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Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
I think you can actually change the frequency of given genders/nationalities in the config somewhere, so an all-male all-American team probably IS possible.

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Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
So I just took a look at the gunner tree for real. Ready for Anything + Sentinel + Smartgun kit sounds pretty loving good on a SAW-based gunner since only Marksman/Strike Rifles get overwatch at squadsight ranges, apparently. If anything, you'd think it'd be the sniper rifle or the LMG, but I guess not.

Happy Noodle Boy
Jul 3, 2002


TheCosmicMuffet posted:

You can recruit better soldiers by going to the ini files and changing the randomized soldier stats to be whatever you want. I like to adjust them to the level I'd be 'screening for' so that I don't waste all that time.

How would I go about doing this? I'm bound to lose plenty of people as is, I certainly don't want to waste my time dismissing poo poo soldiers I won't bother using.

Captain Hair
Dec 31, 2007

Of course, that can backfire... some men like their bitches crazy.
So after not really playing since it came out I decided to give it another go after all the long war hype.

Holly poo poo this is good! And so much fun! I've got a scout with 20+ tiles of movement! So I can make a blue move (Thanks beagle), grab some alien attention, then double back leading them into a pincer trap with flanks from both sides!

Infact it turned death street (long narrow rainy city road) into a joke where I had said scout sneak up behind a Muton, then brought her two scout recruits in and they literally had him jammed there.

The same scout had another incredible moment with the military base with tanks map. Made it through the tanks to find mutons to the right, they ran terrified as each turn she ran around them flanking from a different direction each time.

Same map other side of the hanger, floater pod against the barn wall, engaged in a tedious over watch/suppression battle that could end badly at any moment.

Then I noticed the wall they were using for cover was a big shutter door, a plan was formed. I moved my two guys with lasers in through the hanger up against the screen door and steadied their aim, meanwhile sending my scout up onto the roof to get in position.

Aliens thought about what to do for their turn but decided to keep blasting away at the over watchers, they must have wondered "Hey where's the rest of these Xcom scrubs?"

I wish I could have seen their actual faces when my scout dropped down from the roof, opened the door and revealed 2 pissed off laser weilding assaults with pet shiv in tow.

I swear it was the funniest drat thing, I love long war :)

Fake/real edit: :stonk: First time ever on Newfoundland... I... somebody hold me :(

Captain Hair fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jul 22, 2014

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

Captain Hair posted:

So after not really playing since it came out I decided to give it another go after all the long war hype.

It really has settled into a great game in its own right. It's a lot more flexible than vanilla, so you can really screw yourself if you're careless, but it also means that you can find your own style. In the early game, I equip all my rookies with ultra-light gear, SMGs, pistols, laser-sight and a single AP grenade. Rookies are always terrible in a long-range slugging war, but they wreck sectoids and drones when they can run at full speed and drill half an SMG mag into an aliens head at point blank.

Of course, this all falls apart hilariously when they meet their first Floaters. Those extra HP cause problems.

Beagle
Dec 8, 2012

It's fine...

Ravenfood posted:

So I just took a look at the gunner tree for real. Ready for Anything + Sentinel + Smartgun kit sounds pretty loving good on a SAW-based gunner since only Marksman/Strike Rifles get overwatch at squadsight ranges, apparently. If anything, you'd think it'd be the sniper rifle or the LMG, but I guess not.

Wow, I never even considered the applications of Smartgun with Sentinel. Rapid Fire/Double Tap is just so good on a Gunner with HEAT, though... but that's a really smart combo.

If anything it'll make me consider Sentinel over Mayhem, though.

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
I'm slowly putting together gunner skill combos I think work well.

Shredder + Double Tap + Holotargetting is really nice for massive debuff application, especially with Red Fog on. HEAT, Flush, and Rapid Fire don't necessarily synergize that well, but give you a nice mix of high aim/low damage, low aim/high damage skills, plus HEAT and Flush have that weird damage interaction. I'd switch it out for DT if you're exclusively going to use LMGs, just because I think the ability to split your damage if you need it is too good to pass up, but otherwise its very flexible. Then, Covering Fire (right?) RFA, Sentinel turns you into basically the same overwatch monster that some infantry can be...except you don't have ammo concerns and hit harder. Might not have the same aim growth, but that's fixable. And now I wonder whether Shredder applied during an overwatch phase persists long enough...You could apply some seriously nasty amounts of that stuff with just the gunner.

Shame they don't get aggression anywhere on their tree, that plus Bring Em On (which Sentinel build infantry can't get) would push this back into "okay, that's just unfair" categories.

toasterwarrior
Nov 11, 2011
I actually dropped my Gunners for Marksmen/ITZ Snipers when I learned that marksmen rifles do the same amount of damage as sniper rifles. It's going to be a test of whether two Grenadier Engineers and a Rocketeer will be enough for HEAT duty.

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖

Beagle posted:

Wow, I never even considered the applications of Smartgun with Sentinel. Rapid Fire/Double Tap is just so good on a Gunner with HEAT, though... but that's a really smart combo.

If anything it'll make me consider Sentinel over Mayhem, though.
Does rapid-fire + double tap mean three shots in a turn?
Sentinel is amazing on infantry if you've also got opportunist. I passed up Covering Fire for Executioner on pretty much all my major infantry and now I'm thinking I may have made a mistake. Then again, as good as an overwatch-god is, I usually get more out of active offense than overwatch. Maybe it's just the way I go through missions.

Really, all these stats are so good and so impressive and appealing that no matter how I build my soldiers I feel they're turning into little gods. It's a testament to the balance of Long War that everything looks so enticing, and I've never labored over perk choices in Vanilla the way I have here. Though admittedly we do get 3 choices instead of just 2.

Mushball
May 23, 2012
I beat XCOM on normal when it first came out on normal and after letting my younger brother beat it, I sort of forgot about it until I remembered it has an expansion which prompted me to play it again on classic this time. So far my ground team is getting by without heavy losses to bullshit like thin men or chrysallids but by month 2 or 3 I'm seeing bigass alien ships come up on the radar that my dinky little interceptors have no chance of shooting down. I almost lost the US due to letting 2 battleships fly around there uncontested while I waited for backup interceptors to arrive and have laser cannons mounted on them.

Beagle
Dec 8, 2012

It's fine...

Vib Rib posted:

Does rapid-fire + double tap mean three shots in a turn?
Sentinel is amazing on infantry if you've also got opportunist. I passed up Covering Fire for Executioner on pretty much all my major infantry and now I'm thinking I may have made a mistake. Then again, as good as an overwatch-god is, I usually get more out of active offense than overwatch. Maybe it's just the way I go through missions.

Really, all these stats are so good and so impressive and appealing that no matter how I build my soldiers I feel they're turning into little gods. It's a testament to the balance of Long War that everything looks so enticing, and I've never labored over perk choices in Vanilla the way I have here. Though admittedly we do get 3 choices instead of just 2.


Rapid Fire Double Tap oppose each other on the Gunner tree, but regardless Double Tap says its only useable for standard shots, headshot or disabling shot iirc, as it was made for the Sniper. So I don't think it'd work with Rapid.

Covering Fire is definitely a critical perk in any Overwatch build. Not having to rely on enemy movement to trigger means you can cover any action that takes place in that soldier's zone; hugely increases the utility of Overwatch.

MrBims
Sep 25, 2007

by Ralp
I think Steadfast on Infantry is really underrated. Infantry are likely to be consistently situated in the middle of the squad, making them great aura carriers, so using them as the baseline for officers and pumping up their will makes sense to me.

And I just don't see the need for Executioner on them anyway; I need Infantry to crit two Exalt down in one turn, not to finish off something below half health. That is what beam SMGs are for, not my scoped pulse rifles.

Beagle
Dec 8, 2012

It's fine...

MrBims posted:

I think Steadfast on Infantry is really underrated. Infantry are likely to be consistently situated in the middle of the squad, making them great aura carriers, so using them as the baseline for officers and pumping up their will makes sense to me.

And I just don't see the need for Executioner on them anyway; I need Infantry to crit two Exalt down in one turn, not to finish off something below half health. That is what beam SMGs are for, not my scoped pulse rifles.

Steadfast/Trophy would be worth a lot more to me if it prevented Psi Panic, number one provider of panic in the first month. As is I take trophies in certain situations to deal with All-Sectoid Psi Spam All-Stars and then never think about them again.

I don't take Executioner but I'd imagine it would have a good use if you use your Infantry to finish twice. Hit two high health units with two squad members, then the infantry finishes both off with +10 hit +10 crit when they're weakened. Good synergy with rocketeers and grenadiers too.

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
Also of note: Covering Fire comes with +3 aim on infantry, which makes Executioner seem that much less appealing. If their will is lovely, I get Steadfast, more for the +5 will growth than the perk. If its okay, I go with Covering Fire. I try not to make my infantry officers just because that means they cycle through that much faster: the progressive penalty as you get higher in rank starts hurting a bit. If their will is good, though, why not? I just prefer to use other classes.

Executioner IS nice when you're trying to murder a pack of berserkers, though.

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
I really wish there were a way to respec a soldier. :(
I've put them through too many missions to want to redo them entirely for a single perk, but I might want to bring in some new hires and hope for another infantry or two. Too bad you can't trade out soldiers or select some kind of disposition towards a certain class. And I don't think it's that big of a deal since I usually use infantry for my basic forward backbone rather than overwatching. Still, though.

I guess while we're at it, any other pitfall perks to watch out for and/or perks so good they should be taken every time that especially stand out?

dyzzy
Dec 22, 2009

argh
I'm still in the early game but executioner has been helpful in getting my aim up to acceptable levels against those damned floaters and seekers. Maybe when I start getting higher ranking officers / tech it'll get better but for now that aerial defense bonus is a huge thorn in my side.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang

ArchangeI posted:

Dear Mrs. Koehler

When this letter reaches you, you will have no doubt been informed of the death of your son Dieter. Let me be the first to tell you that your son died in one of the most embarrassing and frankly stupid ways I have ever seen as tactical coordination officer at the XCOm Project. Your son was one of eight operatives sent to deal with an alien abduction attempt in France when he and his comrades came into contact with an alien combat robot known as a cyberdisc. Fortunately, this device was not behind cover and our forces managed to inflict heavy damage against it. Your son was in a perfect position to finish it of when he managed to somehow miss a shot from his laser rifle at a range of perhaps 10 meters. How exactly he was able to miss with a weapon that fires a beam of light is beyond me. In any event, the cyberdisc retaliated and took his head clean off with a stream of plasma bolts.
Throughout his service with our initiative, your son has consistently failed to achieve even the bare minimum of proficiency we ask of our soldiers (ability to hit at least 2 out of 5 70% shots and 1 out of 10 50% shots). I can safely say that he will not be missed and hope that you, too, will come to realize that humanity has lost nothing of value when your son died a horrible death.

Respectfully,
Bradford, XCOM Central Officer



:golfclap:

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

AtillatheBum posted:

Just give your snipers Marksman Rifles since you can take both actions with those. Honestly I almost never take regular sniper rifles now, just marksman rifles. Back in the previous beta when they had no penalty they were absurdly good. Now even with the snapshot penalty they are still great and the flexibility of being able to move and shoot is so nice. The only time I take the regular rifle is if I'm on a terror mission where there's bound to be plenty of mechanical units(gauss long rifle).

But shorter range! Squadsight snipers don't move! :(

I really cannot decide if Exalt are bullshit or not, latest missions have been full squad hack-stoppers where I've taken my A team vs elite Exalt with lasers on both sides. I have a couple of guys guard the transponder and the rest fight around the map to open up com relays for my agents. It's pretty tense, but also really fun, with so many Exalt running at me each turn.

Does anyone know if Reg Fog affects Mecs the same as normal troopers? I have enjoyed LW's Red Fog, but as I approach getting Mecs I wonder if it will screw them since the easy to hit but high HP Mecs would seem to be likely to be injured often.

And speaking of skill choices, I was pained to have to choose between Sprinter and Lightning Reflexes on my maxed out Assault, I really wanted both so badly! I eventually went with Sprinter since I normally have a Scout to break overwatches. Infantry seemed to be less of a choice - Vital Point Targeting is neat, but I'm not sure why anyone would pick it over Rapid Fire - Why yes, I would like to shoot 3 times/turn with my Heavy Beam Enchanced Optics Rifle!

E: Reading b14 notes:

quote:

- Primary Weapon aim bonuses/penalties (like the +7 with carbine or -15 with heavy rifles) no longer apply to rocket launchers. All other aim bonuses (small items, steady weapon) still apply.
:( Still, means my Rocketeers can run with heavier main weapons.

Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Jul 22, 2014

Dr. Video Games 0031
Jul 17, 2004

Does it look like Long War's development will settle down anytime soon, or are they going to continue to do rapid fire beta releases in perpetuity?

Beagle
Dec 8, 2012

It's fine...

Darkrenown posted:

E: Reading b14 notes:

:( Still, means my Rocketeers can run with heavier main weapons.

It's the end of Carbines for me, I think. I guess when you get to Pulse/Plasma and the 1 damage loss doesn't matter much I might end up using some, but for ballistic/beam I've only ever used carbines for Rocketeers. Still, with SMGs given Steady Weapon in the same patch - it seems like a no brainer to go SMG Rocketeer now to nullify their awful mobility when you pile rockets on them.

Jabor
Jul 16, 2010

#1 Loser at SpaceChem

Hopeford posted:

Huuuuh, just had a soldier flat out not activate Lightning Reflexes. Like I figured he could dash by a floater on overwatch, waited for LR to activate...and it didn't. Poor bastard got shot. Didn't die though, and I'm open to suggestions for demeaning nicknames regarding his slow reflexes. Is there an ability that negates LR or was that a glitch?

Last page, but if this is Long War then it's just because LW changes it so that Lightning Reflexes isn't actually guaranteed to work.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang
I'm in September on Vanilla Classic, just successfully stormed EXALT's base. Right after that, I get the Base Defense mission. What the hell?

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

Jabor posted:

Last page, but if this is Long War then it's just because LW changes it so that Lightning Reflexes isn't actually guaranteed to work.

This annoys me a little when I watch Beagle's War Within since he says it a lot too. As far as I know, Lightning Reflexes always "works", that is, it always should proc when being shot at with overwatch fire, but the proc only a 90%/70% dodge chance. However, it apparently doesn't work at all -it doesn't proc- if the enemy has a 100% hit chance on the shot. This is going to be fixed for the LW b14, but it is a vanilla issue.

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖

dyzzy posted:

I'm still in the early game but executioner has been helpful in getting my aim up to acceptable levels against those damned floaters and seekers. Maybe when I start getting higher ranking officers / tech it'll get better but for now that aerial defense bonus is a huge thorn in my side.
A good point, and to counter my own point with something I said earlier, every skill is useful when used right. I think I'll just build these infantry towards being crit machines instead of overwatch robots. Aggression, Sharpshooter, Bring 'Em On, and Executioner mean huge bonus to crit chance with a further boost to crit damage, then toss on rapid fire and you've got a high-damage machine that can fire to and from cover and even get an additional chance to hit.

Caconym
Feb 12, 2013

Furism posted:

I'm in September on Vanilla Classic, just successfully stormed EXALT's base. Right after that, I get the Base Defense mission. What the hell?

Hilarious bug where the exalt base is coded as a variant of the alien base?

I just learned that it's a bad idea to use an assault with close combat specialist and mimetic skin as a covert operative. It worked so well untill she became a captain. :v:

toasterwarrior
Nov 11, 2011

Beagle posted:

It's the end of Carbines for me, I think. I guess when you get to Pulse/Plasma and the 1 damage loss doesn't matter much I might end up using some, but for ballistic/beam I've only ever used carbines for Rocketeers. Still, with SMGs given Steady Weapon in the same patch - it seems like a no brainer to go SMG Rocketeer now to nullify their awful mobility when you pile rockets on them.

I also noticed during my second run that SMGs do the same damage as Carbines. The Aim bonus was ok, but with SMGs getting Steady Weapon, I'll be glad to have my Rocketeer move a lot faster.

Though it does show a big problem I have with the Rocketeer as a class: that rockets are absolutely vital with LW's increased enemy spawns and HP counts, but the Rocketeer is good for nothing beyond that. It feels like you're free to make a seven-man squad as you like, but the 8th spot always has to go to a Rocketeer or otherwise mechanical units/swarms will gently caress you over eventually. I was hoping turning a Rocketeer into a MEC would help out in terms of boosting its utility, but Shoguns get the damage-boosting perks, not Archers...

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
What are the specifics of mimetic skin anyway? I tried using it once and broke my stealth as soon as I moved. I got the impression you can't move while hidden if there are enemies nearby, or you'll break cover. But the way people talk about using cloaked units seems way more powerful than such a significant drawback would allow.

Caconym
Feb 12, 2013

Vib Rib posted:

What are the specifics of mimetic skin anyway? I tried using it once and broke my stealth as soon as I moved. I got the impression you can't move while hidden if there are enemies nearby, or you'll break cover. But the way people talk about using cloaked units seems way more powerful than such a significant drawback would allow.

If enemies would see the cloakee if he was uncloaked then moving will uncloak him. Basically, if he can see enemies he can't move cloaked. And also the destination square has to be high cover. It's still awesome for setting up flanking shots and means you can cross exposed doorways covered by enemy overwatch and the like. No risk first turn dashing scout. Meld scouting. I love it.

Furism
Feb 21, 2006

Live long and headbang

Furism posted:

I'm in September on Vanilla Classic, just successfully stormed EXALT's base. Right after that, I get the Base Defense mission. What the hell?

This is turning out to be the bullshitiest game I ever played. Initially I thought I got lucky because the game picked mostly Colonels but then decided that they'd all consistently miss 90%+ shots and panic all the loving time. I would have rage quit but even the game decided it was too much and decided to crash on the last wave of reinforcement.

loving XCOM, man.

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Vib Rib posted:

I think supply ships generally have 33 aliens in them. I've taken on two, both times it was exactly that.
Weeelll..

This was my longest mission so far. Not because of the ton of aliens, but because the last two pods were dicks. A cyberdisc with drones strolled into me when I wanted to storm the last part of the ship, so I got the gently caress out and set up in cover. Took really long to get rid of the drones+disc, because they hung out on top of the ufo all the time. Eventually I used a scout to spot the drones for my sniper, and the disc decided to come at me when it was alone. And the last pod were five outsiders, one with 20 health. They hung out between the map edge and the very tip of the ship. Two of them ran into my overwatches, but the rest hunkered down. It was really dicey to drive them out of there because I had no more grenades and like half of my squad was wounded.

I can only say that you should bring tons of supplies when you want to raid this thing. You'll burn through all of them, believe me. Also, if you don't have any cool armor yet, two medkits will save your day.

Beagle posted:

Covering Fire is definitely a critical perk in any Overwatch build. Not having to rely on enemy movement to trigger means you can cover any action that takes place in that soldier's zone; hugely increases the utility of Overwatch.
I have to thank you for mentioning that in one of your last videos! I never liked that perk too much, but I've now seen how useful it can be on your infantry. Well, I've also seen how useful it is on enemies. But really, shooting once and then going into overwatch on steroids is cool.

Vib Rib
Jul 23, 2007

God damn this shit is
fuckin' re-dic-a-liss

🍖🍖😛🍖🍖
Doing a bomb disposal mission and things have been pretty quiet until I get to the final building and a few thin men cluster up top on the roof. Most of my squad's not in a good position, but my rocketeer's on the opposite roof, so hey, maybe I can give that a shot! The little ramparts on the roof don't turn red but hopefully the rocket will blow them up anyway, or at least hurt the thin men a bit.
The entire front of the loving building came off. I really had to marvel at the level of destructibility the game's environments supported, something I didn't see much of in a very explosion-lite vanilla campaign.
Then I marveled at all the loving thin men.
:stare:

Not pictured: At least 3 or 4 others that ran into cover out of sight.
It's like I just ripped open a loving beehive.


Also, on an earlier note, I feel like due to the nature of their roles, Engineers and Rocketeers get very little xp on my teams, because they generally soak and soften pods, and the weakened enemies are then picked off by Executioner-buffed infantry, close range assault, snipers, etc. Rarely do I use them to finish off enemies, even less than my medics, because they usually have weaker mobility+ weapons. Also, explosions destroy both corpses and weapons, so that's no fun.

GlyphGryph
Jun 23, 2013

Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.
Flush Shredding from a gunner forcing a full cover enemy to move into a shot from an overwatch god infantry (who already killed someone else with his first shot) remains the most satisfying thing.

I really wish flush cancelled out the targets overwatch though. It is honestly kind of weird that it doesn't.

Also, I feel like a lot of the problems people have really comes down to not-enough-shivs. I am currently running 9 of them which means I usually have at least one available for each mission, with all the best equipment I have.


Now if only I could get control of the air game, I think I will be in pretty good shape.

Dominic White
Nov 1, 2005

Darkrenown posted:

This is going to be fixed for the LW b14, but it is a vanilla issue.

It's kinda crazy just how many of Long War's issues are leftovers from a slightly under-tested base game. All the more impressive that they've managed to fix a lot of them, too.

Edit: New in the V14 patch notes: "- Your premission squad will now be saved if you leave the dropship room and return." - SO useful!

Tin Tim
Jun 4, 2012

Live by the pun - Die by the pun

Dominic White posted:

Edit: New in the V14 patch notes: "- Your premission squad will now be saved if you leave the dropship room and return." - SO useful!
:allears:

I wanted to have that so many times! Now I only need a button to insta clear the squad that the game picked for me.

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011

Darkrenown posted:

And speaking of skill choices, I was pained to have to choose between Sprinter and Lightning Reflexes on my maxed out Assault, I really wanted both so badly! I eventually went with Sprinter since I normally have a Scout to break overwatches. Infantry seemed to be less of a choice - Vital Point Targeting is neat, but I'm not sure why anyone would pick it over Rapid Fire - Why yes, I would like to shoot 3 times/turn with my Heavy Beam Enchanced Optics Rifle!
The reason to go with VPT over RapidFire is if you already took Sentinel the rank before. Honestly, I think Sentinel and RF should be on the same tier: you'll notice on most of the other trees, ways to fire twice tend to be paired across from each other. On the infantry, they aren't.

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

Dominic White posted:

It's kinda crazy just how many of Long War's issues are leftovers from a slightly under-tested base game. All the more impressive that they've managed to fix a lot of them, too.

Yeah, any time I talk about XCOM I'm always slightly mad about how unpolished it is in some ways. I think of Firaxis as a major games company, and they have high production values in some places, but XCOM could have really done with cooking for a bit longer and/or some better patching. It's great the LW team can do some of that, although it's going to make playing the vanilla game again painful if I just want to stomp through the campaign.

Ravenfood posted:

The reason to go with VPT over RapidFire is if you already took Sentinel the rank before. Honestly, I think Sentinel and RF should be on the same tier: you'll notice on most of the other trees, ways to fire twice tend to be paired across from each other. On the infantry, they aren't.

I suppose so. I didn't research the perk trees ahead of time, so I mostly focused my infantry on direct damage perks to max out their double shooting instead of taking overwatch boosters.

Tin Tim posted:

I wanted to have that so many times! Now I only need a button to insta clear the squad that the game picked for me.

Pretty sure I saw such a button mentioned in either patch notes or their "features we want to add" list.

Inexplicable Humblebrag
Sep 20, 2003

So glad to hear about the keep-selected-squad thing.

Less glad about the fact that on investigating this crashed UFO with a rookie-heavy team, a single pod of aliens contained two mechtoids, five elite exalt operatives (!?) and a sectoid for force-fielding.

e: why the hell do Exalt have high wills than anything below a sectoid commander

why does this mod make Exalt into such a chore

MechPlasma
Jan 30, 2013
Speaking of SHIVs, as part of my ongoing project to make a comprehensive Long War SHIV guide, I decided to make a list of all the early-game SHIV accessories, since their descriptions are actually very unclear.
Keep in mind that SHIVs have three equipment slots instead of two, and every piece of equipment slows the SHIV down by one. And the ones not labelled "SHIV only" work on MECs too.


Autoloader
- +1 ammo. For 50 bucks, -1 movement, and an equipment slot. Pass.

HEAT Ammo (SHIV only)
- +50% against robots. Cyberdisks, Sectopods, Mechtoids, but not Floaters. Realistically, you shouldn't get it until you start facing Mechtoids on a regular basis.

Alloy Belt (SHIV only)
- +2hp to the SHIV's default 8, and +4hp to the Alloy/Hover's 20. +25% health may seem nifty, but they cost $125 each. By the time you can afford that, you have better choices.

Weapon Gyrostabilizer
- +5% aim. See Autoloader.

Depleted Elerium Rounds
- +1 damage to standard and Gauss guns. SHIVs can one-shot everything at the start of the game, but only just - as enemy health creeps up, you'll find yourself one damage short a lot. What I'm saying is that they're really good, but don't buy them so soon.

Holo-Targeter
- Ooh now we're talking! +5% aim, gives Holo-Targeter (when firing or suppressing/flushing an enemy, even if the shot misses, all other shots on that enemy get +10% aim). This is great on any SHIV!

Adaptive Tracking Pods (SHIV only)
- All Overwatch shots fire as if they had normal aim. At enemies not in cover anymore. Pretty great all around.

Smartshell Pods (SHIV only)
- Gives Flush and +5% aim. For twice the ammo, it fires at +30% aim and -50% damage and forces the alien to move. As explained before, that usually doesn't mean move out of cover, although it does work if they're hiding behind a Full Cover pillar. Overall... meh, I guess. Even with SHIV's exceptionally high damage output, I could never get much use out of it. Your mileage may vary.

Laser Pumper
- +1 damage to Beam and Pulser guns. Sounds like Depleted Elerium Rounds? Well it is... at twice the price! That's not counting the foundry project required, which is much more costly too. Basically, it's not such a go-to purchase as it's Elerium brother.


Personal recommendation: Depleted Elerium Rounds, Holo-Targeter, and Adaptive Tracking Pods. Maybe replace the Elerium with HEAT much later on down the line.


Much later on, there's also Counterfire Pods (a free shot per turn for SHIVs that take damage) Elerium Turbos (speed), Alloy Carbide Plating (health) or Zevatron Booster (Plasma damage). I'd talk about them, buuuut I don't know enough about them yet. Stay tuned.

MechPlasma fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jul 22, 2014

Ravenfood
Nov 4, 2011
Aggression does not apply at squadsight ranges, right? Because right now, the TSGT sniper choices are kind of...weak. I know Lock 'n' Load is apparently bugged to not allow firing after reloading on sniper rifles, and aggression doesn't work at the ranges necessary. Which leaves Ranger, which is kind of eh all around. (Yes, I plan on switching over to marksman's rifles soon, since I'm starting to realize just how good they are)

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MrBims
Sep 25, 2007

by Ralp

Ravenfood posted:

Aggression does not apply at squadsight ranges, right? Because right now, the TSGT sniper choices are kind of...weak. I know Lock 'n' Load is apparently bugged to not allow firing after reloading on sniper rifles, and aggression doesn't work at the ranges necessary. Which leaves Ranger, which is kind of eh all around. (Yes, I plan on switching over to marksman's rifles soon, since I'm starting to realize just how good they are)

Aggression is only at the individual's sight range yeah, but lock n load is working as intended except for one bug where it won't function if you get it while you had hi cap magazines on the soldier when you got it - removing the item then putting it back on fixes it.

You will need snap shot to shoot after reloading, because it counts as a move action.

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