Let's get horribly raped in TFTD! Orgasm now running things!

[fractal]

I actually liked it that X-Com tech was almost useless. It gave you the feeling that you were up against an overwhelming opponent and researching alien weapons was a top priority.

Molecular Control was the only thing that felt unbalanced. Once you had 3 or so MC experts, you could just keep them in your sub, use spotters to locate targets, and control them with your MC troops. With 75 AP you have 3 MC control attempts per round, so 3 MC soldiers could control up to 9 aliens per round, which made even base assaults a cake walk. Either aliens should have far better MC resistance, or MC control by humans should require line of sight (the aliens could still use indirect control to offset AI weakness).

Oh and GarfunkeL: In case you don't know, there are some problems with the research tree which may make it impossible to complete the game (and you only notice it when it's too late). See http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TRTBAG - contains some spoilers though.

Also: signing up once someone eats the next sonic charge (shouldn't take too long).

 

[bgillisp]

Ironman mode TFTD? You are crazy you know? Anyways, if you need more cannon fodder, feel free to sign me up.

(off to find copy of TFTD to play it again)

 

[rpgcodexusername]

I thought there was a bug with the tech tree but then I captured a sub commander alive and it let me research all the tech.
(I had to call my friend to ask him what to do)

 

[zerotol]

Cheater.

 

[Circuitbreaker]

What Jasede says. I found that TB felt slow and awkward but RT was too messy and chaotic. There's some good ideas but the overall design is not near 1&2.

Though on one level, I did get strange satisfaction from seeing multiple autocannons work in real-time.

But you should try UFO:Aftermath/Aftershock/Afterlight by Altair if you can stand the RT-thingies, they are better than Apocalypse imho.

The 50's future retro style from Apocalypse is really hit-or-miss. The general atmosphere and feel is quite allright though. By implementing both real-time and turn-based, they managed to cripple both mechanisms. It's in the details it really fails, for instance the balance is totally skewed, you get enemies (some sort of brainworm) with Chryssalid-like properties at the start (!). Later on with stuff like toxiguns, personal shields, battles are cake walks and boring. On the other hand the air battles with lots of small hoverbikes swarming around a huge alien ship always look cool. The main redeeming value is the fact that you can take the fight to the alien dimension, although the final battle is pretty lame...

Likewise the UFO:After*** series seem to fall short compared to X-COM, although they get very close the further you get in the series. In the first game UFO:AfterMath there are some severe balance issues (terrible difficulty spikes), 3d terrain problems (why can't I shoot this f%#king alien) and other weird mechanics. In the second game UFO:AfterShock, the RTP combat was improved a lot, which helped quite a bit. JA fans will digg the weapon mods. The third game UFO:Afterlight, features more base and territory management stuff then the previous editions, which might be a turnoff. It's a pity combat becomes too frequent and tedious at some point in all UFO:After*** games. Afterlight though comes very close to getting everything right. Note that all UFO:After*** games have good atmosphere and background stories. There are some engine problems with Afterlight on the "recent" videocards like the 8600. I still have to check if the 1.7 patch resolved those issues.

 

[Circuitbreaker]

I thought there was a bug with the tech tree but then I captured a sub commander alive and it let me research all the tech.
(I had to call my friend to ask him what to do)

Capturing specific Aliens gives you lots of tech but it should take quite some time before that research is completed, so it makes sense in a way and isn't cheating.

I always take along Stun Rods (X-COM 1), especially on terror missions and when attacking large alien craft because of the great chances in capturing high ranking aliens. That's also why you should build an alien containment facility right at the start of the game.

 

[sheek]

So how many of you bought UFO:ET?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Me.

 

[sheek]

What do you think of it?

If I didn't have DosBox to play X-Com I'd be playing that. It comes so close but I think that just emphasizes the few points where it came short. The background and art style is also lacking. The single worst thing is that they promised 200+ maps so that you would never play the same twice in one campaign but I kept coming across the same ones.
So I never finished a game with it.

 

[Pliskin]

Unfortunately, there's no line-of-fire. During aliens turn, screams are heard from the distance.

It amazes me that you can hear anything in the background during Terror Missions. Last time I tried to play TFTD, one of the most annoying bugs had to do with the "ocean wave" environmental sound from terror missions: It plays so fast, it's just white noise: All I heard was SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
Had to turn off the speakers, I was afraid of damaging something.

Oh, and if you need a new recruit: All I ask is for a gas cannon loaded with HE bolts, and an aquatoid to unload it on...

EDIT: In case you don't know this already, there's a way to open doors without paying TU cost, and more importantly, without having yr troopers go through them: Just move the box-cursor-thingy to the opposite side of the door, have the trooper face it, then right-click. Door pops open, no TU's spent, and trooper doesn't step through.

 

[zerotol]

I might buy it 15 euro on steam atm for all the games.

 

[Eldritch]

GarfunkeL: Great LP, please include the soldier "Andrew Eldritch" whenever you can.

 

[Destroid]

Terror from the deep seemed much harder than the original every time I played it, and the maps arnt as interesting

But load me up as more cannon fodder :D

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I might buy it 15 euro on steam atm for all the games.

That's what I did. It got me all games beyond just TFTD and EU that I already had and they'd done the DosBox shit for you so it works in Windows XP and Vista. Only thing I had to do was tweak a "maximum cycles" setting in the DosBOx configutation of Terror From the Deep so that looking at the fourth level of the cargo ship I was on wasn't so painfully slow. Had to bump it up from 16000 to 50000. Now it runs nice and fast.

 

[Ashery]

Terror from the deep seemed much harder than the original every time I played it...

Haven't tried TFTD yet myself, but judging just by this LP, TFTD seems many times more difficult than the original. Managed to get through a night time terror mission with Snakemen and Chryssalid without a single casualty without too much trouble (Having the tank scout made a huge difference, as I deployed only in the area immediately surrounding my Skyranger).

Then again, I lost an experienced soldier (in personal armor) to a fucking downed small ufo that only contained four alive floaters (Fucking stairs...Moved to the base of the stairs before moving up and the floater got reaction fire :\). Almost lost a second after a nade I threw took out the walls between the floater and my troops outside the building and the floater got two shots off before my troops got a chance for reaction fire.

 

[Jasede]

As far as I know, early versions of TFTD had a bug that set the difficulty to Superhuman every game.

Even without this it's much harder, though! But getting Vibro-Blades makes up for that. Zzzzzzrrrr!

 

[sheek]

If you install XComUtil it fixes all those bugs. I can't imagine a reason why somebody wouldn't use XComUtil.

 

[Jasede]

I can't get it to work with the Steam version of TFTD (any help, DU?).

Also, what does it do? I know about the things you can select, like the optimized base layouts; but does it do anything in addition like, as you said, fix bugs? (This is assuming I say N to every change it proposes; I really don't care about them.)

 

[Ashery]

From the wiki:

Fixed features:

* Allows for all 5 X-COM ships to carry troops.
* Fixes the difficulty bug mentioned above.
* Removes copy protection for UFO.
* Sets the soldiers to face different directions at the start inside the craft.
* Changes the displacement of the troops inside the Avenger, Lightning, Hammerhead and Leviathan.
* Increases the troop capability of the craft mentioned above.
* The 3 last features can be disabled by changes on the XcomUtil.cfg file (but be sure of knowing what you are doing)

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=XcomUtil

 

[Jasede]

Meh; I don't care about any of those; and the bug doesn't affect me since I only play on Superhuman anyway.

But thanks for the info, it's handy to know!

 

[Ashery]

Minor correction: The difficulty bug the wiki mentions causes all games to revert to beginner difficulty.

The original purpose of XcomUtil was to make the game more difficult, because there was a bug in the original game that forced all games to the Beginner difficulty level, regardless of what level you chose."

 

[bgillisp]

Minor correction: The difficulty bug the wiki mentions causes all games to revert to beginner difficulty.

The original purpose of XcomUtil was to make the game more difficult, because there was a bug in the original game that forced all games to the Beginner difficulty level, regardless of what level you chose."

I heard the bug was only in the first Xcom, and in the 2nd Xcom (TFTD) difficulties worked normally? At least that is what I recall being told when they first came out

 

[HanoverF]

I have a bad feeling about the next mission.


I may have to shoot two or three people in the back to get another promotion :/

 

[rpgcodexusername]

When you start the game you have crap weapons,

they are really throwing you in the deep end arent they?

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

[Imbecile]

Awesome. I'm replaying the first xcom now, and may splash the cash on tftd once im done with that. Expect insta-death, cause I'm fairly shite at this.

Edit: oh, and volunteering for dooty!