Some "short and simple" tips to start me off. .

[Tsathoggua]

I must confess, I am an absolutely insatiable, pyromaniac and compulsive son of a feminine canine of an arsonist, when it comes to dealing with the bug threat.

What I like most about willy pete rounds, is the effect not mentioned, and this is that an alien will do a runner (or whatever the equivalent is for things that possess no legs might be, according to species of course;)) if set on fire, or the area its in is burning. They will go elsewhere, frantically seeking a way out of the flames, or around them, although this is more useful in creating barriers.

 

E.g if you have a chryssalid howling and shrieking, charging towards some poor hapless civilian (IMO it would have been good if they had been given some defense on occasion, like your occasional weapons enthusiast, hunters with anything from crossbows to shotguns and rifles, and the odd mental case that has a thing for things that go 'boomfff!!!', molotov cocktails, maybe the odd hand grenade just occasionally. Kitchen knives, getting to watch them trying to mob a cyberdisk with axes, bats, maybe teaming up and very rarely even taking one down for the count, only to find themselves all suddenly blasted into smithereens when/if its power source goes off. The odd terror site with one or two cyberpunk types with DIYed low-med level lasers, EMPs, etc. would make for a hell of a neat mod, IMHO.

 

What I REALLY wish I could have, are shotguns and grenades. Former for close-in only breaching of doors, and dealing high damage to lesser armored aliens that happen to cop a burst from a combat shotgun, or both barrels of a 12ga unloading a facefull of buck'n'ball into a sectoid or two, turning their faces into a shredded pulpy ruin hanging halfway down the back of the big-eyed buggers, or maybe even something like civilians blasting a chryssalid repeatedly at close range if by sheer chance it hasn't enough TU to go and zombify away as a chryssalid is wont to do, tag-teamed by a bunch of pissed off civvies with break action double barreled shotties, sawnoffs and the like, packing slugs. Maybe just enough to wear the stronger aliens down coming from civilians, maybe they get lucky for the time being, and stay alive a bit longer.

 

And even more....incendiary grenades. UNBEFUCKINGLIEVABLE that the dev team didn't think of it.

 

But for the IC rounds one does have, something like the weaker (round civilians, preferable to avoid killing them unless you want them dead) autocannon IC rounds, fired on a snap and aimed shot basis,to create a flaming wall between the oncoming 'lid and the otherwise imminent addition to the brain-drooler ranks, forcing, if one is careful not to set the chryssalid on fire itself, the damn thing to charge your men instead, and meet a massed wall of rifle, laser, rocket launcher, whatever you have to hand, and get splattered into crunchy meat flakes and shell fragments.

 

Can be used to corral the enemy, forcing them into kill zones, firing from cover, into the likes of prox mines, timed HE charges, timed alien grenades or even human hand grenades. Have them running from the encroaching firestorms. Autocannon are great for this, heavy, but can fire burst shots, and gradually force the enemy into the bunch of heavily armed soldiers, ducked in cover, smoke bombs down on the ground, until they round the corner, and meet an autocannon/AP burst fire or two right in the face from a few steps off. Or into shock prod capture teams waiting down the road behind cover etc to get the alien into position right up close to your men as they end the alien turn, giving the men, even relatively inexperienced ones, almost all their TU, to jump out of cover, still swathed in smoke from the smoke grenades, and zzzzappp zap zappp bbbzztcccrack! away to their hearts content. When they may otherwise, if they had to be forced to make the approach, have just been mowed down like the bastards were playing a game of skull-cracking, face-melting, zombie-spawning whackamole, especially good for getting rookies good experience, forcing the enemy to run into a well-prepared trap and kill zone where they are just guaranteed to get shredded?

 

And WHAT I wouldn't give for a flamethrower. Could be fun especially for etherials, torch those robes off and leave them too busy knowing how big a dick they look, starkers naked.

 

Hell, maybe a variant of the stunner with a short range, localized torch, like a big blowtorch on a stick. Just for prodding aliens to where the rookies are camping out with their weapons. Or simply taking it out on an alien thats been disarmed, after REALLY earning some abuse.

 

 

 

Anyone got tips for prox mines? I rarely use them, except either to boobytrap a corridor in for example, a base, to stop something coming up for a back-stab. Or a whole minefield and flush a few enemies, if possible, but any will do, into the rookies throw-laid minefield (so as to get experience rather than dropping them, probably not a great idea with a proximity mine though anyway.

 

Do they go off if the OWNER that set them drops or throws them at feet or nearb+

[Zombie]

Anyone got tips for prox mines? I rarely use them, except either to boobytrap a corridor in for example, a base, to stop something coming up for a back-stab.

 

A lot of people seem to have no use for Proxy Grenades, but I use them all the time. The thing I use them for is basically "area denial". If I clear a portion of a map and don't want aliens wandering back in there, I'll plop a proxy at a natural chokepoint (base of two hills, between trees, between buildings etc). I sometimes mine the perimeter of the Skyranger if my men are bogged down and it's nighttime. Just in case you need to dust off in a hurry, those Proxies can cover your retreat.

 

I also use them in alien bases (obviously) to boobytrap doors to upper rooms if I have a feeling an alien is up there. Oh, and X-COM bases as well. If you build your base with a natural chokepoint, you can mine the corridor from the Access Lift to the rest of the base. UFO's are prime locations too. Chuck a proxy at one of the inner doors of the Large Scout while your men concentrate on the other. Or dump them at the base of lifts.

 

Proximity Grenades probably will not kill any alien outright except for maybe Sectoids, but even for tougher aliens it'll serve as a warning device if they wander into an area you don't want them to. It might even interrupt the aliens AI pathing routine during their turn. I've seen Chryssalids set them off and then high-tail it out of the area.

 

Do they go off if the OWNER that set them drops or throws them at feet or nearb+

 

Not sure what your question is as it was cut off, but in general, any movement into a proximity grenades detection radius will cause it to go off no matter who threw it.

 

- Zombie

[magic9mushroom]

Do they go off if the OWNER that set them drops or throws them at feet or nearb+

If you drop an armed proximity grenade at your feet, it will not explode - but it will explode the moment you take a step in any direction. They trigger on movement, not proximity. However, vertical movement is safe - so if you want to remove a proximity grenade, the proper procedure is to have a soldier in a Flying Suit move directly above the mine and then drop directly down onto it (like normal grenades, they don't explode when in inventory, so picking it up will effectively disarm it).

 

Tip: Throw them 1 tile away from UFO doors, not directly in front of them. If the mine is placed right in front of the door, it will explode when an alien steps up to the door from the inside - and do no damage, because the blast can't penetrate a UFO hull. You want an alien stepping out the door to trigger the mine, so leave one tile empty between the door and the mine.

[Tsathoggua]

Of note-proximity mines will go off if descending onto them from above if playing openXcom.

[magic9mushroom]

Of note-proximity mines will go off if descending onto them from above if playing openXcom.

I see. Well, I'm sorry about that, but I didn't know.

 

(I play an absolutely vanilla DOS version of UFO: Enemy Unknown 1.4. Only change is that I hacked out the difficulty bug. Myself, with a hex editor, not with a utility like UFO Extender or XcomUtil, because most of the utilities "fix" stuff I don't want "fixed" with no way to opt out.)