XCOM Enemy Unknown

[WordsHere]

They need to provide Steam workshop support for this game! It'd be so cool to have mods for things like ultra-hardcore modes and all that. Also, more customization options.

[Varkarrus]

okay apparently the 20 day testing and the 1 soldier at a time worked, but not the 100% psi gift chance. And I learned this after sending it my best soldier.
Psigh...

[ikkonoishi]

Okay about my final mission bug. It seems that a snakeman thought he was a sneakman, and was hiding back near the beginning. I sent a dude who sorted him out, and the game allowed me to proceed.


My opinion of the ending is as follows.

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Seriously.

It is turning into a black hole.

That is the best you can come up with.

What's wrong with just having it explode, and the Volunteer has to throw up a telekinetic field to contain the blast?

Instead he has to use the voidy thing as a glorified steering wheel to move it barely out of the Earth's atmosphere where it blows up anyways with absolutely no consequence.

And what is with all this ascension crap? The first X-COM had the perfect premise. They came to take our shit. They wanted to prevent major damage to the vast majority of our shit so they came in secret. We noticed, and told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off. They didn't and thus we kicked their asses

Now they are just all in total admiration of our bulging muscles, and lobes throbbing with psionic potential so they piss us off for the hell of it.

It makes no sense.

[Varkarrus]

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The way I saw it, they want to make humanity into a weapon, and instead of flat out giving them psionic abilities, they instead torment humanity through abductions and terror attacks, forcing THEM to adapt instead, making humanity stronger as a result. However, they underestimated humanity's willpower and were defeated in their temple ship. The only thing I dont like is that it saddens me that my Colonel didn't make it back alive...

also if it was me I wouldn't have ended the game there. Instead, I'd have you return to XCom after the Ethereals warn you that something worse is coming. Begin the second half of the game, which features underwater battles and eldritch beasts.

[Portalboat]

Considering that this is 2K, the same people who made Borderlands 1 and 2, there's probably going to be some DLC coming our way. Maybe including terror from the deep? idunno.
Also, I have the exact same opinion on the ending ikkonoishi.

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Like, they didn't even have a ENDING, per se. The ship just exploded....and that's it. You don't even get to see your soldiers have a hero's welcome back at the base. And the Ethereals don't even make sense; they were like 'serve us' 'follow your path' etc etc WHILE THEY WERE ATTACKING YOU. I was honestly expecting it to be like the original's ending, where that 'uber' ethereal is saying how they created us, how we would have immense power if we joined them, etc, and then your Psionic does some epic psionic attack thing. It would be so much better then that pathetic 'battle' at the end. Seriously, I killed both of the regular Ethereals in one turn and killed the so-called Uber Ethereal in two hits from my sniper. And then after the soldiers arrived back home, and everyone's partying, the science director is all worried and then the engineering guy is like 'What are you so worried about? We defeated them'. And the science person says 'I just wonder what else is out there....their warning; what could it mean?' It would be an actual 'ending' while allowing them to add DLC.

[The_Codfish]

So, got a glitch in one of my missions; a Muton suddenly appeared in the middle of all my soldiers. Luckily, all of them were on Overwatch and had Plasma Rifles equipped.

Also managed to catch a Berserker on my first try at 49%. Yaaay. A question about them, though; is there any actual use to trying to capture them alive after you've interrogated one? They're not equipped with any weapon, and it seems like it'd be more useful to get their corpses for Combat Stims.

Also, also have 3 Psionics on my team, which I'm very proud of. How long does it take for them to 'level up' in their Psionic abilities?

Last question: If you beat the game, does that mean it ends right there and you can only start up a new game afterward?

[Varkarrus]

you can reload from previous saves.
also I messed up my 100% psi rate code, the PSI_GIFT_CHANCE variable is a divisor, not a percentage. Setting it to 0.1 rectified the problem.

[ikkonoishi]

So, got a glitch in one of my missions; a Muton suddenly appeared in the middle of all my soldiers. Luckily, all of them were on Overwatch and had Plasma Rifles equipped.

Also managed to catch a Berserker on my first try at 49%. Yaaay. A question about them, though; is there any actual use to trying to capture them alive after you've interrogated one? They're not equipped with any weapon, and it seems like it'd be more useful to get their corpses for Combat Stims.

Also, also have 3 Psionics on my team, which I'm very proud of. How long does it take for them to 'level up' in their Psionic abilities?

Last question: If you beat the game, does that mean it ends right there and you can only start up a new game afterward?

Yeah it seems that if the aliens can't see you they sometimes teleport directly next to you.

And the end of the game is the end of the game. There is a mod that enables a thing that lets you change some parameters on the next playthrough, but it is not official.

I think they planned on multiplayer to carry it.

[zeratuljo1291]

Also managed to catch a Berserker on my first try at 49%. Yaaay. A question about them, though; is there any actual use to trying to capture them alive after you've interrogated one? They're not equipped with any weapon, and it seems like it'd be more useful to get their corpses for Combat Stims.

i think they give heavy armor credits, which goes toward titan armor and archangel. usefull if you dont have the scientists.

[The_Codfish]

zeratu: No, I mean AFTER you've interrogated one.

[Varkarrus]

aaah there's aliens on the UFO and I have no way up

[zeratuljo1291]

zeratu: No, I mean AFTER you've interrogated one.

research credits stack.

[The_Codfish]

zeratuljo: They stack if you capture more of the same kind of alien? Or research projects can gain bonuses from at least two research credits related to it?

[UnluckyScarecrow]

I can't fully confirm this, but captives may also provide corpses. I remember a certain encounter with a new species, there was only one of them on the map and I managed to capture it. After the interrogation project, the autopsy project opened up immediately afterwards...

As for why capture when you can kill it anyways, I'm not sure. I guess if it had low HP, and the Arc Thrower happened to have a better hit rate than a weapon would? (Usually not true at close range though... But you don't have to worry about falling short with damage if the alternative is a pistol or the basic assault rifle)

[Kuraimano]

I can't fully confirm this, but captives may also provide corpses. I remember a certain encounter with a new species, there was only one of them on the map and I managed to capture it. After the interrogation project, the autopsy project opened up immediately afterwards...

Yes, if there's no room for containment or you have done what you have to do with the alien, it dies. The doctor also mentions it the first time you catch an alien alive, saying something like "here's what info we got out of it before it died".

Also... guys?
One of my three best soldiers just died because... something fell from the sky.
What the fuck? I'm pretty much completely mad. Something red fell from the sky and blew up his cover, leaving him exposed to two elite mutons and then critical hits and then he died. This is not fair in any way I can think of, is it some hidden ability of those mechas? It was the first mission in which I encountered one but IT WASN'T THERE YET when this happened!

[zeratuljo1291]

zeratuljo: They stack if you capture more of the same kind of alien? Or research projects can gain bonuses from at least two research credits related to it?

the research project associated with the credit will be finished much quicker. think of it this way, for each scientist you have on board, they contribute one point of work towards that project. Research credits can stack up to compensate for low numbers of scientists by providing that work already.

you can get plasma rifle tech from just research credits if you get enough of them. you still need scientists working on the project first to complete it though

[Milskidasith]

Yes, if there's no room for containment or you have done what you have to do with the alien, it dies. The doctor also mentions it the first time you catch an alien alive, saying something like "here's what info we got out of it before it died".

Also... guys?
One of my three best soldiers just died because... something fell from the sky.
What the fuck? I'm pretty much completely mad. Something red fell from the sky and blew up his cover, leaving him exposed to two elite mutons and then critical hits and then he died. This is not fair in any way I can think of, is it some hidden ability of those mechas? It was the first mission in which I encountered one but IT WASN'T THERE YET when this happened!

Sectopods can rocket bombard an area, yeah. There are also some problems with them being able to see where you can't; in the final mission, I know that I attempted to overwatch two I knew were around for three turns while I had the high ground, only to have it turn out they walked right underneath me with full vision of me the whole time and then blasted me with rocket fire.

[Varkarrus]

hint: sectopod rocket bombard takes a turn to charge up. When they look like they're charging up, get the hell out of dodge!

[UnluckyScarecrow]

I think it's very similar to your own units grenades or rockets; they don't need to target anything specific, they just pick an area that may or may not be occupied and fire away. Perhaps the aliens knew where soldiers were because they were in sight of something else, or maybe their vision has a higher radius... Or who knows, maybe they do cheat/are bugged a little on some level. (Or any combination of anything, really)

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I'm just about to activate the Ethereal Device; is this the trigger for the last mission? I normally wouldn't want it spoiled, but after hearing about door glitches in the last level I don't really want to risk ruining my Classic Ironman run. If it hasn't been fixed, I might resort to save scumming.

[ikkonoishi]

I think it's very similar to your own units grenades or rockets; they don't need to target anything specific, they just pick an area that may or may not be occupied and fire away. Perhaps the aliens knew where soldiers were because they were in sight of something else, or maybe their vision has a higher radius... Or who knows, maybe they do cheat/are bugged a little on some level. (Or any combination of anything, really)

show spoiler

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I'm just about to activate the Ethereal Device; is this the trigger for the last mission? I normally wouldn't want it spoiled, but after hearing about door glitches in the last level I don't really want to risk ruining my Classic Ironman run. If it hasn't been fixed, I might resort to save scumming.

The game is very clear about the final mission trigger. It is all like "HEY FUCKWAD MAKE SURE YOU HAVE DONE EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DO NO MO RESEARCH OR SCANNING AFTER THIS!"

I managed to fix my door glitch by running back to kill an alien that had hid earlier on. So just murder everything, and you should be fine.

[Kuraimano]

So in the end I decided to be a useless piece of shit and load a previous save that went waaay back to the previous mission. I basically had to redo some base structures and build plasma cannons/firestorms only to save that poor soldier. In the end he died anyway.

I guess it was destiny, but at least this time it was fucking fair. You will be missed, moustached italian medic.

[Edrobot]

So I named all my soldiers after Anime characters. And the one I named after Jeremiah Gottwald (from Code Geass) became my first psychic, presumably because he was LOYAL.

I AM SO PROUD OF HIM.

Also, first thing I do once modding tools come out (assuming that happens) is to make a mod that lets you have Trolls on your team. And then have them fight gods and fairies and demons because you just KNOW there's just going to be a Touhou mod at some point.

EDIT: Now that I beat the game, he also ended ended up being "The Volunteer" who sacrificed himself at the end of the game to save the world.

[Bramzter]

Wow.. three of my crack squad just got mauled by a sectopod.

Nice first encounter uuurgh

[MESIAS_ROCKET]