What are you playing now?

[Rosbjerg]

Last thread here. Some of the last posts.

 

 

Squad strategy on missions is a breeze for me.  What I'm finding the most difficult thing is micromanaging all the various things to research/build back at HQ.  It seems like time just goes by so fast that I'm constantly behind.  The satellite coverage aspect is one of my major issues.  It just takes forever just to even build the satellites and uplinks, and in doing so I never have time/assets to build the other facilities to improve my soldier's weapons/armor/etc.

 

 

Accidentally ran into a special, extra, optional boss fight in The Last Remnant. I died. Twice. Well I actually died a lot of times, but most of them there were people still alive to resurrect the dead ones. Twice my party wiped. Damn AOE spam. I may have to return later.

 

 

 

Juggled a few things in Anno2070 yesterday, on the final third of the "campaign".

 

Still getting a feel for some of it. Figuring out where some of the needed industry is tucked away on the menus can be a pain.  Yes, mines of particular sorts, I'm looking at you.  It would also be kind of nice if they'd actually let you know that those specific elements won't even become visible until you reach other points. So you don't waste time trying to find the buggers.

 

The campaign is a tutorial, so it may prevent you from doing things before it wants you to do them That said, even after the campaign, things are population locked. For example you can't build a coal mine until you have employees, even though as a tycoon, your coal power plant would benefit from them. So you'll have to make do with excavators until then.

 

Got started on the second mission of Global Distrust myself. Nightmare event...

 

 

[Keyrock]

I'm back to Drakensang 2 for the time being.  The Phileasson DLC is garbage, but the completionist in me compels me to finish it...  eventually (at least I can leave and finish it any time).  I'm currently level 12.  Not sure what max level is, but my characters are rather powerful and I'm about to sneak into the Baron's castle, I think.

Edited December 29, 2013 by Keyrock

[Leferd]

Picked up Papers, Please and FTL a few days ago. Dabbled a little bit with both but probably won't get a solid run in for some time. Both look promising. But I still need to finish through DA: Awakenings, DA2, and ME3.

 

Plus XCOM: Enemy Within is beckoning.

[Mamoulian War]

Got my hands by accident onto first King's Bounty and I am playing **** out of it... I really love that game... Playing Paladin on Normal only though

[melkathi]

rearranged my party a bit in Last Remnant and trid the Jhana Royals fight once more. It was close and at some point I got really lucky, but I beat it. Yay! I saved right before the fight and right after. The two save games are 38 minutes appart...

[Raithe]

Okay, now that's annoying. I was working nicely through one of the campaign missions on Anno 2070, had a nice economy in the green, working on the campaign missions, had one story side turn up because an ally had turned traitor, so was asked to go remove him from his position which I did.. and then with no warning they handed me his crappy island which has a horrible ****ing economy and requires trade routes that I don't have contact with.

 

Within 5 minutes my entire treasury was emptied, my income was in the negative thousands, and everyone on that little tospots island was pissed and leaving, which further made my income worse.

 

So I'm suddenly stuck with no freaking way to get anything done, because I have no freaking way to get a positive income. Unless I pretty much trash that entire freaking island. That's my only potential thought right now.

[melkathi]

Not sure what you mean with trade routes that you don't have contact with.

 

But yup, I knew you'd get annoyed in that mission When it isn't the black tide that totally ruins people's main island, it is taking over Strindberg's.

Personally I took a loan from Rufus, then took a loan from Yana to cover the payments to Rufus...

 

That said, you sure it is his island that causes you the trouble and not the black tide ruining your own production?

Edited December 30, 2013 by melkathi

[Katphood]

Still trying to finish my Planescape: Torment Playthrough. It was all going swell until I reached The Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts...

[BruceVC]

Still trying to finish my Planescape: Torment Playthrough. It was all going swell until I reached The Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts...

 

You must search all the rooms carefully, furniture is not what it appears to be

[GhostofAnakin]

I don't know if it's just bad luck or what, but lately my soldiers have been horrible at hitting the enemy with even high percentage shots.  Hell, my fully leveled up sniper with incredible aim missed a shot that was 92% chance of hitting in the last mission I went on.

 

The other weird thing is a lot of my lower end soldiers constantly have bad hit percentages for shots where the enemy isn't even far away.  For example, my secondary sniper (Corporal or something) keeps getting percentages like 38% or 44% for shots that are literally twenty feet in front of him.  He's missed 90% of his overwatch shots because of it.

[Rosbjerg]

I've noticed that with Enemy Within, if you turn on the the ability roulette (or whatever it's called that randomises the soldier's stats) the overall hit chance is seriously affected.

[Raithe]

Not sure what you mean with trade routes that you don't have contact with.

 

But yup, I knew you'd get annoyed in that mission When it isn't the black tide that totally ruins people's main island, it is taking over Strindberg's.

Personally I took a loan from Rufus, then took a loan from Yana to cover the payments to Rufus...

 

That said, you sure it is his island that causes you the trouble and not the black tide ruining your own production?

 

Well Strindberg's island has a massive population, of which he produces almost none of the stuff to keep them happy on the island. So he "must" have been getting them shipped in from somewhere.  So the moment you end up with the island it's all "damn it, we want drinks!" and then they rush off.

 

And yup, I haven't had a black tide turn up in it yet. I was on a positive 100-200 income, the moment I got handed Strindberg's island it went to negative 1,500-2,000 odd.

[melkathi]

 

Well Strindberg's island has a massive population, of which he produces almost none of the stuff to keep them happy on the island. So he "must" have been getting them shipped in from somewhere.  So the moment you end up with the island it's all "damn it, we want drinks!" and then they rush off.

 

And yup, I haven't had a black tide turn up in it yet. I was on a positive 100-200 income, the moment I got handed Strindberg's island it went to negative 1,500-2,000 odd.

 

 

Hmm, usually the tanker that Strindberg attacks will leak oil, ruining production on your second island roughly at the same time that you get his useless base.

And yes, the advise on the wikia is to sell everything in Strindberg's base.

[Raithe]

 

 

Well Strindberg's island has a massive population, of which he produces almost none of the stuff to keep them happy on the island. So he "must" have been getting them shipped in from somewhere.  So the moment you end up with the island it's all "damn it, we want drinks!" and then they rush off.

 

And yup, I haven't had a black tide turn up in it yet. I was on a positive 100-200 income, the moment I got handed Strindberg's island it went to negative 1,500-2,000 odd.

 

 

Hmm, usually the tanker that Strindberg attacks will leak oil, ruining production on your second island roughly at the same time that you get his useless base.

And yes, the advise on the wikia is to sell everything in Strindberg's base.

 

 

Heh. I've pretty much only used that 2nd island to place some food and drink producing stuff, after slapping down all of those eco-balancers. Then I just shift it to my primary island where I actually have everything fairly balanced out.

[melkathi]

That's the whole problem. Food and drink production on that island basically stops when the eco-balance goes to -600 or something

But if you managed to get round that, awesome.

Edited December 30, 2013 by melkathi

[mkreku]

Steam told me there's a new multi-player mod for Just Cause 2 so I re-installed the game.. and, uh.. now I'm stuck blowing stuff up in the single player campaign.

 

Didn't even download the mod. What happened?

[Malcador]

Cities in Motion 2, is fun to set up a transit network though I suppose I am not being as in depth as I can and am just slamming down tram lines everywhere. 

 

Also playing Cognition, seems ok, even with major clipping issues and one bug that forced a reload. Early days so maybe it'll get worse.

[Humanoid]

I don't know if it's just bad luck or what, but lately my soldiers have been horrible at hitting the enemy with even high percentage shots.  Hell, my fully leveled up sniper with incredible aim missed a shot that was 92% chance of hitting in the last mission I went on.

 

The other weird thing is a lot of my lower end soldiers constantly have bad hit percentages for shots where the enemy isn't even far away.  For example, my secondary sniper (Corporal or something) keeps getting percentages like 38% or 44% for shots that are literally twenty feet in front of him.  He's missed 90% of his overwatch shots because of it.

Hit chances in XCOM are a simple beast, but not immediately intuitive. Fundamentally it's simply the attacker's aim score minus the target's defense score (typically zero plus the value of cover). This is easily demonstrable - in the typical first mission of each campaign, where it's rookies vs sectoids, you'll likely see hit chances being one of 65%, 45%, or 25%. This is because rookies always have an aim score of 65 (unless the "Not Created Equal" second wave option is enabled), shooting at sectoids with zero inherent defense who are either behind high cover (40 defense), half cover (20 defense), or exposed/flanked (no hit modifier)

 

Missing the 92% chance is pure bad luck. You take hundreds of shots in a typical session, so missing a few of those is to be expected. I've missed both shots of a 90%+ Rapid Fire. The chances of that happening is 1%, which is actually pretty damn high considering the total number of shots taken.

 

For what it's worth, the RNG has been tested and verified as being 'fair'. I believe it's the same RNG used in the Civilization games, which have always been shown to be fair despite suspicions driven by confirmation bias. The typical player doesn't nail a lot of low-percentage shots because they often opt not to take them in the first place. But it's not infrequent to find yourself in a situation where there's no reason not to take a low-chance pot shot ....ugh, that was a quadruple negative - what I mean to say is that an experienced player might actually end up taking more potshots than you might expect because of situations where the alternatives of hunkering down or overwatching wouldn't make a difference.

 

There is a caveat though - on Easy and Normal difficulties, the CPU actually does cheat the hit percentages ....in the *player's* favour. Each consecutive shot the player misses grants a hidden bonus to the subsequent shot, until one hits whereupon the bonus is reset. The opposite applies to alien shots, each consecutive hit they land reduces the chance of the next one hitting. Further, on Easy, you gain massive bonuses for having your squad reduced to less than four, up to the point where if you have only one soldier active, they can reasonably expect to be able to stand out in the open and magically matrix-dodge every incoming shot, and nail every shot of their own, Rambo-style. But yeah, in classic and impossible difficulties, the percentage chances are absolutely by-the-book fair and as stated.

 

Finally, the effect of range on accuracy. It is both simple and complex and can lead to some puzzlement such as yours. A bit of trivia is that the original X-COM had no range accuracy modifiers whatsover, and something similar but not-quite-the-same happens in the current version. Fundamentally there is no range 'penalty' - weapons besides shotguns are good to their maximum range (which is the same for all but sniper rifles), using the simple calculations shown earlier. However there is a *bonus* for ranges of less than 10 tiles (inverted into a penalty for sniper rifles). Shotguns receive a larger bonus for close range, but the distances it applies to is the same: 1-9 tiles. To break it down:

 

Assault rifles, LMGs, pistols - flat, base accuracy from 10 tiles to maximum range (30 tiles I think?). Mild progressive bonus for closer range.

Shotguns - base accuracy applies at exactly 10 tiles. Progressive, high bonus applies for closer ranges, and progressively larger penalties for larger ranges. (The bonus/penalty is actually mirrored, i.e. the bonus for 9 tiles is the same as the penalty for 11 tiles).

Sniper rifles - flat, base accuracy from 10 tiles up to maximum range (99 tiles with squadsight?), mild progressive penalty for closer distances.

 

Incidentally, this is why the Reaper Round item behaves somewhat oddly in game. It multiplies range penalties, but since only shotguns are penalised as such, there is no effective penalty for other weapons. (Actually, it multiplies the sniper rifle's penalty for proximity, which sounds a bit nonsensical, but is of little practical consequence) Despite all that though, it's still a crappy item and I'd take anything else over it.

 

 

EDIT: The overwatch aim penalty was recently revealed to be a multiplicative 70%. This is at odds with the additive/subtractive nature of just about every other aim calculation in the game, but it's verified. This is multiplied by 70% again for dashes - i.e. a 49% multiplier - but that doesn't really come up in single player.

Edited December 30, 2013 by Humanoid

[AGX-17]

 

Still trying to finish my Planescape: Torment Playthrough. It was all going swell until I reached The Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts...

 

You must search all the rooms carefully, furniture is not what it appears to be

 

Scan every pixel with your cursor, no "hold tab to highlight all interactive objects" here. Probably not a good idea to play at a resolution greater than 640x480.

Edited December 30, 2013 by AGX-17

[Labadal]

I've had friends and cousins over at my place. Other than being out a lot, we also spent time playing Dragon's Crown and Little Big Planet Karting. In the past 10 days, I haven't slept earlier than 3 in the morning. I blame the awesomeness of the local multiplayer options. I have Rayman legends ordered for the next time we wnat to have some 4 player mayhem.

[Raithe]

Apparently, it took me about 6 and a half hours to do it, but I completed Mission 2 of Chapter 3 in the Anno 2070 campaign.  Two more missions to go....

[GhostofAnakin]

That one mission where you investigate the infestation in Nova Scotia was a pain.  Those crysalides (or whatever they're called) just kept coming, so it took forever to actually breach the big ship.  Luckily there's no "timer" until after, so I was able to take my time mowing them down.  If it weren't for my sniper, I'd likely be dead.  She's the only one that seems to be able to hit the enemy while on Overwatch.

[AGX-17]

I got Anno 2070 because it was on sale (they've constantly shilled it on Steam over the years but I could never decide out whether or not I was interested,) I can't figure out if it's trying to be Sim City, Civilization or Command & Conquer, all with an incredibly dense/cluttered and opaque UI which nevertheless assumes that the player is someone so far on the autism spectrum they can't infer the emotions or intents of rather less-than-subtle characters without tooltips explaining "X is making excuses to try to shift blame away from himself because he wishes to advance in the corporate heirarchy, thereby resulting in increased monetary income and an improved social status, a situation which would increase the comfort and pleasure of his living conditions."

 

And apparently the devs think turbines are a critical load-bearing element of a dam, as opposed to the dam itself.

 

Needless to say, I gave it about 30 minutes before going back to The Cave. Thumbs up to The Cave, so far.

Edited December 30, 2013 by AGX-17

[melkathi]

Civilization and Command & Conquer do not in the slightest compare to Anno - they are different kinds of games. It could compare to Sim City. Anno tries to be Anno... It is a very successfull franchise in the genre.

But perhaps The Cave is more to your liking. Not everyone can like every game. I found it extremly shallow, rather badly made and in the end a waste of money.

[Katphood]

 

 

Still trying to finish my Planescape: Torment Playthrough. It was all going swell until I reached The Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts...

 

You must search all the rooms carefully, furniture is not what it appears to be

 

Scan every pixel with your cursor, no "hold tab to highlight all interactive objects" here. Probably not a good idea to play at a resolution greater than 640x480.

 

 

Playing at 1366x768 here  These mods make the game look prettier than any Triple A Game I've played. As for the quests...I think I need to pay the curiosity shop a visit.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Astiaks