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SlothfulCobra posted:I mean, unless I want each mission to last approximately a century, SOMEBODY is going to move ahead to find the aliens. This is what I'm using Rookies for, but holy cow do I feel like a dick with it. Use them to draw fire as well.  I still crack up during a mission set-up screen where I have four MISSION START SIR dude-ladies in heavy gear, and then a single dinky Rookie flung off to the side. Just need the Council to start giving me Engineers though. I'm closing in on the first terror mission (May isn't it?) and still don't have enough to produce any laser weapons. This is the first time I would have run a TM on Classic, so it's worrying! poptart_fairy fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 17:18
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ahah yeah terror missions without any laser weapons are certainly some poo poo The first terror mission is literally four floaters and two 'lids, though, so you really want to just rush that poo poo down and try to take those two chrysallids out ASAP. You should be able to deal with floaters in a single turn, at least. If you have neither a six-person squad nor lasers then yep you're going to die. Also, watch out for the "double tap". There's always an abduction mission immediately (~3 days) before the terror mission, so don't send all of your A-team on that one if you can help it.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:35
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Cool, thanks for that heads-up. I've got five members in the squad right now and should hopefully have six slots in a mission or two, providing my sniper gets a few lucky hits in. If I don't get the lasers in time then I might just enact Operation Blow The gently caress Out Of Everything with a squad of heavies, or send in some rookies and eat the loss. The Chains of Commanding.   Still deciding on whether or not I should put my rookies in red. e; Just noticed my Rookie's called Leroy. Well that's a reassuring omen.
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Oct 21, 2013 22:48
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Mr Dog posted:If you have neither a six-person squad nor lasers then yep you're going to die. Nope, all you need is two heavies in your squad, both with shredder rockets so you can get 4 rockets and 2 grenades just between them 
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Oct 21, 2013 23:11
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poptart_fairy posted:Still deciding on whether or not I should put my rookies in red. No. Giving them any sort of customization is more care than they deserve. VVVVVVV: Brainamp fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 23:15
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Burning Mustache posted:Nope, all you need is two heavies in your squad, both with shredder rockets so you can get 4 rockets and 2 grenades just between them 6 rockets actually, unless you're one of those weird people that doesn't grab the extra rocket.
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Oct 21, 2013 23:16
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SeaTard posted:6 rockets actually, unless you're one of those weird people that doesn't grab the extra rocket. Well yeah, but I was talking about the first ever terror mission where you're unlikely to have a heavy (nevermind two) at that level already. With both fully ranked you'll of course have 6 rockets and 4 grenades just between them
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Oct 21, 2013 23:18
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Mr Dog posted:ahah yeah terror missions without any laser weapons are certainly some poo poo Since quite a majority of people play normal difficulty I find it only fair to say that you only need 1 assault to beat it 
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Oct 21, 2013 23:28
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Burning Mustache posted:Well yeah, but I was talking about the first ever terror mission where you're unlikely to have a heavy (nevermind two) at that level already. vahlen would poo poo a brick
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Oct 21, 2013 23:30
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Darkrenown posted:Now I kinda want to run the final mission with the Volunteer and 5 SHIVs. Both because the idea of the Ethereal's reaction to a team of little robo tanks assaulting their ship and beating their best troops is terribly amusing ("Robots! Why didn't we think of just using more robots?!"), and I would love to see the Volunteer heroically sacrificing themself to save a team of SHIVs. gently caress, now I kinda want to run an entire campaign where I start in Asia and run as many SHIVs as I can at all time. I'm imagining an Escort Mission with four alloy SHIVs slowly crawling forward in overwatch formation as the VIP hunkers down in the middle.
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Oct 21, 2013 23:33
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Alkydere posted:gently caress, now I kinda want to run an entire campaign where I start in Asia and run as many SHIVs as I can at all time. I'm imagining an Escort Mission with four alloy SHIVs slowly crawling forward in overwatch formation as the VIP hunkers down in the middle. Having been surprised by Mutons during a routine abduction mission (on EASY!), that sounds like a good excuse for grenading.
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Oct 21, 2013 23:39
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gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress it's only mid-April and I just need one more engineer why have they shifted to a Terror Mission now oh god  edit; hmm, that could have gone worse.  Think I lucked out on the map though. Was able to channel the Floaters and Chrysalids down that central "tunnel" while my battle scanner kept tabs on the side approaches. poptart_fairy fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 00:09
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Soylent Pudding posted:I've been rolling with a 4 heavy / 1 sup / 1 squad sight sniper gimmick. In a recent mission I managed to get a cyberdisk and two packs of berserkers charging me. Fire off a pair of shredder rockets to clear cover and I got to see the joy of my sniper get in the zone and murder everything. Personally, playing on ironman, it is always assaults that I wanted the least. I only like having one, going straight down the defensive options, to be the first man to move and eat reaction shots. I am not really big on the whole run-and-gun shotgun plan, as it is often a good way to wake up new groups and find yourself in a bad spot.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:25
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Filthy Monkey posted:Hey, heavies are fun, and an underrated class by too many people. Lots of rockets, bullet swarm, heat ammo. It is good stuff. Hanging back to avoid waking up more enemies really annoys the hell out of me in this game. It's such a bullshit and necessary tactic. Support and Snipers are probably my favourite classes, but I definitely depend on the heavy's rocket launcher through out most of the game when things get hairy.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:41
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Speaking of assaults, can someone sell me on shotguns? At least during the early game. I'm struggling to think of how the extra point of damage would help on Classic+ when you need to get so close to the enemy in order to make use of the things.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:43
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They're good for close quarters maps, like city buildings. Switch them to rifles for the outdoor maps as Run and Gun / Rapid Fire still works a treat with laser rifles
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Oct 22, 2013 01:51
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Darkrenown posted:Now I kinda want to run the final mission with the Volunteer and 5 SHIVs. Both because the idea of the Ethereal's reaction to a team of little robo tanks assaulting their ship and beating their best troops is terribly amusing ("Robots! Why didn't we think of just using more robots?!"), and I would love to see the Volunteer heroically sacrificing themself to save a team of SHIVs.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:52
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poptart_fairy posted:Speaking of assaults, can someone sell me on shotguns? At least during the early game. I'm struggling to think of how the extra point of damage would help on Classic+ when you need to get so close to the enemy in order to make use of the things. Better base crit rate and damage than the rifle. Original shotgun is poo poo cause of the dropoff, bu the scatter laser and alloy cannon are great, especially on terror missions.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:54
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Guess I'll wait until the upper tier of weapons then. Currently outfitting my guys with laser rifles, sniper rifles and Gatling guns - then I need to start upgrading my fleet to accommodate the larger UFOs coming into play. Man, Classic doesn't feel that much harder than Normal on the its surface, but I'm thinking about my moves and resources a lot more than I otherwise would have done. Planning my development around the assumption I'm going to lose half my Council seats.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:58
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poptart_fairy posted:Speaking of assaults, can someone sell me on shotguns? At least during the early game. I'm struggling to think of how the extra point of damage would help on Classic+ when you need to get so close to the enemy in order to make use of the things. They're great if you're using and abusing "Run and Gun" and "Lightning Reflexes", so you've got a guy who can move sprinting distance, force an overwatch shot to miss, then shove your high-damage, high-crit gun down someone's throat for a point-blank 70% crit chance shot.
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Oct 22, 2013 02:03
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poptart_fairy posted:Speaking of assaults, can someone sell me on shotguns? At least during the early game. I'm struggling to think of how the extra point of damage would help on Classic+ when you need to get so close to the enemy in order to make use of the things. They turn Chryssalids into mulch, especially if you have Close-Quarters Specialist. Taking Aggression is a good choice for offensive-oriented Assaults, since you can Run-and-Gun up to high-priority targets and take two 100% hit, 100% crit shotgun shots. That'll kill pretty much anything in the game in one shot. Generally I'll take shotguns to abduction/terror/alien base missions, and rifles to the UFO missions.
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Oct 22, 2013 02:50
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Oh my God I just started a spreadsheet to keep track of all my soldiers. This is how it all starts, isn't it?
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Oct 22, 2013 02:59
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No, it starts when you write fanfiction about your troops. Slash fanfiction.
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Oct 22, 2013 04:29
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What time is the first council report? Say it is noon, and I have 20 days left, according to the upcoming missions tab. Does the report happen in 20 days and 12 hours, or in 19 days and 12 hours?
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Oct 22, 2013 04:35
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The report happens at 12:30 (maybe 12:00?), though you might not actually see it until a few minutes later if you're watching the Skyranger fly when 12:30 hits. The outcome of the report (country withdrawals) is determined at 12:30, irrespective of whether you can read it or not at the time. I found this one out when I got in right under the wire with an Alien Base assault; the global panic reduction took effect as soon as the Skyranger began its return journey. Incidentally, it is possible for UFOs to appear while the Skyranger is in flight, and you can break out of the skyranger flight animation to simultaneously launch interceptors. This other time the aliens were such tremendous assholes that they landed a UFO right after I finished an abduction mission, and I had to wait for the skyranger to land back at XCOM HQ before I could send out a raiding party. e: It kinda bugs me that XCOM has to some extent been nerfed in the early game without any corresponding rebalance for the aliens. Why the gently caress didn't they nerf Thin Men, for instance? Using squadsight snipers to take them out when they drop in is a very valuable countermeasure to their utter bullshit, and there's nothing to replace it. The fuckers have enhanced movement, enhanced aim, enhanced damage, probably enhanced defence too, and they show up in month one. They're just a whole bunch of bullshit with no weaknesses to make up for it; even dropping them to 3HP on Classic would make them bearable. There are a bunch of SHIV and Foundry upgrades, but the fact remains that the foundry just is not on the critical path in the early to mid game. Once you've got lasers and carapace you should seriously consider rushing the alien base, and once you've rushed the alien base you've basically won the game (though EW does at least add some more challenge at the high end to address this latter issue). In general, your priorities are something like: 1. Sats and uplinks 2. Lasers 3. OTS 4. Better interceptor guns 5. Carapace Armor 6. Plot 7. Foundry (for enhanced medkit and ammo conservation, SHIVs are just not worth the hassle) Make the foundry really goddamn cheap to build and/or available sooner, and make vanilla SHIVs available right off the bat, maybe even Alloy SHIVs too once you've researched Alien Materials. Maybe that will make SHIVs actually relevant. They just don't matter by the time they get anywhere near the top of your priority list; and it's not a question of giving them a go, either, the priority list is "things you have to do without question or you will lose countries". I don't really get a good vibe from the rebalance changes; the squadsight nerf kills the lategame OP Orbital Plasma Cannon sniper, but it takes away the one edge you really kinda need to keep your head above water early-game (and it's not even that powerful to begin with; rockets and suppression are at least as useful). Sapozhnik fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 04:50
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Shotguns: The base shotgun can be incredibly useful on classic because they will kill Thin Men in one shot. You need to be careful with them because of the danger of activating new packs, but you can somewhat mitigate that by pulling back when you first encounter a pack so that any area you re-discover with your assault is ground you've gone over. Being able to drop a Thin Man without having to hit it twice, use a sniper rifle, or use grenades is usually a good thing. They also have a pretty good crit chance (and aggression can help, though I always opt for Tactical Sense) for some stellar high-damage shots on tougher enemies. I usually use ballistic shotguns until I get laser rifles, then use rifles up until I get alloy cannons. I also prioritize weapons over armor, which is why my later assaults are so rifle-heavy until alloy cannons.
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Oct 22, 2013 05:46
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Mr Dog posted:enhanced damage, probably enhanced defence too, and they show up in month one. They're just a whole bunch of bullshit with no weaknesses to make up for it; even dropping them to 3HP on Classic would make them bearable. Just a higher crit rate. And no, they have no defensive bonuses. They are glass cannons, so plenty of weakness, just a lot of damage potential at the same time.
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Oct 22, 2013 07:25
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Mr Dog posted:It kinda bugs me that XCOM has to some extent been nerfed in the early game without any corresponding rebalance for the aliens. Why the gently caress didn't they nerf Thin Men, for instance? Using squadsight snipers to take them out when they drop in is a very valuable countermeasure to their utter bullshit, and there's nothing to replace it. The fuckers have enhanced movement, enhanced aim, enhanced damage, probably enhanced defence too, and they show up in month one. They're just a whole bunch of bullshit with no weaknesses to make up for it; even dropping them to 3HP on Classic would make them bearable. I just lowered their spit range to the basic grenade range. In my experience it doesn't really make Thin Men all that much less threatening in the early game, just less annoying. Interestingly this change seems to make the AI decide that Thin Men should be more mobile, I've seen a lot more of them falling back to better cover/a better firing position, a lot more aggroed TMs will dash off into unexplored areas, and it just generally seems to make the AI use them in a different, and IMO more fun way than the default "sit in cover alternating between shooting and spitting" behavior.
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Oct 22, 2013 08:11
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Mr Dog posted:Make the foundry really goddamn cheap to build and/or available sooner, and make vanilla SHIVs available right off the bat, maybe even Alloy SHIVs too once you've researched Alien Materials. Maybe that will make SHIVs actually relevant. They just don't matter by the time they get anywhere near the top of your priority list; and it's not a question of giving them a go, either, the priority list is "things you have to do without question or you will lose countries". I really hope that they do something to improve the SHIV. I mean sure they're doing the stuff with the cybernetic soldiers, which amounts to the same thing, but it's really a tragedy that they made these cool little robots and then made them completely useless. There's nothing that a SHIV can do that will justify the cost in doing it, and they come so late in the game that generally they're underpowered. In my opinion, a SHIV should be the player's temporary response to a squad-wipe - they should be tuned to be affordable and effective short-term solutions that will carry a player to the end of the month. They should be the forgettable throwaway that Rookies are now.
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Oct 22, 2013 08:29
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poptart_fairy posted:Speaking of assaults, can someone sell me on shotguns? At least during the early game. I'm struggling to think of how the extra point of damage would help on Classic+ when you need to get so close to the enemy in order to make use of the things. You do need to get close, but you have an assault clas with Run and Gun, so that's not really much of an issue as long as you have to balls to use the skill often. The shotgun does 4 damage which kills every Sectoid, Thin Man and Floater in a single hit on Classic, which I find very handy. Between all the RNG bullshit the game will throw at you, an assault with a shotgun that does get close to the enemy (to get 100% hit chance, or close to it) is basically always a guaranteed kill that you can rely on 100% of the time. I personally find this to be very useful.
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Oct 22, 2013 09:16
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A shotgun, combined with close range, flanking, run/gun and doubleshot with utterly murder the gently caress out of anything and anyone. Edit: Mostly the kicker is that the shotgun gets mad crit damage and crit chance as opposed to the rifle. It really comes in handy when you're up against your first mutons.
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Oct 22, 2013 09:25
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WarpedNaba posted:A shotgun, combined with close range, flanking, run/gun and doubleshot with utterly murder the gently caress out of anything and anyone. I find one single rocket more useful for the first muton encounters. Boom, they all just took 6 damage and their cover is completely gone. Two shots later two are dead and the last is suppressed and ready to be stunned. "Looks like you're coming home with us." edit: Oh my. I just watched the giantbomb preview of XCOM:EW. I actually closed the video after he moved his heavy into a flanked position, then immediately overwatched as his opening move on the recon mission. I watched the rest a bit later and it went about as well as you'd expect, he lost within a couple of minutes. Man do the new features look nice. I wasn't really excited about an expansion after slingshot but I am now. o muerte fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 10:07
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zylche posted:This reminds me, the final cutscene is in-engine. You can throw smokes grenades, use rift, etc before finishing off the Uber Etheral and they'll appear
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Oct 22, 2013 11:56
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Is there a way to pause country panic? That's the only thing I dislike about EU
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Oct 22, 2013 12:18
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Splicer posted:I finished my first successful Normal run by unloading a rocket launcher into the head Ethereal. The end cut-scene is pretty exciting when the room is on fire. The cut-scene was really confusing for me, since I had missed a rocket (that goddamn TEN PERCENT) and my sniper failed to crit, so I dropped Rift on the Head, it being the first time I used the ability, which left the fucker at 1 HP. The turn went by with mass chaos on my team (which consisted of the three previously mentioned troops. Bad placement and Sectopods got the rest of the team.) Muton's focused the Heavy down, and the Sniper got MC'd by a spare Ethereal. Then the Head MC'd my Volunteer. Without leaving the rift. Everything keels over dead and the room in the cut-scene is a goddamn mess. I don't even remember if the lone sniper survived or not but I feel like the game just gave me victory there.
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Oct 22, 2013 12:40
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ArkInBlack posted:I feel like the game just gave me victory there.
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Oct 22, 2013 12:55
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Thanks for the advice on shotguns, guys! I still feel much safer using assault rifles on the, uh, assault class but it's reassuring to know the shotgun weaknesses are due to my playstyle rather than the weapon itself being bad. Incidentally, I think I might start again without any second wave options whatsoever. I activated Hidden Potential and Not Created Equal (along with, uh, High Stakes I think which might explain my engineer shortage...) but I think I've accidentally broken the game. My A, B and C teams all have 85+ aim which is trivialising a lot of the encounters. While it's hilarious to imagine even Thin Men are telling me to go gently caress myself, I've only lost two lady-dudes in the course of the campaign (Mutons are just about to get introduced) which is putting me into an uncomfortably relaxed state of mind. Very glad I made the switch to Classic, though. I can't go back to the lower difficulties at this point.
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Oct 22, 2013 15:21
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WarpedNaba posted:A shotgun, combined with close range, flanking, run/gun and doubleshot with utterly murder the gently caress out of anything and anyone. Shotgun Assaults with doubleshot can equal Squad sight Snipers with double tap in damage output. I regularly have them go toe-to-toe with Sectopods in late game indoor situations where the Sniper can't get a clear shot (Classic or Normal). With an Alloy cannon they are capable of approaching and taking down a Sectopod in one turn by themselves (have a backup plan though).
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Oct 22, 2013 15:34
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Speaking of Sectopods, I just ran into them for the first time. Lost 2 guys and the other 4 ended gravely wounded completing the mission. gently caress me I need SHIVS to scout everything from now on.
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Oct 22, 2013 15:52
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Speaking of Sectopods, I just ran into them for the first time. Lost 2 guys and the other 4 ended gravely wounded completing the mission. Once while running from a sectopod in a downed UFO I fired a rocket, missed, took out a wall, and revealed two ethereals. You don't even know what fear is.
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Oct 22, 2013 15:53
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