MikeV37

Do you think any of the problem could be that you lost your veteran squad and have to start from the beginning with raw recruits?

Didn't you read the sign? Load times will obviously improve Wow, a fix for the timeout! I just went to get some snacks or watch TV every time a mission ended. What does statistics tracking offer us? What am I losing by turning it off?

You might be tempted to use your AP's to their fullest, but it's better to keep 20-40 of them in reserve and stay behind cover. Your men at the first mission are worthless(or worth very little), you get the same guys for 10k. Take solace in that as they improve in worth, your methods of protecting them also improve. If your feeling cruel, take redshirts (blueshirts?) with you to absorb reaction fire and then have your vets gun the enemy down. Might want to give him a shield, but that's optional. Use smoke grenades when breaching larger UFO's, then rush into cover. Once you have a sample of the UFO's datacore, use explosives liberally, as it's not worth anything to you anymore, but your men are. Vehicles are god-tier, and not because of the armor or the cannon. (Although once you unlock the pulse cannon they can carry an entire squad of rookies just by virtue of exploding everything) Their strength for me lies in the floodlights, which allow you to function 24/7 without the drawback of fighting in darkness.

I don't know how to use flash, and prefer to ignore them, but other grenades are pretty useful. Frags get rid of enemy cover, smoke is essential when breaching anything higher level, and EMP is great against those terminator guys and to capture officers. And yeah, the distance is determined by the strength stat. Kind of weird that the flares aren't limited to the same. My rationale is that since the soldiers can carry infinite of them, they must be mass-less, and so can be thrown anywhere .

I had a feeling it was that one... But the intel says there's two, and only one of those things in the bases I've been to so far. Maybe they mean up to two? Could use a little clarification in the xenopedia then. I'll make sure to do that. Also, it feels like capturing a massive alien power core and hologram thing would give you new research. Does it, or does only the officer count?

Actually, why do we think that UFO's would strafe our guys to death? The precedent is in fact the opposite. I've had a corvette land, and my planes with all the best ordnance I could get them had to twiddle their thumbs and run out of fuel. Then the bastard got up and flew away. (Granted, he wasn't actively trying to avoid me, but that's how it worked out.) Why can't I do the same? Consequences are already there: you have to sit a whole chopper of guys out for a wave as the interceptor patrols the skies above you, and if there's a terror site you might not have the luxury. An option to land the dropship would be great.

Do MG's reaction fire? I always try to keep a guy with at least 40 TU's to cover an area. It would make me a sad panda if I was having one guy sit out for no real reason.

I used smoke to a point, but once they set up their alien bases in Europe, NA and USSR, I had to do something about it but my men were woefully under-prepared. I had half my men in jackal armor and they'd get hosed by the terminators standing in cover one tile away from the door. If I threw a smoke I'd get so much reaction fire it killed a few guys right there. My new strategy to breach is to position one guy next to the door, the other five tiles back on the opposite side of the corridor. Top guy opens door, second throws in C4 charge. Works wonders. Bonus cookie points if more aliens come up to the cover ignoring the charge before it blows them to smithereens. On that topic, what's an alien base power core and how do I kill it and exfil my guys? First, It says in the intel that it glows blue, but god damn near everything in he base glows blue. a picture would be nice. Second, there's no chopper in the mission, so if I abort it, everyone goes MIA. how do I get my men out of there?

As a relatively new player (No experience with XCOM or XCOM like games other than occasionally trying xenonauts) I'm fine with the AI being smarter and me losing more troops in the ground battle. That's not the difficulty which annoys me. What would make me rage on the forums would be if it was difficult to deal with the over world, and the pen pushers on planet defeated me. (Such as finding out I expended too much ammo last mission so we have to shut down the bureau) Or if the mechanics of the game defeated me. (Such as being able to load four soldiers in a chinhook with a vehicle with the map spawning twenty aliens) But harder AI is a challenge, not something which blocks my way. Civ isn't a good example of a hardcore series, imo, because the latest iteration of the series is vastly simpler than its predecessor, in part to please the people who don't want to figure out all the complexities of a game. In Short, better AI is good, even if it makes the game harder. Make the player have more and better stuff on easier difficulty levels, (such as loading a transport to the brim with recruits and mob rushing the four expert alien warrior clerks who crash landed on a farm) But don't skimp on the AI as a way to make the game easier. Don't know how to improve on sniper rifles as I load out with machine guns and assault rifles and shotguns, primarily because I'm not very good at the game.

well presumably the assault rifle shoots multiple times and this gives it an edge over the DMR in terms of hit chance.

Im finding myself coming back to the idea, actually. With planes becoming indestructible, it could add a bit of hurt when a fighter goes down. Maybe one skill that influences roll speed, missle lock speed and everything else. Not by a lot but by a noticable amount. After all, you can repair a fighter, but you cant repair a pile of bones and meat.

I think there's not enough females! We should set it to 90%. I know it sounds unrealistic, but hear me out here... chicks in bikinis battling aliens! Now I know they're wearing armorial over it, but that just leaves more to the imagination! More seriously though, I like it where it is. Yes, there's slightly more than realistic, but having men and women in the field adds more to the war stories and diversifies the faces available, both of which are important to me.

I think the issue was they used to all wait by the door and the *fix* was for some of them to run outside while others take cover. Of course, the ones outside get hosed down by reaction fire if you planned ahead, so maybe not such a great fix.

I've had surprisingly little issues with this. both battles execute, but they don't crash. I just can't control one of the battles. I do get a crash when I go to ground combat and air combat simultaneously.

I'm actually all for the whole map being revealed, but that's a subject for a different thread. for now, I justify it as a soldier's non black zone is the zone he is paying attention to, his immediate vicinity. He can still see stuff everywhere around the map, just doesn't pay close attention to it.