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Just had my first teleporting incident - I had spotted a group of sectoids without alerting them, and they fell through the world on their turn. Cue them reappearing behind my squad their next turn and murdering two of my people. Thankfully I refuse to play Ironman with this bug still happening. 
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Feb 11, 2013 03:23
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Does anyone have any tips for Marathon Impossible? I gave it a shot (Marathon, Not Created Equal) after finishing my Classic playthrough and it seems that managing panic is going to be next to impossible with building costs.
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Feb 11, 2013 22:10
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Orgophlax posted:They were showing off The Bureau on Spike at some point yesterday. It's basically a 3rd person shooter that slows down when you bring up the command wheel to issue commands. Special abilities for different classes, etc etc. It actually looks a hell of a lot better than the shooter "reboot", but that really isn't a hard bar to clear. The video shows someone getting incapacitated and revived, but the interview says that they have permadeath. Video here. chami fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Jun 11, 2013 |
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Jun 11, 2013 21:32
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Oh man, this seems loads better than the original XCOM shooter we were shown. Why did they start me with assault rifles if they had reverse-engineered lasers and plasma back in the 1960s dammit  That being said, I wish we had more news on the new Firaxis X-COM installment. Has it been confirmed to be TFTD?
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Jun 13, 2013 23:38
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Any tips for Marathon? I just recently got back into this game and figured I would go for a Classic (soft) Ironman Marathon with Not Created Equal, New Economy, Hidden Potential, and Absolutely Critical. I know the standard satellite rushing won't be working to manage panic, so should I just be beelining for the alien base to try and save countries?
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Aug 19, 2013 17:21
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Still waiting on modding tools for the OS X version to be able to try out some Long War goodness. 
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Aug 23, 2013 20:20
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Suitaru posted:Sprinter is the right choice, but Snap Shot pales in comparison to Squadsight. One thing I wish Snap Shot did was remove the accuracy penalty that sniper rifles have for closer ranges. I tried speccing a third sniper up for being a scout with Snap Shot, DGG (to try and take advantage of mobility to negate Snap Shot's penalty along with a scope), and Battle Scanner. If an emey was even just midrange to the sniper I ended up just using my pistol and wishing I had taken Gunslinger instead. On a related note, what are the mechanics for how for a soldier can see/shoot? I had so many issues with my Snap Shot sniper just not having a shot due to range.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:02
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quiggy posted:I can't imagine Snap Shot + DGG is a good combo. You take DGG when you expect your sniper to never ever need to use a pistol and instead sit on the high ground and fire away, which is something Squadsight snipers do. If you're taking Snap Shot, take Gunslinger too. Oh, it's because I forgot that sniper rifles had the range penalty in CQC so I didn't expect to have to switch to the pistol if things got close.  And like Snow Job said, it's pretty handy in the outdoors when I have the sniper zipping around in ghost armor flanking and killing folks.
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Sep 8, 2013 22:19
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SlothfulCobra posted:I got the game for the PC since steam was having a sale, and when I first brought out the Arc thrower I bagged both a sectoid and an outsider! No waiting around for flying saucers when I'm ready to take on the alien base! I'm pretty sure that the first terror mission and Chrysalids will appear in month 2 no matter what. That's the way it's usually been for me at least.
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Oct 8, 2013 21:08
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EXALT's introduction and numbers is going to make Marathon much more interesting, since you'll be stuck at their tech level for longer, they have a ridiculous numerical advantage on you, and injuries taken in Marathon take much longer to recover from, making EXALT missions more of a risk when you have to deal with the aliens as well. I am so hyped for this expansion! 
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Oct 9, 2013 14:53
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The Kins posted:Have a trailer, too. Please tell me that cinematic means assaults on XCOM HQ and not just a fail cinematic against EXALT. 
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Oct 9, 2013 15:10
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Toplowtech posted:Thr achievements for killing "Elite" human enemies attacking your base with the "defense team" have been up on steam for over a week. That's what I mean. I was under the impression that it would be attacks on airbases and the like because of the "EXALT doesn't attack you directly" statements from Firaxis. If those are true, then most likely those scenes are from some sort of "fail to curb EXALT" cinematic like how some of the shots in the original trailer are from the Volunteer's vision in the endgame cinematic. It would be nice if Firaxis was lying and didn't want to show their cards just yet.
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Oct 9, 2013 15:28
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Generic American posted:Haven't they also hinted at re-balancing certain perks? I know Deep Pockets was moved to a Foundry project that applies to everyone, and I swear I read something about them wanting to make certain perks more useful to compete with "easy" choices like Squadsight. Can't remember the specifics, though, so it might've been a fever-dream. No, they did do that. They reduced Snap Shot's aim penalty to -10, made Squad Sight shots unable to crit unless you also used Headshot, among other things. Not to mention there's supposed to be a Second Wave mod that randomizes skill trees past the first promotion. I wonder if it just changes the order or allows cross class skills. Rapid Fire heavies, anyone?
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Oct 10, 2013 04:18
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poptart_fairy posted:Wait, the game was designed and balanced with those second wave options in mind? If that's the case I feel much less guilty about using them. I don't really think they are, as Not Created Equal + Hidden Potential can give you some amazingly broken soldiers. Regarding assault and shotgun talk, I find that playing with Absolutely Critical makes them really strong. Guaranteed criticals on a flank makes mobile classes like assaults really strong. Not to mention that they can become immune to critical hits themselves at Colonel, then you have a running, gunning, gives-no-fucks-ing fist of god in your team. 
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Oct 22, 2013 22:04
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BASE. DEFENSE. I'm hoping this is a gameplay event if you, say, don't shoot down a UFO in your home country or fail to detect an EXALT cell instead of a campaign mission that happens once during every playthrough and the same way every time. chami fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 21:37
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Shumagorath posted:I just want some loving railguns. If plasma weaponry can be man-portable and practical then throwing a pellet of soft metal at Mach 5 should be too. MECs get railguns, they're the MEC laser equivalent. With ending mission chat for the guy having trouble, if his volunteer can get into Rift range won't a single Rift kill the Ethereal? I usually just snipe/blasterbomb him; I've never actually bothered engaging the rest of the enemies in that room. chami fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 23:42
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Darox posted:I'm pretty sure Rift damage depends on the difference in will of the target & caster, so that won't be much help. Plus, even with a 200 will volunteer it only does 8~ damage per tick so it'd take a while to kill him with that alone. Ah, I stand corrected then. I've always just used Rift to utterly destroy the two Sectopods in the room before the final boss so I assumed it would do comparable amounts of damage.
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Oct 24, 2013 00:03
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Give them Resilience too, so they give no fucks about getting flanked.
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Oct 29, 2013 17:47
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poptart_fairy posted:So I'm going to have a fair bit of time on my hands between now and EW's release, perfect opportunity to run a proper Implassic Marathon game. There are a few things I learned from my last Marathon Classic game: 1. Keep a healthy roster and rotate troops in and out to level them up. Injuries take a month to recover from, so don't get stuck fielding rookies against Mutons. 2. Rushing lasers for the first terror mission is impossible, but the slower research pace also means you don't face mutons until much later. If you have Slingshot, the second mission can be put off until you have 6 members in your squad. I usually approach along the right side of the train and take care of the thin men there with snipers on the top of the train; I position a soldier at each node and activate them all on one turn, and then start the train with my last move or my first move of the next turn so I don't have to slog through the Muton reinforcements with nothing but ballistic weaponry. 3. Uplinks take 20+ days to build! Plan accordingly. 4. Research credits from interrogations and South America's bonus/Europe's labs are really valuable, try and get some labs up along with your workshops. I would even go so far as to say go Arc > Alien Containment to get those research credits ASAP; people usually rush lasers to get them in time for the first terror mission and that's not happening on Marathon. I would argue that getting a 6-man squad is a better boost than getting lasers as soon as possible on Marathon - those are extra grenades/rockets/medkits you can use. 5. Because research is slow, you're going to get a lot of UFO parts that you aren't going to be able to use for a while. Early game you will pretty much fund yourself by selling off tons of Alloys - you can't use them just yet, you'll get lots more through UFO missions, and you can't depend on having uplinks and satellites up right away due to Uplinks taking much longer to build.
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Oct 31, 2013 19:00
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HaitianDivorce posted:Yeah, as much as I like Marathon Slingshot just isn't balanced for it. I always hold off until I've got a good team of 6 with lasers. Get a team of six, but don't trigger a single node until you have a man at each one. The Mutons always drop in on overwatch, so if you activate them all on the same turn and then start the train they shouldn't have the opportunity to hurt your team.
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Nov 2, 2013 18:26
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poptart_fairy posted:Cheese it is then. There's no penalty for postponing the mission.
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Nov 2, 2013 21:43
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poptart_fairy posted:
If you have more than one per base (which you should), upgrade them separately in case that happens. 
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Nov 4, 2013 13:25
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poptart_fairy posted:e; that's a lot of resources for winning the mission. Deuce posted:Yeah, that battleship is loaded. The two fusion cores in particular are insane, gives you access to the guided fusion launcher without having to upgrade air enough to shoot down a battleship. It's a huge tease in Marathon, however - if I recall correctly, just the research for Blaster Launchers and Fusion Lances both take 2 Fusion Cores, so you're only able to research one of them but not build it.
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Nov 4, 2013 17:39
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poptart_fairy posted:Yeah, haha. I'm happy going for Fusion Lances though. I'd prefer to negate the air battles than acquire a (admittedly ludicrously powerful) rocket launcher. Mind you EMP might be an idea but then that greatly increases the risk to both fleet and squads, hmm. I never go for Fusion Lances - Plasma Cannons and EMP are more than enough to bring down any UFO. Later on in Marathon, you're going to start running into shortages of UFO materials which makes getting them mostly intact through EMP more useful. Blaster Launchers, however, are 100% hit chance, high damage, and go around obstacles. Blasters are pretty much always the best choice.
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Nov 4, 2013 18:35
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Szechuan posted:He linked to part two of the stream by mistake. EW is at 8'40" in part one. (I'd link it but I'm phone posting, sorry.) You're probably going to need multiple assaults with CC specialist to extract the majority of your team from that map.  So hyped!
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Nov 4, 2013 22:16
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RBA Starblade posted:That's going to be big enough to make me reconsider making every sniper a squadsight one then, ouch. Even with the changes to that other skill on its own squadsight still seems more valuable. My main sniper in my classic playthrough is a Snap Shot sniper with the jump and depth perception gene mods; her crazy mobility and ridiculous accuracy even after moving (give them a Scope early on to offset Snap Shot's penalty) makes my team much more mobile because I don't have to wait for the Squadsight sniper to catch up. I also gave her In the Zone because she has many more opportunities to flank without needing to waste a Heavy's rocket. I think the only problem I had with her at first was getting the hang of when she was in range or not, but I think that for my subsequent playthroughs my first sniper will almost always be Snap Shot. Mind you, I have a Squadsight sniper who is incredibly useful in terror missions, where you aren't very mobile after saving a few civilians. Squadsight is still great for 100% on demand damage and an almost guaranteed crit every three turns. I haven't gotten Archangel armor yet, but I barely used it in the base game anyway because I preferred Ghost on my
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Nov 14, 2013 18:20
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I had a sectoid commander remind me that yes, your beefy mcpunchalot MEC can still get mind controlled.  That probably spooked the support using it as cover quite a bit!
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Nov 14, 2013 23:31
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MJ12 posted:MEC stuff This has been my experience too in the early game, to the point where sometimes have to hide MEC troopers for the remainder of a mission because they're left with one or two HP (I had really bad luck with medkit promotions in training roulette so I was stuck with a 1-use medkit for 4 HP for the longest time). They really start getting tankier once they have One for All, Damage Control, and Repair Servos. I need to go back and check to see whether or not they get a defense boost from One for All, but in my experience I've seen more shots miss them while they're in cover mode than not. Also whoever pointed out the Proximity Mine + Grenade launcher combo really helped me out. I generally use a mimetic skin + low profile assault as a spotter for my two MECs raining 13 damage AOE artillery, and then I clean up with the snapshot/ITZ/aggression mimetic skin sniper. If I mess up, I have the heavy with grenadier + ghost grenades. Use ghost grenades, they're an amazing "get out of jail free" card for your non-mimetic skinned troops!
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Nov 15, 2013 16:36
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Thanks to training roulette, I got Sprinter, Low Profile, Close and Personal, and Rapid Fire on the assault I got from the Progeny storyline. I promptly slapped Mimetic Skin on her, but the only EXALT mission I got to take her on was taking out the base. Oh, the things that could have been.
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Nov 15, 2013 20:10
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Regarding MEC flamethrowers, one great thing about them is that they can panic Ethereals and Muton Elites. Guaranteed damage with jellied elerium makes it so the bastards never get a chance to mind control.
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Nov 15, 2013 22:29
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Zore posted:With Training Roulette its the only guarenteed way you can move and shoot with a Sniper. Buffed Snap Shot is amazing. Your team is much more mobile as a whole without having to wait for a Squadsight sniper to somehow get line-of-sight. I don't actually run into the issues with sniper rifle minimum range, and giving my superstar sniper has mimetic skin, jump legs, and In the Zone making her an amazing scout capable of cleaning out a few enemies every round if she gets the drop on them. Snap shot's aim penalty is negated by a SCOPE, and once your sniper has a few ranks and high aim you can swap it out for other items (though I stick with improved scope for the crit bonus). I think you should try it out, it's as different as night and day from old Snap Shot.
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Nov 15, 2013 23:06
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Hellburger99 posted:I got a question about the XCOM base mission, spoilered for those who haven't played it and want to go in fresh: FoolyCharged posted:My squad seemed to be composed entirely of the first 6 available people from the barracks list(which is sorted by rank). The actual rookie mooks it gives you are always stuck in ballistics with no armor and two grenades, as I outfitted my entire force with exalt lasers prior to the invasion What FoolyCharged said is what I observed as well. It goes with what they're currently equipped even if they are fresh out of sick bay and didn't go on your last mission so it's entirely possible to get a highly-ranked soldier with nothing but a flak jacket and ballistic weapons. For my last playthrough, the base assault happened a few days after the alien base, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep your highest-ranked six or seven soldiers equipped with EXALT lasers if you don't have the equipped for active missions. It's gamey and cheesy, but gently caress having to face down a mectoid with nothing but a shotgun. 
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Nov 16, 2013 01:08
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Here there be SLEEVES. Apparently it only takes an .ini edit to have genemodded soldiers wear regular equipment again. Hellburger99 posted:Thanks, I was hoping that was the case. In a way it is "gamey", but its more "realistic" than my previous tactic of "buying only enough good weapons for one squad at a time" strategy. Besides, by that point I had so many Exalt weapons that I could have equipped my whole base twice over if I had bothered. On a related note, Exalt laser snipers are so much cooler looking than the XCOM variants. I really wish that Exalt got laser shotguns or plasma tech, too The Reddit thread I found the mod above in also says that you can edit the same .ini to give your plasma weapons EXALT models if you so desire. I haven't tried either yet as my XCOM install is on my Boot Camp partition and I don't have the time to play right now, but I'll give it a shot and update this post later if nobody has tried it yet. chami fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 01:22
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Fargin Icehole posted:All these times i've played, and i've never been able to destroy a battleship. I have to intentionally let scout ships pass to spawn one right? Well, I certainly can't get one with the missles, because I'm irresponsible and funnel all my money to my troops rather than my air force. You pretty much have no chance of shooting down a battleship without Plasma-equipped Firestorms. Spamming consumables might help, I rarely use them so I wouldn't know. Doobie Keebler posted:Training roulette is the best of the best things in EW. Mixing up the classes is so much fun. Somehow 5 of my A-Teamers have HEAT ammo which is awesome. No one on my roster has lightening reflexes yet though which is making some situations difficult. Color coding my soldier has become difficult. Sure Nuke's a heavy but he's also the only one with the revive skill. Is he red or yellow? So many decisions. Absolutely no one on my A or B teams had HEAT ammo thanks to Training Roulette. Secotopods were a ton of fun! 
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Nov 17, 2013 17:23
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poptart_fairy posted:
(Sectopod (Mini)) If those fuckers are "mini" sectopods I would love to fight a full-sized one.
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Nov 17, 2013 19:41
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Ravenfood posted:Is he in Titan armor? Other than that, I don't think anything but respirator implants or medkits make you immune to poison. Ghost armor also makes you immune to poison, strangulation, and fire now.
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Nov 17, 2013 19:55
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Both Snap Shot and Squadsight are really good, you should have at least one of each to switch out depending on the mission. I'm not sure which one benefits more from Training Roulette, as my superstar Snap Shot sniper was amazing with Aggression but missed out on Low Profile so she couldn't abuse Mimetic Skin as much as my Low Profile Assault. Then again, my Squadsight sniper got Close Combat Specialist which is probably the most useless thing on him ever. Has anyone else tried Marathon on EW yet? I just started out a Classic game based in Asia where I plan to go Foundry/SHIV/Genemod for the start. I want to avoid using MECs early in the game just to spice things up a little. Because even Weapons Fragment research takes ridiculously long, I was thinking of just depending on SHIVs, OTS upgrades, and Reaper Rounds to carry me through the first half-year until I can get labs and beam weapons up.
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Nov 17, 2013 21:28
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Tindahbawx posted:I take it then that Height advantage and half cover, doesn't give you he same defense as full cover? As far as I recall, height advantage doesn't give you any defense bonuses, only increased chance to hit.
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Nov 24, 2013 17:31
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Anatharon posted:Babby's first impossible terror mission: I somehow bumbled through it with 3 excellent ratings using terrestrial weapons and my B-team. RE: MEC suits, yes. The only terror mission I wasn't ashamed to reload to get a different map was the first one on Classic Marathon. Facing it with my 4 man half-rookie B-team with nothing but ballistics was a total crapshoot.
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Dec 3, 2013 19:58
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Delacroix posted:This sectoid I shot with disabling shot powered up and got a reaction shot on every single person (5!) I moved up. At least I didn't move the VIP. Yeah, I avoid Disabling Shot because of the bugs. I just have people carry flashbangs and ghost grenades for covering the rookie with the Arc Thrower. Alkydere posted:Also, backing this up. Yes, SHIVs aren't quite the murder-machines that MECs are in some ways, but they're still awesome in many, many ways. Mainly the fact that they're cheap, don't cost MELD and come ready to kick-rear end out of the door. Also, in addition to upgrading the weapon strapped on them, SHIV weapon upgrades give bonus aim (+10 for laser, +15 for plasma (+25 total)) and those SHIV guns hit loving hard. SHIVs are amazing. My classic/Marathon campaign is intentionally no-MEC (my next campaign will be no-genemod just to spice things up) and SHIVs basically fill the role of the tank, expendable scout, and heavy firepower all in one. They self-repair, aliens love targeting them over the rookie cowering behind full cover, and best of all they're cheap and cost no MELD. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is not having them for the base invasion, but I'm slowly building up a stable of genemodded colonels and rotating my squads so that I don't have more than one of them possibly injured in one mission.
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Dec 4, 2013 13:51
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