Good game, shame about ...[extreme spoiler alert]

[Negator_UK]

.... the ending.

 

Looks like Firaxis decided to skip the"declining difficulty curve" at the end of the Gollop-era xcom games and end the game with an ambush. It spoiled what had been a good at-my-own level game for several game months, good job I wasn't playing Iron man. I reloaded and cheesed the win. But it does mean the end of TFTD remains my favourite xcom game ending, sorry Firaxis, close but no cigar.

 

I note that I did not get the Rocket upgrade you can get from battleships - do you have to wait long for those to come round in the "geoscape" ?

 

I also note that Slingshot give you a guaranteed shot at battleship - that package is starting to look less like DLC and more like a paid-for patch (but I paid already, so never mind).

 

Ah well, I'm definitely replaying this ! and given the large number of second wave options I suspect I'll still be replaying it a lot.

 

Maybe half a cigar

[silencer_pl]

If you're doing exceptionally well you should get battleship around July-September. Or if you are doing exceptionally bad you should see one around march-april

[Negator_UK]

I may have gotten one, and messed that mission up (see my post in the memorial thread) - maybe the game is more scripted than I realised.

 

But I've just watched Marvosirs Walkthrough of the same mission and it's totally different if you know whats coming.

 

A good game, marred by some avoidable design mistakes IMHO, but I'm a non-noobie now so I too know the game.

 

Impossible here i come, I'll keep my eye open for the battleship if it's such a good indicator how well you are doing. But I have slingshot anyway now, so I suppose I'll have that one too, although I'm having trouble installing my DLCs for xcom for some reason.

 

Mybe I'll play my first Impossible game without Slingshot to spread the pain/pleasure.

[crazedc]

Anyone else notice the ending was exactly like Enforcer's?

[NKF]

Close, we didn't get to see the charred remains of our beloved Volunteer drift through space. (I still like to think of this ending as how the T'Leth ending panned out.)

 

If cliches are anything to go by, it's likely that the Volunteer will reappear later down the line as one of the uber-bad guys, gone mad and hell bent on ruling the multiverse.

 

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

HE HE HE!

[silencer_pl]

And he will blame XCOM for leaving him out there

[Sorbicol]

If you need a battleship, just wait for a UFO to show up and let it go unmolested. When the battleship comes along a few days later to shoot down your satellite, ambush it

 

Once you have researched the blaster launchers, do remember to equip them though!

[Negator_UK]

XCom do have a habiit of leaving their heroes to rot, although I can't say the end of TFTD confirms their death or survival. However the end of APOC did show a unmanned spacship with the words "we did it" on it, I guess the heroes were OK with the one-way-trip-even-in-success thing.

 

Early in the game you die, at the end of the game you're used, what's a squaddie to do ?

[chiasaur11]

XCom do have a habiit of leaving their heroes to rot, although I can't say the end of TFTD confirms their death or survival. However the end of APOC did show a unmanned spacship with the words "we did it" on it, I guess the heroes were OK with the one-way-trip-even-in-success thing.

 

Early in the game you die, at the end of the game you're used, what's a squaddie to do ?

 

Wasn't an unmanned ship.

 

That was the Annihilator, the bus your team rode over in. And from the chatter, the team made it back alive and well. Except one moron who stayed back to watch the boom.

[NKF]

That's the vague part about the Apocalypse ending. The happy, and I'm guessing preferred, outcome is everyone survived. The grimmer view is that the occupants were toasted but the ship was still in sufficient working order to get back and transmit their final message.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

I'm pretty sure the message was sent after they've crash landed.

[Space Voyager]

That is the way I understood it, too.

[NKF]

The transmission was certainly received after the crash, but was it a live message or a recording/electronic message? I always felt it was quite open to interpretation. The win with the positive twist where things look bleak but right at the end (almost) everyone pulls through. Or the win with a tragic twist with the Annihilator turning into a ghost-ship broadcasting its occupants' final message of victory at intervals.

 

I'm still bitter at the lack of enthusiasm right at the end. "Yes". Pff, that's it. Series over.

 

- NKF

[chiasaur11]

The transmission was certainly received after the crash, but was it a live message or a recording/electronic message? I always felt it was quite open to interpretation. The win with the positive twist where things look bleak but right at the end (almost) everyone pulls through. Or the win with a tragic twist with the Annihilator turning into a ghost-ship broadcasting its occupants' final message of victory at intervals.

 

I'm still bitter at the lack of enthusiasm right at the end. "Yes". Pff, that's it. Series over.

 

- NKF

 

I lean towards live.

 

"We kicked their ass" doesn't feel like a prerecorded, even by X-Com standards, and from the talk about "The crazy bastards made it" and "get a rescue squad", the game seems to want to imply your team got home safe. Especially since there's no precedent in game from a SHIP to survive but leave the crew dead.

[NKF]

It might if the Annihilator was turned into an oven. It certainly got quite hot during the escape and the Annihilator was rather crispy when it crashed.

 

From an in-game perspective, we know it's the most well protected ship you can build, so it's easy to assume the troopers were well insulated. But cutscenes do have this bad habit of throwing in-game conventions out for dramatic effect. So it's hard to say.

 

- NKF

[Matri]

The transmission was certainly received after the crash, but was it a live message or a recording/electronic message? I always felt it was quite open to interpretation. The win with the positive twist where things look bleak but right at the end (almost) everyone pulls through. Or the win with a tragic twist with the Annihilator turning into a ghost-ship broadcasting its occupants' final message of victory at intervals.

 

I'm still bitter at the lack of enthusiasm right at the end. "Yes". Pff, that's it. Series over.

 

- NKF

 

Considering they were on their way to blow up the building keeping those gates open, I'm pretty sure the soldiers considered it to be a one-way mission.

 

But always remaining optimistic.

[Negator_UK]

Not convinced by the expanation about why "we did it" was plastered on the (a?) ship, but it was quite a few years ago now.

 

What to do ??

 

Guess I'll have to replay Apoc again and check it out more thoroughly, Steam bugs out on my laptop after two weeks, putting a big gap in my xcom 2012 play anyway ....

[Space Voyager]

In the end, the woman says that there is a message "We kicked their asses". It COULD be a pre-recorded message I suppose, but I don't find it very probable.

 

https://youtu.be/A57BS_Xjg5c

[silencer_pl]

Well - you might consider - when did they have time to record this message - they were in a hurry to get out - unless dimension travel takes few hours (don't think so) - then if they were on autopilot the craft would go straight to the base crash landing anywhere, but the craft crashed straight in the highway. So for me it looks like that human was piloting this thing.

 

Yes I know that ships returned next day from dimension gates - but I think it was just engine mechanics because you could enter the gate at 23:59 and return on 24:00.

[NKF]

The gate is over or near a highway. It's likely the same gate we saw in the intro. So having the ship crash on the highway is not too far fetched. But the ship does do a strange little hard spin the moment it pops out the gate. .

 

We can ignore the gamey mechanics, but the question on time involved is a good one. Just how long were the team away and how long did it take to get back? It may not have been a day or a few hours, but at the same time it can't be instantaneous travel otherwise flames would've burst through with the Annihilator. We don't really know what time passed between the fadeout and the next scene. Also, why was the commander on a routine patrol rather than monitor the situation?

 

Part of my dual interpretation of the ending comes from that little comment made by the commander right near the end about whether they made it or if it was a trick.

 

- NKF