Orac

Telstar probably just drew up a contract with Mythos (or whoever held the copyright for xcom back at the time) to be able to distribute the game in their bundle. Mythos probably gets a royalty in return. That's my guess, but all of that here say. No telling what sort of deal Mythos and Telstar worked out. Only Mythos and Telstar would know for sure, and even then, they probably both have a slightly different story on what the deal is. All of it comes down to what sort of deal two companies worked out legally. Also, sometimes publishers will have developers sign contracts that gives the publisher sole publishing rights. Sometimes not. It all really comes down to what sort of deal two parties work out. Then it's on paper from there and arbitrated in courts if there's a dispute over the contract between them. Telstar does have the copyright though over the medium that it's on. Like if it came in CD form it means they have the copyright over those CDs. There's a difference between intellectual ownership and copyrights. Copyright merely just means that whoever has the copyright has the right to determine who, how, and what limitations others have of copying their material. i.e. cloning the actual CD itself. They've worked out a deal with Mythos to be able to distribute their game through there own channels and on media provided by them at a price. So in a sense, lets say someone made illegal copies from the telstar disk, they'd be infringing upon two copyrights. Infringing upon Telstar's copyright by cloning the media, but also breaking the EULA of Mythos. Any of us could distribute copies of Xcom and make a profit if we got permission from Mythos. Probably would have to work out some sort of deal with them. Afterall, they're going to want something out of it. Even then though, you couldn't copy Telstar's disks unless you also worked out a deal with them. Now lets say you got permission from all the same developers that Telstar did in their bundle and compiles your own bundle that had the exact identical games in it. That would probably be perfectly legal as long as you didn't copy them from Telstar's media. Hope that all makes sense. Essentially all that copyright has to do with is the right to make copies. He who holds the copyright has the right to regulate the stipulations when it comes to copying. Think of copying not as stealing an idea, but more as actually duplicating. Copyrights have more to do with medium (be it paper, some form of tape, digital, etc) than concepts. A concept can't actually be copywritten.

In TFTD it seems like many of the aliens have insane reaction in general. All too many times in TFTD the following scenario happens. Move a few men through a door, one of them goes auto with gauss rifle, or single shot with a heavy gauss, or even sonic blasta rifle. They hit the alien in the back, but alien survive and just turns around and kills them. Anyway, I think they went overboard with the reaction of many of the aliens in TFTD. It seems like no matter what you do with some of them, you're going to lose at least one man per entry way. TFTD is cool, but it seems like they rush it too much and there were many balancing issues. Kudos to the people who beat it though. They must've been very good at overcoming frustration. I mean there's one thing about making a game challenging and I like that about UFO. But sometimes you feel like Mythos was being a little slap shot about it. Like instead of having you try have more sound tactics to overcome the challenge, they seemed to just give the aliens really strong stats. I would've prefered more reasonable stats (challenging but reasonable), but better AI instead. Not that I think it's easy to make AI, but that would've been more ideal and probably held my interest better. Inflating enemy unit's stats is kind of the easy way out and no substitute for better AI. Not knocking Mythos though. They probably would've like to have gone that route instead, if they would've had the time and breathing room to have. Somehow TFTD, in general, always left me with the impression that Microprose put alot of pressure for them to get it out the door in timely fashion. Like too many things in TFTD they seemed like they were on the right track and were adding things that had tremendous potential to add to the game alot, but somehow they weren't given enough time to flesh it out as good as they would've liked. A prime example is the cruise liner missions. Those could've been so much better and were a great idea. It's just they always felt like they didn't have enough time to implement them like they originally envisioned. Anyway, TFTD and UFO defense are both cool. It's just I would've prefered to have waited another year to see TFTD's full potential.

I don't prime grenade(s) before entering either. I used to use that tactic. While realistically it's a good tactic, in the game it often works against me. Seems that all too often throwing a grenade, more than most other types of actions, tends to draw alien reaction fire. To much of the time the guy throwing the grenade gets wasted. Does anyway for me. Seems like priming a grenade is what would be a good tactic. I use a different strategy now. After I've cleared everything up to the crashed UFO I then bring my two COs up to it. I have them get right up against the outer hull and perform motion scans. If I'm in doubt and think that there could be aliens holding still, I do scans over a few turns. While doing the scans I start to set up my squad outside the entrace so they can make it into the enterance area and have TUs left over to shoot anything that may be lurking. If it's a big UFO, I bring my COs in after I've moved in a good chunk of the combat oriented men. The COs stay back a bit where it's safer, but stay close enough they can scan ahead of the assault squad. I almost never ever bring in my HWs (guys toting HC, RLs, or ACs). The only exception is if they're toting heavy beam weapons. But if they're using HCs, ACs, or launchers, I don't. I never waste precious space giving my HC toting troop anything but HE ammo (while many players seem to recommend giving them some AP ammo in case they get jumped, I find it's usually unecessary since I use them with the role of artillery in mind). I mainly use them to act like mobile artillery and generally only keep 2 for a squad of 14 men total. I really seem to never need more than that since the maps aren't really all that big. Just merely having 2 seems like enough that I have artillery wherever I need it. For the way I play anyway. I think also it's because I've been more partial for the whole idea of giving the majority of the squad some form of rifle. Maybe it's the WWII nut in me. The COs get pistols so they can always have a piece of gear in their left hand without any penalty without having to spend TUs to fumble through their inventory. Works out good for COs since I never use them for the heavy combat roles anyway and the low TU cost of pistol variant weapons seem to make them ideal as defensive weapons and close quarters (like ideal weapon when a character gets in a jam since they get lost of actions as a result of the low TU cost. I guess I tend to associate pistols as being ideal for rear echelon troops). I use COs more for specialized things like capturing and scanning etc. I also keep 2 medics. Generally my medics are just like all my regular combat troops (or what I call riflemen). They get some form of rifle and a variety of grenades (just like how I stock my riflemen). The difference is that I tend to relegate my soldiers with the highest TUs to the role of medic. Also always give medics smoke grenades. The reason for all of that is because TUs become important to being able to make it to a wounded soldier in a timely fashion and have enough TUs to operate the medkit. I stock them with smoke grenades because sometimes it can be handy if someone gets wounded in a spot that's real vulnerable. Like if one of the soldiers walks into an alien ambush and gets wounded and knocked out, throwing a couple of smoke grenades on his incapacitated body seems to help. At the very least, makes it harder for the medic to get hit when he goes in to operate. Most ideally it helps shorten the visibility enough so that the aliens can no longer see the medic and his patient. Regardless, I always give my medics smoke grenades just in case of a situation where they may make all the difference in the world for the medic being able to get to a fallen comrade. That's seems to be how smoke grenades are - useless 90% of the time, but for those rare times where they're handy, they're a total godsend. That's fine with me though, because I don't have to hassle with restocking them very often. Also, not only do my medics get medkits, but both of my COs do as well since they also tend to have very very high TUs (I think they tend to have high TUs because of the manner in which I use them - keep them in the transport till it's clear to the crashed UFO, then have them haul ass there. Good medikit carrying candidate none the less.) and they're often near the rear of the squad and less likely to be downed. Also, all my medics and COs get stun rods. Again because of their high TUs, but COs especially are prime candidates because they also carry scanners. Anyway, Ego Terrorist sounds like he likes tactics similar to what I like. When I read your post it reminded me of alot of what I think about in Xcom. I notice you like to have more HW guys though. I've never tried it that way. However, lately I've started having 4 heavy laser troops since I using an Avenger where I'm at currently. I try to give heavy laser to what I call my sharp shooters. I think of them more like snipers with high tech sniper rifles. I have Heavy plasma available, but just seems like I like using laser based weapons more. Seems to be working pretty good with laser weapons and it's nice not having to fuss with the extra logistics. Not to mention all the extra cash from selling plasma weapons recovered. I used to swear by plasma weapons, but in more recent campaigns I'm not so sure they better than lasers. When you consider all the different aspect besides just damage and weigh it all out, it seems like lasers may come out slightly ahead. Hard to say though, still have mixed thoughts on laser vs. plasma. When I say plasma I mean any kind of plasm. Even heavy plasma. Again, I figure heavy plasma is assumed since it's so good compared to the plasma pistol and rifle. Like it seems their's almost no reason to use plasma rifle over heavy plasma. I can't think of any good enough trade-off to plasma rifle compared to heavy plasma to merit even considering plasma rifle over heavy plasma in any situation. Then again, maybe there's something I'm missing.

You may need a slow down util of some sort. There are many out there. Tons to choose from. The most popular seems to be moslo though. Except keep in mine the free version of it is for dos. It's probably going to be the "biz" version that you'll be interested in. Of course another alternative is to go into the BIOS and purposely slow down the computer, however that may be impractical. It's the best way to achieve the smoothest slow down though. The irony of it all is that they quit including turbo switches around the time of the Pentium, when the beginning of where it was needed even more. There's alot to go over to even attempt to begin to describe all the different alternatives and ways to approach that issue. There's many different slow down utils some of them being real versatile and giving you alot of control, while others being more user friendly. Out of all of the ones I've tried, Moslo seems to strike a good middle ground between those two factors - pretty good while also being rather straight forward. Bremze is a real good one, but it tends to take alot of experimentation to find that sweat spot of enough slow down with maximum smoothness. First of all though, you may want to give the Collector's Edition a try. Hell, that may be the only version that works on XP anyway. You may not need a slow down util for that version. You may however need a particular fix for it to get it to run on XP without losing sound without having to resort to turning off a directx related setting (can't remember the exact one off hand). Personally, I'd go search around in the bargain bins and see if you can find the xcom games in the collector's editions at a steal. You'll probably be wasting your time even bothering with the dos version. Especially if your sound card will have pretty good wave table synthesis (which is about the only reason I can think of to go with the dos version - that it's FM synth music sounds so much better than the collector's edition, but like I said, it's kind of moot point if you have decent wave table synth, which you most likley will since almost any fairly recent sound card does, unless you're a real stickler). If you get the dos version, then you'll have some hassles of getting it to run under XP. May even need to resort to a dual boot or just be good at setting compatibility settings in XP. Remember that XP doesn't have dos, it merely emulates it. Anyway, the gist of it, is that the dos version are probably not the way to go for you. Another alternative, and my favorite one, is to use an old system for xcom. That's really the best way IMHO. But it's going to depend upon what you've got to work with. Xcom is one of the reason (not the only one though) to hang onto old hardware. I mean, even if you have only a 14" monitor for your old system, it's actually rather nice that way since xcom is at 320x200 resolution. Looks nicer on a smaller monitor. Less pixelated anyway.

What's sad is being so religious over such a trivial thing. Personally, I couldn't care less how anyone plays the game. Whatever they want to do, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. There's alot of other more important things to get all worked about. Ok, so you hate reloaders. Why don't you go to Washington D.C. and lobby over it now. Afterall, your enterpretation is law.

Chrysalids all in the warehouse? Those are times you wish you had lots of alien grenades (oh wait you aren't using those, so high explosives will do since those are terran) or large rockets so you can just totally demolish the whole building full of them. Maybe a combo of large rockets, heavy cannon-HE, and high explosives between many men would do the trick. Then have your riflemen and AC-men finish off the stragglers that come running out. If you bring a tank along, they seem to make good decoys. It seems like it's not uncommon for a chrysalid to go after the tank, except you don't have to worry about it becoming a zombie. Kind of funny to watch. Probably should put the tank (rocket version) at point to help in the demolishing and to help attract the chrysalid giving your men opportunity to stun and/or destroy it.

Automated is an very ambiguous term though. Automated could mean either it's AI controlled, remote controlled, or just automated enough to require a smaller crew to man it (like one man, instead of needing a loader, driver, etc). Yeah, but it's interesting to theorize over. I'm kind of glad they were real ambiguous about the tanks, because it gives us something to mull over.

Plus it seems like they make up for their lack of damage in the amount of attacks you can get with them per turn. Also that flexibility they have, like whether you want to attack a few times, then still be able to move to safety, or attack many times, or just be to attack once and move alot, etc etc. Like that whole statistical analysis of pistols vs. rifles (mentioned in the USG). It doesn't take into account the versatility and adaptability aspect of them. I don't know of any way you can measure that either, but more that it's one of those those things you just get an opinion of how you feel about it over time. My conclusion was that I noticed that often times my soldiers with some form of pistol seemed to survive more often than my soldiers with rifles, missions where most combat happenned in close ranges (like due to lot's of buildings and terrain layout etc). Other's conclusions and mileage is probably going to vary based upon lots of different factors like tactics they use with them (and what other equipment they use). Like I find a soldier with a motion scanner and some form of pistol fairs rather well in interior places. Though alot of my riflemen do as well thanks to that soldier with the motion scanner. I guess though, that I generally feel safer in cramped quarters with a pistol since I have plenty of TUs to have many tactical options available. Like those aliens equiped with heavier weapons just can't seem to be able to chase you and still have enough TUs to kill you. Whereas the guy with pistol can keep hit and running them till they die. I guess though, I feel the whole pistol vs. rifle debate is pretty moot. I just leave it at that they both have their pros and cons and it's going to come down to how the player utilizes them for which is better for him. Anyway, the akimbo pistol idea is a good one I never even thought about before reading this thread. I think I want to try that sometime. Like give most of my men mixtures of two different kinds of pistols, then have a couple of guys with motion scanners in their off hand, or other special gear. Or what about guys with some kind of pistol and lots of grenades? Like just think. You could prime all their grenades near the beginning of the mission, then they could throw and shoot on single turns alot where needed for the tougher aliens. Like grenade a muton, then finish him off with the pistol. Actually, more technically, probably blast a muton with the pistol and finish him off with a grenade. But it would seem there would be lots of possibilities with that combo alone. My guess is that it's probably going to be playing off all the versatility and different possibilities that's going to make the biggest impact in a pistol only campaign. i.e. thinking of all sorts of different combos for different situations.

I got introduced from that very exact same demo (PCgamer) of TFTD. Then the next week I went out and bought the floppy version of TFTD. Somehow I got sidetracked from it for awhile, then came back to it again. Are you sure it was 11 years ago though? I could swear I was somewhere in my mid or early 20s when that demo came out and I'm only 29 (practically 30) now. Anyway, I remember thinking how great TFTD was, then I later found out how great UFO was (sometimes I think how much better UFO is). I too liked how you could open doors in TFTD better though. I never realized they didn't react to grenade tosses in TFTD. That doesn't really bother me all that much though. Actually what bothers me is how too many of the aliens in TFTD have insane reaction in general. It's like in TFTD if you have to attack at a door, you can almost count on that soldier dieing most of the time. Unless the alien is weak enough that your weapon will definitely kill it in one turn, and/or he's alone. I also always hated those cruise liner missions in TFTD. They seems like they're just more to just put the hurt to you more than anything else if you should happen to try to actually complete them to the end. Seems like most people just touch down shoot up any nearby aliens, then get the hell out of there as to not take a huge penalty for no response. I can't say I blame players one bit for adopting that policy toward those missions. Those types of missions are just no fun. They're not even that rewarding. They feel more like they're just there to punish you and ruin the fun. Those cruise liners remind me of back with Doom when you'd see those maps that new designers would make that were no fun. Like where they'd go overboard with making them difficult (i.e. put the player in a square room with 20 cyberdemons and no cover). You'd pretty much load up those maps and play for like 10 second and figure that it was pretty stupid and pointless and delete the terrible map immediately. You'd also ask yourself, why they expect anyone to play such a map. That's how those cruise liner missions are in my opinion - what's the point of having them? They detract from the the game for mere novelty. I can forgive the developers though, because afterall they made UFO defense. They're obviously excellent game developers. So what if they made a few mistakes in TFTD. Don't get me wrong though, I like TFTD. It's just there was a few things about it that just weren't right. Probably not the developer's fault. I always got the feeling they were rushed to releasing it before they wanted to. They probably wanted to polish and refine it more, but it just wasn't an option. I definitely never regretted ever buying TFTD. They more than earned that money between UFO and it. If anything, in hindsight, I wish I would've bought more of their games so they'd still be developing games today. UFO beats the crap out any game that even comes out to this day. Maybe they have prettier graphics, but they don't have anything remotely close to xcom where it counts - gameplay and the ability to hold your interest for what seems like forever. Xcom is so good that even in this day and age, I don't feel the antiquated VGA graphics detract from it in anyway. They feel totally adequate since the game plays so well. I guess I don't even notice that the graphics are considered antiquated.

I just never found it hard to believe that a pilot of a top-secret, elite, military orgranization, trained to be a part of a tank crew, couldn't have down enough of the basics to be able to pilot a transport back to base. Maybe not the way the military, as we know it, go about things, but maybe "tankers" for the xcom program would, just for the very reason that they could make it back to base if there were no pilots or soldiers left. I mean how else could it be explained that a transport can dust off as long as one soldier or tank make it aboard? So one could assume everyone in x-com, with the exception of scientists and engineers, have all been given some form of basic training in how to pilot a skyranger for instance. Maybe that's one of the many qualifications for all we know - that they be able to have down the rudimentary skills to be able to pilot a transport. Afterall, from the looks of it, every x-com soldiers has the ability to pilot a transport. Otherwise you shouldn't be losing a transport craft if nobody makes it back to it alive. Like if the skyranger had a dedicated pilot, he'd just be able to take off if the whole squad got wasted. For some reason though, it's required that at least one soldier or tank make it aboard (and be conscious if they're soldier) to not lose the transport. It's rather inconsistent as to why, and never explained very well. Like if we go with the idea that a tank has AI, why is it necessary for the tank to make it back to the transport if there are no soldiers? Afterall, any AI that the tank could have to make it allow the transport to fly off they could just as easily put in the transport itself. If a tank is remote controlled, then why again is it necessary for it to make it back, if there are no soldiers left? Any remote controls put on a tank could again be installed on the transport. If a tank has at least one human inhabitting it, then it could be explained why the transport can make it back. I mean, any technology that would allow that tank not to need a soldier left on the field to operate, could be applied to the transport. While a transport is going to be much more complex than a tank, to get to do what you want, it still wouldn't explain why a tank must make it back, because if the tank allows a transport to make it home, then the tank has some sort of resource available (be it AI, RC, or a person) to it that the transport doesn't without it. Why would they limit using that resource in question merely to the tank? Afterall, a transport is much bigger, and why would they put that vital resource, that allows the transport to dust off, only in a tank that's likely to be blown up? Why would they build such a dependency if they had the technology available to give the tank that needed resource? Unless for some strange reason x-com's brass feels that a transport shouldn't come home if they lose all their soldiers assigned to it and any HWPs.

Yeah, eventually heavy plasma clips don't even become an issue. But the advantage of lasers is that you can sell off all that plasma related stuff for even more money that can fund R&D and allow you to manufacture and research much faster (on top of money you gain by other means. i.e. selling manufactured stuff, and funding). Also, lasers are wonderful for their logistics - meaning more space on the transport for other goodies and being able to support a larger squad as a result. I mean, aren't you going to want to equip each man with at least 1 heavy plasma clip so they can go in loaded? That means extra space per plasma weapon that could've been used for other gear and/or allow for more weapons to bring more soldiers. A tank is only so useful. Eventually, your men get strong enough that they make a tank look obsolete. There of course is the more advanced tanks, but even they don't develop like your men do, hence why most players use tanks mostly for scouting and beating the brush. But a large squad can beat the brush rather easily with their collective firepower. Heavy cannons, work great for that, especially if you have a few of them working together at it. A few HC-HE toting troops can fire many more times than a tank can per turn. Or, if you want even better brush beating power, bring along a few RL guys. With lasers, you have plenty of room for all sorts of configurations that beat any tank in usefulness. The tradeoff for a tank is 4 men. 4 Men can accomplish anything much more proficiently in my opinion. They can also be more versatile. Like how your men eventually have tons of TU but can also be in different places at the same time. While at the same time they're improving each mission unlike a tank. The counter to that might be that losing a tank isn't as big of deal as men. That's very true, but those same 4 same guys a tank replaces, is that many mission of where they couldn't have gotten some more experience. You're getting to train 4 more guys per tank per mission by taking them instead. I generally take tanks as a last resort. I consider them to be totally expendible. Which I'm sure most do as well. They're great for that, but that's about it. So I'll take tanks when I have a strong feeling the odds are really going to be stacked when I land. Then I can use the tank as a lure or as the expendible asset to give the rest of the squad better odds. That seems to be rare for me though, because usually not being short on those extra soldiers, keeps the odds from being stacked against me since there's often plenty of firepower to go around. It really all comes down to playstyle in the end though. Because there are tons of ways to skin a cat in UFO. The developers really knew what they were doing in how they balanced everything and you just don't see that meticulous attention put into balancing everything in games anymore. I used to swear by heavy plasma, but after my more recent game, I swear by laser weaponry (more accurately would be that my opinion is that it's practically impossible to say which is better). Is it any wonder the poll results are tied between laser rifles and heavy plasma? They're both the king of weapons in the game because of all their pros and cons in comparison to each other. While heavy plasma looks better if you just compare TUs, accuracy, and damage, there's so much more involved in xcom than just those factors. On the scope of the whole campaign laser rifles have those logistical advantages that offset those other factors where heavy plasma beats it somewhat. Unlimited ammo, is only one aspect of their logistical advantage. The other is how they do so well with the item limit. I'll just leave it at this. If you go with laser rifles over heavy plasma, there's going to be more need to play in such a way that your men cover each other better. To me that's not a bad thing at all, because that's how I play the game anyway. So if one is a player that prefers use their soldiers more independently, then heavy plasma may be the way to go over lasers. It's great that we have real good options for both types of playing style. Moreso, for any kind of playing style.

Sometimes you lose men no matter what. Depending upon your playstyle, how you go through the research tree can make a huge difference. For me, I find my survival rate goes way up if I go straight for laser weaponry right off the bat. Then go in the direction of getting power and flying suits. At some point I like to get motion scanners and medikits. Usually get those right before my research toward power suits is completed. It's about a balancing act between protection and offensive capabilities. Offensive capabilities help in that you can kill the aliens faster which mean less chance for them to kill you, however good protection give you many more chances to kill them. You can actually make mince meat out of Mutons in nighttime jungles with a squad only armed with laser rifles and ACs. If they've got at least power suits, and you are good about covering each other, you can do such a mission without any casualties, even with brand spanking new rookies. Medikits also help. What I'd do is get laser weaponry right off the bat (I prefer to get all the soldier-based laser weapons - laser pistols, laser rifles, and heavy lasers, you can worry about cannons later on). Then get your personal armor. Then get motion scanners and medi-kits. Get aliens grenades somewhere in there too. Then put all your research efforts toward getting power armor. As for flying suits, they don't seem critical, but can be an added bonus. They have a little better armor than power suits, but take a considerabl e amount more elerium to produce. Might want to give a few of your men flying suits though. Anyway, once you get power armor, the game become a huge step toward becoming easier for you men to survive. Even with laser rifles, they can put the hurt to the aliens good without suffering hardly any casualties if they have power and/or flying suits. Personal armor is practically useless IMHO. Your men generally only survive slightly less easy than their default coveralls. I see personal armor as nothing more than a stop-gap solution until you get power armor. It's better than coveralls, but not by much. 'Cause with power suits, it's not all that uncommon for a soldier to have a grenade land near them, or getting nailed by heavy plasma, and they suffer no serious wounds. Whereas with personal armor, it's not all that common for a soldier in that same situation to survive at all. With personal armor, you're just praying they only get seriously wounded instead of being instantly dead. Keep in mind power armor isn't miracle armor, cause they can outright die if they get nailed good, but it tends to happen less often by and large. Seems like the aliens have to get good solid hits on them. Whereas if they even graze your foot in the other type you're as good as dead half of the time So I guess my tip for bringing up your survival rate is to get good protection and have your men cover each other more. Also use motion scanners before entering doors there could be aliens behind. In fact, do scans for a few turns prior to get an idea of what the aliens are up to and to try to plan so you'll be in conact with them on your turn instead of theirs. One thing about having your men cover each other. Be a little careful about bunching them up. It's usually around that time the aliens like to chuck grenades at them. With that said, don't be afraid to bunch them up either when it works in your favor. Just keep in mind that the aliens have the same limitations as you do with them. -at least one of them has to have spotted your men. If one of them sees those men, then they all do and it may be an alien you don't see (an alien that didn't directly spot them, but has the knowledge of their position because one of his buddies did spot them) that does the actual grenade chucking. -Just how it takes you considerable TUs to prime and then throw a grenade, it takes the alien many. Beware though, that some aliens have lots of TUs in their stats. -Tanks also have a tendency to attract explosives and grenade from the aliens. So be careful about getting your men close to your tanks. -Speaking of, since in this game I haven't used tanks, I can't remember the last time an alien chucked a grenade at my men. I've even been more sloppier than usual about not spreading them out well. -Best thing of all is to try to form all of your men into a reasonably well spread out column formation, and have them all move from one side of the map to the other. There of course is going to be buildings and obstacle along the way that will prevent it in many cases, but that's where you adjust their formation to compensate. The added advantage of thinking and playing in this way is that you establish secured areas much quicker where you know you can safely manuever your specialists without reserving TUs for reaction fire. -Oftentimes the hardest part in a mission is just getting out of the transport in one piece. Try to form your entire squad in a circular formation around the transport with enough TUs reserved for a snap or auto shot, within the first turn. That way you have much better odds of spotting any nearby threats when you're deploying. Anyway, I don't think it's so much that you're doing anything wrong as it might be you just are still figuring out what might work out well. Just keep playing and don't worry too much about casualties. In fact, it's taking casualties that teach the most. Also, don't be afraid to start over if you think you can do even better. Every time I start a new game, I do way way better than the game before in not just the battlescape but in the game in every aspect. Also, I think no matter how good someone is, it's always the beginning of the game that you're going to take the most losses. Don't worry about it too much. Even losing your well developed soldiers don't worry about, because a rookie will eventually develop even further than they did. The game isn't over till you've lost. Remember that soldiers are merely pawns. Non of them are like other chess pieces, because they can be replaced. Actually at the beginning of the game, I just cruise through it, losses and all. That way I can get through as quickly as possible. I rush through the missions and take casualties. I don't even bother with screening soldiers. I just treat them all as cannon fodder. Eventually you hit a point where they're survivability is good enough you can start worrying about them. But that has more to do with how far you are along in research and technology than anything else. You may even try, on a different save slot, just playing it from the standpoint of your men being cannon fodder. Then see how far you get. You'll probably start moving through the game fast. Also, last but not least, never let your engineers idle. Always have them produce. One of the best items to produce in mass quantities to sell is the motion scanner. It's profit per hour is really good. That will help you maximize profit in the shortest amount of time, which in turn will help you be able to support more scientists, which in turn will help you get better technology sooner. When your technology gets good, your rookies start to even survive well. Like when they have power suits or flying suits they tend not to drop dead at the drop of a hat. Also, don't try to have as many men attacking a target at once, but also a few men to watch their backs. When you're faced with a few aliens at once, it's often better to concentrate on one at a time. Each dead alien is one less that can shoot back. Also the closer ones are the generally the ones you want to give the highest priority to since they're less likley to miss.

Seems like it was never clear in the game. I'd just go with whichever you like best. Personally, I like to think of the HWPs as being like tanks that are manned by a crew. One possible counter to that is that, "how come the tank never advances like soldiers then? And why don't you have to assign it's crew?". I've always thought of that easily explained by that tanks, unlike soldiers on foot, have limitations defined by the tank's capabilities itself. While a soldier on foot could become faster, more accurate, and react better as they got more experience, the tanks would be limited by it's design. i.e. it's turret can turn only so fast, it has a set top speed, etc. What about bravery? The way I explain that is that if you saw infantry being splattered all around you while in a tank, would you be more scared? The weapons that are wasting them, you're rather well protected from. Besides, in a tank, it's what you usually don't see that blows you to pieces. i.e. that enemy infantry guy you didn't notice who was aiming his AT weapon at you, or that other tanks. No matter how much hell is going on around you, you're not going to panic and jump out of the tank since you're much safer inside. Only thing on your mind is going to be trying to find what's blasting all your infantry around you and taking it out. In a tank, you know your only chance for survival is good communication between it's crew, staying calm, and being effecient. It's not like running like hell, or going beserk is going to help you possibly survive. Anyway, that's just the way I like to think of HWPs. I think you should go with whatever you like best in the fiction you write. Afterall, there's nothing wrong with artistic license. It's actually usually a nice thing to see in writing - other's interpretation of subject matter. Also, if you think of HWPs the same way I do, then that easily explains how your skyranger makes it back home - one of the guys in the tank pilot it back. Perhaps it could be assumed they're been trained to pilot many air and ground based vehicles. Being that's they're a part of x-com, it wouldn't be too far of stretch for them to have been trained in many many things. Afterall, they're supposed to be the best of the best so why shouldn't it be assumed there's lots of cross training going on?

Hard to say, but it seems like laser rifle is about best. It's definitely a toss-up betwen laser rifle and heavy plasma though since they both have their definite pros and cons, because on one hand unlimited ammo and easy logistic can be nice, on the other the damage per shot of the heavy plasma is devastating, but it'll cost ya - in both E-115 and space. I wish they would've made the plasma rifle a little more useful. Seems like it's just only good as a stop-gap weapon. Was interesting to see there was some votes for standard-rifles and pistols. I think that's kind of cool. Kindof a themeatic way to play x-com and also shows some style. Maybe next game I'll try going the standard-issue (only allow rifles and pistols) only approach.

What I hate is when people cheat in multiplayer games. I mean, if they want to ruin the game for themselves, it doesn't really affect anyone but them (possiblt cheating themselves out of opportunity for rewarding experiences etc). But multiplayer cheaters ruin a game for the whole gameplaying community. There's probably nothing lower when it comes to gaming than cheaters who cheat at multiplayer.

I like to have my squad consist mostly of riflemen. I generally have a couple of COs, medics, and few heavies. Each rifleman gets issued identical rifles (either the best rifle possible or laser rifles depending up logistics and what I think the mission is going to be like. Note when I say rifle I even mean heavy plasma if applicable), 1 or 2 grenades (preferably alien grenades), 1 or 2 proximity grenade, and 1 smoke grenade (if logistics are possible to fit it on the transport), and if it's night I try to give every soldier one electro-flare, regardless of role or rank. The only difference between my medics and standard riflemen is medics get a medi-kit and stun rod on top of the other, what I call "standard issue gear". I usually have two medics per squad. My COs get best and most applicable type of pistol (usually laser or plasma pistol with an extra clip), motion scanner, medi-kit, stun-rod, one of each type of grenade, and possibly a mind-probe or psi-amp. So my COs are like jack of all trades light combat units. They perform more specialized tasks like recon etc. Also there mainly to help keep up morale, so I try to keep them safe. My heavies get issued a grenade (preferably alien grenade) and some heavy weapon (later in the game, I may even issue them heavy plasma, but I tend associate heavy plasma as being more of just a kick-ass rifle than a heavy weapon) be it an AC with as much incendiary ammo as they can carry(keep in mind, ideally without being encumbered. Though I usually have a minimal loadout to where I disregard encumberance since if they hold below that limit they need to be encumbered to get their strength high enough not to be), HC with as much HE ammo as they can carry, or an RL with various rocket loadouts (most common loadout being 1 small rocket and 3 large rockets. Generally, I find incendiary rockets useless for my uses so don't usually stock any. I mean I usually want a smaller explosion or a very damaging big one, and incendiary rockets seem rather redundant to me since I usually have one HW guy with AC-I anyway.). My RL guy will always have some form of backup pistol. I tend mostly to use heavies with a role in mind to either concentrate fire power in an area, or associate them as being like mobile artillery units. If they were WWII troops they'd be the guys who tote around a mortor or machine gun for the squad. That's how I've come to think of them. So my most common squad configuration is 8 riflemen (2 of them being medics) 2 CO/specialists, and 4 heavies (2 with an HC with HE ammo, 1 with an AC with incendiary ammo, and one with an RL and pistol along with possibly different loadouts depending upon mission). I generally don't bother with tanks anymore, I find that I like a larger squad more. This of course starts to all change later on in the game. Later on the in the game, most of my men are toting heavy plasma. My usual tactic is to try to form a spread out column, with HWs and COs in the rear, or HW near the center, that sweeps acrossed the map turn by turn clearing out all enemies along the way. Any buildings or house along the way, my COs start doing their scanning and often are the ones to do most of clearing them out. Also I tend to use rookies for this also. Most often though, a mixture of COs and rookies. Of course all of that varies depending upon the tactical situation. Sometimes the terrain is such that I have to use completely different tactics. My main tactic at the beginning of a mission and how to deploy is to have my guys at the front go off the side of the ramp and then move toward the front of the transport, on on each side. The second two guys in line go out downward toward the front of the transport and diagonally outward. Then the two guys that are third in line go directly out to the left and right of the transport. Then the fourth sort diagonally away and off to each side of the transport, and then the fifth in line go straight out from rear of the transport. That way, on my first turn I end up with well spread out circle of men around the transport to spot any enemies. Also I generally will give extra gear (like when I have a limited amount of smoke grenades and flares) to my first soldiers in the loadout screen (i.e. soldier 0, soldier 1, soldier 2, soldier 3, and so on...). That way the early to deploy troops get the extra gear since they're usually the ones that need it the most and engage the enemy first. I mean, half of the time, a good portion of the combat is right outside the transport. Then it's a bughunt from there where at that point I start setting up my frontline to sweep the map. This seems to eliminate the occurance of the monotonous scenario where you spend many many turns trying to find last one or few aliens. Also, I generally keep my COs and RL guy in the transport until the area around the transport is secured. Then, at that point, I generally have an idea where they're needed most and they can usually get into ideal positions more safely. Out in the open, it's generally my rookies I move forward in the frontline first (guess you could call them point men in a sense). That way they get first dibs at downing a spotted alien and getting that much needed experience they need. Also the more experienced troops usually aren't too far behind them and can help bail them out if needed. As far as enclosed areas, it's often ends up being whoever is in the best position to go in and clear a structure out, is the one(s) that end up getting relegated to the role. Ideally it's a mixture of rookies and more experienced troops. Usually I try to let the rookies enter and fire first because it both give them a good opportunity for when I catch the alien off guard, and also draws reaction fire if there's going to be any from the aliens. The more experienced troops are accompanying him in case he runs out of TUs before he can finish off the discovered alien. Not really all that sadistic to the rookies I believe. Afterall, doesn't it just make the most sense to have an experienced soldier cover a less experienced ones in so many ways? Both from a realism standpoint, and common sense standpoint? In situations where I'm getting ready to enter a UFO, I generally first get my COs up to the UFO, then position them in those areas of the hull that go inward and have them do some scanning (note: all the expending of all their TUs to get to the site seems to help bring up their TUs, and energy, which is just what I want them to have tons of). While simultaneously I start setting up my squad in good positions outside the door to react to anything that may pop out. While simultaneously I have a couple of rookies gather around the outside of the door. All throughout these "setting up turns" I have the COs do scanning for a few turns (mainly the important thing is to get the, whoever you have doing scanning guy, in a position where they can detect any movement near the inner room of the UFO at the entry-way) so I can try to both feel a trend in what the aliens inside may be up to, and so I can pickup any aliens on my scanner near the entry-way, that may be deciding to hold still for a turn or so. I keep scanning and waiting till I feel is a good time to have my rookies rush in and blast the place up. My seasoned soldiers are one step right behind to help cover. I generally will send in heavies and COs last. You know, explosive weapons have a tendency to backfire in tight quarters. That way I avoid putting any of my heavies in immediate danger where they may be forced take action when it's less than ideal. After the initial UFO entry phase, it's then time to organize my squad. The idea, for me here, is to keep my COs out of danger as much as possible but also be able to position them where they can get a good scan into the next room. Often the COs will end up finishing off any aliens left standing after my riflemen have spent all their TUs. What I like about these tactics and strategies is that it seems like, from what I can tell, that it advances different levels of soldiers in a rather scaleable way. Like the less experienced soldiers start to catch up with the more experienced soldiers in a very fast and efficient way. Impact of losses is also minimized this way. I find I don't need to rotate my soldiers as much as well. I, of course, will often rotate my base defense squad and a assault squad though. Like if I got a bunch of losses, the new recruits are the ones for the next mission. Of course a couple COs are going to accompany them on the mission. In fact, depending upon how many COs are available, they generally go on every away mission. They need to be there to help the rookie's morale and my COs aquire experience often slower than my grunts since I mainly use them as backup firepower. So what you end up with is: -COs, while they tend not to engage in hectic fire fights, they advance steadily because they're regularly on away missions. This has the added benefit of keeping them safe and morale from sinking as badly in general. -Rookies advance rather fast since they get the most opportunity to get "broken in". However, they get the advantage of backup and cover fire from more experienced squad-mates. -More experienced squadmates scale well in stat advancement with less experienced squadmates. -Losses and impact on morale for losses are minimized. Anyway, those are my latest strategies, and so far it seems to be panning out real well for me. Alot of what I wrote is probably going to be more of use earlier in the game, because it seems later on the game tactics become less important since your soldier end up becoming walking tanks. I think that's why I have the most fun in the earlier part of the game.

I tend to treat my rookies as one of the guys. Once my soldiers get to be captain or higher though, I tend to use them more as rear echelon troops. I pretty much send all my rookies, squaddies, and sergeants out together. However, if I see a situation where risk is high (like entering a UFO door), I tend to send in the rookies first. I figure it's a good chance for them to get some good experience (though I'll generally try to back them with a more experienced soldier if possible). If they live they get to shoot up alot of aliens, if they die, well then I guess they're a hero. That no pain no gain aspect is what it's all about. Losing rookies is a smaller loss and by giving them the riskier roles they catch up to the rest of the squad faster. It's those risky situations they get the opportunity for many kills which brings them up in stats faster. To me, it seems inevadable the rookies get the riskier roles since you're going to take casualties one way or the other sooner or later. Pushing the rookies hard helps them become better replacements faster, and/or suffer less set backs in the campagn. War is hell. LOL, it feels like I'm almost trying to justify my command decisions to myself. :angel: I'd hate to be a general in real life. "Private first class Gunkel, we've got a situation on our hands. The odds of survival are low, but this is a great opportunity to show what you're made of soldier. That's why I chose to volunteer you for the job at hand, because I knew you were the man for the job and wouldn't let us down. All you gotta do is climb up that hill and enter that weird looking space ship and shoot anything that moves. Gunkel... Gunkel.... Oh, I guess it's normal to have a few butterflies. I remember when I was a private first class. Oh the stories. Anyway, we've got a mission to accomplish. Get going boy, get going... No time to waste... chop chop."

Did you give running it with a slow down util, like Moslo for instance, a whirl? Worth a shot. Oftentimes old programs have troubles with fast newer machine without a slow down util. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, I think oftentimes a runtime error is the result of a program running on to fast of system without some means of slow down. Let me know if you need any help tracking down some slow down utils to experiment with. Oftentimes it's good to try a few different ones since some work better with some programs/games, and system configurations than others. I'm sure I have many links bookmarked to where you can download them from somewhere on my system. Also, doesn't the UFO2000 patch have a map editor with it? You might want to check that util out also. Again, let me know if you want a link to that.

Yeah. I totally agree. I know if they had been more stringent in saving and reloading, when I first started playing, I probably would've gotten too frustrated to keep on playing the game enough to where I could develop good enough strategies to have a decent chance to make it through a mission. It's cool how xcom allows one to keep coming up with new challenges for themself. Gives it tons of replayability, especially for a single-player game. Then when a player feels really cocky they can give TFTD a shot for a sadistically difficult challenge TFTD kicks my ass anyway. I was on a TFTD binge recently and a few nights ago my frustration level got too high so I decided to play some xcom1 some more. I'll probably give it a go again in a little while. On the other hand, I think it was my last cruise ship mission that made me decided enough was enough with it. There was psi attacks galore very early in the campaign before there was even a decent supply of zrbite to be had. Not to mention it would place those brains in a saucer that explode when they die (can't remember their names, I don't think I even want to remember ) in a spot that was hell to weed out. took almost a whole night for of reloading mid-mission to finally waste him. Then I was onto the second part of the cruise ship mission and my men were severely low on ammo and in how many survived. At that point I decided, "screw this! I think I'll take a break and play some more good old X-Com: UFO Defense.". Anyway, they just don't make games as good as they used to. They certainly don't make games anywhere near as good as xcom1 and 2 anymore. It's really a shame Microprose and Mythos is pretty much non-existent anymore. Mythos were masters at gameplay design and Microprose were experts at knowing a good game when they saw it and publishing it.

I like the idea of going akimbo laser pistol/plasma pistol. Though, if you have a hyperwave decoder, it probably becomes much easier to figure out which to bring along. Also not going the akimbo route is probably going to solve more logistical issues (80 item limit issue). Maybe go the akimbo route till you have hypewave decoder? The bottom-line is most of the weapons have trade-offs. Laser pistol is ideal for some situations while plasma pistol is more ideal in others. I guess if it's a situation where you have to pick one or the other, probably the best thing to ask yourself is what's the most critical factor. Like is it likely to be critical to have room in the transport for other gear and keep freed up TUs and have unlimited ammo, or is going to be more critical be able to dish out more damage per man, per shot. Based on which of the two is the overriding issue to address is going to determine which pistols to bring. Like you said, Mutons can take alot of punishment. Perhaps the extra damage might help, on the other hand maybe the unlimited ammo and extra mobility may. You can probably make either work depending upon how you go about things. Regardless, either pistol you're going to probably have to play from standpoint that it's going to take a few men a few turns to down each Muton. You'll probably want to keep that first and foremost in mind with your tactics if you want to have a good success rate with minimal casualties. You're probably going to have a real big challenge out in the open though. Probably approaching it from a probability standpoint is going to be your best bet - i.e. trying to get in as many consequative shots per man per turn upon the same target as possible, while also giving them enough time to reach safety for the alien's turn. The aliens will have the advantage in probability in that they'll only need a hit or two upon each of your soldiers to neutralize each one of them. Whereas you'll need many more hits on each on them, but the equalizer will probably be your sheer volume of fire. I'd expect many casualties regardless. Afterall, even though you may get more shooting opportunities to fire, which in turn increases probabilities to hit, the aliens in turn get more chances to possibly react to your shots. It will be interesting to see how it goes for you. I wonder if the best strategy will be to try to surround as many men as possible around single aliens. You might want to consider bring along at least a few motion scanners to help you figure out where the aliens could be hiding so you can work on positioning your men before you end up exchanging fire with them.

Maybe so, but as luck would have it, there's a laser pistol . Keep in mind ( I probably should've specified it more though) when I say pistol or rifle, I mean any type (standard issue AP, laser, or plasma) when in the context of the pistol vs. rifle debate. In fact, the toughest decision to make for my troops is laser rifle vs. heavy plasma, and laser pistol vs. plasma pistol. The deciding factor often seems to be how many troops I want to take on a mission since more troops equate to trying to cram more gear on the transport (80 item limit). i.e. do I what want a larger squad (which means better overall coverage at the expense of less firepower per soldier - laser weapons), or is it a mission where heavier firepower per soldier becomes more critical (plasma weapons)? It all really depends, but I rarely ever try to have a single soldier tackle anything alone. Personally, I don't think the ago old debate should've ever been pistols vs. rifle, but should've been lasers vs. plasma (though I guess that's another age old debate), because as to which technology is superior is really hard to say and so subjective based upon circumstances. Like on one hand plasma does quite a bit more damage per shot, but requires ammo, which in turn requires more spaces on the transport (afterall, you really want at least one clip per plasma weapon, otherwise your soldiers are going at least semi-unarmed till they can find a clip off an alien). While laser weapons conserve on space and you never need to worry about running out of ammo, but the tradeoff is less damage per shot. Maybe it's just my playstyle, but I find my soldiers survive better in [close quarters] with some form of pistol than rifle most of the time. Sure it's going to usually take more attacks to down an alien, but I get many more attacks per turn with a pistol (which equates to better probabilities to hit more often) as well as more tactical options such as more room to move to make it behind good cover before the turn ends.

Personally, I like the way xcom handles rank. It works out great. Afterall, the higher the rank of a soldier that gets killed the more negative impact it has on morale of the entire squad. As a result I tend to use my higher rank soldiers more as rear echelon troops (scouting, scanning, psi etc). I leave the heavy combat to the majority of my forces that consequently tend to be lower ranked soldiers because of how the game handles promotions (it being based upon how many soldiers you have total and the higher the rank the few positions for said rank are available. i.e. how you can 1 captain per 11 soldiers etc.). Squaddies and sergeants tend to work out plenty well as frontline troops. Afterall, you don't need to develop a frontline troop as much as a rear echelon troop to be plenty effective at that role - backbone of the assault to bring firepower to the front. Also consequencely, frontline troops tend to have a lower life expectancy. If I try to play in a way that I try to turn my higher ranked soldiers into frontmen, it often tends to be much more of an uphill battle to the point I feel more like I'm doing nothing more than working against the natural grain of the game and trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Also any losses that I experience (expect some casualties no matter what, especially to your pointmen) are much more likely to have a more profound impact upon the whole campaign. Also sometimes no matter what, you're COs are going to get wasted. That's ok though, because if that happens, then the next troop is up for promotion and sometimes that works out even better. The main thing seems to be you don't want to loose too many high ranking soldiers in a single mission. Losing more high ranking soldiers than less seems to be a good recipe for disaster on a mission (due to the ramifications it has upon squad's morale. And let's face it, low morale is one of those things that works against the possibility of turning the tide of the battle back in your favor - paints your squad even more into a corner).

If you're dead set on going into the military just give it a shot and go for it. Regardless of anything, it never hurts to try. Don't know until you apply. While perhaps a person has asthma that may not get them rejected but perhaps another aspect of the screening process may. Then again maybe a person gets in regardless of what preconceptions they had prior. Ya never know. So ya might as well give it a try regardless. Cause' if you don't you definitely won't get in, but if you give a shot, there's a chance you may. Let the screening process rule out the possibility, not anything else.

At first I was confused about when you said they leave out reload in tactical. I figured out that you meant it's not in the options menu in tactical. It's really hard to say whether they intended it though. Afterall they have the save option in the tactical options menu. What would be the point of allowing mid-mission in tactical if they didn't intend for you to be able to load it? I've got to admit the whole save and reload debate has always been subjective at best. When you read the manual you're left with the assumption that they'd prefer you not to. But probably in the end they figured it was best to leave it up to how the player wants to go about things. I mean, if they felt strong about the player not saving and reloading in mid mission tactical, they would've omitted the ability to save while in tactical altogether. I agree though that's it's much more fair to reload prior to starting the mission so it's different. Fairness isn't a really an issue since it's a computer you're playing though. However I still think it's more ideal to reload prior to mission start (so it generates a new mission) in that it spoils the game less for the player. Afterall, you come back with knowledge you really shouldn't have if you reload the same mission. On the other hand, if the game is real tough for a player, it's nice they provided that option. I don't usually get that frustrated, but some people I know would shelve the game out of frustration if the developers didn't give them that slack. Wise move on the developers' part IMHO. That's a real good point with the "life's like a bunch of chocolates..." analogy. Many times soldiers have surprised me. Like some soldier started off strong but a runt of a soldier outdid him in the long run. It's like the soldiers often adapt to the situation at hand. It's as if a soldier that has to try harder will often compensate in sometimes become the Ace because the odds were more against him. Xcom seems to award higher the harder the challenge for a soldier. Like how rookies advance real quickly later on in the game. Yeah, it's hard to gauge how much you want to stick each soldier's neck out. It's a catch 22. If you don't push them they don't advance much, but when you push them, there's more chances of losing a well developed soldier. It's alot like gambling. No pain no gain, on the other hand, what's the point of a badass soldier if you're not going to use them, on the other hand, all time developing the soldier is lost if they die. I do love how the developers did that though. It adds tension and suspense to the game and makes you relate each soldier as individuals instead of relating to them completely as expendible, cloned, cannon fodder to merely just overload the meat grinder with meat (i.e. games like C&C, Homeworld, etc.). I think that's also one of the aspects that really sets xcom ahead of many other strategy/war games. Not all of them, but many of them. I guess to sum it all up I think it's no big wonder that xcom is such a timeless classic. It allows a player to play how they want to play (custom tailor it enough so they can extract the most fun based upon what they like) in both difficulty, and strategy/tactics, as well as, is both highly detailed while simultaneously rather broad in scope without really feeling overwhelming at the same time.

Personally, I don't care how anyone plays the game. If someone wants to cheat it's their perogative. They're just spoiling the game for themselves. They pretty much cheat themselves out of all the challenges and exciting experiences that can be had with the game. It's like a friend of mine. A friend of mine would use an editor to make all his soldiers super human with super gear. I guess that was his idea of fun, but I would be bored. Kindof takes the whole point out of it all for me. I don't think any less of him though. If he's having fun, all the power to him. I prefer a challenge though. I mean, the first time I got power armor I was excited. My cheating friend missed out on that whole experience. As it turns out, my friend lost interest with xcom within just a few weeks. I, on the other hand, have been having fun with it for years. A game as good as xcom doesn't come along very often. Of course, I tend to be more jaded about gaming compared to my friend. I don't use editors when I want to play a serious game, as a result I've been getting all the fun out of the game. Actually, haven't used an editor yet, but I'm sure that once I become bored with xcom (maybe that will never happen though ), then I can use the editor have even more fun with it. Like use it to present instant action scenarious once I get jaded with xcom. Cheaters tend to be the same people that always complain that there's not any games worth playing. Somehow they've failed to realize they've cheated themselves out of having as much fun as they could have with any good games. On the other hand, different players have different thresholds of frustration. Some players get frustrated sooner than others. So a cheating or editing util, can help keep some people from getting put out by a game altogether out of frustration. To me, that's the ideal way to use such utils - instead of using such utils to cheat, instead use them as last resort to bring down the frustration level to what will make a game a fun challenge for one's self. So far, I haven't had to resort to such measures, but like some players, I have more determination than most casual gamers. It all comes down to where you're at as a gamer. And really none means much of anything one way or the other. About the only thing that has any meaning in gaming is how much fun and how entertained you are. Hell, you can be the best gamer in the world, and really what's that going to mean? Pretty much nothing. It's not going to make you rich, get you laid, or make you anymore healthier. That's why I've never understood the types of gamers that take competition with their hobby to the extreme (i.e. those CPL geeks). Doesn't that kind of take all the fun out a hobby? And if all the fun is gone from a hobby, why have the said hobby anymore?