Messages

16

Tactics / Re: Attack which UFO with what ?

« on: November 24, 2015, 03:57:06 am »

I just try to lure through SAM sites any UFO that acts aggressively (turns to intercept). If it somehow survives, turn and attack it - preferably on the far edge of the last AA circle, so it could squeeze a few more shots.

17

Bugs in stable version (2.5) / Re: crash to geoscape on office map

« on: October 23, 2015, 01:56:38 am »

I didn't get this, but that map needs other fixes, in that:
1) The soldiers spawns partially inside the building, and, well, Murphy's law kicks in - either short-range soldiers will end up on the second floor or sniper or GL in the toilet... meaning you have to spend a round moving some to the start. Annoying.
2) One floor of the T-shaped building (left and below the left branch of "T", above the door from the area between the buildings) seems to be a floor without entrance other than some sort of busted makeshift elevator?

18

Feature Requests / Re: Reaction fire & TU reservation

« on: October 10, 2015, 06:36:31 pm »

If I understand you well, there's an option in the Game Options (v2.5) that would almost give you satisfaction:

If selected, a crouched soldier will automatically stand up to walk, and finally crouch at the end.
However, it does this only if that allows him to move more; else, it stays crouched (that's better in case of alien reaction fire).

"No crouching movement" means gameplay limitations.
What would remove this headache in vast majority of cases is an option controlling how to treat reserved actions when there's not enough free TUs: Deny / Allow / Allow & Uncheck.

19

Bugs in stable version (2.5) / Re: [Graphical glitch] Animated dead bodies

« on: September 26, 2015, 07:36:31 pm »

Also, dancing corpses - dead civilians frozen mid-fall.

20

Discussion / Re: Feedback on 2.5-2.6

« on: September 17, 2015, 03:46:59 pm »

Concerning the UFOs, I usually never try to take them down. I can barely kill scouts and do not see them often.

Armored and equipped with ECM interceprors shoot scouts okay, and alien fighters are aggressive, so they can be lured to fly straight through a SAM kill-circle (or sometimes two in sequence), after which if they survive at all, interceptors have a good chance to finish the job.

21

Discussion / Re: Why is this so goddamn hard?

« on: September 14, 2015, 03:49:12 pm »

Despite the incredibly short range of the Flamethrower, it is potentially a better choice on maps with little open space as it does not suffer from the highly erratic accuracy of the standard shotgun.

With the crappy Close skill yes, though at least it doesn't eat too much TU.
Generally, flamethrower is much better in a "maze of twisted passages, all alike", while shotgun's range is better for zifgzagging between the barns, inside buildings with corridors, or split by aisles or machines, and so on. Hard to choose - the former is what happens in ships, but otherwise the second is encountered more often. I choose shotguns, because enemies usually crawl out of mazes on their own.

I agree with most of your observations. In mid game the CQ combat options are basicly gone. Upgraded ammo for the shotgun/microshotgun, like the "needler flachette" would be a nice solution imo.

Or better nuke AM slugs. If proportionally destructive (as in, volume of slugs vs. AR bullets), it would be blaster-grade overkill.

22

Discussion / Re: Why is this so goddamn hard?

« on: September 07, 2015, 01:02:49 pm »

2) Use strong recruits with otherwise bad skills/stats as scout with Sniper rifle and extra TUs. The extra TUs are important, as it gives a chance to spot the enemy and then move back into a save position. The Sniper Rifle is the only weapon that as a chance to hit & kill some opponents in early game. Again, the extra TUs help, as the scout can shoot and still move. Dont care if you loose your scouts frequently, but if one survives some missions, he might be good enough to be promoted.

What - shotguns suck in 2.6?
In 2.5 it may be the best choice for scouts in early game: light and quite lethal vs. unarmored enemies.

23

Feature Requests / Re: Reaction fire & TU reservation

« on: September 07, 2015, 11:43:53 am »

Also, could TU reservation for crouch be handled the same way as reservation for shooting?
Right now using it in stable (2.5 27 Jun 2014) on an uneventful turn goes like this:
1) stand
2) turn "reserve TU for standing/crouching" on
3) move
4) turn "reserve TU for standing/crouching" off
5) crouch

24

Discussion / Re: Why is this so goddamn hard?

« on: August 12, 2015, 03:12:13 pm »

Not true on very hard in 2.6. Thanks to the difficulty scaling. Simply put - if you're hit, you're dead.

Okay, but "on very hard" it's not "how to survive here at all?" beginner mode. 

25

Discussion / Re: Why is this so goddamn hard?

« on: August 10, 2015, 11:01:45 am »

Skirmish is hard because soldiers are equipped randomly, given a weapon even if they suck at this category.
The early game missions are not too hard, though tricky, and how much civilians it's possible to save is a matter of pure luck.
At least, your grunts can shoot straight (especially compared to original X-Com), and while AR snapshots are weak, MG pours a lot and is deadly enough.
So pack MG or two (if you go in two teams). Have a machinegunner (in crouch +RF) covering a long passage, this works well if they can't pop up on top of him.
Always pack at least one GL - indirect fire capability is priceless, especially when an enemy spawns on the roof where it's hard to hit them with anything else. As a bonus, close hits of HE shells occasionally knock out even if they don't kill. Incendiary grenades are fairly lame, but if it can soften up an enemy before it runs into your RF, that's something.
Also, if your scout runs into an alien face-to-face, it's time for indirect fire - get someone else hurl a grenade over a hovel rather than trying to duke it out head-on.
Flamethrowers are awesome, but very circumstantial - short-range and you can't carry anything else. If you get melee-range encounters no matter what, use it with RF all the time and don't bother with trying to rambo anything that doesn't walk into range; otherwise, ditch it until you get the hang of controlling engagement range.
Conversely, a shotgun with slugs is not quite as deadly, but still has good damage, but also decent range and weight allowance for a few grenades, consider giving it to 1-2 point scouts.
Smoke grenades are must-have, both to cover your own ass and to save civilians.
Try to have a fire contact at a longer range - where it's too far for plasma grenades, for plasma pistols it's technically in range, but they'll fire "in that general direction", especially in burst, which is what's going to happen - a rare single hit hurts like hell, but won't kill an armored soldier. And when they shoot in your general direction, they aren't busy massacring civilians instead.
With RF, potshots actually fired are better than uber-bursts that will never come, so select cheap modes - at least you can reduce the enemy's accuracy or soften them up for your turn and if 2 of them RF, they may actually score a kill like this; at very least, soldiers get some practice.
Research laser rifles - the best for long-range sniping; maybe coilguns for medium range sniping / instakill through cover; body armor when available.

26

Discussion / Re: Is this game going somewhere ?

« on: June 07, 2015, 05:19:28 pm »

I wonder if this game is going to become something. I mean, it  has a very slow developpement, 2.6 is still not the Stable version

(comes here from VegaStrike forum)
(blinks)
What are you talking about?
 

27

Bugs in stable version (2.5) / Re: Highly Proficient hides soldier stats

« on: June 03, 2015, 07:25:37 am »

Yup, just put the number first.
Also, having manual font settings would be nice.

28

Tactics / Re: My tactics

« on: June 03, 2015, 07:20:35 am »

My early squad is - 2 teams, both with AR (scout), LMG and sniper rifle, one with grenade launcher (must-have in case an alien is on the roof or behind cover, but leaves no short-range firepower) another with shotgun (flamethrower is better at point-blank, but got shorter range and doesn't leave weight allowance for grenades) for more cramped areas. The snipers mostly hang back and shoot aliens that pop up on their turn, double as observers (especially on a roof) and serve as RF bait (they score kills or near-kills at a range too great to hit with plasma pistols anything smaller than a windmill - aliens rarely land one lucky hit, and an armored soldier survives this much).

29

Linux / Re: UFO AI2.5 deb package

« on: May 04, 2015, 06:16:34 pm »

Hi, i am having some problems with compiling the game, my distro is lmde debian based..
First is there a binary deb package for v2.5
Second , i downloaded all files needed, but when i am installing the pre-requistes, libsdl requires the deletion of these attached packages, won't this cause a problem to my OS?
libsdl1.2-dev
Impact on packages:

Yup. It may want a different version of one package, apt tries to obey the dependencies, and then it have to remove everything that depends on the old (to-be-removed) version, and this happens. "-dev" still may clash with the main library of a "wrong" version, too.
Usually this may be fine-tuned by trying to pick the packages to upgrade.
I got right versions of everything, but installed ready ufoai (2.5-1~getdeb1), not messed with source, and run Xubuntu, so my versions of some libraries may be different from your distro. Speaking of which, check what you already have:

Code: [Select]

$ dpkg-query -l "libsdl*" | grep "^ii"
ii  libsdl-gfx1.2-4:amd64                       2.0.23-3                                   amd64        drawing and graphical effects extension for SDL
ii  libsdl-gfx1.2-dev:amd64                     2.0.23-3                                   amd64        development files for SDL_gfx
ii  libsdl-image1.2:amd64                       1.2.12-5build2                             amd64        Image loading library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-image1.2:i386                        1.2.12-5build2                             i386         Image loading library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-image1.2-dev:amd64                   1.2.12-5build2                             amd64        Image loading library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, development files
ii  libsdl-mixer1.2:amd64                       1.2.12-10                                  amd64        Mixer library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-mixer1.2-dev:amd64                   1.2.12-10                                  amd64        Mixer library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, development files
ii  libsdl-net1.2:amd64                         1.2.8-4                                    amd64        Network library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-sound1.2:amd64                       1.0.3-7                                    amd64        Sound library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-sound1.2:i386                        1.0.3-7                                    i386         Sound library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-sound1.2-dev:amd64                   1.0.3-7                                    amd64        Sound library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, development files
ii  libsdl-ttf2.0-0:amd64                       2.0.11-3                                   amd64        TrueType Font library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl-ttf2.0-0:i386                        2.0.11-3                                   i386         TrueType Font library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.2, libraries
ii  libsdl1.2-dev                               1.2.15-8ubuntu1.1                          amd64        Simple DirectMedia Layer development files
ii  libsdl1.2debian:amd64                       1.2.15-8ubuntu1.1                          amd64        Simple DirectMedia Layer
ii  libsdl1.2debian:i386                        1.2.15-8ubuntu1.1                          i386         Simple DirectMedia Layer
ii  libsdl2-2.0-0:amd64                         2.0.2+dfsg1-3ubuntu1.1                     amd64        Simple DirectMedia Layer
ii  libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0:amd64                   2.0.0+dfsg1-3                              amd64        Mixer library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 2, libraries
ii  libsdl2-ttf-2.0-0:amd64                     2.0.12+dfsg1-2                             amd64        TrueType Font library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 2, libraries
Generally, if plain "apt-get install ufoai" proposes to remove something, you may try to:
1) install ufoai and its explicit dependencies like this:

Code: [Select]

apt-get install --reinstall -s ufoai libsdl1.2debian:amd64/trusty libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64/trusty libsdl2-2.0-0:amd64/trusty libpng12-0:amd64/trusty
(replace "trusty" with your distribution, see in deb lines - it's the first parameter after URL in /etc/apt/sources.list; replace amd64 with your arch, if necessary)
2) repeat, adding like this at the end other libraries about which apt complains as "is required, but not to be installed" (with full "name:arc/distribution", don't let apt guess on its own beyond adding origin variations like "distro-updated" - it already failed to pick the right tree).
3) at some point, nothing but libraries will appear under "to be removed"; then re-run your last attempt without "-s".
Unless you have mix distros (I once had Ubuntu with a few drops from Debian repositories, due to slow update of certain buggy packages) it should work.

30

Tactics / Re: My tactics

« on: February 22, 2015, 04:25:10 pm »

Yes, thats seems to do the trick, but only one problem: It requiers the CC soldier, and i dont like that.

EP ammo is available for LMG and AR, right? So, heavies and scout/support.
Either way, of course it's better to use long-range RF - but not always possible, and not always enough. Close range is not what you want... it's what you sometimes need. I try to place them behind corners and combine with long-range support who can at least wound the attackers.
Since charging in with a short-range weapon is very unhealthy, use those in RF and to finish off melee units. Shotgun allows to carry grenades for longer range and indirect attacks. Flamethrower forces narrow specialization, however.