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Author Topic: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel  (Read 25107 times)

Offline Unknown Hero

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #30 on: July 06, 2014, 10:55:01 pm »
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Why would I need to use so many scanners in the same area?

Because of tactics, and scans have only 10 tiles radius.

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Because using them in remote places causes no problems, and using them in the same area gives roughly the same results...

Scans have 10 tiles radius, so move your units and make another checking. Also, different squads can also have interactions.

And this was mostly for joking...  ::)

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #31 on: July 06, 2014, 11:30:47 pm »
Yeah, but I bet some people took it seriously. :D

Nevertheless, I think this way of using the scanner is... well I won't say "Excessive", since it would be judgemental, but I think really impractical. At least I wouldn't do it.

Offline Unknown Hero

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #32 on: July 06, 2014, 11:53:28 pm »
Should be a breeze with 3D boxes.

As a famous commander always told to his troops:

"Remember guys, use the equipment that has been provided!
Nothing is excessive when lives are at stake!"...

..."And even this pain to use Motion Scanner!"

 :D

Offline Sturm

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #33 on: July 07, 2014, 12:06:25 am »
@ Sturm, @ Solarius Scorch

True. It may be something related to some type of intelligence that allows intuitively understand it without having to do any conscious process of sorting it out on paper or in memory. I guess we can consider ourselves to be made aware of our privilege.

So cute!  ;D :-*
Kawaii!  ;D :-* :-*

Divide your team in different squads; one squad with soldiers equipped with Flying Suits to enter the UFO on the top, by the hole made with a Blaster Launcher, to kill Alien Commanders and make panicking Alien Soldiers; one squad on the floor to enter by a door/hole; one squad on the floor to enter by another door/hole; one or two others squads to check the farms around; all squads equipped with Motion Scanners making use of them before moving then after moving, all in the same turn, and all of this in smoke from Smoke Grenades...
...and the supposed superior intelligence of some becomes again what it is in reality:

"intelligence of the ignorants"  :P ::) 8) :-* :-* ;D
That's an awesome situation. Five squads (five squads? That would be about 50 soldiers O_o ?) sitting in the smoke, carefully drawing diagrams on paper, analysing what  enemies did when they used motion scanner before moving out further half-an-hour later. Meanwhile the enemy just sits in the exact same position they were during the scanning.

Lol. You think you invented using smoke grenades and entry through the top of the ship? The first is straight from the game manual, and the second one is obvious when one gets Blaster Launcher and Flying Suit.

Offline Unknown Hero

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #34 on: July 07, 2014, 12:25:19 am »
@ Sturm

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Five squads (five squads? That would be about 50 soldiers O_o ?)

Perhaps you would have preferred "Fireteams of 2/4 soldiers".


@ Solarius Scorch

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Quote from: Solarius Scorch
Yeah, but I bet some people took it seriously. :D

Yep!  ::)

Offline RSSwizard

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #35 on: August 28, 2014, 02:24:11 am »
My Vote for most useless piece of X-Com equipment. . .
The Electro Flare

I never use it. I never even order it.

Whenever I want to make light, I set something on fire, preferably with some incendiary rounds.
Carrying around a item weighing 3 pounds, which only illuminates a 2 tile radius, must be thrown, and isnt going to help you see through smoke (or some critter which is flying). Not to mention I dont think they are recovered at the end of the mission, and an explosion can destroy them.
#ultimateFail

Night missions are hard and they are supposed to be. And a Flare does not really make them much easier to manage. Best way to attack aliens shooting from the darkness is to circle around on them so you can get close enough to see them. Either that or close enough to see them walk around or make noise (ie, not-hidden-movement) so you know their general vicinity and can pepper the area with grenades.

===

Next useless item:
Auto-Cannon Incendiary ammunition
why go small when you can go big? Just use an Incendiary Rocket (I keep one spare if I really need it on a night mission).


Third tier useless item:
All Those Corpses you keep finding on the ground.
Sure its important for research, but after you've researched the corpse you have no further use for it except for selling it. So basically its just this game's version of "you found some gold coins".


Fourth tier useless item:
Motion Scanner
Indeed it can be useful, in the dark, or in a network of close quarters when you got scary creatures like cryssalids and mutons wiht heavy plasma guns running around.

But it only has a reach of 10 tiles at most so its not going to pierce the dark at any good distance - you will still get reaction fired on just as much, and even in the dark by the time you can get close enough to detect someone on the Scanner . . . you can just see them.

So . . . Very limited functionality, especially considering it costs research and manufacturing to get it.


Start of Useful, but very poor use items (as in not useless, but it sucks . . .)
Pistol and Pistol Clip
Its a weapon, it kills things, and its compact.
But it has no auto fire, and most of the time one shot wont do it. Its a death trap except to finish off something which has already been hit (and even then it might not do it).

But tons of people cry foul about that so thats why there's a mod.

Offline wsmithjr

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #36 on: August 28, 2014, 03:03:27 am »
My Vote for most useless piece of X-Com equipment. . .
The Electro Flare
I never use it. I never even order it.

Hmm.  I live by them and die without them.  Maybe they do weigh too much.  I'm playing a mod right now that has them at 1 pound.  Almost any lame rookie can carry around a few of those.  Not so easy with incendiary rounds.  Sure, I like to light stuff on fire too, but it never hurts to toss these things around.  And they do get recovered at the end of the battle unless they are destroyed by explosives.  Certainly not #ultimateFail for me.

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Next useless item:
Auto-Cannon Incendiary ammunition
Why go small when you can go big? Just use an Incendiary Rocket (I keep one spare if I really need it on a night mission).

Wow!  How many incendiary rocket rounds can a soldier carry vs how many auto cannon rounds can he carry?  I'm the opposite.  Never use the incendiary rockets but use auto-cannon incendiary like confetti on night missions.  You can cover 3 times the area per turn with the auto-cannon.

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Start of Useful, but very poor use items (as in not useless, but it sucks . . .)
Pistol and Pistol Clip

No arguments here.  I carry them on guys who have heavy weapons but I don't think I ever pull them out and I certainly don't ever *want* to.  'Course, in vanilla they have a shelf life of about half a month before they can be replaced with laser pistols which are infinitely better.

Offline RSSwizard

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #37 on: August 28, 2014, 04:08:24 am »
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Wow!  How many incendiary rocket rounds can a soldier carry
Only a couple at most, considering if im giving him a rocket launcher the intention is for him to shoot something damaging with it (large rockets).

But an incendiary rocket basically lights an entire 10x10 map block on fire, and some of that fire remains.

Any night mission which becomes a serious problem, typically has ONE AREA that is pinned down by aliens, which turns into an omaha beach meatgrinder. I can almost always manage the rest of the map. Granted I could toss like 5 flares in that area to shed light there, but 1 Rocket will do the same job. Now that the area is illuminated I send in real rockets, and grenades since I know where the most likely areas are that have aliens and I can get it close to them instead of firing blindly. (even with illumination they are often not spotted right away).

Offline Dioxine

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #38 on: August 28, 2014, 07:51:28 am »
I think it'd be HC/I ammo for me. Not AC/I, since it's about the only useful thing about Autocannon, and Incendiary rocket... yeah at least it makes a LOT of fire. Useful in alien bases. But a large rocket usually starts fires too :) Generally it's about illumination it seems - but you almost never *have to* fight in the dark.

However I don't understand how Pistol is useless. It's the best early game long-range sniping weapon, with the ability to squeeze out far more Aimed shots than anything else. :)

Offline BBHood217

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #39 on: August 28, 2014, 11:38:51 am »
Maybe they're referring to the fact that sometimes pistols don't kill sectoids in one shot.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #40 on: August 28, 2014, 06:18:08 pm »
Maybe they're referring to the fact that sometimes pistols don't kill sectoids in one shot.

Sadle, neither do rifles. Or plasma rifles. :P

Offline wsmithjr

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #41 on: August 29, 2014, 04:23:20 am »
However I don't understand how Pistol is useless. It's the best early game long-range sniping weapon, with the ability to squeeze out far more Aimed shots than anything else. :)

Actually, I won't contest that.  Personally, however, I refuse to use Pistols as sniper rifles.  Probably why I'm not really good at this game. :)

Offline yrizoud

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #42 on: August 29, 2014, 05:42:48 pm »
Even the snap shots are crazy fast (18% - the fastest in the whole game) and far from inaccurate (60%). After an alien has expended its reaction fire, or if he doesn't see you, you can pepper it with pistols and (thanks to low damage) rack up the experience points. I feel accuracy experience is critically important in the first half of the game.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #43 on: August 29, 2014, 10:08:40 pm »
It has one more advantage... you don't have plasma rifles in the beginning :)

Also I've noticed something odd about the wording of the title of this topic... is "arsonel" stuff you use to commit arson with? If so, Black Library made fun of everyone here :)

Offline BlackLibrary

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Re: The most useless piece of equipment in the X-COM arsonel
« Reply #44 on: September 01, 2014, 05:25:45 pm »
Wasn't trying to insult with snarky comment.  Removed :).