Print

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

[Darkening Kaos]

Speaking of Training Roulette, I suppose a Sniper with Rapid Reaction and Opportunist might actually be a decent combination?

It is an awesome combo, especially with sqad sight, if the Sniper has LOS and anyone sees a target, the Sniper gets two shots to kill it, but the first one has to hit.  Of course, it does allow the Sniper to hit two different targets as well.

CCS gives you an automatic reaction shot that triggers when an enemy (let's be realistic here, enemy means Chryssalid) closes within four tiles of the solider. Close and Personal (the name of the aforementioned ability) allows you to fire on an enemy without spending an action if you are within four tiles of it. That doesn't sound all that different, but it is.

Is that new with EW?  I remember the old one as +1 crit damage for each enemy the squad can see.

It is.

The +1 crit damage per enemy visible to the squad is called Bring 'Em On, and it is in EW.

Close Combat Specialist does not require your Assault to be on Overwatch, so it is a free shot.

[EnigmaticHat]

Close Combat Specialist does not require your Assault to be on Overwatch, so it is a free shot.

This is kind of hilarious, but I assumed CCS was in BIOs place in the character tree because I never looked the skill that was opposed to Lightning Reflexes.  That's how much I like Lightning Reflexes.

[Jelle]

Woo have some time to play this again. Just started up a new game. Strangely my starting squad is entirely female, should be interesting haha.

Soo how are these mecs? I hear they can't take cover? Any significant changes to the strategy aspect of managing the base?

[Mr Space Cat]

As far as base management goes, I think they nerfed starting satellite uplinks to +1 bonus per 2 adjacent uplinks, rather than +1 for 1 adjacent. So that makes starting game satellite rushes a bit harder. Also there's more research and tech options but generally longer times. No more laser weapons in the second month, it'd take 40+ days with 5 scientists.

[Silfurdreki]

I just started a new CI game again and I got two Koreans with the same name and face in the starting squad.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My personal backstory for them is that they are two brothers who grew up playing Starcraft and loving the (space) marines.

Edit: Just minutes after this, one of the brothers (the heavy) die in the first UFO assault. Killed by a sectoid. Your brother will miss you.

[Metalax]

As far as base management goes, I think they nerfed starting satellite uplinks to +1 bonus per 2 adjacent uplinks, rather than +1 for 1 adjacent. So that makes starting game satellite rushes a bit harder.

Nope, still +1 per adjacent facility.

Changes to the base management from EU:

Forge counts as a workshop for adjacency benefits
Cost of the Satellite Uplink has been decreased to §100 (from §150) and the Satellite Nexus to §250 (from §300)
Research times have been increased by +40% on Classic and by +70% on Impossible(excluding for Xenobiology, Weapon Fragments, Alien Materials, Experimental Warfare, Meld)
Plasma weapons have all(excluding pistol) had their cost in money/alloy/elerium significantly increased in Classic/Impossible difficulties.
Barracks space has been reduced to 70 from 99.

[Silfurdreki]

Portent is fucking cursed, I tell you. It wiped my squad again, 2 sergeants, one assault and one sniper, one squaddie (support) and one rookie.

It was once again the first three thin men. I missed no less than four 70% shots and a thin man flanked by the assault with 70% crit chance survived by getting hit for three damage. All three of the thin men were down to one HP at some point. Conversely, the thin men did not miss a single shot, including instantly killing the rookie in full cover.

I hate thin men.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Soo how are these mecs? I hear they can't take cover?

-I can never overstate that MECs are OP as fuck. Seriously. And this was from the start of the session, she has at least 20 more kills now.

Make that +100 kills by now. MECs categorically outclass almost everything else available to X-COM. While they indeed cannot take cover, they get both standard defense for units that don't use cover and the Hardened trait. A couple of the traits that carry over from their previous class also increases their defense/limits the damage they can take. On top of all of that, they can be healed both as humans and as machines, allowing you to restore their health with medkits, arc throwers, and captured drones once you have the correct Foundry upgrades.

MECs.

Are.

Op.

As.

Fuck.

[Jacob/Lee]

Yep. I never had the Meld to create a full MEC squad, but in my last playthrough (which I still haven't finished) I brought two MECs on every mission, with opposite abilities taken every upgrade. Flamethrowers are good for chryssalid and EXALT riot control, and the kinetic strike module is great fun when fighting mechtoids, sectopods, elite mutons, and everything else in the game with fat chunks of health. A single one of those MECs had more kills than the entire X-COM organization put together.

[Mephansteras]

My Mecs have considerably less luck than that. They tend to get ganked a lot. The AI loves to go after them, even if I have them out of sight at the start of the turn I've had the AI specifically move itself so it can attack the Mec rather than deal with the rest of my troops.

They're nice, but at least on Classic I'm finding them to be mearly helpful rather than OP. My best troops are all regular or genetically enhanced in some way. To be honest, I'm getting more out of the skill tree randomization than I am anything else.

[GreatWyrmGold]

In a related question, why did they get rid of the perk that one replaces, yet leave in Flush and Rapid Reactions?  Two of the worst skills in the game that are supposed to be a contest compared to two of the best skills in the game.  At least they nerfed HEAT.

While looking this up, I discovered that Steam marked up the price of EU quite a bit. Dammit.
And yeah, those are pretty useless.

I just started a new CI game again and I got two Koreans with the same name and face in the starting squad.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My personal backstory for them is that they are two brothers who grew up playing Starcraft and loving the (space) marines.

They look so interesting.

Barracks space has been reduced to 70 from 99.

How many people here have even had 50 soldiers in their barracks at once?

A single one of those MECs had more kills than the entire X-COM organization put together.

*mathmathmath*
*calculator overloads*
So...I conclude that you have two rogue MEC troopers working with you?

[Mr Space Cat]

Portent is fucking cursed, I tell you. It wiped my squad again, 2 sergeants, one assault and one sniper, one squaddie (support) and one rookie.

Whenever I attempted Portent without tons of explosives and at least 2 heavies with rockets, everyone died. Whenever I attempted Portent with one heavy, the heavy was the first to die from a thin mint crit snipe. Always. Then everyone died because there were no rockets and everything went wrong. Rockets are like explosive rabbit feet.

On that note, I only cleared Portent once, because my heavies always seem to die before that mission.

The AI loves to go after them

That's why MECs and SHIVs are so great. They give some extra insurance so you can afford to put your other soldiers in something less than full cover. Plus the punching is like another rocket, it's a guaranteed kill on most aliens and incredibly great for making a situation less dangerous.

To offset the mecs being such targets I always give them the +15 defense on overwatch perk. It's kinda like hunkering down but with more reaction fire. It's 35 defense total on overwatch, that's practically full cover.

[Mephansteras]

By the way, I tested Close and Personal last night with Rapid Shot and it doesn't work. That ended my turn, while doing a regular shot followed by Rapid Shot worked fine. So it's still just 3 shots at most. Which is still really nice.

[Jelle]

As far as base management goes, I think they nerfed starting satellite uplinks to +1 bonus per 2 adjacent uplinks, rather than +1 for 1 adjacent. So that makes starting game satellite rushes a bit harder.

Nope, still +1 per adjacent facility.

Changes to the base management from EU:

Forge counts as a workshop for adjacency benefits
Cost of the Satellite Uplink has been decreased to §100 (from §150) and the Satellite Nexus to §250 (from §300)
Research times have been increased by +40% on Classic and by +70% on Impossible(excluding for Xenobiology, Weapon Fragments, Alien Materials, Experimental Warfare, Meld)
Plasma weapons have all(excluding pistol) had their cost in money/alloy/elerium significantly increased in Classic/Impossible difficulties.
Barracks space has been reduced to 70 from 99.

Ah longer research times and higher cost on the fancy stuff, good good saves me the trouble of changing it! Really like the changes so far, even though satelites are still dirt cheap considering.

Portent is fucking cursed, I tell you. It wiped my squad again, 2 sergeants, one assault and one sniper, one squaddie (support) and one rookie.

It was once again the first three thin men. I missed no less than four 70% shots and a thin man flanked by the assault with 70% crit chance survived by getting hit for three damage. All three of the thin men were down to one HP at some point. Conversely, the thin men did not miss a single shot, including instantly killing the rookie in full cover.

I hate thin men.

I knoooow I just completed the mission. Since I'm trying out a mod I didn't want to lose all my soldiers so I freaking savescummed that mission to no end. It's that accursed rigged RNG on council missions I tell you. That and thin man being really quite strong. Those buggers just never miss, and in between them being hard to hit and the toxins good luck taking them out at range.

Also as to my barracks. It didn't stop at the full female squad, precisely 9 out of the 12 soldiers I started with were female. I decided to just go with it and discharge the 3 male troopers haha.

[Jelle]

So wich class would you say is best mec material? Shock armor seems a bit unreliable and I don't know if stability is any good since I haven't tried the weapons yet. Body shield and distortion shield both seem very nice. Distortion shield seems like the best choice except it doesn't specify how nearby nearby is.