Author Topic: New to XCOM and want some advice  (Read 18397 times)

Offline ivandogovich

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #30 on: February 09, 2016, 10:38:31 pm »
On this last Terror mission, you have a Snakeman Terror mission with their Terror Units, the dreaded Chryssalids.   Chryssalids have a ton of energy and move very far across the map to run up and hit you with their melee attack.  It it almost always fatal and as you have noticed produces a Zombie unit when your soldier (or civilian) dies.  The true horror is that each of these Zombies are incubating another Chryssalid within them.  Upon the zombie's death a new Chryssalid pops out to continue perpetrating their horrors.

Ok.  Snakeman Terror Mission Tactics.

- Abort immediately upon spotting Chryssalids in the greeting party.  (Not optimal, but may be much better than a squad wipe).
- Want to stick it out?  Easy Mode: Flying Suits.   This early in the game, I'm sure you don't have they as they are the most advanced armor, but once you can fly, the Chryssalids are harmless.
- Right.  Really want to fight??  Here are some tips.
-- Maintain clear lines of fire.  Your laser rifles will kill them but it will take multiple hits to wear down their high health. 
-- Try to destroy them before they can get to your troops.  Accurate laser fire here.  HE packs can wear them down, strong soldier can toss them ( which also works really well on disks, btw).
-- Only kill a zombie when you have enough fire power to deal with the Chryssalid it will spawn.  Never with your last soldier on a turn. ;)  Zombies are fairly slow so you can probably keep away from them. 

These missions are not for the faint of heart, so early game, I really have no shame doing touch and goes when these foes appear.

Hope this helps. :)

Offline hellrazor

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #31 on: February 09, 2016, 11:06:55 pm »
I am actually wondering how people will deal with the Chryssalid Spitters in my Mod.
The ranged zombification attack is damn powerful :D

Offline Zyzyfer

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #32 on: February 10, 2016, 03:55:43 am »
@ gunnar123abc...

I usually sell all the human rifles and order Heavy cannon ASAP (use HC-AP rounds), for my snipers (early game they will be doing most of the killing). I keep pistols for scouts as pistol has much quicker snap shot for reaction fire training & also a much quicker aim shot (but you wont be doing much aiming with it, it's mainly for the snap shot).
The difference in damage of the pistol & rifle is 4 points in favour of the latter, but this small deficit in damage is negated by the fact you be having more shots with pistol and better chance of more reaction fire.

For cyberdiscs even HC-AP is relatively useless (but if u try to take them on with standard human rifles then LOL SUICIDE!!!  :P). Instead use Grenadier with HE pack and Heavy gunner with Grenade Launcher with Large HE rockets.
Once you acquire the small launcher use stun bomb for cyberdiscs if you don't want them to explode (however sometimes you want them to explode so this is situational). As said already cyberdiscs cannot be captured- you need to interrogate the alien medic to find more info.

My early squad of 14 usually includes x6 scouts (wielding standard pistols and the usual utility setup I mentioned in my earlier post), 1-2 Grenade Launchers with HE large rockets, x1 Grenadier with HE pack (don't bother with human grenades thy are weak, while alien grenades should become standard issue to all troops as game progresses), the rest of the squad are snipers with HC-AP rounds.  Lastly we have X1 Ammo mule (a really strong guy), who carries extra HE large rockets + HE packs.

As game progresses & soldiers acquire great strength the ammo mule is phased out in to the new Grenadier & the old grenadier become sniper as he will probably have most of the kills and thus improve his firing accuracy at greater pace than your snipers- in my current campaign it about 7 month my grenadier went from about 35 FA & now approaching 100.

As game progress I prioritise laser rifles over  plasma rifle for scouts (again due to the quick snap shot of the laser rifle over the plasma rifle). Heavy Plasma is ultimate weapon for snipers. So with that said I tend to totally skip over the plasma pistol/rifle.

As for the chryssalids they can be a nightmare. HE packs/HE large rockets work well. HC-AP works too (but not as well), forget about using standard human rifles/pistols. Later x2 shots of Laser Rifle usually does the job.
Chryssalids also have a bad habit of expending their energy so the more prolonged the battle the easier the fight against them becomes as their maximum travel distance is reduces greatly in prolonged battles...
Make sure you use plenty of smoke cover, if the chyss can't see your trooper, chances are very good it wont make a straight up rush at that poor rookie. With that said, once you have flying suits they are almost no threat. And YES you can capture them, I prefer to do it with stun bomb/small launcher (shoot them with a hit of laser first then use stun bomb- as they can usually take a single stun bomb alone).

I am actually wondering how people will deal with the Chryssalid Spitters in my Mod.
The ranged zombification attack is damn powerful :D
Can they spit upwards  :P ::) :o
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 03:57:55 am by Zyzyfer »

Offline hellrazor

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #33 on: February 10, 2016, 02:08:27 pm »
Can they spit upwards  :P ::) :o

Of course they can, they now have also a ranged attack, more health and 70 armor (in all direction).

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #34 on: February 10, 2016, 05:28:16 pm »
I just wanted to say reading your thread is awesome. Virtually all people here are veterans, so it's really exciting to meet someone with a fresh approach.

Despite the losses you seem to be doing pretty good, considering your lack of experience. I don't have the time today to answer your specific questions, but keep going! :)

Offline Dioxine

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #35 on: February 11, 2016, 02:02:34 pm »
Chryssalid tactics... yeah...

1. Careful with the smoke. You need to see them coming. Use smoke against Snakemen.
2. Need to scout actively. A Chryssalid has enough TUs to get you from past your maximum vision range (it takes 80 TUs to move for 20 tiles, and Chryssalids have over 110 TUs)
3. Never trust a thrown explosive to finish the Chryssalid off, unless as last resort. Try to kill them in your own turn with direct fire.
4. Never use thrown explosives against zombies, as they will spawn 'ready for action' Chryssalids who will have their entire turn to mate with your soldiers.
5. For the same reason, it is optimal to kill zombies with Reaction fire, as the emerging Chryssalid will have 0 TUs and can be dealt with in your next turn.
6. If you're sure a Chryssalid is going to get you, arm a High Explosive. When he gets you, it will explode, hopefully taking the Chryssalid and Zombie with you, or at least severely weakening them. If the Zombie dies that way, the emerging Chryssalid will have no TUs that turn as well.
7. Zombies are slow, hence 5) is not that hard to do. They won't charge you from more than about 10 tiles afar, so that distance is pretty safe.

Offline Zyzyfer

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #36 on: February 12, 2016, 03:41:23 am »
Chryssalid tactics... yeah...

1. Careful with the smoke. You need to see them coming. Use smoke against Snakemen.
2. Need to scout actively. A Chryssalid has enough TUs to get you from past your maximum vision range (it takes 80 TUs to move for 20 tiles, and Chryssalids have over 110 TUs)
3. Never trust a thrown explosive to finish the Chryssalid off, unless as last resort. Try to kill them in your own turn with direct fire.
4. Never use thrown explosives against zombies, as they will spawn 'ready for action' Chryssalids who will have their entire turn to mate with your soldiers.
5. For the same reason, it is optimal to kill zombies with Reaction fire, as the emerging Chryssalid will have 0 TUs and can be dealt with in your next turn.
6. If you're sure a Chryssalid is going to get you, arm a High Explosive. When he gets you, it will explode, hopefully taking the Chryssalid and Zombie with you, or at least severely weakening them. If the Zombie dies that way, the emerging Chryssalid will have no TUs that turn as well.
7. Zombies are slow, hence 5) is not that hard to do. They won't charge you from more than about 10 tiles afar, so that distance is pretty safe.
Good advice particularly on the zombies make perfect reaction practice.

With the smoke I say be wasteful with it. I tend to use it in following way. Lets say Scout moves 76 TUs (out of 80), anything spotted is killed by sniper/heavies. Scout drops smoke grenade (costing 4TUs); ends turn on 0TUs. The other 5 scouts (i tend to work with 6 dedicated scouts in 14 men team), do same in opposite directions  away from skyranger. This way you're covering a hellova lot more ground. Also at 4TUs remaining there is no point being able to see the Chryssalid (during alien turn), as you wouldn't be able to do much about it anyways.

However its safe to assume that because the scout hasn't spotted anything (aliens), will be at-least 20 squares away (beyond visual range). At that distance the chryssalid coming out of visual range has a good change to totally ignore your scout.
In fact this is what happens 99.9% of times the chryssalid either goes for a target it can see ie. civilians, or runs right pasts the scout totally missing scout (yeah you would think the AI will see smoke and say to itself OH LOOK THERES SMOKE I will blind fire into smoke/run right in (Chryssalid), because chances are there will be Xcom operative in there somewhere... BUT No, the AI is too retarded to do this.

Next turn your scout moves 3-4 squares forward suddenly finding himself at edge of smoke cloud and suddenly he can see again of course once again he moves 76 TUs anything spotted is killed by team...drops smoke bombs (rinse repeat).

The other tactic I use is x2 scouts working as team (still working under sniper support). One scout remains stationary while the other moves forward but not too far drops smoke. The scouts leapfrog each other with one always being stationary for a turn for max reaction. Problem with this method is much less covered ground/turn & you need experienced-high reaction stat/high TUs scouts.
In this scenario the smoke ends up between the rear scout and alien with the front scout in the middle covered by smoke. Without the smoke the Alien kills the front scout and the rear scout doesn't react because to him alien still not within visual range. With smoke Aliens needs to move much closer and the rear scout often fires through smoke if the alien gets too close.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2016, 03:49:40 am by Zyzyfer »

Offline dashyr

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #37 on: March 03, 2016, 12:45:30 am »
First thing that will piss you off.... Cyberdiscs.

They are very armored. And you got a decent risk of going against some during your first terror mission. Make sure to buy some High-Explosive as a direct hit kills them one shot. Possibly heavy rockets but i didnt tried.

Offline Phoenix7786

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #38 on: March 03, 2016, 07:37:46 am »
Congratulations on enjoying the game so much! Reading your post has been sooooooo nostalgic for when I first played. Good starter mods for players that I would recommend are the shotgun mod, sniper rifle mod, and Retaliator Interceptor mod.

One thing I overlooked my first run were proximity grenades. Those things work great to cover your soldiers or even just to set a booby-trap for an alien to wander into. Of course, on a terror site, civilians might haplessly wander into them too so do be careful. Having a rocketeer or two can help immensely in the early game. Are you making sure to use a tank or two (the things called HWP's)? Those are decent enough enforcers who can take a shot or two. I like to use them as scouts that won't make you scream in rage when they die because their stats are fixed. Also do remember it is *VITAL* to use electro-flares if you absolutely must do a mission at night.

Offline Cristao

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Re: New to XCOM and want some advice
« Reply #39 on: May 24, 2016, 03:53:23 pm »
I will be honest. Reading gunnar's post brought some smiles to my face. It was almost nostalgic remembering how it was when I first played. I started playing because I saw a uni mate playing it almost 16 years ago and rediscover OpenXcom last year?

However one tip I will offer is to watch LPs. I watched Meridian's and Ivan's LPs. They offer good tips (e.g. I hardly ever used snipers or smoke grenades - everyone was a rusher/skirmisher. It worked for me until psionics came into it.)