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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Superhuman Vs... Novice?


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Well, a few of the major differences include:

 

* Unique city map

* 6 vs. 8 base locations

* More aliens on harder settings (thus you end up harvesting the activity points, so alien tech advances faster)

 

Those are the most obvious differences. A few observed differences that I cannot confirm fully include:

 

* Alien stats may be boosted as well. But I've never really noticed the difference in their performance on account of the numbers of aliens.

* Organisation are easier to tick off on the harder difficulty levels.

 

 

- NKF

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market availability and availbility of professionals seems lower. For example in week 1 I had only 7 stun grapples in a super human game. In week 4 I had 6 or 7 marsec chest plates. I have never been able to recruit an android either( despite having neutral settings with self.) 2 power swords at week 4.
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Hmm. I managed to get a team on quantum physicists with close to or greater than 90 on day one. It does seem harder, though. I had a grand total of 3 uninjured soldiers once- I had to send some injured soldiers to a UFO drop with them.
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*sigh* :crying1:

 

Sorry for double posting, but...

 

Apparently I'm not cut out for superhuman.

 

Each week (week 3 now) I buy out the stock of hoverbikes. Equip them with rockets, plasma, the works. Then they get massacred by the UFOs- I lose anywhere from 2 to 4 bikes EACH WAVE. This was happening week 1! I lost 2 hoverbike in the first attack, to scouts and probes. Since when did the things get one-shot kills?! :cussing:

 

So by the end of the second UFO attack, my airforce is completely shot down, with 2 or so hovercars (Nowhere near enough to handle assault ships and fast attacks).

 

Then anywhere from 2-5 UFOs (if I'm unlucky, and get an assault, a transport, and 3 scouts) beam down aliens, and I have to go out and clean up, resulting in almost complete decimation of my squads (read: three quarters my men nearly dead) in each mission. :chainsaw: I only have so many soldiers! It's ridiculous.

 

So, Superhuman is out. I'm gonna go with the middle one, as novice is too easy (Cleaned the alien dimension before the aliens got devastators or shields.) WTF

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Now hang on a second, Are you using Apocutil's increased alien numbers, modified ship weapons or anything along those lines?

 

I don't play on any other difficulty but Superhuman these days. It's hard but certainly not impossible. After a while you get so used to it that you forget there are easier levels. :D Don't let failure stop you - treat it as a learning experience. If one thing's not working, try a different approach.

 

You just have to take it easier and be more defensive if your offensive stance is not working. Don't try to take on more than you can chew in the cityscape and tackle the aliens on the ground if the air battles are too much (curse those Fast Attack ships!). Shoot down only what you need, then get the rest of the aliens in the ground missions.

 

Until you get the firepower for your ships, it's cheaper to mop up the aliens in ground battles than it is to waste lots of money on replacing your swarmers or gunships every time the UFOs invade. Take it easy, and use the money you earn to bulk up your armada. It's worth it.

 

 

As for market availability: I don't think difficulty level influences it too much. What's available and tech skill levels are generated through random rolls. Just save before the end of the day (or the day before a stock update if you're checking the items for sale rather than staff), have a look at what you get, reload and try it again and again. It will vary. Perhaps the distrubution of the better skill techs may appear to be lesser on the harder levels, but you certainly won't be short of good staff if you check every day and replace weaker tech with stronger ones as they appear. What I do at the start is hire every tech that's available to fill the spaces (from best to worst), then slowly replace the worst with the best as they appear. It might seem like a waste of money to do it this way, but the hiring costs are relatively small by the time you need a ~1000 strong research team. You don't even need that strong a team (engineers being the exception) if you pace yourself and not rush the alien tech. There really isn't that much to research.

 

Power swords by the way have the lowest stock availability in this game. I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't able to get more than a couple (or worse, none!) a week. They roll a 0 - 2 swords a week after they are vailable if I'm not mistaken. Very rare item indeed. Which is why I like to steal one right from the start. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Thanks for the advice.

 

Not using apocutil, no modified ship weapons (I think. If there are, the would be in my favor. Stronger missiles, etc.). And I'm being very defensive. It's just that when the skeletoids and anthropods step out int my wall of 14-odd disruptor guns, they always manage to get a lucky shot or two with THEIR disruptors. Or worse, devastators.

Also, I try only killing the UFOs I need. It's just that the fast attack ships kill off my ships during the process. I already do the hire the best, fire the worst each day thing. And the main problem lies in having enough healthy men to take out the ground forces.

 

I am,however, proud of the fact that I can, apparently, win assault ship ground missions with little or no injuries. ^_^

 

Strangely enough, when I got power swords, there were 3 in stock. So that's good news. Or it would be if I used the things. <_<

 

So it seems I already follow most of that advice... Except the "only shoot down what you need" bit. I suppose that at this point, I don't need any of the UFOs, seeing as how I have transport, fast attack, and assault ships, so I might as well let them have their way...

 

What I think I'm going to do is restart one level below it. part of my problem is trying to jump from complete domination on novice to superhuman, I think. They aren't good indications of each other.

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*sigh* :crying1:

 

Sorry for double posting, but...

 

Apparently I'm not cut out for superhuman.

 

Each week (week 3 now) I buy out the stock of hoverbikes. Equip them with rockets, plasma, the works. Then they get massacred by the UFOs- I lose anywhere from 2 to 4 bikes EACH WAVE. This was happening week 1! I lost 2 hoverbike in the first attack, to scouts and probes. Since when did the things get one-shot kills?! :cussing:

 

So by the end of the second UFO attack, my airforce is completely shot down, with 2 or so hovercars (Nowhere near enough to handle assault ships and fast attacks).

 

Then anywhere from 2-5 UFOs (if I'm unlucky, and get an assault, a transport, and 3 scouts) beam down aliens, and I have to go out and clean up, resulting in almost complete decimation of my squads (read: three quarters my men nearly dead) in each mission. :chainsaw: I only have so many soldiers! It's ridiculous.

 

So, Superhuman is out. I'm gonna go with the middle one, as novice is too easy (Cleaned the alien dimension before the aliens got devastators or shields.) WTF

 

 

I initially picked only the fights I needed to pick for tech purposes. If you do this you can cultivate a slowly growing fleet.

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Small UFOs don't get one shot kills on hoverbikes. Their small devastator weapon deals 20 damage, minus 1 armor, to their 20 health. Falling debris, however, is extremely hazardous. If you fly high you will aim down, hit buildings, and anger corporations. If you fly low you can have buildings fall and crush your vehicles.

 

The advanced engines are VERY IMPORTANT for your vehicles. Always always pick up the best engines for both your hoverbikes and your covercars. That little extra speed makes a huge difference when you're working with a small vehicle. You should see a difference between losing 2-4 bikes a fight, and losing 1-2 if you're having a bad day. Since hovercars come with the best hoverbike engine, I tend to pick up a mix of both vehicles.

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The Trick to playing super human, Use better Tactics.

The Non-modified sniper rifle is awesome as it is.

Think Im Lieing? Im not.

Its the most accurate gun in the game.. D:

sure it fires slower than alot, thats why you mix up your squads or mass them.

 

You'd be surprised how amazing a squad of Law pistols are when I use them. :3

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If you feel your ships need to make a quick getaway, don't forget that you can always flee to the nearest launch tube rather than heading straight home.

 

---

 

The Law Pistols are brilliant. The only scar on their otherwise appealing nature is the small magazine capacity. Not too far a step behind the M4000 for firing rate, no accuracy loss for doubling-up and more stopping power than the M4000 - but there's just never enough ammo.

 

As for the laser sniper rifles, because they're accurate, you can afford to wield two of them at once if you're playing real-time to ramp up the firing speed. Up close you can safely switch to full auto and take advantage of the second rifle as well. They're okay against weaker enemies like the brainsuckers, unshielded anthropods/skeletoids and spitters, but not too flashy against multiworms and Megaspawn. And yes, I agree that they're very good when used by a group. Two to four agents with double snipers focusing on a single target can bring it down fairly well.

 

Personally I don't use them much as I like close range combat (i.e. effective full-auto range), but as with all other weapons they aren't too shabby when used right.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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I've always been of the combined-arms approach. I figure the armies of today have good reasons for having a machine gunner in every squad, not to mention an anti-tank missile trooper in every platoon, and usually some kind of sharpshooter/sniper. Especially in my current Aliens:250 game, heavy weapons are a must. Waves and waves of arthropods and skeletoids will rush my team, and nothing less than the full stopping power of at least one autocannon gunner per squad and one Marsec heavy launcher trooper per team has a prayer of stopping them. With Aliens:250, you've got to have some area-effect damage happening in order to beat back the crazy bum-rushes of the aliens.

 

Generally, for every 4-man fire team, I have one autocannon gunner, a sniper, and two other troopers, usually riflemen armed with the M4000, but here and there they are replaced by a team rocket-launcher trooper or mini-launcher agent.

 

By the way, that mini-launcher is just indispensable when there are multiple brainsuckers and/or poppers incoming. Those mini-launcher missiles home right in and take them out on the first shot.

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