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An interesting change to terror missions would be to have aliens keep spawning until either the civilians or XCOM is dead/evacuated. Maybe call them evac missions and have them pop up every so often instead of terror missions. Just a replacement stream that keeps coming forever and slowly ramps UP the difficulty of the aliens, not less. Make it so that if only a few make it out, panic spreads, but higher numbers start giving you rewards after a certain point that increase per civilian. You'd have to balance saving civilians with ever-increasing risks, and it would be one of the few times in normal missions that the vac mechanic ever got used for XCOMs.
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Feb 23, 2013 17:20
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Does the randomize weapon damage in second wave only effect your soldiers? At the beginning there's definitely a range of damage that I do, but the beginning sectoids still seem to do 3 damage everytime.
Orgophlax fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Feb 23, 2013 |
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Feb 23, 2013 17:30
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Orgophlax posted:Does the randomize weapon damage in second wave only effect your soldiers? At the beginning there's definitely a range of damage that I do, but the beginning sectoid still seem to do 3 damage everytime. It affects both you and aliens. I've seen alien grenades do 1 damage.
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Feb 23, 2013 17:32
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Ravenfood posted:An interesting change to terror missions would be to have aliens keep spawning until either the civilians or XCOM is dead/evacuated. Maybe call them evac missions and have them pop up every so often instead of terror missions. Just a replacement stream that keeps coming forever and slowly ramps UP the difficulty of the aliens, not less. Make it so that if only a few make it out, panic spreads, but higher numbers start giving you rewards after a certain point that increase per civilian. You'd have to balance saving civilians with ever-increasing risks, and it would be one of the few times in normal missions that the vac mechanic ever got used for XCOMs. The only problem there is that that sort of mission sort of suggests that the city's megafucked as soon as XCOM leaves. That's fine as like, a last ditch "can you stop this country from leaving the council by saving at least like, 85% of civilians on the map?" sort of thing, but would be kinda' weird as just a replacement for a generic terror mission.
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Feb 23, 2013 19:07
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Orgophlax posted:Does the randomize weapon damage in second wave only effect your soldiers? At the beginning there's definitely a range of damage that I do, but the beginning sectoids still seem to do 3 damage everytime. It affects aliens, too, and it did save my hide on more than one occasion. It just seemed to my monkey brain that it punished me more than helped me too often to continue using. Also, I'm pretty sure it caused me to do zero damage on a 100% to hit 100% to critical shot.
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Feb 23, 2013 19:48
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In the over watch guide it mentions that the ai won't move into an overwatched spot if the overwatcher is in los. Does that mean in los of any enemy or just the one who is considering moving? Also I really wish there was a way to get a los overlay or something, it's not the most intuitive system in the world.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:06
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How much panic will a country incur is you ignore a UFO landing (a LANDING, not "fail to shoot something down" or "shoot something down then ignore it") on impossible? My I/I game just captured the ethereal device, but I lost my support colonel and one of my assault colonels in so doing. My heavy is in sick bay. That leaves me with 3 competent soldiers vs. a small scout that just landed in north america. 12 aliens, including heavy floaters and heavy mutons. I really should have some SHIVs to handle this sort of disaster. If I can ignore them, I can collect some more $ heading into the next month and get ghost armor for my whole team. If I have to try the mission, so be it. I...think it'll go pretty badly, though. If it'll cause the country to hit 5 panic, though, I have to do it. My doom tracker has been at 7 since the end of month 2.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:26
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FairGame posted:How much panic will a country incur is you ignore a UFO landing (a LANDING, not "fail to shoot something down" or "shoot something down then ignore it") on impossible? Looking through DefaultGameCore.ini I see: PANIC_UFO_IGNORED=2 and I don't see separate values for the difficulties, so i assume that's it. There might be some other modifier, and I don't remember actually trying that on impossible though, so you may want to wait for second opinion  .
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Feb 24, 2013 02:11
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Gonna start playing this game real soon. I played the original briefly and poorly, having never succeeded in a battle. I like a challenge though and want to go back to the old one after I play this. Is Classic Ironman a good idea at all for a first timer?
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Feb 24, 2013 02:13
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I want to play through this again, this time in a marathon game that second wave let's you do. Problem is, it seems like only research time is doubled, nothing else. The enemies seem to ramp up at the same rate, along with your soldier's leveling, but the gear just isn't there. Has it been discovered what controls the enemy difficulty scaling? Is it your soldier's levels? Is there a way to half the exp earned so it ramps better with the research?
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Feb 24, 2013 02:35
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Orgophlax posted:I want to play through this again, this time in a marathon game that second wave let's you do. Problem is, it seems like only research time is doubled, nothing else. The enemies seem to ramp up at the same rate, along with your soldier's leveling, but the gear just isn't there. Enemies are actually slowed down, about a month late if I remember right, but not really in a balanced way as your tech still snowballs as you get Scientists. For example you will likely get through your first Terror Misson on Ballistics alone while your entire tech tree will be unlocked before ever seeing Elite Mutons.
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Feb 24, 2013 02:52
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MadHat posted:Enemies are actually slowed down, about a month late if I remember right, but not really in a balanced way as your tech still snowballs as you get Scientists. For example you will likely get through your first Terror Misson on Ballistics alone while your entire tech tree will be unlocked before ever seeing Elite Mutons. OK then. The tip I've always followed was take engineers on the first abduction mission so you can build another satelitte control. But then reap scientists from them after that? Also, are there any factors that don't allow overwatch to fire? Like the enemy has higher ground or something? I had 2 guys on overwatch and an enemy appeared within both their fov's, but on higher ground. Overwatch didn't fire for either, and the sectoid was able to crit the soldier he was now flanking, killing him.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:07
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Orgophlax posted:OK then. The tip I've always followed was take engineers on the first abduction mission so you can build another satelitte control. But then reap scientists from them after that? With the extended build times I do not think it is even possible to get a Satalite Relay up in the first month, but yes you want Engineers early and often though marathon does make gettign a Lab or two more usful then normal games. They need to move two spaces while in sight. So moving a single space will not trigger, same if you move then move again both only a single space. The AI can sometimes manage to get into cover close enough to hit you but not far enough into your vision to trigger overwatch. Example: Alien behind a building moves to edge, you can now see them, overwatch will not trigger unless they moved out of cover since you could not see them till that space on the edge. MadHat fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 03:23
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 Got into a cycle of sandbagging in my I/I game. Came to a crashing halt in November. I lost almost everyone (literally down to 1 sniper corporal) in the final terror mission. The following month, a battleship came and hosed my north america satellite, causing immediate panic. I couldn't build a satellite in time, but I could send my sniper corporal to the Gollop Chamber. I knew I had no loving chance, but the game would literally be over at month's end with nothing to be done for it. 1 hover plasma shiv, 1 psionic sniper sergeant, and 4 squaddies entered the temple ship. None returned.
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Feb 24, 2013 05:24
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FairGame posted:That leaves me with 3 competent soldiers vs. a small scout that just landed in north america. 12 aliens, including heavy floaters and heavy mutons. I really should have some SHIVs to handle this sort of disaster.
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Feb 24, 2013 07:51
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nnnotime posted:Have you upgraded the squad-size to 6 with the OTS? Then send along 3 more rookies with your 3 competent soldiers. 12 aliens are nothing (just giving you some pep-talk). 3 rookies (well, squaddies given the New Guy research) can't do much of anything in late game impossible beyond "die horribly"
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Feb 24, 2013 15:39
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FairGame posted:3 rookies (well, squaddies given the New Guy research) can't do much of anything in late game impossible beyond "die horribly" They can if you have a Colonel Support with Smoke and Mirrors and Combat Drugs. You can also give your squaddies Combat Stims and Ghost Armor. That will dramatically increase survivability. Even Combat Stims and Titan is really great, as you can actually tank enemy fire.
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Feb 24, 2013 17:57
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FairGame posted:3 rookies (well, squaddies given the New Guy research) can't do much of anything in late game impossible beyond "die horribly" Ernie Muppari posted:The only problem there is that that sort of mission sort of suggests that the city's megafucked as soon as XCOM leaves. That's fine as like, a last ditch "can you stop this country from leaving the council by saving at least like, 85% of civilians on the map?" sort of thing, but would be kinda' weird as just a replacement for a generic terror mission.
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Feb 24, 2013 18:11
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FairGame posted:3 rookies (well, squaddies given the New Guy research) can't do much of anything in late game impossible beyond "die horribly"  Yeah, I meant squaddies, not rookies.
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Feb 24, 2013 19:08
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I finished my first playthrough on Normal. I was addicted bad, if I had 15 minutes spare I was playing half a mission. 22 hours total, I thought the tech tree would have been deeper but then again the timing seemed a little off. For example I didnt have the Sectopod corpses to research advanced manufacturing until I had built everything except the Gollop Chamber pretty much. Though I was using saves during the missions and probably did better than what the game is balanced for. I only had a single gifted soldier out of maybe 30 guys. I think my next run will be Ironman Normal.
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Feb 25, 2013 01:09
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Pocket Billiards posted:I only had a single gifted soldier out of maybe 30 guys. I think my next run will be Ironman Normal. If you've played through normal once, I would recommend jumping straight to classic ironman. You'll take a few lumps in the beginning, but I think the payoff is worth it amanasleep posted:They can if you have a Colonel Support with Smoke and Mirrors and Combat Drugs. You can also give your squaddies Combat Stims and Ghost Armor. That will dramatically increase survivability. Even Combat Stims and Titan is really great, as you can actually tank enemy fire. It should be stressed that combat stims are really good. Unlike in multiplayer, you can use the stims twice per mission. Assaults with ghost and combat stims basically become invisible and invincible predators. The stims also reduce grenade and other fixed damage sources as well.
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Feb 25, 2013 01:31
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Fergus Mac Roich posted:Gonna start playing this game real soon. I played the original briefly and poorly, having never succeeded in a battle. I like a challenge though and want to go back to the old one after I play this. Is Classic Ironman a good idea at all for a first timer? I can't recommend Ironman at all with the current bug situation. But I do recommend starting on Classic and taking your lumps instead of letting the game cheat for you on Normal.
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Feb 25, 2013 04:36
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Today I was blowing through a normal game trying to get Slingshot DLC achievements. I started writing about how using all ghost armor nearly put me in an annoying spot during a the terror mission in the police station due to fire blocking the staircase where the last heavy floater was, but then I remembered I could have grappled up there  I killed it by awkwardly shooting through gaps in the wall and floor.I also had a teleporting bug with a Sectopod, of all things. While assaulting the overseer UFO, I got my guys into position barely out of the starting zone to fight a pair of heavy floaters and another of elite mutons. For whatever reason, I'm able to see the Sectopod and it's drone escort move out of the UFO quite a distance (more than I usually see them move) to somewhere out of my LOS. It felt like I was seeing something outside of my LOS the whole time. A turn or two later, a drone moves in front of my guys who are still a dash from the dropzone, and gets shot easily. A turn or two later, the Sectopod and remaining drone appear right next to the extraction point and shoots a sniper colonel in the back, bringing him to 1 HP. I also ran into the bug where a Sectopod gets way too many overwatch shots on a supply barge. I started near the small bridge bunker and mostly lured the mutons and floaters into ambushes in the midship cargo bays. A Sectopod walks by the side of the ship, but I only end up fighting the drones while the Sectopod goes elsewhere. I encounter the Sectopod on the balcony in front of the entrance to the larger enclosed area, overlooking the walkway between tepee cargo areas. It uses multiple overwatch shots on a single soldier, every couple of tiles they move, one time shooting a soldier three times.
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Feb 25, 2013 11:06
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Fergus Mac Roich posted:Gonna start playing this game real soon. I played the original briefly and poorly, having never succeeded in a battle. I like a challenge though and want to go back to the old one after I play this. Is Classic Ironman a good idea at all for a first timer?
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Feb 25, 2013 11:21
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FairGame posted:3 rookies (well, squaddies given the New Guy research) can't do much of anything in late game impossible beyond "die horribly" I've found as long as you arm them well; give them some good armor, plasma weapon. Perhaps a defensive item, they do okay.
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Feb 25, 2013 12:08
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Kinda disappointed difficulty doesn't affect the Geoscape in anyway. I still lose a country regardless what I do, on Easy, Normal or Classic.
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Feb 25, 2013 12:38
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Mordaedil posted:Kinda disappointed difficulty doesn't affect the Geoscape in anyway. Huh? According to the wiki it does: http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Game_difficulty_(XCOM:_Enemy_Unknown) Panic starts higher rises faster, less starting money, less starting facilities.
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Feb 25, 2013 13:15
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animatorZed posted:If you've played through normal once, I would recommend jumping straight to classic ironman. You'll take a few lumps in the beginning, but I think the payoff is worth it I started on Ironman Normal anyway, thought it might be better as I come to terms with the tech tree (first time around I was just picking poo poo at random). First month was a total breeze.
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Feb 25, 2013 14:56
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Mordaedil posted:Kinda disappointed difficulty doesn't affect the Geoscape in anyway. If you're losing a country in easy or normal, you're doing something really, really wrong (unless you're playing it on marathon; might take too long to build new satellite controllers).
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Feb 25, 2013 19:48
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Orgophlax posted:If you're losing a country in easy or normal, you're doing something really, really wrong (unless you're playing it on marathon; might take too long to build new satellite controllers). Maybe that is so, but I have no surefire way to know. All I know is that I lost 1 UFO in my last month and had like 5 countries on panic level and only a handful of satellites ready to go up. And I've been aggressively spending resources into satellite coverage, so I don't why this is happening.
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Feb 25, 2013 19:55
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Well, losing a few countries isn't an issue anyway. I've lost 6 countries before and still beat the game without issue on Classic. I'd imagine on Normal it would be even less punishing.
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Feb 25, 2013 20:02
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I had a phantom save that I couldn't delete, so I deleted everything in my save directory including the profile.bin, not realizing that some of the second wave options were tied to beating the game previously. Is there anyway to unlock those options without playing through again?
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Feb 25, 2013 20:34
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OK, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Ironman Impossible is literally impossible unless I suck it up and do the "get 4 satellites up in month 1" routine. Which kind of feels like cheating to me since I'm abusing scripted events. But whatever; it's difficult enough that I guess it's reasonable for me to abuse the game a bit.
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Feb 25, 2013 20:57
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FairGame posted:OK, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Ironman Impossible is literally impossible unless I suck it up and do the "get 4 satellites up in month 1" routine. Didn't the guy who made the game actually apologize for making Impossible as difficult as it is? In that case, I'd say it's okay to cheese the mechanics any way you can.
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Feb 25, 2013 21:06
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Impossible is nearly impossible. Who would have thought? =P
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Feb 25, 2013 21:07
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I actually really like Impossible difficulty and I'm quite certain I can beat it (my last 2 tries had me reach the final mission with an unprepared crew in a race against the panic clock, and a failed assault on the Alien Base in month 3 for similar reasons). Really, that first game would've been winnable had I bothered capturing a Sectoid Commander and gotten psionics before assaulting the Overseer ship. A good psionic can trivialize any mission with Muton Elites--including the breach of ships with 2 elites + 1 Ethereal in the cockpit. You can waste the Ethereal's turn murdering the Muton.
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Feb 25, 2013 21:13
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FairGame posted:Which kind of feels like cheating to me since I'm abusing scripted events. But whatever; it's difficult enough that I guess it's reasonable for me to abuse the game a bit. Ironman Impossible isn't impossible whatsoever if you get a good first month seed going with missions popping up at the right points and you crush the battlescape in your first month. That one zemalf guy on Youtube literally had a perfect month basically in his I/I playthrough and that probably propelled him through the rest of the game.
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Feb 25, 2013 21:29
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So finished my Norm/Ironman. It went pretty well, lost 4 guys and 1 country, but I nearly got screwed during the second to last mission (decided to do a abduction mission before the final assault to get the more resources): Started the mission with my Col. sniper, 2 Col. heavies, 1 Mj. assault and 2 Col. supports. What could possibly go wrong, I thought...  The mission started with my squad lodged in an alley way between two buildings in front of a car. So far so good, I positioned my support behind the car and sent the two heavys scouting in ghost mode. First one opened the door on the right building - empty room. The second one, Col. Buster, opens the door of the left building and stares right into the barrels of three heavy floaters. Good thing he's invisible! I send him back into the alley around the door to get some cover for the oncoming floaterslaughter, and advance my assault to the corner of the building. Easy peazy, or so I think.  The round ends and suddenly a pair of mutons and a berserker appear in the building on the right.  Oh my! What a thrill, more targets to shoot at, finally a little challenge I think to myself. The situation can't get worse, now can it? 3 heavy floaters on the left, 3 mutons on the right 3 of my guys in the front rows and my sniper has no line of fire. At the other end of the alley a sectopod and a heavy floater enter the scene. My heavys lose the cloak and both the floater and the muton pack are triggered. The floaters all decide to fly into the alley right next to Col. Buster, the mutons arrange themselves inside the right front end of the building.  My puls is now 140bpm, I know I am in damage control mode, I know that if I am lucky I'll loose only one of my heavies. *If* I am lucky! My turn: To me the sectopod and the mutons pose the biggest threat so I order my heavy on the right to fire a rocket into the muton/berserker pack, this tears a big hole in the wall, but the mutons survive. Col. Buster shoots a rocket at the sectopod, because hey, my supports can handle the floaters, plasma rifles and all...right? My sniper takes a shot at the sectopod, it barely survives with 5hp left. Well poo poo, that could have gone better. Well let's get rid of those nasty floaters then. My assault jumps around the corner, aims 90% hit chance and *misses*. God drat! At this time I am near to making GBS threads myself with fear of loosing everything.*sigh* I let both supports take aim (85% and 70%) and *again* both of them miss their target. So at the end of my turn, every enemy is still alive and about to slaughter half of my elite squad.  The turn starts with the berserker taking the long route towards Col. Buster flanked by heavy floaters and hits him for whopping 12dmg. The situation is more than dire (I was so nervous, I totally forgot to take a screenshot).  It's the sectopods turn: He turns and fires a barrage of shells at my beloved Col. Buster.* And *misses*. Not a scratch. Col. Buster is alive and healthy. The floaters and the berserker not so much. Thanks sectopod!  Still don't know what happened there, but it totally turned the the whole thing around and my squad survived (barely) to live another day.  I certainly will never forget the day when a sectopods faulty programming (propably running WinME) caused it join my side in fighting the alien invaders! fake edit: **Apparently he prepared the strike the turn before, but I didn't get that memo:
wilbur.walsh fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 01:33
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I didn't see an ironman mode option anywhere. I take it that is available after you complete the game. I'm pretty much doing it anyway as I haven't loaded apart from when I've taken breaks and I think I'm about 8 "months" in. To be honest apart from a couple of coutries pulling out early on and a botched terror mission which killed all but one of my toughest soldiers (he made it back to the ship with 2 life bars and I aborted the mission) I haven't felt the need. It seems more fun this way. The one mistake I think I've made (apart from the massacre in Leeds) is not buying satellites really early on. I just bought 7 and now all the countries have chilled out. Is it inevitable that all the countries will eventually back out if you take too many turns to progress the campaign because you can only save 1 in 3 populations at a time?
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Feb 26, 2013 01:56
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Ironman mode doesn't need to be unlocked. It's on the difficulty selection pop-up when you start a new game along with the checkbox to enable or disable the tutorial. You may have to click on the advanced options button to expand the window to show them.
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Feb 26, 2013 01:59
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