Pissed about an X-Com FPS? Firaxis hears ya...

[apocrypha]

On heavies:

Is it wrong to want three heavies on a 6 man team?  I like to have one "bulldozer" with all the rocket abilities and 2 suppression experts that lock down enemies for my sniper and assault to pickoff.  Also:  the first game I took holo-targetting on these guys but now I feel bullet swarm is probably the way to go in all cases, do folks have an argument supporting holo-targetting over bullet swarm.

Agree with what everyone else said about Squad Sight, it's far more useful than Snap Shot until you get into the ships and getting LOS gets much harder.

As for heavies, I actually find Holo Targetting is very useful. If you can get your heavy to fire off a burst at a hardened target in cover then despite him missing (my heavies don't seem to be able to shoot for shit) everyone else on the team gets a hit bonus on that target. Great for taking out things that need focus fire like Cyberdiscs and Muton Elites/Beserkers.

Normal's definitely too easy if you've played the original. I'm coming up on endgame, haven't lost a single country, panic levels at 1 across the entire globe and only lost 3 soldiers. Last mission was a battleship and I psionically butchered every single alien in there without firing a single shot.... even MC'd the ethereal 

Classic Ironman next, for sure.

[Merusk]

Yeah, for builds I always take Supression and Holo-Targeting on my heavies.  It makes them useful since their aim is total shit with weapons not the rocket launchers.

I'm finding I really, really like Gunslinger on the snipers.  It makes them useful on each turn when you can't see aliens but you had to move them so squad-sight overwatch isn't an option.

[HaemishM]

Gunslinger is the shiznit on snipers. My now-dead Israeli sniper Malachi "Lockdown" Rothstein got at least 2 or 3 kills in one map alone with the starter pistol thanks to gunslinger.

[koro]

After running both a Squad Sight + Gunslinger and a Snap Shot + Damn Good Ground sniper in the same squad for a bit, I have to say that the Squad Sight + Gunslinger one proved to be far more versatile and useful. Moving the Snap Shot sniper meant losing a ton of accuracy, to the point where I would've probably been better off using the Squad Sight one's pistol instead.

I suppose maybe it gets better much later on when you can Ghost around using a Snap Shot sniper with In the Zone, getting up to high ground on your first move, getting the Aim bonus from Damn Good Ground and taking out multiple un-aggroed enemies who are still out of cover, but still.

[Ingmar]

On the last mission:

[Ghambit]

I had my non-gunslinger Sniper "OverWitch" grab like 4 kills on a terrorism map.  The key is just not getting suckered into moving them and sometimes even not using cover (since your range is vastly higher).   If they've got skeleton armor and can gain the high ground, even better.  Use your other squadies (a shotgun-tank in particular) to "flush."
And remember, most AI will try to rush the sniper at range... playing right into your hand.  Set the others on the flanks with the sniper emplaced in the middle.

Anyways, not very adaptable I know, but there are cases where they work.  Particularly if you're falling back with the sniper covering the retreat.

[Ingmar]

And remember, most AI will try to rush the sniper at range...

I have never, ever seen the AI do this.

[Ghambit]

And remember, most AI will try to rush the sniper at range...

I have never, ever seen the AI do this.

....  depends on where the rest of your squad is, if you've got scanners, squadsight, etc.

[Goumindong]

Agree with what everyone else said about Squad Sight, it's far more useful than Snap Shot until you get into the ships and getting LOS gets much harder.

As for heavies, I actually find Holo Targetting is very useful. If you can get your heavy to fire off a burst at a hardened target in cover then despite him missing (my heavies don't seem to be able to shoot for shit) everyone else on the team gets a hit bonus on that target. Great for taking out things that need focus fire like Cyberdiscs and Muton Elites/Beserkers.

Holotargeting is kinda weak, because the other option lets you shoot twice in a turn, or shoot and reload, or shoot and hunker down, or shoot and move, or shoot and throw a grenade(or shoot and suppress)

Its only really good if you suppress more than you shoot with your heavy

Get Gunslinger on your snipers and their lack of LOS doesnt matter as much anymore.

Three Heavies is probably a bit much; I run two most times, and even that's uncommon.

Suppression is great, but you are better off getting it on your supports i think. Only make heavies suppression heavies if you have more heavies than supports.

What the ending lacked in coherency it made up in abruptness. 

Ending made perfect sense, explained a lot of things which otherwise don't make sense (like why the aliens don't just "win")

[Ingmar]

Ending made perfect sense, explained a lot of things which otherwise don't make sense (like why the aliens don't just "win")

[koro]

Suppression is great, but you are better off getting it on your supports i think. Only make heavies suppression heavies if you have more heavies than supports.

I also like Suppression on supports, but the Suppression upgrades for heavies can be really, really nice. When you manage to suppress 2-3 mutons instead of just one (or three chryssalids that are about to bear down on a hapless civvie or squadmate), you'll see that it's more than worth the price of admission.

[Arthur_Parker]

On the last mission:

I'm doing that mission now

[Rasix]

You big cheater. 

[Trippy]

Mind bullets!

[lamaros]

[Quinton]

Yeah, I think they could have skipped the cutscenes and expended a bit more effort on UI/UX polish and the game would have been better for it.

[Goumindong]

Ending made perfect sense, explained a lot of things which otherwise don't make sense (like why the aliens don't just "win")

Maybe uhhh.. Maybe you just didn't pay attention?

[lamaros]

Mod stuff. Not really spoiler-y:


The ending makes a certain kind of sense, it is still massively naff, though.

[Ratman_tf]

Here's all the story an X-Com game needs!

[Trippy]

Speaking of the alien brain (spoilered for large image):

[Pezzle]

Operation Vengeful Vengeance

Heh

[koro]

You can totally add in new words to be mission names, by the way.

[deb]

I've found the snipers (squadsight + damn good ground + opportunist + in the zone) to be ridiculously good. I figure four snipers (archangel) and two supports (ghost) would be the most effective squad composition, at least outdoors.

But that would probably also be quite boring and ruin what's really an excellent game. And I'm only playing on normal, so who knows.

[koro]

One fun thing you can do is take a Snap Shot sniper with In the Zone and some ghost armor, stealth them, run them into a room you know has aliens, and then kill them all in one move. While stealthed you have a 100% crit rate, you'll be hitting the enemies with your full Aim value before the Snap Shot penalty (which, for most Colonel-rank snipers is about 105), and since they start out of cover, In the Zone will trigger on each kill. Your ghost armor's stealth shouldn't fade until your sniper's turn ends.

[calapine]

Just started to try this. Picked Classic-Ironman to avoid learning bad habits on an easier difficulty.

So far it's a great game, but it's hard to 'get over' the fact it's not really a faithful adaptation of the original UFO. Feels too scripted and cut-sceny, missing the free-form 'simulation' aspect of the original. I admit that's a matter of exceptions though, rather than game-quality per se.

One major annoyence for me is the full-cover system. Instead of tracking the shot it seems to be a flat -hit chance (80%?). Which means it's possible to shoot at a sectoid that is out of sight and completly hidden/protected by a conrete pillar.
What happens when a soldier shoots is the following: "Animation starts - Sectoid hidden - Sectoid moves out of cover to stick it's head out - soldier shoots alien."

Which also means it's not possible to hide a wounded or outmatched soldier behind a corner/wall because on the alien's turn he will just start poking his head around the corner to get shot in the face. Annoying.
IMHO a wall should be a wall, etc. With the chance of being pierced/destroyed by ammunition. Imagine a bullet going through a wooden wall or an alien just melting a concrete wall with plasma weaponry.

Lastly a question for those who are farther in: Is it better to always use the same soldiers and train them into super-elites or constantly rotate our rookies to have a large pool of semi-experienced personal?

[Goumindong]

Which also means it's not possible to hide a wounded or outmatched soldier behind a corner/wall because on the alien's turn he will just start poking his head around the corner to get shot in the face. Annoying.
IMHO a wall should be a wall, etc. With the chance of being pierced/destroyed by ammunition. Imagine a bullet going through a wooden wall or an alien just melting a concrete wall with plasma weaponry.

The game always assumes that soldiers on corners are looking around the corner(its why you get vision). So its not that you "stick your head out to get shot" its that you've always been sticking your head out, in order to see/shoot.

If you want to hide a wounded solder behind a wall, don't do it on a corner, move them one square over..

If you cannot do that, consider "hunkering down" which doubles the cover bonus, I.E. the only thing sticking out of the wall is the stuff you couldn't get behind it

[lamaros]

Also, yes, rotate your soldiers. You want some high level, but don't want all eggs in the same basket.

[Tebonas]

That is a good tip and damn important. After the great total Canadian wipeout, where only one Assault and my Sniper survived, I tend to use the last slot as Rookie training for spares. For a while there were a number of missions where I could as well named all the Teammembers redshirt. I was glad if one or two newbies survived a mission under the guiding hand of Death-From-Afar and Shotgun-to-the-Crotch.

[lamaros]

With a bit of experience you get ok at judging how many rookies or second team to bring along on a mission. Difficulty is one judge, council missions also have certain alien types, and UFO size is another. With a six man squad I would only use two or more of my decent team at any one time for the most part, rising to maybe four for difficult missions.

[Merusk]

You can totally add in new words to be mission names, by the way.

I hadn't even thought to try that.  Pretty awesome, though I doubt I have the mental stamina or care enough to change every one. 

[Amaron]

Which also means it's not possible to hide a wounded or outmatched soldier behind a corner/wall because on the alien's turn he will just start poking his head around the corner to get shot in the face. Annoying.

As noted above: Hunker Down.  I believe it even reduces LoS for the aliens.  If you want to overwatch then of course you'll get shot.

[Polysorbate80]

In regards to cover and the original game, I miss being able to target squares with weapon fire regardless of what's in them.  I used to blow holes in stuff all the time with my blaster just to make new entrances or destroy cover.

I still find myself doing that at times with the explosives (thin man on the roof you can't target?  Just blow out the building under him!) but the supply is too limited  

[Shannow]

Godamn OP snipers. Last two missions, as I've tried to capture an outsider alien, my squad has been advancing on the downed alien ship and I have my two snipers (Colonel Skip and his young padawan) on overwatch covering. Well the damn outsider alien pops up in LOS and before I know it he's deader than a doorknob.

I actually have to stop using the snipers in missions because they vulch so many kills and don't let my other guys get promoted.


You know what I miss from the original game? Base defence. Especially that first one where you haven't got armour for your squad and 80% of them are rookies...That was fun times.

[Merusk]

Which also means it's not possible to hide a wounded or outmatched soldier behind a corner/wall because on the alien's turn he will just start poking his head around the corner to get shot in the face. Annoying.

As noted above: Hunker Down.  I believe it even reduces LoS for the aliens.  If you want to overwatch then of course you'll get shot.

Doesn't always work out that you can Hunker Down.  I learned the hard way last night that some times it's best to let someone bleed 1-2 turns before reviving them.  Take out the guys that knocked them down first. Rushing your support back to revive them when they go down just means you have two units that can't fire, and the one that went down and is now revived doesn't get a move, so he'll be exposed.

He was behind 'cover' but it was only partial, so Mr. Muton Elite headshot him the next turn.  Once again, % shots vs. true line of fire fucks things up a bit.

I'll miss you, "Cargo."

Godamn OP snipers. Last two missions, as I've tried to capture an outsider alien, my squad has been advancing on the downed alien ship and I have my two snipers (Colonel Skip and his young padawan) on overwatch covering. Well the damn outsider alien pops up in LOS and before I know it he's deader than a doorknob.

I actually have to stop using the snipers in missions because they vulch so many kills and don't let my other guys get promoted.


You know what I miss from the original game? Base defence. Especially that first one where you haven't got armour for your squad and 80% of them are rookies...That was fun times.

If you're trying to cap the worst thing you can do is leave your sniper on overwatch with the rifle.  Switch them to pistols instead, they won't switch weapons on their own.  It's more dangerous but it's the only way to cap things without sacrificing their utility on your turn.

[eldaec]

I find most aliens will stay still if you overwatch them all to fuck.

Capturing my first alien and my outsider I used lots of hunker down to advance carefully while he shot back. But now I just surround the shithead with overwatch guys and they seem to surrender and let me walk up and stun them rather than be killed. I'd like to think it is an intentional choice of the AI but suspect it is just a quirk. Only time I generally get overwatch shots is when they can't see my guys and stumble into an overwatch zone from out of LoS altogether.

The exception being muton beserkers who you shoot at so they run at you and then you just tase the fucker when he gets close.