Tsathoggua

Not sure regarding open x-com and celatids, they certainly were more dangerous on the battlefield however. Had noticed the tank/clip icon switching And with the two xarquid that I mentioned, I didn't berserk them with psionics, but took control (granted I usually avoid it as it seems to count as losing a tank or tanks (hadn't figured out which) when returned to alien control, I presume as they remain partially controlled sometimes if cracking the psionic whip to drive them harder what with the low TU of a xarquid. But on going to fire, the two of them had 'auto shot' distinctly and quite definitely present, at a cost of 3-5 AP or so compared to a single shot. I know of the bug, but this was with an alien, twice, under direct control (two different individual xarquid) the rest of those encountered in T'leth lacked the autofire capacity but there were the two of them, second level I think and they were dangerous enough to force them close enough after shooting through a wall (by the MC'ed xarquid) to be able to take them down with DPL rounds, despite the scarcity of the ammunition at the time, having only discovered most of my troops magazines floating around in the air by chance just before entering the last level. When I DID berserk those two they went absolutely mental, destroying most of their surroundings and no small number of aliens in the process. The rest of them hadn't got autofire capability, just the two them. Had one of those things gone berserk or else started reaction firing way the two of them did just one would have wiped out the entire squad if within range without much difficulty. Is this a known bug, or intentional?

Will seriously have to check this out. What is needed to run it? and is it compatible w/ other mods? One thing I noticed (regular game) that I hadn't before, is that hostile organizations can already make for a 3-way brawl. X-com fighting aliens fighting X-com and hostile building security forces whilst fighting (and looting) the organization security forces (not that the security teams stand up too well to X-com heavy weapons and psionics teams. Pissed off transtellar recently and after surveying the infiltration graphs, went to go clean out one of their buildings, but found the security teams firing at the squad sent to aid them, periodically hearing bursts of plasma discharge, autocannon fire, the odd grenade going off and heavy weapons fire accompanied by screams during the security team's turn in a turn-based game. Also, any hints on what new items?

I hadn't realized it was bugged. It was somewhat of an anticlimax, albeit with a feeling of 'finally gotcha ya big green lovecraftian git', and that was pretty much the tactic taken. The previous two levels of T'leth were taken mostly with vibroblades, and the help of 3 sonic tanks, which of course don't lose the ammo, immobilizing the enemy with psionics (and occasionally wreaking bloody havoc by panicking xarquid. They seem to have a tendency rather than to shut down, to go berserk, and start firing off a massive amount of shots. In a room packed full of lobstermen, aquatoids etc. a xarquid going nutso at close quarters can clear it out pretty quickly. As well as blowing shortcuts through walls and saving on the ammo. Noticed two other odd things. Two out of all the xarquid down there had autofire capability. The rest, didn't. Those in particular..are there MEANT to be 'special forces' xarquid in t'leth? because I don't THINK I've seen them have autofire elsewhere. And deep ones...despite taking over deep ones, they seem under x-com control to lose both the arc-fire character of their weapon discharge, and to be packing a sonic weapon. They had to be, since the discharge took the form of a direct point-to-point line of sight attack that did heavy to massive damage to both terrain and organic targets, whilst they are, along with celatid in the first war, possessed of unique damage types whilst under alien control, and the aliens according to the x-com wiki have a sky high resistance to electrical attack damage to the point where it would be useless if an electric weapon (unlike celatid venom, which really makes a mess of even heavily armored units, human or alien, inaccurate but very damaging. I'd hate to be a celatid with allergies, just imagine restraining a sneeze like THAT inside your head!. Well I'd hate to be a brainless, eyeless, faceless pulsating floating poisonous, twitching kidney anyway, but....) But on getting to the last level of T'leth, all it took was taking control of a tentaculate to bring it in range of the tank guns, then leveling the stasis chamber with a massive, coordinated DPL strike, Took just two, at most, three x-com turns to wipe the place off the face of the earth. I was expecting heavy fighting, not insufficient resistance to ever even get a shot off.

When you have reached past the point any interrogation is going to give you anything, does the completion of research itself still give any score if nothing is added to the ufopaedia? Anyhow (thought I posted this already) But finally got to T'leth and found it if anything overly easy, despite (is this normal?) losing almost all ammunition bar a few DPL shells, MC disruptors, a few grenades and close combat weapons, finding the ammo strewn (up in the air of all places, would never have seen it if not using mag-ion armor) all over the base) and relying until then on capture of DPL rounds to save for the final showdown, plus 3 sonic tanks, but mostly on MC-ing xarquid and deep ones and using their inbuilt weapons to cut through walls so as to save the HE ammo to take out the power generators for the alien's life support, and save tank ammo because I expected the last section to be crawling, instead of just firing a handful of torpedoes, killing two, maybe 3 aliens and finishing the job in 2-3 turns. Moving on to apocalypse again now.

Well excuse ME for an attempt at a humorous rendition of the event in question. There is no need to descend to insults based upon that. It is the first resort of the lowest common denominator. And to be quite honest, I've got a few things I'd just as soon say in reply, only I will be the better man and refrain from roasting you alive with a torrent of flaming. This time, anyway. Don't expect me to hold back should you continue to dole out insult when none has been offered to you. I'm not going to start trouble, but don't think I won't finish it if somebody, you, or anybody else is determined to shove it down my throat. Patronizing git. And as for the PWT cannon has its advantages, it comes into its own as a second weapon for the manta in particular, especially when a small fleet of 3-5 of them is kept ready as a fast interceptor reaction squad since they are able to quickly outpace the dreadnoughts nine times out of ten, mounting a paired PWT/sonic oscillator whilst keeping some craft in reserve mounting twinned sonic oscillators to take down anything up to large-sized craft, which it outranges and nearly always if going for a long range attack will take them down quick enough and from too far away to have to worry about return fire, whilst the PWT shells pack a lot of punch in a single shot, and when facing something as powerful and heavily armed/armored as a dreadnought or battleship the amount of damage they can deliver in a single shot is significant enough that it is in my experience, far preferable to be able to deal out as much damage as quickly as possible. Whilst both weapons allow for return fire, with 2-3 mantas loaded with a PWT and sonic oscillator, it adds up. And if you only have barracuda available there is every chance that one hit will wipe out the interceptor entirely before it has had the chance to get off more than a couple of shots, so IMO its better to make them count, that way you have more chance of at least keeping the craft, albeit badly damaged. I don't mean to send in a single craft, but when there is a dreadnought on the scene it is time to dogpile the thing and hit it with everything you've got. 2 hits from a PWT might not do it, but 3-4 ships at once, then with only barracuda available then even a dreadnought has enough opposition to worry about, especially iif at least one craft has a sonic oscillator mounted. Oh and as for writing in a lengthy style, I always have done to some degree. But in part, you can blame some of it on strong pain medication, as well as making me fall asleep fairly often and losing track, it for whatever reason tends to do that to me. Not got much of a choice in that respect, been on it for years, after a fall that resulted in my badly damaging my knee joint, after getting a dirty great big spike of glass penetrating into the knee joint, through the tendon. Further surgery made it worse, and left me with nerve damage on top of the already extant problems. Changed the way I walk to compensate and that took both my hips with it. So I really haven't got much of an option if I want to be properly mobile. And nor, just to make a post, can I just decide not to take it. I doubt I need to explain the fact that abruptly ceasing large doses of morphine and oxycodone results in the person doing it having to endure an extremely unpleasant experience. And just to post on a forum, I am not going to subject myself to that, for you, or for anybody else. I don't go out of my way to TRY and piss people off. But, for the reason mentioned above, sometimes posts do end up getting too long. And yes, it was dickish, certainly in the way that you did so.

Almost, but not quite. The first triton landed at the largest craft, a dreadnought, carrying my primary assault squad, tank and psi division. All of them seasoned hard bastards enough that engaging a dreadnought in a night mission, which was expected at the time, is more likely to end up as a 'anybody carrying any more phosphorus shells????' sort of occasion rather than a 'glurk! gag! puke in helmet! die' occasion. whilst the secondary team, not as experienced but with a commander rank psyker who is one of the earliest still surviving squad members on any base, supporting a trainee psi trooper with a strength in the 90s, rapidly turning into a walking, swimming, corpse factory and who's pulled as many asses out of fires nearly as he has triggers. This squad was sent to investigate a USO that had been shot down if smaller size although as a priority, since the sneaky little gits have been really going hard at it trying to successfully pull off an infiltration. Not likely to come in time though before a leviathan is built, a full complement consisting of exclusively battle-tested psyops forces, tanks and sufficient explosives and heavy artillery to turn the gulf of mexico into the little brother of the new and improved gulf of n.america, or at least where it used to be' Got the primary team 'accept mission y/n' screen and then whilst it was up, the secondary team accept/deny screen came up. Went yes for both, needed the inlfiltrators dealt with and wasn't too enthusiastic about another battleship/dreadnought unceasing onslaught taking as many PWT torpedoes as several bases twinned fully staffed workshops were turning out for the base craft at maximum rate affordable whilst leaving money for the x-com personnel's paychecks, hardware and other engineers at bases building a fleet of manta interceptors and a leviathan plus a bunch of sonic tanks, mag-ion armor and sufficient motion trackers and MC disruptors for the ground troops, bombardment shields accompanying a hornet's nest of PWT turrets just waiting for some incautious green bugger USO pilot to try it on, likely usually enough for 25-45 shots counting the bombardment shield in many cases. Many of the garrison troopers haven't seen action though. Tooled up heavily enough and enough tanks, but green still since little gets the chance to approach much less try to land. Running manta patrols around the globe scouting for enemy bases and any USOs out of base detection range, In the end, for others, what happened was that it appeared as though the craft did, actually, hit the seafloor at the same time, because the smaller craft ended up going first but after completing the mission the other, primary craft automatically returned to base, on 'low fuel' (nothing like low in actual fact so thats doubtless why IMO) as if it had been in action and one way or the other finished the job. Only no score, corpses, loot, MIA/KIA troops etc. sod all)

Well in any case, all my bases are now fairly well protected. MC generators installed, and absolutely swarming with PWT turrets. Bombardment shields are being built and the bases themselves all with a garrison, albeit of green troops being rotated in and out of the main combat squad to train them should anything survive. Most of the bases are pretty minimal, stores enough for craft and garrison ammunition, some tanks, troops, and engineering to supply ammo for the likes of PWT launchers, and theres always the now perpetually patrolling manta for rapid response and tailing the enemy craft if needed for as long as needed to keep the USO in radar/sonar range until coming in range of the bases loaded with PWT and sonic cannon-equipped or twin PWT loaded interceptors, whilst waiting to replace the barracuda with mantas. So anything that does come looking is in for a very nasty surprise; since after building sufficient stores, detection and stealth systems, engineering and living quarters for the engineers and troops the rest of the bases are more or less just being filled with PWT turrets plus a bombardment shield. The chances once the latter are finished of anything getting through is minimal given the quantity of offensive hardware going to come their way.

Haven't had this happen before. But, just managed to take down a pair of USOs, one small, a scout of some sort and one large one on an infiltration mission. Wouldn't have gotten the last one, but the latest craft, a manta just transferred to another base, armed with a sonic oscillator and PWT cannon. Launched a flight and ran out of fuel, but craft stayed in the air (this has happened before, and now I can return the other flight back to base to rearm since all it had were a pair of PWT launchers, meaning two shots (albeit two devastating ones) and then patrol duty unarmed. That one can now go get some R&R for the pilot who is no doubt by now, after months in the air, REALLY desparate for a meal a shower and a shit But the new interceptor, fast as it is, caught up with the larger craft in moments, engaged and brought it down without it ever getting a shot off. Sent two troop transports in to put boots on the ground and bodies on the floor. But here's where it got odd. Saved just before, (luckily?) and the first transport bearing the primary assault team, the survivors who have been fighting near enough right from the start, and as a result by now, have become more or less unstoppable, backed up by heavy artillery and a sonic tank, the other, backup squad just needs to transfer to another base briefly, stop off and pick up a more up to date tank than the coelacanth/gas cannon on board, from any of the bases where the garrisons have spare sonic tanks and somewhere to land. A little less experienced and bar the commander of that base are, for the most part, either psyker types of modest capability, and a couple, two or three really outstanding ones, in terms of potential, strength in the 90s and high at that. Still, they are unskilled and in training both on-base and on the battlefield, letting rip as much as possible with the MC attacks to train up as rapidly as possible. But anyway, the weird bit. Transport 1 landed, got the mission start clearance screen y/n begin mission. And at the interphase point between mission arming and geoscape, the second craft landed. Smaller one landed first. Am I still going to get both the missions, is this likely to crash the system or what? never had anything like this happen before. And of course, a large infiltrator craft, is not something I want to leave hanging around, un-looted.

Usenet was before my time. Well I was just about using the net then occasionally via a modem line at my old man's workshop (30 now), spending more time back then with my chemistry and mycology hobbies and learning from..books, old fashioned things, never the likes of wikipedia like we spoiled bastards have today. Still, been at this since the game came out, always been one of my favourites. Beaten UFO a good few times, but never beaten TFTD. Certainly not on this difficulty level either. Putting up a pretty good fight though, and its probably a good sign that the bugs are getting mightily pissed off. Scouting around for bases again after one of their last battlecruiser/dreadnought onslaughts actually got a craft past the barrage of pulse wave torpedoes that were sent up their backsides (btw-does being pounded by base defenses reduce the number of enemy that get through?) Green troops., a garrison that had just been installed, after losing my first of any bases (and only, so far). One guy did get shredded into the next best (worst) thing to cat food by a calcinite, and no psyops troops to deal with the bastards. But did have one edge, in the form of a pair of sonic tanks and a tracked gauss cannon which got shipped over there with just the one round, for each, in order to take advantage of the free ammo, when the gauss tanks were retired from front line duty and posted off to the home guard. Still, they did their bit when they could cut loose freely, and played their part in mowing down a marauding calcinite headed for a couple of snipers in training, I.e everybody, given the circumstances and no armor, with lighter sonic weapons, a couple of the heavy cannons and raining down HE gas cannon fire for accuracy training given the splash damage, gibbing what bugs they could. Aquatoids, for the most part of course, and the HE shells are decent enough for training purposes especially when launched in barrages against several little green horrors close together. Mmm...wonder what was served for rations that day after the invasion was sent back to the bottom of the ocean........

Easier to type than 'molecular control/psionics specialists' 'USO' seems fairly commonly used a term here though, And managed to..fix the problem...spotting an aquatoid, navigator, I think via one of those odd-angle through the corner lines of sight, taking it over and finding it had what turned out to be the only DPL on the map (with ammunition) immediately had it fire it into the wall a couple of tiles ahead. Needless to say, not turning out very happily for the aquatoid in question, or the two of its crewmates on the other side of the adjacent wall. Lift wasn't blown up, at least I don't think so, that would still leave a flat patch as a marker, square in shape, on the tactical map wouldn't it? Bit of a squirrelly mission in general that one, turning up with no ammunition and all. (it was all there the next mission flown by that sub without any interaction on my part bar ordering the launch to proceed and waiting for arrival) And not totally sure what class of ship now. Big bugger, but no terrorists, which rules out dreadnoughts, I'd make my guess at fleet supply cruiser from the number of aliens and the relative lack of very heavy weapons. As to rank, couldn't say for sure what was present, or their psi capability since not one of them got a shot off or had time to react before being mown down after the squad scavenged a few of their guns and MC'ed, stabbed in the back with vibroblades/HTLs or blown up/hit by tank fire before. What is 'IBA'?

Quick question-due to Xcomutil, it appears there is no grav shaft access to the upper floor of a dirty great battlecruiser that my barracuda fleet recently shot down after dogpiling it like a swarm of piranha, some taking heavy damage and limping back to base barely in one piece, but in the end, after backup arrived for the initial attack fleet, armed for the most part with twin-linked sonic oscillators and in one case with a sonic oscillator and a couple of DUP-head torpedoes, in time for the damaged craft to disengage keeping tabs with one at standoff range, to keep the enemy USO in sonar/radar range long enough for 4-5 or so subs armed with paired PWT cannon and the odd one mounting both pulse-wave torpedoes and sonics for longer engagement, plus maybe a sonic weapon/gauss cannon combination. And unfortunately for whatever reason, the damned ammunition wasn't sent with the troops, leaving them to have to rely on psykers, pulse grenades, close combat weaponry and whatever they've been able to scrounge from the corpses of the enemy after some sneaking and backstabbing, supported by the odd barrage of heavy sonics fire from the hovertank. Unfortunately, none of the recovered weaponry includes any DPL ammo or launchers. Just have the two unloaded launchers brought along for such moments. No demo charges available. Whilst I know that a couple of bursts of sonic cannon fire will cut through USO interior walls, is it capable of blasting up through the ceiling? (the agents do have in most cases, mag ion armor, so if its possible to blow a hole through the floor from below, they can pop up and grenade the ingress point, pop down again, wait for any screaming and splattering then carry on with the bug-murdering at leisure. Have shot through floors from above, but not below before. Is the heavy sonic cannon sufficient to do so (the aquanaut-portable one that is, can't get the hovertank in without the unavailable heavy blasting charges or DPL shells.)

I know. I MC them as soon as they get within sight, and have a tank follow them as an escort usually, hovering off ground level to avoid any incoming grenades. TFTD aliens seem a lot more grenade-happy than in UFO. Either they get MC'ed and used as scouts, or else in places like artefact sites where the synomium device is and there are all those little brain-sucking bastards present then one gets MC'ed to scout for the rest. MC-ing each of them to line them up, and keep them immobilized, bar one, to get to the one on the middle level of the elevator shaft in that small chamber with the alien tech of some kind in there, and that one brought down, keeping a tasoth on ground level to repeatedly spot them before bringing them all together and calling in a DPL strike to splatter the lot of them into greasy smears of flash-boiled brain matter against the most convenient wall.

They landed. Did get slapped by a few PWT warheads on the way in although it wasn't enough to wipe out the dreadnought. Garrison was totally green, no armor, and a mixture of gas cannon, sonic rifle, with a fair few shock launchers, plus enough explosives to wipe out a city. Aquatoids, thankfully, bringing calcinites along with them. Thankfully the aquanauts (only about 6-7 of them held their own with only one rookie dying (torn to pieces by a calcinite) were the race invading, had it been tasoth or anything nastier, there would have been a real tough fight on their hands. A few heavy sonic cannon were available, and thankfully, I'd had the foresight to station two sonic displacer tanks and a pair of gauss cannon tanks (taking advantage of the free ammo in base defence situations, once the displacers became available the tanks were immediately switched out for front line assault duty whilst the older gauss tanks (which I'd actually keep using were it not for the massive ammo consumption (btw, if one doesn't fire a single shot, and returns with a full magazine, does the engine still not return the shells ?) were assigned to other bases needing garrison duty. The displacers and gauss tanks really proved their worth as force-multipliers, and turned the tide of the fight, especially against the calcinites which can take a fair bit of abuse when the weapons used were mostly gas cannon and HE or phosphorus rounds. But they didn't stand up to being engaged at very close range by the improved coelacanth models with their heavy gauss weapon mounts, whilst the pair of displacers proved themselves perfect for scouting, marking targets for the aquanauts to practice their skills on, only opening fire once the aquanauts had exhausted their TU firing. Question-when a base invasion begins, and when engaged by automated defense emplacements, does the attacking ship taking a non-lethal barrage of fire reduce the numbers of aliens that appear in the base? that is, are some killed by the initial defensive fire before landing, as in when a USO is engaged by interceptors and shot down, the crash (usually) killing some number of the crew? or is it an all or nothing thing? I'm playing on genius, not superhuman. And make infiltrator craft my first priority, those get engaged immediately and brought down no matter how many craft need sending out given the importance of wiping those out. Alien interdiction missions also have high priority as do terror ships. In fact I've not had a terror site occur in so long it would almost be a good thing in terms of variety, since no terror ship has survived long enough to actually start, well, terrorizing. One that I remember did manage to land, a dreadnought, or other very large craft, but it was spotted landing by a patrol craft and it made the mistake of doing so close to the base my main team is stationed at, and a troop transport immediately sent out, caught the bugger on the ground and managed to take the crew out without them ever getting to fire a shot. Aquatoids or gill men, forget which, but they didn't stand a chance against the team I sent, almost entirely extremely strong psykers and armed to the teeth with heavy weapons, every aquanaut carrying some form of close combat weapon, a vibroblade for the weakest in strength, the strongest carrying heavy thermic lances and tazers (I generally give the thermal tazers to the strongest troops with the most TU since it costs so much more to attack with one compared to even a heavy thermic lance whilst even a relatively weak soldier can usually manage a sonic rifle, a couple of sonic pulsers, maybe a dye grenade and a vibroblade, or else at least a vibroblade, sonic pistol and a bunch of grenades) and packing an awful lot of explosives. Wasn't so much a raid, as a massacre.

Been getting a LOT of really, really seriously pissed off aliens of late, due to the constantly obliterating every effort they make to engage in any activity, from the smallest scout craft to a pack of dreadnoughts backed up by cruisers, they are immediately detected by the network of bases with hyperwave decoders, rarely ever losing track, and if it does happen, its usually brief, since there is a craft that somehow got bugged and left with 0% fuel, now assigned to permanent, constant patrol. It has no ammunition left, since unfortunately, rather than high-capacity sonics its equipped with a pair of PWT launchers, the ammunition for which was long since expended, although its of more use with the magazines empty as a patrol, scouting and tireless follower of craft to keep them in sight. They did just get a base up, but that is about to be trashed, little sods built it without the usual swarm of craft engaged in construction, so about to send in a strike team and wipe their brand new base off the face of the earth. Only, the little shits are really determined to make some trouble, and are sending in dreadnoughts in ones, twos and more at a time to try and invade a base. What does it actually take for them to piss off and things to calm down for a while, whilst I build a few manta attack craft to replace the three barracuda recently lost? A detection and attempted landing, successfully shot down by the automated PWT defences? or an actual invasion and them sent packing?

The bugs are getting absolutely PISSED with me it seems. Got a full complement of bases, and hyperwave decoders, MC generators installed, but am finding that wherever there is space, I've just had to install a veritable country-worth of defense systems by way of base-defense PWT cannon turrets, spotting mission after mission after mission after mission, with just the odd scout, whilst the damn swines have been taking such a beating lately that every time they try to establish a base, every time that they reactivate an artifact site, and every craft that gets detected is being shot down within moments of it appearing on radar/hyperwave decoder, and had to expand and train backup assault teams there are so many ships being trashed. Just lost three of my own, though, barracuda got shot down, after taking out one dreadnought (this is something like the fifth, sixth or even seventh in a week or just over, game time, all of them bar one (that one was on an infiltration mission) searching for X-com facilities to raid. Just had three dreadnoughts and a cruiser show up at once, downed the lot, although losing 3 barracuda and 2 more damaged, one critically and one just slapped around a bit. Gave them a heavy pounding from a flight of 14-15, maybe more barracuda interceptors packing sonic oscillators and in one case, even a few old, outdated DUP head torpedoes jammed up the alien's backsides for good measure, before a second squad armed with sonic weapons and a fair few mounting twinned PWT cannon came to relieve the first swarm of craft, and downing every one of the dreadnoughts, the cruiser being wiped out entirely. Assault team is taking on the first of the dreadnoughts, and due to x-comutil its proved to be a land battle, no civillians around though thankfully because the fighting is more than heavy, the skies are crawling with sonics fire, shock grenades and the occasional DPL shell, although any DPL trails have been immediately followed by the sonic displacer tank and the shooter slaughtered. This time, its gill men, and they are packing xarquid aplenty (difficulty is on genius), whilst psykers MC anything that moves and bring them into line of fire for the sniper teams to take out, or else have them turn their weapons on their own. No casualties as of yet, most of the squad are hanging back and raining down sniper fire, making MC attacks whilst the displacer is proving to be a tremendous force-multiplier, a great improvement over the gauss tanks they are replacing, the latter being used as base defense to assist the more inexperienced teams that in many cases haven't yet fought, and are mainly serving as garrison troops in case any of those damned dreadnoughts does get through. Think I'm going to start slowly rotating the squads, a few rookies at a time being assigned to the sharp end of the spear, my primary assault team, where they can be backed up by a squad made up of more than 3/4 members that are my elite psyker division, all armored in mag ion armor and packing one hell of a lot of firepower, so the rookies can get some training, get armored up properly and then be sent back to guard the factory bases and research facilities, as well as the bases serving as early warning and detection and providing interceptor cover for the places further away from my main few bases. This is some of the heaviest fighting I've seen in a while, and for gill men they are really putting up a pretty determined effort. Although aside from a couple of hits to the tank from a xarquid, the only thing to have hit any of my troops are a fair few stun grenades to the tank and a couple of glancing hits from a sonic rifle (I think, didn't do any damage worth counting anyway)