Starker on 16/2/2020 at 06:29
Quote Posted by icemann
Did they fix the lobsterman technician issue, where you had to go to an alien base to find one?
Was that a bug? If you're having trouble with them, lob alien grenades (once you have them) or just use the stun rod. It's surprisingly effective.
Also, wouldn't savescumming make the game too easy and way less tense? I would highly encourage you to try without, even if you have to lower the difficulty. Might want to start with the first game, though, as the second one kind of ups the ante a lot (the tentaculats alone will be enough to give you some serious nightmares).
Starker on 16/2/2020 at 07:23
Okay, I watched a little bit of your playing and there are a few things that caught my eye.
* First off, forget the dart guns. The only thing they do to most aliens is tickle them a little and even aquatoids can survive multiple hits from them. Tougher aliens can walk around like hedgehogs with no worse to wear.
* Jet harpoons are also weaksauce and need to be replaced ASAP.
* Give everyone gas cannons that are able to carry them. They have good accuracy and are the only weapon to really pack a punch against the starting aliens, especially gill men.
* Do equip and use grenades and explosive ammunition (carefully in terror missions, of course). Your soldiers are not all that accurate starting out, but they don't really have to be with explosives -- if an alien is standing against a wall, it really doesn't matter if you hit the alien or the wall behind it.
* Starting from gas cannons, you can knock holes in walls and it's often a good idea to make your own doors.
* You can open doors without walking through them. Right click behind the door when facing it.
* You can shoot without the soldier seeing the alien, as long as you have a line of sight. You can kill enemies across the map that way.
Starker on 16/2/2020 at 09:34
Okay, I watched the rest of the video and a few more things:
* Don't leave your guys in the open where the enemy can take potshots at them at their leisure. Forget reserving time units for snap shots, especially when your soldiers have really crappy reaction (and it won't improve for a while). It is better to be out of time units, but hunkering down behind a corner or an obstacle than out in the open with time units to spare.
* Remember where the aliens are. Don't just ignore them and let them wander around. During the alien phase, when you see movement, make note of the place it occurred -- that's the direction you want to pay extra attention to.
* Use squad tactics and sweep the area. Don't try to do everything with one soldier. Use one soldier to spot the enemy, then others to take them down. Remember, you don't need for your soldiers to be seeing the enemy, just make sure they have a line of sight to take a clean shot.
* Gauss rifles have one big advantage -- their auto fire. Make use of it. It might take more ammo, but it's relatively cheap to produce and the chances of a shot hitting are often better with auto. And use it to knock down walls, since gauss guns often need a few hits.
* Gauss weapons might be relatively decent early game, but IIRC they are completely ineffective against some types of enemies. I don't think they can even damage lobster men, for example.
You can play like you want, of course, far be from me to judge how other people play games, but loading over and over again, moving your soldiers in a bit different way and hoping to hit / not get hit this time doesn't seem like it's a whole lot of fun. And the stakes are a bit more higher when the outcome isn't pre-determined.
And use grenades, seriously. And it's not a bad idea to keep a gas cannon guy around with phosphorous rounds for those pesky night time missions.
Starker on 16/2/2020 at 14:29
TFTD always has been special in this regard. That's why it's a good idea to pack lots of explosives and at least a few stun rods -- lobster man favourites. Otherwise, you'd have to resort to scavenging the battlefield.
Starker on 16/2/2020 at 20:11
I have a lot of nostalgia for this stuff. Lots of nights playing this and Alone in the Dark and watching stuff like the X-Files and Outer Limits on the TV. For me, the game counted as real horror, even on a shoddy black and white CRT screen.
Tomi on 16/2/2020 at 20:55
I never really got into Terror From the Deep, even though I loved Enemy Unknown. I can't remember exactly why that was, but I do remember TFTD being somehow hellishly difficult. Enemy Unknown was already a tough one, but damn, TFTD was something else. Or am I just imagining that it was much harder? I also remember not really liking the underwater maps in most missions, so I don't think I ever even got very far in the game.
Starker on 17/2/2020 at 04:21
Believe it or not, there are actually mods that make it harder, but yes, it was notoriously more difficult. Not only are your own weapons weaker (nothing like those infinite ammo laser rifles), the aliens are much tougher and much more lethal. You need to be screening your soldiers for best recruits and get proper weapons ASAP if you want to stand on equal footing with them. And if you're playing without savescumming or without saving altogether, you absolutely need to use tanks / rookies as cannon fod scouts. Just equip your crappy newbs with primed explosives as a dead man's switch and taking on those tentaculats / invading USOs gets much more managable until you unlock mind control and can use aliens for that purpose.
Also, those lobster man terror missions are actually not all that hard, if you do them in the right way:
[video=youtube;WziO005uM3g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WziO005uM3g[/video]
Starker on 17/2/2020 at 06:15
Yes. The alternative is possibly spending hours looking in every small closet, nook, and cranny and face the room of death in the second part. This mission is bullshit and you're better off taking the reputation hit by landing and aborting (better than ignoring it altogether).
Here's what the alternative looks like: (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToZpKZGrb90&list=PL43C903F52D8D6B67)
Starker on 17/2/2020 at 16:42
I see you're still not fully convinced about auto-fire. Just a quick demonstration... at 15:27 you take a snap shot at 36% accuracy and 17 TU. An auto shot would have costed just 5 time units more and the chance of not a single one hitting would have been ~37% (0.72*0.72*0.72=0.37), which means the chance of even one shot hitting would have been nearly 63%, even better than taking an aimed shot with the same gun at 56% and 34 time units.
Also, IIRC the fumes/smoke doesn't hurt your soldiers, but they do accumulate some stun damage when spending turns in there.
Bunching your guys together at 1:10:00 was just a beautiful prayer circle asking for a grenade, and the game delivered.
You might want to scavenge the battlefield when facing tough enemies. Don't just leave grenades lying around at enemy corpses when they could be used for cooking some fine lobster.
Might want to pack at least a few stun rods. They are very cheap and help both in melee as well as help with people control in terror missions. Remember -- a good civilian is a civilian lying at your feet, unconscious. And lobster men are extra vulnerable to both melee and stun.
The next part might possibly be of the toughest rooms in the game. If you're lucky, you might get away with only half of your squad killed, depending on the breaks.
Not that it really matters if you just save and load through it, though. Look, I'm not saying this to be mean, but the constant saving and loading to get the optimal result just doesn't make for very riveting gameplay.
Tomi on 17/2/2020 at 18:07
That video is unavailable for me - it says that it's private, and I can't watch it.