Spacemonger

It landed right on the tile the alien was standing on. So did the second flashbang, and that made the engine it was standing next to blow up killing the alien. Perhaps a better course of action is to throw smoke first and then flashbang, in case of reactive fire the smoke should make it miss. Or I could just use rockets to blow up everything like Solver suggested

Im beginning to get a hang of a strategy now using shield guys and tons of smoke and grenades. Still the "scout" size ufo's have 4-5 aliens inside, and usually 3 of them just sits there camping until I open the door and they'll take like 2 reactive shots each, even with shields that often ends in a dead soldier. Going to try with C4 and blow it off instead and throw smoke inside and grenades, though I guess I'll be destroying valuable tech and items. But that's an interesting trade off to consider: dead soldiers or valuable tech?For now I sort of expect one casualty on each mission, and if I don't and just get a serious injury I'll take that as a bonus. But I have read now that getting the scout car will be great way to scout the aliens without getting my men shot at, so looking forward to that also. What about the flashbangs though? They don't seem to do anything to prevent reactive fire. I threw one at an alien, it blew up, but then in response the alien reactive fired. Is this supposed to happen?

My soldiers are extremely bad at throwing grenades. It's really bad, the first two throws I did in this game was actually spot on the tile I aimed for, but I must have been lucky, because since then, oh boy it's just downhill with the grenade throwing. I don't think irl soldiers is nowhere near this inaccurate. Don't soldiers get a lot of grenade throwing training? Or even just some basic training in how to throw grenades?? Hell IM not even that inaccurate (and I never was in the military having dodged service by drawing a lucky number), and Im not even very good at throwing to begin with. It's like every second grenade they throw lands 4-5 tiles to the left/right of where Im aiming at. Sometimes it lands 4-5 tiles short of the destination. And if they are standing behind a stack of crates they may actually sometimes throw the grenade right into the crates. How the hell is that even possible to screw up a throw so much?? Every soldiers seems to do it this bad, at least it doesn't feel like there is any difference. I know this because I took a mission where I equipped half of the squad with shields and then I filled up every soldier with tons of smokegrenades and regular grenades. My strategy actually seems sound, I spot the aliens throw grenades at them, then shield off with smoke. But what completely ruins it is the horrible throw accuracy, good thing I packed like a hundred grenades for that mission :/ So Im thinking I should mod the throw accuracy to be less error prone, at least it shouldn't happen that often that throws are that much off. Is there a config file that I can edit to change this? EDIT: I don't want to sound like a whiner here, I actually enjoy the game. And I enjoy the realistic feel, and that throwing mission actually went well, only one injured, but no deaths. The massed cover/shield/grenade/smoke strategy works; but I don't think soldiers should be that inaccurate at throwing? One of my guys bio even states he was previously royal marine(!), and he just kept throwing his grenades several meters from the aimed target ffs! lol XD EDIT2: I still can't get reactive fire; I have shotgun sitting 4 tiles away ready with plenty of TU's but the alien just comes out of a door fires a round or a burst and goes inside again (and usually hits a soldier unless I keep the area smoked which I do since reactive fire is not happening).

I bought this game years ago but never got to actually play it, save for a very short time. Now I saw the community Edition and I felt like playing, and I stumbles into some issues, or things Im not sure how to understand. I have a few questions I hope someone here can help me Started game on normal and I downed my first ufo. Here I lost one guy and another one seriously hurt that needs 18 days to heal. The first guy got hit and killed in one shot from what seemed like an impossible shot. The alien was inside a building in about 10-12 tiles from my guy well inside a building( about 5-6 tiles from an open door, in a slanting position relative to the door and my guy, my guy was about 5-6 tiles outside from the door. I was very suprised that the alien could make such a shot and kill my guy in one shot, but I would like to know if this is normal, is the aliens just this good? Or was I simply just unlucky here, none of the soldiers position outside made any reaction fire and the alien move into cover after firing. On the plus side I moved my shotgun guy in next round and shot the alien in one shot with a 35% hit chance 3 tiles away from the alien (normal shot). This seemed to me like a very low chance for a normal shotgun blast that close; I felt very lucky I actually hit with only a 35% chance. With a bit of unluck one could easily have several guys line up just in front of the alien and fire their shogun several times, and not hit it at all? The next guy got hit when an alien open a window and took one shot from 6 tiles distance. Again none of the soldiers line up did any reaction fire (they all had normal or aimed TU's reserved). Several of my guys had above 60in the reaction stat, so im wondering if/when reaction fire is actually something I can rely on? Shields seems now like the only viable choice for defense, seeing as reaction fire doesn't "fire" so to speak. Next time I think I'll arm half of the squad with shields and have them form a line advancing anti-riot squad style, and perhaps even engulf the space just in front of this line of soldiers in smoke on each turn end. Let's see if that will work better? Can you give me any suggestion from what I have written here, on better tactic, loadout for troops? Another question: To attack the ufo itself I used my guy with a shield to open the door, then I used my other guys equipped with Flashbangs to throw flashbangs inside to surpress the alien. The first flashbang hit right in the tile the alien was standing in and exploded upon which the alien did reaction fire and hit my guy, but for some reason my guy only took 1 hp damage. But I thought flashbangs were supposed to supress the enemy such that they could not reaction fire? The opposite seemed to happen, because it did reaction fire. So I threw another flashbang upon which the alien seemed to die(??) also the second flashbang seemed to have the effect of blowing up the ufo engine(??), because in the mission success screen there were only corpses recovered no live aliens. So why did the flashbang not surpress the alien? Why did the alien die from a flashbang, and how/why can a flashbang make a ufo engine explode? Im certain that it was the flashbangs, the small grenades with a green stripe horizontally across its center.Are things working as they should here? EDIT: okay so about the flashbangs I read a little wiki about them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade) and indeed it seems accurate that they can do some damage in that the heat generated can ignite fuel (so that could explain the engine blowing up, the engine was position in the tile next to the flashbangs explosions). Also apparantly the consussive blast can still injure, and these grey aliens are physically weak (right?) so this also could make sense, perhaps two flashbangs just at its feet tore the poor things body asunder. But the reactive fire not being prevented still seems a mystery to me?

I found that combat shields are perhaps a tad bit OP. Maybe there should be a limit to how many combat shields can be carried by one soldier? Is it realistic that one soldier can carry four shields, and is this huge advantage this offers intended by the devs?

Hi Matthew, I found out which specific save file i was. Here it is: http://www.toxigames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-02-09_22.14.31.zip

Loading a save that is a ground combat mission will fail about half the times. It seems to be a corruption of the save game since the saves in question that fails just wont load again, while other saves will load fine every time. I have an example save that can't load, but I am not sure which one of two files it actually is since the in-game save file is not shown in the file name. However the in-game file name is 'cantthrow'. I can provide the save game files if necessary. I am using the latest experimental build through Steam, V21 3. Should I include the build version "[21e3]" in the subject field when posting a bug like everyone else is doing?

I noticed that aliens will shoot through the ufo walls on soldiers standing outside. It only happens if the UFO wall in between is the wall just next to the entrance. I took a screenshot of it just after the alien fired it's weapon(and missed). I added the red line myself to show where the shot went. I am not sure if the alien missed because of the wall or i the shot actually got through and just missed target. Surely that alien on the image should not be able to even see the soldier it tried to fire on? I think this might be bug? Click the image for a larger detailed version.

I am playing a new game and am on the 20th of September, the first year. I have used all my cash on upgrades and just need a few more things. I was thinking that perhaps some powerful ally could loan me some cash? Of course I will repay the loan on the 1st when money comes in. Would loans be a possible future feature?

I have actually already begun to alter my tactics (after I posted last). I now equip two or three soldiers with three shields and pistol to function as spearhead when advancing. The other soldiers with heaver/sniper weapons stay behind and/or hide behind 100% cover only popping out to shoot once and pop in cover again. This seems to work quite well now.

What I meant by experience is whether the game is in fact supposed to be very hard and if it is nearly unavoidable to lose many soldiers; at least in the beginning? I think I selected the default(normal?) difficulty and I am about 2-3 weeks into the game. I found out it was the reptilian Sebilians which I read in the xenopedia should have poor accuracy at anything but small distance due to their small brain. I think I have met both those with plasma rifles and pistols, but haven't been able to notice a difference, probably because I need to play more. Compared to how much my own troops miss even at 30-60% hit chance I feel that these Sebilians hit much more accurate even at above medium range, but maybe I could have been unlucky. I will play more

I am playing on the latest experimental build through Steam, which I guess must be V21 Experimental 3 (since I installed the game after this date). I have played a number of maps and by now, but I haven't played any of the older versions so I don't know how things were previously. Just wanted to give my feedback so far. Also if this is the wrong thread I apologize in advance (I am a newbie to this forum). Civilians often run past your guys towards the aliens, positioning them in front of your soldiers. Civilians also don't seem to be afraid of the crashed UFO; they will run towards it as they would any other object. This seems unrealistic I think, the civilians may be panicked and running around without much thought, but they shouldn't run into very obvious danger like a crashed UFO should they? I guess civilian AI has just not yet been programmed to behave a just bit more sensible? Aliens seem to one-shot my guys way to often. I can say that when some of the green reptilian type aliens shoot it almost always hit me and almost always kill my guy, even at above medium distances. Often my guys is behind some kind of cover, like hidden halfway behind a corner, the alien just shoots once and hits and soldier dies. I guess that if one of my guys were in the aliens position their hit chance with a standard assault rifle would maybe something like 17% aimed or something or less. I think I have noticed that this high accuracy happens much more with the reptilian types of aliens, than with the small grey aliens. Maybe it is supposed to be like this? I mean the reptilians in the Crimson Dagger novella(awesome story btw) was pretty hardy and had some serious firepower, so I can understand why they kick my ass so bad. Not sure if this is the same kind of reptilians I have faced? I am just wondering if I will ever see my guys develop if the current rate of death continues. I have resorted to using grenades and rocket launchers as much as I can just to prevent the death of my soldiers. Therefore I am not really recovering any aliens corpses because they are reduced to pinkish alien paste in the explosions. Oh, and in relation to that I also noticed how the environment seems much too difficult to destroy; grenades and rocket launchers only seem to produce small cracks in building walls; need two rockets to make a hole in a wall. Maybe one rocket should do the trick? At least when we are talking about a one/two layered brick wall? The difficulty seems to be akin to the highest difficulty of the original X-COM. Am I way off in my experiences of ground combat?

Thank you very much

I just played my first mission, a small UFO downed by 'local authorities' (I am yet to actively down one myself). After killing all aliens outside the UFO I set up my guys and gals with a good defense view of the UFO's entrance door. Having equipped my Seargeant with a rocket launcher I decided to blow up the door just in case those damn aliens was waiting with a nasty suprise inside. The rocket hit the door and blew it up. However I am not sure how much of the UFO was actually destroyed by this? It seemed like the UFO walls disappeared, but it was still only possible to hit the aliens inside when shooting in through the door opening, or going into the UFO. SO the walls wasn't destroyed after all?. When the last alien was killed I got the briefing window. I didn't get any positive points only negative: -4 for civilans killed(by aliens) and -2 for the killing of something else, can't remember what is was(not my soldiers, they all survived without a scrath). Next to the "UFO recovered" line was only a '0', like I failed to recover it. While the mission was a success the briefing screen smelled of failure. Was I the cause of that? Did I destroy the UFO with my rocket launcher?