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I've finally managed to down a goddamn Supply Ship, but I'm seriously doubting my undermanned crew's (down a Gunner and a Scout) ability to kill a triple-Berserker pod with only one Shredder rocket left. Is there a penalty to leaving a downed UFO alone? I don't know if all the loot and getting to research the ship class is worth this hell. On a happier note, nothing fucks up Chryssalid swarms like a flamethrower. Watching those fucks take half their life in damage while panicking during their turn is balm for the weary soul 
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Jul 13, 2014 17:33
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 19:43 |
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I love flamethrower. The hate it got in the Jadestar LP surprised the hell out of me.
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Jul 13, 2014 17:38
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The first country that left the X-Com pact was Brazil, but it seemed to be at random. No panic at all (well, the one bar that always seems to be there) and no events, just a seemingly random dropout. I know it's not a huge deal, but what could have happened that I missed?
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Jul 13, 2014 18:13
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Colapops posted:The first country that left the X-Com pact was Brazil, but it seemed to be at random. No panic at all (well, the one bar that always seems to be there) and no events, just a seemingly random dropout. I know it's not a huge deal, but what could have happened that I missed? In Long War one country ALWAYS drops out early, at random. This is kind of kludgey, but it's meant to be the alien's main base on Earth, which they take over early.
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Jul 13, 2014 18:15
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Germany already dropped a bomb on Brazil recently. I don't know if I feel like adding injury to insult in X-Com, too.
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Jul 13, 2014 18:19
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Colapops posted:The first country that left the X-Com pact was Brazil, but it seemed to be at random. No panic at all (well, the one bar that always seems to be there) and no events, just a seemingly random dropout. I know it's not a huge deal, but what could have happened that I missed? As mentioned before: Vib Rib posted:LW automatically forces one of the countries to spontaneously leave, apparently, near the start of the game. Sure makes getting completion bonuses rough. Seems to happen reliably without any visible cue, mine was UK after the first 3-4 missions if memory serves me well. Not sure how the timing is scripted or whether it is actually chosen at random. You haven't missed anything!
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Jul 13, 2014 18:19
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Just had my first base defense in Normal/Ironman LW. It came when I started getting 5 meld per container, so I guess it is a last ditch effort to turn the tables rather than something to kick you when you're down, or it was just randomly scripted to happen. The kill list - spoilered if you want your base defense blind: 4 Sectoids 3 Sectoid Commanders 2 Floaters 2 Thin Men 3 Mutons 1 Berserker 3 Cyberdiscs 6 Chryssalids 3 Drones 2 Mechtoids 2 Seekers 1 Mindcontrolled security guard God almighty that would have been rough if I didn't have two double tap + shredder gunners, two HEAT rocketeers, an engineer with chem grenades and a sniper with the Gauss Long Rifle. MrBims fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 18:55
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Am I nuts in never bothering to use anything but gauss / laser carbines? The movement and aim is just so good
Sexual Aluminum fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 22:26
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I just successfully fended off a terror mission, under the aegis of Operation Hot Gaze. I think Bradford has some issues to work out.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:15
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toasterwarrior posted:On a happier note, nothing fucks up Chryssalid swarms like a flamethrower. Watching those fucks take half their life in damage while panicking during their turn is balm for the weary soul scalded schlong posted:I just successfully fended off a terror mission, under the aegis of Operation Hot Gaze. "Operation Hidden Tears" was my all-time best though. I guess things didn't work out. 
Vib Rib fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 00:14
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I haven't tried LW yet, but to me, keeping my crew alive is more important than a few bucks worth of salvage. I try to avoid using explosives inside UFOs, but even that is flexible if I end up in some situation where 9+ aliens are active and three of them are Sectoid Commanders who can mind control my heavy hitters. At that point my MEC is going to just carpet bomb them. Better to lose a flight computer and some salvage versus losing a major or colonel to friendly fire.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:55
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Explosives/flamethrower don't actually destroy corpses, in vanilla or LW. They will however remove the partial meld that most (all?) organic enemies carry in LW.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:12
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Made a bad move last night when I had my shot gunner run up to a sectopod and try to double tap it (can't remember the skill for some reason) I play with damage roulette cause I'm sick in the head so his alloy shotgun did 12 dmg then 2 dmg. No biggie. He's got a second heart! It murders him and he starts bleeding out. I finish off the sectopod and as the mission debriefing screen comes up and Bradford is like good job commander! One of my soldiers panicked and I realized the sectopods death explosion fully killed my colonel run and gun, double tap, 102 aim shot gunner. 
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Jul 14, 2014 01:25
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MrBims posted:Probably the most consistently good research start is Xenobiology, Alien Weaponry, Beam Weapons. MrBims posted:Explosives/flamethrower don't actually destroy corpses, in vanilla or LW. They will however remove the partial meld that most (all?) organic enemies carry in LW. Vib Rib fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 01:44
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Vib Rib posted:This is from a ways back, but why Xenobiology first? Alien Weaponry is required for Beam Weapons so that progression is obvious, but Xenobiology doesn't contribute to that, right? You will never get requests for corpses until you research Xenobiology. A Xeno-first start will get your research jumpstarted faster.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:53
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Jesus christ, LW refuses to let me finish Portent DLC mission (french convoy escort). Went through it perfectly, including a poo poo start where three units (including 4 seekers) showed up in the second turn (luckily they were all bunched up in the relatively same area... grenades ahoy!) and my units had poor positioning. Ended up going through the map without the enemy firing a single shot (except for a suppression), then the literally second to last alien that drops, a sectoid, ends up critting the VIP from across the map as he's hunkered down on top of a building. The only shot fired against me the entire map, ends up critting, is from a sectoid, and hits my VIP on a roof. 
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Jul 14, 2014 02:32
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In Long War, Council request rewards are, in general, locked to the type of object being requested. Xenobiology unlocks sectoid corpse requests from the Council, which will always give you scientists. Going Xenobiology first will net you a lot of early scientists as the Council can only request satellites (which are engineers btw) or sectoid corpses. Alien Weaponry unlocks weapon fragment requests, which rewards engineers. You will be overflowing with sectoid corpses for the first few months and you don't really need that many, while you will need mountains of weapon fragments throughout the game. Also, Alien Materials requires 2 elerium, 2 alloys and 5 meld to start. Its possible, but not likely, to get that from your first mission if you get 5 drones (theyre worth .4 elerium/alloys each) *and* a 2 +3 meld containers. Alien Materials unlocks materials requests (alloys, elerium, and I think meld) which will give you engineers. Incidentally, the amount of raw materials you get per alien corpse recovery is modifiable in XComGameCore.ini. I've experimented with very slightly increasing the materials per kill and found it made the game flow just a little bit better. The extra materials were never enough for you to be swimming in cash, but it helps alleviate problems when the third UFO in a row explodes rather than crash lands. Also, check out the numbers listed for the recovery rate on alloys/elerium from UFOs. Long War is a harsh mistress, it looks like its entirely possible to retrieve 0 elerium from a downed UFO, and the odds of anything useful surviving are pretty slim.
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Jul 14, 2014 02:37
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Mr. Crow posted:Jesus christ, LW refuses to let me finish Portent DLC mission (french convoy escort). If you've played that map before in EW, you know you gotta set up positions around the map to overwatch on the aliens that drop. Its just something you gotta do - take the time between defeating the initial spawns and activating the escort.
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Jul 14, 2014 02:39
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Not a Step posted:Incidentally, the amount of raw materials you get per alien corpse recovery is modifiable in XComGameCore.ini. I've experimented with very slightly increasing the materials per kill and found it made the game flow just a little bit better. The extra materials were never enough for you to be swimming in cash, but it helps alleviate problems when the third UFO in a row explodes rather than crash lands. Also, check out the numbers listed for the recovery rate on alloys/elerium from UFOs. Long War is a harsh mistress, it looks like its entirely possible to retrieve 0 elerium from a downed UFO, and the odds of anything useful surviving are pretty slim. Actually, are there any other ini tweaks any of you go for? I know you can edit XP gain for instance, but I'm not sure whether to dive into it. Though I'm also not too proud to tweak the difficulty down a bit, either. Vib Rib fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 04:02
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Wassbix posted:Question about LW gunners. What is the interaction with Shredder Ammo/Holotargeting + Danger Zone + Suppression + Mayhem? Does all enemies that go under the suppression AOE take damage and get Shredder/Holo debuff applied to them? I believe any enemy your Gunner damages takes Shredder, while any shot taken at all (or Supression) from a holo-targeter will apply Holo targeting (so you can miss and still apply it). So theoretically a Danger Zone Suppression Mayhem from a Gunner with Shredder and Holo should apply both debuffs to all affected targets. I've been taking HEAT on Gunners instead though as you can get Shredder on Assaults as a small item now and I find HEAT Gunners are incredibly good robot killers. The +50% from HEAT is apparently applied AFTER the -50% damage from Flush, resulting in cool things like I flushed a Seeker and dealt 6 damage to it even with a ballistic SAW just because I had HEAT on that Gunner. Flush is just such an impressively great pick on a Gunner when you use it for finisher shots instead of actually to flush. That reliable 2 damage is often all you need in those first few months to finish off those rear end in a top hat floaters/drones/seekers/Thin men in heavy cover, and Flush means you're making the shot at like 80% accuracy. It's an awesome tool.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:07
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Beagle posted:Flush is just such an impressively great pick on a Gunner when you use it for finisher shots instead of actually to flush. That reliable 2 damage is often all you need in those first few months to finish off those rear end in a top hat floaters/drones/seekers/Thin men in heavy cover, and Flush means you're making the shot at like 80% accuracy. It's an awesome tool.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:22
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Vib Rib posted:Where exactly is this? I see elerium mentioned a few times, and sometimes in huge quantities that can't be right. If you open the ini files up in notepad, turn off wordwrap to make viewing it a *lot* easier. The huge numbers is because they crammed two enemies per line, with totals being expressed in tenths of a unit. So the line HFLOATER_ELERIUM=0610 sets floaters to be worth .6 (06) elerium each, and heavy floaters an even 1.0 (10) elerium each. The comments should tell you what aliens are on what line and in what order. You can also mod the range soldiers will roll by playing with the minimums listed in the ini and the default soldier stats near the top (search for iType=eChar_Soldier). The minimum will be given in the stat minimums line, the max will be twice the midpoint (defined by the soldier entry) minus the minimum. So if you set base soldier aim to 70 and the minimum to 60, you're guaranteed to roll between 60 and 80 (2x70=140-60=80) aim on every new soldier. Beware, starting stats are rolled on a point buy system, and will is the last stat bought with left over points. Nudging average aim higher will push average will down by the same amount. Set BASE_DAYS_INJURED=1320 to whatever amount of time, in hours, you think is fair for the max time a soldier can be injured. The default 1320 is 55 days. RAND_DAYS_INJURED_TANK=100 controls the fatigue setting. 100% is the default amount of fatigue, which is roughly 4 days. 75% would reduce it to 3 days on average and so on. INTERCEPTOR_REPAIR_HOURS=600 is I *think* the max time an interceptor can be out for repairs, which at 600 hours is 25 days. Set it lower to take a lot of the bullshit out of the air war. INTERCEPTOR_REARM_HOURS=168 is what causes it to take a week for XCOM to swap out anything but basic missile weapons on an interceptor. The idea that XCOM didnt build modular mounts seems pretty dumb to me so personally I set that to 48 hours. The only equipment change I made was to find iType=eItem_FragGrenade, and set iEnvironmentDamage=99 to 150 (In vanilla its 250, 150 seemed a good compromise number). I had a rage inducing mission where a direct hit with an HE grenade couldn't blow up a trashcan reliably. At 150 it feels like a rookie can reliably blow up low cover, while it takes a sapper engineer to reliably destroy high cover. In the XComGameData.ini you can modify how many missions an officer needs to go on to be eligible for promotion. m_iCovertOpsCashRewardAmount=100 controls the rewards from EXALT missions and the line below is the bonus for keeping the encoder intact on the transmitter defense missions. You can also alter the amount of materials the Council asks for and the frequency with which the offers come. Personally, I changed the rearm times, grenade environmental damage, and tweaked soldier generation to cost more but have fewer duds, but thats it. Ive experimented with all those settings though. Beagle posted:Flush is just such an impressively great pick on a Gunner when you use it for finisher shots instead of actually to flush. That reliable 2 damage is often all you need in those first few months to finish off those rear end in a top hat floaters/drones/seekers/Thin men in heavy cover, and Flush means you're making the shot at like 80% accuracy. It's an awesome tool. I always skip Flush, but maybe I should re-evaluate it. Being able to reliably apply holo and shredder would be useful, and most aliens seem not to give a poo poo about being suppressed anyways. Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 04:37
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Okay I finally get all the exalt mission hate. Lose two soldiers to a double grenade during a weapons disabled turn (apparently exalt snipers carry grenades too - didn't expect that). I pull my poo poo together and thank god next turn I hear "This looks like the last wave." Both of my dead soldiers are bleeding out but I can rush to kill those last 3 guys and then just send my troops to the hospital for a while. : Next turn an exalt soldier grenades the first hacking objective, which causes it to explode and shift to the other hacking objective. This APPARENTLY causes an extra three waves of enemies to spawn. That grenade also kills another soldier. A full team wipe ensues.Someone should tell those exalt guys that they're wasting their time "hacking" computers when apparently blowing them up with grenades has the same results. TheresNoThyme fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 05:17
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I have a couple questions (Vanilla XCOM still) : - Does the immunity to Critical Hits on Hunker Down applies only behind full cover? Because I totally just had a guy get crit while Hunkering behind a half-cover  - If you choose "Not now" for a Council Mission (Gangplank for instance), it's gone forever right?
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Jul 14, 2014 07:37
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I just finished an Infestation mission in Long War after about an Hour I beat it with 39 dead chryssalids and no losses. Infantry units are OP with Bullet Swarm and Laser Rifles
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Jul 14, 2014 11:07
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 Laser cannon? Also, is the enhanced lasers foundry project actually meant to take over 2 years to complete?
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Jul 14, 2014 11:44
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Tythas posted:I just finished an Infestation mission in Long War after about an Hour I beat it with 39 dead chryssalids and no losses. Infantry units are OP with Bullet Swarm and Laser Rifles Do you mean Newfoundland, or is that a new mission type in LW? Sounds terrifying. I played a Terror mission last night that started with a floater pod running into me and then 3 pods of 'nid and 4 packs of 5 zombies appearing from all sides on successive turns. Racked up 30+ kills and 12 saved civvies without uncovering more then 1/5th of the map 
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Jul 14, 2014 12:05
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Not a Step posted:Personally, I changed the rearm times, grenade environmental damage, and tweaked soldier generation to cost more but have fewer duds, but thats it. Ive experimented with all those settings though.
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Jul 14, 2014 12:22
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Adrian Owlsley posted:
Laser cannon!? If you build something at about the same time a UFO shows up, like that laser cannon in your recent messages, it will decide to show you what you built instead of what's flying around killing things. I recently sent my interceptors off chasing a "Satellite", which probably didn't endear me to the council. Enhanced lasers should take 12 days.
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Jul 14, 2014 13:14
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Adrian Owlsley posted:
Foundry project times scale with the number of engineers. In June you probably don't have enough.
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Jul 14, 2014 13:59
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Just finished an EXALT mission on LW Impossible, after seeing how many poo poo they sent at me I was worried at how difficult it might be, but then after I blew up the transmitter (with 5 EXALT dude on it) they just beelined after the encoder into my Close Combat shotgun assault and he ended up killing something like 12 dudes just streaming in. When EXALT gets laser guns, can you reclaim it from them in LW or do you have to taze them in LW to get it? Wassbix fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 14:18
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Wassbix posted:Just finished an EXALT mission on LW Impossible, after seeing how many poo poo they sent at me I was worried at how difficult it might be, but then after I blew up the transmitter (with 5 EXALT dude on it) they just beelined after the transmitter into my Close Combat shotgun assault and he ended up killing something like 12 dudes just streaming in. You'd have to stun them.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:20
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As someone who played through on normal back when EU was released, if I wanted to play again should I stick to EU for a classic run through? Would EW on classic be overwhelming?
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Jul 14, 2014 14:34
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Nah, go with EW. There's more to do, and as long as you're not overwhelmed by the new stuff it's actually easier than EU was. Punch aliens with MECs erryday.
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Jul 14, 2014 14:44
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Is an Arc Rifle exactly what it sounds like? A arc thrower from rifle ranges?
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Jul 14, 2014 16:09
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Wassbix posted:Is an Arc Rifle exactly what it sounds like? A arc thrower from rifle ranges?
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Jul 14, 2014 16:13
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Wassbix posted:Is an Arc Rifle exactly what it sounds like? A arc thrower from rifle ranges? No, it is a Scout/Sniper weapon that does Disabling Shot. 2 shots, 1-3 damage.
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Jul 14, 2014 16:14
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I just recently started playing this game and it's a lot of fun. I'm about 3 months in on Normal and it seems to be really really easy now. Other than when I ran into a Cyberdisc on the Alien Battleship (which I didn't know would blow up in my face ) I haven't had any casualties in a long time. Does the game start to throw any curveballs soon? Or should I up the difficulty to Classic?
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Jul 14, 2014 16:32
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SOME MORE
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It's a shame that Long War MECs take so drat long to setup that most people won't have a lot of experience with all the different classes. I have two MEC classes set up, however, and while teching up to MECs, Gauss, and interceptor upgrades all in the same month has cost me a shitload of Alloys, I'm hoping to get another set active. Anyway, my squad composition was made of 2 Infantrymen, 2 Engineers, a Gunner Officer, a Medic, a Scout, and a Rocketeer. Two fireteams composed of one Infantryman and one Engineer, a roaming Scout that picked off stragglers from flanks/heights or nabbed Meld canisters, and the rest forming a solid firing line. My priority was to MECanize the Scout, since if I was going to have a dude running around solo, I rather have him in a sickass robot suit and armed with a huge gun that didn't suffer from Snap Shot penalties. The Pathfinder's working out pretty well since the jump jets make him an even crazier flanker with heights, he's safe from Seekers, and eventually he'll be able to take either In The Zone for cleanup or Lightning Reflexes for clearing Overwatch. For the next class, I turned my Infantry into Valkyries. They lose a lot of Overwatch perks, but in exchange they gain a HUGE damage boost from MEC weaponry as well as a lot of hitpoints. I feel like it's been a worthwhile trade off so far, since Valkyries still come with a decent spread of offensive and defensive perks. The final choice is huge, since you'll have to choose between Rapid Fire, Squadsight, and Sentinel, which are all crazy good. What I'm hoping to convert next are my Engineers, which are a bit tricky. Archers (Rocketeers) get better range and AoE with their grenades, but Shogun MECs get HEAT Warheads and two damage-boost perks to their explosives. Shoguns also come with Collateral Damage by default, so cover is no longer an issue with them. Everyone else is a no-go. The Gunner's an officer, rockets get more important as the game progresses, and the Medic is the only dude left that can use medkits and support grenades like Battlescanners. The Medic's also specced for smoke grenades, since the MECs are going to need every bit of Defense they can get because most of them lack the better defensive MEC perks. I figure that if 3 Medkits aren't enough to get my murder robot squad through a mission, then the problem lies in my tactics, not my loadout.
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Jul 14, 2014 17:05
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 19:43 |
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That's pretty much what vanilla does. It starts tricky then gets easier as you turn the tide. You may as well power through the rest of the game then try Long War  Speaking of Long War, I just got a terror mission in a country that's dropped out of the XCOM project. Am I OK to tell them to go gently caress themselves, or what?
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Jul 14, 2014 17:05
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