Help me enjoy X-Com

Prozac just needs to give me a better gun. u_u

imbiginjapan wrote:

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

Yes, vicariously!

Reading this thread has had me aching for a good remake.

Don't change anything but the interface. Better sounds, images and a friendlier UI.

Even keeping it 2D would be a good idea.

This thread is full of awesomeness. Prozac: Sign me up for the meatgrinder...fratricide here I come!!!

Found the first in a series of tutorial vids on youtube, but don't have the time to watch in detail from work. They may, or may not, be useful to newbies.

Wow, the troop placement in that LP picture seems insane to me, though I wonder if that's due to the fact that I played Terror From the Deep first. Sonic Pulsers. Those frickin' grenades were more dangerous than anything else for the opening stages, where errant profanity can kill your soldiers. After three of four straight missions of having my entire team wiped out in a single enemy phase by some grinning Aquatoid bastard with a hand grenade, I finally figured out that spreading out the members in your fire team is a must. What a great game.

And yeah, feel free to put me on the line as cannon fodder reconnaissance.

Yeah, you can see from that image that he's doing a lot of things wrong, everyone is bunched up too closely, with the exception of a couple nearby cactuses only one guy has decent cover, and none of them are crouched.

His reckless play does make for an amusingly high casualty rate in his Lets Play though.

The weird thing is that though he doesn't seem to be playing that well, he's doing it on Superhuman and is holding his own. I'm not sure if I could do that.

More tips, possibly repeating things:

-Early in the game, medikits and motion scanners provide high bang for the buck in terms of resale value. You can actually make quite a bit of money on them, and they don't take a lot of workshop space to make, so they're both good "keep your engineers busy" items.

-If every soldier has a medikit and personal armor, you will save a few lives throughout the course of the game.

-Motion scanners make entering a UFO a lot less risky proposition.

-TREASURE it when a UFO lands without crashing and you can assault it. That guarantees you an undamaged UFO Power supply (uh, if you're careful with the grenades, at least).

-Disagree with the people who say "bring 12 people." Bring 8 guys and a HWP/Rocket launcher. The HWP is your best friend.

-The second tier fighter/transport is crap. Wait until you build the ultimate craft before upgrading.

-Get rid of your fighters as soon as possible in favor of craft you built yourself. The fighters are rentals, and cost you a lot of cash.

-Sell everything that isn't nailed down, keeping 1 for research.

People have said that Health Kits aren't useful before you get personal armor but I disagree. In the early game your enemies are also using less powerful weaponry, a lucky shot can still leave an unarmored person injured rather than dead. Having a soldier slowly bleeding out during the mission sucks, especially if you rush through the mission to try to finish in time and cause more deaths.

After doing that once or twice I learned to use the bleeders as completely expendable scouts.

OzymandiasAV wrote:

Sonic Pulsers. Those frickin' grenades were more dangerous than anything else for the opening stages

That.

Also,

peterb wrote:

-Sell everything that isn't nailed down, keeping 1 for research.

I wish I had know that much earlier the first time I played.

Anyone else obsessively checking this thread to discover their own fate? I worry every time Prozac says some unknown rookie died. What if it was me?

I was trying very, very hard to avoid this thread. I knew that the second I read it, I'd want to buy X-Com again. Sure enough, here I am literally counting the hours until I can go home from work, load up Steam and start playing. Tonight's going to be a long night.

This thread reminds me of the Dwarf Fortress thread. I'll read through it and marvel at the depth of gameplay and get all stoked about it and then go home and stare as some ASCII sh*t splashed across my screen like a Jackson Pollack painting until I give up 3 hours later and go back to playing something that is comprehensible.

I was going to post earlier in this tread, but didn't, because I didn't have anything to say that hadn't already been said. Now I'm just posting so I'll get added to Prozac's reinforcements.

I'm glad my gaming can bring so much joy into the world

Working today, so I won't be updating for a while, So just to tide you over I'll post a list of the current Squad so you can check if maybe you've been cut.

Strewth, Squaddie, 2 missions, 0 kills on Aliens 1 kill on Ranger Rick
ComplexMath, Captain, 8 missions, 7 kills, wounded 8 days
Prederick, Sergeant, 5 missions 4 kills
Psych, Squaddie, 4 missions, 1 kill
Quintin Stone, Captain, 6 missions, 10 kills
Prozac, Commander, 9 missions, 11 kills
MrWynd, Squaddie, 2 missions, 2 kills
Norfair, Squaddie, 2 missions 1 kill
Falchion, Squaddie, 2 missions 1 kill
Lock and Load, Sergeant, 8 missions, 4 kills
Tamren, Colonel, 5 missions 2 kills
Most, Squaddie, 2 missions, 1 kill
Clever ID, Squaddie, 3 missions, 0 kills
Ceson, Sergeant, 3 missions, 5 kills
Yonder, Captain, 7 missions, 2 kills
Clemenstation, Squaddie, 4 missions, 0 kills
Maxox, Rookie, 2 missions, 0 kills
Certis, Sergeant, 5 missions 1 kill
Moondragon, Squaddie, 8 missions, 5 kills, Still getting overlooked for promotion
RatBoy, Squaddie, 6 missions, Hit It 4 times.
Nate G, Sergeant, 5 missions, 5 kills
Mayfield, Squaddie, 5 missions, 3 kills
MyBrainHz, Squaddie, 3 missions, 1 kill
The Wanderer, Squaddie, 2 missions, 2 kills
Vulgar oRC, squaddie, 2 missions, 0 kills
BigHoppa, squaddie, 3 missions, 2 kills
Kier, Squaddie, 3 missions 0 kills

If you are not there, then there is a good chance you didn't make it, or you're yet to be recruited, not sure which you should hope for

Prozac wrote:

Clemenstation, Squaddie, 4 missions, 0 kills

Looks like I'm some kind of awesome survivalist coward!

Here's the list of new recruits I'll be bringing in, now I'll have 3 bases to man, plus some guards for the Sweatshop.

Thin J
Markly
Big in Japan
Judge Digger
Dudley Smith
Jakeleg
Mixolyde
Ozymandias
PeterB
That Guy
TAoS
Deftly
DaveT010
Gbuchold

so if you aren't on either list, you be dead!

Clemenstation wrote:
Prozac wrote:

Clemenstation, Squaddie, 4 missions, 0 kills

Looks like I'm some kind of awesome survivalist coward!

I think we are in the same boat.

Kier, Squaddie, 3 missions 0 kills

Living is good enough for me though.

Prozac wrote:

Psych, Squaddie, 4 missions, 1 kill

Hurray! I'm not dead! And I'm on the verge of becoming an alien killing machine. Not like those cowards Clemenstation and Kier.

Prozac wrote:

I'm glad my gaming can bring so much joy into the world

Working today, so I won't be updating for a while, So just to tide you over I'll post a list of the current Squad so you can check if maybe you've been cut.

Strewth, Squaddie, 2 missions, 0 kills on Aliens 1 kill on Ranger Rick
ComplexMath, Captain, 8 missions, 7 kills, wounded 8 days
Prederick, Sergeant, 5 missions 4 kills
Psych, Squaddie, 4 missions, 1 kill
Quintin Stone, Captain, 6 missions, 10 kills
Prozac, Commander, 9 missions, 11 kills
MrWynd, Squaddie, 2 missions, 2 kills
Norfair, Squaddie, 2 missions 1 kill
Falchion, Squaddie, 2 missions 1 kill
Lock and Load, Sergeant, 8 missions, 4 kills
Tamren, Colonel, 5 missions 2 kills
Most, Squaddie, 2 missions, 1 kill
Clever ID, Squaddie, 3 missions, 0 kills
Ceson, Sergeant, 3 missions, 5 kills
Yonder, Captain, 7 missions, 2 kills
Clemenstation, Squaddie, 4 missions, 0 kills
Maxox, Rookie, 2 missions, 0 kills
Certis, Sergeant, 5 missions 1 kill
Moondragon, Squaddie, 8 missions, 5 kills, Still getting overlooked for promotion
RatBoy, Squaddie, 6 missions, Hit It 4 times.
Nate G, Sergeant, 5 missions, 5 kills
Mayfield, Squaddie, 5 missions, 3 kills
MyBrainHz, Squaddie, 3 missions, 1 kill
The Wanderer, Squaddie, 2 missions, 2 kills
Vulgar oRC, squaddie, 2 missions, 0 kills
BigHoppa, squaddie, 3 missions, 2 kills
Kier, Squaddie, 3 missions 0 kills

If you are not there, then there is a good chance you didn't make it, or you're yet to be recruited, not sure which you should hope for

You should also record all the friendly kills, so the "bastards" won't get away with them so easily!

Prozac wrote:

Tamren, Colonel, 5 missions 2 kills

Moondragon, Squaddie, 8 missions, 5 kills, Still getting overlooked for promotion

Colonel? Really? Is Tamren like a girl? With like really big tah-tahs? That polishes your gun really well after every mission?

I'm telling you... no respect at all.

Tamren informed me he would be the first to die, I think hte universe just likes the Irony

MoonDragon wrote:
Prozac wrote:

Tamren, Colonel, 5 missions 2 kills

Moondragon, Squaddie, 8 missions, 5 kills, Still getting overlooked for promotion

Colonel? Really? Is Tamren like a girl? With like really big tah-tahs? That polishes your gun really well after every mission?

I'm telling you... no respect at all.

Typo? Maybe he meant:

Moondragon, Squaddie, 8 missions, 5 [size=1]friendly[/size] kills

Prozac wrote:

RatBoy, Squaddie, 6 missions, Hit It 4 times.

That closet in the General Stores room got a lot of work. Who knew the gals running the Alien Containment and Psi labs were so kinky?

Since I am dumb and know nothing-- which is the X-Com I need to play? Looking at Steam I see several X-Coms or X-Com expansions or whatver the case may be.

You want X-COM: UFO Defense for the first game. Or you could get the whole pack for $15, I think it is. I have no experience with anything after X-COM: Terror from the Deep (the second game).

Alright you guys win, I'm going to try my hand at it again, this time maybe I'll go all the way.

I'm going to be as cautious as possible to see how low I can get the mortality rate. I'd like to name everyone after you guys but two games (more) are already doing that, so I'll go with video game characters for now, maybe branching off into TV shows, movies, and literature if I feel like it.

I'm going to purchase the game this weekend and chalk it up as being part of the Horizons Broadening Project. I expect to die and die a lot. If I'm miserable I'll be spending time here complaining.

I can't wait til I outrank you, Prozac.

Y'ever notice how, despite near-maniacal raving by Prozac, Quintin Stone never actually dies in one of his games?

I think this thing is rigged!