First Time

[KGB]

I wanna start a new game in a superhuman mode.

 

I have never played TFTD before. Played UFO for over 5 years, never got my hands on the TFTD.

 

I did read alot about tho, about the bugs and all. And since there are simularities between UFO and TFTD who know I may even finish it :: :: ::

 

How long do you think I will last?

[Puasonen]

Well if you aren't a save/load pu**y. I think you have to start all over again a few times but I bet you can win it. It isn't as hard as everyone says. MC(psi) is much easier to get than in ufo defense. Just remember to follow the tech tree so that you won't get stuck with it. Remember how to go around those bugs.

[KGB]

I will only resort to loading the game if something will go horribly wrong.

[KGB]

Just started playing. It's the 7th and I had my first ufo landed by itself . Already killed 5 aquatoids. The graphics are a bit wierd. I like the effect harpoon does while flying. On the down side everything is too damn blue. I know it is "under water" but come on. Played for 40 minutes, went sleeping but I couldn't cuz all I saw is blue blue and more blue.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Just wait until you get a ship terror site! That will really make you crazy. All those small, grey rooms...

[KGB]

Does anyone have uso floorplans?

[KGB]

well it's 9th. Second uso appeared and oddly enough it's landed too. I'm saving a bunch on craft weapons It's aquatoids again. I swear thows suckers almost never miss. If I hit an alien and it doesn't die , the chances that my guy isn't gonna survive are astronomical.

 

I gotta question: do sonic weapons only work underwater?

If so what is the best weapon on land, gauss?

[Whitewashed]

sonic weapons work on land

[[NKF]]

Sonic pulsers would probably be the most powerful area effect weapon on land (it can destroy bits of the troop transport on land). The thermal shok launcher is a very close contender.

 

Let me explain briefly how reaction fire works - as it's good to know. Your reaction score is adjusted by the percentage of your total remaining time units. This isn't shown by the game, it's calculated internally, but you can calculate it yourself with paper and pen or a calculator. If the alien can see you and has an andjusted reaction score higher than yours (m.c readers are good for this), it will interrupt your move and get off a reaction shot. So, to keep your soldiers safe from reaction fire, try to keep their TU bars as full as possible while exploring the field. As long as you have the higher reaction score, any aliens that can see you will not be able to interrupt you. When they get the higher score, and if they have enough TUs to fire a shot, they will.

 

When fighting the aliens, don't use the same person who spot the alien as the one who shoots it unless you cannot help it or unless you get out of visual range. As long as the alien cannot see the shooter, it won't be able to get off a reaction shot even if the shooter has an adjusted reaction level that's only a fraction of the alien's. Keep in mind that the alien's visual ranges is not reduced by the light levels. They get to see everything as if it were a land mission in full daylight.

 

- NKF

Edited January 21, 2004 by NKF

[Cpl. Facehugger]

The best weapon on land would have to be, as NKF said, the sonic pulser.Although I reccommend the Sonic Cannon, Thermal Shok Launcher, and the Thermic lance. These are all very effective in terror sites (especially ships.)

[Puasonen]

Keep in mind that the alien's visual ranges is not reduced by the light levels. They get to see everything as if it were a land mission in full daylight.

 

- NKF

That's a very annoying fact but I bet he's used to it in Ufo defense because the same system was in use in that game too.

 

What comes to weapons, drills are the way to go, they rock! Aliens won't react if you drill them and drilling takes a lot less TU's than shooting with any weapon. It's also very effective and biodrones won't blow up if you drill them to pieces.

Edited January 21, 2004 by Nyyperoid

[KGB]

NKF I already knew that, none the less i enjoy reading your replys

 

 

You remind me of DATA from Star Trek TNG. (which i`m watching at the moment)

There is nothing you don`t know and your replys are always scientific.

 

 

I'm more of a sniper. I prefer staying clear of the enemy.

And I like to use weapons not grenades. Freezing is dumb if you don't need live aliens since they can wake up and it WILL take you 40 minutes to find them again.

 

P.S.

My post wasn`t about reaction but about accuracy that they posses.

Could be the fact that it`s superhuman

Edited January 21, 2004 by KGB

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Go for the sonic cannons!

[KGB]

sonic cannon = heavy plasma ?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Sonic cannon = Heavy Plasma - Autoshot and clip size

Gas Cannon= Uber Heavy Cannon

Thermic Lance= Pwnzor!!!111

Gauss Rifle= Good for about the first month of the game

[[NKF]]

KGB - freezing enemies with the shok bombs is actually one of the fastest methods of knocking any threat out in the entire game (well, excluding the Sleeper's cryovat batteries). In fact, in UFO stun bombs are the ultimate superhuman Sectopod neutraliser (I actually laughed at the idea at first, but after trying it against a group of three sectopods...)

 

They're stunned. That doesn't mean you have to leave them stunned! I mean, come on, you want to keep your containment as empty of redundant units as you can, right? No sense in gathering a couple hundred grunts.

 

Note that aliens that have been stunned do not get to use any of their super-tough armour and any special damage reduction modifiers. So even an unconscious superhuman Lobsterman Commander will die instantly from a magna-blast grenade. It's a bit ironic, but hey, there you go!

 

But with every advantage, there's always some disadvantage. Thermal Shok bombs are expensive on your zrbite if you plan to produce and use them regularly. I'd hang on to one or two shok cannons and hoard the ammo for those special occasions.

 

Eh... I can prattle on and on when simple answers would suffice, but just try to speak to me in real life and all you'll think I'm an idiot. My most eloquent replies would consist of "Er..." "um..." and "I don't know.". Such is life.

 

- NKF

Edited January 22, 2004 by NKF

[Puasonen]

Gauss becomes completely useless after you see tasoths for the first time. Gauss is only effective against aquatoids and gillmen IMO. Try to get the calcinite -> they only appear at aquatoid terrorsites. That gives you the best weapon available -> vibro blade.

Many of these people here will disagree with me because there's more powerful drills, thermic lance and HEAVY thermic lance. But IMO, vibro blade is the best because it also kills almost every alien with one "shot" and takes a lot less TU's to use than thermic lances. About 5 time units with normal soldier.

[[NKF]]

It's not shown in the UFOpaedia, but the usage costs for the drills are 10%, 15% and 20% of your TUs respectively (or, in other words their potential rate of attacks per round would be up to 10 hits, 6 hits, 5 hits respectively).

 

Gauss mainly becomes obsolete against the lobstermen. Superhuman tasoths can be killed with GC-AP/HE shells and sneak point-blank gauss pistol bursts from behind. I'm not saying that they're particularly good at defeating Tasoth (apart from the GC-HE shells, they aren't). I'm just saying that they can.

 

- NKF

Edited January 22, 2004 by NKF

[SupSuper]

ever tried to kill a lobsterman with a Jet Harpoon (equivalent to Rifle)? you take about 5-6 turns with auto shots to do it, and it usually just stuns him

[Puasonen]

Well if you have M.C. disruptors, you don't have to use any other weapons than harpoon pistol. You can mc them as long as it takes to kill them.

-> one of the things that ruins the game

[[NKF]]

Depends on the difficulty level, I guess. It would be impossible to breach the armour of the superhuman lobsterman with darts or harpoons. See, darts can do between 0 and 16 damage. Lobstermen halve that automatically. Superhuman lobstermen also get 24 armour(except under armour, which is 12). 16/2 - 24... well, it's not a pretty sight. Gas cannons might be able to breach the armour if it rolls a full 60 damage. 60/2 - 24 = 6. Not much, but it would reduce the lobsterman's armour slighty, making the next shot hit harder.

 

I don't have any figures for the jet harpoon nor the lobsterman armour, but if the jet harpoon does 30 damage and beginner level lobstermen have 12 armour, I think you'd have a possibility of having each shot do from 0 up to 30/2 - 12 = 3 damage (with this value increasing as the armour is damaged).

 

- NKF

[KGB]

Yeah one of the mistakes I made was to research gauss tech tree. I'm only on pistol tho and won't advance anymore. Just found 10 super-blasta rifles I know they aren't the best weapons but 9 days into the game it's pretty damn close.

 

NKF - You are saying I should freeze them then use one of the grenades to kill them? Well I DON'T like grenades!!! I know some of you will tell me that it's one of the best weapons but I still won't use them, only if I'll be out of ammo(I do pick them up... it's for a double effect : $$$ + str, even tho I don't get much str for it)

 

I'm still on the second mission, just killed 2 aqua dudes

 

BTW my last mission was either on Survey Ship or on Escort and what can I say, the whole ship had like 10-12 empty spaces which is for about 10-12 aliens max. I had 9 on my mission. I'd hate to be an alien on one of them ships ... no place for anything, no chairs ... no wonder ther are so nasty(probably cranky from their flight).

Edited January 22, 2004 by KGB

[KGB]

NKF were you one of the creators of the game?

Cuz your knowledge of the game astounds me.

 

Edit: how come you aren't on the project? Your knowledge would be really helpfull.

Edited January 22, 2004 by KGB

[Cpl. Facehugger]

The Gauss tree isn't so useful for actual combat as it is for money. The Craft Gauss cannon nets you the highest profit per unit in the game, meaning you can just produce 100 Gauss Cannons and get a profit of like 30 mil.

 

Now the Sonic weapons tree is very useful, because it leads to the sonic oscillator, which lets you annhilate every uso except the dreadnought. (V. Large)

 

The Drills are also too valuable to be without. Usually, one whack with a thermic lance will kill most enemies. Two is pretty much garenteed to kill.

[Darkvater]

The only problem with sonic pulsars, or grenades in general is that they don't count in your kill score. This means that if you kill aliens only with grenades your TU, FA, etc. will grow a lot slower then if you would've shot them

[KGB]

Just another reason not to use sonic pulsar.

 

Edit: I totaly forgot about gauss cannon.

Edited January 22, 2004 by KGB

[Puasonen]

The only problem with sonic pulsars, or grenades in general is that they don't count in your kill score. This means that if you kill aliens only with grenades your TU, FA, etc. will grow a lot slower then if you would've shot them

Are you kidding? Of course they count! At least in my version.

Try again.

[Robo Dojo 58]

The only problem with sonic pulsars, or grenades in general is that they don't count in your kill score. This means that if you kill aliens only with grenades your TU, FA, etc. will grow a lot slower then if you would've shot them.

That's probably because you can kill aliens with just one or two pulsars. If you shoot aliens with the jet harpoon, you'll need to score many hits to take anything past gillman down.

 

Experience is based on number of hits. Sure, you can get alot of hits with the harpoon, and thus alot of XP. But be prepared to lose half of your squad every battle. -_- That's why the pros use grenades!

[KGB]

Just finished my second mission. And woohoo I got a sonic cannon. Not only that I found vibro blade :happybanana:

 

As soon as I finished the mission I was prepared for the worst since first 2 missions were a joke. 4 days later quess what another landed uso.

 

Is it me or the game is THAT easy?

 

P.S.

The thing which I don't understand is why do you need to research all 3 sonic weapons to get sonic obcillator? Looks like a waste ot time.

Edited January 23, 2004 by KGB

[Whitewashed]

Is it me or the game is THAT easy?

 

No, it's not easy... you just wait and see

[Cpl. Facehugger]

The lobsters are calling to you... If you don't have drills, you will die.

 

Lobsters are the body killer, you cannot face them and let their claws pass through you. (Shamelessly ripping off Dune)

[KGB]

Isn't vibro blade a drill?

 

How many shots does it take to kill a lobster with a sonic cannon?

Edited January 23, 2004 by KGB

[KGB]

According to the tech tree to get vibro blade i need to research calcinate corpse. Then how come I was able to find it durring my last mission?

[Puasonen]

Well you HAVE it but can't RESEARCH it before you have researched calcinite corpse.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Yes indeed. Nypperoid is correct, the Vibroblade is useless unless you have the calcinite corpse to *test?* it on.

 

Make sure you nab a dead calcinite (and a live one too if you can manage it) so that you can get the drills, which you can't really live without.

 

Edit: On superhuman, it usually takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-6 shots with a sonic cannon to kill a lobster. Ask NKF, he'll know.

Edited January 23, 2004 by Cpl. Facehugger

[KGB]

where is NKF when you need him

[[NKF]]

Just had to wait for the site to start working on my side of the globe. And no, I have nothing to do with the creation of the games. I just spent a few afternoons with paper, pen and a calculator, and with the help of some basic statistics and simple maths, voila, instant knowledge!

 

KGB - don't like grenades? Use GC-HE shells. Even better - guaranteed to provide instant gratification before the end of the turn!

 

Grenades do count towards your experience - only if you 'throw' them. Just priming it and dropping the grenade won't give the soldier any experience (or it might give the last person who threw the grenade the experience -- I need to check this some time). Find it hard to believe? Well, try play a grenade-only game for a while and see for yourself.

 

As for lobstermen, I did some statistics a while. Let me see if I can find it. Ah, here we go.

 

A superhuman lobsterman has 24 external armour (all round except under armour).

 

A sonic cannon does 0 - 130 damage. Lobstermen get 1/2 damage from sonic. So sonic cannons only deal 0 - 75 damage. Subtract armour and we are left with 0 - 41 damage for the first shot. All subsequent shots hitting the same section of armour will deal more damage as armour gets damaged.

 

How much health does a superhuman lobsterman have? 60 or so health? I'd say the lobstermen need anywhere between 2 - 3 sonic cannon hits for a best case scenario.

 

 

- NKF

Edited January 24, 2004 by NKF

[KGB]

130/2 = 65 Edited January 26, 2004 by KGB

[KGB]

If you don't mind telling me, where are you from?

[Puasonen]

Every crazy professor is absent-minded so we have to forgive NKF for that mistake Edited January 26, 2004 by Nyyperoid

[KGB]

But he was like a god to me ... never wrong untill now. He is human after all

[[NKF]]

Never said I was perfect. (I used to put in LOTS of disclaimers and made most of my posts as ambiguous as anything... that was annoying. )

 

And the irony of it is, I actually came back and edited that calculation after realising I'd gotten it wrong the first time, only to get it wrong again.

 

- NKF

Edited January 27, 2004 by NKF

[Puasonen]

And the irony of it is, I actually came back and edited that calculation after realising I'd gotten it wrong the first time, only to get it wrong again.

 

- NKF

::

[KGB]

:: :: ::

 

That is just too funny