This month's Carlos Challenge (tm)

[Carlos the Jackal]

Well, we've all heard of the 'challenges' that float around the x-com community, every old hand has tried 'no lazers' and such. But this is the new and very very shiny :inlove: Carlos Challenge™

 

This months challenge is to finish the game with the following restrictions:

No lazer tech

No lazer/plasma/blaster bomb tanks

Not allowed to construct any craft, except the AVENGER

AVENGER only to be used on Cydonia

No Power suit/Flying suit

No Psi lab, amp

No additional hiring of scientists, engineers.

1 base

 

Use Xcomutil 9.1 and engage the following options.

Improved weapons

improved starting base

Improved tanks

Changed lazer and plasma weapons

 

Play on superhuman

 

The challenge is to finish the game and post the game date you complete it.

With only 50 scientists and 20 engineers, each research decision is critical. With only one base, placement is essential. You can use plasma, but can you afford the research time to gain it? The purchaseable tanks are way, way more tough and a must buy. Xcomutil allows you to use your interceptors as troopships and arm your skyranger and this can be a major help. Aim to finish the game within a year, I suspect some heavy competition from NKF and Warlord on this one.

 

Get to it folks.

 

...

 

Oh...

 

A prize? Bragging rights, aint no substitute! :devil:

[NKF]

You might also want to add "no save-reload immortality during tactical missions".

 

Interesting challenge, and some of my more recent campaigns already adhere to some of the conditions. 50 scientists and no psi-amps being the most common.

 

Sadly, I'm not a completer. I've started a lot of campaigns over the years, but I've never launched the Cydonia mission. So I don't think I'll be in competition with anyone.

 

By the way, when you say no power suits, does that include the personal armour?

 

Mmm, pistols with autoshot ...

 

- NKF

[Carlos the Jackal]

Heh, I've only gone to Cydonia once, Im a starter, not a completer, too.

 

Yes, well of course, no reload should go *without saying*

Personal armor is fine.

[NKF]

Well, I've decided to give it a shot. Pretty good progress, despite some heavy setbacks. Immediately got trounced at a floater terror site and had to evac. This was rather embarassing.

 

Though the autofiring pistol and the enhanced HWP's would have been nice, for a variety of reasons, I've decided not to use the XComutil enhancements. It mostly boils down to me being lazy.

 

 

The following are some thoughts I felt like sharing:

 

- I've found uses for equipment that I've been neglecting for quite some time. The heavy cannon in particular. This thing may be slow, but boy is it good. Reminds me why I like TFTD's gas cannon so much. Mind probes and motion scanners have been very useful too.

 

- Soldiers with 30 - 40 strength are your best friends. Gotta lug all that heavy gear around.

 

- Rocket tanks are even better friends. Can't say much for the cannon tank though. I kept losing it.

 

- Since I'm not bothering to use laser or plasma guns, the money is just pouring in even after a couple of expensive setbacks. Thank you plasma guns.

 

- I've realised that the elerium stockpile might be a problem. Since there's so little to use it on, it's going to eventually take up a lot of space. What to do with it?

 

- NKF

[Carlos the Jackal]

Your really putting yourself at a disadvantage, xcomutil dudes start with the set-up base and improved tanks

 

My campain is going well, but I dont want to win my own challenge, come on people, sign up!

[Kiryu-Kai]

this is nothing new as i done that already as you probaly noticed when i was talking about killing cryaslids with human weapons.

 

also this challange is like not hardcore evil as the one i tried as you can have personal armor and tanks in your challange. i done it with none of that but tanks and now im trying without tanks... lol gonna be hard when i meet the mutons but..

[Kiryu-Kai]

try this challange which i am attempting...

 

<<<HARDCORE CHALLANGE>>>

0) Human weapons allowed only

1)difficulty must be set on superhuman

2) No techs allowed. only the tech tree to get to cydonia is allowed.

3) No tanks allowed

4) No reloading

5) No armor allowed

6)No extra bases allowed

7) No new sciencists or enginniers allowed

and once i compelte that heh an evil challange is aviliable...

 

<<<mission impossible>>>

 

1) All of above

2) No new soldiers allowed

3) No new human weapons to buy. only ammo.

4) Must compelete game before August.

[The Veteran]

I'd do it if not for two reasons. (Three if you cound the fact that I can't be bothered at the moment)

1. I don't have the time

2. XComutil refuses to work on both of the computers with UFO installed.

 

Sorry guys but it looks like this is one ride I won't be going on!

[NKF]

Heh, there's so many ways to play the game, while at the same time not making it entirely unbeatable.

 

Here are a few more voluntary challenges that you can take to make the game considerably harder. I wouldn't recommend some of them, but they can make the game interesting:

 

- Play with very small squads. Deploy half your normal team size, or a minimum of two. I say two because it at least gives you a chance of evacuating the Skyranger should things go awry. But it's really up to you.

 

- One base, one interceptor.

 

- No craft weapon more powerful than a laser cannon (Well, standard ship cannons are considerably more effective than the lasers). No rockets. This means you'll have to deal with larger ships on the ground.

 

- If you've never used the Lightning before, or you hate it, start using it religiously. XComutil users might want to use the firestorm instead. Don't use it as a short-range interceptor. Just use it for the troop carrying aspect.

 

- One gun per troop carrier. Laser pistol recommended, but it's really your choice. You have to arm your soldiers with what you can grab off the field. Non-combat gear such as medikits, probes and scanners are fine if you want to use them. But limit them to one piece per type.

 

- If you're using psi-amps, do a variation of the above. Only replace the gun with a psi-amp. This is considerably a lot easier, so you might want to give it to a soldier who's only just received his or her psi-lab evaluation. Maybe only use panic attacks until the alien drops its gun, but again, it's up to you.

 

- Use only one general stores per base. X-Com knows how to cram an endless supply of any equipment they can build or collect from the field into one storeroom (in all three primary games too!), but they won't be able to buy or move things out of the Skyranger. Makes store management very important.

 

- No base defense guns. I suppose most players are already used to this one.

 

Etcetera.

 

- NKF

[Carlos the Jackal]

Aggh! damn you all!

 

IS NOBODY TAKING THE *CARLOS CHALLENGE*

[JellyfishGreen]

No, what we really want (what *I* really want) is someone to complete the game, right up to Cydonia, with no restrictions whatsoever, but a very special requirement:

 

Keep a log.

 

Log the date of events, missions, tech discoveries, and engineering production, along with a brief description of the event.

 

eg.

01:00 10 July 1999; Ufo-40 detected, size medium, launched 1 interceptor from NORAD, shot down with Avalanche missiles

9:00 10 July 1999; Ufo-40 recovery; 1 alien captured, 2 KIA.

21:40 12 July 1999; Research complete: Plasma Tank

 

One line for each event, keep the whole thing as a text file, bring it back here when done. Log promotions and exceptional soldier performances too, if you want. Not too concerned about tactical events within a mission.

 

I'm looking for laser tech, plasma tech, psionics labs, and base retaliations.

 

This will make a nice outline for global events and commander announcements in the fanfic we're writing, and could come in useful for people to compare their own experiences to.

 

Any takers?

[Carlos the Jackal]

Geez, everyone use my example as your soapbox....

[NKF]

*metaphorically pats Carlos's back*

 

There, there. I bet there are a lot of people taking it but aren't admitting it. Come on you lot, fess up.

 

I'm taking a short break from my attempt, since I've started blindly hurling my soldiers at the enemies without much thought. That and needing to rethink my strategy vs. cyberdiscs.

 

Here, hold onto this door while I take my leave. I'm off to listen to the ever famous Goon show.

 

- NKF

[JellyfishGreen]

On second thought, logging everything is a LOT of work. I tried Friday, logging all the geoscape events in 4 hours of play - various discoveries, plus interception and disposal of UFOs 50 to 65 - I'm swamped. Where are all these UFO's coming from?

 

So a much simpler log system is called for. Just dates, for starters. For the fiction maybe only a dozen or so different missions will have all the character development we can handle, and the rest will be filler. So new tech usable for missions, new mission types, and new alien race encounters will be the key events.

Maybe we can write a random mission generator.

 

I'll be quiet now, Mr. Jackal, thanks and here's your soapbox back

[Carlos the Jackal]

Thank you.... :hmmm:

[Ki-tat Chung]

i can't b bothered.

[Greg]

I might do it sometime... depends if I get windows 98 up and running on my other hard drive or not...

 

Oh and as for another variation...

 

Die Hard:

 

You can take as many soldiers as you want to the mission, but only one soldier is allowed to leave the craft. I personally don't allow laser tech either. The reason I say take as many soldiers as you like, is because it is often completely unfair with the aliens starting position. I've had give-or-take 6 aliens start around my craft before. You can bring your soldier back for healing or restocking of ammo (but NOT changing weapons) if you like, but if you get good at it you won't need to... (Your soldier will basically be a super soldier if you keep him alive long enough.) Oh. And no reloading.

 

At Cydonia, you must defeat all aliens on the first level, and at alien bases, you soldiers must all return to the upper levels apart from one. In base defense missions you must take all soldiers except one upstairs, you may shoot on the way up, and once you are up there, but you may not go out of your way upstairs. Base defense missions and Cydonia are the only ones you may send another unit out if your unit gets shot, otherwise you MUST abort. But of course you may limit these too if you wish. (Only reason I say these is because there is no reloading, and *I* would feel cheated if I had got a long way in the game and then lost because I had to abort! )

 

Doesn't sound too bad, but it is still quite tricky. With no lasers, the trick is to work out which weapon you can use that will do enough damage, and yet doesn't take too long to fire, or have too few rounds. Don't forget you have to stun aliens too... And as you can't change weapons, you are stuck with the ones you chose at the start. Oh, and before I forget, psionics from the craft is strictly forbidden, although your lone soldier may use it.

 

Give's Carlos soapbox back...

[NKF]

Ooh, you can have my soap box too. It's got suds on.

 

I think I'll reiterate the challenge I put up a while back in here, just to keep things organised. Which reminds me, I better update the page a bit. Was going to put up some tips I'd compiled while taking the challenge myself. (and everyone with the CEd. version of the game, feel free to have a look at my little commentary on blaster launchers and proximity mine bugs if you haven't or don't know about these bugs. Knowing is half the battle, as they say.)

 

The challenge with that stupidly long name:

 

https://www.geocities.com/nkfarma/xchal/challenge.html

 

Speaking of challenges, I used to play a grenade-intensive game (with one pistol for those occasions where that floater just won't come down and there aren't any nearby roofs. You can use stun weapons to capture research critical aliens). Really gets you thinking when you lose your long range offensive capabilities, and the fact that your ammunition is severely limited. Had to make quite a number of humiliating tactical retreats because I wasted my grenades too quickly.

 

Nice thing about it is that you can integrate it into any of your voluntary challenges that don't involve restricting grenades. Armour, no armour. Tanks, no tanks. Solo or as a team. Psi, no psi. Base no base....um, probably not that one.

 

 

- NKF

[Snikers]

I have a challenge that's a little less likely to reduce you to tears...

 

Pistols only!

 

By this I mean you only use the one-handed weapons. This means no autocannons, no heavy

plasmas, no rocket launchers, no tanks and yes, no blasters!

 

It's up to you whether you wish to use stun rods, grenades, armour, and others. Psi perhaps,

but you may only fire the weapon of the alien if it is a pistol.

 

Are stun launchers pistols?

 

Anyway, I think this may be a fairly easy conduct to do.

[Xcom-Warblade]

I like Carlos The Jackals idea. Everybody is throwing in so many ideas, but for the time being, I'm taking everybody's ideas down. I have the time to stuff around on Xcom for the fact that I am just about to recieve my Senior Year 12 certificate and once that is done, I have 2 -3 months before I go to Kapooka Army Barracks for training. So, I salute you Carlos for the marvelous idea!

 

[The Demi-Godly One]

I accendentaly have done a really easy challenge which is using only laser rifles.

So I think only pistols is easy because you can use laser pistols.

Unlimited ammo forever!!!

[NKF]

Easy? Yes, laser pistols are indeed a very fine weapon once you get used to them. It may not be accurate, but boy does it pack a punch.

 

Now, refer to my old challenge and try winning a battle in a floater base with alternate weapon set #2.

 

I've only ever come close to doing it pulling it off once in a superhuman campaign, but I ran out of bullets.

 

- NKF