"That's the last time I leave you in charge!"

[Bomb Bloke]

Ouch. Well, it drives the message home - if you're going to use a big group, spread it out.

 

About the only time you "can't help it" is during the first few turns. TFTD fixed this somewhat (by putting some operational doors on your dropships), but in EU it's not overly uncommon to touch down to see various aliens with a clean LOF into the back of your craft.

 

In one particular ill-fated terror mission, I landed to see about three Cyberdiscs and a couple of Sectoids directly behind my ship. I let loose a rocket, which (due to a badly placed wall (or at least, I'm blaming the wall)) managed to do nothing to the aliens but DID drop three civilians. A Sectoid then responded with reaction fire - his Stun Bomb took out all but two of my squad members, who didn't last much longer.

[Jake Grey]

A thread's not dead if it's on the front page, right? Ah well...

 

Like Bomb Bloke mentions above, my most memorable heroic failure involved some unfortunately-positioned enemies during a terror mission.

 

It was early on in the game; I'd just got everyone issued with personal armour and laser weapons. Ten men and a Tank/Cannon in the Skyranger, one heavy cannon and a rocket launcher for heavy fire support. The team was fairly green, with an average of four missions each under their belts, but they were the best I had available; turnover had been heavy in the first few weeks and I'd already lost one transport.

 

The landing site was poor, an open area barely bigger than the jet itself with no cover for a good distance and high buildings on three sides so we had limited visibility. I sent the HWP out to recce; if it came under fire I'd toss out some smoke grenades and get a couple of people hunkered down behind the landing gear to provide suppressing fire.

 

The HWP lasted just long enough to tell me I had two groups of Sectoids at opposite corners of the LZ, able to put down fire at converging 45-degree angles right at the bottom of the ramp; perfect crossfire, and to make matters wores there was a Cyberdisc lurking near one of the groups as well. This was going to be tricky, but heavy artillery was first out the door so I thought I could probably put down the ambush in a turn or two. The one with the rocket launcher was a bit overloaded, but he'd just have to wait a turn before-

 

"What the name of arse?" My rocket-launcher operator got shot in the back as he jumped down behind the mainwheel; there was a third hostile or group of hostiles lurking near the nose of the Skyranger.

 

In hindsight, I should have declared the mission a washout and dusted off, but we'd missed one terror mission this month already for lack of transport and our funding and reputation were in a precarious position. Besides, I was pissed off by now. I had two people leg it to the nosewheel to take out the group behind us, someone else to grab the rocket launcher and the trooper with the heavy cannon drop a fragmentation round in a cluster of hostiles.

 

Everything's something of a blur after that. I think I lasted three or four more turns, and took a few of the enemy out before a fourth group wandered in from the remaining point of the compass and a couple more Cyberdiscs turned out to be waiting for their cue behind the ambush teams. When the three survivors all panicked, one of them being gunned down on the ramp as he ran for his life, I decided they had the right idea and ordered a dust-off.

 

Eight good troops dead, about three-quarters of a million's worth of gear lost in action and a terror mission completely unchecked. I was still wondering how to salvage that mess when my hard drive committed suicide and saved me the trouble.

[(name_here)]

My worst mission ever was a crashed large scout.

 

You see, it was an Ethereal large scout and I was trying to stun one of them to get psi. Problem is, Ethereals don't stun very well. Of course, since very few survived the crash, they couldn't mind-control many of the soldiers in the Avenger, but one of the ones they did control had a Blaster Launcher...

[Zombie]

Welcome (name_here)!

 

My worst mission ever was a crashed large scout.

 

You see, it was an Ethereal large scout and I was trying to stun one of them to get psi. Problem is, Ethereals don't stun very well. Of course, since very few survived the crash, they couldn't mind-control many of the soldiers in the Avenger, but one of the ones they did control had a Blaster Launcher...

That's one of Murphy's Laws on X-COM: the person carrying the Rocket/Blaster Launcher will be the one to get mind controlled.

 

If you aren't sure if a soldier has enough psi defense, have him drop the launcher after every turn. That should keep everyone relatively safe from friendly fire, but it also means that if you need to use the Blaster Launcher in a hurry and the guy who was using it is standing over it panicked, well, you are going to have to improvise.

 

- Zombie

[Jman4117]

stun him and take the blaster

[Chryssalid_Victim]

When the universe (or at least UFO) was new my most famous oops was the obvious first contact with Snakeman and Chryssalids on a Terror Mission including a fun moment where i turned to the guy with me and noted:

 

"That black thing is STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIRE!!" (Rocket Launcher)

 

Doom followed but I got out of there....and have been terrified ever since

[Catwalk]

I just had a mission where my torpedo launcher guy (or gal, in this case) first misfired a torpedo into two soldiers, then panicked and fired a torpedo into the wall she was standing next to

 

Another memorable moment from the same mission was me commenting on how I first threw a flare ahead of my soldier to allow him to scout safely due to the mutual surprise rule, explaining how that worked. Then advancing the soldier and watching him get zapped by an alien who was still out of sight.

[franconbean]

My worst mission ever was my first terror mission. Note: this is before i realised the magic of HWP .

i send a man down the skyranger ramp and he is imediately downed by a plasma blast. The next two suffer the same fate. Eventually, i manage to kill the floater responisible but i am already down to just 5 of 10 men. A grenade comes out of no-where killing the four men outside the craft. my final guy, who i left to take care of the skyranger panics, dropping his gun and running straight out into the enemy killzone. Game over. I lost every guy within a 2 square radius of the skyranger. what a farce, eh?

 

A close second was the time that my frontman got mind controlled. He turned around and autofired AC-HE rounds into the transport, killing himself and four others. Which leads me to a question that might possibly not belong here, so for that im sorry: How do i see how much psi resistance my guys have?

also: Moral of the story: NEVER rely on a rookie.

[Bomb Bloke]

You'll eventually be able to build a base facility that lets you see the psionic potential of your recruits. Unfortunately, screening is a slow and expensive process. On the plus side, high psionic defense = high psionic offense...

 

If you want to cheat, I believe XcomUtil offers a feature to auto-reveal psi-strength after a soldier's first mission.

 

It's usually a good idea to keep a "known" psi-suspectable soldier in your ranks, as aliens tend to target the weaklings first. If they're targeting a recruit you've already disarmed, they're wasting time units...

[Reprobate]

My worse missions happened early on when i first started playing the game,and didn't know anything,since then i've learned to try to be more cautious and that discretion truly is the better part of valor.

 

Two missions pop to mind.

 

The first one was a sectoid terror mission.I turned a corner and there was a cyber disc,though at the time i had no idea what they were,so i thought man i got to capture one of those.Back then i used to keep my squad really bunched up so i had everyone pull out stun sticks ran a guy up and whacked it..nothing..ran another guy up and whacked it...nothing..ran up another...i repeated this process probably about six times.Then finally the thing goes down and i think great i captured a floaty thingy....BOOOOMM!!!

 

Second mission was my first snakemen terror site and it was a night one.I debark my Tank and squad from the Skyranger and end turn.I notice this weird black thingy run around the corner then run back around it again.It didn't fire and it didn't look armed so i wasn't too worried.I did form my squad up tight though my next turn and figured to opp fire it if it ran around the corner again.

 

It comes around the corner and my guys start unloading laser fire into it but nothing happens.It runs up to one of my men and turns it into some kind of zombie then does the same to a second one.I think this can't be good so next turn i start blasting away at the zombified troopers.Their taking shot after shot and nothing is happening then finally i see one look like it splits open and i think i killed it.Nope another black thingy pops out of it.I've seen enough sci-fi movies to now realize whats going on so i start to get my remaining men with TUs away from those things and move up my tank.Next turn one of those things ran up to my tank and did its attack and i think sucker you can't implant an inorganic object..oh how i was wrong..my tank disappears and i'm dumbfounded,it just dissapeared from the map,meanwhile the 3 soldiers i had used to fire were all turned.

 

At this point my remaining squad is cut off from the skyranger and i start to hightail it out of there.Problem was the board was still filled with these snake things and i also didn't realize the high movement rate chrysalids had.A running battle ensued as my surviving squad members were ambushed from every angle by snakemen and more and more of these horrible creatures as they turned every civilian on the map into one.

 

By now i'm down to two men,but i think all the snake creatures are dead,but there is a hoard of chrysalids chasing after them.One gets cornered by several and instead of being turned he primes and drops a high explosive at his feet thinking he'll take several with him as they are really close around him.

 

End turn,he blows himself up and i'm hoping a couple black thingys,but nope their still standing there.My surviving trooper runs into a house,with them trailing after him,up the stairs and..i realize i'm cornered.They start filing into the house after him,so next turn he blasts a hole in the wall and jumps from the second story into the yard.Somehow i managed to skulk him back to the skyranger where it had all began after i ended the first turn and noticed that weird thing run around the corner.Jumped into the plane and told the pilot to get us the hell out of there.

 

The odd thing was that scorewise this wasn't a complete disaster.By some fluke the chrysalids had managed to turn every civvie,not one dead,and i forget how it calculated my turned soldiers,i think they were listed as missing so that helped take the edge off scorewise.Despite the whole horrendous experience,the whole thing worked itself out as a no harm no foul type of situation.

[Invertin]

Oh god I suck. My save is called "Optimistic Failure", but soon it'll be "Pessimistic Failure" because I've lost my entire team more than once without even completing a single terror mission successfully.

 

Let me think...

 

At one point, I had a full team set up outside a UFO with a proximity grenade on the door, waiting for one of them to try attacking us before we did anything. It seemed like a solid tactic. Unfortunately, I misjudged the size of the explosion. Luckily only two guys died, and the rest made it through the mission without much fuss.

 

Oh, and there was one situation, after I'd got my hands on Small Bombs, I decided to start capturing random aliens, so I assigned one of my guys as the stunner. Her (I specifically remember it being a her) and a group of other people were outside a house with a Sectoid hiding inside. I decided to catch him, mainly because the stunner was the only one in range. So I fired a smart bomb through the window.

 

Or at least, that was what I told her to do. She instead fired it AT the window and stunned half my goddamn team.

 

 

And this terrible situation...

 

It was a Terror Mission. Very early on, so our troops weren't properly equipped or trained. They stepped outside- A single Sectoid in view. The entire team fired upon the Sectoid. Every. Single. Shot. Missed.

The Sectoid fired back, killing two of the unfortunate idiots. We fired back again, and only one attack hit, but it didn't down it. The Sectoid wiped out most of the team during his turn and the reaction shots, so I decided to get the hell out of there.

Everyone started moving back in, but then two of my guys went bezerk, and one panicked- running in the complete wrong direction. One of the bezerked guys just span in a circle (I guess it was out of range of everyone else or something) and the other gunned down one of my guys without warning.

While this was all happening, Mini-discs showed up and started shooting everything. I ended my turn because there was nothing left to do, a stray shot (barely missing the panicking guy) hit the ship, and the mission ended itself.

 

- XCOM SHIPS LOST 1

 

...

 

*loads save*

[chiasaur11]

I think I can top everything.

 

Three base attacks in a row.

 

One of them simultaneous with a terror mission, so I can't hit the terror site. And then?

 

Another terror mission.

 

When I'm finally trying a no reload midmission game.

[Bomb Bloke]

For what it's worth, the aliens are considerate and won't leave a terror site while one of your vehicles is en route. You can prolong the duration of a site by keeping it targetted with spare Interceptors and the like.

[Sunflash]

For what it's worth, the aliens are considerate and won't leave a terror site while one of your vehicles is en route. You can prolong the duration of a site by keeping it targetted with spare Interceptors and the like.

 

 

Hrmmm, didn't I read somewhere that the longer you wait before you actually start the mission; the less civillians actually start alive? Or did I get confused/remembering wrong?

[NKF]

Civilian generation is random. Verified by our resident stat gathering guru, Zombie. You can even get the fabled 0 civilian terror site every so often.

 

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

Civilian generation is random. Verified by our resident stat gathering guru, Zombie. You can even get the fabled 0 civilian terror site every so often.

 

- NKF

Ah, that would be a dream come true. And than a Crissalid would wake me.

[CapnKill]

There's always the, prime grenade, not enough turns to throw it ooopsy, while in the sky ranger, soldier is shot in the face on the next turn and grenade kills everyone on board... that's always a fun one

[chiasaur11]

There's always the, prime grenade, not enough turns to throw it ooopsy, while in the sky ranger, soldier is shot in the face on the next turn and grenade kills everyone on board... that's always a fun one

 

Which is why you never prime grenades in the Skyranger.

 

Well, except smokers. Not my favorite, but they really work for some people.

[Bomb Bloke]

Mind you, some players have been known to prime all grenades ASAP, then just carry them around like that for the duration of the mission. The pros are that they can be thrown at any time without worrying about having enough TUs to prime + throw in a single turn, the cons are... well, obvious.

[chiasaur11]

Mind you, some players have been known to prime all grenades ASAP, then just carry them around like that for the duration of the mission. The pros are that they can be thrown at any time without worrying about having enough TUs to prime + throw in a single turn, the cons are... well, obvious.

 

Twice as much an issue with Sectoid leaders around.

 

Not nearly as much of an issue with flying armor.

[NKF]

It's one of your typical 'Kids, please don't try this at home. This stun is preformed by a trained professional' type stunt.

 

 

Hmm, many years ago when I was playing a grenade-only campaign (with laser pistol if last flying alien will not get near a flat surface), I did that. It was tedious, with something like 8 - 12 grenades per person, I eventually just did it for the shoulder slots. Well after turn 20, I would often send a soldier outside the Lightning, then find that the entire Floater crew of the battleship I was assaulting would be waiting around the ramp. If it wasn't for the reaction fire, this would normally be a Good Thing™.

 

Then there would be bad occasions where a good chunk of the team gets wiped out while I'm disembarking. It works well when you isolate the grenadiers from each other with at least 10 tiles or so between them, but since they're so close together at the LZ, it's a very big gamble until they are all deployed. Still, that's part of the fun.

 

To this day, I don't really do this that much, but if I do want to pre-arm a grenade, it would just be limited to a couple in the shoulder slots. There are many ways to make opportunities for your troops to arm a grenade and rest a turn before deploying it.

 

- NKF

[CapnKill]

Started playing the game again, Jimmy went bazerk in the Sky ranger, Jimmy was carrying a rocket launcher

 

How do people play without smoke, it seems that at least smoke can maybe help you survive the ramp, but without it, there isn't much of a chance.

[zaimoni]

How do people play without smoke, it seems that at least smoke can maybe help you survive the ramp, but without it, there isn't much of a chance.

You give up on zero casualties.

 

It becomes a matter of influencing who dies first. It doesn't help that there are no good in-game means for either screening Psi Strength (the most important stat), or sorting the soldier order.

 

Also, Morale isn't that important -- ignoring mind control, once you have a Captain on the mission even Morale 10 will need like 5 X-COM (Rookie/Squaddie) deaths in a row to have any risk of panicking, after which you need two alien kills per X-COM (Rookie/Squaddie) death to prevent panicking.

-----

The minimal comprehensive solution for controlling soldier placement in Windows CE XCOM right now seems to be NKF's Neolem for fast ordering, followed by Seb76's UFOExtender for providing precision swapping. Isolated DOS versions will need another source of precision swapping.

 

ClarkWehyr works fine once you have it installed, but the official *.EXE installer dies on W2K and higher. (Have not checked DOSBox 0.72/0.74.). ClarkWehyr also should not be used for base editing.

 

Soldier.py (from my own suite of Python scripts) also provides precision swapping. The actual editors I have deployed currently are: Neolem, Extender, Jenny's, and mine (which also rips a few features from XCOMUtil that I actually use, such as battlescape overview).

[CapnKill]

I'm using the extender, not sure how much of it.. but I can order my soldiers in the ranger with it. Obviously I have no psi info, I could turn it on I suppose, but that wouldn't be totally fair I guess.

 

I didn't know how the moral worked, so this is good info... thanks

[Matri]

Well, there was this one time I managed to get my guys out of the Ranger in one piece, then accidentally clicked Abort Mission and Yes on reflex, instead of End Turn.