The Merciless Experience

A Strategic and Tactical Enhancement Mod by Yzaxtol(Designer) and Amineri(Programmer)

Contributors: BlackAlpha, Bokauk, Johnnylump, Bertilsson

Merciless News

7 July

As my spare time is becoming increasingly rare, I'm unfortunately falling massively behind in creating updates and actually doing my fair share of the work in creating this mod and as I can't see this situation improving anytime soon I would recommend that anyone that has enjoyed Merciless so far check out Long War as it's currently making huge strides in adding features to the game, that I currently don't have the time for... Sorry..

Check it out @ : http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/88/

20 June

Starting the Version 1.5 Beta

10 June

Version 1.4 Released

+ UFO System now have Difficulty modifiers.
+ New Ammo system
-Balistic weapons have High Ammo, Laser has Unlimited and Plasma Low Ammo
-Ammo by weapon type goes from highest to lowest: Heavy, Rifle, Shotgun, Sniper, Pistol
+ New Weapon System
- Sniper Rifles rely on critical hits
- Shotgun rely on pure damage, low critical chance
- Rifle and Heavy provide suppresion.
- Heavy weapons rely on rate of fire to provide decent damage.
+ Aliens tweaked to accomodate new weapon statistics.
+ Heavies huge mobility nerf has been removed.
+ New Perk Trees, leaner and meaner then before
+ Many Bug fixes.


23 May

Version 1.3 Released

+ Aliens nerfed on lower difficulties.
+ Randomised Damage in UFO Combat
- Heavy-class weapons small deviation in damage.
- Assault-class weapons a large deviation in damage.
+ Armour requiring more Engineers to build but less time to Research
+ Weapons requiring more time to Research but require less Engineers to build.

Mod Info


This mod used Warspace Extension v1.72 as a base - http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/18

I designed this mod because I believe that there wasn't enough 'Tough Choices' in the original game. Engineers and Satellites anyone?

Every change I've made in this mod is to balance each and every choice that you might have to make. Be it choosing which ability you want for your Heavy, if you want to save a country from Panicking or gain Scientists for a research project. I have endeavoured to make those choices meaningful every step of the way. The choices you make will matter, every choice should come with great consequences, good and bad.

Summary of the changes

Tactical Combat

The tactical section of the game has been overhauled, enemies now come in many different varieties, with new stats like regeneratio and damage reduction. These range from the Huge, slow, easy-to-hit Sectopod that's tougher then a coffin nail. To the elusive Thinman that is very hard to hit, but really only needs to be hit once. In Normal and Hard difficulties the AI have been unshackled to be much more aggressive and to hunt your team down.

Equipment

The weapon types each have their main strengths and weaknesses, so weapon choice is essential for eliminating aliens efficiently. Ballistic weapons are never-ending in supply, Lasers are accurate with unlimited ammo, Plasma weapons are highly dangerous but difficult to aim.

Armours are now classed as 2 different types: Heavy, granting you substantialy more HP at the cost of mobility or Light, fragile with extra item slots but highly mobile.

Many items have been modified to provide more meaningful choices throughout the entire campaign. For example Alien explosives though more damaging cover less ground than human explosives. Most Items now require time to be built. You will no longer be able to instantly build the gear that you require.

UFO Combat

UFO Combat has been re-modelled and now is another in-depth game-play section that you must decide to focus on or ignore. It takes multiple Interceptors to take down UFOs, they are slower now to allow you to catch them multiple times.

You start with 4 Interceptors to help you get on your feet. Interceptors gain experience and become more accurate with their weapons the more UFOs they shoot down. There are 2 different types of weapon: Assault which does massive damage against un-armoured targets and Heavy which are capable of penetrating a Destroyer's or Battleship's Armour.

Most of the resources for this game comes from shooting down UFOs so progressing through the UFO combat is a good way of staying on top of all production requirements.

Resources

A greater focus is now on collecting Alien Materials, the more advanced the technology you want to create, the more rare the material you will need will be. The Gray Market has been significantly improved with the value of the item in question heavily dependant on the usefulness of it. Damaged items now sell for next to nothing while the rare UFO Power Sources go for huge amounts of credits.

Research

The Tech-tree has been tweaked to allow for a more subtle twist on UFO combat and collecting resources. Also Light and Heavy armours can now be researched in any order instead of Heavy first. Items now cost roughly half of the materials required to research them, once you have finished a research you will have a good idea what the item will cost in materials, never feel like you wasted a research because you can't afford to create the item you wanted. Longer story-based research loosens the pressure for the player to finish the story.

Panic System

Panic is now a system that requires great attention, and it also scales with difficulty, though you are no longer rewarded greatly for it. You must decide when a country is worth preventing from defecting to the alien menace. Satellites are now significantly improved in combating panic, even being in the same continent prevents most countries from defecting. As long as you have the air-force to defend your satellites, they will help stem the flood of panic that is sweeping the planet.


Soldiers

When you receive recruits for the XCOM project, they may be experienced soldiers but their first sight of the alien menace could send them into a panic. Soldiers start out being pathetic and must be guided through their first mission before they start to kick arse and take names. All of the ability trees for the soldiers have been overhauled. Now the Supports have ample tools in their arsenal to help their teammates. Heavies are now slow, but unstoppable machine of war with unlimited supplies of ammo. Snipers now start with Squad-sight with extra training into special shots or extensive Overwatch training. Assaults now balance themselves between bringers-of-death or being indestructible juggernauts.

Perk Tree has been uploaded as an Image.

Miscellaneous

Be immersed in your XCOM game as many of the game-like terms have been replaced with more in-character wording, Important Research Reports and Item descriptions have been modified to explain certain sublte gameplay changes. Light Plasma Rifle has been renamed to Plasma Carbine, just because. And many more....[/font]

Current Plans for Future Versions

Re-Design:
+ Create new Lean Mean Fighting Machine Perk Trees

Re-Programming: (Hard)
+ Aliens granted Perks e.g. Holo-targeting on Drones (Re-balanced to compensate)
+ Aliens spawning in tactical squads with powerful leaders.
+ Wounded Aliens and Operatives will suffer Aim and Mobility penalties, but scale better with severity then Red Fog.
+ Include more items for SHIVs and more utility items.
+ Re-program the Ammo system for more creativity
+ Re-model the stats for Weapons (Shotgun = Damage focused, Sniper = Crit focus, Heavy = Fire-rate, Rifle = Standard)

Known Issues

+ The Arcthrower will be visible in the operative's hands for the rest of the mission once used.
+ The Perk Tree cannot be selected with a 360 controller.
+ (Vanilla) Operatives will sometimes become unable to enter cover.
+ (Vanilla) Aliens that are supressing are immune to explosives.
+ (Vanilla) Aliens will sometimes Warp away from where they were revealed.


Compatability

Second Wave Options:

Unplayable: New Economy,
Buggy: Hidden Potential

Reccomended: Not Created Equal, High Stakes
Personal Choice:Damage Roulette, Marathon

Difficult: Red Fog, The Greater Good,
Insanely Hard: Elerium-115, Total Loss, War Weariness, More Than Human

Other Mods

Note: Other mods must be installed AFTER Merciless is 100% verified installed.

XCOM Toolboks
This mod is compatible with Merciless with the latest version, just remember that it can revert changes made in merciless back to normal so remember to select EVERYTHING that you want to keep.

Military Retexture Pack
Military Retexture Pack works with this mod, I haven't found how to incorporate it into my installer as it involves some user input, the Reccomended Package order is:
Weapon_Laser_Red.tpf
Weapon_Ballistic_NoFluff.tpf
Helmets.tpf
Weapon.tpf
Armor.tpf

Installation

Install Instructions:

REQUIRES: Latest JAVA and .Net 4.5

Step 1. If you have an anti-virus program running, it will be safer to temporarily disabling it so it doesn't cause your game to become corrupt stopping the installation mid-swing.
Step 2. Run the Merciless Setup .exe and follow the instructions
Step 3. The setup program may not find the right XCOM folder every time. Please double check that it has found the right folder (Mine get's found automatically and it is : C:\windows.old\... after a reinstall of windows) The standard location is: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown
Step 4. Select whether you are using the original game or whether there's DLC installed.
Step 5. Then select the language that your game uses.
Step 6. Once the installation is complete, please read the following info about running the game as Steam likes to overwrite modded files and then start the game as described in the next section.

This mod won't be compatible with any other mod that modifies the .UPK files.

How to Run the Game.

Steam will always try to 'fix' a modded XCOM so to avoid this issue the game will need to be loaded while Steam is in it's Offline Mode.
Or you know how to block XCOM from attempting to access the internet.

****SIMPLE VERSION:****
Step 1. Run Steam.
Step 2. Open the Steam window and click in the top left on: "Steam" > "Go offline" > "Restart in offline mode".
Step 3. Wait until Steam is restarted in offline mode.

****ADVANCED VERSION****
Step 1. Run notepad.exe as an administrator (Start, Run, type notepad and right-click Notepad and select Run as Administrator)
Step 2. Slect Open and thentype in the file-name bar: %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Step 3. Add to the bottom of the file these 3 lines

# Prevent XCOM Phone Home
127.0.0.1 prod.xcom.firaxis.com
127.0.0.1 65.118.245.165

then save and quit.

PIRATED COPIES ARE NOT SUPPORTED

You can tell if your Merciless has installed itself properly by the difficulty menu including Merciless title replacing Easy difficulty. Also in the game itself your first mission will have rookies that can suppress with assault rifles that have 6 ammo.

New versions of the mod can be installed on-top of each other with no problems

Change Log

Version 1.4

+ UFO System now have Difficulty modifiers.
+ New Ammo system
-Balistic weapons have High Ammo, Laser has Unlimited and Plasma Low Ammo
-Ammo by weapon type goes from highest to lowest: Heavy, Rifle, Shotgun, Sniper, Pistol
+ New Weapon System
- Sniper Rifles rely on critical hits
- Shotgun rely on pure damage, low critical chance
- Rifle and Heavy provide suppresion.
- Heavy weapons rely on rate of fire to provide decent damage.
+ Aliens tweaked to accomodate new weapon statistics.
+ Heavies huge mobility nerf has been removed.
+ New Perk Trees, leaner and meaner then before
+ Many Bug fixes.

Version 1.3

+ Aliens nerfed on lower difficulties.
+ Randomised Damage in UFO Combat
- Heavy-class weapons small deviation in damage.
- Assault-class weapons a large deviation in damage.
+ Armour requiring more Engineers to build but less time to Research
+ Weapons requiring more time to Research but require less Engineers to build.

Version 1.2

+ Panic System now scaled with difficulty.
+ Armour and Armour Penetration has returned to UFO combat.
+ 2 Interceptor Weapon Types:
Assault: Rapid,Accurate,Short range, Low damage, Low Penetration. Aim modules not recommended. - Pheonix, EMP, Plasma
Heavy: Slow,Inaccurate,Long range, High Damage, High Penetration. Aim modules recommended. - Avalanche, Laser, Fusion Lance
+ Destroyers and Battleships are now heavily armoured, Assault weapons won't deal as much damage. Heavy weapons ignore armour.
+ Perk Trees re-programmed to allow for 3 choices in a single promotion.
+ Some aliens granted damage reduction and regeneration.
+ Some aliens are upgraded over time, Chrysallids will always be a threat.
+ UFOs are now more likely to hunt satellites
+ UFOs that aren't intercepted cause extra panic

Version 1.1

+ Fixed Sight Range Issue
+ Armour Overhaul
- Light Armour provides 2 Item Slots, some Defence and Grapple.
- Heavy Armour provides 1 Item slots and lots of Armour with decreased Mobility.
- Archangel Armour provides 0 Item slots lots of Armour and extra Mobility.

Version 1.0

+ Choosing SHIV Loadout
+ When planes are shot down they lose their weapon
+ When missions are aborted/failed with men/corpses left behind the equipment is lost as well.
+ Explosions when killing aliens will make the corpse un-usable.
+ Funding is overhauled with 50% funding at the start with satellites providing double funding, with country that defect reducing the overall funding.
+ Standardised Cover destruction:
- Base Cover damage is relative to the weapon's damage stats
- Heavy/Shotgun weapons are buffed
- Sniper rifles are nerfed
- Explosives are 5x better per dmg.

Version 0.9

+ Nerfed Balistic Weapon Damage
+ Nerfed Sectoid + Floater HP
+ Revamped most Nicknames
+ Easier to Mass-produce SHIVs

Version 0.8c

+ Rebalance the Heavy Class
+ Suppresion values tweaked, difference between rifles and heavy weapons reduced.
+ Fixed Not Created Equal, A Second Wave option. Hidden Potential is still not compatible with my Mod.
+ Mobility tweaks on Operatives. (Heavies and Titan Armour main changes)
+ Renamed the Useless Pistol II to something more apt.
+ Recruiting changes
-- Start with 20 Operatives
-- Maximum Capacity is 24
-- Recruits now cost $50 to replace.
-- Not Created Equal from Second Wave is reccomended.
+ Rebalanced the Interceptor
-- $75
-- Much Faster, can intercept UFOs for longer.
-- Slightly reduced repair time.


Version 0.8

+ Slight accuracy nerf for Sectoids. They still have insane accuracy when they get too close.
+ Tiny accuracy and mobilty tweaks across the board.
+ Weapon fragments drop-rate increased
+ Chryssalid + Zombie tweaks
+ Interception Modules
--Aim requires Weapon Fragments research, 5 fragments
--Dodge require Alien Navigation research, 5 alloys, 10 fragments
--Boost requires UFO Power Source research, 5 elerium 15 Fragments
+ Foundry Projects
--S.C.O.P.E. Upgrade requires Sectoid Autopsy and Corpses
--Arcthrower II requires Floater Autopsy and Corpses
--SHIV Repair requires Cyberdisc Autopsy and Corpses
--All foundry projects requires more corpses.

Version 0.7

+ Tweaked Ship Weapon accuracies to make experienced Interceptors/Firestorms more important
+ End-game Elerium harvesting is now more efficient.
+ Armour tweaks
-- Armours rebalanced to account for more powerful plasma early game.
+ Weapon tweaks
-- Reintroducing Sniper Aim falling for close objects (Max -20) as pistols have been buffed.
-- Plasma Weapons Buffed
-- Plasma Carbine is now very accurate for being plasma.
-- Small nerf to Laser critical chance.
-- Frags have large Radius, Alien Grenades have a small radius but +2 damage.
+ Alien Rebalancing
-- More aliens are now mobile and hunting XCOM Operatives.
-- Starting aliens rebalanced to provide more challenge.
-- Outsiders are a good indication of how powerful Mutons will be.
-- Muton weapons have been buffed. Be afraid.