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playing 1.7 vanilla and struggling


mspaetauf

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Hello all!

 

I sure hope there's still someone here on this board :)

 

I got the game from a magazine DVD, at first it was good fun, but for some time now I've really had a very hard time, especially fighting the Beastmen.

 

My main soldiers are about lvl 19, I'm mainly using rifles and shotguns, tried some grenades and stuff once, just built me a grenade launcher. The warpcannons I sadly lost when my guy died in a mission (didn't realize it then..).

 

Well anyway the biggest problems for me are

 

A) enemy numbers & damage dealt (I wonder how people can use a mod that gives you even more hostiles...)

B) line of sight / spotting range

 

@ B) I'm usually very blind, at night I don't see spiders and rollers unless they are virtually on top of me (I get the question mark alright...).

 

@ A) in my current mission (I have to defend one of my territories) I am facing Beatmen, 5 Chiefs, about 10 Captains and 2 Alchemists. Map is very small, so there is no way to funnel them somewhere. Once I get spotted I get hit from across the map (a thing which drives me nuts) and also I die so quickly I can't really do anything. Also damage I do is not very high. Shotguns do a good job, and while the captains die alright, the Chiefs are a pain in the ass.

Two guys are wearing heavy suits, rest is in med suit (I like running).

 

all this on NORMAL difficulty. Needless to say that mission I can't win; but more and more missions become like this.

 

So, I need some serious advice, because I really feel this game is very very imbalanced.

 

cheers,

M

 

PS: official forum seems to be down, and I couldn't find any kind of guides for this game (just a small .txt file with a tech tree...)

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A) Wear Heavy Armour - then wear even heavier armour, and also carry a big gun ;) - if you are going light you must keep covered and rush only in close range. I don't know how to help you otherwise since I was playing on impossible from the beginning and it thought me that heavy armour is the only option. If you will get yourself computerized heavy armour you are almost invincible. Pack some miniguns and watch those aliens get shredded.

 

B) At this point you should have some sensor enchancments - night vision or infra-red. I don't know how they differ in range detection but I always go with infra red. It makes you see almost as good as in day light. (plus you can have a view like a Predator ;) ).

 

Maybe try finding some let's plays of UFO AL and see how others are doing if you aren't that good in tactical battles.

 

 

I am also teaming 2 heavy soldiers (they both carry warp cannon - this is so essential gun that loosing one is like losing serious firepower - better restart and don't lose it). 2 medics to keep my soldiers alive because as you can see - heavy damage is done. and 2 technicians for emergency armour repairs. Later computerized armour repair itself.

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Yes, with beastmen, they're vulnerable to laser fire, but will be shooting you so much you need the heavy armor. Bring in any laser type weapons, be they Terran lasers or Reticulan. Stability and toughness should help to, as they keep you from falling.

 

Beastmen are loud, but many of them are camoflauged, so either get a heartbeat sensing drone, or use some goggles (Infrared mostly). For your second add-on slot, either use a shield or smell absorber, as they have good noses.

 

Reticulans, in case you ever have trouble with them, use laser or rocket weaponry. Lassers are incredibly accurate but low damaging to the proper suits, and you wanna get out of the rocket's ways, so bring in light/medium suits. They fall quick to projectile, but are small and quiet, so bring in an audio sensing drone AND infrared goggles. Drones have the additional benefit of being Psi immune, which is the Reticulan's favorite attack form.

 

A beat-all strategy is to carry around grenades or rockets, you can shoot at the ground where you hear something and get out of there. Carry in some spares in your UFO and you can pull them out when your person is up to it.

 

Finally, if attempting to solo a mission, you want to use Pauline with major athletics and stalking, armed to the teeth with dynamite, dynamite, and more dynamite. Beastmen are incredibly slow and stupid, so you can run right past them before they see you, plant the charge, and run right back past them without them managing to fire off one shot. Matriarchs make it a bit more difficult, of course, but having a squad distracting the army while she sneaks in certainly helps. A shotgun as her backup with ambidextry and a transport suit ensures she won't have to worry about being caught, as one blast knocks most enemies down.

 

PS: Don't ask about Martians, their robots are easy enough but the plantmen themselves are brutal and I don't know how to fix that.

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Ymmm... Martains are easy - their biggest robots might pose problems. If you will attack martians make sure to carry either a katana or buzzsaw. They are vurnerable to blades just like any plant. Mostly you one shot them with katana.

 

Unfortunetaly before you will have goggles to spot them you must follow proper EM techs since they rely on EM technology - you will get EM goggles to spot them - any other spotting system will not help you that much.

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In my observations, best to use lasers on beastmen (human lasers do better damage), or maybe gatlings/sniper rifles. Best for retuculans IMO is simple sniper rifles, even without scopes - the Ret armor seems resistant to laser to me, and i want to take them down at range. For martians, Silencer is dead on, they seem extra vulnerable to melee based damage - though i did kill one once with plain ammo in a sniper rifle (doing called leg shots over and over to keep him busy until someone else could help, but help was not needed LOL) I think lasers might be decent against them as well, or anything flaming!

 

Heavy armor is not only a lot more protective than light, but it also seems to help stabilize you against knockdown from the alchemist grenades (not immunity, but without heavy armor i often train Major Stability first..)

 

My usual weapons plan is to try to have snipers and gatlings before the purple color faction arrives, If the yellow faction trades me metal initially it's doable, i aim for 2-3 gatlings and the rest snipers (1 gatling guy carries a warp cannon for demolition). I'm unusual in this, i think the Shotgun Rush is the most favorite tactic

 

I know you clearly state that you're playing vanilla, but you might consider a visibility mod from the files section here. I think there were several that came out very quickly after the game's release, so I assume that quite a few players felt that the sighting needed to be changed.

 

Unfortunetaly before you will have goggles to spot them you must follow proper EM techs since they rely on EM technology - you will get EM goggles to spot them - any other spotting system will not help you that much.

 

*beats head against desk* WHY DIDN"T I REALIZE THAAAAAAT!!!!!!! (thanks silencer)

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Unfortunetaly before you will have goggles to spot them you must follow proper EM techs since they rely on EM technology - you will get EM goggles to spot them - any other spotting system will not help you that much.

 

Seeing might be difficult, but if I remember right, I can "hear" a lot of different things as they move about, and start just lobbign grenades in that general direction, or focus-firing on the wall behind it.

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Hi!

 

thanks for all the advice. I decided to start a new game, and this time things feel much different. There's much less enemies, and they seem less tough too. I did most missions so far in daylight, to avoid the detection problem.

 

I don't know why the game feels so different this time (it's even kind of easy to be honest). Maybe patching to 1.7 and using an old savegame wrecked something, or it could be that in my last game I had several missions in the beginning where I failed and also I was expanding like crazy (I wanted to get more resources) which maybe lead to much stonger opponents.

 

cheers,

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Hi!

 

thanks for all the advice. I decided to start a new game, and this time things feel much different. There's much less enemies, and they seem less tough too. I did most missions so far in daylight, to avoid the detection problem.

 

I don't know why the game feels so different this time (it's even kind of easy to be honest). Maybe patching to 1.7 and using an old savegame wrecked something, or it could be that in my last game I had several missions in the beginning where I failed and also I was expanding like crazy (I wanted to get more resources) which maybe lead to much stonger opponents.

 

cheers,

 

I think that there was some balancing in the patches and definitely that would be the cause - better read readmes first.

Tougher enemies come with time not with territory. It is important to gain as much terrain as possible, as fast as possible. But be sure to have your own projectile firearms also as fast as possible.

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Actually, IIRC, territories "owned" by the player are a factor when calculating enemy forces present in a mission. It's a small factor I believe but does escalate so I do recommend not getting more territories that are currently needed for your research and manufacturing until your forces are well trained and well equipped.
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