Loki45

I'm not seeing how Laser weapons are more effective than accelerated weapons. They look to do the same damage even if a different damage type. With only slightly less weight and the low amount of ammunition it seems to me the accelerated weapons would be the better choice. The fact that Laser weapons require Alenium as well really makes me averse to making them. Is the different damage type the deciding factor? Am I missing something?

Well that is actually kind of cool then!

I am pretty far into the game and I sent some rookie soldiers to a small scout to gain some experience. There was a Ceasan in an office building I wasn't able to kill on the first round though I did suppress him. When I ended my turn a cop or security guard went up to the window and fired a couple of shots at the Ceasan. I was quite surprised to see he had what looked and sounded like a laser rifle. He missed both shots. Is there an in game rationale to this? I guess it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine some governments would ultimately get their hands on laser technology, but for cops or security guards? Also I have yet to sell anything in my stores. Any comments on this?

I can only speak for what I did which I have had success with on normal difficulty. I built an extra base with a radar as quickly as I could and stocked it with two condors and one foxtrot as soon as I got the money to do so. My next move was to build a third base along the same lines and made sure I covered as much area as I could. That seems to have been sufficient for me to keep most countries raising their contributions with a few, Australia in particular, barely breaking even. At the point I am at I can pretty much shoot down any ship approaching my base and the few that have gotten through were shot down by base defenses of which I have two at each site. Once the ship got through and I had to do a base defense scenario.

You should have heard some gunfire if the locals took out the alien. Also more than likely you should have heard an alien scream. On the mission summary it also would have told you how many aliens were on the mission along with how many were killed.

I have heard alien screams during their turns before and later on found a corpse or two, but I have never had them clear the whole level with no input from me! That would have been pretty funny to have seen....

Heh....maybe they did something to his sheep?

From what I can tell it looks like the shotgun fires three pellets that do 25 kinetic damage each. The assault rifle does 30 kinetic damage per shot. If all three shotgun pellets hit then it would be 75 damage. If you fire burst fire with the assault rifle and hit with all three bullets it would do 90 damage. The damage is pretty variable though from what I can tell. The farmer I saw hit with all three pellets at close range as the reaper was right on him when he shot. He charged the Sebillian though and was really close to it when he fired twice. Since it was off screen when he did this I did not actually see the results until later at which point there was a dead Sebillian.

That makes me wonder if the farmers are pumped up as a joke or something. The military guys I have seen on some levels never killed anything. They just got blown away by the aliens.

I had just ended my first turn on a mission to clear out a small scout where I knew there were Sebillians. There were a couple of farmers standing around with shotguns. A sebillian I couldn't see makes a move and one of the farmers shoots at him twice and kills him. It was then the farmers turn and that same farmer then turns around and shoots a reaper twice killing him. Next turn he runs and hides.... I wish I could have recruited him....

That is so very true. As a commander of X-com you would just inwardly cringe and hope that something can be done about it after you have successfully fought off the invasion. I could definitely see many brutal wars going on after the aliens are gone. You could also hope that the threat of alien invasion would make humanity unite on a global level. My cynical nature thinks that is highly unlikely as well.

Another point to make is that ideally X-com would be trying to get as much weaponry out as possible to other countries as it can only help the Earth in its fight against the alien invaders. They can't possibly fight every battle on the Earth so it would make sense to help the funding nations fight their own battles when possible.

It is very hard to judge art, graphics, or whatever as everyone brings their own biases, ideas, and likes into the mix. I for one try not to look at anything about the art or graphics except what impression it has on me. Otherwise I would not feel I am being objective. I readily admit that the attitudes of musicians, artists, and athletes has effected how I view their work, but I try very hard not to let that be a factor. I have a feeling that is what is going on here with some of the posters.

When I first played X-com, like the very first time only, I did not use the ability of engineers to build and sell items to make money. However, once I discovered you could sell what they create, probably the second time I played it, it was very obvious to me that it was the intentions of the original programmer to have that as a strategy available to the player. It is not a game breaker and it involves a fair amount of micro-management. For me it was merely a way to have the engineers pay their own salaries and provide a means to pay for non-alien gear. If you really want to call that cheesy, exploitative, or cheating go right ahead, but it makes a whole lot of sense to me and obviously the original programmers as well as just about everyone I have ever talked to about the game that this strategy is viable and meant to be a part of the game. I also can not see how you couldn't make a large profit as if you had laser rifles that were actually effective and indeed more effective than any assault rifle available you are not going to have any trouble selling 10, 100, or even 10,000. It would really come down to who you are willing to sell them to as opposed to whether you will find a buyer or not. Now if you had been selling laser rifles for 10+ years and had sold hundreds of thousands THEN I could see the price coming down. Until then though you would just not be able to make enough to satisfy demand and even what you did sell would probably wind up on the black market for more than you sold it for. With that stated I wouldn't see a need to have a strong economic aspect to the game unless you are spanning the game over many years.

I've been following your progress and I am looking forward to trying your game out. What I have seen looks impressive! Keep up the good work!