Print

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

[Darkening Kaos]

From the XCOM Wiki, however much faith you put in that......

Both Psi Lance and Rift can affect Robotic units; Rift produces substantial damage as these units are effectively treated as having 0 Will.

[Thexor]

So they're immune to mind-affecting skills (Mind Control, Psi Panic, and Mindfray) but not the telekinetic ones. That actually makes perfect sense, now that I think about it.

[Duuvian]

Annoyed by that $20 I spent on a game that apparently overloads my video driver thingy, I decide to try something...interesting.

Who wants to take bets on how long I last on Impossible difficulty? (Also, all of the base Second Wave adjustments were enabled.)

There is a fix to the video card problem. It's actually an issue with Steam. There is a third party program which disables something called 'Steam CEG' or something like that, which will make the game run properly though it has to be run prior to starting the game every time you restart your computer.

I found the program again since Borderlands 2 is free for the weekend and is giving me the same BSOD that X-Com gives. It's called Orochi-CEG. In retrospect since reading that it has something to do with processors and not video card problems, I'm unsure if your problem is the same as mine, but I figured I would post about it regardless.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Annoyed by that $20 I spent on a game that apparently overloads my video driver thingy, I decide to try something...interesting.

Who wants to take bets on how long I last on Impossible difficulty? (Also, all of the base Second Wave adjustments were enabled.)

There is a fix to the video card problem. It's actually an issue with Steam. There is a third party program which disables something called 'Steam CEG' or something like that, which will make the game run properly though it has to be run prior to starting the game every time you restart your computer.

I found the program again since Borderlands 2 is free for the weekend and is giving me the same BSOD that X-Com gives. It's called Orochi-CEG. In retrospect since reading that it has something to do with processors and not video card problems, I'm unsure if your problem is the same as mine, but I figured I would post about it regardless.

I hope you're not offended by this, but once more I'd like to ask for someone to confirm what Duuvian is saying here.

[Jelle]

Jeez how do those SHIVs get so much accuracy and crit rating. I've honestly never used a SHIV before, mostly because I thought they were rubbish. But there they are shooting things with sniper accuracy getting critical hits left and right. 

Also on the MEC soldiers; I've been using a single one for a good amount of missions now and I must agree it's a little strong. I can only imagine how hard a team of 4 mecs and 2 supports with improved medkits and arcs to keep them going would wipe he floor with anything the aliens can muster. I'm actually quite surprised they don't seem to target the mec to often despite the lack of cover, wich is fine since distortion field is freaking awesome.
Anyway what do you guys think would be required to balance the MEC? They should be a tad stronger then regular soldiers imo, on par with genetically modified ones maybe.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Jeez how do those SHIVs get so much accuracy and crit rating. I've honestly never used a SHIV before, mostly because I thought they were rubbish. But there they are shooting things with sniper accuracy getting critical hits left and right. 

Also on the MEC soldiers; I've been using a single one for a good amount of missions now and I must agree it's a little strong. I can only imagine how hard a team of 4 mecs and 2 supports with improved medkits and arcs to keep them going would wipe he floor with anything the aliens can muster. I'm actually quite surprised they don't seem to target the mec to often despite the lack of cover, wich is fine since distortion field is freaking awesome.
Anyway what do you guys think would be required to balance the MEC? They should be a tad stronger then regular soldiers imo, on par with genetically modified ones maybe.

They need to appear later on. Make the cybernetics a more technologically finicky process (requiring a Foundry at the very least, and a Foundry research project to make each new MEC type ideally. Genemods are fundamentally easier - they are covered by the Meld Recombination research, and just require the facility. The MEC facility would then only appear once you have the first MECs ready for production.

[Silfurdreki]

You would be hard pressed to even get four upgraded MECs in one playthrough, unless you drag it out for very long at the end. A single level 3 MEC suit costs 200 meld, and then there's a one time cost of 10 meld for the soldier, assuming no MEC trooper ever dies.

In my successful EW playthrough I had to wait with the temple ship for a couple of missions just to get enough meld for two fully upgraded MECs, having no MEC troopers die (costing more meld for MEC repair and new trooper) and only ever getting one gene-mod.

I could maybe see you getting three towards the end if you're completely blazing through the game, getting all canisters, but not otherwise. I think they're balanced by how costly they are, TBH.

[Sindain]

So, new round of I/I games!

First game, was at that one big gas station map, with all the trucks on one end with tons of high ground between to two billboards and the roofs, but they deployed me by the gas station rather than by the trucks, which was always done in EU. I learned that over by the backside of the gas station the lines of sight are buggy as all hell. Had one point where an open door continued to block the sight range of my soldiers. At another point a soldier couldn't see around a corner, which sucked since there was a sectoid right around that corner that I was trying to flank. So the sectoid just casually walked around the corner and killed my soldier. I quit after losing two soldiers to the first two sectoids.

Second game, while running up to a meld container I set off a mob in a bad position, and since it was the second turn I just quit right there cause there was no way I was getting out of that with less than one death.

Third game, code black in four turns, I think that's a new record! Entered and made sure the first room in the building was clear, than started moving towards a meld container on the other side of the building, had two soldiers take the roof, two in the building. When getting ready to breach towards the area with the meld, a mob patrols into my back, two of them stay back while the third blitzes towards the opposite side of the only heavy cover. So my two in the building have the choice of staying and getting flanked by two sectoids or moving towards the cover and getting flanked by the lone one. (I couldn't see the sectoid to shoot or pin down its position and nad it, and it had a safe advance to the actual flanking position so over watch didnt help.) So I moved my soldiers to the cover, they got flanked, then when I moved my two on the roof to support a mob came from the other side and killed those two.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Wimp. I've lost no fewer than 30 soldiers on an II mission and I'm still trying to succeed!

[Neonivek]

SHIVs get so much because of two reasons

1) They cannot take cover (which I consider to be the worst aspect of them in a crunch)
and
2) They do not get many abilities.

[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah, except now they get identical versions of two high utility abilities (CCS and Suppression) as well as their own ridiculously powerful one, which is that they passively regen to full health always.

Personally I think MECs are well balanced for what they cost, while gene mods are OP.  Mimetic skin is all the gamebreaking fun of ghost armor without having an in-battle resource cost or being late game.  Secondary Heart turns the game into a different game that doesn't have permadeath.  And immunity to mind control has the same problem HEAT ammo had, where it renders a group of lategame enemies trivially easy to beat.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Secondary Heart turns the game into a different game that doesn't have permadeath.

If you can get to the end of a mission or a medkit fast enough.

And immunity to mind control has the same problem HEAT ammo had, where it renders a group of lategame enemies trivially easy to beat.

Are Rift, Psionic Lance, and stuff that trivial?

[Sindain]

And immunity to mind control has the same problem HEAT ammo had, where it renders a group of lategame enemies trivially easy to beat.

Are Rift, Psionic Lance, and stuff that trivial?

The enemies will still waste time trying to mind control though, and I've never seen them use Rift outside of Avenger.

And IMO Sectoid commanders are more dangerous than Ethereals, by the time you're facing Ethereals you should be more than capable of taking down a single psionic in two turns, even with their defense bonus. Sectoid commanders come in groups and with EW can spawn outside of a single predetermined point once a ufo.

Psionic Lance can still result in an unexpected death every now and then though.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The enemies will still waste time trying to mind control though, and I've never seen them use Rift outside of Avenger.

That's dumb of them and rewatch SHIVCOM, respectively.

[umiman]

I too "fear" Sectoid Commanders more than Ethereals. One because like Sindain said, by the time I see an Ethereal, I can kill a Sectopod in one turn.

Two, Sectoid Commanders like to come with Mechtoids.