I need help playing the tactical missions

[y2s82]

gahhh not only can i never save the game or restart a tactical mission w/out crashing the whole game, i can't seem to win any mission!

after many crashes trying to save, load, etc., i was finally able equip and launch a mission.  But i must be one lousy player because there seems to be no way of finding alien in time to take a shot at them.  Since the mission tells me to protect the civilians, i send out my units forward (in groups).  I usually at least kill one or two aliens, but often at the cost of my own team.  Their wpn seems to be super strong; even w/ armor, no human can survive the first 2 shots from their wpns.  On the contrary, almost none of my ranged wpn can hit them, nevermind kill them.  I've equiped each soldiers w/ proper wpn depending on their skills, but all the kills i've made were either from lucky gernade that FINALLY landed on target instead of bouncing everywehre else but the target, or having a melee guy go right next to the alien and use the stun rod, often at the cost of other teammates firing assualt/sniper rifles aimlessly.

is there something i forgot to do?  is there some kind of training fascilities that i should have built?  should i just skip first few missions to research better equipments?  or m i just a big idiot who can't figure out how to play this...  aye..

while i can cope w/ frustration that comes from random crashes of the program (btw, this looks more like in alpha quality than a beta to me...  i don even want to imagine wat alpha was like lol), I can't seem to find/figure out anything that'd help a noob (such as i) to at least test out the game and enjoy whatever it has to offer at this moment.

sorry for complaints... i really like the game; if i didn't, i'd have just uninstalled it, brand it "crap", and never bother to sign up and post a lengthy msg such as this :p  thanx and keep up the great work.  I really hope to finally see a bug-free release in due time.  

cheers

the noob

[Mattn]

Hi,

first of all thanks for your feedback. Which version do you play? 2.0-RC1?

Maybe you should try to compile it yourself as described in our wiki: Compile article.

There are many bugs fixed in current svn revision. Before you can compile the game yourself you need to grab the sourcecode from SVN (i suggest that you try the trunk version)

If you are a windows user i suggest Dev-CPP for compiling. It's free and good.

----

We are aware of the heaviness of the first missions. That's because of the mission definition. If you want to edit a little by yourself, then open up the files base/ufos/equipment.ufo and base/ufos/campaign.ufo in your editor and edit the files for your wishes. You can find more infos about our scripting stuff at the wiki, too

----

again thanks for your feedback. We are trying to release a new release candidate soon. Maybe this is more stable to you.

best regards
martin

[Bandobras]

Hi! Did you play the easy campain or the standard one (in RC2 you have the choice, IIRC). Did you buy any additional weapons? Did you equip every soldier with a primary weapon and a sidearm? Did you try to hide after shooting and swap to sidearms inside buildings? What was you first mission map?

Remember that weapons have range limits and some are just very inaccurate. Yes, we are working on weapon balance and general strategic balance. Your feedback helps, especially if we could know more details...

[y2s82]

I use Winxp.  The installation was RCII.  While i THINK i saw two campaigns when i pressed "new game" button, i was not able to access the campaign titled test campaign. so i was kept playing the standard.
the maps were ..various..  the first one had just a few buildings and lots of open ground.  the 2nd one was massively building oriented.  the 3rd was fairly open w/ a small simple guarden near by and a building.

All troops were armed w/ appropriate primary wpn + extra clip, a sidearm + extra clip, and an armor

I later found out that i could hide, so i started hiding, but it was hard to tell how much time each unit had; i didn't see any bars indicating such.  I did see 2 bars down center, but they were both very white at any given time...

but i can see how hiding will really help; i was doing some of that at 2nd map, until bunch of them started running amock scared...

after the 3rd defeat, i've tried to simply ignore all missions and research.  I did arm my guys just in case there was a base attack (i read about it soemwhere.. hmm).  I finally researched everything w/ 2 scientists, too.
at the same time, i also established another base hoping to see if i can get another set of scientists to help me along, but no such luck.  I did find however, that the entire set of equipment that i've purchased and equiped on the first base was also available at the 2nd base w/ it's full complement of troops and drop ship.  (including all the wpn that i purchased)
I never did find out the power of laser rifle or the nano armor, however; for some reason, i could no longer enter any mission.  I could send a drop ship, armed to teeth, to the terrorizing aliens, and the window would pop up saying "cacel" and "enter", but pressing enter would do nothing.
Also, i don't know if i'm complaining here, but my money went UP instead of down as the game progressed.  I didn't do ANY mission, and built/purchased everything i could find.  The report keeps telling me that i lost money for the loss of the civilians, too.  But my money went up and up to no end lol.  I just quit at the end since i coudln't research, or buy anything new, or fight any missions. (or save or anything else that'd crash...)

i'll take a look at those links.  I'm sure it'll be helpful :p  i think i might try the game again sans the extra base and see if i can survive the first contact :p

thanx and cheers.

[Bandobras]

Well, you seem to be doing quite well considering standard campaign (perhaps "easy" is only in the more recent builts than RC2) and several ugly bugs you describe (some are fixed now).

I did see 2 bars down center, but they were both very white at any given time...

This is totally ugly, I would loose immediately. Could you verify if it persists in the current SVN "trunk"?

until bunch of them started running amock scared...

I hope it's fixed now...

Also, i don't know if i'm complaining here, but my money went UP instead of down as the game progressed.

You are definitely complaining.

i think i might try the game again sans the extra base and see if i can survive the first contact :p

Yeah, if you can, compile from SVN and try on "easy". I would also be very glad if you tried again in a week or so, when my weapon and research balancing patch is in SVN (if I'm able to sneak it through).

[y2s82]

i guess i'll just sit tight and watch for news regarding the game for now :p
thanx for the help

ps.  i did try again, armed w/ nano armor sans laser wpns.  The map was japan something.  i ran into a 2 story building, killed the alien 2nd floor at the cost of one of ours, i think...
while that's going on, i lost 4 guys downstairs; one of them started to panic and ran out, and i tried to manuveour the rest of the team to cover him, but of course, they all got shot down the second they chased after the panicing soldier.
left w/ 3 units (a sniper and two assault armed w/ nades and such), i camped on 2nd floor.  the alien came up, shot one of the assault.  The other assault went rampage and killed my sniper point 0 range and subsquently killed by the alien the next round.   that ends my 4th battle lol

i read about the reaction fire.  i hope that works on the next version/svn.

(wow, that was a LONG p.s. lol)

[Bandobras]

We hope 2.0 will be playable...

[Bandobras]

Now, another idea: set difficulty to -3 in the console. This should help. I think the Easy Campaing should do this by default, while Hard Campaing should set it to 3. (You can also do this in the Options, but you won't see eny visual effect.)

This should really help (IIRC this makes each your shot much more devastating in terms of damage and alien shots less devastating).

P.S. If I see correctly, the game starts by default with difficulty 3. I will include a change to -3 in my current patch.

[Bandobras]

The patch is is, but anyone with an existing UFO:AI installation has to change the difficulty var in console (or Options menu) manually.

Thank your for the report of your problems with difficulty. I hope we have it solved for now...