3521

Rookies with no skills are Redshirts.

3522

EXACTLY. I’m going with red for rookies because redshirts. Actually I take pretty damn good care of my rookies – they are the most fragile, after all. I do still give them the arc thrower, but I get Disabling Shot for my snipers so’s to keep the rookies from getting shot up. Children are our future!

Then white for support (MEDIC!), black for sniper, green for assault (send in the Marines), and orange for heavies (the color of explosions ;-).

3523

You idiots, it’s obviously red for heavies, yellow for assaults, blue for supports, green for snipers, white for rookies and black for psychics. :p

3524

And yet this is some pre-order bonus bullshit.

Does anyone know anyone else who bought the game without pre-order suff. How are they finding the game?

Also: I differentiate between my medkit buff medics (white) and my lots-of-smoke/guns/running support (red).

3525

That’s a terrible thing to make a preorder bonus. The game is already badly lacking in flavour, there’s no need to make it even more bland.

This game feels like the opposite of a Total War game. It’s incredibly flat and without character, but the gameplay is rock solid.

3526

I realized I couldn’t customize the color when I tried at the start of my second playthrough. What a stupid thing to include only as a pre-order bonus. Definitely has put a damper on the game for me.

3527

Yes and no. With Chrysalids themselves it’s better to keep your distance and not worry about cover. The main concern would be if you accidentally trigger a non-Chrysalid group of enemies while all your troopers are standing out in the open.

3528

Of course. And if a woman becomes the first assault or heavy or whatever, all the subsequent guys of that class have to make do with the hot pink armor set.

3529

Here’s how to enable it:

Edit XComGame.ini (in your XCOM folder under My Documents\My Games) and add the following lines at the end:

[XComStrategyGame.XGCustomizeUI]
bArmorDecoAvailable=true
bArmorTintAvailable=true

This doesn’t activate the preorder armor models but it does give you the ability to change colors.

Basic colors is all you need if you just want to color code various roles and make the battles more readable.

3530

I was using colors for a while to designate roles, but the colors aren’t really visible on the tactical map, so I sort of gave up on it. Instead, I use helmets to differentiate by rank. Snipers and Heavies are easily distinguishable by their primary weapon loadout. Right now my Supports are using lasers and my Assaults are using plasma, so that isn’t a problem either.

I may go back to a color-based system just for fun, but with the amount of squad turnover right now, it hardly seems worth customizing anyone.

3531

Hmph. The death march certainly does begin after the base mission, which is itself a grinder if you’re not careful (no losses for me on that one; instinct told me to drag along 2 3-medkit supports AND I WAS RIGHT).

Case in point: only 1 loss – a misplaced rookie – prior to base. After that, two XCOM plankholder losses in three missions. I have a feeling I’m going to start seeing turnover of personnel. Fortunately, I’ve been rotating troops, so I only have a few nervous rookies hidden amongst bulking roid-heads in Titan armor.

Oh, and sectoid commanders? Want to grab one of my troops? You now have the full and undivided attention of THREE run-and-gun Assault guys. Just sayin’.

3532

I kind of like mind control attacks because it means I don’t have to waste a medkit on someone. I mean, I’m going to kill or stun the psionic alien next turn anyway… I guess 2 or more at a time would be bad, though.

I also like the things my poor victim says, paraphrase: “Argh! Someone’s… in… my… situation under control; i’m fine.”

3533

My first base mission was quite the clusterfuck. Everything was going fine until I got swarmed by chrysalids and mutons at the same time in a large, elongate chamber with only stasis pods for cover. Turns out those stasis pods make for some unreliable cover, since the mutons had no trouble blasting through them and then blasting my poor out-of-cover support. I figured I could stabilize the situation if the rookie can just take out the 1 HP chrysalid that coming up on our flank… but she freezes in panic. She gets cut down, resulting in a snowball effect of zombification, panic, and charging chrysalids.

Soon enough it’s just my primary sniper and support fighting a running battle with their pistols. They finally kill their pursuers way back in the first chamber thanks in large part to my sniper and his laser pistol (gunslinger perk!). I’m thinking I’d rather abort than try to take on those mutons and god knows what else with just two men when I find out the entry ropes are gone - it’s do or die. So, once more into the breach, with the support leading the way. He promptly gets shot up and desperately pulls back with my sniper providing overwatch. My sniper lands a solid hit but the two mutons are not deterred, first blasting away the support’s cover and then blasting him out of existence. My sniper finishes the muton he wounded and it turns into nerve wracking duel with my 5 HP sniper (he took a slash from a chysalid earlier) and an uninjured muton, both in heavy cover. My sniper finally manages to deliver a headshot and takes the muton down.

At this point I feel the stakes are tremendously high, because I obviously don’t want to lose the most badassest sniper I’ve even laid eyes on and I have no idea what to expect further on. I’m literally murmuring “oh shit oh shit oh shit” under my breath the whole time I’m advancing my sniper, until I see an entirely new breed of sectoid standing on a platform below, fiddling with some fiendish looking alien technology… and totally unaware of my sniper! My sniper lines up a headshot and scores 9 damage - not enough to do the job! The sectoid whips around and tries to mindfray my sniper. My sniper maintains his grip on reality and a second shot puts the abomination down. The mission ends in a success, and “Demon” Wright gets a hero’s welcome back at the base… Only to suffer a terribly lame death a few weeks later via a kamikaze cyberdisc that charged into the middle of my squad to find Mr. Wright standing around in no cover. Instant kill crit for just the right amount of HP.

Oh, XCOM.

3534

I feel like I’ve finally gotten a handle on this game (ironman normal). I have satellites over the entire world, only Australia pulled out, panic levels at 1 or 2 everywhere, and plasma weapons up and running. Maybe I’m about to get my ass kicked, but I’m in a really good position right now.

I kind of feel like starting over on classic.

3535

I wonder how much testing was done for the normal-to-classic setting delta? The combination of alien combat bonuses and lack of early buildings in classic is a double whammy from hell.

I can’t remember a bigger jump in difficulty in a game for a single level up.

3536

I concur, and I’m finding it no fun. I felt like the combat was pretty perfectly toned on normal, but the crit bonuses (and especially the high panic chance) make it just no fun. I like the way the enemies have a greater chance to discover your guys (I’m guessing they move on patrol routes) though.

I mainly wanted to do Classic to try starting out with no resources, but the combat bonuses ruin that.

3537

You probably never used it in Normal, but you need to Hunker Down. Hunker Down not only doubles your cover bonus, but it also makes you immune to crits.

3538

I’m okay with the alien combat boost alone or starting conditions alone. It’s the double-whammy that makes it so uber-hard.

On combat bonuses, I generally find the starting troops in normal to be a bit too high-powered against the aliens at the start, given the fiction. The boosts even this up in classic. Unfortunately, the resource constraints mean that you’re staying at unaugmented tech for a while, even as the enemies get more numerous/powerful.

Frankly, I think just making the power requirements in base mode a bit more generous would do wonders. The current power requirements basically mean needing to add a base level before you can get certain things like an officer training school, which substantially inflates the costs, both in terms of dollars and build time.

3539

Hmm, the Officer Training School was my first build on my current Classic game, and I had the power for that. But I haven’t built a Workshop yet. I dunno, so far I’m not minding the extra challenge in the strategy layer.

As for the tactical layer, I’m all for giving the aliens a bit of a bonus. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me so far, honestly. By far the bigger issue is, as you say, the increased rates of panic. That is annoying. But I kinda like it. :)

And as for colors: you guys have it all wrong. Rookies have to be green, as they are, well, green. Snipers deal death from afar, so they’re read. Purple for my psi corps, natch. White for the healers. Haven’t settled on a consistent color scheme for Assault and Heavy, but there have been lots of black and blue choices. :)

3540

Hmmm, has anyone heard of or encountered this strange save game bug. Right from the start of the game, selecting “Save Game” from the menu and hitting the Save option doesn’t actually do a thing. It simply won’t save. Not sure whether Autosave works (I’m guessing not from what I’ve heard). This is a problem my dad is having on his first playthrough. I’ve suggested he do the reinstall dance, but that’s a big download for it not to work.

[edit] And of course immediately after I posted this, I tried a Google combination I hadn’t used before and hit what appears to be a relevant thread on the 2k forums.