18-08-2004 00:02									#1
	X-Com help Full PM-box? Change here!

I got X-Com recently from the place that has the same initials as the most recent Neverwinter Nights expansion .

This game is tough. what am I missing?

It's hard to read the manual and play the game at the same time.

ACK!

	18-08-2004 01:26									#2
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do you mean the ancient X-COM games or the newer inofficial successor UFO:Aftermath?

	18-08-2004 01:28									#3
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Tuberski: the game is tough. Make sure to have a well-armed squad, and practice smart tactical techniques. Try not to leave guys out in the open, and try and reserve time for reaction shots. Also make sure to hire plenty of scientists and keep your facilities built in a timely fashion.

	18-08-2004 04:06									#4
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...if you have the movement points, kneel before you shoot, try to keep the same soldiers alive so as to get promotion.

To get better funding base 1 should be in the USA, base2 Europe and base 3 SA (Brazil is memory serves me)

Top game innit? ;O)

	18-08-2004 04:07									#5
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Oh, and don't ignore psonics or you'll get found out at the end!

	18-08-2004 04:45									#6
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if you play on easy level, the game is fairly easy

	18-08-2004 04:51									#7
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most of my games were middle range difficulty. I have never beaten the hard difficulties that I remember. So this info may not apply there.

Research Heavy Plasma ASAP. by far the best general purpose weapon. And can be found fairly early. Though it requires elrium to build the magazines. But by the time you reserach it, you should be finding enough.

I had a naming system for my soldiers so I knew who was good, and who was average, and who was kind of crappy. I ditched anyone with a low bravery. And later on you will want to pay attention to their psi levels.

Don't forget to research alien craft. They are pretty handy. They can carry more troops and such. Eventually you will need to research the Avenger to beat the game.

Build a base in N. America, and one in Europe or Russia area. Later you may add some bases that are essentually radar stations. Brazil is a good funder I believe.

Basically just do all the missions and don't fail . And your funding will stay at a decent level. At the start you have a lot of money. You will at least need to double your lab space and double your researchers. And eventually do more than that. And once you research something you will want to double your workers (whatever they were called) and their building space.

As for the missions, well using cover is a must. In the beginning rocket launchers can help out a lot (and look cool). They are heavy though, so give them to the strong guys. As I said above, my system was designed to protect guys with good bravery and marksmanship. I was more cautious with these, but you still have to bring them to the front so they can get some kills and advance in rank. The other guys I was more reckless with and used them more as scouts.

	18-08-2004 04:55									#8
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such a great game. I want to play now. But my computer can't handle it.

This is in my top 5 games of all time list.

	18-08-2004 05:44									#9
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If one of your soldiers gets mind-captured by the aliens, have him fired immediately after that mission. You don't want to waste time training him up to be a super-soldier only to have the aliens use him against you.

Plasma weapons pwn.
Armour is well worth researching and building.
I forget what weapon is the best for craft, but it is also great for building to fund the rest of your enterprises - it sells for way more than building it costs.

A nifty trick is to build two bases with the same amount of labs and engineering bays (along with living quarters) and close to the end of the month, transfer over all your scientists and engineers. The game only pays people actually in bases, so all those people in transit will be working a month for free. Keep transferrring at the end of the month and you never need to pay them. Of course, this is cheating.

	18-08-2004 07:02									#10
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more of an exploit rather than a cheat.

and yes. flying armour rules all . I give the best armour to my best guys and go down from there.

as for aircraft weapons. I can't remember what I used. I remember there was a missile that has a very large range. expensive and requires euryliam though. And I think I used some sort of plasma weapon for the other weapon for my interceptors.

getting those extra large ufo's is tough. I heard you can use multiple interceptors, but I could never figure out how to do that. iirc I think I used to try to get to them when they were on the ground intact (this requires your troop transport to fly around in preparation for their landing so you get there in time). As I knew I couldn't shoot them down. It's a tough mission though because the number of aliens. But the payoff is the amount of equipment you'll salvage (and not losing funding )

	18-08-2004 07:11									#11
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Yeah, get your standard troop transport to intercept a flying super-ufo and once it lands your troops will attack. They don't intercept resupply or base-build missions though iirc. Then again, its been several years.

To get multiple craft to attack the one enemy, just minimise the attack screen when it pops up. Once up to 4 craft are attacking, open all the screens and then set their aggressiveness factor. Charge!!!

I wouldn't suggest taking on the largest ufo size with anything less than 4 avengers with the long-range beam weapon (who's name still escapes me). Expect some damage, even then.

	18-08-2004 07:13									#12
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I also loved that weapon that shoots a missle that allows you to use up to 3 waypoints. the coolest weapon in any game

	18-08-2004 07:17									#13
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It was fun landing on an undamaged super-ufo and sending a waypoint bomb into the roof of the thing, then another directly into the command center of the ship to take out the high-ranking psi aliens. Then my elite soldiers in flying armour would storm the new entrypoint on the roof while more soldiers would head to the ground entry and my tanks would roll around the map mopping up. Fun times indeed.

	18-08-2004 08:00									#14
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Heavy plasma isn't as good as plasma rifle for combat purposes, but good for the $$$.

Plasma balls for your crafts aren't as good as plasma gun or whatever its name is. Plasma balls got the range and power, but you only got two shots. You could mount them on the auxillary attackers, ones that will help in bringing down alien battleships, but not on your main ones.

Always respond to terror missions if possible. You don't want countries leaving you, esp. the US.

After a while, you make more money selling items than from contributions

Flying suits and blaster bombs are awesome, just for doing what Skanky said. Blow a hole at the top of an alien battleship, blow away the alien commander (if you have already captured one), then enter from the top and swoop down on the suckers

	18-08-2004 09:20									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident such a great game. I want to play now. But my computer can't handle it. This is in my top 5 games of all time list.

there is an X-Com fix for windows avaiable.

ACK!

	18-08-2004 11:05									#16
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Heavy plasma is great once your soldiers are one-shot one kill machines who can hit an enemy from the other side of the map... but before then the standard plasma rifle is much better. Three shots for the price of one.

	18-08-2004 16:50									#17
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Don't forget to reserve actions for opportunity fire. Esp for night terror missions.

* Urban Ranger still feels chills running down his spine.

	18-08-2004 16:52									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Skanky Burns Heavy plasma is great once your soldiers are one-shot one kill machines who can hit an enemy from the other side of the map

I've never had a soldier live longer than maybe 3 or 4 missions in UFO and TFTD.


In Apoc, I had one soldier who lasted through the entire game... was pretty cool. I like apoc for that reason, the soldiers are a bti more 'personal'.

	18-08-2004 17:32									#19
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as soon as you had flying armour, you imho were untouchable.
cryssalys (sp?), the zombie-like creatures were the hardest because of their speed and 1-touch-convert, but after flying suits they could hardly capture you.


i really enjoyed the economic system. pity it doesn't exist in the newest game: UFO:AM

	18-08-2004 17:35									#20
	Increase Your PM Length

I confess to saving and loading often during missions. At least, I did back when I first started playing the game. I also duplicated items for fun and profit.

	18-08-2004 18:16									#21
	Increase Your PM Length

Not yet mentioned: blaster bomb + mind control. Some of the aliens are relatively easy to mind control, and I think all of them have better sight range than humans. Mind controlling an alien can allow you to see other aliens, who can be mind controlled in turn. I remember winning the final encounter really easily by mind-controlling a couple of the mech aliens and launching a blaster bomb through the maze.

And nothing is more important than high psi strength. At high levels, you really should fire your soldiers who are weak in psi. One mind-controlled soldier can cost you several others; two mind-controlled guys on your team will probably cost you a mission.

	18-08-2004 19:42									#22
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I fire any soldier who manages to get mind-controlled. In the mission they get controlled I also have them "guard the skyranger".

	18-08-2004 20:00									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident I had a naming system for my soldiers so I knew who was good, and who was average, and who was kind of crappy.

I still recall having people called "John Smith G/S 60 60 10 15" or the like. G(renadier)/S(niper) meant he was a good sharpshooter and thrower, the first number would be his stamina, the second his action points, the rest his psionics numbers once I found them out. Made things a lot easier. People who weren't particularly good at anything or had a lot of stamina and AP would be R(econ), very strong characters were H(eavy equipment), people with lots of Psi were P, the list goes on.

	18-08-2004 21:01									#24
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by General Ludd I've never had a soldier live longer than maybe 3 or 4 missions in UFO and TFTD.

Really? I usually only lose people when starting a new game.

	18-08-2004 21:13									#25
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To reminisce more on naming, a friend of mine and I played "hotseat" by naming the two highest-ranking guys after ourselves and splitting up the team between them. The other would direct "his" team, say lead an assault, the other provide backup, that sort of thing. Co-operative mode is really underrated in games these days, always has been.

And when one of "us" would die, oh, it was tragic, partly because it was one of us, partly because the high-ranking ones are always the best men.

	18-08-2004 21:15									#26
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That sounds like fun.

	19-08-2004 04:33									#27
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Don't feel bad if you don't win right off, even on easy. This game requires some serious tactical thinking.

I never played on anything BUT easy and haven't finished a game yet. I usually get a few of my guys promoted, and then cockily go in on a night terror mission and get them all killed. Or have one private run back to the transport and make it out alive.

At that point I usually start over in depression.

One guy suggested sending in a second transport full of recruits for the purpose of dying while revealing your enemies, but I never got the hang of it.

	19-08-2004 04:52									#28
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quote: Originally posted by Skanky Burns Heavy plasma is great once your soldiers are one-shot one kill machines who can hit an enemy from the other side of the map... but before then the standard plasma rifle is much better. Three shots for the price of one.

most of my good guys have good accuracy (or whatever the trait was called). Even new guys (I ditch guys who can't shoot straight). I've always used heavy plasma. In a few cases maybe 2 guys would have plasma rifles, but everyone else would have heavy plasma.

	19-08-2004 05:02									#29
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2 transports seems wasteful.

caution is the key. The only bad thing about being overly cautious is during terror missions (you'll lose more civilians this way). But if you are doing a terror mission with those aliens that touch and convert you- I usually go slow and screw the civilians. Those missions are too dangerous to go blazing in.

And this is a game I never reload in. The missions take too long to do again. The only time i might reload is if I manage to lose a base in an attack on my base.

It has already been mentioned, but I'll say it again. Save movement points for opportunity fire (I usually save enough for a snap shot). Utilize corners heavily. Kneel down before shooting (I often kneel down at the end of my turn as well for that snap shot opportunity fire). And sometimes I crawl.

When entering ships don't just send a guy in solo. Always have backup. What I'd do is end my turn with at least 1 guy on each side of the doorway , and maybe 1 guy in front of the door. Usually the newbie who isn't a high rank goes in first. I assess the situation. And usually I'll have him take a shot and then get out of the way. Then comes my experienced guys to mop up. Don't bring 1 guy because you can't kill all the aliens with just 1 guy. sometimes even 3 is not enough.

So in many cases on the small ships that have the command center in the back (the entrance is to the front). I'll have guys on the left and right doors leading to the command center. Because sometimes there might be 3 aliens in there, and you need to bring in 4 or 5 guys to get them all. I coordinate all of this on the same turn. Also bringing in 5 or 6 guys when you get the alien stun gun device is recommended. If you fail to stun and capture the alien, then just kill them before your turn is up. You'll have other opportunities. Because eventually you need to caputure an alien commander.

	19-08-2004 05:07									#30
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stairs. another dangerous area. once you get flying suits often you can enter the tops of barns. but in the early game, stairs are difficult because of the movement points needed to get up the stairs (esp if moving while crouched- which I often do). You'll want to send your less experienced guys up first with your good shooter behind him to get any aliens up there. But I still lose a lot of guys when trying to get those pesky aliens on the second floor or rooves of buildings.