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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

The Superhuman Experience!


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yes, i finally put away all my fear, gave myself lots of courage, got everything set up (including my agression) and started to play UFO on the Superhuman difficulty, without doing save&load cheats. i'm also using the DOS version to avoid unwanted problems, and just play it on CE so i can take screenshots.

anyways, i've decided to turn to much more agressive tactics in this difficulty. all interceptors loaded with avalanches and stingrays. skyranger with a tank/rocket launcher and lots of soldiers loaded with heavy cannons, auto cannons and rocket launchers, all loaded with HE ammo. i also got them some pistols for emergencies (until i get laser rifles) ;)

these are the current results:

- small ufos cause about 40% damage to my interceptors :blink:

- first crash site. ufo is right next to my skyranger. some soldiers survey the area. nothing. open the door of the ufo. 6 sectoids all cooped up inside. tank moves in, shoots 2 or 3 rockets, mission finished :)

- second crash site. sectoids seem more agressive than before. however, they were found again all near/in the ufo, nobody in barns or such ^_^

as usual, sectoid found, sectoid killed. unfortunately, two rookies died since they didn't have enough TUs to kill more than two sectoids in one turn. also, my tank is worth lots, being great at firing rockets at sectoids inside ufos. rookies also seem to be hitting very good, although they're using two-handed heavy weapons with both hands occupied. well, with rockets it's hard to miss ;)

after some turns, the mission was done. although superhuman, i still think it's being kinda easy, and yes, i do have the patched game (with the difficulty bug fixed). that is, if you don't count the lots of damage small ufos due to my interceptors :P

laser rifles are almost finished researching.

- first terror site. so far all i've done is kill a floater, but i'll keep you updated.

heavy_loaded.png

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remember what i said about the game being too easy? scrap that, my terror site has doomed me, along with my game <_>

here's some screenshots.

 

As soon as the tank decided to leave the Skyranger, it got zapped. But if he wouldn't leave, neither could the rest of the crew.

tank.png

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* Use Dual Avs on your interceptors.

* 14 guys with AC 2 HE clips (outside) 1 AP clip each (inside)

* First turn throw a smoker to the bottom of the ramp and one inside your skyranger.

* Second turn start moving guys out.

* Advance slowly

 

Losing to Floaters is .... embarrassing! :blink:

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LOL you lost to floaters during a sunny day mission :D

Welcome to noncheaters club, this really happens sometimes but you really should have had one guy ready to jump back to the skyranger before you lose it. Don't panic though, the game will forgive you for losing a terror site or two. Just buy a new skyranger and equip it from zero again.. It really is "fun" and challenging and when you finally win it, it's worth it!

 

Just wait until snakemen night terror site or ethereal night terror site.. OMG they are hard..

 

I agree with stewart with the smoke grenade tactic.. You lose a bit more civilians but then again, you win the mission and usually get ok/good rating anyway..

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Hahah, loosing to Floaters :LOL:

Heh, just had a Sectoid terror mission, very nice one indeed. 14 soldiers, laser rifle/AC/HC/RL/laser pistol-stun rod load-outs. First turn: one alien in front of Skyranger, rookie 1 shoots and kills with a HC (HE of course :naughty: ), but gets shot in turn by an unvisible alien. Immediately began emergency procedure: throwing a few smoke grenades on and below the ramp, end turn. Nothing happens, second turn starts. Begin unloading Skyranger, taking out 5 sectoids (this does, however, cause my troops to stay close together as TU's are needed to fire). 2 Cyberdisks spotted :eek: , but all their shots miss. Leave about 1/3 of my men inside the Skyranger, others are within a 10 square radius around the exit ramp. No more sectoids in sight, end turn. Suddenly another 5 sectoids appear in various positions, one shoots my Sergeant but gets taken out by reaction fire, some more rookies are fired upon, 1 or two die. Suddenly the thing I feared most: two Sectoids throw an alien grenade between my men (yeah, apparently the smoke did not conceal my men enough :wacko: ). Alien turn ends, two explosions, I'm left with four rookies inside panicking and berserking (one hits his neighbour, 3 men left :hammer: )

4th turn: Abort :crying:

At least I took out 7 Sectoids and saved the craft :boohoo:

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Some mission beginnings are unfairly tough but that's just life :D
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LOL you lost to floaters during a sunny day mission  :D

Welcome to noncheaters club, this really happens sometimes but you really should have had one guy ready to jump back to the skyranger before you lose it. Don't panic though, the game will forgive you for losing a terror site or two. Just buy a new skyranger and equip it from zero again.. It really is "fun" and challenging and when you finally win it, it's worth it!

 

Just wait until snakemen night terror site or ethereal night terror site.. OMG they are hard..

 

I agree with stewart with the smoke grenade tactic.. You lose a bit more civilians but then again, you win the mission and usually get ok/good rating anyway..

- i would've recovered the craft if there wasn't something as mass panicking -> mass suicide -_-

- i had to restart the game since i didn't have enough funds for a new skyranger :rolleyes:

- i know how those feel, i have played ufo before (just not on Superhuman difficulty).

- that's probably the reason no1 cares about civilians :P

 

anyways, i'm on another terror site, again versus floaters. but this time i'm being smarter and zapping them more easily.

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I just started playing superhuman and stopped reloading too :D  My first terror mission wasn't too bad only 3 civs dead and no dead agents :LOL: is it always going to be this easy?

Dream on man! :D

 

You'll get surprised.. :devillaugh:

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Dream on man!  :D  You'll get surprised..  :devillaugh:

Yeah and I was using rifles too but it was a floater terror at day.

And I have trouble beating ethereals on beginner I wonder what superhuman ethereals are like... *shudders*

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latest updates:

 

- now only large / very large ufos show up, and i can't keep up with them. when i can, i attack them with my avalanches but they don't carry enough ammo to crash it so have to return to base.

- first terror site (restarted game). floater / reapers. took 20 turns to waste'em all and lost 2 soldiers. wasted a lot of ammo on trying to kill a reaper with an ordinary rifle -_-

- researched laser pistol, rifle, alien alloys ^_^

- second terror site. floaters (no reapers). took 15 turns and managed to waste them all without losing a single soldier :)

 

i'll give u a pack of screenshots later

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  • 8 months later...
How are difficulty levels differentiated from one another?  I was under the impression that the only difference in levels is the accuracy rating of the aliens.  Does someone know for certain that this is not the case?

Here's the actual alien count thread, and to my knowledge, it is pretty much accurate. :D

 

As you can see, there's a heck of a difference in the number of aliens between easy and Superhuman, especially terrorists... :o

 

I'm not sure, but I THINK there are more UFOs, and they also get bigger at higher Diff levels... And our bases get attacked a LOT more easily.... Just let one or two of these Battleships pass through, and you'll have a house call...

 

I can tell ya that having 6 Cyberdisks on your FIRST terror mission is particularly SUICIDAL !! :crying:

Can't wait to meet Ethereals... :spank:

 

Anyway, Since you have more cash flowing in in Superhuman, I find it easier after the first few months, since you have much more UFO parts and alien guns to sell :naughty: (although I' did'nt see more than one plasma pistol after April)

 

Oh, and yes, all of the alien's stats are boosted higher up in difficulty, that includes health and ARMOR, so you better take the right kind of gun for the job... :uzzi: :alienmad:

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You know, I have just started playing UFO again, and I have been wondering, should I take the plunge and play 'normally'? I will probably start on beginner though, but I will let you know when I start playing on SH normally :D
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Why start on beginner if you have played the game before? Instead of training I guess?

I have also after many years started playing on superhuman without reloading which actually makes the game far more challenging and a much much better experience.

Just lost 10 agents securing a Floater Base. Before I would have started the mission from the beginning and tried it agian which is really cheating. The empowerment of going with the casualties and really going where the game takes you instead of just reloading when things go wrong shouldn't be underestimated.

Now have a whole different level of enjoyment of playing.

Thats my 5 cents.

:beer:

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I've spawned before with 2 snakemen and 2 crystallids about 24 squares ahead of the exit of my skyranger.. (on a terror mission).. As I exit the ramp, I find out that there's also 2 snakemen with heavy plasmas crossfiring on my ramp BEHIND the craft.. Oh my.. That one took so many reloads.. Then again, that was only on "Experienced".

 

Now, I'm trying veteren with no reloads.. So far it's going well, but surprisingly very little UFO activity..

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  • 1 month later...

Recently, i've also started game on Superhuman (but with reloads - i'm not that tough). My main base is in Europe, somewhere in Poland. Rearmed my Interceptors, euiped my men and it started. Medium and Large Scouts are flying all around and my crafts can't keep up with them :cussing: Even very small UFO's are hard to catch and they keep disengaging very often. Managed to down one Small Scout and recovered it losing one soldier (Sectoid came out from barn which i thought is empty). Also those bastards are very active all around the world, especially in South America and Asia which are a long way from my base.

I think i will raise my chances and use some save editor before it will ruin my health :devillaugh:

Ros

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The precise situation was this:

 

It was september, heavy plasmas, full lasers, building my first firestorm, building laser rifles to sell (still I have to decide what I should build to be sold), corpses of everything, researching a navigator and a leader. Plenty of scientists and engineers, with a workshop being built so I have room for build anything general small (rifle lasers, suits...) while I keep space for building firestorms or avengers at their moment.

61000 dollars, with expenses two million higher than total funding. I lived through black market and I was expecting with the captured ufos and rifle sells be able to end the month with more than a million dollars, it just was a week of heavy costs (the workshop more one extra lab, plus a living quarter for new engineers, plus two plasma defenses and one grav shield, I think, for the main base, plus one hangar, one living quarter and one general stores for the second).

And then...zas! a muton rats battleship lands on my main base. At first things go well: I kill six or seven mutons, three celatids and one silacoid. But the muton's flow doesn't decrease and I have always two or three in around the elevator (I use an edited starting base taking into account the price of the standard starting base and building it with what I wanted and could have within that limit) I am holding them with two pair of soldiers, one at each side, not so close they are catched by a simple grenade, but still not far away. There are more near and they replace the losses. At fourth or fifth turn I had only one dead. But now I get five mutons there. And killing four of them I lose five soldiers.

Mutons are still coming, but I reorganize the defense, the situation seems not so bad, although I've lost my two strongest soldiers. But now there comes the problem: a rat got a blaster and kills six more soldiers, also they destroy some of the weapons on the grounf left by dead soldiers and mutons, and due to the item limit and the laser rifle sell I was going to do the next time I were going to check the base, there is only one soldier out of the remaining five that has a heavy plasme, the rest have laser rifles.

The three nearer soldiers are caught by reaction fire, the heavy plasma is one of them. Then the defense line is broken and the mutons are free to go around the base and the remaining two can't do anything, they got easily killed by mutons that weren't killed by three laser shots.

And then I was left with 64000$ and one base which structure was:

One hangar being built, one active hangar with one interceptor, one general stores, one living quarter, one large radar, eight T-shirt rookies and the weapons needed by those eight, not enough to buy a skyranger, nothing to build a lightning, and not enough to sell the interceptor and buy an skyranger for eight unarmed rookies. So I gave up. :crying:

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  • 1 year later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Supsuper I believe in innocent until proven guilty but did you steel the picture with 5 aliens in it???? Cos I saw that picture on abandonia the exact same one LOL

 

Wow it is the same picture, but mabye instead of SupSuper stealing it from abandonia it could have been the otherway round (or more likely SupSuper provided the piccie)

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  • 8 months later...

Hey guys, my first post here, thought I'd share my first experience of superhuman, played last night:

 

Tried a new game on superhuman, having only played on beginner so far. I read up on a few strategies to help me get started.

I created bases in Hawaii and Saudi Arabia. About 8 weeks in I get my first mission: a terror attack in Nairobi. In the mean time I had researched laser cannons, and had about 80 engineers churning them out, giving me a solid economic footing. I send a Skyranger with 9 guys - they have the basic starting eqipment, along with a smattering of laser pistols.

My team arrives at night, and I lay down some flares and smoke. First off the ramp is a heavy weapons agent - she gets shot in the back and dies instantly. 1 down, 8 left.

The next 4 guys are luckier, and deploy under fire without taking further casualties. 2 aliens are spotted: the first is killed by a burst of automatic rifle fire. The second proves to be a trickier customer: 12 las pistol shots fail to find their mark.

I have one shooter left: autocannon boy. I figure what the heck, I might get lucky and take out the sectoid with a snap shot. Got to take any opportunity I can to keep casualties down.

Firing incendiary rounds from behind the down ramp proves to be an unwise decision. The snap shot clips the side of the down ramp, exploding and covering Autocannon boy and his 3 compadres in napalm. 2 of them burn to death within a couple of rounds: 6 agents are left.

Meanwhile the sectoids are still more interested in gunning down civilians. Two of the aliens are killed without taking further casualties.

The last agent out of the Ranger spots the first Cyberdisc, just beyond a fence. A prox grenade is lobbed over - it explodes, destroying the fence, but leaving the disc very much alive. Concentrated fire eventually brings it down, but not before the disc has managed to kill the agent that had been using the fence as cover. 5 agents left.

Did I mention smoke? My agents don't have access to armour yet, so two of them pass out before they can make it to the breathable areas of the map. 3 active agents left.

Last agent out of the ranger makes it to a nearby house, spotting her second cyberdisc in the process. Not wanting to shoot it and risk return fire, she takes a step away from the window and toward the stairs. An unseen sniper shoots her in the back. 2 agents left (and 2 unconscious).

One of the KO's awakes. She's near the ranger, and manages to make it up the ramp, where she collects a rifle, before heading a little further in, where she crouches for safety. Doesn't help. Cyberdisc 2 shoots her dead the very next round. 2 actives and 1 KO left.

One guy makes it to an unoccupied, smoke-free building. He has so far survived immolation (at the expense of half his health), and has escaped the smoke cloud covering half the map. I cautiously manuever him around to spot for more aliens. He comes under cyberdisc fire, but survives to find cover. A plan is formed. He primes a prox grenade, shoots out the back wall of the building, and moves outside. He steps around the corner, only to see two sectoids and the disc. Discretion being the better part of valour, he steps back. Not having the action points to throw his grenade, he drops it at his feet and steps away. Boom. 1 active agent and 1 KO'd agent left (I was assuming that prox grenades become live at the end of the round - nope).

Autocannon boy is the last active agent available. I had left him in the corner of the map, illuminating the general area with incendiaries. He trudges purposefully toward the skyranger. A sectoid is spotted, which he misses. An unseen alien caps him in the back of the head, execution-style. All dead, the end.

 

I will probably call this a practice campaign, and just start over (no reloads for me, but a restart seems ok under these circumstances). As it turns out, I think the positioning of my first base in Hawaii (intended to be handy for both China/Australia and the Americas) is not so good, as the small radar station doesn't have the coverage to detect any UFO activity (I could try again, but building a large radar station ASAP, see if it makes any difference).

Edited by baruk
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  • 2 months later...

I just graduated to Super Human games as well. I am doing well in game 1, but I didn't detect any UFO's in March and got a bad negative score. There was a terror mission that I "won" but I lost 450 points due to casualties. Once my strike base near Alien Base-1 is online I expect to start doing quite well.

 

 

As it turns out, I think the positioning of my first base in Hawaii (intended to be handy for both China/Australia and the Americas) is not so good, as the small radar station doesn't have the coverage to detect any UFO activity (I could try again, but building a large radar station ASAP, see if it makes any difference).

 

 

You might make this work if Hawaii was an airbase and you had listening posts in North America and China. You only need to loot a couple of UFO's to afford listening posts. In the mean time you can hover your skyranger alternately over N.A. and China to detect UFOs.

 

I might try that out myself in my next game.

 

-D

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  • 1 year later...
I haven't tried the no reloads thing yet... I recently did an ethereal terror mission--there were 8 sectopods. EIGHT. Even in the daytime, with reloads, I was getting brutalized. I had already done enough screening to ditch most of the really weak-minded soldiers, just had 2 or 3 that were panicking. I also had a total of 6 blaster bombs, that I used to take out as many sectopods as I could. Basically my strategy was to use my hovertank as a scout, keeping all of my soldiers inside the craft. Every turn I would duck out, lob a grenade, and take some potshots at whoever I could, using laser rifles and a couple heavy lasers for the big guys. This was the only method I found that worked after having to restart the mission numerous times.
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I'm again on Superhuman. I plan no reloading after first sticky mission kind.

 

Have been doing good, a couple ufos shot down and just one or two losses in each mission.

 

First crowded cross shaped scout (ufo landed, not shot down), I reloaded a few times as the last aliens were going to massacre the team using the doors going in and out. Won't do it again in further landed ufos. There was just three or four outside, who killed one of my agents. Seven were inside. The first reload was basically because I had managed to stun a sectoid (with a rod! in my old beginner games never could do that), who happened to be a mere soldier, and a bad thrown grenade had wiped his corpse. The next were because some soldiers who had survived the next turn were now getting killed by reaction fire that didn't happen in the first.

 

And next mission was a terror with sectoids and cyberdisks. I get my men out and they start good enough, they take two sectoids and one cyberdisk with AC, grenades and lasers. However I've sent only rookies and their accuracy sucks, 95% shoots go to the stars. Then one soldier with high bravery gets mind controlled and shoots down three comrades. I stun her. In the next turns my men take down some more sectoids, but they eat a few rations of alien grenades. Finally, with two men inside the ranger and the stunned girl I dust off. Terrible rating, -650, save the game. But the stunned girl doesn't count to be with my men. Meh. I then think I perhaps could do better and decide to try again, I reload after the first turn, get many psi attacks. Reload again and this time I get things right and I start killing sectoids, though I don't see any more cyberdisks. Until I arrive to the other side of the map and in a corner, behind a building there are two of them. I save for some reloads as I want to test some things. I find they survive well to AC-HE blast radious as well as AC-I fire area. And need good amount of lasers to go off. Grenades seem to do nothing. They have a heck of reaction fire, my men almost can't get in line of fire. Seems smoke does work. I manage to kill them and the last alien in one reload, though losing most of the crew. I then reload and do what I would have normally done at that point, seeing as most of my crew has rifles and is out of grenades, the demolition charges being wasted with sectoids earlier, and the girl with the rocket launcher being encumbered and likely not going to be able to approach the cyberdisks. So I bring all men back to the ranger, as the disks seem stuck where they are (they have one two squares corridor between the house and one map edge but don't take it), taking up everything alien they find in the way back (alien corpses and their equipment), then finally dust off, saving nine rookies, two of which become sergeants and recovering three sectoid corpses and three heavy plasma rifles and clips. Save and I'm playing from that point now.

 

I have only one mission with allowance to reload, as is my intention, though I'd be happy if I don't: alien base assault.

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  • 4 weeks later...

And the first game has ended.

 

Sectoids built a base in Peru, Brazil signed a pact with them. I let them be and start building a third base (already have an intercepting one in Manila, as that was a high UFO activity in early game, with three terror sites in two months in Australia) in US. When it has its first interceptor I start sending it to patrol near the base, though have only found one ship, which landed and was assaulted, it was a scout.

 

Well, around April the activity is increasing a lot in China and with the base in Germany and Filippines I get to shot many UFOs down around there, with four crash sites in a single day! score sky rockets. I get to know hyperwave decoder and start building the first hyperwave decoder I was going to have ever.

 

Then June comes... Monthly expenses (wages and maintenance) are already three millions above funding, two interceptors are lost to a terror ship, both over Russia, which turns to make a -400 points score there, and plasma cannon is still being researched. Good the terror ship returned hom without terrorizing anyone. A few days pass. A couple abductors are shot down in east Russia. I send the skyranger to one. Its taken with only one man down. It returns and when it refuels I send it to the second. This goes bad, there are a bit too many floater, my team is set down to one man. There is much luck as the three remaining floaters aren't together, so he can take them one by one and take the skyranger back home, the soldier wounded.

 

But... while it's returning... terror site in Vladivostok. I take an interceptor with six men from Filippines, not too well equipped (it was an intercepting base ofr Oceania and East Asia and the men from main base in Europe were just been fully equiped up to the current scientific developments) with three plasma soldiers and three heavy cannon guys. The mission is night time, too. The team is wiped, though not before annihilating about two thirds to three quarters of the alien forces, having likely taken every reaper.

 

I order to transer some soldiers from Oceania and US bases to my main, where there are four wounded and only one healthy soldier. When they've not arrived and the skyranger did, but with a wounded soldier, making my base manned by five wounded and one able soldier, sectoids attack it. A single soldier, who isn't spawned anywhere close to the choke points has no chances to win a sectoid force. In the best scenario the constant psi attacks on the only X-COM agent would do the trick before could get to the commander.

 

So the main base is lost and I have around $74,000, poor manufacturing abilities, as most of the elerium was in the main base, most of the alien tech was in the main base, a base that is being started and now can't be built further, with only one interceptor, as the second hangar is still being built and it's quite a time until it's finished. A second base that while might be able to work as the new main, hasn't been supplied well enough. A single interceptor and a recently bought skyranger. I might come back from it, because the expenses, without the main base should go low a lot. But all points to a new month of negative balance in the economical side, two bases ill equipped to be effective in detecting and hunting UFOs, too poor economy...

 

So I decide I want quick money and points. Then, since luckily the soldiers that were going to be transferred to the main base aren't and they're in their origin bases, I take the 14 best men and load them in the skyranger for the alien base. All with their heavy plasma, except two with heavy cannons, all with at least one charge of high explosive...

 

But then a blaster bomb takes four of them in the second turn, two I kill after being controlled, one who is controlled after throwing a high explosive set for 2 kills one of my men and then, by not moving from there in the next turn, is killed by the high explosive. And the six others get killed to being separated and ill placed.

 

End of the mission.

 

I might have not assaulted the alien base, but I found that I had reloaded a bit more than I wanted, so thought a good attempt to get an epic comeback or start a new game, this time with 0 reloads.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm with the new game. No reloads. I'm in the last days of May, got my first ever Hyperwave decoder; have laser cannon for my interceptors, got heavy plasmas, I'm researching UFO construction and plasma cannon in the way to be completelly self suficient. I have a small group of scientist researching motion scanner.

 

A bit low of money, have been a few times below 100,000$ but a few sells and some crash sites have brought me back to half million or so. For first time ever I'm equipping my bases with laser defenses (never had more than missiles and only in one game I used them). I'm getting a shuckeroonies load of scientist I'm mostly using all at one task each time except for a few issues.

 

I also have a few working in power suits.

 

Learned it's better not to lose an interceptor, though it's true there was a sectoid terror mission in Novosibirsk that I merely landed, waited, got the rocket launcher to kill a sectoid in reaction shot, fail to kill a cyberdisk beside the ramp and then dust off. So my score in Russia is around -300 (that terror mission ended with -250, which is even better than I got in the previous game after beating them), that perhaps mean losing my interceptor meant -50 points (more or less).

 

Three times I've made a big relief sigh. Three times in a single day HWD popped up warning of a battleship in a retaliation mission, region Siberia, the ship flies straight toward my base, in the path of the firstI sent two interceptors which shot once and disengaged, and the battleship approaching my main base, I sweat and swear, as I don't want a base defense, and it's sectoids... and when the ship is the width of a ship blip away... it turns around and flies in another direction, as if it were scouting for the base and didn't find it. PHEEEEWWWWWWWWWW!!!

 

A few days ago a medium scout for a retaliation mission flying to the Siberia region flew right over my main base, so perhaps next time I won't be so lucky.

 

And the worst is to arrive at any moment: a few flights of infiltrators have been detected around Europe, most except one that outran my interceptor were shot down. Snakemen. AAAAAAAIIIEEEEEE!! That means I can find chryssalids anytime now.

 

Please please please! I give one attack of sectoids in my base if chryssalids don't come!

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  • 1 month later...
Supsuper I believe in innocent until proven guilty but did you steel the picture with 5 aliens in it???? Cos I saw that picture on abandonia the exact same one LOL
I realize this is a really late reply, but to make sure my name stays clean, I submitted those screenshots to Abandonia myself, nobody stole anybody. :)
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