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SIGSEGV posted:And this sounds like it would work pretty well, I wonder if it's a modable behavior. Poking around the Steam Workshop, found this. I'm considering downloading it, but I want to try fighting all the Rulers normally before I try altering their behavior.
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Sep 19, 2016 23:46
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| # ? May 23, 2024 11:07 |
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One thing I like about the Viper King mission is Bradford. He went into combat himself to rescue the commander, and it seems he'd do the same for Dr Vahlen. It also shows how much his character has changed over the years... Bradford in XCOM:EU: "Close Range?!?" Bradford in XCOM:EW: Knocks out a mind-controlled guy with a pistol. Bradford in XCOM2: Now carrying a knife. Bradford in XCOM2 DLC: Reaper-specced ranger. Jake Solomon originally said he'd never bring snakemen back. But he didn't say anything about snakewomen. And snakemen is a plural word, so he's allowed to have one. I guess we can expect one more appearance from the king, considering how bad Jade beat him up this time. (...and no more appearances from his snek jailbait squad. Those things appear only in the special mission). The lone male member (hurr hurr, I said "member") of the sexiest species in the galaxy is likely to be extremely busy, and we should consider ourselves honoured if the viper king can find time away from his extremely busy schedule to beat up on XCOM.
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Sep 21, 2016 20:40
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SIGSEGV posted:There are ways around the stack of doom, splitting your forces to force a choice, unit composition choices and collateral damage for example. Just let players stack as many units as they want on the hex, but after like 2 or 3, they all get debuffs to combat. Plus, all units in the tile take collateral damage in any combat. So, you have 7 relatively strong units in the hex, but they all fight at e.g. -75% efficiency. So some warrior stumbles on by and hits the defending unit for 30 points of damage, and all other units in the stack also take e.g. 15 points. You might be able to squeeze a big army though a chockepoint, but you wouldn't want to keep your units stacked for long because the total damage would be too much. Also Civ 5 totally had stacks of doom, but you only got them in the modern era when you developed airplanes.
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Sep 21, 2016 20:55
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It also had carpets of doom which allowed you to play Gridlock Simulator 2011.zyxophoj posted:One thing I like about the Viper King mission is Bradford. He went into combat himself to rescue the commander, and it seems he'd do the same for Dr Vahlen. It also shows how much his character has changed over the years... Bradford has figured out that reloading and resupplying muscles and melee weapons is significantly easier than doing the same with guns. (Although using them might be more risky.)
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Sep 21, 2016 21:05
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SIGSEGV posted:It also had carpets of doom which allowed you to play Gridlock Simulator 2011.
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Sep 23, 2016 11:43
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Wheany posted:That was a design decision. They wanted big armies to take a lot of room. That's OK in Panzer General because you have a lot of hexes to maneuver in, that's a bad decision in Civ where cities take one or just a few tiles because the tile exploitation model forces fewer large tiles as opposed to Panzer General 2 having London being about 10000 tiles. I'll grant you that units get pretty concentrated in both games but in Panzer General you ccan cycle your units out of the frontline because they have enough movement to get out of dodge or exploit a breach if given the opportunity.
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Sep 23, 2016 17:38
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I feel like there's a compromise that could be made between one unit per tile and the stack of doom. Maybe one unit type per tile, and have each unit type have a different stack limit. Melee-type units might stack the highest, and siege-type units would probably have the lowest limit. Just a random idea for a game that is only vaguely related to this one.
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Sep 24, 2016 00:03
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JT Jag posted:I feel like there's a compromise that could be made between one unit per tile and the stack of doom. Maybe one unit type per tile, and have each unit type have a different stack limit. Melee-type units might stack the highest, and siege-type units would probably have the lowest limit. There's eight different ways it could be done. Paradox-style tile weights systems where you either take attrition when you go over or going over is an illegal move, logistics techs that increase maximum stack size, the thing you said, just using three units per tile or whatever so you don't play traffic jam simulator, and so on. A big reason i, and therefore presumably other people, get frustrated by 1upt is that they took the laziest possible implementation of the idea, that results in the least interesting mechanical interactions, and then bent the entire rest of the game around that design decision.
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Sep 25, 2016 02:18
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 Operation Bad Wrong Chicken Hey guys, I'm all healthy again, mostly, and got some time to record with Guava so let's all have an update! There isn't much to say about this one though, it's a standard guerilla op that doesn't have any unexpected troublestm. But at least I remembered to notice and point out the kind of strange behavior of hackable street lamps. I don't actually know what causes this or why one lamp with the same tech score would be miles easier to hack than the second one but I'm glad i came across this and documented it a little. Sharpshooter Lieutenant rank Death From Above vs Quickdraw Death From Above grants a bonus action to a sniper that scores a kill on an enemy that is at a lower elevation than the sniper. This is handy for picking up a turn to reload a sniper rifle or to reposition your sniper. It's not an amazing skill, but it's handy and it's passive and makes your snipers better at sniping. Can allow for a burst of damage if you score a kill and still have a target inside pistol range to shoot at. Quickdraw is to a sharpshooter what Bulletswarm was to heavies in the first game. Taking a pistol shot with your first action of a turn no longer ends the marksmans turn. This is a pretty essential skill to have on a pistol focused marksman. I don't make pistol marksmen, but I look at the skill tree and can't imagine a pistol marksman even being worth it until you at least pick up Quickdraw. This is where it might start being worth it to actually use pistols. Winner: Death From Above. Okay okay fine it depends on if you're going sniper or gunslinger, in which case the choice to make is obvious. Jade Star fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Sep 25, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 06:40
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Could you have attempted to hack the other lightpost before you ended the mission?
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Sep 25, 2016 08:02
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to me the choice is always quickdraw. I love flexibility, and quickdraw is great in a pinch. Death From Above doesn't come up often enough for me, but that might just be my aggressive playstyle talking.
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Sep 25, 2016 08:24
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From my experience, it's moving through fire/gas.acid that triggers the effect. So you can medkit them and keep them still.... but yeah. Best to heal them after they've left the area usually. Just another reason why a certain Grenadier ability was awful when it set your own cover on fire. EDIT : The attack itself also triggers the check. For clarity.
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Sep 25, 2016 10:37
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you mentioned trying to get a kill for that one soldier to clear the shaken effect. Does destroying a relay technically count as a "kill" for getting your willpower back?
ousire fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Sep 25, 2016 |
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Sep 25, 2016 10:50
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ousire posted:you mentioned trying to get a kill for that one soldier to clear the shaken effect. Does destroying a relay technically count as a "kill" for getting your willpower back? I really doubt it, but I haven't tested it.
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Sep 25, 2016 11:02
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SugarAddict posted:Could you have attempted to hack the other lightpost before you ended the mission? The best way to deal with this would have been to clear up the aliens, then go for the lamp posts, and shoot the relay last. Shooting the relay is an automatic hit, regardless of how many defense bonuses it has on it.
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Sep 25, 2016 11:40
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I assume breaking concealment gives all hackable stuff a tech defense boost.
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Sep 25, 2016 15:55
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Jade Star posted:Hey guys, I'm all healthy again, mostly, and got some time to record with Guava so let's all have an update! There isn't much to say about this one though, it's a standard guerilla op that doesn't have any unexpected troublestm. But at least I remembered to notice and point out the kind of strange behavior of hackable street lamps. I don't actually know what causes this or why one lamp with the same tech score would be miles easier to hack than the second one but I'm glad i came across this and documented it a little. This has happened to me too - I was in a mission with two hackable lamps, both of which gave out squad concealment as the best reward. One had a 13% chance of success from my Specialist, the other had a 73% chance.
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Sep 25, 2016 17:54
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WAG: base difficulty is a throw of the dice per object.
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Sep 25, 2016 17:57
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Yeah, this mission really highlights why the hacking system in this game is real dumb. Unless you're lucky enough to get a couple enemy protocols early on, you don't have that great of hacking chances until you get several techs done, and by that point, none of the rewards are particularly helpful. It wouldn't be such a problem if the failure penalties weren't widely awful.
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Sep 25, 2016 19:08
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The penalties for failing a hack seem to vary between "screw you over for the rest of this pod" and "screw you over for the rest of the whole mission". Thankfully there are none that screw you up outside of the current mission as far as I can recall.
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Sep 25, 2016 19:16
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CJacobs posted:The penalties for failing a hack seem to vary between "screw you over for the rest of this pod" and "screw you over for the rest of the whole mission". Thankfully there are none that screw you up outside of the current mission as far as I can recall. There is one failure result that just alerts enemies to your position. Once you break concealment, it is entirely safe to hack.
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Sep 25, 2016 20:26
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I love how this game seems to actively hate you when it comes to the Avatar...that's the second time it just starts making breakthroughs on top of progress
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Sep 25, 2016 21:26
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FlamingLiberal posted:I love how this game seems to actively hate you when it comes to the Avatar...that's the second time it just starts making breakthroughs on top of progress I think it was just bad luck this time. They get one pip a month a few days after the progress report from the spokesman, and then the facility construction is on a timer that I think is usually 4 weeks unless something happens to change it. They're not always at the same time, but a lot of the time it can overlap.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:38
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The funny thing about the bolt-thrower hunter weapon is that it's the one weapon of the Hunt weapons you really should have no shortage of. Even if you assume the internal mechanisms are some sort of extraordinarily sophisticated railgun, which is certainly possible, the immature Vipers and the Viper King himself carry them, so it's not like you really should have any problems breaking a couple open to reverse-engineer.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:42
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Jetrauben posted:The funny thing about the bolt-thrower hunter weapon is that it's the one weapon of the Hunt weapons you really should have no shortage of. Even if you assume the internal mechanisms are some sort of extraordinarily sophisticated railgun, which is certainly possible, the immature Vipers and the Viper King himself carry them, so it's not like you really should have any problems breaking a couple open to reverse-engineer. I'm not a fan of the bolt thrower. You're shooting it every other round at best and it simply doesn't offer enough in exchange for that. For the sharpshooter skills, I've had good success taking Quickdraw even on characters built mainly as snipers. It gives you a new option for perhaps the least mobile class in a game where mobility is often at a premium, and I've found myself quickdraw -> reloading a decent amount. Can't remember right now if you can quickdraw -> sniper shot or not. It's another tier where I don't think either option is particularly good (exception: if you're building a dedicated gunslinger) and there's some use in both abilities.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:47
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Cythereal posted:I'm not a fan of the bolt thrower. You're shooting it every other round at best and it simply doesn't offer enough in exchange for that. I run some mods so your mileage may vary, but I like giving it to a sword-wielder as a dedicated ranged attack.
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Sep 25, 2016 21:54
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Since the console version of XCOM 2 is coming out tommorow, here's hoping the rise of mods on Xbox One means we will get a few of the good ones somewhere down the road. Getting to see what the Alien Rulers blurb on the store page actually means now makes me a little  that i bought the Deluxe version to get all the DLC.
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Sep 25, 2016 22:30
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Man, that shaken status thing seems really obnoxious.
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Sep 25, 2016 22:56
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It feels that way until you consider how few things Will actually affects (besides PSI strength which is kinda important), then it's not as bad.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:04
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Will has... no effect on Psi strength in XCOM2 I'm pretty sure?
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Sep 25, 2016 23:20
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You can always take Mind Shields or later things to mitigate it until they stop getting shot long enough to shake it off.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:21
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Tylana posted:Will has... no effect on Psi strength in XCOM2 I'm pretty sure? Oh, it might only affect defense against psi attacks then.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:25
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CJacobs posted:Oh, it might only affect defense against psi attacks then. Yeah, Will only modifies your defense against psi attacks and morale checks (panic) from when other soldiers die. A Mindshield stops both of those.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:36
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One time I had a soldier with low Will panic after a teammate was knocked out. They ran around their cover to the other side and opened fire on another one of their squadmates, who automatically shot back and killed them because they had Return Fire.  edit: I like return fire because a) it causes funny dumb poo poo like that to happen and b) it triggers on pretty much anything including being marked by captains for some reason.
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Sep 25, 2016 23:45
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Cythereal posted:For the sharpshooter skills, I've had good success taking Quickdraw even on characters built mainly as snipers. It gives you a new option for perhaps the least mobile class in a game where mobility is often at a premium, and I've found myself quickdraw -> reloading a decent amount. Can't remember right now if you can quickdraw -> sniper shot or not. It's another tier where I don't think either option is particularly good (exception: if you're building a dedicated gunslinger) and there's some use in both abilities. You can not use quickdraw to fire a pistol and then still make a sniper shot. Sniper rifles require both action points to use. It's odd to me that you're using quickdraw to get an attack in and then reload the rifle. First off that means your sniper is dubiously close to the fire fight if they aren't firing through squadsight. Second you're using quickdraw and a pistol to accomplish the same exact thing that can be done with death from above. Kill something with your sniper rifle, get an additional action and use it to reload.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:26
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Jade Star posted:It's odd to me that you're using quickdraw to get an attack in and then reload the rifle. First off that means your sniper is dubiously close to the fire fight if they aren't firing through squadsight. Second you're using quickdraw and a pistol to accomplish the same exact thing that can be done with death from above. Kill something with your sniper rifle, get an additional action and use it to reload. I find quickdraw/reload useful if the sharpshooter is closer to the action than I'd like to be for reasons that aren't my choice - rushing up due to a timer, a melee enemy getting uncomfortably close, the odd viper grab, avoiding a patrol, or just getting ambushed. I find it more flexible than death from above given that higher ground at good sniper distances can be hard to find and keep in this game due to the propensity of time limits demanding a more mobile strategy than staking a good position and fighting in terrain of my choice. Neither choice impresses me and I find they're both situational perks that won't make or break the game on a consistent basis, but quickdraw has felt more flexible in my experience.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:41
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As someone who is currently recovering from a cold himself, I can only imagine the audio editing nightmare you had, Jade. Also, Julian continues to be the best snarky AI. 
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Sep 26, 2016 00:43
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A better use of quickdraw is shooting twice, ya dingus.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:45
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I don't keep my snipers as far back as in XCOM1 for various reasons. Quickdraw is nice both for when you need 2x3-4 damage instead of 1x7-8 and when you only need a plink, but the chance is shaky enough you don't want to do your other action first. Plus ammo type benefits. My main problem with Death from Above is my sniper is rarely that reliable a killer (I just seem to often have them be one of the earlier actors ina turn), and more importantly, if a sniper-specced guy has a free action after that shot, what are they going to do with it? Pick their nose?
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Sep 26, 2016 00:46
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| # ? May 23, 2024 11:07 |
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You could reload. Or reposition. Or use one of those single-action AWC skills if you got lucky.
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Sep 26, 2016 00:51
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