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Bone marrow. Yeah, I'm boring, but I like healing and a longer healthier life would be nice. Because of this LP (and I felt like playing a sniper/shooter last night), I started playing The Bureau: XCOM Declassified lat night.
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Sep 28, 2014 18:21
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Yeah, adrenal neurosympathy would be cool in a lot of ways... but if it also triggers off of other brain chemicals I don't want to make everyone around me deal with my depression. Well, more than they already do. And as I said, jumpylegs would be really awesome if I thought I had the dexterity to not kill myself while using it. If I missed the part where the mod gives you that incredibly precise level of muscle control sign me up and excuse me while I go relive my favorite parts of Assassin's Creed (running around on and climbing famous landmarks)Chard posted:I have to say I would choose bioelectric skin. Having an entirely new sense organ, plus electric-shock skin, would be pretty boss. I've been scuba diving a few times and it's awesome but you're so out of your element it's hard to appreciate everything. Being able to literally feel the life around you... that's the stuff of dreams. That's an extremely strong argument. Depending on how healthy the bone marrow regeneration makes you (it seems like extremely, considering the rate of regeneration) I might change my answer. Especially since the number of calories you have to eat for regeneration to be feasible would be insane.
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Sep 28, 2014 18:59
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Fire Storm posted:I started playing The Bureau: XCOM Declassified lat night. sorry for your loss nah seriously, the Bureau is really maddening because it has some really cool ideas and some really awful execution. And then it has bad ideas and decent execution and you never know what you'll get 
Psion fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Sep 28, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2014 19:10
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Psion posted:sorry for your loss I think that sums up the game perfectly. By the end of it, I was so sick and tired of the game, I couldn't wait for it to be over.
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Sep 28, 2014 22:03
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JT Jag posted:You probably still age even with regeneration. You might age slower though, because the cellular breakdown is delayed or more efficient. Ehhh, but then there's cancer. You might live longer with regeneration, or you might die a horrible death in five years from cancer of the absolutely everything. Who knows?
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Sep 28, 2014 22:10
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Bone marrow. Because regeneration is that drat useful. I have bad knees already, and if I could get that, I wouldn't any more... I miss being able to run.
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Sep 28, 2014 22:11
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Ratoslov posted:Ehhh, but then there's cancer. You might live longer with regeneration, or you might die a horrible death in five years from cancer of the absolutely everything. Who knows? Or you get cancer of the everything, regenerate enough to never die from it, but go irrevocably insane from it and gain the power to break the 4th wall.
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Sep 28, 2014 23:10
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Which one gets your body to build motor neurons? I'll take that one. Failing that, I'd like my muscles rebuilt in some way.
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Sep 29, 2014 00:18
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Well, given the mechanism of Meld as presented it could make your body do all sorts of things that aren't technically options in this game. You could definitely 'cure' genetic disorders with it (just use it to combine their genes with a healthy human's instead of freaky alien poo poo) and in principle curing cancer with it would be equally easy, since cancerous cells inherently have damaged genetic information.
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Sep 29, 2014 00:32
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Depending on how this slightly-different-universe magical biopunk goo operates, any one of those mods might give you the option to spend the next five hundred years dying of terminal agnosticism or it might turn you into a fluorescent pink gorilla-kaiju if the plot requires it. Or both! Writers just can't get enough twists.Ciaphas posted:People getting old and broken and wanting to fix it? Maybe most of the responses are mundane and/or silly because this kind of transhumanism is a bit far-fetched? Or maybe everyone is a bunch of prudes and hypocrites (e.g. 'society') and nobody wants to admit that combat pheromones would fulfill their dreams of being surrounded by a perpetual bloody riot.
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Sep 29, 2014 01:12
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I think I'm going to need to make these polls a regular feature.
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Sep 29, 2014 07:40
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So are these are being framed as polls to noncombat XCOM staff? Like one day a janitor who's working at the base is told he has to fill out a piece of paper about which gene mod he'd like to have most?
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Sep 29, 2014 19:08
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JT Jag posted:So are these are being framed as polls to noncombat XCOM staff? Like one day a janitor who's working at the base is told he has to fill out a piece of paper about which gene mod he'd like to have most? More or less, yeah.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:16
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It'd be bioelectric skin by the way. He'd be able to FEEL the stains.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:20
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Speedball posted:More or less, yeah. If that's the case about half the staff really want mimetic skin to shirk work, but put down something else.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:23
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I imagine that Bioelectric Skin basically functions as Daredevil Vision, with your skin constantly emitting electrical pulses that function as sonar. So you'd be able to detect things that are where they shouldn't be constantly in a full cone around you, compared to binocular vision where you can only see a narrow field of view. Whoever mentioned how cool it'd be to have another sense organ entirely, you have a good point.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:28
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As someone who is just barely-not-legally blind without glasses, Hyper-Reactive Pupils, please. I would like to be able to see again.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:44
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Can bone marrow regen repair nerve damage? Especially damage that has been lived with for a long time? I'll support any medical technology that would let my dad use his hand again before he passes. Real talk.
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Sep 29, 2014 20:53
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Part 19: Site Recon, AKA CHRYSSALID HELL!“Allen’s Movie Pile” posted:John Carpenter’s The THING!   *cough* This is a pretty drat good movie, yeah; though I do wonder why nobody even attempts communication with the Thing. Maybe they just all assume it has no plan other than eating people? Funny idea for an alternate ending: the Thing consumes and imitates everyone, and then life on earth goes right back to normal because the Thing never breaks character. Everyone’s a monster, but everyone thinks they’re the only one. HAH! What game are you trying to play now, Cammy? I was trying to set up a Shadowrun RPG session…it’s a setting where magic is real and nonhumans are abundant, but so are cybernetics and futuristic stuff. If the technology that XCOM is researching ever becomes commonplace, well, we’ll basically be living in Shadowrun.  The situations in Europe and Asia are heating up a bit, Commander. In addition to aliens kidnapping humans we have isolated incidences of people experimenting with leftover salvaged pieces of alien technology; not governments, they’d keep it secret. Criminals and civilians. Uh-oh. Like what? Let’s see… A report of an Irish gang trying to figure out how to make those sticky green webs from stolen abduction pods… An independent French corporation accidentally poisoning some of its staff by experimenting on a Thin Man cadaver… A PMC based in the Czech Republic blowing themselves up in an attempt at reconstructing alien weapons… oh, this is interesting. A large gang in Japan using a captured Meld canister and injecting it in the mistaken belief of contracting alien superpowers. I know that’s probably very serious but I’m trying hard not to laugh imagining what the results were. Yeah, they are now one of the most, uh, diverse gangs in Japan, needless to say. Ladies and gentlemen of XCOM, we now have BIG lasers.     Awesome!  May I present to you, XCOM, your new teammate: The Super-Heavy Infantry Vehicle, or SHIV, production name Goliath-1. It talks? Not really, that’s just its “Hello, World” command. I’ll need to study a lot more alien tech before this thing is ready to become fully automated. In the meantime, you can control it remotely. Watkins is still on sick leave… I volunteer to control it, for now. It’s good now, but it’ll be even better once we outfit it with lasers. More accurate, too. And you can hide behind it for cover on the field. Looks like we’ll have the perfect opportunity to test it out, since Watkins is still under the weather. Some strange thing is going on over in a fishing village in Newfoundland. Might be nothing, might be something really, really BAD. Everyone there is missing, and so is the initial strike team sent there. Check it out and bring the SHIV with you, along with Zhang. drat, your gun is even BIGGER, Naomi. I bet you could kill a Muton in one hit. With a lucky shot, perhaps. Alicia, you got full control of that thing? It controls pretty easily; just like a video game, in fact. Let’s just hope it doesn’t have any lag. Well, take care, okay, everyone? *cough* I’m gonna play a game with the back-up squad. I’m still thinking about all those horrible things the Thin Men said to Cammy… “You’re not really you, the old you is dead.” If they had tried it on me, it wouldn’t have worked. I’ve come to realize I hate the old me and love the new me. What do you think, Zhang? Time and tide will change people whether or not they want anyway. Young people’s bodies become old, fat people become thin, weak become strong or vice-versa, and experience changes your soul. The mutations are just quicker, more visible. Still, there are some things that don’t change… Here’s the fishing village, Strike-One. I suggest you use Leroy to scout with her sensory powers until we find the townsfolk, or aliens. Holy poo poo ZOMBIE! We have CHRYSSALIDS! Oh, no…if the whole town is already dark, that means everyone in it has either been killed or transformed into a monster. We need to get ready to exterminate everything. Starting with this zombie. Blast it! It’s STILL UP? These things are tough. Stronger than even the bugs that make them. SHIV, go! Zombie down! Too early to celebrate. Princess, cloak and go right. Zhang and I will go left. Mmmmph! Zombie! *exhale* It couldn’t see me…this invisibility has saved my life! I can kill it from here. Blow it away and keep pressing forward, carefully. Nobody forget to establish overwatch. The houses are empty, let’s head into the fish market. I know it’s a cliche, but this is TOO quiet. I don’t sense anything living. This is creepy. Okay, just for reference: if there are chryssalids here, let me and the SHIV take point. We’re the toughest and even if they kill us, we won’t become zombies. My invisibility fooled the zombies, but I don’t think it’ll fool chryssalids. We got the bioelectric skin trait from them, remember? Right. You should probably get an elevated position for sniping. Zombie to the east! And three chryssalids!!! Back me up, NOW! One down! I love this gun! Second chryssalid down! All bugs down! One zombie left! Team, the bugs are using the larger fish as incubators, spawning from the sharks and other catches of the day. It’s not just human zombies you need to worry about. More coming in from your west! drat! Zombie PUNCH! Now, everyone reload and set up for an attack from the left. Princess, up top, now! This’d be easier with jumpy legs… Zombie and chrysalid to the left! They’re clustered, can you get a rocket shot at them, Eva? Uh…okay! Sure! It didn’t kill ‘em but it softened them up. Gomez, go! I have a very easy shot from here. Zombie down! Yup, this one’s wide open too! Thanks. Press up against this thing for cover, that’s what it was designed for. I know, I know, it’s just that…pressing up against electronics makes me all tingly now. Distracting. Got ‘em. All visible targets dead. We didn’t cause this explosion or fire. I believe this is why we haven’t been swarmed by dozens of zombies. Just before we got here, someone sacrificed themselves to destroy a large number of aliens. Instead of groups of two and three we would have fought up to fifty enemies at once. Fortunate. There’s a lot of damage on that ship over there. Boards and debris are on the outside, like something burst from within. I think the original infestation came from there. I will investigate. Be careful! You’re tough but a couple of swipes from those things will still hurt you! I’ll send the SHIV in first, of course. Bugs from within the ship! And a zombie right by the ship! Take them down now, please!  Chryssalids terminated. Adjust for wind…perfect shot! I can see inside the ship. It’s a whale. A WHALE. The chryssalids are spawning from it, one more every minute we spend here. Hundreds could come out of it if we don’t destroy it! You don’t have enough firepower to sink a ship or burn an entire whale carcass. We’ll need an airstrike. I can order one right now, but your best shot of it hitting its target is to activate the ship’s transponder from the bridge. Here comes another one! Gah, the whole thing is wiggling…you’ll have to fight past them all to get to the transponder on the bridge. gently caress this groundwalker poo poo. It’s time to FLY.  I only winged it! I got it. But there’s more hatching in there. Naomi! I got it! Everyone, just drop everything and run back to the Skyranger, NOW. This whole place will be swarming with bugs and we’ll all be dead if that airstrike hits us. Go. GO. GO! There’s more hatching from the sharks, in front and behind us. Shoot the ones in front, forget the ones behind unless they get too close. The SHIV is expendable at least, but you’re not! Hurry up! Keep an eye on our rear, but keep moving back to the Skyranger! I count four…five… SIX more from the ship. In one minute! gently caress! We need to get outta here NOW. Running, running, running! Quickly, quickly! We’re all here. GO!    We made it…whew. All those poor people… It was a great loss, but I’m sure that they would all have been glad to know we kept their remains from being used as a weapon against the world. I don’t think this was deliberate. The aliens have supported chrysalids with ground troops like floaters in the past, and their goal has always been to raid the earth, not destroy it. Hmm. Might have been an accidental infestation. Once again, Bar-Lev, you’ve done an amazing job of keeping the team focused. Everyone did a great job, and it looks like the SHIV is a keeper, even if it’s not as flexible as a human soldier. Heh. Figured a punch of the button was worth it. I’m authorizing the funding of laser weaponry for the SHIV, we’re going to need it in the future, I think. Hmm, I bet if I pre-heated the weapon I’d be able to get more shots out of it… Sorry for puking in the middle of the session, guys, haven’t got all this Thin Man out of my system yet. No problem. We should wait for more people before attempting a serious session anyway. I’d be dead if it weren’t for these powers… Good thing you have more than one life, I would think! That’s one way of looking at it, yeah…To Be Continued! Commander's Poll posted:
Speedball fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 21:01
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The newfoundland Chrysallid mission is fantastic, especially the first time you do it. Really unique, especially the final part where you get the gently caress out of dodge with a horde of them right on your heels. As for most hated alien (that we've seen so far) I have to go with the Thin Men. There are a lot of missions where they just drop out of the sky out of nowhere, and if you're a new player who isn't familiar with when they trigger and aren't prepared with guys on overwatch at the exact right place they can really gently caress you over.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:12
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I think I speak for every X-com player when I make this simple statement. gently caress THIN MEN.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:15
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Beaglerush recently did this mission in Long War in his Live and Impossible series, but he solved in a somewhat different way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAIctku3O0s. Most hated alien? Cyberdiscs. They are hard to kill if you don't have the right troops with you and they have grenades. I'm just glad I haven't seen one use its special attack Death Blossom in single player.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:19
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IMJack posted:I'll support any medical technology that would let my dad use his hand again before he passes. Real talk. Functional electrical stimulation looks promising. Also, several technologies that are being applied to limb prostheses can be applied to nerve damaged limbs. A group of professors and assistants from my university is working on a cheaper version of existing electrical stimulation devices that's supposed to restore a certain amount of control to people with hand nerve damage. I'm sure there's something similar being done wherever you live.  I actually wanted to help them out, but my regular studies got in the way. 
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Sep 29, 2014 21:23
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pun pundit posted:I'm just glad I haven't seen one use its special attack in single player. One of the only times I ever saw the ai use it was to deliberately murder one of the harder captures in the game that I had just made. I'm gonna go against the grain and say mutons, you need their rifles so you try to capture a lot of them, and with the expansion the ai has gotten tweaked enough that I've literally seen them grenade themselves rather than be taken alive.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:26
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Out of the ones we've seen so far, Thin Men. Even in late game I still have to be careful thanks to their poison crap. In general Sectopods or Cyberdisks.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:27
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pun pundit posted:Most hated alien? Cyberdiscs. They are hard to kill if you don't have the right troops with you and they have grenades. I'm just glad I haven't seen one use its special attack Death Blossom in single player. gently caress them.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:29
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Definitely Chryssalids. But not because I just had an encounter go REALLY WRONG with like six of them before I had laser weapons fully out, no sir. RIP my assault Major, you were pretty good.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:30
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pun pundit posted:Most hated alien? Cyberdiscs. They are hard to kill if you don't have the right troops with you and they have grenades. I'm just glad I haven't seen one use its special attack Death Blossom in single player. Echoing this. gently caress those things with a rusty spoon.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:32
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I dunno, that enemy can be dealt with pretty rapidly if you make it a priority, and it never shows up in groups so you can make it a priority. My least favorite is Ethereals because not once have they failed to mind control my soldiers. Not even the Volunteer, goddamn!.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:38
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legoman727 posted:I think I speak for every X-com player when I make this simple statement. Thin men are fine actually. gently caress CHRYSALLIDS. Either you know what you are doing, or they wreck your poo poo. There really isn't any middle ground.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:38
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I believe that mission gets a lot easier if you blow up all the sharks and the whale during the approach by using grenades, rockets, and Collateral Damage.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:47
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gently caress Cyberdiscs. I had one of those on the mission after the train station and not only do they more hit points than god, but their corpses block chokepoints.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:48
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pun pundit posted:Most hated alien? Cyberdiscs. They are hard to kill if you don't have the right troops with you and they have grenades. I'm just glad I haven't seen one use its special attack Death Blossom in single player.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:51
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I liked the couple of lines about non-government organizations getting their filthy paws on alien tech and what that would mean. XCOM really doesn't delve into anything that isn't happening in either your base or your crosshairs and I've always thought that was kind of a weak point. My most hated enemy is probably Berserkers, not because they're hard to kill (they aren't) but because they are dumb as rocks (see: easy to kill) and don't really feel like they fit with the rest of the alien forces. They're basically just walls of idiot HP to be chipped away during a real fight.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:52
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pun pundit posted:Beaglerush recently did this mission in Long War in his Live and Impossible series, but he solved in a somewhat different way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAIctku3O0s. Add me to the list, even post EW with the new enemies and buffs to Sectopods, I still hate that other enemy even more. Just from the additional 'oh, you BASTARD  ' effect.As for SHIV, I love those things but I was always too much of a cheapskate to buy and research them. Plus using them as cover just screams to my paranoid brain 'This isn't cover, it is a Please Throw A Grenade At Two Targets sign'. I am also convinced their bumper and headlights looks like a frowny face.
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Sep 29, 2014 22:06
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Anything with grenade capability. I've lost more people to discs and some of the really heavy hardware but grenades always catch me off guard.
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Sep 29, 2014 22:15
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pun pundit posted:Beaglerush recently did this mission in Long War in his Live and Impossible series, but he solved in a somewhat different way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAIctku3O0s. Gotta agree here, if you have one of those active and not enough firepower to take it down get ready for a world of pain.
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Sep 29, 2014 22:16
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Redeye Flight posted:Anything with grenade capability. I've lost more people to discs and some of the really heavy hardware but grenades always catch me off guard. That's very true. The ability to do guaranteed damage to you, no matter what sort of cover you're in, gets very unpleasant on longer missions where the aliens can just wear you down with attrition - it's one of the reasons why I love my medics so much. Plus, the only thing more annoying than realising that all the good cover is too tightly packed is realising this after you've already moved your troops in. I once had two soldiers hiding behind the same truck, in full cover. The grenade went off and then the truck blew up. Sad times. Chard posted:My most hated enemy is probably Berserkers, not because they're hard to kill (they aren't) but because they are dumb as rocks (see: easy to kill) and don't really feel like they fit with the rest of the alien forces. They're basically just walls of idiot HP to be chipped away during a real fight. I think they work pretty well, because they're an imminent threat - it doesn't matter how good your lines of fire are to the rest of the enemy, if you don't take down the Berserker right the hell now then somebody's in for a really bad day. Berserkers are there to soak up your fire while the Mutons do some killing, and they're very, very good at that job. Plus they're pretty scary the first time you see them.
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Sep 29, 2014 22:58
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Chard posted:I liked the couple of lines about non-government organizations getting their filthy paws on alien tech and what that would mean. XCOM really doesn't delve into anything that isn't happening in either your base or your crosshairs and I've always thought that was kind of a weak point. I remember playing in a Spycraft tabletop campaign that was, unbeknownst to us, an X-COM game. We started out investigating rumors the IRA had gotten its hands on some kind of experimental gun and was selling it on the black market for huge bank, and ended up having to fight off Sectoids and Mutons as an NSA cell. Those were good times. Also, I loving hate Thin Men, for the poison.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:17
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I've never played XCOM (or earlier iterations), despite my abiding love of Julian Gollop's "Chaos". So I don't have any gameplay reasons for my prejudice against Thin Men. Just the whole Matthew Lillard thing. gently caress Thin Men.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:21
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