Minor Annoyance

I had a flight stick before but it had a problem where you couldn't turn right and use thrusters at the same time. Same with other games turning right and the POV hat conflicted somehow. This time I had an X-Box 360 controller but it's still hard to have fine control. I had like a 15% accuracy before Tracking Tracers. . I mistakenly set it to beginner so there was no real challenge. Only one or two missions in the middle where I'd lose a fighter to missiles. Something went weird where I got UFO 2 captured before UFO 1 so I skipped the mid level technology and went straight to 3rd level. Then I didn't see the third UFO for a long time so I had to go to a base to capture one and finish the required research. Because I missed UFO 1 for a long time I didn't have thrusters which are less sensitive then regular steering and therefor useful for long range shooting when you're flying towards each other. The control pad is on the same side as steering so I can't use them together. I'm mot sure I'd ever use heavy lasers or non tracking-tracers due to the sensitivity of the controls. High energy use weapons are useless if I have to hose down the whole of space to get a hit. I wonder if the AI uses them better? It's hard to tell what they're doing. Also I just read that they don't use thrusters or cloak. Do they use ECM? Seems like there isn't a lot I can give them. Is it possible to capture a UFO without tacheon pulsars? I heard that it is but I've never seen it happen so I go for them as soon as possible. I actually read the gamesettings file and made a tech chart in a spreadsheet, but it seems like a lot of the prerequisites are unnecessary. It seems that if you find the finished item you don't need to research the supposed requirements, which is usually a captured UFO. These games always require you to win by playing the story because you're supposed to be outgunned but especially in this you are barely able to hit them back when it seems like you should be able to. Seems like you have to build bases in a straight line towards their bases to get them within range. Also I don't even know how much of a difference thinning out their facilities actually does. I thought I might play this one more time but after reading that you can win most battles easily by flying backwards that's put me off a little. Reminds me of the landspeeder level in the Star Wars game for SNES. You go in reverse and shoot and somehow you get closer to the city.

I've seen them fire but I'm not sure if they've actually hit anything. I put a plasma defence array on my probe since it can't carry much else to be useful offensively, but if it were to get shot down is there any point in making another and using it for missile defence again?

Not to sound obnoxious but right clicking on an alien in containment will show it's research topic and that tells you which you've researched. I just checked in game and the Megaspawn takes up 60% of containment capacity. So even if you have nothing else you still couldn't have a living and dead Megaspawn. So how are you not having trouble with containment?

I don't quite understand. Live aliens can already be used for both, because after the live research you get the corpse and can do the autopsy. Now you'd have to do the autopsy first before the live alien, but the live alien can be used for both. Are live aliens "used up" and killed like the normally are, because that could get annoying if you capture a live alien first and then have to kill it to do the autopsy before you could research the live version and would have to capture another. That's not usually a problem unless your dealing with aliens like the Megaspawn or Psimorph that take up a lot of space and are hard to get and might not be able to have a live and a dead one at the same time. Which could lead to a situation where you say "I'd better not waste the effort to capture this alive since I need a corpse first". That just seems backwards. Also it's not like the live form of an alien if somehow a more useful topic to research therefor making it something that should have more prerequisites. Autopsies actually seem to be more necessary so having to do an autopsy first seems like a needless complication. I do think Brainsuckers and Anthropods should be required for alien genetic structurethough, because it specifically says in the descriptions of those research topics that they will be useful in understanding the alien genetic structure and biological warfare.

The guide I have says: Alien Genetic Structure = Multiworm egg autopsy + Multiworm autopsy + Hyperworm autopsy The Alien Life Cycle = Live Multiworm and autopsy + Live Hyperworm and autopsy + Live Multiworm and autopsy The Real Alien Threat = All live and aliens and autopsies except Queenspawn and Overspawn. I think in my first game I think went a long time without getting biowarfare because I did most other things first wanting information on each alien and not knowing there was a practical application after The Alien Genetic Structure. I know I delayed x-com ships for a long time because there were lots of weapons and equipment to get and again I didn't know what came after the three fruitless projects gotten of control, propultion and structure.

The guide I have describes how agent accuracy works but not ship based weapons. The targeting equipment has a number but I don't know if it's directly adding to accuracy or if it's a more complicated calculation.

Question: Which organizations are friends with which other organizations?

I've made several buildings and one vehicle from Apoc in Spore. Actually looking for screenshots of X-Com: Apocalypse is what led me here where I found the roadwar mod and started playing again. http://ll-579.ea.com/spore/static/thumb/500/156/579/500156579056.pnghttp://ll-790.ea.com/spore/static/thumb/500/187/790/500187790477.pnghttp://ll-791.ea.com/spore/static/thumb/500/187/791/500187791340.pnghttp://ll-790.ea.com/spore/static/thumb/500/187/790/500187790638.pnghttp://ll-791.ea.com/spore/static/thumb/500/187/791/500187791707.png The Flyer Factory looks better in-game because some unneeded details are underground and not seen. I'll make more eventually. I had an X-Com sporecast but someone added my stuff to their's and they had 33 subscribers while I had none so I deleted my sporecast.

Once in Interceptor I got a message saying something about an alien ship attacking another alien ship. I send ships to the battle but they couldn't get there fast enough. I had assumed it was something to do with the aliens from Apocalypse since they eat Sectoids and I'd doubt they'd throw in a third alien civilization.

The strategy guide didn't think much of the marsec mini launcher or power sword so I didn't use them much before. The mini launcher doesn't seem that powerful (I didn't take into account it could hit a whole group) so I didn't bother unless I had alien gas. The argument against the sword was that you'd have to get very close to use it, but there are several enemies that will try and get that close anyway so they clearly underestimated it. I'm using them together now agents won't fire explosive rounds close in even if their armour protects them.

I didn't have a live Popper at the time, but I should have known better than to try to capture one during a recovery mission. They're too dangerous. I'm not sure how many I should go on. Before I would try and get more shields by recovering smaller ships but I might not be able to afford the agents. I'll have to reassess when I get shields and disrupter armour.

Something has occurred to me. roadwar might make the Overspawn very ineffective. If roads can't be destroyed then wouldn't the Overspawn get stuck in one area with the roads blocking it from moving?

I've finally started losing agents. At the end of the third week I lost an android that was standing on a stunned Popper. I think fire spread to the tile and detonated it, or maybe the fire made my agent move and allowed the Popper to wake up. Early in the fourth week some agents turned a corner in the senate and one was instantly killed by a Popper and another injured so badly he had to sprint to the exit not even having time to use a medkit. I wasn't even going to go in because it was so small an infestation it would have died out on it's own, but I got an alert. It may have been two Poppers because his equipment was gone and I think there would have had to have been a second explosion for that, but there wasn't the gas or smoke from the carried grenades there should have been, assuming he was carrying any of them. There was only one Anthropod and 3 to four Poppers so it wasn't worth it. I lost three in one mission in an apartment because they were firing devastators from the second floor. I couldn't shoot back very well and then ran through a hallway another room and I kept looking in the wrong place so they shot me from behind. I may have to build another base soon and hire a lot more agents if they're going to keep droping like this.

I'm not sure when to change weapons. So far I've been doing this: Sniper Rifle > Disrupter > Devistator Machine Gun > Toxigun Auto Cannon > Dimension Missile Launcher The problem with the Auto Cannon is that I'm keeping it for a long time. In my first game I assumed I had already gotten everything when the DML showed up (although it wasn't as bad as when teleporters showed up and I had already destroyed my labs thinking they were wasted space). So when is the ability to light alien ships on fire outclassed by direct damage? While we're on the subject, is fire that useful? It's hard to tell how much damage it does and it doesn't seem to hurt my agents that much. Sometimes it seems like it's just disrupting my vision and giving the aliens free cover.

When picking new agents to hire, what stats should I be looking for? I've seen agents with very low starting accuracy get extremely high so despite how important that stat is, it doesn't seem to be important that it start that way. Looking at the game guide it says health, stamina, reactions, bravery and accuracy can all increase as a result of combat, which leaves out speed and strength which are only increased by training. So it seems like they should be a priority. I left psi-attack/energy out of the poll because it rarely seems effective enough to have more than a few agents use it, unless I've been doing it wrong. By the way, does anyone else thing bravery should be increased by psi-training?