XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Games
541

Where did you read this? Removing autofire and aiming from everyone and making them perks sounds fiddly and like the opposite of streamlining.

Also rezaf’s inverse squad size over time observation is something I’d totally forgotten. At the start of the game my landing was always packed with rookies because inevitably at least one would die in a mission. Then later on as the weak and unlucky were brutally culled by aliens I had fewer people in power and flying suits and would send out a heavy plasma hover tank to float over the mission site and scout/draw fire for the troopers I had grown attached to.

542

At any rate, I’ve installed all 3.

Interceptor will have to wait for a bit, because I found out that you just can’t drive a spaceship well with the mouse (I have no idea how Freelancer managed to pull it off…maybe the AI was set to “suck”).

As such I’ll need to find a way to setup my Logitech Wingman Extreme Joystick which is something from circa '96-'98 or so and thus its installation files came for Win95 or Win98 on a 3+1/2" floppy for which I no longer posses a drive with which to operate.
Of course, Logitech’s website has no support for it, either.

Using DOSBOX I mounted my Unknown Terror CD and installed UFO & TFTD.

With Interceptor out of the picture for the time being as previously stated, I started to get going with UFO Defense instead.
The X-COM Extender worked like a charm and I’m loving the PSX enhanced music (coincidentally, it seems the same as what was used for the Gravis Ultrasound…although I miss the SB16’s ‘lower quality’ due to nostalgic value).

Having a blast thus far, mostly at the Aliens’ expense. Some news from the front:

Many operatives lost. Many new ones recruited.
Research is going well, I got my first set of armors just starting manufacture.
A brand new Base is commencing construction in South Africa, where recent Alien Activity is highest, and is not too far away from the first one had been established (which was dubbed thus, “Israel, Bitch!”).
As you may guess, I had to zoom in fairly well to be able to create that first HQ.

Most soldiers are already deployed with freshly developed laser rifles and a few heavy lasers (with fixed stats from the community) that just recently finished rolling off the production line. The training is also going well with some fresh rookies showing hot marksmanship skills right off the boot camp.

Encountered a Battleship and had to let it go, because my Interceptors’ weapons sucked and I only have two, VERY EXPENSIVE, Interceptors so I couldn’t have it ganked proper (x6 interceptors gang rape is so fun!) and it threatened to tear them apart if I insisted to persist and pursue it.

Selling mind probes and excess plasma rifles to fund myself through.

Before long it wasn’t surprising to find myself to have spent a good 5 hours from a couple hours before midnight onto well past three in the morning and forcing myself to save and take a break.
Trying to not do save scumming on a principle.

So far, so good!

543

You’re gonna go ahead and join the opinions of the people that can’t be arsed to find out what the fuck is actually in the game before slamming it? For shame, Lazy.

Also, someone tell Foxstab that nobody cares. His inability to actually express thoughts carries over into whatever half-assed in-thread AAR he’s attempting to do.

544

I think I’ve played enough UFO Defense that I could conjure up an entire AAR from memory alone.

545

Just wondering: am I the only person who periodically visits the UFO: The Two Sides website in the hope that the cancelling of development was really just a bad dream?

Not only was that a superb remake, the option to play as the invading aliens was inspired.

546

Hey I’m not slamming it, I am questioning odd-seeming design decisions based on very vague descriptions. Wherever they mention the dropping of different firing modes is lost in the noise for me.

547

That’s nice, but statistically speaking auto fire was the correct choice in almost all instances. If you can’t figure out why 3 shots at 30 or 40% chance to hit is better than a single shot at 70 to 80% chance (not to mention auto fire took less TUs)… well, let’s just say you’re as bad at X-COM as you are at not being a jackass on internet forums.

548

Yeah, unfortunately they took their downloads down.

UFO_0.98d is the latest version I can find, and I do have it from before the downloads were taken down, so anyone who wants it should send me a private message and I will e-mail it to you.

I have to admit I sort of forgot the calculation myself. 3 shots at 40% would be… 40% x 1.4 x 1.4 ~ 78% chance that at least one shot hits?

549

That’s right. Generally auto-fire was the better option, especially when you had laser weapons for which ammo conservation was not a consideration. In fact, that’s why the laser rifle was a superior weapon than the higher tech heavy laser which, although more powerful, lacked an auto-fire mode.

I think the main benefit of aimed shot came when you had other units in your firing arc and you wanted to reduce the opportunities to suffering the embarrassment of a critical miss hitting a friend in the back. Or you just want to impress your squad-mates with your sharpshooting skills.

550

Herp, well I should have picked something more clear cut in favor of autofire as long as I am making up numbers. Why don’t I use actual numbers?

Auto: 35% TUs (Accuracy 50%)
Snap: 30% TUs (Accuracy 75%)
Aimed: 60% TUs (Accuracy 110%)

To calculate the chance of getting at least one hit, you calculate the chance of every shot missing first - 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.125 , or 12.5% chance of missing every shot. So you have an 87.5% of landing at least one shot. Aimed gets you a 110% chance at almost double the TUs. I’m not quite sure how you can have a 110% chance of hitting something but the fact that you get the possibility of multiple hits and it costs way fewer TUs to do autofire makes it a clear winner in pretty much every instance except when friendly fire is a high possibility or you’re running super low on ammo (but remember as soon as you fire a shot you lose that clip and you’re probably going to pick up a heap of heavy plasma clips anyway).

source

551

I had some help with the calculation from the #PC guys:

43.2% to hit exactly 1
28.8% to hit exactly 2
6.4% to hit all 3

Add all those up and yeah, the chance of at least one shot hitting is 78.4%

the odds of hitting 1 and missing 2 is 0.4 * 0.6 *0.6
which is 0.144
there are 3 ways to hit exactly 1
so 0.144 * 3 = 43.2%

I hope Firaxis is aware of this and uses an aiming perks system to actually make it worthwhile, though with critical hits in the game I think they already recognize this original X-Com oversight.

552

Neat, here is the accuracy forumula.

% Chance to Hit = a * b * c * d * e * f, where

a = % Accuracy Stat of soldier
b = % Accuracy of weapon/shot
c = Kneeling bonus (115% if kneeling, 100% if standing)
d = One-handed penalty (80% if firing a two-handed weapon without a free hand, 100% otherwise)
e = health penalty (current health / max health)
f = Critical wounds penalty (100% - (10% for each critical wound to head or arms, up to 90%))

More or less, a healthy standing dude with 80% accuracy with a heavy plasma has 0.8 x 0.5 = 40% accuracy with autofire, so 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 = 0.064, so ~93% chance of hitting. Same guy aiming has 0.8 * 1.1 = 88% chance of hitting. So autofire has a better chance to hit, plus you have the chance of multiple hits. And it takes way fewer TUs. BUT, aiming gives foxstab a tactical boner.

553

Man, you guys remind me of those folks you go to cinema with, and when you get out afterwards and say “see you tomorrow” they start lecturing you about how you’ll actually see them today because it’s already past midnight.

rezaf

554

Arbit - Oh come on, that’s entirely fixable.

555

Arbit wasn’t making any judgment calls about how the new game will handle that problem, so I don’t understand DF’s comment.

Come get done, son.

556

I’m saying that the issue of aiming not being worthwhile is entirely fixable in a new game. Even one which generally otherwise cloned X-Com’s gameplay.

557

  1. If all you do is just line up your guys in a row and bombard blind auto-fire until stuff gets dropped then for me that spells no fun.

  2. There are many factors going onto actually hitting a target, such as the random deviation imprinted onto every bullet taking off, the randomness in damage itself, your soldier’s own accuracy stat, the ‘standard range’ (can’t recall if it’s weapon or soldier based, but you take penalty hits to your chance to hit per square over certain square distance) and onwards.

You can crunch numbers, meanwhile, I take a soldier to the field and he misses 80% of these auto-fire shots…good way to get killed by return fire or your TUs running out and the enemy’s turn is up. Especially with those annoying saucers and other armored guys that tank laser shots.

  1. Call me bad as much as you want. I’ve won these games quite the many times and I come out of engagements with minimal loses (or no loses) while playing the game as a tactical one (I hate to put it, but…ahem, “as intended”).
    So I think I’ve done adequately at least.

Past midnight? It’s bloody quarter to three!

558

Foxstab, your inability to express complex thoughts, coupled with your inability to formulate thoughts worth expressing, makes your posts worthless. Please refrain from further posting in this thread.

Love, Pogo.

559

Foxstab,

  1. No one is advocating blind-autofiring into the darkness.
  2. I listed the accuracy calcs and they support my assertion that autofire is superior to aimed shots. Note: they don’t mention “random deviation imprinted onto every bullet taking off”.
  3. Your crazy rambling is crazy.
560

Auto fire superior to aim is the law of xcom peruse any FAQ or guide