X-COM

[Anonymous No.4480262]

This game is kicking my ass. How do I git gud?

[Anonymous No.4480264]

>>4480262
1. open a save file in a text editor
2. change whatever parameters you want
3. profit ???

[Anonymous No.4480314]

>>4480262
expect a high death rate on first missions until you research non-suck tech.

ignore all ships but small and very small at first unless you can catch a medium already landed.

[Anonymous No.4480356]

>>4480262

Research laser rifles
auto shots give more hits per TU than aimed shots

[Anonymous No.4481181]

The game schedules one alien mission+one terror mission per month until July, then two missions+terror a month. Once you research The Martian Solution, the game also gives you a scheduled alien retaliation in all regions with an X-COM base. The alien race in these is drawn at random.

Any time you shoot down a UFO, the game may generate a retaliation mission. This will either be in the region where the craft that performed the shootdown is based, or the region where the shootdown happened. The odds of getting a retaliation mission go up on higher difficulty settings. There will follow a succession of small, medium, and large scouts, followed by two battleships. If they still don't find your base, the aliens will give up. In the original game (not OpenXcom), if your base defenses shoot down a UFO, then the game fails to clear a flag which results in endless battleships charging your base (you can open XBASES.DAT in a hex editor and clear the flag).

[Anonymous No.4481641]

>>4480262
let the small/medium ships fly around a bit and see if they land, you'll get more resources that way
use smoke grenades and mines a lot
specialize your soldiers: some are more suitable for say heavy weapons than others; get yourself expandable scouts and/or a tank
get rid of shitty default rapidfire weapons on your ships
expand your laboratory in first month: it should have 50 guys working in it; laset tech should be researches in the first month
be patient and don't rush out the missions: send some guys first to scout the area and plant mines in dangerous spots; it's always a good idead to place them on the corners of the alien ship and 1 block away from entrance; it's also useful to blow up a smoke grenade right at the drop zone
send your ships to patrol areas with high activity to spot an alien base
you should prioritize upgrading your soldiers strength to carry a rod and a medkit at all times; this is done by performing primary actions a lot (like shooting, throwing, reaction)

have fun, this is a great game

[Anonymous No.4481649]

>>4480262
Always, ALWAYS have guys watching in all direction.
Way too many times I've gotten cocky when surrounding a UFO to get ready to breach in, only to find there's still an Ayyyy outside who wrecks my shit.

[Anonymous No.4481820]

When you spot an alien, have a soldier other than the guy spotting him fire. The reason for this is that aliens can't reaction fire something they can't see.

Blow up as many buildings and other obstacles as you can to deny aliens any hiding place.

Avoid fighting Ethereals except on small and medium scouts. If an Ethereal terror mission happens, just land and immediately abort.

The only time you should ever shoot down a Battleship is to prevent an Ethereal base defense. Your Avenger will spend a month in the shop, but avoiding an Ethereal base defense is worth it.

Alien bases are visited by a supply ship once a week. If the base is manned by Floaters or Snakemen, you may wish to leave it intact so you can loot their supply ships ad infinitum. However, supply ships only land at a base for an hour and immediately take off at full speed so they can be hard to catch (shooting down supply ships isn't recommended because you want their full load of Elerium intact and also shootdowns risk alien retaliation).

Aliens stop carrying plasma pistols in June and plasma rifles disappear in September--they have only heavy plasma from that point onward.

Small launchers are carried by alien medics and engineers. On Battleships and base defense/alien bases, engineers, leaders, and commanders can have Blaster Launchers. However, the game may also assign plasma weapons to them as well.

[Anonymous No.4481910]

>>4480262

>>4481820
This anon has some very good tips. In addition, I would recommend:

>People are going to die. It sucks, but it's part of the game. Ultimately, a rookie can be replaced for 40,000 dollars, which is pretty cheap in the game's economy. Only really worry about losing more experienced soldiers.
>Tanks are in general bad ideas, they take up four spaces, and four guys are usually more flexible. They don't get experience, and they cost 10-12 times as much as a soldier. Ultimately, it's more powerful and more survivable to just take more guys, and replace them as necessary. I only tend to get them later, on secondary outposts that don't have a lot of people space.
>Get small bases, just some stores, some radar upgrade to hyper wave decoders when you can, maybe a squad and/or an interceptor, to have vision all around the word. You need to be able to spot the UFOs to either shoot them down or attack them as they land.
>Grenades, both blow up and smoke, are your friend. Start off EVERY mission by throwing a smoke grenade set to immediately detonate at the foot of your skyranger, and wait a turn. Otherwise, they'll shoot you up as soon as you debark. Whenever you're not sure if an alien is lurking around a corner, throw a grenade.
>Feel free to destroy terrain to give your other guys better shots.
>While you score points for saving civilians in terror missions, don't go out of your way to save them. If they die, they die, and it's some points lost, and some money off your budget next months. Saving your soldiers and killing the aliens is more important.
1/2

[Anonymous No.4481912]

>>4481910
>Research is king, you ultimately win the game by researching enemy artifacts, and equipping your soldiers as such. Try to get to 50 scientists ASAP. Try to get to 150 by the end of the second month. It's better to concentrate your scientists in one base. If you have 50 guys researching Plasma rifles in one base and 50 doing the same in another base, their efforts are NOT pooled the way they'd be if you had 100 guys in one base.
>Capturing is very important. Unfortunately, you usually have more important things to research other than small launchers and stun bombs early, so a lot of your early game capturing is going to be done with stun rods. Since you need to get adjacent to use them, only really bother if you're assaulting the UFO/ruins, where you can get close without being shot to ribbons. If the choice is between capture and kill, always capture, but don't throw men away trying to do so.
>Psionics and/or Blaster launchers are instant win options. Research either as soon as you can.
>The best craft weapon is the plasma beam. Before you have those, I recommend avalanceh launchers. Ignore all other weapons for your airplanes.
>You will probably need firestorms if you want to shoot down the bigger/faster UFOs.
>Engineers can usually make money if you have them manufacturing stuff just to sell, but often you need the equipment yourself.
>The medi-kit is great, but at the very start, your men are too fragile, the odds of them taking a hit and not dying are pretty small. But be sure to get it shortly after you get armor.
>You cannot do anything to speed up the healing of wounded people who make it back to base. Often, if it's a bad wound, they'll need weeks to months in sickbay. My general rule of thumb is that 2 weeks or more heal time means you should sack them. Once you start getting armor, keep about 1.5 times your skyranger (or other transport craft as appropriate) carry space in your base, so you can always give a full crew as you rotate the wounded.

[Anonymous No.4482198]

Easy Wins Early or What to do until you finally get fucking plasma rifles:

>Get two missile drones to roll with your troops
>Send them out FIRST
>Blast aliens with rockets
>Go after small and medium ships that are landed if possible, avoid night time missions
>Get that plasma shit up and running ASAP
>Body Armor too
>Get everyone equiped with plasma, alien grenades, and flying armor
>Rape aliens

[Anonymous No.4482283]

>>4480262
smoke grenades

[Anonymous No.4483254]

Get an alien navigator ASAP so you can research the Hyperwave Decoder. Try and bag the Sectoid navigator on the large scout during the first month alien research mission.

If you have Blaster Launchers, you can clean out alien bases easily. The large rooms with food containers have lots of wide open space so BB-ing them works particularly well. The area around the command center is also full of aliens but be more careful because on higher difficulties, the commander often spawns around here and you might accidentally blow him up.

Early in the game, you'll mostly be fighting Floaters and Sectoids. Snakemen may show up in February-March for research/base/infiltration but they're not common until April. Mutons start appearing in April, but won't do terror attacks until June. Ethereals start appearing in July, but their appearance is also tied to Alien Origins--if you haven't researched this, you'll never see any Ethereals.

Sectoid and Snakeman bases (ditto Battleships) should be avoided in the early game when you only have laser rifles since their terrorists are tough to kill without heavy plasma.

Never fire a soldier for having weak stats since you can't see his psy strength before getting the Psy Lab. A soldier with puny strength and accuracy may have god-level psy strength.

Soldiers should be given a tag to designate their abilities (I think OpenXcom can do this automatically). Ones with high strength can get an /H tag, /S for high accuracy, and /P if they're psionically capable.

Like the other guy said, soldiers who get too badly injured should just be cut from the roster.

The larger terrorists (Reapers, Sectopods, and Cyberdiscs) will never wake up if stunned. You may just want to grenade them to keep them from being brought home alive and cluttering your alien containment facility.

[Anonymous No.4483582]

What about TFTD? Any tips for that?

[Anonymous No.4483617]

>>4483582
Plays a bit differently, but just a little bit: where in XCOM, spray-and-pray is a preferable tactic, in TFTD, you need to rely on aimed shots as there are no weapons with infinite ammo.
If you liked Chryssalids, you will LOVE Tentaculats.
If you liked Terror Missions, you will LOVE Ship Terror Missions.
Some weapons are not usable if you aren't underwater.
Melee weapons can save your life.
That's it.

[Anonymous No.4483626]

TFTD doesn't have auto-fire on sonic weapons, you're going to rely on the aimed and snap shots. Stun weapons are significantly more important than in UFO as they're one of your main tools against Lobstermen.

Unlike in UFO, alien colonies are fixed race (the alien race that founded the colony will also supply it). The outer part always has Aquatoids, Tasoths, Hallucinoids, and Tentaculats while the inner part always has Lobstermen and Tentaculats. The inner colony is huge, but you never need to clear the whole thing--just find the command center, blow up the Synonium Device, then go back to the entrance points and abort. The aliens all spawn in the command center and in the northern end of the inner colony, the south end has no aliens in it. Make sure to at least clear the aliens from the outer colony so you can bring back ammo and junk to sell.

If a colony was founded by Gillmen, you can just leave it there and burglarize their supply ships.

Colonies have no Zrbite in them; that can only be obtained from USOs.

Grenades are more important in TFTD than UFO because aliens carry more grenades on them and use them more often. They're also the only explosive you can use on surface missions. Since a large part of combating Lobstermen involves stunning them, you'll have to grenade their bodies regularly so they don't get back up.

Alien officers don't carry any weapons on them, this makes them easy to identify. Officers other than the Lobsterman commander are worthless and you never need to capture them (in the initial DOS release of TFTD, you needed a Lobsterman Navigator to get Magnetic Navigation but this requirement was removed in later versions).

Base defense is easier on TFTD than UFO because you have an entrance door protecting you and aliens can't use PWT launchers on land. Otherwise alien retaliation/base defense works essentially the same.

[Anonymous No.4483631]

On Part 2 of cruise ships, all the aliens spawn in the hold/engine room. There's no aliens in the upper part so you never need to bother with that area.

Lobstermen may appear early in the game when you still have Gauss weapons, if so just abort. You also should ignore colonies until you have Sonic weapons.

Abort any Tasoth terror mission and avoid Tasoth Battleships/Dreadnoughts. Not worth it.

The TFTD Battleship never lands, you can only fight one by shooting it down. Its weapon outranges the weapon carried by the UFO Terror Ship so you can't safely shoot it down without Sonic Oscillators. Alien infiltration fleets also never land, you have to shoot the ships down to fight them.

Some events in the game are tied to your research level similar to UFO. Shipping route attacks won't occur until April or you have sonic weapons, mixed crew terror not until July or Alien Origins, scheduled retaliation and artefact sites not until you've researched The Ultimate Threat.

[Anonymous No.4483880]

If you want, you can keep gauss weapons around when fighting Aquatoids and Gillmen due to their auto-fire capability.

[Anonymous No.4483982]

This map shows all TFTD terrain. Remember that regardless of the terrain type, the game will still generate generic coral/sea bottom 50% of the time.

[Anonymous No.4484768]

build lots of avengers in case problems

[Anonymous No.4485020]

>>4483617
>>4483626
I thought the whole game took place underwater in TFTD. Do land missions play mostly like UFO?

[Anonymous No.4485042]

>>4481910
Nah dude. Tanks are awesome. Specifically, rocket tanks. Rather than using soldiers to clear buildings, just level the wall and expose aliens to your firing squad. On top of that, they've got a fair amount of armor and a crapton of TU, so they're good for scouting.

[Anonymous No.4485048]

>>4485020
Terror missions and base defense are on land. Explosive weapons other than grenades only work underwater. The TFTD flying suit also doesn't work on land (in the sense of flying; you still get its additional armor strength).

Aliens also have two sets of terrorists, one for land missions and one for underwater. Thus,

Aquatoid: Calcinite (land), Hallucinoid (water)
Gillman: Deep One (land), Xarquid (water)
Lobsterman/Tasoth: Bio-Drone (land), Tentaculat (water)

Tasoth mixed crew terror also has one Xarquid on land along with a Triscene, underwater they're replaced by Hallucinoids.

[Anonymous No.4485049]

Don't bother with electro-flares.

Buy an auto-cannon and incendiary rounds instead. Just light up any area you expect aliens to be hiding. You're not looking to kill them with fire, just provide illumination so your other guys can kill them with bullets/lasers/plasma.

[Anonymous No.4485076]

>>4485048
>>4483626
The Gas Cannon also works on land.

[Anonymous No.4485082]

>>4485049
Incendiary rounds burn out after a while and they can't ignite all terrain types. However, if you think it's flammable, it probably is. Electro-flares stay lit the whole mission and you can pick them up and throw them as much as you want.

[Anonymous No.4485721]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Er0z48u49Q

Nice LP if you can get past the dude's voice. He sure loves inflicting the abuse of Ethereal missions on himself.

[Anonymous No.4485728]

Yeah it's rare to find good LPers with a sense of humor and a non-grating voice. I've seen a lot of LPs that were potentially interesting, but the dude's narration/voice killed it for me.

[Anonymous No.4485853]

>>4483617
>Ship Terror Mission
>those tight corridors
>all those rooms where ayyy can hide
>110% sure one side is clear
>get shot from the back anyway
>raid boss tier lobsters with concussion launchers
I don't even wanna know if Tentaculats can appear in those missions.

[Anonymous No.4486230]

>>4485042
Just take a few extra dudes with rocket launchers if you want that function.

[Anonymous No.4486286]

>>4480262
install open xcom first for quality of life GUI upgrades. Then tune to your liking.

[Anonymous No.4486932]

>>4485853
Tentaculats don't appear on cruise ship missions, no need to worry about that.

Actually it's a better-balanced game than UFO because no TFTD alien is as grossly overpowered and cheap as Ethereals/Sectopods.

[Anonymous No.4487079]

>>4486230
Sure, if you want to micromanage more than one unit (gunner, ammo bearer) to do the same job worse.

[Anonymous No.4487174]

Is there a version of terror from the deep I can mod to use WASD scrolling or am I fucked with this shitty vanilla camera?

[Anonymous No.4487293]

>>4483631
Aquatoids are pretty much analogous to the Sectoid, they have the same stats and their officers can use psionics. Their terrorists are pretty much of a pushover which is why the game rarely gives you an Aquatoid terror mission. Their commander has the strongest psionic powers in the game but he's only on Dreadnoughts/base defense so you'll rarely encounter him.

Gillmen are similar to Floaters but can't fly and have slightly better stats. They stop doing Interdiction/Resource Raid missions after May and are replaced by Tasoths. The Gillman commander can use psionics but only appears on Dreadnoughts/base defense. Capturing a live Deep One is necessary to win the game. Xarquids replace them underwater--while they have a bombproof shell, their under-armor is really weak so one grenade and they die.

Lobstermen are usually everyone's least favorite alien, in part because they're the single most common alien in the game. If you're well-equipped, they're not too hard. Two hits from a Sonic Cannon usually drops them, and they get stunned really easily. They can attack with their claws (which being a melee weapon ignores armor) so are still a threat even if unarmed. You need a Lobsterman navigator and commander to beat the game. Navigators are found on terror missions and all larger USOs, commanders are generally obtained from an alien colony but you might also bag one on a Dreadnought or base defense mission. Their terrorists (which are shared with Tasoths), particularly the Bio-Drone and its 250% firing accuracy, are an absolute PITA.

[Anonymous No.4487298]

Tasoths have just soldiers and squad leaders. All of them can use psionics and you need a live one to research it. They have very low bravery and panic easily, and aren't all that hard to kill. They start performing missions in June, but can appear on shipping route attacks in April-May.

From July onward, you can get mixed crew terror missions which have either a Lobsterman or Tasoth-dominated crew with a couple different terrorists, including the rare Triscene and also Xarquids (which mysteriously appear on land for these missions). It's also possible to get mixed crew shipping route attacks in April-June. If you shoot down a Battleship with a mixed crew, Hallucinoids replace the land-only terrorists. Also you can get a mixed crew alien retaliation/base defense from shooting down mixed crew terror ships. The Transmission Resolver doesn't specify which of the two mixed crew types you're facing so you won't know until you fight them. Mixed crew terror missions are pretty rare though because in late game, you will often get an Artefact Site in place of a terror mission.

[Anonymous No.4487312]

>>4486230

To be usefull footsoldier with RL need so many missiles that it turning him into stationary target for ayyys to enjoy. Tanks are at least mobile and can be used s a shield when out of ammo.

>inb4 tanks are expensive. Selling looted (heavy) plasma guns will fund fucking everything, and if you need this shit, you can produce it in dozens just from aliens alloys in no time

[Anonymous No.4487318]

Artefact sites appear once you research The Ultimate Threat. The game docks you 3000 points for ignoring them and 1000 for failing to destroy the Synonium Device. Luckily they're pretty short and not too difficult. The outer part has Aquatoids and Hallucinoids and the inner part Tasoths and Tentaculats.

I remember once time doing a artefact site and spending hours searching for a stupid panicked Aquatoid that dropped his gun and was cowering in a cubbyhole in one of those pyramid thingies. I don't remember if I ever found him or if I just gave up, marched everyone to the grav lifts, and aborted to go right ahead to the inner part with the Tasoths.

[Anonymous No.4487349]

>>4487174
aren't you able to move your camera with arrow keys in the original game?

[Anonymous No.4487421]

Don't forget that on turn 20, the aliens can see all of your guys.

[Anonymous No.4487438]

>>4487079
First off, you don't need to micromanage shit. Just give them each 2-3 rockets and return to the skyranger if for some reason you need more than that on a mission.

Second, you don't do them worse. Tank rocket launcher does 85 average damage. A large rocket does 100 average damage.

>>4487312
What the hell are you talking about? Give the RL's to the guys with strength that isn't piddling.

[Anonymous No.4487446]

Tanks are an expensive waste. Soldiers are cheap. The only time you need bother with tanks is Cydonia where you will want to bring along a few Hovertank/Plasmas.

[Anonymous No.4488223]

>>4487349
I got an abandonware dosbox version, it isn't working really at all

[Anonymous No.4488626]

So, I just had this mission with a medium scout, sectoids. Normally, I hate that setup, because they stay in the UFO, you can't batter your way in from outside, and whomever steps in first gets reaction fire killed by 4-6 sectoids.

This latest one, and I have no idea why, they went out, one at a time, just outside the craft. Then, my guys walked up to each one, zapped him with a stun rod, and then ran around the corner.

End result: 1 X-Com operative killed, 1 Alien killed 6 captured, 5 of whom were sitting on the exact same tile.

[Anonymous No.4488689]

>>4480262

Savescumming is the only way, anon

[Anonymous No.4489097]

>>4488223
>I got an abandonware dosbox version, it isn't working really at all
Make sure to use XcomUtil to patch the difficulty bug and some other ones. Also if you want to play the old DOS version, make sure it's the CD release and not the original floppy disk version (you can tell because it has different alien death sounds). The floppy version discards all ammo clips from guns at the end of a mission if they've been used, so you have to unload all your guns or lose the clips. The CD version changed it that you keep loaded clips whether they've been fired or not.

You could also play the Collector's Edition but it needs a patch to be compatible with modern Windows because of its use of DirectDraw. The CE fixes most of the bugs from the DOS version but adds a new bug with blaster bomb waypoints. You can't fire a blaster bomb straight up or down a level or it will just fly straight forward, so you have to shoot them at a diagonal. This works to your advantage however since the AI doesn't know this and aliens will blow themselves to kingdom come trying to fire blaster bombs down grav lifts.

[Anonymous No.4489223]

Once I have Blaster Bombs, I bring them along on every mission unless it's a small or medium scout. Cut open UFOs like a tin can. It's especially useful when you have a guy with a flying suit because you can blast a hole in the upper floors of larger UFOs and have the guy fly inside. Particularly useful for Terror Ships and eliminating the aliens in those side rooms upstairs.

[Anonymous No.4490151]

>>4489097
I think the Steam version had all the bugs fixed.

[Anonymous No.4490157]

Still remember the time I chased a Muton Harvester with my Avenger halfway across the Pacific Ocean and shot it down in the western US. It was in like November so far into the game and my elite troops with flying suits and Blaster Bombs totally routed the buggers.

[Anonymous No.4490169]

>>4485721
>gets a Floater base in Antarctica in month 2
>lets it go for most of the game
I would have taken that thing out as soon as I found it. I mean, it's just Floaters and early base missions mean you get ahold of Blaster Launchers quicker. The other Floater base in his backyard in North Africa I agree about ignoring since you can just eat the supply ships.

[Anonymous No.4490649]

>>4490169
>taking out a floater base
>in antarctica

why?

that's the perfect place to milk supply ships

[Anonymous No.4491413]

>>4490649
As mentioned earlier, supply ships only land at a base for an hour and then take off at full throttle, so you can't possibly catch them halfway across the globe from your base.

[Anonymous No.4491423]

It's usually better to wait for a UFO to land rather than shoot it down so you're guaranteed Elerium, also no risk of retaliation. Some UFOs don't land depending on the mission, but the large majority of the time they do.

[Anonymous No.4491465]

>>4491423
At least later-middle games, yes. Earlier on, I find that shooting them down gives me more control over when the ground mission happens, and the risk of losing elerium and some of the other UFO goodies is more than compensated by the fact that I can fight in the daytime for certain.

[Anonymous No.4491746]

So I was doing a new UFO Defense run with the Superhuman Antarctica Challenge. The nice thing about fighting in Antarctica is the flat, open terrain without aliens hiding in farm buildings.

Anyway, first mission we shot down a small scout, spotted the Sectoid, and one of my soldiers took it out and became our first sergeant. I usually give my soldiers a generic name until they've proven themselves in battle, so she was renamed Squirtle.

Second mission a medium scout showed up. I wanted Elerium so I followed it until it landed, which meant a nighttime mission, but that's what electro-flares are for. I let the rookie bullet sponges prove themselves. One of them knocked an aiyy unconscious with an auto cannon shot, the others stormed the ship. Two soldiers were sacrificed to clean the thing out.

Third mission I was able to re-arm several guys with laser pistols instead of rifles. We shot down a large scout, but I mis-clicked and forgot to equip everyone properly so some low-strength guys ended up lugging around heavy auto cannons. Using the technique of having spotters find the aliens and someone else shoot to avoid reaction fire, we cleared the outside area with one casualty. Then we stormed the UFO, stun-rodded two Sectoids, and took the navigator alive. Brock, Krusty the Clown, and a rookie gave their lives to bag the all-important navigator. Squirtle was promoted to captain and Justin Bieber took over as sergeant. We also have Eric Cartman and three other new squaddies.

Coming up next in all likelihood is the terror mission so look out.

[Anonymous No.4491793]

Is Final Modpack any fun?

[Anonymous No.4491814]

>>4491465
And often some aliens already start dead and there are holes in the UFO's hull, making things easier.

[Anonymous No.4491821]

>>4491793
I played it some months ago and liked it.

[Anonymous No.4491828]

>>4491793
so is Area 51

[Anonymous No.4491896]

>>4491423
>Some UFOs don't land depending on the mission

The small scout on Research missions doesn't land and I'm fairly sure the one on Abduction missions doesn't land either. The small scouts on Harvest and base missions definitely do land. I don't remember if they land on Infiltration or not. Medium and large scouts always land unless retaliation.

TFTD missions work about the same except that infiltration fleets don't land.

[Anonymous No.4491974]

>>4491465
Nighttime missions on UFO aren't too terrible. In TFTD it's another story. I have never had good luck with nighttime TFTD missions. If it's a terror mission with anything but Aquatoids or Gillmen, I just use the Geoscape timer trick to get a daytime mission.

[Anonymous No.4492521]

>>4483254
>Ethereals start appearing in July, but their appearance is also tied to Alien Origins--if you haven't researched this, you'll never see any Ethereals.
I'm playing a game on OpenXcom, and maybe they change somethign about this, but I have not researched Origins and have definitely seen etherals.

[namfag No.4492523]

>>4480264
I did this with the sequel because lobsters are so hard to catch and countries keep defunding me for failing terror missions.

[Anonymous No.4492526]

the Modpack makes the game fucking playable, it's such a fucking boring slog with out it, the weapons are more varied and fun to use, you actually have a slight edge at the beginning instead of just being crushed instantly and limping along, though that is also an intentional aspect of the vanilla version

[Anonymous No.4492545]

I have to say I've been playing the game on and off for a year and restarting it many times, I still have no fucking clue what I'm doing or what order I'm supposed to research everything or how much money I should aim for each month, everything just goes south until you're fucked on a way too fucking early Terror Mission, this all stopped with the Final Mod pack

[Anonymous No.4492574]

>>4492545
The first thing you need is something to make you fight better. With skill and a good deal of luck you can oppose the aliens with just your starting equipment, but it's going to be a bloody, messy business.

My first order of business on the research front usually goes:

>Laser weapons, laser pistols, laser rifle, allien alloys, personal armor, medi-kits

That will give you some real weapons to fight with, and the chance of surviving if an alien hits you with a stray shot (before heavy plasmas are omnipresent, but by then you'll have better stuff)

After that, it will vary depending on your needs of the moment and what aliens (if any) you've managed to capture. Priority targets, if you can get them, are sectoid leaders (psionics is basically an I win button), and a navigator of any species, which allows you to get the hyper-wave decoder.

I wouldn't start researching either plasma rifles or heavy plasmas until you've got enough of them to outfit an entire squad with.

As for money issues, if you're not perpetually broke, you haven't expanded enough. You want lots of scientists, lots of engineers, and lots and lots of soldiers, (who will need more or less continual replacing early game).


Early game purchases should probably be the following: You need to build an alien containment, a large radar station, an extra laboratory, an extra general stores, and an extra living quarters. You want to get at least 1 interceptor kitted out with avalanche missiles, ideally 2. You also want 6 extra soldiers, 10 stun rods, a bunch of extra grenades and smoke grenades. You'll also want some more personal arms depending on how exactly oyu like to fight. I mostly go with rifles and rocket launchers myself, but there's a lot of variation on how to use earth equipment, things get more same-ey when you can give everyone heavy plasmas.

[Anonymous No.4492584]

>>4492574
Actually, as an elaboration, I usually hire 6 soldiers and 16 scientists (that's all your initial living quarters can hold), and get about a dozen or two electro-flares. I know some people prefer to use incindiaries to make light, but I like the flares. And whenever possible ,avoid fighting at night if you can fight in the day instead.

[Anonymous No.4492589]

when's the next stable release of openxcom, anyway? it's been a really long time

[Anonymous No.4492610]

>>4492589
also this thread reminded me of a question

is the new battle option in the main menu good practice?

[Anonymous No.4493315]

>>4492521
I'm sure he's wrong about that. The bit about the Martian Solution and alien retaliation is definitely true though; I've confirmed it via my own games and from watching LPs.

[Anonymous No.4493318]

>>4492545
>>4491896
The first month of the game always puts a Sectoid research mission in your home region. This goes:

*Small scout (does not land)
*Medium scout
*Large scout
*Large scout

Since shooting UFOs down can trigger an alien retaliation, you may just want to let them land, particularly if you know you can get them during the daytime. Getting a Sectoid base defense when you're still carrying laser pistols and rifles isn't very fun.

[Anonymous No.4493671]

>>4493318
But if you win, you get the equivalent of an entire battleship to loot!

[Anonymous No.4493836]

In the Final Mod, base defense gets much easier with proximity grenades. I got a Snakeman one on a base with almost only rookies and it was pretty hilarious. They were reasonably well equipped though.

[Anonymous No.4493876]

>>4493836
How is that different from regular X-Com? I always defend my bases by separating the access lift and hangers from the rest of the base, and lobbing proximity grenades all over the access lift area; when the aliens try to cross, they blow up. Simple.

[Anonymous No.4493924]

>>4493876
Wait, I don't remember any proximity grenades in vanilla.

[Anonymous No.4493927]

>>4493924
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Proximity_Grenade
They are most definitely present in vanilla.

[Anonymous No.4493935]

>>4493927
I don't remember them at all. I don't see why people are so fearful of base defense in vanilla against races with no psi then.

[Anonymous No.4493959]

>>4493935
The main reason is that in vanilla, you can't control the layout of your original base, which is not set up well for defense. You're stuck with this rambling mess of a structure that has three widely spaced hangars and an access lift near the center of the base, making it almost impossible to set up chokepoints. While you can avoid the problem with successive bases, and fix it with a lot of work in the first one, usually you're in too much of a hurry and need to get going too fast to do anything but rely on the base you start with for most of the game.

[Anonymous No.4494279]

>>4480262
>>4480314
>>4480356
laser rifles basically
> the previous game they made was Laser Squad if that tells you anything

Also whenever you go to research alien weapons always research their Grenades, and the Weapons themselves first. Even though you cant "use" the ammo, if you capture a gun in the field you can pick it up and fire it anyway.

But the main key to succeeding in xcom is using HWP. They cost 10 times as much as a soldier and take up alot of storage space, but they can usually tank (pun) at least 2 hits from enemies. And they cannot be zombified. And they cannot be mind controlled or panicked.
> they do not have injury recovery time, I guess the storage space they take up is for all the spare parts they will need, since they always seem to be stationed in the hallways.
Bring 2 Tanks with you on each mission, fill the rest of the transport with soldiers (6). Use the tanks to scout out where enemies are located, including provoking reaction fire if you must just to get them to give up their position.

Have 1 soldier armed to the gills with grenades. He throws grenades at enemies which are spotted. Think command & conquer level of grenade soldier effectiveness here. It has limitations but this is the BEST starting weapon you can have (that soldier can easily score 2, 3, 4 kills in a mission). Timer set to 0 tics and if the alien cant reaction fire to him, its pretty much history.

>>4492523
lobsters are easy to catch, in fact there's a good chance youll stun one rather than kill it
> almost every weapon takes 2 hits to kill them, even the DPL superweapon

Have someone provoke its reaction fire. Have someone else shoot it (sonic cannon, or 3burst from gauss rifle please). Now shoot it with a stun launcher (or lance it with the tazer).

In enemy base attacks the 2nd stage has most of them wielding stun launchers anyway. Its real easy to get them to blast themselves with it.
> Your eternal enemy is Tentaculats and Tasoths. These are your primary targets.

[Anonymous No.4494315]

>>4481181
>>4492523
>>4494279
>>4483626
>>4487446
>>4485076

This is the other best starting weapon. Aside from Grenades the Heavy Cannon and Gas Cannon are the go-to kill weapons for aliens, even when you get Tier 2 weapons its still wise to have maybe 2 guys with you who have the cannon.

Always use Explosive ammo, but carry an Incendiary pack on night missions or whenever you think you'll be dealing with (((Cyberdisks))).

Explosive ammunition basically means if you get it anywhere close to sectoids they're dead, it can blow a big hole in something to open up a line of fire, and its a terror creature killer too.

Your squad should therefore consist of...
2 Tank/Cannon
2 Soldiers armed with Heavy Cannon/HE
1 Soldier armed with Pistol + 6 Grenades
3 Soldiers armed with whatever you want

(everybody should have 2 grenades on their shoulder too)


>>4481820
> reaction fire
dead on, thats why its called teamwork, not being a hero

>>4482198
I disagree about the missile tanks. You can have a soldier carrying an RL with better accuracy and they can snipe shit from halfway across the map.

The cannon tanks are where its at, besides you're mostly supposed to use tanks for spotting rather than actually engaging (it becomes worthwhile when you get hovertank though).

> Public Advisory:
NEVER build the Hovertank Launcher. It may carry 8 shots... but because of a bug in the production resources it costs an insane amount of fiddly bits to make the ammo and they only cause 140 damage.
> same deal with the Displacer/DPL in TFTD

The resource requirements for the Fusion Ball Launcher ammo (craft weapon) were likely switched with it by accident.
> hmm lemme see, a little missile that fits in a tank costs 8 Elerium and 5 Alien alloys.
> a huge fucking ball that fits in a plane only costs 4 Elerium and No alien alloys.
> even if the Hovertank Launcher Ammo cost 4 Elerium its still more expensive for less damage than a regular Blaster Launcher shot that only costs 3.

[Anonymous No.4494462]

Auto cannons are useful in early game due to the area effect of HE ammo. Bring some incendiary ammo too if you're fighting at night.

Rocket launchers are also useful in early game although the small rocket isn't any more powerful than auto cannon HE shots. The large rocket does about the same damage as an alien grenade and is useful for taking down Cyberdiscs as well as demolishing structures, but they're heavy so your soldiers shouldn't carry more than one in their backpack.

Grenades go through diagonal walls; this is particularly useful with large scouts to blow up the aliens on the bridge. You don't want to do it with an intact medium scout or you'll destroy the Elerium in the power supply.

One of your early game priorities is capturing an alien navigator to get the Hyperwave Decoder; ideally snag him from one of the Sectoid large scouts in month 1. The navigator hangs out on the bridge and generally won't leave his post until most of his companions are out of commission.

[Anonymous No.4494530]

>>4494462
>Rocket launchers are also useful in early game although the small rocket isn't any more powerful than auto cannon HE shots
I'm pretty sure that 75 is more than 52, anon.

[Anonymous No.4495806]

I really need to continue my playthrough.
I have never gotten far in this.
My last playthrough I stopped because I think I landed on a night terror mission and everyone was getting one-shotted by the disks as soon as they placed one feet out of the ship. I can't recall if I used the smoke granades at all but it seemed like if I cornered myself so I stopped.

[Anonymous No.4496312]

How the fuck do you prevent an alien retaliation? Can I shoot down the scouts to prevent the battleship from showing up?

>>4494462
>they're heavy so your soldiers shouldn't carry more than one in their backpack

My rocket soldiers usually lug around four or five.

[Anonymous No.4496589]

>>4496312
I'm not really sure about the retaliations. They seem random, some games I never get them anywhere near my bases, other times they home in like a magnet

[Anonymous No.4496615]

These guys are ridiculous when you see them the first time
>walk across the entire screen
>one shot your buddy
>one shot another buddy if close enough
>create zombies from kills
>zombies can one shot too and create more zombies
>when zombies die they create another Chryssalid
>repeat from the top
One of those moments that make the player really question if this is even remotely balanced.

[Anonymous No.4496970]

>pass first turn
>kaboom

maybe ironman isn't for me

[Anonymous No.4497275]

>>4496589
>>4496312

Covered in >>4481181

[Anonymous No.4497286]

>>4496615
If I fear anything in life, these are the ones I fear.

[Anonymous No.4497752]

>>4481181
In TFTD boat missions that are hopeless go ahead and be careful and try to kill as many aliens as you can, just dont blow up civilians. Whenever it starts to sting or you start needing to savescum, just pack up and leave.
Your penalty will be dismal AF something like -400 to -800. But if you dont engage the mission and at least show up you get docked at least 1000, maybe 1500 in the case of boats.
Same goes for those "Alien Artifact Missions"... try to wipe the surface level as well as you can, be ultra cautious about the Tentaculats (which ive determined are somehow harder "see" even if they're right near you). Maybe go downstairs if you can manage to get to the lift. But if you're really not in the mood for the bullshit just leave.
> Throw Sonic Pulsers like popcorn, they are surprisingly effective against Tasoths. Having alot of sonic pulsers around and primed is an easy way to deal with alot of problems. Also if a soldier gets zombified he drops his grenade and it may at least kill the tentaculat that got him.
> Alien Artifact Sites are not persistent like an alien base, you get penalized for not destroying the MC device but killing aliens may make up for some of that damage to your score and you wont have to deal with that one again. And it also avoids the Despawn penalty for not even going there.

I learned this tip of engaging hopeless missions from OpenXcom's X-Piratez. It sounds really crude to go on a terror mission just to kill aliens and collect guns and let all the civilians die. But its alot better than that -1000 point dock for not even going. Heck even if you just show up and leave immediately you erase probably 200 of that.

Yep I just came here to watch you die

> The thing that really burns is when you're hit with a terror mission and your transport is currently returning from a mission from the other side of the world... and they cannot be redirected... and there is no way they will have it refueled in time before the mission despawns.

[Anonymous No.4497772]

>>4496615
Now give it flying and turn it into a squid brain thing.
> it moves just as fast
> its just as tough
> it does the same thing
> most of the missions where you encounter it are pitch black nighttime conditions, possibly in close quarters areas.
> it seems the game applies a visibility rule, you could be looking right at it and it doesn't appear, move or rotate someone else and somehow they see it even though the other guy didnt - and its in plain sight without cover

Im thinking the chyrssy and tentaculat were designed as a game balance counter to the player getting their hands on hovertanks and blaster launchers (and TFTD equivalents). Because that stuff really does make you OP, and in a way these critters do preserve some lethality for your squad even later on.
> then again psionics does too because there's no fucking way to improve psionic strength, only skill... some hot shot beef gate you've had for half the game with lots of kills may have 5 psionic strength and he will always get controlled


>>4496970
IIRC at least in openxcom it saves the game at the start of the mission. You have no problem loading games in ironman, just saving them.

So reload the damn mission and do something different. Have someone else shoot first then use the rocket launcher (random seed may be the same, but someone else gets the inaccurate shot). If you had a Blaster Launcher get you... my suggestion is huddle in the transport for 1 or more turns. The alien will probably move around.

[Anonymous No.4497774]

is there a mod so aliens dont have full TU first turn?

[Anonymous No.4497804]

[Anonymous No.4497820]

>>4497804
abort, leave only 1 guy behind
could've gone worse

[Anonymous No.4497821]

>>4497804
It's only a stun weapon, you could just pack up and leave with only one guy MIA, that's not terrible.

[Anonymous No.4497835]

>>4497804
>>4497820
>>4497821

> not right clicking on the door to simply open it without stepping out.
Srsly?

Ironically I played xcom for years without knowing you could right click on doors to open them without walking through them. I found out by accident once.

Also if the same critter is aimed at the door and invariably shoots, leave everyone in the transport and dont move a muscle for the first turn.

> not having a Coelecanth in the front seat
WTF were you thinking. You ALWAYS bring a tank on a mission, at least one if not two.
> invulnerable to stun
> can scout for you, the gun on it isnt terribly effective but it can tank a couple hits and expose enemies
> use it as a giant distraction to provoke reaction fire so you can kill someone
> you throw grenades at those fuckers or snipe them

>>4497774
It wouldn't make sense, they see the transport landing, they take up position. Even if they arent in fortification they're still ready to go as soon as you put boots on the ground.
> reminds me of omaha beach in saving private ryan

This is a simulation game, so as much as it sucks this is a realistic element to warfare.

[Anonymous No.4497843]

Why doesnt openxcom add a screen after weapon-equip that lets you position your dudes in the plane

Right now it's such a pain

[Anonymous No.4497863]

>>4497843
You can do this but it involves changing the order of the soldiers in the actual soldier list. I think they are placed in the ship with the ones at the top of the list closest to the door.

[Anonymous No.4497864]

>>4497863
I know, that's why i said
>Right now it's such a pain

[Anonymous No.4497906]

>>4497772
>reload the damn mission
That would defeat the whole spirit of ironman though.

>go on a terror mission just to kill aliens and collect guns
I do that sometimes when a mission feels overwhelming. One plasma weapon can easily cover the cost of two dead soldiers, so grabbing two or three and then bolting is a solid strat. I think you get a base score boost at the start of each month after February, so you can afford to abandon one terror mission at least.

[Anonymous No.4497930]

>>4497864
I dont consider it much of a pain, I make sure the guys with the rocket launchers are placed either at the door or within 1-2 ranks back so that they can get up there and do their damage. Strongest and most accurate soldiers need to be up front to do the real damage anyway, everybody else can filter out of the transport at their leisure.

Grenader definitely needs to be up front, because of the time it takes to prime a grenade then throw it (75% TU attack) he needs to be able to get to the first tile of the ramp at least (or in TFTD access to either of the two door tiles). If he has to move more than a couple tiles to get there to wade through the crowd he will not be tossing his grenade that first turn.
> I play with instant grenades whenever possible, so they work realistically as an impact fuse grenade.
> I got way too used to the great grenade relay in my 90s playthroughs of xcom so I want to play that differently.

>>4497906
>ironman
I never play it so I wouldn't know. Being at the mercy of the autosave is bad enough as it is. Also there is no save scumming in ironman so its not going to alter the seed if you reload.
> relax, its still punishing enough
I have a tendency to get fucked with this in X-piratez even playing normally because ill get lazy about saving the mission manually at the start. Lo-and-behold the enemy turn right before it autosaves I will get shot or ganked, and then it saves that.

[Anonymous No.4498027]

>>4497804
Easily avoided. Always skip turn 1 because the aliens have full TUs/reaction shots. At least the Triton has a door to give you some cover unlike the exposed Skyranger.

[Anonymous No.4498040]

Neerd Baller has a pretty good TFTD Ironman LP. He does get stupidly lucky by getting an Aquatoid cruise ship mission instead of the usual Lobsterman/Tasoth bullshit and gets through the entire first part with no casualties.

[Anonymous No.4498073]

>>4497772
Tentaculats at night? Only really a problem with the outer part of colonies. Inner colonies aren't dark inside. You can also encounter them on Battleship but you have to shoot those down to fight them in which case you can just wait until morning. Otherwise you could face the things on a Dreadnought but if one lands at night, you probably should just skip it.

[Anonymous No.4498107]

>>4498073
Alien Artifact Site missions also have them all over. You usually cant make these missions wait around until a convenient time, so unless you're going to do the barracuda relay to keep the site active until a transport gets there at dawn you will have to fight it at night.

Lower portion is usually illuminated, but the main center room where the target objective is happens to be fairly dark (and 3 floors high).

[Anonymous No.4498157]

>>4497752
What's the Despawn penalty?

>>4497930
OpenXCom lets you pre-arm grenades before missions. My front guy(s) always hold primed smokes for turn 1. Hell, you could even pre-prime all grenades everyone is carrying. Wouldn't be fun to be around if they die though.

[Anonymous No.4498201]

>>4498157
Despawn penalty is how many points you are screwed by when the mission disappears off the map without you having gone to it. When you just advance the clock and skip a mission and it disappears (instant penalty).

For most missions I think the standard is 1000 points. The terror ships sure felt like alot more when I didnt want to play them, im guessing 1500.

[Anonymous No.4498260]

My tip would be to learn the mechanics of reaction fire, so as to use that knowledge to avoid enemy reaction fire, and to maximise your own.
Regarding HWP, all things considered, I think getting soldiers experience is more valuable. It's armoured and faster, so it has scouting potential, but four sets of eyes and weapons are better. It also has bad reaction stat and is larger, so it'll get shot at more. That's my conclusion after using it almost every mission in the early game. I used it late game as a disposable toy for reckless scouting, when the game got easier and I just wanted to finish ASAP.
When I played unmodded xcom(so the easiest difficulty), I saw all these tips about elirium, and how important it is, and how one should never sell it.
By the end, I had a massive stockpile, and I hardly used any of it. Also, I was intentionally shooting down ships over the ocean, because I was just waiting for the final series of research and already had too much of everything, and didn't want to play out yet another easy battle. I never saw a single zombie. Never got to use psi. Forced myself to try out the blaster half-heartedly the last few missions.
Maybe my experience would be completely different on superhuman difficulty.

I'm playing through Laser Squad right now, then maybe Jagged Alliance, then I'll tackle OpenTFTD on ironman superhuman.

[Anonymous No.4498303]

Starting in September, all aliens in artefact sites and colonies carry DPL Launchers (or Thermal Shock Launchers), also all aliens in T'leth have them.

[Anonymous No.4498326]

The Vibro Blade is the only drill you need to bother with since it's enough to kill everything except Xarquids and Triscenes, which you can just grenade.

[Anonymous No.4498780]

Me, I say Bio-Drones are worse than Tentaculats. At least Tentaculats are melee-only and don't appear in terror sites. Bio-Drones have like 250% firing accuracy and you can't kill them at close range because kaboom. There's no enemy in the game I hate more than them.

[Anonymous No.4498805]

I need to somehow convince a drawfag to make a Piratez version of this image.

[Anonymous No.4499318]

>>4480262
use smoke

[Anonymous No.4499327]

*blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.4499354]

>>4496615

Yes, but it's very easy to deal with once you know the game. In my later campaigns when I still played the game I most often didn't ever even get touched by a Chryssalid.

[Anonymous No.4499454]

>>4492589
Apparently soonish, iirc.
But just play the nighties.

[Anonymous No.4499470]

This'll be unpopular but is there any mod, probably openxcom, for real time playing? I am thinking similar to Fallout Tactic's.
Games with turn based combat turn into a slog for me so quickly, especially when you've killed everything in sight and have to walk every guy individually.

[Anonymous No.4499741]

>>4499327
Obvious mod/hack. You should only get one Triscene and one Xarquid on mixed crew terror missions. I actually don't remember where the Triscene spawns on the cruise ship. It might have been the kitchen area, IDK.

[Anonymous No.4499750]

>>4499470
No

[Anonymous No.4499948]

Does anyone else start getting a funny feeling when you get later in the game, you start getting better tech and better people (because they survive a few missions), and then one day, lo and behold, you go to a large alien craft like a terror ship or even a battleship that you've fought on the ground and you eliminate them all without any losses at all? And you get this weird feeling that no, that can't be right?

[Anonymous No.4499980]

>>4499741
On the first stage of the mission it spawns in the Kitchen... a place it shouldnt be able to fit into. Either that or its on the front deck of the ship.

On the second stage of the mission it normally spawns in the unused buffer floor in an unlikely place that it shouldnt be able to fit into (Floor 3 I believe, near the front of the ship)

Its a damn fail if you ask me, that thing should be in the main hallways (stage 1, floor 0). And in stage 2

>>4499948
Ethereals are the check and balance to this. But seriously by then you've got Blaster Launchers out the ying yang and you can deposit mass destruction at will. Not to mention full access to the alien spaceship whenever you want it (due to flying armor).
> You can Psi on enemies that have a strategic advantage, just one or two MC'd per mission can totally break their advantage by destroying those stubborn holdouts.

Chryssalids of course are the counter to this, but if you're using Hovertanks like you should be even this threat is minimized (if they shred one it is an annoying loss, but you can still do without one)

[Anonymous No.4500032]

>>4499980
Hovertanks, and all tanks, are shit. ESPECIALLY in the late game. They offer nothing that you can't get better with 4 guys in power suits, or better yet, flying suits. And even Etherials are no big deal if you managed to get Psionics from a sectoid; by the time you run into them, at the very least you can screen out psi-weaklings, and if you can guard against that, they're just not that tough.

[Anonymous No.4500174]

>>4481181
The game has a set of probability tables for the alien race on retaliation missions, but it never uses them. Actually, those scheduled retaliation missions...the alien race it picks is the last one whose ship you shot down. Thus if the last UFO you shot down prior to the end of the month had Floaters on it, it will schedule a Floater retaliation.

The Steam version actually does use the probability tables to pick the aliens on retaliation missions. I noticed this from watching Kikoskia's LP. He had the Steam version and he was getting random alien races on retaliation.

[Anonymous No.4500189]

Sometimes terror missions only give you 14 aliens even on Superhuman when you should get 18-22 aliens. This is because some tilesets have only one spawn node so if there aren't enough spawn nodes, the game will not put down as many aliens as it's supposed to. For example, the large city park thing has just one spawn node.

[Anonymous No.4500191]

>>4500032
24 people in flying suits might be better than 16 with two hovertanks, but the latter sure is easier to manage while still being more than enough for just about any mission.

[Anonymous No.4500714]

>tfw random shithead rookie saves the day

[Anonymous No.4500763]

>>4499470
Just play Xcom Apocalypse, you can play in realtime mode all you want.

[Anonymous No.4500915]

>ethereals in vanilla Xcom are overpowered enough
>ethereals in Piratez are that plus invisible, use armor-ignoring attacks, and you can't tell apart their high-ranking people without a mind probe-like device or the middle mouse button
>and their signature ship, the Silver Towers, is the stupidest UFO ever

[Anonymous No.4500934]

>>4500714
X-COM is hiring indie devs?

[Anonymous No.4501720]

I tried running the DOS version on DOSBox with XcomUtil but it fucked something up. That being if I set the game to Superhuman, it gives me a Genius/Veteran level Battlescape, but if I edit IGLOB.DAT and set the difficulty to 3 (Genius) then I get a Superhuman level Battlescape. Unless it's a small or medium scout in which case I still get Superhuman.

[Anonymous No.4502207]

>>4500714
SMALL MAN

[Anonymous No.4503047]

What the fuck is that manlet doing on an xcom squad? Agenda-laden entertainment sure has shrunk our dicks up since 1994.

[Anonymous No.4503191]

>took out a Floater base on Superhuman with only one casualty
>also early game with only laser rifles
I was helped along by the fact that an alien with a Blaster Launcher fired at my squad, missed, and blew up two of his buddies.

[Anonymous No.4503207]

>>4501720
You probably were on Superhuman, but a lot of times terror sites have fewer aliens than they're supposed to because of limited spawn nodes. A Superhuman terror site should have between 18 and 23 aliens (including up to 10 terrorists), but quite often it's less than that.

[Anonymous No.4503307]

>>4503191
Yeah, the aliens are really stupid about the blasters in general, but especially in their own bases, where they tend to just lob them as soon as the guy holding it becomes aware of a soldier of yours, often without realizing things like closed doors being in the way.

[Anonymous No.4503693]

>>4500915
However ethereals in x-piratez are much rarer. They only start appearing pretty late in the game (around summer second year, IIRC, though this might've been changed in recent releases).
And by the time they appear you should have several psionic ('voodoo') armors which allow you to detect cloaked units.

[Anonymous No.4503698]

>>4503693
Also, you can simply avoid them until you get enough psionic troops to properly crush them.
X-Piratez doesn't really have a game time limit, so you can just do regular missions to buff up your troops/bases.

[Anonymous No.4503934]

>>4500934
>>4502207
>>4503047
>ywn wear alien alloy armor perfectly molded to your dick and balls

[Anonymous No.4504446]

What is X-Piratez like? What about the MiB mod?

[Anonymous No.4504469]

Actually Superhuman makes the game a bit easier in that the larger amount of aliens per mission means more crap to sell, so you have fewer money issues than on easier difficulty levels.

[Anonymous No.4504652]

>>4489097
>The CD version changed it that you keep loaded clips whether they've been fired or not.

what the fuck ive been playing the same floppy copy i got from egghead software for twenty goddamn years why didnt anybody tell me there was a better way aaagggggg

[Anonymous No.4504709]

>>4487174
openxcom nightlies can play tftd

[Anonymous No.4504726]

>>4481181
Actually with alien retaliation, there's a roughly 50% chance that it happens in the region where the X-COM craft is based. Otherwise the game will pick a region by calculating the approach angle of the craft that did the shootdown and trying to guess where it came from The chance of getting a retaliation from shooting down a UFO ranges from 2% on Beginner to 20% on Superhuman.

[Anonymous No.4504739]

Superhuman base defense can be pretty brutal. I did one with Mutons once and lost about 20 of my 30 soldiers. It was horrific carnage with human and alien bodies piled up like cord wood.

[Anonymous No.4504846]

>>4504739
Did you take any screenshots of the fun?

[Anonymous No.4504851]

>>4504739
At least all of your soldiers were there at the time.

[Anonymous No.4504861]

>>4504739
The key to winning base defenses is to isolate your hangars and the access lift (Aliens always start there) from the rest of the base. That creates an easily defended chokepoint, and you can often take your time, hiding your soldiers 2-3 tiles away from the central corridor, stepping out, taking one aimed shot at an enemy, and then stepping back into cover. It also makes the usage of proximity grenades both simple and easy.

Recently had a base defense with snakemen, and I wiped out 13 enemies in one shot with a blaster because of how this forced them to bunch up.

[Anonymous No.4504872]

>>4504861
Did the guy who shot become commander?

[Anonymous No.4504895]

>>4504861
>It also makes the usage of proximity grenades both simple and easy.
Yeah yeah I know the old "throw proxy grenades at the entrance lift" trick from Lord Finisher's LP of UFO Defense. He made it look easy as cake, but he was playing on Beginner. That strategy is less effective on higher difficulty levels when there's more aliens and they have better stats.

[Anonymous No.4504910]

>>4504861
I did all that. I also threw proxy grenades at the entrance lift. Problem was that inevitably some jackass will shoot a Blaster Launcher at your troops.

[Anonymous No.4504921]

>>4491896
They don't land on Research, Infiltration, or Abduction missions. The first Small Scout on Harvest missions doesn't land either, but the second one does. The Small Scout on base missions does land.

[Anonymous No.4504946]

>>4504872
Nah, I already had a commander in a different base: this was in the middle of July, and I had well over 120 soldiers throughout my command. Guy who made the shot was a colonel already in any case.

>>4504895
It's very effective until you hit Mutons, who are tough enough to survive a close range blast from the proxy grenade. Even on superhuman, a snakeman will die about 90% of the time to a proxy grenade, and the flaoters and sectoids will almost always die.

>>4504910
That is a problem, yes. But there are several things you can do to minimize it. Most simple is to just spread your men out; if they're not clustered up, you'll only lose a few to the blast. If your base is three buildings "thick" from the access lift, you'll have a very long hallway you can work with in order to not have everyone right in one spot to be blasted.

The other important thing to do is to make sure that the doors in the access lift stay closed unless and until you're either firing a blaster launcher yourself or you're certain the enemies don't have one in reserve. Getting a launcher missile around those corners is really hard, and the AI is too dumb to do it in my experience.

[Anonymous No.4504962]

>>4504895
>>4504946
I don't really fuck with the Motion Sensor, so on muton missions I still use prox grenades a lot. Even though they don't kill they let you know when an enemy is approaching without having to move one of your guys out of cover.

[Anonymous No.4504969]

>>4504962
I admit, I tend to only use them for base defense. I have a stupid tendency to forget where I've thrown them and lose people when scouting to my own munitions.

[Anonymous No.4505039]

>>4504446
X-Piratez is basically the Long War of OpenXcom.

[Anonymous No.4505041]

>>4504962
The motion scanner is indispensable on superhuman.

>tells you how many aliums there are
>tells you where they are
>tells you how many TUs an alien just used (size of dot)

Especially useful on UFO breaches. If you know what door an alien is behind, you can position one guy in front of the door, then have another guy open it from the side to avoid reaction fire.

But where it really shines is base defense. One guy in the upper level of the storeroom by the access lift can scan every turn and tell you when it's prime time to blindfire rockets or blaster bombs into the kill corridor.

[Anonymous No.4505063]

Is there anything like X-Com I can play except Jagged Allience?

[Anonymous No.4505067]

>>4504969
It's important to remember that motion scanner scans only aliens/alliecs who moved last turn

[Anonymous No.4505125]

>>4505063
Xenonauts.

[Anonymous No.4505142]

>March 28: Floater terror mission in Budapest
>first mission with Heavy Plasma instead of laser rifles
>soldiers: Eric Cartman, Bernard Bernoulli, Kurt Cobain, Nermal, Sunflora, Plankton, Jar Jar Binks, Rick, Morty, Barack Obama, and five rookies
>Eric Cartman, Kurt Cobain, Rick, Sunflora, and a rookie head down the street clearing aliens
>meanwhile, a large shopping mall gives us trouble
>there's two Floaters in the rear, one of them a jackass with a Small Launcher
>I plan to eventually maneuver the guys in the street to outflank them but they turn east towards some houses and we shoot them down
>Jar Jar Binks accidentally blows up one of my soldiers with a misplaced rocket
>how you made sergeant I have no idea, but you deserve to be demoted for that
>Nermal and Plankton head around the houses
>a civvie gets shot upstairs in the shopping center
>since Floaters tend to get trapped in upper floors, I figure I'll have to eventually go up there and flush him out
>have Jar Jar blast a hole up there with a rocket
>still no Floater, he won't come out
>meanwhile, Kurt Cobain gets shot while clearing the last Floaters from the west side of the map
>two alien grenades get thrown, both misses
>Plankton gets sniped by the asshole in the shopping center top floor
>plan to march everyone upstairs and swarm him
>Jar Jar redeems himself by shooting down a Floater with a rocket
>I still have two unused rookies in the Skyranger
>one has shit accuracy and misses a Floater horribly, he also kills another soldier with his incompetence
>the second rookie has better accuracy, he head shots the alien
>now let's go upstairs and get the guy up there
>notice he came outside now
>same rookie also head shots him
>mission over
Five casualties, two due to friendly fire. RIP Bernard Bernoulli, Kurt Cobain, Plankton, and two rookies.

[Anonymous No.4505261]

>>4505142
wow, can your soldiers' names be any more Reddit-tier?

[Anonymous No.4505290]

>>4505067
I'm not sure how that would help me about forgetting where I've tossed proximity grenades, anon.

[Anonymous No.4505314]

>>4505063
Syndicate, but it's squad-based RTS and a lot easier.

And I think there's some SWAT game with similar mechanics.

Non-/vr/ Fallout Tactics has similar combat mechanics.

[Anonymous No.4505367]

>>4500174
>The Steam version actually does use the probability tables to pick the aliens on retaliation missions. I noticed this from watching Kikoskia's LP. He had the Steam version and he was getting random alien races on retaliation.
I'll have to watch that sometime.

[Anonymous No.4505586]

>>4505367
I know from his LP that he shoots down a Sectoid scout and gets a retaliation mission with Mutons, and another one with Ethereals when he shoots down a Muton ship. That normally shouldn't happen, but apparently it does on the Steam version.

[Anonymous No.4505619]

>>4496615

The reboot XCOM tried with their version but nothing beats the classic.

[Anonymous No.4505625]

>>4496615
>One of those moments that make the player really question if this is even remotely balanced.
Ethereals/Sectopods are much worse. Actually one thing I like about TFTD is the better play balance, all of the aliens are pretty easy to beat if you know what to do. Ethereals are way overpowered compared with everything else in UFO.

[Anonymous No.4505626]

>>4496615
Their AI is so fucking bad that it balances them out.

[Anonymous No.4505631]

>>4505626
By the time you encounter Chryssalids, you should have heavy plasma which makes it easy to drop them. Snakeman terror missions don't happen until April, and although they can set up a base early game, you can just ignore it until getting HP.

[Anonymous No.4505642]

>>4505625
Again though, it's simple to kill Ethereals, a few taps from a Heavy Plasma and they die. Sectopods are hell though because they're invulnerable except in the rear where they have thin armor. If you can catch them from behind, they go down easily but most of the time they're not facing in that direction.

[Anonymous No.4505653]

>>4505642
Don't bother with any Ethereals above a scout ship unless you have an elite squad with Flying Suits, Blaster Launchers, and everyone's psy strength has been checked.

[Anonymous No.4505669]

>>4505625
The tougher TFTD aliens all have a built-in "cheat button" that lets you beat them easily.

>Lobstermen
>vulnerable to stun and melee weapons
>Tasoths
>very low bravery, they panic in a hurry when you start killing their buddies off
>Xarquid/Triscene
>very weak under-armor--just toss a grenade and they're done

[Anonymous No.4505674]

>>4505669
Not Bio-Drones though.

[Anonymous No.4505679]

>>4505674
Nope. I hate Bio-Drones. Of all aliens in TFTD, there's nothing I despise more than them.

[Anonymous No.4505690]

>>4505679
>>4505674
>>4505669
Is there anything like OpenXcom for TFTD? I never actually finished it, my one attempt ages ago falling to one of the research bugs, and after discovering I'd need to essentailyl start over because I permanently locked myself out from something vital, I was pissed and threw the game away.

[Anonymous No.4505692]

>>4505690
OpenXcom RUNS TFTD dude

[Anonymous No.4505693]

>>4505690
OpenXCOM works with TFTD. Just use a nightly.

[Anonymous No.4505697]

>>4505692
>>4505693
Oh cool, did not realize. Now I have to go digging through my basement for the copy.

[Anonymous No.4505703]

>>4480262
Be careful.

[Anonymous No.4505705]

All versions of TFTD have a bug where the map for the small and medium scout are reversed, you can download a patch to fix this.

[Anonymous No.4505748]

>>4505039
That doesn't help much considering I haven't played the new X-COM.

[Anonymous No.4506636]

>>4505261
Wasn't my fault. I was hoping Jar Jar Binks would get killed on his first mission like he deserved, not make fucking sergeant.

[Anonymous No.4507884]

>>4505748
It's more a reference to Long War itself than the new X-Com. A typical playthrough of vanilla X-Com lasts around one in-game year, but X-Piratez can go for 3-5 years. You start out very primitively, the research tree is fucking massive, and enemy missions slowly trickle in as you start out harassing civilian ships and doing simple missions and slowly advance to taking on the major factions, their mutant pogroms, and eventually the ethereals themselves as you prepare to get your ass to Mars.

tl;dr: It's the most complex X-Com mod I've ever played and I fucking love it. And also, it's actually possible to fight pic related.

[Anonymous No.4508284]

>>4507884
It plays pretty differently from regular Enemy Unknown.
For instance, in EU you very rarely can afford to outright quit missions, since the score penalty is brutal.
In X-Piratez, you often have to bail from a mission if/when you encounter enemies you cannot take on. In many missions a 'good' outcome is you killing a guy with a really good gun, grabbing it and running your ass back to the transport.

[Anonymous No.4508437]

>>4497752
>and there is no way they will have it refueled in time before the mission despawns
Correct me if I'm wrong since it's been a while since I played, but terror sites won't despawn as long as some kind of craft/sub is headed their way, so you can send and interceptor toward it to keep it active while your transport is refueling.

I know it works in UFO but I'm not sure about TFTD. I remember abusing it all the time to force terror sites to stay until I can land there in daylight.

[Anonymous No.4508446]

>>4488626
The aliens are scripted to exit the UFO after a certain number of turns has passed; I think it was 20 turns. You can abuse it by setting up a firing line outside the UFO's front door before that happens.

Of course, it gets risky once you start getting aliens capable of mind controlling your guys from inside the UFO.

[Anonymous No.4508473]

>>4505063
Laser Squad Nemesis, it's by the same developer as UFO but unfortunately the campaign is pretty simplistic

[Anonymous No.4508863]

>>4508446
You're partially correct. The way it works is on turn 20, the aliens automatically gain visibility of your squad whether they have line of sight or not. This was a thing they put into the game to encourage you to hurry up and not take too long to finish a mission.

[Anonymous No.4508870]

>>4508437
>I know it works in UFO but I'm not sure about TFTD. I remember abusing it all the time to force terror sites to stay until I can land there in daylight.
It does. Same game engine.

[Anonymous No.4510126]

>>4480262
isnt this something to do with Mario Rabbids

[Anonymous No.4510253]

>>4508437
>>4508870
Did they fix this in OpenXCOM?

[Anonymous No.4511961]

>>4510253
No, it's actually a feature. In fact, you can mod it like UFO crash sites so that terror sites can despawn even if a craft was en route to it.

[Anonymous No.4512231]

>>4505142
Are you like me and don't give rookies nick names until they pass their first mission?

[Anonymous No.4512241]

>>4512231
They get a generic name until leveling up. What that name is depends on how I'm feeling that day.

[Anonymous No.4512443]

>>4507884
Isn't X-Piratez that one mod where it's the future and there are mutants and the aliens won? So the endgame IS beating them back.

[Anonymous No.4512793]

>>4512443
You can simply not do that. As long as you can win retaliation ('crackdown' in X-Piratez) battles, you can keep farming missions.

[Anonymous No.4513010]

>>4512443
Yep, X-Piratez is set 600 years after a lost game of UFO Defense; during that time, the ethereals took over the world and then mostly fucked off to deal with some larger-scale thing that doesn't concern you. Your primary antagonists in X-Piratez are actually human factions that have varying degrees of loyalty to the Star Gods (i.e., ethereals).

The endgame is to get to Mars and kill a brain there, but it's not to stop an alien invasion this time; I mean, how can you stop that which has already happened long ago? Rather, it's because you realize that just fucking around on Earth is getting you nowhere and the only way to really hit it big and join the big boys in space is to fly to Mars and take out the Solar Governor (i.e., the alien brain) so you can literally own the planet Earth.

And then, what comes afterwards? Some space piracy, perhaps? But that's a story for another mod; in fact, X-Piratez was originally supposed to be set in space instead of just Earth but OpenXcom isn't capable yet of that sort of thing so just reskinning UFO Defense will have to do for now.

[Anonymous No.4513056]

>>4481910
>Tanks are in general bad ideas

They're really not, especially in the early game, when there are only a few enemy weapons that pose a serious threat to them.

If you have a tank, the danger of having dudes shot the second they step down the skyranger ramp basically disappears.

I highly recommend having one for your first terror site.

[Anonymous No.4513078]

>>4513056
An Alien grenade will almost certainly kill them in one hit. 2-3 shots from a rifle will usually do the trick as well. A Cyberdisk will usually one shot them. About the only thing they resist are plasma pistols. The best surviveability method is to not get hit.

Meanwhile, they cost 10.5-12 times that of a rookie, they have less firepower than their space equivalent of four dudes, they don't ever get experience, and they have a lower ability to cover a wide field of vision. It's enormously more efficient to simply pack four guys and replace them as necessary than it is to use tanks.

[Anonymous No.4513114]

>>4513010
I love the setting but it just feels like muscle-girl fetish tier stuff, which I could tolerate if the art was better. I know somebody was drawing better art for the girls but last time I looked most of it was still really shitty edits.

[Anonymous No.4513660]

>TFTD run
>second month, alien terror in New Zealand
>wipe out all the Gillmen with no losses, also most of the civilians were saved
That false sense of security the game lulls you into prior to lobster season.

[Anonymous No.4514159]

>>4483631
>Lobstermen may appear early in the game when you still have Gauss weapons, if so just abort. You also should ignore colonies until you have Sonic weapons.
You also have to research all three Sonic weapons before you can get Sonic Oscillators unlike UFO where you only need one.

[Anonymous No.4514197]

>>4483626
>Colonies have no Zrbite in them; that can only be obtained from USOs.

The TFTD large scout has its Zrbite in the ball things in the tail, not the power supplies so you'll always get 50 Zrbite from a downed one. This is one way where the game is easier than UFO, you'll rarely have Zrbite shortages.

[Anonymous No.4514217]

>>4514197
>This is one way where the game is easier than UFO, you'll rarely have Zrbite shortages

You will after cleaning out a bunch of colonies and having to replace all your Magnetic Ion Armor from soldiers getting killed.

[Anonymous No.4514968]

>Tfw X-Com Two Sides will never be finished
I just wanted to do the terror mission from the other side for once.

[Anonymous No.4515036]

>>4486932
Biodrones are bullshit and I hate everything they stand for.

[Anonymous No.4515041]

>>4505626

don't they try to go for a backstab no matter what?

[Anonymous No.4515049]

>>4513114
Its not too muscle fetishistic, the piratez are built, but they are fucking mutant pirates.

This is probably the only game to turn /ss/ into a gameplay element, so I'm okay with this

[Anonymous No.4515068]

>eight avengers and seven firestorms flying around the clock shooting down retaliation UFOs
>still not enough

[Anonymous No.4515116]

>>4515068
>Shooting down battleships
Why? Just let them land and slaughter them in your base. If youhave the resources to make 8 avengers and 7 Firestorms and keep them well supplied with Elerium, you can handle a battleship crew in your base. Hell, you can probably handle the total loss of a base.

My own game, by mid June, I have 40 soldiers+ some backup tanks in all of my major bases, all arranged with the hangar chokepoints. I'm very confident even of a battleship full of ethereals.

[Anonymous No.4515135]

Great thread. Gonna save it, and I'll start playing XCOM for my first time today.
Thanks for everyone.

[Anonymous No.4515162]

>>4515116
>major bases

That's the issue. Only two of my bases are staffed with personnel, and the rest are radar/interception bases.

It's cheaper to build more hangars and fill them with avengers than to staff those bases with soldiers.

[Anonymous No.4515436]

>>4514968
What's that? Lets you play the game as the aliens? Someone I know wanted exactly that.

>>4515049
What sort of gameplay element?

>>4515162
I don't like to sack low psi but high stat/rank soldiers once psi strength comes in, so I just bench them in minor bases while rotating rookies in the main teams for the psi evaluation. At least the minor bases are good against anything without psi.

[Anonymous No.4515437]

>>4515162
>It's cheaper to build more hangars and fill them with avengers than to staff those bases with soldiers.
If you only have 2 real bases with soldiers, you've built at least 5 avengers that you aren't using their transport capability. That means you've spent a little more than 11 million just in construction costs, assuming you would otherwise have sold the alloys, power sources, and navigations that would have otherwise gone into them. Then there's another million to build 5 hangers, admittedly small costs in maintaining them, about 2.26 million in building plasma beams assuming you gave each of them 2, the cost in elerium of the above and for fueling the avengers, and however much overhead you have in the form of your workshops and engineers, since you've spent 175,000 engineer hours on manufacturing all this stuff. (With 730 hours in an average month, an engineer working around the clock comes out to 34.24 dollars an hour, and that manufacturing bill is 239 engineer months)

Even if you have 8 bases, staffing them each with 20 soldiers and 2 tanks, as well as some basic late game kit (medipacks, personal armor for everyone, heavy plasmas ans some clips, a bunch of high explosives and rocket launchers and proximity grenades) is likely enormously cheaper.

[Anonymous No.4515449]

>>4514217
TFTD colonies get to be awfully tedious especially with their fixed race setup.

[Anonymous No.4515486]

>>4485721
Especially on Superhuman.

[Anonymous No.4516502]

>>4515449
Late game TFTD becomes a chore to grind through with all the hugeass alien colonies, constant lobstermen and tentaculat encounters, and some enemy missions having every single ayy equipped with that underwater blaster launcher and nothing else. I'll take Cydonia (both parts) over doing an alien colony by killing everything any day.

[Anonymous No.4516539]

>>4516502
>and some enemy missions having every single ayy equipped with that underwater blaster launcher and nothing else

This would be in colonies and artefact sites from September. Possibly Dreadnoughts, but I'm not sure. The good part is that they can't reaction fire with DPL launchers. If you're playing the Collector's Edition, you can also cheat by having everyone in Magnetic Ion Armor float around and become invulnerable to DPL missiles (due to the waypoint bug in the CE, aliens on the ground can't shoot up at you).

Colonies are tedious, but you don't have to clear the aliens from the inner colony. Just run to the command center, blow it up, and get out of there. I usually kill all the aliens in the outer colony though so I have some loot to take home (especially important for replenishing your ammo stocks).

[Anonymous No.4516548]

Also aliens won't fire DPL missiles at close range. Once you're in the colony entrance thingie, you should be fairly safe. It's mostly a problem getting your guys out of the Triton and into the entrance since the outside has wide open plains and random Aquatoids/Tasoths wandering around. The inner colony is mostly small rooms and corridors so there's relatively little concern there about the Lobstermen shooting DPL missiles. There are some more open areas though where you should be careful.

[Anonymous No.4516551]

>>4516502
>constant lobstermen and tentaculat encounters
That is a problem since TFTD has only four main alien races against UFO's five, plus Tasoths replace Gillmen for some missions in late game. This means you'll be running into endless Lobstermen/Tasoths/Tentaculats while in UFO, it's more balanced and you can encounter any alien race with fairly equal probability. Mutons and Ethereals become common in late game, but you'll still see Floaters and Snakemen pretty often (Sectoids become quite rare in late game).

[Anonymous No.4517331]

This thread got me to get off my lazy ass and finally go back and beat this game.

I've only played Ironman since Open XCOM's release, and last playthrough I died at Cydonia because I didn't realize you only got one shot at it and I didn't select soldiers based on psi strength so I got psy-raped before even getting into the base itself.

This time around was much easier since only a few of the 20 (+ 1 hovertank, oddly enough the very first unit to die) soldiers I brought were vulnerable to mind control. Plus I had figured out you can mind-control mind-controlled soldiers on your turn to get them to drop all their weapons, which helped me defuse a couple of risky situations.

I played slow and ended up clearing out all the enemies before I even found the central brain room, which was a little disappointing. Cool ending cinematic though.

I guess it's time to play TFTD now, though to be honest I'll probably give the new games another go at this point. I've played those both pretty extensively but haven't beaten either.

[Anonymous No.4517649]

>>4505063
Mission force Cyberstorm is pretty fun.

[Anonymous No.4517967]

>>4505063
Since other folks have hit the obvious ones I'm going to go out on a limb here and recommend a recent indie game Door Kickers. It's probably more akin to SWAT 4 or Rogue Spear or something like that than X-COM but it definitely scratches the same itch. It's pausable real-time instead of turn based but you can script your dudes and coordinate them really well -- flashing and breaching in coordination, designating angles for your dudes to hold for reaction shots, etc. Lots of fun.

[Anonymous No.4518487]

The shipping route attacks and artefact sites in TFTD were added to enhance game difficulty because in UFO, once you get plasma cannons on your Interceptors, you can just shoot down terror ships and you'll never have to worry about terror attacks again. Shipping route and artefact sites can't be prevented.

[Anonymous No.4519797]

>>4500174
>The Steam version actually does use the probability tables to pick the aliens on retaliation missions. I noticed this from watching Kikoskia's LP. He had the Steam version and he was getting random alien races on retaliation.

I also noticed that he has a Floater base get built in the Pacific, yet somehow ends up in Australasia although he'd already gotten a Snakeman base there early in the game and it should have been removed from the game's list for base construction. Turns out this is a bug, because there's no land in the Pacific except Hawaii, if the game puts an alien base mission there, sometimes it doesn't get constructed and the base ends up in Australasia instead.

[Anonymous No.4521130]

>>4510253
They changed it a little bit but it still works. In the original game the terror site would disappear on the hour (at XX:00) unless there's a craft approaching it, so you can patrol in place from XX:01 to XX:59 to delay the landing.

In Openxcom it's every 30 minutes instead of 60, so the game checks at XX:00 and XX:30 for approaching craft.

[Anonymous No.4521351]

>>4508870
Port attacks aren't too bad at night, island attacks are a nightmare. I would never want to do those during nighttime.

I hate island attacks. The undulating terrain makes it hard to hit enemies and a lot of them are hidden in those little underground rooms. Also that big-ass hotel thing is always painful to clean out.

[Anonymous No.4521367]

>>4481820
>Small launchers are carried by alien medics and engineers. On Battleships and base defense/alien bases, engineers, leaders, and commanders can have Blaster Launchers. However, the game may also assign plasma weapons to them as well.

Another thing you need to remember is that some alien species don't have all ranks. If so, the game replaces them with an alien of a different rank, but they're still given the same equipment the original rank would carry. Thus, Snakemen replace their medics with soldiers, but they're still given a small launcher anyway.

[Anonymous No.4521379]

>>4521367
In TFTD it works a little differently because alien officers (navigators and commanders) are unarmed, making them easy to pick out on the battlefield. Equipment loadouts are generally similar to UFO in that medics and technicians will have Thermal Shock Launchers or DPL Launchers. However, technicians only appear on the larger ships and scout vessels have just soldiers and squad leaders (whereas UFO puts engineers on the large scout).

Technicians in TFTD may carry DPL launchers on all larger ships unlike UFO where they're seen only on Battleships and as mentioned above, starting in September, all aliens in colonies or Artefact Sites have either DPL launchers or TSLs.

[Anonymous No.4521542]

>>4521367
Why don't Snakemen have medics?

[Anonymous No.4521581]

>>4521542
I think it had to do something with how in the game storyline, Snakemen are just kind of this mercenary race interested in raiding and plundering, while the other races are under the control of Ethereals and used as their foot soldiers.

Anyway, only Sectoids and Floaters have all alien ranks and perform all mission types. Snakemen lack medics and mostly perform base and terror missions, rarely research or infiltration. Mutons just have soldiers, engineers, and navigators, they perform all mission types except abduction. Ethereals are the big boss aliens so they have only soldiers, leaders, and commanders and the only missions they perform are base/infiltration/terror while leaving grunt work to their minions.

[Anonymous No.4521606]

>>4521367
Alien ranks also have a tendency to spawn in specific areas of a ship/alien base.

Engineers: They hang out around UFO power supplies. If the power supply was blown up in a crash, the engineers are often dead. In bases, they're generally in those big-ass rooms with power supplies in them, but sometimes a base doesn't have them in which case the engineer spawns in a random location.

Medics: On Abductors, they all hang out in the exam room. Harvesters they're in the room with the dead cow. Terror ships usually those side rooms upstairs with a hole in the floor. I'm not sure where they spawn on Battleships. In bases, they're in the big garden thingie (if present).

Leaders/commanders: On the bridge of a UFO or in the base command center. They usually won't leave their post unless everyone else is out of commission.

Note that on Superhuman, sometimes aliens can spawn in random places due to limited spawn nodes. For example, engineers will often be wandering around outside instead of in a UFO's engine room. The commander also has a habit of spawning outside the command center in bases which is a nuisance on Superhuman since you end up killing the bugger when you want to capture him.

[Anonymous No.4521631]

TFTD only Aquatoids have all ranks. Gillmen substitute a soldier for the medic and a technician in place of the navigator. Lobstermen have no medics and replace them with a soldier. Tasoths have soldiers and squad leaders only.

All aliens perform all mission types except Lobstermen don't do resource raids. From June onward, Tasoths replace Gillmen for resource raids and interdiction.

[Anonymous No.4521802]

>>4521606
How does the game decide if an alien dies when there's a crash? Does it simulate some explosion from the reactors, or is it chosen randomly? Non-engineers can also die in them, right?

[Anonymous No.4521887]

>>4521802
Simulated explosion. Power sources only have a small chance of surviving when a UFO is shot down; if RNG says it blows up, then anything near it gets caught in its explosion (the size of which is random). That explains the destroyed floor, walls, and ceiling and dead ayys near it, and why terror ships almost don't have any of their power sources survive a crash since they're all clustered closely together.

[Anonymous No.4521902]

>>4521887
If you shoot down a UFO, there's a fixed 75% chance of each power supply in the ship exploding. Often you'll find dead aliens around it, which are usually the engineers, and on medium scouts and Abductors, the outer hull of the UFO may be ripped open due to the location of the power supplies.

[Anonymous No.4521912]

>>4521606
Forgot. On Supply Ships, medics are always on the second floor with the food containers. Navigators are always on the bridge or base command center.

[Anonymous No.4521919]

>>4521606
The exam room on Abductors is always a bitch to clear in an intact ship due to several aliens all being clustered in there. Often you'll have to send a guy in there with a primed grenade as a suicide bomber.

[Anonymous No.4522402]

>apparently Gillmen are trying to set up a colony in my backyard
>I got only a meh rating for March so I need to haul ass in April
>there's a colony way the fuck down in Antarctica but I need DPL Launchers and Sonic Cannons before I can take that thing on
>a supply ship touches down
>get 'em, boys--it's only Gillmen
>clear a few from the area surrounding the Triton
>march all the way across the map to the alien ship
>grenade a guy outside it
>shoot a guy on the front door
>head in, sacrifice two meat shields to absorb an alien's reaction shots
>one of my sergeants gets horribly wounded by three Sonic Pistol shots to the face
>heal him up
>he gets shot by another alien and dies
>I need to grenade this unconscious alien on the front door of the ship
>but he gets up so we just shoot him
>the basement is clean, so go up to the bridge
>shoot some of the guards, kill the navigator (well, really a technician since Gillmen don't have navigators)
>see some guy with a DPL Launcher
>he can't reaction fire, so just walk up and shoot him...unconscious?
>squad leader, whatever
>oh, and thanks for the DPL Launcher, I could use one of those
>and that's it
>three casualties--one rookie, one squaddie, and a sergeant for a mountain of loot including a DPL Launcher

[Anonymous No.4522652]

>>4522402
The score bonuses from milking supply ships easily overcomes the penalty for leaving a base intact.

[Anonymous No.4522859]

How exactly do Psi strength and skill work? Obviously, more of each is better than less, but say I'm running up against some Ethereals, and I want to make sure my guys are at least reasonably protected from psionic assault. How much strength/skill do I need to weather their own attacks? How much should my psi strength cutoff be before I decide someone is a psionic and stays back in the craft to dish out panic attacks and mind controls instead of toting a heavy plasma?

[Anonymous No.4523419]

>>4522859
Psi strength is basically your soldier's innate psionic defense/attack power and can't be changed. Psi skill is a trainable stat that determines how well your soldier can use their psi strength for attacks.

Above 87 psi strength is perfect for a psi trooper.

[Anonymous No.4523587]

Anyway, after that supply ship, they sent a Dreadnought so I thought "I'm feeling stupidly lucky today." Too bad a Gillman Dreadnought is not like taking a Battleship with Floaters, no, not at all. One obvious reason being that Floaters don't have a commander with psionic abilities.

Another being that they're a literal maze compared to the UFO Battleship. After over 40 turns of troops getting mind controlled, grenading Xarquids, and finding out that apparently you can't spot aliens up a grav lift like you can in UFO, I was down to apparently one alien. I already knew something was hiding in the northwest corner of the map because a shot came out of there earlier. Thought it was a Gillman, proved to actually be a Xarquid, but he still wasn't the last one.

I eventually ended up using a save game editor to find the last alien, turned out he was hiding on the bridge in this little room thing I have circled. I didn't want to cheat, but I also didn't want to spend 100 more turns searching for him. Among other things, I got back a Gillman commander from the mission, which can sub for a Lobsterman navigator.

[Anonymous No.4523613]

>>4523587
A trick with the larger alien ships is to fire a Blaster Bomb into the bridge. Wipe out the leader/commander and you can cause considerable morale damage and get the aliens to start panicking, plus eliminate any psykers.

[Anonymous No.4523616]

>>4523419
Yes, I realize, but that doesn't actually help me plan: Say I've got a cross section of guys, all with psi amps, and they're

20/20
20/40
20/60
20/80
40/20
40/40
40/60
40/80
60/20
60/40
60/60
60/80
80/20
80/40
80/60
80/80
100/20
100/40
100/60
100/80

With the first # being strength and the second being skill. What are their chances to mind control a given alien? How resistant are each of them to an ethereal leader trying to do the same to them? How does it actually work?

[Anonymous No.4523627]

BTW, aliens will always target the soldiers with the weakest psionic strength. They can also perform psionic attacks more effectively the closer your soldiers are, which means that if you have a couple of guys used as psyker bait, the aliens will eventually stop targeting them and go after guys who are closer to them on the map, as I found out on a certain Gillman Dreadnought.

[Anonymous No.4523635]

>>4523587
ouch

[Anonymous No.4523672]

>>4523616
If you're looking for an exhaustive explanation, read this:
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Psionics

[Anonymous No.4523734]

>>4523672
>http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Psionics
Grazi. And interesting, attack ability increases with skill far more so than defensive capability. Low level psionics have far more trouble attacking other psi weaklings than high level psionics do to other high level guys.

[Anonymous No.4523736]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtK1GbYDgv0

In this vid, the guy finds a Lobsterman commander in the engine room. I assume this is because on Lobsterman Dreadnoughts, most of the Tentaculats spawn inside the ship while Gillmen have large terrorists that won't fit in there so the game puts them all outside. Limited spawn nodes result in the commander being somewhere other than the bridge. For comparison, I found the Gillman commander in that >>4523587 room with the six box thingies.

[Anonymous No.4523757]

So, this thread got me to replay the game, OpenXCom, Superhuman, Ironman. Won the game on 14th of September, with all techs researched (Besides the ones that you have to use the editor to give you the appropriate item that won't ordinarily spawn) and 92 KIA, including the final Cydonia mission. That doesn't include the number of wounded people that I let go because their recovery times were too long, but I suspect that to be about 30 or so.

The game isn't as hard as I remember it being.

[Anonymous No.4523787]

What's your opinion on psi requiring line of sight (both yours and the enemy's) in OpenXcom? Does it make the game more fair or too easy since enemies seem to prefer shooting you over mind controlling you?

[Anonymous No.4523808]

>>4523787
Psionics requires LOS in the original game as well, although the way it works is if one alien can see you, all of them can see you.

[Anonymous No.4524010]

>>4480262
fuck savescumming

Everytime you play, you'll get better at an aspect of the game. Every aspect you get better at will add resourses and research to your stack that will allow you to get farther into the game.

Your infantry is going to get shredded especially completing some of the tasks necessary for late game.

[Anonymous No.4524041]

[Anonymous No.4524163]

>finally get Sonic Cannons and a Transmission Resolver just in time for lobster season
>but now there's a colony almost right next to my base
>sure enough, a Lobsterman medium scout on a probe mission pops up
>I have mostly rookies but they need training
>they can't move too far with a bulky Sonic Cannon+stun rod+med kit but at least I'm training strength
>I love sea bottom because it's all flat, open terrain perfect for long range shooting
>take down all the Lobstys with three casualties

[Anonymous No.4524450]

If you get an early shipping route or terror attack with anything more than Aquatoids or Gillmen, you should just land and abort. I wouldn't recommend fighting Bio-Drones until you have Ion Armor. You'll get a bad score, but you can just do missions over the month to compensate.

[Anonymous No.4524462]

>>4524450
>just land and abort
Usually I do all the missions that pop up in UFO, but in TFTD this is essential for keeping sane.

I just reached September on Superhuman and I've completed one port attack and one artefact site. Skipped all other terror sites and one other artefact site by landing and taking off, and I'm still swimming in cash and points just from doing sub recoveries. It might be a good idea to hit end turn once, open the door and see if there's an alien right outside that you can snipe for free to get at least a few points before taking off.

Incidentally, doing small resource raids in a similar way at alien colonies works great as well. Hit end turn once, use particle disturbance sensor to see if there are aliens nearby, open door, knock them out and grab them and their gear, take off before MC hell breaks loose. It's a really easy way to get a live Tasoth for research though it might take a few attempts.

[Anonymous No.4524475]

>>4524450
One way to deal with Lobsterman terror is to camp out in the Triton, open the door, and shoot at aliens until you've cleared the landing zone. However, it doesn't always work and tends to depend on whether or not you spawned in the corner of the map. If you spawned in the middle of the map, you're probably fucked and this won't work. Also any number of disasters can befall you such as a Bio-Drone going up to the Triton's door which causes your soldiers to reaction fire. It then blows up and obliterates half your squad.

[Anonymous No.4524480]

>>4524462
>Usually I do all the missions that pop up in UFO
Unless Ethereal terror, fuck that shit.

[Anonymous No.4524491]

>get done with a grueling Lobsterman port attack at month's end
>two days into the new month, I get a cruise ship attack with...you guessed it, more Lobstermen
>I haven't even gotten my new soldiers yet to replace the casualties from the last mission

That's the kind of situation where you should just fly there and abort. If it were Gillmen, I would have done the mission, but no way in hell am I doing two Lobsterman terror missions in three days especially not when one is a fucking cruise ship.

[Anonymous No.4524495]

Having a Gillman colony near your base is the gift that keeps on giving since you can always pilfer one of their supply ships when you need to boost your score.

[Anonymous No.4524502]

>>4524450
Should add, it's mostly the Bio-Drones and not so much the Lobstermen. Bio-Drones and their 450% firing accuracy means that Plastic Aqua Armor won't allow you to survive for very long, plus the possibility of one exploding near your soldiers.

[Anonymous No.4524641]

>>4524010
>fuck savescumming

You'll need at least some saving and reloading to survive stuff like colonies. In UFO Defense, you'll rarely need to savescum but TFTD it's occasionally a necessary evil.

[Anonymous No.4524653]

>>4506636
Murphy's Law of X-COM: Any soldier intended as chaff and given a retard-tier name will generally disappoint you and become one of your elite officers

Also it is invariably the case that your best and most experienced officers prove to have a psionic strength of 5 and end up getting mind controlled and dropping a grenade in the Skyranger within one turn of starting a mission with psionic-capable aliens.

[Anonymous No.4524674]

>>4524462
Well, I aborted a Lobsterman port attack at the end of April and despite a 200 or so point penalty, I still finished the month with a 350 point rating due to other missions performed and didn't lose any funding.

[Anonymous No.4524679]

>>4524674
You will want to skip a lot of TFTD missions especially the longer/multipart stuff. Only do them if your squad is strong enough or you need something from the mission like Zrbite or a Lobsterman commander.

[Anonymous No.4524682]

>>4524679
I had a bunch of Lobsterman retaliation scouts in the North Atlantic because I shot one of their ships down there. Since my base was in the Mediterranean, I just ignored the things (alright, I shot one down for points and left the crash site go).

[Anonymous No.4526469]

>shoot down Gillman scout on probe mission
>followed by surprise butt secks alien retaliation
>completely rout them with two casualties
One rookie got mind controlled but by an incredible stroke of luck, he had a gauss pistol and couldn't do jack to my soldiers' armor. The last remaining alien apparently was the commander, who was gunned down while hiding in the hangars like a little bitch.

Also they attacked my base with no scouts first. I understand that the game has an approximately 2% chance that shooting down a UFO triggers instant retaliation with no prior scouting.