The Unofficial X-COM Thread

[SunTzu]

I can't see how anyone wouldn't like Apocalypse, that game is one of the best made. I used to play it religiously until i bought a new computer 2 years ago, and i haven't been able to find a good version that works on XP :|
I've found one version after searching for a while but the gameplay is really slow for some reason.

 

[sir_schwick]

Apocalypse was clunky to control, you could not see the numbers on trooper stats, and information was nto very apparent and readily avaliable. The vehicles and ability to attack non-alien buildings was cool, but that could easily be introduced into the original X-COM. Ohterwise I thought it did not capture the X-COM feeling very well.

Personally, I did not mind how large the maps in TFTD were, but that the enemies were just super-human strong. They still used terrible tactics, but were just like tanks. I would prefer playing against Mutons that set up an ambush by feigning retreat. Also, I would like to see aliens try to take off if they were not combat eager(sectoid, ethereal, floater, etc.).

Plasma pistols were useless when you could get plasma rifles or heavy plasma at the same time. Laser Pistols were cool b/c you could imagine your troops shooting like Snoop(sideways) from a crouch and saying, "Night, night *****."

 

[TrailblazingScot]

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..

Well, I'll be buggered.

 

[Esckey]

By the time I got UFO Defense (We bought TFTD first) xcommulti was already out so we never really suffered from that problem

With Apoc, go through the ufopedia files in windows and you'll see several stuff not in the game. Who ever was the producer/publisher of the game rushed the makers so there's tons of stuff not in it that woulda made it great. Remember on the back of the box theres a shot of guys CLIMBING!!! That woulda been so sweet. Along with the increased criminal element.


I think the hardest thing about TFTD is that the alien guns didn't have auto-fire. With the plasma stuff you could round a corner and empty 3 shots into him, if the thing didn't die(unlikly) it would then shoot back. With the Sonic stuff you fire one shot and then bam, your either dead or badly wounded. Oh and the Mag Ion Armour is weaker then Flying Armour, although I have had my Mag take about 13 sonic cannon shots with the person serviving, while having some dude in Flying armour get droped by one shot from a plasma rifle.

 

[Rheinmetall]

I think the hardest thing about TFTD is that the alien guns didn't have auto-fire. With the plasma stuff you could round a corner and empty 3 shots into him, if the thing didn't die(unlikly) it would then shoot back. With the Sonic stuff you fire one shot and then bam, your either dead or badly wounded. Oh and the Mag Ion Armour is weaker then Flying Armour, although I have had my Mag take about 13 sonic cannon shots with the person serviving, while having some dude in Flying armour get droped by one shot from a plasma rifle.

The fact that gauss weapons were almost useless didn't help much either. In fact I never built but one of every type just to see if they were as poor as the stats made me believe. Best weapons in TFTD were the thermic lances. All indoor locations were so cramped it wasn't hard to get close enough. But when that tentaculat got lucky and survived the lance . I remember using a lot of explosives too.

 

[Esckey]

Never used the lances cause of A) the tech tree bug of needing a calcinite first, which I almost never ran into till after the first wave of aliens, and cause of B) to heavy and they eat up TUs

I always built guass rifles, the only real problem I've had with them was they simply chew through your ammo stores. I usually had my 80 engineers pumping them out as fast they could and I would still run out. Damage doesn't matter much at this point in game cause you havn't meet lobstermen yet, so gillmen and aquatoids go down easy.....if you can hit them. At this point you main men usually aren't great shots and your rookies are even worse. Combined with the sub-par accuracy of the rifles makes it hell on ammo. But Heck even bio-drones seem to go down easy when hit by guass. But that's easily out weighed by the fact that I've seen lobstermen go through 15 CLIPS. Full clips. I would truly hate to be an aquanaut in that situation


You know I could go on and on about all of the Xcom games, simply because so far they are my favorite series of games and my buddies and I usually wind up sharing xcom stories

 

[sir_schwick]

Please, eveyrone tell any stories, tactics, ideas, strategies, etc. This thread was created for all the X-COM fans out there.

 

[Captain Carnage]

When I first played it, it was 1998 and I played it on Playstation, and I wasn't very good at it.
1 year later I won some money playing poker so I went out and bought a package that had Master of Orion and XCOM for PC, and I've been playing ever since but I still haven't finished it

 

[sir_schwick]

The Final Mission is pretty freaking hard. Mostly your troops keep on getting psycho blasted by Ethereals.

Question: Did anyone else add in your dialogue during missions, such as the radio chatter and screams for medics? Am I the only crazy one here?

 

[Esckey]

No comm chatter here, but I did have sound card problems some times so I added in my own sound effects

 

[Esckey]

In a UFO game of mine at some point or another I realized I had a core of crack troops. I saved and reloaded often, but not because some dude died, but because something lame happend like a gernade bouncing back at me, a really bad mission where I got whiped out in 7 turns or accidental stuff.

Anyways so I have this core group of men with real high scores across the board(save for the usual low psi, so low that I don't even bring him along to kill sectoids) All the men(8) are officers and I decided to see just how good they truly were by sending them out on big mission with limited ammo and limited man power. Got the point that I could send 1 man out armed with 2 heavy plasmas, one in each hand cause since size and weight of the gun doesn't seem to matter much and dropping a gun is easier then reloading it, and he could take on anything by himself, except for snakemen bases and terrorsites. And the last part of cydonia. Simply because you need a second man so that the pair of them can out for crysallids.

PS I ported him into TFTD once(used the nifty little download) and he.....well didn't fare so well against lobies. But I did get him all the way to the last level of T'leth, mostly by being sneaking and cutting a path straight to grav lifts

 

[Rheinmetall]

Sometimes you can get really lucky in terror missions. For example with sectoids and those flying pills. Two discs and sectoids have a clear shot in your ship right from the beginning and when you move/shoot/whatever they slaughter most of my troops before they get out of the ship.

Usually I had 4-8 good killing machines with good stats. Usually two or three went out and could empty a battleship on their own. Sometimes I got a few really good elites with amazing stats and if one of them got killed I would consider reloading.

Early in the game my basic loadout for a skyranger was 14 men with 10 rifles+20 clips, 3 autocannons, 1 rocket launcher, 20 flares, 5 stun rods and a few high explosives and grenades + 5-10 medikits.

 

[sir_schwick]

The best way to avoid slaughter at the LZ is this method.

1) Have one of the two front guys take a step and look both ways out of the ramp.
2) Have him fire a shot at any baddies and drop below the ramp.
3) Have other guy prime Smoke grenade for shortest fuse and throw onto bottom of ramp.
4) Hope neither of those two guys dies and wait for grenade to explode.
5) Send troops out, but keep them under smoke.
6) Send out parties from smoke with full TUs.

In terror missions this may cost you a civilan or two, but will usually protect you from gross losses even in hot LZs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

My early mission loadout:

1 Smoke Grenade
2 Regular Grenades per soldier
1 Stun Rod per soldier
2 Autocannons
4 AP Autocannon Clips
1 Rocket Launcher
4 Incendiary Rockets(Night Mission)
4 Large Rockets(Day Mission)

My troops are usually such terrible shots this early that a grenade is a lot more effective. Also, only Sectoids will die more than 50% of the time from a first shot from the Rifle. The stun rods are usually the best solution for entering scouts without damaging the precious Elerium before Heavy Plasma. The Autocannons are mostly their for style rather than tactics. The Rocket Launcher will clear out those pesky barns or provide some illumination. As you can tell I have penchant for explosions.

 

[Rheinmetall]

In night missions I usually packed the first few dudes full of flares and they threw them all around. Normally half of my men stayed in the ship as a reserve and rarely saw action at all. The active part of the squad then got all the experience.

Normally I'd give the heavy weapons to the poorest shooters. And them with weakest strength. Hauling those cannons gave them some muscle to be actually useful. Sometimes I marked my best men with a * at the start of their names so I wouldn't use them as cannon fodder. Incendiary ammo was also used as substitute for flares.

 

[sir_schwick]

Flares were always good for Terror missions, where indescriminate Rocketeering was a bad thing. I had hoped in the sequels you would be able to custom design HWPs, so the RocketTank could get Incendiary, but that never happened.

 

[Esckey]

The only time I used flares was when I first started playing the game, but later on I found out that they are rather useless. I rarly manage to retrieve them cause of excessive explosions(well okay honestly you can't have to many explosions) so they suck up the money quickly and take up space and well I can time it so that I don't have to fight at night.


In the early portion of the game I have 10 man groups(they quickly become 8) usually loaded with rifle(upgraded to laser rifle then to heavy plasma rifles) 3 clips including the one in the gun, on the belt I put a pistol(upgraded to laser pistol, and if I have plenty of them plasma pistol) along with a medipack, 1 gernade(upgraded to alien) and 1 proxi.

I quickly ditch the heavy weaponary once the ammo is used up but I keep the auto-cannons and upgrade them to heavy lasers then to heavy plasma rifles. They too get all the standard belt equipment


In TFTD though half my squad usually gets Gas Cannons(3 clips of AP and 2 HE). There's just something about those guns that are just wonderful. I keep using these for a long long time, while in UFO I ditch the other guns as soon as possible.

Oh and likewise in UFO I only use tanks for base defense and once they start taking up space I ditch them. While in TFTD I use both coalecanths and the displacer beast. They just seem to be 10X better then the UFO tanks

 

[sir_schwick]

I found out something really useful. It only costs 3 TUs to transfer items from your shoulder packs to your hands. It only costs 4 TUs to transfer items from your hands to your leg packs. Now I have started to put grenades and motion sensors in my shoulders for easy access. You can still run a couple squares, prime, throw, and get behind cover again.

In my most recent game I have experimented with these loadouts:

14 Troopers in a Skyranger
Pistol(with 2 Clips)
High Explosive
Proximity Grenade
Stun Rod

13 Troopers in a Skyranger
Pistol(with 2 Clips)
High Explosive
Proxmity Grenade
Motion Sensor
Stun Rod

14 Troopers in a Skyranger
Laser Pistol
High Explosive or Alien Grenade
Proximity Grenade
Motion Sensor
Stun Rod

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Time for a story: The first encounter with the Lobster Men.

Background: First campaign of TFTD - Veteran Level

Well, having been a complete newbie and before the days of looking up game background on the internet and still being able to get deeply into computer game I was a few missions into TFTD. I wanted it veteran as I'd played UFO demos (alot) before. I tell you all this as it explains why my approach to research had been so poor.

I had gas cannons, HE packs, harpoons, magma grenades and a few pointless guass guns and I think 12 soldiers.

It was night, it was a terror mission on some pacific island and we were confident of success having dispatched many an aquatoid. This time it was going to be different, this time XCOM would have a battle on their hands.


The triton landed close to the a hotel, the men poured out and secured the perimeter. They threw out flares to bring the night to day and proceeded to move forward over a small hill. Beyond this there was a small house, a window facing the advance troops.

From the small hill, we spotted our foe, much different from the last aliens we had met. They were taller, broaders and in essence a cross between giant-haystacks and a lobster and armed with what could only be described as a green cannon.

The X-com troopers formed up and let loose as deadly a salvo as they could muster. The result was that this foe left the house to stand in front of the X-com squad and blast away one of the troopers. The remaining squad members let loose another salvo, everything they had. The lobsterman survived and shot out two more men before the squad took the evil monster out only to be confronted by another.

The night was filled with screams, bloodied soldiers were starting to lose their nerve when over yet another hill the remaining 3 troopers came across two more lobstermen, opening up with phosphor rounds. One lobsterman was dispatched, yet his partner despite being on fire was able to kill two of the remaining squad members.

The last trooper fled for the Triton blind panic, leaving his weapons behind him, running past the corpses of his comrades who had so bravely faced this enemy.

Tom King escaped with his life and the Triton, however every other man and women on the island was killed. A tremendous failure for XCOM and for a while, the mere sight of a lobsterman was enough to cause the soldiers to flee back to base until they too were armed with the great green cannon of death.

 

[Grisu]

ohh, X-COM, the momories. IMHO none of the sequels even came close to the original, i spent days cleaning earth from these nasty aliens. I bought every sequel, but apart form TFTD and the Aftermath I didn't really like any. Apoc was total crap, and UFO Interceptor doesn't even deserver to be mentioned.

 

[sir_schwick]

people, don't forget some great forums on www.projectxenocide.com

there is even a forum to make design suggestions for xenocide, think Civ 4 suggestions forum