Messages

1

The X-Com Files / Re: XCOM Files Timeline

« on: October 26, 2024, 12:40:21 am »

Yes, they do indeed happen. However, 20% per month is quite low, they still need to actually find the base (no instant retaliations in files), and since radar base spamming is meta, the chance of them targeting a base that's important is even lower.
It is, of course, possible to get very unlucky, but usually they aren't an issue.

Gazers had done a retaliation, and they were impossible to beat on the poster's low-level weapons

Were gazers themselves changed at some point? They die like chumps to any explosives, even regular earth grenades.

2

The X-Com Files / Re: XCOM Files Timeline

« on: October 25, 2024, 08:12:37 pm »

Also worth mentioning that you can simply ignore aliens after the invasion starts. They don't cost you a lot of score, and you will easily be in the positives as long as you are progressing some other plotlines. Terrors are quite rare, and unprovoked retaliations basically don't exist.

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XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 21, 2024, 04:05:11 pm »

Even if it is night, there is no direct line of sight and she is half a map away in the middle of a cloud of smoke?

Yes, once you are spotted, it doesn't matter if you move, smoke up, etc. For shooting they at least take the no-LOS penalty. For grenades, there's no penalty, so they will land grenades from 60 tiles away perfectly below your feet. I've recently done a ninja airfield, and had literally 19 grenades thrown at me from out of LOS on enemy turn 1.

Forget about doing tactics in this turn-based tactics game. It's hard cover or nothing.

4

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 20, 2024, 10:17:01 pm »

I mean, when do you usually get ironcat, second summer? At that point everything is already running around with lasers, rending guns, plasma and whatnot. A new player going in blind is probably going to unlock it even later than that, because the requirements are, to put it lightly, counterintuitive.

If you just compare ironcat to peasant legion armor (unlocked ~6 months earlier and ~8 times cheaper to manufacture), it's very telling.

5

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 20, 2024, 09:37:37 pm »

IMO, catgirls are a harder route, and gals are the easiest one in general.
The main issue with catgirls is that not only do they have very low max HP, their armors are bad as well - less protection, harder to unlock, overpriced. In the early game stealth works and catgirls are great. Later, every enemy will have maphack (also known as sniper-spotter for some reason), so you WILL get shot and grenaded. Catgirls just can't survive that. They are great specialist units, but you can't have an entire squad of them, unless you want to have half of them dead every mission.
Catgirl outlaws you get from the cat path are 30k apiece. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it really adds up in the early game, especially since they are much easier to lose than gals.

6

Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 20, 2024, 07:02:40 pm »

Right, I think the second stage counts as underwater for armors, but not items, which is jank.

I'm not sure what that would even mean technically mean (would you essentially only be able to use dual-use items, because you can't bring underwater-only items to stage 1?).

I think the desired behaviour is that you can bring anything, but will have to re-equip between stages. It is possible to bring underwater items on land missions, you just can't use them. At least that's how it works in vanilla TFTD, I'm not sure custom mod itemgroups allow the same behaviour.

7

Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 20, 2024, 04:45:06 pm »

IIRC multi-stage missions can sometimes have surface restrictions for one part and underwater ones for the other (biolab, for example). The dual-purpose filter can be useful there.
Overall agree, though. "Surface" should include surface-only and dual-use, "underwater" should include underwater-only and dual-use, and "dual-use" should include dual-use only.

8

Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 17, 2024, 04:18:54 pm »

Barges are very doable if you have enough exosuits for the whole squad. Early on most aliens there are armed with shard guns. Mind control is surprisingly harmless if you use harpoon weapons - exosuits are impervious to them, while aquatoids die easily. Hallucinoids are the only real issue, you need some heavier weapons on reliable peoples' backs.
I've done plenty of early barges on SH, and I would much rather fight aquatoids than gillmen. Xarquid oneshots are much harder to avoid.
MC-shielding is, again, an overkill. Nothing before the ancient dungeon truly requires it.

9

XPiratez / Re: A thread for little questions

« on: October 15, 2024, 08:35:46 pm »

My main base is plagued by repeated missile strikes.
..
What base defenses are best counter to missile attacks?

Armored vaults (you start with them) + 3 overcharged radars give you a ~75% chance to shoot the missile swarm down.
If you add the 4th overcharged radar, it goes to ~96%.
Irradiators are a bit better than 2 radars, with their usual downsides.
Other early game base defenses aren't necessarily better per-slot, because they have lower accuracy, vastly increasing the variance.

Since you only have a 25% chance per month to even be targeted, I usually settle for the first option. At some point you are paying more for defenses than you would lose from letting a strike hit once a year.

10

The X-Com Files / Re: Advice on armor

« on: October 15, 2024, 01:25:18 pm »

I did a mix of prowler and juggernaut for my all-spartan crew.

Do NOT use stromtrooper, it will consistently die to a single plasma grenade thanks to having no under armor and resistances. I guess if you lame with psionics and never leave cover it works, but then you don't really need armor anyway.

And yes, juggernaut looks like ass. It's still the best armor in the game, sadly.

11

Released Mods / Re: [TFTD] [Expansion] TWoTS+ Release (v.2.62)

« on: October 15, 2024, 01:17:21 pm »

Mind worm missions can be trivially done with SWS, you don't need MC-shielded soldiers at all. Even a pair of Coelacanth/Gas can do it on SH most of the time (have to ration ammo accurately though, and avoid zombies). Turtles are much safer beause they are zombie-proof (mostly), and even one Squid is a free win, because it flies above zombies, can reload, and has enough armor to tank locusts.

12

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N9.7.7 12-Sep-2024 Second Coming

« on: October 15, 2024, 12:58:33 pm »

The in-game crackdown article says base detection range is 100 miles. Most UFOs don't have sight range defined, which defaults to 268 miles. Which one is it meant to be (because currently it is 268)?

13

XPiratez / Re: Regarding early game interceptors and their weapons (new player)

« on: October 15, 2024, 12:55:49 pm »

I got Little Bird in early March, upgraded to Buckaroo around late May, and then just waited for shadowtech (Scarab etc). Worked for both my first blackbeard run and the current jack sparrow one. I started in EA both times, which makes necroplane parts (which you need to get 14mm ammo from) a bit more common than usual though.

Never used anything other than 14mm ground chainguns and 25mm light ones either.

14

XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N9.7.7 12-Sep-2024 Second Coming

« on: October 06, 2024, 07:15:02 pm »

Right, seems like a very useless bonus then. If the enemy is a faster HK, you can't attempt to escape anyway. If it's not, you wouldn't pick the fight if you aren't winning it, so you wouldn't be disengaging to begin with.

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XPiratez / Re: [MAIN] XPiratez - N9.7.7 12-Sep-2024 Second Coming

« on: October 06, 2024, 08:24:26 am »

What does shadow veil STC even supposed to do? Description says it "allows an expedient retreat from combat", but that's a straight up lie. Acceleration doesn't help escaping HKs or other UFOs in an way, does it?

From my understanding of dogfightState.cpp, literally the only thing acceleration does is allow more shots when chasing an escaping UFO, which is the exact opposite of what the item description implies.