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[Blaze]

After hearing about it, I went and got it. Was glad that I didn't have to go through DOSBOX anymore (Not that anything's wrong with it) plus tweaks and other helpful stuff.

Started a game on experienced; Russia set up base on me and waited awhile, just finished laser rifle research when I got my first sighting. Loaded up and went out, first turn, run into an alien peeking over the corner. A single one-shot kill. Today's my lucky day.

Then I hit "end turn" and get murdilated by a sectopod.

This game. 

I never really noticed that we had tanks (Usually because by the time I could afford them my troops were just better). Cannon I assume is useless aside from breaching due to lousy aim, but how does the rocket launcher fair?

[Geneoce]

Rocket tank is one of the best imo. Got enough damage to knock out a decent amount stuff, AOE means its shit accuracy still manages to collect sectoids and you don't need to spend workshop hours to make one!

Much better option than having 3 troops holding the ammo for your one rocket launcher.

[Jacob/Lee]

Yeah, it's something else. I started my first OpenXCom game (after a good while playing UFO Defense) on the... Third difficulty, whatever they call it, and my first mission was a floater terror mission that got everyone killed. I'm convinced I could statistically prove that more aliens spawn facing the skyranger ramp for instant, cheap turn-one reaction fire, too. I have never used smoke grenades this much in my entire X-COM experience.

[EnigmaticHat]

Yup, in Openxcom any aliens standing near the skyranger at the start of the game will automatically be turned to face it.  I assume this is to represent them noticing the large transport that landed right next to them.

My procedure is one smoke grenade thrown at the base of the ramp, one dropped inside it.  Also, the soldiers are ordered in the skyranger roughly by expendability.

edit: the tank is useless IMO because it will go out first and you can't easily cover it with smoke.

[sluissa]

If aliens reaction fire on the tank though, they're less likely to reaction fire on your more valuable soldiers.

[EnigmaticHat]

For me they ALWAYS die in the first 2 moves.  Often they take auto-fire from multiple directions on the first move, if they even survive the first burst.  The waste of resources to lose a rocket tank on every single mission seemed silly, so I switched to the smoke grenade system.

All my experiences are on 0.9, so YMMV.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I actually started to periodically skip the first turns on large missions for this reason. When the mission starts, all nearby aliens are facing the 'ranger and have full TUs. Skip a turn and they are liable to move about their civvie-murdering business, and even if they're still nearby and facing the Skyranger, they no longer have full TUs to spend on reaction fire.

An extra two or three civvies lost is a bad mark on your relations, but it often spares you the loss of a few valuable troopers.

Also, I am now playing with researched items being spent, and alien weapons self-destructing if the alien is killed. Really changes up your strategy, it does. (this is the nightly builds, I highly recommend it)

[Sharp]

Yeah the first turn look-at ramp thing makes terror missions much more interesting, the race to save civvies and not lose soldiers makes a dilemma. You can also set grenades to explode on impact in the options so you can chuck a smoke grenade out of the ramp and move soldiers straight away. You can also prime grenades in the pre-battle equipment screen to save even more TU's

[ChairmanPoo]

If aliens reaction fire on the tank though, they're less likely to reaction fire on your more valuable soldiers.

On the other hand, if aliens reaction fire on the noobs, they're less likely to reaction fire on your more vauable tanks...

[EnigmaticHat]

I've found that terror missions typically have 80% civilian casualties or more... on the first turn.  On superhuman at least.

There's almost no point in trying to save them as the ones who do survive are always the ones that randomly find a good hiding spot.

[Jacob/Lee]

Oh, yeah, I just remembered this: Right after setting up OpenXCom, I started a mixed-race terror mission custom battle and my soldiers were armed with shit, so I was going to do a suicide run to see what I could kill. I take a step out of the 'ranger and see a chryssalid in a doorway. My soldier opens fire and hits it... And it fires back. And kills the shooter. And it turned the shooter into a zombie with their magic gun.

I don't know what's up with this game, but I like it.

[Sonlirain]

Well one tactic i know is to move out of the skyranger on the second turn... especially if aliens are automatically turned towards the SR at the beginning.
Why? Well aliens have full AP meters at the start and hopefully whey will move around before turn 2 and in effect reduce the possible ammount of reaction fire.

[The13thRonin]

Any reason to play this over the existing old XCOM on STEAM?

Are there new features?

[Metalax]

Any reason to play this over the existing old XCOM on STEAM?

Are there new features?

It fixes all of the bugs that remained in the original and makes some improvements to the UI but otherwise uses the same base data as the original.
You can see all the differences here.
There are also a large number of optional customisations which can be used to tune the difficulty of the game.

[Darkening Kaos]

By far the most important option is the one that allows you to build your first base in a secure, competent, and SANE, layout.

Late March saw both Interceptors destroyed after Africa was assaulted by six simultaneous ships, I only downed two but had to let the rest go, and the next couple until new Interceptors arrived.  OpenXCom seems a bit rougher on the player than the original.  I hope they tackle TFTD next, I enjoyed that incarnation more than UFO defence.