UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Tactics => Topic started by: gregor on July 24, 2010, 08:59:56 am
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Seriously what happened here?
We have an "elite" unit assembled by the earth governments to fight the aliens because the army couldn't do anything (wish i saw the army, can they even hold the rifle?).
I mean these guys can't hit absolutelly anything. I tried to go through the soldiers and find best i could to deploy. I played the previous version till i got stuck in campaign, so i know i could expect some losses but this is getting ridiculous.
as alway i first start on very easy. expecting it to be more of a walk in the park. but my soldiers can't hit an alien unless they are basically point blank to them. while aliens can hit me from very far away. reaction fire is rubish. even if soldier kneels and doesn't move the alien keeps popping out shoot him and then goes back. what is this supposed to represent? what does this say about soldiers?
I move my best sniper guy to an average room length (using cover as much as i can). he is crouched, aimed shot- chance of hitting is 9%. move him a bit closer. ah now chance increases to 22%. seriously ? 22%?!? Sniper "expert", from Earth's best (on VERY EASY difficulty level)? I understand the need to make the game interesting. and the option to upgrade the soldiers. but if the soldiers are crapy so should be the aliens. i9nstead they can easilly hit my soldiers from across the whole map.
In original UFO the hit ratio was sort of low as well but explosive round made up for lack of accuracy. plus the aliens there had even lower acuracy (at least the very basic ones). here you are left with a lack of accuracy. Which as i notice is much bigger than in previous release version.
So i would like some tips on how to proceed and if anyone knows if there is a way to fix the numbers in some file or something. because i got stuck on very easy on 3rd mission (&first terror site) with primary aliens (the orange suited guys). they just wiped out my whole squad (from their edge of the map and).
And i also have a tip of my own. very easy, should be very easy for beginners not very easy for experts in the game that have a lot of background knowledge. so to the game testers when you are testing new version make sure you get the opinion of a person that met with the game for the first time.
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I think you're right about "Elite" team. Why are they so weak fighting aliens, while the policemen are doing better jobs than them. Think about it: people can't be too stressed by hitting one "i.d.i.o.t.i.c." alien!!! The recruits (also) must be prepared for fight, while the game right now gives us some weaklings into a battle! Come on! It should mean that even a baby could enter the team!
P.S. Sorry for shouting, but i agree with gregor. This is quite crazy sending locally unexperienced soldier to battle... Because the soldiers must be trained to at least 25% of every skill.
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Seriously what happened here?
We have an "elite" unit assembled by the earth governments to fight the aliens because the army couldn't do anything (wish i saw the army, can they even hold the rifle?).
You're actually sort of second-line, last resort folks, I gather -- basically the regular forces *lost*, so a previously decommissioned is being reconstituted under your leadership.
[quote
as alway i first start on very easy. expecting it to be more of a walk in the park. but my soldiers can't hit an alien unless they are basically point blank to them. while aliens can hit me from very far away. reaction fire is rubish. even if soldier kneels and doesn't move the alien keeps popping out shoot him and then goes back. what is this supposed to represent? what does this say about soldiers?[/quote]
RF triggering, at least judging from 2.4-dev code, depends upon (among other factors, such as visibility and having ammo, of course)
- the number of TUs that the target's action requires
- likelihood of hitting friendlies (under normal conditions, no more than 5% is acceptable, with freaked-out humans accepting a higher likelihood; but an insane alien will completely ignore the possibility of hitting other aliens; I've even seen one kill the alien standing right next to him)
- likelihood of hitting enemies (min. 30%)
- having a faster weapon (in terms of TU cost to fire) for the 'outdraw' test
The TU tests make it more difficult to RF against a fast shooter, e.g an alien with a plasma pistol. Laser rifles are fairly useful for RF; they're pretty fast firing, are quite accurate (so more likely to pass the likelihood checks), and have good range and OK damage.
If you don't have laser rifles yet, you should probably consider making heavy use of IR goggles and the grenade launcher / rockets so you don't need good LOS, and also the flamethrower -- if you can get reasonably close with 12 TUs left, an Inferno blast is extremely lethal (one blast is modeled as about 60 shots; each shot does modest damage, but...). Very good for taking down individual aliens in modest-size rooms or hallways.
I move my best sniper guy to an average room length (using cover as much as i can). he is crouched, aimed shot- chance of hitting is 9%. move him a bit closer. ah now chance increases to 22%. seriously ? 22%?!? Sniper "expert", from Earth's best (on VERY EASY difficulty level)? I understand the need to make the game interesting. and the option to upgrade the soldiers. but if the soldiers are crapy so should be the aliens. i9nstead they can easilly hit my soldiers from across the whole map.
I haven't really seen the aliens be crack shots. With heavy lasers, laser rifles, sniper rifles and the nanocomposite armor I currently prefer to engage them at long range; the alien plasma weapons are pretty damaging but have significantly worse spread than the human weapons at that tech level. The needlers and particle beam weapons seen a bit later are pretty nasty, but medikits make a huge difference between 'wounded' (which impacts accuracy, incidentally) and 'dead' so long as there's a little cover to hide behind.
The odds computation is quite the approximation, and (presumably for reasons of computational cost) doesn't do something like, say, fire 50 imaginary shots using the actual firing code and see how many would hit. It's dodgy where complex-shaped cover is around. Move the camera view if you aren't sure.
some tips on how to proceed and if anyone knows if there is a way to fix the numbers in some file or something. because i got stuck on very easy on 3rd mission (&first terror site) with primary aliens (the orange suited guys). they just wiped out my whole squad (from their edge of the map and).
Don't rely very much on RF, at least initially. It's better to take a shot and then duck behind some cover where they won't be able to see you without burning a lot of TUs (typically corners, or the same wall with the window/doorway). RF isn't exactly spectacular from the aliens' perspective, either.
You also have access to IR goggles, grenades and rockets without any research -- scan with IR goggles to see through walls (to a degree), use the grenade launcher etc to hit enemies through windows and around corners. They can see *you* through walls, and will tend to fixate on the closest one -- even if the closest soldier is on the other side of a windowless, door-less wall and there's an opening on the opposite wall. Also, grenades in the belt or holster can be moved to the left hand with very little TU cost.
Medkits should also be standard equipment -- one soldier can provide very substantial healing on another for 20 TUs cost, and as noted earlier, injured soldiers aren't as effective shots anyway.
Research-wise, you should probably prioritize the laser weapons (very precise, good firing speed, good range, somewhat decent hitting power), and the upgraded armor (once you recover a suit of alien medium armor; you'll be much more survivable with it, so much more likely to be able to attain decent skills).
The .pk3 files in the 'base' directory appear to be Zip archives. Within the '0ufos.pk3' are many of the data files that affect these things, such as how many TUs each weapon takes to fire in various modes or what their spread is (i.e. imprecision). You could make your weapons faster-firing (reduce the time values) or make the plasma pistol less accurate (increase the spread value), for instance.
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Yah i went on playing after my post. Still having the same issue. Thanks for the tip on grenade launcher and explanation of RF.
The problem is for example terror mission. You start on open and see 4 or 3 aliens. what do you do? OK Option one you shoot at them. but your team misses every time. There is no cover and on alien turn at least 3 members are injured if no one is dead yet.
I have one guy dying on every mission. Option two is to run for cover first. doesn't help because cover is so far away that plenty of them still get injured before arriving to cover. I managed to get really really close to the aliens but this is ridiculous. i mean to be so close with sniper rifle and use aimed shot and then you miss. And there is a nice probability (that might not be totally accurate) shown for oyu. if it sdays 99% shouldn't you hit the guy? sort of...
Ugh wish i had my old team from previous version. they werent' much yet, but at least they could hit....
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I didn't have this problem so much, been playing on standard diff. Some tips..crouching significantly improves accuracy, only few weapons-GL, shotgun, flamer-doesn't need it. Right weapon loadout is nescessary-my tip is two machineguns, two snipers, shotgun, flamer, grenadier, rocket launcher or assault rifle.
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For me - 8x Modded assault rifle
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Bad starting positions that aliens will start firing at you if you move in your own first turn ? Happened to me a few time too, not in terror mission but in UFO crashed though.
Not much could be done but killed closest aliens first, if they are close enough.
If killing closest aliens is not possible, crouch and move to safety, usually inside dropship, pull out med kits and start healing.
If you can get real close to targets, better to smoke them with MG/flame/shotty, anything but sniper rifle.
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The machine guns are definitely more in the SAW mode than, say, water-cooled belt-fed MG42 line. They do make quite respectable short/medium-range weapons for an assault team early on, when alien armor isn't very heavy and when your accuracy typically isn't high either.
A note on the hit mechanics -- practically all direct-fire weapons are essentially equally accurate within their permitted ranges in that they will be centered on the target's center. What varies is the precision, which is calculated in angular terms, and which is based on such things as the 'spread' rating of the weapon, a possible modifier if you're crouched (IIRC, no weapon currently is *less* accurate when crouched), the shooter's accuracy score, the shooter's skill with that particular weapon/fire mode combination, the weapon's balance modifiers (possibly unused so far, unsure; I haven't been digging through the code that long), and the shooter's injuries, if anything.
Since it's computed in angular terms and not some absolute error measured in distance... when you're very close, these factors matter a lot less as even a fairly significant deviation in angle might not be enough to miss the target. What you want then is normally damage-per-TU (especially early, where alien armor is less of an issue; since armor appears to be reducing damage in *absolute* amounts rather than relative, heavier armor encourages high-damage-per-shot weapons unless the armor is relatively ineffective against a given damage type), which encourages automatics, flamethrowers and even plasma pistols over the sniper rifle. The FT is special; because one blast is treated as many, many individual shots, it's rather likely that you'll hit with more than a few.
And yeah, the dropship itself is useful as (indestructible, as with everything else; you can lose them to interceptors in the air, but currently you can't lose them in the battlescape) cover.
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RF triggering, at least judging from 2.4-dev code, depends upon (among other factors, such as visibility and having ammo, of course)
- the number of TUs that the target's action requires
- likelihood of hitting friendlies (under normal conditions, no more than 5% is acceptable, with freaked-out humans accepting a higher likelihood; but an insane alien will completely ignore the possibility of hitting other aliens; I've even seen one kill the alien standing right next to him)
- likelihood of hitting enemies (min. 30%)
- having a faster weapon (in terms of TU cost to fire) for the 'outdraw' test
So I guess the last one includes the fire mode I select for RF?
No wonder I stopped getting RF since I put all my troops on higher damage, higher TU modes instead of the "snapshots". I'll try going back to snapshots instead and see if it makes a difference. If true it makes pistols more useful in close quarters to proc those RF as the alien comes round the corner.
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I.D.I.O.T.S., Hmm....
Silly Humans In Extremely Lethal Danger, no, that's a different acronym.
Internal Defense Initiative Of Terra System?
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Your acronym explaination made my day lighter ;D ;D internal defense initiative of terra system ;D
These are funny, too:
Intrusion Detection In Our Time
Instrumentation Digital On-Line Transcriber
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So I guess the last one includes the fire mode I select for RF?
No wonder I stopped getting RF since I put all my troops on higher damage, higher TU modes instead of the "snapshots". I'll try going back to snapshots instead and see if it makes a difference. If true it makes pistols more useful in close quarters to proc those RF as the alien comes round the corner.
If memory serves, the answer is 'yes' -- provided that you do have enough TUs left for the more expensive firemode. I seem to recall that if you don't have enough TUs for that one, but you do have enough TUs for another fire mode, it'll use that as a fallback. It'll also only check your primary weapon; e.g. sniper rifle in right hand, plasma pistol in left == no reaction fire, because you can't fire a sniper rifle when also holding the pistol, and the plasma pistol isn't eligible since it's in the off hand.
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I made the trick that it could do that as well as having 2 rifles on both hands...
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Well that's the idea ! imagine that the Human Race is so underdevelloped compared so hundreds of other species across the Galaxy...
oh wait, that may be true... lol
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Well that's the idea ! imagine that the Human Race is so underdevelloped compared so hundreds of other species across the Galaxy...
oh wait, that may be true... lol
I guess you're right, we have so much to explore in the galaxy, mostly outside of our solar system... But ufos are not waiting, they know we're here...
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Turns out that each potential recruit has a 1% chance to be an elite (vs. a generalist, or a specialist)... and they rock. I found this out by leafing through the 2.4 source, but it's in stable -- I just found somebody whom I haven't hired yet, but with these stats:
Strength 32
Speed 28
Accuracy 37
Mind 43
Close Combat 28
Heavy Weapons 36
Assault Weapons 36
Sniper Rifles 29
High Explosives 30
Health 124
:o :o
And another with Str 31, Spd 28, Acc 32, Mind 32, Close 29, Heavy 37, Assault 33, Sniper 39, High Exp 35, Health 114.
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And, incidentally, starting stats matter a lot -- the XP it takes to reach a given stat are based on how much higher it is than the original statistic, not the new value. That is, it takes the same XP to go from e.g. Accuracy of 32 to Accuracy of 50, as it takes to go from an Accuracy of 17 to an Accuracy of 35, because both are 18 above the starting value. And it's an exponential curve...
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I've noticed this a long time ago. So in my game, I've been saveloading at the end of each month to get at least one elite among new recruits, and made my primary team only from those. Now, one of them has made it to Lt.Col, and they finally shoot like real soldiers.
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Perhaps like XCOM Apocalypse, a training room could be added? It was a real blast and a reason to mass construct bases and house lots of troops early on so that even though the fighting would go on, every passing week would give you a personal army for the final clash.
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I think whoever started this thread got it the wrong way round; you see, the PHALANX is not supposed to be an elite army but rather a strange concoction of old weaponry, whatever the countries/blocks could (willingly) spare and a very tight budget. It's the last stand, yes, but as with everything else in real life, it's bound by international laws and politics (and their own nasty schemes and avarice). Some politicians and/or military men are secretly hoping PHALANX will fail. Others just want to make a profit out of the whole deal. It's the way of life.
Just look at the US and their two-faced approach to environmental laws; everybody knows they're the lead contributors to an incoming disaster, corrupt/imoral men like senator Kerry will say to the press that something's being done while behind the scene they're all plotting to keep on polluting the planet for profit.
Why do you think it should be different if/when the aliens invade Earth?
*EDIT* Lol, this is looney talk. Just so you know, I'm aware there're no aliens about (at least not to my knowledge) and this is all an allegory.
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PHALANX is supposed to be an elite unit but since the game would then lose some bit of its RPG-y aspect of skill developement, it doesn't seem like that in the field. Personally, I think your guys are all trained to be elites but have little-to-no field experience. They know every bit on how to maintain weapons and know its internal mechanics, they have received "training"/education in battle tactics and possibly field medicine, but have only used them in a few exercises.
Also, besides politics, what do you think happened to the actual elites you're supposed to have? They got sent to the initial battles to fend off the aliens. We all know how well those battles went...
On the other hand, in research though...
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We have an "elite" unit assembled by the earth governments to fight the aliens because the army couldn't do anything (wish i saw the army, can they even hold the rifle?).
I play on standard difficulty and didn't encounter anything what is described in this thread... But what I want to reply is kinda not on that topic, but a response to the quoted line -- YES, the regular army can't even HOLD the rifle. It was my pet peeve about the former "Convoy" map -- where aliens supposedly attack a military convoy, and none of those soldiers have even a pistol :)