Earth is in peril. Against this alien menace, only our finest can hope to turn the tide.
Welp.
Regrettably, this will not quite be the X-COM many of you know and love, as I will be playing on Normal. This means that most people will survive most missions. Many missions will even be completed with no casualties whatsoever! I know, I know. That makes you sad.
Unfortunately, I'm going with this approach for two reasons. The first is that I don't think I can play on Classic well enough to last very long. Everyone dying every mission can certainly be entertaining, but I think getting a game over ten missions in puts a bit of a damper on that. I'm hesitantly going with longevity over brutal good fun.
Secondly, I figure rotating in noobs and giving everyone some say in how we do things should increase difficulty a bit, so it shouldn't be a complete steamroll.
So, with that out of the way, let's move on to...
Character CreationObviously, many people will be familiar with this already, but if not, here's how making and customizing a soldier works.
Step 1: The UnchangeablesThe first step to acquiring a new face is to recruit a soldier from the barracks.
On Normal, each soldier costs 10 credits. Or at least I'll be calling them credits.
Soldiers arrive after a few days, random but changeable. There are only two things which cannot be altered regarding soldiers.
Gender determines the obvious- body style, available hair, and voice sets. Note that women seem a lot rarer than men in XCOM.
Nationality determines what flag is placed on the back of your suit (it's not normally very noticeable) and next to your name in the unit list. Your default features are also presumably correlated to country of origin, but there aren't any restrictions on changing them later.
Step 2: CustomizationThe customization screen looks like so:
As you can see, there's a lot of options to fiddle with:
Obviously, this is a lot easier if you have access to the game to fiddle with yourself, but if not, you can still give me some vague directions and I'll try to figure something out.
Step 3: LoadoutSo now that appearances are out of the way, it's time for what matters- your equipment.
As you can see, each XCOM soldier has an Armor, Primary Weapon, Sidearm, and Inventory Item.
Armor increases your max health, and can have other benefits as well.
Primary Weapon is your main gun. Usually what Primary Weapon you use will be determined by your class, mentioned below.
Sidearm is a fancy name for your useless pistol. Aside from never needing to be reloaded, pistols have no special advantages, and are used exclusively for when you're out of ammo but don't want to reload, or when your primary weapon
does have some crippling drawback in this particular situation.
Inventory Item is the most flexible of the three categories, covering everything from grenades (as pictured) to medkits to undershirt armor. With a few exceptions, Inventory Items can only be used once per mission but are never expended; it's usually best to think of them as a 1/mission special ability in inventory form.
Now for the bad news. For the most part, base equipment is linear; you have rifles, then you have laser rifles, then you get plasma, and so on. There are a handful of branches within Armors and Primary Weapons, but most are either fairly simple (mobility vs raw health) or class-dependent. So, while there are a handful of choices to be made there, most of it is just a question of when you get your upgrade.
Inventory Items are a little more flexible, however. There's not a huge variety, especially starting out, but there are several different stats they augment or abilities they confer. This one is also heavily research and manufacturing dependent, but still allows a large degree of preference.
Step 4: Levels and SurprisesThe last stage of understanding characters involves promotions.
At certain points, soldiers receive promotions. Each promotion confers a special ability, usually selected from two choices.
Now, here's the fun part, though- how do you think soldiers select which class they are? You'll notice their first promotion- Squaddie- is one of the few promotions to not include a choice; they just get the benefit. That's odd. So, how
do you select a class?
It's
random! Until a Rookie ranks up, there's no way to tell what they're going to be. Awkward!
So for this particular LP, we'll basically be rolling with that. You join up, get a Rookie, and then get informed what class you're going to be. Oh joy. I'll probably include a way to switch with other players or something, once I think of one, but aside from that, there's no way to request "the first Sniper you get" or "that guy but only if he's not a Heavy."
You will, of course, be informed of your levelups and allowed to select whichever perk appeals to you most.
Speaking of classes, there's only four of them, so they're relatively easy to remember.
Heavy: May use an LMG rather than an assault rifle. Tends to focus on overwhelming firepower.
Sniper: May use a sniper rifle. In fact, has to use a sniper rifle. Tends to focus on killing things from afar.
Assault: May use a shotgun. Tends to focus on up close and aggressive combat.
Support: Tends to focus on aiding the team.
Sadly these descriptions are awful, as I find it hard to properly describe what each class can do, especially without spoilers.
How To Actually JoinSimply put, I'll need any information you care to give me. This will presumably include things like a name or appearance, but can also include basic information about how you'd like your character played or similar.
At XCOM, we also value the opinions of our uneducated grunts as they relate to aeronautical superiority and alien genetics research, so feel free to give suggestions or advice regarding things that have nothing to do with your character directly.
As our first priority, we require a base location. Base locations are any of the five continents inhabited by humans but not dog-sized spiders.
North AmericaUnited States, Canada, Mexico
Air and Space: 50% discount on aircraft and aircraft weaponry purchases, construction, and maintenance
South AmericaArgentina, Brazil
We Have Ways: Autopsies and Interrogations are completed immediately
AfricaEgypt, South Africa, Nigeria
All In: Monthly funding increased by 30%
EuropeUnited Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany
Expert Knowledge: 50% discount on Lab and Workshop construction and maintenance
AsiaChina, Japan, India, Australia
Future Combat: 50% discount on Foundry and Officer Training School projects
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Topic: Let's Play: XCOM [Update 7.2: Dead but with a descendant] (Read 18999 times)