The Firaxis XCOM Series

My first EXALT mission turned to nightmare really quickly. First, I didn't exactly get how mimetic skin worked; then, an EXALT heavy noticed most of my team bunched up behind the only high cover in the area: a car. BOOM!

Good thing I'm not playing in Ironman mode.

Edit: The do-over however went without a hitch. I didn't even need to hack their communications! Though I expect more problems when I finally give higher difficulties a try.

Edit2: Damn, now even light scouts have two sectoid commanders, and one of them MC'd my assault guy. Fortunately he was in pistol mode at the time, and apparently the alien didn't think of switching weapons, so he made minimal damage while I hunted down the (fleeing like the coward he is!) alien.

edited 25th Jul '15 5:23:01 PM by Medinoc

...

I...

the fuck...

We surrender. Earth is yours, take it and fuck every Council member and quintuple-fuck every non-Council member.

Swarming terror mission in withdrawn!France, which probably means it fucks up the rest of Europe if I don't go. There's three chrysalids and...twenty zombies beside the spawn point.

You know what would help? If I could order my men to stand their ground and shoot at foes who approach to thin the herd. Oh wait, I can't, because they'll empty their clips into the air at the same target and let the other dozen advance without a care in the world.

edited 25th Jul '15 10:11:54 PM by Rotpar

Hah. You playing with Long War, perchance?

Also, bloody hell. Who programs the targeting computers on XCOM's interceptors, RN Gesus? These are radar- or infrared- guided ordnanace they're slinging, and they still miss half the time.

I will say, however, that Long War's battle rifles / heavy laser rifles are a godsend so far. Dat damage + dat Zhang = dat overwatch.

edited 26th Jul '15 5:57:25 AM by Error404

Yeah, Long War. Fucking awesome brilliant stupid fucking Long War

Been thinking, for an overwatch medic or a rifle assault—carbine, rifle, or heavy rifle?

edited 26th Jul '15 6:11:04 AM by Rotpar

I CANNOT BELIEVE I PULLED THAT OFF.

COUNCIL—TANKS. FUEL AIR BOMBS. GUNSHIPS. WHY AM I DOING THIS WITH SEVEN ASSHOLES?

And my reward is...more panic across the continent.

Also, am I understanding it correctly—in Long War, satellites actually increase the likelihood of nations withdrawing? Like if you give them a satellite they're now expecting 150% of your effort dedicated toward them, and any mistakes are punished with withdrawing?

edited 26th Jul '15 9:59:32 AM by Rotpar

I don't know, but from what the wiki says, it seems the more requests you fulfill for a country, the better its ability to resist panic increases or alien attempts to shoot down already-placed satellites.

edited 26th Jul '15 10:23:39 AM by MarqFJA

I finished my previous game, and realized that I wanted to try out the Slingshot pack, so I bought it and started up a new one.

I feel like the Slingshot missions adversely affect my ability to control panic, because once I finished the third one, it was the middle of May and I had three countries in the red with no satellites in storage or in the queue. About ten days later, I lucked out and got a UFO landing that allowed me to capture an Outsider so that I could rush the alien base. I'm sure I'm going to regret that once the base defense mission shows up.

The alien base assault ended up being the weirdest thing. I start by splitting my squad into two groups of three, and on the first alien turn some Chryssalids show up. As I'm taking care of them, some Floaters come charging through the doors ahead, and each time I was about to kill the previous group of aliens another group would come investigate.

I wasn't keeping count, but I ended up fighting several groups of Chryssalids and Floaters, and a pair each of Drones (oddly enough, they weren't accompanied by a disk) and Mutons. They just kept coming at me, and all the while my squad never moved from the cover of the walkways, a stone's throw away from where they roped into the base. Finally, they stopped coming, and I pressed forward. Up to the final room, the whole base was completely empty, and all the last room contained was the Sectoid Commander. Which means that literally everything else in that base decided to rush me.

That's some really odd behaviour. I've been chain attacked by squads in the base before, but not to that extent. That is, I usually just get the front half.

As for the Drones, the alien base actually always spawns a pair of Drones who never have any other unit type with them at about the halfway point (usually in one of the big, long halls).

Hey guise, I found a new Gamespot article that talks about the Sharpshooter. It even has a video of the sniper looking like a badass with her rifle and six-shooter.

Far as I know, this is legit new information, Gamespot Exclusive and all that.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xcom-2-exclusive-class-reveal-the-sharpshooter/1100-6429035/

Apparently, there's going to be another article tomorrow. Bet it's the Grenadier.

edited 27th Jul '15 9:31:38 AM by Gault

So are they adding new classes or just reworking the existing ones?

Also, after reading up on the Let's Play archives of the old X-Com games, I'm wondering if anyone else would like to see a modern attempt at Terror From the Deep? Maybe make it a Spiritual Successor and remove the direct X-Com setting and go more Lovecraftian. The concept sounds great but I guess the original was badly broken.

edited 27th Jul '15 8:29:52 PM by Rotpar

I would love to see something in the vein of Terror From the Deep. I feel like that sort of set-up could lead to a lot of uniquely awesome things.

There is a fith class, but they are not talking about it yet.

The rest are just reworked ones.

Terror was broken mainly because of the old armour system. The devs decided that everything should have significant armour against both Armour Piercing (ironic, eh?) and Gauss (Laser equivalent) weapon types, which essentially made both completely useless. Combined with the typical X-COM troops having garbage accuracy problem, everything was so tanky that Explosives was the only way to reasonably kill stuff without taking catastrophic losses.

For reference, I had one base defense where it took about ten Gauss HWPs a combined twenty shots to kill a single Lobsterman.

Early combat consisted of grenade spam with maybe a few HE Gas Cannon "snipers". Granted, this isn't too different from original X-COM's most optimal HE Autocannon and grenade spam strats. However, at least ballistics were usable, if unoptimal in the original. Using Harpoon in Terror was just taping a "big dumb bullet sponge" sign to the aquanaut's back. Also, Lasers were really, really good in the original, whereas Gauss is complete garbage (I only had those HWPs because they were cheap to spam as meat shields, since I'd rather spend the mats for Sonic on gearing my soldiers; that base just only had four soldiers stationed there >.>).

It's been quite a while since they released a new video, isn't it?

New article: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xcom-2-exclusive-class-reveal-the-chryssalid/1100-6429038/

You know, maybe I don't need to buy XCOM 2...

Does anyone know where I can access an archived version of the advent site/teaser site for XCOM 2?

I tried Wayback Machine, but the site is broken because it uses flash.

edited 28th Jul '15 8:28:15 AM by Tehpillowstar

;_;

Also, I'm interested in making a Covert Operative cosplay. Shirt underneath and jeans won't be a problem, but I'm not sure where I can get sneakers that look like the ones in the model◊, much a jacket that looks relatively like the one in-game (at least the same cloth quality and basic design. Stuff like pockets and the shoulder decals can be tailored in later.)

edited 28th Jul '15 8:32:12 AM by Tehpillowstar

Re: New Chryssalids: I have a feeling the Demolitionist or whatever the class with the grenade launcher ends up being called will be working a bit of overtime. >.>

The new chryssalid look more crab-like. Most likely to harken back to the original chryssalids.

They're still missing the smile though.

edited 28th Jul '15 9:11:26 AM by Spirit

Huh, official site has article on new mutons

They look kinda skinny

edited 29th Jul '15 1:11:43 AM by SpookyMask

Speaking of mutons, I found myself fighting a berserker, one or two mutons, and two mechtoids on some construction site map (Edit: It was Highway Construction EWI) last evening. One of the mechs got my sniper down to 1HP and my assault was gravely injured by the 'zerker, but at least nobody ended up dead or in critical condition.

edited 29th Jul '15 4:53:24 AM by Medinoc

From where I'm looking, they just seem taller while maintaining the same build.

I can't see this particular news, it redirects me to the home page...

Edit: The French version works, no matter how much I dislike the Dub Name Change to Goliath.^note I play in English anyway

From the picture, what has changed most for the muton is his armor's design: It is now much closer to the classic skin-tight suit.

edited 29th Jul '15 5:08:25 AM by Medinoc

I never did like how Nu Com's mutons looked like bulky oversized midgets, so I approve on this more lean stature. Still prefer The Bureau's design though.