Because no one uses the Other Games Forum: X-COM

[Hauldren Collider]

Squad sight is probably the single best upgrade in the whole damn game. Followed by lightning reflexes.

[Tupac Shakur]

Squad sight is probably the single best upgrade in the whole damn game. Followed by lightning reflexes.

I think this is accurate. Would throw Field Medic in there to make a top three.

[regexcellent]

Gonna come in here and defend In the Zone a little bit because there are certain situations, especially in the story missions, where in the zone is hilariously awesome. Against swarms of weak enemies you basically annihilate them with one dude in one turn. Especially if you combine it by squadsighting with someone with ghost armor, so you catch them all in the open.

[Tupac Shakur]

By the time I have Ghost Armor, I don't need any help taking out swarms of weak enemies. What I need is a badass sniper who can put two shots into the toughest enemies every other turn. In the Zone may be hilariously awesome in the right situation, but Double Tap is consistently valuable.

[regexcellent]

You are right that double tap is better, although keep in mind it's three shots every two turns, not two shots every one turn.

[Tupac Shakur]

True enough. Edited to correct the error.

[MRT144]

Agree with this. I'm having my best game ever right now (normal, ironman) and I think it's because I chose South America for my base for the first time. I powered through the tech tree in no time (without any investment in scientists) with the help of early Muton and Thin Men interrogations, and was rocking Titan Armor and plasma weaponry before the Heavy Floaters even showed up. Just beat the alien base at the start of September and I wouldn't have taken a scratch if not for a brain dead move on my part when facing a Sectopod, and a Muton Elite teleporting into the middle of a six-person formation of soldiers (who didn't get a reaction shot despite all of them being on overwatch).

I think some of it is luck with countries and what you get in rewards for missions but South America, when everything goes right, is ****ing ridiculous. For all my other playthrough I'm starting in Africa especially with 2nd wave options enabled.

[Tupac Shakur]

Talk about a charmed game. I just got my first three soldiers back from the Psi Lab and all three came back gifted.

[regexcellent]

Field medic was mentioned earlier as a must have but I've always found that having two supports with it seems kind of unnecessary. When I have two supports I will sometimes snag the extra smoke grenades instead because smoke grenades can really get you out of trouble if you **** up.

[Tupac Shakur]

I almost never use 2 smoke grenades or six medkits, but I know which one I'd rather run out of if it comes to that.

[Tupac Shakur]

Maybe next game I'll run two different support builds to see how it works out. Thinking a medic build with Field Medic and Revive, and a combat support build with Smoke and Mirrors and Rifle Suppression.

[regexcellent]

On impossible difficulty the smoke grenades make it possible to not take hits from thin men when you're in full cover without hunkering down.

It's thoroughly ridiculous how good thin men are.

I would like to see a mod that does the following:
* All primary weapons except sniper rifles can be used by all characters and the machine gun has an inherent suppressing fire capability.
* Only heavies can move and shoot with the machine gun (or otherwise it takes a severe move+shoot aim penalty)
* SHIVs get a huge huge huge HUGE buff, enabling them to actually be useful for interesting tactical problems.
* You get to know the map ahead of time, before you hit "launch mission," so that you can deploy squadmembers/shivs and equip them according to the terrain.
* You can select what specialization your troops get when they level up.

[Hauldren Collider]

I agree with reg here--I'd much rather have extra smokes.

[Guynemer]

The non-medic support build can be quite useful, especially for that Suppression if you don't have a heavy with it.

As for the heavys... they have the weirdest tree, with some of the hardest choices in the game, and also the single easiest (HEAT vs. whatever the **** you can take other than HEAT, lol no). Extra attacks are always extremely welcome, of course, but holotargeting and suppression can be lifesavers.

[Hauldren Collider]

I always pick holotargeting.