CapnKill

Ok so if you dust off with no one in the ranger then it is lost? Interesting... I guess I've never done that I usually just beat the mission or die trying Actually that's a great tip, I always forget about the overhead map. Now there's no need for me to take any action when it comes to the Elirium since it will be automatically collected from crash sites or landing sites when I kill all the bad guys right? I do understand that I need t grab it from an alien base if I don't kill everyone there...

Well I got the Floaters which I wanted, but ... uhmm... yeah they wiped out my entire squad. I'm not quitting though, the month was over, so I got some income... 10 new soldiers, a shiny new sky ranger, another rocket tank, researched armor and made two suits before heading out to take a look at a crashed UFO. Good times! Also this new batch of soldiers are averaging about 60 Firing accuracy, which is pretty impressive... hopefully I have better luck with these guys. Damn I lost a lot of equipment though... 10 laser rifles They will be missed. So if I wanted to retreat from a mission with the equipment I have to basically bring it all on board the sky ranger before I dust off, is that right? Oh and is there any way to see the portraits of the soldiers before I arm them for a mission?

For me right now its Laser Rifles, then Armor asap. I need to at least be able to occasionally take 2 or so hits without dying, I can't imagine doing an Iron Man run without any type of armor early in the game. Now if I can just keep from walking over my own proximity grenades I'd be in much better shape Almost had my first no casualty clean up mission when I walked the hero of the day right over a proxy that I threw down earlier... the sudden explosion scared the sh1t out of me First Terror site popped up and unfortunately I have to go in there with about 4 laser pistols, 1 heavy explosive and only 2 or 3 rockets. One thing I keep failing to do in these iron man attempts is to always be prepared equipment wise but I'm still caught with my pants down I'll give it a whirl, and see how I do... but it will be tricky, I might have to just touch down and take off, but it would really upset me to do so. Crossing my fingers for Floaters.

I think perhaps an obvious thing is not familiar to me.... why take corners only at the start of a turn? Oh never mind, cause with max TUs I have a better chance of winning a reaction fire roll... right? What do you guys go for first, Laser Rifles or Armor?

How do you do that with just one guy, I mean how do you turn a corner and not take on in the face at least once in how many corners do you have to navigate? And yeah, the mind control thing is pretty over the top, I don't think I'll be using it... I mean it is fun, but once you get it, you're basically unstoppable.

Well this is very early in the game, I just finished researching laser rifles and had about time to make 2 before the aliens attacked the base. So my challenge was to figure out a way to successfully defend with what I had available to me... and at that point HWP wise I just had rocket and the other one... no laser tanks just yet and most certainly no armor of any type. Just a bunch of rooks, in fatigues, with laser pistols, motion grenades and rocket launchers

Ok, I did it!! Only lost 3 soldiers The magic answer, for me at least, was, go figure, Tanks!. I picked up two rocket tanks before the mission (although it turns out I just needed one). I parked it down the hall from the access lift and it did a great job with reaction fire. Also I got one of my more expendable soldiers in the room closest to the access lift, at the beginning of each turn, I'd walk out, open the door,if bad guys where there I'd step aside and let the rocket do its thing. If no one was in there, I'd have someone else throw in a proximity grenade. The main thing was to get everyone back inside a room before the turn was run so stray fire (there was plenty of that) wouldn't kill them, and blaster bombs, etc..etc... Really I was able to perform this maneuver with the rocket tank as support and only 4 soldiers pressuring the air lock and eventually moved into the hangar to clean up the rest. In fact one of the soldiers I lost was over my own proximity grenade which was obstructed in a corner (I thought it blew up in a bigger explosion, I was wrong), so maybe I could have done it with losing only 2? Anyway, I'm a tank believer again, maybe not for terror missions, but certainly for base defense, I will re-start a real game (still trying Iron man on maybe genius or superhuman) and make sure to always have a couple of rocket tanks on hand. Only trick now is trying to salvage as much equipment as I can, so I'll probably add mule to pick some stuff up and bring it to a room where its safe from explosions... but anyway, it was very satisfying to clean house so efficiently after getting my arse worked for about 30 attempts in a row Thanks for all the tips!!

Still not able to defend it, tried again and again. I fell back in my base and used proximity grenades to soften up their approaches, but one douche bag panicked and walked right into them triggering at least one off... Then eventually a blaster bomb was sent down the hallway and took out 3 more guys that were in crevices but not guarded by doors. I don't have a rocket tank, or any tanks for that matter, I supposed it would come in handy here that's for sure. Also don't have any stun rods for the cyberdisks, I think that too would help out. I'm certainly caught unprepared, no argument here, I think 8 out of the 10 soldiers have never seen combat... I remembered that the Aliens attacked your base early on harder difficulties, but I forgot that it was THIS early I am enjoying the challenge, but I am unable to compensate for the unpredictability of some events, mainly, mind control, panic and berserk. There is only ONE soldier in my squad that has never succumbed to any of the aforementioned affects in this battle, but she is just one, and can only do so much. I might reload it and grab a rocket tank before they come just to see how things would turn out if I had that at my disposal. I also can't get to the hangars because the air lock is in the way, and it's far too heavily populated with little green bastards for me to get passed it without getting wiped out. The Mind control this soon is really doing a number on some of my guys. Also I thought that Mind Control and Panic was line of sight, but I feel like the Aliens were able to panic one of my soldiers that was in a closet all by himself.. I'm not exactly sure how that works... am I not understanding the functionality correctly? Ahh, I found this nugget in UFO Pedia... was not aware of the 20 turn rule: If any of your squad members, even a HWP, is visible to any alien during the Alien Turn, every member of your squad is at risk of attack from any psionic aliens, regardless of whether the spotter is psionic. It should be noted that once you pass Turn 20, all of your squad members and their locations are revealed to the AI. This means you can expect a steady stream of psionic attacks after that turn. Your soldiers are also revealed to the AI if there are only two or less units under permanent Alien control.

Well this game was short lived. I got caught with my pants down, they attacked my base. I had no proximity grenades on hand and only about 3 or 4 laser rifles... it was a disaster. The game was over anyway, since it was my only base so I took the opportunity to reload and work on my tactics. I probably tried about 15 attempts and could not do it. The base is well built with the choke point mentality, but while I can take down the sectoids, the cyberdisks are too much to handle. This is on Genius difficulty, so it it takes a number of shots to take one down.... but it got ugly, people were panicking, getting mind controlled... I think the closest I got was 1 Sectoid and 2 cyberdisks in the hangar bay. Then I reloaded a bit earlier and got some proximity grenades... those helped a bit, but still those damn discs, I can't reaction fire the discs, they have too many freaking TUs... So what are some good strategies to taking out those pesky discs.. .I assume they can see 360 degrees, and reaction fire is not the best idea... Normal strategies would work if I had better armament, but right now it just takes at least 6 laser rifle shots to take one down. Also some of the Sectoids were armed with blaster bombs... and the freeze gun, so I have to keep everyone as seperated as I can, very difficult to concentrate fire. I'm making my stand right at the entrance to the base, but perhaps I should fall back to an area where I can maybe get some cross fire going... I think that will be my next strategy. I'll post up a screen shot of my setup tonight to see what you guys think. Its interesting really, because its so early in the game, a victory at this point would essentially give me the blaster launcher technology so soon... it seems as if that would give me a huge advantage for the rest of the ride would it not?

Question: The 3 buttons on the left that show Snap shot, auto shot and aimed shot.. those are just to reserve TUs right? They in no way shape or form dictate what type of shot your soldier will take in a reaction, is that correct? My understanding is that reaction shots are ALWAYS Snap Shots.. am I right on that? Thanks!

Without I think, what does the util improved tank offer?

Would've been nice to have seen the look on their faces as the ranger took off

Yep at this point, I throw down a smoke and wait a turn. I'll probably bring a tank in when I can do a laser tank and play around with it more, I'm not done experimenting yet

Wow, this changes everything! Thanks for this info, I will put it to use immediately. I'm trying an iron man game on Genius, just started. Thinking about documenting the progress, but it might be short lived

I was on the tank bandwagon until I saw 1 shot blow one up... at that point it's just too much of a risk. I rather a rook walk off the ramp and take on in the face than a 400k tank. If I was guaranteed at least 4 or 5 shots then it would be a different story, but at least with the starting HWPs, its a problem. I suppose for crashed ships its ok, they seem to take a ton of punishment, perhaps just the Cyberdisks that are a bit too much for them to handle.

I'm using the extender, not sure how much of it.. but I can order my soldiers in the ranger with it. Obviously I have no psi info, I could turn it on I suppose, but that wouldn't be totally fair I guess. I didn't know how the moral worked, so this is good info... thanks

Hmmmm... so let me make sure I got this right. So lets say Jimmy needs at least 17 TUs to fire a shot. So if I end the turn and Jimmy has 17 TUs left, he is less likely to fire a reaction shot than if he had full TUs? That would certainly change the way I play if that was the case

Which one do you guys prefer? I played TFTD first with a friend, and we thought it was amazing, this is probably back when TFTD just came out. Me and a friend basically played it hot seat style where I commanded my squad and he did his, it was a blast, but we eventually and unknowingly got stuck on the commander bug. I don't remember what it was, but basically a road block in the research tree, I think you all know it well. Anyway, we then found out about UFO Defense, so naturally we tried it out and liked it much more than TFTD. I think the UFO weapons are better designed, the character models at the load out screens are far superior and most importantly, NO SHIPPING LANE MISSIONS!! The only thing that TFTD did better than UFO was the ability to open doors with right click, although now that is no longer an issue with a mod. So, personally, obviously I like UFO better than TFTD... what do you guys prefer? Yes, I know I"m posting in the UFO forum, there's really no neutral forum for it and I'm sure we all love X-Com enough to bounce between the two whenever a new post shows up

I'm not feeling the HWPs. I tried to use them, and for the crash missions they were great, but the terror mission was a disaster. I had two of them, drove one off the ramp, boom, the disc thing wiped it out in one shot... the other one made it to the next turn then boom. 900k gone in 2 turns... that's like 20 soldiers! I rather just use a huge team of soldiers, survival of the fittest style More fun too. I think the key is to have laser weapons... I went into that first terror mission with regular rifles and I couldn't do any significant damage. That game was on superhuman though, perhaps that affects damage? I restarted on Genius, I have laser rifles and I'm anxiously awaiting that first terror mission, I expect a much better result, but we'll see.

Started playing the game again, Jimmy went bazerk in the Sky ranger, Jimmy was carrying a rocket launcher How do people play without smoke, it seems that at least smoke can maybe help you survive the ramp, but without it, there isn't much of a chance.

I've done them all I think.. I've done the squad from the movie Aliens (haven't we all?), maybe video game characters, back when I first played the game I think I used WWF Wrestling characters, one guy ended up being a math teacher I didn't care for too much, he uhmm... sacrificed himself, enough TUs to prime a heavy explosive, just not enough TUs to get out of its range I guess his calculations where a bit off. Definitely did the action hero thing, like Rambo, John Matrix, J. Conner, Ripley of course, etc..etc...

Well I got my arse whooped. I handled the normal crash missions pretty ok, but that first terror mission destroyed me. The circle disc things took out my tanks in one shot, everyone else was decimated. So now I started a new one on Genius level, but I'm being more careful and trying to pick up some solid strategies. I'm choosing to go with man power over tanks, since I think I can get about 10 soldiers for the price of one tank, so it just makes more sense. I also think that 2 man fire teams are just not enough, on a couple of occasions I split up two guys to go around the back side of an alien ship and while they did some damage they never made it around to the door So from now on I'm going to use at least 3 and maybe 4 man groups when they branch out. This time I bee lined for Laser Rifles, so I think when that first terror mission shows up I'll be much better prepared to handle the discs, because the regular rifles did nothing. Question on Proximity Grenades. Do you have to step on exactly the square that it is on for it to go off, or does it have a range? Either way, I'm amazed at how quickly this old game sucked me back in. The graphics are rough, no doubt, but the strategy and the atmosphere and the way it plays is still amazing. Plus I threw in the patch that allows me to right click open doors, and no longer limits the smoke on the map among other things and it just plays great!

I was contemplating superhuman, but is that just an exercise in futility or can it be done? If not, what's a reasonable difficulty? I'm certainly looking for one hell of a challenge, I want it to feel like I'm barely hanging in there... but I also want sound tactics to pay off for the most part.

Stumbled up this thread on Steam: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/show...d.php?t=1146530 Looks like the windows version is there and can be used, plus the mods and the better music sounds like the perfect way to play. I'm going to give this a shot tonight and see what I think. I'm most excited about the "open door without having to walk through it" fix.

I got the Steam version the other day but I also have the Windows version, somewhere, in a box, somewhere... I just learned the Steam version has the difficulty bug, so that I can patch I guess, but I'm wondering if the Windows version is superior in any other way to the Dos version... will it look any better for example? Basically, is it worth the effort to go digging through boxes to get the windows version out?