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Shinarato posted:
The yellow lab was on the first page of results and the cutest of the lot?
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Jul 25, 2016 11:04
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Brainamp posted:Not even. Thin mints had ridiculous aim. I love autocorrect. Green Intern posted:Gift Horse I support my earlier post. Ciaphas Cain, Gift Horse of the Imperium. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 11:22
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Tylana posted:Any thoughts on Aid Protocol? Or did I just blink and miss that discussion on video? Actually we never discussed this. Aid Protocol is kind of a non-skill to me until much later in the specialist tree when there is another skill that makes it more useful. At the basic squaddie level Aid Protocol gives a soldier +20 defense and it is sort of like a personalized smoke grenade from XCom:EW. However it's single target instead of an area like the supports smoke grenade of the first game and thus a lot less useful in my opinion. That leaves Aid Protocol in an area of mostly uselessness for me. It might be nice if you really want to boost someones defense in say low cover and you expect them to get shot. However, for me, Aid Protocol is mostly a 'give up' move. It means I didn't have anything better to do with my support. I'd rather my support be moving and attacking most of the time and the single target nature of it doesn't impress me. If the Aid Protocol buffs one soldiers defense high enough the alien wont shoot them, they'll just find another target among the 3-5 other soldiers you have out there. So maybe good for protecting a vulnerable or low HP soldier, but it's not going to see a lot of use.
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Jul 25, 2016 12:45
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There are some situations where aid protocol is really useful actually. First, aid protocol does not end your turn. If you specialist is in cover, wants to shoot at something and has nothing better to do with his other AP, then putting on aid protocol is actually a good thing. Second, it is a way to get cover equivalents on people who do not have cover (like, spark guys). I also got the impression that aliens fire on aid protocolled units much less then they do on others, and I would often prefer 2 wounded over 1 dead soldier. It did safe my rear end in the tower mission, since Mc.Stompy was very very focused on a certain mission critical unit. It also was +40 defense, but I dont actually know what perks shen actually has. could have also been from long war.
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Jul 25, 2016 13:34
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It's a really good skill to have if you are forced to run a soldier out on their own into a terrible position (like getting an objective) and it's good for long non-timed missions since you don't have to worry about running out of charges.
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Jul 25, 2016 14:21
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Speaking of running out of cover into terrible positions I managed to get Jade to get some loot and that went well. But then a Sectoid, surrounded by corpses, shot that same guy in the face after flanking him. Fix your game, Jake. Lunethex fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 14:29
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 Operation Dread Wail In today's video a lot of stuff breaks behind the scenes. This is the first video recorded entirely in OBS and there was a very noticeable 0.12 second audio desync, which doesn't sound noticeable, but it really really is when it's misaligning the sound and visual of gunfire or explosions. Lunethex is helping me get used to Sony Vegas and MeGUI which is a bit of an experience, but it's going well and I'm getting the hang of it so a big thread thank you to Lune for his efforts. And lastly all of my workshop mods break for this video and the next one. Again Lune helped me solve that one and hopefully there won't be any lingering effects. For the actual video itself the geoscape gets really busy. Scan sites keep popping up and now there is no shortage of things that I need to be doing all at once. I find myself short on supplies and engineers, and a ton of other poo poo to do and not enough time to get it all done but at least some of the building projects in the Avenger are moving along and offering some benefits. Let's talk about the Guerrilla Training School, or the GTS. It's version 2.0 of the Officer Training School from the first game and has all of the original functionality you may know and expect if you played the first game. This is where we go to spend supplies on battlescape benefits such as unlocking large squad sizes, gaining a bonus to the concealment phase, getting extra loot from the ADVENT drops, increased exp per kill, and so on. There are a lot of beneficial abilities to purchase in the GTS and you want them all. That said, you are not likely to be able to afford them all. Supplies are always in short supply so I would consider it a pretty big luxury to be able to purchase everything out of the GTS. The obvious first picks are the squad size upgrades. Perhaps none obvious is Vulture, the upgrade that increases the amount of loot gained from ADVENT drops. It's a long term investment that pays more the sooner you buy it and all the extra weapon mods and PCS's you will gain from it will easily pay back the purchase cost of Vulture. Integrated Warfare boosts the bonuses of the PCS's you plug into your soldiers skulls and may be nice if you have a lot of PCS's, but is very optional in my opinion. There are also skills that will affect an entire class, one for each soldier class. These offer a bonus specific to the class type and can vary in power. Purchase of them would be largely based on the player and play style. My opinion being the Ranger and Specialist upgrades being the strongest but that is because they benefit my preferred playstyle the most. A great new feature to the GTS is the ability to train rookies into a desired soldier class. One soldier at a time may be trained from a rookie into a soldier class type of your choosing over the course of 5 days. This is a huge quality of life addition to the game and praise be unto Jake for fixing his game in this respect. This solves a common problem of having a lack of a particular soldier type and having to rely solely on random rookie promotions, such was the case in the first game. A secondary benefit is also just being able to avoid having to deal with complete rookies that have zero skills and are largely useless. With the GTS you can at least give a soldier one promotion before they have to face the aliens, giving them a little stat boost and the starter class skill. Overall this is a wonderful addition to the GTS and makes managing your soldiers much easier and less stressful. Guerrilla Missions are the new take on abduction missions for the second game. Where before abduction missions meant managing panic across the locations they were happening in Guerrilla Missions allow Dark Events to be countered, as well as offering a supply or personnel reward for the mission. Talking about guerrilla missions really means talking about the dark events because they are so interconnected. Every month ADVENT pushes forward these dark events that benefit their side of things. These effects can vary from denying XCom supplies, making XCom spend extra resources to accomplish things on the geoscape, giving ADVENT troops additional armor, placing Faceless into missions there otherwise wouldn't normally be Faceless, or outright advancing the Avatar Project progress bar. There are a lot of dark events and choosing which one you want to prevent from happening is going to play the larger part in deciding which guerrilla mission you choose to take. As a general rule I would always recommend preventing the Avatar Project advancements. Besides those events it becomes hard to write a strict rule of priorities, there are a lot of events and the kind of situation you are in when they come up can vary greatly. Taking your time to consider and weigh the significance of each event is the key here, but there are at least a few events I can mention as low priorities. Vigilance increases the alien spotting range during the concealment phase, and while that might be a pain in the rear end, it's a very small and niche pain in the rear end. ADVENT Midnight Raids increases the cost of recruits by 100%, again potentially being a pain in the rear end but unless you are hurting for manpower it shouldn't be a factor. Dark events also take a while to go into effect after you have to pick which one to disrupt so if midnight raids are going to be a problem you may be able to get around it by hiring rookies right away, before the event triggers. The guerrilla mission and dark event system is a lot more in depth and varied than the abduction missions of the first game. It's not hard to see the similarities in them, you're given three options and can only respond to one of them, but the added element of the dark events add a layer of complexity over that of the homogeneous abduction mechanics and panic board of the first game. Guerrilla missions are also now rewards, or counters, to changes in gameplay rather than being than being the direct thing that will make you lose the game like in Enemy Within, ie. the thing that panics counties until they pull out and you lose. In the first game abductions lead to panic, panic leads to countries pulling out, which leads to game over. In XCom2 the Avatar project ticks along a timeline and can be influenced by the guerrilla missions, but isn't determined by them. It's a good design change and improvement over the first game. Lastly, I haven't been as in depth in the posts about soldier skill choices as I was last thread. i can certainly fix this if it is something that is being missed. There aren't a lot of choices that warrant a lot of debate and Guava and I have just been covering skills as soldier promote. Let me know if the thread needs more skill analysis. For this video I'll at least talk about the relevant choice of Blast Padding versus Shredder. But both of those skills involve armor, so I better explain the new mechanics behind armor first! Armor is a new mechanic in XCom 2. "But wait...?" I hear you saying, armor was always a thing, even in the first game. Well sort of. Armor as equipment isn't anything new, but previously all armor did was add to a soldiers HP. New to XCom 2 is the armor mechanic. Now armor refers to a damage mitigation provided to the wearer. For a quick example, let's say a soldier with 2 points of armor is shot by a 6 damage laser. The soldiers armor will mitigate 2 points of damage and the soldier will receive only 4 damage. This effect will apply to every shot the soldier takes, and doesn't go away after the first hit. Very simple mechanic and very easy to see just how valuable armor can be in this game. Armor can prevent a significant amount of damage to your troops. Or the enemy, as they will have armor too as the game progresses. So how do you deal with armor? That is where the 'shred' mechanic comes in. Certain attacks, most commonly explosives, will destroy the armor points of whatever they hit. Let's say we throw a regular grenade at an alien with 2 armor points. The grenade will deal 1 point of 'shred' which destroys one point of armor, 1 damage will be blocked by the second point of armor, and 1 or two points of damage will be dealt to the alien. From then on the alien will only have 1 point of armor left. Shredding still requires you to deal with the enemy armor, but only once instead of leaving it there to mitigate damage on every successive shot. It's a very good idea to prioritize your attack order when dealing with armored foes. Start with the attacks that will shred first and then follow up with regular attacks to deal the most damage. Right, hope that clears things up about armor. So back to the skill choices. Blast Padding is a nice skill. It grants the soldier an extra armor point and reduces damage taken from explosives by 66%. These are nice things to have. Every soldier could benefit from having blast padding. But that's not why blast padding is going to lose every time. While that extra point of armor is nice, it realistically isn't going to do a whole lot on a given mission. It will mitigate 1 point of damage per hit, assuming it doesn't get shredded. A soldier shouldn't be taking very many hits on a given mission so the effect of that point of armor is going to be small. Somewhere in the range of 0-3 hp saved a mission, which isn't bad but it's not really that amazing either. A nanofiber vest gives you about the same effect. The explosion damage resistance is also nice when you get hit with something, but will be fairly rare to come into play. All in all it is a nice skill to have, but it's not particularly strong. Shredder lets a soldiers main weapon damage armor. I say 'main weapon' and not 'grenadiers machine gun' because other classes can get Shredder through the AWC. One point per attack for ballistic, 2 for magnetic, and 3 for plasma. Early game this may not seem so important, we have not even seen an enemy with armor yet. However it will become very important as the game progresses and dealing with enemies that have multiple points of armor become the norm. Having a resource free way of shredding armor makes a lot of fights much easier. Being able to peel armor off hard targets like mutons or mechs with out having to expend grenades every time is a big deal. So at the end of it all, Blast Padding is nice, but the amount of time it's going to be useful is very minor. Whereas Shredder is going to end up being useful a lot of the time and it's going to have a very strong effect on the situations it affects.
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Jul 25, 2016 16:23
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In some cases, not all Dark Events that you don't counter will activate. But Vigilance and Midnight Raids will always activate, that's for sure 
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Jul 25, 2016 16:48
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Oh god, Big Sky crashed in Thunder Bay? Jade, you need to rescue them as soon as possible 
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Jul 25, 2016 16:57
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Wikipedia posted:Name[edit]
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Jul 25, 2016 17:09
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One of my snipers picked up shredding attacks through the AWC. I gotta say, the ability to reach across the map and pop some guy's armor is incredibly handy. I think Blast Padding would become more interesting if it gave 1 armor per tier rather than just 1 armor. That scaling with weapons is really what makes shredding pull ahead,
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Jul 25, 2016 17:41
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Jade Star posted:Also we're going to start needing nicknames for people. Labradoodle
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Jul 25, 2016 17:53
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In the light of Bradford's gripe, I just have to ask: Is an autopilot's name Otto? 
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Jul 25, 2016 18:19
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If a trooper with the Shred ability and a stock on their gun fires, does the guaranteed damage from the stock cause Shred to work? Also, I liked the detailed skill write ups from the last game, seeing them back would be neat.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:27
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MechaCrash posted:If a trooper with the Shred ability and a stock on their gun fires, does the guaranteed damage from the stock cause Shred to work? It doesn't, from what I've seen. Sore disappointment, that.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:28
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I cringe every time Jade puts half the squad in cover behind an unexploded car. Always mind your surroundings. Blast padding might not be such a bad pick if you're going to do that  .
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Jul 25, 2016 19:02
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Hey, Jade Star: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=653926741 Paint your
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Jul 25, 2016 19:10
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zyxophoj posted:I cringe every time Jade puts half the squad in cover behind an unexploded car. Always mind your surroundings. The actual mistake there was standing next to the gas pump. Cars at least take a turn to explode.
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Jul 25, 2016 19:17
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Brainamp posted:The actual mistake there was standing next to the gas pump. Cars at least take a turn to explode.
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Jul 25, 2016 19:19
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Yeah, you want to lure the ayys into the explosion zone, not use it as cover.
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Jul 25, 2016 19:21
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Not only do cart wheels lock up when you remove them from the lot, but sometimes the mechanism glitches. I'm kinda surprised Gnu has never had to wrestle with a cart in-store that has a wheel that isn't cooperating.
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Jul 25, 2016 19:47
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Chris gasmask's hairstyle belongs on Duke. 
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Jul 25, 2016 20:34
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Mightypeon posted:There are some situations where aid protocol is really useful actually. Aid protocol scales with GREMLIN level (+20/+30/+40 defense), which is another reason I agree with Jade Star. I think Shen has a custom max level GREMLIN to go with her colonel tier abilities.
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Jul 25, 2016 20:41
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Did they "fix" the combo of a stock and repeater?
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Jul 25, 2016 22:49
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6 aliens? What is this, Veteran? People better start dying in this game, Commander!
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Jul 25, 2016 22:58
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So the takeaway from all of this is that Lunethex is a wizard given unholy tech powers. He can even counter the JAIDS.
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Jul 25, 2016 23:12
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InfinityComplex posted:Did they "fix" the combo of a stock and repeater? Pretty sure that's a yes. Still both fun things to keep on most guns. golden bubble posted:Aid protocol scales with GREMLIN level (+20/+30/+40 defense), which is another reason I agree with Jade Star. I think Shen has a custom max level GREMLIN to go with her colonel tier abilities. Yep. She also has unlimited versions of single use abilities, making her the best specialist in the game. As for Aid vs Combat protocols, going back to what jade said about armor, that's why I love sticking combat protocol on all my specialists. It ignores armor and can't miss, both being real huge boons for pretty much any situation.
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Jul 25, 2016 23:14
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combat protocol is great, but i feel like taking your first specialist down the medic line gives you some more breathing room at the start of a campaign. the specialist or two after that though, sure, all zap'n'hack all the time
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Jul 25, 2016 23:17
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AriadneThread posted:combat protocol is great, but i feel like taking your first specialist down the medic line gives you some more breathing room at the start of a campaign. When I played Vanilla I always kept two specialists in the squad, one combat and one medic.
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Jul 25, 2016 23:29
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Kwyndig posted:Hey, Jade Star: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=653926741 I tried using this mod before Alien Hunters was out, and it didn't run so hot. The music wouldn't trigger sometimes, and the pre-mission jump cinematic an actual map pop-in sometimes went a bit screwy. Download with care, and back up your save files. XCOM2 does not like it if you try to load a campaign after removing a previously-enabled mod.
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Jul 25, 2016 23:29
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Brainamp posted:As for Aid vs Combat protocols, going back to what jade said about armor, that's why I love sticking combat protocol on all my specialists. It ignores armor and can't miss, both being real huge boons for pretty much any situation. There is no Aid Vs Combat protocol situation. Aid Protocol is the squaddie skill, Combat Protocol is the Corporal level skill.
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Jul 25, 2016 23:36
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Nyaa posted:The Actual-actual mistake is going near the gas station in the first place. Pretty much; back when I was playing X-COM: UFO Defense gas stations were kill-on-sight. I thought of them as free lighting for the map.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:03
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Going to be streaming the big goon pool stream *NOT THE LP* file. Just checking that I have the workshop mods working again and everything. http://www.twitch.tv/sa_jadestar Join in, watch, maybe die.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:12
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Jade Star posted:There is no Aid Vs Combat protocol situation. Aid Protocol is the squaddie skill, Combat Protocol is the Corporal level skill. Damnit. I was thinking of medical protocol, not aid.  Like half the specialist abilities have protocol in the name. Really gets confusing after a while.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:13
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Brainamp posted:Damnit. I was thinking of medical protocol, not aid. Protocol Protocol: when using a Protocol, it does not cost an action of the character has used another Protocol this turn. Protocol.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:19
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I know you did it in the last LP, are you going to go over a bit of base construction at some point? Pretty sure I've got it but I never know if I'm missing something. And supports are always the hardest for me to decide on their skills, so I always ended up bringing two along, one with hacking and one with straight medical.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:36
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zyxophoj posted:I cringe every time Jade puts half the squad in cover behind an unexploded car. Always mind your surroundings. I had a soldier get vaporized when a car that looked like a junker exploded while he was taking cover behind it. Worst part is, I wasn't paying attention to the feed and didn't realize that he had died since, y'know, the car that started the mission missing four tires and already on fire should have been a burnt out husk and been safe to hide behind.
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Jul 26, 2016 02:07
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IBlameRoadSuess posted:So the takeaway from all of this is that Lunethex is a wizard given unholy tech powers. He can even counter the JAIDS. Of course, watch as JAIDS manages to infect Lunethex by this time next week.
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Jul 26, 2016 02:17
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To expand on this, the dog was named for the province, and the province was named for the Portuguese explorer who mapped the coastline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Fernandes_Lavrador Wikipedia posted:João Fernandes Lavrador (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈɐ̃w̃ fɨɾˈnɐ̃ðɨʃ lɐvɾɐˈðoɾ]) was a Portuguese explorer of the late 15th century. He was the first modern explorer in the coasts of the Northeast of Northern America, including the Labrador peninsula, which bears his name. The popular dog breed Labrador Retriever is named after the peninsula and this by effect also bears his name.
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Jul 26, 2016 02:18
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| # ? May 24, 2024 22:36 |
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I was really hoping you'd use that easy last sectoid to get a free hack attempt on your specialist there. He was half a move from a hackable scanner post. But when the game gives you chances to slash, you gotta slash.
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Jul 26, 2016 20:35
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