The Unofficial X-COM Thread

X-COM: UFO DEFENSE

It is old school but good school. Anyone else who has played this game please chime in and talk about what you liked/disliked, and if you found anything more contemporary that matches the experience. In general, lets start discussing X-COM.

Well, it's a very good and playable game.
Unfortunately, when I try to attacka ny alien base, the game stops working (the screen goes black and everything I can see is a cursor, stuck in top-left corner of screen.)

I love it, partially because its just about the only game that doesn't lag on my computer. It would be cool however if you could play as the aliens. The three races i despise are Mutons, Chryssalids and Ethereals. Each of them are just as annoying as the other, but i think the Ethereals are no1 on my hate list.
My favorite (ie. easiest) alien races are Sectoids, Snakemen and Floaters. Floaters are little more then target practice really.
The race i enjoy fighting the most must be Snakemen when they are on terror missions, with their Chryssalids running around. Allthough Chryssalids arent much of a threat once you get flying suits.

I was suprised that none of the sequels allowed you to play as teh aliens. Actually, the sequels were quite weak compared to the original.

I liked fighting Mutons, mostly because you had to use strong force tactics to kill them. I've seen a Muton take a Alien Grenade and keep coming. However, they are still quite easy to mind control with Psi Amps. That is the way to take out bases, strong Psi Amps in the LZ and use alien troops to do your scouting.

I never invested in flying suits because of the elerium cost. The only troops I ever equipped with them were Leuitenant and higher. Power Armour was usually good enouhg, although Chryssalids were a greater threat then.

Did you hear about Project Xenocide? They're making a X-Com like game.

I think it's one of the best games ever. It's got depth most new games do not have. You need think your strategy how to defend earth when placing bases. How to manage your resources and most importantly master the tactical combat. It's a shame they do not make more games like this.

I hate Mutons too, but Cryssalids are a real pain in the ***. Am I the only one who really hates those flying pills. Early terror missions with sectoids can turn into massacres when they are around. If they don't shoot your men they explode and kill civilians .

Elerium is not a problem if you don't down UFOs. Wait until they land and capture them untouched. Downing bigger UFOs is not really a viable option anyway early in the game. This way you get far more loot and elerium.

Then a small question: Do you use tanks and if you do, what kind and where. I've found all kinds of them very useful in base defence.

I had looked at Xenocide about a year ago, but they have really made some progress. Although the graphics will be dated by today's standards, I can't wait. Wish I could program to help them out.

I use laser weapons for the whole game, since it doesn't run out of ammo... which is important for me since there's a bug in xcom: if you finish a mission and there's some ammo in your weapons, it disappears, therefore you have to unload all the weapons which is annoying.

There have been a few games that have used similar tactical combat systems to XCOM/UFO. Jagged Alliance 2 was probably the best, Silent Storm was the most recent. UFO:Aftermath was touted as an unoffical sequel to the XCOM games, but crashed so often on my system that I gave up on it. Where XCOM wins though is the strategy game, most of the competition have either no strategic game or an extremely limited one, whereas buidling the base and researching in XCOM reminded me of Civ, not surprisingly as both were Microprose games.

Here is a hint on how to never run out of Elerium. Find an alien base built by one of the easier races, ie floaters. Then wait for the supply ships to come buy and attack them when they land outside the base, that way you will have a regular supply of Elerium as long as you don't destroy the base they are there to resupply.

Also i use lots of tanks in base defence, at least 4 of them. A blaster tank can really do some serious damage to the aliens in the hangars.

BTW does anyone know what you have to research to get the mind shield building?

To get the psi-lab and related techs you need to interrogate either a Sectiod leader or an Ethereal.

I never found that I ran out of plasma clips. Usually the biggest problem was storing all the ammo rather than having it. Hopefully they will remove the 80 item limit in Xenocide.

In many cases I prefer Terror from the Deep (TFTD) over UFO defense. Probably because all the little annoying bugs in(like the research tree) made it harder. And those damnable Lobstermen and Bio-Drones and Tentactualites are a real pain in the butt. I would rather take on an entire army of UFO Defense aliens then a Lobstermen and bio-drone terror site. It's not that they were impossible(beat it on super-human a couple of times) they were just so damn annoying and they ate up all my ammo.

TFTD is the only game that I've actually had an ammo problem in. In Apoc the guns regenerate(lame) so no worries then in UFO Defense each alien has like 3 clips on him(including the one in the gun) and it rarly takes more then 2 shots to kill anything with a heavy plasma rifle. Though I did have a sectoid take up to 10 HPR shots before finnally dieing(The 6th one knocked him and 4 turns later he got back up)

I thinkt he biggest imrpovement would have been these two:

1) The aliens fought as a team and coordinated.
2) they had actual objectives during missions, meaning that they may be spread out and trying to get back to the ship to launch.

Combine these two and each mission plays different,
also, you could nto go so slowly and carefully if the ship will lift off again

I really enjoyed the X-Com games. Turn based squad tactics appeal to me.. Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 were excellent as well, but if you stretch the genre a bit, you could also apply Fallout (1, 2, and Tactics), heroes of might and magic and age of wonders in there.

On the subject of X-Com though, UFO defense and TFTD were classics. There was a great sense of reward in keeping your troopers alive long enough to get promoted. Research, exploration, combat, strategy and organization, even some roleplay, these games combined many great aspects into truly unique gaming experiences. I hope someday the series can be continued anew, but based on the things that made it great rather than just another mediocre (but graphically pretty) game.

I hated Apocalpyse.


-Elgalad

Does anyone have a favorite/hated weapon?

I just love the Blaster Launcher. It's great for opening up an extra entrance in a multi story space ship, like a supply ship so you can attack from two sides. Alltough i must admit i don't really use it to do much else reallt. About the only negative thing about it is when the aliens have it...
Dont't really have a hated weapon, all pistols except plasma maybe.

So I'm not the only one who used mostly laser weapons. They're real space savers (cursed 80 item limit) when you got 20 men in the ship and all their equipment. Actually my favourite weapon was laser pistol, because of it's superb ROF.

Speaking of other games. I've played X-COM 2, X-COM Apocalypse, JA, JA2, Silent Storm and I'm currently tackling with SS Sentinels.

It's hard to form an opinion about Terror from the deep. I did like the harder opponents. But at the same time I hated the Huge alien bases. To spend two hours hunting that last tentaculat hiding in the closet isn't my idea of fun .

About apocalypse. I've seen many people say It's not that good but I think it's great (Never mind the graphics). It actually adds more depth to the game by introducing many more vehicles and ability to equip them in many different ways. The real time combat is great and you can destroy almost everything by shooting.

Only one truly good thing about Apoc. Real Time battles. There simply isn't a better feeling then grabing an alien gernade that's been chucked at you and throwing it back at them. It doesn't always work well, but when it does ooooooo boy is it funny.

The fact that gravity is in the game and thus you can blow up a pillar and have the entire building falldown on some badguys is great and very satisfying too

Esckey said:

In many cases I prefer Terror from the Deep (TFTD) over UFO defense. Probably because all the little annoying bugs in(like the research tree) made it harder. And those damnable Lobstermen and Bio-Drones and Tentactualites are a real pain in the butt. I would rather take on an entire army of UFO Defense aliens then a Lobstermen and bio-drone terror site. It's not that they were impossible(beat it on super-human a couple of times) they were just so damn annoying and they ate up all my ammo.

TFTD is the only game that I've actually had an ammo problem in. In Apoc the guns regenerate(lame) so no worries then in UFO Defense each alien has like 3 clips on him(including the one in the gun) and it rarly takes more then 2 shots to kill anything with a heavy plasma rifle. Though I did have a sectoid take up to 10 HPR shots before finnally dieing(The 6th one knocked him and 4 turns later he got back up)

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Terror from the Deep was certainly far harder the UFO defence, due to the size of maps, the power of alien weaponary and the evil lobstermen and their flying brains. On superhuman I'd be base attacked after 3 days or so, enough time to import magma-pack explosives and some men (I think) so you could have suicide bombers with packs set off to blow when you men die too. As long as it is against calcites and aquatoids, you could win. Up against Lobsters and you were doomed from the get go!

UFO Aftermath is a worthy addition to the genre, just a bit repetitive...but the casualty rate, the power of the aliens and the general fear factor is up there with TFTD alien activity, ships at night and that final mission.

With TFTD I got so sppooked by the last mission (the alien ship) in the Gulf of Mexico I quit the game and deleted it. God, I was only like 14 at the time, but the game had me psyched out, completely. The best part of TFTD was that you got to know your troopers and the grief I suffered was real if a real veteran was taken out. For example, Jacqulines Martinez (I think), a real troopers, some 35 completed missions, had been wounded numerous times and had slaughter tonnes of aliens. When she was finally taken out (by one of those squeakers - Tathos?) in a base attack mission, I was heartbroken, I thought she'd make it to the end. Any trooper who is first out the doors and has done 35 missions in TFTD at veteran level or higher is amazing, lucky and has been well controlled.

This genre has been neglected far too much considering how entertaining it is and the genius of the subject material.

kittenOFchaos said:

Terror from the Deep was certainly far harder the UFO defence, due to the size of maps, the power of alien weaponary and the evil lobstermen and their flying brains.

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Also due the 'difficullty' bug in UFO, when you loaded a save game the difficulty was reset to the easiest level. That could be fixed with XCOMUTIL, but as it wasn't immediately apparent, a lot of players didn't realise and Microprose never did a patch to fix it in UFO, XCOMUTIL being a fan made utility..