OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Released Mods => The X-Com Files => Topic started by: betatester on October 19, 2019, 12:15:46 pm
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it's only my second game, and I have early restarted the first one so I'm very very newbie on this mod.
All I have read about this mod is that you can take some time to grow and the first game was ok (even if I restarted on mission 3 after beginner mistakes) but on my second game after a classic crop circle mission, the second event was a small ufo landing, taking down rowellitos with magnum bullets was possible but 6 vs 2 newbie agents on a night mission .... wtf !!!! (luckily I had plenty of ammo in the car)
I thought it was just bad luck and that the next mission will be easier but no another ufo lands and my mudranger team I have bought just in case this thing happens again is still waiting gear delivery. Yes agent 5 you will go on mission with a knife, please make you bravery check !!!! Oh and other bad news mt first research medicine is not even ready yet so don't get hurt. Also spare your ammo because delivery is on the way...
Do I need to restart a game ?
Oh and just in case you wonder I'm one level below veteran... and it's January 7th
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Early UFO landings are just aliens doing research and can be totally ignored if they are too difficult. In my current game it has been 14 months and I haven't fought any aliens at all. You have to pick and choose your battles.
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Do I need to restart a game ?
No, early game UFO encounters are supposed to happen (can't remember, these mgiht even be hardcoded), but you usually only get two or three, and it's quite easy to miss them entirely since early game transportation is quite slow.
As for using knifes, I've found them actually to be more useful than guns, provided you can catch the aliens (is it always sectoids?) unaware. They are quite deadly from a range, but easy prey when you manage to get into CQC.
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Well let me tell you honestly, if your attitude is "must complete every mission", then you won't get far... Here, or in pretty much any bigger X-Com mod.
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Btw when you have some solid equipment like some assault riffles and kevlar vests at least, pre-invasion UFO is VERY VERY valuable target, becouse of alien alloys. Once you get that, heavy tritanium armor allows you to finish every mission against humans quite easily. + if you get alien alloys welder, you can research personal armour as well, very valuable at Aliens missions. And i think that welder artefact is common at science ships, common pre-invasion ship which is crewed by many medics and less soldiers = perfect target.
Also dunno if its common, but at my Veteran playthrough first encountered alliens were Floaters, and with theirs AntiGrav modules you can get Hovertanks, which is practically invulnarable at humans missions. Also its pretty decent tank against plasma weaponry as well. I think this should be change, it makes game very easy. Sectoid is perfectly fine first alien enemy imho.
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Solarius even if I abandon some missions sometimes I really like to finish missions.
And I was just surprised to have ufo landing mission on a mod that was described as slow paced. I opted for caliber 45 because on my previous run the glock seems too light again gorillas (4 gorillas at least so I gave up the mission) (and because my first reflex was too recruit 10 scientists I gave up the game too when I realized there's no employment for them I gave up my first run too)
And on my first run I never see an ufo on several months and on my second run 2 at 7th of January so I wonder if I was very unlucky (if I mess) or very lucky (if I win) and wondered if the general invasion can happen so early
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Solarius even if I abandon some missions sometimes I really like to finish missions.
And I was just surprised to have ufo landing mission on a mod that was described as slow paced. I opted for caliber 45 because on my previous run the glock seems too light again gorillas (4 gorillas at least so I gave up the mission) (and because my first reflex was too recruit 10 scientists I gave up the game too when I realized there's no employment for them I gave up my first run too)
And on my first run I never see an ufo on several months and on my second run 2 at 7th of January so I wonder if I was very unlucky (if I mess) or very lucky (if I win) and wondered if the general invasion can happen so early
So? The mod is fairly slow paced, at least early on. What would contradict this?
It's hard to catch a UFO with a goddamn Volkswagen Transporter anyway, but if you really try hard and are lucky enough, who would I be to stop you? But it doesn't mean you are "meant" to do this mission. It's a player's choice.
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The main invasion won't start until a specific date (mentioned in your archives from the start, IIRC?) but the aliens have been peeking around for a very long time. We have abduction stories for a reason!
One of my favourite missions really early on though, was taking a Dragonfly out to raid a landed UFO (IIRC it was a two-level abductor). I did a smoke-grenade-heavy smash and grab, and managed to abduct a live Floater who spawned too close to my LZ. Unfortunately I didn't have Alien Containment yet, so the effort was wasted. But it was still a fun challenge and a very nonstandard mission by XCOM standards.
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Yeah, as Solarius said, you are not "meant" to complete early UFO landing missions.
Hell, you aren't really "meant" to be able to get to them in time until you get the private car. It's not very probably for one to land in time-range of pubilc cars, and even less so in range of public vans.
Though no one but statistics and an overwhelming difference in firepower is going to actually stop you from completing one such mission, you can consider it a moderately-manageable victory to kill an ayylmao, grab it and its equipment and GTFO with the loot. It's been a while since I've played, but I seem to recall something with the early alien autopsy allowing you an early unlock of a facility that adds 5 more lab slots to your base, doubling your research speed earlier than you would do otherwise.
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there´s other ways to get the research facility. easier ones.
its possible to win a ufo mission with 4 guys in a van. not any ufo mission, but some. that being said, its possible to win the lottery too. chances are comparable ;)
the big bonus you get is a lot of alien tech you can't research til a few years later. and alien alloys...
its basically like chess. except all you got is 4 pawns. and every time you move or even sneeze someone is gonna get shot by plasma. also the board is on fire, but the aliens don't care.
and your guys might not put up with the stress and kill each other. oh and did i mention plasma shots... >_>
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UFOs probably appeared but you did not detect them in your first game. You need a lot of luck to detect UFO early on, even more luck to get to it in time, and even more luck to successfully finish the mission.
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Yeah, as Solarius said, you are not "meant" to complete early UFO landing missions.
Hell, you aren't really "meant" to be able to get to them in time until you get the private car. It's not very probably for one to land in time-range of pubilc cars, and even less so in range of public vans.
Though no one but statistics and an overwhelming difference in firepower is going to actually stop you from completing one such mission, you can consider it a moderately-manageable victory to kill an ayylmao, grab it and its equipment and GTFO with the loot. It's been a while since I've played, but I seem to recall something with the early alien autopsy allowing you an early unlock of a facility that adds 5 more lab slots to your base, doubling your research speed earlier than you would do otherwise.
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2F7zliaSiCjWREhN1iqC%2Fgiphy.gif&f=1&nofb=1)
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Early game UFOs are very very hard to accomplish - like others have said, you can ignore them even if they land in range of the car.
Mister is 100% correct, the only 'objective' you should have for the first ufos is to get a single corpse and drag it home. I have a save with a landed large scout I'm seeing if I can finish with a normal car and starting weapons and I still haven't been successful even knowing their starting positions due to the discrepancies in firepower, enemy numbers, starting stats, and readiness. It's a fun side challenge, but not one I would even consider in a real game.
Think of it as a little tutorial on knowing when to leave - like how the Firaxcom tutorials kill half your team by design.
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I got lucky rng to be able to test this in my first 1.0 game.
12 Feb 1997 - Landed Ufo-1, a small ufo landed in Northern Scotland, my base is at Bulgarian/Romanian coast.
I had gotten 2x AK-47 with 4 clips from a previous raid (1-3 missions before this one). So I thought why not try.
Turns out that "the very best there is" according to Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown can work also on Sectoids with flickering shields. You need 2 crits at a minimum, usually 3 hits.
The hardest thing is not to get one-shot with return fire. Not to mention the dire straits trying to recover that loot since they might stick closer to the ufo/friends than you'd like.
You also need blessed rng in maps. Plains day map would be impossible for ambushing. I got a evening cityscape which allowed hiding inside buildings/popping in and out.
My haul was 2x Plasma Rifle, 3x clips, 1x Mind Probe, 1 Alien Grenade, 2x Sectoid corpses.
Now I'm wondering whether I ruined the learning/test campaign :D Perhaps I should at least test which if any things those single items actually give or am I still heavily locked out by dependencies. Any advice on which way to proceed to test how fast I could utilize any of them?
Here's the save if you want to bash your head against the same wall (difficulty 3):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ifjvwoXJmn4g-hky9VjrFP1OJWo9hHxl
(https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PEA0dNxSRmIvwV789MxBTkVp0wNwPz7O - ready to evac)
I think it would've been wise to settle for just one corpse. Morale/readiness spiral is crazy, which made the last challenge about having both of your troops TUs to run for the exit on the same turn. That took several turns, clearly the hardest hurdle. Evac at 1 corpse and if it hadn't drop almost right next to the ufo (very far) would've been much easier.
Technically doable, but realistically not without forcing near ideal conditions.
For early heroics the storyline of hammer vs. armored car is a more appealing (and repeatable btw campaigns) story of growth.
edit: Took another pass, it's much easier with melee cqb. 4 S killed. 2 with Axe, 2 with AK. Loot 1 ps, 3 nav, 39 aa, 50 e-115, 4x pl rifle, 8x clip, 1 alien gr, 1 mindprobe, 1 multitool. 2.06M worth/201 points.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=19I7qTpKy2sQYHrNUAMFHesicXIRkT_Ex
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Well, I gotta give you props for pulling that off if nothing else! I don't think you'll be able to use the plasma weapons for a long time, so you can either hold onto them or sell them off for a quick cash injection. Alternately sell off all but one. By the time you're able to use them you should have plenty more.
The UFO components, alloys, etc. will all be well worth hanging onto though. You should be able to make use of the alloys relatively soon to make tritanium armour (which is great against 99% of ballistic/man-made weapons) or tritanium ammo (which is basically standard ammo but a little stronger). The multitool is probably the nicest find there though as it's fairly important in the research path.
You can hit Q on the geoscape to bring up a tech tree viewer with a search function - up to you if you want to use it or not. It can be quite spoiler-y in some respects.
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Ok, here's another scenario exactly a week later (19 Feb) in the same campaign, but with the kind of equipment Starving Poet is describing. 2 scrubs, 2x small shotty, 1x colt, 1x glock.
They face 13 sectoids of a Lab Ship in the evening. Third has plasma rifles, third alien laser, one toxigun, two canisters, small launchers.
I was baited by the game to see if it was possible. You start with one of them at point blank range. Shotgun kill or return fire lased.
To my surprise it felt much easier than the previous large scout. I had zero panic cycles against these 13 when those 4 previously kept one of my guys "stunlocked" turn after turn. It's incredible, one of these guys have 10 bravery and another 40! Is one sectoid with a mind probe really harder than these several navigators, medics, soldiers, engineer and a leader?
Since I wanted to see whether the initial equipment challenge is possible instead of whether it's reasonable I had a few save/reloads. Mostly to figure out the inital standoff with a bad loadout.
Colt/glock duels outside vs. laser/plasma rifles was a bit tougher than inside with combat knife/shotty. Hardest part was when one stood in the elevator above, because it needed to get shotgunned down with one shot or you get headshotted.
Try if you like a herculean challenge. 4.4M loot including 1 embryo, 119 alloys, 100 e-115.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dunc3i5rWeO5cN5siOYgv5qJfF95txNR (1st turn)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NTvbsiAhyy7Z80vGz_keJuCrzQ7GgL4D (last)
(if you find the initial challenge rough, try crouching - movement to draw reactions seems to be powerful when you can't guarantee a kill, after these two I also sense that evening might work well for against sectoids in denying their long range advantage)
Ty for the Q tip, I was just using middle mouse. I've played X-piratez before and I'm liking this compared to some of its challenges (I don't like ratman rodeo / pogrom at night, or later on mansion type of missions that last for hours).
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Are you sure about that enemy weaponry? Lab ship is ussualy very easy becouse its mostly crewed by medics with small launchers loaded by stun bombs. So ussualy all your crew is knocked out during mission, but you have to keep at least one guy awake at time :). Stunned guys wake up after 5-10 turns. But panics is weird... there should be leader at lab ship, and sectoid leader can give you quite a hell of psi attacks.
Scout ships are crewed mostly by soldeirs, thats why it is much tougher. They use plasma guns mostly... far more deadly than any other guns aliens use.
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Are you sure about that enemy weaponry?
Of course, that latter link is a save which wins the mission after you put 2x pistol snaps into the last sectoid.
There were 4x Plasma Rifle, 2x Alien Laser Rifle, 2x Canister Gun, 2x Small Launcher, 1x Plasma Pistol, 1x Toxigun, 1x Plasma Subrifle.
3x Medic, 2x Navigator, 1x Engineer, 1x Leader, rest Soldiers.
I think everyone outside the ufo was a soldier with either plasma rifle or laser rifle. So basically this mission had all the same guys from the previous one plus a whole lot more. The only difference being lack of mind probe. Still I'm a bit mystified how sole navigator with one seemed to outperform 2x navigators, leader etc. It doesn't seem possible that I could've broken line of sight after each turn, especially outside.
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Glad it worked - definitely a challenge. If you can get in close range to the sectoids they do go down easily - but that sectoid leader in the lab ship is totally a wild card. He can camp and PSI attack you until suffer from a panic spiral or just be a chump and pretend he's a soldier.
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Haha, just managed to catch UFO at my new playthrough...at day 8 :D. Try to beat that lol :D. Escaped with 1 alive sectan..died ofc becouse no alien prison. Only tasers works so early :).
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colt 45 works well too. Stun rods don't keep them asleep until the end of the mission (at least with my rookies on 7th January). And yes even at level 2 difficulty the only solution was to rush to close combat stun them then kill them or to kill them straight with colt 45. You can put one of your rookie next to the sectoid and shoot with the other to impede his reaction fire with a strength test. Taking out 6 sectoids with 2 rookies at night (and without flashlights equipped in the first rounds because I didn't know how they work; luckily they were in the car) luckily (or not) the UFO was just next the car. It was painful to chase the 2 outside.
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colt 45 works well too. Stun rods don't keep them asleep until the end of the mission (at least with my rookies on 7th January). And yes even at level 2 difficulty the only solution was to rush to close combat stun them then kill them or to kill them straight with colt 45. You can put one of your rookie next to the sectoid and shoot with the other to impede his reaction fire with a strength test. Taking out 6 sectoids with 2 rookies at night (and without flashlights equipped in the first rounds because I didn't know how they work; luckily they were in the car) luckily (or not) the UFO was just next the car. It was painful to chase the 2 outside.
Taser kept him asleep for 2 turns lol.... :D luckily building was close enough to car. Taking out 6 aliens at night...wow, i had trouble to finish Downed UFO at night, like 8 aliens and 15 allies. You must be very patient :D.
I hoped i made some record, but you beat me by day :(.
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I got extremely lucky with one of those in my new game.
Two almost-rookies with starting equipment. I intended to just grab one sectoid corpse and his stuff but I just couldn't do the pickup safely without killing most other enemies too and then I just killed them all in the end :P
The car was parked just in front of a large scout and all but one sectoid spawned either inside or behind the ship. So I had effective cover right from the start. My dudes seemed quite strong against psi, too. Only a single panic attack. Aliens were armed with mostly canister guns and plasma rifles. Most importantly, they had no pistols, so I didn't get much reaction fire. That means I could weaken them (somewhat) safely with snap pistol shots and retreat back to cover, then rush in with shotguns the next round (melee skill was too low). I lost a a guy near the end, when a point blank shotgun blast didn't kill.
That mission made me filthy rich (well, about 1.5 million was a lot of money then). Most importantly, lots of alloys, which I will soon be able to research.
I received a downed UFO mission mission later on and it was much harder even though on paper it should have been far easier.
Just 3 or 4 living enemies, lots of government soldiers fighting on my side and my two trained agents armed with assault rifles this time (unfortunately still no grenades). Sounds good? But it was a nightmare.
The allied soldiers took out an enemy despite their ineptitude, but what they mostly did was to draw lots and lots of enemy fire. This resulted in the map being covered in smoke, which didn't hamper the sectoids at all but it totally ruined my plan of sniping from a safe distance, while the grunts take the heat. So I had to get close, which I wasn't equipped for.
Compared to pistols, rifle snap shots are inaccurate and most importantly in this case, they cost more TUs. The alien's reaction fire was triggered and I had a very bad day.
So, a valuable lesson was learned:
In early missions against sectoids bring pistols, preferably colts, even if you have 'better' equipment available. Shotguns are also useful, but only if you can be assured, that they won't be able to fire back (take out shields first).