X-COM: Classic Thread

I'd call that the 'understand the source material' requirement that anyone working on a reboot should undergo.

It's not THAT hard to beat X-COM on beginner. You understand and set up the laser cannon trick and you're golden.

Nous restons ici.

So I finally caved and bought the Steam sale pack. (Yes, including Interceptor and Enforcer, because why not?)

I'll probably start playing as soon as I can tear myself away from Kerbal Space Program.

Umm, its not that impossible to beat xcom on beginner without exploits either :P I think, you just have to figure out good way to do battlescape. Or at least use the fact that game adjust difficulty based on how good or badly you perform to your advantage.

The aliens pulled another feint on me in TFTD. I had spent the better part of an in-game day chasing a sub that was trolling my Barracudas until I was able to shoot it down with my bomber (I've taken to calling interceptors with Avalanches/D.U.P. Head Torps bombers). Then, right after I recovered the wreck, a Battleship appeared right out of the blue and launched a Terror Attack on an island, while my Triton was still en-route to the base.

Luckily, I was able to use the Terror Site Stalling Glitch to give the Triton enough time to refuel so I could make it to the mission. Still, that move the AI pulled was so ingenious that it almost made me wet my pants.

I still like TFTD better than UFO.

edited 18th Apr '13 5:35:36 AM by DemoralizedAnt

Okay, fine! I'm going to do something I'm sort of good at!

Would any of you recommend buying this pack of classic X-COM games? I've been introduced to the franchise through X-COM: Enemy Unknown and haven't gotten around to touching Classic difficulty (let alone Impossible), FWIW.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I've been playing OpenXCom recently, but I'm getting frustrated at how blatantly the AI cheats with psionics:

• The rule that applies to humans is "If a human sees an alien, any human can psionically target THIS alien." This encourages the use of spotter tactics.
• The rule that applies to aliens is "If an alien sees a human, or even a tank, any alien can psionically target ANY human."

I've tried looking into mods that correct this, but the closest I found was "psionics require line of sight for everyone", which makes spotter tactics much less useful. There's no middle ground that simply make the human rules apply to aliens too...

Edit: At least applying the wiki's advice and leaving the Snakeman base intact for farming proved a good idea: Supply ship just gave me 600 points of loot. It's good to see enemies that can't mind-control you again.

Edit2: (a month later) In fact, the alien base's weakness here is that it doesn't have hangars. Can you imagine wanting to raid a supply ship and having to fight off all the base personnel (and terror units!) in addition to the ship's crew? On the other hand, it makes sense that the aliens would forgo the hangar: Since they attack your base through it, they probably perceive it as a weak point.

edited 17th Jun '15 2:26:29 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Welp, just bought the X-COM Complete Pack since a) Seeing the original X-Com while I was browsing the Summer Steam sale gave me the sudden urge to play the original trilogy again and b) The entire 5-game set was somehow cheaper than buying the three games individually

... Why do I get the feeling that 2K Games doesn't have much confidence in people buying Interceptor or Enforcer? <<

edited 20th Jun '15 4:29:09 PM by Servbot

And now when I read the monthly reports in Open X Com, I find myself hearing them in the voice of the council representative from XCOM: Enemy Unknown...

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Bumping this because I've recently watched this GDC video about classic X-COM postmortem:

(incidentally, as of posting this, I just noticed there was a longer, more recent one too)in fact it was the same conference, but this time with the Q&A et the end

And as it mentions that the Dynamic Difficulty helped the infamous savegame bug go unnoticed, it got me thinking about how to make justified dynamic difficulty. And thinking of what XCOM: Long War did with Meld, inspiration struck: Dramatically adjusting the loot to your performance (the best you are doing, the poorer the aliens).

• Ships of most makes could be either bristling with Alien Food and Alien Entertainment, or completely spartan, or anything in-between.
• The quantity of Elerium-115 in power sources would vary
• Ships with redundant Navigation units and power sources may fly with some already busted (but not with the violent power source explosion), lacking the resources to maintain them.
• Bases you've been camping for supply ships would convert more and more areas into Alien Garden (those dark areas that tend to advantage aliens in fights and yield no loot), to grow their own food.

Edit: Also, maybe changes to morale mechanics too: Aliens who are doing too well would start with higher initial morale but lower bravery, as in "haven't seen the horrors of war yet and about to get a huge reality check" while if they're doing badly they'll start less eager but be much harder to actually scare.

Edited by Medinoc on May 11th 2020 at 3:40:56 PM

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Hold on, the original game had Dynamic Difficulty? The wiki says Julian Gollop mentioned it, but it was never implemented in the end.

—-

But if we're talking about changing things, over a year ago I scribbled down a few things I would've changed if I could.

• Make scout ships primarily crewed by non-combat personnel, ie. 1 Navigator in the Small Scout, 2 Navigators and 2 Engineers in the Medium Scout and Large Scout, plus Soldiers in the latter two (1-3 for Medium, 3-6 for Large), instead of being a primarily Soldier-based crew.
• Make Supply Ships have the same speed as an Interceptor. This means that Interceptors still cannot touch Supply Ships in flight because they don't have the speed to catch up - but if the Supply Ship lands on the ground and the Interceptor camps the landing site, the Interceptor has ONE chance to shoot down the Supply Ship during takeoff. As in, the two crafts' equal speed means the Supply Ship cannot disengage and run, but other Interceptors cannot join the engagement either if the first Interceptor doesn't have the teeth to take down the UFO by itself before getting shot down and if the Interceptor breaks off, it cannot catch up to reengage. It would theoretically be possible to intercept a Supply Ship that slowed down, but these particular ships never slow down from maximum speed during their missions in the unmodded game.
• Make alien loadouts more diverse rather than everyone only ever using heavy plasmas.
  • Soldiers start with pistols, then tech up to rifles. Only Snakemen and Mutons tech up to Heavy Plasmas down the line, Sectoids, Floaters and Ethereals stick with rifles (which is not that much of a difficulty reduction, mind you, since plasma rifles are more accurate than heavy plasmas).
    • Muton soldiers all have one grenade each as well. The soldiers of other races don't carry grenades.
  • Navigators always stick to pistols.
  • Engineers keep the same loadout as in the base game, ie. start with pistols and tech up to stun launchers that can be safely fired around volatile equipment.
  • Medics are renamed to Scientists and have the same loadout as Engineers, just with a few more reloads for the stun launcher (since they're actually meant to use it outside self-defense). They're also the only source of Mind Probes and only appear on Abductors, Harvesters and in alien bases.
  • Leaders are renamed to Officers, start with pistols and tech straight up to Heavy Plasmas at the same time as Soldiers tech up to rifles. They also have +50% base HP compared to Soldiers and always pack grenades regardless of race, but Sectoids explicitly don't have the strength to lug around this entire loadout without losing time units.
    • Not only do Mutons would also have Officers, theirs would pack Blaster Launchers instead of Heavy Plasmas. Still no commanders for them, though.
  • For Commanders, I'm thinking that Sectoid, Floater and Ethereal Commanders only have a Soldier loadout but have twice the base HP and extremely high shooting accuracy to the point where Ethereal Commanders literally have a 100% hit chance on a snapshot with a plasma rifle (which is perfectly achievable by your own soldiers in the base game). Snakeman Commanders would be the only one of the bunch to pack Blaster Launchers.
• Some minor weapon overhauls.
  • Make Heavy Cannons and Auto-Cannons launch HE and incendiary shells on a ballistic trajectory like the Celatid's spit attack. Should also apply to the Small Launcher, but not to the AP shells of the Heavy Cannon and Auto-Cannon.
  • Crank up the aimed accuracy of Heavy Lasers to turn them into a high-caliber sniping weapon while leaving the Laser Rifle as a better short-to-medium ranged option (due to the Rifle having auto-shot while the Heavy doesn't).
  • Slightly nerf Heavy Plasmas with a weight increase (so that Sectoids cannot handle it without a TU penalty).
  • Make High Explosives powerful enough to blast down a UFO's outer hull. This should be a no-brainer.
  • Swap the damage of the Blaster Launcher and the Launcher Hovertank's FBL. It doesn't make sense for a vehicle-mounted version to be weaker and far more expensive to operate.
  • Due to Alien Alloys being a required ingredient to contain the energies involved in the operation of a Laser Cannon, Laser Tanks require some alloys to produce. As a tradeoff, however, they can now auto-fire, something no other HWP is capable of (and which makes them deadly as fuck against Sectopods at close range).
• And if we're already on the subject of cannons, someone on the wiki brought it up years ago that the stock game's craft weapons are horribly unbalanced towards dual-Avalanche/dual-plasma configurations. Some ideas in this regard:
  • Keep the knife-fight range of Cannons but crank up the accuracy and per-shot damage to make them murderously effective against larger targets if you do get into range.
  • Swap the respective ranges of the Stingray and the Avalanche to make the former more useful for attacking smaller UFOs that are more liable to run for it before reaching Cannon range while simultaneously making the latter not objectively superior.
  • Swap the ranges of the Laser Cannon and the Plasma Cannon. With this, Lasers can safely kill anything smaller than a Terror Ship but against Terror Ships and Battleships, the damage output isn't enough. Which is where the Plasma comes in.
  • Make Fusion Ball Launchers very slightly (1 km) outrange Battleships. Even though it's already perfectly accurate, it doesn't have the ammunition to bring down a Battleship but can still soften it up before closing in with other weapons.
• Research tree overhaul with a focus on interrogations and logical synergies.
  • Handheld items:
    • Laser research is unchanged.
    • Plasma weapons, Blaster Launchers, grenades and ammunition where applicable all require E-115 plus interrogation of a Soldier (preferably unlocking the research only if you already have a sample in storage when the interrogation completes, like how TFTD handles a few projects).
    • Small Launchers and Stun Bombs require interrogation of a Medic.
  • Armor:
    • Autopsy of a Muton plus Alien Alloys unlocks Personal Armor.
    • Interrogation of an Engineer unlocks UFO Power Source.
    • Autopsy of a Sectopod, Personal Armor, UFO Power Source and E-115 unlocks the Power Suit.
    • Autopsy of a Floater, Power Suit and UFO Construction unlocks the Flying Suit.
  • HWPs:
    • Laser Tanks still only need the Laser Cannon, which in turn requires Alien Alloys.
    • Plasma Hovertanks require Plasma Cannon and autopsy of a Cyberdisc. They do not require UFO technology outside E-115.
    • FBL Hovertanks require Fusion Ball Launcher and autopsy of a Cyberdisc. They do not require the Plasma Hovertank or UFO technology outside E-115.
  • Craft:
    • Laser Cannon requires Alien Alloys in addition to Heavy Laser.
    • Plasma Cannon requires ALL handheld plasma weapons and their ammunition.
    • Fusion Ball Launcher requires only Blaster Launcher and Blaster Bombs.
    • Interrogation of an Engineer unlocks UFO Power Source.
    • Interrogation of a Navigator unlocks UFO Navigation, which in turn unlocks the Hyperwave Decoder.
    • E-115, UFO Power Source and UFO Navigation unlock UFO Construction, which in turn unlocks New Fighter Craft and Grav Shield (and is one of the prerequisites of Flying Suits).
    • New Fighter Craft unlocks New Fighter/Transport.
    • The Ultimate Craft explicitly requires Cydonia or Bust, which in turn requires New Fighter/Transport (so that X-COM greenlights the Avenger proposal specifically because they know a Lightning won't be enough).
  • Psionics:
    • Interrogation of a Sectoid Leader or Commander plus a Sectoid autopsy unlocks the Mind Probe.
    • Mind Probe plus autopsy of an Ethereal unlocks the Psi Lab and Mind Shield, but not the Psi Amp.
    • Psi Lab plus interrogation of an Ethereal unlocks the Psi Lab.
  • Endgame:
    • Alien Origins requires ALL alien lifeform UF Opaedia entries to be unlocked, both interrogations and autopsies (since the entry explicitly says X-COM are fighting a losing battle and it doesn't make sense for them to hit that conclusion right after the first interrogation).
    • The Martian Solution requires Alien Origins plus interrogation of a Navigator and a Leader (the Leader to get a picture of the alien rank structure and the Navigator to get the flight plan to Earth).
    • Cydonia or Bust requires the Martian Solution, interrogation of an Ethereal Commander instead of any Commander (as the leadership case, only they'd be privy to details about the Brain) and New Fighter/Transport (so that they know the mission parameters are impossible for a Lightning and thus an Avenger is required).
  • Optional unlisted project: researching both hovertank models plus the Flying Suit plus the Avenger results in your science personnel acquiring enough knowledge about Elerium to attempt artificially synthesizing it. What it means is that your Workshops can now produce Elerium, but it is horrifically expensive at 1 Alloy and 40000 credits per unit of Elerium (meaning that the 50 Elerium you can salvage from a scout UFO costs two million, the equivalent of five Firestorms, in cash to produce by yourself), making it highly un-economical but good in a pinch if you're risking running out without any Elerium-powered craft at your disposal.

On the Hovertank/Launcher side, I was under the impression that the reason it was nerfed in damage was ammunition.

But I agree that it's quite bad that the only thing that could pierce an UFO be the handheld blaster launcher. We don't want to give High Explosive their radius though; maybe having a specific "breaching charge" item would be the best option.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Yeah, that's the problem with the High Explosive. The engine doesn't allow explosive weapons to increase damage without increasing blast radius. How I think it could be used is to make the High Explosive very heavy so that it cannot be thrown far enough away to escape the blast radius if you set it to blow in zero turns (ie. as soon as you press End Turn). This means pretty much the only way to use it is to set to blow in 2 turns, drop (not throw) it directly next to the UFO's hull, then haul ass.

And regarding the FBL hovertank's ammo, compared to Blaster ammo it's nearly double the cost in cash, Elerium and manufacturing time, yet does 30% less damage. Even inner walls in a UFO cannot be breached by this thing. Literally the only advantage it has over the handheld Blaster is the marginally higher ammo capacity (a soldier can carry 7, including the shell currently loaded, versus the tank's 8) and immunity to mind control.

This has to be fixed.

Edited by amitakartok on May 10th 2020 at 10:13:12 AM

Been doing a casual replay of the classic X-COM trilogy after I heard XCOM: Chimera Squad is a thing, with intent to re/play the modern sorta-trilogy afterwards. Played the vanilla version sold on Steam, since I'm a masochistic purist

UFO Defense is still as fun as I remember it. I enjoyed the remake and very much like how it streamlined things, but there's still something about the feeling of commanding a mini-army of 12 or more, and watching in horror as you find out that the UFO that landed already has aliens carrying Blaster Bombs as a sphere bounces out of nowhere to blow up a squad that wasn't quite as spaced out as you thought.

While I still liked it, Terror of the Deep was my least favorite of the trilogy, and now I remember why. I don't mind how it's basically just a reskin and I loved how they balanced the weapons and upped the enemy difficulty so that you need a wide variety of tools to cover for everything even in the end-game. What I didn't like were the huge, multi-part, maze-like marathon levels were you spend hours trying to find the last alien hiding in a closet (or worse, an upper floor that only has one destructible staircase that a Bio-Drone blew up), or the slew of annoying or game-ending bugs that suddenly crop up. Especially when they combine, like this one Artifact Site that I spent more than an hour scouring the floors to clear of aliens, only to learn that the last Aquatoid Squad Leader had spawned in a ceiling or wall somewhere when it panicked in an area of complete darkness after 40+ Turns, so I had no choice but to smash the device and abandon the loot I was planning to bring home >_<.

Currently re-playing Apocalypse, which was actually the first X-COM game I finished, so my nostalgia for it is quite high . Real Time mode is still a blast to play, and makes "find the last alien" less of an issue despite the bigger and more varied levels, and there's nothing quite like camping a firing squad outside a crashed UFO's doors and watching the aliens drop like flies. Brainsuckers and Poppers are still Oh, Crap! moments even if I know they're coming. And I still love the more involved Cityscape, where I can command squads of Hover Bikes in detailed view to take out UFOs... and then watch in horror as multiple "Hoverbike destroyed" messages pop up since they've started employing UFOs and weapons that can wipe out my swarm and force me to update my tactics . Planning to try and capture a Hive Queen this time since I didn't know you could do that the last time I finished the game.

Incidentally, the Interceptor and Enforcer games that came with the bundle are still sitting untouched in my Steam library. I'm curious if anyone actually played those games?

Edited by Servbot on Jun 14th 2020 at 6:40:10 AM

I only played Interceptor in arcade mode, ie. single dogfight against a randomly generated alien group. It's pretty damn fast-paced.

XCOM: UFO Defense - Due to my failure in stopping an infiltration mission, USA drops their funding. This leads to a substantial decrease to my monthly income

Me: Well... they're my biggest contributor but it's not so bad since Europe is very happy with me

XCOM: Terror from the Deep - Due to my failure in stopping an infiltration mission, Asia Coalation drops their funding. This leads to a substantial decrease to my monthly income

Me: Well... it stings since my first base was in their area. Still, my Motion Scanner factory is giving me steady funding on top of all the loot I get from the aliens.

XCOM: Apocalypse - Due to my overenthusiasm hunting down aliens in the Cityscape and their buildings, Marsec has become hostile and won't accept any more bribes. This leads to me being unable to buy any more hover bikes, hover cars, missiles, laser beams, plasma beams, and flying suits, basically a good chunk of my standard mid-game arsenal

Me: Well... crap. Well played XCOM, well played

Edited by Servbot on Jun 17th 2020 at 10:19:01 AM

...I'm finding myself wanting to ever play Apocalypse less and less.

Aww, but Apocalypse is the best X-COM :(

Yeah, one thing I loved and still love about Apocalypse is that they expanded a lot of things in unexpected ways.

There are bigger consequences if you don't keep certain factions happy (The gov't naturally still stops funding you, but merchants stop selling their goods to you, gangs and the police attack you on sight and raid your buildings, the non-human races stop being available for recruitment, etc), the Geoscape/Cityscape is now just as involved and important as the Battlescape (You... really don't want to have an intense firefight near your HQ), and the physics system is such that you can quite literally bring down an entire building with heavy ordinance.

Alas, it also brings harsh lessons like why it's not a good idea to bring a Heavy Launcher and other explosive ordinances to a Marsec factory if you don't want to pay the consequences like I did

That said, when you're raiding the local alien cult or one of the hostile gangs for equipment and drugs, there's nothing stopping you from razing their buildings both in the Cityscape and Battlescape for the heck of it to make sure they don't fight back

Indeed, I remember reading a non-video Let's Play of Apocalypse that reduced the alien cult's buildings to rubble, making sure they're too buried in debt to have the funds to launch new attacks.

PS: It's ordnance, without "i".

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

...okay, I know the UFO After Blank series is not classic XCOM, but a couple of minutes ago I had a moment that can only be described as XCOM at its finest. Especially since Apocalypse was already being discussed.

I just obtained one of the two techs pretty much the entire game hinges on (Biomass Sample^note if you haven't played the game: after a while, the aliens start growing a carpet of biomass that slowly spreads over the Earth and instakills any base it touches; you need a sample to figure out what it is, then a component from a specific UFO to figure out a countermeasure, or else it will literally drive you off the planet) and deployed my best guys on a UFO crash site assault.

Thing is, the RNG put my squad down right next to the exit zone to stage 2. "Okay", I thought, "this is weird but at least it's easy." Nuh-uh, the game also placed my squad in plain sight of SIX aliens, all but one of whom my soldiers couldn't see due to terrain but all of whom could still shoot because the one guy next to us was acting as a spotter! Said spotter immediately opened the battle with a plasma launcher into the middle of the squad, injuring all of them (it's an AOE weapon), instantly followed by another alien mind-controlling the ONE guy in the tightly-packed group with a plasma shotgun who swiftly killed two others.

At this point I was in full FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK mode and ran the hell away from the shotgun guy, who luckily snapped out of it at just the right spot where the mind-controlling alien couldn't see him anymore. "Okay", I went, "fuck you, you bastard, now it's your turn to be shotgunned!" Except the shotgunner missed two close-range shots and promptly got gunned down by another two aliens (and to add insult to injury, aliens DO finish off unconscious soldiers in this game!). I killed the mind-controller and one of the shooters, the other shooter disappeared somewhere. With three guys down and the other four heavily wounded, I decided to just end this goddamn mission and moved everyone onto the exit grid... only for YET ANOTHER alien to put a plasma shot into the middle of the group a SPLIT SECOND BEFORE I CLICKED THE BUTTON, causing a fourth guy to drop!

Okay, stage two starts in the UFO, I got three heavily injured guys left. I immediately spot an alien, drop him. Another shows up in the opposite direction and fires a WARP ROCKET LAUNCHER, knocking one guy down. Before I take him out he fires ANOTHER rocket, which kills the unconscious guy and drops another. Last remaining guy backs into a corner because she saw an alien approaching. Alien rounds the corner, guy fires plasma rifle at point blank range but only takes off half of the alien's health, who swiftly returns fire with a microslug accelerator for an instant kill.

Mission failed, total squad wipe, my last save was about two hours beforehand. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when the RNG decides you need a reality check after having played for several hours with zero casualties (and no reloads either).

Edited by amitakartok on Jun 23rd 2020 at 3:56:41 PM

Oh wow, curse you English and your misleadingly similar sounding words that have completely different meanings!