Let's battle the terror in X-Com TFTD Superhuman Ironman

[hoverdog]

RIP Hoverdog twins but they were actually triplets, so another H-Dog appears!

 

[Absalom]

I die. Sign me up as James Scott

 

[Blagrar]

More meat for the meatgrinder!
Sign me up.

 

[Dayyālu]

You gave me the itch to restart a TFTD campaign. I am not that a good player, but some basic hints maybe I can provide.

- Stop using Gas Cannons on Barracudas. Ajax for smaller vessels and DUP on the rest. Forget about downing anything that is Large for now.

- Stalk supply ships. You can win them if they are crewed with Aquatoids. I won one using 14 men, only Aqua Armor and Sonic Pistols/Gauss Rifles and without MC on my side. First, identify the weaker members of the crew and disarm them. Hope that MC- capable 'noids will focus on them. Clear the opening area- fast. You have the 20 turn limit before the aliens know your position, that's B.A.D. for 1) MC 2) Flying bombs aka-reskinned Blaster Launcher.

Then, hold the main door with some dudes- from cover and in skirmish formation -. Blast the west side of the USO with pulsars or Magna-Pack explosives. If your version is xcomutil-patched, throw a dye grenade in the opening. Next, suicide rush. Send your SWAT team in from the opening (hopefully they will not have a murder team already in place) and rush the goodamn elevator. If 2-3 men can get to the bridge and choke the 'noids MC commanders, the situation is at least stable. Then, mop up operation (easier said than done). Good things to have are officers to avoid panic. On my first try, victory with 5 survivors and 14 dead 'noids.

-On basic tactics, use cover well and spread out. After a while most of my deaths were from stupidly keeping some kind of "unit cohesion". Fuck that and SPREAD OUT. Stop using anything that is not Sonic weaponry/Gas cannons/ LOTS of grenades. Drown them in holy explosives.

-How's the research going? You have the basics for armor and Calcinites fro HtH weaponry, right? And I ask , what is the most efficient research tree? I am on the first of of July and have Ion Armor/Sonic Guns/MC Labs and now I'm on Magnetic Navigation. I'm boned?

-I cannot wait to see how you'll deal with LOVING LOBSTERMEN. Horrible, HORRIBLE things.

 

[Heclapar]

You have the basics for armor and Calcinites fro HtH weaponry, right?

I haven't managed to even get zrbite yet or aqua plastics, and i havent met Calcinites.

-I cannot wait to see how you'll deal with LOVING LOBSTERMEN.

I dont think i will manage to get to them before ZOMG BASE ATTACK DED repeats itself.What month do they appear in?

 

[Storyfag]

You have the basics for armor and Calcinites fro HtH weaponry, right?

I haven't managed to even get zrbite yet or aqua plastics, and i havent met Calcinites.

You should have some aqua plastics from the few subs you managed to recover. But you need a deep one autopsy to even begin researching them. Calcinites are found in ground-based aquatoid terror missions/base assault.

 

[Heclapar]

You should have some aqua plastics from the few subs you managed to recover

I haven't managed to recover any subs i am doomed.
Shall i start producing some gauss rifles guys?

 

[eklektyk]

this will end well *optimist*

 

[Average Manatee]

-How's the research going? You have the basics for armor and Calcinites fro HtH weaponry, right? And I ask , what is the most efficient research tree? I am on the first of of July and have Ion Armor/Sonic Guns/MC Labs and now I'm on Magnetic Navigation. I'm boned?

Magnetic Navigation (and then the super-detection module) is IMO the most important research in the game. You can do a LOT with starting weapons, but you can't do shit if you can't find UFOs to attack.

The only other TRULY essential tech that I must have is the stun bombs. This things are ridiculously accurate (most accurate aimed fire in the game IIRC), the most effective weapon against lobstermen (Everything else in the game can be taken out by grenades/pulsers/gas cannons), and incredibly useful for close quarters combat inside a UFO (where you want to be able to blindfire a weapon past corners instead of running in and getting gunned down, but at the same time don't want to destroy expensive alien tech). Ideally I want to have them around the end of February.

With these two you should be able to win most missions and get lots of dosh to accelerate your growth. From there I'd probably prioritize the craft-mounted sonic weapons which ensures that anything less than the biggest UFOs don't even have a chance. Of course this requires you to research all sonic weapons, which isn't a bad thing either.

Armor is up to you when to do it, as far as I'm concerned anyone getting shot at (past the tank in the first month or two) is expendable and easier to replace than to risk expensive armor on, so it's a luxury for later.

MC is just too cheesy for me to actually use it. If you get it and can pump out a few decent psi soldiers you'll break the game.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

-I cannot wait to see how you'll deal with LOVING LOBSTERMEN.

I dont think i will manage to get to them before ZOMG BASE ATTACK DED repeats itself.What month do they appear in?[/quote]

Oh gods, you are going to have fun with them.

I haven't played TFTD in years, but when I did, I would often get what I ended up calling "Lobster season". That meant that I got NOTHING but Lobstermen, save for terror attacks. EVERY goddamn sub was full of Lobstermen. They are (very) resistant against every weapon in the game except... melee weapons. Vibro blades and such. They actually take double damage from those. They can and will survive a direct hit from a Disrupter Pulse Launcher. Stun bombs only neutralize them, they don't kill them. Sometimes that's a Good Thing.

As for when they started appearing... if I was doing good, they'd show up in May. Otherwise a little later, but by September at the latest. Note that I was playing on lower difficulty levels than Superhuman.

Believe it or not, there are worse things in TFTD than Lobstermen.

Coalacanths are most useful for recon purposes underwater, their uses are limited in land-based terror missions due to the terrain, and they're ABSOLUTELY useless in ship attacks except at the very start, again due to the terrain. Later you get upgraded tanks, the one with the Sonic Cannon is my all-time favourite recon/support tank.

 

[Average Manatee]

Stun bombs only neutralize them, they don't kill them.

FWIW, ANY explosive damage at all will kill stunned units, so you don't have to worry about Lobstermen waking up behind you during long missions. Of course, it also tends to destroy their equipment, so you gotta walk up and pick it up first before shooting them with your gas cannons.

As for when they started appearing... if I was doing good, they'd show up in May. Otherwise a little later, but by September at the latest. Note that I was playing on lower difficulty levels than Superhuman.

Usually March, otherwise early April in Superhuman. Though I don't know how long it will take with Heclapar barely holding on by a thread, it might be significantly longer.

Of course, base assaults can happen ANY time on Superhuman. IIRC there's something like a 2% chance for aliens to immediately launch an attack on your base every time you shoot something down. I've actually been thrown into a base defense mission as early as Jan 4th, before my new recruits could even show up. That game ended rather quickly...

Believe it or not, there are worse things in TFTD than Lobstermen.

Can't say I agree with this. Lobstermen are THE terror in the deep. Most everything else is reskinned X-Com units, some of them significantly easier in fact (no sectopods, thankfully).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Believe it or not, there are worse things in TFTD than Lobstermen.

Can't say I agree with this. Lobstermen are THE terror in the deep. Most everything else is reskinned X-Com units, some of them significantly easier in fact (no sectopods, thankfully).

I was mostly referring to Bio-Drones (which are a pain in the ass to deal with) and Tentaculats, for obvious reasons.

 

[Average Manatee]

I actually consider Tentaculats to be easier than Chryssalids. While the idea of a faster, flying Chryssalid is scary they are much rarer since they are a terror unit which only appears underwater, which also removes the threat that Chryssalids posed on terror missions when they turned all the civilians into zombies. Tentaculats also have an extra vulnerability to explosives which makes low tech weapons quite viable vs them, especially pulsers.

Bio-Drones I just don't have much of a problem with. Dunno.

 

[Imperator]

Once again i ready for action.

 

[Heclapar]

I am sorry to say it, but this LP will be put on hold indifinetely.

The reason for this is that, i stopped enjoying making it. I know that this is a dick move, but i don't want to view each update as a chore, but rather as a fun activity for me and it's viewers. Note that this does not mean that this LP is abandoned, but will be continued when i have the urge to do it. Thank you for your patience guys

 

[Azira]

 

[Absalom]

ban Heclapar

 

[UncleJimb0]

LPs are waaaaay more work than they look, as you have discovered. I have enjoyed lurking in this one and hope to see a revival soon.

Losing is fun!

Edit: I discovered during my own XCOM LP that including too many screenshots really caused my posts to drag and exponentially increased the amount of work with very little narrative effect. I also started to skim over uneventful periods with brief summaries; for example, if a routine UFO recovery mission went well I might only include a couple of screenshots and if someone died I would explain how they died, RIP, and move on. This freed up a lot of time and energy to focus on Serious Business like base defenses, new alien encounters, and pear-shaped missions involving battleships and blaster bombs.

 

[Heclapar]

Heh thanks for the tips.Anyways guys, for when i decide to re-start it, i have a problem. I am out of photobucket space, and i would like some reccomendations for other photo hosting websites.

 

[baturinsky]

Imgur is good. It lets you generate lists of links to images in different forms, inclusing BB or HTML, so you can just insert text in-between.

 

[UncleJimb0]

I second Imgur. Once you get the hang of it you will be able to spend less time messing with files an more time enjoying your LPs.

Oh yeah...please assign call sign Papa Jimbo to the next squad of victims recruits.