My observations on the game

[Branes]

I'm a longtime X-Com player going back to the original game when it was first released. I've played a lot of X-Com wannabees, and one thing I've seen in all of them is the insistence by developers to make changes to "make it better." It wouldn't be one of the best games of all time if you COULD make it better just by changing a few things.

First off, I'll say I like the look of this game. It has a lot going for it. The tactical maps are too small and the aliens just stand out in the open and say "shoot me." but overall I don't have may issues with the tactical game. However, one thing I really do not like about UFO:AI is the auto-deploy feature used in the tactical map. Half the time my guys are out in the open with their butts exposed!  That's not good tactics and it certainly isn't making it better. I break my team up into two identical squads to cover more area. I want to be able to determine where they go when they disembark the vehicle. Not have the game determine it for me. And the other is the ridiculous situation of having my men deployed on the other side of the base from the entrance when it's attacked. This completely negates any advantage created by using the entrance as a bottleneck to deny aliens access to the inner part of the base.
Everything in this game happens much too quickly. I normally play on standard because I don't like to have to play on easy.

The strategic game is a mess as far as I'm concerned. Everything is happening much too fast. The progression of the alien incursion is too fast to deal with. You shouldn't have a base attacked within the first week or two of the game. In X-Com, that didn't happen for many months.

After only a few days, I'm finding my ships up against aliens that can shoot them down easily. That didn't happen in X-Com except on the very hardest levels. I appreciate that there are people who can beat X-Com on superhuman. More power to you. I can't, so please don't ramp up the difficulty on the lower levels of this game to accommodate them. If they want an extremely difficult game, let them play this game on its highest level. But allowing UFOs to shoot down the troop carrier after successfully completing a mission is entirely unfair tactics, especially as it happens very early in the game. In fact, it's set up as an ambush. They just wait for you to leave the LZ then blast you out of the sky. That almost never happened in X-Com until you had Avengers which could hold their own against UFOs. And if I try to use my interceptor or whatever it's called to cover the troop carrier, that gets shot down because my weapons can't even compete with a simple fighter.
And since countries begin losing their confidence within the first 3 days, and each ufo missed reduces it more, which is absolutely ridiculous, money is very tight. You cannot survive more than one complete wipe out because you don't have the luxury of just hiring 20 more soldiers and choosing the best ones, you're stuck with the chaff that's left over after you pick your first squad. That may add to the realism but it makes the game a lot less fun. If you're going to do that, you might as well just have them invade with a 1000 ufos and 100 million men and get it all over with on the first turn. That's what a real alien invasion would be like if it ever happened.

And research is entirely too slow. I shouldn't have to do three or four crashed ufo's and a terror mission before I can research laser tech. If you remember from X-Com, laser tech research took 1 to 2 days at most, and by the 3d or 4th mission, you had access to laser rifles already.
Some people may consider this too easy, but even laser rifles were weak compared to the plasma that the aliens were using, but the balance of the game was good. You knew you were outgunned and out teched, yet you felt you had the chance to catch up. I don't get that feeling in this game. I feel completely overwhelmed in the first half hour and after my troop carrier got shot down, I just put the game away. To me, losing unfairly isn't fun.
Just having a strategic game system and a tactical game system does not an X-Com quality TBS game make. Be aware of the game balance and the pace of the alien growth. You game has the aliens with far too much of an advantage, and the humans so far behind that it is virtually impossible to catch up with the money and research time provided.

Either that or I just have no idea how to play this game.

[H-Hour]

I think you should probably just play X-Com.

[Nokim]

I have played X-COM (good), X-COM 2 (boring), X-COM Apocalypse (idea is good, but horrible graphics) and even X-COM Interceptor (trash, but interesting in some parts). And some other UFO-related games. So i have something to compare.

Regarding difficulty level in X-COM, i was shocked when i realized, that game is very much easier on genius level, then on easiest. On genius you have all best alien equipment + elerium delivered right to your base in first month and you event don't need to research those laser staff, you have heavy plasma and blaster missiles already. I won game in one day. On easiest you most likely lose game without having seen any UFO flying around just because of unhappy nations and insufficient funding.

Normally i am playing on normal difficulty. And it's IMO quite adequate. You just should know that attacking any armed alien craft by only one your aircraft is too risky. And don't touch harvesters until you have got something really powerful. And it's much more easy and profitably to catch them on land then shoot down. To keep nation happy - build more bases (one nation - one base or something like this) and sell them UFOs. And complete all missions of course. No problem at all.

About weapons... In X-COM i played first month with humans weapons (assault rifles and autocannon, etc) and it was not so bad, but not used in middle or end of game (proximity grenades is the only exception). In UFO:AI human weapon much better - players use it even close to end of game. Laser rifles in X-COM were cheat. I could safely shoot in darkness without any worries about ammo until all alien incidentally were killed (it was night mission in some park). So i was using it until the end, because soldier under alien control with laser rifle is safe for others in team, but dangerous for aliens.

The only one thing i'm agree with is deployment of soldiers on mission start, especially on base defense mission.

Now the only thing i can complain about is fact that i have nothing useful to spend money on. I have 7 bases, researched everything i could, i have enough supply of weapons and ammo (and other stuff to sell out) from aliens, now i have 8 millions credit on balance. There are a lot of soldiers, scientists and workers for hire, but i haven't jobs for them. The only way to continue on scenario is allow aliens to build base on Earth. But that is wrong! How can defenders allow that?!

[ShipIt]

Two things I agree with.

Loosing an interceptor, dropship or some soldiers early in the campaign is hard to deal with. But we just could not convince the alien invaders to not shoot back.

In the beginning, research should be faster. Not in terms of hours/days, but compared to the overall game progress.

[Crystan]

The only way to continue on scenario is allow aliens to build base on Earth. But that is wrong! How can defenders allow that?!

To get Informations & Tech about Aliens. Its something like a tactical retreat.

In the beginning, research should be faster. Not in terms of hours/days, but compared to the overall game progress.

1+

[Nokim]

In the beginning there is the only thing you should get ASAP - a better armor. Your soldier must be able to survive at least one round under alien's fire. Anything else is good and so on, but not so important and can be got later. In X-COM Apocalypse you could buy different set of armor from the beginning. One gives better protection, other - better agility and ability to fly. May be there is sense to add some heavy armor based on human technology on market in the beginning for easier start. Or cheap UGVs to use as scout/decoy. This'll buy some time for research and give more flexibility in actions. About research speed... Just build as many labs as you can. Having 8 labs (4+4) i quickly got everything researched.

[Jon_dArc]

I'm a longtime X-Com player going back to the original game when it was first released. I've played a lot of X-Com wannabees, and one thing I've seen in all of them is the insistence by developers to make changes to "make it better."

Permit me to suggest that there are additional reasons for changes, some of which are at least as important as a desire to "make it better". These include such issues as not having access to the original resources and code and messiness regarding the line between being inspired by something and ripping it off (and that issue has some teeth, as well—beyond the line between "classy" and "not classy" is the line between "not classy" and "lawsuit-bait").

As for your issue with aerial combat, it's not clear that being outgunned is necessarily a problem (though it does seem weird that you have your pick of three weapons and four ammo types with which to engage Scouts—is there some combination I'm missing that permits realistically engaging Fighters?), but it is very much a problem that in the early game Fighters are faster than the Firebird, can't be resisted by it, and are almost guaranteed to be right on top of the dropship by the time it's detected (between the expense and setup time of bases, it's only really realistic to have one, maybe two bases—which limits you to three or six radar stations, more likely two or five since not building a UFO yard immediately is a recipe for stalling your research pipeline quite a bit).

It should be noted, though, that unless I've missed something the Fighters do not set ambushes. The one you saw presumably started flying to engage while still undetected and just happened to enter radar range immediately after a mission—it was coincidence.

~J

[Duque Atreides]

Sorry for use this thread, but i don´t belive that is necessary open a new one for this question.

There is any importance to shot a enemy or a soldier from back or by side? I mean, the character is more weak from the sides or back? What about the head?

[H-Hour]

There is any importance to shot a enemy or a soldier from back or by side? I mean, the character is more weak from the sides or back? What about the head?

No, all hits are the same for now.

[Ajpe]

But allowing UFOs to shoot down the troop carrier after successfully completing a mission is entirely unfair tactics, especially as it happens very early in the game.

Happened to me (april 2084). I was returning after a terror mission and an UFO (speed 880) shot down my Stiletto and Firebird. Fortunately it happened on land, not over sea, and I got a rescue mission. Usually my transporter carries only 5-6 soldiers.

[Battlescared]

I respect your opinion on this but let me point out a few counterpoints that you may not have thought of:

1. Base Entrance.  We've had a few discussions on this.  It seems that troops deploy randomly when a base encounter begins.  My troops always spawned in the living quarters modules, which I tried to locate close to the entrance.  Other people reported their troops showed up in different areas, so not sure what the difference is.  Either way, at times I had to move my troops as fast as possible to the entrance, but I never had a problem.  Just don't send people up too fast with no TP's to back them up.  Get them together as quick as possible, and move them together, waiting for the enemy to come to you until they play chicken and wait for you.

2. Engaging ships before you're ready to engage:  Don't do it.  There is no law in the game that says you have to engage every ship that appears.  In most cases, the tough ships are the harvesters (two Stilleto's can always shoot down a UFO fighter or scout) so just wait till they land and engage them on the ground.  Better loot anyway, and a full 100% ship to deconstruct later (assuming you've build a UFO Depot).  You can also build SAM sites to help soften them up a bit.

3. Never engage a UFO with a dropship.  Period.  If there are fighters in the area, don't send out a dropship.  Wait for them to leave.  As far as I know, UFO crashes don't disappear until you engage it, so just let things lay till you can get to them safely.  A little patience is required here.

4. Countries can be bought off.  Sell your recovered UFO's to the countries who complain the most.  They'll come around and be sending you nice fat checks after a few months of gameplay.  Really, then it gets boring after that, so enjoy the country tension while you can.

5. Just to be sure you're aware of it, there are multiple selections on the stilleto screen for weapons, armor, miscellaneous systems (in the drop down list).  Be sure to put a ECM and weapons targeting on your stilleto's.  It does help their survivability.

6. Research.  Build a second living quarters and laboratory in your first base as soon as you can.  Hire as many scientists as you can, up to 20.  It helps speed things along.  I usually make my first base the primary research base until I have more cash later on.  Use your second base to be a production base.

7. I agree with you on the troop deployment of the initial drop ship.  It's a map issue as it's been explained.  Later on you'll research a larger drop ship and then you'll get to charge off the ship like we used to do in XCOM.  I've never really had troubles with the troop being spread out on start, but I never liked it much.

[Crystan]

5. Just to be sure you're aware of it, there are multiple selections on the stilleto screen for weapons, armor, miscellaneous systems (in the drop down list).  Be sure to put a ECM and weapons targeting on your stilleto's.  It does help their survivability.

Hmmm do we have actually any sort of advanced Polymer Aircraft Armour? If not - why not add some adv. armour tech stuff after researching some UFO stuff.

[kurja]

Hmmm do we have actually any sort of advanced Polymer Aircraft Armour? If not - why not add some adv. armour tech stuff after researching some UFO stuff.

there is an advanced aircraft armour

[Nokim]

there is an advanced aircraft armour

But it's based on alien materials and makes aircraft slooooow.

[Nutter]

Is armour even worth it?
Sure you have more armour on your craft but good luck catching up with anything faster than a scout, which, hilariously, doesn't warrant it anyway.
Sure, a Saracen might have some use with it but I somehow doubt the increase in life expectancy would actually provide any meaningful bonus with the things its hunting.