Xcom: UFO Defense (UFO: Enemy Unknown)...

There is a funny video of the amiga version on youtube...

"insert disk 5...insert disk 3...insert disk 4...insert disk 3....insert disk 5...insert disk 1"

Just to load a tactical battle! That would have severely tested my patience lol

Esp if you were reloading after a silly mistake / accidental click during a battle
 
Once of the best games ever in my opinion - along with Deus Ex, System shock 2,

There's a few bugs you can exploit, which I used when playing. I primarily done these on the PSX version but they should work with the PC version too.

1: when manufacturing something, choose item from list and click ok leaving the number of units and engineers to 0, then when it appears in your production list click it and change the number of units to 1 and assign however many engineers you like - this will make the unit for free with no resource or monetary cost. It only works if you make 1 unit at a time though.

2: less than 12 hours before the end of the month, transfer all you scientists/engineers to another base (must have 2 bases obviously) and providing they are in transit at the end of the month, when you get your monthly score, they will not register at either base so you will not pay them! the same trick works for aircraft

which brings me onto 3: when you do the same trick with aircraft - (transfer to another base just before the end of the month as above), THEN at the beginning of the next month tell them to intercept a point on the map and leave them patrolling when they reach that point and they will then have infinite fuel (fuel of 0%) but if you let them go back to base, they will refuel and be back to normal so after a successful intercept tell them to intercept another point on the map, they can stay out until they run out of ammo then! this is handy for the craft which use elerium as fuel as it saves on elerium and you never have problems with intercept range!

4: When using Psi and successfully taken control of a enemy unit, you can access its backpack by switching selection to one of your soldiers, accessing his/her backpack as normal and then while in the backpack screen use the arrows to switch to another unit and if you keep going you will get to the alien unit you have just taken over (I use this to train my soldiers reactions by getting the alien unit to drop its weapon and then pick up a pistol lol OR if I can't be bothered I will drop their weapon and leave them as target practise or remove their grenade from backpack prime it and drop it at their feet!)

this last one is just a tip really - when intercepting craft, if you lose track of them tell your craft to intercept a point further along on the same trajectory and you will detect them again more often than not.
 
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Well, looks like I need to start over... Too many casualties on terror missions and some poor financial decisions have resulted in failure!!!

I am not a big fan of saving / reloading tactical missions, I prefer to just accept the results, good or bad. Mostly bad in my case lol

Think I have learned a fair bit to take into game 2.

I have installed XcomUtil which corrects some bugs and fixes the difficulty glitch, as well as offering some nice features (eg soldiers auto-equip with the gear they had for the last mission, worth it for this alone!)

When can I buy better interceptors? My fighters were killed pretty quickly against a large ufo, 1 x Avalanche which seems to miss more often than not and 1 x laser cannon, infinite ammo is handy but the short range means that you get beat up pretty quick :(
 
anticonscience said:
So if I buy it through Steam, do I have to use DOSBOX to run this game?
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Hi there, the steam version comes ready set up with dosbox so all you have to do is run the shortcut and it does the rest.

Well worth tweaking though, I personally much prefer to run it in a window so that it doesn't look too stretched.

Just edit the dosbox.conf found in steamapps/common/xcom ufo defense folder.

fullscreen=false
windowresolution=1024x768
output=ddraw

frameskip=0
aspect=true
scaler=advmame3x

For optimal gamespeed I recommend:

cycles=auto limit 20000

To fix sound lag:

blocksize=1024

A useful guide here:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=724550

I would also recommend xcomutil which provides bug fixes, sound fixes etc.

http://www.bladefirelight.com/

The download link can be found there.
 
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DutchSchaeffer said:
I picked Veteran...though I'm not sure if the steam version has the difficulty bug.
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Yes, it does.

All DOS versions (Steam version uses DOSBox) have the bug. Whatever difficulty you choose, unless you play the game from start to finish without quitting, the first time you load a saved game you will be playing on the EASIEST difficulty setting :p
 
I used to play this as a kid when it first came out, never compleated either of the original xcom games, was a little tough for me and always ended up in negative funding, I think my initial base positioning and reckless loss of units was what made me lose. After reading this thread I'll have to give it a try again.

Does it still have some of the original bugs? like if you get too much money it rolls over back to the maximum negative number?
 
No bugs that I recall. Although the game cheats in the end. You can build bases the world over and eliminate all alien activity yet countries still defect and enemy bases spawn out of nothing :) I doubt the Steam version is any different.

I wouldn't play on easy settings. It becomes a breeze when you get a full squad of veteran soldiers kitted with flying suits and heavy plasma. And with several well trained mind gimps in your team, nothing can stop you.

On harder settings aliens are more numerous. I once found 9 floaters in the entry room of a medium UFO and proceeded to mind control a few of them and ended turn. It was priceless gameplay watching them have a firefight with each other at pointblank range :D
 
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DutchSchaeffer said:
Well, looks like I need to start over... Too many casualties on terror missions and some poor financial decisions have resulted in failure!!!

I am not a big fan of saving / reloading tactical missions, I prefer to just accept the results, good or bad. Mostly bad in my case lol

Think I have learned a fair bit to take into game 2.

I have installed XcomUtil which corrects some bugs and fixes the difficulty glitch, as well as offering some nice features (eg soldiers auto-equip with the gear they had for the last mission, worth it for this alone!)

When can I buy better interceptors? My fighters were killed pretty quickly against a large ufo, 1 x Avalanche which seems to miss more often than not and 1 x laser cannon, infinite ammo is handy but the short range means that you get beat up pretty quick :(
Click to expand...


you can't ever buy better interceptors, you have to research all the alien craft components to them (navigation, powersource, construction) and then eventually you can research a new craft design and then you make them, but once you have researched the plasma beams (after reasearching Heavy plasma) inteceptors can take down anything except for Very Large battleships (which will usually obliterate the interceptors in one hit before they even get in range).

Also a tip for you Never sell any elerium because you can't manufacture or buy it and you can only capture it from raids/missions and later on your craft use this for fuel.

Also, in the beginning, I always equip both interceptors with twin avalance launchers as they outrange and can take down anything up to (but excluding) Large UFOs (they can outrange Large, but cant carry enough missiles to down them).
By the time you get to Large UFO's (excluding terror ships because they will turn into terror sites when they land so you don't have to necessarily shoot them down in the beginning when you detect them), you should really have plasma beams as interceptors with twin plasma will take down anything except for very large- The only trouble you may have is catching them as interceptors can be outrun by even the smallest 1-manned ufo (interceptor max speed:2100 knots, 1-manned ufo max speed: 2200knots), but thankfully UFO's usually slow down when they get to their target area for their mission.

the trouble with laser cannons is as you said, that your interceptors will have to get in firing range of most craft and when they are damaged, its a pain having them out of action for a few days.

I hope this helps, sorry if I've not made it very clear to read but about to go out!

Edit: Terror ships look like this: http://www.giantbomb.com/x-com-ufo-defense/61-196/ufopedia/52-107624/terror_ship/51-388385/
so if you have to intercept one of these in the beginning and cant bring it down it will turn into a terror site as long as you follow it until it lands
 
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Some nice tips, thank you!

I think my revised research plan will be something like:

Laser Weapons -> Laser Pistol -> Laser Rifle

Elerium 115

Heavy Plasma -> Heavy Plasma Clip

Plasma Cannon

I think that is all I need to build plasma cannons, I think they take 15 Elerium each, so 2 undamaged smalls will be needed fairly early doors.
 
This is one of the best games ever made, it astounds me that nobody ever picked up the formula and tried to make a new game based on it or a full on remake.

Either way thanks for reminding me of how much I love this game.
 
m4rk84 said:
This is one of the best games ever made, it astounds me that nobody ever picked up the formula and tried to make a new game based on it
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They did. Several times. Well, they tried, anyhow.

See:
UFO: Afterlight; Aftermath; Aftershock
UFO: Extraterrestrials
 
Aftermath wasn't bad (I think thats the first of the three after.... games), not quite as good as the original xcom games though. Never tried any of the ones after that because as soon as they started using starforce I just refuse to touch the games, even if they was some sort of epic remake of the originals I just wont touch them.
 
All the games from Altar were crap imo. Aftermath they said 'you are in control'. What they meant by that was during tactical missions unless you ordered your squad to open fire, they'll all just stand there and get shot in the face.

UFO: Extraterrestrials was quite good. Fails to capture the fear and terror of the original though. Immortal soldiers and colourful enviroments don't help but you can however change a lot of the gameplay elements through a now 'official' mod, making it significantly better.

XCOM APOC still the best imo. Awesome game.
 
Well after seeing this thread i've just bought the bundle from direct2drive for $4.99 + $1 tax. Download them at dinner time when I get in and fire them up again, I've got the original, boxed ufo enemy unknown in the garage somewhere and use to spend many hours playing it.

Just looked at the open source version and the graphics looks good, downloading now and will see what the gameplay is like.
 
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