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So Much Pain in this Game


Pete

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Y'know, I don't remember the game ever being as hard when I first played it some 12 years ago (really? 12 years? Sheesh). Thinking back, I did like to play the X-COM games on Easy setting back then til I got a good grasp of the gameplay.

 

Playing it the other day though I did the opposite and went straight for Superhuman thinking "well I've beat it twice before so it'll be fine".

 

Erm, is it just me or is Superhuman in Apoc nigh on impossible to win without reloading? I mean, the aliens take the Michael slightly as I was up against UFO's with sheilds in week 2 and cloaked UFO's firing those homing missiles in week 4 or 5.

 

General combat tactics for UFO ground missions still seem to work - sit outside the doors and wait for them to emerge and, after a few missions when they get wise to this, send one squad in as bait then have them run out trailing aliens behind them, though the swines are a little more accurate and smaller aliens such as Poppers just seem impossible to hit til it's too late.

 

Theoretically, if I hadn't already resorted to the age-old cheating tactic of saving the game just before a UFO incursion and re-loading it so that all alien-depositing UFO's come out of one dimension gate to meet my firing squad, I'd have more infiltration missions in the city than I care to think about. Even using this "tactic" they blow several of my vehicles out of the sky each time even though I'm setting my vehicles to dodge as best they can.

 

So then I took advantage of the manufacturing bug to get hundreds of thousands of dollars and skip ahead in game time and see how quick you can get decent craft by cheating. I've advanced several weeks in game time managing to beat back the UFO's with dozens of hoverbikes and hovercars so I don't have to do any ground missions, but I'm still about 2 weeks off going to the alien dimension and also several more weeks til I can build a new craft that's any use in fighting back the UFO's.

 

I strongly suspect I'll be seeing Battleships and Motherships before too long, and the only tactic I remember using against them was Hoverbikes with their little guns to chew through the shields, then Hovercards with Retribution Missiles to chew through the hull. That said, you'd theoretically never be able to afford enough of any of this equipment before those big ships appear for the first time.

 

I do still have a couple of saved games where I've not cheated which I may well go back to, but money is so damn scarce in this game it's not even funny. I do remember that selling things like Brainsucker Launchers bites you in the ass if you need to go on raids against hostile corporations, as does the Disruptor guns, so I'm hoarding those althogh I suspect the game designers fully intended to put you between this rock and hard place so you eventually have no choice but to sell your advanced weaponery and deal with the conseqiences later.

 

I know you're supposed to be fighting an uphill battle in X-COM, but I just think that maybe Superhuman in Apoc is taking the pee-pee slightly.

 

Any thoughts? Also any reason why Transtellar go absolutely mental when you even fire a shot near the spaceport?

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I've also restarted playing Apoc about a month ago and the first game was also a pain. Here's a few tips:

 

The thing that you need to be paying attention to is your score: it is the benchmark for the aliens/organizations to start using higher technology. Go over 1000 and the aliens start using Disruptor guns. After 2500 the UFOs start using shields and so on. There's a table somewhere that shows the different levels (selling weapons doesn't seem to have any influence on the organizations' equipment).

 

Money is a big problem but there are a few things that you can do to work around it.

- First is the Stormdog glitch (buy all Stormdogs available at the beginning of the week, remove their cannon then sell the Stormdogs, the cannon and the ammo separately and you'll get a nice profit).

- Stun raids on organizations also work very nicely at the beginning. Just hit the gangs armed only with Stun Grapples and don't kill or injure anyone. If the organization is not hostile they won't shoot back at you. To prevent your score from going too high just take the Psiclones and don't strip stunned gangsets from their weapons.

- Biotrans can also be manufactured and sold for a nice profit.

- Finally, loot from combat missions but you'll have to research it first.

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They're buggers for this. It's not like there's a treaty promising not to fire in their airspace.

Transtellar ALWAYS hates me...

I half-think they are smuggling the aliens here , I'll call INS right now.

 

In my first apocalypse game, I hadn't learned earth factions could turn on you - until i responded to a "live alien" call and my stun/grapple equip troops found themselves against transteller security forces...

Ouch.

 

Who were they, blackwater?

 

..SIgh.

Man, APoc was such a great game. annoys me that other than graphically, no one has advanced IMO since.

And most games are far below it in, for example, squad morale and control.

 

Or in Aftershcok when the laputa gets atatcked- I was expectinga battle royale like when the aliens in Apoc send a transport to your base...

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The thing with Transtellar is that they usually start the game in a bad relatioship with Megapol, and since UFOs shoot Megapol vehicles Transtellar starts liking the aliens resulting in their disaproval of X-COM hostile actions against the aliens. The best way to solve the issue is to have vehicles hover at the lowest hight near the spaceport towers so the UFOs are likely to hit them and make Transtellar come to their senses about the threat they really pose.

 

As for funds, the earliest manufacturable item is actually very low profit. The bio-module is ok for covering the salaries of the people assigned at your workshop and the upkeep of the workshop itself, but even if you have 5 guys with 100 skill you'll only get a net profit of 100 credits, and that's without considering the salaries of your soldiers, scientists and the base upkeep for the rest of the rooms. Once you develop or reverse engineer another manufacturable item you should forget about the bio-modules completely.

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It's possible to take manual control of your ships and have them dodge shots from UFOs. As the aliens start messing up the city trying to get a hit in, various factions will start scrambling their own airforces in an attempt to take them down. Take what help you can get.

 

The Superhuman cityscape is designed with destruction in mind. Hitting the people tubes or a section of raised highway will cause massive damage. Likewise, certain other buildings around the map (many of the slums) will disintegrate with a few shots to the right areas.

 

Also keep in mind that you don't need to attack every alien fleet that appears head-on. When UFOs appear, they typically fly to whatever buildings it is they want to seed, drop their micronoids/aliens, then leave - they usually only fire if some hostiles come within range. One strategy is to just let them fly around, pay attention to which buildings they offload at, then send your strike teams in after the UFOs have left (you don't need to wait for the alarms to start going off around the city - in fact, not every alien sighting will be reported to you, so pay attention to those UFOs and the alien activity charts!). A (big) drawback to this is that sometimes it'll result in an organisation instantly and permanently joining the alien side... But if you don't have the forces to fight in the air, then don't do it.

 

Poppers and brain suckers are difficult to hit until they're right on you. By then, however, they're in range of your stun grapples, which take 'em down fast and easy (in real time mode at least!). Try to assign one to each trooper, even if you keep it in their backpack half the time.

 

While hoarding alien weapons won't stop other groups from using them against you later, you're the sole source of such items on the market. Once you start selling the prices go down. The longer you can hold off before releasing your stash, the more money you'll get out of it.

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You don't have to cheat to do well in this game on superhuman. Just practice a bit, pick up some tricks here and there, and before long you'll forget that there are other difficulty levels. :)

 

A few tips:

 

Brainsuckers

 

Don't ever kneel when around them - instead go prone. They knock themselves silly if they try to jump on a prone soldier. Also watch for the pods as they are launched. Nothing like grabbing one before its hatched, and then later leisurely tossing them out for controlled elimination.

 

If you are caught unawares and there is no one else nearby to shoot the brainsucker off, go to another agent's inventory screen, then go to the agent in mid-brainsuck and arm an AP grenade. Back in the battlescape, set it to 0.25 seconds or right click it to set it to blast-on-impact and drop it. Your armor, especially Marsec Armor, can withstand most of a AP grenade blast no problem while the brainsucker will get blown to bits.

 

Money

 

Be frugal - there are cheap ways of doing things without having to spend much.

 

As mentioned, buy and strip Stormdogs for the first week. I'd actually hoard the Air-Guard ammo for two to three weeks and sell the chassis, engines and Air Guard cannons. Sell the ammo later for a generous sum. Yes, it's scalping - you're selling at their individual prices rather than at a package discount. ;) It's not an infinite source of cash, but it does put a sufficiently tidy amount back into your coffers to get you going.

 

Stick to the default weapons on some of the vehicles, such as the Janitors and 40mm cannons that you get on your hovercars and hoverbikes. Use up the ammo (they're actually jolly good weapons - better than they initially seem) and then switch to Bolter lasers. Bolters require no-effort to maintain and can do reasonably good damage in good quantities. The money you save can be used to invested in better ships or to upgrade to the Rendor or Lancer Plasma cannons later on for when the UFOs start getting really tough.

 

And this brings us to:

 

Ammo problems:

 

Stun grapples are you friends. On unshielded anthropods, unshielded skeletoids, spitters, brainsuckers, hyperworms and enemy guards, they have the potential to knock them down. An unconscious enemy is easy to hit at point blank range, so you can conserve your ammo a bit. :) Bounces off shields, but it the cost savings on ammo is great in the early game since they recharge. I'd recommend having every agent in the squad carry one in the off-hand or in the backpack.

 

If you must do lethal damage (say on an unconscious alien), launch a friendly raid on the Marsec Arm's factory. There's only one in each map. Wander around until you find a power sword. Grab it and flee with it. At short range combat, the raw damage output of a pair of full-auto power swords is greater than the already super-powerful Devestator cannon. And you can dig with it too! Slices up multiworms and hyperworms nicely too.

 

For actual ranged weaponry, you would do well to raid the Cult of Sirius a few times and steal some of their weapons. Plasma guns are very good all-rounders to have and they're powerful, accurate and pack a lot of ammo in each clip. Plus they're light to carry.

 

A few good ways to conserve ammo usage is to fight as close to the enemy as possible. Do this by way of ambushing enemies around corners or through doors. Great way to get enemies into grapple or sword range. Or go with snap or aimed shots if you are dualling your weapons in open terrain combat.

 

UFOs and alien drops:

 

As mentioned, you don't have to attack every UFO that comes into the city. Watch where they make their drops and send a team to mop up the sites post haste. The initial sites can be tough, but wiping out the source of the infestations means less overall mop-up work to do than if you let the infiltration fester and spread.

 

 

Do however capture at least one sample of every type of medium sized UFO you come across. Especially the Type 3 Alien Transport.

 

Transtellar

Keep this in mind: Transtellar are only a convenience. You don't have to rely on them. There are many ways to get around them.

 

The first is to minimize the number of technical staff movement. Better still, make sure there isn't any need to move technical staff and hire them directly at the base they are to be stationed.

 

For equipment recovered from battle, you can drop all of it off at any desired base by having the dropship land at the desired base. Do this before it returns to its home base. This is a great way to drop off newly captured technology or aliens at research bases that aren't stationed at the main base.

 

Equipment can be manually picked up from any base by parking a ship with agents in it and drawing the stuff directly from storage.

 

Agents can be assigned to various bases, but they don't have to be physically reside at their assigned base. Can't say I've checked to see if you can use facilities like the med-lab or training facilities at other bases though.

 

If you transfer anyone between bases and they start walking via the people tube due to hostile relations with Transtellar - immediately go into ultra-fast time compression for a moment. This instantly transports the units to their desired bases. Letting tech staff walk in real-time is a bad thing if they get stranded. There's no way to get them moving again. Lazy sods. Ultra fast also works for when you buy stuff from other companies that may be in hostile relations with Megapol. Don't want that shipment to be blown up in-transit!

 

- NKF

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Cheers for all the suggestions.

 

The Stormdog glitch is technically a way of cheating but not as bad as the manufacturing glitch I used to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in about 15 minutes I guess :D

 

I do seem to remember taking manual control of my ships some 12 years ago now you mention it BB - great idea! And I do like the idea of the aliens hitting other buildings - damages my weekly score a bit IIRC but then everyone's on my side. I'm getting vague recollections of getting the Cult on my side somehow in the past as well. Not sure if it was to do with stray alien shots too or me buying them out.

 

NKF - similarly, some of your non-cheating suggestions rely on flawed game programming (prone against brainsuckers, time burst for transferring staff to avoid restrictions), but again these are less of a cheat than what I'm doing. Still, my aim is to cheat for a bit longer to remind myself what's coming later and then return to my earlier saved game rather than get totally wiped out when the aliens really start playing tough.

 

I'd completely forgotten about those Psiclones! I now remember my brother first finding those when raiding Diablo many years back and using that as a neat source of income. Still, once more, the fact that if they're on good terms with you then they'll let you stun them and steal their stash is yet another game flaw as in real life they'd likely shove a gun in your face as soon as you walk through the door!

 

All round, I'll feel a lot better about the above suggestions than outright giving myself infinite money, though sometimes for that last alien that takes half an hour to track down I really with the Tactical cheats worked on the Steam version so I can kill him by pressing ALT+X or whatever combo it was.

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well; this is just me;

but as an also-rpg-er from the "so old it's crusted" school;

i hate reloading - i'll reload if i made a manual error or if the game did something inexplicable, but overall, my goal is to ironman it as much as possible "as it should be"

the rationale behind that made me real popular in MMO's too...

( i end up friends with cops, soldiers, and the permadeath leagues- i'm told no one else will put up with me. I kid myself that's only 'cos of this habit)

 

Anyway: my goal in games is to start, manual-less, and "learn the hard way" just as my characters are having to -

to me it seems unfair to have me all experienced running X-Com or whatever, while they would be in the dark.

 

In the case of X-Com, I didn't realize the alien ships were "sperming" buildings, so i ddint watch them closely enough and was only waiting for "live alien reports"...

 

as a result, several factions - including i bet transtellar - but certainly i recall MARSEC -

became completely under alien control.

 

One of the few times I didn't "honor" my starting game ( in AS my squads stil include guys trained in "commando/ranger from before i found out ambidexterous melee doesn't work) -

 

i don't play on the level difficulties you mention, but overall, not just the intricacy of the game, but it's difficulty -

the aliens are rarely a push-over - you never know when a brainsucker or missile might get you-

i think the difficulty is a major factor in it's replay value.

 

All Hail the Apocalypse!

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I've also restarted playing Apoc about a month ago and the first game was also a pain. Here's a few tips:

 

The thing that you need to be paying attention to is your score: it is the benchmark for the aliens/organizations to start using higher technology. Go over 1000 and the aliens start using Disruptor guns.

Which is a good thing (I generally find a mix of disruptor guns and brainsuckers easier to handle than all brainsuckers).
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Cheers for all the suggestions.

 

The Stormdog glitch is technically a way of cheating but not as bad as the manufacturing glitch I used to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in about 15 minutes I guess ;)

 

A glitch that sometimes happens in real life. Look at eBay. Even stuff you can still buy at normal retail prices can go on there for 2 to 3 times their retail price depending on the sellers. Of course, that doesn't mean they'll sell very easily. In Apocalypse on the other hand, even if the sale prices do drop (which makes the Stormdog-auto-parts scalping business worthless in time), there's still a demand for the stuff and you get paid the moment you choose to sell the items.

 

I do seem to remember taking manual control of my ships some 12 years ago now you mention it BB - great idea! And I do like the idea of the aliens hitting other buildings - damages my weekly score a bit IIRC but then everyone's on my side. I'm getting vague recollections of getting the Cult on my side somehow in the past as well. Not sure if it was to do with stray alien shots too or me buying them out.

 

Can't buy them out, it has to be by way of direct intervention. Either by attacking their enemies or letting the aliens do some damage to their buildings. The Overspawn often does the trick!

 

 

NKF - similarly, some of your non-cheating suggestions rely on flawed game programming (prone against brainsuckers, time burst for transferring staff to avoid restrictions), but again these are less of a cheat than what I'm doing.

 

No, the non-cheating bit was just in the opening. :D The few dubious suggestions I offered aren't even necessary to do well in Superhuman. Scalping, using the brainsucker flaw or stealing from friendly organizations are just extras. The main thing to do is just play and get some practice in to build up your own experience.

 

By the way, look up the jump button in the manual. Very handy for leaping over low ledges (not the auto-leap for crossing 1-tile gaps). Handy for non-flying units to get into the pits in the temples a lot faster for example.

 

I'd completely forgotten about those Psiclones! I now remember my brother first finding those when raiding Diablo many years back and using that as a neat source of income. Still, once more, the fact that if they're on good terms with you then they'll let you stun them and steal their stash is yet another game flaw as in real life they'd likely shove a gun in your face as soon as you walk through the door!

 

You could say they're avid users of the psiclones as well. Too far in lala land to even notice. :) I'm reminded of the intro to Syndicate Wars where civilians are conditioned by an implanted chip to see the world as a bright cheery utopia when it's really dark and bleak. Sort of like the Matrix, but everyone's awake.

 

Here's one thing you should remember when fighting in any of the buildings in Mega Primus: Organizations care more about the building and their guards than the people residing in the building. In fact, saving (or losing) civilians will not count towards your score, and the aliens don't even actively attack them. Property damage, regardless of who caused it, will make the owners quite annoyed with X-COM.

 

Where possible, try to use solid, energy rounds or gas and keep HE and Incendiary rounds for special occasions. Most of the common HE weapons like the AP grenade, Autocannon HE and Minilauncher aren't too bad, especially for mid-air attacks, but keep them well away from explosive or easily damaged furniture.

 

That reminds me. When bribing, only use it to get organizations out of hostile status or at least up to neutral. Don't bother spending money on getting them to allied. Let that happen naturally.

 

The reason for this is that if you do annoy any organizations and they issue a request for a cash settlement, paying it will automatically set them to neutral. If you pre-empted the settlement request and paid them up to allied status, they'll still issue the request and they'll drop back to neutral (assuming you paid the request). All your efforts end up wasted and you have to pay more to get them back to allied.

 

Since it can be quite a waste of money, don't spend too much money on relations and try to let your actions do most of the work. Use bribing only as a means of repairing relations that have soured badly or if you want to quickly repair the damage so that you can do some last minute preparations before letting them go for good (like shifting tech staff around the city with Transtellar for example).

 

If an organization no longer accepts bribes, the only way to get them back is to attack their enemies.

 

though sometimes for that last alien that takes half an hour to track down I really with the Tactical cheats worked on the Steam version so I can kill him by pressing ALT+X or whatever combo it was.

 

No, the cheats only work for the demo. A few things that can help:

 

Motion scanner - use relative motion to pick up non-moving targets. That just means turning on the scanner and running with it. You're standing still while the rest of the world is moving, so everything, including objects and dead bodies will show up so there will be a lot of rubbish data if you've been in a very busy combat zone. It's not perfect, in fact it's very hard to get to work. But it can be used as guide to investigate blips that look suspicious. Or stand still every so often and watch for moving blips.

 

Listen. Aliens make gloop gloop and other interesting noises (I once swapped the raw audio clips for some of the aliens with chimpanzee screeches - that was most amusing!). That'll give you an idea of what's remaining, though I don't know if the game's advanced enough to modulate the sound depending on their distance from the current viewport.

 

Let time run as you are scouring the map. Panicking aliens can escape the battle. One or two fleeing enemies are nothing to worry about - and should be encourage if you land in a really big battle (two fixed block maps in size, that is!). If the enemy is not intending to flee, they will head towards your nearest agent.

 

Damage to the map may have left pits and other obstacles that the aliens may have fallen into. Check those out and see if there are any trapped aliens there.

 

- NKF

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Listen. Aliens make gloop gloop and other interesting noises (I once swapped the raw audio clips for some of the aliens with chimpanzee screeches - that was most amusing!). That'll give you an idea of what's remaining, though I don't know if the game's advanced enough to modulate the sound depending on their distance from the current viewport.

It is. Does it in stereo, even. Once you hear an alien you can pin-point it's exact location fairly quickly.

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If the enemy is not intending to flee, they will head towards your nearest agent.

 

Something to take notice: the aliens will head towards your nearest agent if it they see him or he is in range. Otherwise they'll stay steady in groups in a certain location and will wait for you to stumble into them. I've had plenty of nasty surprises this way, as a pair of my agents walks into a room to face 6-8 aliens. It seems that the AI sets groups of aliens to either patrol or stay put.

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Transtellar will eventually go mental on you just for shooting down alien ships in all but the most atypical circumstances.

 

Hello; fellow Badger!

the Transtellar bit was discussed earlier in the thread; the thread is displaying oddly so you may not see it unless you check the folder nests at the bottom of the topic. but - Yep.

 

As to the whole thread; I realiz e this is actually the previous game; but i stumbled across this and I'm sorry' it's too damn funny.

 

 

..it's not short, you'll miss little by skipping around.

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Cheers for the extra input guys!

 

@ BadgerBadger - that guy in the vid is clearly insane doing a Colony with that array of weaponery and lack of armour. I agrree with the comment that says "Is this your first time playing because everything is surprising you?" :D

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Cheers for the extra input guys!

 

@ BadgerBadger - that guy in the vid is clearly insane doing a Colony with that array of weaponery and lack of armour. I agrree with the comment that says "Is this your first time playing because everything is surprising you?" :D

 

I had some nice laughs concerning his gameplay:

* When steps out of the Triton: 'Why it is dark? It was daylight at the colony'.

* When he spots the Hallucinoid: "WHAT IS THAT THING?" and then decides that it is the most dangerous enemy

 

Priceless ;)

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I get the impression he didn't know what the Tasoth was, either. Nor did he seem to recognise what it was holding (Disruptor Pulse Launcher). He'd certainly never assaulted a colony before.

 

One thing I was waiting for was for him to bring up the overhead map in order to get a feel for where he was and where the aliens could be. He never did.

 

The comments about "if this soldier lives, I'm gonna grenade here" confused me no end. There was no indication that any aliens existed in the target area.

 

If I were him, I'd'a given up after the first alien explosives went off. A scouting run still counts for something, because you at least walk away with some knowledge about what you're up against.

 

I noticed a "Jasonred" in the comments section. I wonder if he's the one who used to post around here.

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As to the whole thread; I realiz e this is actually the previous game; but i stumbled across this and I'm sorry' it's too damn funny.

 

 

..it's not short, you'll miss little by skipping around.

 

That was pretty funny. :D

 

As for Apoc. It's certainly doable without the exploits. Personally, I find it easier than either of the first two games. It will just take you some time to remember all the ins and outs.

 

For the first time I suggest you avoid turn based (although some say it's good for base defense missions). In most areas RT is easier to handle.

 

I'm just going to repeat what others have said. Transtellar is annoying, especially because apparently you can collect UFOs just fine but somehow you are unable to transfer alien artifacts that you haven't researched. This can be a nasty problem if Transtellar switches over and you aren't extremely careful. Personally I consider this a poor design decision.

 

The missions are usually not all that difficult. Personally, I find that having more than 12 men on a mission is overkill. As long as you make sure you balance your teams right, it'll be fine. I am going to go against popular opinion here and suggest using explosives and HE, especially early on. I don't remember how well it worked in RT, but in TB HE is a really good way to get rid of Hyperworms and Brainsuckers, considering that your agents have disastrous aims.

I also suggest making sure you have agents capable of MC. This will help you get those shields.

Toxiguns. Long ago, I used to completely skip them. Boy was that a big mistake.

 

Now the Cityscape is the part I find more difficult.

Spread your vehicles throughout the city or at the very least get a second base as soon as you can support it and try to pick one with enough landing holes so you can send out your vehicles more quickly.

Don't overexert your forces. If you see you're losing too many vehicles, don't engage the aliens. The important thing is to shoot down at least one of each type of UFOs. However, only Type 3 (obviously, Type 1 and 2 are easy to get) is essential to be able to beat the game, but it will make your life easier. You can ignore the two mothership types, the green one and the purple type that accompanies the motherships until you build up some retaliators and annihilators. 5 annihilators is really all you need to destroy every UFO in the alien dimension.

Be careful not to lose your transport so you don't have to separate your forces in phoenixes and hoverbikes. This is even worse when attacking UFOs because only the first vehicle that gets to it will register, the rest of the forces will not be there, which will mean only 4 agents. You still have a good chance of beating the mission, but it can be a serious problem.

I suggest keeping the early missiles. The problem with the non-guided weapons is that they can do a huge amount of damage to the city, especially the medium and large disruptors. Organizations will not be pleased. :/

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The missions are usually not all that difficult. Personally, I find that having more than 12 men on a mission is overkill. As long as you make sure you balance your teams right, it'll be fine. I am going to go against popular opinion here and suggest using explosives and HE, especially early on. I don't remember how well it worked in RT, but in TB HE is a really good way to get rid of Hyperworms and Brainsuckers, considering that your agents have disastrous aims.
HE is a good way of preventing hyperworms outright in TB mode. It's not like you actually need to capture any live to research live hyperworms.

 

I suggest keeping the early missiles. The problem with the non-guided weapons is that they can do a huge amount of damage to the city, especially the medium and large disruptors. Organizations will not be pleased. :/
Holding fire until the conditions are right helps. For direct fire weapons, this usually means waiting for a vector match so that leading the UFO isn't necessary. Also, a UFO dropping aliens is very easy to hit; destroying the UFO during a drop still prevents the infestation.
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By the way, look up the jump button in the manual. Very handy for leaping over low ledges (not the auto-leap for crossing 1-tile gaps). Handy for non-flying units to get into the pits in the temples a lot faster for example.
In TB, even handier: jumping is 0 TU. This speeds up going down stairs and hills a bit -- and is positively outrageous in buildings with those railings, as a diagonal jump over a railing to one's south or east will fail to clear the railing but still move in the cardinal direction. [North or West? You clear the railing, thanks to pixellated physics.]

 

edit: get the jump direction right...

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I just love that jump animation in the game - sooooooo incomplete. I'll tell you a quick story as well - I once read an interview (or some sort of dev diary - definitely something with accompanying pics that I wish I'd kept all these years later) where it mentioned agents could run, jump, crawl and climb in the soon-to-be-released game. I'd say they got through two and a half of the four, as vertical climbing doesn't exist in the game and the jump animation is so bad it's hilarious.

 

"Come on chaps, assume jumping positions - that's right, stand up straight with your hands by your sides and don't bend your legs when initiating jump or when landing - that jarring, crushing feeling you'll get shooting up your shins and around your kneecaps is good for you!" :D

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You can ignore the two mothership types, the green one and the purple type that accompanies the motherships until you build up some retaliators and annihilators. 5 annihilators is really all you need to destroy every UFO in the alien dimension.

 

One thing I've noticed: the Mothership and the Battleship seem to stick to the Alien Dimension until you start building your first Retaliator. When that happens the aliens will immediately send a Battleship to Mega-Primus.

 

I'm in the middle of my 3rd game since I restart playing Apoc and this has always happened.

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I just love that jump animation in the game - sooooooo incomplete. I'll tell you a quick story as well - I once read an interview (or some sort of dev diary - definitely something with accompanying pics that I wish I'd kept all these years later) where it mentioned agents could run, jump, crawl and climb in the soon-to-be-released game. I'd say they got through two and a half of the four, as vertical climbing doesn't exist in the game and the jump animation is so bad it's hilarious.

X-COM agents were supposedly slated to swim as well. That obviously never happened, just like a good chunk of the game itself. So much planned, so little finished. :D

 

- Zombie

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Swim? I've only seen one swimming pool in the whole game and I think it must have been in some luxury apartments - should have made them crawl through it and see what happens (probably nothing).

 

Well I restarted a few days ago - another superhuman game but far fewer mistakes this time out. Here's some things I did wrong last time:

  1. Bought a new base in week 2
  2. Armed all my men with machine guns
  3. Gave nobody a stun grapple
  4. Forgot where all the UFO doors were for each type of UFO
  5. Stood too close to doors (4 bloody Poppers on some ships!)
  6. Bought advanced craft weapons and equipment when the defaults are fine - great way to blow all your cash but hoverbikes still explode really easily!

 

In my new game I've done things a bit better. I do like to arm my guys with the same set of weapons, but this time went for laser sniper guns so they can actually hit things (plus Poopers die without exploding). Poppers also have bad eyesight if you're far enough from a UFO's doors whilst there's smoke around it so they sit still for you.

 

I did get a bunch of research in the "wrong" order, such as not researching craft shields for ages which lost me a few hovercars. I also could have had Toxiguns and up to toxin B researched by the end of week 3 instead of week 6.

 

On the bright side I actually made it to April and haven't had a bad time of it this time round. Taking your advice I flew closer to the ground and made friends with the Mutant Alliance and those android folks so I actually get some of their troops this time, I did start to ferry people to my base when Transtellar boomed "You shall not pass!" at me but realised that a quick burst in super-fast time was exactly the same thing and took less than a second instead of me wasting a few minutes.

 

I also found out something I'd not noticed before - the last lot of aliens came through just as I was researching the Explorer - I destroyed the fleet and, before turning the game off for the night, fastforwarded a bit. I finished researhing the Explorer and began on the Retaliator. I then built a Retaliator, but had to wait 5 days for a large workshop to be finished first. Now, I've not been paying really close attention but I'm sure I've not had an incursion for 3 weeks now and I've only been building the Retaliator for 3 days. I also know they've got bombers in the alien dimension and that I usually don't go two days before seeing a UFO.

 

So... what gives? I read somewhere they start sending through Battleships when you build retaliators but surely it doesn't take them that long to build one?

 

Also, just for info, I've got to the Retaliator stage but I'd not gone through to the alien dimension yet, so is it possible I've not triggered something? I really wasn't aware before now that you could even get your advanced ships without going to the alien dimension - I'll feel a hell of a lot happier going in properly armed for the first visit :D

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