[Ravenholme]

Looking good >=D

Think I might do one of these with UFO: ET Gold with Unimod - Though it's really balls to the wall hard too, even on the rookie levels D:

[Spoon]

for one thing it is not forced to land at any point, especially the smaller ships as they are only doing survey flights.

secondly any that get away from you unscathed go against you at the end of month

In theory, yes, but at this point in the game we're waiting on Battleships or a base raid for the last pieces of the puzzle. And you can't shoot down a Battleship with Interceptors unless you stack on five or six and are prepared to lose several of them. While I'd like to strafe alien bases in preparation, that's not going to happen either.

Shot-down ships are less dangerous to assault since they usually kill some crew and might obviate the need for a door breach, so without a necessary research or material goal, I'll shoot them down and take on what's left where possible.

That and if you shoot down the scouting part of the mission, very often the rest of it doesn't come.

Gotcha, thanks.

Also, **** yeah for the Spoonzer 3!

[NGTM-1R]

The Spoonzer 3 gets its first kill.


This Floater thought that moving under cover of trees, he'd be safe from reaction shots. He didn't reckon with SpardaSon and a missile launcher.


Hopes for an intact ship and the Elerium it would carry are dashed by smoke leaking from the wreck. -Joshua- pops up from behind the treeline like some kind of tiny attack helicopter to blow this Floater away. His rockets are a bit too large for 70mm or 85mm folding fin, though.


TrashMan and KyadCK confront a Demented Fuzzy Shivan which tried to catch them by surprise at the door. It failed. Badly. Between them they fired four reaction shots into it and killed it.


Spoon puts two shots into a Demented Fuzzy Shivan. It flees towards the other entrance, where it then encounters everyone planning to breach the door. They all miss, though, and the Hovertank will not be denied. Another round into the Demented Fuzzy Shivan's fuzzy rear end. It's still alive by some magic. Jg18 finishes it off with a laser beam after it hides in the ship.


Axem and The E use their Flying Suits to enter the top level of the UFO through the deployment bays for terror units.


The E storms the bridge, alone, and kills three aliens. Fury and Scourge of Ages, who were entering via the opposite terror unit deployment bay, are rather disappointed.


First recovery complete, but Squad 1 still has at least one more ship to recover.


Two UFO recoveries to go. Squad 1 will handle the Large Scout that crashed near Area 51 as soon as the Skyranger refuels. (I'm pretty sure you used to be able to run multiple ops with one Skyranger trip, but not now.) Squad 2 is still inbound to the Supply Ship that crashed in Canada.

[StarSlayer]

How many Spoonzerkampfwagen IIIs can be used by a squad?  Just one?

[General Battuta]

How many Spoonzerkampfwagen IIIs can be used by a squad?  Just one?

It eats up space in the Skyranger equivalent to 4 troops.

[NGTM-1R]

How many Spoonzerkampfwagen IIIs can be used by a squad?  Just one?

Basically, as many as you can stuff in the Skyranger or other transport and still have soldiers aboard. We could in theory have up to three deploy with every Skyranger, but we'd only have two humans on the team then. (Skyrangers transport 14 people, a tank counts as 4.)

When and if we go to Cydonia, depending on the psi strengths of everyone available, we may deploy with as many as four or five tanks in both hover and tracked laser varieties, though I suspect it'll just be only two or three.

Assuming I go with psi discovered. My first Cydonia assault I didn't. This time we should, but...

[headdie]

I could be wrong but I think the limit is 2, the problem there is like General Battuta says you loose 4 soldiers in floor space for each HWP, so a transport with 2 HWP can only carry 4 soldiers which is not really enough, like with tanks in modern warfare although capable of taking ground they are better used as force multipliers as all but 2 UFO classes can only be entered by soldiers and all UFOs have spaces which only a soldier can more freely through with the bridges on all multi deck UFOS (where the highest ranking alien is usually found) can only be accessed by soldiers so while tempting, especially against Etherals it is usually not recommended.

[TrashMan]

Etherals can cause panic and make troopers turn on eachother?
Don't we have power armor now? And aren't laser pistols incapable of penetrating it?

why not equip everyone with them and go after the Etherals?

[StarSlayer]

Okay, I was curious since I figured tanks where immune to Psi and Spoonzer Elite has more kill rings on his barrel than Michael Whittmann.

[General Battuta]

Etherals can cause panic and make troopers turn on eachother?
Don't we have power armor now? And aren't laser pistols incapable of penetrating it?

why not equip everyone with them and go after the Etherals?

Because then your entire squad is equipped with laser pistols

[Goober5000]

Shot-down ships are less dangerous to assault since they usually kill some crew and might obviate the need for a door breach, so without a necessary research or material goal, I'll shoot them down and take on what's left where possible.

Elerium!

We also currently have three Floater UFOs down over North America, a Terror Ship, a Supply Ship, and a Large Scout. Squads One and Two are both deployed.

This is actually excellent news, because it is consistent with an alien base construction mission.  You might want to consider letting them do their work, then you'll have an alien base within easy reach of Area 51.  You can poach all the supply ships for a steady supply of Elerium.

[NGTM-1R]

The Hovertank's superior armor protection draws on lessons learned from the loss of the first tank and first laser tank, and has all-around plating sufficent to stop most of the damage from the average heavy plasma strike. So, as this alien discovered, shoot it with rifles all you want. You'll only die with an empty clip!


jg18 kills an alien that tried to flee from the tank. Another alien thinks to challenge the might of a perfect, immortal machine, and bounces a plasma round off the front of the tank. -Joshua- throws a flare to locate it, and Fury takes it under fire with his heavy plasma. He misses. So does jr2. -Joshua- has to end it with a heavy missile, which also kills the flare. That's coming out of his paycheck.


Spoon blasts himself an entryway into a building. Even the tank hates doors. Jr2 checks out the other rooms.


This UFO breach will feature something a little different. While Scourge and Kyad prepare to enter through the doors...

...Axem, TrashMan, and Fury prepare to go through the hole in the roof that was blown by the destruction of the UFO's engines.


Two aliens are spotted. Scourge killed one and Fury got the other. Mission complete.


Every ship we down now is worth 1mil+ in sold Heavy Plasmas.

Elerium!

I've already got a couple of base raids in the pipeline that will hopefully help with that, but until then...

You might want to consider letting them do their work, then you'll have an alien base within easy reach of Area 51.  You can poach all the supply ships for a steady supply of Elerium.

Except they're on an infiltration mission. Depending on who you ask there may be no way to stop it, but I'm going to try pretty hard.

[jr2]

Are we still selling Laser Rifles?  'cause it looks like Medi-Kits are more profitable, and Motion Detectors are even better:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Manufacturing_Profitability#Profit_tables

EDIT: And Tank/Laser Cannons are better, and Fusion Ball launchers are better than that, and Laser Cannons are best.

Laser Cannon
Fusion Ball Launcher
Tank/Laser Cannon
Motion Scanner
Medi-Kit
Heavy Plasma
Laser Rifle
Laser Pistol
___________
(Alien Alloys)
(Personal Armor)

(The last two are a net loss)

[General Battuta]

Are we still selling Laser Rifles?  'cause it looks like Medi-Kits are more profitable, and Motion Detectors are even better:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Manufacturing_Profitability#Profit_tables

We have never been selling laser rifles. We sell laser cannons.

[MP-Ryan]

As an aside, this thread has actually piqued my interest in playing this (having never tried it before, and needing something to occupy my time on work trips when stuck in hotels in the middle of nowhere).  Do you have to run it in DOSBox, or how have you got this working?

[General Battuta]

Just buy it on Steam, it'll be fine. You may want to get some utilities to help run in a better resolution and fix annoying issues, though. I think XCOMUtil is the one you want?

[jr2]

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Enemy_Unknown_Extended

feature list here: http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=User:Seb76

with

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=XcomUtil

feature list on that page

EDIT: XcomUtil can detect EU: Extended and launch it with itself.

EDIT2: XCOM Complete Pack on Steam is $14.99 and has

XCOM Apocolypse
XCOM Enforcer
XCOM Interceptor
XCOM Terror From the Deep
XCOM UFO Defense (Enemy Unknown)

All of which are $4.99 individually

[Polpolion]

I've never actually gotten the extender working with XCOMutil. Have people actually done this, or is it some sort of mad dream I have?

[jr2]

Has to be version 9.7 (latest version)

[MP-Ryan]

Just buy it on Steam, it'll be fine. You may want to get some utilities to help run in a better resolution and fix annoying issues, though. I think XCOMUtil is the one you want?

I didn't actually notice it was on Steam.  Crazy!  This is why I love that platform.