Help me enjoy X-Com

Ok give me the Sniper rifle please.
Distance sounds safer, although I have a better chance of shooting a team mate in the back.

Man, I wish this would be ported to the iPad. It would be perfect.

The_Judge wrote:

Ok give me the Sniper rifle please.
Distance sounds safer, although I have a better chance of shooting a team mate in the back.

That's no problem... That's a solution.

farley3k wrote:

Man, I wish this would be ported to the iPad. It would be perfect.

I'm following Isochron, which is an X-Com inspired clone thing for iOS, but yeah the track record for following through to completion for "X-COM inspired clone games" hasn't been too good over the last 10 years...

Alright I have a new game set up. Renovated the base a bit. Out of our starting set of soldiers we have mostly scrubs with only a handful of people of 40 bravery and above. Some of the scrubs have 10 bravery. I'm not sure how to handle squad organization this time around. We will be using the scrubs as disposable redshirts. But if I use redshirts at a 3-1 ratio that doesn't leave as much room for named people. I guess I could add a couple redshirts to each mission and use them for all the really dangerous stuff.

So right, all positions are open at the moment. And of course you can volunteer to be a redshirt. I hear cloning technology is pretty good these days...

Tanker: Usually rocket to start, but we will be upgrading to laser/plasma in the future.
Assault: All the redshirts will be assaults. Door/UFO breaching and general seek and destroy work. Uses rifles and grenades. This time around I'm going to give assaults the stunrod instead of medics.
Heavy: Autocannon or Heavy cannon or Heavy plasma and demo packs. Flushing out hidden enemies, removing terrain etc.
Sniper: Rifles, Heavy laser, or rocket launcher. Distance shots.
Medic: Pistol (until stats improve a bit) rifle, medkit. Patching up the wounded, otherwise functions as an assault.

I volunteer to be a guy in the back giving orders where it is safe. Then rushing in to save the day, but after that going back to safety.

Alright here is how things currently stand.

I made a bunch of purchases for needed equipment. Everything from flares to our rocket tank. Our second supply depot and living quarters have not finished yet but I managed to squeeze everyone in. I hired another 7 soldiers. They turned out to be good, some with 60 bravery. We now have a total of 15 members and 5 scrubs. 9 days in we spot a small UFO. Our first interceptor scores a hit but it repeatedly outruns our aircraft before touching down near Mexico City. Our first mission! And at a landed UFO no less!

Were taking all 5 of the redshirts, our tank and the following roster:
Blacksheep R
Mixolyde R
Bighoppa R
Hypatian R
Cayne R

Wandering Toaist Tanker
Prozac Sniper
Tamren Assault
MrDevil Heavy
Davet Heavy Tanker
Pursuedbybear Medic

Our equipment is 100% earth standard. We don't even have medics yet so I made Pursued a grenadier.

We have landed. Dun Dun Dun...

Mission Begins.

We have landed facing the northeast corner of the cordoned area. Which is good, nothing staring up the ramp ready to throw stuff inside. Toaist rolls of the ramp. *BLAM*. And immediately his tank gets shot in the ass. Were off to a good start! No damage sustained. Rolling around the ramp he advances south and spots a sectoid sitting in a wheat field! We have first contact. The message was "PLASMA!". Or response? "ROCKET!"

*Ksheewwwww*... *KABOOM!* Direct hit! First Blo-, uh, Gib goes to Toaist! Bits of Sectoid rain down everywhere.

New round. Toaist rolls south to check out the immediate area. He takes fire from the west. The plasma singes the turret and the tank is unharmed! This new sectoid is carrying a rifle, rather more dangerous. I want to save the Tank rockets in case the shtf so I'm deploying our men. First off the ramp is Prozac. He has enough time to take a shot, but there are 3 fences in between and he can't get line of sight. Next up is Blacksheep. He walks down the ramp and crouches, firing 3 sh*ts... The first 2 hit wide but the second is a perfect headshot! The alien is hurt but unphased! Next up is MrDevil, he walks down to the end of the ramp, turns and fires a single shot from his autocannon (I like to think of it as a grenade launcher). *Whump!* Direct headshot! The alien is obliterated! The area seems secure so we spill out of the Skyranger and fan out.

New turn. Nothing sighted. Toaist rolls forward and locates the UFO. It is intact and the rest of the aliens must be inside. We all converge on the door...

New turn. Alright redshirts take point! Mwahahaha. First up is Cayne! He reaches the door and... Comes face to face with a pair of sectoids and a pair of gun barrels! Yikes. Screaming his battecry (we think, its hard to hear from outside the door) Cayne opens fire! 2 hits! The first sectoid is down! But the second returns fire, but the shot hits a nearby chair! Cayne fires again and downs the other Sectoid!

Mission Complete! We have salvaged a complete small UFO! Metal and delicious Elerium abound! 3 Aliens bagged and tagged. One of the aliens was actually alive and unconscious but we don't have holding facilities yet so it suffocated or something.

Cayne you are hardcore! Fistbumps from everyone. I forsee great things from our Redshirts.

As the only people who really did anything apart from the tank. Blacksheep, Cayne and Devil are promoted to sergeants.

WOOOOO!!!!! i demand promotion from red-shirt to bad ass with an smg (sounds like me paintballing anyway) huzzah!

I had a little trouble with XCOMUtil. The stat changes were working fine. For instance it modifies the pistol to have autofire. But some of the other changes like remembering what squad member gets which equipment were not. I had to mod the dosbox config file to point to the correct fire to launch the XCOMUtil Shell. Everything works now.

Nothing eventful happened until the 14th of january when we spot another landed UFO. This is good and bad, landed UFOs salvage for more, but contain tons more dangerous aliens. We are going in regardless. Given that its only been 2 weeks our research has been slow, we still don't have laser pistols or medkits.

Same setup as last time.

Mission Starts:

- We land in what seems to be the middle of the zone. Immediately we spot a sectoid! Its far away on a hill and facing the wrong way. Even better it has a stun launcher! Time for some target practice. The rocket tank will be massive overkill for this so lets just move Toaist out of the way. *PEW PEW PEW*. Plasma splashes against the tanks hull! Luckily the armour holds. (one thing XCOMutil did was buff the armour of the non-hovertanks, very helpful) Turning the tank around Toaist spots an alien with a heavy plasma hiding behind a cactus! Well that won't do, he fires a rocket. Its a near miss, splashing against another cactus. But its close enough and the alien is smashed to the ground by a hail of shrapnel. Down but not dead, well need to keep an eye on him. First off the ramp is Myxolide, he takes aim and hits the sectoid in the shoulder! Good hit. Prozac and Blacksheep hop off the other end of the ramp and we wait.

New round. Suddenly an alien appears from the smoke and fires a heavy plasma! Prozac is hit and dies instantly! To add insult to injury the sectoid with the shrapnel in his face just got up and is running away! Blacksheep opens fire, but misses 7 times! Myxolide attacks from the other side and scores a single hit, but the sectoid shrugs it off! MrDevil slides off the top of the ramp, takes aim... and blasts the sectoid dead centre with his Heavy cannon! Clean kill. The other secoid is just standing in the open, we can ignore him for now. Toaist rolls up a nearby hill to scout the area. He spots another sectoid down a nearby valley but can't get a sh*t. Davet moves down the ramp and takes aim. 1 miss, 2 misses, but the third hit lands at the sectoids feet and blows him to bits! Alien down.

New turn. An alien moves emerges from the UFO and shoots Blacksheep in the face! Blacksheep is down! MrDevil returns fire but shoots wide! Myxolide tries next but he has to shoot between the birds landing gear and misses. Bighoppa tries from the opposite side but only scores a single hit! Its not enough! Cayne and PursuedbyBear try as well but they both miss! This isn't looking good... Hypatian tries one last shot but it misses the alien by an inch!

New turn. The alien shoots! But his shots are high and miss. Perhaps intimidated by the firing line of 7 troopers he retreats inside the UFO. Hypatian vents his frustration by shootin at that sectoid just standing around. Misses. Bighoppa shows him how its done and double taps the alien in the chest. Alien down. The outside area seems secure. We advance on the door.

New turn. The alien ducks outside again and opens fire on our tank. But the little pistol can't even scratch the paint! Time for some payback! Davet rapid fires 3 shots! The first is a miss, the second knocks the alien out cold, the third blows him to bits! Good kill. Its time to introduce the aliens to a little innovation called high explosives. One of the changes XCOMutil makes to equipment is to up the damage of HE to 200. This is the same as rounds from a blaster launcher and can crack the outer hull of UFOs. Instead of going in the front door, were going to make our own entrance. Davet preps some HE everyone dives for cover.

New turn. KABOOOM. The UFO is breached on its north wall! A scream sounds from inside as an unseen alien is blown to bits! We move up to breach the opening. Redshirts on point. Bighoppa and Hypation on the north breach. Myxolide and Cayne on the east door. Myxolide ducks inside and... Comes face to face with 2 sectoids and 2 gun barrels... Anyone see a pattern here? He guns down the first sectoid and the second returns fire! But its shots are blocked by the corner! Cayne leans around the doorframe and guns down the second sectoid! Redshirts 2-0.

New turn. Bighoppa ducks inside the north breach and spots an alien in the ships bridge. The sectoid has his back turned and never sees the bullet coming. UFO Secure!

Mission complete! We killed 9 aliens but lost Prozac and Blacksheep

We did manage to salvage a complete large scout UFO however. But after Davet's fire in the hole its no longer cherry if you get what I mean. 50 units of tasty Elerium and 33 units of metal. Armour for everyone! But this time around I'm getting medkits first, learned that lesson.

MrDevil is promoted to captain and Bighoppa is a new sergeant.

Yay! Stripeys!

Hah! Captain! Suck it Female Doggoes! This is how you save the world.

Sad for our losses though. We'll make them pay.

Tamren wrote:

Suddenly an alien appears from the smoke and fires a heavy plasma! Prozac is hit and dies instantly!

Prozac wrote:

Pain. Pain. Searing agony. The world has condensed to a white hot fire before my eyes. I wipe the tacky drying blood from my eyes and turn my head to the right. I grit my teeth against the fire in my skull. as my vision re-focuses I see the still form of Blacksheep lying face down surrounded by casings. He must have put up a hell of a fight. I roll. Pain. My world is pain. tears well and I begin to drag myself to my friend. An eternity passes. My vision goes black around the edges, but I must reach him. A pulse? Breath? no.

Yes.

He is alive. The tears fall. Those bastards left us behind. Why didn't pursued check on us? We've been Left 4 Dead. Despair. Anger. Resolve. We will get back. We will survive. Around us scorch marks and Xeno blood. In the distance, a farm house. Help? Safety? I must try.

"We can do this Blacksheep."

My world is pain.

Oh, you haven't seen the last of Prozac and Blacksheep. not by a long shot.

Man, this is actually tense. I'm biting my nails.

I've started up a brand new game of TTS as well. I played very far through the game in high school, and again in college. But never actually finished it. I think I had a game glitch or something where I couldn't start the cydonia mission. So with my new game, how do I start up my manufacturing? The base info says I have 10 engineers, I have a workshop. The Three Moves Ahead podcast said that in this remake starts me off with medikit tech, so I should be able to make some of those, right? When I click the button to start manufacturing, the selection list is empty. Is there some workshop assignment screen that I'm missing? Or something else?
Thanks.

If the list is empty, you'll need to research the tech. It's been a few months since I played, but I don't think you start with Medkit unless you use one of the third-party add-ons mentioned above.

Also, damn you all! Now I'm getting a hankering to play Xcom again, and I've got too much stuff on my pile as it is! Stop making me want to play great classic games.

bighoppa wrote:

If the list is empty, you'll need to research the tech. It's been a few months since I played, but I don't think you start with Medkit unless you use one of the third-party add-ons mentioned above.

Also, damn you all! Now I'm getting a hankering to play Xcom again, and I've got too much stuff on my pile as it is! Stop making me want to play great classic games.

I am using one of the third party remakes, TTS. Also, I can't research Medikits with my scientists, so I assume I should already be able to make them.

With Two Sides check the purchase/sell area, maybe their buyable in the mod.

Cayne wrote:

With Two Sides check the purchase/sell area, maybe their buyable in the mod.

Ding ding! That is exactly correct.

I'm clever!

so yeah i got bit by the bug and restarted a base game using the xcomutil 9.7 beta (win7x64 needed that version) i already can tell i messed up a couple of options that i want to restart for (i.e. map generation i don't want to be asked every time what map type and ship type I'm playing around) however for some reason it seems more intuitive and easier to get back into, with TTS it felt... off somehow... i'll try again later maybe but I'm liking base game with the Xcomutil re-balance.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Cayne wrote:

With Two Sides check the purchase/sell area, maybe their buyable in the mod.

Ding ding! That is exactly correct.

Ah, it's strictly purchasable, and not manufacturable at all. Ok. So my engineers are useless until I complete some research. Got it.

Prozac wrote:

Those bastards left us behind. Why didn't pursued check on us? We've been Left 4 Dead.

The first stage of grief is denial, man.

Anyone run into a weird bug with TTS where it lets you load the rocket HWP, but not the cannon into the skyranger? Brand new game. Very odd.

In the game I started, the two guys with the highest strength were generated with the same last name. So I think of them as two brothers that are HW specialists. Are there any brothers in GWJ that would like to be in my game?

Prozac wrote:
Tamren wrote:

Suddenly an alien appears from the smoke and fires a heavy plasma! Prozac is hit and dies instantly!

Prozac wrote:

Pain. Pain. Searing agony. The world has condensed to a white hot fire before my eyes. I wipe the tacky drying blood from my eyes and turn my head to the right. I grit my teeth against the fire in my skull. as my vision re-focuses I see the still form of Blacksheep lying face down surrounded by casings. He must have put up a hell of a fight. I roll. Pain. My world is pain. tears well and I begin to drag myself to my friend. An eternity passes. My vision goes black around the edges, but I must reach him. A pulse? Breath? no.

Yes.

He is alive. The tears fall. Those bastards left us behind. Why didn't pursued check on us? We've been Left 4 Dead. Despair. Anger. Resolve. We will get back. We will survive. Around us scorch marks and Xeno blood. In the distance, a farm house. Help? Safety? I must try.

"We can do this Blacksheep."

My world is pain.

Oh, you haven't seen the last of Prozac and Blacksheep. not by a long shot.

My luck holds out for sargeant stripes and a shot to the face. That's about par for course! Of course, if one of my guys missed 7 times, I'd go ahead and process him for dogfood too...

Mixolyde wrote:

Anyone run into a weird bug with TTS where it lets you load the rocket HWP, but not the cannon into the skyranger? Brand new game. Very odd.

In the game I started, the two guys with the highest strength were generated with the same last name. So I think of them as two brothers that are HW specialists. Are there any brothers in GWJ that would like to be in my game?

I believe we do have a father/son duo...

Guys who miss 7 times run into ufos with armed grenades on the next mission.

Mixolyde wrote:

Anyone run into a weird bug with TTS where it lets you load the rocket HWP, but not the cannon into the skyranger? Brand new game. Very odd.

Never had that, but sometimes button presses on the various screens can be inconsistent, so it seems like something won't load, fiddling around fixes that. Also, dumb question, but are you sure the skyranger isn't full?

January passes quickly. Our base facilities have finished, increasing the amount of living space. We also have alien storage so we can begin to capture specimens. I have up-gunned our interceptors to sport dual missile launchers. No more piddly cannons. Laser Pistol research has finished and I ordered up a batch of 6. Medkits are on the way too. But not soon enough.

On Jan 22nd we detect a landed UFO. And it is... just north of our base! Yikes. If our base had turrets they would be within missile range. Gotta take them out fast.

Current roster as follows. To fill the gaps I am drafting Tomaytohead and Judge.

Mixolyde R
Bighoppa R
Hypatian R
Cayne R

Wandering Toaist Tanker
Mr Tomaytohead Assault
Tamren Assault
The Judge Sniper
MrDevil Heavy
Davet Heavy Tanker
Pursuedbybear Medic

Just to clarify, volunteering to be a redshirt means that you will generally have <40 bravery. If we run out of redshirt candidates I will start to use the people with >40 bravery as redshirts. We still have regular assault goodjers, and its a sh*tty job regardless

Mission begins. We have landed near a farm. No aliens in sight. Our craft is surrounded by buildings and off to the northeast sits the medium scout UFO. This could turn into crossfire hell and I forgot the smoke grenades! Argh! Toaist rolls off the ramp and begins a little scouting. No aliens seen, but we can hear doors opening, so they are definitely inside the UFO.

New turn. Plasma streaks by the tank! Toaist spins around and blasts a hole in a nearby building but can't locate the shooter. To the north sectoids emerge from the cover of a wheat field and open fire on the ramp! Mixolyde is hit and bleeding badly! MrDevil raises his heavy cannon and returns fire! 3 direct hits! Both sectoids are down! The immediate area seems clear. We spill off the ramp and fan out.

New turn. Pursuedbybear does what he can but none of the medkits were completed before we had to launch. Mixolyde is determined to take one of the bastards with him and hauls ass towards the UFO. Most of us follow him. Judge stays by the ramp, ready to rocket any threats in the face. Our tank rolls around scouting the corners and knocking down fences. Bighoppa begins to search a farmhouse. So far we find nothing.

New turn. Mixolyde and Hypatian form up on the door. Mixolyde breaches and... finds the foyer empty. Eeeeh.... Creeping forward they prepare to breach the inner doors. The rest of the team spills into the UFO with Tamren Pursuidbybear and Devil bringing up the rear.

New turn. Mixolyde charges into the next room. His shoulder collides with something and he stops in the doorway! Whirling around he unloads his rifle into the sectoids face! At this range he can't possible miss and the Sectoid is thoroughly ventilated. Sweating bullets he steps over the corpse and inches towards the second door... On the other side Hypatian kicks open the other door and spots an alien in the shadows of the bridge! Firing 3 shots he guns down the sectoid from behind before ducking back out.

New turn. Mixolyde is on his last legs at this point with 2 hp and steps determinedly through the next door. Levels his rifle at the bridge and... Plasma fire! Mixolyde is shot twice from behind! Before he hits the ground Tamren jumps though the door and turns to find a sectoid behind him! His heavy launcher is useless at this range! Fumbling at his belt for something, anything! His hand closes around the grip of a laser pistol! PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW! The sectoid is thrown back against the wall by the hail of laser fire and collapses to the ground with a loud *sizzle*. Hypatian and Pursuidbybear charge into the bridge and find it empty. Just one room to go...

New turn. Hypatian breaches the door the engine room and comes face to barrel with a plasma pistol! But the alien blinks first and Hypatian shoots him in the face!

UFO secure! Mission Complete.

Daaaaaargh. I tried so hard to finish the mission before Mixolyde bled out. That backstabbing SOB! At least we got revenge. We bagged 6 aliens but lost Mixolyde. Salvage amounts to 35 units of metal and 50 elerium as well as 1 power source and 2 nav consoles. Tamren has been promoted to Sergeant.

Selling off all of the alien gear has netted us a cool 2 million. Most of it went towards hiring 25 more scientists. Our new batch of 12 recruits has arrives. Lots of redshirts to fill in for next mission!

I could use Robear and Rocub for my HW guys, that would be amusing. I haven't renamed my soldiers, yet. But I did clear my first crashed ufo mission. A regular rifleman shot an alien inside a barn through an open window, no easy task even on auto shot. One and done, no casualties. Only able to collect some alloys and a plasma pistol. Research begins.

As for the HWP bug, I started a brand new game and ordered both types of HWPs for testing. When they arrived, the rocket would load and unload, but the cannon wouldn't. I quit and restarted the game, created a new game, same thing. Quite odd.

Hey! I did pretty well!

That'll never last.