Apocalypse later...

[Sunflash]

Not a clue what exactly goes into 'combat rating', but remember that in Apoc, they value the real estate far more than human life. Setting everything on fire might have something to do with it.

 

Also YAY Apoc AAR! My favorite of teh series, but only because I'm better at real-time than turn-based.

[The Veteran]

Thanks Sunflash, the fire was unavoidable as it was the brainsucked guy that did it lol. I'm wondering if in future it may make sense to keep the HE and incendiary ammo with other members of the squad. That way it can only be used by the guys with the cannons if I choose to have them given it in the mission. If they get brainsucked they only have AP ammo. Thus no damage

 

I'll try a realtime mission in due course and see which I prefer, I've played both styles in the past. For me though it's not really XCom if it's not turnbased. Going real-time takes away a lot of the tension that you get at the end of your go in TB and I imagine it would be harder in terms of an AAR too. But we'll see

[Sunflash]

Everyone has their favorite style, no doubts there. One thing Real-time does that Turn-based doesn't, is it allows dual-wielding to be much more effective.

 

My personal favorite is having Android Agents with dual Lawpistols/Stun-grapples, and use them as scouts. Early on, none of your other agents can keep up with them, and nothing is more stastifing than turning a corner and unloading two clips of ammo into a group of Anthropods before they can turn to face you.

 

If you do decide to try Real-time though, be sure to read up on it on the wiki. There's several things different (agent agresiveness is the main one) that you'll wanna know before you stick your hand in it.

[The Veteran]

Cheers sunflash, while I've played before it was a looong time ago so I may do that!

 

Just found this in an FAQ of some sort by Roger Wong, thanks Roger!

In combat, you gain points for killing enemy units and finding equipment

and lose points for losing agents and X-COM equipment.

Enemy units each have a point value listed in the appendix. You don't

get credit for kills caused by bleeding.

You lose double the points from your Combat Rating for getting an

agent brainsucked. Its points are added to your Casualty Penalty. Getting

killed the normal way just adds points (10 per agent) to your Casualty

Penalty.

Leadership bonus is (100 - Casualty penalty * 3)% of (Combat rating -

freindly fire + stunned hostiles).

Your total score is Combat Rating + Leadership Bonus - Casualty

Penalty + Live Aliens Captured + Equipment Captured - Equipment Lost

 

In the cityscape, you get points for completing research, shooting down

UFOs, and destroying alien buildings. You lose 30 points for each alien

alert in the city, points equal to 1/4 the value of any UFO that escapes

through a dimension gate, the point value of any X-COM craft that is

destroyed, and up to 20 points for a deliberately destroyed city block.

 

Your cityscape and combat scores are tallied at the end of the week to

determine the adjustments that are made to your funding.

 

So because my guys got brainsucked I lost loads of points from combat rating. That in turn affected my leadership as it's used as a percentage there too. And the combination of that and the 3 losses gave me the crap score... Still not sure why it says I didn't recover any equipment though. Surely these aliens still had some form of weaponry right?!

[Space Voyager]

Cool, now I remembered I liked Apoc the most, too... Real time behaviours were phenomenal... Must... resist... playing...

[Sunflash]

Actually, on the first mission, I think they usually just have a single brainsucker gun, don't they? >.>

 

And that might've been burned up in the firestorm anyhow.

[j'ordos]

Make sure the Valkyrie has a cargo module installed?

[Sunflash]

J'ordos is right.

 

As for no points capturing aliens: Without a Bio-Transport Module, you can't even bring corpses back as far as I recall(maybe?), and certainly no live ones.

 

Also, I personally tend to use Valkyries for intercetpions and the like, so I usually just use the bus(wolfhound?) for all non-ufo missions. Just throwin that out there.

 

Also: THe brainsucker pods(ammo for the launchers) are considered 'living aliens' as far as I can tell, so without a Bio module on the mission vehicle, that wouldn't have made it back either.

[NKF]

I'm itching to offer some advice after I've had a chance to read through the AAR, but one suggestion: Since it's working quite well with the TFTD multi-player AAR, perhaps we should keep the discussion in a separate thread? Think it'll be tidier that way. Maybe call it Apocalypse Later! or something.

 

 

- NKF

[Sgt. Strike]

Cargo module is for cargo, of all sorts, except for aliens and bodies. The bio-transport module is the key. Also, the Valkyrie is the best for transporting agents around the city. Make sure, though, that you do NOT send it out when intercepting UFO's. Unless it can't be helped. For that, at least early game, it's good to use flying bike swarms. (I'd get rid of the vehicle projectile weapons, and get laser to replace them.) And another thing about vehicles, especially flying ones, change out your engines from the cars to the bike, they do better with those. And change the Valk's engine to the cars. That'll help those. Buy the biggest engine for the Valk. That will do good, too The passenger compartment is valuable too.

 

The stun grapples don't need ammo, so they would be good for all agents to have one. They are limited in range, but do help. Also, use the stun grenades as well. Well after you get the bio-transport module. If you have a brain-sucked agent, instead of killing them try the stun grapple and stun grenades. I forget if the agents are affected by the cloud, or not. I do know that most enemies are affected.

[NKF]

No you're not going to be collecting a lot of loot for the time being. At least at the start. Brainsucker launchers aren't aren't worth much to sell or use. Once the aliens start bringing in the stuff you research in the quantum physics labs, then things start getting interesting!

 

The different difficulty levels have their own unique maps. It makes it worth attempting a new game on a different difficulty level just for the experience. Superhuman Megaprimus is one of the more fun maps to play. All that free-parking!

 

By the way, when there's fire, smoke grenades and stun grenades are your friends. They put out fire. Helps keep the property damage down. The different types tend to counteract each other. You'll find the alien AI is very smart in this regards and Anthropods and Skeletoids will gladly put out stun clouds with Megapol Smoke Grenades.

 

Especially now my troops didn't have those pathetic stun grapples and lawpistols and such!

 

Lawpistols and Stungrapples you'll learn to appreciate in time. Stun Grapples in particular are absolutely useful weapons for conserving ammo early on since they recharge. They are also the only way to capture one harmless yet particularly nasty alien.

 

Perhaps best of all, once the enemy is stunned, you can attack it as much as you like while it's down!

 

The trick to knock out the alien with the stun grapple is to ensure that the hitpoints have dropped under 80hp. That's the grapple's stun cap. A lot of the smaller aliens have under 80 hitpoints, like poppers, spitters, hyperworms, brainsuckers and anthropods. Humanoids (X-Com agents and building guards) fall quickly to it too. The stronger enemies like the Multiworm, Megaspawn, etc, are going to need a beating to get their health under 80.

 

I'm playing in turn-based by the way but I'll probably experiment with both along the way to see which I prefer and which better suits an AAR.

 

When you try it, it'll be just like handling the Cityscape. Adjust the auto-pause settings to your liking and get used to using the spacebar as you'll be using it a lot. Well, that and a bunch of other keyboard commands - see Zombie's Control sheet for all the shortcuts. It's not quite complete, but still has plenty to keep you happy.

 

The ability to pause the action will be especially useful for the ARR as it will offer you some fantastic photo-ops!

 

One of many advantages Real time offers is perhaps one of the best 'legal' anti-brainsucker strategies: a (dropped/thrown/moved) AP grenade set to 0.25 seconds, or dropping one set to detonate on impact. As long as you're wearing a full suit of armour (no missing helmets, for example), then you can handle it. Or easier still: get a friend to shoot it off mid-suck. The - ah - illegal method is to crawl. There's also standing in doorways, but I've not had a chance to test that one yet.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

My two cents:

 

You can dual wield in TB mode just you will lose TU faster. For example I had laser and stun graple in both hands. The agent fired both in close quaters while on larger distance he shot with laser while the graple spamed out of range messages.

 

If you want to fire one weapon you must have to 'enable' (click on it and the cursor should have croshair).

 

To fire both make sure you don't have croshair and just right click on the target.

 

About what NKF said about stun graple.

 

Keep in mind that in this game aliens can have critical wounds too, so they can bleed out. So your best bet would be to storm some aliens with more of them.

 

I always give my men a stan graple so the whole 12 men squad can stun them, also the TB mode is good for stun grenades.

 

The - ah - illegal method is to crawl. There's also standing in doorways, but I've not had a chance to test that one yet.

 

Crawling is only the most safe way avoidng brainsuckers. I had an agent hoovering under the roof yet the bugger still landed on his head. Also on lifts they fail to jump - but I only had moments when he jumped from below.

[The Veteran]

Make sure the Valkyrie has a cargo module installed?

 

Yep got a cargo module It starts off with one passenger module and 1 cargo. Just needs the bio-module which isn't researched yet

 

As for no points capturing aliens: Without a Bio-Transport Module, you can't even bring corpses back as far as I recall(maybe?), and certainly no live ones.

 

Also: THe brainsucker pods(ammo for the launchers) are considered 'living aliens' as far as I can tell, so without a Bio module on the mission vehicle, that wouldn't have made it back either.

 

This answers a lot of questions thankyou! Not sure why I need a bio-module to bring corpses back in though. Isn't it strange that 80 years ago we were able to transport stunned reapers half way round the planet in a standard troop carrier yet today we can't move them half a mile across a small city...

 

I'm itching to offer some advice after I've had a chance to read through the AAR, but one suggestion: Since it's working quite well with the TFTD multi-player AAR, perhaps we should keep the discussion in a separate thread? Think it'll be tidier that way. Maybe call it Apocalypse Later! or something.

 

Will do it in a mo, didn't think it would get so much chatter but glad it is

 

Cargo module is for cargo, of all sorts, except for aliens and bodies. The bio-transport module is the key. Also, the Valkyrie is the best for transporting agents around the city. Make sure, though, that you do NOT send it out when intercepting UFO's. Unless it can't be helped. For that, at least early game, it's good to use flying bike swarms. (I'd get rid of the vehicle projectile weapons, and get laser to replace them.) And another thing about vehicles, especially flying ones, change out your engines from the cars to the bike, they do better with those. And change the Valk's engine to the cars. That'll help those. Buy the biggest engine for the Valk. That will do good, too The passenger compartment is valuable too.

 

The stun grapples don't need ammo, so they would be good for all agents to have one. They are limited in range, but do help. Also, use the stun grenades as well. Well after you get the bio-transport module. If you have a brain-sucked agent, instead of killing them try the stun grapple and stun grenades. I forget if the agents are affected by the cloud, or not. I do know that most enemies are affected.

 

The advice I really need right now is vehicle and weapon actually so please keep it coming! I was thinking I'm best off just replacing everything with Valkyries for all missions asap. There are some really tough (and not too expensive) looking plasma guns which I thought would be the best bet but they aren't for sale yet

 

As for the stun grenades I've already found them quite handy and remember I used one to knock out brainsucked Virgil in my first mission? So yes they do stun humans but you never regain control which would've been nice lol I actually had a very successful foray with the stun grapples the first time I played through this mission too. I had one guy stood in a toilet doorway and had subsequently forgotten about him when a Bloo walked right by him! I think I lobbed an HE nade then finished him off with a single shot from the stun grapple. So yes I'll definitely take them along on all my troops once I can recover aliens!

 

By the way, when there's fire, smoke grenades and stun grenades are your friends. They put out fire. Helps keep the property damage down. The different types tend to counteract each other. You'll find the alien AI is very smart in this regards and Anthropods and Skeletoids will gladly put out stun clouds with Megapol Smoke Grenades.

 

The ability to pause the action will be especially useful for the ARR as it will offer you some fantastic photo-ops!

 

One of many advantages Real time offers is perhaps one of the best 'legal' anti-brainsucker strategies: a (dropped/thrown/moved) AP grenade set 0.25 seconds, or dropping on set to detonate on impact. As long as you're wearing a full suit of armour (no missing helmets, for example), then you can handle it. Or easier still: get a friend to shoot it off mid-suck. The - ah - illegal method is to crawl. There's also standing in doorways, but I've not had a chance to test that one yet.

 

Cheers NKF! Didn't realise you could use grenades to put out fires, usually they just start them lol And yes brainsuckers are apparently impossible to deal with in TB without a large amount of luck so maybe that is an advocate for real time. At the very least it gives the opportunity to effectively 'control' reaction fire between the time the BS hatches and lands on your face! In my first mission here, the 2 troopers that got brainsucked together could have easily killed everything around them if they hadn't been so useless...

 

Keep in mind that in this game aliens can have critical wounds too, so they can bleed out. So your best bet would be to storm some aliens with more of them.

 

Crawling is only the most safe way avoidng brainsuckers. I had an agent hoovering under the roof yet the bugger still landed on his head. Also on lifts they fail to jump - but I only had moments when he jumped from below.

 

It actually states in the FAQ I quoted earlier that aliens bleeding to death don't score you any points. Yet again I question the logic of this system, who the hell do they think gave them the critical wounds in the first place? I can hardly see the wobbly armed civvies inflicting that damage after all...

 

Going to split this topic up now and may or may not play through another mission today. Any advice on what vehicles to use for my intercepts would be appreciated as even the ufopaedia didn't do much to help me choose! Based on armour and constitution it's Valkyrie all the way but the cost is seriously prohibitive right now.

[silencer_pl]

Most people probably do is spam hoverbikes and pheonixes.

 

My take is to go heavy with Hawks and lineage plasma. If you can handle 1 hawk warrior per week then you are golden at week 5 most of ufos will be a cake even the blasted fast attack ships. You should stop at round 6-7 hawks - then even the very big ones will drop - maybe not like flies becasue they need proper beating but you will handle them without any casualty.

 

The problem is that 1 hawk = 100k and that is hell of a sum - your montly income is 93k (something like that) but you will also pay 30-40k maintenance so your total balance per week is 40-60k.

 

Also please remember that the market isn't still here. So If you sell something this week next week it will be cheaper. For example - Bio Transport costs initaly 800 - when you sell even 1 - the price in next week will be 750, on the other hand if you don't sell it in the next week it will be 950.

 

There is an exploit to make more money - but we aren't cheating of course.

 

Valkyries fade out when the FAS come - they drop like flies. In week 4 you will probably stay clear from UFO's (maybe just shoot down stranglers) since FAS are like kick to the groin in this game. Later ships aren't so devastating.

[The Veteran]

Thanks for the tip silencer, will take a look at the hawks later as it's still a lot cheaper than the valkyries!!! Maybe I'll stock up on alien artefacts for a while then sell in bulk if it lets the price go up

[NKF]

Keep the Valkyrie as your main city transport. If you must use it in combat, long range with Lancer lasers are your best bet while faster ships swarm the UFOs. Either that or rocket launchers like the Prophet. Replace the Valkyrie with the Bio Trans as soon as possible. That highly mod-able flying van's a great troop transport!

 

The weapon you're thinking of is the Rendor. It's a good light weapon with 140 elerium powered rounds. You can use Bolter lasers in the interim, as Rendors mainly offer a slight accuracy and damage increase.

 

There are two approaches to attacking UFOs, as well as a combination of the two.

 

The first, as noted, is the swarm. Little fast and easily replaceable vehicles like the Hoverbikes and Pheonix hovercars armed to the teeth with weapons like the default 40mm Auto Cannon, Bolter Lasers, Janitor Missiles, etc. This will pinprick UFOs to death. At least they'll take down the Type-3 Alien Transporter no problem. Enough firepower and the Fast Attack ships will drop too.

 

The second is a few big ships armed to the teeth with the best weapons you can afford. Namely Hawks with triple Lineage cannons. A small wing of Hawks (say 4 - 5) can beat the tar out of Fast Attack Ships. But the problem is getting the cash to afford the fleet. They unfortunately do some serious damage to the city if they miss!

 

Then there's the combo. As many hoverbikes as you can, and roughly 3 or so Hawks. Swarm in with the Hoverbikes and Send the Hawks in to finish them off. The I quite like the combo because the swarmers are great but they just get blown to bits by Bombers and Battleships thanks to their Multi-Missiles, so it's good to have some heavies to take over and finish the job.

 

Air combat is going to be very draining on your cash (at least it will be early on) and it's also going to be the biggest burden on your public relations if your side does too much damage to the city. Don't try to go after every UFO that comes into the city. Shoot some down, at least one of each type for the research (especially the type-3 alien transporter). If you can find easy prey like transport UFOs that get isolated from their escorts when they enter the city, try to take them down. If the fights seem too difficult, usually when the tranpsort and escort have linked up, take evasive moves and pull out of combat. It's better to handle the ground mission than to do more damage to the city or lose your ships.

 

Mind you, one clever stunt is to deliberately fly hoverbikes set to evasive around UFOs with their guns switched off and get the UFOs to miss them. You suffer points for damage to the city, but those damaged by the aliens will start liking you a bit more.

 

Oh, by the way, here's one major time saving tip with equipping agents:

 

Have a standard equipment setup where everyone put common things in the same place. Say medikit on left leg, smoke grenade on right shoulder, left pocket half full of AP and stun grenades, etc.

 

This way, after combat, you can re-equip everyone in one go by selecting multiple agents, and arming them once, and everyone gets armed at the same time. To do this, ctrl+click on the portraits of the agents you want to re-equip to set up a group. Then start arming the current agent with the equipment. This can also be a great way to take stuff off everyone too. Note that slots that are already occupied won't be filled - but removing something from that slot will un-equip everything in that slot.

 

Use sub groups for the weapons (say teams with Autocannons, M4000's, dual Plasma Guns, etc) and have them store all their ammo in the same slots. This way you can quickly replenish their ammo by rearm one to rearm them all.

 

You can still personalise individuals and have them carry unique equipment. Just don't put them in your designated 'common' slots.

 

- NKF

[Veki]

Mind you, one clever stunt is to deliberately fly hoverbikes set to evasive around UFOs with their guns switched off and get the UFOs to miss them. You suffer points for damage to the city, but those damaged by the aliens will start liking you a bit more.

Not to mention that if Aliens do enough damage to an organisation, that organisation will launch it's vehicles to fight the Aliens.

[Sunflash]

YOu'll wanna listen to them, I play crazy(Wolfhound for troop transport, valkryie+Pheonix for offense).

 

Something that NKF pointed out that needs emphaizing: Early on, avoid as many UFO battles as you can. Shoot down at least one of each type you first encounter(The type-3 transporter is worth it's weight in gold. Throw away 90% of your fleet if you have to, you can ignore the rest afterwards till you've got X-CoM craft).

 

Always be mindful of your game-score. Doing good in tactical missions is great; but the higher your score gets, the more advanced toys the Aliens pull out. I've had Shielded Skeletoids in week 3. If your research can't keep up, stock up on Agent-fodder.

 

 

(PS: About the point-blank grenade against brainsuckers in Real-time? I just right-click the 'nade to set 'explode on impact', then click the drop button. Either works."

[silencer_pl]

Not to mention that if Aliens do enough damage to an organisation, that organisation will launch it's vehicles to fight the Aliens.

 

The best would be Marsec as their the providers of high tech stuff.

 

 

Also the problem with swarm is that you must individualy click every bike at ufo, with 4 incursions per week you might get tired of it. (or can you multi attack like agent arming ? Never tried this tactics I prefer to go heavy).

 

At late stage with 10 annihilators aliens should give up by themselvs - their fleet is destroyed in 30 seconds on their turf.

[The Veteran]

Yeah I remember in the games that I have played before what impact an annihilator can have if you just leave it floating around in the alien dimension lol Think I'll send out everything I have for now (save the Valkyrie) and just treat them as fodder. Will try and replace them with Hawks as and when income allows but I guess that'll take some time!

 

Think I may boot up the game in a sec as I may be an idiot. I'm researching a bio-transport or something similar thinking that that's what I need in the craft I currently have to move aliens but you guys just said it was a craft itself. Did I perhaps assume too much?!

[silencer_pl]

Bio transport module enables you to carry aliens both dead and alive from missions. This the first item you research from bio chemistry lab and first item your engieers can manufacture.

[The Veteran]

Good so I'm not being stupid after all lol It was NKF that mentioned the Bio Trans a few posts up which confused me. Is that a new vehicle that I'll get later on? What's so good about it?

 

Oh and I'm now en-route to update the AAR so check it out shortly

[silencer_pl]

It is second x-com manufactured vechicle.

 

It has 4x8 slots if I believe and starts with 4xcargo and 4xbio modules. But you might check Ufopedia for more details.

 

Also if I believe the minimal number of agents is 8 in it.

[Sunflash]

No no. THere's a Bio-Transport MODULE, which is like the Cargo/Passenger Modules; can slip that among all the various craft you may use.

 

Then there's the Bio-Trans that is an X-COM built craft, designed to be your end-game transporter.

[The Veteran]

Thanks guys! I'm still only up to about 60% on this research so I guess I'll have it later this week. Finally some salvage!