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[BFEL]

3. If you're reloading your saves every turn, you're doing something wrong. Probably playing incautiously like it's vanilla. Don't take yellow moves into the fog of war. Don't assume nothing will patrol into you. Don't send troopers into the fog of war when you're already engaged with one pod.

This is exactly the problem, I don't like restricting my playstyle because of the mod, I don't find it fun to do so (the third one I never do though)

And everyone is talking like Outsiders are some huge problem, no the early game IS pretty easy, its just that it ramps up to lolfuckyou levels REALLY goddamn fast. Enemy pods start getting more numerous and closer together right about the time thin men start showing up, and I haven't found a not cheating way to get to lasers/actualarmor before chrysallids start showing up, which is batshit.

And no, I'm not just talking about the battleships and such, those are potentially fun because you generally KNOW shits gonna fuck you when you get into that, and its pretty easy to avoid taking on larger UFOs.

Maybe I just need to try cinematic mode or something, but right now it just doesn't feel super fun.

Not sure what is meant by config file editing doing nothing.  I edit the shit out of those config files and totally change the pace of the game to allow faster progress.

Also, the config file actually working is a Long War thing as far as I know. I'm pretty sure vanilla still uses the baked in version.

Yeah, this is what I mean.

[Sensei]

I don't think there's a good way to get better equipped before Chrysallids show up. Granted, I'm on my first run and I fucked up weapons research because I didn't realize how scarce fragments were, but I've been dealing with the purple bastards with battle rifles and grenades. There are casualties, sometimes. I lost half my team in the accursed Newfoundland mission, but I still did it with nothing more advanced than alloy rounds, and minimal armor (since you can't survive more than one hit anyway, speed is more valuable).

[puke]

haha.  If not taking yellow moves into the fog of war is restricting your play style, you probably need to play on cinematic mode or tweak the config files to raise your stat minimums, or otherwise cheat a bit more.

I'm not judging.  I check the heck outa Long War even though I /dont/ yellow move into FOW.

[umiman]

I don't think there's a good way to get better equipped before Chrysallids show up. Granted, I'm on my first run and I fucked up weapons research because I didn't realize how scarce fragments were, but I've been dealing with the purple bastards with battle rifles and grenades. There are casualties, sometimes. I lost half my team in the accursed Newfoundland mission, but I still did it with nothing more advanced than alloy rounds, and minimal armor (since you can't survive more than one hit anyway, speed is more valuable).

Ya, I think LW will send you all the way up against Mutons before you have laser weapons.

[i2amroy]

This is exactly the problem, I don't like restricting my playstyle because of the mod, I don't find it fun to do so (the third one I never do though)

No offense intended, but that's like, I don't know, playing a chess computer, cranking the difficulty all of the way up, and then complaining when you lose because your favorite pieces are the knights and so they are the only pieces you ever move in the whole game. I mean sure, forcing you to play with all of your pieces instead of just the knights could be considered "restricting your playstyle", but (to me at least) it seems like playing with just the knights, no matter how much you like them, is kinda stabbing yourself in the back anyways. You aren't experiencing the whole game, y'know?

Just my two cents, though yeah, feel free to turn on cinematic mode to make stuff lots easier if you want some more leg room; there is a reason why it's a second wave option after all.

Granted, I'm on my first run and I fucked up weapons research because I didn't realize how scarce fragments were, but I've been dealing with the purple bastards with battle rifles and grenades.

I ran into the same problem on my first run, and my solid advice is just to restart and save yourself the many hours of your loss slowly grinding ever closer. Part of playing tactically is making sure you stay on top of the research ball, and if you messed up too badly then you will eventually reach a point where it becomes nigh-impossible to proceed because your weapons can't hurt them while their weapons one shot you.

goddamn fast. Enemy pods start getting more numerous and closer together right about the time thin men start showing up, and I haven't found a not cheating way to get to lasers/actualarmor before chrysallids start showing up, which is batshit.

I can assure you that getting at least a handful of decent weapons is totally possible to do by the time they show. IIRC in my last run-through I had at least basic laser weapons by the time they showed up (and honestly against chrysallids armor is pretty useless until the very late game). My biggest suggestion with dealing with them is a combination of two things though:
1) Assaults with shotguns, triply so if you can rush one up to get close combat specialist. Two assaults with CCS standing next to each other pretty much renders anyone in their sphere of influence immune to chrysallids for most of the early game, even with just basic ballistic weapons. You can't always have these by the first terror mission, but if you focus on at least one assault you can usually have one by the second one.
2) Grenades+Flash bangs. Chrysallids tend to run up as a group, which makes them perfect targets to hit with an explosive. If you still want the corpses you can even just lob a grenade or two at them to soften them up before you fight them, then finish them all off manually. Alternatively if you spot chrysallids far enough away a flash bang can really be helpful. At near max flash bang range you can buy yourself an entire extra turn to shoot them before they reach you, which can be very helpful.

Lastly just as a general tip (it actually doesn't really apply to chyrsallids ) I'd like to once more reinforce the idea that "firefight = very bad". Ideally you should wipe out an entire pod on the first turn. If you don't think you are going to have them all dead within a turn or so, consider retreating. Moving back out of their range and then letting them come to you (only to be riddled with overwatch shots) is a totally valid strategy, and one that I personally have used many a time.

[Jacob/Lee]

The golden rule: high cover or bust. High cover gives front-facing aliens a hell of a time trying to hit you and gives you a bit more padding (in the form of better damage reduction) if they make the shot. If you can't find good high cover, get to low cover and hunker down if you can reasonably assume that the aliens won't rush you for a flank. Most aliens are smart/defensive enough not to rush if they don't stand a good chance, but certain ones (floaters and drones come to mind) will throw themselves into Certain Death™ if it means killing a soldier.

Be warned that thin mints will frequently pick spitting acid at soldiers over taking a shot, unless they're in a position to take a flanking shot. Aliens with grenades + EXALT also tend to lob grenades at you, doubly so if there's two soldiers in the blast radius. I try to drag along engineers loaded down with HE grenades (or at least some rookies with them) and flatten the alien's cover first.

Finally: if you prefer flanking over grenade spam, do note that aliens will seemingly always relocate if they're being flanked, even if it means running through reaction fire from overwatch and suppression. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on how you want to set up your attack.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, it's normal to face Chryssies with the basic ballistic weapons. I typically end up doing both the first terror mission or two and the Newfoundland mission without beam lasers in my playthroughs. The thing is, LW gives you the tools to deal with the problems it presents. Even with only 6 squad members, that's enough for two infantry (who get two shots/turn), two assaults with Close Combat Specialist and Close Encounters, a rocketeer with three or four rockets, and whatever you want.

All-Chryssie terror missions can actually be pretty easy with a setup like that. I recall one where my sixth guy was a scout with some absurd movement speed (something like 17 or 18, with his tac-vest and SMG), I sent him running around the entire map saving civilians while the other five camped at the dropoff point and mowed down everything that came at them. True, I got lucky with some of my movements and managed to not lose the guy, but still.

Playing in Cinematic mode is fine. Hell, I do it for the reason that someone outlined above about LW's firing angles mechanic being needless bullshit when combined with higher difficulties. But... refraining from moving troops into unknown territory without an out, especially when you're already in a firefight... that's not LW's fault. It's a bad idea in vanilla, too, unless you're playing with such easy settings that screwing up won't punish you at all. It was a dumb idea all the way back in 1993 when the original game launched to use the last of a trooper's TUs to leave them swinging in the breeze.

Unless they were a psy-weakling and you already had a couple high-rankers as psybait, in which case it was artificial selection in action hehehe.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Wrong thread.

[Rolan7]

Reply to post in wrong thread.

[Flying Dice]

Speak of the devil, just had a fucking terrible Terror Mission in Cairo. It's late October, so I've got mostly Gauss/Beam Lasers and the unpowered alloy armors. It's on one of those evil, evil road maps that are basically straight-shots with no subtlety and less good cover (plus random LoS bugs on some of the hard cover). The only good position is the starting one, which has a couple heavy cover trucks; the rest is open ground and half cover.

Unfortunately all of the civilians are behind alium lines. It ended up being a total of 2 Cyberdiscs, 1 Mechtoid, 1 Sectoid, 1 Thin Man, 5 Seekers, 3 Drones, and 5 Mutons. Literally no choices beyond "advance into shitty cover to try to save some civilians" or "hide in overwatch while terror is massively spiked by civilian deaths". Still managed to save 8 without any injuries because I was careful to only activate 1-2 pods at a time and properly allocate resources (aka HEAT gunner Rapid Fires the big mechs, Scout draws out all the overwatch, Assault pulls out the forklift to carry the rest of the squad). ^^

It really fucking sucked, though, because the lack of cover was made worse by me prepping for a different map and having half my squad be slowpokes with <11 movement. My fault on that one haha.

[scrdest]

Had my first Terror mission - obviously, on Balistics, no armor - though do bear in mind, I play Cinematic.

TIL: Beijing looks like a Canadian fishing village. Game threw like four Chryssalids at me all at once, which proved their undoing, because I promptly initiated a protocol formally known as 'Eat AP Grenade, Stupids'. Meanwhile, a bunch of three floaters killed half the missions civvies because they were ten lightyears from the drop zone at the dock next to the ship.

[BFEL]

Yeah started a new LW with Cinematic mode and Not so Long War checked and its much better so far, still early though.

[umiman]

Okay.

I just killed a berserker and I still haven't gotten laser weapons yet. Unless you count this arc thrower as a laser weapon. At this rate I'd have beaten the game before I even get carapace armor.

[Flying Dice]

Hahahaha what's funny is that you actually believe that.

And then you'll find yourself putting off the alien base raid because everything gets worse after that. I generally don't attempt it until I've got power armor, pulse lasers, and trained-up MECs, because there's no going back to the times where 20-alien missions with entire pods of Heavy Floaters and Mechtoids are the game giving you a break. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[umiman]

I am aware of those that thing. Though you might want to spoiler that post for others who haven't seen it.

The last time I played I definitely had laser weapons before I fought berserkers though. I know I killed mutons with regular guns, but definitely had lasers when the cyberdisks and stuff started showing up.