Maybe it's just me, but I keep getting myself saved just barely by an indecisive Chrissalid suddenly deciding to run away instead of infecting my guys.

 

Also, my second UFO mission was Sectoids carrying Heavy Plasmas. At first I was worried that they'd start bringing out heavier weapons, but now I'm just happy I got them so early on.

Maybe it's just me, but I keep getting myself saved just barely by an indecisive Chrissalid suddenly deciding to run away instead of infecting my guys

 

Yup, happens to me quite often. The soldier is probably thinking something like "oh no a Chrisa... oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... wait, did it just turn around? OPEN FIRE!"

TVTropes.org has a pic demonstrating your rookies' phenominal accuracy, but it doesn't handle external linking.

There are two that I know of:

 

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/imag...COMAccuracy.jpg

 

https://fc03.deviantart.net/fs40/f/2009/045...y_Gannadene.jpg

 

The second is just great.

Ha! That Sectoid in the second picture gets to use a RYNO. Has its own theme music and everything.

 

The indecisive chryssalid business - was it in conjunction with any reaction shots?

 

For some really odd reason that I cannot explain, melee aliens seem to switch targets when there's any reaction fire. So you could have the Chryssalid or Reaper charging down on you and off goes a pistol shot that doesn't do much. The alien turns and runs off in some other direction. Then another pistol shot folows, and it turns back at you. Another pistol shot goes off, and off it goes in some other direction again.

 

- NKF

You know, we all agree that rooks are stupid and most can't hit the broad side of the barn, but let's face it. Cowardly is an unfair accusation.

 

They're going out into the unknown. Against a far superior foe. And they only START panicing when two of their buddies get wasted and they get some plasma burns. And if one alien gets tagged, it's right back to productivityville for Joe Squaddie.

 

And that's the guys with bare minimum bravery.

 

Dunno about everyone else, but if I get molten plasma burns after seeing a friend vaporized, I'm probably going to be useless for a few minutes. Rooks deserve the tiniest bit of slack on that count.

To their credit, rookies are full of surprises. It's their wild stats and a succession of lucky breaks that often pave the path to supersoldier-hood for the 'meat shield' rookies. Carpe diem.

 

- NKF

Of course, for every rookie who survives their first mission, another 5 don't.

Of course, for every rookie who survives their first mission, another 5 don't.

 

Five?

 

Geeze, what are you doing with your rooks? Suicide bombing?

I would rather say something like "for every rookie that can shoot straight, five don't". I have seen rookies spent a turn's worth of TU with full auto against an alien two tiles away and hitting nothing but air, the ground, and an X-Com soldier halfway across the map.

I would rather say something like "for every rookie that can shoot straight, five don't". I have seen rookies spent a turn's worth of TU with full auto against an alien two tiles away and hitting nothing but air, the ground, and an X-Com soldier halfway across the map.

 

Now that, I'll drink to.

 

You get the occasional badass, or at least tolerably competent rook, but they're few and far between.

 

What's worse, you get so confident in the one rook who starts good you demand too much of him and BAM.

 

He's dead.

 

Ah, good times.

I have seen rookies spent a turn's worth of TU with full auto against an alien two tiles away and hitting nothing but air, the ground, and an X-Com soldier halfway across the map.

And that is not all that uncommon!

 

No matter how bad the rookies are (and yes, some can be quite bad shots), there's always something they can do to mitigate the low accuracy and be useful in combat. Not everyone starts their career as a sniper. One mantra I often use: "If all else fails, use more explosives".

 

Of course, you still get these baffling situations where a rookie - or even a veteran - are in such a position that there's no chance of failing, and yet they still miss their shot.

 

- NKF

HEavy Cannon + HE = "Eh, just get close."

Lets all remember, that they were all rookies at one point

 

Survival of the fittest or luckiest, that seems to be the name of the game.

 

Rookie incompetence doesn't just impact firing accuracy however.... Just the other day I was fighting in a forest and had 3 guys on the front lines who had spotted an enemy but failed to take it out, depleting most of their TUs in the process. There was a rookie a bit further back with an alien grenade so I figured, lets see what he can do!

 

Bad move... he throws the grenade, it hits a tree and falls right next to the 3 soldiers ahead of him...

 

Ugh

Oh yeah, my mantra is something like "When in doubt, blow stuff up", followed closely by "A whole squad firing on full auto will eventually hit something. Praise the RNG and pass the ammunition."

 

Though I have to admit, sometime that strategy can backfire rather badly... we all know there's nothing as accurate as friendly fire.

Oh yeah, my mantra is something like "When in doubt, blow stuff up", followed closely by "A whole squad firing on full auto will eventually hit something. Praise the RNG and pass the ammunition."

 

Though I have to admit, sometime that strategy can backfire rather badly... we all know there's nothing as accurate as friendly fire.

 

Too true on the last bit.

 

Only when it happened to me, it was my best sniper rather than a rookie.

 

The turning 90 degrees to shoot a teammate in the head, though?

 

Yeah. Happened.

The turning 90 degrees to shoot a teammate in the head, though?

 

Yeah. Happened.

Wow, remind me never to owe that guy money.

One thing I've noticed during Alien base assault missions is that when setting the path for a blaster bomb, the aim box gets partially obscured by things like walls and scenery even if you still haven't explored that area of the map. With the help of some careful guessing you can find the command center as soon as your first turn... and you can blast it to oblivion before ending the second turn. Any one else noticed that?

The shrouded parts of the map aren't truly blanked out. Rather, they're drawn normally but in black, so existing walls will obscure the cursor. It's easy to see in the base assault missions because of the regular layout. Of course, you can even use it in normal recovery missions to locate the UFO.

 

- NKF

So I found a civilian in a crash recovery mission last night. That's not supposed to happen, right? It was a crashed terror ship, so maybe it was a glitch? At first I thought it was just a freaky sound glitch because I heard a civilian die in the second or third turn. I never found a body because these days rather than clearing buildings I tend to just level them with alien grenades. Much safer.

 

However, sure enough, in the mission complete screen was "Civilians killed by aliens.... 1"

might be one of those ultra rare events, if the ufo crashed near a farm house the game might decide to include some civilians, it would actually make some sense

 

but Snake man terror missions HOW MANY BUGS !!!

 

So I found a civilian in a crash recovery mission last night. That's not supposed to happen, right? It was a crashed terror ship, so maybe it was a glitch? At first I thought it was just a freaky sound glitch because I heard a civilian die in the second or third turn. I never found a body because these days rather than clearing buildings I tend to just level them with alien grenades. Much safer.

 

However, sure enough, in the mission complete screen was "Civilians killed by aliens.... 1"

As much as I'd enjoy reading through 19 pages of "strange things in X-COM" (I don't have the time currently). I don't know if this ever happened to anyone else before, but..... One time during a "Terror Mission" I had a soldier open up a warehouse door, in which he spotted not 1 alien, nor 2, nay 3, but 4 cyberdiscs! I had the soldier set an "Alien Grenade" for 0 and tossed it. Luckily the soldier was able to escape around the corner without being shot at. Oddly enough after the explosion the debrief screen came up (obviously indicating mission over). From what I can gather is that the close proximity of the cyberdiscs and the fact that can explode causing splatter damage, plus the actual damage caused by the grenade resulted in the deaths of those poor, sweet, innoncent cyberdiscs that look so lovely in sun dresses and heels. EH.

 

-NoX

those poor, sweet, innoncent cyberdiscs that look so lovely in sun dresses and heels. EH.

 

I once saw a Muton wearing a tutu and dancing across the battlefield...

I have had Cyberdisc's close together setting off a chain reaction. Many civilians died, especially when the petrol station blew up as well!