User:Amitakartok

In case anyone's wondering, amitakartok translates roughly into whateveryouwant in Hungarian. It's origin: when I registered at a site several years ago, the appropriate answer for the question "What should be your nickname?" seemed to be "whatever you want" and I started to like it. I use that as a universal nick on every registering and even in Garry's Mod (though it's a pity gmod doesn't have a Chryssalid NPC downloadable, that would be awesome XD).

My philosophy regarding soldiers: keep losses at minimum. One or two rookie is OK, three sergeants isn't. In that case, reload ASAP (why the hell they didn't put loading into battlescape?!) - yes, I'm a savewhore, so to speak. For this reason, my armor distribution is this: rookies/seamen have to become squaddies/able seamen to earn armor. Officers get the latest equipment, e.g. Power/Flying/Ion/Magnetic Ion armor. Also, in Cydonia/T'Leth every soldier is armed with Flying/Mag. Ion armor.

Things I hate:

Elitists thinking everyone is inferior compared to them.
Same guys "noob"-ing others. You were "noobs" too once so STFU. Thank you.
13375P34K. No, really. DER GRAMMATIK NAZIS^{und Google Translate} REGIEREN!!!
Cheating AI. This includes X-COM aliens.
Unpleasable "fans". Seriously, nine years have elapsed since the last X-COM title and people are bitching that an FPS is on the way??? They should be really fucking happy they get anything at all!

Things I love (not necessarily in this order):

X-COM
C&C
Fallout 3 (someone, PLEASE model an Ethereal robe into F3!)
Mecha anime (to rephrase that, "Evangelion rulz, bitches!")
TV Tropes
And of course my one and only sweetheart, Ildikó.

UFO

Got a terrible longing towards X-COM so I reinstalled it. I want to try out some new tactics including the introduction of trooper classes! I have two class configurations as of now:

X-COM CONFIG

Assault
- Primary: Laser Rifle
- Secondary: Grenade
Support
- Primary: Heavy Plasma
- Secondary: Alien Grenade
Heavy Weapons
- Primary: Rocket Launcher, Blaster Launcher
- Secondary: none (for carrying more ammo)
Medic
- Primary: Laser Pistol
- Secondary: Medkit, Smoke Grenade
Scout
- Primary: Plasma Pistol, Stun Launcher (both)
- Secondary: Proximity Grenade, Motion Sensor
Sniper
- Primary: Plasma Rifle
- Secondary: Smoke Grenade

TFTD CONFIG

Assault
- Primary: Gauss Rifle
- Secondary: Grenade, Medkit (if half the team has medkits, the other half has higher life expectancy if shot but not killed)
Support
- Primary: Sonic Cannon
- Secondary: Dye Grenade (covering deployment)
Heavy Weapons
- Primary: Torpedo Launcher, Blaster Launcher (HE Gas Cannon during terror missions)
- Secondary: Sonic Pulser (for that little extra boom)
Recon
- Primary: SB Rifle, TS Launcher (both)
- Secondary: PD Grenade (think Claymore mines)

'99 Jan

Set up shop in Central Europe.
First interception, small scout over Europe. Destroyed.
Second interception, medium scout over Africa. Crashed, recovered. One injury.
Another medium scout over Africa. Landed, recovered. Casualties zero, captured a Sectoid navigator.
Large scout over Africa, Interceptor 2 got damaged. Called in Interceptor 1, UFO landed before it arrived. One injury.
Closed month with positive rating, ran out of cannon rounds.

'99 Feb

Medium scout over Egypt. Crashed, recovered. Stunner is captured.
Personal armor is being deployed.
Closed with OK rating.

'99 Mar

No activity in Europe.
Second base in the US under contruction.
Two days before end of month, Snakeman terror mission. Tackled with no casualties, two injured.
Closed with over 1,000 points in the negative.

'99 Apr

Another Snakeman terror mission. No casualties aside from losing a tank. Got a VERY close call: a Chryssalid ran right up to a soldier but instead of infecting him, ran away.
Minuscule negative score, nothing seroius.

'99 May

Both bases have Hyperwave decoders and Interceptors.
Spotted some scouts conducting base missions in Australia.
Snakeman terror mission at night. They're really getting on my nerves... Due to a logistics error, one of the deployed agents didn't got a weapon. No casualties, four wounded from a grenade.
Muton small scout. Recovered, pilot captured.
THOSE SNEAKY BASTARDS!!! While the Skyranger was returning from the previous mission, a terror site popped up in Australia with me totally unable to respond! The Ranger finished refueling two hours after the site disappeared...
Closed with high negative score.

'99 Jun

American base is complete, first soldiers and Skyranger have already arrived.
First deployment of American team against a small scout. Zero casualties, the European team's best squaddie was promoted to Sergeant and assigned command of the American team.
American base detected a Snakeman supply ship. A Skyranger patrol found the base right in the middle of Australia, wiped it out two days before end of the month.
Closed with little negative score and some funding increase.

'99 Jul

Started construction of a third base in Asia. Production and research is still carried out by EuroCom.
Snakeman terror mission, nothing serious.
Snakeman base discovered in South East Asia.

'99 Aug

Muton terror mission. One injury, lost (yet) another tank.

'99 Sep

Discovered a Floater base on Hawaii.

X-Force

I don't know if you know about this, but I found yet another X-COM remake. It has been around for a while, but I forgot to mention it. The name of the project is X-Force: Fight for Destiny. It is completely DirectX-based and has some nice graphics, but the current version is V0.915b4 (the newest beta). It is composed of "gamesets" which contain everything about a gamemode. The included gameset/script editor is German, but the game itself is multilingual (a total of 13 languages are available right at the start).

Differences from X-COM

General

Option to change starting parameters: gameset, difficulty, composition of starting personnel, etc. Changes are reflected in starting funds: more personnel means less money. The default starting funds are ten million.
Online updater for downloading new versions and addons.

Geoscape

Engineers and scientists has differing "ability points". Basically, the higher this number, the faster the work is finished. For this reason, engineers and scientists also have individual names and can be sacked automatically whenever someone better is available for hire.
Radar ranges are graphically represented in the map. Now that's what I missed from X-COM!!!
Previous versions contain the ability to dogfight with UFOs, arcade-style. This has been removed. Now you have to wait until they duke it out offscreen with only some info visible (stats of the combatants, who's firing currently, etc.).
Manufacturing uses a universal resource called Alphatron. Alphatron can be gained by establishing specialised mining bases (assigning engineers increase mining efficiency) or by dismantling existing equipment (weapons/ammo/etc).
Speaking of which, EVERYTHING can be manufactured except crafts. Certain terrestrial stuff requires construction plans to build which can be purchased for a hefty price. Alien stuff only needs to be researched.
Buying/selling equipment is also changed: countries make bids for the equipment and you decide which one you accept and when.
Structure-mounted shields. If a UFO attacks a shielded base, the shield will soak up the damage. If it depletes, buildings within start to take damage. Damage can be repaired with engineers. UFOs fairly close to the base can be shot down by base defenses (their range is also represented).
UFOs prioritize crafts. If a craft enters radar range, the UFO will ignore it's current mission and attacks the craft instead. Since by default you can't accelerate time while a UFO is on-screen (that counts crashed ones too!), you can lure and shoot them over water if you don't want to fight.
Bases are multi-level; some building can only be built on a certain level (ie. no radar/shield underground, hangars are 2x2 on the first level and 1x1 on the surface). Additional levels can be constructed for a fee.
All equipment (ammo included) can be upgraded but only if you have the construction plans.
Soldiers, engineers and scientists can be trained to improve their skills. However, a soldier in training improves slower than in battle and training costs 25 credits per day.
When purchased, crafts only have armor, hardpoints and cargo space. Weapons (projectile, missile, energy), engines, sensors and shields are freely interchangeable.

Battlescape

Automatic shots are a horribly inaccurate single shot. Aimed shots are possible to be fired to legs, torso and head. The latter is the hardest but it hurts like a motherfucker (obviously).
No HWPs, but soldiers can set up stationary sensors to watch an area or landmines to cover their backs.
No transports, soldiers are just dumped onto the battlefield. They start in groups of five. Earlier versions had the ability to "beam up" soldiers from the battlefield. The newest version deploys UFOs as well on the map.
Soldiers don't have energy or morale. However, they still lose TUs from weight.
Laser weapons has limited ammo and cannot be reloaded, only recharged after battle.

I tested the newest version. Looks good, but the Galactic War gameset became the official one and MAN, IT'S VERY HARD! According to the story, a single alien mothership and five smaller craft appeared and scouted the planet. After trying to take them down, they retaliated and systematically destroyed Earth's whole military. The crafts had three layers of defensive structures: an EM field to jam missiles, a magnetic field to repel light projectiles and armor to stop the rest. Finally, they were taken out with nukes, but we became defenseless. The crashed crafts released drones that shot every dropship on sight, plus the only hits were achieved with large naval cannons and dumb-fire contact-fuse missiles; we had to ditch our modern weapons and technology and rely on more primitive methods such as assault rifles with plastic bullets (aliens had the same shielding) or naval-sized cannons with VERY large shells. Additionally, the readme literally says that large UFOs are EXPECTED to be taken down by using several fighters as cannon fodder. Sorry, but isn't that a bit extreme? For me, it sounds like the developer watched a bit too much Evangelion (which is an excellent but really fucked up anime, by the way).

YEEEEAAAAAH!!! NEW X-COM ON THE WAY!!!