XCOM EU EW: Remove MELD altogether.

[Metafrank]

Enemy Within would be a great add-on: 40 new maps(!), the Exalt storyline, comfort functions, less bugs (But why are the latter 2 not added to the original game?... makes you wonder...)

But then there is MELD. It completely ruins the game for me.
To be more exact: It ruins the game's atmosphere.

Want an example?

Dr. Shen, Enemy Unknown:
"The more I see, the more I don't want to see. That twisted hulk of flesh and metal... driven by the alien technology, can we still call that life? We have to keep moving forward with the project, but the thought of treading the same path as the aliens... is troubling. What if they were like us once? Are we just part of a continuing cycle? If this is glimpse of our future, I want no part of it."

Dr. Shen, Enemy Within:
"Heck, let's cut this girl's arms and legs off and replace them with a jack-hammer! She sure won't mind!"

Atmosphere dead.

Why are there 2 cannisters of MELD on every other mission anyway? Their being there doesn't make any sense whatsoever! MELD itself doesn't!
Even how the indicator how much meld you have is placed in Geoscape bothers me more than I would have imagined.
Simply not researching meld would not solve the problem, because both the containers in the missions and the indicator in Geoscape would keep taunting me.

I'm not sure if anyone understands how much this is pissing me off, I guess most people will think I'm crazy.

Anyway, what I'm requesting is a mod that removes MELD altogether and makes Enemy within an addon with just new maps, enemies, comfort functions and the Exalt storyline.
Would that be possible?

 

I want to play Enemy Within. I wanna save Humanity in it - and I wanna STAY HUMAN while doing it. I don't want the game to remind me all the time that it wants me not to.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Metafrank

[Lad09]

Actual Dr. Shen in Enemy Within:

"That hulk of flesh and metal troubles me. What do we risk with our own investigations into the melding of human and machine? Will we see a line in the sand and refuse to cross it? Or will we move forward, willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of total victory? I have to believe that is not our future. Provided, of course, that the aliens' technology remains in the right hands."

"The soldiers who volunteer for MEC Trooper augmentation sacrifice much - but they do not leave themselves entirely behind."

 

Base Augments description:

"MEC Troopers wear their cybernetic base augments when not in combat. The arms and legs lack the necessary flexibility for use in the field; hence their removal when the MEC Trooper interfaces with a MEC cybersuit. Ideally, they will permit MEC Troopers to resume normal lives should XCOM defeat the invaders""

 

If you're going to critcize Enemy Within, do it on sins it actually commits.

[wghost81]

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1231769-modding-meld/

[Asolmanx]

Is there a way to edit the meld timer? I'm starting to play with the larger pods mod, and while i'm loving it, i'm having an incredibly hard time recovering the meld.

[wghost81]

Straightforward change of default 3+1 value haven't worked, so this matter needs deeper investigation. I'll look into this when I have time. :smile:

[Amineri]

The base value for the meld timer is coded into the map by the level designer that made the map. Each possible meld location has its own default timer value (so containers that are further away tend to have more time allocated).

 

That said, the data is read from the map and passes through the unrealscript, so a forumulaic modification to the timer should be possible. Like wghost, though, I haven't yet delved into the meld container spawning to much yet.

[wghost81]

Thanks, Amineri. Now init meld containers code makes more sense to me. :smile: I think, it will be possible to hard-code additional turns inside the scripts, so we wouldn't have to change each and every map. But, again, this needs further investigation. :smile:

[Asolmanx]

Sounds like fun. Just out of curiosity, what kind of knowledge is required to mod this game?

[wghost81]

General programming knowledge, I guess.