Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mageziya]

Are these Mechtoids or Sectopods? See my earlier post. I don't think it is possible for a soldier to have 30 health, even if they are a MEC. Mechtoids are those Sectoids shoved in robots that can be buffed by Sectoids. Sectopods are completely unrelated to Sectoids, are an end-game enemy, have 30 health, and take half damage. (That means they technically have 60 health.)

[crazysheep]

Um GWG, did you have plasma rifles? Assaults with plasma rifles are still pretty deadly, more so in easy mode.
Also, what was your highest armour tech by then, and what was your average squad rank like?

Asking because it seems like you're having way more trouble with the game, even on non-ironman easy mode..

[GreatWyrmGold]

Um GWG, did you have plasma rifles? Assaults with plasma rifles are still pretty deadly, more so in easy mode.
Also, what was your highest armour tech by then, and what was your average squad rank like?

Asking because it seems like you're having way more trouble with the game, even on non-ironman easy mode..

I don't remember, I don't remember, and I brought a couple newbies.
_{Also shut up.}
How much easier would the game be if I ever savescummed?

[crazysheep]

newbies.. ouch :/

With savescumming at least you know where the aliens are and you sort of get an idea where to hide most of your troops for decent coverage and firing angles. Also, you can blind grenade.. but I don't know how badly people view this tactic.

[Darkening Kaos]

  Here's something I haven't come across before, and of course it is another problem with the downed battleship map......

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basically, the dead body of the Chryssalid is blocking the path of my Assault, backtracking is gonna be a bitch on this map, and only half of my team are in ghost/archangel/skeleton armour, so there are no shortcuts for those guys.

Edit: Spelling.....Why is it so hard for me to remember the proper spelling of Kryzalit Chrisalyd them arachnid-type things

[Culise]

And the sectopod I faced was quite a threat to my (admittedly depleted) A-Team in my cheating easy-level game.

Liberal application of HEAT ammo, rockets, and grenades should have helped.. :3
Also, ghost armoured alloy cannon assaults

Gods, the first time I blundered into one of those things, I didn't have Ghost Armor or HEAT Ammo (my two promoted Heavies were both reaction-oriented since the only robotic enemies I'd seen to date hadn't given me any trouble).  That was with the easier base game versions as well (no sectopod armor, and what feels like a higher AI weight favouring the avoidable cluster bomb), which is probably the only reason I pulled through.  That and rockets.  Rockets, I did have plenty of, thankfully. 

newbies.. ouch :/

With savescumming at least you know where the aliens are and you sort of get an idea where to hide most of your troops for decent coverage and firing angles. Also, you can blind grenade.. but I don't know how badly people view this tactic.

You can also theoretically abuse the preset values from the RNG to burn through bad rolls and keep the good ones.  Just watch out for teleporting aliens if you revert to a save more than one turn back, though I think they've gotten better about in the DLC.  At least, I haven't had any aliens teleport right into the middle of my team since I bought it. 

[GreatWyrmGold]

With savescumming at least you know where the aliens are and you sort of get an idea where to hide most of your troops for decent coverage and firing angles. Also, you can blind grenade.. but I don't know how badly people view this tactic.

I've blind-grenaded, but again I don't savescum.

[crazysheep]

Personally I've been a fan of just blowing Cyberdisks up when I see them, so all of my Heavies have HEAT ammo, even from the first (blind) playthrough I made. While I can see the pros of using Rapid Reaction, most of my Heavies haven't had good enough aim to utilise it.. yet. And yes, I'm still playing the base game.

Haven't seen any teleporting aliens yet, fingers crossed

GWG: ok then

[umiman]

As far as I'm concerned, you should always try to challenge yourself, as you'll never improve if you don't.

However, it's not really my place to say where people should start. Some of us start at Easy, some at Impossible, etc. As long as you're continually improving yourself, I think it's fine. I may not understand why, but I also don't understand the appeal of poetry. Would be silly to dismiss it just because I don't understand it.

Or you could just want to have fun. That's fine too. Cheating for fun is always pretty awesome. Gets boring pretty quick though.


It's a singleplayer game. Just do what you like.

[crazysheep]

Or chase achievements

[Darkening Kaos]

   Completed my first campaign, my Volunteer, a Colonel Sniper, fired the final {head}-shot and so on.

    Started a new game and already decided to not buy the extra squad slots, see if I can go through the game with just 4 soldiers for each mission.
    First mission.....Set in a graveyard in India, there is no real evidence of anything out of the ordinary as the team embark:

    Paula King, Barret Braun, Miguel Delgado, and Ho Deng.  Against four Sectoids.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

  I think it went well even though Barret Braun panicked when he was hit with  critical doing four damage.
  Miguel was hit by a bastard shot that should not even have hit - That's XCOM!
  Ho Deng did not get a chance to fire a shot, thus no promotion for him.
  Difficulty is normal, but artificially harder for only having four soldiers, well, that's the plan anyway.
  And base location is in Asia.

[crazysheep]

If you aren't running Ironman, I reckon you'll do fine :p

I'm trying out a regular Classic run without the squad size upgrades, am doing fine so far (fingers crossed). Just gunned down the overseer UFO and cleared it out, so I think I've still got some way to go before finishing this round.

[Darkening Kaos]

  Good luck.

  This is my third game, I never finished the first, too many crashes and glitches just before the base assault, the second I have just finished, Enema Within seemed to fix the majority of the problems I have experienced, except for bugs in the Battleship map - that still pisses me off.
  Ended up having to find my way around an Elite Muton corpse a little further on, thankfully they give you three routes to get anywhere on that map.  I have not had any issues with any other map - strange.

Edit:
  Second mission just a couple of days later, two wounded still in the infirmary.  Paula, now an assault, goes on an abduction mission to Argentina with three rookies.  An Abduction Mission on the 4th day of the game!!!!
  It went so well, no-one was injured, my luck is too good right now and I expect fatalities soon.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The 6 sectoids seemed to be overwhelmed by my troops' unusual level of accuracy, thankfully it was over quickly, only about 6 turns.
My problem is going to be the fact that I rush my assaults into situations that are far too risky.  Paula was Runnin' and Gunnin' into a cafe to stand across the table from the Sectoid and hit it point blank with her shottie, at 85% to hit, she would normally have missed, but the pRNG seems to be kind at present.

Son of Edit:
Third Mission on the 8th of March:  the Council request XCOM to investigate what looks like a bomb in Toronto: Paula leads Ho Deng, now a Sniper, Melaina Boulos, a Heavy, and Dion Korba, a very nervous Support, equipped with the first Medpack.
Paula suffers badly during the mission, {I screwed up an attack on a Thin Mint and she ended up inside the cloud when it died - poisoned and that was the only injury}, Ho Deng demonstrated a firm grasp of Sniper Skills - get up high and shoot anything that moves.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dammit!  Because I misjudged things, Paula is out for over a week, that will hurt if we have another mission, Paula is my only assault.
A day after finishing the mission, research concludes on weapon fragments and I can now build S.C.O.P.E.  First batch of new recruits arrives and I am impressed by 4 out of the seven - I sacked the other three plus a couple of useless ones I started with.

Edit^3:
  Our Interceptor downed a UFO over Japan and our team, led by Deng Ho went to investigate.  Barret Braun went along as Support, with Miguel Delgado as Heavy fire specialist.  rounding out the team was a promising new recruit, Encarnacion Gonzales, from some small Mexican town, she doesn't speak much good English, but her performance spoke for her, promoted to Support at the end of the mission.
   I forgot to take a screencap at the end of the mission, nobody took any damage, thanx mainly to finding each group of aliums and eliminating them before tripping over the next.  No need for grenades, but Miguel did blind-fire his rocket in an attempt to roast a hidden sectoid - must have missed him.

Grandson of Edit:
Another alien abduction mission, in India again, a construction site in Mumbai this time.  Deng Ho leads while the recovered Paula King rejoins the squad, Barrett and a new rookie, Jana Mueller round out the squad.  Seems like Paula is training her replacement in Jana, who is streets ahead in terms of raw skill - Jana promoted to Assault at the end of the mission, also the only one to get hurt, though only one point so she shrugged off the attack and blasted the Sectoid that shot at her.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

     Not much to say here.  Deng Ho was able to get on top of a hut in the second turn and dominated from there, I had to deliberately use him last in the turn just so the others had a chance to get kills.
    With Deng Ho now a sergeant, I can look at buying upgrades in the officer academy, though with my self-imposed restrictions, there isn't much to buy, fortunately, each mission so far has paid cash, so I'm swimming in dosh.  Unfortunately, I can't build a new satellite uplink due to a lack of Engineers and tensions are increasing around the world - the USA is at 4, France, Mexico and Australia are at 3.  Research is almost concluded on experimental Warfare, so Lazors soon.
    That's all for tonight, going out tomorrow and don't think I'll get a chance to continue.

[EnigmaticHat]

Personally I've been a fan of just blowing Cyberdisks up when I see them, so all of my Heavies have HEAT ammo, even from the first (blind) playthrough I made. While I can see the pros of using Rapid Reaction, most of my Heavies haven't had good enough aim to utilise it.. yet. And yes, I'm still playing the base game.

Haven't seen any teleporting aliens yet, fingers crossed

GWG: ok then

No one has enough aim to use rapid reaction.  Most reaction shots happen at long or max range, so no closeness buff.  Overwatch carries a penalty, and LMGs are less accurate than assault rifles.  So you have 2 hit two unlikely hits.  If you miss the first shot the perk doesn't help you.  If you hit the first but miss the second, the perk actually hurts you, because you're down 2 shots in a weapon that has to reload after 3 shots (until you get the foundtry upgrade).

Maybe at the endgame when everyone's a Colonel and you have the ammo buff it could help.  But at that point robotic enemies are everywhere, so even with the HEAT nerf it should still be better.

[Parsely]

..No one has enough aim to use rapid reaction..

I'd have to agree.