TFTD campaign with Civilian

[Catwalk]

This is mainly for Civilian, but all are more than welcome to chip in with rule suggestions or participate. None of this is set in stone yet, and I'd prefer working out the rules properly before we get started. Please don't be discouraged by the myriad rules, it's easier to adjust than it would appear at first glance. I've had a blast playing with similar rules so far, I like how the game develops more slowly and you have to struggle to keep up.

 

:CURRENT VERSION:

 

MISC

- No reloading, barring crashes.

- Punishment and reward system for failing and accomplishing various objectives:

a. All punishment is monetary, done either with an editor or by sacking and rehiring technicians.

b. The first civilian lost on a terror mission costs $10k, the next costs $20k and so on. This means 15 dead civilians will cost you $1.4m and 10 will cost you $550k.

c. Failing an artifact mission costs you $2m. (Too much, too little or just right?)

d. Each synomium device destroyed nets you $3m in cool cash (you aren't allowed to complete these missions, so it compensates the loot otherwise gained)

- Supply ships from alien bases may not be touched (pirating their supply fleet makes it profitable to keep alien bases around).

 

COMBAT

- Soldiers may not MC (panic allowed).

- Automatic night missions used (from XcomUtil).

- Only aimed shots allowed on aliens you can't see (must use the sniper periscope)

- Time limitations on sub missions as follows:

a. A sub will take off after x turns.

b. x is equal to 8 + 2x ship size (very small is 1, small is 2, etc).

c. Crashed subs take 50% longer to take off due to repairs.

d. When a sub has taken off, no more soldiers may enter the sub. If you have no soldiers inside the sub or lose all soldiers inside the sub, you must return to ship and abort mission.

- On alien base and artifact missions, you may only abort the first level during the first 5 turns. After that, your transport has to take off to avoid risking being targeted by an alien sub.

- On the second level of base/artifact missions, you only have 20 turns to destroy the synomium device, and after 30 turns you must abort regardless of where your soldiers are. All remaining soldiers are swarmed by alien reinforcements and die brutally. Since you're in a hurry, you don't have time to run about looting so you may only pick up items which you'll actually be using during the missions.

- You must drop grenades if you're carrying them when the primer is up.

- Only odd primers allowed on grenades, i.e. grenades will blow up after the aliens end their turn.

- A grenade may only be tossed once each turn.

- A weapon may only be fired once per round, if you are wielding two weapons you may fire twice. HJ Cannon is exempt from this limitation.

 

ARMOUR

- Diving Suit strengthened by x2.5 all round

- Plastic Aqua Armour improved by x1.25 all round

- Ion Armour nerfed slightly

- Mag. Ion Armour nerfed considerably

 

WEAPONS

*Misc*

- Gas Cannon no longer fires HE.

- Hydro Jet Cannon no longer fires IE.

- Summary of weapon changes:

a. Aimed always takes 50% more TU than Snap

b. Aimed accuracy nerfed considerably for all weapons, especially pistols

c. Snap accuracy improved for most weapons, especially pistols

d. Gas Cannon loses Snap mode, HJ Cannon loses Auto and Aimed mode

 

*Stats*

- Dart Gun: 16 -> 28, Snap 70/20, Aimed 35/30, 12 shots

- Jet Harpoon: 32 -> 42, Snap 55/30, Aimed 65/45, 9 shots

- Gas Cannon: AP 60 -> 65, IE 60 -> 90, Aimed 50/40, 6 shots

- Hydro Jet Cannon: AP 40 -> 35, HE 50 -> 30, Snap 30/20, 15 AP shots, 6 HE shots

- AJ Launcher: SM 80, LA 90 -> 120, PH: 80 -> 255, Snap 80/75, Aimed 100/80, 1 shot

- Gauss Pistol: 45 -> 40, Auto 35/30, Snap 60/24, Aimed 30/36, 9 shots

- Gauss Rifle: 60 -> 60, Auto 50/55, Snap 50/36, Aimed 60/54, 7 shots

- Gauss Cannon: 75 -> 80, Auto 20/75, Aimed 95/80, 5 shots

- Sonic Pistol: 80 -> 60, Snap 90/30, 50/45, 6 shots

- Sonic Rifle: 95 -> 90, Snap 70/40, Aimed 80/60, 5 shots

- Sonic Cannon: 130 -> 120, Snap 120/75, 4 shots

- DP Launcher: No waypoints, 210 -> 160, Aimed 120/75

- TS Launcher: 120 -> 80, Snap 50/60, Aimed 80/90

- Magna-Blast Grenade: No change

- Dye Grenade: 10 -> 60

- PD Grenade: 70 -> 60

- Magna-Pack Explosive: 100 -> 160

- Rebalance h2h weapons to account for only being allowed to attack once per round.

- Sonic Pulser: 120 -> 100

 

ALIENS

*Misc*

- Reducing RE of most aliens by 50%

- Reducing TA of all armed aliens by 50%

- Raising TU/HE/RE/FA/TA of all armed aliens according to rank, higher increase for higher rank

*Stats*

- Hallucinoid Terrorist: 62 -> 100 TU, 90 -> 45 RE

- Calcinite Terrorist: 35 -> 45 front armour, 35 -> 25 rear armour, 75 -> 60 RE, 55 -> 60 HE

- Xarquid Terrorist: 40 -> 60 TU, 50 -> 25 RE

- Deep One Terrorist: 50 -> 70 TU, 35 -> 45 HE, 55 -> 60 RE

- Tentaculat Terrorist: 99-> 80 TU, 100 -> 80 MC strength, 90 -> 30 RE

- Bio-Drone Terrorist: Side and rear armour raised to 25 (same as front), RE 40 -> 25

- Triscene Terrorist: 8 -> 40 under armour, 110 -> 100 side armour, 110 -> 80 rear armour, 69 -> 35 RE

- Aquatoid Soldier: 54 -> 60 TU, 30 -> 33 HE, 63 -> 35 RE, 52 -> 58 FA, 58 -> 32 TA

- Aquatoid Squad Leader: 54 -> 65 TU, 35 -> 36 HE, 63 -> 38 RE, 52 -> 62 FA, 58 -> 35 TA

- Aquatoid Technician: 54 -> 70 TU, 35 -> 39 HE, 63 -> 41 RE, 52 -> 68 FA, 58 -> 38 TA

- Aquatoid Medic: 54 -> 76 TU, 35 -> 42 HE, 63 -> 44 RE, 52 -> 73 FA, 58 -> 41 TA

- Aquatoid Navigator: 54 -> 81 TU, 35 -> 45 HE, 63 -> 48 RE, 52 -> 78 FA, 58 -> 44 TA

- Aquatoid Commander: 54 -> 86 TU, 35 -> 48 HE, 63 -> 50 RE, 52 -> 83 FA, 58 -> 46 TA

- Gill Man Soldier: 40 -> 44 TU, 45 -> 50 HE, 45 -> 25 RE, 45 -> 50 FA, 50 -> 28 TA

- Gill Man Squad Leader: 45 -> 54 TU, 50 -> 60 HE, 45 -> 27 RE, 49 -> 59 FA, 54 -> 32 TA

- Gill Man Technician: 45 -> 59 TU, 55 -> 72 HE, 50 -> 33 RE, 54 -> 70 FA, 58 -> 38 TA

- Gill Man Commander: 50 -> 70 TU, 60 -> 84 HE, 53 -> 37 RE, 58 -> 81 FA, 65 -> 46 TA

- Lobster Man Soldier: 56 -> 62 TU, 90 -> 99 HE, 60 -> 33 RE, 54 -> 59 FA, 62 -> 34 TA

- Lobster Man Squad Leader: 66 -> 79 TU, 110 -> 132 HE, 65 -> 39 RE, 54 -> 65 FA, 62 -> 37 TA

- Lobster Man Technician: 70 -> 91 TU, 115 -> 150 HE, 70 -> 46 RE, 54 -> 70 FA, 62 -> 40 TA

- Lobster Man Navigator: 74 -> 104 TU, 120 -> 168 HE, 75 -> 53 RE, 54 -> 76 FA, 43 TA

- Lobster Man Commander: 76 -> 114 TU, 125 -> 188 HE, 80 -> 60 RE, 54 -> 81 FA, 47 TA

- Tasoth Soldier: 56 -> 62 TU, 125 -> 138 HE, 80 -> 44 RE, 54 -> 59 FA, 62 -> 34 TA

- Tasoth Squad Leader: 66 -> 79, 135 -> 162 HE, 80 -> 48 RE, 65 -> 78 FA, 62 -> 37 TA

 

ECONOMY

*Personnel*

- Soldiers cost $50k and recruitment is subject to the following rules:

a. Keep track of how many soldiers you've recruited in a text file.

b. The first 10 soldiers are at default cost and quality.

c. For the next 20 soldiers, you may only keep 10 (sack the rest immediately)

d. For the next 30 soldiers after that, you may also only keep 10

e. etc

- Scientists cost $20k and recruitment is subject to the following rules:

a. Scientists take 6 days to arrive.

b. May only recruit 10 scientists at a time, must wait for them to arrive before recruiting more.

c. For each 10 scientists you recruit, you must recruit an extra 5 next time you recruit a batch

- Technicians cost $80k, no fancy rules.

*Equipment*

- All non-artefacts have a sale price of 0.

- Purchase price of standard equipment raised across the board by a factor of 4.

- Sale value of alien weapons is reduced across the board by a factor of 2.

*Misc*

- Using the alternative base from XcomUtil.

- Using alternate research from XcomUtil.

- The formula for laboratory and workship efficiency is x / (x + 3) where x is number of laboratories or workshops, the formula says what portion of your scientists or technicians may be utilized at any given time.

 

NAVAL

*Xcom Subs*

- Barracuda: 2600 -> 3000 speed, 800 -> 600 fuel, 2 -> 1 launchers, 0 -> 6 capacity, 120 -> 200 hull.

- Triton: 790 -> 250 speed, 1400 -> 1800 fuel, 0 launchers, 14 capacity, 160 hull.

- Manta: 4600 -> 5400 speed, 30 -> 40 fuel, 2 launchers, 0 -> 4 capacity, 400 hull.

- Hammerhead: 4030 speed -> 1200 speed, 60 -> 80 fuel, 0 launcher, 12 -> 16 capacity, 960 hull.

- Leviathan: 5800 -> 2400 speed, 50 -> 100 fuel, 2 launchers, 26 -> 12 capacity, 1250 hull.

- Any changes to subs?

- Any changes to craft weapons?

 

*Craft Weapons*

- Craft Gas Cannon: 8 -> 20 range, 25% -> 70% acc, 15 -> 20 dam, 3 -> 2 sec, 200 -> 100 ammo

avg damage: 1400, max damage: 2000, avg damage/sec: 7, max damage/sec: 10, total firing time: 200 sec, avg damage/20sec: 140

- Ajax Launcher: 32 -> 40 range, 70% -> 50% acc, 60 -> 80 dam, 17 -> 4 sec, 6 -> 5 ammo

avg damage: 200, max damage: 400, avg damage/sec: 10, max damage/sec: 20, total firing time: 20 sec, avg damage/20sec: 200

- DUP Launcher: 50 -> 60 range, 80% -> 25% acc, 110 -> 120 dam, 21 -> 10 sec, 3 -> 6 ammo

avg damage: 180, max damage: 720, avg damage/sec: 3, max damage/sec: 12, total firing time: 60 sec, avg damage/20sec: 60

- Gauss Cannon: 36 -> 30 range, 35% -> 20% acc, 45 -> 60 dam, 4 -> 1 sec, 50 ammo

avg damage: 600, max damage: 3000, avg damage/sec: 12, max damage/sec: 60, total firing time: 50 sec, avg damage/20sec: 240

- Sonic Oscillator: 55 -> 45 range, 50% -> 80% accuracy, 150 -> 100 dam, 5 sec, 100 ammo

avg damage: 8000, max damage: 10000, avg damage/sec: 16, max damage/sec: 20, total firing time: 500 sec, avg damage/20sec: 320

- PWT Cannon: 60 -> 65 range, 100% accuracy, 200 -> 250 damage, 28 -> 10 sec, 2 -> 8 ammo

avg damage: 2000, max damage: 2000, avg damage/sec: 25, max damage/sec: 25, total firing time: 30 sec, avg damage/20sec: 500

 

WISHLIST

- Alien bases hacked to score 50 points per day rather than 5. Is this possible? Failing that, can you think of any way to be sure if a base is up or not so I can impose monetary punishment instead?

- Lower victory points from all aliens and items

- All human tech blows up when dropped (no damage)

- Waypoints removed from DPL

 

Criticize away!

[Civilian]

Woah, pretty hard settings!

 

I started a campaign in TFTD now, too. My settings are different, though, as I am not so good at modding. I can use an editor, but that's all.

 

My settings:

 

Xcomutil fixed TFTD Dos Game v.2.1

 

-Difficulty: Superhuman (which I already regret, lol )

-No reloading during tac missions and in geoscape (except for crashes of course)

-All earth starting equipment costs 10 times as much as usual (except the subs and tanks).

-No tanks will be used

-Everything except for Zrbite and Aqua-Plastics has ZERO resale value. I had to keep those two items as they are as I ran out of money in one month because of the high loss rate of soldiers.

-Default base layout at the start

-Grenades damages swapped (see Catwalk)

-Magna Pack 200 damage (hullbreaker)

-MC use restricted to Panic only

-I am still unsure if I should stick to the starting weapons only or if I should allow usage of all weapons...

 

I would love to use the exploding items mod^ but I don't have it.

 

So far (1 and a half month) it works, but the mortality rate of my soldiers is enormous, a total relearning of tactics is needed after those weak EU enemies. And all the "new" and unknown weapons! And snew Alien types! And more difficult maps! The income is lousy, though

[Catwalk]

Civilian, would you be up for the coop game I mentioned? Could also be me doing all strategic management and both of us having a go at all combat missions. Alternatively, I'm looking into providing full video coverage of all missions. Will also help push me into playing faster, as I wouldn't want viewers to get bored.

 

Various rules updates:

- Punishment system for failing to accomplish certain objectives:

a. All punishment is monetary, done either with an editor or by sacking and rehiring technicians.

b. The first civilian lost on a terror mission costs $10k, the next costs $20k and so on. This means 15 dead civilians will cost you $1.4m and 10 will cost you $550k.

c. Failing an artifact mission costs you $2m. Too much, too little or just right?

- Alien bases hacked to score 50 points per day rather than 5. Is this possible? Failing that, can you think of any way to be sure if a base is up or not so I can impose monetary punishment instead?

- On alien base and artifact missions, you must enter the second level within 20 turns. You must abort the mission after 30 turns on the second level.

- Supply ships from alien bases may not be touched (pirating their supply fleet makes it profitable to keep alien bases around)

- Lower victory points from all aliens and items

- Rebalance h2h weapons to account for only being allowed to attack once per round. Also means you can benefit from wielding two h2h weapons.

- All aliens: -50% TA

- Hallucinoid Terrorist: More TU

- Calcinite Terrorist: Stronger front armour, weaker rear armour

- Xarquid Terrorist: More TU

- Deep One Terrorist: More HE

- Tentaculat Terrorist: Lower TU, lower MC strength

- Bio-Drone Terrorist: Side and rear armour raised to 25 (same as front)

- Triscene Terrorist: 8 -> 40 under armour, 110 -> 100 side armour, 110 -> 80 rear armour

- Aquatoid Soldier: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.1

- Aquatoid Squad Leader: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.2

- Aquatoid Technician: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.3

- Aquatoid Medic: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.4

- Aquatoid Navigator: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.5

- Aquatoid Commander: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.6

- Gill Man Soldier: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.1

- Gill Man Squad Leader: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.2

- Gill Man Technician: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.3

- Gill Man Commander: TU/HE/RE/FA * 1.4

- Lobster Man Soldier: FA * 1.1

- Lobster Man Squad Leader: FA * 1.2

- Lobster Man Technician: FA * 1.3

- Lobster Man Navigator: FA * 1.4

- Lobster Man Commander: FA * 1.5

- Tasoth Soldier: TU/HE/RE/FA *1.2

- Tasoth Squad Leader: TU/HE/RE/FA *.8

[Civilian]

Ouch, your settings are far too hard for me!

 

I made a test campaign in TFTD and realized how much stronger the Aliens are now, that's why I changed my settings ^quite a bit before I started my current campaign. Despite the slightly lowered difficulty settings my soldiers die like flies on a windscreen.

 

Atm I am happy to bring back 50% of them from a Terror mission...

 

What is interesting that the tactics needed in TFTD are completely different from the ones in EU, cover, Ammo, retreating, recovering stunned units and "coward" tactics are much more useful now. Auto fire is much more dangerous to the one shooting because of the higher reactions values the enemies have. Also the aliens do use grenades much more often, are tougher and way more accurate. And the much more complex terrains dramatically increase the difficulty even more. I love it!

 

I still haven't decided about the usage of weapons BESIDES the starting weapons (e.g. Gauss), maybe i can settle for a compromise: Only using human-made weapons?

 

The INC ammo for the Gas Cannon is nice btw ....

[Catwalk]

I recommend using XcomUtil's research mod: Increasing research cost of all alien technology by a factor of 10 (yes, 10x longer projects by default) and letting every captured alien reduce the cost of one project (different from alien to alien, soldiers are generally not much use except for weapons, technicians are good for armour and PD sensor, medics are good for Med Kit, navigators are good for crafts, etc). Thermal Shok Launcher is way overpowered with this setting so I nerfed it, but other than that it's an awesome mod to play with. You're stuck with earth gear for a much longer time, but are still able to progress at a slower pace than usual.

 

One tip for you: Are you aware of how mutual surprise works? If two units come into sight of each other simultaneously (visibility is 20 tiles for you with optimal visibility, always 20 tiles for all aliens) then the active unit gets the initiative. This encourages aggressive scouting, trying to spot the aliens before they can spot you. I found this one mechanism to be a crucial factor both in clearing the map as well as subs, positioning multiple soldiers by a door for optimal visibility (also check out how visibility around corners works) really helps you avoid ambushes.

 

I'll proceed with a video log of my campaign then, once I have finalized the rules. Do you have any input on them?

[Catwalk]

*Craft Weapons*

- Craft Gas Cannon: 20 range, 70% acc, 20 dam, 2 sec, 100 ammo

avg damage: 1400, max damage: 2000, avg damage/sec: 7, max damage/sec: 10, total firing time: 200 sec, avg damage/20sec: 140

- Ajax Launcher: 40 range, 50% acc, 80 dam, 4 sec, 5 ammo

avg damage: 200, max damage: 400, avg damage/sec: 10, max damage/sec: 20, total firing time: 20 sec, avg damage/20sec: 200

- DUP Launcher: 60 range, 25% acc, 120 dam, 10 sec, 6 ammo

avg damage: 180, max damage: 720, avg damage/sec: 3, max damage/sec: 12, total firing time: 60 sec, avg damage/20sec: 60

- Gauss Cannon: 30 range, 20% acc, 60 dam, 1 sec, 50 ammo

avg damage: 600, max damage: 3000, avg damage/sec: 12, max damage/sec: 60, total firing time: 50 sec, avg damage/20sec: 240

- Sonic Oscillator: 45 range, 80% accuracy, 100 dam, 5 sec, 100 ammo

avg damage: 8000, max damage: 10000, avg damage/sec: 16, max damage/sec: 20, total firing time: 500 sec, avg damage/20sec: 320

- PWT Cannon: 65 range, 100% accuracy, 250 damage, 10 sec, 5 ammo

avg damage: 1250, max damage: 1250, avg damage/sec: 25, max damage/sec: 25, total firing time: 30 sec, avg damage/20sec: 500

*Misc*

- On alien base and artifact missions, you may only abort the first level during the first 5 turns. After that, your transport has to take off to avoid risking being targeted by an alien sub. On the second level, you may only abort the mission after destroying the synomium device. After 30 rounds, all your soldiers are swarmed by alien reinforcements and die brutally. If you haven't destroyed the synomium device by then and aborted the mission, you must abort mission with no soldiers in the exit zone.

 

ECONOMY

- Scientists start out costing $20k and are subject to the following rules:

a. Scientists take 6 days to arrive.

b. May only recruit 10 scientists at a time, must wait for them to arrive before recruiting more.

c. For each 10 scientists you recruit, cost goes up by $5k.

- Soldiers cost $50k.

- Technicians cost $80k.

- The formula for laboratory and workship efficiency is x / (x + 3) where x is number of laboratories or workshops, the formula says what portion of your scientists or technicians may be utilized at any given time.

[Civilian]

I might be wrong but your time limit is maybe too hard, especially 30 turns to destroy a synomium device, that sounds like pure stress to me .

 

Apart from that, there are some very good ideas in your list, like only being able to abort in the first 5 rounds etc.

 

I have a somewhat unrelated question, though:

 

Could it be that TFTD cheats or is bugged when the aliens do have a turn? I had several occasions where an Alien suddenly appeared out of nowhere, e.g. 2 soldiers were standing on a long hallway, both looking into opposite directions, there was no possibility to sneak by unnoticed. After i finished my turn and the Aliens their round, suddenly an alien stood directly (the next field) in front of one!

 

The same on the deck of a ship. They popped up from nowhere. It feels as if some terrain files are buggy (providing cover of view where they shouldn't)

 

Also: A soldier sees an Alien but can't shoot (No Line of fire), however the alien shoots him from the very same space! Very strange, maybe i should reinstall it?

[Catwalk]

Much of this isn't tested yet, I agree those base/artifact rules sound suicidal However, that could well be part of the concept. It's quite a thrill to go on a real suicide mission where soldiers die left and right, if the reward for meeting your objective is large enough. I could add a monetary reward for clearing bases and artifact sites, so there's carrot as well as stick. I'm pacifying tentaculats and DPL a bit because I don't like random deaths much, so difficulty will go down a bit from that. Maybe I'll adjust soldier cost as well, $50k with the extra recruitment rules is very steep. Cannon fodder tactics shouldn't be completely impossible, after all.

 

I'm afraid I'm not knowledgeable about the technical details of the game, but I'm sure some of the veterans can answer your questions.

[Zombie]

Could it be that TFTD cheats or is bugged when the aliens do have a turn? I had several occasions where an Alien suddenly appeared out of nowhere, e.g. 2 soldiers were standing on a long hallway, both looking into opposite directions, there was no possibility to sneak by unnoticed. After i finished my turn and the Aliens their round, suddenly an alien stood directly (the next field) in front of one!

 

The same on the deck of a ship. They popped up from nowhere. It feels as if some terrain files are buggy (providing cover of view where they shouldn't)

 

Also: A soldier sees an Alien but can't shoot (No Line of fire), however the alien shoots him from the very same space! Very strange, maybe i should reinstall it?

I wouldn't reinstall. This is just the "bugginess" of a normal game. One of these days I'll take a closer look at what's going on and provide a fix for it. Do you know what terrain you were fighting in when this happened? That will narrow down the search. Not sure why the Line Of Fire/Sight (LOF/LOS) isn't the same for 2 units, but it's possibly not a bug depending on the terrain which is in the way. (It's the same idea as Sectoids being able to see (and shoot) through the split rails in a fence, but yet you cannot until you get closer).

 

- Zombie

[Civilian]

It was a shipping mission on a luxury cruising boat. I think those deckchairs are bugged. And yes the alien shot through a stair on the same ship, when my soldier couldn't.

 

That said: I gonna have to restart my campaign and make it easier, it is March and I already have debts enough to loose 10 campaigns

 

The settings stay the same, but I decrease the income from any sold object to 10 % instead of removing the income entirely. That way at least the costs for ammo on missions are covered...

And I gonna use the better XcomUtil starting bases.And maybe the XCOMU hospital/school utility from the download section.

 

"I think those deckchairs are bugged." What a funny statement about a Strategy game

 

edit: According to the Online Ufopeadia the terrain/map is called Pleasure Liner

 

editedit: Catwalk, I have some good success by overwhelming the enemy with large teams and applying huge firepower. The more, the merrier. The Gas Cannon is worth its weight in gold, especially the HE and INC ammo. Grenades are a MUST, too. Moving in large teams that are spread out is essential, once an Alien is spotted all team members can concentrate their fire. Also, "cheap" tactics like the proxy grenade in front of the USO's door or shooting through an open a door that closes automatically after the turn, are needed to survive the stronger enemies.

[Catwalk]

Massive, oppressive firepower is <3 and the Gas Cannon is indeed a good starting weapon. I rather like having a torpedo launcher or two for when you need certain destruction. But Gauss Rifles make both obsolete pretty fast, can get it in February easily. Grenades are definitely useful, I considered them sufficiently overpowered to nerf their usage. Explosives are super cheap and not very hard to toss, you could probably win the game using just these and thermal tazers. I'd say starting + gauss equipment is definitely a doable campaign. But I'm having tons of fun trying to toss grenades around with timer 1, darn aliens dodge them quite often I don't think using doors cleverly is a cheap tactic, or maybe I just like it too much to tolerate any criticism of it

 

I rather like getting income from missions, maybe I should rebalance artifact value in favour of ship components so I'm rewarded more for not damaging enemy subs too badly or letting them land. With the new Skyranger speed of 150, that means I may need to send a Barracuda with its complement of 6 aquanauts to investigate downed subs. Which then brings me in time trouble due to self imposed rules about alien subs taking off after x turns, trying to clear a map fast with only 6 aquanauts is tough!

[Civilian]

6 soldiers is really not enough for those large TFTD maps, that's why also a reason why there are 14 soldiers in my usual squad. Reaction fire does not work so good as it did in EU, it's better to ACTIVELY use the TUs in the turn (especially to find good cover). No Hydro-Cannon or Torpedo Launcher for me, I do not want to swap the weapons each time for landbased missions. That and with 14 people in a sub you reach the 80-item limit very fast. 30 items are needed for ammo alone.

 

Despite all tricks and tactics 1 or 2 soldiers die per mission. I researched the first armor now, though, maybe it helps

 

One of my soldiers is wearing a Heavy Gauss as a test, but I am slightly dissapointed with the performance.

[Catwalk]

Do you know about XcomUtil's auto equip feature? Once you get used to it, it's very time saving.

 

Heavy Gauss is not very good, Gauss Rifle and then on to Sonic works better. Unless you want the Gauss Craft Cannon for big $$$.

 

I find that tanks help immensely in lowering casualties, so much that I'm not using them at the moment and debating some nerfs.

 

I'll try getting started on the first video tonight, downloaded CamStudio and am familiarizing myself with it. It's difficult to play in a time efficient manner though, and I guess people wouldn't appreciate me clicking back and forth at random all the time as I usually do

[Catwalk]

Spent an hour recording a video, kicked ass on the first mission! And.... the video refuses to load grrrrrrr

[Civilian]

Sso far my base had never enough money to buy tanks

 

And I used the XcomUtil Autoequip feature in EU, but in TFTD my soldiers are equipped manually. The XCOMU hospital/school tool is nice, however: it might be bugged, maybe removing too much money, I have to recheck that.

 

Sorry about the video.

[Civilian]

Ok I now have Plastic Armour and had my first 2 bigger UFOs missions. The placement of Aliens on the map is sometimes very strange. Several times now I encountered small rooms or places with 6 Aliens in them. I wonder if the AI path finding has problems wit the terrain. (Maybe another slight hint that the tiles/terrain is slightly bugged, Zombie?)

 

The Gas Cannon is my bread-and-butter weapon, half of my squad is armed with them, HE and INC ammo only. For those moments where less firepower is advisable, the rest of the squad has Dart Guns and one soldier (the one with the highest Firing Accuracy) has a Heavy Gauss and acts as the sniper of the squad.

 

I will not equip my soldiers with alien weapons, however if they run out of ammo they are allowed to pick up stuff from dead aliens. Grenades and explosives in ANY form are a MUST HAVE in TFTD. It's sad that the Hydro-Cannon and the Torpedo Launcher are for underwater missions only, I do not use them because of that. The TL has a questionable (aka dangerous) reactionfire ability on land, though.

 

The INC ammo has a nice little bonus: Onece you run out of electroflares you can snapshot an area and let the flames give you light.Well, at least for some rounds.

 

Still losing one or two soldiers on large missions, but the armour really helps to keep that numbers bearable. My squad ALWAYS carries dead soldiers and the eqipment back to the landing craft to salvage the weapons and to honor the dead troops, if that is NOT possible (e.g. abort the mission), they are forced to destroy the body and the equipment by an explosion.

 

I even thought about making all soldiers carry a primed grenade in one hand because of that, but it lowers their accuracy too much.

 

The Tazers are great in close combat, however they see little use at the moment as i haven't encountered Lobstermen yet. (which will surely change now once that i mentioned it, lol)

 

The economy changes make for a rewarding and interesting change, you really have to make decisions and no longer can buy everything for everyone. I really recommend them. (everything costs 10 times as much and sells for only a 10/th of the original price, except Zrbite and AquaPlastics).

[Catwalk]

The INC ammo has a nice little bonus: Onece you run out of electroflares you can snapshot an area and let the flames give you light.Well, at least for some rounds.

Are you aware that phosphor ammo does practically zero damage and gives you no experience? Look it up on the wiki, lots of useful information about it there.

The economy changes make for a rewarding and interesting change, you really have to make decisions and no longer can buy everything for everyone. I really recommend them. (everything costs 10 times as much and sells for only a 10/th of the original price, except Zrbite and AquaPlastics).

I've decided to allow sub infrastructure to sell at normal price, in order to reward capturing intact subs. I definitely agree that the game is more fun with a tighter economy.

[Zombie]

Ok I now have Plastic Armour and had my first 2 bigger UFOs missions. The placement of Aliens on the map is sometimes very strange. Several times now I encountered small rooms or places with 6 Aliens in them. I wonder if the AI path finding has problems wit the terrain. (Maybe another slight hint that the tiles/terrain is slightly bugged, Zombie?)

I recall making a post about this recently but can't seem to find it right now. Oh well. Anyhow, in Enemy Unknown there are routes which always connect each map block to another one next to it. In TFTD these connections aren't always present which forces the aliens to take a different route. So there are going to be bottlenecks where the aliens are blocking each others movement. I don't think this is a bug though - I think it may be intentional.

 

Are you aware that phosphor ammo does practically zero damage and gives you no experience? Look it up on the wiki, lots of useful information about it there.

If you are only using it as a light source, it doesn't matter if Phosphor rounds can't give you experience.

 

- Zombie

[Catwalk]

If you are only using it as a light source, it doesn't matter if Phosphor rounds can't give you experience.

 

- Zombie

I agree, but he mentioned using the lighting as a bonus rather than the main purpose

[Civilian]

My soldiers prefer to survive and are not focused on collecting experience points

 

And even if the phosphor ammo does not instantly kill an alien, it does damage over several turns.

I often heard aliens die during a hidden movement due to still being aflame. Nice!

 

Does anybody else love to hate those multi-floor buildings and USOs in TFTD? They are full of hidden corners and blocking objects... stairs and more stairs and more corners...

 

This makes the game much more tactical and one has to consider swapping weapons etc.

 

Nicely done by Microprose.

 

Just a thought: Has anyone ever considered to swap the TFTD with the EU weapons? I think I will try that (at least using the stats) in my next campaign. But that will take some time, my current TFTD campaign is a lot of fun and everything works out fine, those 2 games are such a joy to play.

[Civilian]

HA! I could not sleep and simply had to make this idea come true:

 

!!!!EU with TFTD stats and numbers!!!!

 

I took the weapon stats, armor stats, USO stats, Xcom craft weapons, Crew number stats and alien resistances and transferred them into EU as good as possible.

 

There are some differences, though, e.g. Melee does not exist in EU, Laser Weapons do not use ammo, the Aliens are sometimes completely different etc. so I had to make compromises.

 

Lobsterman resistance stats to the Muton and the Tentaculat stats to the Chrysallid, ok, but there are Aliens that simply do not have a direct match so I had to go for a middle way.

 

Learned some interesting things about the 2 games when doing this:

 

-The Base missions are much easier in EU (due to lower numbers of aliens)

-The TFTD Armours are better than the EU ones

-The chemical flare does 5 points damage?

-The Celatids, Floaters and Sectoids seem to have no resistance entry, that would explain why they are so terribly weak. I guess they are simply unarmoured.

-The starting tank is better in TFTD

-Fear the Lobstermen! Those guys are strong.

-Fear the Sonic weapons as well! They do 110% damage on most (maybe even all, have to check) enemies...No wonder that the early soldiers die like flies!

 

Let's see how this will work out. Now I play two campaigns at the same time

 

edited after testing: Oh boy, those guys from the Online-Ufopaedia sure got things right in their judgement about the weapons. The rocket launcher is simply too weak now, even when being able to be fired on land. The Hydro Cannon however would be an awesome weapon if it actually would be usable on land, that is. The laser weapons are too strong now, unlimited ammo is so unbalanced...

 

Sectoids are utterly weak, they die from basically ANYTHING. If they would not have PSI they would be totally useless.

 

And now after returning to an economically unmodded EU from a heavily modded TFTD the game seem way too easy... almost boring.

[Zombie]

Learned some interesting things about the 2 games when doing this:

 

-The Base missions are much easier in EU (due to lower numbers of aliens)

-The TFTD Armours are better than the EU ones

-The chemical flare does 5 points damage?

-The Celatids, Floaters and Sectoids seem to have no resistance entry, that would explain why they are so terribly weak. I guess they are simply unarmoured.

-You can edit the number of aliens which spawn in a base mission to reflect those found in TFTD...

-Obviously the TFTD armor had to be better because the aliens are harder to kill.

-Yes, the Chem flare has a damage rating (5) and a damage type (HE), but it's not set as a grenade so it doesn't explode or do any damage. It's probably just junk values left in there by the programmers.

-Sectoids, Floaters, Celatids and Civilians/unarmored X-COM soldiers share the same damage modifier category. There's no way to split the aliens out so there's no way you could lower the susceptibility of just them.

 

- Zombie

[Civilian]

-You can edit the number of aliens which spawn in a base mission to reflect those found in TFTD...

-Obviously the TFTD armor had to be better because the aliens are harder to kill.

-Yes, the Chem flare has a damage rating (5) and a damage type (HE), but it's not set as a grenade so it doesn't explode or do any damage. It's probably just junk values left in there by the programmers.

-Sectoids, Floaters, Celatids and Civilians/unarmored X-COM soldiers share the same damage modifier category. There's no way to split the aliens out so there's no way you could lower the susceptibility of just them.

 

- Zombie

 

-I edited the numbers of aliens per base mission accordingly

-Yep, understandable

-Aww, just when I thought i could use it as a last resort weapon

-It explains a lot, though. I remember giving them ~50% more health as a test, but saw little or no change in gameplay, now i see that I should have made much bigger changes.

 

Still, as I forgot to let XcomUtil fix the difficulty bug before making the changes the game is WAY too easy, I will not continue that campaign. However I will experiment a bit with those crew mission numbers in my current TFTD campaign, always wanted to see a really HUGE battle in a Xcom game

[Civilian]

The USO crew number changes worked, nice fights

 

However, my TFTD campaign is over. I do not know exactly why but the game suddenly declared that the world's committee was not satisfied with my efforts and that they terminated the project. That surprised me, because the month had been quite a success and I even had a rather large amount of money.

 

But I happily accepted, because:

 

TFTD has some really good ideas: Multi-Level missions, Multi-floor buildings, many strong and different enemies, a generally good balance, but it also has some really serious flaws:

 

-The terrain is sometimes impasable without an object in the way

-Aliens can shoot through and around things where a soldier can't

-Some weapons are useless or too limited in their use (Rocket Launcher, Hydro-Cannon)

-Some Aliens are bugged (the Hallucinoid e.g.)

-The terrain has too many corners, one has sometimes look for a single hidden alien for 30 minutes.

-The alien bases are a nightmare to navigate, everything looks alike and too colourful

-The pathfinding, both of your units and the aliens.

 

This is NOT my game, i realized that. I prefer the clearer and calmer atmosphere in EU.The quirks in TFTD are too much for me.

[Catwalk]

As an avid fan of TFTD, I'm compelled to respond to some of your points of critique

 

-Aliens can shoot through and around things where a soldier can't

I don't think this is the case. You can certainly have cases where two units can see each other but only one of them can fire. This is mainly due to height differences (both unit height and height of point of firing origin), can also be because the terrain involved may allow shots to pass only one way

-Some weapons are useless or too limited in their use (Rocket Launcher, Hydro-Cannon)

While I agree that the underwater only restrictions don't add much the way they're coded, I don't agree that HJC and TL are useless or too limited. TL offers 50/40 Snap and 110/80 Aimed doing 80 or 90 HE damage, GC offers 60/40 Snap and 90/75 Aimed doing 65 HE damage. HJC offers same Auto stats as JH doing 40 damage instead of 32 and slightly worse Snap and Aimed stats, in addition to 3 ammo types. And don't forget that you can edit weapons to be anything you please I'm happy with the rebalancing I've done in my campaign, most weapons are quite useful now.

-Some Aliens are bugged (the Hallucinoid e.g.)

I think this only goes for the Hallucinoid, I'm modding it to have big TU and armour so it's something to stay away from. I recall Celatid, Reaper and Silacoid being uninteresting in EU.

-The terrain has too many corners, one has sometimes look for a single hidden alien for 30 minutes.

The ship missions are tough in this regard, but the tedium can be overcome with a good scouting routine.

-The alien bases are a nightmare to navigate, everything looks alike and too colourful

I rather like the alien colonies and artifact sites layout wise, they appeal more to me than alien colonies in EU. What bothers me is those damn tentaculats, they're just too tough to deal with much of the time.

-The pathfinding, both of your units and the aliens.

I haven't found own pathfinding to be a problem unless I'm in complicated terrain, in which case I just move a few steps at a time. If you're referring to movement nodes for the aliens, I think I've read elsewhere that this actually increases the AI slightly as you're forced to scout out the whole map rather than lying in ambush for the aliens to come charging you.