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[Sindain]

So, I think I have officially decided to stop doing bomb disposal missions on II.

The really important numbers to remember are that partial cover is +20, full cover is +40, and hunker down is +20 AND immunity to crits (aka partial cover hunkered down is defensively slightly better than full cover).

Hunker down matches your cover bonus, so its +40 if you're in heavy cover.

[Darkening Kaos]

The choice I had for my Sergeant Sniper was either Suppression, {which might have been awesome with the Plama Sniping Rifle}, or Rapid Reaction, {a second reaction shot if on Overwatch and the first hits}.  I don't know if I'd play with training roulette next time, but it certainly has been fun.

Spoiler: What a choice (click to show/hide)

btw: I chose Rapid Reaction.

I bet the choice for Corporal was tough...

Snap shot is more useful in EW since they reduced the penalty down. Now you can offset it by adding a scope, and I've got a SS sniper who's actually very useful on maps without a whole lot of long sightlines.

He's using the Training Roulette. If I'm not mistaken, that's Run and Gun. It might be useful if one of the future advancements is Snapshot, but you can't determine that ahead of time now can you?

Under Training Roulette, snipers get their first adventurous choice at Sergeant, both skills can be new ones, they get one new choice at Lieutenant, to tempt you away from Disabling Shot, two new choices for captain, a new 'option' for Major, but their Colonel choices are specific to snipers, ITZ and Double Tap.

Run and Gun is specific to Squaddie Assaults, so you won't see it on another 'class'

I already had two snipers with Snap Shot so Juanita got Squad Sight and Archangel armour, plus, when I get enough Meld, the genemod that boosts the bonus for shooting from heights; Depth Perception +5 Aim & +5% crit.


Sorry for taking so long, but it's the first cool day, {sub 45C/113F}, for two weeks and had to go hunting and gathering.....

[SOLDIER First]

MEC troopers are kinda weird.
It's like, "hey, let's take off this person's arms and legs and take away their ability to use cover in exhange for some other stuff that's cool"
Note that I haven't played Enemy Within so I don't know he bonuses but to me it's like 'why in the fuck would they give up COVER'

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Because it makes them into walking tanks.

[SOLDIER First]

Oh.

[Culise]

Because it makes them into walking tanks.

* Culise has spontaneous flashbacks to the terror mission tank map

Thankfully, they're not quite as...combustible.  But yeah, MECs are great fun.  Flamethrowers let you panic anything organic (including chryssalids), while rocket punch lets you launch enemies across the room for large amounts of guaranteed damage (and some fun cutscenes).  They shrug off hits like a champ and immunity to environmental effects like poison and fire can be helpful pre-Titan.  Also, you can upgrade your troopers to turn the suits into full cover for your squishies unenhanced soldiers. 

[Sindain]

Also, they greatly increase your margin of error, especially on the higher difficulties, since aliens will typically choose to shoot at a mech soldier instead of killing your squashies if you stupidly put them in low/high cover unhunkered down/ in a place where they can be flanked.

[EnigmaticHat]

In my experience MECs are tougher if they're getting shot at by 1-2 enemies, but more fragile than ordinary soldiers if they're getting shot at by more than 2.

The advantage of MECs is that a certain level of firepower simply CANNOT kill them in a single turn.  The disadvantage is that once you have amounts of firepower that could kill either a MEC or an ordinary soldier, the MEC has almost 0 chance to avoid damage while soldiers have at least a chance to survive almost any amount of ranged fire.  The other weakness of MECs is that since they'll more reliably take damage they're either a drain on your medikits, or quickly lose their tankiness if you don't heal them.

[Darkening Kaos]

Electro Pulse is ganked however.
     When you consult the Engineers, they tell you this about the upgrade.......

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But this is actually what happens out in the field......

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Polar opposites much?

[crazysheep]

What actually happens though? Damage and stun on all units?

[Remalle]

The wiki says it's the latter.

[bluejello]

what happens is damage to all units, and robotic ones are disabled for one turn due to EMP.  No stunning (arc thrower effect, or any other) for organics.  I got it due to thinking it was a replacement for the arc throwers...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I've yet to try the proximity mine thrower, but I have to say that I don't think the Electropulse is very useful. The range is too small to be really useful, but large enough that it tends to catch your squad. Any scenario in which you could use it is one in which you could just engage the Kinetic Strike Module.

[Sindain]

Yeah the mine launcher isn't too great. When I first picked it up I thought it would be hilarious to combine it with invisible troops in order to drop mines on unactivated troops, but it works really buggily if you do that.

*edit*

Theoretically it could be used to good affect against melee troops without actually exposing your mechs, but by the time you have tier 3 mechs you aren't very scared of melee troops.

[Mr Space Cat]

It's like, "hey, let's take off this person's arms and legs and take away their ability to use cover in exhange for some other stuff that's cool" PUNCHING ALIENS IN THE FACE."

FTFY.

I've yet to try the proximity mine thrower, but I have to say that I don't think it's very useful. The range is too small to be really useful, but large enough that it tends to catch your squad. Any scenario in which you could use it is one in which you could just engage the Kinetic Strike Module.

Proximity mines are tactical extra explosives. You can force an alien to move in a certain direction by planting a mine in the direction you don't want them to go. You can create a minefield for chrysalids/zombies/berserkers. You can plant a cluster of explosives at the feet of a thing you want dead and then set the cluster off instantly with a grenade from a soldier or another MEC's grenade cannon and deal loads of damage (8 per mine plus the triggering explosion) in a pretty good radius, which is what I use it for the most. It's extra boom boom to be stacked on your squad of walking explosions.

The emp is pretty useful for sectopods though, I must say.