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[Blankdoor]

After much difficulty I present you with:

Blank Plays XCOM Apocalypse episode 8

We have finished week 1! Huzzar, this is where I would actually throw a party, but I have no friends to do so.

Now for the next episode we get to choose how to divvy up all our cash, so be prepared for an episode of stock management. Also you'll be pleased to know the difficulty spikes from here on in, so deaths are inbound . . .

Current people list:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alive:

Dr Spah
Blank
Aavak
Elof
Sansom
Dunker
Cognitive Dissonance
Javierpwn
Miranda Galena
Remalle
AlleeCat
Revocane
Vgray
Ednar Maridan
Halceon

Dead:

Isaac

Well let's just say there are other reasons I don't own a microphone.
Also, sorry for advertising my own thread in yours, Blank, but here's my interest thread thingy.

I'll let you get away with it this time! 

Nahh don't worry about it I'm only joking, link away!

I just read something interesting on TV Tropes. I don't know if you qualify yet, but if you do quote, "very very good" unquote, the Senate will decide that you're very cost efficient and actually reduce your funding.

Fortunately I don't think we'll ever do that good, so we are safe!

Some people can't afford these fancy 'Hover vehicles', so they just make do with boring ground vehicles. Unfortunately, balance between ground and air vehicles is terrible, meaning ground loses out in every way except anti-building firepower and raiding buildings, so no-one ever really bothers with them, as air vehicles can still do all that, they're just not quite as good. I did once try having a few tanks with AA Missiles stationed by the dimension gates, but they were fragile as hell and didn't contribute much, so I can't recommend it.

I think there's a mod out there to make ground vehicles more competetive, with a few buffs to stats and weapon choices (Heavy Disruptors on the Tank, for instance), along with making roads take a lot more punishment (Currently, it doesn't matter how tough a ground vehicle is, if the road beneath it is destroyed, it dies. Roads are extremely fragile.)

Unfortunately I won't be modding, even if its in my favor, still I know ground vehicles suck! As to discuss the other points on vehicles I could use a bit of advice for the next week. As far as I know the UFO's will tear up each of my vehicles individually and they only stand a fighting chance together. Do I buy the javelin missile system and what do I do with my hover-cars?

~Blank

[CognitiveDissonance]

Unfortunately I won't be modding, even if its in my favor, still I know ground vehicles suck! As to discuss the other points on vehicles I could use a bit of advice for the next week. As far as I know the UFO's will tear up each of my vehicles individually and they only stand a fighting chance together. Do I buy the javelin missile system and what do I do with my hover-cars?

~Blank

Have you played the game far before? Here is how I approach things, with spoilers/non-spoilers

Spoiler: non spoilers (click to show/hide)

- All vehicles come with inferior engines, inferior weapons and no support hardware. All of those have to be fixed.

- I find hovercars to be best equipped with missiles, and military planes to be best equipped with lasers/plasma. This way, hovercars will deliver a deadly payload, and retreat before they can burst.

--> A goot starter set up is janitor/autocannon for hovercars. Fly in, deliver payload, get out of extended fights. Valkyries get Prophet/Large laser to deal with both larger things and fast craft. Small lasers suck, but are cheap and require no ammunition so they are a good weapon for hoverbikes and hovercars.

- If you have money to spare, hoverbikes with autocannons and upgraded engines can do a lot of damage very quickly

- Hawk Air Warrior will help with everything, a lot

- Ground vehicles work as weapon platforms. If they are equipped with long range weapon (such as missiles) and placed in a remote location, they won't get targetted

- Larger missiles and lasers WILL destroy small UFO's. Keep that in mind.

Spoiler: Spoilers (click to show/hide)

First wave of armed ships will have beam weapons. You'll be fine, just retreat vehicles when they are damaged.

Second wave will be armed with bombers, and those WILL blow up hovercars. You want Weapons Control, Missile Evasion Matrices and Disruptor Shields (research) as soon as humanly possible.

There will be a spot where you are overrun with alien craft, and this can snowball out of control for a while. Focus targets on ships you need to research.

Watch craft that deposit aliens. Aliens have mostly two kinds of invasions - all out warfare, and hidden growth. Most alien ships will deposit a few low level aliens which WILL grow into larger things. If you spot EXACTLY which building was targetted, you can take the lower life forms out quickly. There will be fewer of them, too.

If very successful, an Air Hawk Warrior and two Valkyries can take on just about anything. It's an expensive approach, but it would keep the sky clear.

Good episode, by the way! Nice smooth combat, makes me realize I shouldn't have been ignoring explosive ammo so much. I am loving those, and can't wait for MOAR!

May I suggest that the new finances are spent on vehicle gear? Engines, some weapon controls and guns.
Also, pretty please, a Marsec Small Launcher for your truly? It doesn't do much collateral damage, I swear!

[Vgray]

Yikes. What were those tiny blue things doing? Breathing fire?

[Remalle]

Yikes. What were those tiny blue things doing? Breathing fire?

I believe they are exploding.

[Blankdoor]

Week two has begun!

Blank Plays: XCOM Apocalypse Episode 9

We have a pretty solid start to the week, though we lose a phoenix hover-car, the first real substantial loss to Xcom. That's right I view the loss of the hover-car more of a loss than Isaac! Still the whole episode is rather intense or at least I thought so, since I was actually trying to get stuff done this time around. We all have to be serious sometimes unfortunately!

Yikes. What were those tiny blue things doing? Breathing fire?

I believe they are exploding.

OH YEAH THEY EXPLODE! They mess you up as well, they can one shot someone if they make it to point blank range!

~Blank

[Vgray]

Who want's to bet it's another unmanned one?


Uh...unaliened?

Red is the official X-COM color. We wear red and our interceptor is red.

[javierpwn]

Blank, the aliens deposited some friends into that green building in the footage. You're gonna have to "investigate" it.

Also, WHY DO I KEEP GETTING HORRIFICALLY MAIMED,Ive ran away like 5 times now.

[Akura]

Red is the official X-COM color. We wear red and our interceptor is red.

Spoiler: At least until(actual spoiler) (click to show/hide)

You get Disruptor Armor, which is blue. That said, even the X-Com-built vehicles are red. The ones you buy come from Marsec I think.

[javierpwn]

Red is the official X-COM color. We wear red and our interceptor is red.

Spoiler: At least until(actual spoiler) (click to show/hide)

You get Disruptor Armor, which is blue. That said, even the X-Com-built vehicles are red. The ones you buy come from Marsec I think.

Even the Disruptor armor has red in it!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Vgray]

That guy looks kinda like Spider-Man...

[Neonivek]

This game is interesting in that it is clearly incomplete and unfinished... and yet it is complete and finished at the same time.

It is probably the Xcom I want to see remade the most.

[Blankdoor]

Time for another episode of alium destruction!

Blank Plays XCOM Apocalypse Episode 10

We actually manage to launch a preemptive strike against the the buggers! I mean we would of been called out a few hours later anyway, but still I managed to do it! Still it was a pretty solid mission, the number of aliens on the map have started to increase, which is a natural progressions of the difficulty in this game so be prepared for longer mission!

I also am holding off naming a few people for now until we have XCOM properly sorted into two buildings as way to many troops becomes confusing and tiresome to sort through.

Current AlienBusters:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alive:

Dr Spah
Blank
Aavak
Elof
Sansom
Dunker
Cognitive Dissonance
Javierpwn
Miranda Galena
Remalle
AlleeCat
Revocane
Vgray
Ednar Maridan
Halceon
Frejya

Dead:

Isaac


To add:

TheJonnyMar
Snow5445
Zandanify

Blank, the aliens deposited some friends into that green building in the footage. You're gonna have to "investigate" it.

Also, WHY DO I KEEP GETTING HORRIFICALLY MAIMED,Ive ran away like 5 times now.

Thats because you're smart, or at least I'm smart enough to tell you to run away, I can think of two times that if I left you in th efield you would have died! Though if want to go down swinging that entirely up to you!

Also don't worry I've taken care of that "Investigation" now.

This game is interesting in that it is clearly incomplete and unfinished... and yet it is complete and finished at the same time.

It is probably the Xcom I want to see remade the most.

Hell I'd love for this one to be remade, hell its unfinished and unpolished, but hell it runs and even on modern computers. Which is amazing, as DosBox normal fucks stuff up and it crashes all the time. Still I'd kill for this to a modern update, with them polishing off all the features in the game.

Red is the official X-COM color. We wear red and our interceptor is red.

Spoiler: At least until(actual spoiler) (click to show/hide)

You get Disruptor Armor, which is blue. That said, even the X-Com-built vehicles are red. The ones you buy come from Marsec I think.

Even the Disruptor armor has red in it!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It just looks awesome in general, damn I want some of that amour now!

~Blank

[Vgray]

Did we invade that UFO last episode? I think the video stopped early for me for some reason.

So...what happens when Blank the Impaler dies?


You really do have to wonder who you sell those brainsucker launchers to.

[javierpwn]

They aren't dangerous as long as they aren't loaded with ammo.
Besides, the pods hatch whenever in they are in the presence of a human; so getting the ammo is even harder.
Especially when the Brainsuckers can pierce Disrupter Helmets

[lazygun]

Blank, you prompted me to install the game on my laptop. It was a lot easier last time, when I didn't have to fiddle around with dosbox.  And then it started a bit slow because I couldn't remember how to play.

I'm playing the second difficulty level and I'm now on Thursday in week 3. I think it's the same scenario as you, but the d-gates are clustered in the southwest of the map. Tall slum blocks get in the way and stop me getting clean shots at the alien craft. This week I haven't shot down any aliens and lost several vehicles. In the last invasion, a slum block was completely razed. I thought to myself "I hope I didn't do that". But Osiron is now annoyed at me.

On the ground, my X~Com has around 20 soldiers, including four mutants who stay in base as much as possible and three or four wounded who garrison my research base while they heal. I tend to take 12 soldiers per mission. They arrive on the map as two squads of 6 but then I reorganize them to squads of 2 to 4.  Strong guys and androids get autocannons, accurate guys get sniper rifles which seems to train their accuracy even more, and a disruptor in their backpack for situations when fast shooting beats long range. Rookies get twin plasma pistols for the higher basic accuracy and everyone else gets twin disruptors.  Whenever I don't have aliens to worry about and I notice my training facilities are overcrowded (effectiveness < 100%) it's time to get someone injured by raiding the cult of Sirius, or, as I like to think of them, X~Com's primary funding source. Another 6 or 7 raids and they'll have given me enough for an air hawk.

Large bio and physics labs are scheduled for completion early next week.

But the aliens are keeping me busy. Diablo are half assimilated so I need to annoy them by speculatively investigating their buildings. There's a handy button I haven't seen you use, Blank, over on the left side of the screen, that gives you a graph of the level of assimilation of different organizations.