XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Papewaio]

It's useful in the aliens turn. However as this is turned based it doesn't create a disadvantage as long as you look around at the start of your turn. I think they should have released at least the first third of the colour schemes.

Finished the terror mission, 10 Aliens killed, 8 civilians killed, 2 Soldiers WIA and 3 walked away. Yay for carapace! I now with my squad rotation have a Lt. 4 birds are being built and I will be building two more uplinks to form a block of four.

I'm saving all my alien autopsys for when I put two birds above South America... This should auto unlock them. So right now research is on getting some weapons to go along with the armour.

[White_eyes:D]

Does anyone find a use for the more upgraded versions of the power room or satellite nexus, when you can just get to a steam area for power or link satellite up-links together? I only ever built one nexus...it was expensive and getting enough satellites and materials was just a pain.

The Psy lab remains the most unlikely building I thought I would have a use for...until I saw how OP some of the psy ability's can be. Even the most basic attack saved my bacon, when we run out of ammo and couldn't waste a turn reloading.

[HopAlongBunny]

Got it loaded!

I seem to be building up a fair pile of corpses already (mostly mine) good fun :)

Whenever I go to the base I seem to get stuck ie: go to Barracks; cycle through soldiers; cannot get out of barracks. "esc" does not take me out, nor does it give me the menu_cntrl-alt-del to exit game!? really!!?? Gah!

I must be missing something obvious but I can't find it. edit: it was obvious :p follow what the tutorial asks you to do!?

[TinCow]

Ok, I have a complaint. There should be an easier way to transfer loadout items from inactive soldiers to those who are on your mission list. It's annoying to have to find the inactive soldier with the item you want, load them up, remove the item, load up the soldier you want, and then equip the item. I cannot find any in-game reason to have more than one squad's worth of any item, other than the convenience of not having to do this item swap dance, and money is so tight that I need to save every credit I can. That means not buying more equipment than I need.

[therother]

Ok, I have a complaint. There should be an easier way to transfer loadout items from inactive soldiers to those who are on your mission list. It's annoying to have to find the inactive soldier with the item you want, load them up, remove the item, load up the soldier you want, and then equip the item. I cannot find any in-game reason to have more than one squad's worth of any item, other than the convenience of not having to do this item swap dance, and money is so tight that I need to save every credit I can. That means not buying more equipment than I need.

Yes, it does have a number of UI quirks. For instance, would be nice to have easy access to a soldier's stats on the battlefield, especially will, without having to go into the info panel. Also, a tooltip over the ability icons would be handy. Not being able to ghost after selecting run and gun is strange, but have now trained myself to do it in the right order. Having to remember to rearm a newly constructed Firestorm after transfer is annoying, I often forget and then only have avalanche missles on hand when a UFO is detected. I also don't understand when you get the alien spotted sound during a movement but if you can't see it from where you end up you don't get any information about where it was. A little map would be great as well.

Edit: But for me the biggest issue by a country mile is controlling your soldiers movement when the terrain has different levels, especially larger ships. It's a real pain to have to get the right zoom and rotation settings to allow to move where you want to go...

[HopAlongBunny]

So far I'm impressed. This has to be the cleanest game I've played in a long time.

Transferring equipment is a bit fiddly ie: "where did I put that other Medkit?" In a tight place camera control is painful. No game breakers that I can see so far; a very welcome relief after Skyrim. Now if I could just get "assault" units to live a little longer....

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Give them rifles and use run and gun for conservative flanking, not bum rushing.

[therother]

Does anyone find a use for the more upgraded versions of the power room or satellite nexus, when you can just get to a steam area for power or link satellite up-links together? I only ever built one nexus...it was expensive and getting enough satellites and materials was just a pain.

They are more useful later in the game, when you are running out of room for new facilities, and the extra energy and satellites/per slot makes a difference.

I'm just about to complete my second run through, am almost ready for the final mission but want to have 6 psi operative colonels in my team so am playing on for quite a while after I could have completed it. One additional benefit is that I have the time and resources to play around with my base.

Foundries can be moved, but you lose the already completed projects. Same goes for the Officer school. You can get rid of Alien containment once you've interrogated the alien necessary for the "plot" and if you don't care about the research bonuses interrogations allow, and can scale back on labs entirely once you have enough scientists/research bonuses. For instance, with no additional labs I researched fusion in two days. In terms of planning to group facilities, squares are better than lines, and I prioritise uplinks then power then workshops then labs.

I was beginning to get a little blasé about the missions until I assaulted a cargo ship laden with 20+ aliens including muton elites, beserkers, cyberdisks, sectopods, heavy floaters and an ethereal. Twice I encountered serious firepower activating all at the same time. Nearly lost two (stabilised them just in time) and all 6 spent time in the infirmary after that encounter. Have changed my tactics and loadout ever since, moving away from titan to ghost armour for the ground crew and archangel for the snipers, and thinking about restricting having two snipers to only those missions where I know there will be mostly open ground or where the second sniper is a gunslinger (up to 7 damage with their plasma pistol). Definitely not two snipers for large ship assaults.

Similarly, I was happy enough with EMP-armed Firestorms, one per continent, but an encounter with a battleship has more than persuaded me to construct some fusion lances. I now have a relative abundance of resources, but losing a Firestorm would still hurt, and it was only a bit of luck and the dodges from the defence matrix that saved it. Now I'm begging for another battleship because I want another fusion core to construct another blaster launcher. Those things are serious weapons.

Oddly, though, I've not had an alien abduction mission in months, so world panic is not an issue. Don't know if this is because I'm ready for the final mission, I have worldwide satellite coverage, there are only a set number of them, I've been extraordinarily lucky or it's just a bug...

The Psy lab remains the most unlikely building I thought I would have a use for...until I saw how OP some of the psy ability's can be. Even the most basic attack saved my bacon, when we run out of ammo and couldn't waste a turn reloading.

Psi abilities are extremely useful, plus are required for the final mission, where you get some seriously powerful psi powers. All of them are useful, although I tend to go with panic over inspire and MC over telekinetic field. There is nothing more satisfying than MCing an ethereal...