UFO : The Two Sides AAR Discussion

[The Veteran]

Ok so here's the deal... Lysear and I have recently been spending way too much time playing around with the X-Com remake project 'UFO : The Two Sides' We're both enjoying it and are well into a game in which I am playing X-Com and Lysear is in command of the evil alien race.

 

We're having a great time with it and after a lot of ups and downs for both sides we've come to the conclusion that it's really an experience worth saving. So the plan is that we'll start an AAR with this game once we've finished playing through our current campaign and learned a little more about how to play (against human players and also using the aliens for Lysear)

 

The biggest pro for this AAR will be the ability to watch a mission unfold from the point of view of both X-Com AND the aliens via both text and screenshots. Also a loss by X-Com is now also just as exciting as a victory because even if the aliens win it'll still be a good game to watch!

 

We're currently in the process of ironing out some house rules to ensure a fair balance between X-Com and the aliens and also to compensate for any flaws we come across in the current build of this game (it's still in beta after all) We'll list these out later and hopefully Lysear will join us soon to help figure out a good set of rules to play by.

 

As well as gameplay rules we need to think up a good way to record screenshots while we play as we'll be doing so simultaneously as we play! We've already decided that we need images of each kill, initial deployments of aliens (inside the UFO and buildings etc) and other various 'points of interest'. That's very vague though so our first few missions may very well be quite hit and miss...

 

Another reason I'm starting this topic now is because I need a roster to keep the X-Com team in shape! I want to fill up 50 positions and I want to do it before the game starts. If you want to be part of this experience then let me know a name, callsign and what you're good at. For example do you want to be a quick light scout, heavy weapons expert or demolitions pro? Also try and impress me because a lot of you will end up in secondary bases as skeleton defence crews. Only the best will be flying regular missions but that still leaves room for at least 20 troops so bring on the volunteers

[silencer_pl]

I want to be Auto Cannon alien shooting maniac No lasers, no plasmas - maybe rocket luncher some times

 

 

P.S. If my avatar by chance will be female - call her Jade

[Space Voyager]

I want in! I'm good at being cannon fodder for sure! If you find any hidden talents, please tell me.

 

Be careful not to disclose each other's positions in the AAR.

[The Veteran]

That's something I've been wondering about actually SV. Individual missions are fine as they'll only be done when we're finished. Geoscape stuff though is a bit more difficult. It's either that we dont share the location of our bases at all or we simply make it common knowledge and put limits on how often we can assault each other.

 

Personally I'm for the latter as it makes it more interesting to read if you know everything that's happening, and X-Com should in theory have complete global radar coverage anyway I think maybe that coupled with 'no base attacks until month 3' and 'one assault per side per month max' rules we should probably do pretty well. Of course it removes some of the mystery but the ballet of my patrols and Lysear's missions will remain a mystery until it's too late so it shouldn't change much.

 

Besides, we both have knowledge of base locations in the game we're playing now but that doesn't change anything. And believe me playing against a human controlled alien player in a base mission is NOT easy so an assault will never be guaranteed!

 

Onto the roster anyway, Space Voyager, consider yourself Henchman no.1 to be wielding a rifle as a standard footsoldier. Silencer you'll be given an autocannon while we have no advanced tech but I tend to scrap them early on so I'll make a deal with you... If you perform well with said weapon early in the game you can keep it, if not you'll be upgraded... Either way you'll be given a blaster launcher later in the game to provide heavy support for the rest of the squad

 

That's 2 men, hardly going to save the world alone are they! Who else wants in? X-Com has great pension schemes! They can afford it because they never have to pay out on them lol

[silencer_pl]

Just don't spare any bullet or rocket - and also being a maniac dosen't mean I am stupid so please do not enter UFO with HE loaded

[Jman4117]

I want a Heavy Cannon sniper. HE loaded, pistol comes out if fighting close quarters. After Small Launcher is done, I want that instead.

[Thorondor]

Thor reporting for clean-up duty, mein Commandant!

 

Accuracy is my middle name and I shoot things dead with my custom-rigged laser rifle. Even my misfires are guaranteed to hit something you like (thou hast been warned).

 

When I'm not reading rifling pr0n magazines I enjoy seeing front-line carnage from way at the back of the squad.

 

::

 

I'd so hate to get hemoglobin on my oh-so-fashionable ghillie suit...

[Lysear]

Not to sap xcom morale at all.. but you`re all gonna die you know that mwahhahahahahahaha

 

*evil overlord rant over*

 

On the base issue note, i think we shouldnt reveal base locations until we have found them, but limiting the first base assault til around 3-4 months, then probably not more than 1 base assaut per month after, Same for the aliens side (and with terror missions i will follow the same rules too, along with not using snakemen for terror missions because chryssalids are just natily OP atm - i think in a multiplayer game they should have their zombifying abilitie nullified and maybe just get a sem-powerful melee attack, kinda like the calcanites of tftd).

 

The house rules atm that we have are:-

 

No laying eggs with snakemen - (pretty obvious as i can just hide and spam lots of snakeys, even though unarmed it isnt hard to just swarm and pass weapons around for a shot then throw it to another, rinse and repeat)

 

No Burst-fire unless within 5 tiles range of the target - (even with 2% acc i have seen bursts connect 2/3 times lol - also makes tactical long range engagements more of a possibility)

 

No grenading the LZ - (As the alien player the whole tactical map is revealed to me, but i can only actually *see* what my aliens can see, the area of the skyranger is just a black rectangle until i get close, but this means i know where it is and can lob grenades, which is a bit of a cheesy tactic)

 

No Snakeman terror missions - (as described above due to the chryssalid OP-ness)

 

Alien Patrolling - (due to xcoms sucky detection rate by radar and patrols having to get lucky to get a contact, ill limit my missions to 2 areas at once - making the use of graphs to detect my ships a possibility and not limiting my research and harvesting missions too much, as i have to scout and research the area before my other mission types are succesful)

 

Plasma - (as the alien player controls the time plasma rifles and other heavier weapons become available, this means i can limit earths forces to using crappy tech for most of the game, making base asaults impossible, i will aim to research plasma rifles in the 2nd month - giving me a little time to get other needed techs up and running first.)

 

Psionics - (Panic attacks only - anything else would just let my leaders and commanders take over his entire attack force )

 

Thats it for the rules atm - but there may be more to come as we play more of our other game , also blaster launchers in this game are deadly but they dont have waypoints - so its just a high powered rocket launcher which works well for multi player.

 

 

 

A little note on the other stat in this game that has been introduced is PERCEPTION, this is a tricky one to utilise effectivly, we all know that aliens see better in the dark than the humans (i know - they apparently dont have night vision goggles for some reason ) but if a unit has high perception then some of this can be negated (high perc is around 105+, but this is a stat that cant be improved i think), floaters are partially blind and only have a perception of 80 which makes it hard for me to see most troops even in broad daylight , but sectoids are pretty sharp in the eye department ^^

 

Also on a mission we done a sectoid on the edge of a corn field was kneeling and was undetectable to a unit with around 80 perception from 2 tiles away, but a different unit with 100+ perception could see it from further away and through a bit of smoke. This kinda makes sense but makes the xcom player decide wether to keep low perception units or use them as back up fire support while the scouts get the high perception stat. I mean it probably is very hard to see a kneeling sectoid in a cornfield anyway, but as its beta testing will of course show if it is a good addition.

 

Also motion detecters - these have been improved greatly (wish i could keep/research them myself after i capture one lol), they are simply activated with a small amount of TU`s and remain active until turned off (even when dropped) and even though they have a shorter range than in the original game they are great at detecting people by actually showing up on the tactical screen (no more blips on a radar), however i think it only works while being held (the showing of enemys part) which means the unit has to be armed with pistol sized weapons or their accuracy suffers a lot with a 2 handed one. As the alien player if i can get one form a dead/unconsious xcommie then i can use it same with all of the earth tech - i think this works on the alien side too but im not sure - may be able to pick up my stuff and use it against me even while not researched but only able to reproduce it after research) - this may need a house rule either banning each side from using the others tech until researched or a general abilty to use whatever you find in the field.

 

Thats my thoughts atm

[Space Voyager]

Just a suggestion or two;

you could write separate AARs, vowing never to set foot in each other's place, so we'd end up with two parallel stories.

or perhaps not publish the AAR until it is finished...

 

Though your proposition might still be better.

[The Veteran]

On the base issue note, i think we shouldnt reveal base locations until we have found them ...... along with not using snakemen for terror missions because chryssalids are just natily OP atm

 

It would be nice to not have to disclose the locations of our bases, I don't want to have to censor the AAR because of it though... I guess if we locate each others bases fairly early (quite easy for X-Com it seems as I can simply shadow UFOs on the return journey) it would be ok as then we can share geoscape images but otherwise we'll have difficulty in that. In our current game I actually have three bases of which Lysear has only found one. I on the other hand know where both of his are already...

 

...... This kinda makes sense but makes the xcom player decide wether to keep low perception units or use them as back up fire support while the scouts get the high perception stat.....

 

After playing the games we have so far I think it's going to be vital to vet the recruits for X-Com. It's not like a normal game when you can just make do with average soldiers as you're fighting an enemy with an actual brain that learns very well and has easily replaced soldiers. If I wipe out a whole base full of aliens, Lysear still has more and they're always the same clone.

 

For me though, loss of a commadner or even a squaddie, is a real blow. So in order to develop a good team I'll simply have to pay attention to their stats and lose those with poor scores. Taking into mind the amount of time and money that that will take though is rather depressing and of course they're still only one shot away from death even after weeks of selection, dozens of missions and a handful of promotions!

 

It's one of the parts of the game which is rather in the aliens favour but I haven't given my troops any real attention this time round (except Galina who is now dead ) so next time we'll see what I can do differently and hope to improve my troopers life expectancy. Say by not priming proximity grenades on the skyranger floor

 

...... this may need a house rule either banning each side from using the others tech until researched or a general abilty to use whatever you find in the field.

 

For me it goes without saying as you already know. When I moused over a heavy plasma in the base mission it told me it was a heavy plasma (no 'alien artefact' tag) so I think I could've collected up some of them and a few blaster launchers and owned your ass. That's not fair though as it isn't how the game works. For the aliens though it's different as we've already discussed. I REALLY don't want you using my motion detectors but as was mentioned it is inferior technology so why should they have any difficulty understanding it? At worst we could divide the races into intelligent and dumb, giving control of earth technology to ethereals and sectoids for example but not the other lower lifeforms...

 

Just a suggestion or two;

you could write separate AARs, vowing never to set foot in each other's place, so we'd end up with two parallel stories.

or perhaps not publish the AAR until it is finished...

 

I certainly don't thin kwe can wait till the end of the game as that will be like writing a novel for the benefit of perhaps a dozen interested people and then giving it away for free And similarly I'd like to read what Lysear writes as it will be a reflection of how he's finding the game so I think separate ones wouldn't work either. Besides, noone will read both so one of us will lose out wither way

 

I think we should both take screenshots of our own activities on our own turns and then after we can write comments to go with each image before sending all of this information to one person and copy-pasting it into a post. That way we end up with me discussing where I've landed, who with and what weapons are ther before moving onto the first alien turn where Lysear tells the readers where the aliens are and then X-Com turn 2 when the troops begin the engagement etc...

[Jman4117]

Is there a way to put you both into a user group that can't read a certain topic and have a 3rd person that posts into it for the rest of us?

[The Veteran]

Possibly but it wouldn't be easy for anyone that way. The staff section here is only visible to staff but I imagine what yu're suggesting would mean making every other member have higher rights than Lysear and myself then creating a dedicated forum for this one topic Add to that the fact that we'd need to involve a third party who hasn't even been involved in playing the game and you're likely to be reading a very crappy AAR. Besides all we need to do is log out and we can read it as guests anyway

[silencer_pl]

Isn't there an option to ignore user posts ?

[The Veteran]

Not sure but if there is then we wouldn't be able to chat in any of the other forums and bearing in mind Lysear and I already participate in 2 multiplayer games and numerous other discussions I think that's a moot point Seriosuly this is NOT a big issue. All we need to do is not show screenshots of the Geoscape until we've found each others bases!

[Pete]

There would be a way to set up a forum for each of you that only you can see and that guests can't, but I think half the fun of a 2 person AAR is in reacting to the other person's taunts, so insults can be traded with each new post.

 

Compliments can also be traded, but half of the fun of any 2 player game is the tauning

[Space Voyager]

He he he, all true. Looking forward to this!

[The Veteran]

Indeed, not doing it together would be a great shame. Besides I want to enjoy Lysears crying when I whoop his bug-eyed butt haha

[Lysear]

oh its on like donkey kong

 

I will mince your endless waves of rookies.

[Bomb Bloke]

*cough*

[The Veteran]

what

[talon]

do the aliens have 'night' vision, because that would be evil

[Zombie]

Aliens do have night vision, and yes, it is evil.

 

- Zombie

[Youbar]

Aliens are not evil. They have a cause and a will to fight a war.