-The difficulty curve was...off. Sectoids? Thin Men? Outsiders? Canno fodder. Floaters? Sometimes took a couple shots, but usually not. Mutons? Tough, but doable. Crysallids? Berserkers? Swarms of mutons? Tardisks? All those other big-name aliens? Those were a lot tougher. (Especially the effing crysallids.) Similarly, early UFOs can be shot down easily with unupgraded Interceptors...then with damage...then not at all, eve with little upgrades. The first months lured me into a false sense of security, which lead to me developing habits that lead to the death of my best soldiers when I started encountering tougher aliens.
It depends on what difficulty you're playing at. At harder difficulties, The cannon fodder aliens become a real threat. (Especially thin men, which get a tendency to always hit, and crit often.) And the reason that the curve appeared to spike is probably because you got behind on the tech race. ((No idea what a tardisk is however)). Also, Chryssalid. Not that hard to spell.
It was Easy.
The game never named the cyberdisk for me (I didn't learn its name until I looked it up just now), so I gave it a name based on how it unfolded with more weaponry and such than should have been able to fit.
I keep forgetting how many s's and how many l's.
-I noticed that, once you hti a certain point, you start needing alloys and elerium a hell of a lot. I suspect that my inability to make or research advanced weapons past a certain point contributed to my decline--my inability to take any more ships (until that last one), get more raw materials, and make new weapons. I can't help but wonder...what were the mutons' armor, or the floaters, or whatever made out of and powered by? Consider having a chance for the more heavily-cyborged or -armored enemies to drop some alien alloys, or maybe even elerium.
Material management is an important part of the game.
No, really?
-SHIVs were underwhelming. I mean, sure, they were a bit tougher and maybe had a better attack than rookies, but they can't advance, can't use advanced arms and armor, and can't take cover. Not really worth the credits. Plus, the feel was...off. It felt like they should be expendable combatants. To fix this, I would advise making them weaker and make it so they could be rebuilt if destroyed (probably at a cost).
This has been fixed in the DLC. Well, fixed, more like flawed the other side of the scale. On another note, SHIV's barely cost anything, and you can upgrade them in the foundry to use laser and plasma weaponry, amongst various other things. In the DLC you can also upgrade them with automated close combat reaction fire, infinite health regeneration, extra health and extra movement.
Also, late game SHIV's fly, so they don't need cover.
SHIVs cost a heck of a lot more than rookie soldiers.
-Make the Arc Thrower a secondary weapon. Isn't that basically what it is? Besides, if it wasn't pushing out things like nanofiber vests, SCOPEs, and medikits, I might have it more often. And on more than one soldier.
Nanofiber vest really isn't that usefull. On a side note, fixed in the DLC, where you get a foundry project that gives everyone 2 inventory slots.
That's one; there's still a lot of other useful things. Besides, isn't the arc thrower basically a secondary weapon? It seems to fit that nice pretty well.
-Seriously, how do you spell cryssalid? Couldn't you have given these guys a simpler name, like "Skitterer" or "Crawler"? And mutons...why not name them "Hulks"? And what's with "Sectoids"? I'm guessing this has something to do with the original, but seriously. every other alien, from thin men to berserkers had a name that was a real word. Pick a consistent nomenclature and run with it. And the soldiers supposedly came up with the names...what's with that? "Why did they name them" is a bit odd understandable, but the "Why did they name them that is peculiar.
Chryssalid really isn't that hard to spell. But yeah, it's mostly that aliens with the fancy names have been ported over from the old X-com. Actually, I really prefer the fancy names, rather than the unimaginative generic names.
The generic names have the advantages of being slightly easier to remember and being what soldiers might actually call the aliens.
Really, the big thing is the lack of consistency.
-When I abandoned the terror mission, why were the "saved" civilians thrown out? Couldn't we take them with? And while I'm at it, why can't we take weapons, medkits, arc throwers, etc off of our dead teammates and use them? Why can't we have multiple Skyrangers? Why do the local militaries never send tanks, or soldiers, or anything? Why can't we share the technology with the world's governments, letting them make their own (possibly crappy) advanced weapons and armor? Why is it so hard to get any support? Why do the soldiers always break down any doors in their way (the "open door" command is spotty at best) and jump through any windows? Is that why we can't get the support? Why can't normal fighter jets take down UFOs if even the first, unupgraded Ravens can? Why can we send only one Interceptor at a time, anyways? There are a lot of questions like this, but I think that's enough.
Mostly game design. Same reason why you can only stuff 6 people in a skyranger (which kinda explains why you can't take civilians). Reason there's no military support isn't touched upon, but often the mission sites are littered with what used to be military troops. I wish to believe (no evidence in game whatsoever) that the aliens also emit a latent panic field, which explains why Earth's finest panics so much, and can't hit the broad side of a barn.
Well, yes, but some in-game explanation would help.
On a side note, you do sometimes get request from nations for materials.
I know, but I've never seen evidence that that affects anything past giving you some more money.
Anyway, the reason normal fighter jets can't take down UFO's is because the Raven's are, at this point, Earth's most advanced fighter craft.
And one of them can take down UFOs on its own. The US has a lot more than one jet fighter, and the UFOs aren't seen to have multiple weapons.
-On the Interceptors...the Firebirds were neat, but expensive. (I never even used mine.) So were other things, like Archangel armor and advanced SHIVs. Heck, pretty much anything having to do with Interceptors counts, as they almost never get used and almost always cost a lot.
Not using the firebirds probably explains why you lost. Those things are mandatory if you wish to take down later alien craft. And the archangel and advanced SHIV's really become quite nessecairy.
Noted.
Final question: How much sattelites did you deploy?
I had 7 by the end of the game. I would have had eight, but Argentina withdrew from the council right after I put a satellite over it.
Whenever I get to a point in the tech tree where I get firestorms (proper name, firebird is close enough so who cares)
My bad. Been a while.
My tech progression for interceptors basically goes from avalanche missiles>phoenix canons on two interceptors per continent while advanced fighter craft is researched>first firestorm is built while emp canon is researched>firestorm+emp for every continent. After that I have no problems with UFOs landing with no need for any interception whatsoever.
Noted.
