Let's Play OpenXcom: UFO Redux

[NKF]

Watching through the vid, you got off pretty well there. It could've gone much worse. Much, much worse.

 

I was wondering, has OpenXCom changed how large units take damage, or is damage still dealt separately to each quadrant? It seemed that the Cyberdiscs were a bit resistant to the rockets.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

 

I was wondering, has OpenXCom changed how large units take damage, or is damage still dealt separately to each quadrant? It seemed that the Cyberdiscs were a bit resistant to the rockets.

That is a question for Hobbes, I'm not too sure. 2 rockets seems to do the job, is that not typical for superhuman?

[Hobbes]

I was wondering, has OpenXCom changed how large units take damage, or is damage still dealt separately to each quadrant? It seemed that the Cyberdiscs were a bit resistant to the rockets.

 

I wanted to check with Warboy and the answer is yes, damage is still dealt separately to each quadrant. So you can drop Cyberdiscs with 1 rocket if you're lucky.

[Nookrium]

We'll get to that base soon enough, but first! Snakes...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rks3j1GqSv4

[Nookrium]

I wanted to check with Warboy and the answer is yes, damage is still dealt separately to each quadrant. So you can drop Cyberdiscs with 1 rocket if you're lucky.

I never realized it was this way in the original either... so ideally you want to focus all fire on a specific quadrant, even grenades?

[silencer_pl]

No, that is not necessary for explosives.

[NKF]

All four quadrants link to the same set of stats, so it won't matter which part you target. The quarter that is hit will take normal damage, and the remaining three will each take damage at a -10 damage penalty as they are 1 tile away from the explosion source. That's why area effect weapons are so effective against large units. I'm guessing the Cyberdiscs you faced might have had a bit of luck with the damage rolls. 1 ~ 2 large rockets usually do the trick.

 

In the original game and TFTD, the main quadrant, the top-left corner (or top-most of the screen) is considered the main part of the unit. That is what's used for collision detection. It can cause a bit of pain or hilarity since the game doesn't take into account the other parts from time to time, such as when changing elevations. Try moving a tank North or East off a ledge and you end up getting it stuck in the wall below. In TFTD, this was the part you had to mind control in order to properly mind control large terror units. Shouldn't be a problem in OpenXCom.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

Like having a Xarquid go berserk and kill itself

[Hobbes]

Like having a Xarquid go berserk and kill itself

 

In the original UFO you can mind control 1 quadrant of a Cyberdisc (or is it a Sectopod?), use all its TUs for firing, then mind control another quadrant, use all the TUs again for firing, etc., until you've MCed all quadrants.

 

And if you MC either a Cyberdisc and order it to move, the 3 quadrants that are not MCed and still until alien control will reaction fire at the quadrant that you've MC, resulting in its death.

[Zombie]

In the original UFO you can mind control 1 quadrant of a Cyberdisc (or is it a Sectopod?), use all its TUs for firing, then mind control another quadrant, use all the TUs again for firing, etc., until you've MCed all quadrants.

 

Both robots exhibit this behavior... with a stipulation. See below.

 

And if you MC either a Cyberdisc and order it to move, the 3 quadrants that are not MCed and still until alien control will reaction fire at the quadrant that you've MC, resulting in its death.

 

Not exactly true. It depends which quadrant you MC and where in relation it is to the "primary" quadrant... that's the one with the weapon. I haven't played UFO in a while, but my recollection is that if you MC the primary quadrant, then subsequent MC's will not trigger reaction fire anymore. To put it another way, if the primary quadrant still has TU's it will reaction fire if it sees the MC'd quadrant and the TU of the other section falls below that of the primary.

 

"Seeing" another quadrant is hard to predict sometimes. This is especially true with the Cyberdisc as it exhibits planar symmetry (half of it is identical to the other half). If you guess wrong and MC an adjoining quadrant, you probably will elicit reaction fire from the primary at some point, either by movement or shooting. I'm not sure of the result when you MC the back quadrant (the one directly behind the primary on the diagonal).

 

- Zombie

[Nookrium]

Gearing up to grab that base but first, more snakes!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5pXlxLf1RU

[silencer_pl]

I'm starting to think that:

 

A) Improved tanks are not enabled as Hobbes said.

B) In my playthrough I was REALLY REALLY lucky with tanks.

[Hobbes]

I'm starting to think that:

 

A) Improved tanks are not enabled as Hobbes said.

 

You can only get the improved tanks if you recover the data disk containing their research on the Omega Facility (aka Merc Base) mission.

 

f you fail to detect that mission, or the data disk isn't present (since there are possible 4 advanced techs but only 2-3 will be present, chosen randomly), or if you fail to recover the data disk, then there's no improved tanks for you during the rest of the game.

[Nookrium]

Will the merc base not pop again? I thought I remember you saying the mercenaries will show up later on

[silencer_pl]

 

 

You can only get the improved tanks if you recover the data disk containing their research on the Omega Facility (aka Merc Base) mission.

 

f you fail to detect that mission, or the data disk isn't present (since there are possible 4 advanced techs but only 2-3 will be present, chosen randomly), or if you fail to recover the data disk, then there's no improved tanks for you during the rest of the game.

 

Ah, that would explain it.

[Hobbes]

Will the merc base not pop again? I thought I remember you saying the mercenaries will show up later on

 

After the 1st month the Omega Facility is replaced by the Omega HQ (slightly different map and harder enemies) to give you can get another chance to recover those techs. However, the Omega HQ will be harder to detect - on the 1st month it always appears on the region of your 1st base, but afterwards the region will be semi-random, and the month it will appear is completely random.

 

So far you've got unlucky not once but twice during your current campaign: you've missed the Omega Facility on the 1st month and the Omega HQ has appeared afterwards but you also failed to detect it (I know this because of the data contained on the latest save game you sent me) but don't panic, it will appear more than once

 

 

 

Hint: if you're looking for the Omega HQ - think TFTD...

 

 

[silencer_pl]

Shouldn't there be an idication about the mercenaries? Because then, you have to know that on first month to send Skyranger through the entire continent to find that base. And by the way, once you detect it, does it stay forever until you go there? Also shouldn't Darkstar with it's bigger radar had bigger detection of the ground facilities ?

[NKF]

If its possible, it may be a good idea to make a permanent (tough) facility that you have to deliberately scour the globe for after missing the first encounter. Giving it a random chance to appear does make it bit of a Deep One bottleneck.

 

The conventional rocket tank isn't a bad machine. But, more care should be taken handling it. Sending it out on the first turn when aliens outside were at full TUs was asking for a bit of reaction fire.

 

One thing you could have tried was to probe the ground around the first Snakeman to see if you fire and land a hit near the Snakeman for an indirect attack.

 

- NKF

[Hobbes]

Shouldn't there be an idication about the mercenaries? Because then, you have to know that on first month to send Skyranger through the entire continent to find that base. And by the way, once you detect it, does it stay forever until you go there? Also shouldn't Darkstar with it's bigger radar had bigger detection of the ground facilities ?

 

If its possible, it may be a good idea to make a permanent (tough) facility that you have to deliberately scour the globe for after missing the first encounter. Giving it a random chance to appear does make it bit of a Deep One bottleneck.

 

Major spoilers below, so read at your own risk

 

 

The Omega Facility isn't designed as an Alien Base (ground installation) for several reasons: too easy to be detected using the Skyranger/Darkstar, I don't want players to 'milk' the base for the other advanced techs it can contain (improved Interceptor, Combat Armor, Improved Conventional Weapons and Improved Tanks) and you'd get UFOs performing supply runs.

 

Instead you need to detect the Mercenary transport planes and follow them until they land. You can shoot them down but it's almost guaranteed that you'll destroy the craft since it has almost no armor and hit points. There are about 3 transport planes and capturing and interrogating the mercs present during the first two missions will give you clues about the existence of the base (interrogation of the Merc Leader will tell you that a scientist will be visiting one of their research installations in the next days).

 

I have also tried it with a Terror Site type alert and marker but this removes all the challenge of having to detect the transport planes.

 

You can and should use the Darkstar to complement your radars to detect those transport planes since their flight paths are short and straight forward. This is to keep the challenge and replayability: the first time you play Redux you can miss the transports since you're unaware of them on the first month but after you've learned about them it's simply a matter of some adequate planning. You already have this logic on the vanilla game where you need to capture a Leader/Commander to progress in the storyline and you either discover this on your own or read about it in a guide.

 

This is intended to be a bottleneck for Laser Weapons like the Deep One being required for Ion Armor, although not as severe since there are several redundancies:

* You can easily detect the Omega Facility transports on the first month once you know what to look for.

* Later, the Omega HQ can only appear in two regions (North Atlantic and Pacific), so you can set up a watch on those regions.

* Capturing the scientist on the Omega HQ will unlock the Plasma Gun, Carbine and Cannon, besides the Lasers (but not the alien plasma weapons)

* You only need to recover 1 laser from the Omega HQ missions (after the 1st month the mercs carry their own lasers) to research and unlock Laser Weapons

* Or you can skip lasers completely and go for the alien plasmas if you capture an alien Scientist (on large UFOs/Alien Bases that appear on Abductions, Harvest and Infiltration missions)

* And if you're running out of luck on all of those, there's an Alloy Shotgun that is unlocked once you get Power Suits (which only require capturing both an alien Engineer and Navigator to unlock UFO Power Source and Navigation). This was a recent addition but it should appear on this campaign when NeptuneNooksGame updates his Redux version.

 

The propose of this mod is to increase difficulty - players getting Lasers/Plasmas right from the start without any challenge has always annoyed me. With this system campaigns become highly unpredictable regarding the weapons you will have available. Even if you take the Omega missions it is possible that the scientist is killed by a stray reaction shot or explosion. However you'll always be able to use any recovered advanced weapons used by the human hostile units on those missions, so this is a big incentive to loot.

 

[silencer_pl]

The scientist is counted as civilian or enemy so you have to stun him ?

[Hobbes]

The scientist is counted as civilian or enemy so you have to stun him ?

 

The scientist is an enemy, it carries a pistol and you need to stun him. It is also easy to recognize.

[Nookrium]

We're back to familiar places... sort of.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpSJNtmGU1A

[NKF]

The episode where Dark Angel gets to play the badass.

 

The new farm terrain breaths a bit of fresh air into an old staple, but the lack of roof access in the big building is concerning. You'd have to blast walls away with HC-AP or just blow out chunks of the building with explosives to get a decent vantage point for your snipers.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

I was excited when I saw those tall buildings, perfect sniper spot...

[silencer_pl]

Flying Suits.