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

[Nookrium]

I just rewatched it and realized I'm losing my mind, for some reason I thought I saw zrbite in there. I should have known with the giant hole in the ship and all.

 

I forgot about that fix, when I saw the craft I remembered it. It's in there now.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Has anyone mentioned the Fighter exploit yet? Also forgot to mention in an earlier post, if you save your game before heading out to a terror site or alien colony and don't like the ship placement adjacent to the mission, you can just reload and the game resets the map. Further more, when it comes to alien colonies I find the best strategy is take only 2-3 soldiers with you. Get in the initial base, get to the device and boom. I personally take the two best aquanauts that have the best resistance to molecular control (M.C.) and......the most important part in the second half of a colony mission is having soldiers with the best stamina. Think about it

[NKF]

Since the game has the maps swapped, that was quite a clown car of an alien submarine. This mission needed a few more Hatties. Having a couple more aquanauts sniping from the high ground could have been useful.

 

Also bad luck on the grenades. Normally it's terrain, overhangs and the virtual ceiling that cause trouble, but in this case the low strength levels of the aquanauts proved to be the biggest hindrance.

 

 

I just rewatched it and realized I'm losing my mind, for some reason I thought I saw zrbite in there. I should have known with the giant hole in the ship and all.

 

Zrbite can be identified as a small yellow horizontal bar sitting the base of whatever object its in. It's not always easily apparent which item is storing them since they don't have a fixed object they correspond to in TFTD. In UFO for example the elerium pod (small purple box) was always located on a power unit. If you visit an alien colony, you can find the odd piece of zrbite scattered around the underground portion of the colony, usually embedded into explosive objects. This prevents manual recovery since explosions destroy them.

 

- NKF

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

If you know the fighter exploit, Zrbite is non essential. With a successful mission, you can basically horde Sonic ammo. Hell, I've had to build extra stores just to house the Sonic weapon ammo. Fact is, you can pretty much win any scenario with less than 6 aquanauts. It's simply knowing how to exploit the A.I.

 

Who can walk the most?

Who can aim the best?

Who has the best M.C. resistance?

Who can throw the best and more accurate?

Who has the biggest dick?

 

And more importantly, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

 

The world may never know...

[silencer_pl]

In UFO for example the elerium pod (small purple box) was always located on a power unit. If you visit an alien colony, you can find the odd piece of zrbite scattered around the underground portion of the colony, usually embedded into explosive objects. This prevents manual recovery since explosions destroy them.

 

- NKF

 

Wrong NKF. In alien colony zrbite is located always on 4th floor in "engine" room. It's a room that has long blocks of ion accellerator. On two different blocks there is zrbite and you can easily destroy them with sonic cannons without making them explode (this engine is not explosive). I've done it in our multiplayer playthrough for example. If you intend to just blow synonium device, just find that room, pick up zrbite na scram. It won't count in debrief but it will be added to the stores.

 

Same applies to power sources in UFO. They don't get blown by plasma fire.

[NKF]

That's why I said they usually blow up. There are other objects around the colony that do contain zrbite, but they tend to be explosive.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

Not really. There is always 100 zrbite in colonies and that is the zrbite in room I said And there is nothing explosive there. If you win colony raid by killing all the aliens without blowing up most of the base you will get 100 zrbite.

[NKF]

For some reason I seem to remember finding the odd piece of zrbite in those big purple drums with the pitted surface that you find scattered all around colonies. These do explode. But I might be confusing them with those pumping Tower-of-Hanoi thingies that also litter colonies. One of them definitely has Zrbite in the 'theatre' room you mention.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Time to cleanup that small USO

 

Suppose I should comment. Overall, not a bad job - you are certainly getting better.

 

Crashed subs most likely will not have any Zrbite due to the explosive nature of the power source. About the only thing worth salvaging is the nav unit(s) if close by. How I would have went about the sub with the lone lobbie in there: Bring about 3-4 guys near the hole in the ship (getting out the Magna Pack explosive) and 1 by the door - everyone else backs off and out of LOS of the hole. Open the door carefully and check to see where the alien is looking, if it is looking at the guys by the hole, I'd move all but 1 to the door. Now, have the door opener open the door while another soldier primes the pack, throws it to a soldier closer to the door and have him toss it inside (make sure this is the soldier with the best strength, as the packs are heavy). I might even make the solider walk inside a bit to make sure the pack goes where it should. End the turn, and carefully repeat the process assuming the alien continues to end the turn looking away from the door, if not have the guy by the hole toss a pack in. Three MagnaPack blasts should make quick work of the alien. Tossing them in one-per-turn prevents accidental destruction of kit. Why the MagnaPacks you may ask? They are a heck of a lot cheaper than the Pulsers, work almost as well and you don't have to worry too much about throwing distances as the sub's ceilings prevent it anyway.

 

Lobstermen out in the open are another ball of wax.Those you will want to use pulsers on as they can be thrown a fair ways. There were a couple instances where you could have used a grenade relay to extend the range but didn't, and when you did utilize it your soldier threw it on top of a pile of pulsers making it difficult to pick out the right one. (You got lucky here as the soldier had a lot of TU and was able to pick up all the pulsers, but I had instances where my man would be killed because he didn't have enough TU). Keep this tactic in your mind at all times and ask yourself if it could be used.

 

Zombie was a scout on this mission and encountered a Lobsterman nearby. Why you wasted his pulser on that other alien was beyond me. Why he didn't have any backup was even more perplexing. The role of a scout on a Lobsterman mission (IMHO) is to find aliens, dump grenades on them, and get back into cover (or retreat a little). Have his backup toss primed grenades forward to grab and throw - or take aimed shots. Scouts need mobility (aka TU) and priming grenades and tossing them on the same turn eats up tons. Scouts should only be shooting as a last resort, at the end of a turn when you have exhausted all your other possibilities.

 

If you kill an alien and know it isn't the last one on the map, then regroup. By that, I mean have everyone else hunker down or back up a bit. Try to avoid getting visuals on every alien on the map on a turn when half your squad is out of TU due to engaging another enemy. You may need their help with long range shots. Or maybe I'll boil it down further: doing a mission isn't a race, take your time and move everyone slowly unless they are out in the open. There's nothing wrong with not moving everyone on a turn. Keep some with full TU (if possible) to take reaction shots in case an alien advances.

 

Ringlbert (who had a Gauss Rifle and a primed pulser), chose to shoot the Lobsterman at the 26:50 mark in your video. Why? He was close enough to toss the grenade and back off. Same with RedArmy: primed pulser but chose to shoot instead. When the alien wasn't killed, it shot and killed Ringlbert which caused his pulser to go off destroying his kit and wasting the pulser. If you prime a grenade, expect to get rid of it soon either by directly throwing it to an alien or tossing it to someone who could.

 

On episode14 I noticed you had completed one of two current research topics and was deciding where to allocate the scientists. If you have a topic which has a progress better than UNKNOWN and less than EXCELLENT, try adding in your extra scientists one-by-one to see if their help will bump the progress to the next level. If it will, add only enough to reach that level and reallocate the rest to a different topic. No point in wasting a bunch of scientists on a project which may or may not shave a few hours off the time. Get them going on something else.

 

- Zombie

[Nookrium]

 

On episode14 I noticed you had completed one of two current research topics and was deciding where to allocate the scientists. If you have a topic which has a progress better than UNKNOWN and less than EXCELLENT, try adding in your extra scientists one-by-one to see if their help will bump the progress to the next level. If it will, add only enough to reach that level and reallocate the rest to a different topic. No point in wasting a bunch of scientists on a project which may or may not shave a few hours off the time. Get them going on something else.

 

 

Ahh, I didn't realize it works with a threshold like that, I always assumed it was a percentage per scientist. I'll keep that in mind.

 

Ringlbert (who had a Gauss Rifle and a primed pulser), chose to shoot the Lobsterman at the 26:50 mark in your video. Why? He was close enough to toss the grenade and back off. Same with RedArmy: primed pulser but chose to shoot instead. When the alien wasn't killed, it shot and killed Ringlbert which caused his pulser to go off destroying his kit and wasting the pulser. If you prime a grenade, expect to get rid of it soon either by directly throwing it to an alien or tossing it to someone who could.

 

I'm pretty terrible at estimating how much damage these lobstermen can take, what I'm attempting to do is damage him enough with weapons and getting a grenade if necessary to finish him off. But what I keep doing is throwing a grenade, and unsure if it will do enough to kill him, so i take a shot or two more to ensure it does but end up killing him, then the grenade goes off with all his gear.

That's what I was poorly doing there, rather than just take it out I keep trying to save the equipment as well resulting in a death or 2.

[NKF]

It's probably not a good idea to continue using Gauss Rifles against the Lobstermen.

 

Lobstermen only take 30% of damage from Gauss damage. Since Gauss rifles do 60 average damage, this gets reduced to 18. Most Lobstermen have 20+ armour. Unless you get a high damage roll between 120% - 150%, most of the damage is going to be absorbed.

 

On the bright side you still get any experience from any of the shots that connect!

 

Stick to the sonic guns and the sonic pulsers for Lobstermen engagement. The sonic pulsers ironically also only deal 30% of their damage to Lobstermen, but their high base damage make up for it.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

It's probably not a good idea to continue using Gauss Rifles against the Lobstermen.

 

 

Yeah, I think researching the gauss at all was a mistake. It was nice to have for the first terror site since the darts are horrid, but it wasted a lot valuable research time that could have been spent on more useful things. If I had the sonic weapons earlier I think a lot of my Lobsterman troubles would have been solved. Needing 5 soldiers (not missing) to take down 1 alien cost way too many lives. I get Sonic cannons researched on the next ep which I'll have posted shortly and the difference is almost ridiculous.

[Nookrium]

I think I'm over my fear of the Lobstermen, thanks to my new friend the Sonic Cannon

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OtyEfKTCww

[silencer_pl]

It's never bad idea to research Gauss. You can risk skipping pistols and go for rifles though. If you manage to get rifles before first terror mission you are golden.

 

My issues on latest mission. Please increase the mic a lot. It was so quiet then boom loud music during name changing.

 

Also since you are now have Sonic Cannons there is absolutely no point in using pistols, blastas and the standerd canons with HE rounds. They do jack squat to lobsterman, which will be major alien through out the game.

 

A little request. Once you will get Ion Armour could you upload a save file? I would like to attack that base with the team you've got.

[Space Voyager]

Ha, you want to have me killed, too?!

[silencer_pl]

Yeah sure. And I'll reload 100 times to re-live it.

[Nookrium]

 

A little request. Once you will get Ion Armour could you upload a save file? I would like to attack that base with the team you've got.

 

Will do, I'll get it after a bit, but on one condition... You record it cause I want to see it

[NKF]

Yeah sure. And I'll reload 100 times to re-live it.

 

Hmm... You could record them all and make a montage video of all of SV's 100 deaths, all the while playing some classical music in the background.

 

- NKF

[NKF]

I think I'm over my fear of the Lobstermen, thanks to my new friend the Sonic Cannon

 

 

Things are certainly starting to look up! Even the mistake was beneficial.

 

Incidentally, you did something interesting there in the second mission. I didn't really know about this trick until just recently, but the Triton wings have a sweet spot that have the unusual property of allowing you to shoot over the roof of the Triton at aliens on the other side of the sub without exposing the shooter to danger. Zombie nearly managed to make use of it off mid-mission, and Reipas used it for that last shot right at the end.

 

I'm not sure if it's one spot in particular or if you can use the whole side, and I don't think it will always allow you to spot the enemies, but it's certainly very handy indeed if the Triton lands along the eastern edge of the map.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Yeah, I think researching the gauss at all was a mistake. It was nice to have for the first terror site since the darts are horrid, but it wasted a lot valuable research time that could have been spent on more useful things. If I had the sonic weapons earlier I think a lot of my Lobsterman troubles would have been solved. Needing 5 soldiers (not missing) to take down 1 alien cost way too many lives.

 

Let me ease your fears, researching Gauss was not a waste. Look how helpful it was on those port/island attacks. How would you have better spent your research time though? Until you bring some alien tech back from a quest, there really isn't much you can research except the Medi-Kit, Disturbance Sensor or Gauss. And with the few scientists you start with, it would take a long time to get the sonic pistol+clip. Gauss weaponry topics don't require much time to research, gives your aquanauts some better stopping power and puts your engineers to work. You could have probably cut the Disturbance Sensor as you hardly ever use it and when you did you used it at the wrong time which just ate TU. Medi-Kit? Maybe. I get by just fine without it, but it does come in handy.

 

Usually you don't encounter Lobstermen till later in the game, so this is kinda a freak occurrence. You can't plan for something like this to happen so early and I think you did a good job with what you had overall. Sonic weapons still only do 20% more damage to Lobstermen than gauss, it's just that the damage range for sonic is much higher. The Sonic Pulser though is the equalizer when it comes to Lobstermen. I'm glad you are using more of them and utilizing the grenade relay too.

 

I think I'm over my fear of the Lobstermen, thanks to my new friend the Sonic Cannon

 

I don't normally do this, but I think this applies.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVQ8byG2mY8

 

It's never bad idea to research Gauss. You can risk skipping pistols and go for rifles though. If you manage to get rifles before first terror mission you are golden.

 

Do you mean you can risk not manufacturing gauss pistols? Because you need to research gauss pistol+clip to get to the gauss rifle+clip.

 

Also since you are now have Sonic Cannons there is absolutely no point in using pistols, blastas and the standerd canons with HE rounds. They do jack squat to lobsterman, which will be major alien through out the game.

 

I disagree (slightly), just because Neptune is still suffering with Sonic ammo/weapon shortages in his Let's Play. So the sonic pistol and rifle do have some use until his stockpiles of the cannons(+clips!) increase. True, the gas cannons don't do any damage to live Lobstermen, but against stunned Lobstermen they are golden. Neptune needs to start using a "cleanup" guy to fire gas cannon HE rounds at those stunned Lobstermen before he clogs his AC with multiples of junk aliens.

 

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Do you mean you can risk not manufacturing gauss pistols? Because you need to research gauss pistol+clip to get to the gauss rifle+clip.

 

Yep don't research clip and go straight to rifle. Pistol is damage improvement but accuracy is still abysmal, while rifle is everything nice. Also if you are unlucky and don't get any subs and your first mission will be terror mission, you will not have money to produce both.

 

I disagree (slightly), just because Neptune is still suffering with Sonic ammo/weapon shortages in his Let's Play. So the sonic pistol and rifle do have some use until his stockpiles of the cannons(+clips!) increase. True, the gas cannons don't do any damage to live Lobstermen, but against stunned Lobstermen they are golden. Neptune needs to start using a "cleanup" guy to fire gas cannon HE rounds at those stunned Lobstermen before he clogs his AC with multiples of junk aliens.

 

And destroy half of the inventory he was carrying (except pulsers because they are extremely resistant to explosions). It would be better to carry normal grenades. You don't sacrifice firepower to just kill stunned lobsters.

 

Will do, I'll get it after a bit, but on one condition... You record it cause I want to see it

 

 

That was the plan.

 

Hmm... You could record them all and make a montage video of all of SV's 100 deaths, all the while playing some classical music in the background.

 

- NKF

 

Good idea.

[Zombie]

And destroy half of the inventory he was carrying (except pulsers because they are extremely resistant to explosions). It would be better to carry normal grenades. You don't sacrifice firepower to just kill stunned lobsters.

 

Hmm? You question the all-knowing Zombie, the guy who basically wrote the book on how explosions work? Fine.

 

Listen, GC-HE 50 rounds cannot obliterate anything with a destroy object rating of 50 or more. This includes all the sonic weapons and all the clips (except for the sonic pistol clip which has a rating of 45). Unfortunately it will obliterate the DPL (40), TSL (20), the lances/blades (20) and MC Reader (20). It's surprising that the DPL torpedoes and Shok bombs have a rating of 60 so you don't have to worry about obliterating them. HJ-HE 40 rounds cost less than the GC-HE rounds do and only do 40 damage which could help save DPL's, but the trade-off is that the Gas Cannon can be used above or below water while the Hydro Jet is limited to just underwater use. Most stunned/killed alien bodies have a destroy object rating of 20 or 26 so either HE round works on eliminating it from the battlescape.

 

If you are really concerned about wasting the non-sonic kit due to GC-HE explosions, either pick up the stuff with low-destroy object ratings, or move the alien body 3 tiles away and then blast away. Another way is to revive the alien with a Medi-Kit (yes, this works though it takes a ton of stimulant injections to wake up Lobstermen) and then shoot it or drill it to death.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

GC-HE's deal 65HE, so you'll want to offset the shell about 2 - 3 tiles away from the lobsterman and clip it with the edge of the explosion to not do too much damage to the equipment. Or just move the body. (tip: don't hang on to the body at the end of the turn!)

 

Still, it's not too big a loss to destroy some of the weapons as late-game you will often have more weapons and ammunition stored up than you will ever use, The morale effects (positive for you, negative for the aliens) and assurance that you won't get your skull cracked from behind is sometimes worth it.

 

Speaking of GC-HE shells, they are a compact way to carry light explosives around. Instead of 8 inventory slots for 8 pulsers, you only need 2 slots for 8 light explosives. You don't need big explosions all the time.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

I'm not questioning you. All I say is that when you carry GC or HJ you are crippling your offensive power just to kill (un?)lucky few lobsters who refused to die. Carrying standard grenade will not hinder you with firepower.

[Nookrium]

I'm not questioning you. All I say is that when you carry GC or HJ you are crippling your offensive power just to kill (un?)lucky few lobsters who refused to die. Carrying standard grenade will not hinder you with firepower.

 

And a standard grenade will kill them without destroying the equipment?