My Lame But Functional Tactic...

[NovaTC]

When I started my first game of Ufo:A I simply continued playing after the tutorial mission, so I started in the US. My game went along quite okay for as far as I could tell. I considered my own expansion quite slow (only covered North and Central America, Northern and Central Europe, the North Pole), but since I didn't have any reference to compare by, I didn't bother. I could handle most missions until... well, you all know "the shift" which happens somewhen shortly before or after the infamous "russian base" at Kapustin Yar or what was the name. I made it through the russian base, even kept all my peeps alive, but had to do a serious save/restore orgy. "Well", I thought, "it's a plot mission, so it should have been tough" and played on. I am not a masochist, so I didn't really have much fun after that, since unlike I had expected, the normal missions would be just a few orders of magnitude tougher from now on. Most of the time after visiting an alien base or ufo crash site more than half of my squad would loiter in sickbay for the next several days, leaving me more than once with no men to do missions for quite some time. So the game progressed, me having an increasingly hard time against all those pesky greys with their alien rocket launchers and microslug accelerators. When finally one of my bases was attacked and I didn't see a chance to defend it (7 guys in heavy armor dispersed all over the base with loads of greys coming in from all directions but the direction one would expect, namely the hangars and elevators, like in X-Com) I was pissed and decided to quit playing.

Well, guess what, the game had drawn me in so deeply, that I could not help but start a new game. I made sure that I would start an "easy" game (I played with 1.2 patch the first time, so my first game should have been easy as well) and chose "europe" for starting location.

Having learned a few lessons I soon noticed how much better having fast soliders is, when in my first game I put every one in heavy armor as soon as I had it. Not this time. I also appreciated to use the "kneel down" command, which I had learned from this board would increase the chance of my soldiers to get off the first shot. This way I even won my first base defense mission, which occured much earlier than in the first game. I managed to gather my folks together in a nice spot without them even seeing a gray. Then I waited for the enemy to show up, which took some waiting (yah, lame, I know). Since after a long time only two greys had found me (indeed dying without firing a single shot) I sent my only men with sun(?) armor out to lure the others into the trap, which worked quite nicely. Soon afterwards (before! the russion base mission had shown up), I felt the shift coming. With my slightly improved tactics I struggled along much better than during my first time, especially since I had better armor and expanded over much larger parts of the world). Still it was tough and when I got another "crashed ufo"-mission, I considered finally deleting this crappy, unfair game. Whatever I tried, my men would always get creamed within seconds as four greys showed up immediately firing into the starting location with microslug acc. and rocket launchers. I finally made it by not trying to disperse my men in the small room and hoping to survive, but instead move out of it thus facing only two of the greys at once. Still I realized that I would need a better plan. I considered using other weapons (I went with sniper rifle - SMG in backpack combo all the time), but from the stats alone I considered them to be not good enough to make much of a difference. Since three of my soldiers had just received a major mindfry due to psi control, I gave that 'lil "PSI projector" a try (for whatever reason I only had two in my inventory at that time), equiping one of the old grays with it. Well, I liked it from the start. Spotting a dangerous enemy (RL or MSAcc.) I psi'ed him and immediately fired a round at his pals that I would see through his eyes. Then I dropped his weapon, usually loosing control of him shortly thereafter. I soon noticed, that the AI is not able to pickup weapons from the floor afterwards, so when I met the controlled grey afterwards, he wasn't more dangerous than the average flapper. Well, call it "exploiting a bug", call it "lame", but I expanded this strategy a bit. Between 3 to 5 of my men carry psi projectors in hand, the rest brings replacements for extra "ammo" in the backpack. I instantly psi every grey I see and most of the time drop his weapon immediately (why not let my own soldiers gain the experience from killing his friends?). If you have a little trouble with exploiting this "AI won't pick up weapons"-bug, just do what I do to justify your actions: drop the weapon and move the alien away from it, _towards_ your men. There I have my two least experienced soldiers waiting with MP7s, mowing down all those defenseless greys which usually stand in queue. This works in almost every situation. Unless you have 3+ greys firing at you right from the start (which I consider bad mission design, not a "challange") you will hardly get your peeps wounded let alone killed, maybe you have to play a little "dodge the rocket"-game in the beginning, but with bio armor (and on easy) you can survive a near miss or even one direct hit.

Tell me what you think of this tactic. Would it also work on higher difficulty settings?

[sigget]

If i remember correctly aliens didnt pick up weapons in X-Com either.

[rocksk]

Welcome to the board, what you described is used by many people in this forum and we talks about often.

 

For UFO missions, of course you can PSI every grey, but I choose not to fully us it(2psi guy at the most at any one time even though all my guys have 1 psi projector). Kind of bored of it.

 

Instead many people here use Neostead, warp demolition and gatling gun to down grey without them shooting back.

 

My favorite is mass assault with neo and MP7 combine with a few psi stringer. I never stay in the starting room more then a second. I will rush everyone out to one side and killing all greys in the way. Of cause this tactical will result in one or two guys in sickbay, but I feel it get me out of the surrounded by ret feeling.

[NovaTC]

@sigget: I remember they didn't pick up dropped weapons. Yet in X-Com I never felt in such a pinch that I would resort to PSI-control. I only noticed because all the grey that had paniced throughout the mission (usually after the player had just put a blaster bomb into the main control room full of their mates ) came running at me empty-handed.

Somehow I still like the X-Com-atmosphere better. Altough it had that comic style graphics, it was more scary. Or maybe it just felt more scary cause I was still younger. If they would combine the old X-Com style strategical play (the "geoscape", I LOVED optimizing my bases, especially for base defense, and having several items in research and production at once) with the Aftermath-type real-time-tactical missions (Not that I didn't like round based combat in X-Com, I just have to admit that realtime is more realistic. In real combat the opponents move simultaneously, they don't move in "rounds" like chess pieces. The opportunity fire compensated this flaw for the most part, still RT is better), but with the diversity of aliens x-com had, adding the best equipment from both games. Ah, and I want to destroy walls, and enter buildings. Enough ranting, Ufo:A is still one of the most addicting games I played for the last year or so.

 

@rocksk: Thank you. I know that repeatedly having to read the same stupid questions and tactics gets annoying for the more regular posters in forums. Unlike many other posters who usually don't even read the FAQ, I read several pages of the "gameplay"-forum, starting from the beginning. So I didn't reach the more recent posts. Yet I just felt the urge to write a little bit about my gaming experience.

Maybe I will try some of the tactics you describe. But on outdoor-missions, does any human weapon (that doesn't require your lads to dress up tank in heavy armor) beat sniper rifles? Keeping the reticulans at the distance will make the "dodge the rocket"-game a bit less frustrating, and if you keep your team close (not TOO close of course) together, you can usually fire at the enemy with more than half of your men at once, which downs even those reticulans in bio armor quite fast.

 

One note: I have yet to complete the game (no more time for full-scale gaming ), is "enhanced heavy armor" more usable than its non-enhanced ancestor? And what on earth is "warp demolition"? I often read "warp medic" in the board (remote healing, I thought to myself) but haven't discovered that yet. If I understand it correctly, the double-barreled MG and the gatling don't have that annyoing "deploy time" like all those collapsible-crap-guns, right? Maybe I will try a few simpler missions (non-reticulan) with those.

[sigget]

I didnt like the concept of Psi, just as dismiss most of fantasy-genre cause of they're magic bullshit. I havent tried a single psi-weapin in ufo:am i doubt i will, never used them i x-com either, tested them a few times, but i didnt like it, i want troops not magicians. I dont really like the concept of bio-tech either.

 

X-Com was more scary because it was turn-based, you spent 15 silent seconds positioning troopes, then hit go, you hear a few foot steps, and.... BANG! I never got the music working on my Gravis Ultrasound board either, and when the silence was suddenly replaced with gunfire and deathscreams, yeah, that scared me sometimes

[rocksk]

‘tactics gets annoying for the more regular posters’

I do not mean to be harsh, it is just my poor command of english that is causing the harsh tone. Your first post read fine for me.

 

[Yet I just felt the urge to write a little bit about my gaming experience. ]

Same for everyone who enjoy this game, not many friends around me to speak about this game, only the forum.

 

[does any human weapon (that doesn't require your lads to dress up tank in heavy armor) beat sniper rifles]

Not that I know of, but you can try MP5 the GREAT deathbellows. It is very exciting, see your guys run like mad around that thing while firing shots. FUN.

 

[And what on earth is "warp demolition"? ]

It is a crazy late weapon that cause 7500 points of warp damage. Nothing will live to see another second if hit, bio armor or not.

[NovaTC]

@sigget Well I hated PSI aswell, but those pesky greys had me cornered. So I overcame my prejudices.

 

@rocksk I didn't consider your comment 'harsh', and even if I had, I am generally not the most thin-skinned type when it comes to postings in forums. So to make it clear, I didn't feel offended by your posting.

And deathbellows... I really hate those blobs. But it is good practice ("dodge the insects instead of rockets) for the later stages of the game.

About warp demolition... do I asume correctly that this is not a hybrid weapon available to the humans only? How much more difficult is this game going to get??

[rocksk]

[didn't feel offended by your posting]

Great to know.

 

Ok. warp demolition is a human created version of super powerful weapon, not avaible to the ret. I cannot image one shot and my heroic trooper went down, but not problem if ret is the victim.