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You probably don't need any more soldiers at this point, but I'd be happy to volunteer if you do. Any class, any nationality, whatever. Though given how many soldiers would have to die before I would show up, if PFC Tax Refund ever shows up in-game, you're probably screwed at that point.
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Mar 19, 2015 06:43
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Tax Refund posted:You probably don't need any more soldiers at this point, but I'd be happy to volunteer if you do. Any class, any nationality, whatever. Though given how many soldiers would have to die before I would show up, if PFC Tax Refund ever shows up in-game, you're probably screwed at that point. It really depends on what classes the game gives me. Tactical classes, for example, are ridiculously useful for the whole game, especially because assaults are the closest thing the game has to a biotank, and thus spend a little more than their share in the med bay, they also tend to rank up faster than other classes because they get so many kills. When you become a specialist (And yes, I'm pretty certain people joining as rookies will go on at least one mission), and if you become a tactical class, then you'll certainly see more action than most other classes.
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Mar 19, 2015 07:07
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Beep boop, I'd like to stop bullets with my body as a SHIV. Since it's going to soak fire, name it "NKA-3310".
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Mar 19, 2015 10:59
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 Youtube Link We changed up the way we recorded voice audio, but for some drat reason Shadowplay didn't want to record the game audio. I think I know how I can prevent this from occuring in the future. I spliced in some music from the original XCOM (PS1 and PC) so things are still a little interesting. As the title suggests, don't play like this. I spent way too much time beforehand figuring out why there was so much noise in our headphones, and it made me impatient and scatter-brained for the actual mission. The good news is that I learned quite a bit about gain control on audio servers and I won't have that particular issue ever again. There isn't too much to say about downed small scouts. Expect anywhere between 4 - 10 aliens (including the outsider), but in general these are really easy missions and a good chance to train up new guys. There are times in the extreme late game where you'll down a scout and all there is protecting it is a pack of four drones. Not a good excuse for the performance I gave here, but I think things worked out in general. Edit: Are people positive about the banner? I figure its a good way of showing who is going on the mission (in case that's all you might be interested in), as well as making it obvious there's an update. ProfessorBooty fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 14:57
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One nade, one kill, plus hitting an overwatch on the outside to boot. A good day in my book. Scout-Sniper sounds like a p cool class selection, though not terribly great as a MEC candidate. I'm only familiar with the base game so who knows how that works out though! It's kind of cool to see all the differences so far, regenerating health oh outsiders and the air war differences. I look forward to seeing even more. Can't wait to start popping heads though. 
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Mar 19, 2015 22:58
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ProfessorBooty posted:Edit: Are people positive about the banner? I figure its a good way of showing who is going on the mission (in case that's all you might be interested in), as well as making it obvious there's an update. It'd be more work for you but I'd like to see the unit busts (ie, head and shoulders) with nametags/classes overlayed as opposed to the info boxes at their feet. Though that will go to poo poo the moment you get a SHIV. Plus if you've got everyone wearing helmets they all look the same anyway... So gently caress it, this works fine.
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Mar 20, 2015 01:32
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Could you maybe cover more of the new stuff, for instance, on that scout you had two new items, but you didn't mention what they did, also, if I remember correctly your arsenal is much wider than vanilla. Second of all, you had a damaged power core, why didn't you sell that instead of the meld?
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Mar 20, 2015 01:38
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xelada posted:Could you maybe cover more of the new stuff, for instance, on that scout you had two new items, but you didn't mention what they did, also, if I remember correctly your arsenal is much wider than vanilla. Because I'm dumb  . I realized that during editing.
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Mar 20, 2015 01:40
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I like the banner the way it is, tbh. It's simple and functional and does what it needs to do. If you feel like making an art project out of it, then be my guest, but I'm fine with it the way it is. Might want to do quick intros for new soldiers, either in the video or in the post. Even something as brief as "Introducing Goon A on infantry duty, Goon B as our sniper, Goon C handling rockets, and Goon D as our scout." Not every single time, of course, just when the thread hasn't seen any of these soldiers before. Between that and the banner, you'll be good to go. Not that I'm an expert or anything, that just seems like the most convenient option.
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Mar 20, 2015 03:27
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anilEhilated posted:Sign me up for whatever causes the biggest explosions. Don't really care about the face but I want the cowboy hat. I haven't watched past episode one yet cause I've been watching Sam and Max but I really hope my guy lives up to my Apocalypse score.
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Mar 20, 2015 04:50
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EggsAisle posted:I like the banner the way it is, tbh. It's simple and functional and does what it needs to do. If you feel like making an art project out of it, then be my guest, but I'm fine with it the way it is. Might want to do quick intros for new soldiers, either in the video or in the post. Even something as brief as "Introducing Goon A on infantry duty, Goon B as our sniper, Goon C handling rockets, and Goon D as our scout." Not every single time, of course, just when the thread hasn't seen any of these soldiers before. Between that and the banner, you'll be good to go. The banner does ita job. ie shows the soldiers as expendable as they truly are  And +1ing the request to explain what items do. Carapace armour we can guess is either more hp or armour. but the alien trophy, I have no idea.
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Mar 20, 2015 12:52
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I failed to realize the fact that folks are unfamiliar with new items. I never played vanilla Enemy Within (I played one campaign of enemy unknown on console a couple years ago, and that's it). To make up for this, I'll do a basic little item/mechanic showcase starting on the next update. Because item mechanics changed, going through every item wouldn't be a bad idea. This is kind of babby's first LP, I appreciate the feedback everyone is giving, so don't hold back
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Mar 20, 2015 14:15
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My main feedback is that your voices are pleasant to listen to and you're competent at the game, so keep it up. Banner looks good, a couple of mechanics updates would be good - the damage reduction in particular, I'm not sure of what's going on there from my past experience of LW (which was beta Ages Ago, when it was pretty much just (tons) more aliens on the map, more item slots with some armours and not much else).
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Mar 20, 2015 19:30
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Veloxyll posted:The banner does ita job. ie shows the soldiers as expendable as they truly are Dying for Booty's meld profits.  e: But seriously the banners are good.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:00
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Ah, the old X-COM music. It still works for setting the scene.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:04
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Written from the hand of your leader (until Commander Booty find someone better) So, now that Booty has named me the Squad leader, it time to set some things straight... Each and everyone of you (especially Jimmy who showed that he has a spine of a wet noodle by failing to back me up with a grenade due to panicing) for a lack of a better term... suck. But there's hope for all of you. Hope in the form of glorious death to XCOM where you can honor humanity by giving them your lives. Me, being the selfless woman that I am, will forgo the honor of dieing. Such is the price to pay for being the squad leader. For those of you with kills, congrats, a juice box awaits you in your bunks (except for Jimmy. drat coward). For the rest of you, pay attention as those who were promoted (except for Jimmy) ar3 enjoying their box of fruity goodness and realize just how worthless you are. If they have juice boxes, and they suck, imagine how bad 'you' are. So, in closing, we have a long way to go before becoming the squad that Commander Booty can count on to send aliens back to mars, or cydonia, or wherever they came from in iddy, biddy, didy bags. Part of the reason of that is that none of you are as Awesome as me. I'm aiming to change that by putting in constant danger while I stay safe and sound. I'm denying myself a glorious death so that you all may experience it. P.S. While you are promoted, none of you equal the rank of Squad Leader. This is not open to debate until I die... which is an unfair and unthinkable compromise since I refuse to steal any of your moments. P.P.S. Jimmy, your promotion is actually a demotion... to toilet cleaner. The next time you panic in the face of the enemy and embarass me, you will be eating off those toilets.
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Mar 24, 2015 00:22
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thejoshie posted:Written from the hand of your leader (until Commander Booty find someone better)  I await the continuing adventures of Kindergarden Juice-Box Death Squad with baited breath.
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Mar 24, 2015 01:09
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thejoshie posted:I'm the I didn't vote for you. 
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Mar 24, 2015 03:35
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Barry Bacarruda, reporting for duty! He skipped orientation day, so now HR put him in the "any class will do" slot.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:51
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SaffronKit posted:I didn't vote for you. It was a special election, where only qualified personel could access the polls. I mean, I could show you the records.... but then I'd have to kill you.
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Mar 24, 2015 05:48
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So they have apple juice boxes? I want apple.
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Mar 24, 2015 08:23
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thejoshie posted:It was a special election, where only qualified personel could access the polls. I can't hold with an elected squad leader. They should be selected the same way as X-Com decides everything else. The Kumite.
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Mar 24, 2015 09:23
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chiasaur11 posted:I can't hold with an elected squad leader.  (I was really tempted to break the tables on this one)
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Mar 24, 2015 16:59
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  Youtube Links: Mission 4 | Base Management 4 I split this because the Base Management lasted a little longer than usual. Super long post incoming, but it has useful information if you're unfamiliar with Long War. This mission is almost exactly what you'd expect. Two differences in Long War: The bad guys can scale with time (meaning in later months you can get some extremely tough aliens in this mission), and the drop ins in the end can be random (random location, enemies will be the same), which can be good (like that first drop-in), but is usually bad (Like the last 2 drop-ins). Most missions like this have some sort drop-in trigger, like Van Doorn's location. Notice that the sectoids have 4 HP this time (edit: they have 3 HP. Next mission they'll have 4  ), so they're already seeing a boost due to Alien research. Also, when you complete the mission, you get Van Doorn as a soldier. He has the 'UN' flag, which is kind of neat.Acid has replaced Poison as the Thinman 'Annoy the gently caress out of you' ability. I don't remember poison exactly in vanilla, but from what I understand it just causes one damage per turn until it wears off, unless you're carrying a small item that negates it. In Long War acid is a pretty terrifying ability, and thinmen should be feared and respected for it, and at times they are much more threatening than other late game aliens. I seriously fear thinmen more than Mutons because of this ability. In Beta 14 they tuned back the thinman's eagerness to use this ability, but it seems that in beta 15 this tuning has been reduced, and they use acid a lot more often. The only nice thing is that it has a small AOE, so when dealing with thinmen try to keep at least one tile between each soldier. Acid is a super solid debuff, -20 aim, reduced mobility, throwing range, and taking any action causes damage to fleshy units, with the exception of hunkering down, and other effects we'll discuss another time. Thin men and one other unit are completely immune to acid. Some items, and armor give partial immunity to acid, and some units are innately partially immune to acid(meaning the unit only experiences reduced aim and throw distance) Mechanized units are partially immune to acid, and carrying a medkit makes that unit partially immune to acid. Medkits cure acid, and using the medkit doesn't take away the unit's partial immunity. Acid lasts 2-5 turns. Perk choices I decided to make Van Doorn a rocketeer, though I might not use him much if at all in this playthrough. I chose rocketeer over gunner because he comes with the second rank, so let's talking about that really quick: Will to Survive vs. Ranger vs. HEAT warheads - Will to survive grants 1.5 DR (I talk about DR in the next section) if in cover and not flanked. This is in addition to the DR normally granted by the cover itself, so you're guaranteed at least 2 DR in low cover, and 2-3 DR in high cover. This perk comes with a +3 will bonus. - Ranger gives you +1 damage to rockets and primary weapons (not sidearms). - HEAT gives you +50% bonus damage (minimum of 2 bonus damage) on explosives versus robotic enemies. If you're looking to making a tanky rocketeer, Will To Survive isn't a bad choice. Rocketeers are more fragile than other soldiers so they'll be targeted more often. Ranger is pretty solid. You can take a less-potent weapon and still do decent damage, and rockets will work better against organic opponents. HEAT is pretty good for clearing out annoying flying mechanical enemies that like to bunch up (such as drones). One HEAT shredder rocket can take out a pack of drones, and that's pretty sweet. I like rifleman rocketeers, and I'm pretty happy I can get a rifleman rocketeer that has HEAT, an option that wasn't available to rifleman rocketeers in past versions. With the nerfs to HEAT (used to be +75%, now its +50%), the more HEAT the better, especially against large mechanical units later in the game. Ranger may seem like a lazy perk, but its pretty nice, all things said. Ranger makes your guns as effective as the next tier, damage wise. The rocketeer will be targeted often, so the lack of Will To Survive means I need to mitigate risks by placing the rocketeer in safer cover, or think about using smoke more often to reduce the likelihood of being shot at. -------- This is something I should have done on Video 2, so I'll do it here: Let's talk about Mechanic Changes I'm going to miss mechanics here, so this isn't going to be exhaustive, sorry, I'm open to questions, too Damage Reduction (DR) You may notice when an attack hits a little blue shield with a number sometimes appears above the unit's head. This is damage negated due to DR. DR is a property of both the unit itself, and the cover, and it doesn't go away just because you hit the bad guy a bunch (A unit with 1 DR will always negate 1 point of damage unless that 1 DR is reduced somehow). A unit with innate DR will have some number associated with it. Suppose we have a sectoid with 2.5 DR, that means the sectoid will always negate 2 points of damage, and has a 50% chance of negating 3 points of damage. There are abilities we will cover another time that provide bonus DR in some situations. New XCOM soldiers do not get DR unless they wear some armor or small item that provides a bonus. Base SHIVs get 1.5 points of DR. Cover provides DR. A unit in half (or low) cover gets .66 points of DR (66% chance of negating 1 point of damage), and a unit in full (or heavy) cover gets 1 point of DR. Shotgun type weapons have a penalty to DR penetration unless using special ammunition - units get 1.5x DR when getting shot by a shotgun. DR has some sort of order of operations that I'm not going to go over in detail (mostly because its unknown to me). So I'm not sure if a 1.5 DR enemy in half cover gets 2.16 DR, or 1.5 DR + .66 DR in separate rolls, its just important to be aware of DR's effects on the battlefield. Best way around DR in the early game is taking flanking shots or a lot of extra shots, later on there are a lot more tools to deal with DR. Small Items From the beginning, soldiers are able to equip small items that only come with perks in vanilla, this includes Smoke Grenades and Battlescanners. This is ridiculously helpful. Also, you don't have to research/build medkits - this is good, but 3 HP healing isn't really that much. There are some items you get later in Enemy Within that are available from the start in Long War, the AP grenade is effectively the Needle Grenade, and works the same. It does more damage than the HE grenade (frag grenade in vanilla) and doesn't blow up cover. It would have gotten more love in Vanilla if it didn't come so late. It's a ridiculously handy grenade, though its use drops off with time - a great rookie grenade. The flashbang grenade completely ignores cover (you can flashbang through the wall of a separate room) and also ignores your own troopers in its AOE. It's a super handy debuff tool, and reduces a unit's aim by 50, and movement by 40%. Suppression and overwatch is cancelled by the 'disoriented' debuff. Mechanized units, and some other fleshy units are completely immune to flashbangs. They're pretty great for the whole game. They also don't activate aliens, so if you want to be super cheap you can flashbang a group of bad guys prior to activation. The effects last only 1 turn (I hate using the term 'turns', so I'll be more descriptive. If I flashbang a sectoid, it is disoriented for my turn, then it is disoriented for its turn, and then still disoriented for my turn afterward. Finally, on its following turn, it is no longer disoriented). Items new in Long War High Cap Magazines give a soldier +1 ammunition to their primary weapon, not too necessary in the early game, but handy for shooty soldiers. the Laser sight gives a soldier +4 aim, and they stack with other aim buffing items, like scopes. +4 aim isn't going to help rookies so this slot is better off being a grenade in the early game. The Alien Trophy grants the steadfast perk to a soldier, meaning they're immune to all forms of panic except for psi panic. You may notice I put trophies on my 'babysitter' scouts. It may seem like a waste of an item slot, but since I started doing this in Beta 14 my scouts have been surviving missions more than ever, so I don't regret taking the alien trophy. It prevented Thejoshie from panicking in mission 3. If he didn't have it, and he panicked after Jimmy, he would have been pretty much all alone in the middle of nowhere without support. Instead he didn't panick and we abandoned Jimmy440Nav instead .Ceramic plating provides +1 HP, its not amazing, but can prevent an unlucky crit from killing someone in the early game, and can also prevent regular damage from penetrating armor, or at worst reduce medbay time. The changes to the AI in beta 15 also means bad guys are less likely to prioritize higher HP units, so scouts with plating are super-safe. Extra rockets can be carried by the Rocketeer class, so you can have an extra regular rocket and a shredder rocket. Only one of each extra, though (IE, a specialist rocketeer can carry 1 rocket innately, 1 as a small item, and 1 shredder rocket as a small item). Extra rockets (not given by perks) reduce the soldier's mobility by 2 instead of 1. Firing a rocket (any rocket) grants 1 mobility. Miscellaneous stuff Each soldier has a mobility stat. If we assume a box as 1x1 meter square, then 1 mobility is roughly .7 meters. Corner to corner is not exactly sqrt(2), but instead its modelled as 1.4 meters (for our assumptions). This means moving diagonally from one box to another takes 2 mobility. I believe the game does basic trigonometry, so you can find yourself moving further in a gold move as opposed to a blue move followed by a gold move, even if you take the same basic path. Some perks increase mobility (lightning reflexes on the scout is an automatic +1 mobility), sprinter gives 4 mobility. Soldier types have their own mobility growth. Small items typically reduce mobility by 1, some items grant mobility, and different armor types have their own mobility bonuses/maluses. I'm a big fan of high mobility soldiers, but too much mobility can get you in trouble if you're not careful. Most weapons allow the soldier to 'steady weapon', this sacrifices your turn so you can have +20 aim on the next turn. Steady weapon is cancelled if the unit gets hit, or if the unit moves without shooting. From what I understand the base game was meant to have Steady Weapon, but was scrapped, and the Long War devs found it in the code. I'm using it more and more on my rookies and its not a bad way to help mitigate RNG. In the case of the last video, I realized I would only have four long range shots on the next turn, and I was in good cover, and because I wasn't going to be pushing through the no-man's land I decided to have one overwatcher (to pin the sectoids), with everyone else steadying their weapon. Using binomial probability the chances of hitting at least one shot with two steadied aim rookies was 79%, versus 75% for 4 shots at 35%, so the probability was about the same, the difference was using less ammo. Low cover provides 30 defense in Long War (+10 over vanilla) and .66 DR, and high cover provides 45 defense (+5 over vanilla) with 1.0 DR. Hunkering down doubles the DR bonus and prevents non-flanked critical hits. This means its better to hunker down in low cover than to stand in high cover. Low cover is actually viable in Long War! (mostly...) The two armors available in the beginning of the game are the Tactical Armor, and the Tactical Vest. The Tactical armor provides +2 armor HP and +1 mobility, and the tactical vest provides +1 HP and +3 Mobility. Wear the Tactical vest if you have extra armor from small items and want the mobility, or you like it when your soldiers die. Long war shows armor HP as a different color from base HP. Soldiers are not wounded if damage only takes away armor HP (like vanilla, but its more obvious in Long War). Grenades are no longer guaranteed damage. This should be pretty obvious by now. The grenade has a random damage roll per enemy in the blast radius, and the max damage is reduced as distance from the source of the explosion increases. Gone are the days you try to get as many bad guys in the blast radius as possible. You have to prioritize which enemies need to take the most damage from the grenade. HE grenades are not guaranteed to remove cover. To be more precise, cover has its own 'HP', in a manner of speaking, and getting hit by weapons fire/explosives reduces this HP. I don't know how exactly it works, but you don't have to worry about cover as durable as tissue paper as its HP has been increased. HE grenades damage cover and have a chance of removing it. Later on engineers get abilities that make cover-destruction more probable. ProfessorBooty fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 17:58
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chiasaur11 posted:Kumite. Gesundheit.
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Mar 24, 2015 19:55
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Hells to the yeah, doublefisting grenades.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:03
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Well I survived.
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Mar 25, 2015 00:22
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Gridlocked posted:Well I survived. You sound disappointed.
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Mar 25, 2015 00:23
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ProfessorBooty posted:You sound disappointed. Surprised if anything. After talking up the X-COM Apocalypse me's achievements I assumed karma would ensure I die on the first day.
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Mar 25, 2015 00:29
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Just found this thread - very interesting. I've always wanted to check out this mod, but never got around to it.
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Mar 25, 2015 00:49
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Looks like my career got off to a great start! 
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Mar 25, 2015 01:30
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Really surprised that no one has died so far, especially with that misclick sending me to almost certain doom. You picked up on the short form of my nick almost everyone calls me pretty quick too. It's certainly easier than trying to say the full thing all the time .
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Mar 25, 2015 09:31
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Boy I sure earned that promotion by shooting that guy who appeared like 4 feet away from me.
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Mar 25, 2015 11:20
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Ephphatha posted:Really surprised that no one has died so far, especially with that misclick sending me to almost certain doom. You picked up on the short form of my nick almost everyone calls me pretty quick too. It's certainly easier than trying to say the full thing all the time Which one, 'Hrffngghhh', or 'that guy'? 
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Mar 25, 2015 14:00
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I'm curious, about how many rookies do you want to try and screen in the first month, and about how many folks do you want to try and train up after they get their first promotion per mission? Something like a 2/3rds split either way depending on the difficulty of the mission? I'm totally not asking just because I want to be out there popping alien heads with a sniper rifle.  Definitely seems like you need a really large pool of dudes to pull from with the amount of missions you've been getting.
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Mar 25, 2015 21:19
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SaffronKit posted:I'm curious, about how many rookies do you want to try and screen in the first month, and about how many folks do you want to try and train up after they get their first promotion per mission? Something like a 2/3rds split either way depending on the difficulty of the mission? I'm totally not asking just because I want to be out there popping alien heads with a sniper rifle. One thing I never mentioned was the fatigue system. I'll cover that in the next update (tomorrow). It's important to have a vast number of mediocre soldiers than 6-7 amazing soldiers, unlike vanilla. I used to play March taking only one scout with rookie-buddies. Because of changes to the Scout tree, I found that having 1 - 2 reasonably experienced (3 ranks) engineers in April is extremely important, so I start training in mid-March. Once April rolls around I shift to taking all specialists with one untrained soldier. And besides, you might just be a bullet-bait scout, so don't give your hopes up.
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Mar 25, 2015 21:32
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Something else that hasen't been mentioned yet is that half cover is now 35(?) defense instead of 20 so just in case you are freaking out going "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU LEAVING HIGH COVER TO GET CLOSER AAAAAAAHH"
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Mar 25, 2015 21:51
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:Something else that hasen't been mentioned yet is that half cover is now 35(?) defense instead of 20 so just in case you are freaking out going "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU LEAVING HIGH COVER TO GET CLOSER AAAAAAAHH" I mentioned that in my wall-o-text update above
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Mar 25, 2015 22:01
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ProfessorBooty posted:I mentioned that in my wall-o-text update above So you did! It was literally the first thing that i caught when i went back to re-read it, oops!
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Mar 25, 2015 22:13
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 22:27 |
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I don't suppose you could use the game audio in the videos? The background music you've put in is nice, but it feels a little off not hearing the guns fire or the soldiers' chatter.
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Mar 26, 2015 00:21
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