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[Zangi]

Doctor... ... how is she? ... Will she make it?

[IronyOwl]

Haven't forgotten you, but there have been additional non-game related delays.

[IronyOwl]

Update 7.1: Dead


So, I was going to go ahead and post the results of our thrilling cliffhanger and the first part of the next mission, but now I can't find them. Instead I'm forced to give you the short version:

Whatshername went for the "run for it" approach, but a floater cut her off and everything hit what it was aiming at. I think she was knocked to critical rather than killed outright, not that there's a huge difference in this case.

The next mission may have been a terror mission. It involved chrysalids and floaters, and started easily enough. Everyone clustered up behind a car, two chrysalids were found, floaters jumped over, everything died, some of them via point-blank shotguns. Then the other floaters came over and crashed the game, which stalled the LP.


Now, as for what killed the LP.

Basically, I've been getting a hankering for some more XCOM, which meant I was thinking about starting this up again. However, Second Wave options are now (officially) available but can't be enabled retroactively, which means that I'm sorely tempted to start a brand new LP using some of them.

So, I'd like to thank everyone who followed along and submitted characters, and apologize for the sort of nebulous death prior to the official one. I hope you agree that starting fresh with randomized stats is worth the loss of our progress and veterans.

[Tarran]

I had already given up on the LP after the first month of nothing, so I'm not too upset at restarting.

Just please post a link to the new one when you make it so the former players can get their chance to be murdered first.

Also, sidenote: Be weary of randomized stats, some soldiers can turn out utterly mediocre and some utterly awesome, which might be a little unfair to those who turn out mediocre.

[IronyOwl]

I had already given up on the LP after the first month of nothing, so I'm not too upset at restarting.

Just please post a link to the new one when you make it so the former players can get their chance to be murdered first.

Also, sidenote: Be weary of randomized stats, some soldiers can turn out utterly mediocre and some utterly awesome, which might be a little unfair to those who turn out mediocre.

Well, one of the things I like about randomized starting stats is that there's the potential for a bit more decisionmaking when claiming a soldier. With this one it was pretty much flag and gender, whereas if stats are different you can prioritize an accurate or hardy soldier.

Of course, there's also going to be soldiers that are just better or worse in every respect than average, which is a bit less fair and interesting.

For randomized stat gain, you do have a similar issue but without the decisionmaking aspect. I guess the pros and cons of that are more a matter of style preference.


I wonder if I should just start a new thread now to begin hashing out the specifics or convert this one into a planning thread. I'm concerned new people might skip over this one because it's older and admits to being dead, though.

[Tarran]

Well, it depends on whether you actively need more people than a couple of players that were in this one that still check this sub-forum/check unread replies. If you need more than a few people, start a new thread. Otherwise, it would be neater to do so here, but not essential.

[Sirus]

Whichever way is good for me!

[USEC_OFFICER]

I'd say plan here and make a new thread later, to reduce the clutter overall. Though, to be perfectly honest, I would be fine either way.

[Mephansteras]

I'm cool with whatever.

[MaximumZero]

I still want a sixpack of clones.

[IronyOwl]

I guess I officially declare this the planning thread for the new LP, then.

Opinions on Second Wave options? I haven't actually beaten the game yet, so only the first four are officially available, but I could probably figure out a way around that if people really wanted some of the more advanced ones.

[Tarran]

You haven't beaten the game yet? What.

...Anyway, I'm mostly indifferent to Second Wave options. The random stat gains/starts are the only ones I actually care about a little.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, I like the random stats one. Does mean you get some useless guys, but you also get some awesome ones. If you don't want to change the starting line, you can just do the one that effects growth of characters.

Damage Roulette makes the game MUCH harder, overall, especially if you aren't showing damage/health, since you can never be quite sure how much more you need to kill an alien. That and grenades/rockets no longer do static damage. Sometimes it's nice, since aliens can end up hitting you for only 1 or 2 points of damage even with high powered weapons, but when it goes bad it can really go bad. So only do that if you really want to make things more interesting.

The new world economy is interesting, although it has the potential to really unbalance the continents. More interesting from a strategic difference between games then something that really effects the game too heavily, from my experience.

High Stakes is fun, but like most of the randomizes can either be really good or really bad. Getting a paltry 2 Scientists as your reward for saving a critical nation kinda sucks, especially when you have to pass up $300 or 6 engineers to get them, but it certainly makes the abduction mission choices a bit more interesting overall.

Marathon...not sure. It makes the game longer, but I don't know how too balanced it is yet. Satellites and Satellite Uplinks take a lot longer to build, so you really have to manage your panic levels well to avoid losing too many nations. Not too bad once you have satellites and capacity built up, but it's pretty much impossible to save a country via satellite in the first few months just due to the length of time needed to build the second uplink.

[IronyOwl]

Yeah, I like the random stats one. Does mean you get some useless guys, but you also get some awesome ones. If you don't want to change the starting line, you can just do the one that effects growth of characters.

Next question, how should soldier allocation work? In the original, there were enough stats to have some varying priorities, even though Accuracy was probably the most important. In the current one, you pretty much just have Aim and Will (apparently Movement is also randomized, but there's no way to check that without giving them a test drive, AFAIK). Since Will usually isn't nearly as important as Aim, that'd probably lead to some fairly predictable stat requests.

Should I let people specify their preferences anyway and hope there's enough people interested in intentionally being blind or that really would like to be strong-willed to make things interesting, or just assign them in order, or what?


Also, think I'm leaning mildly towards New Economy and away from High Stakes. Not sure how I feel about Damage Roulette, though as far as I've seen explosive damage is still static.

[Tarran]

Well, what would you rather have, people feeling as though they have no control over what their guys are, or people competing for the best soldiers? Either way is not perfect.

(As for my opinion, I'd say I'm leaning towards competition, but only because I think it's the lesser sacrifice).