Xcom, very late to the party

[El_Cid]

@ Dis, i just still find it hard to call my forward op guys(scouts is my nice friendly term of choice) as it is - cannon fodder!

these poor unfortunates would often be my greenest recruits armed with nothing more than a stun baton and maybe a smoke/normal grenade. They would lead the sweep of the area and if they made it to the downed ufo, they were first in to try to capture a live alien. Needless to say they had a very high fatality rate - i worked it out at about 70% chance of death in first mission.

Thier job as you point out is to spot the aliens and draw fire to enable the main team(the guys with the best stats/potential) to get into position to take the alien scum down.
I role-played that these guys must have come from a slightly different background to the rest of the team, maybe with some criminal background(ex-Awol/military prison etc) or a file from the state that they were completely expendable.

Those guys, if they survived, often became the greatest hero's in a succesfull mission. Man...... armed with just a stun baton!!! lol it was insane but quite effective.

@Quillian,

I read somewhere that there was a bug on the difficulty settings of the game(maybe this was the pre-patched version?). Anyway the easiest setting could be just as lethal as the medium settings - it depended on what you came across in the tbs battle maps. like you say you could wipe out as soon as opening the doors on landing in the area! I did try a game on the hardest setting and basicaly every alien became a crack shot - they wouldn't miss, or it seemed like they wouldn't, my team went down one shot at a time in about 3 turns.

'Easy' is a good place to start from

[Quillan]

That death rate is the main reason I used a tank instead. If I remember correctly, the Sky Ranger could hold 14 men? The tank took up the space of 4, giving me a full squad of 10 in addition. I usually had 2 guys with heavy weapons and the rest with rifles.

I NEVER used launchers; they were too dangerous with friendly fire during the reaction phase. I learned the hard way during my first mission. I'd shot down a scout, cleared the surrounding area and was stacking up at the entrance to the ship. I had a guy with a missile launcher on overwatch, and during the alien turn, an alien opened the door, my ML guy shot at him, and killed 8 of my team.

Regular tank with cannon was my scout, since it would just cost me about $100,000 for another one. Later in the game I moved to hovertanks with plasma guns. In fact, late in the game when I had the super ship, I'd run two tanks and 14 soldiers, 8 of whom had power armor and 6 with flight suits. I used a blaster launcher to blow a hole in the upper side or top of the alien ships and sent the flyers in from the top while the rest entered from the bottom.

[El_Cid]

yeah 'tanks' were great for their toughness(and expendability). I used them mostly for scouting/drawing out the aliens, so stuck with the standard rocket version(just in case i needed some very heavy weapon fire to take down a building/really nasty alien etc).

Still after initialy decideing to not bother with lasers for my troops, i eventually became a laser convert due to not needing alien ammunition(and Elerium). Eventualy, once i had good armour, most of my better troops had laser rifles.

[Jon Miller]

I liked X-com best, but this one was also good:

http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Storm-Pc/dp/B0000DB4B3/ref=cm_lmf_tit_9

JM

[El_Cid]

Cheers for that Jon Miller - sounds quite interesting in some of the reviews i've read on it

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/silentstorm?q=Silent%20Storm

[RGBVideo]

i've more recently started to consider manufacturing goods for the purpose of selling them to be cheating, because once you have 2 bases with manufacturers, you'll start to swim in cash.

consider: would the price of sold goods stay the same if you'd flood the free market with laser weapons? probably not.

Ok it's up to you. But SS2 isn't really about the shooting aspect - it's more the atmosphere and the way the story unfolds. Bioshock is even better, but it'll be about 6 years before you can play that.

having just finished both, no it's not...

[DrSpike]

Yes it is.

[El_Cid]

i've more recently started to consider manufacturing goods for the purpose of selling them to be cheating, because once you have 2 bases with manufacturers, you'll start to swim in cash.

consider: would the price of sold goods stay the same if you'd flood the free market with laser weapons? probably not.
...

Agreed. I would just make(for sale only) the odd line of medic kits if i needed to top up cash, like if i had a really bad run of failed missions. I didn't like the idea of giving 'killing' tech to the open(black?) market, but felt ok about medical goods But yeah you can spam that feature to death and back if you so wished.

[Unimatrix11]

Well, i think if a headline today read ´alien incursion killed dozens in X´, even europeans would get interested in buying the most sophisticated gunnery they can afford.

[Father Beast]

Facinating, engrossing game, but freakin' hard.

I played a few times, and it generally went like this:

An interceptor would shoot down some piddling little ship, and then I'd send a team to go check it out. They would find this little ship and kill an alien, generally losing 2 or 3 of the team in the process.

I would be feeling good, and then I get notice that aliens are terrorizing some town or other. I then send in my replenished, beefed up with better weaponry, and bigger, team to deal with it, and they get wiped.

I usually would slink away in despair at this point.

[Alinestra Covelia]

The game has a twist in the end. When you finish the game and you're finally able to decode the alien language, you find out all along that they were trying to say

Spoiler:

WE COME IN PEACE

[DrSpike]

Spoiler:

Shoot to kill, shoot to kill

[lord of the mark]

So what is the best place to put down the first base? I keep trying to cover the whole old world with a base in the Mid east or Caucasus. Better to base in western europe and try to cover North America? And at least cover western europe better, then build a second base in east asia?

And should I start that second base right away?

[El_Cid]

So what is the best place to put down the first base? I keep trying to cover the whole old world with a base in the Mid east or Caucasus. Better to base in western europe and try to cover North America? And at least cover western europe better, then build a second base in east asia?

Where do you feel the most emotional attachement for? - that's where my first base goes as it means i'm far more likely to fight harder(and not ignore so many terror attacks!).

In the end a base covering western europe and the middle east is good, one to cover the America's, and one for Asia/Australasia. Then i tend to build specialist manufacture and research bases(one for each task) and dot listening posts(simple radar array's and defences only) around the rest.

And should I start that second base right away?

I do, just because you're not sure how the first year will go and you may find your budget much less than the starting cashpot.

But i'm sure you will find your own specific way, as many others do. This game is very good at that

Facinating, engrossing game, but freakin' hard.

I played a few times, and it generally went like this:

An interceptor would shoot down some piddling little ship, and then I'd send a team to go check it out. They would find this little ship and kill an alien, generally losing 2 or 3 of the team in the process.

I would be feeling good, and then I get notice that aliens are terrorizing some town or other. I then send in my replenished, beefed up with better weaponry, and bigger, team to deal with it, and they get wiped.

I usually would slink away in despair at this point.

Yep, it's as tough as old boots, that is part of it's appeal. But this is the fate of all mankind we are talking about - so shoulders back, head up and get out there with your men and do it for us all.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I put my first base at the South Pole and called it "Earth's Arse".

My brother thought that was really silly, even for me.