For the New players of Afterlight..

[nazgull2k1]

Bottom line - You got screwed out of your money if you've purchased this already.. but just in case you haven't, and are looking for some help... allow me!

Pro Tip to easy victory = Use the Shotgun for everyone. That's all. (literally.. its THAT easy) dont bother upgrading weapons, dont bother switching weapons, dont bother researching weapons.. dont bother building weapons. Shotgun. PERIOD. It does MORE damage then the highest researched weapon per rate of fire, and w/ 6 of them, every alien in the game is a 1 second kill.

Everthing else is pretty much a joke after you realize none of the aliens in the game can take more then 1 shot from your team, and since it seems like almost every alien in the game wants to run STRAIGHT at you and shoot... yeah.. Shotgun to the Face = Instant Win button.

Get the better armor, just for closing the gap so you can shotgun them to death, but even the armor is pretty much irrelevant once you have a shotgun in your hand. lol

[Othobrithol]

OP needs to learn what the difficulty setting is for. I am sure you'll find it mentioned in all the most intelligent forums and game guides. Playing on any of the higher difficulties an all shotty team are going to lose too many members early and be unable to handle lategame. Unless you savescum of course, but you can't complaian about game difficulty if you reload everytime someone dies.

Rebalance is good but was never quite finished so there are some endgame placeholder techs that tease you. You also need to dig up the latest version, but I can not remember where it was. there are a lot of older, partially functional versions out there. Only real downside is that API rounds are pretty much universally good/decent vs all enemies. Underbarrel shotties and grenade launchers make me happy.

Best minor mods for enjoyment would be one to change/improve the sight range and maybe one to alter the characters and their base classes.

"Fixing" the tornados actually breaks game lore, but you'll never notice unless you read all the completed tech reports. They re supposed to chase only you and the effect is to prevent you from camping a strongpoint. They go down to shotties or warp cannons easily enough starting midgame.

There is another out there, forgotten its name, that changes the distibution of enemies. I found the game to be far more enjoyable with it, using one of the default settings that drastically increased the numbers of fodder and reduced the top end units just a bit. I found a lot more use for explosives and gatlings playing that way.

My teams, btw, consist of 2x 3 man squads with each squad having a pure soldier (rifle + shotty/heavy weapons ), a scientist (sniper/heavy laser/medic) and tech (rifle/mines/shotty when the soldier is heavy/tools). I really don't specialize too much so by endgame all my team can use all the main gear. I can reconfigure based on map. Keep extras of you main weapons (rifle, sniper, shotty, missles) in the ufo so you can exploit specifc map details.

[YaboiMuggy]

I think laser rifles with coolers and scopes are good. of course they die a lot still because i suck at tactical games...even on easy. But the research screen is very fun for me.

[Nu-men von Kryt !!XD]

Originally posted by Othobrithol:

OP needs to learn what the difficulty setting is for. I am sure you'll find it mentioned in all the most intelligent forums and game guides. Playing on any of the higher difficulties an all shotty team are going to lose too many members early and be unable to handle lategame. Unless you savescum of course, but you can't complaian about game difficulty if you reload everytime someone dies.

Rebalance is good but was never quite finished so there are some endgame placeholder techs that tease you. You also need to dig up the latest version, but I can not remember where it was. there are a lot of older, partially functional versions out there. Only real downside is that API rounds are pretty much universally good/decent vs all enemies. Underbarrel shotties and grenade launchers make me happy.

The latest version of the mod is 2.03.1 which is also bundled with martian assault, combo soldiers and martian recolour mods. It is able to download it from http://www.strategycore.co.uk

As for the shotguns best weapons in the argument well:
-In Vanilla game best weapons are rifle and sniper rifle against anything other than Martians and robots. For those you need energy based weapons(robots) and buzzsaw thrower(Martians) shotguns are nice early on but agains most enemies in late game is not that great.

- In TR mod shotgun got upped but so the other weapons and some of the new additions in the mod makes this particular weapon only good for your rookies once they gain some levels give them some real weapons.

And in both cases shotguns are not enough for late game even on normal setting.

[Syzy]

Sooo just like Xcom? Rush shotgun weaponry and just wreck people.

[Bokune]

I love how this thread whent from really negitive to really positive

[Cpl. Burden R 3294]

I don't get why some people reckon it's a waste of money. Of the series, I found Aftermath most enjoyable, but that was likely because I was playing it when new and it was the only new X-Com type game out at the time. I played Afterlight next, then realising it relied on the plot of Aftershock, paused and went and played that. Aftershock is probably the better game, but there is nothing inherently wrong with Afterlight.

Also puzzled as to why so many say it doesn't work. I have Windows 7 Professional 64bit, Radeon HD7850 etc, all modern stuff (not cutting edge but) and it works straight "out of the box". The TR Mod is a must though i'd say, along with various minor mods to improve how the rocket base works.

[Bokune]

I haven't played aftermath though and I still found afterlight enjoyable just because mars collony strick teams X com like gamplay and actuly functioning realtime terraforming that alone made this worth at least 20 bucks in my book

and yes I know my spelling sucks I'm working on it

[Alla Ya'fbar]

How take prisoners?

[mltnschroeder]

Originally posted by Othobrithol:

(snip)... Keep extras of you main weapons (rifle, sniper, shotty, missles) in the ufo so you can exploit specifc map details.

Hold on! You can store extra gear in the UFO? How?

[Alla Ya'fbar]

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

Originally posted by Othobrithol:

(snip)... Keep extras of you main weapons (rifle, sniper, shotty, missles) in the ufo so you can exploit specifc map details.

Hold on! You can store extra gear in the UFO? How?

Place unit on starter position -> open inventory -> instead "on the ground" you get in UFO inventory.

[mltnschroeder]

Originally posted by Crowly:

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

Hold on! You can store extra gear in the UFO? How?

Place unit on starter position -> open inventory -> instead "on the ground" you get in UFO inventory.

Cool, thanks :) It's funny how many hundreds of times I've run missions in this game and I never once thought to store gear in the UFO! Thanks for the tip!


BTW, re: green Matriarchs on Impossible, definitely the laser rifles (both human and reticulan) w/ Major Beastmen Anatomy training work well if you set up a squad firing line and their aim is good. In the early game, you can get by with Warp Cannon and shotguns/gatlings for quite a while too, but you have to move in to fire point-blank to have any chance to hit with those. That is the big difference w/ customized lasers as they allow you to snipe accurately at incredible distances. The laser cannon eats through red and green matriarchs like butter. I didn't think to try the Martian lightsaber, but that probably works well too.

Also, re: that map you hate - you'll notice you only ever get that map when the aliens interrupt one of your building projects. So don't build rocket bases or radars adjacent to their territory, and you'll hardly ever fight on that map (but you will have to fight off more alien invasions on other maps because the rocket bases suppress # of alien attacks - you can see a message in the message bar at the bottom of the geoscape screen each time a rocket base prevents a beastman attack). In your screenshot, your mistake is you moved into the center and the beastmen are hitting you simultaneously from all sides. Try going down the west edge instead using the scattered vehicles as cover, and try and pick them off in small groups. It will still be a tough fight, but you can flee down to the SW corner and be fairly 'safe' to heal up there between skirmishes. Bringing reticulans along is always a tough decision (I only ever bring 1 due to exactly this scenario), but you can squeeze them between the wheels of a large vehicle and 'box out' the rollers using your armored soldiers if necessary.

[VoiD]

Hmm, i'm not playing on impossible, but it doesn't seem like this shotgun tip is very good, or even any good really.

I mean, I have one tough, fast shotgunner with some stealth and he can absolutely murder lone enemies, small drones, etc..
I'm pairing him with a dual pistols runner which play almost in the exact same way (but the pistols seem stronger tbh)

And I can imagine it working decently if you run around with a bunch of people at point blank bursting targets but.

Some enemies can hit hard, REALLY hard, one bad spider spit, one matriarch crit and you might lose one of your guys, since this shotgun thing is rather reckless I can't imagine it won't ever happen that during your approach you won't ever get hit by something in the way and instantly lose 1 or 2 characters.

So I'd have to ask, is it a good strategy because it works, or is save/load until it works really the strategy being used here?

I'd much rather have a veriety of weapons to deal with different threats instead, like snipers to keep dangerous target on their feet by aiming at the legs, warp cannons to hit the tough armored foes that need to disappear this instant, heavy armored minigunners at the front, a couple of fast movers scouting ahead and picking easy targets, maybe placing some mines on the way, psionic aliens capable of detecting the most dangerous foes from afar and also healing your team from a distance, etc...

[PipBull]

Originally posted by PipBull:

Originally posted by nazgull2k1:

Uhh are we playing the same game here? Cause even the official strategy guides online say SHOTGUNS. I JUST beat the game again not 1 week ago, On normal difficulty.. Shotguns. There is NO need for the rifle. Its the EXACT same tier as the Shotgun. There is NO need for Sniper Rifles.. Shotguns are better. You take some damage sure from SOME enemy fire, but as has been stated many many times by thousands of other people, the AI runs straight at you. Even in the late game with pscionics and missles and god knows whatever else.. Shotguns are all you need.

Indoor missions are even easier... find a fast team member.. run him around, picking up the aliens threat... run him back to your team..inside a room or behind a doorway.. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. Dead. Everything and everyone is dead.


Stop your pointless argument. Shotguns get you through 99.99% of the entire game on easy mode, and they are practically the first weapon you get. lol

play it on hard mode. bearing in mind i have beat it on hard mode and find what you are saying about hard mode to be crap falling out off ur mouth

this lol my last comment about shotguns