First impressions

[NKF]

Actually, for me, combat mainly involves sending my lvl 19 android with dual colts (and accelerators) up to everything and pulling the triggers. I'm actually exaggerating on this soldiers effectiveness (still get ripped to shreds if caught by too many wargot plasma beams), but I've been favouring this soldier a bit on account of being the only one on the team with super heroic +1 walking speed. Even the commandos can't outrace this nutter.

 

Anyway, progress and speed bumps encountered so far:

 

- I've brought myself around to using the LAWs and grenade launchers (with underslung plasma launchers - this just seems so wrong yet so right at the same time), and am feeling a little perplexed at how ineffective they seem to be. I guess I started using them a little too late and now all my enemies have got some tough padding on to counter it. Better luck next time, I guess.

 

- I finally completed research on the 'ship' and odd things have started to happen.

 

- Met up with the Star Ghosts for the first time. About my only complaint is against Sergeant Cloud. At least, it was the only star ghost that proved to be extra difficult until I pointed the sonic gun at it (see, my thoughts at the time were "sparkly swirly wind thing vs. weapon that causes ripples in the air?"). After that, everything's just fine. My first impression was that I was being assaulted by a horde of enemy drones. I like them, in a way, although they do require a lot of ammo. (Yes, I know SG = Star Ghost, not sergeant. But it's funnier for me to think of them as sergeants.)

 

- Countries are turning into cult controlled areas without warning or apparent reason. Three whole different areas on the globe were suddenly cut off from Stuttgart after one mission due to sudden takeovers. I guess it's time to crank out the security offices then? They didn't seem to have much of a purpose until now. I'm mainly glad that I don't have to reconstruct the bases from scratch after recapturing them. It's when the country switches over a few hours after recapturing it that bothers me, and the rebuilding of track lines. This makes me miss the old warping chopper from Aftermath.

 

- Don't you just hate it when you have 3 or more missions pop up in the space of a few minutes in various far-away locations around the globe? It feels like this happen each time I capture a cultist base. It's probably just a random occurance, but it feels too regular as well. Anyway, this was meant to lead on to my next note:

 

- One improvement that I felt was much needed on the Laputa would've been a go-to-event command where you can get a list of all the active mission sites on the globe and tell it to go to a specific place. As it is, if multiple events occur at the same time and you forget about the event after clearing a few (and the remaining spikes are not terribly obvious from the default Stuttgart view that you automatically snap to), then you may just miss it when you next speed up the time. I've accidentally missed a few this way, much to my embarrasment.

 

- Speaking of mission points, has anyone noticed active Starghost mission pointers vanish occasionally? I noticed one vanish as I was sweeping across several missions that popped up simultaneously. The spikes that indicate the mission zone disappared, but I could still launch the mission. And, oddly enough, the tracks in the general area looked like they were activating and deactivating. Is this normal or was my game just going buggy?

 

- Don't try to fit a chipset requiring level 3 android training into an advanced arm if the android is not ready for it yet. It showed up orange, so I thought I'd remove it until I could use it. I found that removing the chipset by decomposing the arm components also made the arm vanish. Had to build a new advanced arm replacement. Funnily enough, it didn't require the basic arm to be plugged in to fit. Curious, but not something to complain about.

 

- Also, don't try and place a basic torso unit over an advance torso unit. I did this by mistake and had to build a replacement advanced torso.

 

- Drones - never tried them, although have bashed a few together. Is there a way to arm their weapon in the

Geosphere? The weapon background keeps showing up yellow (and the tool tip say it's empty). Perhaps having their full image show up on your belt slot (and why your belt slots?) is what's made me avoid them for so long.

 

Looks like I'm getting closer to the end. I can finally finish this up and get on with my weekend life (i.e. twiddling my thumbs endlessly wondering what to do).

 

- NKF

[Cpl. Facehugger]

- Drones - never tried them, although have bashed a few together. Is there a way to arm their weapon in the

Geosphere? The weapon background keeps showing up yellow (and the tool tip say it's empty). Perhaps having their full image show up on your belt slot (and why your belt slots?) is what's made me avoid them for so long.

 

Yes. You must drag the completed drone to your squad selection location. Drag him from the equipment area to the squad area. He will become a squad member whom you can equip normally. (I favor the drone MG myself.)

[NKF]

Quickly:

 

- Warp weapons - I used them once, and while they are certainly powerful and I could live with the shorter range, their charging time is far too costly for my liking.

 

- The cult takeovers seem to automatically occur after you've recovered any captured areas. It seems that if I just let the cultists have the captured bases, no more appear. I let them have a few college bases, which meant a loss of +20 or so alien-tech resources points, but at least it's stopped the never ending takeovers.

 

- I thought the game would end after dealing with the asteroid. Guess I was wrong. I'm not entirely sure why the asteroid missions were done the way they were, and why were there two honeycombs for each of the three 'columns'? Probably didn't matter as destroying one destroys both. Still, it was also a bit strange having to shoot at the top of the light columns to destroy them.

 

- I think it was probably wrong of me to concentrate on using the wargot plasma weapons on the asteroid missions. I only had one soldier that could use them, so I had this soldier really thrash the wargots with their own plasma rifle (with a heavy machine gun or dual-Colt backup soldier - I had a whole set of them). I bought enough 9mm and .556 ammo to last quite a while, but I was really worried that that they'd run out. Ah well.

 

- Back on earth (time hasn't moved - the last mission pointer spike was still there!?), there doesn't seem anything left for me to do. Is this another waiting game? And what happened to the ship?

 

- About the game box: Are the reticulans going to make a come back? The reticulan on the cover is quite the centre piece, but up to now they're just rare combat knife fodder, and this has puzzled me for some time. The moon-like screenshot with alien circle thingy suggests there's more to come.

 

- More on the box, while I have enjoyed the game so far, I'm now a little skeptical about the various blurbs on the back of the box. I don't know how everyone else feels about them, but I don't think they really live up to what they claim. At least, not all of them. "Interactive destructable enviroment" is one of my sore points. I've blown away chairs (which oddly enough block my soldiers in some starting locations), I've made things look a little more damaged. I've opened doors (oh the doors - how I hate the doors!). But I've yet to blast through a brick wall. Perhaps having played the first three X-Com games, my expectations are probably a bit too high.

 

- Yes - the unnecessarily load times (for my so called slightly-above minimum requirement PC) did get to me in the end. So I did have the time to look over the box. Finished reading a few novels in between load times too. Time well spent. Still, I think it's time to start putting some cash aside for a new PC.

 

- It's clear that I haven't properly read through the manual - who'd have thought that 'use' can also double as a button to 'swap' your hand items? So far I've been manually putting grenades and medikits in through the inventory.

 

- The warp medikit causes companions to flinch and curse as if they were hit by a bullet, and you can't use it on yourself. Right. I do like being able to plug Transformer beverege into them though, so there are plenty of recharges. Say, I'm probably getting greedy, but can two of these be used simultaneously by ranger medics? Don't often need that many. Just curious.

 

- I noticed the dinky laser pistols are quite effective against Wargots when used in pairs. Who would've thunk? Perhaps having a +4 close range skill and a good 'alien' skill helped, but it certainly makes me want to see what other enemies they're useful against.

 

- NKF

[ricardo440]

Warp weapons arn't that great. even the humanized versions. too slow. Give me plasma guns any day.

 

More after the asteroid. There are a few set missions, and regular random missions. I must admit I got bored and just allowed loads of missions to pass and lost territory to spin on to the end.

 

Wargot plasma weapons are rubbish. Human ones are better. But remember always take a mix of plasma (energy) and MG (hard) weapons.

 

Remember the reticulans were never uttely destroyed as they were in Aftermath, because it follows on from the DEAL not a total victory.

 

You can blow up the walls but you need pretty heavy duty guns.

Ultrasound weapons are good at it.

Plasma guns can do it,

The barret can do it

And Warp weapons can do it.

 

 

Load times pissed me off. It is a great shame as the game would be much more fun if the load times wen't insane. Sometimes it was taking over 4 minutes to load a mission. Then I could do the mission in just 3 minutes then it would take another 3 mintues to load the geoscape.

The ones with suspended platforms are the worst.

 

Use - swap. Yeah, I think I found that by accident. I use it for my medic so she carries a gun just s when I get the entire squad to shoot something she doesn't decide to run and stand next to it because she has a medkit.

Then swap in the medkit when she needs it. Otherwise she doesn't fight (except once when she executed an unconscious alien, and another time I actually needed everyone shooting.)

 

Never used warp medkits

 

And Wargots : they die to Machinegun fire real easy. Blam blam blam dead wargot.

 

If the load times were not so bad I think I would replay this game again.

[ricardo440]

- Countries are turning into cult controlled areas without warning or apparent reason. Three whole different areas on the globe were suddenly cut off from Stuttgart after one mission due to sudden takeovers. I guess it's time to crank out the security offices then? They didn't seem to have much of a purpose until now. I'm mainly glad that I don't have to reconstruct the bases from scratch after recapturing them. It's when the country switches over a few hours after recapturing it that bothers me, and the rebuilding of track lines. This makes me miss the old warping chopper from Aftermath.

 

- Don't you just hate it when you have 3 or more missions pop up in the space of a few minutes in various far-away locations around the globe? It feels like this happen each time I capture a cultist base. It's probably just a random occurance, but it feels too regular as well. Anyway, this was meant to lead on to my next note:

 

- NKF

 

Cultists:- Never kill the last cult province. If you do they just get given 3 more. And they are likely to be in your bases screwing up your transport network.

I marginalised the cult by lockingt hem in South africa and Australia. We had a border that we occasionally fought over, but it meant they didn't strike my heartland.

 

I noticed that missions tend to appear in groups. It is good as it increases the challenge a bit, you can't get your guys to badly hurt or they will miss the other 2 missions.

Just plot a laputa course to get them all and you are sorted.

[Accounting Troll]

After the destruction of the Wargot mothership, there are still two must win plotline mission before the final showdown.

 

Your scientists will gradually work out the big picture, including the relationship between the Biomass, the Reticulans, the Wargots, the vessel used by the Wargots, the Starghostrs and the Cultists.

 

In battle, you will need a combination of projectile weapons with AP rounds and laser/plasma weapons to deal wioth the new challenges you will face.