UPDATE: Version 1.11:
Merry Christmas! Small bugfix update. Version 1.11 fixes an early game issue, where the health of new recruits (4, of which 3 are provided by armor) would prevent critical injuries from being injuries, due to the armor preventing injuries. Thanks ilovemuesli for pointing it out!
This new update should only be installed for a new campaign! This fix switches 1 health from armors to soldier starting values. Savegames save the soldier health but update the armor constantly, and old savegames won't take the increased soldier health into consideration, thus decreasing the health of every soldier by 1 in old savegames. A new campaign starts with the new soldier health, thus providing the health point that has been taken away from the armors to fix the bug.

If you find any bugs or have wishes (as far as they can be realized) please tell me. Nothing is more important to a modder than feedback.

UPDATE: Version 1.1:
It's finally here! I've spent the last bit of eternity polishing the data and looking for new features and improved balancing to bring the most enjoyable XCOM experience yet, and now I can bring a significant improvement over Version 1.02 to you. Most importantly, the game should now finally be balanced for all three Stages, early game, midgame and the late game. At all times will you feel a truly rewarding and challenging experience. For all the major improvements and adjustments, check the Changelog at the bottom.

Important: You can simply override the old versions, and continue your savegame. However, soldiers and SHIVs that are already recruited/built/leveled have their stats saved, so they won't benefit in reverse. While soldiers are pretty much unaffected, to benefit from the new SHIV-system, you have to scrap the SHIV and buy a new one. Everything else that's generated on a need-base (enemies etc.) will have the new stats.

I've also cleared up the description and a lot of other things on this modsite, as you can hopefully see (took a lot of effort, I have no idea how these things work, and kinda still don't. Just trying to bring some order into the chaos). The changelog itself has been removed from the description, with the exception of the latest changes. (The full changelog is available as a seperate download.)

As for future updates: There are still some plans I have - and there is an ace up my sleeves, too. And, of course, I'd like to use your feedback to improve the mod further, to bring the most rewarding X-COM experience to you.



X-COM Terror from Space is a mod that aims to bring out the true potential of the game. Combat at the thin edge between life and death and deep intense tactical encounters. A strategic management part where you have to make a tough call on a daily basis, where everything is useful but nothing easy to attain. You will face more challenges and problems, but also be able to use much more to find a solution. Every facility and every item is now useful and even the Gray-Market prices now encourage selling items, especially alien tech - though selling without care will result in a lack of alien tech for research and production!

This mod will challenge you and your soldiers from the early beginning until the very end, and especially on the higher difficulties ruthlessly punish tactical mistakes. Fortunately, it's now possible to recover from mistakes, as the Panic system is slightly more balanced, though too many mistakes will still see the X-COM program quickly abandoned.

For those who take the first steps in X-COM and would like a challenge, but are not used to the game yet, easy and normal offer alternatives that mostly contain the same changes, though panic and financial aspects are more generous and allow more room for mistakes and recovery from failed missions.



X-COM: Terror from Space contains a vast number of changes, improvements and tweaks, too numerous to account for every single one, without making this description unreadable. A detailed account of every single one can be found in the changelog (which you can download either with the mod or seperatly).


Tactical Gameplay:
- Enhanced Tactical Game Mechanics & Environmental Damage allow cover to last and make positioning more important
- Balanced Enemies across the game to offer a unique and challenging experience
- Every soldier and SHIV, every weapon and every item has its place on the battlefield and allow new ways to deal with enemies, or enhance already existing, but unrewarding ways.
- Explosives are improved and remain a valuable option throughout the game - although at the risk of losing Weapon Fragments and alien tech, and thus severely hindering your research.

Strategical Gameplay:
- Second Wave is enabled and the Marathon Mode fixed
- Panic mode has been reworked. It will no longer go out of control so easily while you're successfull - though failed missions will still quickly ramp up the panic meter.
-Research time has been increased, making every decision count & encouraging you to build labs (And We Have ways becomes a real timesaver)
- Removing a facility now scraps it for tech and sells it, resulting in the gain 25 credits for scrapping it.
- Item prices, value of alien tech, funding, maintenance and other financial aspects have been rebalanced, to encourage the use of the gray market and comply with countries who wish to buy something from you. Furthermore, you won't be able to produce the most expensive items quite so easily, encouraging capturing aliens to get weapons.
-Satellites are build slightly faster, to easy up on the double delay between facility construction and production.

The Aliens:
- With the exception of easy, enemies make full use of the AI. Combined with the new improvements, (such as hitchance) enemies will aim for flanks more often, combat will become more clever and less of a straight-forward shootout.
- Alien Grenades now pack quite a punch - make sure to spread out when facing aliens with grenades, such as heavy floaters, mutons and cyberdiscs.
- On classic and impossible difficulties, some late game enemies have a special kind of armor that needs to be destroyed before health damage becomes visible, most notably Berserkers (only on impossible), Ethereals and especially Sectopods (15 armor plating on classic, 30 on impossible)
- Rebalancing of the entire gameplay around health and damage thresholds and the addition of armor plating for certain enemies benefits the use of skills you may never have seen in vanilla gameplay. (Such as drones healing a cyberdisc or sectopod, as they usually died too quickly)
- Enemies throughout the game are capeable of dealing serious damage. Do not expect soldiers to be able to stand multiple shots without tough armor, special protection and luck. Especially the Sectopod is an enemy you never want to encounter without good cover - because if it hits you critical, it's unlikely you survive.

X-COM Units:
- Your soldiers progress slower through the ranks to make high ranked soldiers more valuable and encourage the soldier reward from abduction and council missions.
- Increased prices for soldiers (25 for easy&normal, 50 for classic&impossible) make sure that lost soldiers are not replaced without cost.
- Soldiers have a higher chance to be PSI-gifted, ensuring you won't have to buy masses just to find one gifted.
- Soldiers have slightly higher accuracy and will, and the chance for them to panic and shoot friendlies has been severly reduced. (Theoretically still possible, never happened to me during tests, though)
- Soldiers start with less health, but receive a significant stat boost (including slight mobility increase) on the two highest ranks
- The ranks have been renamed (optional file!)
- Soldiers stay injured for a prolonged time
- Every aspect of the gameplay was enhanced with the soldiers roles in mind, allowing them to fulfill different roles according to your playstyle (Support-Scouter/Firesupport, Heavy-Suppresser/Anti-Roboticsspecialist/Destroyer, etc.) allowing a wide variety of roles to accomandate the tactics you come up with!

The SHIV System:
- The SHIV system has been redesigned, making them a good replacement for lost soldiers. They also are very good at scouting or suppressive fire and the role of mobile defense turrets.
- Their health has been significantly increased and they are slightly more mobile
- SHIVs see and shoot 3 tiles farther than a standard unit
- Do not underestimate the new SHIV-system and it's usefulness!

Equipment and Weapons:
-The armor system has been rebalanced according to three Tiers (early game, mid game, late game) and their design (light, medium, heavy), with the exception of the Basic armor, which has only its health bonus changed.
- Light armor provides a slight will bonus, increased mobility and allows only one itemslot (Skeleton Armor, Ghost Armor)
-Medium armor provides a moderate will bonus, no increase to a slight increase in mobility and allows two itemslots. (Carapace Armor, Archangel Armor, Psi Armor - special will bonus)
-Heavy armor provides a good will boost, slightly reduces mobility and allows two itemslots
- The Grappling system has been boosted, allowing for a wider range of grappling opportunities

- Weapons are slightly more powerful (enemies have been scaled accordingly) which makes standard weapons effective for a slightly longer duration
- Explosives do more damage and are very useful
- The Arc Thrower is equipped in the Pistol slot
- While Laser Weapons have better accuracy, Plasma Weapons have a higher crit chance

- Items benefit from the reworked game, making everything useful
- Due to the health balancing, Nano-Fiber-Vests, Chitin Plating and the effect of Combat Stims (half damage and crit immunity for two rounds) provide not just a nice boost, but a very important padding that often is the difference between life and death. (Example A Sectoid shoots for 3-5 damage, your Soldier has 4 health. With a Nano-Fiber-Vest, he has 6, and is guaranteed to survive a non-critical shot)

Are you prepared to walk the thin line between life and death?

This section will be edited and modfied to deal with concerns that arise. If you have any, please do tell.

Currently known issues:
- The Deep Pockets ability of the support class provides 3 Itemslots on medium/heavy armor, which the original game never intended. As a result, the second itemslot will always be unequipped in the Equipment screen if the support soldier has three pockets.
FIX: Either use light armor and benefit from the second itemslot other classes won't get with them, or only equip items in the first and third itemslot, never in the second.

If you have installation problems & other issues, and would like to see the solution here, please tell me so. I try to save as much space as possible, to make this description as easy to read as possible.

Compability:
- This mod is compatible with virtually any mod, as long as that mod does not change the DefaultGameCore.ini
- It's possible to merge this mod with other mods that edit the DefaultGameCore.ini either by using this DefaultGameCore.ini instead, or by trying to manually (either in a .txt editor or with a mergertool) merge some settings.
- This mod has a optional XCOMGame.int file which changes some tooltips to reflect the changes, as well as adding a better ranking system. Unless you merge another one's XCOMGame.int with mine, you have to decide which file to use, as they replace each other




Suggested Mods:

Military Retexture Pack by kolt16
- For those who would like a less colorful and more fitting military attire, this mod definitely provides

XCOM ToolBoks by bokauk
- A great tool that allows you to change a lot of things, such as camera settings, stop corpses from disappearing, modify the will penalty for being critically wounded (recommended with my mod!), as well as the very, very smooth removal of the overwatch and hunker-down delays.
- It also allows you to decide the class, race and gender of the next new recruits (important if you have special preferences, as my mod won't allow you to buy 99 from the start to select the ones you like most)



Final Thank You:

While I was certainly the one working the most on this mod, I wasn't the only one, nor could I have done it without some help and inspiration.

Firstly, thanks go out to BlackAlpha and his Warspace Extension which provided valuable insight when I decided to start modding - a decision also made only after I saw some of the things that could be changed, which inspired me to try my hand at it. He's also been perhaps one of the most active modders for XCOM so far, and he's already pioneering in the .upk files. Had he never made his mod, who knows if I would have done mine?

Secondly, I have to thank miraclefreak who created YAXO - Yet Another Xcom Overhaul, who had the idea to increase late game quest item prices, and to increase the need for Plasma Weapons for research to encourage further use of the Arc Thrower. His structured and readable Moddescription is also responsible both for this reworked description as well as the delay of this release, so go ahead and thank him for both. ;)

Also, I have to thank my friend Janna, who supported me when I was trying to somehow create those logos and learn adobe photoshop (for another upcoming project!). If I hand't been able to whine and complain to her, and receive her encouragement, I might've put this release off for another week while working out my frustrations with adobe photoshop. So if it wasn't for her, release wouldn't be today. Maybe in a week at best. Thanks Janna, I know you're so going to read this, since you so love tactical turn-based games! ... er... or not.


Finally, I'd like to thank all those people who play my mod and especially those who offered advice, encouragement or feedback!
It's good to know your work is appreciated, and even better if people come by and offer good suggestions on how to improve things, and especially the difficulty rebalancing of version 1.1 really profited from the suggestions of vas14 and SgtFallout.
Without you guys, I'd be hard pressed to find a direction in which to enhance my mod.

Thank you all, I hope you will enjoy this mod!

X-COM: Terror from Space - a mode for anyone, by anyone





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Changelog Version 1.1:

Gameplay:
-Optimized Environmental Damage
-Increased OTS Upgrade costs
Squadsize I (50->100)
Squadsize II (75->200)
Iron Will (200->225)
-Hyperwave Relay price doubled for cash and alloys, also added elerium to the price (cash: 175->350; Elerium: 0->10; Alloys: 10->20)
-Hyperwave Relay Maintenance increased by 15 (30->45)
-Laser Weapon Research is slightly faster (16->13)
-Changed Mission timers before Mission expires:
Crashed Ufos will stay longer (48->72 hours)
Terror Missions stay longer (30->40 hours)
Landed Ufos stay longer (30->50 hours)
Abduction Missions stay longer (30->50 hours)
-Cost for Gollop Chamer increased (credits: 200->750; Elerium: 10->50; Alloys: 10->50; Energy cost: 5->10)


Difficulty:
-Mobility reduction and damage reduction removed on easy
-Drones additionally receive one point of health on classic and two points of health on impossible (6/7)
-Heavy Floaters additionally receive three points of health on classic and five points of health (19/21)
-Elite Mutons on Classic have their health increased by 1
-Sectopods additionally receive 5 more health on classic (10->15) resulting in 45 points of health.
-Chryssalids deal 1 more damage on classic and impossible
-Zombies deal 1 more damage on classic and impossible
-Drones deal 1 more damage on classic and impossible
-Elite Mutons do 1 more damage on classic and impossible
-Muton Berserkers do 1 more damage on classic and impossible

Research
-Increased number of plasma weapons needed for research to 5 (1->5)
-Reduced Weapon Fragments needed for Plasma Weapon research by 10

Units:
-Defence Bonus on the two highest ranks on level up removed (due to defence not being able to be influenced by levelup)
-SHIVs have been rebalanced
SHIV health increased (8->15)
Alloy SHIV health changed (8+12 -> 15+10, where 10 is the bonus for Alloy SHIVS added to the normal SHIV health)
Hover SHIV health changed (8+12 -> 15+7, where 7 is the bonus for Hover SHIVS added to the normal SHIV health)
The mobility of all SHIVs has been increased by 3 (14->17)
Alloy SHIVs are slightly more mobile than SHIVs (1->2)
Hover SHIVs are slightly more mobile than SHIVs (3->4)
All SHIVs are more accurate (70->80), however the bonus accuracy has been reduced for laser weapons (15->5) and plasma weapons (25->10).
In addition, SHIVs have the unique advantage of being able to see and shoot three tiles further than anyone else,
making them excellent scouters and defense turrets.
-Slightly reduced the xp needed per rank again (especially the lower ranks):
Rank2: 150->130 (Vanilla: 90)
Rank3: 500->450 (Vanilla: 300)
Rank4: 900->800 (Vanilla: 510)
Rank5: 1490 unchanged (Vanilla: 745)
Rank6: 2100 unchanged (Vanilla: 1100)
Rank7: 2900 unchanged (Vanilla: 1560)
Rank8: 4500->4000 (Vanilla: 2150)

Enemies:
-Sectoids, Floaters and Thinman have their health increased by 1 (4->5)
-Removed Sectoid, Floater and Thinman accuracy penality on classic and impossible (-10->0), but reduced both Sectoid as well as well as Thinman base accuracy by 5 (Sectoid: 55->50; Thinman: 65->60),
making them hit even less often on easy and normal (40 uncovered, 20 low cover, 0 high cover for Sectoids), but gives them a higher chance to hit on classic and impossible (50 uncovered, 30 low cover, 10 high cover for Sectoids)
-Cyberdisc has its base health increased by 1 (16->17) and its health bonus for both classic and impossible is increased by one, resulting in 17/21/24
-Drones have their health increased (3->5)
-Heavy Floaters have their health increased by 4 (12->16)
-Elite Mutons have their health increased by 3 (14->17)
-Ethereals and UBER Ethereals habe their health increades by 5 (20->25; 25->30)
-Muton Berserkers have their health increased by 5 (20->25), and their mobility increased by 1 (15->16), and their damage increased by 2 (11->13)
-Zombies have their mobility increased by 1 (6->7)
-Doubled Outsider Damage (3->6)
-Chryssalids have their damage increased (8->10)
-Zombies have their damage increased (5->8)
-Drones have their damage increased (2->4)
-Mutons deal 3 more damage with both their light plasma rifle (5->8), as well as the plasma rifle (7->10)
-Elite Mutons have their damage increased (9->11)
Heavy Floaters have their damage increased (9->11)
-Ethereals and Ethereals Uber have their damage increased (9-11)
-Sectopods have their Chest Cannons increased to 12 (8/10 ->12) and their Clusterbomb by 4 (6->10)


Items:
-Increased Grappling Hook distance by 3 (17->20)