Recruit Selection Filter

[Zathras]

Okay: believe it or not I am playing UFOET, UFO AfterMath(very underrated IMHO) and The latest and trendy XCOM (which I feel that other than graphics and tactical gameplay is far inferior to the other two) all at the same time for comparison purposes and yes, I still have the originals (even Interceptor and that horrible First person shooter) and am trying to get the first and original one running on Win 7.

In UFOET you can select recruits from about 300 possibles each month and I place my criteria so high that I am lucky to get between 3 and 5/month and sometimes even none. This is done simply by that game and I was wondering if Xenonauts (at which I am still trying to look, so as to have some idea before playing) has any similar setup? Rookies who cannot shoot are a liability in infantry and hardly deserve a place in an elite unit.

[crusherven]

There's usually at least two guys in the hire screen who have 60 accuracy. That's plenty high for starting out; any higher and improvement wouldn't matter much.

[Sathra]

And having a limited pool to select from is part of the design. You can't always get the perfect troops and so have to deal with what you get.

[Zathras]

Thank you. I usually set 50 in all stats as a minimum unless there were none then I dropped throwing to 45.

I have never understood why, in every UFO/XCOM game, a supposedly elite unit has troops who cannot shoot with any accuracy.

I Do realise that it is part of game play balancing etc., but it is scarcely realistic. In the engineers, all had to be able to shoot and half had the marksmanship award. Perhaps it is to mimic the green effect upon performance of new troops and the subsequent decrease in efficiency but this is not valid for a supposedly "elite" unit.

In other words , I guess that I understand why, but I disagree with it and especially as the enemy troops always seem to be able to shoot with higher accuracy at the beginning in most such games. Is Xenonauts any different here?

[erutan]

Somewhat, though right now enemy accuracy is a little high because the AI isn't complete.

Rockets don't need to be exactly on target however.

[GizmoGomez]

[T]he enemy troops always seem to be able to shoot with higher accuracy at the beginning in most such games. Is Xenonauts any different here?

Haha, that is actually a problem at the moment. The AI was lame, so Chris buffed the aliens accuracy big time. The AI was improved a lot (though it's not done yet), so the aliens can be absolutely deadly at the moment. This will change.

The game will be well balanced, haha.

[Sathra]

The player's troops are pretty accurate now I've found, at least with ballistic and laser weapons. Not so much with plasma, even in the hands of high rankers.

[Gauddlike]

Incidentally the original x-com works well for me using dosbox (v0.72) under win7.

Think it might be the Steam version.

If anyone is interested this is the contents of my dosbox.conf file.

Just remember to alter the autoexec part at the bottom to match your folder structure, or the other way round

[sdl]

# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.

# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.

# fullresolution -- What resolution to use for fullscreen: original or fixed size (e.g. 1024x768).

# windowresolution -- Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling.

# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb,ddraw.

# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.

# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.

# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.

# priority -- Priority levels for dosbox: lowest,lower,normal,higher,highest,pause (when not focussed).

# Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.

# mapperfile -- File used to load/save the key/event mappings from.

# usescancodes -- Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems.

fullscreen=false

fulldouble=false

fullresolution=original

windowresolution=1280x1024

output=overlay

autolock=true

sensitivity=100

waitonerror=true

priority=higher,normal

mapperfile=mapper.txt

usescancodes=true

[dosbox]

# language -- Select another language file.

# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes.

# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:hercules,cga,tandy,pcjr,vga.

# captures -- Directory where things like wave,midi,screenshot get captured.

language=

machine=vga

captures=capture

memsize=64

[render]

# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one.

# aspect -- Do aspect correction, if your output method doesn't support scaling this can slow things down!.

# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.

# Supported are none,normal2x,normal3x,advmame2x,advmame3x,hq2x,hq3x,

# 2xsai,super2xsai,supereagle,advinterp2x,advinterp3x,

# tv2x,tv3x,rgb2x,rgb3x,scan2x,scan3x.

frameskip=0

aspect=false

scaler=normal3x

[cpu]

# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: normal,simple,dynamic,auto.

# auto switches from normal to dynamic if appropriate.

# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millisecond.

# Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags.

# You can also let DOSBox guess the correct value by setting it to max.

# The default setting (auto) switches to max if appropriate.

# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.

# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=auto

cycles=auto limit 8000

cycleup=500

cycledown=20

[mixer]

# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.

# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will

# probably lower their sound quality.

# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering

# but sound will also be more lagged.

# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.

nosound=false

rate=22050

blocksize=4096

prebuffer=14

[midi]

# mpu401 -- Type of MPU-401 to emulate: none, uart or intelligent.

# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.

# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.

# config -- Special configuration options for the device. In Windows put

# the id of the device you want to use. See README for details.

mpu401=intelligent

device=default

config=

[sblaster]

# sbtype -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.

# sbbase,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.

# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the dosbox mixer.

# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.

# On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.

# All OPL modes are 'Adlib', except for CMS.

# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.

sbtype=sb16

sbbase=220

irq=7

dma=1

hdma=5

mixer=true

oplmode=auto

oplrate=22050

[gus]

# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.

# gusbase,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the

# Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)

# gusrate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.

# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory

# there should be a MIDI directory that contains

# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used

# with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true

gusrate=22050

gusbase=240

irq1=5

irq2=5

dma1=3

dma2=3

ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]

# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.

# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.

# tandy -- Enable Tandy Sound System emulation (off,on,auto).

# For auto Tandysound emulation is present only if machine is set to tandy.

# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.

# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.

pcspeaker=true

pcrate=22050

tandy=auto

tandyrate=22050

disney=true

[joystick]

# joysticktype -- Type of joystick to emulate: auto (default), none,

# 2axis (supports two joysticks), 4axis,

# fcs (Thrustmaster), ch (CH Flightstick).

# none disables joystick emulation.

# auto chooses emulation depending on real joystick(s).

# timed -- enable timed intervals for axis. (false is old style behaviour).

# autofire -- continuously fires as long as you keep the button pressed.

# swap34 -- swap the 3rd and the 4th axis. can be useful for certain joysticks.

# buttonwrap -- enable button wrapping at the number of emulated buttons.

joysticktype=auto

timed=true

autofire=false

swap34=false

buttonwrap=true

[serial]

# serial1-4 -- set type of device connected to com port.

# Can be disabled, dummy, modem, nullmodem, directserial.

# Additional parameters must be in the same line in the form of

# parameter:value. Parameter for all types is irq.

# for directserial: realport (required), rxdelay (optional).

# for modem: listenport (optional).

# for nullmodem: server, rxdelay, txdelay, telnet, usedtr,

# transparent, port, inhsocket (all optional).

# Example: serial1=modem listenport:5000

serial1=dummy

serial2=dummy

serial3=disabled

serial4=disabled

[dos]

# xms -- Enable XMS support.

# ems -- Enable EMS support.

# umb -- Enable UMB support.

# keyboardlayout -- Language code of the keyboard layout (or none).

xms=true

ems=true

umb=true

keyboardlayout=none

[ipx]

# ipx -- Enable ipx over UDP/IP emulation.

ipx=false

[autoexec]

# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

#folders:

#x-com (contains dosbox and XCOM folder)

#XCOM (cd rip containing all game data)

@echo off

mount c XCOM -freesize 1024

c:

cd XCOM

call ufocd.bat

exit

[GizmoGomez]

DOSBOX is freaking awesome. Just saying.

[Chris]

You can sort available recruits via a particular stat on the new UI, to make this simpler.

[Sathra]

Awesome.