Help me enjoy X-Com

The majority of my experience comes from TFTD, but the tips could be applied to all XCOM games.

  • I always try to time missions so they will be DAYLIGHT missions. The "terror" missions are harder to do this with (I assume "terror" missions exist in UFO) since they vanish quicker.
  • I usually use snap shot and reserve ap for a kneeling snap shot. The advantage to use auto shot early in game is that every shot helps to improve the soldiers accuracy and a x3 shot helps "level up" three times as quick (shocker).
  • I'll take as many recruits as I can fit in the early missions and have everybody just shoot as much as (safely) possible once I know I'm down to one alien. I've even taken recruits on mission and they have never left the ship, but just shot at the wall to get a higher accuracy.

I get a urge to play the XCOM games every so often, but last time I tried to install my TFTD from the CD the game wouldn't run so I'm not sure what the problem was... This thread might be the push I needed to try again

Tamren wrote:

I disagree that the basic armour is worthless. Its cheap and easy to make. Even if it prevents death in 4/5 cases that still one more soldier who might make it to veterancy. But more to the point, its all you have... Power armour is VERY far away.

Well sure, once you can make them by all means wear them. I mostly said that as a suggestion to not research medkits right off, because the chance of injury and not death before power armor is very low, and the scientists' time could be better spent elsewhere.

Bring medkits and stunrods to every mission. Every now and then you storm a UFO and find an alien alone with his back turned, easy capture. And the medkit is a must even if you leave it sitting in the skyranger.

Fair enough. My issue is more with wasting research cycles than leaving stuff in the Skyranger. Carrying around unneeded gear does waste action points though.

What are your guy's oppinion of laser/cannon tanks and heavy lasers? The laser tank is cheap, expendable and reliable mobile cover in my experience, same with the basic tank to a lesser degree. My tank always shot last, or first on dangerous targets like the cryssalids. Otherwise soldiers got to shoot first to build up skill. I always ran around with a pair of heavy lasers, but everyone says laser rifles are superior. Is this true?

The rifles are more accurate and have multi-shot, while the heavies don't IIRC. And the damage for the heavies isn't sufficiently better to warrant carrying them. I've never built the laser tanks though, so I couldn't comment there.

You guys rule!

This thread has already far exceeded my expectations for awesomeness.

The boat missions in TFTD sucked all the fun out of that game for me. And the game seemed less freaky in the ocean instead of farmhouses and such too. I did like the added complexity though.

Oh yeah, definitely stick to daytime missions if at all possible. Even when everyone has electro flares nightime missions are still really dangerous.

stevenmack wrote:
Prozac wrote:

On a Terror Mission in Russia Stevenmack had an alien grenade dropped at his feet.

Story of my life death.

FTFY. And what's with everyone else getting a promotion instead of me? This fake job feels like a couple real ones I've had.

Edit: Nine times out of ten, the aliens will only attack a base that's the launch point of activity against them, so it's a good bet that if you have a base that doesn't send out Interceptors or Skyrangers, it'll be left alone.

That's it. I bought X-Com on Steam some time ago, but I never really played it. And I didn't play it "back in the day", either. Time to rectify that.

Darn you all. I stopped playing X-Com about 3/4 of the way through a game a while back. Think I'll pick it back up.

I nabbed this in the steam sale a while back. Time to fire it up!

I started a game of X-Com 2 when I went without my main computer for 2 weeks. Still trying to finish it. It can get very frustrating at the beginning when you're outnumbered and outgunned, and boring at the end when your guns just rock the socks off the aliens. Try and stick with it, you'll unlock lots of cool stuff and technology later and take pleasure in the destruction of aliens and adjacent city blocks.

It's amazing to me no one has made a proper X-Com update with improved graphics. Similar to Bionic Commando on XBLA, leave the gameplay intact and make it spiffy.

Filthy enablers.

Certis wrote:

It's amazing to me no one has made a proper X-Com update with improved graphics. Similar to Bionic Commando on XBLA, leave the gameplay intact and make it spiffy.

Honestly a "Shadow Complex" style update to an X-Com game would probably destroy my life for about a month.

It's amazing to me no one has made a proper X-Com update with improved graphics. Similar to Bionic Commando on XBLA, leave the gameplay intact and make it spiffy.

Isn't that the not-so-secret project being worked on by 2K Boston and a certain Mr. Levine...?

Wasnt there some kind of uncertainty of who owns the IP? I think the brothers Gallop (sp?) dont own it anymore and work with their Laser Squad Nemesis IP instead and Microprose assets have been shredded to tiny bits.

I could be quite wrong, though.

Certis wrote:

It's amazing to me no one has made a proper X-Com update with improved graphics. Similar to Bionic Commando on XBLA, leave the gameplay intact and make it spiffy.

I always wondered about that too. I somehow ended up with a copy of UFO: Aftermath which was XCOM inspired, but just didn't feel right to me and I've had a eye on the open source project UFO: Alien Invasion (edit: Sourceforge Link) but I never gave it the time I should to properly judge it. For some reason, I just feel the need to play the ORIGINAL series.

If anyone needs to patch up an old copy of any of the x-com games, go here. They offer all kinds of stuff, including some mods, like a multiplayer version of UFO Defense which I have never tried.

Certis wrote:

It's amazing to me no one has made a proper X-Com update with improved graphics. Similar to Bionic Commando on XBLA, leave the gameplay intact and make it spiffy.

Xcom + Silent Storm engine =
JA + Silent Storm Engine = more

I'd love to see a update to Arcanum too...

To be fair though, UFO:ET with the UNI-MOD provided an AMAZINGLY close-to-xcom experience.

Edit: I highly recommend people wanting a more modern Xcom-ish game to try this.

Uni-mod is here

And if this image (of the modded UFO:ET's tech tree) don't make you guys :drool:, then you have problems

IMAGE(http://www.ufogr.com/pic/GF-UniMod-354-TechTree-Eng0-%5Bhyoufuu%5D.jpg)

Also, the UFO AM/AS/AI are pretty good "xcom-like" games. I enjoyed them by not trying to compare Xcom to them. They stand on their own pretty well.

Edit 2: I forgot to mention that there is a promising game Heavy Duty that is Xcom-like too. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this game won't come out anytime soon. Old IGN preview.

Prozac wrote:

We've had our first fatality!

Itsatrap managed to misfire with his rocket launcher hitting the small stone wall at his feet instead of the giant side of the barn he was aiming at

Luckily he was the only one caught in the blast.

It was a trap!

In addition to a faithful XCom remake I've also wanted a Stargate adaption of the XCom gameplay. Sending teams through the gate to unlock new addresses and bring back alien technology. Diplomatic relations with the various groups, finally getting your own starships and being able to send those on missions in addition to gate travel.

Just discovered this thread. I might need to fire it up tonight.

Btw, X-Com on Steam works just fine without any other foolishness. I bought the whole pack, though honestly I would've been happy with just the first (and possibly Apocalypse). Enforcer and Interceptor were embarassments.

I always equip every guy with a stun rod and medkit for the "just in case" scenarios. You never know when you need to put a mate down gently or to heal them up to stay in the fight.

If you get someone to a really high rank, I always say avoid bringing them on every mission...just too much of a risk. I only bring my high ranking officers on important missions to enemy bases and the such. Captains usually lead the squad in mundane missions.

Stun rods on teammates, what a good idea. I was never that nice

It seems like to me where alot of X-Com remakes go wrong is they assume that the problem with the original X-Com was that it wasn't complicated enough. "If we just add more weapons, more armor, more aliens, it'll be more awesomer than X-Com!".

I long for a game that strips X-Com down to it's bones and modernizes everything else so that you can play a game in an hour or two. Or sit down and play through in 30 minute chunks.

I played X-Com to death for the first few years after it came out. Much in the same way I did with MOO. Through all those playthroughs I can probably count the number of times I used grenades on one hand. I just never liked them. I always preferred setting up ambushes and reaction shots were my best friend.
Quite regularly I'd have 3 or 4 guys set up around a corner, maybe 2 kneeling side by side with 2 standing behind them, all with APs to burn. I'd have a rookie snap a few shots off at an alien before running back to the cover of my squadmates. As soon as the alien chasing him turned the corner he'd be met with a wall of fire. I did cross-fire ambushes for a while but those could get oddly messy...
I also went through phases of naming my soldiers after friends, comic book characters, or movie stars. It just made them easier to remember as opposed to controlling guys named Jurgen Vernervonwanwich. I still remember one run I did with Schwarzenneger and Stallone. Epic.

LilCodger wrote:

Oh, and one other thing explicitly for Podunk:

Play it on the PC and don't quit. If you're too frustrated with the beginning grind, grab a save game editor and up your soldier's accuracy.

Better to cheat a little and enjoy the game than quit outright.

This is good advice.

Also, don't be afraid to save & reload liberally. Ironman mode is only for experienced veterans.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
LilCodger wrote:

Oh, and one other thing explicitly for Podunk:

Play it on the PC and don't quit. If you're too frustrated with the beginning grind, grab a save game editor and up your soldier's accuracy.

Better to cheat a little and enjoy the game than quit outright.

This is good advice.

Also, don't be afraid to save & reload liberally. Ironman mode is only for experienced veterans.

And crazy people, especially if they do it without flying power armor, which really is the quintessential Iron Man experience in X-COM.

Certis wrote:

It's amazing to me no one has made a proper X-Com update with improved graphics. Similar to Bionic Commando on XBLA, leave the gameplay intact and make it spiffy.

It really is stunning to think about, especially considering that all the "spiritual successors" missed some small but crucial part of the original game's gameplay (destructible environments, enjoyable turn-based play, et cetera).

God, I so wished there was a way to breach doors in that game Rainbow Six-style, taking shots from behind the doorframe. Lost more rookies that way.

Of course, now I've bought it from Steam and i'm astonishingly out of practice. Like, HORRIBLY. Can anyone point me towards one of those Save-Game editors? I'd like to make it off the Skyranger once please.

Mmmm...time to reinstall X-Com.

Psi: Yes, mind control sucks horribly. Especially if you only have a small team left alive and they all get MCed. Lose your team and your Skyranger, hurrah!

Chrysalids: Most horrific thing ever.

I never liked that once you lost a country to alien control, you can't go in and clean it out later once you get better eq and teams. Usually by that time you're self-funded from building 1000 mind probes and selling them for $300k a pop.

Building and ship entries can be handled like SWAT entries. 3 rookies up front, one to each side of the door, facing diagonally into the opening, one in front to breach and enter, one vet with good reaction time a few squares behind the breacher in case he gets popped right away and the rooks to the sides don't avenge him. Move as a group, always leave time for auto-fire, and if you have to you can split into two two-man fire teams. Larger ships may require two or three entry teams. Once I get flying armor and launchers I send a third team onto the roof of the big ships.

I usually move my soldiers in 4 man squads to concentrate firepower and allow for leapfrogging. One soldier in each squad always has a medkit. It's saved guys on the first mission before. It can take a little bit longer to clear the map, but I cut way down on my casualties this way.

Xcom is definitely a game that screams for an update.

The original creators of XCom have created a spiritual successor (Multi-player even), Laser Squad Nemesis.

Eezy_Bordone wrote:

The original creators of XCom have created a spiritual successor (Multi-player even), Laser Squad Nemesis.

And for me, it's missing half of what made X-com so addictive. For lack of a better term, career mode. Building bases, researching, fending off the increasing number of attacks while trying to track down the enemy, getting attached to your soldiers as they make it through multiple engagements... LSN just sounds like a bunch of computer generated skirmishes.