XCOM: One Does Not Simply "Shoot" a Cryssalid...

[RagingKrikkit]

Do you get the soundwaves if all the do is overwatch? I thought you only got them if they moved.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Pick off is correct; rockets and/or snipers.

Grenades too, if you can sneak up on them while keeping outside LoS. Relatively easy in most maps. Another cool trick is to intentionally send a soldier blundering right into them... from an angle such that when they scatter for cover they'll be flanked by your other five guys.

Regarding Disabling Shot: Never tried it. Can aliens still use special abilities after getting hit with it? By the description it seems so, so I figured it was more an invitation to recieve some grenades/poison spit/mind bullets to the face. Might have to try it out next game.

[Surrealistik]

Grenades too, if you can sneak up on them while keeping outside LoS. Relatively easy in most maps. Another cool trick is to intentionally send a soldier blundering right into them... from an angle such that when they scatter for cover they'll be flanked by your other five guys.

I disinclude nades, because I really, _really_ don't want to press my luck with a bad spawn on Impossible Ironman; nading from beyond LoS requires you get close, which means you have to move up. You also chance a misclick/misstep that causes the spawn to scatter. You need to be paranoid with your risk management.

[Anarion]

Do you get the soundwaves if all the do is overwatch? I thought you only got them if they moved.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think in that example that the thin man was not moving but I was still getting soundwaves from him for 2-3 turns before they stopped.

Regarding Disabling Shot: Never tried it. Can aliens still use special abilities after getting hit with it? By the description it seems so, so I figured it was more an invitation to recieve some grenades/poison spit/mind bullets to the face. Might have to try it out next game.

I've used it in the majority of my captures. In my experience, the alien always uses its standard action to reload and fix its gun, even when it has psychic powers or grenades. The majority of the time they don't even move, although I have seen them shift positions once or twice. I basically treat it as a free turn to dash your arc thrower soldier directly up to the alien in prep for the capture.

[mistformsquirrl]

Strongly reccomend against putting Battle Scanner on a sniper; Disabling Shot will come in far handier.

I disagree, it just depends on what you're doing with your sniper.

I find in most circumstances that if my sniper can shoot, it can probably outright kill the enemy with minimal help; if it can do that, there's little reason to use disabling shot.

By using Battle Scanner you can get an idea of what's coming up before you actually get to it, and your sniper can pick off or at least heavily damage one of the targets before they scatter. (Occassionally you'll even be able to let loose with a rocket on a cluster of aliens that way, but that's rare.)

I'm not saying it's not a contest and one should always go Battle Scanner, but there are uses for both abilities and ultimately I often find BS more useful than DS.

Usually if I need an enemy disabled I just pin them down with Suppression fire from my heavy, one of my supports or my SHIV.

[Surrealistik]

Disabling shot is useful for capture, but yeah, there are so many other ways to do this that it's not especially necessary, or critical; it's a niche ability that's nice to have. In the meanwhile if you're trying to take something down, you can headshot. Is it something superdurable like a Disc/Pod? Bring the HEAT.

Battle Scanner by contrast consistently makes things so much safer/easier in virtually every combat.

[Anarion]

Wait, I think I may have not realized something. Assuming you have a line of fire, does the battle scanner provide sight for squadsight snipers across the map? If it does, I totally didn't realize that and it's much better than I thought.

[Surrealistik]

Wait, I think I may have not realized something. Assuming you have a line of fire, does the battle scanner provide sight for squadsight snipers across the map? If it does, I totally didn't realize that and it's much better than I thought.

Yes; part of why it's so amazing.

[Zevox]

Speaking of bugs, anyone have trouble landing explosives on Sectopods? They seem to completely ignore rockets and grenades half the time

I had that happen to me in the final mission of my first file. Dropped two rockets blaster bombs on the two Sectopods that show near the end - killed one, nothing on the other. Fortunately I also had a double-tap Sniper ready, so she was able to take out the other.

I had it happen to me with a berzerker. Consider yourselves lucky.

Ouch. Yeah, I'll take the Muton over a Berserker any day. Especially since he at least politely waited to jump me until after I had killed all his friends and healed up.

Zevox

[mistformsquirrl]

Wait, I think I may have not realized something. Assuming you have a line of fire, does the battle scanner provide sight for squadsight snipers across the map? If it does, I totally didn't realize that and it's much better than I thought.

Indeed, that's part of why I love that ability <^_^>

[Cikomyr]

Figures. The first unit who gets a promotion is from Ireland, so I rename him after me (Irish name).

Obviously, he dies 5 seconds in the next mission.

[Zevox]

Oooo, important discovery! Ghost Armor invisibility does not break from using the Arc Thrower. Should make late-game captures exponentially easier.

Don't know if that applies to all items (and thus grenades), or just that particular one, though I'd wager it applies to med-kits as well.
(And time to find out that everyone already knew this, and I'm the last one to find out...)

Edit: Nevermind, false alarm (see below).

Zevox

[Anarion]

Oooo, important discovery! Ghost Armor invisibility does not break from using the Arc Thrower. Should make late-game captures exponentially easier.

Don't know if that applies to all items (and thus grenades), or just that particular one, though I'd wager it applies to med-kits as well.
(And time to find out that everyone already knew this, and I'm the last one to find out...)

Zevox

That's quite interesting. So you can go invisible, run up, stun, and then you're safe for a turn, right?

Another random bit about the arc thrower. It's apparently not on the same set of rolls as the rest of your actions. I'm still trying to confirm this, but I've
a) successfully saved and reloaded to make an arc thrower work when it didn't before, without any intervening actions
b) Had an arc thrower fail, reloaded and tried firing a different weapon with a lower % hit chance instead and hitting.

[Zevox]

Nevermind, I was wrong. Turns out that using the Arc Thrower does end invisibility, it's just that the animation takes a while to kick in, so I didn't notice that it had worn off when I initially checked it. False alarm.

Zevox

[HamHam]

However, Medkits do not break stealth and more importantly neither does Mind Control. Mind Fray however does.

This game is pretty fun but it's biggest problem is that the combat is rather shallow in it being 90% about knowing and abusing the discovery mechanic more so than any actual consideration of tactics.

[Impnemo]

That's quite interesting. So you can go invisible, run up, stun, and then you're safe for a turn, right?

Another random bit about the arc thrower. It's apparently not on the same set of rolls as the rest of your actions. I'm still trying to confirm this, but I've
a) successfully saved and reloaded to make an arc thrower work when it didn't before, without any intervening actions
b) Had an arc thrower fail, reloaded and tried firing a different weapon with a lower % hit chance instead and hitting.

I actually toyed with some save scumming trying to figure the RNG out myself. Had a 90% hit chance for an arc thrower and I saved and reloaded through over ten shots. All missed. .1^10 = 0.0000000001% If I fired other attacks up to 90% hit they missed. If I fired a shot over 90% hit (I had one, 95% off a sniper) it hit. If the first shot missed, the alien survived, and I could stun him reliably. Did so four times or so.


If im right, and it wasn't a fluke, it seems like attacks are rolled on the defender at the start of the round, before you even shoot. At least for the first one. Possible theres a roll on the defender for possible attacks, more probable the attack forces a reroll. Willing to admit the possibility I'm purely bat**** crazy.

[HamHam]

I actually toyed with some save scumming trying to figure the RNG out myself. Had a 90% hit chance for an arc thrower and I saved and reloaded through over ten shots. All missed. .1^10 = 0.0000000001% If I fired other attacks up to 90% hit they missed. If I fired a shot over 90% hit (I had one, 95% off a sniper) it hit. If the first shot missed, the alien survived, and I could stun him reliably. Did so four times or so.


If im right, and it wasn't a fluke, it seems like attacks are rolled on the defender at the start of the round, before you even shoot. At least for the first one. Possible theres a roll on the defender for possible attacks, more probable the attack forces a reroll. Willing to admit the possibility I'm purely bat**** crazy.

The seed is saved. Performing the same action will always give the same result from a given save.

[Anarion]

I actually toyed with some save scumming trying to figure the RNG out myself. Had a 90% hit chance for an arc thrower and I saved and reloaded through over ten shots. All missed. .1^10 = 0.0000000001% If I fired other attacks up to 90% hit they missed. If I fired a shot over 90% hit (I had one, 95% off a sniper) it hit. If the first shot missed, the alien survived, and I could stun him reliably. Did so four times or so.


If im right, and it wasn't a fluke, it seems like attacks are rolled on the defender at the start of the round, before you even shoot. At least for the first one. Possible theres a roll on the defender for possible attacks, more probable the attack forces a reroll. Willing to admit the possibility I'm purely bat**** crazy.

The seed is saved. Performing the same action will always give the same result from a given save.

I wonder if the arc thrower alters its seed based on other factors of any kind? I agree that if you just save and reload over and over, the arc thrower, like other weapons, will always miss an identical shot. However, as I mentioned, I tried saving and reloading to "waste" the bad roll on a random assault rifle and it hit even though it had a lower hit chance.

I'm certain it's not by enemy though, however it's saving the rolls it's saving them globally. If you have a bad rolling coming up, it does not matter which target you select, assuming the percentages don't change.

Also another random tidbit. Enemies critting is predetermined based on what actions you take. I tested this with a sniper and a heavy both exposed to a regular floater and neither vulnerable to dying even on a crit. If the sniper shot and missed, the heavy would get hit normally. If the sniper attempted mind fray and failed (89% chance notwithstanding) the heavy would get crit. I reloaded 5 times to check, exact same sequence based on which move the sniper used, every time.

[Zevox]

Three.

Three Sectopods.

In one mission.

Damn, that was one well-defended cargo ship UFO. There weren't that many of those things in the friggin' final mission last time I played.

Faced the first one outside the ship - in fact, it was on the roof over the first room I could've entered, positioned quite strangely. Took it out with sniper shots, a rocket, and a couple of lucky shots from a Support.

The other two scared the crap out of me. I cleared the entrance to the big cargo area of the ship, and had to proceed down it - through the central corridor where cover is inconvenient at best and there are multiple turns around which enemies could lie in wait. I sent my Assault, Dante, down it, and thankfully had him cloaked - I had just cleared quite a few enemies, so I wasn't expecting too much more, and had sent him straight to the end in one double-move. First intersection, he spots a Sectopod and two Drones in a side room. When he reaches his destination, he spots another set of the same at the exit to that area.

Yeah, a mad scramble to take out one without alterting the other ensued. Helped that my sniper was on the roof with a clear view down the corridor, and could take shots at the far one with no trouble. Oh, and when I retreated Dante next round (the Sectopod at the exit walked right up to him in spite of him being invisible...), I spotted two Heavy Floaters outside the area, just to complicate matters further.

Long firefights later though, I won, no casualties. I did manage to down the first of them without alterting the other, and then got the drop on the other as it patrolled the opposite end of the cargo section. So damn lucky - the last thing I needed was to be in the crossfire of two Sectopods at the same time.

Zevox

[RagingKrikkit]

When the game autosaves, it freezes the RNG code where is was. essentially, they made it so that you can't do precisely what you were trying to do.

EDIT: Ninja'd

[Krade]

Just had a fairly... embarassing multiplayer match.

Courthouse map. I have a Sq. Assault decked out with Ghost Armor and an Alloy Cannon, a Cpt. Sniper with a Skeleton Suit, Plasma Sniper and Laser Pistol, and two Sectoids.

Initial Contact: He opens a door and spots one of my sectoids. He shoots and it dies. I cloak my assault and hide him by the door they opened. Two assaults move in cautiously and on my next turn I straight brain one of the assaults, thinking that the other wouldn't be able to do enough damage to kill him with his little Light Plama Rifle. I was incorrect. My assault's dead, and my other sectoid (which was in that room) didn't last much longer either.

Now I've only got my sniper against an assault and two or more Sectoids (I could hear the mind meld thing going off). I grapple to the roof, run to the other side and drop down to the door they came in at. Bam, Sectoid doing the meld. I pick him off with the laser pistol and, happy at my small victory of killing two sectoids, I grapple back to the roof where I run across either side hoping to catch the assault off gaurd. I also saw a sniper before I jumped back up. I can't go looking for them as a sniper since the assault would have torn me up if I didn't catch it at range or with a reaction. So I play a cat and mouse game with the sniper, running around the building, grappling to and from the roof. Ocassionally catching an overwatch pistol shot. The whole time I knew I had to be extremely careful and lucky so the assault wouldn't just put me down. After a while I decide to just sit on the truck in the back alley on overwatch and just dare him to after me. After maybe five turns of this I hear footsteps on the roof. Knowing the assault didn't have a way up there, I grappled up and shot the sniper with my laser pistol. 3 damage. Still kicking. He fires at me and misses. I fire again. Sniper's dead. I breathe a sigh of relief. Now I just have to figure out how I'm gonna kill the assault and...

Game over. I win. It hits me that the Sectoid was boosting the assault when I killed it and I just spent 40 turns scared to death of something that had been dead the whole time. Since my sniper was MUCH better equipped than his, I could've ended it at pretty much any point.

But hey, victory

Edit: I am so far liking the multiplayer a lot. With my 14 wins and 5 loses, I'm actually ranked 60th on the Xbox leaderboards. I've determined that your rank is based on you win/loss spread (my spread being +9, I am apparently better that most everybody) with disconnects counting as an as-yet-undetermined number of losses. One of those 5 losses was against one of the people contesting for the top spot. It wasn't even close.

[Kudaku]

On the whole save-scumming thing: The game does indeed prepare a list of rolls for you at the start of each mission. This means that you can repeat an action and you will get the same result every time. However, what you can do to trick it is to change the order the actions are taken. If you have a target with 3 health that you're desperately trying to stun but the 90% stun chance is missing, have someone fire on the alien you're trying to stun. That shot will almost certainly miss, clearing the low roll off the list and giving your stun a fresh one.

Obviously this is save-scumming of the highest order and I wouldn't recommend doing this for any reason, but tbh this game has some issues and sometimes this is the only way to sort things out.

Speaking from experience since my first commander glitched through his UFO, making the mission impossible to complete. Then I realized the game has autosave disabled by default and my last save was 45 minutes ago .

[Cespenar]

Though I respect the ironmanners, I don't think a game with this much bugs would do anything but annoy me in an ironman run, personally.

[mistformsquirrl]

Well that was unpleasant. >.<

Routine Abduction mission at a fast food place in Germany.

I move my SHIV up, as I have been, cautiously looking for aliens. First move, nothing, so I move everyone up to the line of cars in the parking lot, setting everyone to overwatch... no chances taken, despite having nearly gotten Titan Armor and having only 2 casualties to date.

Second turn, I move the SHIV up further still... Bingo, aliens on the right side of the resturant, a handful of Thin-Men.

I also hear noises indicating there are some to my left as well. No worries. I handily blast one of the Thin Men without concern, and then move everyone up into the resturant so that we're fortified...

Then all hell breaks loose. From the back of the resturant comes 3 Mutons. From my left side, 2 more Mutons and a Muton Berserker, and 3 Floaters.

So we're outflanked by and large, but I still have two guys left for my turn, so I fire a rocket at the three Mutons in the middle of the resturant. Both Mutons are hurt badly, and I kill one with my other guy. Okay, no worries, this looks bad but I should be able to pull it out...

Then something that's never happened to me before occurred... The Mutons on my left tossed not one, but *two* grenades. This is perfectly fair of course, there are two of them and a human player would have happily done the same, but I'd never seen the AI willing to be so ruthless before, so I thought I was safe.

So yeah, one death, 3 people without cover, and the 2 survivors are critically damaged; also my SHIV is now at half HP. Both surivors panic, leaving me with a Squaddie sniper (IE: no squad sight), a damaged SHIV, and a Cpl. Support for the entire next turn.

Needless to say from there I fought as hard as I could, but I was outnumbered badly to begin with, and everyone who'd survived was wounded. I managed to kill 6 of the attacking aliens, primarily with my Cpl Support and damaged SHIV... but to no avail, the squad was wiped out. In the process Germany, France and Russia have all panicked, as did India since I didn't go save them.

Thankfully my one saving grace is that it's early in the month, I just got Titan armor, and I have a satellite in my back pocket. So in-theory it's possible between now and the end of the month to pull one country back from the brink via satellite, and maybe save another via a mission or two. No guarantees, but since I haven't lost any countries at all thus far I think I'll be fine no matter what happens.

I've also sadly had to resolve to stop using SHIVs, despite finding them immensely useful. 2 of my SHIVs are now bugged and unusable for reasons unknown. Neither has ever even seen combat, but when I click to add it to a mission team I get the "error" sound effect and it won't load.

*sigh*

I really love this game but the bugs are seriously ticking me off.*

---

On a completely unrelated topic:

I really, really want to see a fantasy mod for XCOM. Yes I know that's kind of weird, but done right I think it could be a real blast < ._.> The system is already in place to allow special abilities and spells after all, and while the interception system wouldn't make much sense, everything else could easily enough be re-purposed. Obviously we're talking total conversion here... I don't think sending knights against aliens would make a ton of sense, but I think you get the basic idea.

Also wanted: WH40k mod. It'd be like playing Kill Team >_>

*This sounds like just about every game I fall in love with these days. Blergh.

[Cikomyr]

So far, I haven't been doing bad. Only save-scumming when I misunderstood a game mechanic (ex: thinking that Council Escort Mission would make the story progress and not intervening, thus losing the mission).

Although in a Landed UFO mission, things were going extremely well. The battle was on an open terrain in North America, so my sniper and heavy were cutting through the Floaters and Sectoids like a hot knife through butter...

But near the end, a trio of Thin Men appeared and ambushed my team leader; Lt Support, who was all alone. My 2nd most experienced/efficient operative, Sgt Heavy, went to his rescue but died in the attempt.

Damn it. My 2 best soldiers and now I'm without any Support, my best Heavy is the rookie who just got promoted.


I just realized something: Does Squadsight works in combination with Overwatch?

[Vitruviansquid]

Minor spoiler about a midgame mission in this question, but I figure better safe than sorry, hence the tag.

Spoiler

Show

When your soldiers encounter the Alien Entertainment in the base assault, Dr. Shen in the PC version says something along the lines of "So this is what aliens do for fun? Well... at least they're not playing computer games." I wonder if he pokes fun at "video games" in any of the console versions.

[mistformsquirrl]

I just realized something: Does Squadsight works in combination with Overwatch?

Yes <._.> my snipers tend to get at least half of their kills in overwatch in large part because of that little factor. Saves the bacon of my other troops too.

[Cespenar]

Heh, just rescued a Sergeant Sniper with a cool afro, and he promptly started kicking ass. Gunslinger is good. Makes the guy versatile.

[Reynard]

so, apparently, if you send an interceptor out exactly when:

You complete a project in the foundry.
Also complete the dissection of a sectiod commander.
Also the UFO is right on top of your hanger on the map screen.
Also you were about to finish constructing a Sat Nexus.

The game will bug the hell out when the interceptor connects and zoom in on Africa instead, refusing to do anything at all.

My last save was a long, hard, frustrating mission/battle against the engine ago, and I really can't to put it bluntly, arsed.

I'll miss you, Cairo, Wildcat, Low Rider, Devil Dog, Strings and Doc, but this campaign has been too bug-molested for me to stand any more.

[DaedalusMkV]

Just had my first taste of Classic. First few missions doing fine, killing aliens and taking only a single loss, albeit a bunch of injuries thanks to basic crud-armour. So, time for an Abduction mission in Canada. It's a liqour store, cool, never played this map before. Advance a bit, overwatch, no contacts. Advance a bit more: Three alien groups all activate at once, no warning whatsoever. Four Floaters and two Thin Men all told. Well, balls, but at least I've been playing it smart and still have everyone's actions left. Heavy blows the snot out of two Floaters with his rocket, everyone else misses. Oh well, that's how the game goes some times. Alien turn: Floater shoots my Support in heavy cover from half the map away. Hit. Crit. Support bleeding out, and he carries my medkit. Other Floater shoots my Rookie, a couple squares from my now-dying Support, also in full cover. Hit. Crit. Dead. Thin Man poisons my Heavy, other Thin Man shoots my assault, miss. Whew, at least something went my way. My turn: Heavy advances to a good firing position, shoots and misses. Assault advances a bit, getting into position for a good Run and Gun. Randomly activates two more Thin Men on the other side of a wall. Come on, really? They weren't even in line-of-sight! Shoots with his pistol, misses. Aliens' turn blows away my cover and kills both soldiers between their six shots. Mission failed, with me still within sprinting distance of the Skyranger. Whut?

Needless to say, I ragequit to come post this here. Is Classic usually this bad?