758 réponses à ce sujet

[Morbo]

Is there any benefit to doing the alien base mission? Well, besides advancing the story that is. Like maybe it'll give me a global decrease in panic levels? Pretty please?
So far I've been holding off on it until I get some better equipment for my guys. Although I've got titan armour and some plasma weaponry researched, they're all still in carapace armour with laser weapons. I've only got $8 atm, so I really can't afford to manufacture anything better. Same situation for my interceptors, most of them are still using phoenix cannons.

Glad though that the firestorm is in as upgrade to the interceptor. Hoping that they also carried over the lightning and the avenger from the original.

Also, doing missions on car-filled maps while having to deal with those grenade loving maniacs, the mutons....UGH.
There I was with my 6 man squad in the car park of some building, 5 of them stacked in between the cars, one guy running up to the building to see what's inside. Two mutons apparently, not so bad really.
Then the one guy goes inside....RUH ROH, apparently it's not 2 mutons but 6 and there's also 3 floaters just to spice things up a little. One turn and one alien grenade later...well lets not talk about that, it's still too painful a memory.
Returned the favour though on a mission taking place on a bridge. One well-placed rocket of mine blew up a truck and 2 cars, taking out 3 mutons.

[Inquisitor Recon]

Just started going through the tutorial. Once the tutorial sections are finished, do you have to start a brand new game or does it continue as normal?

As a rule of thumb the %s will always screw you over. Bring in the new recruits! Life is cheap here.

Modifié par ReconTeam, 14 octobre 2012 - 09:05 .

[TobiTobsen]

Morbo wrote...

Is there any benefit to doing the alien base mission? Well, besides advancing the story that is. Like maybe it'll give me a global decrease in panic levels? Pretty please?
So far I've been holding off on it until I get some better equipment for my guys. Although I've got titan armour and some plasma weaponry researched, they're all still in carapace armour with laser weapons. I've only got $8 atm, so I really can't afford to manufacture anything better. Same situation for my interceptors, most of them are still using phoenix cannons.

It gives a 2 point decrease on the whole world iirc. And if I'm not mistaken you will always meet the enemies in the base that you have encountered till now. So no uber-alien that one shoots you. Oh... and the possibility to field psionic soldiers. So you really should take that base!

ReconTeam wrote...

Just started going through the
tutorial. Once the tutorial sections are finished, do you have to start a
brand new game or does it continue as normal?

It continues from there.


Anyway:

I just beat the last level. Had more problems with the two Sectopods than the endboss. My sniper simply double tapped him. Rather anticlimatic

Modifié par TobiTobsen, 14 octobre 2012 - 09:23 .

[brettc893]

After the tutorial, it just flows into the normal game.

And @Morbid, the Alien Base Mission allows you to kill/capture a Sectoid Commander, dissect/interrogate it, and then build a Psionics Lab to test your soldiers. So yeah, lotsa benefits. That said, it's a long, hard road into that place, probably one of the toughest missions in the game.

[brettc893]

Damned Ninjas, hoppin all over the place...

[Bostur]

ReconTeam wrote...

Just started going through the tutorial. Once the tutorial sections are finished, do you have to start a brand new game or does it continue as normal?

As a rule of thumb the %s will always screw you over. Bring in the new recruits! Life is cheap here.

The progress you made in the tutorial will carry on through the normal game. It's just a slightly different start.


Oh, and third. ;-)

So, I'm pretty sure there's a conspiracy at work here.

In all 3
of my games, I've had a really awesome assault trooper who was basically
my quarterback, stunning X-rays left and right, killing Cyberdisks and
Berserkers, etc, I.E. a total badass.

But as soon as I change his name to Johnny Rico(Mobile Infantry FTW), he dies brutally and due to BS circumstances.

EVERY. TIME.

3/3 GAMES.

WTF FIRAXIS?

The soldier editor is cursed. It's the same for me, every time I customize the armor the soldier is destined to die.

Modifié par Bostur, 14 octobre 2012 - 09:25 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Morbo wrote...

Is there any benefit to doing the alien base mission? Well, besides advancing the story that is. Like maybe it'll give me a global decrease in panic levels? Pretty please?

It gives two important and useful developments: it will open up the psi-lab, so you can start having psionics, and it will give a world-wide 2 point reduction in panic.

So far I've been holding off on it until I get some better equipment for my guys. Although I've got titan armour and some plasma weaponry researched, they're all still in carapace armour with laser weapons. I've only got $8 atm, so I really can't afford to manufacture anything better. Same situation for my interceptors, most of them are still using phoenix cannons.

That's actually more than sufficient, assuming you have the 6-man squad. As the enemies will scale with the phase of the invasion, in some respects it's better to do it earlier. IE, Mutons rather than cyberdisks and cryssalids.

Glad though that the firestorm is in as upgrade to the interceptor. Hoping that they also carried over the lightning and the avenger from the original.

Alas, they didn't:: or at least, I never got found them.

As it is, the Firestorm is pretty much all you'll need to cover a continent, particularly once you get plasma canons.

Also, doing missions on car-filled maps while having to deal with those grenade loving maniacs, the mutons....UGH.

Word of the wise: they're just as annoying on the base assault and certaom ship runs. You will hate it when they chuck a grenade right in the middle of the doorway.

Returned the favour though on a mission taking place on a bridge. One well-placed rocket of mine blew up a truck and 2 cars, taking out 3 mutons.

You know what the best one of all is? Mutons in gas stations with cars.

I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

[Dean_the_Young]

Well, I want more of X-COM, DLC especially. There are a lot of things that could be expanded upon, and I'd probably enjoy them. As to what?

Well, I supposed I'd put in nods for map packs, second-wave challenge, scenario-mission packs, and even X-COM-vs-human packs. The real hail-mary, though I've no realistic expectation, would be a sub-arc expansion pack.


Map packs are the most obvious, and probably the easiest. More map varieties... and honestly I'd like more variation and aesthetic flavor. Besides some new generics (farms, sewers, non-UFO crashes forest missions, open-pit mines, hopefully even alien outposts), some flavor-aspects would be cool as well. A 'Landmark Map Pack', for example, could include a map or three unique to every country, with at least one focused around landmarks.


Second-wave Challenge DLC would be obvious: putting in the Second Wave concepts to give follow-on games a challenge and variety of their own.


Scenario-mission packs would basically be to expand the repertoire of Council-requested and non-abduction missions. Currently I've only seen 'Bomb Defusal', 'VIP recovery', and 'VIP delivery,' from the Council, and the main alternative to abduction missions are UFO assaults and terror. I think that 'Alien Outpost', 'UFO Defense', 'Interceptor Base Defense', 'Interceptor Base Evacuation', 'Facility Defense', 'Scuttling', 'Spy Catcher', and even some 'Military Co-op' missions could be interesting and plausible additions.

'Alien Outpost' isn't quite Alien Base Assault, but for all intents and purposes it's close. Rather than a UFO to attack, an alien nerve center hidden... somewhere has been discovered. It could be hidden in the woods: it could be buried in an abandoned pit mine. If a country has left the Council, it could even be within an urban center. The Alien Outpost would be a building, size varying from safe house (just a few) to command post, in which a 'leader' alien would reside with a few followers. Conceptually, this could be ideal for capture missions, particularly as a secondary objective: capture the outpost leader, and you get an extra monetary reward from the Council.

'UFO Defense' would be be an inversion of the UFO attack, in that the relative locations are switched. General scenario would be that the UFO crash killed all occupants, reaction forces have moved into an empty UFO, and now you need to stop the alien response that aims to retake the downed ship. (You know, the reason the downed UFOs don't just stick around.) Rather than you advance on the UFO, the map consists of the enemy selection, exceptionally mobile and not just waiting around, moving on you. You can try to move out and meet them, so that the battle doesn't damage your UFO prizes... but given that the UFO's can often be attacked from any direction, you run the risk of letting yourself be flanked and an alien party entering the UFO anyways. If the devs wanted to be really nasty, they could also add behavior algorithms to up the ante in UFO damage: grenade-enemies will actively use their grenades to destroy UFO components, while all enemies will take cover behind the most useful things once they get in the UFO.

'Interceptor Base Defense' would be the base-defense of old, but this time for those Interceptor Bases across the world that we don't do much with. Other than offering a chance for a few X-COM style rooms to serve as cover, one cool thing they could do would be to make it a bunch of modular rooms... the modular rooms being cast after the Ant Farm rooms you've already made. So, on one map, you could conceivably fight through a power generator room, a psi-lab, and a workshop before putting up a last stand in the hanger bay. The real objective of it all, however, could be to protect/limit damage to the interceptor(s) in the hanger bay: the interceptors could be actual cover-terrain, and open to being damaged or even destroyed if the enemy gets too close. Obviously a Big Deal, though Firestorms (being made like UFO's) might be only severely damageable, not destroyable. The advantage of standing up to defend your base is that it's 'cheap', with the only cost (other than destroyed interceptors) being the time it takes to come back on-line.

'Interceptor Base Evacuation.' A variation of the Base Defense, possibly prompted before the mission as a choice. This is sort-of/kind-of like a terror mission, in that you have 'civilians' on the battlefield, but this is in the context of organizing an evacuation of the base. As these support personnel evacuate the base, taking with them various items of worth and value and falling back to the skyranger, you need to keep out the alien's vanguard as well as help finish the evacuation. The big difference between a base defense and a base evacuation would be that evacuation has no risk to the aircraft, only a short (one-day?) delay before your interception abilities are re-instated at a new base... though that itself might cost some other resource.

'Facility Defense' could be similar to the Base Defense missions, except that the aliens are attacking (and not just abducting) some location of significance to the Council. This could be a radar facility, a military base, a science lab, an airport, or even an actual Council coordination center (a bunker with super-important intel, in other words). Generally in this mission there would be some Very Important Location that you would need to reach and secure... and possibly tied into with a secondary objective of its own. Rather than a VIP escort or bomb defuse, you could have Pizza Delivery (find the macguffin, pick it up with a soldier, and deliver it back to the skyranger), King of the Hill (hold a position within a certain radius for a certain period of time: ie, 'download all the data from the computer', which requires ten man-turns of being within two blocks of a particular computer), or even Environmental Hazard Trigger (by flipping switch, something happens that can re-shape the battlefield: this could be switching on security cams to remove fog of war, triggering an artillery strike on your choice of the map, raising/lowering a bridge to re-divide the map, etc.). The cool thing about 'Facility Defense' is that your rewards could be tied into the objective/location as a Council mission. If your mission is at a military base, for example, your reward could be a soldier. If a lab, a scientists. Etc.

'Scuttling' missions are similar to the UFO defense, but can be split between X-COM or Alien. The goal of these maps is property damage... either by you, or the aliens, depending on whether this takes place on alien or human terrain. Ultimately, one side is trying to destroy as much equipment as possible in a set amount of time. When the aliens do it, you obviously want to stop them: this is UFO defense all over again for Alien Property X, in which the items they destroy are more valuable intact. When it's your turn, it's in the context of trying to destroy sensitive information/equipment before an overwhelming alien attack. This mission could have a specific option in which any/every soldier has the ability to scuttle the necessary equipment they are by, at the cost of a action point... while obviously rockets and grenades make this much easier by allowing you to destroy multiple objects at range.



Now, these last two missions are a bit different in that they revolve around the civilians-on-battlefield mechanic, without being actual terror missions.

'Spy Catcher' is a mission to find the alien infiltrator(s) in a crowd, even as they are wearing disguises to look like the rest of everyone. Uncovering the disguise is easy: get within two tiles of them. If it's a real human, they're taken off the battlefield. If it's an alien, they're unmasked and begin their general rampage: attacking civilians, or any of your unexposed troops. Of course, that's prime point-blank-shot range... between the fog of war allowing for pot-shots, and the entire crowd running around on its own, trying to tag everyone without endangering your people is a challenge. The map would only end after every person in a crowd has been cleared or killed. The map would be graded, besides your own casualties, by how many civilians were killed: if none, you could see a reduction in panic. If you killed lots in the crossfire, you could escalate panic.


'Military Co-Op' missions are the idea that there's a larger war being fought there, and not just by X-COM. The troops of Nation Y are in contact with an alien force, and X-COM has been asked for an assist. The tough thing about these missions is that there are a lot more enemies than normal (say, two or three times the number). The cool thing about these missions is that you have a lot of (computer-controlled) soldier-allies who help even the odds. The scary thing is that these computer-controlled allies are effectively rookies (and possibly some squaddies/just have one/two special abilities). The idea here is that they will crumble to the Aliens without you providing the core of support. While there might be too many aliens for you to handle comfortably on your own, between the NPC support fire and meat shields it should (could) become much more manageable. You'll react to them as much as you do the aliens, but they're fire (except when panicked) is going in the right direction. A lot of the time, that 65% chance or less will mean they're ineffective... but you might appreciate a handy grenade at a group of aliens, or love if a NPC-heavy lays down some suppressive fire on his/her own. Depending on the NPC structure/XP-gain, you could even finish the mission with a reward of the highest-level NPC to survive the map.

The really cool thing about military Co-Op is that it could be tied in with a lot of the other ideas. Facility Defense being a military base, with military defenders to help? Environmental Hazards being access to airstrikes and artillery on-demand (or, god-forbid, suffering through alien artillery)? A poorly-coordinated combined assault on an enemy outpost, without your own laser-type timing and precision?

Most of all, Military Co-Op could be a good practice of 'friendly' AI to the next idea of-


X-COM vs. Human Mission Packs.

The thematic idea is simple. You're X-COM, above the lesser laws of people, willing to do whatever it takes to end the alien threat. Some Council Missions already establish that there are alien collaborators that the Council demands your kidnap for... questioning. Then, of course, there's the alien infiltration of governments, particularly those that have fallen from the Council. With all that in, who would be surprised if X-COM found itself pitted against some wayward humans For The Greater Good?

Anti-Human missions could come in many shapes/forms. Instead of the 'VIP delivery for interrogation' Council mission, we could get a VIP Capture mission where we have to fight through his bodyguard detail without killing him. We could get 'Human Collaborator' missions, in which we shut down this or that cult/sect/corporate HQ that is taking alien tech in exchange for helping the invaders. The best fodder, though, would be fallen governments that have been infiltrated by the aliens. If you got outright maps of mixed Human-Alien enemies, like in MP...

The key challenge I would see here is writing the AI for these Human-NPCs, and balancing them. Do you simply copy-paste the X-COM soldier ability chains onto a re-skinned Muton? Just give a few of the individual perks?

Regardless, the morally-questionable aspect of Necessity would make these sort of maps fun in my eyes.





The final concept for a DLC would be a sub-arc story expansion. The 'who' or 'how' isn't something I'm particularly fixated on: it could be post-ending 'Terror of the Deep'-style sequel, it could be something parallel to the main game (that introduces perks/rewards that keep the terror-pacing balanced), it could even be a stand-alone scenario that uses the game's mechanics but isn't part of the SP campaign.

The best analogy for the experience that I'm thinking of would be the Civilization scenarios that Civ IV and III had, particularly the ones that replaced the old design with new names and lore. Some people might find working within the constraints of a scenario restrictive, but I actually enjoy it: the tradeoff of structure can be ease of inserting story development of a different sort.
Well, I supposed I'd put in nods for map packs, second-wave challenge, scenario-mission packs, and even X-COM-vs-human packs. The real hail-mary, though I've no realistic expectation, would be a sub-arc expansion pack.


Map packs are the most obvious, and probably the easiest. More map varieties... and honestly I'd like more variation and aesthetic flavor. Besides some new generics (farms, sewers, non-UFO crashes forest missions, open-pit mines, hopefully even alien outposts), some flavor-aspects would be cool as well. A 'Landmark Map Pack', for example, could include a map or three unique to every country, with at least one focused around landmarks.


Second-wave Challenge DLC would be obvious: putting in the Second Wave concepts to give follow-on games a challenge and variety of their own.


Scenario-mission packs would basically be to expand the repertoire of Council-requested and non-abduction missions. Currently I've only seen 'Bomb Defusal', 'VIP recovery', and 'VIP delivery,' from the Council, and the main alternative to abduction missions are UFO assaults and terror. I think that 'Alien Outpost', 'UFO Defense', 'Interceptor Base Defense', 'Interceptor Base Evacuation', 'Facility Defense', 'Scuttling', 'Spy Catcher', and even some 'Military Co-op' missions could be interesting and plausible additions.

'Alien Outpost' isn't quite Alien Base Assault, but for all intents and purposes it's close. Rather than a UFO to attack, an alien nerve center hidden... somewhere has been discovered. It could be hidden in the woods: it could be buried in an abandoned pit mine. If a country has left the Council, it could even be within an urban center. The Alien Outpost would be a building, size varying from safe house (just a few) to command post, in which a 'leader' alien would reside with a few followers. Conceptually, this could be ideal for capture missions, particularly as a secondary objective: capture the outpost leader, and you get an extra monetary reward from the Council.

'UFO Defense' would be be an inversion of the UFO attack, in that the relative locations are switched. General scenario would be that the UFO crash killed all occupants, reaction forces have moved into an empty UFO, and now you need to stop the alien response that aims to retake the downed ship. (You know, the reason the downed UFOs don't just stick around.) Rather than you advance on the UFO, the map consists of the enemy selection, exceptionally mobile and not just waiting around, moving on you. You can try to move out and meet them, so that the battle doesn't damage your UFO prizes... but given that the UFO's can often be attacked from any direction, you run the risk of letting yourself be flanked and an alien party entering the UFO anyways. If the devs wanted to be really nasty, they could also add behavior algorithms to up the ante in UFO damage: grenade-enemies will actively use their grenades to destroy UFO components, while all enemies will take cover behind the most useful things once they get in the UFO.

'Interceptor Base Defense' would be the base-defense of old, but this time for those Interceptor Bases across the world that we don't do much with. Other than offering a chance for a few X-COM style rooms to serve as cover, one cool thing they could do would be to make it a bunch of modular rooms... the modular rooms being cast after the Ant Farm rooms you've already made. So, on one map, you could conceivably fight through a power generator room, a psi-lab, and a workshop before putting up a last stand in the hanger bay. The real objective of it all, however, could be to protect/limit damage to the interceptor(s) in the hanger bay: the interceptors could be actual cover-terrain, and open to being damaged or even destroyed if the enemy gets too close. Obviously a Big Deal, though Firestorms (being made like UFO's) might be only severely damageable, not destroyable. The advantage of standing up to defend your base is that it's 'cheap', with the only cost (other than destroyed interceptors) being the time it takes to come back on-line.

'Interceptor Base Evacuation.' A variation of the Base Defense, possibly prompted before the mission as a choice. This is sort-of/kind-of like a terror mission, in that you have 'civilians' on the battlefield, but this is in the context of organizing an evacuation of the base. As these support personnel evacuate the base, taking with them various items of worth and value and falling back to the skyranger, you need to keep out the alien's vanguard as well as help finish the evacuation. The big difference between a base defense and a base evacuation would be that evacuation has no risk to the aircraft, only a short (one-day?) delay before your interception abilities are re-instated at a new base... though that itself might cost some other resource.

'Facility Defense' could be similar to the Base Defense missions, except that the aliens are attacking (and not just abducting) some location of significance to the Council. This could be a radar facility, a military base, a science lab, an airport, or even an actual Council coordination center (a bunker with super-important intel, in other words). Generally in this mission there would be some Very Important Location that you would need to reach and secure... and possibly tied into with a secondary objective of its own. Rather than a VIP escort or bomb defuse, you could have Pizza Delivery (find the macguffin, pick it up with a soldier, and deliver it back to the skyranger), King of the Hill (hold a position within a certain radius for a certain period of time: ie, 'download all the data from the computer', which requires ten man-turns of being within two blocks of a particular computer), or even Environmental Hazard Trigger (by flipping switch, something happens that can re-shape the battlefield: this could be switching on security cams to remove fog of war, triggering an artillery strike on your choice of the map, raising/lowering a bridge to re-divide the map, etc.). The cool thing about 'Facility Defense' is that your rewards could be tied into the objective/location as a Council mission. If your mission is at a military base, for example, your reward could be a soldier. If a lab, a scientists. Etc.

'Scuttling' missions are similar to the UFO defense, but can be split between X-COM or Alien. The goal of these maps is property damage... either by you, or the aliens, depending on whether this takes place on alien or human terrain. Ultimately, one side is trying to destroy as much equipment as possible in a set amount of time. When the aliens do it, you obviously want to stop them: this is UFO defense all over again for Alien Property X, in which the items they destroy are more valuable intact. When it's your turn, it's in the context of trying to destroy sensitive information/equipment before an overwhelming alien attack. This mission could have a specific option in which any/every soldier has the ability to scuttle the necessary equipment they are by, at the cost of a action point... while obviously rockets and grenades make this much easier by allowing you to destroy multiple objects at range.



Now, these last two missions are a bit different in that they revolve around the civilians-on-battlefield mechanic, without being actual terror missions.

'Spy Catcher' is a mission to find the alien infiltrator(s) in a crowd, even as they are wearing disguises to look like the rest of everyone. Uncovering the disguise is easy: get within two tiles of them. If it's a real human, they're taken off the battlefield. If it's an alien, they're unmasked and begin their general rampage: attacking civilians, or any of your unexposed troops. Of course, that's prime point-blank-shot range... between the fog of war allowing for pot-shots, and the entire crowd running around on its own, trying to tag everyone without endangering your people is a challenge. The map would only end after every person in a crowd has been cleared or killed. The map would be graded, besides your own casualties, by how many civilians were killed: if none, you could see a reduction in panic. If you killed lots in the crossfire, you could escalate panic.


'Military Co-Op' missions are the idea that there's a larger war being fought there, and not just by X-COM. The troops of Nation Y are in contact with an alien force, and X-COM has been asked for an assist. The tough thing about these missions is that there are a lot more enemies than normal (say, two or three times the number). The cool thing about these missions is that you have a lot of (computer-controlled) soldier-allies who help even the odds. The scary thing is that these computer-controlled allies are effectively rookies (and possibly some squaddies/just have one/two special abilities). The idea here is that they will crumble to the Aliens without you providing the core of support. While there might be too many aliens for you to handle comfortably on your own, between the NPC support fire and meat shields it should (could) become much more manageable. You'll react to them as much as you do the aliens, but they're fire (except when panicked) is going in the right direction. A lot of the time, that 65% chance or less will mean they're ineffective... but you might appreciate a handy grenade at a group of aliens, or love if a NPC-heavy lays down some suppressive fire on his/her own. Depending on the NPC structure/XP-gain, you could even finish the mission with a reward of the highest-level NPC to survive the map.

The really cool thing about military Co-Op is that it could be tied in with a lot of the other ideas. Facility Defense being a military base, with military defenders to help? Environmental Hazards being access to airstrikes and artillery on-demand (or, god-forbid, suffering through alien artillery)? A poorly-coordinated combined assault on an enemy outpost, without your own laser-type timing and precision?

Most of all, Military Co-Op could be a good practice of 'friendly' AI to the next idea of-


X-COM vs. Human Mission Packs.

The thematic idea is simple. You're X-COM, above the lesser laws of people, willing to do whatever it takes to end the alien threat. Some Council Missions already establish that there are alien collaborators that the Council demands your kidnap for... questioning. Then, of course, there's the alien infiltration of governments, particularly those that have fallen from the Council. With all that in, who would be surprised if X-COM found itself pitted against some wayward humans For The Greater Good?

Anti-Human missions could come in many shapes/forms. Instead of the 'VIP delivery for interrogation' Council mission, we could get a VIP Capture mission where we have to fight through his bodyguard detail without killing him. We could get 'Human Collaborator' missions, in which we shut down this or that cult/sect/corporate HQ that is taking alien tech in exchange for helping the invaders. The best fodder, though, would be fallen governments that have been infiltrated by the aliens. If you got outright maps of mixed Human-Alien enemies, like in MP...

The key challenge I would see here is writing the AI for these Human-NPCs, and balancing them. Do you simply copy-paste the X-COM soldier ability chains onto a re-skinned Muton? Just give a few of the individual perks?

Regardless, the morally-questionable aspect of Necessity would make these sort of maps fun in my eyes.





The final concept for a DLC would be a sub-arc story expansion. The 'who' or 'how' isn't something I'm particularly fixated on: it could be post-ending 'Terror of the Deep'-style sequel, it could be something parallel to the main game (that introduces perks/rewards that keep the terror-pacing balanced), it could even be a stand-alone scenario that uses the game's mechanics but isn't part of the SP campaign.

The best analogy for the experience that I'm thinking of would be the Civilization scenarios that Civ IV and III had, particularly the ones that replaced the old design with new names and lore. Some people might find working within the constraints of a scenario restrictive, but I actually enjoy it: the tradeoff of structure can be ease of inserting story development of a different sort.

[Haplose]

I bought X-COM just to discover it doesn't run on WinXP. AAARGH! The raaage!

That's a first for me.

[thesnake777]

So fellow Xcom Commanders, How is the war going? Are you fighting the good fight? Or screaming like a mad man and throwing things in your office when you lose some of your top agents?

[brettc893]

The war is going swimmingly for me Snake, I'm just dominating those X Ray POS. I have a mixed team of 5 ranked to Colonel, and they are unstoppable(Knock On Wood).

[Dean_the_Young]

So. Lesson learned this playthrough.

Investing in Satellites early is a Big Thing. You can get pretty far even if you stay behind the tech-curve (just capture those Plasma Rifles), you can do without SHIVs, and you can even get by with only the squad-expansion OTS upgrades.

But the credit shortage if you don't have satellites? One month could mean the difference between a 'mere' 200 credits coming in and a thousand.

[Sidney]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

So. Lesson learned this playthrough.

Investing in Satellites early is a Big Thing. You can get pretty far even if you stay behind the tech-curve (just capture those Plasma Rifles), you can do without SHIVs, and you can even get by with only the squad-expansion OTS upgrades.

But the credit shortage if you don't have satellites? One month could mean the difference between a 'mere' 200 credits coming in and a thousand.

Yep, they are the must have of the game.

[brettc893]

Another tip I've learned to add onto that; Research Light Plasma Rifles ASAP and STUN STUN STUN. You should try and Cap at least 1 Xray per Operation. Those weapons will save so much money and give you such an edge early on, it's mind blowing. Of course, only Start the research when you get the credit from interrogating a Floater.

Light Plasma makes rookies far, FAR more effective.

[Ultai]

I'll have to pick this game up soon, haven't played a decent strategy game in awhile. Also I learned Michael McCann (Deus Ex: Human Revolution soundtrack) did the soundtrack for this game, so that's another point in it's favor.

[Haplose]

Lathrim wrote...

Haplose wrote...

I bought X-COM just to discover it doesn't run on WinXP. AAARGH! The raaage!

That's a first for me.

Ouuuuuuch. =/

Well, turns out Firaxis programmers were incredibly lazy. Or bribed by Microsoft. X-Com doesn't use DirectX 10 or any other critical Vista/7 exclusive resources. Just some minor function that was implemented in Vista.
And it's very easy to make it run on XP.

Though you need some hex editing and a custom kernel32.dll file. But following information from a forum, it took me mere minutes to get it to run on WinXP. Damn. Can't belive they couldn't be bothered to make it work out of the box. Well, I guess the Microsoft bribery conspiracy theory is quite plausible too.

[Allan Schumacher]

Eh, I wouldn't say that the developers were lazy nor even bought off. It just wasn't developed with any support for WinXP in mind so they wouldn't have bothered to do anything to ensure it ran, even if it was only a minimal amount of work.

It's more likely that they were oblivious to it rather than bribed or in some way willfully disabling it.

[Haplose]

Could be, but then its a very bad business approach, to write off 20% of PC users, which could potentially buy the product, were truely a minimal effort given.

[Fast Jimmy]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Eh, I wouldn't say that the developers were lazy nor even bought off. It just wasn't developed with any support for WinXP in mind so they wouldn't have bothered to do anything to ensure it ran, even if it was only a minimal amount of work.

It's more likely that they were oblivious to it rather than bribed or in some way willfully disabling it.

Allan's part of the conspiracy! 

[Inquisitor Recon]

The 5th man of the squad always dies. It is known.

Last time he got shot in the head through two sides of a subway car.

[Dean_the_Young]

Embarrassing fact: I haven't found how to deploy the Shivs yet. I'm pretty sure I built them, but am not sure how to put them in my squad at mission launch.

[brettc893]

Gotta say, I'm a bit tired losing half my HP due to the magical ability of alien guns shooting at me with several walls or vehicals in the way making it physically Impossible for that to ever happen.

But on the other hand, I guess Squad Sight allows Snipers to pervert the laws of physics on a regular basis, so it's a trade off.