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[Starver]

Yeah... Teams of less than 3 don't work. When using small groups keep them together and make sure they end their turn facing away from each other. You can Right click to adjust facings. With large maps I typically lock down areas with snipers and clear sector by sector. Areas with  live civillians tend to get bypassed.

Reminds me: While I like the fact that there's more than one exit to the transport (the number of XCOM-EU games I had recently, when re-living the FNU, where big blasts of alien plasmadeath ended up destroying the HWPs as soon as they dared to poke their (supposedly) armoured faces out into the cold, bitter air of the alien terror zone... with the only consolation being that they at least no longer blocked the rampway off for the rest of the units) the men always seem to have exited themselves out of both doors in ways most unconducive to the environment.  When you want Assault troops to the fore, they're round the back, with long-range support weaponry exposed.

There must be some logic about it that I haven't yet broken and exploited.


Spent almost no time last night /not/ continually re-playing that early Wachau level of AI.  Refining the attack method.  Guy with pistols covering the windows of the kitchen extension while one or two assault troops go round the right hand side, two snipers hold back by the car, or off at the extreme corners of the parking area,  to pick off anyone coming out onto the balcony or passing by windows, two others (usually grenade-launcher guys... non-optimal, for the indoor fighting, but part of my standard squad layout) clearing the barn/shed thing to the left out (sometimes there's someone, sometimes there's no-one, I can only assume that when they aren't there, they've gone around to the back door of the kitchen/dining room extension) while the one or two remaining guys boldly strides in the front door (protected from the flank by the pistol guy's field of fire through the windows) and guards the staircase.  Then, depending on what happens (sometimes a lone guy circling round the RHS encounters three aliens in the back area, sometimes they rush into the kitchen and get taken out by the pistol guy, no problem) gather all useful troops to advance up the stairs area.  Can't seem to save all the civilians (either there's someone hiding/running upstairs, before I'm ready, or the sniper guys can't get everyone shooting down from the balcony and windows, or even get hit themselves) but it's a fairly clean sweep with minimal personal casualties.

Of course, for that map I should probably consider pure Assault weaponry and just blitz through.  Maybe two (one?) to right, two (one?) to left, one at extension at least momentarily and three (four? five? six, when the extension is all but cleared?) straight in and up the stairs.  But that strikes me as a bit 'MaxMin' in approach.

[BishopX]

I like sending 4 guys in the front doors (2 snipers/ CQB guys). with teams of two moving around either side. You can clear the kitchen through the windows, from outside. and Taking the corners of the stairs tends to give me great reaction shots. The Hallwy on the 3rd floor is also my favorite place for a flamer in the entire game.

[Starver]

Like like sending 4 guys in the front doors (2 snipers/ CQB guys). with teams of two moving around either side. You can clear the kitchen through the windows, from outside. and Taking the corners of the stairs tends to give me great reaction shots. The Hallwy on the 3rd floor is also my favorite place for a flamer in the entire game.

Ah yes.  I forgot about the flamer.  I think I roasted too many (unseen) civs the first few times I used it.  Mind you, I got the occasional civ from the blast of the hand/launched grenades (and occasionally didn't exactly help my own troops, it was close and my aim was off), but I haven't stopped using them.

(One thing there's currently no point in using is the Saracen plane.  It doesn't actually go any faster than the Stiletto, and still only has two hard-points for weaponry.  About the only time I found it useful was in quickly getting my last soldier (in a game where my main transport had been shot down, with all on board) to that mine in Wellington from wherever my one and only base was in Europe/Africa/West Asia.

[kuro_suna]

I tried both Stiletto and Saracen and they both failed miserably to shoot down a ufo thats been buzzing my base for like a month.

[BishopX]

You need to buy a targeting computer for them, and buying a ECM will greatly improve their lifespan.

[Starver]

My standard Stiletto is a "3,0,2" slot item.  The wotsit missiles on all three weapons pylons, no armour (I often need the speed, but YMMV) and the ECM/Targetter on the two equipment slots.

BTW, talking about lone troops, I spent an even more time last night on a mission.  In this game, my West African main base is the only one (so far) with the troop carrier.  (None of my other bases had Large Hangers to transfer into or buy for.)  And West Africa is more or less antipodal to that Wellington mine 'rumour', and thus out of range (with or without fuelpods).

So I set to clearing the mine with a single trooper (raw recruit, but chosen from the pool for accuracy and Assault Weaponry skill, and equipped with grenades that weren't actually used in the final attempt) carried on one of the Stilettos I had stationed in one of the other bases (Indonesian, Hawaii or Antartica, I forget which).  Took a few retries, but I eventually managed to survive, having killed all the aliens, with one of the aliens still alive.

Not that anyone wants to know about that.

Anyway, I'm also likely to be off-forum for the festive period, so might as well take the opportunity to wish you Seasons Greetings (of whatever form they apply to you) and see you all next decade!

[EagleV]

And West Africa is more or less antipodal to that Wellington mine 'rumour', and thus out of range (with or without fuelpods).

I've built a base on Hawaï, which IIRC is right opposite the first Africa mission, and got there with still quite some fuel left... I think it's perfectly possible for a firebird with 2 fuelpods to fly around the earth. (Or to the other side and back)

[Starver]

And West Africa is more or less antipodal to that Wellington mine 'rumour', and thus out of range (with or without fuelpods).

I've built a base on Hawaï, which IIRC is right opposite the first Africa mission, and got there with still quite some fuel left... I think it's perfectly possible for a firebird with 2 fuelpods to fly around the earth. (Or to the other side and back)

All I know is that it wouldn't let me.

I have tended to put my first base on the extreme west tip of West Africa (whence a double-podded firebird refused to fly), second in Madagascar, third at a point up in Russia (hard to identify), fourth somewhere in Papya New Guinea, fifth in Hawaï, sixth somewhere on the USA/Canada border, seventh somewhere in (or near) Peru and the eighth in Antartica.  Or as close as I can in the parts of the world which are in night while I'm trying to place the bases.  Which (once the power plants and radar are built) gives me near total coverage for detecting (or at least maintaining detection) of UFOs over all land masses and significant areas of ocean.  If I get it wrong, there's a few spots not quite covered, even by the 'release range' radar ring.  And I'm wondering if I can wangle a seven-base solution without downloading some actual geographic data, working out the precise ranges and running some iterative solution-finding.

Of course, the above is when I've (ab)used the money-generation cheat to give me a practically unlimited budget at game start-up (when my main constraints are the available hirable workforce, and the time it takes to get production up and running even at the primary base, a side-effect of the money-generating exploit).  Beggars and choosers being what they are, a more normal game is far more chaotic.

[andrea]

A question about X-CoM apocalypse: how do I assign passengers to a vehicle? Everytime a live alien is spotted, the vehicles rush there, while all the men take taxi. which is bad. also, I can't even hope to ever get a UFO, since by the time my soldiers arrive on taxi, the UFO spawned, landed, took off and went to the gate again.
Also, can I do missions on crash landed UFOs? how?

(I am using steam version bought from steam, complete pack of all X-COM)

[Starver]

If I understand you, I think you're sending interceptors to ground-events, and then your 'troop carrier' which arrives too late.  On AI, interceptors can hold a single trooper, but in the original XCOMs (at least the earliest) interceptors have no land-and-deploy capabilities.

If a troop carrier is set off immediately the ground-event takes place and still doesn't catch it on the ground, then you have nothing you can do.  Although ISTR a 'bug' whereby sites that disappear after a certain time only do so at the change of the hour if nothing is actively heading towards them, which can be exploited by aiming craft towards them just before the hour clicks over to ensure they stick around long enough to: a) avoid your troops starting battle at night; b) get your experienced/most appropriately equipped troops all the way from the other side of the planet (by way of inter-base transfers, if necessary).

The only other thing I can think of is that you're somehow sending the carrier to 'hover' in the vicinity, and not arrive at it, so no mission is sparked and the craft lifts off 'under you' having no coded compulsion to stick around.

[Morsigil]

I'm not sure you've got it right Starver. Basically he doesn't know how to put troops into his vehicles to go to the live alien sightings.

I can't recall how it is done in Apoc. You have to assign troops to vehicles, and I don't know what screen that is under, but it is probably under the same screen that you view your vehicles in. If I recall it was a really simple mechanic of simply dragging the soldiers onto the vehicle you wanted them to ride in.

As cool as the motorcycles are, they are pretty much useless. =( Oh well.

Re: alien ships. It's pretty difficult to catch the ships while they're landed, IIRC. You'll usually have to shoot them down and then go to the crash site.

[andrea]

Morsigil got it right. I tried dragging, but all I got was selecting any soldier/veichle I dragged the mouse on. it just selected, but didn't seem to do much else. By the way, I don't use interceptor, I use APCs with passenger modules. Is that wrong? Also, what command do I have to use to send people to a crash site? "attack enemy unit"? I tried that and it didn't work, but I think that is because I didn't have any soldier in them.
I'll try messing with commands a bit more. Thanks.

I hope to fix the problem, because soldiers having to use public transport is quite annoying. At least I don't have to pay tickets.

edit: dragging definitely doesn't work. I start thinking I have a buggy version, since I also get bad graphic problems. like screen forgetting to update and staying black until I hover mouse onto the blackened part. it is like using a rubber tool.

[Morsigil]

You don't want to be using land vehicles for the most part, except maybe that massive tank thing to help take out big ships, if you can get it there in time.

Use interceptors to down enemy craft until you can get better vehicles. Since they fly, they get to the alien ships faster, thus giving them less time to escape.

Landing at alien sightings and crash sites you'll want to be riding in style: hover cars. Just pop storage or seating, whichever you need. If you give them weapons they can be sent to take down ships along with the interceptors, but both the interceptor and hover car are fragile when compared to larger alien ships. In the very beginning, your interceptor can be both transport and fighter, as even with just the one passenger seat it comes with you can seat 12. The down side to doing this is that if you misjudge a ship and your interceptor gets taken down, your squad goes with them, and then it's time to reload.

Update: So I finally took the time to install this game video dosbox and it's working without a hitch. To load vehicles, click on your base and then on the names or pictures of whoever you want to load onto a vehicle. Once their names are highlighted, drag one of your agent's pictures to the picture of the vehicle you want them to board. That will put them on it.

[Starver]

I'm not sure you've got it right Starver.

Looks like it.  Reading the replies, it's obvious that I've skipped a generation (or two?) of XCOM.  Bikes and hover cars and tanks (aside from the UAVs) are a stranger to me.  (And don't (yet?) exist in AI.)

[andrea]

AI?

anyway, fixed the problem: I needed to drag picture to load all selected units, not name.
Thanks you for the help!

I still haven't had a chance to find an UFO crash however: the only one I could take down landed on a building ( which I had to clean later)