Messages

1

Offtopic / Re: What's your final verdict on Firaxis' X-com: Enemy Unknown?

« on: July 18, 2014, 07:12:34 pm »

Meh.   As an Xcom remake it was better than most.  In it's own right it was entertaining and challenging enough but I really chafed at the idea that if I want a trooper to carry even ONE grenade they can't also carry a medkit.  It was like the 80-item limit on steroids.  A few other things rankled as well, such as the game not being able to correctly and consistently apply cover rules, and the game resorting to designing constrained maps to intentionally deny the player any cover advantages in their advance.  But I played it all the way through at least once which is better than most games get me to accomplish.

2

Fan-Stuff / Re: Tactics to survive early games

« on: May 21, 2014, 04:55:08 am »

1. You NEVER *have to* handle a terror mission at night. If it spawns at twilight close to your base, just send your Skyranger the hell out and order it to target the terror site 6 hours later. As long as the terror site is currently targetted, it won't despawn. Plus, if you think a terror is too hard, just takeoff immediately after landing. You'll get a score hit, but no bigger than 250-300 points, as opposed to 1000 for ignoring a terror.

Yeah... that has always felt a bit too much like cheating to me though.  It's an exploit.  But the point about landing at a terror mission and then bugging out being better than not going at all is much more valid.  Like Viper said in Top Gun - "better to retire and save the aircraft than to push a BAD position".

3. Bravery is almost totally irrelevant. It won't help against psi attacks, high ranking officers provide a huge Bravery boost anyway, and if you're taking heavy losses, you can always retreat and regroup before continuing onwards - or even simply run. There are some, extremely rare (and fun) situations when you really wished all your soldiers had 70+ Bravery, but it's simply impractical to be that picky.

High ranking officers are often the trigger for a cascade of bravery fail.  They do provide a bravery boost - but there is also a bigger bravery hit when they go down.  It's a possible tactic to keep the high ranks picking their noses in the skyranger while the lower ranks do the work in order to avoid that, but that really does miss the point.  You don't take higher ranks with you just for the bravery boost - they are generally more capable than other troops so you WANT them in the mud and blood.

As I suggested upthread, 30 bravery seems to me to be a useful breakpoint.  Bravery of 20 or 10 is just too low to be reasonably reliable.  30 will still panic when it all goes pear-shaped but it takes a usefully fatter pear to do it.  The cost of sacking a certain percentage of NEW, RAW recruits to get decently brave ones is rarely a significant consideration.

3

Open Feedback / Re: Latest nightly build...when its the 4th one today???

« on: April 14, 2014, 10:17:48 pm »

But you can trust every change is at least making the game slightly better in some way.

"Please don't crash please don't crash please don't crash"  I would consider that making it better. 

4

Suggestions / Re: Pact Recovery through base destruction.

« on: January 20, 2014, 07:15:21 pm »

Actually, I meant to ask the core question here - IS it supposed to be possible to recover countries that have signed pacts.  I've always seen RUMORS that it can be done but never seen anyone post anywhere ever that they actually had succeeded in doing it, so I've always questioned whether it was even possible.  So IS there code in the game to allow it or is it all just bugs and delusion?

5

Offtopic / Re: If X-COM was real, would you enlist?

« on: November 24, 2013, 09:06:35 pm »

You bet I would.  Chances are I'd show up, they'd look at my stats and see I have awful reactions, no bravery, can't throw, etc. and fire me.  I'll then take my $40,000 and go home.  Unless it's an operation being run by one of you jerks who throw meat like me into the open in order to "scout".  I'm not a terrible shot but I DO start with a helluvalot of TU's for running when I panic.  I'm just sayin'.

6

Suggestions / Re: TU usage as absolute, not relative

« on: November 09, 2013, 08:28:02 pm »

I remember having brought this up in some forum many years ago.  I had realized that more TU's didn't change your rates of fire or the like because they were all percentages of your available TU's and not fixed amounts. The only thing more TU's actually got you was more movement.  Nobody grasped the idea and they thought I was delusional.
"You might be able to eventually run clear across the map in a turn but if all you do is pull the trigger you'll never fire even one more shot no matter how many TU's you start with."
"What?  Of course you can shoot more - you have more TU's!"

7

Open Feedback / Re: Remove the limit of 80 items?

« on: November 09, 2013, 08:19:54 pm »

As the man said upthread: no.

The 80-item limit is probably THE best thing to go and the first thing that DESERVED to go.  Saying the game NEEDS an item limit?  When taken to the extreme you get a game like Xcom 2012 where for each trooper you have to choose between carrying ONE grenade or having a scope on your weapon.  Yeah, it makes for game strategy but it's absolute and intolerable bollocks.

If there's an item limit for the amount of gear that the AIRCRAFT can carry to a site then if soldier 'A' carries an additional electroflare then soldier 'B' has to give up one of his heavy rockets.  And the item limit for a skyranger CANNOT sensibly be identical to the item limit for an avenger, because then you DO get asinine instances where the more men you take to a site the less gear they can carry.  80 items divided among 26 troops instead of 14 means that everyone is pretty much restricted to 1 weapon, 1 ammo for that weapon, and 1 grenade because the AIRCRAFT can't carry any more than that.  No scanners, no medkits, no stunrods or stun launchers, no spare clips, no extra grenades and having to choose between smoke, regualar, alien, proximity, or HE for each because more is not allowed.  And then when you replace 4 troops with 1 HWP then inexplicably all the troops can carry MORE STUFF defying all logic but certainly adding another tactical choice - using HWP's simply to be able to bring more gear.

The game always did have a useful and sensible limit to the amount of gear that a soldier can carry - strength.  You give your heavy weapons to the soldiers who can physically handle the weight.  You give your extra gear to the ones who CAN carry it and limit the amount of gear carried by those who can't because if overloaded they lose TU's.  You don't need an artificial item limit on top of that for ANY strategic or tactical game reason other than to arbitrarily and needlessly frustrate the player who has enough concerns than overcoming deliberately non-realistic blocks in the name of "strategery!".

That same item limit applied to base defense missions too didn't it?  Any arguments about simply not being able to fit it on the aircraft no longer apply.  Worse, it forced you to use the first 80 items in the inventory list for the base and not even choosing the 80 items you would deem actually useful.  Nothing so satisfying as having to defend your base with starter rifles and pistols against mutons because they are the first items in inventory despite having heavy plasma rifles that you take to every crash site.

The 80 item limit was not there because it made a lick of sense or because it was actually desired for some bent idea of "strategy".  It was there because it was a programming limitation that in 1994 couldn't be overcome.  IBM PC's were at the time still using the 486 - we didn't even have the Pentium processor yet.  Memory capacity was still being measured in megabytes rather than gigabytes.  Most games were still fitting onto one or two 3.5" floppy discs, and cd-rom games were mostly just ones like Myst that were built around graphics that would otherwise require dozens of floppies.  We were still mucking about with autoexec.bat files in DOS in order to free up enough memory to even run games at all.  We had to manually set IRQ's and other settings for peripherals like our sound cards because there was no such thing as plug-and-play.  And if you hadn't bought a major brand like Soundblaster or Adlib for your sound card you might just be SOL for sound at all and make do with a few beeps and boops from the built-in speaker on your case.  Not that it wasn't a crapshoot as to whether your combination of hardware would cooperate with any given game no matter what you'd bought because device drivers would simply conflict with each other anyway.

The 80-item limit was never included for purposes of being a strategic or tactical rule.  Let it lie dead where it belonged in the first place.

8

Work In Progress / Re: Manage Alien Containment UI

« on: November 03, 2013, 08:27:45 am »

Column headers should be "Quantity" and "Remove".  Buttons at the bottom should be "OK" and "Cancel".  Users can then deduce what really happens.  Especially if they realize they get another alien corpse in inventory to sell when they hit OK.

9

Work In Progress / Re: Manage Alien Containment UI

« on: November 02, 2013, 06:28:28 pm »

Race/Rank:                           Quantity:             Dispose:
Sectoid Janitor                            4         <>            1
Muton Dentist                             1         <>            0

10

Suggestions / Tips on startup

« on: October 29, 2013, 06:01:38 pm »

Just learned of another feature of OpenXcom I hadn't known of at all.  I'm starting to think that a "tips" screen on startup or loading a game wouldn't be the worst idea to remind new players of all the little differences between Xcom and OpenXcom.

11

Fan-Stuff / Re: Tactics to survive early games

« on: October 27, 2013, 07:44:34 pm »

I've tried with HWP and without.  I prefer without.  Greater combined firepower from 4 troopers than one HWP, lower expense to replace - and I find they get killed just as often as "scout troops".

I actually now have a standard operating procedure to start any game:
Start building large radar, 2nd general stores, 2nd living quarters, and alien containment immediately.
Hire 7 soldiers and 15 scientists.
Equip avalanche launcher to interceptor #1 replacing cannon.
Purchase 2nd avalanche launcher.
Purchase additional troop weapons and ammo.  I tend to go for just a couple heavy weapons troopers (str 35+) and the rest get rifles and grenades.
Purchase 8-10 stunrods and give them to all the troops with str to carry them even if they aren't going to use them for a while.
Purchase 20 electroflares - nobody steps off the skyranger without an electroflare.  On night missions it is vital to LIGHT THE BATTLEFIELD and incendiary ammo alone is just not sufficient for that task.
Sell off weapons that will be unused and purchase as many avalanche missiles as your remaining base storage will allow (which won't be much).
- - - Start research on Laser Weapons
Review troops and mark for specialization and early dismissal.  (I have found it best to keep simple.  Str 35+ is "H", heavy weapons.  Firing Acc 65+ is "S", sniper.  Bravery under 30 is "X", undesirable.
Check skyranger and interceptor loadouts.  When purchases arrive, check loadouts again.


H's get autocannon or rocket launcher as they're the only ones who can handle the weight (and ususally not even very good at that to start).  It's actually important that the H's score kills!  They need the promotion to squaddie and kills to get their strength up.  I want them using rocket launchers and carrying 4 heavy rockets and a laser pistol for a sidearm.  That means they generally got to get str up to 40+.  If possible the heavies will rotate position in the ship and be given best available rifles for a few missions to score more kills.

S's otherwise get laser pistol first or the best available rifles first.  If POSSIBLE snipers will be moved quickly to a position where they command a view of a large portion of battlefield.  Very often that is not practical and in that case they don't do anything much different than the rest of the troops.  Still, it's good to see at a glance from the name who has the higher base accuracy and keep them from being over-exposed to "discovery fire".

X's among the initial troops are kept only until the first wave of reinforcements arrives, otherwise you'd be way understaffed if you have to take a mission.  They are then sacked outright and additional waves of troops are hired/fired until all troops have at least 30 bravery.  I find that's a good break point.  Troops are not so expensive and valuable as to just fire them for low bravery.  They still panic a little too easily with 30 bravery but are not the SEVERE liability as troops with less than that.  Panicking troops leads to a cascade of failure - one panics, gets killed, lowers morale so that more panic, get killed, and lower morale still further...  Money is not so tight that you can't afford to do this.

Aliens have ALL their TU's available to take reaction fire on turn 1.  You can either take that in stride or you can "game the system" just a little and burn turn #1.  Personally, I shoot any aliens I see immediately, drop a smoke grenade at the foot of the ramp (sometimes do that first), but then end turn 1 without anyone stepping outside.  There is a MUCH higher survival rate that way.  There is little so depressing as having 4 or 5 troops die at the top of the ramp on a terror mission because there's aliens in full view to the sides of the ramp.

On recovery missions your ultimate aim is simply the loot.  You just got to kill the surviving aliens to get their stuff.  On terror missions your job is SURVIVAL.  It is NOT to rescue civilians.  That's just a side benefit.  The danger of terror missions is twofold.  A) you are frequently forced to handle them at night which is an order of magnitude more deadly.  B) you have to deal with terror units.  Terror units have a lot of TU's and take a lot of hits.  You MUST advance cautiously to avoid "surprises".  Most civilians are going to die in the first few turns in any case because they and the aliens will be spread all over the map and you CANNOT help them.  All you can do is try to observe the alien turn, listen and watch and try to deduce where the aliens are as you sweep forward.  If you know where they are but can't yet see them, don't be a hero.  Don't go sniping for them.  BLOW IT UP.  You still get credit for kills with explosions as with a bullet.

The game itself grades your performance on missions.  You can have every single civilian killed and still come out with "good" or even "excellent" after-action reports - if you keep YOUR team alive.

In 18 days your alien containment will be complete.  At that point your mission efforts need to shift to taking key captives.  Navigators are needed to get hyperwave decoder, psionic aliens for psilab construction, any alien for alien orgin, leaders for "Martial Solution", commanders for "Cydonia".  Obviously having stun bombs is better for that, otherwise it's suicide rushes with stun rods.

You want to get multiple psilabs (multiple bases?) in operation as soon as is practical.  You may be really fond of your increasingly promoted and experienced troops but the fact is that you have a final test for them.  They might be Rambo incarnated on the battlefield but if they can't make or usefully resist psi attacks they're going to be almost useless to you.  To get a proper selection of troops to send to Cydonia you're going to needt to test a LOT of troops.  If you try to do that in lots of ONLY 10 at a time with just one psilab that will take a while.

There are more advantages than one to getting new bases started fairly early.  First is radar and intercept coverage - being able to detect and shoot down UFO's all over the world increases your troops experience and cash flow from selling excess alien equipment and keeping your own troops supplied.  Second is that since you don't want your bases undefended by troops anyway (in case its discovered and assaulted by the aliens) you can kill two birds with one stone -  base a complement of troops there and have a psilab doing additonal screening.  The sooner you know who your psionic-capable troops are the sooner you can concentrate on getting THEM all the additional combat experience prior to taking on Cydonia.

It is ultimately about ONLY those 26 guys you cram into an Avenger and send to Mars.  It's THEY who need the training and experience to win.

12

Suggestions / Geoscape clock

« on: October 20, 2013, 07:33:30 pm »

I have on just a few occasions wished for the ability to stop the clock entirely so that I can examine the geoscape without time passing.  A geoscape "Pause" button that still leaves me with the list of geoscape options but without craft still creeping along or terror sites expiring.  The clock stops when I'm looking at a base or ufopedia or whatnot, but why not when I'm looking at the globe?  There's no room for a new button without rearranging the interface but what if you clicked the currently selected time button again, which would then DE-select it and maybe say, "Game Paused" somewhere on screen.

13

Suggestions / Re: Timer on terror missions

« on: October 20, 2013, 07:18:37 pm »

Idea is to have a running timer the second a city starts being terrorized. The longer you take to get there the more points you'll lose at the end of the month. Penalty proportional to the delay

As an additional difficulty set a random chance the terror site disappears every hour after say the first 4-5. The aliens have finished killing/abducting all the civilians and leave before you could arrive. Increase the penalty/unhappiness/chance of surrender of the country targeted if you failed to even get there

I would have no complaint about having something like this as an advanced option - turned OFF by default of course.

These two things are to prevent the 'wait until sunrise' cheat so many players use by turning that strategy into a cost/trade-off

This is a fairly standard exploit.  I'd say that it isn't the intent of the game to try to randomly prevent you from handling a terror mission entirely - the point was to get you to handle terror missions immediately.  Unlike investigating crash sites this was meant to introduce the possibility that the only way you can reach it in time is to risk arriving at night.  Not EVERY terror mission was going to take place at night but it was going to be a possibility which early in the game was difficult to avoid (if you didn't just abandon the attempt and eat the high penalty to your score).

Now, if you want to program out that exploit I'd say what needs to happen is this:
First, you CANNOT target the terror site with an interceptor or other craft that can't carry troops.  If you try then you should get a popup that tells you so: "Hey dummy, there's nothing for you to shoot down here.  You need to send troops - and the clock is ticking!"
Second, the VERY FIRST craft that you do legitimately target the terror site with is the ONLY craft that you can target the terror site with.  If you then give that craft an alternate order, sending it home, giving it a new target, etc. the terror site immediately disappears.  This would be the way you want to enforce that clock.  Once you target the site the clock is stopped and the terror site will wait for your troops imminent arrival (whenever that will be) but if you then VOID that by changing your mind... you lose.  Thus you CAN still delay sending troops instantly and TRY to time it for daylight, but once you do start for it you're committed and can't keep it live indefinitely.
Third, you can still theoretically exploit this just a LITTLE bit.  For example, a possibility I thought of is this: A terror site pops up.  You target it with a skyranger that will be coming from the other side of the globe.  That stops the timer, but you can still get there EARLIER with a different troop ship, either something that travels faster or that is launched from a closer base to get there first.  The terror site will be handled by the first troops to actually arrive, but the TIMER is stopped by the first craft to target it and the arrival of that first craft then acts as the "final countdown" to the site disappearing if not reached sooner.

14

Offtopic / Re: beginner's question

« on: October 20, 2013, 08:06:51 am »

Until just recently I never, EVER bothered with smoke grenades.  I also never, EVER skipped turn 1.  As for the smoke grenades there was very good motivation for NOT using them - the 80-item limit.  As for not skipping turn 1 it simply never occurred to me that the REASON so many troops died on the ramp is because on turn 1 the aliens have EVERY TU available to them and all they're doing as you move is stand there waiting for you to move into view so they can start burning TU's to start burning you.

Now, with Openxcom and the ease of equipping and re-ordering soldier positions in the skyranger, my SOP is that anyone in view gets shot at, otherwise a pre-primed smoke grenade goes at the bottom of the ramp and it's "End Turn".  Then step to top square of ramp, turn 90 degrees, step off, turn 45/90 more to reveal terrain to front of skyranger.  Choice of movement and tactics from there are entirely dependant upon terrain and positioning of any aliens in view.  However, someone STILL always has to move to the front landing gear because they WILL move there and you won't see them standing behind the rear landing gear even if the FOW is cleared.  Always check those corners, people.

I feel no guilt in countering the games unjustifiable blindness of your troops to ALL knowledge of the terrain around your craft as it lands, much less aliens standing in the open waiting to shoot at you.  By simply burning turn 1 and allowing the aliens to use up their TU's in movement before MY troops are forced to step, blind, into the open fields of reaction fire I feel things balance out to what they should be.

15

Programming / Look out the window

« on: October 12, 2013, 10:15:06 pm »

I guess this is just a formal request to re-insert a "feature" of the original game - after landing in the skyranger you were able to have troops simply turn to look to the side and see the terrain next to the ship.  Never saw any aliens that way (and never sure why you could see a building but not an alien out the window) but at least you weren't quite so blind when stepping off the ramp.  You had an idea of the lay of the land before stepping outside and could at least then have a plan in mind.  I never knew if this was a "bug" or a "feature".  I actually played for years before I found out you could do that - it just never occurred to me to TRY that.  Even though it doesn't really change anything (because you STILL are going to be shot at stepping onto the ramp) it is something I really miss from the original game.