X-COM: UFO Defense - Episode 7

[@neoteraflare]

Wow that Supply ship was intense. A few QoL tips (I won't say how to play just what is what): For the manufacturing: Right click on the arrows always puts the maximum/minimum number possible. So you don't have to hold down the left button. (same for research and sell/buy too) if you right click on the Increase production amount arrow it will set it to infinite. It is good when you don't want to create anything just getting money from the manufactured and sold items. If you face a door and right click in that direction the soldier will open the door without entering (still costs a few TU but not triggers reaction fire). There is a walk confirmation thing in the Options menu. Under Battlesacpe button you can turn on the "path preview arrows". With this the first click only shows the path the soldiers take and only start walking when you click on the tile again. Also this shows how far you can go to still be able to shoot (green path). Reaction shots depend on 3 things: reaction attribute, remaining time unit and cost of shooting a snapshot with a weapon (reaction is only snapshot). The less TU you have the more chance the enemy will have to shoot you as a reaction. If they have a pistol (which needs less TU to shoot than a cannon or rifle) they have even more chance they will shoot you. This works for you too. If you want to do reaction shots use pistol and try to have as much TU left as much you can. Try to remember the place of the aliens on the supply ship. They will always be there on the same place when you do the missions again. Stunned units wake up after a time. At their red health bar you can see a white line growing if they have some stun (eg staning in smoke). If the white line reaches the current health they become unconscious. Stun rod and stun launchers just give a big white line so an enemy with lot of health may take more than one stun. Every turn this white line decreases. If it becomes less than the health, they wake up.

[@steamrangercomputing]

I like to set the manufacturing limit for sales to be around a month, as that way I get notified once it's done and check if I need to make anything else before starting another manufacturing job for money. I tried the path preview before I started this series and I found it to be a bit annoying. I think by the time I entered the supply ship at least a few of the aliens had moved around, for example the one that came into the elevator and shot two of my people. Do enemies wake up, or just my people?

[@neoteraflare]

@@steamrangercomputing Yeah, understandable your manufacture method too. There is 2 kind of alien in a ship mission: One is outside of the ship going randomly hunting xcom and the others inside the ship patrolling in circles. The patrol ones that are the ones inside the ship that stay the same. They can meet your soldiers this way. Also be careful, according to rumors (maybe it is really just a rumor) after turn 20 aliens will know your position and start hunting you. This could be the reason they went out of the ship hunting for the 2 people outside Everyone wakes up after a time. The same rules go for everybody in everything. Aliens or xcom. You can haste the waking up with the medikit's stimulant if you stand above the unconscious body

[@steamrangercomputing]

@@neoteraflare I find it odd that the aliens chose to go for my people outside the ship, rather than the ones inside. Perhaps they saw that the outside ones were lower health?

[@neoteraflare]

@@steamrangercomputing I don't really know how exactly the AI works. My guess would be they were the nearest according to pathfinding and not just distance. Maybe they spot him while he was collecting the stuff from the dead guys. Or it is just totally random

[@andrewriker2192]

You have so much patience with the UI. 👏 Bravo for dealing with time units and reserved shots.

[@steamrangercomputing]

@@andrewriker2192 Yes, it can take quite a while to do things. I find it is nicer than some UIs of more modern games, particularly simulation or grand strategy. It would be nice if there was a reaction shot calculator, or something of that nature, where you could mouse over a tile and see the chance of reaction shooting an enemy there, but I guess that was beyond the limits of 90s UI design.