Who's preordering X-COM?

[Howard]

Originally Posted by Martimus

I think armor is more important. I used Carapace armor until the last mission. It is good enough to keep you from being one-shotted, which is enough to keep most people alive. Laser weapons are only slightly better than regular weapons. Although I think a laser sniper rifle and heavy weapon are important to get as soon as possible.

Laser rifles let you two-shot Chryssalids.

[sigurros81]

I was wondering, now that the game has been out for several weeks, what are everyone's takes on the game after extensive play? Are the initial reviews of the games holding up or is it another case of reviewers getting overzealous? I ask because of...Civ5....

[ChronoReverse]

On Classic you can still go for armor first. But if you ever level up to Impossible difficulty, the HP levels of the aliens are slightly adjusted such that Lasers is more important.

[Anteaus]

Anyone have tips on cash flow? Even on easy, I find that I don't have enough money to do even what the game is asking me to. I need to get sats into space to satisfy countries, but between the control centers, time to build and the price per unit I have to spend virtually every cent just trying to get them into space quick enough to stop bleeding countries, which means even less money. That's if I ignore my troops and fighters, which has it's own problems. I'm sure there is probably some sort of trick to it, maybe something to focus on, but it's alluding me.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[Martimus]

I made most of my money by shooting down UFOs and selling off the broken components in the gray market. Still money is hard to come by except when a country offers you a lot of money for some alien technology.

[alphasigmookie]

Originally Posted by Anteaus

Anyone have tips on cash flow? Even on easy, I find that I don't have enough money to do even what the game is asking me to. I need to get sats into space to satisfy countries, but between the control centers, time to build and the price per unit I have to spend virtually every cent just trying to get them into space quick enough to stop bleeding countries, which means even less money. That's if I ignore my troops and fighters, which has it's own problems. I'm sure there is probably some sort of trick to it, maybe something to focus on, but it's alluding me.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Money is usually limiting, at least early in the game. That's the way it's supposed to be. Makes you make tough decisions. Selling stuff in they grey market helps a lot though.

[MichaelBarg]

Originally Posted by Anteaus

Anyone have tips on cash flow? Even on easy, I find that I don't have enough money to do even what the game is asking me to. I need to get sats into space to satisfy countries, but between the control centers, time to build and the price per unit I have to spend virtually every cent just trying to get them into space quick enough to stop bleeding countries, which means even less money. That's if I ignore my troops and fighters, which has it's own problems. I'm sure there is probably some sort of trick to it, maybe something to focus on, but it's alluding me.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

On my second play through I chose Africa as my home base for the "all in" bonus. I knew much more carefully what I wanted to do too, but it definitely moved up the time that I switched from always been short money to always been short elerium/alloys/weapons fragments.

Otherwise, just be as economical as you can producing weapons/armor. Sell anything on the gray market that you don't need. Save satellites for the end of the month in case panic gets out of control. And push through, once you get satellite coverage in most countries other items are the problem. Resource constraints never really go away, unless you take your time with the priority missions.

[Anteaus]

Originally Posted by MichaelBarg

Sell anything on the gray market that you don't need.

How do you know what you don't need?

[Martimus]

Originally Posted by Anteaus

How do you know what you don't need?

The game actually tells you what you don't need. It will say above the description in bold green letters what is safe to sell.

[dave_the_nerd]

Originally Posted by MichaelBarg

Otherwise, just be as economical as you can producing weapons/armor.

This.

I started out with an old-X-COM mentality, wanting to produce 20-30 of everything. Built ten nano weave vests, ended up with all ten still in inventory by the time last mission rolled around.

Since there's no assembly lead time, you can basically build exactly what you need, no more, and that's the end of it.

[Anteaus]

Originally Posted by Martimus

The game actually tells you what you don't need. It will say above the description in bold green letters what is safe to sell.

Lol to be completely honest I never noticed that. Guess I'll just go ahead and feel stupid for the next 5 minutes as punishment.

[MichaelBarg]

Originally Posted by dave_the_nerd

This.

I started out with an old-X-COM mentality, wanting to produce 20-30 of everything. Built ten nano weave vests, ended up with all ten still in inventory by the time last mission rolled around.

Since there's no assembly lead time, you can basically build exactly what you need, no more, and that's the end of it.

Yeah. It's a bit of a hassle juggling equipment through injuries and especially the Psi labs where they don't automatically un-equip items, but if you're careful you can save a fair bit of money.

Also beyond useless items to sell there are lots of things you don't need a lot of. Corpses especially: once you done the research you can decide whether you want to use the items that can be made using corpses and sell any extras. Keep a few just in case, but in my experience you always have more than you need.

[QuantumPion]

Originally Posted by sigurros81

I was wondering, now that the game has been out for several weeks, what are everyone's takes on the game after extensive play? Are the initial reviews of the games holding up or is it another case of reviewers getting overzealous? I ask because of...Civ5....

Yup it's good. No Civ 5 repeat. With Civ 5 everyone agreed it was kind of lame from day one, and the real damning came a week or two later. XCOM's been out for almost a month and I still can't get enough free time to play it.

[Anteaus]

Originally Posted by QuantumPion

Yup it's good. No Civ 5 repeat. With Civ 5 many agreed it was kind of lame from day one, and the real damning came a week or two later. XCOM's been out for almost a month and I still can't get enough free time to play it.

Fixed that for you Yea XCOM is pretty good. I wish I had more time to play myself.

[Howard]

Originally Posted by alphasigmookie

Money is usually limiting, at least early in the game. That's the way it's supposed to be. Makes you make tough decisions. Selling stuff in they grey market helps a lot though.

Don't sell floater or sectoid corpses. Don't sell Thin Man corpses until you get the Improved Medikit upgrade.

[PowerYoga]

Originally Posted by Howard

Don't sell floater or sectoid corpses. Don't sell Thin Man corpses until you get the Improved Medikit upgrade.

with interception missions being so rare I'm not sure you need more than 10 of each. I'd be more inclined to say don't sell UFO computers since you need 2 to make firestorms and other misc junk.

[Martimus]

I am glad I played my first game in Ironman mode, but if I can get away from the addiction that is Fallen Enchantress, I think I will play the game with save scumming allowed. That way I can try out different things under the same circumstances.

[_Rick_]

switched away from iron man, and right off the bat my game went so much easier.

Did resort to restarting two deployments I was losing, because I wasn't sure I could tank the panic increase. Panic management even with all missions successful (excepting a few missed intercepts) is bad enough. Managed to only lose Africa so far, but lost all of them at the same time...

[zanemoseley]

What your favorite classes, abilities and guns.

My favorite in my first run through so far is the assault class with an alloy cannon. That combined with run and gun, rapid fire and close combat specialist will equal some ass kicking. The close combat specialist is bad ass against a muton elite as you can pop him the with cannon and most of the time they will do an aggression charge into the 4 square zone and activate CCS and give you another shot easily taking out an elite with one person/turn.

I was very underwhelmed by the sniper at first. It seemed like they would either never have a shot or would be so close their hit percentage was super bad. I didn't play with one for a long time then finally added one back and got a plasma sniper and double tap ability and its decent. It seems like they don't see targets you want them to though.

[Clinkster]

Originally Posted by zanemoseley

I was very underwhelmed by the sniper at first. It seemed like they would either never have a shot or would be so close their hit percentage was super bad. I didn't play with one for a long time then finally added one back and got a plasma sniper and double tap ability and its decent. It seems like they don't see targets you want them to though.

They see everything in the world if you got squad sight with them. Which is what, the second ability you get? It's the most needed staple on sniper.

During normal, I like sniper/assault the most. But now when im going through classic, heavy has come out as my new fav. Holo-targeting along with rockets just makes him wayyy too valuable.

[zanemoseley]

The heavies can do some serious damage with the heavy plasma but they don't always seem to have the best hit percentages. Do you ever get a better rocket or is there just the standard one all the way through, I'm pretty close to the end I think and don't think I've seen research for any better ones.

I think I opted for the other ability instead of squad sight for my sniper. Need to get another and try that.

[Martimus]

The sniper is my favorite. She always seems to have 100% shots, and does the most damage to boot. I did level up a move and shoot sniper once, and that guy was useless. An assault would be better, with the same function.

My second is probably the support. With extra movement range and 3 medkits, not to mention the second support item, they are just awesome all around.

[Howard]

Originally Posted by zanemoseley

The heavies can do some serious damage with the heavy plasma but they don't always seem to have the best hit percentages. Do you ever get a better rocket or is there just the standard one all the way through, I'm pretty close to the end I think and don't think I've seen research for any better ones.

I think I opted for the other ability instead of squad sight for my sniper. Need to get another and try that.

You get the blaster launcher which deals more damage and has non-line-of-sight aiming capability.

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Originally Posted by zanemoseley

I think I opted for the other ability instead of squad sight for my sniper. Need to get another and try that.

Squad sight is amazing and the other ability is very meh. If you want to be able to do decent while still moving give the sniper the gunslinger ability to buff up their pistol as the alternate isn't really that good for squad sight (high ground advantage) since you should hit easy enough already with high ground and shouldn't be getting shot at with squad sight.

[_Rick_]

Snipers are just OP towards the end.

Double-tapping sectopods to death is kind of boring....