User talk:Spike
Message Board
By any chance, have you taken another look at my talk page since your return?
Yes yes, I'm lazy and should really be able to interpret the data myself... But I can only really get as far as saying "that's not a linear distribution" and then my lack of understanding re what all the trig functions are for leaves me stranded. :/
- Bomb Bloke 09:20, 10 April 2009 (EDT)
- Sorry what with starting a new job, moving, Easter, I've been a bit busy. Did you say you still had the original data? You sent me it in an Access database, is that right? It all seems a long time ago! Spike 16:28, 14 April 2009 (EDT)
I don't remember sending you the data specifically (I certainly haven't done so within the last year), but you can find it all linked on my talk page now. - Bomb Bloke 22:31, 14 April 2009 (EDT)
Apocalypse Blog QA
Uncle NKF to the rescue!
Don't ever unload troops at the mission site. To select which agents go into a mission, just highlight them before picking the attack or investigate button or click on the vehicle name to select them all. Get into this habit - always.
The reason why will become incredibly apparent if you play long enough to do an alien dimension building. The moment you complete the mission, the alien building will collapse and your ship will take off automatically (as per standard practice). However, the kicker is that you'll never be able to land at the building site again. This will result in forever stranding any troops that did not get killed by the building crashing down around them.
Alien's won't attack a dead body on purpose, though HE explosions caused by nearby combat will certainly destroy them. Watch where you are fighting. Also some enemies tend to pick up anything that's not bolted down, and may even carelessly wander towards one of the area exit pads. It happens - so be vigilant!
Dual-Wield does penalise your accuracy, and depending on some weapons, will slow you down considerably. The only reason to dual weild is as you say: to increase volume of fire. If you're like me and like close range combat (you'll find a lot of this in some buildings), then you want to get out as much firepower as you can because the enemy will have just as much of an advantage at such a close range as you do (and there's often more of them than you or they have one-hit big-bang weapons like the Poppers!). Out in the open, single weapons with aimed shots get better results - until you are so accurate that you don't even feel the penalty.
The game's super weapons are easy enough to be effective without dual-wielding as they're ramped up to be the best weapons available. In fact, most people make do with just one devestator or toxigun and cloak combo exclusively.
Apocalypse uses the volume of successful hits to determine accuracy improvements. The M4000 just gets lots of hits in, while the laser sniper rifle may hit a few times. By the way, aimed + dual M4000 garners more accuracy for a slightly slower fire rate than full-auto, allowing you to not waste as much ammo. Not as accurate as one M4000 on aimed or as fast as dual M4k's on full auto.
Plasma gun ammo is scarce at first, but you do have the option of attacking your enemies like the Cult of Sirius and win some off their fallen brethren. In fact, a lot of items that don't get released until a week or two in can be won off raiding enemy organizations. Better to get a good start than try to hobble along. I'd recommend stealing borrowing a power sword too.
The Autocannon with AP shells is one of the most powerful non-explosive ranged weapons you can buy. Stronger than the plasma gun and the ammo is easier to obtain. I'd actually recommend only carrying 1 HE and 1 Incendiary clip and carry AP as your primary clips. Beside, you don't want to do too much property damage with the HE rounds (companies don't mind the burning corpses of civilians - they could go hostile towards X-Com if you track too much dirt on their carpets). The HE and In clips are for special uses, like blasting brainsuckers off if you're on your own, or to wipe out hyperworm mobs. Incendiary can be break up tight mobs of enemies, etc. The AC will however be very slow in turn based - so if that's what you play then it may not suit you very well.
Psi is a long term investment in Apocalypse. You only earn 3 times your base Psi stats. Hence humans will only ever be useful for low level simple attacks like probes. Hybrids will be your core psi users. Even then they may not be able to do much at the start. They need plenty of uninterrupted practice time in the psi lab before their skills pay off (when I say uninterrupted, I mean: no health loss when the clock ticks over midnight).
Psi may not be immediately useful, but they come into their own once they've built up their stats and can easily strip enemy anthropods or human guards of their disrupter shields in a flash while setting all of their carried grenades to explode on impact with the ground and dropping them.
The only time I've ever got a neutral organization hostile towards me when doing psi practice was when one of my psi troopers mind controlled a gangster then made him jump off the building. When he hit the ground, the gangster was still under my psi trooper's control. The loss in health was attributed to X-COM, and they started shooting. However, if my psi trooper had broken the psi link before the gangster hit the ground, the gangster would've eventually died of critical wounds (or the impact), and the psi trooper would've been free to roam about the map as if nothing happened. A morbid way of killing neutrals and not getting blamed for it.
Stun attacks will have the same effect as you'd get with stun gas or a stun grapple (marvelous weapon by the way - bounces of shields but still great for conserving ammo).
Psi attacks require line of sight. Breaking line of sight breaks the link.
Yes, psi attacks expend Psi Energy, a rechargeable resource. In turn based, psi attacks are generally a one time expense. In real-time, you are charged by the attack attempt. If successful, you'll start paying maintenance costs for as long as you maintain the psi link. You can break the link by going out of line of sight or readying another psi attack. Check the mind bender's information panel for the psi energy bar. Stun and panic for example require you to maintain the link long enough for stun increase or morale loss to take place. Probe lets you access the enemy information any time you want as long as the probe is in effect. Mind control lets you control the unit for as long as you want, but is also the most expensive in costs and maintenance. To make the best use of it, try not to spend any maintenance costs at all. Pause the game, control the enemy, go to their inventory and wreak as much a havoc as you can (for example: arm grenade. Right click grenade, then 'drop' the grenade). Once done, break the MC link and let time run and watch the fireworks.
-NKF 00:47, 16 October 2008 (CDT)
Dual Wield is useless in Turn Based. And when it comes to the M4000, I play turn based! Switch to autofire, and you only spend 1 TU per shot! Wildly inaccurate? Then sneak in ninja style and shoot everyone at point blank! OWNAGE! Note: Might need grenades for when you round the corner thinking there's only 1 guy and find there's half the Cult of Sirius hiding in the room. One of my favourite Dual Wields in Apocalypse is Autocannon with HE ammo, autofire, and Marsec Flying Armor. Only to be used when collateral damage is not an issue. Or in the case of COS raids, collateral damage is preferred! Of course, in real life, dual wielding large weapons like that will lead to such a loss in aiming control that you are very likely to shoot yourself in the hands.
Realistic UFO Economics an Oxymoron?
... Trying to form "realistic" economics in UFO defense is just ridiculous. Capturing one intact Medium Scout should realistically give enough cash to outfit an entire platoon of elite soldiers with all the best equipment money can buy. The power source+Elerium should rightfully be worth enough to buy a fleet of Interceptors. Instead, it gives $250k+$250k... not even enough to rent 1 interceptor for 1 month! Jasonred 08:01, 28 February 2009 (CST)
Yeah you're right about realistic UFO economics. :) But we do try. It's still good to try to smooth out the more flagrantly illogical aspects, and to try and level out the game balance. Removing Exploits goes a long way to making the economic aspects of the game better. For improving realism, I think one of the best things we came up with - working with Hobbes - is the idea that X-Com has a fixed-price "tarrif" for all the alien loot it hands over to the Council, established in the X-Com Constitution. This explains why there is no "free market" in the prices of alien items, because as you say, the prices of certain items ought to be astronomical. The other 'hard problem' in UFO economics is one that you highlighted in a recent post - why aren't the resources of the whole world harnessed, budgets in the billions etc. This is harder to explain away, you need a mixture of reasons/excuses. Some of the more useful excuses are - need for secrecy keeps the operation small scale (and as you also recently pointed out, the aliens seem to 'conspire' to keep the conflict small-scale); Earth governments are playing a 'double game' and don't want to risk offending the aliens by funding X-Com heavily, in case X-Com loses and the aliens punish them for supporting X-Com; Earth governments are not convinced that the Alien threat is real. (Obviously they can easily be convinced the Aliens are real, and are violent, but are they really a 'threat' to governments, or can deals be done - in a way this is like the 'double game' argument.) Spike 08:51, 28 February 2009 (CST)
Weapon Analysis
While I'm sure I was wondering about something. When you do Weapon Analysis for HE, I'm guessing you figure a GZ attack against the Under Armor. However, do you also factor in that Large units take nearly 4x damage from an HE attack, since they get hit on every square they occupy? Arrow Quivershaft 19:40, 1 March 2009 (CST)
- Indeed I do. I calculate the other 3 squares of GZ+1 effect in some detail, including getting the averages right (which as you know is slightly tricky). One thing I don't calculate is the effects of any near misses. So the figures I give should be taken as a minimum. In practice, HE effectiveness will be somewhat higher due to the near misses - but by how much? It depends on a lot of factors, some I don't know and some that are highly variable (terrain density etc). Spike 03:55, 2 March 2009 (CST)
Hi Spike, to quote you from your user page:
| One more problem with modelling Near Misses: the benefit of lucky near misses - whatever its value - is inversely proportional to overall accuracy. A perfect shooter gets exactly zero benefit from near misses. Which raises an interesting possibility. Maybe the "near miss benefit" could be estimated using a repeated experiments with a logger and a shooter with Firing Accuracy=0. Any damage done to the target would be due to a lucky near miss. This would be the other limiting case - the opposite of the perfect shooter. Then extrapolate between those two extremes to find a "near miss benefit" for that weapon as some function of {TA, range]. |
You bring up some interesting ideas on near misses. But wouldn't the benefits of 0% accuracy (leading to unintended splash damage) be negated by the probability of the soldier shooting himself? I would think that would be a major consideration when taking stuff like this into account. I should also mention that a soldier with max firing accuracy (125%) can pinpoint where shots should hit, thus the shooter intentionally doesn't aim for one target but the center of a group of targets thus creating a "near miss benefit" scenario. What do you think about this? --Zombie 12:45, 2 March 2009 (CST)
---
Great points Zombie. On the soldier shooting himself, I was wondering if we could just assume, as a simplication, that 'bad misses' (friendly fire casualties, including self-inflicted damage) even out with 'good misses' (lucky near misses). That would be much simpler! I have no idea if it's true though. Certainly if doing this logger exercise, you would want to distinguish damage done to self vs damage done to target. Actually, it's not really adequate to just 'net out' friendly damage vs target damage. After all, we expect weapons to do more damage to the enemy than to ourselves! So you might want to subtract 2, 3, 4... 10 times the friendly damage from the 'target' damage when determining the 'net benefit' from inaccurate fire.
It's a good point about the marksman firing at a midpoint, and of course that's a tactic we probably all try to use from time to time. In fact it's often frustrating when the game won't let you target a certain optimum point just because there's no object or creature there. These situations are slightly easier to model mathematically - though still cumbersome - because with a super-marksman you know exactly where the shell is going to land. The bit I really can't get my head around in the normal case (average accuracty) is the probability of all the different squares where the round might end up. I know there is some experimentatal data around with error angles but... I guess I'm trying to talk myself into the view that the terrain features are more important than the error angles, therefore it's not worth doing all the heavy math to figure out the effect of the error angles. :)
For the time being I'm probably just going to add a Note to my weapon rankings tables saying "Does not consider the beneficial or harmful effects of misses, near-misses, etc".
Spike 14:51, 2 March 2009 (CST)
- Stuff like this is always fun to ponder and debate I think. It brings up a lot of good ideas/tactics too. I was just thinking about the second part of your reply a little. For the sake of simplification, I think we should just ignore terrain for the time being. Yes, it plays a role (sometimes huge), but it eliminates quite a few variables to arrive at some sort of conclusion. What would you think about a testing scenario where a soldier with 0% FA (standing on flat level ground) fires at a static object (such as a soldier who can't be hurt)? I'm thinking about using Bomb Bloke's numerical tileset as the substituted desert terrain and then firing about 100 or so rounds and looking at the overall damage done to the terrain by inspecting the numbers. Then you could see any potential "hot zones" where shots may hit more often for example, or even just concentrate on the normal damage area of the weapon and look for hot zones in there. Might be an interesting trial to run. Your thoughts? --Zombie 15:22, 2 March 2009 (CST)
I think that sounds great! It would be great to build up a 2D (or even 3D) histogram of where the shots landed. Tweak an autocannon so it has 250 rounds for ease. Work it from a standard range of say 10 or 20. It would also be interesting to see the results at an accuracy of 50%. From data like that you could definitely get some kind of rule of thumb to estimate the good and bad effects of misses. Cool! Spike 15:39, 2 March 2009 (CST)
Rocket Launcher Firepower Incorrect
Hi Spike, on the Firepower Tables it seems the Rocket Launcher is incorrectly computed. This might have been fixed in the alien specific firepower tables, point blank, etc, I don't yet know (and I dont have an xls viewer at the moment, either). However, at skirmish range, when the Launcher is 45%, 75% TU for snap and aimed, respectively, and 55% and 115% on accuracy, how can aimed fire have more than twice the firepower of snap? I ran the numbers and both aimed and snap were run at 75% TU usage. Furthermore, damage on aimed, small and large rockets, is exactly 75% of the actual average. The damages should read 46 and 58 for small rockets and 61 and 77 for large. --Talon81 04:29, 15 May 2009 (EDT)
- You are right and your numbers for the Rockets are correct, thank you! I have corrected the instantaneous values for all single shot weapons (both for skirmish and for point blank/shock). Spike 08:26, 21 May 2009 (EDT)
I bet I know why, talon. It's cause the Rocket Launcher can only fire once per turn, on snap. And once per turn, on aimed. Tadaa... Jasonred 14:00, 15 May 2009 (EDT)
- That cannot be the cause because it takes 45% of TUs to fire snap (therefore can fire twice). Secondly, it SHOULD not be the cause because even if it could only fire once, that is something to apply to the Sustained Rates chart, and not the Instantaneous Rates chart. On the Instantaneous Rates chart, it is figured as if you could use every TU. --Talon81 14:17, 16 May 2009 (EDT)
- You *DO* know that the Rocket Launcher has a max ammo of 1, and therefore it CANNOT fire twice in 1 round? ... to fire twice per round requires 149 TU minimum. 67 to fire snap, 15 to reload, 67 to fire again. ... also, corrected your link. Maybe you can view it now. ... I think this belongs to the firepower table discussion page, not here, anyhow. BTW, after careul consideration, I think you are right... depending on definition of Instantaneous Rate. Jasonred 14:51, 20 May 2009 (EDT)
- You guys have figured it out and the Rate of Fire calculation I just put in to the Talk page is wrong, or rather incomplete (I'll go back and change it). Actually, what I do is I cap the RoF at the ammo capacity of the weapon - I don't attempt to calculate sustained fire rates including reloading. But I think Talon81 has a point, to be consistent, for the "instantaneous" rates I should probably ignore that cap. There may be other errors as well, thanks for keeping me on my toes guys. Spike 15:43, 20 May 2009 (EDT)
- Thanks for the link fix, Jason. Yeah, for some reason I wasn't thinking about the reloading issue. However, taking that into account would come up with different numbers (obviously) than the ones that were there. While certainly it is not fair to ignore the need to reload (especially on the sustained rates table), it is also not fair to ignore that it can be reloaded (especially on the instantaneous rates table). Long story short, I wanted Spike to know about it and correct me where I was wrong, without alerting everybody that stopped by the firepower page, and now Spike has been gracious enough to answer. --Talon81 20:59, 20 May 2009 (EDT)
- Yeah sorry for the late reply, work's been busy lately. Spike 07:21, 21 May 2009 (EDT)
Large Units and Fire
If I'd remembered earlier I would've piped up about this, but I recall years ago when I set up a savegame for Zombie to test damage done to sectopod quarters, I physically split a sectopod into its various quarters by moving its individual unitpos segment coordinates to different locations around the map. Blasting one quarterpod with incendiary rounds set fire to all the others, even though they weren't in the same locality. This referring to the unit sticky fire, not the ground fire. Can't remember if it uses the same "apply this effect to the next four segments" rule that messed up the mind control of large units in TFTD though. -NKF 02:20, 16 March 2009 (EDT)
TFTD Blog
After a few goes of mucking about with TFTD over the last year, I started a proper campaign. It has been very interesting so far.
I have much more favourable impression of TFTD now than I did before. Yes, it is more buggy than UFO. But luckily we have the guidance from the TRTBAG and from this Ufopaedia wiki to guide us. I have to say, I didn't feel comfortable starting on TFTD until I was familiar with the "gotchas" which (fortunately) are documented here. And it's also true that Ufopaedia is patchier on TFTD than it is on UFO. Some of the gaps are hard to find - I've been trying to fill some of them in as I go along.
TFTD is definitely a more challenging game. But it also unexpectedly better balanced than UFO in some ways. It's not just a case of buffing the bad guys (though that happens of course). I have been finding that in TFTD every decision is much more finely balanced. The trade-offs between different technologies, different weapons, and different tactics and strategies are giving me much more of a headache. In UFO, there is often a well known "optimum strategy". Things aren't so cut and dried in TFTD. I found the technology decisions really hard. There's not a lot of stuff that you don't need (unlike in UFO where you can skip a lot of it, or where research is so easy you just get everything). I've been struggling for months over whether to prioritise craft weapons (Sonic Oscillator), tactical weapons (eg Thermal Shok Launcher), or Transmission Resolver. Mind Control, Subs, and Armour I am not even thinking about. But even these three categories are very tough decide.
Luckily the game forced my hand, due to another increased challenge - shooting down USOs. In UFO this is not a big deal. In the first few months you can shoot any small-medium craft down easily with dual Avalanches, maybe 2 aircraft, and you have this capability from the first week. Anything you can't shoot down, you can often just tail, and it will conveniently land. Not so in TFTD. In many cases you can't even reach the USO to intercept it, let alone win the battle. They either out run you or go too deep - much harder than in UFO. There is no pain-free stand off combat, either. And the USO return fire is harsh. By month 2 it was quickly becoming apparent that my subs were outclassed and I was going to fail most engagements - and lose my ships in the bargain. I realised this was the strategic imperative. Winning the battlefield with inferior weapons would be a challenge, but without success in sub battle, there just weren't going to be enough battlefields. I needed something to even the odds on the Geoscape, or I was doomed. Going for improved Sub technology just takes too long, I would be dead by the time I got it, so instead I am going for improved sub weapons - in other words, the Sonic Oscillator.
Of course, they make Craft Gauss Cannon look like a waste of effort for purely weapon purposes. I thought long and hard whether I would go down the "Gauss Cannon Factory" route, but decided not to. The Particle Disturbance Sensor is 50% as cash-generating as the Gauss Cannon, and you can be up and running in days. I didn't research it until I had that realisation in the teeth of the "what do I research" dilemma. In hindsight I would've researched PDS first, since it was nearly 2 months before my Technicians had anything much do.
So anyway, I went with Sonic Oscillator, and of course this has the benefit of picking up the battlefield sonic weapons along the way, conferring (battlefield) tactical advantage. Now it's early March, and I've just got capability to use Sonic Cannon, and this had made me realise something else. When you use Sonic Weapons (or Plasma in UFO), it really costs you money! Some people think these weapons are free when you pick them up off the battlefield but, not at all. You pay full cash value for these weapons in foregone revenue. That means other things are starved of investment. For the price of a single Sonic Cannon and clip, you can build seriously useful buildings on your base! To put it another way, if you had to pay $200,000 cash for a Sonic Cannon, I wonder who would bother? Gas Cannon are about 30 times cheaper, and not much less effective (not at the stage I am at now anyway).
Yes I definitely fell in love with Gas Cannon. My standard loadout now in early March is Sonic Pistol (just acquiring Sonic Cannon), GC loaded with HE in the backpack for those strong enough to carry it (about half or two thirds of the troops), and/or a Gauss Pistol for close-up 'n personal work on soft targets. And, of course, one to three Sonic Pulsers. It's a great combination. Just Gas Cannon and Sonic Pulsers worked superbly in January. As most people do, I ditched the Dart Guns and Dye Grenades immediately, and ditched the JetHarpoons as soon as extra Gas Cannon arrived. I researched Sonic Pulsers literally as soon as I got one, and they were in field use by the 2nd week. I tried mixing in the Hydro-Jet Cannon but it just wasn't working for me. And then (despite my posts on the Ufopaedia), I fell foul of the HJC pitfall - I turned up at a land mission and I'd forgotten to swap out the HJCs for spare GCs. Doh!
(In my first Port Assault, I made the same mistake by bringing my Coelecanth/AquaJet along. Still, it was a useful unarmed reconnaissance vehicle!)
The HJC snafu convinced me to no longer put HJCs on the boat, apart from a single phosphor-sprayer for night missions. Sometimes I gave the guy carrying that an AP clip, but I'm not sure if there was much point. I had nagging doubts that HJC-AP might be useful in close quarters, frontal assault missions, so I kept them in Stores, at least until the Gauss Pistol came along and fully displaced that close range assault role.
Of course, the initial joy of watching a crack (ok, rookie) Gas Cannon squad dispatch Aquatoids with GC-AP quickly
wore off. Superhuman Gill-men have a habit of shrugging off a GC-AP round. Nonetheless, I just thanked my lucky stars I wasn't
using anything weaker.
I researched Gauss just to fill in time and because it's so quick. The Gauss Pistol is a big improvement and an equaliser that it's hard to forgo. So very briefly in late Jan / early Feb I had a Gauss Pistol / Gas Cannon mix. However, as soon as I captured the first Sonic Pistol I had stopped all research to focus on that, so there was only about a week between Gauss Pistol adoption, and it's semi-obsolence, as Sonic Pistols were issued to all combatants (I'd built up a stock - one advantage the alien tech has over the human, you can really hit the ground running once it's researched).
(At this stage I was running one ten-man combat team and I had just added a second). Then the primary mix became as above: Sonic Pistol as main combat weapon, GC-HE as the heavy/support weapon, Gauss Pistol for close quarters work, and plenty of Sonic Pulsers for anything tactically tricky or scary.
I gave up on the Gauss sequence after the Pistol, after making the decision I would not go down the Gauss Cannon Factory route. There seemed to be plenty of more important things to research, urgent things that couldn't possibly be avoided. I didn't feel like I had any luxury of choice. In fact, it felt like I couldn't possibly get it right, that whatever trade offs I made my skipping technology A in favour of technology B would come back to bite me. I really do like that in TFTD, I think the research decisions are much more challenging.
The tactics are different in TFTD and also pleasingly challenging. I have to be much more careful than in UFO, and I
like that. Bunching up is definitely out of the question - the aliens are noticeably more aggressive with grenades.
There is much more thought behind the maps. Many of them are really painful. Sometimes it seems a bit contrived, but
it's only fair since the aliens have such a dumb AI - they need an equaliser in their favour.
One thing it made me wish for, aside from a smarter AI, was that aliens would pick up weapons. Because the game advertises when they panic, and visually shows when they are disarmed, you then pretty much know they are no threat (within reason: they may have psionics, or grenades). So you can just wander up to these shell shocked aliens and stun them with impunity.
Good grief, capturing Calcinites is hard! I was prepared to trade a rookie for each captive, but it was much worse than that. I had to reload after I sent 4 guys into a room to get one Calcinite, and they all died. (Turns out there were TWO Calcinites in the room!). But I actually like the way it works. It's different enough from "eeny meeny meiny mo, catch a Navigator by his toe" in UFO. It feels quite a lot like what Scott Jones does in his XcomUtil option "research help from captured aliens". Ok it's really only a few of the aliens, but capturing them is so crucial, and also so hard to do, that it really adds to the excitement. Maybe if I'd caught a Deep One on my first Terror mission I would be more blase about it. Unfortunately I kept shooting the Deep Ones, thinking there would be another one along later, when things would be just a little calmer and I could take the time to stun one. Sadly the game ended and I got no Deep One prisoner. So I had to go after a Calcinite instead. What fun they are! I think they are the only monster in the game that can shred the front armour of (XcomUtil improved) tanks.
Mind Control, of course, absolutely kills you. This was my biggest dilemma. In the end I figured it's better to get
the missions, and get crucified each time by alien MC, than to not have any missions. No missions means no tech, no
experience, no points, no money. It's a declining spiral. It's possible to manage without MC or even MC Labs. You
just have to note anyone who is influenced, disarm them or stun them immediately, and drop them from the roster when
you get back. Everyone carries a Stun Rod, everyone watches everyone else. In this way, I will just have to tough it
out for now, and get MC Labs later. Of course, I don't doubt that if I don't at least have MC Labs by April, I will
be finished. I played a short campaign before and that's what happened. Plan sailing until April when the Tasoths
showed up - curtains in May. So I need to avoid that. But to get MC technology, and research it, and pay for it, I
need to be able to fight missions. So it's a very high priority but it has to come second. If I have to, I will
fight this war with nothing but Gas Cannons, so long as I get my Sonic Oscillators and then my MC Labs. Transmission
Resolvers, Armour, that's all by-the-by. One day I'll need Subs, I know, but I can't see that far ahead from where
I'm sitting now!
January
Setup: I'm using the Steam release of TFTD, with XComUtil installed but with most of the defaults turned off (apart from Improved Tanks). Mainly so I can use the command line xcomutil dis to see if the mission is something I've played before. If I've played the scenario, alien type, and map type before, I just tend to do xcomutil "win". This gives me maximum loot and no casualties, but it also gives me zero experience, so I think it's a fair trade off when I can't be bothered to do the exact same mission again. If they are small ones I usually do them through even if they are the same. But anytime there is a new race, new scenario, or new map, I do it all through manually. Very satisfying! For laughs I'm running the Steam release under DosBox on Ubuntu Linux. This is quite easy, you just copy the steam files (under "steamapps", "common") to a Linux directory and execute the existing dosbox.conf script. Even easier if you are using Wubi which sits on the same filesystem as your Windows installation. You can also do groovy things like add XcomUtil and possibly other third party things, as long as they are pure DOS. I think I put more instructions in the "Steam Releases" section of this Ufopaedia. For me the main benefit is not having to do that Steam login and update check each time.
I started on Superhuman with a base in the Straits of Hercules, called "Atlas". Everything went swimmingly. Plenty of missions, though noticeably more difficult to intercept and shoot down than in UFO. The Gas Cannon-AP reigns supreme. How I love the satisfying "chumf" of the cannon as it takes big hunks out of the bad guys. And crazily accurate as a sniper weapon.
Got Sonic Pulsers researched as absolute top priority and they are almost too powerful, you don't need them really except to rearrange the landscape. Or get yourself out of a tight situation - about ten times at last count. :) It was nice not to really have to learn how to chuck Magna-Packs around.
Developed a second strike base, Shiva, in the Indian Ocean, as that was the red hot activity area this month. I never know if it's worth building a base in the hot spot, it seems you are always chasing your tail as the activity moves on by the time the base is built. Still, I suppose, you've got to build 'em somewhere. As long as the locations make reasonable sense, why not?
At the end of January, an Island attack on the Seychelles. This was a lot of good clean killing fun. As noted above, my guys were enthusiastically dropping the Deep Ones and nobody stopped to think we should perhaps stun one. Why did we built that Alien Containment thing anyway? (Actually I hadn't read the TRTBAG properly at this point so I didn't realise how crucial it is to capture a live Deep One. The Research section for TFTD could probably use some tidying up, as it assumes you have a research tree to hand such as from the USG, but actually, we don't have that on here).
February
First time through, February was a disaster. A lost month that cost humanity its future. But literally, nothing happened the whole month. I just thought it was one of those "drought" months that teach you not to over-commit on your base buildup and costs. I watched the graphs (or so I thought) and there was nothing for me to intercept, even though I had Barracudas out as much as possible as sonar pickets. Then at the end of the month, funding cuts all round, huge loss of score, alien Colony in Antarctica, and an immediate port attack in the US - way out of reach of my only Triton as it limped back from an abortive Colony raid. How are you supposed to raid a Colony in February for heavens' sake? Well I thought it was pretty clear that the Committee were going to hand me my behind if I didn't go and take of the problem.
I only fought the upper Colony level, thinking I could maybe bag some useful corpses and items and then abort, learn some lessons, and come back stronger. I got absolutely crucified. We made them pay though. Gas Cannon HE really stuffs a Hallucinoid. And Sonic Pistols are fine for taking down Tasoths. But the MC, and the Tentaculats - it was too much. I think the guy who wrote the Colony Assault article is probably right, don't attempt it without DPLs, armour, and good MC. All I had vaguely in that league was one Thermal Shok Launcher and 3 rounds, plus Sonic Pistols and Gas Cannon. Here, the Sonic Pulsers really came in to their own, but I was using so many, and taking so many casualties, that I ran out. But it was the MC that was the killer. In the end only the tank survived, along with one Aquanaut who wigged out early enough in the battle to be stunned and safely stashed in the Triton. I actually waited out 30 nail-biting turns with my tank gun pointing out the door of the Triton until she woke up to fly that boat home. But I realised I'd had enough.
Anyway I replayed from the start of Feb, developed 2 Tritons and 2 combat teams, 2nd and 3rd bases, and played much closer attention to the graphs. This time, when Brazil and Antarctica and the US picked up on the graphs, I sent long range Triton pickets and sat them there. I still didn't intercept anything, not a single mission or even a detection in the affected areas. But I guess somehow my presence scared them off, because this time around I got a massive score in February instead of a massive slapping. Quite odd, as literally all I did was park Tritons over the affected area, I never fired a shot.
I managed to down a Battle Ship somwhere around the GIUK gap, (and I realise a TFTD Battle Ship is one down from a UFO Battleship) by using everything I had, which was just 2 Barracudas and DUPs. I got lucky (I know I got lucky because I replayed it 3 times, so I got 3rd time lucky.) Even so, one Barracuda was over 90% damaged and out for most of the rest of the month. But it was worth it, as there was a famine of missions and I needed the loot. Luckily it was just Aquatoids with Hallucinoids, and the MC wasn't too harsh - just enough to teach me who was weak, and rotate them out. And the Hallucinoids make a superb "popping" sound when you hit them with the last GC-HE. :)
Started a 3rd base in Antarctica since the bad guys were hitting that really hard - according to the graphs, but I never saw a single craft. I only got my sonar up about the 25th of the month though. Normally in a new base I build a standard sonar as well as large one, so I get the traffic picture 15 days earlier. This time I economised. I guess we will never know what those green skinned blighters were up to down there. :)
And this time at the end of the month was a surprise and luckily not a disaster. I was doing one of those tricky "order it 72 hrs before the end of the month" moves. And it turns out February 2040 is, indeed, a leap year - ending on the 29th and not the 28th. And I thought for a moment it might be a bug. Just a little Easter Egg for us from the good Brothers. :)
March
First week.
First Port Terror Mission. I love the map. It feels like fighting urban warfare. It's clever without being contrived. I didn't get the chance to explore the water feature. If there were any aliens in there, they came out, since I won without exploring it. Extremely tricksy to get a tank in there. There is only one ramp for the tank, and it has debris you need to clear, but if you use a Sonic Pulser that destroys the ramp. I could've tried a GC-HE instead maybe. Maybe next time. Apart from anything else I wanted to get my tank in the water because I stupidly brought a Coelecanth/AquaJet to a land mission. It was brand new, it's first outing as well. (Remember that quote in the Untouchables: "Just like a Mick to bring a knife to gun fight" - I felt like that.) I tried quite a few times to get the tank to reaction fire its rockets, leaving it with nearly full TUs and my guys all cleared back behind the firing arc, but no dice. Maybe that only applies to human-carried underwater weapons?
Got Sonic Cannon. Working through the other Sonic techs to get Sonic Oscillator which is the real prize. Using Sonic Cannon tactically is a curse in disguise, it robs too much cash. I may have to consider if it's really needed.
I am, as usual, dirt poor, building and selling Particle Sensors to keep the lights on. Selling 8 or so Sonic Cannon instead of giving them as toys to the boys in the boat might've made a difference - like about a $1million or so!
And, I've just realised... I fought the Port mission from my new rookie base in Antarctica. I have to hand it to those guys, they did an amazing job, all absolute first timers and only 2 out of 10 dead, for 18 aliens zeroed. But... I didn't have Alien Containment in the new base! Aargh! What a rookie mistake. And if I'd realised that, no one would've died, we would'nt've been running around trying to stun Calcinites like John Cleese from the Ministry of Silly Walks. We'd've just nuked the blighters. Oh well, live and learn!
To Be Continued (Famous last words!)