[Megathread] XCOM : Enemy Unknown

[obdigore]

I believe Panic is gauged by your Will score. I would try and get the Perk from the Officer Training. If you get it earlier in the game, it makes future rookies pretty hardened vets once they level up.

So far i've been lucky and anytime one of my soldiers panic they have only shot at the enemy. Actually killed some from panic which was awesome.

Anyone know if the will adjustment in officer training is retroactive for already leveled up players?

[Cakka]

Anyone know if the will adjustment in officer training is retroactive for already leveled up players?

Pretty sure it is.

[Howard Moon]

Damn, I wish you could use the Arc Thrower in combination with Run & Gun. I'm having serious problems getting close enough to wounded aliens to stun them. :S

[Deleted]

I actually started putting the Arc Thrower on my supports for that exact reason. They have an extra inventory slot, they have the highest movement speed in the game and I usually have two of them in my team meaning if the first stun fails, the second can give it a go.

So basically I use the assaults to soften up the enemy and use the supports to seal the deal.

[SirRobin]

Assaults with arc throwers and lightning reflexes are great for stunning. Just have to use cover and lots of suppression.

[Edgetroll]

I've named all of my squad mates after people I know in RL and it makes that game that much more stressful/enjoyable lol. As of right now I'm running 2 assaults, 1 sniper, 1 heavy, 1 support and I swap out the 6th member depending on the missions. The two assaults usually charge in first time with run and gun to scout the area, and then get put on overwatch while the rest of the team moves into position. I tend to hold the support back, providing additional overwatch cover and if things go south she runs up and patches anyone who needs it. The sniper tends to look for a high vantage point or if I'm feeling ballsy just stand in the middle on overwatch. The heavy rocks it with suppression fire which is useful for chryssalids and barkers. She is also invaluable against cyber disks and sectoids due to her dmg against robotic enemies. The heavy also ALWAYS works in tandem with the sniper because of its holo- targeting ability. There is NOTHING more satisfying than having your sniper head shot a chryssalid from across the map as it's charging towards your heavy. I even went as far to make a S.H.I.V. unit to replace my buddy who died on the first mission due to a misclick on my behalf (Fuck, he's out of cover. oh wait, he has a yellow shield on him, that's good right? Oh...). I told him his brain was salvaged and that now he is more man than machine.


Now, as much as I love this game, they REALLY need to be more prompt with fixing bugs. As it stands now I refuse to play ironman until they patch the fucking "on mission" bug. My ENTIRE unit is unusable because for some reason they all appear as "On Mission" in their status. But I have to say, credit where credit is due to a game that can make me rage so hard at a game breaking bug and I still just sigh and go "oh well, let me start another one."

[Fencers]

Gah! The game keeps crashing on me when I enter a UFO crash.

The only other save I can load is 2 days old. Don't wanna lose my progress... D:

[Howard Moon]

Anyone find the music a little repetitive?

During missions, as soon as the aliens pop out, this pseudo-epic music starts playing which is fine, if it didn't repeat over and over and over and over...

[endersblade]

So, it took me three games before I started seeing repeat maps in missions...at least that I noticed. I'm sure a lot of the downed UFO maps were the same, but I think some of them were from different perspectives - starting on the NE, SE, NW, SW corner, etc. But as far as abduction maps go, I don't recall seeing duplicates in my first game (which lasted an in-game year) and my second game (which lasted 1 1/2 in-game years). I'm now in my third, Impossible Mode, and am finally seeing repeats. Even the alien spawns seem to be the same. But meh, that's fine, they definitely have quite the variety.

Also, a word of advice, hopefully without spoiling anything. When you get close to the end and you have to choose one of your guys to go all psychic and shit, I recommend using a disposable one.

Since I've completed the game twice already, have all but the multiplayer achieves (and the one starting in all the zones, obviously that'll take a while), I've started editing the game. There's even another menu you can enable which can not only make the game last longer, but also make it harder and more randomized. But I've been able to edit just about everything - starting number of soldiers + soldier stats, starting number of scientists/engineers, funds + how much you make per month, freaking everything you can think of. Playing around with things, I made it so when you build one satellite in the world, it permanently reduces all the panic around the world by 5 at the end of each month. Obviously didn't keep it that way, but just an example of what sort of silly things you can do. Oh, and changing soldier mobility to 100, so they can move anywhere on the map in one go :-P There are several things that, at the moment at least, we can't edit. Like the price of items in the Grey Market, anything dealing with the interceptors and their weapons as well as UFOs, and increasing the number of uses on items/abilities, as well as their cooldowns. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone finds this info though.

It's been a rather quick journey to map out what can and can't be edited so far for this game. To put it in perspective, there have been people actively mapping out the entire EXE and all the relevant files for both UFO and TFTD to this day, and still there are several things that nobody can figure out. That's almost 20 YEARS of work-in-progress. XCOM on the other hand took what...a week, and we have most of it down already? Lol. Granted, it's in a clean, neat, easily-read .ini file within the EXE, whereas UFO and TFTD was all hex editing.

A 'mod' of sorts that I've been working on, is to lower the mobility of all units in the game, plus reduce the accurate range of all weapons. This will make the missions last longer, and ultimately your game, as everything/everyone has to move more often, and get closer to their targets to get an accurate kill.

[Cakka]

Also, a word of advice, hopefully without spoiling anything. When you get close to the end and you have to choose one of your guys to go all psychic and shit, I recommend using a disposable one.

Why? He is the only one that CAN'T die on the last mission and when the cutscene finally kills him to game is over anyway

[Howard Moon]

So I was playing just fine last night, and suddenly today my savefile is apparently corrupted, and the game crashes when trying to start a new game.

wtf?

[Edgetroll]

Since I've completed the game twice already, have all but the multiplayer achieves (and the one starting in all the zones, obviously that'll take a while), I've started editing the game.

I don't suppose you know how to edit the status on soldiers? In all honestly if I can just do that and take away the "on mission" status for some of them, I can fix that stupid game breaking bug.

[Moralio]

Played at least 20 hours on the weekend, had to restart multiple times due to some really bad choices but I'm having a blast. Firaxis removed a lot of busywork like overblown inventory management of the original and thus streamlined this game but in a good way. My only real complaint is about the camera. It bugs frequently during the action scenes and fighting on multiple elevations is very frustrating because often there is something (roof) clipping and blocking your view.

[Deleted]

I'm peeved.

Was doing great on Classic + Ironman, been playing for maybe 4 in-game months, then Engineering bugged out. The UI for manufacturing turned invisible. Couldn't build a single thing. And I can imagine finishing the game with no further upgrades is impossible at best.

Tried loading an earlier save before remembering Ironman. Darn it.

Restarting tonight.

[Howard Moon]

I'm peeved.

Was doing great on Classic + Ironman, been playing for maybe 4 in-game months, then Engineering bugged out. The UI for manufacturing turned invisible. Couldn't build a single thing. And I can imagine finishing the game with no further upgrades is impossible at best.

Tried loading an earlier save before remembering Ironman. Darn it.

Restarting tonight.

Know the feeling I had to restart my game because my Ironman savefile got somehow magically "corrupted".

And I can't play Ironman anymore, my game crashes every time I try to start a new Ironman game. So I'm playing Tinman now: regular game mode but forcing myself to only use one save file, sometimes two in case one gets "corrupted" again :P

I'm LOVING the game, but it's so damn buggy

[Shinzai]

I've had some severe table-flip moments playing Ironman Classic so far. I hate it when the aliens just decide that they're going to wipe your squad all of a sudden. Say I've cleared the first 2-3 waves, then the reinforcements drop in in the most awkward places possible to deal with, then someone dies, 2 panic and it all goes down hill from there. Loving it and hating it at the same time.

[Toccs]

I lost my entire weekend to this game, absolutely love it.

Started again about 4 times now just because i want it to last longer.

[Deleted]

Its an ok game - just the split level ships don't work, keeps flicking between the levels and its impossible to place your troops sometimes
And overwatch should be renamed 99% chance of missing



I had a gun with 98% chance inside the aliens head and missed twice ;-) then died, then killed it with another guy with 17% chance

lol the numbers make no sense

[Shinzai]

Its an ok game - just the split level ships don't work, keeps flicking between the levels and its impossible to place your troops sometimes
And overwatch should be renamed 99% chance of missing



I had a gun with 98% chance inside the aliens head and missed twice ;-) then died

I hate when this happens. Point blank range, with a shotgun *misses*. Oh well, best get those letters ready for the families of my strike team again.

[Fencers]

Yea, I feel the % to hit displayed in the game is sort of a lie.

For example, I used ghost armor to sneak my guy around a corner on a thin man aline. He had the alloy cannon. Exposed alien flank, 1 tile away from the alien- 98% hit chance as displayed. Missed.

Since then I just assume the game is lying to me and don't even pay attention to the % unless it's sub 50%. Just try to flank and shoot. Screw it.