Some thoughts on Nightmare Mode

[BWDeadcat]

Second Nightmare Mode playthrough finished - or should I say survived. Whew!
Well, the name speaks for itself: no maps, motion tracker iffy at best (and noisy at inopportune moments), alien never very far away, overly attentive (and really hard-to-kill) Joes, lots of facehuggers...did I mention the alien is never very far away?
What is with the flamethrower fuel sounding like you're hauling around a half-full 50-gallon drum of it? And the more fuel you have, the louder it gets. Plus, don't waste flamethrower fuel on Joes: flame suit or not, by the time it kills them, they've caught you - and you've used up a valuable asset.
Speaking of valuable assets, extreme shortage of usable crafting components - lots of scrap, plenty of scrap, quite a bit of scrap, and not much of anything else.
Hiding becomes an art form. Stay as close as possible to the object you're hiding behind - even a slight gap will get you noticed.
Tunnels and vents are not safe to hide in, and only marginally safer to move around in.
Yes, there are areas where there are two (or more, but I've only seen two at a time) aliens.
Run and you just die tired.
Screaming alien: usually means it has spotted you, but sometimes it's testing you to get you to expose your position. Don't fall for it - let it come and get you. If it's a test, the alien will eventually lose interest and go elsewhere (but never very far).
There is no safe place to hide for very long.
One last comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zakmtovvtn8

[Dayve]

Originally posted by BWDeadcat:

motion tracker iffy at best (and noisy at inopportune moments)

The alien can't hear your motion tracker's ambient beeps (the beeps it makes when you don't have it raised). It can only hear your motion tracker if you have it raised, and even then it can only hear it if it's so close to you that you could reach out and touch it with your arm.

lots of facehuggers...

I think there's the same amount of facehuggers in the game no matter which difficulty you play on. I believe they all behave in the exact same way too, since each one of them is totally scripted.

What is with the flamethrower fuel sounding like you're hauling around a half-full 50-gallon drum of it? And the more fuel you have, the louder it gets

That's a bug that occurs when you load the game after acquiring the flamethrower. To fix the bug all you need to do is raise the flamethrower once for 1 second and it is fixed.

[BWDeadcat]

Originally posted by Dayve:

Originally posted by BWDeadcat:

motion tracker iffy at best (and noisy at inopportune moments)

The alien can't hear your motion tracker's ambient beeps (the beeps it makes when you don't have it raised). It can only hear your motion tracker if you have it raised, and even then it can only hear it if it's so close to you that you could reach out and touch it with your arm.

lots of facehuggers...

I think there's the same amount of facehuggers in the game no matter which difficulty you play on. I believe they all behave in the exact same way too, since each one of them is totally scripted.

What is with the flamethrower fuel sounding like you're hauling around a half-full 50-gallon drum of it? And the more fuel you have, the louder it gets

That's a bug that occurs when you load the game after acquiring the flamethrower. To fix the bug all you need to do is raise the flamethrower once for 1 second and it is fixed.

Then it's entirely coincidental when my motion tracker beeps ('ambient') and seconds later the alien drops out of the ceiling? On multiple occasions...
Re: facehuggers: my first playthrough, on medium, after the alien drops down and grabs Amanda when she sees the reflection on the helmet glass, I encountered two facehuggers while crawling through the debris on my way back to the airlock. On this last run - Nightmare - there were three in one area, four in another, and one more on the top of the elevator. I'm not counting the three in other missions.

[LeGuell]

Originally posted by BWDeadcat:

Then it's entirely coincidental when my motion tracker beeps ('ambient') and seconds later the alien drops out of the ceiling? On multiple occasions...

That's right - however, the alien does not drop out of the vent because it hears the motion tracker, but the motion tracker gives an ambience beep when the alien is very close and most likely drops out of the vent

[BWDeadcat]

Thanks to Dayve: the 'half-a-barrel-of-flamethrower-fuel sound fix works.
Thanks to LeGuell: makes sense, but adds to the tension when the tracker beeps and the alien is not far behind. Perhaps I'm projecting a similar situation into the mix. A:CM final mission: throw the queen into space. When Winter is trying to sneak around to get to the middle rail clamp release, that beep notifies the queen where to look.

[=(e)= MadHag]

Diid one shot on easy mode but ♥♥♥♥ that.

[BWDeadcat]

More observations (hopefully not spoilers):
Nightmare Mode is the same as Hard Mode, alien- and Joe-wise, but minus the HUD and minus 90% or more of the crafting items.
Hard Mode is for getting revenge on the aliens and Joes that gave you so much grief in Nightmare Mode.
Re: Joes on the floor: if the eyes are on, it will grab your leg. Can't hammer it with your jack wrench until it does. I find a well-placed revolver round beforehand is a satisfactory remedy.
Even on Hard or Nightmare, I have actually (frequently, not always) walked normally, unimpeded, from one mission update to the next. The upside: faster and less disturbing. The downside: missing all the craft items along the way. Plus, if you pause to search (such as a fallen Joe, dead Marshall, cabinet, etc.), the alien will find you pretty fast.
Hiding behind objects is iffy, especially if you can see over the object. Making eye contact with the alien (whatever or wherever its eyes are...) is suicide. If it looks your way, avert your eyes.
Pool tables and display tables suck as hiding spots - until they don't. I've gone 360° around pool tables avoiding the alien: sometimes it sees me, sometimes it doesn't - luck of the draw, or inadvertent eye contact maybe, on that one.
In the scene after your space walk, the alien makes round after round of the room. Don't let it see you looking at it from under a desk, even from all the way across the room.
Vents are alien death-traps, including floor vents. How, you may ask, since floor vents need activation? ('They killed the power!''How can they kill the power? They're animals!') Aliens are wily critters...
Hide in one spot and wait long enough: the alien will find you eventually.
Joes do not use vents. At least, I haven't seen it.
If you get a Joe to chase you, run through a fire. It takes three fires, sometimes four, to kill a Joe, even a Jumpsuit Joe; you can always craft another Medkit.
Newest discovery: Nostromo logs: you can almost always backtrack to where the log is. If the room is full of poison gas, I'd wait until AFTER you acquire the gas mask from the Consultation mission. :)
Note to self: write down the poison gas locations...