Xcom Enemy Unknown--nineties style!

The Game Room
1

Okay, I’ve been reading along the new XCom thread, and it’s interesting enough and all, but I’m not playing the new game. I’m playing the old one for the first time, and I was wondering if anyone’s interested in talking about it. Figured I’d start a new thread instead of cluttering that one up with my questions about the old game.

So here’s my first question, one I haven’t been able to answer via strategy guides:

What sort of equipment should I have for attacking a landed spacecraft? What about for attacking a base?

Right now I’m in my second playthrough, on normal difficulty, in early April. After a few weeks of very little activity, suddenly I’m seeing a lot of large spaceships flying around, and I’m pretty sure I can’t shoot them down. And I just found my first alien base. I’ve read strategy guides that say to be sure you have an experienced, well-equipped unit before going after such targets, but I have no idea what that means.

I’ve got a rocket tank, a captain, several sergeants, and some squaddies, all in level 1 armor; I’ve got a rocket launcher; I’ve got a couple of launchers with stun bombs. I’ve got only the basic vehicles, no UFOs. Is that sufficient? If not, what do I need?

(And yes, I know I can answer this through play. Since I only get about half an hour of play a night, though, I figured I’d ask for doper wisdom).

2

You’ll want plasma weapons before taking on any major missions. Don’t bother with laser weapons - by the time you’ve researched and manufactured them, you’ll have captured enough plasma weapons to kit out your squad. As for armor, it’s a pretty long wait between the first armor upgrade and the second, so if you’ve got you’re whole squad with the first upgrade, you should be good for a while.

For shooting down the larger UFOs, you absolutely need plasma weapons on your interceptors. An interceptor with two plasma cannons can take down most UFOs smaller than a battleship. If you’re still using Avalanche missiles, avoid anything bigger than medium-sized.

For the enemy base mission, it doesn’t sound to me like you’re ready for it yet. Once you get plasma, ditch the rocket launcher (eventually you’ll get an alien equivalent, which is a huge game-changer). Keep a couple of stun launchers for taking down the alien base commander - you’ll know it’s him because he’s in the command room: a large, vaguely circular room with a bunch of computer consoles along the walls, and a big-ass elevator platform in the middle of the floor. Everyone should be rocking a heavy plasma rifle, including the guys with the stun launchers, and be promoted at least one rank above squaddie. The rocket tank is useful, but don’t be afraid to sacrifice it to smoke out some enemies. They’re infinitely replaceable, and don’t gain experience. If you think there’s some Mutons hiding in a dark room, send the tank in first to draw their opportunity fire.

3

Curse you, internet strategy guides! I read someone saying to focus on lasers, because plasma was blah blah blah I don’t even remember why, so I’ve been selling off the plasma guns. Oh well, I figure that can be my next research focus, and then I can move forward. Right now I’m researching the alien bomb launcher, I think, so I might end up getting that before I get the plasma guns. Maybe a few more UFO attacks and terror attacks (god do I hate terror attacks) and then I can go after a landed ship or a base.

Thanks!

4

The one advantage laser weapons have is infinite ammo. Ammunition for plasma weapons requires elerium, which is hard to come by, but you usually find enough plasma clips from dead aliens to keep your squad well equipped. You might need to sub in a few regular plasma rifles instead of heavy at some point due to an ammo shortfall, but it’s not usually a huge concern.

Selling heavy plasma rifles is a good strategy for financing your organization, just make sure you keep enough to equip your squads.

5

Landed UFOs aren’t any different from crashed ones, there’ll just be fewer pre-made points of entry into the UFO and generally about twice as many crew as you’re used to. Base assaults, on the other hand, are serious business. You’ll run into many more, and higher quality, aliens than you have before then. Don’t go in there with the stock rifles, and bring a large squad and lots of ammo. You -will- get psi attacked on a base assault.

I’ve always disagreed with the “skip lasers” approach, for several reasons:

First: Plasma takes a lot longer to research, especially once you count in the magazine research, and you want to get rid of the starting junk ASAP.

Second: The laser rifle is the only weapon in the game that lets you make two aimed shots per turn. This is super-useful early game, to offset the rookies’ awful accuracy.

Third: Lasers are dirt cheap. Elerium is kinda tight in the early game, and feeding early plasma weapons can slow down other things, like Firestorms and power armor.

Fourth: The laser cannon is great for plinking down weaker UFOs without wrecking them like plasma beams (or god forbid, fusion balls) do.

Fifth: The laser cannon is, by a large margin, the most profitable item to manufacture for sale.

Sixth: The laser tank is by far the most useful tank IMO. It packs enough punch to get through anything but is still cheap enough to be considered disposable.

Lasers are good stuff. There’s a reason they’re considered overtuned :smiley: They’re so good that TFTD had to massively nerf them to fit into its parameters.

6

I LOVED this game back when I first played it. I bought it on Steam when it came out over the summer (Terror from the Deep as well). I tried playing it once, but it was kinda acting slow and laggy. Do you do anything with your system, play it on something that imitates DOS or something? I want to play it but the weird lag issues have turned me off a bit

Also, I used to have this unlimited money cheat file, so I’m not used to playing it for real. I tried once back then but it was too hard for me.

7

On the other hand, that saved research time is offset by having to actually manufacture the lasers, whereas by the time you’ve researched plasma, you’ll already have captured enough to arm your whole squad.

8

I’m a laser advocate. Most games, I don’t even bother carrying Plasma weapons. I research them so I can make the Plasma Hovertank, but all my boys carry Laser rifles.

9

Don’t forget your grenades. Lots and lots and lots and lots of grenades. A soldier should always be preceded into a room by a grenade.

10

Note that you can manufacture and sell off laser rifles fairly handily, generating income during periods when you don’t have other things to do with your production capacity, and without using any resources like Elerium. Also, laser research can be started before you get your hands on alien tech.

I liked to set up between 4-6 rocket bikes with the best available cannons and use them to do shootdowns. Sure they can be taken out by the aliens, but heavier ships also get wrecked or destroyed regularly, and cost a lot more. I sometimes coordinated a heavier ship with “fighter swarm” of rocket bikes. I do NOT like to send a transport full of troops to do shootdowns; getting a squad shot down is a great way to suffer a crushing setback.

One thing about training your guys – they improve accuracy by taking lots of shots. Give some guys submachine guns and use the “terrible accuracy, low time unit” shots to spray fire all over the place. You’ll miss a ton and use up a lot of ammo…but your guys will get better quickly. Then rotate those guys to laser or plasma weapons and rotate your other guys into submachine guns to train them.

I always liked to bring along one or two rocket launcher guys even late in the game. It’s a freakin’ rocket launcher! Guys near them can hump a spare rocket in their packs and drop it if you need to reload. Make sure your rocket launcher guy is pretty accurate, and DO NOT LEAVE HIM WITH SPARE TIME UNITS or otherwise set him up for opportunity shots, as he will happily fire into a crowd of your guys and kill buckets of humans. Instead, use him for planned artillery fire missions (rockets do big area damage!), destroying obscuring terrain like bushes, and, in emergencies, killing downed aliens who might revive and put the hurt on you (they are just wiped off the map like equipment by the blast radius). That’s expensive, but if your squad is in trouble, winning a costly battle is better than a teamwipe.

Tactically, I HATE running out of time units as I scout forward; eventually that led to my developing a preference for setting up crouched ambushes and “fast forwarding” until the aliens came into view and (hopefully) fell to opportunity fire. That can get dull, and some folks don’t have the temperament for it, but an arc of prepared guys all facing a door with saved time units (some of them on accurate setting and some on spray fire, although I’m not clear that affects their AI for opportunity fire) can give a VERY hot reception to aliens who pop out to throw something at you. If they hole up and don’t come out, you can always change tactics and start advancing using a bounding overwatch. I fought most of my battles from set-up defensive positions whenever possible, to minimize losses.

I paired this strategy with proximity mines (the human ones and, when available, the “hopping” alien ones). Prox mines are great! But do set your guys well back from them; a morale break can lead to your men running over their own proximity mines, which although tragic, is hilarious. If you subsequently need to advance over your own prox mines, they can be safely erased with grenades or rocket launchers like other equipment.

And nothing beats hitting “next turn” while set up in defensive positions with prox mines in chokepoints, and watching an alien turn consisting of “BOOM BOOM BOOM”…victory screen!

It may have been more for fun than for effect, but I always liked giving one or two high-time-unit guys the energy sword, which used no ammo, and using it mostly to bayonet unconscious aliens to death (once I’d researched their type). There’s something vicious but satisfying about bayoneting the fallen!

11

And every squaddie, period, carries at least one, preferably two, light grenades.

12

Interesting. I never, ever bothered using grenades, and I always researched lasers. As noted, laser cannons are decent interceptor weapons and they’re great for raising cash.

My usual squad load would go from:
-rocket launchers and assault rifles (always aim the rocket launcher at a stationary object, not an alien)
-rocket launchers and laser weapons (a laser pistol makes a nice sidearm for a rocket launcher guy)
-heavy plasma weapons (I never bother with plasma rifles)
-heavy plasma weapons and blaster bomb launchers (and the blaster bomb tank)

(Not including stun bomb launchers.) Once you have blaster bomb launchers, the game is basically over: you just need a few scouts and otherwise you can nuke the bad guys into oblivion from a safe range.

13

My standard late game loadout was a Laser Rifle, a light grenade, and a medikit. Usually one trooper would have a stun launcher instead of the rifle, and some might have psi-amps.

14

Are rocket bikes from one of the followup games? Also, I’ve barely used grenades at all; I need to get used to their persnickety requirements (really, making me prime them as a separate action from throwing them? Who thought that was a good idea?)

Medikits: when do these become useful? In the two dozen or so fights I’ve been in, I think a total of three soldiers have died from a wound instead of either surviving outright or dying outright. Are medikits really worth the trouble?

15

I agree with about 90% of this. The other 10% is stuff I can’t experimented with, but I sure will my next time through (Item 4). Lasers are great in the early-mid game. By the end, I’ve changed over to plasma, but by that time I have nearly unlimited clips and have researched everything I need to. Maybe I’ll hang on to laser pistols, but not always.

One of the worst aspects of the old X-Com is the way it handles your soldier’s loadout. You can’t say “Rene Dujardin always gets a laser rifle, one grenade, and a motion detector.” You have to remember the Rene is a rifleman, so I go in and edit the names of every soldier to append a code. R indicates they’re competent to use a rifle (aim >65), g indicates they’re good with grenades (throw >70), and h indicates a heavy (strength >60). (My numbers may be fuzzy. It’s been a while.) Later, I add a p to some codes for psionics. Stats improve, so it’s not uncommon for a character to get more proficiencies as the game progresses and he moves up in rank.

My typical squad is 2 heavies (rocket launchers, auto cannons, and heavy cannons, as needed/available), 3 riflemen (a rifle, a grenade, and a med kit), and 3 grenadiers (2 standard or alien grenades, a pistol, 1 smoke grenade, and 1 special grenade). I find somebody to carry a stun rod or two as well, but it’s not the heavy. At night, everybody gets a throw-able light, but I try and wait until day as much as possible. Heavy plasma is preferable to cannons and rocket launchers. Blaster bombs are essential when they become available. Mid-game, a grenadier will typically take a mind probe so I can look for specific alien types (engineers, commanders, navigators) or see if I have a shot at stunning one. Mid to late game, a rifleman changes over to the stun bomb launcher.

Yes, medkits are useful, but they chew up time units. I always take at least 2 once I have them available. The problem is that a wounded character is frequently almost dead anyway. Sometimes a soldier with a kit can’t get there in time. Your soldier gets hit and stays alive long enough to know he got his arm blown off, then dies.

16

The 3rd game, Apocalypse, had flying motorcycles & cars you could attack the ufos (& giant monsters!) with. Also a choice of real-time/turn-based combat. Critics hated the real-time, but overwatch didn’t come close to working properly without it - the totally-not-headcrabs-from-halflife could cross the map in a single turn.

Medkits are worthwhile once you’ve got armor that at least has a chance of keeping your squaddies alive through a plasma hit. You’ll know when you get there - they’ll still be up and conscious, but bleeding out.

And laser rifles are certainly worth it. Not for the endgame, but since you can get to them by the second month…

17

Every once in a while I’d use a medkit to stabilize someone. It doesn’t hurt to have a few in your squad.

The thing is, raw recruits are pretty cheap so I ended up just firing any recruits with a strength below a minimum threshold and hiring new ones (like you, I can’t remember the exact numbers). The other stats I never worried about too much.

I just thought of another oddity to my strategy: I never bothered with night fights. If the problem couldn’t wait until daylight, tough luck.

18

Thanks for all the help!

Some more questions:
-How does strength work? I’m guessing it relates somehow to movement with heavy weapons, but what qualifies as a heavy weapon?
-Why would I ever use a pistol?
-Is there a penalty for carrying too much stuff in your backpack? If so, what is it?

19

Those questions are all related:
You suffer a penalty to your number of time units depending on the weight of the equipment you’re carrying vs. your unit’s strength. So a weak unit holding a bunch of heavy equipment can barely move or fire at all.

(Laser) pistols are nice because (a) they’re light and (b) they take a very small number of time units to fire (which is useful if you’re carrying something heavy and you don’t have that many time units to begin with). It’s also nice for a heavy weapon dude to have a light sidearm in case you want to shoot through a wall and you don’t want to waste rockets/blaster bombs.

20

IIRC, heavy weapons are miniguns & rocket launchers. They weigh alot, so a character with high strength can deal with it better (the games had time units AND energy units.) More, heavier stuff ate up energy units faster, as did moving through rougher terrain. Quite often I’d have rookies get to a ufo across a wheat field, too exhausted to be useful.

Pistols had two advantages - first, you didn’t get an aiming penalty if you had something else (like a grenade, stunrod, or lightsource) in your other hand, and second, they were much faster, if less innately accurate than rifles.