Messages

16

Discussion / Re: Balancing smoke grenades

« on: September 25, 2014, 09:45:09 pm »

For me, the reason why smoke is such an essential thing to deploy is the alien "clairvoyance". AFAIK they know where to move to shoot you. Smoke removes this. If the aliens were less clairvoyant (preferably not at all), smoke would become less effective as soldiers on the move, uncovered or in partial cover would not be 99.9% guaranteed to become plasma magnets.

17

Discussion / Re: Some thoughts about 2.5...

« on: September 19, 2014, 11:50:56 pm »

Heh, I finished a campaign game this evening, where my top 2 soldiers were 2 coilgun snipers I had kept alive from the start - they had only reached 50 strength, though I was running 4 combat teams from 2 bases with fairly high squad rotation.

18

Discussion / Re: Some thoughts about 2.5...

« on: September 19, 2014, 05:44:49 pm »

I have never understood why the power armour adds any weight to a soldiers load at all. I mean, is not the point of it that it is a load bearing device to take the weight of heavy plating and suchlike? As it stands, I pretty much never use it in combat, as giving it to a soldier means not being able to give them a weapon of anything other than the lightest weight if I want them to have a few grenades, a plasma blade or medkit - which is easy to do with the NanoComp.

19

Tactics / Re: Flashbang tactics

« on: September 19, 2014, 05:41:03 pm »

Much more important, make them work against Sheevar. If they should work then that's a severe bug.
It's okay that they don't work against robotic aliens, since these are less dangerous in other ways: They don't use grenades or plasma blades, so you can count on a certain amount of time units spent for your reaction fire. 12 TUs shot of plasma rifle or laser rifle is usually enough to kill combat hovernets.

Also, I have NEVER seen reaction fire from a Hovernet, making flashbang use on them less of an issue.

20

Tactics / Re: My worst map: small village (called "england" in skirmish)

« on: September 08, 2014, 07:35:50 pm »

Worst map for my playstyle? Luxury resort is the winner here. One alien often spawns on the roof overlooking the dropship, ready to rain fire or grenades down, doubly worse if armed with a plasma blaster. You have 3 lines you can assault over; one leading up a doubling back stairway to an exposed semi blind alley often with aliens just around the corner overlooked by 2nd floor windows, one leading to the centre of a map through a basement which you exit towards the already mentioned blind alley or to the third line of assault, which is a small stairway leading to a wide open area overlooked by alien firing points in ground and second floor windows. Other aliens spawn in good cover behind buildings far from you, and will pop out of cover as soon as you leave troops exposed. My only successes on this map have involved lots of reaction fire luck with shotguns and my own plasma blasters, liberal use of fire and smoke, and more than one melee kill when things get desperate.

Honourable mention has to go to the secret depot, which often has a number of aliens in firing positions overlooking the automatic door triggered by putting a soldier there as a reaction fire magnet. Smoke can make their survival more probable, until they rush the door, or an alien appears on the roof above the door and wipes your squad with a grenade, plasma blaster fire or some fully auto rounds of some sort.

I have also recently begun to hate the archaeological dig. There are so many points a single alien could entrench themselves and be a right pain in the ass.

21

Tactics / Re: "Hit the ground" option (Shift + fire)

« on: September 07, 2014, 01:26:29 pm »

It is also useful for getting weapons to fire through gaps like windows - often the direct horizontal line will hit above or below the opening, and aiming a bit higher or lower will send more rounds through the opening.

22

Tactics / Re: Flashbang tactics

« on: September 02, 2014, 11:11:03 pm »

BTW for those playing on master: I just made some changes that will make a hurt sound play for anyone hit by splash damage (like the ones played when being hit by a direct shot) including successfully flashbanged units, feedback welcome on this regard

Ideally, a status icon showing a unit to be suffering from the effects of a flashbang would be nice - like how a unit has that spirally symbol when stunned. The audio cue sounds like a great idea though, not just for flashbangs but for all explosive weapons.

23

Tactics / Re: Flashbang tactics

« on: August 30, 2014, 03:50:39 pm »

Before the throw they have used the TUs needed to grab the flashbang, buuut RF is only checked on moving and shooting (or throwing) so (un)crouching and inventory management won't count to trigger RF unless you have already moved or used a weapon in the alien's sight this turn (which causes the alien to add your soldier to its RF targets list, and even then, RF won't trigger until you try to move or shoot again....), after the throw — if successfully flashed— the aliens no longer have neither RF enabled or the TUs to fire...

This is valuable info - thanks!

24

Tactics / Re: Flashbang tactics

« on: August 29, 2014, 04:40:08 pm »

Did some sums, and Taking a flashbang from belt and lobbing it takes 8 TU's. Did some testing in skirmish mode, and in around 50 flashbang lobs at Taman armed with everything from pistols up to particle rifles I never got a single instance of reaction fire back, either the instant before my trooper threw the flashbang, or after it was lobbed. It was also pretty clear that if an alien had saved some TU's (not the easiest thing to determine unless you can observe thier entire move), the flashbang wiped the reserved TU's out. I did not expect to get any fire after the lob, but expected to get some fire before the lob, just as how reaction fire occurs before you shoot at an alien. Could this be down do how events are queued up and executed within a turn? Things seemed very, very similar for 25 tests on Ortnoks.

Repeated with about 25 attempts at a Sheevar, and things were inconclusive. I never had any reaction fire returned at me by expending the 8 TU's in the equipping and throwing of a flashbang, but as above it was hard to tell if the alien had used all its TU's or not. In any case, the Sheevar appeared to have a standard amount of TU's the turn following being exposed to a flashbang. Tests with Bloodspiders and Hovernets showed a similar pattern the the Sheevar, as supported by the .ufo file info above. I am not 100% sure that relates to flashbang though, and could be related to the electrolaser, most possibly how much resistance each has to electrical damage.

Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to play as Sheevar and have flashbangs thrown at me, but the AI was reluctant to do that. Lobbing them at my own alien troops did nothing, unsurprisingly.

25

Windows / Re: what is wrong with you develompent politics???

« on: August 28, 2014, 06:34:20 pm »

With the text in the 2 examples you post, I really cant see what the issue is - it hardly looks unreadable, and looks very much like what I see when I play the game. If this is an aesthetics issue, it clearly is not a bug. I repeat - If the text is unreadable on your display I strongly suspect that the problem lies at your end, not with the game, based on how many users are not complaining about this and are getting by just fine. It is more than readable for me, and I simply install from the package available from the downloads page. Possibly what you have on your system is incompatible in some way with the game. I for one a few moths ago had an issue where I would get little or no text on certain screens - the solution was to check my SDL video drivers, which were out of date and not functioning properly, or so it seemed. Updating them solved that problem.

26

Windows / Re: what is wrong with you develompent politics???

« on: August 28, 2014, 12:05:50 am »

2.5 works fine out of the box for me on Win7. I suspect the problem lies at your end, rather than with the game.

27

Tactics / Re: Flashbang tactics

« on: August 28, 2014, 12:02:31 am »

Taking out + throwing/rolling needs 8 time units. I already got reaction-shot by a plasma rifle when consuming just 8 TUs so I have to conclude I should get reaction-shot too then. Unless you let them start with the grenade in hands.
It's safer to "record" enemy positions (in memory), throw a smoke grenade into the line of sight by some unit currently out of enemy sight, and kill through or out of smoke, which will protect from the next enemy turn too.

I admit I am not 100% certain about my sums here - I thought that it was 1 TU for out of belt, and 6 TU's for lobbing. I might be missing something.

28

Tactics / Re: Flashbang tactics

« on: August 27, 2014, 10:41:23 am »

I use them for a couple of scenarios, which tend to fall into the same general grouping - when an alien stops in the open, in view in range of at least 2 of my soldiers who do not need to move to flashbang them (to avoid getting reaction fire via moving), and appears to crouch or at least not fire as much as I would expect - this suggests they have saved some TU's. That, or either if I spot an alien through a wall/floor with IR and have enough TU to round the corner/stairs and kill it safely if I can ensure it will not shoot back. All of my soldiers carry a flashbang in their belt, so taking it out and rolling/throwing it costs less than 8 TU's, meaning it will not cause reaction fire for anything other than a plasma pistol, which after the first few months tend not to be used by aliens in combat save for a few rare possibilities. The alien can then be gunned down with ease. I try and get them as close to the feet of the alien, or closest alien in the case of a group. I have enjoyed some success with this method, especially with Taman. I don't bother against HoverNets or Bloodspiders (robotic enemies, HN NEVER reaction fire, bloodspiders being melee only). I have less experience using it against Ortnoks due to seeing far fewer of them. With Sheevar, I suspect they have enough TU's to still have enough remaining to get off one reaction shot after a flashbang if they saved enough the previous turn, but someone who knows the games internals more than me could probably shed light there. As for not knowing if it works, I don't mind that - I like the ambiguity of there still being a risk, but I can see why some may like some kind of "dazed" status indicator.

Oh, and this is with the 2.5 release version.

29

Discussion / Re: Some thoughts about 2.5...

« on: August 26, 2014, 10:35:35 am »

Have you tried flashbangs? They allow for more aggressive play than smoke grenades on the first turn, or if an alien has obviously reserved TU's for reaction fire.

30

Tactics / Re: 2.5 Early game builds+what effect the amount of TU's?

« on: August 26, 2014, 12:21:25 am »

I find that a pulsed fire laser burst is just as effective at dispatching enemies from close in with the laser, for less TU's. 2 ammo for the coil gun is often more than enough to last a moderate length mission.