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I'd like to start a new game since I've beaten Classic, but I get the vibe that Impossible has basically the same problem as Classic - in worse: the beginning is drat hard but once you've made it pas the first few months you're just humiliating the aliens. It really pisses me off to see that a bunch of changes between Classic and Impossible are the kind that only make the beginning harder (3 HP rookies anyone?) without impacting the mid/end. Is there a mod around here compatible with EW that adresses that? Flattest curves of progress for soldiers (better rookies but colonels who are not infaillible killing machines), starting enemies still reasonably weak but stronger mutons elites/ ethereals /stuff? Yeah I could try my hand at making mine but eh,  .Long War seemed neat but only EU.
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Feb 18, 2014 17:36
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Just started a Long War campaign, I have barely scratched the surface but for now it seems really cool. Finding out that they had randomized grenade damage was pretty painful. Here goes one of the last certainties I could cling to in a world of unfair randomness.  To those more advanced in this mod, have they achieved their goal to offer a mid/late-game that is less of a non-stop humiliation of the aliens? How do the difficulty levels compare to the ones from XCOM vanilla? I started in Classic, don't know if I should have been more daring. For now I'd say the difficulty is okay but when my most experienced soldiers are on the field I get this vibe of "let's rape the aliens" that I had in the end of Xcom C/I.
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Mar 9, 2014 03:16
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VDay posted:I think the difficulty scales much better (or at least more evenly) than in Vanilla EW. The beginning is easy(er) because you get 6 guys right off the bat and you're still mostly fighting 6-9 aliens per mission who, while buffed, aren't too ridiculous compared to Vanilla. But even 2-3 months in you start seeing medium-sized UFOs, and those have two outsiders in them, who both have 10 HP and regenerate health every turn. As the game goes on you start running into tougher and tougher enemies, and have to make actual choices on who to take thanks to fatigue. You run into situations where you're forced to take underleveled guys because the alternative means that you don't have a single decent soldier left if you get another mission in 2-3 days, so there's some added difficulty in that. And let's put it this way: they decided that having 8 soldiers instead of 6 would be necessary in order to balance things, so that gives you an idea of how much harder later encounters are. Good. I look forward to it. With the 2 slots from the beginning and the additional options to put things in it, at least the rookies/squaddies won't be a total dead weight. I think the strategic level is going to kill me anyway. I have no idea if I'm using my money correctly and I have only one steam vent.
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Mar 9, 2014 20:25
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Having the SHIVs show up as headless soldiers would have been hilarious if not for the fact that they were unable to fire. Looks like something is broken. Is using the check files from steam enough to reverse to a "clean" installation on which to put LW beta 4? I am not very enthusiastic at the idea of re-downloading the whole game.
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Mar 15, 2014 06:00
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Cathair posted:If you ever do need a clean install, don't bother downloading the whole game again, just do a Steam backup and reinstall from that. The only files in the backup will be those recognized by Steam as part of the game, and anything that had been modified will be re-downloaded. But I bet I have to do the back up from a clean install, and I already have LW installed. But if I just have to avoid using the Release all items button that's ok, the re-install can wait. Thankfully I had the good sense not to start my LW game in Ironman and can restart this mission with soldiers that all have heads.
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Mar 15, 2014 16:48
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Cathair posted:Nope, that's what I was saying- I'm not sure whether it just skips anything that's been modified when it makes the backup, or whether it checks things as it restores and re-downloads anything that doesn't match, but you will end up with a clean install at a much lower bandwidth cost. Great, thanks for the tip. That will save a lot of hassle in the next major change. Would you guys say that knowing the LW tech tree is mandatory to not being stomped, or can I go with my guts? For now it's okay, but I can see the hammer falling soon in the air department if I don't get an upgrade, and I'm just going blindly through the tech that look like they could do something.
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Mar 15, 2014 18:14
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Wait. You're supposed to be able to heal stabilized soldiers? I thought stabilizing them was the best you could do for them.
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Mar 16, 2014 20:23
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Zore posted:There's a support perk that lets you. Yes, but I think the poster above was talking about stabilizing a soldier then using a medkit again to heal them and get them back to the fight, not about the perk.
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Mar 16, 2014 20:29
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Looks like SHIV are permanently hosed up in my LW campaign, not only when I use the Release Items button. Bugger, I was really beginning to feel the need for them. I'd better clean my install and start over again I suppose.
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Mar 20, 2014 15:57
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All my good dudes in hospital/resting, only one sniper, one medic and a bunch of privates available. And two SHIVs, but they are broken in my campaign. A terror mission, a covert extraction, and a council mission pop at the same time. The council mission is newfoundland. Stupid me, thinking that the abductions coming one at a time in LW would relieve the pressure. I went for the cov ops mission, but kept the sniper at home... first time I had my rear end handed to me by EXALT. I know they're meant to be a true opposition in LW, but still, my ego bleeds.
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Mar 21, 2014 21:26
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Ravenfood posted:If you're really, really hurting, remember that you can gamble that you'll get a break and send your tired guys on missions. They'll take a wound for their troubles, but it might be worth it. I seem (seem) to get longer breaks around the month switch. I already played that card. That's one of the ways I sent so many of my dudes in hospital. Well, I was more and more tempted to drop this game to start one with non-hosed up SHIVs anyway.
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Mar 22, 2014 00:51
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I think the reason I activated Red Mist in my current playthrough is that I was so pissed at the 1-HP cyberdiscs wrecking havoc on my team after a round of unlucky focused fire failed to take it out. God, cyberdiscs are scary. Red Mist ends up loving me a lot of the time, but I can't count the number of time one of my soldiers was saved from a flanking shot due to the wounded Thin Man feeling too weak to take the shot and poisoning him instead. Makes poisoning so frequent that yesterday I brought 6 med packs on Portent. Used all of them.
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Mar 24, 2014 17:24
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Cathair posted:I prefer to win or lose based on the tactical decisions I make, rather than the whim of an RNG The possibility of being hosed hard by the RNG is an integral part of XCom even vanilla (this drat 99% shot against a chrysalid blocking the way out in Newfoundland... missed!), random explosives don't change that dramatically. By the way, LW is designed so that being hosed by the RNG and losing a mission because of that is not as much of a deal as in vanilla, you're actually supposed to sometimes have a mission turning into a catastrophe where the challenge becomes to be able to turn tail and flee without losing too much. "More of a war and less of a puzzle" really nails it. I agree the variance in damage was pretty stupidly high in the first version though (christ, 0 damage on all targets in a group of 3 aliens?), but I think they did a good job to fix it in the latest betas. I'd advocate playing with Red Mist, when you throw a grenade into a pack, even if you don't take them out, you damaged them and raised their chances to miss in all their subsequent shots, so your decisions still impacted the game. But I see a lot of reasons not to play with it though.
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Mar 27, 2014 02:17
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allsizesfitone posted:EXALT missions are squaddie training grounds, and that's about it. And, as said above, to punch guys in the face with MECs. That's good for the player's nerves after a few tense missions vs aliens. EXALT seems less of a joke in LW though. Or maybe I've been really careless because of how incompetent I remembered them to be.
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Mar 27, 2014 18:55
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Spiderfist Island posted:What would be cool is if they could mod in a new facility that lets you expend Meld to rapidly heal soldiers. They could call it Bacta Tanks Hell yes. But the base already is a bit cluttered in LW, with the need for more satellite uplinks and labs.
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Mar 28, 2014 01:33
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I suppose most of you were aware of that but I just found out that battlescanners reveal seekers. That's really great, especially as it seems they are stronger now in LW (I couldn't kill a seeker the turn it appeared to strangle one of my guys, as a result he died before I could take a second round of shooting. Well, it's not like I am sniper-starved or something...). In LW, how many soldiers do you try to train? I'm in June and I'm trying to train as many rookies to SPEC/CPL level as possible while the missions do not include many mutons or cyberdiscs, but I'm afraid to lack supersoldiers when I will need them. Well maybe I already lost due to researching lasers instead of Gauss, but hey. Ravenfood posted:Its going to get even worse when Muton Elites and Heavy Floaters show up isn't it. I can't remember ever seeing a heavy floater using a grenade, in Vanilla or in LW. The first time I mind-controlled one and found out he had a grenade, I was baffled.
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Apr 6, 2014 18:10
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drat. I just captured a floater in my LW playthrough, my current objective is to interrogate a live alien, and... The research doesn't show up. Please tell me that it's not a game-breaking bug. Interrogating captives is still supposed to be a research, right?
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Apr 8, 2014 20:35
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amanasleep posted:Floater interrogation requires Floater autopsy first. Oh. Which itself has other prerequisite I don't have. Well, I guess I should rather try to capture a sectoid or a thin man. gently caress the 50% arc thrower of LW.
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Apr 8, 2014 21:02
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Pomp posted:There are people who don't play Ironman? Playing Ironman in an add-on with "Beta" in it sounds like a recipe for disaster. I say that as someone who only played Ironman in Vanilla.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:04
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Torrannor posted:I will take the first true successor to Alpha Centauri over yet another XCOM game any time! This, as much as I love XCom. However it seems they are set on not making it really an Alpha Centauri II. (even if their idea of non-sentient alien life seems suspiciously close to the original fungus) That means no more rolling over Yang and Miriam I suppose. Too bad.
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Apr 12, 2014 16:35
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Kinster posted:I heard about that dude with the "Perfect Game" on PC Gamer, so I've been trying to get one together...I loving give up already. 40+ restarts and I always lose someone on my first two missions. Losing some dudes on your first missions is far from a game over. Given how terrible rookies are, that's to be expected. As long as you can keep leveling up a few guys that will make the following missions more successful, you'll be fine.
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Jun 23, 2014 02:09
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I was wondering if someone here had already finished a LW game. I ask because each time I start one, the description of the advanced difficulty modes cracks me up: "for veteran of LW" is there such a thing? Between the updates which regularly gently caress your saves and the possibility to get hosed by not taking the right tech path, (and of course the intrinsic length of long war) seeing the end of a campaign sure requires a lot of dedication. Oh and I find Red Mist to be awesome to mitigate the feeling of being at the mercy of the RNG. I mean, if you fail to kill that alien but instead just bring it at 1-2HP because the RNG hates you, well, you didn't spend your round firing at it for nothing, wounding it has seriously improved your chances to survive the retaliation.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:51
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Is going for lasers still a dead-end in beta 12? Should I beeline Gauss?
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Jul 3, 2014 14:07
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amanasleep posted:Beam Lasers are easy to research and cheap to build. They give a significant aim bonus and +1 damage over ballistics plus they look cool. Gauss takes significantly longer research and is expensive. I'll go for it. Hopefully I won't see too much negative effect before a new beta version breaks the campaign. TheCosmicMuffet posted:It'd be great if, when you have SHIVs, the memorial starts having oil-cans mixed in with the shot glasses. Re: the anticlimactic end of XCom, I would have at least wanted a family picture of the team that won the last mission. And since the game narrative relies so much on you making up your own backstory, being able to write down comments on your soldiers' sheet (and on the memorial...) would be a nice addition. Never forget this guy who died because he missed a 99% shot, or the poor scout whose cover was blasted by a stray rocket of his teammate.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:30
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Hoooooly poo poo EXALT is not a laughing matter anymore. Just lost 3 men and a SHIV to their onslaught. Where am I supposed to train my rookies if EXALT stops sucking? Hope those laser rifles and carbines will help. Things don't die fast enough anymore.
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Jul 4, 2014 05:47
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How do I improve my air game around june? I just got boosters, which is useless as the problem is not following ufos but not getting mauled by them.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:38
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LW question: How do negative funds affect you? Those EXALT dickheads just brought me down to -137, and thanks to my last satellite being downed the council funding at the end of the month won't bring me back above 0.
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Jul 5, 2014 17:29
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drat EXALT has really become super bullshit in current LW. The maps are just filled with them, there's no place to move so it's just a long game of rolling the dice hoping for a streak of luck. Very unfun. Especially with this stupid limitation of 4 operatives. Not accounting for their ability to bring the treasury in the negative figures. I'm soooo tempted to use the dev console to get rid of them. (and at heart, I'm an Iron Man player...)
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Jul 5, 2014 20:52
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teddust posted:For long war Exalt missions I make a save before sending the skyranger so that I can reload and get a different map if need be. Some of the smaller maps are just impossible with the ridiculous numbers of troops they spawn now. I think I'll start doing that. Just finished one of those missions, oh god it was awful. Exalt coming from everywhere Even with the covert operative running from nodes to nodes (they were really perfectly positioned for that), everybody ended up in the hospital. (+ a rookie lost, but hey, ). Plus, gently caress rockets. Not EXALT's, mine. Never going in the right direction.
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Jul 6, 2014 02:23
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Beagle posted:HEAT Warhead Rocketeer is your ace in the hole vs. unexpected robotic pod activations. One rocket can wipe out every one of them if they're clustered enough. Otherwise, rush Beam Lasers and put them on scoped Infantry so you've got double tap chances to tear down Seekers. HEAT Sapper Engineers are good vs them if they're low enough to the ground to be naded, as well. Rockets and grenade are close to useless on seekers since they're flying. I really can't make rocket work. No time to steady weapon on EXALT missions, and it ends up blowing my own cover more often than anything hostile. Really a pain.
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Jul 7, 2014 04:17
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Started applying the thread's advice re: rockets. I can't believe the difference it makes. I don't expect to be able to use steady weapon on EXALT missions, but the scope already makes a difference, I've already ordered some more. Do you often skip terror missions in LW? Since even a success increases terror, it's kinda pointless to do them in a country that is already in the red since you won't save it anyway.
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Jul 7, 2014 18:08
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MrBims posted:Every citizen counts in terror missions, and on my current campaign I got mega-screwed on getting the Asia continent bonus when one country left after a successful terror mission where 0 citizens survived. Trying to salvage that, and it hurts. Finally I went for it and god it was a great decision. This mission was just 2 packs of Chrysalids (the second being small and without leader) and the rest was 18 zombies. Zombies loving everywhere. A wall of meat slowly converging on my troops. The two rookies and the spec I brought feasted on XP. Still had to sacrifice a SHIV when I was caught between the big pack of chrysalids and a 6 zombies pack. Only saved 4 civilians though. Doesn't matter, had fun. Mid July, haven't seen a cyberdisc yet but a mechtoid. I won't complain.
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Jul 8, 2014 04:59
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Goddammit those LW EXALT missions are just so unfun now, especially the ones where you're limited to 4 guys. I'm savescumming like hell to get through the one I just got, something I never ever do against aliens. It must have to do with the fact that the maps are so full of guys that the maneuvering part of the game is gone - if you move one tile you'll just activate another wave of suicidal EXALT goons (suicidal but with rockets and grenades). I think I'll use the dev console actually.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:48
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Tin Tim posted:Yeah, Exalt missions are kind of a poo poo-show right now. You're basically guaranteed to activate at least one pack in your first turn, and then it'll snowball if you move too much. I get that LW wants to make Exalt troops into an actual challenge, but it's a bit too much right now. I had both mission types thus far, and have to say that I found the hacking mission to be a bit easier. In my relay mission Exalt was camping the defend zone from turn one, and I had to chew through like 19 guys total. I would have lost the defend object if I hadn't brought a SHIV to just go there and be a sacrifice. In the hacking mission I fought 12 guys, and my four man team killed like half of them before I even moved my operative out of his hiding spot. Had a lot of cheeky snipers in that mission, but it wasn't too bad overall. Though, I guess it gets much worse when you meet the elite Exalt guys, or play on higher difficulties. Welp, for now I bring lots of rockets/nades and have a finger on the quicksave The worst is rockets. The map being choke full of EXALT guys means you don't get to chose your cover, so you end up behind lovely cover that gets blown up and then you lose a dude. And when you have only 4 of them that's huge. Also the covert operative having a fair chance of being found and cornered by EXALT guys long before the rest of the team can even reach him (And even if the only thing he does is finding a hiding spot and waiting there) sucks balls. I understand it's in the concept of LW that sometimes you have to say "gently caress this poo poo, back to the skyranger" but the stakes can be so high in EXALT mission (when you're fighting to get back 250 + spacebucks because they hosed you into the negative) that it's much more frustrating than against aliens. Dev console it is.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:16
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How do alloy SHIVs fare in LW? I want to try one but am hesitant given the cost in alloys (and the cost for rebuilding the SHIV), if they die as easily as the normal SHIVs that will just be a resources dump hole.
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Jul 10, 2014 18:13
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amanasleep posted:They have more HP, DR, and Defense than basic SHIVs, plus you are more likely to have smoke grenades to spare to really protect them. IMO they kick quite a bit of rear end, but the drawback is that they prevent you from gaining XP in that slot. The other problem is that by the time you have the infrastructure to build the Alloy SHIV you probably can start making MECs, and the right MEC does everything the Alloy SHIV does (except suppression) plus a bag of chips, plus it gains XP. Okay, so there may still be a niche for them - I would never expose a MEC the way I expose my SHIVs to take hits instead of my dudes. And I'm still far from making MECs - most of my MELD has been used for... stuff I guess. Plus, my slow and cautious playstyle does not help me to get it in the first place.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:30
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Lima posted:You can mod a file somewhere and set the intel scan price to 1 buck. Then scan once a week and ignore the Exalt fucks forever. ...You're my hero.
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Jul 11, 2014 14:55
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Does LW gives a random chance to lose equipment on lost soldiers? I had to rush back to the skyranger last mission, losing 4 dudes, and now a bunch of items are missing. One armor, at least one laser carbine, 1 scope and a gatling laser. Weird thing is that my only laser sniper is still there, while the wielder was among the casualties. And only one armor is missing (or maybe two?). No, I didn't activate the second wave option that makes you lose the stuff of dead soldiers. But if that's a feature of LW, then that's silly.
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Jul 12, 2014 03:39
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Beagle posted:50% chance for any dead troop to lose the equipment that troop had. With Total Loss on, that chance is 100%. Oh dammit. Don't know what I want to do with that.
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Jul 12, 2014 04:07
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Beagle posted:More great info for you that I probably should've mentioned in the original post if I'd remembered: In Long War, Aliens have a tangible level of research that increases through various means (Abductions, UFOs on scout missions, etc), and if they get a hold of any XCOM personnel live or dead it's a substantial bonus to that research. They quite literally drag off the dead bodies you leave behind of XCOM soldiers and autopsy them just like we do to them. If they get a hold of live personnel (you leave XCOM troops behind on a mission alive, or you leave while they're still bleeding out unconscious but haven't died yet), they then get to interrogate/autopsy those live XCOM captives for an even bigger research bonus, again just like we do to live alien captives. Aaaaaaawwww poo poo. That's... a neat (and horrifying) addition. And I actually left 3 people alive (2 panicked and 1 bleeding out) on this mission! (I should have thrown the skyranger pilot to the aliens too. gently caress him so hard for landing so close to a large UFO. I had a pack of five chrysalids on contact at the end of turn 1)
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Jul 12, 2014 04:34
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