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[Spehss _]

Plus the proximity mines can let you control the battlefield slightly better. if you don't want an alien to move, plant a mine on top of fit.

The MECs can become pretty swell artillery. The grenade launchers plus proximity mines lets you stack several mines on one enemy/group of enemies, then force the mines to explode with any other explosive...like the MEC's grenade launchers.

[NullForceOmega]

I don't see my MECs as artillery, I see them as tanks.  I use the kinetic impact module for nasties that like to close (stupid chrysalid, don't you know you can't hurt me?), the grenade launcher because I like to have some extra punch, and the shock module because I'm probably that close with a MEC anyway, and it flat out breaks sectopods over it's knee.  Four MECs outfitted like this don't worry about 'controlling the battlefield' because they are flat out dominating it.  I don't care where the enemy tries to go, it's already dead, it just doesn't know it yet.

I use the following abilities almost exclusively:
Advanced fire control, I might switch this one on a support soldier.
Damage control, while the extra 2 damage is okay, I prefer the survivability.
Jetboot module, no reason not to.
Expanded storage, more ammo? Check.  More grenades/healing spray? Check.
Reactive targeting sensors, possibly two overwatch shots per turn, and a definite one against the first enemy who fires on my MEC? Sign me the hell up.

[BFEL]

For those looking for more tactical flexibility with MECs, SHIVs and Psi's, look up The Long War mod. It's punishing as hell, but it has lots of nice tweaks to make it feel more worth it.

Oh, and in this all classes have three ability choices instead of two. Including the class defining rank.

[Sean Mirrsen]

  Hum. I always liked the difficulty increase in tactical combat on Classic, what annoyed me to no end was the changes to Geoscape. If you can even call the NewCom Geoscape that. It's more like a time-management and base-building minigame tacked onto the tactical game.
  Classic and above severely exacerbate the problems brought forth by the basic design of the game, that being that the player is forced to fail no matter what he does. Little compartmentalized continents with airspace barriers passable only by UFOs and Skyrangers, countries that each need a satellite to watch over them regardless of their size(can I please get a copy of the satellite over Russia so I can put it over the whole of Europe?), aliens that always attack in threes and a Council that can't get the hint and build two more XCom bases even after a whole year of them doing it, the list goes on, really.
  I don't mind the kind of difficulty where a missed spike in activity results in a base and a swarm of Battleships over the USA by the third month when all you have is three Interceptors - you can really look back and say "if I'd only done X, I could have prevented this". Let the aliens step up their game, let them overpower the player and keep the "you cannot win this war" feeling that the people who defend the NewCom design like, but let the player fight back, dammit. The way the game is set up, you can win every battle that you are (allowed to be) faced with, and you will still lose the war because you're being boxed in for no good reason. And returning to the original matter, this is what I dislike about Classic mode in NewCom.
  With your options so limited, you have to follow a pretty specific strategy to keep the world from falling apart in the first months, effectively replacing the "strategy" with a build-order. The higher difficulties more or less remove a large part of the game because its simplicity dictates a specific course of action that needs to be taken to keep playing at that difficulty, and I really don't like that.

[GlyphGryph]

I do agree the Classic mode geoscape was annoying. It's basically "rush satellites" as the only viable strategy, but... honestly, it's a pretty reliable strategy.

You might lose a few nations, but that won't lose you the game, and I don't think I've ever found myself in a situation where "you will still lose the war because you're being boxed in for no good reason" on Classic mode.

But I will definitely agree with

  With your options so limited, you have to follow a pretty specific strategy to keep the world from falling apart in the first months, effectively replacing the "strategy" with a build-order. The higher difficulties more or less remove a large part of the game because its simplicity dictates a specific course of action that needs to be taken to keep playing at that difficulty, and I really don't like that.

Not because it's hard (the build order to obtain geoscape dominance in Classic mode isn't really hard once you figure it out), but because it's so *boring*. You're doing it wrong until you're doing it right, but then it's a solved problem and you need to keep doing!

[Toady One]

(removed fight, and a few other posts that got caught in the middle by mistake -- please exercise caution when using intensifying words and so on...  there's really no need for it)

[EnigmaticHat]

Brrrzap, there goes mah post.

[Duuvian]

I missed all that.

I will say having 3 attacks at once but only being able to defend against 1 was pretty annoying. I agree, you would think X-com would make more bases if only one base can only respond to one attack at a time.

 

Maybe though there ARE other bases doing the same as you and X-Com does not let you know that in case one is taken over. The aliens just attack 3x as many places as there are bases due to their inscrutable strategy.

[Jacob/Lee]

<snip>

I don't count SHIV cover as a viable cover because A) it is low cover and, more importantly, B) two X-COM units close to each other invites every alien on the map and their cloning vat operator to bomb it with grenades, blissfully unaware of every other target of opportunity.

I never actually used SHIVs after I bought EW, namely because I didn't really pay attention to them even with the base game alone. They cost a pretty penny to build, which I would prefer spending on a MEC or constructing more equipment for my fleshy soldiers. Never played Long War, though.

[Spehss _]

I don't think of SHIVs so much as literal physical cover as metaphorical cover. They seem to draw aggro a bunch, so that you can afford putting a soldier or two in half cover occasionally if it means you can flank or something, as long as you have the SHIV in line of sight of the aliens. Hover SHIVs are particularly great for drawing aggro, what with the defense boost from hovering and suppression.

And with EW health regen tech, they're even better for sending into dangerous situations.

[Skyrunner]

Maybe though there ARE other bases doing the same as you and X-Com does not let you know that in case one is taken over. The aliens just attack 3x as many places as there are bases due to their inscrutable strategy.

I like to think that other militaries are doing their best with swat teams or stuff to combat the enemy menace, and XCOM is called for the most difficult abductions. I still wonder why XCOM doesn't get fancy mechanized resources like tanks or APCs in missions :v

[TCM]

Maybe though there ARE other bases doing the same as you and X-Com does not let you know that in case one is taken over. The aliens just attack 3x as many places as there are bases due to their inscrutable strategy.

I like to think that other militaries are doing their best with swat teams or stuff to combat the enemy menace, and XCOM is called for the most difficult abductions. I still wonder why XCOM doesn't get fancy mechanized resources like tanks or APCs in missions :v

I thought it might be justified in costs, each X-COM Base costs a thousand trillion billion tax dollars.

[Jacob/Lee]

Maybe though there ARE other bases doing the same as you and X-Com does not let you know that in case one is taken over. The aliens just attack 3x as many places as there are bases due to their inscrutable strategy.

I like to think that other militaries are doing their best with swat teams or stuff to combat the enemy menace, and XCOM is called for the most difficult abductions. I still wonder why XCOM doesn't get fancy mechanized resources like tanks or APCs in missions :v

If you mean why the militaries don't provide any: Some maps have tanks and other armored vehicles on them and one-two stray shots from plasma fire will make them go up in flames. The cannon on a tank would be useful, but the tank itself is a massive target that takes little to destroy with what the aliens carry. X-COM also probably can't afford to build its own, tailor-made anti-alien vehicles, since a lot of personal equipment is already extremely costly. Probably the same reason why we never have air support on missions.

[umiman]

I'm playing long war as well based on all the recommendations here. It's quite entertaining, but I'm a bit annoyed by the workaround they did to simulate combat fatigue. Basically the whole "wounded" thing.

It's really annoying, though I understand why they did it.

I like all the new guns they put in. The difficulty doesn't seem to bad. The aliens seem kinda bullshit at first, but you also have 2 free squadmembers to start and everyone has two item slots. So it kinda balances out.

[EnigmaticHat]

So Beaglerush has put up a new video with Long War Beta 11, and... I kind of want to quit my current game now so I can play.  Why do you ask?  Sawed off shotguns.

In the pistol slot.