Enriching Experience... But Also Frustrating

[espritcrafter]

I have been playing TFTD again, xcept this time I never reload. I buy like 9X the normal amount of soldiers that I usually do, screening htem each out carefully. my top pick of the best soldiers are titled "Terminator namehere". Terminators just about all have 60+ bravery, 55+ reaction, and 65+ shooting accuracy. When I lose a terminator, it feels like a personal loss... So much time and money spent just to get 1 for about evry 20 or so recruits u hire. The other little men also matters when they die. In fact, each man I lose leaves me a little sad...

 

Before, I could lose men like flies and just simply reload when an important one dies or I lose too many. Now each loss is truly a loss. They might not have a name, but I spent time screening through countless recruits and periodically adjusting my rating scale... I never use a unit with a c accuracy rating or less. I have many back up units in base, the several recruits who passed the screening but are not the cream of the crop for primary missions. Watching that aA soldier die gets me ticked off.

 

Playing w/o reloading forces you to play the game an entirely different way. 1st round i move out the tank and 3 men, 2nd round, tank scouts outward and 2 men get on the wing to snipe, while 3 more move out, etc. All men at the front are kept distanced, less a grenade or god forbid a disruptor pulse bomb hits him. I made this process mandatory after I had 8 men blown up by 1 grenade upon exiting the ship. You'll feel the intensity when you're down to 1 man, but have lost too much and have too much equipoment at stake to retreat. Even worse is having to retreat on those 2 layer terror missions after you have lost too many men on the upper deck. Having to rush your men and scatter them after one gets spotted, hoping to out run a possible disruptor pulse bomb launch.

 

Without all of the reloading, the loss felt is so much more real, each mistake that much more terrible yet enlightening, the taste of succes even mroe sweet than before. Nothing's more of a pain in the donkey than having to re-equip and rearm an entire new squad after losing 90% of one. Even worse is when you lose a sub to a mistake. The relief of finally being able to use the disruptor launcher to blow holes in the side of subs, rather than sticking ur head in the front door.

 

On one misison, I was barely able to save my Triton on luck. I had 5 men disruptor bombed, causing the rest to panic and get mowed down. I grouped up my men b/c I cleared out a large radius already, and gave too much confidence in my own disruptor launchers. 3 men were left, 2 with disruptors... I blew up the main building in which the aliens always horde a bunch of high rankers (alien base raid, upper level). One of my men get mc'd and puts a hole through one of the launchers. The other one gets surprised by an alien's grenade, lowering his health to 11 with 2 fatal wounds. I rush back towards the previously mc'd soldier, the aliens themselves now panicking. Then the mc alien regains its wits and panicks the one soldier again... for 4 consecutive rounds, with my 2nd soldier standing in front of him, waiting for that first aid... bleed to death. Then the sole survivor panics again for the nxt 2 rounds and i lose hope of getting away before he gets mc'd again. But I get lucky and he panics INTO the triton! The lost was devastating, but the less than likely recovery of the triton is a relief. I ended up killing 24 aliens and still losing... I was averaging about 3 aliens a turn.

 

My squad works so much more like a specialized tactical assault squad rather than a regular squad of soldiers. Each man makes so much more difference.

 

In a sense, it feels like a whole new a game, new dimensions added in. Tanks are so incredibly useful as scouts, I take them as often as I can, except in situations with restricting space or when I need more soldiers to raid into a ship.

 

All men other than terminators just have a title, followed by 2-3 letters representing reaction, accuracy, and strength respectively. Sometimes I carry so much equipment on my units that they begin to bog down... and with the 50% tu requirement for the sonic cannon, that's not something I can afford to do.

 

The Lobstermen are a pain, but I'm grateful for not having to put up w/ mc when fighting them, allowing me to bring infantry and mercenaries along and not worry about everyone hsooting up each other. However, it takes 2 direct disruptor bomb hits to kill them. If the unit is not a gillman or aquatoid and I can't shoot it to death, I throw at least 3 sonic pulsers to try to kill it. A few lobster men have even taken 6 direct sonic cannon hits before going down.

 

10 brvry = militia

20 brvry = mercenary

30 brvry= infantry

40+ brvry = soldiers

 

35- rctn = f

40- rctn = d

44- rctn = c

49- rctn = b

50+ rctn = a

55+ rctn = A

 

46- accry = f

49- accry = d

53- accry = c

58- accry = b

64- accry = a

65+ accry = A

 

27- str = w

28+ str = blank

Edited March 25, 2005 by espritcrafter

[[NKF]]

Oh it's worth giving a few ironman campaigns a go - if only for the learning experience rather than the frustration. One needn't complete an entire campaign this way, but at least get in some ironman missions.

 

edit: Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? But then again, not everyone is ready to cope or would want to cope with the frustration involved.

 

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Try bringing in some of the thermal shok launchers when fighting lobstermen - and also carry some light explosives (or heavy - it doesn't matter). The lobstermen are quite easy to knock out with the shok bombs (one if you're really lucky) . The explosives are just to finish them off after you've moved the body or the weapons (sonic pulsers are safe though - they're practically indestructable).

 

Drills too - indispensable for shipping lane missions, or colony and USO assaults.

 

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As for your soldiers: You might want to lower your screening criterea a bit - a soldier who cannot shoot can still throw grenades, for example. And as you're losing a lot of soldiers - it's a lot better to lose someone you didn't particularly care for. Conversely, you can feel very proud when this nobody suddenly turn into a hero who advances quickly in skills after only a few missions. This can be rewarding in its own way.

 

Bravery should probably remain high if you're losing too many soldiers and not defeating enough aliens. Reactions too. For some reason, I find it harder to raise reactions in TFTD than it was in UFO as the aliens tend to camp a lot more in TFTD. And reactions are incredibly important if you want to avoid the insanely hideous reaction fire some of the enemy units have (Biodrones have 100+% accurate snapshots on superhuman, for example), so it's good to start generously high.

 

- NKF

Edited March 25, 2005 by NKF

[Adun_Toridas]

well, more than ironmen, try to use specialiced soldiers. F.E., snipers and psi back, having the high reaction ones in the front. (well a couple of snipers on the front to deal with the emergency cases).