5124

One thing I’m still not good at is capturing aliens, particularly capturing them early. A great many firefights, even in city environments, happen at distances where you can’t really run adjacent in one move, and leaving most aliens alive longer than you absolutely must is an invitation to losing soldiers. Mostly it seems I manage it in medium UFOs, since the rooms are small and getting close is doable.

I remember reading how some players in Enemy Unknown went straight to plasma weapons, skipping lasers, because they were good enough at capturing people that they never had to build anything that could be captured. One of the reason I personally find laser tech important is that laser weaponry is affordable early in the game and plasma weaponry isn’t.

I do appreciate that Enemy Within has regular Sectoids showing up very late in the game now as escorts to Mechtoids. In the base game, I found capturing a plasma pistol for my snipers rough, because by the time I could get a good shot at capturing a Sectoid they weren’t showing up anymore. Of course Sectoid Commanders carry plasma pistols as well, but they’re damned dangerous and have a lot of HP. Knocking down high HP enemies down to just 1-2 without killing them is a matter of luck, though it does happen.

5125

Man, this is fast becoming the most addictive thing I’ve played since City of Heroes (hey, it was my first MMO :) ), and C&C before that, and Doom before that (the high watermarks of videogaming addiction in my life till now). It’s come along just in time to renew my love of videogames, as I’d been getting extremely bored with recent MMOs (my genre of choice for the past decade or so).

At the moment, I’m thinking about the ending and the story. I’ve seen lots of comments that the end is disappointing. I think we have to separate gameplay disappointment from story disappointment from execution disappointment. Gameplay wise the ending is a bit linear and too easy - anti-climactic in that sense. Execution-wise, it’s a bit flat and short on cutscenery (given some of the rather good earlier cutscenes, like the whooping and clapping cutscene the first time a UFO is shot down, you’d have thought they might have pulled out more stops at the end - our brave soldiers return home, maybe some reflections from Vahlen and Shen, maybe some more insight into the Council, etc. - but budget and time, I guess.)

But story-wise, in what’s revealed in the monologue during the final battle, I think it’s pretty decent and thoughtful for a videogame. There are nods to other s-f mythoses (e.g. David Brin’s Uplift series, Babylon 5, Mass Effect - Or cribs, I guess, depending on how you look at it), which is ok in my book, most s-f nowadays draws from a common stock of tropes and there’s little new under the sun. Obviously part of the idea is to leave open the possibility of a sequel, and partly it’s just a way to try and give some sort of vague context for the gameplay, so it’s kind of sketchy. But it’s also nicely ambiguous.

Some thoughts (I’m sure most everyone here knows the end, but just in case:-

[spoiler]

It’s clear (and foreshadowed by Vahlen, I think) that they could have flattened us from the start if they’d wanted to. That they didn’t suggests that they were testing us like lab rats, first by abducting us and seeing what we are made of, then by feeding us incremental challenges and seeing if we’d adapt and overcome, and eventually develop Psi powers to complement our intellect (revealed by our ability to reverse-engineer their stuff) and body (revealed by our bravery and skill in combat). It looks like the idea was that either we’d pass this test, or if we failed they’d simply enslave us as drones/warriors like they did the previous “failures”.

Why the testing? Obviously not just to produce drones or slaves, since they could have done that from the get-go. Here it gets ambiguous. It seems like either we’re to be “uplifted” or to be hosts of some kind for them. And the ultimate purpose seems to be to prepare for some greater threat (that’s where the sequel presumably comes in :) ). “Uplift” per se seems too benevolent. However, although their testing us is causes us suffering, they don’t seem to be gratuitously cruel (which was the problem with the Sectoids that they acknowledge). It’s more like, as I said, we’re lab rats. Humans think some lab animals are cute, and generally wouldn’t hurt them gratuitously, but we think nothing of using them for experiments. Same with the Ethereals relative to us.

The Ethereals seem to be a species strong in the Force but weak in body. Who are they? Bit of ambiguity here: the game calls the tall thin guys with the ornate helmets “Ethereals”, but the storyline seems to suggest that the Ethereals, properly speaking, are a purely psionic species that’s looking for the ultimate host, and the tall thin guys are just the last attempt to create a decent host - another ultimately failed attempt. Or are they ultimately trying to uplift partners in a fight against some larger threat? (i.e. they’d actually prefer equal partners to just more drone types?)

They are outcasts, but from what, and cast out by whom? Other Ethereals who have gone on to higher things (Singularity type deal) or some other, unnamed shadowy (see what I did there? :) ) manipulators, who may provide the big threat in a sequel?

Another point: I normally hate “it was all just a dream” stuff, but it’s obviously a possibility that the whole ending sequence from the moment when the Volunteer goes into the Gollop Chamber could be a kind of Vision Quest, or initiation, or something like that. That’s a possibility hinted at by the mobs that go poof when you whack the Uber. A test to see whether we are capable of the ultimate sacrifice? But any old soldier is capable of that, as has been shown throughout the game, so maybe not …

Anyway, no reason for this other than it’s fun talking about something one enjoys :) [/spoiler]

5126

Ending spoilers

[spoiler]My understanding is that the Ethereals in the game are the dregs of a psionic race, the rest of whom ascended to a higher plane of existence. That is their ultimate failure, and thus they are forced to “feed on the gift of others”. They do mention preparing for some greater danger to come.

I do think it’s interesting that XCOM is unknowingly working for the aliens, obligingly jumping through their hoops. But there are a couple of wrong notes, like the game over cutscene (that shows the mind-controlled Council shutting down the project) and the base invasion in the expansion. The aliens should not be trying to outright destroy XCOM as an organization.[/spoiler]

5127

And I thought I was the only one.-)

5128

Odd teleport bug. It used to be a thing that tended to happen with floaters and other flying units in my experience. I never had mutons just appear and ignore overwatch. That would be brutal.

5129

I finished the alien base assault in game 20. Rather easily, no casualties at all, and even lucked into capturing the Commander because I critted him for 13 points with a laser sniper rifle, leaving him with just 1.

I just barely managed to do it at the end of month 3 - it was 8pm on day 30, and I was due to lose a country with satellite coverage to panic. Panic wasn’t nearly this much of a problem in game 18. I’m a bit worried that I may not have what it takes to defeat the base defense, since I’m not as far along tech wise. I’m assuming the difficulty of that mission scales based on time, just as the alien base assault does.

Since I have 14/16 coverage, I’m pretty much assured of a win at this point, provided the base defense mission doesn’t kill me.

5130

The base defense is a “game over” event if you fail, but the game will also let you replay it from the start of the mission in that case.

5131

Has anyone tried the Marathon second wave option? I thought it would be fun, since my usual complaint with X-Com is that the pace is all off, but it seems to drastically increase costs and research times, but it still tossed floaters and thin men at me in the second month (when I had just finished my first research project), while I got Operation Progeny at the beginning of April too. Doing that mission on Classic with a bunch of squaddies and ballistic weapons…did not end well. :/

5132

Apparently Sectopods can target invisible soldiers with the Cluster Bomb ability, even though they’re supposedly unaware that anyone is there. Also, Secondary Heart does not protect against Cluster Bombs, because it’s actually three attacks, so first your soldier dies and then the cluster bomb blows up the body. Scratch one Colonel. Which is just a delay since I have 14 countries covered, and realistically there’s nothing the aliens can do to prevent my victory now, but it’s more of a delay than in the base game because now I’m investing Meld in soldiers as well as experience, and Meld isn’t easily replaced. Not that you really need Meld once you have all the tech.

I’m going to re-iterate what I said about Sniper MECs - having a decent aim stat boosts MECs in a big way, since they can easily have 3 primary weapon attacks a turn, 2 shots from Overdrive, and 1 from Reactive Sensors. When most shots are 100% to hit, ranged fire is better than the Kinetic Strike, because typically you can get 2 attacks instead of one. You have to start adjacent to get two Kinetic Strikes from MEC Close Combat, and that almost never happens.

5133

You can tell where the Sectopod is aiming the cluster bomb. The camera pans to the target area. The bombs don’t fire until its next turn, so you have plenty of time to move your guys out of the way.

5134

Not always. I usually look for this, but in this case there was no camera hint. I figured it was one of the Squad Sight snipers, since he was in the direction the Sectopod was facing, and the Sectopod knew he was there since he’d pinged it already.

5135

Gus are you referring to the +10% Sniper bonus to MECs, or does a Sniper MEC actually get the sniper class accuracy stats?

If its the later then that seems like a stupidly unbalanced design decision. Each of XCOMs classes is a package of stats, skills and weapons that come as a group. Taking a stat or ability of one class and just layering it onto another destroys the way the classes are balanced. If thats how it works I don’t know why a player would ever use any MEC other than a Sniper MEC?

For comparison: Imagine if there were 2 types of Assault Trooper. One comes with all the regular Assault weapons and abilities, but has the Sniper Aim stat, the other comes with all the same Assault weapons and abilities, but has the Heavy Aim stat. Which do you choose? The answer is so obvious its not even a choice.

Tony

5136

It depends on when you make them into a MEC. If you turn a Colonel sniper into a MEC they will get those stats. But if you turn a low ranking sniper into one their stats won’t creep up differently. I think MEC progress like a Heavy so they’ll have low aim.

5137

Thanks Thongsy, thats not so bad. If a player is in a position to be converting Colonel Snipers into MECs then they are probably well in control of the game, so balance isn’t much of an issue. It still seems like a poorly thought out mechanic to me.

5138

Okay, I’m trying Classic Ironman now. No Second Wave options since I don’t want to be hit with too many surprises. I’m actually on my third time now. First time was with Second Wave options that screwed me somehow, I don’t remember. Second time I had two or three missions in a row where my squad wiped so I called it quit. Now this time everything seems to be going well and I’m in my second month. My problem is I’m on the first Exalt Mission and I had a really rough time with that on non-Ironman where I had to reload it a dozen times or more just to make it out with one squad member. So now I’m going to need the perfect plan to make it through this in one piece.

5139

Stat growth depends on your class, but you carry over your stats from before the conversion, as Thongsy said. This strongly favors Snipers, since the only stats that vary by class are Aim and HP, and Snipers have an Aim advantage that varies from 5-8 at Squaddie to 15-30 at Colonel, and lag in HP by 0-1. Regular Snipers need that Aim advantage, since they can’t maneuver for a better firing angle unless they have Snap Shot. Squad Sight snipers are only viable against targets in high cover because of that serious aim bonus.

The +10 Aim from Platform Stability matters as well, particularly for an early MEC. If you convert at Corporal as I did, a motionless Sniper MEC has 88 aim vs. 68 for a Heavy MEC. Against your typical early-game target in low cover, that’s 68% to hit vs. 48%, for 1.4x the actual hits. I think my initial poor results with an early MEC came from reading advice to use a Heavy as your first MEC for the defensive bonus. The Heavy’s +20 defense is not shabby, but it only applies to the closest enemy, so fairly often it’s zero.

My early MEC gets 100% to hit quite often at Colonel. His base aim is 97 and he has one of my two allowed Council medals, which means he’s 117% to hit when motionless, and 107% when advancing. Add Advanced Fire Control, and he never misses an Overwatch shot against most enemies. If I converted a Colonel Sniper now, he’d actually be slightly weaker, since I’ve used up my Council medals, so he could only manage 115% / 105%.

By contrast, a Heavy MEC will reach 77 aim at most, or 87 with the Council medal.

5140

That’s interesting, since I found the Exalt missions refreshingly easy compared to other missions. Yeah, the Exalt troopers have 7-8 HP, which is a big step up from the 4 HP aliens that you’re facing at about that time, but they only have basic conventional weapons, and I’ve always had lasers and carapace armor by the time I first encounter Exalt. They don’t have the supernatural aim of the Thin Men, either.

The defense missions (“data recovery”) can be rough because you have to deal with a lot of troops coming from several directions, you must keep someone in the Encoder zone to prevent hacking, and the encoder zone often has poor cover. What helps is that in the defense missions the Exalt troops tend to rush the encoder zone without regard for their own safety, which means you get a lot of shots at them when they’re in the open.

5141

You don’t actually have to keep someone in the defense zone, you just need to make sure that no Exalt are in the zone by themselves at the end of the turn. I usually open by blowing up all of the cover, along with anyone who happens to be hiding behind it.

5142

They only need to be in the zone at the end of their turn. So you need to kill any Exalt who might reach it this turn, not just the Exalt that are currently in there. Only many maps that’s impossible, so putting someone in the zone is your only real choice. High-rank Snipers with Low Profile and Mimetic Skin are great, since they can camp out in the zone while invisible if there’s any low cover. MECs are a reasonable choice as well if there’s little cover.

The government building is probably the easiest one to defend. The construction site is probably the worst, because it’s surrounded by elevated terrain, so any Exalt on the rim have an aim bonus, and there’s a crane above the zone which repeatedly spawns Exalt reinforcements.

The one I found the roughest was the shopping mall, a map that’s normally a terror mission map. I don’t think that’s the fault of the map, though, I screwed that one up, splitting my forces and activating extra Exalt.

In general, there’s some point in being stealthy on either type of mission. You want to avoid activating Exalt groups until you can cover the defense zone, and you want to link up with your covert operative before the Exalt find him on either type of mission. You can also hack Exalt com relays on the defense maps, but I don’t know what that does. “Disrupting Exalt communications” sounds positive, but what’s the game effect?

5143

If the govermente building is the same one im thinking, i thought it was a pretty hard mission to start, not because of the bad cover but because even if you dash to the transmitter you will get to it at the same time Exalt do, and if you are not prepared you will probably suffer heavy losses.

Once that first is done tho its gets pretty easy.