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namad posted:Seems like that would be cheating, if firaxis were better coders they'd probably have made it impossible? right? Same with seeing aliens that aren't in your sight but are within your movement from the blocked movement square option. That attitude though is just because I think classic REGULAR enemy within is hard. I guess in a long war you really need to pull out all the stops because the game is just that hard. It helps a lot that Long War introduces new camera angles that did not exist in vanilla EW which make it a lot easier to see the Meld, so it's hardly the developer's fault alone.
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May 14, 2015 15:24
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This LP got me to differentiate between my classes with helmet type as opposed to uniform colour. Now I have my OWN squad of stormtroopers to keep earth safe!
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May 14, 2015 16:55
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Strategic-level question for those in the thread who've played more of the mod than me. (Assuming ProfessorBooty doesn't mind general strategy talk not directly pertaining to the LP.) I'm in mid- to late May, and early on I decided to be reckless and put my third satellite over Russia instead of finishing coverage over Africa (where I started). I had saved all promotions to Tactical classes to take maximum advantage of the Spetznaz bonus, and honestly since then I've had assaults and infantry avoid being killed or crit'ed by 1 HP several times, so it wasn't the most insane thing. However, I really did not appreciate what utter trash XCOM interceptors are vs vanilla, and I couldn't afford a large enough fleet of them to defend two continents, especially since I'm trying to not spoil myself on new tech--which means I don't really know where the new air weapons are in the research tree, or how much difference they'll even make. Combined with both terror missions so far happening in Russia, I've lost the satellite and the country panicked. So, have I screwed myself over? Long War is, as promised, Long, and I really don't want to spend my free time on a totally futile game if this is irrecoverable. (I really, really want to be able to play normal/CinematicMode difficulty in the air, and Classic in-mission...)
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May 14, 2015 19:18
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Its fine as long as it doesn't go out of hand. Its perfectly fine to throw a sacrificial satellite over Russia or some other country for the bonuses, but most people who do so almost depend on the satellite being shot down shortly after promoting all their assaults and infantry, then they'll use the new satellite slot to get more coverage over their starting continent. I don't use that strategy, but I do know trying to defend two continents, with basic weapons and interceptors, is extremely tough (I'm starting to get ahead of the air game in NA, but that's rotating 8 interceptors). Losing another country isn't a big deal. Its only really problematic if your second lost country is in another continent, but even then I wouldn't worry. I think the general saying is 'As long as you're not losing on the ground, you can still win', so I'd probably wait until the ground game gets too tough. I know you can modify interceptor base chance to hit - it requires modifying XComStrategyGame.upk (in XEW\XComGame\CookedPCConsole), but I think it requires hex editing so I probably wouldn't try it without more research. Maybe try changing the difficulty level and second wave options when you start air combat? Either way, even with the easiest difficulty settings, without significantly modding your interceptors its very unlikely to hold satellites on two separate continents (edit: before you start upgrading interceptors). Another edit: Also, you can change the base interceptor repair time in DefaultGameCore.ini (INTERCEPTOR_REPAIR_HOURS) . Try bringing it down to 400 hours or something. ProfessorBooty fucked around with this message at 19:49 on May 14, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 19:43
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Akratic Method posted:So, have I screwed myself over? Long War is, as promised, Long, and I really don't want to spend my free time on a totally futile game if this is irrecoverable. In general, losing a country in Long War is a lot less punishing, since you can regain any country through an alien base assault, so it's not a complete loss, as it is in vanilla.
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May 14, 2015 21:36
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 Youtube Link I spent a lot of time deciding how to even go about this mission. I discuss most of the stuff in the video but I have a habit of trailing off so I'll sum things up here: Its kind of obvious what a fatigue spiral is, and this is my loose definition: You have the situation where in order to perform 'mandatory' missions - such as council missions, abductions, and terror missions - you need to send fatigued troops. This leads to wounded troops, and before you know it, you find yourself taking nothing but fatigued troops and your roster power plummets. We aren't in a fatigue spiral yet, but going on a non-mandatory landed UFO mission could possibly trigger or worsen a fatigue spiral. A landed UFO has the chance to be a really tough mission (which I'll discuss briefly below). So even if I brought the most powerful squad I can muster, there's a small but significant chance I'd have to pull out anyway - so why bother bringing a super strong squad? Waiting for missions can only add to the fatigue spiral, but it only really affects people you're sending on the current mission. So I chose to wait to see if a mission pops up before the UFO decides to take off. If I did get a mission, and I allowed the UFO to take off, there's a chance I could have sent interceptors to the UFO to attempt to shoot it down so it still doesn't complete its mission. In general I think it worked out, the squad did extremely well for only having one Corporal in the squad. Bravo Zulu, everyone! Perk Talk Ranger v. Smoke and Mirrors v. HEAT Warheads For smoke engineer, S&M is a pretty obvious choice. S&M is a great choice in general as it allows an extra use of all support grenades, such as Flashbangs, Battlescanners, and others we haven't seen yet. Because engineers start with the Grenadier perk, they get the +20% throw range to all their support grenades, giving them an edge over medics that specialize in support grenades. Ranger isn't bad - if you're making a gun/combat focused engineer, you can take ranger and do assault rifle equivalent damage with a carbine, or laser rifle equivalent damage with an assault rifle. Taking this perk grants +2 aim, which in my opinion is pretty insignificant. If ranger gave +1 damage to grenades then I'd change my tune and take it every time on my sapper engineers. HEAT warheads give grenades the HEAT bonus, but because grenades cap out on their damage pretty easily this is a tough sell, even with sapper engineers - most bad guys vulnerable to HEAT that can be killed by a grenade are flyers, thus hard to hit. But still, this can be a pretty clutch ability at the right time, so I'll take this on my sapper engineers, generally. Some people will make a split-build for the engineer: Sapper and S&M. I tried it before, but I didn't like it. If you focus on only smoke-grenade medics then its not a bad idea and gives you a 'jack of all trades' engineer. Kind of awkward in my opinion having to load up on both explosive grenades and support grenades. It seems everyone plays their engineers differently so its hard to say there no real right answer, but from what I've read from other people the 'rifleman' engineer is pretty underwhelming. Let's Talk a Little More About UFO Missions A landed UFO has only two missions: Gather resources, or perform research. If a landed UFO succeeds in its mission (lands, takes off, then leaves, or repels an XCOM assault) then the aliens get a boost to their resources or research. Landed UFOs tend to have more enemies, and tougher enemies (landed ufos typically get aliens you'll see next month). The type of UFO that lands is mostly random if its a research mission (Scout, Raider, Abductor, or Terror ship). The type of UFO that lands for a resource mission is inversely proportional to how many resources the aliens have (High resources => scout, low resources => Transport or Harvester). Combat UFOs, such as a Fighter or Destroyer never land. UFOs on a research mission are usually referred to as 'trap' UFOs, and they have way more aliens on them that is reasonable in any stretch of the imagination (imagine 20+ aliens on a landed scout). And that's why I was worried about taking on this UFO. I had no real way of knowing if it was harvesting or researching - I could have made a more accurate guess if I was keeping track of meld collected on missions, but  .New Items I upgraded to 15d, and I'm just sort of hoping the bomb council missions won't be so bad (hey, got pretty lucky so far, right?). With this, there's a new item available from the beginning: Drum mags: Gives +2 ammo, at the cost of -2 mobility and -4 aim. For me, the mobility is the killer, but if you have a soldier that just loves to suppress, this isn't so bad. Not available for marksman or sniper rifles, or the shotgun. Ballistic shotguns have been nerfed. They only have 4 ammo now, this really sucks for me and has a real effect on our next mission. The good news is most other shotgun types (including laser shotguns) have +1 ammo, so this is an overall buff to all shotguns, with a nerf to the ballistic shotgun. ------------- I hope folks are mostly happy about how I edited the video? I think in the future I'll do 4x time instead of 6x time, I also tried to leave in the snippets of 'this is the big picture of what I'm doing', except for one which would have been made obvious by watching. In the future I might also add in some sort of music or something over the sped up portions.
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May 15, 2015 13:07
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Holy poo poo, Van Doorn. Holy poo poo. You are THE MAN. Eh, I feel like you could cut out unnecessary movement completely - maybe keep one or two movements before an activation. After all, we crave blood - Xeno or otherwise. But otherwise, nice video. Yami Fenrir fucked around with this message at 14:34 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 14:02
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I felt that all the quick jerky movements at 6x speed made me feel a little uncomfortable. My personal preference is either slow it down a bit (which might be tough given your video was already an hour long) or edit them out entirely as suggested. Also that was some nice luck, you got some good rolls on those lower hit rates early on!
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May 15, 2015 14:49
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Its tough to tell in the middle of recording when I'll be making cuts - I'm sorry, I should have thought about this stuff beforehand. I'm not going to change mission 19 (and thankfully mission 20 is pretty quick). How about this: Instead of speeding up or cutting, I'll show a map with lines that indicates the paths the various soldiers went prior to the next combat event? I don't think that will be too tough provided I can get some good overhead views, and its more informative and less jarring than a transition. Edit: I'll try to show what this would look like sometime this weekend. ProfessorBooty fucked around with this message at 15:29 on May 15, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 15:25
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ProfessorBooty posted:Its tough to tell in the middle of recording when I'll be making cuts - I'm sorry, I should have thought about this stuff beforehand. I'm not going to change mission 19 (and thankfully mission 20 is pretty quick). How about this: Instead of speeding up or cutting, I'll show a map with lines that indicates the paths the various soldiers went prior to the next combat event? I don't think that will be too tough provided I can get some good overhead views, and its more informative and less jarring than a transition. That sounds like a good idea actually. For when you encounter new maps you could even post an overhead of it and show your favorite routes and stuff there for the people who are interested in the little details.
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May 15, 2015 15:36
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Oh my god, Van Dorn you glorious bastard. I can only hope to be as amazing as you. That was a thing of beauty.ProfessorBooty posted:Its tough to tell in the middle of recording when I'll be making cuts - I'm sorry, I should have thought about this stuff beforehand. I'm not going to change mission 19 (and thankfully mission 20 is pretty quick). How about this: Instead of speeding up or cutting, I'll show a map with lines that indicates the paths the various soldiers went prior to the next combat event? I don't think that will be too tough provided I can get some good overhead views, and its more informative and less jarring than a transition. I have to agree with the others, this sounds like a pretty cool addition.
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May 15, 2015 15:57
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Yami Fenrir posted:Holy poo poo, Van Doorn. Holy poo poo. You are THE MAN. Our intrepid commander: "They could actually wipe us if they all strangle a soldier each" Van Dorn: "I ain't goin down that easy!" Fwoosh! Boom! "Problem Solved!"
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May 15, 2015 18:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAm-sCknbjQ This is a sample of what I sort of envisioned a few posts up (with some minor tweaks), any thoughts?
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May 15, 2015 22:56
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That looks absolutely amazing. A small nitpick is that the icons could be moving a little bit faster when not dashing around, though.
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May 15, 2015 23:11
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Yami Fenrir posted:That looks absolutely amazing. It'll take some time for me to fine-tune the system, gimme a break I just figured out how to do that 
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May 15, 2015 23:12
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ProfessorBooty posted:It'll take some time for me to fine-tune the system, gimme a break I just figured out how to do that Hehe, don't worry. I really like that style, it's just the first time you did the icon thing, they went really slow. The second time in the video looks about right, speed wise.
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May 15, 2015 23:13
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That looks beautiful. Made me tear up just a little bit.
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May 16, 2015 02:20
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ProfessorBooty posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAm-sCknbjQ That looks fantastic! Hopefully it's not too much trouble, I look forward to seeing it in action.
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May 16, 2015 02:37
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Not a problem. Don't expect this treatment every episode, but most missions that have large gaps in the action with elaborate breeches will get something like this. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and something I can probably build on in the future once I'm more comfortable with it. Edit: My only reluctance to doing this is not providing an unbroken chain of video as some sort of silly childish proof that I'm not reloading or anything of the sort, but I kind of realized I don't have anything to prove. ProfessorBooty fucked around with this message at 02:44 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 02:41
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ProfessorBooty posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAm-sCknbjQ This is cool as gently caress.
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May 16, 2015 02:42
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I think the map is a much better option, plus it gives us an idea as to the position and layout of the map, which I sometimes get confused about.
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May 16, 2015 04:50
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So are you saying the sample video was representative of what you'd like to see, or do you mean something else? I may add a map to the post with the meld-finds and stuff like that if that is what you're saying.
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May 16, 2015 04:57
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The sample video was good, and meld finds and other stuff would be pretty cool if you want to do that!
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May 16, 2015 05:03
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Okay, I didn't understand you initially
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May 16, 2015 05:06
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ProfessorBooty posted:Not a problem. Don't expect this treatment every episode, but most missions that have large gaps in the action with elaborate breeches will get something like this. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and something I can probably build on in the future once I'm more comfortable with it. I won't speak for the others, but I trust in Commander Booty not to do anything unsavory when we wouldn't be able to see it. And besides, you've got Kidneyman to keep you on the straight and narrow, who would more then likely call you out for it if you did somehow break down!
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May 16, 2015 05:08
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SaffronKit posted:I won't speak for the others, but I trust in Commander Booty not to do anything unsavory when we wouldn't be able to see it. And besides, you've got Kidneyman to keep you on the straight and narrow, who would more then likely call you out for it if you did somehow break down! Lol, yep that won't be an issue. The Commander called me into his office recently to show me a video of one of his favorite Xcom LP'ers making a cut that looks suspiciously like blantant cheating. He was very disappointed in the LP'er.
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May 16, 2015 10:54
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Okay I've read everything and here are my replies for the week: @Dinictus - Yes you are hearing my breathing. Dr. Vahlen recently took out my middle right lung and sewed the top and bottom together. It's part of a top-secret plan to make me pass for a floater and infiltrate the alien heirarchy. I'll keep trying to minimize it on the audio, though. @SaffronKit - My tactics aren't nearly as sharp as Booty's. I played the original 1990's Xcom, and Vanilla on ironman impossible when it came out. I also watch a lot of Beaglerush. But I don't actively play the game anymore. Even so, Booty finds my commentary helpful overall. Every so often I manage to contribute something he hasn't considered or help clarify his own line of thought, so that's good. Plus, a duo LP for XCOM is pretty rare and I think it only adds to the game's experience. @ProfessorBooty - Naturally I'm overly cautious. If I encouraged you to play aggressively and someone died, you'd probably send me out on a mission with a Scatterlaser that jams when you try reloading it. @Gridlocked - No promises but I will subtly encourage the Commander to choose white. @HiKaizer - While the Commander has the final say on...well, everything (  ), I'll peek at the list and give you some idea if I can.Also, yeah Booty that test video cut is the car bomb diggity.
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May 16, 2015 11:06
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Does Van Doorn need a nickname now? Can I suggest "Six-shooter" ?
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May 16, 2015 16:35
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Did Meld go up in price when you sell it from the last time you sold some? I thought it was 3 XCOM fun bucks. And I know I'm down the list of recruits, but I'd like to switch to just somebody who becomes a MEC if you ever get to them.
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May 16, 2015 16:48
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I don't think I can change Van Doorn's nickname, but I'll check. I can't promise anybody will be MEC'd, unfortunately, but I will take note of that seaborgium. I think meld has always been 4 bucks since the scaling last occurred.
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May 16, 2015 17:51
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ProfessorBooty posted:I don't think I can change Van Doorn's nickname, but I'll check. Long War doesn't always have robot punchbuddies what?
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May 16, 2015 17:59
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Veloxyll posted:Long War doesn't always have robot punchbuddies what? The MEC costs and the stuff they can do has been shifted significantly, and there have been other changes: the way the DR is calculated has changed (in beta 14 is was possible to have a MEC that effectively ignores damage lower than 6, and reduce say 15 damage shots to like 3 or 4) so they're much less tanky, even if you do make a dedicated tank MEC, and they provide less armor HP. When I get MECs I might skip to the second or even third tier, but at the same time in the next iteration of B15 there will be some officer perks that will make me more likely to field a basic MEC. There's also the chance of having to repair a MEC suit if it gets damaged in battle, which is a super expensive proposition. I think when I first make MECs, it will be a class that can hide and be really safe (like rocketeer mecs) until I have a firm handle on the resources.
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May 16, 2015 18:17
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Yeah, ProfessorBuddy stated earlier [when I volunteered for eventual MEC duties, before changing to 'any female'] that MECs were unlikely due to being a very late game, very meld/research/production intensive option in Long War. edit: Ah, beaten to it, heh. Rather than spoil: We're looking at hundreds of Meld and potentially thousands of funbux to dump onto a single soldier who will have extra repair costs in addition to fatigue timer.
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May 16, 2015 18:17
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And the cost to chop up extra soldiers so you can run a single suit consistently is ridiculously high. A single MEC suit will require almost 700 meld for fairly basic operation. And they unlock a ton later than they did in Vanilla.
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May 16, 2015 19:22
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I know I'm not back from injury yet, but am I actually going to see action again? That penalty to will is huge and it sounds like meching won't be a thing either, should I just get rerolled or something? Really enjoying the lp!
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May 16, 2015 20:04
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The way Long War handles MECs seems dumb and it's the first thing that's come up here that I really strongly dislike about it.
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May 16, 2015 20:10
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General Antares posted:I know I'm not back from injury yet, but am I actually going to see action again? That penalty to will is huge and it sounds like meching won't be a thing either, should I just get rerolled or something? Really enjoying the lp! Yes, you will .See: Congojack. Other than the obvious MEC-ing, I also have different builds that don't rely on higher will. It's pretty lovely in my opinion to tell someone, who wants to fight, that they can't fight, just because they got hurt. I'm a huge fan of the gunner class, too, so I need as many as I can get.
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May 16, 2015 20:10
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Remember, for really good soldiers who take a bullet to the brainpan, ProfessorBooty always has the option of "Stick drat close to the Louie"; as long as you're within 8 tiles [unless they changed it] of the active Officer, you use their Will instead of yours thanks to Lead By Example. It's mostly just that a specialist who gets a lead lobotomy doesn't really warrant babying up all the way with a -15 Will penalty. Probably better to give you plastic surgery and replace you with the next person fitting your criteria.
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May 16, 2015 20:34
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There are a couple things that, to be perfectly honest, sound kind of poo poo and unnecessary. The first one we've seen is things just randomly breaking. Typically it has only been when a soldier went into crit so far, but if it's also just a random chance at the end of a mission that a piece of equipment you heavily invested in just up and breaks, forcing you to put even more time and money into it, is just kind of dumb. If it was something along the lines of 'Item X will break in Y missions' that'd be okay with me, because it would be something you can plan for. As is it's just random and unfun. As for MECs, it's kinda sad to hear they're such a heavy investmant and such a high maintenance unit. I still look forward to seeing them, but now I'm a bit jaded about it
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May 16, 2015 23:05
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 01:11 |
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SaffronKit posted:There are a couple things that, to be perfectly honest, sound kind of poo poo and unnecessary. The first one we've seen is things just randomly breaking. Typically it has only been when a soldier went into crit so far, but if it's also just a random chance at the end of a mission that a piece of equipment you heavily invested in just up and breaks, forcing you to put even more time and money into it, is just kind of dumb. If it was something along the lines of 'Item X will break in Y missions' that'd be okay with me, because it would be something you can plan for. As is it's just random and unfun. At least they made it easy to mod out - its a simple ini edit to get rid of the repair mechanic. In my opinion it was completely unnecessary to begin with - I think the purpose of it was to shift the focus on soldiers more than the equipment they carry. I keep it on because I like to play the game 'as intended', and it makes things like the Phalanx armor a lot more appealing, a type of armor that I would skip before. People give a lot of crap to the LW developers, but I think they approached b15 in a pretty smart way - they heavily nerfed the most exploitable tactics, and instead of buffing the things that were nerfed, they buffed other things and in the future are adding new mechanics to help out. I'll try to give an example: Using a tanky-punchy MEC is almost completely non-viable right now, the MEC can only tank only a couple shots before suffering from an injury. Instead of making the MECs more tanky, they're giving officers an ability: 'command', which allows the officer to 'give' their yellow move to a soldier that has used all their moves for the round (with some exceptions). So, in the next iteration, you can send your MEC out to punch a bad guy, then give them an extra move so they can get out of the line of fire (I came up with a new MEC build specifically for this, and I can't wait to show it). I'm still having a blast, and though it sucks when an alloy plating gets damaged, I kind of plan for it and its not so bad. I think the problem is two-fold: 1. There's no way to remove exploitable tactics without removing a lot of fun for other people. I don't like exploiting anything, so when nerfs come it just makes me sad - in my opinion if people find a tactic too exploitable they should edit the ini to make their game harder, or put conditions on their own play, like people who play MGS3 in European Extreme with no kills and no tranquillizer pistol, the only condition the game actually enforces is the difficulty level (An analog would be people who play shiv-com with only one soldier designated as the volunteer). If you want to make a game with no exploits, you made chess. 2. The base game, especially the AI and 'pod' mechanics just aren't good enough. A lot of exploits could be perfectly solvable by a much smarter AI.
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May 16, 2015 23:37
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