Beagle is going to be attempting a supply ship mission in his next video, with a squad of 6 and ballistic weapons. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens; it's going to be like watching an immovable object meet an unstoppable force.
I never build thermos. Dig out the entire top two layers and build regular power generators around the facilities you need for the first few months. Mostly where you don't have satellite uplinks in the top left... maybe one or two in the top right. Then kill them off later to make room for important stuff.
A simple 3x2 block in the lower left of five regular power generators and one elerium generator is all you need.
Thermo Generators power-to-resource ratio sure is... efficient. You'd never know it by looking at them, but those generators are a power shortage's worst nightmare.
Too bad it costs too much in the beginning and doesn't matter at the end.
...which is why I have all my vents kitted out as soon as possible and plenty of spare space & resources for Workshops and Labs? Seriously, the dollar-to-power ratio is exactly the same as Power Generators despite producing over three times as much energy, they only take 60% longer to make, and just a little over twice as much ($23 to $11) to maintain. Long-term, Thermo Generators are an excellent investment.
If you're counting the cost to dig for them in the first place, I'm calling shenanigans, since you are going to want to excavate everything eventually anyway so you can stash your necessary plot rooms somewhere.
I'm not, but if you're playing EW on Classic or Impossible, the 4x7 grid does not allow for "plenty of spare space" with the time and money you are allocated in the first few months. Like I said, all you need is the bottom left 3x2 block with regular power generators and one elerium to carry you to the end of the game. You don't need to restart-scum your game until you get the vents you want- just ignore them entirely.
Until then, work with regular power generators here or there are on the first two levels until you get enough money to dig into the bottom half of the base. Then demolish those one you get your grid going to make room for uplinks and workshops to have enough sats to cover the globe by July-August.
I only play on Classic, and digging for Thermos is one of my first activities. I am usually running low on cash, but not so much so that I suffer much in the strategic game (I sell practically everything I find in the early game). Saves me time and money in the long run. Some games I never have to demolish a Power Generator, and in a few lucky games I never need an Elerium Generator. My last game I ended with two thermos, one elerium, and one normal generator, and never had to demolish anything.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
edited July 2014
7 playthroughs, every difficulty, and I never built an Elerium generator, and seldom demolished anything. Thermals are the light.
Ahahaha. You're in for a surprise. This isn't enemy unknown here. You're in the BIG LEAGUES now. Just watch that chryssalid run the lenth of the entire map and STILL have enough TUs to take out your entire squad!
M A G I K A Z A M
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
You aren't really "exploiting" discovery in any sense in the new X-COM. If they see you, they react. It's an incredibly basic stealth system. Moving your scout first is, at worst, exploiting the turn-based nature of the game to take the riskiest actions first so you have the rest of your guys available to respond.
In XCOM, the "one guy scouts" strategy eliminates literally all risk on your turn. You are exploiting the mutual discovery mechanic to avoid getting your scout reaction fired on. You are exploiting the infinite range of all weapons in order to fire from a stationary position on the other end of the map with all your guys. You are exploiting the fact that enemies cannot reaction fire at your guys if they are out of sight range.
Afterwards, you load everybody up with laser pistols, make a Muton drop his weapon, box him in, and have some reactions / accuracy training.
XCOM is full of exploits.
Garthor on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
You aren't really "exploiting" discovery in any sense in the new X-COM. If they see you, they react. It's an incredibly basic stealth system. Moving your scout first is, at worst, exploiting the turn-based nature of the game to take the riskiest actions first so you have the rest of your guys available to respond.
That's what I meant.
You know one thing I've observed Garthor.
Based on how you talk, a newcomer would come to the conclusion that you are really negative about old Xcom.
You guys talk about exploiting the way other people talk about strategy or tactics.
It's a misnomer.
The game isn't meant to be played based on luck otherwise there wouldn't be a mutual surprise rule. If they really wanted it to be that way aliens would reaction fire on first sight.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I never used many of these exploits when I beat the original X-Com - mostly because I didn't know about them. But as terrifying as original X-Com was, it was also a lot more forgiving strategically. You deployed squads of like 18 + 2 hover tanks in the late game (or 14 + 3 tanks, etc,), which meant you had plenty of expendable scout units surrounding your core squad.
Blaster bombs (which had no range limit) and psionics were also big in this respect: you could blow aliens up without ever seeing them or MC them without ever taking a shot, and both from a long distance. It became fairly routine for me to land a squaddie on top of the ship I was assault, use one blaster bomb to breach the hull, send another through to take out the bridge. You can actually beat the final mission without even seeing the end boss if you know/guess the map well enough and just fire blaster bombs up into the room.
Panic wasn't really a thing; occasionally, there'd be infiltrator missions that would flip a nation out of the X-Com project, but as long as you kept shooting those down, you could almost go forever in the game. Additionally, you could manufacture your own items for sale, which gave you another funding stream aside from nations altogether.
And then it becomes primarily a matter of just training up your soldiers and psionically screening them. Late-game X-Com, that was the biggest / only real threat to you, was your own squad getting MCed or panicked and eliminating itself. (Also, occasional missions where you had terrible spawns. Most missions had you deploy from your ship, but some would split your squad up, and you could get a bad split and get murderized.)
hippofant on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I'm only talking about the normal scouting btw. I don't think that's an exploit. It's the only way scouting could possibly work. Otherwise the way reaction fire works would make the game massively broken against the player.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
You aren't really "exploiting" discovery in any sense in the new X-COM. If they see you, they react. It's an incredibly basic stealth system. Moving your scout first is, at worst, exploiting the turn-based nature of the game to take the riskiest actions first so you have the rest of your guys available to respond.
That's what I meant.
You know one thing I've observed Garthor.
Based on how you talk, a newcomer would come to the conclusion that you are really negative about old Xcom.
You guys talk about exploiting the way other people talk about strategy or tactics.
It's a misnomer.
The game isn't meant to be played based on luck otherwise there wouldn't be a mutual surprise rule. If they really wanted it to be that way aliens would reaction fire on first sight.
I'm really negative about a lot of things.
And generally, my biggest beef with games is when there's one maximally efficient strategy that is boring. The firing line is essentially risk-free and applicable everywhere except alien bases and inside alien ships, given enough explosives. Single-file in X-COM might be the safest strategy, but at least with EW they added Meld as an incentive to be more reckless, and the actual nitty-gritty of combat once you spot some aliens usually leaves more room for an interesting encounter.
So fine. It's not an "exploit" to have your guys ignore the reaction fire rules by shooting from further than they can see. It's just a boring tactic that makes the game boring.
(I sell practically everything I find in the early game). Saves me time and money in the long run. Some games I never have to demolish a Power Generator, and in a few lucky games I never need an Elerium Generator. My last game I ended with two thermos, one elerium, and one normal generator, and never had to demolish anything.
You shouldn't be afraid to demolish shit later to save money in the early game. Like digging too deep too early... that's pretty much wasted money. Also, you should probably try to avoid selling your alloys, elerium, and especially fragments.
(I sell practically everything I find in the early game). Saves me time and money in the long run. Some games I never have to demolish a Power Generator, and in a few lucky games I never need an Elerium Generator. My last game I ended with two thermos, one elerium, and one normal generator, and never had to demolish anything.
You shouldn't be afraid to demolish shit later to save money in the early game. Like digging too deep too early... that's pretty much wasted money. Also, you should probably try to avoid selling your alloys, elerium, and especially fragments.
I don't sell fragments, but UFO raids provide so many alloys and elerium that I would be stupid not to capitalize on it, especially well before I can even use the stuff on anything.
Also, by definition, demolishing something doesn't save you money; by definition it's money wasted. Demolishing it just stops the bleeding. Just building what you need, first, and keeping it the whole game, is the way to save money, long-term.
Beagle is going to be attempting a supply ship mission in his next video, with a squad of 6 and ballistic weapons. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens; it's going to be like watching an immovable object meet an unstoppable force.
It's stumbling across Beagle that has inspired me to reinstall XCom. After that last mission and the complete and utter clusterfuck it became, I lived every moment with him. God, how did I stay away for so long?
what does the advanced lasers project do in the foundry in long war
Let's you build the equivalent of depleted elerium rounds for lasers (laser pumper and something else) it's an accessory that adds +1 damage to laser weapons.
Beagle is going to be attempting a supply ship mission in his next video, with a squad of 6 and ballistic weapons. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens; it's going to be like watching an immovable object meet an unstoppable force.
It's stumbling across Beagle that has inspired me to reinstall XCom. After that last mission and the complete and utter clusterfuck it became, I lived every moment with him. God, how did I stay away for so long?
I loved that video.
The only downside of Live and Impossible is that there was no opportunity for him to freeze on one of the sniper's missing and say "...at this point, we are fucked."
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scherbchenAsgard (it is dead)Registered Userregular
Beagle is going to be attempting a supply ship mission in his next video, with a squad of 6 and ballistic weapons. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens; it's going to be like watching an immovable object meet an unstoppable force.
it is up and a glorious 3 hours 17 minutes long.
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scherbchenAsgard (it is dead)Registered Userregular
Long War covert ops mission involved my secret agent dashing from com tower to com tower past all the EXALT chasing my shivs around, culminating in a mad dash back to the escape zone.
Posts
I only play on Classic, and digging for Thermos is one of my first activities. I am usually running low on cash, but not so much so that I suffer much in the strategic game (I sell practically everything I find in the early game). Saves me time and money in the long run. Some games I never have to demolish a Power Generator, and in a few lucky games I never need an Elerium Generator. My last game I ended with two thermos, one elerium, and one normal generator, and never had to demolish anything.
Why I fear the ocean.
I built one for fun!
Night terror mission.
Hold me.
Okay, don't worry. These missions look scary, but there's a simple 3 step solution.
1) Arrive and assess the situation.
2) Take off
3) Nuke the site from orbit.
Why I fear the ocean.
1)a) poop pants
1) Start mission
2) See cryssalid
3) FFFFFFFFF
4) Abort.
It's relentless and expects you to lose many times before you get it, but it's not that impossible, especially considering the difficulty bug.
Also, save scumming.
Seriously they're op.
I have one on every man and apply liberally to worrying situations.
Scouting and sniping is military recon 101.
Seriously these games would have no substance at all otherwise.
It's no different from moving your scout first in nuxcom and "exploiting" discovery.
In XCOM, the "one guy scouts" strategy eliminates literally all risk on your turn. You are exploiting the mutual discovery mechanic to avoid getting your scout reaction fired on. You are exploiting the infinite range of all weapons in order to fire from a stationary position on the other end of the map with all your guys. You are exploiting the fact that enemies cannot reaction fire at your guys if they are out of sight range.
Afterwards, you load everybody up with laser pistols, make a Muton drop his weapon, box him in, and have some reactions / accuracy training.
XCOM is full of exploits.
That's what I meant.
You know one thing I've observed Garthor.
Based on how you talk, a newcomer would come to the conclusion that you are really negative about old Xcom.
You guys talk about exploiting the way other people talk about strategy or tactics.
It's a misnomer.
The game isn't meant to be played based on luck otherwise there wouldn't be a mutual surprise rule. If they really wanted it to be that way aliens would reaction fire on first sight.
Blaster bombs (which had no range limit) and psionics were also big in this respect: you could blow aliens up without ever seeing them or MC them without ever taking a shot, and both from a long distance. It became fairly routine for me to land a squaddie on top of the ship I was assault, use one blaster bomb to breach the hull, send another through to take out the bridge. You can actually beat the final mission without even seeing the end boss if you know/guess the map well enough and just fire blaster bombs up into the room.
Panic wasn't really a thing; occasionally, there'd be infiltrator missions that would flip a nation out of the X-Com project, but as long as you kept shooting those down, you could almost go forever in the game. Additionally, you could manufacture your own items for sale, which gave you another funding stream aside from nations altogether.
And then it becomes primarily a matter of just training up your soldiers and psionically screening them. Late-game X-Com, that was the biggest / only real threat to you, was your own squad getting MCed or panicked and eliminating itself. (Also, occasional missions where you had terrible spawns. Most missions had you deploy from your ship, but some would split your squad up, and you could get a bad split and get murderized.)
I'm really negative about a lot of things.
And generally, my biggest beef with games is when there's one maximally efficient strategy that is boring. The firing line is essentially risk-free and applicable everywhere except alien bases and inside alien ships, given enough explosives. Single-file in X-COM might be the safest strategy, but at least with EW they added Meld as an incentive to be more reckless, and the actual nitty-gritty of combat once you spot some aliens usually leaves more room for an interesting encounter.
So fine. It's not an "exploit" to have your guys ignore the reaction fire rules by shooting from further than they can see. It's just a boring tactic that makes the game boring.
You shouldn't be afraid to demolish shit later to save money in the early game. Like digging too deep too early... that's pretty much wasted money. Also, you should probably try to avoid selling your alloys, elerium, and especially fragments.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I don't sell fragments, but UFO raids provide so many alloys and elerium that I would be stupid not to capitalize on it, especially well before I can even use the stuff on anything.
Also, by definition, demolishing something doesn't save you money; by definition it's money wasted. Demolishing it just stops the bleeding. Just building what you need, first, and keeping it the whole game, is the way to save money, long-term.
More facetiously, it's the "How to win the game" research topic.
It's stumbling across Beagle that has inspired me to reinstall XCom. After that last mission and the complete and utter clusterfuck it became, I lived every moment with him. God, how did I stay away for so long?
STEAM | XBL | PSN
Let's you build the equivalent of depleted elerium rounds for lasers (laser pumper and something else) it's an accessory that adds +1 damage to laser weapons.
Foundry project not research project. The foundry project is what i describe above.
I loved that video.
The only downside of Live and Impossible is that there was no opportunity for him to freeze on one of the sniper's missing and say "...at this point, we are fucked."
it is up and a glorious 3 hours 17 minutes long.