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

[eldaec]

They are lazy fuckers though, I find you can have a support or assault run into spotter range, snipe them, then have the scout retreat instead of going on overwatch. They rarely shift their lardy ass into cover or a flanking position to catch you out.

[Merusk]

Sectopods get 2 reaction shots with the cannon; if you check the info screen it says this because I checked after a support got killed by one.  I thought the assault had eaten the only overwatch with quick reflexes.  NOPE!

They also have some sort of crazy-good aim.  If you're not behind full cover you may as well be uncovered.  Eldaec's right about being lazy, though.  Even when they aren't charging their massive "KILL YOU ALL" aoe bullshit.

[Goumindong]

They are lazy fuckers though, I find you can have a support or assault run into spotter range, snipe them, then have the scout retreat instead of going on overwatch. They rarely shift their lardy ass into cover or a flanking position to catch you out.

Sectopods, like Cyberdisks, drones, any enemy currently flying, chyssalids, and iirc berzerkers cannot take cover. Their AI will go right at you, or stay where it is if it thinks it can't get around you. No reason to "flank" when walking past you has the same effect (they also can't be flanked)

[Samprimary]

Getting close to my impossible ironman closer. My final mission is either going to be 2 heavies 2 snipers 2 support, or 4 snipers 2 support. I don't expect any casualties.

[lamaros]

The final mission is the easiest impossible mission in the game. If you get there with even half a squad (and a sniper) you'll be right.

Edit: I still have a copy of Civ V to give away. I think Megrim got a copy too, so anyone else want this?

Edit 2: Anyone for a multiplayer game?

[murdoc]

I would love your copy of Civ V, if you don't mind.

[Sophismata]

Playing impossible has ruined classic and normal.

Which is annoying because impossible isn't tuned very well.

[lamaros]

Playing impossible has ruined classic and normal.

Which is annoying because impossible isn't tuned very well.

I feel the same way. The game is a bit easy on the lower difficulty levels now, but impossible isn't exactly 'fun' a lot of the time.

Unfortunately impossible has to much of a "fuck this up and the game is lost" design, and not enough "fuck up slightly a few times and you'll quickly ruin your game" moments. There isn't a lot of back and forth, you either win or flat out lose. Much of this is due to the early game and the 4 soldiers squad size I think, though I have some serious issues with how the enemy AI is designed.

Plus the strategy layer is just borked. Moves too fast, doesn't have any real variety in choices, and feels very 'gamey'.

murdoc: Add me on steam if you can and I'll gift it your way. I'm lamaros there.

[koro]

So apparently either Firaxis or Valve is blocking modding of XCOM via mucking with xcomgame.exe (which is currently the only way to go about modding the game at all) by forcing it to "call home" every time it's opened and reset any modifications made to it if any are found.

I am not pleased.

[Ingmar]

So apparently either Firaxis or Valve is blocking modding of XCOM via mucking with xcomgame.exe (which is currently the only way to go about modding the game at all) by forcing it to "call home" every time it's opened and reset any modifications made to it if any are found.

I am not pleased.

Pretty sure this is SOP with Steam and game executables.

[koro]

Not really. There are several games I own through Steam that don't auto-restore their .exes on launch (including, up until a few days ago, XCOM), so it's more than likely something Firaxis is doing. It's possible to continue modding XCOM if you block the game from phoning home by cutting it off from the internet, but that's kind of a pain.

It's not like .exe modding can even affect multiplayer, since modded .exes are barred from playing with anyone not using the exact same set of mods.

[lamaros]

It used to work fine: I completed a classic ironman with second wave enabled.

Now it only works if you play in offline mode.

Multiplayer seems region locked too (in the non-invite from steam form anyhow). Really really sucks. It is absurdly stupid.

[eldaec]

Can you not set the game to 'no updates'?

[koro]

No. The game still phones home regardless of settings. Browsing around the Nexus and Firaxis forums, though, I found out you can keep it from doing so with a simple editing of your hosts file:

Code:

# Prevent XCOM Phone Home
127.0.0.1 prod.xcom.firaxis.com
127.0.0.1 65.118.245.165

Just doing that lets it start A-OK with mods intact.

[murdoc]

murdoc: Add me on steam if you can and I'll gift it your way. I'm lamaros there.

Done! Thanks muchly.

[cironian]

Huh. I never realized you could map raw IPs to other IPs via hosts.

[Merusk]

I haven't watched it yet but wanted to share as I don't follow the guy anymore but this popped up on my X-com facebook feed.

Yahtzee's X-com review: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6468-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown

[bhodi]

Operation red hero indeed. So much for that classic ironman game!

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/921244714636596586/E9029F7870BBBCD8B527B8B42D62554CB6610A9C/

[Teleku]

Fuuucking fucking fuck!  Had my Ironman Classic game going so great!  Base assault with no casualties!  Full squad of almost fully leveled up soldiers wearing titan armor and wielding a mix of laser and plasma weapons!  Plus several other b team replacements who were well leveled up as well!  Three fucking guys tested positive for psi abilities so far (in my other play though that wasn't Ironman, I only ever found 1 in the whole game)!  No nations lost, almost total satellite coverage, and plenty of money and resources!  

Then in one random abduction mission, a super version of the floaters does his fly up thing and lands next to my sniper.  A nearby guy shoots with 80% chance, misses.  Sniper double taps with 90% chance, miss's twice.  I have my fucking psi warrior use panic on him so he wont do anything the next turn for 95% chance, and FAILS.  Next turn, floater shoots and crits sniper to kill her from full life to zero.  I kill the damn thing next turn, and the mission ends, but its the start of the down fall.

Shortly after I managed to shoot down an alien supply ship.  I very cautiously assault it, till I run into a sectoid commander pack.  I don't move anybody else further than they already are, and start shooting.  However, when I have one of my guys in cover shoot, the act of sticking her head out to fire caused a tiny little extra space behind the aliens to be revealed, which suddenly revealed a pack of Mutons with a Berserker.  This act of shooting was of course the last event of my turn.  They close distance once revealed, then take another full turn to close even more distance and start raping some of my forward guys.  One dead and another bleeding out, before I can do anything.  I try in vain to clear the pack and try to save one of my best guys (who is bleeding out), but the act of him getting close to use the med pack somehow uncovers two more god damned spawns!  Cascade failure ensues, and my shitty backup sniper outside cant take down things fast enough to provide escape support.  Ends with that sniper being last one left, and then getting mind controlled.  Entire squad wiped.

I try to bounce back using whats left of my B-team plus new recruits.  I have them all wearing some of the best gear in the game, so I figure that should give them some breathing room while I try to quickly level up (I'd purchased the officer training that makes all your guys level up faster once things started going to shit).  No fucking use, the red shirts start dropping like flies over the course of two missions.  I was running into super mutons, and my god damned shitty redshirts were only drawing 15% chances to hit with plasma rifles, from good angles of attack.  A simple mission resulted in what was left of my ravaged B-team being wiped out along with their cadre of shitty recruits.  Game is god damned over.

Edit:  Heh, I started writing this rant before you posted that Bhodi.  Looks like a lot of that going around!

[lamaros]

Damn, sounds painful. :(

Maybe you should refresh by playing a multiplayer game!

Anyone? :)

[Strazos]

Had my first game (normal ironman) going well until the base assault. Had a pretty nice team...but I was low on cash and looking to upgrade into plasma rifles.

I see some mutons. I figure I can cap 2 of them for free fancy rifles...unfortunately, I tried to be cute and leave multiple mutons alive for this. My sniper first missed a high percentage shot to take someone out, and then I kind of muffed positioning, which gave the mutons time to randomly cap a heavy in the face, and then toss a nade to do crazy damage...

Wiped most of the team right there - whoops. That'll teach me to get cute with captures.

[lamaros]

Disabling shot is useful only for them captures imo, but then, as you've found out, sometimes that can be REALLY useful.

Also, patch notes:

[DraconianOne]

Easy Difficulty is now easier

What? Really?

[koro]

Yeah, I honestly don't know how they could make Easy easier without flat-out removing some mechanics like the Overwatch aim penalty on the player side or further nerfing alien health. I mean Easy already gives you a 50% cash bonus and the game literally cheats for you in both Easy and Normal, giving hidden streakbreaker bonuses to players' consecutive missed shots to ensure you eventually hit.

[Strazos]

I'm thinking, when I restart my normal ironman playthrough that I might try to consciously incorporate more capturing into my tactics - anyone see any non-obvious drawbacks besides the need to get into close range and purposely not cap a bitch?

I assume there are no real benefits beyond the first capture other than items?

[bhodi]

The game ate my ironman save last night when I went to start it again this morning.

Fuck this game and it's shitty save game code forever, this is the SECOND time it's done this. I'm done.

Edit: Going into the saves and fucking around and deleting old ones make it show up again. But for some reason, now it's midway down the list.
Half my fuck this game retracted, but only half.



You'll want to capture enough plasma rifles and pistols to equip your guys, but no more. Beyond that and the story captures, and of course the research bonuses there is no point, and it actually hurts you because you don't get weapon fragments to research, you only get useless weapons.

[Trippy]

The game ate my ironman save last night when I went to start it again this morning.

Fuck this game and it's shitty save game code forever, this is the SECOND time it's done this. I'm done.

Edit: Going into the saves and fucking around and deleting old ones make it show up again. But for some reason, now it's midway down the list.
Half my fuck this game retracted, but only half.

Fix is described here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21750.msg1122002#msg1122002

Note, I'm not playing Ironman so I'm not sure if those saves are handled differently. Be very very careful with your saves.

[lamaros]

I've got a spare copy of this that I won the other week. Was going to give it to my brother, but I dawdled and he bought it in the interim.

So I will give it to someone on here! If there a few people interested I'll draw a name out of a random number hat. There is one condition, though: you have to play a few games against me in multiplayer (it's very hard to find games due to the region locking).

[Llyse]

I've got a spare copy of this that I won the other week. Was going to give it to my brother, but I dawdled and he bought it in the interim.

So I will give it to someone on here! If there a few people interested I'll draw a name out of a random number hat. There is one condition, though: you have to play a few games against me in multiplayer (it's very hard to find games due to the region locking).

I'm down for some cross Blood Bowl rivalry, please put my name in the hat 

[lamaros]

I've got a spare copy of this that I won the other week. Was going to give it to my brother, but I dawdled and he bought it in the interim.

So I will give it to someone on here! If there a few people interested I'll draw a name out of a random number hat. There is one condition, though: you have to play a few games against me in multiplayer (it's very hard to find games due to the region locking).

I'm down for some cross Blood Bowl rivalry, please put my name in the hat 

One contestant, one winner!

[Khaldun]

Impossible Ironman is...well, so hard that it's really not much fun. I think I'll try Ironman Classic instead.

[Ceryse]

Just getting into this now (finally upgraded my computer and moved to Windows 7....)

Having fun, but I do wish the cover display worked (I don't get a preview of cover when moving my soldiers, for some reason, so I have to just guess what's full/half cover where based on the object size). Not really sold on how much re-playability I'll get out of it, but so far it seems worth the purchase (no other bugs yet, thankfully). I do find it amusing that of my five main squad members the three guys can't hit shit but the two women rarely miss (and thus have ended up with most of the kills so far).

[Strazos]

Yo...double tap...that shit is GREAT. 

[koro]

I personally prefer In the Zone, but Double Tap is indeed fantastic.

[lamaros]

I made a xcom steam group for muliplayer, seeing how the region locking makes it so bloody hard to find games at some times and in some parts of the world.

Details:

Group Name: XCOM: Multiplayer Skirmish
Abbreviation: XCOM: MP
Group Link: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/XCOMMP