I have tried several times to start playing XCom but I suck so bad at it. I can't even finish one mission, half the time I get wiped out while dudes are still in the dropship.
Please recommend a good tutorial or video series which will take me from zero to at least proficient?
Read the ufopedia wiki.
To start off a new campaign:
1. Sell all your Heavy Cannons, pistols, standard grenades, and Interceptor Cannons - they should be armed with twin Avalanches
2. Hire two soldiers and 20 scientists
3. Start researching laser weapons immediately
4. Build a general stores, living quarters, and alien containment
5. Give soldiers a tag to designate their abilities - if their strength is 30+, give them an /H tag (Heavy), /S (Sniper) if their firing accuracy is at least 60, and /HS if both. After a mission, check their stats to see if they've leveled up so you can tag them accordingly
5. Buy auto cannon HE rounds, High Explosives, and electro flares
You want to start producing laser weapons as soon as possible. As the game goes along, add more soldiers/scientists/engineers until you have a total of 30, 100, and 70.
By late March or early April, you ought to be researching Heavy Plasma because April is when Mutons start popping up and Snakeman terror missions begin.
Be sure to throw out a smoke grenade at the start of a mission and don't move on Turn 1 because aliens have full TUs/reaction fire.
The first terror mission in January is usually Floaters, but occasionally Sectoids. If you get the latter, just abort.
>>2923312
Most of the first three months of the game will be just Floaters and Sectoids with the occasional Snakeman appearance. By April, Snakemen become a regular sight. By June, Ethereals start showing up so look out.
Don't go after alien bases until researching Heavy Plasma unless it happens to be a Floater base which is beatable with Laser Rifles. Make sure to research the Alien Grenade as soon as you can because it weighs a lot less than the High Explosive and you can loot a practically limitless supply of them from dead aliens.
Avoid nighttime missions, especially in the early game and feel free to use the Geoscape cheat trick to get out of doing terror missions at night.
You need an alien leader and commander to beat the game. All larger UFOs have leaders but only Battleships and alien bases have commanders (unless Mutons as they don't have any officers). If you take a live Sectoid officer or any Ethereal, you can then learn psionics.
Ethereal missions should be avoided as much as possible. If you land at a terror site and it's Ethereals, just dust off. You'll get a bad score but you can make up with that by doing missions over the month.
>>2923219
Read:
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Starting_Your_Shadowy_Paramilitary_Organization
And the most important battlefield tactic, killing aliens without them seeing you:
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Scouting
Also, when in doubt, use more explosives.
Smoke is really good in X-COM. Always use smoke to hide your soldiers when they're exiting the Skyranger. This also means you don't exit on turn 1, which is good because the aliens are camping with full TUs on turn 1.
Once your craft are armed with Plasma Cannons, you can shoot down any UFO except Battleships which only an Avenger can go 1v1 with.
Shooting down a UFO has the chance of triggering an alien retaliation mission whereby they try to find your base and attack it.
All of the larger UFOs will land at some point except Battleships on retaliation missions and Terror Ships on a terror mission (see below), so you don't necessarily need to shoot them down especially if your base is close enough that the Skyranger can get to them before they take off.
Terror missions happen once every month. If you shoot down the Terror Ship, you'll prevent it from happening.
And make sure to equip everyone with Power/Flying Suits if you have enough Elerium for it because the aliens' equipment will get better as the game goes along. In the early months, most of them have Plasma Pistols/Rifles, but by June they mostly have Heavy Plasma and you won't see Plasma Pistols anymore. By September, it's exclusively HP and the Plasma Rifle vanishes.
one question regarding OpenXcom
the radar works as intended? I mean, I remember playing the game as a kid, and my radar could ocasionally detect ayys in the artic while my base was in australia
or is it part of "balancing the game" they made?
If you don't feel like engaging a UFO, you can just shoot it down in the ocean or else ignore the crash site (which vanishes in a few days). Especially late in the game, there's not much point in taking on every last scout ship that you run into.
Once you get psionics, have your guys practice on enemies with low psy strength, especially Floaters and Mutons (some terrorists are also very easy to mind control).
Try to not bunch guys up because they'll become grenade b8. Once you have Power Suits, this is less of a concern as soldiers will be completely immune to a grenade blast except at ground zero. Flying Suits obviously render the equation moot since you can't get grenaded up in the air.
>>2923352
Multiple radars were supposed to stack (there's a graph for radar strength), but because of a bug they didn't. OpenXCOM fixes this.
It's irrelevant once you get a Transmission Resolver which always detects at 100%.
>>2923367
Oh. I always thought they didn't, since the wiki explains how it works and how only the small and large ones can stack
It still needs to be in range, right?
Never fire a new recruit strictly for having garbage stats - he could have god-level psy strength, which you can't see until he spends a month in training. The rookie with 41 firing accuracy and 25 strength might have psy strength of like 95.
>>2923384
>It still needs to be in range, right?
I've never seen radars detect out of range either in original or OpenXCOM.
>>2923334
Also aliens can only mind control what they can see until Turn 20 when they can automatically see where all your soldiers are. I'd just gotten done clearing out a Tasoth Dreadnought on my current TFTD run, so I got to observe this in action.
The buggers were putting up a colony in the Sea of Japan, I shot down one of the supply ships, sent the Triton after it, and then found the Dreadnought parked just off the Japanese coast. My manufacturing was really sucking down my stocks of Zrbite/Aqua Plastics so I decided to go for it. Besides, you don't get a lot of chance to fight Dreadnoughts compared with the UFO Defense Battleship.
I just managed to get to the thing before it got completely dark outside. Pretty crazy battle - I shot a hole in the upper floor with a PWT missile and sent two MIA guys up there. We finally got to the bridge and took out the MC-ing assholes up there. Then there was only one panicked Tasoth soldier left near the bridge.
Is it better to start with original DOS XCom, or go straight for OpenXcom?
>>2924624
OpenXCOM
>>2924624
The DOS version has a bunch of bugs, but you can patch them with XComUtil. Most of them are fixed in the Collector's Edition, however that adds a new bug with Blaster Bomb waypoints (you can exploit this to your advantage though). CE is a Windows 9x game, so you probably can't run it without an old PC on hand.
The DOS and CE editions both have the base defense bug that causes endless retaliation Battleships to crash into your base defenses.
Why? If a retaliation scout finds your base, it throws up the flag in XBASES.DAT. This causes the game to send a Battleship to attack the base. However, if your base defenses shoot it down, the flag never gets cleared due to a programming oversight. So you'll just keep getting Battleships charging into your base forever until you either shoot them down or remove your base defenses, let them in, and beat them.
OP here. Thanks to all who've commented.
Do you really just burn turn 1 throwing a smoke grenade then ending your turn? It seems wasteful, but I guess having your guys die the second they appear on the map is worse.
I read up on overall strategy and on base building. I started a DOS game and actually managed to finish 2 intercept missions. I then read about OpenXcom so started playing that.
My first mission was simple, one lone alien on a little spaceship with blinking lights. He sat under his own ship and just shot the legs, didn't hit me once.
The second mission fucked me. The crashed craft was empty, the aliens had hidden in and on farm houses. One fucking alien on a second story roof picked off half my squad. I got up there to kill him, only to realise he'd run out the back door. At this point I had 3 soldiers left and gave up.
How do you tell who has good stats? I know 35 strength is good for a heavy, how about weapon accuracy?
Are throwing weapons important to use in this game or are they a bit shit?
>>2926449
>Do you really just burn turn 1 throwing a smoke grenade then ending your turn?
Generally this is sound strategy unless aliens spawn in front of the landing ramp.
>My first mission was simple, one lone alien on a little spaceship with blinking lights. He sat under his own ship and just shot the legs, didn't hit me once
Right, a small scout. You rarely encounter those in a game since anything bigger than a Stingray missile KOs them. One alien, one unit of alien alloys, plus the gun/clip he was carrying and a Mind Probe is all the loot you get out of those.
>The second mission fucked me. The crashed craft was empty, the aliens had hidden in and on farm houses. One fucking alien on a second story roof picked off half my squad. I got up there to kill him, only to realise he'd run out the back door. At this point I had 3 soldiers left and gave up.
Kneeling improves firing accuracy.
>How do you tell who has good stats? I know 35 strength is good for a heavy, how about weapon accuracy?
Firing accuracy of at least 60.
>Are throwing weapons important to use in this game or are they a bit shit?
Grenades are important for demolishing structures, plus dynamiting unconscious aliens (VERY important when fighting Chryssalids). Get rid of the regular grenades; they're too weak to be of any use. High explosives are powerful but bulky so only soldiers with high strength can handle them. You want to research the Alien Grenade as soon as you can.
Chariot chariot,
Naming tips: with Xcom, you're going to lose a lot of idoi- er, soilders who will literally miss the broad side of a barn! Don't sack them right away! Instead, give them a proper name, like "Meat," "Pork Chop," "Chunky Soup" or the always Classy, "Red Shirt."
Sure, there is a name mod to create stat strings, but who needs to memorize that nonsense when you know "Red Mist" is up for the challenge of jumping off the Sky ranger first!
Oh, and don't listen to those commanders who blue ball on the first turn. Go out and kill those aliens like a Real American Hero!
>>2927057
zozzle
One hint that's not obvious: weapons come in one and two-handed types. (eg. pistols vs rifles). If it's two-handed, you should have your other hand free, or you'll be less accurate.
>>2927057
>Naming tips: with Xcom, you're going to lose a lot of idoi- er, soilders who will literally miss the broad side of a barn! Don't sack them right away! Instead, give them a proper name, like "Meat," "Pork Chop," "Chunky Soup" or the always Classy, "Red Shirt."
I tend to name soldiers after cartoon characters or Pokemon or sometimes just random names. Once I had a squaddie named Steve Jobs. He lasted only two missions before getting his head shot off attacking a Floater Harvester. Oh well.
>>2923219
capture enemies instead of killing them
learn PSI from said captured aliums
cheese the game until you win
ump
>>2928552
You're gonna need it for when the Ethereals come.
Protips for beating Ethereals:
1. Make sure your soldiers have been through a month of psy training so you know who's strong and who's not. The weaklings can just be brought along on a mission as bait to keep the aiyys occupied.
2. Heavy lasers. This otherwise useless weapon is Sectopods' Kryptonite. They'll die to a direct Blaster Bomb hit of course, but this is a less brute-force way of doing it. If you catch a Sectopod facing away from you, they'll die to a few taps on the butt from heavy plasma (their rear armor is very thin compared to the front and side armor).
3. If you're not adequately prepared, don't fight Ethereals on anything bigger than a Medium Scout.
4. You need to kill as many of them as fast as you can, preferably with massive BB attacks
>had a bad June
>aliens kicking my arse left and right
>begin July
>manage to turn things around with a lot of UFO shootdowns
>take out two Sectoid bases, gobble two supply ships servicing a Snakeman base, then go after the base itself
>after this successful run, find yet another base operating
>not knowing what alien race this is, I plunge into it
>oh crap crap crap it's Ethereals
>do I really want to do this, or should I just abort and run?
>well...
>using my sneakiest tactics, I manage to drop one aiyy after another
>dunno where the last guy could be hiding though
>door opens somewhere
>since the aliens' turn is really short now, I know there's only one of them left
>Mind Probe him
>holy crap, it's the commander
>stun rod him
>alright, motherfucker - tell us where the aliens' HQ is
And with that, I turned a -1200 point month into a 5000 point month. :^)
>win hard-fought Sectoid terror mission
Sucked that I had to use two guys as sacrificial lambs to absorb this one Cyberdisc's reaction shots because the bugger was camped behind a warehouse and wasn't gonna move voluntarily.
>>2923219
Since you're new to the game, I will explain the different aliens.
>Sectoid
The stereotypical gray alien and usually the first thing you'll encounter in a new game. They have the physical durability of wet tissue paper and essentially every weapon kills them in 1-3 shots. They're only average shots, but have high reactions. The leaders and commanders can use psionics.
>Floater
AKA Barney's Purple Purse. These guys are a little more durable than Sectoids, but otherwise pretty much of a joke. Their reactions and firing accuracy are shit (aside from leaders/commanders) and they're also highly vulnerable to psionics. They have a bad habit of getting trapped in the upper floors of buildings since the AI doesn't know how to move them down staircases.
>Snakeman
May occasionally appear in February-March, but not common until April. They have very low reactions, but high firing accuracy. Not much more durable than a Floater. Snakemen by themselves are not a big threat, only when they're accompanied by their terror buddy.
>Muton
First starts appearing in April. Their huge health (130) makes them hard to kill and on average it takes three Heavy Plasma shots to drop them. Mutons often survive Blaster Bombs if it's not a direct hit and grenades won't OHKO them either. Their reactions and firing accuracy are only average and they have the weakest psy strength of any alien in the game, which makes them laughably easy to mind control. Mutons do not have any ranks except soldier, engineer, and navigator.
>Ethereal
The big boss aliens behind this whole operation. Their reactions and firing accuracy are the best in the game, they're fast, can fly, and all of the cocksuckers can use psionics. The one weakness that Ethereals have is being relatively fragile. They start appearing in June.
>>2932038
And terrorists:
>Cyberdisc
Sectoids' terror buddy. A huge fucking robo-saucer that shoots deadly and incredibly accurate shots, plus they explode when destroyed and are immune to panic. All that and you can't tell which way they're facing.
>Reaper
Floaters' terror buddy. Pretty much of a joke. Despite the highest health in the game (140), they're easily flattened by explosives. Since Reapers are melee-only, you're safe as long as you stay at least seven squares away from them.
>Chryssalid
Snakemen's terror buddy. Oh boy. The buggers take a nice bite out of your soldier and turn him into a zombie which if killed becomes a new Chryssalid. And no armor will protect you either. Plus they're extremely fast, have high health (90), and are immune to panic. On terror sites, Chryssalids will become a nightmare due to their capacity to turn civilians into zombies. Because if you don't kill a zombie, it will hatch into a Chryssalid anyway in about six turns.
>Celatid
One of the two Muton terrorists. A pink jellybean thing with an incredibly powerful, but inaccurate and short-range acid spit. Their health is only around 60, so easy to kill with most weapons.
>Silacoid
The other Muton terrorist. A purple, melee-only rock that's totally immune to incendiary weapons but weak to explosives. They leave a fire trail where they've moved which makes them easy to find.
>Sectopod
Ethereals' terrorist. Big walking mecha with insane reactions and firing accuracy, but its weapon is weaker than Heavy Plasma. Unlike Cyberdiscs, they do have auto shots. The nastiest thing about Sectopods is their incredibly thick front and side armor. However, their rear armor is weak and they die if tapped in the butt a few times with Heavy Plasma shots. Direct Blaster Bomb hits will take them out as well. The otherwise useless Heavy Laser is the preferred anti-Sectopod weapon as they take double damage from lasers.
>beat up Snakeman base
>clean out Floater terror site
>beat up a couple of Snakeman scouts
>clean out Snakeman terror site
>lose an average of 5-7 guys per mission
That's X-COM on Superhuman for you.
>>2931789
>camped behind a warehouse and wasn't gonna move voluntarily
The solution is more explosives. It can't camp behind the warehouse if the warehouse is demolished.
>>2933428
Sounds good on paper. In practice, this is what happens.
>throw grenade to demolish the wall and remove the Cyberdisc's cover
>as soon as it blows, the Cyberdisc shoots your grenadier
>>2933439
>as soon as it blows, the Cyberdisc shoots your grenadier
Need more smoke
>>2933420
I only lost four dudes on that Snakeman terror mission, though it was in daytime. Used the Skyranger patrol trick for that because like shit I'm doing a nighttime Snakeman terror mission before Flying Suits/Blaster Bombs. There was one entrenched Chryssalid at the end and the only way I could draw him out was by sacrificing a rookie soldier as b8. The game seems to not count zombified soldiers as KIA so it only claimed I lost three guys at the end of the mission.
I still don't have a commander either because you need 30 soldiers for that and I have yet to do a mission without losing anyone. But logically, Dragonite would get promoted. She's one of my original 8 soldiers (probably the only surviving one; I don't remember) and the very first to get a kill and make sergeant. Don't put her on missions that often, although she did survive that Snakeman base.
>>2924624
The only reason to play vanilla is to appreciate all the improvements OXC makes. Besides that, don't bother.
>>2926449
>Do you really just burn turn 1 throwing a smoke grenade then ending your turn? It seems wasteful, but I guess having your guys die the second they appear on the map is worse.
Wasteful of what? You usually lose nothing by incrementing the turn. I tend to rush a bit on UFO landings (since I'm pretty sure they all spawn inside the ufo) but besides that you should take as long as you need, if not longer.
>>2927057
>Oh, and don't listen to those commanders who blue ball on the first turn. Go out and kill those aliens like a Real American Hero!
Cyberdiscs+Blaster Bomb=Hiroshima
Seriously, I tore that freaking town apart. There were two of those huge marketplace things and after lobbing a couple of BBs around and all those Cyberdiscs exploding, there wasn't much left of them. I think all the civilians died as well, but...meh.
After that, June ended and we got a mediocre score+China signing a pact with aliens. They've been really fucking busy in East Asia. The terror mission there and now infiltration.
So we got everyone ready, flew out to China, patrolled, found the alien base, and went in. It was Mutons and after an initially shaky start, we rolled them up like a carpet with only three casualties.
>Mutons terrorize Delhi
That mission was all violent and explodey. Just the way I like it. ;)
>Snakeman ships trying to put a base in the Pacific
>I follow them around, scan the only piece of land there (Hawaii), and find nothing
>later
>Japan signs a pact with aliens
>spot a Muton Supply Ship headed to Siberia although this should be in SE Asia
>fly out there and find the base on Sakhalin Island
Those...are weird bugs. Especially the phantom Snakeman base. I guess the UFO fleet couldn't find anywhere to land, so the game never put a base there like it was supposed to.
IDK about you guys, but I actually played TFTD before I played UFO Defense, so when I did eventually try out the latter, it was a little hard to get used to the slightly simpler interface (not being able to open doors with a right mouse click?)
>>2936849
OpenXCOM lets you open doors in UFO.
>>2936849
You can open doors in vanilla XCom by left clicking through the door then canceling it with right click iirc
>>2936849
Some of the improvements in TFTD are nice. Aside from the door opening feature, you can reserve TUs for kneeling as well as shots and when you select one of the reserve TUs buttons, it stays there permanently while in UFO, it gets reset every turn.
Also if unconscious aliens get grenaded, they turn into a corpse unlike UFO where they simply disappear (any equipment on the ground gets blown up regardless).
I think one issue I have with TFTD is the relative monotony compared to UFO, in that colonies always have the same aliens in them which gets kinda boring after you've blown up your 6th or 7th in a row. TFTD has a bunch more terrain types than UFO which is cool, except it's also rigged to give you generic coral/sea bottom 50% of the time.
>Ethereals and Floaters both active in Australia
>there's two freaking bases there
>pick up Floater large scout on the radar
>go and chase it down, but lose it
>patrol around Australia for a bit and detect a large UFO
>ok, a Supply Ship
>shoot it down
>get everyone ready
>I do not know if this is Floaters or Ethereals
>if it's the latter, we're boned
>touch down and...oh well, it is Floaters after all
>clear out a couple in the landing zone
>my Flying Suit officers approach and there's smoke coming out of the bird
>and we blew up the Elerium
>wonderful
>punch some holes in the upper floors with Blaster Bombs
>one Floater knocks out one of my officers with a stun bomb
>I get a little too trigger-happy and shoot a BB into the UFO
>we get the Floater, but also end up vaporizing my unconscious guy
>whoops
>my other officers get wounded by Floaters shooting from inside the ship
>>2938194
>one officer, already wounded, gets capped
>meanwhile, my lesser soldiers, who have only Personal Armor, go to the first floor of the UFO
>the engines are all exploded and the place is a mess
>there's four Floaters down there
>one of my rookies shoots and misses horribly
>that's to be expected with 49 firing accuracy
>we eventually clear out the aliens, most of whom are panicking and dropped their weapons by now
>meanwhile, another rookie off by a shed gets startled by a grenade blast
>move over into a wheat field, shoot the bugger responsible
>one of my squaddies enters the left door of the UFO, shoots the last alien, and we're done
Nineteen aliens killed for only two casualties, but the game didn't count the unconscious guy who got toasted by a BB, so it claimed I lost just one soldier. But I got no Elerium, so waste.
Patrolling also reveals the two alien bases in Australia, which has also gotten infiltrated and signed a pact with aliens. Since once of them is an Ethereal base, that is not a good thing to have. I will have to deal with that base as much as I don't like it. I also made a couple of Heavy Lasers just for this mission to deal with their little pets.
I shot the Floater Supply Ship down at the end of August. Now, if you didn't know, that's the last chance to fight aliens still armed with Plasma Rifles because in September, all aliens have Heavy Plasma.
The way the game handles alien equipment loadouts is as follows:
January-March: Most aliens have Plasma Pistols/Rifles. A few will have HP
April-May: Most aliens have HP/Rifles. A few have pistols.
June-August: Most aliens have HP. A few have rifles.
September onward: All aliens have HP except the specialist ranks that carry Small Launchers or Blaster Launchers.
>>2938526
And of course, starting in September, the game schedules one retaliation mission per month in all regions that have an X-COM base in them with the alien race being drawn at random rather than being the same guys who's ride you shot down.
Hire bunch of soldiers, keep only ones who have +60 accuracy. This applies until you get PSI lab.
Kneeling saves more lives than armor in the long run and also boost accuracy.
Incendiary ammo is very useful for nigh time missions.
Fire soldiers who get mind controlled or easily demoralized by PSI attacks.
Capture live Ethereal asap.
Don't take the shot with soldier who sees the alien as it might react fire back. Instead have another soldier who is further away to snipe the enemy.
Proximity grenades alert your guys and make them very likely to attack with reaction fire.
>>2938742
>Kneeling saves more lives than armor in the long run and also boost accuracy.
True, but a lot of times you kneel and the bastard reaction fires you.
>Incendiary ammo is very useful for nigh time missions
It is, although only some terrain is flammable. One trick you can do on Medium Scouts is fire an incendiary round inside which will knock health off the aliens and then also not blow up the Elerium.
>Fire soldiers who get mind controlled or easily demoralized by PSI attacks
Or use them as psyker bait. If you have a soldier that's a known psy weaking, you can just leave him disarmed at the start of a mission and let the aliens waste TUs mind controlling him.
>Capture live Ethereal asap
Or Sectoid leader since you can get them earlier in the game.
>Don't take the shot with soldier who sees the alien as it might react fire back. Instead have another soldier who is further away to snipe the enemy.
This works fine for open terrain like ice, but it gets to be a problem on terror sites or whatever where there's tons of obstructions everywhere.
Now I'll give you a few TFTD tips.
1. The Escort's power supply is in the line of fire when you open the door of the ship. As a result, it's a very common trap to shoot at an alien and hit the Ion Beam Accelerator, which explodes and kills/maims your soldier
2. Phosphorous ammo doesn't really work underwater (the fire goes out in one turn) so only use it on land missions
3. Lobstermen occasionally show up in February-March (10% chance of a Probe mission and 20% chance of Infiltration/Colony). If you encounter a Lobsterman ship at this point in the game, abort immediately. You can't beat them when you're still using Gauss weapons.
4. Colonies look intimidating, but get a lot easier when you realize that all the Lobstermen/Tentaculats spawn in the northern half of the map
5. The game always stacks the big 16x16 modules on top of each other, so if you encounter any on the upper floors of the colony, head straight downstairs. You may find the command center underneath
6. On lower difficulty levels, the Lobsterman Navigator spawns in the command center. Higher levels there's 3-4 commanders in there and the navigators just spawn in some random area
7. Navigators are easy to identify on the map because they don't have any weapon on them. Be aware that sometimes an alien soldier will be carrying grenades and a drill, so he appears to be unarmed
8. Aquatoid Navigators typically hide in some cubbyhole as they have no weapon and don't want to confront your troops (Lobsterman navs have their claws).
9. Cruisers have their Zrbite in the ball things in the tail of the ship, not the power supplies so those USOs are always a guaranteed 50 Zrbite
10. Bio-Drones do not explode if knocked out with a melee weapon
11. Unlike UFO Defense, some aliens do spawn inside your base in TFTD base defense missions
12. Also unlike UFO Defense, alien infiltration fleets do not land. You must shoot them down, including the Dreadnoughts.
I just want to say that I always love reading people's X-COM stories. One of these I'll get around to actually digging into it myself, I promise.
>>2938797
And finally, you need minimum Sonic Cannons and Pulsers to survive a colony. I never go after them until May. This isn't UFO Defense where you can take alien bases in February with just laser rifles.
You don't need to go through the headache of clearing all the Lobstermen from the inner colony. Just find the command center, blow it up, and run. I do however usually clear the Tasoths/Aquatoids from the outer colony so I can take home all the corpses/equipment for money.
Also unlike UFO Defense, TFTD colonies do not have any Zrbite in them; you'll need to rely on USO recoveries for that.
>>2938202
>on the last day of August, a Floater retaliation scout shows up
>crap, they're out for revenge thanks to me shooting down that Supply Ship
>oh well, it's just Floaters so even if they attack my base, no big deal - we can easily take them
>start September
>get ready to attack those alien bases in Australia
>now that it's September, this also means all the aliens will now have Heavy Plasma - no more Plasma Rifles
>the Floater and Ethereal bases are practically right next to each other
>I don't know which is which, so just pick one at random
>if it's the latter, we're dead
>there's no sign of life around the entrance lifts, but we spawned right next to the command center
>wait two turns, still no aliens show up
>the suspense is killing me
>mouse cursor explore the darkness around the command center
>spot something that looks vaguely Ethereal-shaped
>fire a Blaster Bomb there and hear a Floater death noise
>whew, that was a relief because I did not bring the Heavy Lasers along
>the Floaters and Reapers start coming out to play
>after an explodey fight, I clear most of the aliens and begin to advance towards the command center
>and then the computer crashed and froze up
Son of a...
>>2938797
BTW, Gauss weapons are pretty worthless. You're better off equipping everyone with Gas Cannons until you have Sonic weapons.
TFTD super-pro-tip: Carry drills. They are extremely useful in various situations, like inside the alien ships.
>>2940256
However, drills are entirely dependent on you acquiring a Calcinite corpse which is a hit-or-miss thing.
>>2939358
Sound idea. At the start of a new game, buy everyone gas cannons and research Sonic Rifles after your first USO recovery. The time saved by not researching Gauss weapons lets you get them done faster, especially because (although it's rare), you can run into Lobstermen in February-March in which case you're screwed without Sonic Rifles/Cannons.
Plus the faster you get Sonic weapons, the earlier you can take any alien colonies that happen to pop up.
>>2941059
Also, TFTD gives you far more money than UFO, so there's no need to research Gauss Cannon for manufacturing profit.
>>2941093
>Also, TFTD gives you far more money than UFO
Getting money is about the same as UFO. You'll be a bit cash-strapped in the early game, but by June have more than you'll ever need. In fact higher difficulty levels actually make the game easier in some respects because more aliens=more corpses and loot to sell.
Zrbite on the other hand is much more abundant because it's often stored on alien ships in places other than the engines, so you'll rarely be short on that unless you build like 20 Magnetic Ion Armor suits in a row and have advanced craft operating. The only caveat is that alien colonies never have any Zrbite in them unlike UFO bases.
>>2941059
>Plus the faster you get Sonic weapons, the earlier you can take any alien colonies that happen to pop up
Also if you can take out colonies early in the game, more aliens will have weak weapons like Sonic Pistols whereas the further you go into the game, the tougher their arsenal.
>>2941123
I hear through the grapevine that after a certain point, aliens in colonies all have PWT launchers though I've never gotten that far.
>>2941139
I dunno, but it seems like something that could be easily exploited. For one thing, aliens with PWT launchers can't reaction fire, nor will they fire at you if you're within six squares of them. Having all your guys flying around with MIA would make you pretty safe as well.
>>2941145
>Having all your guys flying around with MIA would make you pretty safe as well
How so? Wouldn't they just fire the PWT missile upward?
>>2941160
Not if you're playing the Collector's Edition. ;)
Yeah the BB waypoint bug is a cheap exploit, but I love abusing it.
>>2938797
>11. Unlike UFO Defense, some aliens do spawn inside your base in TFTD base defense missions
Aquatoid base defense is laughably easy compared with Sectoid base defense in UFO.
>>2941353
Aquatoids on the whole are piss-easy thanks to terrorists that are melee-only. That's probably one reason why TFTD rarely gives you Aquatoid terror missions. There's a large difficulty gap between them and Sectoid terror.
>>2941360
I've done Sectoid terror missions late in the game when I had Flying Suits and twin Blaster Launchers and it was still annoying as fuck.
The game does get a lot easier by the point where you're packing Blaster Launchers and Power Armor and the mortality rate of your soldiers drops a lot.
What are the rules about smoke grenade visibility? I'm following the advice to throw a grenade on first turn to cover the Skyranger ramp, but I find as I move soldiers out into the expanding cloud, if there's an alien with reaction points they'll see me and shoot me. Isn't the smoke supposed to hide the soldiers from the aliens?
>>2942762
You might need 2 smoke grenades. One for ground level, one for Skyranger level. Smoke only affects one layer.
Check your graphs for spikes in alien activity in regions. If you see spike without having received many radar findings, it might mean that aliens have established a base. Send a bird to patrol that region to find the base.
If you want to ultimately cheese the game you can follow this instructions :
Start a new superhuman game
-Sell all your weapons/craft weapons exept for rifles, avalanche launchers, smoke granades and HE
-buy more avalanche launchers and equip all your interceptors with them (dont forget to buy ammo)
-buy some more rifles you will need a stock of 20 at least until you get lasers
-buy ammo for the rifles, always double the ammount of ammo than the ammount of rifles
-buy smoke granades, flares, proximity granades and HE (always keep a stock 20 to 30 of each)
-buy some soldiers (20 soldiers total is enough)
-build a large radar, store and alien containement
-buy some scientists (at first you need to aim to get 50 later in the game you can get up to 100 if you feel like it)
-Delete all your soldiers names and remplace it with their accuracy and their reactions (for example [ 60-35 ])
-Load your soldiers in the skyranger and arrange them from bottom to top with the soldiers having the best accuracy in the bottom and the worst acurracy to the top (use reactions to break the ties)
select the bottom 14 soldiers to load to the skyranger
-after every mission update the soldiers names with their stat gains and update their place in the skyranger, this way you get your best soldiers at the bottom of the skyranger and the shitty ones on the front, if the front soldiers die you replace them, if they dont they get better stats and go to the back
-the soldiers loadout should be 1 rifle, 1 clip (besides the one in the rifle), 1 proxy granade, 1 smoke granade, 1 flare (if its a night mission), 1 HE
-Forget about medikits if a soldier gets hit he is dead, use him either as a scout or a suicide run
-Rush lasers
-avoid night missions unless unavoidable
-build a base purely dedicated to build laser cannons for money
-learn to build good base layouts for defense
-use smoke to advance, scout with your first 4 soldiers and snipe with the rest
-tanks are only usefull for base defense
>>2942963
cont.
-For small and medium ufos place proximity granades on the main entrance and just let them die to them, its not worth it to storm them
-For larger ufos, it depends if they have psionics or not
-Soldiers are expendable, don't waste them but if they have to die make it worth it and dont get bothered by it you can replace them
-Weapons >>>>> armor, most of your soldiers with die with 1 or 2 hits regardless the armor so its not worth to rush armor (also takes a lot of time to build and resources)
-civilians are worth less than your soldiers you can still have an excellent or ok rating if they all die
-once you start facing psionics pay attention at the soldiers that get targeted the most, they are psi weak and they are worth more than the rest of your team, keep them alive and don't give them any weapons, their job is to get MC'd so they won't fuck up the rest of your soldiers
-use HE to blow up big buildings, its not worth to scout them, even during terror missions, its better to blow up everyone inside than sending a soldier to get killed
-cyberdiscs are though at the start until you get lasers, use HE
-Ignore battleships they are not worth it until you get several Avengers
-get plasma asap and build plasma cannons for your craft, your interceptors will be able to shoot down all the alien crafts exept for battleships with it
-get heavy plasma for all your soldiers
-Psionics are OP using them or not is purely your choice (i prefer to use open xcom and select the option for psionics LOS and then not using psioncs at all, this way you dont get destroyed by them if you choose not to use it)
-Proximity granades are excellent for assaulting alien bases they either kill enemies or at least they let you know where they are coming from
-The open xcom option to customise your starting base is a godsend that avoids you the horrible pain that is rearranging your base
>>2942985
cont.
-Don't bother trying to bring aliens alive, you will get enough of them by accident (unless you are not getting any navigators/leaders for a long time, the you need to get small launchers and blast the aliens in the command centers of the ufos, they are the most likely to be a navigator or a leader)
-when you start a mission you open with a smoke granade outside the skyranger ram and then end the turn, if there is an alien looking at you, there are three choices, either shoot it and pray he doesnt reaction fire or throw a smoke granade with one of the soldiers on the back of the skyranger (this only works if he is out of sight of the alien), last option is to just abort if you find the risk not worth it
-on farm maps just nuke the whole place with HE (fields, hedgerows, farmhouses they are all death traps)
-remember you can prime a granade with one soldier, throw it on the floor and have someone else pick it up, also you can pass it around several soldier to throw around corners or places your original soldier could not reach (not recommendable with proxy granades since if they miss you won't be able to pick them up)
-by midgame all your bases should be defensible and have at least 14 rookies and 1 or 2 rocket tanks, these rookies should have at least lasers, smoke granades, HE and proxy granades (movement sensor if you really feel like using it), just use the rocket tanks to blast the lift
and that should be about all you need to know to breeze it through superhuman
>>2943006
>-on farm maps just nuke the whole place with HE (fields, hedgerows, farmhouses they are all death traps)
Bit less of an issue when you have Flying Suits.
>>2942985
>-use HE to blow up big buildings, its not worth to scout them, even during terror missions, its better to blow up everyone inside than sending a soldier to get killed
I always use grenades to blow out the side of warehouses. It's also handy to shoot a rocket at houses on terror sites because I know what they hide.
>-cyberdiscs are though at the start until you get lasers, use HE
Cyberdiscs are an asset for this strategy because they work as a free grenade. Aside from opening the map up, you'll often take a Sectoid or two out with them.
Also when going after alien bases, make sure to fire a Blaster Bomb or two into the hallway around the command center and also if you get the big gallery room with the food containers.
Protip for Terror Ships. Fire a Blaster Bomb at the marked point. There's usually an alien in there. Plus if you have Flying Suits, it makes a good entry area.
>>2942985
>-Ignore battleships they are not worth it until you get several Avengers
Battleships always land anyway except on retaliation so you don't need to shoot them down and besides, you'd probably destroy the Elerium. Even if it is retaliation, only do it if the thing is carrying Ethereals. Avoiding an Ethereal base defense is well worth your Avenger spending time in the repair shop.
>>2942985
>-For small and medium ufos place proximity grenades on the main entrance and just let them die to them, its not worth it to storm them
If you toss a grenade onto the marked areas, you can usually blow up the aliens on the bridge since explosions go through diagonal walls. Won't kill Mutons, but should at least injure them. Later on, when you have Blaster Bombs, you can just fire them onto these spots to kill the guys on the bridge and open an entry point.
If the power supply blew, you can just storm the entrance since the inside of the UFO will be gutted. Often there will be a hole in the roof which you can also toss grenades into.
And avoid Ethereal missions on anything bigger than a Medium Scout. It's not worth it. If you go to a terror site and it's Ethereals, just dust off.
>>2942985
>Weapons >>>>> armor, most of your soldiers with die with 1 or 2 hits regardless the armor so its not worth to rush armor (also takes a lot of time to build and resources)
Even the lowly Personal Armor does help especially in surviving grenade blasts, although it becomes rather useless by mid-game once most aliens have Heavy Plasma.. Once you get Power/Flying Suits, the mortality rate of your soldiers drops markedly and they're also completely immune to smoke inhalation/fire damage.
A tip for beating Medium Scouts is to fire incendiary rounds into the ship. The aliens will get weakened from fire damage and it also won't blow up the Elerium.
Getting an alien commander from bases gets harder on higher difficulty levels because they sometimes spawn outside the command center. The command center has only four spawn nodes, so on Genius/Superhuman these all get filled with leaders/navigators.
Another tip for identifying aliens without a Mind Probe - engineers and medics carry Small Launchers (although sometimes also plasma weapons). On Battleships/base defense/alien bases, engineers typically have Blaster Launchers. Leaders and commanders also carry BLs.
Aliens usually spawn in a specific part of the map depending on their rank. Engineers spawn next to the UFO power supply, medics in the room with food containers/surgery, leaders and commanders on the bridge/command center. If it's a base, medics tend to spawn in those garden thingies. If the base doesn't have a power station, garden, or food container gallery, the engineers/medics will spawn in some random place, typically around the command center. On Terror Ships, medics seem to always spawn in one of those upstairs closets.
>nearing the end of feb, mostly uneventful
>graph shows activity in se asia
>patrols find nothing
>massive spike follows shortly after
>find alien base all the way in the fucking ordos desert
>codex mission (xeno ops mod, essentially artifact sites from tftd) the very minute i find it
now aint that some shit
>>2944392
My current run, Australia was going crazy but I never found a base or any UFOs there, although later I did blow up a Sectoid base out on the India/China border.
Then I got my Hyperwave Decoder finished and blew up two Muton harvest scouts in South Africa. The second was a Medium Scout that I recovered intact, but lost four guys in the process. And I also triggered a retaliation mission from shooting it down. Fun.
>>2942963
>the soldiers loadout should be 1 rifle, 1 clip (besides the one in the rifle)
I found that it's usually not necessary to carry extra clips in UFO Defense. Heavy Plasma has 35 shots per clip and you can always scavenge weapons from dead aliens if you need more. TFTD you usually do need them because of the much smaller amount of ammo in clips.
Question.
Can you use Mind probe on your own units in order to see their Psionic skill before researching Psi labs?
>>2945532
No.
>spend most of May fighting Muton retaliation scouts
>two of the three have intact power supplies, so I get Elerium from the missions
>on the last day of the month, a Battleship flies over my base
>and here we go
>they found us - batten down the hatches!
>sell off all the useless stuff like stun rods, flares, smoke grenades
>make a few more Power Suits
>three days into June, they come
>beat them off, but I lose 17 freaking dudes in the process - of the 13 survivors out of my 30 troops, five are wounded
>at least I finally acquire a Blaster Launcher - I really really needed one of those in my arsenal
>>2944302
It takes a lot of time to make them early when they are useful and they wont protect enough to make them worth it, if you got hit by a granade its quire likely that you made a mistake rather than bad luck
>>2944053
if the power supply was destroyed then yes storming them is usually quite simple
Thats a good spot for granades but it doesn't work 100% of the time and might give you a false confidence there is nothing in there just to get fucked once you look away
afaik it doesn't work at all on mutons they sometimes survive even a HE
>>2944037
It really depends on what's on the base and what kind of game you are playing.
unmodded you should try to aviod it unless you have high psi stroops on that base
if you modded the psi LOS is not that much of a problem, Sectopods are a pain in the ass though
>>2944015
The problem with granades is that they don't blow up strong enough to kill cyberdiscs or to cover an entire house thats why usually HE is much better, specially if you pass it around with several soldiers to avoid the TU's lost while priming
also they tend to miss much more than HE
I rather avoid rockets, its like asking to get MC'd and blowing myself up, also they have even worse accuracy somehow and fuck up more (unless its a rocket tank, but i rather use them for base defense the space they use in the skyranger is really not worth it besides the fact that you can't throw a proper smoke granade because the fuckers block the ramp and if you have him exit the skyranger before it will probably get killed by reaction fire)
>>2945795
>if you modded the psi LOS is not that much of a problem, Sectopods are a pain in the ass though
You need to keep some Heavy Lasers to deal with them.
>>2945786
>It takes a lot of time to make them early when they are useful and they wont protect enough to make them worth it, if you got hit by a grenade its quire likely that you made a mistake rather than bad luck
Bunching your soldiers up tends to trigger a grenade toss. In UFO at least; TFTD aliens are much more aggressive with grenade use and they carry more of them, even on scout ships while UFO aliens only carry grenades on the larger ships.
>>2945808
The problem with rocket launchers is that they're very hefty and also only the large rocket is useful at all. Small rockets do only 40 damage and won't OHKO anything tougher than a Floater.
>>2945808
>The problem with grenades is that they don't blow up strong enough to kill cyberdiscs or to cover an entire house thats why usually HE is much better
If you mean the alien grenade, yes it is weaker than HE (90 damage versus 115 damage) and won't blow up a lot of tougher structures, although once you get Blaster Bombs this is less of a concern.
>>2945710
how the fuck do you manage to lose 17 dudes?
>>2947235
I did the usual trick of having dudes throw proximity grenades at the access lift as they came in. All was going well until one soldier got caught in the line of fire because not enough TUs. A Muton hocked a grenade at him, injuring a couple dudes in the process. Then some jackasses with Blaster Launchers fired down the hallway at my dudes in the back. It was all downhill from there. The battle turned into horrible carnage with alien and human bodies stacked around the access lift. Finally the last panicked, weaponless Muton was hunted down and shot.
When it was over, I only had five dudes still standing and four were wounded. Technically I should have had 30 soldiers, but the game engine limits you to like 24 so a bunch of your guys never show up.
in
>>2947104
It's true but then again that would be your mistake since you should either have your guys properly spread or have the area scouted enough that no alien is in range to throw a granade at you.
works best if you do both, also smoke granades are essential they will usually avoid any chance for the aliens to use granades if you scout and snipe
>>2948668
This is on the subject of personal armor not being really worth it (if you can research and make it do it but it's not worth any kind of priority over other more useful things, specially weapons)
On my current TFTD run, this happened.
>go chase after a small USO
>Barracuda runs out of gas and has to go back home
>while it's refueling, the alien ship comes back around and flies right over my base
>the next day, a Dreadnought comes charging straight at me
>goddammit, this is all because that was a retaliation scout and I failed to shoot it down
>well, at least this is just Gillmen
>proceed to evict them from my base with six casualties (most of them due to me being too reckless)
And now that that's done, a few days later, another small USO happens by. Shoot it down, more Gillmen. Beat them with no losses. Two days after that, a Small Scout wanders by.
>yfw you triggered another retaliation mission
Seriously, what the hell. This is the third I've gotten so far and it's not even April yet. First one was Aquatoids, but they didn't find my base. Then the Gillmen who attacked my base and now more Gillman retaliation?
I finally figured out how to hack your save files to get any race you want on a shipping route attack. After consulting the UFOpedia entry on CRAFT.DAT, I noticed this section contains a byte specifying what alien race is on a USO and I wondered if it applies to terror sites as well. So I had a trawler attack with Tasoths, I pulled up CRAFT.DAT in a hex editor, and noticed that this byte was 3. I decided to change it to 1 and see what happens.
Reloaded the game, went back and did the trawler mission. Couldn't see any aliens, but there were no mind control sounds unlike with the Tasoth test run. I moved my troops out, looked around, and sure enough I spotted a Gillman off on the upper deck. Tried it again, changed the alien race to 2, restarted the game, and got Lobstermen.
>>2950125
Why even play the game if you're gonna cheeze it like that?
>>2950125
I swear, I've never gotten a shipping route attack with Aquatoids or the Lobsterman-dominated Mixed Crew. It seems like every time I do the things, it's almost always Tasoths and less often, Gillmen. I have gotten the Tasoth-dominated Mixed Crew a few times as well. But Aquatoids seem to be MIA entirely.
>>2950125
First three months of the game you'll only get Gillman/Aquatoid surface attacks. In April-May, there's a 60% chance of a shipping attack (any alien race) and 40% chance of a surface attack (usually Lobstermen, less often Gillmen/Aquatoids). From June onward, you have a 50% chance of an artifact site, 30% chance of a shipping route attack, and 20% chance of a surface attack (now featuring any race). Theoretically once you've done 12 artifact sites, the game will not give you those missions anymore.
I actually enjoy artifact missions; they're short and fun compared to the grind of doing a colony or shipping route attack.
Am I the only one who likes the simple crt filter on open x-com? It gives that sweet sweet spooky colonial marines type of tacticool feeling
>>2951756
That's possibly the worst scanline filter I've seen. WTF is up with that vertical aliasing? Some bad interaction with the aspect ratio correction?
Original hardware was line doubled 320x200 -> 320x400, so it had no obvious scanlines.
>>2952052
Yeeah I'm not trying to make it look more authentic or anything, I have widescreen enabled as well. I just like the gritty sci-fi look. Reminds me of Aliens.
>>2952052
>>2952195
Here's another one. Looks like a completely different game with this filter, which it kinda is because I have several mods enabled as well. I don't know how to get the curvature disabled but I guess it's alright, I'm not a scan line purist.
>>2952207
Looks like something from 80/90's movie about secret goverment organizations blah blah blah, and that is a look from one of PCs in Command Center
How does the PSX game hold up? Is it playable with just a D-Pad and one set of L/R buttons? I'm wondering if it'd be good to put on PSP and have portable XCom.
>>2923219
Carry rockets on EVERYBODY, except on terror missions against Sectoids and any mission against Ethereals since mind control's a bitch. There's no need to worry about accuracy when you only have to fire a rocket at the ground to ensure the death of your target.
Rocket tanks are good too, they carry more rockets than a single soldier, but take four slots that could've been used for soldiers. Also, their rockets are slightly weaker.
Pick out anyone with 70~ accuracy and train them with whatever weapon is the most accurate that you have. The idea is to nurture these guys and ensure they improve at the cost of your other soldiers because eventually your rockets will no longer be effective. That's when you'll need these guys to carry heavy plasma to murder things at long range.
Is there any mod that helps to add more weapon types in the game? I don't like that eventually heavy plasma supplants all other weapons for the most part -- I wish we'd get things like alien grenade launchers (IE Stun launchers that fire alien grenades), weaker but higher accuracy plasma rifles, etc. Rifles, heavy cannons, auto cannons, and rocket launchers all have their places in the X-COM arsenal, but for the aliens it's pretty much Blaster Launchers and Heavy plasma.
X-COM: The Two Sides added in a sniper rifle that was only capable of aimed shots, but had a very high base accuracy, it was kind of nice.
>hire bunch of rookies
>give them nothing but grenades
>arm the grenades
>walk them inside UFO's
>they die, aliens die
>mfw I leave my main guys to clean up the rest
Meatshields, amirite?
>>2952703
The Final Mod Pack includes all kinds of crazy shit from gazillion new machine guns to fucking combat dogs. Breddy gud.
>>2952703
Some kind of weapon specifically designed toward destroying buildings/terrain would be nice. Like artillery or something.
>haven't played XCOM UFO in a couple years
>get on this thread because I'm bored and notice people talking about OpenXCOM
>fixes literally every gripe I ever had with the UI
>start on second easiest difficulty because I'm rusty
>game seems too EZ at first but figure it'll ramp up because XCOM
>therideneverends.jpg
>get terror mission in London.
>already have a good stock of lazer weapons, autocannons, and high explosives being led by a captain
>think it'll be ez mode floaters
>ohgodhoverdiscseverywhere.jpg
>literally landed in the middle of a ton of 3 story buildings with tight alleyways around me.
>step off the skyranger turn 2 to see multiple hoverdiscs and sectoids
>go full retard and get most of them, think I've got it
>suddenly alien grenade lands right in a cluster of my best troops because I thought I was safe.
>lose 2/3rds of the team in one blast.
>literally all thats left is the retards and rookies
>the "vets" are a guy named Hudson because he had 10 bravery and shit stats and Leeroy Jenkins, who had 70 bravery to start but terrible in everything else
>naturally he runs around with an HE in his hand and 4 in his inventroy at all times.
>the rookies are all panicking and shooting each other so its up to dumb and dumber to save the day
>somehow they manage to tagteam two cyberdiscs around the corner with Leeroy's HE and Hudson hitting an insane 9 hits in a row on full auto with a laser rifle
>meanwhile the final cyberdisc is on the 3rd floor above my skyranger taking potshots at rookies since turn one and I havent been able to kill it
>Hudson and Leeroy grab autocannons off the fallen heavy weapons guys and spam the fuck out of the rood on full auto, finishing it off and ending the mission
>mfw the two retards I used to absorb reaction fire are now my best soldiers as a commander and captain less than a month later, and have kicked ass every mission since with double digit kill ratios and doubled their stats.
>> Raid very large UFO
>> everything is going well
>> accidentally click wrong thing and your best guy ends up standing next the elevator alone no time units left to get to cover
>>Kneel
>> He has personal armor with dead man inside it
>> Enemy turn
>> Sectoid comes out misses twice
>> "He might survive this"
>> Second sectoid comes out
>> guy takes 3 plasma shots to head
>> survives with no fatal wounds.
>> Next turn goes to the elevator and kills the aliens.
PS1 version had some crazy dice rolls.
>openXcom
>final mod pack
>shoot down small UFO
>it's literally one sectoid and his one seated teeny tiny UFO
There should be a new class size "tiny" for this shit. Man, I could just shoot them down and don't even bother doing any assaults. It was like flying outdoor bathroom.
>>2952818
Kind of wish tanks could fill that role late game. It would make sense to give them tons of ammo to give them a niche soldiers can't fill.
>>2952687
By the time Ethereals show up, you ought to have Blaster Bombs.
I started a TFTD run on Superhuman, but I don't notice all that much difference from Veteran (what I usually play on) except that Aquatoids apparently have triple the reactions. But then I've only gotten to the start of April and have yet to take on any of the nasty stuff (Lobstermen, colonies, big USOs, etc).
I've just started playing X-COM Superhuman again. I'm on month 3 so far, just finished researching plasma rifles and clips to replace my laser rifles and have started to build a hyperwave decoder.
Should I go with Armor as my next research choice or beeline for advanced craft and armaments? I'm worried my interceptors with avalanche missiles aren't going to be enough soon, and I'd like to start taking down terror ships before their missions can spawn. On the other hand, armor is of debatable use to me since heavy plasma seems to eat through power armor anyway, though it does have the potential to eat a few more rounds than I would.
Haven't been blessed with a psionic capture yet, wish I could find a sectoid or something on a terror mission and start training up recruits for mind control. I did get a small launcher just for the occasion.
>>2953542
interceptors with plasma cannons are engough to kill anything without takind damage (exept for battleships)
so unless you want to kill battleships (you need avengers to properly do it)
you can go for armor
>>2953542
Once you have plasma beams you can shoot down anything except battleships, and you definitely want plasma beams ASAP because it solves all your score problems. I never bother with the Firestorm or Lightning.
>>2923219
>Recent Ironman Superhuman game
>Third terror mission, this time it's sectoids.
>Resolve that I'm going to capture the psionic one and drag his ass back home.
>Mission starts, immediately greeted by several sectoids in plain view.
>Kill two, third returns fire and kills my commander.
>Next turn, finish him off and start moving people down the ramp, set up a perimiter.
>Mind control goes off, my second in command guns down two people with her plasma rifle.
>A couple of sectoids here and there, so I bumrush them rookies with stun rods, manage to capture two after losses.
>Neither are psychic though, must've accidentally killed the psionic one.
>Oh well, we're down 6 men, time to start street sweeping operations.
>Find cyberdiscs in tight corners, snipe them through windows and at long range when I can.
>Lose several soldiers to reaction fire, finally down to only three left.
>Hope there's not too many enemies left, I don't really have the troops for much more combat.
>Scout out another cyberdisc and fire on it with my highest accuracy remaining troop.
>It eats six shots of plasma rifle fire, hovers up next turn and kills the last guy with a plasma rifle.
>Finish it off with laser rifles, another one appears.
>Fire all the lasers, it dies, blows up a wall, and another is there.
>Last cyberdisc kills another troop and dies to more lasers, mission still not over.
>Plasma fire in the distance, last troop killed.
>Mission doesn't fail, I parked one rookie in the skyranger as insurance to retreat.
>Decide this rookie's coming back a hero or not at all.
>Drop the stun rod she had and grab a plasma rifle off a dead soldier.
>Crouch behind a bush and attempt peak out and check for enemies.
>Sectoid reaction fire nails her squarely in the chest.
>Does all but 4 HP of her health.
>Return fire and manage to hit once out of two autoshots, mission successful.
Hey guys I was just curious, how do you get your own name generators in the first two games?
Figured it would cut down on the time spent renaming them and let it be a bit more natural when guys get promoted.
I remember Beagle made one for his new XCOM series, I just don't how to do it with the original. I also use OpenXCOM, so if that has a way to do it that would be awesome.
>>2955685
"openxcom/common/SoldierName" is where the NAM files are kept
>cruise ship mission
>and it's Aquatoids
>not too hard except a bunch of my guys are useless for most of the mission thanks to psionics
>towards the end, I find out that the navigator is hiding out in the kitchen and mind controlling one of my nearby dudes
I don't fucking believe it. He mind controlled my soldier and used him as a bodyguard to prevent anyone else from getting close. Well, I just shot my dude and then killed the Aquatoid.
Unfortunately, the last alien could not be found despite getting occasional messages about him panicking. I'd already searched the entire ship from top to bottom, so I gave up, marched everyone back to the Triton, and dusted off.
>>2955802
I hear through the grapevine that aliens on the cruise ship first level can sometimes spawn in an inaccessible spot.
>>2955730
How do I make my own .nam files?
Am I able to just make a text file and rename it or something?
>>2955852
>http://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4269.msg58438.html#msg58438
look at what this guy did, i guess. notepad will probably work
>>2955851
Yeah there was a screenshot on strategycore.co.uk of an alien stuck inside the wall next to the kitchen. I guess that's what happened.
So I'm just gonna reload and retry the mission and hopefully this time get a trawler which I actually prefer to the cruise ship mostly because bullshit like this doesn't happen.
is it just me or is every single korean rookie black?
>>2923219
http://www.xcomufo.com/guide.html
Is there any way to detect more UFOs early on? I'm building a Large Radar as soon as I can. I get the interceptors to patrol outside the base radar range. Some months all I get is the terror mission.
>take out Lobsterman Fleet Supply Cruiser in a difficult, frustrating battle
>ofc they also put up a colony and infiltrated Japan, which is more crud I have to take care of
>Lobsterman interdiction mission starting in my home turf
>also Aquatoid terror in the South China Sea
>shot down one of their ships which will delay that for a while anyway
>start July
>ALIENS ATTACK SHIPPING ROUTE
>here we go
>do a test run by flying out there and discovering it's Lobstermen
>hell
>reload, get everything ready - Sonic Cannons, stun rods, Thermal Shock Launchers, all the Ion Armor I have, plus a Vibro Blade
>the mission goes really surprisingly easy until I reach the double staircase leading to the upper deck of the trawler
>holy fuck, there's five Lobstermen and one Bio Drone up there!
>retreat
>eventually come up with the idea of waiting by the doors so I can kill them as they come
>we finally clear the first part
>the second part...I clear some of them, but half my guys are badly wounded and have impaired firing accuracy, I'm tired, and my hand is cramping up from clicking the mouse
>decide to call it quits and pull back to the exit thing
>dust off
>still get an Ok rating and keep all the corpses and junk from the first part, plus I finally got a Lobsterman navigator
Grueling. Just doing a Lobsterman port/island terror mission is tough, let alone a fucking shipping route mission where you have to clear the buggers twice.
>>2956253
If you're using OpenXCOM, multiple radars stack, as they were originally supposed to (see the graph in the base info screen).
Build disposable bases with nothing but radars, aliens don't often target these and even if they do you can easily earn their construction cost from more detection+recoveries.
>Get to may
>have kickass month
>shoot down something like 15 UFO's, haven't had a terror mission in two months because I keep dropping them
>except for a floater terror, I let that one land to train rookies
>feeling badass, storm the alien base next door
>Take it losing only one trooper and nab the snakeman leader
>Snakemen spend half the mission freaking out since I paste a commander on one of the first turns, leader drops his blasterbomb and just fucking legs it.
>welcometoearthmotherfucker.jpg
>MFW the moment June rolls around I see two battleships coming in for infiltration missions and a supply ship.
>and I only have 1 firestorm in the area, having just transferred the interceptor to the other side of the fucking globe
I will be losing funding nations, that much is certain, I don't know how the firestorm survived, it's completely red. I hope I kicked enough ass for the rest of the nations to cover losing italy and what looked like france.
>>2956451
>Build disposable bases with nothing but radars, aliens don't often target these
When you get to September, the game puts one retaliation mission per month in every region that has an X-COM base in it, so late game they certainly will be going after those.
>>2958916
By then you probably have full radar coverage from real bases. And even if you don't, aliens have a hard time detecting bases with nothing but radars.
>Gillmen attack Port Said, Egypt
>it's at night - not quite what I wanted
>use the ol' "camp in the Triton" trick
>we end up shooting down at least 12 aliens this way
>holy fuck, the area in front of the Triton is carpeted with green bodies
>eventually move out
>since this is on Superhuman, there's gotta be minimum 18 aliens which means between six and nine are still left
>they're all in the right hand side of the map
>after a tricky battle that involves throwing a lot of flares around, we manage to take down two stubborn Gillmen camping by the waterside
>find three Deep Ones around there as well, two of them hiding in sheds
>get message "Deep One terrorist has gone berserk"
>I didn't think they panicked, at least I've never seen it happen before
>and he's right next to the Triton
>I still have three guys in the ship, so they come out and finish him off
>finally, "Gillman Squad Leader has panicked"
>he's off in a shed way the fuck in the southwest of the map
>finish him off and that's it - two casualties
I got lucky with this map because there were no tower things with the little room in them or that damn three story deathtrap.
See the area with the oil drums next to the Triton? That tile has a spawn node on it, so there's usually an alien there. Sometimes a civilian. It's so nice when you touch down on a trawler, open the door, and first thing you see is a Bio Drone. I just love when that happens, I really do.
Julian Gollop reportedly did not think much of TFTD, saying it was too unfair and punishing on the player especially the multipart missions.
>>2959863
Who's jullian gollop?
>>2960047
One of the UFO Defense co-creators,
>seem to have 5 alien laser guns in my storage room
>move them to my shuttle
>equip my guys with them
>no clips in sight, think that the guns probably charge by themselves because they're alien guns (makes sense right?)
>star the mission
>aayyyliums in sight
>no ammo
>mfw
>>2960351
>clips
>watching TFTD let's play
>on episode 5, decide to skip ahead a bit and see if it picks up
>skip to like episode 15
>"Losing the game, part #1"
>ohboy
>ayyyyy's found his base
>his sub is out with all the good soldiers
>all that's left at the base are the retards and wounded
>"Oh well, at least I have a decent amount of guys"
>get's to the inventory equip screen
>no weapons
>MFW
>he has to arm them all with high explosives and proximity mines and bumrush the aliens with rookies
>MFW the very first guy he tries to move gets brutally gunned down before he can move two steps
God I love XCOM let's plays
>More Superhuman fun
>Finally have the situation under control by August, Plasma Cannon interceptors stationed in the USA, Israel, and Japan with Hyperwave Decoders covering 80% of the globe.
>Lost all European nations, the USA, and Canada from funding, guess they decided they'd watch out for themselves instead of relying on X-COM.
>Other nations love me however, still getting payed almost $12 million per month.
>Finally built an Avenger, 26 man missions baby!
>Still only wearing jumpsuits since I have nearly 0 E-113, just starting to raid supply ships.
I've got 50+ blaster bombs from missions though since it's now February 2000. And somewhere in the ballpark of 200 Heavy Plasma clips, and 16 people with 90+ Psi Strength. I'm trying to get them to about 50 skill each before I raid Cydonia.
Also, there's no less than 17 alien bases on earth, and I've only dismantled four so far.
For base defenses, should I bother with grav shield+12 FBLs for my non-main bases, or do new battleships just get sent as soon as the old one is destroyed? I've shot down a couple of attacking ships with avengers to give me time, and it seems like it takes them a week or so to send another ship after me. Due to the nature of defenses, a ship will eventually break through, but if the amount sent is low, I think it'll be fine.
>>2960748
They're fucking laser guns, conventional gun terms don't apply on them. They would probably be more like batteries anyway.
>name one of my soldiers Hed Pe after the band
>he proves to be every bit as awful as his namesake
>firing accuracy of like 42 and strength of like 21
>also apparent his psy strength is about 5 because I go and do a trawler mission with a Tasoth mixed crew and he spends about 60% of the mission panicking or under alien control
>when I finally finish with the trawler mission, I sack him along with a couple guys that got badly wounded and would have been in traction for weeks, so not worth it
Somehow he survived the entire fucking mission without a scratch as well. Probably because his shit stats made him unable to participate while my elite troops bravely took down dozens of Tasoths, Bio-Drones, and Triscenes.
And I still hate Bio-Drones with a passion you cannot even begin to comprehend.
Is there a mod that allows you to train your soldiers' accuracy outside of combat? I'd like to bump up firing accuracy on a lot of my guys, but it's pretty difficult to actually accrue a good amount of XP without a very specific setup and a lot of tedious planning.
I've been hiring around ~100 soldiers every three days and firing any who don't meet certain criteria (60+ accuracy, 35+ strength, and then later cull anyone below about 70 psi strength), and that really helps to have better soldiers in combat, but improving from there takes quite a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6HPGH00wHk&list=PLe0K-GUDQkNIb66PgI6rW3UAb-6BaQb5j&index=5
This Slavnigger guy has a pretty good TFTD LP - he also behaves completely calmly and professionally unlike the numerous screaming manchild LPs. It's the DOS version, but I can see that he has it patched so you get the correct Medium Scout map.
It's kind of hard to get used to the bleepy DOS music as opposed to the nice MIDI tunes on the Collector's Edition.
>>2962960
I can't ever remember seeing a Triscene in a TFTD mission.
>>2963204
I completed TFTD Ironman Superhuman and never saw a Triscene.
>>2963204
They only show up on Tasoth mixed crew terror missions. There's only like one per mission and they always spawn in the same location, so you pretty much know in advance where they're going to be. Triscenes have such thick armor that almost nothing except the Thermic/Heavy Thermic Lance can bring them down...except their under armor is like 10 or something so just grenade them and instant OHKO. The trawler mission I did had one on the upper right deck on part 2, so I had to perform some very tricky maneuvering with my soldiers so one could sneak up from behind and drop a grenade on his butt.
Tasoth mixed crew terror has Tasoths, Aquatoids, Bio-Drones, and one Triscene. There's also a lone Xarquid, but sometimes the game gives you a Calcinite instead - the trawler mission I did had no Xarquid. Which is a good thing because now I can get melee weapons. :^)
>>2963251
Xarquids also die really easily to grenades. They're not quite as strong as Triscenes, so a couple Sonic Cannon rounds can knock them out.
>>2959861
I did one trawler mission where I touch down, start to move my soldiers out, and stare nervously at the crates because I know what they hide. Turn 2, surprise explosion! A Lobsterman hiding back there threw a grenade, it got deflected by the crates, and blew them up. My troops then filled the Lobsty with Sonic Cannon rounds.
That had to be one of the darndest things I ever saw.
>fight incredibly frustrating Aquatoid island terror mission
>mostly because my squad is full of rookies who can't hit for shit
>eventually kill all but one alien - get a message that an Aquatoid soldier has panicked, but damn if I know where he is
>march everyone back to the Triton and dust off
Still got an Ok rating, so...meh.
>>2963286
Aquatoid terror is a pretty rare thing mostly because of their comically ineffective terrorists.
>walking diving suit
>roided jellyfish
>both melee-only
It's entirely possible to go through a TFTD campaign without ever seeing a Triscene or Xarquid.
>>2963313
>without ever seeing a Triscene or Xarquid
There are always Xarquids in the final room of the final level so it's very difficult to never see them.
And BTW, Ion Armor really helps a lot in surviving Bio-Drones since they can't do jack to that 132 frontal armor (actually a near 50% boost over the UFO Power Suit).
>>2955917
Hey! That's me! I did that!
>terror mission in Nuuk, capital of Greenland
>just geared up and this creature is the first thing I see and I didn't even step out of the shuttle
>take a closer look, nope nope nope nope
>shoot a nuke to its feet
>>2965394
This is the aftermath, didn't even see what it could do, but it looked big and ugly enough to rape everybody in my squad. Explosion took off a wall from the building next to it and revealed a snek-man which I then gunned down with my minigun.
>>2965394
Damn anon, how'd you get such a dank shader on dosbox?
>>2965482
It's openXcom and some simple CRT filter applied from the settings. It's preddy gud.
>>2965507
Nice. I've got a crt monitor, might find out the resolution of xcom, double it on the monitor and force some scanlines. Got that setup going right now with retroarch. PS1 games look foine on this monitor.
>>2965394
What the hell is that? What mods are you using?
>>2965565
Open Xcom, simple CRT filter, and the final mod pack.
>>2965585
I know that, but I think the scanlines look pretty badass and the sprites look tad better with it. Bright explosions and fire also look way better with scanlines enabled.
>clean out Aquatoid-infested cruise ship
Yeah fuck that shit. The cruise ship is 100x more bullshit than the trawler map. For one thing it has 250% more rooms in it.
Soooo... I found out what those big things do. They shoot a missile/projectile that explodes into flames. That's bad.
>>2965602
I have a map showing all the spawn locations for aliens on cruise ships. Saves you a ton of time since you know what rooms to ignore. Keep in mind that some of the spawn points will be unused and others contain civilians.
Sonic cannons are pretty nerfed compared to the Heavy Plasma. I mean, when was the last time you ever ran out of HP ammo in the middle of a battle? Never. Also their lower accuracy versus the Sonic Rifle means that it's best as a sniper weapon for soldiers with 60+ firing accuracy.
Having said that, the Sonic Pistol is a pretty useful weapon - it's not that powerful, but you can get off three shots per turn and being one-handed makes a good companion for stun rods/drills. However, aliens stop carrying them in mid-game, so you'll have to use up Zrbite manufacturing ammo.
>>2965602
To my chagrin, I also found out that Calcinites' claw attack bypasses your soldiers' armor.
Just had my first base invasion ever in this game. It was pretty nice to see my base from a mission perspective. I wonder if the damage done by missiles will affect the layout if used recklessly, as in if you completely annihilate your laboratory you would need to build a new one.
I also noticed that final mod pack for open xcom also has enemies from TFTD which is nice, kinda surprised me.
>>2966687
certain modules have key structures that need to survive, if they get destroyed you lose the module and if it was a connection module you lose everything attached to it
living quarters, storage rooms the lift and the hangars are the only modules you can't destroy afaik
>take down a Gillman Dreadnought because UFOpedia tells me that you can unlock The Ultimate Threat with a Gillman commander
>I thought you could only do that with a Lobsterman navigator (which I did not have) but apparently not
>bag two (!) commanders but it's pretty costly and I lose six guys
>start of July opens with *drum roll* Lobsterman shipping attack!
>totally looking forward to that
>equip my best troops, drills, stun bombs, stun rods, Ion Armor, Sonic Cannons, etc.
>we manage to clear the first part with surprising ease, but even Lobstermen won't survive long when you're packing drills and stun weapons
>and I end up stunning a Lobsterman navigator anyway
>if I'd known this was coming up, I could have skipped that Gillman mission earlier
>use Vibro Blades to knock out the last two Bio Drones camping upstairs on the bridge
>begin Part 2 (where they all try to rush you at once in the cargo hold)
To be continued...
>Alien base mission
>Snakemen, just starting and coming down the first access lifts.
>Crysalid right in front of the lift, so I send a guy down to shoot him with heavy plasma from three paces away.
>Autofire shot connects twice and fails to kill him, so I send down another guy to do the same.
>Another hit, still not dead.
>Four more guys go down the lift and do the same thing, still not dead.
>Completely out of TU now, get four zombified soldiers next turn.
Would it be too much to ask for weapons to have a minimum damage per hit? Nothing should be able to eat nine shots of heavy plasma and live.
In UFO Defense, Floaters perform all mission types the entire game. In TFTD, Gillmen stop doing Interdiction/Resource Raid after May and Tasoths replace them for those missions. After dismantling almost an entire Gillman interdiction fleet as I did, I have to wonder about what conversation took place at alien HQ in T'leth.
Aquatoid: WHAT!? You mean the humans shot up our entire interdiction fleet and we even lost a Dreadnought!? How in the name of Cydonia could you let this happen?
Gillman squad leader: It wasn't my fault. They had better reactions and armor than us. Also those giant nautilus things you gave us to guard the ship are worthless. The humans simply blew all of them up with grenades.
Aquatoid: Rrrrghhhhh. Why did we hire you idiots as mercenaries anyway?
Gillman squad leader: We work cheap and you don't have to spend money producing us in cloning vats?
Aquatoid: You know what? Fuck you. From now on, we're leaving this assignment to the Lobstermen and Tasoths. The humans won't be able to stop them or their terrorists.
Gillman squad leader: I will go now...
>>2967947
The last time I played I used TFTD weapon rolls and could reiably kill crysallids in 2 hits.
>>2970426
>The last time I played I used TFTD weapon rolls
I'm pretty sure the game gives you as bad rolls as UFO.
>terror site
>march up to the top floor of one of those three story warehouse thingies
>this is potentially risky, so save just before going up there
>shoot Deep One
>there's a Gillman hiding behind some crates
>auto fire gauss rounds into him
>all of them miss
>the Gillman reaction shots the soldier
Bull. Shit.
>reload save file and try again
>this time we succeed in downing the Gillman
>also the Deep One just got knocked unconscious this time
>and mission over - I also got my all-important live Deep One
That went much better. :^)
>>2970475
in UFO damage rolls from 0% to 200% of a weapons listed damage. In TFTD it goes 50 to 150.
>>2970475
Also
>save scumming
>>2970507
I normally only do it if cheap bullshit happens like turning a corner and getting reaction shotted out of nowhere or a guy gets mind controlled and drops a grenade in the middle of the Triton.
>>2970506
I thought you meant likelihood of actually hitting your target. It takes a special level of fail to miss with point-blank auto fire.
>>2970528
That's xcom, baby!
>end March
>got monthly rating of about 20
>New Mexico and Euro Syndicate are pissed
>there's a colony in the Caribbean, but I have to get done researching Sonic Cannons before I can go after it
>several supply ships have passed through my area going too and from the colony, but there's no way I can catch them
>the only USO recovery I did the whole month was a shootdown of a Gillman scout, but apparently that was enough to avoid getting a negative rating
>begin April
>aliens terrorize Vancouver
>more Gillmen
>we roll them over in a messy-as-hell battle with several guys knocked out by a stun bomb and a couple more wounded (this was the first mission that everyone had med kits and personal armor)
>just as we come back, a small USO happens by
>shoot it down
>since this is a medium scout on the first day of the month...terror mission
>right in my backyard
>as soon as the Triton refuels, we head out there
>touch down...peek outside...see a Lobsterman
>no no no no no with a side order of no
>I still have Gauss Rifles - yeah fuck that shit
>dust off
And so apparently a Lobsterman terror mission is coming up...and I have a colony to take out, but all that will have to wait for Sonic Cannons to get done researching.
>>2970524
Cheap bullshit is part of the game. Play Ironman, have backup strategies for when things inevitably go badly, even if that's just somebody staying in the transport to abort the mission. Recovering from seemingly hopeless situations is very fun.
>>2970541
This. It's the only true way to play.
>>2970564
>Use expendables for scouting and position everyone else to respond to threats (pro-tip: everyone is expendable)
This is unfortunately true. Many times I've had to use soldiers on suicide missions to take out that last Bio-Drone hiding in a closet. Have one guy sacrifice himself to absorb the thing's reaction shots so the others can shoot/stun rod it.
Cruise ship missions are the very worst thing in TFTD. Worse than trawlers, worse than colonies, worse than anything. Those things will twist your sanity.
Is there any reason to play the original version or should I go right into OpenXCOM? I have no experience with the series whatsoever, but reading this thread made me want to try it.
>>2970605
Go straight to OpenXCOM.
From the stories I've heard of things going horribly wrong in this game, I'm assuming that it's better to use a fairly small team rather than filling the dropshit up to the gunnels.
>>2970605
OXC fixes a bunch of bugs in the original, although some of them are useful exploits you may miss (Deep Ones being unable to reaction fire, Bio-Drones being unable to use their melee attack, etc). Probably the most bugged thing in the original is how alien retaliation works since it doesn't reset some of the mission flags/counters properly.
I also do love the Blaster Bomb waypoint bug in the Collector's Edition. It allows you to do some stunts that would have been suicide in the DOS version.
>>2970610
>I'm assuming that it's better to use a fairly small team rather than filling the dropshit up to the gunnels.
At the start, yeah. Because you'll fill up the morgue and empty your account less quickly that way.
>>2970614
And what about the other projects that patch/fix/improve X-Com? From what I understand, there's a whole bunch of them. Or does OXC simply do all that and more?
>>2970627
Pretty much. OXC also adds cheat features like ignore line of sight (ie. you can shoot aliens regardless of whether you have line of fire on them).
I do not know if OXC fixes the incorrect Small/Medium Scout map in TFTD.
>>2970642
That fix is included. You can enable it from the mods or the advanced options menu
>>2970642
Thanks. One last question. I always though there was just one X-Com game, but there's like 6 of them plus the new ones. Does OXC contain only the original one or can you also use it with the other games?
>>2970647
It includes the original and the first sequel terror from the deep(TFTD) There's an open apocalypse project that isn't playable yet and as far as I know the rest of the games are garbage.
>>2970647
OXC originally just supported UFO, now TFTD has also been added.
>>2970614
>OXC fixes a bunch of bugs in the original, although some of them are useful exploits you may miss (Deep Ones being unable to reaction fire, Bio-Drones being unable to use their melee attack, etc)
I'm wondering. If the reactions for Deep Ones were mistakenly set to zero, then how did the OXC devs fix it? I would guess they had no idea what the original devs intended it to be.
>>2970653
I understand that the original devs were removed from the project so that the game could be shipped to meet an unreasonable deadline. That's why it's a poorly hashed together reskin of the original.
>>2970594
Worst TFTD map? Probably coral reefs. I really, really hate those maps. There's a million locations where aliens can hide in and ambush you.
Easiest map? Generic sea bottom. It's essentially like the desert map in UFO; all wide open spaces except for hills.
>>2970658
Actually no; the Mythos team had already moved on to working on Apocalypse. They were simply not able to do a UFO sequel in six months, which is why Microprose handed it to their UK subsidiary. So they had no involvement in TFTD and Julian Gollop wasn't happy with the game anyway, saying it was too unfair and punishing to the player.
I actually don't mind doing colonies that much. For one thing, it's always the same aliens so you know what to expect and can plan accordingly. Secondly you don't have to clear all of them to win; just go to the command center, blow it up, and run (if you want to clear all the Lobstermen/Tentaculats, it's a PITA that will take hours).
>>2970653
>If the reactions for Deep Ones were mistakenly set to zero, then how did the OXC devs fix it? I would guess they had no idea what the original devs intended it to be.
They had a reaction stat, they just never fired. It probably was a bug.
>>2970537
Lobstermen are easy once you have stun launchers and drills. Mow 'em down like ripe grain.
>open xcom
>final modpack
>terror mission in russia
>some downtown area, shopping malls etc.
>enter movie theater
>see two small purple discs, but they're not cyberdiscs
>never seen them before, only seen one cyberdisc during my 15 hour playtrough
>place my troops inside theater
>end round
>mfw the purple discs keep shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting with lasers that burn through walls with one hit
>my guys squatting behind theater chairs have no chance of survival
>they all die horrible painful death by one shot
>my main rocket launcher guy is on a recovery vacation for the next 20 days so he cant help me
>mfw
With final modpack I keep seeing all kinds of strange creatures I have never seen in xcom before. Some of them are from TFTD, some of the mare recolored/rearmed variations of the old aayyyliums, and some of them are brand new.
>>2970792
>this game is easy once you're properly equipped.
That's I think the biggest problem with this game. Once you get your shit together it's no longer a challenge. The first few months are terrifying and fucking up one mission can mean the game is unwinnable. But once you've got good gear the game is trivialized.
>>2970816
Honestly I think final mod pack adds too much shit. It doens't have any design philosophy. It just adds as much stuff as it can. I really wish there wre more mod packs like it but with the actual goal of making the game more fun or tacically interesting instead of hoping that more content means more better.
>>2970831
Yeah the content is pretty overwhelming. Most of the stuff is just "cool stuff" that don't really add anything, but it's fine I like the feeling of not knowing what's going to happen next.
Seriously there's like a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex aliens with bazookas glued on it.
>>2970792
IIRC, Lobstermen are more or less analogous to Mutons?
>>2970884
Not really, no. Lobstermen have the same armor/health stats as Mutons however their reactions, firing/throwing accuracy, TUs, and psy strength are a good 50% higher. Also Lobstermen resist gauss/sonic weapons in addition to HE/armor piercing (laser/plasma does neutral damage to Mutons). Also ofc Lobstermen are weak to stun damage.
>>2970893
Usually it takes 3-4 Sonic Cannon shots to down a Superhuman-grade Lobsterman. Muton on Superhuman take an average of two Heavy Plasma shots. Keeping in mind that Sonic Cannons also lack auto fire so you will require multiple guys for backup.
If you have Thermal Shock Launchers, they usually go down in one hit unless they're at the extreme outer edge of the blast radius. PWT Launchers won't even OHKO Lobstermen, although it will soften them up and you can finish up with a Sonic Cannon shot.
If you want the nitty-gritty, Aquatoids have just about the same stats as Sectoids. Gillmen same as Floaters, but their health is about 20% higher. Tasoths are sort of like Ethereals, but with more health. They're also weak to Sonic weapons and have very low bravery which means that they panic on the drop of a hat. Also their psy strength/skill is not as good as Ethereals.
>>2970820
It's like I said. I went and did a Lobsterman cruise ship mission. Most of my guys had Ion Armor, Vibro Blades, stun rods, and Thermal Shock Launchers. Not hard at all. I swept through the first part of the mission with ease.
Then I got to the second part and saved so I could resume the game later...somehow my save file got corrupted and the UFO activity graphs were all fucked up.
Stun weapons are a LOT more important in TFTD than UFO where you only ever need to use them once or twice to capture an alien navigator or officers.
Alien officers in TFTD don't carry any weapon on them. This is the easiest way to identify a Lobsterman Navigator on the battlefield. Also Aquatoid Navigators, which although worthless from a research standpoint, are still the asswipes mind controlling your guys so you want to take them out ASAP.
I just finished X-COM again, and I was wondering, has there ever been a great remake/extention of X-COM outside of TFTD and somewhat like Apocalypse? I feel like XCOM 2012 sort of misses out on the strategic side of the war. Is that Xenonauts essentially a remake with a funky artstyle, or does it change a lot of things for the worse?
Also on that note, are we likely to see a bunch of crazy mods on Open X-COM soon?
>run OpenXcom
>go to UFOpedia in-game
>see this
I need help
>>2971107
What's wrong?
>>2971083
I've been paying attention to the project for several months now. I don't think the modding community is going to be making anything substantially different or more ambitious than what exists already.
I can't speak about xenonauts cause the art style is too funky for me but have you tried long war? it's incredibly difficult but if you mod the difficulty down it's still very strategically engaging.
>>2971110
there's no hyphen in XCOM
>>2971478
a u t i s m
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>>2963056
>>2963056
Not sure how that would work, but there's a custom OpenXcom EXE I'm using for the Piratez mod that changes how skills get upgraded. Basically, it does it Elder Scrolls style, shooting and hitting an enemy raises Accuracy, doing Reaction shots raises Reaction etc. I think running around raises Stamina.
>>2970653
OXC is run on a new engine written from the ground up that supports UFO Defense filetypes... Or something like that. That's why the AI in OXC isn't exactly the same as the original game, but they made it as close as they could.
>>2971131
Played Xenonauts for a few weeks. It's tactically slightly different from Xcom in that there is a suppressing fire Mechanic that is nice. Basically, if a unit becomes suppressed, they get a penalty go accuracy and lose half their TUs for the next turn. Other than that, there's a nice graphics overhaul and it basically feels almost exactly the same as Xcom, but more modern. There are basically no mods for it either.
>>2972306
>There are basically no mods for it either.
Isn't the steam workshop for that game full of mods though? It has mod support.
I've always been put off TFTD by the annoying music and colours as well as the fact that it's an entire game that is a water level and that's pretty dumb. Especially combined with the fact that most weapons don't work on land. The only way to shoot fire ammo is underwater. Dumb as hell.
Anyway I started playing it and it's pretty great. The UFOs are better designed and the boat missions are actually really fun and a nice break from UFOs standard storm the UFO format. Someone should mod everything from TFTD into UFO but remove the dumb underwater aesthetic.
>>2972353
Oh. Well I torrented it and the only mods I could find online were cosmetic changes, and one that mods something about the alien ships.
>>2972970
I agree that TFTD has more variety ('cept for colonies b/c fixed alien race). Having several kinds of terror missions is interesting, also the bigger variety of maps instead of just fighting on farmland 70% of the time. It's also better balanced in that there's no single alien race as cheap and bullshit as Ethereals.
>>2973315
psionics in general are unfun and bullshit. I don't know why theyinsisted on including stupid mind-magic in my cool game about guns and lasers.
>nightly terror mission
>some downtown part with gazillion different bars and shops
>thought I had killed everything, but nope nope nope nope still getting that hidden alien activity
>backtracing my steps to find rooms I haven't explored yet
>find ayylien, fuck yes finally I can get out of this hellhole
>kill alien
>still get hidden alien activity
>backtrace more
>see the spot where I stunned one alien
>the body is gone
>mfw
Fucking buuuuullshit. I wish I had my rocketlauncher guy with me so I could level the whole fucking city block. Never again will I go with ballistic weapons to this kind of missions, nuke the whole fucking block I don't give a fuck as long as every single xeno ends up dead.
