Help me enjoy X-Com

Calling a floating weapon platform (Laser tank?) "The Clemen-Station" actually sounds somewhat cool.

I humbly submit my name to your replacement Squaddies, Prozac. Although, if the Aliens are starting to pull three terror missions at the same time, I'm thinking this is a bad time to enlist.

Chrysalids. Good lord. I remember during an early terror mission, taking a two man team around a corner at the start of a turn and finding a Chrysalid at the end of a long hallway. Both of my guys opened up burst firing as much as possible, getting in a good 4 or 5 solid hits. I expected it to run away, it was injured and there is no way anything had enough AP to move that distance and still attack. Nope, first move on the alien's turn, that Chrysalid sprinted straight at my guys. It was like watching Death approaching. The screen had to scroll to follow it. In two hits, it killed one solider and infected the other. When that Infected stepped out of that hallway, his former teammates showed no mercy, only to have a fully grown Chrysalid crawl out of his wretched corpse not more than 6 steps from the rest of the team. Meanwhile it's sire still awaited in that corridor of doom.

Prozac wrote:

Lilcodger got sniped by a snakeman in the upper levels of a barn, Yoyoson returned fire, only to shoot Lethial in the back of the head :D

At least I didn't see it coming.

Yoyoson wrote:

Well it looks like I didnt' show up at morning muster. Which means I'm either pushing up daisies, and if so, I hope I went out in a blaze of glory, or else I heard about these stories of the damn Chrysalid things and their Snakemen masters and I jumped ship last mission.

Yup, looks like you are pushing up daisies, I suspect some of the other soldiers are relieved

Well Nearly everyone is happy with us, our rating is excellent, but the UK pulled all support, there goes 600k a month.

Japan is contributing over a Mil a month, which is pretty good since they're on the other side of the globe and have received no support from me.

After a few hours of playing I have another tip... remember where you throw proximity grenades. I have 6 KIA, 4 are proximity mines gone bad. (There is a FOX special in the works)

I've found an alien base in Portugal, We're in the Swiss Alps. That's a little too close for comfort. I think I'll send in some base busters. Any volunteers

I had a nostalgic three hours last night playing X-Com for the first time in a while. I forgot the first rule: never attack a downed UFO at night. They can see much, much further than you can. And once you're in a UFO, let them come to you. I had a soldier dying of a fatal wound with only 9 health points left, and I put myself in serious danger trying to bring it to a close fast enough for her to survive.

This is begging out to be an XBLA or Indie Game. If only I had the time to do it. If this is really what Levine is up to, then may he get on with it.

Prozac wrote:

Psych, Norfair and Most just got the call up, once I dump the deadwood and wait for the next batch of potential recruits we'll have some more Goodjer fun. Although after what Certis did to me this morning I may name a bravery 10 soldier after him and send him to the front.

Hurray! I'm on the team! I'm not sure if I missed something, but what did Certis do to you?

Prozac wrote:

I've found an alien base in Portugal, We're in the Swiss Alps. That's a little too close for comfort. I think I'll send in some base busters. Any volunteers :D

I am in! Only one request: If I have to go, make sure it is running into the enemy base with two primed grenades in my hands.

Terror mission in Karachi:

Demonbox took a snap shot at a Chryssalid, missed, and luckily for him and me got shot by a snakeman instead of being zombiefied.

WTF! I just had a Snakeman throw an alien grenade, gun down a Rookie (sorry, can't remeber who) then on my turn Lester King fired 3 shots at the snakeman, failed to kill him, then the Snakeman made THIRTEEN return shots, he just kept shooting until Lester dropped. Sorry Lester, I think you just got killed by a game bug

Then Quintin took an Auto shot at the same snakeman and fired back twice more!

Then Quintin made another auto shot, and the snakeman fired back!

EDIT:

MrTomaytoHead's first mission, he steps out of the Skyranger and immediately eats plasma Exit PBB avenged him, so I rookie dead, one rookie losing his green status, sounds about right. Poor Feeank got shot out of the sky... Apparently he wasn't the Venezuealan Iron Man.

If it's any consolation it won't be long until we have flying suits for everyone, and my science team are currently researching the Ultimate Craft.

The Sweatshop in Antarctica has just started production, and I have set up two more bases, one in mainland china and one in central USA, so between the three bases most of the globe will be covered once I get radar deployed. Not bad for Six months work. It is Mid June in the game. Only nation to pull funding is the UK.

IMAGE(http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/apspittles/deadStrewth.jpg)

Luckily Certis managed to hide behind the sand dune.

I thought a flying man with the rocket launcher would be safer... guess I was wrong

The rookie on the left is... whoops I mean was Exit PBB. very next action a sectoid sniped him.

Certis got the promotion to Sergeant, to replace Feeank.

Prozac wrote:

Only nation to pull funding is the UK.

It's not our fault, we're busy inventing cannons in every Englishman's garden shed.

I hope that this does not adversely affect my application to ProzacForce, though !

Prozac wrote:

MrTomaytoHead's first mission, he steps out of the Skyranger and immediately eats plasma

So MrTomaytoHead was a rookie, and was killed by plasma on his first mission?

So he's a fried green tomayto?

Thank you, I'll be here all week!

Prozac wrote:

IMAGE(http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/apspittles/deadStrewth.jpg)

Awwww...

Prozac wrote:

MrTomaytoHead's first mission, he steps out of the Skyranger and immediately eats plasma Exit PBB avenged him, so I rookie dead, one rookie losing his green status, sounds about right. Poor Feeank got shot out of the sky... Apparently he wasn't the Venezuealan Iron Man.

Agghk! It was good while it lasted. Sign me up for the cloning chamber.

Prozac wrote:

MrTomaytoHead's first mission, he steps out of the Skyranger and immediately eats plasma Exit PBB avenged him, so I rookie dead, one rookie losing his green status, sounds about right. Poor Feeank got shot out of the sky... Apparently he wasn't the Venezuealan Iron Man.

I didn't even have a chance! I was set up from the begining. First out of the ship is always a game of russian roulette.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Prozac wrote:

MrTomaytoHead's first mission, he steps out of the Skyranger and immediately eats plasma Exit PBB avenged him, so I rookie dead, one rookie losing his green status, sounds about right. Poor Feeank got shot out of the sky... Apparently he wasn't the Venezuealan Iron Man.

I didn't even have a chance! I was set up from the begining. First out of the ship is always a game of russian roulette. :P

And in one of the chambers is an alien grenade which kills everyone in the back half of the ship.

This sounds even more dangerous than being Quintin's bodyguard in Dwarf Fortress but I'll volunteer to join the ranks of this carnage filled comedy fest. If you want to live though don't give me any grenades.

I'd like to put in a request that you install a camera on the back of the skyranger so we can see what's out there before you open the door.

Failing that maybe we could send a remote control tank out there instead?

Yonder wrote:

Failing that maybe we could send a remote control tank out there instead?

It's been a while, but if memory serves the tanks can make nice splody in the back of the Skyranger as well, decimating (or even reducing by more than 10%) your attacking force.

Despite having the original on floppy (probably magnetically degraded by now) and the UFO Gold CD, I bought this on Steam last night because, well, STEAM! I played around with it for a bit. Oh, that UI is sooo archaic. Who knew I would miss being able to click and drag the globe so much? Serious game starts tonight.

Prozac, the latest version of DosBox has the ability to capture a movie of what it's displaying. That might make for some funny scenes.

Yonder wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
Prozac wrote:

MrTomaytoHead's first mission, he steps out of the Skyranger and immediately eats plasma Exit PBB avenged him, so I rookie dead, one rookie losing his green status, sounds about right. Poor Feeank got shot out of the sky... Apparently he wasn't the Venezuealan Iron Man.

I didn't even have a chance! I was set up from the begining. First out of the ship is always a game of russian roulette. :P

And in one of the chambers is an alien grenade which kills everyone in the back half of the ship.

I can thankfully say I've never run into that, although I may have lost 4 crew members after the first step of a mission before. I reloaded right after that happened and I'm not ashamed to say it.

Prozac wrote:

That says it all really. (especially when you play Ironman mode and the deaths are for real)

So if a Goodjer dies in the game you come to their house and kill them for real? Harsh!

imbiginjapan wrote:
Prozac wrote:

That says it all really. (especially when you play Ironman mode and the deaths are for real)

So if a Goodjer dies in the game you come to their house and kill them for real? Harsh!

That's actually the plot of Saw VIII.

Yonder wrote:

That's actually the plot of Saw VIII.

Nice to know it only took them eight movies to add a plot.

Prozac wrote:

So instead here is the entire current Roster:

MoonDragon - Squaddie
Missions 7, Kills 4

Ahem... I call shenanigans! One of the top killers and second only to Prozak in missions attended, yet I'm still a Squaddie? Hmph... No respect. No respect at all.

MoonDragon wrote:
Prozac wrote:

So instead here is the entire current Roster:

MoonDragon - Squaddie
Missions 7, Kills 4

Ahem... I call shenanigans! One of the top killers and second only to Prozak in missions attended, yet I'm still a Squaddie? Hmph... No respect. No respect at all.

I was wondering the same thing. it's obviously a conspiracy to keep the dragonfolk down.

So Podunk, are you enjoying X-Com yet? :p

As far as the UI goes I don't mind scrolling around the map that much, what I do mind is the loadout screen. You can't shuffle around where people are in the shuttle. Since I like my 5th and 6th soldiers to have the heavy weapons that means that often (especially at the beginning) they'll be given to weak people that can barely walk with them. I either have to wait for them to work out more or for deaths to reshuffle people around.

I don't know what the games criteria is for the loadout order, I don't think I've noticed my rookies close to the entrance, which may be helpful.

What I would like is the ability to save 6 loadout types (Hmm, would you need more? Let me list some possible ones: Medic, Sniper, Grenadier, Heavy Weapons, Soldier, Stunner, Psi) Ok, we'll bump it up to an even 8. Make it so that you can quickly load any soldier to a particular loadout, further customize him if necessary, save the loadout if necessary (updating all soldiers with the old loadout). I'd want to also be able to drag them around within the transport.

If you could do this then going out for a night mission wouldn't require you to give a flare to everyone individually, you just open a soldier, give him a flare, and save. You would just need to do that to each soldier type. If you could click a button to give everyone an extra ammo/flare/grenade round (filling up shoulder->foot->belt->backpack) that would be even better.

If we are going through this whole loadout process in the base the skyranger should automatically shift equipment around to fit the new loadout.

Lastly I'd want to be able to easily see stats of any soldier during the loadout phase.

Here's a picture from one of the LPs listed above. I'm sure it will make any vets here cringe, it's one of your top 5 fears when you play XCom (Blaster launchers, Alien Control, and discovering a Chrysallid at close range all rank higher)

IMAGE(http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/XCOMUFODefense/Update%2027/23-xcom055a.gif)

Yonder wrote:

pic of dooom

Yeah, that's a pucker-factor of about 8 there.

Prozac wrote:

The rookie on the left is... whoops I mean was Exit PBB. very next action a sectoid sniped him.

Another glorious day in the Corps.

I take back half the nice things about plasmas or any weapon that requires ammunition, since it weighs down the weaklings. Weak soldiers are better off with laser weapons and stun rods to serve as advanced scouts.

Prozac wrote:

Then Quintin took an Auto shot at the same snakeman and fired back twice more!

Then Quintin made another auto shot, and the snakeman fired back!

And yet he still lives and he's an officer. He's the living definition of the Peter Principle.