The KDRNICIAN experience

[kdrnic]

#2721

I am playing with OpenXCOM and on the easiest difficulty, since it is already very hard.

XCOM on DOSBox had the mentioned issue of not having tooltips but also it doesn’t allow scrolling with the kb and is very cycles-sensitive.

I started with a base in the US per the strat guides.

Per voxel’s suggestion I named me soldiers after the DGC folks.

In a battle, rnlf fell prey to the aliens.

Also Tijn and vede were wounded, but this only spared them from the next slaughter.

I added a base to central Europe and then to South America.
Soon aliens terrorised Moscow. I sent in a team.

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I’ve witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

When aliens next terrorised Moscow, I left them be. Let Putin deal with it.

I can now build laser rifles, which I soon will be selling for a quick cash.

Now I have accidentally started a night mission, wish the DGC team good luck.

[kdrnic]

#2722

A new UFO downed, team sent to crash site…

voxel II fell prey to sorceress’ friendly fire!

Also rnlf III died, to no one’s surprise

[kdrnic]

#2728

In a fresh new battle, it all seemed lost as toasty was an early loss to a quick-drawing alien bastard…

Tijn however, scouting tile by tile sacrificed himself to save the day.

One floater that proved resistant to bullets had to be dealt two rockets from bitrot – earning him a promotion.

They seemed to try and avenge the fallen comrade though, as two rocket blasts stunned both vede and sorceress in succession. dollarone quickly ran to their aid, medkit in hand, but it was unnecessary since the last alien was killed as he was nearing sorceress’ unconscious body.

[kdrnic]

#2731

vede showing the importance of using smoke grenades

[kdrnic]

#2732

Just like in the gif, but for different reasons, vede bit the dust…

But otherwise the mission was very successful.

This female soldier which I was unable to name due to our lack of female presence, and who I sent in to the heat of battle without a weapon, also perished.

In the midst of it Tijn had to apply a large dose of stimulants to revive rnlf. I am considering renaming Tijn kdrnic for this feat.

[Evil Taco]

#2735

One of the reasons that I think this game is so good is that you can have played this game for quite a bit and still learn new things. Like that the smoke grenades are actually useful. Well.. it should be obvious really, but somehow I suppose I’ve just assumed they’re just there for show. I haven’t read strategy guides – I guess they’d spoil this effect.

Smoke also slowly stuns. I wonder how viable it would actually be to throw a smoke grenade or three into a UFO and just wait. I have had it happen a couple of times that I win a fight when the final alien passes out in smoke, but I’ve never tried that deliberately.

[kdrnic]

#2737

I just had my first mission without casualties – although “female III” was stunned.

[kdrnic]

#2738

RIP Tijn II

died spotting aliens exiting the UFO who were promptly gunned down

[Canageek]

#2739

Oh, can I have someone named after me? I’ve been listening to the podcast for ages, since near the start, but this is the first game I love enough to join the forums for.

[kdrnic]

#2758

Sure, if you are keen to be the next Lost In Service B-)

[kdrnic]

#2760

I began ARMORing (sic) my soldiers – and also keeping some veterans in the base, while sending rookies to serve as scouts in the missions.

I have also researched alien grenades – In the last mission, where Canageek and I scouted, one was very useful in clearing a path to the UFO, allowing the enemy to be promptly sniped.

For my next post, I think I will capture the screen with some tool, to make cool GIFs.

[Canageek]

#2762

Windows has a built in screenshot tool you could use quite easily for this purpose. https://www.howtogeek.com/226280/how-to-take-screenshots-in-windows-10/

[kdrnic]

#2764

I meant record a video of the screen, to be specific.

[kdrnic]

#2767

Here is the most recent battle.

I recorded with OBS, but then it was a pain to crop and try and edit the video, and also I wouldn’t be able to embed it anyway, so in the end I picked a couple frames and made it into a “slideshow” GIF.

The highlight of the clip is when I perish in battle.

The Personal Armour was of not much use in the end I think?

[kdrnic]

#2768

I just attempted a mission where the aliens could use psionic attacks – very unbalanced, they could attack every member of the team even without any visible…

According to the wiki:
“It should be noted that once you pass Turn 20, or if there are only 1 or 2 aliens left on the map, all of your squad members and their locations are revealed to the AI. This means you can expect a steady stream of psionic attacks after that turn if there any of the remaining aliens are capable of Psionic attack.”

Apparently the only defence is just getting rid of the sucessfuly attacked soldiers.

[Evil Taco]

#2770

There’s so much stuff I haven’t been aware of despite first playing the game in 1996 or so, and that location reveal thing is such a thing. It’d be nice if the game / UI signaled some of that stuff. It makes sense to have a time limit, balance-wise, but I don’t think the game tells this at any point.

I just spoiled myself from the wiki for a really funny-sounding strategy against psionic enemies: give your troops low-powered weapons (such as regular pistols and rifles) and put them in good armour. That way, if they’re taken over, they can’t hurt each other. Psi-aliens themselves are squishy, so they can be killed with bullets.

The interesting bit about this strategy is that the psi-aliens’ “companions” (that show up in terror missions and bases etc) are very well armoured..

[kdrnic]

#2771

I enabled the mod which forces psi to require line of sight. I wished for a mod that just disabled the aforementioned “telepathy” when the last aliens remain or X turns have passed; but this should let the game continue enjoyable.

“female III” fell prey to this mission, in which I abused the laser rifles’ terrain destruction capability, laying lots of “suppressive fire”, very effective.

[Evil Taco]

#2772

I have also enabled that mod. First time trying it out, but it should eliminate one of the annoyances I’ve had with the game in the past.

If it gets too easy, I’m sure there’s a more fun way to make it more challenging.

[kdrnic]

#2773

Had a successful night mission – no casualties on my side.

Seems no electro flare is too many.

[kdrnic]

#2774

Another night mission – no casualties.
Lost my fear of the dark.

[Canageek]

#2775

Actually, then they move on. The best defence is to have the troops with the weakest anti-alien defence drop their weapons and get enemies to use up their psi attacks on them.

[yozy]

#2781

One good strategy is to fire everybody with weak psi capabilities. In the end game psi is by far the most powerful weapon and your soldiers are much more capable with it than aliens.

[kdrnic]

#2782

I don’t think either keeping an useless unarmed soldier or just firing everyone after triaging is fun, so I will just keep the mod on.

[Canageek]

#2786

Oh yeah, the mod is good, I might turn it on. Also a note: If you like destruction, you can hold control to override the no line of sight error, and just blast away at an alien inside a house on full auto. 😀

That strategy came from experience: They mind controlled someone who had already panicked and dropped their weapons and it made them a LOT less dangerous. After that, I kept them on stun launcher duty, so if they got taken over they would usually just knock people out.

[kdrnic]

#2793

oh! ctrl to override will be very useful!

[don_amar]

#2796

Another annoying thing about alien psi attacks is that if you kill the last alien on a turn where one of your soldiers is mind controlled, you lose that soldier. It can get pretty frustrating just waiting for the alien to fail a mind control attack so you can kill him on the next turn. But once you get psi soldiers yourself you are pretty much invincible.

[Canageek]

#2797

There is an option in OpenXCom to change that. It is taken from a mod for the DOS version, as are a lot of the options.

[don_amar]

#2798

Good to know. I’m playing the GOG version, and I’ve almost finished it, so I’ll try the OpenXCom another time. 🙂