Look for a strategy to find the last alien

[destroyteenangst]

I haven't had as much experience with TFTD as with Apocalypse (mainly because TFTD keeps crashing whenever I'm on a terror site map with multiple floors, does anyone know how to fix that?), but couldn't you just use the motion detector? Of course it doesn't work if they're not moving. I'm also wondering if the detector has a smaller range than those in Apocalypse?

[iggy]

After playing a my first colony the lobstermen are definitely the hardest to kill. And on superhuman, (aka they have one shot kills so if I shot them, their reaction is to shoot me back and kill me!!!!) Even though I did stun one commander with one shot from my sonic blaster rifle. He 'woke up' a couple of turns later.

[Jh316]

Even on Beginner it's a one-shot kill until you get at least Ion armor. With Aqua-plastic you might get lucky sometimes, and I've had guys survive a sonic pistol shot while unarmored, but died shortly after.

[The Veteran]

So how did you find the room in the end then Iggy? And did any of your men actually survive or did they just die honorable deaths in fiery battle?

[iggy]

First of all, what I meant was the aliens don't miss. So they take one shot, and I'm gone.

 

Well, I was fighting for what I thought was the room, found out it wasn't the right room. Then I took a guy and searched the whole bottom floor. The only dark spot left was the area behind the 'main' stairway. I had searched around there before and didn't find a door, which is funny because the two door's are right by the stairs.

 

The lobstermen are such WEENIES. In other words, for the final room, all I had to do was open the door, shoot with one guy, shoot with the other, then go to the corners of the hallway. I grabbed a 2 live lobsterman commanders, shot the ?synonium? device, and ran for dear life.

 

I was almost to the end when I saw a tentaculat, which is when a realized the blue spots with the stars floating up are elevators. Went to the exit area, and had to shoot one of the lobsterman commanders who 'woke up'.

 

Two survived. Only 4 made it to hte second floor, (stupid MC control).

 

Wow I wrote a lot

[iggy]

Note: meant to post this(my first post) in the toughest alien post, oops

[tftd fan]

First of all, what I meant was the aliens don't miss. So they take one shot, and I'm gone.

 

Well, I was fighting for what I thought was the room, found out it wasn't the right room. Then I took a guy and searched the whole bottom floor. The only dark spot left was the area behind the 'main' stairway. I had searched around there before and didn't find a door, which is funny because the two door's are right by the stairs.

 

The lobstermen are such WEENIES. In other words, for the final room, all I had to do was open the door, shoot with one guy, shoot with the other, then go to the corners of the hallway. I grabbed a 2 live lobsterman commanders, shot the ?synonium? device, and ran for dear life.

 

I was almost to the end when I saw a tentaculat, which is when a realized the blue spots with the stars floating up are elevators. Went to the exit area, and had to shoot one of the lobsterman commanders who 'woke up'.

 

Two survived. Only 4 made it to hte second floor, (stupid MC control).

 

Wow I wrote a lot

Humm, aliens don't miss?? I don't hink so. There are lots of bad reaction aliens in all missions, its just the chance to reach close through the flanks or close to walls or some obstacles nearby.

 

Ok, lobsters are tough but raiding a alien base with no armour, MC capabilities and poor weapons are kinda pushing a little huh?

 

I strongly suggest you to start think about preserving yr buddies, cuz as long as they keep running successfull missions, more skills they earn and so on.

 

Of course only if you can live with that, seeing couple of alien bases around.

Temporally, of course, until you are capable of research of better stuff.

 

[iggy]

Yeah, I thought the colony was going to be easier, expecting the lobsterman to be like the mutons of Ufo Defense where it took about two shots to kill them. Lobsterman took about three shots. TFTD Fan, maybe I should send you a saved game so you can see how the aliens don't miss. I mean, they DO miss, but very rarely.

[tftd fan]

Well, raiding alien colonies in UFO defense was already not the most easy part of the game, so what to expect from tftd though...

 

Anyway, i would rather wait 'till i get better stuff before raiding bases.

If MC abilities keep not popping up, just try paying more attention in yr soldiers: In missions with mutton, acquatoids the one with good mc strengh even not able to be seen at the personnel abilities screen, will be less succeptible of getting MCed by the aliens.

 

Of course this is just an idea..

[Windwalker]

hi fellas.

Playing this game for many years. I play, i always crash on that research tree bug, and when i dont, i generally fail in economics. So I havent been able to beat the game yet. The most I could do was to keep detecting and destroying their bases. Forever...

 

This time I'm dedicated to finish. But here comes the shipping mission beginning of May. It is a passenger ship, or a "love ship" as i call it. (I generally keep my hero in that kings suit room where a civilian lady with bikini stares at him for many rounds.) But this last bug is nowhere. I mean really nowhere! I scanned all the rooms for tenth time, even opening the doors of small cabinets. I checked every single possible corner and i even looked under the beds.

 

And now, finally, I'm blowing up some walls which have inaccessible gaps behind them. Slow work tough and there are many of them.

 

Man I love this game. It's my all time favorite, but this particular problem is killing me! And the bikini lady has 5 children now, and the ship possibly rounded the world a hundred times. Please just find me a solution to detect this last bugger or in the next base attack mission I'll sit over a deck of ajax torpedos and swallow a primed sonic pulser!

[NKF]

First thing to do is retrace your steps. Head back to the Triton and start from there - sometimes they wake up (stunned rather than killed) and wander about in some of the most obvious of places that you miss them entirely (been replaying the game recently, and this has happened to me several times on the tanker). There are some spots that might involve line of sight errors too (like stairs, and cold room doors), so check thoroughly.

 

Also has the alien panicked in any way? Sometimes you might be able to catch a glimpse of its location in between turns when this happens.

 

- NKF

[Windwalker]

Nope. No good. I blew up every possible unaccessible point, but it was nowhere. The nose of the ship had an inaccessible area too which i couldnt penetrate by any means. So moved ba ck to ship and flew away.

 

Now I'm p laying vanilla tftd, which is v1. I did not research dead or alive deep one, have a hundred scientist, and now I' m about run of out research options. I've read something about getting around the research bug, but still not sure... Whatever...

 

Now comes small USO's which carry lobsterfellas, i took 2 whole crews alive to base, but none was navigator. If I got it all true, I have to research him first, than Magnetic Navigation, then dead or alive deep one right? Which means i will not be able to get any armor till a point in the game, where suddenly i will get all the armor.

 

Playing on veteram btw. It will cost many lives of my beloved crew without armor to face all those bio-drones and lobsterfellas and tasoths. OOOhh well.... I will finish this game, this time, no matter how many soldiers it costs me.

 

EDIT - I keep on going. For the first time i got a very positive score, 3 running bases, 1 under construction, and 3k positive each month. And best of all, I got Mag. Ion Armor. This time its gonna be real. I will finish it!

[Alienated]

One thing i dont like in TFTD is the fact that u find always the same kind of alien in colony (Tasoth in "surface", Loberman in lower level)...

I am completely with you. But let me correct you: an alien colony has mixed race outside and Lobster Man inside, an artefact site has mixed race outside and inside. Mixed race can be found on ship rescue missions even early in the game, and they do terror missions with subs too later in the game. I suppose the mixed race is the substitute of the fifth race in EU. However, this is worth some discussion.

 

The only tactics to find the last alien is checking each and every room. However, if you don't lose too many aquanauts (this restores enemy morale otherwise) and kill the majority of the colony, the remnant tends to panic and berserk. Listen to the cracks (berserk) and investigate visually the walls, the floor, and alien furniture for damage. Panicked aliens tend to drop their weapons, you can also find these on the map.

 

And for the record, sometimes the dropped weapons in panic mysteriously fall through floors and may mislead you from the location of the alien.

 

To find alien survivors on floating bases (X-COM bases) is vital because AI action may last several minutes due to a bug in the PSX version. If you build a huge base (many workshops, laboratories, general stores, and who knows what you need), then you had better never let aliens attack it because you may spend several hours to eliminate the last few aliens.

 

Some people here promote base defense missions versus defence facilities because aliens repeatedly attack bases with defences. I agree that aliens may attack repeatedly due to a bug but it is not always. And base defense missions in that case help neither. During one of my campaigns, Aquatoids attacked my base every second or third day in a row from 3rd of January until 4th of February (sixteen times). I suspect the alien mission generator created a mission in North Sea (where my base was) and overwrote the buggy one (the crazy row of dreadnoughts). I believe if you want to get rid of the crazy row of dreadnoughts, you should save your game before the end of month and the start of the next (two memory cards) and check what happens. If the dreadnoughts cease, then the mission generator has fortunately created a mission in the area of the assaulted base. There are ten or twenty areas and seven missions generated monthly, so there is a certain chance that the mission generator solves the craziness. I am sure a generated retaliation (floating base attack) in the area puts the wildened USOs-UFOs in place.

 

Also note that only the equipment on craft is available on a base defense mission, and it may happen that your soldiers have no weapons on a sonar base (+ living quarters and general stores) without a sub pen and a Triton. It is still possible to win without any equipment but I recommend defence facilities instead.

[Doctoxic]

By the way, it's lot easier to just use the VIS option, and make the entire map visible. Check your overhead map to spot the dastardly buggers.

 

 

- NKF

 

 

Hi all

very useful thread - however i don't understand what the "VIS option " is, can anyone elaborate please?

 

many thanks

 

doc

[NKF]

It's been years, but that was in relation to using XComutil to help find the last alien.

 

- NKF

[Doctoxic]

It's been years, but that was in relation to using XComutil to help find the last alien.

 

- NKF

 

thanks for that

 

i use xcomutility but haven't noticed anything about a VIS option - i'll have a look through the documentation

 

cheers