X-COM thread...go!

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Anonymous Sun Nov 8 16:27:15 2015 No.2784492 [Reply] [Original]

X-COM thread...go!

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 18:56:27 2015 No.2784779 TFTD could look spectacular with a modern game engine.

Anonymous Sun Nov 8 19:29:19 2015 No.2784843

It's hard, very, very hard. Why? The devs were responding to feedback from UFO Defense players who complained that the game was too easy because it had the difficulty bug that nobody knew about. Certain additions to TFTD such as melee weapons were due to player suggestions as well. "Some of the aliens have melee attacks, so the player should also be able to use them."

UFO Defense never gets that hard even on Superhuman and it's almost a breeze once you know what everything does and when it does it. Knowing TFTD intimately will just help you survive a bit better.

>flying Chryssalids
>maps with bazillions of tiny rooms in them
>flying suits don't work on land
>more enemies can use psionics
>tech tree is a lot more complicated
>TFTD equivalent of laser rifles has ammo clips so you can't fire it ad infinitum
>all ranged weapons have fewer rounds in their clips than UFO
>two part base missions
>unscheduled cruise ship and trawler attacks that can happen at random with no prior warning
>mixed alien crews
>all alien bases have Lobstermen and Tentaculats manning them
>Lobstermen are damn near impossible to kill
>only Lobsterman commanders let you beat the game unlike UFO where any commander can be captured

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 19:31:41 2015 No.2784851 File: 72 KB, 300x300, 1382059105887.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >that genius who invests time on developing healthkits and whatnot Silly boy, you can't kill aliens with medikits!

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 19:32:55 2015 No.2784853 >>2784779 I, too, was waiting for the upcoming XCOM 2 to be set underwater, but sadly it's not.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 19:34:44 2015 No.2784858 >>2784843 >mixed alien crews >>all alien bases have Lobstermen and Tentaculats manning them I didn't know that.

Anonymous Sun Nov 8 19:40:48 2015 No.2784871

>>2784858
That's one way TFTD is hella more complicated to play. The alien race that puts up colonies is only responsible for building and supplying them - the base itself will always be manned by Aquatoids, Tentaculats, Hallucinoids, and Tasoths (outside portion) and Lobstermen/Tentaculats (inner portion). The outer part of colonies uses a fixed layout so you'll always get the same map there while the inner part is randomly generated.

Also you get different terrorists on terror missions than you do underwater which makes things yet more complicated.

Anonymous Sun Nov 8 20:06:28 2015 No.2784913

>>2784843

TFTD was definitely a better game, I loved it myself. Still remember the ride in the car home as a kid looking at the box 20 years later.

Some of that unpredictability could have used some tweaking, and some of the missions were just too long. It was great that the boat missions, for instance, were really hard, but it was more exhausting than anything. The multi-stage missions were just too long.

Lobstermen were a huge leap forward from Mutons though, no question. It was good that they forced you to adapt new tactics, unlike Mutons, who you could just shoot your way through with enough Heavy Plasma.

I'm still amazed by how good the AI was. 20 years later, AI still can't seem to do what it could in original X-Com.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 20:53:30 2015 No.2784962 >>2784913 Actually the AI in UFO is pretty shit. For example, the aliens not being able to pick up dropped items.

Anonymous Sun Nov 8 21:01:17 2015 No.2784969

>>2784913
Mutons aren't really any threat at all unless it's an early appearance in April when you might still be using laser rifles. Their terrorists are also pretty much of a joke. An experienced squad with heavy plasma can just mow them down like ripe grain.

Anonymous Sun Nov 8 21:04:48 2015 No.2784974

>>2784843
It can take hours to beat an alien colony or a cruise/trawler mission.

>knock some Lobsty unconscious
>while your back is turned, he wakes up
>spend another 40 turns searching for him in the maze of rooms on the ship
>since Lobstermen also can use melee attacks, they don't even need a gun to fuck your shit up

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 21:09:30 2015 No.2784978 TFTD has more atmosphere than UFO for sure. >graphics are quite grotesque-looking compared to UFO's clean blue-gray alien vessels/bases and disco floors >UFOpedia descriptions of aliens are nightmare fuel >game music is much creepier

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 8 22:04:15 2015 No.2785045 Alien colonies in Terror as compared to UD are pretty bad. I can't imagine the sadists they had as game designers.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 00:22:28 2015 No.2785246 Didn't Kikoskia's TFTD playthrough spend like 5 videos on one trawler mission? Jesus fucking Christ.

Anonymous Mon Nov 9 00:33:55 2015 No.2785258

>>2784843
>mixed alien crews

These involve strictly terror missions and do not occur until the later game. There's either Lobsterman/Tasoth or Aquatoid/Tasoth crews and the game draws them at random. Also the Transmission Resolver does not specify which crew type it is making it harder for you to prepare accordingly.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 01:41:21 2015 No.2785334 >>2784962 It also sucks at using Blaster Bombs.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 01:42:37 2015 No.2785335 >>2784962 >>2785334 >minor issues >'it's shit' This is why I don't envy game devs. They have to put up with morons like you two.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 04:48:40 2015 No.2785537 >>2784843 the trick to beating TFTD is telling every terror and night mission to fuck off

>>	Commander Anon Mon Nov 9 07:48:42 2015 No.2785724 >Aliens can shoot you while you're on the skyranger even after throwing a smoke grenade to the entrance great game senpai

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 13:48:53 2015 No.2786127 >>2785724 never had a problem with smoke grenades. apply liberally. They were all just aliens to me.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 13:59:03 2015 No.2786146 >>2785724 openxcom set bomb height to 2 smokes now cover the 2nd story of your skyranger.

Anonymous Mon Nov 9 14:51:20 2015 No.2786220

>>2785724
This can be solved by dropping a second smoke grenade in the Skyranger, but unless all your soldiers have power armor, they'll quickly pass out from smoke inhalation so you'll need to get them outside quickly. Actually happened to me on a terror mission. A Floater dropped the soldier who was carrying a primed smoke grenade so the thing blew inside the Skyranger and I had to rush everyone out before they became unconscious.

Anonymous Mon Nov 9 14:56:27 2015 No.2786227

>>2785537
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp53tmMOaeQ

Here's Lord Finisher's TFTD playthrough. He actually does just that by exploiting the trick where you can stop, patrol, and move towards the terror site to burn time until daylight arrives. I've done it on UFO from time to time, but avoiding night missions in TFTD is far more important to your survival.

Also you'll want to avoid attacking colonies during night because of the outside portion (inside part it doesn't matter).

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 9 17:34:28 2015 No.2786525 >>2786146 Alright I'll try that, though it does feel like cheating.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 10 02:22:00 2015 No.2787347 Gillman stun bomb just stunned my whole team except for my SWS. ...25 turns already, should I keep waiting until they wake up?

Anonymous Tue Nov 10 02:35:32 2015 No.2787364

Turn 205 now and nobody's woken up yet. I know they were unconscious, and I know no grenades have been thrown at their bodies, so unless the Deep One hanging around the Triton quietly attacked them all when they were unconscious...

I dunno what's going on.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 10 15:39:53 2015 No.2788237 >>2787347 That's why you don't keep all your soldiers bunched up in a huge mass. Bad things almost always happen there.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 10 15:56:45 2015 No.2788254 wow I had pretty much my whole team watching this entrance to the space craft on time. door opens up grenade flies out, takes out team. shit was hillarious.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 10 23:35:45 2015 No.2788851 >arrive at terror site >it's daytime and it's Floaters >this is gonna be complete cake >turn 2 >Floater strolls past the Skyranger and throws a grenade inside >12 soldiers killed and the remaining two mortally wounded ...

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 11 17:28:10 2015 No.2790040 >>2785246 >Kikoskia's My man. I've actually only seen part of ShadowHawk2012's EU playthrough. Is this game really that shitty?

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 11 18:58:16 2015 No.2790156 >>2784853 Ahh, but they have announced they will be offering extensive mod support. Waaaay more than the original. So someone could maybe... modify ittttt.....?

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 00:03:08 2015 No.2790647

TFTD is actually more varied than EU, but the tactical maps are larger, so the battles take longer; and I think that makes it more likely to become monotonous after awhile.

You don't need to recover every alien sub that shows up. If you don't need the money/Zrbite/combat experience, then just ignore the crash site.

Terror missions are quite tedious to play through, especially the ship missions, but you can just arrive there and dust off. If you did well enough over the month, you won't get a negative rating. After you've recovered Deep Ones and Calcinites, you don't really need anything else from terror missions and the latter are optional and not required to finish the game.

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 00:09:15 2015 No.2790650

>>2790647
>TFTD is actually more varied than EU

This is true because it added different kinds of terror missions, the terror species on ships and the ones on terror sites being different, artefact missions which are a kind of mix of terror sites and alien bases, the two-parter missions, and mixed alien crews.

On the other hand, colonies are a little less varied because they always have the same aliens manning them (Aquatoids, Hallucinoids, Tentaculats, Tasoths, and Lobstermen).

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 00:10:30 2015 No.2790652 The trawler/cruise ship missions don't happen until later in the game and they can be a serious bitch when you have to search through 50 rooms to find that last alien.

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 00:16:19 2015 No.2790665

You should be able to filch Zrbite from any landed sub just like you could pilfer Elerium in EU. Of course one way they made TFTD more difficult is that Zrbite can be found scattered around the ship and not just in the engines. On the one hand, if the power supplies blew up, you can still get Zrbite but on the other hand, you need to be more careful about destroying the insides of the sub.

Just like EU, one of the easiest sources of Zrbite is by raiding Supply Ships when they come to service colonies especially if they're manned by Gillmen (since alien commanders aren't present on supply ships, there's no risk of psionic attacks).

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 00:24:46 2015 No.2790675

To speed it up:

Don't savescum, it's more fun anyway

Concentrate on the objectives in colony and artifact missions instead of trying to hunt down and kill all aliens

Avoid shipping routes and Lobsterman missions if possible.

Kill colonies by two pwt tanks and sonic tank for escort, this will also reduce ship activity.

6-8 PWT defenses will keep aliens from retaliating on your bases.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 00:27:35 2015 No.2790678 I hate colonies too and like to be rid of them as quickly as possible, but if I get one that's built by Gillmen, then I'll leave it up as an easy source of loot from the supply ships, plus good way to train rookies.

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 03:07:02 2015 No.2790848

>>2790665
Why you would even do that? The small cruiser ships, the dick looking ones, for some reason or another rarely have their ion accelerators blow up if they crash, which means you can get an easy 50 Zrbite from almost each one of them, and at the same time hamper the alien missions. Zrbite and Aqua Plastics aren't even a problem, storage space is.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 18:30:25 2015 No.2792006 bump

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 19:56:50 2015 No.2792161

For everybody using OpenXCOM, you can turn off the annoying UI animations by changing src/Interface/Window.cpp line 30 to:
const double Window::POPUP_SPEED = 1.0;

This will make it act like the original did with a fast CPU (the animation was intended, but speed was uncapped so it went too fast to see).

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 20:41:04 2015 No.2792210 Am I correct that you can't learn psionics from an Aquatoid like you could with Sectoids in EU?

Anonymous Thu Nov 12 20:45:20 2015 No.2792218

>>2792210
It's true. You learn psionics by capturing a live Tasoth (strangely even a soldier will work although they can't use psionics). Aquatoid engineers, navigators, and commanders can all use psionics but you don't learn it from capturing them for some reason. Same with Gillman commanders, they're psy-capable as well but of no use for learning it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 20:46:58 2015 No.2792225 >>2792218 This is one thing that makes TFTD harder - more aliens can use mind control. Aquatoids even on small ships are capable of it while in EU, you never had to worry about Sectoid scout vessels.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 21:13:53 2015 No.2792275 >>2784853 It'd have been Apoc if anything considering the guys behind XCOM love Gollop and he had nothing to do with TFTD.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 21:56:07 2015 No.2792340 >>2784492 I just started a TFTD Superhuman Ironman attempt. I already did UFO SH IM, it can't be that much harder... I've done two missions so far, landed aquatoid subs. Heavy casualties but making good money from the loot.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 22:32:29 2015 No.2792406 >>2792340 >started a new game >faced a few small scout vessels with no terrorists or PWT launchers Yeah you just wait until you have to attack a colony full of Superhuman-grade Lobstermen.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 12 23:41:53 2015 No.2792526 >>2792406 Lost the game already. This is much harder than UFO.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 00:44:55 2015 No.2792614 >>2792526 Beginner mode TFTD is about comparable to UFO on Superhuman.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 02:12:59 2015 No.2792734 >>2792210 You learn how to make a MC Lab just by researching a live Terror unit, ANY terror unit. You can screen people a lot early.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 02:17:54 2015 No.2792737

>>2792340
Wait for your first Terror mission and your end of the month resume. That's the real hard part. And get sonic weaponry researched as soon as you can, from March and on it's Lobstermen season, and everything but sonic, stun and melee is outright useless.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 19:40:41 2015 No.2793946

Well I never played TFTD before, so I decided to give it a spin. The underwater battlescapes are pretty-looking and everything has more detail than the flat, brightly-colored EU graphics. On the other hand, the color palette is very low-contrast meaning that it's hard to tell where everything is. It does seem that the underwater missions are a bit easier because there's no farm buildings and fences to annoy you, plus the TFTD Large Scout usually has holes blown in the side if the power supplies exploded.

The game does force you to revise some strategies that worked so well on EU. For example, the TFTD equivalent of the auto cannon and rocket launcher won't work on land (I use these regularly in EU until getting heavy plasma/Blaster Launchers).

In EU, you will normally want to build three bases - in Europe, North America, and East Asia which will cover the majority of your funding nations. TFTD's map layout makes this unnecessary. A base in the North Atlantic covers the US and Europe both at once so you only need one other facility in the East Asia/Pacific area.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 19:42:06 2015 No.2793948 >>2792737 Really, February since if a colony gets built, you're going to have to fight Lobstermen although they're not common until April.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:31:50 2015 No.2794012

I hate Lobstermen more than any other alien in the entire X-COM series.

The first encounter, armed with gauss rifles: 14 soldiers 12 hits! 0 kills! It shoots back killing 1 soldier....K

Second round: I move several troops up in support and pour fire into one Lobsterman! Zero kills! It throws a grenade at me and kills 8 guys!

Then its friends show up now so its 6 on 3. And now I can use the gas cannons I brought. Zero kills!! They snipe 4 guys!

I swear repeatedly and move whats left of my squad back to the triton.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:34:05 2015 No.2794017 >>2794012 Gauss rifles just don't cut it against Lobstermen. You should instead research sonic weapons ASAP. Or try using a Themic Lance or stun bombs - they hate those.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:38:54 2015 No.2794021

>>2794017
Lobstermen are easy to stun yes, but beware that they still have melee attack if they lose their weapons. Sonic cannons dispatch with them pretty handily, but the best advice is to avoid taking on the orange devils entirely in February-March. If you get a colony built early in the game, leave it alone until April except to maybe plunder its supply ships if they're crewed by Gillmen.

Also of course Ion Armor greatly improves your soldiers' survivability.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:41:25 2015 No.2794023

>>2794021
Stun a Lobsterman? Just drop a grenade on it. Even when they're not unconscious, grenades are still a decent method of dispatching with Lobstys. They usually won't kill them, but should do enough damage that your troops' shoulder arms can finish the bugger off.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:42:30 2015 No.2794027 >>2794017 Don't use the heavy thermic lance btw the regular one works almost as good and is much lighter.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:44:34 2015 No.2794029 >>2794023 Not really, no. Lobstermen are resistant to explosives just like Mutons in EU. The sonic pulsar (TFTD equivalent of alien grenades in EU) won't do too much damage to them, the more powerful high ex does some. Thermic lances=easy knockout.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:50:04 2015 No.2794034

TFTD starts to get a _lot_ more difficult in April when Lobstermen start making regular appearances. You'll get taken by surprise pretty badly after months of fighting pudding-cup Aquatoids and Gillmen. They can appear even in February-March, but it's rare. Generally speaking, don't fight Lobstermen if you're not tooled out for it. Especially if you happen to get them in February-March.

And of course all colonies are manned by Lobstermen, which means if you get one built early in the game, limit yourself to looting its supply vessels and don't attack the colony itself until April-May.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:51:55 2015 No.2794036 I've never OHKOed a Lobsterman even with a Sonic Cannon.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:53:12 2015 No.2794037 >>2794036 Depends on the difficulty level. On Beginner mode, all aliens have 50% less armor than higher levels, so you should be able to OHKO them pretty easily.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:54:32 2015 No.2794041 First time I encountered these I managed to knock one out, sent a guy over to pick the 'specimen' up and move it away from the fighting so I could research post-mission...fuck, why didn't someone tell me that Lobstermen have a melee attack.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 20:55:33 2015 No.2794042 Just knock a bunch of them out with a stun bomb. Then drop a grenade on their passed-out bodies.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 21:32:05 2015 No.2794082 Triscenes make you want to cry. TFTD's version of the Sectopod. Until you realize that they really, really hate grenades. ;)

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 21:51:23 2015 No.2794109

Sonic rifles are generally better than the sonic cannon, but later in the game the aliens don't use as many of them so it can be harder to get clips. Unlike UFO Defense where the plasma rifle completely vanishes in September, the aliens never stop carrying sonic rifles.

Late game most aliens have sonic cannons and in colonies, all of them have blaster launchers although this can be somewhat of an advantage since they can't reaction fire you.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 22:56:59 2015 No.2794195 >>2794012 >Second round: I move several troops up in support and pour fire into one Lobsterman! Zero kills! It throws a grenade at me and kills 8 guys! That's why you pay the price for bunching your troops up in a huge mass.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:12:53 2015 No.2794213

How are you supposed to deal with aliens hiding at the top of your air-lock? I just lost a base defense because a deep one was hiding there and it killed anybody who came near. I couldn't get a grenade up there. In retrospect I could have swarmed it with a lot of expendable aquanauts all at once. Any other option?

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:37:54 2015 No.2794248 >>2794213 The fuck did this happen? Deep Ones can't even reaction fire you.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:39:14 2015 No.2794250 >>2794109 Sonic cannons are only useful for elite-level soldiers with high firing accuracy and strength.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:45:25 2015 No.2794259

>>2794248
I'm playing in OpenXCOM if that makes a difference. I'm pretty sure it was a deep one (gillman terror unit), although I've never successfully recovered one alive or dead so maybe it wasn't. But it doesn't match any other alien in the wiki so I'm pretty sure it is a deep one, and they definitely reaction fire in OpenXCOM.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:47:12 2015 No.2794260

>>2794250
Sonic Cannons are excellent sniper weapons. You should only fire them beyond line of sight at aliens somebody else spotted. Strength doesn't matter because your snipers don't need to carry anything else because they should never get near an alien.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:51:03 2015 No.2794264 >>2793946 Alaska and Neo-Mexico are also immune to alien infiltration similar to Russia in EU.

Anonymous Fri Nov 13 23:54:23 2015 No.2794265

UFO Defense has the Superhuman Antarctica Challenge. In TFTD, this would be the Pacific Challenge where you put your only base in the North Pacific, a region with no funding nations.

I actually thought Antarctica in TFTD has no funding nations, but actually it does. The region overlaps part of Australia and Brazil.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 00:38:12 2015 No.2794321 >>2794259 You know that you can't beat the game without both live and dead specimens of those guys.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 11:11:41 2015 No.2794965

>>2793948
Fuck those colonies. Unless I feel prepared and I have all the stuff I need to tackle them (good armors and weapons), I leave them be. What matters is getting those terror missions and cruise/cargo ships sorted out. Now those matter a lot more in your monthly resume.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 11:19:10 2015 No.2794978

>>2794023
Lobstermen have 70% resistance to explosives. And then there is their armor value. They can survive a direct hit from a DPL, and they will if they feel inclined to.

Explosives don't mean shit for Lobstermen. Unless they are stunned and on the ground, because then they are considered as a ground object, with moderate damage resistance. Then you can kill them with a pulser, although you also lose whatever they dropped that is not more sonic pulsers.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 20:17:51 2015 No.2796116

>>2794965
My current game it's March and I have a colony up and running not far from my base, but I'm not gonna go near that thing until I have everyone armed with sonic weapons and possibly PWT launchers. On the plus side, it was put up by Gillmen so I can just loot the supply ships for the time being.

BIG difference from UFO Defense where if you get an alien base constructed in February and you just rush in, shoot a couple of Floaters with your laser rifles, and you're done in about 15-20 minutes.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 20:19:54 2015 No.2796126 Best way of handling colonies is just firing a PWT round into the Synonium Device chamber and then dusting off ASAP.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 20:27:00 2015 No.2796153 In Lord Finisher's TFTD LP, about 30% of the entire series is spent on one freaking colony and he's only playing on Beginner mode (ie. 14 aliens max).

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 20:27:58 2015 No.2796158

>>2794321
Yes, that's why I was making such an effort to capture one. It turns out that the OpenXCOM devs consider their lack of reaction fire in the original to be a bug, and won't change it. But I guess this compensates for the removal of the 80 item limit, so overall difficulty isn't much different. Melee units can reaction attack in OpenXCOM too.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 20:32:59 2015 No.2796170

>first terror mission of the game
>bring stun rods to bag a live Deep One
>touch down and there's a Deep One a few squares from the Triton
>wow that was lucky
>stun him and then go to work on the rest of the mission
>after cleaning out most of the aliens, there's still more left and I can't find them despite exploring virtually all there is of the map
>eventually find a Deep One hiding in the lower left corner of the map and kill him, but there's still another guy left
>after several more turns, we hit turn 20
>I'm hoping now the aliens can see us and this douchebag will come out from his hidey-hole, but no
>finally get tired of this bullshit, grab one of the Deep One corpses, load it into the Triton, then pick up the unconscious Deep One and load him into the ship
>dust off

Yeah fuck that shit. Besides, I got what I came for. Also one of my soldiers ended up MIA because the game decided to be retarded. I had her standing on the second floor of a building and for some reason, could not move her without the game crashing.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:15:52 2015 No.2796412 Colonies are probably the single worst part of TFTD and the biggest difference over UFO Defense.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:18:50 2015 No.2796415

Avoid shooting down Lobsterman ships as much as possible so you don't trigger a retaliation mission because a Lobsterman base defense is not something you want to deal with. If you shoot down their terror ships to prevent a terror mission from happening, sure, but other than that try not to do it.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:23:16 2015 No.2796423

>>2794264
I don't think this is actually true because I checked ACTS.DAT and it does have infiltration enabled for those regions. On the other hand, Eurasia, Arabian Bloc and Africa Corp should be immune to infiltration because there's no MISSIONS.DAT tables for their regions which means that alien missions cannot occur there.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:33:14 2015 No.2796442 I suppose it is a slight advantage that sonic weapons have no auto fire because the aliens have a harder time landing a shot on your soldiers, although of course you also have more trouble hitting them.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:34:23 2015 No.2796443 >>2796415 Also in general, avoid fighting Lobstermen on anything bigger than a medium scout.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:46:50 2015 No.2796464 I'm not completely sure how TFTD determines the terrain type for underwater battles. UFO just has several terrain types (farmland, jungle, ice etc) but in TFTD it seems like the terrain is just picked at random.

Anonymous Sat Nov 14 22:53:19 2015 No.2796487

>>2796464
I think it has to do with the depth the alien sub is travelling at. The faster it's going, the greater the depth. Deeper and shallower water has different terrain features. Shallow water would be those maps with wrecked airplane parts laying around, medium depth has rocky ridges and coral, and deep water has weird lava flows and stuff.

I'm not sure why they did it this way and didn't just make it that there's terrain with different depths like continental shelves because it doesn't make a lot of sense to shoot down an alien sub in the middle of the Pacific and get shallow water because the thing was travelling at like 600 knots.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 00:09:40 2015 No.2796647

I don't think I'd play this thing unless it was modded with XComUtil. Or on Beginner, with a printed hint sheet in front of me.
Multi-level alien bases and terror missions? Blaster Launcher free for all? Nerfed laser weapon equivalent? No auto shot on alien weapons, and so many TUs used up for every little thing?

Aliens built like walking battle tanks all over the place?
I wonder if they even bothered to playtest this thing pre-release.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 00:41:13 2015 No.2796702

>>2796647
>Aliens built like walking battle tanks all over the place?

Infact Lobstermen have the same stat distribution and resistances as Mutons, the reason they're so much more of a headache is the fact that you can't just pepper them with heavy plasma auto fire. All ranged weapons in TFTD have fewer ammo rounds in their clips and the equivalent of heavy plasma carries only like ten shots per clip and doesn't have auto fire.

And ofc Lobstermen also have melee attacks if they lose their weapon.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 00:48:34 2015 No.2796723

Some aliens in TFTD are pretty much analogous to UFO Defense ones.

Aquatoid=Sectoid
Gillman=Floater
Lobsterman=Muton
Tentaculat=Chryssalid
Triscene=Sectopod
Hallucinoid=Reaper
Bio-Drone=Cyberdisc

Others don't really have a clear equivalent. For example, Tasoths have similar stat distributions to Ethereals and begin showing up at the same point in the game, but they have an abbreviated set of ranks similar to Mutons and also bravery of like 10 which makes them really freaking easy to panic. Also the grunts cannot use mind control, only leaders.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 03:01:37 2015 No.2796987 >>2796702 Lobstermen = Mutons on steroids?

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 05:32:05 2015 No.2797129

>>2796702
Lobstermen have a much better armor, especially regarding damage resistances. That's why they can resist so much, even if their actual armor is not that higher than a Muton and their health is actually lower than a Tasoth, they can mitigate lots of damage by reducing it with their serious damage resistance. That's why tacking them with the correct weapons is critical.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 09:41:53 2015 No.2797406
File: 8 KB, 546x566, 1314029819767.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>start of April
>surprise trawler mission!
>it's Tasoths and Bio-Drones
>oh goody
>clear the upper deck relatively easily
>lower deck's another story
>after something like two freaking hours, I cannot find the last Tasoths for the life of me
>I know there's two left because I get a message that a soldier and squad leader have panicked, but where the fuck are they
>finally give up, march everyone back to the entry point, and abort

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 09:48:54 2015 No.2797410

I noticed that they did make some refinements to the UFO Defense engine like if you drop a grenade on an unconscious enemy, they get turned into a corpse instead of just disappearing. In UFO, it also didn't count blowing up unconscious aliens as a kill however it does in TFTD. Also if you abort a mission, you still get to keep all alien artifacts although not corpses or unconscious aliens unless you manually put them in the Triton. Your own equipment goes MIA as well if you abort.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 09:55:55 2015 No.2797413

>Lobsterman terror in the Mediterranean
>well at least it's during the day
>mission goes fairly better than I expected and I take out most of the enemies without much difficulty (everyone is packing sonic weapons for the first time)
>last alien left is a stubborn Lobsty camping near a tower thing
>he manages to shoot one guy and grenades three more dudes before he's finally brought down

A consequence of which I lost six dudes total and ended up with a Poor rating. That's one of the iron rules of X-COM - whenever you have a really good mission and you're about to wrap things up, the last alien always ends up grenading you or firing off a blaster bomb or it's a Chryssalid and he zombifies three dudes in a row (two of them being your elite captain and sergeant).

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 10:04:54 2015 No.2797424 >>2797406 SPENDING 75 TURNS SEARCHING FOR THAT LAST ALIEN HIDING BEHIND A CRATE REALLY SUCKS. FUCK THAT SHIT.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 21:14:14 2015 No.2798705 bump

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:07:43 2015 No.2798863

Cruise ship missions are tolerable, but trawlers are a unique level of hell. They will twist your sanity and make you wish you were never born.

>spend, I dunno, 2-3 hours doing a trawler mission
>I've lost track of time by this point
>reflect on how this isn't UFO Defense at all
>good lord, this isn't UFO Defense
>just click on the mouse, move units around, shoot at aliens when I see them
>I'm practically running on autopilot by this point barely even aware of anything
>nothing but sheer adrenaline keeping me going
>my mind is completely gone

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:14:26 2015 No.2798870 It took me 50 fucking turns to find a Deep One hiding on a cruise ship mission. Fuck that shit.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:16:32 2015 No.2798873

Still think colonies are worse. After what seemed like hours trying to track down the last alien which of course remains completely static so you can't find him with a motion detector, I finally had enough and just booted up XComUtil. Found out that it was a Tentaculat hiding in a 1x1 room.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:17:54 2015 No.2798876 >>2797129 Lobstermen hate melee weapons especially the heavy thermic lance will make lobster bisque out of them.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:20:30 2015 No.2798879 You could always lob incendiary rounds at Lobstermen since fire ignores armor.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:21:34 2015 No.2798882 >>2798879 True but incendiary (phosphorous in TFTD) rounds are not very useful in water missions because they tend to only stay lit for like one turn.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:22:56 2015 No.2798883 I just hate cruise ships, don't know why though.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:24:13 2015 No.2798885

Cruise ships are hardest if you happen to miss that one closet with a Lobsterman hiding in it, but things aren't as difficult if you methodically search everything room-by-room. Cargo ship is hard to clear, especially if grenades make damage to the stairs and you don't know how to get to top of the ship.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:25:58 2015 No.2798890

>>2798885
>>2798885
The cargo ship's second level can be a pain especially if the aliens take out the stairs leading to the top of the cargo containers in the starting area. And ofc you can't use PWT launchers outside of the water so you pretty much can't even figure out where the bloody aliens are, 'cause they always seem to camp out up there.

Anonymous Sun Nov 15 23:33:56 2015 No.2798904

I had a nice round of Hunt the Wumpus on a Heavy Cruiser (TFTD's version of the Harvester). After clearing all the aliens from the outside and in the sub, I still had one holdout somewhere. Swept the outside again, nothing. Swept the sub, nothing. Then I found an elevator lift that I couldn't go down, so I figure he's in there. Unfortunately how the fuck am I supposed to get this guy since I can't shoot down the elevator lift. I waited turn after turn, even well past turn 20 since I figured he'd know where all my guys are and come after me, but no, nothing. That Tasoth wouldn't budge. I was getting desperate at this point, so on a whim a tossed a Sonic Pulser near the room (outside the craft) to see if that would make a hole big enough to see through. Bingo. There the prick stood. Killed it with Sonic Cannon head shot. Quite annoying to say the least.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 01:59:29 2015 No.2799072

Colonies really suck, but you don't have to actually kill every alien in the place. Just blow up the Synonium Device, move everyone to the exit zone, and abort. You can't get out of trawler missions that easily.

Unfortunately you have to do at least one colony mission to get a Lobsterman commander unless you're able to nab one from a Dreadnought.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 16:13:30 2015 No.2799992 Where do I find M.C. Readers in TFTD? I just cleared a touched down very small USO with no explosives, and the single alien didn't use explosives, but I still didn't find a M.C. Reader. I thought all very small USOs had them.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 19:19:10 2015 No.2800258 Is there any way to play X-COM or TFTD co-op? I don't really have any idea how it'd work, but sometimes I think, "You know, it'd be fun to play a single campaign with some of my buddies instead of everyone playing a separate one."

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 19:39:05 2015 No.2800298

>>2800258
I could see competitive play where each player manages their own XCOM organization and whoever does better receives more funding. Coop could only really work if both players had access to the same funds, maybe each player could oversee one or more bases/regions.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 19:43:41 2015 No.2800306

>>2800298
That would actually be pretty cool. Each player is given an X-COM base to manage, less resources than a standard game because you only get one base. Goal is not only to combat the alien threat, but do it more efficiently than the other guys.

I know X-COM The Two Sides had one player play as the Aliens and the other X-COM, but I felt it was a little lopsided in balance. X-COM fought a strategic war while aliens simply fought a tactical one.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 20:02:28 2015 No.2800334 >>2800306 >>2800258 OpenXcom is probably the most likely project to adopt multiplayer if any of them do. The forums hint that multiplayer might be planned in the future but they're working on porting TFTD over first.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 20:48:43 2015 No.2800402
File: 1.60 MB, 350x197, 1388257566689.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>Playing TFTD, Expert
>Shoot down alien sub on the first month.
>I've got two tanks and six seamen, explore the outside of the crashed sub, find no one.
>Shots coming from inside the sub kill two guys, so I quickly form a firing line and await the enemy to pop their head out, throw a flare inside.
>Next turn, single aquatoid shoots, kills two more guys.
>Return fire with the remaining two guys, nothing but misses from a kneeling position.
>Breach the hull with two tanks flanking the single aquatoid, they both miss their shots.
>Aquatoid kills both next turn, then proceeds to kill another guy with reaction fire before being taken down by the final remaining seaman.
>Mission ends, final tally 1 alien killed, two tanks, 5 men lost.

Debating if I should restart or not, I can't afford to replace the tanks.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 20:54:18 2015 No.2800414

>>2799992
In UFO Defense, the small scouts always have a mind probe on them but not in TFTD. I think the reason for it was because a small scout in UFO is worth so little in terms of loot that the devs decided to just throw in a mind probe because they sell for big bucks. Kind of a token prize you get from taking on small scouts.

TFTD's small scout is about the same size as a medium scout (although it still only has one alien), so you get more loot from it and they presumably didn't think it was necessary to include a mind probe. In fact the TFTD small scout can sometimes survive DUP torpedo hits while the UFO small scout gets blown up by anything bigger than a Stingray missile.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:04:26 2015 No.2800428 Also if you didn't know, mind probes are always carried by alien engineers (technicians) and navigators (squad leaders). Unlike UFO, the medium/large scout in TFTD don't have engineers at all and Aquatoid engineers can also use psionics.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:29:27 2015 No.2800472 >>2800414 >>2800428 Thanks. This makes it very difficult to get a MC reader, because I can't survive missions without using lots of explosives, and I can't identify aliens holding MC readers without already having MC readers.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:34:42 2015 No.2800484 >>2800402 Yeeeah, that's a reset scenario.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:35:36 2015 No.2800485 >>2800428 Medium scouts in UFO Defense actually don't have engineers either, they're only found on Large Scouts and up. But in TFTD, only the bigger ships have them.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:44:56 2015 No.2800501

The M.C. Reader is also much more important to your research efforts than the Mind Probe in UFO. First of all, you have to research the M.C. Lab before the M.C. Reader or you can't research the latter at all (you must have a M.C. Reader in storage when you research M.C. Lab). You also need one on hand to research the M.C. Disruptor and Generator.

Thus, the correct research path goes M.C. Lab -> M.C. Reader -> M.C. Disruptor/M.C. Generator.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:47:17 2015 No.2800506

One thing that always bothered me about X-COM was that you never see a local military fight against aliens in terror missions or anything else. It's like anything regarding aliens is completely left up to X-COM, when in reality, I'd bet every nation would be independently pursuing their own defense and research in addition to X-COM doing so as well. I get that shooting down UFOs and investigating landings is probably difficult for most nations outside of the US, Russia, and China, but I'm sure Europe would pull funding from wherever to revitalize their military to ensure they could investigate landings within their borders.

If anything, it'd be nice to see normal soldiers attempting to help you during terror missions, even if their usefulness goes to pot after a few months.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:53:11 2015 No.2800513

>start of April
>get shipping route attack
>my dudes are still just armed with gauss rifles
>go to the damn thing and immediately dust the fuck off
>besides it was a (shudder) trawler

Fuck that shit. I'll just make up the point deficit through missions over the month.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 21:54:00 2015 No.2800515 How do I gitgud?

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:03:03 2015 No.2800534

>>2800501
I attempted an attack on a touched-down medium size ship and they had MC users+blaster launchers (late March). I didn't stand a chance. And that was enough to put my score negative for another month and lose the game.

It seems in TFTD you can't get MC unless you don't need MC.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:19:21 2015 No.2800556

>>2800534
>I attempted an attack on a touched-down medium size ship and they had MC users+blaster launchers (late March)

Ok, an Aquatoid Heavy Cruiser/Hunter (TFTD's version of the Harvester/Abductor). No different from fighting a Sectoid Harvester in that they can mind control you. TFTD makes it a bit worse though since Aquatoid engineers have psionics as well while UFO only the leader can do it.

I also was not aware that PWT launchers appear on medium ships.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:20:22 2015 No.2800558 I find MC in TFTD slightly less annoying because many of your weapons have no auto fire which limits the amount of damage a mind controlled soldier can do.

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:28:22 2015 No.2800574

Alien subs in TFTD aren't quite the same as UFO's ships. For one thing, they're slower and it's easier for the Barracuda to catch up with them than the Interceptor with UFO Defense ships. The TFTD terror ship also has a more powerful weapon than the battleship (Dreadnought).

On the Battlescape, subs are not as tough as UFO Defense ships and the Sonic Cannon can penetrate outer hulls while in UFO, you cannot do that without a Blaster Launcher.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:33:03 2015 No.2800589 What the optimal base location build order in TFTD? So far I've been starting in the mediterranean.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:37:53 2015 No.2800597 >>2800589 Put a base in the North Atlantic and one in East Asia. That should cover most of your funding nations.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:43:28 2015 No.2800607 Aquatoid terror missions are pretty rare, but they're also cake compared with Sectoid terror missions mostly because the Aquatoids' terrorists are melee-only (both on land and underwater).

Anonymous Mon Nov 16 22:47:44 2015 No.2800618

>>2800607
Gillmen in some regards are worse because they can take a bit more damage and the Deep One's weapon is pretty powerful. Also if you take on a Gillman Battleship/Dreadnought, you have to fight Xarquids which, while not much of a threat from an offensive standpoint, are built like tanks and almost unkillable (they have a huge amount of resistances and are only weak to melee weapons).

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 01:22:03 2015 No.2800865 blump

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 01:23:35 2015 No.2800869 Consider yourself lucky if you manage to catch a Lobsterman Dreadnought b/c easy route to a commander instead of the bullshit of assaulting a colony.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 01:50:00 2015 No.2800903 >>2800556 TFTD replaces Harvest missions with Alien Interdiction which is more-or-less the same thing, but the aliens don't score as high for it (they get about the same score as a Research mission).

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 06:37:22 2015 No.2801130

I just cleared my first TFTD Superhuman Ironman nighttime terror mission. Cost 9 aquanauts, but I still got a positive score (and a live Deep One). My strategy was to hide inside the Triton all the time, wait for aliens to come near (checking the particle disturbance sensor) and throwing grenades at them. Luckily none of the aliens had blaster launchers, which could have been disastrous because one alien did make it inside the Triton.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 08:25:19 2015 No.2801242
File: 16 KB, 230x300, 1401061861897.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

I did it. I actually did it. I cleaned out a colony and bagged a Lobsterman Navigator/Commander combo all in one marathon sitting. It took something like three hours while an EU base on average takes 25-30 minutes to beat.

Lost four dudes. One guy got killed early in the mission when a mind controlled soldier lost it, another was turned into a zombie by a Tentaculat, the third got shot by a Lobsterman, and the fourth was unconscious from a stun bomb so I just left him there. He was way the fuck on the opposite side of the base from my other guys and I already had my Lobsterman commander, so w/e. I sure wasn't going to spend another 50 turns hunting down the last Lobstermen (I figured at least two were still running around) and trying to revive him with a med pack. I blew the Synonium device up, marched everyone to the entry lift, and got the hell out of there. I also noticed that the vast majority of the aliens seemed to be on the third floor in the vicinity of the command center and I encountered maybe two total on the first and second floors.

I didn't have to actually do all this, incidentally. A Lobsterman infiltration mission was starting up in my backyard and I could have just waited for them to send a Dreadnought and gotten a much easier commander grab. That alien colony had been there for a good three months though and it was starting to bug me. Besides, you get a huge score boost for taking them out.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 08:28:52 2015 No.2801247

>>2801242
You can actually do a modified version of the "bum rush" tactic from UFO Defense where you just send everyone to the command center, destroy it, and dust off. In TFTD's case, don't bother with the first and second floors of the colony, just make your way to the basement where the Synonium Device is.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 09:26:50 2015 No.2801309 I love that splorch sound that Hallucinoids make when you kill them.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 09:56:16 2015 No.2801341

>>2796723
Aquatoids are about comparable to Sectoids except that their engineers also have mind control ability.

Gillmen are mostly like Floaters except some minor stat differences and of course they can't float. Gillman commanders have mind control, but you'll rarely ever encounter them.

Lobstermen have the same health/armor stats as Mutons but their reactions, speed, firing accuracy, and psionic resistance are a good 50% higher.

Tasoths have slightly higher speed, reactions, and firing accuracy than Ethereals and twice as much health, but less armor and lower psionic stats.

Bio-Drones have 50% higher speed, health, and firing accuracy than Cyberdiscs but lower reactions and psionic resistance. They can use a melee attack in addition to a ranged one, but it has really, really low accuracy.

Tentaculats are a little bit faster and have more health than Chryssalids and much higher psionic resistance, plus they can fly (float), BUT they don't appear on terror missions.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 10:00:21 2015 No.2801349

TFTD maps are _much_ bigger than EU maps. Each of the three floors in an alien colony is as big as an entire EU base.

Unfortunately, underwater, you'll spend most of your time either in a coral reef or a bland sea floor. The game is literally rigged to make these appear far more often then any other type of terrain, regardless of which area of the ocean you've landed in.

(Different types of sea floor in the Geoscape view (which is a garish mess, by the way) do lead to different types of terrain, they just have about a 50% chance of sticking you in a reef/empty seafloor map instead - unlike EU, where if you land in a desert, you get a desert).

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 10:02:48 2015 No.2801354

Then there's the beautiful but waaaay too large (and completely non-random) cruise ships. In the late game you'll be quite tempted to just let the aliens kill everyone on board rather then slog through another half hour (or longer) session looking for aliens hidden behind cabin doors. Again.

TFTD has a ton of "non-shadable" colors in Battlescape mode, which can't be used to draw the actual map. Not so bad under water (as you expect everything to be tinted green/blue/turquoise), but on land things get pretty garish. It also sets most all font colours to white, for some reason.

TFTD has a lot more sprites for units. Animations are increased no end, especially for tanks and the larger alien units. There were even unique sprites created for zombie soldiers, though these were never actually used in game.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 10:05:48 2015 No.2801359

TFTD drop ships have no visible landing gear. Your soldiers start at ground level, not having to walk down a ramp, and can hence use the ship for cover much more effectively - you don't have to worry about fire on all sides, especially since you'll usually start off on either the left or right most sides on the map. Furthermore, they also have functional doors.

TFTD has a more complex research tree. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually add much - it just makes it more complex by adding dependencies (mostly centered around aliens). For example, in UFO, if you want to get the better armors you need only research the components. TFTD forces you to research the Deep One aliens as well. Note that TFTD's research tree can also be "broken" under many circumstances, making the game unwinnable without hacking.

And finally, TFTD asks you to accept that your soldiers can't swim unless they have magnetic ion armor and can function underwater indefinitely with a punctured diving helmet. Granted, EU had no opportunities for swimming but that just kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 10:17:39 2015 No.2801376

Another important difference vs EU - the ships on TFTD alien infiltration missions never land and you can't go after them without first shooting the things down while in EU, they land in cities (makes sense - there's no cities in the ocean to land at). So yes, that includes Dreadnoughts.

Also the TFTD Battleship and Dreadnought have reversed offensive capabilities. Battleships attack aggressively and have a 140 damage weapon meaning that only a Leviathan can go one-on-one with them. For comparison, the Dreadnought has a 120 damage weapon and does not attack aggressively meaning that a Barracuda with DUP torpedoes can go against it safely, except that Dreadnoughts still have the same damage capability as the UFO Defense Battleship meaning it will be much harder to take them down without Sonic Oscillators.

Result? The only way to fight a Battleship in TFTD is by shooting it down since unlike the UFO Defense Terror Ship, it never lands.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 10:30:14 2015 No.2801398 >>2801242 And now you learn the painful truth that infiltration fleets in TFTD don't land. You'll have to pray for Lobstermen to set up a base for that to work.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 10:37:04 2015 No.2801417 >>2801242 Plus late game all aliens in colonies carry blaster launchers.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 12:45:10 2015 No.2801620

>>2784913
>Lobstermen were a huge leap forward from Mutons though, no question. It was good that they forced you to adapt new tactics, unlike Mutons, who you could just shoot your way through with enough Heavy Plasma.

TFTD on the whole is a lot more tactics-based and requires more finesse than UFO Defense where you can win by just brute force (auto fire, demolishing anything and everything with Blaster Bombs, etc)

Winning terror missions is pretty critical for your early game scoring because you can't really take on large ships or colonies (or anything with Lobstermen) until at least mid-game.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:10:29 2015 No.2802497 bump

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:37:01 2015 No.2802519

How the fuck do you kill Lobstermen? I've recently gotten into TFTD and in one of the mission I was investigating a downed UFO/USO, my men deploy out of the Triton and I start to secure the LZ one of my men spots a Lobster man. "Okay this shouldn't be too hard". I say as I command the man who spotted it to auto fire on it. One hit and it's still standing. I then bring in two other men who snap and auto at the Lobsterman. Three hits, not a scratch. "Okay, lets bring in the heavy support." Gas Cannon, Hydrojet and Torpedo Launcher All fire and all hit, small rocket, and several blasts of AP impact against it's hard shell. "Ah, fuck." I then bring in another two and there shots finally finish off the Lobsterman, it goes down and thankfully the mission ends as the other Lobsterman was already dead.

Is there an easier way to kill them early on in the game and whats the best way to kill them overall - in ranged combat preferably.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:38:26 2015 No.2802520 >>2802519 Even with a sonic cannon it can take a few hits. Just try and get melee weapons.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:42:42 2015 No.2802530

First off, Lobstermen resist explosives so don't bother with them although sometimes multiple grenade blasts can be used to soften them up.

Lobstermen are also really freaking easy to stun. Once knocked out, just drop a grenade onto their body and you're done.

Melee weapons also make minced meat of them since they ignore armor. If you manage to get an Aquatoid terror mission early in the game, you can research a Calcinite corpse and quickly use melee weapons.

If you're desperate, gauss rifles and heavy gauss can kill them. Sonic-tech is a lot better though. Well, considering the sonic pistol is way better than the heavy-gauss in almost every aspect, it's not surprising. Sonic cannons and the blasta-rifle are generally more effective.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:45:29 2015 No.2802532

Go Sonic Cannon and Sonic Pulsers! Using humanoid weaponery on lobster men is pretty much useless... Research the alien stuff as fast as possible. I'm not too sure if the Gauss technology will do anything to the lobsterman, but I'm sure its better than using the other weapons you start out with.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:51:09 2015 No.2802538

You can take out Lobstermen with gauss weapons if you really have to. I remember in my last TFTD run, I went after a Lobsterman Dreadnought trying to set up a colony in February and I only had gauss rifles, on Superhuman. That was an epic battle and a great bloodbath that cost me 9 of my 14 soldiers (did I mention that there were also Tentaculats on there?) but well worth it for all the loot you get from a Dreadnought, plus I nabbed the commander. :)

Anyway, I don't recommend facing them with gauss as they take half the damage.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:52:33 2015 No.2802539 Lobstermen eat gauss for breakfast! They just plain suck. My advice.......Shoot accurately shoot often, with any weapon

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:53:34 2015 No.2802541 They take half damage from gauss? Craaaaaaap! What's the freakin' point of gauss weapons then?

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:55:25 2015 No.2802543 Lobstermen hate stun weapons, so be sure to pack those if you're going to be facing them. Besides, gauss is fine for taking on Aquatoids/Gillmen and helps conserve your sonic ammunition.

Anonymous Tue Nov 17 23:59:41 2015 No.2802552

Simply put, Lobstermen are weak to stun weapons, they resist explosives, but are vulnerable to melee since those bypass armor. Gauss does neutral damage to them, but their high health and armor means that you're essentially firing a BB gun at a stone wall.

The advantages of gauss are that the ammo doesn't require Zrbite to produce and helps you conserve sonic clips when you take on Aquatoids/Gillmen which can be easily downed with them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 18 00:01:29 2015 No.2802556 I remember the first time I played TFTD... things were going pretty well, I was mowing down Aquatoids and Gillmen left and right, then I downed a small sub, and got my ass kicked by like four Lobstermen that were made of indestructium.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 00:05:05 2015 No.2802563

Personally, I've never really developed any particular strategy for using the HTH weapons. I just have everyone carry a sonic gun and a vibroblade of some sort and pull it out whenever a HTH attack would be more suitable than a ranged attack. In many confined spaces like the colonies and inside buildings, you tend to get a lot of chances to use them. Like the pleasure cruise mission for example. All those room cubicles and that little closet near where you start where there's almost always one alien waiting in one of the alcoves.

Recently, from a strategy I developed in UFO for approaching aliens, you can get someone to use the MC Reader to examine the alien's stats before you try to rush up to them and poke them with your drills. No TU's means no alien opportunity fire.

Also, some aliens tend to walk about carrying vibro blades of their own (and four sonic pulsers!). They really don't know how to use their own drills -- So you might as well walk up to them and, uh, demonstrate. Don't do this with lobstermen, of course since they also have melee attack regardless of whether they're carrying a HTH weapon or not.

I've also noticed a lot of aliens walk about with absolutely no weapons on them. Usually alien engineers (technicians). Just be careful, since aliens tend to put their weapons away after throwing a grenade, so its hard to tell if they really are unarmed or otherwise.

Oh, and don't forget the alien's sense of self preservation when it comes to using PWT torpedoes. The alien carrying the launcher won't shoot at you if you're standing right next to it.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 01:02:13 2015 No.2802617

>>2801376
>Also the TFTD Battleship and Dreadnought have reversed offensive capabilities. Battleships attack aggressively and have a 140 damage weapon meaning that only a Leviathan can go one-on-one with them. For comparison, the Dreadnought has a 120 damage weapon and does not attack aggressively meaning that a Barracuda with DUP torpedoes can go against it safely, except that Dreadnoughts still have the same damage capability as the UFO Defense Battleship meaning it will be much harder to take them down without Sonic Oscillators.

Not exactly. The Battleship's weapon is more powerful but still has a short range, thus SOs can indeed take them down.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 01:14:47 2015 No.2802631

>1st April, Lobster Man terror mission
>4 Biodrones right outside the triton
>Sonic pulser does nothing
>2 hits of thermal taser does nothing
>Sonic cannon does nothing
>1 Biodrone makes it inside
>Sonic cannon reaction fire actually kills it
>Biodrone explodes, everybody dies

Way too much score deficit (March was negative too) to recover now, might as well give up.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 04:09:54 2015 No.2802761

>>2802519
You used every single type of damage they are resilient against. Use Sonic weaponry and try to move your guys in loose squads, so you can still have a decent backup if you miss the first time, while moving cautiously in order to pick them singularly.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:05:39 2015 No.2803093 [DELETED]

>February
>alien fleet trying to set up a colony in the South China Sea
>let's have some fun, shall we?
>touch down next to one of the supply ships
>breath sigh of relief that it's Gillmen
>I'm a bit new to TFTD so not that familiar with the larger alien ships
>not exactly sure what the TFTD supply ship even looks like

Turned out to be a cakewalk. I lost only two rookies and came back with a nice haul of loot. These things are a lot easier than the UFO Defense supply ship which is basically a giant shooting gallery.

I didn't bother with the Dreadnought because it's too early in the game for that shit. You'd be fucked no matter what aliens were on it.

>Aquatoids
Mind control up your ass.
>Gillmen
Xarquids are too damn tough to kill pre-sonic weapons plus the Gillman commander has mind control
>Lobstermen
Walking battle tanks accompanied by flying Chryssalids. Yeah...no.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:20:12 2015 No.2803113 [DELETED]

>>2803093
Compare this with the same scenario in UFO Defense.

>get alien base built in February
>at this early point, it's mostly going to be Sectoids and Floaters, occasionally Snakemen
>the larger Sectoid ships would be pretty bad, the Floater ones would be pudding, and the Snakeman ones aren't too hard even with Chryssalids running around
>also you can go after the base almost immediately while in TFTD, that thing's gonna have to stay up for a few months until you have better gear (and have said a few Hail Marys)

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:24:16 2015 No.2803119 Until getting sonic weapons, I wouldn't recommend fighting Lobstermen on anything bigger than a medium scout.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:25:31 2015 No.2803125 >>2803093 Yeh but how many opportunities do you get to see a Xarquid? Probably the rarest alien in the game.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:27:55 2015 No.2803129 [DELETED]

>>2803125
I'd thought about that. It mitebcool to go after the Dreadnought so I could see this rare alien in action, but then I realized it's fucking February and my squad are armed with gauss weapons and only a few of them even had plastic aqua armor yet.

Not worth it.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:33:12 2015 No.2803137 >>2803113 Since you got a colony built by Gillmen, you hit the jackpot since you can just keep eating its supply ships.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 18 10:48:36 2015 No.2803179 I'm not familiar with TFTD. Can someone give me a rundown of the alien races?

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 11:01:03 2015 No.2803202 [DELETED]

>>2803179
Ok. Main races:

Aquatoid: Basically just like Sectoids in EU, but their technicians (engineers) also have psionics in addition to the officers. You can't learn mind control from them though.

Gillman: Somewhat like Floaters, but they don't float. Otherwise almost as much of a joke as the boys in purple. Their commanders have mind control, but since they only appear on Dreadnoughts, you'll rarely ever encounter them.

Lobsterman: Imagine Mutons who took steroids and welded the outer hulls of UFOs to their body. They will fuck you up unless you can stun or use melee weapons, which they hate. You need to capture their officers to beat the game.

Tasoth: They only have two ranks (soldier and squad leader) but the latter can use psionics. Capturing a live Tasoth of either rank will let you research the MC Lab. Fairly tough to kill, but they have very low bravery and panic at the drop of a hat.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 11:07:40 2015 No.2803221 [DELETED]

>>2803202
Terrorists:

Calcinite: These guys accompany Aquatoids on terror sites, but are melee-only and probably the weakest terror species in the game. I've never had a soldier killed by one of them. You need a Calcinite corpse to research melee weapons.

Deep One: Accompanies Gillmen to terror sites. They shoot an energy ball that stings pretty bad. You need a live one to research ion armor and eventually sub construction and a dead one for aqua plastics.

Bio-Drone: Accompanies Lobstermen and Tasoths on terror sites. Like the Cyberdisc in EU but one square in size. It has an extremely inaccurate melee attack in addition to ranged attacks.

Triscene: Accompanies Tasoths on terror sites. Basically like the Sectopod in EU, but it has very thin under-armor which means that grenades usually always knock them out.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 11:13:14 2015 No.2803234 [DELETED]

Cont.

Hallucinoid: Accompanies Aquatoids on underwater missions involving colonies or the larger ships. A big jellyfish thing that's basically just like a Reaper. Big, has a ton of health, melee-only, slow, and hates incendiary rounds.

Xarquid: Accompanies Gillmen on larger ships. A big nautilus thing with a bombproof shell that resists most weapons other than melee. Their under-armor is weak so a grenade is an effective way of taking them out. Probably the rarest enemy in the game.

Tentaculat: Accompanies Lobstermen and Tasoths on larger ships and in colonies. Basically a Chryssalid that can fly and you know what that means. On the plus side, they don't appear on terror sites where civilians are present.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 18 11:15:19 2015 No.2803239 >>2803202 >Capturing a live Tasoth of either rank will let you research the MC Lab Also any live terrorist lets you get the MC lab.

Anonymous Wed Nov 18 15:01:58 2015 No.2803695 [DELETED]

I think TFTD didn't get enough play testing. For example, I wonder how you're supposed to beat the game on Superhuman with only like 12-15 rounds per clip when you have to fight as many as 28 aliens on a single map and they're already made of indestructium.

Anonymous Thu Nov 19 07:05:53 2015 No.2805104

Whenever I've played TFTD, I always without fail get a shipping attack on April 1st, although supposedly there's still a 40% chance of an island/port terror mission.

If you didn't know, the game sets a flag in LOC.DAT to determine if the terror mission for the month is port/island, shipping, or artefact. The first gets an entry in MISSIONS.DAT and is preceded by alien ships, the others aren't.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 19 08:01:05 2015 No.2805159 >>2802631 >terror mission You're supposed to abort terror missions immediately.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 19 08:02:18 2015 No.2805163 >>2805159 That's an easy way to lose the game to negative score on Superhuman.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 19 11:40:15 2015 No.2805403 >>2805163 Enough alien sub recoveries/shootdowns during the month will take care of that. >>2805159 Unless it's Gillmen/Aquatoids.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 19 11:41:32 2015 No.2805405 >>2805163 Superhuman is easier in some ways because the large amount of aliens per mission results in bigger scores and more loot to sell.

Anonymous Thu Nov 19 11:45:16 2015 No.2805407

>do Lobsterman terror in April
>three dudes die, another three wounded, and I somehow end up bringing home eight (!) live aliens

I had sonic rifles, but not yet cannons. Once you get sonic cannons, Lobstermen are pretty easy to take out. On this mission I had guys lined up like a freaking firing squad blazing away. You need at least 3-4 sonic rifle shots to take down a Lobsty, the problem being that your incompetent as fuck troops end up missing 75% of the time.

Anonymous Fri Nov 20 06:44:23 2015 No.2807059

>clean out alien colony, bag Lobsterman navigator and commander, and get a huge haul of loot for over 1100 score points
>lost five dudes - two KIA and three counted as MIA because they were unconscious at the end of the mission and apparently unlike UFO, soldiers who are out of it are considered missing
>one of them was an elite officer

I had the good luck to somehow acquire a PWT launcher from an earlier mission so researched it before going after the colony. Made everything quite a bit easier.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 20 08:45:01 2015 No.2807179 I just got a base defense mission in TFTD on January 17th. My new defensive layout sub pens haven't built yet so I doubt this is survivable.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 20 09:53:59 2015 No.2807263 >>2807179 Since it's probably Aquatoids and Calcinites, you don't have too much to worry about aside from mind control. Besides, if you beat them you'll get early PWT launcher and melee weapons.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 20 09:55:38 2015 No.2807269 >>2807059 Did I mention that Lobstermen can survive a point-blank PWT round? I saw it in that colony mission with my own eyes.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 20 09:57:30 2015 No.2807270 >>2807059 TFTD equips PWT launchers on all larger alien ships while in UFO, you'd only find them on Battleships and base missions. Also after a certain point, all aliens in colonies have PWT launchers.

Anonymous Fri Nov 20 09:59:47 2015 No.2807273

>>2807270
I did take on a Fleet Supply Cruiser and that's probably where I got it from. I know I found a PWT launcher in my inventory and had no clue how I acquired it, but then I guessed it was from that supply ship mission. Glad I did have it to research because sure made my life easier when attacking that colony.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 20 12:24:58 2015 No.2807460 >>2807263 Aquatoids are IMO easier than Sectoids because their terrorists are melee only.

Anonymous Fri Nov 20 13:46:52 2015 No.2807583

>UFO Defense
>colony gets built in February
All you need is personal armor, med-kits, and laser rifles and you're good to go.

>TFTF
>colony gets built in February
Gotta wait a few months until you have sonic weapons, sonic pulsers, optionally stun and/or PWT launchers. You get negative ratings in the meantime but you're not exactly given a choice either. At least if it got built by Gillmen, you can just loot their supply ships until you're ready to go at the actual colony.

Colony missions are a lot slower paced than UFO base missions, at least the inner part. You spend most of the time wandering around empty rooms for many, many turns without ever encountering any aliens. It takes around 40-50 turns to clear the inner part of a colony while UFO bases are about 15-20 turns.

Anonymous Fri Nov 20 14:13:31 2015 No.2807628

A few TFTD protips:

1. The primary objective in colonies and artefact sites is destroying the Synonium Device. You don't need to take out every alien in them to win.
2. Avoid night missions and Lobstermen on anything bigger than a medium scout
3. Supply ships are a very great source of plunder especially if they're crewed by Gillmen - in fact even better than EU supply ships because the layout is easier and you can acquire PWT launchers from them.
4. Melee weapons are ideal for shipping route missions because lots of close-quarters action
5. If you're facing Aquatoids or Gillmen, you can just use gauss rifles to conserve sonic clips
6. Don't give sonic cannons to soldiers with firing accuracy under 60
7. Navigation consoles in alien ships contain Zrbite so be careful not to destroy them - this is one nice feature of TFTD compared with EU in that you'll usually get some Zrbite out of a crashed ship.
8. Lobstermen hate stun and melee weapons
9. You only need two bases - one in the North Atlantic and one in East Asia
10. The game does tend to put alien missions close to your bases - this is also true of EU

Anonymous Fri Nov 20 22:37:01 2015 No.2808496

>>2807263
>aside from mind control
It was aquatoids, I only had 9 aquanauts (8 more on route), and I lost a lot to MC. I killed a few aliens with GC-HE and grenades (no sonic pulsers yet), but there's 32 of them on Superhuman so really I don't see how I could possibly win that early. Maybe I should shoot down scouts instead of looting them touched down to hope to delay the retaliation until the new sub pens are built.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 21 11:24:38 2015 No.2809184 I also notice with alien colonies that most of them seem to spawn in the north and northwest of the map.

Anonymous Sat Nov 21 12:46:50 2015 No.2809294

Personally I find the first part of colonies worse because of the mixed alien crew and the fact that you have psionic-spamming Aquatoids and Tasoths everywhere. The inner part of the colony is easier in terms of survivability, just really freaking long.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 21 12:48:25 2015 No.2809297 You get a 5 point penalty for every day that an alien colony is operating, however a supply ship heist will more than make up for it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Nov 21 12:53:26 2015 No.2809309 The first colony you visit should have as a priority capturing the Lobsterman officers, but all later colonies you just need to destroy the Synonium Device although you won't get to recover any loot unless you clear every alien from the place.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 22 01:59:30 2015 No.2810507 am i the only one who liked UFO: Aftermath? the atmosphere and the enemies, combined with the struggle you face for me seems the most sensible and awesome of all the XCOMish alien invasions

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 07:42:04 2015 No.2813069 bump

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:17:34 2015 No.2813094

>>2784913
>>2801620
You guys are so wrong. If there's one thing TFTD is about it finesse. You certainly need to be more cautious while playing it, heck A LOT more cautious, but that is only due to the fact that every feature in the game was massively shoehorned in order to ramp up difficulty.

The result was an abomination of difficulty that far from finesse, it requires the crudest and most grueling sort of tactics to beat, i.e, blow up everything with explosives, use transporter doors for protection, wait for turn 20 for aliens to go after you, and so on.

TFTD suffers from horrible AI that gets stuck in corners. The infamous "monster closets" from the trawler missions are nothing but a resulting bug from AI being unable to properly navigate small rooms, forcing you to look hunt for every last alien in every small cramped room only to have you shot with reaction rife the second your soldier misses a shot at point blank (also far more common to happen than of UFO:EU).

Then there's the mission structure. 2 and 3 parters of labyrinths small houses, narrow corridors and that fucking 2nd level ship mission that spawns all your soldier in the exposed part of the hull, with no cover whatsoever and will all the aliens ready to practice duck hunt on your aquanauts from the level above. Getting your troops alive from that particular mission is a sheer stroke of luck or many many reloads, as GuavaMoment testified himself.

In short, UFO:EU might have had it's shortcomings, but it was way more entertaining, engaging, and less frustrating then whatever TFTD had to offer.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:18:36 2015 No.2813096 >>2813094 >If there's one thing TFTD is about it finesse And I meant to say "it's NOT about"

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:22:55 2015 No.2813102

>>2813094
>practice duck hunt on your aquanauts from the level above. Getting your troops alive from that particular mission is a sheer stroke of luck or many many reloads, as GuavaMoment testified himself.

I agree. Trying to beat TFTD without savescumming is impossible.

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:24:14 2015 No.2813104

>>2807583
>All you need is personal armor, med-kits, and laser rifles and you're good to go.
You passing UFO:EU as easier as it is. Sure on anything from Beginner to Veteran it might be like that, but if you play on Genius or Superhuman you are bound for a very nasty surprise if you try a base assault with only lasers and personal armor. Against Sectoids, you'll get psi-raped and maimed by cyberdisc reactions. Against Snakemen there's Chryssalids. Only Floaters can be deemed as "easy" and even then you won't have a good time if you're playing on Superhuman.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:26:00 2015 No.2813107 >>2813102 It is doable. I've seen it done on Ironman Superhuman on OXC. What happens is, the best players just skip those missions altogether.

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:31:57 2015 No.2813114

>>2813107
You can just abort ship attacks and make up for the point deficit over the month, but running away from artefact sites nets you a 700 point penalty which is significantly harder to compensate. You'd need to take out an alien colony or a couple big USOs to make up for that.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:36:33 2015 No.2813119 >>2813114 Yeah, but then again it's easier to deal with artifacts by the time you get to them, then dealing with the second level of trawler missions.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:38:37 2015 No.2813124 >>2813104 I've beaten Snakeman bases in February-March with only laser rifles. It's a little difficult because Chryssalids can take a beating, but definitely possible. In TFTD it's all-but impossible to beat colonies until at least May.

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:41:33 2015 No.2813128

I don't understand how you can beat TFTD on Superhuman solely based on your limited ammo supply. Colonies have up to 28 aliens most of which are Lobstermen that need at least three shots to kill (factoring in missed shots). You'd run out of clips before clearing the place.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:43:39 2015 No.2813132 >>2813128 Explosives, PWTs, and drills. Displacers also help a lot, since they have tons of ammo.

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:46:40 2015 No.2813136

>>2813132
Lobstermen resist explosives and I've even seen them survive point-blank PWT blasts, although it will at least soften them up a bit. Melee weapons work nicely provided you can get a Calcinite corpse which a lot of times isn't possible due to the rarity of Aquatoid terror sites.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:48:10 2015 No.2813139 >>2813136 FWIW, Calcinites also show up on Aquatoid base defense missions so you may get one that way.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:48:23 2015 No.2813140 >>2813124 I did not say it's impossible, but it's certainly not the cakewalk described.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:52:21 2015 No.2813148 >>2813128 You can't scavenge clips from dead aliens?

Anonymous Mon Nov 23 08:56:11 2015 No.2813151

>>2813148
After a certain point, all aliens in colonies have PWT launchers. Even before that, many of them will have stun bombs or sonic cannons. I normally give most soldiers sonic rifles and only the better guys with high firing accuracy get sonic cannons.

The problem is that sonic rifles get rarer in the late game and you'll have a harder time scavenging clips from missions, although the aliens never totally phase them out like the plasma rifle in UFO.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 14:03:06 2015 No.2813705 I usually always play EU on Superhuman, I couldn't imagine trying TFTD with it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 23 21:18:34 2015 No.2814709 File: 1.46 MB, 350x265, 1403662832219.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2813128 that's why vibroblades and thermic lances exists, probably.

Anonymous Tue Nov 24 03:25:57 2015 No.2815243

>>2813705
I've been attempting TFTD Superhuman Ironman. On my 6th try, I have made it to May with two defendable bases (with SWSs for psi-immune defense), each with a Transmission Resolver and a Baracuda equipped with dual Sonic Oscillators. I have a MC Lab in production and a MC Reader ready to research. Sonic Oscillators + Transmission Resolvers means you can shoot down everything and never worry about score. As soon as I can get Gauss Cannon manufacturing up for unlimited money the only remaining serious danger is the final mission. All that remains is to capture the lobsterman commander, finish the research tree, and train up an elite MC user squad.

I once lost a UFO SH Ironman game on the final mission, so I can't relax yet, but getting air/sea superiority is a major turning point.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 03:42:46 2015 No.2815260 >>2815243 Why even bother with that, all you'll ever need to make money will come from selling sonic stuff/excess aqua plastics. Money is by far the last problem in TFTD after the first months.

Anonymous Tue Nov 24 03:51:30 2015 No.2815270

>>2815260
Money has been the limiting factor since the beginning, even selling almost everything I salvaged and relying on Gas Cannons and ordinary grenades (until lobstermen showed up). On Superhuman difficulty you can get a negative score month even if you win every battle because you were unlucky with detection/intercepts. You have to expand and research aggressively from the beginning.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:28:39 2015 No.2815425 >>2814709 >>2813136 Depends entirely on luck, specifically whether you get an Aquatoid terror mission or not.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:30:10 2015 No.2815429 >>2815243 Now if you can try the Superhuman Pacific Challenge (build only base in the South Pacific, Superhuman, and you can't savescum in the middle of missions)

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:31:54 2015 No.2815432 >>2815260 Protip: Colonies yield a ginormous amount of loot, more than you get from EU bases because there's two separate parts. If you can clear all aliens from both sections, the payback is huge.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:39:09 2015 No.2815440 >>2815270 >On Superhuman difficulty you can get a negative score month even if you win every battle because you were unlucky with detection/intercepts This is true, however the game does tend to put alien missions near your bases.

Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:39:10 2015 No.2815441

>>2815429
>you can't savescum in the middle of missions
>implying you can savescum anyway

"Ironman" means "no save except to save your progress before quitting". This is the only fun way to play, and OpenXCOM has an option to enforce it. I don't see how this kind of game can be enjoyable without the tension of knowing you can't undo mistakes.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:49:24 2015 No.2815447 I normally avoid savescumming unless something amazingly stupid happens like a soldier gets mind controlled and drops a grenade in the middle of the Skyranger.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:54:03 2015 No.2815450 >>2815447 Playing Ironman is the quickest way to learn not to let that happen. It's one of the few counters the aliens have to the aquanauts camping in the Triton. The game would be unbalanced if they couldn't.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 07:57:28 2015 No.2815454 >>2815447 This becomes less of a problem when you get power armor, at which point you're pretty much safe from grenades except at ground zero.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:00:46 2015 No.2815461 I won't touch alien colonies until I have sonic cannons and sonic pulsers. PWT launchers are nice if you can get one early in the game.

Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:04:23 2015 No.2815469

Grenades in TFTD lend themselves to slightly different uses than EU. For one thing, they're your primary method of demolishing structures on surface missions where you can't use PWT launchers. They're also important for taking out unconscious aliens. I end up using grenades a lot more in TFTD while I use them in EU only sparingly once I have Blaster Launchers.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:13:12 2015 No.2815475 >>2815469 Grenades are my primary weapon before I get Sonic Cannons. Don't underestimate the power of the grenade relay (and careful with the timeunits, you don't want to miss a throw and not have enough time to pick it up).

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:13:39 2015 No.2815476 >>2815469 Especially Lobstermen because they're still a hazard even if they lose their weapon. Also of course stunning is one of the best ways to take out a Lobsterman so you'll be dropping grenades on their bodies a lot.

>>	Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:15:39 2015 No.2815479 >>2815461 >>2815469 PWT launchers are found on all larger alien subs while EU you only find Blaster Launchers on Battleships or base missions.

Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:20:29 2015 No.2815481

Same deal with stun weapons. You will be making much greater use of them in TFTD. In EU, you have only three occasions where you'll ever need them which is capturing an alien navigator/leader/commander. Not so in TFTD where it's necessary to take them along any time you fight Lobstermen.

Anonymous Tue Nov 24 08:47:53 2015 No.2815502

>>2784492
Can someone help?

Ive reached a dead end, I have bases all over the globe, Im a full year in

I cant find any alien bases and ive only run into 3 battleships on my current playthrough.

I have not yet had an Entheral or Muton encounter, how can I break this stalemate

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 07:07:39 2015 No.2817242 >>2815502 You probably fucked up something badly. Are you playing the original game? If so, you should just switch to OpenXCom, especially now that it's compatible with original game saves.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 07:58:03 2015 No.2817297 >>2815502 Sometimes you don't encounter them. I've had games where I got nothing but Mutons for months and then other ones where the game seems to have totally skipped them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 08:11:45 2015 No.2817315 File: 106 KB, 1024x683, Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >nighttime Lobsterman terror mission >lose six dudes >this is just on Beginner mode

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 08:23:00 2015 No.2817329 File: 329 KB, 1024x640, TFTD_AlienColony_01.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] The circled area is a good place to crack open with a PWT launcher as it allows you to just march right over to the entry lift.

Anonymous Wed Nov 25 10:38:12 2015 No.2817501

Pro-tip: When an Artifact Site appears, actually read the text box and don't just click it away and assume it's another Colony. Artifact Sites are like Terror Missions, only with even bigger score penalty if you ignore them. My score probably would have passed the Terrible threshold if I had just landed and immediately left. I'm now worried about losing on score with another bad month.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 11:54:34 2015 No.2817653 >>2817242 >>2817297 Original game Ive reached the dead end of my tech tree

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 11:58:39 2015 No.2817663 >>2817329 >soldiers have no armor in a fucking colony This guy is an idiot.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 11:59:40 2015 No.2817669 Any tips for late-game colony missions when all aliens get PWT launchers?

Anonymous Wed Nov 25 12:03:02 2015 No.2817676

>>2817669
Equip all soldiers with flying suits and don't bunch up. If your guys are floating around, they'll be a lot harder to hit with a PWT round.

You can't float around in the inner part of the colony, but there's bazillions of rooms you can hide in. And again, do not bunch up. I cannot overstate how much the AI is designed to punish you for that.

Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:24:37 2015 No.2817809

Camping really works great against Lobstermen. I just cleared a touched down Lobsterman supply ship at night. I only sent one guy out and had everybody else snipe from the Triton with Laser Cannons. You can fire over people if they're kneeling, so you get at least 6 shots per turn with good positioning.

Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:41:49 2015 No.2817845

>>2817809
I guess this depends on you waiting until Turn 20 for the aliens to all come at you like Pickett's Charge.

Interestingly, I do a trick like this in EU bases - camp out in the entrance lifts, go down, shoot aliens, then head back up. Eventually you'll have decimated their ranks. I should note, this trick does rely on an exploit in the Collector's Edition whereby the aliens can't shoot Blaster Bombs up at your soldiers (in the DOS version, you'd be in trouble). Can be used handily on Floater/Snakeman/Muton bases.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:46:20 2015 No.2817853 >>2817845 I had to wait past turn 100 to get all of them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:49:38 2015 No.2817865 Melee weapons are nice for taking Lobstermen, Triscenes, and other walking tanks except you can't get them without a Calcinite corpse and Aquatoid terror missions are not exactly commonplace.

Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:52:58 2015 No.2817870

>>2817865
Triscenes (thankfully a rarely-seen enemy) will require the Heavy Thermic Lance on higher difficulty levels. Barring that, they hate grenades due to very soft under-armor. You may want to dust off the Magna-Pak Explosive instead of sonic pulsers due to its greater power.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:54:09 2015 No.2817872 >>2817870 IIRC, you never encounter Triscenes on shipping route attacks, only port/island.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 13:55:12 2015 No.2817875 >>2817872 I think you're right. Shipping attacks Tasoths have Bio-Drones with them and Triscenes on port or island missions.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 16:57:13 2015 No.2818172 File: 12 KB, 320x200, Aliens1.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] BONUS

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 16:58:14 2015 No.2818173 File: 14 KB, 320x200, Aliens2.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] These are prototype sprites John Reitze made in 1991.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 16:59:15 2015 No.2818175 File: 13 KB, 320x200, Aliens3.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] And some other never seen before prototype sprites for x-com.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 17:47:28 2015 No.2818223 >>2818173 I kind of wish X-COM had MIBs on their forces, perhaps for some sort of covert work.

Anonymous Wed Nov 25 18:23:24 2015 No.2818295

>>2818223
Yeah, me too.
I actually really wanted to play a x-files version of x-com when I was younger. Something where you have to start by investigating ufo-crash sites or paranormal activity with a squad of fbi agents and from that on further widen the scope to global stuff.
But have the first 5 or 10 hours of the game be really basic stuff.
Probably because I also loved the start of x-com the most, when you investigate downed alien ships in farmhouses.

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 20:18:36 2015 No.2818508 Am I going fucking crazy or is the Enemy Unknown Geoscape music fucking dynamic?

>>	Anonymous Wed Nov 25 23:38:53 2015 No.2818816 >>2818508 The music in the DOS version or the Collector's Edition?

>>	King Void !!ceQDIZ2zepP Thu Nov 26 01:37:56 2015 No.2818961 not sure how this will be received as it's not /vr/ but what do you guys think about xenonauts? i enjoy it and yet it's lacking some of the charm and tenseness of the original in my eyes

Anonymous Thu Nov 26 03:03:19 2015 No.2819031

>>2818961
Too streamlined for my taste, they copied but cut everything deemed unnecessary from X-COM. You could argue that they did what XCOM did and try to make the game better, but I don't really like it.

Health for both sides are too bullet spongy, probably because they wanted medics to be more useful.

Interceptions are gimmicky, might be fun for a bit and you can cheese out some of the stronger UFO squads with it but I end up auto-ing most of them.

I don't have a problem with the graphics but I know some do and I can't blame them for it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 26 09:10:58 2015 No.2819298 >>2818816 openxcom

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 26 11:03:25 2015 No.2819430 >>2818172 Awesome!

>>	Anonymous Thu Nov 26 16:13:09 2015 No.2819775 File: 12 KB, 155x200, chry.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] hello

Anonymous Thu Nov 26 19:35:47 2015 No.2820060

>>2818961
It's pretty bad. It has lots of LoS and height problems, almost all the alien races appear in the first months and then get their stats beefed up, making them almost interchangeable, weapon tiers that are exactly the same save for ramped up damage, and they are required due the aforementioned alien stat scaling, very shaky firing accuracy rules, where a bush in your line of shot can give you a -20% chance to hit penalty, little to no destruction, reaction fire still rewarding camping and especially aliens, making breaching a drag, psionics being only an alien thing, with all the oh so balanced and fun features like being capable of targeting your guys from out of sight.

But the worst, personally, is the strategic layer, or better the black hole that is the airgame. They put too much importance to that annoying minigame, and it's too much of a deciding factor, especially for getting founds. In both the original and the new X-Com, the deciding factor are your field battles, and the strategic part gives you a context to them: intercepting stuff is important, but you can ignore something, if you nail the monthly terror mission it can be an acceptable overlook. Most of the strategic time spent in Xenonauts is about intercepting, and allowing even a few ships to land and do their missions is incredibly damaging. You can lose easily a country that it's favorable to you if a random bomber does his strafing runs on it and you aren't ready. And losing a game not because you are losing tactical battles, frankly the big reason of these games, but because you are not giving proper attention to a minigame (which is almost entirely skippable, a good thing because there's so much of it) is really lame.

Another X-Com clone to add to the pile, I guess.

Anonymous Fri Nov 27 05:07:48 2015 No.2820710

>>2818223
iirc the original design had them, but microprose stopped the idea because they already had another MIB game in the making, so they didn't want the two games to overlap.

in the end that game was cancelled and ufo came out without MIB (but you still can see MIB-looking guys on some of the menu windows).

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 05:40:54 2015 No.2820724 File: 28 KB, 640x400, XCom-MIB.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2820710 One of the mods for OpenXCOM adds MIB into the game, they're basically another "race" of enemies, but they have their own missions, including their own style of base.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 05:48:55 2015 No.2820726 >>2820710 i've heard that before but i never found out about the source or what game was it.

Anonymous Fri Nov 27 06:18:54 2015 No.2820745

Late October in my TFTD SH IM run and I finally get M.C. Disrupters. Later than I'd have got Psi in UFO. I lost 3 Tritons trying to get a Tasoth from a colony, so I just built a lot of detection bases and found a normal Tasoth sub. I already have a few high M.C. Strength troops, so maybe now I can survive a colony.

Anonymous Fri Nov 27 06:58:59 2015 No.2820771

>>2818508
No. There are only two tracks that play randomly. Furthermore, there's a MIDI bug which is unsolvable even in OpenXCom that loops and piles some of the midi layers nigh-endlessly. If you're on CE soundtrack, it might be a good idea to switch to get the dos version running in OXC and pick the adlib soundtrack instead. Otherwise you can just get any soundtrack converted to .ogg in Fenyo's website.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 07:09:29 2015 No.2820775 >>2818173 Robin made a mod for OXC with one of those species. Check it out. http://www.openxcom.com/mod/gazer-alien

Anonymous Fri Nov 27 07:10:06 2015 No.2820776

>>2820771
I swear to god though I get audio crackling and garbled speaking through my headphones that sounds almost as if the aliens are trying to listen in on what I'm doing

It started a little over halfway through the game, usually happens right after missions and while doing certain base management things. Definitely seems to be triggered by doing actions, won't happen if I'm just sitting at the geoscape screen. Also, audio in game has a weird effect on my headphones, adjusting the cord makes the sound go in and out during the scenarios I described above even though I never half to do that with them when using the computer outside of xcom.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 07:22:04 2015 No.2820782 >>2820776 You might want to check you shrink, get some new headphones, or stop playing x-com together, if you're that paranoid.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 07:31:13 2015 No.2820792 >>2820782 desu I just assumed it was the coolest feature ever and left it at that The aliens do try to seek out your base anyways so there's that

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 10:57:10 2015 No.2820921 >>2820745 You know you can get MC lab from researching any live terrorist.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 11:01:43 2015 No.2820924 >>2820921 I already got one (although you have to find a MC Reader first or you will never get MC Disrupters. Maybe OpenXCOM fixes this but if it does I consider it cheating).

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 11:10:11 2015 No.2820931 >>2820924 You should get one from a mission at some point. I also can't understand how you could lose three Tritons trying to capture one lousy Tasoth.

Anonymous Fri Nov 27 11:29:37 2015 No.2820959

>>2820931
Tentaculats everywhere. PWT launchers everywhere. Lots of MC users. Huge numbers of aliens. Darkness. MCed aquanauts can reload weapons in OpenXCOM, and I think they can pick up items, and OpenXCOM AI seems to make nearby aliens approach the Triton even before they see the troops.

Admittedly at least two of those losses could have been avoided if I'd aborted sooner, but I have so much money and points that it didn't matter.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 11:31:48 2015 No.2820962 >>2820959 Ok so you used OXC options to make things needless harder on yourself. Gotcha.

>>	Anonymous Fri Nov 27 20:37:15 2015 No.2821707 bump

Anonymous Sun Nov 29 06:36:27 2015 No.2824472

So how am I supposed to get a lobsterman commander? Alien Colony 2nd level is perfect tentaculat ambush terrain. My aquanauts start in a terrible position, and I can't bring many SWSs because I need the commander to build a bigger transport. I can't bring expendable aquanauts either because they'll be a liability with the MCers on the upper level. I don't want to lose my fully trained MCers.

Anonymous Sun Nov 29 08:38:34 2015 No.2824547

>>2824472
Destroyed the colony and collected two Lobsterman Commanders. 1 Displacer/Sonic (scout), 1 Displacer/PWT (door blocker/sniper), 2 expert MCers, 4 expendable rookies (scouts, with medkit/flare/ammo only). Everybody in magnetic ion armor.

1 MCer and 1 rookie injured, no deaths. Colonies are ridiculously huge, I won't be attacking any others despite there being at least 5 more active.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 13:32:30 2015 No.2824850 >>2824472 With a Shok Launcher.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 14:29:20 2015 No.2824960 >>2824547 >I won't be attacking any others despite there being at least 5 more active On the other hand, the plunder you get from them is huge.

Anonymous Sun Nov 29 14:31:31 2015 No.2824965

>start new game
>capture live Deep One on the first terror mission, but lose six dudes in the process
>recruit new soldiers
>next mission after this is an Aquatoid large scout
>the last alien decides to go all kamikaze bomber by throwing a grenade at my troops and killing himself in the blast
>another five soldiers killed

...

Anonymous Sun Nov 29 14:44:54 2015 No.2824998

>begin April
>immediately greeted by a Lobsterman scout
>this would appear to be the makings of a terror mission
>I don't yet have sonic weapons, but decide to gopher it
>after expending a huge amount of gauss ammo and most of my grenades, I bring them down
>almost immediately after the mission is over, finish researching the sonic rifle
>thank you god
>over the months, my outpost base in East Asia detects a medium ship
>shoot it down
>this turns out to be Gillmen on a Heavy Cruiser (TFTD's equivalent of the Harvester)
>the HC is a considerably easier ship to deal with than the UFO Defense Harvester as there's only two floors and the explosion of the power supplies breached the hull
>roll the aliens over like a carpet - one soldier is badly wounded, but no fatalities
>about two days after this mission, get a message "Aliens destroy undefended base Asia 1"
>fug, I triggered a retaliation mission by shooting down that Heavy Cruiser and now my radar base is gone
>next few missions, Aquatoid and Lobstermen scouts
>thanks to the transmission resolver coming online, we find that they're on a Probe and a Terror mission
>nearing end of the month
>USO Detected - Lobstermen, alien surface attacks, North Sea, Battleship
>oh hell no...
>ALIENS LAUNCH PORT ATTACK ON OSLO
>it's at night
>yeah, fuck that shit
>fly out there and immediately dust off
>like I'm doing a nighttime Lobsterman terror mission
>sorry people of Oslo, you can deal with it yourself
>May ends, everyone's happy except the US even though I know there's a colony out near Australia
>oh well...

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 21:54:55 2015 No.2825674 >>2817865 >except you can't get them without a Calcinite corpse and Aquatoid terror missions are not exactly commonplace I wonder why they set it up that way.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 21:57:29 2015 No.2825680 One of the more annoying flaws in TFTD is the ugly graphics and garish, non-shadable colors. The enemies also lack the iconic designs of EU.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 22:34:12 2015 No.2825746 >>2825674 Probably because Aquatoid terror missions are really fricking easy, much easier than fighting Sectoids.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 23:00:48 2015 No.2825783 >>2825680 IDK. Aquatoids are cute little guys; would make great plushies. Sectoids just look like major assholes. Other than that, most of the TFTD aliens don't have especially standout designs. I guess Lobstermen look kind of cool.

>>	Anonymous Sun Nov 29 23:30:43 2015 No.2825824 I've never been able to satisfactorily figure out how TFTD underwater maps are generated unlike EU where if you land in the desert, you get a desert.

Anonymous Sun Nov 29 23:35:52 2015 No.2825836 [DELETED]

>>2825824
AFAIK, the game just picks the tileset at random.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TERRAIN_(TFTD)

There's 8 possible tilesets for underwater missions, however they're weighted so that you get the coral and seabed maps about 50% of the time while the other four tilesets, especially Atlantis, are rarely encountered. The depth that the alien ship is in only affects the lighting level on the map.

Anonymous Sun Nov 29 23:40:36 2015 No.2825843

>>2825824
AFAIK, the game just picks the tileset at random.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TERRAIN_(TFTD)

There's 8 possible tilesets for underwater missions, however they're weighted so that you get the coral and seabed maps about 50% of the time while the other six tilesets, especially Atlantis, are rarely encountered. The depth that the alien ship is in only affects the lighting level on the map and the game won't let you shoot down USOs at the Very Deep depth.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 01:06:20 2015 No.2825960 >>2824998 Gillmen never perform Interdiction/Resource Raid after May; the game replaces them with Tasoths at that point. They still do Probe and base missions, but rarely.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 07:51:09 2015 No.2826336

I completed TFTD Ironman Superhuman no Terror mission stalling no mouse cursor exploring.

Compared to UFO, this is a better balanced game simply because it's much harder to get the game-breaking stuff. It remains fun all the way up to the MC grind. Money is far too plentiful, and score stops being an issue once you have Transmission Resolvers + Sonic Oscillators. Camping is still overpowered, even more so than in UFO because the Triton has a door instead of a ramp. In both cases early game is most fun/stressful.

T'leth was disappointingly easy compared to Cydonia.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 11:54:12 2015 No.2826536 >>2826336 no you did not

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 11:57:23 2015 No.2826540 >>2820962 He didn't. OpenXcom simply fixes the AI of TFTD. Aliens no longer get stuck into their own routes, as it used to happen before. Now they navigate the whole map properly.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 12:04:03 2015 No.2826549 >>2826536 This was the 6th attempt. It's harder than UFO but it's not some ridiculously difficult challenge. Once you've got past the early game you should only lose to carelessness (see >>2815243 ).

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:14:33 2015 No.2826656

>>2826336
I was saying that the larger alien ships are definitely easier than the ones in UFO. I've only recently gotten into TFTD and haven't yet gotten to fight a Dreadnought or Hunter, so can't judge those, but I found the Fleet Supply Cruiser, Battleship, and Heavy Cruiser much simpler to clear than the Supply Ship/Terror Ship/Harvester. They're smaller and don't have all the easy ambush points of the UFO ships. The FSC especially is MUCH easier than the Supply Ship which makes you want to cry. Even the small vessels like the Cruiser are easier since they usually have a breached hull when you shoot them down (the Large Scout doesn't)

On the other hand, easier alien ships are balanced out by brutally harder colonies, cruise ship and artifact missions.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:19:34 2015 No.2826662

>>2826549
Tell me then how you've gone through trawler missions. Particularly the second stage that spawns you on the line of fire of practically every alien in the ship, and without any extra ammo. Because I've seen the best failing at that, especially if you get lobstermen. So either you're savescumming, completely bullshitting, skipping these missions altogether, or camping. It's not the fact that you've completed the game in SH that it's unfeasible. It's the conditions that you state that make it highly unlikely.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:23:05 2015 No.2826669

>>2826656
On the game I was playing the other day, I had gotten the Barracuda equipped with Sonic Oscillators just in time for a Lobsterman infiltration fleet to show up. I shot down the Battleship, but wasn't able to catch the Fleet Supply Cruiser. I notice the Dreadnought didn't show up yet. Guess it comes a bit later.

The Battleship is a little different from the Terror Ship in UFO, specifically that its weapon does 140 damage (equal to the UFO Battleship) instead of 120. It also has a bit longer range, meaning that a Barracuda can't safely shoot them down pre-Sonic Oscillators (two Interceptors with twin Avalanches can take down a Terror Ship). Also the only way to fight a Battleship is by shooting it down since they never voluntarily land (in UFO, Terror Ships land during Infiltration missions).

Dreadnoughts on the other hand have a weaker 120 damage weapon, but it has the same range as the UFO Battleship. Two Barracudas with SOs can take down a Dreadnought while in UFO only an Avenger can go one-one-one with a Battleship.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:28:46 2015 No.2826680

>>2826669
As for the mission itself, cake. I made lobster bisque out of those orange fuckers. Only one rookie was killed, but several soldiers got badly wounded. Probably the most tense moment was when a Tentaculat popped up behind the Triton and not one of my incompetent retards could hit it. I thought "Oh god, this is going to end horribly with a capital H."

>wince as I click End Turn
>amazingly, the Tentaculat just wanders around like a retard and doesn't see us
>bean him on the next turn

When fighting Lobstermen, never forget to pack the stun rods. They're especially helpful in the close quarters action inside a ship. I took out at least three of them via stun/drop grenade on body.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:42:27 2015 No.2826697

>>2826336
>Compared to UFO, this is a better balanced game simply because it's much harder to get the game-breaking stuff

Yes and no. It is easier to get PWT launchers because aliens carry them on all ships bigger than a Cruiser while in UFO only Battleships and bases have Blaster Launchers. This is balanced out by the fact that you can't use them on land. It's also hella easier to get mind control since you just need to research any live terrorist instead of trying to gang-probe a Sectoid leader.

Score is more of a problem in the early months as you can't take on colonies until at least May (Sonic Cannons and Sonic Pulsers are the minimum requirement if you want any chance of surviving) and it takes longer to get Sonic Oscillators (in UFO, you can have Plasma Cannons by April) which means you can't shoot down large ships. Especially because infiltration fleets don't land, so you won't be able to just eat all of the alien ships one-by-one. Also takes longer to get Ion Armor than it does Power Armor in UFO.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:43:30 2015 No.2826701

>>2826662
I did a trawler mission once, never again. After hours of wandering around, I cleared most of the (Tasoths) from the second stage, but I couldn't find the last ones. I guess they were in the cargo containers, but I couldn't figure out how to get to that area so I just marched everyone back to the exit and aborted.

After that, I just go to shipping attacks and dust off. Nuts to that.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 13:57:32 2015 No.2826724

>>2826662
>Particularly the second stage
I never even attempted a second stage. I cleared a first stage once to see what it was like, saw the incredibly dangerous second stage spawn position and immediately aborted the mission. All you lose is points, and points are easy to come by.

>>2826697
also hella easier to get mind control
I didn't find a MC Reader until later than I would have got Psi in UFO.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 15:15:34 2015 No.2826820 >>2825843 I did get one of the city ruins tilesets the other day. It was a Lobsterman scout shot down in the Black Sea at shallow depth.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 16:32:14 2015 No.2826968 Some of the added refinements to the game engine in TFTD are nice especially being able to open doors without walking through them.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 16:44:02 2015 No.2826994 >>2826336 >I completed TFTD Ironman Superhuman no Terror mission stalling no mouse cursor exploring Translate pl0x.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 16:46:53 2015 No.2827004 >>2826994 Terror mission stalling: the trick where you have the Triton patrol for an hour to burn time until it's morning (so you can avoid nighttime terror missions). I don't know what the mouse cursor exploring bit is though.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 16:49:24 2015 No.2827006

>>2826662
>Tell me then how you've gone through trawler missions. Particularly the second stage that spawns you on the line of fire of practically every alien in the ship, and without any extra ammo. Because I've seen the best failing at that, especially if you get lobstermen

I'd just abort a trawler mission if it were Lobstermen. I'll do it if it's Aquatoids or Gillmen, but seriously fuck Lobstermen.

>>	Anonymous Mon Nov 30 16:50:54 2015 No.2827012 >>2827004 See again. I'll do nighttime terror if it isn't Lobstermen or Mixed Crews. Otherwise I'm either going to use the stall trick or fly out there and just dust off.

Anonymous Mon Nov 30 16:59:11 2015 No.2827030

>>2826724
>All you lose is points, and points are easy to come by.
Bag a medium or large USO or two and easily make up for that point deficit.

>>2826656
>>2826336
It's certainly easier to get Zrbite than Elerium because of being scattered in random parts of the sub. For example, a Cruiser will always net you some Zrbite because the navigation consoles in the rear (the tail section) do not get blown up if the power supplies explode.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 1 00:36:37 2015 No.2827760 >>2827004 >mouse cursor exploring You can see silhouettes of aliens/terrain in unexplored areas by carefully looking at the mouse cursor box.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 1 00:40:11 2015 No.2827765 >>2827760 I've occasionally done that in UFO Defense. Especially in the area around a base command center. You want to know if there's aliens there so you don't walk in and get reaction fired.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 1 00:43:46 2015 No.2827770 >>2827765 Motion scanner is almost as good without feeling like cheating. And late game just blaster launcher anyplace suspicious.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 1 00:45:24 2015 No.2827778 >>2827770 Motion scanners don't show anything if the alien hasn't moved which is kind of useless for revealing campers hiding in the top floor of a barn or something. TFTD is even worse because the AI causes aliens to get trapped in little rooms.

Anonymous Tue Dec 1 15:35:03 2015 No.2828801

>clean out Gillman terror site
>search the entire map, can't find the last holdout
>I have a pretty good idea of where he is though
>it's pretty obvious the cocksucker is hiding in one of those tower things
>except a stupid civilian is blocking the stairs up there
>wait a few turns
>he still won't move
>try a different tac
>throw grenade up to the top of the tower and blow the wall out
>still no sign of an alien
>but he has to be up there - I've searched the entire goddamn map
>finally lose my temper and just shoot the idiot blocking the stairs
>march up there and yep, a Gillman is cowering inside
>shoot him and we're done with only one casualty

So a few points subtracted for killing a civvie. Big deal. Still got a Good rating and besides, he deserved it.

Anonymous Tue Dec 1 20:06:39 2015 No.2829328

>begin March
>bretty uneventful month; take down a Gillman scout or two around Europe
>ALIENS MOUNT ISLAND ATTACK ON ST. HELENA
>see that it's at night, fly out there, and dust off
>12 civvies died; that 400 point deficit could be a problem especially since aliens have also been busy out in the Sea of Japan where I have no monitoring capability
>last day of the month another scout ship pops up off Europe
>ok
>shoot it down in the Baltic
>cool, I got the Research Lab tile set
>that's the first time I've ever seen this one
>take out a few Gillmen, lose one guy, easy mission
>get about 150 points, not enough to make up for the aborted terror mission and the activity near Japan, but it's something
>end of month
>China and Brazil are pissed, Arabian Bloc is happy
>lose about $92,000 in funding
>oh well

Anonymous Tue Dec 1 20:14:01 2015 No.2829340

>begin April
>get my Transmission Resolver going
>uneventful week passes
>another scout vessel near Europe
>thanks to the TR, we can see it's...Lobstermen scouting out a terror mission in the North Sea
>ahoy landlubbers, lobster season is upon us
>let's go hunting
>first mission that all my soldiers have plastic aqua armor and sonic rifles
>not a difficult run; methodically kneeling and sniping away like British redcoats, we take down all the orange daemons
>one soldier gets grenaded, another dies when we approach the ship and gets reaction fired
>kill that Lobsterman while other soldiers approach the front door
>the last alien pops out the door, shoots, and misses
>aw hell with it, let's just stun him and be done with it

To be continued...

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 1 22:44:40 2015 No.2829531 >>2825843 It is random, however the region you shoot down an alien sub seems to have some bearing. For example, I noticed that if you do missions in the circled area, you get the lava flow tile set a lot.

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:08:28 2015 No.2829638

To put it simply, AP ammo does 20% damage to Lobstermen, gauss 30% damage, sonic 50% damage, stun 110% damage, and melee 200% damage.

Never leave home without stun rods or launchers. 1-2 taps with a stun rod and nighty-nighty. Then drop a grenade on them and you're done.

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:23:32 2015 No.2829660

Ion armor will effectively save your troops around 50% of the time from Sonic Cannon shots from the front, so it's good against everything pretty much (save tentaculats). The lobstermen's native melee attack is laughably weak though, so if you can get close with ion armor, you can laugh at them as they clean the dirt away from your shiny armor. Then drill them to death.

It's a real shame desu, the enemy most people fear so much, is actually so very easy to deal with.
But Ion armor alone isn't going to beat them, you need something that's able to damage them to kill them, else you can just try tickling eachother to death.

Personally, I hate Ethereals far more than any TFTD alien. Just the idea of going after them on anything bigger than a scout vessel makes my head hurt.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:25:26 2015 No.2829662 Until getting ion armor, spotter+snipers is the usual way of taking down Lobstemen. Sonic Cannons do on occasion OHKO them. It gives you pause for thought when you see a Lobsterman survive a point-blank PWT missile.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:27:12 2015 No.2829667 You've seen nothing until you fight Triscenes. Those guys can eat an entire clip worth of sonic cannon rounds and it doesn't even tickle them, but grenades will put them down like nothing.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:28:41 2015 No.2829671 >>2829662 I have never been able to one-shot Lobstermen with sonic cannon - never. If I am lucky, they go down after TWO hits with the sonic cannon - but more often than not they need at least three.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:29:42 2015 No.2829673 >>2829671 You can definitely OHKO them on Beginner mode, higher levels may take 3-4 hits.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 00:31:39 2015 No.2829679 First time I ever played TFTD, I knocked a Lobsterman out, tried to pick it up and bring it home for research, it gets up and...I didn't know about their melee attack. Tentaculats make me shit my pants every time.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 01:42:53 2015 No.2829763 >>2829662 >Sonic Cannons do on occasion OHKO them Maybe on easy difficulties, but I never saw that happen on Superhuman.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 02:06:03 2015 No.2829787 File: 88 KB, 640x400, tftd_2_big.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2829531 Forgot pic.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 03:35:31 2015 No.2829915 >>2818172 Julian Gollop said in an presentation once that he got the idea of the Chryssalid when he saw the zombie and the Chryssalid next to each other on this lineup.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 03:54:59 2015 No.2829951 >>2784851 you probably could with anti-med kits

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:21:11 2015 No.2830816 >beat Lobsterman port attack Oh god, what a headache of a mission. I lost only three dudes, but two were seriously wounded and at least five guys became unconscious from smoke inhalation and stun bombs.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:24:39 2015 No.2830820 >>2829531 >>2825843 There does seem to be a correlation because I got the Research Lab map again after shooting down a USO in the North Sea.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:25:45 2015 No.2830821 File: 74 KB, 500x500, 1433702377996.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Newfag to these games, they look pretty fun. Which X-COM should I start with?

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:30:11 2015 No.2830831

>>2830820
I think you're right and you can test this by starting the game with your home base in the North Sea. You'll get the Research Lab tileset all the time when you shoot alien ships down there. Shoot them down in the Mediterranean and you'll get nothing but Atlantis maps.

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:38:15 2015 No.2830854

I started playing and ended up farther than I ever have, got a psy lab, power armor, even an avenger.

But I just get exhausted. I began to dread the missions, they just became stressful. I refuse to savescum and after losing so many great soldiers to stupid shit I'm super paranoid and have to analyze every move I make lest he or she get shot from the fog of war. I can't remember the last time I had a mission with no casualties and I'd do something like clear an alien base, my heart pounding the entire time, only to shoot down a supply ship or something and having to do yet another mission, yet another super tense time clearing the map, making sure everyones covered, making sure no stone is left unturned.

I guess that's kind of the charm of the game, shit is super intense, but man it got overwhelming.

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:45:02 2015 No.2830868

>>2830854
>But I just get exhausted. I began to dread the missions, they just became stressful

Once you get past the early part of the game, you have plenty of money, advanced tech, and experienced soldiers, you can pick and choose your battles a bit more. For example, later in the game it's usually not worth it to bother with every scout UFO that comes along. Just drop them in the ocean or else ignore the crash site. Save your soldiers for bigger UFOs, terror sites, and alien bases. No point in having your elite captain or colonel killed over a Medium Scout.

Exception being if I have a lot of rookies to train, then I'll go after smaller UFOs.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:46:47 2015 No.2830870 >>2830854 >making sure no stone is left unturned This statement applies to TFTD far more than it does UFO Defense. You typically do have to search every last corner of the map or you'll miss the alien hiding in a closet somewhere.

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 16:58:07 2015 No.2830884

>>2830868
My problem is lack of elerium. I got a bunch from an alien mission but every ufo I get to has it's elerium blown.

And my experienced soldiers are mostly dead, mostly to dumb shit like not medkitting unconcious soldiers or not checking around a corner. All part of the learning process I guess.

Anonymous Wed Dec 2 17:05:32 2015 No.2830902

>>2830884
>My problem is lack of elerium. I got a bunch from an alien mission but every ufo I get to has it's elerium blown

The game gives a fixed 75% chance that each power supply in crashed UFOs explodes. You can also follow UFOs around until they land, although this doesn't always happen on all alien missions. Attacking landed UFOs avoids the risk of a retaliation mission, but you may end up having to fight them during nighttime.

Incidentally, TFTD makes it a lot easier to acquire Zrbite than getting Elerium in UFO because crashed subs other than the two smallest ones usually have some intact and you'll also always get Zrbite out of alien colonies while UFO Defense bases sometimes have no power station in them. My current TFTD run I had to sell some Zrbite because I had so much it was filling up my stores and I don't yet have ion armor or advanced craft to use it up on.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 17:20:58 2015 No.2830940 Is it true the game shipped with a bug it would always be the hardest setting? If so, way to fix that? I tried it and the terror mission went on forever(huge map) and everyone got killed. Would rather play apocalypse with the annoying worms.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 17:21:52 2015 No.2830942 >>2830940 >Is it true the game shipped with a bug it would always be the hardest setting? If so, way to fix that? The DOS version of UFO Defense had a bug that caused it to always revert to Beginner mode, fixed by XComUtil.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 22:12:26 2015 No.2831382 >lose 5 soldiers clearing a measly Lobsterman medium scout Ow, my head hurts...

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 2 23:41:56 2015 No.2831493 >>2829787 Yep, happened again. Shot an Aquatoid scout down in that dark blue water area and got a lava map.

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 4 02:06:43 2015 No.2833069 bump

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 4 19:37:33 2015 No.2834450 I hate those little underground room things on island terror sites because there's always an alien waiting in there to reaction fire you.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 5 06:32:46 2015 No.2835323 bump

>>	Anonynomus Sat Dec 5 07:34:03 2015 No.2835379 >>2830821 Play them in order, the first game is a timeless classic and the second one is just more of the same with larger levels.

Anonymous Sat Dec 5 10:57:27 2015 No.2835578

>>2830821
Definitely play UFO and TFTD, I recommend you play them in that order. TFTD is sort of like a expansion on UFO, or at least that's what it looks like at first. It's a lot harder and the levels are bigger and more complex. After that you play apocalypse and the rest if you feel like it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 5 13:40:13 2015 No.2835745 >>2820775 Robin is truely a madman. The sprites and art he does is PERFECT

Anonymous Sun Dec 6 09:13:30 2015 No.2837438

I hate a Lobsterman terror mission, especially if they're in April when I don't have Sonic Cannons yet.

>shoot enemy
>move guys around
>click end turn
>three guys get shot dead all at once
>reload
>try moving guys into different positions to see which ones are safer
>reload if it doesn't work
>repeat process 20-30 times

Even then, expect minimum four casualties and another couple guys knocked out for three weeks with nasty wounds.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 6 22:42:55 2015 No.2838849 >>2837438 savescumming is ch33ting d00dz

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 7 00:48:05 2015 No.2839049 >>2838849 There was really no other way senpai.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 7 03:33:09 2015 No.2839224 >>2839049 Abandon mission, wait for Sonic Cannon research. Or thermal tazer rush if you really want to fight it. Ironman is the only fun way to play.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 7 07:28:02 2015 No.2839437 >>2837438 Colonies suck even more though.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 7 09:53:23 2015 No.2839578 >>2839437 I'll give you a protip. Most aliens in colonies spawn in those triangle-shaped rooms and it seems they mainly hang out in the northern third of the map. At least, the southern part of colonies never seems to have anything in it.

Anonymous Mon Dec 7 10:03:49 2015 No.2839582

The only tactics to find the last alien is checking each and every room. However, if you don't lose too many soldiers (this restores enemy morale otherwise) and kill the majority of the colony, the remnant tends to panic and berserk. Listen to the cracks (berserk) and investigate visually the walls, the floor, and alien furniture for damage. Panicked aliens tend to drop their weapons, you can also find these on the map.

And for the record, sometimes the dropped weapons in panic mysteriously fall through floors and may mislead you from the location of the alien.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 7 15:34:09 2015 No.2840073 >>2839224 Earlygame TFTD is not Ironman friendly. You either manage to survive the first two months and at the same time get sonic weapons ready for March, or you just restart.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 7 23:28:10 2015 No.2840902 >>2839582 Last colony I did, I got a message "Lobsterman Squad Leader has panicked" but I had no friggin' clue where he was.

Anonymous Mon Dec 7 23:30:53 2015 No.2840907

>>2840073
Lobstermen regularly show up starting in April so you should have sonic weapons by then. A lot of times you start April with a shipping route attack which could be Lobstermen or Tasoths in which case you're fucked. Just go there and abort unless it turns out to be Gillmen or Aquatoids in which case gauss weapons are fine.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 8 10:52:23 2015 No.2841743 >>2839578 I actually can only remember one time ever that I succeeded in clearing all the aliens from a colony.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 8 12:30:31 2015 No.2841879 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltonWJekxa8 Strange, every time I've done a colony the entrance lifts are always in the SE corner of the map. I never get a setup like he does here.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 01:19:47 2015 No.2843152 >>2841879 Proving my earlier belief that all the aliens are in the north of the map. I suppose a good strategy would be to ignore the south as much as possible and focus strictly on the northern part of the colony if you want to find all of them.

Anonymous Wed Dec 9 07:44:03 2015 No.2843567

>redo colony in the South China Sea for the third freaking time
>go with the strategy of sticking to the north of the map and largely ignoring the south
>finally I manage to kill/stun every last cotton-picking xeno

About fucking time. The main reason I didn't want to just blow up the Synonium Device and run is because I really needed money. I had only $1.2 million and thanks to the huge haul of loot from the colony, I'm now up to $6 million. Three guys died.

>one clawed to death by a Lobsterman
>another turned into a zombie by a Tentaculat at the very end of the mission
>the third got knocked unconscious by a stun bomb-wielding Lobsterman (who also put himself out) and he died when I threw a grenade onto the alien to kill him (just as well since unconscious soldiers are counted as MIA anyway)

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 08:31:43 2015 No.2843621 >>2843567 Why don't you just get loot by eating the supply ships going to the colony. It would be a hell of a lot easier.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 08:35:25 2015 No.2843627 >>2843621 IDK. The colony was one region over from my base, yet I somehow never detected any supply ships. Generally unless the thing is in your home region, you can't reliably get them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 08:42:33 2015 No.2843637 And I have another colony to take out because the US got infiltrated.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 08:49:32 2015 No.2843642 >>2843567 One room had three Lobstys all standing in a row. My guys shot and knocked each one unconscious, so I had to grenade them. Problem ofc being that you blow up their equipment so that's less gear to bring home.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 08:58:25 2015 No.2843649 Wish that colonies didn't have a fixed race setup.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 09:17:26 2015 No.2843671 >>2787347 I hate stun bombs. Probably my most hated weapon in the game because once your soldiers are out, they will NOT get back up even if you waste multiple med kits on them.

Anonymous Wed Dec 9 10:46:57 2015 No.2843769
File: 278 KB, 600x600, 600px-073Tentacruel.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

The name of this thing is so similar to "Tentaculat" that I wonder if back when they made the English Gen 1 Pokemon names that some Nintendo employee hadn't been playing TFTD.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 11:02:00 2015 No.2843786 >>2787347 It could be 200 turns or so before they wake up.

Anonymous Wed Dec 9 11:08:48 2015 No.2843791

>>2843786

>>2841879
Some of his soldiers wake up in this LP after about 45 turns and being pumped with stimulant from med kits.

But yeah, I hate the fucking hell out of stun bombs especially since the game counts unconscious soldiers as MIA at the end of a mission (which it did not do in UFO Defense).

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 14:27:29 2015 No.2844049 >>2841879 >watched more of Lord Finisher's TFTD LP >goes to a Tasoth terror mission and dusts off Pussy. It's not that bad. Triscenes look kind of intimidating until you realize that they're stupid easy to kill with grenades.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 9 14:36:32 2015 No.2844070 >>2844049 Thermic lances will do them in as well, although on Genius/Superhuman you'll need the Heavy Thermic Lance.

Anonymous Wed Dec 9 14:40:10 2015 No.2844081

>>2843769
>The name of this thing is so similar to "Tentaculat" that I wonder if back when they made the English Gen 1 Pokemon names that some Nintendo employee hadn't been playing TFTD.
A normal person would know that both names are just plays on the word "tentacle" but whatever.

Anonymous Thu Dec 10 08:35:06 2015 No.2845586

>the war drags on
>clean out another alien colony in the North Atlantic
>as we're doing that, they're building a new colony in the Mediterranean
>why is it that the guys who end up getting killed/knocked unconscious/mind controlled are always the ones wearing expensive Ion Armor

Another $3 million from selling loot and also a nice 1100 point score boost to make up the -400 deficit from evading a shipping route attack (yeah like I'm really gonna do one of those). Lost three guys, one zombified by a Tentaculat, and two MIA b/c unconscious at the end of the mission. Two of them were cannon fodder with Plastic Aqua Armor, but the third was one of my better officers who had on Ion Armor and had just gotten back online from a nasty wound.

Replace them with new meat, make new armor (including Magnetic Ion Armor for the first time), replenish our ammo stocks, and it's time for the next colony.

Anonymous Thu Dec 10 08:44:02 2015 No.2845594

>>2845586
The only colony I did in my SH IM run was the one to get the lobsterman commanders. And the only reason I even destroyed it was because I accidentally found the synomium device before I found the commanders. Rule the seas with sonic oscillators and never worry about score again. Colonies are too dangerous.

Anonymous Thu Dec 10 08:54:59 2015 No.2845610

>>2845594
It gets easier when you realize that most of the aliens spawn in the northern half of the map and you can save a ton of time by ignoring the south.

>Rule the seas with sonic oscillators and never worry about score again. Colonies are too dangerous

They're a tedious grind, but trawlers/artifact sites are worse. At least when you get past the first part of colonies, you don't have to worry about psionics anymore.

Anonymous Thu Dec 10 09:02:38 2015 No.2845616

I tell you what really blows and it's not colonies, it's Lobsterman terror missions. Chiefly because of Bio-Drones. There isn't another alien I despise more than those things.

>require multiple shots to kill
>have insane reactions
>shots go through Plastic Aqua Armor like wet tissue paper - you need Ion Armor to have a decent survival chance
>and they explode, so you can't shoot one if you turn a corner and come face-to-face with it

In my current run, the May terror mission was a Lobsterman island attack in the South Atlantic and I just love when a Bio-Drone spawns inside those tiny underground rooms waiting to reaction fire anything that comes near them.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 10 11:47:42 2015 No.2845804 >>2819775 i really, really like this reference

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 10 14:42:42 2015 No.2846053 >>2792218 MC is bifurcated in TFTD. Capturing a live terrorist lets you research the MC Lab and train soldiers, however you will need a live Tasoth to use the MC Disruptor (equivalent of the psy amp).

Anonymous Thu Dec 10 17:47:18 2015 No.2846274

>>2845594
Colonies are a lot more leisurely and slow-paced than UFO Defense bases. You can go for many turns without encountering any aliens and most combat action will just involve taking potshots at aliens as opposed to massive gunfire and explosions. PWT launchers for example are pretty useless compared with the demolition you can inflict on a base with Blaster Bombs.

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 11 00:44:57 2015 No.2846957 Is xcom one of those games you should play unmodified your first time, or are there mods that are essential at this point?

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 11 04:32:13 2015 No.2847246 >>2846957 You should play it in OpenXCOM, with no mods. OpenXCOM fixes all the bugs and greatly improves the interface (including letting you play at higher resolutions, which is much more enjoyable than a tiny 320x200 display).

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 11 06:55:52 2015 No.2847364 >>2845610 But the first part where there's Aquatoids/Tasoths everywhere...oh Jesus Christ do I hate mind control.

Anonymous Fri Dec 11 12:13:21 2015 No.2847732

>>2820724
MIB can be ugly in openxcom .

My first playthrough i attempted to assault their landed ship, and got MIB terror mission instead. With green crew armed with basic weaponry i had to face four laser tanks.

Each of them capable of taking multiple heavy rockets in the face without a scratch. I barely killed two, expending almost heavy ordnance - then spotted two more, and promptly noped the fuck away to skyranger. Rating terrible of course.

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 09:28:48 2015 No.2849705 [DELETED]

>take out another colony
>somewhere there's a panicked Lobsteman squad leader but damn if I know where he is
>besides we've spent almost 70 turns in here already
>blow up the Synonium Device and leave
>also one of my elite Magnetic Ion Armor-wearing officers died

I had enough money and Zrbite so I could afford to lose some loot. As June ended, Euro Syndicate got infiltrated and X-Com agents found a colony in the Mediterranean. They're putting up colonies faster than I can take them out, I swear.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 11:02:43 2015 No.2849848 >trying to figure out why I can't research the Leviathan >turns out you have to research the Lobsterman commander before the Manta And that's why I saved beforehand. I suspected I might have missed something.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 14:28:53 2015 No.2850241 What's the best way to play TFTD nowadays? It seems open xcom only supports the original game.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:02:21 2015 No.2850336 >>2850241 They were working on an OXC version of it, weren't they?

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:03:22 2015 No.2850339 >>2849705 >also one of my elite Magnetic Ion Armor-wearing officers died Murphy's Law, X-COM style.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:05:00 2015 No.2850345 >>2850241 Nightly builds have supported TFTD for a long time. I recently completed TFTD in OpenXCOM (self-compiled because of >>2792161 ).

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:07:28 2015 No.2850353 [DELETED]

>>2850339
Sure is at that.

"Your best soldiers, the ones with firing accuracy of 70 and 95 psy strength and who have Flying Suits will always fall victim to a lucky alien sharpshooter or a Chryssalid/Tentaculat while squaddies with like 45 firing accuracy and 21 strength will manage to survive with nary a scratch on them."

Or the other variant, which is discovering that your elite colonel with a Flying Suit has a psy strength of like 10 so you touch down at a Sectoid terror site and he gets mind controlled on Turn 1 and drops a grenade in the middle of the Skyranger."

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:13:13 2015 No.2850359 >>2850353 Yeah it's pretty annoying when some of your best soldiers have such shit psy strength that they're totally unusable in colony missions because of all the Aquatoids/Tasoths running around.

Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:15:18 2015 No.2850365 [DELETED]

>>2850353
See >>2849705. I lost five guys in that colony mission and one of them was a god-tier sergeant. High firing accuracy, high psy strength, the complete package. Well, she died to a Lobsterman with a Sonic Cannon.

I could have savescummed, but I just accepted the loss.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 15:19:08 2015 No.2850373 Apparently the Collector's Edition of TFTD has the same waypoint bug as UFO Defense (ie. you can't shoot PWT missiles directly up or down).

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 16:07:08 2015 No.2850531 >>2850345 Alright time to buy the game. Thanks.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 16:20:53 2015 No.2850560 I have something I'd like to confess I've played over 100 hours of UFO defense, and I've never beat it.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 12 16:57:18 2015 No.2850625 >>2850560 Oddly, me neither. I've almost gotten to the very end but I always get cold feet when it's Cydonia time.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 09:45:51 2015 No.2851989 I couldn't figure out how to get the Leviathan, but I think I finally got this stupid tech tree. Research Hammerhead THEN Lobsterman Commander THEN Leviathan

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 10:19:34 2015 No.2852021 >>2849705 Yes it's easier to just blow up the SD and run, but you don't get to collect any loot. Colonies have several million bucks worth of junk to sell.

Anonymous Sun Dec 13 11:04:00 2015 No.2852073

>>2850560
>>2850625

I've lost a lot of campaigns, not to the alien scum, but because I wanted to go in a different tech direction early game, or went to play a different game and came back wanting to start fresh. X-COM isn't about getting there, I think, for a lot of people; it's about the journey.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 11:25:06 2015 No.2852109 >>2852073 The endgame is the weakest part, because once you have some expert Psi/MC users it's almost impossible to lose. The only way it can happen is if you fail to spread your troops out on the final missions and lose them all in one explosion.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 12:45:35 2015 No.2852260 >>2852021 As I said, colonies get a lot easier once you realize the aliens are always in the northern half of the map and you can just ignore the south.

Anonymous Sun Dec 13 12:54:04 2015 No.2852269 [DELETED]

Just started July and got immediately greeted with the news that Euro Syndicate was infiltrated. Also a Lobsterman scout showed up to begin a new terror mission. That was cleared with no casualties, except now I triggered a retaliation mission and they're after my base.

Then found the infiltration colony out in the middle of the Atlantic, so it's go time. I made sure to launch a PWT missile into the balcony above the entrance lift and whoa, I killed at least five of them in one blast. I normally don't try to clear all the aliens in the entrance of colonies, but I felt confident enough to try it now.

>one soldier gets panicked by the aliens and goes berserk
>his stray shots kill a nearby Hallucinoid

Now that was cool. The last aliens were an Aquatoid and Tasoth in the northeast of the map. So begins another long grind through the inner colony.

>spawn in the north of the map right where all the aliens are
Thank you so much, game. I needed that.

>kill a Tentaculat
>shoot Lobsty, knock him unconscious, then aim a PWT missile at another one nearby, weakening him enough that we can drop the guy in one shot

Not a bad way to start. Updates as they happen.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 18:44:33 2015 No.2852902 >actually going through the headache of clearing colonies Why u do dis Anon?

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 13 19:19:08 2015 No.2852950 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KAHxxssZSjQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> For you

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 09:13:18 2015 No.2854010 >>2852950 I curse trawlers every way from Sunday.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 10:19:43 2015 No.2854142 Julian Gollop apparently was not a big fan of TFTD. He thought that the dev team (Microprose's UK outfit) made the missions way too long, difficult, and tedious.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 10:32:10 2015 No.2854157 I'm trying to compile a list of differences between TFTD and EU. Anyone wanna help?

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 10:40:29 2015 No.2854178 [DELETED]

>>2854157
Ok we can start with aliens:

Aquatoid: AFAIK, they're roughly comparable to Sectoids stat-wise
Gillmen: Stats are roughly similar to Floaters, Gillmen ofc don't float
Lobstermen: Significantly better TUs, reactions, and firing accuracy vs Mutons. They also have over 50% higher psy strength.
Tasoth: A lot tougher to kill than Ethereals and slightly better TUs, reactions, and firing accuracy. Tasoths have very low bravery so are extremely easy to panic.

Snakeman vs Hallucinoid? (no direct match): Both pretty useless aliens, so not much difference here ;)
Bio Drone vs Cyberdisc: Grrr, no Wiki info on Bio Drones.
Reaper vs Xarquid: Same for Xarquids...
Silacoid vs Calcinite: And Calcinites, I'm going to add this stuff.
Celatid vs Deep One: ...
Chryssalid vs Tentaculat: Yay, info here. Tentaculats have a few more Time Units and Health points, much better Reactions and vastly superior MC resistance. And just for fun, they fly. BUT! Tentaculats don't appear on terror missions, unlike Chryssalids.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 10:47:40 2015 No.2854191 [DELETED]

>>2854178
TFTD ofc has at least five types of terror missions:

>surface attack
Otherwise just like EU terror missions. They begin 2.5 hours after a new month starts and have the same sequence of alien ships (medium scout, large scout, two terror ships). Shooting down the second terror ship prevents the terror mission from happening. However, TFTD has either port attacks or island missions. Island missions have more wide open space to fight in but also lots of hills and those little underground rooms where aliens can camp in and reaction fire you.

>shipping attack
Begins immediately at the start of a month with no preceding ships and cannot be prevented from happening. You can also get either a trawler or cruise ship with the former being significantly harder especially the second part where aliens can fire down on your exposed soldiers and there's tons of cargo containers for them to hide in.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 10:50:52 2015 No.2854197 [DELETED]

>>2854191
And the artefact site which also starts immediately at the beginning of a new month and features two parts. They have mixed crews of Tasoths, Aquatoids, Tentaculats, and Hallucinoids in both sections, so mind control galore. You get -700 points for quitting an artefact site without destroying the Synonium Device and -2000 for ignoring them.

Shipping attacks can happen starting in April and artefact sites in June. The game randomly draws the type of terror mission, so you have a fairly equal probability of a surface, shipping, or artefact mission.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 10:56:33 2015 No.2854207 [DELETED]

TFTD has a pretty bad bug that makes the Gauss Tank unusable (it loses its ammo when you unload it from the Triton) but you don't have to worry since by the time you can get the thing, you have access to the Sonic Displacer which is probably the most powerful battlefield weapon available to you in either TFTD or EU.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:00:10 2015 No.2854214 >>2854157 Ion and Magnetic Ion Armor are identical except for the latter giving you the ability to fly (float). You can't fly on surface missions however. EU's Power Armor was a bit weaker than the Flying Suit.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:09:09 2015 No.2854229 [DELETED]

>>2854157
Some weapons can't be used on land, respectively the TFTD version of the Auto Cannon and the PWT Launcher. Of course the aliens can't use PWT Launchers on land either which is nice.

Alien subs aren't as tough as EU ships. You can punch holes in them with grenades where only a Blaster Launcher could penetrate in EU. It's easier to get Zrbite than Elerium since TFTD ships have it in locations other than the engines, so even if they get blown up in a crash, you can often still collect some. Especially the TFTD large scout (the Cruiser) has its Zrbite in the two spherical things in the back of the ship, thus you're guaranteed to always get the stuff.

Alien colonies also always net you some Zrbite while EU bases often have no power station in them. I've never had a problem with Zrbite shortages unlike EU where you can run out of Elerium pretty easily.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:18:27 2015 No.2854247 [DELETED]

>>2854157
TFTD's research tree is more complex and fucked up than EU's. You need to research more stuff so it will take longer to beat the game. For instance you can't get Sonic Oscillators unless you research Zrbite and all Sonic weapons, while EU only requires you to research Heavy Plasma to get the Sonic Cannon.

You also need a live Deep One for Ion Armor and advanced subs and you must research it in the correct order (do not research the Deep One until after Plastic Aqua Armor, Magnetic Navigation, Zrbite, and Magnetic Ion Accelerators). You also must have at least one Sub Construction in storage to learn advanced subs, otherwise you'll need to research another live Deep One.

You need a Lobsterman Commander to unlock the Leviathan, so do not research it until after the Hammerhead. (Hammerhead then Lobsterman Commander then Leviathan).

In EU, any alien commander will let you unlock Cydonia or Bust, but TFTD only the Lobsterman Commander is of any use. If you don't want to bother with colonies, you may be able to snag one from a Dreadnought or a base defense mission.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:30:21 2015 No.2854278 [DELETED]

>>2854247
Alien ranks work a little different than EU as well. For example, the TFTD Navigator is not the same thing as the EU Navigator. TFTD's Navigator is actually equivalent to the Leader in EU and the Squad Leader is equivalent to the EU Navigator.

Alien technicians (engineers) are identical to EU except they only appear on medium and up ships while EU puts engineers on Large Scouts. Aquatoid technicians can use psionics in addition to their navigators and commanders. This makes the bigger Aquatoid ships harder than Sectoid ones since more aliens can MC you (the Aquatoid commander also has the best psy strength/skill of the four main alien races). Gillman commanders have MC as well but you only ever encounter them on Dreadnoughts and they're not that good compared with Aquatoids.

Tasoths consist of only soldiers and squad leaders and the latter can use psionics. Lobstermen can't use psionics at all.

Aquatoids/Gillmen are also worthless for learning psionics. Capturing any live terrorist lets you get the MC Lab, but you need a live Tasoth for the MC Disrupter (equivalent of the Psy Amp). Interestingly, you can get it from a Tasoth soldier even though those can't use psionics.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:41:49 2015 No.2854308 [DELETED]

Alien colonies: Two part and MUCH bigger than EU bases. Also they always have a fixed race setup (outer part with Hallucinoids, Aquatoids, Tasoths, and Tentaculats, inner part with Tentaculats and Lobstermen). The alien race that builds the colony will only be responsible for supplying it.

TFTD also splits terrorists up so the ones you encounter on surface missions are different from the ones in ships. Thus,

Aquatoid: Calcinite (land), Hallucinoid (water)
Gillman: Deep One (land), Xarquid (water)
Lobsterman: Bio-Drone (land), Tentaculat (water)
Tasoth: Bio-Drone (shipping route attack), Triscene (island/port attack), Tentaculat (water)

Base defense missions are considered land, so you get Calcinites/Deep Ones/Bio Drones on those.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:44:27 2015 No.2854313 [DELETED]

>>2854178
Forgot Triscenes. These guys are roughly analogous to the Sectopod, except their under-armor is very soft so it's stupid easy to disable them with grenades. Melee weapons work nicely as well although on Genius/Superhuman you'll need a Heavy Thermic Lance.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:47:03 2015 No.2854319 >>2854178 Gillmen also stop performing Resource Raid/Interdiction missions after May (Tasoths replace them for those) while Floaters can do Abduction/Harvest at any point in EU.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:49:36 2015 No.2854325 [DELETED]

>>2854313
The melee weapon is one thing with no EU equivalent. You need a Calcinite corpse for those, but it depends on your ability to get an Aquatoid terror mission. If that doesn't happen early in the game, you may find a Calcinite later on with a mixed crew terror site.

Calcinite corpses let you get the Vibro Blade, but a Gillman corpse is needed for the Thermic/Heavy Thermic Lance (make sure you've researched VB first).

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 11:56:33 2015 No.2854335 [DELETED]

>>2854308
Also you can get mixed crew terror missions which are one of two types:

Mostly Lobstermen/Bio-Drones and a few Aquatoids/Calcinites
Mostly Tasoths/Bio-Drones (Triscene if Island/Port attack) and a few Aquatoids/Calcinites.

The Transmission Resolver does not specify which crew type it is and mixed crew island/port attacks don't occur until June, although they can do shipping attacks from April.

Anonymous Mon Dec 14 13:46:45 2015 No.2854442 [DELETED]

Alien subs in TFTD are slower than ships in UFO Defense - even when they're at top speed, Barracudas can catch up to them (but not attack when they're at Very Deep depth). The TFTD terror ship (Battleship) has a weapon that does 140 damage and has slightly longer range than EU's terror ship. Thus a single Barracuda can't down a Battleship pre-Sonic Oscillators while two Interceptors with twin Avalanches are enough to down a Terror Ship.

The Dreadnought has a 120 damage weapon instead of 140 like the EU Battleship, but with the same range. Just like EU, only a Leviathan can go one-on-one with a Dreadnought although the weaker weapon means two Barracudas with dual Sonic Oscillators can down them.

Infiltration fleets in TFTD do not land, meaning that you can't fight any of the ships short of shooting them down, including the Dreadnoughts. Thus the only way to fight a Battleship is by shooting it down since they don't land at all (in EU you can catch landed Terror Ships during an infiltration mission).

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 15 08:23:20 2015 No.2856129 https://desustorage.org/vr/thread/2784492/#2854442 The fuck happened here.

Anonymous Wed Dec 16 15:51:33 2015 No.2859081

>clean colony #3 from the North Atlantic
>roll through the place like a bulldozer sweeping away every last orange cockbag and floating brain nigger
>manage to clear the colony in 40 turns, my best time yet
And because I also cleared the outer portion, I also got to keep all the Aquatoid and whatnot corpses and equipment for over $7 million worth of loot.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 16 17:10:37 2015 No.2859227 >>2856129 If you haven't realized in all these months. X-Com threads are a MASSIVE circlejerk of the same posters. Guy got banned for whatever reason, mod deletes all the posts of the guy's IP, bam, here we are.

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 16 21:29:38 2015 No.2859592 >>2859227 >Guy got banned for whatever reason, mod deletes all the posts of the guy's IP, bam, here we are. None of the deleted posts broke any rules. Why would the guy get banned and have his posts wiped on top of it?

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 16 21:30:39 2015 No.2859594 >>2859227 >X-Com threads are a MASSIVE circlejerk of the same posters It's an anonymous board. How would you be able to tell?

Anonymous Wed Dec 16 21:36:15 2015 No.2859607

>continuing through July
>Lobsterman terror attack in the North Pacific coming soon
>I can probably shoot down the terror ship when it comes because fuck it, I sure don't want to do an island/port mission and have to fight Bio-Drones (hate those things)
>shoot down Lobsterman scout trying to find my base
>lose four fucking dudes clearing it
>get some research done on advanced craft
>Tasoth, Cruiser, Alien Interdiction, South China Sea
>hello
>shoot it down
>for once it's nice to have an enemy I can actually kill in under six shots
>also apparently Tasoths don't bring their psykers along on scout ships so it's just soldiers who panic like fuck once you start killing their friends
>as we're heading home, a Lobsterman scout heads past en route to erecting a new colony in the Antarctic

Come on, colony #6? Seriously game?

>>	Anonymous Wed Dec 16 23:33:48 2015 No.2859798 >>2859594 I thought some of the posts sounded kind of familiar in their tone and wording, but IDK. I guess you're right.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 00:28:18 2015 No.2859875 >>2859798 I've posted several in this thread but I haven't really posted in earlier X-COM threads. If >>2859227 complains about a huge circlejerk, he's projecting hard.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 11:02:02 2015 No.2860491 I rather find Lobstermen in a terror mission/USO recovery harder since the ones in colonies can't grenade you. I really, really hate how grenade-happy aliens in general are in TFTD compared with UFO Defense.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 12:20:31 2015 No.2860615 >>2860491 Explain.

Anonymous Thu Dec 17 12:50:11 2015 No.2860682

>>2860615
What I said. Grenade attacks are generally only a problem in UFO if your guys huddle up in a bunch. TFTD's AI works a little differently - aliens not only use grenades more often, including on lone soldiers, but they frequently carry 3-4 of them while UFO aliens never have more than one grenade in their inventory. And unfortunately, since TFTD tactics are based around the aimed and snap rather than the auto shot, you end up having to mass guys to get sufficient firepower, so more chance of being grenaded. Magnetic Ion Armor is helpful in avoiding grenade attacks, but of course you can't fly on surface missions.

Grenades on the whole are more important in TFTD because you can't use PWT missiles on surface missions and because Lobstermen have a habit of falling unconscious rather than dying to gun fire. Plus stunning is one of the primary ways of knocking them out, so you need to always grenade the buggers.

I don't find myself using grenades in UFO that much once I have Blaster Bombs, but in TFTD they're an integral part of battles at any point in the game.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 19:36:38 2015 No.2861607 What's the best Xcom Multiplayer clone? I've been playing UFO 2000 with my girlfriend, and we've gotten over the shitty interface, but surely there's something else decent out there.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 19:43:33 2015 No.2861614 >>2786220 Dude, it takes ages to pass out from smoke. Like 10 turns at least.

Anonymous Thu Dec 17 21:00:52 2015 No.2861763

>take down another Lobsterman scout on a retaliation mission
>this one got dangerously close to my base
>this time bring along a stun launcher (I have like 30 stun bombs in storage, why not use some?)
>lose only one guy (unfortunately a veteran with Ion Armor) and give the orange cocksuckers a good bitchslapping
>most of the Lobstys get knocked out so I have to grenade them
>one of them gets up as I'm trying to do this
>what? Back to sleepy-time, bub
>prod him with a stun rod
>the last guy was hiding behind some rocks so I fired two PWT missiles back there to flush him out

Since I also have a mountain of Zrbite, I can afford to give everyone MIA now, which I'm doing except rookies. They just get Plastic Aqua Armor until earning their wings.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 21:29:27 2015 No.2861792 >>2801341 >Lobstermen have the same health/armor stats Bullshit.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 21:39:48 2015 No.2861804 Anyone want to play UFO 2000? Been having fun with it the past couple days.

Anonymous Thu Dec 17 21:48:02 2015 No.2861816

>>2861792
Their armor/health and resistances (explosives/armor piercing) is in fact the same as Mutons. Look it up on UFOpedia. The difference is that sonic weapons' lack of auto fire makes it much harder to kill them since you can't just do like UFO Defense and spray everything with Heavy Plasma auto fire. They are of course weak to stun damage which is different from Mutons.

It's more the nerfed shoulder arms in TFTD that make them a bastard to kill than anything.

Anonymous Thu Dec 17 21:50:49 2015 No.2861820

The other thing is that Lobstermen can show up in February while you never encounter Mutons before April. This means you basically have to cut and run if you get them early in the game since it's essentially impossible to stop them pre-sonic weapons (by the time Mutons show up, you should have Heavy Plasma).

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 21:53:47 2015 No.2861824 >>2861820 I actually did beat a Lobsterman Dreadnought in February with a squad that had nothing but gauss rifles. It was a great bloodbath that cost me 9 soldiers, but I did it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 22:03:00 2015 No.2861850 MIA does make Lobstermen a lot easier because you can avoid grenades and their melee attack...unless it's a surface mission where you can't fly.

>>	Anonymous Thu Dec 17 22:08:41 2015 No.2861859 >>2861850 I just land and dust off from shipping route attacks unless it's Aquatoids or Gillmen.

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 18 20:30:23 2015 No.2863703 What's the best way to place bases in TFTD? Do I have to put them near land or can they be in the middle of the ocean without problem?

Anonymous Fri Dec 18 20:44:18 2015 No.2863720

>>2863703
I start with Mediterranean (most expensive place to build to good to get it for free), then South China Sea, then Caribbean. This covers most of the funding nations. By the time you want more than three bases you're rich enough that placement doesn't matter much.

See http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Geoscape_%28TFTD%29 for country locations.

>>	Anonymous Fri Dec 18 21:17:16 2015 No.2863783 >>2863703 You only need two - North Atlantic and South China Sea.

Anonymous Sat Dec 19 02:53:05 2015 No.2864121

>>2826336
>Compared to UFO, this is a better balanced game simply because it's much harder to get the game-breaking stuff

I think TFTD is better balanced in the sense that there's less of a difficulty gap between the different alien races. UFO has a _huge_ imbalance between Ethereals and everyone else. Lobstermen can be tough, but beating them is mostly a matter of tactics. No tactics can help you with Ethereals, nothing except using the Psy Lab to determine which soldiers have high resistance and only throwing those guys onto the field.

Also terrorists - Sectopods are very hard to kill short of Blaster Bombs or the Heavy Laser, a weapon you normally don't need or use. The rough TFTD equivalent of Sectopods is the Triscene, but they're not only rare as fuck, you have a get-out-of-jail free card with them because they can be easily disabled with grenades.

Anonymous Sat Dec 19 13:48:30 2015 No.2864763

>>2859607
>shoot down Fleet Supply Cruiser
>let's go to work
>no terrorists, not much to worry about, right?
>about half my squad has Magnetic Ion Armor, the rest just APA
>clear out the couple of Lobstermen scattered around the map easily
>approach the ship
>the remaining aiyys put up a bit more tenacious resistance
>as we take the central lift upstairs, a Lobsterman hocks a Sonic Pulser into my squad
>all the squaddies with APA die
>that's four dudes snuffed out all at once, yet my elite officers with MIA are totally unscathed and suffer little loss of morale
>damn, that armor is tough stuff
>clear the aliens from the ship, but there's more outside and that unexplored area in front of the ship is the last place they could...
>alien at the front door takes potshots at one of my officers, fails to do anything, and we bring him down
>the last guy is a little off to the right
>victory attained at a pretty high cost (six soldiers killed)

The dead guys were all the junior varsity squad, but still...

Anonymous Sat Dec 19 14:04:24 2015 No.2864790

>beginning August
>Lobsterman Battleship prepares to swoop down on some island resort in the North Pacific
>oh no you don't
>shoot it down because no way in the nine absols of Hell am I going to fight Bio-Drones
>and we has mission
>this ship will have Tentaculats so we need to be amazingly careful
>turns out to be one of those Atlantis maps
>nuts, I hate fighting in these it's like a huge obstacle course
>clear out a Lobsterman hiding in a structure next to the Triton
>move along, clear some more, use our MIA guys as spotters
>make our way to the ship
>the west wall of it is blown wide open and there's two Tentaculats milling around in there
>use PWT missile to take out one
>that also blows out the east wall including the entry hatch
>move around to there, be amazingly careful because there's another Tentaculat still there
>end turn
>he comes outside and...what the hell are you doing? Get back, I say...
>whew, the bugger stops dead two squares from my guys so we just proceed to fill him with sonic rounds
>I think that's the last one
>send MIA officers up because Lobstermen are sniping at us from a balcony thing
>use PWT missile to blow part of it out so we can go up
>there's three Lobstermen up there and we manage to clear them with only one rookie and one squaddie dead - also terror mission averted

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 19 15:58:42 2015 No.2864984 The Fleet Supply Cruiser is hella easier to clear than the UFO Defense Supply Ship.

Anonymous Sat Dec 19 19:32:41 2015 No.2865295

>>2864984
I was just playing a new TFTD campaign on Veteran difficulty and Gillmen go and plop a colony down in the South Atlantic in February. I chose not to go after the Dreadnought despite it being daytime because they take forever to clear vs the UFO Battleship, plus Gillman commanders have mind control. So I took out one of the FSCs instead.

If you get a Gillman-constructed colony, you can simply loot their supply ships just like you'd do in UFO with Floater supply ships. Even one a month gives you a comfy score boost.

Anonymous Sat Dec 19 19:37:54 2015 No.2865307

>>2865295
>If you get a Gillman-constructed colony, you can simply loot their supply ships just like you'd do in UFO with Floater supply ships

Provided the colony is close enough that you can reach their supply ships while landed. It's not a lot of good if the things are on the other side of the globe.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 19 19:41:11 2015 No.2865312 >>2865307 Colonies get a FSC once a week and there's a set time of day when they show up, although I don't remember when it is.

>>	Anonymous Sat Dec 19 23:58:49 2015 No.2865659 >>2865307 You probably won't catch supply ships unless the alien base is in the same region as yours until you get advanced craft.

Anonymous Sun Dec 20 02:05:32 2015 No.2865786
File: 57 KB, 656x439, The Slaughter Pen.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Old screencap of a terror mission I'd saved. This was a particularly brutal battle - I had two guys on the roof of a warehouse to the right who took out most of the aliens here.

Anonymous Sun Dec 20 04:56:18 2015 No.2865938

UFO and TFTD I believe had both v1 and v2 releases.

UFO 1.x was the original 1994 floppy version - this has different alien death sounds and a couple bugs they later fixed like ammo clips being eaten at the end of a mission regardless of whether they'd been fired or not. 2.x was the 1995 CD release that has the more well-known alien death sounds.

TFTD 1.x required a Lobsterman Navigator to get the Transmission Resolver. 2.x only requires Magnetic Navigation but also doesn't let you research Magnetic Ion Armor until standard Ion Armor is researched.

The Collector's Edition for both games is considered equivalent to 2.x, but adds new bugs like the Blaster Bomb waypoint glitch and TFTD fucks up the tech tree if you research MC Lab without a MC Reader in storage. The base defense bug that causes endless Battleships to crash into your defenses was not fixed and is still present in the CE - the only workaround for that is either building no defenses and just letting the aliens come to your base for a fight or editing the XBASES.DAT file.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 20 04:58:47 2015 No.2865941 >>2865938 Nice little thing about TFTD is that they gave each alien its own unique death sound (some aliens in UFO share a death sound).

Anonymous Sun Dec 20 17:31:55 2015 No.2866732

Playing REDUX.

Had a great start to a nighttime terror mission.

Step off the Skyranger and see two Cyberdiscs, a Reaper, and a few floaters. OH SHIT. Popped smoke and incendiary grenades and then tossed an HE charge which took out most of them. Another Cyberdisc and Floater appear, but they're no probably. Only lose one soldier.

Fast forward a few minutes and I have all but maybe three floaters killed. One of the fuckers had an explosive weapon of some type and took out 4 of my squad with one shot. Another sniped from the shadows. And another. Ended up losing 7 troops on what started as a lucky mission. Ah well.

Anonymous Sun Dec 20 21:09:46 2015 No.2867068

>start new TFTD campaign
>the terror mission for January gets put in my home region (North Atlantic) so I end up fighting all the Gillman scouts

I had a crazy, fucked up battle where most of the Gillmen were piled around the front door of the USO, which I then blew up with a Magna Pack Explosive. It was quite a bloodbath that got four guys killed. Of course the terror attack got delayed until a week into February. When it came, I ended up destroying the staircase in a building so I couldn't get to the last alien up there. I just said fuck it, grabbed my Gauss Rifles that had been dropped by fallen soldiers along with an all-important Deep One corpse, ran to the Triton, and took off. I got a Terrible rating, but only two guys died and I'll get a live Deep One on the next terror mission.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 20 22:10:38 2015 No.2867191 >>2865938 God, Mutons sound so fucking retarded in the floppy version of UFO when you kill them. I played it on DOSBox before and after taking on a Muton infiltration fleet, I was about to go completely insane.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 20 22:13:07 2015 No.2867201 >>2867191 TFTD makes it harder because infiltration fleets don't land, so you can't take on any of the larger ships until getting Sonic Oscillators.

>>	Anonymous Sun Dec 20 22:14:42 2015 No.2867205 >>2867201 I know that. I'd watched Lord Finisher's UFO LP and he goes after two Sectoid infiltration fleets. If that's on TFTD you couldn't do it at all.

Anonymous Mon Dec 21 01:50:58 2015 No.2867479
File: 77 KB, 376x439, clickclick.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

Hey Softskins,
My name is Crys and I wanna eat every single one of you.
All of you are internally-framed meat-bags that spend every second of your life trying to escape me.
You are sadly the dominant species of this world.
Honesty, have you ever stuffed your slimy ovipositor down anyone's throats?
I mean I guess it's fun for roaches for for being much smaller than you but you all take it to a new level
by actually reproducing with two sexes.
Don't be a stranger. Try a sad projectile weapon. I’m pretty much perfect.
I was captain of the assault squad, and starter on our Terror Missions..
What sports do you play, other than “scream as I inject you with my progeny.”?
I also get straight A’s in fear and have a banging hot meatsack ( I just implanted in her; Shit was SO cash).
You are all puny humans who I should just kill. Thanks for listening.
Pic Related: It’s me and my Brood-mother.

Anonymous Mon Dec 21 07:07:40 2015 No.2867801

>>2867201
Yeah...I was doing a TFTD playthrough and an Aquatoid infiltration fleet rolls into town and because this isn't UFO Defense, they just fly around like a swarm of insects and I can't do a fucking thing about it, not with the pea shooter DUP Head Torpedoes my Barracuda has.

>>	Anonymous Mon Dec 21 07:10:32 2015 No.2867806 >>2867479 all this meme and copypasta spam right now.. are we being invaded by /b/?

Anonymous Mon Dec 21 16:49:26 2015 No.2868613

>>2867068
>I had a crazy, fucked up battle where most of the Gillmen were piled around the front door of the USO, which I then blew up with a Magna Pack Explosive

TFTD ships are weaker in general than EU ones. You can blow up parts of the things more easily, also the Barracuda can be blown open by grenades exposing your soldiers to fire.

Anonymous Mon Dec 21 20:19:39 2015 No.2868896

>Lobster season begins
>I don't yet have Sonic Cannons researched
>and we have to take care of a terror mission
>hell

I beat 'em, but it requires a lot of patience and a little savescumming. There's nothing worse than trying to flush out entrenched Lobstermen with infinite reaction shots.

Anonymous Tue Dec 22 00:53:43 2015 No.2869314

>>2800618
Xarquids are also encountered on Mixed Crew terror missions where they appear out of the water. Remember:

Aquatoid=Hallucinoid (water), Calcinite (land)
Gillman=Xarquid (water), Deep One (land)
Lobsterman=Tentaculat (water), Bio-Drone (land)
Tasoth=Tentaculat (water), Bio-Drone (shipping route attack), Triscene (port/island)

Mixed crew=two types - one is mainly Tasoths, Bio-Drones, and Triscenes with a few Aquatoids, Calcinites, and Xarquids (Bio-Drones and Calcinites get replaced by Hallucinoids/Tentaculats underwater). The other mixed crew type is mainly Lobstermen, Bio-Drones, and Calcinites with a few Aquatoids and Deep Ones (Tentaculats, Hallucinoids, and Xarquids underwater).

Mixed crews normally only perform terror missions, although if you shoot down a Mixed crew ship on an island/port mission, you may get a retaliation attack. If you get a base defense mission, there's also a lone Tentaculat and if you shoot the Dreadnought down and fight it underwater, that gets replaced by a Deep One. Most likely a bug and the devs probably meant for the Deep One to appear in the base defense mission and the Tentaculat underwater.

Anonymous Tue Dec 22 00:55:25 2015 No.2869316

>>2869314
The only time I ever subjected myself to a shipping route attack was an early (April) trawler mission with Tasoths and Bio-Drones. I cleared the first part of the ship and almost the second part but I couldn't find the last aliens and gave up after almost 60 turns. Since then I just fly to the things and dust off.

>>	Anonymous Tue Dec 22 01:24:59 2015 No.2869361 >>2869316 Pussy.

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