sluissi

one might have not been on an infiltration mission or something, things were kinda hectic at the time I just know that 3 battleships and a supply ship all landed in the general area of russia and the supply ship was on infiltration, I'm sure of that... because there was an alien base in russia and it caught my attention that the supply ship didn't land at the base

I'm running CE with Xcomutil There was an alien base built in siberia, so maybe they only withdraw if a base is there. Although there were a bunch of infiltration ships that landed there, I shot down most of the small ones before they landed but 3 battleships and a supply ship(on infiltration mission) landed before I could get to them. also, do note I have been having some minor bugs with my version of the game, mostly text in the wrong places, like the type of craft being an alien corpse, or the size of it being Pursue without engagement. Also my graphs are stuck on a scale way too big to be readable.

uhh, hey guys, russia just signed a pact in my game. it was the first one to go, so I dunno if it's impossible to lose them all, but russia isn't invincible. I'll see if I can figure out how to take a screenshot. EDIT: there we go russia signed a pact Edit again: Note, i didn't try for this, it just kinda happened, 2 battleships are a bit hard to take out with only two interceptors in range of them.

they were both sectoid bases, maybe the antartica sectoids just wanted somewhere to go to thaw out where better to warm up a bit than hawaii?

unless you're crazy good or crazy lucky like some people around here, your losses will be pretty heavy at least until you get laser weapons and at the least personal armor. Especially terror missions since they seem to happen at night most of the time and aliens have no problem seeing you in the dark even if you can't see them. as far as how heavy, that depends. I've occasionally ended up with only one or two survivors to a mission, but I sometimes make it through without any. It used to be that I didn't play a single mission without losing at LEAST 2 soldiers out of usually 8-10. but I've gotten better as far as my tactical knowledge. Now my missions are spread pretty evenly, it's rare I lose more than 3 in a fair mission, and alot of the time I don't take any. remember rookies are fairly cheap, but the farther your soldiers advance in their stats, the worse the losses are if they are killed. Don't be afraid of a tactical withdraw(read as running away) especially if you're taking heavy losses or it's starting to look like nobody will get out of there alive, but that decision is yours to make. If you managed to kill the all the aliens and the mission ends, you get all the equipment that was dropped(alien and your own), except the ammo, that follows odd rules which other people can expain better than I. Long story short though, if the ammo is used at all, you usually don't get it. as far as aliens holing up in the ship, sometimes you just have to rush in and take it by force, you can always try waiting and that will most of the time end up forcing them out, but some of the larger multi-story ships will force you to move in and take them out, especially if there are psionic aliens inside, which make waiting more dangerous than just moving in and taking them out. I'm far from an expert on this game, but I've played my fair share of missions, and the only things which make me REALLY nervous anymore are chryssalids and psionic aliens, both of which can turn your own forces against you, which I guess is the scary part, knowing that at any time you could both lose soldiers and gain enemies at the same time.

Here's a strange thing, howabout a game where the first two alien bases built are on Hawaii and in antartica? antartica I can understand, but I've never seen an alien base built on hawaii before... (is it that easy to hide these things? maybe inside a volcano or something )

are mines worth the trouble of having to go through the "deactivation drill" everytime you leave one unpopped, or are unsure if you've left one unpopped? I used to use them all the time when I played the dos version, but I switched to CE since the dos version wouldn't work after I upgraded to winxp and while i never experienced this bug, I heard about it and it frightens me enough to not want to use them, as helpful as they would be. I wish someone could come up with a patch or something to fix that annoying bug... but oh well...

I know I didn't start this thread, but I figure I might as well use it to ask a question too. What are some tips on dealing with chryssalids? Specifically alien bases with them. I'm trying to deal with some right now, so far I've been lucky and my only losses have been from snakeman fire and one unfortunate blaster bomb which knocked out my whole squad at once.(yes, I realize I had them bunched up too much, but it seems to be a fine balance to having sufficient cover and keeping them seperated, especially indoors.) I try not to reload, but blasters just seem to be a bit on the unfair side. At least until you have them too... I may end up restarting anyway though, I've been having a significant number of glitches ranging from the geoscape screwing up the model of the earth to a radar contact with a ufo "size: Pursue without engaging." not to mention the score glitch I noted in another thread.

You mean Microprose?

ah, thanks, that makes sense

Thanks for the explanation but I'm still wondering why my funding dropped in all of the countries? just more save game corruption?

this might be a case of wraparound syndrome where I got such a horrible rating it went all the way to positive. anyway, here's this situation, playing a game of ufo on the second difficulty(one higher than beginner), just got through march 1999, I didn't do horrible, lost several soldiers, but didn't let any terror site go undone, I know a base was built in south america, cause I shot down and/or assaulted a supply ship and a large scout which were landed right next to each other anyway, end of the month comes along, monthly rating of 268,436,537 and them stating that they're very happy with my progress but my funding dropped 736,000 dollars and 17 countrys say they're unhappy with my progress... anyone ever see this before? my biggest question is how did I do so badly? I've had worse months without this kind of effect before unless something happened which I didn't see on my radar, but on experienced?

you do smash and grab on a base and you are able to harvest the weapons, elerium and other items over and over again... the base doesn't dissappear because you retreat, so it replenishes...

I was thinking, as far as the selling stuff happened, the governments may just be giving you credit for stuff you turn into them, which after the war is over, they can either sell themselves, or use in some way. I don't think you're actually selling it to anybody.

since when have aliens been concerned with camoflauge? *refers to the orange cloaks of the ethereals*

anybody know if the collectors edition proxy bug is fixable? or if anyone is working on it. I used to play the dos version and loved proxys, but now I'm scared of them...

I think the skyranger has an AI autopilot, not a very smart one, but smart enough that it can take instructions from the CO of the soldiers and it won't crash into anything. I can only come up with it has to be controlled directly from inside the skyranger, with sometype of password (which the tanks also know too) radio or any type of transmission would be to easy to fake which would make it easy for the aliens to command the skyranger once everyone got off, then they could ambush them with no chance for the soldiers to retreat. The tanks also have a basic AI which are made to respond only to the highest ranking soldier's voice who's on that mission at that time, so that it can't be faked easily by an alien who recorded someone's voice giving commands to the tank. the only reason I can come up with this instead of pilots for the skyranger and tank are that weight would be an issue, a computer to pilot something would be lighter than a full person, which would allow more equipment, and more soldiers to fly. also a human pilot would never be able to squeeze it into some of the positions that I've seen it in, such as only 1 square from buildings on either side with the ramp opening 2 squares away from the side of the ufo and the front only 2 squares from a tree

a critical hit would probably be a hit to the head, although it's not easily noticable, and I think this has been said before, but there is a body point hit system with the aliens, with the head being the most damaging, and an arm or leg being the least damaging. not sure about exact numbers though, maybe NKF or Vet or one of the other professional x-com players could enlighten us.

they signed a contract saying that if they sign the contract, then they must fight to the death for the commander, they must fight with whatever they have left, if they only have a head and and finger left, and somehow they are still connected and working together, they must still aim, shoot, fight, fire, and throw stuff at the enemy, and the contract also says, that if they ever die, 10 of their relatives must put themselves on the recruitment list for x-com...see, explains alot, such as where all of the people come from, why people still fight with one health point left, and why so many people have the same last names...

I distinctly remember an alien having a fatal wound once...unless you can come up with another reason I shot it and 2 turns later it fell dead without being shot again.

just a suggestion, would it be easier to mod tftd so that it's actually the original x-com, just with 2 lvl bases, and some 2 lvl terror missions? I'm not sure about the geoscape portion, but tactical would probably be easier to do this way. Just a suggestion, since it seems tftd and ufo both use the same file formats, or at least, they're easy to convert

When a unit gets smoke stunned, alien or human, does the unconscious corpse have to be out of the smoke for it to start to recover, or can it recover while it's still in the smoke, thinking about it, either way could be realistic, one in real world realistic, the other, taking game physics into consideration. I've just always wondered, and I don't have much chance to test this out. It would be nice to just set up a little guarded "cell" building on a landing or crash, or terror site, and just throw all the unconcious aliens in there to keep them stunned with smoke. Also, if you find out an alien is fatally wounded, can you use a medikit on them to keep them alive?

Well, I don't play much apoc, but I did have one raid on sirus, I sent in 4 guys, 3 with dual pistols, one with a autocannon, guard came out and the pistol guys started shooting at him, and he ran into the next room, I had my squad follow him and ran into at least 6-8 guards, needless to say, I got my squad outta that room and behind some cover. but next thing I know, I heard several explosions, and after a minute of silence, I sent a guy back over to peek through the door, all of them but one had blown themselves up, don't ask me how, or what they did, I'm guessing, they threw grenades at my guys before they went through the door, and then tried to run and follow them through, but ran through their own grenades, or the last guy shot them all with explosive ammo. funny ufo story, well, maybe not funny telling it, but it was funny to watch, you know that floater that always hides up in the second story of the barn building, well, in an effort to take care of it, I threw a few grenades up in there through windows, and make shift windows I made with my laser rifle. I also shot a couple of rockets into the lower floor to clear it out and ended up destorying it. well, as I moved my men up into better positions, I saw the floater up where it's supposed to be, standing on the one remaining tile of the top floor. every other part of the building had been destoryed. except for one other tile of the roof.(yes, I overdo it with grenades a little, but it makes pretty explosions)

deadly in an ambush is right, anyway, I gave it up for lost, I tried just firing at the aliens I could see from inside the skyranger(the reapers wouldn't enter.), but a floater got a lucky shot in, and I lost him. I later found out I had accedentally loaded my "test" game, the one where I set it on superhuman. I normally just play it on the middle setting. Oh, and there was no leaving the skyranger, for one thing the ground all around it was on fire, and there were 3 more reapers and who knows how many floaters out there. But thanks for the advice.

Ok, I'm not exactly sure now, what the easiest alien would be, but I'm sure now, in the wrong situation, reapers can be killers. Picture it, 1999, A skyranger lands in the middle of Noviserbirsk(sp?). A squad of 4 runs out and takes up landing security positions while a 5th soldier throws out a smoke grenade from inside the craft. End turn. A reaper runs out from the shadows, stops turns around a couple of times, another soldier sees a floater come out a door into a one space wide alleyway. X-Com Turn. I shoot the floater, it dies. The other 3 soldiers shoot the reaper. It stands, My heavy weapons guy with a incendiary HC comes out but doesn't have enough tu's to fire. My heavy weapons scout with the AC w/IC ammo also comes out and fires a snapshot, doing nothing. End turn, 4 more reapers come out of the shadows, and about 9 shots come from floaters in places I can't see, I think from windows and maybe more in the alleyway. Rest of the battle consists of useless rifle and pistol fire, a few HC IC rounds till the reapers get too close, and then zap zap zap. Bang bang, zap zap, and by this time, I fire the IC rounds anyway, 2 of my guys killed by my own fire, and it's not even worth it. They still come, eventually it comes down to one guy who luckily for him, never got out of the skyranger, and about 4 reapers(out of 6 total) and an unknown amount of floaters, I know there's at least 3 though. Since I'm actually writing this at the time of the battle, I've still yet to decide if I should turn tail and run, or try to take out the rest with my final guy. All of the reapers are on fire at least, so they should go down easily, if I wait a little bit. But it's my final guy, and all he has is a rifle and a pistol. Oh well, it was a good ambush set up by the aliens, i've never been on a mission where they did something like this before. Of course, once I saw those other 4 reapers come out, I shoulda aborted right then. A little off topic, but oh well.