Because that's XCOM, mostly. Rookie deaths are pretty much part of the game.

My big concerns are the 1 Base, limited number of troops (4 really). I wonder if they will allow you to mod them out. Early on, having 10 guys with assault rifles (and grenades, lots of grenades) was pretty manadatory, of course the ambush's at the back of the vehicle were a pain. From what I understand you come in off board.

Yea, I guess a kill rate like the original hurts a lot more with 1 base and a max squad of 6 guys, but I very much want there to be a hard choice and tension when breaching a building that might be full of mutons or something. I expect to lose guys during the campaign, lots of guys.

"Where's the tank drone, send it. It's cheaper to send it in than Death Benefits are!" "There's also a person's life at stake, Sir." "I'm an accountant, like I care about that."

Apologies to accountants out there.

I would like to publicly thank Tanegar for bringing this game to my attention.

The original XCom is my favorite game of all time. After learning that this would be a TBS remake of the first, I went and watched all the trailers, preordered the game, then promptly linked all my XCom loving friends the game website.

One of my friends quickly replied, yeah I already know about this, its been in my Steam preorder list for over a month. Thanks for giving me a headsup, buddy. And I am the bastard.


...

I am a little skeptical about only having a small squad, but we will see how it works without the TUs. I couldn't find anything indicating multiple squads, but I really hope I get more than six dudes to clear those battleships.

You are entirely welcome.

I dunno, I see potential for awesomeness in a squad of six elite commandos sweeping-and-clearing their way through a huge alien ship.

With a limited amount of commandos, who am I going to sacrifice to fulfill my elerium greed!?

With a limited amount of commandos, who am I going to sacrifice to fulfill my elerium greed!?

The Minitank.

Preordered. Expect to be named as my squad members (I mean, everyone's doing that one).
I mean, they'll probably fare better than my squad from Terror From The Deep...

As i've said elsewhere I'm fine with the small squad concept, but if i'm limited to one small squad and constantly getting into a "which country do you save" choice I'm going to be fairly pissed.

Hopefully they'll have it so you have several smaller squads you can send out to multiple sites.

I cant scout the whole area with one minitank to sacrifice. I need like 10 rookies and squaddies!

While I get the joke (and really... who didn't have at least 2 squaddies with a pistol and stun rod for breaching UFO doors?) with the addition of cover and overwatch and suppression you will be moving much more carefully to get a view of the field anyway.

You gave them pistols? I always felt horrible, but in the early game while i'm trying to get the Hyperwave decoder off the ground by getting some live captures pre stun ball launcher I'd take some rookies that wouldn't make the cut others (shooting/bravery/TU's below the send home threshhld) give them stun rods and send them rushing into intact engine rooms ahead of the actual valuable guys. Most of the time they'd die horribly and soak blasts for more valuable troops, but once in a great while they'd get a "kill" and then i'd always feel obligated to keep them around.

Even with sectoids and floaters, a pistol was likely to knock them out before killing them.

I see you follow Russian deployment methods....

I always told myself is that I'm doing what I have to do in order to save the earth. And if they wanted to actually have a chance in the war they shouldn't have volunteered with such terrible test scores.

I wonder how much difference there will be in actual recruit competence/skill out of the box.

Every country wanted a soldier on the X-Com team, so you probably got the special forces from Kraplakistan. They took the Short Bus to the Op.

...and the bullet train to the front line. Here's a some coveralls and a stun rod. Good luck fuckers.

This is what's going to happen. The demo gives you this kind of choice on the 2nd mission. Two terror sites, one team to send. It pretty much states flat out that you'll be making the same choice frequently.

Nah, at least they got a whole functioning weapon to themselves, even if it was very very short range.

Beats one guy with a rifle and another with bullets being told 'When one of you dies, pick up the other item and you can shoot back.'

Nope, one squad, one base.


I doubt that will change, even in DLC/expansions/mods/whatever.

That is extremely disappointing, and definitely not an acceptable break from reality. Even if we assume that XCOM field operatives are culled exclusively from the special forces of NATO and former Warsaw Pact nations, that's still tens of thousands of highly trained soldiers. In the face of an existential threat, what moron only fields six of them at a time?

Agreed.

I watched some view on GameSpot and it looks like you'll have quite a few more than six operators, but the max squad is six. Hopefully you will progress to being able to have multiple Skyrangers and field equal amount of teams.

The maps are not nearly as large as the original, so the smaller squad is reasonable. I will miss searching farmlands at night, using incinediary rounds to set wheat fields and barns on fire to smoke out aliens and provide lighting. Lol at electro flares.

Always, ALWAYS, have your front two soldiers with smoke grenades too.

I don't need Smoke Grenades. I just need 4 rocket launchers and guys carrying extra ammo. Level everything in sight, then loot the alien bodies.

Any to to back that up or are you just guessing.

Yeah...I loved the alien cruise missle. Especially after I got my psy guys going. Find first alien, mind control, move him, find another alien, mind control him. Find the the battleship, figure out how it is oriented, launch 2 missiles. 1 to Breach the hull, the next to take out the commanders (Pretty much most of the alien psy guys would be there so it was one of those take out half his forces in two shots. Granted you didn't recover as much....

Also, motion sensing grenades were another fun toy.

I found those more amusing in Apocalypse.

Awww, all the sweet memories.

Apparently, this video gives a better idea of the post-demo version of the game:

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/ns2k61/...ufo-walkthrough


EDIT: They lose 2 out of 6, and talk about how that is good, so maybe the full game is alot more lethal than the demo (which only makes sense really).

Thanks for that link! I am ready to hunt down some alien bitches!

You will be looting nothing when using explosives exclusively.

Alien equip bursts to fragments upon their death. And death by explosion destroys even those fragments. So if you want their equip intact, you need to capture them.

Make sure the alien equip don't regenerate themselves, the technology they have is advanced than ours and when the alien equip falls to human hands and we learn how to use them properly, the alien tech can be of great use in our favor.

Yea I did see that, it will be an interesting mechanic. I'm also curious if you'll be able to get "accidental" captures like in the original x-com where you hurt an enemy enough to knock him unconcious but he doesn't die. That could be an important windfall sometimes. Hell one time i get a live navigator 9or was it engineer? Can't remember the one that unlocks hyperwave decoder) due to smoke inhalation, good times.

Well, your soldiers can be "critically injured" and you have to stabilize them or win in few turns for them to survive. Maybe it can happen to stronger enemies too and then you would capture them this way...

LOL, wow. Sounds like the pinnacle of security and reliability.

Was it TJ Max perchance?

I suggest everyone read every article linked here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/xcom-enemy-unknown/

Specifically the "Some Things You Need To Know About the XCom Demo" one and "Hands-On: Forty Hours with XCom".

No. Major ISP (amongst other things) in the states. The Install Techs handed out the USB Dongles like candy when they hooked up a combination modem/wireless router.

Needless to say, they often forgot to also hand out the Install CD with the drivers needed, and even when they did, WinME did not grok USB or Wireless well enough individually, forget combined.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/images/2012/09/xcom4.jpg
Are those Floaters?! If so, they made them pretty badass, as opposed to those caped floating goofballs of yore.

Also: "the Thin Men aliens (...) are in fact the original’s Snakemen, redesigned." Genius! That's a twofer: first, the urban legend of weird "Men in Black", second, it's still a callback to the original.

Those are floaters, the first time I saw them I was: "Damn, they made them bad ass!"

And, in the demo, they're about the most dangerous thing you face. Or, would have been, if not for Overwatch.

Just ordered the SE last night. Looks like it should be pretty damn good.

So, in the interests of getting better acquainted with XCOM, I bought the pack off of steam over a few years ago and have yet to actually play them. Figure I'm going to get started with XCOM:UFO (at least, I think that's what they titled the first one). Holy balls did they just drop you into the deep end back in the day. Anyone have any pointers? Got my team wiped out on my first mission, ran out of cash, and discovered that the world hates a loser.

Base upgrading, things to research/develop, etc. would all be appreciated hints and tips.

Right away, the instant you start the game ... PAUSE.

Go into your base; hire two more soldiers, then go to "equip craft", and pick your skyranger. Take EVERYTHING off of it, except: Rifles, Rifle Magazines, Grenades. Buy enough of those three items, so that you have 10 rifles, 30 magazines, and 20 grenades (each soldier will have a loaded rifle, two grenades, and two spare magazines). Load them on the skyranger as soon as they're delivered.

While you're buying stuff, buy three Avalanche missile launchers (you should already have one), and at least 12 Avalanche missiles, up to 24 if money and storage space permit. When they're delivered, you'll want to equip 2 Avalanche launchers on each of your interceptors.

Once all that is done, deliveries have been made, and missile launchers changed out? SELL OFF all those pistols, stingray missiles/launchers, Craft Cannon, etc.

While you're doing this, build a second Laboratory and another Living Space. Hire Scientists, lots of them. Set them to researchign Laser Weaponry - you want Laser Rifles ASAP; they're decently accurate, do reasonable damage, and have infinite free ammunition.

Next priority for research should be Plasma Cannons (for yoru interceptors). You'll need to research Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, Heavy Plasma, and the magazines for each, before you can start on the Cannons. But, those cannons have most of the range of an Avalanche, and INFINITE FREE AMMUNITION.

Third priority, IMO, would be to get Personal Armor, which starts by researchign Alien Alloys.

...

After recovering artifacts etc from a crash site, NEVER SELL ELERIUM. Ever. No exceptions.

You can sell off all but 1 or 2 of each corpse type until you research them; once they're researched, sell them ALL. Same for most alien weapons, except Blaster Bombs - but you might want to keep 10 or 20 rifles, and 5 or 10 Blaster Launchers, in your armory.

Build an Alien Containment, and capture some aliens, as soon as is practical.

That should be enough to get you going.

Pax, you never cease to amaze. Thank you.

You forgot one important part - laser pistols are a great extra source of income until you're busy building stuff later. You make a profit on each one you make and sell.

Ideally you should have a guy carry a rocket launcher too, in case you get bad luck with a map with many buildings - so you can just blow them all down instead of trying to clear them.

Be patient. Clear them.

Explosions destroy corpses, and artifacts. Both of which are an important source of early-game funding.

Pfff, it's just that I used to play Xcom1 ALL. THE. TIME.

...

Here's something more advanced for you: Base Design. You may want to find an editor that can change the initial base layout, too.

See, the key thing is: when your base isttacked, the Aliens will spawn in any Hangar and Elevator rooms you have. So, it is very VERY useful to mke sure the entirety of your base connects to those kinds of rooms in only one place ... so you can mass your defenses there.

In the below:

[X] = empty space, never ever to be filled;
[H] = Hangar
[E] = Elevator
[L] = Living Quarters
[W] = Workshop
[-] = empty, but can be used in the future;
[R] = Radar
[?] = Laboratory
[S] = Stores


Initial base, redesigned:

[H] [H] | [E] [R] | [+] [-]
[H] [H] | [+] [L] | [S] [-]
--- ---+--- ---+--- ---
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [W] [-]
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [?] [-]
--- ---+--- ---+--- ---
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [-] [-]
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [-] [-]

I personally don't consider it cheating if you wind up with exactly the same number and type of rooms as usual, just moved around into a more sensible (and defensible) layout. See, with this? The enemy HAS to come through that Radar room, and HAS to turn a corner intoyour prepared killing zone. Four soldiers abreast, set to Overwatch (meaning, left with plenty of TUs to reaction-fire with), coupled with a proximity grenade or two, makes for a LOT of dead aliens, and few if any dead or injured humans.

Some early additions I would make include:
[C] = Containment

[H] [H] | [E] [R] | [-] [-]
[H] [H] | [+] [L] | [S] [S]
--- ---+--- ---+--- ---
[H] [H] | [+] [L] | [W] [-]
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [?] [C]
--- ---+--- ---+--- ---
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [-] [-]
[H] [H] | [+] [-] | [-] [-]


Satellite bases - intended to house an Interceptor and a Radar array, to extend your air coverage

[H] [H] | [-] [H] | [H] [-]
[H] [H] | [E] [H] | [H] [-]
--- ---+--- ---+--- ---
[-] [-] | [R] [-] | [-] [-]
[-] [-] | [L] [S] | [-] [-]
--- ---+--- ---+--- ---
[-] [-] | [-] [S] | [-] [-]
[-] [-] | [-] [-] | [-] [-]

One of the two hangars is optional, as is the second Storage bay. The only personnel her are 6 to 10 Soldiers, plus some RC tanks. The forces in here should make HEAVY use of Proximity grenades, and be ready to fall back around corners multiple times. Even if you le the base, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that the butchers' bill paid by the aliens was very high.








I wasn't trying to map out the entire strategy for him. Just a good starting point and "go thataway" general direction. Rifles can also be profitable, though less-so than pistols.

Later in the game, it can be handy to have 1 laser pistol for every soldier, JUST in case their primary gun runs out of ammunition.