Hidden Features (OpenXcom)

There are many little interface extras hidden in OpenXcom that aren't really mentioned anywhere ingame. This page is dedicated to them.

See Options for settings and keyboard shortcuts.

General

• Use the mouse wheel to scroll lists and right-click the arrow buttons to scroll to the top/bottom.
• Use the mouse cursor and keyboard keys to move the caret on text fields.
• ALT-ENTER: toggle fullscreen mode.
• Ctrl-G: toggle mouse cursor lock behaviour (when enabled, the mouse pointer will be unable to exit the window).

General - OXCE

• Ctrl-N: Notes screen.
• Ctrl-T: Test screen. Allows to select ad view (in several modes) one of available palettes. Can run tests for some data errors.

Geoscape

• Right-click on arrows to set a value to minimum/maximum.
• Use the mouse wheel to zoom the globe and right-click to center it on a location.
• Click on a weapon during a dogfight to disable/enable it. (Screenshot Album Demonstrating this feature Here)
• Right-click a craft in the interception screen to center on its location.
• Right-click a base facility to bring up the associated management screen.
• Right-click on a soldier in a craft's Soldiers screen to open up their stats page.
• Right-click on a soldier in a craft's Armour screen assigns the last selected Armour to the soldier (if possible).

Geoscape - OXCE

• Click on Access Lift does not generate pointless "cannot dismantle your Access Lift" message anymore. Now it starts base preview in the actual Battlescape — a Base Defense mission with no enemies. This may help to plan defense. More so with "Path Preview: Time Units" toggled on (under Battlescape options), since there's one soldier who walks without spending any TU and Stamina, but will show how much is needed for a given path.
• Right-click on an item in Purchase/Hire screen hides this item (aircraft Cannon and Stingray launcher are the most obvious). They are visible only in Hidden category (selected via drop list on top) and can be moved back the same way.

Battlescape

• Use the mouse wheel to move the camera up/down a level.
• Right-click to leave most screens.
• Click a soldier's rank to bring up their stats.
• Right-click while holding an inventory item to cancel the move.
• Ctrl-click an item in the inventory to have the soldier pick it up or drop it on the ground. Also works in pre-battle for quick equip/unequip.
• Right-click a grenade during pre-battle inventory to prime it.
• Right-click the Zero TUs button to reset a soldier's time units (so they can't reaction fire).
• Right-click while a soldier is moving to abort the move.
• Right-click while a projectile is moving to skip to the projectile hit.
• Use the mouse Previous/Next buttons to switch between soldiers.
• Hold Ctrl while firing: to ignore "No Line Of Fire" errors. (if Override Line of Fire option is enabled)
• Ctrl-click a square adjacent to the active soldier that is perpendicular their current facing: have them 'sidestep'; costs 5 TU instead of 4 + facing changes. (if Alternate Movement Methods option is enabled)
• Ctrl-click anywhere else accessible: makes a soldier run; Running Units move at 75% Time Unit Cost for 150% Energy cost. (if Alternate Movement Methods option is enabled)
• Ctrl-click when the active unit is a tank: makes its turret point at the clicked tile (which defines sight and weapon direction) without moving the hull (and its armor arcs); costs the same 1 TU per 1/8 turn. (if Alternate Movement Methods option is enabled)

Battlescape - OXCE

• Right click on a hand item slot: Toggles this hand as preferred for Reaction Fire until toggled again; the preferred hand is marked with yellow dot. This preference is for hand, thus persists whether armed or not, but normal rules of reactions are obeyed: melee weapons and built-in melee weapons are used if in range, but if the item in the hand is not a melee weapon or gun this unit can use, the preference is ignored and the unit will fire the gun in the other hand instead. Toggling is free, no extra TU cost.
  • E.g.: a soldier has Small Launcher in his right hand and Laser Pistol in the left, he will fire only pistol if left is preferred, launcher and then (as launcher is out of ammunition) pistol if right is preferred, otherwise as usual. If the soldier holsters or drop the pistol from the preferred hand, uses launcher two-handed, and then re-equips pistol, no need to set the preference again.
  • It helps to avoid unfortunate incidents with splash weapons used at short range (without removing reactions completely like zeroing TU would). This also makes pistols far more practical than before: now that you can rely on heavy weapon soldiers to actually use their pistols for reaction, it's good to have one ready whenever not using the big gun. 8 TU to holster the pistol or 2 TU to drop it before a shot is better than 15 TU to load an empty weapon and usually preferable to having TU zeroed at the end of every turn.
• Alt (held): Shows direction arrows for unit facing; can be really non-obvious for blobs, kneeling soldier in Power Suit or hovertanks with Alternate Movement Methods enabled (turrets can traverse independently). Also shows the tiles where Motion Scanners detected a blip this turn that wasn't one of player units, thus finally removing the greatest inconvenience of this item.
• Ctrl-X: toggles the option mute/unmute unit response sounds (same as oxceEnableUnitResponseSounds in options file).
• Ctrl+Shift+LMB: When auto fire mode is selected, this activates spray targeting mode: starts picking numbered waypoints; once maximum number of waypoints are selected or a waypoint is selected with Ctrl+Shift+LMB again, firing starts, but now the unit will move its aim trying to evenly distribute hits along this path, rather than aiming at the same spot. Of course, the actual hit placement is affected by Accuracy as usual. RMB removes a waypoint, like with Blaster Launcher. (needs a weapon with sprayWaypoints set in ruleset)
• Ctrl-E: Shows pop-up with the list of soldiers who did not earn experience yet.
• Ctrl-M: Shows melee damage (if any) with the currently wielded items (if any) and special built-in weapons (if any).
• Ctrl-1…0 in inventory screen (makes sense in craft equipment or pre-battle) saves the current layout in one of 10 slots. 1…0 loads it. Thus in addition to the main inventory template (inherited from the original game and used via big buttons and C/V) you can create specialized inventory layouts for scouts, grenadiers, etc. It's possible to enable up to 50 layout save slots (oxceMaxEquipmentLayoutTemplates option), but any above 10 are accessible only via extended menu (enabled by oxceLinks option, or "Extended links" under Options - Advanced - Extended).
• MMB in inventory screen on an item (or paper doll) shows the Ufopaedia entry for this item (or armor).

Debug mode

Debug mode is a special feature that makes it easier for developers/contributors to test out game features without needing to play a new game from scratch. After setting "debug: true" in the Options File, you can enable it by pressing Ctrl-D in-game to access a variety of features:

Debug on Geoscape

• Ctrl-D: Unlocks all research and shows globe country and region borders. Clicking on the globe returns the point coordinates.

This option can be toggled, and toggles between showing country borders, regional borders, and mission zones.

• Ctrl-U: reveal the borders of the interface text, to debug translation errors (You can also set "debugUi: true").
• Alt-F8: cycle through various engine processing speeds, useful for debugging animation errors.

Debug on Geoscape - OXCE

• Ctrl-1: Sets funds to 999999999.
• Ctrl-2: all facility construction completed instantly.
• Ctrl-3: +50 scientists and engineers.
• Ctrl-4: +2 every item.
• Ctrl-5: +2 all live aliens.
• Ctrl-6: reset X-Com/alien activity for this month.
• Ctrl-7: every UFO detected and transmissions decoded.
• Ctrl-A: erase all soldier diaries.
• Ctrl-C: erase all soldier commendations.

Debug on Battlescape

• Ctrl-D: Whole map is revealed and opening the inventory screen resets TUs. Clicking the map returns the point coordinates. With traceAI enabled in the config, AI behavior is revealed and logged. Please note, in debug mode QuickSave/QuickLoad feature in Battlescape are completely disabled.
• Ctrl-V: reset visibility on all tiles, useful for observing LOS behaviour.
• Ctrl-K: kill all live aliens in the mission (nothing will be recovered).
• Ctrl-J: stun all live aliens in the mission (useful for testing recovery).
• Ctrl-W: warp the selected unit to the mouse cursor's current position.
• F8: cycle through various engine processing speeds, useful for debugging animation errors.
• Ctrl-C (If the Commendations Mod is being played): wipe all earned commendations while retaining statistics, useful for debugging how they're awarded.

Debug on Battlescape - OXCE

• Ctrl-B: Show the briefing window for this mission again.
• Ctrl-H: Show "Hit Log" window in event popup (depending on other options and events).
• Ctrl-Alt-H: Show "Hit Log" in diary window (depending on other options and events).
• Ctrl-Home: Reset default palettes.
• Ctrl-End: Cycle between "debug vision" (all units are visible, even in unseen areas) and different brightness modes.
• Ctrl-X: mute/unmute unit response sounds
• Ctrl-Shift-J: stun the unit under cursor. Works with the player's soldiers, but not stun-immune tanks.
• Ctrl-Shift-K: kill the unit under cursor.
• Ctrl-Alt-J: stun all live aliens in the mission except the one under cursor.
• Ctrl-Alt-K: kill all live aliens in the mission except the one under cursor.
• F9: save map as used by AI/pathfinding (if traceAI: true in options file).