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[Parsely]

There are some pretty great gifs of people beating Apoc missions by just razing buildings to the ground with lasers.

The point I was getting at (somewhat obliquely, I'll admit) is that the squad size in new X-COM doesn't feel right. It's not a balance issue, it's a flavor issue. The game feels much smaller for a number of reasons, this not least among them.

I suppose, but goddamn if having 6 people and turns that take a minute rather than 10 doesn't take the boredom out of the game.  Base assaults were always great though.

Yeah I was really disappointed when I found out how scaled-down the new XCOM was. Having more than one base was too fun. Loved feeling like I actually had an army at my disposal.

[frostshotgg]

There are some pretty great gifs of people beating Apoc missions by just razing buildings to the ground with lasers

Or just many, many, many hoverbikes. That was my favorite part of that game. You didn't need anything but hoverbikes.

[Parsely]

Also, no infinite-ammo Laser weaponry + no smoke grenades.

In TFTD? Aren't there? I think they're called Particle Dispersion Grenades or something like that. They work underwater and on land.

[Neonivek]

Not to mention no base defense and not being able to see all your personel running around and not getting a "free look" option.

[Sharp]

I love XCom Apoc, the things I hated were that it was rushed and had crappy Artwork.

I liked the Pauseable Real Time and the politics of corporations (though that was woefully cut short as well). The overall plot was weak but I didn't have a problem with finding last alien, especially as motion scanner worked easily in real-time, aliens would panic and try and escape the map and if only stationary aliens are left mission completes so you don't have to hunt down the last chyrsalis.

Gameplay was fun and the physics was interesting which allowed you to demolish buildings instead of searching them and the vehicle combat was fun as well, although overall the game is fairly easy, especially on real-time, although for a more fun playing experience the game needs to be modded, Roadwar is a great mod which has some fixes, and makes roads indestructible which actually makes using ground-vehicles feasible, also I mod the projectiles because in real-time it's easy to dodge many of the projectiles so I make most of them a lot faster, that way it's harder to dodge the spitter attacks and sniper rifle is actually useful in realtime on enemies not coming directly towards shooter.

Overall it's a great game

[USEC_OFFICER]

Also, no infinite-ammo Laser weaponry + no smoke grenades.

In TFTD? Aren't there? I think they're called Particle Dispersion Grenades or something like that. They work underwater and on land.

No useful smoke grenades is closer to the truth. When they were transcribed to TFTD, their strength was entered as 10 instead of 100 (or something like that). Thus the dye grenades (or whatever they're called) only spew out a little cloud of smoke that slowly disperses in several turns into a medium-sized cloud of thin smoke. Not as good or useful as the smoke grenades in X-COM.

[Haspen]

Also, no infinite-ammo Laser weaponry + no smoke grenades.

In TFTD? Aren't there? I think they're called Particle Dispersion Grenades or something like that. They work underwater and on land.

Huh, the only thing that I saw remotely reminding of 'smoke' grenades were Dye Grenades, which totally suck. I will check on those. I know there are particle disturbance grenades or something that act like proximity mines.

EDIT: Ninja'd >:C

[Delta Foxtrot]

@Haspen: One dye grenade fix coming up. Unless you're a masochist, you shouldn't feel bad at all for using that with TFTD.

Part one is here, for anyone interested in giving me tips.

I'll write these as I watch through the video. I apologize in advance if some of this stuff sounds too power gamey. Also these are just my experiences playing on Veteran difficulty with my own preferences and occasional house rules and whatnot.

Your starting location isn't bad per se, but optimally you want to protect either North America or Europe, as they give the most funding. Still, South America and East Asia contain a decent number of funding nations and are certainly good places for your 3rd and 4th bases. The heavy weapons you sold are a matter of taste, I find them quite useful and try to keep a single rocket launcher and auto- or heavy cannon in the team. Their explosive firepower can save lives if you find bunched up aliens or want lots of cover quickly demolished. Smoke grenades are extremely useful and unless you like sacrificing your rookies, you really want to bring them along to conceal your troops.

I personally prefer to rush to laser rifles as soon as possible, and most people I know consider motion detectors to be a waste of research hours but you can still win even if you don't munchkin your research early on. You want to have your engineers build stuff as soon as your able, even if it's just laser pistols. LP's are actually pretty good since they do more damage than assault rifles and have a rapid rate of fire that's useful for close quarters combat. For the first few months they're probably the best UFO assault weapons you can equip your guys with. Even if you don't plan on using them at all, manufacture them for sale.

Here's a quote of mine on how I recommend you handle exiting the skyranger:

Turn 1, prime and throw one or two smoke grenades near the skyranger exit. End turn. Turn two, charge out. Don't leave the ship before turn 2 because the aliens have full TU's on turn 1 and can thus reaction fire you to hell and back.

You got lucky on your first UFO recovery, but there could have just as well been an alien ready to reaction fire your first man out. Crouching makes your shots more accurate, when you saw your first sectoid you could have crouched and tried shooting at it. You didn't need it this time but the accuracy bonus is really worth it in most situations since crouching only costs 4 TUs. This is of course less necessary if you have many soldiers ready to shoot the bugger in case your first guy misses.

I would have cleared the UFO with more than two guys, it's very easy to lose guys inside them and I know I hate diverting a bunch of guys from far reaches of the map because my understaffed UFO breaching team got face full of plasma. You might already know it, but shooting two-handed weapons, such as a rifle, while holding something else, such as a grenade, causes a rather significant accuracy penalty. Dropping an item only costs 2 TUs if I remember correctly, and unless it's 0 turn primed grenade, it's usually worth it to drop it. One last thing about that particular map, it was fairly open except for that UFO in the middle. If you had cleared the nearest tall building with a team of +2 operatives early on, you could have stationed them on the roof, kneeling and waiting with full TUs for your groundbound scouts to spot aliens. It's always better to shoot an alien with a soldier who isn't seen by the alien, as that avoids the risk of reaction fire. If these rooftop snipers happen to be sporting rocket launchers or HE heavy-/autocannons, all the better.

That's my thoughts on your first video. Hope there's something that's of use to you.

[Parsely]

-snip-

That's my thoughts on your first video. Hope there's something that's of use to you.

Indeed. Some of it was common sense, some of it was information I assumed was true but wasn't completely sure about or never bothered testing (such as experiencing an accuracy reduction while shooting a two-hander with an item in your opposite hand), and all of it was useful. Thanks a bunch.

[Sonlirain]

In the old game the encounters were more balanced towards squads of 8-10 soldiers + optional HWPs.

Of course if you wanted you could easely load a TON of troops but unless you use laser weapons (those are actually great with xcom util that rebalances stats of the heavy laser into... well a monster) you're going to have a hell of a time assigning everyone a nything more than barebones equipement.

Assuming 24 endgame soldiers:

24 heavy plasma 24
24 plasma clips   48
24 grenades       72
8 medkits           80
We're at the limit now and out dudes only have one clip each so any langer fight will end scouring the dead for ammo.
And of course everything will go to hell at night because we can't pack flares (or have to drop nades for them)

[Shadowlord]

I didn't give anyone extra ammo clips on normal missions (with plasma rifles), as nobody ever seemed to run out of their first clip.

24 seems like a lot of guys to send at once, though. I don't think I was using that many (and I tended to give them smoke grenades for cover, and those glowy light emitter things as well, in case they ended up in a night mission).

[itisnotlogical]

I always found grenades to be of limited use at best. I only give them to one-in-two or even one-in-three soldiers, just in case I need to clear a dangerous room. High explosives have a larger blast radius and do more damage anyway, until you get Alien grenades.

[Micro102]

Well, thanks for lying to me guys

Aliens took control of one of my guys with a laser pistol and he has been gunning down all my power suit guys with 2-3 shots.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Well, thanks for lying to me guys

Aliens took control of one of my guys with a laser pistol and he has been gunning down all my power suit guys with 2-3 shots.

You must be very unlucky then. Power armour has 100 protection from the front, 80 from the sides and 70 from the rear. A laser pistol has an average damage rating of 46, which translates to a damage range from 0-92. So a shot to the front will not do any damage, while a shot from the side has an approximately 12% chance of doing damage (12/92), and a shot to the back has an approximately 23% chance of doing damage (26/96). Obviously that's not including accuracy, which will obviously lower the chances of doing damage.

Now it's been a while since data management, so I can't calculate how unlucky you are. However soldiers in X-COM can have between 25 and 61 health (rookies start between 25-40). Three shots to the side can do at max 36 points of damage which, while highly unlikely, is only going to kill off your weaker troopers. While three max-strength shots to the back can do 78 damage, as I've mentioned before it's very unlikely. I'm not entirely sure how the game rounds numbers, but the chance is probably between 0.00000113028 and 0.000000125 percent. Even when you drop the damage/shots done to lessen the overkill, the chance is still terrible.

Something might be off though. Either my calculations or the information from the wiki, or perhaps even your game. But still, if your mind-controlled soldiers are gunning down troops in power armour with laser pistols, then you've just expended/gained enough luck to win a lottery. Or at the very least picked up one of the smaller prizes.

[Reelya]

One Psy screening trick that worked for me in TFTD before I got labs, was to send a shipload of (unarmed) rookies on a base mission - the aliens would try and mind-control any weak-minded guys, so they could be screened out. Then abort the mission and clear out the weak-minded.

Also, the top level of a base-mission has about $2.5 - $3 million worth of equipment that could be sold off (most sectiods and tentaculats plus those jellyfish things) - if you can raid that level repeatedly, you can fund an extremely large X-Com organization in no time (bring a lot of meat shields with your veterans because of the tentaculets). I tried this, and it also massively increases your international perception in every country regardless of performance in other missions.

Finishing the upper level, going to the lower-base, then aborting, collects all the stuff on the surface automatically, otherwise you'd have to manually cart it back (time-consuming), but there's a small added risk that you'll be attacked by a lobsterman before you abort.

I did actually use save/restore to make this work, but limited collection raids on the outer surface should still be a viable strategy to get extra training, loot, and improve international opinion. (maybe getting $1.0 - 1.5 million per raid, up to several raids per day of gametime). The sheer number of extra missions really helped getting top level troops trained quickly.