X-Ray Company Campaign: Remastered

[Badman]

Of all the standard and user-made campaigns, the X-Ray Company Campaign was my favorite.  It presented a concurrent storyline to the original game's Zulu Company campaign, focusing on a unit that was cutoff from their battalion and significantly outgunned.  The campaign was hard and many missions required very stealthy, surgical precision.  A number of missions were on huge maps with very intricate scripting.

My favorite part of the X-Ray campaign was the relative balance and spacing in the acquisition of 'Mechs, pilots, and weapons, particularly in the early operations.  Every single pilot and piece of salvage was useful, especially when even just repairing 'Mechs after each mission was a challenge.  Just like how it should be for an isolated, outgunned unit.

However, for all it had going for it, the X-Ray campaign was clearly unfinished, or at best very unpolished.  Many of the briefings were quite messy, and there were several missions that were clearly not supposed to be part of the campaign (Fish Farm, Operation Cleopatra).  Even worse, there were several bugs that made later missions unenjoyable, or in my case, unplayable.

I wanted to do something about it, and spent the last couple weeks tinkering with the campaign to try to improve it.  Unfortunately, the MCEditor doesn't work on my Windows 10 PC, so all of my editing was done in text editors using CMunsta's guides.  After much trial and error, and some light testing, I present to you the X-Ray Company Campaign, Remastered:

X-Ray Company Campaign: Remastered

Key changes/refinements to the user-made X-Ray Company Campaign:

• Missions are now divided into operations the same way the original campaign is, with the names of save files now matching the corresponding mission numbers.
• A full 30 missions are now offered.  The user-made campaign had some gaps in their numbering (particularly in Operation 3), and to fill these gaps, several of the missions from the incomplete user-made Yankee Company Campaign were added.  These were actually some pretty well-done missions to begin with, and they don't feel particularly out of place (or present any balancing issues) when added to the X-Ray campaign.
• Spelling, grammar, and formatting errors in the mission briefings and in-mission objectives were corrected.
• The storyline in several of the briefings was refined a bit to make the missions feel more united, particularly in places where the mission order was a bit discontinuous.  The videos from the original campaign remain in the briefings, and have been incorporated into the storyline.
• Battalion Inventory was largely removed from the campaign, with only a few instances to purchase 'Mechs and equipment based on the storyline.  This makes more sense and contributes to the "feel" of a company cut off from the rest of the battalion.
• Some early mission RP rewards were adjusted to again support the "feel" of a unit barely scraping by.
• MechWarrior skills were returned to their values from the original game, and all X-Ray 'Mechs were given a consistent paint scheme, which is the same as X-Ray 'Mechs in the original campaign.  No more mismatched colors!
• Salvage containers that were empty (but still capturable) were given appropriate components.
• Several unit reference bugs were corrected, most notably the Turkina/Mad Cat bug that RizZen has pointed out.
• Operation 4 Mission 5 was reworked to remove the "pilot bug".  In my opinion, this was the most game-breaking bug in the user-made campaign, and the reason why I quit on my last X-Ray playthrough to work on this project.  Before this fix, you would permanently lose one of your pilots at random after this mission, and they were generally Elite by this point in the campaign.  In the remastered version, you get an AI-controlled Outlaw here instead, and then he permanently joins the company at the start of the next mission.  This one took a lot of work and trial and error, and this seemed like the most appropriate solution.

With these changes, here are some of the ways the campaign is now a bit harder:

• Early missions will be a bit tougher due to the lower, stock-level stats of your starting MechWarriors.
• Purchasing is very limited, so acquiring salvage and avoiding losses will be more important.
• The Turkina/Mad Cat fix makes Kotare quite a bit more dangerous on Operation 4 Mission 2.
• The "pilot bug" fix on Operation 4 Mission 5 makes the second part of the mission tougher, since you don't control the other friendly 'Mech (though he can still be of decent help).
• The new final mission is brutally tough.  Anyone that's tried the 2nd Refusal War missions may recall this one, which was modified to fit the X-Ray storyline.

And here are some ways the campaign may be a bit easier:

• Formerly empty salvage containers now contain appropriate components.
• Isis was given a Commando-J at the start, which helps balance against the lack of a store, and allows a fully jump-capable lance by Operation 2 Mission 2.
• The added missions from the Yankee campaign can be challenging, but allow for additional salvage and pilot experience opportunities.
• On the iconic Operation 3 Mission 2, a Shadowcat that can attack your turret power was removed.  He would originally attack the power at random and with essentially no way for you to stop him, so it was more of a frustration than a challenge.  It also takes a significant amount of time in the mission to reach this point, and for the mission to be essentially derailed at random seems like a poor approach.  This mission is still more than enough of a challenge without this frustrating element.
• On Operation 4 Mission 4, the Awesome is now piloted by a true "Elite" MechWarrior, rather than a "Regular" Countess, which made little sense.

I'd be happy to hear any feedback and if you guys enjoy this remastered campaign as much as I do!

[RizZen]

The *.rar file seems to be corrupted. It gives error report that file is broken.

[Gunner]

The *.rar file seems to be corrupted. It gives error report that file is broken.

Possibly just a bad download? Just downloaded (have not tried to play yet) and all is well here - at least, as far as downloading and unpacking goes.

[RizZen]

Nope, winrar gives error report that there is no archive to unzip... (here tested only with WinXP & WinRAR right now)

Code: [Select]

Error: Unknown file format or corrupted data in archive!

[Badman]

Has anyone been able to open and play? It works for me, but if others are having trouble, I could try to upload a new file.

[nefo]

Just downloaded and gave it a shot. You're right, it's damn tough!

Rizzen, I'm re-zipping it and uploading it to a different site now, so you can give it another shot.

Here you go: https://send.firefox.com/download/74e72f38e2/#Hazu9aBOEI3R5ZblNkh7XQ

It'll expire around 11:00PM UTC on Friday, July 13 which is... pretty short. Hopefully you catch it in that window! Or I'll re-upload it again.