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Well, on one hand I'm not dead yet (and being a sniper makes me hope I'm less likely to get shanked by an alien), but seeing those three lonely hit points has me quite worried.
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Jun 20, 2019 13:27
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So...we may be screwed. The stuttering/lag on videos gets better when I'm not uploading simultaneous with recording. But it never fully resolves. Game played just fine the whole time, and it wasn't making horrible noises like it was in yesterday's video so I figured it was fine. And since I start every video with geoscape, I didn't notice until just now. And there are waaaaaaaay too many videos remaining at this point. I figure what I'll do later is upload the next one and if y'all think it's too lovely to deal with for another ton of missions, I think we're done here. My fault entirely. My poor 2012 computer apparently can't handle recording at 1080p and playing at the same time, and I didn't notice until now.
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Jun 20, 2019 13:28
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FairGame posted:So...we may be screwed. I'd say just go back to 720 or whatever you were doing before.
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Jun 20, 2019 14:04
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Xelkelvos posted:I'd say just go back to 720 or whatever you were doing before. Well, yeah, but there's too much #content between where we are in the thread and how far I've taken the campaign for a switchback to be particularly meaningful. I'm in October. There are like 70 missions or so between where we are now and when I could switch video settings. e: yeah, I'm killing this. It's unwatchable. Welp, let this be a lesson about doing video testing BEFORE you go live with an LP. What a waste. FairGame fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jun 20, 2019 |
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Jun 20, 2019 14:51
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Reload a save from April, replay! More xcom isn't a bad thing, right?!
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Jun 20, 2019 15:56
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Pander posted:Reload a save from April, replay! More xcom isn't a bad thing, right?! There is no save from April is the issue. One save slot for the whole campaign. I'll try and come back to this at some point with a new campaign, but I want to finish this one first. I'll make sure video gets handled in the tech support fort before I start anything. This was an embarrassing and eye-opening experience, and makes me realize just how much effort people here go to. My screenshot LPs were able to be brute forced and fixed after-the-fact when I had an issue, but I can't do that with video. Sorry, y'all. If it makes you feel any better, this looks like a victorious campaign. Or at least one that looks good as of mid-October. I'm sure I could shank a base assault or something in the next month or so that sets me back. Anyway, it's a good practice run for when I want to do this with proper video.
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Jun 20, 2019 16:30
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Doesn’t seem like I can do 1080p, but if y’all are willing to deal with 720 I’ve started a new campaign. XCOM is under new management—what I’ll do is a brief screenshot update highlighting the differences between March prime and March alternate, and then we’ll continue into the first mission of April, just as previously planned. But with 720p video. Sound good?
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Jun 22, 2019 14:09
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720 works fine for me. X-COM's cartoony look works fine at lower resolutions. And hopefully you'll get a better steam vent layout.
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Jun 22, 2019 14:27
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Sounds good to me. RIP lovely steam vent location and the once per episode complaining thereof.
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Jun 22, 2019 14:52
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Sounds great to me, glad to see this continue/restart. Hope you get just as good overwatch luck.
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Jun 22, 2019 15:26
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Fine by me. It's your rodeo, do what makes you happy.
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Jun 22, 2019 16:10
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UPDATE: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT It's early April. But things have changed. For starters, XCOM is no longer headquartered in Nigeria, and our troops aren't 1 mobility faster than normal. No, in this incarnation of XCOM we're in China, having taken a Deus Ex start. You never asked for this. And, frankly, I'm not sure it's going to work. But the basic early game idea of "rush all the meld possible" still holds true. Just instead of using that meld to get giant loving cyborg battlesuits, we're going to use it to genetically modify our existing soldiers and give them special powers. I've never really played with gene mods much before and I'm interesting in trying it. In terms of month 1 stuff, though, very little has changed. We didn't fail any missions. We shot down all 3 UFOs. The council mission was a bomb disposal (we'll get other bomb disposal missions; you haven't missed anything), so at some point we'll still get the "extradite William Thorne" mission that happened back in XCOM prime. 1 rookie got killed--ate a 10% shot from a flashbanged sectoid. I hired another rookie to take his place, so we still have a barracks of 40 soldiers. A SHIV is on the way; it'll be named MKS-5000 when it's built. Kush Limbaugh is next soldier named; everyone else should have representation.  Early research remains the same. Got xenobiology for council requests for scientists. Did alien materials for more council requests. Only instead of going for xenoneurology for stuns after that, I'm going for alien weaponry. I'm going to try and get lasers together for my air game.  Not much to do in engineering. The council mission gave us some engineers, so we're doing ok-not-great on both engineers and scientists right now. I sold off a bunch of elerium and alien computers to get 2 satellites in the air to join the existing satellite over China. Now we have coverage over Japan, China, and Australia. That last one is of concern to me. The HEAT ammo we're building will make MKS-5000 our go-to anti-tank weapon. It won't be ready until mid-April, though, which was intentional. You get +2 aim for new SHIVs and MECs when you have a satellite over Japan, and SHIVs start with 70 aim (the aim of some exceptional rookies). Anything to get their aim up a little bit. Australia gives +2 aim to new rocketeers and gunners, so I figured I'd go for that too. Australia's a pain in the rear end to defend, though, thanks to the time it takes to get from your air base to Australian airspace. India's worse, and their bonus only kicks in once you have multiple adjacent research facilities, so I went with Australia.  We have 6 interceptors, but we're already 1 week into April and haven't seen a UFO. We're gonna need to order more and I'm very worried that we'll both get interceptions over Australia and/or bunched UFOs where a damaged hangar can't respond.  Argentina was the auto-leave country in month 1, which I think is the same as we previously had. Either that or Brazil. In any event, we won't be getting South America for a while. Goal this month is to build the Officer Training School, expand to Squad Size I (7 units), maybe get another lab built if scientists allow, and spend literally every remaining spacebuck on more interceptors. We're going to go for North America after this, so we need at least 12 interceptors to cover both continents.  Steam placement still isn't great. See that forklift? That's our other steam vent. I guess we'll go for it. I'm undecided on whether I'll cancel the fission generator next to it and just go for steam. Probably not. On with the show next time!
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Jun 22, 2019 19:58
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Glad to see you posting again! And good to hear I'm a soldier. I look forward to getting pasted by ayys.
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Jun 22, 2019 20:43
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Jun 22, 2019 20:47
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I'm a bit chubby, obviously neglected my PT.
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Jun 22, 2019 21:58
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Well gently caress it, bringing the killboard across the timelines just because I'm curious how high it will go. X-COM Kill Tally Sectoids: 60 Drones: 19 Thin Men: 7 Seekers: 2 Outsiders: 3 Total: 90
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Jun 22, 2019 22:32
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Oh neat, I'm a Gunner this time.  And the video quality is great; good job. Haven't heard the audio since I'm at work.
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Jun 22, 2019 23:22
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Wow, it's great you still have the moxie to give this another shot. Thanks for keeping this up for the second run even after losing so much progress from the first. Everything from the latest video looks great, so I think you are golden now.
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Jun 22, 2019 23:54
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Jun 23, 2019 02:33
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Two in one day! You spoil us fairgame
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Jun 23, 2019 02:48
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Thanks for keeping this going. Edit: bonus mission. Score.
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Jun 23, 2019 02:50
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Godspeed, rook. Godspeed.
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Jun 23, 2019 03:03
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X-COM Kill Tally Sectoids: 64 Drones: 23 Thin Men: 7 Seekers: 2 Outsiders: 4 Total: 99
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Jun 23, 2019 04:30
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He died doing what he loved: hiding behind trees.
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Jun 23, 2019 05:04
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Well, glad to see I'm still not dead (not sure if my explosives privieges got revoked this time round though), and shotgunning things in the face is just as cool as sniping from afar. A question about cover, how much of an angle does an attacking unit need to be at to flank a target behind cover?
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Jun 23, 2019 06:41
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If Long War hasn't touched it, I think it's 90 degrees, so basically you have to find a straight line to get a proper flank. Watching this, I'm starting to entertain ideas of trying Long War myself again. Last time I tried it was waaay back, I'm not sure if it's you being good at dealing with LWs bullshit or if they changed things, but this looks less tedious somehow. I remember gnashing my teeth at the air game a lot, it might be that I had no idea that the number of UFOs at the start is scripted and how UFO armor worked.
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Jun 23, 2019 11:05
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For some reason Rachel Xenoborg at the end there really tickled me. "Please, call me Rachel. Queen Xenoborg was my mother"
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Jun 23, 2019 11:56
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Zernach posted:If Long War hasn't touched it, I think it's 90 degrees, so basically you have to find a straight line to get a proper flank. The motion tracker item was added fairly late in LW development and I find it makes an enormous difference in dealing with the tactical bullshit. The air game is maddening, but less so when you know what to expect and know what you can ignore. Actually, I should probably explain how UFOs work. Aliens plan UFO missions for the month when the month starts, and no matter how the month evolves, the UFO manifest remains unchanged. The aliens are weird sticklers like that. Sure, they might conduct horrifying experiments that pervert the laws of nature that make them clear irredeemable villains, but at least the The NUMBER and TYPE of missions varies based on alien resources (we get an indirect measure of this from meld canisters) and XCOM threat (the aliens will run more missions to directly confront XCOM if XCOM has been blowing up UFOs. If XCOM doesn’t seem that threatening, the aliens will run more missions “off screen” in countries without a satellite.) You don’t “know” what the alien mission is for a given UFO until much later in the game, but if you’ve played enough you’ll know the mechanics and figure it out before XCOM research officially does it. Missions: -Scout: a UFO flies at low altitude looking for a satellite. The mission, if successful, will locate a satellite and then summon another UFO to blow it up. You can fight either UFO, but cannot kill both because blowing up the scout mission will nullify the hunt mission. Scout missions don’t have to be run by the “scout” UFO type, but early on it’s nice if they are. Easy to shoot down, and not terribly well crewed so you can train rookies on the ensuing mission. The problem is that scouts will RUN the minute they start taking serious damage, and it’s difficult to get another interceptor up after them. This is my concern with our satellite over Australia. Anyway, you can foil these missions even without a shootdown, as damage will increase failure chance. And sometimes it fails on its own. -Hunt: a UFO flies at high altitude and blinks purple. Will stay in the air a LONG time. If successful it’ll destroy your satellite. Failure chance is (2*percent damage done to the craft), so at 50 percent damage it’s a guaranteed failure. Aliens only run 1-3 of these missions per month. If you see more of these it’s because you failed a scout mission. I will try to shoot down FIGHTERS (small UFOs), but will either ignore or try 50 percent vs. DESTROYERS (medium UFOs). It’s easier and a better use of resources to not burn an entire hangar vs. a destroyer. If you don’t know this, and you see a medium you’re liable to think “oh, this is a raider and I can usually down those in 2-3 interceptions” and then you look up and your hangar is wrecked, the UFO is still in the air, and you can’t respond to more UFO missions. -Bomb: a UFO flies at NOE orbit and flashes purple. Not in the air long. If successful, it’ll add a modest amount of panic to a country. Same logic here as fighters vs. destroyers, only I will entirely ignore destroyers. I can live with a little extra panic. -Research: a UFO flies at NOE but doesn’t flash. It’ll just land in an XCOM satellite country. Landed UFOs get a bonus month of research in terms of alien units fieldable, and also a few more aliens relative to a crash. All the artifacts on the UFO are intact, though, so it’s a great source of computers and power sources. Always respond to these on the ground and don’t shoot it down. If you fail the mission, aliens get a research bonus (for better UFOs, better and more aliens). Every now and then you’ll get a “trap” UFO where the aliens pack 2x more units and just clown car after you. -Harvest: a UFO flies at NOE but doesn’t flash. If it lands in a satellite country, you can launch a ground assault akin to a research mission. Otherwise, tough luck. If successful, aliens will gain resources. Aliens will select their harvest location randomly, but if they select an XCOM satellite country and perceive XCOM as a threat, they can reroll and take a resource penalty. If the reroll still puts them in XCOM territory, too bad. -Abduct: a UFO flies at NOE and doesn’t flash. When it lands, it spawns an abduction mission. Just do that mission instead. MUCH later you can shoot down an abductor, but early on forget it. Basically, those last three mission types are “let non flashing UFOs at NOE land and see what happens.” -Terror: aliens have a 75 percent chance to launch in the highest panic country, random otherwise. It’ll be a VERY LARGE ship that you’re not shooting down, so just deal with the terror mission. A smaller (but still LARGE) ship will presage this mission; you might be able to shoot thst down in early endgame. Won’t foil the terror mission, but it’ll get you some resources if you can handle the crash site. So basically, just don’t waste your interceptors against things you can’t handle, and don’t let destroyers wreck your hangar, and you’ll have a better time.
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Jun 23, 2019 13:14
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Jun 23, 2019 14:02
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Two questions I have that are raised by this. What can the effects of panic be? Are countries at risk (maybe increasingly easy roll) to leave the project before 100% panic? Secondly, do you happen to know of a simple .ini hack to disable the trap UFO's you mention  ? I'm a big baby, and I like to know all my missions are at least nominally completable.
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Jun 23, 2019 16:12
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Dancer posted:Two questions I have that are raised by this. 1.) Countries will leave the XCOM project at the end of the month if they have 95% or greater panic. If the country has a satellite over it, the 100% leave chance drops to 50%. If there are other countries on the continent with a satellite, the chance drops by...I don't know. Something. I think also there are gradients of chances to leave between 95, 96, ...100% panic but I don't know and generally it doesn't matter because it's rare that you have a country in that middle zone. Also, abduction missions tend to have more aliens the higher the panic of the country. I love light and moderate abuductions. Heavy abductions are a pain, and swarming can be downright deadly if it's a small map. If you see me evacuate an abduction in this LP, it'll probably be because it's an urban close quarters map and swarming abduction combo. 2.) I don't. I don't really do any INI editing. But the trap chance even at maximal XCOM threat is like < 20% so there's no reason not to go down on all landed craft. You can beat trap UFOs, too. And you'll know early on if it's a trap, generally, because you'll hear combat barks of units that can't appear on non-trap UFOs. Battle scanners (we don't have 'em as a perk yet, and I tend not to carry them as small items) can also help you out if you're nervous. In general, until you know you're safe on a landed craft (either because you've thinned out the aliens, you've scouted around, or you're just so confident in your team that you'll walk into the trap and come out the other side), stay within 1 move of the evac zone.
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Jun 23, 2019 16:30
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Crazy Achmed posted:A question about cover, how much of an angle does an attacking unit need to be at to flank a target behind cover? Cover applies to everything beyond the plane of the surface you're pressed against, if that makes sense. If you're pressed against a wall to your south, you'll be protected from everyone even a single step south of you, regardless of how far east or west. The exception is that units can take one step away from their own cover to fire, so if that one step is enough to get them past your cover, that counts as a flank. This is easy to see in action when an alien is on one side of a box and a soldier is on an adjacent side; the soldier will step around the box to shoot. Also, there's an option (which I don't think is on for this game) that reduces the cover bonus if the attacker "nearly" flanks you, i.e. is firing from a very sharp angle.
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Jun 23, 2019 16:45
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X-COM Kill Tally Sectoids: 67 Drones: 23 Thin Men: 8 Seekers: 3 Floaters: 2 Outsiders: 5 Total: 107
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Jun 23, 2019 17:22
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Wooo. Went out on a mission and lived to tell about it. FairGame, what were some of the memorable moments from the previous playthrough? anything notable?
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Jun 23, 2019 18:27
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cambrian obelus posted:Wooo. Went out on a mission and lived to tell about it. I had about 30 captured aliens, mostly mutons. The council never once asked for anything other than 2 floaters and a sectoid. It was very frustrating. My covert op almost lasted the whole campaign but got blown up by a grenade which somehow did 10 damage because EXALT are a bunch of dirty cheaters. It's fine. Campaign is in good shape, and rushing captures into MECs seems quite viable. I imagine it would've been even easier had my stockpile of captives come up in the RNG.
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Jun 23, 2019 18:35
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Gonna catch up to where I wanted to be, dammit. Double updates per day for a while.
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Jun 23, 2019 22:52
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This is where I disagree with you, battle scanners are loving great. Nothing like battle scanning a location, finding a grouped pod, and activating them with a rocket (the rocket kills all of them). e: ALSO you can get them as a perk and they stack with the skills so you can have an engineer rolling around with 4 free battlescanners and still have their other two slots free for whatever you want to bring. Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jun 23, 2019 |
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Jun 23, 2019 23:23
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Grapplejack posted:This is where I disagree with you, battle scanners are loving great. Nothing like battle scanning a location, finding a grouped pod, and activating them with a rocket (the rocket kills all of them). Oh, I'm taking them as a perk. But I don't like them as a small item--just 1 use, and there are better things (imo) to do with those slots. I agree that they're great, but right now I don't really have reliable rockets and my ability to alpha strike a pod like that is pretty limited.
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Jun 23, 2019 23:31
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It's been a few years but I played vanilla a lot and I don't remember this semi-activation thing happening all that much, but you seem to be getting it every other video. In this one they were seen, moved, and still didn't manage to activate. Is that a LW thing or just a line of sight issue? Shen's Last Gift was good once but I never want to play it again, it's long and boring and Lily is nowhere near as fun to use as reaper-Bradford is in the first Alien Rulers mission. I liked the cutscenes though. I only just started WotC and didn't actually know that it cuts that mission and presumably the other DLC missions, that's interesting. e: next mission will be good I am excited eating only apples fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Jun 24, 2019 |
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Jun 23, 2019 23:59
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 08:38 |
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FairGame posted:Oh, I'm taking them as a perk. But I don't like them as a small item--just 1 use, and there are better things (imo) to do with those slots. I agree that they're great, but right now I don't really have reliable rockets and my ability to alpha strike a pod like that is pretty limited. I've never played Long War, but I find battle scanners to be priceless in the normal game. Knowing where enemies are so you can maneuver for good engagement terrain is huge in my experience. eating only apples posted:Shen's Last Gift was good once but I never want to play it again, it's long and boring and Lily is nowhere near as fun to use as reaper-Bradford is in the first Alien Rulers mission. I liked the cutscenes though. I only just started WotC and didn't actually know that it cuts that mission and presumably the other DLC missions, that's interesting. Glad someone liked the X-COM 2 DLC. As much as I love Enemy Unknown/Within, I dislike X-COM 2 just as much despite the geoscape being a huge improvement. Every DLC I saw for the game just made me go "Why are they intent on making the game even worse?" The only one that I felt tried to fix some of the game's problems also added a whole heap of fresh new bullshit I didn't want to deal with. Here's hoping if X-COM 3 happens it will be a return to form.
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Jun 24, 2019 00:07
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