I got Fallout: Tactics on Thursday and I've been playing many hours since.

I think this game is going to piss off a lot of reviewers. I struggled valiantly for about 6 hours trying to play it in combat turn-based mode, but I had to give up. Why?

1) After the first level, the enemy turns take literally an entire MINUTE to resolve. And lemme tell ya, nothing sucks the joy out of a turn based combat game more than waiting that long between moves. And shit, on a near-1ghz P3, should any game use a minute to decide turn-based moves? Even with only 5 enemies engaged in combat, it took that long. :(

2) There are almost a hundred enemies per level, and the levels are friggin' HUGE. It would take 8+ hours to resolve all that combat in turn-based mode!

Clearly this is a game that was designed for real time play, not turn-based. The turn-based mode comes off as an afterthought.

Things got a lot better once I just gave up and played in real-time mode, with my units set to automatically fire at any units in range. However, the "tactics" part of the game takes a big hit.. I can't babysit my units to get decent strategy. For example, equipping a shotgun in real time mode is almost guaranteeing death by friendly fire. You can set a minimum chance to hit before characters will fire, but you cannot get them to avoid firing through each other. :P Even with everyone using targetted (aimed) shots, it's sometimes a problem.

And forget hand to hand or sneaking up on anyone. It's just too chaotic in real time mode to screw with any of that stuff.

So all (well, four out of six, including me) of my guys are snipers now, nailing enemies from 40+ tiles out as soon as they see them. This isn't a major issue for me since my character from fallout 2 was a hard-core sniper anyway. Think 30% chance of criticals, and better criticals selected twice. What can I say? I like to gib my enemies.

But the RTS approach is hardly strategic.. I might drop my guys prone or break them up into two groups, but that's about it. Run around the map like a RTS game, blasting stuff as you see it.. has all the strategy of a dungeon crawl. And we know how Tom Chick loves those!

Try it out and see if you guys can come up with a better way-- maybe I'm doing something wrong. It would be nice to 'freeze' combat and position my characters so I can actually strategize more. Without playing each level for 8 hours, or waiting a minute for the next turn..

It's still fun even with that problem (I love fallout, and the fallout skills/perks char system) but.. I dunno.

Jeff "wumpus" Atwood
http://www.gamebasement.com

p.s. The vehicles are really cool though.. you'll see when you get to the first supermutant level. It's suicide to leave the APC. :P

There are a couple of things you can do to combat the real time mode. First off use sneak all the time and have at least one if not two guys who are way up on sneak. Figure out where the enemies are that you want to take out and sneak everyone into a position where they can shoot them or where they will be able to shoot them once the enemy moves towards your position. Then set them all to aggressive 33% and let the fun begin. If you have done it right the enemy will have little or no chance, going down in a hail of bullets.

One other key is using the defensive/aggressive sentry mode. I put everyone on defensive 33% by default. That way if they are attacked chances are they will shoot back. I only use aggressive if I want to take out something nearby or start a major engagement or maybe if I am sweeping the map with a team cleaning up. I generally don't want my people to shoot until they are in place.

Another trick I have learned but not worked with extensively is you can toggle in and out of turn based mode with the enter key. This will allow you to catch your breath if things go south, heal people, then switch back to real time. You lose the action points still but you have a bit of time to make sure people get taken care of. You could also just go turn based for combat but not for movement/exploration.

Oh and always sneak your units and keep them prone. If you have the high sneak people go first you can figure out the best way for the low-skill sneakers to go.

You can tone down the rate at which action points replenish, right? Does that mean you can effectively have a control over game speed in reat-time mode?

I don't know if I'm going to like this one online or not, since I would prefer a speed where I can effectively control a full-sized squad effectively without it turning into a click-n-pray fest. However, we live in a world where most people play RTS games online at full-throttle. If you get beyond a speed where I can make individual tactical decisions for my men, you take "tactics" away and you're left with "Diablo Shotgun-Party Deathmatch".

PS - why has nobody developed a "Smash TV" coop FPS mod?

Nobody has answered my original question. How do you play a turn based game where it takes a FULL MINUTE to resolve the computer's turn? And I'm not talking about fighting the entire US fragging marine corps here, just five enemies!

This is unacceptable.. I think that's what it boils down to more than anything else. Why is turn based mode so slow as to be broken and unusable?

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

wumpus, since I didn't program it I don't know why it takes that long. No one is going to be able to solve your problem as it stands. Why would you ask that question here? It is pointless.

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Nobody has answered my original question. How do you play a turn based game where it takes a FULL MINUTE to resolve the computer's turn?

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I wonder why that is...
OpArt takes a minute, I guess Fallout Tactics does too. Why doesn't SMAC or Civ2 then?

Generally, the AI is handling 6 "characters" each turn and it takes it less than 15 seconds if memory serves.

I'm not saying they are the same type of games here. I've always thought the Sid stuff was remarkable in that way.

Andrew

The difference between SMAC/Civ and OpArt is that in OpArt, the computer needs to go through a lot of extra calculations for each possible hex a unit can move to or attack from, due to supply, air cover, terrain effects on supply, etc. Also, a single combat can involve ten or more units, so movement trees are far more complicated than in SMAC/Civ. There are also a lot more units in a large OpArt game than in a Civ/SMAC game.

I'm not a programmer, but I suspect that this takes up a lot of processor time. I talked on the phone with Keith Brors and chatted via email with Joel Billings a little while back as part of an upcoming CGW column about AI and wargaming, and it seemed like these were significant concerns.

Lastly, in a wargame, you need to see every unit move (that isn't hidden by fog-of-war) and this can take quite a while as you see the computer "step" through its turn. In the large scenarios of the Panzer Campaigns games, this can easily take 15 minutes if you're paying attention. But that's just a mechanical limitation since the computer could simply not show this if there weren't a need for you to see it.

It is, of course, possible that AI routines are also not optimized as much in wargames as in more mass-market games because (possibly) wargamers are simply willing to wait. I'll ask a few people and see. But I can't answer the question about FOT because, as Xaroc points out, only the game's programmer can.

This makes me wonder a few things

1. Is the AI giving serious thought to the movement of enemies clear across the map, who are probably just standing still anyway?

2. If it takes 60 seconds to spend 8 AP for its units due to the "thought process", is AI actually DUMBER in real-time mode since it doesn't have the luxury of thinking at its own pace?

3. There's a button for "Fast AI Turns" where it speeds up the movement animations. If that's off, does it still take the same amount of time to move a unit that remains unseen?

I'm not out of mission 1 yet, but when I hit a "big slow one" I'll test this stuff out

Funny that Ron Dulin's review of FT: BOS doesn't even mention the slow AI turns in turn-based mode

http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2699080,00.html

I tried to play turn based, I really did, but when I got to mission 2 and it took 60 seconds for each enemy AI turn, I quickly said "fuck that".

It's taking me forever to play through this game even in real time mode. I can't even begin to imagine how long it would take in turn-based mode with those delays.

And btw, that was with "fast AI turns" on.

I'm pretty far into the game-- I'll try turn based again and see if maybe mission 2 was a fluke or something?

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

wumpus: "Funny that Ron Dulin's review of FT: BOS doesn't even mention the slow AI turns in turn-based mode."

I didn't experience slow AI turns, or at least not any slower than I'm accustomed to in the genre. FOT's turns aren't noticeably slower than, say, X-COM's were.

60 seconds seems like an exaggeration. I went back and timed one of the more enemy-heavy missions (St. Louis), and the longest enemy turn lasted all of 15 seconds. My settings were hard difficulty and "fast turn based" on.

Personally, I found the annoyances of the real-time mode far more aggravating than anything else about the game. The shortcomings of the AI, the formations options, and the interface made it impossible to use any tactics in the real-time mode. Unless by tactics you mean "make sure this guy isn't standing in front of that guy."

-Ron

"60 seconds seems like an exaggeration. I went back and timed one of the more enemy-heavy missions (St. Louis), and the longest enemy turn lasted all of 15 seconds. My settings were hard difficulty and "fast turn based" on."

Wow, you're playing on hard difficulty? Heh. For some reason mission 2 was a bit slower, but I was exaggerating slightly. It wasn't as bad when I enabled it later. There seem to be slowdowns on my computer after playing the game for a few hours, too. Plus sound-related crashes in the sound library if I enable DirectSound3D Hardware or EAX..

"Personally, I found the annoyances of the real-time mode far more aggravating than anything else about the game. The shortcomings of the AI, the formations options, and the interface made it impossible to use any tactics in the real-time mode. Unless by tactics you mean "make sure this guy isn't standing in front of that guy.""

True. Then again, my 'tactics' include using my four high-level snipers (can be five; my char has relatively complete sniper skills too) from extreme distance, all using targetted head shots. This would take forever in turn-based mode. I saw a post on a forum where a guy spent an hour in TBM taking out a turret (!). I wouldn't be surprised if it took me that long either. I plow through more 7.62mm ammo than you can possibly believe. I also typically break my team up into two groups-- snipers, and close combat.

Real time mode definitely has its problems; particularly, the way guys will fire auto shotguns right through your entire team. That's so wrong. It's too bad because RTM, I think, is the future. With a few more intelligence tweaks (such as the above) it could have worked perfectly. I just can't imagine playing through those immense missions with the tedium of turn based combat. RTM worked in Fallout and Fallout 2 because the combat wasn't as frequent!

One interesting quirk of the modes: in RTM, enemies can interrupt your movement phase with firing. However, you can advance 8+ tiles with no threat of retaliation in TBM until the computer gets to its turns. That's not quite real; there's no concept of "interrupt" as there is in JA2.

Hey Ron, I got a question for you.

I'm stuck in the nuclear reactor disable mission (can't remember the city-- somewhere in colorado). I have blown up the two turbines, and the reactor is disabled, but I am supposed to "destroy the facility"? There are a couple power nodes that show a red attack cursor. My characters will attack the power nodes but they don't appear to take any damage.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

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I'm stuck in the nuclear reactor disable mission (can't remember the city-- somewhere in colorado). I have blown up the two turbines, and the reactor is disabled, but I am supposed to "destroy the facility"? There are a couple power nodes that show a red attack cursor. My characters will attack the power nodes but they don't appear to take any damage.

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As I mentioned in my previous post to Wumpus, I have played the FOT demo, and I have to say that I really liked the idea of the game, and how it was supposed to play, but so many details were left unfinished or glossed over. I forgot to try it in turn based mode, but I assumed it would end up feeling just like playing FO or FO2.

For me, the worst problem was the "I'll shoot no matter who's in the way," problem, especialy with the shotgun guys. I mean, Fallout 2 had a setting for your party members that told them how much to risk hitting you with a burst weapon, and they were smart enough to move around you to get clear shots. Now the party memebers in FO2 weren't *really* intellegent, but you'd think they would have had made the characters in FOT smart enough to not shoot each other in the back. I think the problem lies in the fact that the player and only the player has direct control over the movements of all the characters, so they couldn't have them all of the sudden start moving around by themselves.

Wumpus is right, in that the tactics pretty much devolve into making sure no one is standing in front of anyone else. At least the prone/crouched/standing settings help with that a little bit.

I never was able to get into the building on the second demo mission. My guys kept getting chewed up terribly. I think I didn't have the patience to play it properly, (i.e. "Bring 'em on, I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.") hehehe

"Setting the explosives would involve the use of the Traps skill. If you don't have someone with a decent level on that skill, just set the timer for lots of extra time, and run like hell, because a low skill level usually translates into premature detonation. Good luck! Let me know if this helps. "

I tried that. I can't seem to "place" the plastique on the nodes. In other words, I have it equipped, I set the timer, I click on the node.. nothing.

I can drop the plastique in front of the node and it will detonate, but no effect.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Hmm, that's odd. From what I remember from playing Fallout 2, (it's been a while) dropping explosives in front of something that needed to be blown up was usually good enough.

One other thing that I could suggest is try actually selecting the traps skill from the skilldex menu when setting the explosive. Maybe that will actually place it on the node.

I reread your post about the problem you're having. If you're supposed to destroy the facility, that may mean getting the reactor to overload. (I never actually finished FO2, but I believe that it was supposed to end this way). If so, try looking around for a computer console that you can hack into or blow up. Maybe if you've got a guy with a decent science skill, you could use that on the nodes.

I'm sorry I can't think of anything else.

Can nobody help me with my mission I'm stuck on? Please! Ron, I know you finished the game.. right? I can't believe nobody at Q23 is playing this game!

It's the Buena Vista, Colorado level. The one where you have to destroy a reactor, then disable the robot manufacturing facility. See above for more details..

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

I don't have a copy of the game yet. One of the weird things about being on the list for free games is that we don't always get them right away. The mags, Gamespot, and a few other websites get gold masters, but freelancers like Tom and me often don't get games until they're out at retail for a week or two. I know that Tom doesn't have FOT yet either.

I do have Tribes 2, but I can't get it to run for more than 30 seconds.

"I do have Tribes 2, but I can't get it to run for more than 30 seconds."

Yeah, I'm having problems on all of my computers (Voodoo 3 and TNT2 cards). It's not crashing, but it's intolerably slow. I see little improvement since the beta. :(

-Tom

Well, slow can be a good thing for technophiles like me. As long as the graphics justify the slowness, that is. What do you guys think?

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

p.s. HELP!!!!!! I am stuck in Fallout: Tactics! I really mean it! There could be a free copy of Flying Heroes in this for someone!

"Yeah, I'm having problems on all of my computers (Voodoo 3 and TNT2 cards). It's not crashing, but it's intolerably slow. I see little improvement since the beta. :( "

This will be the death of Dynamix if the game is really this bad.

Well, they said a patch would be available as soon as the game hits the stores. I'll try that, but if I can't get it to run then it's on to something else.

"Well, they said a patch would be available as soon as the game hits the stores. I'll try that, but if I can't get it to run then it's
on to something else."

Ack, it's that bad in the release version? Sheesh. Remember what happened to Ultima when they released a slow ass game with the bugs still intact? Oh maybe you remember a little crap-gem called Battlecruiser 3000 A.D.? Two games that should've ben great, but both failed miserably because they were released before they were ready.

I'd rather wait another 3 - 6 months for Tribes 2 to be complete then to have to buy it and download a patch before it was playable.

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Remember what happened to Ultima when they released a slow ass game with the bugs still intact?

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"I just hope I don't get excommunicated from the boards for saying that!"

No worries there. I picked up the retail version the day it hit the shelves and about through it out the window. It was too horrible to comprehend. After a few patches, it turned out to be a great game though. It's just lucky for me that Best Buy doesn't accept returns on opened software or I would have taken it back the day after I bought it.

Whee, I'm now into Fallout Tactics also. Being twitchboy, I'm only into the third mission, and I already got goofy questions.

1) My main dude, Scoot, picked Gifted and Finesse, and at level 3, his first perk was Skilled Learner. He tagged Small Guns, Energy Guns, and Stealth. I arranged his stats to be something like 10 Perception and Agility, 6 on most things, with like, a 4 Charisma and either 4 or 5 on something else. Since it's still early, is Scoot doing fine so far, or should I scrap him?

2) Is it better to develop dudes from the beginning, or swap squads when new recruits come in? I made hard decisions about how to level up my first squad in mission 2 (me, Farsight, Trevor, Jo, Brian, and Stitch), but then I see people like Rebecca, Ice, and Rage available, and I dunno whether I should truck on with the old crew, pick all-new peeps, or mix them up.

3) How the hell do I open that one door to the shed near the extraction point of mission 2? I found two keys, neither work, and a person with a lockpicking skill of 87% couldn't crack it open!

Yes, these sound like goober-ish questions, but remember, I'm an Action guy with a dash of RPG and RTS. Yes, I've finished X-COM, but I think that part of the brain rotted away somehow. Right now, the most tactical I can get is, "peeps with sniper rifles shoot from afar, while peeps with uzis stand next to the rifle peeps and shoot anyone who gets near."

-Thierry

Well, I'm at the end of the game, or nearly, and my main character sucks rocks :-). It helps if your main guy/gal is talented but it isn't essential. My guy just tags along, or did, until he upped his energy weapons skill to above 100 so he can actually shoot something....


I disagree with those who say the continuous turn-based mode (which, by the way, is a very precise and accurate moniker, IMO, given the way action points count down and all) kills tactics. On the contrary, after about mission 3 I found it the only way to go. The only exception was during the defense of the Ghoul cathedral, when at the beginning there are so many muties coming so fast that I had to drop into turn-based mode to catch up. After that, though, I find turn based play incredibly slow--not in terms of how long it takes the AI to move, so much, as in how long it takes to move around in combat.


And I find that tactically, I can do a lot more in CTB mode. Yes, you do have to make sure you don't stand someone in front of your M2 gunner, but hey, that's part of the challenge, and the spread of shot from various weapons makes for some great mass slaughter of bad guys. I make effective use of scouts, snipers, and heavy weapons people, using coordinated attacks and ambushes, and it's a hoot. In turn based mode, I find it plodding. Just my taste, though--that's why you have the choice.


On the down side, though.... Bugs, including crashes; slowdowns, maybe a memory leak; continuity errors; team members who never gain rank even though they gain levels; an inventory system from HELLLLLL!; enemies that are too clumped together, scenario-wise, so that you fight all raiders for a while, then all beastlords, etc., until you get to a point where all you face are critters that make half your guns useless. Unlike the RPG, you can't win this one without having an energy weapons/big gun focus.


I did find though that once I had my squad in place--My guy, Farsight, Stitch, Rebecca, Trevor, Alice--I never swapped 'em out. Level 19 now and kicking robot butt. It's getting a little tedious, but still fairly entertaining. I hate when I review games--had I not been reviewing this one I'd have taken time off to play Kohan .

"I find turn based play incredibly slow--not in terms of how long it takes the AI to move, so much, as in how long it takes to move around in combat."

Yeah, me too. I find CTB is fine for tactics. Turn-based is just too slow for this game.

I do have some quibbles with it, though. I'd say that it probably has more about it that I dislike than does B&W, yet I like FOT quite a bit more than B&W.

Hey Robert, can you help me with the Buena Vista, Colorado level? Puh-leez! Just scroll up a bit.

CScoot-- heroic perception is the way to go in this game.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Actualy, wumpus, I'm just before Buena Vista, in Canyon City. Where, by the way, I was supposed to find some remote-detonated explosives, but there were none, making it much more difficult....

"Unlike the RPG, you can't win this one without having an energy weapons/big gun focus."

I'm very disappointed to hear that and am probably screwed now. I made my main guy as kind of a stealthy assassin type with One Handed and Finese as his perks and Small Guns, Lockpick, and Stealth as his tag skills. He's a wizz with any handgun or uzi, but his big guns skill is currently -16. hehe. Oh well, hopefully I can get through leaning heavily on my other party members.

So far I've played almost exclusivly in Turn-Based mode. For me, that's the most fun, but I'm also the kind of guy who can be happy playing one mission every day or two. I like having direct control over every little thing my peons do, from where they move to to the type of shot they take. The only time I switch to CTB to speed things up is when my group is holed-up in a house all in firing position and I know I'm not going to want to move them much. I'll switch to CTB and watch the bullets fly for a while and then switch back to Turn-Based once the combat is over.

I'm just glad they made the system fairly similar to Jagged Alliance where you're in real-time mode as long as your group isn't currently under fire. Once someone attacks one of your members is attacked, it switches back into Turn-Based. It's also a nice little way to know when you've taken out the last baddie in the imediate area.

I do love the choice, yes indeed. Jim, as for your character being screwed, not really. As I said, my main guy is pretty much baggage but it hasn't really hurt much. Besides, as you go up in levels, just take Tag! as a perk and tag Energy Weapons--any points you put into it from then on (and any you put into it previously--it's retroactive) are doubled. You can raise your EW skill rapidly, a couple of experience levels should help a lot. Until then, you can pick up a FAL or a Pancor Jackhammer or CAWS--these "small guns" are great, and the shotguns with slugs stay viable for a long time.

Man, I chewed some After Burner gum finally and now my main guy is so weak he can't fire his gun in my current mission. Stupid goddamn gum. What the hell kind of gum keeps you from firing a weapon after the effects wear off? Now my guy is just crawling around (my team spends most of their time crawling like worms) being a handicap. I'd have one of the others put a cap in him but it would end my game.

All drugs have side effects. Afterburner's is -2 ST, -2 PE for 48 hrs (the positive effects also last for 48 hrs).

Is there a source out there somewhere that gives the effects of all the drugs? I learned the hard way that healing powder has a rather long lasting -1 PE effect on it. Silly me, I had Farsight and her chance to hit dropped more than I'd have expected.

Okay, I finally finished the game. I liked the ending but this game has a TON of bugs. I was comparing lists with my e-mail buddy who's playing this, and we were just appalled. We both have completely immobile APCs back at home base. :P

My problem in Buena Vista was lack of damage feedback-- the nodes have over 1000 HP and there's no visible indication that you're doing any damage to them. This is in direct contrast to the previous "nodes" mission where the nodes start visibly auto-repairing themselves after a short period of time, should they take any damage. BAD DEVELOPERS!! BAD!!

I wanted to add the following helpful tips:

- strongly develop bartering, gambling, or stealing early on. Equipment and ammo is expensive.

- don't neglect energy skills early, or YOU WILL BE SORRY later. Robots are extremely tough to damage without energy weapons.

- perception rules. Range is everything. Nothing is more frustrating than being torn to shreds by a minigun from over a screen away!

- small guns can segue into gauss rifles, but shotgun ammo of any kind is virtually nonexistant in later missions.

- for big guns, the .50 cal is the most devastating weapon, but unless you have a way of dealing with the shops (stealing or gambling) the ammo is prohibitively expensive.

- beg, borrow, or steal to get power armor as soon as you can. Whatever it costs it's well worth it.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Compuexpert has a $29.90 48-hour madness sale on this through tomorrow. I went for that, despite many misgivings. At least I can add it to my pile of unplayed games for a good price. :)

I'm in Buena Vista now, having finaly gotten through Canyon City (I could have sworn the stuff I needed was NOT on the bodies of the bad guys from the first encounter, but on my way out I found what I needed (I had already restarted with my own inventory of boom toys)). I am of two minds about this game. On the one hand I love it--it's fun, it's detailed, it looks great, it has character. On the other hand, it's buggy as hell, rough around the edges, buggy, inconsistent, buggy, seems like it is really only 90% done, buggy, and sometimes tedious.


Worth getting? Oh yeah; had I not been reviewing this I'd have been less concerned with getting through it on pace, and I'd have enjoyed it more.

Wumpus is definitely right on energy weapons--but you can switch to get that skill (including Tag!-ing it) with perks you gain at higher levels, so you don't necessarily have to grab it in the begining. Early on, it's small guns, then big guns, then energy weapons. Big energy weapons are very nice .

"On the one hand I love it--it's fun, it's detailed, it looks great, it has character. On the other hand, it's buggy as hell, rough around the edges, buggy, inconsistent, buggy, seems like it is really only 90% done, buggy, and sometimes tedious."

Funny how none of the early reviews mention how buggy the game is, when it's patently obvious to us. This leads me to wonder if these guys are actually PLAYING the game.. *cough*.

If you liked Fallout a LOT, I would get F:T. otherwise, pass.

And I cannot even BEGIN to imagine how long it would take to play this game in turn-based mode. My god! The mind boggles! It took me ~40 hours in CTB mode! Sheesh.

So, Ron Dulin wasn't able to answer my easy question about how to proceed in Buena Vista. Does this mean he's an insensitive bastard, or just a guy who wrote a review without playing the entire game? Hmm. I don't mean to cast aspersions on a game reviewer (okay, I do), but what the heck??

http://www.zdnet.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0%2C10867%2C2699080%2C00.html

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Has anyone tried this multiplayer? It looks interesting, but the game is so appallingly poorly documented that I am loathe to try it without some assurance from fellow travelers.

KP

"Has anyone tried this multiplayer? It looks interesting, but the game is so appallingly poorly documented that I am loathe to try it without some assurance from fellow travelers."

Kevin Perry, criminal game mastermind, ladies and gentlemen! The game manual does suck, doesn't it? Bleh. It doesn't even explain how to use doctor and first aid skills, which are essential. Another cheap ploy to sell a strategy guide.

Try the forums here:

http://www.rpgplanet.com/fallout/forums

The one complaint I hear is that MP is very unbalanced-- .50 cal with depleted uranium ammo is supposedly invincible. Looks like it works, though, and if you play against people who are willing to abide by some rules, could be fun!

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Multiplayer is a lot of fun, but unbalanced. It's not just ammo -- a 7000 pt mutant with armor is much better than five guys who add up to 7000 points. The chems are also messed up to for multiplayer, since there's no real penalty for taking them like there is in the campaign game.

The demo actually was better since it had pre-rolled characters only who were class-based.

And yeah, the game's documentation is poor, which is too bad considering how the first two Fallout games had such great documentation.

Luckily, if the posts from MicroForte are to be believed, the patch (tomorrow, maybe?) will address some of the multiplayer issues. Supposedly point limits per character will be introduced, and meds/chems will have durations in seconds rather than days, making them much more balanced. We'll see.


As for documentation, the manual is not good. The strategy guide is not bad, but doesn't do much for the lapses of the manual in re mechanics, either. If you haven't played the Fallout RPGs, you'll never figure out how to use First Aid and Doctors kits without a bit of trial and error, whether you have the guide or not. What the guide does have is some lists of weapon and item stats, and some ok walkthroughs (which I've read after I've already won the mission). The hint book's method relies entirely on using loads of Psycho and some other drugs, and on not using many if any save/reloads.

Me, I eschew all drugs (sell 'em off) and use save and reload constantly :-).

I think Fallout Tactics is fun, but I think I still like the combat in Chaos Gate better. I hated the pre-mission interface and Chaos Gate handled elevation poorly too, making the player click on each of the three levels of elevation to spot enemies, but otherwise I loved the combat.

Yeah, Mark, Chaos Gate had a great core. Why then did Squad Leader suck so hard? Dunno. Perhaps we're more likely to accept abstractions when dealing with Warhammer than with WWII.


I loved Fallout (reviewed it at 4.5 stars) and Fallout 2 (4 stars). I am enjoying Fallout Tactics, but I would caveat any recommendation as noted above: if you love Fallout, get this game. If you love this type of game (tactical combat squad stuff) and have a high tolerance for bugs, get this game. Otherwise, wait for the patches and THEN get this game .

"And yeah, the game's documentation is poor, which is too bad considering how the first two Fallout games had such great documentation."

I may be wrong, but isn't F:T made by a different division of Interplay than the Fallout RPGs were? It would explain a lot of the little inconsistancies I've picked up between the RPG system and the Tactics system.

"I may be wrong, but isn't F:T made by a different division of Interplay than the Fallout RPGs were? It would explain a lot of the little inconsistancies I've picked up between the RPG system and the Tactics system."

Most of the coding, if not all, was done my Micro Forte in Australia. And yes, the internal divisions at Interplay were different as well - 14 Degress East vs. Black Isle.

"14 Degress East vs. Black Isle."

That makes sense, being as Black Isle seems to be exclusively RPGs while 14 Degrees East is more along the lines of Strategy games (Starfleet command, Hostile Waters, etc). A little disappointing that they didn't let the wizzes at Black Isle out of their RPG box to make a different style of game.

It's not supposed to be Fallout 3 (which IS in development), so I'd probably cut it some slack. It wasn't supposed to be a slavish, note-for-note impression of Fallouts 1 & 2 (which Chris Taylor - not the Dungeon Siege Chris Taylor - said repeatedly in interviews).

Black Isle's teams are pretty busy I think. The game still lists Chris Taylor in the credits, under 14 Degrees East, as the chief designer, and I understand he had some supervisory input.


All told, it's remarkably well integrated into the Fallout world. And lest we forget...both Fallout and Fallout 2 had legions of bugs...all patched, eventually, but bugs nonetheless.

Big slimy, man eating bugs? I thought that was JA2....

Well my copy arrives tomorrow I think so soon I can give an informed opinion instead of sounding like some Usnet yahoo who thinks he knows everything but hasn't really played the full game at all. :)

Actually, Geo, it's probably better to form your opinions before seeing a game. That relieves you of the obligation to actually play the game, and lets you come to conclusions entirely free from any evidence, which leads to a much more valuable opinion :-).

Oh, wait, that was graduate school...sorry. :-)

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I think Fallout Tactics is fun, but I think I still like the combat in Chaos Gate better.

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"FT is annoying me in any number of ways: the junior-high battle dialogue, the walk-around-my-own-base timewasting, the cursor sweep to make sure I'm not missing the one crate in the room of crates that can be opened, the wonky inventory, the abysmal documentation. . . "

Man, I agree 100%. The dialog especially is really disappointing. It's so uneven, too. An enemy might say something like, "I'm going to settle your hash!" and later might say, "I've been shot in my fucking knee!" What's up with that? It's so jarring. I wish they just excluded the dialog.

When I read dialog like that, I always wonder how in the hell it gets by the dozens and dozens of people who see it while the game is in development? I'd flag it in about 3 seconds.

"But I can't stop playing it, which is probably a testament to the scarcity of squad tactical games these days."

It's kind of like Serious Sam. If there were a lot of shooters with nice open air levels and lots of monsters, Sam wouldn't be nearly as compelling as it is.

Well, it's not so much the presence of the dialog that annoys me, it's my inability to turn it off. I'm sure that some people enjoy it.

As to why it was written and included in the game at all? Well, teams on crunch time often develop a heavy bunker mentality, so it's easy for the mental health issues of one or two to infect the whole team. You often don't want to criticize the foibles of a guy who's otherwise watching your back, so it gets passed along.

Now as to why Interplay chose to publish it that way. . . there is an options switch to turn foul language off. Why doesn't that switch extend to turning it off completely? Dunno, but I sure wish there were.

KP

The dialog is hysterical IMO, but not because it's humorous. It's plain bad. It doesn't bother me, one way or another. I'd be happy without it, but I confess I find myself chuckling sometimes when a robot says something like "analysing fluid leak" or whatever after I've blown him into a million pieces :-). The foul language is ludicrously overdone for a game, entering Kingpin territory; I didn't turn it off this time through but I might next time, just to see if it makes a difference.


The reason that I find the game so compelling despite its numerous flaws seems to be the melding of RPG elements and squad-level tactical combat. I love the combination. And I love the Fallout universe, much more so than anything from Games Workshop. I also am coming to love the continuous turn-based mode (i.e., real-time); for a game like this, having CTB with an option to drop into turn-based any time I want is the best system I've seen.


The in-base stuff though blows. Whoever had the bright idea to have you walk around your base phsically accessing each station deserves to be tied down in the outback with nothing but venomous serpents for company. Why not a stylized screen where you click on Recruits, Quartermaster, Mechanic, Doctor, and General, and have a storage bin to dump your gear?

When I found out that I had to wander around and EXPLORE MY OWN FREAKIN' BASE I almost stopped playing. But, as noted above, I didn't and can't.

Then when I got used to my own base, WE MOVED BASES.

Venomous serpents aren't nearly enough.

KP
Standard Disclaimer Applies

Just saw this on USENET. The patch looks pretty extensive for all the retail release beta testers like yourselves. ;)

Contents of Fallout Tactics patch.

--Dave

Hehe, at least, I didn't have to pay for my two copies of the game.

I guess the QA additional comments section said, "Oops!" :)

I just finshed the game, when I first started playing the combat feel disjointed. I can't really put my finger on what specifically but it was probably the unique feel of the realtime mode, while turn based remains the same. After I acclimated to the design I enjoyed both becuase I could exploit the benifits of either on whim.

Tactics really did a great job of recreating the universe but failed to intergate that into the missions. In fact I was pretty disapointed at the missed opprotunities for tactics, a lot of gritty disturbing choices could have made this gamer really shine. instead the levels often had this puzzle like feel to them. High concept was enthralling, sadly the execution was lacking.

I'll save the rest for my review. Overall I liked the game but with the buggines already mentioned and the missed ops, it's not it could be. Though I did like the three optional endings, very well thought out.

>> instead the levels often had this puzzle like feel to them.

Why that warms an Incubation fan's heart. :D

Dave wrote:

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Just saw this on USENET. The patch looks pretty extensive for all the retail release beta testers like yourselves. ;)

Contents of Fallout Tactics patch.

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Don't get your hopes up, Geo :-). The "puzzle elements" are there, but not terribly extensive. Rather, many of the missions are quite linear. The designers have made most maps into mazes of a sort, though they don't look like it at first glance. You'll find that what appears, for instance, to be a wide-open city will in fact be a maze with one path through it, the others being blocked off by debris, the map edge, obstacles, etc. This is most apparent in the missions with vehicles, where much of the gameplay is simply clearing a path for your ride.

I'm in the final mission, and would have been finished long before except for two straight weekends of company. I like the game, but then, I'm a huge Fallout fan. I have to echo the comments above: the game does not integrate the game world into the missions very well. The overall story arc is fine, but the entire game feels unfinished and poorly fit together--there are continuity errors galore, you rarely have any significant choices to make.


One user told me of a bug that's hilarious. It seems you can, if you try, replace your main character with a Reaver Elder....

"Rather, many of the missions are quite linear."

This, along with the AI that's too immobile, disappoints me the most. Given that the AI is lackluster and linear paths are easier to make challenging if you're dealing with poor AI, I think we can guess at the biggest hurdle in this game that Interplay failed to clear.

Interplay also worked on the multiplayer game first. I'm kind of thinking that wasn't a good idea.

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Interplay also worked on the multiplayer game first. I'm kind of thinking that wasn't a good idea.

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I've tried multiplayer a fair amount. It basically sucks, IMO. Why? Because, that's why! No, really, it sucks because it's unbalanced (you can create a super character and put all the allotted points into it, and kick any six other characters into next week), the drugs that boost your stats don't kick in their side-effects for DAYS, and the game is over in game MINUTES, the types of available games are uninspired, usually, and often if you have three or more squads the game will plop hostile groups down so close to one another that as soon as you move it's a flurry of firepower and one or both squads are all dead. Stuff like that.

Some of this is going to be fixed in the forthcoming patch I'm told. Still, the game IS suited to multiplayer--just not the multiplayer game MicroForte is giving us. This game cries out for multiplayer co-op play, where you go through either the main campaign or a series of MP missions with live humans as your team mates. That would be great. Also, if they had just spent more time refining the mission types they do have, with placement areas and team selection geared to insure balance and fun, the existing system could work.

Why not create a set of scenarios where you have from two to six unique sides (BOS, Ghoul, Mutie, etc.) with a pool of 20 or so characters for each side, all custom crafted by the designers. That way, you could insure balance a lot more surely. As it is, they seem to have tried to give you a little RPG-ish flavor by having your custom characters get experience or whatnot, but as you can cheat to your heart's content by playing bogus games that's ludicrous anyhow. Might as well have canned that and just gone wit all pregens, sorted by side for balance.


In terms of linear missions and AI, the AI on Normal at least is generally doltish. Many times you can see an enemy, and he (presumably) can see you, as actual sight as opposed to targeting is not dependent on Perception I don't think, but the enemy doesn't react to your movements. As long as you don't trigger the enemy's "shoot at this % to hit" response, you can marshal the USMC on their doorstep without interference. And once battle is engaged, it's pathetically easy to lure the bad guys into "I can hit them but they can't hit me" fights until their ammo is gone, and they rush you and die impaled on your gatling laser. Of course, you might not want to do this if they have .50 cal ammo you want to steal .

"by having your custom characters get experience or whatnot"

Well, I think that's a cool element that was one of the reasons I wanted to try multiplayer to begin with. Mind you, we've got a stable group of guys around the office, so cheating wouldn't be an issue.

"the AI on Normal at least is generally doltish"

And that's my biggest problem with the game, really. All the discussions I have seen have lamented how slow TB is and how there are no tactics in CTB.

Well, as a TB player (who doesn't find the missions that slow), I can tell you that there are very few tactics in TB.

Blaming it all on the AI is too much, since the wimpy weapon effects and lack of meaningful actions the player can take all combine to make combat a fairly blah experience.

I have dealt with all combat in the following way:

Spot enemy. Move snipers (Farsight, Rebecca) until they can see the enemy. Snipers fire two shots per turn. All four others advance all APs, saving only enough to fire once. If possible, we concentrate fire on a single enemy until he goes down, etc.

The enemies fall like wheat before me. Terrain, setting, and their weapons have little effect on this. I even keep a dedicated melee specialist for the fun of it. I spend all my tactical energy making sure that nobody gets caught in a friendly burst.

I can't imagine doing anything else, since this works so well. Often I dispose of encounters before anyone gets seriously wounded enough to waste First Aid time on them.

Is anyone else playing TB and having a similar experience?

KP

Having your multiplayer character(s) gain experience sounds good, but only if you play, as you seem to Kevin, in a closed group where you guys will in effect form an ongoing multiplayer "campaign" of battles. In the wide world of GameSpy Arcade games, though, it's fairly useless, when most folks simply create monster chararcters/squads and beat the crap out of each other. How much fun can that be? Not much, in my book.


If I did have a group of folks to play with, that might be fun. But then, we'd all probably play AOE II or CounterStrike instead .

I received my copy from CompuExpert. Shouldn't there be some rule that a game with such a freakin' bulky box have a thick manual that justifies the bulkiness? :)