ricardo440

in addition to sectopods etc... In my second play through the 2 heavies I took made the final room much much easier. Blaster Bombs for the win.

I thought heavies sucked my first play through. The second I loved them. Once I realised that Blaster Bombs can shoot around corners I was no longer scared of sectopods. I give my heavies a SCOPE. suppresive fire works ok too. Usually take 1 on a mission, but increase it to 2 if Sectopods are listed on the enemies by the hyperwave scanner. Think an etherial or sectopod is round the corner? Send in 2 blaster bombs first! It will also blow out all the walls so everyone else can shoot too without moving.

My recent revelations. Blaster bombs can really shoot around corners:- This means that you can set up your Heavies in a safe location to take out those sectapods, or get them real low on the HP for someone to finish them off. Capturing Aliens is not necessary. Except for the 2 you have to it is entirely pointless to risk your men when the biggest payoff is a few days in the lab saved. Mostly my scientists sit idle anyway. Capturing aliens DOES give you their weapons. This is handy if you want to stockpile some guns. Mind controled aliens who are killed drop their weapons. This usually arrives too late as you probably have a squads worth of weapons by then. Firestorms can be built BEFORE you find the alien base. A firestorm with a plasma cannon on each continent is all that is needed. This is the big one; I am yet to verify it. Anyone who can disprove by counter example please do but I noticed it over the last couple of months while I was waiting for my Psi screening: Alien Abduction Sites don't appear on countries you have satellites. I noticed this because I've been burning time to get my Psi troopers online. I had left all but three locations (brazil, USA and canada) without satellites, and every time I got an abduction mission it was on those three places. Once I built the remaining satellites I now can't remember having an abduction mission at all. Terror, Council UFO and Crash sites, but no abductions... Can anyone confirm or deny this? As far as I can see this would make satellite placement really important on high difficulty games because you can then manage the Terror level.

I have. Works well.

someone already mentioned it I think. But on the abductor (I think) the second level doesn't work properly and it always draws the ceiling so you can't see where you are moving or shooting. Move the view down and you can't select hte squares.

ending turn works. Button that looks like a cross on the bottom(ish) left

Totally agree. You can't shoot at walls or your MCed enemies. Very annoying. Nor can you drop his gun or unload it. I tend to get the guy to run about and then throw his grenade at his feet. That usually gets him dead before it runs out.

I messed up with the panic twice. Once because for some reason Russia is in Europe and not Asia. The second was when apparently I found out that Australia was in Asia! I think the developers should get an atlas for their next birthday. I suppose if they had called them Eurasia and South east Asia I'd have been alright, but Russia = europe is just silly.

http://i.stack.imgur.com/NGLEJ.gif I found this. But deleted the original link to the website it was on already

Doesn't building a sattellite reduce the panic in that country by 2? Perhaps it isn't as much at higher difficulty. Also about once a month I got a "special mission" like disposing of a bomb, that clobbered panic totally. I also found when panic rose they celebrate with a terror mission that arn't too hard to get excellent excellent good on and reduce panic.

I want more pockets and more men. And more grenades. Then I'd play it again.

I tried a couple of times but it didn't work. I was wondering if anyone had left a UFO and seen if it landed? A very handy trick in old Xcom, especially when you needed Elerium, or your weapons wern't up to scratch.

I wished you could shoot and move. Expecially as you can move and shoot (2 actions) but shooting on its own (2 actions) I also wished there was a snap shot (one action) and aimed shot (2 actions) Just think that would have been so easy to implement with their system As for moving. I like the new movement. You have to commit. When a soldier gets up from a crouch to dash for a piece of cover they have to commit, you can't advance one inch at a time and peek for enemies, you dash across and hope you survive. The 6 soldiers thing seemed harsh. There is no room to put expendable losers in your squad in order to try to make them any good.

Been lurking for a while. Lost my password and it was linked to an old email account. Anyway. I completed the game on Sunday (normal). I really liked it, but the fact it was designed with an X-box controler in mind and not a mouse made a lot of things irritating. NEver built or even spent research credit on a weapons platform. My experience of them in previous games has always been they are rubbish. Except in the original, but then you had plenty of space in your ship to field them. I found leveling up people was very slow. When it got hard, getting a rookie a kill was very tricky so they never leveled up. I never used more than my original few and anyone I won with a high rank. I tried to level up rookies, but they were a liability and often died. The score system is unforgiving, you can't lose missions. Or get easy missions later that you can send you second line squad in to level up. But I really enjoyed it. It felt like you were always moving forward which was good. The movement and cover is ACE, the people look so cool when they hunker down behind things. The mission variety is really good. I used a pistol to effect ONCE when I wanted to capture someone. Otherwise they were entirely pointless. Mind controling the last alien doesn't finish the mission, and you can't shoot it!!! that is annoying!!!. And I wish there were more grenades or slots for the cool stuff you make. I make loads of bits and pieces. They all sat on shelves because Chiting armous, medkits and a Scope were the only thing that madfe the cut. Finally a hint: If you mind control an alien (e.g. muton) and it gets killed then its weapon gets recovered!

Not useful I'm afraid but I never once used the supplies in UFO in the entire game.

Ok, I span forward time and the ship did eventually arrive. I was really confused because whenever I clicked on the laputa lady she just said the "couldn't send a ship" not "it is on its way" I finished. Yay.

Apocalypse is great. I love it. I always get to the point where I have won and then see if I can destroy the entire city myself.

I've been playing this game for ages now. I can't seem to win it. I've got everything (almost) researched. I have terraforming at 100% I've had a message about some virus but I don't have it or can't use it. There is meant to be a ship from earth comming, how do I know if it is on its way, how do I know when it should arrive? I've waited ages for it. HELP ME WINNNNNNNN My characters are level 25 and can't lose a mission. But there is no autoresolve button so I have to spend hours fighting missions to prevent territory loss. When the martians declared war for me terraforming, I destroyed their main base before I realised I could make peace again. I hope that hasn't affected it. Expedition are still alive, and the rebels are all dead.

Well you posted the orignial message over a year ago, but you might read this: I had the same problem. The mission appears at a cultist BASE. It is VITAL you have not crushed the horrid cult back to just one none base territory. They MUST have a base. I found giving them the whole of North America was good to play it safe. If they don't have a base the mission never appears and you play forever without progressing.

Well after a conversation at an Indian restaurant in Bradford I suddenly got the desire to play UFO AS again. So I came back here to check out the boards after ages and ages since I was last here. Despite the bugs it is a real fun game. Completed it on normal in a couple of days and now I am free to uninstall it and consign it to the shelf for another 4? years. Things I love about the game: The tactical combat, Watching that wargot get hit in the head with a Barret and fly 15m through the air I actually think the whole plot is rather cool. Things I hate The bugs The huge loading times for missions. Doing easy missions in the end game. I thought I might put together some of my thoughts on tactics. I'm playing through on standard difficulty so don't know how this pans out for superhuman. BTW contains spoilers if you still care. Resources: Knowledge buildings are the key to gathering resources. Each point of knowledge increases a bases production by about 10% Build 1 small knowledge building and then 2 colleges. Once you ahve the colleges demolish the first building. Even in bases with only 3 slots do this, especially if they have the advanced/psionic resources. After the initial week or so you should have more resources than you can spend. If you need to trade for resources a fully happy faction will give you 10,000 of their resource. Then you can give them 20,000 of the others to bring them back to full happiness. Locations: Use naval links from london, spread to South america quickly as they have lots of Psionics resource. Ignore Scandinavia, it isn't worth the track to connect it. Then spread into africa and across asia until you get to china. Leave North America for the cultists. Feel free to take new york and LA and perhaps the cities that join them but leave them with a good stomping ground all penned in. It is VITAL they have a base when the wargots arrive. so don't risk the dreaded bug that I suffered first time (having reduced cultists to 1 territory so the story mission didn't trigger) N.B. if you wipe out the cult they get given 3 new bases, many of them will be your best. So just leave them in North America. Buildings: Don't ever build Military buildings that make troops. They are a complete liability. You can lose missions because they get killed before you have even seen an enemy. Don't be afraid to demolish buildings and build new ones. Need to research something? demolish some buildings and build 5-8 labs of the type you need. Once you have made everything you need from a type of building demolish them to make way for new buildings. How to win fights: You need three things: Speed Firepower Observation. You need the speed to get in and out of trouble. Firepower to drop enemies ASAP so they never get to hit you back. Observation so you can kill them before they see you. My mix of troops was 3 human soldiers (troopers) with rifles skill and speed to the hilt. They started with anything I could get and then I gave them Xm8 assault rifles with gyros and quickly moved on to plasma rifles at the earliest opportunity (it is vital you have plasma by the time the starghosts arrive) AP ammo is a must before the first wargot mission. 2 Cyborg Gunners. By the end these guys were king. With ME108 MGs they were snap shooting 5 round bursts at 50m with 80% accuracy killing a wargot in 2 seconds of shooting from a standing start. 1 Human Sniper. Useful in the mid game but becomes irrelevant in the late game, as he is too slow to shoot. But I didn't have the heart to take him out of my squad. 1 Psionic Leader/Medic. Pretty vital in the mid game, and fun by the end. Pistol and Medkit in each hand. Makes it easy to switch between the two (just hit the USE button) and the pistol means whenever you order the whole squad to shoot something she doesn't try to run across the map to heal them, she jsut fails to shoot instead (saves loads of time) AP ammo is vital, don't bother with explosive. Weapons: To get by at the start do whatever you need. I used reticulan rifles. I never used melee weapons at all, I tried them and found them unimpressive. Early on you want to fight the cultists because they have real guns. Once you have assault rifles you can really start to win the missions easily. Other weapons are cool, but you need the range of the assault rifles to really make your soldiers safe. Plasma is good. You need it for the starghosts. Warp weapons are disappointing, they are simply not as good as plasma, more damage but the long time to take a shot means your plasma gunner will have killed the target before your warp man fires. The warp resonator is good to have in a backpack to destroy mission objectives. Essentially you want range to engage enemies before they can hit you, and speed so at short range you can knock the enemy down before he shoots you (and then shoot again as he stands up) So the XM8 ME108 Plasma Rifle and Barret are the way to go. Wargots: AP ammo - and lots and lots of bullets. If you have them in the open feel free to play with a sniper and aiming for heads or legs. (prone people can't shoot so shooting legs is real good) shooting arms doesn't seem to work. Up close flip everyone to snap fire and burst fire and empty as much lead into each as possible. If they fall over you can move on to the next one, but be sure to shoot them again before they stand up. Power armour: sniper fire across 100m is good, but otherwise just flip everyone to snap shot and shoot a lot of times. Starghosts: Plasma weapons for the clouds. Machine guns and plasma for everything else. Cultitsts: Possibly the hardest enemies in the game, especially when you meet them early. Just hold good positions and wait for them to come to you. Drop them ASAP and remember the medics will revive the wounded, so leave unconcious ones and hit the medics when they come in. At the start they are a great source of weapons though. Mutants: Should be easy. Flatsters - just hit them with everyone as soon as you see them, or wait till they are in medium range and do the same. Morel men just stay about 10m away from and you are fine, Muckstars are a pain, but assault rifles/MGs work real well. Brainmen are a joke. If you get injured by one I pity you. Reticulans: Again wait for them to come to you if you can (in the early game) and use projectile weapons if you have them training: Cyborgs - gunnman Human rifles - Trooper then I gave mine Scout and a bit of sniper just to increase perception skills and so the could use laser sights and motion trackers on the guns. Psionics: I gave mine LEADEr and Medic, Medic first. Soldiers: Don't get too attached to your soldiers until they break level 12. You can hire brand new level 10 or 12 soldiers. And often you can do this before your start troops have reached that level. Even better they come with free gear. My 1st medium armour came from these, and buying level 3 psionic trained 10th level soldiers gives you free Collar, etc.. too bypassing huge sections of research. Remember you need a faction to think you are great for the best troops, so keep buttering them up. Also note that if you don't like the soldier on offer, just cancel and open it up again straight away. and you get a new choice. Go for ones with the training you were planning on getting. Saves weeks. After level 12 you should have fixed your squad. Everyone should only take time out for training. To concentrate the XP. I had level 18-19 soldiers by the end. Game timing: The technology Wargot-Cultist cooperation is a bottleneck in the game. Everything up until that point just happens. When you get to that tech if you want more time just don't research it. Send your men into more missions to build up xp, research more tech and build up your bases and resources. LAst three weeks: After destroying the wargot ship you are on the path to victory. I got bored after killing the wargot ship with my two cyborgs pretty much on their own. So I couldn't be bothered with the missions after that. I just wound time. You don't need the earth by that stage you should have everything. So 15 or so places turned yellow, I still completed the game in a couple of hours rather than days. There is the rebelion mission the reticulan mothership and the moon. As for the end plot, I think it is great. It all turns out to be biology.

Cultists:- Never kill the last cult province. If you do they just get given 3 more. And they are likely to be in your bases screwing up your transport network. I marginalised the cult by lockingt hem in South africa and Australia. We had a border that we occasionally fought over, but it meant they didn't strike my heartland. I noticed that missions tend to appear in groups. It is good as it increases the challenge a bit, you can't get your guys to badly hurt or they will miss the other 2 missions. Just plot a laputa course to get them all and you are sorted.

Warp weapons arn't that great. even the humanized versions. too slow. Give me plasma guns any day. More after the asteroid. There are a few set missions, and regular random missions. I must admit I got bored and just allowed loads of missions to pass and lost territory to spin on to the end. Wargot plasma weapons are rubbish. Human ones are better. But remember always take a mix of plasma (energy) and MG (hard) weapons. Remember the reticulans were never uttely destroyed as they were in Aftermath, because it follows on from the DEAL not a total victory. You can blow up the walls but you need pretty heavy duty guns. Ultrasound weapons are good at it. Plasma guns can do it, The barret can do it And Warp weapons can do it. Load times pissed me off. It is a great shame as the game would be much more fun if the load times wen't insane. Sometimes it was taking over 4 minutes to load a mission. Then I could do the mission in just 3 minutes then it would take another 3 mintues to load the geoscape. The ones with suspended platforms are the worst. Use - swap. Yeah, I think I found that by accident. I use it for my medic so she carries a gun just s when I get the entire squad to shoot something she doesn't decide to run and stand next to it because she has a medkit. Then swap in the medkit when she needs it. Otherwise she doesn't fight (except once when she executed an unconscious alien, and another time I actually needed everyone shooting.) Never used warp medkits And Wargots : they die to Machinegun fire real easy. Blam blam blam dead wargot. If the load times were not so bad I think I would replay this game again.

I agree with most people I like the RPG to a certain extent, but prefer to have more men and have them die. In aftershock when your men got over level 12 it meant they couldn't be replaced, and training a new guy took forever. And as you could only take 7 guys into a mission it made them even more precious. However in old xcom it was easy to take more guys in and when they die they didn't have such a huge impact on the squad. Also because you could take more guys in you could take guys in addition to your fighting squad to get some experience, something you can't do in aftershock because the places on the ship are too precious.

Hurrah! I have finally finished. Months ago I started this game and it crashed ALL the time. I installed the patches but the wargot mothership always just crashed and I couldn't proceed. I uninstalled it and deleted the saves in frustration. A few days ago I dug the game out again, this time starting with V1.2 Played on difficulty 3 of 4. Very very few crashes (maybe 3 or 4). It was hard at the begining when I didn't have enough ammo. But after a little bit it was quite easy. I had everything I learned from my first game to use so I knew how to approach the enemies - weapon choice etc... Plot I was suprised wasn't entirely lame. I like the whole mess was created because some enormous creatures want to get laid. Usually games like these have terrible plots, this one was good. Anyway all in all a good game. I enjoyed the missions, although I hate the long load times. HURRAH!!! ricardo

Barracks are a liability, not just bad. I went into one mission which was: reinforce the goons in your base, kill the baddies and minimise losses. I couldn't physically reach the fight before they all died, even running top speed. I lost the mission and the base, without my guys shooting a single round or being shot at once.