Crash course in XCom: Enemy Unknown?

[Anarion]

A quick trip to the wiki proves you right. By default, a fully-levelled heavy has 75 aim, 30 less than a max-power sniper. Still, with scope, that's 85% hit chance, assuming the enemy doesn't have cover (And if you've got a heavy weapons guy, of COURSE the enemy doesn't have cover)

You're forgetting that everything starting with Mutons has built in defense. Muton elites have 30%, sectopods and ethereals have 40%iirc. Thus, a default colonel heavy shooting at a late game enemy without cover is looking at even odds at best. Against an enemy in high cover, they'll have the minimum 1% chance to hit.

You bring heavies to blow up terrain and suppress things, not for their aim. Well, at least until you get ghost armor, at which time point blank heavy plasma crits become standard.

[Seatbelt]

So just got boned by the second mission in the DLC. 4 dead squaddies including all my best, and a mission failure. So we'll be restarting with attempt 15. >:(

[shadow_archmagi]

You're forgetting that everything starting with Mutons has built in defense. Muton elites have 30%, sectopods and ethereals have 40%iirc. Thus, a default colonel heavy shooting at a late game enemy without cover is looking at even odds at best. Against an enemy in high cover, they'll have the minimum 1% chance to hit.

You bring heavies to blow up terrain and suppress things, not for their aim. Well, at least until you get ghost armor, at which time point blank heavy plasma crits become standard.

Keep in mind that they shoot twice with bulletstorm, which has dual consequences:

Two 50-50 chances means that probably at least one will hit (75% chance)

*Two* chances means that maybe both will hit, meaning there's a potential for double damage!

That said, yeah, snipers have a much higher damage potential and accuracy. But there's something to be said for, say, killing two chyrsallids with one man

[Seatbelt]

How do you do Impossible? I started 3 times and the closest I came to beating the first mission was killing 3 aliens with grenades before my squad got annihilated. Those guys couldn't hit anything ever.

[Cristo Meyers]

So just got boned by the second mission in the DLC. 4 dead squaddies including all my best, and a mission failure. So we'll be restarting with attempt 15. >:(

Yeah, Slingshot was nasty. High payoff, for sure, but you'd better be ready for a fight in every mission.

[Hiro Protagonest]

How do you do Impossible? I started 3 times and the closest I came to beating the first mission was killing 3 aliens with grenades before my squad got annihilated. Those guys couldn't hit anything ever.

Watch Beaglerush.

[Cikomyr]

I kind of wish there was more map and mission variability.

Like.. user-made maps.

[Anarion]

Keep in mind that they shoot twice with bulletstorm, which has dual consequences:

Two 50-50 chances means that probably at least one will hit (75% chance)

*Two* chances means that maybe both will hit, meaning there's a potential for double damage!

That said, yeah, snipers have a much higher damage potential and accuracy. But there's something to be said for, say, killing two chyrsallids with one man

Are we comparing colonels? I was using a colonel heavy for my numbers. A colonel sniper also shoots twice. Or shoots several times against enemies without cover. On top of that, squad sight means the sniper is acting from safety, whereas the heavy, if he misses, is dead in the sights of several aliens.

A better comparison would be a shotgun assault with rapid fire. There you get two incredibly powerful shots with high accuracy at close range, but assaults are limited to a single target. The heavy gives you two strong shots with less accuracy, but can over watch better, hit multiple targets, and has explosives.

How do you do Impossible? I started 3 times and the closest I came to beating the first mission was killing 3 aliens with grenades before my squad got annihilated. Those guys couldn't hit anything ever.

Seconding watch Beaglerush. The short version is that you position carefully so you do one spawn at a time. Use hunker down in hard cover for safety, and use grenades and flanking maneuvers to set up favorable high percentage shots for your troops.

The first mission in impossible is still a bit of a crapshoot because all rookies on a bad map can result in failing. After that, you have some squaddies, and that gives you room for error by using stuff like rockets, med kits and careful run and gun.

[nhbdy]

Thirded on watching beagle... that guy knew how to play, but it also showed exactly why I don't play on impossible, not enough patience. And seconded on wishing there was just a bit more map variety.

[LordShotGun]

Thirded on watching beagle... that guy knew how to play, but it also showed exactly why I don't play on impossible, not enough patience. And seconded on wishing there was just a bit more map variety.

I just finished another play through on classic (my fifth game in total) and during that game I saw a map vareation I had never seen before.

It was raining. HARD. Like there were little rivers of water flowing through the streets. Sure it was just another typical parking lot + office building map but it was the little details that counted for me.

Does anyone else look around the map for the little things that you can pick up on if you look close enough? For example on one mission where an alien ship had landed (not shot down) there was a single white truck parked with the driver door open and a black smudge a few paces in front of the truck. So here is a little story of how some back woods driver sees this alien space ship landing and decides to go check it out only to get turned into a greasy stain on the forest floor.

Little things like that I find amusing.

Also, anyone else get annoyed that on VIP missions that the body guards have no weapons? Like, pull a pistol or something and just provide overwatch as thin men drop from the skys.

[Anarion]

Little things like that I find amusing.

Also, anyone else get annoyed that on VIP missions that the body guards have no weapons? Like, pull a pistol or something and just provide overwatch as thin men drop from the skys.

I theorized that it was just that their weapons are regular sidearms that are too weak to do anything. X-com rookies are using top of the line military automatic weapons and high power pistols and they're only just strong enough to kill the weakest alien breeds. I figure that a regular sidearm that a bodyguard would carry wouldn't scratch a thin man.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Also, anyone else get annoyed that on VIP missions that the body guards have no weapons? Like, pull a pistol or something and just provide overwatch as thin men drop from the skys.

They are martial arts masters. Just see what happens if a Thin Man gets too close.

I theorized that it was just that their weapons are regular sidearms that are too weak to do anything. X-com rookies are using top of the line military automatic weapons and high power pistols and they're only just strong enough to kill the weakest alien breeds. I figure that a regular sidearm that a bodyguard would carry wouldn't scratch a thin man.

Yeah, I'm willing to bet that XCOM pistols use .30 cal bullets of some sort with a pointed tip, for better penetration than higher caliber, blunt-nosed rounds.

[Partysan]

I really love this game, but I hate, hate, hate with a burning passion that you can't pause during the enemy round. I hate having to watch my team losing 20 times in a row. Because I'm on my impossible playthrough and savescumming as hell (and not even feeling bad for it). Classic Ironman is fine, but you'd never make me play Impossible Ironman, ever.

[Seatbelt]

So I failed Operation Enduring Light or whatever with only 1 squadmember alive. But it was my B string so I figured I'd press on with the game and just eat the loss. I'm doing amazingly well in the long game portion with the satellites and whatnot. They offer me the mission again and my A team is online (-the sniper with squadsight and the support with bonus move). It starts fine, until one of my heavies misses with his rocket and only kills 2 of the 4 thin men who proceed to wreck up my team before someone uncrosses their eyes and drops them.

So we're beat up but trucking. Then they beam in two mutons. Thin men spawn. Someone's going to die this turn and there is not much I can do about it. I manage to kill 1 muton with no thin men in sight (but they're lurking...). End the turn...


AND TWO MORE MUTONS TELEPORT IN IN FLANKING POSITIONS AND BUTCHER MY SQUAD.

So now my B team is dead, and so is my A team, and that's it for this play-through (I have 3 dudes on the bench), and why do I keep doing this to myself. I get a hankering to play, but I can't just play it again. I've beaten it once. So I play Ironman. I do well for a while, get so completely abused that I give up. 3 months later.... I go back to it. Its like an abusive husband.


Fun fact to know and share, rebooting your tower before the AI finishes its turn prevents the game from saving. Which I discovered when I rage-quit earlier today. But I couldnt reach it fast enough the second time, so everyone died..

[Anarion]

I need to give a great big thank you to this thread. I've done several ironman runs, but I had forgotten that I had an ongoing ironman impossible run that I'd left off several months ago. Reading about it got me to go back to it, and I just successfully finished my ironman impossible run.

[Grif]

So I been running around in classic. I have to say Laser weapons are a great stopgap (like in the classic game), but having to reload did put a downer on that bit. That said, I cleared the Alien Base with only 4 men.

EDIT: I keep running into that bug where your interface freeze when you try to do too many things at once. I need to remind myself to pace these things.

[GungHo]

Also, anyone else get annoyed that on VIP missions that the body guards have no weapons? Like, pull a pistol or something and just provide overwatch as thin men drop from the skys.

I got irritated when one of your first VIPs (the Chinese Triad guy who becomes an XCOM agent) gives a sectoid a new cranial shunt without any effort and then throws his pistol away right before you start your mission to extract him. "Uh, sir, you might wanna keep that."

[Geno9999]

Fellow XCOM commanders, I have a question:
Is there such a thing as too many engineers.
I have like, 33 of them or something. Everything's practically dirt cheap, but I would like some scientists to help speed up research.

[chiasaur11]

Fellow XCOM commanders, I have a question:
Is there such a thing as too many engineers.
I have like, 33 of them or something. Everything's practically dirt cheap, but I would like some scientists to help speed up research.

No such thing as too many engineers. Ever.

You need them to get more satellites. And there's no protection from a satellite mind.

[Partysan]

Fellow XCOM commanders, I have a question:
Is there such a thing as too many engineers.
I have like, 33 of them or something. Everything's practically dirt cheap, but I would like some scientists to help speed up research.

There might be such a thing, but you can't even build a satellite nexus without having at least 35. At least on impossible, I don't know if it's less on lower difficulties.

[Silfir]

If you didn't have this many engineers, you wouldn't have the money to build whatever your scientists might have researched. Better to have the money.

[shadow_archmagi]

There's no such thing as too many engineers. Of course, there *is* such a thing as not-enough everything else.

[Anarion]

Realistically, the question is where the issue is coming up. Are you deciding where to launch your last couple satellites and deciding between an extra couple scientists vs. an extra couple engineers? If so, just take whichever setup gives you the most money.

If you've got an abduction and you're picking between scientists and engineers...you still should take the money or the new recruit instead.

[KillianHawkeye]

Fellow XCOM commanders, I have a question:
Is there such a thing as too many engineers.
I have like, 33 of them or something. Everything's practically dirt cheap, but I would like some scientists to help speed up research.

Thirty engineers is not a lot. Come back when you have sixty, or eighty.

[Sharoth]

~sighs~ I blame you guys! ~starts playing XCOM again~ I had been able to put it down and not play it for a while.

~GRINS~

[shadow_archmagi]

~sighs~ I blame you guys! ~starts playing XCOM again~ I had been able to put it down and not play it for a while.

~GRINS~

I picked up Apocalypse for the first time because of this thread. I'd had it for years, but got discouraged by the realtime aspects of it and never full wanted to explore it.

[Grif]

I picked up Apocalypse for the first time because of this thread. I'd had it for years, but got discouraged by the realtime aspects of it and never full wanted to explore it.

Huh, why? I thought Apocalypse real-time was pretty well done. (though dual-wielded weapons for horribly OP, but you can choose not to use them.) Your agents/soldiers even dodge in real time. (Something I found out pleasantly while using real-time.)

[Tengu_temp]

You can play Apocalypse in turns, like classic X-Com, but it's very cumbersome and some things don't work like they should (for example: base defense turrets absolutely murder enemies in real-time play, but they don't work at all in turn-based play). Since the game has an active pause, I see no reason not to play it in real time.

[shadow_archmagi]

Huh, why? I thought Apocalypse real-time was pretty well done. (though dual-wielded weapons for horribly OP, but you can choose not to use them.) Your agents/soldiers even dodge in real time. (Something I found out pleasantly while using real-time.)

Having actually played it, yes, this is completely true. (I'm currently on Week 3, Normal difficulty, and probably heading for a defeat. Disrupter Rifles are becoming the weapon of choice for my enemies, but I haven't finished researching them, and my advanced laboratories both still have a few more days to go, so I think I'm losing the science race. I'm certainly losing a lot of men- those rifles pack a punch! I'm constantly strapped for cash, so I've abandoned all hope of stopping UFOs and now just show up right afterwards to clean up the mess.)

I noticed that the "Taken over by aliens" mark is actually at 50%. Why is this? Is there any reason I should care whether an organization is at 60 percent vs 90%, if they're both "Taken over?" Can I reclaim an organization for humanity?

Also, if an organization is worthless and weak, should I bother protecting it from aliens? I mean, yeah, Megapol and Marsec sell me weapons, so staying on their side is good, but what about, say, the Technocrats, who provide nothing? Is there a disadvantage to them being evil? Do the aliens get more powerful with more support?

[Tengu_temp]

Believe it or not, the best way to stop big UFOs in earlygame is spamming loads of those cheap, tiny hoverbikes. They deal very low damage individually no matter what weapons you give them, but they are good at dodging and if you have many of them the damage stacks up quickly. Just make sure to order any of them that got hit and survived to retreat.