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XCOM: Enemy Unknown |OT| Neo GAF is Under Alien Control

r1chard

Member
I've accidentally hit "R" instead of "E" a number of times now, and said many rude words.


The reordering of the hotkeys for basic abilities shared amongst all troops is dumb.
 

Rufus

Member
The reordering of the hotkeys for basic abilities shared amongst all troops is dumb.
Kind of baffling, too, since the UI is good for the most part. That section could have been improved by just not designing it. Soldiers learn class specific abilities? Append them to the core skills. Done. Headshot doesn't have to come after attack just because it's also an attack skill.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
1 - attack
2 - overwatch
3 - hunker down
4 - reload
5 - item 1
6 - item 2
7+ - special abilities

I can't believe they got something so simple so wrong.
 
I've been starting to dig into Classic difficulty, and I'm having a pretty rough time. Should I just accept that I'm going to lose 1-2 rookies in the first mission? Even if I have them behind full cover or hunkered down, it seems like they get critted to death with frightening regularity.

On that note, is there any way to tell what the enemy's hit/crit chance is against your own troops?
 

TTG

Member
I've been starting to dig into Classic difficulty, and I'm having a pretty rough time. Should I just accept that I'm going to lose 1-2 rookies in the first mission? Even if I have them behind full cover or hunkered down, it seems like they get critted to death with frightening regularity.

On that note, is there any way to tell what the enemy's hit/crit chance is against your own troops?



No, you shouldn't accept that, but it's not the end of the world. You'll figure it out as you go, the learning curve is fine. As a general rule though, high cover does not equal absolute safety.
 
As a general rule though, high cover does not equal absolute safety.

True, it just seems like no matter how cautiously I play, 1-2 of my troops are getting smoked on that first map. I should probably be making better use of walls and such to keep my units out of sight, but on some maps that doesn't seem to be an option.
 

TTG

Member
Keep playing! If, say through the first 10 missions you suffer more than 10 casualties, come back for some standard issue advice.

Try to keep 2 things in mind:

1. Always look to have the drop on enemies. That means they don't get their turn in before yours. That means you don't uncover a bunch while moving your last, or next to last guy around.

2. Try to fight them 1 pack at a time.
 

TTG

Member
Feel like I have a good strategy for satellite coverage on impossible. Well, month 3 just started and I've already lost 4 countries, so it may not be the best in the world, but I like it.

Obviously you're building as many satellites as you can to fight down the panic all over, but the idea is to start in Africa for the money bonus. By the time month 2 ends, North America is covered, which results in the aircraft savings. This is great because the new type of ship is still a loooong way off, but large scouts and stuff will start to show up. You need to bump your interceptors to 2 per continent to make sure you can bring these guys down and that's where the bonus kicks in. The goal for the third month is obviously South America, making all interrogations and autopsies instant, it should be easy enough to keep the two countries on ice until then.

So, you're set with the 3 best bonuses in 3 months. Europe and Asia are too hard to cover in time before any of those countries pull out anyway. I know other people have it down to counting days and retrying for certain missions to hit on certain days, but if you don't want to stress over that stuff, this strategy has worked out for me. Leaves enough cash for an officer training school, alien zoo and the other junk too, without having to sell off precious resources.
 
My classical ironman campaign has come to an abrupt end once I entered 3rd month, May. The last mission showed indication of very difficult. So I brought a squad made of high rank officers, 2 of them Lt.

The mission quickly gone down hill when my scouting squad bumped into a pair of mutons. My Lt. Assault and Lt. Heavy hunkered behind walls, when hit % was 25%. The muton, without hesitation, blew up both of them with grenade. Another 3, while trying to escape, bumped into another group of floaters. I won't go into details with tears but suffice to say, all of them KIA. With just rookies and Sg. remaining in my barracks, I lost the motivation to continue further as I already lost both my backup and main squad, with total 5 Lts killed in different missions prior to that.

From this terrible experience, I realized I need to speed up my research on armour but carapace research too almost 10+ days to complete. By the time I had it done, it was beginning of May and I only have resources enough to make one armour, I simply don't have enough alloys.

I'd like to know how do you guys hang on for the first 3 months and how do you guys approach research? Any typical research sequence? Did you build laboratory or play missions that recruit scientists? The missions I've played so far were to recruit engineers or get $200. No lab was built during the campaign.

I beelined to beam weapons w/o researching any armours and my squad wiped to dust in front of the might of muton. Help me gaf.
 
My classical ironman campaign has come to an abrupt end once I entered 3rd month, May. The last mission showed indication of very difficult. So I brought a squad made of high rank officers, 2 of them Lt.

The mission quickly gone down hill when my scouting squad bumped into a pair of mutons. My Lt. Assault and Lt. Heavy hunkered behind walls, when hit % was 25%. The muton, without hesitation, blew up both of them with grenade. Another 3, while trying to escape, bumped into another group of floaters. I won't go into details with tears but suffice to say, all of them KIA. With just rookies and Sg. remaining in my barracks, I lost the motivation to continue further as I already lost both my backup and main squad, with total 5 Lts killed in different missions prior to that.

From this terrible experience, I realized I need to speed up my research on armour but carapace research too almost 10+ days to complete. By the time I had it done, it was beginning of May and I only have resources enough to make one armour, I simply don't have enough alloys.

I'd like to know how do you guys hang on for the first 3 months and how do you guys approach research? Any typical research sequence? Did you build laboratory or play missions that recruit scientists? The missions I've played so far were to recruit engineers or get $200. No lab was built during the campaign.

I beelined to beam weapons w/o researching any armours and my squad wiped to dust in front of the might of muton. Help me gaf.

My research path is- weapon fragments (for scopes), alien materials (for vests and for prerequisite to carapace), then xeno-biology and arc thrower until I get my first UFO mission for the alloys, then I'll either switch off those and go straight to carapace or if they're almost done finish them then carapace. I normally finish carpace around the 1st or second week of the second month.

I only take engineers or ranked supports as rewards the first month.

I don't start beam weapons until I capture a sectoid.
 
Keep playing! If, say through the first 10 missions you suffer more than 10 casualties, come back for some standard issue advice.

Try to keep 2 things in mind:

1. Always look to have the drop on enemies. That means they don't get their turn in before yours. That means you don't uncover a bunch while moving your last, or next to last guy around.

2. Try to fight them 1 pack at a time.

Cool, thanks for the advice! I've been trying to do those things in general, but I sometimes get sloppy with number 1.

I think part of it may have just been a streak of bad luck on my starting maps -- my current run is going much smoother (or maybe this run has been a streak of good luck, lol).

I had been retrying one map in particular that was fairly narrow with a lot of low cover and open space in the middle, so it was really hard to engage one group without another one patrolling into the area. It probably would have been a cakewalk with a squadsight sniper, but with four rookies it was pretty rough. This run, I got a map with more walls, so it was a lot easier to pick fights on my own terms.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Cool, thanks for the advice! I've been trying to do those things in general, but I sometimes get sloppy with number 1.

I think part of it may have just been a streak of bad luck on my starting maps -- my current run is going much smoother (or maybe this run has been a streak of good luck, lol).

I had been retrying one map in particular that was fairly narrow with a lot of low cover and open space in the middle, so it was really hard to engage one group without another one patrolling into the area. It probably would have been a cakewalk with a squadsight sniper, but with four rookies it was pretty rough. This run, I got a map with more walls, so it was a lot easier to pick fights on my own terms.

All you have to do is never move your last guys further than the guys you've already moved. That way you wont uncover any more fog of war, and thus not view any aliens, thus not triggering more aliens.
 

r1chard

Member
Given up on Impossible. Just can't get over that hump of difficulty in the first few missions.

Gonna give Classic Ironman a try. So far I'm having more fun, so that's good :)
 

Neki

Member
I really wish I had gotten the attack after moving skill on one of my snipers, didn't realize you could remove the aim penalty in a later tier, I'm sad. xD
 

TTG

Member
Squad sight is much more useful. All other classes have the option to move and fire, save for firing a rocket, but squad sight is unique and top 3 in abilities in the game. A high level sniper, with squad sight, is the deadliest thing on about 90% of the maps.

Also, I just had to do a bomb diffusal mission on that train station map on impossible. Bringing 2 snipers and 2 heavies along, I barely made it to the bomb. A support saved my ass, I mean literally, if I didn't have those extra tiles, it would have been all over.
 
I really wish I had gotten the attack after moving skill on one of my snipers, didn't realize you could remove the aim penalty in a later tier, I'm sad. xD

Wrong on both accounts. Squad sight is far and away the better ability for snipers, and the next tier does not remove the aim penalty. Snap shot has a -20 aim penalty when you move and shot your rifle, good ground only has a +10 aim bonus when you're at a higher elevation. If you need to move and shot then use your pistol, always always always go squad sight.
 

KePoW

Banned
Can someone give me a good starting point guide? For Classic, I'm getting my ass kicked. I finished the game first time on Easy.

I love the gameplay and design, I'm just not an expert in these types of games.

Just need some starting basics for the first month I think... like what starting continent, what specific things should I build first and when, etc.

Thanks!
 

Neki

Member
Wrong on both accounts. Squad sight is far and away the better ability for snipers, and the next tier does not remove the aim penalty. Snap shot has a -20 aim penalty when you move and shot your rifle, good ground only has a +10 aim bonus when you're at a higher elevation. If you need to move and shot then use your pistol, always always always go squad sight.

I thought opportunist removed the penalty, I guess not, lol. Yeah, I guess I should use my pistol more, but I just sit back with my snipers when I have squad sight so it's fine. Double tap is so imba too

btw, why is this the worst play-tested game I've ever tried? so many glitches and bugs, the worst is when the esc key stops working and I can't save at base
 
Just need some starting basics for the first month I think... like what starting continent, what specific things should I build first and when, etc.

I'm still a newb to Classic too, but maybe some of this will help. :p

I tend to go for Africa or Asia first. Africa because the extra income is always useful, and Asia because it's nice to have its bonus as soon as you build an Officer Training School, which may be hard to do otherwise because it needs so many satellites. South America's bonus is pretty handy as well, but it only takes two satellites to pick it up later.

For build order, you'll want to get as many satellites as you can (and preferably a second uplink) finished by the end of the month. If the council meeting is less than 20 days away, don't bother building satellites because you'll be able to build them later, probably at a bigger discount due to more engineers. My next priorities are the OTS and Alien Containment. I haven't been building much gear early on, but the early gear is quite cheap so you should be okay as long as you don't overbuy a bunch of junk you don't need.
 

zkylon

zkylewd
I thought opportunist removed the penalty, I guess not, lol. Yeah, I guess I should use my pistol more, but I just sit back with my snipers when I have squad sight so it's fine. Double tap is so imba too

btw, why is this the worst play-tested game I've ever tried? so many glitches and bugs, the worst is when the esc key stops working and I can't save at base
Not the worst by a long shot but it's the main candidate for bugfest of the year (this side of Eastern Europe). Still pretty good tho.

edit: well, there's Hotline: Miami too.
 

Neki

Member
I really want to like Xcomm, I do, but the rampant bugs are really stopping me from enjoying it. I've now experienced the soldiers are permanently wounded bug, along with notifications in bases not disappear after you leave that specific area, camera wildly swinging 100 feet under the ground and random freezes.

I just want a refund at this point.
 

Mxrz

Member
Started playing last night. Classic. Ironman. No fucks given.

That went about a well as expected. Still fun watching guys panic and shoot other guys in the face. But do the aliens get bonus health / hit / damage in Classic?
 

McNum

Member
So I got the skeleton key, entered the base...........HOLY SHIT THE CHRYSALIDS! JUST WIPED MY ENTIRE TEAM MAN!
Yeah, they can do that. Nasty little things. What weapons and armor did you bring for the base attack? Lasers and Carapace are nice. Light Plasma is also good.
 

Sajjaja

Member
Yeah, they can do that. Nasty little things. What weapons and armor did you bring for the base attack? Lasers and Carapace are nice. Light Plasma is also good.

I got 3 peeps with Carapice, 4-5 peeps with laser weps. Everyone is at least a captain....... Guess I played too aggressive. But honestly...how can you fight off 4-5 close range chrysalids, it's impossible :(
 

McNum

Member
I got 3 peeps with Carapice, 4-5 peeps with laser weps. Everyone is at least a captain....... Guess I played too aggressive. But honestly...how can you fight off 4-5 close range chrysalids, it's impossible :(
The snarky response here is to say you shouldn't fight 4-5 'lids at close range, but that's not helpful. (Also, it's not impossible, but you need better tech to pull it off. An Assault with a shotgun and Close Combat helps a lot.)

Chryssalids have the disadvantage of being melee only and relatively low HP. They can move really far and hit hard, though. But you know that. If you're only fighting 'lids, cover is useless, it's all about distance. As in if you can't kill it, you need to outrun it. But you can't outrun a 'lid. But you can do a dash that's longer than a single 'lid move. And they still obey the "Move-Action" rule. Forcing them to move twice leaves them helpless on their turn. Or as helpless as a'lid running right up to your soldiers is. But at that range, you can't really miss, so murderize it. And if they end up clumped and you have grenades, see if they will play catch. 3 damage isn't much on its own, but it can make a big difference between a wound-shot and a kill-shot.

But sometimes, you just get a melee range pack of 'lids despite being cautious. That's XCOM. The golden rule of not uncovering new terrain with anyone but your first 1-2 moves still counts for some, though. If you discover 4 'lids, you want 4-5 shots ready. And a rocket. A Squadsight sniper is also fun if he's beyond 1-move range of the 'lids. He'll get two shots. Generally, he should lag one move behind the rest in indoors missions.
 

TTG

Member
I got 3 peeps with Carapice, 4-5 peeps with laser weps. Everyone is at least a captain....... Guess I played too aggressive. But honestly...how can you fight off 4-5 close range chrysalids, it's impossible :(


So, more than 1 pack showed up on the same turn? That really sucks on that map, because there are no civilians that can distract them. It's about the only time in the game you're going to run into that particular scenario. That's one of those everything and the kitchen sink deals, pull your guys out of friendly fire range and let the rockets go. Clean up whatever is left.
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
ugh... that JUST happened to me on the alien base attack

i was maybe 2 tiles off of the rest of the group and lost a colonel to 3 lids without even getting a shot off. i had only lost one other soldier through the entire classic run up until that point.

i put them down without a hitch the next turn... sucked having to kill the colonel again though when he came back as a zombie
 
My first classic non-ironman victory is in the books. Next up- going back to classic IRONMAN.

szufS.jpg
 

Snuggles

erotic butter maelstrom
Started playing this today. Since then I've lost all interest in the outside world. This game is amazing. Every encounter is so intense, and so satisfying. The game seems to have TONS of depth, content and replayability but the difficulty curve has not been bad at all. As an outsider to the strategy genre I was worried I might be over my head, but it's been smooth sailing so far. I feel like this is going to be one of those games that consumes me even when I'm not playing it.
 
I got 3 peeps with Carapice, 4-5 peeps with laser weps. Everyone is at least a captain....... Guess I played too aggressive. But honestly...how can you fight off 4-5 close range chrysalids, it's impossible :(
Try to split up your dudes so that you can blow them to bits while they chase after another unit or two.
 
Goddamn it...

Extraction mission, almost finished, Thin Man appears, poisoned, panic, shooting each other, more panic, more shooting, everyone dead, VIP dead, mission failure, that's XCOM baby. >_<

Start new game.
 

Zertez

Member
I really want to like Xcomm, I do, but the rampant bugs are really stopping me from enjoying it. I've now experienced the soldiers are permanently wounded bug, along with notifications in bases not disappear after you leave that specific area, camera wildly swinging 100 feet under the ground and random freezes.

I just want a refund at this point.
What are you playing the game on? I'm playing the Pc version and I don't think ive encountered half as many bugs as you playing over 150 hours.
 

milkham

Member
What are you playing the game on? I'm playing the Pc version and I don't think ive encountered half as many bugs as you playing over 150 hours.

i'm also playing on pc and the only bugs i still get are enemies appearing out of nowhere in the middle of my guys and the stupid psi labs glitched third slot
 

Neki

Member
What are you playing the game on? I'm playing the Pc version and I don't think ive encountered half as many bugs as you playing over 150 hours.

Playing on PC, and it's only been like 15 hours. Should have got it on console or something.
 

Rufus

Member
There is, but it's neither the point nor particularly interesting. Playing the game lends what's happening gravitas but that's all. So yeah, it's about the challenge of the higher difficulties. From what I hear, multiplayer isn't half bad, either.
 
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