Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

It is the same logic as to why Zombies can kill you in one hit, but a rocket to the face actually hurts much less.

Because all armor is Anti-newtonian.

[Muz]

Maybe ship cannons are just weaker because of the long range? Something like that alloy cannon where you can't shoot the stuff, you have to launch it and it blows up on impact. I think plasma tech works that way, and lasers do attenuate through space.

[Tilla]

Couldn't this easily be explained along the lines of 'their shields are down on the ground' or something?

[Neonivek]

Couldn't this easily be explained along the lines of 'their shields are down on the ground' or something?

No, Xcom is a world without strong forcefields.

[kilakan]

Maybe they just crash a lot, like they crash even when people aren't shooting at them?  Maybe the aliens are all such horrible drivers they just had to build all their vehicles in such a way that they are made to crash without breaking into tiny bits, the material isn't insanely hard the ships are just built to be crashed?

[Johnfalcon99977]

Is it wrong that the more I play this, the more I want to make a Tabletop RPG form of this?

[Tilla]

Is it wrong that the more I play this, the more I want to make a Tabletop RPG form of this?

Sid and Jake actually built tabletop prototypes while developing the game. That's apperently the Sid Meier's method.

[Markus]

Diamonds can only be cut by other diamonds. On the other hand, they are extremely brittle and can be shattered fairly easily. Apparently, Alien ships reverse this principle somehow.

And now you know why, even if it was more plentiful than air itself, we still wouldn't make tanks out of diamond.

[Cthulhu]

It's not that unrealistic, Kevlar is like that.  Blocks bullets to a good degree but a knife will slice right through it.

This is also a video game, a video game from a very campy series.  Don't think too hard.

[Awessum Possum]

 ^Yeah, but to be fair it wasn't like this in the original, the actual hulls of the alien ships could take a pounding.

Nine (twelve?) mutons a cyberdisk and two drones vs. a Lt. a Sgt and three squaddies... So. Much. Blood.

Also, what is my best bet for capturing the sectoid commander? Brainy jerk always forces me too kill him by mind controlling my best troops.

[Neonivek]

^Yeah, but to be fair it wasn't like this in the original, the actual hulls of the alien ships could take a pounding.

Nine (twelve?) mutons a cyberdisk and two drones vs. a Lt. a Sgt and three squaddies... So. Much. Blood.

Also, what is my best bet for capturing the sectoid commander? Brainy jerk always forces me too kill him by mind controlling my best troops.

If you want to know the cheapest way to make the Sectoid commander's mind control weak... have him control a sniper

[Cthulhu]

^Yeah, but to be fair it wasn't like this in the original, the actual hulls of the alien ships could take a pounding.

In the original game a ship's hull could be damaged by plasma fire.  Plasma fire in this game can also damage a ship's hull, so I don't see much of a difference.  Again, I've never seen the regular solid projectile guns do anything more than superficial damage to structures.

[alway]

Started a playthrough on impossible difficulty. Doing it as Ironman w/o the ironman option enabled; as I do want saves for when the game freezes/crashes, as has happened several times before. Also not using tutorial.

It is really really fun.

Rookies and such start with only 4 hp, and my highest hp units have around 5 atm.

First mission, attempt 1: I try to make a stand in the parking lot, with half cover. All 4 are dead shortly. Mission restarted (as it doesn't let you start w/o winning the first mission apparently).
First mission, attempt 2: I use not-terrible tactics this time, skirting around the building, a set of shops, setting up in heavy cover in the alleyway behind it. 0 death, lots of dead aliens and grenade holes.
Over the next few missions, I take 1 casualty, succeeding in all missions, including the UFO shoot-down; and due to the stupidity of panic mechanics, now have 4 countries about to leave (still month 1).

Then comes the anna screams-a-lot escort mission; my 5th mission. Most of my good soliders, with the exception of the sniper, are in the hospital, so I take the sniper and a squaddie heavy along with 2 rookies. Turn 2, snakeman shows up. He then kills one of the rookies on his turn, from half-cover behind a car. The other rookie panics. She shoots and crits the snakeman, killing it; pretty damn hard for a snakeman in half-cover on impossible difficulty. Next, bunches of sectoids (god damn those things are scary on impossible; 4 HP and able to 1-shot most units with their tiny hp bars). 3 of them take pretty good cover; my units are out of position. So I send in the rookie for a bit of a gamble. 25% hit chance on the sectoid mind-melded with a second. Rookie shoots, crits, and both of the sectoids die. The sniper takes out the last. Rookie takes out another pair of mind-melded sectoids with similar odds, and similarly out-of-position squad. On the way back, the squad is, once again, out of position. Since snakemen have 6 hp in impossible mode, you need a crit to 1-shot one. 65% hit chance; 60% crit chance; or about a 36% kill chance. Rookie once again shoots and crits the snakeman. So, with a mission consisting of 11 aliens, the rookie manages to kill 6 of them; on impossible difficulty. Hells yeah.

Needless to say, when the rookie got the promotion, she was a sniper.

[Sirian]

It's not that unrealistic, Kevlar is like that.  Blocks bullets to a good degree but a knife will slice right through it.

This is also a video game, a video game from a very campy series.  Don't think too hard.

I'm fairly sure that it's very hard to cut through kevlar. I remember using it for fishing, in the part of the line that's near the bait, when trying to catch catfish and such, as they can chew through normal lines. And boy was it hard to cut. But maybe that's an inaccurate memory, since i was a kid back then.

Anyway, i do agree that UFO's hulls break way too easily from weapons fire. In fact, environment damage in general is a bit over the top.

[EnigmaticHat]

Impossible is... eh.  I do great in the first mission, because I know exactly how many sectoids there are and its a reasonable number.  Then the second mission I attempt to flank the first group I encounter and rapidly reveal over a dozen sectoids, who then overwhelm my force.

The whole revealing aliens mechanics were ok on classic or below, because the game only spawns a few groups and you don't need to flank most of the time anyway.  But in impossible, its annoying that they expect you to take out enemies that have really good defense in a situation where getting closer or trying to go around brings more enemies into the fight.  Like, even the one two punch of grenade + guns requires soldiers to move forward, which leaves you in a situation where accomplishing nothing on your turn leaves you with 3 enemies, but going forward and killing one means you'll take return fire from 5.

Considering the above problem with getting rid of cover and the fact that mutons in full cover would give troops with assault rifles <20% chance to hit on classic, they must be some sort of sick joke on impossible.  Hope you brought rockets...