The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

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Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Homeworld

Expanding on the salvage everything advise, there's an addendum

DEAR GOD GET EVERY drat MULTIBEAM FRIGATE IN THE GAME. THEY ARE loving AWESOME.

I think there's 17 of them and they're so much better than any regular ion frigate.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2008 00:14

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 08:16

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

KhyrosFinalCut posted:

Jagged Alliance 2

- If you hire Mercs from AIM for the longest possible chunks when you get them (2 wks, IIRC) they do not have the option of saying no when you wish to extend their contracts.

This is not quite true. If you extend the contract before it gets into the last day or two, they should never say no.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2008 20:33

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Captain Novolin posted:

There's a perk that levels you up right away.

It is completely worthless, and only worth anything if you're running without a level cap.

Shooting limbs is handy if you need to stun them, but I find that any of the lasting effects, like accuracy penalties, etc. really aren't worth going out of your way for.

If it's the easiest part to hit, I usually go for it, though.

Shooting a weapon out the hand of an enemy can be quite worthwhile, especially if it's a heavy weapon or you can knock it far away.

Any hits to the head do extra damage as well as ruin accuracy.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2009 05:25

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Random Hajile posted:

Also, the magical crafting system doesn't let you make magical bows, so playing an archery-based character probably isn't the greatest of ideas either.

Are you sure about this?

I know you can make stuff like Darkwood bows and the like (Which give mighty bonuses), but you can't enchant them?

# ¿ May 30, 2009 02:18

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

The Capm posted:

How about Crackdown?

Although it's not practical at all for actual progress in the game, the following things are fun:

1) Limpet mines that you attach to your own vehicle can be detonated while you are driving, or right after you bail out if you don't want to die gloriously.
2) People get ejected from their vehicles in an amusing fashion when said vehicle is thrown into water from a bridge
3) Shoot tires on the highway if you're bored.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2009 05:05

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

wdarkk posted:

If I've never played an X-series game should I start with X2 and then continue on or just grab Terran Conflict?

X3 and X3:TC are a significant improvement over X2. The only reason to play X2 before X3 is the storyline and, well, that requires exposure to voice acting and the cut scenes of X2, which is something the surgeon general advises against.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2009 06:35

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

RE: Mass Effect

The amount of money you get scales with your level. The only real advantage to hoarding it is to get a certain achievement a little earlier.

When you do the collectibles, the reward you get in XP and credits is based on your level as well.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2009 00:00

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

pseudorandom name posted:

Collect all the ingots in The Pitt before installing Point Lookout -- for some reason a roof you need to walk across to get some of the ingots stops being solid after Point Lookout is installed.

I can confirm that this has been fixed with patches.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2009 14:27

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Orfeo posted:

I'm about to play STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl for the first time. Are there any particular mods I should install first? Graphical, bug fixes, anything like that?

Get Stalker Compete 2009. It's a graphical and bug-fix mod that unlike others does not change the game outside of a few exceptions, mainly involving the repair of armor and weapons. And that change is a good thing.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2009 19:39

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Flatness is a pretty important stat that isn't shown on the weapons for some reason. It affects the velocity of the round and how much it drops.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2010 15:50

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

al-azad posted:

Basic first aid kits cost 300 bucks, nearly every human enemy has one on them, helping out with a capture or defense gives you a few, most of the delivery quests include first aid kits as your reward, they're in almost every hidden stash, and early game gun/armor upgrades are so cheap that it shouldn't even be possible to leave the swamp and cordon without fully upgrading your primary weapon, secondary weapon, and armor. Even the weakest artifacts give you a butt ton of rubels compared to SoC. The jellyfish artifact you get in the tutorial mission can be sold for 1500 rubels right from the start.

To add into this, a good source of money is actually the food. The bartenders in each faction camp buy them for the full price.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2010 18:56

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

A few of the themes, I don't remember which, can provide access to extra skillbooks.

My Infirmary can not only heal you, but restore limb damage (Don't remember if sleeping does that), remove your irradiation, and make random chems (mostly useless)

Shopkeepers will eventually regain their money.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2010 16:12

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Actually, I think the traveling armor vendor has the highest repair once upgraded at 85%.

Also, the Quantum drinks are used in the nuka-grenade schematic.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2010 19:01

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Ah yeah, that's the number I was thinking of.

Also, one thing to keep in mind for Miniguns and other burst-fire weapons (or multiple projectile weapons like the Metal Blaster from the Pitt) is that some perks that give bonus damage, two of which are from Point Lookout, are much more powerful for those weapons because it applies per-projectile, not per burst.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2010 19:43

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Monolith guys typically carry the fairly high-end equipment for both NATO and Soviet, I.E. Obokans, SG-5k, GP-37, the 9mm guns and the sniper rifles.

Bandits will almost never have anything better than a Viper (mp5) or Akm-74/2U (AKS-74U)

Stalkers carry random poo poo. Zombies rarely have anything better than the AKM-74/2 (AKS-74) or the Trs-301 (LR-300, a AR-15 style weapon)

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 16:08 on May 11, 2010

# ¿ May 11, 2010 16:04

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

al-azad posted:

Also while I'm at it anyone play Men of War? I'm having fun but it's total bullshit that the first mission expects you and your 10 soviet soldiers to take on (literally) 150+ germans plus their tanks. Then the second mission begins and it (loving LITERALLY) gives you 200 dudes scattered across the map and says "lol defend yourself. on 8 fronts."

The KV-1 tank in the first mission is very hard to damage with what the Germans have, but you'll still want to keep infantry away from it. Direct control is the key to success.

The second mission has most of the guys set up pretty well at the beginning. You'll want to place as many mines as possible (Pick them up with a squad of guys, move to where you want to start laying them, click on the deploy mine button, and click where you want the minefield to extend to.)

In a pinch, the T-34 tank by the railyard is again superior to most anything the Germans show up with. And if you're feeling ballsy, any german vehicle that's got a disabled turret but is otherwise intact can be recovered and repaired.

# ¿ May 15, 2010 16:35

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Any tips for Space Rangers and its sequel?

# ¿ Jun 30, 2010 05:17

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Machado de Assis posted:

I picked up Space Rangers 2 during the recent steam sale and in the short amount of time I've spent playing it, I took the human merchant start and was unable to even kill the drone thing in the tutorial before it killed me, and the only trades I managed to do at a profit were the ones in the tutorial before the drone part

any tips?

I just started playing it myself and have been trying to resist the temptation to use the built-in cheats.

For trading, look for planets with thumbs-up over trade goods. That means that they're selling them for less than normal. Once you find a planet like that, use the search option on the newsreader to search for other planets within your ship's jump range that are buying that same good for the highest price.

And on the character creation screen, you can pick two items that are upgraded versions of the normal items. The Rocket Launcher is a nice thing to start with.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2010 23:07

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Hannibal Rex posted:

You only have a very limited pool of replacement soldiers. They normally only become available after you've had a few losses. However, you can sacrifice a few drones to trigger them early.

Somewhere during the midgame, you'll start facing certain tough, fast enemies. Target their legs with a sniper rifle to keep knocking them down and effectively neutralize them.

Don't trade away resources. If you have to, only in exchange for other resources.

A couple more things of note.

You actually start off with two weapon upgrades, an accelerator and a silencer. The accelerator isn't great, but it's obviously better than nothing.

There's an enemy that you'll encounter later that seems to be very hard to kill, the beastman Matriarchs, use laser weapons since the resists are low against them.

Robots with the armored turret are absolute murder against the Reticulans.

When they tell you that melee is good against Martians, they're quite true. The buzzsaw crossbow can often one-shot them.

Abuse the gently caress out of the Warp Cannon when you get them.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2010 03:53

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Reveilled posted:

But there's nothing wrong with going onto the Carrier. It's the largest town in the game, and only one of the people there has an effect on the main quest.

Hell, there's nothing wrong of going into the science lab. It affects the skipped bit by changing the reward for Three-Dog's Quest and the fight outside against the behemoth.

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 9, 2010

# ¿ Nov 9, 2010 15:43

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Looking for info on Titan Quest and expansion.

I've heard about community made stuff, what is a 'must have'?

# ¿ Nov 14, 2010 08:39

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Astfgl posted:

And in NV there are skill books and implants instead of bobbleheads. There are 12 implants (1 for each SPECIAL attribute, 1 bonus to DT, and 1 bonus to health regen), and there are roughly 4 skill books per skill (which each give a +3 to a skill, or +4 if you take the Comprehension perk). The implants are very expensive, while the skill books are free (but difficult to find, and you usually have to steal them).

9 actually (7 SPECIAL attributes) and you're limited to 1 per point of base Endurance, i.e. not modded by implants or items. (Improved training increase does count, however).

# ¿ Dec 7, 2010 22:46

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Palleon posted:

I've been playing it for a while, but wouldn't mind getting some pointers about UFO: Afterlight. I feel like I'm missing so much (I'm 5 hours into the game and just now realized how to make custom weapons, still don't know how to level up drones (the upgrade screen just says 2[0] for every item despite be having 10 of each chip)).

Have you been taking the drones out and getting them XP? They gain levels through XP like the normal guys.

Using the drone with the heavy armor body and a single gatling gun is a great way to take out the Grey forces. Bring 6 drones and one meatbody to hang back at the UFO and you'll just completely destroy the grays, even if the drones are fresh. The lasers barely scratch them and the only risk is missiles, but if you go point-blank with the drones (and they easily can), friendly fire will take out other grays.

Other things:

The basic rifle you research and build early on will serve you well for a while.
Lasers are never a bad weapon to have. With later techs they'll be even better and you'll need them to have a good chance of taking out the later Beastman units (You'll know who when you encounter them)

Always have someone carrying the warp cannons. They each give you 6 shots and do massive damage to most enemies. They can also destroy most objects on the map, making them great for the 'Destroy Object' missions. Though some missions have more than 12 objects to destroy.

Mines are a lot more useful than you might think.

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Feb 14, 2011

# ¿ Feb 14, 2011 23:28

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Hmm... Are you sure you have the right chips? There's both basic and advanced varieties of the chips and you might have only made the advanced ones?

Also, the chips require 2 level-ups, so they can only gain one every other level.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2011 23:34

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Sushipants posted:

- Probably had the most fun with a dual-wielding rogue. Once you get to around lvl 20 or so, you're virtually untouchable and you murder the piss out of everything, very quickly. Mages are fun too. Warriors are boring.

To build on this, if you have Leliana's Song DLC, complete it with the leather armor bits so you get the special carryover item from it. Once you have 20 strength, you can use it and it's insanely powerful.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2011 07:03

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

For the PC version of Fallout: New Vegas you can use the console to save games with a name. Open it up with tilde and type in save <name> 0 I don't think that you can use spaces.

# ¿ May 15, 2011 19:56

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

More for Majesty 2

Wizards are incredibly fragile early on, but once they have a few levels under their belt they become pretty nasty damage dealer.

Lords are attached to the level that they came from so if you replay a level and select a different hero to bring out, then it will replace the Lord you had before.

If you feel like it, you should choose the hero from the level and class that you want with the best stats to elevate. High CON = more HP per level, Str for Warriors, Rogues, and dwarves, Dex for rangers and elves, int for Clerics and Wizards. Later on just a point or two more of CON or STR will make a big difference.

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 16:33 on May 20, 2011

# ¿ May 20, 2011 16:26

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Contest Winner posted:

Can someone shoot me some tips for The Precursors and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic?

As mentioned before, autoresolve is a very dangerous thing to use.

Specialize your heroes, they don't increase as rapidly as they did before. Marksman is a good thing to pick up since it improves all ranged physical attacks (Might improve magical ranged attacks too, but I don't think so)

Stones is a much more powerful spell than you might realize. Damage for magic attacks is a bit different from other attacks. The minimum damage is half the damage rating, not 1. So a DMG 8 spell is 4-8 (Maybe 5-8), while a DMG 8 attack is 1-8.

If you're doing the campaign they come in sets of three, and eventually the AI reaches a point where it pretty much breaks in terms of morale and will just cower at home, waiting for the end to come. If you want to exploit this, you can then just spend turns crafting out magical items for your Avatar + Heroes. Bring extras for any new guy you might pick up later.

Things that are definitely good for artifacts:

Spell Relay on helmet items. Increases the magic aura for spell casting from adjacent to the hero to like 8 hexes
The ability that also increases casting mana. Pop this on everyone for an extra 5/10 casting points.
You can get someone a full set of protections on their items. That gives them a 50% damage reduction for all attacks.
I would avoid stuff like Marksman on items, though. I don't think it stacks properly.
Making a misc item with multiple ranged attacks is a good idea. There are times when arrows are better than a cannon shot.
Something with regeneration. That's back to full health at the start of every turn.

There's an air spell that allows for ranged attacks to ignore cover. Put that on a hero with Marksman IV and a powerful ranged attack and you can snipe people.

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 22, 2011

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 19:40

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

FelixMeOneMoreTime posted:

The magnet gun is the best thing from any game ever, and if you learn to use it well you can take down pretty much anything without sparing ammo. Best way to use it is to put the first node on a destructible rock or building, and the second node on an enemy or behind a bunch of enemies. The rock/rubble will then crush the enemies or at the very lease knock them away and do damage to them so they'll be less of a problem.

To add to this there are a few enemies in the game that are normally very difficult to kill but if you use the magnet gun you can toss them off cliffs.

Also throwing cultists and cultists NEVER gets old.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 21:20

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

I've found that Rocket Launchers are good in certain circumstances:

1) If you're playing Multi, they are amazing with Roland's Cauterize skill
2) The ones that are Damage X3 (not burst) Helix are pretty decent since they fire three rockets at once for 1 shot.
3) "Beware the Horde" is the closest thing this game has to a flak weapon. It absolutely MURDERS flying enemies and large bosses.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2011 00:43

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Lord Banana posted:

Just started playing UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold in preparation for the new X-COM game. Any tips on how to start that? One thing in particular, I have Plasma weapons but I can't research them, what's going on there?

You have to capture and interrogate a commander to unlock the more advanced technologies.

Look for units with different coloration. Early on you're only going to see the snakemen-style guys with a commander. IIRC he's green, not orange.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2012 18:56

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

1stGear posted:

Any advice for Men of War, the original? There seems to be a really good, crunchy strategy game buried in here but the game also actively hates me with possibly the worst "tutorial" mission in the history of ever.

General advice would be good, but I have some specific questions:

-Why don't my guys always obey my orders or do stuff on their own (typically to my detriment)? Is there a way to stop that?

There is a 'hold position' option for their movement if that's what you're referring to. It's good for keeping them in position so they don't advance but can result in them being in the open when their cover is destroyed. I don't think vehicles move freely at all.

quote:

-Is there some wizardry involving direct control mode that I'm not grasping?

Best thing I've found is to bind the typical WASD setup for movement, but beyond that I guess it's a question about what you mean.

quote:

-How the hell am I supposed to actually beat the first mission when it gets to the point where I'm ambushing the convoy and I'm up against roughly a billion infantry and eventually two simultaneous tanks?

The KV you have is a veritable beast against what you'll be facing. It's got the gun and armor to deal with anything in the convoy as long as it doesn't get swarmed.

You can use some of the AT guns around the map to support it. By assigning two guys to a gun you can have them reposition it. I typically put them further down the road from the hill and with an MG or 2 with them to keep off infantry.

If you're REALLY lucky, you disabled the armored car with a turret hit and didn't wreck it, which would allow for you to patch it up and bring it with you. The armored car can murder infantry and shoot up the trucks.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 17:21

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Also the game has a lot of disease and poison related negative status effects so classes that are immune to them (not just high saves because you WILL fail one eventually) are good choices as well. Sure you can just rest to get rid of many of those effects, but it can be a detriment during the fight before you rest.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2012 19:39

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Lord Banana posted:

I bought Space Empires IV during the steam sale, seems a fun 4x game but I'm a bit overwhelmed by it, any starting tips?

Hmm.... it's been a while but here's a few basics:

Every race in the game will have a planet type (Gas, Ice, Rock) and atmosphere type that they can colonize. The planet type can be improved through tech but atmosphere type is fixed. It's possible later on (I think) to convert the atmosphere, but that's a long-term project.

What you can do is capture enemy colonizers and planets and use their population to colonize planets (Especially if they have a different atmosphere type)

A single boarding pod can be a remarkably effective defense for colonizer ships before shields become common.

A domed planet (Non-matching atmosphere) has 1/5th of the capacity of a non-domed one. So a tiny has 1 slot instead of 5 and so on.

You can preposition defenses before a battle begins. This can be very useful if you're blockading a gate or establishing defenses around your planet.

Locations in ship design don't matter too much. Stuff can be shoved anywhere it fits, it won't affect how they're damaged, I believe.

Planetary Defense Platforms are not a bad idea. I don't remember if it's still true but you can make a few that are nothing but shields and they'll really help the HP of the planet.

The AI rarely bothers with ground troops. Even a huge planet doesn't field that much militia so a single combat transport worth of guys can take most planets.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2012 15:49

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

That being said, you can reuse projectile weapon ammo.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2013 04:59

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Landmines can be placed in clusters and they'll all do their damage. If you get enough of them and Bottlecap mines then there's quite literally nothing in the game you can't kill.

Be careful when you stack them, though, if they freak out with physics then they might detonate, which would be BAD. (Ask me about how I got blown up so badly that I didn't come down for a minute and crossed half the wasteland)

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 23:05

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Going to try and actually playing through Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura for once. I'd like to gun a gunslinger and the website has a bit on it. My main question is what modifications should I run as I remember tech being far weaker than magic.

The wiki only lists Drog Blacktooth's patch. Is there anything beyond that which will help tech/guns?

# ¿ Mar 13, 2013 20:29

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

I remember a mod a while back which added in a bunch of tech recipes to try and improve the feasibility of it, but I don't remember what it is and the only ones I've found look "UBER WEAPON AT LVL 1" bad.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2013 22:30

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

And the reward for 50 bars is probably one of the most OP weapons in the game if you use it right. Oh god the sneak attack damage

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 16:39

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# ¿ May 20, 2024 08:16

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Wrong thread somehow.

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 03:25 on May 12, 2013

# ¿ May 12, 2013 03:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

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