I got a Challenge for you!

[Asmodai]

Everybody always talks ab00t beating UFO with Terran weaps, well why not beating Apoc? The weapons progress so much beyond that normal starting weapons. And also NO Toxi-Guns! I think I'm going to try to accomplish that...

[NKF]

Doesn't sound too hard. There are only a two aliens that wear personal shields, while all the others are unshielded. The shielded aliens will succumb to stun grenades. Good psi-abilities help too.

 

Autocannons and the Marsec machine gun are pretty good against any alien, and since many of them go unshielded, this means a majority of the aliens. Turn Based players will swear by the machine guns due to their low-low firing costs.

 

 

To an extent, even the Law pistol is quite impressive against unshielded aliens.

 

Plasma pistols are near equivalents to the disrupter guns, minus the infinite ammunition supply.

 

The swords are on par with devestator cannons minus the larger round capacity, speed and range. Otherwise, hurrah.

 

I can foresee that the real challenge would be in the Alien Dimension buildings. Since you cannot destroy the spawn pads with vortex mines, you're going to have to rush in and destroy all the primary targets and escape as quickly as you can.

 

Of course, who says you need to arm the vortex mines yourself? I mean, it's not your fault the aliens left a dangerous explosive on their spawn pads when you threw your AP grenade there now is there?

 

Now, a real challenge would be to not use personal disrupter shields, but I suppose that's a little too much to ask.

 

Or maybe solo android missions. Now there's an interesting challenge I've been contemplating for some time.

 

- NKF

[Asmodai]

But don't forget that this means that hardly any powerfull weaps will be used. Big aliens like Megaspanw don't need sheild when the strongest thing u get is an AC. There may be only 2 aliens with sheilds, but when they Dimmension Missles and you got no sheild, you'll be sorry ur not using their technology!

[NKF]

True, in which case you should wear full suits of disrupter armour. A full suit has tremendous protection vs. explosives with or without personal shields. Heck, even if you're wearing partial disrupter armour with a marsec torso, you'll still have a fairly good chance of completely shrugging off the dimension missile once in a while.

 

I have been known to shoot my own soldiers in full X-Com suits with multiple dimension missiles just for fun until the novelty wears off.

 

Still, saturate a megaspawn with plasma beams (it is better than the autocannon in many aspects), stun gas and maybe stick a few plasma swords in it, and down the bugger goes.

 

The only alien weapon I really worry about is the entropy missile. I hate having to strip my soldier of gear and armour and have them run about until the entropy effects wears off. They're incredibly vulnerable then.

 

- NKF

[Asmodai]

Nooooo buddy! Disruptor Armor is based of Alien technology, and is therefor not allowed! I'm talking using ONLY items that Marsec and Megapol make for you. (with the exception of vehicles of course.)

[NKF]

I thought we were just talking about firearms?

 

Ah, well, that does make matters a little more interesting.

 

- NKF

 

Addendum:

 

Now that I think about it, when I'm not using toxiguns, I spend most of the time not wearing shields, since harvesting shields with stun and psi tends to be a tad harder.

 

Also a good half of the game is played without disruptor armour.

 

So I guess it's not something Apocalypse players are unfamiliar with. It's just that the better equipment dulls ones sense of caution.

[Asmodai]

But don't forget that Disruptor guns come early though, and also keep in mind that ammo is limited for those guns! You cannot make new ammo, so you onlly get a limited amount every week. The reason those dimension building are easy is beacuse of the Disruptor armor and sheilds, it will be MUCH harder without advanced armor and weapons. Moreso for vehicle weapons. Ammo is not plentiful enough for shipsm which means a smaller fleet, and no way to down motherships without a LOT of Hawks without sheilds.

[NKF]

Ammo is limited for disrupter guns? Er, don't you mean terran equipment? Well, I agree. You'd really have to make all of your shots count. But you still have grapples, psi amps and power swords, so all is not hopelessly lost.

 

re ship guns:

 

Well, I'm always saying that nothing you can buy on the market can breach the hull of a battle/mothership except the Rumble cannons, but you can't fit those onto ships without some serious and most definitely illegal vehicle modification (i.e. XED).

 

Now, that's not 100% true. If you pelt at the ship enough it will eventually blow up, even with the lancer-7000 lasers. But it takes too long and your fleet would have been turned into paste by then.

 

No, you definitely want medium disrupters and up to take out the capital ships at a reasonable pace.

 

Here's another voluntary challenge: Try and achieve air superiority over the entire alien dimension fleet with no more than 3 or 4 X-Com Explorers.

 

It's do-able.

 

- NKF

[Asmodai]

Remember with those ships, you can't use Medium Disruptors, because they're alien technology!

[NKF]

If you mean that for the 4 explorers I mentioned, um, no, you really don't want to do that. They really wouldn't stand a chance just armed with Lancer-7000's and Lineage plasma cannons. Besides, you absolutely need some small shields to pull it off successfully.

 

I was just offering it as a general 'general' challenge, so it's not confined it to this challenge alone. Just something fun to do to fill in time if anyone's up to it.

 

- - -

 

Speaking of which, I realise you don't really need any ships more advanced than a Biontrans to win the game. The annihilator is more of a convenience than a necessity. As long as you can get some troops to the AD and start demolishing the alien buildings, you'll be cleaving your way to victory.

 

Well, I suppose, easier said than done.

 

- NKF

[Asmodai]

I didn't mean for the Xplorers, I meant to take down alien capitols ships. The bio-trans thing is tru, I blew up like 5 buildings before I started escorting the Bio-Trans. Basically I was just tired of having to take manual control and fly around to evade the alien ships, so I blew them up! Plus it helps ur score.

[The Demi-Godly One]

I am actually currently not using shields, toxiguns, and more than 3 units in total.

Using only human weapons is easy though. *Cough*cough*AUTOCANNON*cough* :hmmm:

[Asmodai]

I mainly use Mguns cause that's what I get mostly on CoS raids, not enough ammo to support a lot of AC's