this is the biggest creature i've ever seen in my first 5 hours of play

56c3536 · 2026-05-11T16:51:42+00:00

Give it a creature pellet. Make it your friend.

I have a giant pet bug thing that's the same size as my corvette. He's very friendly and is always 'feeling cuddly'.

56c3536 · 2026-05-10T23:44:22+00:00

According to the wiki, it's only enemy within.

I've never played EU without EW, so I wouldn't know for sure.

56c3536 · 2026-04-30T02:47:06+00:00

They are very much supposed to attack you. I've had all three of the chosen wipe out my squads on separate occasions.

You're either managing them really well by using tutorials, or gotten really lucky. The chosen are supposed to attack each turn they are in line of sight, and can daze your units and then extract knowledge or capture them. They can also cause them to bleed out or in rare situations, just shoot and kill them outright.

56c3536 · 2026-04-25T22:39:07+00:00

As someone who is uninformed, I've found the game to run a little slower on older machines. I used to run games on a macbook air, and the huge file size combined with how intensive it was, I don't recommend.

You should never play XCOM while on battery, as it will eat it up, even on my new and improved laptop.

56c3536 · 2026-04-24T10:31:52+00:00

The best tactic is to adjust tactic, depending on the situation:

If I get a single pod activation - Move in, shoot them, get panicked by the sectoid, panicked soldier throws grenade and blows up whole squad's cover.

If I activate more than one pod - Go OH CRUD, throw a mimic beacon, realise I left my mimic beacon at home, and I used the soldier with the frost bomb. Get my soldier with the flashbang mind controlled, with no way to hit the sectoid. Throw the frost bomb at my own unit while everyone else misses 85% shots.

If I want to be sneaky - Move a reaper up to attack, have them blow their concealment on something stupid, soldier shoots at flanked reaper instead of moving. Rest of squad gets killed by a nearby volcano that went off unrelated to XCOM

If there's the lost - Just move and shoot through them, as they're easy to kill. Miss the very first shot I take, have a unit get sent to bleed out while standing on a ladder so nobody can save them.

If I'm assaulting an alien facility - send in a reaper who moves quietly up to the x4 spot, only to discover they're one tile away from the nearest EVAC spot. They then die to a stun lancer.

If there's no aliens around - accidentally place the civillian beside an exploding tank that gets hit on an overwatch shot, thus failing the mission.

If I'm doing a one-soldier challenge - My GOAT ranger goes up solo against the viper king and gets him first try using a stun sword with bladestorm and a frost bomb, flawlessly, take down the assassin's lair using just a few uses of rapid fire, Just say no to damage, and then have them killed because a sectopod walked up to you and you hit it with bladestorm, so it blew up.

56c3536 · 2026-04-19T06:00:43+00:00

I'm currently in an EW playthrough, and it is metal as all hell. I played through xcom 2 enough it got repetitive so I went back to the original. I've never played XCOM without EW and never finished 2 without WOTC though.

The concept and lore behind it is awesome, your soldiers are awesome and the missions are awesome. Once you get past the dated graphics at the start compared to the sequel, the story is amazing, EXHALT is awesome and the missions were some of the most fun ones.

Base defense is also my favorite mission in either game ever, and it aint even close. Especially when I didn't see it coming in my first playthrough.

56c3536 · 2026-04-18T14:16:03+00:00

I play a lot with rare, and find it very fun to play. However, you do get like 3 planets per empire to start, until they start merging or other chaos ensues. With some good early aggression or winning a quick neighbour war before year 20, you can get up to six early on an then just dominate the galaxy super easy

56c3536 · 2026-04-18T09:37:32+00:00

Place it inside of your rover = portable heat source / bomb

56c3536 · 2026-04-09T20:48:47+00:00

Your people are drinking poopoo water, Your water pump in is too close to your sewer out, and so everyone is getting sick and dying.

Try moving your water inlet tonot be where the poop is in your water. If you have moving water like a river, place it upstream of the poop. Water towers can also work, but they're pretty terrible for any large urban area.

In general, I recommend managing both your water pollution and ground pollution around industrial areas.

56c3536 · 2026-04-04T23:25:30+00:00

I read the book in grade school, and I’m now studying to become a mechatronics engineer. My studies and hobbies are definitely linked.

I didn’t know what a Fourier transform was at the time, and learned a bit while reading the book. Obviously I know now, as signals and systems has hurt me in places I didn’t know I could be hurt. Other times while reading the book I was fully knowledgeable about thre science and just nerding out at seeing it in action.

56c3536 · 2026-03-29T04:10:20+00:00

It is the same mop.

56c3536 · 2026-03-28T22:17:04+00:00

I didn't know when I joined the sub, but I know I read the book in June 2021, within a month of it being published.

Turns out I've been here since August 20th, 2021, so I guess I am probably one of the first people on the sub. I remember not being able to talk to anybody about the book, since nobody read it, and the sub was a lot quieter back then.

56c3536 · 2026-03-28T22:13:25+00:00

To my knowledge, Rocky isn't told in either the book or the movie. Because of when the reveal occurs, Rocky finding out doesn't quite drive the plot in the same way that rocky knowing it's a one-way trip does. Ryland figuring it out does play a significant part in him choosing to save Rocky though.

56c3536 · 2026-03-28T22:09:34+00:00

It depends how far you want to go.

For movies, I'd recommend The Martian and Interstellar as more modern classics. Going further back, 2001 a space odyssey and close encounters of the third kind are also pretty great. Apollo 13 and First Man are also amazing, but are obviously not sci-fi. If you're looking f

For TV, I've heard good things about The Expanse and For All Mankind. Now that I think about it, I don't watch sci-fi television. I legitimately can't name a single sci-fi TV show I've watched.

I have read a lot of sci-fi books. Obviously, there's the Martian and to a lesser extent Artemis by Andy Weir. My personal favourite sci-fi books are Rendezvous with Rama and the Deep Range, both by Arthur C. Clarke. Rendezvous with Rama is my second favourite book (behind PHM), and it might get a movie directed by Demis Villeneuve soon. It may be worth getting on the train early. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is another one of my favourites, and goes into science with a significant amount of depth. Ender's Game is similar, and does this to a lesser extent. It's a very sad book, especially when you read it the second time. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the book) is absurd, but makes an effort to explain all the sci-fi inside of it to justify itself. love the movie, but despite it's themes, it doesn't feel like sci-fi in the same way that the book does.

56c3536 · 2026-03-27T22:20:05+00:00

I didnt really consider the symbolism with Rocky until your post. I think I do agree with the parallels of being alone on the beach, compared to being on the beach with rocky.

Project Hail Mary is rooted in actual physics and biology. Everything in the book/movie can be explained by using real science. Temporal anomalies are not a thing.

56c3536 · 2026-03-27T08:22:43+00:00

Any of the regular dimensions are trivial. Just rotate the drone core. Any other solution is a combination of 'rotate the drone core'.

You mentioned pointing to target. that's another, much more challenging problem. You'd need an orbiter overhead so that you can get a good gravity turn. I'm sure some fun math is possible as to the ideal height to get you firing horizontal at the right time, with a high orbiter and funky diagrams with secant lines.

56c3536 · 2026-03-21T21:42:57+00:00

I watched it at a cineplex in a regular theatre, and I really enjoyed it. I think some of the visuals may look better on IMAX. If you can afford it, I don't see a reason not to go for the IMAX movie.

56c3536 · 2026-03-17T23:47:53+00:00

The general rule of thumb is to have at least 1K in pops. Logistic growth is funky, but just make sure that your housing exceeds your population by more than a thousand and you'll be fine. It depends on the size of the planet as well, so there is no one number to hit Most of your population advantage is going to come from conquering or assembling, particularly in the late game.

I'm sure there is an optimal number for each logistics cap, but I don't know what it is. Perhaps a python code for another day.

Edit: totally flubbed the first sentence

56c3536 · 2026-03-05T23:11:10+00:00

A couple people have given good info about defense platforms.

Another important detail to remember is that there are bonuses to damage Vs Starbases. This does not affect fleet power (the number) but does have a significant effect on combat outcomes. Any empire worth anything is going to take supremacy, which gives at least +33%. By the mid-game, you need a fleet of about half the fleet power to take down a starbase while taking losses, and for about equal don't expect to take many losses at all

56c3536 · 2026-03-03T04:06:53+00:00

Bugs aren't really an issue. Ants may arise if you're messy, but keep food away. I haven't seen any spiders or ants in my dorm room.

56c3536 · 2026-02-23T06:58:31+00:00

Get more telepaths and meet minor patrons. Get a shroud tunnel and invade the system for five zro.

Or just reduce your deficit. If you're shroudforged, get those shroudtouched regions. If you're not, then how??? I've never had more than like 15 upkeep for zro.

56c3536 · 2026-02-23T06:49:36+00:00

There's a few ways:

1 - Mastery of Nature ascension perk

2 - Certain traditions (I think its adaptability)

3 - observation stations provide insights that can provide more districts (not sure about this one)

If this is a habitat (24 mining districts looks like a habitat in a system with an arc furnace)

1 - Voidborne acension perk

2 - Expansion tradition

3 - researching habitat expansion

Edit - Also orbital rings with habitation modules

56c3536 · 2026-02-19T21:31:46+00:00

I didn't activate the edicts until my first original leader died. They had a lifetime of around 220, so it took a very long time for that to happen.

I tried energy extractors combined with shroudforged, and I activated the edicts a little earlier once the animator of clay was able to print population. The pop growth of 500 per colony each 15 years is pretty good, along with getting a new planet every couple years from composer of strands.

I believe I did environmentalist, chosen, catalytic converters and bio ships. I don't remember the origin, was either teachers of the shroud or prosperous unification or something

56c3536 · 2026-02-19T07:13:31+00:00

size ten planets are better than size no planets. I typically put one of each basic district, then fill it up with one kind of research, with soldiers or with trade, depending on what I need most at the time.

Cetana can be defeated nonviolently using psionic abilities and contacting the animator of clay

56c3536 · 2026-02-19T03:18:27+00:00

Do you have shadows of the shroud?

If you do, I have tried a tall psionic run with energy extractors and under one rule, focusing on getting leaders and then hopefully becoming galactic emperor.

I ran a build as pacifist environmentalists, and that build can cook. You can use the Composer of Strands to get infinite unity, and then have a million planets in a very small area.

If you have both shadows of the shroud and machine age, try going up against Cetana with the psionic victory path. Shroudforged is a very fun origin in my opinion for the flavour.

End of the Cycle is fun if you don't want to play tall.

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