XCOM
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Re: XCOM
Drool. Not for DOS version.
XCOMUTIL (EU and TFTD) and ApocUtil (Obviously for apocalypse). Random alien ship layout, level generation, and mass of bug fixes!
XCOMUTIL (EU and TFTD) and ApocUtil (Obviously for apocalypse). Random alien ship layout, level generation, and mass of bug fixes!
Option to start with a defensible base design! Woo!Today, XcomUtil not only fixes the Difficulty Bug and several others, but it enables you to use all five ships to carry troops, it can randomly redesign the alien ships before each battle, and it can allow you to pick your terrain and the type of alien ship before each battle. The image on the right is an OS/2 screen capture of the new XCOM Interceptor. It holds up to 6 soldiers, with the possibility of one tank.
Re: XCOM
Can't be bought in stores, only the sequel can be bought on Steam, but yes I quite enjoy it from time to time. It's one of those games where you are almost forced to pirate it... fortunately I found a copy on ebay a long time ago.
I just recently tried out UFO: Afterlight. IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD... parts of it, anyway. You have to let it off the hook a few times for parts that suck colossal monkey ass, like for instance pathfinding, a "queue" system that should have been for a much, much, much more complex game (and is a mess regardless), and a camera system that jumps around like a midget at a urinal.
I had quite a good time with it, stuff was happening, story was unfolding, I was researching all kinds of crazy stuff, my dudes (and Aranesque female death squad) were leveled up to the point where they were unstoppable if you were clever about it, and then, it all wore off when out of nowhere...
"OH lulz btw, we're gonna revive all of the 10,000 colonists we currently have in the freezers, and we're gonna do it in 18 months. SO YOU BETTER JUST HURRY THE HELL UP, YEAH, BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO REVIVE THEM REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE TERRAFORMING'S DONE, JUST TO SHOW HOW SERIOUS WE ARE ABOUT COLONIZING THIS PLACE."
"oh... AND BTW IF YOU FAIL EVERYONE DIES BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO ARBITRARILY JUST UNFREEZE EVERYONE AT THAT SPECIFIC DATE. AND THEN YOU LOSE THE GAME. FOR REAL, YO. ALSO, WE'RE GOING TO RAPE YOUR CAT"
I ignored the message since it was the most idiotic thing I'd ever seen and I assumed it was a little like how in Star Control 2 you have a limit of 2000 crew you can recruit, ever, but that's actually just a lie and everything's unlimited.
But no. 18 months later I was notified "YOUR COLONY HAS EXPLODED YOU LOSE".
Yes, my colony literally exploded, that's how fast they unfroze the buggers. There must have been limbs everywhere. I'm guessing I'd have lost now regardless of whether I'd won "the war" (more on that later), since apparently they decided to simultaneously unfreeze the entire population. They looked out the window, said, "Oh look, no atmosphere. Ah well, we shouldn't go back on our word", unfroze the entire population, and boom too much bodies in too little space, laws of physics defied, and you shouldn't **** around with physics.
What's more fun is that I was, in fact, at war with two factions and possibly a third if I wanted to gain the friendship of a fourth faction. So just who the hell am I supposed to beat in order to satisfy the game's cravings for peace, anyway? Don't tell me, let me guess. Is it the yellow aliens, the red aliens, the purple aliens, or the "colorless robotic menace" aliens, or the "hinted-of evil martian civilization" that I haven't even encountered yet but is apparently raising hell on the other side of the planet... hmm...
The developers need to get intimate with a woodchipper.
P.S. Spent most of my time on the Equipment screen since this is the only one where there isn't an obnoxious assclown shouting obvious things at you, like, "YOU NEED TO EQUIP YOUR UNITS WITH WEAPONS, TOO!" and my persional favorite, "IF WE'RE GOING TO WIN THIS WAR WE NEED TO START BUILDING THINGS!!!" when I have 200 cases of ammunition and enough grenades to last me another 2-3 years of fighting.
Goddamn, come to think of it, for every 10 things this game gets right, it so horribly botches one other small thing so badly it makes up for those 10. What a criminal waste of time.
I just recently tried out UFO: Afterlight. IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD... parts of it, anyway. You have to let it off the hook a few times for parts that suck colossal monkey ass, like for instance pathfinding, a "queue" system that should have been for a much, much, much more complex game (and is a mess regardless), and a camera system that jumps around like a midget at a urinal.
I had quite a good time with it, stuff was happening, story was unfolding, I was researching all kinds of crazy stuff, my dudes (and Aranesque female death squad) were leveled up to the point where they were unstoppable if you were clever about it, and then, it all wore off when out of nowhere...
"OH lulz btw, we're gonna revive all of the 10,000 colonists we currently have in the freezers, and we're gonna do it in 18 months. SO YOU BETTER JUST HURRY THE HELL UP, YEAH, BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO REVIVE THEM REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE TERRAFORMING'S DONE, JUST TO SHOW HOW SERIOUS WE ARE ABOUT COLONIZING THIS PLACE."
"oh... AND BTW IF YOU FAIL EVERYONE DIES BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO ARBITRARILY JUST UNFREEZE EVERYONE AT THAT SPECIFIC DATE. AND THEN YOU LOSE THE GAME. FOR REAL, YO. ALSO, WE'RE GOING TO RAPE YOUR CAT"
I ignored the message since it was the most idiotic thing I'd ever seen and I assumed it was a little like how in Star Control 2 you have a limit of 2000 crew you can recruit, ever, but that's actually just a lie and everything's unlimited.
But no. 18 months later I was notified "YOUR COLONY HAS EXPLODED YOU LOSE".
Yes, my colony literally exploded, that's how fast they unfroze the buggers. There must have been limbs everywhere. I'm guessing I'd have lost now regardless of whether I'd won "the war" (more on that later), since apparently they decided to simultaneously unfreeze the entire population. They looked out the window, said, "Oh look, no atmosphere. Ah well, we shouldn't go back on our word", unfroze the entire population, and boom too much bodies in too little space, laws of physics defied, and you shouldn't **** around with physics.
What's more fun is that I was, in fact, at war with two factions and possibly a third if I wanted to gain the friendship of a fourth faction. So just who the hell am I supposed to beat in order to satisfy the game's cravings for peace, anyway? Don't tell me, let me guess. Is it the yellow aliens, the red aliens, the purple aliens, or the "colorless robotic menace" aliens, or the "hinted-of evil martian civilization" that I haven't even encountered yet but is apparently raising hell on the other side of the planet... hmm...
The developers need to get intimate with a woodchipper.
P.S. Spent most of my time on the Equipment screen since this is the only one where there isn't an obnoxious assclown shouting obvious things at you, like, "YOU NEED TO EQUIP YOUR UNITS WITH WEAPONS, TOO!" and my persional favorite, "IF WE'RE GOING TO WIN THIS WAR WE NEED TO START BUILDING THINGS!!!" when I have 200 cases of ammunition and enough grenades to last me another 2-3 years of fighting.
Goddamn, come to think of it, for every 10 things this game gets right, it so horribly botches one other small thing so badly it makes up for those 10. What a criminal waste of time.
Re: XCOM
I beat X-Com 1 as well as TFTD on medium difficulty.
TFTD is much, much, much harder and more irritating tbh. If there's a ship terror mission I just don't even fucking go. No autofire on the sonic rifles, guns that don't work above water, two part and three part missions instead of one part like the original...the list goes on. I did like the final mission better on TFTD though.
I never beat apocalypse but it's pretty different. I got to the third or so alien building in it on one of my runs. I always played Apocalypse with real-time instead of the time-unit turn based.
None of the X-Com clones are worth a damn.
TFTD is much, much, much harder and more irritating tbh. If there's a ship terror mission I just don't even fucking go. No autofire on the sonic rifles, guns that don't work above water, two part and three part missions instead of one part like the original...the list goes on. I did like the final mission better on TFTD though.
I never beat apocalypse but it's pretty different. I got to the third or so alien building in it on one of my runs. I always played Apocalypse with real-time instead of the time-unit turn based.
None of the X-Com clones are worth a damn.
Re: XCOM
Well, I've beaten TFTD like 3 times on Superhuman. Those multipart missions are actually not that bad, you only have to know a few usual places aliens are hiding to solve the 'last alien remaining' problem. Since there are only 2 ship mission maps (cruise liner and a cargo ship), and 2 alien base mission maps (artifact site and an actual base), that's not that hard. Artifact site and alien base can be won without killing everyone - destroy base control device and that's it (but killing everyone and then looting the base is much more profitable).
There are some key moments. First time you encounter Deep Ones, take 1 of them alive (not that hard, tasers take them out in 2 hits) and at least 1 more dead. This gives you 2 key things: aqua plastics (research the body) = first armor and Ion Armor (research Deep One Terrorist AFTER Plastic Aqua Armor and Ion Accelerators) = much better protection (and this opens up MC research, first MC lab can be completed at month 2 if you're lucky). Next, when you discover an alien base, consider a raid there. Yoo need a live Tasoth, which are in abundance on the surface level of base. Just stun one, grab him, carry him to your dropship and retreat. Bring some tanks to defend against Tentaculats. This will give MC Disruptor = mind control AKA the way to victory.
As for Apocalypse, alien building missions aren't that hard if you use teleporters. Most of those building missions comes down to 'find something and destroy it'. So, give some of your squad 2 teleporters each, jump to a random place, look around, if there's too hot there - use the second teleporter to immediately jump back. This will give you a good understanding of where the mission goals are. Next, give those teleporting people a couple of large grenades (Vortex Mine or how they are called), jump to the item, place grenade (set to explode after a short delay) and jump away. BOOM, mission accomplished. An exception is the alien queen mission where you need the queen alive - you'll have to clear the building of aliens first. You can blow up their spawn points with the same Vortex Mine + 2 teleporters trick so they receive no more reinforcements. Then kill all the guards and throw a lot of stun gas grenades at the queen.
There are some key moments. First time you encounter Deep Ones, take 1 of them alive (not that hard, tasers take them out in 2 hits) and at least 1 more dead. This gives you 2 key things: aqua plastics (research the body) = first armor and Ion Armor (research Deep One Terrorist AFTER Plastic Aqua Armor and Ion Accelerators) = much better protection (and this opens up MC research, first MC lab can be completed at month 2 if you're lucky). Next, when you discover an alien base, consider a raid there. Yoo need a live Tasoth, which are in abundance on the surface level of base. Just stun one, grab him, carry him to your dropship and retreat. Bring some tanks to defend against Tentaculats. This will give MC Disruptor = mind control AKA the way to victory.
As for Apocalypse, alien building missions aren't that hard if you use teleporters. Most of those building missions comes down to 'find something and destroy it'. So, give some of your squad 2 teleporters each, jump to a random place, look around, if there's too hot there - use the second teleporter to immediately jump back. This will give you a good understanding of where the mission goals are. Next, give those teleporting people a couple of large grenades (Vortex Mine or how they are called), jump to the item, place grenade (set to explode after a short delay) and jump away. BOOM, mission accomplished. An exception is the alien queen mission where you need the queen alive - you'll have to clear the building of aliens first. You can blow up their spawn points with the same Vortex Mine + 2 teleporters trick so they receive no more reinforcements. Then kill all the guards and throw a lot of stun gas grenades at the queen.
Re: XCOM
They've done some workalikes from the original team - Laser Squad Nemesis and Rebelstar on the GBA.... but yes, I would dearly love me a new X-com-style game, preferably on my DS.Caydr wrote:How has such an excellent game not been re-done properly? It's like a genre unto itself, and you will never meet someone who's played X-Com and didn't like it.
Re: XCOM
Laser Squad Nemesis is nowhere nearly as cool as X-COM. Terrain is a lot less interesting, among other things.
BTW, I played around with a stat editor and had lots of fun with this game... you can finally fix all of the major balance issues, among other things.
I never could get that XCOMUTIL thing to work right- I'd get through 1, maybe 2 battles, then on the next one, the EXE hangs, every time
Ah well.
BTW, I played around with a stat editor and had lots of fun with this game... you can finally fix all of the major balance issues, among other things.
I never could get that XCOMUTIL thing to work right- I'd get through 1, maybe 2 battles, then on the next one, the EXE hangs, every time
Ah well.Re: XCOM
Laser Squad Nemesis relies far too much on abusing little quirks in the way the game works and its timing mechanisms, since the turns execute at the same time. You rely heavily on the AI to perform these orders correctly, which can be abused in various ways, such as abusing the extra aiming time from general reaction fire to ensure the enemy never gets a shot off but just aims continuously (To the point that general reaction fire is virtually unusable), timing your attacks between the windows for his attacks on opportunity fire, firing your grenades between 0.0s and 2.5s so they go off right before the end of his turn so he cant run from them, exploiting the fact you cant start firing in one turn and finish firing in the next, etc. For a purely multiplayer game the fact this makes up a major focus of your tactics is kinda a problem.
Re: XCOM
Minimizes to the command prompt and hangs?I never could get that XCOMUTIL thing to work right- I'd get through 1, maybe 2 battles, then on the next one, the EXE hangs, every time
Press control + c
Actually, the game would normally randomly crash with and without xcomutil. But the xcomutil keeps running, and I can just hit control+c which brings xcom up and right back to where it was before. Woo.
Anyone have tips to take out the Ethereals? The aliens in Jedi robes. I can touch down with a ship of 26 maxed out, fully armored, troops, and lose to 1 Ethereal with a mind probe. All my guys are busy killing each other, or running about panicking as it walks through the middle of all the fire and I scream "HE'S THREE F*CKING FEET FROM YOU! JUST SHOOT THE MOTHER F*CKER!".
Or maybe its impossible as I'm going on superhuman difficulty. Tanks can't be mind controlled, but the Ethereals kill them in 1 turn from across the map with heavy plasmas.
Re: XCOM
Do you have the Psi Lab built? After training in there for at least a month, your soldiers show their psi abilities in the stats window. Then you can look at their Psi Strength to determine how resistant they are to mind control attacks. Generally more is better, something in the 90s makes an agent virtually mindcontrol-proof (tanks have 100 AFAIR and are immune), while something in the 30s will make every enemy mind control him from the first attempt. This has little to do with morale and bravery, and Psi Strength does not increase during the game (Psi Skill increases however, but that has more to do with how succesful your own mind control attempts are).
This basically means that if your best soldier has Psi Strength lower than 50, don't bother giving him Heavy Plasmas and the kind. Give him 2 medikits and a motion scanner instead - Ethereals won't be able to figure out how to use those against you. People with low Psi Strength aren't going to do you much good in the last mission anyway.
This basically means that if your best soldier has Psi Strength lower than 50, don't bother giving him Heavy Plasmas and the kind. Give him 2 medikits and a motion scanner instead - Ethereals won't be able to figure out how to use those against you. People with low Psi Strength aren't going to do you much good in the last mission anyway.
Last edited by yuritch on 27 May 2008, 08:30, edited 1 time in total.
Re: XCOM
Elerians?
Grab one early on with a stun bomb.
RUN!
Reserch telepathy. Get strong teeps. Fight back with miiiiind powers.
That's what I do against those buggers..but that might not work on Superhuman difficulty. I have a hard enough time on Novice...
Grab one early on with a stun bomb.
RUN!
Reserch telepathy. Get strong teeps. Fight back with miiiiind powers.
That's what I do against those buggers..but that might not work on Superhuman difficulty. I have a hard enough time on Novice...
Re: XCOM
This does work on Superhuman, you just need to have enough people with good Psi Strength. With enough training (as in trying mind control on every alien on every mission, esp. the weaker alien types like Snakemen) they will soon have enough power to control Etherials. I was able to mind-control even terror units in TFTD, so I suppose that's possible in XCOM1, too (haven't tried to control non-sentient things in XCOM1 yet).
Funny fact: if you mind-control a civilian on a terror mission, he turns to the alien side afterwards and now you have to kill him to end the mission.
Funny fact: if you mind-control a civilian on a terror mission, he turns to the alien side afterwards and now you have to kill him to end the mission.
Re: XCOM
Build an alien decoder, then you can see what aliens are in UFO:s and plan your equipment to specific aliens if you need. With ethereals you can just find a small ufo, shoot it to pieces and then stun the 2-3 survivors, shouldn't be that hard. You can also just stun 1 ethereal, pick up his corpse and go inside your dropship and then abort the mission, to still get the live alien and get psi. Also you can capture a sectoid (the standard aliens) leader to get it beforehand I think.
Re: XCOM
Elerians? ........
.... I'm not feeling well today but I think Elerians are from MoO2. And Teeps are from Babylon 5.
Those goddamn Ethereals were deadly... maybe just because I never put much effort into PSI training so my guys maybe didn't have good resistance. At the end of it, I wound up just bringing nothing but grenades on a mission if they were present. At the worst my incompetent grunts will drop everything and run, they can't go crazy and start shooting everyone. When I needed to capture one alive I just kept on reloading until I found a place to throw the grenade where it would only knock them out. Those guys are killers...
.... I'm not feeling well today but I think Elerians are from MoO2. And Teeps are from Babylon 5.
Those goddamn Ethereals were deadly... maybe just because I never put much effort into PSI training so my guys maybe didn't have good resistance. At the end of it, I wound up just bringing nothing but grenades on a mission if they were present. At the worst my incompetent grunts will drop everything and run, they can't go crazy and start shooting everyone. When I needed to capture one alive I just kept on reloading until I found a place to throw the grenade where it would only knock them out. Those guys are killers...
Re: XCOM
Bad thing is, no amount of training will increase a soldier's PSI protection. It's his PSI Strength, and that value does not increase (unlike PSI Skill which is used when YOU are making PSI attacks and increases like any trainable stat). You just have to do manual selection of troops - put them through a month in a PSI Lab, and fire the ones with low PSI Strength. For this reason, it's recommended to have more than 1 PSI Lab built - this way you'll have more PSI-aware troops (soldier's PSI stats are unknows until he spends a month in PSI training).
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[Krogoth86]
- Posts: 1176
- Joined: 23 Aug 2007, 19:46
Re: XCOM
Lyta sure would pwn those lousy Sectoids... 
