X-Com: UFO Defense(Old game)

Cafe Society
61

I know the standred “Caputre, Research, Build, Use” technique(you can’t get far without it), but I don’t have any blaster balls or launchers.

Maybe I haven’t raided the right ships yet(I go after pretty much every ship I reasonably can, though sometimes I can’t catch them). I’ve been jacking the Alien Supply ships and haven’t found any of those either, though I did find a huge stash of Alien Porn(I don’t even want to know what those sectoids are doing…no…that’s just wrong).

Any idea where to find a blaster ball? Do I need it to win the game?

62

Fusion Balls, no. I always found that I could get away with dual plasma cannons (I think that was the penultimate ship to ship weapon) on my interceptors. For one thing, IIRC, Fusion Ball Launchers only hold three shots, and are expensive as hell in terms of Elerium and cash to replace. Early on, before you’ve got the ultimate ship, it’s sometimes necessary to hit a big UFO with two or three interceptors (of whichever type) pulling them from combat when they’re damaged heavily, and letting the next, fresh ship have a whack at the invader.

Blaster bombs, the hand held guided missiles used by squad members, are incredibly useful, especially when taking a landed/crashed battleship.

You don’t particularly need anything to win the game, aside from the specific research options to get the “final mission” which I can’t for the life of me recall right now.

But Blaster Bombs make getting there a lot more doable. As with all of the alien tech (as opposed to hybrid designs, like the new ship types you can manufacture) you’ve got to capture at least one gun, and one full reload for it, in order to research them, as you mentioned. You can only research laser weaponry independantly of captured alien tech.

I seem to recall that it’s more a matter of how far into the game/how well you’re doing that prompts the aliens to start bringing out the heavy guns against you. Until you encounter aliens armed with Blaster Bomb Launchers (or ships armed with Fusion Ball Launchers) you just plain ain’t gonna find none.

And unfortunately, if an alien armed with a BBL misfires and blows himself up, he’ll likely destroy the BBL, and any ammo he’s carrying, in the process.

If all else fails, there are some pretty detailed FAQs available at xcomufo.com, as well as GameFAQs, I b’lieve.

63

What Skeezix said. The only research you -need- to do to win is dutifully hidden behind a spoiler box:Capture a Sectoid Commander from an alien base, interrogate (research) him, and then research Alien Origins and then Mars Or Bust. You’ll also need to research the Avenger interceptor craft, as you need it to fly to Mars.

64

Oh, I also wanted to ask.

What’s the best ways to prevent retalitation? And failing that, what’s the best way to keep from losing your base(preferably before they get in)?

65
  1. If you see a UFO flying around your base in an erratic path, go out and shoot it down. It’s looking for your hidden base.
  2. Build a Mind Shield ASAP. It hides your base even more.
  3. If you see a battleship cruising directly at your base, try to intercept it- or if you can’t, then pray that…
  4. Your base defenses can intercept it. Build Fusion Ball Defenses; base defenses don’t use ammunition. By this point, you may have a few specialized bases - one for your engineers, another for your scientists, et cetera - so feel free to destroy some old base structures you no longer need and pack in more base defenses.

If the fit hits the shan and the aliens have invaded your base, well, keep in mind that engineers and scientists can pick up weapons you have lying around in your general stores, and may get a lucky shot off - and if they die, they’re easy enough to replace. Let them explore and walk around the dark corners. Let your precious soldiers clean up the mess.

66

:confused: :confused: :confused:

My bases were raided plenty of times and I remember that non-military personell were evacuated.

You sure you aren’t talking about troopers you just plain forgot were on the payroll (and thus had no armor or anything?)

67

Hm.

I was reasonably (say, 75%?) certain that I had generic scientists run into a general stores and pick up some pistols lying around, but I admit it is possible that I was wrong and just had surplus soldiers.

In that case, then, I recommend keeping some surplus soldiers around to fulfill the cannon fodder task. :wink:

68

I’ve been playing this game and it is HARD. I have yet to survive ground combat. I can barely shoot down UFOs and when I do manage to, it’s pointless because I can’t beat them on the ground. I always end up spending all my money and losing before I even get started and those $#@%*&^ nations are greedy, tight-fisted bastards.

I love this game. :smiley:

A great feature of this game is how tactical planning thought out ahead of time is necessary. I usually do well at these types of games. I guess I’m just a little rusty right now. It seems like every element of the game is well designed. I suppose as I play more I’ll start seeing the flaws but really, who cares? This games is much too fun.

This thread has been very helpful too. Thanks all.

69

re: on Aftermath’s “simultaneous turn-based” thing, I was hoping they meant akin to Laser Squad Nemesis’s implementation, in which you plan out your squad’s orders and hit the go button, and both sides move simultaneously for a given length of time. So the plan may not necessarily survive contact with the enemy.

It’s definitely looking like it won’t live up to its legacy. Shame.

Another X-Com tactic I didn’t see in the thread: when you intercept a ship, don’t shoot the UFOs down. Get an interceptor to simply follow, and scramble the Skyranger. Time it right, and you’ll intercept on the ground, with the UFO entirely intact. A few more aliens to worry about, but the mission will net many more resources, particularly far more Elerium, which is lifeblood itself in the later stages of the game.

70

Skeezix: You can attack a UFO with multiple interceptors simultaneously.

This tactic is ideal for taking down the really big ones because the UFO will not focus its fire on one target. So two or three firestorms can fairly reliably take down a battleship, if they all attack at once. Do not bother attacking a battleship with interceptors; one shot from a battleship will vaporize an interceptor.

71

I’d forgotten that. In fact, I still don’t recall it, but it’s been… wow, a while now, since I’ve played the original.

And when I say interceptors (notice the lack of a capital I there) I’m just talking generally of the vehicles you use for that purpose. Yeah, you do start going through the actual F-18 fighters (or whatever they were) like water once anything bigger than the supply ships starts showing up in quantity. I’m pretty sure that by the last third of the game or so, the only craft I fielded were the Avengers, for just that reason: All the bloody Battleships.

[sub]Besides which, the Interceptors couldn’t catch a Battleship unless they had Acme Genuine Booster Rockets strapped to the pilots’ helmets, as I recall.[/sub]

72

People are referring to battleships, supply ships and scout ships but I’ve only gotten very small to very large ships. Did you guys just name them? and if you did what size do you consider what?

73

Once you get the hyperwave decoder, you get find out exactly what you are dealing with 100% of the time. The Radars just provide a blip of a certain size and a heading. The Hyperwave decoder provides the following:

[ul]
[li]Ship Type[/li][li]Ship Size[/li][li]Ship Mission(Terror, Aduction,etc)[/li][li]Race of Aliens on the Ship(Sometimes you’ll bump into others, particulary if you attack a terror ship)[/li][li]Destination[/li][/ul]

Pretty nice, I’ll say.

74

If nothing else, you can tell by looking at the size and shape of a ship. This page has a nice reference guide, but is missing the Harvestor and the Abductor, to say the least. A abductor is 2 stories and has a lot of right angles on the outside, and I can’t remember what the harvestor looks like.

75

Interestingly enough, I was reading somewhere that the Original X-com started out as a sequel to the first “Laser Squad”.

I’ve done the following trick, but sometimes it’s rather to make sure the UFO is over land when it gets shot down so I can loot it.

76

I ran across one when I raided an Alien Base. At first I messed up, the aliens saw me, and then, during the Alien movement phase, in the darkness, I see a blue comet rise up, move a little and then…BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! I guessed that I had just seen a demostration of the BBL, though in an admitely three stooges sort of way.

I replayed it a little and managed to keep keep the aliens from firing them, plus capturing the base commander(who otherwise seems to die in the explosions).

My scientists are going to have fun researching those.

Oh, also, Is there a reason to keep/research Plasma Rifles/Pistols? I have heavy plasma and a lot of ammo for them, but so far my laser rifles are working just fine for the regular combat.

Also, is there any time of weapon/ammo that can’t be manufactured once researched fully?

77

Well I just loaded XCom on my PC. I had to turn of the Direct Draw stuff, run some utility for slowing my processor speed to 25% and set all the movement speeds to the lowest setting but I actually got the game to work on my XP machine!
I’ve been on one mission (which I had to restart 3 times because my entire squad was wiped out). I finally beat 5 big-headed aliens and their tiny ship at the expense of 6 soldiers, one of which blew himself up by strapping a demolition charge to his back and running into the control room.

78

This guy, I like. :smiley:

Re: Researching Plasma Weapons
As I’ve admitted, my memory’s spotty on this, but I think you do need to research all of the hand held plasma weapons before you can research the ship mounted Plasma Cannons. Quickest way to tell is to research one (preferably the Heavy Plasma) and a clip for it, and see if Plasma Cannon shows up in the research tree, when you’re done.

Once you’ve researched a given type of weapon and the ammo for it, you’re able to manufacture said weapon/ammo, provided you’ve got the raw materials (Elerium and the Alien Alloy) on hand.

I always found it easiest to just use laser rifles until the endgame, for the weight/monetary savings on the ammo. In fact, unless you run across some heavy opposition early on (easy to do at the highest difficulty levels) you really never need to make any plasma weapons, as the amount of them you’ll capture are more than sufficient for your use.

Of course, I never had much respect for “collateral damage” to existing ground structures, with the exception of cities in the terror missions, so I needed the unlimited ammo capabilities of the laser rifles to cut down the buidling around a dug in alien, anyway…

“Sarge, there’s a Floater in that barn, and he’s killed two men who tried to approach the building.”

“Has he chucked any of those pocket nuke grandes at us yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, taking him in a rush isn’t gonna work, then. We got any heavy explosives on hand?”

“No, sir.”

“Well then, set up a firing line of six men with laser rifles, and burst fire the building down around him. If the falling debris don’t get him, someone’ll spot him eventually.”

“And then?”

“If the guys with the lasers miss, light his ass up with some incendiary rounds from that hand cannon you’re carrying. That way, we can see him better in the dark.”

The governments loved me, but the farmers, not so much.

79

Ok, I got alien ships landing at my base left and right now with no warning. What can I do? I can repel the attackers but it is getting tiring fighting them off.

80

Build yourself some base defenses, to shoot down incoming ships. Get yourself some more heavily armed ships, to intercept incoming alien vessels.

Restore an older savegame?

If you’ve got another base set up, with room available, wait for a lull in the attacks, pack up shop, and move everyone (and as much equipment as possible) to the new base, and either abandon or sell off the old one.

Once the aliens know it’s there, they’re just gonna keep after you.