PepprmintButler

Not having playing Impossible yet, I don't have the slightest. Anyone ?

I think the AI settings are strictly the same between Classic and Impossible, unfortunately. Number of enemies per map seems a safe bet for a difference that is not in the ini. There probably are others, but none I can think of right now...

Yes, I think engineer/scientist boosts are outside of DefaultGameCore. You could use the balance modifiers to make it take more time/money (but that will not nerf the engineers/scientists per se, just up the values all around) : TECH_TIME_BALANCE=6.66 ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=1 ITEM_CREDIT_BALANCE=1 Or you could use the Second Wave Marathon option, which makes the games pacing much more enjoyable IMHO. Research times are way up, meaning you absolutely need laboratories to get anywhere, and engineering costs stay quite high even with a lot of guys at work. It does probably change the above settings, but I believe it also stretches the timeline for scripted events and alien level progression to keep things balanced.

You guys might have noticed that although it's still not activated without modding (AFAIK), the menu bugs have been ironed out and -to my great pleasure- marathon has been added.And it's really nice. I'm a little worried that something is wrong about it though - after the base attack, I need 2 devices to build the hyperspace relay. Of course the base attack gave me only one. I see two possibilities : 1.bug 2.two base attacks :) I'm rooting for number 2 ! Still waiting for any sign that it would come up though. My current objective is still to build the relay but that's not gonna happen as is

I have been looking for that, without success. Unfortunately there is no relevant setting in the accessible inis, and more and more evidence points toward modding beyond that point being very difficult. :confused:

It seems that aliens are pretty static in normal, but classic and upwards has them patrolling around already.

Here is what was found in the demo : As you can see only some of these are available in the menu. There are traces of the others, maybe they are not implemented yet. (although the options in the activated menu are functional, the whole thing seems quite "beta" for the moment. I suppose it's planned for release in a future patch.

I believe only certain settings need a fresh start, like difficulty modifiers and probably soldier/items stats for things that are already in memory. Changes to behavior of UFOs for example can be modified mid-game. I guess your soldier stats are kept in the save file, so patching the exe has no effect. Maybe it can affect the new recruits ? EDIT : ninja'd. What Beknatok said.

What you were looking for is the early/late_ufo_chance then :biggrin:

Nope, that showufosonmission is a 0 or 1 switch as far as I can tell. Either you set the game to show them or not. No dynamics can be introduced by just modifying that setting.

It has been discussed by the devs, said they took it out for balancing reasons, so arguably balancing that mod could be tricky. Unless someone is making a huge breakthrough right now, we're still very far from accessing this kind of game mechanics anyway. Will prabably come at some point though, since quite a lot of people seem to want it.

sounds nice. Did you actually try the rename-replace thing ? sounds like a good place to start. I will look into it when I get home.

Relevant, easily accessible settings are ; Strategy Game Constants ABDUCTION_REWARD_CASH=200 ABDUCTION_REWARD_SCI=4 ABDUCTION_REWARD_ENG=4 COUNCIL_DAY=20 COUNCIL_RAND_DAYS=7 COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_EASY = 1.5f COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_NORMAL = 1 COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_HARD = 1 COUNCIL_FUNDING_MULTIPLIER_CLASSIC= 1 ShowUFOsOnMission=0 ; Detect the UFOs that are carrying out abductions and terror missions AI_TERRORIZE_MOST_PANICKED = 75 LATE_UFO_CHANCE = 50 ; Chance of Aliens sending out a second UFO in the months after you've defeated the base EARLY_UFO_CHANCE = 50 UFO_LIMIT = 2 UFO_INTERCEPTION_PCT=66 ; Chance that a UFO will require interception I was looking at it specifically to try and control the frequency of Council missions. I did not succeed (council_day seems to control the time limit to answer a request, and I could not verify any effect by modifying council_rand_days although it seems to be the relevant line) So mission allocation (outside of the scripted events, which I doubt we can have any effect on without proper modding tools) is clearly based on a RNG. Which contrarily to the tactical mission RNG does not seem to be seeded BTW, you can reload and have completely different missions affected. As you can see, chance of UFO appearance, etc can be fiddled with. I guess that's a start. ShowUFOsOnMission=! should give you more UFO sightings and less abduction missions. Concerning marathon, see my other post concerning the activation of Second Wave options. Did not find much, only a Float that I suppose does control how much the timeline in stretched, but no indication to the how. I just hope it's not just changing time balance settings, that would be quite underwhelming. ; Main Balance Factors TECH_TIME_BALANCE=6.66 ITEM_TIME_BALANCE=1 ITEM_CREDIT_BALANCE=1 ITEM_ELERIUM_BALANCE=1 ITEM_ALLOY_BALANCE=1 FACILITY_COST_BALANCE=1 FACILITY_MAINTENANCE_BALANCE=1 FACILITY_TIME_BALANCE=1

Difficulty balance for units in classic is as follows : (or at least the part I could find) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_None, iDamage=0,iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Civilian, iDamage=0,iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Soldier, iDamage=0,iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=-1,iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Tank, iDamage=0,iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Floater, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Thinman, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Muton, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=2, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Cyberdisc, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=4, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_SectoidCommander, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=4, iMobility=0,iWill=25) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_FloaterHeavy, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=2, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_MutonElite, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=10,iHP=0,iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Ethereal, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=25) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Chryssalid, iDamage=2,iCritHit=10, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Zombie, iDamage=2,iCritHit=10, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_MutonBerserker, iDamage=1,iCritHit=10, iAim=0, iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectopod, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Drone, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=2, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Outsider, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=10,iHP=2,iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_EtherealUber, iDamage=0,iCritHit=10, iAim=10,iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0) BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_BattleScanner, iDamage=0,iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0, iHP=0,iMobility=0,iWill=0) So yeah, +10 aim for most aliens, and also +10 crit chance. Soldiers also have -1 health indeed, but no change in aim. These values can be changed easily (see "first step" post)

Would love to see something done about squad loadout. Sniper XP, while I too have my first Colonels being mostly snipers, I don't really see the need for a fix. Seems difficult to achieve because XP levels are coded independtly of class : ; Soldier XP Levels (Rookie, Squaddie, Corporal, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel) m_iSoldierXPLevels=0 m_iSoldierXPLevels=90 m_iSoldierXPLevels=300 m_iSoldierXPLevels=510 m_iSoldierXPLevels=745 m_iSoldierXPLevels=1100 m_iSoldierXPLevels=1560 m_iSoldierXPLevels=2150 Stat progression on the other hand is class-specific, but the ranks stay the same for all classes. I could not find any class balance or XP gain rate modifiers.

I believe the request is for more countries of origin for the soldiers, so that means we need the flags indeed (plus names for the generator). That does not mean more countries on the council of the XCOM initiative ; in the vanilla game you already have soldiers from Ireland or Belgium (first ones that popped to mind) which are not members of the council. So no, there would be no change to satellite numbers or balance, it's purely a cosmetic mod. Or did I get it wrong ..? Supposing I am understanding this right: Soldier origins and names are picked from XCOMNamelist.ini. which looks as follows : ; ------------------------------------------ ; -------------- SPANISH ------------------- ; ------------------------------------------ m_arrEsMFirstNames="Alfonso" m_arrEsMFirstNames="Bernardo" m_arrEsFFirstNames="Alicia" m_arrEsFFirstNames="Yolanda" m_arrEsLastNames="Garcia" (variations snipped for length) Changing names is trivial and has been proven to work in the "finding the first step" post. Adding countries and their flags seems a bit trickier though, but clearly feasible (unfortunately not by me, I have none of the skills /sadpanda) IMHO it would be nice, but I'd rather have UI and gameplay mods before the cosmetic ones...

Hello everyone, So I've been playing around with the nice lead that atoric has given us here : It can be even simpler than that : you can perform searches and modify things directly in Resource Hacker if you are so inclined. So with that, I went on a search for the Second Wave options (of which descriptions were found in the demo files; these are advanced options that can be activated after a first full playthrough, supposedly). Mostly because I did finish my first playthrough and found no sign of it in-game. That search ended approximately 2 seconds later, as a search for "second wave" revealed a not so cryptic "ENABLE_SECOND_WAVE = 0" line ! I turn that 0 into a 1, and voila ! A wild Second Wave sub-menu appears in the new game menu ! :psyduck: Although the menu itself is a bit buggy (click to check boxes does not work so it needs to be navigated with the keyboard; Second Wave button disappears if Advanced options is used) after a few tests, it turns out that these options are fully functional :D I would upload a screenshot but I'm still a bit hazy about the rules concerning that matter on this forum (just joined to say this, and hopefully become part of the community for this game I already love dearly), so I'll refrain for the moment. The available options are Damage Roulette, Red Fog, New Economy, Not Created Equally, Hidden Potential, Absolutely Critical, The Greater Good. I have confirmed they are working for all except Red Fog and The Greater Good. Unfortunately, the others that were mentioned in the files found in the demo are not selectable on the screen. Most notable Marathon, which is the one I was looking forward to the most. However, the code in the .ini/ in the .exe (same thing) also has this just under ENABLE_SECOND_WAVE : SW_FLANK_CRIT=100 SW_COVER_INCREASE=1.5f SW_SATELLITE_INCREASE=1.45f SW_ELERIUM_HALFLIFE=24 SW_ELERIUM_LOSS=0.05f SW_ABDUCTION_SITES=4 SW_RARE_PSI=8 SW_MARATHON=4.0f SW_MORE_POWER=2.0f Some of these options are clearly related to the missing options like Marathon, Blitz, Diminishing Returns, etc. Problem is, I have no idea how to activate these or if it is even feasible. Unfortunately my modding skills peak at doing a text search and changing a 0 into a 1... :confused: Edit : here are some shots of the menus http://i.imgur.com/o5FVe.jpg