Xcom, very late to the party

[Unimatrix11]

i had to start over again, as well. This time easiest setting (the game is frigging hard, isnt it?). Following the same approach pretty much though - i just need to get up more bases quicker. Last try, by June my sponsoring plummeted - both Japan and China being out of it and the rest greatly reducing their share. It´s now end of February, and Plasma pistols are ready for deployment, rifles being researched at the moment (did only find a pistol after the first encounter - otherwise i would have skipped it). Medi-packs get produced for sale mainly (30 engineers, another 5 on the way). Other than that, i havent researched anything yet. Here is a couple of questions:

a) Ammo: When my soldiers have finished a fight with their guns half loaded/empty, what happens with the ammo? Are half-way used magazines magically refilled, do their disappear, or are they recombined to full ones? If the later, what happens with the rest? I guess i am playing to superficially to actually figure that one out myself, but if you happen to know...

b) Research on alien technology: Does it matter how many samples i have of an alien artifact/body? For example, if i want to research ´sectoid corpse´, does it make a difference if i have one of them or a dozen? Upto know, i keep all corpses until i have researched them and after that keep three samples (independence day, anyone?).

c) Radar: In the manual, it says that even the large one only covers 900 (? - i think it was) nautic miles, yet in my experience, my base in Rome equipped even with only a small one detects UFOs from scotland to the middle east. More info on radar would be appreciated.

d) Stunning rods: I used one in my first game on a ´borked´ crew-member (you know - she/he got touched by one of those death-clawy things). The menu says 100% accuracy and i think i hit it, but i would think, if it works, the alien drops to the ground, right? I havent used it often so far and will probably switch to stunning grenades soon (next research, after plasma rifles and PR-ammo), but some basic (!) info about the stunning rod would still be appreciated.

e) I tried to buy a tank with a gun, yet there seems to be a bug. Rockets for tanks are offered twice in the according menu (once for $200 and once for $3000), but no gun-ammo. I thought i had figured it would be a typo and bought the one for $200 for the gun-tank, but when trying to equip the skyranger with it, it says there is not sufficient ammo aviable for the tank. So this is a bug, right? I will have to do without the gun-tank, uh? And now of course the question is: Can i use the $200-rockets on a rocket-tank, instead of the $3000 ones? I didnt try that yet, and wonder if, if it works, will there be a difference?

(Please dont point me to a strategy guide or something in order to answer these questions, since i fear to learn more from it than i wanted to from it)

And a little advice from my side: Make sure to buy some light-beacons (dont know the name in english - flares?) and equip your skyranger with them for your night missions. They only cost 60 (i think), equiping and throwing them is fast (in means of movement points) and being able to see that alien that shoots your soldiers from out of the shadows is priceless.

And finally a none-technical question: How much emphasis do you guys put in crew-development? Honestly, the deepest i have gone so far with that, is to give the heavy weapons to the guy with the most strength, since everyone else is using the same equipment anyways mostly. I might hold back my highest ranked member in a fight as well, in order to avoid him/her getting killed and the morale loss incured by it. But that´s pretty much it. I could give more grenades to someone with a lot of throwing-skill, but when you are in my team, you get a grenade - one for each. Cause it wont help me, if you have all the grenades, when you are standing a mile away from the target, while your teammate looking straight into the aliens face has none...

[El_Cid]

ok dammit - between the two of you i'm going to start up a new game. I can't let you have all this fun alone!....but i will be careful to not give too good answers or post info you might want to find out yourself.

My first base is always put in that neutral zone in europe around where the alps might be. It's an area that falls outside all the country borders, so I role play it would be a good secret location to carry out my important work

@Unimatrix11, wow - lots of questions, i might answer some

Ammo - you mean the regular low tech rifle/pistol ammo? I 'think' you lose any half empty mags OR it stays the same for your next mission, this is the same for all ammo types(except lasers obviously, that dont require ammo).

Research - no it doesnt matter how much material you have to research, the only thing that matters is the amount of scientists you have researching at one time plus the relative complexity of the alien item you are researching. Some things are much quicker to research than others and you just have to use some common sense to try to work out what is worth researching first.

Alien bodies are a fairly low-cost(so good early project) research project. The more things you research the lower the relative 'cost' to research the harder things.

Radar - yes they do seem to see quite far don't they. The only thing i know is you really only need Large radar arrays, so save space and costs by focusing on them.

Stunning rods - very useful and very dangerous. My 'stunners' have the highest mortality rates in my teams. Sometimes you need to stun more than once to take the alien scum down, as you have been finding out. I use 2 or 3 men equiped with stun rods to lead the assault on a ufo, they usualy have low skills so are the 'worst' of my men, but i try to pick 'brave' guys.

tanks - laser or rocket i prefer, so have never had to buy rounds for the cannon-tank. It does sound like a bug mind you. rockets are pricey so i would think they are the £3000 ones.

Most of my effort goes into crew developement. I spend hours checking stats, updating names(S45T60B30U43 etc) as they improve, and making sure the best guy for the job gets the right weapons. Heavy weapon guys need good Time Units as well as Streagth and Stamina. You cant do too much in this area of the game imho. This is where you will win or lose against the aliens, your troops are everything. The best guys come to the fore after a few missions and they get to take a back seat and pick their targets while the more expendable ones have fun trying to find the aliens. Expendable troops are as important as your hero guys imho, so keep a good mix of both.

[Lord Avalon]

Ammo: loaded clips are lost? I seem to recall wanting to unload weapons before ending a mission. Including alien weapons picked up.

[Garth Vader]

It doesn't matter how many samples you have, you really just need one of each alien.

I believe if you unload a clip before the end of a mission it will be recharged by next mission. If you leave it loaded it will be gone.

Crew development is huge. When recruiting soldiers I would usually fire half of them right away because they were unsuitable. I generally placed the highest emphasis on accuracy. You need some good stamina guys as well. Strength and stamina are fairly easy to build up, accuracy will improve, but slowly and usually if you take too many shots and miss the guy will not be in a position to improve anything anymore.

Oh and yes the light beacons are a life saver. Terror missions always seem to happen at night (shudder).

[Lord Avalon]

I would fire soldiers based on bravery - the lowest two would go. Next lowest would go if I got better replacements. If soldiers were not too accurate, I could still use them. As plasma fodder riflemen, or if they're strong, as rocket launchermen. If not a terror mission, I liked to blast walls & hedges with HE. I don't know if the smoke from the explosions actually helped, but I played as if it did.

Where possible I liked to time terror mission arrival for daylight.

Yes, sell those extra aliens!

[Quillan]

I seem to recall that any shot fired from a magazine resulted in the magazine being lost at the end of the mission. At the very least, it is that way for the alien plasma weapons. I still remember researching plasma rifles because they were so good and equipping my team with them, but after 4-5 missions I ran out of magazines, eventually discovering that even firing a single shot meant the magazine was gone after the mission.

Eventually I settled on equipping 2 guys in the team with heavy plasma (which drop in huge quantities and magazines are as a result easy to get) and 2 guys with plasma rifles (my best shots) while everyone else carried lasers.

[Unimatrix11]

thanks for the answers, people!

So almost half a year has passed and things are going pretty well (well, it´s the easiest setting - i would be p***ed, if i still couldnt get a foot on the ground). Five Bases are up: Rome, NORAD, Kongo, Bogota and Harappa. Rome being the prime base is currently building a second research facility, as the story begins to unfold and seperate, yet efficient research teams need to follow equipment research as well as tactical info about the aliens (e.g. ´interogation´ - if that snakemen says ´There are 4 lights´ just one my time - we´ll have a vacancy in the habitat soon). The other bases contain a hangar, a small and a big radar, a storage and a rocket defence (2 in Rome).

A stationary facility of the aliens on earth was wiped out in mid-may - unfortunately the aliens had time to destroy their data-core and crucial information could not be retrieved on the occasion - but we are sure, we´ll get another one, someday - if we live that long. China and Japan are out of it (again) and today, news reached X-COM HQ, that Shanghai is under attack - seems like that treaty didnt last that long, Deng, uh? So what are we supposed to do now? Do we risk our valueable resources to help those who turned their back on human kind? If we dont, will their be repurcussions by the other nations?

Money is up BTW - >10M - and we are also running out of storage capacity - i am just so reluctant about selling alien technology - esp. the stuff, we dont even know what it´s for, yet. And who would buy a UFO-Navi-system, anyways (´up in 4 LYs´ is not quite as useful as ´right at the next crossing´ in day-to-day commuting)? UFOs keep excaping my interceptors, but there is hope, that one day, we´ll be able to build one of those impressive objects ourselves. But we wont be able to do that, if we sell all our 115 and UFO-parts by then. Since we cant reproduce it, better not sell any of it at all.
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So party-management is big in XCom? So that´s why i did so miserable on anything other than beginner, uh? In Jagged Alliance, it´s a no-brainer. There, i actually ´undress´ my whole ´party´ before i go into action and completely re-equip them - each time. In XCom, it´s more like: Everyone grab a beacon (if its night), a grenade and either a gun (standard right now still:Plasma) plus an extra mag, or, if you are strong, a stun-grenade-shooter. On the easiest setting it works okay - and since you cant see your guys stats while equiping them (or equip them, where you can see their stats) it´s all i am willing to put up with, really. I have a piece of paper on which i write down the two names of those, who are strongerst and thus get the stunners and that´s it (since i have 3 Obake´s in my team right now, that´s complicated enough ). Another big difference to JA2 are night missions. As mentioned, they are hard in XCom - i hate it, when one of my soldiers gets shot and the second one (i tend to send them out in squads of 2-4) runs (well, walks - no way to get these guys running) into the direction of fire (hard enough to locate at the speed i am running the game) until he used up all his MP and still no enemy in sight. In JA2 the picture is quite contrary - there the night is your friend.

[Main_Brain]

Why dont you simply rename your Guys?

Spoiler:

( And Rocket Defense wont do Sh$t when the Aliens come knocking )

[El_Cid]

@ Unimatrix11,

1. never sell elerium 115.
2. yeah rename your guys(click on their names in the 'roster'(soldier)) screen to help you know their stats or best skill:

a: f45t60b30u54h35s28 (where f=firing accuracy/t= throwing accuracy/b= bravery/u= time units/h=health/s=strength) or some such(i use this method)

b: call them something like 'sniper'/'heavy weapon'/'grenadier' etc?

3. the aliens don't seem to have a problem seeing you in the dark, but you can't see them without light. have you tried using a motion detector(i take one and give it to my commander)? slightly weird to use but it can save you lives and help you to pin point where the aliens are(well if they move that is!).

4. strength is good for guys with heavy weapons/lots of equipement. Stamina enables them to last a long mission carrying all the heavy stuff. So try to pick guys with good strength+stamina for heavy weapon duty.

5. Death is going to happen. I tend not to worry about the quality of the soldier recruted to Xcom, atleast for the early stages of the game. Later i do as Garth Vader and Lord Avalon suggest, and only take on talented guys. Sadly you dont know what you will get until they arrive(so it cost you money as you hire and fire the rubbish guys), but later in the game even a very skilled green recruit is weak compared to your experienced team members, and more importantly the really nasty aliens!

6. Speed kills. The PS1 version had this problem also, in that the pace of the game was very high(even when slowed down in game).

On my P166 i use a slow down utility to run that system at 50-60% of it's normal speed.

Yesterday I tried Xcom on my XP system and with some mucking around could play it, but the speed made it annoying(even using a slow down utility it was just too fast or too sticky!), and the lack of music/ambience really detracted from the experience imho.

If you are forced to use a modern system, you might want to look into DOSBOX and VDM sound stuff to try to make the game more playable.

Me, i'm going back to the P166(which means messing around with cables+ extra keyboard/mice etc to get it setup as second PC in my quad system pool) as it just gives me the correct Xcom vibe.

[Unimatrix11]

Cause i dont want to. I mean i might follow El_Cids example, but that would kill quite a deal of atmosphere for me. Right now, i imagine three sibblings (the Obakes) all joining XCom at once - imagine what drama plays in my head, if one of them gets hurt... It would not be quite the same, if they were all named S45A23... - i fight for humanity after all, and thus i cannot name my heros like robots. The other option would be to give them stereotypical cover names like John Rambo, JC Denton, Carl Lewis and such - just too tedious, though, for their expected live-span .

Why doesnt get some software producer get his ass down on this, though? This is easy money! Streamline the interface, give it new graphics and you are done pretty much. New feature could be done in some kind of add-on, just to make sure, the original game works and wont be screwed up. I mean the fact alone, that i we are three+ people in this thread alone, coming back to it and enjoying it despite its age just shows it potential. I will actually recommend it to a friend, who doesnt know it yet, but is a fan of JA2 - i am sure he will play it and wonder, just like me, why this has never been remade.

EDIT: Crosspost with El_Cid

[El_Cid]

I do end up re-naming my longest surviving/best troops later in the game, when they have a chance to survive most missions.

When i first started playing i would give them all names i cared about(like family or friends), but death is so likely in the early stages it just kept breaking my heart. It much easier to not give a damn about some bar-code named trooper.

Then i decided that as it was often difficult when equiping out your team for a mission to know who was good at what i should use some code instead of their names. I role played that a little like joining the French Foriegn Legion, when you come to Xcom - your past is erased and that includes your name. Later when you have proven yourself some form of humanity is given back to you.

Still it is in part a fault of the games design that unless you keep paper notes on who is whom, or rename all your guys like robots then it is very hard to remember who should have a heavyweapon at a glance.

And there have been quite a few remakes of Xcom down the years, but i think devs today(or maybe publishers controlling the devs) just can't make a remake without going 3D and/or not including the whole Xcom experience(Strategic/managment/tactical).

Sadly we live in 'console-centric' times in terms of game dev, so that means eye candy first, marketing second(you could switch this and eye-candy around in order), 'dumbing down' third, game fourth; in the list of priorities.

Ok my trusty old P166 is back in the system and Xcom is calling - again!

[Alinestra Covelia]

Okay, okay, okay! You twisted my arm into it!

I've signed up to Steam so I can get this game and play it. $15 for all four games, a good deal!

[Unimatrix11]

...
6. Speed kills.
...

Only if you take way too much of it at once.

[Garth Vader]

I didn't fully rename my guys but just tacked a two letter code to the end like HV or SP.

I can still remember losing Werner Meadrow, one of my original crew with over 100 kills. Back then I would often save/reload to keep key guys alive, but in this mission I got him into a position that I couldn't save him.

Going through the game again I never had the same kind of attachment to my team as I did the first game.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I'm on the first UFO mission. It's the cross-shaped UFO and it's landed on the ground.

My men have surrounded it and we can't see any way in. The only unrevealed surface is the far "west" (upper left corner) wall, and I've got people standing right up next to it. It still won't reveal from the shroud, and I suspect the door is on that wall.

Why won't the wall uncloak?