4984

Yep. No changes to the Temple Ship.

4985

When do you get the Slingshot DLC missions and Progeny Missions? I saw a checkbox for Progeny in the advanced options. The wiki says that Slingshot is an option there also but I don’t see any option for Slingshot there. It’s my understanding that both of these are included in Enemy Within but I haven’t seen anything from either yet, and I just assaulted the alien base. Anyone know?

4986

I’m pretty sure this is a scripted sidequest mission that the DLC brought in (along with the Chinese NPC dude in one, or the train-bomb thing in another).

— Alan

4987

Mimetic skin is insanely busted. If you’re the type of player who can’t resist exploiting a tactic once you are aware of it I’d recommend avoiding that mod, it can trivialize an entire map. At least ghost armor has charges, charges have duration, and comes late in the game.

Stealth is nicely balanced with the ghost grenades. You have to sacrifice an item slot and they can be used up.

I looked into modding this game – holy cow it’s a pain. You have to write code in raw hex that exactly matches the file size of the original. Really hope someone cracks this game wide open and you can just write unrealscript.

4988

Yeah, I’m back to just not understanding how Classic is reasonably winnable. I mean I’m sure there is some specific build order and strategy out there, but that removes a lot of the fun of the game for me - I want to be able to do things in different ways, so long as they are reasonable.

I’m at a point now where I’m about 3 months in. Just got the first Exalt covert mission. Before I could go on that, however, I had an “Easy” alien abduction. So I’ve got one of my first level MECs, a sniper, heavy, assault, and support. Have a laser rifle on the Support (all I could reasonably research and purchase to this point). Have some other basic items (medkits, etc.) on the other characters.

I’m going against multiple Mutons, Discs, and whatever the hell the Sectoid equivalent of the MEC is right out of the gate. I mean these things are literally on me more or less in my starting position. The Sectoid MEC is one-shotting my troops that are behind full cover, one dead per turn. My MEC survives a bit longer, but he’s being mauled by the combination of shots from the Sectoid MEC and the Disc.

Some games I lose like this and I realize, “There must be an approach that I’m just not reasonably figuring out,” or “I see how to do it, but I just don’t have the mechanical skill to execute,” (the latter in the case of an RTS or FPS, for example).

Xcom Enemy Within Classic, I just literally have no idea how the hell you could ever do it, without following some extremely boring exact build list (which again, to me, kind of defeats the point of these types of games). It’s one thing to say that you need to avoid half-cover, use hunker down when you are behind half-cover, etc. It’s another to just be constantly undermanned, and have the aliens just mowing your guys (who are behind full cover) down in “Easy” missions.

Frustration has set in.

Maybe I’ll just play a full mission on Normal (which was way too easy in Enemy Unknown, and seemed way too easy in my first few hours of trying it in Enemy Within) to see if it ever gets hard enough to present a reasonable, but not ridiculous, challenge.

4989

Never half cover not even hunkering!

And unless you are sure you are getting a kill then always hunker down in FULL cover if you are exposed.

4990

Saying “never half cover” is asking the impossible. When you’re stuck at the beginning part of the map, there’s only so many full cover options that are available. You literally do not have the option to have everyone in full cover. And simply hunkering down unless you’re sure you’re going to get a kill doesn’t do any good against enemies where you need multiple hits to even have a chance of getting a kill. You’d just be hunkering down everyone in the scenario I was just in - no one is going to get a kill, it would take multiple successful hits (i.e. 3-4) just to bring down a single one of the Sectoid MEC or Disc, and I was facing both of those plus a couple of Mutons.

And no, I didn’t run way out and alert them. I literally woke all of them up from the first move of the game (which was a move that remained within the blue area of my first MEC movement).

4991

I just came off of 5 hour failing getting past the first month in II so I understand how it can be frustrating. Classic is doable but not do whatever you want. However, there are a bunch of viable alternatives. Careful/lethal tactical play is a must. But research and base you can go mec, beam, squad size, or others but you should stay focused. Also consider bringing two heavies with scopes and bullet swarm.

4992

Yeah, and before people think I’m brain dead, I am smart enough to realize that people win at Classic (and even Impossible), so yes, I know it is possible. I’m just not sure it is possible but still a game I will find enjoyable to play.

4993

That’s a pretty useless suggestion since full cover isn’t always available. And of course that doesn’t help your MECs either.

4994

It’s three months in and you only have one laser rifle (and apparently no armor). You are way behind the curve.

You don’t have to follow a specific build order, but you do need to be focused and very efficient with your money. In EU you could coast for longer by using leveled up troops in lieu of better equipment. In EW you need to make the equipment a real priority, or you’ll hit the brick wall you did.

Make liberal use of the gray market. Sell bodies frequently. If you urgently need the money, sell power sources and navigation. You can get more.

4995

Oh absolutely, you should be selling most of your early game stuff for upgrades. You can always get more corpses – that money can be put to use right now!

4996

I should also note that I am playing these games with the Second Wave options that make the starting and upgrade stats more random, making the skills you get for leveling up more random, and that make the flanking bonus a continuum. I wouldn’t think that would boost the difficulty further, but maybe I’m wrong.

4997

Early on it can definitely make things rougher. You can’t count on getting X skill at a certain time on a certain character. Later on it tends to work out in your favor since you can end up with truly insane skill combos on some guys and really big stats as well.

4998

It’s been an xcom turkey week extravaganza for me. I really appreciate all the little touches they put in like sound design; the reveal of floaters bursting through doors captures everything about them - ruthless and mobile.

4999

On classic, you sometimes just have to retreat, even in EU. Saving the MEC and some of the experienced soldiers would outweigh whatever penalty you got.

5000

Yeah, like hearing hoaky Italian elevator music while having a shootout in some pizza parlor made this already surreal experience even more so.

5001

patch notes http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?397846-XCOM-Enemy-Unknown-and-XCOM-Enemy-Within-PC-Patch-Info-12-02-2013

they fixed the suppression/cover bug. time to restart playing.

5002

Anyone try playing this using the “Clormal” mod found here? http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/17/?

It appears to make the strategic game play by the normal rules, but the tactical game play by the Classic rule (there are numerous other options as well).

5003

I should have said “they seem to have fixed” it, because the bug is still there, at least on my current game.

fuck this game and fuck me for buying too early.