Stun Raids Are Way Cool

[Pherdnut]

Man... I don't why I always avoided doing this. Maybe I just got in the habit of hitting those cultists so hard that the prospect of the stun raid didn't seem worthwile. For some reason I thought you couldn't get armor from Marsec. Was it possible to get armor in the original version of the game? I've got the original discs but rather than dealing with the hassle getting the game to work I just downloaded the *internet* version. I know they made some tweaks, but was armor always available on the raids? I don't even stun enemy agents most of the time. I just grab some good stuff off the floor and run away. Also, I found a Marsec minilauncher loaded with alien gas in week 1. I'm pretty sure THAT wasn't available in the original version and I wonder if this is why the mission crashed when I accidentally stunned the last of the Marsec agents.

 

In any case, Wheeeeee!

 

* Edit By Zombie: Removed site mention.

Edited September 25, 2007 by Zombie

[j'ordos]

Yep marsec armor can be found in raids. What tweaks do you speak of?

Did the minilaucher actually contain ammo? The default for empty minilaunchers shows Alien Gas. (Quoting NKF )

 

Though I also found some differences between version: while I was looking for an unaltered, original UFO2P.EXE file I discovered I had none... Got like 5 different UFO2P files but they all were edited to some degree Anyways I downloaded a version from *the internet* replacing my exe with that one and suddenly all craft were able to fire weapons the can't carry even without manual control! (you could give a valkyrie a rumble cannon with savegame editors, for example, but normally it wouldn't fire them unless you used manual control). The overspawn is definately a lot more dangerous with 3 rumble cannons

 

* Edit By Zombie: Removed site mention.

Edited September 25, 2007 by Zombie

[Pherdnut]

Yeah, the minilauncher wouldn't shoot when I tried it and I didn't bother trying to bring reloads so I could switch the ammo. I think it's just a goof. It's kind of annoying that they unlocked the mind shield item but didn't make it worth anything. Just makes it less likely you'll get something useful.

 

Anyway, after stun raiding Marsec for 10 plasma swords (it was a LOT of raids) all the cash I made off of selling all the items made it possible to afford four valkyries and 6 hover cars. Not much the aliens could do in the first week and at the beginning of the second week I traded up to 3 Hawk Air Warriors. They're still having an awful lot of trouble trying to drop aliens. When I got the bio-container I had to be careful to not slaughter all their ships before they dropped at one building so I could make a research run for the advanced bio lab.

[[NKF]]

The mind shield does have a useful side effect that turns it into an unofficial 'cheat' of sorts.

 

If left on when the unit exits the mission (escaping or winning the mission), the +20 (or was it +30? You can check it buy opening up your mind bender action panel) bonus on your psi defence becomes permanent. After a few uses you can push your defence well past the max. But even at ridiculously high values some aliens will still be able to use a stun attack. You become numb to mind control though, which is perhaps the only reason for it. I've not really found it all that useful, as psi attacks aren't all that frequent, and mind control is easily countered in this game by tackling the controller.

 

One word of caution when stun raiding: Watch your score. Alien tech is unlocked by your score level, so if you gather too many too quickly, you'll face tech that you're not ready for. If you're getting too high a score from stun raids, switch to hit and run stun raids. That is to rush in, pick up only a few specific items, and then escaping. I'd probably do this for a power sword to beat the release date, or maybe pick up a few plasma guns to give my troops a kick start.

 

- NKF

[Pherdnut]

I never "win" the raid missions since I always leave one guard unstunned and walk everything out manually (I just assumed if you won the mission it would piss Marsec off). In that game where I bought all that stuff, I still hadn't earned enough points to actually get Devastator Cannons early although I think I did see boomeroids at the beginning of week 2. On missions where I walked out with a ridiculous amount of gear I would still only get like 78 points. Pretty amazing. I started week 2 with 2,600 units of Elerium and still no devastators.

 

I actually like getting tech early and usually see devastators in the beginning of week 2 from all the cultist raids I used to do. I always wished they'd made the standard Disruptors a bit more useful. The game has a pretty lengthy tech lag for the first week and a half or so and weeks seem more like the apocalypse version of months to me.

 

But man, having a fleet of flyers like that is pretty darn entertaining. I'm still amazed how much trouble the fast attack ships give my Hawks though. I may have to raid some more and pick up some valkyries. There aren't enough Justice missiles by week 2 to really make it worthwile to do the hover car long range pop up turret trick.