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At the end of October 1979:-

Overall tactic: I went with base building over equipping soldiers again in this build. With the lower base build cost, I went straight for a second base on day 1. A lull meant that I couldn't get a third base quite as quickly, but by the start of November the facilities are being built. By the end of November I should have 3 strike bases set up.

Again, this offsets the nations with plummeting funding, such as the USA (if first base is in Europe (Sicily and not Greece. Bah)) An example of: In October I lost $40k of US funding. In November it was +$10k

Ground Combat: The first four or five missions are tougher in this build. This isn't because of grenade use in previous builds. I usually only resort to grenades, when the weapons start causing too little damage. The aliens seemed to have a better grasp of cover. Also, they aren't as predictable. They now come out of the UFO (thank you) to mix things up a little.

Alien plasma pistols seem to be pretty nasty this build. I'm glad that's pretty much all I've been up against. I may have to think about skimping on the armour. 2 20 day wounded troops very early on.

Weapon types:

Pistol/Shield - Invaluable in breaching UFOs and I've been using it a little more in getting close to defensive positions, due to grenade range limitations.

Sniper - Hypervelocity has been removed for the moment, so that was felt. There's also a TU increase. Considering the time it should take to set up a sniper shot, I'm actually fine with that. It does mean that it takes a few missions for the Sniper to find his/her feet. Several actually. But still very useful considering grenade tweaks.

LMG - The winner this build. I bring one in when the rocket launchers have enough strength and TUs to make it more viable. They have benefited most form the grenade tweaks. I now have 2 on the squad.

Rifle - Relied on more with grenade tweaking. More useful in early missions waiting for LMG and sniper rifle to become more useful.

Rocket Launcher- With everything it touches becoming a purple stain (unless it's friendly fire) this is used much more carefully. I'm switching ammo a lot more depending on the situation. Stun being a little more effective works well for this.

Shotgun - Still not being used. Current maps don't provide close combat situations where it would be useful (early industrial maps were much better for this). Inside UFOs is probably the best bet, but there are still accuracy issues with that for nearly all weapons. Shield/pistol and grenades works better. There are no line of sight interiors in the early UFOs that would favour the use of the shotgun. For example, corners that would block use of grenades.

Overall, a thumbs up for the changes. Some confined maps should bring Shotguns into their own.

Still not using -High Explosive, Stun Batons, Flash Bangs for the reasons given here

Air Combat - I enjoyed watching my Foxtrot fail to take down the light scout by itself, and I managed to take down 2 Corvettes without going back to reload. Reload changes are making a positive difference already. Also enjoying the variety of UFOs. I can't think when I've had a scout with 2 escorts. Straight into 3 fighters in this game, rather than a build up of single ones first. Nice to see things shift around. I've used the cannons a little more in this build. Not much more, but then there are others here, who use them in traditional dog fighting style., so it's possibly just me there.

I was going to link back to 19.4 for not using Vehicles. But considering the increased difficulty of the first few missions, I'm wondering if a tank would have been a solution. Very possibly.

Other issues (I've posted these elsewhere, but they fit nicely here too.) Stores is now ignored and manufacturing is pretty hollow. I'm realigning the soldiers in the dropship tab once and never going back to it.

Greece being in the Middle East really jars as the first thing I go to do in the game is put a base there, only to find that it's in the "wrong" funding bloc.

Instant Promotions - I had 7 Sgts after the first mission (Update: I'm getting commanders at the end of October)

Manufacturing delay - there's no manufacturing to start with and I have a 6 day delay waiting for the third hanger to be built before I can begin the manufacture. I imagine that there would also be a delay if I built a garage, but haven't built that one. So, no manufacturing to start with, and then a delay in the first topic that's available to manufacture.

Local forces down UFO early mission - If you want to equip your squad before the go, you want to press cancel. However, the timer stays at the same speed as when the "local forces down UFO" message appears. Hours race by before you can get to the top to stop it. Even if there's a time freeze hotkey, it would be nice if it just reverted back to the slowest speed.

Firing into the UFO from just outside the doorway, continues to be odd looking. Accuracy plummets (and it's poor to begin with). Breach soldier doesn't always have the TUs to go much further than the door safely. So, it's back to grenades, as the least risky option. I can understand why you don't want everyone to be able to fire right into the back of the UFO, but it looks strange when you can't

Research dries up around 18th with 15 scientists. That's for a few days and then it dries up again around the 27th. The tail end of both research periods is only 1 topic leading on to the only other available option. So there's no real research choice for the player. It's very linear. Considering the world is supposed to be running around trying to figure out how best to deal with the threat, there's little research going on.

Edges of Light Scouts. - I still find some of the targeting around the corners of the ship to be odd. I've had a Caesian in plain sight just at one of the pincers, but I couldn't hit it directly and had to work my way around. Some oddities at the door as well. These have pretty much always been there.

Savegame: End of October

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This is an excellent overview! I'll follow up with mine!

Weapon types:

Pistol/Shield - I wasn't aware that the combat sheilds are working, I will now trythis.

Sniper Rifle - By the end of the Light Scout era, I had taken my snipers out in favor of more riflemen. Since movement is so important in the game (being able to get across the field), the snipers always ended up taking too long to do anything. And I found that I could hit almost as well with rifles anyway.

LMG - I also have much love for the LMG. I have one in my squad usually.

Rifle - Relied on more with grenade tweaking. More useful in early missions waiting for LMG and sniper rifle to become more useful.

Rocket Launcher - My Rocket Girl has two HE rockets and two stun rockets each mission. I usually open the UFO door, duck to the side and dump a stun rocket it in. Then wait a turn or two. After that, I'll drop two stun grenades in, everyone is unconscious and the eggheads get the craft.

Shotgun - The maximum accuracy for this weapon is 36% for almost all shots. I still bring them, but the Assault troops almost always end up being grenade throwers instead.

Stun Batons - I love these things. But you have to use them carefully. I usually use a flashbang to suppress and walk up and zap the guy. It has worked in one shot every time. The zapping noise is satisfying (even though the order of the sounds is backwards, scream then zap).

Flashbangs: - These work pretty well for inflicting the Suppression effect. Since suppressed targets don't reaction fire, I like to hit them with a stun stick.

Grenades in general - don't like the fact that I can't throw a grenade as far as I think is reasonable.

Air Combat - I used to like this until I realized I hated the MiG-31/32. The lack of cannon is really annoying to me, and isn't canon (Ha!). The MiG-31 has a GSh-6-23 23mm cannon with 260 rounds. I noticed that there are wild swings in the air combat. In the beginning, I can shoot down light scouts, often without being damaged. Later on, Mediums and (standard) Scouts give me a lot of trouble. I can down a scout, but not a Corvette. And the Heavy Fighters have been kicking my rear.

Vehicles: I found that the number of time units for the vehicles is too short for them to be useful. They have 60 TUs, but the reserve shot takes up 40. They rapidly get outstripped in speed by units that go up levels. Since a vehicle has a crew, why not make it so they go up in rank and such like a normal soldier does? Also, I very rarely hit with the vehicle gun, so after a few times, I shoved it back in the garage in favor of two more soldiers.

Other Issues:

Shooting into UFOs is problematic and weird. I find the accuracy system in general weird. It's a lot like the A-Team, where you have a firefight and shoot 10,000 rounds, but no one ever gets hit.

After the Light Scout era, there is a huge lull where nothing happens. I've got all the research done, and there's nothing to build. So my scientists and my engineers are sitting there soaking up money. I would change it so the (Standard) Scout craft is introduced earlier, this gives you some time to get some more research going for when the Corvettes start showing up. It also would accelerate (and extend) the usage of Laser Weapons, which in the original X-COM, was usually very short in favor of plasma.

Alenium is very scarce. I've only got 5. Uh..the whole game. Ever.

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Pistol/Shield - The bug may still be there for all I know. But I've never had to drop and pick up the shield so it's always been fine.

Sniper Rifle -It's proving to be excellent for long range suppression. Well worth it for that alone. Perhaps increase the TUs of a rifleman for a few missions and then switch in?

Stun Batons - I'm loathe to go straight up to one in a UFO and zap it, in case I'm left standing there. It would seem to be better now. I'll give it a shot, sorry, a zap.

I got a Corvette really quickly in this build. My research has been ticking over nicely. I moan about lack of parallel paths, but it's never really had that. Lulls have lasted no more than a few days.

Manufacturing has been throttled by all the freebies in the game from missiles to medikits.

I have no idea how much Alenium I have. The last mission got me 10 though, so it's at least that much. I don;t bother with the stores screens. I may have to later to transfer some craft cannons, but that's all it's for now.

Air Combat - with only a foxtrot not being repaired I downed a scout in two interceptions. Also took down my third Corvette. Either I've finally learned how to do it, or they've made it easier this build. How are you handling the Corvette missions?

Really enjoying the air combat at the moment. Lots of variety in this build.

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I have never once downed anything larger than a standard Scout. I have no idea how to kill a Corvette. I'm so frustrated with the air combat that I've given up on the game until the next build. I was enthusiastic and I wanted to help, but I just can't play it like this.

I did enjoy the one terror mission I did though. It was pretty dicey for a while. Plasma rifles are nasty!

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I have never once downed anything larger than a standard Scout. I have no idea how to kill a Corvette. I'm so frustrated with the air combat that I've given up on the game until the next build. I was enthusiastic and I wanted to help, but I just can't play it like this.

I did enjoy the one terror mission I did though. It was pretty dicey for a while. Plasma rifles are nasty!

Assumes alenium missiles and torpedoes are loaded. Most success when the UFO has to turn a bit to face the aircraft.

Split your squadron of 2 Condors and 1 Foxtrot, moving the Condors to either side.

The Corvette will focus on the Foxtrot, so take them out of it's firing cone.

Put Foxtrot into afterburner (for those times Corvette has a fair bit to turn) The Foxtrot can fire before the Corvette can get to it. The moment the Foxtrot has fired, get it out of there, making sure you don't attract the Corvette too close to one of your condors.

Slow the Foxtrot down a bit, just enough to keep ahead of the annoyed Corvette.

The Condors, by this time should be either side of the Corvette. Work then around behind it.

Keep a straight path for the Foxtrot. This makes sure that the Corvette doesn't turn into any of them

Fire all missiles and autocannon at the Corvette.

Ta da! Downed Corvette. If for some reason it has health left, rinse , refuel and repeat.

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I've completed the first month in an unmodded (other than cosmetically) V19.5 game.

Overall tactic: Setting up camp near Cairo, I'm going to defend as much of Europe, Africa and the Middle East as I can in September. I do catch the western fringes of the Soviet Union and Indio-China blocks. I'm going to spend my inital wad of cash building a big ol' airforce capable of controlling the skies over my first base. I'll use the funds from the end of Sep. payday to set up an Indio-China base to help out my friends in the east, but that will take time to get up and running. Maybe too much time. I guess we'll see! Unless there's save file corruption fun, of course.

I ended up buying two sets of jackal armour. I'm still unsure whether or not that was the right move, since that's $40k that could have gone towards the second base/first base's air control. People seem to argue that armour should have all of these drawbacks, but honestly, I'm not sure I should be paying out for V19.5 armour that's a straight upgrade! Is anyone out there equipping a whole squad with jackal or wolf armour before they have geoscape map control?

Ground Combat: There's a field report of my ground combat battles in the spoiler a bit further down if you want to know how the battles went. Here's an overview. (Stuns are counted as kills.)

27 alien kills in Sep., 0 Xeno casualties. 1 Xeno in red hp after lightscout 6.

Most Valued Weapon award goes to the stun baton, which caused 12 of those kills. Good job, stun baton! You're a gosh darn hero!

The runner-up is the LMG, which seems to be scoring more hits than previously, and contributed to 8 kills. The LMG took credit for 100% of the damage of 4 of those kills. Do bear in mind that I open up with the LMG and then follow up with assault/sniper rifles: previously all this did was suppress them and allow the snipers to get the glory, but now it's distorting the kill scores.

All missions are daytime - I tried doing one at night, but the hideously low framerate made me reload and risk waiting for daybreak.

All in all, I'm not seeing the tougher lightscout missions other people seem to be getting. Then again, I got a whole bunch of boring 1 outsider maps. If these have to be a possiblity, I'd like it to be a lot less likely.

Lightscout 1:

Caesans, desert.

1 LMG kills

2 flashbang kills

Lightscout 2:

Sebillians, desert.

1 LMG/pistol kills

1 FB kills

Lightscout 3:

Sebillians, desert.

1 LMG/pistol kills

1 FB kills

Lightscout 4:

Caesans, middle-east.

1 LMG/pistol/a.rifle kills

1 LMG kills

2 baton kills

Lightscout 5:

Caesans, arctic.

1 LMG/pistol kill

2 baton kills

Lightscout 6:

Sebillians, farm.

1 RL kill

1 frag grenade kill

2 baton kills

Lightscout 7:

Caesans, farm.

4 baton kills

1 sniper kills

Lightscout 8:

Sebillians, farm.

2 baton kills

Squad composition is as follows:

Soldiers 1 and 5 are shieldbearers, armed with pistol/shield. Later on, they also get a stun baton in their inventory.

Soldiers 2 and 6 are smoke dispensers, using a pistol and a million smoke grenades. They have a rocket launcher in the bag, too, for those times when I screw up and need a get-out-of-jail-not-actually-free card.

Soldiers 3 and 7 are a rifleman and a sniper, respectively. I wanted to see whether one outshone the other. They have medkits.

Soldiers 4 and 8 are LMG guys.

Everyone has a pistol, at least 2 FBs, at least 2 smokes. When I get stun weapons, I end up giving everyone a stun baton, too. I haven't tried stun grenades yet.

Weapon types:

Pistol/Shield: they don't have much killing power, but make up for it by not being as flimsy as the others.

Sniper: I've been advocating this getting knocked down a peg, and I'm not sorry to see it happen. Once hypervelocity's back (with the half damage on piercing cover, hopefully) it'll be more than fine.

LMG: I don't know whether this got some sort of buff, directly or indirectly, but I'm actually seeing some shots hit now! Hooray!

Assault Rifle: Accuracy's far too low, and it doesn't spit out enough bullets to play the law of averages game, unlike the LMG. I might replace my AR guy with another LMG.

Rocket Launcher: The best gun, but with a huge drawback. I used it once, on my 6th lightscout mission when I royally screwed up and risked a few soldiers stupidly. I immediately got an angry memo from the base's accountants telling me it would have been more efficient to let the men die, and not to come crying to them when I don't have enough money for a new hangar.

Shotgun: Accuracy's far too low. I need to stand next to an enemy to hit them, in which case, I use a stun baton. There's no point in having a CQC gun with +reactions if its reaction fire is never, ever going to hit.

Frag grenade: I now treat these like the RL, a card to play when I'm in trouble. I keep a couple on my soldiers but generally won't use them.

Air Combat: It's the first month, so nothing worth mentioning.

Other issues: I agree about the rate of reasearch. I didn't hire any more scientists until the 1st of Oct. With ten scientists I was able to research in September 1979:

  • Alien Invasion
  • High Speed Interceptor
  • Alien Biology
  • Stun Weapons
  • Alien Plasma Pistol
  • Improved Armour
  • Alien Alloys
  • Alien Interrogation
  • Casean Analysis

The only reason I bother filling the first lab up is because of the importance of getting alienium explosives running asap.

Savegame, 1st Oct: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0o5x90hxswyqlu/2013-07-28_12.04.17.sav

Edited by Ol' Stinky
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Assumes alenium missiles and torpedoes are loaded. Most success when the UFO has to turn a bit to face the aircraft.

Split your squadron of 2 Condors and 1 Foxtrot, moving the Condors to either side.

The Corvette will focus on the Foxtrot, so take them out of it's firing cone.

Put Foxtrot into afterburner (for those times Corvette has a fair bit to turn) The Foxtrot can fire before the Corvette can get to it. The moment the Foxtrot has fired, get it out of there, making sure you don't attract the Corvette too close to one of your condors.

Slow the Foxtrot down a bit, just enough to keep ahead of the annoyed Corvette.

The Condors, by this time should be either side of the Corvette. Work then around behind it.

Keep a straight path for the Foxtrot. This makes sure that the Corvette doesn't turn into any of them

Fire all missiles and autocannon at the Corvette.

Ta da! Downed Corvette. If for some reason it has health left, rinse , refuel and repeat.

Thanks for the advice, thothkins, I will give this a try. It's a modification of my original tactic for taking down light scouts. How do you deal with one that has escorts? They normally split and attack your fighters first. Hit them with the torpedoes, then run? The heavy fighters outclass any of the terran designs by quite a bit, so I have a lot of trouble with those.

I ended up buying two sets of jackal armour. I'm still unsure whether or not that was the right move' date=' since that's $40k that could have gone towards the second base/first base's air control. People seem to argue that armour should have all of these drawbacks, but honestly, I'm not sure I should be paying out for V19.5 armour that's a straight upgrade! Is anyone out there equipping a whole squad with jackal or wolf armour before they have geoscape map control?[/quote']

I ran with Jackal armor on all troops. By the time I had it made, all my troops here so highly leveled that they have almost no problem simply adding it. I had a few guys who needed to drop a grenade or two. (I use a lot of stun grenades).

So the leveling is probably still too fast, I'm thinking.

Does anyone else smell troll?

Edited by Ishantil
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Thanks for the advice, thothkins, I will give this a try. It's a modification of my original tactic for taking down light scouts. How do you deal with one that has escorts? They normally split and attack your fighters first. Hit them with the torpedoes, then run? The heavy fighters outclass any of the terran designs by quite a bit, so I have a lot of trouble with those.

It's pretty much the same. Split your craft up so that the escorts will peel off to take care of those. The main UFO will target the Foxtrot. Deal with the escorts as you would any other fighter (lock 1 missile. fire the other, and as the UFO rolls fire the second). The Foxtrot should have the range to fire at the main craft, and the speed to get away on afterburner.* However, if there's any doubt you can always ramp down the speed, let the condors come round the back and use their autocannons. Once cannons are empty you can always go back to refuel and try again, this time with all 3 craft on the main ship (assuming 19.5 escort bug not present)

*there are occasions where the Foxtrot looks likely to fall into the path of the UFO, so again it's afterburners and a bit of bit of playing around to get the UFO to go one way, only to open up a gap for the Foxtrot missiles.

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Yeah' date=' that's completely wrong. In my current playthrough, I'm constantly abducting [i']aliens[/i], not people.

once the aliens and humans have wiped each other out, it's going to be great for trolls. Hypothetically of course, as they may or may not exist. Anywhere. Specifically on this thread. Or any other thread, so as not to draw undue attention to this one.

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once the aliens and humans have wiped each other out, it's going to be great for trolls. Hypothetically of course, as they may or may not exist. Anywhere. Specifically on this thread. Or any other thread, so as not to draw undue attention to this one.

I got a nice big bridge to sell you :P

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If multiple projectiles aren't supported by the engine, I would increase damage and accuracy significantly. They have at best a ~30% chance to hit an alien 3 tiles away in the UFO, and if they do hit they don't do anything a rifle already does (but usually better).

At the moment I don't even use conventional weapons when assaulting UFO's, Its purely stun/flash grenades and stun batons. You get more points, the grenades don't destroy equipment, and your guys aren't put at risk by hurling grenades in and running around the corner.

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So a .00 buckshot round is effective all the way up to 50 yards or so. A standard 12 guage 2.75" shell as has nine .30 caliber balls, going about 1200 ft/second. That's a lot of lead going pretty fast. Hits hard, punches big holes.

Simply put, they are really good close in. You'd want to use something like an autoloading 12 gauge, like the Benelli M4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benelli_M4). The collapsible stock allows for tight corners.

That aside, in my opinion, the accuracy needs to be improved over all ranges, and then buffed at short range, debuffed at long range.

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I think Shotguns would benefit from having maps that actually make them relevant.

- narrow twisty corridors

- large interior structures to investigate. Think how useful it would be in X-Com Apocalypse.

- obstructions that rule out use of rocket launchers, grenades etc. Like corners!

After the UFO is breached, and you go in, you want to switch to your sshort range weapons. Instead, everything else is still totally viable.

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I have never once downed anything larger than a standard Scout. I have no idea how to kill a Corvette. I'm so frustrated with the air combat that I've given up on the game until the next build. I was enthusiastic and I wanted to help, but I just can't play it like this.

I did enjoy the one terror mission I did though. It was pretty dicey for a while. Plasma rifles are nasty!

Couldn't have said it better myself. I was extremely excited about this game coming even before kickstarter but ever since the "revamped" air combat i just can bear to play this game anymore and it seems each build i like it less and less (air-combat i mean).

I realy wanted to be an active beta tester but i truly have to put it aside because each time i do an air combat encounter i leave the game a few seconds after. Realy a shame for me i realy wanted to help more.

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