Sectiplave

I personally do not play Iron Mode, there are soo many weapons and researches and things I want to try out, I like to use new equipment on test ground combat / air combat, to see if I like it or not. If I do then I play like normal, if not I'll reload the mission and change gear.

Hahahaha I always enjoy reading the exchanges between Bhef and Charon ! @Morhem Yes this mod is much harder at the start now, you will very likely lose some troops until you research first stage armor and weapons, and even then you'll need to use a lot of smoke grenades, suppression and shield troopers. Biggest thing for me is correct use of smoke grenades will force the AI to reposition and if it cannot find a position with a high enough chance to hit it simply will not shoot at you, giving you valuable time to get good cover. I played back in 99.1 or 99.2 and the early game was not this hard before definitely, the AI is MUCH smarter now.

Those are some impressive piloting skills on show here, really handy seeing how the pro's do it to learn good tactics! One question, how do you guarantee dodge direction?

Hahahaha! I play that map last night, and I agree that's the primary map I think of when, I think that Arctic maps are boring!

@Svinedrengen Okay, I'm glad to know it's not just me that really hates that map, I'd go as far as to say it's the worst map in the entire game! And I think that says something when some of those arctic maps are pretty boring. @BHef I've been playing X-Div since around 99.1 from memory, now is that this mod is larger than ever, I can say 100% that it is too complicated to modify, I tried to do a few small things myself and it absolutely destroyed game stability. I'm not sure if there is a disclaimer in the install (if there isn't there should be) but basically if you've changed anything from the install instructions you're not going to be able to get support for instability. I'm into January now, crash site in the 40's and haven't had crashes. @Xplodingducks #1 I would say no personally, for Caesans you need to collect all alien stun grenades possible! For Androns disassemble their corpses is worth many fibres, all these things become very useful from phase2 onwards for weapons, armor and ground vehicle development. So you don't want to destroy them with the flamer too much. Once your troop has high enough strength they can hold a flamethrower in their backpack if you are getting swarmed by melee units, personally I lean toward the miniguns, massive damage from close range and high suppression from range. #2 Two tactics that I use to assault alien UFO's, first thing to know is that firing machineguns etc. at the UFO doors will suppress any aliens standing behind the door! This makes them unable to have enough TU's to really shoot at your troops. Secondly when coming towards the UFO doors themselves, use smoke grenades between your troops and the doors, if the chance to hit is too low the AI will not take shots at your troopers, the one thing to be REALLY careful of, is smoke doesn't really stop aliens throwing grenades at your troops, so smoke AND suppression together is the only real way to avoid taking damage. I'm also assuming you have at least two soldiers with shields, they will always be the closest to the door so if anyone does shoot the shield should take most of the damage. Second tactic involves smoke grenades again, and throwing explosive packs at the doors or firing rocket launchers at the doors, but this destroys valuable resources, and in early game your troops probably don't have enough strength to carry all this gear.

This new map looks very nice, there is lots of cover options not just for your troops but for civs too, good buildings to take advantage of (I really like that super tall office block) as well as mid-buildings with access to 2nd and 3rd floors! I agree that the landing spot does look a bit open if those shield walls were not present, first turn reaction fire from the aliens could be very harsh. Interesting that you should mention terror maps, as I played a Vanilla Terror map against Androns and it reminds me that it's a very bad map! I'm sure others will know this map, it has gas station to the north-west, north is supermarket with glass fronts, east is cafe / mini mart more glass fronts. South is mini mart with garage. They are separated by wide roads with some plant boxes on the curbs for light cover. The map is very open and every time I come across this map in X-division I curse my luck! It requires a huge number of smoke grenades to avoid long range enemies suppressing / sniping you, and as for the civilians... they just don't stand a chance! There is too much open space and line of sight. Did this map last night and every single civilian and local forces died (those robodogs don't hesitate!). This is a very typical outcome for this map, on other terror maps I can save around 40-50% of civs + local forces. Terror maps aside, I just learned you have the option to re-claim a base after failed defense, that's a very cool addition!

I'd be kinda curious to see the 100% unlocked AI @Charon but honestly, I think it would be too hard for me! Veteran X-Division is already very good at punishing your mistakes.

Just want to add 5 cents here, I almost did the same thing as Edren! On topic, got some more time to play, hit my first terror mission, thinking it would be okay because I've done them many times before, I think this is my 4th X-Division Veteran playthrough... boy I was wrong! My early game start was kinda rusty, wasn't able to research phase 1 weapons fast enough, I quickly found out I did not have the firepower required to hold back the Xeno hordes! This is the screenshot just before I aborted the mission, have a couple of Xeno's taking a ride back to my base as well as one outside on the hull. I don't think Bishop would be very happy with me..... Really liking the new challenge of the new and improved melee units, I need to learn some new tactics and get working on research ASAP, after this hit to my global relations it's looking 50/50 that I may fail this playthrough.

Making my way through Phase1; Veteran, not iron man, I don't remember the early game ground combat being this difficult! It comes down to the alien AI being far smarter now from what I've observed, especially with how they defend the UFO entrance so you need to be very careful with your advance, I now run with every soldier holding 3 smoke grenades! And also melee unit AI is smarter too. Last time I played I think was 99.2 so feels like a new game to me!

It's always amazing to see the amount of work that goes into this mod each time I come to check on it. Will be starting a new play through today to see how things have changed EDIT; I really like the installer! I remember from earlier how many people did not set the mod order list correctly, this is very nice! And it must save you 80%+ of questions around failed install. There will always be that 20%....

Jeez! You guys work fast!

Sadly MEGA has really become an absolutely horrible site to use in the past year or so, those links won't even let you download without signing up, and even then on a free account you are restricted to 5GB / 6 hours so you cannot get it all. Took a few hours from GoldHawk forums, the transfer speed is okay. Just played the first mission on Veteran with Charon's changes, damn this is good! I actually lost due to sloppy tactics and advancing too quickly, I like the new bullet animations and the xeno's are great! Will take a while to shake off the rust, but should be another good playthrough ahead

Ohhh my those Xenomorph units look fantastic! I like the sounds of the light fibre changes, vehicles are a tough point to balance as they can really carry you through combat if you use them to the max of their abilities. I will look to start a new campaign in 99.4 so I can see how things are shaping up

@Charon "The Hive" ohhhhhh! Now I'm getting excited! Also thanks for the explanation, that does make a lot more sense.

Looks like you guys want to start a game development team! Don't worry about impatient people, get the mod where you want to get it to. Maybe set a cut off point where you stop adding content and once you feel X-Division is finished to an acceptable level look at making your own game