Let's Play! X-COM: UFO DEFENSE

[Integrity]

See, I love Let's Plays. I've always wanted to do one, but I've never had the motivation.

As such, I'm going to write a LP of a game I've wanted to LP for a while: X-COM!

So, before I start, I'm gauging interest. Obviously I need a good pool of you to rename my green recruits that I'll be throwing into Chryssalid hives, since some of a lot of you are going to die.

TECHNICAL NOTES: I'll be running xcomutil to patch out some of the nastier bugs/buff the tanks, and I'll be using UFO Classes because it makes things easier for me to understand.

EDIT THE FIRST: Tallying a vote, what difficulty should I play on? There are five, from Beginner to Superhuman.

Votes were one for 2, two for SUPARHUMAN, so I'll pretend-average it and make it a 4.

[spoiler=the redshirts]Integrity RIP Update 12

Balcerzak RIP Update 1

DarkCybaster RIP Update 2

Spectakitty RIP Update 11

Soren RIP Update 2

Pride RIP Update 2

SirTeabag RIP Update 2

Nolan RIP Update 3

Skitarii RIP Update 4

Ballsack RIP Update 7

Baster II RIP Update 4

Soren II RIP Update 3

Pride II RIP Update 3

Joey RIP Update 3

BlackJak RIP Update 5

Spock

Soren III RIP Update 14

Pride III RIP Update 7

Joey III RIP Cydonia

Vlodemark RIP Update 5

Tarkus

Tarii II RIP Update 9

Baster I RIP Update 9

Stefffff

Inigo

Lightning RIP Update 10

MIDBOSS

Integer RIP Update 9

Levin RIP Update 9

Furet

Balcer II Zombified Update 10

Pride IV

D

Eclipse

Tarii III RIP Update 11

Baster II RIP Cydonia

Integer 2

Levin II RIP Update 12

Balcer I

Light II RIP Update 14

Kitty II RIP Update 14

Tarii IV

Oderic

Crüniac

Yossarian RIP Cydonia

JB25

Integ II

Levin III

Cyrus RIP Cydonia

Avitus RIP Cydonia

Light III

Kitty III

Soren IV

[spoiler=the bases]Echidnation

Inn'n'Out

Panzerbjorn

Edited October 1, 2010 by Integrity

[Balcerzak]

I heard really good things about X-COM in the past, but it was one of those games I just never picked up. I'd like to follow along and see what I missed out on.

[Integrity]

Post updated with you two before I go to bed. Note that UFO Classes imposes a limit on characters but I don't remember how many it is (8 or 9 I think) so I'll be creative with your abridged names.

Voting for difficulty closes tomorrow morning, when I start taking pictures.

Also, submit suggestions for base names!

[Specta]

SUPARHUMAN

Also, I volunteer my name! =D Hooray!

EDIT:

For your base name, I say ECHIDNATION.

Edited August 10, 2010 by Spectakitty

[Soren37]

I'll sign up, as you signed up in my LP. You can call the body bag Soren.

[Pride]

I think I played this game like, once. Maybe.

Superhuman, call a redshirt Pride, name your base Inn'n'Out.

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

Video LPs are so much more entertaining, boo for screenshots. Anyways I'll try and keep track of it.

Make a dude named SirTeabag. Do it.

[Integrity]

Video LPs are so much more entertaining, boo for screenshots. Anyways I'll try and keep track of it.

Make a dude named SirTeabag. Do it.

Just for you, Trollshades.

The problem with a VLP of X-COM is it would be boring as fuck. It would consist entirely of me fast-forwarding a lot through the geoscape, then a short battle. Someday, I'll do a game I can VLP for you once I can actually record it.

Anyway, names will be writ' and I'll start today.

[Integrity]

DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY

aka X-COM: UFO DEFENSE

That's the menu, obviously. Nothing much to be done there other than start a new game or load my old one.

The Geoscape! This is the screen where we build bases and find aleins to kill and doesn't afraid of anything. I can place our first base wherever I feel like it, and you guys can decide on subsequent bases. I choose to put Echidnation roughly where I live, because America is the highest contributor of X-COM FUNDS.

From there, there's not much I can do to start. I immediately begin researching Medkits because you fucks are going to DIE but a good second choice is Laser Weapons because nothing helps more than ammo independence with you fucks who can't shoot for shit. After that, and once some more SCIENTISTS arrive, I'll be starting new projects As The Community Demands.

THE IMPORTANT SCREEN! I didn't have enough names to fill the Eight Soldiers you start with, so I named the eighth Nolan because I can. The funny words and numbers are a product of the brilliant UFO Classes, which automatically renames your dudes for easier micromanagement. The number is their level which, uh, we got kinda fucked on. You want to have a good, high-level sniper and we don't. Time for training! The words after the names are classes. The classes are:

ASSAULT is the first line. They're tough bastards with good reflexes.

SNIPER is the back line. They might not be fast, they might not be tough, but they can shoot.

SHOCK is fodder. They're the soldiers who, essentially, don't fit into any category and therefore should be used as meat.

MEDIC is brave person. Soldiers designated Medics have high Throwing Accuracy and high Bravery, so they won't panic and can toss Medkits around.

HEAVY is strong person. Heavy Cannons and Rocket Launchers aren't light things, so you need strong men to carry them.

SUPPORT is ...well, really, I don't know what Support does.

And so we go to the final part of the update:

[spoiler=stat explanations]Time Units: How many actions a unit can take in one round. Moving is 4 TUs per square, shooting is %-based, etc. etc.

Stamina: With TUs comes Energy. A burdened unit will run out of Energy while he tries to run across a map. Higher Stamina means ...well, better Stamina in battle.

Health: Totally self-explanatory.

Bravery: As allies die and aliens try to mind-control you, your Morale drops. Bravery is a measure of how vulnerable you are to morale shocks and panicking under pressure.

Reactions: Battles are turn-based, but there are rules in place that let soldiers take Reaction Shots on the EP. Soldiers with higher Reactions are more likely to take shots at aliens when it's not their turn, and to avoid letting aliens do the same while scouting.

Firing Accuracy: Measures how likely you are to hit when firing good ol' bullets and lasers.

Throwing Accuracy: Measures how accurate you are throwing grenades and passing gear around to allies.

Strength: Things are heavy. Strength helps mitigate that.

[spoiler=Balcerzak's stats]

High Time Units and high Health countered by low Strength and poor Firing Accuracy. :(

[spoiler=Soren's stats]

REMARKABLY HIGH Time Units and notably good Stamina countered by poor Bravery and Firing Accuracy and pathetic Strength.

[spoiler=SirTeabag's stats]

High TUs, high Stamina, almost-fucking-perfect Reactions, upper-echelon Firing AND Throwing accuracy...unfortunately, poor Strength and literally the lowest Health you can get as a recruit.

[spoiler=Spectakitty's stats]

Remarkably average, with upper-echelon Firing Accuracy marred by poor Reactions. I mean, seriously, everything falls into the middle of the rolls you can get except those.

[spoiler=DarkCybaster's stats]

Remarkably ABOVE-average, with VERY good Firing Accuracy marred by - oh wait, enhanced by a Throwing Accuracy one point off of perfect. Bad Strength, though.

[spoiler=Pride's stats]

Also remarkably above-average, except without the Strength deficit many of you are suffering. In fact, this soldier is in the upper tier of everything except Throwing Accuracy - which is bottomed.

[spoiler=Integrity's stats]

Nothing special. High TUs, Health and Bravery should make me a good tank. Good Strength, too. Pathetic Throwing Accuracy.

[spoiler=Nolan lol]

CAPPED Stamina. CAPPED Bravery. CAPPED Strength. ONE POINT OFF CAPPED Throwing Accuracy. Bottomed Health and piss-poor Firing Accuracy.

[Specta]

Huzzah, I am SUPER AVERAGE! I will blind those aliens with mediocrity!

Or, more likely, just die.

[Integrity]

A note to the future generation of redshirts: I always need more. There isn't really a feasible limit to how many redshirts I can throw at the aliens, so feel free to sign your name up anytime during the LP.

This space updated with the new post soon.

----------

A-HA! Our first aliens! We'll just launch an Interceptor at them and...

...

Well, I failed to get the climactic screenshot, but our Interceptor utterly obliterated the UFO. No crash site rescue for now.

Features explanations! The first shot shows the Interception screen. For now, we only have two kinds of craft: Interceptors, which intercept and shoot UFOs down; and Skyrangers, which carry our redshirts into the crash sites. The second shot is the UFO Battle screen! All that happens is you select from Standoff and Cautious, Standard or Aggressive Attacks (or Disengage) and watch the fighting play out on the radar screen to the left. The counters represent the Interceptor's weapon stocks (two six-shot Stingray Missile Launchers on INTERCEPTOR-2) and the little plan depicts the integrity of the plane. If it goes full red, the plane dies.

Scientists arrive! I assign them to Medkit research because it's not done yet.

Boom. I queue up Laser Weapons.

-

What follows is roughly THREE WEEKS of absolutely nothing. I'm not joking, NOTHING showed on the radar. Laser Weapons finishes and Laser Pistols

also finishes.

Then, suddenly

I utterly failed at this one, but the tiny green mark is a landed (not crashed!) UFO. This is a good find! I send the Skyranger in...

and it flies off. Fuck. Shoulda sent the Interceptor.

ANOTHER grounded UFO! I'll send the Interceptor and crash it real fast, then...

-

Now this is the outfitting screen. From this, we move the gear from our Skyranger onto our redshirts to let them survive. SirTeabag here is holding a Rifle in his right hand, a Medkit in his left, and has two Rifle Clips and a Grenade on his belt. He is also blonde. Our other soldiers are similarly equipped, and we go into battle. WHO WILL DIE FIRST? STAY TUNED!

Edited August 11, 2010 by Integrity

[IGdood]

If you get anymore new soldiers later on can you sign skitarii on, please?

And...isn't UFO DEFENSE one of the hardest games every for being brutal and RNG-based?

Not to mention, there seems to be a remake incoming...or is that a FPS remake?

[Integrity]

FPS remake.

And yeah, it's bad. I'm also making a promise not to save-scum unless I have to to save the entire game from destruction.

[BEST TRYNDAMERE PLAYER]

SirTeabag better not die first =|.

[Integrity]

Hi. First TACTICAL update!

----------

This is the inside of the Skyranger! Say hello to all you guys, and the game automatically seems to have selected Balcerzak, who is a woman. Until we research some advanced craft WAY later in the game, every Tactical update will start with that, unless it's a raid. We'll get to those later. For now, an explanation of the interface elements immediately pertinent:

Shiny gold is a rank. Everybody is a Recruit right now. Once you kill an alien or something similar, you get promoted to Squaddie. That's all. Officer ranks exist as long as you have a certain number of soldiers - with this many, we'll see one dude promoted at random to Sergeant. Officers grant morale bonuses to nearby soldiers, with the downside that their deaths weigh more heavily on the grunts.

Green number and bar is Time Units. You burn these to move and shoot and everything else.

Yellow number and bar is Energy. You burn these while moving, and regain them while standing. Several turns of running will burn them dry and you'll have to rest a bit.

Reddish number and bar is Health. Exactly as it sounds, with a bonus: getting shot and surviving usually inflicts Fatal Wounds on the soldier, which'll cause him to bleed out unless he gets Medkitted. Often, these guys die instantly so it doesn't matter *too* much.

Purple number and bar is Morale. Goes up when you kill aliens or an officer is nearby, goes down when aliens kill your buds or mindcontrol you or your buds.

That's what we can see of the UFO we shot down. There's no smoke around it, which should mean its reactor is good - this is VERY good. If the reactor is still unexploded, more aliens will be alive and you'll be able to secure Elerium-115 - crucial for, uh, about everything later.

And see that [1] in the corner? That means there's one alien in Balcerzak's vision! The tank revealed him, and I sent Balls to go shoot at it.

This is the shooting screen. Most weapons have all of these options, and I'm pretty sure everything there is self-explanatory except one thing. Throw does not mean Throw AT, no matter how much you wish. It means Throw TO. It's for passing gear around when necessary. Since Balls is a poor shot, we'll use AUTOSHOT!

And he and the next guy in line both missed, but Kitty hit. Cool beans and our first logged ALIEN KILL.

The tank reveals more of the UFO. It's not a light scout.

The most iconic XCOM screen, imo. This is thrown up during the Enemy Phase if you can't see the aliens - and you usually can't see the aliens, so you stare at it. A lot.

FUCK.

Balcerzak is dead. That was fast.

Notice how Kitty's Morale went down from Balls' death. She now exacts sweet sweet revengeance. Click!

---------

Soren hits the top of a hill the next turn and finds another alien hiding behind that dead one.

Kitty hits and then Soren finishes it. Yeah baby.

Meanwhile, the tank misses.

Once.

---------

And now we're all stacked up to breach the UFO. This is where most XCOM agents die, especially early on. We don't have armor yet, after all. That's me to the up, SirTeabag to the down, Nolan hiding on the corner, and Pride waiting in front of the door.

I breach and, luckily, kill it. Whee!

Assume proper lobby-holding stance. Now it's time to explain the next set of elements: those four buttons - one green, three red - next to the shiny gold rank marker.

The green button is the default; it means you can expend all your Time Units (henceforth known as TUs) without fear. However, should you stumble into an alien on the EP, your reflexes check. If you pass AND you have enough TUs remaining, you'll take a free shot before the alien can react. This can, with good accuracy, neutralize an alien before they know you're there. Amazing, isn't it? Poor Balcerzak was the victim of a Player Phase alien shot when he/she stumbled onto an alien with TUs remaining and lost the reflexes throw.

The next three buttons allow you to automatically reserve enough TUs to perform a Snap, Aimed, or Auto Shot on the EP. They're often used during close battles like UFO breaching so your soldiers don't get wiped on the EP without reacting. In action:

Kitty has 16 TUs remaining. I try to move one square (4 TUs) and get:

----------

Pride and I breach the next room and find ---!

Nothing.

But the NEXT room, now! An alien with his back turned to me? That lets me crouch without provoking reaction fire, aaaaaand

It's of note that Auto Shot fires three shots, no matter if the alien dies or not. Here you can see me wasting bullets on the air after the first shot downs him.

With nothing left, the whole squadron minus Nolan and Soren prepare to breach the reactor room. A breach and grenade would be helpful, but then the reactor would explode and we'd all, uh, die.

And the Assault breaches, and we see two aliens with their backs turned. Awesome.

Incidentally, you can see the poor alien who has paniced from our relentless assault and dropped all his gear. Ordinarily, we'd stun him and take him home but our Alien Containment Room isn't complete yet, so he'd die anyway. Plus, I forgot Stun Rods. Speaking of the Alien Containment Room...

---------

And the postgame!

This is our haul. We're graded in points by XCOM HQ, which affects how much money we get from various world powers. The Recovery section tells us what materials we got - separate from artefacts in the top. UFO Power Sources and Navigation will let us build superships later,; Elerium-115 is alien fuel for Plasma weapons - and superships later - and Alien Alloys will, notably, let us research ARMOR! Also, superships later.

Congratulations, Pride. Promotion is selected based on who did something promotion-worthy and if multiple selections are there, it chooses at apparent random. In this case, everybody who would have gotten promoted to Squaddie was thrown into a hat and the drawn name gets Sergeant status. Everybody who wasn't drawn was promoted to Squaddie, and the screen doesn't reflect that.

----------

So the question is answered: who dies first? Oh well. We'll get up a Balls II in the next Geoscape update.

[Balcerzak]

So, I must have misunderstood, but the 'x' instead of the number means something right? Has to do with their level somehow, but is 'x' good or bad? I was assuming higher numbers were better here too, right?

Hi. First TACTICAL update!

----------

This is the inside of the Skyranger! Say hello to all you guys, and the game automatically seems to have selected Balcerzak, who is a woman.

Oh awesome. I'm selected first, I must be squad leader. This is great!

Balcerzak is dead. That was fast.

...Or I got a little ahead of myself there didn't I... yeah. Woo, purple heart!

Also, this game looks way rad.

Edited August 11, 2010 by Balcerzak

[Integrity]

Ah, the x. The x is used when somebody is, uh, too low to qualify for a level. x Balcerzak - Shock means, essentially, you're a trainee. :D

[Soren37]

Woo! I killed something! And I survived!

[Pride]

Y'know, this game looks purdy sweet. If I only had the time to spend on it.

Oh yeah, and as expected I'm beasting.

[Ike-Mike]

This is all the crash course in X-COM I'll ever need.

Thanks Integ!

[Integrity]

This is all the crash course in X-COM I'll ever need.

Thanks Integ!

<3

I still have a screenshot in my DOSbox folder of the ridiculous unit I named after you so long ago, you know.

[Integrity]

short GEOSCAPE UPDATE!

----------

That tiny yellow dot near Havana is our Skyranger flying back home minus Balls. It'll take a few hours to get there from the Mexican Crash Site.

----------

...

Remember that alien that died, like, two in-game hours ago? Seriously?

This is the Sell screen. From it, you can vendor anything in your base up to - and including - corpses. Not dead agents, fortunately, but there's some fuckup somewhere who will buy alien bodies. Sectoids, incidentally, are the little grey martian men. I'll sell all but one of the corpses because we need money badly.

Shit yes.

I wanted Laser Rifles, sue me.

Community time! After Laser Rifles finished, I started research on Plasma Rifles. Obviously I'll need to devote a few dudes to Plasma Rifle Clips before it becomes useful, but it's time for you to choose my next avenue of research! You can pick from:

Plasma Pistols/Pistol Clips

Heavy Plasma/Heavy Clips

Devote everybody to Plasma Rifles

Heavy Lasers/Laser Tanks

Alien Alloys/Personal Armor

UFO Navigation/UFO Power Source to start towards the end-game research

You have until the next GEOSCAPE update to tell me.

----------

FUCK!

Let's do this, X-COM. It's going to be a night-time cityscape mission.

[Balcerzak]

I vote Alien Alloys/Personal Armor.

Body Armor sounds like it will cut down on future casualties, but... maybe I'm optimistic.

[Specta]

OH NO BALCERZAK! OH NO ARGENTINA! D: DAMN YOU, ALIENS!

Plasma rifles sound like a good way to AVENGE OUR FALLEN TEAMMATE.

[tiff]

I vote Alien Alloys/Personal Armor.

Body Armor sounds like it will cut down on future casualties, but... maybe I'm optimistic.

it helps, but not a lot. i've seen guys get one-shotted with the best armor on, actually.

i'd say either armor or Heavy Plasma is your best bet here.