[PC/PS3/360] Xcom Enemy unknown

[Myssa Rei]

Hmm, getting errors at starting the game. I've reverified the cache on Steam, but apparently it keeps on missing one file, and keeps on redownloading it to no avail. Mmph.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

In the Situation Room and if you have a Satellite, you can click on the nation you wanna put the satellite on and it will tell you the bonuses of having that nation covered.

*facepalm* Really?! Aww man then I should of went with Africa as my first base.

By the time I encountered Mutons my sniper was already a Liutenant with Squadsight so she just camps far back in the landing zone and snipes across the map. I believe the Muton's panic inducing skill is only for the target it can visually see which my sniper is far far away for it to affect her.

What I usually do is whenever I see a Muton the first thing I do is throw a grenade at it to wound it and take away it's cover. It's then I take the final shots to take it down and still get weapon fragments. If your in a terror or abduction mission, you just go wild and blow crap up. I usually have my heavy blast the side walls of building they are hiding in so my whole team has a shot at them. Explosives are your best friends in those mission types, not so much for UFO missions as you want to recover the UFO in one peice.

Yeah it's weird.

Now I don't have much of an issue with them.

The Sectoids though are the main issue with their mind controlling capabilities.

With the Mutons, now that most of my guys are above LT and are armed with plasma weaponry I can take them on easily.

Funny thing cause I just captured 3 of them because I thought they were using plasma rifles.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Funny thing cause I just captured 3 of them because I thought they were using plasma rifles.

There are only two guns you can capture; light plasma rifles for al early enemies, and heavy plasma for late game Muton elites and maybe other elite units I haven't seen yet.

If you want normal Plasma rifles you would need to build them yourself, it is worth it. And same goes with plasma sniper and the special shotgun. Light plasma and laser is good when you got them, but eventually it wouldn't be enough anymore.

[Edge Meltdown]

what's the drop rate for heavy plasma rifle? I've been trying to get the best AR in the game and so far I only have the plasma rifle from researching.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Edge Meltdown

what's the drop rate for heavy plasma rifle? I've been trying to get the best AR in the game and so far I only have the plasma rifle from researching.

It isn't random. You get them from stunning the Red Armour Muton Elites (NOT Berserker). By that stage you would have already known how to build your heavy plasma. (Heavy Plasma are for Heavies only. You need ordinary "Plasma Rifle" for Support and Assault.)

Light plasma is the only thing you can capture normally. In-story X-com actually built better plasma rifles than the aliens do. And interestingly enough the ending of the game sort of justified why.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

There are only two guns you can capture; light plasma rifles for al early enemies, and heavy plasma for late game Muton elites and maybe other elite units I haven't seen yet.

If you want normal Plasma rifles you would need to build them yourself, it is worth it. And same goes with plasma sniper and the special shotgun. Light plasma and laser is good when you got them, but eventually it wouldn't be enough anymore.

Yeah see there was a request for 6 plasma rifles for 2000 and I kinda went with that deal

I kinda regret it at this point so I'm just hoping for another UFO to replenish my stock. Fortunately I have enough light plasma rifles to cover that gap. I also focused my resources on equipping my fighters with plasma cannons so they at least have a chance to down the UFOs.

At this point I send in 2 heavies, 2 assaults, 2 supports and one sniper. All of them armed with plasma-based weaponry or lasers.

On that matter I'm doing what you said and building an entire network of workshops and such and the whole base at this point is powered by 3 thermal generators.

I haven't built the hyper network as I want to focus on getting my guys PSI abilities and plasma as I'm close to building a plasma sniper rifle.

On that matter Chrysallids and drones cannot be captured right?

And what do you guys do with interceptors? I base at least 2 at each base armed with plasma cannons each. Once I get more ellyrium then I'll move up to the advanced fighters.

[Wandering_Youth]

I have one of each with Interceptors and Firestorms. Firestorms equip with plasma cannons to take on the bigger aliens ships like the battleship and Interceptors with EMP cannons to take down small UFOs and supply ships so I can get all the Elerium.

Finished beating the game and the ending was meh. Overall a great game, but could of been better. Especially the map randomization as I played far too many missions on the same map. I once shot a UFO down over a lake and I was still able to get on a mission to retrieve it, but it loaded another forest map with like no water on the environment. It needs more UFO spawning as it sometimes takes forever to find one so I can grab some Elerium, power cores and flight controls. They need to also randomize the alien types more as near end game all you fight most of the time are Mutons and Etherneals. Sectoids, Thin Men, Outsiders have like completely dissappeared near end game.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Just got my first alien base misson.

I played it safe. Put my soldiers on the end of the ramp so that the only way the aliens could see me is by climbing into shotgun rage.

I finally figured out the proper way to use Heavies; they suck at sniping, but they are good for two things; metal storm to destroy the enemy's cover even if she missed, and also single handedly killing a Sectopod by her double robot damage+Heavy Plasma+Metal Storm+scope

So now my attack orders is Sniper, then Heavy: suppress or double fire, followed by ranged rifle shots from support, and end with Assault Run and Gun for clean up.

Capturing the Sectoid commander isn't that hard on Normal, I found out I can surprise it from the side ramp where it can't see me. Just jump down, use suppress to cut its health then capture.

Edit: My ideal Base is nearly complete. There is one more plot-related room to construct that I left room for, and the alien containment that would be demolished for one more workshop when I run out of test subjects.

Spoiler for spoilered for size:

[Tiberium Wolf]

It's my time playing xcom games.

My 1st run I played with normal difficulty and seemed alright till the Disc alien appeared. Didn't lose any territory yet. I decided to start over at novice difficulty.

2nd run at novice difficulty I spend more time scanning for aliens and then game got much tougher when the Berserker show up and the Disc. I lost 2 territories by then. Assaulting the 1st enemy base was hard like hell with those damn Berserkers.

So what did I do wrong? What can I do to have an easier play?

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

It's my time playing xcom games.

My 1st run I played with normal difficulty and seemed alright till the Disc alien appeared. Didn't lose any territory yet. I decided to start over at novice difficulty.

2nd run at novice difficulty I spend more time scanning for aliens and then game got much tougher when the Berserker show up and the Disc. I lost 2 territories by then. Assaulting the 1st enemy base was hard like hell with those damn Berserkers.

So what did I do wrong? What can I do to have an easier play?

How often do you lose men? The key is to keep your elites alive. For example, if you max your Assault soldiers to Corporal and give them the upgraded Shot Cannons, they can fire a free shot as soon as a berserker get within 4 square of them with their special skill. And as long as you hit them at least once before then, the Berserker dies.

I recommend ether have troops retreating after seeing an alien, or having one Support doing scouting.

Here is what I do recently: Have one Heavy at front line, with one sniper and two shotgun assults on each end. Then have the support move as far as he can with his first move (with the move upgrade he can go really far).

If you see aliens, then you can immediately backtrack your Support back into cover, and just keep pressing the reaction shot option for everyone until the alien show up. As long as everyone has upgraded plasma weapons you should be able to shoot any alien that get within range.

I personally give scopes to everyone. You can never have too much accuracy. Metal storm for Heavies. If you are not in a terror mission, always let the enemy come to you. As I say, use the speed-boosted Support as bait.

[Tiberium Wolf]

I only have lasers. Are plasma better?

Overwatch miss most of the times. But when it's the CPU it hit most of the times.
I managed to fail with 95% in open field with 1 square in between the target.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

I only have lasers. Are plasma better?

Overwatch miss most of the times. But when it's the CPU it hit most of the times.
I managed to fail with 95% in open field with 1 square in between the target.

Overwatch has accuracy penalty. That is why you need scopes.

And the idea is that you never assume a shot will hit. Always have backups.


That's why I have the configuration in my previous post. Have the Heavy either use explosives, use metal storm or suppress, then have the Snipe take a shot. Then have the Support go into medium range and cover for rifle shots. If they miss or the alien still lives, THEN send in RunNGun Assault with shotguns.

95% shots can and will miss if you shoot often enough.

And I can't stress enough the importance of having a Heavy in your team. Heavies move slow and are bad shoots, but they are your best odds against machine units. I am almost tempted to have 2 heavies, except I wanted two Supports and two Assaults more badly.

p.s. Got Psi-lab. The first three soldiers were all tested positive. I might start training them before going for the downed Overseer.

EDIT:
In truth, I would prefer no shotguns at all and just have both my Assaults with rifles. But their damage would nearly half and thus I won't reliably kill aliens before they kill me. If this game allow 8 or even 10 men squads, I would have 4-5 Assaults with rifles.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Tiberium Wolf

I only have lasers. Are plasma better?

Yes. Light plasma rifles do the same amount of damage, but get a +10 aim bonus. The heavy plasma rifles don't get a hit bonus, but they have a rather substantial damage buff.

[Skane]

My concept of overwatch is that more dakka never hurts. I basically just use the classic leapfrog method of movement with overlapping arcs of fire. Shoot enough bullets, and it will hit the target.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Skane

My concept of overwatch is that more dakka never hurts. I basically just use the classic leapfrog method of movement with overlapping arcs of fire. Shoot enough bullets, and it will hit the target.

Which is fine. But since unlike the old Xcom, stray shoots can't kill other enemies in the background, you need scopes. And if you use a Heavy you better be sure she is within 5 squares. No point re-enacting Predator with mowing down the scenery.
That's the thing with XCOM; unlike the original game, in this game some characters just can't shoot very far.

p.s. Regular Floaters and Sectoids all but disappeared. I might decide in future walkthroughs to stock up on their corpses; I need the ship consumables for harder UFOs.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Which is fine. But since unlike the old Xcom, stray shoots can't kill other enemies in the background, you need scopes. And if you use a Heavy you better be sure she is within 5 squares. No point re-enacting Predator with mowing down the scenery.

And that's pretty damn disappointing, considering how freakishly good shots Muton Elite are...maybe it's because they're actually strong enough to aim down the sights, and not have to pray and spray from the hip.


Also. A high level sniper with a plasma sniper rifle is literally death to Sectopods if he gets a critical hit. I've found that he's by far the most efficient heavy armor killer.

[Key Board]

victory report

victory report

victory report

victory report

I could have done it sooner. I stalled, so I could shoot down a Battleship

Next: Classic difficulty

..

[Wandering_Youth]

If you have, Colonel ranked snipers with the Opportunist ability + SCOPE you almost never miss on Overwatch. Opportunist removes aim penality and gives you a 50% chance to score criticals. So with that ability plus the scope you have a 95% chance to hit with 50% to critical on Overwatch. Now add that in with Squad Sight with Archangel armor. You have a sniper that will pretty much one shot anything that moves across the map.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

And that's pretty damn disappointing, considering how freakishly good shots Muton Elite are...maybe it's because they're actually strong enough to aim down the sights, and not have to pray and spray from the hip.


Also. A high level sniper with a plasma sniper rifle is literally death to Sectopods if he gets a critical hit. I've found that he's by far the most efficient heavy armor killer.

I'm finding the Archangel armour to be quite useful and that it significantly increases the accuracy of the weapons.

I was able to deal with a terror mission and save at least 17/18 civilians because of it. What a difference it makes.

[Blaat]

Originally Posted by Key Board

Next: Classic difficulty

..

I've noticed that the difference in difficulty between medium and classic is pretty big. To a point I find medium too easy.