X-COM I wanna give Apocalypse a shot, any tips?

[Cael]

Thanks for advice to all. Think I mostly got a decent economy figured out. Government is surprisingly lenient considering how much damage I've done to recyclotorium and random warehouses, and padding that income out with raids on Church of Sirius.

Reading about the development of the game is pretty depressing, considering how much more depth they were aiming to have. Having the options to interrogate or assassinate the leaders of the various organizations, playing one against each other, which I presume would have lead to stuff like getting better deals and so on would have been nice, since as it is other than the Cult of Sirius they're all a bit superficial (from reading the wiki it seems every organization does have some minor to significant impact on your supplies, but it would be more interesting if there was more variation to your relations with them other than 1: you get the stuff from them or 2: they are hostile to you.) The whole concept of having a living city layer that goes about its business while you engage in X-Com missions is genius, despite it falling short of what they originally intended. It's a shame that as far as I know no other game has attempted something like this.

I wonder if one of the original ideas was that X-COM must actively work against other organisation(s) to remain effective against aliens that get more and more powerful over time. However, what remains that economy of X-COM 3 is fucked. Playable, doable? Yes indeed, but I think wonky economy is one thing that alienated reviewers and players from X-COM 3 more than 'Dick aliens' and suck things criticised by press regarding graphical representation back in the day.
Graphical presentation of aliens may leave a bit to be desired but IMO it was always functional like in previous X-COM games. So I dare the claim that economy and unfinished aspects relative to that caused XCOM-3 to become such a forgotten classic. We never got the game it was really supposed to be.

Well, not everything is lost, Open Apoc is not exactly done but it's "feature complete" already (meaning you can play it like the base game but it lacks bugs report and modding support) so we might get the final version at some point ( one? two years?) and then, no doubt the skilled and passionate X-COM community will hop in to add quality content.

Open Apoc

From ufopedia.org

OpenApoc is an open-source re-implementation of the original XCOM: Apocalypse that requires the original game files to run.
OpenApoc is under development, in Alpha state (this means playable but not all features implemented) Here whats left.

• Porting to a new crossplatform open-source engine
• Porting the game to any platform you like (windows, linux, android etc)
• Unlimited modding capabilities, which was not possible in the original
• Unlimited possibilities for game finesse
• Added Skirmish module
• Added full debug system
• Added full hotkey system
• Added more than 40 improvements already
• Support for more modern screen resolutions
• In mods we can restore cut gameplay mechanics and Julian Gollop's ideas (creator of the X-Com series).
• The project has Mr. Gollop's support!

We needs more programmers, so we finish the project faster. Help us bring more attention to OpenApoc!

I don't get the part abut the wonky economy. I never found a problem with it. The more you sell, the less you get back. That is pretty standard progression for a basic economic model.

You get way less cash than in previous games, you can get the cash flowing by making a giant factory base but it takes time.

That is part of the challenge. The Laser Cannon exploit in the previous games made everything too easy.

 

[Cael]

9. I don't have that much of a problem with headsuckers in TB. Mind you, I play sniper style, so I generally have 2/3 of the team on overwatch while the rest advance. They tend to catch the surprise runner that the aliens love to throw at you. I recall an alien transport assault where I had 2 Anthropods firing brainsucker launchers at my guys. 4 of the damned things popped and I though my point man's had it, until the rest of the squad opened up with laser rifles and took out all 4. After that, I was a lot less scared of suckers.

Eww, laser rifles? Those things are terrible. The best weapon in the game is the MarSec Machinegun. It unleashes a hailstorm of 1 TU bullets, with very low collateral damage, so you can just hose the entire battlefield in dakka. It's the ideal weapon for the noob trooper, because the percentage-based TU cost means that as your trooper levels up, it suddenly jumps to 2 TU per shot and your ability to spew lead drops sharply. At that point you become a Heavy Weapons Guy, at least until you get the Toxiguns, which restore 1 TU shooting.

They are great when you have 20 guys camped out at the entrance to a UFO, and one guy with a flying suit pop open the door and wait for the reaction fire.

I use the machine gun in my baptism of fire only. The rest of the time, I actually use the handgun as my close range weapon.

 

[Cael]

There is definitely no end to the amount of loot you can get and I'm 95% sure it doesn't degrade at all with successive raids, though it is random. Factions can be millions in the red and the maps still provide the same stuff (scales their equipment to the tech level but otherwise doesn't change). The gangs are much better than Sirius.

This is correct. There are about 12-16 different types of building squares for a Temple of Sirius, and the loot there is fixed. Most will have none. There are I think 2 with 1 loot (which is random), 1 with 2 loot (random again), a double square room with 3 random loot (only shows up on larger maps) and the one with the two sunken worship areas with 2 guaranteed Psiclones and 1 random loot. The number of building squares is dependent on your squad size. 1 guy will give you 4 squares only.

 

[Darth Canoli]

That is part of the challenge. The Laser Cannon exploit in the previous games made everything too easy.

Never had to use it, it's not a game problem, i think it's your problem because in almost every game thread or half of them you intervene in, you're talking about an exploit.

As for your supposed loot table, i have serious doubts about it, sure, some psiclones could be destroyed but last time i raided a sirius temple with 12 soldiers, i got only 1 psiclone (i thought i saw 2 or 3 on some "tables" and didn't burn/explode them but still got only 1)

 

[Cael]

That is part of the challenge. The Laser Cannon exploit in the previous games made everything too easy.

Never had to use it, it's not a game problem, i think it's your problem because in almost every game thread or half of them you intervene in, you're talking about an exploit.

As for your supposed loot table, i have serious doubts about it, sure, some psiclones could be destroyed but last time i raided a sirius temple with 12 soldiers, i got only 1 psiclone (i thought i saw 2 or 3 on some "tables" and didn't burn/explode them but still got only 1)

You are a fucking moron. The Laser Cannon exploit is basically building Laser Cannons and selling them for a big profit. It is simply the highest profit:time ratio in the game. The fact that the sale price doesn't go down means you can do it forever once you get the workshops up and running. That is the problem with the first two games: unlimited resources.

As for your supposed serious doubts, you only show that you haven't played the game at all. The squares are randomised, and if you get 4 squares of no loot rooms, you don't get psiclones. There is a room with a large sunken area with a psiclone in the northern corner and a random piece of loot in the "office" in the sunken area. You could have gotten that, or you could have gotten a curtained room with two tables with random loot. Or you could have gotten a room with random loot that rolled one psiclone. As I said, I send my guys through a baptism of fire in Sirius temples. I know that place like the back of my hand. The other buildings, less so.