Let's Play X-Com: Terror from the Deep

[Nookrium]

Exactly what I feared would happen at some point...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aINMAwyhJIc&list=PL3Hfqo2_KOlfab7oDz4abWcCLAgMAA8Y0&index=59

[NKF]

Despite the really unfortunate circumstances, you've got a fair chance at winning this. Being able to grab the drills before the end of this series is also a big plus, and I'm sure you'll find them as essential part of the anti-Lobsterman kit as the Shok Bombs.

 

"Jimmy's got a gun" - my pop culture trivia knowledge is very minimal, but I'm thinking that's the name of a tune. ZZ Top?

 

This Matthew Broomhall's probably made up, but John Broomhall is responsible for the eerie nautical soundtrack in this game.

 

When you were trying to open that door but it wasn't working, this was happening because the flashing message on the status bar hadn't cleared. The same thing usually happens when you try to throw something and you're out of range or the throwing arc is blocked. The game won't let you take the action until the message has cleared, so rapidly clicking to perform the action will not work. The designers put a bit of a delay in the message for some reason. It clears much faster in Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

"Jimmy's got a gun" - my pop culture trivia knowledge is very minimal, but I'm thinking that's the name of a tune. ZZ Top?

 

Aerosmith actually, but close enough, lol.

 

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

And it's not Jimmy but Janie

[Nookrium]

Yup, Aerosmith

 

Despite the really unfortunate circumstances, you've got a fair chance at winning this. Being able to grab the drills before the end of this series is also a big plus, and I'm sure you'll find them as essential part of the anti-Lobsterman kit as the Shok Bombs.

 

I think I got pretty lucky having Aquatoids for this, plus the Calcinites finally came back! If only they had shown up 6 months ago (without me running away).

 

 

Next part, I think I cause more damage to my men that the aliens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfPcy1KqebU&index=60&list=PL3Hfqo2_KOlfab7oDz4abWcCLAgMAA8Y0

[NKF]

On the bright side, most of your chaps were stunned rather than killed. Taken out of combat, certainly, but not dead. Also I'm somewhat glad you aren't in the habit of having pre-armed grenades. Hatty would have been turned into bolognaise sauce after he got stunned.

 

That exchange with the Aqutaoid Commander was quite interesting. On a humorous note, it's the strongest MC unit in the game.

 

Cruisers by the way seem to always have Zrbite no matter how badly shot up they are. That makes them an excellent source for Zrbite.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

I'm currently watching the incredible backlog of episodes I missed during my work-induced hiatus, so please excuse the lateness.

 

I think that I can condense episodes 54 & 55 down to a few points which seemed to pop up a lot.

 

1) In episode 54 you were shooting salvo-after-salvo of Shok Bombs at 2 lobstermen standing next to each other and missing. And you are wondering why your stockpile of Shok Bombs was dwindling? Well, geez, how about you throw some pulsers instead?! You had plenty of guys close enough to toss them and the pulsers are a hell of a lot easier to recoup usage. Don't forget about them. As an aside, the first thing that comes to my mind when seeing a bunch of enemies is how many pulsers can I toss on them. Those are my first choice, Cannon rounds next, then Shok Bombs and finally as a last resort, DPL's. I realize that Pulsers are a bit risky to use at times (especially with MC aliens around), but they really help to conserve ammo when you are trying to zerg-rush to the end of the game.

 

2) Pro-tip on Shok Bombs to lessen the probability of gross missed shots (shots where the AOE doesn't cover the area you intended): if you have Mag Ion Armor soldiers, get them as high up in the battlescape as you can and then shoot down at the target. If the shot misses, it'll hit the ground nearby which may be enough splash stun to knock the alien(s) out anyway.

 

3) Refusal to use DPLs when you need Ion Beam Accelerators. First of all, you shouldn't have sold your stockpile of them, that was shall I say, dumb. Secondly, you can use them outside of a USO without too much worry as the hulls will soak up a lot of the splash damage. Just don't go peppering the shells directly against the hull.

 

4) Scouting. You now have a dedicated scout: the displacer SWS, so use it to scout. When your turn starts, the absolute first thing you should do is switch to the SWS and scout with it. Clear as much of the battlescape as you can and take long range shots with your team. Most everyone should be able to shoot at the target assuming a clear LOS.

 

5) Tentaculats: this may seem counter intuitive, but when you have maps with these critters, the safest level is the highest level. Station your men up high, as 99% of the time a Tentaculat will be on L0. If it spots your men, it'll have to not only waste TU to get to the area, but also get up to where your soldiers are. At 8TU/level, that cost can mean the difference between an extra usage of it's melee. Traversing a tile normally takes 4 TU while level changing is 8 TU, see what I mean? Also, you spotted a Tentaculat inside the ship but didn't fire a DPL in there to take care of it even though there were not any recoverable Ion Beam Accelerators present. As I said in a previous post, focus on the big picture and don't paint your brain into a corner thinking of only one thing. Shortsightedness get's you zombified.

 

6) Shooting down a USO with weaker weapons doesn't do anything different to it than shooting it down with powerful weapons. When a USO is shot down with any weapon, the only thing that affects recoverables is the the 75% power source detonation probability. If it goes off, your recoverables are probably gone. If it doesn't, congrats. Just be careful with the DPLs.

 

- Zombie

[Nookrium]

That exchange with the Aqutaoid Commander was quite interesting. On a humorous note, it's the strongest MC unit in the game.

Wow, Is that the same for UFO, Sectoid cmdr stronger than ethereals?

 

5) Tentaculats: this may seem counter intuitive, but when you have maps with these critters, the safest level is the highest level. Station your men up high, as 99% of the time a Tentaculat will be on L0. If it spots your men, it'll have to not only waste TU to get to the area, but also get up to where your soldiers are. At 8TU/level, that cost can mean the difference between an extra usage of it's melee. Traversing a tile normally takes 4 TU while level changing is 8 TU, see what I mean?

6) Shooting down a USO with weaker weapons doesn't do anything different to it than shooting it down with powerful weapons. When a USO is shot down with any weapon, the only thing that affects recoverables is the the 75% power source detonation probability. If it goes off, your recoverables are probably gone. If it doesn't, congrats. Just be careful with the DPLs.

Excellent idea for the tentaculats, they seem to be the biggest problem for me now.

 

Why does it always seem when a craft gets shot down by the newer weapons it has way more damage done? In the early game it's possible to have a nearly intact USO, but that rarely happens later on, I thought that was all because of the stronger weapons.

 

 

 

Next episode, the South Pacific is heating up...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeTXo1XE1sk

[Zombie]

Why does it always seem when a craft gets shot down by the newer weapons it has way more damage done? In the early game it's possible to have a nearly intact USO, but that rarely happens later on, I thought that was all because of the stronger weapons.

 

This is another case of something which is counter intuitive. You would think that the weaker weapons leave the USO with less damage and the powerful weapons do more. This causes the brain to believe this statement is true when the conditions are met, and if it isn't met, the brain conveniently disregards the trial because it goes against common sense. This behavior is actually true and documented. So there's your psychology lesson for the day.

 

In reality, the detonation of the power source is responsible for what you see. It goes a bit deeper though. PS explosions do a somewhat random amount of damage from a min of 180 to a max of 250 to terrain. That is quite a big difference in damage potential. If you want to see some pics on this, I did research into this subject on the UFO Crash Recovery Talk Page on the X-COM Wiki (for UFO, but should also apply to TFTD as well). This randomness is why you see varying damage if you reload the game and visit a crash site over and over, not craft weapon damage potential.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

Wow, Is that the same for UFO, Sectoid cmdr stronger than ethereals?

 

In UFO the Ethereals were the psi lords. Just going by the base stats at normal difficulty, the Aquatoid Commander's psi skill is 50. The Ethereal Soldier has 40 skill and the Commander 65 skill. So it sits in between. The Tasoth Squad Leader by the way is identical to the Ethereal Soldier.

 

I'm quite glad they toned psionics down a bit in TFTD. It's still dangerous, but it does let you get on with the game a bit more.

 

edit:

 

I just started watching the latest episode, and I had to come back and say that DPL lobsterman you found is in a really odd place. I've never actually seen any aliens stationed on top of their own subs before. Unless it was in the plaza area of the Supply Ship and it walked up and over the edge. Still, an odd place for it to go.

 

Try to get a give a bit more air for your snipers that hang around the Triton during the early stages of an assault. Especially for the shok bomb guys, for the reasons that Zombie mentioned.

 

That Lobsterman in the command room that threw the pulser just cheated! It threw the grenade right into the wall so that it could cause a blast through to the other side. That's an exploit you can do with any wall that occupies the middle of the tile. In fact, that's a trick aliens may sometimes use on certain Terror Sites to kill troops hiding inside the Triton.

 

Before you go to T'Leth, it might be a good idea to do a couple of missions to practice and get the hang of the drills. Drilling is interesting as attacking an enemy with a drill will not immediately cause it to reaction fire if you fail to kill it. You can keep drilling to your hearts' content and not cause it to react even if it should be able to take a reaction shot. Doing anything else, such as turning or moving, will then immediately trigger the shot. So, stand still and keep drilling, or get someone else to finish the job.

 

Also of the variety of drills, Vibroblades and Heavy Thermic Lances are your best picks. The Vibroblade is well suited to your very mobile play style since it's fast and rips up Lobstermen in one or two hits. The Heavy Thermic Lance is twice as slow, but does very high damage.

 

The drills aren't that good against large terror units, mostly because they have heaps of armour plating which makes the drills less effective. Switch to shok bombs or other explosives for them.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

Have anyone here made to T'leth without researching M.C. Lab? By the way. Nook please read this: https://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=T%27leth specially end of description for Level 2. Pretty important to know.

[Nookrium]

In reality, the detonation of the power source is responsible for what you see. It goes a bit deeper though. PS explosions do a somewhat random amount of damage from a min of 180 to a max of 250 to terrain. That is quite a big difference in damage potential. If you want to see some pics on this, I did research into this subject on the UFO Crash Recovery Talk Page on the X-COM Wiki (for UFO, but should also apply to TFTD as well). This randomness is why you see varying damage if you reload the game and visit a crash site over and over, not craft weapon damage potential.

 

- Zombie

 

That's quite interesting. I had always just assumed it was my fancy new guns doing massive damage to the ship. I kinda liked it my way better

 

Before you go to T'Leth, it might be a good idea to do a couple of missions to practice and get the hang of the drills.

Will do, I was about to ask about the differences between them and which was best to use. I assume they're light enough to pack along in the backpack like a stun rod? I'm actually quite eager to try them out, with all the Lobsterman killing hype they've been receiving.

 

 

Next part, everything's looking nice...

[Nookrium]

Have anyone here made to T'leth without researching M.C. Lab? By the way. Nook please read this: https://ufopaedia.org...hp?title=T'leth specially end of description for Level 2. Pretty important to know.

Ah, thanks... I'm trying not to learn too much about T'leth to make it a bit more fun for me, but the 25 man lift part is pretty important (if I somehow manage to make it there with no losses)

[NKF]

Yes, you'll often have to abandon any tanks at the end of level 2. That's not a big loss since you are forced to abandon any tanks in the entrance area of level 3 due to a 1 tile wide doorway. To give them passage you'd have to use up lots of DPLs, as there are tons of 1 tile doors.

 

The other need-to-know for T'Leth, is that the game requires you to destroy a series of scenery objects to complete the final level. Make sure you have some spare Sonic Cannon rounds, Pulsers or DPLs by the time you get to end of level 3.

 

This is from experience. I once completely ran out of sonic cannon ammo part way through the last level. Drills and shok bombs got me through to the end, but since neither of these weapons can destroy scenery, I had no way to end the mission.

 

Have anyone here made to T'leth without researching M.C. Lab?

 

It's quite possible. Since TFTD was my first experience at X-Com, I didn't even know the MC existed as an option for the player as I was unfortunate enough to strike the MC Reader bug that shut out all MC tech. It was quite a surprising find on my second play.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Well, I finished watching episodes 56&57 so here's some more comments (might not help with this playthrough as you are nearing the end it seems, but this could come in handy for Jagged Alliance or Silent Storm if you ever do those... *fingers crossed*).

 

1) You broke Rule#1 in my book so badly it hurt. What is Rule#1? Secure the LZ and secure one side of the map. You kinda secured the LZ, but really dropped the ball in securing one edge of the map (in this case it was the west side, the side in back of the Triton). The crazy thing is, you were in a perfect position to do so as the Triton was midway between both corners. One group to the North, one to the South and a small group in the middle to hold that area in front of the ship. Now, when I say secure, I mean secure... you absolutely, positively have to search out those corners to make sure nothing is hiding there. Once all the black is revealed, then you can spread out a bit and start the advance to the opposite side of the map. The last thing you want is to miss an alien or allow one to slip behind your line and create havoc.

 

2) This is your favorite map in TFTD, but it's my least favorite, especially in the dark. There's just too much coral and multiple levels of it with tons of obstructions and cubbies for the aliens to hide in. Not only that, but the overhangs and constant navigation around cleared areas makes it a complete nightmare for shooting and throwing alike. Sure, it works in your favor too as the aliens have to deal with the same things, but my troops want more options than the aliens, not the same. Just be glad you had DPLs to take some of the sting out of it.

 

3) I'm glad you used the SWS to scout, but sending it too far out in front of your squad cuts it's lifeline. On open maps, having the SWS scout way far out there is viable as your troops can shoot or throw basically unhindered. But when there is so much garbage... urm "scenery" in the way, this makes it impossible for your SWS to have any backup in case it gets into trouble. In this instance you drove that SWS straight into uncharted territory and stirred up a real hornets nest of Lobstermen. You got really lucky when you parked it so near to the closest Lobsterman, as it (and his friend in the darkness) both missed their shots. How much do you want to tempt fate though? Moving it around got it killed, when there were 2 soldiers which had clear shots and could have killed it first. If that closest alien was killed, then the SWS could have drove ahead a bit to re-reveal that one in the dark. DPL him, then shoot with the SWS and he should have some pretty crappy FA if he survives. Or *gasp* retreat a bit until your soldiers could advance to help out. But you never retreat, do you?

 

4) You now proceeded to break my Rule#2 in TFTD, which is to completely clear the outside of the map before heading in the USO. (I honestly don't have many of these cardinal rules, but 1&2 are so important they should be commandments). I think you saw that entrance on the top level and got distracted, but those 3 guys up there didn't contribute much other than entering the USO. Meanwhile there were 4-5 Lobstermen running loose and picking off your men one at a time. The worst decision was to send a heavily wounded Jimmy to grab a Sonic Cannon on the ground when it was being heavily guarded by 2 Lobstermen. Back him off, take those guys who just cleared out the bridge and were sitting there picking their nose out of the ship to help. You seriously needed backup there, and having half your squad holed up in the USO doing nothing was a waste. Just be glad that Lobsterman didn't pop off his DPL, otherwise it could have turned out far worse.

 

- Zombie

[Nookrium]

I forgot to mention... Don't watch episode 57, Zombie

 

2) This is your favorite map in TFTD, but it's my least favorite, especially in the dark. There's just too much coral and multiple levels of it with tons of obstructions and cubbies for the aliens to hide in. Not only that, but the overhangs and constant navigation around cleared areas makes it a complete nightmare for shooting and throwing alike. Sure, it works in your favor too as the aliens have to deal with the same things, but my troops want more options than the aliens, not the same. Just be glad you had DPLs to take some of the sting out of it.

 

The obstructions are what I enjoy about this map style. You can't simply stand on the Triton or fly to the top and shoot anything on the map. It causes me grief but makes for some very interesting combat (pop around corners/ duck behind walls). It's similar to the reason I enjoy terror sites (even though I'm kinda terrible at them), it adds some variety to the game and forces different tactics.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Wouldn't terror missions be fun in Russia during WWII? I do. Stalin would be all like....well X-COM you killed 32,000 of our people...but hahaha I would of done it myself but you saved me some time and you stopped the alien menace.

 

-NoX

[silencer_pl]

Stalin would rather sign a pact with aliens to send body parts in exchange for some plasma guns. It didn't take too much time for Stalin to "kill" someone, because all he did was sign a document. In fact he was enjoying it so much that sometimes he shouted, why he was given so few.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

That's true. Same thing with George W. Bush. He sent naive kids into Iraq thinking their lives mattered. Ha, jokes on them.

[Nookrium]

Back to the base attack, hoping to fend off swarms of lobsters with my shabby crew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7MFt2hVaJU&index=63&list=PL3Hfqo2_KOlfab7oDz4abWcCLAgMAA8Y0

[silencer_pl]

This is not Stanil - this is Stalin.

[NKF]

You must admit, even when damaged, the Displacer's a beast. If you get some spare engineer downtime, it might be worth building a second one for Pacman.

 

That alien sub that zipped by suddenly was a sub you had already detected. Probably the same one the Barracuda was chasing. What happens is that the game only reports new alien subs that are detected. Once found, alien subs can usually drop in and out of sonar detection without raising a message.

 

You might be able to reduce some of your shok bomb usage now that you're adding drills to the mix, especially for indoor combat. T'Leth is mostly indoors. Still, see how you go.

 

If you're wondering what to research next, I suggest putting all your researchers on the MC lab and then on the MC Reader. You don't need to build the lab, but you need to get its research out of the way just to get to the MC Reader. They are great for assisting drillers check if an alien can reaction fire. Not an issue if you're sneaking up from the side or rear but definitely one if it's staring right at you.

 

That's true. Same thing with George W. Bush. He sent naive kids into Iraq thinking their lives mattered. Ha, jokes on them.

 

I never did understand the concept of black comedy. It usually just gives me the morbs.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

You might be able to reduce some of your shok bomb usage now that you're adding drills to the mix, especially for indoor combat. T'Leth is mostly indoors. Still, see how you go.

This next mission I test out a couple drills, I have a new favorite weapon

You must admit, even when damaged, the Displacer's a beast. If you get some spare engineer downtime, it might be worth building a second one for Pacman.

It pretty much saved the day there. Is it true that if all the soldiers die then the mission is over, whether a tank is around or not? For some reason I seem to remember losing a mission when I still had a tank around.

 

Nabbing a final supply ship...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDUJXy4OkE8

[silencer_pl]

It pretty much saved the day there. Is it true that if all the soldiers die then the mission is over, whether a tank is around or not? For some reason I seem to remember losing a mission when I still had a tank around.

 

I think it's quite the opposite. You cannot start a battle without a soldier, but a lone tank can survive the battle.

[Zombie]

It pretty much saved the day there. Is it true that if all the soldiers die then the mission is over, whether a tank is around or not? For some reason I seem to remember losing a mission when I still had a tank around.

 

Just double checked in EU - equipped a craft with one soldier and a HWP. Got the soldier killed and the mission didn't end. Ran the HWP around paying hide-and-seek with the last alien for a few rounds just to make sure the mission wouldn't end on the round after the soldier was killed and all went fine. I aborted with the HWP in the craft just fine too.

 

I think it's quite the opposite. You cannot start a battle without a soldier, but a lone tank can survive the battle.

 

You can send a lone tank into battle just fine. There's no reason you need an actual soldier present (exception: base defense mission). My HWP killed all the aliens on the map just fine by itself and the mission ended normally.

 

- Zombie