Something I just remembered:

Use grenades to raise firing accuracy. Each alien in the blast gets you a "hit".

I think lasers should be allowed... Not just because of mutons, but because of some of the other tougher aliens as well. Also, mutons can easily have some 80 Tus, so it's hard to get close enough to throw any HE packs...
After all, lasers are human technology, so why not use them to toast some aliens?
Interesting idea!!
Though I don't know at which level you'd try that; I myself have no experience with other difficulty levels, I've always used one of the old versions (with the bug that all difficulty levels were the same).

Heh when are the lasers allowed,it wouldnt be very diferent from my ordinary game.I always play only with laser rifles,laser cannons and sometimes blaster launchers...(and of course armors...)The true challange would be JUST human "normal" weapons...It is interesting idea.Btw can I use manufacture/sell strategy???

It would be nearly impossible to kill the Sectopods though... :cry:

I dunno.I think it would be possible but damn hard.It is a reason to finally use Earth heavy weapons...I love them but they become too fast obsolete :cry:
I think in the end of the game(in this challenge) you would use only them...

hey guys, I'm having some trouble here...
i read the first 6-9 pages and others had the same problem, but no solution was really discussed

i run the game in windows xp(i try to run it in dosbox but it says dosbox cannot run this game)

everything is fine until i try and land my troops. the game crashes. i have no other programs running in windows aside from xcom

any ideas?

If you mean you cant land your troops as in it crashes as soon as you press the accept mission button when your skyranger is parked there the I have a solution.

Try downloading UFO from Home of the Underdog (link is around between 2-6 pages back i think). It should work fine but just with a few randon errors which cause the gane to shut down, but they seem to occur less as you play more.

Otherwise i dont really know the problem that much, it only seems to affect some users (me :cry: ).




And Lizard, earth's heavy weapons dont become obsolete quick, i mean late in the game i still use the autocannon with HE/AP rounds and they rocket launcher with large rockets.

I know the blaster bomb makes rockets pretty obsolete with thier improved range and firepower, but its great to just fire from A-B with a large rocket, also useful in terror misions when its not the best idea to blow up the whole building justincase civs are there.

The HE autocannon is usefull in base assaults and defence, they have a good explosive radius to blow up lots of enemies in the small corridors. Especially usefull against chyrsalids who seem to die in one hit.

What is really good though as ive said before are heavy lasers, they are cheap to produce and maintain, great accuracy and high damage, just give one to your best shot and you will reap the rewards of one hit-one kill.

Okay I edited it out. :)

Jman is right about the Sectopods, esp. at higher difficulties several months into the game. Lately I've been loading up my soldiers with tons of medikits and High Explosives (everyone on my primary team has 70+ strength thanks to my forcing them to bodybuild :)), so I don't have room on my Skyranger for weapons with ammo. This means laser rifles as main weapons. My soldiers all have great accuracy, so an auto-fire means 2+ hits many times.

Even so, and even though Sectopods are weak (150% damage) against lasers, I had to score something like 8 or 9 hits per 'pod in a recent mission. Regular rifles would do nothing. Grenades would do nothing. Autocannon, Heavy Cannon might scratch the thing sometimes. High Explosive maybe, but it's hard to get close with those--they are meant to be demolitions packages and not to be thrown. Even with strength 75, a soldier can chuck High Explosives about 5 squares max. Rocket launchers could injure Sectopods once in a while, but by the time you kill two or three, you have no ammo left.

So maybe the suggestion of only earthling tech, including lasers, is okay. Or lasers only when going up against Mutons and Sectopods.

What about base defenses? Earthling missile defenses are a joke. And craft weapons? You HAVE to have more than just cannons (even laser cannons) and missiles after a couple of months. So exceptions for plasma beams and fusion ball launchers should be considered unless you want your Firestorm to be sitting in repairs for months at a time because it was downing supply ships with Laser Cannons. :)

Also, what happens if the other side's alien dies and drops a plasma rifle or something? Do you get to use alien weapons for that combat only?

Are you sure about this? If that's true, I might just start sending people in chucking Earthling grenades, one after another, and slowly injure aliens and get like 6 grenade hits on one before it dies.

It ups nearly all of the stats that are normally raised in battle. Firing, throwing, strength, TUs, stamina and health. Not to mention being able to attack from complete cover and through walls (to a certain extent). HE and Stun weapons can also be used the same way, just no arcing.

Not really...I've thrown over 20 tiles. Just get in a place with a clear ceiling and you should be able to get max range.

And while on the subject of HE. It does 4x damage to the large units. Not sure if it registers as 4 hits in your mission experience that is added up though... :wall: