Interesting....
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/05/16/xcom-hardcore-mod/
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?
PE
Something must be in the air. I just stumbled across this mod today on a PC Gamer list of 15 Best Mods of the Modern Era or some such conveniently imprecise temporal reference.
Anyone try this?
I bookmarked it for future use. So thanks PzE!
However, if I get in the mood to hunt down aliens, Xenonauts is my first choice. So I dunno when/if I will check this out.
Well I tried to install the Enemy Unknown version (don't have the expansion), it's an involved process having to disable UAC, firewall, Anti-virus, the Mod install failed with an un-able to verify version and XCOM no longer worked. I now have to uninstall and download & install it again. >:(
Anyone get it to work?
Quote from: SgtRock on May 17, 2014, 03:38:01 PM
Well I tried to install the Enemy Unknown version (don't have the expansion), it's an involved process having to disable UAC, firewall, Anti-virus, the Mod install failed with an un-able to verify version and XCOM no longer worked. I now have to uninstall and download & install it again. >:(
Anyone get it to work?
Yes. It looks great. Played the first mission and it's a very good immersive experience. Really looking forward to going deeper into the game.
However...
You are right. It's a pain when you realise that it over-writes the orignial Enemy Within and breaks the default game. To get back to vanilla you have to reinstall. A warning beforehand to back up the original game would have been nice. Such a well designed and coded mod should have a basic 'either/or' option to play vanilla.
Maybe I overlooked something though ?
EDIT: You can uninstall the mod, restoring the original.
Thanks, I'll give the install another try tonight!
Should have mentioned - I had to restart the game twice before it didn't crash. Third time it worked fine. I assume it was doing stuff in the background each time.
Have it loaded and ready..... have not started yet but interested to have a peek. :coolsmiley:
PE
I looked at the mod, but the need for Java killed its chance to get run on my computer for now. Sounds like it is closer to old school XCOM.
I tried again but, still can't get the downgrade version to work, it always fails at the end. >:(
So I installed it crashed to I started it again and off and running.. played a little last night and so far so good. Need to spend a lot more time to judge and see if it extends the life of the game....
PE
I highly recommend this mod. I can't play vanilla after playing longwar.
Pro's =
Vastly increases the usable items, weapons and the tech tree to unlock this myriad of new gear.
Eight classes each with important roles.
8 man squads (with officer school) on normal missions and 10 on base assaults.
Base assaults allow for "liberating" countries whose spineless leaders have deserted xcom.
Unlike vanilla this will challenge the most diehard strategist. The easiest mode will have you screaming for mercy and cursing the gods that you ever became a gamer.
Every weapon stage is important and lasts a while before being able to upgrade to the next stage. Lasers are no longer something to ignore while skipping straight to plasma. In fact, you'll be grateful just to get pulse lasers online to deal with the constantly improving aliens. Once you research plasma, sorry, cant build them. You'll have to capture plenty of aliens so you have their "weapon cores" to build your own plasma versions. (I do skip the gauss weapons though but that could be a mistake on my part)
Soldiers need rest after missions and even small injuries put them in the medbay for a long time. A critical injury can take them out of action for over a month which in longwar is a looooong time due to the number of missions that you'll get. Longwar requires a large roster of soldiers constantly being rotated, no less than 30-40. I basically try to have about 4-5 full squads of somewhat equally leveling soldiers so I always have a decent squad ready to roll.
Oh.... there will be blood!
Cons =
Can be frustrating as hell! mainly due to the number of aliens and how tough they are. No bs, some missions you can't swing a stick without activating another mob. Scanners and cautious advances are highly advised. I am constantly yelling "you gotta be kidding me!!!"
It is common to encounter 40-50 aliens on a large ship landing mission. Not just vanilla wimps but aliens with a 20-30 hp's and special abilities. Anything you can have so can some aliens. Freakin chryssalids and thin men with lightning reflexes... oh my.
Resources are scarce and everything requires a lot of them. DO NOT ever sell meld, alloys or elerium as you will be requiring large quantities by mid game and ridiculous amounts by late game.
Don't know wtf their hatred of rockets is about but they now have "scatter" where it's a miracle if they hit even close to what you're aiming for. Once you get aim at 100+ it gets a lot better but for the love of your soldiers and their families fire a rocket unless everyones behind you and then cross your fingers lol. Ok, slight exaggeration but not much. They say 120 aim negates scatter completely... good luck.
Time. I am currently maybe 60-80 hours into my current playthrough and i'm mid game. Just felided my first two firestorms and am finally equipping mostly plasma... mostly. Still a lot of foundry projects to go and a good deal of high end research. Elerium shortages is slowing me way down. I'm now letting countries go rogue so I can "liberate" them again since you get roughly 80 elerium per base raid... not enough I assure you. One foundry project can consume 80-100 elerium. One plasma rifle takes 30 elerium and an alien rifle core from a capture.
Conclusion
I HATE it!.... I LOVE it! Ok, I love hating it... errr, or is it I hate loving it? I'm sooo confused... oh well back to the game ;D
Quote from: dukedroklar on August 03, 2014, 06:07:15 AM
...
It is common to encounter 40-50 aliens on a large ship landing mission. Not just vanilla wimps but aliens with a 20-30 hp's and special abilities. Anything you can have so can some aliens. Freakin chryssalids and thin men with lightning reflexes... oh my.
...
I'm guessing since it's a mod you could changes to numbers if you wanted? I don't even like the thought of fighting 50 aliens in XCOM!
Quote from: bbmike on August 03, 2014, 07:08:00 AM
Quote from: dukedroklar on August 03, 2014, 06:07:15 AM
...
It is common to encounter 40-50 aliens on a large ship landing mission. Not just vanilla wimps but aliens with a 20-30 hp's and special abilities. Anything you can have so can some aliens. Freakin chryssalids and thin men with lightning reflexes... oh my.
...
I'm guessing since it's a mod you could changes to numbers if you wanted? I don't even like the thought of fighting 50 aliens in XCOM!
Sounds daunting. I am having a hard enough time with Enemy Within on iron man mode!
Quote from: Shelldrake on August 03, 2014, 09:14:50 AM
Sounds daunting. I am having a hard enough time with Enemy Within on iron man mode!
Ditto. I don't know that I would even bother unless lasers are closer-to-codex (so to speak), i.e. weaker than plasma but never runs out of ammo (just needs an occasional cooldown recharge maybe via "reload".)
OTOH, up to 12 soldiers on missions with the right upgrades... :o
Incidentally, the install instructions do warn that the first attempt at playing may CTD: "Start the game once. You may receive a crash to desktop (CTD) error; this appears to be some aspect of the mod completing installation and then making nice with Steam. Start it again, and it should run."
I don't understand how turning off Steam updates for EW doesn't prevent patches from loading anyway (thus breaking the LW mod). ??? ??? ??? ???
This looks helpful for players wanting the new hotness but not the crazy levels of hardness: "Q: Okay, I get it; it's hard. But I'm a casual player without a ton of time or Grognard levels of strategery. What starting settings would you recommend?A: Play normal difficulty with only the Not-So-Long-War and Cinematic Mode Second Wave options activated. This is probably somewhere close to vanilla classic levels of difficulty and duration."
This looks helpful, too: "Many, many game settings are contained in the file XEWConfigDefaultGameCore.ini, which can be edited with a text editor, and your changes will take effect the next time you load the mod (no other changes are necessary!). In-game text is in INT files in the localilzation folder. If it's not in either of those files, you'll probably have to make hex changes to the game's *.upk files, which is considerably more complicated."
"The easiest mode will have you screaming for mercy and cursing the gods that you ever became a gamer." That quote alone is enough for me to say thanks but no thanks. The vanilla game is hard enough as is for me.
Quote from: bbmike on August 03, 2014, 07:08:00 AM
I'm guessing since it's a mod you could changes to numbers if you wanted? I don't even like the thought of fighting 50 aliens in XCOM!
No, that is the easiest setting playing on "cinematic mode". Keep in mind that is on the larger transport type ships. On small and med sized saucer landings you'll encounter roughly 15-18 aliens. Most abduction missions have 15-18 with the exception of missions that say "swarming" which have 20-25 or so.
The mod is different in the regard that you are not expected to accept all missions and are certainly not expected to win all missions. It is designed to be a long back and forth war where our victories are so much sweeter due to the times you had to retreat with your tail between your legs. The first time I played and encountered a "swarming" terror mission and went in not knowing I was woefully unprepared. I lost half my squad in the first couple rounds and the tried to withdraw. By the time we made it out only 2-3 of my squad survived. I should not have went in the first place but was still of the old xcom mentality.
Losing countries is not that important since you can regain them by doing alien base assaults in lost countries to "liberate" them and return them to the fold so to speak. It's all part of the back and forth and soldiers are far more valuable than a country.
The mod contains hidden routines working in the background of what the aliens overall war strategy is and each mission or saucer landing has an actual purpose for them. They may be weakening a country for eventual takeover or more often than not they are gathering resources to fuel their research and improvements of their soldiers.
Quote from: Shelldrake on August 03, 2014, 09:14:50 AM
Sounds daunting. I am having a hard enough time with Enemy Within on iron man mode!
I played the hell out of EU and EW beating them both eventually on classic ironman but this is far harder than that but also far better imo.
Quote from: JasonPratt on August 03, 2014, 09:56:56 AM
Ditto. I don't know that I would even bother unless lasers are closer-to-codex (so to speak), i.e. weaker than plasma but never runs out of ammo (just needs an occasional cooldown recharge maybe via "reload".)
Lasers are much better than vanilla and give substantial aim enhancement (don't recall if vanilla gives +aim on lasers). They will be a mainstay weapon for far longer than in vanilla and actually serve as a viable and desirable upgrade. I bypass gauss weapons simply because the slight damage increase doesn't justify the loss of the aim bonus of lasers and the lasers have foundry projects to improve them substantially keeping them viable even longer. I only ditch the lasers as soon as I can research and produce pulse lasers which merits losing the aim bonus of normal lasers.
Everything has ammo including side arms which now include single burst sawed off shotguns, little mac 10 type machine pistols and of course pistols, each with pros and cons to offset the differences between them. There are so many new pieces of equipment you have to see it to believe it. For example, "large mags" gives you extra ammo at the cost of an equipment slot. Especially important item no infantry can leave home without since their starting skill is two shots per turn... burns ammo quickly but makes them a real force multiplier for your squad.
As JasonPratt pointed out, turning on the "not so longwar" option will tone down the number of alien encounters and speed up things like research. Without it everything takes a much longer time and you will encounter far more alien incursions per month.
The LW Mod [B14] rocks. Its a rollercoaster.
I hate this mod so much... my soldiers are falling like flies. "Sydney I am sorry, I should have ordered you into full cover instead of partial cover."
I love this mod so much... those bastard aliens are getting it now! Eat my laser bursts.
I hate this mod so much... aliens regen 3+ health per turn? EXALT now throw gernades/shoot rockets at the drop of the hat?
I love this mod so much...
Seriously, I have been on this mod for weeks now, as frustrating as it can be, the play is very rewarding.
Beta 15, Camo texture mod, date night Vallen mod and I'm enjoying the heck out of Long War. Also worth checking out Beaglerush on Twitch with his Tuesday Long War broadcasts. He is fun to listen to and knows the game.
Nice avatar Windi. :)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F8eFJ9.jpg&hash=13629c4a454c2a286e243b20a04347724f5b36af)
:2funny:
Quote from: Capn Darwin on March 19, 2015, 01:03:27 PM
Beta 15, Camo texture mod, date night Vallen mod and I'm enjoying the heck out of Long War. Also worth checking out Beaglerush on Twitch with his Tuesday Long War broadcasts. He is fun to listen to and knows the game.
I know I am into a game when I watch game feeds from youtube.
This deserves to be Necroed. I can't believe I just now started playing this. This is the first game in a long, long time the begs for "One more mission." I am digging everything about this!