Aziraphale

I'm not dissing DOS, I grew up on it, too. I just recognize the power behind a different kernal format, which is the later versions of Windows, being NT, 2000, and XP. Also, about DOS, yes, I know how to use it. It's a great starter OS. You type a command, and it either works, or does. I use DOS whenever I need to do some low-level, or powerful commands that I know don't really work in windows. Like if a partition is corrupted, just format it in DOS off a boot floppy. It's not hard at all. I love DOS too. Win95 isn't a GUI DOS, that's 3.1 95 had a separate kernal with inimate DOS usings, but it wasn't just DOS with a GUI. A command prompt is indeed powerful; ftp, ping, and del *.* are some of my favorite commands. And, I was born in the 80's, thank you. If this sounds insulting, just take pity on me, as I have had probably 15 or 16 hours of sleep in the last... 72ish hours. So I'm entitled to be grumpy.

In all honesty, it was a good choice on their part. They still have a command prompt option, but it only runs an MS-DOS proxy. Having two conflicting OS's (Windows and MS-DOS) worked best on Win98, but anything more advanced requires kernal stability with a single OS, and since it was the Windows franchise that was so successful, they canned MS-DOS. Besides, who needs the MicroSoft Disk Operating System now-a-days?

Murphy's Law. Whatever can go wrong, will. Or something like that.

I'm agreeing as long as you aren't dissing Warcraft, or Starcraft. I've been getting better, ever so slowly. I have like 10 vets, and I'm trying to rotate rookies in there so they get some experience too, but I just took out a Snakeman Base, and got both leaders. Evidently, I killed all the Snakemen and Chrysallids except for the leaders and one guy that was hiding on the second floor of the vegetation room. How he got up there, I don't know, but he did. Anyway, Alien leaders have Blaster Launchers to make getting into the Command Room really difficult, right? Well, I needed to open the door to get to the grav lift there, and I was expecting like 3 Snakemen to be holding Heavy Plasma against me. Instead, I walked in to see a Blaster Launcher on the floor. I got a Mind Probe to that side of the map, and found the leader(s). I used a Small Launcher and got them both knocked out, but the funny part has yet to be said. For the heck of it, since I didn't want the leader to wake up, I had a guy stand on him. The next turn, I realized there was another alien there, and I wasn't going to take chances. On a whim, I stood over him too, and picked up the alien corpse, and put it in the soldiers backpack. Because I was in the inventory, I decided, hey, why now hold an alien corpse in the hand, and have one in the backpack too? That way, I'm GUARANTEED that they won't wake up! So, I got out of the inventory screen, and just started laughing. In the Right Hand box, there was the Snakeman body, but the little Power Suit Soldier looked like he was hold a rifle I guess it reverted to the Default picture of holding a rifle, even though I don't see how that's the default item. I thought a pistol would be it or something. I guess Corpses (Or knocked out aliens) are 2 handed weapons, and the rifle is the default 2 handed weapon. But don't disrespect Warcraft.

Until I beat X-Com: Enemy Unknown on Beginner, I won't change it. :/ Getting better though. Just need like 4 more power suits then I'll invade a base.

Fixed my power supply. All is well again.

But this one isn't what you think it is. It seemed that my computers power supply or processor burned, so I probably won't be around as much. Sorry guys, but until then..

Let's put it this way: I had the save ONE DAY before the invasion, and all I could do was complete the laser pistol manufacturing (10 at the time) The thing was, though, it was March 17th, 1999. I had researched Personal Armor, Heavy Plasma, Laser Pistols to that point. Since it was the day before, I couldn't order a new HWP or any prox mines. I haven't researched Plasma Pistol/Rifles yet, and I had Small Launchers done, but not Stun Bombs. So I had 2 small launchers with a 1 shot pot at an alien, and managed to get a Live Snakeman Soldier out of it. I really haven't had time to research anything else. I have 40 scientists trying to get Laser Rifles right now, as it is.

I couldn't let them have the base so early in the game. If it was my new base, then maybe, but not this one. I was always trying to hold everything in the hallways, and was really getting a love/hate relationship with defending my base. It's a really cool experience to be in your own base, but it was getting annoying almost always losing everyone. I lost 3 rookies defending the base, and kept EVERYONE else alive through it, due to NKF. Yes, Norm, thanks to you, I was able to do this I just hid EVERYONE, and if I felt too many turns were going by without anything happening, I took a rookie with 1 step out of his room, look around, and put him back in. If there were any vets around, I would have them snipe 'em off. They rushed a single closet, and this was kinda funny. I took a rookie out of his room. Didn't see anything from where he was. Started looking around, and it turns out there was a Chrysallid right next to him. And a Snakeman, and one more a few tiles behind that. So this Rookie was doomed, right? I just started Auto-Firing with a Laser Pistol, and managed to kill the Snakeman right behind the Chrysallid. As it turns out, the Snakemen behind the Rookie and Chrysallid used an alien veggie to try and kill my rookie, taking himself, the Chrysallid, and the rookie out, all in one blow. Talk about friendly fire. So, I am very thankful for the hide-in-the-broom-closet strategy. Thank you.

Ethereals for Psionics, or Cyberdiscs out of being pure evil.

I'm stuck with a game where a base invasion is imminent in 1 day from the save point. It's Snakemen, but at least there are no Chrysallids. Anyway, I have 5 Heavy plasmas, 1 Heavy Cannon with 6 rounds of AP ammo, an Autocannon with 2 clips AP ammo, 4 Pistols, 10 Laser Pistols, 4 Smoke Grenades, 4 Terrestrial Grenades, 2 Stun Launchers (Unreloadable, haven't gotten Stun Bombs yet). Half of my troops are Rookies, I have 3 or 4 Sergeants, 2 Captains, and a Colonel. 10 of the 18 troops are in Personal armor, the rest have none. My question isn't "Can I emerge victorious?" because I've beaten them off loads of times. But how can I beat them off without losing a Veteran? Just save/reload? I have no qualms with doing that right now, I'm on Beginner. I just won't go down to XComUtil, because that's REALLY cheating. Soldier placement is random every time, so I can't give a specific soldier a grenade where it will be most needed, etc. Why does the Lower Left hanger (initial base, really badly placed stuff.) have a door, but the other hangers don't? That has caused me no end of problems. I can't defend that hanger fast enough. The other two I can cover well, with a line of 3 kneel soldiers. I send a rookie out to spot, then if he has TUs left (usually a pistol or laser pistol too) get a few potshots on the alien, and then have a vet kill it with a heavy plasma. But anyway, I guess there isn't much for you guys to answer, I'm just ranting, basically at how much the initial base setup works. Oh, just thought of a question. If you shoot down Retaliation UFOs, will they send out more, or give up? Also, once they discover your base, will they have to continually send out Retaliation UFOs to rediscover it every time? Or, once a race knows about it, you're doomed to an invasion twice a month? I think that about covers it.

Let them land. Or use Avengers. Plural. At least 3, all with dual Plasma. Just let them land and own them that way.

The only way you can do that is to either Stun them and look at the body in the inventory screen, like if you try to pick them up you'll see "Floater Soldier" or something. Or, you can use a mind probe and see their stats and name "Sectoid Leader". Either way works, Mind Probe is just easier because all you have to do is have seen the alien that turn I think. They are very costly though... 75% TUs I think. Ouch. Help?

I'm no genius on the game, but using more logic than anything, I could say it like this. If you are camping out in front of something, simply WAITING for it to come out, even kids with a reaction of like 30 will fire. They have the TUs, and realistically speaking, they're "Tense and ready for the moment" Now, I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but it just seems to work that way. A question of my own would be: Let's say that you stop and kneel with like 25 TUs left with the purpose to save for a snapshot, and stuff, and then here comes an alien :alien2: so your soldier sits thre with his gun and gets his reaction fire :devil:, now my question: if you have enough TUs for an Auto shot, will it use that or just a snap shot? Does it take the one with the higher accuracy or higher TUs?

OK, so I got past that terror mission, just by bringing 14 guys along and going nice and easy, and the Sectoid Leader was on the other side of the map, so I didn't get annoyed by Psionics much, except a few panic attacks early when there were a few sectoid spotters around the 'ranger. Got them and went through with the mission. Now, a much more annoying thing has come along. My base got invaded in middle of March (Right after my birthday [9th for those of you who don't want to go into my profile] too!). Now, I took people's advice and pre-stocked lots of soldiers beforehand, and I got lucky that it was Snakemen, so they didn't have Psionics. There was also *1* Chrysallid (spelling) but he went down due to me having researched Heavy Plasma and Clips real quick. Like, I had Heavy Plasma by late February. So, in the pending invasion, I lost like 5 rookies (easy to shrug off when you have 20+ guys, I didn't feel half-bad about it at ALL! ) and defended my base. On a side note; I noticed while giving people weapons during the first invasion, that I was able to see "Plasma Rifle" and stuff, though I hadn't researched them yet. All I have researched so far is Personal Armor, Heavy Plasma and Clip, Laser Pistol, Small Launcher (Not Stun bombs yet) Sectoid Biopsy, and I think that's it. I have 40 Scientists but they don't work hard enough. Anyway, back to the point of the side note: How come you can assign people weapons that you don't have researched, even though you can't use them in battle? I lost use-ability of like 8 men because they had Plasma Rifles... One more quick question: If you have the weapon researched, but not the ammo, can you still use the gun in battle? Say you have Plasma Pistols researched, but not Clips. You pick up a Pistol with 25 shots left over from an alien who just got fried. Can you still use the pistol itself? Insert a week later. I launched an interceptor at a Very Small UFO, but always got outrun. So, about a week after I finished defending my base from Snakemen, they attack again. I started building Missile Defense systems, hoping that it could injure the ship and kill a few aliens before it landed. Anyway, I was about to get into my second turn, and then AIM pops up with a "You're buddy is available", Alt-Tabs me out of X-Com, and closes it. :hmmm: I think I'm done ranting again. Maybe.

I'm going through that sectoid terror mission, and by god, I HATE f**kING PSI ENHANCED SECTOIDS! This is the kind of thing that makes me want to start over. Just a single mission that I can't win unless I lose at least half of my guys. There isn't enough time to get another tank, and even if I could, I have no storage space. So, I'm left with... trying some of my other soldiers... When a few of mine obviously have no Psi Strength.... Pity too, because ALL of their other stats are great Back to the drawing board... Or please, what's the -score overall for letting it go?

Ok, so I actaully got through January (hey, for me, that's saying something) and I've been making Personal armor for people. All of the sudden in mid febuary, I get a terror attack on the other side of the world (I have EuroCom and am building AmeriCom). In mid January I had a floater Terror attack, but even at night it was simple, simply because I had endless patience with it, and every time someone died or got fatal wounds, I reloaded it. And I saved every turn. So I lost a rookie in the beginning I didn't care about. Got through that no problem, because HE ammunition for autocannon >>> Reapers. My heavy weapons person had like 4 of 5 one-shot kills with that. I liked that mission, I did well on it. I just got my sectoid terror mission, and well, how FAIR is it, exactly, to have 3 cyberdiscs and a sectoid just WAITING for you outside of the Skyranger Ramp? I mean, honestly. This is the kind of thing that pisses me off. And they weren't even in the front of it! They were all sitting behind the ramp so, I moved a guy down, he died. Thinking there was only one, and I had like 10 guys full of TUs with vs a single disc that was running low, I ran another guy outside. She turns around, and gets blasted by not one, but TWO cyberdiscs! From that point I exited the game. Now please tell me, are the maps randomly generated every time you land, or do I have to LEAVE a terror mission without doing anything? And off topic question: Is it possible to use a blaster launcher and destroy the Skyranger, or is the skyranger basically invulnerable?

Ok. Need to clarify a few things: 1) Mutons with Pistols = Work on Gun Accuracy. Maybe Psi Ability by panicing them a lot. When run out of pistol ammo, kill all the aliens with Heavy Plasma or something. I was only referring this to say I want to get to the point where I can do this in order to beef up my guys. 2) I know how to build a base. My only question (which was answered) is WHEN to build a second one. Ok, so just those. Other than that, I've been browsing, and like I said. I'm good at Theorycraft, so I can come to all this myself (re-reading it helps a lot though) but I just can't do it. I'm not trying to be mean, because you're all really nice, but I probably sent a bad example saying I'm a newbie. I'm not a newbie, I just plain suck at UFO Defense. Am I going to be condemned to never be able to beat the game on Beginner?

Speed problems. Yes, very much so. AMD 1.4 gHz Thunderbird, Athlon family. Windows 2000 Professional. GeForce II MX 200 (wish I had a better card, but hey, it runs most 3d stuff nicely) 256 meg DDR Ram. If that doesn't qualify for creating speed problems, I don't know what does. It's also really annoying to see aliens walk around, an then even at the slowest setting, I still can't remember where they are. About my squad guys, I usually pair them off and cover each other via leapfrog going slowly. I try to have a high and a low TU person go together so that the high TU person has a lot more time for reaction, as well as the low having a shot for reaction as well. My mortality has dropped dramatically, but still, it's not fair that aliens have a sight radius about 2x bigger than yours! (or what it seems like) :hmmm: As for being attached to my men, it's rather hard, even when I rename them to like "Soldier 1" and so forth. Having a name humanizes them. Not like in Starcraft where I could lose like 24 Terran Marines and not care. (Well, except that I might lose the game, but hey, I didn't care that I lost them except from a strategic point of view) Here, when they have all different names, it's a lot harder to not become attached. And yes, I know. I get too deep into playing games. Shut up. Like I said, I love this game, but it's just so annoying!

Ok, so I started off at the X-Com UFO Centre forum, and NKF recommended me over here so I wouldn't get bored. So, here I am. Hi, I'm Aziraphale. Anyway, I try to play on Beginner, because let's face it, I'm a beginner. I love the game to death, but I just plain suck at it. I have a limited sense of strategy, though I could win anything in theory. I'm great at Theorycraft. {Theorycraft - noun - Art of using logic in a theoretical situation to win a battle otherwise impossible to win. deriv. frm Starcraft} Anyway, can I have some help on how to never lose a guy in a battle? Every. Single. Battle. I. Always. Lose. At. Least. One. Soldier. Rookie. Or. Veteran. And. It. REALLY. Pisses. Me. Off. :hmmm: :hmmm: :hmmm: :hmmm: :hmmm: I mean, I understand that I should always have reaction fire, and kneel to shoot, and kneel with reaction fire at the end of the turn, but someone always manages to die, enough that I just get so fed up with the game, I haven't even gotten power armor in a long time. Because I'm just so SICK of EVERYONE always DYING! And this is the CE, so I have no clue if X-COMUtil will work, and even then, I really don't like the idea of cheating anyway. I can't GET to the point in the game where I land people with pistols vs mutons, use psi to disable the mutons by dropping all their weapons, and have a free range shooting time! I haven't had psionics in such a long time that I have simply just stopped playing. An up-to-date remake, with a full company, would be great. I'm really sick of having the scroll speed at 1 and twitching my hand, just to have to go to the map again. Also, when do I make another base? Please help? How do I suppliment it? I know how to build it, with the access lift being the only thing touching the hangers, etc. But yeah. On a more humorous note, I started a game, shot down 2 UFOs, and by the 10th of Jan 1999, had my base invaded and destroyed by sectoids. Tanks don't help much when they come out of their cubbyhole and get shot with 5 rounds of heavy plasma. I think I'm done ranting, reply at your own discretion. -Aziraphale