Messages

1

Offtopic / Re: Insane, Impossible Mod Speculation

« on: December 08, 2015, 04:43:18 pm »

I actually want Chryssalids with Psionic zombification powers! Those would indeed not need the ability to bust through walls *evilgrin*

thanks... thanks a F*ing bunch for that... I hope you don't mind if I send my therapy bill your way while I try to deal with PTSD caused by the thought of chryssalids that can zombify you from 1/2 mile away just by thinking about you

2

Offtopic / something I realised about the aliens

« on: December 08, 2015, 04:36:03 pm »

while reading about rocket science and interstella colonisation (KSP player here ) I realised something interesting about x-com... namely the problem many people bring up about the alien invasion.

the problem most people point out is that the aliens don't attack in force when they could easily over power us and how they never seam to develop new technologies such as armour and the likes.

what I realised is they don't because they can't. the aliens had to travel to our solar system from where ever they started. and as anyone with the basic knowledge in space travel can tell you the biggest hurdle in getting anywhere in space is delta V (changing velociety) what this boils down to is the heavier your craft the more power you need to speed up and slow down. which means that the aliens had to limit what they carried (i.e just what they needed to survive and start building for war) and when you combine this with the alien reporduction (something in the original game files that wasn't implemented into the game) which indicates that the aliens are essentially clones what this means is that a small number of aliens were on the initial ship with a bank of genetic data (or embrios) which they then had to clone to produce their army, along with elerium and manufacturing facilities to build space craft (and the alien alloys).
this would explain why during the first year before the start of the game alien activity slowly increased (they were collecting resources and building their war fleet), and as so much of their industry is set on producing weapons and ships as well as cloning soldiers to replace those destroyed/killed by x-com they don't have the resources to dedicate to research. and if they use the same technology as TFTD aliens every clone is implanted with knowledge based on his job (soldiers taught how to fight, navigators how to fly ect) meaning that they have little individuality which limits their creativity, having not learned over the course of a life time but instead getting information fed directly into their brains with no questions asked. meaning they only produce the weapons and craft that they have the information to build.

compare this to x-com. x-com does not have to worry about gathering food as we have ample supply on earth, we don't have to worry about building weapons (at least not at first) as we just buy them from arms manufactures (and later we just capture them from the aliens) we don't have to worry about soldiers as we already have 7 billion people the majority of whom are of an age and are capable enough to fight if needed (in an emergency the world's armed forces could get 15million+ troops to combat the aliens) and our old fashioned style of learning where we have to learn things as we grow by asking questions this gives us the ability to ask "what if we do this instead of that"

on top of all this the fact that earth mobilised to combat the aliens (forming kiryu kai, X-inv and finally X-com) this forced the aliens to fight before they were ready (which is why you battle sectoids the weakest aliens first, followed by floaters who are of limited combat effectiveness instead of snakemen and mutons) this would also explain the terror missions, the aliens strike cities to cause disruption (draw you away from their other activites) try to turn public opinion against the war (much like the bombing campaigns of WW2) and kill off large numbers of humans to reduce our fighting power (they can clone entire armies in a short space of time, it takes us years for a baby to grow into a combat effective soldier)

this also goes to explain why alien activity increases steadly as time goes on. initially there is only a hand full of aliens with a small number of small craft to conduct missions while as time goes on more and bigger ships start showing up (those big ships take time and resources to build, it's more efficient to build ten small ships to collect resources than one big one that could be lost while on a resource harvesting mission)
it could be argued that the aliens could have mined the outer planets for resources to build their fleets to invade earth (and they probably did) but one of the key missions they conducted on earth was... harvesting missions. they were activly harvesting earth flora and fauna for food (as indicated in the alien food research) this was their one weakness and why they were forced to fight before they were ready, they didn't have the food production facilites on mars to sustain their population (that and you need bio mass to grow clones)
this all also explains the cattle mutilation. why did the aliens only take parts of the cattle and not the whole thing??? they took what they needed the parts rich in what their diet required and dumped the rest to save weight and thus fuel while traveling in space (E-115 is a finite resource limited to only what they brought with them)

these are just some of my theories about why the first alien war went the way it did

3

Work In Progress / Re: pulsed energy projectiles

« on: December 08, 2015, 03:51:43 pm »

thanks I'll give that a shot when I get time to delve into modding again.

4

Playthroughs / Re: epic victories

« on: December 08, 2015, 03:48:45 pm »

This one is far from impressive or amazing, and the chief reason why I either don't use Psionics or use them with LOS-only for my soldiers. Not to mention I do not mind control Sectopods and Cyberdiscs myself, since I think it's kind of absurd to mind control robots.

true it's not very impressive but there's just something about curbstomping an enemy that has had you on the ropes for months,
 
but the game lore itself states that they are controled psionically by the aliens indicating organic CPUs.

If you've trained your soldiers well with psionics (which many if not most players will do), then most late-game aspects loose their demanding nature. That's why there are people who say, psionics breaks the game

true, once you've got a decient number of psionic soldiers trained up you can mop the floor with the aliens and turns life or death battles into tedious work of mindcontrol, drop weapons, find another alien rinse and repeat then round them all up for the firing squad

5

Work In Progress / Re: Real World Weapons

« on: December 07, 2015, 05:03:59 pm »

the way I've always seen it, the reason they wear the jump suits, is because x-com was set up in a hurry, they didn't have time to custom order some fancy uniforms so they just grabbed a bunch of surplus military jumpsuits and slapped a few patches on them. if they were to give them propper cammo uniforms they would have to order uniforms in a range of camo schemes (forrest, jungle, ice, desert, rocky, urban) that's atleast 6 uniforms per a soldier, and given how tight their funding is initially they probably figured it was cheeper just to give them the one grey jumpsuit which itself provides some degree of camoflage in an urban setting.

by the time you start making personal armour the need for uniforms has gone so x-com doesn't bother issuing uniforms they just measure people out and give them body armour instead.

as for the stats of the rookies, the way I understand it (from game lore) the only country really 100% behind the x-com project is japan (who took the first step in combating the aliens) the other countries tend to be providing balancing on the fence. if you do good they'll keep funding you, if you do bad they'll cut funding, if the aliens offer them a choice they'll switch sides, so the way I see it the soldiers you get are not the special forces you were promised but the dregs and trouble makers, (hence the poor moral, and inability to shoot the broad side of a barn at point blank range... and yes I've had a rookie miss a barn at point blank range) while keeping their best soldiers back to defend their own borders should they need to.

6

Work In Progress / pulsed energy projectiles

« on: December 07, 2015, 04:46:44 pm »

for those who don't know pulsed energy projectiles (PEP) are a form of less lethal laser weapons... basically a short high energy pulse of laser ablates a tiny bit of skin/clothing creating a burst of plasma which stuns the target (bit like a wireless taser)

I did some experiments with adding this to open xcom as a line of laser research, but when I tested it instead of stunning the target like a stun rod, it created an explosion like a stun bomb (basically it turned into a small launcher with unlimited ammo) so what I'm wondering is, is there a way to create a ranged stun weapon without the blast radius as found with the small launcher?

7

Playthroughs / Re: My First Ever Base Defence, and my Second Base Defence

« on: December 07, 2015, 04:35:32 pm »

my usual staregy for base defence (at least early game) is to first set up a choke point to slow alien egress, in an early game base I usually have about 14 soldiers (10 men for main team, 4 to replace wounded soldiers) and usually 1 or 2 rocket tanks.

first turn I move my guys into position near the choke point, usually with a couple of guys held back for sniping from the far end of the base while the rest move in close.
of my team 5 are the heavy weapon team (1 rocket launcher with a heavy rocket and as many light or heavy rockets he can carry, 2 auto cannons with HE ammo, and 2 heavy cannons with HE ammo, all with pistols as a backup) the rest are the rifle team armed with rifles, grenades and smoke grenades. (med kits, motion trackers and stun rods are carried by the rifle team depending on availability and their strength)

when it comes to the battle, I use my snipers to pick of exposed enemy, then leap frog my team into the access lift using available cover, smoke grenades and liberal application of explosives to keep the enemy pinned. my tank is usually the first into the access lift with troops backing it up, then again the first into the hanger.
it's then a case of clearing the hanger one by one, again the liberal use of explosives especially rockets is great here as there is little to damage, the explosives clear a larger area and create smoke which hides your movements from the enemy. where possible use the tank as a spotter while rifle teams snipe the aliens

this tactic keeps up through mid game when you have armour, and heavier weapons such as plasma rifles. with small launchers replacing heavy cannons.

by the late game you can use psionics to take control of enemy units, then chain it to control as many as possible before using them to kill any uncontrolled unit or each other (nothing like mind controling a dozen mutons to line up against a wall while you shoot them all firing squad style


also as for how often base defense mission happen, this depends on several factors, if you're doing really well, you can expect to have the aliens begin searchhing for you base from the get go, while if you're doing bad they won't bother, then you have the fact that if you shoot down scouts and such on a retaliation mission before they find your base then they'll never find it to launch an attack. in my last game I was getting 2-3 alien retaliation missions a month but the scouts were being shot down far from the base so there was only one base attack (which was early in the game when I only had radar and didn't spot the scouts earlier.

8

Playthroughs / epic victories

« on: December 07, 2015, 04:00:35 pm »

I've been playing x-com for well over 10 years now and I found this project about a year ago but only today decided to join up.

in my many many battles as an X-com commander I've had many harrowing experiences where my entire team gets slaughtered but also many epic victories where I've somehow managed to snatch victory from the very jaws of death so I'd like to make a thread dedicated to all our epic victory stories


here's a few of mine to get the ball rolling.

during my first playthrough of x-com I had no idea what I was getting into, my research was all over the shop, and when I did research I usually failed to build the items or equip them to the skyranger, during this time I encountered my first sectoid terror mission... at night. I had just finished researching plasma pistols but hadn't equiped any to my squad so my squad of 14 troopers lands in the city near a petrol station armed with only rifles, and grenades... and things went about as well as you can imagine, disembarking I split my team up, one group went north to the main road, one went into the petrol station and the other cut east through the station to swing up the road on the far side. then the fecal matter hit the fan. I was ambushed on all sides by sectoids and cyberdisks. my team on the main road was pinned down by 2 sectoids and 3 cyberdisks everyone. while the team in the station got hit by a grenade, the pumps went up, they were blinded by smoke, and several were dead or wounded, while the far team got cut off a cyberdisk and sectoid on the junction had them pinned, and 2 more sectoids had moved through the station between the shop and the garage. my team was fighting a loosing battle and most were cut off from the skyranger, worse yet they quickly ran out of grenades and ammo was running low. those still standing were forced to scavange ammo from their dead team mates as their bullets just bounced off the cyberdisks with little to no effect. then one of my guys at the main road spotted a sectoid trying to outflank them across the road. with his last bullet he managed to drop him, then with nothing to lose he made a dash for it. plasma bolts from the cyberdisks and sectoids on the road zipped past his head as he dashed into the alley, the wall behind him exploding as plasma bolts struck it, to his luck the sectoid had a plasma pistol. this one action turned the whole battle in favour of my team, we were already down to about 8 men out of 14, and those still standing were low on ammo or bleeding. then my brave trooper with the plasma pistol took aim at one of the cyberdisks that had my team pinned. BOOM! the cyberdisk goes down BOOM! the one next to it gets caught in the explosion BOOM! the third one goes down taking with it the sectoids on the main road. half the aliens forces gone with a single burst from the plasma pistol.
my team on the main road regroups and swings around behind the sectoids that have my far team pinned taking down the cyberdisk again with a well aimed bust of plasma fire while the rifles mop up what's left of the sectoids.

needless to say this one battle chaned the entire layout of my team, going from rifle team to a combined arms team with a mix of heavy weapons, rifles and a rocket tank.



epic victory #2
seeing a battleship land I decided to seize the chance and take it down so I scramble my skyranger to intercept, only when I get to the mission I realise I forgot to rearm the craft or even crew it for that matter, due to a previous mission most of my team were being patched up and I forgot to load up the replacements.... so I found myself taking down a battleship with 3 guys armed with only pistols and stunrods as none of the other weapons had any ammo. now I had two choices, go in anyway or bug out and call it even... I took the former how bad could it be right??? well I get to the battleship with no problem, then it happens a muton walks out.... pistols have no effect on this hulking beast... but 3 guys dogpiling him with stunrods do, we managed to take him down... arming my team with a plasma rifle and a grenade. so sitting near the entrance I set about snipping any aliens that decided to come out, quickly arming my guys with plasma rifles and grenades from the fallen enemy. this is when the greatest bout of luck imaginable happens... one of the mutons with a blaster launcher panics and fires it right down the middle of the main deck where he happens to strike one of his buddies wiping out everything on the main deck and giving my men a clear route to the command deck to kill the last muton.


now for my most recient epic victory which left me speachless.
during my last playthrough I get all the way to cydonia with only loosing about 3 guys the surface battle on cydonia was over pretty quick thanks to liberal use of psionics to control the enemy forces resulting in only one hovertank getting destroyed. the battle for the base however turned bad really quick for the aliens.... I drop my hovertank down to scout the area. spot an alien, take control with psionics, he spots another, long story short I chain up 3 aliens, including a etheral commander with a blaster launcher and a sectopod. the sectopod happens to be right by the door to the brain... I send him in and launch the blaster bomb in.... BOOM! this blows a hole in the ceiling allowing another of my units to spot an alien upstairs. so I use a psionic trooper to take command of this alien and find him looking the brain in the eye... and he just so happens to have a grenade handy... first round brain is killed. victory to x-com