The Power Armor! It does nussink!

[Empty]

So being the new person to Xcom I am, I decided to dive head first into a lets play of my first ever game of Xcom, rather than playing it for myself.

 

I'm fairly inquisitive, so I joined a few Xcom sites wikis etc to learn about the mechanics of the game and the general strategies, sure I'm not learning the game from scratch, but I don't want to if-you-see-Kay up a whole Let's Play through inexperience.

 

So I read a little bit on Psi, and how Ethereals are bad and stuff, and I thought "pfft, how bad can this be!"

 

Little did I know I was about to be thrust headfirst into the worst possible conflict with Ethereals.

 

A Midnight terror mission without Psi tech or a Hyper Wave Decoder.

 

IE, I went into a night time terror mission with no Idea what I'd be fighting, and lets just say it went horribly horribly wrong.

 

So I give you all a video! With narration recorded in real time! Of a newbies first encounter with the Ethereals.

 

I give you:

The Kinshasa Incident.

 

 

3 named characters (IE people participating in the Lets Play, it's sort of a forum game) died that night.

We will not forget Blizzerd, Mash and Kamber.

[uncy]

Hey, nice video!

 

You got owned gotta say I forgot one can kill sectopods with the heavy plasma, they are very resistant agains that kind of damage.

 

Are you playing collectors edition or the DOS version?

 

Keep up with the cool videos

[Empty]

Well I read on the wiki a laser rifle does more damage than usual but it only scales up to be about as good as a heavy plasma, I find the heavy laser fairly shuckeroonies, though I don't use HWP enough yet.

 

So basically I keep heavy plasmas for everyone (with a few exceptions for flexibility of course) since they basically kill everything.

[[NKF]]

It's almost the same as many players' first experience with Chryssalids at a night mission. A wipeout.

 

However, despite the chaos, it's amazing that your troops during those last two or three frantic turns that fled into the Skyranger survived the ordeal. Especially with a laser rifle toting mind controlled buddy in the Skyranger with them.

 

What difficulty were you playing on? If it was beginner, you might have actually found stun bombs much more effective at disabling the Sectopod. It's not too shabby on the higher difficulty levels either, though would probably need 2 - 3 hits. Also, if it wasn't for the sectopods, your team might have fared better armed with Autocannons. Power armour shrugs off most of the damage.

 

As for the damage, if you do all the numbers, the Heavy Laser actually deals a lot more maximum damage per hit. But the Heavy Plasma has the advantage of auto fire. That improves the chances of at least landing one hit, and if multiple hits are made the overall damage tends to be better.

 

- NKF

Edited April 9, 2010 by NKF

[Empty]

It's almost the same as many players' first experience with Chryssalids at a night mission. A wipeout.

 

However, despite the chaos, it's amazing that your troops during those last two or three frantic turns that fled into the Skyranger survived the ordeal. Especially with a laser rifle toting mind controlled buddy in the Skyranger with them.

 

What difficulty were you playing on? If it was beginner, you might have actually found stun bombs much more effective at disabling the Sectopod. It's not too shabby on the higher difficulty levels either, though would probably need 2 - 3 hits. Also, if it wasn't for the sectopods, your team might have fared better armed with Autocannons. Power armour shrugs off most of the damage.

 

As for the damage, if you do all the numbers, the Heavy Laser actually deals a lot more maximum damage per hit. But the Heavy Plasma has the advantage of auto fire. That improves the chances of at least landing one hit, and if multiple hits are made the overall damage tends to be better.

 

- NKF

 

Actually my first two chryssalid missions went really smoothly, I sweeped, I cleared and I kicked donkey.

I'm glad the laser rifle guy got MCed, because the power armor basically shrugs it off (if you pay attention the first guy he shot was wearing personal armor, but the second guy in power armor took like 10 shots before he went down)

The sectopods weren't really a huge threat at all, if the mission had gone on longer they probably would have posed issues, but the first one didn't actually do anything but reaction shot 3 times and miss every shot. The mind control is really what tore us apart.

I was on beginner for the record, but stun bombs take so long to reload and they're a precious commodity for my team so far. I didn't know Autocannons were good against any lategame stuff? I've been keeping one HE Autocannon in circulation so we can level buildings easily but I've begun to phase it out in favour of the rocket launcher.

I understands the Heavy Laser is more effective when you hit a sectopod, but the important thing is you have to hit, and the heavy lasers shoot almost as well as my grandma, and she's dead.

[Jenny]

It's a lot more painful than it looks.

[uncy]

Well, Seb's extender has a pretty nice "fix" for the heavy laser. I hate the tendency to go always heavy plasma and autofire everything...

[[NKF]]

One of the things that I'm sure contributed heavily to the survival of the guys in the Skyranger was the fact they were being hit in their front plates. Good old front plates!

 

The stun bombs are indeed slow and rare, but on beginner difficulty a few well placed hits can prove to be far more effective than a heavy laser or heavy plasma. They've got the advantage of targeting under-armour and damage is done to each quarter (i.e.: just under 4 times more damage). It's something for you to try out in a future engagement with Sectopods. At the very least they're cheaper to take down with stun bombs than blaster bombs!

 

As for the Autocannon, yes it is useful against Mutons and Ethereals. The sectopod is the heaviest threat you'll meet and perhaps the only one that's not going to care about the autocannon. The rest are fair game.

 

I'd not recommend using AC-AP rounds in the late game - stick to AC-HE. You already have laser rifles and heavy plasmas for finesse attacks. You can do a full-auto burst with AC-HE shells at point blank range and not feel the splash damage. Direct hits may cause a few HP's of damage, but it's very minimal.

 

- NKF

[Empty]

Yeah I've had a few FF issues with the ACHE rounds, but they never do any damage.

[Placki]

Haha priceless how the civie died ( also the comment ) Seems like 'Heavy plasma auto-fire' style of clearing missions just got another hidden disadvantage

 

P.

[Sorrow]

Awesome . Stuff like this makes UFO such a good game .