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anymore :]

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'd also say no mods. As vanilla as possible, with some mechanical exceptions.

I really like volumetric explosions, for instance. And range-based accuracy would mean less deaths from leaving the ramp at night (since you can also turn off personal lighting).

[Sirus]

Do you want to toss in a few extra mods into the mix to make things more interesting, like facing off against early Cult of Sirius members and such (and maybe also some combat robots)?

Nah, no mods. Let me beat the game for once before I start messing with that stuff

@ Anataru: That's the plan. I'll probably even keep the same base, though obviously things won't go identically to the first run.

[Xanmyral]

I really like volumetric explosions, for instance. And range-based accuracy would mean less deaths from leaving the ramp at night (since you can also turn off personal lighting).

The lights make little difference considering the aliens can all see in the dark. Range-based accuracy does change tactics up a bit to where auto-shooting everything isn't the ultimate strategy anymore unless they're close. But you lose DAKKA appeal.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I take it back about range-based accuracy. It seems that for whatever demented reason, no attempt to add that feature into classic X-COM ever produces a non-retarded effect. By "retarded effect" I mean "grotesquely overexaggerated miss angles", wherein an auto-shot from a distance of five tiles results in shots that "miss" going so widely off target that the shooter would need to have been firing from a floppy firehose. Somehow that is never present in regular play, even when the shooter has a broken arm.

So no. Never play with range-based accuracy. The little benefits it gives you in survival do not outweigh the drawbacks you face with actually being able to hit stuff.

[Devastator]

Doesn't dosbox have built in recording functionality anyway?  I haven't used it, but I remember it having that option.

[Xanmyral]

I've been playing with ranged-based accuracy and it hasn't been that bad. Use two-handed weapons in two hands, crouch, take aimed shots with an accurate gun, and make sure the guy shooting can actually shoot and things will go good. Using low accuracy weapons--especially while auto shooting--anywhere outside of close quarters is going to cause you to miss horribly.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I've been playing with ranged-based accuracy and it hasn't been that bad. Use two-handed weapons in two hands, crouch, take aimed shots with an accurate gun, and make sure the guy shooting can actually shoot and things will go good. Using low accuracy weapons--especially while auto shooting--anywhere outside of close quarters is going to cause you to miss horribly.

Well yes, miss horribly, as it would in real life. However, even if you give, say, a micro-Uzi with an extended magazine to anyone who has any business holding a firearm, and tell them to attack a single target, you will not, even in the worst cases, get a 90-degree firing cone from them. The default accuracy logic actually works pretty well, with a "miss" being defined as a random deviation within a firing cone. What prevents an implementation where all you have is a reduction of "hits" as distance increases is beyond me. For instance, a laser pistol's effective range could be defined as, say, 10 tiles. Beyond that, the chance to hit gradually declines until it hits maximum range of, say, 20 tiles, when it becomes 0% - it's statistically impossible to hit the target you'd be aiming for. However, if the firing cone is maintained, and the random deviation of the "miss" is small enough, you might still hit the target by pure chance. And none of the "firing broadside" nonsense with shots going perpendicular to the weapon to guarantee a "miss".

[Xanmyral]

Yeah, I got nothing on the 'ninety degrees out of the barrel' thing, but I've personally never seen that happen outside of a gif floating around on the net. Even taking auto shots with a laser pistol, all the shots tend to be sorta round the target, with that 'sorta' depending on how far away and where it was.

Accidental hits still happen, they're just harder with single tile enemies due to the fact that your miss means you're probably not going to hit the spot you're aiming for. On multi-tiled enemies, you'll notice it much more frequently however as near misses become hits.

By all means, don't use it if you don't want to as it tends to slow down combat a bit and takes some fun outta filling the air with lead/lasers/plasma; I'm just saying that it's not as terrible as presented. Hm, maybe the differences may be in builds? Are you using the last "stable" build, 0.9, or a night build?

[RAM]

Would it not be sad to lose the save in which the redshirt got a purple heart in the first mission?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Would it not be sad to lose the save in which the redshirt got a purple heart in the first mission?

Well, the last log entry is "I need a drink"...

Cue waking up to see people who were supposed to be dead, the base doesn't look the same, and the log is full of drunken scribbles.

[Sirus]

Would it not be sad to lose the save in which the redshirt got a purple heart in the first mission?

Well, the last log entry is "I need a drink"...

Cue waking up to see people who were supposed to be dead, the base doesn't look the same, and the log is full of drunken scribbles.

Curses, you saw through my brilliant plan!

Though, reading up on Open X-COM I am curious as to how it calls itself "an open-source clone" when it requires the original game files to function. Strikes me as more of a mod, really.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Would it not be sad to lose the save in which the redshirt got a purple heart in the first mission?

Well, the last log entry is "I need a drink"...

Cue waking up to see people who were supposed to be dead, the base doesn't look the same, and the log is full of drunken scribbles.

Curses, you saw through my brilliant plan!

Though, reading up on Open X-COM I am curious as to how it calls itself "an open-source clone" when it requires the original game files to function. Strikes me as more of a mod, really.

It's a legal issue. It can't supply the original game content, so any player has to acquire those files somehow - the quickest and surest solution being purchasing the latest released game version somewhere, like Steam or GOG. However, it's also not a mod, since the entire codebase was rewritten from scratch, and the various maps and graphics/sound assets are the only things it reuses.

[Xanmyral]

What Sean said. Don't forget to also grab the fixes to the original X-Com's data files from their download page on extras, otherwise you'll still run into some problems.

[Sean Mirrsen]

What Sean said. Don't forget to also grab the fixes to the original X-Com's data files from their download page on extras, otherwise you'll still run into some problems.

Doesn't the installer already apply the data patch? It does give you the option not to install it, so I assumed that's what it was doing.

[Sirus]

Problem is, the OpenX-COM page says it does not work with modded copies of Classic-COM. Which includes copies with xcom-util applied. Any way to "fix" this?