Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: Unique Tactics

« on: September 26, 2024, 05:12:23 am »

Which Sectopods do people choose if any? I have reached the point of making some but am unsure which to pick. I think I'd want to go with laser due to quicker attacks over Plasma and not needing ammo like the Gauss / Mass Driver / Minigun, even though putting a minigun on a Sectopod is a fun way to insult the aliens
Ah thanks for clearing that up, I knew they somehow had to be coded for it due to how often it happened but didn't know there was an attraction attribute

So I'm not claiming it's the prime pick but I love the sectopod minigun, it can fire 72 35 damage kinetic shots
It's what I use because it very much humors me

Also weirdly I kind of prefer the Lazer tank over the hover tank because a statted out AI can get 3 100% hit chance snap shots (base aim is higher) and it sucks letting that go 

2

The X-Com Files / I Consider this to be Long War

« on: September 25, 2024, 04:44:27 pm »

I have a few friends to play x com and we chat and I bring up x-com files time to time,

And personally I consider x-com files to be the long war equivalent for UFO defense 1994 (I'm sure alot of people know of xcom1-2 long war mod)

I understand there's a lot of memes and references, incerts from  fans and x-com apocalypse references (even saw a dossier from x-com bureau) but I really feel like in general it's very true in spirit to the main game.

As it's obviously a mod but I consider it an extension akin to the long wars. And I am curious on other people's thoughts on this

3

The X-Com Files / Re: Best usage for early alien alloys?

« on: September 24, 2024, 02:55:22 am »

I was lucky this run and got flying alien drones from wizkids and farmed MIB farmer mission and zerged a Lazer tank and laughed at everyone as they shot my tank with generic guns.

But I prefer TRITANIUM VESTs over personal armor, especially if you got more mannors and syndicate to clean up.

Also titanium vest with shield on a good str and melee unit is a strong early knock out unit.

I overall skip personal armor and wait till cyber armor
 

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The X-Com Files / Re: Unique Tactics

« on: September 16, 2024, 04:36:09 pm »

- Crazy Hassan reinforced weapon boxes for supplying machine guns before the licence
- having a low psi unarmed unit to act as a psi attack decoy for enemies
- Fire cover, Dogs barking to stop advancing unit, possibly in the fire and reaction fire

Never thought about having a lil low psi goober as bait that's not a bad idea, and rushing crazy Hassan for lmgs is nice too,

5

The X-Com Files / Unique Tactics

« on: September 16, 2024, 08:46:37 am »

Something that makes this my favorite mod and in general favorite x-com is the freedom and diversity of strategy you can use to accomplish your goals.

And I Wana hear people's entertaining meme strategy's for the game

Some of mine are
1. Pepper spray, it's good in general but knock out nades take awhile to make or I won't have them yet, so sneaking behind then pepper spraying sectiods and Floaters in the back of the head is just very humorous to me. It's very very effective on cultists

2. Dogs and grenades, make them scout with primed nades, with good movement and reactions you can have them rush down dangerous targets and knockout grenades like an RC car strapped with C4, Smokes also work, or high exe if you feeling cruel and wasteful lol

3. Markers and zombies at night runs. For memes ill throw a bunch of like 2-3 turn tnt or grenades at a marker at night , turn on the light on the marker and if the maps open enough all the zombies will rush down the marker then if you time it right, boom lol

6

The X-Com Files / X-com Crafts

« on: September 15, 2024, 02:25:39 pm »

Can someone who played x-com files 2 much can name all the crafts I haven't gotten late late game and the wiki isn't great for finding that

TRANSPORT, Car, (both mudrangers lol), van, Private car, helicopter, humve, dragonfly, rover, skyraider, skyranger, sky Marshall, Hawkeye, darkstar, Kitsune, lighting Iron fist, avenger,

FIGHTER, little bird, arrow, mig, intercepter, raven, sentinel, firestorm

That's all I know also SKYRAIDER is my favorite

7

The X-Com Files / Re: Any downsides to requesting Veteran agents? Also 1 handed gun + shield choice

« on: September 11, 2024, 12:50:37 pm »

Black ops pistol and if you Wana spice it up a sawed off DB in the quick draw,

I think alot of people use shields on your grunts but I really think they are for your mid tier+ units,

They need the Str for the shield melee damage
They need HP to effectively tank a high roll shot
They need good stamina and time units for mobility

But you still want your stated out elites useing Auto-Sniper and HMG ( what have you) but one you get material Arts training and Bio Enhancement, early, especially Trit shields are crazy strong *54* front armor
I've noticed they have excellent melee Dodge but only from the front.

For example in the syndicate underground lab mission I've completed it 2ice with only really using trit shields ( was even able to take down blood hounds and it's good to farm scientists) they thrive in choke points and are great for capturing, but fall short in maps that lack cover and are weak vs explosives, very high damage, and flanking,

you shouldn't be aggressively putting them in danger just to tank shots, but they do fantastic overwatch bashing people around corners and have a much better chance in melee if it's from the front, and are nearly immune from wounds from basic small arms from front

If your lacking str stats you can use pepper spray for capturing it's actually really good for that. It also does TU damage so it helps prevents overwatch return fire, it's how I captured sectiods prior to knock out nades

Also it's just fun to diversify your gameplay

8

The X-Com Files / Re: Iron Man Tips for Mid+ game

« on: September 04, 2024, 06:39:41 pm »

Early invasion you can actually avoid deaths quite easily. Personal armor protects veteran soldiers from oneshots until aliens start fielding heavy/precision/sniper plasmas en masse. Tanks are basically invincible during these early missions as well. Dogs are easier to use for breaching because the initial map sweep is much simpler. Sectoids can't see through smoke as well.

It's the late invasion where deaths become a given. Large ships, terror sites, MiB bases, and all story missions leading to cydonia feature heavy sectopod/turret/blaster spam, so anyone can die in one hit regardless of armor. You can lame with psionics, of course, but honestly it might be more fun to just let it go.

I actually found personal armor to be pretty bad last run I did a year ago I got gauss weapons on early on a lot of the aliens tho I'm not really seeing any right now so idk if I was unlucky or they had different loadouts back then

9

The X-Com Files / Re: Arrow unlocking

« on: September 04, 2024, 05:16:12 pm »

How would that even work? You still need tank/laser researched to repair broken MiB tanks, and if you do, why not manfacture your own. It's not like you'll ever need more than one.

So I think the military shot down an UFO event can give you the power system and alien laser rifle, and that gives you everything you need + the two tanks from MIB in farms and I like having more then one (later on when you get more alloys) because when ones down being repaired/Rebuilt I have a back up because even tho it's a tank it still gets taken out now and then

I have 2 labs at my top 2 bases so I rush out the research

And for instance taking out mannors Id rather have liquidator armor with a tank in front at night raids then having tritanium vests. I go pretty hard on night raids until you regularly have to fight aliens

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The X-Com Files / Re: Arrow unlocking

« on: September 04, 2024, 05:14:27 am »

Contrast to kitsune, where you can throw out two smokes off the side of the ramp at turn 1 and end the turn. Usually nobody can see you for the first turn, and will very rarely come close in the second.  Only missions with huge number of enemies (like communion of apocalypse) or with PSI vision are sometimes an issue. Kitsune is even very good for camping, for example, to deliberately trigger MIB 10/15-turn reinforcements in the farmer missions, and obtain all the nice loot the reinforcement MIBs have.

Ill actually farm the farm before promotion III with the sky raider if I spawn in the upper right corner, by tossing out land minds from the side hatches and use a mini gun then HMG combo to take out the tanks so it'll have tanks ready to go early invasion,

I try not to do the same thing every run but having early tanks is so nice on not mass loseing rookies

11

The X-Com Files / Re: Iron Man Tips for Mid+ game

« on: September 04, 2024, 04:54:13 am »

Losing soldiers doesn't matter in the slightest in the invasion phase of the game. You can hire a fresh rookie, turn him into a spartan, give him 5 different boosts, and have a super-soldier perfectly capable of going on any mission the game has. The latest version even gives you 4 veterans per month if you hit 5000 score, which is trivial with all the garbage hybrid missions and landed mediums.

After you hit promo III the difficulty drops down the gutter and never recovers. Don't be afraid of the late game.

I don't Wana lose them because I name them after my friends a d I don't Wana lose the lore, but I'd theirs no way on not eating deaths early invasion without save scumming I guess I gonna be like kingGaylord jr or mk2

12

The X-Com Files / Re: Need tips for Golden Academy Tower

« on: September 01, 2024, 09:51:33 am »

It's definitely pretty easy to get trapped on the black ops rifle because of it's reliability in its snap shot overwatch spam but it just lacks the pen and damage like others said I think notable promotion 3~ weapons would be

- BlackOps Macro SMG
One of the few heavy guns with a Cqc bonus, dose 40 damage, a decent bullet spam in Cqc on weaker targets, is sadly two handed unlike black ops SMG

- BlackOps Smartgun
35 damage .85 armor mult able to put out 10 rounds at a long range fairly accurately, this gun is also a decent overwatch gun with its snap fire / auto fire range

- BlackOps Auto-Sniper Rifle
This gun is very stat dependent but on 100 aim it's 50~ damage
With .75 armor mult. It has burst potential, Something you put on your best aim and reaction soldiers

- Heavy Machine Gun
Imo my pick for most op gun ( better then miniguns overall imo) because how early you get it
55 damage .85 armor mult 10 shot burst, 100 range
Trit ammo is 70 damage with .85 mult (one of the guns i go out of my way for better ammo) , this gun pairs well with black ops smart pistols in quick holster, basically needs all your tu to fire and a strong soldier but is nearly allways a guarantee kill at long range, you can try to set up 2 shooting way points for multi kill or nuke one target

- BlackOps Assault Cannon
45 damage .75 armor multi, needs a quick draw side arm, is generally a worse auto sniper but it's not stat dependent. A gun to give to lower tier soldiers who just barely got the bio enhancement

- Recoilless Gun
125 damage with .6 armor mult, has a 100% acc aimshot for 75% of your units, it's ment to be an AT weapon but it has 50-150% random damage unlike 0-200% so it's can be a very reliable humanoid remover

- M82 Barrett
70 damage with .7 armor mult on 100 aim soldiers, Is aim skill dependent and needs a lot of TU to fire

Btw I think there's Several ways to play the game, that's why I return back to it every year but I feel like the bio enhancement is near mandatory

13

The X-Com Files / Iron Man Tips for Mid+ game

« on: September 01, 2024, 12:37:12 am »

So I've played a few runs years ago and I'm doing pretty well, I'm at the stage of takeing down cult HQs

I've been doing night runs with deploy markers (the markers are actually very strong at night for seeing camo units and a early warning / counter black lotus ) and I've lost 4 guys a crazy low amount for my usual,

Managed this by having my 70-80 HP units go first and avoiding any throwables with night time

But I know soon ill get the invasion with gauss rifles one turn killing my elite guys ( and aliens having far superior night vision) and I'm trying not to save scum but I don't Wana enter a slow burn by slowly losing my elite units

I think later I'm going to farm "the farm" for the MiB tanks because those will be great damage soakers

But anyone have any good tips and strategies on just not loosing so many units on turn one terror missions, Ik to smoke out and everything but I really don't Wana lose so many quality units before I can get better armors

14

The X-Com Files / Re: I want to make a guide up to 1999

« on: February 05, 2023, 09:10:24 pm »

Anyone got a list for the hotkeys or is the OXCE all the same shortcuts ?

15

The X-Com Files / Re: I want to make a guide up to 1999

« on: February 03, 2023, 03:42:14 am »

Edit: Basically, the only situation (post 2.8 or maybe even 2.7) where I can see killing off the cults being unquestionably beneficial is if you can muster the troops to take their HQ once, with difficulty, yet cannot kill tier 1 mansions on the regular or are so overrun with them you need the break to take 'em all down.

so im running 2.7 and ive been takeing screenshots in frustration and took out the 4 starting cults mid 1999 ( im running a bit slow because of manor spam ) and taken out maybe 20 manors in my current playthrough so far only having maybe 5+ active atm,
and i can tell you that the HQs are Significantly easier then the manors. my manors are starting to have 80-110 units vs the HQs 70-100 but theirs alot more reasons why much harder
- reinforcements tend to shoot your units on the turn they spawn in even if your units are looking at all 4 of the corners to spawn getting off free hits. also they have pretty good night vision so its not hard to nab free spawn hits at night
- reinforcements elite soldiers often seem to make around 50% of the units atleast in the late manors according to the elite badges i get after raid . and they spawn throughout the raid. making them a bit harder to  P A N I C   C A S C A D E . unlike in the HQs where i was generally able to panic most of the units within 4-5 turns
- migs 

i think the spawn distance is only 10. and if you cover all the spawns they just force spawn even if your troops actively see them spawn. so i watch 3 corners and mid building and smoke the last corner one and that helps out abit

uh my monthly score is 2000-3000 only cus i take out 2-3 manors a month pretty much ironman now. but in mid-late 1998 i had to do alot of save scumming on the missions because i was having to fight manors that had 98 units with my OSPREY and basic armor vests with non bio enhanced troopers with black ops rifles and antipersonnel mines. or my score would be -1000+ ( i quickly realized i had to hard beef everything and eventually got it undercrontrol after alot of pain )

but with the new update im hoping they are more balanced and not rapidly evolving with huge troop counts because id rather fight muttons then manors lol