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Any good streamers doing Insane playthrough Let's Play videos?


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Also not a streamer but a let's play-er ;)

It's German though, and I started with 1.00 meaning there were quite a few balance changes since then.

In addition after 42 hours the Let's Play is on Hold due to a bug which got me stuck on loading the game.

Edited by Kordanor
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I've watched the three episodes. I see that you are not going Ironman.. is one of the mods disabling the mandatory "Ironman" on Insane?

It was disabled in v21 or v22 experimental. I'm not fan of Ironman, though I played Fallout Tactics on Ironman only - was quite fun, and did 1 playthrough with XCOM. Though I tend to go with what game gives you and reload only if a bug breaks your game or in ultra rare "I fucked really bad" situations.

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I've been wanting to watch your videos for quite a while, Kor, but I can't get past Deutsch :(

Really hope your save is, erm, saved soon! How is it going for you?

Even though the balancing was changed a couple of times (not too happy about it as it was announced that no balancing changes will occur anymore) the balancing felt pretty good. I mean you have to be extremely careful and plan ahead. The deadliest thing which can happen is an Attack on your base. Lost 7 people in that mission. On all the other missions, I lost from 0 to 2 per mission.

The big difference to Firaxis XCom is that it's much less about RNG. And the Game cannot downward-spiral as quickly.

One unlucky accident in the new XCom can lead to:

Soldier 1 was shot dead

Soldier 2 panicks shoots on Soldier 3

Soldier 3 was just killed by Soldier 2

Now the only guy left with points in this turn is Soldier 4. Soldier 2 will die next turn as he can't move away anymore, and Soldier 4 hasn't a chance to win alone - mission lost, you might fall behind the curve and the whole game is lost.

Later in the game you have built up your soliders a lot. By XP and by Money. Then if one of these guys die, it's a huge loss.

Imho in Xenonauts that is much more comfortable. You hardly have one single unlucky Incident which can ruin your game. You need a series of bad decisions to be screwed, very much prefer that.

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Also not a streamer but a let's play-er ;)

It's German though, and I started with 1.00 meaning there were quite a few balance changes since then.

In addition after 42 hours the Let's Play is on Hold due to a bug which got me stuck on loading the game.

Sounds odd with German, but oh well :D killing xenos is an international business ;)

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Even though the balancing was changed a couple of times (not too happy about it as it was announced that no balancing changes will occur anymore) the balancing felt pretty good. I mean you have to be extremely careful and plan ahead. The deadliest thing which can happen is an Attack on your base. Lost 7 people in that mission. On all the other missions, I lost from 0 to 2 per mission.

The big difference to Firaxis XCom is that it's much less about RNG. And the Game cannot downward-spiral as quickly.

One unlucky accident in the new XCom can lead to:

Soldier 1 was shot dead

Soldier 2 panicks shoots on Soldier 3

Soldier 3 was just killed by Soldier 2

Now the only guy left with points in this turn is Soldier 4. Soldier 2 will die next turn as he can't move away anymore, and Soldier 4 hasn't a chance to win alone - mission lost, you might fall behind the curve and the whole game is lost.

Later in the game you have built up your soliders a lot. By XP and by Money. Then if one of these guys die, it's a huge loss.

Imho in Xenonauts that is much more comfortable. You hardly have one single unlucky Incident which can ruin your game. You need a series of bad decisions to be screwed, very much prefer that.

I was asking about how you are doing as I shied away from Ironman before the full release although we are both on Insane so it would be nice to draw parallel with another devoted player.

Thank you for sharing your general observations though :)

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I am doing pretty good ^^

Some Stats:

42 hours played.

40 Missions done. From these: 1 Base Defense, 4 Alien Bases, 0! Alien Invasions,

Strongest enountered Ship so far: Landing Ship (3 times)

Total Missions lost: 0, Total Soldiers lost: 24

0 Regions lost

Was in Late December and just going for Marauder/Predator/MAG technology.

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I am doing pretty good ^^

Some Stats:

42 hours played.

40 Missions done. From these: 1 Base Defense, 4 Alien Bases, 0! Alien Invasions,

Strongest enountered Ship so far: Landing Ship (3 times)

Total Missions lost: 0, Total Soldiers lost: 24

0 Regions lost

Was in Late December and just going for Marauder/Predator/MAG technology.

A question:

I've noticed that neither of the two lets play videos decided to just secure the UFO and hold it for 5 turns. Why taking additional risk, when you can claim the objective and end the mission, and instead you go hunting for missing alien, with low ammo and without a couple of men?

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A question:

I've noticed that neither of the two lets play videos decided to just secure the UFO and hold it for 5 turns. Why taking additional risk, when you can claim the objective and end the mission, and instead you go hunting for missing alien, with low ammo and without a couple of men?

Haven't seen the Let's Play so can't comment on their specific case, but in general I like to clear the map because it's very easy to focus on the UFO with all your troops and then get ganked in the back when that last alien you left roaming around decides to hit your breaching party.

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In most cases I would secure the area around the UFO first. I mean you always start on the right, and the ufo is always on the left.

I normally secure a corner of the map first, and then clear the map in horizontal strips (two or three strips to the left/west). The last strip should bring you to the entrance of the UFO. After that I clear the UFO.

Except of maps with multiple floor buildings aliens in the outer area are mostly harmless. The hard thing is to clear the Ufo. Leaving out aliens outside would just mean to miss out on the money from the item drops. In addition, if you go straight for the UFO you might get flanked by Aliens which you did not spot before. And then it would get really painful.

So besides of having a chance to finish the map faster it brings no real advantage. It's riskier and brings you less income. And in the end you want to get the maximum out of each mission. Otherwise you could just bombard it.

Also I never ran out of ammo.

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In most cases I would secure the area around the UFO first. I mean you always start on the right, and the ufo is always on the left.

I normally secure a corner of the map first, and then clear the map in horizontal strips (two or three strips to the left/west). The last strip should bring you to the entrance of the UFO. After that I clear the UFO.

Except of maps with multiple floor buildings aliens in the outer area are mostly harmless. The hard thing is to clear the Ufo. Leaving out aliens outside would just mean to miss out on the money from the item drops. In addition, if you go straight for the UFO you might get flanked by Aliens which you did not spot before. And then it would get really painful.

So besides of having a chance to finish the map faster it brings no real advantage. It's riskier and brings you less income. And in the end you want to get the maximum out of each mission. Otherwise you could just bombard it.

Also I never ran out of ammo.

Another question. After 6 videos I've noticed that you avoid close quarter combat and do not use grenades or explosives at all. Not even for destruction of obstacles. (you are using a lot of ammo for that though)

Any reason for that, or just personal play style preference?

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I always try to use the game systems to my advantage and try to use systems I can calculate.

Close combat and the use of grenades come with a big random factor, while battles on a big distance are almost always a clear win.

A close quarter combat can always end up in "one additional enemy" which will then screw you. Also it is much harder to position your troops. But the main reason I try to avoid it is that you cannot exploit the Reaction fire mechanic which I essentially disable by using ranged combat whenever possible. I use one dude to run around and spot enemies. This soldier should have as many TUs as possible.

The chance of a reacion fire is calculated out of percentage of remaining TUs, the reflex value and a modificator dependent on the weapon carried. So if your "scout" never drops below 50% of his TU (hardly do this but this would be optimal) the chances of a reaction fire against him are almost zero. Now if your scout spots a unit, you just leave him aside for now - and use the troops in the back to shoot the alien. As they are out of the Alien's visible range, the Alien cannot get a reaction fire. This way you can keep the risk of being shot to an absolute minimum.

The problem is also that if the AI was really good, the Aliens could kill you easily in lots of close combat situations. Or let's say that they at least could hit one of your soldiers with a 100% chance if they wanted. This is also due to the reaction fire system, which is triggered not before the first move after the opponent is in view. If this first action is a shot you would get screwed. Let's say you position 3 of your troops right in front of a door to breach this door the next turn (or hide behind a corner), the best thing the aliens could do is to rush at you suicide style and kill you. Due to the AIs behaviour it doesn't do that normally but it can happen and this is a risk I do not want to take. I had this once in an earlier build that an alien opened a door and just threw a grenade. That's devastating and chances of this happening should be avoided. In Jagged Alliance 2 this would not work due to the different interruption system, where the action which makes you visible to the opponent leads to a check whether or not there is an interruption. So let's say you got a corner in Xenonauts like an L, you are standing on the left side of the L and the alien is "below" the L. In Jagged Alliance 2 the moment the alien moves into your view, facing the other direction you would get an interruption and shoot it - and it would die. In Xenonauts the very same situation would have the following result: The alien moves into your view. Then the alien shots, and if you are lucky you survive. Then you do a reactionfire - which will not be enough to kill the alien. Then the alien shoots again and kills you. This is an extreme example and it doesn't apply to all situations the same way, but this is Xenonauts Close Combat in a nutshell. In JA2 interruptions are your friend and define how you get your kills. In Xenonauts Interruptions are your enemy and define how you play and avoid them to not get killed.

About grenades: Grenades are implemented rather poorly in Xenonauts and that's the reason I don't use them. In the later missions I don't even take explosive grenades with me as it's a waste of space.

Normally you think you would throw a grenade. Meaning it rises and then goes down again, in a bow. So in the middle between you and your target it reaches it's highest altitude. But this is not the case in Xenonauts. Soldiers "fling" the grenade in a straight line. The difference between a grenade Launcher and a Bazooka so to speak. But Xenonauts also does not visualize it, which leaves you unclear about what would happen.

The best way of using grenades is to use your rifle, press CTRL, check how the bullet travels and if there are no obstacles in the line of fire (and not next to it) you can almost safely throw the grenade. In the case where you have an obstacle 2-3 tiles next to you, you will probably not throw the grenade over it, but against it and kill/stun yourself.

Also the game might show that you have a 66% to hit your target (free path) or that you have a 33% to hit your target (with obstacles). But what the game does not tell you is that with the free path, the grenade will either detonate in the correct tile, or right next to it, probably doing the same damage. With the obstacle however, chances are high that the grenade gets lost on the way and might kill you.

And in most cases you have these obstacles mich make grenades a big risk factor.

In addition: Grenades are not really that effective anyways, they also costs tons of TUs to use:

-The Grenade which does direct damage has a very slim radius. So even if it hits a tile next to the destination the target might be out of the blast radius. As the grenade does not explode immediatly but at the beginning of the alien turn, this also means that you cannot say for sure that the alien is dead. In fact it probably is not and if you were able to throw a grenade to his position, the alien is probably also able to shoot you. In addition this grenade destroys equipment. I learnt that the hard way when I lost a wolf armor and laser weapons after detonating a grenade next to a corpse of one of my guys.

-The Gas grenade has it's use when you want to reach opponents "around a corner". But on insane difficulty (don't know about the other difficulties) you might need like 2-5 hits with the gas on even the easiest opponents. One grenade will probably do nothing. Harder opponents become even more difficult to bring down with this grenade. However if you hit an obstacle you might take out multiple of your own people with just one throw. Extremely high risk.

-The smoke grenade can have some use when you need to provoke the reaction fire anyways and want it to miss. But it's hard to calculate whether it actually had a use or not. You might even make it harder to hit the aliens with your guns afterwards. I prefer to use my TUs to try to kill/suppress them right away.

-The Shock grenade become my favorite actually. Very low risk to do damage to your team, and 2-4 grenades are needed to stun an opponent. Also a bigger radius and direct explosion compared to the direct damage grenade.

Grenades are also heavy. In almost all cases its more effective to use ammo to destroy walls or smaller obstacles than to throw a grenade. In addition you have a higher range when doing so and are more versatile.

Edited by Kordanor
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After watching some of Korandor's videos, I find it interesting how different my play style is, both in geoscape and in ground combat. (Which is good, it would be boring if there's only one strategy).

-Ground combat: I use a mix of all weapons, including tanks, and every soldier carries as many grenades as possible (mostly flashbangs and smoke, but also some explosives and later elektroshock). Shotguns are awesome up close, and smoke/flashbangs/supression fire allow you to get right up to the alien without getting shot.

-Geoscape: I build my second lab a bit later (so it finnishes on the first day of the second month), use less interceptors per base, and don't immediately expand radar range of my initial base. I found that 2 Interceptors (mig + foxtrott) per base is all i need to start off, building more can wait until i have 3 bases with radar and a strike team with armor + laser weapons up.

Instead, I use the money i saved that way to build my second base on day 1, and my third on the first day of the second month.

EDIT: Playing on insane, of course. :)

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I would probably do it differently as well now. When I started the game it was still 1.00, meaning the cost for the base was 1 million and the radar only costed half the money. It simply wasn't possible to build the second base earlier in this case (I built it with the funding of the second month).

I also switched to shotguns later on. But in the first missions they are not needed as you are never forced into close combat. This begins with corvettes and alien bases.

I would also not take vehicles anymore as they are too weak and you can just skip the research and the investment for vehicle+garage. When I played, 6 out of 8 times when the vehicle died it was back at the next mission. So since Chris mentioned that it is actually intended that they are gone after they die, I didn't use them anymore.

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It is always nice to see the tactics that other people use.

Forexample: I usually have 2 or even 3 scouts in my squad :)

There certainly is more than one approach playing this game.

I have not touched the insane yet, I usually go with veteran.

I figured asking people throwing some tips of their own here.

Personally I love the grenades. I usually use 2 grenades to make sure I get a kill.

Direct hit with grenade does more damage too,

so in case I miss 2 throws into next to alien I usually throw the third.

For insane difficulty can someone answer me on this?

Is the aliens more beefy in insane difficulty or explosive damage lower?

@Kordanor seemed to make a statement guns only

I simply cannot imagine rolling out a squad without versatile loadout!

I have lost count how many times grenades saved my soldiers.

Grenades used to be more versatile when you had TU to throw two of em..

I also used previously following tactic quite alot:

Step1) Suppress enemy

Step2) Move soldier close range for leathal blow.

In older version of the game the close range shots was the only reliable shots.

(I used this alot to get secure kills with heavy weapons)

Heavys seem more accurate on longer ranges now tho. In my latest plays they end up high in kills.

I noticed the TU costs for heavy weapons are fairly high for this to be solid tactic anymore :/

Is there any weapons that are effective close range killer later in the tech tree?

Anyone with experience trying mag or plasma weapons in 1-3 tiles away from enemies with good kill ratio?

Also would be nice to know if there are some enemies who resist "shotgun" variant in mag/plasma tier.

I just loved my team of xenonauts when they used extreme techniques to take out the enemies with teamwork :D

Here is some old gameplay when I was running at alien power core with my Xenonauts commandos

Here is my v21 Xenonauts guide for first three months in Tips&Tricks

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I took these values straight out of the game files:

<!-- DIFFICULTY MULTIPLIERS -->

<!-- The values for each are multiplied by these numbers -->

<alienTickerSpeedEasy value="0.8" />

<alienTickerSpeedNormal value="0.9" />

<alienTickerSpeedVeteran value="0.9" />

<alienTickerSpeedSuperhuman value="1.0" />

<ufoHealthEasy value="0.75" />

<ufoHealthNormal value="1.0" />

<ufoHealthVeteran value="1.0" />

<ufoHealthSuperhuman value="1.0" />

<alienAttributeEasy value="0.7" />

<alienAttributeNormal value="0.8" />

<alienAttributeVeteran value="1.0" />

<alienAttributeSuperhuman value="1.25" />

<alienWeaponDamageEasy value="0.6" />

<alienWeaponDamageNormal value="0.8" />

<alienWeaponDamageVeteran value="1.0" />

<alienWeaponDamageSuperhuman value="1.1" />

<alienWeaponAccuracyEasy value="0.6" />

<alienWeaponAccuracyNormal value="0.8" />

<alienWeaponAccuracyVeteran value="1.0" />

<alienWeaponAccuracySuperhuman value="1.25" />

<humanAirplaneSpeedEasy value="1.2" />

<humanAirplaneSpeedNormal value="1.1" />

<humanAirplaneSpeedVeteran value="1.0" />

<humanAirplaneSpeedSuperhuman value="0.8" />

<humanAirplaneRangeEasy value="1.2" />

<humanAirplaneRangeNormal value="1.1" />

<humanAirplaneRangeVeteran value="1.0" />

<humanAirplaneRangeSuperhuman value="0.8" />

<!-- LOST CONTINENTS LIMIT -->

<!-- Game ends if more than this continents (depending on difficulty setting) are lost to aliens -->

<lostContinentsLimit>

<Easy value="5" />

<Normal value="5" />

<Veteran value="4" />

<Insane value="4" />

</lostContinentsLimit>

<!-- CONTINENTS FUNDING DAMAGE MODIFIERS -->

<!-- Funding damage caused by alien missions to continents is multiplied by the value corresponding to the current difficulty settings -->

<fundingDamageModifier>

<Easy value="0.5" />

<Normal value="0.75" />

<Veteran value="1.0" />

<Insane value="1.25" />

</fundingDamageModifier>

So compared to veteran the insane difficulty changes are:

Aliens have 25% better attributes (including hitpoints), do 10% more damage and have 25% more accuracy.

Also don't forget that compared to the Beta Build Sebillians now gain 50% of their hitpoints back each turn. So you need to do all your damage in one turn, otherwise you wont go anywhere. ^^

Grenades might work a little better for you when you have more people running around with shields as you need less TUs to throw a grenade in that case.

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@Kordanor

Interesting points, but I am so used to flanking moves and close combat that I have hard time moving away from it. moving in spaces from the sides, and with 1-2 flashbangs usually helps a lot. My usual strategy pre-Crovettes is flashbankx2 and stun grenades x2 or shotgun fire fire from safe distance or face rush (depending on the number and positioning of enemies. It's a good training before zap-jockeys required for medium UFO commnaders.

I have 2 varied tactics, but i each I have at least 2 CC specialists.

1) is a traditional tank followed by infantry column (tank spots, fires and depending on the result I take more actions, starts to be very effective once Pulse lasers appear)

2) is 2 shield guys for forwards with flash bangs, snipers always with a lot of smokes and then riflemen and assaults (very high TUs) with CC equipment (flashbangs, stun rods, stun grenades), and moving them as two units within firing range of each other. Allows for both aggressive and defensive plays

On another point - geoscape interceptions

I've noticed that you send 2 interceptors for light scouts and sometimes 1 condor for regular scout (which is not enough). I've learned that the speed at which the ships are moving are indicators of what size type the UFO is. (1400 light scout, 2000 scout, med 1400 corvette, 2000 medium landing ship, etc.) It really helps to plan the distribution of interceptors.

NOTE: currently watching your 12th video.

Edited by Phoenix
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I actually don't focus on capturing aliens. ^^

I think it was different in the original game when capturing aliens was very important. In Xenonauts you really don't need it until later.

I prefer to use my science for different things and in all but one cases it's just 10% more damage against the alien type. While I already caught an officer, I am in Mid December but haven't "researched" him yet. There is more important stuff to do and it does not give any benefit besides of going forward in finishing the game. But I can do that, when the "higher" aliens are around. ;)

You don't get any additional money for captured enemies, so you can as well just kill them. Just make sure you don't blow them up. ^^

The hint with the Ufo speed is actually a quite good one. I noted down the different speeds when playing in the beta, but kinda forgot about them.

And just for the players not playing on insane: The speed of your airplanes goes down on insane: It's 20% slower and 20% less range on insane. So it's much easier to catch a scout on other difficulties.

And thanks for checking out the vids;)

Edited by Kordanor
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Interesting that you did not go for foxtrot research. 1 Foxtrot can kill 1 scout IIRC and surely it can chase it down. It is poor vs light scouts though, I usually have 3c+1f or 3c+2f in bases. and a combination of 1c+1f can down a corvette. 2c+1f can down escorted corvette.

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