Bay 12 Games Forum

Yet you cannot disassemble your guns to get them back.

True.

I dunno. Science. Go ask a science person or something.

As a science person...if a metal can be reshaped from plates of UFO hull to things like gun parts and alloy cannon ammo, it can be melted down, since at minimum partial melting of the metal would be required for such changes. If it can be melted, armor made of such a material could also be melted.

That is a bit too much actually. Sorry.

What, that half an effort be spent trying to justify the strange stuff?
It wouldn't be hard. Mention that the armor is actually made of mundane alloys. Have a note at some point in the plasma gun reverse-engineering process that the aliens' weapons have multiple settings. Mention that X-Com has various sanctions put on it by the Member Nations, mention the standards it's expected to uphold if it doesn't want funders to withdraw their funding. Is that so hard?

The Skyranger is so good though. Too good to replicate. It took years. Billions of dollars.

Says you. This fact isn't really hinted at in the game. And, overall, if it takes three days to make a new superjet and less than a month to make one on par with or exceeding the capability of the spacecraft of aliens with untold centuries of lead on us, forgive me for thinking that a simple long-range high-speed troop transport is within X-Com's capabilities.

There's your answer then.

And it opens up new questions. If it takes only three shots to make a tank explode, how can anyone survive one? Again, an offhand comment would have explained this. The aliens have multiple settings on their plasma rifles, ones for blowing up tanks and ones for wounding humans. It even fits with the aliens' motivations.

Nope. Doctors just seem to have trouble explaining the procedure for eliminating cancer when they're doing it in the middle of a country being bombarded by alien ships.

Yup. Them alien bombers are really disrupting worldwide communications, as shown by the complete absence of alien bombers my Interceptors can shoot down and the way news reports of abductions from around the globe get to X-Com fast enough for them to react.

They do...okay, according to in-game stuff. Still, they're not even as good as the X-COM rookies. Those dozens of soldiers at your disposal are quite possibly the best soldiers in the world.

Where do they come from? What makes them so awesome?
And wouldn't a few dozen near-Rookies in carapace armor and wielding lasers or plasma guns do better than 4-6 rookies armed with the same, and level up much as our Rookies do?

What can I tell you, wrong game to be asking those questions.

I do my best to hold up all games to the same standards. Also, if you're going to give your aliens a motivation that explains the unusual invasion pattern, driving the whole story, is it that hard to also add in a couple side notes that patch up other plot holes while you're at it?

That's because your Firestorm can't be sent after enemy ships if you don't have satellites up to find those ships in the first place.

It had more to do with the fact that there weren't any UFO invasions in Europe, as far as I could tell.

But you just gotta' shoot it a bit. 16 Health, that's what, 5-6 shots even with its defensive capabilities? And yes, I know of the insta-Soldier kill, that happens to me playthrough when I discover the Cyberdiscs.

In the other enemies, and games in general, offensive capabilities tend to scale with health. The two-health sectoids are weaker than the three-health thin men are weaker than the I-forget-health floaters are weaker than the mutons are weaker than the cryssalids. How was I supposed to guess that the same didn't apply to these mystery disks?
The one-shotting thing didn't help.

And did you ever play far enough to even encounter the Sectopods?

Ahaha, no.

How do you know they're identical? Have you ever fired a plasma gun? Maybe it's super hard, and you can't refute that unless you try it yourself.

Well...the principles are the same. Point this end at enemy, pull trigger, repeat until you need to reload. The designs of slug, laser, and plasma weapons are mostly the same...and you know what? That makes sense. You don't want to design weapons radically different than what they're used to, you want to give them as close to the firing experience they're used to as you can.

Cool.

Don't hold your breath. I have no immediate plans to begin another XCOM game, in part because I have little free time. Maybe tomorrow and Monday, but if not then I dunno when I'll have enough extended free time.

Will wanders, dragging Luna, trying to find someone worth talking to.

((As you wish...what did I use for its thoughts?
Screw it.))

"So...How did you get to be so powerful?"

"I will give you a math lesson. Is two more than half of six? No? Huh. Maybe the two of you don't form a majority. Maybe you should be consulting with people other than each other before delivering ultimatums. And I have no inhibition against using physical means to make my point if all else fails.

"You need a reason to trust me with the information? The governor trusted me enough to make me a Director. And no, you have NOT made a compromise. A compromise at least tries to give both sides what they want.

"And, finally, why are you so unwilling to share the names of your soldiers with us? Are you unaware that if they caught one of us, our whole organization would be doomed regardless of if they personally once heard the name of soldiers?"

1. All mages are squishy.
2. Wouldn't Wind Mages be resistant to wind attacks?
3. Simply blasting hurricane-force winds wouldn't do that much. Especially since the winds' speed would be greatly reduced with any kind of distance from the fans, and the winds would be likelier to blow someone over and backwards than anything, and if the fans are strong enough to harm people with the sheer force of their winds even at point-blank range or to be effective at longer ranges, it would cause any light vehicle, armored or no, to experience tremendous negative acceleration. Especially since it's on wheels and not something with a high surface area ideal for resisting such forces, like treads.

Aria decides to kiss EVERYONE in the party again. At once. Belladonna and Asuna manage to shrug it off. Marie is like holy crap. Joan is also like holy crap.

Will promptly went to the men's room to wash his face, one arm stuck out behind him since he's kinda tethered to a woman.

---

Will tried another glass of the orange drink, trying to figure out what it was.

"That's neat..."
Angel's managed to depress herself by getting herself into that state where she's dwelling on her failures.

((Wait, what?
...Also, isn't that more your M.O.?))