My not so serious, but sadly, exceptionally well-working TFTD-"Guide"

[new_civilian]

Start a game, buy some soldiers to fill your transporter, sell EVERYTHING except:
-Gas-Cannons and HE ammo.
Buy 1 or 2 Tazers and 1 or 2 grenades.
Equip your stronger soldiers with the Gas-Cannons. The weaker soldiers get the tazers and maybe a grenade.

That's it. You can now match and kill EVERYTHING the game throws at you iup to the VERY late game, even on superhuman.

65 damage. area damage. 2 shots per turn. 8 shots per clip. you can carry 3 clips. Need I say more?

tanks? forget them.
a rocket launcher that does 90 damge, gives you 4 shots only and weights 2 times as much? forget it.
the small rocket does 80 damage.... oooooh.
gauss weapons? forget them
auto-cannons that you can use only underwater? forget them.
sonic weapons? Nice but still not needed until the end.
armor? If you place your troops correctly you won't need any.

Research the Sonic Pulsers once you can and you get what 120 damage with a weight of only 3, meaning you can throw them over half a big map.... This game is so nuts......

65 damage.... High-Explosive area damage...

Aquatoids? They die if you cough at them. Gillman, ddep ones, calcinites, tentaculats? just 65'em!

And then the Lobsterman. Use Tazer. Done.

Really. Who made this game. And don't get me started about the look of the Sonic weapons  or the crazy aliens (Dinosaurs with rocket launchers? Generic looking alien races that you can only differentiate by their colors...?) oh boy (or girl)...

And then the ship missions...... Ok I mercifully end my rant "guide" here.

After playing Xcom 1 with all the new mods, improvements and features of Openxcom (and the Extended exe) TFTD felt like returning to the 90s in a BAD way.

*returns to X-Com 1 with a shaking head....*

Gas-Cannons and HE.... 65 damage....... 

[Solarius Scorch]

Wow, I thought I was the only one here who disliked TFTD.

Agreed on most points, though in some cases I wondered if it's not more of a "works on paper" thing (like not using rocket launchers - a big blast is a big blast). But it's said to not be completely serious, so no problem.

Still, I think modding the game to make it better at a relatively low cost is doable, so we might get a much better TFTD.

[7Saturn]

What really bugs me, is the far too soon heavy psi attack. I mean, ok, in xcom 1 you could have bad luck with first terror mission, but on tftd it seems like every 2nd sub has some psi-killers on it, right from month 2 on. Even on level Beginners. Then a bunch of lobstermen on top, and ready is the annoyance. I don't even wanna try a more difficult level at this point. Don't get me wrong, I love what the devs are doing for the community. I played xcom 1 up and down. But tftd kicks my butt.

[Warboy1982]

I played xcom 1 up and down. But tftd kicks my butt.

i'm pretty sure that was the intention.

[Solarius Scorch]

i'm pretty sure that was the intention.

Yeah, definitely. Though I have the impression they partially shot their own feet - in later missions, most aliens carry around blaster launcher equivalents (can't remember the English name) and can hardly react to what the player is doing, therefore it was much easier to just murder them all if you were careful.

[7Saturn]

Or a battleship pendat, where most of the Tasoth carried stun bomb launcher pendats around. That was about the only reason, why I didn't loose most of my units. And it was nice to see them fall by their own stun bombs while trying to stun my coelacanth in the lift... I won the battle anyways, with the last remaining 3 soldiers. But giving most of them only stun weapons? At this point I was trying to survive as long as it takes, to see them wake up again. But fortunately the didn't need to. And I never had to buy that much HWPs... Are they a little more likely to get destroyed?