208 replies to this topic

[Fox]

Kasey Chang's guide is not out of date... I shouldn't have said that... but old it is.  I think us guys at the command should put together something new, like Kasey Chang's guide.

But like you said Hobbes, it should revolve more around basics of combat, like general tricks and hints... Grenade Relay, blaster launcher tactics, etc.  I'll be posting my "Door Phenomenon" later sometime today, maybe tomorrow, to add to the guide.  I'll see if I can figure out a way to make a crappy website so I can post pictures... heh.

[Slythe]

This all sounds like a great idea!

[BladeFireLight]

Are we still going to use some images??

Thease images are large so I'm linking them
Urban Battlescape Lvl4
Urban Battlescape Lvl1

I can see sections of them being used for tactical examples. sutch as:
using availible cover.. or going up a stair case with out getting shot from behind...

Any interest in smaller locations that are paticularly dificult tacticaly?
-Blade FireLight

[NKF]

The insides of alien ships and some of the more interesting alien base modules might be nice.

Which reminds me -- Identifying elerium pods.

The large 20x20 alien base module with the 4 upstairs store rooms has one room with two power units in it, but only one has an elerium pod. A close-up of both power units would make a good way of identifying the pod. I think I had one... But if anyone wants to get a new one, well, all the better.

- NKF

[BladeFireLight]

All my images are not from the game. so I dont have any one with elerium or units on screen i'm sure some one else hase one.

Here are some Ships and a base modual.


Medum Scout


Large Scout


Harvester Level 1


Harvester Level 2


Harvester Level 3


Alien Base Command Center Level 1


Alien Base Command Center Level 2

[Spaceman42]

Heh. I guess I've been cut out of the "chain of command", then...

[BladeFireLight]

Spaceman I dont think you've been removed. I just think the project took on a mind of it's own..

still for this to really come to life some one with some writing skill hase to compile the whole thing. from what the rest of us put in.

-Blade FireLight

[Hobbes]

*pins a general's star on Spaceman's lapel*

"What are your orders sir?"  

[NKF]

Every successful project needs its project champion. Someone to keep the thing going. Myself, I'm okay with the brainstorming bit, but my prose and organisation is terrible -- which is why my own little project is taking forever to put together.

Moving on: What about some of the more dodgier tactics? Like throwing grenades into walls[1] , throwing items up through ceilings, or the bug where non-flying soldiers can walk right through walls and other solid furniture objects? How will these 'features' fit in?

- NKF

[1] They're not really walls, at least not in the same sense as normal walls -- no that doesn't sound right either... oh well.

[BladeFireLight]

NKF: I have never see'n any of theoes features.. care to inlighten me?

[NKF]

- Throwing grenades into walls -- this is the usual one where you throw items into the corner walls of a ufo. You can even do this with unconscious soldiers if you want so that when they wake up, you can get them to step into the ufo.

- Throwing items up through ceilings -- try it. Launch a new game in either UFO or TFTD, then when your first mission starts, 'throw' something directly above you. You can also try it at slight angles too. You must use a slight angle to throw items through really tall ceilings. I don't think the game is able to properly handle colision detection for throwing items up at the ceiling. Still, it's a great way to get unconscious units or grenades up to a level you cannot get to in those rare cases where you accidentally destroy all the stairs.

- As for walking soldiers through solid objects - it only works for soldiers who cannot fly. The easiest place to experiment with this is on the lightning. Have a soldier stand at the bottom, right next to the stairs. Now, on the same level, select the tile underneath the power unit, or any one of the chairs. The soldier will walk up the stairs and walk right into the chairs or the power unit. To walk through UFO walls, it's the same, but you need to use an upper level. Climb onto the roof of a building, and while on the same elevation, select a location just above the UFO or the wall itself. The soldier will proceed, drop, then walk right through the wall (only works with the walls facing away from you).   A very similar method can be used by ground troops to climb some of the rock formations in the mountain region.

Flying soldiers can do something similar, but they have to float up into an overhanging 'wall'.  

- NKF

[Fox]

Wow... in all of my days of X-COM I never knew you could do that... Thanks for enlightening me NKF!

[JellyfishGreen]

"WE CAN FLY. WE CAN CONTROL MINDS. WE CAN SHOOT WHAT WE CAN'T EVEN SEE. AND NOW WE CAN WALK THROUGH WALLS."

Snakeman to Snakeman Commander: <What the heck ARE these things?>
Snakeman Commander: ::panics::

[NKF]

Oh I don't know, walking through walls is usually a bad idea. I mean, it's rather embarassing to step through a wall only to run out of TUs in front of several grinning aliens.

Oh and another one. I mentioned this one before in one of the older threads. Explosive shells (incendiary, HE and stun) fired at the ceiling will only cause damage to the level above you. That is to say it's perfectly safe for a soldier to fire a blaster bomb directly up at the ceiling at and not suffer any consequences[1].

I don't really treat this one as a 'cheat', since if done in the barns, the ceilings do get destroyed. It's not your fault the ceilings of the ufos are so tough that only something as powerful as a heavy plasma or a blaster bomb will make a hole in them. Still, this is an excellent tactic to use in intact abducter and supply ships, due to the nature of the 'camping' alien that always waits in the  command room. Just get underneath it and fire some shells, rockets or stun bombs up at the ceiling and poof, the alien's safely dispatched. Could work wonders in any multi-level ship too, if you've got a motion scanner to detect where the aliens are.

All right, I think that's enough of the 'unusual' for now. Let's get back to the good stuff eh?  

- NKF

[1] Before I forget -- you might want to mention something about the blaster bomb duds that are left behind after firing the blaster launcher via reaction fire (yes, rare, but it can happen) or when using only one waypoint.

[Hobbes]

OK, let's see....we already had aliens, zombies, telepathy, mind control, telekinesis and ray guns on this game.

But now you can also walk through walls and other solid things????

I'm starting to think this game sounds more like "The Paranormal Chronicles" or something like that. Please feel free to post your sightings of the Loch Ness Monster while playing the game

[NKF]

It's just a collision detection bug. Besides, you can't just walk through any wall -- they have to be walls that are really objects made up to look like walls (it's hard to understand without looking at the data in the map files. Suffice to say, they're the walls right next to the tiles that look empty, but cannot be walked into, since the wall is really occupying the entire tile).  I'm guessing the game's trying to detect a collision of solid objects on the level you told your soldier to move at and does not consider the soldier's change in elevation.    

*sigh* This is what happens when you notice weird things happening and suddenly figure out how to replicate it... too much information.

Oh well, might as well classify all these unusual 'features' under bugs and be done with it.

Yeah, the game is full of sci-fi cliches (thank goodness it doesn't feature time-travel! ). If it were a movie, I'm sure it would have been featured on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 by now.

- NKF

[Fox]

Quote

[1] Before I forget -- you might want to mention something about the blaster bomb duds that are left behind after firing the blaster launcher via reaction fire (yes, rare, but it can happen) or when using only one waypoint.

I was always under the impression blaster launcher dudes couldn't use reaction fire... I have NEVER had that happen.  And I usually have Hovertank/Fusions around aliens a lot, and I think they would have reacted by now...  I'll have to go try this out.  

Edit: fixed quote

[JellyfishGreen]

NKF, on Mar 2 2003, 11:58 AM, said:

Explosive shells (incendiary, HE and stun) fired at the ceiling will only cause damage to the level above you.

<snip> Still, this is an excellent tactic to use in intact abducter and supply ships, due to the nature of the 'camping' alien that always waits in the  command room. Just get underneath it and fire some shells, rockets or stun bombs up at the ceiling and poof, the alien's safely dispatched.

I'd like to name this tactic "Serving the eviction notice".

"Pillar Shaker" comes to mind too... although in Big Trouble in Little China, this tactic just dumps chunks of ceiling on your head.

[Spaceman42]

Okay, let me clarify my intentions with this project.

Basically, I want to make a "military" tactics guide, with greater reference to "real-world"  than UFOD tactics [but still applicable to both]. Thus, I want to avoid references to "points", to unresearched technologies, and to stuff not "known" at the beginning of the game.

[This isn't to say that that stuff won't be added in; I'm just trying to make it easier on myself by not including it. It's a headache, trying to convert point-values into "real-world" terms; basically, all you can say is how many shots they can usually take before they go down...]

So then, any "strategies" that can't be reproduced in real life will be mentioned in an "addition" - a separate file detailing UFOD tactics that wouldn't work in the real world - and any early-encounter stuff will be added in whenever I think it's justified / have the time. [Grays and the like will be put in the Speculative section; I need more "speculative technologies" ideas, just so it doesn't look like I'm making speculations based on what *does* happen.]

Hopefully that clears things up some.

Cheers,

-K

[Hobbes]

Speculative Ideas

- Alien weaponry

In all armed confrontations that have occurred, our forces have reported that the aliens use highly advanced weapons that unleash tremendous destructive power. Some of the terms used by our troops on mission debriefings to describe the firepower of such weapons have been: "ray guns", "flashy beams", "green death" and others. The reports have also stated that our own Kevlar body armor is useless against the discharge of the alien handguns, which seem capable to destroy any man made material.
Although we can only speculate in the inner workings of such weaponry, the general consensus is that the aliens possess an energized particle beam weapons. Such devices have been theorized before on Earth but have never seen pratical applications, due to power restrainments and beam dispersal, and even then those were restricted into large gun emplacements since it has been considered impossible to apply those concepts to handguns at our present technical level.
Therefore it is recommended that all X-Com personnel act with extreme caution and care while engaging in armed confrontations with the extraterrestrials until more is known about those weapons that hopefully allow our scientists and engineers to develop viable protection gear.

Just got inspired