Apoc'd Edits

THIS is a page for various editing hints for mainly Apoc'd v3.06c edits but also Apatcher.

Apoc'd

...or How To Make The Game Harder by editing.

Editing: warnings, hints, how-to, and discovered Unknowns. or
Harder Gameplay

IT IS ASSUMED you know and understand Apoc'd and have experience messing about with the settings

• you are editing Pentium versions of files.
• you have backups of your files.
• know that typical internal limit is 250.
• explosives limit Power=250,Radius=25 (see bug notes)
• game settings changed sometimes only appear if you restart the game (not new game).
• you can Alt-Tab and change savegame stuff, alt-tab back (alt-enter to max screen), and reload game instead having to quit each time.
• ask me anything, below! EsTeR

Known Unknowns, Unknown Knowns Etc.

rumsfeld
These are Unknowns that are known:

• see Vehicle Equipment Layouts below.
• Edit Savegame, Edit Battlescape, Edit Units:
  
  • "Unknown 7" is the squad number in which this agent is assigned on the battlescape. Starts at zero (0) for squad number 1. Goes up to nine to denote ten squads!

BUGS

There are brief text explainations for settings within Apoc'd. Read them!

• Don't change cutoff percentages for relationship hostile-to-neutral etc. It can break the spawn items list when raiding. No items will appear.
• If changing grenade properties, do not change distance settings. Only change "power" and "radius" within "Agent Equipment 3" screen. Guns and other stuff is no problem and can be changed easily.
• When changing the explosive power of something eg: AP Grenade to 95. The explosive radius MUST be 10% or more of the power. eg: power=95, so radius must be 10 (not 9.5). No decimals! If a massive blast propagates across the battlescape in your game, the game will crash very soon after.

If changing the blast power and radius of any explosive within "Edit Cityscape", make sure to check the other screen "Edit Battlescape" and check that the settings you have changed are the same.

Note: many times I've edited the explosive to power=250,radius=25 and the game crashed (blast wave was massive) when it should have been normal. The settings in "edit battlescape" screen were not identical to "edit cityscape"!
Yes, 250/25 works perfectly with Poppers!

Modules Pre-Installed

• The initial Valkyrie comes with modules pre-installed. If changing its layout, the game may act weird:

may crash if trying to select vehicle in menu bar

removing a medule in Vehicle Equip Screen may enable unlimited removals of that module.

cannot insert equipment anywhere.

Solution: if adding more cargo slots to the Valkyrie, do not edit the 8 cargo slots which hold the Cargo and Pass modules OR if edited and is causing problems. Just sell the one you get at the start and buy another (new default vehicle does not have modules pre-installed).

Modifications

Accuracy & Reactions

Accuracy = {100-number}. When accuracy is mentioned anywhere within Apoc'd.

• If you want 95% accuracy for an agent as default, the entry is 5. Pretty simple!
  

Matching Reactions & Accuracy
If you want to match reactions with accuracy so that both are the same value for your edited agent:
1. Find the default maximum reaction possible for this agent:

{Best Reactions = Base Reaction + Max Reactions Increase}.

2. To have the same attribute values for accuracy:

{Base Accuracy = 100 - Best Reactions}

3. To reduce this high number so it become the same as reaction default values, insert:

Max Reactions Increase = Max Accuracy Increase

The final values when shown in-game for this agent will show identical bargraph lines for Reactions and Accuracy if done right.

Vehicle Equipment Layouts

What: Changing the slots to add variety to craft which can be puchased..
Note: Any vehicle not available to X-Com does not need a layout to conform. They can use a 1x1 cargo slot for each item. If the device is present, it will be used. Same limits apply however. eg: one engine, correct quantity of slots etc. however Hybrid/UFOs do not need or use an engine slot
THREE WEAPONS maximum. More slots can be added but is does nothing. The game dos not swap to other weapons if one has run out of ammo.
1. Changing the cargo slot size and making it work in-game.

• Type: cargo slots are 1x1. (notice the "0" in the next line after "Cargo")
• Type: engine/weapon slots are various sizes. (notice the "1" in the next line after "Engine" or "Weapon")

If you change a single cargo slot to be a 2x2 slot (and organise the layout so nothing overlaps), you cannot put anything into the slot (when in-game). However, if you change the "0" to a "1", the game will allow you to place any module that will fit.
The visual orientation will then come into play. eg: "left, up", or "center,center" but this is only cosmetic.
2. Adding more slots.
Only one engine slot, up to three weapon slots and a total of 45 slots maximum.

• The amount of slots on your edited vehicle must match the total count "Number Of Slots" which you have 'built' into the edited vehicle.
• If you have been editing additional slots but they don't appear in the layout-editing screen, increase the slot quantity (max 45).
• Count all the slots, insert that number at the top!
  

If the slot quantity is more than you edited in - the game will crash!

Conforming To Proper Layout

"Filler" must be used to where is it needed to remove visual corruption. The classic example is the APC's cargo module.

Raid A UFO or Alien Building

Goto "Edit buildings", choose your difficulty, find "Building Function" in right column and change any building to a UFO (#51 to #58) or alien Building (#39 to #48)

• Battlescape is the internals of the selected ship or and alien buildling.
• No aliens apppear!
• Security appears just as normal as any other Mega-Primus building.
• Fires in the trench are not active.
• You don't recover craft artifacts.

UFO & Building Alien Loads

Make the game harder with better grouping. Soft-limit of 36total aliens per battlescape.
RULES

• A group can only hold a maximum of 6 aliens of the same type, if more then 6 another group slot is used.
• Maximum of 6 group-slots.
• Maximum of 36 aliens.
  • eg: 6 groups of 6 different aliens with no-more than 6 of the same type in each group.
    

C=crashed, D=dropped into building.

Examples: Basic grouping without combinations Δ.
3xAnthropods, 12xSkeletoids, 3xMegaspawn, 3xPsimorph, 3xMicronoid = 6xgroup
6xAnthropods, 6xSkeletoids, 9xChrysalis, 6xAlien Egg, 6xMicronoid = 6xgroup
9xAnthropods, 3xPoppers, 9xSpitters. = 5groups
12xAnthropods, 3xSkeletoids, 6xPoppers, 3xSpitters = 5xgroups
24xPoppers, 12xMegapspawn = 6xgroups
1xMegapsawn, 1xPsimorph, 1xAlien Queen, 18xSkeletoid = 6xgroups

Δ There is a talk page that deals with like-group and individual-group ...somewhere here in UFOpaedia.

Zorium Laser Fuel

Allow craft lasers to use Zorium instead of unlimited ammo.

• Change all three laser weapons to use "150 zorium 1" (change to your preference.)
• Change Vehicle Equip 2 to Zorium = Energen (gives another Org to be careful with)
• Change Market to allow purchase zorium (week=1) and give a price and stock quantity etc.

Elerium Air Engines

Make elerium a critical game feature instead of just irrelevance.

• Vehicle Equip 1 = change SD-air engines to use E-115 instead of fusionfuel.
• Market = double the price!

Useable Justice And Retribution

• Vehicle Equip 1 = change justice ammo = 7, retrib. ammo = 3.
• Market = slightly increase buy quantities AND missile price.
• Vehicle Equip 3 = change speed and damage of both to +200%.

Fast FAST UFOs

Increases chance of UFO escape if you keep shooting all down. Balances the game.

• UFO Vehicles = +200% top speed.

Civilian Like Before

Everybody wants to kill civilians. If they appear, they are hunted!
Note: Relations - edit SAVEGAME not EXE files.
Key combos:

• Civilain (selected, left side) = M, 2, -, 53, enter, -100, enter.
• Civilian (selected, right side, at bottom) = M, 1, -, 26, enter, -100, enter. (repeat again for second civ entry).
• Press S.

HATE

Default relations (not savegame), Press "V".
You may need to change so everyone doesn't hate X-Com.

• XCOM (left then right screens, key combo) = M, 2, -, 27, enter, 0, enter.
• this can be repeated for aliens too, but make sure that Xcom-Aliens are both -100.

Cityscape Action

Illegal Flyer and Raid section, alternate them and fill the right side of both Gangs/megapol and common orgs (ignore any "storm", "unknowns" etc.) as this will remove anything that is pointless such as "Treaty Signed" etc.

• Increase vehicles parked default quantity to 25 and then edit savegame to have a large pool of vehicles for each organisation. Values don't need to match.

BOUNS: use Apatcher to increase Illegal Flyers to 6.

Alien Artifact Vehicle Equipment

If the manufacturer of any vehicle equipment is set to "XCOM" then the game automatically designates this item as an alien artifact. eg: If X-Com 'makes' Bolter craft guns, then it will be an artifact.

• Bio-modules will be artifacts if installed as default on purchased vehicles. They must be researched (and possibly one built) to be able to be used by X-Com. NPC vehicles do not matter.

UFO Spawns

Increasing the quantity of UFOs available each week will become monotonous. Appearances are always Motherships ⇒ Probes. It will become boring having to kill the same each week. Changing the spawn quantities and types for each week so that nothing is redundant is a OCD nightmare fine art. Even the designers of the game made errors!

Disruptor Armor

This must be an oversight. X-Com disruptor armor is 100%Damage to enzyme action. This should be ~25% in "Damage Modifiers" so that those who play without shields can be have less frustration.

Equipment Sets (Built-In)

If not grown-in weapons, the game ignores this!

• These can be set to nothing/zero for all aliens which use hand-held weapons. Aliens which use grown-in weapons should not be changed.
• This applies to humans also.
• Both the "Edit Cityscape" and the "Edit Battlescape" menu must be changed to be identical.
• The loadout of equipment will then depend only on the Equipment Sets (Score) which is easier to edit.

Using Stun Value

Edit your savegame. It is very easy to knock-out all units which are susceptible to stun (normal health is under 255). Enter a value of 250 and most of not all, will be sleeping for about 4 to 5 minutes (RT) of game time. Obviously high health units won't be...
If the mission does not end after reloading AND you know no high-health aliens were present, to force an end either:

• stun anyone with a stun-gas grenade, or mind-stun.
• kill a sleeping hostile.
  

or the confirmed-works way is to use one agent to exit the battlescape via blue-exit-tile.
Note: anytime any mission does not end when playing normally, using the one-agent-exit method will always work to conclude the mission. (particularly useful on Nuetral base Raids)

Neutral Base Raids

Enemy action with neutral organisations is possible when changing "Organized Crime" so that a base raid is possible by friendlies.
Note: 10 base missions in a row (each timer set to 1, 2, 3 etc. never 0) may trigger the "Please Insert CD" message. Savegame immediately after each base mission, then press Ultra-Time to get next one until all ten you allocated eventually complete (takes 50minutes game time)

• No one will shoot. Do not kill anyone!
• To end the Base Defence mission: stun a unit with gas or mind - grapple doesn't seem to trigger end mission OR escape with one unit.
• Score will be zero for everything. All items irrelevant of status of neutral user will be recovered! Free stuff!
• Do not use one agent for base defence. Sometimes the mission does not detect a stun so escape-blue-exit method is the only way to complete it. You cannot escape with one guy. The base will be lost! Minimum of two agents for any of this "neutral base raid" funny business. ...cheater!

Apatcher

This program can enable the cityscape editor. Some warnings about changing or making cityscape maps:

• Copy and paste your UFODATA folder to somewhere safe.
• Read the readme file with Apatcher. Some options within the cityscape editor will destroy your installation hence, you copied the folder as a backup.
• the "Building Data" is most useful.

Errors

Buildings
If changing building size, do not make them smaller than the smallest available eg: the size of the warehouse, in map cells.

• the home-cell can be multiple for one building, but only one is used and if its destroyed, others don't work.
  
• do not have less than four government buyable buildings - and they must include at least one slum. Less is possible but UFO A.I. may act very stupid.
• road ramps into terrain, which covers the ramp partially can still be driven through. Take more care when building ramps underground or through buildings.
• people tubes only matter for actual foot transport for X-Com only since aliens will move from building to building regardless if a people tube was never made, destroyed, or not connected properly.
• missing ground tiles (the section becomes corrupted) does not matter since it is visual only. Take more care when making your map.
• hovering buildings are possible, but if something impacts it, it may collapse.
• every building must have a home cell. launch tubes are not strictly necessary.
• people tube terminations and 'flow' must be correct for the tubes to be able to transport your units properly.
• people tubes of any sort are not necessary. If they were not built, your units cannot move on foot.
  
• buildings which are completely underground and do not have any destroyable sections above ground will cause illegal flyers and UFOs to aimlessly move about ...forever.
• Do not overlap building co-ordinates when changing with Apoc'd.
  

Road
There is a limit of aprroximately 500 'junctions' per cityscape map.

• the game will not start your map if a complex road network was built. you must reduce the T and + intersections to under 500 if the message appears. ...you'll know when.
• some very high roads will not be chosen as a path, keep them under level five if possible. This is not a rule.
• a road section will collapse between supports, avoid long runs like Medium difficulty cityscape design.
• the A.I. is stupid. Don't make complex roadways or limited access roads, the AI cars will drive in loops, going nowhere.

Apatcher Options

Setting the UFO Spawn Frequency to zero make the game so much more fun!!