Long War mod discussion

[johnnylump]

Install the Slingshot version and don't play the Slingshot missions.

[Anbar]

Install the Slingshot version and don't play the Slingshot missions.

Cheers chap, appreciated.

[kingpercival]

Awesome, this is one of the best most I've ever played for any game!!! very nice. I have one problem though. I can't seem to use any of the items I made, Ex: alien trophys, ceramic plating so far. Or is I will be able after complete other requirements, im lost since it doesn't say anything.

 

Anyone knows or I have a bug here?

[Amineri]

Awesome, this is one of the best most I've ever played for any game!!! very nice. I have one problem though. I can't seem to use any of the items I made, Ex: alien trophys, ceramic plating so far. Or is I will be able after complete other requirements, im lost since it doesn't say anything.

 

Anyone knows or I have a bug here?

 

Thanks for the positive review :)

 

Ceramic plating should be an infinite item (and should not be showing up in the Engineering Build UI). It should appear in the Barracks Soldier Equip UI in the same place as Frag Grenades.

 

Otherwise built items (such as alien trophies, etc) all now take time to build, so are not instantly available. Planning ahead is required :)

 

If you're still having troubles, if you can post up some details it would help.

[Troggy73]

This Mod is great. :smile:

 

Just on my first game and I have to say, the aliens feel far more dangerous and intelligent, even if they do something boneheaded it usually is so that the AI didn't anticipate a move of mine.

 

Catching the damn buggers alive takes effort and even with 1 health left it is risky thing to even try. But the rewards are well worth it.

My first captured Sectoid jumpstarted my beam weapon research and made it finally feasible to go down that line.

I am really proud that I already captured a Floater, Sectoid (both in the same mission) and on two seperate mission a Thin Men and a Muton. All around the middle or end of the third month and the beginning of the fourth.

 

Money is sparse, as are the any other resource, with the exception of alien bodies. :devil: But still my base is nearly plastered to the hilt with stuff, but here I also need Laboratories.

The Foundry is essential for cranking out the badass SHIV's. They sport some kind of damage reduction - even the basic ones - don't they? I mean on the small office card I was swamped by 13 or 14 aliens and both of my SHIVS stood out in the open and blasted away at Thin Men, Floaters and Sectoids. It was epic... both even survived - one with 1 HP and the other with 7. They got rescued from the Scrappy Heap for me just because they dished out delicious deaths per minigun and were essential on that map to keep the damn "I explode in a cloud of poison, sucker" Thin Men in check.

 

Also, every single one of the 8 classes is great. At first I doubted the Engineer, but they are my grenade specialists, blowing away cover left, right and center.

The Medic is rifleman with first aid training and since they are usually in the midst of things, they rack some kills on their own or assist others. I eschewed Smoke or Stim Grenades and didn't regret it for now. Also having the perk that gives them more health turns them into bullet sponges.

Splitting the Heavy in Rocketeer and Gunner was also a brilliant move. I have a bunch of Gunners that are deadly for anything that comes near them and the Rocketeers see most often use on Terror Maps. Killing half a dozen or more enemies in one go is epic with all the damage upgrades both my Gunners and Rocketeers get. Also, both variants pack both perks that up their base damage for their primary weapon and rockets when they get enough experience, which allows them to chew through Chrysalids like nothing. I learned out of my failed games. :devil:

Assault and Infantry are also awesome. As usual the Assault can be played in a safe or risky way, which is awesome (and the lack of Lightning Reflexes in the beginning needs to be kept in mind) and the Infantry class is genius. Giving them Will to Survive ensures that your experienced troopers don't have to fear as much on the field as other classes and in my case I hand them the stuff that enables suppression, covering fire and such which takes care of a lot of problems.

The split between the Scout and the Sniper is also one that I would have liked to see in the original game. Using the Scout in a forward position with the right perks is devastating for the enemy. Low Profile, Lightning Reflexes and Tactical Sense ensure that the guy can take cover everywhere and his high aim bonus ensures that he can pick of anything that comes close, while also marking targets for the Sniper. Speaking of the Sniper... getting Squadsight as the core ability is what should have been done in the core game. And having the opportunity to add snapshot to that changed the way I play the Sniper in this mod. In the core game my Sniper would stay behind - getting pestered by Floaters more often than not - and pick of squadsighted targets or I would keep him close (especially with floaters around) and use mostly his pistol. Here I can do both, staying close if I want to and laying down the thunder, which feels better to me. Sure, the guy/gal still hangs a bit behind the team, but not as far as to be out of reach in case of emergencies. Also, nerfing Squadsight was the right thing do, as was taking away Opportunist. They are still essential in any of my currently 5 teams.

Yeah, I learned that lessons through several restarts... keep spare people at hand... a lot of them.

 

Speaking of aliens, they do seem to be more aggressive or this impression forms because of their numbers and having 12 and more running around on the smaller maps is a delicious nightmare. It is as if a wave of aliens crashes into my troopers sometimes and it feels like an alien invasion should feel. Quite desperate at times. On the flipside, it allows for epic decimations of the enemy too, if your rocketeer hits a clutched together group of 8 or more aliens and basically clears the frontline... so, so damn awesome.

 

It is also awesome that the starting weapons can be used for quite a long time, I don't know for sure if they can or should be used the whole game, but even against mutons they performed admirably... which was problematic in the base game, IIRC. And I also learned to use grenades and rockets to a far greater degree than even in the base game on classic difficulty.

 

The UFOs also got way harder to take down. My poor fighters seem not really all that well equipped to deal with anything above the small ones. I even installed some laser cannons recently onto some of them, but that got their noses bloodied something bad. So I think I need to research more stuff.

 

There is only one thing that grates on my nerves in this mod and that is the constant swapping of every stuff my troopers use. This is the one and only complaint I have in this mod. After every mission they get stripped of every piece of equipment - seems only some of the starting stuff (ceramic plates, laser sight, grenades and such) stays on them. So the next mission comes around and I need to adjust about everything from the ground up. Can this be deactivated in some way or is this an intended feature?

 

So I will say it again: Great work, you revived my interest in XCOM. Keep it up. :)

[johnnylump]

Thanks for the feedback. Glad you are enjoying it.

 

 

There is only one thing that grates on my nerves in this mod and that is the constant swapping of every stuff my troopers use. This is the one and only complaint I have in this mod. After every mission they get stripped of every piece of equipment - seems only some of the starting stuff (ceramic plates, laser sight, grenades and such) stays on them. So the next mission comes around and I need to adjust about everything from the ground up. Can this be deactivated in some way or is this an intended feature?

 

What happens is that all unique (that is, manufactured or captured, and not unlimited) items are unloaded when a mission ends. This is done because the forced rest mechanism means it is exceedingly unlikely you will have the same soldier available two missions in a row. If we left stuff on a soldier, you'd have to go find that guy resting in the barracks, unload his laser rifle and alloy plates, and then equip them to the next soldier. That's an even worse solution.

 

That said, if you want to disable it, there's a code change in the Modding Long War subforum on the mod page. I'd really only recommend it if you are also disabling the rest mechanism.

 

Ultimately, we'd like to set up the barracks equip screen to make it where give the soldier a "template" of preferred items, so whenever he's loaded on the dropship screen, he'll auto-equip his stuff, if available. But that's down the road.

[Troggy73]

Thanks for the feedback. Glad you are enjoying it.

 

 

There is only one thing that grates on my nerves in this mod and that is the constant swapping of every stuff my troopers use. This is the one and only complaint I have in this mod. After every mission they get stripped of every piece of equipment - seems only some of the starting stuff (ceramic plates, laser sight, grenades and such) stays on them. So the next mission comes around and I need to adjust about everything from the ground up. Can this be deactivated in some way or is this an intended feature?

 

What happens is that all unique (that is, manufactured or captured, and not unlimited) items are unloaded when a mission ends. This is done because the forced rest mechanism means it is exceedingly unlikely you will have the same soldier available two missions in a row. If we left stuff on a soldier, you'd have to go find that guy resting in the barracks, unload his laser rifle and alloy plates, and then equip them to the next soldier. That's an even worse solution.

 

That said, if you want to disable it, there's a code change in the Modding Long War subforum on the mod page. I'd really only recommend it if you are also disabling the rest mechanism.

 

Ultimately, we'd like to set up the barracks equip screen to make it where give the soldier a "template" of preferred items, so whenever he's loaded on the dropship screen, he'll auto-equip his stuff, if available. But that's down the road.

 

Yeah, letting that equipment stay on the soldiers would be worse. I should think before I write. The template idea would be awesome if the game allows for such - hopefully so.

 

I am sometimes easy to distract and on top of that single-minded and as of my last terror mission I forgot to equip one of the guys with his assault rifle because I wanted to get going... luckily he was a Rocketeer anyway and I drafted him to give support fire.

 

BTW, I was very damn well surprised to find 25 enemies roaming on this map - and roughly 20 of those were zombies. Bringing my Michael Bay team (1 Sniper, 3 Gunners, 2 Rocketeers, 1 SHIV) was the only reason my guys survived against the zombies and the freakin' Chrysallids. My guys stood literally in the landing zone, the SHIV rolled forward and uncovered 13 enemies. This was unexpected to say the least and I didn't really made it deeper into the map... especially because one of the zombie troops appeared to teleport in my flank and got promptly activated. Still got out with 14 of 18 civilians alive. This was - for now - the single most blood pumping terror mission I ever had in XCOM. I had no chance to get my guys into cover, I needed a firing line against the wave of enemies anyway and among all the zombies the Chrysallids ducked into sight and out of it more or less at will. The environment was very target rich, but I had more luck than tactical acumen in two regards. First of the Chrysallids went after civilians instead of killing one of my guys and they found for reasons unknown the SHIV tastier than it's human comrades around it.

 

So much going on in this mod, thanks again. :)

[cancer352]

question (longwar):

i think longwar is extemely unbalanced, fx you have to fight 12 crysalids and a lot

of zombies already in the second terror mission when your own soldiers have

"nothing". So my idea was to slow down the apearance of new aliens by manipulating

the function "get possible aliens" in xcomstrategygame.upk and divide the variable

"imonth" by 100 instead 30. Ue-exlorer showed that i had changed the right hex-

value.

But after that the game didn´t start anymore and even xshape didn´t work on the

longwar-exe. So here are my desperate questions:

- which procedure do i have to do after changing of xcomstragegygame.upk in order to

get longwar working with this changes ?

- does anyone know another way how to slow down the appearance of new aliens by half

in longwar ?

- is xshape necessary and why didn´t xshape work on the longwar-exe ?

from cancer352

[enneract]

I have to say, I can't imagine playing EU without this mod anymore.

 

I do have one question, though. I pulled off the last slingshot mission, and got a couple of fusion cores - but the research for the blaster launcher didn't appear (not that I expected 2 cores to be enough to do it). In the stock game, there are no other pre-requisites to having it available. Were any added with this mod?

[johnnylump]

@enneract

Glad you are enjoying it. Yep, the weapons are only available late in the tech tree -- there's a jpg of the tree on the mod page on the nexus and there should be one in your xcom folder as well.

 

@ Cancer

It's hard to say why your edit didn't work. There's a Long War modding subforum over on the mod page.

 

Instead of using XShape, I'd recommend you make the following hex change in xcomgame.exe

 

Read XComStrategyGame.upk from CookedPCConsole Folder without size check
78 63 6f 6d 73 74 72 61 74 65 67 79 67 61 6d 65 2e 75 70 6b
to
77 63 6f 6d 73 74 72 61 74 65 67 79 67 61 6d 65 2e 75 70 6b

 

Then any changes you make to the upk will show up in game.

 

I'd note that won't change the June terror mission, though -- the alien roster for that one is hardcoded. You should read the strategy section for some tips for beating the terror missions.

 

Also, as feature of the mod is that some missions aren't going to be beatable, and you should flee.

Edited October 29, 2013 by johnnylump