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[Micro102]

Didn't find anything in a search so I'm making a thread for the entire dosbox series. If you don't know what the old X-Com games are, they are basically an older, more pixelated, and in my opinion, more complicated and fun version then the most current X-Com game, enemy unknown.

I think I'll start off with a request for some tips for the first one, UFO Defense. I've got the power armor, I've got plasma rifles, I've got a tank, and I'm up against a bunch of sectoids in a terror mission.... They one shot everything. My tank rolls out, shot and dies, all my guys in power armor die in 1-2 shots, similar to the sectiods who aren't wearing any armor at all. One of my guys with a rocket launcher get taken control of, and manages to fire off 2 rockets. 1) When I have control of him his movement starts off at about 60% every turn and I can't even fire and reload it he same turn. Why can the aliens magically give him more movement? 2) The rockets hit 2 guys directly. They aren't hurt. Why do rockets not scratch my power armor, but I get one shotted?

And how do you guys get off the ship without being murdered by reaction fire? I send out a tank and if I feel like it, throw a smoke grenade before moving out.

How do you move around the map? I like to get into a house right away and slowly make my way around using cover and conserving movement points for reaction shots, but this is time consuming and not the best method in a terror mission.

[itisnotlogical]

The computer cheats. I'm not sure how much, but I'm fairly sure they get stat adjustments as the game moves on to stay dangerous. That might just be my gaming superstition kicking in though

Believe it or not, smoke grenades can be lifesavers. Bring a few with you on every mission. Mutons can shoot about a bajillion times in one turn, and you need every little edge you can get. If you have to move across an open field, smoke is the only cover you're going to get.

As for moving about the map, mid-sized groups are the best. I maintain at least two groups of four to six (or one group of eight to ten for huge UFO's) with a crack shot and some expendable rookies in each. Stack up your squads around corners and end the turn before going around. That way, you have full TU's with which to react to whatever might be on the other side. You will suffer a LOT of casualties in the mid-game, so always keep a steady reserve of rookies at the base and in the Skyranger.

Make sure your teams always cover each other. Have a rookie check down every alley before ending your turn, but be careful to duck them back behind cover.

Laser weapons and higher can destroy most non-UFO walls in a couple of hits. This makes getting around the map much quicker, and you might even get some free kills by uncovering hidden aliens.

[Flying Dice]

Always keep some laser rifles around. They're good for averting the old item-limit bug, for limiting ammunition consumption, and for snipers. Build a heavy laser or two, you'll need it once you're going on Ethereal terror missions, but they're useless everywhere else.

Mass-produce laser cannons (the kind you mount on interceptors), they offer the highest profit margin of any item you can make. If you find a Floater base (ESPECIALLY somewhere in East Asia/Oceania), leave it alone. You can raid the supply ships for Elerium, as well as doing smash-and-grab raids for the same on the base itself (break the power core things with non-explosives, grab Elerium, hoof it back to the elevators and extract), both with minimal risk because floaters. The locational preference is due to the landing time of supply ships; that longitudinal area is always going to be daylight.

[Sonlirain]

From what i remember you can have your people look through the windows in the skyranger.
This way you can see where the aliens might be camping at without getting shot at first.

Depending on the difficulty level aliens get more (or less) TU. You're probably playing it on higher level and the posessed soldier just get a boost to his stats due to being an "alien".

Aimed shots are suprisingly accurate (i had rookies sniping across over half the map with aimed shots using laser rifles to great effect).

Also plasma weapons get a 200% damage modifier against humans so power armor troops can be oneshot by anything over the dinky plasma pistol but due to game mechanics it can still save your life as the game rolls the damage of every shot between 0 and the weapons maximum damage (in theory a unarmored squaddie can survive a heavy plasma blast).

[gimlet]

The cheesy way is "rookie scouts".  Always include a few of your crappiest new recruits in every transport-load, and for extra goodness use the mod (xcomutil) that orders troops by experience so they get to egress first.  ALWAYS move a scout first whenever moving a group, let them do the spotting and the veterans with the nice big shooty skill do the shooting.  I actually almost never bring tanks, rookies are cheaper and more flexible.  And yeah throw down a smoke grenade, it does help a bit (but not foolproof).  A few rookies out to look in all directions and kneel, the 1st few squaddies out to kneel behind wheels/on the ramp, then keep expanding the perimeter.  Flying guys can kneel on the craft wings with pretty good fields of fire and cover.  Or even in mid-air...

Always shoot kneeling, and if using a rifle don't be carrying something in the other hand - it DOES reduce accuracy.  The middle aiming option is usually the best overall (3 shot burst) to maximize average damage/TU, but expect a fair amount of misses.

Have a few medkits spaced around the squad, you can save a fair number of guys - I especially make sure the flying commanders have em cause they have the TUs to get to a guy, land and use it.

Always kneel, ideally behind cover, don't bunch up to be a grenade/bomb target, move in groups to sweep the outside before moving in, I always keep the commanders in flying suits flying a bit behind even the veterans, with the best clear lines of sight to where the enemy will probably be to use as last-chance snipers when everybody else misses (too damn often).  Keep a couple blaster bomb guys in back on tap for when *everything* else misses.  Sack anybody who gets mind controlled, they're never gonna get better.

In fact before you get the psi-testing stuff, you can arm your guys mainly with laser pistols if they're in power armor - it (usually) takes a LOT of laser pistol shots to penetrate.

If you're worried about what might be behind terrain, shoot it away to get a view behind/inside - this is where lasers come in handy 'cause you can shoot all day without worrying about ammo.  Never use all your TU's to move or shoot away cover - save as many as possible for reaction fire if there's any chance at all aliens can come into that trooper's view range.

Once you get guys with better reactions you can camp in LOS of exits with decent chances of gunning down aliens before they can fire - before that you can get good results with proximity grenades.  If you do camp, do it where the alien has to exit the craft/building, then turn to see you - that many more chances to fire before he can.

I use big squads with lots of laser rifles, commanders may have heavy plasma.  Laser pistols are pretty good up close or if the guy needs the other hand for something.  None of the other rifles/pistols in the game are worth carrying.  Rookies get whatever and a stun rod.  Later on more people can have heavy plasma and pick up clips as they advance.

ED: Oh and you're STILL gonna lose a fair number of guys no matter what you do, so don't get real attached to anybody...

[Micro102]

Does the AI actually advance? Because I always seem to be the ones to run into them. Sometimes having to check every inch of the map to find the last one.

[gimlet]

They definitely wander around especially at the beginning - but they do have morale levels so by the last one he may be panicking.  In fact they wander around enough that it pays to methodically sweep the outside and keep continuous lines so that they can't sneak behind into already cleared areas - THAT'S a huge pain...

[Heron TSG]

Rookie scouts can be a good idea, but they're a serious liability on missions involving Chryssalids. The last thing you need is for your eyes in the field to turn into unstoppable killing machines.

The aliens have a 'memory' of sorts, but they forget where you are eventually, depending on the difficulty. After they forget, they have to wander around to find you again. Max difficulty aliens almost never forget, which alleviates the problem. (The downside to this solution is the possibility of Chryssalids before plasma weapons.)

[Micro102]

So, since I have now found chryssalids, I should now never go back to laser weapons?

[Heron TSG]

They're not particularly weak to plasma, but it does more damage and is more effective. Lasers are better when having infinite ammo is important, such as shooting down potential cover. Incendiary rounds can stop a zombie from hatching into a Chryssalid.

Generally speaking, laser weapons are always useful as a utility at the least, but Heavy Plasma is the best weapon in the game.

[itisnotlogical]

Aliens will actively sweep the map looking for you, but after turn 20 they'll automagically know where all your units are and start hunting them down. If the last alien is a panicking Sectoid in a corner somewhere this isn't much of a problem, but prolonged encounters still aren't a good idea.

[Funk]

lazer pistols are really fast shooting, there like uzis so use them to shoot away cover.
to save space on the ship change out a few heavy plasmas for lazer weapons.

all ways take a few auto cannons or rocket launchers, 3 or more for your first terror mission or reapers will own your rifles.

[Sharp]

Tossing out smoke grenades right at the start off the skyranger helps not getting your troops get shot, but it can also cause the fun but dangerous situations of aliens walking right by your troops and then murdering them when you think the area is clear.

HWP's can take a beating as well, they can shrug off plasma pistol fire like it doesn't even hit them, and they can take a few heavy plasma shots as well.

Lasers are great for clearing cover off a map but heavy lasers are pretty useless (apart from original unpatched version where they had 140% accuracy for aimed shot iirc)

If you want to play XCOM with less bugs I would advise looking at OpenXCOM. You need original game files so Steam Version or CD if you have it, fixes lots of bugs and adds some nice new features and is easier to modify, still a WIP with some issues itself but compared to the original it has far fewer bugs.

[Flying Dice]

A few more notes: After round 20, aliens will automatically rush to find you, (possibly barring a few circumstances). You can use this to your advantage on crashed UFO missions: clear the exterior, set up a firing line, and wait for round 20 when all the xenos start meandering outside to be cut down by reaction fire.

But yes, regardless of mission type you should always keep a solid skirmish line to prevent stragglers from sneaking past. Center on your transport and expand the ends of the line to the nearest map edges, then sweep the length of the map carefully.

Even when I'm at the point where I could equip everyone with heavy plas, I usually only take 2-3, alongside a single BL if I will need to breach a UFO hull/a stun launcher if I need to capture something specific. I keep at least 1 AC with me to the endgame; full-auto HE is IMO the most efficient way to clear cover and concealment away, and is also pretty decent support fire. Everything else is laser rifles, except for a few heavy las when I expect to encounter Sectopods and can't yet mind-control part of them. I always carry AC-I on night missions and terror missions. For the former, it's as easy as flares for providing lighting, at least in areas with lots of flammable stuff. When I'm on a Chrissie terror mission, normal MO is to clear the immediate area, make a killzone with HE and lasers, then spray down everything outside it with AC-I. Better you kill the civvies than that they do.

Another thing to keep in mind is the laser pistol + stunrod combo, especially for rookies and psybait.

On the note of psybait: Figure out a very weak link, psychically speaking, and then keep them alive and on your A-team. If you've got one known weak point, you can "arm" them with a stun rod, smoke grenades, and flares. This lets them be useful without being dangerous. More importantly, if you give the AI an easy target to panic and MC, they usually won't bother your psy-strong troopers very much. Psybait also makes for useful rear commanders; rank provides morale bonuses to allied troopers, and corresponding morale hits on their death. If you get a psybait to colonel, you can have them hide in the transport attracting mind-control attempts and providing a morale boost. Keeping them in the transport also prevents them from being used as a recon tool by the xenos.

On that note: You cannot see (at least in the original, in my experience) aliens through the Skyranger windows, only terrain. Still useful, though.

[puke]

I always skipped laser research and went straight to plasma, though I'm told that I was playing sub-optimally that way and that you can make gonzo income by manufacturing and selling laser weapons.

Stun-Rods are pretty great for bringing back live aliens to research, which in turn is fairly valuable.

Also, I always packed one or two autocannons on most missions.  I used incendiary rounds instead of flares, and if I suspected that there was something on the other side of a wall then I'd just do some recon-by-fire and hose it down.  An automatic burst of explosive rounds would gut most houses.

As you might imagine, I often took a PR hit on civilian casualties -- but my high survival rate enabled me to respond more quickly with veteran troops to every outbreak, and hence I think I won more political support in the long run.

In the late-game I'd win most missions with four guys with seeker launchers, and would only use the rest of the team for recon and to spot targets.

Keep in mind:  It's been an awful long time and I never played on the highest difficulty levels, so my advice might not be the most valuable.