Forums - UFO - Enemy Unknown

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- - UFO - Enemy Unknown (http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?t=73)

First, please post in English. That way people around here can actually understand you.

Second, there are more requirements than just kills and mission score for your soldiers to advance. You also need to have a certain number of soldiers (I _think_ that was 30 for a commander) and there are also restrictions to how many soldiers can advance beyond Squaddie. These are based both on your soldiers' mission/kill ratings and on how many soldiers you have (so the players don't have a strike team built entirely of Sergeants or Captains).

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Nick Skylifter @ Dec 17 2006, 12:45 PM) [snapback]271906[/snapback]</div>

Quote:

I have the crashing problem, too, and the annoying bit is that if it crashes at some point, it will always crash at that point again. Running DOSBox did not seem to solve the problem, instead it just made the game have weird colours.

Any ideas what I can do? I´d really love to play this wonderful game, but I rarely get further than a few hours into the game (ie, maybe 5 or 6 actual fights) before it crashes.
[/b]

I have the same problem :( i played a few days and now it always crashed at the same point. i saved seconds before and tried it many times .. no change :crybaby:

is there any solution?

I love the game, plz help

(sry for bad english -.-)

P.S. where can i get the dos version?

I got the windows versions from this site and it runs well but i have no music. Sound effects play fine just the musics missing anyway to fix it?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Feb 14 2007, 07:19 PM) [snapback]279244[/snapback]</div>

Quote:

P.S. where can i get the dos version?[/b]

http://www.abandonia.com/extras/UFO%20-%20...Unknown_DOS.zip

Here are some answers from a relative vet of the game...
(I play the game at difficulty level 5). I simply play and
observe. I have no higher knowledge from the source or related.

1. No idea really. However, i am quite positive, that the
aliens have no chance of reaction fire to the instant
a soldier opens a door and steps through it.
2. Never bothered with FB. To little ammo. Plus there is
a bug: The instant a weapon runs out of ammo the plane
goes to maximal distance exceeding the maximum range
of the launcher. By the time the projectile reaches
the enemy craft the game seems to check this which
causses the last shot to miss 100%. Go to aggressive
Attack to avoid this (or use plasma guns).
3. I am quite positive that there is such a thing as
negative hit points for ufos. If your plane reduces
it to zero it will be found practically intact.
I base this on observation of the downing of medium
scouts. Is a scout downed by one single hit it seems
to be a given that the reactor remains intact.
If it takes two hits the UFO is destroyed most of the
times or at least badly damaged if found.
4. No idea.
5. The list of possible items on the floor (which includes
captured aliens and artefacts by the way) is finite.
The same holds true for the initial equipment available.
Simply sell of unneeded equipment!
Another hint: If the cruical alien commander keeps
disappearing after the stunning blow: Simply throw
a grenade on some equipment littering the floor (or
pick something up) to free some space in the game
inventory!
6. UFO is a learning by doing game: Place your snipers
in positions where aliens are bound to appear and
let them wait.
7. I am quite positive that placing a base in areas
where UFOs rarely appear greatly reduces the chances
of being found. UFOs appear in the inhabited areas.
My favorite places for a three base game: The eastern
shores of the Black Sea, Cuba, Borneo.
8. There is a penalty?
9. There are such things as alien retaliation missions.
Down these UFOs at all costs. But I suspect that the
other UFOs have a detection chance, too.
10.You already seem to have understood that PSI-Power is
pivotal for a glorious victory (my opinion, at least).
Get yourself a PSI-Expert for every larger base. He
does some running, easy killings and lots of control
attacks. The running is for getting him/her more than
75 TUs. And yes. The rest is scouting. And yes. Aliens
seem to cheat. But hey: They invented the technology
centuries ago!
11.Mutons? Quite the contrary. Read the race description!
12.I finish the game by the end of august/beginning of
september. Depends on the time PSI-power is conquered.
Honor-Aim: Complete Science Tree -- Medics help with
difficult to catch alive aliens.
No, I do not compete.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Feb 9 2007, 02:21 PM) [snapback]278622[/snapback]</div>

Quote:

I seem to recall a strategy guide i read a long time ago:
There is one Sergeant for every 5 other soldiers.
One captain for every 10,
One Colonel for (i guess) every 20
I believe one gets a commander for a force of 30 soldiers. However (here i am sure):
there can always be only one commander.

The game promotes the "best" non-rookie soldiers regardless of their PSI-Strength.
So you should sack weak minded officers for their own protection!

(Now that I re-read this I see I misunderstood some of the questions but I guess they're answered now.) I've been replaying this and found that I hadn't mastered the tactic (of course most important) part of the game. The only game I had the time of patience to finish was the first I ever played. I've quitted, hopefully temporarily, even the game I was playing currently, but before I managed to learn some facts about tactics in the game. Well many people may have figured this out already but I guess I'm bored, so here are two more cents.

The "reactions" stat is not that important, I personally think now that it's one of the least important, far behind shooting accuracy, TUs, etc. It governs only things your soldiers do during the aliens' turn, and you must lead the squad so that the important things happen during your own turn. Don't leave them out in the open or in long non-cleared corridors, go from behind a corner to behind the next one each turn; if you can't avoid it, deploy some smoke in front.

As you can see when you make a soldier watch into an unexplored region, a soldier's line of sight (LOS) is 90 degrees wide. Whenever you encounter an alien during your turn and he's inside your moving soldier's LOS, you get to act first. No matter how low your reactions are, or how high the alien's, during a given side's turn that side always has priority. After the encounter, once you move further, or fire and the alien survives, or throw a grenade, or move a second man into the alien's LOS, though, the alien gets a chance to act provided you're within his LOS or you have called his attention shooting at him --I leaned to think that he could lose that chance if he failed a reactions check just like it works for you during the aliens' turn, but in my experience he always gets to act. Of course if you move in a way that you come into an alien's LOS without his being into your own LOS, even its being your turn you can't act if you don't see the alien and he'll blast you.

The only things you must keep in mind are the shape of the LOS, and that you must move in a way that nobody can see you without your seeing him beforehand or at the same time. Some examples (yes I know I've got too free time):

Code:

LOS of a man/alien looking north:



**.........

** .......

****.....

**** ...

******@



It's bad to stay right behind a corner. A man (@) is looking north, an alien (A) comes from the east during his own turn:



**** A

****@+----

**** |XXXX

**** |XXXX



Both see each other at the same time, it's the alien's turn, so the alien blasts the human. Looking north-east won't help since the corner prevents the human from seeing more to the east that if he's looking north.



It's best to end the turn one square behind the corner:



**** A

**** +----

****@|XXXX

**** |XXXX



If there's an alien beyond the corner, he won't see the human and therefore won't be able to harm him unless he turns the corner; and if the does the human will get a chance to shoot him provided a reactions check is passed.



When it comes to moving from cover, it's a bad idea to turn corners in the obvious way:



****@**A

****.+----

****.|XXXX

**** |XXXX



If there's an alien behind the corner but not right behind and looking west or north-west or south-west, the human comes into his LOS while the alien is outside the human's LOS --the alien blasts the human. It's the opposite case as the previous one.



The safe way to turn corners:



****@**A

** . +----

**.**|XXXX

**** |XXXX



The human moves north-eastwards and no alien will se him before he sees the alien. Being the human's turn, he gets to act first even if the alien is looking at him.

Of course motion sensors help big time in these situations. Also the LOS extends for 20 squares for both you and the aliens --even if you see the landscape farther away, there could be aliens there and you won't see them. So if you're advancing and see for example a cyberdisc far away, you know that if you shoot at it, it will shoot back even if you hit it --you won't kill it because it takes so many hits to kill. But if you shoot with soldiers who are farther away, or even if you step backwards one single square (until you're 21 squares away of the cyberdisc) and shoot with that same soldier, the cyberdisc won't fire back since it's not seeing you.

I downloaded this game for Win 95 and the X-Com exe does not work. Actually the exe does work but the colors are extremely blurred and I can make out about 4-5 images of the mouse arrow accros the width of the screen. Was my download corruped?

The other exe, UFO does work but I think the game timer seems to be going too fast. Has there been reports of this game running too fast on newer computers?

Sure, it does run too fast on recent pc's.
You can either download the dos version and run it through Dosbox, or run a slowdown utility (Turbo for example) next to the windows version.

Just for the sake of comparison how fast is the game clock supposed to go versus actual time?

Oh, and is Turbo the slow down program you use? I would prefer to stick to stuff that has a good reputation as opposed to any random program on the net claiming to be a slow down program.
Also, could you post a link for Tubo? I am having trouble finding a link for it.

Nevermind, I found the Turbo download finally.

The only problem is that it says it is for Win 95, will it work fine with XP?