Ichthyic Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 How do we download this mod? it should pop here when the author is done with it: http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/searchresults/?cat=7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutonizer Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 How do we download this mod? It'll be available tomorrow most likely. I'll update here once done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ichthyic Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 take your time. balance mods require a lot of testing. Right now, all of the balance mods are guesswork at what *should* be better, but really none have been rigorously tested yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brotte Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Here is a quick update taken from the Wiki: While it's possible to add any value between 1 and 255, any value over 3 scramble the UI control, the 4th selection is still visible but from the 5th and over seems to be not. Theoretically it's possible to use the keyboard for selection even when the entry is not visible, descending as you go. So it seems to be a simple display issue and we can't change that until we can repack the UPK files handling the PSILab UI. I'll try using the keyboard once I get my save to that point, but I'm still tuning earlier stuff (getting my teeth kicked in for now!) I was just able to test this and it appears to work. Just click on the 1st "remove soldier" and cancel. then you can use the arrow keys to the wanted slot and press spacebar/enter. However, there is no clicking sound or visual highlight indicating the cursor, so you have to count your way down (which would really suck badly, if you chose to allow 255 soldiers in the lab :wink: ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pompos Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 cant wait for this mod. just some queries - All armors give more HP.- All soldiers now start with 2HP. does this change also play into the wounded/recovery time for soldiers, as in, less actual health with more armor in terms of how much damage you take before your recovery time becomes affected? also, is it possible to adjust the hive at all? my main gripe in general are steam locations (the amount of times I have restarted) not a big deal, its just one mission you have to complete before you can take a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutonizer Posted October 20, 2012 Author Share Posted October 20, 2012 (edited) cant wait for this mod. just some queries - All armors give more HP.- All soldiers now start with 2HP. does this change also play into the wounded/recovery time for soldiers, as in, less actual health with more armor in terms of how much damage you take before your recovery time becomes affected? also, is it possible to adjust the hive at all? my main gripe in general are steam locations (the amount of times I have restarted) not a big deal, its just one mission you have to complete before you can take a look. Yes it does. Since the soldiers have lower base HP, the armor will provide MUCH more of a buffer (as it should I think) and the soldiers will spend a little less time overall in medical if the damage they sustain overcomes the armor buffer. That's how I kinda wanted it personally and it seems to be going nicely from what I tested so far. As for the base design, the steam fonts are random sadly and until we can repack the UPK files (if even then), we can't do much about it. What we can do however is up the number of steam tiles available at the start, all the way up to fill everything I suppose. That said, I haven't touched it yet though I was considering upping it from 3 to 4 at one point. Power is however an interesting resource I think and I fear upping the steam vents tiles might make it trivial (thermal reactors REALLY boost power output a lot). Maybe upping the steam numbers but lowering the Thermal generator output a bit might do the trick. In any case, just a quick update, and Sir_Toejam reminded me of that, it still needs some tuning. I'm putting a lot of hours into playtesting and it's almost there though everytime I test I need to get at least to June/July because that's when the tech changes happen for the enemies usually (mutons, discs and the like start to pop up more often). The early period seems fine for now, very challenging but doable. Late period shouldn't be much different (apart from a lot more things to do), but mid period, due to the research time changes, is tricky. I'm getting there though. Thanks for the interest of course, but as mentioned, I rather wait a day or so more than planned, than release and don't get the feel I want from it. Edited October 20, 2012 by mutonizer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutonizer Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 (edited) Alright, just finished my playthrough with the changes and it's pretty close to what I wanted so I'm releasing it, pending a tweak here and there later on as I do another run. http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/33/ Tweaks to come are to make the game a wee bit more difficult early on, but that's very hard to do without just making things way too hard. Late game is, as usual, more of a cake walk, especially if you have ranked up soldiers, but that's dealing with a core issue of the game itself and couldn't really adjust anything there. Edited October 21, 2012 by mutonizer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shiwan8 Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 ^ You could try to make the research time longer for the later game field gear and gear upgrades. Maybe, if there's a number to change (can't remember) you could also add build time for certain items, like plasma. Maybe make them more costly resource wise and so on. Plenty of ways to tweak it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mutonizer Posted October 22, 2012 Author Share Posted October 22, 2012 ^ You could try to make the research time longer for the later game field gear and gear upgrades. Maybe, if there's a number to change (can't remember) you could also add build time for certain items, like plasma. Maybe make them more costly resource wise and so on. Plenty of ways to tweak it. :) Well, if you make research time longer, it just makes the late game come later but doesn't change the fact that once you're in late game, it's still a cakewalk. Same applies for items and build time since in late game, you don't need to build anything, you're just waiting on your PSI unlocks. They are tons of ways to tweak how fast the late game comes around, but the only real late game changes I can see are changing damage, armor and soldier progression values to make them weaker and personally I find it always very hard to find the proper balance on "high level adventuring", be it for video games or p&p RPGs.The biggest problem I have and basically the reason why I just don't change these high level gear/enemies values is that if I do that, the loss of any high level soldier means game over, right there and then since there is no way whatsoever for the player to train more troops properly. If I could find a way to still offer early/mid game content (sectoids, thinmen, floaters, etc) during late game, through random UFO scouts and the like, then there would not be a problem. But by then all you encounter are things like small scouts UFO filled with sectopods, elites and ethereals. I can't however, so I rather have people playing the perfect game have a cakewalk, while people having a normal/struggling game, still have a chance :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts