The XCOM Thread: HOW DOES SNEK KICK DOOR?!

Roobanguy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 08:59

Lunethex posted:

Is there a downside to making as many people officers as possible?

other than time and that only the highest ranked officer gets their abilities on a mission. i've just been doing the longwar1 approach and making my rangers into officers, because they are usually right in the middle of everyone else.

Adbot · # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:30

KaiserSchnitzel · # ? Jan 24, 2017 09:03

BlazetheInferno posted:

God dammit. You people are making me wanna actually try Long War. I've seen a lot that I dislike, but...

Don't knock it until you try it; even the things that sound awful are pretty tight. After restarting - and I'd only played maybe 4 or 5 missions before I restarted - everything makes a lot more sense. The strategic game is way better; the tactical is just harder. But it doesn't cheat, as far as I can tell so far. Good stuff.

Coolguye · # ? Jan 24, 2017 09:09

the strategic game is actually way more frustrating and fiddly in my experience; all the crap with faceless and liaising with local resistance forces sounds cool but in practice is just an obnoxious tax on my resources when i'm already pulled 9 different ways. it's easy to get hosed pretty hard by faceless spies and rooting them out is a colossal pain in the dick that requires RNG fuckery or making gamey and suboptimal moves during retaliation missions.

the tactical game is harder and has a better interaction with the strategic layer overall but that's the real meat and potatoes here. the strategic game, imo, is actually strictly inferior to vanilla because it gets in your loving way constantly and has a lot of kludge that just isn't needed nor fun.

Roobanguy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 09:11

i actually haven't had any retaliation strikes yet, other than having to escort a group of recruiters out of a city. but nothing like a haven defense.

Node · # ? Jan 24, 2017 09:48

HOLY poo poo

Is there anything I can do about that massive explosion Gatekeepers create, other than hope you kill them before they do it?

When I first saw one of those things I holed up the entire squad in a two story house, and that was a Bad Idea.

Node fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jan 24, 2017

Roobanguy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 09:52

Node posted:

HOLY poo poo

Is there anything I can do about that massive explosion Gatekeepers create, other than hope you kill them before they do it?

When I first saw one of those things I holed up the entire squad in a two story house, and that was a Bad Idea.

i wan't to say they can be flashbanged, which stops them from doing that.

Node · # ? Jan 24, 2017 09:53

Roobanguy posted:

i wan't to say they can be flashbanged, which stops them from doing that.

I figured by this point of the game, the most difficult aliens don't give a poo poo about an item you could buy from the start.

Dancer · Dancer May 23, 2011

Phrosphor posted:

Did you check the glossary in the commanders office on the avenger? They added a big word dump of mechanic descriptions in there but don't point you towards it with any ingame tooltips.

I only played LW for about half an hour before returning to vanilla (because I've yet to ever get as far as even completing the black site on vanilla), but I do distinctly recall being pointed to that glossary... somewhere. I think it was in haven/resistance management.

Darkrenown · # ? Jan 24, 2017 10:04

Phrosphor posted:

They could even use the X4 model and placing animation, it is all already there.

I think they plan to, on their forum they are looking for voiceovers for "Shaped charges", which I assume to be a placed demolition charge because they wouldn't need new VO for just a rocket bonus.

I kind of miss the HE grenades from LW1, I used those a lot ear;y on before I ranked up people in cover destruction.

Roobanguy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 10:18

Node posted:

I figured by this point of the game, the most difficult aliens don't give a poo poo about an item you could buy from the start.

anything that is organic can be flashbanged. it's good always to keep a flashbang or 2 around for problem enemies like gatekeepers.

that or psionics, which are insanely powerful.

Lunethex · # ? Jan 24, 2017 10:23

They've got a massive list of bug fixes for their next patch and still have more to come apparently.

quote:

Bugfixes
- Fixed bug preventing tactical DEs (Alien navigator-type upgrades) from occurring. This will cause a meaningful increase in difficulty.
- Fixed bug causing captured soldiers to not be controllable after hacking the cells in Jailreak missions.
- Fixed an array bug that was causing not all tiles to be partitioned correctly when applying explosive environmental damage falloff.
- Fixed bug in which buildable weapon upgrades were ignoring INSTANT_BUILD ini setting, making them take time to build
- Fix bug causing AI to adjust their patrol paths in response to XCOM's movement without any direct knowledge of them. (Default behavior can be re-enabled via config)
- Psi Operatives can now equip heavy weapons (with appropriate armor).
- Fix for non-commanding officers getting officer abilities.
- Disorient effects will now cancel overwatch on units that are already disoriented.
- Soldiers that are in a permanent squad, but are temporarily assigned to another squad for one mission, will now be removed from their permanent squad if killed or captured.
- Corrected line-break in RapidTargeting detailed help text and other typos.
- Disallowed Field Medic from list of possible Rebel skills
- Increased delayed init for infiltration squad select by .25 secs
- Fixed base-game issue that could cause POIs to become unselectable. POIs now have minimum Weight of 1 instead of 0.
- Fix pod leaders flanking themselves on scamper. This was an unintended side-effect of fixing the AI lock-up if a pod activates out in the fog due to taking damage while xcom is concealed (e.g. by spawning on top of fire or being too close to a sectopod/big chryssy/etc that walks on something explodey). Fixed by restoring the original behavior except if no xcom can see the scampering unit.
- Fixed bug in UITacticalHUD_AbilityColor that was causing bad objective ability colors (XCOMGAME change)
- Added check for Kill Zone/Gunslinger being active to conditions for Command and Fall Back
- Fixed bad schedule entry (AdvFireteambucket_lw) in G_V_D10_5
- Removed possibility you can spawn two of the same ruler on black site mission
- Fixed bug causing Full Kit to grant a partial extra ghost grenade
- Bugfix for alert locations: adjust the location to ensure it's pathable so the pods can actually try to get there. Prevents locked pods on awkward maps like the network tower.
- Fix bug with faceless that are acting as xcom soldiers on rendezvous were being removed from the haven on mission end. These faceless have not blown their cover and remain.
- Fix bug with the post-rendezvous cleanup of faceless spies only removing the first one (this was masked by the above bug).
- Added SMG Range profile to hunter pistol weapons via template mod.
- Fixed incorrect offset for CoilCannon Reargrip B.
- Officer ranknames/icons now only show once officerRank > 0. Pulling a trainee from the tube will no longer loc their rank at NCO.
- Fix bug allowing RNF units to get yellow reaction shots.
- Item-based template mod now removes environment falloff for CombatEngineer, not TandemWarheads
- Fixed bad config for WARCRY_OTHER_BONUS that was preventing war cry from being applied to any unit that wasn't a Muton type.
- Rebels can no longer accrue to an officer's leadership bonus pool.
- Fixed bug in sorting by mission count for Leadership display for officers
- Added more info to Leadership display (rank, class), and additional secondary sorting criteria.
- Attempted fix to change end of month report to display delta doom since previous month (since limited to 12 pips).
- Added new icon for AlienGrenade (based on EU/EW version). Swapped it in for soldier AlienGrenade item and MutonGrenade variants
- Removed SoundCue audio from narrative moment for AutopsyMuton_M3 bink.
- Added UpdateNavHelp override to officer pack promotion UI to disable Ability Info button when controller isn't active.
- Added condition to officer pack to prevent display of "Officer already selected" warning unless UISquadSelect is active, and not in squad management.
- Added Frostbomb as a valid support-type grenade for RapidDeployment
- Adding grenade targeting to XComGame to provide smoke preview fixes.
- SetMaxForceLevel=99 sted 20 on final entries in variousspawnweightsarrays in characterstats.ini
- Faceless from 'Infiltrators ' Dark Event; Faceless pods (1x FacelessCivilian + 1xCivilian) replaced with a new _LW variant that uses 1x FacelessCivilian and 1x HostileCivilian. Avoids the regular civilian on these missions from having no detection squares. FacelessCivilian template has bIsHostileCivilian=true, giving them detection squares. FaclessCivilian now excluded from infiltration detection modifiers that aliens usually get. Avoids them being detectable on high-infil missions due to a lower detection radius than civilians (which do not have this modifier applied).
- Fixed some bad FL15 boss definitions in mission schedules
- Fixed sticky Dark Event Reveal button issue by destroying the button when selecting to reveal a hidden event.
- Partial fix for extraneous Dark Events. Added validation code that runs once per day when the Activity Manager generates new activities
- Added new socket overrides for AlienLgt_Std_A_* torsos to correct HeavyWeapon socket position on DLC2 hunter armor.
- Made some fixes to XComGame.UITextContainer to fix vertical autoscrolling behavior
- Made some fixes to XComGame.UITacticalHUD_ShotWings to fix vertical autoscrolling behavior.
- StandardShot has a special ApplyWeaponDamage ability intended to be upgraded by stock weapon upgrades. Added a condition to prevent non-damaging events from triggering this.
- Removed the persistent flag for Bombard and JavelinRocket abilities, as they don't need to persist when switching from tactical to strategy
- Squads will now reliably halt on configured infiltration halt points, instead of just once per squad.
- Fix for displayed negative/underflow time on expiring mission passed 100% infiltration.
- Hacked doors on jailbreak after a restart level would not unlock all doors.
- Adjusted the DLC2 HunterWeaponPOI alert so that it triggers 'HunterWeaponsViewed' when carry on is pressed.
- Fixed a base-game issue where multi-unit movement could sometimes result in a unit temporarily teleporting to the 0,0,0 tile, which could result in concealment break / reaction fire trigger.
- Corrected LEADERSHIP_COVERTNESS_PER_MISSION from 0.075 to 0.0075.
- Dismiss button is now disabled in UIArmory_MainMenu if soldier is training.
- Added event listener to squad manager to remove a unit from squad when unit is dismissed.
- Fix for Resistance mecs and liaisons having their abilities refreshed in a new gamestate without having a new unit state created and added to that state. This could have unpredictable results.
- Fix for rare bug causing units to be unable to move in tactical. They have a leftover "Immobilized" unit value assigned to them with a eCleanup_Never policy. This prevents them from taking any actions. I have no idea how the unit got into this state - the only thing that sets Immobilized with a Never policy is bind, and that is usually removed when the binding unit is killed/flashed. Somehow a unit got out of tactical with the flag still applied. To fix the unit I added a \LWSetUnitValue console command so the affected unit can be unstuck (and any other unit value assigned or changed, but only with a BeginTactical cleanup policy). Also change the bind ability to use the BeginTactical cleanup policy, like just about every other ability in the game.
- Added AvengerDefense_LW to the INTERVENTION_INVALID_MISSIONS list.
- Fix for Combatives animation not firing.
- Skulljack and Skullmine should show correct icon colors now
- Avatar progress modifier display in ResistanceManagement now rounds instead of truncates (so 0.98% => 1% instead of 0%). Also fixed potential issue with localized string.
- Fixed bug in which Wraith Suit (Shadow Armor) was repeatable tech
- Fixed bug in facility configuration that may have ignored some elerium core costs
- Fixed loc error in "low on scientists" and "low on engineers" that said you can buy them with intel (english only)
- Added calls to ResHQ.AddGlobalEffectString using DarkEvent GetPostMissionText when completing dark event missions.
- Disable the pointless mission counter UI on supply convoy missions.
- AWC Abilities button in Armory (and foreknowledge of trainable AWC abilities) does not appear until you build AWC
- Fixed missing psigate schedule/diff level (4)
- Alien Facility lead RP increment corrected from bad huge erroneous value
- Reduced coil shotty spread by 1 to bring in line with other coil weapons and shotguns
- Fixed bug in Plot_TWN_Mixed_LgObj_10_LW and _11_LW maps that were allowing out-of-bounds objectives to spawn
- Cleanup of multiple map plots and custom parcels. Shout out to McDenny's '09 for the labor.
- Fix civilians rescued summary for Soldier VIPs.
- Set max hacking loss from NCE to -4 so everybody has at least 1 hacking and can use their xPhone
- Fixed description of Armor Piercing Rounds so it doesn't say all armor in INT, FRA, ESN, ITA.

Balancing / Gameplay

- Psi Operatives now gain three psi perks upon initial training. They must gain XP on missions to be allowed to train further. They still may choose from three perks to train and may train powerful perks early in their development, but that will require they stay in the tube for an extended period. They may only train one ability per rank so may not train further after they achieve maximium rank. Psi offense and enemy will progression reworked. Rework of psi tree to better match training times with ability power.
- Set up Shaped Charge grenade with full loc! Thanks awesome translators!
- Faceless now steal supplies as a percent instead of absolute value.
- Swapped around Covert, Conceal and Tradecraft on Shinobi tree. NOTE: THIS WILL CHANGE EXISTING CAMPAIGNS. Sorry, can't be avoided.
- Swapped Chain Shot and Tandem Warheads on Grenadier tree. NOTE: ALSO SORRY.
- Grenades versus most vehicles should not cause immediate explosions reliably without Sapper + Combat Engineer perk. Sapper tends to set them on fire for a future explosion. Trikes will still blow up a lot. Cars with open doors will blow up more often.
- Rendezvous activity now has regional instead of global cooldown.
- A region's liberation status now affects infiltration time on Golden Path and facility sabotage missions. Base infiltration time for those missions significantly increased to encourage liberation in those regions.
- Chances for Haven Faceless to help generate retaliation and raid missions reduced.
- Set Mission Timers modifier to +2 on veteran sted +1, because we listen and care
- Added a bunch of AWC perks to each level, lots of doubling up and a few (Combat Fitness, Lone Wolf, drat Good Ground) that cross offense and defense
- Shadow Chamber takes more days to build, significant reduction in research times for shadow chamber projects (50% or so), added intel cost to research shadow chamber projects
- Significant number of new schedules to increase granularity at higher alert levels. This makes small deltas in infiltration more meaningful.
- Green alert enemies can now sometimes take green (defensive) reflex actions after scamper; removed anti-Beaglerush maneuver as redundant
- Rookies can now show up on Jailbreaks with the same % chance as the recruiting job. Jailbreaks can now have up to 6 prisoners to rescue, but they are limited in the early months.
- Removed Lightning Reflexes from ViperM2, removed ViperM2 from Scout job
- Added Terror Bucket encounters to some intel raids and alien bases, and as reinfs on defend and supply convoy raid
- Made Black Market personnel a bit cheaper on all diffs but Legend
- Added config var allowing bias toward soldier recruits if a haven is full
- Adjusted down some PCS trading post costs, Spark gear costs, armor research costs, armor costs
- Added some Faceless civilians on rare guerrilla ops
- Set Defend missions to spawn reinfs based on proximity to evac zone instead of squad centerpoint
- Rookie max wound time shorter
- Rookie, Commander longer Doom intervals for fortress (day or two)
- Added new advent units to war cry bonus list
- Capped Advent Grenadier as 1 per pod
- Reduced Hack Defense on Hunter Drone
- Removed Charger, Defender AI job from the game (pod jobs does it better)
- Added configuration multiplier for AWC pistol training times, initially set to 75% of normal.
- Defend/Guard pods can now patrol within a small area near their destination once they reach it. Keeps them from standing absolutely still when they have reached their defend location, so they're a little less predictable. Also ensures their alert gets periodically refreshed so they won't lose it.
- New avenger defense podjobs for the two assault pods and the defender pod. Defender pod will stay near the disruptor (as in vanilla). Assault pods will charge the avenger like everyone else but include 'Charger' job leaders that will attempt to enter the avenger landing area.
- Hunter Rifle Aim and Crit stats scale up with tech, also gains 1 shred at all tech levels
- Adjusted up advanced Hunter Pistol and Axe damage stats
- Removed possibility of Alien Rulers on Regional Network Tower missions
- Reduced Spark build cost to same as Mechanized Warfare research
- Increased spark rifle damage from 5.5 - 9 - 12.5 to 7.5 - 10 - 12.5, gave aim and ammo bonii as you upgrade weapons, gave spark more aim at high levels
- Sparks now get 5 ablative armor HP
- Set all drawbridges to down on all rooftops maps. Added custom versions of the two small vanilla rooftop maps with this in place.
- Increased chances for datapads as loot and in Black Market
- Made some techs and plasma weapons cheaper
- Reduced reveal cost of dark events to 5 intel
- Reduced duration of 50% job effectiveness dark events from a month to average 15 days
- Increased Avatar delay hours per global vig from 8 to 10
- All varieties of smoke now counter the crit bonus from flanking.
- DLC POIs set to 1-2 days just like the rest
- Standardized weights for all POIs to prevent any zeroing-out late campaign.
- Protect Data will reward supplies if all POIs exhausted
- More Hit Points for M3s on Legend
- Lost Towers POI won't appear to FL 8; Alien Nest won't appear until FL 12
- Set Flanking Crit chance for xcom soldiers, rebels, sparks to 40 in all diffs
- Dark Events will now first trigger on a difficulty-based month setting
- GTS projects get cheaper
- Recruit soldier bias goes to 80-20 in full (13+ rebels) regions
- Set lose mode to 28 days, 24 on legend
- Made liberation sequence missions a little easier to detect
- HEAT Warheads will check for existing shred > 0 on grenade before adding more shred.
- Hunker Down bonii will no longer apply to units flanking you
- Fixed alloy padding DE so it only pops post-codex
- Reduced some enemy defense scores on lower diffs
- Reduced application chance of some tactical DEs
- Gave rookie-diff xcom soldiers +5 offense
- Added one day to cooldown between FL UFOs (so it's 16 days instead of 15)
- Fixed bad icon for Rapid Targeting passive
- Change the secure UFO reinforcement pod on timer expiry to an 8 pod. Increased timer significantly.
- The following perks will provide no bonuses if the unit it is impaired (stunned, disoriented, unconscious, panicking, mind controlled) or burning:
drat Good Ground (defense only), Lone Wolf (defense only), Will to Survive, Tactical Sense, Lightning Reflexes_LW, Infighter, Hard Target, Combat Awareness.
- Added standard shootereffectexclusions for Ghostwalker (so can't do it in lots of bad situations)
- New Region Contact is now 3-4 days sted 4-6
- Focus Fire aim bonus increased from 4 to 5
- Increased officer command range significantly
- A few rookie settings changes
- Returned Insanity and Soulfire cooldowns to vanilla
- Reduced research time for Sectoid Autopsy
- Clutch Shot no longer works at squad sight range
- Set Priorities on General Ops to the be same to mix them up, particularly when a new region is contacted
- Removed elerium core cost for Medium and Heavy Tier III armors, reduced crystal cost for Light Tier III armor
- Removed elerium core cost for plasma pistol and alloy cannon. Inreased alloy cost for Alloy Cannon.
- Removed Corpse costs from advanced heavy weapons projects
- Increased env damage on all heavy armor weapons
- Shredstorm Cannon Project now requires only Battle Armor and Advanced Coilguns
- Plasma Blaster Project now requires only Battle Armor and Plasma Rifle
- Gave war suit +1 armor, -1 hp
- Scanning Protocol now gains bonus charges from 2nd and 3rd tier Gremlins
- Higher-tech swords and knife gain higher aim bonuses
- Allowed you to take 10 soldiers on an invasion mission
- Mind Control via insanity attack now lasts two turns and is ini-configurable
- Shadow / Wraith armor now offers greater infiltration bonus
- Made several PG projects cheaper
- Commander default evac delay increased to 4 turns, same as Legend
- Evac timer -2 only awarded on 200% infiltration instead of 190%
- Decreased tradecraft infil bonus to .75; Ghostwalker bonus to .98, Covert bonus improved to .95, Reduced Spark infil penalty to 1.34
- Reduced tube time for a lot of officer ranks
- Some missions will have extra evac time associated with them. This is a new-activity-mission variable. This was initially set for Liberation step 1, all three pre-UFO-intel-lead missions, and COINOps
- Liberation missions will not be available on Legendary until 2nd month. Ini-configurable.

COMPATIBILITY
- Added linux/mac formatted movies to project. Requires pending Feral patch to base-game XCOM 2 for them to work.

QOL
- Set 'bronzeman' style restart mission controls. Enabled on non-ironman campaigns; requires setting an ini flag in gamecore to enable on ironman campaigns.
- AWC and officer training can now be initiated from the relevant Armory Promotion UI.
- Set VeteranSoldierRank to 0 so all customization options are available from start
- Weapons and armor should be sorting better in engineering
- Regions in resistance management will now show bullets for each liberation stage completed
- Attempted to get rid of swaying camera effect for berserker rage
- Add the loot ability to rebel soldiers. Rebels on Rendezvous and IntelRaid will be able to pick up loot that drops, and it will be recovered at the end of the mission. Rebels in SupplyRaid would work too if anyone dropped loot. Unarmed rebels on terror missions or recruit raid cannot loot.
- Strip gear buttons in UILoadout will not strip units in the current squad.
- Add a mission expiry panel to the custom mission screen for non-infinite duration inflitration missions.
- Removed camera shake from Coil Cannon during suppression.
- Removed camera shake from Laser Cannon during suppression.
- Added new config to Helpers_LW named LowStrengthTriggerCount. This allows using this value (if defined >= 1) instead of GetMaxSoldiersAllowedOnMission for triggering UIForceUnderstrength. Goal is to make Bradford less naggy because you have guys out in the field.
- Added standard sound fx for the command and oscar mike abilities.
- Replaced the custom logic in Intervention's visualizer to play the sound with the new sound cue support - just set the name of the cue in the template's AbilityConfirmSound variable.
- Gave ourselves some credits on Shell/ShellDifficulty
- Made death animations faster
- Evac time should now display on infiltration missions in UI mission popup.
- Remaining time to infiltrate to 100% will now show for non-expiring missions.
- Add LWRenameRebel console function.
- When in UIPersonnel Squad Select, training message now takes precedence over unit being in another squad.

Modding
- Removed most non-UI class overrides.
- Added a new versioning scheme for the xcomgame replacement. LW_Overhaul can use this to detect if the xcomgame replacement was successfully loaded (which is mostly useful only if the community decides to implement a compatible one outside of LW2 that can be used in place of ours). Needs new loc to pop up a useful dialog instead of a redscreen.
- Revamped the yellow jobs so they are now defined in the same config array as the green jobs.
- Added new fields to the job definition to allow us to implement custom logic similar to that in the avenger defense
- Extended XComSoundManager to allow SoundCues in PlaySoundEvent, as well as supporting sound path aliases to let mods replace sounds.
1 A new SoundCuePaths array is processed at initialization time, just like SoundEventPaths. All assets found here are loaded and cached, except they are expected to be SoundCues instead of AkEvents.
2 The string given to PlaySoundEvent() is first looked up in the SoundAliases array. If such a key is found, the string for the sound to play is replaced with the value in the alias entry.
3 The string is then looked up in the standard SoundEvents array mapping the string to an AkEvent. If it's found, it's played as normal.
4 If the string isn't found in the SoundEvents array it's looked up in the SoundCues array. If found the corresponding SoundCue is played.
- Added world effect and smoke effect classes to mod's XComGame override.
- Allowed setting of delayinit timer for squad select in lw_overhaul.ini
- Added event hook 'PostPsiProjectCompleted' to PsiTraining HeadquartersProject gamestate.
- Updates XComGame calls to DLCInfo hook DLCAppendSockets so that AppearanceInfo is available for XComHumanPawn
- Adusted event handler GetUIClassForMissionSite so that mod-mods can override the MissionSite UI class.
- Add hooks to allow mods to override the fire and death sounds on projectiles. Use a config mapping in Helpers_LW to assign a sound cue to any projectile element (by projectile name + index).
- Reworked UI class overrides so they can be further overridden recursively.
- Made config array X2LootTable.LootTables non-private so that DLC/Mods can make run-time adjustments to it.
- Made some adjustments to FullKit code to move hard-coded abilities into config variables.
- Added an event to the alert when an AWC training project is complete.
- Another attempted fix for GP and non-expiring missions not showing correct time in UIMission_Infil screen.
- Added hook to allow override the usual tactical mission launch process.
- Converted event-type hook for ModifyEarnedSoldierAbilities to X2DLCInfo-type hook to prevent CTDs or other oddness on campaign start.
- Add 'RebelAdded_LW' and 'ResistanceMECAdded_LW' events.
- De-const the evac flare effect paths for easier modder access.
- Units with CharacterTemplates assigned bIsSoldier will no longer be cleaned up. Mod compatibility fix.

Known Issues
- Our custom cutscenes do not have localized audio for non-English players. They have correct subtitles.
- Our custom audio snippets in missions do not have localized audio or localized subtitles for non-English players.
- The mod does not support controllers.

Sulphagnist · # ? Jan 24, 2017 10:25

I was just looking at that, it seems like Rookie (="Normal") will be perfectly playable without ini editing.

Roobanguy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 10:33

Lunethex posted:

They've got a massive list of bug fixes for their next patch and still have more to come apparently.

neat

- Grenades versus most vehicles should not cause immediate explosions reliably without Sapper + Combat Engineer perk. Sapper tends to set them on fire for a future explosion. Trikes will still blow up a lot. Cars with open doors will blow up more often.

Well dang. Good thing I'm past the point where this is an issue, what with how ridiculous grenadiers are at high levels.

VideoGames · # ? Jan 24, 2017 10:53

Hello Thread, I was informed that it is possible there would be arguments about The Long War expansion and that this happened a ton in the old Xcom threads. Can we please not go down that same avenue in this thread. If it gets too much for the thread, and I trust it won't then one option is a seperate thread for the Long War. It seems like enough of a change to the base game to warrant a thread.

Apoplexy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 11:46

Lprsti99 posted:

Well yeah, but if you're going from full ammo that's minimum 2 shots before it ends.

Also, never not put expanded mag on your gunner.

Expanded mag or auto-loader is important on Rangers, too, because you can easily blow through those 3 rifle rounds in no time flat.

Apoplexy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 11:51

Sokani posted:

To liberate a region you need to do a guerilla op in the territory of the type Hack Station or Recover Item that has a reward of intel and no intel package or other reward. That kicks off the mission chain to liberate the area. The rest of the missions that make liberation progress are labeled with 'liberate' under the objective so you won't miss them. I have no idea why the first mission isn't labeled since you can basically tell which it is anyway.

Isn't it labeled? As something pertaining to a lead? Because I know Intel Package now means Point of Interest reward. I have never done a mission like you suggested and have liberated a region before.

dogstile · # ? Jan 24, 2017 12:22

"removed anti-Beaglerush maneuver as redundant"

Haha, worth reading the notes for that alone

SweetBro · # ? Jan 24, 2017 12:49

Is there a write-up of all the Long War mechanics? Because I just lost my poo poo when it took evac 8 turns to arrive instead of 4 like the last 5 times I called it.

ModernMajorGeneral · # ? Jan 24, 2017 13:12

quote:

- Fixed bug preventing tactical DEs (Alien navigator-type upgrades) from occurring. This will cause a meaningful increase in difficulty.

What does this mean?

Looks like most of these balance changes are toning the difficulty down, which is probably welcome.

quote:

- Hunker Down bonii will no longer apply to units flanking you

Looking forward to this especially given essentially unkillable hunkered advent.

Gyshall · # ? Jan 24, 2017 13:15

goodnight mooned posted:

On my second attempt at LW now and I can confirm that putting more guys in intel makes a big difference in actually making the missions doable, by increasing the time available for infiltration.

I've been allocating all my guys to intel but leaving one guy to do recruiting, since I think it is fairly important to keep your haven staffed, and even more important to fill it out before your first month.

I've made the mistake of not checking the Haven after a faceless spy mission, because that member will no longer be doing a job (I had no recruiting happening after my first spy mission because my recruiter was faceless)

Roobanguy posted:

neat

- Grenades versus most vehicles should not cause immediate explosions reliably without Sapper + Combat Engineer perk. Sapper tends to set them on fire for a future explosion. Trikes will still blow up a lot. Cars with open doors will blow up more often.

Well dang. Good thing I'm past the point where this is an issue, what with how ridiculous grenadiers are at high levels.

SOP on my campaigns is still about chucking grenades, at least for rookies.

SweetBro posted:

Is there a write-up of all the Long War mechanics? Because I just lost my poo poo when it took evac 8 turns to arrive instead of 4 like the last 5 times I called it.

Check the Xcom Archives. Pavonis has an out of game post here.

Ornamented Death · # ? Jan 24, 2017 15:41

quote:

- Swapped around Covert, Conceal and Tradecraft on Shinobi tree. NOTE: THIS WILL CHANGE EXISTING CAMPAIGNS. Sorry, can't be avoided.
- Swapped Chain Shot and Tandem Warheads on Grenadier tree. NOTE: ALSO SORRY.

Does this mean that my soldiers' abilities are going to be changed up automatically once the patch hits?

I guess it's not the end of the world, since there's a retraining option, but it's still a pain in the rear end because I'm going to lose a few guys for however long it takes to retrain them.

Edit: I may poke around in the ini to see if there's a way to drop retraining time to zero or one days just to fix this, then set it back to whatever the default is.

800peepee51doodoo · # ? Jan 24, 2017 15:43

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

What does this mean?

I guess dark events weren't actually being applied and they have fixed that.

SweetBro posted:

Is there a write-up of all the Long War mechanics? Because I just lost my poo poo when it took evac 8 turns to arrive instead of 4 like the last 5 times I called it.

From what I've read, evac time is dependent on a number of factors including how many missions you have currently running, your infiltration level, your squad size and how far the mission is from the Avenger. I don't know if there is a way to determine how long the evac will take until you throw the flare though. It would be super rad if there was some sort of evac estimate somewhere. e: Actually just checked a gameplay video and evac times are given in the mission launch screen where it gives you enemy activity and readiness levels.

Also, here's a infiltration calculator so you can plan squads around intel boosting and such: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rXps-SUGIvcwQJ-faLKvbzESVWjrQb1iWTZKAVLrzeM/edit#gid=0

800peepee51doodoo fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jan 24, 2017

Alkydere · # ? Jan 24, 2017 16:06

Node posted:

I figured by this point of the game, the most difficult aliens don't give a poo poo about an item you could buy from the start.

I think gatekeepers are only vulnerable to flashbangs when open.

They're weird in the fact that they take double damage from Bluescreen ammo/grenades due to being cybernetic, but otherwise count as fleshy since they can be mind controlled/dominated and flashbanged (when open as I mentioned) but they can't be hacked and don't take double damage from Combat Protocol.

Alternatively the best way I've found to deal with them is use Grimy's Loot Mod and get a hilarious top-tier drop. I got a SPARK gun with, among other things, innate armor piercing and double shred value. I had already named my SPARK "Icepick" and given him Bluescreen rounds (because for some reason Grimy's gives SPARKs a single item slot...which I don't mind). Once I gave him the GateBreaker (original lame weapon name: "Mermaid") he'll reduce a Gatekeeper to 5-6 HP and no armor from full, and he hits hard enough that he's guaranteed to kill a Codex if he connects.

Lunchmeat Larry · # ? Jan 24, 2017 16:10

is Grimy's Grime Mod good/balanced w LW2

Tzarnal · Tzarnal Dec 26, 2011

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

is Grimy's Grime Mod good/balanced w LW2

Grimy did a quick patch to put the costs more into line with LW2, it'll probably still make it easier on the whole. It also does not currently support all t he new secondaries, he's not sure what to do about those since he does not want to go and make new effects for all of those, possibly just remove secondaries alltogether for LW2.

Ravenfood · Ravenfood Nov 4, 2011

Is it possible to find out Faceless by yourself and eg set only one soldier to intel and notice that you're getting no effective intelligence gains so you fire/kill/sac them?

I don't have the mod yet thanks to being out of the country but I'm trying to read up on it as able.

ZenVulgarity · # ? Jan 24, 2017 17:11

Are any of their older mod packs necessary or are they rolled into this

dyzzy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 17:12

They're rolled in.

Apoplexy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 17:32

Jesus loving Christ, officers are amazing. Pumping one action point into an assault who missed his point-blank shardgun shot at an ADVENT sergeant? AMAZING.

dogstile · # ? Jan 24, 2017 17:38

Can whoever decided that it was a good idea to let advent walk into my guys after my turn has ended, scatter and then shoot my now flanked guys go gently caress themselves please?

I mean sure I can adjust my playing style its just a loving pain.

Apoplexy · # ? Jan 24, 2017 17:58

Tzarnal posted:

Grimy did a quick patch to put the costs more into line with LW2, it'll probably still make it easier on the whole. It also does not currently support all t he new secondaries, he's not sure what to do about those since he does not want to go and make new effects for all of those, possibly just remove secondaries alltogether for LW2.

Last I heard, Grimy had quit modding XCOM2/playing XCOM2 completely. Glad LW2 is as revitalizing to a community as an expansion!

Vengarr · # ? Jan 24, 2017 18:24

Are SPARKs in LW2?

I haven't played a new game since the DLC dropped and I do want to check them/the new mission out.

Exposure · Exposure Apr 4, 2014

I'm ~~kinda~~ ~~pretty~~ incredibly annoyed that graze banding not only applies to normal weapon shots, but to shots from weapons that have "Undodgeable" active like the Bolt Caster.

Like I know the dev I talked to about it just tried to play it off as "it's undodgeable, not ungrazeable" but I'm pretty sure nobody in the world took that meaning like that, and honestly it kinda wrecks the Boltcaster's shtick since it's one thing minus the aim bonus is that when it hits, it hits like a goddamn freight train to make up for its vanilla one round magazine.

Zore · # ? Jan 24, 2017 18:26

Vengarr posted:

Are SPARKs in LW2?

I haven't played a new game since the DLC dropped and I do want to check them/the new mission out.

Yep.

Taffer · Taffer Oct 15, 2010

dogstile posted:

Can whoever decided that it was a good idea to let advent walk into my guys after my turn has ended, scatter and then shoot my now flanked guys go gently caress themselves please?

I mean sure I can adjust my playing style its just a loving pain.

That's vanilla. They put it in because everyone was overwatch spamming on un-timed missions just waiting for the aliens to walk into them, effectively getting two free shots from every squad member. Giving advent a chance to shoot back makes it a risky strategy.

Cnidaria · # ? Jan 24, 2017 18:46

Yeah if you are seen by an enemy on their turn when concealed they have a chance to shoot back. Just make sure you always engage enemies on your turn when concealed.

Bholder · Bholder Feb 26, 2013

dogstile posted:

Can whoever decided that it was a good idea to let advent walk into my guys after my turn has ended, scatter and then shoot my now flanked guys go gently caress themselves please?

I mean sure I can adjust my playing style its just a loving pain.

Use better cover?

Oh and overwatch traps still work since pods won't fire back if you hurt them on activation.

Dr. Stab · # ? Jan 24, 2017 18:56

800peepee51doodoo posted:

Also, here's a infiltration calculator so you can plan squads around intel boosting and such: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rXps-SUGIvcwQJ-faLKvbzESVWjrQb1iWTZKAVLrzeM/edit#gid=0

This is probably my biggest issue with lw2. When you're assembling the squad, it's presented as days and hours, when what you really care about is percentage thresholds. If they just displayed the effective enemy activity for the current loadout while you're building it, it would take this very fiddly and obscure mechanic and make it very clean and easy to understand.

I generally really like lw2, and the infiltration mechanic is great, but it's not very well presented.

dogstile · # ? Jan 24, 2017 19:40

Taffer posted:

That's vanilla. They put it in because everyone was overwatch spamming on un-timed missions just waiting for the aliens to walk into them, effectively getting two free shots from every squad member. Giving advent a chance to shoot back makes it a risky strategy.

No its not, this is after i've revealed already. Long war does yellow alerts, which means that if you've gone loud and a pod comes to investigate, they have a chance to scatter, THEN shoot.

Don't treat me like this is my first rodeo, kiddo :colbert:

Bholder posted:

Use better cover?

Oh and overwatch traps still work since pods won't fire back if you hurt them on activation.

Yeah, can do. It's just kinda annoying because if you know the immediate area ahead is safe in vanilla (battle scanner, etc) and any enemies that'd path in would just take cover, you can use a shotgun duder, get him in half cover and obliterate a guy. Now I don't feel safe doing that. Like I said, i'll change my playstyle, but its a nasty surprise.

Adbot · # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:30

Jose · # ? Jan 24, 2017 19:40

Psi units are ridiculous. Doing the last mission and I dominated the gatekeeper right at the start then managed to get another mind control with insanity a few turns later followed by a 3rd mind control with void rift the turn after that