X-Com Diary – First Contact

Don’t panic. I know nothing is adequately labelled, I’ll explain.

First however, I’ll lay down the simple foundations of X-Com’s design. Combat is turn based, with the number of actions you can do in a turn limited by the Time Units of a soldier. Walking, kneeling, turning, shooting, it all takes TUs. Once your TUs are out, you can’t do anything. Soldiers who still have some TUs at the end of their turn can expend them to take ‘reaction shots’ in the enemy turn, they will do this automatically if the enemy moves near them. If both the soldier and the alien notice each other at the same time, both are surprised and neither may move without triggering reactions. This basically results in a two simple rules.

1) Walking around a blind corner is asking to get shot, don’t do it.

2) Always make sure one or two people have the TUs for a reaction shot so you don’t get jumped.

A cautious style of play is encouraged if you want your men to survive. This is why we use highly reactive scouts (or expendable rookies) to scout out the enemy. However rather than attacking with the man who spotted the alien, instead we use a sniper or soldier further back to take the shot, if they are far back enough, no reaction shots will be triggered. It’s also worth remembering terrain is destructible, when all else fails a heavy weapon can knock a hole right in a wall, far safer than using the door.

The interface is also a bit puzzling, an in depth description can be found here, but the simple version is thus:

Moving – Is done by clicking on a soldier and then clicking on the patch of ground you wish him to move to. Early on it is well worth moving them in small increments to get a sense for how far they can move before running out of TUs.

Pivoting – Is done by right clicking in a direction while a soldier is selected. Turning like this costs few TUs and allows you to look for aliens all around you.

Using Items – Including firing, is done by clicking on the large items in the bottom corners of the screen. Clicking it will give the the choice of aimed shot, snap shot and auto shot (depending on the gun). Aimed shots are accurate but you’ll only be able to pull off one or two if you’re lucky. Snap shots are a lot cheaper for the TUs but much less accurate. Auto shots cost slightly more than snap shots and are even less accurate, but fire a burst of three shots at a single target.

Alien Indicator – If one of your squad spots an alien a small red number will pop up on the far right of the screen, just above that item slot. Clicking on the number will centre the camera on the alien in question.

Inventory – Can be accessed by clicking the icon of a man in the middle of the display.

Moving the camera up or down – Is done by clicking on one of the pictures of a ladder and an arrow next to the move up and down buttons. They will move the camera up or down one floor.

Kneeling – Is done by clicking on the button with a picture of a standing man, a slash sign and a kneeling man. Kneeling costs a small amount of TUs and boosts accuracy. It is wise to end the turn kneeling if possible. You cannot move while kneeling (you’ll stand up automatically) but you can pivot.

Hiding or revealing roofs – Is done by clicking on the icon that looks like several sheets of paper stacked on top of each other to the right.

Options – Are opened by clicking on the question mark button, you can save from here but not load. You can however quit out and load in from the main menu. This is tedious but handy when you’re still learning.

Ending the Turn – Is done by clicking on the circle with an x in the middle on the right. Once your turn has ended the aliens will move, make sure you are ready for them.

Taking off – Clicking the button with a picture of a plane taking off will abandon the mission, any soldiers not in the plane will be lost. Be very, very sure before you click this.

There are other functions, but these are the main ones, if you’re interested in the rest read the link above.

So, now to my own battle.

Exiting the Skyranger is the most vulnerable moment for you team. Some people like to throw smoke grenades out to hide their exit, I find this fiddly, which is why I’ve brought a tank. Tanks don’t earn experience, but they are tough and have a lot of TUs, so they make really good scouts, just have your men do the actual shooting when possible.

The tank advances down the ramp, turning to look around both half way down and at the end, looking to spot any aliens lurking nearby. The first two soldiers advance to the tank and stand next to it so as to look over the top, the scouts jump off the ramp and hunker down by the wheels facing in opposite directions to spot danger, the two snipers move onto the ramp to shoot over their fellows. Everyone else shuffles towards the front of the plane.

This is my favoured way to disembark, it gives you eyes in every direction and the ability to fire several times on any approaching enemy. It is also versatile as you can stack people in a particular direction if you land on the edge of a map, or move the heavy weapons out quickly if your enemy takes cover.

I’ve forgotten to re-order my men, so Soldier/Editors Lager and Fenning disembark and back up the tank, while Craig Lam and Paul Millen take position on either wheel. Snipers Senior and Yang cover them. Since it’s night time I throw electro flares out in a radius around me, flares act as a light source, extending your view at night, you can also pick them up and throw them again.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that when the aliens move you get the screen replaced with a black background with ‘hidden movement’ on it, watching how long this takes can give you an idea how many aliens you have to face. From the short interval here I think I’ve only got one or two, this may seem easy but one alien can take out several X-Com agents in a turn, especially with grenades.

While I’m doing this an Alien wanders across my field of view and the tank promptly reaction shots him (sorry I missed the chance to screenie it), 1 – 0 to humanity.

Despite this strong start we now have a problem, from the door sound made during the hidden movement it seems there is at least one alien in the UFO, this is bad. Why is this bad? Because doors are lethal places in X-Com, where the opener is likely to be killed horribly or frozen and unable to move without being… killed horribly. I don’t yet have any guns strong enough to blow a hole in the UFO wall, so I send my tank out scouting, hoping that the crash landing might have done that job for me.

The Tank moves forward slightly and suddenly stops, contact!

How did he get on the roof? I don’t know, but I know he’s going to be tricky to get to.

Sniper Senior lines up his shot… and misses, clipping the side of the UFO. Sniper Yank tries his luck… and hits! The alien isn’t going down though, tough son of a bitch. Heavy Edwards takes aim, but seems to have misread his instructions and instead tries his best to send his rocket into orbit. I decide not to waste Jaz’s ammunition and instead shuffle Ed, who was keeping overwatch on the UFO doorway, out into the open. The movement expends too many TUs for him to aim properly, so instead he shoots from the hip… and score, taking the alien out right away. Nice shooting that man, now stop showboating, we’ve got a war to win.

The tank has spotted another alien. This one is wisely taking cover in a house. Again it’s a tricky shot, but this time I have a plan.

When in doubt, level the landscape. Jaz shows us how it’s done with a massive explosion. Taking out the alien and a good chunk of the farmhouse he was hiding in. I’m sure the owner won’t mind, after all we saved his cattle, right?

It seems that was the last alien (and all my terror over the door was just paranoia) as the next time I end the turn we go to the wrap up screen, where I’m informed of what we’ve recovered from the UFO wreck. These things are important for two reasons, I can research them to develop technologies (alien alloys in particular will let me build the first armour for my troops) and I can also sell them for money to keep our operation going (I don’t know who buys alien corpses, but they get a pretty penny, best not to ask).

Finally I’m informed that for services to great big fucking explosions, Jaz has been promoted to Sergeant, but you can call him Sarge.

So that’s X-Com combat, I hope it was as informative for you to read as it was entertaining for me to write.

Next week I’m going to start producing lasers. Mwhahahahaah!