UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis

[Minor Annoyance]

Aren't the majority of Foundry things passive upgrades ?

Yeah, but the initial SHIV project in in the foundry and then has to be build and every other new weapon had to be built first so there was plenty of reason to think it would too.

 

[PhilBowles]

I can say, the game seems to get easier as you go along. This seems contrary to the old game which seemed to get harder as you went along. Although that may be because I played normal.

The class system skews things. In the old game, the game started out moderately easy, became hard into the short midgame, and was then a walkover from then on, a sort of parabola of difficulty. The developers of the new one stated they wanted to recapture the sense of starting out against the odds and then taking the fight to the aliens, which they've done, but as long as you keep your squad alive the effects of all those high promotions make gameplay much more linear - it starts out difficult, but will become rapidly easier over time.

If, however (as in my first playthrough) you lose a squad and have to rebuild while you're up against tougher enemies, the game becomes much more challenging. This is what makes Classic a lot harder (aside from AI improvements) - you simply aren't going to keep your soldiers alive long enough to promote many of them heavily, which will hamper you into the late game.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Are SHIVs worth the investment ? The tank-things in the old x-com definitely were.

 

[Thorburne]

Are SHIVs worth the investment ? The tank-things in the old x-com definitely were.

To be honest, I don't think they really are. I have built two so far... one original and one Alloy... and I lost both on their first mission. Plus, using them takes away potential promotions (and stats) from soldiers.

 

[sirtommygunn]

Only if there are abduction missions that you don't want to risk your fully upgraded soldiers on.

 

[ColdFever]

Are SHIVs worth the investment?

The SHIV is one of the most important units for me, because it is robotic, so it does never panic and it is immune to PSI attacks. I only build Hover SHIVs (once the required technologies are available) because flying is essential for SHIV units so that the can easily flank alien units and gain height attack bonus.

btw: Firaxis announced the XCOM Slingshot DLC.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I heard they're useful as mobile cover, but that's about it.

btw: Firaxis announced the XCOM Slingshot DLC.

Ugh, sounds terrible.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

Early SHIV beeline might be a viable strategy for the higher levels. Might.

Apart from multiple restarts, current Ironman Impossible successes were achieved by exploiting a bug giving double health to soldiers. Considering health is the area SHIVs have the biggest advantage over low-rank soldiers, that bug has certainly hurt the development of SHIV stategies so far.

 

[Rubin]

Ugh, sounds terrible.

Indeed

Hero characters and more story mission nonsense (and this time more like a quest with a tech reward); but even worse is the comment hinting at what we can--or rather cannot--expect in the future:

Council missions are "a good way of offering new stuff to the player that doesn't distort the core experience," says Gupta.

So, the core game is done? This is just sad, sad news. It's been just two weeks and the game had so much potential. I mean, it's been clear since release that DLC content is part of the package. Fair enough. But heroes and stories?!? That's NOT XCOM, baby!

Give us instead an option to create our own heroes, such as raising accuracy and will by doing more standard missions. Or at least hint at an expansion that's not completely backwards!

I pre-ordered XCOM and I definitely do not regret that! I fear the DLC may not be missed

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I wanted new enemies, technologies, and equipment. At least that would increase the replayability. Some new maps also wouldn't be amiss. Imagine landing on top of a skyscraper to stop abductions. Or hopping across pieces of wreckage to clear out a UFO that crashed in a lake. And I'd like some UFO crash sites in rainforests. I'm sure those are more common in South America, Africa, and Asia as opposed to deciduous and coniferous forests.

 

[coanda]

Early SHIV beeline might be a viable strategy for the higher levels. Might.

Apart from multiple restarts, current Ironman Impossible successes were achieved by exploiting a bug giving double health to soldiers. Considering health is the area SHIVs have the biggest advantage over low-rank soldiers, that bug has certainly hurt the development of SHIV stategies so far.

I don't know... getting a SHIV would require:
1. Research Alien Materials or Weapon Fragments (8 days).
2. Research Advanced Warfare (7-12 days). Now at day 15-20.
3. Build The Foundry (10 days). Now at day 25-30.
4. Develop Heavy Weapons Platform (7 days). Now at day 32-37.
5. Build a SHIV (7 days). Now at day 39-44.

Yes, the SHIV will provide a good health upgrade over rookies and even Corporals and Sergeants with Carapace Armor. But at what cost? You researched Advanced Warfare, which delayed getting Carapace Armor and Arc Stunners (very painful sacrifice). You built the Foundry, researched HWP, and built a SHIV... all costing you 3 power (meaning no month-1 satellite uplink possible), and about $150 (on top of the lost satellite income).

It's an interesting idea, but I have to say it sounds like a significantly harder opening than a more standard satellite-spam and Carapace Armor -> Arc Stunner approach.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I wanted new enemies, technologies, and equipment. At least that would increase the replayability. Some new maps also wouldn't be amiss. Imagine landing on top of a skyscraper to stop abductions. Or hopping across pieces of wreckage to clear out a UFO that crashed in a lake. And I'd like some UFO crash sites in rainforests. I'm sure those are more common in South America, Africa, and Asia as opposed to deciduous and coniferous forests.

Good luck.

It is the Firaxis of the Spruce Up Old Code With Pretty Eye Candy business model you are expecting such from. They took a popular title, guaranteed to produce a large customer draw, and converted it to a console game for the teenagers. In other words, they enhanced the graphics and dumbed down play so it would be appealing to that age group, who like to play the same game over and over, and prefer things to be very simple and linear.

"Marketing studies have shown that teenagers are interested in graphic kill shots, not trees, scenario setting variety or game depth in a game", leaked an anonymous Firaxis marketing exec to the gaming post, the gamer's review media ...

At the most, the new game is half what the old used to be.

 

[sherbz]

I don't know... getting a SHIV would require:
1. Research Alien Materials or Weapon Fragments (8 days).
2. Research Advanced Warfare (7-12 days). Now at day 15-20.
3. Build The Foundry (10 days). Now at day 25-30.
4. Develop Heavy Weapons Platform (7 days). Now at day 32-37.
5. Build a SHIV (7 days). Now at day 39-44.

Yes, the SHIV will provide a good health upgrade over rookies and even Corporals and Sergeants with Carapace Armor. But at what cost? You researched Advanced Warfare, which delayed getting Carapace Armor and Arc Stunners (very painful sacrifice). You built the Foundry, researched HWP, and built a SHIV... all costing you 3 power (meaning no month-1 satellite uplink possible), and about $150 (on top of the lost satellite income).

It's an interesting idea, but I have to say it sounds like a significantly harder opening than a more standard satellite-spam and Carapace Armor -> Arc Stunner approach.

I agree with this analysis. In the original heavy weapon platforms were so good because they were so useful to draw fire away from troops, especially on first leaving the sky ranger, but also in the open spaces you often found yourself in. You also had a significant number of troops with which to play with. Finally, psi combat was so much more powerful and prevelant in the original, whereas it isnt in the new one (im not suggesting this is a bad thing).

Now, especially in the beginning, you have 4 slots for troops, and there is no danger from disembarking from the sky ranger. Rookies are cheaper than shiv's, and they might survive, so even if i did want to use one of my team members as bait (rookie or shiv), then i would use a rookie (I know, im heartless arent i). I think in general shivs are:

1: Too expensive
2: Too ineffective compared to a levelled troop
3: No option of promotions
4: Takes too long to get them

Because of their lack of promotions, they are simply a beefed up rookie, and a poor option IMO. I dont see any reason in having them in my team. I guess they have maybe 1 use, and thats in the alien base mission. But even then if you have at least 2 troops you should be able to take out the sectoid easily enough. There just isnt the psi danger in this game that there used to be, which means tanks and stuff arent as useful.

 

[PhilBowles]

Are SHIVs worth the investment ? The tank-things in the old x-com definitely were.

They're expendable and can be used as scouts since they move a long way for every action; also they can do reasonable damage in a pinch and more importantly can suppress. Anything less than an alloy shiv is hard to keep alive, though. They also can't be zombified or mind-controlled, so they can sometimes be helpful on later missions. They're a good substitute for a wounded soldier; better in most cases than a rookie/squaddie if you don't need to promote one.

In my current game I used an alloy laser shiv in the base assault; it had survived three previous missions and proved good at one-shotting Mutons and sustaining heavy floater fire that may otherwise have killed or wounded operatives. It was only destroyed at the end of the mission when a Heavy Floater hit it with a grenade.

I was disappointed to learn from that mission that you don't keep or get to 'interrogate' "live" drones you capture that survive missions. If a live drone capture allowed you to manufacture drones, they could give the SHIV a drone slot and let it carry a repair bot into battle, that would help its survivability. Alternatively, capturing a live drone could allow you to research a self-repair action that would allow the SHIV to repair some of its battle damage.

Hero characters and more story mission nonsense (and this time more like a quest with a tech reward)

Hero characters = bad. Messing up tech progression with the reward = bad. But in principle story missions are good, and tying Council missions to the broader game is good. What I don't like - other than how few missions there are - is that by forcing this as the first Council mission sequence of the game, replacing the current random selection of Council mission order, they're increasing the scripting and linearity of the campaign, exactly the opposite of what players want. And while varying mission rewards is good, just shuffling existing techs is a poorly thought-out way to do it. Give us a mission with a new "Alien Origins" tech as a reward, say. The way the essentially modular current tech system works, new techs (or new aliens to interrogate, new research credit etc.) wouldn't have any impact on the broader tech tree - most tech research is "get item, research item, build item/gain research credit); there aren't many techs that are prerequisites for other techs, and the typical 'tree' structure of the tech tree isn't there.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

How are SHIVs built and equipped? Do they all have improvements if you've researched them? Or do you have to buy those improvements and equip them manually? How do they play out in battle? I'm just going to take my time on my first(Normal) game for now to tinker with all the toys the game gives me.

 

[PhilBowles]

How are SHIVs built and equipped? Do they all have improvements if you've researched them? Or do you have to buy those improvements and equip them manually? How do they play out in battle? I'm just going to take my time on my first(Normal) game for now to tinker with all the toys the game gives me.

All upgrades are automatic - you can't vary the loadout to give them less advanced weapons if you want to.

The three basic SHIV types - standard, alloy and hover - are however different items; you can't upgrade one into one of the others, which I think is a weakness and another reason never to build a standard SHIV.

 

[coanda]

I've come to the conclusion that the game just isn't balanced on higher difficulties.

The first alien ship to crash is vastly easier than all surrounding missions (just 4 sectoids and an Outsider, after two missions to gain experience? Feels like a joke after fighting 8 sectoids with 4 rookies.). The first council mission is extraordinarily hard if you are unlucky enough to draw Bomb Defusal (I have yet to see anyone actually beat it on month 1 on Impossible actually, but have seen plenty of comments like "well this game was going well until I drew Bomb Defusal."). The start of the game is sadistically tough, while the end-game is just moderately challenging. I get the feeling that they didn't really try to balance Impossible at all; just slapped some modifiers on the default game and called it a day.

Don't get me wrong - I like the game a lot; I think the tactical combat is some of the most entertaining tactical TBS I've run into (and the strategic aspect... well, at least it isn't particularly frustrating to deal with). I also feel like Classic doesn't really push people to truly optimize their tactics*, so there does need to be a higher difficulty setting. I just am not thrilled with the way they went about providing that.

*To give an example of one optimization Classic doesn't require: on Classic you can get away with not really knowing the maps beforehand. Just stay in cover, leapfrog forward from point to point, and use your abilities. By contrast on Impossible... you need to know each map like the back of your hand. Know which areas are easily and safely flanked; know which areas tend to have several groups of aliens camping them; know which pieces of cover are not reliable...

 

[sherbz]

I have a question about difficulties. What are the specific differences between playing on normal/classic and impossible? Are aliens more likely to hit you, for instance? Are they more likely to do critical damage? Are you more likely to miss? I can see all the other differences like fewer buildings etc. Im just trying to work out whether me getting owned on classic at the start was down to poor play or bad luck .

 

[coanda]

You may find this link helpful...
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Difficulty_(EU2012)
Actually that wiki has great information for most aspects of XCOM, although it's still being filled in on some areas. For example, it doesn't mention that Thin Men get 3 HP on Normal, 4 on Classic, and 6 on Impossible (and some other differences in HP for units along those lines).

AFAIK, the "unshackled AI" just means it's willing to try to fight you with more than 5 aliens at once. On Normal, if you trigger more than 5 aliens, the excess are supposed to just back off and wait for their friends to die before stepping in. You can and will get swarmed on Classic/Impossible.

 

[sherbz]

You may find this link helpful...
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Difficulty_(EU2012)
Actually that wiki has great information for most aspects of XCOM, although it's still being filled in on some areas. For example, it doesn't mention that Thin Men get 3 HP on Normal, 4 on Classic, and 6 on Impossible (and some other differences in HP for units along those lines).

AFAIK, the "unshackled AI" just means it's willing to try to fight you with more than 5 aliens at once. On Normal, if you trigger more than 5 aliens, the excess are supposed to just back off and wait for their friends to die before stepping in. You can and will get swarmed on Classic/Impossible.

Thanks! Thats most useful. I can deduce from that that i suffered from bad luck on my first go. I couldnt understand why i missed a 50% shot from 8 soldiers, resulting in 2 of them dying. I screwed up the build order anyway. Think i might restart as im so close to the beginning .