sluissa

Call me a tree killer if you like but I really enjoyed the nice thick manuals of the old Civ games. I'd noticed they were getting thinner, at least with Civ IV, but now they're all but extinct. I still have my old Alpha Centauri manual. A novella all to itself. Alas, o' slab of compressed woodpulp, I shall miss thee.

First off, sorry if I hurt any feelings by my half joking, half serious accusation. I always think corruption is a possibility no matter how big or small the enterprise. I apologize if I was out of line. In any case, I'll drop that subject for now. I think what we're seeing here is the condensing of all games that give the player control of a single entity or small group into FPS style games. Even with RPGs we're seeing this, in Bethesda's Elderscrolls and Fallout games and Bioware's Mass Effect games. With strategy games, games it falls into two distinct types of gaming. On one hand you have strategic gameplay. This would be the games like Civilization. Most major strategy games follow this turn based 4x style for their strategic sections. For control of battles though, you're seeing pure RTS gameplay. Most major game series that combines the strategic and the tactical aspects will use these two methods seperately. This is most obvious in the Total War series and Sword of the Stars. Both of these games give you turn based Strategic gameplay and real time Tactical gameplay. There are, of course, exceptions. But few, if any of the exceptions are what could be considered "mainstream", to use a mildly outdated term.

Pete, I suggest that because this site started out, oh so long ago, before it was known as StrategyCore, as an X-Com fan site. This is also one of the last places on the net with any significant concentration of hardcore X-Com fans. I can see it happening as an attempt at damage control. Search for the inner core of the fan base, those that have put innumerable hours of work into the game, those that were even sought for advice when the owners of the X-Com games, without any source code to fall back on, wanted to release a windows compatible version. Yes, it's this site that has left their watermark on an officially released version of X-Com (The Steam one, if I remember correctly.) You find these people, and you do whatever you have to to get them to say good things to try to pacify the rabid fans. Words can do it, and might have, but money also talks. Again, I'm not saying it looks like a bad game. It looks like it could be a good game based on the little we know, but I still see nothing X-Com related at all in the released footage. The interviews have been tight lipped, simply responding to questions about the change in setting with replies like "This is XCOM." and "We looked at the old game and pulled the parts we thought best personified 'XCOM'." This doesn't answer anything and reeks of memorized scripts and marketing designed to conceal and mislead. I believe that if I was shown, even a glimpse, that this was set in the same universe as the rest of the series, I'd shut up and wait and see. I just have a problem with them having thrown out an entire, decently written and popular setting for something so completely different. Are a few frames of footage of a sectoid really that much to ask?

I have to wonder why so many of the site staff are so quick to defend a game we know so little about and that what we do know about it promises nothing from the old series except based on the vague words of a developer. I hope we aren't seeing some of this. As for my opinion, I have to agree with Matri.

I'm enjoying reading this. When you say there's no pressure, do you mean that you can't lose by losing having your score drop too low with the way you've changed it?

While I've not played as much TFTD as UFO, and I've not built any of the higher end subs in TFTD, I've never had a huge problem with elerium/zrbite in either game. Granted, I'm very frugal with it because of the rumors. I tend to only have a few of the researched craft with with human craft staying as a workhorse. I also rarely if ever manufacture clips or power sources. I just use what I scavenge and usually have more than enough. Power and Flying armor(forgot the TFTD names) are the only real major elerium/zrbite costs I deal with.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=K...#Difficulty_Bug second paragraph of this section.

NKF, are you sure there's no difficulty bug in TFTD? the ufopaedia hosted by this site says there's one that reverts all difficulty to superhuman... but the only source is TVtropes. So it sounds like it's mistaken or simply someone trying to spread lies.

want... more... I must know what bodily function of Bull's will occur next. Must know how many faces grizzly will step on next sector, must know how long Ira lasts before she dies or is married off to rednecks.

well I honestly don't play TFTD that much. if i buy the pack it's going to be 99% for UFO. But, if the company comes through and releases the dos version of TFTD as an update, it should work then. If not, I actually do have the dos version of TFTD laying around here somewhere as well as the collectors edition with it on there, so it's not like I'm starving. I almost feel stupid about buying this, since I do own all of the games already. 2 copies of tftd(one dos, one on the CE) 2 copies of Apocalypse(one dos, one on CE) I have interceptor, I have enforcer, I HAD a floppy copy of UFO, but I lost all my floppies at some point and I have no idea where they might be. But oh well, 15 dollars to support the possibility of a new x-com game... even though it'd probably suck even if they did make it. Not a huge loss.

I just want to confirm, before I buy this. You CAN use xcomutil with it, right? I know i've bought some steam games that didn't work well with mods. I have the CE, but if I can get back to the dos version and get my Prox grenades back, I'll be all the happier.

Every attempt to remake x-com has failed in my opinion. I will be the first to admit that x-com had it's problems, but nothing since has had the same comfortable gameplay that I've come to enjoy from x-com and TFTD... Even apocalypse changed the interface enough that I really can't enjoy playing it even though I admit that it's a good game in it's own right, it's just not an x-com game to me. I either bought or tried demos of all the UFO games to far, I tried UFO:ET and I've tried several of the fan remakes of x-com and none have done anything except give me a strong desire to go back to the original just as less sci-fi games such as slient storm always simply make me turn back to Jagged Alliance 1/2 I say, give me the exact same game. No changes to graphics or gameplay, just fix a few of the bigger bugs and update it to work with modern computers.... on second thought, scratch that, cause I'd probably lose xcomutil... just leave me alone and let me play x-com...

I started playing UFO when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Not really playing so much as watching my dad play it, but I made a few attempts of my own and failed miserably. I don't remember any specifically scary moments from back then, but the combination of night missions, sectoids, and discovery channel specials on aliens must have done something to me, because for years I was scared to go anywhere dark alone. Even today, night missions are really scary, but my real life fear of the dark is pretty much gone. TFTD never had as much of an effect on me. I never actually played it a whole lot though, I've stuck with UFO throughout the years.

revolvers sound like they should be fine, as long as the rounds were sealed well from water, although from what I've seen, normal bullets just aren't meant to go through water

I know various topics have come up on the subject before, but I'd just like to say that I absolutely hate Blaster Bombs. In this case I was doing something extremely stupid which, I deserve the punishment I got, although I didn't realize the stupidity of it at the time. Picture it, a landed battleship. My squad of 14 soldiers, a few vets, a few rookies deploy from the skyranger, it's the first time they've taken on something this big in this game. (And to tell the truth, one of only a handful of times I've messed with a battleship at all, other than base defense.) The armor is mosly none, with a few personals and a smattering of power. At this time I've got 12 heavy plasmas and a couple of laser rifles in case I run into sectopods or cyberdiscs or just plain run out of ammo. I throw out a smoke, wait, send out a group of 3 into the smoke to look around, they exit to the left, and hide beside one of the huge legs of the UFO. Wait a turn, deploy toss another smoke, move the group up, pull another 3 out of the skyranger. Finally run into a Muton, feeling relieved that it wasn't full of sectoids or etherials, who i've had a bit of trouble with before without having Psi screening yet, or snakemen with their evil chryssalid companions whom I had just cleared a base of with heavy, though less than expected losses. I fire off a few rounds of plasma and laser at the muton, he falls. I march my guys forward some more and bring out another 3 and two more to sit between the wheels under the ramp. My march continues towards the entrance of the battleship I'm within sight of their door, when suddenly during the alien's turn, a muton comes out with a blaster launcher, launches one right into the middle of my 9 guys in a very similar formation to what might be seen taken in Europe by armies armed with muskets circa 1800, albeit a bit spread out, but not enough. All nine guys are hit, inexplicably, an unarmored guy behind a wheel survives while my colonel in power armor next to him, behind the other wheel dies instantly, 10 soldiers, many of them very experienced, taken down with one shot, the final four panicing and berserking(thankfully in that order). It takes several turns, but they finally calm down, and amid heavy plasma fire, I get the one on the ground survivor back in, and one who paniced and ran outside back in and take off. It hits me hard once the mission is over. Harder than it should given that it's a game. I realized my mistake as soon as the blaster launcher was fired, but at no point did I expect to lose all 10 guys, I thought I had things spread out enough that no more than 3, or 6 if I was really unlucky would die, but nope, 10 was the final tally. I dont' know if I've learned a lesson or not. Obviously bunching up people is bad, but is it any better than leaving them unable to support each other? Maybe I shouldn't have had so many guys outside of the skyranger at one time, then again, what if that bomb had been programmed to go straight into the skyranger? Anyway, I've rambled on enough, just figured I'd breathe a bit of life into this particular forum, lemme hear you guys blaster bomb stories, or any stories for that matter, sad, happy, or just plain cool. I've got another one to tell, but I'll hold off until we get a few more.