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My high school team was the Toppers, and never thought of it as a sex thing until years later. I feel like I missed out.
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Sep 14, 2016 07:33
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GuavaMoment posted:Also the CFL gave us the Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles, kind of, so it has to be good. Greatest goddamn thing sports is responsible for.
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Sep 14, 2016 07:33
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CFLs are OK, but LED bulbs are the future.
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Sep 14, 2016 07:34
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monster on a stick posted:LED bulbs are the future. so are old men
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Sep 14, 2016 10:36
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whowhatwhere posted:Greatest goddamn thing sports is responsible for. We might get Tim and Bo's Twin Adventure these days....
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Sep 14, 2016 14:40
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Should have the next update done shortly, give or take some upload time, lunch, and processing It'll be up tonight or first thing tomorrow. In the mean time have another audio link with out context.
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Sep 14, 2016 22:51
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I just finished shotgunning the videos. Holy poo poo, I'm really enjoying these user-submitted troops.
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Sep 15, 2016 03:00
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AriadneThread posted:he should have asked for directions then Late, but has he tried Hare Krishna?
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Sep 15, 2016 03:54
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 Operation Regal Beast Let's talk about some skill choices so you don't see what's written down there until you've watched the video! Ranger Captain Rank Implacable vs Bladestorm Bladestorm is kind of like close combat specialist from the first game, but with swords. Any enemy that tries to move through a tile adjacent to the ranger is going to get sworded. Much like close combat specialist this mostly useful against things like chrysalids and other melee oriented enemies. Somewhat unexpectedly though, Bladestorm will trigger after a viper tongue pulls you, and before the constrict attack, making it a handy potential save from being bound by the snakes. You can also put a Bladestorm ranger on top of an ADVENT reinforcement flare to sword the reinforcements, but it will only trigger one so there is some potential fun there, but not as much as could be otherwise. Implacable is a neat mobility skill. It grants the ranger a free single move after scoring a kill. This sounds pretty mundane at first, but it can be super handy to have. The easiest example I can give is to simply run and gun, sprint behind an enemies cover, even if that leave your ranger out in the open and exposed, blast the enemy to death and then use the Implacable movement to get back to safety. It really doesn't sound extraordinary but it can be used to such advantage or to simply back a ranger away to safety after securing a kill that might otherwise leave it over extended and vulnerable. Winner: Implacable. But not by a landslide, I wouldn't balk at Bladestorm. Grenadier Lieutenant Rank Heavy Ordnance vs Holo-Targeting Heavy Ordnance allows the soldier to use the grenade item in their grenadier only extra grenade slot a second time. This seems rather mundane, but it can be very powerful when you have the right explosives. Or the frost bomb! Being able to use your best consumable explosive twice on a mission really does help ease any Giant Robotic Crab Syndrome related stress you may have on a mission. Holo-Targeting is back again, and nothing has changed with it. Well it's not up against Bullet Swarm this time so that is a plus! The fact that it's up against Heavy Ordnance means Holo-Targeting is a viable choice now. It synergies well with other skills like suppression and demolition but the main reason I feel it doesn't suck is because of Shredder. There are plenty of armored targets out there in the game and that means you want to shoot them first with things that do shred damage, like your grenadiers! So while you're using your grenadiers at the start of your turn, you may as well also make that big bad heavily armored target easier to hit while you're already shooting it to peel it's armor off. Neither are truly spectacular, but both are very nice to have. Winner: A tie. Maybe a little more toward Heavy Ordnance though. At least always have one Heavy Ordnance grenadier. Support Captain Rank Covering Fire vs Threat Assessment Covering Fire is back from the first game too. It allows overwatch shots to trigger on any enemy action, not just movement. Same as before, still very lackluster. Pass. Threat Assessment adds an overwatch trigger to Aid Protocol, and increases the cooldown timer on Aid Protocol by 1. The overwatch granted by Threat Assessment even comes with the Covering Fire benefit for the soldier benefiting from the Aid Protocol. Neither of these are super cool like some other skill choices. However I am of the opinion that Covering Fire is next to useless. However, giving someone else a defensive boost and giving them a free overwatch action is actually pretty cool. It's probably a bit rare to make use of it to the full extent, but it is still a nice skill to have in a pinch to protect a soldier that might be left vulnerable. Winner: Threat Assessment. Alright, watched the video by now? Good. Welcome to the Alien Hunter's DLC! This mission normally follows after salvaging the experimental weapons from Big Sky's crashed Skyranger. Its a tough one and can be wise to put off for a while. Despite the large number of enemies in the mission there are really only two fights of any significance on the map, most of the map is really there to listen to Vahlen tell her story. The most numerous enemy on the map are the Neonate Vipers which are little baby white snakes that only have two HP, and little baby bolt casters that hit for three damage. They are not much to worry about but there are a lot of them. Their pitifully low maximum HP means they are extremely vulnerable to any soldier coming into the map with an advanced stock, or better. Advanced stocks will give you 100% chance to kill any Neonate Viper at any time, making them a breeze. Bradford already comes with one so if you bring another you can pretty reliably clean up a pod of baby snakes with little to no effort. The first real fight of the map comes at the halfway point where two pods of snakes will slither forward in an ambush attempt. Making this attack have some real potential is the sheer number of baby snakes it throws at you at once and that there are two regular Vipers in the hoard of babies. At first glance looking at anywhere from 8 to 12 snakes is terrifying. The normal mantra of the game is to fight more like 6 vs 3 in your favor. However this fight is set up pretty much to show off what Bradford can do. Reaper is the key to the whole situation here, allowing Bradford to kill four or five baby snakes with no problem and then end his turn with a rifle shot for another kill. Its a big scary thing seeing 10 or so alien health bars coming at you from out of the darkness but a little time to think it over will show you the way through and it's no so difficult. The second part is of course the Viper King and the new mechanics it brings to the table. The big deal here is the Ruler Reaction mechanic which works to give the ruler one action for every action X-Com takes. The Snake King doesn't get a normal turn, meaning if you hit end turn it doesn't take the normal two actions all other aliens get. This is a really strange mechanic and turns combat kind of funny. You can't really execute multi action plans anymore because if you for example plan to move and then make a flanking attack the ruler gets to move after you do and before you get to make that shot. Ruler combat kind of turns into a battle of action economy and a damage output race. Rulers tend to flee when they get to half HP if they were fresh, or low HP if they showed up wounded. This means a good way of surviving them is to simply dump every high damage attack on them you can as fast as you can. The ruler reaction mechanism means you want to do that in as few actions as possible; IE moving a solder from point a to point b with a normal movement action suddenly becomes the worst thing you can do because it doesn't hurt the ruler and gives them an action to move or attack with. Typically if lines of sight are not a problem you want everyone to be some what spread out, stay where they are, and shoot the hell out of the alien ruler. Attacks that do not use actions such as Lightning Hands and the Axe Throw are great against rulers. Naturally one of the best ways to deal a lot of damage to a ruler while being safe about it is to bring the freeze bomb. Always bring the freeze bomb. Get the ruler somewhere that 3 people can shoot it with out moving, freeze the ruler, and then pummel the hell out of it. The bolt caster has a stun chance, and while that is really nice, it only has one shot. That means once you fire it you have to take an action to reload it, and that action to reload will allow the ruler to take a turn. Reloading when up against a ruler is just about the worst thing you can do, unless you have an auto loader weapon mod. Lastly, because of the ruler reaction mechanic things that do damage over time to aliens like fire or poison will do their damage super quickly to rulers. Every reaction action the ruler takes will activate the damage over time effect. That means poisoning and setting a ruler on fire can add a lot of damage to the fight a lot faster than you'd normally expect. In this mission I knew where the snake king was going to be and could set up my best attempt at an overwatch wall for when it spawned in. In the future that will never be the case again. Rulers will show up when ever and where every they like. They will patrol the shroud during normal missions and behave just like regular enemy pods until you have the misfortune of stumbling upon them. Rulers are at the absolute worst when you cant deal with them alone. Spending time to kill regular aliens give the ruler actions to murder you with. Leaving the regular aliens alive means they get their normal turns after your turn of dealing with the ruler and unhindered they will of course flank you or mess you up as much as they possibly can. Dealing with rulers in the field with normal aliens is the worst. I would say freeze bomb it, shoot the hell out of it, and if necessary freeze bomb it again and keep shooting. If you don't have the ruler isolated and don't feel confident in your situation than just shoot it enough to make it want to retreat. Let it open the portal and escape and then you can get back to mopping up the regular aliens who are waiting to wreck your team when it's their turn.
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Sep 15, 2016 06:08
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gently caress, quote is not edit.
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Sep 15, 2016 06:10
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Implacable is great for hit and run tactics, but really comes into its own when combined with an upcoming perk that also triggers on kills.
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Sep 15, 2016 06:21
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Just to confirm, my Julians go straight to engineering once they get broken. Guava's game might need a game cache verification.
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Sep 15, 2016 06:43
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Missed killing the Viper King and everyone but Gasmask's still shaken? Well, at least nobody died.
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Sep 15, 2016 07:08
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Rest in peace Jade Star He missed the dramatic kill Disappointment reigns
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Sep 15, 2016 07:29
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whowhatwhere posted:Greatest goddamn thing sports is responsible for. I uh, thought this was hyperbole. It was not.
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Sep 15, 2016 07:38
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I always used the acid bomb on the rulers. It seems to do way more damage than burning or poison on top of shredding armor. Maybe that's just me though. I never thought of using holo-targeting like that, I just love having extra grenades at all times. I will argue that covering fire is better than threat assessment, if only because I try to keep my supports closer to the action. I'd rather the supports get the extra overwatch skills, especially with GWS upgrades you can get later than have them basically waste a turn helping someone else.
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Sep 15, 2016 07:47
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So a thing about Ruler Actions: Dunno if this extends to older versions, but if I had to hazard a guess Jake was inspired by D&D 5e and their Legendary Actions for the Ruler Actions in XCOM2. Firaxis has been all about making their games more Tabletop-esque with Civ 5/6, BE and the XCOM remakes, however this is the biggest tabletop-y thing I can point out. In 5e at least, many boss creatures circumvent the action economy of players by having both Legendary Resistance (which I am loving GLAD Jake also didn't pick up) and Legendary Action: LR is basically "lol this doesn't work" for three status effects, and LA is an action pool of 3 points that a boss monster can use only on a player's turn. Some LA's use multiple points as well, which is a blessing. However I don't think Jake realized the balance behind LA's in D&D; for Ruler Actions, they act *anytime* a player acts and, at least in my experience, without limitations. Had Jade have a full roster available to him, that's 6-12 free actions for the Snake King. Generally this means he will escape through the portal since players often chew through him in the first encounter, but this is also why those achievements Guava covets are so balls-hard to get. There is a few ways to circumvent it at least: As seen in the vid, Freeze Bombs work (somehow against a loving frost element snake what the hell?), and DoT damage with Acid/Fire/Poison will proc during a ruler action as well. Finally, I cannot wait for the other two rulers. I have a story about one. Highwang fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 07:48
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So sad you couldn't fit this in the episode, Jade.Bootcha posted:DARKEST-COM
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Sep 15, 2016 08:24
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Comparing Ghost in the Shell to Shadowrun is a good way to explain it, since it was one of the main inspirations of Shadowrun(Especially the later editions) and I really do recommend watching it even if you don't usually like anime.
Nalesh fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 10:12
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I cant help feel bad for this little snake community you just wandered into and shoot up, Snake dudes just chilling raising a family after being experimented on his entire life now hes finally free and them, bam Xcom kick in the door and start shooting the place up. It really leaves me with the question, what connection do these snakes have to advent? was valen working for advent? as undoing the dumbification of the snakes does not seem like something advent would actually want.
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Sep 15, 2016 14:29
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Panboy posted:I cant help feel bad for this little snake community you just wandered into and shoot up, Snake dudes just chilling raising a family after being experimented on his entire life now hes finally free and them, bam Xcom kick in the door and start shooting the place up. I'm pretty sure Vahlen was working on her own initiative.
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Sep 15, 2016 14:33
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Green Intern posted:I'm pretty sure Vahlen was working on her own initiative. Snek dek
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Sep 15, 2016 15:02
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The idea of a species predominately female with a very few males is indeed an idea that's cropped up repeatedly in science fiction and fantasy. In the case of the vipers here, given how quickly they reproduced with one male, I'd imagine Vahlen's theory was right - the Ethereals were only cloning one gender to keep the species from unintended reproduction as a way to keep the vipers firmly under control. I like Covering Fire, specifically in combination with Ever Vigilant at the next rank. Given the nature of many missions in X-COM 2, there are times when you simply need someone to haul rear end across the map, and Ever Vigilant lets them also be useful - Covering Fire makes Ever Vigilant even better. Enemies might not move, but if they're not moving they're probably going to fire and this ability combo turns a sprinting specialist into reliably getting a shot in in addition to the movement. I haven't found Threat Assessment or the alternative to Ever Vigilant to be particularly useful so Covering Fire and Ever Vigilant are my default specialist picks that have gotten my specialists a surprising amount of damage and kills. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 15:54
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Sep 15, 2016 16:17
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Cythereal posted:The idea of a species predominately female with a very few males is indeed an idea that's cropped up repeatedly in science fiction and fantasy. In the case of the vipers here, given how quickly they reproduced with one male, I'd imagine Vahlen's theory was right - the Ethereals were only cloning one gender to keep the species from unintended reproduction as a way to keep the vipers firmly under control.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:18
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Cythereal posted:The idea of a species predominately female with a very few males is indeed an idea that's cropped up repeatedly in science fiction and fantasy. In the case of the vipers here, given how quickly they reproduced with one male, I'd imagine Vahlen's theory was right - the Ethereals were only cloning one gender to keep the species from unintended reproduction as a way to keep the vipers firmly under control. I like Threat Assessment because it lets me give Covering Fire to soldiers with higher damage weapons/the Shredder ability. Basically, I use it to give Overwatch shots to my Rangers when they've moved ahead from the rest of the squad due to slashing up ayyys or Grenadiers when they have a good position to just rain hell on an enemy but they've already used their actions for the turn. Which reminds me, in my current game, I got a Marksman with Shredder. Sadly it doesn't activate on pistol shots.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:35
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Kwyndig posted:I like Threat Assessment because it lets me give Covering Fire to soldiers with higher damage weapons/the Shredder ability. Basically, I use it to give Overwatch shots to my Rangers when they've moved ahead from the rest of the squad due to slashing up ayyys or Grenadiers when they have a good position to just rain hell on an enemy but they've already used their actions for the turn. A fair point for Threat Assessment, but I rarely find myself using it because I so often have other things I prefer my specialist to be doing with their turn. For the way I play, at least, they're both situational abilities but I find Ever Vigilant/Covering Fire comes up a lot more often than Threat Assessment.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:37
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Well yeah, anything OW related is pretty situational, ideally you don't want the enemy to take a turn.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:38
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i had a ranger with serial once, that was fun
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Sep 15, 2016 16:40
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AriadneThread posted:i had a ranger with serial once, that was fun My first game I had a sniper with hail of bullets. Great for both guaranteeing a hit and for functioning as a cooldown snap shot if I had ammo.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:45
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Highwang posted:So a thing about Ruler Actions: Or Jake played 4E D&D, which not only gives its boss monsters five times the hit points, but features the solo Beholder line of nasty monstrosities. Beholders get their full set of actions, but they also make random gaze attacks whenever a PC gets a turn.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:50
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GuavAIDS
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Sep 15, 2016 16:51
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Jade Star posted:Winner: Implacable. But not by a landslide, I wouldn't balk at Bladestorm. I see your vacation did good things, Jade, it meant you picked the right skills. Finally, I'm sure Guava would say. I do have to say Bladestorm is something I only take on my sword ranger (of course, obviously) and I only ever have one of those. However, Bladestorm going off on the enemy turn was how I won the final mission by accident the first time I played so it holds a special place in my heart.
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Sep 15, 2016 16:53
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Tachikomas are AI Controlled combat tanks. In the TV series, one of them got repurposed for construction work and got a very Julian-like paintjob
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Sep 15, 2016 17:28
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Kurieg posted:Tachikomas are AI Controlled combat tanks. In the TV series, one of them got repurposed for construction work and got a very Julian-like paintjob The big tank-like thing on the back is to hold a human pilot/rider, but they're normally completely self-controlled, yes. Also they had the most adorable short animations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGTXNQmJAkw
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Sep 15, 2016 17:32
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I really loathe the alien ruler reaction mechanic, not so much for how it shows up now, but later it becomes and obnoxious nightmare. I uninstalled the DLC; I don't think rulers are fun at all.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:56
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Fix your drat snakes, Vahlen.
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Sep 15, 2016 18:03
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Yeah, the alien ruler mechanics wasn't a good idea, I would probably have prefered if they would have followed the same movement/action rules as everything else in this game and then had their own set of randomized missions where you would try to take down their growing area of influence.
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Sep 15, 2016 18:06
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Sylphosaurus posted:It ties pretty nicely in as an homage to the snakeman autopsy from the original Enemy Unknown, where it's stated that there can be up to fifty eggs inside a single snakeman and how the race would be one hell of a threat against all life on earth if it would be left to it's own device. No snakeman can lay fifty eggs!
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Sep 15, 2016 18:07
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Canuck-Errant posted:No snakeman can lay fifty eggs! 50 eggs isn't even a lot. A female human is born with somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million egg follicles, of which on average some 400 will become viable ovum for fertilization over her lifetime. Unless the implication is that snakepeople are able to gestate 50 eggs at a time per fertility cycle they'd be outbred by bog standard humans in no time at all. Crigit fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 19:03
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