Why so Hard?

[g5-freemen]

Hi. Just want to ask some question - WHY SO HARD TO PLAY?!
I begin New Game - Beginner difficulty. At the first terror mission (end of first month) i met 5 Cyberdiscs ! FIVE, CARL !!! How it possible?! I have only laser pistols and no armor. What i suppose to do? If i will play at Hard difficulty i will fight with Etherials at first mission?

[ivandogovich]

Yup. Five Cyberdisks is hard.  You can kill them with Large Rockets, or even HE Packs.   

Alternately, you can do like I do, and just do a touch and go on a lot of early terror missions.  If you land (and optionally shoot a few badguys) and take off right away, you will still get a negative score, but it will be much less of a score hit than if you ignored the mission altogether.  I have no qualms about bailing if I don't feel strong enough to handle the enemy.  Ideally the first terror mission is Floaters, as they don't have PSI attacks, nor Cyberdisks, but the game doesn't always roll that way.

[Meridian]

Hi. Just want to ask some question - WHY SO HARD TO PLAY?!
I begin New Game - Beginner difficulty. At the first terror mission (end of first month) i met 5 Cyberdiscs ! FIVE, CARL !!! How it possible?! I have only laser pistols and no armor. What i suppose to do? If i will play at Hard difficulty i will fight with Etherials at first mission?

Hello there and welcome to the forum.

1/ There is no shame in aborting the first few terror missions.
2/ You will not face Ethereals on any difficulty. You can face only Sectoids or Floaters in the first few months.
3/ There are many ways how to deal with Cyberdiscs, even on Superhuman difficulty... just watch some LPers on YouTube... in general, HE packs and Large rockets are your best bet... both killing a Cyberdics in one shot almost every time.

Xcom is a hard game... at the beginning it may be frustrating, but you'll love it later when you get better.

[g5-freemen]

Maybe i'm wrong, but as i remember in standart XCOM game at the beginning was not so much cyberdiscs at terror missions. And not so many sectoids from medium scout.
Or maybe i'm too old to remember old good times [386SX-20, 2mb RAM, 85mb HDD and monochrome green monitor]

[Warboy1982]

for what it's worth, i can say that this is all perfectly normal.
blame the random number gods.

[yrizoud]

Maybe you had the difficulty bug, so when you play OpenXcom with a difficulty > Beginner, it's harder.
https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Known_Bugs#Difficulty_Bug

[Dioxine]

On Beginner, enemies only have half normal armor so Cyberdiscs can be taken down with enough hits from Laser Pistols.

[Hythlodaeus]

Use explosives and rocket tanks

[NotCIAAgent]

In doubt, abort the mission. If you do, the negative score will be of the amount of civilians that died. If you don't, it will be that, minus the amount of soldiers you lost, plus the amount of aliens you killed, amount of artifacts recovered, and amount of corpses/captures.

In my experience, unless you can assure you will bring most of your boys and girls back to the base (tier 2 weaponry, armor, etc), it is better to abort. You will more often than not recover the score on salvage and ground assault missions, even with the country that had the terror mission.

[DeltaEpsilon]

Many people skip the first terror mission if they hadn't managed to get laser weapons by the time it occurs.

Cyberdisc can be easily taken down by laser rifles and higher. Out of all terrestrial weapons, only large rockets are capable of tackling down cyberdiscs reliably enough. You may also try playing around with stun prods if you are suicidal.

[nadir-1648]

Obviously, the most effective method is to pray for Floaters, but like everybody else has said repeatedly: It is both acceptable and common to abort the first terror mission. In January, you're outgunned enough against small UFOs, MOUT against heavily-armed foes while you have airsoft guns and pajamas is unlikely to work.

Large Rockets rip Cyberdiscs to shreds, operate them in teams. The launcher operator himself, and a guy carrying extra ammo. It helps to aim for terrain near the target; it's much easier to hit that way, though the splash damage may hurt slightly less than a direct hit.

[Slaughter]

5 cyberdisks is strange. Pretty sure Sectoid Terror Ships carry three, max.
Heavy Cannons with AP ammo can hurt Cyberdisks, but it takes a while.

Rifles can hurt cyberdisks, but its like trying to punch down a iron door.

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[Bloax]

5 cyberdisks is strange. Pretty sure Sectoid Terror Ships carry three, max.
Heavy Cannons with AP ammo can hurt Cyberdisks, but it takes a while.

Rifles can hurt cyberdisks, but its like trying to punch down a iron door.

I had 6 cyberdisc corpses after the sectoid terror mission I did in March of my little first-time play. :-)

Oh, and cyberdiscs only have 34 armor (everywhere) and 120 hp, so enough grenades should wear them down if you aren't hilariously unprepared both in crew and equipment departments.

[Solarius Scorch]

I had 6 cyberdisc corpses after the sectoid terror mission I did in March of my little first-time play. :-)

Yeah, but you play on Superhuman.

Oh, and cyberdiscs only have 34 armor (everywhere) and 120 hp, so enough grenades should wear them down if you aren't hilariously unprepared both in crew and equipment departments.

True, and also remember that if you play on Beginner, all enemy armour is halved.

[DeltaEpsilon]

Oh, and cyberdiscs only have 34 armor (everywhere) and 120 hp, so enough grenades should wear them down if you aren't hilariously unprepared both in crew and equipment departments.

Only if you are playing beginner.


Don't even try it somewhere else.

(42 damage is because 50+40+40+40 = 170 full damage divided by 4 = 42.5 which is normalised damage to every tile of a cyberdisc)