It took me about 1 second to decide about whether or not to buy the X-Com Pack on Steam last weekend.
Anyways, I'm a fairly seasoned X-Com veteran, but Apocalpyse just has me totally confused. The interface is pretty strange. There was an alien attack at some apartment building, but I couldn't figure out how to land there. So I just leveled the whole building with missiles. People were pissed off at me for that one.
If I should not name them after my friends, I will name my soldiers after my enemies then.
I will try to play once I return home from the office, hell, I use my laptop as my working computer, but I don't think it would be professional to hunt aliens during my working hours.
I also bought the X-Com pack on Steam, even though I kind of suck on tactical games, I have always wanted to try X-Com.
So, being new and all, I started playin on Beginner, after a couple of minutes of playing a UFO landed or crashed, so I sent my SKYRANGER, my team hopped out of the ship, only to have them sniped by a grey from some place far away.
Everyone died.
Sorry to be a dick, but...WELCOME TO X-COM! Everyone can die, instantly, like a dog in the street. The best you can do is keep everyone together, move slowly, cover all sight lines, and pray. A tank helps, but it'll get blowed up real good soon enough.
I remember one mission where I landed and, literally the first thing, an alien fired one of those homing bazooka things (I forget the name) into the Skyranger and killed every single one of my soldiers.
It took me about 1 second to decide about whether or not to buy the X-Com Pack on Steam last weekend.
Anyways, I'm a fairly seasoned X-Com veteran, but Apocalpyse just has me totally confused. The interface is pretty strange. There was an alien attack at some apartment building, but I couldn't figure out how to land there. So I just leveled the whole building with missiles. People were pissed off at me for that one.
If I remember correctly, every building has a hole in the ground nearby (it looks sort of like a manhole) where you land to enter the building.
GoodOmens on
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
I can't find my copy of X-COM1, so I bought the pack this weekend. It's been a while since I played (like 2 months). Time to start a new game!
I also bought the X-Com pack on Steam, even though I kind of suck on tactical games, I have always wanted to try X-Com.
So, being new and all, I started playin on Beginner, after a couple of minutes of playing a UFO landed or crashed, so I sent my SKYRANGER, my team hopped out of the ship, only to have them sniped by a grey from some place far away.
Everyone died.
I have tried reading faqs, but looks like most of them expect you to know about X-Com, I have started reading the manual too, but still, could someone give me some BATTLE tips? I don't want to rename my squad as my friends only to have them raped again.
Just wait for your first terror mission with Cyberdiscs! Truly good times.
And then Chryssalids, obviously.
But yeah, the key to X-COM is never get terribly attached to your soldiers. They are soon to be destroyed bags of meat.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I suck really badly at this game. My last two missions out of 14 solders only 4 have come back both times. The aliens are getting a roughly 2:1 kill ratio on me right now.
Last time 2 greys were waiting for me as my guys went down the landing ramp! Bagged two of my brave boys in turn 1.
I wish I had time to put into this game again. Part of the appeal is getting attached to your troops only to see them gunned down.
I don't think this is really spoiler-worthy but with so many new players I'll be safe:
My biggest gripes about this game is the need for capturing high level aliens and mind control. Quite often those two things overlap, so it's a real punch in the dick to try and capture a sectoid leader when he has the ability to mind control your best soldiers. The last time I made an effort to finish this game I must have reloaded the same mission at least 20 times trying to capture a sectoid leader. He and his buddies were holed up in a control room with those guided rocket bomb thingies so when they weren't making my soldiers shit their pants and run, they were blowing them up to hell and back. I finally "won" by sending a rocket bomb into the control room killing everyone or knocking them unconscious. I was lucky enough that the leader was in the latter group.
Part of the appeal is getting attached to your troops only to see them gunned down.
Absolutely. The fact that you develop a bit of a soft spot for your veterans helps to really crank up the tension when they are up against it and things aren't going smoothly.
I wish I had time to put into this game again. Part of the appeal is getting attached to your troops only to see them gunned down.
I don't think this is really spoiler-worthy but with so many new players I'll be safe:
My biggest gripes about this game is the need for capturing high level aliens and mind control. Quite often those two things overlap, so it's a real punch in the dick to try and capture a sectoid leader when he has the ability to mind control your best soldiers. The last time I made an effort to finish this game I must have reloaded the same mission at least 20 times trying to capture a sectoid leader. He and his buddies were holed up in a control room with those guided rocket bomb thingies so when they weren't making my soldiers shit their pants and run, they were blowing them up to hell and back. I finally "won" by sending a rocket bomb into the control room killing everyone or knocking them unconscious. I was lucky enough that the leader was in the latter group.
The enemy AI gets X-ray vision after something like turn 20. Up until that point, careful soldier placement for LoS can help mitigate mind control problems. After that point, telepathic enemies will start brain-raping the best targets and things usually spiral out of control pretty fast unless you can find the perpetrator. Blaster launcher enemies can also see you, but their AI for missile pathfinding can lead to some great turnarounds in your favor. Smoke grenades can also provide cover so you can charge into the control room with a guy holding primed stun grenades. Even if he doesn't get to throw them, he can force the enemies to either clear out or get knocked out.
And hovertanks are awesome. They may not be the toughest, but having an expendable flying scout unit which can usually take more than one shot without losing a cost- and labor-intensive flying armor suit (not to mention the usually-trained soldier it contains) is great. Really makes mop-up a lot less frustrating since the tank can track down any snap-shotting monsters waiting for a poor recruit to peek around a corner. Plus, tanks are automatically repaired between missions rather than having to recover and are immune to panic, mind control, and smoke/stun gas, so as long as they have a single health point you can always drive them away from danger to save them for the next mission. Except for the times when a Sectoid manages to somehow shoot the underside of a hovertank sitting on the ground and it craters in one shot, but it's better than losing a veteran.
ALWAYS drop a smoke grenade, or 2, or 3, or 10 at the beginning of a mission - ESPECIALLY night missions. Aliens can see in the dark, but they can't see or shoot very well into smoke. When I say 'drop' I mean equip the nade, prime it to 0, then go to your inventory and move it from your hand to the big groups of boxes below your charachter (the ground). It costs 0 TU to drop an item, and the smoke nade going off won't hurt the dude standing on it.
The smoke has an additional bonus of doing a SMALL amount of 'knock-out' damage to your soldiers. This is great because it means that any soldier that moves through the smoke is going to get an increase to their health statistic at the end of the battle.
Patrolling doesn't really do much. You just need to have a base in a good location, and wait. Research/build HWPs/hire personnel and wait for UFOs.
Get going quickly on laser weapons and maybe med-kits. Purchase additional soldiers if necessary (i.e. if you have too many low-accuracy trash soldiers) and purchase additional researchers whenever possible.
* You'll see what Alien Alloys unlocks, I don't want to spoil it.
There's no point getting med kits before it, though.
And yeah - Laser Pistols should be the second thing researched and your engineers should be pumping them out the ENTIRE game unless they need to work on something else.
I'm running out of money way too fast at the start, 99% of my my soldiers are getting wiped out in every mission and they're expensive to replace and rearm.
I'm running out of money way too fast at the start, 99% of my my soldiers are getting wiped out in every mission and they're expensive to replace and rearm.
Do NOT feel bad about save/reloading for your first 2-3 missions.
Your guys are armed with pea shooters that take multiple shots to kill a sectoid and entire clips to kill a disk.
Once you get laser rifles you'll notice a swift uptick on your damage and an equal uptick on your survivability once you get some armor.
Also, don't forget to sell shit you loot. Mind probes sell for 300k. I sell all but 1 of everything except heavy plasma, heavy plasma clips, and alien grenades. Once I get to researching them, then I sell that last one too.
So I tried again, now knowing a bit more about the game, managed to finish my first mission with only one guy down and a guy with TWENTY bravery managed to kill 2 greys, oh well, the bravest guy had awesome accurancy.
Only one guy died and another one was wounded.
I bought a tank, and tank cannon rounds, but I wasn't able to load them, am I suppose to load them separately or is there a menu I'm missing?
Once the battle is over, is there a way to move the wounded from the skyranger?
And one last question: After that battle, I had a terror mission at L.A., my 6 guys got down the skyranger, 2 died D-Day style, while the other 4 managed to kill a two leg monster, but when I tried to scout, I got attacked by missiles? carpet bombing? and 3 guys died, I escaped with my last soldier.
My question is, the guy that survived, for some reason couldn't use a lot of Time Units, part of the reason he stayed close to the skyranger and managed to escape, is that norma? like, it could only walk like 5-6 blocks and couldn't do any action, while my other guys were walking a lot further, I know that each soldier has different TU, but that guy felt like he didn't recover that much, or maybe weight has something to do with movement and TU?
Thanks guys.
Oh! And and after researching laser pistols, now I can get several plasma weaponry, I have read that it is the way to go, but should I first get a good cache of laser weaponry before getting plasma?
I bought a tank, and tank cannon rounds, but I wasn't able to load them, am I suppose to load them separately or is there a menu I'm missing?
You just add both the rounds and the tank to the ship. It'll auto-load the ammo when it gets there. Make sure you've got enough ammo onboard to completely load the tank!
Once the battle is over, is there a way to move the wounded from the skyranger?
Not sure what you're asking for there.
And one last question: After that battle, I had a terror mission at L.A., my 6 guys got down the skyranger, 2 died D-Day style, while the other 4 managed to kill a two leg monster, but when I tried to scout, I got attacked by missiles? carpet bombing? and 3 guys died, I escaped with my last soldier.
Probably a grenade. Aliens, as you've seen, have some pretty sweet hardward.
My question is, the guy that survived, for some reason couldn't use a lot of Time Units, part of the reason he stayed close to the skyranger and managed to escape, is that norma? like, it could only walk like 5-6 blocks and couldn't do any action, while my other guys were walking a lot further, I know that each soldier has different TU, but that guy felt like he didn't recover that much, or maybe weight has something to do with movement and TU?
Check the bottom center of the screen. Do you have any of the green gems selected for that marine? Those tell him to reserve some TUs each time it's his turn, so that he'll have enough left over for some reaction shots on the aliens' turn.
It's also possible he was overloaded, which will make him unable to move faster than a stagger. Was he carrying a bunch of heavy weapons without enough Str to handle them?
Oh! And and after researching laser pistols, now I can get several plasma weaponry, I have read that it is the way to go, but should I first get a good cache of laser weaponry before getting plasma?
Plasma requires ammo which isn't easy to make. Lasers are infinite ammo. I almost always keep enough lasers on hand for emergencies, and laser pistols are great sidearms for your heavy-weapons types.
1. Load the tank on the Skyranger AND the tank ammo. It will automatically load it.
2. When a battle is over (that is, you hit end turn and the mission ends) your wounded will automatically be gathered aboard your ship. Enemy corpses, unconcious aliens, and all alien and friendly items will also be brought aboard.
3. When units move they use TU and Energy. Shooting, turning and manipulating backpack inventory only use TU. Movement uses TU and Energy. Energy does NOT fully refill every turn, so if you push your guys to the movement limit every turn for 3-4 turns in a row - they will be winded for the next few turns until you give them a chance to build up their energy reserves again.
4. Research laser rifles first, then go down the Alien Alloys research path. Plasma takes a long time to research early in the game when you don't have many scientists. Lasers will do fine against most enemies, and laser rifles are very accurate.
Once the battle is over, is there a way to move the wounded from the skyranger?
Not sure what you're asking for there.
Oh! And and after researching laser pistols, now I can get several plasma weaponry, I have read that it is the way to go, but should I first get a good cache of laser weaponry before getting plasma?
Plasma requires ammo which isn't easy to make. Lasers are infinite ammo. I almost always keep enough lasers on hand for emergencies, and laser pistols are great sidearms for your heavy-weapons types.
Thanks Elvenshae, looks like I did overweight him, with heavy weapons and rounds, I'm going to equip my guys with rifles, rifle clips and some grenades from now on.
Regarding wounds, after my first battle, I saw the soldier with a WOUNDED status at the Skyranger crew screen, is there a way to remove him or he stays with the crew until it recovers? Do I need to recruit new soldiers and replace him with the fresh red shirts?
J...
3. When units move they use TU and Energy. Shooting, turning and manipulating backpack inventory only use TU. Movement uses TU and Energy. Energy does NOT fully refill every turn, so if you push your guys to the movement limit every turn for 3-4 turns in a row - they will be winded for the next few turns until you give them a chance to build up their energy reserves again.
4. Research laser rifles first, then go down the Alien Alloys research path. Plasma takes a long time to research early in the game when you don't have many scientists. Lasers will do fine against most enemies, and laser rifles are very accurate.
Thanks Tekdragon, this is good to know, I will move slowly from now on, it's kind of complicated juggling Energy and TU, but then again, I think I'm getting a hang of the game.
Oh, and is there a way to "fire" or "release" those soldiers that have low bravery? In my first mission the low bravery guys were the ones that got must of the experience, is there a way I can rid of them without using them as meat shields?
Ok guys, how about a bit of BASE BUILDING?
I started building a large radar, more storage and alien containment (because after my first assault, looks like an alien gave up, but died because I couldn't hold him. What else should I build?
If a soldier is *WOUNDED* they're automatically in a hospital until they recover fully.
BlueDestiny on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
Oh, I just remembered something which greatly enhances the enjoyment of the game. The last time I played Xcom, I had a mod which automatically equipped soldiers with whatever you manually give them. So no more having to give everybody a plasma rifle, smoke grenades, stun grenades, med kit, and so on and so forth. I absolutely have no clue what the name of the mod was, though.
Oh, I just remembered something which greatly enhances the enjoyment of the game. The last time I played Xcom, I had a mod which automatically equipped soldiers with whatever you manually give them. So no more having to give everybody a plasma rifle, smoke grenades, stun grenades, med kit, and so on and so forth. I absolutely have no clue what the name of the mod was, though.
XCom Util, works with the steam version too, best not to use new maps/ship layouts.
Oh, I just remembered something which greatly enhances the enjoyment of the game. The last time I played Xcom, I had a mod which automatically equipped soldiers with whatever you manually give them. So no more having to give everybody a plasma rifle, smoke grenades, stun grenades, med kit, and so on and so forth. I absolutely have no clue what the name of the mod was, though.
XCom Util, works with the steam version too, best not to use new maps/ship layouts.
Should definitely be in the OP. Regardless of whatever else it contains, the inventory management system saves hours of fiddling around with equipment.
I also bought the X-Com pack on Steam, even though I kind of suck on tactical games, I have always wanted to try X-Com.
So, being new and all, I started playin on Beginner, after a couple of minutes of playing a UFO landed or crashed, so I sent my SKYRANGER, my team hopped out of the ship, only to have them sniped by a grey from some place far away.
Everyone died.
Sorry to be a dick, but...WELCOME TO X-COM! Everyone can die, instantly, like a dog in the street. The best you can do is keep everyone together, move slowly, cover all sight lines, and pray. A tank helps, but it'll get blowed up real good soon enough.
I remember one mission where I landed and, literally the first thing, an alien fired one of those homing bazooka things (I forget the name) into the Skyranger and killed every single one of my soldiers.
I have NEVER...EVER...played a game where that hasn't happened the first time I come across aliens armed with blaster bombs. This is one of those games that makes you paranoid as all hell...once you start seeing nothing but snakemen and chrysalids you know that it's time to start saving your game before, during , and after every single mission.
Anybody who bought the steam version using win7? Does it work? Cause if so I'll give up on trying to get my CE edition to work and just buy it for the third time.
Anybody who bought the steam version using win7? Does it work? Cause if so I'll give up on trying to get my CE edition to work and just buy it for the third time.
I'm on Win7 Enterprise (32Bits) and it's working like a charm.
Anybody who bought the steam version using win7? Does it work? Cause if so I'll give up on trying to get my CE edition to work and just buy it for the third time.
I'm on Win7 Enterprise and it's working like a charm.
Win7 Home Premium and runs well using on Steam, looks like it has DOSBox integrated.
UPDATE to my losing battle against the sectoids: I finished my first month, and even though I had finished 3 missions, I bailed from a Terror Mission at Vancouver and shot down small UFOs at the ocean (Oh, I placed my base at the center of Europe) and my report said that Council members were happy, only RUSSIA was particularly happy with my actions and the rest of the countries were displeased with my actions, could that be a result of my failed terror mission?
So while I regroup my soldiers, continue researching lasers, small UFOs are detected, my interceptors make them crash at the ocean... LARGE SHIP DETECTED. BASE INVADED.
I only had 3 guys to defend my base, so I reloaded.
And still, I'm starting to fall in love with this game.
Thanks Tekdragon, this is good to know, I will move slowly from now on, it's kind of complicated juggling Energy and TU, but then again, I think I'm getting a hang of the game.
Oh, and is there a way to "fire" or "release" those soldiers that have low bravery? In my first mission the low bravery guys were the ones that got must of the experience, is there a way I can rid of them without using them as meat shields?
Ok guys, how about a bit of BASE BUILDING?
I started building a large radar, more storage and alien containment (because after my first assault, looks like an alien gave up, but died because I couldn't hold him. What else should I build?
Thanks everyone!
First off, you can fire soldiers with crappy stats by going to the 'sell/sack' tab. You can tell the game was made in the UK; 'fired' is used mainly in NA. In the UK 'getting sacked' is more common and has the same meaning.
Second, all of what you're building is a good idea but I'd also throw in extra living quarters so that you can hire more scientists right away. The faster you get laser weapons the better and to do that you need lots of dedicated research.
Also, don't ever bother equipping laser pistols. It isn't that they're bad, it's that laser rifles are fan-freaking-tastic by comparison. That being said, laser pistols sell for a pretty good chunk of change and they're not expensive to make. They've also got a pretty fast build time and require no extra bits to make. Pretty good way to make extra money imo.
As an addition to the above, if you need to sack a soldier you have to remove them from the Skyranger first.
TekDragon on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
So does the Steam version of Xcom have that bug where picking a particular difficulty setting means the game will set the difficulty of each month based on how you did in the prior month? Sure, it's fun to hear about someone getting the hang of things and doing awesome by the end of the first month only to get invaded five times in the first week of the next month, but is this beyond the "bug" level now and simply a "feature" or what?
And for hiring soldiers, make sure to look for guys with high accuracy, bravery, whatever controls time units (stamina?), and speed. Strength is pretty easy to build (just load someone up and have them walk around), bravery will help them keep from panicking in the early game, lots of time units will let you move and reserve TU for reacting to aliens, and speed will let your troops either react quickly to incoming fire or let them get off snap shots the moment enemies get in LoS (even if it's the alien turn).
For crappy soldiers, sometimes it's not a bad idea to let them go solo scout things until they die instead of sacking them. I've kept more than one scout around for ages and it's always worth it; by the time they die, they can scout a bunch of aliens and help keep your forces from suffering rage-inducing failures when grenades get lobbed a city block into the crowd of troops you just unloaded from the ship.
So does the Steam version of Xcom have that bug where picking a particular difficulty setting means the game will set the difficulty of each month based on how you did in the prior month? Sure, it's fun to hear about someone getting the hang of things and doing awesome by the end of the first month only to get invaded five times in the first week of the next month, but is this beyond the "bug" level now and simply a "feature" or what?
And for hiring soldiers, make sure to look for guys with high accuracy, bravery, whatever controls time units (stamina?), and speed. Strength is pretty easy to build (just load someone up and have them walk around), bravery will help them keep from panicking in the early game, lots of time units will let you move and reserve TU for reacting to aliens, and speed will let your troops either react quickly to incoming fire or let them get off snap shots the moment enemies get in LoS (even if it's the alien turn).
For crappy soldiers, sometimes it's not a bad idea to let them go solo scout things until they die instead of sacking them. I've kept more than one scout around for ages and it's always worth it; by the time they die, they can scout a bunch of aliens and help keep your forces from suffering rage-inducing failures when grenades get lobbed a city block into the crowd of troops you just unloaded from the ship.
I've had no issues with the steam version resetting the difficulty level, but I've only ever set the difficulty on average. The turn 20 alien x-ray vision effect does still apply, though.
Good notes on hiring policies, btw. One trick you can do to train up firing accuracy is to use a cattle prod/stun bomb to disable an alien and then have someone walk over and pick up all of the dropped equipment. After the sucker regains consciousness just gun it down using regular pistols...since it isn't gonna be able to pick up its dropped stuff. Obviously this isn't going to work on reavers and crysalids. Mutons are an excellent choice - they take next to no damage from pistols so you can just stand around and shoot the bejeezus out of one to gain some stats on your rookie soldiers.
As for suicide scouts...well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's fine for the early game but you really want to quickly get rid of those crappy cowards if at all possible. I've had mixed results, at the best they just get outright killed and nothing of major value is lost. At the worst, they get mind controlled and start taking pot shots at my other soldiers OR get zombified and run off to attack my squad or civvies to make MORE zombies. Of those 2, the zombie situation is far, far worse.
It's not that I think we should be adverse to answering questions, it's just that there's a huge wealth of info about the game in there that everyone starting out should poke through a bit.
Personally, I think laser pistols can be useful, especially when it comes to helping noob soldiers skill up. You can actually improve things like reaction time and accuracy by shooting a pistol with autoshot. Someone mentioned stunning an enemy and taking all his stuff. Set him free and let the noobs use him for target practice with pistols and they can skill up much faster than in normal combat.
[strike]Another good tip for improving strength and TU's is to have your troops run wind sprints in a safe area. If you're waiting for that last alien to pop out of a downed ufo, move those weaker troops behind your skyranger and have them run back and forth while carrying a heavy item.[/strike]
There are ways to improve bravery, but during the early parts of the game they're really not an option so you're better off firing them or using them for cannon fodder.
Edit: After reading the ufopedia I learned that strength and TU's are awarded for doing primary actions, not running around. Sorry!
Once the battle is over, is there a way to move the wounded from the skyranger?
Not sure what you're asking for there.
Oh! And and after researching laser pistols, now I can get several plasma weaponry, I have read that it is the way to go, but should I first get a good cache of laser weaponry before getting plasma?
Plasma requires ammo which isn't easy to make. Lasers are infinite ammo. I almost always keep enough lasers on hand for emergencies, and laser pistols are great sidearms for your heavy-weapons types.
Thanks Elvenshae, looks like I did overweight him, with heavy weapons and rounds, I'm going to equip my guys with rifles, rifle clips and some grenades from now on.
Regarding wounds, after my first battle, I saw the soldier with a WOUNDED status at the Skyranger crew screen, is there a way to remove him or he stays with the crew until it recovers? Do I need to recruit new soldiers and replace him with the fresh red shirts?
Yeah, if he's wounded, you'll want to pull him off the Skyranger's crew (which the game may actually do automatically for you; I don't remember). You do it by just going into the Skyranger's screen and moving him from "on-board" to "not" on the crew button. He'll then be stuck in base until he gets better, at which point you can reassign him to the Skyranger.
Yes, you'll want to recruit new soldiers. It'll take them several days to get to your base, and they aren't free, so plan accordingly.
Some people are saying to skip fielding laser pistols entirely; you can do this, certainly, but like I said I think laser pistols make excellent sidearms for your heavy-weapons types, who often cannot spare the extra weight to carry the laser rifle along with the extra ammo they need to keep their main weapon working. Plus, the laser pistol is quicker-firing, meaning that until you get the heavy weapons guys into place, they can move farther and still retain enough TUs to get in some reaction shots.
Building and selling laser pistols is also a good way to make some spare change in the beginning of the game.
Ok guys, how about a bit of BASE BUILDING?
I started building a large radar, more storage and alien containment (because after my first assault, looks like an alien gave up, but died because I couldn't hold him. What else should I build?
Manufacturing and research are manpower-intensive industries, and you'll need additional staffing to keep them running (and, therefore, living quarters).
The next thing to look into is setting up additional "listening and interception posts" - bases away from your main location with the best radar facilities you can manage and an interceptor to shoot down what they find. This will expand your global coverage and make more of the funding nations happy with you. You'll probably want a small defense force of operatives stationed there, as well - the initial base's Skyranger can handle the actual ground duties for a bit, but eventually you'll want the other bases to have that capability, as well.
Some people are saying to skip fielding laser pistols entirely; you can do this, certainly, but like I said I think laser pistols make excellent sidearms for your heavy-weapons types, who often cannot spare the extra weight to carry the laser rifle along with the extra ammo they need to keep their main weapon working. Plus, the laser pistol is quicker-firing, meaning that until you get the heavy weapons guys into place, they can move farther and still retain enough TUs to get in some reaction shots.
Building and selling laser pistols is also a good way to make some spare change in the beginning of the game.
Yes, all my heavy weapons guys have laser pistol sidearms throughout the game. Small, inexpensive, ammo-free, and work great when HE or plasma does not. I also tend to specialize my guys based on their stats as snipers, scouts, medics, grenadiers, and heavy weapons guys. Add an acronym to their name, like "Joe Smith [HW]" to remember their job on the field.
Regarding base building: I personally tend to centralize everything. It's cheaper to have one base dedicated to research, one dedicated to production, etc. than to try and have every base do a little of each and then defend them all with a standing army. Your main base should probably do a little of everything (and be your main Skyranger base, at least at the start) since you most likely already have those facilities. It's rough if you lose your production base or something, but you can definitely recover quickly.
Is there any kind of penalty for shooting down a craft and not sending troops there?
You are only penalized for not visiting terror missions, AFAIK. Even then, you can visit a terror mission and immediately leave for much less of a penalty. Failing to visit a terror mission though is baaaad for your reputation (income) with that country.
Would it have killed them to have the keyboard do something in UFO Defense?
Like, I dunno. ESC for options on the geoscape screen. Or the function keys for the functions; enter for 'end turn', and esc for 'lets get out of here'.
It may turn into a deal-breaker. I like my keyboard. I dislike having to rely solely on my mouse.
In more general questions, there's a _patched version of the exe in my steam folder; is there any way to tell which version it's running? Is there any way to change the resolution?
Anyone playing this on a netbook? I would imagine the screen gets squashed to fit 1280x600. Not a deal-breaker for me, but it's a shame that it probably doesn't support resolutions beyond 800x600. Is there a way to run it in a window?
Posts
Anyways, I'm a fairly seasoned X-Com veteran, but Apocalpyse just has me totally confused. The interface is pretty strange. There was an alien attack at some apartment building, but I couldn't figure out how to land there. So I just leveled the whole building with missiles. People were pissed off at me for that one.
If I should not name them after my friends, I will name my soldiers after my enemies then.
I will try to play once I return home from the office, hell, I use my laptop as my working computer, but I don't think it would be professional to hunt aliens during my working hours.
Sorry to be a dick, but...WELCOME TO X-COM! Everyone can die, instantly, like a dog in the street. The best you can do is keep everyone together, move slowly, cover all sight lines, and pray. A tank helps, but it'll get blowed up real good soon enough.
I remember one mission where I landed and, literally the first thing, an alien fired one of those homing bazooka things (I forget the name) into the Skyranger and killed every single one of my soldiers.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
If I remember correctly, every building has a hole in the ground nearby (it looks sort of like a manhole) where you land to enter the building.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Just wait for your first terror mission with Cyberdiscs! Truly good times.
And then Chryssalids, obviously.
But yeah, the key to X-COM is never get terribly attached to your soldiers. They are soon to be destroyed bags of meat.
Last time 2 greys were waiting for me as my guys went down the landing ramp! Bagged two of my brave boys in turn 1.
I don't think this is really spoiler-worthy but with so many new players I'll be safe:
Absolutely. The fact that you develop a bit of a soft spot for your veterans helps to really crank up the tension when they are up against it and things aren't going smoothly.
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And hovertanks are awesome. They may not be the toughest, but having an expendable flying scout unit which can usually take more than one shot without losing a cost- and labor-intensive flying armor suit (not to mention the usually-trained soldier it contains) is great. Really makes mop-up a lot less frustrating since the tank can track down any snap-shotting monsters waiting for a poor recruit to peek around a corner. Plus, tanks are automatically repaired between missions rather than having to recover and are immune to panic, mind control, and smoke/stun gas, so as long as they have a single health point you can always drive them away from danger to save them for the next mission. Except for the times when a Sectoid manages to somehow shoot the underside of a hovertank sitting on the ground and it craters in one shot, but it's better than losing a veteran.
ALWAYS drop a smoke grenade, or 2, or 3, or 10 at the beginning of a mission - ESPECIALLY night missions. Aliens can see in the dark, but they can't see or shoot very well into smoke. When I say 'drop' I mean equip the nade, prime it to 0, then go to your inventory and move it from your hand to the big groups of boxes below your charachter (the ground). It costs 0 TU to drop an item, and the smoke nade going off won't hurt the dude standing on it.
The smoke has an additional bonus of doing a SMALL amount of 'knock-out' damage to your soldiers. This is great because it means that any soldier that moves through the smoke is going to get an increase to their health statistic at the end of the battle.
Smoke is your friend. Use it.
Laser Weapons -> Laser Pistols -> Laser Rifles -> Alien Alloys -> * -> Med Kits
* You'll see what Alien Alloys unlocks, I don't want to spoil it.
There's no point getting med kits before it, though.
And yeah - Laser Pistols should be the second thing researched and your engineers should be pumping them out the ENTIRE game unless they need to work on something else.
Do NOT feel bad about save/reloading for your first 2-3 missions.
Your guys are armed with pea shooters that take multiple shots to kill a sectoid and entire clips to kill a disk.
Once you get laser rifles you'll notice a swift uptick on your damage and an equal uptick on your survivability once you get some armor.
Also, don't forget to sell shit you loot. Mind probes sell for 300k. I sell all but 1 of everything except heavy plasma, heavy plasma clips, and alien grenades. Once I get to researching them, then I sell that last one too.
Only one guy died and another one was wounded.
I bought a tank, and tank cannon rounds, but I wasn't able to load them, am I suppose to load them separately or is there a menu I'm missing?
Once the battle is over, is there a way to move the wounded from the skyranger?
And one last question: After that battle, I had a terror mission at L.A., my 6 guys got down the skyranger, 2 died D-Day style, while the other 4 managed to kill a two leg monster, but when I tried to scout, I got attacked by missiles? carpet bombing? and 3 guys died, I escaped with my last soldier.
My question is, the guy that survived, for some reason couldn't use a lot of Time Units, part of the reason he stayed close to the skyranger and managed to escape, is that norma? like, it could only walk like 5-6 blocks and couldn't do any action, while my other guys were walking a lot further, I know that each soldier has different TU, but that guy felt like he didn't recover that much, or maybe weight has something to do with movement and TU?
Thanks guys.
Oh! And and after researching laser pistols, now I can get several plasma weaponry, I have read that it is the way to go, but should I first get a good cache of laser weaponry before getting plasma?
You just add both the rounds and the tank to the ship. It'll auto-load the ammo when it gets there. Make sure you've got enough ammo onboard to completely load the tank!
Not sure what you're asking for there.
Probably a grenade. Aliens, as you've seen, have some pretty sweet hardward.
Check the bottom center of the screen. Do you have any of the green gems selected for that marine? Those tell him to reserve some TUs each time it's his turn, so that he'll have enough left over for some reaction shots on the aliens' turn.
It's also possible he was overloaded, which will make him unable to move faster than a stagger. Was he carrying a bunch of heavy weapons without enough Str to handle them?
Plasma requires ammo which isn't easy to make. Lasers are infinite ammo. I almost always keep enough lasers on hand for emergencies, and laser pistols are great sidearms for your heavy-weapons types.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
1. Load the tank on the Skyranger AND the tank ammo. It will automatically load it.
2. When a battle is over (that is, you hit end turn and the mission ends) your wounded will automatically be gathered aboard your ship. Enemy corpses, unconcious aliens, and all alien and friendly items will also be brought aboard.
3. When units move they use TU and Energy. Shooting, turning and manipulating backpack inventory only use TU. Movement uses TU and Energy. Energy does NOT fully refill every turn, so if you push your guys to the movement limit every turn for 3-4 turns in a row - they will be winded for the next few turns until you give them a chance to build up their energy reserves again.
4. Research laser rifles first, then go down the Alien Alloys research path. Plasma takes a long time to research early in the game when you don't have many scientists. Lasers will do fine against most enemies, and laser rifles are very accurate.
Thanks Elvenshae, looks like I did overweight him, with heavy weapons and rounds, I'm going to equip my guys with rifles, rifle clips and some grenades from now on.
Regarding wounds, after my first battle, I saw the soldier with a WOUNDED status at the Skyranger crew screen, is there a way to remove him or he stays with the crew until it recovers? Do I need to recruit new soldiers and replace him with the fresh red shirts?
Thanks Tekdragon, this is good to know, I will move slowly from now on, it's kind of complicated juggling Energy and TU, but then again, I think I'm getting a hang of the game.
Oh, and is there a way to "fire" or "release" those soldiers that have low bravery? In my first mission the low bravery guys were the ones that got must of the experience, is there a way I can rid of them without using them as meat shields?
Ok guys, how about a bit of BASE BUILDING?
I started building a large radar, more storage and alien containment (because after my first assault, looks like an alien gave up, but died because I couldn't hold him. What else should I build?
Thanks everyone!
XCom Util, works with the steam version too, best not to use new maps/ship layouts.
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Should definitely be in the OP. Regardless of whatever else it contains, the inventory management system saves hours of fiddling around with equipment.
I have NEVER...EVER...played a game where that hasn't happened the first time I come across aliens armed with blaster bombs. This is one of those games that makes you paranoid as all hell...once you start seeing nothing but snakemen and chrysalids you know that it's time to start saving your game before, during , and after every single mission.
I'm on Win7 Enterprise (32Bits) and it's working like a charm.
Win7 Home Premium and runs well using on Steam, looks like it has DOSBox integrated.
UPDATE to my losing battle against the sectoids: I finished my first month, and even though I had finished 3 missions, I bailed from a Terror Mission at Vancouver and shot down small UFOs at the ocean (Oh, I placed my base at the center of Europe) and my report said that Council members were happy, only RUSSIA was particularly happy with my actions and the rest of the countries were displeased with my actions, could that be a result of my failed terror mission?
So while I regroup my soldiers, continue researching lasers, small UFOs are detected, my interceptors make them crash at the ocean... LARGE SHIP DETECTED. BASE INVADED.
I only had 3 guys to defend my base, so I reloaded.
And still, I'm starting to fall in love with this game.
First off, you can fire soldiers with crappy stats by going to the 'sell/sack' tab. You can tell the game was made in the UK; 'fired' is used mainly in NA. In the UK 'getting sacked' is more common and has the same meaning.
Second, all of what you're building is a good idea but I'd also throw in extra living quarters so that you can hire more scientists right away. The faster you get laser weapons the better and to do that you need lots of dedicated research.
Also, don't ever bother equipping laser pistols. It isn't that they're bad, it's that laser rifles are fan-freaking-tastic by comparison. That being said, laser pistols sell for a pretty good chunk of change and they're not expensive to make. They've also got a pretty fast build time and require no extra bits to make. Pretty good way to make extra money imo.
And for hiring soldiers, make sure to look for guys with high accuracy, bravery, whatever controls time units (stamina?), and speed. Strength is pretty easy to build (just load someone up and have them walk around), bravery will help them keep from panicking in the early game, lots of time units will let you move and reserve TU for reacting to aliens, and speed will let your troops either react quickly to incoming fire or let them get off snap shots the moment enemies get in LoS (even if it's the alien turn).
For crappy soldiers, sometimes it's not a bad idea to let them go solo scout things until they die instead of sacking them. I've kept more than one scout around for ages and it's always worth it; by the time they die, they can scout a bunch of aliens and help keep your forces from suffering rage-inducing failures when grenades get lobbed a city block into the crowd of troops you just unloaded from the ship.
I've had no issues with the steam version resetting the difficulty level, but I've only ever set the difficulty on average. The turn 20 alien x-ray vision effect does still apply, though.
Good notes on hiring policies, btw. One trick you can do to train up firing accuracy is to use a cattle prod/stun bomb to disable an alien and then have someone walk over and pick up all of the dropped equipment. After the sucker regains consciousness just gun it down using regular pistols...since it isn't gonna be able to pick up its dropped stuff. Obviously this isn't going to work on reavers and crysalids. Mutons are an excellent choice - they take next to no damage from pistols so you can just stand around and shoot the bejeezus out of one to gain some stats on your rookie soldiers.
As for suicide scouts...well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's fine for the early game but you really want to quickly get rid of those crappy cowards if at all possible. I've had mixed results, at the best they just get outright killed and nothing of major value is lost. At the worst, they get mind controlled and start taking pot shots at my other soldiers OR get zombified and run off to attack my squad or civvies to make MORE zombies. Of those 2, the zombie situation is far, far worse.
They're not Illegal Alien Combatants and they have the right to not get cattle-prodded cruelly and experimented upon.
It's not that I think we should be adverse to answering questions, it's just that there's a huge wealth of info about the game in there that everyone starting out should poke through a bit.
Personally, I think laser pistols can be useful, especially when it comes to helping noob soldiers skill up. You can actually improve things like reaction time and accuracy by shooting a pistol with autoshot. Someone mentioned stunning an enemy and taking all his stuff. Set him free and let the noobs use him for target practice with pistols and they can skill up much faster than in normal combat.
[strike]Another good tip for improving strength and TU's is to have your troops run wind sprints in a safe area. If you're waiting for that last alien to pop out of a downed ufo, move those weaker troops behind your skyranger and have them run back and forth while carrying a heavy item.[/strike]
There are ways to improve bravery, but during the early parts of the game they're really not an option so you're better off firing them or using them for cannon fodder.
Edit: After reading the ufopedia I learned that strength and TU's are awarded for doing primary actions, not running around. Sorry!
Yeah, if he's wounded, you'll want to pull him off the Skyranger's crew (which the game may actually do automatically for you; I don't remember). You do it by just going into the Skyranger's screen and moving him from "on-board" to "not" on the crew button. He'll then be stuck in base until he gets better, at which point you can reassign him to the Skyranger.
Yes, you'll want to recruit new soldiers. It'll take them several days to get to your base, and they aren't free, so plan accordingly.
Some people are saying to skip fielding laser pistols entirely; you can do this, certainly, but like I said I think laser pistols make excellent sidearms for your heavy-weapons types, who often cannot spare the extra weight to carry the laser rifle along with the extra ammo they need to keep their main weapon working. Plus, the laser pistol is quicker-firing, meaning that until you get the heavy weapons guys into place, they can move farther and still retain enough TUs to get in some reaction shots.
Building and selling laser pistols is also a good way to make some spare change in the beginning of the game.
Manufacturing and research are manpower-intensive industries, and you'll need additional staffing to keep them running (and, therefore, living quarters).
The next thing to look into is setting up additional "listening and interception posts" - bases away from your main location with the best radar facilities you can manage and an interceptor to shoot down what they find. This will expand your global coverage and make more of the funding nations happy with you. You'll probably want a small defense force of operatives stationed there, as well - the initial base's Skyranger can handle the actual ground duties for a bit, but eventually you'll want the other bases to have that capability, as well.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Yes, all my heavy weapons guys have laser pistol sidearms throughout the game. Small, inexpensive, ammo-free, and work great when HE or plasma does not. I also tend to specialize my guys based on their stats as snipers, scouts, medics, grenadiers, and heavy weapons guys. Add an acronym to their name, like "Joe Smith [HW]" to remember their job on the field.
Regarding base building: I personally tend to centralize everything. It's cheaper to have one base dedicated to research, one dedicated to production, etc. than to try and have every base do a little of each and then defend them all with a standing army. Your main base should probably do a little of everything (and be your main Skyranger base, at least at the start) since you most likely already have those facilities. It's rough if you lose your production base or something, but you can definitely recover quickly.
You are only penalized for not visiting terror missions, AFAIK. Even then, you can visit a terror mission and immediately leave for much less of a penalty. Failing to visit a terror mission though is baaaad for your reputation (income) with that country.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Like, I dunno. ESC for options on the geoscape screen. Or the function keys for the functions; enter for 'end turn', and esc for 'lets get out of here'.
It may turn into a deal-breaker. I like my keyboard. I dislike having to rely solely on my mouse.
In more general questions, there's a _patched version of the exe in my steam folder; is there any way to tell which version it's running? Is there any way to change the resolution?