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ssb
Feb 16, 2006

WOULD YOU ACCOMPANY ME ON A BRISK WALK? I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU!!


Paingod556 posted:

Any opinions on the Android version? Noticed today that it's on sale for :10bux:

It has a ton of potential but crashes every few minutes on my Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, and as such is presently unplayable for me, and many others with my tablet have written similar reviews. Aside from that though, it's pretty awesome looking. The scrolling seems to be rather fast to my taste, and occasionally the frame rate becomes awful, but I think it may be due to the issues it's having on my device. I'd try to make sure that it works well on your device before you buy it, or take advantage of the 15 minute return window, or do what I'm doing and buy it anyway and hope for it to be fixed - it's effectively a mobile AAA title so I think it will be.

Anyone happen to have a spare steam key for the Enemy Within expansion? It's still stupidly expensive on steam. I'd really like it but I can't justify the price.

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VDay
Jul 2, 2003

I'm Pacman Jones!
This was on the list of 'Things being worked on' for LW but just got added to the official added features for Beta 7:

quote:

- When leveling up rookies, you now have a third "random subclass" option if you want to go for something other than the pair presented.

:hellyeah:

Seems like a really nice compromise between getting stuck with a class that you already have a ton of and being able to straight up pick what classes you get. Combined with the other change they've implemented to how guys get their class assigned to them (50% chance that a new recruit will be whatever class you have least of) it should really eliminate the problem of having half a dozen gunners or medics and 2 of every other class.

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?

Dominic White posted:

It might not be exactly to your tastes, but it fits in perfectly with the story. If the aliens wanted, they could wipe Earth clean in a matter of days. Instead, they're trying to spur you into rapid advancement, so finding more Meld if you're behind and less if you're ahead makes for a nice auto-balancing system.

It doesn't sound like the aliens get much in the way of advantages if you're ahead, but they can launch Ambush missions if they're losing badly, which look like Research/Harvest missions but you'll find yourself jumped by a much more organized force when you arrive.

That's not a problem with "exactly what I want". That's a problem with it being boring, so I hope they balance it well. If its just an arbitrary "gently caress you, you've done decently" then no, its not fun. I'd like for the gently caress ups I have to be reasonably my fault for loving up, rather than my fault for doing well.

If you get punished for doing well, it becomes a game of intentionally sabotaging yourself so you don't get hosed for playing the game as well as you can.

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

So on my classic runs both regular and Ironman, I find myself quite a few months on before I'm attempting the base assault. For example on this Ironman run I'm in August. I'm always in control of my battle and geoscape and rarely lose countries, only the US so far this run. Does anyone else play a long game or does everyone rush for the BA?

Beagle
Dec 8, 2012

It's fine...

dyzzy posted:

Eh, I'm still a little iffy on it. 90 means you will still lose your soldier for good/a very long time just for taking the "sure thing" on occasion, and situations where you can reliably trigger just one overwatch (and aren't otherwise easy, eg. one last alien) are hard to come by. That said 90 is a hell of a lot better than 75.

Uncle Jam posted:

Even 95% is a 1 in 20 chance which is still high enough to change the skills usage completely.

This sounds reasonable on paper but in practice I feel it's the same as saying you'll never take a shot again because the soldier will be left in heavy cover, which is a 1/4 chance to hit him. Or you'll never leave any soldier in the line of fire post-sectoids, because even a hunkered one against an enemy with slight aim bonuses has a ~5% chance of being hit.

1 in 20/1 in 10 chance to totally negate the dreaded Overwatch and still be able to fire in that turn with that soldier? In a game that centers around risk and reward but also economy of action, that is pretty amazingly reliable for what you gain; particularly if you successfully trip multiple Overwatches with it. For absoloutely guaranteeing a safe disposal of Overwatches, suppression and flashbangs are both readily available now and should be on most of your missions - Lightning Reflexes is the almost-guaranteed thing you turn to when you can't effectively use those tools and you need the Overwatch(es) dealt with as economically as possible.

All that boring waffling aside - I build an Alloy Plating and stick it on all my scouts for the +2 HP. That said in the current beta it's a 75% chance instead of 90%, not sure if I'll do it in B7.

amanasleep
May 21, 2008
OK, so Long War is going to have loving MIND BULLETS:

amineri posted:

So today I spent pretty much all of my modding time working on adding a brand new perk/ability, something that is pretty much unlike anything else in the game.

My working name for it is "Psychokinetic Strike", or PK Strike for short. This is a new psionic-only perk that grants a free-aim MEC Barrage-like ability to allow the psion to destroy cover. Any cover hit is instantly destroyed, and even cars will instantly blow up. The maximum range and radius of the ability scale with the Will of the psion. At 40-ish Will it has about the range of a grenade -- 13 meters. At 80 Will the range is 20 meters. For compartive purposes Sight Radius is 27 meters.

PK Strike doesn't use ammo but has a 3 turn cooldown. What makes it unique is that it deals no damage at all to either friendly or enemy units -- it's only purpose is to destroy cover. It can indirectly damage units by blowing up cars, however.

While I was in working on the new ability, I also unlocked Psi Inspiration -- it's no longer a PBAoE, but instead follows the same range rules as PK Strike.

Jack Trades
Nov 30, 2010

Reading about all those awesome changes in LW Beta 7 makes it look like it's gonna be a completely different game, even more different than current LW Beta 6.
I can't loving wait. More X-Com in any shape or form is always welcome.

Deuce
Jun 18, 2004
Mile High Club

Dominic White posted:

Which is why Long War starts giving you larger Meld payouts if you're behind in research. It's tricky to make a comeback, but it does at least throw you a bone.

Honestly I don't see slightly increased meld as being any sort of catch-up mode. Meld only has small effects on actually upgrading your troops faster. The upgrades bottleneck on research time and alloys/elerium/fragments, and using meld to build structures or gear faster increases the resource cost significantly. Cashflow is another limiting factor, completing the gauss rifle research is a big step but now you need to spend a thousand bitcoins on a set of rifles. Genemods are nice, but LW seems to have ensured they aren't a game changer. (and the troop rotation means that you'll never really have a lot of genemods in a fight)

Jack Trades posted:

Reading about all those awesome changes in LW Beta 7 makes it look like it's gonna be a completely different game, even more different than current LW Beta 6.
I can't loving wait. More X-Com in any shape or form is always welcome.

Yeah, it'll be great. How far along is the update, anyway? Obviously it's a fan-made mod so we don't have a release date or anything, but I'm just wondering if we're talking weeks or months.

VDay posted:

This was on the list of 'Things being worked on' for LW but just got added to the official added features for Beta 7:


:hellyeah:

Seems like a really nice compromise between getting stuck with a class that you already have a ton of and being able to straight up pick what classes you get. Combined with the other change they've implemented to how guys get their class assigned to them (50% chance that a new recruit will be whatever class you have least of) it should really eliminate the problem of having half a dozen gunners or medics and 2 of every other class.

Definitely this. In my current run, I have an absolute glut of infantry and assaults. Which is amazing. I get to bring two or three infantry along for every fight. But I had a serious shortage of engineer/medic and scout/sniper for a long time. Made for some hairy situations when I had no good method of dealing with overwatch, entrenched high cover aliens.


On a side note, I thought I read about upgrading the Exalt HQ raid to be tougher. I just tried their base in Beta 6 and... are we sure this isn't already upgraded enough!? Poked my head in the door and immediately activated twelve fully-upgrade exalt troopers. Genemods, laser weapons, alien grenades, advanced perks. And all the cover on the helipad area is just thin metal ventilation shafts which an alien grenade obliterated immediately. :gonk:

Never even made it to the interior. I think I'll come back when I've got plasma weapons.

Deuce fucked around with this message at 15:21 on May 1, 2014

dyzzy
Dec 22, 2009

argh

Beagle posted:

This sounds reasonable on paper but in practice I feel it's the same as saying you'll never take a shot again because the soldier will be left in heavy cover, which is a 1/4 chance to hit him. Or you'll never leave any soldier in the line of fire post-sectoids, because even a hunkered one against an enemy with slight aim bonuses has a ~5% chance of being hit.

1 in 20/1 in 10 chance to totally negate the dreaded Overwatch and still be able to fire in that turn with that soldier? In a game that centers around risk and reward but also economy of action, that is pretty amazingly reliable for what you gain; particularly if you successfully trip multiple Overwatches with it. For absoloutely guaranteeing a safe disposal of Overwatches, suppression and flashbangs are both readily available now and should be on most of your missions - Lightning Reflexes is the almost-guaranteed thing you turn to when you can't effectively use those tools and you need the Overwatch(es) dealt with as economically as possible.

All that boring waffling aside - I build an Alloy Plating and stick it on all my scouts for the +2 HP. That said in the current beta it's a 75% chance instead of 90%, not sure if I'll do it in B7.

You're right about there being better options for it, I like to bring a gunner or two for that exact reason.

I guess my qualms with the chance of being hit stem from the immediacy of the failure condition. Your other examples all occur because I want to have a roll at taking out an enemy or two this turn by exposing myself to that risk on the alien's turn.

And yeah I put vests on my scouts to keep them from outright dying. Not sure about later game options since I can't play often enough to get that far tbh.

dyzzy fucked around with this message at 16:31 on May 1, 2014

amanasleep
May 21, 2008

Deuce posted:

Yeah, it'll be great. How far along is the update, anyway? Obviously it's a fan-made mod so we don't have a release date or anything, but I'm just wondering if we're talking weeks or months.

Weeks, I would say.

quote:

On a side note, I thought I read about upgrading the Exalt HQ raid to be tougher. I just tried their base in Beta 6 and... are we sure this isn't already upgraded enough!? Poked my head in the door and immediately activated twelve fully-upgrade exalt troopers. Genemods, laser weapons, alien grenades, advanced perks. And all the cover on the helipad area is just thin metal ventilation shafts which an alien grenade obliterated immediately. :gonk:

Never even made it to the interior. I think I'll come back when I've got plasma weapons.

Bring MECs, Rockets, and Smoke.

Lima
Jun 17, 2012

amanasleep posted:

Bring MECs, Rockets, and Smoke.

Also stay outside and attack through one of the corners of the building. Going through the entrance will get you flanked fast, as you discovered :v:

amanasleep
May 21, 2008

Lima posted:

Also stay outside and attack through one of the corners of the building. Going through the entrance will get you flanked fast, as you discovered :v:

Getting flanked is likely no matter what you do, so just remember that when your units are out of cover but in smoke they cannot be flanked. Obviously, Smoke and Mirrors + Dense Smoke is best here.

The Rat
Aug 29, 2004

You will find no one to help you here. Beth DuClare has been dissected and placed in cryonic storage.

JUST CARPET BOMB THIS MOTHERFUCKER http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/6835/20140430/community-fears-80-ton-blue-whale-carcass-will-explode-on-its-shore.htm

quote:

The rotting carcass of a 85-foot-long blue whale has created a spectacle in the Newfoundland, Canada, town of Trout River, with some residents of the sleepy seaside community fearing gasses erupting from the dead whale could cause it to burst.

Local authorities are still trying to come up with a solution for what to do with the 60-ton blue whale carcass, which is drawing spectators as it creates a stench that wafts through the community of 600 along the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

"I'm not sure with the heat and gases that are trapped inside of this mammal if at some point in time it will explode," Town Clerk Emily Butler told The Associated Press.

Share This Story

The whale's carcass is bloating as it decomposes, releasing methane gas. However, the chances that it will explode are slim, according to the AP, which cited Jack Lawson, a research scientist with Canada's Fisheries Department.

It's possible that local fears over the whale carcass exploding were sparked by a viral video last year where a marine biologist at the National Museum of the Faroe Islands cuts open a dead sperm whale with explosive results.

A more realistic concern is that local tourism will be affected by the rotting carcass.

"Normally we advertise whales to get people to come, where the restaurant is right on the beach and we often have whales in the cove frolicking about, but we don't want a dead whale as an attraction," Jenny Parsons, who owns Seaside Restaurant in Trout River, told CBC News.

Using a local longline fishing boat to tow the whale carcass out to sea has been ruled out by local authorities.

"I'm not willing to take on the responsibility," clerk Butler told The Telegram."If that whale does explode, we don't know what danger that would be to our infrastructure, the longliner itself, or to people."

The costs and logistics of moving the whale carcass have stalled the removal process, with local government saying the financial cost and safety risks are too great, and Canadian authorities placing the burden of moving the carcass on the town.

Another blue whale carcass recently washed ashore in nearby Rocky Harbour. Both towns are located near Gros Morne National Park.

dyzzy
Dec 22, 2009

argh
I love that this story apparently gives people instant XCOM flashbacks.

Deuce
Jun 18, 2004
Mile High Club

dyzzy posted:

I love that this story apparently gives people instant XCOM flashbacks.

Yeah, most people in this thread probably thought of Xcom first. :xcom::respek::xcom:

Deuce
Jun 18, 2004
Mile High Club

amanasleep posted:

Weeks, I would say.

Any chance of a Beta 6.01 with just the PK strike addition? :D Oh god that sounds hilarious.

quote:

Bring MECs, Rockets, and Smoke.

And better armor. Couple of my guys still had kevlar.

amanasleep
May 21, 2008

Deuce posted:

Any chance of a Beta 6.01 with just the PK strike addition? :D Oh god that sounds hilarious.

There are so many amazing improvements, any one of which could be released as a stand alone.

-Soldier Stats in all lists
-Chem Grenade
-Soldier Class Assignments
-Surviving Base Defense Blueshirts join XCOM!!!!
-Carbine class weapons
-More Monster Aliens
-MIND BULLETS

quote:

And better armor. Couple of my guys still had kevlar.

Useful, but not essential. By that point you could go for either MECs, SHIVs, or Armor, but probably not more than one. 2nd tier armor is not such a huge improvement over kevlar in B6.

amanasleep fucked around with this message at 21:23 on May 1, 2014

Deuce
Jun 18, 2004
Mile High Club

amanasleep posted:

There are so many amazing improvements, any one of which could be released as a stand alone.

-Soldier Stats in all lists
-Chem Grenade
-Soldier Class Assignments
-Surviving Base Defense Blueshirts join XCOM!!!!
-Carbine class weapons
-More Monster Aliens
-MIND BULLETS


Useful, but not essential. By that point you could go for either MECs, SHIVs, or Armor, but probably not more than one. 2nd tier armor is not such a huge improvement over kevlar in B6.

Great patch, or greatest patch?

MLKQUOTEMACHINE
Oct 22, 2012

Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill
I just want it to come out already. :argh:

Spiderfist Island
Feb 19, 2011
At this point there really needs to be a dedicated Long War wiki, because there's way too much information and changes in the mod to easily sift through on a single page or through multiple disconnected forum threads.

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

Spiderfist Island posted:

At this point there really needs to be a dedicated Long War wiki, because there's way too much information and changes in the mod to easily sift through on a single page or through multiple disconnected forum threads.

I said it earlier, but once the mod is complete (and that's still quite some way off), it needs its own manual, akin to how the Full Combat Rebalance mod for The Witcher has one. There's a point where a mod contains so much new content that it's only superficially similar to the original game.

Those modders have pulled off some seriously magical poo poo with it, though. So many features nobody had dreamt possible.

amanasleep posted:

-Surviving Base Defense Blueshirts join XCOM!!!!

And that's combined with the addition of multiple base-defense missions, too.

amanasleep
May 21, 2008

Deuce posted:

Great patch, or greatest patch?

If you want to talk about patching, they are fixing all sorts of vanilla bugs.

-Soldiers using suppression become "unglued" from terrain.
-Replacement soldier orders getting lost
-Restored Geoscape rotation mouse controls

CommonSensei
Apr 3, 2011
"Medics and Scouts may now use shotgun-class weapons. Scouts may now use Sniper Rifles. Scout tree adjusted for Snap Shot at Gunnery Sergeant (and some other balancing moves). Scout won't have access to squadsight. This is to see if scouts can work as an optional "designated marksman" role that differs a bit from snipers."

I love that Scouts will be able to use shotguns in LW Beta 7. Being able to use sniper rifles in a non Squadsight role is interesting.

Samopsa
Nov 9, 2009

Krijgt geen speciaal kerstdiner!
A flanking snapshot scout will own, gently caress yes! 16+ move and snapshot? hell yeahhh

Carnalfex
Jul 18, 2007
I'm more excited for shotgun scout myself. All that movement and reflexes BEGS for flanking shotgun shenanigans.

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
Either one lets them really use ITZ to the maximum, too. Right now while they can get ITZ, it just doesn't help very much because most ARs can't kill an enemy in one hit even with a crit.

amanasleep
May 21, 2008
Beta 7 is live, y'all.

Johnnylump posted:

Long War 3.0 Patch 7 is posted, under "Main Files."

You can install this over an existing Long War 3.0 Beta, but you will probably have to verify files instead of uninstalling to return to a clean vanilla version.

You should start a new campaign. Existing campaigns should still work, but we predict they will be very buggy. Please do not provide feedback unless you started a new campaign -- we don't want to waste time chasing reported bugs that only occur because you upgraded mid-campaign.

As always, we'll watch closely in case something silly is borked and put out hotfixes as warranted.

Thanks to everyone who is serving as a Beta tester.

poptart_fairy
Apr 8, 2009

by R. Guyovich
Anything dramatic I need to know about Long War before jumping in? Getting the itch to marathon XCOM over a couple of weeks again.

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

poptart_fairy posted:

Anything dramatic I need to know about Long War before jumping in? Getting the itch to marathon XCOM over a couple of weeks again.

It's practically a whole new game. A much bigger set of changes than from EU to EW. You'll want to have a lot more troops in general - at least 30 - and cycle between 3-4 squads. You can re-equip and customize your interceptors right from the start, too. You have a lot more low-level options right off the bat, and can equip rookies with a good range of alternate armor sets and gizmos. It's almost as if XCom is a half-decently equipped paramilitary organization right from the start!

Dominic White fucked around with this message at 20:17 on May 4, 2014

poptart_fairy
Apr 8, 2009

by R. Guyovich
Would that be on the Classic difficulty or can I expect a much harsher experience all around? Still trying to digest the class additions (:stare:) but the actual difficulty is a bit weirder to gauge.

The Evil Thing
Jul 3, 2010

poptart_fairy posted:

Anything dramatic I need to know about Long War before jumping in? Getting the itch to marathon XCOM over a couple of weeks again.

It's really designed to punish complacent XCOM players. Dominic White mentions that you can't just rely on an A-Team to win all your fights, but skills have been reworked too. Explosives are randomised so you don't get that control you're probably used to playing vanilla. About the only strategy (if you can bring yourself to call it that) that still works the same way is save-scumming.


poptart_fairy posted:

Would that be on the Classic difficulty or can I expect a much harsher experience all around? Still trying to digest the class additions (:stare:) but the actual difficulty is a bit weirder to gauge.

Play on Normal. Just do it.

VDay
Jul 2, 2003

I'm Pacman Jones!

poptart_fairy posted:

Anything dramatic I need to know about Long War before jumping in? Getting the itch to marathon XCOM over a couple of weeks again.

Just off the top of my head:

  • A country will always leave in the first month. This is on purpose and part of the game.
  • Countries that have left can be won back by doing the base assault missions.
  • Hire more troops. Oh you did? Well hire more. Then hire some more. It is not uncommon to have 5, 6, or 7 missions in the span of a week, especially if you get "lucky" and shoot down 2-3 UFOs.
  • Labs basically replaced satellite uplinks as the thing to rush for in your base building. There are a ton of things to research so getting scientists/labs is more important than satellites, since fighters can intercept anyway and countries that you lose can be won back eventually.
  • You'll occasionally run into missions that you're just way under-leveled/equipped for. The aliens will get a tech boost if you fail/abort the mission, but running away and evac'ing is still better than losing your whole team.
  • Some alien squads come with commanders now who have additional health/abilities. Also aliens in general have more abilities than in EW, and upgrade their tech throughout the game to keep up with you. Keep an eye out for stuff like mutons having covering fire, or sectoid leaders having low profile, etc.
  • SHIVs don't get fatigued and are thus even more useful than in EW.
  • Look in your Steam/X-Com/XEW directory and you should have two similarly-named .jpg (or .png or something) files. Those are the tech tree and the soldier/mec/promotion charts and they're pretty useful.

That covers maybe 10% of the major changes in LW, but the full list would be ludicrously long. Just play around and if you have questions ask, but a lot of LW is the same as EW in terms of having to learn from your mistakes.

VDay fucked around with this message at 20:43 on May 4, 2014

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
Also start on the easiest difficulty. Just do it. Its designed to be about the same as classic vanilla EW.

poptart_fairy
Apr 8, 2009

by R. Guyovich
OK, thanks guys. I'll install it when I get home and see what happens!

I love - love - this game, but I've settled into habits and patterns and predictable routines. Time to mix it up. :black101:

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

poptart_fairy posted:

OK, thanks guys. I'll install it when I get home and see what happens!

I love - love - this game, but I've settled into habits and patterns and predictable routines. Time to mix it up. :black101:

Yeah, everything you think you know goes out the window in this mod. Sectoids with psychic powers on the first mission backed up by suicide-bomber drones up against recruits with random stats and gear and interesting new abilities you've never seen before.

legoman727
Mar 13, 2010

by exmarx
So, what's the general strategy for getting started in Long War? I got a couple of months into beta 6, but didn't really figure much out. I kinda figured out that you want labs early, along with getting a foundry and OTS, (at least 2-3?) because jesus christ those research times, and then you can try to blanket your starting continent to stay alive in the air game. Getting a Seeker Autopsy done as quickly as possible seems like it'd be great for getting the UFO countermeasures project.

NA seems like a good start because it's easily defendable with a nice bonus, but I'm not sure.

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

Because I can, I'm going to be spending the evening streaming Long War B7. Come join if it tickles your fancy.

Deuce
Jun 18, 2004
Mile High Club
The Progeny map with the dam came up as my first abduction mission in LW Beta 7. All eight sectoids were "randomly" placed at the very end, so they triggered simultaneously.

Also, they spam panic and mindfray now which is really loving annoying for a team of rookies.

edit: on subsequent attempts for the same map, the sectoids did not all appear at the same spot. So I just got lucky.

Deuce fucked around with this message at 22:38 on May 4, 2014

SixFigureSandwich
Oct 30, 2004
Exciting Lemon
A drone one-shot one of my rookies. They never did that in Beta 6 :ohdear:

On the other hand, named aircraft! Athena shot down her first UFO :awesomelon:

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HundredBears
Feb 14, 2012

John Dough posted:

A drone one-shot one of my rookies. They never did that in Beta 6 :ohdear:
Un-upgraded drones did it in 6, though I think only on a max damage critical hit to a rookie with the minimum possible 5 hp and no cover DR, which explains why you never saw it. Do they do 4 base damage now? They were already worse than thin men half the time.

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