Small but niggling

[FullAuto]

I do love Apoc. I do. It's a brilliant game.

BUT.

 

The weapons. Never have machine guns sounded so wimpy. The M4000...I feel ashamed every time I fire it. I mean, come on, whose idea was that? The rifles in X-Com EU made meaty-sounding bangs. These...don't.

They're not powerful enough, or everything in the game has too much health, but you need to put about 10-15 M4000 bullets into a human before they die. Never mind the aliens. Ok, some of them are quite soft, but most aren't.

 

The aliens. Ah, the aliens. Made a bit of a mistake didn't we boys? Yes.

 

The soldiers. You can't see their name automatically on the battlescape, removing you from them a step. In previous games, you'd click on a soldier and it was "Ah, old Grigoriy Drunkenski, veteran of many bottles of vodka and survivor of a few battles too."

Their attributes are graphics bars, not numbers, making judging how good they are slightly more difficult. "Yes, you need 3cm of strength before you can carry all that."

Their accuracy is atrocious. I mean, totally atrocious. Laying down, aimed shots with the laser sniper rifle...you miss. I mean, what? It doesn't seem to matter how good your soldier is, the only thing that seems to affect accuracy is range.

 

I think it's testament to how good the game is that despite all this, I still play on it every week without fail.

[Gimli]

Yes, you'll have to learn to live with the fact that IIRC Microprose rushed out Mythos, so the game didn't come out as good as it could have been. If you haven't, look around XCommand and similar stuff to get an idea of what was supposed to be inside.

 

The M-4000... well, personally I don't pay attention to sounds so much and I almost never had to fight humans soooo... I really can't comment on that.

 

I like the aliens, personally, when you get further down the story, you'll see it's pretty well thought of. Unfortunately they don't fit in with the rest of X-COM, at least not in the original games. I'm surprised though, that Mr. Ellis wanted to breeze by the Fourth Alien War, even though the solution for fitting them in was right in front of him.

 

The soldiers... yes, I agree. Again, didn't bother me enough to notice that.

 

The accuracy will get better, especially with new weapons, and more trained soldiers. Except for the androids, of course.

 

The thing I miss a lot is the day/night missions. That would have been nice.

[j'ordos]

The ugly battlescape UFOs, they really are big this time, which is a plus, but hey, they're plain ugly. It seems like they used 'filler' graphics and didn't have time to create proper ones...

The animations aren't very smooth either

[NKF]

There's many things about the game that bugs me, but I can't think of most of them at the moment. The ones that are at the top of my mind are:

 

- Why can't they agree on how the armour should look? It looks one way in the ufopaedia, it looks another in the battlescape and the equip screens. Then again, I really shouldn't complain. Mismatching armour has been aroudn since TFTD, where even in that they couldn't agree on what the armour looked like from screen to screen. Ah well.

 

- Plasma and rumble cannon. Why are the ufopaedia images swapped?

- Why does everything have this plastic look?

- What's up with the 24/7 full daylight lighting? Don't people ever sleep?

- Why does X-Com have a recylotorium? (Superhuman map)

- Why are the cultists such xenophiles? Aren't the sectoids enough? Are they so last week and could that horrible sectoid-head tiling pattern in the basement of theirs be a really big mistake?

- Why is turn based and pausable-real-time so different? Actions in one mode are incredibly fast in the other, and vice versa.

- How the heck are you able to manage your entire inventory in a split-second, armour, equipment, everything? (Pausable-Real-time)

- Why are the roads made of tissue paper?

- Following on from that, why do your road vehicles self destruct when the road goes? I mean, for the tank in particular, it's an All-Terrain-Vehicle. Argh.

- Why do brainsuckers get so confused that they end up paralysed when they try to jump on a prone soldier? Is the confusion caused by the fact that the head they were expecting to land on just isn't where it's supposed to be?

- Why is the missile jammer so much more effective than the vehicle cloaking device?

- Why aren't your missile defense guns modules as opposed to guns? They would've been 100% more useful that way than to use up a massive hardpoint.

 

I know the game was rushed, it's just fun to complain about all these niggling things. It's also fun to make up plausable excuses for some of the niggling bugs.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

They're not powerful enough, or everything in the game has too much health, but you need to put about 10-15 M4000 bullets into a human before they die.

[j'ordos]

- Why is the missile jammer so much more effective than the vehicle cloaking device?

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Have you tested this ingame, or are you referring to the UFOpedia values?

edit : after testing it myself, I believe the cloaking device is better than the missile jammer.

[NKF]

Well, this is from my in-game experience. I've often seen disrupter inversion missiles flying around my annihilators in circles with the jammers, but have had less success with the cloaking field. But mind you, it's just like the accuracy modifiers - It's all a matter of how we experience them that makes us form our opinions on them. I know the accuracy modifiers work - it's just that they don't work against moving targets all that well. Other players swear by them.

 

The in-game values for the jammers aren't to be trusted, since they say one thing in one screen, but are flipped in another.

 

You could say the size of the jammers also comes into play for their space efficiency. The normal jammer only takes up one shield space, while the cloaking device eats up quite a lot of shield space, so you're a lot less protected. It's then a choice between having 600 more shield energy and 20% jamming, or 80% jamming and 600 points less shielding, with perhaps a number of small accuracy modules to plug the gaps.

 

Hmm, do jammers only work on the ship they are on, or do they cover everyone nearby?

 

- NKF

[Azrael Strife]

- Why don't megapol police officers use their own megapol armor or weapons? I never ever seen an officer participating in a firefight on a megapol building.

[Blehm 98]

They are sleeping, of course.

 

all good complaints, good job guys

 

exactly what about being stunned makes rent-a-cops so forgetfull? Why are rent-a-cops even there? How much are they paid for doing a job with a 93.1327% mortality rate? How come they get alien weapons when they are hostile, no matter how much alien infestation is there? How can they even use alien weapons when they die so often they couldn't possibly learn from experience?

[j'ordos]

Well, this is from my in-game experience. I've often seen disrupter inversion missiles flying around my annihilators in circles with the jammers, but have had less success with the cloaking field. But mind you, it's just like the accuracy modifiers - It's all a matter of how we experience them that makes us form our opinions on them.

[Pruimpje]

Who ever created that woman in a yellow dress

 

and why is the dead scream so... well... short?

[Bomb Bloke]

Quick death?

[Pruimpje]

Quick death?

 

the only good death for a civillian is a slow death

 

btw: if a soldier gets hit all he says is "arghh" so you get "arghh arghh arghh scream"

[NickAragua]

Heh, here's some more fun stuff:

 

Why don't the aliens rebuild destroyed structures in their dimension? They seem to regrow infinite numbers of aliens and mothership UFOs just fine...

 

Where do the cultists get the money to rebuild their temples and launch assaults on my bases when they're a million dollars in the hole? I smell tax fraud...

 

Why is it that the government terminates the project responsible for the DEFENSE OF THE ENTIRE PLANET because of a 500-dollar debt? Can't I get a tax break or something like the cult does?

 

On the subject of the Marsec M4000, that piece of crap is useful only for killing brainsuckers. Ditto for the lawpistol. Anything that takes more than one hit to kill a brainsucker is simply not worth carrying around.

 

Why bother giving the civilians AI when all they do is run around aimlessly without weapons or equipment of any sort?

 

Still, for some reason, very fun game.

[Mazdek]

I hate trying to deal with troop organization. The only way to interact with them is through one long array that you cannot sort or mask at all. Like, I'm in base X, why do I need to see soldiers from Y and Z in the list

at all?

 

My kingdom for a basic equiptment template! What I'd do to have some of the XCOMUTIL functions available in APOCUTIL, like renaming soldiers w/ indicators of their stats, re-equipping them after combat, sorting according to rank and such, etc. etc.

[Bomb Bloke]

I could write a mod to rename units. It'd take me a while though. As to sorting them... Not sure about that one.

 

As to rearming units, they do that automatically, albiet a few minutes after they arrive back at base.

[Azrael Strife]

Where do the cultists get the money to rebuild their temples and launch assaults on my bases when they're a million dollars in the hole? I smell tax fraud...

I hear that! I was attacked by Osiron (easily repelled the attack), so I decided to teach them a lesson, I first launched all my ships against their buildings, razing them to the ground, then I launched raids against them; their balance dropped to VERY low negative numbers, after that they just kept launching the occassional raid with fully equipped teams (their low balance only made them a tad more rescilient to attack me). I guess the faction budgets and balances wasn't properly implemented, so in game it doesn't really have any impact on gameplay?

[Alphidius]

Hi all, new to this forum!

Was packing my old cds when I came across this great game with layers of dust & all!

Anyway I installed it & got it working & now, I'm addicted to it again! lol

 

My only gripe which many have already mentioned, is that the Balance funds for each Organisation seems spoilt! Any Org with negative Bal should never be able to raid another Org period!

Suggestion to solve any further hostile actions on this Org would be to make it not selectable as a target in future raids for that week. In fact, all of its daily operations should be halted and all of its bases shut down, until it can restore its funds. This should affect manufacturing & production the following week, number of agents for hire, price of items etc...

 

Last thing I feel disturbed about is that the variety of Aliens that make them look silly. I mean an Alien race with that many different types of troops that have hardly similar skeletal structure is weird. Maybe biologically they are similar (hence the toxins working) but who would put a Multiworm & an Anthropod together as the same race must either be a genius to see the similarity or us who have played the game! Also the Aliens who could invent dimensional travel through some anti-matter portal & all those goodies start by probing Mega Primus? Didn't occur to them to just invade with a full scale armanda? I bet Mega Primus would be wiped out within the week even if all the Orgs allied with each other against the Alien invasion but then, there would be no game for us to play! lol

 

Wow! So much for that! My 2... 200 cents

[Krabjuice]

Consider the energy requirements of opening such a dimensional gate. In order to send, as you say, an armada through a dimensional gate you would need a insurmountable amount of energy. In fact, these gates appear (to me) to be only capable of sending one vessel at a time. In order to send this armada all at once, a humongous amount of portals must be made. Therefore, in order to maintain relative efficiency, the aliens would need to send small covert operations into the city. They would then establish a beach-head/front into the city, and expand from there. Notice that this is only a single city, with only a single specialized organization maintaining the relative secrecy and security for the city's citizens. If the aliens were to attack en masse, they would no doubt eliminate Mega Primus, but unite the rest of the planet in an alliance.

[Bomb Bloke]

The different styles of aliens work because we'd get bored otherwise.

 

As for the alien technology, they actually research it as they go along. If you we to raid the aliens in the first week of play, you'd find them to be under equiped even in their own dimension.

[Pherdnut]

I think that the best the aliens can do for the spearhead of their invasion is a guy with a crappy gun and his collection of easily slain pets is one of my pet peeves. Seriously, what would you rather play as? An anthropod, a couple spitters, some brainsuckers, and a multiworm or a heavily armored team of agents, all with long range weapons and stun grenades.

 

Ground vehicles of course. They CAN help, if you download the indestructable street mod, but really, who cares.

 

The aliens are UGLY. Ugh... crappy art. I dont' mind the bio theme, but the UFOs look like flying blood pastries and I made cooler/scarier looking aliens out of playdoh when I was 9 years old.

 

The factions can't be shutdown or even signifigantly crippled for any meaningful period of time.

 

The alien dimension just wasn't interesting enough and their mass transit system sucks. I would have liked if you could have picked specific structures to hit in your own preferred order and that would cripple them in a different way. Killing the rejuvenation chamber for instance would make them groggier and less effective in combat. UFO building structure (much more heavily defended) would drastically slow down but not stop their UFO production. You'd have to hit the megapod structure to prevent them from rebuilding other structures. The UFOs on the other side should really hit you with their full armada all at once when you cross over, forcing you to build a really large fleet to take them all down.

 

There is no good reason to use alien missiles.

 

Personal shields show up too soon after Devastator Cannons. If you have toxiguns at roughly the same time, the only reason to use Devastator Cannons is for raids on humans.

 

No flying Disruptor Armor? Come on!

 

There is no reason to use any new X-Com craft other than the biotransport and the Annihilator if you have everything researched. The Retaliator is only a marginal step up from the Air Warrior, the Explorer is a joke, and it's not even necessary to build the probe to research the alien dimension.

 

Week 3 is way too late for power swords to come into play.

 

No vehicle to exit at the landing site. For shame! Jumping out of your ship was a big part of the strategy and fun in the first two games.

 

No day/night - Actually I'm divided on that one. I don't mind seeing the electroflares go.

 

Pyro ammo still worthless, but funny. Now it's even more of a problem since fires will destroy equipment on the ground.

 

For you M4K naysayers, the M4000 is your best friend at the start of the game, IMO. Even if it did take 14 shots to kill a human on full auto (not too bloody likely), that's a lot fewer TUs than most other guns would require. I frequently kill 2-5 aliens in one turn with a single agent packing an M4000 if they cluster together. Just run up and hose 'em down if they don't have the reaction fire to hit you back. Also that low damage increment but insane ROF makes it a great weapon for pushing slightly stunned aliens over into dreamland without the risk of overkill and agents parked on a corner have no need to fear whether or not they have the TUs to shoot something at point blank. M4000s, stun grenades and grapples are all you really need until the shields start showing up, and you should really have your first toxiguns rolling off the assembly line by then.

[Bomb Bloke]

No flying Disruptor Armor? Come on!

It's unrealistic to exclude it, though it would have made things too easy if they'd put it in.

 

No vehicle to exit at the landing site. For shame! Jumping out of your ship was a big part of the strategy and fun in the first two games.

I'm pretty sure they were going to include that - I have a screen shot somewhere of an Avenger parked in its hanger during a base defense mission. Must be one of the many things they didn't have time for.

 

For you M4K naysayers, the M4000 is your best friend at the start of the game, IMO. Even if it did take 14 shots to kill a human on full auto (not too bloody likely), that's a lot fewer TUs than most other guns would require.

In the original UFO, all agents have a base armor rating due to the kevlar they wear when you don't assign them any specific armor. I figure a similar base armor level makes the M4K less lethal then you'd expect.

[Phantomflare]

The different styles of aliens work because we'd get bored otherwise.

 

As for the alien technology, they actually research it as they go along. If you we to raid the aliens in the first week of play, you'd find them to be under equiped even in their own dimension.

 

I might just jump in here and mention that the majority of the aliens in Apoc, according to the story, were engineered for specific purposes, most likely to attack earth. So a popper (the little buggers) are designed to run fast and die, whereas the anthrapod is a more humanoid alien to do more 'human' like tasks. each is deisgned for a purpose and hense there are a lot of different 'designs'

 

Well that is what i think anyways!

[megaman357]

I might just jump in here and mention that the majority of the aliens in Apoc, according to the story, were engineered for specific purposes, most likely to attack earth. So a popper (the little buggers) are designed to run fast and die, whereas the anthrapod is a more humanoid alien to do more 'human' like tasks. each is deisgned for a purpose and hense there are a lot of different 'designs'

 

Well that is what i think anyways!

 

i wish to add to this and provide sum history lessons, the aliens are in a life cycle as u know starting from multi worm then hyper worms, then cyrsalis then onto the various forms based on hyperworm DNA, consider this only the anthrapod and skelatoid can be controled through psyonics, why would u want to control anything else only those 2 can have weapons, poppers are designed as suicide bombers (pardon the expression) in essence the aliens are all designed for one purpose and specially designed to carry out that purpose, going bk to a previous point said, x-com agents can adapt to just about any role where as the aliens are specially designed for each set role that makes em so weak, thats why the mecronoid will use brain suckers to take over ur agents, though what phantomflare says, im not so sure they were engenired for this, if u remember that the mecronoid is the alien intelligence, how do we know that the alien forms we see were not invaded before by the brainsuckers infecting the alien forms with the mecronoid now they set their sights on earth now they have the technology to attack earth, think about it

[Dix]

**Necromany Alert**

 

...consider this only the anthrapod and skelatoid can be controled through psyonics, why would u want to control anything else only those 2 can have weapons, poppers are designed as suicide bombers...

 

I would REALLY want to make sure my suicide bomber is under control!