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kw0134 posted:There was a lot of aliens but besides the berserkers and the big pod of seekers that came in to flank the team they tended to straggle in so by around the halfway point it was mop-up time. It's funny that after a certain point the aliens came in one by one to be shot out of cover, like they knew the trap failed and wanted to be quit of this mission. That was actually primarily because of what fairgame did earlier in the mission: he destroyed almost every single piece of cover on the ramp, so they would be forced to double move if they wanted to get sight or take shots.
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Aug 5, 2019 01:47
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Tuxedo Ted posted:So trap ships are a real tactic they do and not just a quick of the Long War mod? Just a ship normally left empty for abductions instead packed to the brim with bruisers in case X-Com shows up? Yikes! Any landed RESEARCH (as opposed to abductions, terror, or harvests, the other UFO missions that land) mission can be a trap. The chance of it being a trap is influenced by how much of a threat the aliens perceive XCOM to be. At maximal threat (and we might be there now; we will certainly be there next month but I’m a little confused in July and not sure what the resource/threat levels are), the chances are something like thirty percent. Later in the campaign we will have tech that lets us know the alien count of a UFO, along with a partial manifest of alien types. Which is great for not getting caught with your pants down—outfitting for mech heavy missions, not spamming medkits if there aren’t thin men, carrying extra tazers if there are a bunch of good capture targets, knowing when you can carry lower rank troops for training, etc. For now? Just luck of the draw, so I will continue overgearing on landed UFOs. This mission would’ve been a wipe without Natalie. And much tougher without Epochol and in the zone. Good troops make a HUGE difference—far more than good equipment.
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Aug 5, 2019 02:12
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Went away for the weekend, fell behind a little, but after watching that abduction with the Mechtoid, I'm glad to see I'm continuing my streak of being nominally quite good yet consistently detrimental to everyone around me. You want shredded enemy? I GIVE YOU ALL SHREDDED ENEMIES
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Aug 5, 2019 06:29
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Aug 5, 2019 12:57
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That is some industrial grade bullshit right there. And if that was meant to be an abduction ship, I don't think they had room for any abductees to bring back...
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Aug 5, 2019 13:31
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Despite the risks of having low rank squaddies in the party, how much would they offset any potential fatigue spiraling?
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Aug 5, 2019 13:53
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I feel like there's an inverse X-Com property where if you bank on the aliens doing something dumb, they will have a 100% chance of just charging, flanking and critting you, but if you're sweating bullets about them doing something reasonable, they'll double move somewhere stupid and give you a free turn. I did not think that abduction was going to go well.
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Aug 5, 2019 14:08
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That cyberdisk seemed to have the galaxybrain idea of taking the high ground so he can overwatch EVERYONE! That muton powermove of double moving was great too, maybe this months  quota was used up. I'm really wondering what the AI decision making was doing with that move, maybe it figured that it could setup for a flankshot for next turn since it didn't see the 2 guys behind the truck.
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Aug 5, 2019 14:24
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Xelkelvos posted:Despite the risks of having low rank squaddies in the party, how much would they offset any potential fatigue spiraling? Not that much. We've reached the point in the campaign where the Council should start offering CPL level soldiers for things we've researched (thin men corpses, muton corpses, alien computers) and I'd rather wait for one of those than level up someone from PFC. The smarter thing to do here would be to build a few more SHIVs since a SHIV with good modules can simulate a CPL or SGT pretty reliably.
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Aug 5, 2019 15:29
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The weird sightlines saved the day; the reason the cyberdisc moved was because it couldn't see anything. That muton was just being dumb.
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Aug 5, 2019 18:37
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Grapplejack posted:The weird sightlines saved the day; the reason the cyberdisc moved was because it couldn't see anything. That muton was just being dumb. Don't worry; bad LOS with a cyberdisc will work in the aliens' favor in the relatively near future. LOS on cyberdiscs almost always gets someone killed during a campaign.  July is over now! I'll do a writeup and maybe discuss some of the new alien units (mutons? cyberdiscs?) tomorrow.
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Aug 5, 2019 22:39
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14 missions. Dang. that seemed excessive. FairGame, what was the most number of missions you ever encountered in a month?
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Aug 6, 2019 08:34
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Well, I was wondering how far laser weapons would carry us before the damage starts dropping off against enemy armour, and I think we are seeing the point around about now?
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Aug 6, 2019 11:37
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I'm curious, what does the foundry projects "Enhance Ballistics" and "Enhance Lasers" do?
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Aug 6, 2019 12:32
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Talow posted:I'm curious, what does the foundry projects "Enhance Ballistics" and "Enhance Lasers" do? +1 damage to those weapon types. Not quite as good as it sounds though, since that’s resources you’re not spending on moving up to the next type of weapon.
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Aug 6, 2019 14:28
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Akratic Method posted:+1 damage to those weapon types. Not quite as good as it sounds though, since that’s resources you’re not spending on moving up to the next type of weapon. You mean it would be automatically applied to all existing weapons? At least that's what I imagined it to be: an entirely new class of weapon you would have to manufacture in-between lasers and what comes next. Edit: VVV oh, yuck Tuxedo Ted fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 14:38
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I googled it, and the top result implied it's a type of ammo that a trooper actually has to take with them in one of their slots, for a +1 bonus. Which... feels not worth it, except in edge cases. Side-note, FairGame any chance you will ever upgrade your pistols  ?
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Aug 6, 2019 14:50
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Let's talk about Foundry Projects I'll never do! Enhanced Ballistics: This is actually a good project because it's pretty cheap in both $ and materials, and you can do it very early in the campaign--all you need is a Foundry and Alien Materials research, both of which you can have before the end of Month 1 if you're so inclined. It unlocks the item "Alloy Jacketed Rounds," which are also fairly cheap to build. They're just another small item for your units to carry. If that unit is using a ballistic weapon (basic tier, gauss tier), you get +1 damage on all your rolls. Of course, you have to use an item slot for this, and you also don't get the benefit of laser's +aim. Had we gone with a gauss rush strategy we'd have done this project. Because we beelined to lasers, though, there was really very little point in getting this. Sure, it'd help us when we get gauss weaponry, but by the time we have gauss available we'll have better options if we want to carry a damage-dealing small item (flak ammo, shredder ammo, AP ammo). In other words, good project, but ill-suited to the strategy we employed. Enhanced Lasers: Same thing as ballistics, only the item you get is only usable with laser weaponry (the tier we're on right now, as well as pulse weapons--a tier I find entirely worthless and bad regardless of strategy). Here, the problem is two-fold: one, it's too expensive in terms of materials. I'd rather save those fragments and alloys for researching gauss (which will get me +1 damage without needing a small item) for starters. Second, because pulse weaponry is a complete waste--we'll talk more about that when we get there--we'd really only be using this upgrade on laser tier. And by the time we got the upgrade, we'd have gauss weapons ready anyway. Improved Salvage: This gives 20% more weapon fragments on missions. It's useful since weapon fragments become a huge bottleneck in the endgame. And it's a fairly cheap project. Honestly, I should do it. But every time I finally have the $ that I could throw at this, I think to myself "gosh, 20% more weapon fragments...I'd need to kill like 1000 aliens to get 200 more fragments, and that's the cost of endgame research. Do I really want to do a project that will essentially just give me the fragments to do 1 free research project by endgame?" And then I don't do it. Which, honestly, is kind of foolish. We had what, a dozen missions last month? Let's say we average 15 aliens per mission. That's roughly 180 fragments (minus anything I blow up, plus seekers, 'lids, and 'zerkers don't drop fragments; maybe call it 150 per month. So let's say it takes about 7 months for the project to be useful. That's also roughly around the time you'll need a new aircraft weapon tier to bring down a particularly nasty UFO type--and the earlier you can do it, the better. I tend to brute force my fleet vs. that UFO, but this might've been the smarter approach. Alien Metallurgy: Same as improved salvage, only substitute in alloys for fragments. I will never do this. 100 meld is too much to devote to a project that doesn't make me better on the battlefield. Yes, alloys can be a bottleneck, but that's addressable through things like "build a shitload of workshops" and "raid every drat UFO that pops up." Once you're doing that to the aliens, you'll get MAYBE 10 meld per mission if you're lucky. I'm not sacrificing 10 missions worth of meld when I'm trying to field MECs and such. Various Pistol Things: I'll get these eventually, actually. But the first 2 pistol upgrades (basic tier, gauss tier) just improve aim and critical chance with pistols. Generally, if I'm using a pistol it's because I'm using a scout or sniper who has to deal with something at close range. So aim is irrelevant. And a critical hit on a pistol still tends to do rubbish damage because of the bad base damage of a pistol. So I'm kinda indifferent toward this. You can probably talk me into every single one of these projects being useful with the exception of enhanced lasers.
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Aug 6, 2019 15:19
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Jeez dude, it was painful to hear you dumping on yourself for not having a research project going for a few days. Every time I watch your stuff, I'm very much aware that with LW, you have to be on top of your short, mid, and long term strategy if you hope to survive, let alone win. Give yourself some credit for only losing what, one guy and one unscripted council country so far, despite everything thrown at you. On a different note, I'm having trouble with the 720p version of some videos. Not all of them but it's consistently the same ones, the latest example being the latest upload. When I switch to 720p (I don't know why that's not the default selection), YouTube just throws a playback error, please try again later. Anybody else having this issue?
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Aug 6, 2019 16:15
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I think Pistols fall into a similar realm as things like SHIVs and a bunch of the Medic's Perks on the right side; if you are using them something has gone badly wrong. From there, there are two ways of thinking about them: they aren't worth it because you shouldn't be letting things go badly wrong; and: they are essential because they can get you out of a situation where you would otherwise be SOL. And with LW you are constantly re-evaluating each of these "things have gone wrong" and deciding which side to fall on, and deciding how to approach them. Though with Pistols there are more cases where they can come up, but in most cases there are other options (having someone else shoot for instance), or the loss from ignoring them is minimal. From the way you play it seems that pistols are the last thing you tend to care about, considering you have made no Laser Pistols (of either kind) and I can't remember if you've even acknowledged the Machine Pistol (-1 mobility -8 aim for +1 damage, outperforms the regular Pistol almost always), as such ignoring the Pistol Foundry Projects is probably for the best; and considering one of the common uses for pistols being to weaken enemies into Arc Thrower range, they may even be detrimental.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:29
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FWIW, as I played I discovered one (1) build where pistoling was a pretty good idea, but I discovered it so late that it barely mattered. By "discovered," I mean "realized that a build someone else came up with is actually pretty useful with my playstyle." I don't think I do anything particularly novel--that's not self-deprecation, it's just that the mechanics of Long War are well known within a community that's collectively logged far more hours than I ever will.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:46
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Dancer posted:I googled it, and the top result implied it's a type of ammo that a trooper actually has to take with them in one of their slots, for a +1 bonus. Which... feels not worth it, except in edge cases. Yuck, yeah that's not worth it outside of maybe the ballistics upgrade.
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Aug 6, 2019 20:36
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Talow posted:Yuck, yeah that's not worth it outside of maybe the ballistics upgrade. Yeah, I made exactly one of the items through my whole campaign due to a special property that one particular sniper rifle has (which I'm sure FairGame will talk about when we get there), and that's about it.
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Aug 6, 2019 20:40
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I sort of disagree on pulse, it has extremely specific uses but otherwise yeah it's trash. e: nevermind I just looked at what the plasma bonuses are and they're better Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 23:42
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JULY SUMMARY Christ, that was a lot of missions. But we made it! No deaths, even! Notable Soldier Stuff: Lots of tech sergeants at this point, which is great. kw0134 even made gunnery sergeant, getting the great lock & load perk. Getting more assaults leveled up is pretty important here too. Poor Scalding Coffee got maimed again. Probably gonna have to turn him into a MEC trooper. Bad play got our officer gunner severely wounded too, but since you can't MEC an officer we're just gonna have to eat it for a month. Notable Base Stuff: Workshop block is largely built out, and we're working on yet another steam vent. That'll get us all the power we need for subsequent satellite tracking facilities. Alien jail's ready to rock, and we'll be tazing aliens soon. So much for the genetics lab, though. The Deus Ex start isn't doing us a drat bit of good. Notable Research: Knocked out alien biocybernetics, which is our last bit of research needed before MEC troopers. And we also got seeker and cyberdisc autopsies done too, so we'll have UFO countermeasures and sentinel drone soon. When we do start fielding MECs, they'll be really strong. SHIVs, too! Notable Air Game: Aliens sent a destroyer out at the end of the month and knocked out our satellite. It's a final "gently caress you" that they get, because starting from here we're going to be just crushing them in the air. Alien craft--destroyer or no--can't stand up to fully upgraded interceptors at this stage of the game. I'd be shocked if anything got away from here on out. And while it sucks that we lost our satellite, most of the expensive foundry projects we want in the immediate future are already purchased. Not necessarily finished, but you pay for things when you start the research, not when they finish. Goals for August: It's time to build MECs! Should also probably get a 2nd continent fully covered--that'll be North America, of course. And we want to taze the poo poo out of aliens. Starting with mutons, since that'll help us with gauss research AND get us alien grenades. Gauss research is our next priority--we'll tackle it for sure this month, stopping only if we bag a muton.
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Aug 7, 2019 00:22
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Aug 7, 2019 00:22
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lmao that wondershot line, I haven't heard that before. "I'm out of ammo, do you want me to punch them commander?"
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Aug 7, 2019 00:32
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Add another headstone to the memorial.
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Aug 7, 2019 01:15
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Those Thin Men had a higher accuracy than usual and I am not even the target.
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Aug 7, 2019 01:47
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All the poo poo in the last few days of July and it’s 3 Thin Men that get a kill.
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Aug 7, 2019 02:30
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Kibayasu posted:All the poo poo in the last few days of July and it’s 3 Thin Men that get a kill. There was a Command Action sitting in the tank, I think that could've potentially saved his bacon, but I don't remember exactly.
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Aug 7, 2019 02:47
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Yikes, I felt that scout kill. Good thing I decided to go with one of the safer classes 
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Aug 7, 2019 03:49
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FairGame, any way we can steer the path/stats of rookies so we can train more snipers/scouts instead of more infantry?
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Aug 7, 2019 06:49
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Actually that's a really interesting thing, how much depends on the initial mix of class assignments that you get? Is the game's RNG usually OK enough or can a run be kneecapped at the start by just getting a difficult-to-use spread of soldiers? Given the rapid escalation in how tough the game is getting on you, surely you can't be expected to keep brining raw recruits in past the first six weeks max...
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Aug 7, 2019 12:38
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cambrian obelus posted:FairGame, any way we can steer the path/stats of rookies so we can train more snipers/scouts instead of more infantry? Nope. Only if we'd enabled the "commander's choice" option at the start of the game. Without that, it's totally random. Best I can hope for is to use the "random" option when a rookie levels up, and even then it's just a 1/3 shot they end up in the scout/sniper tree. (And because scouts with low mobility are garbage, there's a good chance even THAT goes badly for us. See Friendly.) 
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Aug 7, 2019 14:18
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There are some very strange physics with the exalt ragdolls this episode.
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Aug 7, 2019 15:02
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BETTER KNOW YOUR ENEMY: THE MUTON Big, mean, and ugly, mutons are what floaters were before they were horribly butchered into cybernetic horrors. Mutons are the basic infantry of the aliens. Tanky(ish), with good-not-great aim, but a weapon that hits like a truck, they're not to be trifled with. Mutons that show up in month 3 of the campaign (or I guess on a landed craft in month 2 if you're unlucky) are armed with plasma carbines--the same weapon that thin men and floaters use. Less damage, but a greater chance to hit. Honestly, that probably makes them more dangerous than their month 4+ counterparts that wield alien rifles. If you get shot that early in the campaign, the +1 damage difference doesn't matter overmuch--you're probably gonna die. One or two mutons isn't all that scary--their aim isn't good enough to hit you through cover if you've got them suppressed or flashbanged. It's when you get a whole pod of mutons that you're in some trouble. You won't have the DPS to put all of them down, because muton HP is high enough that a one-shot kill is extremely rare. And if you can't clear a pod of mutons, you've gotta watch out because... 1.) Mutons come with alien grenades. If you clump up, they'll chuck a grenade at you. Alien grenades do like 2.5x the environmental damage of the standard XCOM grenade, and do more HP damage, too. A muton that grenades you will almost always have destroyed your cover, wounded you, and left you a sitting duck for other units. If you clumped up behind a log or rooftop overhang, a single alien grenade from a muton can leave several soldiers ripe for getting one-shot. 2.) The first time a muton gets damaged by a unit that it can see (meaning something shooting from squadsight range won't trigger it), it'll use "intimidation," a panic check. It's a bullshit ability and I hate it. The check's not that hard to pass, but early in the campaign you might not have that high willpower, and a 90% chance to pass is still a 10% chance to wipe. 3.) Even if you lock down the pod, mutons will start using "blood rage," a free ability that gives aim, crit, and mobility boosts to all other muton units in the area (including berserkers, who are lady mutons, per XCOM2). Thus, a locked-down pod will make itself VERY dangerous on the 2nd turn. All mutons need to be dead by the end of the 2nd turn or you're going to have a bad time. How to Kill Them: At this point in the campaign? Blow up their cover and then shoot them a lot, same as any other alien. They're priority targets because of the grenade. Later on, when you've got fun toys? Mutons have absolute garbage willpower, and can be entirely neutralized by psionics (mindfray, psi panic) or flamethrowers. Once you've got a MEC trooper, just casually stroll up to a muton pod, hit it with the flamethrower, and you'll probably have panicked the entire pod. If you get the flamethrower upgrade, it's drat near a 100% chance to panic. Mutons are a great source of alien rifles once you have the ability to capture aliens and panic them reliably. No downside to a failed capture attempt--you just shoot them the next turn.  I'm not sure if it was Beaglerush who started the muton futbol meme, but it still cracks me up.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:36
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Aug 7, 2019 21:08
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Aug 8, 2019 00:09
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I didn't mention it earlier but Vahlen's comment about how needlessly cruel the aliens are is really, really funny considering that Vahlen is basically a war criminal and does war crimes, like how her interrogations are literally just live autopsies. e: also if vahlen isn't back in xcom 3 I will be very unhappy, i love her and her pure bliss at breaking every law known to man and god Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Aug 8, 2019 |
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Aug 8, 2019 01:21
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