3-mission TFTD?

[magic9mushroom]

Well, I'm wondering.

 

Required stuff to beat the game:

 

- A Leviathan

- "T'leth, the Alien's City" research

 

Required pickups to get those things:

 

- Deep One Corpse (for Aqua Plastics)

- Ion-Beam Accelerators

- Magnetic Navigation

- Live Deep One Terrorist (for Ion Armour and Alien Origins, will also give you the non-essential but helpful M.C. Lab)

- Zrbite

- Alien Sub Construction

- Live Gill Man Commander, Lobster Man Navigator, or Lobster Man Commander (for The Ultimate Threat)

- Live Lobster Man Commander (for T'leth, the Alien's City and Leviathan).

 

Now, you can't have a Deep One and a Lobster Man Commander on the same mission, so that immediately rules out completing it in 2 missions. Deep Ones (in the plural, as you need one dead and one alive) appear only on Gill Man terror sites and base defenses (or Mixed Crew type 5 base defenses), so one of those missions must be completed. Lobster Man Commanders only appear on Lobster Man Dreadnoughts, Lobster Man base defenses and Alien Colonies, so one of those must be completed as well.

 

To do this blind, the best approach would seem to be a Gill Man terror site (invariably the first one that appears) and an Alien Colony (since you can't tell which race a Dreadnought is), but I don't know if there are any Magnetic Navigations or Alien Sub Constructions in Alien Colonies (I know there are Ion-Beam Accelerators and I'm fairly sure there's Zrbite as well). Does anyone know? Are there any other problems with doing TFTD in 3 missions (besides having to avoid losing)?

 

(Has anyone actually tried this challenge already?)

[silencer_pl]

Nope - you will not get 3 missions - you can get zrbite and ion accelerators in colonies but no navigation. Also Artifact Site has all except zrbite. So counting your missions - the minimum is 4 to end the game victorious.

 

1 Terror

2 Base

3 Intact USO / Alien Artifact

4. Tleth

[NKF]

Like the one-mission UFO challenge, you don't count the final mission, so that looks about right.

 

Would it count to just visit the Dreadnaughts to see if you've got the right race, and to dust off immediately if it's not the right race?

 

Of course, if you play long enough, the lobstermen do become quite common as time goes by.

 

- NKF

[magic9mushroom]

Like the one-mission UFO challenge, you don't count the final mission, so that looks about right.

 

Would it count to just visit the Dreadnaughts to see if you've got the right race, and to dust off immediately if it's not the right race?

 

Of course, if you play long enough, the lobstermen do become quite common as time goes by.

 

- NKF

 

Well, for the original 1-Mission X-Com challenge dusting off a Muton Battleship was considered OK. Here, though, Lobster Man Dreadnaughts are rare enough that it's actually possible not to EVER get one that lands (I don't think I ever faced one in my playthrough of TFTD which finished in September). I think, therefore, that the best "skill-based" challenge would be to do the first Terror Site, an Alien Colony, an Artefact Site, and T'leth (likely in that order, because artefact sites don't pop up until... June?). They can all be done blind (though, obviously, you have to find the Alien Colony).

[magic9mushroom]

Additionally, I just looked up Dreadnaughts, and they don't have Magnetic Navigation on them either. So you absolutely need 3 missions before T'leth, as there's never more than one of (Deep Ones, Magnetic Navigation, Lobster Man Commander) on the same mission.

[silencer_pl]

How do you intend to win attacking only Muton Battleship - Mutons don't hve commanders.

[magic9mushroom]

How do you intend to win attacking only Muton Battleship - Mutons don't hve commanders.

 

 

That's the point - it's considered OK in the 1-Mission X-Com challenge to dust off from that mission and attack another Battleship.

[Space Voyager]

Is anyone actually considering to try it out in practice?

[silencer_pl]

But after you land the only action after that is to return to base. If it were floater/ snakeman battleship then I think it would be ok.

[magic9mushroom]

Is anyone actually considering to try it out in practice?

 

Considering? Yes. About to do it this instant? Not me.

 

But after you land the only action after that is to return to base. If it were floater/ snakeman battleship then I think it would be ok.

 

The point is that if you're trying for 1-mission X-Com, but accidentally land at a Muton Battleship and abort, you're not considered to have violated the challenge.

 

Floaters or Snakemen would indeed work, and so if you get one of those you're supposed to complete it and not do any other missions.

[Space Voyager]

Somebody actually did it?! I thought this was financially impossible...

[sp1ke]

I doubt it's financially impossible, as you can become financially independent via Gauss weapon research and manufacturing without ever stepping outside your floating base (same with Lasers in EU). The biggest challenge with one mission X-COM or three mission TFTD would be the heavy negative score from the missions you are avoiding. I guess you aggressively shoot down aliens whenever you can to make some score, though your craft combat tech could be relatively limited. And you can get some score from research as well.

[magic9mushroom]

I can confirm that there is always exactly one Magnetic Navigation in an Artefact Site - the Synomium Device itself. Unlike the one in a Colony or UFO's Alien Bases, it does not explode if you win the mission by killing all the aliens. There is also guaranteed to be at least one Alien Sub Construction, since there's one on the bottom floor of the module containing the Synomium (there may be more, depending on what random modules spawn, but that particular one is guaranteed).

[Space Voyager]

Wow, magic! Doing the challenge?!

[magic9mushroom]

Wow, magic! Doing the challenge?!

Not currently. I do at least now have an iron-man of TFTD Superhuman under my belt, so challenges are worth thinking about.

 

One immediate issue is the notorious 28% chance of retaliation per intercept - I did very little interception in my full run because of that. 3-mission of course denies that, so you'll have to roll the dice on keeping the scouts away - and you don't get Transmission Resolvers until you go to an Artefact Site. The next issue is how the hell you're going to get the colony done with no drills (Calcinites are mutually exclusive with all of the three things that force three missions prior to T'Leth), no Ion Armour (that requires an IBA, which you're getting from the colony) and likely no psi (you can screen, yeah, but you've got no missions to train up your psi-guys). On my full run I got no Calcinites in the entire game, and ended up using psi in order to get past the colony mission; without that we're looking at a real ball-buster.

 

I suppose the alternative is to just hope for a Lobbie Dreadnought, identified via Transmission Resolver (gotten after the Artefact Site). Fighting a Lobbie Dreadnought with sonics and plastic is not fun, but compared to an actual colony it's a walk in the park.