Here, we see two very stupid Sectoids who just got done shooting one of my squaddies and then chose to huddle next to each other in a barn.

File: 73 KB, 656x439, screen 5.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Anonymous Sun Jun 28 12:00:00 2015 No.2501241 [Reply] [Original]

Here, we see two very stupid Sectoids who just got done shooting one of my squaddies and then chose to huddle next to each other in a barn.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 15:19:07 2015 No.2501657 b

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 15:34:42 2015 No.2501705 game?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 15:44:11 2015 No.2501728 I love shooting rockets into the alien bases headquarters. But I think that destroys all the resources.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 15:45:52 2015 No.2501730 File: 66 KB, 1280x720, pegy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2501728 >tfw sending the Rookie team for alien base missions NO ARMOR NO GUNS GRENADES AND ROCKETS ONLY

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 15:47:05 2015 No.2501732 >>2501728 You have to destroy the command consoles in the base HQ to win the mission (or else kill all aliens in the base).

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 15:50:11 2015 No.2501739 >>2501732 Whaaaat? Which are those?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 16:08:50 2015 No.2501770 >>2501705 Xcom Ufo Defense or Ufo Enemy Unknown. Get the fuck out peasant.

Anonymous Sun Jun 28 16:44:09 2015 No.2501829

>>2501739
The purple things that look like navigation consoles in a UFO. Blow all of them up, move your soldiers to the entrance lift of the base and click the Abort Mission button to win. A Blaster Bomb is particularly handy since you can shoot up the HQ room's grav lift, destroying the consoles and killing the alien officers in one stroke.

Or if you kill all aliens in the base, you automatically win.

Anonymous Sun Jun 28 16:50:46 2015 No.2501840

You can leave alien bases go, but you get points taken off your score each month that they're allowed to operate. If they're in an unpopulated area like the polar regions, you don't need to be in a hurry, but if they get built in populated regions, funding countries will panic and reduce your funding.

Assuming the base is just in the Arctic or something, you can leave it go and feast on the Supply Ships that come to it.

Anonymous Sun Jun 28 17:00:58 2015 No.2501859

In general, it's better to let UFOs land and then assault them instead of shoot them down so you get to take home all the goodies inside. The exception here are Terror Ships, which never land except to drop off their cargo on a city, so you can only do a ground assault by shooting them down. Also later in the game when you have advanced weapons, scout UFOs will be destroyed in 1-2 shots so just follow them around until they land.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 17:09:33 2015 No.2501871 So which UFOs are best for recovering? I don't really fuck with most battleships. Too many blaster bombs.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 18:02:48 2015 No.2501998 >>2501871 Supply Ships have tons of loot and no terrorists/Blaster Bombs on them. As for Battleships, attack when they land because air assaults are risky and besides, you don't want to blow up the power supplies and lose their Elerium.

Anonymous Sun Jun 28 19:10:23 2015 No.2502236

>try to take a Sectoid alive for interrogation
>march Stun Rod Guy into the front door of a Large Scout
>zap Sectoid
>whoops, it didn't work
>well I'm gonna have to kill him
>send other guy in to fill the alien with hot laser
>alien drops him with reaction fire
>whoops
>send in another volunteer
>he takes out the alien, but his laser pistol is so inaccurate that he hits Stun Rod Guy and leaves him gravely wounded and unconscious
>mission over - although Stun Rod Guy survives, his recovery time is 45 days, not worth it for a rookie who's never killed an alien, so we just sack him

>>	Anonymous Sun Jun 28 20:32:41 2015 No.2502425 >>2502236 Lol. Best stories come from X-Com. That's what feels organic about this game.

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 02:13:51 2015 No.2503054

The game randomizer schedules alien missions at the start of each month and the number depends on the difficulty level (Beginner you never get more than two missions a month). When you start a new game, the first missions scheduled are a Research mission in the same region as your base and a Terror mission in a randomly chosen region. The polar regions and Pacific have no populated areas, so Abduction/Harvest/Infiltration/Terror missions never occur there.

Aliens do concentrate on important regions of the globe, so the bulk of missions occur in the three Asian regions (Siberia/Central Asia/Southeast Asia). North America is the individual region that gets the most alien activity. Less important places like Southern Africa are visited only sparingly.

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 02:17:26 2015 No.2503060

http://lparchive.org/X-COM-UFO-Defense/Update%2046/

Neat playthrough, but he must be using hax of some kind because in this section, an Infiltration mission arrives in Europe, initially crewed by Snakemen. The Battleship he assaults has Mutons and eventually, they sign a pact with the UK and a base gets built in Finland with Ethereals. As far as I understand it, there should only be one alien race for this whole mission. Thus if it's an Ethereal base, the rest of the mission should be Ethereals as well.

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 02:36:29 2015 No.2503081

>>2502236
The three kinds of aliens that you must capture to beat the game are Navigators, Leaders, and Commanders. Navigators must be interrogated to get Hyperwave Decoders and the others are needed for Psy/finding out the alien HQ on Mars. Not all aliens have all ranks; only Sectoids and Floaters have every alien rank. Mutons don't have Medics, Leaders, or Commanders (their place taken by extra soldiers), Snakemen don't have Medics (replaced by soldiers), and Ethereals don't have Medics, Engineers, and Navigators (their place taken by extra Leaders).

Since only Sectoids and Floaters have Medics, they're usually the guys that carry out Abduction/Harvest missions, although occasionally other aliens will perform those.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 29 03:14:28 2015 No.2503134 >using disruptor launchers (tftd blaster bombs) for the first time after a long time of not playing any games from the franchise damn, that was one big-ass explosive radius i couldn't even believe it myself.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 29 09:55:33 2015 No.2503551 -

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 11:49:29 2015 No.2503792 [DELETED]

File: 96 KB, 500x500, 3283983.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2503081
>try to capture a Sectoid navigator from a Large Scout
>walk inside and zap one alien with a stun rod
>turns out to be a soldier
>nah
>throw grenade onto the alien and get rid of him
>zap another one
>still a soldier
>third time's a charm, right?
>zap
>fuck yeah, this one's the navigator we did it
>fourth alien shoots the stun rod guy dead
>oh well, he did his job RIP
>the stunned navigator gets up
>my soldiers drop him with reaction fire
>tfw

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 11:50:56 2015 No.2503795
File: 106 KB, 1024x683, Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2503081
>try to capture a Sectoid navigator from a Large Scout
>walk inside and zap one alien with a stun rod
>turns out to be a soldier
>nah
>throw grenade onto the alien and get rid of him
>zap another one
>still a soldier
>third time's a charm, right?
>zap
>fuck yeah, this one's the navigator we did it
>fourth alien shoots the stun rod guy dead
>oh well, he did his job RIP
>the stunned navigator gets up
>my soldiers drop him with reaction fire
>tfw

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 29 14:53:12 2015 No.2504208 Welp, I finally bagged me a Navigator. Gotta get that Hyperwave Decoder. Ended up accidentally taking home a useless soldier too, but oh well.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 29 16:32:13 2015 No.2504452 bump

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 19:11:38 2015 No.2504861

>Floaters terrorize Hong Kong
>touch down
>quickly knock out two aliens hiding in a gas station
>due to the poor accuracy of our laser pistols, it takes five guys to finally down two Floaters
>the entire Skyranger ramp and surrounding squares are crammed with soldiers
>as we slowly move through a really crowded map full of buildings, shots ring out from behind a house
>hock an HE and blast out the Floater
>meanwhile, shoot a Reaper outside the gas station
>he's only knocked out, but I don't want to take the furry fucker home and occupy alien containment space, so I just drop a grenade on his unconscious body
>try to find out the source of these dratted plasma shots
>spot Floater hiding in a grocery store
>shoot him dead
>nope, there's still another guy firing at me
>shoot rocket down a corridor and kill the offending individual
>the gas station area is now a smoking mess due to several pumps I shot while trying to hit the Floaters at the start of the mission, a smoke grenade, and the HE round that demolished the house
>as my other guys slowly fan out across the gas station, Rocket Guy gets the great idea to fire a large rocket down the corridor and punch an entry in the grocery store
>don't have enough TUs left for an aimed shot
>so we'll just use a snap shot
>welp, the rocket went off course and impacted a house three squares away
>RIP Rocket Guy
>shoot another Floater dead
>meanwhile, the guy accompanying Rocket Guy is fired on from the other side of a house
>get out an HE round
>can't throw here can't throw here can't throw here can't throw here
>fuck, I'll just drop it on the kitchen table
>I moved far enough away from the blast zone, right?
>nope - the Floater dies when the HE goes off, but my soldier is hit as well
>RIP

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 19:12:38 2015 No.2504863

>not much left of that house but charred rubble
>still searching for the remaining aliens - I guess there must only be a Reaper left and he's probably out in the street on the other side of the gas station
>plasma shot arcs past me
>now where the fuck did...
>spot the perpetrator by a house
>toss HE
>boom, he's dead
>meanwhile, another soldier is busy doing some exploring in the grocery store
>this is pretty dangerous - who knows what could happen the next time he turns a corner
>then Auto Cannon guy decides to punch a door in the wall of the house that was gutted by the HE blast early in the mission
>the round blows up in his face as it impacts the wall
>fuck, I forgot that I had HE rounds in the Auto Cannon instead of AP ones
>good night, sweet prince
>the last Reaper must be down the street, right?
>see nothing
>the guy exploring the grocery store rounds a corner and sees the Reaper
>shoot him with laser auto fire and retreat back around the corner
>next turn
>hear Reaper attacking sound
>oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck
>nope, the soldier is ok
>turn around and come face to face with the Reaper
>shoot him another few times and that's a wrap - mission over

That was truly a bizarre mission. Most of the aliens were killed by explosives rather than gunshots, plus all three casualties I suffered were due to careless use of explosives in a tight space and nobody got killed or wounded by aliens.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 29 22:11:33 2015 No.2505327 I see lots of greentext about avoiding live alien capture for grunts, as they simply take up space. Can't you just sell them the instant you get to the base screen? Or does that not work with open-x-coms preferred settings?

Anonymous Mon Jun 29 22:20:35 2015 No.2505338

>>2505327
>Can't you just sell them the instant you get to the base screen?
No. You only need to capture three aliens to win the game, respectively a navigator (so you can build Hyperwave Decoders), a commander (learn psy and alien origins) and a leader (learn about the alien HQ on Mars). The rest just add extra points to your score, but are not needed.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 29 22:32:15 2015 No.2505356 >>2505338 rgr, thx. But you can sell corpses, i definitely remember that bit. I'm actually surprised you can't sell live aliens given you can sell just about everything else.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 00:34:01 2015 No.2505567 >bring in a tank and clear the surrounding area >send 3 rookies with stunrods into the supply ship >find sectoid leader on the top floor with his back turned >he drops down the hole made during the crash and gets shot by the tank's reaction fire

Anonymous Tue Jun 30 00:52:58 2015 No.2505593
File: 6 KB, 78x138, 05.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2505567
You made two big whoopsies here.

1. Shooting down a Supply Ship. Don't do this; instead hit them when they land so you get to retrieve all their goodies intact, especially the precious Elerium. Only exception would be if the SS lands during the middle of the night and you really don't feel like doing a nighttime battle, then shoot it down and do the crash recovery in the morning.
2. >stun rods. By the time you encounter Supply Ships, you should have Small Launchers with you.

Anonymous Tue Jun 30 01:05:09 2015 No.2505627

>>2505593
Another point. Attacking landed UFOs is always preferable due to retrieving all of their contents intact and most UFOs do land 1-2x during a mission. Exceptions would be Terror Ships, which never land except to drop their crew off on a city, and Battleships on Retaliation missions. Also Battleships are very risky to shoot down so you generally don't want to do that.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 11:03:40 2015 No.2506481 bump

Anonymous Tue Jun 30 12:53:16 2015 No.2506658

>recruit new trooper to replace a rookie downed in a routine Medium Scout recovery
>shortly afterwards, aliens terrorize Buenos Aires
>newbie ends up with the Auto Cannon
>not enough TUs to get off an aimed shot because low physical strength
>fire snap shot at Sectoid
>miss
>she gets hit by reaction fire and suffers two fatal wounds
>next turn, immediately gets mind controlled
>my sergeant puts her out of her misery
Wow, what a worthless recruit.

Anonymous Tue Jun 30 15:48:00 2015 No.2506946

>down Medium Scout in Spain
>it's twilight so not quite full darkness, but just dark enough to have reduced visibility
>farm buildings to the right of the Skyranger
>spot Sectoid wandering around a cabbage patch
>move Heavy Cannon guy around but can't see him
>shots ring out
>Heavy Cannon Guy is wounded
>only a little bit of his health bar lost, but he sustains two fatal wounds
>fires at the Sectoid in the turnip patch and finally downs him
>meanwhile, another Sectoid moves through the farmhouse behind us
>throw high explosive to blast out the front wall and deprive him of cover
>the battle is joined - alien shoots one guy dead
>too bad I can't see the fucker
>Rocket Launcher Guy shoots blindly into the farmhouse and we hear alien death sound
>now to take care of the remaining guys
>do de do da dum let's throw an HE through the UFO's diagonal walls
>prime HE and get ready to throw on the next turn
>hear UFO hatch opening, but ignore it and continue with the maneuver
>suddenly plasma shots
>whoa, two motherfuckers standing outside
>oh well, whatever
>hock HE at them
>mission over
Heavy Cannon Guy was also quite the hero by taking out an alien despite two serious wounds.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 16:54:23 2015 No.2507084 >>2503060 Ok, yeah. He's using xcomutil to start with a large radar system and 50 scientists/20 engineers.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 18:52:08 2015 No.2507302 >>2501840 Especially if the base is manned by cake-ass Floaters. Then you can just shoot down the Supply Ships over easy, open terrain like desert or ice.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 20:59:57 2015 No.2507564 >try out Superhuman after using XcomUtil to fix the difficulty bug Fug, now there's twice as many aliens per mission and they shoot better. Also UFOs keep evading my Interceptors.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 21:44:23 2015 No.2507631 >>2507564 Enjoy when you get Battleships. On Superhuman, they have between 23 and 28 aliens on them. :^)

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 22:47:34 2015 No.2507716 >>2507631 By that point, you should have Psy attacks and be able to mind control aliens and get them to shoot up their comrades. >>2503060 He does it in here. Goes after a Muton Battleship and mind controls the fuckers.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 22:51:57 2015 No.2507725 Where should I put my first base?

Anonymous Tue Jun 30 23:16:06 2015 No.2507753

>>2507725
Europe is probably the best since it covers the most X-Com funding countries. Aliens concentrate most of their activity on Eurasia and North America, so building a base in the Southern Hemisphere is pretty pointless.

Also the cost to start a new base is highest in Europe and lowest in Central Asia. The first base at the start of the game is free, so Europe is a good place to put it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 23:17:22 2015 No.2507758 One other thing. Once aliens construct a base in a region, they do not send any more missions to that region except Resupply ones unless you destroy the base.

Anonymous Tue Jun 30 23:24:25 2015 No.2507764

Alien bases have a bunch of storage rooms, closets, a garden, two entry lifts, and a control room. On the second floor of the control room are the officers and their accompanying bodyguards. If you destroy the control consoles in this room, the mission is won. You just have to then move all your soldiers into the grav lift and click Abort Mission. Otherwise the mission is over once all the aliens are dead.

Look out because if you send a soldier up the grav lift into the control room, the Blaster Bomb-toting officers will fire at you. If you're so inclined, you can send a rookie up there on a suicide mission (the aliens fire BBs, which kills him, themselves, and destroys the control consoles). Or just send a Blaster Bomb up the grav lift and enjoy the destruction. :^)

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 23:48:30 2015 No.2507801 File: 96 KB, 680x935, e7c.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2507758 Feels so good to get a floater base. It's very tempting to plop down an X-COM raiding base next to it and let the elerium roll in like candy.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 23:56:46 2015 No.2507814 >>2507801 Just beware because if you take out too many Supply Ships, you might end up with a retaliation attack on your base.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 30 23:59:06 2015 No.2507816 >>2507801 Feels good to get Floater anything. Once you have Laser Rifles, they generally drop in one shot.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 00:07:10 2015 No.2507827 >>2507801 Problem though - every month the base is allowed to operate you get points taken off your score. Also funding countries will panic unless the base is in the polar regions, Pacific (no populated areas) or Central Asia (no funding countries).

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 00:13:18 2015 No.2507834 >>2507801 Snakemen are ok as long as it's a mission with no terror species. So, Research/Abduction/Harvest/Resupply.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 00:23:31 2015 No.2507857

>>2507834
Sure, but Resupply only happens when there is a base present. Also abduction and harvest missions are usually done by Sectoids and Floaters, as they're the only alien races with medics.

Different alien races do have different characteristics and this affects the missions the game assigns to them. Sectoids and Floaters are the least specialized aliens, so they have all ranks and perform all mission types. Snakemen and Mutons are mostly soldiers, so they tend to do terror, base, and retaliation missions. Ethereals are the big bosses, so they generally do infiltration and base missions.

Any alien can do any mission of course, it's just that the game is set up to assign some missions more often to some aliens and less often to other aliens.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 01:17:42 2015 No.2507907

>>2507857
I can give you the data if you like.

Snakemen and Ethereals never do Research missions. After February, it will be mostly Floaters and Mutons doing them.

All races except Ethereals do Harvest missions, but Floaters are the most common. And actually, Mutons are the second most common aliens on them. Sectoids mostly do them in the early game and Snakemen only rarely.

Abduction missions are Sectoids/Floaters only, with the latter being prevalent after February.

Infiltration is done by all races. Sectoids mostly do them early game with Mutons most common thereafter. Ethereals do infiltration mostly in June/July and rarely afterwards.

Base construction is done by all races, mostly Sectoids/Floaters in the early game (Sectoids completely cease base construction after March). After June, Ethereals build most bases.

Terror missions - you get one every month and the first two in January-February are always Sectoids/Floaters. The January mission is Floaters and the February one Sectoids most of the time, but occasionally they're flipped (maybe depends on the difficulty level?). March is usually Snakemen and April-May being quiet months where Terror missions are rare. Ethereals and Mutons usually wait for June.

Retaliation missions - mostly Sectoids in January, Snakemen in February, Floaters in March, and Mutons in April. Late game retaliation is usually Ethereals.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 01:35:40 2015 No.2507929 >>2507907 Also supposedly Harvest/Abduction missions can happen in January-February (almost always by Sectoids) yet I've never seen them. Maybe on higher difficulty levels?

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 01:41:12 2015 No.2507937

>>2507929
Well...I've sometimes opened MISSIONS.DAT in a hex editor to see what's coming up for the month. I can say with confidence that I never get anything in January except a Research and Terror mission (barring Retaliation missions which are drawn randomly). I have seen Abduction scheduled for February before and at least one time, when February 1st arrived, I checked out MISSIONS.DAT and found a Snakeman base construction scheduled in North Africa.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 01:52:18 2015 No.2507948 Very interesting. I went through a full X-Com campaign and won the game in December, but the whole time I never saw a single Ethereal until I got to Cydonia. I guess I got very lucky.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 01:54:16 2015 No.2507950

>>2507948
Not really, Ethereals are supposed to show up from June onward, but only for Infiltration, Base, Terror and Retaliation missions. Even then, their probability ratios are never above 40% which basically means they are harder to get than a different race from the remaining group (60%). Is it possible to flip a coin (albeit slightly skewed to heads) and have it come up heads 7 times in a row (that's the # of months between June and December what you mentioned)? Sure is

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 01:56:47 2015 No.2507952

>>2507950
By May, Mutons are the most common alien you'll run into. No alien race totally vanishes, but Sectoids and Snakemen are a rare sight from June onwards.

This is where the Hyperwave Decoder also comes in handy further down the line so you can see who's flying about and decide if some missions are really worth fighting - late on in the game I tend not to bother landing at every small or medium scout packed with Mutons as the death toll isn't generally worth what you get in return in terms of equipment, plus you'll be extremely lucky to get any Elerium from the smaller shot-down craft.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 02:01:08 2015 No.2507958

Seems like right now I have more Elerium than I know what to do with, but I have just now begun building my first Alien ship, so that will start to get used up a bit.

Yeah I have the Hyper Wave on 3 of my bases, so I basically just avoid all Ethereals, and for some reason have not fought any Mutons yet, mainly because I've only downed small ships with them.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 02:02:23 2015 No.2507961

Depending on your level, the early aliens don't die, they essentially move to the back burner. One more thing, never, ever, allow anything less than a battleship go about unscathed. It'll do more damage than good. As to Battleships, use Firestorms and Avengers on them, preferably multiple ones.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 02:07:19 2015 No.2507964

>>2507961
I'd disagree. Attacking landed UFOs is always better because you get to bring home all the goodies inside, especially the Elerium which you usually lose in crashed UFOs.

Also except for Medium Scouts, the only aliens that die from the power supply exploding are the engineers, so it's not like you thin the opposition that much.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 02:11:11 2015 No.2507969 >>2507961 Yeah, I pretty much blow up anything that doesn't outrun me. Battleships I leave alone, if they land and are not Ethereals then I go and throw them a party, aside from that, I try to keep the skies as clear as possible.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 02:12:25 2015 No.2507970

Yeah, all but battleships get taken down when and where I can get them. I'll even tackle Ethereals once in a while. But usually only for research. And I just usually kill all of them, except a soldier, engineer, or a technician. But only one of those, usually I kill Ethereals on sight.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 02:14:43 2015 No.2507976 I tried one Ethereal mission, they mind controlled 3 guys inside the Skyranger who ended up killing almost everyone. So no thanks.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 12:03:48 2015 No.2508504 >>2507907 Ah yeah, thanks. I was almost certain that I'd never ever seen Mutons do an Abduction mission, but they called me nuts on the GameFAQs forum.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 12:10:28 2015 No.2508512 >>2507857 The flavor text for the aliens generally gives you a hint. For example, Sectoids are mentioned as being interested in cloning and genetic hybrids while Mutons are mostly soldiers and "have a voracious appetite for consuming raw flesh".

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 13:37:10 2015 No.2508606

>early game
>January
>take down Large Scout in the Netherlands
>immediately spot Sectoid in a wheat field next to the Skyranger ramp
>newly hired rookie takes a shot and misses
>she's the only member of the team left with a standard rifle as everyone else now has laser pistols
>Auto Cannon dude misses as well
>some other guy finally takes out the Sectoid
>shoot another Sectoid off in the distance near a barn with a rocket
>and another eats laser pistol
>moving slowly towards the UFO, we hear lots of hatches opening but no sign of aliens
>cowards won't come outside
>with our new rookie spearheading the attacking party, we arrive at the UFO
>still no sign of aliens
>peep inside and see 4-5 aliens
>take out the closest one with auto fire
>rookie eats plasma shots and dies
>oh well
>load up some HE in my Auto Cannon and fire
>fuck, two shots missed
>oh well, use the laser pistols to waste the remaining Sectoids
Eight aliens dead, only casualty was the newbie. Shame, she was a bright girl who could have gone far in the ranks.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 15:16:21 2015 No.2508763 >>2503795 Im new to Xcom, how do you know which aliens are which rank? They all look the same to me.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 16:12:01 2015 No.2508859

>>2508763
If you knock an alien unconscious, you can pick his body up from the ground and it shows you what rank he is.

Soldiers are dumb grunts who appear anywhere on the Battlescape.

Navigators generally hang out on the bridge of the UFO and don't usually venture outside.

Engineers hang out around the UFO power supplies, but do also come outside. If the UFO is a Large Scout/Abductor/Harvester/Terror/Supply Ship, they often carry Small Launchers. On Battleships (ditto base missions) they tend to have Blaster Bombs.

Commanders and Leaders tend to stay on the bridge of the UFO. They will typically have Blaster Bombs. if it's a Battleship or base mission. Leaders appear on all UFOs larger than a scout, base missions, and terror missions. Commanders only appear in base missions or on Battleships.

Medics appear on Abductors/Harvesters/Battleships/base missions. Usually seen in the exam room of an Abductor/Harvester.

Also not all aliens have all ranks. See >>2503081

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 16:15:33 2015 No.2508862 >>2508859 Thanks a lot my friend, just right now I'm starting a crash recovery mission, I'll try using the stun rod to capture some high ranked grays.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 16:33:40 2015 No.2508882 >>2508862 And remember - you don't actually need to capture anything but a Navigator, Leader, and Commander to win the game.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 16:41:44 2015 No.2508896

Once you have Flying Suits and Blaster Bombs, a common trick is to fly up to the roof of the UFO and fire into it. This will go into the bridge and take out the officers, which also often causes the remaining aliens to panic (unless Mutons as they lack Leaders/Commanders).

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:27:34 2015 No.2509049

Fuck, this game is hard. I can't handle anything much after February.

>January
>build 1st base in Europe
>hire 10 extra scientists, get laser rifles and Medi Kits (manufacture extra ones for cash)
>begin researching body armor
>first terror mission at night
>first soldier off the Skyranger gets shot by two Cyberdiscs
>fuck this shit I'm outta here
>abort mission
>hire more scientists/engineers until I have 20 and 30 respectively
>build new base in North America with just a hangar and large radar
>February
>there's not enough UFOs showing up for me to go after and collect stuff to sell for cash
>hire yet more scientists/engineers
>research laser cannons because I can sell them for $$$
>second terror attack goes even worse than the first one
>three Cyberdiscs surround the Skyranger and my dudes are getting mind controlled and start killing each other
>abort mission and reload
>terror attack disappears - I think the game counted it as ignored
>keep making more laser cannons
>still no UFOs show up anywhere
>as February ends, I get a severe funding cut because of the ignored terror attack
>March
>not much going on - I research plasma weapons but stupidly don't do anything with it
>have 50 scientists and engineers now
>very short on money even with my manufacturing
>start another base in East Asia, but can't yet afford a Large Radar
>buy a rocket HWP
>third terror attack comes
>this time it's Floaters
>I wipe all of them with no casualities and start feeling pretty cocky
>then shoot down a UFO with Mutons and they just kind of kill two of my guys
>meh

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:28:34 2015 No.2509052

>April
>churn out more laser cannons
>fourth terror attack - this time Snakemen
>oh boy now we're in for it
>step off the ladder and immediately see a Chryssalid
>kill it
>after a few turns, one waltzes up to my soldiers and zombifies two of them
>realizing I lack any incendiary weapons, I turn tail and dive back into the Skyranger
>after aborting and making more laser cannons, my defenseless US base detects an approaching Battleship - strangely the very first UFO it's ever detected

At this point I felt like the game was beginning to ramp up too quickly for me to keep up, and don't know what to do. I can probably keep going on this game, but it will just get harder. Here's what I'm thinking thus far:
- I Relied on engineers to make money early. I don't think I have anywhere near enough, but those large radar facilities are damn expensive and don't seem to be very effective. Or maybe I just had bad luck?
- I didn't make heavy plasmas as soon as I could. Kind of self-explanatory, I think.
- I don't really know how to keep up with the macro play; I think I have to raid more UFOs, meaning rely more on the small engagements for money, which means get more radars... but I wasn't lucking out with finding a lot of them by the 3rd month. How should I go about making money?
- After I have laser rifles/medipacs/basic armor/plasma stuff, I have no clue where to throw my research power.
- The only thing I've ever captured is a Sectoid soldier who happened to go unconscious from some smoke after taking a hit (I think). I wanted to encounter a navigator, but am not sure if I ever did, and don't know how to tell if an enemy is a navigator in the first place.
- Should I use an editor? I don't know exactly what they do, but see them mentioned a lot.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:33:47 2015 No.2509063

>>2509052
>>2509049
You're right; it does get pretty rough.

First you need an alien containment facility to capture a navigator and get the Hyper Wave Decoder.

Also don't keep any alien artifacts except one until you've researched and can actually use them.

Equip craft with the longest range armament you have.

Buy Stun Rods and capture an alien navigator (generally on the bridge of the UFO)

Research the navigator ASAP

Psy enemies:

You must learn Psy attacks to win the game or Ethereals will fuck you up.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:37:55 2015 No.2509070

Terror and Battleships are too much for you when you have only Interceptors. Two Interceptors with twin Avalanche missiles can down a Terror Ship, but at least one will take heavy damage and be in the repair shop for some time.

Early in the game, assaulting a crashed Terror ship will also be too much for you unless the aliens happen to be Floaters so shoot them down over water.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:45:40 2015 No.2509080

I started a new game a few days ago...

>shoot down all the Scout UFOs in January
>get faced with an early retaliation attack on my base
>captured a navigator two days after the base defense
>first terror mission were Floaters - two soldiers died
>February passed quietly, so I put a radar base in Europe
>hired more scientists and got Hyper Wave Decoder before the month was out
>the center of alien activity now seems to be Eurasia
>spot a Snakeman Supply Ship headed towards Antarctica
>oh shit
>reloaded my game anyway because I did something stupid like sell off an Interceptor (forget just what it was)
>this time I don't detect any Supply Ship
>being cautious and researching Flying Suits before I go down to Antarctica to check
>Sectoid Terror Ship heading somewhere, not sure where
>ignore it, although I really need to capture a leader
Wat now.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:48:47 2015 No.2509093

>>2509080
>Sectoid Terror Ship heading somewhere, not sure where
>ignore it, although I really need to capture a leader

Risk/reward. Attacking crashed Terror Ships is pretty difficult unless it's crewed by Floaters. Alternatively, you could get a leader from a Harvester/Abductor/Supply Ship which are easier to shoot down and don't have terror species on them. Also build your European base in North Africa as the startup cost is lower and you'll be able to cover Europe with it.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:49:48 2015 No.2509095 >>2509063 >You must learn Psy attacks to win the game or Ethereals will fuck you up Actually no you can win the game without psionics, but it will be much harder.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 18:56:52 2015 No.2509110

Always reserve time units for reaction fire

Use cover

Have soldiers duck as they're harder to hit

Dynamite buildings if you suspect there's aliens inside

Drop a proximity grenade outside the UFO's front door

Medium and Large Scouts often have a hole in the roof after being shot down - you can throw grenades in there.

Start phasing out rifles and pistols immediately after the first mission.

Get twin Avalanches on your Interceptors

First weapons you buy should be high explosives, proximity grenades, and auto cannon rounds

Don't manufacture alien weapons or ammo - it uses Elerium and you will be able to pick plenty up from the battlefield

Prioritize live alien research

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:09:45 2015 No.2509141

>>2509080
Continued...

Anyway, I haven't yet had the balls to attack that Snakeman base in Antarctica. I also haven't been bothering their supply ships since the things usually land in the dark. The Mutons put a base in Asia and I've been milking the supply ships going to it. India got upset at the base's presence and withdrew from X-Com (big deal they weren't giving me much money anyway).

I also raided Floater supply ships going to a base in South America. They got pissed and attacked my base, but big deal, it's just Floaters. Easily killed all of them.

Captured a Sectoid leader on my first try, although 11 guys died in the process.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:11:12 2015 No.2509145 BTW, there's no such thing as too many scientists/engineers. If you have 100 of each, you can be off to Mars by June.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:13:21 2015 No.2509151 >>2509141 >Captured a Sectoid leader on my first try, although 11 guys died in the process. Until you get a Psy lab, every soldier is expendable. 11 guys dying is well worth the price of taking a live Sectoid leader.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:16:33 2015 No.2509162

Lasers should always be your first priority because conventional rifles are little more than pea shooters. They're not as powerful as heavy plasma, but take fewer TUs to fire and don't use any ammo. Also no enemy is particularly resistant to lasers except zombies (only vulnerable to incendiary attacks). Laser rifles anyway; I usually only use the pistols for 1-2 missions before phasing them out.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:23:04 2015 No.2509175

>>2509162
Well...I mean laser pistols are rather weak and inaccurate against rifles, but they let you get off an insane amount of firepower per turn and no enemy resists laser shots. Cyberdiscs and Sectopods are weak to them.

Also laser pistols do comparatively little damage once you have body armor, so this is handy should your soldiers get mind controlled and start shooting.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:24:04 2015 No.2509179

>>2509175
Don't be so hard on the pistol.

#1. You get them before rifles. So you're going to have a couple produced before you start producing rifles.

#2. They're light. That means that in the early game you move farther and have more energy than a guy toting an autocannon. Or you can carry more grenades.

#3. Laser Pistols and Stun Rods are like peanut butter and jelly: You can use them to capture that first Sectoid Leader.

#4. Until you have laser rifles for all your dudes, including secondary base defense dudes, you keep those pistols around or ship them to an under-supplied base. $12K isn't a bad sell price for a heavily used weapon.

#5. They are a cheap auto shot that will rip up farmhouse walls, fences, and hedges. You let a rookie do that while your better armed guys take shots at any aliens revealed by holes.

#6. Grenade in the other hand. I have a grenade in the other hand.

#7. More TUs reserved for returning fire.

#8. If you keep special duty units, PSI troops, Grenadiers, Medics, Mind Probe guys, you can have a pistol in one hand and a tool in the other. It's a cheap way to get free kills on mind controlled aliens for guys who don't see a lot of direct combat.

#9. Put one in the belt slot of your rocket, small, or blaster launcher dude for when he's out of ammo.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:25:35 2015 No.2509184 Laser weapons can down most aliens pretty effectively, but Mutons eat up their shots like nothing and then torch you with reaction fire. Also they can't punch through UFO inner walls like heavy plasma.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:26:46 2015 No.2509190 Laser Pistol+Stun Rod is the best way to capture a Sectoid leader.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:28:15 2015 No.2509192 >>2509190 Just curious, but how so?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 19:29:46 2015 No.2509196 The idea was that you can use the stun rod to capture the leader while using the pistols to take out the other guys.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 21:31:38 2015 No.2509439 >>2509110 >Drop a proximity grenade outside the UFO's front door I've been wanting to try out proximity grenades but never got around to doing it.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 21:40:44 2015 No.2509463
File: 157 KB, 275x255, 1430794095217.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>played this game a lot in college
>figured out crouching is the best thing in the game

Seriously, once you get Laser Weapons, the game is as good as over. It becomes easy tier.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 22:34:19 2015 No.2509579 >>2509463 Laser weapons still have a hard time taking out Mutons though; gonna need Heavy Plasma for that.

Anonymous Wed Jul 1 23:29:27 2015 No.2509674

Retaliation missions - if you shoot down too many UFOs, the aliens will go after your bases. These aren't scheduled at the start of each month, but instead occur at random, the probability being related to the difficulty level.

Retaliation attacks take place either in the region where you shot down a UFO or the region with your base, except after July when the game just does one every month on every region that you have a base in.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 23:32:05 2015 No.2509681 >>2509151 Soldiers with weak Psionic abilities can be left at home if Sectoids or Ethereals, although by the point in the game that you have Psionics, Sectoids become a rare occurrence.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 1 23:33:14 2015 No.2509687 >>2509049 If you abort a terror site, it's counted as a loss for both you and the aliens - they only get points for the amount of civilians killed.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 2 01:59:04 2015 No.2509943 >>2509141 >I also haven't been bothering their supply ships since the things usually land in the dark Eh, Snakemen aren't much of a threat without Chryssalids.

Anonynomus Thu Jul 2 03:18:16 2015 No.2510059

>Playing OpenXCom
>Assault an alien base
>It's snakemen
>Huddle up around the lift planning to go down all at once guns blazing
>Hit end turn
>Find out Chryssalids can now use the lift to come into the exit zone
>Mfw my colonel is zombified on alien turn 1

Anonymous Thu Jul 2 18:49:52 2015 No.2511289

Watched whasthisface's Antarctica Challenge on Youtube. Kind of see why it's a challenge since most alien activity occurs in North America and Eurasia and aliens pretty rarely venture south of the equator. He makes it all the way to May while never picking up any UFOs on radar except the initial Sectoid research mission, a Floater base mission in March and a Snakeman terror mission in April (both South America).

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 2 19:08:35 2015 No.2511321 You're supposed to get two alien missions per month (one a Terror mission) on Beginner, but I can't seem to figure out what the missions per month total is for higher difficulty levels.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 2 19:16:49 2015 No.2511339 >>2511321 As far as I can figure out, it's always two per month on all difficulty levels, excluding Supply and Retaliation.

Anonymous Thu Jul 2 22:05:34 2015 No.2511745

>>2511339
>>2511321
Yes, it is always two scheduled alien missions each month, one being a terror attack. I just gone done with January and pulled open MISSIONS.DAT to see what's in store for February. Turned out to be a Sectoid abduction mission in Australia and a Floater terror mission in South America.

Anonymous Thu Jul 2 22:19:20 2015 No.2511759

>>2511745

I looked at the playthrough in >>2503060 and this guy gets a Sectoid terror mission in SA during February, but also a Sectoid mission of some kind in Europe and what I assume to be a Floater retaliation mission. I can't for the life of me figure out what that Sectoid mission is. Possibly infiltration since a Battleship shows up and Britain pulls out of X-Com during March.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 00:34:26 2015 No.2511947 >do Sectoid terror mission on Superhuman Ugghh, it's hard. I need to completely fill the Skyranger with 14 guys to have any chance of survival at all. And this was during broad daylight. I can't even imagine trying it at night.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 00:35:50 2015 No.2511948 >>2511947 Here's a tip: Don't be afraid to abort a terror mission if it goes badly. Aborting them counts as a loss for both you and the aliens (they only gain points for the number of civilians killed.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 00:36:50 2015 No.2511951 >>2511948 Once in a while, you get incredibly lucky and the Sectoid leader dies in the first couple of turns so no more mind control.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:04:26 2015 No.2511993 >>2511759 >two Battleships >followed by Britain leaving X-Com Yeah, that's Infiltration alright.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:15:15 2015 No.2512017

>>2503060
Ok, I'm trying to follow this up at at least May. So he has the opening Research/Terror missions in January, then February has a Sectoid mission of some unknown type in Europe (Abduction?), then a Sectoid terror mission in South America. There's also a Floater mission in Central Asia during January, presumably Retaliation.

March has the Floater Infiltration mission, a Sectoid Retaliation mission, and a Sectoid terror mission in Central Asia (he shoots down the Terror ship).

April has a Floater Abduction mission in North Africa and a Snakeman terror mission. May has a Snakeman base mission, retaliation, and I guess there's a terror mission in South Africa, but he seems as if he skips over that.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:21:52 2015 No.2512026

>>2512017
I think he has some kind of hax going on because in June, there's an Infiltration mission in Europe that his hyperwave decoder identifies as Snakemen, but then he shoots down a Battleship with Mutons, followed by an Ethereal base being opened after the mission. How the fuck can three different alien races be on a single mission? Also if Floaters did an Infiltration in Europe during March, there should be a base somewhere in there followed by repeated Supply Ships. No evidence of that either.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:26:48 2015 No.2512037 >>2512017 March seems awfully kind of early for Infiltration (doesn't that usually not happen until June?)

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:28:00 2015 No.2512041 File: 43 KB, 985x579, Alien Infiltration.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2512037 It can happen as early as February.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:31:51 2015 No.2512049 File: 36 KB, 985x579, Alien Research.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Here's for the other missions.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:33:20 2015 No.2512050 File: 38 KB, 985x579, Alien Abduction.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:34:22 2015 No.2512052 File: 45 KB, 985x579, Alien Harvest.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:35:24 2015 No.2512056 File: 41 KB, 985x579, Alien Retaliation.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 01:36:26 2015 No.2512057 File: 46 KB, 985x579, Alien Terror.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 02:01:06 2015 No.2512098 File: 45 KB, 985x579, Alien Base.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 02:04:20 2015 No.2512106 >>2512050 >Snakemen, Mutons, and Ethereals don't do abduction Check. >Ethereals don't do research Check. Not clear about that chart. Do Snakemen never do research missions? I can't tell how that line is placed.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 02:08:36 2015 No.2512110 >>2512106 >Do Snakemen never do research missions? I can't tell how that line is placed. I think they can, the chance of it happening is just really low.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 03:18:53 2015 No.2512234 >>2511947 The nice thing about Sectoid terror missions is that Cyberdiscs often knock out a Sectoid when they blow. But yeah, if you don't take out the leader early on, mind control will fuck you up.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 03:24:02 2015 No.2512238

>>2511947
>>2511948
On that Antarctica challenge, the guy aborted 2 of the first 3 terror missions and they were just Floaters and Snakemen - no Sectoids. Superhuman terror missions are brutal. Even if it's just Floaters, there's a lot more of them on Superhuman and they're better shots.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 03:42:24 2015 No.2512256

>>2510059
>>Playing OpenXCom
>>Assault an alien base
>>It's snakemen
>>Huddle up around the lift planning to go down all at once guns blazing
>>Hit end turn
>>Find out Chryssalids can now use the lift to come into the exit zone
>>Mfw my colonel is zombified on alien turn 1

>Playing OpenXCom
>terror mission at night
>two reapers next to Skyranger, take out two soldiers
>spend three turns pumping round after round into them
>finally take them out
>grenade flies in from off screen, kills all but the one soldier who can't hit for shit
>soldier dies soon after

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the aliens didn't use grenades in vanilla XCom. Maybe it was a bug in their AI, but it was a good bug

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 03:59:20 2015 No.2512278

Ok look, here's how mission scheduling works - aliens do two missions a month, one of which is a terror mission. The first two missions in January are always a Research mission in the same zone as your base and a Terror mission in a random zone.

The first research mission is normally Sectoids and the terror mission Floaters, although sometimes I have gotten Floaters on the former. I think it varies by what version of X-Com you're playing. The floppy version seems to almost always start with Sectoids while the CD version seems like it's 50/50 Sectoids/Floaters for the first research mission. Snakemen normally show up in March although sometimes in February. Mutons can appear in March, but April is more typical and Ethereals not until May-June.

The game schedules missions when a new month starts except Retaliation and Base Resupply. Retaliation is triggered at random after shooting a UFO down and will either take place in the region the shootdown occurred or the region with the base that the Interceptor operates from. After July, the game simply does one Retaliation per month in every zone that you have a base in. Base Resupply simply happens once every week when an alien base is up.

Abduction/Harvest/Terror/Infiltration missions never occur in the polar regions or Pacific (no populated areas) and Infiltration also doesn't occur in Central Asia (no X-Com funding members there). The polar regions and Pacific only ever get base construction and research missions. Also since Hawaii is the only piece of land in the Pacific, finding an alien base there will be easy as cake. :^)

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 04:03:38 2015 No.2512286

>>2512256
>Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure the aliens didn't use grenades in vanilla XCom

They do use grenades, although AFAIK they're not carried on scout UFOs. I've almost never seen a terror site where some mofo didn't hock a grenade. If you're lucky, they throw it at civilians instead of the middle of your squad.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 04:07:22 2015 No.2512297

>>2512256
You think that's bad? One time this happened to me.

>go after landed Battleship at night
>take one step off the Skyranger
>reaction fire Blaster Bomb comes streaking in out of the darkness and obliterates my entire squad
I never even got to find out what aliens we were facing.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 04:14:42 2015 No.2512318 >>2512256 OpenXCOM is significantly more painful.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 04:19:10 2015 No.2512332

>>2512318
I never fucked around with OpenXCOM or did cheat stuff. The most I'll do is edit MISSIONS.DAT. For example, I moved a Sectoid Abduction mission scheduled for Australia to Europe so I could shoot the shit down and get some loot. But I never set up missions that aren't possible in a normal game (like Ethereal base construction in January).

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 06:02:36 2015 No.2512430

>start new game
>get done with a Large Scout that I shot down in Iceland
>three guys died
>buy new equipment and replacement soldiers
>aliens terrorize Manila
Aw come on, can you wait until I get my new soldiers? Seriously?
>reload game 2x
>still keep getting the terror attack within two days when I still don't have new soldiers
>then pick up small scout on the radar
>yup, it's a retaliation attack
Lemme alone.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 07:08:56 2015 No.2512482

>>2512430
I finally beat it after a couple of reloads when I had the good luck of the terror mission finally occurring in daylight. Nighttime was impossible and I ragequit about five times after getting half my squad grenaded, cut to pieces by plasma fire coming from all directions, my tank getting destroyed, etc.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 07:44:32 2015 No.2512507 >>2512430 Reloading is bad mmkay. You gotta roll with your misfortunes.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 14:47:49 2015 No.2513078 >>2512507 As someone else said, abort terror missions if you need to. The aliens don't get any points in that case except for the number of civilians killed.

Anonynomus Fri Jul 3 15:45:17 2015 No.2513183

>>2512256
That was a fun surprise for me as well. One of the things that always made TFTD more difficult than vanilla UFO for me was that the aliens actually knew how to use grenades, and they used them to great effect.

I like it a lot. UFO was getting a bit samey after 20 years, so the improvements to AI in OpenXCom are a welcome change. Aliens don't get stuck nearly as much, and another thing I found out the hard way is that they can now shoot and throw grenades down UFO lifts as well.

I think they did something to reaction fire too though. I had a couple of bullshit moments where an alien did a 180 degree turn noscope reaction shot and killed my soldier that was sneaking behind it, and during terror missions I kept losing so many rookies to reaction fire that I was actually having trouble spotting aliens for my snipers.

On the other hand, you also get advantages that weren't in vanilla, such as being able to open doors without stepping through them, TFTD style.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 16:12:12 2015 No.2513241
File: 25 KB, 640x389, 640px-Annoyed-facepalm-picard-l.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>down Large Scout with intention of bagging a navigator
>tank and my Rocket Launcher guy take out a few aliens
>tank ends up getting trashed by plasma rifle shots
>all is quiet so head down to the UFO
>drop proximity grenade outside the door
>surprise two aliens come up from the rear and start shooting
>two soldiers die, but I get rid of them
>some other alien steps outside the UFO and steps on the proximity grenade
>goodbye
>last guy comes out and gets downed by reaction fire
>mission over
Four guys died, my tank got destroyed, and I didn't get my navigator.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 16:33:48 2015 No.2513282

>>2511759
>but also a Sectoid mission of some kind in Europe

It seems like that Sectoid large scout is just the last leg of the opening research mission. Research missions always go Small Scout -> Medium Scout -> Large Scout -> Large Scout. Also the guy notes that when February ended, the aliens seem to have "moved elsewhere" but doesn't say where, so who knows?

>>	Anonynomus Fri Jul 3 17:08:59 2015 No.2513365 File: 455 KB, 1280x800, tftd.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] The rest of the area has been explored and cleared of aliens. What do you do in this situation?

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 17:27:01 2015 No.2513435 >>2513365 Ask your recruit if he's feeling lucky.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 17:30:01 2015 No.2513443

>>2513241
Second try was a success. I got lucky this time because most of the aliens elected to camp out in the UFO. It's much harder when they're spread around the map. Also there were only seven aliens this time while on Superhuman, Large Scouts can have up to 13.

>send rookie meat shield inside
>see five aliens (killed two outside earlier)
>ok, who wants to die first?
>shoot two, but get downed by reaction fire
>be careful because I don't want to shoot the navigator
>send in second volunteer (the one holding the stun rod)
>zap alien, but I'm guessing he was a soldier
>get knocked over by plasma rifle shots
>send in a squaddie and come nearly face to face with the last alien
>pick up stun rod from fallen rookie
>zap him
>fuck yeah, it is the navigator

Good mission and all it cost me were two rookie meat shields.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 3 17:54:34 2015 No.2513508 >>2513443 Anyway, I'm about to bite my tongue because a terror mission is coming up shortly and this is Superhuman.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 18:46:56 2015 No.2513650

And I did it. Aliens attacked Lima, Peru on March 2nd. This was...surprisingly cake.

>tank blasts two Sectoids from the Skyranger ramp
>I guess one of them was the leader because I didn't suffer any mind control attacks the whole mission
>cautiously deploy
>we're on the right side of the map with two warehouses and a house shielding us
>I guess all this protection was a good thing
>Sectoid hocks a grenade from between the warehouses and wipes out two soldiers, including my auto cannon guy
>my tank also gets damaged in the blast
>on the same turn that he threw the grenade, there was another explosion somewhere followed by an alien death sound
>some other Sectoid apparently threw a grenade and died when it landed next to the warehouse
>since corridors between warehouses can be dangerous, I throw an HE down there
>it blows and takes an alien out with it
>thought so
>step through the alley
>spot some mofo moving through the warehouse to the left
>after some difficulty getting into position, take him out
>on the other side of the warehouses is an apartment building
>this looks bad...I really, really don't want to know what's on the other side of the building
>meanwhile, a squaddie dies when an alien sneaks around a house
>take him out
>using my tank for scouting, we carefully move out into the street
>I'm going to be ambushed by Cyberdiscs, I know it - they're probably also hiding behind the apartment
>tank moves forward and a plasma shot arcs past it
>shoot the offender
>mission over
Four soldiers died, but I didn't expect it to be this easy. For some odd reason, there were also no Cyberdiscs anywhere. Not that I'm complaining.

Anonymous Fri Jul 3 22:31:08 2015 No.2514235

Nighttime terror sites really suck, especially on higher difficulty levels. When you do a terror site, stock up on explosives and bomb the shit out of everything. Don't worry about killing civilians in the process; your soldiers' lives matter more. And don't be afraid to abort the mission if things go bad since it's counted as a loss for the aliens and they don't gain any points except for civilians killed.

Even if your squad is depleted from a previous mission, just land, shoot an alien or two if you can, and take off. Ignoring a terror site completely carries really bad penalties for you.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:23:27 2015 No.2514596
File: 65 KB, 656x439, Manila.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

This battle made Stalingrad look puny. The entire area from the Skyranger to an apartment building was a charred crater. My tank took out about 4 aliens and caused a fair bit of destruction. Other damage was done by my rocket launcher guy and aliens hocking grenades. On the turn after this, I accidentally destroyed my tank when a stray laser shot hit it as I was firing at a Floater. Around the middle of the screen here is where the last enemy (a Reaper) died after I grenaded him.

There was so much smoke that I'm surprised my soldiers didn't pass out. I actually only lost two of them, one of which was my heavy cannon girl who got shot next to the Skyranger and later her body blasted to bits when an alien threw a grenade. The other got shot later on near the apartment building.

Even more bizarrely, we took eight live aliens home. If one happens to be a leader, that's nice, but not as nice as capturing a Sectoid leader without which we can't learn psy attacks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:29:12 2015 No.2514607 >>2514596 I never tried to capture an alien from a terror site. Would you find them there?

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:31:27 2015 No.2514614

>>2514607
Yeah you would because terror sites have all the same aliens you'd find on a Terror Ship, including leaders (unless Mutons 'cos they don't have any). So, leader, soldiers, engineers, navigators, and terrorists.

It's hard to tell what aliens are what except engineers who usually have a Small Launcher.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:38:24 2015 No.2514634

There sure are and Jesus Christ, do I hate goddamn mind controlling Sectoid leaders at terror sites. In fact, all of the larger UFOs are annoying if they have Sectoids on them because that sonofabitch will mind control you to death. It's maybe not so bad on terror sites since you can hopefully whack the Sectoid leader early in the mission, but on UFO or alien base assaults, he stays on the bridge mind controlling until you go up there and get him.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:45:17 2015 No.2514648

Terror sites are sure a gamble. Sometimes the aliens are surrounding the Skyranger on all sides and there's just no way to deploy without being cut to pieces. I also find if you save about three days before the terror attack, you have a 50/50 chance of it being in the daytime or nighttime.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:46:18 2015 No.2514650 Are HWPs worth it? I never really bothered with them.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 01:48:40 2015 No.2514659

>>2514650
Depends. A lot of times, they get trashed by plasma fire. Also tanks can only handle two shots from a heavy plasma gun. I find them useless for dealing with stuff like Cyberdiscs since the rockets/cannons can't down the things in one hit and them the tank often falls to reaction fire.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 02:37:33 2015 No.2514740

>>2514650
Yes they are worth it.

Just use them as scouts and don't shoot at the enemy with them unless it's an emergency situation, you'd rather want that experience go to the soldiers.

They're also useful for taking down walls without wasting your soldiers' ammo, especially in TFTD.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 04:25:42 2015 No.2514892

>>2513443
I caught a Sectoid navigator from a large scout; this is why we love this game. You never ever know what to expect. I stunned the navigator, killed the engineer and a soldier, and combed the UFO which turned out to be totally empty. Then later the bastard got up and I had to stun him again. I finally realized that the last alien was hiding in a corner behind a barn, but getting at him was impossible as he could hide back there forever and reaction fire my guys. After two of them died this way, I got tired of this bullshit and decided to abort the mission. Besides, I got what I came for.

So I marched everyone back to the Skyranger, with the navigator stuffed in one soldier's backpack. Collected the auto cannon from some dead guy so I didn't lose it and loaded it up on ship. Aborted the mission and although I didn't recover the UFO and lost the equipment several dead guys were carrying, I got the navigator, so that's what counts. All the UFO parts and alien weapons would have been a nice cash influx though.

Bet that last SOB is still out there behind that barn wondering when his friends are going to send a ship and pick him up.

Anonynomus Sat Jul 4 07:39:55 2015 No.2515104

>>2514650
I never bother bringing tanks to missions unless I'm purposefully just messing around, but I can think of a couple of situation where they might theoretically be useful.

I like having a few tanks in each base in case I get attacked and don't have a solid team of soldiers ready. They could also be good when dealing with Chryssalids, since they can take a few hits and will never get zombified.

Anonynomus Sat Jul 4 08:10:04 2015 No.2515126

>>2514892
The terrain in barnyard tilesets is pretty easily destroyed, whenever there's an alien hiding behind a barn wall or a bunch of trees I just line up my guys and shoot at it from a distance until the cover comes down.

I'm not sure exactly how powerful autocannons are since I rarely use them, but I imagine one loaded with explosive ammo should do the trick nicely.

Anonynomus Sat Jul 4 09:27:57 2015 No.2515185
File: 75 KB, 351x455, XCom_Apoc.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

What does /vr/ think of X-COM: Apocalypse?

I've never finished the game but I keep coming back to it once or twice a year because I really want to like it. The real-time combat is excellent and it's just glorious how much destruction you can cause to the environment. Somehow I still always get bored a few weeks into the game and stop playing.

I feel like I never properly got the hang of interception, and it feels like the potential for environmental destruction goes to waste because I'm always so careful not to make the city my enemy.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 4 16:52:43 2015 No.2515809 >>2515126 Auto cannon HE rounds don't seem like they blow up much of anything.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 4 18:26:15 2015 No.2516019 >>2514740 >They're also useful for taking down walls without wasting your soldiers' ammo Disagree. Tanks only have a couple of rounds while heavy plasma has 35 shots per clip and can destroy any structure except a UFO hull or security wall.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 18:36:52 2015 No.2516048

You should have laser weapons by the first terror site and armor/heavy plasma by March. Especially because Snakemen usually show up around March and they're tougher to kill than Sectoids/Floaters, so you need decent weaponry.

Snakemen are not much of a threat by themselves, but they normally only do Infiltration, base missions, and terror, so in practice you will always have to deal with Chryssalids. As the graphics in >>2512049 show, very rarely will Snakemen do Research or Harvest and never Abduction.

Anonymous Sat Jul 4 19:05:32 2015 No.2516101

>>2514892
Well I decided to retry this mission (I'd saved just before setting out to the crash site). This time I cleared all the aliens and finished the mission properly, although it cost me five guys because I carelessly charged into the UFO. By an incredible stroke of luck, the navigator wasn't carrying any weapons (maybe he was knocked out from smoke inhalation earlier?) and I didn't see any other aliens, but surprise surprise there were at least four others in there. After taking them all out, I marched one guy in, grabbed the stun rod from a dead soldier, and stunned the navigator.

Better mission than the first try even with all the casualties because the recovered loot generated almost 2 million bucks and dead soldiers can be easily replaced.

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 03:55:03 2015 No.2516814

>>2516019
Yes, Heavy Plasma has a lot of ammo, but you're not only wasting that but also the soldiers' TU, leaving them vulnerable without being able to use reaction fire.

Besides there's also the incredibly useful blaster launcher HWP, which has if I remember correctly 8 shots, which is a lot for that kind of weapon.

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 04:49:30 2015 No.2516854

After about 30 rage-inducing attempts, I finally beat this Sectoid terror mission on Superhuman. You have no idea how many times I had my squad slaughtered, my tank destroyed in one turn, the Skyranger surrounded on all sides by Sectoids+Cyberdiscs, my soldiers mind controlled, getting randomly shot by reaction fire. But finally, and this is truly, absolutely bizarre, I beat it while suffering zero casualties. My tank killed about 5-6 aliens, including three surrounding the Skyranger. I got lucky this time though because there were only two Cyberdiscs while sometimes there's four. The final guy remaining was the engineer, who dropped his small launcher for some reason (my tank picked him off).

I also think UFOpedia is wrong because it claims you get up to 24 aliens on a terror mission, but I never get more than 16 on Superhuman (typically 10-12 aliens and 2-4 terrorists). And yes, I did patch the difficulty bug and I know it is really Superhuman because the aliens' reaction fire is substantially better than Beginner (one reason why it took 30 tries to beat this terror mission).

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 05:10:56 2015 No.2516867

>>2516854
Right after this, I got an easy mission after I followed a medium scout all the way across the Atlantic and downed it in Cuba. One casualty. Stupid me, I killed two aliens inside the UFO with a proximity grenade and destroyed the Elerium in the power supply.

Anonynomus Sun Jul 5 06:14:58 2015 No.2516928

>>2515809
You're right, I'm testing it in a custom battle in OpenXCom right now. That reminds me why I never bothered using autocannons much.

Autocannon HE rounds destroy wooden structures in a Farm tileset just fine, but they leave brick walls standing. Even Heavy cannon HE ammo barely punches a hole into brick walls. Autocannon AP ammo however does sometimes break brick walls.

Destroying walls is much easier with Laser weapons, anyway, so I always get those out ASAP.

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 06:29:36 2015 No.2516939

I found out that you get a good score for the month even if you merely shoot one scout down in a particular region. This was found by some testing I did. I edited MISSIONS.DAT to have a Sectoid harvest mission occur in Southern Africa and when the first small scout appeared, I chased it down there from Europe and blew it up. This was in late February and as soon as the month ended, I was informed that South Africa were pleased at my efforts to get rid of aliens in their vicinity and increased my funding.

Harvest missions always end with a Battleship appearing, so handle with care.

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 06:38:54 2015 No.2516950

>>2514650
I used to use the rocket tank a lot, but it was really just a waste of space.

By taking one HWP, you're potentially giving up four rookies armed with four rockets each, and that's not even considering that you might bring extra ammo. That's at least double the firepower. Yes, HWPs don't suffer morale problems, but you're already keeping your officers in the back of the Skyranger, so it's really not an issue anyway.

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 06:47:25 2015 No.2516963

>>2516950
The advantage of tanks is that they can take a few hits (about as strong as a soldier in a power suit). Unfortunately, heavy plasma 2HKOs them, but then it does the same for power suited soldiers. As I found earlier, this is quite a bitch when doing Sectoid terror missions since Cyberdiscs are armed with heavy plasma.

Also the rockets on heavy tanks are comparable in power to shooting a small rocket with the rocket launcher. If you just arm your soldiers with a RL and large rockets, you can do more damage. HWP rockets won't destroy a Cyberdisc, but large rockets usually do. In fact I've been taking along more of them on missions lately because they just pack a bigger punch than small rockets. Incendiary rockets? Waste. Use auto cannon incendiary ammo instead.

One annoying thing is that your soldier can only carry four rockets at once (three in his backpack and one loaded) which gets to be a problem if you're too far from the Skyranger.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 06:50:47 2015 No.2516965 Nice thing about tanks is that if there's aliens right in front of the Skyranger at the start of the mission, you can wipe them in one hit as opposed to blasting the bugger with your rifle, possibly missing, and triggering reaction fire.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 06:52:04 2015 No.2516969 >>2516965 Yeah but I found that after the first 1-2 missions, the game tends to put the rocket/auto cannon guys out in front.

>>	Anonynomus Sun Jul 5 06:58:51 2015 No.2516978 >>2516969 If you're playing with OpenXCom you can determine the order of your soldiers in the Skyranger yourself.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 07:01:08 2015 No.2516981 >>2516978 I think he is using OpenXCom on this playthrough >>2503060.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 07:04:53 2015 No.2516985 >>2516981 >>2503060 He seems like he skips a lot of stuff. For example, it looks like Floaters do a base mission in March, but nothing else is mentioned about that. Alsoa Snakeman terror mission in April.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 08:20:23 2015 No.2517057 Anybody in here play Xenonauts?

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 09:32:13 2015 No.2517141

>>2515185
Amazing game if you give it time and patience.

Having a full firing squad armed with devastator cannons or toxiguns waiting for aliens to pop up and watching the fireworks go on with barely any intervention is one of the biggest delights in the series for me.

The guy doing the art direction should have been fired though.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 16:51:40 2015 No.2517887 bump

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 20:33:44 2015 No.2518394 >>2516867 Don't throw grenades into Medium Scouts if they're intact because you will destroy the Elerium. Charge inside and shoot everyone even if it means a casualty or two.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 20:40:47 2015 No.2518409 Betcha didn't know that you can destroy UFO power supplies with heavy plasma and then take the Elerium from them.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 5 21:43:16 2015 No.2518530 Occasionally, you get really lucky and a terror site has no terrorists.

Anonymous Sun Jul 5 21:51:42 2015 No.2518553

>start new game
>recover medium scout
>second mission is a Terror attack on Jakarta
>aw come on, I'm not ready for th...well, let's do this shit
After a short, but fierce battle, all Floaters were exterminated and three soldiers died. Unfortunately, after the mission, a large scout showed up and I had to shoot it down in the ocean because I hadn't yet gotten replacement soldiers.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 00:22:15 2015 No.2518851

TBF, nighttime terror missions aren't that bad because there's usually a road lit by streetlamps. You do have to worry about city parks though as they're pitch black. Shoot lots of auto cannon incendiary rounds into them.

Another trick - you can have a Skyranger follow a UFO until it lands (the aliens will never shoot unless fired on first). That way you always get the UFO intact. Be aware that some UFOs (eg. Terror Ships) don't land and you can't do a ground assault on them short of shooting the thing down.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 03:43:24 2015 No.2519096 >>2516981 >>2516985 Guava's simply cheating his way to make narrative flow. At the time, the only way to mod and solve some bugs of X-Com was XComUtil, anyway.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 04:20:29 2015 No.2519152

>>2519096
I know he does have the XComUtil thing set up so you start with 50 scientists and large radar. Plus that feature where Small Scouts don't actually appear on the Battlescape. A couple things that look "off" in there.

>Floater terror mission in January takes place in Japan, but one of their scouts lands in Saudi Arabia
>has a HWP on the first Sectoid medium scout mission when you could not have one that early (you'd need to build an additional general store to house the HWP)
>aborts horribly fucked up Floater terror mission, but doesn't get penalized and have his funds reduced
>nothing apparently going on for the whole month of February outside the Sectoid terror mission in South America (there should be an alien mission taking place somewhere else)
>as the other guy said, Floater base mission in Europe during March, but no base apparently gets built, then Snakeman terror mission in Europe during April which produces nothing but a shootdown of a medium scout
>Snakemen build a base in Japan where he has a second base operating, yet this goes completely undetected
>infiltration mission in Europe during June which apparently has a Snakeman terror ship, Muton battleship, and ends with an Ethereal base being constructed

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 04:43:34 2015 No.2519185

>>2519152
>has a HWP on the first Sectoid medium scout mission when you could not have one that early (you'd need to build an additional general store to house the HWP)
I always sell off useless crap at start and buy a rocket tank, you can have it for the first mission.

>aborts horribly fucked up Floater terror mission, but doesn't get penalized and have his funds reduced
Aborting terror does not incur the 1000 score penalty that you get for ignoring the mission, but you still get "awarded" whatever score you attain during the mission.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 04:52:01 2015 No.2519191

>>2519185
>I always sell off useless crap at start and buy a rocket tank, you can have it for the first mission.

Not in my experience. I sell off my Interceptor cannons, heavy cannons, and pistols when I begin a new game, but still can't fit a HWP until building a second general store.

>Aborting terror does not incur the 1000 score penalty that you get for ignoring the mission, but you still get "awarded" whatever score you attain during the mission

I did abort a terror mission once and when the month ended, all funding nations were pissed and cut my funds, although TBF some of that could have been due to my inability to deal with UFO activity on the other side of the globe where I couldn't reach.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 04:55:57 2015 No.2519194 >>2519191 I also sell avalanches.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 04:58:26 2015 No.2519196

Trick you can do to always get terror missions in daylight - if your Skyranger arrives at night, patrol for a bit. The game is set up so terror missions will never end if an X-Com craft is moving towards them. Patrolling however will cause the mission to end after an hour, so before you get there, start heading back towards it. Then patrol again for a bit. Repeat process until it's light out.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 04:59:43 2015 No.2519202 >>2519194 What the bloody hell do you arm your Interceptors with?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:00:43 2015 No.2519204 >>2519202 I always just follow UFOs around until they land so I get them completely intact. Does sometimes lead to annoying nighttime missions though.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:01:43 2015 No.2519206 >>2519204 Oh. Then again, as someone above noted, some UFOs do not land, particularly Terror Ships.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:02:43 2015 No.2519207 >>2519206 By the time your squad is powerful enough to take on a Terror Ship, you should have plasma cannons on your craft.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:03:43 2015 No.2519209 >>2519207 Terror Ships are pretty much the same thing as doing a terror site though, right?

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:06:50 2015 No.2519214

>>2519209
I find them rather worse because the aliens will be focusing all their attention on you since there's no civilians to distract them when you down a Terror Ship. If it's Sectoids, their leader will mind control you as well and you can't get at him until you reach the bridge on the top floor of the UFO unlike terror sites where he could be anywhere and you might kill him early in the mission.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:16:28 2015 No.2519218 >>2519202 I keep the default interceptor load until I research firestorm and plasma beams. Currently on genius difficulty and it's a breeze, will try superhuman after this but I doubt I'll change the load.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:34:21 2015 No.2519231 >>2519218 Superhuman requires patience, luck, and a lot of reloads because the aliens have huge reactions compared to the lower difficulty levels. There's more of them on missions as well, but the higher reactions are what really makes Superhuman tough.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:41:16 2015 No.2519238 >>2519231 I feel as if the higher difficulties are actually making the macro game easier due to the amount of loot you gain from the higher alien counts.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 05:52:54 2015 No.2519253

>>2519238
True, but goddamn can missions be frustrating. I said earlier that I redid a Sectoid terror attack on Superhuman about 30 times. Everything that could go wrong did.

>get half my squad killed in a grenade attack
>get my tank destroyed only two turns into the mission
>surrounded on all sides by aliens and cut to pieces
>soldiers getting mind controlled
>just walk two squares and a random plasma shot from nowhere cuts your soldier down
>try to grenade a Cyberdisc and repeatedly told you can't throw there because there's a fence rail in the way or your soldier's visibility is impaired by smoke or he's a weakling who can't throw that far

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 06:04:10 2015 No.2519260 >>2519253 Often times the best move you can do is no move at all, I've camped inside my mission craft plenty of times. Poke out a bit, shoot a salvo and move back to make room for another soldier.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 06:10:49 2015 No.2519268 That feel when you get 10k+ monthly score and you get the same appreciation as if you had only a fraction of that.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 06:12:53 2015 No.2519270 Try TFTD if you like ultimate cheap bulllshit like Lobstermen essentially being unkillable short of suicide attacks.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 08:34:19 2015 No.2519387

>take one step off Skyranger ramp at the start of the mission
>blaster bomb flies out of nowhere and kills your entire squad

>three soldiers gets mind controlled
>conveniently the guys holding heavy plasma or a blaster launcher

>you touch down at a terror site and find three Cyberdiscs and one Sectoid surrounding the Skyranger

Welp, time to hit the Abort button.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 16:23:35 2015 No.2520240 I am intrigued. Never played X-Com, I have a CD32 but no pc. What do?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 16:53:48 2015 No.2520293 >>2520240 >Never played X-Com, I have a CD32 but no pc. What do? ??? Play it on DOSBox..

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 19:00:18 2015 No.2520561

>>2520240
Here's an easy way to play xcom without dosbox:

1. Get the original game http://www.myabandonware.com/game/x-com-ufo-defense-1pl#download
2. Apply universal patch http://openxcom.org/downloads-extras/
3. Download openxcom http://openxcom.org/downloads-milestones/
4. Follow this guide http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Installing_%28OpenXcom%29

Openxcom fixes all bugs the original has and provides tons of interface/game improvements, all optionally toggled.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 20:07:49 2015 No.2520686
File: 38 KB, 656x439, Screen 7.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Sectoid terror sites rely a lot on luck to beat. For one thing, you have to hope the Cyberdiscs aren't too close to the Skyranger and they're off on the other side of the map. Also if you kill the leader early on, you induce panic in the remaining aliens.

This battle was some of the worst devastation I've ever seen and nearly 75% of the map was reduced to a charred crater. Since my tank killed the leader, two Sectoids panicked and dropped their weapons, making them easy to pick off. The remaining Cyberdiscs also panicked and remained largely frozen in place, making them easy targets. My sharpshooters were able to pick them off from long range. After my tank ran out of ammo, I then used it just for scouting and spotted the last Cyberdiscs in the lower right of the map. Three of my trusted veterans took them out.

No casualties either.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 20:09:31 2015 No.2520693 >>2520293 >>2520561 Thanks.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 20:10:34 2015 No.2520694

So this thread has convinced me to reinstall.

Last time I played I had a customized install using UFO Extender and XcomUtil, with a mod or two (map files that fixed glitches) and a mix of music from the various game versions.

So far OpenXCOM looks like the way to go nowadays. What mods are recommended?

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 20:15:27 2015 No.2520705

>>2520686
>Three of my trusted veterans took them out.

Addendum - I should have used my rookies to get them practice, but they were still in the Skyranger. I purposely left them disarmed because they were weak to mind control and even after the Sectoid leader was gone, I just kind of forgot about them.

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 21:28:16 2015 No.2520834

>>2520686
>Also if you kill the leader early on, you induce panic in the remaining aliens.
It helps to not take casualties either since if you start outnumbering the aliens, their morale plummets. In this case, I didn't lose any guys while my tank went east through the alley by the gas station picking off Sectoids as it went. I think I killed about 4-5.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 21:56:45 2015 No.2520885 >>2520834 >It helps to not take casualties either since if you start outnumbering the aliens, their morale plummets. Killing aliens boosts morale, just as aliens killing humans boosts their morale.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 6 22:13:20 2015 No.2520924 >>2520686 I'm curious, why do you guys still play dosbox x-com when openxcom is available? Is there something missing?

Anonymous Mon Jul 6 22:50:51 2015 No.2521003

>>2519152
>infiltration mission in Europe during June which apparently has a Snakeman terror ship, Muton battleship, and ends with an Ethereal base being constructed

I think the Muton Battleship was actually doing a base construction in North Africa. The infiltration mission seems to have been Snakemen, but he hacked it and changed it to Ethereals.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 05:39:07 2015 No.2521592

The first two missions in January are in practice always a Sectoid research mission in your home zone and a Floater terror mission in a random region. After that, almost anything can happen.

Also learned a nifty trick from Youtube videos. Guy solves retaliation attacks neatly by throwing proxy grenades at the access lift so each alien that marches in dies instantly. This was Sectoids I might add. I imagine proxy grenades won't kill a Snakeman or Muton, although at least they damage them enough for your rifles to do the rest.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 06:48:04 2015 No.2521667

Cyberdiscs are total bullshit on higher difficulty levels.

>insane reaction times
>plasma shots more powerful than even heavy plasma
>like to swarm around the Skyranger - at that point, the only thing to do is abort the mission, reload, and try again

But at least if they explode, they may take out a Sectoid standing next to them and the blasts can open up terrain for you.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 06:59:57 2015 No.2521678

Incendiary ammo - mostly useful for illuminating nighttime battles. Reapers are weak to incendiary attacks. Some aliens are not weak to it and Silacoids are totally immune. If the terrain is flammable (wooden objects, fuel containers, or vegetation) it will burn for several turns and often spread outward. Other terrain the fire lasts just one turn.

One trick you can do on (intact) Medium Scouts is shooting an incendiary round inside which will cook the aliens and not destroy the Elerium in the power supply. Power/Flying suits render your soldiers immune to fire damage.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 07:04:34 2015 No.2521684

>>2521667
Another piece of bullshit - Cyberdiscs can take 120 damage, which means a laser rifle (60 damage) or heavy plasma (115 damage) should down them in two hits. Right?

Wrong. Cyberdiscs occupy four tiles and each segment is counted separately so if you shoot one segment and miss the others, it's not counted as full damage.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 7 07:57:25 2015 No.2521732 >>2521684 >Cyberdiscs can take 120 damage, which means a laser rifle (60 damage) or heavy plasma (115 damage) should down them in two hits. Right? You're not counting for armor or the fact that shots can do 0%-200% damage.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 09:23:26 2015 No.2521809

>>2521592
>The first two missions in January are in practice always a Sectoid research mission in your home zone and a Floater terror mission in a random region. After that, almost anything can happen.

Correct. The game is hard coded so the first mission is Sectoid research in your home region. February through May, there will be one random mission per month+one terror mission+a possible retaliation mission. June onward there are two random missions per month.

Once an abduction/harvest/base construction/research mission is performed in a region, it will never occur there again (terror/resupply/infiltration/retaliation can happen ad infinitum). The Arctic/Antarctic/Pacific have no populated regions thus only get base or research missions.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 20:35:26 2015 No.2522935

>>2521732
Not quite - it's actually between 50 and 150% of their rated damage. Thus, laser rifles are rated at 60 damage which means a shot actually does anywhere from 30 to 90 damage.

For example, a UFO inner wall can take 80 damage which means a laser rifle has a roughly 10% chance of destroying it in one shot. If you do the rated 60 damage, then the wall will be reduced to 20 damage points and even a conventional rifle can then destroy it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 7 22:23:08 2015 No.2523130 >try to take Floater navigator alive >soldiers all lined up outside the door of the UFO and methodically pick off each alien as they march outside >eventually (after the fourth kill) the mission ends Maybe my squad did their job a little too well...

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 7 22:41:08 2015 No.2523168 UFO hulls and security walls are the toughest stuff in the game at 150 damage, so only a blaster bomb can penetrate them. I guess though that a couple of heavy plasma shots might work (assuming average of 115 damage per shot).

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 22:46:50 2015 No.2523180

>>2523168
That actually doesn't work though because terrain doesn't get its "health" reduced by gunshots or explosions. Thus heavy plasma can not breach a UFO wall from the outside, although sometimes it can get them from inside where the wall is weaker.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 22:49:48 2015 No.2523183

http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Destroying_Terrain

Here. This gives the damage rating of all terrain types and weapons. Note that high explosives are rated at 55 damage. This means that the maximum damage they can do is 82, thus you have a roughly 2-4% chance of breaching a UFO hull from the inside with them.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 7 22:53:09 2015 No.2523185 I've often done the diagonal wall trick to throw HEs into scout UFOs, but it's never breached the hull any time I ever tried it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 7 22:54:10 2015 No.2523186 >>2523185 It's like I said. It can happen, but the odds are very small.

Anonymous Tue Jul 7 23:54:54 2015 No.2523312

>>2523130
Next UFO up was a Sectoid large scout but I still keep killing the navigator by accident. I also purposely shot it down in the desert so I wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit of aliens hiding inside farm buildings and fruit orchards.

Sonofabitch, there were like 10 of them outside. Apparently the whole crew elected to come out and greet me. Of course this resulted in the death of the navigator AGAIN but that's why I saved just before setting out.

Anonymous Wed Jul 8 00:46:33 2015 No.2523417

>>2523168
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Damage
>This is the random number roll that alters how much damage is to be dealt. For EU firearms, a value between 0% and 200% is rolled, while TFTD weapons and EU explosives will perform a 50% to 150% roll. However in TFTD, damage from all sources has been equalized to 50-150%.

Anonymous Wed Jul 8 00:54:47 2015 No.2523445

>>2523417
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Destroying_Terrain

But it says here that projectile weapons do 25-75% of their rated damage, thus laser rifles are rated at 60 damage so in practice it's 15-45 damage. Heavy plasma is 115 damage, so 28-85 damage.

Explosive devices get 50% of their rated figure, thus high explosives have a damage rating of 110, so really 55. This is only at the center of the blast of course and damage decreases the further out.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 00:59:38 2015 No.2523453 >>2523445 Sorry meant to quote this guy >>2522935 >>2523417

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 01:04:18 2015 No.2523462 Did you know that Celatids' acid loogies do a whopping 140 HP? (so between 35 and 105 damage). This means they can occasionally penetrate a UFO outer wall.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 01:06:01 2015 No.2523467 Not only can aliens see perfectly in the dark (unlike you), they never suffer fatal wounds. A wounded alien will have decreased stats, but never crawls somewhere into a corner to slowly bleed to death.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 01:30:20 2015 No.2523497 File: 132 KB, 500x500, Rage-face.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2523312 Reloaded and tried again. Four crewmen died, along with the alien navigator.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 01:47:15 2015 No.2523521 >>2523497 epic /v/ memez, bro

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 01:53:39 2015 No.2523531 >>2523521 Can you chill with that shit? Whining disrupts the thread way more than dank memes.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 02:35:48 2015 No.2523596 >>2522935 The 50%-150% damage rule was introduced in TFTD, and as a game option in OpenXcom. EU's damage is in the 0%-200% range.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 02:53:44 2015 No.2523620 >>2523596 See >>2523445

Anonymous Wed Jul 8 07:06:57 2015 No.2523871

I'm watching this playthrough here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukOSvZp4rE8

The guy must be doing hax tricks because he gets a Sectoid retaliation mission and a Muton base mission in April, which he shouldn't because you only get one scheduled non-terror mission per month until June. Also there's a Snakeman terror mission starting, but nothing ever comes of it. I guess he hates those things so much that he did some hax to prevent it from happening. Pussy.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 08:05:14 2015 No.2523912 http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=21897&page=2 And this playthrough, where another guy forgets to patch the difficulty bug and ends up doing a Beginner mission the whole time when he thought it was Superhuman.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 08:15:27 2015 No.2523924 >>2523912 TFTD had the difficulty bug as well, but in reverse, meaning you always play on Superhuman no matter what setting you're on.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 08:43:36 2015 No.2523954 Actually playing the game on Superhuman is tough. Even a mundane crashed scout mission can result in you having to reload save games multiple times.

Anonymous Wed Jul 8 14:14:40 2015 No.2524438
File: 91 KB, 1280x720, caaaaeeeeeeesaaaaaaaaaar.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>Have two soldiers named after Joseph and Caesar
>I always use them as a pair and they're some of my best guys
>During one mission a Muton throws a grenade at them
>Caesar dies right away
>Joseph survives, but is wounded to the point where he isn't going to make it
>Have Joseph prime his grenade and walk right up to the Muton
>Get revenge in a suicide bomb

Probably the saddest mission I had. It's the one xcom story I'll never forget.

Anonymous Wed Jul 8 14:17:39 2015 No.2524445

>>2523924
I'm fairly sure that is just a myth regarding TFTD (none of the fix projects or source ports have noted/noticed it), they just significantly increased even the lowest difficulty because of complaints that the original game was too easy (due to the noted bug in the original which they didn't realize was the real issue).

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 19:48:34 2015 No.2525121 File: 543 KB, 1024x1024, 2352022444_49e63fa722_b.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2523924 >battleships/base missions on Superhuman >between 23 and 28 aliens >all of them with significantly improved stats >yfw

Anonymous Wed Jul 8 19:54:57 2015 No.2525130

>>2512037
The game is hard coded to always give you a Sectoid research mission in your home region in January. From February onward, any missions are possible. Snakemen begin showing up in February, Mutons in March, and Ethereals in May although the last may not show up at all until Cydonia. The first terror mission in January is Floaters about 90% of the time and Sectoids about 10%. Snakemen also never do terror missions earlier than March, although they can do other missions in February.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 8 20:00:25 2015 No.2525136 >>2525121 >>2524445 See >>2520686 This was a Sectoid terror mission on real Superhuman after patching the game. You can get a good idea of just how brutal this shit gets.

Anonymous Thu Jul 9 01:52:43 2015 No.2525757

It goes without saying that you should always drop a smoke grenade or two out the Skyranger ramp on turn 1. If there's visible aliens in front of you, drop another one inside. Also wait a turn before heading outside since the aliens will have full TUs+reaction fire on turn 1.

>>2503795
Bagging them requires a bit of luck and planning. One trick is to send a rookie meat shield inside to distract the navigator and get him to fire off reaction shots. If the rookie dies, oh well, that's why he's a meat shield. When the alien is out of TUs, you can just walk up and poke him with your stun rod, which occasionally doesn't work, so have at least two guys with stun rods.

This is easier when the navigator has a plasma rifle as it takes a lot of TUs to fire. If he has a plasma pistol, he can get off more shots.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 02:05:13 2015 No.2525775 >>2525130 Similarly, Mutons can appear in March, but will not do terror attacks until May.

Anonymous Thu Jul 9 02:10:04 2015 No.2525778

>>2525757
>head to bridge
>prepare stun gank squad to capture the leader
>start equipping stun prods
>realize I only got a single stun prod for the entire squad
>leader comes out
>attempt to stun him, first guy fails
>drops prod for next guy and repeat
>4th guy manages to finally stun him
>that feel when I read afterwards that mutons don't have leaders

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 02:17:26 2015 No.2525791 File: 13 KB, 480x360, Godfuckingdammit.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >capture navigator >dies at the end of the mission >your alien containment is still one day from completion >yfw

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 03:34:28 2015 No.2525869 >elerium is used to create gravity waves >nobody uses it to make it accelerate big metal slugs Is there any mod that adds more fun "human" weapons?

Anonymous Thu Jul 9 06:03:07 2015 No.2526016

>>2525757
You'd be surprised at just how effective smoke grenades are at keeping your squad from being shot to pieces as they deploy, especially on higher difficulty levels where there's more aliens and they have better stats. Note that smoke from explosions does not have the same masking ability as a smoke grenade and the game also has a limit on how many tiles can have smoke on them, so if a UFO or terrain is smoking, you may get less spread from your smoke grenades.

During daylight, you can see enemies 20 tiles away, but at night it's about six. Of course, the aliens don't have this limitation and always have full visibility at night, so smoke grenades can help you a lot during nighttime missions.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 06:11:28 2015 No.2526026 >>2526016 >smoke grenade and the game also has a limit on how many tiles can have smoke on them Why aren't you playing openxcom?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 07:22:18 2015 No.2526108 >>2525869 It's tempting to heave a grenade through the diagonal wall of a Medium Scout, but don't it's intact or you'll blow up the Elerium.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 07:26:07 2015 No.2526112 >take out Cyberdisc situated in the middle of a gas station I love doing that.

Anonymous Thu Jul 9 07:30:34 2015 No.2526116

>shoot down medium scout
>immediately spot Sectoid on the upper story of a barn to the right of the Skyranger
>take a shot and miss
>fuck
>head outside into smoke grenade cloud
>crap, there's like two more surrounding us
After some frantic shooting, I took all of them out and the mission was over in two turns. I swear to god, my soldiers never got any further than the Skyranger ramp. No idea what condition the UFO was in, but I guess pretty bad because I killed three aliens, but got five corpses and didn't get anything but like 10 alien alloys.

Anonymous Thu Jul 9 09:40:52 2015 No.2526246

I have a story of the aliens experiencing the pain of reaction shots
>TFTD veteran difficulty: Gillman cruise ship mission
> Halfway through cleaning out engine deck.
>My best solider called Vladimir was covering a port hole.
> Didn't sweep battlescape properly. Vladimir was ambushed by a Deep one from behind.
> Deep one hits Vladimir, severely injures him
> Vladimir does an 180 and toasts the deep one with Gauss pistol fire.
> A Gillman pops around the corner. Probably to finish the job. Vladimir reaction shots him too.
> Vladimir has 3 wounds and I don't have medpacks.
> Level becomes a timed mission to save the magnificent bastard from bleeding to death.
> Through some divine intervention (I save loaded to locate the last alien quickly). He survived the mission with 30 days of recovery time.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 10:30:53 2015 No.2526316 >>2526246 Ah yes, TFTD, the game where you can empty multiple clips into a single Lobsterman and he still doesn't die.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 21:47:03 2015 No.2527782 bump

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 9 23:29:53 2015 No.2527983 >>2526316 I am understanding that that game has no proper equivalent of Snakemen?

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 01:50:51 2015 No.2528165

>>2526316
Lobstermen are BS. They are basically immune to everything except stun and melee. Fighting them without drills is a massive pain.

>>2527983
Might be more accurate to say that they don't have the proper equivalent to floaters gill men can't fly.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 01:58:38 2015 No.2528181

>>2528165
Gillmen are more-or-less analogous to Floaters except the flying bit, but then again, Tasoths aren't 100% like Ethereals either. So no, TFTD does not have a proper Snakeman equivalent because they elected instead to give you an additional terror species.

>>2528165
Lobstermen are the TFTD version of Mutons, but _much_ harder to kill. Mutons aren't all that hard if you're not an idiot and you did make sure to research Heavy Plasma, but Lobstermen...

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:01:00 2015 No.2528185

Terror attacks in TFTD are also bullshit since unlike original X-Com, they come in two separate kinds, regular city assault and island assault. The latter are especially bullshit and it's almost impossible to beat them without losing minimum half your squad.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:02:03 2015 No.2528187 >>2528181 Enemy Unknown didn't bring back Snakemen either; they gave you a totally new alien (Thin Man) in their place.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:03:03 2015 No.2528189 >>2528187 >>2528181 >>2527983 Poor Snakemen. They get no love.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:05:42 2015 No.2528193

>>2528189
Snakemen are only a problem when accompanied by Chryssalids. By themselves, they're really pretty much just a slightly less sturdy Muton. Of course, Snakemen mostly only do Terror/base/Infiltration missions where they do bring along their little friend. Once in a blue moon, they do Harvest or Research.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:09:54 2015 No.2528198 >>2523954 What's the point of playing a game that you need to save scum just to have a chance of beating?

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:10:50 2015 No.2528203

Kneeling is a pretty important survival strategy not only because it improves firing accuracy, but Blaster Bombs go right over the head of soldiers in the kneel position (not that it matters much if the BB impacts right next to you).

Also if you're standing face-to-face with a BB-toting alien, he generally won't fire because the AI is programmed to not do something suicidal like that.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:11:56 2015 No.2528207 >>2528187 They're confirmed for the sequel though.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:12:11 2015 No.2528208

>>2528198
>What's the point of playing a game that you need to save scum just to have a chance of beating?
Good question. Superhuman missions are an exercise in self-abuse and you will often wonder Why the fuck am I doing this why not just use an easier difficulty level.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:14:32 2015 No.2528212 >>2528207 I know - since EU was supposed to be a modernized version of the original game, it kind of did make people ask "Where the fuck are the Snakemen?"

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:18:55 2015 No.2528215

>>2528203
>tfw assaulting a battleship and a random explosion happens somewhere on the third floor of the UFO
>tfw you realize the Sectoid leader tried to shoot a BB off at you, but the AI fucked up bad and it impacted a wall somewhere, killing him, additional aliens, and creating a convenient doorway for you

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:19:56 2015 No.2528216 >>2528215 I found that the AI is not very good at setting blaster bomb paths if there's not a direct line of fire between the alien and the target.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:20:58 2015 No.2528219 >>2528215 The leaders/commanders on Battleships and base missions carry blaster bombs, but beware because engineers sometimes also have them.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:25:23 2015 No.2528226 >>2526316 I once had a game where I mind controlled a Lobsterman and had the bugger line up so my squad could go firing squad on him. Everyone was lined up in a row blazing away and still couldn't drop him.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:44:12 2015 No.2528253

>>2525791
I grabbed one after about 10 failed attempts/reloads on a Large Scout I downed in the Canadian forest. Three casualties. One rookie got beaned the moment she stepped off the Skyranger, another rookie and a squaddie sacrificed themselves by taking the navigator's reaction fire so we could safely walk up and poke him with a stun rod.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:47:26 2015 No.2528258 >>2528253 Always disliked fighting in forests. Damn hills and trees obscuring your firing line.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:50:31 2015 No.2528262

>>2528258
I used to think so, but forests aren't that bad compared to farmland where you're confronted with numerous deadly farmhouses and barns that aliens use as a sniper's nest. Desert and ice are definitely the easiest terrain to fight on though.

But sometimes you get lucky and a farm battle turns out to just be fields everywhere with few or no buildings.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:55:47 2015 No.2528267

Jungles are also a bitch, especially when fighting Mutons, but fortunately they only occur in the Southern Hemisphere and most alien activity is concentrated on Eurasia and North America. You can easily go through a whole game to Cydonia and never have to fight in the jungle.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 02:56:47 2015 No.2528268 >>2528267 Jungles don't have hills, but the vegetation is way thicker than forests so bring lots of incendiary ammo.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 03:16:44 2015 No.2528284 >>2528185 >island assault Islands were fine though. Well, as much as anything in TFTD. You're thinking of the cruise/shipping attacks. Fuck their two-part mission bullshit.

Anonynomus Fri Jul 10 03:19:41 2015 No.2528289

>>2528185
I did pretty good in an island assault a few days ago on Superhuman, I did lose almost half of my squad but they were all rookies or otherwise expendable (Able Seamen with shitty stats).

There was one bullshit moment, where there was a Gillman standing on semi-high ground near the south-west corner of the map, and the only soldiers that had line of sight were equipped with Gas Cannons with HE rounds. He seemed to be standing on the second level of elevation on a slope, but part of his hit model was on the third level. When I kept shooting at him, my soldiers would keep aiming too high. A lot of the time they missed but they also managed to score several headshots where the HE ammo clearly connected with the alien. Unfortunately the explosion was always on the third level where he took no damage from it.

I ended up having to walk away from his line of sight to switch to AP ammo just so I could kill the fucker. Other than that, lots of HE Gas Cannon ammo and Sonic Pulsers did pretty well for me, even managed to stun a couple of Deep Ones with Tazers.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 05:03:04 2015 No.2528353

>get first terror mission of the game in Caracas
>shit, I only have 11 guys my replacements haven't arrived yet
>touch down anyway
>it's at night (of course)
>manage to kill a few Floaters, but you can't really win a Superhuman terror site without a full 14 man team
>after two guys get shot and another two eaten by Reapers, followed by a guy panicking and running off, I abort this unwinnable shitfest
>get Terrible rating for the terror site
>oh well
>order replacement soldiers and gear
>end of January arrives
>the council of nations is very pleased with my efforts and increased my funding by $450,000

I am ok with this. Only downside is that I lost most of my experienced guys including a captain and a sergeant and have mostly just a redshirt team now.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 05:18:47 2015 No.2528369 >>2528353 >but you can't really win a Superhuman terror site without a full 14 man team >floaters Did you forget to buy flares or something?

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 05:30:41 2015 No.2528390

>>2528369
I had flares and incendiary auto cannon rounds. I could have beaten it during daytime, but a night mission was asking too much. Oh well, I still got a pay raise so all's well that ends well.

You see, the problem is that most of my guys with flares got dropped pretty fast and the remaining soldiers couldn't pick them up and not get mowed down at the same time. Also everyone was armed with inaccurate laser pistols (working on laser rifles, but didn't have any yet).

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 05:36:42 2015 No.2528395 >>2528390 I never use incendiary ammo, HE is extremely good against floater terror units.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 05:43:10 2015 No.2528402

>>2528395
To be fair, it's a capability I don't usually need since you can avoid doing night missions most of the time. Sometimes if it's a terror site, you have to do it. Or if a battleship lands at night since shooting them down is risky. Lesser UFOs you can just shoot down and wait for morning.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 05:44:52 2015 No.2528404

>>2528353
If you abort a terror site, the aliens don't get any points except for number of civilians killed and you avoid the 1000 point penalty for ignoring it. Since you killed at least a few aliens, you got points for it and avoided a negative end of month rating.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 06:18:27 2015 No.2528436

>>2528402
I just tried playing a superhuman floater terror with only 11 soldiers, laser pistols and basic human weaponry. Lost 3 soldiers and killed 16 ayys.

1 heavy rocket guy with highest military rank in back.
4 HE autocannon guys in middle.
6 laser pistol spotters in front scouting.

Destroyed front of buildings with heavy rocket guy, spotters checked for enemies, HE guys spammed the interior.

The only losses were 1 HE guy and 2 spotters.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 06:57:56 2015 No.2528465

>>2528436
>I just tried playing a superhuman floater terror with only 11 soldiers, laser pistols and basic human weaponry. Lost 3 soldiers and killed 16 ayys

>16 aliens on Superhuman
UFOpedia claims that Superhuman terror sites have 18-23 aliens on them. Though some could have accidentally killed themselves through a misplaced grenade toss (love when that happens).

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:04:03 2015 No.2528478 >>2528436 I probably should have beefier weapons because I had only one each rocket and auto cannon guy and everyone else had just laser pistols. That setup is ok for Beginner, but on Superhuman you're gonna need more firepower.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:05:04 2015 No.2528480 >>2528465 A few did kill themselves with friendly fire, including a reaper dying to a floater trying to kill a civilian.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:07:58 2015 No.2528485

>>2528480
>>2528465
Sometimes aliens try to throw grenades over a building and miss or else hock them at your soldiers inside the Skyranger. Also yes, the AI tends to only do it when your soldiers are huddled in a bunch, so if you remain spread out, you won't get grenaded.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:08:49 2015 No.2528486

>>2528478
I had 5 heavy rockets, 1 loaded in launcher, 3 in backpack and 1 reserve in ship.

HE guys went through 1 magazine each. I like using overwhelming force to take down enemies as fast as possible.

Also worth nothing that the laser pistol spotters each had a grenade/flare ready in offhand. Saves TUs and doesn't impact accuracy, as a bonus they explode when killed.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:11:26 2015 No.2528490

See, I was using a rocket tank for a while, but I decided on this game to instead have 14 soldiers and no tank. I guess I really did need that extra firepower boost from the HWP because I didn't have a problem beating Floater terror sites before (Sectoid ones are a gamble though).

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:15:44 2015 No.2528495

>>2528486
Aliens like to surround the Skyranger on higher difficulty levels, so even if you throw out smoke grenades, trying to deploy is tough. This is annoying with Floater terror sites, Sectoid ones are vastly worse.

>three Cyberdiscs surrounding the Skyranger
>your rocket launcher guy gets mind controlled

God. Damn.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:17:03 2015 No.2528497 >>2528486 >>2528490 >>2528478 Once you have heavy plasma, you don't need as many rocket launchers. But in the early game, it's recommended.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:17:20 2015 No.2528498 >>2528490 Having 4 soldiers with rockets is arguably cheaper and hits harder than a single tank. Though soldiers die to a single hit, tank can luck out for several hits and take no damage from front early on.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:19:16 2015 No.2528505 >>2528497 I like to have always 1 guy with heavy rockets. It works wonders against those farm barn ayys. Always rocket a barn even if you don't see anyone in it.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:21:59 2015 No.2528512

>>2528497
On one game, I shot down a Sectoid terror ship in March (lost an Interceptor doing it too) and even though it was in the desert, which is the easiest possible terrain to fight in, I just couldn't do it. 75% of my squad+my tank got wasted before I could even get inside the UFO (probably would have had a shot if it were Floaters though). I tried 20 times with no success because I had only laser rifles and no armor, which I should have had, but I didn't hire enough scientists to get research done in a timely manner. After studying a couple playthroughs online where guys had 30-50 scientists, I realized what I did wrong.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:25:16 2015 No.2528515

>>2528498
>Though soldiers die to a single hit, tank can luck out for several hits

If the tank gets hit by a heavy plasma shot though, it's already scrap because it will have lost 80% or something of its health and have such severely impaired firing accuracy as to be useless. On the other hand, tanks can't get mind controlled or be weaklings with like 20 strength who can't lug around a rocket launcher.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:29:02 2015 No.2528523

>>2528515
Soldiers however can be healed with medi kits although it's a bit of an asspull since they still have lowered stats due to the injury and aren't much use afterwards. Mainly benefits morale to have them not die. Also if a soldier's recovery time is too long (like 20+ days) I usually just sack him and get a new recruit.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:30:23 2015 No.2528526 >>2528505 What he said. Blast every building to bits. Just note that on terror sites, you don't want to accidentally kill civilians so you can't be as trigger happy there.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:31:39 2015 No.2528529 >>2528495 The best part about Cyberdiscs is that they often take out aliens standing next to them when they blow.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:34:26 2015 No.2528538

>>2528512
Also I would have still had to do the terror mission anyway because this was the first Terror Ship in the mission since the aliens always send two of them, one for reconnaissance and the other to actually attack cities. You have to shoot down the second Terror Ship to prevent the attack from happening.

Anonymous Fri Jul 10 07:51:34 2015 No.2528561

>February begins
>well let's just open MISSIONS.DAT in the ol' hex editor and see what's in store for us this month
>Floater terror mission in Australia
>*yawn*
>at least it's not Sectoids
>Snakeman base mission in the Pacific
Damn, that's unusual. The aliens hardly ever do anything in the Pacific and Snakemen don't usually even show up in February.

At least that base will be really, really easy to find since Hawaii is the only landmass out there.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 08:32:07 2015 No.2528619 >>2528561 >well let's just open MISSIONS.DAT in the ol' hex editor and see what's in store for us this month But that's cheating anon.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 09:25:32 2015 No.2528662 >>2528619 No, cheating would be if you edited it so you get nothing but Floater missions. :^)

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 15:50:57 2015 No.2529280 >>2528523 Wound effects aren't permanent, they just last until the wounds are healed. It's not like in the new XCOM, where you do take a permanent Will penalty if you are critically wounded.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 10 23:05:27 2015 No.2530248 >>2529280 I meant during the battle, wounded soldiers are pretty useless even if you heal them because of the blow they take to their stats.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 00:24:45 2015 No.2530359

Just finished a successful recovery of a Snakeman Supply Ship up in the Arctic. Despite six casualties, it was pretty overall easy mostly because Snakemen by themselves are cake (if this were a Sectoid-crewed ship, I would have been throwing the computer out the window) and we were decked out in personal armor and had just researched Heavy Plasma, so we could scavenge the aliens' weapons and also make some convenient doors inside the UFO. After I touched down, I realized I made a dumb move by not bringing stun rods since I could have bagged a commander, but oh well. Unfortunately, I lost one soldier due to a glitch; he got knocked unconscious early in the game and then abruptly vanished from the map, but was magically back once the mission ended.

The downside is that they built a base that I'm gonna have to eventually take care of and as y'all know, Snakemen bring friends with them.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 00:51:49 2015 No.2530405

>>2530359
Here's the funny part - I finished researching HP, but hadn't yet done the clips (research in progress). I found that if you haven't researched the clip, you can pick up the guns and fire them, but you can't load a new clip. Not really an issue though since they have 35 rounds in them which is plenty for a typical mission and you can pick up dropped guns as well.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 00:58:03 2015 No.2530414

Yeah once you have Heavy Plasma, you can phase out laser weapons and Auto Cannons. You may still want to keep a few laser rifles though in case you go up against Sectopods which are weak to them. Rocket launchers are always useful though as demolition weapons.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 01:10:57 2015 No.2530425
File: 123 KB, 534x289, supply2.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2530359
I divided my squad into two teams - one went after the second floor and the other the third floor of the SS, but the second floor was empty. SS have a rather annoying layout since one of the grav lifts takes you to the third floor and the other the second, but I solved that problem nicely by using heavy plasma shots to bust out a doorway.

Anyway, team 1 went onto the second floor while team 2 went up the right grav lift and shot a hole in the wall to get onto the second floor. However, this resulted in a couple of aliens coming down the grav lift and shooting at us. A total of two soldiers and three Snakemen died in a shootout around there.

The third floor I took out the leader just outside the control room. There was one last Snakey who panicked and dropped his gun; he was spotted trying to make his way down the grav lift when we tagged him.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 01:16:47 2015 No.2530430 >>2530425 >>2530359 If that's a base mission, they'll send a battleship to complete the construction. Think you'll be ready when it comes?

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 01:20:29 2015 No.2530436

>>2530430
Yeah I know it will have Chryssalids on it and a shitfuck lot of aliens. I'm not so much worried about the Chryssalids as I am getting Blaster Bomb-ed. On the plus side, since the base mission is in the Arctic, I'll have nice, flat, open ice to fight on without farm buildings or other annoying shit.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 01:21:29 2015 No.2530437 Snakemen are slow as fuck and have weak reactions, so not very dangerous opponent.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 02:05:33 2015 No.2530495 >>2530436 >>2530430 I wouldn't try tackling a Battleship until you have Power Suits.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 03:29:10 2015 No.2530593 I notice that the floppy version of UD has different alien death sounds than the CD version. Prefer the latter's sfx myself.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 05:42:47 2015 No.2530690

>shoot down large scout in South America
>welcome to the jungle
>don't see any aliens anywhere, but this damn thick undergrowth makes it hard to move anywhere
>use auto cannon HE rounds and rockets to make clearings
>still no aliens
>spot the UFO and cautiously move towards it
>hear a lot of door opening sounds suggesting they're all inside
>get closer and suddenly a soldier falls to a plasma shot
>wtf did that come from?
>keep moving
>another soldier mowed down
>two turns later, my rocket launcher guy dies
>alright, I've had enough of this
>Tap Tap the Red Nose grabs the rocket launcher, loads a large rocket, and fires randomly into some vegetation
>alien death sound followed by a Sectoid corpse materializing
>yeah thought so
>approach UFO hatch
>Bub and Bob are waiting out front but their auto cannons aren't safe to fire in the confines of the UFO
>Bowser pokes his head inside and spots an alien with a plasma rifle
>shoot him dead

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 05:43:49 2015 No.2530691

>oh Jesus fuck I don't have enough TUs to go back out
>goodnight sweet prince
>Bowser doesn't die, instead the engineer shows up with a stun launcher and knocks him out
>send in Sluggy the Unshaven
>he takes out one alien after another by running in, shooting them with his laser rifle, and heading back out
>Sluggy racks up 4-5 kills
>damn, this guy's gonna make Captain
>and then a promising career gets cut short by reaction fire
>the alien comes outside and cut down by auto cannon fire, but not before he ices Homer Simpson
>summon the third stringers from the Skyranger, Biscuit, An Horse, and Barack Obama
>meanwhile the engineer comes outside and starts heaving stun bombs
>Bub and Tap Tap are knocked out
>An Horse finally shows up
>the engineer is all out of stun bombs, so he just walks inside the UFO and out over and over like an idiot
>finally An Horse rushes inside and guns him down
>this had better be the last alien
>and it is
Considering there were only ten aliens on this UFO, I think six casualties including my sergeant (Homer Simpson) was an unnecessarily high cost.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 05:55:29 2015 No.2530709

Contrary to popular belief, firing and throwing accuracy do not improve from kills, but rather the amount of times you successfully make contact with the target you're aiming at. Of course the game also won't give soldiers a stat boost without actually killing an alien, so you can't level up by just spending 10 turns shooting at a wall or hay bales.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 09:09:31 2015 No.2530892 File: 41 KB, 656x439, 0x.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] And now we've replenished all the casualties from that jungle mission. Meet our current roster.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 09:23:08 2015 No.2530915

>>2501241
anybody here knows what happend to that australian guy or something that was posting his run through this game? he was real good and used lots of explosives. he would upload the combat section and describe the geoscape phase with screenshots and funny comments. i've been looking for it but cant find it anymore.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 10:03:53 2015 No.2530965 >>2530915 anybody?

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 10:59:29 2015 No.2531037

>do nighttime Sectoid terror mission *gulp*
>smoke grenades are amazingly effective - there's a Cyberdisc out in front and it can't see us
>pick it off at our leisure
>sweep the buildings across the street with rocket and HE rounds
>fire random rocket off into the dark and kill a Sectoid
>move out across the street towards an apartment complex
>take three casualties
>kill the individuals responsible, but contemplate that the last guy is probably hiding behind a corner and has tons of reaction fire
>y'know, this isn't worth it I killed plenty of aliens already let's go home
>move back to the Skyranger and collect the more expensive gear from our dead guys like the auto cannons while leaving behind the cheap stuff like grenades
>abort mission
>get Poor rating despite having killed 12 aliens
Well excuuuuseeee me if I didn't think it was a good idea to chase around the last punk in the darkness where he can hide and snipe at my guys at will.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 11:05:04 2015 No.2531047 >>2531037 It's also a bit of a handicap that you have to disarm your psy-weak guys for most of the mission until you whack the Sectoid leader and can use them again.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 12:18:52 2015 No.2531150 >>2531037 Damn, that's frustrating though. Mission goes that well and you have to quit because the last douchebag won't come out of his hidey-hole.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 12:32:01 2015 No.2531178 >>2531150 If it weren't at night, I would have gone hunting for him, but too risky.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 12:35:11 2015 No.2531185 >>2530892 >not assigning markers for accuracy >not sorting soldiers by accuracy >not sending blind soldiers to the front as fodder It makes battles so much easier when everyone can actually hit.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 12:43:37 2015 No.2531195 >>2531185 yeah it is frustrating when you need to grenade an alien hiding behind a corner, but your 20 strength weakling can't throw that far

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 12:49:45 2015 No.2531204

It does pay to grenade or rocket buildings during terror missions because there's a pretty good chance you'll take out an alien or two in the process. At nighttime, dark areas like city parks should always be treated with suspicion, so firebomb them as well.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 12:56:07 2015 No.2531215 >>2531204 On farm battles, also use HEs and rockets on every barn and hedge enclosure. There's nothing more unnerving than three barns surrounding your Skyranger.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 14:45:23 2015 No.2531434 File: 24 KB, 869x549, Clipboard01.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Yeah... we're just gonna call you Sam.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 11 23:06:22 2015 No.2532457 And be sure when starting a new game to restructure your base in case of alien retaliation attacks.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 23:51:09 2015 No.2532530

>>2532457
Yeh this is important because retaliation attacks can happen at any time, even the most inconvenient times.

>get attacked in the middle of January when your squad is still carrying standard rifles
>get attacked while your squad is out on a base mission
>get attacked just after coming back from a base mission when your squad is depleted and you haven't replenished everything yet

Even worse, the alien strike force is big and they have blaster bombs, terrorists, and psionics (if Sectoids/Ethereals). So what you want to do is lay out the base to create a choke point (aliens always spawn in the access lift and hangars). Then just have your soldiers drop proxy grenades at the access lift and watch the aliens get blown to bits every time they step inside.

Of course proxy grenades aren't powerful enough to kill Mutons and some terrorists, so get ready to shoot if it's them.

Anonymous Sat Jul 11 23:55:44 2015 No.2532540

>>2532530
Retaliation attacks are triggered at random after a successful shootdown of a UFO. The attack will happen either in the region the Interceptor is based or the region the shootdown occurred in and AFAIK the alien race that does the attack is drawn at random based on the time of year and may not necessarily be the same race who's UFO you took out. So don't worry about Ethereals coming for you in February.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 05:33:46 2015 No.2533020

>take some tips from various places
>restart new game
>give my soldiers a tag to denote their particular strengths
>restructure base to make retaliation attacks easier to defend against
>still get my butt kicked on (oh god this is embarrassing) a daytime Floater terror site
>abort mission with 6 survivors out of 14 troops
Eh, still killed 12 aliens and got a pay raise at the end of the month. Also one guy got killed due to carelessness (I fired a large rocket at a Reaper a few squares away) and another guy went berserk and killed a teammate with auto cannon fire. I managed to take out two aliens as I was retreating back to the Skyranger to ensure I got as many points out of this clusterfuck as possible.

I have the game saved a few days before the terror mission, so I could go back and redo it, but I figured "Nah, I'll just bite the bullet and accept the loss."

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 05:45:39 2015 No.2533046

>>2533020
>I managed to take out two aliens as I was retreating back to the Skyranger to ensure I got as many points out of this clusterfuck as possible
Oh, and I wanted to get my guys' morale up a bit to prevent them from panicking again as we were trying to get into the Skyranger.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 07:19:46 2015 No.2533187
File: 90 KB, 1440x1080, Picard-Facepalm.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>nighttime Floater terror mission
>start closing in on the final guy hiding behind a building
>victory is within reach
>he throws a grenade and kills all of my remaining squad except one guy who's critically wounded and dies 2 turns later
>Skyranger lost
This is why if there's one guy hiding behind a building, I prefer to just abort the mission and let him rot. Also why when that still small voice in your head tells you not to chase after the last alien, don't do it.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 07:20:51 2015 No.2533190 >>2533187 Jesus Christ, dude. How is it possible to fuck up a _Floater_ terror mission that badly?

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 07:22:01 2015 No.2533192 >>2533190 Easy. Play it on Superhuman. And save before embarking on the terror mission.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 07:25:28 2015 No.2533195 >>2533192 >And save before embarking on the terror mission. Preferably two days before because there's the chance it will happen in daylight.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 07:26:28 2015 No.2533196 >>2533187 >This is why if there's one guy hiding behind a building, I prefer to just abort the mission and let him rot. Yeh but then you don't get to recover all the aliens' stuff and sell it.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 08:05:40 2015 No.2533226 >>2533187 No you stupid idiot. You find a way to flank him or level the motherfucking building.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 08:08:48 2015 No.2533228 [DELETED]

>>2533226
>or level the motherfucking building

Tried it. The building in question is one of these huge apartment thingies and it was also nighttime. Plus I'd already expended most of my ordnance. Buggers can camp out behind a building forever and reaction fire you.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 08:12:06 2015 No.2533232

>>2533226
>or level the motherfucking building

Tried it. The building in question is one of these huge apartment thingies and it was also nighttime. Plus I'd already expended most of my ordnance. Buggers can camp out behind a building forever and reaction fire you. I really was hoping the last alien would be a Reaper, but unfortunately it wasn't.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 08:37:07 2015 No.2533254 >>2533226 Friendly reminder that leveling buildings is such a prevalent style to violently end campers in xcom and Tftd, that you are billed with building damage repairs on xcom apocalypse...

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 08:52:28 2015 No.2533264

>>2533254

See >>2514892

I shot a large rocket at the barn, provoking a burst of reaction fire that killed my rocket guy. Since I had the alien navigator stuffed in one soldier's backpack, I just said yeah fuck that shit, marched everyone into the Skyranger, and hit Abort Mission.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 09:25:23 2015 No.2533283
File: 46 KB, 634x396, xo.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

All right, I went back and retried the Floater terror mission. Beat 'em using what's called the "box defense". This is basically where you spread out around the Skyranger and wait for the aliens to come to you. Unfortunately, victory came at a high price.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 09:29:02 2015 No.2533289

>>2533283
One alien got downed from a fantastically dangerous stunt that I really shouldn't have tried, but somehow it worked.

>send sergeant around a dark corner (yeah real great idea)
>oh shit there's a Floater
>but his back is turned he didn't see us
>please hit please hit please hit
>fuck yeah, got him!
>retreat back around the corner

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 09:34:55 2015 No.2533296 >>2533289 Another Floater in a grocery store I shot with auto cannon rounds, but fucking shit I forgot it was incendiary. That's not gonna... >hear alien death sound on the next turn Sweet, he roasted alive.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 09:37:38 2015 No.2533302 >>2533296 I never use incendiary ammo.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 12 09:38:38 2015 No.2533304 >>2533302 I took it along because nighttime mission although I really didn't need it.

Anonymous Sun Jul 12 11:05:10 2015 No.2533405

>after the carnage of the Floater terror mission, feels nice to get an easy Sectoid large scout downed way up in the Yukon
>lose only two dumbass rookies who provoked reaction fire from an alien in front of the Skyranger
>drop proxy grenades at the UFO's hatch and direct rifle fire and auto cannon rounds on the other suckers who step outside
That was fun, but I needed to capture a navigator, not have him step on a proxy grenade and leave no identifiable remains.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 03:50:24 2015 No.2535721
File: 68 KB, 644x345, illustration.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2533405
Got him finally. Usual procedure, send one soldier in as a meat shield to absorb reaction fire and then poke the alien with your stun rod. I also had several soldiers outside as flank guards; they used reaction fire to toast several aliens advancing through the forest at me.

Then after I stunned the navigator, there was one remaining alien. After searching the entire map, I couldn't find the bastard. Then I sent a guy just around the corner of the UFO into an area I hadn't yet ventured into and there he was, heavy plasma at the ready. The dumb rookie took a shot at him with his laser rifle, missed, and died to reaction fire. You cheap, cheap game, you.

Anyway, with my guys coming around the other end of the UFO, I had one just hock a high explosive over the UFO roof and take out that last sonofabitch (see pic).

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 05:13:26 2015 No.2535826 >>2535721 And he didn't fire at you when you went into the UFO?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 05:30:36 2015 No.2535843 >>2530709 Firing is trained by hitting hostiles. Don't have to kill or even wound them. But hay isn't considered hostile. Even if you have allergies.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 05:52:16 2015 No.2535856 >>2535826 No, he evidently just stood there in that corner for multiple turns as we were trudging through the forest.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 06:25:40 2015 No.2535885

>aliens terrorize Canberra
>get there in broad daylight
>see that it's Floaters
>this is gonna be cake
>shoot one guy with an auto cannon HE round
>Ok, so far so good let's deploy
>next turn
>Floater wanders past the Skyranger ramp and chucks a grenade inside
>12 soldiers die instantly and the remaining two mortally wounded
This is why you save before you set out on terror missions.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 06:27:03 2015 No.2535886 >>2535885 wow, that was cheap

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 06:28:04 2015 No.2535887 >>2535886 I know...I've seen a lot of bullshit in this game before, but that one truly took the cake.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 06:50:15 2015 No.2535908

>>2535885

>Battleship touched down next to my main base
>it's daytime, lets get the fuckers for the sweet, sweet Elerium!
>begin mission
>there's Muton standing just in front of the Skyranger ramp
>bring him down with my new Alien Plasma!
>uh-oh, both guys at the front row missed
>ok, time for plan B
>use TU of two other guys to nade the fucker
>ok, better not go further, lets wait one turn
>end turn
>kaboom x2, muton dead. fuck yeah!
>Alien movement
>blaster bomb from other side of the fucking map zig-zags its way into the Skyranger cargo bay
>all soldiers vapourized in 2 sec, mission failed.
>last save was like 1 month of game time before

I ragequit so fucking hard...

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 07:55:35 2015 No.2535964

>>2535908
That is why they always recommend you throw a smoke grenade or two outside first. The failed Floater terror mission I mentioned above...I forgot to buy more smoke grenades. If I had them, I bet that faggot wouldn't have been able to see and grenade my team.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 08:00:37 2015 No.2535973

>shoot down a Medium Scout over the Pacific
>not long thereafter, a Small Scout materializes over Canada
>chase after it with an Interceptor, hoping it lands, but it doesn't
>finally blow it up
>a few days later
>Medium Scout shows up near Cuba
>follow it to Mexico and shoot it down
Continued in the next post. Also I think it's a retaliation mission because it began in mid-month instead of the beginning of the month.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 08:09:23 2015 No.2535981

>>2535973
>touch down
>take out one Sectoid near the Skyranger
>and another
>spot some SOB off on the other side of a shed
>would like to grenade him, but my grenadiers are not deployed yet
>continue deployment
>wander around the other side of the shed and my scout takes a fatal shot from the alien we spotted earlier
>have another soldier shoot a large rocket into the shed
>goodbye alien
>dispatch rookie to the UFO because she needs experience
>pop inside, see one alien inside an otherwise completely intact ship and shoot it
>still one left, and the barn next to the UFO is the only possible location
>heave HE along the side of the barn
>blow it out and right on cue, trigger a reaction shot
>fire at the offender and miss
>let's leave this to the professionals, shall we?
>one of my sergeants auto fires, takes the alien out, and the third shot hits and kills another guy behind him I didn't even know was there
One casualty for a successful recovery of an intact Medium Scout and get a million bucks back from selling surplus alien gear/bodies. Good haul.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 09:39:39 2015 No.2536048

>>2533302
Incendiary ammo is shit. Im not even sure it deals any damage.
A sectoid took a direct hit from an incendiary and he survived. Another one stood in the flames for like 2 turns and he also walked fine.
Did i do sonething wrong or is it that incendiary ammo is complete shit?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 11:17:19 2015 No.2536170 >>2536048 http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Incendiary Very little. They have some uses, but killing aliens isn't really one of them.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 11:54:52 2015 No.2536236 >>2536170 Reapers are supposed to be weak to incendiary ammo, not that I ever tried it.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 11:59:50 2015 No.2536252
File: 46 KB, 637x396, WTF.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>after two humiliating misfires, reload and try terror mission in New Zealand a third time
>two apartment buildings surrounding the Skyranger
>this time (aided by the fact that it's daytime), we take out all the Floaters with ease
>one soldier takes it twice in the arm, but her new personal armor protects her
>Floaters try to grenade my squad twice, but both times they end up hitting the apartment building and miss
>mission over with only two casualties
>also strangely enough, there were no Reapers anywhere (occasionally you do get a terror mission with no terrorists)
That was a masterfully executed terror mission; wish they could all go this well. Yet for some reason, the game gives me a Poor rating. Bull. Shit.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 12:14:34 2015 No.2536284 >>2536236 Not like it matters; Reapers are basically target practise anyway.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 12:35:28 2015 No.2536325 >>2536284 Early game, auto cannon HE rounds quickly take them out. Late game, heavy plasma shots.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 13:17:28 2015 No.2536418 File: 126 KB, 640x806, Laser_Squad_-_Box_scan_n°1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2501705 >>2501770 It looks like some kind of Laser Squad clone. Either that or Breach...

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 14:43:06 2015 No.2536630 >watching Kikoskia's X-Com longplay Britbongs are...weird.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 13 14:47:45 2015 No.2536647 Early game's just Sectoids and Floaters. So when do Snakemen/Mutons/Ethereals show up?

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 14:53:13 2015 No.2536662

>>2536647
February, March, and May, respectively. I should add that Snakemen won't do terror missions until March and Mutons not until May. Also it's comparatively rare to see Snakemen in February and Mutons in March, usually they start showing up in March (Snakemen) and April (Mutons).

Ethereals can show up in May, but rarely before June. Even then, you may sometimes not see them at all until Cydonia.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 15:03:22 2015 No.2536686

A little tip when it comes to identifying aliens on the battlefield:

>soldiers/navigators
Plasma weapons always.
>engineers
On all UFOs larger than Medium Scouts, they may carry Small Launchers. On base missions/Battleships, they can have Blaster Launchers. But even then, they may still have SLs or plasma weapons.
>medics
Plasma weapons or Small Launchers.
>leader/commander
Plasma weapons, sometimes a Blaster Launcher if it's a base mission/Battleship.

Anonymous Mon Jul 13 17:30:49 2015 No.2537012

>aliens terrorize Paris
>fucking hell, of course at night
>whew, it's only Floaters
>shoot a few up at the start of the battle, most of which takes place around a shopping center
>mostly a confused shootout
>spend several turns trying to figure out where random shots from the dark came from
>send one soldier upstairs and spot an alien peering out a window
>shoot and miss
>duck back into the next room
>repeat 2x
>he's still at the window
>come back and try a third time, miss, get killed from reaction fire (of course)
>since we just recently researched heavy plasma, help ourselves to a dead schwump's gun
>after some frustrating missed shots, take out another idiot
>shoot heavy plasma through the wall, see a Floater, and shoot
>we miss
>no TUs
>welp, that soldier is dead - pity he was a sergeant too
>Floater shoots, but we're alive - thank God for personal armor
>gun him down
Mission over and curiously, no Reapers once again. Too bad six soldiers died and all civilians.

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 09:51:02 2015 No.2538552

>take down large scout
>it's at night, but fuck it, shit's only a scout vessel and I have plenty of incendiary ammo/flares
>deploy off the Skyranger
>plasma shot comes winging out of the darkness
>toss flare and illuminate a Sectoid
>after several frustrating no line of fire messages, get one guy into position to shoot him.
>shoot around some incendiary ammo to light up the darkness
>take down another alien near the UFO
>march towards the entrance
>after first hocking an HE through the diagonal wall to kill the navigator (already got one, don't need another)
>one soldier peeps inside and takes a blast of plasma to the face
>well, he's dead
>shoot auto cannon incendiary round inside to illuminate the thing
>spot the individual responsible and gun him down
>run outside, go back in spot another one and take him down
>and now there's a couple more aliens hiding out there in the dark
>wonderful
>spread out across the map
>one soldier walks into a farmhouse and sees the door on the other side open
>maybe it would not be such a good idea to go any further
>next turn, plasma shot misses him by inches
>wtf, the alien is like two squares away
>shoot him dead
>meanwhile, an alien pops out from some hedges and shoots my rocket launcher girl in the arm, then ducks back behind the hedges
>you done goofed, buddy

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 09:52:02 2015 No.2538554

>one quick rocket to the hedgerow and he's assuming room temperature
>heal rocket girl with a medi pak and she's good
>there's one guy left and I bet he's near that barn
>send a squaddie out on recon
>he gets hit and knocked unconscious
>fuck, how am I going to get that alien now?
>most of my squad is halfway across the map and it's dark
>slowly move into position
>alien heads towards us and fires
>he then dies in a crossfire of laser and auto cannon shots
>get message that the unconscious squaddie died from his wound and hear him expiring
>but the mission's over and due to some fantastic glitch, he's not counted as dead
One casualty (the guy who peeped into the UFO and got his face shot off) and two wounded troopers (Rocket Girl's wound was minor, but the other one will be out for a month).

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 14 10:37:09 2015 No.2538612 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyhWjMrmtEk >guy gets his whole squad slaughtered trying to take one Sectopod Should have brought a laser tank, dude. It's the only hope.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 14 10:46:22 2015 No.2538629 >>2538612 Actually, Sectopods are weak in the backside so five taps with a heavy plasma gun will do them in. Just don't hit them in front.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 14 10:49:49 2015 No.2538638 >>2538629 I agree. Sectopods can be a major bitch if you're not prepared and on top of that, your soldiers will be getting mind controlled relentlessly by Sectopods' masters.

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 10:53:38 2015 No.2538654

>>2538638
Explosives aren't effective either; it will take an average of ten HEs to kill a Sectopod. Blaster Bombs will OHKO them about 90% of the time. If it's a terror site however, you need to consider that careless BB use has a high chance of killing civilians and netting you negative points.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 14 10:54:55 2015 No.2538660 Another little reminder - Ethereals only do Terror/Base/Infiltration/Retaliation missions, so there's never a time they won't be accompanied by Sectopods unless it's a scout vessel preceding the mission or a Supply Ship.

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 11:05:27 2015 No.2538669

>the excitement of downing a UFO on a tiny Caribbean island
>tfw it's always an Ethereal Battleship

>attack a Floater battleship on flat, open ice during broad daylight
"Fuck yeah, this is gonna be complete cak...
>Blaster Bomb gets launched into the Skyranger on Turn 2

>the soldier that gets mind controlled is always the guy with a rocket launcher/heavy plasma/blaster launcher
>any time you face Ethereals, they will always have the maximum number of Sectopods possible

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 18:12:03 2015 No.2539368

Trick for beating Battleships is to first drop proxy grenades outside the doors on the entry lift. Then have your soldiers sit next to the landing struts and reaction fire away as the aliens come outside. I did this once on a Snakeman Battleship and managed to kill almost the entire crew. The leader and a soldier then panicked and dropped their weapons, after which I simply marched my troops inside and took them out.

This trick works well for Battleships crewed by Floaters/Snakemen/Mutons, but is dodgy with Sectoids and won't work at all for Ethereals.

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 18:14:25 2015 No.2539376

When it comes to crashed UFOs, there's no reason to go after them at night. Landed UFOs you should attack regardless of the time of day so you recover them intact.

Also while Battleships are intimidating, the booty you get from bringing them home is immense.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jul 14 18:15:31 2015 No.2539381 >>2539376 FWIW, Supply Ships give you plenty of loot as well and are far less dangerous to attack (no terrorists or Blaster Bombs on them).

Anonymous Tue Jul 14 18:35:01 2015 No.2539416

>>2539368
>>2539376

When assaulting BShips, wait turn or two at the ground level of entry lift. There's a risk that you will ate blaster bomb here, but aliums are particulary bad at shooting verticaly. And with the bit of luck you will be able to score handfull of kills on UFOs crew trying to move between floors

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 04:56:37 2015 No.2540648 >>2539368 >This trick works well for Battleships crewed by Floaters/Snakemen/Mutons, but is dodgy with Sectoids and won't work at all for Ethereals. Because mind control?

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 05:15:35 2015 No.2540664

>>2540648
Well, yeah, but also you have to contend with the terror species coming outside as well - if Sectopods march out there, they'll be facing front where their armor is thickest and your shots won't do much. But by the time Ethereals show up, you should have flying suits which lets you just send one guy in the air, get behind the Sectopod, and shoot his rear end off.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 05:16:37 2015 No.2540665 >>2540664 Sectopods fucking suck. Almost impossible to kill plus you'll be getting MC-ed the whole time.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 05:21:53 2015 No.2540668

>>2540665
It's debatable. Some other terror species are worse (esp. Cyberdiscs and Chryssalids). Sectopods aren't particularly fast and their weapon is less powerful than the gun that Cyberdiscs are packing. The main strength of them is their armor, which in front is almost impenetrably thick and few things other than a Blaster Bomb can kill them. Once you realize that Sectopods' armor in the rear is nearly 75% weaker than the front, you can dispense with them pretty easily.

To put it simply, two taps from a Heavy Laser or Laser Tank will kill a Sectopod if hit in the back, four taps from a Heavy Plasma, and six taps from a Laser Rifle.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 05:31:50 2015 No.2540676

>>2539368
One other nuisance of Battleships is that the game sometimes spawns terrorists in upstairs rooms with a one square wide door. If the terrorist is a Reaper/Cyberdisc/Sectopod, it can't get out of the room and will be stuck in there until you go in and kill it. Obviously this isn't much of an issue with Reapers, but as far as the other two, you're gonna have a problem.

It's similar to Terror Ships where the game can also spawn terrorists on the second floor, resulting in the larger ones being unable to get out from there.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 06:21:47 2015 No.2540715 >>2540668 Or use mind control to take over one of the Sectopod's segments and exploit the stupid game AI (MC-ing one section of a Sectopod/Cyberdisc/Reaper causes the other sections to attack it).

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 07:32:08 2015 No.2540783 Protip: If you shoot a UFO down, the next ship in the mission sequence will be delayed by up to a week (attacking landed UFOs does not have this effect).

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 09:06:41 2015 No.2540887 Superhuman is...bloody. Even those early Sectoid scout missions in January still cost me around 4-5 guys.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 09:26:04 2015 No.2540907 >start new mission >UFO pops up on the radar in the first day >go after it and it's Floaters Come on mang, I only have six guys and no HEs or other gear yet.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 09:30:40 2015 No.2540914

>>2540907
Yeah, that means the game put the first terror mission in your home region. Remember: January will always have a Sectoid Research mission in your home region and a Terror mission in a random region, which is usually Floaters but occasionally Sectoids.

Research missions go Small Scout -> Medium Scout -> Large Scout -> Large Scout and Terror missions go Medium Scout -> Large Scout -> Terror Ship -> Terror Ship

The first Terror Ship is just there for scouting, it doesn't land. The second one actually attacks a city.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 10:40:12 2015 No.2540990

Regions never get an alien mission more than once (excluding Resupply and Retaliation) so once all possible missions in a given region have been performed (Research, Abduction, Harvest, Base, and Infiltration), the region will not get anything except terror attacks.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 13:45:38 2015 No.2541258

>large scout touches down at night
>yeah it's night, but never turn down a chance at an intact UFO
>deploy cautiously
>suddenly heavy plasma-wielding Sectoid a few squares away
>where did you come fro...
>ah, who cares? Pew, pew, pew
>he's dead
>send one squaddie through a farmhouse
>get up on the roof
>spot the UFO, but there's a barn in the way
>a second farmhouse nearby has open doors and we can hear them opening and closing between turns
>since I want a nice, clear path to the UFO, I drop an HE inside the barn
>which blows the entire first floor to rubble
>suddenly plasma shots
>the soldier up on the farmhouse roof reaction fires an alien in a fruit orchard
>send another guy to the UFO, hock an HE through the diagonal wall, and kill some aliums inside
>meanwhile, a guy near the ruins of the barn gets shot
>where the fuck did that come from?
>pick up auto cannon from the dead guy (which had incendiary rounds in it) and fire some off
>spot the alien so another auto cannon guy can blast him with HE rounds
>the whole area around the barn is in flames from the HE blast and incendiary AC shots
>it's hard to walk through here with the spreadng fire
>two soldiers fall unconscious from smoke inhalation
>my farmhouse sniper gets shot dead, but no clue where that came from
>have a soldier drop an HE into another farmhouse to clear it out
>next turn, a shot comes out of the farmhouse and drops him
>oh well, the HE will take care of that
>two turns later, alien guts splattered everywhere
And that's it. Four dead and one soldier sustained a minor wound.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 14:51:53 2015 No.2541361 >>2541258 >hock an HE through the diagonal wall, and kill some aliums inside Why do you abuse the poor ayys like this?

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:03:36 2015 No.2541372

>>2541361
I always do that with Large Scouts except when I need to capture a navigator alive. If the UFO has a hole in the roof of course you can also throw the grenade through there, but sometimes if the soldier is a 20 strength weakling it doesn't work. Also do it with Medium Scouts if they're not intact (in which case the blast would destroy the Elerium).

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:11:56 2015 No.2541382 >>2541372 Should add - this doesn't always reliably kill Mutons. They're tough buggers and can survive HE blasts.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:21:12 2015 No.2541403

>my base in Asia detects an Ethereal ship heading somewhere
>can't remember the mission exactly (it was a while ago) but I shot it down and went after the crash site
>send rookie out for scouting
>BLAM - three Ethereals shoot him full of holes
>two guys get mind controlled and start firing inside the Skyranger, one of whom had a Blaster Launcher
>somehow two soldiers survived the ensuing holocaust, but one panicked and ran outside
>ordinarily, you'd want to just have the Skyranger dust off with the remaining guy, but I was in such a state of shock that I absent-mindedly sent him outside on recon
>he gets MCed, shoots the panicked soldier, and gets taken down himself

Summary - three turns cost me a Skyranger, my veteran crew, and all of my equipment. I was unable to play the game for a week because I was that dazed and shell-shocked.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:23:24 2015 No.2541406

One time, I went after a landed Battleship and used my Flying Suit guys to perform Operation Can Opener (cutting a hole in the roof with a Blaster Bomb). After that, shot a couple stun bombs into the hole and managed to take all of the (Sectoid) officers alive.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:26:48 2015 No.2541414

>>2541406
Favorite trick of mine is to divide my team into three squads with one Blaster Launcher each. Group A would fly up to the roof, blow a hole, and drop inside. Group B would shoot a hole in the side of the UFO, and Group C would be waiting outside the doors.

One time while attacking a Battleship, one of my squads got obliterated by a Blaster Bomb so in revenge, I had the other two squads riddle the UFO with multiple Blaster Bombs until it looked like Swiss cheese.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:33:34 2015 No.2541429 >>2541403 >doing ethereal missions without psi training Just shoot the UFOs down and ignore the crash sites. Same goes for all larger sectoid UFOs, but only after you zerg rush your first sectoid leader.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:39:58 2015 No.2541432

My story is about two brothers named Taylor

>early in the game, after I got some new soldiers to replace casualties, two of the guys I got had the surname Taylor
>I reasoned they must be brothers who both signed up to fight aliens together
>and fight they did
>one Taylor made sergeant, the other captain and I always kept them close together during missions
>during an attack on a Snakeman base, one Taylor was kneeling in a corridor near a wall, the other pretty far in the back
>Chryssalid comes around the corner
>one Taylor does nothing, his brother reaction shoots the Chryssalid and knocks him dead
>there's nothing like family bonds
>both Taylors lived on and killed an impressive amount of alien scum, but all things must end
>it happened during another base attack
>at that point, I already had an Avenger and just needed to get a commander
>base turned out to be Floaters, so I thought oh boy this is going to be cake
>cleaned up the whole area and as I didn't have any Mind Probes, decided to stun everyone in the control room and take them alive
>send in one Taylor and several troops, his brother was way off at the other end of the base
>kill one Floater in the control room, causing the commander to panic
>he drops his Blaster Launcher and freezes in place
>send everyone up the grav lift to take the commander alive, but my stun bomb guy is still aways off and will take 2-3 turns to get there
>next turn - commander still panicking
>turn after that, he recovers his senses and throws a grenade at my squad
>Taylor and three grizzled veterans killed
>fuck
>at this point, I considered reloading my save game and trying again, but I thought "No, you got greedy - accept the loss."
>later on, I managed to get a commander from a Battleship
>find out about Cydonia, load up the Avenger with my best troops and two hover tanks, and away we go
>rush to the elevator, taking three casualties

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:40:58 2015 No.2541435

>>2541432
>but Taylor managed to make it into the control room
>kill three Ethereals - I had four soldiers with me, each of whom could have taken out the Brain
>but I knew just who I wanted for the job
>Brain makes impassioned speech why we shouldn't fry its ass
>Taylor was not moved by it
:^)

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:44:09 2015 No.2541439 >>2541429 >Same goes for all larger sectoid UFOs, but only after you zerg rush your first sectoid leader Isn't that pretty much the same thing as doing a Sectoid terror site?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:46:28 2015 No.2541441 >>2541439 Sectoid terror rarely mind control your soldiers, they are all busy shooting at civilians.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:46:47 2015 No.2541442

>>2541439
Kind of, but worse because on terror sites, the leader could be anywhere and you might kill him on Turn 2, so no more mind control. On UFOs, the bugger usually camps out on the bridge until you go up there and get him.

I did a Snakeman Supply Ship a while ago that was almost effortlessly easy - if that had been Sectoids...

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:50:21 2015 No.2541448

>>2541441
>Sectoid terror rarely mind control your soldiers

You clearly do not have much experience with Sectoid terror sites. The leader mind controls your psy weaklings any chance he gets until you waste him. In fact, when doing Sectoid terror sites, I usually wait to see what guys get MC-ed. Then I reload from a save file, go back, and disarm them at the start of the mission. When the leader is dead, I let them have their shit back.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 15:52:51 2015 No.2541450 >>2541429 Also I should point out that Sectoids are most common in the early game (January-March) and you don't see them much anymore by the point where you have psy abilities.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 16:27:08 2015 No.2541507 >start new game >take down first Sectoid Medium Scout >so far so... >Small Scout pops up on the radar Fuggin' A, a retaliation attack already? You cheap, cheap game. Can't we wait a few weeks for this when I have more troops with better gear?

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 17:42:54 2015 No.2541695

>aliens terrorize Brasilia
>send Barack Obama out as a scout
>immediately runs into two Reapers
>ok, get out an HE and use him as a suicide bomber
>sure makes a better suicide bomber than he does a president
>anyway, Floater shoots at us, ducks into a house, but we kill him with an HE
>another Floater kills 2 soldiers
>we reduce the house to rubble trying to get at him
>shoot rocket into market across the street
>kill an unseen Floater
>things get quiet now, but across the street from us are ominous-looking warehouses
>get into a shootout with two Floaters inside
>things get quiet again
>out of nowhere, surprise Reaper attack
>he rips one of my guys in half, after which we gun him down
>things get quiet
>wait a few turns and nothing happens
>it's pretty obvious that the last alien(s) are back behind the warehouses, but I'm out of HEs, six guys are down, and I lose some equipment when my dead soldiers got vaporized in the battle around the house
>finally say "Fuck this shit, I'm outta here
>spend the next few turns collecting equipment from dead guys (mostly expensive stuff like laser pistols and auto cannons) and loading it onto the Skyranger
>collect a few Floater corpses and weapons so I have some gear to sell
>dust off
>despite having iced 12 aliens and recovered some loot, still get a Terrible rating

Now come on, did you really expect my depleted squad who were getting low on ammunition to go chase after those last few aliens behind the warehouses? Sometimes you gotta know when enough's enough.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 19:52:32 2015 No.2541982

>>2541695
Went and redid the mission. Still lost six guys (two due to careless HE use), but we took out all the aliens. I was ready to ragequit at being unable to find the last Floater, but then a grenade came streaking down from a building and killed a civilian in a park. The individual responsible was situated on top of a warehouse and I noticed he had no weapons left. After two turns of frantically trying to hit him with (horribly inaccurate) laser pistols, I realized that he was apparently frozen with fear and not moving at all from that spot. A few more shots later and he died.

I notice that occasionally there's aliens who appear to just be grenadiers and don't carry any gun on them. Once they throw their grenade, they're fit only for target practice.

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:37:06 2015 No.2542159

Psionics and (less seriously) the Blaster Launcher basically break the game at the tactical level, they're just too powerful and fuck over the normal tactical balance of play. (Though in your hands at least the blaster launcher has the limitation of expensive to build ammo)

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:38:06 2015 No.2542160 >>2542159 Once the first alien base gets built, all your Elerium woes are solved. :^)

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:39:07 2015 No.2542163 >>2542160 True. It's a pity supply ship piracy doesn't do anything more than tick the aliens off and get them to do retaliation missions more often.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:41:22 2015 No.2542165 am I the only one whose getting a rob liefield vibe about the Mutons?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:43:34 2015 No.2542170 >>2542165 Mutons are really a lot easier than they're given credit for. They have no particular strengths other than being hard to kill, but then by the time you encounter them, you would already have a squad armed with heavy plasma.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:44:35 2015 No.2542171 >>2542165 Can't be. Mutons have no pouches. Rob Liefield would not approve.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 21:45:48 2015 No.2542173 >>2514650 Tanks make good bait to distract aliens since they will always target them before targeting your soldiers.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 22:25:54 2015 No.2542248 >take nine (!) casualties assaulting a Floater Harvester It was bad, man. The bastards were hiding up in barns and using them as sniper's nests while the rest were waiting inside the ship to gun down my troops.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 22:26:54 2015 No.2542252 >>2542248 Harvesters have an absolutely fucked up layout and it's almost impossible to take them out without suffering casualties.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jul 15 22:28:22 2015 No.2542257 >Floater terror mission >my captain shoots one bugger three times with rifle shots (half the squad had rifles and the other half laser pistols by this early point) >he doesn't die >of course the Floater downs the captain

Anonymous Wed Jul 15 22:30:32 2015 No.2542259

>>2542257
That Floater was probably the leader. Floater officers have thicker armor than the grunts and will be harder to kill. IIRC, Floaters on the whole are a little bit more durable than Sectoids, which are like wet tissue paper and their officers do not get additional armor.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 16 00:21:04 2015 No.2542445 >>2541448 >You clearly do not have much experience with Sectoid terror sites. >Your experience is different therefor you have no experience.

Anonymous Thu Jul 16 03:22:28 2015 No.2542721

>>2542165
If you squint your eyes, it's kinda blatant they went for a comic book-like artstyle similar to the then-popular X-Men, and since Liefeld was the shit back then, I would say it's not a stretch. Hell, look at the weapons and the pouches you have in your inventory, they are basically ripped off from one of his covers.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 16 07:10:07 2015 No.2542929 >>2542171 And they have feet. Complete no-no in LiefieldWorld.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 16 12:29:37 2015 No.2543319 I love when aliens in a base or Battleship shoot an blaster bomb down a grav lift, fuck up, and blow themselves to kingdom come.

Anonymous Thu Jul 16 12:32:40 2015 No.2543325

>>2543319
Alien bases are the one mission in the game where you do not have to kill/stun all enemies to win. You need only destroy the purple consoles in the control room, after which you can then move your soldiers to the entrance lifts and click Abort to win.

>>	Anonynomus Thu Jul 16 13:12:15 2015 No.2543397 >>2543325 I've never done that. You lose all potential loot that way, except for whatever you carry to the exit zone, right? What would be the point?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 16 13:18:36 2015 No.2543412 >>2543319 That's because the game has a bug when you aim BB waypoints downward.

Anonymous Thu Jul 16 13:59:40 2015 No.2543475
File: 20 KB, 369x253, UFO_130MAP-L1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>2542248
Harvesters aren't that bad once you have heavy plasma since you can just cut an additional doorway. My research path usually goes Laser Pistol -> Laser Rifle -> Alien Alloys -> Personal Armor -> Sectoid Navigator -> Hyper Wave Decoder -> Medi-Kit -> Heavy Plasma -> Heavy Plasma Clip. That way, I usually have HP by mid-March and in time for the third terror mission.

If you happen to get a Harvest mission in February when you're still carrying laser weapons, then it's a bit of a problem unless you're one of those guys who starts researching heavy plasma in January.

Anonymous Thu Jul 16 14:02:12 2015 No.2543481

>>2543475
Not that UFOpedia is the epitome of accuracy, but...

"Keep in mind that Floaters (and Ethereals, if you catch them slumming in this ship) can use that deadfall door without trouble."

Ethereals never do Harvest missions so this will not be an issue. It's almost always Sectoids/Floaters in the early game and Mutons in the late game. On rare occasion, Snakemen.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 16 14:14:52 2015 No.2543512 If you get an early Harvest mission in the game, it's a good place to pick up an alien leader/commander because the mission sequence ends with a Battleship showing up.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jul 16 14:17:39 2015 No.2543516 >>2543475 >tfw you realize that you can shoot the cow's head off >tfw you realize someone on the dev team was fucked up enough to actually program this into the game and design a graphic for a decapitated cow

Anonymous Thu Jul 16 17:07:44 2015 No.2543854

I usually bag a Sectoid navigator on one of the large scouts that comes to do the January research mission. Sometimes it's easy, other times it requires a frustrating amount of save scumming to pull off.

>UFO lands in the Midwestern US
>go after it
>try about 7-8 times to capture that damn navigator and end up fucking shit up in ways I never imagined possible

Finally after yet another run where I got half my squad killed and still failed to take the navigator alive, I said "Why am I doing this? Why don't I just shoot the damn thing down instead of trying to assault an intact UFO that can have up to 12 aliens on it?"

So reloaded the game, had an Interceptor hover over the landed ship until it got up, whereupon I shot it down and sent my troops after it. In one attempt, I captured the navigator alive with only two casualties, one of whom was intentional b8 to absorb the nav's reaction shots so my other guys could stun rod him.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 13:26:19 2015 No.2545653

>>2515185
I loved that game, the setting is just perfect, so many different corporations, criminal gangs fighting each other, crazy cult that loves aliens.
You could raid anyone you wanted for equiptments, or to cause havoc in their buildings.

>Watching crazy battles between big mother ufo and all the vehicles I could put a weapon on, missiles missing targets and destroying city blocks.
>Few armored cars shooting missiles, one heavy hitter spaceship, random policecars out of nowhere, and a million cheap flying bikes.

I think I just go reinstall it.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 15:08:43 2015 No.2545805
File: 53 KB, 656x439, screen2.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Check it out. That's 6 dead Sectoids lined up in a row. This was a particularly nasty terror mission that cost me 7 soldiers, but thank Jesus it was during the day. The soldier I had selected here (Nurse Joy) was a psy weakling that I had to disarm for half the mission. After the Sectoid leader was dead, I let her have her gun back and she eventually met her end trying to take down a Cyberdisc.

With 7 guys remaining, I sent one on a suicide mission to scout out the last allium, but she found nothing. Another soldier found the punk hiding behind a house and promptly got killed by reaction fire. I sent three guys out to get him and they did.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 15:39:56 2015 No.2545871 >plasma shot comes out of nowhere >fire rocket at suspicious-looking tree or hedgerow >alien death sound I love doing that.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 16:54:49 2015 No.2546017

>take down large scout in France
>since I suspect we won't get there before dark, take along the flares
>yeah it's dark
>blast one alien hiding in a shed
>next to the Skyranger is another shed with an open door
>drop HE next to the shed and run
>next turn, an explosion happens, but it's smaller than what an HE produces
>I don't fucking believe what just happened
>the alien hiding back there threw a grenade at my squad, which blew the shed up and destroyed my HE so it never went off
>next turn, shoots one of my squaddies and fatally wounds her
>fucking crap, I forgot to take the medi kits
>well she's dead
>kill the little gray fucker
>send guy up to the UFO, hock HE through the diagonal wall, kill the aliens on the bridge
>send my team to the front door of the UFO
>alien pops out, takes a shot, and misses
>line my soldiers up to reaction fire him on the next turn
>he fires and we fire back
>alien dead, but one soldier took a minor wound and the other a fatal wound
>peep into the UFO, but no sign of life or sound of doors opening
>it's obvious the last guy is outside, but fucking shit, now I have to search for him in the dark
>send the fatally wounded guy on a recon mission hoping to explore as much of the map as I can before he keels over
>go around the end of the UFO, approach a wheat field, and shots ring out
>throw flare and illuminate the alien
>knowing the soldier has almost no health left and his accuracy is in the toilet, I bite my tongue and open fire
>the alien goes down and my guy survives the mission with exactly three health remaining
That's two "I don't fucking believe it" moments in one mission.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:36:09 2015 No.2546197

>detect Battleship up in the Arctic
>bravely decide to go after it
>Skyranger touches down
>throw out smoke grenade
>next turn, Chryssalid walks past the Skyranger
>send multiple guys out with an auto cannon, but their shots have no effect
>blast him with laser rifle fire
>dumb rookie misses
>now there's six guys standing like two squares next to this Chryssalid, all of them at his mercy
>rather than hit the "End Turn" button, I hit the Close Program button on DOSBox
Fuck. That. Shit.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:38:35 2015 No.2546208 >>2546197 >detect Battleship up in the Arctic The only thing that ship could be doing up there is setting up a base. If you could take the aliens out, the base won't get built.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:40:04 2015 No.2546216 >>2546208 I know, but this assumes I don't get half my squad raped by Chryssalids or a Blaster Bomb. Battleships are evil stuff, mang.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:43:16 2015 No.2546227 >>2546216 Eh? Just use the trick mentioned in >>2539368

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:46:34 2015 No.2546237 On the plus side, I saved just before going after the Battleship and it touched down on Novaya Zemlya, so if I ignore it, I at least know exactly where the alien base is. :^)

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:48:22 2015 No.2546241

>>2546237
You may as well go after the Battleship rather than let the base get built. It's pretty much the same shit, but a little easier because a UFO doesn't have a random layout like alien bases. Unless it lands at night, in which case you're fucked.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:49:30 2015 No.2546245 >>2546241 It did land during daytime (thank god). I might try again and this time put my riflemen out in front instead of the auto cannon guys since they'd be more effective against Chryssalids (auto cannon rounds won't do anything to them).

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:51:01 2015 No.2546246 >Snakeman battleship Well that's not so bad anyway because there's no psionics and Chryssalids are the only real concern for you.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 18:52:52 2015 No.2546247 Reapers are the only terrorists that auto cannon rounds do anything to.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 21:23:41 2015 No.2546478

Went after that Battleship and ho baby, what a slaughter! Snakeys were falling like Aunt Sallys. Also Chryssalids are nothing but target practice when it's not a terror site. I parked my guys outside the entrance lift and blazed away at them execution-style. The Snakemen soon started panicking and dropping their weapons and eventually I got a message that the commander and leader panicked. Eventually I spotted a weaponless Snakeman running in and out of the entrance lift. So I got one guy to poke him with a stun rod and it turned out to be (drum roll) the commander hisself. And would you believe it, my soldiers never set foot inside the UFO for the entire mission. So it's only March and I basically have everything I need to beat the game except a Sectoid leader/commander for psionics. Plus taking out the Battleship prevents the alien base from getting built.

And all it cost me were two soldiers at the very start of the mission when a Snakeman reaction fired them.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 21:32:54 2015 No.2546489 >>2546478 Great, now try the same mission with a Sectoid Battleship and get back to me. Your soldiers will be running home to Mommy, at least the few that didn't get gunned down by Cyberdiscs.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 21:45:07 2015 No.2546523

>>2546489
>Sectoid Battleship
Not _that_ hard. Just disarm your psy weaklings before the start of the mission. I found that in a 14-man squad, usually about 2 are vulnerable to mind control. Cyberdiscs are definitely an issue though as even if you have Power Suits, they can still waste your guys.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 21:57:39 2015 No.2546538

I once shot down a Sectoid Terror Ship and got horribly butchered when I sent my troops after it. Tried reloading my save game about 20x and failed in spectacular, unbelievable fashion every time.

Of course I was an idiot who didn't remember to research personal armor and it was March, so I just had naked soldiers armed with laser rifles. If I did that, I could have had a chance.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 22:02:58 2015 No.2546549 >>2546538 Terror Ships in theory should be easier since they have fewer aliens and no Blaster Bombs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Jul 17 22:05:08 2015 No.2546553 >>2546549 Battleships are actually somewhat easier since there's only one entrance which you can easily surround. Terror ships have two widely spaced entrances.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 22:10:37 2015 No.2546565

It's harder to bag a Terror Ship since they only appear in two mission types (Terror and Infiltration) and they only land in the second one. If the thing is crewed by Mutons/Floaters/Snakemen, it will be cake. No Blaster Launchers and Terror Ships have a really simple layout.

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 22:13:34 2015 No.2546569

Battleships and Terror Ships can actually be a serious nuisance if they're crewed by Sectoids, Floaters, or Ethereals since those have double-width terrorists who can spawn on the upper floors and get trapped in there.

>kill all Sectoids on a Battleship
>there's a Cyberdisc stuck in some room on Level 2
>have to go up there and get it
>it has tons of reaction fire when you approach the room

Anonymous Fri Jul 17 22:18:44 2015 No.2546581

>Snakeman emerges from the Battleship's entryway with a Blaster Launcher
Oh shi...FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SHOOT THAT THING.

>one of my riflemen handily takes him down

Thank you, I almost had a stroke right there.

Also I was a bit disappointed that when the Snakeman leader/commander panicked, they didn't shoot off a BB inside the ship because that would have been fucking awesome.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 15:55:30 2015 No.2547783 >tfw the US gets infiltrated and signs a pact with the ayys >tfw you lose 40% of your funding and go bankrupt I hate when that happens.

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:12:32 2015 No.2547819

>>2547783
I never thought losing a country or two to infiltration was that big of a deal since most of your income will be generated by selling laser cannons and surplus alien crap.

If you can delay the second battleship in the mission until the end of the month, you will still keep that country as a funding nation...until the next month. Once the second battleship shows up, it's over. Even if you shoot the battleship down halfway across the globe from the target region, the infiltration is still complete.

t. you can't actually do anything to stop infiltration from succeeding - taking out all the UFOs gets you lots of points on your game score and loot to sell, but it won't stop the shit

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:14:01 2015 No.2547824 >>2547819 I think the programmers did this on purpose to prevent the game from going on forever. You must get your ass out to Cydonia before all your funding nations (except Russia which is immune to infiltration) sign a pact with the aliens.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:15:01 2015 No.2547826 >>2547824 >except Russia which is immune to infiltration I didn't know that Russia can't be infiltrated.

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:17:50 2015 No.2547829

>>2547824
Ha ha, actually it's impossible for all nations to be infiltrated because the game never repeats alien missions in the same region. Thus if one country in Europe gets infiltrated, the others won't.

>>2547826
I'm not sure if this was an intentional design feature or a glitch caused by Russia occupying two regions (Europe and Siberia) which would make infiltration impossible. Also note that the game never puts infiltration missions in Siberia.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:19:08 2015 No.2547832 >>2547829 Aight, so if they infiltrated all regions, you could lose the US, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Germany, China, Australia, and India. That would be one infiltrated country per region. Still a lot of members and most of your funding.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:20:10 2015 No.2547834 >>2547832 True, but then again the game designers were working under the assumption you'd be on your way to Cydonia well before that happens. If you play the game properly, you're ready for Cydonia by July-August.

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 16:23:10 2015 No.2547839

>>2547829
Yeah, it's probably a bug. I built my base on Crete and I never had it attacked once as a result of a retaliation mission. The aliens would come to Europe, search all the funding countries, and leave empty-handed. I suspect that the game programming is such that they never look in the Mediterranean.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 17:24:46 2015 No.2547924 What are Game Over conditions? Loosing set number of countries? Doing so bad that they cut your founding to zero?

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 17:27:28 2015 No.2547930 >>2547924 1. Aliens destroy all your bases 2. Get a negative score two months in a row 3. Be in debt two months in a row 4. Go to Cydonia and lose

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 17:35:47 2015 No.2547945

>>2546478
>Also Chryssalids are nothing but target practice when it's not a terror site

You know, it's funny because I was watching an X-COM LP on Youtube and this guy is frantically shooting Chryssalids with laser rifles and needs like 6-7 hits to drop them, but I only needed 2-3.

But he was playing the CD version of UFO Defense and I'm playing the floppy version so they might have changed some things around. The CD version also has different alien death sounds, which I prefer to the ones in the floppy version.

Anonynomus Sat Jul 18 19:45:36 2015 No.2548145

>>2547945
You might be suffering from the difficulty bug. There's a bug in unpatched versions of the game that resets the difficulty to Beginner for the rest of the game after the first mission, regardless of what you chose at the beginning.

All aliens have improved stats on higher difficulties, making them harder to kill.

>>	Anonymous Sat Jul 18 20:07:21 2015 No.2548192 >>2548145 Dude...I did patch the difficulty bug and it's on Superhuman. I seriously do think they must have tweaked some things in the CD version.

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 21:48:43 2015 No.2548413

>fucking nighttime terror site
>touch down and peer into darkness
>wait one turn so aliens won't have full reaction fire
>suddenly plasma shots everywhere
>four soldiers go down before I even stepped off the Skyranger
>shoot around some incendiary ammo to light the place up
>there's four fucking Sectoids and a Cyberdisc about six squares away

Now that's what I call bullshit.

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 23:02:59 2015 No.2548602

The game AI is pretty stupid; for example, Floaters can go up staircases, but not back down again. Once a Floater goes onto the upper floor of a building, it's stuck there unless a hole gets shot in the wall.

Conversely, this same glitch happens when a soldier in a flying suit gets mind-controlled. The AI can't figure out how to walk him down stairs, only up.

Anonymous Sat Jul 18 23:06:44 2015 No.2548610

>>2547819
Right; you can't prevent infiltration from happening. Other missions can be be prevented if you shoot down the final UFO in the sequence. For example, take out the Battleship in a base mission and no base gets built. Shoot down a Terror Ship and no terror mission.

Also every time a UFO lands and successfully takes off, the aliens get points added to their score.

Anonynomus Sun Jul 19 05:50:27 2015 No.2549105

>>2548192
I've never heard of there being differences in alien stats between different versions (aside from the bug), but you could always make sure by using a mind probe on a chryssalid or some other alien and seeing their stats match up with what's listed on UFOpaedia.

Anonymous Sun Jul 19 10:22:04 2015 No.2549350

>shoot down Sectoid terror ship in Germany with the hope of getting a leader and psionics
Welp, that cost me 8 soldiers+one of my Interceptors died taking down the terror ship and...I ended up killing the leader anyway. What a waste.

After fighting several Cyberdiscs on the way from the Skyranger to the UFO, I managed to kill the remaining aliens in a battle around the right entrance. They all came out to greet me and I picked them off one-by-one, unfortunately that included the leader (not that I knew that). Then a Sectoid medic panicked out in a barn somewhere. After another bullshit death to a Cyberdisc inside the UFO (thankfully the last one), I went upstairs to the bridge, but it was empty. Dammit. So we trudged outside to the barn, spotted the last ayy, and bombed the wall to remove his cover. Of course he reaction fired and killed one guy before being taken down.

I hated this mission, I really did. I had to save practically every turn because there was about a 60% chance each one of a guy being mind controlled or gunned down by Cyberdiscs.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 19 12:02:12 2015 No.2549476 Little fun fact: The Battlescape is normally 50x50x4, but if you're taking on a Small or Medium Scout, it's only 40x40x4. Alien bases are 50x50x2 and X-Com bases are 60x60x2. t. if it's the two smallest UFOs, you get a smaller map to fight in

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 19 12:13:25 2015 No.2549486 >>2549476 I guess this made sense from a design standpoint so you wouldn't be chasing aliens around the map for hours.

Anonymous Sun Jul 19 12:15:48 2015 No.2549491

>>2549486
True, but terror sites and alien bases still have the normal 50x50 map. I really, really hate chasing down the last alien on a terror site, because it's usually nighttime, your squad is half dead and low on ammunition by that point, and the faggot can hide somewhere and reaction fire you to death.

By my reckoning, you also get nighttime terror sites about 60% of the time. I practically fall on my knees and thank Jesus when I do get a daytime one.

Anonymous Sun Jul 19 12:20:04 2015 No.2549493

>>2549350
This kind of drove home the point of how fucking hard Sectoids can be when they're on anything bigger than a scout ship. I wrecked that Snakeman battleship almost effortlessly, but I lost most of my troops taking this smaller UFO with no Blaster Launchers on it.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 19 12:23:08 2015 No.2549498 >>2549493 I think Terror Ships are harder than Battleships because they have two entrances, making it easy for aliens to outflank you. Battleships just have that one central entrance which you can easily surround and pick them off as they come outside.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 19 12:24:24 2015 No.2549501 >>2549498 Yeah I was a little disappointed that I never got to actually go inside that Snakeman Battleship and explore it, but getting a live commander and Blaster Launchers is well worth it.

Anonymous Sun Jul 19 18:03:56 2015 No.2550102

>>2547839
Can confirm. The aliens only look inside funding countries for your base, so if you don't build it there, they'll never find you. Also they never build bases inside a funding country's borders during a base construction mission (bases created as a result of infiltration are always in a country's border).

Anonymous Sun Jul 19 20:35:25 2015 No.2550615

If you're so inclined, you can skip building a Lightning/plasma cannons entirely and just rely on Interceptors/Skyrangers until it's Avenger time. Two Interceptors with twin Avalanches will shoot down all UFOs except Supply Ships and Battleships and you shouldn't be shooting those down anyway.

>>	Anonymous Sun Jul 19 23:44:47 2015 No.2551067 >>2547930 >Get a negative score two months in a row On Beginner, this will be if you score -900 two months in a row and on Superhuman, -400 two months in a row.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 01:01:31 2015 No.2551241 >>2543397 >You lose all potential loot that way, except for whatever you carry to the exit zone, right? Actually no, simply destroying the command consoles is enough to win.

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 01:27:55 2015 No.2551282

Your soldiers' morale rating is critically important because it tells you how well the mission is going. If your morale is at 100%, it means your squad is either equal in numbers or greater than the aliens. If it starts dropping, the aliens outnumber you and you're losing.

Anonynomus Mon Jul 20 06:39:50 2015 No.2551627

>>2551241
So you actually get all the elerium, alien artefacts etc. on the map just by destroying the command center and then aborting the mission with at least one guy in the exit zone, and none of your people go MIA? Sounds like base assaults would be almost too easy that way.

Does that work in TFTD as well?

>>	Anonynomus Mon Jul 20 10:23:35 2015 No.2551876 >>2551241 I just checked UFOpaedia, and what you said seems like bullshit. >>2551282 This also sounds fishy. Are we at that point again where you start bumping the thread with misinformation just to keep it alive, hoping someone would correct you?

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 12:54:54 2015 No.2552089

>>2551627
>>2551876
>So you actually get all the elerium, alien artefacts etc. on the map just by destroying the command center and then aborting the mission
I just took out a Floater base on a game and yes, destroying the consoles does get rid of the base and give you a win, but you don't get to collect alien bodies/equipment, plus you lose all the stuff that dead soldiers were carrying. Also anyone not in the exit lift goes MIA.

t. he's only partially correct

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 13:03:40 2015 No.2552106

>>2552089
I did save the game just after destroying the command center, incidentally. There's still one guy loose somewhere and I'm going to hate finding him because bases are fucking huge and treacherous to navigate through, plus I think the one remaining guy is the engineer who would be carrying a Blaster Launcher, which is really, really nice if you run into him. I suspect it because early in the mission, a BB went off near one of the exit lifts and killed one of my guys, but the only alien with a Blaster Launcher that I took out was the leader, much later when I was at the command center.

Anonynomus Mon Jul 20 14:34:50 2015 No.2552317

>>2552089
>he's only partially correct

Nah, I think he just jumped into the conversation to throw in a confusing remark without even checking what the conversation was about. It was established at the beginning that destroying the command consoles destroys the base; my question was specifically about getting the loot.

Thanks for giving a clear answer, though.

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 15:21:25 2015 No.2552410
File: 66 KB, 597x593, 32434.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2552106
Ok, beat the damn thing. The last guy was near the east side of the map (the command center being out on the west end) and he just had a plasma rifle. Eight goddamn casualties. And this was just Floaters. I don't even want to think about what would happen if this were a Sectoid base.

>not one, but two douchebags that can use mind control (the leader and commander)
>Cyber fucking discs
>Sectoids overall have better stats than Floaters (greater firing accuracy and whatnot).

Don't try that shit unless you have Power Suits and your whole squad armed with Heavy Plasma.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 15:38:05 2015 No.2552447 >>2515185 The best of xcom imo

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 16:39:32 2015 No.2552597 File: 266 KB, 450x253, 1436928865717.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >OpenTFTD is almost done

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 17:07:20 2015 No.2552630

>>2552410
Because I felt I could do better, I waited until I researched Heavy Plasma and did the base in late March instead of the beginning of the month. This time I made sure to entrench up to my ears (by which I mean kneeling down and saving TUs for reaction fire_ and save every turn. I killed most of the guards around the command center easily, but one last faggot evaded me, leading to at least 15 turns of searching the top of the map until finally I got a message that a Floater soldier had panicked. He was way in the lower right of the map behind an elevator lift, so I just threw a grenade back there.

This time only three casualties.

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 17:08:40 2015 No.2552636
File: 27 KB, 390x265, alien sabotage.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>clean new install with final mod pack as only mod
>first playthrough without a hitch
>pic related on the second playthrough

It keeps happening on january 23, I think one of the terror missions is bugged.

What should I do?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 22:21:43 2015 No.2553392 My favorite X-Com moment? Going after a landed Sectoid Abductor with only five rookies aboard (I forgot to put new soldiers onboard) and managed to clear all the aliens with no casualties. :^)

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 23:39:24 2015 No.2553585 >that time you went after an Ethereal base with no psi-trained soldiers That was a lot of fail and AIDS.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 23:40:38 2015 No.2553590 >>2553585 Hell yeah mang, once I have a well-trained psy team, I can clear Ethereal Battleships like nothing.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 23:42:15 2015 No.2553594 >>2553585 Trick is to use a tank for scouting. Remember: You can't get mind controlled unless at least one alien can see your soldiers.

Anonymous Mon Jul 20 23:54:47 2015 No.2553621

I was following Lord Finisher's playthrough. I think what's happening (up to the point I watched) is:

January: Obligatory Sectoid research mission+Floater terror, North America
February: Sectoid infiltration, Central Asia+Floater terror, Australasia
March: Sectoid infiltration, North America+Floater terror, Europe
April: Muton base, North America+Snakeman terror, North Africa

Infiltration missions are also the lengthiest in the game and take two months to complete. This playthrough was particularly bad because he loses two X-Com members (India and the US) in as many months and has to go after the resultant Sectoid bases+the Muton base in NA.

I also watched the other playthrough he does in Antarctica, which I think goes:

January: Obligatory Sectoid research mission+Floater terror, Siberia
February: Floater base, South America+Floater terror, Central Asia
March: Sectoid infiltration, North America+Floater terror, Europe
April: Some unknown mission in South Africa, most likely Research, Abduction, or Harvest+Snakeman terror, North Africa

It also seems, based on every playthrough of UFO Defense I've seen, that the April terror mission is always Snakemen. I've never seen one where it wasn't.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 23:57:41 2015 No.2553625 >>2553621 Someone ITT claimed Mutons don't do terror in April.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jul 20 23:59:19 2015 No.2553626 >>2553625 Mutons can show up as early as March, but they never do terror attacks until May. Similarly, Snakemen can show up in February, but don't do terror until April.

Advanced search
Text to find
Subject [?]Search by post subject. Leave empty for any.
Username [?]Search for user name. Leave empty for any user name.
Tripcode [?]Search for tripcode. Leave empty for any.
Email [?]Search by email. Leave empty for any.
Filename [?]Search by image filename. Leave empty for any.
From Date [?]Enter what date to start searching from. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
To Date [?]Enter what date to start searching until. Format is YYYY-MM-DD
Image hash
Search in	All Posts OPs Only
Deleted posts	Show all posts Show only deleted posts Only show non-deleted posts
Internal posts	Show all posts Show only internal posts Show only archived posts
Order	New posts first Old posts first
Capcode	All Posts Only by Users Only by Mods Only by Admins Only by Developers
Results	Posts Threads
Action	[ Simple ]

/vr/ - Retro Games