UFO - Played it!

[nirvana]

Before you ask, no im not a pirate! I just run an Export company in the UK, of whom Russia is a big buyer, my brother is one of the truckers who brough a copy home with him last night! (We spent many nights at uni playing the original, before we realise we shoudl be out picking up women!)

Anyways i dont have much time, so i will list some pro's cons

Pro's

Feels Authentic to the original
Big research list, much bigger than i remember the original being
Performs well on my laptop which is under the minimum spec.
Combat seems to be fun, although on medium, very very hard.
Maps are big (although as you cannot change the combat speed this will liekly become a negative on some maps)

Cons

The movies are appalling.
The text in game is atrociously translated to English. I mean REALLY BAD
Animations in game are pretty poor
Units in game look pretty poor (Landscapes are nice however)
Resolution seems stuck to 1024, and looks like ass on my 21" LCD
No apprently story line, im only 4 months in, after a 6 hour session however.
The game is HARD on the medium setting, if one of you troops takes a hit, expect him to be out of action for a month.
No Apparent way to reserve AP's, cant seem to figure out how to lay prone (can kneel tho)
Lack of Tactical map is a pain
Combat gets Slooooooooow when you have 20 aliens shooting, no way to speed up turns from what i see.


Any questions please ask, i will keep popping back in through the day. PS hope its not bad form posting this here when i havent bought it from matric yet? I DO have quite the list of games i have bought from here though

[crm114]

Your cons don't sound all that bad to me, Nirvana, I'm starting to feel a little more confident about buying this. Thanks for posting the impressions.

[JudgeDredd]

Shame about the movies, animations and units

Text issue might be due to not running the game at your LCD native res (I've suffered from that problem with games where the rs of the game is locked down to 1024x768 and my LCD native res is 1280x1024...Crown of Glory springs to mind)

[owl208]

@nirvana

Thanks for your post. Any info since most of us don't have the game yet is appreciated, especially from a player.
I have to warn you that I am one of those rabid XCOM fans, so I do have scores of questions--I 'll try to keep to just a few major areas.

There has been some question about bases and how they work. I understand that the main base is where most of your buildings are. I also understand that you can have additional bases, but the buildings you can build on these bases is reduced. Yet these additional bases and I also understand you can have up to 9 bases, can be attacked by aliens? etc. How does that work exactly? Do your soldier's from the main base automatically defend these secondary bases when they are attacked or is it an additional mission or can you garrison soldiers at these bases? Also, after combat at one of the bases, (not the main base) are soldiers automatically transported to the main base hospital for healing? Sorry for the barrage of questions on the same topic, but they are all interlinked.

How exactly does UFO interception work? I know that a UFO appears and that you send a CAF interceptor to intercept and shoot it down, that much was shown in the gameplay video, but that leaves a lot out. Can you, for example, do a multi-CAF intercept of a UFO? Do UFO's swarm and attack in the geosphere in any coordinated manner, like a multi-ufo intercept against CAF craft? Are the UFO's all one size on the geosphere or do they vary in size, power and appearance? I understand that ufo interception is even harder than tactical combat and that you are constantly strapped for cash. Can you comment on what you've seen? Also if you shoot a UFO down over water, can you still do a ufo ground assault on the craft or is the UFO gone forever or is it even possible to shoot a UFO down over water? It has also be reported that shot down UFOs are all shot down with the UFO completely intact, not damaged in some way as was seen in XCOM. Can you comment about the UFOs themselves? (Any difference between craft or are all similar craft layouts like we saw in XCOM, just filled with different tougher aliens, or something else entirely, etc)

During tactical combat, are the aliens randomly placed on the battlefield or do they always start from the same place?
Is there actually a kamikaze mode when only a few aliens are left or do you have to hunt them down? What have you seen in reguards to this?

Finally its been reported that your only source of income is Country revenue, however; some have reported that you can sell off items from UFO ground assaults, but not at much of a profit, especially stuff that your technicians make. Is this true, how does it work and can you comment on what you've seen? $ makes this kind of game go and if you are held to country revenue your expansion effects will be severely curtailed.

Sorry for all the question and thanks for your patience.

[nirvana]

Luckily a perk about being one of the bosses is a lot of free time

The world is split into 9 areas. You can have one base on each area. When you do your income shoots up from that area. At the moment i have 3 bases, and my main base appears to be the only one i can build labs and workshops at. The new bases can have hangars and detection systems etc.

The only experience with a base being invaded i had was when i was passing time at the 1 day mark, just to looka t the tech tree and i was avoiding combat, yes bases can be invaded, and you can build defences into any bases. So far i ahve seen laser defences, missile, plasma, and chemical defence. Only the soldiers situated at the base invaded can defend it. Although you can transfer troops via your carrier. Sadly as i was just passing time researching my troops died defending the base, so am not sure what happens afterwards. I have noticed that if you use a medikit or stimpack on injured troops their time spent in the hospital is much less, i have seen up to 30-40 days for someone who was incapacitated, and as littel as 3 days for someone you heal in the field.

As for shooting down UFO's. Yes you can use as many CAF's as you like, you start with 2, and i highly recommend using both, as your tech level is pretty poor, and even fighters can take your planes down 1v1. You can upgrade weapons shields, speed and capacity on all ships, and after a few upgrades you can send only 1 CAF to down the UFO's.

You dont manually refuel or or-arm the ships but after a fight you can see your money going down as they auto re-arm and fuel etc. And yes, if you fighting a UFO and another one happens to pass they join the fight, although im not sure thats AI, just unlucky another one passed by. Yes cash seems very hard to comeby unless your getting "Excellent" monthly reports each month you may struggle. If you shoot something down over water it is lost, so best to wait until they are above land.

UFO's seems to be different sizes, fighters look different to scouts, and the one cruiser i shot down was pretty huge, and jamm packed with aliens, i failed that mission. As yet i have no noticed any UFO damage on the tactical map that i remember, but i didnt really take note.

Maps seem randomly generated, although i haven't replayed enough areas to confirm. Aliens also seem randomly generated. Sometimes you leave your ship to see 4 shooting at you, sometimes most are still in the UFO. (im now used to lobbying a chem grenade or stun grenade out of the CAF's before sending the ground troops in, much safer) Hunting down the last alien is still a pain.

Yes you can sell, hopefully this screenie shows more than words. You can sell alien loot off, but its not worth much until you research it, then its price seems to triple. You can sell what you manufacture, however im no idea if it costs more to make it than you recieve for selling it as yet, didnt take much note of it.

Sorry the pic is a bit big, im not a techie, and unsure how to make it a little smaller.

[thenightgaunt]

Mind if I ask you an odd question?
I'm an amateur modder and I was wondering if you could tell me what type of files the ship/tech/etc files are (like extension type)?
Figured I'd get started learning about them early.
 
I'm thinking the first mod out there should be bringing back the sectoids. ^_^

[bragut]

First of all, sorry for my bad English... [:)]
 
Can you explayn how the rejeaction fire works in UFO ET? Thanks.

[nirvana]

Files are all *XBG if that means anything to you.

No way to reserve AP for  reaction fire on the aliens turn Although if you have points left over sometimes you do fire automatically. each soldier has a "reactions" stat which im guessing has something to do with how often they take advantage of oportunity fire. Shame you cannot reserve points for it apart from not using all your tun up tho.

[bragut]

ORIGINAL: nirvana

No way to reserve AP for  reaction fire on the aliens turn Although if you have points left over sometimes you do fire automatically. each soldier has a "reactions" stat which im guessing has something to do with how often they take advantage of oportunity fire. Shame you cannot reserve points for it apart from not using all your tun up tho.

So, you have to count "manually" the AP points to reserve a quantity to perform an automatic reaction fire?

[nirvana]

Yup. Its not that hard as everytime you move or fire it tells you how many AP you have left.

Not a patch on the old xcom system sadly

[crm114]

Nirvana- Can you rename your troops?

[nirvana]

Yup you can. My wife is laying in a pool of blood, and im walking around bleeding to death

[crm114]

ORIGINAL: nirvana

Yup you can. My wife is laying in a pool of blood, and im walking around bleeding to death

Heh! Don't tell your wife, eh? Thanks for all the info. [:)]

[LitFuel]

Do soldiers panic and start blasting on their own, not respond to commands etc.. like X-Com?

[nirvana]

Haven't seen it yet, there are PSI attacks and PSI shields, i havent played enough into it yet to see.

[owl208]

@nirvana

Thanks so much for the detailed info and the screenie. I can't wait to get the game, sounds like your having a great time!
Oh---and condolences on the loss of your wife. Hopefully you won that battle and she can grow back a new body!!! My wife would LOVE that feature [:D]

[misadlouhy]

it is not problem at all to change the resolution in ufo-et.ini file in data subdirectory from 1024x768 to anything you desire [:)], more tweaks possible

[nirvana]

Yup i figured out how to change the resolution.

Also noticed that ther eis a Russian and English PDF Manual in the Game directory.

[misadlouhy]

Will you collect things (alien weapons etc) in the mission automatically, or do you have to pick up everything you want to collect with your soldiers before the mission ends?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: misadlouhy
Will you collect things (alien weapons etc) in the mission automatically, or do you have to pick up everything you want to collect with your soldiers before the mission ends?

As far as I've seen, all of that is collected automatically at the end of the mission.