Be Excellent To Each Other

Well, that's more or less what the guys at XCOM HQ feel like against an unknown enemy, so they got that bit right

It fucks with my OCD tendencies!

It's more 'stuff that got in the way'. There wasn't automagical step around, for instance. You had to reserve action points to step out, shoot, and then hide again. All of which could be overwatched!

I think the yellow = flanked thing was in the tutorial! Also, press F1 when targetting. Press it when not targetting. It explains a lot of the numbers.

Yeah I think you might be right, I fear some things have dropped out of my brain as I've gone along.

I didn't know about the F1 thing, I shall give that a try.

...

Just researched the Blaster Launcher, and haven't got enough Elerium to manufacture it! Fuck socks.

Nearly 5,000 credits in the bank, and I can't just buy Elerium from the Cult of Sirius or something

I might have to restart again.

I know what you're getting at, but in the modern game there's a single chance-to-hit score, which armour, cover, skills etc contribute to. In ye olde one, and things like Jagged Alliance, it first lets the person fire, modifying that ballistic accuracy due to skill, and then IFF it hits you it applies damage, based on your armour etc. So only iff the guy fired correctly and stuff got in the way were you 'behind cover'. IT was very common for an alien and xcom to be stood at either end of a corridor blasting away at each other like stormtroopers and missing.

Whereas in the modern version if you're not 'in cover' you're basically dead.

(I quite like the new approach)




OH GOOD! More stuff to research. I was wondering when the heavy got a launcher upgrade. What do I need to disect/capture to find that out? I've done everything I can so far, I think.

Shoot down and clear a battleship.

Battleships appear randomly, but you can make one show up by waiting for a satellite to detect a Small Scout, and then ignoring that. It'll report one of your satellite locations to the Battleship which will come to shoot it down, so make sure you can take the battleship down before you do this. A single Firestorm with a Plasma Cannon easily took care of it, but I'm on Normal difficulty - don't know if this changes with Classic.

I am stuggling, with losing countries.

What should I upgrade in the base, and the best location for the base... etc..

Help me Beex you're my only hope.

I really need this game, now it seems. beeX enjoying things does it again.

First up, don't do the tutorial. It puts you in a really shitty position after it finishes.

Basically, in the early game, you should be concentrating on getting as many satellites up as you can. Problem is, you can't do this to start off with because you don't have enough engineers to build one.

So, as soon as the game starts, build a power generator somewhere (or, if you have a steam vent on the second level of your base and close to the middle, build an access lift and excavate down to it, and then build a thermo generator on the steam)

When you get the first abduction mission, choose the one that gives engineers as a reward. When you finish the mission, you can then sell everything you got from the mission (even if it warns you about research, but don't sell the weapon fragments) and build as many satellites as you can afford (you may find if you build a workshop first, you'll get more engineers which will mean the price of the satellites will drop)

Satellites take 20 days to build, but you can build as many as you can at once.

You then just need to get more money from missions/UFO clearances to afford a satellite uplink, which you should build next to your existing one so you get an adjacency bonus (means you can put up one more satellite than if you'd built it elsewhere.)

I will try that tonight...

Oh, and IMO the best starting location is Africa, as that immediately gets you 30% extra funding for the rest of the game.

Don't start in South America, ever. The bonus you get (instant research on live aliens and autopsies) is good, but not worth starting with when you consider that for the cost of two satellites you can get that bonus too.

*wonders if I can play it at work*

Ordered bike stuff instead.

Get in touch with Zio and ask him to post the "stuff" onto you rather than back to me, if you like.

is that the demo??

The extended demo.

Normally I'd be pissed off, but I've bought the game twice so it evens itself out

Thanks, but I don't think it'd run on my computer. I'll check later when I return home

If "it's so good it keeps me up until 2am" isn't enough to persuade you to part with £30, what is?

Having £30 would be a start, on top of "it's currently free". I have no issue with stealing things

I must say, it has a lot of the charm of the original.

I would like it if I could put auto overwatch on.

There's quite a few situations where overwatch isn't what you want to do, though.

Easiest thing is to just do "TAB-Y, TAB-Y, TAB-Y" at the end of a turn and you'll put all your soldiers on overwatch if they can be

you read the instructions didn't you?

Nope, I've just played it far too much.

//edit: Last night, for example, I discovered that after you've told one of your soldiers to move, you can tab to another and move them while the other is completing their movement.

i might be finishing work soon... then fire up the xcom

Just finished my 1st run through of the game...

Really like it, the changes from the original don't ruin it one bit imo, although the damn cover hugging constantly can get a bit annoying.

End of game spoiler below-


Anyway, time to play it through again on Classic as normal is far too easy

Ohh and I think I may have a racist version of the game also as all the starting troops which i had that game who were black all turned out to be 'support' class....(and it gave the nickname Congo to the white Scottish guy?!?!)

Restarted last night. Doing a lot better, only have 5 satellites to launch. I seem not to have sectoids anymore, and I never caught one alive (bugger)

Did the Alien base last night, that was hair rasing, mutoids and 6 chrysalids.. I lost one man, because I had to shoot him because of mind control.

My next mission out was virtually a team of rookies as all my vets are in hospital.

I'm on normal and the last time I played there was . Hopefully I'm not too late for a battleship to arrive? .

Also: I'm playing normal



Or: DO do the tutorial, but start again after you know what you're doing



I didn't reliase that until long into the game. You can build satellites as long as you can afford them, even if you don't have enough uplinks and then you can just release them into the wild when you do get enough uplinks. The big red "NOT ENOUGH UPLINKS" made me think you had to wait

All world satellite coverage = $2000 revenue per month or something.



Not always a good idea, as sometimes you don't want to murder things but capture them. It's a shame you can't turn off the assault class's skill that lets them murder things that walk closer than 3 squares to them.




YES: BUT: If that soldier discovers XRAYS then you might have made an 'unoptimal' move with that second soldier.... best to wait.

Yeah, I only really do that when I know areas are clear.

Although the "teleporting aliens" bug is annoying. Clearing a battleship the other night, and a fucking Sectopod teleported straight into the middle of my soldiers. Fortunately they were all on overwatch so it got vapourised as soon as it appeared, but had they not have been it would have ruined my day.

MR SAD FACE

If only JC was here, he'd tell you what you needed to do so your computer would produce a larger red bar.

Finished...brilliant, just brilliant, poor old Colonel Rod Hull never made it back from the final mission, he will be missed.

So does that mean the extended demo needs to go back to the kind old Mr. Grim...?

Yes, it does. Sadly.

This practically runs on a toaster Mali, what do you have masquerading as a PC?

OK I've had three of these big purple UFOs now, and I haven't been able to shoot any of them down, I literally get 5 seconds on the engagement screen and then they fuck off.

They don't blow me up, but I can't shoot them down either.

I've clearly missed something pretty fundamental when it comes to air power (I have been buying those DODGE and AIM things and I've got some laser cannons, but I am still on the starting ship, although I have some better ones being researched) - what have I done wrong?

Ahhhh, I can build a Firestorm now, hopefully that will do the trick.

I can't help but think my research in this game has been about as totally arse about face as it's possible to get.

Without a Firestorm, you'll need a Track module as well. With the Firestorm, you should really be on plasma cannons by now.

Has anyone had a go at multiplayer yet? Is it any good?

One of our regular Saturday night BF3 crew was a huge fan of the original games back on the Amiga, and he's going to buy the new one on Steam tonight.

We'll probably give it a punt ourselves on multiplayer anyway, but was wondering if anyone had already tried it.

It's good fun, if a little buggy. It's miles better when you're playing with people you know, too. There are a few too many people online who just camp in the corner of the map and stick all their guys on overwatch so you can't even get anywhere near.

Well we'd have a gentleman's agreement not to play like that, plus we're far, far too competitive with each other to just hunker down in a corner somewhere anyway, there would be no joy in winning like that

We should all play that,er, fuck, I forget the name of it now.
Me and Trooper played.

Frozen synapse?
Or maybe...
Barbies Horse Adventures?

There overwatch range isn't the same as a soldier's LOS, I believe. I think the AI actually exploits this sometimes to walk a unit into cover at the maximum range, but not get overwatch'd.

Wouldn't be surprised. In the original the alien's sight range was slightly higher than your soldiers', except during night missions when it was substantially higher.

Intel Celeron E3200 @ 2.40GHz 42 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
2.0GB Single-Channel DDR2 @ 400MHz (6-6-6-18)
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5KPL-AM IN/GB (Socket 775)
HP w19 @ 1280x1024
HP w19 @ 1440x900
1024MB GeForce 9500 GT (XFX Pine Group) 66 °C
195GB Seagate ST3200822A (ATA) 43 °C
156GB Western Digital WDC WD1600AAJS-00Z4A0 (IDE) 44 °C
39.1GB Western Digital WDC WD400BB-00GFA0 (IDE)
TEAC CD-224E USB Device
VIA High Definition Audio

not a lot of that means much to me. it does internets, office and has two screens and a printer.