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Blarg
12-14-2005, 01:46 AM
With all the talk of XCOM around here, some of which I'm responsible for, I felt it would be a shame if people getting interested in it were put off at first. I know I was, when I got the game when it was first released. So here are some tips to get you going. Anyone who wants to is welcome to contribute.

Let me start out, though, by posting an exchange in another thread that got me motivated to make this post:

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It's the only really old PC game that can compete with anything modern, that's for sure.

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Not the only one, try X-Com (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=4966) for example. Pretty much a perfect game.

Swede

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I downloaded this. I find it difficult to get going. X-Com is fuggin' HARD.

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Yes, it is hard, especially without a manual or strat guide. But it is not really that hard in concept or once you get your feet wet.

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There's definitely a steep learning curve. For one thing use the save feature liberally so your best soldiers don't always die. The game won't let you load a save point during a mission, but it's still worth quitting a mission so you can reload to an earlier spot and retry your strategy.

Swede

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This is very true except for the loading a save point during a mission, which I did countless times.

But saving liberally is the way to go, especially when first starting out. Save at the beginning of every battle before getting out of the ship in case you run into those occasional terrible placements of the enemies or bursts of awful luck that can happen occasionally. And to test out how the game works; battles are very replayable at all sorts of points all the way through them, and it's a learning experience on how to do things better next time, too. Not to mention fun.

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X-com is way too hard, you have to do everything perfectly early.


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No you don't, but it will probably feel that way until you've played a while. Being without a manual in this game is a toughie.

Let me give some tips. Some might be called spoilers because they suggest a few clear specifics, but they shouldn't really spoil the game. Think of them more as starter ideas. Anyone with tips of their own is welcome to contribute.

MONEY:

Money is incredibly important. This game has some gamble in it regarding money, and bad luck can hurt. Not responding to a mission can be costly and lose you critical funding, but responding when you're weak and your soldiers are injured can kill soldiers you've built up all game, and lose tons of expensive items and supplies that can't be quickly replaced. Chasing ships you're not strong enough to battle can result in a lost ship, which can be very time-consuming and expensive to replace, and leave your squad helpless for extended periods of time, causing an avalanche of city losses and lost funding.

Nevertheless, there are things in your control.

For one, how profitable your research and building are. The greater part of your money in the game is going to come from items you build, not capture, and you are going to have to be aggressive about getting your money. Your funding will not come close to getting you where you need to go. You must sell!

This is a numbers game combined with a resource game. Some items are profitable to produce without using the alien's unique element, (etherium?) and some need the etherium. For the most part, you get the most value producing items that don't compromise your etherium supply, which can be used up in large amounts later in the game as spaceship fuel and other things. And of course, some items can be looted or captured, including live and dead aliens.

ITEM PRODUCTION:

Probably the best item to produce in the game, and worth devoting easily an entire room full of engineers to producing virtually non-stop, is the laser pistol. Ir is made quickly and cheaply and produces very nice profits, without using up vital etherium. Speed counts in this game, as if you do not have the money to pay for upkeep come the turn of the month, the game punishes you severely. Yet you need to keep plowing money into making things to make more money too. Liquidity counts. So even if you build other things, you should consider always having some laser pistols in production to steadily add to the store of cash on hand. This comes in handy when something must be bought, when you have a new room built for new scientists or engineers and want to rent some in the middle of the month, or when you are about to face the disaster of not being able to meet your monthly upkeep and will start losing assets.

The second best item to produce is probably laser rifles. They make only a tiny shade more cash, but produce slower. This is very often critical, so effectively they can be much less useful to sell than are laser pistols.

Next on the list come plasma pistols and rifles. When you are suddenly flush with etherium, they can bring you in a lot of money. But etherium comes and goes, so using it up for a fast cash infusion is usually productive only when you've made he bungle of not having enough storage space to put it in.

Etherium itself can be sold, but sells cheaply compared to what can be made from it. You'll also need some for ammo, and using it as ship fuel eats huge quantities of it. It's rarely a good idea to sell it.

Alien corpses can be sold. Note that this is an excellent argument for sparing use of the rocket launcher. The same goes for alien weaponry. Disintegrating them leaves you nothing to sell. More on the rocket launcher later.

STORAGE SPACE:

You lose when you get a live alien and have no place to quarantine and research him. A dead one uncovers far fewer secrets for your scientists. It hurts to build structures that don't directly produce money in this very tight money game, but you lose a lot when you don't. Some aliens are a lucky find and hard to take alive, so you really don't want to lose them. This is why multiple live alien storage facilities are often very handy. You will, as always, be taking a chance no matter how you make your build choices regarding this one.

This goes the same for places to store all your snagged weapons and etherium and dead aliens. Stuff you leave behind on a battlefield is a major loss. Stuff you can't build because there's no place to store it, while your engineers still cost money to employ and are doing nothing, is a huge loss too. You should ALWAYS be thinking about what will happen if you have a bit of luck and get a nice cache of alien goodies or need to stockpile more supplies. For instance, if all the engineers are building something important at one of your bases but that base needs plasma guns, you are going to have to build plasma guns for it somewhere else, and have storage space until the transfer. This kind of thing happens all the time. Never be caught with your pants down when it comes to money and thinking ahead -- build plenty of storage.

RESEARCH/ENGINEERING

It sucks to have scientists working on nothing. Learn the research trees that matter, so you can have multiple projects going at once. A tree that leads to one branch can waste scientists while one that leads to many things can get full value out of them. A tree choice that will lead, say, to laser pistols is one of the ones you should make a beeline for, as it will immediately help you start paying your way in the game.

You should also keep on the plasma trail, as plasma guns will be your main weapon later on. It's very handy to be able to pick up an alien's gun and start firing it instead of just sticking it in your backpack and staying defenseless.

ANd you face a huge loss if one of your own ships gets shot down. This is one of the most dramatic rolls of the dice in the game. Keep your research going so your whole operation isn't blasted to smithereens when you pit a weak earth tech ship against a tough alien one.

You will have to balance this out, like balancing any budget. You need quite a few engineers going on a nice juicy item before you can afford to pay for both engineers AND scientists, as well as everything else you need. This is a game it will help to have a scratch pad nearby on, and might make you use a calculator once in a while, especially when brand new to it.

WEAPONRY:

Laser pistols, and rifles, are ideal to equip your men with who have low resistance to psi attacks. You will find this out by them being successfully psi attacked and starting to turn on and kill your troops! This is when you do NOT want them to have advanced weaponry! Or a rocket launcher. Especially equipped. Lasers are still effective against many aliens but less likely to kill your own men outright. They can also be very accurate and do the wonderful service of saving your plasma ammo for the end of the mission, where you'll usually find the baddest of the bad guys. The rapid fire rate of lasers is an enormous help in boosting the accuracy stats of your soldiers, one of the most important stats by far that they have.

They are also light and ammo is no problem, unlike the plasma weapons, which carry limited and very expensive ammo.

Plasma weapons are your meat and potatoes later. I find the plasma rifle, because of its extreme accuracy, even better than the heavy plasma rifle. The plasma pistol is okay, but I find the laser pistol generally superior due to the reasons given above.

Rockets are great, but messy. When psi-controlled, they can cripple your whole squad. They can also knock stairs out that could be used for a relatively safe trip up into an unoccupied room, forcing your men to take another much more dangerous entry point into a trap. Rockets also cause smoke that is hazardous for your men to be in, but which of course they can't always escape, as when they're unconscious. This happens frequently when your rocket man sees an alien right next to your guy and blasts him, knocking your guy out and putting him on a death spiral because he can't out of the smoke.

Because of the problems with rockets, rocket men are often best kept at the back of the squad. They are also very good men to get movement bonuses on for precisely this reason. Strength bonuses are very helpful for a rocketman too, but you don't need too much accuracy. And accuracy will build fine with time.

Grenades are quite handy, as they give the ordinary soldier the ability to mount many area attacks and do it without carrying heavy equipment like the rocket launcher. Unfortunately, like the rocket, smoke problems come into play and so does destruction of the alien bodies and weapons your finances and research need. Nevertheless, they can be quite handy, and a smoke screen is sometimes the only thing that will save your squad if they suddenly disembark into a squad of closely packed aliens or turn the corner of a building and run into the same thing. Get at least one or two of your men to get plenty of practice throwing grenades, even if they don't have to. Additionally, timed grenades are sometimes the only way you can get at an alien who won't come out until you retreat, and are very satisfying traps.

Vehicles: They take up a lot of space and are usually not worth it for the firepower they bring. What they are very good for is protected recon in an open environment, which can be very valuable toward the end of the game. For most of the game, though, you'll probably find vehicles more of a loss than a gain.

Last but not least, the cattleprod/stun gun type dealies. These are surprisingly great. Many aliens cannot be taken down by anything else at certain points of the game and your siuation. They also are the perfect way to capture live aliens or take out a psi-infected solider of your home team without killing him.

LOAD-OUT:

Rockets are heavy. Your rocketman will be sorely burdened with them, and but it is a mistake to burden him so much that he can't pick up a valuable alien artifact, or can't defend himself when using a rocket would blow him up too, or his squadmates. He needs something that takes less time to fire than a rocket too. So always equip him with at the very least a laser pistol, and when he gets strong enough, you can give him a rifle too. He should be able to carry at least three rockets even when pretty weak, and other squad members can carry rockets for him too. Managing to keep him in rockets is a cool part of the game. And remember, you might sometimes want to experiment with more than one rocketman.

I've mentioned that everyone will eventually be able to carry a laser pistol and laser rifle and should do so regardless of what else he is carrying even if he has no intentions of equipping them. All should have at least a smoke grenade and a regular grenade, and most can make do with several. But you also must treasure your empty space.

You'll need it to pick up a fallen comrade and carry him back to the ship. If you can't pick him up and he because your backpack is full, ouch! Could be a huge loss. You don't need all the space in the world, but your people should be able to collect lots of artifacts or dump out their backpacks and have others able to pick it up. Rescuing a comrade can call for picking up a dumped out backpack, and so can getting the goodies of a psi-weakling whose backpack you've dumped so he doesn't kill anybody.

Watch your ammo, particularly rockets, grenades, and flares. Get a feel for how many of them you tend to use in both normal and emergency situations, and do some thinking about how you can juggle a happy medium between carelessness and paranoia, as well as just unthinking wastefulness of space.

Everyone should also have a stunprod. Without exception. They are too valuable and powerful and useful in surprising situations. They can surprise you by winning you many missions.

Medikits and scanners are also important, but medikits moreso.

FIRING SOLUTIONS:

Take your rocket guy off auto-fire! Put guys with laser pistols ON auto fire a lot of the time, as they'll hit so fast that accuracy won't matter, and they'll light up the target for others.

Remember that it's often better safe than sorry. If you have everybody splat out their rounds inaccurately on autofire and do nothing, you may lose the battle. Always keep at least a few reliable sharpshooters on aimed fire so that when everything goes south, they can still pull your bacon out of the fire by refusing to miss. It's good to have at least one of these guys with a laser rifle so he can fire often and quickly, but eventually most of your sniper types will have plasma rifles, the most accurate gun and because of that only rarely worth going any heavier than.

A note: plasma rifle ammo seems to be the hardest to come by in the field, much harder than heavy plasma reloads. So be careful with it and treasure ones you find. You can move ammo from one clip to another, too.


TACTICS:

Every man in my squads has a laser pistol, and most have a laser rifle. They are lightweight and don't take up much room. The pistols can be equipped very quickly and fired off within the same turn once you've built up movement points. Their rapid rate of fire makes them ideal to light up a monster for the other shooters due to getting a first shot off on him and his resultant usage of movement points. You'll often find a laser blast starts off everyone else firing at the alien and killing him before the alien can properly respond and kill the laser pistol guy. Because lasers fire early and quick, you'll often kill an alien from multiple laser blasts before having to use any plasma ammo, saving not just money but the ammo you'll find critical later. They are also excellent for burning through walls on the cheap.

I've already commented on the value of psi-infected soldiers not having something as powerful as a rocket or a plasma. Here's another tip: Put the stunprods in the hand of a soldier who is being constantly psi-attacked and if he goes bad he will not be able to shoot your guys.

Also consider dumping the backpack of someone psi-sensitive. It's best he have not quite nothing, so he doesn't die out right to an alien, but not something that will kill your guys either. Laser pistol and prod time.

Remember that rockets don't need to be accurate to do damage. If you cannot target an alien, you can still wound or kill him by firing next to him if smoke obscures him.

Try to kill aliens from outside the room if you can. Slice the pie by putting soldiers at angles to the doors so they can see inside at a slant before you plop them right in front of a door. You can stack them in a diagonal line behind each other in some doorways, giving you multiple soldiers able to fire at various points in the room as soon as the door opens. You can also throw a grenade inside to obscure your entry or stun an alien. Watch out that your rocketman isn't set to fire on an alien if he suddenly appears and winds up wiping out half your crew gathered around the door.

Move your soliders like soldiers move in the real way, not all in a knot. That would render them vulnerable to grenades and limit what they can visually uncover. Keep some looking in directions the others aren't. Enfilade them, making them approach an object not all in the same line, but so their fire overlaps. Think of moving them in a way that if an alien bullet misses the guy in front, it won't hit the guy in back. Remember than aliens can sneak up behind you in territory you've already covered, or come through doors from rooms you checked then left behind.

SOLDIER DEVELOPMENT:

If you know a mission is about to end, get your guys to do things like walk out their movement points so they can have a further chance to build movement and strength stats. Do the same with a grenade once in a while, if you can, to boost throwing stats. Fire a laser. Lift stuff they can only carry a few steps before being paralyzed with exhaustion.

Keep careful track of your soliders' stats, as this is key to their development. A strong soldier is an obvious one to carry rockets, and weak ones need to be built up and stressed a little more. Accurate ones need that precious skill nourished, so let them be snipers rather than reactive guys up front. Psi weakness is incredibly critical, so get weak guys out of your squads as soon as possible, as they're not worth developing.

Keeping track of all this in the heat of battle is near impossible. So what I do is use the naming system. I may have a soldier named after his stats. I may have Pam125337 to denote, say, three stats I consistently want to keep track of. Say strength, psi, and accuracy. It takes some busy work that is well worth it, so at the end of a mission, I note each of their stats and edit their names so that they now reflect their new stats. This way I will always have their most important capabilities at hand.

I also keep a steno pad with everyone's name on it and all their changing stats. In depth knowledge of your soldiers is very handy in this game, and the quickest easiest way by far is having it on paper.

When you're at the point in the game where you can train soldiers to find out their psi weakness, do it. At that point, building up the stats of a useless soldier is a big loss, much bigger than the waste of money paying to test their psi abilities in the laboratory. You'll find psi weakness can be one of the most important considerations in the game.

SQUAD DEVELOPMENT:

As you start building multiple fire teams per base, and getting multiple bases, you will be faced with the choice of always building from scratch or seeding your rookie teams with a few ringers. You also get the chance to go through a lot of rookies really quickly to see if you have guys with enough psi strength to be worth keeping, and dropping them before you've made heavy stat investments in them or taken serious risks with them.

In this way you can have experienced and novice squads reinforcing each other for the benefit of both.

Consider giving your A team a substantial amount of rest at some points so the rookies can get their stats built up taking on lesser ships. You wouldn't send them into the serious battles, but they're no good to you if you don't build them up and find out their capabilities. And there's never a better time to die than in the beginning. Ultimately, you would like to be able to afford an A team, with some solid back-ups waiting in the injury wards, and a complete lesser squad. And a few guys under psi checks. And ultimately, having many teams in the field means many looted items to pay possibly not just for the one base but for other bases too, and to build more bases still. You can start hauling in some serious loot this way.

This is very necessary for the ongoing production of bases that can protect themselves, too. Alien invasions of bases aren't all that common, but they happen. You want to start a base with soldiers that have a little strength and won't be a walkover for the aliens. So think of soldier development as something that's never really "over," but an ongoing commitment. Eventually you'll have a favorite squad that could have members from many different bases, and send them against the aliens for the final battle.


SHIP DEVELOPMENT:

You can get by with weak ships that have strong weapons for a while. You can also get by well with ships that have one fast weak weapon to get the initial shots in plus one more deadly weapon. Having one fast weak weapon can be very important, because it keeps you from obliterating small ships and the prizes within them entirely, as well as all the stat boosts your guys might get from fighting it on the ground. It also helps keep your from killing off so much of the alien crew and destroying so much of their stuff that you get minimum value out of the battle. Remember, it's not just about what you kill, but what you capture, research, and get a chance to sell. And all the stats you build along the way. This may lead you to deploy multiple ships to increase your chances of downing a ship with a few weak blasts from each instead of obliterating it.

Eventually, ships will just outrun you even if they don't outfight you. Upgrading ships can feel near catasrophically expensive, but everything regarding ships is near catasrophic. Be prepared to upgrade and upgrade in a hurry if you have to. Just a couple of ships running around that you can't handle will destroy your worldwide support.

BASE DEVELOPMENT:

I've touched on the need for alien quarantine chambers, and labs, and the need to have plenty of engineers working away, as well as storage. Here's some more.

Build so that if your base is attacked, the aliens cannot come through the middle and into every room, wrecking up the place. Keep your vulnerabilities off to one side and build out.

Always have space for at least two vehicle bays. If a ship is down or being equipped, you still need to be able to do your job. A second hangar is vital. You can also build extras for your other bases if you have empty hangars in one.

Build short-range radars without hesitation. Long range radars are not enough, and will miss ships sometimes. You need the overlap! Don't skimp on radars at any point in the game; make them a priority.

META-ISSUES RE BASES.

You will need to get multiple bases up, or whole sections of the world will go down without a fight. You will also want some overlap here and there, as when the game gets going you will get so many calls you can't handle them all. Being able to handle a call with another base because of slight overlap can be a big boon. This is especially so because when you are very busy, your soldiers will constantly be getting injured and need to recover. It's nice to have a helping hand from another base sometimes.

Considering trying to build your bases in a networked triangular pattern. You may find that a base in Europe goes great with a base in the North Pole, and that the perfect compliment to that is one in the eastern part of the U.S. All three of these bases may be able to share targets and detection, giving a lot of safety and offensive ability over a broad area.

You will also have to put bases up without support sometimes, leaving them in busy areas vulnerable to alien attack. Tough beans. Be sure you get soldiers, radar, storage, and defenses in them as soon as you can, as you will not be able to leave them up and empty forever, and sometimes not long at all. Unfortunately, having to rapidly drain your supply of experienced soldiers, weapons, vehicles, and cash to get another base going can make for some nail-biting decisions and some real hardship, like occasionally going on missions at less than full squad strength. This is why financial management and timing of resupply is so important. You will occasionally have to do things that strain your resources to the utmost.

Okay that's enough for now and should give people new to XCOM a pretty good fighting start. A lot more than I had when I started anyway. Give the game a fair try, being sure to optimize your income, and you'll have tremendous fun with this, one of the best games ever.

And just let me emphasize again - save plenty. Not only are decisions important in this game, but better still, battles are randomly generated. This means you can start off better if you save just before landing. And some battles are so outrageously fun that it's a real joy to save them and play them over and over again, so saving right after landing is cool too. This game rewards saving highly.

swede123
12-14-2005, 01:56 AM
Goodness, that's alot of writing. Sounds like someone is passionate about X-Com!

Listen to Blarg and you might just see Cydonia one of these days.

Swede

Alobar
12-14-2005, 02:13 AM
awesome....I Still bust out X-com and play through it every year or so....I think im gunna do it again


right before I die, if I get to relieve some [censored] memories, one of them will definately be pulling all nighters playing this with my friends back when I was in junior high.


Theres also a version floating around on the net that you can play multiplayer...I havent checked it out tho

durron597
12-14-2005, 02:19 AM
I'm playing it again right now and the Laser Cannon is by far a better item to build/sell for cash than anything else I have right now (I'm in mid-June).

Blarg
12-14-2005, 02:33 AM
I'll take the laser pistol. Quick turn-around means a lot because liquidity means a lot, and the dollars back per unit of time is very high. I remember calculating it out from the guides back in the day, and if laser pistols weren't top, they were close enough even in this extremely money-tight game. I do remember the laser cannons were good though, as all the laser stuff was.

durron597
12-14-2005, 02:39 AM
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I'll take the laser pistol. Quick turn-around means a lot because liquidity means a lot, and the dollars back per unit of time is very high. I remember calculating it out from the guides back in the day, and if laser pistols weren't top, they were close enough even in this extremely money-tight game. I do remember the laser cannons were good though, as all the laser stuff was.

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Laser cannons take 300 hours to make and return 29k. Laser pistols take the same amount of time and return 12k. Of course the ROI is smaller but the $/hr is higher (just like playing high stakes SnGs, whaddaya know). Anyway back on track - so yeah, laser cannons are significantly better, you just need to make fewer of them at once and go to the sell screen more often.

Alobar
12-14-2005, 02:41 AM
I never even bothered researching the laser weapons...I would pump out medkits for income and throw all my scientists on the plasma weapons

durron597
12-14-2005, 02:43 AM
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I never even bothered researching the laser weapons...I would pump out medkits for income and throw all my scientists on the plasma weapons

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minispoiler in white

<font color="white">I bet those sectopods were a pain in the ass, huh?</font>

Alobar
12-14-2005, 02:47 AM
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I never even bothered researching the laser weapons...I would pump out medkits for income and throw all my scientists on the plasma weapons

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minispoiler in white

<font color="white">I bet those sectopods were a pain in the ass, huh?</font>

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not really....I had plasma weaps after only a couple missions.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 03:03 AM
[ QUOTE ]
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I'll take the laser pistol. Quick turn-around means a lot because liquidity means a lot, and the dollars back per unit of time is very high. I remember calculating it out from the guides back in the day, and if laser pistols weren't top, they were close enough even in this extremely money-tight game. I do remember the laser cannons were good though, as all the laser stuff was.

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Laser cannons take 300 hours to make and return 29k. Laser pistols take the same amount of time and return 12k. Of course the ROI is smaller but the $/hr is higher (just like playing high stakes SnGs, whaddaya know). Anyway back on track - so yeah, laser cannons are significantly better, you just need to make fewer of them at once and go to the sell screen more often.

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You're right.



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-COM Profitability study -- by Jeff Shaffer [edited]

Recently, we at the XCOM Business Institute (our motto: "If it's
worth doing, it's worth analyzing to death") spent all last night
to bring you the following table. The basic assumption is that
you are willing to support engineers long-term in order to make a
profit. I calculated results for a hypothetical 2 workshop
operation. You would get slightly better results with larger
facilities, due to the economy of scale.

[some numbers are rounded to the nearest 1000 for space]

Work Eng Raw Sale Unit|Monthly|Net
Item Space Hrs Material Cost Price P R O F I T
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Motion Scanner 4 220 - 34K 45K 11K 3765K 1275K
Medikit 4 420 - 28K 46K 18K 3146K 656K
Psi Amp 4 500 1E 160K 194K 29K 4242K 1752K
Personal Armor 12 800 4A 22K 54K 6K 491K -
Power Suit 16 1000 5E+5A 42K 85K - - -
Flying Suit 16 1400 16E+5A 58K 115K - - -
Alien Alloys 10 100 - 3K 6K 3K 2343K 3K
Elerium 115 - - - - 5K - - -
Laser Pistol 2 300 - 8K 20K 12K 2916K 376K
Laser Rifle 3 400 - 2K0 36K 16K 3049K 534K
Heavy Laser 4 700 - 32K 61K 29K 2958K 468K
Plasma Pistol 3 600 1A 56K 84K 21K 2586K 71K
Plasma Pistol Clip 4 60 1E 2K 4K - - -
Plasma Rifle 4 820 1A 88K 126K 32K 2787K 297K
Plasma Rifle Clip 4 80 2E 3K 6K - - -
Heavy Plasma 4 1000 1A 122K 171K 43K 3078K 588K
Heavy Plasma Clip 4 80 3E 6K 9K - - -
Blaster Launcher 5 1200 1A 9K0 144K 47K 2797K 332K
Blaster Bomb 3 220 3E 8K 17K - - -
Small Launcher 3 900 1A 78K 120K 35K 2846K 331K
Stun Bomb 2 200 1E 7K 15K 3K 1166K -
Alien Grenade 2 200 2E 6K 14K - - -
Mind Probe 4 1200 1E 262K 304K 37K 2202K -
UFO Power Source 22 1400 16E+5A 130K 250K 7K 310K -
UFO Navigation 18 1600 3A 150K 80K - - -
Fusion Ball L'cher 6 400 1A 242K 281K 39K 6836K 4396K
Fusion Ball 6 600 4E 28K 53K 5K 617K -
Laser Cannon 6 300 - 182K 211K 29K 6760K 4320K
Plasma Beam 8 500 15E 226K 267K - - -
Tank/Laser Cannon 25 1200 - 500K 594K 94K 4371K 2406K
Hovertank/Plasma 30 1200 30E+5A 850K 980K - - -
Hovertank/Launcher30 1400 25E+8A 900K 1043K - - -
HWP Fusion Bomb 25 400 5E+8A 15K 31K - - -


First six columns are just basic information from my version of
XCOM. (Editor-- I have seen posts stating that UFO:EU has higher
sale prices for some items, notably armor! However, this has NOT
been confirmed!)

The 'Unit Profit' column is sale price minus cost, minus the cost
of any E-115/Alloy used in manufacture. A '-' means a net loss,
no further analysis.

'Monthly Profit' column is based on "XCOM Month" of 24*31 = 744
hours. The calculation is number of engineers that fit in two
workshops times 744 times unit profit, divided by the hours
required to make one item. For example, the monthly profit for
Motion Scanners is 96*744*11600/220 = 1275993 (1275K).

The 'Net Profit' column is the bottom line. Monthly expenses are
the salaries of as many engineers as fit in the workshops times
$50K, plus the maintenance on 2 workshops and 2 living quarters.

As you can see, Fusion Ball Launchers are the winner, narrowly
edging out Laser Cannons. A profit can be made early in the game
on motion scanners, however. However, fusion ball launchers
require alien alloy, while laser cannons do NOT.

One final note: It costs roughly $7M to hire engineers and build
the facilities, so you'll need to 'borrow' some money (preferably
from alien supply ships /images/graemlins/smile.gif to get started.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh well, memory wasn't that bad for not playing it for half a decade!

MrWookie47
12-14-2005, 03:21 AM
Dang, Blarg. That's a whole lot of work. I disagree with some things, though, and I have some to add. There are some spoilers in this, though, with regard to some stuff in the tech tree. If you want to discover it all for yourself, I'll try and keep most of the tech spoiler stuff to the end.

First of all, money. According to the last time I did a calculation, the laser cannon, not the laser pistol, was the most profitable thing to manufacture. It's a little slower to produce, but the profit margin is huge. It's possible that the laser pistol is fast enough to make up for the difference, but I'd have to double check my math. As for selling your spoils,

Research: I like to get a team of 100 scientists up and rolling ASAP. It'll usually be by the second month. This will also necessitate the production of a second lab and 2-3 more living quarters. You'll also need a second workshop and an expanded team of engineers (30-50) to eventually produce some of the larger pieces of equipment, but that's not as high a priority. Your first priority should be getting your men laser rifles. Bullets just aren't going to cut it. Your second priority should be getting them some basic armor. (Spoiler: <font color="white">Start w/ alien alloys </font> ). When you go to get them plasma weapons (probably next), the thing is that, unlike lasers, you don't need to research the pistol to unlock the rifle, etc. You can jump straight to the heavy plasma. Getting the heavy plasma, however, will unlock the plasma cannon, which is the perfect weapon for your craft. Its range is longer than that of any UFO except for the battleship (Very Large), and, the most beautiful thing, it doesn't require anything to reload it. No elirium. No money. Nothing. Getting it on your ships is a beautiful thing.

With regards to taking aliens alive, I think you only ever need one containment facility. I was never aware that my first one could be filled up. Maybe blarg is more active in capturing them alive than I am (or is more lax at researching them when they come in), but one is plenty for me.

Weaponry: I don't know why Blarg said so much about smoke. In my experience, it's virtually irrelevant. If a soldier stands in smoke from the aftermath of a rocket blast, he inhales at one point per turn. If he inhales smoke equal to his health, he passes out. Health bars are typically 30+. If you have a guy standing around in the smoke for 30 straight turns, you're doing something horribly wrong. With that in mind, the rocket launcher (and tank rocket launcher) should be oft-used staples well into the game. When in doubt, blast it out. Blarg mentioned the risk of blowing up stairs. Sure, you may not want to blow them up. However, aliens (save Sectoids, in my experience) are seldom found upstairs). In the rare event that they are upstairs, it only takes a second rocket to blast the floor out from under them and/or kill them. Blow the hell out of the terrain. It's often better to blast a hole in a wall than it is to walk in the door. The hole will be there next turn for you to go in, and a big hole will allow your whole team to see and kill the baddies, not just the poor rookie you sent in first. With regards to explosives on terror missions, here are your priorities.

1. Kill the aliens
2. Bring your men back home still breathing.
3. Civilians are not your men.

Blast the hell out of things, and don't be afraid to lose a few civies. It's easier to make up for the point loss than it is to make up for a killed veteran. Oh, gas stations blow up really well. Another point about taking out walls: Sometimes you have one soldier spot an alien on one side of a wall, but he's the only one who can get onto that side to shoot, and he's already fired, missed, and used up his time. You can have another guy spray autofire at the wall in line w/ the alien to hopefully take out the wall and the alien in one burst, but if not, you'll probably have a clean shot the second time.

Oh, I disagree with Blarg in that I love tanks. Tanks are huge. They lead the charge, they can take a lot more punishment than the average soldier, and they're expendable. They're not like a veteran who takes time to build up. One tank is as good as the next, so if it dies, it's sad, but it's not that bad. For a lot of missions, having too many guys along is unnecessary, and makes you overly succeptible to well-placed explosives. I try to never leave home w/o one, unless I'm taking on a battleship or other large UFO, where having a lot of guys is key, and tanks can't always get in.

I don't love lasers as much as Blarg does. They just don't pack as much of a punch. Not needing ammo is nice, but the only ammo problems I have is heavy plasma ammo early when not every alien is using it. Heavy plasma is my standard arm once ammo becomes plentiful, although given Blarg's claims about the superior accuracy of the rifle, I may go experiment. Of course, my most recent foray has been on the 4th difficulty level, where it sometimes takes 2 bolts of heavy plasma to take down even some early aliens. If you're taking down the baddies with one laser shot on an easier setting, then going laser is great. I really prefer taking down the baddies in 1-2 shots if possible. I seldom bother to give my guys a laser pistol. It's rare that I don't have enough time to fire a shot with my main gun, but I do have enough time to whip out a pistol and light one off.

I don't know why Blarg was talking about picking up artifacts as you go. You pick up everything that was lying around automatically at the end, anyway. If you need ammo, sure, grab the alien's gun, but don't pick it up if you can't use it. It's a waste of time.

Base placement:

Countries give you money. Not oceans. Not the arctic. Thus, your goal is to protect countries, not water or ice. I like to put my first base in Mongolia to maximize the amount of land area I cover. A large radar system will cover almost all of France from here, and you'll get to Japan, too. Everything you cover is giving you money. I like to put my second in the US. The US just gives you too much money to lose, so protect it. This also applies to terror missions. If you're unlucky enough to have two simultaneous terror missions, go to the one in the richer country first. Spoiler: <font color="white">Also, once you capture an alien navigator, you get to build an upgraded radar system that detects all UFO's in a huge area. Build this, and remove your other radar systems. A base with this in the US and then in mongolia will almost have overlapping fields of coverage. Even small ufo's have a navigator, which is almost always the alien deepest inside. Take one alive and profit.</font>

Psi attacks: Aliens can't access your soldier's backpack if they take him over. You can safely give him a rocket launcher if he's prone to this, as long as you keep it unloaded. If it's only loaded immediately before he fires, he's no danger to your squad. This is even safer than a laser pistol.

Battleships: These very large UFO's are tough. Don't send an interceptor after one. It'll be shot down with a single shot. It's range is longer than your plasma beams. The minimum you can use to shoot down one is a firstorm and an avenger each with dual plasma beams. The firestorm will sustain heavy damage, though, and will be out of commission for a while. The avenger will be damaged, too. As an alternative, you can just follow these things around with your skyranger/avenger until they land and take them on in tact. However, all the aliens will be alive, and there are a LOT of aliens inside. And they are armed to the teeth, including nasty explosives. OTOH, attacking UFO's that have landed is one of the best ways to obtain elerium. You get elerium from the power cores, 50 units per. If you shoot the ufo down and the core blows up, it's nice that it kills some aliens, but you don't get any of this vital resource. All but the very small ufo's have at least one core, though, so you can use this trick with any UFO.

Last word on base defense: Any base defense except fusion ball defense is totally useless, and you need at least 4 of them to do any good. You also want the grav shield and mind shield to help you out here. When your base is attacked, it's done by a battleship. You may have seen how hard it is to shoot them down. One shot from missle defenses is absolutely nothing. You need 3-4 hits from fusion balls. Since a grav shield doubles your output, 4 launchers and a grav shield is a good defense. It's better to not be detected, though, so a mind shield is critical.

astroglide
12-14-2005, 03:25 AM
i never played it, but it is shocking that a game so heralded has yet to be re-released with a new engine

fwiw there is a game boy advance game that was put out recently by people that were related to the original x-com, and the game is supposed to be similar. it only got okay ratings though, not great.

MrWookie47
12-14-2005, 03:40 AM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I never even bothered researching the laser weapons...I would pump out medkits for income and throw all my scientists on the plasma weapons

[/ QUOTE ]

minispoiler in white

<font color="white">I bet those sectopods were a pain in the ass, huh?</font>

[/ QUOTE ]

Response in white:

<font color="white"> Those buggers are a bitch no matter what. According to the last calculations I did (a while ago), laser rifles do almost the exact same amount of damage to them as heavy plasma. The firepower deficit of lasers compared to plasma is too big for the succeptibility of those guys to lasers to make up. </font>

Blarg
12-14-2005, 03:41 AM
Pretty much all the follow-ups got that reaction. They never were able to recapture the magic.

It's true that it's surprising there has been no good follow up to such a hugely loved game. I think one of the big problems is they always try to add something extra that just takes things away. And the subsequent monster designs have usually been very uninspiring, too. Some of the ones in later attempts have looked like scoops of mashed potatoes.

astroglide
12-14-2005, 03:48 AM
yeah i wonder why they haven't done JUST a new engine, and release the same exact game. it sounds like it would be a great fit for a game boy game.

MrWookie47
12-14-2005, 03:50 AM
Oh, and on squad selection. Just insta-sack anyone who has a firing accuracy less than 55. If they can't kill aliens, they don't even get an opportunity to improve their stats (you have to get kills to improve), and you can't kill what you can't hit. I guess you can give them grenades, but you're better off just cycling through a few guys to get good ones rather that trying to build up crappy troops. The only other stats that really matter are reactions and strength. Killing the aliens during their turn is huge, and it's often great to leave your guys with enough time to light off a snap shot during the alien turn. Strength - don't give the scrawny guy the rocket launcher. Easy. Time units are good, but they improve rapidly. Throwing accuracy isn't all that important, since you don't have to hit the aliens on the head with grenades. Health isn't all that big, either, because if your guys get shot, they're probably just dead. I've had stamina come into play exactly once in all of my playing experience. If bravery is coming into play, you're probably already [censored] because you've lost half your squad. Oh, wait, there is another stat that matters. Psi strength is huge later, and you can't improve it. You can increase skill, but in everything psi, strength is more important in the equation than skill. Unfortunately, it takes a month to figure out how much strength a new guy has. Oh well.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 04:06 AM
Couple quick follow ups re your response, and different points of view.

Laser ammo doesn't run out like plasma does, and doesn't cost like plasma does. It's also less of a danger in a psi-weak soldier's hands. It also fires extremely quickly, so much so that a soldier with nothing in his hands can get a laser pistol in his hands and fire it within the same turn. Firing first is pretty huge. It's also a cheap way to blast down walls/haystacks without wasting ammo. And it can get an alien almost killed but not quite, so you can capture it live easier. Finally, if you have to throw it away to pick up a more sellable plasma or other item from the aliens, it's not that big a deal and you've come out with a profit.

Picking up things on the run is how you replenish ammo and sometimes get your guys weapons they haven't got. Picking stuff up is good!

As to the artic not being a good spot, it overlaps a ton of wealthy areas(Europe and North America) and so can hit aliens in either. It is a pretty good place, but of course doesn't provide funding.

Giving a guy an unloaded rocket launcher means he probably won't get the rocket in in time to do anything aimed. That doesn't sound like a good solution. Giving a psi-weak guy a rocket launcher is just asking for trouble.

I'm also not as keen on blasting stuff or ignoring civilians. You can pay a high price for dead civilians, and blasting everything means you can lose vital weapons, and live aliens, you could have recovered.

I'll confirm that you can need more than one alien containment device. If you get back to the base without capacity for an additional live alien, the game will kill it. It doesn't come up that often, and so it's questionable whether money should be spent on a second one, but it's a pretty big loss when you lose a live alien, especially one of the rarer ones. It can push your research back quite a way.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 04:09 AM
[ QUOTE ]
yeah i wonder why they haven't done JUST a new engine, and release the same exact game. it sounds like it would be a great fit for a game boy game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder that too, and so do lots of fans. Instead we always get improvements, like turning it into a flight sim or something.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 04:10 AM
Wookie, you don't need kills to get accuracy increases.

bobman0330
12-14-2005, 05:39 AM
I think I disagree with pretty much everything you have to say here.

Blarg's point about smoke (I assume), is that it's super useful for concealment. If your landing zone ends up being an open field surrounded by aliens with cover, you can lose half your squad just getting out of the plane (unless you do something lame like reloading a bunch). You need to keep in mind that the aliens always see as far or farther than you (especially at night), and cover your movements with smoke.

Tanks are sweet. Their weapons aren't that hot (particularly the rocket tank) compared to what soldiers carry, but they're invaluable as scouts, and for not dying after one shot.

Ditto on blowing the hell out of the terrain. Ironically, I usually find this most necessary on farmland maps where there's no cover to approach aliens camped in buildings.

Base placement: Ugh. Put it in Europe where all the countries are. Russia can't even be infiltrated.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 06:41 AM
Yes, smoke is very useful for concealment for those reasons.

I will reiterate my other point about it too, though. Your guys will sometimes collapse without enough health to survive if they are not picked up and taken out of smoke. Sometimes you can get to them in time, sometimes you just can't. There's no one way or the other here; it varies.

Wookie, you speak of letting soldiers die. They're very expensive, and I don't let them die lightly.

One more thing about tanks. They take up four spaces that could be used for leveling up soldiers. Which is not to say they're bad, but that everything has a cost. Considering how valuable increased stats are in this game, how critical even, I tend to think of the game as a giant machine for testing out soldiers and leveling them up. You need good ones badly, but they aren't necessarily all that common, especially as regards psi vulnerability, which is extremelyh common. I like being able to stat up and kick out as many soldiers as I can, and sacrificing a big chunk of my squad to a piece of metal that doesn't level, and dies as often as anything else, isn't a trade off I like.

Just a matter of taste, though.

BCPVP
12-14-2005, 06:46 AM
This sounds like a pretty cool game. Once finals are over (because I do NOT need another distraction, especially an addicting one!), I'll be sure to try this game out.

I'm amazed at how complex this game seems to be from you guys talking about it. For such an old game...wow. I was a huge fan of Civilization and this game sounds similiar.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 06:59 AM
It has a pretty satisfying depth to it, but what still strikes me all these years after it first came out is how vivid the battles were, and that even though they are turn-based. They're much more absorbing than the usual turn-based game, because the combat model is so perfectly designed. At every moment you're wondering if some small movement will make one or a handful of aliens suddenly show themselves and open fire on you at once. It's really spooky.

The game is honestly frightening at times. Lots of fans talk about jumping out of their chairs when seeing certain aliens and the panic that ensues, and it's one of the very few games I can say actually gave me a scare, and quite a few times too.. I still remember parts of battles after all this time, they were so intense.

One of my favorite things is to get the game going for a while and have a bunch of battles saved right before they begin. The game randomizes battles -- scenery, lay-out, aliens, etc. So if you have a game or two saved, you can step right into a great battle at any time. They're still good even after you've beaten them, because they'll be randomized and still new to you.

evil_twin
12-14-2005, 07:08 AM
What an awesome thread. I was badly addicted to this game at the time and played it through multiple times. I didn't realise it was playable again on XP boxes. Thanks for the link, I'll give it a go soon and maybe get more involved in the strategy discussion then.

Did everyone love Terror from the Deep just as much? Somehow I never really enjoyed it, neither the premise nor the balance seemed right somehow.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 07:30 AM
I don't think it had nearly as much atmosphere as the first one did. Fighting lobsters was more funny than scary. Plus they were damn hard! A little too hard. And the scenery underwater was more boring than the dark creepy farmhouses or shops filled with cowering customers. Plus some of the maps were just too damn big and took forever.

I didn't like it nearly as much as the first one, and I think most people thought it tried gamely but missed the mark. It walloped the other sequels though.

Morrek
12-14-2005, 07:44 AM
XCOM is like my favourite game ever, nice thread. I've finished it maybe 3 or 4 times on my PSX, but it doesn't work anymore so I haven't played it in way too long.
And yeah, terror from the deep wasn't nearly as fun.

Downloading the game now... awesome

evil_twin
12-14-2005, 08:14 AM
Agreed, the lobsters never did it for me. The first combat I played was huge and I rapidly became bored.

Does this newer version fix the wrap-around stats bug? That is, when you leveled up a character beyond 255 in an ability it wrapped around back to zero, rendering a previously super soldier useless.

I used to avoid completing the game just so I could keep on doing battles and leveling up. Once you get psi powers and can control the Erethreals(sp?) you can take sweet revenge on the all the alien scum. Cutting them down in swathes and watching them all panic was classic stuff. Of course this constant leveling up was somewhat ruined by the wrap around stats bug.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 09:18 AM
I remember hearing about the bug way back when and I think a patch may have eventually fixed it. I don't know about whether the windows version linked in this thread does.

I used to constantly avoid ending the game so I could keep on fighting too. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Morrek
12-14-2005, 09:22 AM
Just started playing the game again now, quite some fun but I hate the music, gotta find a way to turn it off ^^
Never heard about the stats bug, maybe it's because I usually end the game fairly quickly as I usually just play the game for a few days during spring break or something and I don't like leaving things unfinished.
On another note, I remember in the manual they wrote something about a practise range of some sorts for your soldiers, but I never found out how the heck to do this, anyone know anything about this?

evil_twin
12-14-2005, 10:29 AM
I do remember having a patched version at some point along the line and being rather annoyed that they had not fixed the wrap around stats bug, so I'm not so hopeful. Still, I can see myself finding out, few missions to go yet though!

evil_twin
12-14-2005, 10:33 AM
You have to prolong the ending of the game for quite some time to get the stats bug, but after working so hard to build up an uber soldier it was pretty annoying when he became useless.

I've never seen the practise range though, anyone else?

Alobar
12-14-2005, 01:41 PM
Is there any interest in doing some mulitplayer battles? seems like there are quite a few of us who enjoy the game. I havent tried it out (didnt know anyone to play with), but you can check it out here (http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/)

Morrek
12-14-2005, 01:54 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Is there any interest in doing some mulitplayer battles? seems like there are quite a few of us who enjoy the game. I havent tried it out (didnt know anyone to play with), but you can check it out here (http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/)

[/ QUOTE ]

How the heck does it work in multiplayer?

Alobar
12-14-2005, 02:05 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is there any interest in doing some mulitplayer battles? seems like there are quite a few of us who enjoy the game. I havent tried it out (didnt know anyone to play with), but you can check it out here (http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/)

[/ QUOTE ]

How the heck does it work in multiplayer?

[/ QUOTE ]

click the link. There is an open source remake of the original for multiplayer battles

strunks
12-14-2005, 02:07 PM
Collapsing from smoke happens too rarely for it to be a concern. Especially if your man hasn't been shot. If he has, then the combination of wounds and the smoke inhalation may knock him out, but it's still unlikely.

I let my rookies die a lot. I play without reloading, so if I have to send someone through a door, it's always some unarmored newb. If he dies, oh well $20000 is chump change and well worth the benefits of knowing that there are aliens lying in ambush. Not every rookie is treated the same though. Some rookies come with exceptional stats, and I armor them up and build them. But the poor suckers with any deficiencies get labelled as fodder and always die first. I never fire a soldier for bad stats. I already paid for him. He's more useful to me if I send him through a door to die. Because my soldiers die, I always keep a few extra around as a buffer so I don't have to wait 3 days for replacements.

I used to use tanks back when I used to reload. I didn't like my troops dieing so I sent the tanks ahead first. I don't usually let the tanks kill anything though unless as a last resort. They're great scouts. Tons of movement and high hitpoints.

But now, I'd rather have 4 rookies than a tank. With the 4 rookies, I have 4 pieces of fodder I can send to check corners and doors instead of just one. And the total cost of 4 rookies is 80 grand instead of whatever the tank costs which I think is more than that.

TimTimSalabim
12-14-2005, 03:10 PM
I had no idea people still played this game. I recall years ago I'd play it in the middle of the night with all the lights off, and it would scare the crap out of me when I'd encounter an alien. Pretty good for a turn-based game.

Morrek
12-14-2005, 03:15 PM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is there any interest in doing some mulitplayer battles? seems like there are quite a few of us who enjoy the game. I havent tried it out (didnt know anyone to play with), but you can check it out here (http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/)

[/ QUOTE ]

How the heck does it work in multiplayer?

[/ QUOTE ]

click the link. There is an open source remake of the original for multiplayer battles

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah... but how does it work? I don't have time to read through all that right now(4tabling). Do you have one base each and fight as allies or are you fighting eachother and aliens or is one of you alien and the other human or what?

swede123
12-14-2005, 03:23 PM
I would imagine it's just the tactical turn-based phase of the game that's multiplayer. You set up your squad, the other guy sets up his squad on the same map and you start taking turns. Most likely you end up using the human soldiers with whatever weapon/equipment load outs are available; based on playing the singleplayer game and mindcontrolling the various aliens they mostly suck compared to well equipped (and experienced) human soldiers.

Swede

bobman0330
12-14-2005, 04:34 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Is there any interest in doing some mulitplayer battles? seems like there are quite a few of us who enjoy the game. I havent tried it out (didnt know anyone to play with), but you can check it out here (http://ufo2000.sourceforge.net/)

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm absolutely interested. Shoot me an IM if anyone wants to play, bobman5352.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 09:42 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Collapsing from smoke happens too rarely for it to be a concern. Especially if your man hasn't been shot.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, what I'm talking about is if they've been shot. Which happens to soldiers all the time of course.

[ QUOTE ]
If he has, then the combination of wounds and the smoke inhalation may knock him out, but it's still unlikely.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wounding alone can knock him out, that's the problem. The smoke isn't about knocking him out, it's about dropping his health much more quickly when he's knocked out. If you're racing to get to him with a medi-kit, your chances can drop significantly.

And any time a soldier has lowered health, it means more recovery time. Having a soldier do nothing but soak up salary hurts quite a bit, as does having to train up yet another guy.

[ QUOTE ]
I let my rookies die a lot. I play without reloading, so if I have to send someone through a door, it's always some unarmored newb. If he dies, oh well $20000 is chump change and well worth the benefits of knowing that there are aliens lying in ambush. Not every rookie is treated the same though. Some rookies come with exceptional stats, and I armor them up and build them. But the poor suckers with any deficiencies get labelled as fodder and always die first. I never fire a soldier for bad stats. I already paid for him. He's more useful to me if I send him through a door to die. Because my soldiers die, I always keep a few extra around as a buffer so I don't have to wait 3 days for replacements.


[/ QUOTE ]

Definitely a different play style. I treat my guys like I would if they were real live dudes, where bringing my guys back alive is a very important part of the mission. There's usually a better way of doing things than killing off my own soldiers. Semper fi, alien mothafuckas!

[ QUOTE ]
I used to use tanks back when I used to reload. I didn't like my troops dieing so I sent the tanks ahead first. I don't usually let the tanks kill anything though unless as a last resort. They're great scouts. Tons of movement and high hitpoints.

But now, I'd rather have 4 rookies than a tank. With the 4 rookies, I have 4 pieces of fodder I can send to check corners and doors instead of just one. And the total cost of 4 rookies is 80 grand instead of whatever the tank costs which I think is more than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

People often either love them or hate them. I tolerate them here and there, but they are expensive and easy to lose. I used them more in Terror of the Deep, which was harder and got harder faster, and it was even easier to lose soldiers.

I also don't like the way they hog up space. Maneuvering soldiers around them, or to get a sight line around them, can be a pain, especially in narrow corridors.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 09:45 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I had no idea people still played this game. I recall years ago I'd play it in the middle of the night with all the lights off, and it would scare the crap out of me when I'd encounter an alien. Pretty good for a turn-based game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, a game that actually gives you a scare is a pretty rare thing, and doing it with a turn-based game would seem almost impossible. Definitely some strange alignment of the stars or something like that must have been happening to make everything click so well in this game.

jb9
12-14-2005, 11:10 PM
Wow, great game, great thread. Hadn't thought of this one in years, but I just downloaded it.

Either I have to reconfigure my video options, or the graphics are worse than I remembered, but the game is still great.

Am I the only one who use to send 1 or 2 of my best soldiers alone to take on a large or very large ship by themselves (late in the game when they have all the equipment and power)?

Lotta fun.

Blarg
12-14-2005, 11:29 PM
Definitely when you have a game that played at 800x600(or worse) and you put it on today's machines, it looks foggy and pixellicious. Putting them at really modest resolutions like they had back in the day helps a lot.

The graphics were never elaborate or highly detailed, but they were always plenty good enough for what the game gave you. I about crapped my pants every time I saw a zombie maker.

20Five
12-14-2005, 11:35 PM
[ QUOTE ]
This sounds like a pretty cool game. Once finals are over (because I do NOT need another distraction, especially an addicting one!), I'll be sure to try this game out.

I'm amazed at how complex this game seems to be from you guys talking about it. For such an old game...wow. I was a huge fan of Civilization and this game sounds similiar.

[/ QUOTE ]

i cant believe there is even a thread about X-COM.. this was easily my second favorite game of all time, only to civ.. what an amazing game that so many peolpe dont even know about. Used to always name my soldiers after people I knew, to make me even more attached to them.

Definetly in the top 5 games of all time on any platform!

Blarg
12-14-2005, 11:50 PM
heh I used to name the cowardly ones after people I didn't like.

strunks
12-15-2005, 01:07 AM
[ QUOTE ]
Well, what I'm talking about is if they've been shot. Which happens to soldiers all the time of course.

[ QUOTE ]
If he has, then the combination of wounds and the smoke inhalation may knock him out, but it's still unlikely.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wounding alone can knock him out, that's the problem. The smoke isn't about knocking him out, it's about dropping his health much more quickly when he's knocked out. If you're racing to get to him with a medi-kit, your chances can drop significantly.

And any time a soldier has lowered health, it means more recovery time. Having a soldier do nothing but soak up salary hurts quite a bit, as does having to train up yet another guy.


[/ QUOTE ]

The smoke doesn't make him get more wounded if he's shot. It gives him some 'stun' points. If stun &gt; remaining hp he goes down. If he has some stun already when he gets shot he's more likely to go down because the shot could lower his remaining hp below the stun. The soldier still won't die until his hp goes below 0, just like if he was still standing.

I actually prefer my guys to go down when wounded. The aliens won't shoot at a guy thats down. So I can take a couple turns to kill the aliens before tending to the wounded. If the wounded man was still standing, the aliens might shoot him again and he'd die for sure.