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Beagle posted:50% chance for any dead troop to lose the equipment that troop had. With Total Loss on, that chance is 100%. Oh dammit. Don't know what I want to do with that.
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Jul 12, 2014 04:07
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Beagle posted:
It does not. But you end up needing a shitload of planes.
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Jul 12, 2014 04:19
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Zokalwe posted:Oh dammit. Don't know what I want to do with that. More great info for you that I probably should've mentioned in the original post if I'd remembered: In Long War, Aliens have a tangible level of research that increases through various means (Abductions, UFOs on scout missions, etc), and if they get a hold of any XCOM personnel live or dead it's a substantial bonus to that research. They quite literally drag off the dead bodies you leave behind of XCOM soldiers and autopsy them just like we do to them. If they get a hold of live personnel (you leave XCOM troops behind on a mission alive, or you leave while they're still bleeding out unconscious but haven't died yet), they then get to interrogate/autopsy those live XCOM captives for an even bigger research bonus, again just like we do to live alien captives. Essentially, it's a cool and clever addition that is absolutely horrifying when you think about it. So whenever you're aborting a mission and someone is left bleeding out on the ground, do them the mercy of throwing a grenade or rocket at their body as you run back to the Skyranger, or hold the LZ until they bleed out. If you're leaving people behind who can't get to the Skyranger, then let them go out fighting or even pull some kind of hosed up suicide pact where they blow themselves up with rockets/grenades rather than be taken captive by aliens. I've actually had to do the former personally (grenade a stabilized CPL Engineer while retreating from an EXALT mission gone horribly hosed) because the idea of letting my poor people get interrogated and tortured makes me feel horrible, not least the research bonus they'd get. EDIT: Probably important to actually explain what the alien research does - you've noticed Long War aliens improve over time, the research meter is the reason. If alien resarch stayed the same, you'd fight 4 health sectoids the entire campaign. So the faster alien research goes up, the faster you'll see those Mutons show up, or the faster you'll see Thin Men get more health and squadsight, etc. It's a very important thing to keep low. Deuce posted:It does not. But you end up needing a shitload of planes. Ah, I figured. Still, USA bonus is really good. Beagle fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 04:24
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Servicio en Espanol posted:I liked the South American bonus just for the flavor. The LW bonus could use a bit more - cheaper lifts and excavation perhaps.
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Jul 12, 2014 04:27
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Beagle posted:More great info for you that I probably should've mentioned in the original post if I'd remembered: In Long War, Aliens have a tangible level of research that increases through various means (Abductions, UFOs on scout missions, etc), and if they get a hold of any XCOM personnel live or dead it's a substantial bonus to that research. They quite literally drag off the dead bodies you leave behind of XCOM soldiers and autopsy them just like we do to them. If they get a hold of live personnel (you leave XCOM troops behind on a mission alive, or you leave while they're still bleeding out unconscious but haven't died yet), they then get to interrogate/autopsy those live XCOM captives for an even bigger research bonus, again just like we do to live alien captives. Aaaaaaawwww poo poo. That's... a neat (and horrifying) addition. And I actually left 3 people alive (2 panicked and 1 bleeding out) on this mission! (I should have thrown the skyranger pilot to the aliens too. gently caress him so hard for landing so close to a large UFO. I had a pack of five chrysalids on contact at the end of turn 1)
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Jul 12, 2014 04:34
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Johnnylump wants to have that, but there isn't currently a system for differentiating KIA and MIA for missions you abort. In any case, the effect of each KIA/MIA on aborted or failed missions is being quartered next patch to stop the death spirals. Thank god they saw reason with that, you shouldn't have to fight triple-Berserker pods with specialists wearing starting gear just because you had two failed missions in a row. MrBims fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 04:39
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MrBims posted:Johnnylump wants to have that, but there isn't currently a system for differentiating KIA and MIA for missions you abort. Oh, is that so? I've been spreading false information then, I thought it was the current implementation since a while ago. I still ain't leaving people to get head-poked by brain bugs though 
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Jul 12, 2014 05:04
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Picked up EW for 7 bucks during the sale and wow has Long War massively changed/improved over the last year. But holy poo poo why gently caress damage roulette. This 4 health floater hover flanking my most experienced dude, no problem, let me take this 98% Precision sho... heh hits for 2 armor. gently caress this poo poo I'm starting over.
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Jul 12, 2014 05:43
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Space Pussy posted:Picked up EW for 7 bucks during the sale and wow has Long War massively changed/improved over the last year. It definitely obscures the genuine result, but, face it. You play Xcom long enough, and nothing surprises you anymore. This is the Long War dev's attempt to stick a finger in your rear end when you least expect it. Sure, you may not always be in the mood---but at least it's interesting.
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Jul 12, 2014 05:48
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MrBims posted:Johnnylump wants to have that, but there isn't currently a system for differentiating KIA and MIA for missions you abort. Best way to stop the death spiral while still being credible would be to have the aliens behave like a human player: after a few times kicking your rear end, they grow all  and start behaving recklessly, taking dubious shots from half-cover/the open because they're soooo sure they can kill your dude before he takes a turn and seriously that's three 50% shots so one at least should succeed and all that stuff that goes through the head of an Xcom player before he takes a fatal decision....I'm only half-joking.
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Jul 12, 2014 06:24
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I don't think they have that sort of visibility to the tactical AI engine yet.
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Jul 12, 2014 08:03
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Beagle posted:50% chance for any dead troop to lose the equipment that troop had. With Total Loss on, that chance is 100%.  Beagle posted:[Lots of info on alien-side research] From a gameplay perspective, though, it's absolutely terrible. When a player is doing bad, you make it harder for them to recover? Wouldn't it make more sense to give them a reprieve? My point is that the people least prepared to deal with swarms of advanced mutons is someone who's just taken several losses. Someone who's doing well should be the one facing raised stakes. And theoretically, such a player should be allowed to benefit from those raised stakes -- but then when they slip up, inevitably, against the higher risk, that risk should go down. You could even explain it away in the narrative with something handwavey like "oh the aliens are starting to take us more seriously so they're sending their advanced reserve". Or how Xenonauts handled it, saying that the better troops and bigger ships had more trouble entering the atmosphere or something and cost the aliens much more to deploy, so they only did Kicking a player while they're down, especially with a system that becomes irreversible and ramps up their entire game against them from then on, just makes it feel really pointless. I guess the reason it bugs me so much is that to me, Long War has felt like something that is punishing in the short term, but more forgiving in the long term. The game's harder overall, but the game is balanced around it. You're going to lose more missions than in vanilla XCOM, but the game expects you to. Losing a mission (or a country) is a much bigger deal in vanilla XCOM than Long War, but those losses are more common here. Hell, you can be down to a single country and keep fighting! Which I think is why the balance of alien research seems off: because it goes completely against that whole thrust of the mod. My impression of "you're going to lose more, but you can come back from it more easily" falls apart when a loss gives the alien side a permanent, irreversible buff and ramps up the difficulty forever. Then the message is more like "you're going to lose more, and every loss is just going to make you lose more on top of that".
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Jul 12, 2014 08:06
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Is there some reason XEU is not a part of steam workshop? I'd like to start playing Long War, but I've been spoiled by steam workshop's easy automatic updates and installation
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Jul 12, 2014 08:21
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Away all Goats posted:Is there some reason XEU is not a part of steam workshop? I'd like to start playing Long War, but I've been spoiled by steam workshop's easy automatic updates and installation Yeah, because the game is not intended to be modded. In fact its update mechanics actively fight changing any of the game files. Mods like long war are an impressive collection of ini changes, hex editing/assembly patches and code injection.
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Jul 12, 2014 08:26
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Anyone play this on Mac? It's available on the Mac App Store and I'm tempted to pick it up. I mean, it works on my phone and my iPad but I'm wondering if it's a lovely port for Mac compared to mobile devices.
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Jul 12, 2014 08:27
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Vib Rib posted:Is there... any way to turn this off? Agreed, although one of the things I do like about xcom is how unfair it is. Even so, given the games story, there is no reason for the aliens not to send their best troops first and instantly overpower the player. If the aliens were part of a greater Urkin armada, the ramp-up could be explained by the alien HQ trying to conserve resources and only sending just enough troops to get the job (not) done.
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Jul 12, 2014 09:44
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My point is that the gameplay mechanic shouldn't have to be written out because it doesn't make sense in the story. The story can easily be bent to serve the gameplay, rather than vice versa.
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Jul 12, 2014 09:51
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I don't see a problem, losses are always going to make the game harder in the future and this is just one of the many ways that happens. As long as it's proportioned appropriately to the other costs of losing it seems fine especially since it adds some unique concerns to when and how to withdraw. Wounds, panic increases, deaths and equipment loss all also kick the player when they're down way beyond just missing a reward but that's where a lot of the tension comes from.
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Jul 12, 2014 10:00
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With regards to the mods do you HAVE to dick around with moving your steam folder out of Program Files and all that? Seems like a royal pain in the dick. Not had enough time to really sit down and investigate it yet but that was the first thing I saw on the Nexus site.
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Jul 12, 2014 10:01
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Adrian Owlsley posted:I don't see a problem, losses are always going to make the game harder in the future and this is just one of the many ways that happens. As long as it's proportioned appropriately to the other costs of losing it seems fine especially since it adds some unique concerns to when and how to withdraw. Wounds, panic increases, deaths and equipment loss all also kick the player when they're down way beyond just missing a reward but that's where a lot of the tension comes from.
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Jul 12, 2014 10:40
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Hey guys, after a long break from XCOM and this thread (I see the thread title still has a typo in the game name), I've decided to finally check out the Long War mod. Hooray. So in that regard, two questions. 1: The usual. Is there anything I should know about playing it for the first time, settings I should use, etc. 2: Is it still possible to mass produce SHIVs and abandon the fleshy meatbags like in Enemy Within? Because I loved doing that! And if so, any suggestions on a tech path? The tech trees I've been seeing are basically a bunch of names with no descriptions on what they do.
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Jul 12, 2014 12:14
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MrBims posted:It is the same Lightning Reflexes. Beagle posted:Hahah oh wow that stuff is expensive if you're not Asia. Also, since the aliens now have stepped up to Cyberdiscs, the enemies in terror missions also changed.  Six of those kills were Chryssalids. What was the rest? All Zombies 
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Jul 12, 2014 15:12
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Lasher posted:With regards to the mods do you HAVE to dick around with moving your steam folder out of Program Files and all that? Seems like a royal pain in the dick. Not had enough time to really sit down and investigate it yet but that was the first thing I saw on the Nexus site. I don't know about mods other than LW, but you definitely don't have to do this with LW. MechPlasma posted:Hey guys, after a long break from XCOM and this thread (I see the thread title still has a typo in the game name), I've decided to finally check out the Long War mod. Hooray. So in that regard, two questions. 1. Read the readme like it says. Play on Normal. Expect the old strategies to not always work. 2. SHIVs are only here as a panic button - you need troops, and you need a lot of troops. My barracks has 47 soldiers in it in mid July. Probably the most consistently good research start is Xenobiology, Alien Weaponry, Beam Weapons.
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Jul 12, 2014 15:21
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Wait, seriously LW? Steadying my loving weapon triggers overwatch now?
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Jul 12, 2014 15:45
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SlightlyMadman posted:Wait, seriously LW? Steadying my loving weapon triggers overwatch now? It shouldn't - maybe it might with Covering Fire though? Is that what happened?
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Jul 12, 2014 16:04
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SlightlyMadman posted:Wait, seriously LW? Steadying my loving weapon triggers overwatch now? If they have covering fire, it does. I'm pretty sure this is stated in the tooltip for steady weapon.
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Jul 12, 2014 16:05
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Tin Tim posted:I've always started in Asia and never looked back. Am I the only one who enjoys starting in Europe?
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Jul 12, 2014 16:09
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I have a choice between Shredder Ammo and Ranger for my Valkyrie and Pathfinder MECs. If I'm processing this right, Shredder Ammo would mean that the initial shot against the target would apply the debuff, and then follow-up shots would benefit from extra damage. In that case, Shredder Ammo would do best on my Valkyries since they can use Light 'em Up to do a one-two punch, while my In The Zone Pathfinder would shine best with Ranger since chain-kills would be much likelier. Is this right?
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Jul 12, 2014 16:09
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MrBims posted:2. SHIVs are only here as a panic button - you need troops, and you need a lot of troops. My barracks has 47 soldiers in it in mid July. Probably the most consistently good research start is Xenobiology, Alien Weaponry, Beam Weapons.  Though, I also have three SHIVs as backup when fatigue piles too high. So far, I had to call them in twice, and it was good that I had them. Never was a fan of SHIVs in vanilla, but that changed with the increased squadzise and the ton of gear you can make for them. Really, they are much more interesting than before. There's only one weird thing about them. Like, building one takes eight days for me now, but rebuilding a destroyed one takes like twenty. Hope that this is a bug, because it would be retarded otherwise. Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 17:25
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What is everyone's strategy for Confounding Light (the subway mission in China where you need to activate 4 transponders in less than 10 turns) ? I'm doing it on (vanilla) Classic for the first time and I just don't do enough damage it seems. I usually put the (Squad Sight'd) Sniper on the roof of the train, the Heavy on either side of the train (depending on the enemy presence), and an Assault and a Support inside or alongside the train (but never too far - they are my 'clicky' soldiers). Mostly my problem is that I don't seem to kill the enemies fast enough - the Thin Men don't bundle up and have 4 HP, so my grenades are not really useful (if they are even within range). My assault and support both have Laser assault rifle, the sniper is able to one shot most thin men, and I had to fit the Heavy with a Scope so he doesn't suck too much. I could easily complete the map, but the 10 turns limit is just too tight. What could I do better?
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Jul 12, 2014 17:31
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Regarding alien research, the original bonus was +4 days of research for every lost member of XCOM on a failed mission. A full squad wipe late game would give the aliens 32 days of research. By comparison, holding a country us worth 2 days of research a month, and *successfully* raiding XCOM HQ is worth 20 days of research. JL did agree to halve the bonus in future betas (4->2). I asked him if it would be possible to link the bonus to difficulty level, because people playing on impossible deserve to suffer. SHIVs are actually fairly decent if you're willing to invest a *lot* of resources into them. Yes they don't level up like soldiers, but you can bolt a lot of perks and functionality on to them via foundry upgrades and SHIV items. The issue is that this isn't cheap, and you're unlikely to be able to afford to deploy 8 upgraded SHIVs at once, much less consistently as their repair times feel just as long as human hospital stays (which can be entire months in Long War). Edit: On Confounding Light the mission ends as soon as you hit the clickies and get a soldier into the zone near the control panel at the front of the train, regardless of how many aliens are left. Consider bringing more assaults to run and gun to the transponders (you can click objects after a run and gun). Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 17:31
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Furism posted:What is everyone's strategy for Confounding Light (the subway mission in China where you need to activate 4 transponders in less than 10 turns) ? I'm doing it on (vanilla) Classic for the first time and I just don't do enough damage it seems. I usually put the (Squad Sight'd) Sniper on the roof of the train, the Heavy on either side of the train (depending on the enemy presence), and an Assault and a Support inside or alongside the train (but never too far - they are my 'clicky' soldiers).
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Jul 12, 2014 17:37
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Haha, this is great. Long war, triggered two outsiders, one sectoid commander and a mechtoid. "Alright, this is bad." As though the xcom gods heard me, a pack of three floaters plus my very first heavy floater find me. "...Okay maybe I should evac no--Chrysalids. Oh my god Chrysalids." At some point some normal sectoids walked in as well, I have no idea when. So at this point, with that ridiculous number of enemies, I make the call to just dash to the evac point. As I'm running, the Chrysalids catch up to me, and I have to stop to kill them. Infantry and being able to shoot twice saved me, so my team kept running. I was REALLY far from the evac point. I keep shooting and running to the evac point, desperately shooting at everything that's coming after me. Then right in front of the evac point I find a bunch of full cover(that map with the tanks) and go "...Alright, going to overwatch everyone as my ridiculously slow sniper catches up." A few very tense turns pass as my sniper returns safely, then I realize... "...Wait did I just kill every alien while trying to abort the miss--YUP. THERE'S THE POPUP MESSAGE."
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Jul 12, 2014 19:20
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LW question, do you get enough meld to make all the different MECs? And if not, is there a consensus on what MECs suck and should be avoided?
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Jul 12, 2014 20:20
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Furism posted:
The first (and so far only) time on this mission I managed to beat it doing more or less what you're doing now, though if I remember right I also had squad size 5, which helps a lot. I think you could do it with 4 tho. My squad was all rocking carapace armor and laser weapons. I went with Squad sight sniper on the roof of the train, who I kept a good ways back and occasionally moved up to keep near the others. I also had a heavy on each side of the station and a support backing up the one on the right, and a shotgun assault inside the train. The for me the trick was to move forward really really aggressively, especially with the assault inside the train who was activating all the transponders. My assault was basically moving forward every turn, and dashing as far as possible whenever the coast seemed clear or run and gun was off cool-down. Having lightning reflexes really helped mitigate the risks involved. Occasionally I had to move the assault back a bit or sit tight, and that's fine they're getting to far away from the rest of the squad. The rest of my squad was basically playing catch up to clear out the platforms behind and alongside my assault. I did not activate all the transponders simultaneously (though that might work too), but rather I hit them one by one as I pushed forward with the assault. I found the dropping in enemies fairly manageable that way; since you know when they'll be dropping in it's fairly easy to catch a good number of them with overwatch as they appear. Sometimes you might want to hold off triggering the next transponder if you need to clear out more aliens before triggering the next set of drop-ins, which is fine as long as you've been consistently moving forward. This is obviously a much riskier approach then you ought to use on most other missions, but I managed to finish the mission without casualties and with 2-3 turns to spare.
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Jul 12, 2014 20:23
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Tin Tim posted:LW question, do you get enough meld to make all the different MECs? And if not, is there a consensus on what MECs suck and should be avoided? There are only 3 different MECs in LW, and you do get enough meld to build all 3.
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Jul 12, 2014 20:38
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ArchangeI posted:There are only 3 different MECs in LW, and you do get enough meld to build all 3. E: Oh yeah, you mean the suits I was more wondering if you can afford to have one of each class. Which would amount to eight.vvvv Thanks! Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 20:55
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I think he meant what MEC classes are good or not, rather than if upgrading to the MEC-III is worth the meld. You build MEC suits separately from creating MEC soldiers. In fact if you start a MEC suit as soon as the research unlocks it you'll probably have a MEC before the Cybernetics Lab required to buzzsaw a soldier is even finished. Long War MECs only come with a base gun, no special upgrades. Those are all modular and require research to unlock. For instance, the Kinetic Strike Module requires a Floater autopsy, and then you have to build one in engineering before equipping it. Its considered a 'large item', and each tier of MEC suit has one addition large item slot. The good news is that if you decide you don't like the KSM for some reason, you can build and equip a flamethrower instead without building a new MEC suit as in vanilla. MEC suits are all progressive, that is to build a MEC-II you need to use a MEC-I suit, and a MEC-III consumes a MEC-II suit. MEC suits get very, very expensive in total cost as you go. I think thats part of why JL thinks MECs are so OP. They were always expensive rich kid toys for people who were already winning the game enough to sink the resources into them. If you were building MEC suits you probably already had every other aspect of the game covered. Any MEC class can equip any MEC suit and bring their unique perks to the battle. You can swap suits after a mission just like regular armor so you get maximum use out of it, a MEC suit doesn't bind itself to one soldier. That said, I really don't have enough experience with MEC troops to say which of the eight classes is the best. Something to be aware of though is that since B10 in LW, trooper stats get rerolled when they come out of the cybernetics lab. Don't send a high base aim scout into the lab expecting a high base aim Jaeger, unless you're willing to save scum (the reroll happens when they leave the lab, not when they enter it). This has been confirmed to be unintentional and will be changed in future betas to all MEC troopers having an identical base stat line after conversion, because robots. Edit: MEC-I suits arent super expensive, so you could probably have 8 tier 1s with weapons eventually, and maybe even 8 MEC-IIs by end game if you bought nothing else, but I think youd have to cheat or let the game run for two years to afford 8 MEC-IIIs Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 21:00
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I've found that the Goliath is amazing in the actual physical tank role. Seeing it in the bullshit EXALT missions, standing in the capture area and daring mooks to shoot it is never not funny. They miss, and then the reactive targeting shot blows them away.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:11
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ArchangeI posted:I've found that the Goliath is amazing in the actual physical tank role. Seeing it in the bullshit EXALT missions, standing in the capture area and daring mooks to shoot it is never not funny. They miss, and then the reactive targeting shot blows them away. Yea, this. They get an absurd number of defensive perks to pick from too. Basically unkillable. My Tech Sgt Goliath has 31 hp in Tier 2 suit as well as being uncrittable, like 30 natural defense and a host of other defensive abilities. I've had good success with the Valkyrie as well, opposite of the Goliath, just a focus on pure offense.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:39
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