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[Silent_Thunder]

Well my latest attempt at Classic went down the drain. Classic difficulty, breazed through several missions without so much as losing a man. Had 4 badass nicknamed soldiers, who could take on anything the aliens threw at them (Ie sectoids and thin men) It was going great untill..... Operation Falling Smoke. it was an abduction mission in the train station map right, slowly moving my guys up and what do I discover.. Mutons... and at the same time I trigger them, I hit a squad of thin men AND a squad of floaters. They slowly ate through my men during a brutal firefight, so that only my Sniper was able to survive (She actually was trying to retreat, paniced, and oneshotted the last alien). Now all of this is unremarkable except.. this was on the 11th of May. I've never seen Mutons spawn this early.

[Grakelin]

Does anybody know what we're actually doing on Abduction Missions? It feels like it's too late for all the abduction victims, so are we just clearing out the aliens who are still hanging around, or what?

[Mephansteras]

We seem to just be killing any of the aliens hanging around.

@Silent_Thunder: Yeah, I had mutons show up really early on my current playthrough as well. It was crazy.

On the subject of Mutons, I find it amusing that their Intimidate ability seems to backfire on them pretty often. At least half the times they tried that and it worked, my guy panicked and killed off the Muton with the second shot. Amuses me every time.

[Werdna]

But it seems like a key part of the game is satellites, and when doing the tutorial will basically net you 3 or 4 (cash equivalent)...  Panic is what's killing me on Classic.  Well that, and when I do stupid things and keep getting my vets killed off. 

Yeah, I hear ya.  I'm wondering how hard it might be though, now that I know to focus on it ASAP, but I fear doing so may lead to early missions with poorly equipped soldiers.  It seems like the early game will be somehow rushing both the Officer School for squad size unlocks, and adding sats/satellite uplinks.  I will say it feels like a hell of an accomplishment to beat the panic game, and it is possible to do it from the normal start.  Losing a few countries is par for the course, and at least it keeps the game tense.  But man does my heart sink every time an abduction comes up!

[Jacob/Lee]

We seem to just be killing any of the aliens hanging around.

@Silent_Thunder: Yeah, I had mutons show up really early on my current playthrough as well. It was crazy.

On the subject of Mutons, I find it amusing that their Intimidate ability seems to backfire on them pretty often. At least half the times they tried that and it worked, my guy panicked and killed off the Muton with the second shot. Amuses me every time.

Or the berserker slowly crept towards you as you pissed it off until it was surrounded by guns.

[The Scout]

Terror mission. There was no chance.

[Mephansteras]

Terror mission. There was no chance.

I've had one of those. Out of the Skyranger and straight into Two Cyberdisks and Four Cryssalids. I've never retreated from a battle as quickly as I did that one.

[The Scout]

Not capping any aliens for awhile. Gotta grab heavy lasers and armor.

[sluissa]

I think... one of the big problems with classic difficulty, is the 6 man limit. It used to be that you could deal with losing your amazing soldiers by just buying more rookies and throwing them at the enemy. You could also choose your missions a little easier. If you needed to train your men up, you choose a few easy missions with floaters or snakemen(without chryssalids). You could usually ignore/shoot down any other missions without TOO many repercussions. Base missions could be held off for a long time, only terror missions demanded immediate response and even then you could still mitigate the losses a bit if you just made an effort. There were plenty of chances to train the rookies without throwing them against mutons any of the big bads(Mutons on their own weren't really threatening if you were properly equipped.) on their first mission. Even if you had to throw rookies against the big bads on their first mission, you could throw enough of them at the enemy for it to matter. 14 at the beginning of the game and up to 26 end game. 26 rookies, even if only equipped with laser rifles and no armor, could still make a dent in almost any mission if handled well.

Throwing a rookie in here late game without significant backup, is just wishing for a quick death. Even squaddies are pretty darn fragile against the heavier plasma weapons.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Terror mission. There was no chance.

Pro-tip: You want to rush Beam weapons before your first terror mission. Lasers can kill most Cryssalids in two hits. Or at least, thats what I experienced in Normal mode.

[The Scout]

Are there laser machineguns then? Otherwise, I'll have to get rid of all the heavies.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Are there laser machineguns then? Otherwise, I'll have to get rid of all the heavies.

Yep, though you could probably get by with the regular machine gun if everyone else has laser rifles. It does do up to five damage, after all.

[Urist McSpike]

Yeah, I hear ya.  I'm wondering how hard it might be though, now that I know to focus on it ASAP, but I fear doing so may lead to early missions with poorly equipped soldiers.  It seems like the early game will be somehow rushing both the Officer School for squad size unlocks, and adding sats/satellite uplinks.  I will say it feels like a hell of an accomplishment to beat the panic game, and it is possible to do it from the normal start.  Losing a few countries is par for the course, and at least it keeps the game tense.  But man does my heart sink every time an abduction comes up!

The problem I see with the early game is that there's too much crap you need.  Satellites ($100, 20 days), satellite uplinks (15 days?) - but wait!  To get the uplinks, you need more power!  Plus the uplink requires 10 Engineers, which you might not have quick enough.  Considering you get 3 abduction missions, and there are 4 rewards (cash, scientist, engineer, soldier).  And if you try to consolidate space by digging for a steam vent & geothermal power, that's more time & money to dig it out and build.

You know, Chrysalids don't really scare me.  Nor Muton Berserkers.  But oh, those Cyberdisks!  (Although all of that was on a normal run through.)  I did find a bug though - the Assualt has an ability that grants a free reaction shot against anything closing to within 4, but it doesn't work on the Muton Bersker at times.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You know, when they advance from taking damage during your round.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Are there laser machineguns then? Otherwise, I'll have to get rid of all the heavies.

Heavy Lasers, although I would get Precision Lasers first because it gives you both Laser Shotguns (Technically it's called the Scatter laser, but really, its just a shotgun.) and Laser Snipers. And from my experience Scatter Laser + Assault w/ Rapid Fire + Up Close and Personal perk + really short distance = Pretty much anything with less than two full bars of health dead.

Also good armor helps.

[Silent_Thunder]

Does anybody know what we're actually doing on Abduction Missions? It feels like it's too late for all the abduction victims, so are we just clearing out the aliens who are still hanging around, or what?

Well seeing how

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They're being kept alive in the alien base for expiriments

I imagine they're freed by xcom from whatever that stuff is after the aliens are all cleared out. Shame I can't sell the green gunk with the rest of the vendor trash. Hell I bet I could convince some military it's useful!