XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Reverend]

Went and bought it for the PS3 (I'm not upgrading to Win7 just for a sodding game!) and so far it's a lot of fun! Into the third month and so far no deaths, two satellites launched, two more ready to go and a third being built. My strategy is to get as many of those thing in orbit as possible and to always go for the monetary rewards because money builds more satellites and satellites reduce the panic in any country you didn't help.

Just tazed my first glowy crystal alien and gained the ability to build labs, so I think it's time I focused on getting some better armour and beam weapons.

One question though: Exactly what is in the DLC pack that comes with the game? I typed in the code and all that jazz, but I didn't notice the original style xcom soldier in my initial line up. Am I missing something?

[Alidar Jarok]

Is there any DLC yet? The game only just came out not that long ago.

[archeryguy1701]

Alidar, there is currently one DLC out there at the moment, and it was one of those preorder bonuses that they ended up opening to everyone. It's supposed to contain a soldier who resembles a soldier from the classic game, an option to toggle to the original armor, and the full palet of colors for armor customization. I'm not sure which one was supposed to be the original soldier, but I did make full use of the armor/ color changes in my first run-through.

At somepoint in the near future, there's supposed to be another DLC coming out with an additional storyline and a unique soldier for use during those missions.

[Alidar Jarok]

Is it the X-Com: Enemy Unknown Elite Soldier Pack?

[archeryguy1701]

Yep, that's the one.

[Reverend]

Just survived my first terror mission and I damn near cacked me pants! Two chrysalids burst out of nowhere, one got point blank with my sniper and I was sure I'd lost her. Thankfully I chose to equip one of my assaults with a shotgun and my heavy had rapid fire so I was able to kill them both before things got ugly.

I think I may have thrown too much effort into getting satellites and uplinks as of right now I still only have starting weapons and armour. Mind you having a lot of income early on should help and I plan on only researching laser rifles before skipping straight to plasma weapons. Also I have the South American bonus which means autopsies and interrogations are instantaneous. All I need is one more sat over Africa and I can get the cash bonus too!

[timmy84]

Reverend wrote:

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Just survived my first terror mission and I damn near cacked me pants! Two chrysalids burst out of nowhere, one got point blank with my sniper and I was sure I'd lost her. Thankfully I chose to equip one of my assaults with a shotgun and my heavy had rapid fire so I was able to kill them both before things got ugly.

I think I may have thrown too much effort into getting satellites and uplinks as of right now I still only have starting weapons and armour. Mind you having a lot of income early on should help and I plan on only researching laser rifles before skipping straight to plasma weapons. Also I have the South American bonus which means autopsies and interrogations are instantaneous. All I need is one more sat over Africa and I can get the cash bonus too!

I've found money isn't as important in this game like in the original since you have multiple resources to manager now (like research projects won't even start without a certain number of scientists, and you can't buy scientists). Don't skip over laser weapons. Build a couple. You can't research plasma weapons unless you capture aliens (if you have captured them, well then go for it).

In the original game my brother went full plasma, then ran into an alien that was almost impervious to plasma (but the autopsy said that lasers cut threw them like a hot knife in butter). I don't know if they did that this game.

[Reverend]

Not exactly. Building labs gives you scientists and labs cost money. As for the weapons, I did research and build laser rifles and pistols as a stopgap, but for my heavy and snipers I'm gone straight for plasma to save time and resources. Basically I'm going for a very aggressive strategy to get as much done as soon as possible. I already have the psi labs and foundry up, both enough spare sats to deal with any serious panic and am setting my sights on plasma cannons and the alien style interceptors as I want those all in place before I start using the hyperwave wotsit.

The only problem so far is that I may have missed the optimum time to capture live sectoids and floaters. Two separate missions I attempted it and both times I failed. On one I gave the arc thrower to a rookie who promptly got himself killed (shame you can't just have another soldier pick it up) and the other time I wounded the floater, but it ran off into the woods before I could get close, so I had to kill it. Also, I'm running very low on things like weapon fragments since I really haven't done that many missions so far.

[FPAlpha]

This is the balancing in the works.. in the old game you could produce everything with money, in this one you need everything and some things you can only get by doing missions, i.e. sticking your neck out.

I've had times later in the game where i ran out of weapon fragments and other items and had to stop research until i shot down a UFO or did some other misssions that provided the raw materials for the research.

[Reverend]

^That's pretty much where I am right now. I have 62 weapons fragments and I need 75 to research the new interceptor...and just to take the piss, Japan is asking for 18 in exchange for some cash. Fortunately, I just got an abduction mission before I saved, so with a bit of luck, that'll get me some more resources.

Still, my "get moar monies!" strategy appears to be paying off. With one council report I was able to buy three titan armours *and* plasma weapons for my main sniper & heavy. I think I'll hold off on the ghost armour for now as it looks like it chews though a *lot* of elerium and I think I'll be needing that for other things.

[Reverend]

Had a chance to play a bit last night for the first time in weeks and I think I'm getting close to the endgame. I managed to get a plasma or EMP armed Firestorm over every nation, shot down the overseer ship and now I'm getting ethereals an sectopods all over the place! My current plan is to hold off researching the next bit until I've made enough mind shields for everyone. I'm also on a recruitment and training drive, hiring soldiers by the dozen and sending them all to the psi labs, then dismissing the ones with no psi gift. My aim is to have enough psi able solders to make up two full squads.

No battleship mission yet though, which is a bit of a bugger since I gather you need that to upgrade the missile launcher. I really think they should have had a mid-level upgrade since standard rockets have limited utility. What would have been nice is a weapon that does higher damage with a smaller AOW so you can take on heavy enemies without damaging too much of a ship and with less of a friendly fire risk.

[Lookingglassman]

I got this game and played the first mission and didn't have a clue what was going on. I didn't like how I had to move my people and then figure out which button to press to get my folks to fire. When I bought it I was thinking it was going to have the mechanics like other third person shooters where I could target the aliens and shoot them myself instead of aiming and then pressing some buttons and having the console shoot the weapon. Maybe I should have given it a try, but I took it back to the store and traded it in for Halo 4.

[FPAlpha]

Lookingglassman wrote:

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I got this game and played the first mission and didn't have a clue what was going on. I didn't like how I had to move my people and then figure out which button to press to get my folks to fire. When I bought it I was thinking it was going to have the mechanics like other third person shooters where I could target the aliens and shoot them myself instead of aiming and then pressing some buttons and having the console shoot the weapon. Maybe I should have given it a try, but I took it back to the store and traded it in for Halo 4.

Well.. then you probably had to do more research because it sounds you expected a first person shooter whereas XCOM is a turn based strategy game.

Not the game's fault.

[Alidar Jarok]

Yeah, it's not a shooter, nor was the original. It would have taken about two minutes worth of research or playing the demo to figure that out.

[Lookingglassman]

I knew it was not a first person shooter and I read up on it, but the impression I got was it like a third person shooter, but turn based strategy game.