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Mr E posted:Just started a new game in EW on Classic Ironman. Is there a time when I should ever dash, or should I just take it slow always? Also, is there anything different in Classic preventing me from just taking my time in the tech tree? Even if you plan to double move, it is a good habit to make it two separate move actions. You cover the same distance. Only dash if you know the move won't activate new packs, or you are in a situation in which you need to move through an enemy overwatch. (Sprinting gives an aim penalty to reaction fire) Classic will ramp up panic a bit faster than normal but that's only an issue for the first couple months.
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Jul 25, 2014 15:57
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MrBims posted:You never want to dash if doing so could cause a new group of aliens to activate - only dash into a place that won't have line of sight to new aliens, or if you already know you are fighting the last group. Beyond that, the specific reasons for dashing are going to be dependent on a ton of variables in the fight: it might be better to dash and set up a flanking shot next turn from hard cover than to shoot now, or you might have someone you need to get closer to the aliens like your arc thrower guy, or you need to get rid of an alien overwatch and no better options exist than to do a dashing move (dashing will decrease alien aim by 20 on top of overwatch). Agreed with all of this. Just a reminder that the actual overwatch modifiers are 0.7 multiplicative, not -20. So if I have 100 aim at an enemy on a single move my chance to hit is 100*0.7 = 70%, not 100-20 = 80%. Similarly, a dashing target is another 0.7 modifier, so a 100 aim unit firing at a dashing enemy would have a 100*0.7*0.7 = 49% chance to hit, not 100-20-20 = 60%.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:01
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I just found that if you put a Proximity Mine on top of a pack of Muton Elite you'll lock them to the spot. Berserkers don't seem to care one bit though.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:01
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Furism posted:I just found that if you put a Proximity Mine on top of a pack of Muton Elite you'll lock them to the spot. Berserkers don't seem to care one bit though. Should work with any non-flying unit that uses cover. Keeps them from rushing you if you fear flanks, but it's usually better to set off the mine yourself with another explosive since they do terrific damage.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:07
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Darkrenown posted:So I've been catching up on Jade Star's LP of EW, and recently the topic of doing a LW run afterwards came up. I was pretty surprised by how almost everyone in that thread thinks it's terrible. I was going to chime in with a few points, like how explosive damage isn't random, or how having only one abduction at a time doesn't make panic easy mode, but LW has become a banned topic there like their use of the sniper overwatch exploit Jade Star said very clearly why he doesn't like Long War at this point in time, (sum up: great ideas, atrocious execution due to a ton of bugs, mostly unfixed, trap pathways, especially in research, useless crap, extraneously complicated nonsense, like the MEC classes, etc) and people started an argument in his thread over it. He did the sensible thing by locking the topic and saying stop talking about it. It was off topic and making GBS threads up everything. I was truthfully surprised nobody got probated over it initially for chasing after a derail. LW is good in my opinion but seriously, you only need to go back to the hex-edited bug 'fixes' to figure out why a large class of people would find the environment alone offputting at this point in time, and you only need look at the reviews for EU/EW on steam to realize that the simplification and removal of dead-end research, trap strategic paths, and useless (or useful but fiddly, like laser sight) tactical gadgets was wildly considered to be a good thing. LW has re-implemented all of these things. It is lunacy to think that's not going to piss some people off. Now again, I'm still a huge fan of UFO Defense, which had all of these things and WAY MORE, so this doesn't bother me personally that much, but consider that we are the turbonerds still playing what amounts to a single player game two full years after its release. We're NOT representative of 'normal people'.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:11
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Mr. Crow posted:God how many EXALT are at their HQ, this is ridiculous. Yes, I'm here right now myself on this game. I have a suspicion my opinion on Rocket guys is gonna change hard, and I've got no qualms about savescumming this. I wish to hell I found them a week earlier - they just managed to get laser tech, and I'm not quite out of beam laser tech yet. They're advancing faster every day that goes by and only getting tougher. I don't really want to put it off long enough to finish gauss and then have to build the equipment to equip everyone. I also think I'm getting screwed by the tech tree. Why was Alloy Shiv locked behind "Improved Body Armor" which I've been ignoring because who the heck has the resources to build armor? I am probably, ultimately, going to lose this game, and I have a strong feeling I'll need to sit down and actually study the tech tree so I can figure out what I need to research to get stuff if I'm going to win the next one, because it seems like a never-ending series of surprises. So what's this about a special research for dealing with Exalt HQ? GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 16:13
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Super Skyranger. It can't, y'know, tell you what the gently caress it does in the tech description because that apparently isn't a Long War design goal, but it lets you bring a couple more dudes along on alien base (x2), exalt base (x2), and temple ship missions (x4, I think) - it's pretty cheap too.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:28
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Is there a particular reason why the Long War devs don't like sidearms? I mean, I like them in the vanilla and try to use a Gunslinger Sniper whenever I can, but I thought that was just me being weird.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:Is there a particular reason why the Long War devs don't like sidearms? I mean, I like them in the vanilla and try to use a Gunslinger Sniper whenever I can, but I thought that was just me being weird. They don't like them so much, that they added a ton of new ones! The gall of it all.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:34
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I feel like a fundamental problem in Long War, and even XCOM itself, is the way enemy pods are handled. This is probably the first thing anyone noticed playing the game, but the way pods can take cover when you first spot them, aren't a factor until you do, get free shots on you if you discover them near the end of a turn, etc. is all really frustrating when, in practice, you try to flank an enemy and accidentally pull a few more. It's like the game has an 'aggro range' and it feels way out of place. The problem is I have no idea how you'd counteract this (let alone in a way that would be possible with a mod). Do you just remove aliens taking cover when spotted, giving free flanking/open shots, but then allow them to do the same to you? You'd end up with a pack of mutons stumbling into your guys from behind one turn and popping half your squad.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:36
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Ah, must have missed it. Cheers.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:38
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Vib Rib posted:I feel like a fundamental problem in Long War, and even XCOM itself, is the way enemy pods are handled. This is probably the first thing anyone noticed playing the game, but the way pods can take cover when you first spot them, aren't a factor until you do, get free shots on you if you discover them near the end of a turn, etc. is all really frustrating when, in practice, you try to flank an enemy and accidentally pull a few more. It's like the game has an 'aggro range' and it feels way out of place. I think this problem goes away if you have enemies genuinely move across the map and obey the same rules while doing so as you do. So if you move in they are not standing dramatically in the middle of nowhere and then scatter. They are already in somewhat defensive positions. If they walk into you they do so already aiming for cover and that move does not suddenly change simply because they found your location.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:42
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MrBims posted:They don't like them so much, that they added a ton of new ones! They add a ton of new ones and make damned sure they're completely useless until late-game research gets them to semi-usable status. Bad damage combined with enemy damage resistance, aim penalties built in, accuracy falloff. It's a gun I can't hit with and sometimes doesn't damage them even if the shot lands. The machine pistol has an even worse aim penalty. Scopes and laser sites don't help. Sawed off shotgun is neat, but it has a one tile range and reduces your movement. (Anti thematic to a point blank weapon but it makes sense given the weight system) I'm liking it for my sprinter scouts. Admittedly I haven't played with them much late-game. It just doesn't seem worthwhile to sink so many resources into sidearms when there's just SO MUCH STUFF I have to buy in those stages. Requiring construction of plasma weapons just exacerbated the problem, I can't even just use captured plasma pistols now, I have to build them when I should be building plasma rifles and cannons for my spaceships and rail guns and poo poo I need expensive rear end armor too SEND ME MORE SUPPLY SHIPS YOU FUCKS.
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Jul 25, 2014 17:15
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Tzarnal posted:I think this problem goes away if you have enemies genuinely move across the map and obey the same rules while doing so as you do. So if you move in they are not standing dramatically in the middle of nowhere and then scatter. They are already in somewhat defensive positions. If they walk into you they do so already aiming for cover and that move does not suddenly change simply because they found your location. Cover isn't 360 degrees though - if aliens did not get the free move, it would be much easier to take flanking shots on them in your first contact with them. Right now, getting flanking shots on first contact generally requires having split your squad beforehand or making tradeoffs that upgrade your mobility at the expense of damage and protection. Pistols are a backup weapon, they aren't intended to exist as an alternative to primary guns. You want to take upgraded pistols and machine pistols so that when you run out of ammo (which only becomes easier to do over time, not harder), you don't have to wait a turn reloading before you can take a potentially killing shot. Pistols in EU/EW were pretty silly overpowered with gunslinger, having infinite ammo, and I'm glad that isn't replicated in LW. MrBims fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 17:33
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Coolguye posted:Jade Star said very clearly why he doesn't like Long War at this point in time, (sum up: great ideas, atrocious execution due to a ton of bugs, mostly unfixed, trap pathways, especially in research, useless crap, extraneously complicated nonsense, like the MEC classes, etc) and people started an argument in his thread over it. He did the sensible thing by locking the topic and saying stop talking about it. It was off topic and making GBS threads up everything. I was truthfully surprised nobody got probated over it initially for chasing after a derail. As one of the LW boosters responsible for the derail of Jade Star's thread I fully support his decision to keep LW talk out of it. I think I didn't get probated because Jade Star did not request it (although he would have been well within his rights to do so). Of course it was not my intention to derail the thread, but I should have responded to poster questions about it by linking here instead of keeping the discussion there. At this point I think LW speaks for itself for better or worse. Beaglerush plays LW for 8 hours straight every Thursday with a consistent peak Twitch audience of over 1,000. All the FiraXCOM developers play it and have given it positive comments. Johnnylump has featurelocked and is dedicated to thorough bugfix, stability, and balancing patches even though major possible new features are in the hopper. I think that the problem of Dead End useless tech is mostly solved, with some major exceptions: Archer, Shogun, and Jaeger MECs need a boost to separate them, but all the other MECs are really good now. Even Shogun and Archer are good if you get them early enough. All soldier classes are properly useful (minor balance issues). The only strategic paths that seems to be a "trap" are: heavy Gene Mod commitment (but Adaptive Bone Marrow + Secondary Heart on high level troops cancels out many of the negatives and results in a fast cycling "A Team" that never stays injured or loses will--combine this with Revive and you can get really creative with tactics), or Armor Rush (mostly because Phalanx is not as good as Alloy Plating). It's also not really possible to ignore the air war, or skip beam lasers (too critical and too strong an upgrade over ballistics relative to Gauss). The strategies that I have executed or seen executed successfully include: -Balanced (always research fastest project, expand sat coverage slowly, balance of offense/defense in tactical) -Early MECs (totally different animal than mid/late MECs, because you have to balance the power gained against the XP penalty early, while late game MECs give a huge effective XP bonus and you can build for effectiveness at max rank) -All SHIVs (ITT, I never tried this, but seems really awesome) -Early Psi -Early Gene Mods (underpowered, but several really great combos) -Skip Lasers for Gauss (hard to execute, pays off if you tilt soldier development to Rocketeers and Assaults, relies on Reaper Rounds to make up damage deficiency of keeping ballistics too long). -Research Rush (Start Europe with Labs and Interrogations to get research credits. With so much more to research they matter if you can get them consistently. Being able to get base assaults on demand is also good but you provoke a lot of base defenses this way and aliens will keep up with this strat better in B14). -Soldier development rush. Start Asia and buy up the all the OTS ranks ASAP by buying 40-60 soldiers. Once you get Majors development accelerates due to XP bonuses. This strat has synergy with Gene Mod Rush. -Air war rush. Start Asia and leave undefended to bait March/Apr Sat shootdown and take NA. Buy tons of interceptors and research only air war tech. You can shoot down a lot of stuff if you can get Armored Fighters and Lasers quickly and 12 interceptors. Tactical suffers but you get more easy UFO missions. The big problem is you will probably get an early Base Defense which can be tough unless you see it coming (relaunch a sat in your home country after the shootdown). For my money this is a lot of viable options. Some of the items are still struggling for uses, particularly stuff like Psi Grenade, Neural Gunlink, and some of the New Combat Systems items. amanasleep fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 17:47
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Coolguye posted:Jade Star said very clearly why he doesn't like Long War at this point in time, (sum up: great ideas, atrocious execution due to a ton of bugs, mostly unfixed, trap pathways, especially in research, useless crap, extraneously complicated nonsense, like the MEC classes, etc) and people started an argument in his thread over it. He did the sensible thing by locking the topic and saying stop talking about it. It was off topic and making GBS threads up everything. I was truthfully surprised nobody got probated over it initially for chasing after a derail. Oh I loved the new EU/EW design, it's just after playing it a few times the idea of a longer and more detailed version becomes more attractive. I don't really feel like LW has strategic dead ends or traps, but perhaps I've just not noticed them yet, however if there are any I would think they're more balance issues than design intent, afterall a trap path only works once so it's rather pointless to invest dev time in making it - and EU/EW certainly let you trap yourself by failing to build enough sats or just not following the plot. LW doesn't seem very buggy to me either, in fact it has fixed a few vanilla bugs that official patches never got around to. I don't see much of the new stuff as "extraneously complicated nonsense" either, the new MEC classes have interesting differences between most of them, Laser sights are just worse scopes you don't need to research and build. I don't find every new item useful, but I didn't find every item in EU/EW useful either, so it just seems like a difference of degree rather than kind. I also guess I missed JS voicing his objections, my read of the thread went from JS saying he might do a LW run afterwards, to a bunch of people getting mad at it, to the topic being locked. Certainly he doesn't need to play LW, nor does anyone else, but I find it weird for people to get mad about what a mod does.
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Jul 25, 2014 18:20
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Hahaha have you read the upcoming patch notes lately? The bugs they caught make quite the rapsheet.
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Jul 25, 2014 18:56
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MrBims posted:Pistols are a backup weapon, they aren't intended to exist as an alternative to primary guns. You want to take upgraded pistols and machine pistols so that when you run out of ammo (which only becomes easier to do over time, not harder), you don't have to wait a turn reloading before you can take a potentially killing shot. Pistols in EU/EW were pretty silly overpowered with gunslinger, having infinite ammo, and I'm glad that isn't replicated in LW. And no, removing the penalty with gunslinger does not count as good balance either.
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Jul 25, 2014 18:58
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Darkrenown posted:I also guess I missed JS voicing his objections, my read of the thread went from JS saying he might do a LW run afterwards, to a bunch of people getting mad at it, to the topic being locked. Certainly he doesn't need to play LW, nor does anyone else, but I find it weird for people to get mad about what a mod does. Nothing against Jadestar personally, his LP was cool, but I found that he liked to talk up the idea of discussing things and never really accept anyone else's reasoning or arguments. Unless it was Guava, I guess. He, like every other Goon, is a weird dude, and weird dudes get weirder when they're entertaining other weird dudes. I don't think his opinion of Long War means anything except that it's his opinion. I'm sure there's someone like Beaglerush around here who'd be happy to run Long War--ugly warts and all. You know who'd be *great* for long war? That other guy who was doing an EW playthrough with second wave options while Jadestar was starting his LP. I think it crapped out, but there were some *awesome* disastrous mission playthroughs. Unleash that guy on Long War and I think it'd be a good time. If I'm remembering right, he even had that one guy with the really weird accent who always sounds like he barely has any breath left to speak, or is trying not to burp commentating.
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Jul 25, 2014 19:00
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I've now made a few gauss weapons, and kinda like that they're not a clear upgrade over lasers. But I'm not so sure if I should bother getting gauss cannons for my planes. Is the penetration and fire speed really good enough to make up for the damage drop? Lasers have served me well so far, except against large ufos of course.
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Jul 25, 2014 19:03
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Tin Tim posted:I've now made a few gauss weapons, and kinda like that they're not a clear upgrade over lasers. But I'm not so sure if I should bother getting gauss cannons for my planes. Is the penetration and fire speed really good enough to make up for the damage drop? Lasers have served me well so far, except against large ufos of course. According to this outdated-but-apparently-still-somewhat-accurate spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13CvoSAyapnC2p9a_r9SV5cTA2r3G9UqtsAazTg2_be4/edit?pli=1#gid=970853268), you're going to need gauss to take on Destroyers and Harvesters. Unfortunately it doesn't say if getting the armor-piercing upgrade will make Laser Cannons superior again since that and rate of fire is what they lack over gauss.
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Jul 25, 2014 19:15
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Thanks, I'll fit one plane with gauss and just see what it'll do for me. Also, I already have the penetration foundry project done, but honestly didn't see much difference with my lasers.
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Jul 25, 2014 19:37
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amanasleep posted:As one of the LW boosters responsible for the derail of Jade Star's thread I fully support his decision to keep LW talk out of it. I think I didn't get probated because Jade Star did not request it (although he would have been well within his rights to do so). Of course it was not my intention to derail the thread, but I should have responded to poster questions about it by linking here instead of keeping the discussion there. I love LW and LW impossible is one of the best single player experiences around, but the power differences in the research tech is pretty huge. Rushing Beam laser from the get go vs everything else is the difference of having Lasers around a month earlier. Only alternative pathway that's remotely close in terms of power is improved body armour because SHIVs are pretty unbalanced right now (Sentinel Drones is broken), but even that leaves you too weak in the air compared to Laser Tech. That and Starting Asia -> NA/Africa (if NA is the defector) is just miles above everything else. I just sorta feel their attempt to make the Air-war meaningful might have warped the game balance TOO far into the air, where you need to plan everything around it. That's why tech paths like early autopsy/psi/gene/mec are just unattractive compared to Lasers -> Advanced Aerospace concept path, which lasts till around Late June/July. Then you feel like you have some breathing room in terms of research if you aren't failure cascading by then.
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Jul 25, 2014 20:11
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Tin Tim posted:Thanks, I'll fit one plane with gauss and just see what it'll do for me. Also, I already have the penetration foundry project done, but honestly didn't see much difference with my lasers. Lasers with Penetrator Weapons have basically the same effectiveness as before with the exception that they are twice as effective against Destroyers and Harvesters. Add in Armored Fighters and you should be able to down those reliably. Phoenix Coilguns are solidly better than Lasers against Destroyers and Harvesters but also have a chance to take down Terror Ships, Abductors, Assault Carriers, and Transports, particularly with Armored Fighters and Boost. The Assault Carriers are probably not doable without Firestorms though because they do too much damage, but experienced pilots with Dodge might do it once in a while. Wassbix posted:I love LW and LW impossible is one of the best single player experiences around, but the power differences in the research tech is pretty huge. Rushing Beam laser from the get go vs everything else is the difference of having Lasers around a month earlier. Only alternative pathway that's remotely close in terms of power is improved body armour because SHIVs are pretty unbalanced right now (Sentinel Drones is broken), but even that leaves you too weak in the air compared to Laser Tech. It's certainly the easiest path, and LW does not require you to have a more effective strategy. OTOH I think that Europe research start with labs can let you jump lasers for Gauss, which sets you up for MECs and the mid game much faster while making the early game a bit harder. amanasleep fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 20:47
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I wonder if there would be a way to make some of those other paths a little more viable/useful by either giving you direct air-to-air options on that route that are useful, but not better than directly focusing on air. Kind of like alien mats and the damage upgrades.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:05
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I seem to have encountered one of the game bugs. I entered the 'Build Facilities' menu by mistake. I'm still in tutorial mode so most of the icons are disabled, but I can't seem to exit this screen either. Right-click, esc, pretty much every key either does nothing or makes the same buzz noise as if I'd told it to build a structure disabled for the tutorial. Is there a workaround for that, or do I have to exit the game any time it happens?
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Jul 25, 2014 21:23
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dyzzy posted:Hahaha have you read the upcoming patch notes lately? The bugs they caught make quite the rapsheet. Every bit of software is buggy. If EW got another patch to fix every issue it has it'd be quite the rapsheet too. When I said LW didn't seem buggy I mean I was not bothered by bugs while playing, and I would disagree with someone saying "Don't play LW, it's super-buggy!" not that it was literally bug-free. TheCosmicMuffet posted:You know who'd be *great* for long war? That other guy who was doing an EW playthrough with second wave options while Jadestar was starting his LP. I think it crapped out, but there were some *awesome* disastrous mission playthroughs. Unleash that guy on Long War and I think it'd be a good time. Anyone got a link to that, by the way? I saw several references to another EW LP, but I couldn't find it.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:25
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Tin Tim posted:In other news, I start to dislike how LW makes things "difficult" by stuffing a small map full of pods. That's real cheap and fake difficulty. I really feel that the Long War devs couldnt work out how to properly balance pod sizes and their proximity and so decided to call the occasional clusterfuck a feature rather than an unresolvable bug. Having 'unwinnable' missions that arent scripted events and impact the strategic play, like a poorly spawned terror mission on a map that was never intended for terror mission pods, is just bad game design. Unlocking every map for every mission type was a bad call. Those maps were made with certain balance objectives in mind and it really shows. Absurd numbers of EXALT on a big map with lots of buildings is a fun game of cat and mouse. Absurd numbers of EXALT on a small map, or a map without much cover, is an intensely frustrating experience. Putting the onus on the player to determine if the combination of map and pod composition is a winnable scenario and calling that a feature is lazy bullshit. In the air war, lasers will tide you over til destroyers start appearing if you invest in projects, and then the Supercapacitors foundry project you get with advanced pulse weapons will let you take on destroyers. I havent tried fighting a large UFO yet, I tend to let them go about their business in hopes of a landed ship for more supplies. If the aliens pick up some resources in the process, that means more meld for me later on. Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 21:33
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Not a Step posted:I really feel that the Long War devs couldnt work out how to properly balance pod sizes and their proximity and so decided to call the occasional clusterfuck a feature rather than an unresolvable bug. Having 'unwinnable' missions that arent scripted events and impact the strategic play, like a poorly spawned terror mission on a map that was never intended for terror mission pods, is just bad game design. Unlocking every map for every mission type was a bad call. Those maps were made with certain balance objectives in mind and it really shows. Absurd numbers of EXALT on a big map with lots of buildings is a fun game of cat and mouse. Absurd numbers of EXALT on a small map, or a map without much cover, is an intensely frustrating experience. Putting the onus on the player to determine if the combination of map and pod composition is a winnable scenario and calling that a feature is lazy bullshit. I skimmed the patch notes for Beta 14, and saw no mention of Exalt which worries me. Like, are the people itt the only ones that hate how Exalt missions currently are? For me it's not only about their insane numbers, but also about how powerful they get. And how fast they get powerful. Like, right now I'm in September, and facing a horde of 10+Hp enemies with lasers, armor, gene mods, and skills is still awful. The map problem mentioned earlier plays a huge part here too, but on large maps you still regularly have to deal with tons of targets that you can't down fast enough. And then you take a rocket and half your squad is hosed. Like, if you want to go for the human wave approach, you normaly make those guys weaker so that the player actually has a chance to stem the tide. You don't give every single one of them a cup of steroids and call it a day. I really want to see a legit good player, like Beagle, play one of those missions without scumming to see if I'm just a baby or if my issues with this are valid. Tbh, the Exalt poo poo is close to making me quit the mod because they're more dangerous than the loving aliens that invade the planet.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:56
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I lurked this thread for several months before finally getting Long War, and I obediently completed a single EXALT mission in my first playthrough. After that I immediately took the advice of several earlier posters and did the ini edit to knock intel scan price down. I changed it to 10 simoleons, scan every single time a cell goes into hiding, and then the entire tacked-on bullshit slog which is EXALT becomes a moderate but noticeable tax. Which is a good indication that one of your game's features is out of whack, when the players are not just willing but glad to pay in order to avoid it.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:21
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To be honest, I enjoy the exalt missions, especially the 4-man extraction missions. I have also noted that Exalt only really starts gearing up around the time you should honestly have already identified their HQ, so you will be facing powerful units in one long miserable fight, but that isnt that bad I think in exchange for ending their threat for good. I think the problem people have with Exalt is ignoring them. If you are playing well, exalt should never manage to steal from you or hurt you directly even with only a small amount of attention, there's just the monthly maint cost of around 150 spacebucks you have to push at them if you decide to ignore them, and I suspect peoplemight not actually be doing that? Like I mentioned earlier, they only just got gene mods and lasers for me, and I ignored them for too long AND failed a few covert ops. Its perfectly reasonable to neuter them before that point, if you make taking them out a priority.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:47
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What difficulty are you playing on? Im in early October on Brutal equivalent campaign speed and I'm seeing genemodded laser wielding EXALT with 10+ hp on missions. I only have eight out of sixteen countries knocked off the suspect list so far because all clues are single nation and I only infrequently scan for cells. Are you being aggressive with scanning maybe? 4 man extractions on the right map are pretty fun, I agree. I hate rockets in Long War so my extraction squad is two assaults, an engineer and a rotating fourth, usually a scout, infantry or 3rd assault. Theres something magical about hunting down EXALT pods and sweeping four or five a turn with crits, then hitting the hack while my assaults are surrounded. But when I roll an extraction on a small or open map, like the dock map (ironically an actual EXALT map, but designed for a significantly smaller number of enemies then what I usually get) its just never ending bullshit and I feel no shame about save scumming until I 'solve' the map. I once had a pod of nothing but rocket EXALT spawn on the goddamn roof of the dock building and snipe at me with missiles. Had to reload and run and gun those jerks, then survive the retaliatory fire because getting on the roof involved activating two other pods, but rockets from the roof were unsurvivable death.
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Jul 25, 2014 23:12
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GlyphGryph posted:To be honest, I enjoy the exalt missions, especially the 4-man extraction missions. E: Also those four man missions are the worst for me. I beat the first one I got, but after that it was all bullshit were my operative had 10 exalt on him after the first turn and no chance to survive or be rescued. Just today, a got a four man mission and spawned in a parking lot with two large buildings. I move to the left and trigger an exalt pod. Half cover cars aren't a good place to be, so I pull back to the right and trigger another pod. Now I'm trapped and everybody dies. But that maybe because I'm the only idiot that brings balanced squads instead of power building them. Not a jab, I'll actually try the assault rush next time 
Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 23:13
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I love assaults, but you really need to bring them in pairs for them to work. A lone assault is very likely to get in over their head far from backup and sour you on the class. My first colonel was an assault who jumped up the ranks faster than even my best snipers, and my third was his partner who had missed a month plus of duty in the hospital. In 4 man extractions I use an engineer to blow up cover, an infantry/scout to kill the exposed enemies, then run and gun into nearby cover to shotgun execute anyone left. If you accidentally activated too many pods, hit the hack with your operative (who should also be an assault to run and gun the terminals) and anyone who tries to reposition away from your assaults so they can start lobbing grenades gets hit with reaction shotgun fire. Next turn mop up with close encounters shots and pull back to reload. You can drop 10+ EXALT in two turns with only one hack with a little luck, leaving the other hack as a panic button if you hit another large group or the reinforcement waves catch you off-guard. I always loaded my assaults out with high cap magazines and a flashbang because the biggest dangers are running out of ammo mid fight and revealing a pod en route to another pod. If that happens, flashbang them, move your assaults to cover each other and have the engineer smoke your guys if possible. On another note, I love engineers. A max level engineer can bring 3 alien grenades, 3 chem/flashbangs, 3 smokes and 4 battlescanners and lob all of them halfway across a map to wherever you need them. Medics really can't hold a candle to them, because preventing damage is so much better than healing it after the fact. Edit: Having good battle scanner coverage is also key to using assaults effectively, which is why scouts are often my 4th man on extractions and I prefer the battle scanner perk to anything else on scouts and engineers. Also, even though they're not alloy efficient and they're expensive and improved body armor isn't on a very good tech path and etc etc etc, buy some carapace armors. Most enemies in the game in the early months will hit for around 5 damage (including alien grenades), and happily carapace armors provide 5 hp. Put carapace on anyone who needs to be on the frontlines, like assaults, scouts and engineers, as well as gunners, since the AI really seems to hate being suppressed. I have had so many soldiers absorb a 5 damage shot that would have landed them in the hospital for a month otherwise and walk away with just the standard fatigue. Even with stellar play your troops are going to get shot at, so the ones most likely to be hit should have some extra armor. It also lets you prioritize big threats, like a cyberdisc or berserker, because your forward troops are more likely to survive a hit if you can't kill off a floater or thin man that turn. I never bothered with Phalanx or Kestrel though. Not enough hp to justify the cost, and my back rank soldiers (2 snipers, 2 infantry on the bulk of missions) tend not to get shot at when there are closer targets at hand. Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 03:34
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I tend to use assaults as wildcards and measures of safety. When a flanking unit flubs its final shot and leaves an enemy up, a highly-mobile dash with Run & Gun can be enough to save his life. High power, good health, great mobility and lots of survivability makes up for a general lack of precision and flexibility. On a similar note, missions are coming so thick and fast that even doing fairly well (and, admittedly, the wound recovery time turned down a bit in the ini to avoid 45+ day hospital stays) my roster of about 40 soldiers is dwindling really fast. Fatigue is a great idea but it's getting really hard to keep track of who does what role, since I don't build every unit the same way. Well, some classes I build the same way almost every time because of how I use them, but some like infantry and sniper I can build in very different ways.
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Jul 26, 2014 04:07
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Yeah. I gotta admit Im highly considering going into the .ini and changing perks around to standardize my builds across soldiers. I have six snipers I use in teams of two, and my first three were all snap shot. For the second set of three I decided to give precision shot a try and paired them with snap shotters on missions. I can't recall any time I've ever felt precision shot made a game changing difference, because the bonus damage is so unreliable because the +30% crit is generally balanced out by the -30% squadsight penalty (and they can't move up and shoot) leaving my crit chance around 45-55%, which just isn't high enough to bet my strategy for the turn on. Meanwhile, my snapshotters are moving out and clearing vision obstructions, picking up lone wolf bonuses and getting close enough to activate aggression and negate the squadsight penalty, making them far more reliable in terms of crits. I really wish all of my snipers had the snapshot build. Same for my infantry. Overwatch specced infantry are just more reliable and bigger assets than crit focused infantry. I like that Long War has different build options, because I'm sure someone out there swears by precision shot and considers snapshot a waste of a perk, but it takes so long to train up replacements for builds I don't end up liking that I feel I'm being punished for learning the game and experimenting with different set ups to find what works and I end up agonizing over every choice. On a side note, its immensely frustrating that precision shot is supposed to work in two different ways depending on the weapon. If I try to make a crit build with precision shot and a strike rifle to close the distance before shooting, what I'm *supposed* to get according to JL is a standard sniper rifle shot for a turn with no bonuses. How is that even something someone would invest in? If I wanted a mobile sniper who could still shoot at extreme ranges, I could have just taken snap shot and have that ability on every single turn. Precision shot + strike rifle is inferior in every way to snapshot + sniper rifle, and snapshot + strike rifle doesn't make any sense at all. Why even make the strike rifle available to snipers? What role is it intended to serve? Sniper babbies first gun?
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Jul 26, 2014 04:31
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I took precision strike because it meant I could switch between strike and sniper rifles depending on the map and still get benefits from both depending. quote:Overwatch specced infantry are just more reliable and bigger assets than crit focused infantry.
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Jul 26, 2014 04:46
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Handled the march 14 landed transport with one fatality, an assault who panic-hunkered in a bad spot when the four outsiders decided to spawn in a tough location. (Had this great 3-door entry into the bridge only to find it empty!) worst enemies were chryssalids. Got another at the start of May. Wonder what I'll see. Probably mutons, which will be tough with basic gear and nobody above corporal. God I hope no berserkers...
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Jul 26, 2014 05:03
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I never had the materials to build both 2 sniper rifles and 2 strike rifles at each tier, so I guess the concept of switching guns around each mission never even occurred to me. I go with fairly standard teams (2 snipers, 2 infantry, a scout, an engineer and 2 'other' depending on who needs XP and is available) mostly to simplify my weapon building requirements and my strategies. My preferred infantry build is Light em Up, Covering Fire, Opportunist, Aggression, Lock and Load/Sharpshooter, Sentinel, and Rapid Fire. More bullets downrange will do more damage over time than pumping base damage via ranger and VPT and at max rank shooting and then hitting rapid fire Edit: vvvvv No, Im an idiot. I only hit colonel on my infantry tonight and I thought they worked together. Turns out they don't. Still, firing three shots in one turn is pretty good. Or moving up and still getting to fire twice at something big like a mechtoid. I don't use heavy rifles either as I can't afford to keep a set around, so -15 to hit is a manageable occasional penalty. I try my best to not let things throw grenades at me with flashbangs, chem grenades and occasionally suppression. Im also not a fan of red fog because I feel its really more of a penalty for the aliens than for the player, but it probably opens up some whole new tactical playstyles that are cool to explore in their own right, and probably also makes the medic an interesting and viable soldier on your team. Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 05:08
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Why would you take both Rapid Fire and Sentinel, though? Unless its changed, I don't think you can Rapid Fire and then overwatch, since LEU only triggers on basic shots. Incidentally, ignore everything I said if I'm wrong, because that's fantastic. And while RF lets you focus on one target, late-game there are so many targets that you're basically guaranteed to fire off both Sentinel shots, so VPT is just a straight damage upgrade on all three of your shots. edit: And yeah, that's the build I like my infantry too, though I take Will to Survive to deal with grenade spam (and I play with Red Fog, so mitigating chip damage is a lot more useful). My officer-based infantry take Tac Sense instead of Aggression though, just to keep them alive longer. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jul 26, 2014 |
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Jul 26, 2014 05:22
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