Messages

1

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

« on: September 01, 2024, 05:52:36 am »

You can win the game without a single terror mission - you can skip them as long as you can handle the score drain (and you can). Yep, just arrive and abort tough missions until you're ready.

Also, pay attention to radar coverage and airgame - terror ships ain't too hard to take down.

Big turrets (and sectopods), like those in terror missions, can one shot overkill (leaving no corpse to retrieve and repair) any armor, including tanks and sectopods. To deal with them, use cover, smoke, throwable / arc weapons (sharpnel charges, mortars), PSI puppets / expendable targets / meatshields.

Then play as it goes. In many places, game got easier compared to years ago. Generally, when played "properly", mid-to-late game is harder to lose troops than early game. Yet, you can lose (lots of) troops and still win, it's fine. Shield elites with meatshields / dogs - it's entirely possible to beat the game at ironman / superhuman without ever losing these two or three soldiers that you really care about.

2

The X-Com Files / Re: Issues with mision generation

« on: August 18, 2024, 10:04:51 am »

IMO, first months performance is basically meaningless, unless you're aiming for fastest HQ (~mid-97) or something. The RNG can screw you over several times with either bad safehouses / slow military envoy, bad outposts / slow osprey, bad promo 3 prereqs (caves / deep ones), bad alien gear ( multitool), etc.
Perfectly hitting all of those is pretty much impossible - and the game doesn't expect it to be the case. It doesn't matter much - you aren't going to outtech aliens unless you really know what you're doing - getting perfect RNG ain't the part of it.

3

The X-Com Files / Re: A question about mind shield

« on: August 16, 2024, 05:50:43 pm »

Mind shield halves chance to discover your base every tick (IIRC 30 minutes?) that UFO flies over your base. Nothing more, nothing less. Compounding results from more - 1/3 chance at 2 shields, etc.
A base that was once attacked (as in - ground battle defended) actually "disappears" from alien radar and needs to be discovered again to be attacked.

4

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.4: Daggers for Hire

« on: August 02, 2024, 09:19:59 am »

I'd vote for at least disabling spartans and hires on superhuman  .

5

The X-Com Files / Re: Enemies have full TU on first turn

« on: August 02, 2024, 03:08:38 am »

If the single extra "press turn" is the greatest critique you can muster, must be a very good mod 

6

The X-Com Files / Re: The Joy (Pain) of a Terror Ship

« on: July 19, 2024, 06:38:44 am »

Never thought XCF would be such an emotional endeavour.

Found the savescummer! 

7

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: July 11, 2024, 01:07:34 pm »

It's somewhat real issue and it does plague early game. But early game doesn't matter much and you can definitely play around it via tactical escapes and night ops. And it CAN be more fun instantly engaging enemy and skewering them from shotguns, instead of searching for them for ten turns. I'd say don't bother.

8

The X-Com Files / Re: Randomized starting item: Early Gauss rifle

« on: July 01, 2024, 12:03:01 pm »

https://xcf.trigramreactor.net/master/article/STR_CHIEF_ACCOUNTANT_INTRODUCTION

I guess moneybag for free $500k is the best, cash-wise and overall. None of weapons are usable without ammo, but you may get ammo from e.g. osiron crate sometimes - I remember getting magneto-gun and using it at some point.
It's also instantly researchable, getting you Cool Gadget research (usually get this from psiclone). But mainly these are unusable and better sell them.
Alien Alloy Welder/Alien Multitool are hard to get and are possible roadblocks to getting Improved Lab later in the game, so are kinda cool.

9

The X-Com Files / Re: Bugs, crashes, typos & bad taste

« on: June 30, 2024, 08:35:59 am »

Well, browing tech three or wiki sounds like metagaming, which is a kind of cheating. Nuff said.

Buuut, I wouldn't recommend fully "blind" XCF experience to anyone. E.g. 1) History: Xenonauts -> Armored vest. Huh? I understand the shield, but the vest itself? 2) Eth commander.

10

The X-Com Files / Re: Quick question on Bravery

« on: June 30, 2024, 08:21:19 am »

You also can use multiple little birds to train multiple pilots - everybody in the winning dogfight gets the exp as long as the craft has hit the UFO once, IIRC. That may require some setup though.

11

The X-Com Files / Re: Stuck Without Ethereal Commander

« on: June 28, 2024, 04:40:59 pm »

You have 3 (!) ethereal retals in log, including this month's. No idea how'd you miss all of those.

12

The X-Com Files / Re: Stuck Without Ethereal Commander

« on: June 28, 2024, 11:58:34 am »

It's not expected, but is possible - eth retal only spawns 33% per month, and if your bases are discovered, you may get Dreadnought instead of Arbiter. Attach a save and some of us may look into it.

13

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 27, 2024, 09:24:06 am »

MiGs/Interceptors are waste of money. You may get one to try them out, but you may as well just pursue landeds or use your Lost Alien Ship (tm) to crash small fries.
Be careful if you see alien UFOs with circles/large radar range, they'll wreck your transports. Still, that doesn't mean that you lose the entire crew - most usually survive. But losing Lost Alien Ship (tm) and going back to skyranger/osprey can be really inconvenient. After you get interceptors that are not entirely toys - ravens or thunders, use them to escort your transports.
Down all cults ASAP - they are usually pathways to advanced cults, and they spawn manors, remember? Albeit the peak of manor spawning comes to early '98, and drops off then.
Ghost arc is fairly controversial - the ghosts are annoying to deal with, but I happen to love it. That's rare place where you can get some weapons that will ignore enemy armor. Your choice. Also, surfers are must-have usually, they are early pathway to osiron -> syndicate, and abyssal -> deep one. You're lucky to get syndicate without 'em.

14

The X-Com Files / Re: The X-Com Files - 3.3: Mysteries Ancient And New

« on: June 24, 2024, 09:38:19 am »

It seems to me from scripts that handcuffs have 1% chance of breaking per turn for every point of victim's strength above handcuff strength (that is, 40/60). So, 50 base strength + (extra strength from difficulty), means ~10-15% per turn for assassin. Considering their cost of 40 TUs (+ need to free hands), seems like a waste of time.
As some wrote, it's a bit more relevant in BAI as waking up enemy units act immediately, but it seems just extra safety layer over babysitter that you'll need anyway.

15

The X-Com Files / Re: Campaign Report

« on: June 23, 2024, 08:06:12 am »

Afaik, manors don't spawn other manors. The only way to stop them is to terminate the corresponding cult early
(while at that topic, raiding tier 2 dagon manor for jarhead corpse-> emp is fairly important). I did two campaigns clearing out every manor from the globe, it's not a good play. You have to spent half to whole hour per manor, for up to 10-20 hours total. Check out my veteran playlist and see for yourself how many of these videos are manor issues. Early manors, at that. Since manors don't produce good loot or money, that's A LOT of work for nothing.

And after you clear the manors, you're being swamped with hybrid dwellings anyway. It never stops. I would see modding that annoyance out as perfectly justified.

Ignoring them is fine if you can tank the score hit. You usually can, apart from the months where isn't anything major happening - you do aforementioned manor-score-boosting at these times. The current score can be viewed from the graphs buttons, to have understanding of when you need to.