For the 'ol X-Com fans... "UFO Extraterrestrials"

[Warmaker]

I was an avid X-Com player on the PC back in the 90's.

UFO Extraterrestrials I have heard nothing about in previews and whatnot. But it's releasing real soon and sifting through the screenshots seems to be a bit of a revamp to the old game. Graphics aren't comparable to modern day games, but as long as the research, production, overall strategy, and the awesome squad based fighting in completely destructible terrain is there... I think I'll like it Hopefully it turns out right. It'll be fun burning down the neighborhood again to root out the alien infestation

Edited April 14, 2007 by Warmaker

[promethuem5]

Isn't this the game that is basically an exact remake of Xcom with 3d graphics? CGW/GFW magazine mentioned one not that long ago, but I think it was a free one which was a direct remake wtih new graphics of Xcom...

[Warmaker]

It may be. I didn't have that magazine issue, but glancing over the preview screenshots, it seems to fit the bill. It even has the "UFOpedia." The troopers, maps, outfitting, etc. seem to have that old school feel. Now, "looks" are one thing, I just hope it's executed right.

There's been several "successors" to X-Com. Wikipedia does a decent glossover on it.

I've played UFO Aftermath. The biggest grievance I had with that game was the tactical aspect where your squads come into play. The maps looked good, but I was dismayed that you couldn't enter buildings and such. You couldn't destroy terrain, i.e. the aliens have all the entrances covered. I'll take my rocket launcher and make my own doorway, have some guys approach and lob incendiary grenades inside, then we wait outside in a perimeter At least that's what I used to do in X-Com Apocalypse.

I loved X-Com Apocalypse but I did miss the ability to bring armor / apc's with my grunts.

[promethuem5]

I always thought Xcom was fun and all, but I couldn't play the missions for crap... I loved doing the base building and patrolling and such, but as soon as I started ground fights, I lost so badly... I could never get the tactical parts down...

[Mr March]

Nice find Warmaker. My gawd does this game ever look like X-Com! I'm getting that old X-Com feeling just looking at the screen shots. THe resemblance is uncanny.

Your thread here will be the first I've heard of this new game. If it's as good as the old X-Com (which is a tough act to follow) then I'll be really pleased. I played the hell out of X-Com back in the day. I was addicted from the demo...which came on a 3.5" disk inside a magazine back in those days, LOL!

I'm going to have to check out the wiki entry mentioned here. It's been years since I've touched anything X-Com. I had no idea there were fan projects.

[Ladic]

I hope this one is finally a good succesor, I've been let down by UFO aftershock and UFO aftermath

[Mr March]

Just read the reviews for those two games. Damn, Aftershock sounds terrible!

[Mr March]

Damn, there is a ton of X-Com information available on the internet! Some really good websites and even a fantastic X-Com wiki called "UFOpaedia." There's some stuff about X-Com I never knew and some cheats that I did

Obviously, I've just reinstalled my CD and am now playing the game again

[Warmaker]

Which one? The original?

I still have my X-Com Apocalypse CD but WinXP hates DOS games I'm looking at DOSBox to help me out.

[Mr March]

Which one? The original?

I still have my X-Com Apocalypse CD but WinXP hates DOS games I'm looking at DOSBox to help me out.

Of course the original, X-COM Enemy Unknown (a.k.a. UFO Defense). TFTD was a cheap sequel, churned out just for sales. It's basically just the original with an aquatic theme, twice as hard and not nearly as fun. Apocalypse was okay, but fell short of expectations IMO.

DOSBox is brilliant. I've had several different DOS games working on it - including Master of Magic - and it runs them all smooth. X-COM works perfectly. I'm using my old CD DOS version 1.4, which I beleive was part of "Conquer The Galaxy" game pack which included X-COM, TFTD and Master of Orion all on CD. Apparently there's a Windows version of X-COM, but I've never seen it and supposedly they messed with the sound effects in the Windows version. No thanks, I like my X-COM the original way

Edited April 15, 2007 by Mr March

[Ladic]

you can download xcom here:

http://www.xcomufo.com/x1dl.html

[ruskiiVFaussie]

Ahhhh UFO, what a fricken fantastic kick ass game.

I remember having my elite marine, going around just with dual normal pistols, and later a laser and plasma pistol.

Most fun was when they were almost dead, and you just pop em in the skull with a single shot from a normal pistol.

And my sniper dude taking out sectoid scum from 3 or 4 buildings away with an aimed or hell even an auto or single shot!

NOW I WANT TO PLAY IT AGAIN.

This new game will be a keeper.

Edited April 15, 2007 by ruskiiVFaussie

[Warmaker]

The poorly implemented X-Com Collector's Edition it seems goes for alot on E-Bay... after all, it has Enemy Unknown, Terror From The Deep, and Apocalypse.

I arrived on the X-Com scene too late for Enemy Unknown and TFTD, but in time for the release of Apocalypse. I had alot of great moments on that one, when my friend introduced it to me. X-Com traditionally is a single-player game. But there was so much to do with all the factions, production, research, and of course combat, it was fun for us to make decisions together on the game.

Like I said, there were alot of great moments. One example was a report that there was a considerably large alien infiltration in one part of the city, a big public garden / greenhouse complex. I sent enough troopers to fill 3 squads, 1 of which was the heavy weapons section (1 Rocket Launcher, 2 Auto Cannons with Explosive & Incendiary Rounds, 1 poor sap equipped with a pistol to lug around the extra ammo for all the weapons).

We had the squads approach on bounding overwatches to the target area, slowly and meticulously clearing each greenhouse. Funny, everything was clear. That left the main administrative building, which was 3 stories high. We deployed 2 squads, including the heavy weapons section to cover the building in case any aliens pop up. We intended the 3rd squad to close in using as much cover as possible at a side entrance.

When they got a few feet away from a door, all hell breaks loose. Alien disruptor fire starts blazing out of the windows, zapping the closest trooper dead in one volley. The squad pulls back immediately to a short wall. The covering sections immediately lay down fire using explosive rounds for the Auto-Cannon. 1 Explosive Rocket was sent for good measure. This suppresses the Aliens enough where the 3rd squad withdrew in safety.

After a while, the Aliens poured out alot of fire again. I mean, ALOT! Even those face hugger things tried to rush the distance as fire was being traded.

Despite all the rounds being used, we were still getting too much fire from there. Too dangerous for an assault, we figured. We'll burn them out. The Auto-Cannon gunners laid down scattered incendiary fire to ignite the place. This built up alot of smoke inside the building. 3rd squad quickly approached the building and threw Incendiary Grenades through windows into rooms not accessable to the heavy weapons section. Afterwards, they withdrew back to their cover.

The fire spread quickly. We waited and waited. You hear and see the Aliens, panicking we hoped. Eventually they did and began to exit the building. That's what we wanted. We shot them to pieces as they exited in panic.

We waited a bit more, shot a few more. We just waited until a good portion of the building collapsed. Once the fire mostly died down, we sent 2nd squad to clear the building. We shot a few seemingly unconscious aliens, but made certain we kept alive at least 1 of each type of alien for... research back in HQ

The owning organization of the area was pissed with the damage. But we ironed it out with them after a while. Money tends to do that.

Hopefully this "UFO Extraterrestrials" can bring back that feeling.

Edited April 15, 2007 by Warmaker

[Lynx7725]

Oooh yeah. UFO, that was a barrel of fun, mostly because its AI is actually fairly smart.

I had a lot of fun with the game, but the most memorable thing I had was the original UFO actually kept its weapons data in an easily accessible method. So I edited it.. and had laspistols that could -- and did -- blow its way through hills, much less aliens. As you might guess, that became pretty much a downhill run.. but fun, while it lasted.

[Warmaker]

Back during my Apocalypse gaming days, there were a slew of Portrait mods for your X-Com troopers.

My favorite then was the Anime portrait mod.

I got a good recruit that I was contemplating on hiring but was hesitant since we had alot of new guys already. Then I saw the portrait. He had Officer Ohta of Patlabor fame, in his naturally angered facial expression. I hired him on the spot, gave him a bunch of gear, and said, "You're participating in a raid against the Cult of Sirius. Here's some demo packs and lots of grenades. Have at it and kill those alien loving scum!"

[Mr March]

The most fun I have in X-COM is setting up fields of fire with two or more squads. Especially in terror missions it works beautifully. You fight your way into a secure position early in the map, then move your 2-3 squads across the map as a rough line, occassionally splitting each squad into flanking teams of two members each. When you approach the far corner of some building with a squad on each side, any aliens backed into that area are gonna be toast, facing fire from multiple directions simultaneously. SO much fun

[Lynx7725]

Just waded through all the screenshots.. You guys do know it's supposed to be out Apr 17 right?

Anyway, I'm a bit put off by the graphics. I quite like the old cartoony style graphics. It's got.. an abstract sense of realism, especially when you start blasting holes in cornfields. This new version seems to be more surreal, for some reason. Probably lighting.

[F-ZeroOne]

I loved X-Com (UFO: Enemy Unknown originally until a certain Mr. Anderson got a touch miffed... ). I doubt I was ever much good at it - I never really grapsed that you couldn't win the game by just doing the same things over and over - but I just loved blowing holes in barns and seeing how many hay bales I could set alight. I used the autocannon long after it was obselete in game terms just 'cos I liked setting things on fire.

[Noyhauser]

The poorly implemented X-Com Collector's Edition it seems goes for alot on E-Bay... after all, it has Enemy Unknown, Terror From The Deep, and Apocalypse.

I arrived on the X-Com scene too late for Enemy Unknown and TFTD, but in time for the release of Apocalypse. I had alot of great moments on that one, when my friend introduced it to me. X-Com traditionally is a single-player game. But there was so much to do with all the factions, production, research, and of course combat, it was fun for us to make decisions together on the game.

Like I said, there were alot of great moments. *snip*

I know exactly what you mean but with the original XCOM. At first the game scares the **** out of you, going up against sectoids with nothing but conventional weaponry... particularly when you have to do a terror mission with a skyranger full of rookies. You can almost count one or two of them getting mind controlled.

Once you get the laser rifle (and the floaters show up) you start to get ahead in the tech department and it gets easier. Then you get plasma weapons and powered suits, and finally the blaster bomb. I don't think there is anything more fun than breaching the upper level hull of a UFO battleship with a blaster, then having a second and third shots fire through the hole and zig-zag down the hallways of a ship. Really the rest of the mission becomes finding the scared shxtless Muton or Snakeman grunt hiding in a corner of the ship.

Where **** went down was when the ethereals showed up. I can distinctly remember several missions getting almost completely wiped out (by blasters) save for a panicky soldier, praying he will last long enough to pick up his gun and kill the last remaining ethereal. They don't make games as good as this.

[Dax415]

man, this is one of my all time favorite games! I've got the original and kept the playstation 1 version too! Never played Apocalyse, but it sounds like it would be worth playing. was just curious if anyone new of a way to play old pc games like x-com and macross skull leader on a computer running windows XP? Also was anybody thinking of trying to do their own home brew based on the original x-com system?

[Warmaker]

Just waded through all the screenshots.. You guys do know it's supposed to be out Apr 17 right?

Anyway, I'm a bit put off by the graphics. I quite like the old cartoony style graphics. It's got.. an abstract sense of realism, especially when you start blasting holes in cornfields. This new version seems to be more surreal, for some reason. Probably lighting.

I did something rare.

I preordered a game and I'm hoping for the best.

The graphics sure aren't prime compared to today's games. But I'm gambling on the X-Com gameplay being resurrected for current Windows.

X-Com Enemy Unknown's graphics and gameplay was pretty dark. Not as dark as this "revamp" but it was there, esp. compared to Apocalypse (go figure). Your X-Com troopers also get killed on a higher rate than other X-Com games. X-Com Apocalypse seemed "brighter" with that 50's sci fi look. Still, there were some grim, dark areas, it just depended on what area you were operating in.

What I loved with Apocalypse was the extremely wide variety of terrain the game could generate for the mission, all depending on the target(s) and location.

- You could investigate crashed alien spaceship sites. There's likely to be survivors that need to be killed and subdued. I preferred not to use explosives too much to capture as much intact alien technology as possible.

- You could conduct alien raids on locations / human organizations that are being infiltrated by the aliens. You have to be careful, since not only will there be aliens, but there will be innocent bystanders. Fire discipline is crucial, keep the full auto in check!... at least until the bystanders are gone.

- You could raid human organizations that are hostile to you. Cult of Sirius (Alien Lovers), Crime Syndicates, Corporations (uncommon), etc. If you succeed, you could capture alot of extra gear. But if you love explosives and fire like I did, you'll seize less. But sometimes, it's fun to raid just to cause damage and make the hostile organization lose money. I recall gleefully raiding the Cult and Criminal Syndicates for the sole purpose of killing their people, seizing gear, and setting the place afire (or blow it up). The Cult has this big, old opera house building. We put a fine show there on a regular basis. It's just as fun imploding a den full of criminal scum as it was wiping out aliens

- The locations varied: slums, public parks, office buildings, factories, greenhouses, shopping malls, regular houses. To top it off, every building can be entered! They have their own rooms, furniture, etc.

- Every bit of terrain can be damaged. A rocket will damage the ground. You can blast through walls. Windows shatter in a gleeful manner. Doors can be destroyed.

- Apocalypse could have up to 8 "levels" of terrain so you could have big, multistoried buildings and hills.

- A cool thing was that buildings, could have catwalks. Nothing like fighting on catwalks. Or shooting a rocket at the catwalk supporting some of the enemy from the 6th story, watching them fall to their deaths.

- Sometimes your X-Com bases will be raided by Aliens or even hostile humans. Good fun, especially if you designed your bases with defense in mind. Your civillian scientists and engineers are still there and need to be hidden for safety.

- If you raid certain areas, if the situation is just right, you may get into a HUGE firefight. I'm talking your X-Com troops vs Aliens & Infiltrated humans. In one game, to my dismay, MarSec, a local arms manufacturer, was being heavily infiltrated according to your intel guys. We organized a massive raid on the MarSec weapons plant, prepared for the worst. My guys were equipped with the best I could bring, bringing the best troopers. But the infiltrated MarSec personnel were heavily armed, along with their Alien overlords and their hi tech weapons. We had to conduct several raids to ensure the infestation and infiltration was negated.

Another cool thing from Apocalypse was the very lightly armored but highly mobile flight suit. This enabled your trooper to have unlimited flight and hover capability. Fire while flying was inaccurate. Only the best troopers could fly accurately while in a hover. It's protection was pathetic but it gave me an awesome maneuver section, giving me an option to assault sections from wild, crazy directions. I could blow a hole on the outside section of a building at the 7th story, and then my flight group would fly in to assault from there. Another fun one was getting a team of fliers to get auto cannons with explosives & incendiaries, fly to several windows on each floor, shoot incendiaries through the window, and start a fire on each floor.

A fun weapon was the mid-game, expensive laser sword (i.e. lightsaber). Wall? Carve through it. Hostile? Carve through it.

Another fun piece of gear were the heavy Demo Packs. Have a guy run somewhere, set the timers, drop the packs, and get out of dodge. Observe the explosive mayhem!

[Mr March]

Kicking some serious butt! I'm only five months in (May 1999) and I've got four bases with three garrisons of troops (Europe, North America, Asia and Africa), three Interceptors armed with Plasma Cannons, a Firestorm, one entire squad all fitted with Flying Suits, plus about 6 million in cash and building my first Avenger. It's nice to know I haven't lost my touch after all these years. It's been roughly 7 years since the last time I played X-COM, but it's like I never left

[wolfx]

I played Apocalypse during its time but only enough to get through it. Didn't explore the various things i could do with it like what warmaker did. My brother actually managed to capture all the aliens to gain some powerful toxin bullet thing that kills any alien in a shot. It felt kinda epic in the last few eps when you had to transport your team into the alien dimension and destroy it from within. Your guys will be decked out with the best alien tech can offer, from disrupter armours, shields and missle launchers. Woohoo..finally i can blow stuff up without inciting the anger of corporations that fund me. XD

[Ladic]

anyone use the medikit money cheat, heh

[Noyhauser]

Ladic: I thought the Laser Rifle was the most profitable sell. I love the fact that an elite extraterrestrial

fighting organization can moonlight as a arms seller.

Kicking some serious butt! I'm only five months in (May 1999) and I've got four bases with three garrisons of troops (Europe, North America, Asia and Africa), three Interceptors armed with Plasma Cannons, a Firestorm, one entire squad all fitted with Flying Suits, plus about 6 million in cash and building my first Avenger. It's nice to know I haven't lost my touch after all these years. It's been roughly 7 years since the last time I played X-COM, but it's like I never left

I always had problems with elerium. I can't seem to get enough of the stuff, besides actively attacking everything in sight. How do you get around it?

[Mr March]

Ladic: I thought the Laser Rifle was the most profitable sell. I love the fact that an elite extraterrestrial

fighting organization can moonlight as a arms seller.

I always had problems with elerium. I can't seem to get enough of the stuff, besides actively attacking everything in sight. How do you get around it?

"There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do you arm the other eleven"?

Where there's a will, there's a weapon

I find that the laser pistol is actually the most profitable sell factoring in time. Yes, you get a higher profit margin with laser rifles, but the laser pistol can be manufactured that much faster. I also find manufacturing laser pistols is a good tradeoff with the laser rifle because I can use my engineers more for non-sale items. I can make a little less money over the short term with laser pistols, but manufacturing laser pistols means I spend less time actually building them and spend more engineer man hours building stuff for MY uses.

About Elerium: For the most part, you get a lot of it in any game just by performing missions. But if you use a lot of alien equipment, craft and build everything, you'll run out fast.

Here are the basic Elerium rules:

Rule 1: You Don't Sell Elerium.

Rule 2: You Do NOT Sell Elerium! Also, dont sell anything that costs elerium to build that you may need it later. It's tempting to sell them, but never sell UFO Power Source, because you'll just need to build them when you make the ufo-derived craft. Use the salvaged stuff and save on elerium.

Rule 3: Don't waste any opportunity to investigate a downed/landed UFO. To do so is to miss out on Elerium. Correspondingly, never shoot down any UFO over the oceans (since you cannot conduct recovery operations underwater, the craft is lost).

Rule 4: Don't obliterate UFOs! Try using "Cautious Attack" and don't always fly in for the kill. The damage you do to the UFO depends on size but it also depends on tactics. Don't fly in guns blazing all the time. Otherwise, there's not much left of the UFO once it crashes and sometimes the Elerium is all but destroyed.

Rule 5: Never manufacture any alien guns or alien munitions. Alien guns and munitions should be used only as taken from your enemies. If you're using them up faster than you can replace them, you're arming your soldiers with too much alien weaponry and needlessly wasting resources, which leads into our next rule...

Rule 6: Do not stack ALL your soldiers with alien weaponry. If you have a team of 12 soldiers in your assault craft, all armed with Heavy Plasma Guns, each one of them that fires but a single shot during the mission uses an entire clip according to the game. That's right, even if a soldier fires 1 out of 35 shots in a Heavy Plasma clip, the game code considers that clip "expended" once combat ends. If each of your team fires at least once upon the enemy, that's 12 clips per mission! Many of the weapons remain useful throughout the game, like Laser Rifles and grenades. Moderate the use of your alien weapons that utilize elerium and you'll find you never run out.

Rule 7: DO NOT USE THE FUSION BALL LAUNCHER...EVAR! This mighty weapon is mighty for a reason, because it sucks Elerium like a blackhole. Unless you've got a stockpile of several thousand Elerium in each base, never use this ship-mounted weapon. Arm your interception craft with Plasma Beams instead. They are faster firing, hold nearly 100 times more ammunition and are simply far more efficient. If you are relying upon the Fusion Ball Launcher to take down the big UFO battleships, instead use groups of two or more interception craft and attack together. Even the mighty alien battleship will quickly fast against two to three attackers armed with dual Plasma Beams.

Rule 8: Find those alien bases! Patrol, patrol, patrol and find the Alien Bases. Assault them and you get some elerium, but it's those Supply Ships that carry the most. Watch a base and assault the supply ships, they typically give a ton of elerium. You can also perform theft missions on alien bases. Run your team in, ransack the rooms with power units using non-explosives to open them up, pick up those little purple balls that are inside, run your team back to the landing craft and abort the mission. Rinse and repeat for a constant supply of Elerium. Waste the alien base once you're bored.

Rule 9: Do not abandon earth-made craft and use exclusively alien made designs. The Firestorm, Lightning and Avenger all consume elerium to not only build, but to refuel as well!

Of all the rules, I'd say the simplest rule is to moderate usage. If you monitor the amount of elerium and use it just on the stuff you should (like flying armor, alien craft, plasma beams, et cetera) and never manufacture other elerium-necessary items that you can salvage from combat, you should have more elerium than you could ever use in the span of the game.

Edited April 17, 2007 by Mr March

[Noyhauser]

"There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do you arm the other eleven"?

Where there's a will, there's a weapon

I find that the laser pistol is actually the most profitable sell factoring in time. Yes, you get a higher profit margin with laser rifles, but the laser pistol can be manufactured that much faster. I also find manufacturing laser pistols is a good tradeoff with the laser rifle because I can use my engineers more for non-sale items. I can make a little less money over the short term with laser pistols, but manufacturing laser pistols means I spend less time actually building them and spend more engineer man hours building stuff for MY uses.

About Elerium: For the most part, you get a lot of it in any game just by performing missions. But if you use a lot of alien equipment, craft and build everything, you'll run out fast.

Here are the basic Elerium rules:

Rule 1: You Don't Sell Elerium.

Rule 2: You Do NOT Sell Elerium! Also, dont sell anything that costs elerium to build that you may need it later. It's tempting to sell them, but never sell UFO Power Source, because you'll just need to build them when you make the ufo-derived craft. Use the salvaged stuff and save on elerium.

Rule 3: Don't waste any opportunity to investigate a downed/landed UFO. To do so is to miss out on Elerium. Correspondingly, never shoot down any UFO over the oceans (since you cannot conduct recovery operations underwater, the craft is lost).

Rule 4: Don't obliterate UFOs! Try using "Cautious Attack" and don't always fly in for the kill. The damage you do to the UFO depends on size but it also depends on tactics. Don't fly in guns blazing all the time. Otherwise, there's not much left of the UFO once it crashes and sometimes the Elerium is all but destroyed.

Rule 5: Never manufacture any alien guns or alien munitions. Alien guns and munitions should be used only as taken from your enemies. If you're using them up faster than you can replace them, you're arming your soldiers with too much alien weaponry and needlessly wasting resources, which leads into our next rule...

Rule 6: Do not stack ALL your soldiers with alien weaponry. If you have a team of 12 soldiers in your assault craft, all armed with Heavy Plasma Guns, each one of them that fires but a single shot during the mission uses an entire clip according to the game. That's right, even if a soldier fires 1 out of 35 shots in a Heavy Plasma clip, the game code considers that clip "expended" once combat ends. If each of your team fires at least once upon the enemy, that's 12 clips per mission! Many of the weapons remain useful throughout the game, like Laser Rifles and grenades. Moderate the use of your alien weapons that utilize elerium and you'll find you never run out.

Rule 7: DO NOT USE THE FUSION BALL LAUNCHER...EVAR! This mighty weapon is mighty for a reason, because it sucks Elerium like a blackhole. Unless you've got a stockpile of several thousand Elerium in each base, never use this ship-mounted weapon. Arm your interception craft with Plasma Beams instead. They are faster firing, hold nearly 100 times more ammunition and are simply far more efficient. If you are relying upon the Fusion Ball Launcher to take down the big UFO battleships, instead use groups of two or more interception craft and attack together. Even the mighty alien battleship will quickly fast against two to three attackers armed with dual Plasma Beams.

Rule 8: Find those alien bases! Patrol, patrol, patrol and find the Alien Bases. Assault them and you get a ton of Elerium. You can also perform theft missions on alien bases. Run your team in, ransack the rooms with power units using non-explosives to open them up, pick up those little purple balls that are inside, run your team back to the landing craft and abort the mission. Rinse and repeat for a constant supply of Elerium. Waste the alien base once you're bored.

Rule 9: Do not abandon earth-made craft and use exclusively alien made designs. The Firestorm, Lightning and Avenger all consume elerium to not only build, but to refuel as well!

Of all the rules, I'd say the simplest rule is to moderate usage. If you monitor the amount of elerium and use it just on the stuff you should (like flying armor, alien craft, plasma beams, et cetera) and never manufacture other elerium-necessary items that you can salvage from combat, you should have more elerium than you could ever use in the span of the game.

Most of those are fairly common sense, I mean cmon do you think I'd sell it if it was so rare I often run out of bases to plunder, making it far more difficult near the end of the game. It sorta becomes a crapshoot either shooting down the Alien BBs and hoping their power sources are intact, or wait for them to land (usually meaning they are conducting a terror mission or government infiltration).

As for the Alien craft, usually I get a two or so firestorms just for heavy firepower (ganging up on infiltration battleships), and an avenger, mostly arming as you say interceptors with the plasma gun. Actually I rely most of the game on the skyranger. I find the lightning just useless, a bad compromise between the firepower of the Firestorm, and the size of the Avenger.

That reminds me.... way back in 1994 a "friend" told me you could get more elerium by shooting the UFO power source, yeah that worked. I guess I hit it with far too much firepower.

[Warmaker]

Arms Dealing was an interesting aspect of X-Com.

For my X-Com Apocalypse experience, after a bad initial experience, I refrained from selling arms.

In one of my early games after getting a good grasp on gameplay, I had decided to sell surplus weaponry. Rocket Launchers and even a few Disruptors off into the market. I made some decent coin and was happy.

Not too long afterwards, I decided to run a raid into the slums against one of the criminal syndicates. When I play X-Com Apocalypse, I fight Aliens AND Crime (MegaPol loves us). Anyways, we did a raid and fought the criminal scum. We saw the standard conventional weaponry and such. Then we began to take some Rocket fire, which was a surprise to us, but thankfully we didn't take any hits since their aim was so bad. When another group of scum appeared, we began to take Disruptor fire from them. We put them down with a few bullets. When the raid was over, we confiscated all the intact gear, recovering a Rocket Launcher and 5 Disruptors... probably the same weapons I sold a few days ago.

I know the various organizations, depending on their funding, can get decent gear, but NOT Alien tech unless they've been heavily infiltrated.

It was dangerous enough being an X-Com trooper, and I didn't want to endanger my forces anymore by selling weapons and not having control who retains them.

From that point on, I manufactured / purchased weapons for X-Com's use only. Nothing was sold, even seized conventional weapons and ammunition. Also, it ensured that I had a huge stockpile of weapons and ammo. As my game progresses, I actually acquire extra bases. Lots of construction for living quarters, storage, research & manufacturing modules, etc. Lots of incoming personnel in these different bases. With the enlargement of X-Com, it requires a huge stockpile of gear to ensure all my bases, all my troopers have the choice pick of gear they need. The game does not keep all the weapons in one pool of gear where each of your bases and personnel in each of those bases can easily withdraw from. The troopers use the gear stored at THEIR base. With that in mind, I ensure all my bases are stocked well with equipment.

My typical X-Com Apocalypse team compositions:

Typical X-Com Trooper: Standard Armor, MarSec Flight Armor (uncommon and only for veterans), X-Com Armor (really late development), assault rifle x1, magazines x5, explosive grenades x2, smoke grenade x1, incendiary grenade or gas grenade x1, first aid kit x1... actually a fairly weighed loadout, even with the heavy starting armor.

Typical X-Com Gunner: Armor selection same as regular trooper, pistol x1, x2 total pistol mags, 1 special weapon:

Auto Cannon - 3 total explosive round magazines (1 equipped by default), 1 Armor piercing mag, 1 incendiary mag.

OR

Rocket Launcher - 3 total explosive rockets (1 equipped by default), 1 incendiary rocket... real heavy loadout.

Typical X-Com Assistant Gunner: Armor selection same as regular trooper, pistol x1 or assault rifle x1 (depending on the strength and endurance of trooper, but preferrably a.rifle), x3 proper magazines, lots of extra ammo for Gunner's special weapon, first aid kit x1

Typical Tactical Fire Team: x4 troopers

1) Fire Team Leader (Veteran)

2) Rifleman

3) Gunner

4) Assistant Gunner

The most common fire team composition I field in all mission types. Has moderate mobility and can deal effective fire at short to medium ranges. Can do long range fire in a pinch if Gunner use well aimed fire while everyone else sits tight on defense and spot for targets. The assault rifles people put down but I put them into very good use and I still field alot of them late into the game. With Normal or Aimed fire, the A.Rifles are effective at medium ranges. With Snap Shot (fast) or Normal fire (esp. Veterans), they're fast and deadly at short ranges.

Support Team: x4 troopers

1) Fire Team Leader (Veteran) - Extra ammo if he's strong enough.

2) Gunner x2

3) Assistant Gunners x2

The second most common fire team type I field. Firepower is what this team brings in spades. Extra ammo from rest of team ensures sustained fire. Optimal engagements are medium to long ranges. If equipped with x2 auto cannons, setting the Gunners to Normal or Snap Shot (fast) rates of fire, the team can lay down alot of deadly explosive fire.

CQB / Assault Team: x4 troopers

1) Fire Team Leader (Veteran) - Typical armor selection, pistol x1, magazines x4, laser sword x1 (mid-late game available typically), x2 smoke grenades, x1 gas, incendiary, and explosive grenades, first aid kit x1

2) CQB / Assault Trooper x3 - Typical armor selection, assault rifle x1, magazines x6, x1 smoke and gas grenades, x2 explosive and incendiary grenades, first aid kit x1

3) Grenadier (OPTIONAL: Replace 1 Assault Trooper for every Grenadier) - Typical armor selection, pistol x1, magazines x4, x2 smoke and gas grenades, x4 explosive grenades, x3 incendiary grenades, first aid kit x1

This team's focus is on mobility and deadliness in close quarters fighting. Having no special weapons means the team isn't weighed down by them nor their heavy ammo loads and an extra trooper lugging more ammo around. The assault rifles can spray fire at close ranges at Snap rates of fire (fast) and still be effective at medium ranges with normal or aimed fire modes. Flexible, IMO. Opting for Grenadiers means going for pistols and lots of grenades. The grenades are the first option since more are being brought. The pistols seem weak to many players but are useful indoors for covering short hallways and such. They take very little action points to fire and are decent in very close ranges. They're also light, and allow your Grenadiers more weight allowance for grenades.

Sniper / Sniper Section: Typically x1 trooper, x2 un uncommon circumstances, but up to x4 total in the rarest circumstances

1) Sniper (Veterans only) - x1 laser rifle, x3 laser rifle power cells, x1 first aid kit, x1 pistol, x2 magazines, x1 smoke grenade.

Armor - Typical armor selection, however, the MarSec Flight Armor set is very useful in positioning the Sniper(s) into very interesting shooting positions via flight. However, the armor is very light in protection.

Demolitions Fire Team: x4 troopers

1) Fire Team Leader (Veteran)

2) Rifleman

3) Demolitions Trooper x2: Typical armor selection, pistol x1, magazines x2, smoke grenade x1, 1-2 Demolitions Pack, first aid kit x1

This team is uncommonly used. I use it for purely punitive raids where maximum destruction is warranted of an installation. Mobility is important but the heavy demo packs are a detriment. That's why the Demo Troopers themselves ony bring pistols purely for self defense. The Team Leader and Rifleman provide limited cover with their assault rifles for the Demo.Troopers to move and set the explosives.

Typical X-Com Deployed Force

x2 Tactical Fire Team

x1 Support Fire Team

As I recall, you can send up to 4 teams with 4 troopers in each for a grand total of 16 for your biggest shows. 3 is what I send for most. Depending on the upcoming mission, I'll substitute / add fire teams. But I will always field at least x1 Tactical Fire Team and x1 Support Fire Team. The remaining again depends on what I'll be facing and where.

The equipment is focused on conventional equipment since it's easily acquired and you can amass a boatload of them over the game. Alien / Adv.Weapons can be substituted here and there, depending on what the weapon can do.

Armor: The great variable, IMO. The starting armor is heavy but provides good protection. I NEVER send a trooper without at least this type of armor. The later researched and developed X-Com Armor is protective, offers some mind control defenses, and is light. Once you discover this armor type, produce these en masse... ASAP! Lastly is the MarSec Flight Armor. It is available fairly early in the game. The armor's light and provides flight / hover capability. This unique ability provides tremendous mobility and tactical possibilities. Snipers can post in great positions. Troopers can enter in imaginative areas for an assault. But again, the protection on this armor type is very poor, so it's up to you to weigh the pro's and con's: Tactical mobility and flexibility vs protection.

Laser Swords: Very, very cool weapon. Very deadly in close combat and useful for carving holes through walls! But these weapons appear in the mid-late portions of the game and are quite expensive. Their numbers are always limited so only the Team Leaders / Veterans / High ranking officers of X-Com can get them. For me, it acts as a badge of rank & position. The highest ranking member of a deployed force gets one automatically. In addition, the highest ranking member in X-Com, our overall commander, gets one automatically as well as choice pick of equipment.

[Mr March]

Most of those are fairly common sense, I mean cmon do you think I'd sell it if it was so rare I often run out of bases to plunder, making it far more difficult near the end of the game. It sorta becomes a crapshoot either shooting down the Alien BBs and hoping their power sources are intact, or wait for them to land (usually meaning they are conducting a terror mission or government infiltration).

As for the Alien craft, usually I get a two or so firestorms just for heavy firepower (ganging up on infiltration battleships), and an avenger, mostly arming as you say interceptors with the plasma gun. Actually I rely most of the game on the skyranger. I find the lightning just useless, a bad compromise between the firepower of the Firestorm, and the size of the Avenger.

That reminds me.... way back in 1994 a "friend" told me you could get more elerium by shooting the UFO power source, yeah that worked. I guess I hit it with far too much firepower.

The first two rules are a reference to Fight Club and not meant to be all that serious. Yes, some of the other rules may seem common sense to most, but sometimes it's good just to go over the obvious before getting into the obscure, like Rule 6 that most people often miss.

You get the most elerium from Supply Ships that land near the alien bases rather than the alien bases themselves. My mistake. You can't open UFO Power Sources with explosives without destroying everything, but Heavy Plasma works reasonably well with minimal risk as I recall. It's been years since I've tried the base theft and I never did it all that much. You get elerium, but attacking the supply ships is much better and less tedious than base theft. Bases are just too big to waste time going to over and over IMO. But I guess it depends on how desperate you are for elerium

[Warmaker]

But I guess it depends on how desperate you are for elerium

Desperation is the look on an alien's face when you step on his neck with your boot and fire your weapon into his head

[Mr March]

Desperation is the look on an alien's face when you step on his neck with your boot and fire your weapon into his head

Gung ho!

Actually, elerium was never that much of an issue with me until I replayed games on much higher difficulty levels. It was then that I learned not to be so crazy with alien weapons. Now instead of arming the entire squad with the best available alien gun (like Heavy Plasma), I just arm a pair of troops with Heavy Plasma, a pair with regular Plasma Rifles, a pair with Laser Rifles, one with Small Launcher and grenades/high explosives/misc, one with Rocket Launcher/Blaster Launcher, one with an Auto-Cannon and all three ammo types and one with a Heavy Cannon and all three ammo types. Prepared for anything

[ruskiiVFaussie]

I probably missed it while quickly browsing but hows everyone's love of the TANKS.

Best fun is having a couple of Rocket Launcher tanks early in the game.

Damn they are EVIL!!!!!

Too many buildings/hedges and too lazy to walk up the steps/or around?

Fire a few rockets from the tanks, buildings dissapear, watch them aliens scatter! oi and stay behind them tanks for cover!!!!

Use them tanks men! Go THROUGH the $*/(#$!&s!

SO much fun.

[ruskiiVFaussie]

Haha, anyone have a "resort" for your maxed out elite soldiers?

I ALWAYS built a base on Hawaii, and equipped it with the "Lightning"

and whatever else, and they just sat there, ready for the big raid on Mars.

Sucks when you max them out and if you use them anymore they go weak.

Must be a glitch.

[Akilae]

I probably missed it while quickly browsing but hows everyone's love of the TANKS.

Best fun is having a couple of Rocket Launcher tanks early in the game.

Damn they are EVIL!!!!!

Too many buildings/hedges and too lazy to walk up the steps/or around?

Fire a few rockets from the tanks, buildings dissapear, watch them aliens scatter! oi and stay behind them tanks for cover!!!!

Use them tanks men! Go THROUGH the $*/(#$!&s!

SO much fun.

Never liked tanks myself.... I used a different tactic: soldiers!

All my missions have two squads, each with a designated rocket launcher who carried 1 launcher, 1 rocket in hand, and three more in the backpack. Each squaddie would carry two more rockets per person. All of this is on top of the 1x HE pack, 2 grenads, and 1 prox that everybody carried.

With the heavy load and all the throwing/shooting, you build up stamina, strength, and accuracy in a real big hurry.

Yeah, you can tell I like big-booms

[Lynx7725]

I prefer foot infantry myself too. A lot more flexible, IMO -- don't really need the "shock and awe" of an armour advance, and most of the time I didn't have the transport capabilities either, to do it properly.