First scary moments on TFTD

[Dumb_Commander]

When i got my first X-COM game, it was TFTD, my first USO crash site was frigin scary.

 

I spread out my aquanauts all over the map and started searching for aliens=First Turn

 

Boom, death scream, one of my aquanauts :dead: = Alien Moving Phase

 

Started looking for aliens, no foundings, reaction shot, death scream of my second aquanaut :dead: , (My eye is twitching) throwed a grenade(Primed, 1)= Second Turn

 

My grenade explodes, nothin hapens , sonic auto barage at my aquanaut , missed(my leg is numb)

reaction shot(My Aquanaut), alien dies :dead: = Alien Moving Phase.

 

End of Mission, i won.

-------

Affter that i left the game, and i didnt played it for days.

Tell me your first scary moments on TFTD

[Gimli]

My first scary moment was when I set up the music.

That one sound in the theme that plays on normal missions still scares me. A friend of mine is freaked out by Tassoths dying.

[Millsy]

I first acquired a copy of tftd when I was about 12 (I bought a copy later, guys!) At that age most things of a fishy nature unnerved me, dark night-time missions, artifact sites, etc. But Calcinites really put it up me, until I found out they were rubbish... That said though, I never managed to complete the game before I was playing legally, because for all that time I was too terrified to go to colony sites! One look at the scary tentaculats in the towers outside was enough to send me back to base, drenched with sweat and shivering in terror.

 

Of course now I tend to go with sonic cannon and disruptor pulse launchers, much less intimidating when all that spongy brain matter is splashed across the wall...

[NKF]

Gimli: A similar experience with the music, only this was a little later on once I knew how to play the game a bit better.

 

Night terror mission. Aquatoids. The music was almost in sync with the action. It was a very simple encounter of an aquatoid in a dark corner. The timing was just right so that as soon as the aquatoid was spotted, there's a sudden trumpet blast after a relatively quite part in the sequence. The suddenness and timing left my heart pounding and I was awash with the after effects of fear.

 

Today, this sort of thing is nothing. I mean, it was just a run in close quarters in the dark with an aquatoid with a sonic pistol. Small fry in comparison to the other terrors from the deep. But at the time, the mixture of everything was just right. Few games, even ones like Resident Evil left me in that sort of state over something trivial. I suppose in that way the makers of the game have succeeded.

 

Heck, even a night mission with chryssalids in UFO never left me like that. Bizzare.

 

- NKF

[Kratos]

I do not play TFTD excessively but I find all missions scary. Of course Terror Missions and Alien Bases I found scary under UFO though. I am assuming this is the result of contrast and shading, but maybe it is the absolute silence I am receiving when I play?

[Slotty]

the first scary thing that happened me.. nearly made me fill my shorts

 

but anyway.. it was in the summer.. and night ( around midnight) and some bad weather coming in. was on a terror mission...

the strange was... no gunfight or anything in the first 5 turns.. or something like that..

my troops randomly placed out ( no skilled tactician yet ) suddenly.. Flash.. BAAAAAAAAAM.

 

now you think someone tossed a grenade...

n o..(well yes )

the weather outside had turned from light rain to storm.. the explosion was a lightningbolt hitting a tree 150m from the house...

 

made me save and turn of the computer.. next day.. I saw that half the terror site was blown to smithers... can that much happen under one fricking turn?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

First truely scary moment? Why, it'd be my very first mission in TFTD, recovering a landed V.small USO.

 

First turn: Caelocanth/torpedo rolls out, gets creamed by reaction fire in the same turn.

 

In response, I say 'bloody hell!' and toss a dye grenade outside, expecting it to work as well as smokers did in the original game.

 

Next turn: I open the door, expecting to have a covered deployment zone from my dye grenade. Nope. I've got two measly squares. What's more, another of my troops dies from reaction fire. So, I say 'screw this' and deploy six of my men, leaving me with only three in reserve.

 

End turn: Ominous silence. No alien is trying to kill me.

 

So I deploy my troops in teams of three, searching for that bastard who punked my tank.

 

End turn: More Ominous silence.

 

Ah-ha! There he is! I hit him with HE rounds from my aquajet and kill him. Hmmph, he looked like a retextured sectoid! I dub this species the 'swimming sectoids.' His gun looks like the latest word in female self-pleasure though. Nothing like the manly curves and bullpup style clip of my beloved heavy plasma.

 

End turn, expecting the mission to end. (After all, v. small UFOs in the original only had one alien!)

 

No such luck. I make my way towards the USO, always trying to end the turn in cover so they have a harder time of it. It works and I'm able to approach the USO unmolested.

 

End turn: I notice something that sounds distinctly like the sound of a grenade flying through the air...

 

Jeebus! That grenade packs a punch. One of my teams is KIA. The other was near the outskirts of the blast and all sustained heavy wounds. Mind you, this is before I've got medikits.

 

So now, I rush my troops into the USO, as I heard the door going just before the grenade, so I deduced my little alien friend ran back in after tossing his grenade. Smart little bugger.

 

And what do I find waiting for me? Three Xenos! And they certainly didn't look happy to see me. Fortunately, I still had enough TUs left to fire off an autoshot from one of my guys' harpoon guns and kill an alien, before retreating back outside the ship.

 

End turn: I expected the aliens to follow me out, but they didn't.

 

So, I went back in, expecting them to be waiting for me... and they were. Reaction fire took down two of my guys, but the last one was able to kill them both with a most serendipitous autoshot, one of the harpoons veering off course slightly to kill the alien right next to my target.

 

End turn: Mission completed! Rating: Poor.

[Sectopod]

My first scariest moment? Heh, Hallucinoids

 

When I was young and sitting next to my brother watching him play Terror From The Deep, he initiated an alien artifact level 2 mission I think. A Hallucinoid came out from a dark corner and spat out a tentacle that killed an Aquanaut who screamed. The combination of that movement that they make, the unsettling appearance of the Hallucinoid, the overall atmosphere and the scream of the Aquanaut made me run out of the room and I had not been settled to play TFTD for litterally years because of that.

 

Funny when I look back on it now. Chryssilids and such in UFO never terrified me as much as Terror From The Deep.

[Tepid tasoth]

That TFTD battlescape music always gives me the creeps.

[sluissa]

I started playing UFO when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Not really playing so much as watching my dad play it, but I made a few attempts of my own and failed miserably. I don't remember any specifically scary moments from back then, but the combination of night missions, sectoids, and discovery channel specials on aliens must have done something to me, because for years I was scared to go anywhere dark alone.

 

Even today, night missions are really scary, but my real life fear of the dark is pretty much gone.

 

TFTD never had as much of an effect on me. I never actually played it a whole lot though, I've stuck with UFO throughout the years.

[Tepid tasoth]

I played TFTD before EU and I must admit that EU is far more spacey and scary that TFTD.

[John]

I used to play the original X-Com as a kid for sooo long, it scared the crap out of me but I loved it. Still do, in fact---after many years I've returned to the series! Steam had X-Com: Terror From The Deep for $2.45, so I couldn't resist. First scary moment wasn't too far away:

 

Somehow, when I had 2 units about to go into a UFO, I used up the movement of the first by putt her beside the door. I get the other guy to move, and then I get him to look behind him. Aquatoid. Right there, two spaces behind him. Both units out of TU. Jumped when I saw it just standing there XD

[Comrade_Red1918]

hey i'm new to the x-com forums and it's great to see the series is still well liked by alot of people. Anyway my first Scary moment was on tftd when i was about 6 or 7 but i rember the lobster men used to scare me and i just wouldn't bother with the mission because of the fact you couldn't kill those damn things with out sonic weapons and the bio-drones that used to hang around them were something i didn't like either.

[Graf Zeppelin]

My first scary moment was when i saw a Lobsterman for the first time.

He was showing me his back and i shot him with a missile.

He turned around and looked.....annoyed.

[NKF]

The first encounter with the lobsterman is often a memorable one. I recall throwing everything I had at the very first Lobsterman I saw and it just wouldn't go down.

 

Then again, now that I'm wiser, I shouldn't complain. Gauss pistols and harpoons are useless against even beginner level soldier class lobstermen. But in a later mission, having one survive multiple DPL torpedoes really sapped my morale.

 

There are still gas cannons with HE rounds and the thermal tazer that you can rely on if you bump into them early. The Gas Cannon however will need lots of HE rounds, although each shot is comparible to a sonic pistol round. Lobstermen fall from 5 - 6 sonic pistol hits on average, so you can see why you'd need lots of GC-HE shells to mimic this.

 

The biodrones however are terrifying. They have 100+% accurate snapshot - and use this for their reaction shots. You really have to spot them before they can spot you - or hope that they're exhausted at the start of your turn. They can be stunned with tazers or killed with the gauss rifles and gas cannons if you're truly desparate. I'd still avoid them until I can get some form of sonic weapon or drill.

 

- NKF

[Jman4117]

My first "scary" mission was, you guessed: Lobstermen

 

It was around March I believe, I had just got gauss pistols and had my whole squad packing them except for one guy who had a gas cannon. 14 men went in, 4 went running back to the Triton carrying 2 live aliens. They woke up before I could dust off and started using melee. I was left with 2 heavily wounded survivors in the end...

[Comrade_Red1918]

what were those big dinosaur things that used to hang around the tasoths during terror missions cause i rember first encountrng them was unsettling cause i only had gauss pistols rifles and magna blasts.

[NKF]

Triscene. The things that look like Gon with a pair of X-Com craft PWT launchers strapped to their sides.

 

They're pretty nasty in the snapshot department too, but they suffer from having weak under-sides and are large units. I know GC-HE shells can do a real number on them, so your magna blast might have been useful against them.

 

- NKF

[Comrade_Red1918]

would have been good to know tat 10 years ago but atleast i know next time.

[endersblade]

I think my scariest time, believe it or not, was the first time I ran across a Deep One. I'd never played TFTD before this point, so I didn't know what they were to begin with.

 

I was on a night terror mission in TFTD. Pitch black outside the ship, full of green recruits (triton deployed from a base I never used.) I step outside the ship, and my guy sees something in the dark, but I can't actually "see" it. So I start pop-shotting at it, and never hit anything. Second, third guy step out and do the same. I end the turn with about 6 guys outside the ship. Suddenly, I hear that deep rock-rolling sound deep ones make when they attack...lost two squaddies in one turn from this thing. Still can't see it.

 

At this point, I'm freaking out. I send all of my guys out, and for some reason on turn two, I can't find him. (it turns out he was hiding behind a box in one of those 'storage' areas surrounded by fences.) Kill a couple gill men in the process. Alien turn two, I lose 3 squaddies to apparently two deep ones. Out of my original 8 guys, I have 3 left, and STILL don't know what's attacking me! Turn three I start heading back to the ship to abort the mission. Alien turn three, one more squaddie dead. Gill man reaction-shot. Two guys left, one makes it to the ship, the other ends the turn with 0 TUs right outside the door. Alien turn, guy outside the ship gets shot at but lives. I leave the site, and am thoroughly freaked because I had no idea what this elite monster was. I stopped playing for the night after that >.>

 

Next day, I get another terror mission, but daytime. I disembark the ship with my experienced crew in spiffy new Gauss Rifles, and standing right there is a freakin' deep one. That first sighting sent chills down my spine...it was like "oh, are you back for more?" So I get ready for a muton type monster (take a couple hits to take out)....I shoot it once, it goes down with a creepy scream. A wave of relief washes over me...These things aren't that bad! Finished the mission with zero deaths. Good times.

 

Next up, first lobsterman sighting on a night mission... ><

[Faustus]

First time posting. Nothing really scary that hasn't already been said.

 

Recent game, a new strike base had just got its transport. First ship was a landed survey ship (v. small). Landed, everyone with gauss, 8 rookies and 4 experienced troops. (only had Blastas researched, and was low on ammo). Big empty map, with a couple sand-dunes.

 

Lobstermen of course.

 

Rookies unloaded and dropped their rifles and pistols, pulled out tazers and began the charge. (the more experienced troops giving encouragement from behind the Triton.)

 

Dropped the first one, another walks in and out of vision on next turn. Big arc of rookies charging.

Found the ship, empty. Grenade takes out two rookies of the left flank. Found the walker, with a buddy (who had a Thermal-Shok cannon). Dropped the walker, lost another rookie, ran another up close the the Shok-er. Who promptly stunned himself and her. Another rookie is shot by another lobsterman further along (the rookies have been charging constantly NE), cornered him, he shot another rookie, and finally stunned it.

 

3 rookies survived. I've never been so simultaneously amused and horrified. The old hands came out without a scratch or any ammo expended. No containment in the base.

 

The second landed ship was Lobstermen too btw. Worst luck i've ever seen.

[Tifi]

The Terror Site of Doom...

I'd maybe had TFTD for about a day by this point

 

Triton lands in Amsterdam Docks in the middle of the night.

Squad of 10 men armed with harpoons and gas cannons, and a handful of magna grenades and flares. Plus one SWS.

 

First turn, the 'canth moves out of the door into the night and triggers some of the luckiest reaction fire I have ever seen...

First shot misses the 'canth but hits the guy standing opposite the door next to the console.

Second shot misses again, but hits the guy left opposite the door.

Third shot hits, as does the fourth - 'canth 'dies' 1 square outside the triton door.

 

So, 8 men left.

Next one grabs a flare and tosses it out into the darkness.

Reaction fire. 7 men left.

 

Next guy steps up and spots a tower with stairs round it with 1 Aquatard on the stairs and 1 under the 'legs', with another one perched on top of a low metal building.

Hmmm... Harpoon, not much ammo but if I move this guy again he'll bite it.

So, HA! AUTOFIRE! *thunk*thunk*thunk*weird noise*

One 'tard down (the one on the stairs) but reaction fire from the guy on the roof is predictably depressing.

 

6 men left, one of which has dropped his gun and started spinning on the spot - probably trying to run away but he's at the back of the sub, tough luck hero.

 

Next guy peeks round the corner and pops the 'tard on the roof right in the eye with a cannon round - awesome snap shot + no reaction fire!

Only the rat under the tower left, a harpoon guy steps up to take a shot - aims... and hits.

He's still up and lets off a barrage of pistol shots, killing harpoon guy and cannon guy

 

4 men left.

2 harpoons, 1 cannon and 'hero'.

 

After the 'tard under the tower was finished off, these 4 guys went on to clear up the rest of the docks with liberal application of exploding things with only one further casualty.

 

By the end of that mission (nearly an hour) I was literally shaking.

And to this day alien reaction fire *ALWAYS* makes me jump

[Windwalker]

Many scary hours. Many...

But nothing can match my first "interaction" with a tentaculat.

Man. I'm still trembling.

Was playing for the first time. Did not know many things. But the manual and (additional packages) that came with the original box was very helpful. I got the basics of tactical movement pretty quick, kill/death ratio very fine for me. A few months of shooting uso's, saving civillians, sailing in love ships...

Then, a small pink box appears on my geo.

My agents, (perhaps one of them was trying to take my place) find a colony.

That is something new! Allright man! Gather your weapons, put on your parms! Biles, clean the window of Coel' (that is canth) and bring me a coffee!

Landed. Squad spreads out in a professional formation. Yuri spots a giant jellyfish, computers analyze it as enemy. Gaus rounds begin to rain to it. It was hard, but it fell! (pulser helps) Keep up the good work team!

Moving to something like a tower. Low TU's left on Alkaviedes,but he may open the door and have a look at inside. Then he can step aside if there is baddie in, and Orski can shoot from Tritons wing.

Well Alkaviedes opens the door, and there is a... a... what the ^%+( is that!

A brain with tentacles and a beak! Well done scoutie, step aside...

Go for it now Orski. Show us why your name has a SNIPER tagged behind it.

Ooops. Can an undertow change the direction of a gauss round?

Well. Next round we will handle that brain. End Turn.

.....Hidden Movement.... (god.. these words are so deeply carved in my brain...)

( CZOOAARRRN) -door opens

( FCHCHCHK! FCHCHCK!) Alkaviedes! NOOO!

(FRAK FRAK FRAK FRAK FRAK!) -a melee attack. My man stands against many attacks. But finally fails.

....Hidden Movement... (Shit... I loved that man... He had 72 time units... My fastest runner... My medic... I remember the day him dropping the pulser from his inventory in the middle of 2 deep ones and a gill man and running away.)

 

Well! Its my turn. Time to take settle the score you brain!

Wh... there it is! and... Whh.. wh.. Is this a new alien? The weapons in the ground.. Oh..

(My brain working hardly to get the picture together. So hard that ocean began to boil while cooling it)

He morphed alkav to an alien... (/&/&%&)

Allright. We wont let you serve them Alkav. Shoot them both.

Many rounds of gauss rifle fly. The brain is hard (if that is possible)

But then it goes down. Still have 2 man that can shoot. One of them orski. Well they let go. Orski does the final shot. A total of 4 hits. Then former-alkav dies.

A relief of 1 seconds...

Than another brain pops up inside him and i have no one that can shoot it! The other half of the squad was moving to base so they are in the other side of the Triton. I desperately try to get one to a shooting pos, but a reaction fire from an darkness puddles him!

End turn...

...Hidden movement... (too short. The new brain is coming towards me... Coming.. Touching another matey... NOOOOO)

Abandon Misson. Yes. Options. Abandon Game. Yes quit to dos.

POWER.

S/&%+

[Solarius Scorch]

Whoa. I normally don't write meaningless posts, but this time I must say that the story above was really touching.

[Invertin]

I know this is technically a necro but I like this thread.

 

First... Or was it second? I think it was second mission. Ever. On TFTD. I'd played EU before, but I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a night mission, so I was being cautious. Killed a few aquatoids, found the ship. Set up a bunch of guys, ready for reaction fire. Nothing happened for a couple of turns, so I sent three in, leaving one guarding the door.

 

The three guys seperated, one taking one path and the other two going the other way. Nothing in the first rooms, so I figured they were hiding in the center. Waited, then charged.

 

The room was empty. Where the hell are they!?

 

Enemy turn. I hear a scream. The guy on the door is dead. There's an aquatoid in the ship now. I get two guys on the door and move the third through- entrance is empty. I'm still freaking out.

 

get two guys on the door, one just ready to go out. Enemy turn. Nothing happens. Send out the third guy- reaction fire and he's dead. Send out the other guys- Goddamnit it's hiding in the darkness, and there aren't enough turns to find it and shoot it. Enemy turn, it fires and hits someone, but it's only a wound. Finally kill the damn thing next turn.

 

Mission ended.

 

And for the rest of the day all of the dark spaces in rooms stared at me with aquatoid eyes.