XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

Tkyl wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't entirely serious. It's certainly no White Marsh or Westminster.

Yeah, I know. I didn't take offense.

Any chance we can get a theme and some avatar stuff? (360)

Thanks

Tamren wrote:
bighoppa wrote:

You prefer Rifle Suppression to Revive? With that -30 aim penalty I've always felt like Revive was better bang.

I don't like revive. Without revive, if someone falls during a fight you can just stabilize them at any time and be done with it. WITH revive you are forced to end the encounter before you bring back this soldier with basically no health who probably isn't in cover anymore.

That's my attitude towards it as well. I figure having them prone on the ground, stable, is better than making them a target again. If I'm down enough people that I need to revive someone to get my squad up to scratch during a mission, I figure things have already gone pretty pear-shaped as it is. Rifle Suppression is just too useful, and Revive just... isn't.

Edit: Just to clarify too, bighoppa, that -30 aim penalty is what is inflicted on the enemy you target with Suppression, it isn't an aim penalty on the ability itself. As far as I know, Suppression can't actually 'miss' in the conventional sense.

Redwing wrote:
Tamren wrote:
bighoppa wrote:

You prefer Rifle Suppression to Revive? With that -30 aim penalty I've always felt like Revive was better bang.

I don't like revive. Without revive, if someone falls during a fight you can just stabilize them at any time and be done with it. WITH revive you are forced to end the encounter before you bring back this soldier with basically no health who probably isn't in cover anymore.

That's my attitude towards it as well. I figure having them prone on the ground, stable, is better than making them a target again. If I'm down enough people that I need to revive someone to get my squad up to scratch during a mission, I figure things have already gone pretty pear-shaped as it is. Rifle Suppression is just too useful, and Revive just... isn't.

Edit: Just to clarify too, bighoppa, that -30 aim penalty is what is inflicted on the enemy you target with Suppression, it isn't an aim penalty on the ability itself. As far as I know, Suppression can't actually 'miss' in the conventional sense.

Yup. Add that to a smoke grenade and/or mind fray and the target alien pretty much couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a handful of tacks.

If you are making a practice of using the arc thrower, suppression, disarm, smoke, and mind fray are all your best friends.

While I was double checking soldier stats on the wiki I noticed something about the upgraded smoke grenades. The first option increases the defensive bonus by 20% for a total of +40%. This means that the smoke basically becomes hard cover anywhere, and also stacks with other bonuses.

What ISN'T documented is that the other smoke grenade that increases will and crit chance actually LOSES the defensive 20% and exchanges it with a +20% aim chance. This makes it much more useful in my eyes, I might consider giving it to my secondary Supports.

Paleocon wrote:
bighoppa wrote:

Also, any hope of picking up plasma pistols once muton elites are showing up? Maybe from the Alien Base (since I've left it alone trying to get a proper squad kitted out)?

Forgot about this.

Yes. If you capture the sectoid commander in the alien base (or any of the sectoid commanders following that mission), you get a bright, shiny plasma pistol.

I also had at least one mid-to-late game council mission that put me up against ordinary sectoids, somewhat to my surprise. So that's another chance to collect some plasma pistols. (And bear in mind that you don't need an Arc Thrower as much if you've got mind-control psi troops.)

Dixie_Flatline wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
bighoppa wrote:

Also, any hope of picking up plasma pistols once muton elites are showing up? Maybe from the Alien Base (since I've left it alone trying to get a proper squad kitted out)?

Forgot about this.

Yes. If you capture the sectoid commander in the alien base (or any of the sectoid commanders following that mission), you get a bright, shiny plasma pistol.

I also had at least one mid-to-late game council mission that put me up against ordinary sectoids, somewhat to my surprise. So that's another chance to collect some plasma pistols. (And bear in mind that you don't need an Arc Thrower as much if you've got mind-control psi troops.)

true, but you have to make sure that the aliens kill your mind controlled alien. Sometimes it isn't terribly easy. They tend to miss a lot when they aren't shooting at you.

Paleocon wrote:
Dixie_Flatline wrote:

I also had at least one mid-to-late game council mission that put me up against ordinary sectoids, somewhat to my surprise. So that's another chance to collect some plasma pistols. (And bear in mind that you don't need an Arc Thrower as much if you've got mind-control psi troops.)

true, but you have to make sure that the aliens kill your mind controlled alien. Sometimes it isn't terribly easy. They tend to miss a lot when they aren't shooting at you.

Odd -- my experience was that at least half the time, any alien I mind-controlled was dead meat on the next turn. Of course, I tended to MC a lot of Mutons, and when you do that there's always another Muton with a plasma rifle standing three feet away.

Dixie_Flatline wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Dixie_Flatline wrote:

I also had at least one mid-to-late game council mission that put me up against ordinary sectoids, somewhat to my surprise. So that's another chance to collect some plasma pistols. (And bear in mind that you don't need an Arc Thrower as much if you've got mind-control psi troops.)

true, but you have to make sure that the aliens kill your mind controlled alien. Sometimes it isn't terribly easy. They tend to miss a lot when they aren't shooting at you.

Odd -- my experience was that at least half the time, any alien I mind-controlled was dead meat on the next turn. Of course, I tended to MC a lot of Mutons, and when you do that there's always another Muton with a plasma rifle standing three feet away.

I guess part of it is that I tend to go slap happy with the mind control now that I have a ton of psi enabled troopers. As a result, I end up controlling entire trios instead of leaving one or two around to do the shooting. I have also had mutons take the "hard" shot at my troops rather than taking the easier one next to them, so I am a little paranoid.

I do, however, love rushing mind controlled trips of muton elites at sectopods. If you run them adjacent to the 'pod and start shooting, the robot actually kills itself with its own friendly fire.

Is it even mathematically possible to mind control the uber ethereal? If so, is there an extra special achievement for doing so?

Finished my second classic game last night and a couple of things came to mind:
1. Two snipers is better than one
2. ITZ is nice for clearing out lots of low levels in terror missions etc but DT is my new favorite
3. I mind controlled everything even if I knew it was going to get wacked the next round. Its just one set of shots that were not aimed at my guys plus I get their stuff following the mission
4. In the final mission, I never used my ghost armor once. Should have stayed with titan for the snipers and assaults
5. My final mission load out was heavy free (2 x snipers, 2 x assaults and 2 x support)
6. First game where I paid a lot of attention to Will. Resulted in a much better result with regards to panic
7. Speaking of will, I started dismissing colonels with poor Will scores from the early game

I think I am ready for my first multiplayer game.

CEJ wrote:

I think I am ready for my first multiplayer game.

I've never tried that either. Not something I really want to get into but I wouldn't mind playing a game or two for achievements sake.

Does anyone around here have that Bubonic plague thing? Can we spread that around?

Stele wrote:
CEJ wrote:

I think I am ready for my first multiplayer game.

I've never tried that either. Not something I really want to get into but I wouldn't mind playing a game or two for achievements sake.

Does anyone around here have that Bubonic plague thing? Can we spread that around? :D

If none of you have it, let me know. I can seed you guys.

Tkyl wrote:
Stele wrote:
CEJ wrote:

I think I am ready for my first multiplayer game.

I've never tried that either. Not something I really want to get into but I wouldn't mind playing a game or two for achievements sake.

Does anyone around here have that Bubonic plague thing? Can we spread that around? :D

If none of you have it, let me know. I can seed you guys.

I've had great success with that pickup line as well.

Tkyl wrote:
Stele wrote:
CEJ wrote:

I think I am ready for my first multiplayer game.

I've never tried that either. Not something I really want to get into but I wouldn't mind playing a game or two for achievements sake.

Does anyone around here have that Bubonic plague thing? Can we spread that around? :D

If none of you have it, let me know. I can seed you guys.

You know I actually wouldn't mind trying out the multiplayer anyway. So how does it work, is it like Frozen Synapse where you can send me a game and I play my move, then send it back kinda thing? Or do we both have to be there at the same time?

BlackSabre wrote:
Tkyl wrote:
Stele wrote:
CEJ wrote:

I think I am ready for my first multiplayer game.

I've never tried that either. Not something I really want to get into but I wouldn't mind playing a game or two for achievements sake.

Does anyone around here have that Bubonic plague thing? Can we spread that around? :D

If none of you have it, let me know. I can seed you guys.

You know I actually wouldn't mind trying out the multiplayer anyway. So how does it work, is it like Frozen Synapse where you can send me a game and I play my move, then send it back kinda thing? Or do we both have to be there at the same time?

You both have to be there. It's still turn based though. You're allotted a certain number of points that you spend you buy units. The opponent does the same. Then you duel to the death.

Just for giggles, I played the Temple Ship mission with 6 colonel level maxed out psionic soldiers in psi armor. And though it was marginally more difficult than it would have been had I gone with ghost armor, it was still comical.

Taking control of the sectoids and commander allowed me to move my snipers into position to take out the cyberdisks. I did the same with the mutons, floaters, and thin men. It wasn't until I got to the sectopods that I had an issue. I shot them both to hell from the balcony and finished them off with run and gun from my two assaults. I took no damage doing so, but the two muton elites that rush in from the other side did 18 points of damage to one of my assaults on their cheat turn. I responded with a sniper using double tap.

After healing up and regrouping, I staged my troopers and rushed forward. The uber materialized its two ethereal guards and two muton elites. I took control of them immediately, ran my two assaults forward, and took mind fray pot shots at the uber with my heavy and support (both had a medium chance of success and failed).

The ethereals responded by psi lancing the muton elites taking them down to a single health point each. The uber launched a psi lance at one of my assaults despite not having line of sight and hit him for 8 points.

I figured it was time for some interesting payback, so I started with the muton elites, who tossed alien grenades onto the platform and hit the uber for some softening up points. After that, I hit the three of them with a mayhem missile from my heavy. Next, the Volunteer (the support) hit it with Rift. This took the uber down to three points. I had the two snipers and two assaults left and figured I could finish him any number of ways. I didn't know, though, if using run and gun for a point blank shot would damage me in the rift as well. So, instead, I rolled the dice on a 36% chance on a mind fray attack from the injured assault. IT WORKED! It knocked him out with a mind fray attack.

Next time, I think I might try the mind control attack to see if: 1) it is even possible and 2) if the other ethereals will try to kill him.

(360). I've been playing the heck out of this game and love it. Not tried MP yet, but would like to just for the experience of doing it. But SP is great fun. I'm finding that if you psi test new recruit after you get your, 'Officer Training' built and add 'iron will', you get one tough customer when he advances thru the ranks. He not only can mind control ET's, blast the for damage when weapon sighting is nilch, he can resists mind control from ethereals. (with help of psi armor and mind resist). Try hard to make this person a heavy and you have one awesome soldier. I finally got 'lone wolf' achievement with this kind of soldier and it was not that hard(lucky!) (of course with a small UFO crash). Keep turning ET's against each other, especially a ethereal so he will give his attention to the turncoat and not come after you. And having rockets on hand helps too.

I find if you wait too long to get the lab acheivement out of the way, it becomes very hard. I noticed I was missing a few interrogations, yet even with improved arch thrower, I was getting lot's of 'failed'to try and finish up. So better to do all those early on.

And in the end, getting into the final battle without at least 4 strong psi folks can make it very tough on Classic. People who do this with 'ironman' on, my hat is off to you...and a deep bow. That has to be one, hard mf to do.

Win or loose, very fun game. Graphics in combat, at least for me, never get old. I could hope for more maps and missions. I've not tried the new add-on, hearing it could goose your present game. But once I'm done with my present one will eagerly get it (although I read too, it's not that great. Any further comments?).

Glad to see this game get many, 'GOTY' awards. It's nice to have a strategic AND good combat.

Just started playing on the 360. Loving it. Posting for followage.

lostlobster wrote:

Just started playing on the 360. Loving it. Posting for followage.

I just ordered a copy, as well. Better late to the game than never, eh?

Beat the game!

Spoiler:

Rift + Double Tap on the Uber Ethereal made that fight last oh about one minute

firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Just started playing on the 360. Loving it. Posting for followage.

I just ordered a copy, as well. Better late to the game than never, eh?

Absolutely. I'm already so down the rabbithole with this game that I'm trying to carve out any time I can get to play it. Unfortunately, living with two small children and a non-gaming wife means that me-game-time is rare.

lostlobster wrote:
firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Just started playing on the 360. Loving it. Posting for followage.

I just ordered a copy, as well. Better late to the game than never, eh?

Absolutely. I'm already so down the rabbithole with this game that I'm trying to carve out any time I can get to play it. Unfortunately, living with two small children and a non-gaming wife means that me-game-time is rare.

Wow, you could have been writing about my life!

firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Just started playing on the 360. Loving it. Posting for followage.

I just ordered a copy, as well. Better late to the game than never, eh?

Absolutely. I'm already so down the rabbithole with this game that I'm trying to carve out any time I can get to play it. Unfortunately, living with two small children and a non-gaming wife means that me-game-time is rare.

Wow, you could have been writing about my life!

What are the chances??!

lostlobster wrote:
firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:
firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Just started playing on the 360. Loving it. Posting for followage.

I just ordered a copy, as well. Better late to the game than never, eh?

Absolutely. I'm already so down the rabbithole with this game that I'm trying to carve out any time I can get to play it. Unfortunately, living with two small children and a non-gaming wife means that me-game-time is rare.

Wow, you could have been writing about my life!

What are the chances??!

In this summer's must-see comedy romance: the buddy film where they are already buddies. A chance meeting online reveals the sorely-kept secret of two friends who have been living the same life without knowing it... and hilarity ensues!

Husband and Wife.

In cinemas April 1st.

maverickz wrote:

Beat the game!

Spoiler:

Rift + Double Tap on the Uber Ethereal made that fight last oh about one minute

Haha, I finished it tonight as well and did the same thing. What an excellent game!

I'm planning on taking a break for a bit, but I'd like to net all the achievements on the 360, which means I have 4 more play throughs to go.

Tkyl two things, one i don't have the plague acheivement (or play any multiplayer at all) would love to get a match in at some point against you.

And two does Firaxis have any plans for mod support, i like playing with the warspace extension mod made by Blackalpha over at http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/18/
but Steam workshop support would be awesome, like Civ V or TF2.

firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Unfortunately, living with two small children and a non-gaming wife means that me-game-time is rare.

Wow, you could have been writing about my life!

Got some news that in about eight months this will likely be my life too. Which I'm ecstatic about! But tips on how to do both (game and parent) are welcome from you two...
There has to be a thread on GWJ about this somewhere..? Figuring turn based like XCOM and FTL will be a godsend.

I'm a little late to the party, I finished my first game over the weekend. I had all countries but one (France dropped out early on), full satellites, firestorms, fully researched and upgraded everything, etc... Steam says 31 hours played, some of that was pause time.

Did anyone else have trouble understanding the last boss? I could understand maybe half of what he said. The story line was also confusing, but maybe that is just because I couldn't understand him.

Overall great game with just a handful of glitches in the second half, like most games it seemed the first half was more polished. I plan to play through it again on one of the harder difficulties, just not right away.

Cayne wrote:

Tkyl two things, one i don't have the plague acheivement (or play any multiplayer at all) would love to get a match in at some point against you.

And two does Firaxis have any plans for mod support, i like playing with the warspace extension mod made by Blackalpha over at http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/18/
but Steam workshop support would be awesome, like Civ V or TF2.

1) I can definitely get a match in. Though it will have to be next week.

2) As far as I'm aware, we haven't announced any mod support.

troubleshot wrote:
firesloth wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Unfortunately, living with two small children and a non-gaming wife means that me-game-time is rare.

Wow, you could have been writing about my life!

Got some news that in about eight months this will likely be my life too. Which I'm ecstatic about! But tips on how to do both (game and parent) are welcome from you two...
There has to be a thread on GWJ about this somewhere..? Figuring turn based like XCOM and FTL will be a godsend.

Congrats, troubleshot! My only tip: play as much now as you possibly can. Although those late nights when the baby won't sleep except in your arms can be some quality gaming time as well. We had one of those bouncy seats and I fondly remember playing on my XBox while I used one foot to keep the seat gently bouncing, keeping my daughter asleep.