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Fairgame I really hope you get the next armor research done soonish, we could probably use the next tier at this point. e: i'm kind of surprised you don't do the flush > opp. overwatch trick, I did that sometimes in my playthrough and it always worked wonders. Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Aug 22, 2019 |
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Aug 22, 2019 00:57
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If you want me to
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Aug 22, 2019 01:07
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kw0134 posted:If you want me to The thing is, the sniper on this tier isn't really an improvement? I mean, it is, but it's a specialist weapon, most snipers won't carry it outside of specific circumstances. You might not see a new sniper until pulse comes around. also fair why don't you spread kills around more often, you usually have your higher level guys claim kills. I guess it's for safety reasons, but I don't see a reason why you don't do it more often. e: lol as soon as I complain about it you start doing it Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Aug 22, 2019 |
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Aug 22, 2019 01:12
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Oh, just caught up on videos. Fair Game, the reason Apples triggered that exalt pod has nothing to do with the move you made. The game doesn’t let pods start active, so although you started with eyes on an enemy he wasn’t active. Making any move, including with an irrelevant trooper, triggered recalculation of who is active and then the initially-visible enemy activated along with his pod. At least that’s what I’d surmise after a career in programming constantly fixing bugs that make screen updates happen at weird times.  e: also, I love the next sniper rifle and absolutely use it as a general purpose gun once available. But I also pick perks and loadouts to compensate for its downside. And also am not as good at this game as our host.
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Aug 22, 2019 02:10
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Grapplejack posted:Fairgame I really hope you get the next armor research done soonish, we could probably use the next tier at this point. You are spot on about needing new armor. That said, I don’t really like the next armor tier (just another 2 HP and resources I can’t spare) so I usually skip it in favor of “please shoot at my MECs and SHIV instead.” I like flush/overwatch, but I’ve been burned too often by flush bugging out and the target not moving. eating only apples posted:Ah fuckin yikes you handled 90 real well. I got outta there once more I’ve never used two covert ops, largely because I never have enough scouts to spare (running overwatch has its risks, and the ones who fail usually get MECd at this point of the campaign) and because you usually want to take steadfast over ccs if you’re using an assault. You can’t use run and gun if your pistol is empty, and CCS can lead to some shots you don’t want and an empty clip at the worst time. If my scout dies, I send my lowest level scout or assault with 14 or better movement. I will NEVER send a high level unit out to replace my original covert op. ...all that said, you don’t have jumpy legs yet because I don’t have time to do it. I probably should have tagged someone else in for one mission by now.
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Aug 22, 2019 02:15
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Sweet, I made Master Sergeant, and with a sick wombo-combo kill on a berserker at that.
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Aug 22, 2019 03:29
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FairGame posted:Only if you stun them. And they have the same stun chance as aliens. And if you screw up there's a good chance they'll just wreck you with a grenade or a rocket or something. Lame. I can see the reasoning for it. It's a compromise of "we let you do this creative thing, but we can't let you get too far ahead of where we want you to be." It's like those developers for high difficulty romhacks. They will only let you have one way to solve a problem and will patch out any other way that people figure out. Anyway, good job with the campaign and no one dying in months. Resource/research/building/etc. are where we need to be for this time in the game? are we ahead anywhere? are we behind? how does this campaign compare to your other playthroughs?
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Aug 22, 2019 04:13
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cambrian obelus posted:Lame. The easy way to do captures on EXALT or indeed on any alien (except Thin Men) is to get them to 1 HP then hit them with Acid. Since doing anything but Hunker will kill them, they just stand still until you capture them or the debuff runs out. Suppression will work too until you flank them (at which point they run), but there's ways to give them cover too...
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Aug 22, 2019 06:49
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Are we feeling the impact of losing the little +accuracy buff from lasers? So far we have the gauss rifle, SMG (seriously is a "stuttergun" even a thing? Just call it a SMG) and some kind of gauss machine gun. Is every weapon type available in gauss and what additional research do we need to do to get the others?
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Aug 22, 2019 12:21
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Crazy Achmed posted:Are we feeling the impact of losing the little +accuracy buff from lasers? We finish the relevant tech in this very video! But first, a very exciting mission! 
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Aug 22, 2019 12:30
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FairGame posted:We finish the relevant tech in this very video! But first, a very exciting mission! I'm kinda shocked that neither of those mutons at the start threw a grenade at your big clump. Is it because they're that desperate to be in cover?
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Aug 22, 2019 13:59
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That was some horseshit, let me tell you.
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Aug 22, 2019 14:14
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Dancer posted:I'm kinda shocked that neither of those mutons at the start threw a grenade at your big clump. Is it because they're that desperate to be in cover? Yep. It is VERY rare for an alien that needs cover to run out of cover to do something. Which is good. I don't think the game would work if the aliens had no sense of self preservation. You'd be overrun constantly.
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Aug 22, 2019 15:01
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Capping that mission off with a 98% miss was just 
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Aug 22, 2019 17:23
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Good work, I thought for sure that would be a wipe.
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Aug 22, 2019 18:54
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Aug 22, 2019 19:37
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You did more damage to the target than they did.
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Aug 22, 2019 23:13
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Aug 22, 2019 23:16
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Since we're going to be seeing them soon, let's talk about MECs. MECs are very different from their vanilla incarnation. In vanilla, each of the 4 base classes gave one passive perk when turned into a MEC, but otherwise the MEC tree was identical. Meaning a Heavy turned into a MEC was basically the same as an Assault turned into a MEC. That's not the case with Long War. Each of the 8 subclasses of soldiers turns into a very distinct type of MEC. I love it. Also, MEC suits are very different too--and far more interchangeable than before. In vanilla, you'd have to choose whether a suit permanently had a fist or a flamethrower (and if you chose the flamethrower you were dumb because the fist was SO much better both from a tactical as well as a coolness standpoint). In Long War, you can have both! A MEC suit is treated like body armor. Each MEC suit comes with additional slots for small items (SCOPEs, etc.) and secondary weapons (flamethrowers, restorative mist, fisting, etc.) Also, the passive perks that used to go on the class now go on the suit. There are 7 types of MEC suit, but 3 tiers. Tier 1 is the MEC-1 Paladin, which comes with "Body Shield," a perk that sucks compared to the alternative at higher levels. Body Shield makes you immune to crits from the nearest enemy, and also gives that enemy a penalty to hit. The penalty to hit is nice, but something that's near to you is typically going to get point blank bonuses anyway, so it's not that helpful in practice. The immunity to crits sound nice, but ALL MEC units get a -50% chance to be crit since they gain the same "hardened" perk that cryssalids and cyberdiscs and berserkers and so on have. It's pretty rare to get critically hit, and there's an item that confers crit immunity in all cases, making Body Shield redundant. Tier 2 requires a MEC-1 Paladin suit, and can either turn into a MEC-2 or a MEC-3. It's here where you decide "do I want a MEC that's built for tanking, and comes with nominally more HP at the cost of defense and mobility," or "do I want a MEC that's built for speed, with more defense and mobility but marginally less HP." Also, the tanking MECs get Body Shield, whereas the speedy MECs get "Jetboot Module" which is the equivalent of jumpylegs--except you can only use it every other turn. Other people may disagree, but I have never seen the point of the tanking MECs. The HP bonus you get isn't enough to make it worthwhile, and I'd rather not get shot at all--either because I've moved out of the way, or because my added mobility let me kill the thing that otherwise would've shot me. I have never built a tier 2 MEC that uses Body Shield, and I expect I never will. Tier 3 requires either of the Tier 2 suits, and has 2 separate choices each (so 4 possible suits at this tier). The tanking Tier 2s can either go full tank or hybrid, the speedy Tier 3s can either go "I can cross the entire map in a single blue move" or hybrid. We'll go with the hybrids because they have more available item slots, and again the offsets in mobility just don't seem worthwhile. In other words, you're never gonna see the tanky MEC suits, and you're also never gonna see the "fully built for speed" tier 3 suit. As for MECs themselves...they're incredible. And also incredibly expensive. Each MEC trooper requires 60 Meld to chop up, subsystems like the flamethrower require a further 30, the MEC primary weapon usually requires another 10. Since you need ~4 pilots per suit to deal with fatigue, fielding a single MEC trooper is going to set you back upwards of 300 Meld. That giant Meld repository we've got? We can field about 2 MEC units right now on every mission since we also need Meld for various foundry projects. The Tier 1 MEC suit is pretty delicate, though, so we want to chop classes that can either tank thanks to their native perks OR get the hell out of the way so they don't face return fire. In no particular order, the MEC options: Medics turn into Guardians, a MEC that's specced for AoE healing as well as covering fire overwatch. Neither of those are anything we want in a Tier 1 suit. It's a good class, but not until Tier 2. We won't be seeing these--I only chopped Rush because I wanted to keep promoting him and a 40+ day injury was otherwise a problem. Engineers turn into Shoguns, a MEC that can do a little bit of grenade tossing but they're not as good at it as a fleshy engineer, or the MEC version of a rocketeer. Their better build, in my opinion, is one that's built for a little bit of tanking and also comes with HEAT ammo so they can ruin the day of enemy mechanicals. That's the direction Scalding Coffee will be going. Gunners turn into Goliaths, a MEC that's basically built to tank. Crazy amounts of HP and damage reduction at high levels. In a Tier 1 MEC it's a little bit dicey. And, in general, I tend to feel that the best defense is a good offense. I will usually built only 1 Goliath per campaign and only bring it on missions where I know I'll be overwhelmed and want to have a safety valve to just soak up excess shots. Base assaults or close quarters swarming abductions, basically. Rocketeers turn into Archers, a MEC that's built for long range ordinance. However, they're not as strong as Beaglerush made 'em look in his Long War campaign where he'd just use proximity mines to ruin everything's day. In the final release of Long War, enemies will immediately activate and scatter if you drop a proximity mine on them--even if they can't see you. That makes it not that much better than a rocket. Further, you can't use a mine to trap area they're not on, as the mine will explode at its outermost radius, doing like 0 to 1 damage to the frontmost alien. There's a way to use proximity mines still, I'm sure, but I don't find it worthwhile. Plus, it requires you to devote resources to building mine and grenade launchers when no other class can use those items efficiently. Given that we only have 3-4 rocketeers, I don't really see the point. We won't be doing any archers. Infantry turn into Valkyries, a MEC that's basically...an infantry but with a bigger gun and the option to get HEAT or Shredder ammo. Seriously--it's basically the same drat class, just with more DPS potential and some more mobility. Which is fine, but if I want infantry I can bring an infantry. I usually want a MEC to do something different than just "shoot stuff harder" so we will probably not see many of these in the campaign. They're fine, just kinda redundant. Assaults turn into Marauders, a MEC that gets close encounters, CCS (though without a shotgun, you need the perk that removes the overwatch penalty and you don't get that until Tech Sergeant), and some tanking perks. They're great for running into a huge pack of things, unloading with close encounters, hitting the remainder with a flamethrower, and getting a free shot at anything that tries to flee. If there are mechanicals, they'll tank the shots. It's a great class, but so is the assault. So I'll probably only make 1-2 of these. Snipers turn into Jaegers, a class that specializes in In the Zone. Basically the class exists to mop up flying enemies and wounded enemies. Which...is pretty good, actually. But not until later, since ammo is a consideration as is "the jaeger gets basically no tanking perks and if you gently caress up your In the Zone chain you're going to have a VERY expensive death." We're a little short on snipers right now so I'll hold off on making too many of these. And then there's the best class, in my opinion. Scouts turn into Pathfinders, losing Lightning Reflexes but gaining Hit and Run. They also get Rapid Fire at Master Sergeant. Ever wanted a class that can use crazy high mobility to flank something, one-shot it, and then run the hell away because it's in a lovely little MEC-1 suit that you don't want getting shot? The Pathfinder's your unit. Need to wreck a boss-tier mechanical? Hit and Run followed by Rapid Fire. If it's still alive, use Command to...Rapid Fire again. Nothing survives 5 shots in a turn. We are going to make probably 4 of these because I will eventually want a Pathfinder on EVERY SINGLE MISSION. They're that good. I love them, and they get so many kills that it's easy to level them up. I'm sure there are other uses for all of these classes. This is how I use them. Other people might differ, but as flexible as Long War is, I don't think it's very flexible when it comes to MECs because the resource cost for any given unit is so high that I'm typically terrified to experiment. Don't want to waste 60 meld and a soldier that would've been useful with a different built or as a flesh and blood trooper. Feel free to let me know alternate builds though!
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Aug 22, 2019 23:40
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FairGame posted:MECs own My favorite part about Shoguns is that HEAT Ammo actually applies to secondary weapons as well. Including EMP. And the fist. And when you're not close enough to get either of those going, they still get rapid fire/light 'em up. Since they bring their own cover destruction with Collateral Damage, it's better to think of them as "close-range gunners" rather than "engineer with HEAT ammo".
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Aug 23, 2019 00:08
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I always find it super funny that Shen is like "oh psychic powers! what dark forces we toy with!!!" while hacking people to bits and shoving them into big loving robot suits
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Aug 23, 2019 00:33
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That loud screaming noise from the suit is just a cry of joy at having mostly transcended the mortal coil. I bet there is a Shogun Coffee in Japan.
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Aug 23, 2019 01:27
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Episode 92 was so friggin intense. It didn't help that I started to watch it right before something knocked my internet out this morning. Only got as far as "this might be a wipe" before the connection dropped and I had to head to work. And then the replies kept increasing from there. I thought things were gonna go south for sure. But the worst thing that happened was my guy somehow missing a 98% shot. Is that the worst dropped odds yet? Anyway, welcome back to the team Mecha-Coffee and Cyber-Lasers.
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Aug 23, 2019 01:29
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You'd better give Scalding Coffee a flamethrower. 
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Aug 23, 2019 01:53
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Y'all have been waiting for this for a while, so here you go.
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Aug 23, 2019 13:10
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Well that went smoothly. Good job.
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Aug 23, 2019 14:47
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That was quite a pile of hp. Possibly more than Australian spiders.
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Aug 23, 2019 16:40
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Getting the string of 70-80% misses you had a few times there could have had some consequences.
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Aug 23, 2019 17:06
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SEPTEMBER SUMMARY This was a perfect month in terms of stuff I did. Sure, I got meld greedy on the trainyard map and ended up needing to turn Rush into a MEC, and got Zhang injured for like 45 days, but everything's good. Destroying like half the alien UFOs is frustrating as hell, though. With satellites over Europe, we don't need spacebucks anymore. We need resources. And lots of 'em. That was like 150 alloys and elerium, and probably about 80-100 meld I'll never get back because of my dominant air game. Notable Soldier Stuff: Everything is proceeding as planned. While not technically a soldier, we got our first Alloy SHIV, The MACHINE, up and running. And then promptly wounded in that clusterfuck trainyard map. But it'll be back. And better than ever. Well...actually about the same as ever. One of the things about SHIVs is that other than the occasional module upgrade (and we don't have access to the autopsies that unlock the truly powerful upgrades), there's not really much improvement you can do with them. Notable Base Stuff: I'll have the whole globe covered soon. Just need a few more engineers for my final nexus. Also got the psi lab up and running and we have a VERY small number of psionic capable troops. Important, because we're gonna start facing some truly nasty things come October. Notable Research: Advanced Gauss is done! And several autopsies! Grapplejack pointed out that we're behind the curve on armor upgrades, which is correct. I really need to get on that, which I'll make a target this month. Won't actually complete the research since we'll have to go Elerium-->Power Armor-->Power Sources-->Better Power Armor before I'm willing to build anything. But might as well get started! Notable Air Game: We're...too strong at this point. If it's medium or lower, we're wrecking it, and we will do it in a single intercept--frequently with stingray missiles. Means we can expand to other continents easily and not need to expand the fleet. But each "you blew it up" UFO is going to piss me off, since we're now reducing alien resources faster than they can recoup 'em. Which, in turn, means that meld canisters are gonna be pretty poo poo pretty soon. Losing UFO missions right now while meld canisters are still in the "kinda useful" zone is very frustrating. That's why I was going after the canisters on the trainyard. Goals for October: More MECs, properly equipped with secondaries (the flamethrower, which in turn needs the upgrade that comes from researching elerium). Get more psionics in play. Get my final nexus built so I can launch more satellites. I think I'm still a little bit early for a base assault, but if the opportunity presents itself I could see myself doing it. We have a VERY nasty council mission coming this month, part of the Portent DLC. Not as nasty as the one that'll happen 1 month later if we handle this mission. But nasty all the same. Gotta have at least 1 scout--preferably one with concealment--ready for that mission. Ideally, The MACHINE will take part as well.
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Aug 23, 2019 17:40
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I thought that mission couldn't trigger until after you do the midgame story thing with the outsider shard? Also I primarily pointed out the armor thing because the better armors have better movement, something that I've demonstrated a need for
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Aug 23, 2019 18:19
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Grapplejack posted:I thought that mission couldn't trigger until after you do the midgame story thing with the outsider shard? The DLC triggers in the final release of Long War are locked by date, and not by any particular story events. Used to be that Portent Mission 2 would pop X number of days after you built the psionics lab (or maybe after you got your first psionic, I forget). Except the enemy compliment for the mission didn't change. Which meant people who rushed psionics would end up facing mechtoids and berserkers and other crazy poo poo with basic lasers in like June/July As for the additional mobility on armor...you're gonna be absurdly slow no matter what you wear. Just embrace it; I'll give you flying armor eventually.
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Aug 23, 2019 19:51
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Does having better weapons increase the chance of destroying UFO's or was that just bad luck?
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Aug 23, 2019 20:41
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Kibayasu posted:Does having better weapons increase the chance of destroying UFO's or was that just bad luck? Yeah. In fact, late game you get access to a weapon designed specifically to counteract this, by doing extremely low damage insanely quickly to maximize your chances of knocking a ship out of the sky rather than blowing it up.
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Aug 23, 2019 20:56
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Well that was calmness under fire, I would have been instantly commanding a second rocket after that grenade didn't kill off all the minions.
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Aug 24, 2019 01:08
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Crazy Achmed posted:Well that was calmness under fire, I would have been instantly commanding a second rocket after that grenade didn't kill off all the minions. You'll notice I didn't use the officer until it was under control. I was always willing to command a second grenade. The hive queen looks far scarier than it really is. Especially when you know it's coming.
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Aug 24, 2019 01:17
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FairGame posted:You'll notice I didn't use the officer until it was under control. I was always willing to command a second grenade. There's a reason long war vets tend to talk it up; because when you don't know it's coming, it is a loving horrific surprise it scars you
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Aug 24, 2019 01:37
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Aug 24, 2019 03:34
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I think your video's broke FG e: works now ee: tuxedo "snake eyes" ted Grapplejack fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Aug 24, 2019 |
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Aug 24, 2019 03:58
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Things are scary again!
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Aug 24, 2019 05:37
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Great LP FG. Inspired me to play my own campaign back on episode 30, which I finished recently (with a lot of save scumming mainly due to LOS issues). Slowly catching up on episodes. I liked the mechs in this mod, but wow are they resource expensive. 60 meld is not cheap to send them to Shen's chop shop, could only test a Marauder (CE invaluable, never saw the value in CCS though), Archer (very unimpressed, only became okay when I started using battle scanners, and understood the AI enough to know where to put mines in advance), Jaeger (ITZ was incredible for EXALT missions, when numbers get stupid) and Shogun (just a better archer, that could be specialised into anti mech). Wish the game gave knockdown troops a trait or something keep forgetting who needs to be "reconditioned". I'll try an iron man campaign soon, test the others, pathfinders seem great for action economy. If there are still spots for the meat grinder sign me up. Haven't seen a DT precision shot crit build sniper in your barracks, which I personally found necessary with the late game health sponge enemies, as my preference, but not really fussed.
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Aug 24, 2019 11:28
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