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I'm playing both Long War and Enemy Within for the first time. How much meld do you need? I tend to take missions pretty slow and try to flank every enemy group when I can, so it's pretty rare that I can secure meld before it expires. But I want a bigass robot! Also, those dudes full-healing every turn isn't intentional behavior? poo poo. When beta 8 comes out, I should be able to patch it and keep my current campaign going, yeah?
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May 7, 2014 06:26
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 07:38 |
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I think I'd honestly recommend either downloading and installing Beta 7, or just playing vanilla EW until beta 8 comes out. There are some fairly major bugs in B7, and long war in general might not be the best way to learn XCom since there are a ton of things that it kind of expects you to already know from EW. Also there's no guarantee that beta 8 won't force you to start a new campaign. I suspect it'll be fine since it will probably be mostly bug fixes that were introduced in B7, but you never know. With there not actually being any mod support in the game, it's always hard to tell what new feature/fix will work just fine and what might cause serious problems and require a fresh start.
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May 7, 2014 06:31
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To everyone having trouble with their sats being shot down: You don't need to shoot down the UFO to keep it from taking out your satellite. If you have a single ship engage the UFO, that's enough to stop your satellite from going down. So save up your ships, and just launch one ship at everything going after your satellites. Multi-rushing ships only gets you more injuries.
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May 7, 2014 07:33
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Really enjoying my first go at long war. Unfortunately I closed the read me before I really got into it so everything is completely surprising. One thing I'm not sure is a bug or not is France packing up and leaving just after the second mission with a headline about cooperating with the aliens. Is that exalt fuckery, a lwism or a weird bug?
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May 7, 2014 13:36
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A country leaving is supposed to happen in Long War; you can get them back later.
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May 7, 2014 13:45
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gnome7 posted:To everyone having trouble with their sats being shot down: You don't need to shoot down the UFO to keep it from taking out your satellite. If you have a single ship engage the UFO, that's enough to stop your satellite from going down. So save up your ships, and just launch one ship at everything going after your satellites. Multi-rushing ships only gets you more injuries. This isn't quite correct, you need to damage them below 50% to have them auto-fail their mission. Hitting them a few times gives you a decent shot at having them abort. That said, I'm a bit annoyed that they haven't really rebalanced the air game. A 40% chance to hit with missiles makes it far too likely that you'll end up without experienced interceptors, leading to a slow death spiral of aliens teching up much faster than you.
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May 7, 2014 15:02
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Interceptors can gain skill, I take it, in long war, which affects what, their dodge and hit rates? Is that a LW thing only or is it in the base game?
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May 7, 2014 15:09
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OwlFancier posted:Interceptors can gain skill, I take it, in long war, which affects what, their dodge and hit rates? Shame it takes way too long to get any kind of break in the air game vs the aliens.
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May 7, 2014 16:15
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Anonymous Robot posted:I'm playing both Long War and Enemy Within for the first time. Playing LW first is like upgrading from Civ 4 to Beyond the Sword and immediately firing up Caveman2Cosmos. Just appreciate the new thing for what it is (and it really is a big improvement over EU, at least in the early-midgame), and then dick around with it later.
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May 7, 2014 16:19
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Ravenfood posted:Just their hit-rates, iirc, and its only in LW. 4% chance to hit per kill, plus 10% from a foundry project, and 5% (I think) from being in a Firestorm. A plasma firestorm pilot at max rank has absurd accuracy, which is nice. That's quite a nice addition then, interesting way to help you get better in the air without solely relying on tech. It would be nice if you could have maybe a little bit more help at the start though, I can imagine even basic fighters being good against current scouts with a bit of practice, it's just getting them there. It'd actually be interesting if you could have some of the special abilities without needing items for them. Like the basic plane can use its afterburner which would give you one use of the mobility ability per air combat, maybe with a higher downtime afterwards for repairs to the engine or something. That'd give you both a bit more to do during air combat, and something early on to give you a leg up.
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May 7, 2014 16:27
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OwlFancier posted:That's quite a nice addition then, interesting way to help you get better in the air without solely relying on tech. OwlFancier posted:It'd actually be interesting if you could have some of the special abilities without needing items for them. Like the basic plane can use its afterburner which would give you one use of the mobility ability per air combat, maybe with a higher downtime afterwards for repairs to the engine or something. That'd give you both a bit more to do during air combat, and something early on to give you a leg up. edit: vvvv I will say Floater tracking modules + Phoenix cannons + high level pilots do let you get shootdowns on medium UFOs fairly regularly at the cost of probably being out for a few weeks. Your ability to kill things when you really need them dead does go up, but your ability to regularly shoot down scouts does not, until plasma. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 16:50 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 16:34
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Ravenfood posted:The problem, and I think one that they could easily fix, is that UFOs also improve as their research increases. Their accuracy and dodge rates increase over time, too. This means that by around Sept? maybe? depending on how well you've beaten the aliens, they've basically nullified any gains you made through UFO Countermeasures and Avionics upgrades, which I think is bullshit. Its part of what keeps you from making any real ground until vehicular plasma, whereas you have a real sense of progression in the ground game. You get very, very small gains in the air before then, but it isn't what I'd call enough. Hmm that's a bit naff. I always figured the point was that the aliens don't improve while humans do. They don't get better, they just throw tougher stuff at you that they already had, there should still be weaker aliens around to shoot. And yeah I rarely if ever used the modules because they weren't very helpful for their cost. I built a couple in case I ran into something stupid powerful that I needed to shoot down, but otherwise I didn't bother. Even if there were some you could make yourself for relatively cheap/not relying on alien materials it'd be nice.
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May 7, 2014 16:43
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Is there any penalty to not fighting a downed alien ship? I shot down a Medium UFO but I don't have enough experienced soldiers to take on that mission and potentially respond to something else. -edit- This is in Long War beta 7. Garbo fucked around with this message at 18:45 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 18:40
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^ You can skip ships you've shot down. Don't skip too many or you won't have enough alloys to keep up though.
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May 7, 2014 18:48
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Lima posted:^ You can skip ships you've shot down. Don't skip too many or you won't have enough alloys to keep up though. I don't really want to skip it, I just want to delay it for a few days to get more experienced soldiers back/more shiv gear. -edit- How long will I be able to delay before it becomes unavailable as a mission?
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May 7, 2014 18:51
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Garbo posted:I don't really want to skip it, I just want to delay it for a few days to get more experienced soldiers back/more shiv gear.
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May 7, 2014 18:53
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After fighting that downed UFO (and winning  ) a medium raider landed with Mutons and floaters and thin men on top of 2 ultra regening outsiders. How much will saying "gently caress this poo poo" and ditching hurt me? Will it help if I clear out some of the less thick packs and then bail?-edit- Also im starting to think drat Good Ground is useless. Not because it's not great but because dear lord this game is terrible at figuring out line of sight when there is any sort of elevation involved.
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May 7, 2014 20:05
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Aborting the mission will hurt in that it gives the aliens a tech boost, but what will hurt a hell of a lot more is Blacking out a squad.
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May 7, 2014 20:43
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Made it with only the shiv (RIP Bret Hart, you took too much of a bump  ) dead so far. Everyone else is on hyper low health though so I'm not sure I can take out insta regening outsiders =/
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May 7, 2014 20:53
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Garbo posted:After fighting that downed UFO (and winning All regen is bugged in beta 7, granting max health every turn. Base Outsider regen rate is 3 I think. quote:-edit- Also im starting to think drat Good Ground is useless. Not because it's not great but because dear lord this game is terrible at figuring out line of sight when there is any sort of elevation involved. There are LOS issues to be certain. DGG starts getting very good as soon as your soldiers can fly.
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May 7, 2014 21:05
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amanasleep posted:All regen is bugged in beta 7, granting max health every turn. Base Outsider regen rate is 3 I think. Yeah I heard about that. Get it done though! A shiv destroyed, 3 of my highest ranking people out for 30+ days, and 2 promotions later I got 2 intact computers and 4 intact energy sources. Hell yeah. -edit- Im sorry for asking a billion questions, but is Alien Computers worth researching? I really need to get my air game better but iirc it takes a bit of research after that to start paying dividends. Also are the UFO Analysis researches worth doing? Garbo fucked around with this message at 21:13 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 21:10
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  Post in the new OP please, these are for 7 but it shouldn't be a big deal to update them if they change when 8 comes out.
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May 7, 2014 21:19
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Garbo posted:Yeah I heard about that. Get it done though! A shiv destroyed, 3 of my highest ranking people out for 30+ days, and 2 promotions later I got 2 intact computers and 4 intact energy sources. Hell yeah. I believe that each UFO analysis grants all your pilots +10% to hit that UFO, so IMO it's well worth it since it's one of the earliest air combat boosts you can get. Alien Computers unlocks Drone Autopsy and Seeker Autopsy, which unlock the UFO Tracking Module (Boost consumable that lets you get more shots at the enemy before they disengage) and UFO Countermeasures Foundry Project (alien ships are at -10% to hit yours). Taken together these are pretty good buffs if you get them early enough. Alien Computers is also one of the prerequisites for MECs and many of the cool new items that are unlocked by the New Combat Systems Foundry Project. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Edit: I linked to the permanent URLs that are maintained by the Mod creators ITT. Here they are again: Official Perk Chart Official Tech tree These links are updated every time a new version comes out. amanasleep fucked around with this message at 21:30 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 21:27
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Good stuff, thanks. Still planning to update all that this evening.
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May 7, 2014 22:11
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The OP has now been updated with Long War stuff. I also minimally updated the main OP to basically say 'yeah buy enemy within'.
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May 8, 2014 02:48
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Found a really fun Long War bug: an abduction mission said it was "light" difficulty in month 3 and was rocking mutons and floaters. A few days before, same month, a medium mission was just a few thin men, seekers, and sectoids. Not sure if those difficulties are in line!
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May 8, 2014 02:50
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Garbo posted:Found a really fun Long War bug: an abduction mission said it was "light" difficulty in month 3 and was rocking mutons and floaters. A few days before, same month, a medium mission was just a few thin men, seekers, and sectoids. Not sure if those difficulties are in line! The difficulty only refers to how many pods of aliens there are in the mission, not what is in those pods.
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May 8, 2014 04:06
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Haha, just learned not to assume I can beat anything I fight in long war. Went straight into an abductor and thought "Hey, surely I can take this thing on." I could. For about 5 turns. Then more and more aliens kept finding me, until a pack of three outsiders, a cyberdisc and four Seekers were after me. I literally never even made it inside the damned ship, only barely managed to evac everyone. My Shiv died, but hey, at least I can repair him. Speaking of that, I love that you can repair a Shiv that dies during a mission even if you evac it. I like to think that means the squad went "No! Adam Jensen!" and dashed past alien lasers to pick up the broken remains of the thing. Also, I know this is completely illogical, but MAN I love the feeling of managing to evac everyone against a ridiculous army of aliens. Getting everyone out of there alive felt like more of a victory than most victories do!
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May 8, 2014 04:09
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I heard in long war, pilots progress and level up like soldiers? That's something I've felt has been missing from the base game. Waiting for Enemy Within to go on sale before I nab it.
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May 8, 2014 12:29
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Westy543 posted:I heard in long war, pilots progress and level up like soldiers? Yep. First thing I did in my playthrough was hit the Random Name button on each of my fighters, which upgrades them from 'Raven 1' to a pilot with a name and a proper callsign.
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May 8, 2014 12:31
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What's the usual strategy during the first months in LW? Somewhere around the end of second/third month I always get stomped hard.
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May 8, 2014 12:37
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Hopeford posted:Also, I know this is completely illogical, but MAN I love the feeling of managing to evac everyone against a ridiculous army of aliens. Getting everyone out of there alive felt like more of a victory than most victories do! It's the rush of coming so close absolute defeat yet saving the lives of every soldier under your command against the odds. I wish there were more mission types that encouraged that kind of thing; vanilla's VIP extraction missions were a missed opportunity there as you still had to kill all the aliens instead of just getting the VIP to the Skyranger and getting out. The EXALT data recovery was a big step in the right direction there, it just needs to be made tougher so you feel the pressure to evac instead of killing all the dudes for XP. Which should be a thing now that you can only take 4 soldiers on those missions in Long War 
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May 8, 2014 14:23
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Long War has made me really not care about throwing explosives around like crazy. I doubt I'd ever get far if I couldn't turn every redshirt into a suicide bomber.
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May 8, 2014 14:35
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nutranurse posted:Long War has made me really not care about throwing explosives around like crazy. I doubt I'd ever get far if I couldn't turn every redshirt into a suicide bomber. One thing that's really helpful on that front is Beta 7's Carbines. The +7 aim applies to a Rocketeer's scatter accuracy, just like Steady Weapon on the rifle does. Even your straight out of basic SPEC Rocketeer can be a force when you're stacking a SCOPE, Carbine and an extra rocket on him.
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May 8, 2014 14:41
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Beagle posted:Which should be a thing now that you can only take 4 soldiers on those missions in Long War Beagle posted:One thing that's really helpful on that front is Beta 7's Carbines. The +7 aim applies to a Rocketeer's scatter accuracy, just like Steady Weapon on the rifle does. Even your straight out of basic SPEC Rocketeer can be a force when you're stacking a SCOPE, Carbine and an extra rocket on him. nutranurse posted:Long War has made me really not care about throwing explosives around like crazy. I doubt I'd ever get far if I couldn't turn every redshirt into a suicide bomber. edit: Holy poo poo gunners can chose between Shredder and HEAT ammo now? That's amazing. And shotguns maybe can apply shredder effects? A good mod. edit2: And maybe get Opportunist while suppressing? Also an excellent change. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 16:05 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 15:32
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Hopeford posted:Haha, just learned not to assume I can beat anything I fight in long war. Went straight into an abductor and thought "Hey, surely I can take this thing on." I could. For about 5 turns. Then more and more aliens kept finding me, until a pack of three outsiders, a cyberdisc and four Seekers were after me. I literally never even made it inside the damned ship, only barely managed to evac everyone. My Shiv died, but hey, at least I can repair him. Early game landed abductor/supply ships are definitely a huge challenge. Large number of pods, and the pods can hop a couple rungs up the tech tree to enemies you haven't encountered yet. Not always winnable but man is it rewarding if you can pull it off. Pack of floaters, ok. Oh there's a pod of seekers, but I got battle scanners we're good. Ooh, another seeker pack, but they're weak. Cryssalid pod coming out, ammo is low, getting intense here. Oh jesus gently caress two berserkers and a cyberdic + drones? RUN YOU BASTARDS.
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May 8, 2014 15:51
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Ravenfood posted:Doing this too much will really bite you in the rear end later. Some of the later research/foundry techs are absolutely ridiculous about needing fragments. Getting a large block of workshops is critical for this reason, but you still need something like 900 fragments for later techs. I play with Red Fog, so my strategy is always to use explosives to injure enemies, so they're rendered mostly harmless and I can pick them off easily.
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May 8, 2014 16:00
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I'm kind of frustrated about the android app. It doesn't run correctly on my Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (crashes all the time) and many reviews seem to confirm that. So, they have delisted it as a compatible device, and no comment about how they're working on it. I really hope they have been working on it, otherwise I'm going to make a fuss and demand my $10 back since I don't want to play it on my phone.
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May 8, 2014 18:37
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I think i'm going to have to sit out long war until they either fix the air combat or some strategy of how to jump to an early lead comes out. Way too much RNG. I'd rather it not be a factor at all than "oh a medium hunter sidelines your whole 6 interceptor fleet and then whoops 2 days later here's another medium hunter gently caress your satellites." I had Germany leave X-Com just because of how often my fleet was down for 16+ days and my sats got chain shot down. Frustrating.
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May 8, 2014 19:45
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 07:38 |
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Garbo posted:I think i'm going to have to sit out long war until they either fix the air combat or some strategy of how to jump to an early lead comes out. Way too much RNG. I'd rather it not be a factor at all than "oh a medium hunter sidelines your whole 6 interceptor fleet and then whoops 2 days later here's another medium hunter gently caress your satellites." I had Germany leave X-Com just because of how often my fleet was down for 16+ days and my sats got chain shot down. Frustrating. I keep ragequitting and then coming back two days later. The mod is awesome, but yeah that part can be frustrating. Hitting that balance of challenging but fair is such a fine line to walk between "randomly screws you over and can't be helped" and being the total non-factor that air combat is in vanilla. And that line is so razor thin because of the underlying air combat mechanics that can't be altered. You aren't playing an air combat minigame, you're watching an air combat minigame. I'm not sure you can really "nail it" to be fair but tough any more than you could with a roulette wheel.
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May 8, 2014 22:40
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