It seems to have sped up... guess I was being massively(and covertly, doesn't show up in taskmanager or resourcemanager) update spammed.
I boot in 10-15 seconds. I cannot imagine what it would take to require 60 times that long to boot... XP was quicker, but Seven has advantages nonetheless. Gaming is what forced me to upgrade. Otherwise I would still be using XP. *Edit* If you remember to do the updates manually, disabling the automatic update nonsense will be a very good idea. The only problem I know of with Seven is that over time more and more explorer.exe processes will start. I startup, and after the initial initialization and all the stuff steadies out and extra processes close, I have ~50 processes. If I play around with things and keep the system on for several days it is closer to ~70. And all the extras are explorer. I can kill them one at a time and then start one singular explorer process and everything will work fine, but I usually just reboot every few days. (After applying updates.)
It just requires more memory and processing power. It happens with pretty much every "major" OS upgrade. It boots as fast as XP for me, but then again I do have an adequate computer unit so it would be sad if it didn't. It isn't a universal problem, Omni. I restart my laptop (it's just on standby when I'm not using it) every four~five weeks or so (when I notice the "updates pending" icon) and I've yet to see more than just one instance of this process.
Actually, I like Win 7 better than XP -- I admit that not everything that was changed was an improvement, particularly, but not exclusively, as far as the UI is concerned (nearly ever damn version of MS's OS since DOS has removed some functionality or another that I actually used, sometimes forcing me to purchase some 3rd party software). That said, Win 7 (for me) boots faster than XP ever did. I never, personally, did any benchmarks to see how stuff ran under Win 7, but I never actually noticed any slowdowns vs. XP. So it may just be your old hardware that is at fault. Win 7, at least for me, was one of the best OS upgrades that MS has done, at least since DOS 5 or 3.1.
Despite my whining above, I also think Seven is the best they have made so far. It is the only OS I ever installed that I have never noticed a problem with. But that is mostly because it is Vista SP5 in reality. We are far off topic here though. Xcom has some major problems. In the original you could build multiple bases. In this I do not think you can. The camera is sometimes all but impossible to control, and the controls scream "Console Port" to me... I noticed that some missions the camera would move above or below my soldiers each and every time I finished one's turn and switched to the next. This was a major headache. Equipment for your soldiers has been dumbed down to sheer uselessness. You cannot have more than a weapon, sidearm, armor, and any one side-item like medkits, grenades, and scopes. The Drones you build suck for most purposes, and I stopped using them altogether after getting one stuck on a piece of terrain. (It was flying, and got caught on the "Assault on the Alien Base" mission.) I have also had them get oddly changed after a mission, where the image would not show when looking at it in the barracks. When that Hover SHIV was taken on a mission, it locked up once I tried to move it. I had to hard quit the game to recover. Altogether, the game is pretty, but I prefer the original by far. *Edit* Oh, one more. There is zero benefit to *Ever* capturing more than one of any particular type of alien alive. Kill all commanders once you capture one of that type. Lame.
XCom does have problems, but I don't agree that they are major. They can be annoying, though. The camera issue does exist, as you say, but it is very easy to deal with -- click on the left symbol under the name of your selected soldier, and the camera will snap to that soldier. You CAN have more equipment than you list, but only for your support class. I find it more annoying that if, for example, the guy with your medikit or arc thingy dies, that another soldier cannot pick it up. And that has to be a consideration when you start equipping your soldier (Since I have a shortage of support and assault soldiers in my current game, I tend to give my rookies medikits and my heavys arc thingies (I can't recall their exact name lol). Note that I find that medikits are more valuable than grenades. Well, more valuable than almost anything, actually. So because of the issues we both mentioned, when in doubt, I distribute either a medikit or extra armor. OCCASIONALLY I will give a soldier an alien grenade, but mostly if I end up having to field like 3 heavies. The Shivs (drones) are not totally useless, but they are certainly no substitute for an experienced soldier. I've never yet had one get stuck, though. I do have a couple of complaints of my own though that you haven't mentioned: 1. While you CAN rotate the camera view (and it's easier to figure out how, now that they've added controls for it to the UI), you can't rotate it freely -- there are only 4 positions. So what ends up happening is that you sometimes can't get it exactly how you'd want it, so that you can actually see where you are trying to move your soldier -- and clicking on that position can easily make your soldier move to the wrong location. 2, Probably for the same reason as 1, or it could be a bug -- I'll THINK I'll be moving my soldier to a position to shoot, but then the aliens get a chance to move -- although in some cases, I'll be able to make the second half of my soldier's turn, more often it feels like I've lost part of that turn. 3. I would love for there to have been some kind of roster on the screen for during your movement phase, so that i can keep track of who has and hasn't moved yet, etc. 4. I would have loved to have had even a PDF manual for the game, since it sometimes is difficult to figure out some of the hotkeys for the game, or some of the details of how things work (trial and error is not necessariliy a bad thing, but not for a game that is so unforgiving of mistakes. Also, for at least the basics, there should be a manual. Best example was my problem that I described in my previous post regarding how to build satellites. Despite all of that, I really am having fun with the game. Some of what you mentioned really just implies that you need to adjust your tactics. But some are true bugs, and hopefully will be fixed. Oh, and your drones can get additional features with the proper research and/or foundry projects. I haven't played far enough to see just how good they can get, but mine have extra armor, and can use suppressing fire. I still would rather have an experienced assault person. But they are better than rookies. On the other hand, if I send a rookie, there's a chance I'll get another support or assault guy in the bargain.
I think they could vastly improve the game i n several ways like having an option to click to set a move, then clicking elsewhere/a confirmation to move to that exact space. Several times I lost a soldier because I moved them one lousy square off from cover that they needed. Shivs are nice. But the bulk of the appeal is that they are disposable. Sometimes I will have a soldier getting in a bad situation and will move a Shiv in closer to the enemy to be a target for them to focus on in the hope that they shoot it instead. Another bug/problem is that the blue movement range is not available while flying. So You cannot easily see how far you can move and still fire. That makes flying second to worthless. Yet another thing I view as a bug is that the text about plasma weapon research indicates that your soldiers can recover and use those weapons dropped by enemies "In the Field", but that is a blatant lie. You absolutely cannot. You can recover the weapons to equip for the *NEXT* mission though. But that is not what the research text said. You have to make all your advanced ships in the one and only base you have, then ship them out to the other launch locations you have, then equip whatever weapons you want it to use. That adds 48 hours time before you can use the ship. You cannot get rid of obsolete equipment, nor make new recruits default to the best equipment. You have to manually equip everyone save the Shivs. All in all, I have played games far worse. But I expected better than this.
I like what was done with the battlescape. The cover mechanic and the ammo changes made the game more interesting. I also liked how psionic attacks were rebalanced; in the old xcom, they were terrifyingly overpowered until you got the capability yourself, then the game became a cakewalk. However, I don't like that the player can't control what specialization that rookies levelup towards. Another thing I don't like are the changes that were made to the geoscape portion of the game. They really simplified the resource management simulation. The old version had a much better feel that you were managing a mysterious global syndicate. Sometimes the game would throw giant ufos at you that you had no way to deal with except by throwing 4 interceptors at a single ufo and losing some or nearly all of your aircraft. The new geoscape feels simplified, and in the process, some of the depth of the gameplay was lost.
Hahaha. Haha. Ha. Hahahaha. *Snort* Ha. First DLC is out. Pre-order DLC for £3.69/$5(?). I really should have seen that coming based on what 2K/Firaxis did to Civ V.
It looks like it's free right now for XBox and PS3. Where did you see that price for it? Ack, nm. I just saw the link on Steam for the PC download ($4.99 U.S.). I have a feeling that the video I saw was out of context.
Finally got a copy of it, as 2K are - literally - throwing codes out everywhere now with BioShock Infinite pre-orders. I bought the cosmetic DLC (derp), but it's going to be a long time until it finishes downloading. But yay, free XCOM!
