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[-tetsuo-]

Wait what? How do I do this? Which platform? Android I hope!

Sorry for late reply. Yes it is android, I play on my Droid X2. Download a dosbox app, I prefer dosbox turbo, though it cost 3.50. After that, install UFO Defense to a PC then move the files over to your internal storage (internal storage is easiest since DB TUrbo auto mounts that as C: drive). When done... I hope you know how to use dos . Just find you way to the XCOM directory and launch. This game and pretty much any mouse driven dos game work great with it.

 

[platypotamus]

So I am running the mod with second wave enabled, and man, I like the Marathon mode so much better than the default time line.

 

[Dakota47]

So I am running the mod with second wave enabled, and man, I like the Marathon mode so much better than the default time line.

What are the big differences?

 

[-tetsuo-]

Why was this not in the game??!?!?!?


Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases.
High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

 

[I NEED SCISSORS]

The randomized hit detection in this game is really turning me off...

miss.... miss..... miss..... ugh

 

[platypotamus]

What are the big differences?

Everything takes longer on the strategic map. I'm like... June or July something and I've only seen Mutons once in a landed UFO. I've only got Carapace armor and default weapons. Only 3 countries have left the project (one due to failed terror mission).

I'm using the alternate version that enables more UFO encounters (or lets you detect them when they are trying to do other stuff, or whatever it does). http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/7/

There's a bunch of other options you can check in Second Wave too, some buggy, and most I haven't messed with.

 

[Miletius]

Why was this not in the game??!?!?!?


Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases.
High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

I think the official response was that is wasn't ready by the time the game launched. Hopefully they'll polish it and put it into the game.

I'd like a mode where plasma/lazer weapons are disabled personally, but adjust mob spawns accordingly (more little guys, fewer late gamer monsters).

 

[coldfoot]

Wait what? How do I do this? Which platform? Android I hope!

You can also do it on a PSP

 

[platypotamus]

I think the official response was that is wasn't ready by the time the game launched. Hopefully they'll polish it and put it into the game.

I'd like a mode where plasma/lazer weapons are disabled personally, but adjust mob spawns accordingly (more little guys, fewer late gamer monsters).

Yup. Several of the modes are bugged/untested by modders yet it looks like. Only two I'm rolling with are New Economy and Marathon.

Probably wouldn't do New Economy again though, as the balance of funding/continent bonuses/size gets thrown off quite a bit.

 

[Riposte]

Why was this not in the game??!?!?!?


Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases.
High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

Christ, this game doesn't need to be even more random.

 

[weekend_warrior]

Why was this not in the game??!?!?!?


Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases.
High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

Is this a mod pack or ideas you had? Either way, I like it.

 

[McNum]

Is this a mod pack or ideas you had? Either way, I like it.

Those are the Second Wave options. But they're not enabled in the game as the team didn't have time to finish them. You can mod them back to working, somewhat, but they may still be buggy. Maybe a future patch or DLC will enable them.

 

[-tetsuo-]

Is this a mod pack or ideas you had? Either way, I like it.

Its a mod

 

[weekend_warrior]

Those are the Second Wave options. But they're not enabled in the game as the team didn't have time to finish them. You can mod them back to working, somewhat, but they may still be buggy. Maybe a future patch or DLC will enable them.

PC only or is this something that could be patched into the PS3 version too?

 

[MiniBossBattle]

Why was this not in the game??!?!?!?


Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases.
High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

Man, I love almost all of these especially a better/ more varied economy.
I remember hiring scientist and mechanics to race to the most profitable items and sell them on the black market. That way my economy didn't rely on other countries and I became a unilateral force. Sorry China, I don't care.

edit: Jintor, got my joke. *Bro Hug

 

[Jintor]

 

[doctorcdcs]

Welp, just finished my first playthrough on classic. It was lots of fun and I really enjoyed the game. Lost a lot of good men and women along the way, but I managed to pull it off.

Unlike the original though, I don't feel that urge to replay it. Perhaps i'll move onto something else, and see if I get the itch to play a second run at it.

 

[speculawyer]

I destroyed this game on Normal but am getting my ass handed to me on Classic Ironman. I've had 5 games in a row not get passed

Spoiler

stunning an Outsider.

I guess I need to work more on flanking or something...

 

[milkham]

I destroyed this game on Normal but am getting my ass handed to me on Classic Ironman. I've had 5 games in a row not get passed

Spoiler

stunning an Outsider.

I guess I need to work more on flanking or something...

i was having the same trouble so I changed my tactics and seem to be working better. I inch forward sending a scout out, then run back and wait for them to walk into my overwatch, i'll run away for better position, i won't take a shot if I'm unsure, i use hunker down more, i use overwatch to make aliens stay next to cars that are going to blow up, on terror missions I don't move much anymore and just wait for as many of the aliens to come to me as possible, forget saving the civilians and I use suppression way more than I ever did previously.

Disaster is still just around the corner though, I just had a mission where all 6 of my guys missed their shot on a cyberdisk while the other cyberdisk was moving closer. It grenaded me and one shot my support guy before I was able to finish it.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Disaster is still just around the corner though, I just had a mission where all 6 of my guys missed their shot on a cyberdisk while the other cyberdisk was moving closer. It grenaded me and one shot my support guy before I was able to finish it.

Grenades have been the bane of my existence on Classic.

 

[epmode]

I still think grenades should explode after one turn, as god intended. Screw focus groups.

 

[Jintor]

Give me throwable proximity mines

Auto-overwatching sentry turrets

all kinds of neat shit

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

I still think grenades should explode after one turn, as god intended. Screw focus groups.

I liked the timer-based ones in the original, even if I only ever set it to 0.

 

[CommonSense]

Goddamnit...had a guy who was with me from mission one to near end game and he dies...how did he die? a fucking squaddie panicked and killed him. Guess who'll be stationed in Nigeria the rest of his life? Asshole.

 

[Neuromancer]

Why was this not in the game??!?!?!?


Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier's stats for that mission.
Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it's panic level increases.
High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

Wow that sounds awful. Who are the masochists that come up with this stuff?

 

[CommonSense]

Wow that sounds awful. Who are the masochists that come up with this stuff?

 

[Purkake4]

Hopefully they'll add extra stuff in via patches, but rushing this a bit was probably worth shitting all over the upcoming X-Com.

 

[epmode]

I liked the timer-based ones in the original, even if I only ever set it to 0.

At least there was still a threat of getting shot/panicked and dropping the primed grenade.

Having grenades explode the instant they're thrown really kills some of the potential strategy. I much prefer the concept of using them as a tool to get at entrenched aliens. Or you could try to deal damage with clever surpression/Overwatch use as a grenade is tossed. It's more interesting on the receiving end as well!

 

[coldfoot]

I abandoned my first game when China and India quit XCOM. Didn't feel right with half the world's population abandoning me...

 

[Purkake4]

At least there was still a threat of getting shot/panicked and dropping the primed grenade.

Having grenades explode the instant they're thrown really kills some of the potential strategy. I much prefer the concept of using them as a tool to get at entrenched aliens. Or you could try to deal damage with clever surpression/Overwatch use as a grenade is tossed. It's more interesting on the receiving end as well!

Oh man, primed grenades was the default strategy when facing Chryssalids.

 

[Fragamemnon]

I abandoned my first game when China and India quit XCOM. Didn't feel right with half the world's population abandoning me...

On the other hand, it almost seems logical if you think of the lost countries as planned and part of some alien invasion Redeker Plan, buying time for XCOM to build up and mount a credible response to a threat that, initially, outclasses them in every way. This war was never going to be fought with manpower and industrial capacity anyway.

 

[-tetsuo-]

Wow that sounds awful. Who are the masochists that come up with this stuff?

The game is a little easy, as is.

 

[george_us]

Man I'm pretty much always broke in this game.

It's freaking awesome so far though.

Edit: Also the soundtrack is godly, especially the second battle theme.

 

[thisbeard]

Supports not being able to heal was one of the most infuriating bugs I encountered during my run. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Took the round several more turns before I could finally, for some inexplicable reason, heal my wounded soldier.

Thankfully, I have yet to encounter this. But none of these bugs are game-breaking, which I find very telling. It's just too damn fun!

Dead soldiers can't be revived, howeveer there's a chance that a killing blow will put the soldier into critical condition instead of killing him. If this happens, you have three turns to revive them before they bleed out and die.

Sometimes when a dude dies, it'll says he's just "critically wounded", and you get like 3 turns to use the revive ability on him or he's gone for good.

Coincidentally, I had a Rookie get blasted to critical health on a mission that I played just before checking back on my post and figured the whole thing out. But I thank you all just the same. I now understand that Revive is basically an upgraded Stabilize (which is why one icon is replaced by the other...) and I was foolish to think otherwise.

 

[duckroll]

Wow that sounds awful. Who are the masochists that come up with this stuff?

It doesn't sound awful to me. Most of those settings sound pretty interesting if implemented right, and would add a lot of replay value to the game in terms of forcing the player to try different sorts of strategy on subsequent playthroughs. I'm not really a fan of the settings which randomize rewards and stat increases, but hey, that's why it's good to have options so we can pick and choose what we prefer!

 

[LimeD3]

I destroyed this game on Normal but am getting my ass handed to me on Classic Ironman. I've had 5 games in a row not get passed

Spoiler

stunning an Outsider.

I guess I need to work more on flanking or something...

Flanking is actually dangerous on classic ironman because it can lead to finding even more aliens, which can make things even dicier. Rather, I think in the early game the most important things are what milkham has said, and use explosives. In normal you probably never really had to think about using them because flanking was much easier done without triggering too many extra mobs ( I think there is a limit of 5 enemies you can encounter at any given time in normal), there is no limit in classic and above, so you must be alot more careful about the number of aliens you reveal or you risk getting swamped. Thus I think it is alot better to work on knowing when to use the defensive abilities and explosives than to worry about flanking.

If you see a few aliens behind cover and you can't easily flank them without revealing a huge portion of the map, toss a grenade at one of them and try to focus down the others. If ever you feel like there are too many aliens for your squad to handle, blow up a few of them. If there's an alien that none of your squad has a good shot at (or half the squad has missed), just throw a grenade at it, if it doesn't die the rest of your soldiers should have a much better shot at it (or can kill it with more grenades).

I think the game does a disservice to those playing the higher difficulties by having Dr. Vahlen so directly telling you not to blow aliens up. Don't be afraid to kill aliens with explosives and lose weapon fragments in the early game, you won't usually need too many of them until much later. As long as you don't kill more than half the aliens with explosives in any map, you should have plenty of weapon fragments to work with until you reach plasma weaponry, at which point most of the aliens you face won't die quickly to explosives anyways, so you'll be using explosives more to remove cover and open up line of sight rather than to kill.

Whatever you do, in the early game make sure at least one person has explosives to deal with cover and line of sight. Its debatable whether its necessary in the late game, but in the early game you don't have very many options in dealing with the aliens besides just shooting, overwatching and hunkering down so being able to blow up cover or guarantee a kill can be extremely helpful.

 

[r1chard]

Are there ever any upgrades to the rocket launcher? Not shredder. I'm talking old-school X-COM remote-control rockets. Those were so much damn fun.

 

[Papercuts]

Are there ever any upgrades to the rocket launcher? Not shredder. I'm talking old-school X-COM remote-control rockets. Those were so much damn fun.

Yup. Big 'ol green orb that arcs around objects, it's great.

 

[Basileus777]

Some of the 2nd Wave options could be interesting ways to spice up classic difficulty. I need to check out which ones are working properly. It looks like something disabled pretty late in the development process because all the menus work and I even get a Second Wave unlocked message when beating the game.

 

[Izick]

Wow that sounds awful. Who are the masochists that come up with this stuff?

Yeah, pretty much.

 

[epmode]

Yeah, pretty much.

Nah, some of it sounds good even before I try it. Marathon mode might be interesting and the variable starting stats for rookies is more in line with the original game (where using awful soldiers as bait or firing them right off the bat was actually a good idea).

 

[Basileus777]

I wonder how Marathon mode works. Is it like Civ and all research and construction now takes more days?

 

[JumpJeff84]

I'm doin' okay in the battles, but I'm fucked when it comes to the between-mission shit. I don't understand how to make sure I have all the satellite stuff in order to not have all the countries bail out. Gah!

 

[Rentahamster]

183 Will gives me a 98% chance to mind control an Ethereal.

Psi armor + Mind Probe + Psi Inspiration

 

[duckroll]

Some of the 2nd Wave options could be interesting ways to spice up classic difficulty. I need to check out which ones are working properly. It looks s like something diabled pretty late in the development process because all the menus work and I even get a Second Wave unlocked message when beating the game.

If they're still interested in working on it, it might be something they're patching back in. I think that would be a nice good will gesture if they officially announce the DLC, and then put out a major patch which fixes the current bugs and interface issues, while also adding the second wave options back in.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

If they're still interested in working on it, it might be something they're patching back in. I think that would be a nice good will gesture if they officially announce the DLC, and then put out a major patch which fixes the current bugs and interface issues, while also adding the second wave options back in.

The devs seem pretty awesome, but I'm not sure they're awesome enough to resist the allure of a cheap DLC cash-in.

 

[duckroll]

The devs seem pretty awesome, but I'm not sure they're awesome enough to resist the allure of a cheap DLC cash-in.

I really don't think they're going to make Second Wave a DLC on its own. It doesn't make much sense, and wouldn't have that much stand-alone value. On the other hand, it is also possible that they will add Second Wave into the expansion DLC they're already making (the achievements are up on Steam!). I think most fans would be fine with that too, since actual content DLC is pretty exciting. I guess we'll see.

 

[Rentahamster]

Is the premature release of DLC achievements common or rare?

 

[Zyzyxxz]

Well just beat the game, don't know if I discovered a bug but is the ghost armor suppose to keep you invisible forever?

Because when they had a bunch of those Ethereals I just sent him inside solo and it he just picked him off one by one and couldn't be detected.

Overall fun game great strategy aspects, I wish it was a board game though that would be sweet.

 

[Zertez]

Well just beat the game, don't know if I discovered a bug but is the ghost armor suppose to keep you invisible forever?

Because when they had a bunch of those Ethereals I just sent him inside solo and it he just picked him off one by one and couldn't be detected.

Overall fun game great strategy aspects, I wish it was a board game though that would be sweet.

Ive heard they made a board game to make the game. They used it during development and the designers enjoyed playing it a little too much. Hopefully they will think about releasing it.