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Shumagorath posted:I made my Gollop Chamber but it sounds like using it locks me into the endgame. Is there any penalty for playing longer to build up a better stockpile and finish some research? Play as long as you feel like. Once you use the Gollop Chamber it starts the end game mission, but before that you can go for as long as you can manage panic.
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Apr 28, 2013 20:57
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 13:09 |
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Just finished my first Impossible run. I'm not sure if I could keep my sanity on an I/I given the amount of random squad on squad murder. The last mission seemed positively forgiving, after those 28-alien large battleships.
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Apr 28, 2013 22:32
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Shumagorath posted:I made my Gollop Chamber but it sounds like using it locks me into the endgame. Is there any penalty for playing longer to build up a better stockpile and finish some research? Yeah, clicking the big purple button and going through with sending a volunteer into the chamber will lock you into the end game. As nacon said, the only penalty for playing longer is potentially losing countries to panic if you're not controlling that very well yet. It's definitely worth it to wait for a battleship and all the goodies that entails.
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Apr 28, 2013 22:48
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Is there a way to speed up combat? When I watch LP's it seems like they can give orders much faster than I can on my PS3 version. I've messed with options like action cam and it doesn't seem to help.
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Apr 28, 2013 23:02
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I've noticed you can issue a move order and then change squad member to issue a new order before the first guy finishes moving. This might save some time if you're dashing long distances and don't want to watch every step.
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Apr 28, 2013 23:37
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SWNomad posted:Is there a way to speed up combat? When I watch LP's it seems like they can give orders much faster than I can on my PS3 version. I've messed with options like action cam and it doesn't seem to help. There isn't much you can really do on a console, because it's all locked. The Windows version allows for customization, which means things like Toolboks can remove the delay on a bunch of actions.
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Apr 28, 2013 23:38
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Have they removed the exploit that makes snapshot worthless? The whole 'Overwatch with pistol, then switch to sniper rifle' thing?
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Apr 28, 2013 23:39
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WarpedNaba posted:Have they removed the exploit that makes snapshot worthless? The whole 'Overwatch with pistol, then switch to sniper rifle' thing? It took an exploit to make snapshot worthless?
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Apr 28, 2013 23:41
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WarpedNaba posted:Have they removed the exploit that makes snapshot worthless? The whole 'Overwatch with pistol, then switch to sniper rifle' thing? Its worthlesss even without that. Gunslinger alone makes moving and shooting or overwatch after moving with the sniper rifle hilariously worthless, and missing out on Squadsight is like missing out on the whole point of the class.
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Apr 28, 2013 23:51
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Zore posted:Its worthlesss even without that. Gunslinger alone makes moving and shooting or overwatch after moving with the sniper rifle hilariously worthless, and missing out on Squadsight is like missing out on the whole point of the class. I actually like snapshot for a second Sniper (I almost always take just one if I'm playing seriously). Squad Sight is great, but two Squad Sight snipers is almost always overkill. A Snapshot/drat Good Ground/In The Zone sniper can grapple up to a rooftime, flank an entire alien force, and gun them all down in a single turn. They're also way more useful in crowded spaces without great sightlines, AKA inside the larger alien ships and some abduction missions. A Gunslinger can still be effective in those areas, but a Snap Shot Sniper retains access to Headshot and Disabling Shot while doing higher amounts of damage.
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Apr 29, 2013 00:52
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Tell me about archangel armor, is it worth it? I'm rolling my guys in Titan at the moment which is nice, but flying around would be pretty cool as well.
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Apr 29, 2013 01:14
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Vengarr posted:I actually like snapshot for a second Sniper (I almost always take just one if I'm playing seriously). Squad Sight is great, but two Squad Sight snipers is almost always overkill. A Snapshot/drat Good Ground/In The Zone sniper can grapple up to a rooftime, flank an entire alien force, and gun them all down in a single turn. They're also way more useful in crowded spaces without great sightlines, AKA inside the larger alien ships and some abduction missions. A Gunslinger can still be effective in those areas, but a Snap Shot Sniper retains access to Headshot and Disabling Shot while doing higher amounts of damage. They do have a fairly crippling penalty to accuracy early on though (-15) which means they're never going to be hitting anything in overwatch until they can remove the accuracy penalty they get just for that. Then they become as good as a rookie trying to nail things in overwatch. Also, drat good ground is too situational for my tastes when Gunslinger always has utility (even just powerful no penalty shooting and overwatch when you need accuracy as a snapshot). And honestly, I'd rather just take one sniper per mission and build up the other as backup for when the primary one goes down rather than saddle myself with an awesome sniper and on that tries to be an Assault/Heavy (and is worse at the job).
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Apr 29, 2013 01:17
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Yeah, -15% is huge. Think about how terrible the Heavy class is considered when using guns. The Heavy is -15% compared to the Support and Assault.
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Apr 29, 2013 01:24
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Also you can never get in close at all when you have a sniper who's using Snapshot, since sniper rifles actually lose accuracy if you end up getting close enough. That doesn't seem like a huge deal, but between the -15% penalty and the proximity penalty, you end up screwing yourself over on a number of choice flanking opportunities that would be better served with just Gunslinger + Pistol.
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Apr 29, 2013 01:39
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Zore posted:They do have a fairly crippling penalty to accuracy early on though (-15) which means they're never going to be hitting anything in overwatch until they can remove the accuracy penalty they get just for that. Then they become as good as a rookie trying to nail things in overwatch. It's only -5 if you use a Scope (and why would you use anything else?), and if you have the high ground, that particular minus goes away altogether. Anyway, moving and overwatching happens very infrequently on the higher difficulties. You're either setting up an Overwatch trap, in which case you aren't moving; or you're overwatching just to keep the aliens in your sight from moving (and they will practically never move if they see you have overwatch, no matter the odds). Any other situation either has you taking a second move, shooting, or hunkering down. ChronoReverse posted:Yeah, -15% is huge. First, Snipers have better aim growth than heavies. Taking a little off the top doesn't bother them nearly as much. Second, the Snap Shot sniper is a flanking machine. They will constantly get shots unfettered by cover penalties--shots they tend not to miss. They don't have the incredible game-changing versatility of Squad Sight Snipers, but Snap Shot Snipers are a great tool to have in the kit. Their abilities aren't a good fit for every mission, but when they're in their element, they shine.
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Apr 29, 2013 02:00
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I decided to try Classic, after nearly finishing the game on Easy. Very first mission I split my squad into two to cover more ground. My last two soldier's turns uncovered two sectoid squads of three each, one facing behind me from afar outside of the building, and one in front, inside a bookstore. The one behind me is far enough away that I cannot hit anything, and the ones in front are fortified by the plethora of magazines and guides. I had at least one rookie panicking every round due to the sectoid's marvelous aim, stood my ground regardless and kept on firing, even if the percentages were low. In the end, I scored two kills, with my last panicking rookie killing one, but the rest flanked and killed him while he was reloading. "Mission failed. The X-com project will be shut down, effective immediately."
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Apr 29, 2013 02:03
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Vengarr posted:It's only -5 if you use a Scope (and why would you use anything else?), and if you have the high ground, that particular minus goes away altogether. It's still -15 vs a stationary squad sight sniper, because you'd be using a scope on that sniper too. And squad sight is even better if you pick up archangel armor, because you can just float up and have line of sight on everything. I'm glad you're able to make snapshot work, but squad sight is the more versatile and effective option. What would be interesting however, is if the skill tree was changed slightly. Make squad sight the Squaddie skill, and then make Corporal a choice between headshot and snapshot. I'd probably run one sniper with each option, as opposed to never taking snapshot because squad sight is so broken.
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Apr 29, 2013 02:07
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Beagle put it best: move and shoot is something every other soldier can do. Fire support from across the map? That's something only snipers will do for you.
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Apr 29, 2013 02:34
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Execu-speak posted:Tell me about archangel armor, is it worth it? I generally skip archangel altogether and roll everybody into Ghost armor, which has Skeleton-style grappling hooks and movement/defense bonuses. Archangel can be nice for snipers with Dam Good Ground and Squad Sight to just fly up in the air at the beginning of the map and snipe from up there, but it's overshadowed by Ghost in every other way.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:15
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Muscle Tracer posted:I generally skip archangel altogether and roll everybody into Ghost armor, which has Skeleton-style grappling hooks and movement/defense bonuses. Archangel can be nice for snipers with Dam Good Ground and Squad Sight to just fly up in the air at the beginning of the map and snipe from up there, but it's overshadowed by Ghost in every other way. This. Some fools might say it helps you keep away from Chrysalids, but by the time you've got Archangel armour you're one-shotting them from behind cover as it is.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:27
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Is it a bug or feature on Impossible where I cant get flanks on 'around the corner' shots but the enemy can?
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Apr 29, 2013 03:27
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Fargin Icehole posted:I decided to try Classic, after nearly finishing the game on Easy. Very first mission I split my squad into two to cover more ground. My last two soldier's turns uncovered two sectoid squads of three each, one facing behind me from afar outside of the building, and one in front, inside a bookstore. The one behind me is far enough away that I cannot hit anything, and the ones in front are fortified by the plethora of magazines and guides. A very good tactic to use is to always send your first soldier out as far as you're going to go. Nothing worse than ending your turn by revealing aliens. Also, once you've engaged with one group, make a conscious effort to not move soldiers in ways which might uncover additional packs.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:28
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dud root posted:Is it a bug or feature on Impossible where I cant get flanks on 'around the corner' shots but the enemy can? Quite a few map bugs with flanking still exist. It's not a difficulty thing I'm pretty sure.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:31
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busb posted:Quite a few map bugs with flanking still exist. It's not a difficulty thing I'm pretty sure. Mostly found around larger trucks where Flanking is a one way shot. Couple other map objects have similar oddities.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:33
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Execu-speak posted:Tell me about archangel armor, is it worth it? It's pretty cool for squadsight snipers, a flight colonel sniper with a scope has a 100 percent chance to hit enemies in half cover. But it's not really a fly-around jetpack, per se, because you do have a fuel limit. Rather, it's more of a field-of-view superboost. Rather than zip around everywhere, I found that I could just fly up to height from my starting point, park my sniper there for the rest of the map, and have an orbital cannon that could spot everything (for most maps at least, buildings and ships will require more redeploying). You get a lot of uses from it per mission, too, I don't think I ever fully used up all 12 fuel units before the mission was over.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:34
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Prop Wash posted:A very good tactic to use is to always send your first soldier out as far as you're going to go. Nothing worse than ending your turn by revealing aliens. Also, once you've engaged with one group, make a conscious effort to not move soldiers in ways which might uncover additional packs. Yet another recommendation for Beaglerush. You nominate a pointman, and have everyone conga line him until you finally make contact. I've been using his defensive philosophy on my Normal game, where you never get into a 50-60% back-and-forth slugging match with the aliens, and instead use unpunishable squadsight shots and assault flanks and overwatch traps, and it's completely overpowered. I think I've only lost a single dude to simple fire (and that was a sacrificial sniper squaddie I used to pistol down the Outsider to 2hp, letting me capture it). My A-team was recovering, and I had an excess of snipers.
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Apr 29, 2013 04:08
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Fargin Icehole posted:I decided to try Classic, after nearly finishing the game on Easy. Very first mission I split my squad into two to cover more ground. My last two soldier's turns uncovered two sectoid squads of three each, one facing behind me from afar outside of the building, and one in front, inside a bookstore. The one behind me is far enough away that I cannot hit anything, and the ones in front are fortified by the plethora of magazines and guides. Bullets are just things to do between killling sectoids with grenades. Rookies exist to throw grenades. And die. Mostly die.
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Apr 29, 2013 06:23
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SpookyLizard posted:Bullets are just things to do between killling sectoids with grenades. Rookies exist to throw grenades. And die. Mostly die. Sometimes to grenades. Isn't life
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Apr 29, 2013 06:34
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Frag grenades are perfectly safe. 90% odds rockets, on the other hand...
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Apr 29, 2013 06:40
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Hace posted:Also you can never get in close at all when you have a sniper who's using Snapshot, since sniper rifles actually lose accuracy if you end up getting close enough. That doesn't seem like a huge deal, but between the -15% penalty and the proximity penalty, you end up screwing yourself over on a number of choice flanking opportunities that would be better served with just Gunslinger + Pistol. Yeah, that's my issue with Snapshot. Like, in theory it's totally a good idea, but the fact that you already lose out on an accuracy bonus by having to move your sniper closer to their target is the big deal breaker to me if I'm also looking at an extra penalty on top of that. Like, drat Good Ground vs. Gunslinger is a lot more debatable (particularly if Firaxis ever decides to fix it so a Squadight sniper can't take pistol shots on overwatch outside their own LoS), but Snapshot's utility just doesn't quite stack up against Squadsight's.
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Apr 29, 2013 07:25
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So, I did the tutorial and first few missions on normal since I've never played an X:COM game. Had a great time, and I'm going to switch to classic now. Other than funding satellites ASAP and researching armour, are there any big tips I should know before I start? Any particularly good character skills I should be sure to pick up, or things to be aware of? On Heavies, should I get the HEAT ammo? Is that extra % going to be a big deal later? I also have been taking holo-targeting instead of bullet swarm. Is this a dumb idea? Are there any dead end skills to avoid?
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Apr 29, 2013 08:38
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HEAT and Bulletswarm are pretty much prerequisites for a heavy.
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Apr 29, 2013 08:43
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Waroduce posted:So, I did the tutorial and first few missions on normal since I've never played an X:COM game. Had a great time, and I'm going to switch to classic now. Other than funding satellites ASAP and researching armour, are there any big tips I should know before I start? Any particularly good character skills I should be sure to pick up, or things to be aware of? Your best bet for squad tactics, as many people have mentioned, is watching Beaglerush's videos linked numerous times in this thread. Personally, I always take both HEAT ammo and bullet swarm. Come mid-lategame HEAT ammo is a huge boost against certain enemies that I find extremely useful. Bullet swarm is amazing for all parts of the game. It's basically Rapid Fire with no aim malus and the ability to reload or run after firing. Don't take snapshot on your first sniper (or ever, but hey).
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Apr 29, 2013 08:43
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Holo-targeting can be good if you're running (or, more likely, are forced to use) some kind of 3-4 heavy team and can use one to first "paint" an enemy for everyone else to shoot at, but outside of that you're going to want to start taking bullet swarm, it's a fantastic skill. Other than that, squad sight for a sniper and lightning reflexes for assaults are the other must-have skills. Support is probably the most flexible in terms of skills. Just take it slow, one way or another you'll probably die and get killed a bunch until you really learn/accept how deadly the aliens are and adjust your play accordingly. At least for me, the main change going from Normal to Classic/Impossible was switching from overwatch to hunker down as my default end-of-turn move for everyone. On normal you can pretty much keep everyone on overwatch and take pot shots whenever you can. On the higher difficulties, not having guys hunkered down will get them killed since aliens are more accurate and hit much harder.
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Apr 29, 2013 09:06
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Waroduce posted:So, I did the tutorial and first few missions on normal since I've never played an X:COM game. Had a great time, and I'm going to switch to classic now. Other than funding satellites ASAP and researching armour, are there any big tips I should know before I start? Any particularly good character skills I should be sure to pick up, or things to be aware of? After getting Carapace I've found it helpful to research beam weapons, but just build rifles and pistols. Use them to soften up the terror mission so you don't get over run when you trigger 2 packs of chrysalids and a pack of floaters on the same turn.
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Apr 29, 2013 09:25
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Holotargetting is important at higher levels, where reducing the chance of unexpectedly missing is more important than sometimes hitting twice.Fargin Icehole posted:I decided to try Classic, after nearly finishing the game on Easy. Very first mission I split my squad into two to cover more ground. My last two soldier's turns uncovered two sectoid squads of three each, one facing behind me from afar outside of the building, and one in front, inside a bookstore. The one behind me is far enough away that I cannot hit anything, and the ones in front are fortified by the plethora of magazines and guides. At the xcom command school, the teacher clears his throat. Addressing the class, he asks: "can you list the things this commander did wrong?" Edit: I can count 5. Fangz fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 09:39
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Yeah it isn't that holo-targetting is a bad skill, just that bullet swarm is always useful. I disagree with rushing carapace armour. I've found going straight for laser rifles the best strat, and maybe going for skeleton armour when thin men or harder enemies become common. On classic if you have decent tactics, your dudes won't get 1-shot from behind cover unless you let them flank you. Thin men are the only real danger here, but with laser rifles and good concealment you can get through. Basically though you just want laser rifles before your first terror mission, otherwise you might be in trouble.
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Apr 29, 2013 09:41
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Waroduce posted:So, I did the tutorial and first few missions on normal since I've never played an X:COM game. Had a great time, and I'm going to switch to classic now. Other than funding satellites ASAP and researching armour, are there any big tips I should know before I start? Any particularly good character skills I should be sure to pick up, or things to be aware of? - Suppression is an awesome skill and you should abuse the poo poo out of it - Rapid fire over flush every single time - Holo targeting is not bad on a second heavy later in the game. A number of things in the later game have innate defense and don't use cover, holo targeting is useful on all of them. - You haven't gotten far enough into the game to know why you want HEAT. You want HEAT. - Low cover is bad. - There may well come a time when the best idea is to run like gently caress to the drop zone and abort missions. Don't lose the soldier who was going to get promoted high enough that you could buy the second squad size upgrade over a mission you were going to fail anyway. You know, if they don't just kill you first. - Capturing dudes is a good way to get a few nice weapons somewhat early and boosts in research speed along the way. - In other words capture some sectoids and give their plasma pistols to your gunslinger squadsight sniper asap. - Don't neglect your sky tech. Having plasma rifles and ghost armor isn't going to do squat if you've got one country left at 5 panic because they shot down all your planes and then all your satellites and the world told you to gently caress off so now you're broke too. - Agree with rushing laser rifles before worrying about much else. Do thin men have more health on classic like they do on impossible? It's been a while.
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Apr 29, 2013 09:44
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TheSpiritFox posted:- Suppression is an awesome skill and you should abuse the poo poo out of it Thin men have 4 on classic and 6 on impossible. I agree with everything this guy posted. But really if a tactic/skillset makes sense and works for you, then try it and see what happens! busb fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 09:47
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 13:09 |
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I prefer carapace first. Keeping elite soldiers alive and active for the squad size upgrade is essential in the early game. I've generally consistently managed to hit both carapace and lasers by the first terror mission, anyway. Holotarget should be on the first heavy, bullet swarm on the second. You see those people moaning about how their entire squad missed a sectoid or a thin man who then critted their colonel, insulted their mother, and led to a chain panic? If they used holotarget this wouldn't have happened. I'm also increasingly convinced that the second rocket is better than suppression. Go rifle suppression on a support instead. Fangz fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 10:03
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