Maidens of the Kaleidoscope
~Beyond the Border~ => Akyu's Arcade => Topic started by: Kiro on March 03, 2015, 03:38:28 AM
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Hello everyone, Want to see a slightly informed yet still pretty new player tackle the latest iteration of X-COM Long War with no savescumming? Well, you've come to the right Commander.
My stream is at http://www.twitch.tv/kirowind
X-COM Long War beta 15 was released today and I think I will give it a legitimate go. What this means is no savescumming meaning if I make a mistake or RNG doesn't go my way, I do not reload to a previous save to try to make things right. What happens is permanent. I may reload if a major bug occurs, but considering my relative lack of knowledge of Long War mechanics, I may not even recognize a play bug if I see it. What's the extent of my X-COM knowledge? Well, completion of X-COM EU and EW on Classic difficulty and a brief foray into beta 14 up to September 2015 (I hadn't even gotten MECs done yet). And I've spent some time browsing the X-COM subreddit and have gained insight to how other people play and for some reason, it killed my interest in completing my current run.
So, how can you participate? Well, if you want to become a soldier in my campaign, feel free to post and say so. I will use any nickname you want me to give you, otherwise, I will stick with your forum name. You can also give me a first and last name to use and I will rename it, otherwise I will stick to the default names. Also, if you want a particular class, you can call it out and I will name the next of that class as you, otherwise, it will go to the soldier I need that earns a nickname (based on Commander's Choice mod). May you achieve everlasting glory in the fight to save humanity.
I don't know what kind of a schedule I can keep, but for now, let's do 8 PM (GMT-8) for the next few nights. Meaning I start in under half an hour. I will update this thread with interesting screenshots and summaries as I progress through my campaign. Preemptive thank you for your support.
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I can't imagine not save scumming it for at least the aerial combat portions. Even the weakest of enemy ufo's can shoot down two interceptors and stay flying if you aren't lucky...as in, you don't even need horrible luck, just SLIGHTLY bad luck and you'll be going thru interceptors like hell.
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I can't imagine not save scumming it for at least the aerial combat portions. Even the weakest of enemy ufo's can shoot down two interceptors and stay flying if you aren't lucky...as in, you don't even need horrible luck, just SLIGHTLY bad luck and you'll be going thru interceptors like hell.
Yeah, I realize that the airgame is very RNG-ish and almost completely out of my control. Regardless, I don't think any viewers want to see the player reloading an interceptor fight 20 times just to get something shot down. Since I plan to run the Dynamic War option, the campaign will be shorter so I can get to the later parts sooner and realize if/when I need to abandon the campaign sooner without investing too much time into the early months.
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Sign me up for X-COM!
I'd actually like to have a SHIV named after me, if you plan to use them.
For those not familiar with Long War classes, if you want to pick one that suits you:
Assault: murder aliums with shotguns at point blank!
Infantry: start shooting and don't stop until all aliums are dead!
Rocketeer: blow up half a dozen aliums with your rocket launcher in one turn! or miss and kill your team!
Gunner: shoot aliums so hard they can't shoot back!
Sniper: shoots aliums from across the map!
Scout: distract aliums so your friends can kill them dead!
Engineer: blow aliums up with grenades!
Medic: doesn't shoot aliums, boring.
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Yep, totally in! Scout, please, and not gonna force you to play in any particular way, but if my Scout ever goes on a mission without a marksman rifle/strike rifle-type gun, necks shall be snapped. - v-
Also doing a fresh LW b15 run on Dynamic War myself. First month was actually rather easy (probably just the lower frequency of missions speaking), but somehow after making the first 2 Specialist rookies I got Scouts, I'm getting no snipers. ; v;
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So after 3 hours of streaming, 4 missions complete. No flawless mission as of yet, but not too bad overall with the exception of:
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The 3rd drone in the pod was inside the building and had enough of a move to fly over the dumpster and flank crit my guy for 5 HP. Sadness.
Sectoid autopsy almost done (due to US "We Have Ways" bonus) and a Satellite Uplink is going up without enough money for the 2nd satellite because I don't have enough scientists to get a 2nd Laboratory going. My first Corporal is a female Gunner so anyone who is interested can start calling for nicknames, otherwise, I will leave them as default. There isn't too much interesting going on in today's VOD, so hopefully the next missions will see some screenshot worthy action.
Any comments on my casting or whatever is appreciated. And no, I don't have a webcam set up.
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Sniper. I liie doing it sneakily. Should look into this Long War business!
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Hey Kiro! Best of luck with your XCOM Run! You'll be the first to do a B15 run between the two of us, and i'll come support your stream the best i can.
I simply cant handle it right now, I had a run from B13-B14 that i was hyped to stream again as the long runner it was, but it was too bull shit that every patch literally nuked my strategy- up and to literally killing the Amercia and Africa bonus at the same time (Only thing keeping me afloat), soooo im going to wait until a patch comes out, and we can figure out the .INI stuff so that getting shot across the nose in the sky doesn't make you wait two goddamn weeks. :V
But... Yeah. Airgame in Long War is such Tosh, that i reserved the right to scum it as i deemed fit- or otherwise reload to save my Interceptor. I also put on Cinematic mode- Simply because FUUUUUUUUUCK the Airgame. The only reason I lose 80% of my long wars is my shitty luck- combined with the fact that i dont rush air game, so i get utterly raped. Thank god B15 put a cap to them, so EVENTUALLY, you can equal out and win.
If you could- Ianaandru Meredith; Infantry Psionic. Will High, Aim doesn't need to be so great.
http://i.gyazo.com/32ed18e8733aea3a23c2c363d6505cc4.png
http://i.gyazo.com/73d5195abfad7753dd196dd3b4a6f014.png (I'll take Tactical Sense over Lock and Load- Honestly. As said, Long Runner Campaign. XD)
If you want some tips man-
1. Rocketeers are garbage. Sadly so- Sure, its earlier access to heat warheads, but you CANNOT reliably get them to hit what you want. So unless you need a shredder REALLY badly, only keep like... one or two around. HOWEVER, If you like MEC's and plan to use them regularly- Rocketeers make WONDERFUL MEC's. They're called Archers. They fling grenades half way across the map. Base. :V
1.5. Though, speaking of Shredder... Its REALLLLYYYYY good. As in, you want it. Assaults can eventually get a box of shredder ammo, and Gunners can take Shredder ammo over HEAT Ammo (A debatibly hard choice, believe it or not.). I think Valk MECS can pick it up as a perk too, but just keep your mind open, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
2.FILL UP YOUR OFFICER BALLOTS. Every guy with stay frosty is one more day you dont have to wait for your badasses to get back into the fray- and it starts building up your Officer roster. Their 'Extra' class fills up on missions achieved- so the more missions you can feed into officer cabinet, the better. For who you SHOULD pick to be an officer, your medics and snipers work wonderfully for this role- depending on what bonuses you want. You can also OCCASIONALLY feed a high will solider into roster, simply to jack up the will of others, but you want to save those guys for Psionics. Low Will on the other hand, should be saved for MEC conversion.
3.Capture EVERYTHING you can. Bring a Sacrificial monkey every round- and load him up with Arc Throwers. I cannot state how important it is to get your Autopsies and Interrogations done early on. The Council Pays THROUGH THE NOSE for live aliens, and getting Plasma Cores early means you can sell them off in emergency situations when your strapped for cash- Or have a nice little stockpile for when you have to build weapons out of them; You cant make them raw anymore. :V
4. SCIENTISTS OVER ENGINEERS. I learned this one the hard way- but its FAR more important to get your research done (Especially when Labs got gimped hard) then to efficiently make it. Once the enemy starts snow balling, they will snow ball to ridiculous degrees; and you will need power armor sooner then you think if you want soldiers to not eat it when they get sneezed on.
5. TACTICS- Your early goal should be a heavy offense. This is the early game your still in. You are still in a position that the enemies havent leapt miles and bounds ahead of you. Your Assault Rifles will do the trick, and WILL mess up some aliens if you get a flank on them. Bring grenades to blow up their cover- make sure your shooters are as accurate as they can be (give them Scopes), and just keep pushing them back. However, this DOESNT mean go activate every pod you see on the map; it simply means you dont have to set up Overwatch Kill Halls and hope they run into it because you need 80+ shots to kill the 50+ HP unit. This simply means that strong shows of force will get you through the day with Minimal casualties.
HOWEVER, once the Aliens start getting ridiculous, Switch immediately to survival and defensive tactics. Take your time- Missions can start to take upwards of 50 turns now; simply because you KNOW the second you have one man move out of position and you'll call down the fucking thunder on your ass. Move each unit for one, then Mass Overwatch with EVERYONE (Y Key for a shortcut there). Unless you have a Sniper, then have him focus his aim, because he NEEDS to fucking hit whatever nasty ass buffer or commander unit they've got, or else your all dead.
6. UNIT COMP! I wouldn't run into battle without TRYING to get a Medic, Officer and Scout out there. Medics are simply too important for long war- and should never carry anything that isn't a medkit. If you want to get revive, you can train a line of Gene Soldiers with second heart to work with this guy- Or just have him train up Future MEC Candidates.
Officer for above said reasons.
And Scout because the aliens love Overwatch as much as you do- Give him some good body armor, a chest plating (or the Chameleon Suit when you can get it), and then the second item is up to you. Personally, I ether give him a grenade to set up shots for my other fighters by blowing up cover- or a battle scanner to keep eyes on a battlefield. But this pick is up to you- and you cant really go wrong with most picks. Hell, Give him a medkit even- and have him pull Thin-Men Fire, he'll laugh it up. Hooowwweeeverrrr...
7.B15 Bullshit- The Respiratory collar is... basically mandatory now. why why why... :colonveeplusalpha:
Its too good of an item- and has too much attached to it to pass up on it. Works functionally as both Medkit immunity- A second Heart without Will saving AND without it- you cant see bleed out timers anymore. That solider COULD have 1 turn on his bleed out- and you'll never see it. I guess dont get shot to death- Your item slots will already be raped; and you have NO room for this stupid thing without a tactical rigging... and that could be saved for key item slots, such as more grenades for the Engineer, or More medkits for the Medic. Argh.
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Or you can be a man and never let anyone die, thus negating the need for respiratory collars C|:^ )
I'm gonna argue against Rocketeer being useless though, They start out with Shredder, and it's FREE, FREE! The scatter is compensated by the fact they hit like two HE grenades (or one AP with shredder), and on some open maps (Site Recon council mission, most UFO landings, the gas station, etc.) you can position your Rocketeer where a Sniper would sit, and toss out rockets at max range with no more than 2.0 scatter (if it's the first action of the turn). They're very useful against chryssalids (especially on maps where they tend to end up on different heights when they reveal so your engies can't 'nade all of them at once), and with HEAT nerfed they'll help greatly with dealing with Cyberdisc pods as well.
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I think rockets are slightly more accurate too if you opt to use a carbine over a rifle. But yeah, I find them only situationally useful, particularly because like half the time they would be good you dont want to use em cuz they will blow up valuable goods.
And I didnt notice NA had we have ways.
I do wish they fixed one thing I hate about xcom mod or not, how crysid packs basically guarantee at least one death if you discover them on your move instead of theirs. The damn things ALWAYS conpletely surround the poor schmuck who spots them during that initial discovery move thing, and there is no way to kill em all before their turn. I deal with it by reloading, and "setting up" the perfect spot, but without reloading I just dont see how they are fair at all.
I think they should have some kind of racial penalty where they move less during that initial spot phase or something.
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I'm gonna argue against Rocketeer being useless though
But i said Garbage, not useless D:
But absolutely they have their uses! dont get me wrong! its the Ridiculous scatter that ruins them- Otherwise, They'd be so much better. :derp:
And the Heat nerf hit everyone i thought. Base HEAT damage down to 50%?
I think rockets are slightly more accurate too if you opt to use a carbine over a rifle.
Sadly not. They removed that in B14, given everyone just threw them laser carbines.
I do wish they fixed one thing I hate about xcom mod or not, how crysid packs basically guarantee at least one death if you discover them on your move instead of theirs.
Aint that the truth there? If you dont have Anti-Melee armor- or arent a mec, your FUCKED. :V
The mod just makes them worse, and forces a turn where you HAVE to deal with like... 6 of them, with buff as shit armor, and if you miss, your units die.
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Thanks for all the tips Yugian.
I do like Rocketeers for that raw AOE damage. I did a lot of scumming on my last run because I didn't realize you should be positioning them and then steadying to end the turn to reduce scatter. I'm excited to use them if I can base my team's movements around them, like a Starcraft siege tank. And they're fantastic against Chrysallids of course.
I guess one thing I really need to think about is who should be wearing the lighter high mobility armor and who should be wearing the heavier armor. For instance:
Scouts: I assume they start light and then can go a little heavier armor once they get Sprinter so they can survive the rare times Lightning Reflexes miss.
Assaults: Should they go light so they can get into range better or go heavy because once they are in range, they may have to take some shots?
Infantry: They are sort of frontline because you park them somewhere and they kill or be killed. Light to get to the best cover more easily or Heavy to make sure they can survive?
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Scouts: I assume they start light and then can go a little heavier armor once they get Sprinter so they can survive the rare times Lightning Reflexes miss.
Assaults: Should they go light so they can get into range better or go heavy because once they are in range, they may have to take some shots?
Infantry: They are sort of frontline because you park them somewhere and they kill or be killed. Light to get to the best cover more easily or Heavy to make sure they can survive?
Personally, i slapped EVERYONE with heavy armor, simply because the aliens were doing FAR too much damage to me to justify lighter armor, save a Hook for a spare unit or extra run speed for my capture monkey (the Extra defense helps.)
However, Class-wise...
Scouts- I use heavy, because they WILL eventually get shot. However, I can easily see a case for why light armor can be used- they are skirmishers and should be treated as such (Until they get some monster flanks).
Assaults- Heavy. If they cant kill their target in ONE shot (And the CCS fails to save their ass), they NEED all the HP they can get to not die. Run and Gun is there for a reason- dont take a shot you cant bank on.
Infantry- Heavy. They are your DPS and anything you can do to make the enemy NOT shoot them is good. Plus, they can get Extra Conditioning- This makes them INSANELY healthy with heavy ass Armor.
Engineers - Depends on his role. Light armor if he has Repair (and as thus, can stun 4 times with 2 arc throwers), Heavy if he's serving a combat role.
Medics- HEAVY. If they die, your FUCKED.
Snipers- I use Light- The faster he gets into position, the faster he rapes the field with High Accuracy Death.
Rocketeer- Always light. You want to bring the bang? They need ALL the movement they can get.
Gunner- Heavy, because obvious reasons.
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Hmm, I found I could justify light on everyone who doesn't already have ~15-16 mobility from levelups/Sprinter, at least for early game. With a couple of level ups just about anyone can survive 1 alien shot, but can't survive 2 without heals, so the extra point of HP isn't worth 2 mob imo. If anyone needs more HP still, I still give them tac vest, then a ceramic plating on top of that (or better platings once I research and make them). It's usually worth losing an inventory slot; squadsighters aren't under fire often enough to need armor, Scouts on marksman/strike/arc rifles are accurate enough to get armor instead of SCOPE, medics are intentionally expendable by virtue of me just getting more of them, and engies can abuse line of sight to survive even on tac vest and no armor, since they're better off nading and providing support. The main problem is with assaults, since they need both survivability and mobility to be useful, not to mention being the most likely candidates for carrying the 2-weight arc throwers. Personally I pick fast assaults to just wear plating or armor + empty inventory, and high-HP assaults to wear vests and just the arc thrower. All an assault needs to cause major mayhem are their stats and their shotgun, so no grenade nonsense that slows them down. Might suffer lategame since special ammo becomes important though, though hopefully by then their level ups would have given them some more mobility.
But hey, I'm a dude who lives on the edge, so might not be the best method for you :V
Also am I the only LMG Gunner user around here? ;_; They're basically snipers without snap shot and steady weapon, but has suppression, holo-targeting, HEAT, good overwatch and insane damage. All they need is the lightest armor I have, a SCOPE and a laser sight (or alien trophy if low Will) and they become dakka god.
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geeze I just started playing last week, and they release a new version already that says it suggests a new game? #%@%#. I'm curious about the blurb about terror missions adjusting civilian kills after some aliens are discovered. I had a rather BS terror mission just recently in month 3. By turn 3... 3... I mean the first turn I did nothing but go full out sprint in one direction without finding anything, turn 2 I found a 4 floater pod, and barely got to shoot twice, turn 3 a 4 pack of crysalids came interrupting me...Note by the end of turn 3, I EFFING MIRACULOUSLY managed to kill ALL the aliens I saw, without them killing a single civilian... What was left in the map? just 3 more crysalids, which were another 2 full turns of sprinting away. I killed them in 2 turns since my slower sprinters couldn't reach shooting range on the first... I cannot IMAGINE how I could have POSSIBLY done it faster... and I only saved 5 civilians.. BS.
Also how do you reduce panic? I look at the wiki and it says you reduce it by 2 by saving an abduction, and that it has a *CHANCE* of going down by like 1-5 if your panic is at 90+ IF you have a satellite... that's it... So am I right in saying that you bacially have no reliable means of reducing panic below 90 if it gets that high? Kinda bummed since my US panic went off the charts after that BS panic mission (especially since they were the victims of my previous month's panic mission, which wasn't as bs but I still had 7 civs die).
Anyway I like LMGs too so far, though I suspect I'll switch to their more mobile counterpart later on. The thing about the game I've noticed is that all the weapons seem to increase their damage by 1 per tech tier. So the damage bonus of an LMG and the other one (forgot the name) when damage is 5 or 6 is fairly large...but by tier 5, the difference between 9 or 10 isn't quite as large. However one thing I like about LMGs is their built in squadsight, which lets me treat them kinda like snipers, who can also kick ass if someone decides to stupidly enter close range to them...unlike snipers. Heat is also going to be nice too I reckon, but I thought bumped into any cyberdiscs or whatever yet...speaking of which, I wonder if cyberdisc # is increased yet. I finished xcom vanilla, and EW once each, and both times I only encountered 2 cyberdiscs for the entire game, not including the ones in that final mission where the spawn count is fixed. I'd fight like 20 mechtois though... or were they called sectopods, I forget...the big ones that shoot indirect fire rockets, overwatch, and fire big railguns all during each turn.
I'm not having any luck finding out what the point of marksman rifles are for. I'm not noticing them having any boost to range or accuracy over ordinary rifles, and even with that targeting sensor thing that grants squadsight and stuff, I still am not able to fire at enemies directly in front of me (but at range), that my LMG gunner CAN fire at, WITHOUT any accessories to help with just that.
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@Ghaleon: You don't have to actually save civs in terror missions, just end the mission before they all die. Saving a civ just makes them leave the map so that they can't be killed by aliens later. Panic is only dependent on how many civs the aliens manage to kill.
Panic reduction in Long War mainly comes in many small doses; shooting down UFOs and successfully raiding them reduce some panic I think. Also of note is the fact UFOs cause 2 panic in countries they past if they go a whole trip without getting shot once, so early on you want to only intercept aggressively so you get at least one shot in before they escape. 2 panic isn't much, though, so you can choose to ignore it if too many inters are damaged and you want a couple ready to fight fighters (the medium UFOs that does the flashing thing as it flies around the hologlobe), which usually go after your satellites. So in Long War, instead of granting a big panic reduction on deployment, sats instead "reduce" panic by allowing you to intercept passing UFOs to prevent the 2 panic increase. And UFOs show up fairly often.
I think council missions reduce panic by a fair amount, since I've had countries with panic around 60 go down to like 20-30 in a short amount of time and council missions are the only explanation.
After EXALT starts running mission, if you feel confident in fighting them without crippling your army, let them run their covert operations. Sometimes they max out panic in one country, and leave you enough time before month ends to launch a covert operation and kick their ass for a panic boost. Not sure if this results in net panic reduction, but for the whole duration of the ordeal the maxed panic country can't get any more panic since they're, well, already maxed.
Marksman rifle does have more range than every gun but sniper rifles and LMG (36 range vs 30 range), though it's not very noticeable since obstacles and whatnot block line of sight so soldiers don't get to fire at max range very often. They also grant some crit and 1 more average dmg, so they're basically battle rifles that trade close range accuracy for not getting the nasty -12 hit penalty, and with marksman scope they turn your scouts into more or less snap shot snipers. I find them pretty useful for "safe" flanking manuevers where the scout flanks and shoots enemies while staying outside their vision range so their buddies can't flank the scout back without double moving. They also let your non-snap shot snipers "gain" snap shot in exchange for some crit and loss of infinite range, and they'd still be able to use all their usual sniper perks on a marksman rifle while "snap shotting", pretty useful for missions where you need a sniper but also need them to move often, like EXALT missions.
In my opinion, LMGs aren't a situational weapon choice for gunner, but pretty much divide the Gunner class into separate build path, one that adds survivability and evasion (since taking any damage at all stops their extremely useful suppression) and one completely glass cannon build path. Although SAWs would mean 1 more mov compared to LMG, picking LMG means you can opt the Gunner out of heavy armor and extra plating, resulting in faster Gunners, although their mobility is now limited by the shooting vs moving tradeoff rather than running range. LMGs also get rid of the aim and crit penalties on Suppression shots that SAWs get, so that's another plus. LMG Gunners are what I look to for pure firepower, while SAW Gunners are better as (slow) front line support.
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oh yeah, I rarely bother actually MANUALLY rescuing people. I only do it if they are 'on-the-way' towards me killing the aliens. I mean just listen to my story, I killed 2 fairly dangerous (for month 3) packs of 4 each within 3 turns, where the first turn was just me sprinting out of the deployment zone, and then I had to spend 2 more turns of hard sprinting towards the last pack, where I killed it the turn after Is aw it...there was no time wasted rescuing people there, but I still lost alot.. It was just a freak occurance, but one that made my US panic levels go from like 20 to 90 (wiki says people gain 2 panic per civ killed.. it lies.. lieees).
Likewise I see that it says marksmen rifles shoot 6 further than LMGs, but yeah, I swear.. I had both my scout and gunner sitting side by side on a hill as the rest of my team was exploring the perimeter of a crash site, and my LMG could shoot at 3 different enemies in diff positions, but my scout couldn't shoot 1, even with that weird accessory that grants them squadsight. I even had the little alienhead icons appear on the bottom right of my screen during my scout's turn, but I still coudln't shoot them. I thought that meant that is how many enemies you can fire at during that turn, but apparently not. Maybe there's some weird bug or feature where LMG gains distance with height better? I dunno..cuz they were quite significantly higher than their targets, and on that very same mission I was qqing about, My LMG dude was on the roof of a building with my sniper, and that final pack that was 2.5 turns of sprinting away seemed WAY more than 30 squares away, but he was still able to shoot them down.
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The head-with-crosshairs icons are just targets in your squadsight that you have an unobstructed shot at, but not necessarily in range, I think. LMGs and marksman rifles should have the same range, so no idea why your scout couldn't shoot. Maybe wiki stats are wrong? *shrugs* I've found scouts are still better near the front line despite using what amounts to a mini sniper rifle, so I've never really noticed.
I've no idea what is up with the terror mission you described, though. It sounds like most of the kills would have been from the last chryssalids, but then the map would have been crawling with zombies/baby chryssalids so ??? It's like the civs just died from heart attacks or something. The only explanation for the massive panic spike that I can guess is if you were playing with Dynamic War on then maybe they adjusted panic to make it change faster to compensate for lower frequency of missions or something. I dunno, for panic to spike that much all at once would take like, 3 of the biggest panic-spikers in the mod at the same time (sat crashing, not winning an abduction mission, and/or losing a shitload of civs in terror mission), not counting temporary spikes such as a terror mission starting or EXALT completing a covert operation to induce panic (which the game tells you as soon as it happens).
Also, the country where terror missions happen also suffer from the continental panic it generates, so in reality it's gaining 3 panic/civ death total.
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So, today's session featured no soldier deaths and 2 flawless missions. Also only seeing medium UFOs and while I deterred UFO-2 (got it to at least half HP), it took 3 interceptors to do so sending them all to the shop. Repair times in Dynamic War are 20-35 days, argh! UFO-3 and UFO-4 had to be ignored, 4 leading to an abduction mission in Canada. I am slightly alarmed that a Meld Canister netted me +14 meld. I don't know if there's an adjustment in Dynamic War, but that feels like a crapton of meld for the aliens to be sitting on in mid-April. Raitaki and Morikage are now active and I'm counting on Raitaki to lead us to victory. Because tomorrow, we jump right into Portent.
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Sorry i missed the stream today- I was doing FNAF 3. :ohdear:
Glad to hear im not dead though! :3
14 Meld? I'd be... Worried. VERY worried. Meld is a indirect way of measuring the alien resources. usually, early game- they give 4-6. The fact they've got 14+ to give you means uh... They've got a CRAP TON of resources. It could be Dynamic war- But Thats BAAAAAAAAAD. Pray you can deal with the coming storm- because this is just the calm before it.
Edit- Lol, im South African XD
Edit 2- @Terror Missions
Personally? If its a nation thats about to leave- i dont bother. Otherwise, if i got a lot of PFC's or other lower ranks, I use them as training missions; pure and simple. The spawns being weighted to more terror units give them (Ironically) a better chance to survive, whilst the officer or Heat gunner can deal with the big ass Robot NPC's. Bring Chem Grenades and Flashses to season.
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I don't think it's that alarming, over my end they have 12 in a can and I'm not running into too much trouble (aside from a freaking UFO power source randomly blowing in a raid and sending my best sniper to hospital for 50 days). I think everything just gets more fast-paced in Dynamic War, and trust me you'd need the meld, Dynamic War eats currency resources and corpses pretty fast. Though it probably also means you're gonna get your first terror mission soon, aliens kinda like doing that when they have cash to burn :V Have an engie and an infantry stand by just in case.
Also, interesting detail to note. Pre-b15, when terror mission notification pops up, the victim country immediately gets full panic (probably to warn you that if you don't do it, that country is just gonna leave), but now the game doesn't do that any more. Dunno if Terror missions got tweaked more than what I gleaned from the change logs.
And yeah, as Ghaleon said, Terror mission changes kinda hurt. I think pods you haven't revealed just automatically decrease civ count every turn instead of having to run around looking for civs to kill, on my first turn the civ count immediately dropped by 3 without camera panning, despite the nearest pod being literally next door. This means no tripping over zombies everywhere, but also faster civ deaths when you're not engaged in combat with a revealed pod.
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TL:DR for Session #3 of my campaign: Completed Portent but Raitaki died to my own stupidity.
So I start the mission and say out loud, "I'll probably aggro a pod if I move one tile forward." Lo and behold, 3 Thin Men. I get greedy and set Raitaki in half cover and Steady Weapon so she can fire next turn. She gets shot, and acided. I try to salvage the situation but can't kill the Thin Men. She gets critically wounded and starts to bleed out. I clean up the first group including a much needed Overwatch kill as shown below:
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However, Raitaki bleeds out. Course I aggro a second pod of 3 Thin Men, halfway through a later turn, but that is taken care of with far less tension. By this point, I've probably blown through 2/3s of my grenades in the entire team. There's plenty of hiding and trading fire, but I start to get through the mission. The hostage is picked up and it's a slow steady crawl back along the right side of the map as I try to efficiently pick off arriving Thin Men. The 3 Rockets I had helped a bunch at this juncture. My Gunner intentionally eats an overwatch to ensure the VIP doesn't and takes 4 damage. The VIP gets to the Skyranger and I go back and hunt the remaining 2 aliens. All in all, it took 90 minutes to complete Portent.
[attach=2]
RIP Raitaki. BUT IT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!!! By the end of the stream, I'm reviewing how things go and I was pointed out that I could have stabilized Raitaki (the medic was close enough). The reason I didn't was because I saw the Heal icon was grayed out so I assumed the Medic hadn't learned how to stabilize yet. And I forgot to check for the Stabilize icon which I believe is on the left. I WAS UNAWARE THAT ANYBODY WITH A MEDKIT CAN STABILIZE!!! There is blood on my hands and for that, I am sorry Raitaki.
o7
Zhang's mission is next. 2 Council missions one right after the other. I still don't get to play with my Arc Thrower yet; these missions are way too critical to try captures on.
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Oh, yeah, next time you find a scout for me, I'd prefer they were a guy :V
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So far arc throwers are causing me far more grief than good. And the poor us got a terror mission for a 3rd time and bailed.
Question, can I still ge NA's bonus if I have sats over every portion if they arent supporting xcom? I eant na bad because we have ways and I have like 6 diff autopsies and interrogations to do.
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So far arc throwers are causing me far more grief than good. And the poor us got a terror mission for a 3rd time and bailed.
Question, can I still ge NA's bonus if I have sats over every portion if they arent supporting xcom? I eant na bad because we have ways and I have like 6 diff autopsies and interrogations to do.
Arc Throwers are really bullshit in LW. 45-54% Chance on One HP creatures, and given how much HP everything has... ::)
And no. If a Council has left the country, you cannot get the Cont bonus until they come back into the fold. it sucks, but you know
gotta make you do those base raids somehow. 60+ HP aliens cant bullshit themselves now! :V
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Day 4: Friends in Low Places completed successfully. Lots of various clutch kills from all the soldiers at various times. I almost got Zhang killed when I got him past the end gate and the final Thin Man spawned in the area and overwatched. However, my Scout clutching the last flashbang I had got it off and Zhang scooted off to the evac point.
[attach=1]
Shot down UFO-6 and took my Arc Thrower for a test run. Attempt to capture Sectoid..... SUCCESS! Medic almost died trying to set up the capture by getting fired upon twice in a slightly disadvantageous position and took 5 dmg. Then, I was actually worried I could potentially lose the mission because the 10 HP Outsider literally could not be hit in cover and I had blown both my flashbangs trying to corral the Sectoids for capture earlier. It took about 5 total turns to kill the Outsider, the first 4 being me missing continuous 35% and 20% shots. Finally he moved out into an area I could flank him and he was brought down. And I had my 3rd casualty, another PFC who could not avoid 2 shots while hunkered in half cover.
Sectoid Interrogation already completed meaning I'll need to capture an Outsider eventually. Working on Alien Materials research, then I can finally get all the basic starting research done and get to work on Beam Weapons. With the 3rd satellite online soon, I'll get the NA bonus and will try to push for a more powerful Air Force and have interceptors ready for the next continent I want to take which will probably be Asia.
The next mission takes place in what I would imagine to be Long Beach, CA as it's an alien abduction in a waterfront map. The mission will see my first Officer lead the way to hopefully reduce fatigue timers for everyone else.
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Ow. 24 Days. What did they drop me to, 2 HP? :derp:
Still, G'work! The first capture!
That might make you a plasma pistol down the road! :3
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70 days?! what the goodness!?
even when my troops get ko'd and I have to stabalize them their downtime is only like 45-50..and I'm *NOT* using the shorter war 2nd wave option.
I still have yet to finish interrogating my first sectoid, and I'm in month 3... or is it 4 now? I don't know if I'm progressing slow or something, but I don't feel like it. I mean meld canisters only give me 5-7. none of this 17 or whatever you said. I mean I did put off getting the arc thrower until AFTER I got lazor guns (I wanted the accuracy on top of damage so bad, good thing I got it too because assault rifles hit enemies for 0 sometimes now).
I did capture an outsider already some time ago though. Actually it was the very first thing I managed to snag, was kinda easy since it spawns in a pod all by itself (well in most ufo's. there was that one that spawned 3, and a giant one with 20 hp instead of 10) instead of a pod of 4 or whatever.
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Injuries actually last longer on Dynamic War, so I guess 70 days is possible if the soldier gets critically wounded or something. Ian's 24 days is prolly just him losing like half his HP or something :V
Capping Outsiders is pretty scary for me. They're "easy" to lockdown since they're alone, yes, but if the arc thrower misses the arc thrower person is kind of fucked since Outsiders kind of have insane aim for the early game and might still very well kill them while suppressed and flashbanged on 1 HP in red fog mode >_>
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Ow. 24 Days. What did they drop me to, 2 HP? :derp:
A Thin Man acided my Gunner and you were just on the edge of it but clearly not in it. You fired at something, missing your shot and not getting acided. Then you fired again, hit your target and got acided. I said screw it at that point since you'd have an injury timer and reloaded and you fired shots later so you took about 3 dmg that mission.
70 days?! what the goodness!?
Like Raitaki said, it's just a consequence of missions being more spread out so that the 70 days goes by much quicker on Dynamic War. It's early May and I haven't even seen my first Terror mission yet. No Exalt introduction yet either.
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I think in Dynamic War missions are RNG-based instead of following a semi-pattern, so there's no guarantee of X terror missions per month, and EXALT might not have a set time window where they show up. Don't remember when they showed up in my run, but it was after I successfully raided my first Medium UFO, so maybe they pop up when the game deems you've gone far enough?
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Yikes, needed the damage that badly against a thin man? Well, Desperate times call for desperate measures. :V
My recommendation in the future is to just bunker them down. The Acid debuff to aim isn't worth taking shots (Unless they are a REALLLLLLY good shot) and their twinked out Defense and DR from the bunker down will reliably ensure aliums dont want to pop their head off- given there's easier targets. If you have a medic handy, this is where he shines.
DONT feel bad about using a medkit on an acided unit if you have to. The medic wont get damaged by nature of partial acid immunity, and getting that latchkey unit (Say the gunner) back into the fight instead of waiting 3~5 turns for him to shake it off himself can be the difference between victory and death.
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Have to watch and check this out when I get time, but feel free to use and abuse my name Kiro.
The replacability and interchangability of Bob is strong.
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Yokai-jesus damnit. The game just burned me... I was in the middle of that slingshot battleship mission at the end of a month and evidently, there's a bug where you don't get paid, or researchers, or engineeers at the end of the month like you're supposed to... So I just lost my month in pay, and more importantly (atm I really really need more effing researchers and engineers), workers. I'm considering looking for a cheat program to fix that issue.
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Yokai-jesus damnit. The game just burned me... I was in the middle of that slingshot battleship mission at the end of a month and evidently, there's a bug where you don't get paid, or researchers, or engineeers at the end of the month like you're supposed to... So I just lost my month in pay, and more importantly (atm I really really need more effing researchers and engineers), workers. I'm considering looking for a cheat program to fix that issue.
There is a reason i reserve the right to scum and otherwise change fate when i was streaming.
such as denying a key unit moves, or else the game crashes. or 3 interceptor die manuever :3
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oh yeah I'm save-scumming like hell (mostly just during interceptor battles, but I do it in battle sometimes too when it's a run ahead only to spot a pack of crysalids who proceed to surround my guy on my own turn and I'm left with like 2 people left to somehow kill all 4 and not kill the dude they have surrounded)), not trying to do a no-load run or anything.
But I didn't really notice that it skipped my end-month pay until a few minutes AFTER the fact, and I didn't particularly feel like rea-fighting the entire battleship stage all over again. It surprisingly wasn't that hard (the very first mission where I get zhang was a bish though, I swear, like 14 thin men would ambush me after the first frakin' turn...speaking of thin men, they are still the most painful thing to fight for me, mutons are pussycats compared to them, I think the aliens 'spent' their resources or upgrades on thin men exclusively or something)...Anyway, it surprisingly wasn't that hard but it sure took a longass time
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mutons are pussycats compared to them, I think the aliens 'spent' their resources or upgrades on thin men exclusively or something)...
Actually yes. This is a thing. The Aliens will purchase better upgrades for their units as they work towards new units. Research and Resources are separate, after all. Not only that, but Thin Men are Tactical units with fucking annoying Aim. A Muton is a standard grunt with lots of fire power- When they hit, it HUUUUUUURTS. A Thin man on the other hand, will set up his shot (or not), and just hit you because fuck you. Upgrading the stupidity just makes them more stupid :V
When i see 6~8 Mutons roll up, i sqwee a bit inside. because thats manageable.
When i see any number of Thin Men?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTJwhS0-Y7U
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thin-men 1shot my guys often enough anyway, so mutons doing more damage is pretty moot. I still am using starter armor so 7hp is like the beefiest my dudes get. I normally get carapace armor asap in vanilla, but now, looking at the wiki, the next armor upgrade only adds like 1 more hp or something IIRC, so it wasn't really apriority to me. Currently I'm researching the thing that will let me analyze my outsider crystal so I can raid their base and take back the US+Mexico (mexico was insta-captured by the first week as I believe the mod randomly chooses to do no matter what, and US get nailed by 3 terror missions one after the other after the other and... yeah).
I put off researching that until now because I wanted lazors asap for the accuracy + damage boost, which is a godsend, and seeker autopsy cuz I want that nifty ship dodge passive thing.
thinking about it though, my beefy dudes STARTED with 7 hp, I guess I'm getting ripped off on the hp upon level up random thing cuz 7 is still my highest even though most of my dudes are sergeants or tech sergeants. Aim seems to be good though. Before I only had lik ea 45% chance of hitting a guy with no cover at all a screen away, now I have like a 60% (on average) to do so against enemies behind partial cover. My will also seems to be growing nicely. My dudes rarely panic now, even under psi panic attacks, before if one guy went critical half my team would start wetting their pants.
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Stream starting up again this week. 8 PM PST (GMT-7 due to Daylight Savings). Monday through Thursday at least.
As far as HP on soldiers go, I saw something on Reddit that considers an England start to be really good because one of the possible bonuses when you can satellite elsewhere in Europe is +1 HP on your Infantry or Gunners. That seems pretty sick. Can't find the comment right now. I never played with +1 HP items in slots, but there might be some merit to it early game as it can make all the difference.
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I thought Australia was the best one, Meta-wise. +5 to stats to everyone? Its random sure, but It can go into all stats.
Could just be the Public opinion changing up.
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I'm playing beta 14 so bleh.
looking at the wiki, I think you're misreading australia's bonus. It's not +5 to all stats, it's +5 points randomly spent on each of the stats.. so like.. +2 aim, +1 will, +2 dodge, and on another solider it might be +5 will, etc.
+1 hp seems like it's pretty outrageously good IMO. Though we have ways light also looks like a strong choice, plus US is like the most profitable country in the game for monthly salary, so that's a nice bonus too, particularly on harder difficulties where no sat is less profit. I mean in vanilla xcom we have ways seems pretty useless, but in my limited experinece in long war so far, man I wish I had it cuz research is so damn slow, plus you get the credits after too, egads.
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Argh, today's stream of missions was a blur of despair. The following shows it all:
[attach=1]
I shot down a Scout over Canada, but was stretched thin and took 4 soldiers and 2 rookies. Assault moves to a small island with half cover and we activate a pod with 2 Floaters and 2 Mutons. I'm still sporting basic ballistics and armor and the Mutons have 8 and 10 HP. I try to take up positions and my rookie Lindstrom actually gets a flank kill on the first Floater. My Officer Assault actually gets crit wounded and goes unconscious. Lindstrom also slays the second Floater with an amazing 7 crit, but is immediately killed after by a Muton while in half cover. RIP PFC Lindstrom.
The 2 Mutons run away and we stabilize the Assault. We edge forward and come across a Meld canister, of course it dissipates on the turn I actually can get to it. So... I get greedy and reload the save because I realized after that I could have actually Run and Gunned to get the Meld cannister. When I replay my turn to do this, somehow the pathing of my Assault actually activates the Outsider in the UFO. I try to play it out, but with the Outsider, the 2 Mutons returning and a pod of 3 Seekers and a Drone... it ends extremely poorly. So I say screw it and go back to my original run and take the loss of Meld. Now, knowing what I have to deal with, I try to pull back to better positions and activate the Outsider. My second rookie is killed and my Rocketeer's rockets don't kill the Seekers due to damage reductions. So I decide to abort. Amazingly, none of my remaining soldiers die even after my Rocketeer panics after being shot.
After the mission, I proceed to do Geoscape stuff and my 3rd satellite comes online and I launch it over Mexico to get the continent bonus. Then I immediately regret it because I realized I had a pending satellite request for China that would give me 2 engineers. And since I wanted to expand to Asia next, I decide to take a calculated risk and reload from the Geoscape to prep the 3rd satellite for China instead. Of course, when I reload this save, RNG changes somehow... and the "alien blatant attack" cutscene starts. My first Terror mission is here and starts right before the Satellite is done building.
I complete the Terror mission with no deaths, but my Sniper has to take Overwatch damage after a Floater pod arrives and she runs down to the ground since there is no cover whatsoever on the roof. Zhang also takes damage as I reposition, trying to protect our Sniper. The Chrysallids pose no problem and it's a steady push across the map with no more injuries. In the end, 12/18 civilians survive.
I have 5 soldiers who have died and I have about 12 wounded, 2 of the latest due to fatigue spiral. Most of my non-wounded soldiers are rookies. I feel I need to play a lot sharper and avoid hits because missions seem to be fewer in between. And now... I have another Council mission. It's Newfoundland. I am so scared; I have to pull 3 fatigued soldiers into combat for this one. The fun continues tomorrow.
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Giving Council countries sats for engies isn't worth imo, sats are like 200 bucks and half a month this early in the game, which aren't really worth a tiny reduction in engineering's speed, imo. I'd only do it if I somehow don't have enough engies to even be allowed to build new stuff when I unlock it, which is really rare. Sats are generally just better off launched immediately once you get your uplinks up, especially if you start on a 3-country continent.
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Site Recon/Newfoundland was a rousing success. Only one hit from a Seeker for light damage. Some tense hunkering in the corner of the landing zone as I wait for the roaming Chryssalids at the very beginning, but it was pretty textbook as far as the mission is supposed to be played. Probably the most important rocket was near the end as the last pod got a little closer than I expected.
[attach=1]
Not quite on target, but just enough for everyone else to properly clean up.
After the mission, I spend my hard earned money on another satellite as a backup considering I'm full on uplink capacity. If China's gets shot down, I'll launch the spare up in Mexico. Meanwhile, Exalt enters the campaign and saps $117 bucks from me. Fffffffffffffff. I'm so low on soldiers that I only have 2 candidates and have to send an Assault as my covert OP who happens to have Close Encounters on her. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Meanwhile, my lone interceptor in China successfully shoots down a Scout. My Arc Thrower needs to be repaired so no captures for this next mission. And I'm not sure I can consider it a walk in the park either considering my failed mission from yesterday. Here's hoping things work out better tomorrow.
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Remember, the covert agent's main job is basically cheesing the covert op by hacking comms to lock EXALT down, especially in case you get the 4-man team version and EXALT vastly outnumbers you. Keep your agent as light as possible; I usually just field mine with a flashbang/grenade (depending on class) and leave the 2nd accessory slot empty, plating is wasted on the puny base HP covert agents have to make do with. Close Encounters isn't going to really do anything considering your only weapons are pistols and nades, but Run & Gun would be immensely useful for hacking comm links after a dash.
Lastly, if you're on a covert op where you have to protect the encoder, what I usually do is find a comm link the agent can reach in one full dash (usually there's one within 16 tiles or so, most agents can manage considering the bonus mobility from not wearing armor), get there immediately with Run & Gun, then move main squad as far up as possible in 1 action (ignoring cover), then if anyone reveals any EXALT I immediately hack the comm link. The encoder zone is usually the most defensible location on the entire map that EXALT can't directly spawn on by default, and if you manage to secure it using the turn EXALT wastes fixing their weapons (the idiots that steady weapon instead of fixing weapon not included, they can't do crap), then you'd have already won 80% of the mission, since you're in a spot with abundant cover that EXALT has to head towards every time, and if any pod somehow survives a turn you can hack another comm link and finish them off next turn. The fact EXALT reinforcements doesn't overwatch the turn they arrive unlike alien reinforcements is a big plus.
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So I just had a terror mission on canada, and I moved one dude within my blue area, just one dude, a half move, and bam, 4 seekers, 1 cyberdisc, 3 drones, and during the enemy turn, 4 crysalids came and attacked...
That mission also had a pod of mutons, and another 2(! 2?!) pod of crysalids, and some weird rainbow pod with 1 zombie (that lived 3 turns and never transformed), 1 muton, 1 thin man, 1 sectoid, 1 seeker, and 1 floater.
Sounds like the mission from hell...
I killed virtually everything but that rainbow pod in effing 4 turns, including the turn moving from my LZ, it took me like 2 more turns just to find the rainbow pod, and like 4 turns to kill it because that zombie was actually HIDING from me in this weird truck parking lot thing. My point is... the pod count would make it a terrorist mission from hell, but somehow only lost 4 people, zomg.
Terror missions are so luck based. So much better than my last one where like 6 people died before I spotted a single enemy after 2 turns of full out sprinting.
edit: exalt missions: I find many are quite easy because as you mentioned, just run your agent around 1-turn'disarming' everyone like every 2nd turn once you find more than one or two pods. But the ones where you have to defend an encoder and then a...I forget the names. Those things that NORMALLY 'hack' the enemies don't have their tops spinning, so I just assumed you can't disarm everyone...are you saying they still work like that in those ones?
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BETA 15A IS OUT. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY :]
(http://media2.giphy.com/media/F7K9YzEZDdtQc/giphy.gif)
TIME TO MOD THE SHIT OUT OF THE INI
NO MORE TRYING TO FUFILL ASIAN VIEWER REQUESTS AND HAVING ALL AFRICANS AND MEXICANS
@Ghaelon
They really are. It also depends on how the fighting is going. If your having to bunker down in most Tactical Maps- Your losing the map of most/all Civilians. You just cant reach them in time, and FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK floaters.
If your winning, 14/18 is wonderful.
its also really stupid, because there's literally no way to win at terror missions. its garenteed panic that you cant stop. You can litterally beat every other mission in the game and come out on top, if your good enough, EXCEPT the Terror mission. :V
Exalt Hold the line missions- bring a Sniper, Shooters and grenadiers. Blow up cover, watch them Suicidally charge towards the objective.
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edit: exalt missions: I find many are quite easy because as you mentioned, just run your agent around 1-turn'disarming' everyone like every 2nd turn once you find more than one or two pods. But the ones where you have to defend an encoder and then a...I forget the names. Those things that NORMALLY 'hack' the enemies don't have their tops spinning, so I just assumed you can't disarm everyone...are you saying they still work like that in those ones?
Yeah, you can still hack comm link in encoder defense missions, buuut they should still be spinning until you hack them :Uc Maybe not every comm link can be hacked? I never noticed any like that in encoder defense.
Also Terror missions appear to cost 1 resource for the aliens (out of max of 4) according to the wiki, so the player isn't actually the only one guaranteed to lose something from them, if that gives you any solace :V They also leave me with surpluses of chrys/floater corpses unless I blew them up (one of the reasons I use explosives first instead of last), so they can technically net you emergency cash. Terror missions are actually an easier source of exp and corpses than if the exact same pods of aliens show up on any other mission, since the main terror units (floaters, chrys, zombies) have different AI on Terror missions and are less likely to attempt murdering your team while you mow them down. I had an assault solo a floater squad while the rest of my team got held up by a Cyberdisc pod, and the floaters literally ignored him for 3 turns despite at least one of them flanking him every single turn, instead they just killed civs, went into overwatch or ran away.
Edit: Oh yeah, word of warning: Once I accidentally clicked the "Scan for activity" button too many times while on the timer for a council mission, and when it timed out the entirety of Europe (probably where the mission was) immediately maxed all their panic all at once from ~10%. Noot sure if that was a bug, buut until we make sure I advise y'all to probably not skip any council missions :V
Edit2: Tried to load an earlier save and scan for activity until I got a new council mission, and managed to run out of time on that one with no problems. Probably either a bug, or some really important council mission (I don't remember any like that being in the game, though).
Edit3: Okay nvm. Apparently Bomb Disposal does that if you ignore it.
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So last night the game did an wverything at once assault. First I did an exalt mission, the 5th in a row where I have to hack 2 encoders then leave. Incidentally, encoders that dont spin cannot be hacked for disarm purposes.
Less than 1 day after, I had TWO terror missions, one was particularly nasty featuring 2 cyberdisc pods and my first beserker. Cyberdiscs arent that bad for combat but in terror missions they just love running away at warp 9 and you have trouble chasing em down without leaving yourself vulnerable, blech.
So after terror mission 2, before a single day passes AGAIN. A troop transport lands and the very first turn I bump into a pod with TWO mechtoids and my first sectoid commander. it yad 2 sectoids too but lol. Anyway, though that was the onky pod THAT bad the others all had at least a mechtoid except for the 6 outsider, 6 crysalid and 6 seeker pods. Killed 6 mechtoids that run.
I dunno, the enemy "epending" 2 whatever out of r for 2 terror missions did NOT seem to cost them anything.
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holy what
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"Hey, you killed at the aliums! :3
Good, your not bad at this game, thats fair and balanced! How about you wait for next month for when we decide to have Etherial Pods with Muton Elite Leaders!"
Jesus Shit dude. Goddamn; Thats... Wow.
Then again, i guess its the same as my 6 Battleship over Austrailia Boogaloo maddness. :V
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Oh yeah. You're not supposed to even stop all the UFOs :V Large UFOs show up from time to time; they're just there to either get resources or research for the aliens, and it's generally expected that you leave them alone (usually if you manage to clear one out, the loot can seriously boost your tech progression, assuming you have the time to complete the research projects). In fact, half the time Large UFOs are just abductors/terror ships carrying out abduction/terror missions, and it's generally infinitely easier to just let them land and start the abduction/terror mission which you then complete rather than going for the UFO itself, except if you can't spare the panic a terror mission generates, of course.
So yeah, take it a bit easier, don't try to assault large UFOs if you're not prepared enough for it. Spawning those doesn't appear to cost the aliens anything (except for terror missions), and it doesn't seem that killing alien UFOs sets them back any more than disrupting their mission by shooting them down to half health does, so don't feel obligated to jump on every large UFO you see.
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So yeah, take it a bit easier, don't try to assault large UFOs if you're not prepared enough for it. Spawning those doesn't appear to cost the aliens anything (except for terror missions), and it doesn't seem that killing alien UFOs sets them back any more than disrupting their mission by shooting them down to half health does, so don't feel obligated to jump on every large UFO you see.
Oh, it Definitely costs them. They lose out on that UFO and its resources/research. However- The aliens have insane capabilities to produce more if they're losing. So think of it as... slicing off a branch off a tree. It'll hurt, but it wont do the deed. :V
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Yeah I know you're not supposed to stop all UFOs. I have yet to do a damn thing about any abductor/transport/harvester/battleships unless they land.
As for being designed to run away even from transports that land, I understand that too but they aren't THAT hard if you're a save scumming cheater like myself. I DID make it so save scumming does NOT randomize things though, so I DO have to change tactics if something fails at least. So I'm only 80% cheating instead of 100% =P
That said one thing IS random with savescum loads. Seems that every single damn time I save before a arc-thrower attempt that succeeds, and I continue playing, if I reload it again for some reason, the arc thrower will fail. ARGH. I suppose I should save after that but somehow saving on a shot per shot basis is a bit low. I prefer every 2-3 turns or so.
That said I'm going to get my first 2 gauss rifles in a day, yay. I hope they are good, and that the accuracy bonus of the lazor guns wont be missed TOO much. I think I'll pass on the sniper rifle though. 1 shot reloads sounds god-awful. Even if they have heat ammo it still doesn't seem worth it. I have heat ammo on nearly all my troops that can get it anyway. Shivs effing OWN with heat ammo too. Mine consistently nails mechs for like 16ish damage non-crit, ouch.
My first psi-training things failed though. qq. I do n't understand what those purple black-hole thigns are supposed to represent. I figured it would be psi power or something but the people I sent to the psi training thing had dem purple black holes and they failed. darn noobs.
I also want to do some gene modding but wanna save my meld for mechs more. In Vanilla Gene mods seemed better IMO but da mechs were more fun.
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I got lazy and didn't post about my run last Thursday so I'll start with that. I was relieved that the shot down UFO didn't have Mutons in it this time. But once again, the single 10 HP Outsider gave me hell becoming a one man wrecking crew, killing my Sniper for 6 while in full cover. I seriously thought I might just lose everyone one by one when they couldn't hit 35% shots until:
[attach=1]
It was a 20% shot with an 8% chance to crit with a base Assault Rifle. That is the shot of the campaign so far. It was a 20% shot with an 8% chance to crit.
Then I had to complete my first covert extraction, the 6 soldier one. The map was the convenience store/gas station map where the encoder (1st objective) was by the pumps and the transmitter (2nd objective) was in the store. I guess I'll let the After Action Report tell the story first.
[attach=2]
First off, Stuffman came online, and man did he do work. He took a lot of shots, got hit 3 times, but was never destroyed. That says something considering everyone else took a lot of shots too. Balog was a new Gunner who I put on the roof of the store to do Suppression work. However, he was killed up top after a nearby Rocket hit panicked him and I couldn't move him away. Dozer was a painful loss. He was already wounded, but I decided he needed to get closer to a group of 3 Exalt at the pumps to fire one of his last rockets at and he was shot dead on their turn. In that span, my Rookie also was fired upon and missed despite being flanked in one of those shots. Extremely painful overall, but a completed mission. So glad Exalt AI is pretty dumb when they approach the Transmitter, but they make up for it with such stupidly high numbers on these missions.
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Today's run featured 2 missions. The first was an abduction in Egypt. The map was the huge complex where you start on the outside of a long rectangular compound and within are alternating cars and trucks parked with an office building and an adjoining supply room. I noticed the Meld canisters were right along the outer wall and I cautiously but quickly made my way to both canisters and got them without encountering any aliens. +42 meld in each.
Setting up amongst the cars and trucks outside, I assaulted the aliens inside which included a Muton. My Rookie Richards with the Arc Thrower got closer and hunkered by a car which prompted the Muton to grenade her. She took 2 dmg and 1 DR and didn't panic. Which was important because the car was now on fire. However, a Floater had set up overwatch to cut her off. Cue the moment of truth...
[attach=1]
+2.9 scatter, ends up as a direct hit on the floater!
Richards gets healed and makes her way back to the front again. Takes 2 Mindfray dmg but still doesn't panic. Corner a lone Sectoid, fire the Arc Thrower, and success. Mission ends with only Richards taking dmg. But she is a Trooper. Mr. Bob, Bardiche (the female Sniper), and Morikage also saw action (Morikage got our first Muton kill with a Crit, granted the Muton's cover got blown away too).
Second mission is my Covert Extraction. This time it's the 4 man hack and run at the train yard map. Everything was so flawless with my AP grenades, flashbangs, and Assault Hit and Run as well as my Agent "Loco's" Run and Gun. Arriving Exalt were avoided or quickly eliminated covering Loco. It looked so good until the last turn and I had to dash through some Overwatches.
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She only had 5 HP because I put a Tac Vest on her for better movement and I was counting on Lightning Reflexes to cover me. I got RNG'ed and I can't scum that in good conscience. Maybe I should have given her the Tac Armor or the +1 HP item slot (she had a flashbang but didn't use it). Her sacrifice allowed my Assault "Tombstone" to get out with only fatigue damage. Tombstone is my best Assault (she was present for my last Exalt mission on Thursday racking up the kills) and it was a sad but hopefully worthwhile sacrifice. And it's coming into play because I'm pulling her out of fatigue for my next mission which is a Council escort mission. We will see how much her presence on this mission makes a difference.
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Im starting to think I should just sell all my alien weapons. Plasma guns only do a piddly 1 more damage than pulse (which is much less significant than 1 damage from ballistic to laxor or whatever), lose the crit bonus, have no other bonus of its own like lasor, gauss and pulse, AND costs a fortune to research AND manufacture. Plus the alien weapons sell pretty good.
Kinda think the mod designers didnt really think weapon balance thru very much.
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Im starting to think I should just sell all my alien weapons. Plasma guns only do a piddly 1 more damage than pulse (which is much less significant than 1 damage from ballistic to laxor or whatever), lose the crit bonus, have no other bonus of its own like lasor, gauss and pulse, AND costs a fortune to research AND manufacture. Plus the alien weapons sell pretty good.
Kinda think the mod designers didnt really think weapon balance thru very much.
Yeah, they are a bit underwhelming; but your going to need them. They're ether going to - A. Nerf Pulse Weapons or B. Nerf Pulse Weapons.
Long war eventually becomes a flat up damage race- And Plasma, for as much as it stands; does the most. You'll have enough Item boosters that losing out on innate shit isnt going to hurt you that bad. BUT, dont feel bad at ALL about selling spares- you dont need 30 Plasma Rifles :V
HOWEVER, NEVER SELL A PLASMA HEAVY WEAPON. Otherwise, you cant make Plasma Dragoons/Cannons and Sniper Rifle/Reflex.