2012-10-18, 00:58 | Link #301 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
|
Try to get full satellite coverage. Or at least get 4 out of 5 Continents covered. That's when panic issues die down. Also if you are going to slow down, remember to upgrade your ship's weapons. The larger ships will still appear even if you don't continue with the plot.
__________________
|
2012-10-18, 01:42 | Link #302 |
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
|
Yes, the alien base assault can actually be used strategically to lower global panic levels should you require it. On my current Classic difficulty run, I had this problem of Russia being at full Panic level despite having a satellite over it, and I had only 10 days to the Council Report. My Outsider Shard only needed 2 days to research though, so I researched that, completed the Alien Base Assault, and got Russia's panic down in time to prevent them from leaving. With me having full global coverage by that time (asides from Egypt and Nigeria, who've already left), my global situation now always hovers around 1-2 panic points per country with no sign of spiralling out of control.
__________________
|
2012-10-18, 09:51 | Link #303 |
Moderate Haruhiist
|
I do suggest getting some kind of balance patch off Nexus. The one I got fixed the unfair Accuracy and Critical bonuses enemies got on Classic, and allows for Terrorship/Abductor interception (which are normally invisible meaning you can't shoot them down). Managed to shoot down two battleships as a result, which means... Blaster Launchers!
__________________
|
2012-10-18, 10:49 | Link #305 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
|
Trying to Savescum an Impossible Difficulty game right now.
Ouch. I am using every trick in the book just to stay alive. Even with loaded dice, this ain't easy. On the positive side I have learned to use grenades properly. Not least because you won't kill them with just one grenade. And smoke grenades are GREAT! So far, finished the mandatory first two missions. The countries immediately go to red after a terror mission, so I assume this means it isn't possible to save every nation on Impossible even if I savescum... But I am going to try anyway!
__________________
Last edited by Vallen Chaos Valiant; 2012-10-18 at 11:00. |
2012-10-18, 15:57 | Link #306 | |
Secret Society BLANKET
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
|
Quote:
In fact, I just managed to get the Lone Wolf achievement, aka clearing a UFO crash site using only a single soldier on Classic or Impossible. This particular set of images was for the first attempt at the achievement, only that time I didn't get it since I worked on a landed UFO rather than a crashed one I got the achievement on another mission later, though it had half the enemies and was therefore not as difficult.
__________________
|
|
2012-10-18, 16:29 | Link #307 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
|
Quote:
In my current savescum impossible game I lost China, India, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Australia. I lost Brazil because I ignored the first terror mission I did try it though, zombies have 14 hp on impossible. 14! To make matters worse suppression fire doesn't work on them so you can't 'cc' them. It might actually be smarter to keep them alive letting them turn into Chrysalids as they still have their standard 8 hp. Anyway I'm actually in the safe zone now, I have full coverage over Africa (so I get the extra money bonus) I have satellite over Japan (gotta keep protecting the anime/manga industry!), so that means all my abductions will be either in North America or Europe. Although I really don't have the luxury of ignoring terror missions now.
__________________
|
|
2012-10-18, 16:51 | Link #308 |
Osana-Najimi Shipper
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Mt. Ordeals
|
Some things I learned on savescumming Impossible...
-He who defends everything, defends nothing. I haven't played the lower difficulties, but man, panic is a bitch before you have satellite coverage up. Strategize which countries you need to let go and which are useful. For example, consider starting in Africa for the All In bonus, and since the rest of the continent dont give much money, give them to the aliens. Then proceed to get North America and Europe since they're the richest continents. Asia/S. America bonuses are nice, but not gamebreaking. -Satellite deployment Goes without saying prioritize Satellite facilities first thing. No money means all that research you have done is all for naught, and panic reduction is a godsend early. -Skip Lasers Seriously, biggest waste of time IMO. Barely an upgrade from ballistic weaponry, and light plasma essentially replaced laser weaponry by itself. Better to research Firestorm or Armor in the mean time (Weapon Fragment for scope is a godsend IMO). The only thing worth is the first research if you use a lot of AR gunners, since the basic AR sucks so bad as its effective range is only short. -Ammo Conservation Probably the only game breaking foundry project. If I'm not mistaken, it doubles your ammo capacity, which Rapid Fire Assaults, Bullet Swarm Heavies, and Snipers absolutely love. Skill progression Heavy Bullet Swarm - Holo targetting is eh, as half the shots you would be taking are overwatch. Bullet Swarm has so much more utility (shoot x2, shoot + overwatch, shoot + reload, shoot+ move all has their uses), and it scales better later on. Shredder Rocket - Suppression is nice, but shredder rocket is frigging awesome. Early game it allows you to blow cover from far away without killing them, and late game it makes taking down high health targets down with ease. My favourite is putting everyone else on Overwatch and shredder rocket a Berserker... kills those pesky things real easy without you scrambling from your position. Heat Ammo - Not getting this is like not getting Close Combat Specialist on Assaults. It's THE class defining skill, allowing you to make mincemeat of Cyberdisks/Sectapods quite easily. 2 Overwatch shots are nice (especially since you can potentially take three shots a turn with bullet swarm), but Heat Ammo also affecting your rockets means you don't fear these mechanical enemies. Mayhem/Rocketeer - With 2x rockets/1 shredder rocket, do you really need grenades? Use scopes instead to help your bullet swarm. And more damage on explosives? I find its overkill... you want those weapon fragments, right? Assault Lightning Reflexes - Close and Personal is good, until you realize that Close Combat Specialist reaction shots are triggered at 4 tiles where you don't get the crit bonus. Rapid Fire - 2x attack, nuff said. Really useful against berserkers, since it only counts as '1 attack action'. Close Combat Specialist - this is so gonna save your behind against chrysalids/berserkers. Tip: CCS allows 4 panel reaction shots even if you don't have ammo! Learned this when 5 Chrysalids bum rushed my 2 CCS assaults and all died to reaction fire. Tactical Sense/Resilience - Aggression/Killer Instincts/Bring 'Em On are dependent on crits, which I don't like considering most high HP enemies you meet end game that you need to crit on are hardened. Of course there's Stealth, but that only lasts so long... Sniper I dunno, but I feel so much more safer if I can get an overwatched Squadsight Sniper on high ground while I explore unknown territory. As long as you Line of Sight of the battlefield, these are monsters. That said, they're utterly useless in raiding the inside of UFOs and bases though, as keeping LOS while not moving is a bitch there. As such, later and later on, I use Snapshot/Gunslinger/Opportunist/Battle Scanner/Opportunist/In the Zone. Support Covering Fire/Sentinel supports are real cool, but alas they're too little too late considering how hard it is to train Support to Colonel. I'd rather have 2 heavy/2 Assault/1support/1sniper than removing one of the heavy (good against mechs) or assault (good against melee). But you got to be REAL careful with only running 1 support (since you only have reviver), but it's not hard when you got sprinter. Ghost vs Archangel I'm more on Ghost side, unless outdoors with squadsight snipers. Not sure how Archangel gets you from one point to another more quickly when Ghost gives +2mov, or how Archangel gets you first strike when Ghost gives stealth. In fact, I think stealth is almost downright cheating.
__________________
|
2012-10-18, 18:10 | Link #309 | ||
The Dark Knight
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: From the deepest abyss in the world, where you think?
Age: 38
|
Quote:
Archangel like the Ghost armour provides +20 defence and allows you to bypass obstacles and prevents you from getting flanked. Plus you have a clear line of sight barring any major objects to everyone on the field. It's a godsend when you got chrysallids and berserkers coming at you and your all flanked so by taking up into the air not only do you defend yourself but you all get a free shot at them. Granted I suppose Ghost has the same with stealth but you can use the armor longer. Quote:
|
||
2012-10-18, 21:24 | Link #310 |
Sensei, aishite imasu
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Hong Kong Shatterdome
|
Something amusing I just noticed. Not only do Xcom female soldiers tend to be much smaller than the male ones...they even get smaller guns!
Weapons used by the female soldiers seem to be a good 30-35% smaller than the ones the male soldiers use.
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 06:05 | Link #311 |
Carbon
Join Date: Nov 2003
|
that's obviously lazy modeling
on another note, I beat Classic Classic Victory That wasn't that bad. I lost Russia because I sent out satellites too early. You should only send satellites near the end of the month to prevent red level panic countries to withdraw. The most dangerous thing about Classic is enemy spawn locations. One wrong move and you'll spawn 6 aliens. At one point I was actually fighting 12 Thin Men at once. I'll try Impossible some time.. eventually.. and after that Classic Ironman
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 07:05 | Link #312 |
lost in wonder forever...
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: edge of my dream in the land of twilight...ZzzZzZ
|
*cries* Classic is hard...damn aliens and their accuracy and critical hits.
I lost 30 soldiers and lost the game. Now I got to start all over again...sigh. Man, I haven't been this frustrated with a game since Demon Souls. Do aliens types progress no matter what during the game?
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 09:07 | Link #313 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
|
Yeah. But without story-critical research, you would never see the Abductors and Battleships because they are cloaked. In general you are in an arms race and trying to keep up with what the alien brings. Wait too long and elite Mutons will show up whether you have plasma rifles or not.
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 09:22 | Link #315 |
lost in wonder forever...
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: edge of my dream in the land of twilight...ZzzZzZ
|
Same here buddy. I'm was just hoping that it'll stay the same enemies at some point, but nope. I was stilling using light plasma and lasers against elite mutons...no fun at all.
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 09:23 | Link #316 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
|
Quote:
edit: Just watched a Japanese player meeting Chrysalids for the first time in the alien base. He rushed it not knowing the mission could be delayed, and got completely team wiped when he got 4 out of 5 members turned to zombies. I watch in horror as he did everything wrong... But that's what happens if you don't know what you are dealing with.
__________________
Last edited by Vallen Chaos Valiant; 2012-10-19 at 10:39. |
|
2012-10-19, 11:47 | Link #317 |
Moderate Haruhiist
|
That's because, technically, the game is cheating you in Classic, since the aliens gain something like a native +40% bump in their accuracy and critical chance. Even the developers admitted it, as aside from adding larger numbers of aliens per stage it's the only other way to increase tension.
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 11:52 | Link #318 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2012-10-19, 13:24 | Link #319 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
|
Yeah, cheating is when the A.I. doesn't follow the same rules as the human player the A.I. does cheat BTW, it can teleport around in fog of war. On the other hand increasing stats IMO is not cheating.
What makes early game even harder is that light plasma rifles also have +10 aim bonus so basically thin man have the same aim as your high ranking snipers. BTW another downside of doing the alien base attack later rather than earlier means that you'll never get to see Sectoid Commander in other maps (I've never seen one so far ) Anyway today I managed to miss twice on higher than 90% chances, both misses lead to deaths. That was frustrating to say the least. Ouch, any particular area you're having trouble with (base management or squad management) I'm sure people here are willing to give (conflicting) advice. ;p
__________________
|
2012-10-19, 14:13 | Link #320 | |
lost in wonder forever...
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: edge of my dream in the land of twilight...ZzzZzZ
|
Quote:
I'm starting to notice a lot of bugs with the game. -Enemies coming out of the freaking walls. This especially happens often with floaters! -Enemies suddenly pop out of no where. -Game hangs too often on alien's turn. -Occsionally aliens can see and shoot me when I can't see them. Often happens with Sectopods. -Direct hits sometimes don't hit at all. It hangs in a action shot and doesn't register the hit at all. -The annoying elevation bug. The cursor seems to like highlighting the lower levels instead of the level the soldier is on.
__________________
|
|
Tags |
science fiction, turn-based strategy |
Thread Tools | |
|
|