BULIGO

I hear you. It's a shame that the PSI-part of the franchise was so utterly...maimed in Xeno. Back in UFO days I was trying to assemble an elite psi-invincible squad. Sifted through hundreds of rookies, stuffed them in the PSI-training facility for a whole month, just to see 95% of them ditched because most had lousy PSI-strength, and many of those that did have it, were losers in other stats. Just for you, an old UFO-veteran, here is the list of my best PSI-capable soldiers before quitting the game. The number on the left of their names is their PSI-strength, the numbers on the right are their other stats, like TU's STR, ACCU etc. Manny was my favourite

Made my day

I was counting on enthusiasm and nostalgia to carry over any lack of technical exellency

It would need a whole new graphical engine. Not only that, but imagine: every single item you see on the battlefield would need not one but four different pictures. For example, your soldier would need one picture from the back, one from the left and right side, one for the front side etc. It IS doable but as kabill said, would need much more resources than GH has. Nor can you zoom the battlefield. We're stuck with the sprites we have and that's it. No big deal, really, the engine allows you to 'see' through walls and obstacles when your guys are behind an obstacle and that is something.

No, never played Apocalypse. Now that Xenonauts is out and established, I keep reading about how awesome Apoc was. Apparently I missed a big deal by not getting involved with it. Back then, I thought it was not much. It seems I was wrong. After watching a couple flicks about Apoc on YT, looks like the game would still be playable today.Back then to me it looked like some sort of SimCity LOL.

I'm so missing the alien proximity grenade, it was awesome.

Each wave the game will spawn 7 UFO's. Each of my 3 bases must be able to take down 2 UFO's, with or without escort. If it is a capital ship without escort, Foxtrots are enough. If there is escort, I send a mix Corsair/Foxtrot. Hopefully there will be at least one small/medium ufo all alone, so one corsair is enough. I have plasma weapons.The seventh UFO is free game, if I get it, I get it, if not, no big deal. Once I am able to build Marauders, the total air supermacy will be mine.In my current game, I've left Australia to die. I think Australia can not cover the expenses for a well-supplied base, so, too bad for them. Indochina+Soviet Union fully covered is more important to me. North-Central-South America can support 2 bases. I wish I cold demolish an unoperative base. I cannot. It sucks. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Allow me to get rid of my own ruins.

I bow in awe before you, guys that play this quirky game on Ironman. IMO, it should be renamed 'Madman' but oh well, whatever rows your boat. Your Quids - your rules.

Thanks for the clarifications, guys. Slowly crawling out of the pit of uselesness here Btw, the quoted description has a little typo in it. Cute Solver, apparently you got a quirky ISP like me

You will be fine. Ground combat with laser at that time is okay. Yes, plasma would be better, but it doesn't mean you are doomed with lasers. It will just take some more time/shots/cat'n-mousing with aliens down there. Plasma research will give you plasma guns for your soldiers, and heavy plasma research will give you the plasma Blaster interceptor cannon.All your interceptors will be automatically equipped with it.Corsairs+Foxtrots will be more than enough. Keep in mind that producing ~8 plasma guns will cost a substantial lump of money. Prioritize Corsairs. Try to master aerial combat, watch some videos on Youtube if you lack the skill. Sometimes if your autocombat chance shows 14% chance of victory, if you do the combat manually you can win easily. Autocombat is just a bunch of formulas, no skill. You can do better. Last night I did 3 grounded UFO's back-to-back. It netted me 230.000. thats more than monthly upkeep for 2 interceptors. Try to bring down UFO's as fast as possible. Keep an keen eye on those well-paying states. If you have 2 UFOS, one over central America, one over Northern America, intercept the one over N. America. Same in Europe: keep happ the better paying regions.

On the other hand, they seem to LOVE bathing in raging flames to death. With all the aforementioned genetic-mechanical-nano shebang. EDIT: give us flamethrowers! that would be awesome, to hunt down aliens holed up in buildings and to clear UFOs. It worked in WWII pacific, would work here too.

Yeah, sure. I gave him a brotherly hug afterwards. Three actually.From the bottom of my heart.

Poor mister Reaper, not enough TU to perform your magic? How unfortunate..

Thank you for the infos kabill. One thing that is confusing to me: everybody say the UFO wave size is dependent on the number of UFO bases active on the planet. But the gameconfig.xml says : <maxMissionCount value="7" comment="This is the maxinum number of mission for a wave. The number of human bases will be added to this one." /> Is this variable the same as UFO wave size?What you said sounds more logical. More UFO bases=more aliens peeing on my barbecue. I've read somewhere there was a tug o' war about this issue? Maybe it was changed but the old comment stuck?

According to that, there must be a precise point in the time-table where the game is at it's peak and cannot get anymore 'harder' no matter how long you play the game? xx+(#player bases) spawned UFO's per wave and thats that, right? Can the game spawn 10 Battleships per wave? Capital ship+2 escort is 1 or 3 UFO's? I'm a pest. Yes, I know, thank you.

I wonder if my team just camps inside the dropship and do nothing, will the aliens come to play at my place? Looks like they don't have any kind of strategy (..purify the crash-landing site of Carbon-units...purify..purify..purify..). Rather they apear to have a couple tactical options, all of them reaction-triggered, like if we 'invade' their sensor-defined area of action etc. Yes, they will romp around a bit, but not make an coordinated collective effort to actually endanger my team as a whole. Not moaning, just speculating. Just got my energy bar and my brain is fuming..

If I increase the tank's armor and/or it's HPs, would that affect that obscure formula outcome? Just wondering.

Agh! Shame on me! *blushing* EDIT: okay, I've read the posts concerning the Fury. Looks like the darn contraption is meant to be a nice/expensive trophy to hang over your fireplace mantle. Fair enough. My goal is to postpone the End Game mission as long as I can before getting bored to death. I really like the GC, always did always will. The air combat is fun too, to a point. Base management I can..manage, the Strategic part of the game (Geoscape) is okay. In the old X-com game my goal was to accumulate 5000 ellerium-115 and to have 8 level 90+ PSI-strenght soldiers.. In Xeno I thought a good goal would be to accumulate 1000 Alenium. Now my goal changed: 3 Furies per radar base, zero at 'home'. Should be ready before x-mas Compulsive grinding disorder is a blessing and a curse.

Ok thanks for the info. Another question: what about the x-120 fury? (wow the Blackbird! I can now have one. All mine!).She just go and kill..er..anything? No crash site, nothing, the UFO's just evaporate. What is its purpose? A money sink? An Alenium sink? The wet dream of every lazy X-com player? The costs seem so darn prohibitive, that I believe most hard-core players will finish the game before even bother to build one. EDIT: What do you know, double post. Hooray! Hate my half-ass ISP sometimes..

Ok thanks for the info. Another question: what about the x-120 fury? (wow the Blackbird! I can now have one. All mine!).She just go and kill..er..anything? No crash site, nothing, the UFO's just evaporate. What is its purpose? A money sink? An Alenium sink? The wet dream of every lazy X-com player? The costs seem so darn prohibitive, that I believe most hard-core players will finish the game before even bother to build one.

Chris, the way it is now, is a bit illogical and..cheezy. The player sould be encouraged to stick with his personnel, and penalized for sacking present personnel and hiring new one. You know, you get dismissed, and your employer must pay you your wage plus the 'liquidation bonus'. Something like that. I remember how we cheated the system back in UFO-EU by sacking scientists/engineers before month's end and re-hiring them, just trying to imagine a solution to bring the feature a step forward

I would suggest to sit down and examine the aircraftweapons.xml file. There, it is possible to examine each aircraft weapon's damage separately, see how many shots the XYZ cannon has, how many damage each shot deals, same with rockets and torpedoes.Another file contains data about all UFO hitpoints. This way it is posible to avoid to evaporate the UFO (by inflicting +30% un-necessary damage) instead of make it crash, and to save on aircraft ammunition, not because it costs less money, but because they will re-arm themself much faster and be ready for action sooner. The time needed to mount that one torpedo you could saved on your Foxtrot-3 may make the difference about being able to intercept that base attack for example. I have no idea how Marauders work, being able to use 'only' Foxtrots and Corsairs at the moment. It seems, you and your AI opponent can field up to 3 crafts each per battle. Bringing bigger UFOS on the battlefield does not mean they are smater, just have more HP and make a bigger BOOM when they blow off. Keeping the pace with the research, a skilled player would probably be able to keep total air superiority with just foxtrots and Corsairs. The only limiting factor is maybe the total destructive power of your interceptor's weapons. Am I wrong on that?

I don't know. Since my first Shrike finally went online and operational, I started using tanks. The scimitar is now part of my team. The thing is awesome at discovering aliens and dispatching them quickly. Saved my guy's bacon many times now. And yet, I still have to see the aliens prioritize my tank instead of soldiers. Even if I park him in front of the UFO, and blow the door off with it, and nex turn an alien pops up in the corridor, the tank won't get an interrupt, nor will the alien. In fact, even if the tank is right there in plain view, the alien will rather try to shoot one of my guys outside the UFO, even if he has to shoot through the indestructible UFO hull. Maybe the Alien 'knows' he cannot terminate my tank in one turn? No idea but it IS strange. Second example: my Scimitar is camping a crossroad (industrial) and two aliens are stuck on the 2th floor of a large building facing the ctossroad. Turn by turn they are just milling around the room, taking cover behind windows, in plain view of my tank. The moment I bring along ONE of my guys, the aliens suddenly become frisky and start shooting at him (the xenonaut)like mad. Not even targetting the tank, which needed just one shot from its laser gun to obliterate that building corner together with the aliens in it. Weird.But hey, I'm not complaining. The supply of killable aliens is not going to be depleted, is it?

You are welcome. Glad you like them.

Guys, I was wondering how long a 'lifespan' your game has? How long do you play the game (on which difficulty also) before heading for the End Game mission? Thanks. And, just for you old X-com vets, a refurbished PSX version of geoscape .mp3 soundtrack. Can be easily converted to .ogg and I am using those songs for my Battlescape/Geoscape. http://www.xcomufo.com/x1music.html