites<br>* Abductions happen up to six times a month, individually. If they overlap sometimes, that's fine.<br>* 1 terror mission a month (instead of every other month)<br>* 1 council mission a month (same pace)<br>* Other UFO missions at same pace<br>* Rewards for abductions cut to 1/3 of default; elerium and alloys for shot down UFOs reduced<br>* Long interceptor repair times<br>* Long soldier injury recovery times<br>* Panic increases by 1 or 2 (?) for abductions in country, 0 for continent<br>* Panic increases by 4 for terror in country, 2 for continent<br>* Panic increases by 0 for ignored and escaped UFOs. *** Why? Because otherwise orbiting a satellite otherwise creates a hazard of increased panic when you detect more UFOs but can't kill them -- that is, you become better off when the aliens attempt abductions in a country without a satellite, and that doesn't make sense. I'd prefer a satellite to be uniformly helpful, rather than raising the stakes.<br>* Satellites are harder for aliens to shoot down. Maybe 25 or 33 percent for regular, 5 percent for stealths. *** Why? Because if this works, you're going to have to ignore a lot of ships in the air, and choose carefully what you send interceptors after. But I don't want it to mean an autokill on your satellite.<br>* Possibly eliminate panic reduction for UFO assault -- again, there are fewer ways panic can go up, so perhaps there should be fewer for it to go down<br>* Longer research and build times; MUCH longer times for plot-related developments after arc thrower -- these essentially require you to halt your research program entirely to move forward.<br>* Possibly reduced alien item sale prices (because there will be a lot of bodies)<br>* More XP for soldier leveling up; otherwise you'll get colonels really fast with all the missions<br><br>What you'll see is a TON of missions from the get-go, and you'll need lots of troops and interceptors, otherwise you'll be forced to skip missions because no one is available to take them. You'll have more missions between each technological development, and far more mission before you can finish the game. I think it will feel more like a true war against the aliens.<br><br>I *think* the only non-DFC.ini changes are 1) allowing abductions in countries with satellites; 2) allowing more than two abductions a month and 3) reducing the number of abductions per "attempt" to one. <br><br>Thoughts?<br><br><br><br>I've already started work on getting that into my game, because it sounds perfect. Now I just need to figure out how to make more abductions and terror missions happen per month. <div><br></div><div>The one thing I'm really not sure about is the research times and such being increased. As it is, the game is balanced so that by the time Mutons show up, you're either just getting Carapace Armor or just getting laser weapons. I tried a Marathon game once, and was still working on the scope/fiber vest/arc thrower part of the tree by the time Mutons showed up. It was a slaughter.</div> (Also, I have no idea why that junk keeps appearing whenever I quote or use any sort of formatting in a post. It's not there when I initially post it, but when I edit it, it's definitely there, and makes it a pain to read.

That last part sounds awesome, almost like it was meant to be that way originally, and was changed for some reason or other, like a lot of other stuff in the game's files.(Flashbangs, multiple variations of Carapace armor, flamethrower, etc)

So, has there been any more progress on this front, regarding Torch? The one major problem I had with it, besides not being able to damage anything with it, is that laser weapons cause it to drop the flames right in front of the soldier using the ability. Thought it was a one-off thing at first, but when I had someone with no obstructions around try, the laser shot off, clipped right through a bunch of stuff(slowing down the game for a bit, because it decided to render the laser across the entire map, and presumably tried to track the projectile even when it went past it.)

I'm on game 20-25, somewhere between that(the game's count is a bit off, because I switched to a Second Wave-enabled profile a while back, and it had a different count than my own profile) and at this point, Shen, Vahlen, and Bradford are starting to really get on my nerves, to the point that in the first mission, when I inevitably use a grenade on a Sectoid,(I've been tweaking the game pretty much constantly, for a challenging, but fair game with the Impossible number of aliens.) and Vahlen starts crying foul, then whines at me again back at base, with Bradford helpfully chiming in to remind me what every class does, then whining when I sell a few of the 20+ Sectoid corpses that I've yet to research, I just end up wanting to mute the game. I get that Firaxis did it to make the game approachable for new kids, but good god, an option to just turn off the three stooges of XCOM would save me the awful headaches I get when I start a new game.(I seriously do get pretty bad headaches when the advisors start yelling at me. I have a very low tolerance for crap. XD) What I'm getting at is, is there any way any of you awesome people can think of to either mute or outright turn off the advisor popups, especially the in-mission ones that actually take control from the player so Shen or Vahlen can point out something nobody cares about? <div><br></div><div>Edit: I tried commenting the references to "FirstExplosiveKill" and so on first out of the DefaultNarrative.INT file, which resulted in a DefaultNarrative.ini file with that line missing being generated, and Vahlen's whining still playing regardless. Then I tried leaving that one alone, and commenting it out in the ini file generated in the Documents folder for XCOM. The line still played, and when I exited the game and looked back in the file, the line I'd commented out before starting the game was gone. Not as simple as commenting something out, it seems. :\</div>

So, is there any way to just outright force the aliens to do more abduction missions every month? I've set my game so that only one abduction mission happens at a time, because I hate the idea of having to kick two countries to the curb because XCOM was too cheap to buy an extra Skyranger or two, but of course that leaves me staring at a very empty geoscape for a majority of the month, with no panic increase of any kind, since as was pointed out before, setting the UFO limit higher doesn't cause a drastic change.

Well, I may as well see what I can do for my mod tonight...considering I've modded everything else, I see no reason not to mess around with the economy, too.

Edit: wrong thread

So, in an attempt to make the game a bit more like the original, where XCOM was capable of addressing every single threat if they had the manpower and weapons, I've changed the simultaneous abductions from three to one, and, to balance things a bit, also enabled abductions over satellite-covered nations, and, again for balance, tweaked alloy/elerium values for UFOs across the board. Now what I'd like to do is make the aliens do more missions each month, that way XCOM isn't just doing their one mission and not losing anything for it. Alternatively, I could make panic penalties more harsh, but I'd prefer more missions. Any idea how to do that?

Huh, so if they're in there, it shouldn't be too hard to get them working again, assuming the upk can somehow be modified to pick from the multiple briefings, presumably on a scale of some sort, so that Bradford seems to get progressively more urgent in his briefings, as panic for a nation goes up.