[PC/PS3/360] Xcom Enemy unknown

[Myssa Rei]

Originally Posted by Fenrir_valindri

Just had my first terror mission today, Chrysalids really get the adrenaline pumping with how dangerous they are. Instant death if they get in melee range makes them pretty brutal.

I was under the impression that while they're instant-death for low-level troopers, once you're leveled up enough they actually do less damage than mutons, and as such are survivable.

[Fenrir_valindri]

Haven't run into Mutons yet myself, but even my highest levels troops at this time are insta-killed by them. Then again, the best armor I have is Medium and I don't have anyone equipped with the item that reduces melee damage significantly.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Fenrir_valindri

Haven't run into Mutons yet myself, but even my highest levels troops at this time are insta-killed by them. Then again, the best armor I have is Medium and I don't have anyone equipped with the item that reduces melee damage significantly.

They don't really have armour in this game, all the armour does is to increase your health bar. So it is less luck based. More armour =more HP.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Holy canola oil this game is so damn hard.

Assaulted the Alien base and I run into Mutons and despite their size my guys still can't hit them and have to get up close and personal I was lucky enough to capture the commander even.

My sniper is now a captain and is the only reason I could handle them.

I find that you must move within your blue zone and then switch to overwatch and reload when needed. You literally have to move piece by piece.

I also regret not getting enough medkits for my medic either.

[Blaat]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

I'm horrifically laughing at everyone who thought this game wasn't going to be casualty intense because of the smaller squad cap.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

This is helped by the fact that the AI is VERY smart. They don't cheat like in the original, instead they just are dangerously clever.'

Definitely, doesn't help I made some poor base management decisions: scientist over engineers (it should be the other way around) and not going for more satellites (the last one was just plain stupid)

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Blaat

Definitely, doesn't help I made some poor base management decisions: scientist over engineers (it should be the other way around) and not going for more satellites (the last one was just plain stupid)

Yeah, extra satellite coverage REALLY is the only way you can compensate for that fact that you can only deal with one third of the panic causing abduction sites. Which ones you deal with have to be a careful balance of what you need, along with how long term monthly plan you have to keep nations happy.

An upcoming uplink with three new sattelites on the way gives you allot more leeway in planning your abductions...though if you want to retain the satellites, you definitely want to give them a foundry upgrade that keeps the aliens from finding them.

[Elestia]

Had a nice pending request from Africa. They wanted me to make 6 plasma rifles and in exchange gave me a $2,400 donation to me. Needless to say their generous offer was nice.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Elestia

Had a nice pending request from Africa. They wanted me to make 6 plasma rifles and in exchange gave me a $2,400 donation to me. Needless to say their generous offer was nice.

Woah. That's ALLOT of money. (keep in mind, doesn't it cost about 1k to manufacture plasma rifles, ontop of the allies and Elerium? Still, a thousandK is a nice profit).

[Wandering_Youth]

I'm close to beating the game and I'm disappointed in a few things. The random map types aren't so random. I've been playing a lot of the same maps over and over while a couple of maps always seem to be left out of the loop.

I'm getting this annoying bug where my SHIVS vanish after a mission and are replaced with headless rookie?! Anyone else been getting this? My game seems to always stutter whenever a Berserker charges me after I shot it.

I actually kind of sad that we don't have full control over our base general storages anymore. There were so many times in the game I wanted to sell some of my old armors and lasers so I could make the better versions.

Oh yeah if you don't have a SHIV yet, you gotta get one asap before you fight Ethernals. They are so effective against those nasty things.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

I actually kind of sad that we don't have full control over our base general storages anymore. There were so many times in the game I wanted to sell some of my old armors and lasers so I could make the better versions.

That's the weird thing. For a mysterious reason, Faraxis decided they would make engineers create items instantaneously. This means for the sake of balance, we are forbidden to SELL anything we make. They didn't want us to get infinite cash buy building and selling.

But the strange thing is they could just balance it by making the sold items be half the price of production costs. That's what old school RPGs do. This means you can still sell useless junk, but not get infinite money.

As it is, we are discouraged from building ANYTHING we aren't going to use. Because anything you built but don't use is money down the drain.

[JohnNiles]

That's an odd design decision. Maybe it's as you said, to force the player to choose what they produce carefully? I'm gonna miss how in the original, you were essentially the biggest, baddest arms dealer on the planet (kinda like how we are in reality).

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by JohnNiles

That's an odd design decision. Maybe it's as you said, to force the player to choose what they produce carefully? I'm gonna miss how in the original, you were essentially the biggest, baddest arms dealer on the planet (kinda like how we are in reality).

Technically you still ARE an arms dealer. However, unlike the Original where there was an infinite source of customers, in XCOM you take Commissions. Countries will occasionally order, say, 5 laser rifles, with a deadline of 2-3weeks.

The selling system is screwed up though. The reward doesn't seem to scale up as you got more expensive goods to sell. So it is profitable at the start, but later on nations will demand expensive tech but paying you peanuts. Thankfully you can just ignores these orders with no penalty.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Yeah, extra satellite coverage REALLY is the only way you can compensate for that fact that you can only deal with one third of the panic causing abduction sites. Which ones you deal with have to be a careful balance of what you need, along with how long term monthly plan you have to keep nations happy.

An upcoming uplink with three new sattelites on the way gives you allot more leeway in planning your abductions...though if you want to retain the satellites, you definitely want to give them a foundry upgrade that keeps the aliens from finding them.

Satellites are the only way you can increase your income right?

Also, in regards to the Muton, has anyone a good knowledge on dealing with these guys? They're so big yet they're agile as a cat and when I snipe them my guys start to panic.

[Roger Rambo]

The thing that gets me about Muton is that they're about 5-6 feet from shoulder to shoulder, yet somehow they're as hard to hit as 4 foot tall sectoids!

[Wandering_Youth]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Satellites are the only way you can increase your income right?

Also, in regards to the Muton, has anyone a good knowledge on dealing with these guys? They're so big yet they're agile as a cat and when I snipe them my guys start to panic.

To get a steady increased amount of income monthly is to launch satellites over countries that give you the most of money. Not all countries give you the same amount as some give less cash, but in return give you more scientist or engineers.

If you got an alien misc technology from a UFO such as entertainment and surgery sell those, they are not needed and sell for quite some nice cash. The other way to sell if to sell over alien corpses and materials, but decided wisely because they all are needed when manufacturing stuff in Engineering.

Sometimes and I mean very rarely you're get a country asking you for alien tech in exchange for money. I myself had a country ask me to give them 4 Light Plasma rifles and in return they gave me 849 in cash. I believe someone in this thread said they got something similar but received 2495 cash?

I never had too much trouble with Mutons when I first encountered them. If you're having trouble with them I suggest you bring explosives and snipers. They are hard to hit, but you blow up their cover on your turn it makes it real easy to get a hit on them. Snipers with squad sight owns Mutons as you can snipe those suckers from a mile away as snipers get increased accuracy as their farther away from the target.

[Blaat]

Usually when I face Muttons, Chrysalis and those flying saucers thingies all my constraints go off and I use bazookas, frags, while focus firing on them.

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

I'm close to beating the game and I'm disappointed in a few things. The random map types aren't so random. I've been playing a lot of the same maps over and over while a couple of maps always seem to be left out of the loop.

I'm really getting tired of the UFO crashing in the same looking pine forest over and over again. One time the UFO crashed in Nigeria, so I was really looking forward to seeing a jungle only to find out it was the same looking pine forest.
I kind of wish the UFO would also crash in urban areas, or deserts.

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

To get a steady increased amount of income monthly is to launch satellites over countries that give you the most of money. Not all countries give you the same amount as some give less cash, but in return give you more scientist or engineers.

Don't forget that if you have a full satellite coverage on a continent you'll also get the continental bonus.
Which means that having your base in North America, Africa or especially South America is useless as it's easy and cheaper getting a full coverage on those continents compared to getting a full coverage on Asia or Europe.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Wandering_Youth

I never had too much trouble with Mutons when I first encountered them. If you're having trouble with them I suggest you bring explosives and snipers. They are hard to hit, but you blow up their cover on your turn it makes it real easy to get a hit on them. Snipers with squad sight owns Mutons as you can snipe those suckers from a mile away as snipers get increased accuracy as their farther away from the target.

See that's the problem.

The first time I encountered them I had my sniper hit them and next thing you know she starts panicking.

As a result I send in an assault and heavy trooper for close-in combat to take them out.

I was lucky to even survive that and not lose a single trooper.

I avoid explosives because I want to try to collect as many artifacts as possible.

To get a steady increased amount of income monthly is to launch satellites over countries that give you the most of money. Not all countries give you the same amount as some give less cash, but in return give you more scientist or engineers.

wait how do you know which country gives more income?

[Elestia]

Hilarious outcome the other night. I was facing off against a menacing Sectopod in a terror mission. He was supported by a two heavy floaters who were taking high cover near a tank on my troop's right flank and some Elite Mutons were on my left flank which was proving to be a dangerous situation to overcome. To make matters worse, the Sectopod was beginning to launch his volley of rockets at my troops who were all clustered behind some low cover sandbags. So when my turn began I immediately started to vacate my positions as quickly as possible to deal with the nearby Elite Mutons on my troop's left flank.

With some close quarter firefights I managed to eliminate and secure my left flank at the end of my turn. However, several of my soldiers were severely wounded after the exchange and I dreaded the subsequent counter attack on my right flank by the heavy floaters. However, since the Sectopod was in the midst of preparing his volley it first shifted to the Sectopod first and began launching his volley at some empty sandbags. Unfortunately for the aliens the almighty RNG kicked into Murphy's law territory. The Sectopod volley slammed into the tanks that the Heavy Floater's were taking cover behind. Needless to say the combined volley and resulting explosion from the tank insta-gibbed the two heavy floaters. In the end I managed to heal up and take down the Sectopod without losing a single trooper.

[Wandering_Youth]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

wait how do you know which country gives more income?

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.

Originally Posted by Blaat

Don't forget that if you have a full satellite coverage on a continent you'll also get the continental bonus.
Which means that having your base in North America, Africa or especially South America is useless as it's easy and cheaper getting a full coverage on those continents compared to getting a full coverage on Asia or Europe.

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

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

See that's the problem.

The first time I encountered them I had my sniper hit them and next thing you know she starts panicking.

As a result I send in an assault and heavy trooper for close-in combat to take them out.

I was lucky to even survive that and not lose a single trooper.

I avoid explosives because I want to try to collect as many artifacts as possible.

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.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

I am an unapologetic save-scummer, so here is my prliminary review of what is and isn't randomised;

1. It seems UFO appearances are NOT randomised between saves, so if you have a large UFO appearing with no way of shooting it down, you can't make it go somewhere else by loading an earlier save; it will always go to the same continent at about the same time with the same size ship.
This means get your ships at least Phoenix Cannon with the dodge matrix at minimum, and upgrade to something better ASAP.

2. Special UN emergency mission ARE randomised per saved game loading. The mission will always appear at the same pre-determined time, but the mission type, rewards and most importantly location is randomised. This is important; it means you can save-scum until you are given a mission in a country that is full red and panicking. This is the only method I know of to specifically decrease the panic of a specific nation of your choice with no drawbacks.

3. Autosave in battles are useless. To save properly in battlescape, press "end turn" first. That seems to ensure a proper save file. Hitchances are pre-rolled, which is good and bad. If you hit an alien in a save file, you will ALWAYS hit him. The problem is that stunning aliens become harder if you only have one stungun. You really need 2 stun guns to improve your odds at the RNG going your way, or there would be frustrations.


EDIT:
Base design... I believe I need 3 Elerium Generators to power my whole base (I think). I need the Training School because the bonus goes away if it is demolished. I don't need labs any more as most research are done. I need exactly two Satellite Uplinks and Two Satellite Nexus to cover all the countries with satellites, they needed to be square. The Foundry and 3 other plot related buildings...

My goal is to have a giant engineering base. 4X3. This would be possible only after I finish all the alien research and can demolish the containment. And every other building would be on the other half.

The only problem is I don't know the power requirements for the later stage buildings, as I haven't got them yet. Hope three Elerium Reactors are enough.


p.s. It is silly that I have a dozen light plasma rifle, but have a shortage of weapon fragments. Can't I just smash the light rifles into pieces with a hammer or something?

p.s.s
If a country ask for an item(s) for trade, you can load a saved game immediately before it and get a different trade option, if you don't like what was offered.