https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_quit_in_2017/post133

Is Fallout Tactics really supposed to be that hard, constantly getting one-hit killed with enemies even when wearing Advanced Power Armor, enemies doing much more damage than you with similar (or even worse) weapons etc.? Is this due to the mod, or is the vanilla game similar? Savescumming is the only way to survive?

I played also Fallout 1-2 in the hardest difficulty and I don't recall having similar issues, near the end I got so powerful that I could kill even Enclave soldiers quite nicely. In Fallout Tactics, I keep struggling all the way.

A couple more questions generally:

- Is a melee/unarmed fighter (in your party) a viable option at all? I have hard time understanding how a melee fighter could even get near the enemy before dying, when the enemies can kill your party members with one or few shots, when wearing the best armor. My party members have high Sneak skill too but many enemies still detect them easily, so getting behind enemies' backs undetected isn't usually a viable option either.

- I am playing the game in turn-based mode (individual), yet all the Youtube gameplay videos I see are played in real-time mode where the party just runs around shooting everything around them. Are all those videos recorded playing in the easiest difficulty level, as I have hard time understanding how I could survive even one second in realtime mode, when careful combat in turn-based mode (where I get to try sharpshooting enemies at their eyes or limbs) already is very hard?

- In turn-based mode, whenever I pop my head out of cover during combat, some enemy will instantly fire at me. Why don't my party members act similarly, ie. as soon as an enemy pops out, they'd instantly fire at it (providing they have enough action points)? The only way I seem to achieve that is to exit the combat mode so that the game runs in realtime and set party members to aggressive mode, only then they will instantly fire at enemies which pop out (but then the game switches back to turn-based mode).

Somehow it would seem more logical that even in turn-based mode, my soldiers would have the option to fire at will at enemies who pop out, but I can't figure out a way to do that (in turn-based mode). Why are they just standing like idiots there, even with full action points?

Thanks for input. Yeah I also sometimes do the trick you mentioned with realtime, ie. get my soldiers near an enemy sneaking, then let them all fire at him at once, hoping that is enough to kill or incapacitate him before he is able to retaliate. But e.g. many robots seem to have very good detection capabilities, e.g. my main character has the sneak skill at 130%, and he gets constantly detected (even without armor which would lower his sneak skill) if he goes anywhere near the robots.

The main problem with the "pop in/pop out" in turn-based mode is that enemy can raise from a crouched position, fire at my party, and then crouch back before I have a chance to shoot back. I haven't found a way how do the same, I usually get instantly fired at by enemies if I pop my head out (I think usually even before I can fire myself).

The only way I can catch those "pop in/pop out" enemies is to switch to realtime mode so that my enemies will fire instantly when they see the enemy (and not wait for their turn, after the enemy has again taken cover). Generally I also prefer ranged combat, but I think it was Sulik (in Fallout 2) that was great addition as a melee fighter. He would run at enemies and hit them around the combat area with his mighty sledgehammer. Maybe not a good idea against Enclave soldiers at first, but generally he showed how well melee fighting can work.

In Fallout Tactics (at least with the Redux mod), sniping doesn't work too well against robots at least. The powerful MX14 sniper rifle with regular 14mm ammo will usually do only few points of damage per shot to robots (14mm DU ammo does more damage due to better penetration, but it is very expensive and VERY heavy to carry around), and even the Gauss rifle seems to be nerfed from the earlier Fallout games (it doesn't have the penetration power anymore, so it also does only minor damage to robots).

The only ways to do major damage to robots, which you will be mostly fighting in the later missions anyway, is either energy weapons or rocket launchers (maybe also some other heavy burst weapons, I haven't used them much). Both have considerably shorter range than sniper rifles or the Gauss rifle, though.

Note: it may be the Redux mod has changed many of these. It mentions that it changes many weapons in the game, e.g. reading some walkthrough on some missions i should have found some powerful miniguns (even laser miniguns) already, but in this modded version I didn't find them, so maybe the mod author removed them. I mainly need to use either Plasma Rifles or rocker launchers (with explosive rockets), and for very long range fighting, MX14 sniper rifles or the Gauss rifle (but as said, they do only minor damage to robots, but sometimes that is enough as long as the robots can't get close to me).

Also, according to the walkthrough by now I should be able to buy Pulse Rifles (after returning the prototype Pulse rifle after one mission), but so far the Quarter Master is selling only one measly Pulse Gun, so I have to keep using my Plasma Rifles. Pulse Rifiles should be able to deal even more energy damage than Plasma Rifles, hence I was looking forward to acquire some.


I guess my main irritation with Fallout Tactics now is that even though I am already at high levels, high HP, have the best armor in the game etc... still enemies can constantly kill my characters in one round, sometimes even with one hit. One rocket from a super mutant can deal over 300 points of damage (when my characters have much less than 200 hitpoints), and robots with Plasma Rifiles can also deal sometimes over hundred points of damage, meaning that two shots from them in one round is able to kill any of my party members.

I was hoping this game to be more like RPG for its combat, ie. I will later in the game really become so considerably powerful that I don't constantly have to fear of dying, except with maybe bosses. But no, I keep struggling all the way, no matter how good my characters and equipment are.

Originally FT is not that hard. The Redux mod made all kinds of change so it feel harder than the vanilla. You simply have to adapt to its style. You can play FT vanilla to see for yourself. FT is actually a pretty enjoyable game, successor to Jagged Alliance 2. After FT we can change to Silent Storm for this genre of game

To answer your questions:

1. Make use of drugs. Redux mod seem to be made to counter many powerful tactic including drugs so you must use chemicals to have a chance. Learn your chems and how to use it.

2. Melee and Unarmed? It need high AP and high resistance to survive getting to striking range. See chems above. Also learn your perk and choose correctly.

3. YT gameplay video is not a good method to learn tactics. Who know what difficulty they use, and what kind of mod they run in the background?

4. Real time is an enjoyable method to play once you learn the tricks AND the equipment to survive fighting that way. It's not easy at all for hard and impossible difficulty (duh~)

5. Sentry mechanism is having some parts quite hard to figure it out. Ideally, once enemy enter range and %hit ration specified, our mercs would get up and shoot. but there's other factors at play that sometimes they slow, stagger, or not react at all. We also dont know what changes Redux introduce that affect sentry mechanism. So you just have to learn to adapt it.

6. I am thinking the Sequence mechanism may have bigger influence than it had in F1/2. Higher sequence mean faster react, early chance to react in a turn. My drugged to eyeball vanguard shooter rarely slower to react than enemy.