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[Sean Mirrsen]

Why is it more grating with X-Com?

Can't prevent terror missions, can't intercept more than one UFO at a time, can't respond - mechanically, not for any good reason - to more than one mission at a time when they tend to come in threes, etc. Playing X-Com, you feel like you're fighting in a strategy game. Playing XCOM, you feel like you're stuck in a JRPG with quick-time events, and your character just happens to be shaped like an underground bunker.

You can with just a little bit of modding. Change it so that satellite placement and abduction mission successes give you less panic reduction on the specific country but include some continent-wide panic reduction. It helps a lot to remove the RNG influence on whether or not you lose a country while keeping consequences to failed missions. It's what I normally run with, although my current run of EW is vanilla so I can get the full experience.

Yeah, but you need to modify the executable for it, because the difficulty configs embedded in the executable aren't overridden by those in the data folders.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why is it more grating with X-Com?

Can't prevent terror missions, can't intercept more than one UFO at a time, can't respond - mechanically, not for any good reason - to more than one mission at a time when they tend to come in threes, etc. Playing X-Com, you feel like you're fighting in a strategy game. Playing XCOM, you feel like you're stuck in a JRPG with quick-time events, and your character just happens to be shaped like an underground bunker.

1a. You can only intercept one UFO at once?
1b. There is a situation where you would need to intercept more than one UFO at once?
2. X-Com let you prevent terror missions?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Why is it more grating with X-Com?

Can't prevent terror missions, can't intercept more than one UFO at a time, can't respond - mechanically, not for any good reason - to more than one mission at a time when they tend to come in threes, etc. Playing X-Com, you feel like you're fighting in a strategy game. Playing XCOM, you feel like you're stuck in a JRPG with quick-time events, and your character just happens to be shaped like an underground bunker.

1a. You can only intercept one UFO at once?
1b. There is a situation where you would need to intercept more than one UFO at once?
2. X-Com let you prevent terror missions?

1a:Well, they only appear one at a time, like a random encounter. Hence the JRPG parallels.
1b:Yes, for instance alien abductors, scouts, and alien retaliation running at the same. Heck, a major problem mid-game is that you often don't have enough interceptors to get to everything.
2: Yep. It looks damn good on your monthly score when you do - instead of a repelled terror attack you just get a plain huge score bonus for a large UFO shot down.

[EnigmaticHat]

Oldcom was a pretty different game.  Much more of a simulation.  You might have to intercept 6 UFOs at once (although oddly, I found I used LESS intercepters in oldcom because they could jump continents).

In some ways its weird how well oldcom compares to newcom.  In other ways, well, let's just say the old game had its own heap of flaws.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Oldcom was a pretty different game.  Much more of a simulation.  You might have to intercept 6 UFOs at once (although oddly, I found I used LESS intercepters in oldcom because they could jump continents).

In some ways its weird how well oldcom compares to newcom.  In other ways, well, let's just say the old game had its own heap of flaws.

Most of those flaws are fixed by OpenXCom, and heaps of new features are being worked on and modded in daily.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1b:Yes, for instance alien abductors, scouts, and alien retaliation running at the same. Heck, a major problem mid-game is that you often don't have enough interceptors to get to everything.

There are UFOs for all those things?

Oldcom was a pretty different game.  Much more of a simulation.  You might have to intercept 6 UFOs at once (although oddly, I found I used LESS intercepters in oldcom because they could jump continents).
In some ways its weird how well oldcom compares to newcom.  In other ways, well, let's just say the old game had its own heap of flaws.

Most of those flaws are fixed by OpenXCom, and heaps of new features are being worked on and modded in daily.

Neat.

[Sean Mirrsen]

There are UFOs for all those things?

The list of missions UFOs run are, I think, scouting (flybys), terror (ground attack on city), abduction (ground op anywhere), retaliation (airstrike on city), harvesting (bigger ground op anywhere), supply (alien base giveaway), assault (I think that's what an attack on XCOM is called), and even Diplomacy (ground op in city, let it land and the country leaves the council). If you shoot down the Diplomacy ships (which are often Battleships), you can even prevent countries from leaving the Council of Founding Nations, since you're preventing the signing of a pact between the country and the aliens.

(edit: the Wiki doesn't appear to support me on that last bit, but I could've sworn I saw one of those before losing the US to aliens in my latest game)

[EnigmaticHat]

Oldcom was a pretty different game.  Much more of a simulation.  You might have to intercept 6 UFOs at once (although oddly, I found I used LESS intercepters in oldcom because they could jump continents).

In some ways its weird how well oldcom compares to newcom.  In other ways, well, let's just say the old game had its own heap of flaws.

Most of those flaws are fixed by OpenXCom, and heaps of new features are being worked on and modded in daily.

Well, yes, but the version I'm judging it on IS OpenXCom.

Look at it like this: what's the single most broken ability in newcom, from release?  Squadsight.  How many soldiers in oldcom have squadsight?  ALL OF THEM.

[Mephansteras]

Yes, but the aliens all have it as well so that balances out a bit. Also, the damage a Colonel Sniper can do in the New X-Com outstrips anything a single soldier in the Old X-Com could do.

[Silfurdreki]

Also, the entirety of psionics is just bullshit in OldCom. Two veterans with amplifiers in the back of the skyranger will win any mission if you bring along scouts since psi doesn't require LOS.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Oldcom was a pretty different game.  Much more of a simulation.  You might have to intercept 6 UFOs at once (although oddly, I found I used LESS intercepters in oldcom because they could jump continents).

In some ways its weird how well oldcom compares to newcom.  In other ways, well, let's just say the old game had its own heap of flaws.

Most of those flaws are fixed by OpenXCom, and heaps of new features are being worked on and modded in daily.

Well, yes, but the version I'm judging it on IS OpenXCom.

Look at it like this: what's the single most broken ability in newcom, from release?  Squadsight.  How many soldiers in oldcom have squadsight?  ALL OF THEM.

Squadsight is only broken in newcom because of who it's attached to, and what the limitations normally are, and what abilities it allows to use. In oldcom, you don't get reaction fire through squadsight, you don't get a free shot for increased criticals with squadsight, and all of your weapons can fire anywhere they realistically should be able to. I am far more infuriated by the Heavy's "rocket launcher" that has like twenty meters of range, than any brokenness of the Snipers' Squadsight.

Also, the entirety of psionics is just bullshit in OldCom. Two veterans with amplifiers in the back of the skyranger will win any mission if you bring along scouts since psi doesn't require LOS.

The same is true for the aliens, and frankly having a pair of powerful psi-wielding veterans is much more of an achievement in OldCom.

[Silfurdreki]

Yes, the same is true for the aliens, which is exactly why the entirety of psionics is bad in OldCom. As far as I'm concerned, fixing psionics is the single best thing they did in NewCom. All other things they changed I can see both pros and cons for but psionics, I can only see good things in that change.

[EnigmaticHat]

Yes, but the aliens all have it as well so that balances out a bit. Also, the damage a Colonel Sniper can do in the New X-Com outstrips anything a single soldier in the Old X-Com could do.

First off all, AFAIK the aliens never use squadsight.  They may have it, but they don't use it.  Second of all, sure, a Colonel sniper does more than a single soldier.  But three soldiers with heavy plasma still leaves you with 11 slots for expendable scouts, so its more broken in Oldcom.

On top of that, the way accuracy works allows any rookie to serve as a sniper.  That 20% to hit on auto shot?  That's a 20% to be perfectly accurate at any range.  They could still hit even if they "miss", and on top of that a rookie can fire a heavy plasma 6 times in a single turn.  Even with a rookie with awful firing accuracy, that's still >50% to hit overall, at any range, with the crappiest soldier in the game.  And no possibility of reaction fire.

And that's not even getting into what you can do with motion sensors and smoke.

[WillowLuman]

And blaster launchers.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Also, the entirety of psionics is just bullshit in OldCom. Two veterans with amplifiers in the back of the skyranger will win any mission if you bring along scouts since psi doesn't require LOS.

...which with when ambushers like the strangler things come into their best.