Kir'jaeden

I think the answer is yes a) Most of humans are killed during the war. The fact severely undermines every traitiditions, nationality identification, state structures etc. b) Aliens are interested to erase any religious, traditional or national identity to make an amorphous, homogeneous society which easily accepts their social frame. So they will make it by subtle way using its total control on education and propaganda. It will be impossible due to a) and b) causes. Evidently, victorious XCOM will go to more practical conerns like a global goverment and make every step to prevent another invasion. This works great in other game projects. For example, DoTa appears as customization of Warcraft III. Now it has its own life. Why the approach would not work in Firaxis products?

Aliens are smart enough to attack XCOM bases and to force the funding goverments to pact signing by diplomacy or by terror acts. So why are they missing the fact that all their problems are brought by XCOM transports? If they launch some patrolling subs and attack a slow and harmless Triton then XCOM progress will be impeded greatly. Even a Cruiser could chase and down a Triton easily. Dear TFTD modders and data experts! Is it possible to add some initiative agression to alien subs so they could find and attack XCOM transports?

Earlier we discussed issue of disappearing captives with Tycho. It appears when SAME species give DIFFFERENT result in research tree. When you capture someone, game checks if interrogation could open a new UFOpaedia entry. If it could, then game places the alien to prison. If not, it will be killed. Note: game does not check if the alien could affect research tree!!! Also large aliens can not be captured.

So we must rename rocket launchers to rocket detonators too?

It is an original XCOM bug. Nasty fruit of the buggy Research tree. Sometimes it can wreck RT so you can not finish the game and you will be forced to spawn necessary alien units by editor.

It seems range checking in executable is off. That is cause of such effects, as splitted hangars, units beyound of map etc. They switched it off to supress wast number of crashes. In most case it goes silently with no visible consequences. Btw you have such pretty eyes you know.

Remember the fact that trasports are rented, not bought. That could means the damaged ones are replaced by new ones immediately on special conditions from transport manufacturer. Like damaged, but not completely destroyed SWS have full health on next mission miraculously. Special clauses of rent contract, I think.

I disagree. Since I dislike interceptions overall, I sack all Barracudas in first month and build only Hammerheads and Leviathans. So I do not perform many interceptions for long period of game. However, aliens launch many retaliations on my head. Often it starts right after succesfull colony assault or artefact site purging. They react on XCOM rating peak, I think. And it does not matter which XCOM actions do this. You mean some hex editing? Then it must be done right after new game creation. I guess it is too late when a dreadnought comes?

Yes, generally it is my strategy. Though I forced to build some modules on default base like spare liv.quarters, spare stores, alien prison. Eventually, staff and equipment move to new specialized bases - soldiers move to the strike bases, scientists and engineers move to "think tank" base. How it could be possible? In posted savegame, prisons of all bases hold only 2 creatures totally. Additionaly, game kills stunned soldier and DOs, but puts in prison gillman technician. If the prison entry overflow appears, then game would kill all prisoners, right?

Cunning Aquatoids have desided to end the war before it begins? Clever ploy! They should be met by mass PDGs. My experience shows the aliens will find your first base very quickly. I recommend dismantle the first base to bare minimum rather than rearrange it . I recommend to avoid immediate researching of species which can give different results in research tree. Because there are subtle bugs in research tree. From some moment, game begins to check if a captured creature can give a new entry in UFOpaedia. If not, captured creature is killed automatically despite of mission debriefing results or Alien containment presence. Critical: game does not check if new research can be unlocked!!! So the situation like in attached savegame could come: XCOM needs for live Deep One to get an Ion Armor etc. Gillmen attack XCOM base. The base has alien containment. 2 Deep Ones paralysed. Bug: finish the last gillmen. Deep ones counted as live in mission debriefing, anyway, appear as dead in base store. Therefore live Deep One could be spawned only by editor. So It would be reasonable firstly catch a pack of them, then research them as need come. game_3.rar

Calcinite corpse unlocks vibroblade research. TL unlocks either on its recovering or after Gillman autopsy.

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/topic/11351-hard-times/ Breaching is not a cheating. Mass save/load. That is a cheating. Save/ load is for wussies, that is what I think. TFTDExtender corrects such issues in some extent. On the other hand, If the aliens would show some cooperation then the colony assault would become impossible. I tried to swap sides in XComUtil. Aliens have enough firepower to mix both squad and transport with seabed in their first turn.

Gillman autopsy unlocks the "thermic lance" research.

vanilla means TFTD for DOS or for Windows without any patches/editors from vendors or fans. Without any tools like XComUtil, another well known tool for Xcom games. TFTDExtender is not compartible with XComUtil.

http://www.strategycore.co.uk/forums/topic/9867-tftd-extender/ Read carefully the thread and UFOpaedeia page. It seems savegames of vanilla and extender not always compartible. I recomennd start new game. The product is of reverse engeeniring. It patches executable in RAM, not on HDD. So it generates vast number of crashes. But it still cool.

Before correction, in vanilla TFTD, they tend to waste their TU on useless melee attack with 0% accuracy. After TFTD Extender correction, they could saw both civillians and your soldiers at once! One of great additions of TFTD are the melee weapons. TFTD extender simply enables the aliens to use its melee weapons and abilities. One aquatoid soldier armed with TL could easily turn your favorite Coelacanth to scrap. Close quarters purging becomes survival horror even for experienced squad. Consider the case: Mixed crew has attacked cruise liner in april 2040. Make your choise: loose 200-300 rating points or loose entire squad + Triton ? Civilians leave neither corpses nor bodies as operable objects like XCOM ones. You could not bear them to safety. However they can be paralyzed and medikit affects on them anyway! Consider the strategy: stun them, purge area, revive them by medikit to get positive score!

Civillian scoring is very buggy in TFTD. It is possible to abrupt 2-staged terror mission and get the score for the saved civillians. Paralyzed civillians give no score at all - neither positive, nor negative. MCed civillians get hostile and once you MCed them you need to deal with them. Biodrone explosion occurs after its death. When you shoot down the hovering one, the corpse falls down but the explosion somehow occurs at initial biodrone height. They behave like Cyberdiscs of EU. TFTD extender corrects its melee attack. They become most deadly terror units.

Alien mutants in my garden? NO WAY!!!

How the posphour could be flaming underwater? how an aquanaut can throw grenade across half of map being underwater? How disrupter torpedo explosion, which is able to evaporate a tank, doesn't harm the units 1 level above or below the explosion level? Simple answer: TFTD physics is goofy.

Is it a combat unit like any HWS or it is a sort of transport like Skyranger ? Or it is supposed to be HWS capable to transport soldiers across the battlefield? then it must be smaller, 6-8 men per craft

Why do you think the black circles on alien subs are windows? Soldiers can't see through. Aliens can't see through. Alien submarines need no windows. Sense surroundigs? They have magnetic arrays. Sense living things? They have MC technology.

Xarquids in base-like environment? You could see them only on 2nd and 3rd levels of T'leth. T'leth is not a regular base. T'leth is the Source. Topic "Modding" would help you.

Consider the TFTD CE savegame. Lower decks of cruise liner, mixed crew. There are both a triscene and a xarquid. This is an excellent mission to test your bright startegies. There are no Xarquids on alien bases. Hovever, TFTD Extender upgrades Hallucinoids corresponding their UFOpaedeia description, arming them with long range paralyzing blast. One well targeted shot into your transport - and half of your squad is laid down! game_6.rar

If you have not HWD then you can not say for certain. Both mission types use similar ships. Both mission types create a base.

Finally, aliens realise they need not blasts, kills, terror missions, infiltration fleets etc... Ponification virus does the job well!