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[Robsoie]

Great !

A question about Exodus, as i just got my first try and did surprisingly well.
At some point of the mission i got the message to get back to the evac zone and disengage. It was a good idea considering what i noticed at the other side of the map

After i gathered all my troops there, i waited for a dozen of turns there and nothing happened.
So after a while the horrible things (ah those sectopod-lasers ) i noticed in the other side of the map finally reached our location and annihilated absolutely everyone in a few more turns.

All i can think about is that i had my commander floating abovemy other troops in the evac zone, to have some visual of the nearby roof top.
Could it be that everyone needs to absolutely be on the ground to have the mission end being triggered ?

[Kyzrati]

Hm, the game does check all map heights so your flier is definitely in the zone. Never heard of that happening, and I'm pretty sure it's not possible the game has a problem there, so maybe you forgot one of your guys somewhere? You should always tab through your units to check. The other possibility would be that one of your guys was knocked unconscious somehow, then woke up before you made it to the evac, in which case you have to rescue him, too. Unconscious soldiers will count as MIA after you evac, but if they wake up first you'll again have control of them and they need to be evac'ed as well. That's my guess.

[Robsoie]

I don't think i forgot a soldier (the only two that didn't made it to the EVAC was the ones that spotted a Sectopod laser from close a bit too close for them to have any chance to run away )

Mentionning the unconscious status, maybe it could it be a civilian then as they had been under fire in another area of the map i didn't even tried to go before the disengaging message.

[Kyzrati]

Hm, maybe you weren't entirely inside the evac zone? Civilians don't matter. You can leave without rescuing a single one if you want. Maybe X-COM left you for dead?

[Robsoie]

Maybe they didn't appreciate my reply after they denied my request for them sending reinforcement

[Robsoie]

Played a 2nd time the Exodus mission, and same problem.
Here's what happened :

- some civilians make it to evac
- sent the xcom troops in nearby building while military and the tank stay at evac
- message "distress signal" with location flashing , some of thos civilians make it to the evac
- 2nd message "distress signal" with location flashing, civilians very likely all killed as none come and we can't get there (a sectopod laser is there)
- message "disengage" with location flashing (start location)
- the 2 surviving xcom troopers (some skirmishes around the building took their toll , especially from the teleporting new ones) make it alive back to evac as instructed and ... nothing
- 4 turns laters they're both killed when the aliens reach it too.

[Kyzrati]

Hm, I wonder if there was some regression in the most recent version(s), since Exodus is pretty old (last year old). I did sort of combine the old Exodus code and new Cataclysm code into one, so maybe that messed it up. Cataclysm's always seemed to work fine, though. I'll take a look at it.

EDIT: I just tested it myself and it looks like you're right, I must've screwed something up when I did 8.0. Now to find it real quick...

[Kyzrati]

So, it turns out the evac zone detection had a crazy weird syntax error (late night coding = bad) which should be totally illegal in C++, and the compiler decided it was ok... but didn't have it do what one might expect. Stupid compiler ;p

Uploaded 8.2, which doesn't do anything but fix this Exodus bug. Thanks Robsoie.

[Robsoie]

Thank you for the update. Ah maybe a mission i can end in something that is not a total disaster

[Robsoie]

Got so much fun in Area51

Rushed directly to the building housing 2 captured sectopods, hoping to activate one with my gatling laser commander, while i ordered 2 of my guys to get to the basement, while putting my tank in cover and the remaining xcom troops in the southern building to benefit from the firepower of soldiers already inside.

We managed to hold for some time, but not knowing what to do with the sectopods, i pressed m to manipulate and clicked on the nearby sectopod.
Only to remember after that m is for melee, it's n for manipulate
The turn following my accidental punching, the sectopod of the other side of the building suddenly shot at my commander, fortunately missed by annihilated the other sectopod.

The next turn to my own surprise my gatling laser destroyed the sectopod, 1st time ever that i have a soldier taking down one of those monsters before it has the chance to kill the shooter.

Anyways, i don't know if it's my punching that activated badly that sectopod.

In the basement i was more carefull and noticed that n actually did nothing to activate the sectopod MK2 that was there.
But for some reason it went online at the following turn ... on my side this time

Bringing him up the elevators and happy to use its canons, it was already pure devastation on the surface, bodies everywhere (lots of floaters, etherals just went in and killed nearly everyone, then a sectopod, a reaper and 2 chrysalids decided to join).

The sectopod MK2 managed to kill a chrysalid, but not the 2nd one that finally got to my commander and turned him into a zombie, while my poor other troopers were getting shots one after another.

Out of killing the chrysalid the sectopod MK2 was very disapointing, missing every single shots until a Colossus finally showed up, breaking walls and buildings in his wake.

My sectopod managed to get a lot of successfull hits (considering the Colossus size it would have been hard to miss it) but without injuring the titanic thing that was walking right toward it.

Once the colossus got close, it just took the sectopod MK2 and cut it in half with its jaws.
Then a muton sniped my last xcom trooper a few turn later.

A lot of fun in this one, my most successfull so far (despite the crushing defeat) as my troops managed to kill more invaders than usual.

[Kyzrati]

Sounds like fun! Although losing your commander to a chryssalid kinda sucks...

The manipulate command wasn't added until Cataclysm, and even then has barely been used, so it does nothing at all in any of the other scenarios. It'll be used a *lot* more in the future.

The downstairs sectopod is the only one you can control and is old hardcoded content--it activates automatically the turn after you spot it. As I imagined it, the ones upstairs are real sectopods powered down by the Area 51 scientists and researched in order to create the MkII. But as soon as the aliens arrive in your base, they have a way of remotely reactivating the captured sectopods and use them to attack the base from the inside. So you can't control them. Good job taking them out, though, since that's one of the hardest parts of Area 51, IMO.

Taking out the colossus is best done with lots and lots of heavy explosives, because he has quite a bit of health. I'm glad he chomped your sectopod in half though, since in earlier versions melee attacks by large creatures was actually broken, and the colossus was anything but fearsome ;p

[Robsoie]

Thanks for the precision, i was unsure how to control the captured sectopods, good to know it is not possible.

The Colossus is rather amazing in how it crushes every walls and buildings around them, you're using the ascii very well in creating that situation, you really get the sense of it being a gigantic monster/machine instead of just another terror unit.

I noticed a turn before getting my last trooper shot a "Colossus Handler" alien, is this only for the atomsphere or does that has a gameplay importance ?
Couldn't get the chance to shoot him to see.

[Kyzrati]

Thanks! The handlers are there mostly for flavor--they carry stun rods and follow the colossus around, as if they're "herding" it. In R8 I did, however, give them psi-amps to extend the flavor even more, as well as give you a chance to acquire some psi-amps in Area 51. It's pretty late in the mission by the time you see them, though, so probably not all that useful.

[Belteshazzar]

Just found the site for this game and wanted to say it looks damn impressive from all I've researched. The moment I can get back to my home computer I'm going to try it for a spin. I'm betting on it satisfying my 'tactical fix' far better than Firaxis' latest offerings "LIMIT ME TO 6 SOLDIERS MAXIMUM WILL YOU? FIE I SAY! FIE!"

A question, is it at all possible to open up larger than 60x60 areas via modding or is that been resolved to a hard coded limitation because while I totally respect wanting all maps to fit 'neat ud tidy' into the display, I reconsidered that this system could be much more fitting baseline to build a particular scenario mod I had in mind than my previous attempts with Dwarf Fortress.

[Kyzrati]

Hey there, the server I store my xcomrl stuff on got seriously hacked a few days ago, so if you want a copy of the game right now shoot me an e-mail.

I'm really disappointed in so many ways with the Firaxis game myself, but I've ranted about it before... I'm going to do the X-COM franchise a favor and take it far beyond the original game, in a way DF fans would enjoy, for sure

The 60x60 map limitation is hard and fast. I summarized some of the arguments about that decision in the FAQ (though there's even more to it than that, since I didn't want the entire FAQ to be about this apparently highly contentious issue!). You'll still be able to connect multiple maps together to make long/extended missions, though not through the current modding capabilities--that will come in future versions.