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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Some early advice for a 1st timer...


hayaku

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Picked these games up on Steam during the sale a few months back, been persevering but so far so good.

 

Ok so I am about 10 game days into things, managed to find and sink an enemy sub with my 2 barracudas and now just sent the troop-sub down to salvage the wreckage, and getting stuck in battle-scape.

Talk about a tough learning curve... the single alien on the map seems to launch a small torpedo thing that creates a 10 x 10 hex square of bubbles that kills everyone, and when he doesn't do this he seems to make my troops turn randomly berserk, and when he doesn't do this he kills them one at a time with his well-aimed laser or whatever it is.

 

My guys seem to have 39% accuracy for aimed shots and seldom even get the chance to get into shooting range before being picked off, so I am mostly at a loss on how to kill this one alien, even with 10:1 numbers against him. Am currently on my 5th reload and still no closer to killing anything.

 

I assume they need better equipment and experience before they are any good at killing things, but if they can't even take something down at this stage of the game I wonder how they will even get the opportunity to get any better. Anyone have an advice they can give me??

 

Thanks

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Due to the complexity of this game and its predecessor, there's a lot of general advice we could give you, but it might be a lot more productive to prompt for particular subjects. I'll mention a few that you might find useful.

 

The first thing I would recommend is that you should probably master UFO/EU before TFTD. TFTD is deliberately ramped up to be a challenge, and is merciless on new players. It's also rife with rather bad technical bugs. But that said, some of us experienced TFTD before UFO, so it's not impossible. Just be persistent, and being new to the game, don't get too upset about failing a few times at the start.

 

Most importantly: Due to a serious bottleneck in the research tree, you need to capture a live Deep One terrorist as early as you can into the campaign from a land attack, otherwise you could spend most of the game without a good chunk of important technology before another one comes along. Also, make sure you only research the live Deep One after you've completed research on the Magnetic Navigation and Plastic Aqua Armor. Research the corpse ASAP though - that kicks off the armour research.

 

For your current problem, remember that the alien cannot react against someone that it cannot see. Have someone inch up to spot the alien. Don't have the spotter shoot the alien, but instead, take a step back and let those that are far behind snipe at it. This is generally the safest way to take down any enemy that's ready to react violently in an instant.

 

For shooting - no matter what shot you use, remember to kneel. That extra 15% accuracy isn't much, but it helps. Also remember that you get a -20% penalty if you are using a 2-handed weapon while carrying something else. For combat out in the open, always keep the other hand free unless you're using the Gauss Pistol or Sonic Pistol, which are one-handed.

 

If your accuracy is very low, use grenades instead, as their area-effect nature mitigates the loss in precision. It also helps improve firing accuracy too. So don't sack aquanauts simply based off their low accuracy - a few missions as grenadiers can dramatically bring their standards up to par.

 

Understand how Reactions work. It is used defensively (preventing reaction fire) and offensively (reaction fire). No matter how high your reaction points are in the stat screen, it will mean nothing if your aquanaut has next to no TUs left. Reactions, or initiative, is adjusted by the percentage of your remaining TUs. So if you have no TUs left, then your reactions are also 0. Aliens only react (during your turn) if your score is lower than theirs - and vice versa your aquanauts only react if their initiative is better than the aliens. The only exception is during a case of mutual surprise, where both units spot each other at the exact same time, in which case both sides don't do anything. In effect, if your reactions were technically lower, you'd be getting a free move.

 

To make use of this, your scouts exploring the map should move slowly a few tiles at a time when exploring and never have them exhaust all their TUs by running run across the map into unknown territory. Running off into the unknown only draws enemy fire, wheras moving slowly will make them less prone to attracting reaction fire. They should also not attack any enemies if it can be helped. When used for reaction fire, it's always best to end the turn at 100% of your remaining TUs to improve the chances of getting a reaction shot. It's not going to do much if the aliens has the higher TU/Reactions, but if they botch their attack, then your aquanaut will be in a very good position to react.

 

On a related matter, the reserve TU buttons on the control panel are just that. They reserve enough TUs for you to take that particular move during the current turn, they don't influence your ability to react during the aliens' turn.

 

From my experience, Coelacanth/Gas Cannon and Coelacanth/Aquajet seem to break the rules a little and don't always appear to attract reaction fire. I can't explain it at all, but it might be worth trying one purely for scouting purposes and see how it goes for you. I'd go for the aquajet if only to make rearming it less of a hassle. Doesn't apply to the Displacers or any of the tanks in Enemy Unknown.

 

Equipment-wise, it's not a bad idea to jump to the gauss weapons as soon as reasonably possible. Even just going as far as the Gauss Pistol will do, as it's a major improvement over the Jet Harpoon with a better burst mode, better damage and has best of all has large ammo clips. Then concentrate on the Sonic Pulser and any one of the Sonic weapons. Note you can actually get away with just using Gas Cannons with a mix of AP and HE shells as your main weapons until going for the Sonics. The Gas Cannon is one of the better starting weapon you can get your hands on.

 

General tip: If all else fails, just use more explosives. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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  • 3 months later...
Guest tonicboy
First of all, are you playing on Beginner? Your first game should really be on Beginner. You may think you're an advanced gamer and can jump right in to Veteran, but don't. Secondly, read this site - http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=TFTD. It has basically every piece of information you could possibly want. In fact, there's too much and you will experience information overload at first but don't worry, just look up little pieces of information as you go along when you have specific questions.
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beside ufopaedia.org mentioned by tonicboy

I would also recommend some videos youtube.com

search for: terror from the deep

 

well, you could try this one

 

my personal most important advice for beginner would be to SAVE FREQUENTLY ;)

 

my save suggestions for newbie

- before sending barracuda to intercept subs

when you learn which sub can be safely attack

- before sending triton to any missions

cause some missions can crash or start in VERY bad position

- each new turn

so you could restart turn if you made major tactical error

or things gone really bad for you, like grenade booms inside triton

not from aliens, but because YOU forget to pick that armed grenade from the floor

 

- and BEFORE shoting, if you cannot hit that lone alien, and this makes you so nervous ;)

 

yes, I know save/load cripples any game, but .... as beginner ... its acceptable

 

good hunting anyway

yarrow

Edited by yarrow
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