XCOM tips and my sob story (Converted to a mild Let's Play!)

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Andy Shandy

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Jun 7, 2010
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Just realised you're turning this into a mini LP as well, so if you get any Scottish soldiers I'll happily be one of them. Don't particularly care about the class =P
 

janjotat

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AH GAWD THE HORROR, well so long as I don't go in the same way. Still feel bad for Shrek though.
 

tippy2k2

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scorptatious said:
R.I.P Shrek. Your sacrifice will NOT be in vain. :mad:
It might be :p I've only ran into those purple zerg fucks once and I did so much over-kill on them that they had no chance to get anywhere near me.

I did just get laser weapons (I'm focusing on upgrading the "Not Priority" stuff as suggested) and six man squads so hopefully when I do start running into those assholes, I can handle it. I have had the first council meeting so far...
 

Easton Dark

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What nationality am I?

Souplex said:
I'm hearing a lot of bad things being said about S.H.I.V.s.
So long as you keep them up to date (Alloy/Hover, using plasma/laser) they're pretty damn good.
An alloy SHIV has a 20% defense, and provides light cover to all nearby.
A hover SHIV has 40% defense, (Equivalent to full cover) and can fly.
All SHIVs have a lot of health, and do a lot of damage. They're pretty accurate, they can move really far in a turn, they're immune to enemy psychics, and easy to replace.
"Pretty accurate" is not 60% chance to hit when flanking and right next to a muton. SHIVs are mobile cover that can suppress to me. They've missed every shot I've given them.

tippy2k2 said:
Men at arms (If your name did not fit, I tried to abbreviate to something close.)!:

bananafishtoday (Sniper class; abbreviated to SHEPARD)
Uh huh.
 

tippy2k2

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Easton Dark said:
What nationality am I?

tippy2k2 said:
Men at arms (If your name did not fit, I tried to abbreviate to something close.)!:

bananafishtoday (Sniper class; abbreviated to SHEPARD)
Uh huh.
In my defense there, bananafishtoday specifically asked to be called SHEPARD :)

As to nationalities (and hell, genders too), I didn't really pay that much attention when making the characters since there are still so few soldiers in my army.

To answer your question though, you are Canadian. I suppose I can add that to the soldier list if people are curious.
 

loa

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If you play anything above normal mode, don't hesitate to use grenades early game to ensure kills for they are your only way to hit anything at all.
A promoted rookie is worth more than the few weapon parts you lose that you won't even need for a while and RNG is such a ridiculous ass early on that this is basically the only way to get through the first few missions without anyone dying even if you're in hard cover, flanking the enemies 24/7.
A "50%" chance to hit feels more like 10% so having something that actually hits the things that kill your dudes in 2-1 hits, making at least 1 guy panic in the process is vital.
Get armor asap and I don't mean the armor that hogs your important grenade/medkit slot, actual armor so you get out of happy 1-hit-dead-hell as fast as possible.

The only armor thing worth putting into your item slot is the chitin armor you research from chryssalids since those don't just give 4 more health, they reduce melee instakill hits down to a managable 5 damage level.
You'll be glad if your assault shotgun soldier can block a berserker in a doorway that way.

Easton Dark said:
Souplex said:
I'm hearing a lot of bad things being said about S.H.I.V.s.
So long as you keep them up to date (Alloy/Hover, using plasma/laser) they're pretty damn good.
An alloy SHIV has a 20% defense, and provides light cover to all nearby.
A hover SHIV has 40% defense, (Equivalent to full cover) and can fly.
All SHIVs have a lot of health, and do a lot of damage. They're pretty accurate, they can move really far in a turn, they're immune to enemy psychics, and easy to replace.
"Pretty accurate" is not 60% chance to hit when flanking and right next to a muton. SHIVs are mobile cover that can suppress to me. They've missed every shot I've given them.
Well there's your problem, don't waste your time with alloy shivs and rush firestorms so you can build hover shivs.
Get one of those in your team and see if you want to get rid of it from that point on.
 

x EvilErmine x

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Apr 5, 2010
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Just some small tips:

- Everyone bangs on about getting satellite uplinks as a priority, what they don't tell you is that you will need power before you can build any new uplinks. Thermo generators give you the most bank for your buck but obviously you need to build them over steam vents. In my game I lucked out and got two steam vents next to each other on the second level of my base. With the adjacency bonus and a Elerium and normal underneath I'm set for power for the rest of the game I think.

- Skip laser weapons, they are not going to be useful for long enough to justify the expenditure in research/funds. Capture thin men to get light plasma rifles and you should have enough of them by the time of your first terror mission to make it quite manageable. As for plasma research go plasma sniper, heavy plasma, plasma rifle.

- From the officer training school get, Squad size 1, Iron Will, Squad size 2, what ever you want after that. People will tell you to get squad size 1 & 2 first and that is fine, you can do that too, but the sooner you get iron will then the better the Will of all your solders later in the game...and you will need it too, having your squad constantly panic and get mind controlled is not fun. Also don't be shy of dismissing low will characters, they can become a liability real quick in a heated battle.

- Remember to always move interceptors to a continent before you launch a satellite over it. Having satellite coverage but no way to intercept is a sure fire way of getting your satellite shot down and if you haven't got another spare it's going to be 20 days before you can get anther bird in the air. If that happens your probably going to lose that country.

***Edit***

Can I be a Sniper or a Support please?
 

BloatedGuppy

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tippy2k2 said:
Oh this is a Let's Play now? Can I be in the squad? I guess class doesn't really matter, whatever you have available.

Doing an X-Com Let's Play with Escapist people is actually a fairly inspired idea, I wish I'd thought of it. Doing it on Impossible Iron Man would be best, I think, to maximize casualties and get a lot of people involved.
 

KissmahArceus

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Mar 1, 2011
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As a fellow XCOM fan with a death wish, I'd be honored to volunteer for active service: I like to be an Assault and please...
Call me Vince... Vince DiCola
 

Hargrimm

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BloatedGuppy said:
tippy2k2 said:
Doing an X-Com Let's Play with Escapist people is actually a fairly inspired idea, I wish I'd thought of it.
Just about every forum has one of those. Hell, I made one. (and abandoned it on the second page, as is traditional)
I guess if people still care, I could go on. I still have the save files.
 

Orange12345

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Aug 11, 2011
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most things have already been said but I have found that taking a whole turn to reload after EVERY fight even if you have only used one shot is a good precaution
 

cathou

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Apr 6, 2009
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Orange12345 said:
most things have already been said but I have found that taking a whole turn to reload after EVERY fight even if you have only used one shot is a good precaution
Yeah I do that too, but I usually reload half the squad and put the rest in overwatch and then spend a turn to reload the rest. It give extra security

Also if you still looking for people in your squad, I volunteer for the sale of the humankind
 

Terminal Blue

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shrekfan246 said:
Chryssalids can go to hell. Their movement speed is insane.
The absolute killer is that they always seem to use their free movement upon being discovered (which most aliens use to get into cover) to charge right at your squad.. particularly annoying if everyone else on your team has already moved that turn and your left with angry insects suddenly staring you in the face where before there were none.

Fortunately, there's no reason to hold back on nuking them with explosives.

One thing I found really effective in one game was to rush titan armour. You'll lose far fewer soldiers in titan armour than you will carapace armour, which means more veterans later on. I find its always better in the early game to go for survivability over better weapons, even if it means you're stuck pinging away at Mutons with your basic assault rifles for a bit.

Fun thing I discovered today.. you can down abductor ships with the basic starting missiles if you have 2 interceptors attack in sequence, since shots against abductors don't seem to miss. So by having two interceptors on each continent you can skip better aircraft weapons until quite late. Shooting down an abductor in the relatively early game is like alien christmas.
 

thehorror2

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Important tip, learned last night (almost cost me my most experienced soldier) CHRYSALIDS CANNOT BE STUNNED WITH THE ARC PROJECTOR. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS.


And if you want to name one of your characters Ricky Yourface in honor of my sister's newfound addiction to the BBC Office, I wouldn't be opposed. :p
 

tippy2k2

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x EvilErmine x said:
Can I be a Sniper or a Support please?
BloatedGuppy said:
Oh this is a Let's Play now? Can I be in the squad? I guess class doesn't really matter, whatever you have available.
cathou said:
Also if you still looking for people in your squad, I volunteer for the sale of the humankind
Sorry everyone! I forgot to update this thread since I was confident that it was dead...

I have turned this into a more traditional "Let's Play". At least I assume it is, I've never done one before and I've never really gotten into them so maybe this is a pathetic excuse of a "Let's Play" :)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tippy2k2-s-XCOM-Army

There is plenty of room for people to join my army. Every mission, I have updated who is in action, what happened, and an "end action" report. I would be honored to let you die for the cause have you join my army. It's not the only "Let's Play" and it's not the best "Let's Play" (or at least I sure as hell hope this isn't the best considering it's my first shot at it) but damn it, it's MY "Let's Play"!

Also, I'd put it on a harder difficulty to get more people involved via death of others but I'm brand new at the game and enough people are going to get killed by my stupidity...