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[rabidgam3r]

This is very silly.

No, is serious topic about burly men in powersuits shooting alium invaders that want to stop GLORIOUS AMERICA

[Parsely]

This is very silly.

No, is serious topic about burly men in powersuits shooting alium invaders that want to stop GLORIOUS AMERICA

[Sean Mirrsen]

I wonder, do we still have an active thread about the old X-COM game(s)? With OpenXCom nearing completion, I feel like there are no longer any serious barriers to playing it (barring the horrible difficulty).

On that note:

This is very silly.

No, is serious topic about burly men in powersuits shooting alium invaders that want to stop GLORIOUS AMERICA

I don't know why, but aliens in my current game of UFO Defense are converging on the US. My interceptors are working overtime, and thanks to OpenXCom allowing to force aircraft to the runway without refueling, my second base in Mexico is seeing a lot of traffic.

I have had horrible luck with UFOs in this game till now, I had two Floater terror missions before I managed to shoot down a single UFO. I went the whole first month with nothing but a single tiny scout, that quickly outran my interceptor and fled. February was no better. Now it's March, and I'm drowning in UFOs. One shot down over UK, one shot down over India (large scout!), then a week of pause... then I get a small scout and a "large" contact over Europe. To hell with the small one, both European interceptors go after the large one. Small scout flies off. Large one makes a run for it, disappearing over Greenland. The Mexico base has a large radar, so it's bound to pop up there, so both interceptors continue to Canada. New contact over US. Small one, different from before. Local interceptor flies out and shoots it down. No sign of large contact. Skyranger flies out to deal with crash site. "Large" contact reappears almost over Alaska. European Interceptors still over Canada, low on fuel but make it on time. First is armed with the small missiles and cannon, and its pilot should be given either an Ace Award or blood tested for speed, because he all but rammed his interceptor up the UFO's rear bumper and dodged every shot made at him point blank, pumping most of his ammo, missile and cannon, into the darn thing. The guy nearly ran out of cannon ammo, but he was finally hit a few times and I decided not to risk him, so that the second craft could finish the UFO off. While the second interceptor catches up with the contact, another small contact appears over US. The old one from over Europe. Mexican fighter is not done refueling but the bastard is damn near hovering over our base so he just takes off into his face. Two engagements at most minutes apart, the large UFO goes down to two Avalanches, and the second small one needs finishing off with cannon fire. Skyranger in flight is redirected to the large crash site.

It's an Abductor. My team is eight almost-rookies in pantaloons, because no time to research Alloys with the drought, and I forgot the tank.

And there's two more crash sites in the US to clear afterwards.

This is going to be Fun.

[GlyphGryph]

Aside from the specific mention of avengers and floaters, that describes my last game of Xenonauts almost to a T, heh.

[Steelmagic]

It's because they are evil communist aliens who want to steal our FREEDOM. Or it could be a coincidence i suppose.

[KingBacon]

Just had a base defense mission. 4 Cyberdiscs all at once, then 4 mechoids. I had no snipers or heavies... brutal.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Followup to the previous post about UFO Defence/OpenXCom.

So, I seriously like the midair transfer feature. Saves time, money, and apparently even more time. The Abductor mission went about as well as it could, lost only three soldiers thanks to a nearby shack that I used to slowly file the people into while a few Sectoids blasted holes in the place. Lost one to a stunned alien... forgot that they get back up in X-COM... damn you, Enemy Within!

Also realized that in lieu of better targets, an incendiary heavy cannon is the perfect flaregun. Lights up both aliens and the night landscape. This came in handy during the second mission, another nighttime operation against a scout. Lost another soldier that time, because seriously. Sneaky little grey bastards. A term accurate in regards to both tactics, stature, coloration, and the fact that, as clones, none of them have married parents. (yes I lifted that out of XSGCOM) I sure hope nobody was planning to use that wheat field...

The third mission came about quicker than usual, because I used the just-built hangar on the New Zealand base to send the Mexican interceptor away, and land the European Skyranger into the freed-up hangar. Perks of being a globe-spanning organization. Thankfully I've been prepping the base for a Skyranger and a team of its own, so it has some space to dump the spoils, as well as a set of standard gear that came in earlier than the craft and the troops. So now the poor Skyranger pilot, pulling an all-nighter with only as much rest time as it took to haul stuff into and out of the cargo bay, is flying back into the night for the final crash site. Let's hope he doesn't make a crash site of his own somewhere.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'm interested in playing OpenXCom (mainly because despite many attempts, I can't get regular UFO Defence working in Windows 7), but I hope they haven't changed any of the difficulty or balance elements too much. I took a look on the site and saw only a couple of things mentioned, such as the removal of the 80 item limit, but I'd love to hear from those who've played it how faithful it is to the original experience.

Very. Barring fixing of what glitches there were, such as Paying For Dirt, etc, it provides a whole lot of options you can tweak to make the game feel like it works better, or just add some things that seem to make sense. Mind control counting as capture, midair aircraft transfer, instant mission end (i.e. if you kill the last alien you don't have to end turn), inventory stats, base radar ranges on geoscape (including during making a new base), etc. You have a whole lot of options to tune, but if you really want to it'll be exactly the same as the old X-COM, sans bugs. Some things it can add are just neat, like mousewheel zoom or number adjustments, tooltips for Battlescape buttons, current funds next to clock on Geoscape, etc.

It's quite good. ^_^

Probably the biggest change you'll actually notice if you opt out of all extra things that can be turned off, is the ability to open doors via right-click, a-la the remake. No more sacrificial rookies for UFO breaching.
To a lesser extent, the "force fire" option to fire regardless of line of sight. Useful when autofiring heavy weapons through partial cover.

The full list of changes is here, with a link at the bottom to the page with all the optional settings.

Personally, I want to try playing with lifelocked alien equipment. Again, a-la the remake. No more plasma weapon sales early on!

[timferius]

I am so incredibly happy now! This one change:

Soldier equipment is saved for each soldier and restored as possible before mission.

Means I can finally play classic XCOM without going mad!

[EnigmaticHat]

I've found that I do worse against sectoids in OpenXcom then I do against mutons.  Fucking psi powers man.

edit: is getting a psi lab supposed to tell you the psi strength of everyone in the base, or do you have to train them first?

[Sean Mirrsen]

I've found that I do worse against sectoids in OpenXcom then I do against mutons.  Fucking psi powers man.

edit: is getting a psi lab supposed to tell you the psi strength of everyone in the base, or do you have to train them first?

I believe you need to shove people into it. Once they complete their testing, they will start training the skill.

[EnigmaticHat]

Curses.  All I want to know is which soldiers have high psi strength, so that I have half a chance against Ethereals.

[stabbymcstabstab]

Curses.  All I want to know is which soldiers have high psi strength, so that I have half a chance against Ethereals.

Check their will the high it is, the high the chance their PSI.

[EnigmaticHat]

Still talking about old-com lol.  Psychic powers ignored line of sight back then, and the AI knew the psi resistance of all your soldiers.

There are tricks you can use against it of course, but most of them are tedious or gamey.  I'd prefer to simply have a high psi-strength squad, but who knows how many tests I'd have to run.  It would take at least two months to before I can have a full squads worth tested, thanks to having 3 of my psi labs in a base with no soldiers.  Whoops.

[Parsely]

Soldier limit?