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Fargin Icehole
Feb 19, 2011

Pet me.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Serious advice: In that case, you should just jump into Ironman Classic right away, and go as far as you can possibly go. You will have to learn to accept failure that way. Failure is not only a regular part of the game, it can be overcome and worked around, and making the best of bad situations is half the fun of the game. (the other half are the hats)

I'll try your advice and go for classic ironman. If I make a mistake and get someone killed, I should pay for it. Not reverse time.

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Brainamp
Sep 4, 2011

More Zen than Zenyatta

Fargin Icehole posted:

I'll try your advice and go for classic ironman. If I make a mistake and get someone killed, I should pay for it. Not reverse time.

Make sure to observe the circumstances that led to their death. Learn from your failures and all that poo poo.

spider wisdom
Nov 4, 2011

og data bandit

nnnotime posted:

Maybe update your sound-card drivers, too. I was having problems with a different game crashing (Starcraft 2) and once I upgraded my Realtek sound drivers the problems went away. My sound-card is embedded onto my motherboard.

I just checked my Realtek driver and it's up to date. I'm still having the same issue with crashing after the video driver update, too. Seems like the first mission is fine, but I get the crash on the subsequent mission. Guess I'll poke around and see what I can find.

I threw a battle scanner at a doorway in hopes that it'd show me what was in a room, but it didn't despite the scanning radius covering about 80% of that room. Is there a reason why it didn't expose the room? Three thin men were hiding out in there :ohdear: but I was able to flank the balls off of two of them.

spider wisdom fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jun 3, 2013

archerb
Mar 3, 2005
CONTACT :unsmigghh:



I managed to kill all but two on that turn and none of my guys died. I wish I could fight sectoids forever. :allears:

jokes
Dec 20, 2012

Uh... Kupo?

Bullet swarm motherfuckers bullet swarm!

Sectoids are the best dudes to fight because they're just simple shoot troops without grenades, bullshit poison, and can't jump up 800 feet like thin men.

Plus, when they die they die and don't make any loving zombies.

Sectoids are just the best.

Eifert Posting
Apr 1, 2007

Most of the time he catches it every time.
Grimey Drawer
For some reason I always lose exactly one soldier in the base invasion. They've been killed by all manner of things, in all manner of ways. It doesn't even seem to matter what difficulty it is. My last classic one I had a rookie panic on literally the last turn and finish off a support. All I had to do was capture the 1hp sectoid commander. The support had my ARC. :smith:

SplitSoul
Dec 31, 2000

How the hell do I activate the dev console? I've hex edited .exe and blocked it from calling home, but no amount of pressing backslash brings it up, nor any other keypress for that matter. I've tried changing the keyboard language to US, editing baseinput.ini, hitting every conceivable combination of keys, yelling at it, praying, and so on. Nothing. Changing the necessary value with Cheat Engine makes the game crash. I just want some more engineers after loving up the first part of the game.

Help? :sigh:

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

What is the Matrix 🌐? We just don't know 😎.


Buglord

ChronoReverse posted:

As long as you can manage to level up a squad sight sniper, finishing the game with just Shivs is entirely possible after a squad wipe. The only problem is if you don't have enough assets to build a team of them.

It really sucks that it SHIVs aren't available from the start because I want to play through the game with one soldier and hos SHIV Squad buddies.

Execu-speak
Jun 2, 2011

Welcome to the real world hippies!
Sometimes the bugs can work for you.

I had an abductor mission, sky ranger dropped me right behind the ship. No cover but a few logs. I plonk my two squad sight snipers behind the logs and throw a battle scanner, which reveals a sectopod plus drones in the left side of the hanger. I think, "Beauty I can knock this guy off from well outside of his range", and spend the rest of the turn positioning my two assaults, heavy and support.

Next turn I open up with a headshot from one sniper getting a huge crit on the sectopod and taking half its health. As soon as I shoot a cyberdisc is activated and warped in on the right sight of the hanger, using its free turn to fly forward and stop above some stasis tanks. At the same time not one but two packs of muton elites do the same, using their free turn to also park themselves behind the stasis tanks. All within one tile of the cyberdisc... You can probably see where this is going.

So I do some guerilla damage maths and come up with a plan. I kill the sectopod with another headshot crit and third sniper shot from my second sniper. I then use my last sniper shot to do some nice damage to the cyberdisc. I move in one of my assaults and the support to throw both the alien grenades they're carrying at the cluster of cyberdisc plus muton elites. This gives me a nice guaranteed 10 damage to everything.

Lastly I use my heavy to fire a rocket into the cluster, which does enough damage to kill the cyberdisc that in it's resulting deathsplosion finishes off the muton elites.

I could have done this more safely by firing the rocket first to see if it would whif or not. However I really needed to level this guy and he did not let me down. He went from sergeant to captain that battle.

None of those enemies got a shot off, it was just magical.

Execu-speak fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Jun 5, 2013

geri_khan
May 16, 2009

Fucking blocks... I'm gonna climb the shit outta you!
Question about Classic Ironman - if I mess up in the Temple Ship and my Chosen one is killed, does it let me restart the mission?

Does it let me go back to before Gollop Chamber was activated?


I was all ready to finish the game, but ended up doing a small downed UFO first while someone recovered from a wound. Very first spawn ended up being (rougly) an Etherial, 5-6 Muton Elites, 4 regular Mutons and two Berserkers. :gonk: Somehow survived but lost two Colonels (one of whom was a Psi Sniper) and now I need to go into the final mission with less ideal troops... so I'm trying to decide if I should head into the final mission or try to grind some of my guys up to better ranks first. (at the risk of greater losses...)

bokkibear
Feb 28, 2005

Humour is the essence of a democratic society.

geri_khan posted:

Question about Classic Ironman - if I mess up in the Temple Ship and my Chosen one is killed, does it let me restart the mission?

Yes.

geri_khan
May 16, 2009

Fucking blocks... I'm gonna climb the shit outta you!
I decided to do a few more missions before tackling the final mission, which was the right idea because the reward for one of them was a heavy called Major Disco.

EDIT: and done! Somehow, after all the total team wipes and shenanigans I endured in Classic Ironman, the final level was not that tough. Guess it helped going through it already on easier difficulties.

Though I did see something weird. Targeting spheres for my Blaster Launchers flipped out and would not target properly in the final room, which was a problem because I've brought two heavies purely for the purpose of bombarding the final boss. They just got stuck, no matter where I pointed my mouse.

geri_khan fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Jun 4, 2013

Ratbones
May 15, 2009
I just got this game, and I'm loving it so far. I played up to the alien base on normal to kinda get a feel for the tactics and the rhythm of the Geoscape. I decided to start over on classic ironman so I can get the real XCOM experience, and drat... it's pretty hard. I got all my operatives wiped out on my first mission. I have a question about ironman now: the consequences of operative deaths and what not only matters if you beat the mission right? So if all but on dude dies, but I beat a mission, then the other guys are permadead, but if all my dudes die and it lets me restart the mission, I can just redo it right? Or is that only the initial mission?

Lima
Jun 17, 2012

Ratbones posted:

I just got this game, and I'm loving it so far. I played up to the alien base on normal to kinda get a feel for the tactics and the rhythm of the Geoscape. I decided to start over on classic ironman so I can get the real XCOM experience, and drat... it's pretty hard. I got all my operatives wiped out on my first mission. I have a question about ironman now: the consequences of operative deaths and what not only matters if you beat the mission right? So if all but on dude dies, but I beat a mission, then the other guys are permadead, but if all my dudes die and it lets me restart the mission, I can just redo it right? Or is that only the initial mission?

Only the first and last mission allows you to restart after a squadwipe. Failed missions leads to increased panic, so you'll lose the game if you fail too many.

Ratbones
May 15, 2009
drat, this game doesn't mess around. Thanks

Can anybody give me some tips on getting a strong start on the geo scale? I know that satellites are critical, but I'm a little iffy on how to get the infrastructure and funds to get them up in the air. About how many should I have up by the end of the first and second months? I can definitely get two up by the end of the first, which I'll maybe deploy to Russia nd the US for the cash, but I'm a little hazy beyond that.

The Neal!
Sep 3, 2004

HAY GUYZ! I want to be a director
There's a guide to an almost guaranteed (well... sort of) good start in the thread. I'm sure someone will post it for you but here's me telling you why you shouldn't use it.

The first part of the game is pretty much the most intense slog of them all and while using that guide doesn't take completely away from that it does a little. I feel like I get less of that desperate struggle to stay afloat and more options when I do that as my opening strategy. For some people that desperate struggle is no fun (especially when you've played through the game enough) and that's fine, it is really hard but if you want a real challenge try to find the perfect starting plan yourself the successes will be well worth the many failures.

I will tell you that being aware of how many days and resources it'll take to get your satellite uplink working (that includes building the necessary power plants and stuff to actually build it) is crucial to getting more than one sat in the air before the end of the month but it's not game breaking if you don't have more than that up in the air before that point. Usually if you get 2 or more up by the end of the month you're probably doing good.

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001

Ratbones posted:

drat, this game doesn't mess around. Thanks

Can anybody give me some tips on getting a strong start on the geo scale? I know that satellites are critical, but I'm a little iffy on how to get the infrastructure and funds to get them up in the air. About how many should I have up by the end of the first and second months? I can definitely get two up by the end of the first, which I'll maybe deploy to Russia nd the US for the cash, but I'm a little hazy beyond that.
I would try to cover the Americas and Africa first if you can. Getting satellites on every country in a continent prevents abduction missions for that region and lets you corner increasing panic (since it goes up everywhere you don't respond). The only reason not to do this is if you want to hope you get a soldier reward from a country you have a particular affinity for.

Ratbones
May 15, 2009
Cool, thanks guys. On the one hand, I like the I'm-completely-out-of-my-depth-here" feeling I'm up against. I never really realized just how save-scummy I tend to game until I don't have the option, but I suppose I can treat this like a rogue-like and revel in and learn from the many failures that will surely result.

RoadCrewWorker
Nov 19, 2007

camels aren't so great
I'm currently watching and greatly enjoying Zemalfs insanely lucky impossible playthrough, and i noticed that for the geosphere part even with randomization you have to use meta-knowledge like when which/how many missions/UFOs will pop up featuring which enemies using which weapons. I mean, learning from failures and coming up with various roadmaps is one intense and interesting thing, but optimizing for a hidden scripted timeline seems rather unintuitive and has less appeal to me.

That's just my impression and thankfully not required in most scenarios. I mean, i thought it was actually "impossible" to keep all countries and get full satellite coverage without loosing a single soldier on impossible ironman, but alas...

Axeface
Feb 28, 2009

He Who Walks
Behind The Aisles

nnnotime posted:

(FYI, I created the Implassic mod...): Check your folder where you extracted all the files to and make sure the modpatcher.exe file is present. I tested the batch file now and found the only thing that makes the command prompt open and close almost instantaneously is if the modpatcher.exe is missing.

Sometimes virus scanner programs will remove or quarantine EXE files found in archives during a download.

Otherwise if the modpatcher.exe is present, then the command prompt should open and close for a little bit longer (still under a second).

The Implassic batch file does not give any confirmation that the install succeeded. The only way to tell besides running the game is to check the Date Modified on the game's EXE file ( file XComGame.exe, found under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\Binaries\Win32).

If you see today's date and time on the XComGame.exe file then chances are the install was successful.

The mod was just a crude and simple INI file hack, so I didn't go as far as adding splash screens (perhaps I should look into that...).

Oh, I think it...actually worked then! That's awesome, thanks a lot dude.

E: Nope, nevermind. Still messing with this, then. Nertz.

E: I really don't think I have any idea what I'm doing here. I get modpatcher and DefaultGameCore into the win32 file under X-Com, and then run modpatcher, right? And then just put patcher_implassic_04 in there too and run it? I'm now getting an "error @ patching" message when I do this.

Axeface fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Jun 4, 2013

Fargin Icehole
Feb 19, 2011

Pet me.
After my victory in normal mode, I decided to go for Classic/Ironman Marathon, with Not created equally and Hidden potential. First mission was casualty free, Second mission was a success, but with the death of an assault with a promising career (and high aim) cut short by a sectoid with eagle eyes. UFO mission went fantastically! The Fourth mission was uh...well.

Rookie 1, Sniper 2, Rookie 3, Rookie 4.

Gas station abduction map. I place Rk 1,2,3 into cover on the cars covering the gas pumps, and Sniper 2 in the center, protected by a wastebasket. I know the alien scum are hiding in the buildings, and I don't want to tip my hand early, so this way I figure, I'll be able to make use of my new squad sight skill, and slowly, but systematically kill the sectoids.

Time to start some Search & Destroy. By positioning Rookie 1 at the edge of a car I started the engagement, but I revealed not two, but four sectoids (two in both buildings). drat, now they are in cover and most of my squad is too far away to frag any of them. I dash Rk 3 near a vending machine by the door, because it's the only full cover I see other than the gas pumps. Rk 4 has her left side exposed however, so I spread her out on the edge of the gas pumps, revealing alien 5&6! I put her on overwatch. Sniper lands a shot and kills a sectoid out of the way.

Alien turn! Sectoid's first shot is directed towards Rk 3. A miss, but now the vending machine has been completely destroyed. With a fully exposed rookie, the second shot, to no one's surprise, sends him bleeding all over the pavement. I got three turns to nip this in the bud if I ever wanna see my 74 aim rookie survive this. Rk 4's O.W damages a moving sectoid for a paltry 2 damage. Sectoid damages Rookie 1 for half her health. Sectoid is put on Overwatch. Rookie 4 loses all but one health by two greys facing different sides. Probably should have hunkered down.

My turn. Rookie 1 frags a sectoid in such a manner so that I don't end up fragging my dying Rookie 3. Sniper misses his shot. I want a guaranteed hit, but Rk 4 is too far away. If i moved just a little bit close- Oops! I half forgot that sectoid was on overwatch! Spotted her out in the open, shot in the back, instant kill. I gambled and lost. Sniper misses his 34% shot.

Alien Turn! Sniper 2 suffers 4 damage and sends him into a panic, he misses his shot.

This is not good at all. My sniper is pissing his pants and I have only Rk 1 under my control and her grenade has been used. Time to step up and be a Hero. She misses her 51% shot. I gambled and lost, shoulda found a gas pump to hide behind and hunker. It would have been better taking behind the equivalent of a red explosive barrel than be in half cover, so close to the sectoids.

Alien turn! Rookie 1 is immediately flanked and killed. They are getting closer to my lone survivor. Whoever takes a shot at him misses.

My turn. I miss my 34% headshot.

Alien turn! They whittle him down to 2 health, but the rest keep missing, and the last sectoid who hasn't done anything places itself near the gas pump where Rk 4 was gunned down, at least 5 tiles away from the wastebasket my sniper is still taking cover in.

My turn. Do or die, Corporal. that gray is at full health. No use trying the six shooter, and I'll probably miss again with my rifle this close to him. All signs point to grenade. The radius says it's safe enough to be out of the blast. In my head I'm thinking "Safe from the grenade, sure, but safe enough from the gas pump I'm about to ignite?" Well, only one way to find out. I take that drat alien with me. The last hope of success of this mission, now burning alive in the middle of nowhere in Canada. I suppose it was an honorable death after such a display of cowardice a few turns ago.

4 Operatives killed. 3 sectoids killed.

Well now.

:xcom:?

I take it this is normal?

Fargin Icehole fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Jun 4, 2013

POLICE CAR AUCTION
Dec 1, 2003

I'm not a princess



archerb posted:

CONTACT :unsmigghh:



I managed to kill all but two on that turn and none of my guys died. I wish I could fight sectoids forever. :allears:

Speaking of horrible poo poo cropping up, have an old screenshot of mine:

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
Pfft, just lead the chryssalids in a chase around the arena, and use run-and-gun every so turns to whittle them down. Easy peasy.

Azran
Sep 3, 2012

And what should one do to be remembered?

HelmetCheese posted:

Speaking of horrible poo poo cropping up, have an old screenshot of mine:



Hm? I just see a huge sign reading "APPLY ROCKETS HERE" :v:

(That's genuinely terrifying)

necrobobsledder
Mar 21, 2005
Lay down your soul to the gods rock 'n roll
Nap Ghost
This is still scary to me (there were Sectopods right behind them I believe, too).

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011

Fargin Icehole posted:

:xcom:?

I take it this is normal?
Yeah, though a lot of that was mistakes you made, no offense. For one thing, 34% chance to hit actually means 34%, unlike on normal. Don't take those shots, because you'll probably lose a shootout doing that, and you'll definitely lose troops.

Orgophlax
Aug 26, 2002


necrobobsledder posted:

This is still scary to me (there were Sectopods right behind them I believe, too).



Scenes like this make me wish a heavy could do this (sorry for this poo poo quality):
http://youtu.be/3AQO_IEkDIg?t=43s

Orgophlax fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jun 4, 2013

Andre Banzai
Jan 2, 2012

Fargin Icehole posted:

I take it this is normal?

Hahahaha yeah, it's part of the learning process. I hope you're having a good time.

Seriously though, I suspect you're starting to understand that, just like Poker, this isn't really a game of gambling. You have to consciously play the battlefield in a way that will tip the scales on your favor.

What message is a 34% shot telling you? It says "this is a bad choice, rethink your positioning". You shouldn't think "let's gamble" all the time. Sure, there are some times where there's nothing you can do but roll the dice, but it's your job to limit those situations to a minimum.

Also, since you're now playing Classic, adopt the following mindset: "eliminate aliens with extreme prejudice". That means launching a rocket to eliminate 2 Thin Men, even in the beginning of the mission. You'll notice Thin Men are absolutely nasty on Classic. Also, use grenades to destroy their cover.

Also, look for Beaglerush's videos on Youtube. He's a great teacher and you'll laugh a lot too.

Good luck and have fun with your descent into despair!

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Andre Banzai posted:

Also, since you're now playing Classic, adopt the following mindset: "eliminate aliens with extreme prejudice".

This is the best advice for classic or impossible. Personally, I always tell myself "every alien that can see me is a potential dead agent." On higher difficulties, you learn very quickly that a lot of the stuff you could get away with in normal just won't fly anymore. Half cover is worthless, full cover is nearly worthless, and even hunkering down behind full cover is risky because walls can get destroyed very easily, leaving the agent totally exposed. The only guarantee that an agent won't get shot is concealment (generally, hard cover with hard cover on both sides), and even then you have to take precautions to keep the aliens from moving and flanking.

The other big thing you learn is to always have a backup plan. Beaglerush talks about this a lot in his videos: you always want to have a guaranteed way to eliminate the aliens before the end of your turn, or at the very least minimize the damage they can cause, because like I said, each alien up has the potential to kill your men. If a shot misses or doesn't do enough damage, you'll have an agent who can't hunker down that turn, which might as well spell death. Being able to account for the worst-case scenario, and being able to weigh the potential cost of your actions is crucial to survival on higher difficulties.

Andre Banzai
Jan 2, 2012

Fister Roboto posted:

This is the best advice for classic or impossible. Personally, I always tell myself "every alien that can see me is a potential dead agent."

Exactly this. Especially when you start playing Ironman, you start to see the reality of this really quickly. I'm always amused by the horror stories of friends that defend that XCOM isn't "that hard" while playing on Regular Normal, and then make the jump to Classic Ironman.

Suddenly, "Thin Men are bullshit, dude!!!!!"

Oh yeah, Fargin Icehole, also: build Alloy SHIVs and USE THEM. They are awesome.

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

Andre Banzai posted:

Exactly this. Especially when you start playing Ironman, you start to see the reality of this really quickly. I'm always amused by the horror stories of friends that defend that XCOM isn't "that hard" while playing on Regular Normal, and then make the jump to Classic Ironman.

Suddenly, "Thin Men are bullshit, dude!!!!!"

Oh yeah, Fargin Icehole, also: build Alloy SHIVs and USE THEM. They are awesome.

The most amusing thing is that Classic really isn't that hard either. But if you're used to the helps Normal gives you then when the playing field is leveled it feels unfair (when it's still ridiculously unfair in favour of the player).

Andre Banzai
Jan 2, 2012

ChronoReverse posted:

The most amusing thing is that Classic really isn't that hard either. But if you're used to the helps Normal gives you then when the playing field is leveled it feels unfair (when it's still ridiculously unfair in favour of the player).

Hahahahaha please explain. I think I know where you're coming from, but I'd like to know what your thoughts are anyway. And in your opinion, is Impossible fair?

fspades
Jun 3, 2013

by R. Guyovich

Andre Banzai posted:


Oh yeah, Fargin Icehole, also: build Alloy SHIVs and USE THEM. They are awesome.

Yeah, alloy SHIVs are basically your strategic "oh poo poo!" button when your A-Team bites the dust in a particularly bad mission. They let your rookies survive and catch-up basically. Do NOT ignore their research even if you are not actively using them.

Andre Banzai posted:

Hahahahaha please explain. I think I know where you're coming from, but I'd like to know what your thoughts are anyway. And in your opinion, is Impossible fair?

You have snipers who can hit enemies across the map, assaults with run & gun and rapid fire, heavies with heat ammo who hits like a truck against sectopods and most important of all you always have the element of surprise and the ability to kill packs before they even get a chance to fire back. The only alien creature who gets close to "x-com team" levels of bullshit are sectopods. It's downright unfair to aliens.

fspades fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jun 4, 2013

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

Andre Banzai posted:

Hahahahaha please explain. I think I know where you're coming from, but I'd like to know what your thoughts are anyway. And in your opinion, is Impossible fair?
I don't feel Impossible is fair. It's just... possible.


As for Classic, the reason I say it's still stacked in your favor is because when you think about it, you're always dependent on a small squad killing a much more numerous force of aliens. And the expectation is that you don't lose (very many) soldiers.

You have most of the edges; aside from bugs, you can generally win most of the engagements in every stage of the game simply because you're smarter.

Think about it, in the very first mission, you get 4x 100% guaranteed kills in the form of grenades against 3HP Sectoid. Even in a pure firefight, probably one of the worse things you can do, you still have good odds of coming out on top (i.e., finishing the mission) against the remaining Sectoids. Of course, our standards are higher than that but we can almost completely mitigate the alien advantages in the first mission with careful play.

Andre Banzai
Jan 2, 2012

ChronoReverse posted:

I don't feel Impossible is fair. It's just... possible.


As for Classic, the reason I say it's still stacked in your favor is because when you think about it, you're always dependent on a small squad killing a much more numerous force of aliens. And the expectation is that you don't lose (very many) soldiers.

You have most of the edges; aside from bugs, you can generally win most of the engagements in every stage of the game simply because you're smarter.

Think about it, in the very first mission, you get 4x 100% guaranteed kills in the form of grenades against 3HP Sectoid. Even in a pure firefight, probably one of the worse things you can do, you still have good odds of coming out on top (i.e., finishing the mission) against the remaining Sectoids. Of course, our standards are higher than that but we can almost completely mitigate the alien advantages in the first mission with careful play.

In my point of view, Impossible is unfair. But I'm not complaining, it's the whole point, so yeah. Nothing to discuss here.

Classic, I defend that yeah, for the most part it's unfair for the aliens. But I'm not talking about the Battlescape here. Battlescape in the beginning of the game can be unfair to them (Sectoids with plasma pistols is pretty dumb, they should use Light Plasma from the get go) since we have grenades, I agree. I also think that in the beginning of the game, it should be balanced for more Status Black missions. But on the whole, I think it's a pretty fair game... it only feels unfair because we don't REALLY suck at the game anymore. But I've seen beginners try their hand at Classic, and they get rocked really hard by the aliens.

But I think the worst thing for the aliens, in terms of balance, is the Geoscape. It's a really hard game for them, if you think about it. They should have more tools to employ against us, especially in the second half of the game. Once you build enough satellites, you wreck their chances in the Geoscape pretty royally. Post alien base invasion, there's not much they can do, their only real chance is to really gently caress you up in Terror Missions. Other than that... unless you really suck at the research metagame, eventually you'll research a Plasma Rifle...

I really, really hope that they are preparing an expansion for us that'll bring us real terror, from start to finish. In the Geoscape, I mean. They really need to make the game easier for the aliens in the Geoscape, imho. It's where I think it's really unfair to them.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

One thing I'd like to see as a quality of life improvement in future patches or whatever is more control over the passage of time when you're scanning the geoscape. On classic and impossible, you're on a very tight schedule if you want to get as many satellites out as possible, with very little margin for error, and sometimes you end up blowing past a deadline date. It's especially frustrating since excavations don't pause the game when they finish, and over a few months the hours you delay start to add up, making it sometimes impossible to build an uplink in time. A way to either control the speed, or have it pause on a specific date would be nice.

Craig Spradlin
Apr 6, 2009

Right in the babymaker.
I was looking at the game's Wiki to get a rundown of some of the Second Wave options, and I noticed four or five achievements that hadn't yet been assigned a value, and which referred to things (Deluge, Furies) that as far as I know aren't part of the game and I know aren't part of Slingshot. So does anyone know if this refers to new DLC or are they a remnant of the abandoned Slingshot-style DLC?

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

Andre Banzai posted:

But on the whole, I think it's a pretty fair game... it only feels unfair because we don't REALLY suck at the game anymore. But I've seen beginners try their hand at Classic, and they get rocked really hard by the aliens.

I dunno. The only part I can think of at the moment where it can get tricky is when Chryssalids first show up in the second month and only if you haven't managed to roll out Lasers. I mean, yeah you can get the terrible Bomb Mission and stuff but it's generally not as bullshit as in Impossible.

And once you have Lasers equipped and you can one-shot Thin Men, it's significantly easier. By the time you roll out Plasma and have a Colonel SS Sniper, it's a matter of not drawing more enemies than you can chew (usually only caused by bugs). You don't even have to risk activating more aliens from flanking anymore.

Slashrat
Jun 6, 2011

YOSPOS

Craig Spradlin posted:

I was looking at the game's Wiki to get a rundown of some of the Second Wave options, and I noticed four or five achievements that hadn't yet been assigned a value, and which referred to things (Deluge, Furies) that as far as I know aren't part of the game and I know aren't part of Slingshot. So does anyone know if this refers to new DLC or are they a remnant of the abandoned Slingshot-style DLC?

These were the achievements for the second Slingshot-style DLC that was abandoned after Firaxis revised their plans. Both those and the Slingshot achievements were on the list since the game launched.

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Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
There are three hard parts in this game: The very start until you get a squadsight sniper; if you get chryssalids before lasers (usually you don't if you prioritize right); mutons throwing grenades before you get skeleton (if you go for carapace you don't have to worry about this). All told, it's like 6 missions that are actually hard and the rest you only lose because of mistakes or bugs.


Now, I'm not perfect at the game and I still make mistakes. Lost my top colonel sniper today because I used my last action to take a 91% shot on the final enemy with the sniper out of cover. I could have just run her to cover and then finished the enemy next turn. 91% is not 100%.

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