«

[Sharp]

As far as I know dual-wielding pistols isnt actually that bad for accuracy, my agents were doing devestatingly well against the cultists, however it is very ammo consuming but it is really cool to do.

All i wish for now is that you can run and shoot when wielding pistols, that would look awesome.

Disruptor guns are good as they have no ammo, but they are terribly inaccurate if you dual wield them, however hold two together and go behind an unsuspecting enemy and it acts very much like a power sword in killing in a hit, also power sword kicks behind as well, useful for the lone agent, but unless your raiding MarSec early on then you wont get it for a few weeks, and against aliens at that time its quite useless, not to mention cultists will be rocket launchering you all the time. (Once youve got cloaking though, the weapon becomes very uesful again)

Also vehicles dont kill themselves, however you can set the altitude vehicles fly at, to do so select the vehicle and i believe it is on the middle in the vehicles tab button, next to the behaviour. High altitude stops debris from killing vehicles and allows makes aliens shoot up in the sky instead of blowing up the city shooting at the floor and damaging any roads.

Also later in the game you should not use the Valkyrie for combat, it will die really easily as it cannot manoevre well and gets shot easily, by later in the game i mean after the first week where you get new types of UFO's with more deadly weapons.

Also when launching vehicles if a hostile is nearby they tend to try and shoot through any buildings, this can cause nearby buildings to destroy your vehicle, especially if you have vehicles armed with say the retribution missile. To avoid cases like these, on launching select the ship that has the desructive weapon and tell it not to fire that weapon, to do this on the vehicles tab when selecting your ship just simply click on the weapon icon near the bottom left.

[efthimios]

I play the battle turn based. So far I have yet to be out of ammo for any of my troops. I will always have an extra clip but apart from some rocket launchers kind of weapons I don't remember ever having to reload a gun.
I don't know the % regarding drop in accuracy but since I can't use them at the same time I see no point in that. :blink:

Great game.

Thanks for the advice, sharp. I already experimented with the altitude control but the Skyranger stubbornly ignored me. I could swear that on the one or the other occasion the thing actually followed the roads intentionally :blink:

Anyway, I'm a poor chap so my fleet consists of rather primitive fighters:
1 APC Wolfhound (0 Kills apart from the occasional passing Sirius Taxi)
1 Stormdog (I really should sell the thing)
5 Hovercars (They are cheap and useful, also so far they have managed not to get killed (with 1 exception))
2 Valkyries (Number 2 was bought before the Hawks became available, I couldn't wait any longer for additional firepower)
3 Hawks, all armed with retribution, 1 with janitor and the small alien weapon and two with a lineage plasma cannon.

Still I had a hard time downing the ufo I'm just boarding; I suspect its type 6 or 7 and probably the first one with the green psiglobs lurking around. (Description: It's got at least two doors which are one storey high, the walls are radioactive green and there are 12 agents sitting / proning / standing in front of them waiting for something non-human to emerge :evil: )


Efthimios: The sole reason while you never had to reload is because the soldiers do it themselves
Anyway I only use one weapon (devestator at the moment, I'm just working at the biological warfare) since my soldiers fit in one of two categories:
A) Born marksman: Ridiculously accurate even when using automatic, also extremely strong and fast and thus packed with tons of explosives if the necessity for a ground zero should arise (I just drop loads of explosives from the top level since it costs nothing tu wise)

B) A complete behind: Can still miss the target when standing right next to it - preferably when it is vital to kill it - can only carry small amounts of extra equipment and would be unable to move if he / she / it wasn't wearing a complete marsec armour. Is also unable to throw explosives of any kind, grenades tend to get stuck in the agents nostrils blowing him and his squad to very tiny bits or, should the armour hold, they stay in one bleeding bruised dying bit which spends some time patching itself up and then leaving the combat area pretty damn quickly. Or, alternatively, they go sniff a stun grenade and spend the rest of the mission fast asleep while the other squad does all the fighting (I usually operate in 2 big squads to stop the B-class trooper from getting killed)

[Sharp]

Thats the one bad thing in the ammo consumption, the ammo you can buy is limited. Possible ways to solve the problems are, raiding Marsec (cant buy any more wepons or vehicles, cept Turbo Bike) or raid MegaPol (also, cannot buy some weapons) but the best way to get ammo is to raid the cultists.

When raiding cultists its better to use a squad of 4, that way you really only have two rooms to search and depending on the map there is only one room with gravlifts.

And guest (you should register, or at least put some name), im quite surprised youve managed to buy two valkryies to use in combat, when I use them, they tend to get shot a lot and if they dont die they take ages to repair. Also, a stormdog, thats just crazy, waste of ammo and fuel and it will die as well (not to mention getting roads destroyed so you wont be able to take your APC anywhere).

Apart from landing/taking off the valkyrie should conform with the altitude you put, just make sure your not mixing them around with the behaviour one, aggresive vehicles tend to be wreckless.

Also you should really get hoverbikes, armed with a rendor plasma gun and possibly a small accuracy unit, they do quite well en masse.

Also good to see you use the same tactics as me, camp outside the doors and wait for them to come out. Good way to avoid getting poppered as they usually come out first.

Nice to see you have born marksmen, just make sure thier psi-def is high as green blobs are scary psi powerful. They get taken out by androids quite easily though at close combat with full auto weapons.

[Lt. Razak]

Ok, I'm the ominous guest. I did enter my name the first time but I don't think it did any good...

Anyway, I personally keep from raiding Marsec and Megapol. I never had them as enemies but it was annoying enough to have psyke around raiding my base every two days when they were infiltrated. I can't begin to imagine if all those police cars - excellent decoys - would start shooting at me when I engage ufos. Also I think it would be quite a nuisance if every police car coming down the road past your base would take a few pot shots at it.

Besides Megapol has enough problems already, I just saw how Psyke levelled a hospital with 2 hovercars ... the whole hospital was gone before even the first police car arrived on the crime scene...

About the flyers:
There are several possible reasons for the survival of the fleet
- they are all set on 2nd lowest altitude and 2nd highest caution-thingie so they keep well away from the ufos
- I'm playing on medium since I never actually finished this game and since it has been a long time since I was last able to play it. All I remembered when starting again was "raid sirius" and "grenades! take plenty of grenades with you"

Apart from that, I always recall flyers as soon as they are moderately damaged or when they get themselves in trouble (i.e. they get surrounded by several alien craft) Also, I have too few vessels to attack multiple enemy craft at once, the whole fleet engages one target, if its downed and the other ufos decide to stick around in my town they get a walloping as well :evil:

Infantry tactics:
Well staying outside is the best way of removing poppers from the fray. I always want to go inside just for the feeling of it but then I have to wait outside as wave after wave of aliens crashes against the x-com cliffs



Edit:

I seem to need some advice on the real time missions. I just tried it and floated around with a squad of 4 soldiers (the other 10 are wounded). The effect wasn't too amazing, I just told them where to go, tried to throw grenades (which went off too early or too late) and designated primary targets.
The result:
An entire apartment needs refurbishment and new windows
I almost lost one of my only two shield generators (still producing them like mad but it takes too long)
One of my soldiers will spend quite a while in the hospital
A civilian was incinerated when a vortex mine went off having travelled only a quarter of its route
And a panicked (!) anthropod made a viable attempt on the live of one of my Catergory A soldiers (which he regretted once the whole squad was right on top of him (literally) set to agressive auotmatic fire...)

Can you give me any hints how to reduce casualties and how to get organised more effecitvely... I doubt I'll be able to handle more than a single squad the way I do things now...

[Abi79]

OK. Here's a hint. When you first start a mission (it doesn't matter if real-time or turn-based) don't (I mean DON'T) enter a room. Just stay outside and wait at the door. After the aliens stopped coming advance very fast through the level to kill every alien. I usually enter in rooms with 4 or 5 guys while the other wait at the door. That's what I'm doing right now in a hospital. I don't know where the last alien hides, but I'll find him hahaha :evil:

NOTE: half of the hospital is destroyed due to my amunition (HE and IN). :evil: and I've still got three grenades for the last alien.

-Come out, come out where ever you are, slimy alien.
-Graah !
-Where did that sound come from ? Hmm... I know: the second floor. Everybody go there ASAP. Do I make myself clear ?
-Sir, yes sir !

[Sharp]

Pause, pause frequently in real-time, you can still give commands to all your troops while paused. One thing which can be good or bad depending on situations is that agents take initiative unlike turnbased where its very much you have control over all the agents.

Also for grenades, im pretty sure you can set them to explode on landing, I usually set them for around 1.75 seconds as thats enough time to tell my soldiers to get out of there if its a mis-throw.

Pausing is the way to make your squad survive. The good thing about real-time is that you can do more effective squad tactics such as pincer movements, and you clear rooms far more quickly.

Just run it on slow time and you should be fine. One good thing about real-time is that you dont have to be there for the battle either. I can remember when doing a mission against a crashed UFO I had four squads guarding the only exit, had a sniper team at the far back, a machine gun team nearby and a heavy weapons (Autocannons) team close by and my raid team (just incase any aliens decide to stay in the craft)

I saved when they were all in position and then put it on fastest and left to do some....erm....stuff.

End result as I came back, lots and lots of dead aliens, no casualties on my part, a good mission finish. k:

Another tip in real-time combat, when facing brain suckers, go into prone and they cant suck your brains, if you do it when they go-mid jump they fall unconcious on landing.

[BeefontheBone]

Use a medikit on him to stop the bleeding, or leave the combat area to stop him dying - that's one of my favourite little tricks in fact.

@Abi - I changed my mind, and reckon it might be good fun. Those two threads have made me want to play XCom again

[Sharp]

Only takes a few seconds to heal crit wounds using a medkit, just make sure you have the medkit selected and you click on the body part that is red. I was confused for quite a while when first playing Apocalypse as i kept trying to get other agents to heal my injured agents.

Agents can only heal themselves. When it shows green on the bodypart on the box in the top-right when you have a medkit selected then it means that the agent is healing that area currently, keep the agent inactive as in not moving and not shooting and in realtime a few seconds later you'll have an uninjured agent again.

The main reason why your agent didnt heal is as you said, he was hovering so im assuming you had him hovering in mid-air, ever tried to heal yourself in midair, it wont turn out pretty, soon he will drop to the floor, cept he will be dead.

I find its best to treat agents like vehicles, when they get moderatly damaged you should send them to the exits so they dont die or take ages to heal.

--

I hate searching for those last aliens, though I use motion scanners more now, except for its terrible on the maps which have like 8 floors.

Sarge: Ok where's that last Alien SOB then
Pvt. Peters: *whips out motion scanner*
Motion Scanner shows 3 dots advancing Aliens style
Pvt. Peters: erm Sarge, there coming right towards us.
Sarge: Ok you Alien bitches, time to go UFO:Enemy Unknown on your raggedy-behind (damn you forums for turning @ss into behind)
Sarge starts blasting at the roof with AP Autocannon
Popper lands through the ceiling
Sarge: ........ oooohhhhh Fuuuu**
Pvt. Peters: ... I love you Sarge

[Lt. Razak]

My midair-guy was actually healing (the body part was green) himself but he wouldn't stop / finish. Anyway, I think I'm getting the hang of realtime though it is draining my small amounts of toxine B rather quickly (So far I managed to make 3 Tguns, 9 Bclips which are gone already). Still, I lost one shield and was able to replace it thanks to a bit of marksmanship, a brilliant engineer and man's ingenuity when it comes to killing.

Mapwise my favourite are slums; especially the one with the bridge. Thanks to a hint I read earlier in this forum I now watch UFOs to see where they beam down troops and engage those ASAP, so ive got nice and small maps. Still, sometimes rather heated battles erupt if there are too many aliens in a small space so Diablo got rather pissed of when I tore down a bridge with the exception of half a stairway. Well, at least most of the anthropods literally dropped dead when most of the structure collapsed after taking several vortex mines. Tough luck, though, for those civillians (crowds of them) that were running around below the bridge.

Well, real time makes the camouflage-thingie a real necessity so I'm working on that now; in the meantime I'm still taking hits from everywhere while I can't see the (camouflaged) enemy. Well, onto battle :Titan: