el_bardos

Ok, only upgraded to 1.2 just before starting the moon mission, so this may not happen in all missions and may not happen if you start a game with v1.2.... If one of my men goes down and is then recovered using a medikit they stand up without any weapons (as opposed to v1.0 and 1.1 where they stood up equipped as before they were shot). I presume this part is intentional, but they are then unable to pick up their equipment again, or any equipment dropped by other soldiers or aliens. ??? Anyone else encountered this?? Running XP sp1, Athlon 2400, 512 Mb RAM

Tried this as soon as I got it and failed miserably enough times to give up and return to a save point before to return to it later. When I went back to it later in the game (it would appear it stays until you attempt it) it was a breeze, although those deathbellows can be a pain if your men are grouped. Could just be easier because all the men were better of course... I found smoke grenades useful to limit what could shoot you to one side of the road or the other, letting you clear out half at a time. Didn't have much of a problem with the ticks in my game - they go down pretty easily with a combination of sniper rifles and grenade launcher.

Not sure, but I think the first impossible varient maybe happens if you take a long time to get to the mission. I only got it on my first game when I was learning how to play and was slow to expand, research and do missions. Haven't had it again since knowing what to do, so I'm guessing it's to stop you from sitting and consolidating for a while to get the stats up on your soldiers in other missions. Agree though, still stupid whatever the reason for it.

Nice to see they're taking some measures to improve game balance. Anyone know if they've done anything to reduce the effectiveness of psi control and those trangen paralysing rays?

Just thought of another point.... pretty much all the missions allow you to take a full 7 man squad (unless you are rescuing anyone in which case a slot is left free for them). Forcing certain missions to be completed with less men would add to the challenge of the game, although I can't think immediately of a situation where it would be necessary from a storyline point of view. 7 is presumably the max that can fit in a helicopter....maybe as well as the chinook to get you to missions there could be a plane - faster to get there but less room for people inside, max of 4 maybe. If a mission was on high priority maybe this option could be forced on you - not enough time for the chinook to get there! I'm beginning to get worried I'm starting to enjoy thinking of ways to improve the game more than actually playing it ???

Picking up on the delegated missions point.... I think the concept is good, it just hasn't been that well implemented. It seems to be random luck whether missions are completed by your allies or not, however difficult they are (so they seem as likely to succeed in capturing a base as spotting a couple of different transgens). The chances of their success should be more in line with how hard it is...base missions they should manage maybe one time in 10, scouting out transgens they should manage 9 times out of 10. That would make you think more about what can and can't be delegated. Also your fighter planes taking on UFO's is too random - I've taken on a planter and knocked it out without losing a single plane, then researched extra weapons and armour for them and the next time they take one on fail to take even a single escort out!

I have the same problem (I think). On installation it comes up with an error on the files/buffers allocation. It wants 20/20 and xp is set for 40/0. On old versions of windows this is a simple config.sys edit, but what do you do now that there is no such file? Currently when I try running in windows 95 compatability mode I just get a blank screen. I join in the plea for help. Why oh why did I bother to upgrade

Ok, haven't quite got to the end yet, so this may not follow the storyline (eg if you wipe out the renegade grays by at the end of the game) but reckon an expansion should start by saying you've managed to repair the q-gates (or whatever they were called) so you can go to the alien system and wipe out the renegades (go on the attack after defending the earth). Or maybe there is a civil war on the aliens planet that you've agreed to help to old greys sort it out......your mission being to win back the planet with them, territory by territory. You could have a limited number of troops so avoiding getting too many of them killed is essential, and only limited weapon supplies so scavenging from fallen aliens and manufacturing become all the more important. Perhaps cartain territories could actually have strategic advantages - e.g. a mine in a region makes an engineering base in that territory more effective than normal as you have a ready supply of raw materials. More than one active squad would be good as well, possibly removing base teleporters so positioning of squads tactically is important for expansion and defence. Also agree vehicles would be good (like in fallout tactics), as would some rebalancing of the difficulty (see my rant in this weeks poll) and a proper turn-based mode (I can dream )

I seem to have had 2 different versions of this mission. In my first game there were about 7 or 8 aliens already outside which started attacking me straight away with rockets, raligun things, the works. I tried it so many times I decided to have another attempt at the whole game (thinking I had been too slow to develop technologies to help me survive and with the biomass already knocking at the door to several bases!) Second time through the game, this mission was a lot easier. Only a couple of aliens outside the complex walls, easily dealt with using a run & shoot strategy. Then I crept a couple of guys with plasma shotguns and CAWS up to the wall either side of the entrance and flushed the little ****s out by shelling the other side of the wall with a grenade launcher. They saw the more distant men first and got minced by my shotgunners while shooting at the distant guys who had plenty of time to get out the way of the missiles Inside was just a case of lobbing a grenade around every corner to avoid any nasty surprises.

By the looks of the option panel for the resolution, it looks like other resolutions were originally going to be available. I think it is fair to assume that the developer had a good reason for not allowing these in the final version (presumably because of an glitch they couldn't fix in time for release). After all they'll want to appeal to the widest possible audience, including the graphics snob. My guess would be this all comes down to the usual problems with game development; deadlines and budgets. If I was in the position of being given the option of 'you can have top quality graphics but the research tree size will be halved and you can only play on one continent' I think I'd leave things the same. If you look a bit deeper than the immediate visual impact, there is a game of immense detail and depth. The time taken to produce this obviously reduces the time available to graphical development, although they have taken the time to ensure that the graphics are perfectly reasonable ( and in a genre of gaming not renowned for its graphical excellence). Put aside your predudices and play for an hour or two. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Seems to be one of those catch 22 situations... you need the biomass to be nearby so you get a mission on it (and even then it seems to take forever for one to come up on top of it) so you can get a sample, but at the same time if it starts growing quickly half of your hard won bases will get minced. I was really lucky... managed to take down a planter on top of it and get the node material and biomass sample at the same time . The worst thing is if you get a new growth appearing, you end up converting half your bases to biomass repulsion anyway, so whether they're swallowed up by it or not you're losing valuable research/development. Planters are the cause of it, so concentrate your jets on taking down this type of ufo at the expense of the others. Otherwise you might find some nasty growths appearing within your territory

If the base is turning red that means it's being attacked. Clicking on in should give you the chance to do a mission to save it, or you'll lose it and the surrounding area. As far as I can work out, each research/development base will provide the same amount of research. i.e. if a project would take 6 hours with 1 base it will take 3 hours with 2 bases, 2 hours with 3 bases etc. So to work out how long something will take with another base added, a quick bit of maths is needed. new time to complete = (current bases*current time)/new bases. Once you get base teleporters you just need military bases at the edge of your territory to help you get to missions more quickly (your squad automatically launches from the nearest one to the mission). Of course more military bases means more fighters to send out against ufo's.... Hope that helps