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Man, playing with damage roulette is kinda fun. Had a cryssalid ambush my SGT Support in the first terror mission, which then spawned a zombie that punched my CPT Assault in the face for...1 damage. Still lost 2 Sergeants in that mission, but it could've been much worse.
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Jan 20, 2013 20:36
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Jesus christ, gently caress that train mission in Slingshot. Only the DLC guy and my sniper survived.
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Jan 21, 2013 16:45
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Is there anything in place where your 90% hit chance with rockets actually depreciates the further from the rocketeer? Because in consecutive turns, that fucker Chilong just shredded and rocketed my entire A-team in the month 4 C/I terror mission. Then he got crysallid'd 10 satellites, a squad full of captains, majors, and colonels, and my entire game's shot to hell because terror missions are the only ones I don't do a 3/3 split with vets and relative newcomers.
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Jan 22, 2013 04:03
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The Neal! posted:Jesus Christ, has anyone ever beaten the 3rd Slingshot mission on Classic Ironman in the 2nd Month? I skip Slingshot now. It's just way too hard on Classic. Can do the rescue with no casualties. Can't do the 2nd mission without losing at least a couple people; fighting Mutons with ballistic weapons is a fool's errand. Also, holy crap elite weaponry is expensive. I don't think there are any enemies that use plasma snipers or alloy cannons so I had to build those myself. I've been capturing mutons left and right for their plasma weaponry, but I can't get a heavy plasma to save my life. I had 2 separate heavy floaters down to 1 HP. Failed the stun on one. On the second, running up next to it spawned 2 mutons and a berserker and I had to run for my life instead. On the plus side, I now have 3 continents with firestorms + EMP cannons. That's just hilariously overpowered.
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Jan 28, 2013 16:17
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I see no harm in having 2 labs at least for the first few months. Eventually you'll get bottlenecked by fragments, though, and it won't matter how fast you can research. The people that have shitloads of workshops aren't kidding around, though. That's a superb option. I'm probably going to OCD-style re-organize my base so I can get nice 2x2 or 3x3 blocks of things. My steam layout (2 adjacent spots on the lowest level) basically forced me to build a bunch of power stations wherever I could just so I could drill to steam. What happens to your satellites if you forcibly remove an uplink that puts you under the max? Or will it not let me and I'll need to build an additional uplink/nexus in my new layout?
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Jan 28, 2013 22:23
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Ammo conservation is incredible. Though I'm tempted to use 0 heavies in my next game and just roll with a bunch of Supports that have Rifle Supression. Heavies really aren't good for anything other than blowing things up, and I figure I could just Deep Pockets my way to carrying a spare Alien Grenade or something.
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Jan 28, 2013 22:52
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What's a reasonable amount of Willpower by Colonel? Because with Not Created Equal and Hidden Potential I have several members of my squad with 110+ I've only tested 1 of them for Psionics (she's got 'em). Even my lower will characters aren't less than 90. Maybe I should test my whole squad because it's HILARIOUS mind controlling mutons. About to do the overseer ship tonight. Never seen an ethereal or a sectopod before on classic ironman. Technically I've FOUGHT a sectopod but it died when my 2 HEAT heavies rocketed the poo poo out of a building on a terror mission.
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Jan 29, 2013 18:52
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Not a Step posted:I have a heavy with a will of 125 in my NCE/HP Impossible run, which is great because her aim stopped leveling up completely after sergeant. I also have a sniper with an aim of 132 at colonel, and his protege has 106 aim and 104 will at Lieutenant. Those options completely break the game if you're willing to throw some money at recruiting early on, which has its own opportunity costs I guess, but being down a satellite or what have you is completely made up for by soldiers who (almost) never miss. Yeah, for every big goddamn hero I've got, I've recruit like 5 guys that started with like 28 will and 55 aim. I had a guy with 68 will 80 aim at squaddie and thought I could take him on a Council mission. After all, those are just filled with Thin Men and in Titan Armor he'd be immune to their nastiest effects. RIP Amit Shah 
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Jan 29, 2013 21:09
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Honest Thief posted:I think I pretty much beat my Classic run, by April I have 11 countries covered, only need one more to have full map coverage, since 4 left midway, I have a surplus of 720 xcom dollars and I'm about to tackle the alien base. I dunno, seems like I can just research all my Titan armor and laser and plasma weaponry and not be too worried. Yeah, there definitely seems to be momentum in this game. If you can get past months 2 and 3 when you've got a resource crunch and copious amounts of Thin Men and Crysallids can devastate your squad, you're probably going to win. I'll probably beat the game tonight. 6 Colonels all with Plasma Weaponry, Ghost Armor, and 4 of them with full psionics and 120+ willpower can straight up murder everything on the ground. I even captured a battleship and now I have super rocket launchers. Sadly I'm 1 weapon fragment short of being able to research Fusion Lances--which seem entirely unnecessary given how powerful the EMP cannon seems to be--which would finish out the research queue. You need to be able to target dudes who are mind controlled, though. If the only units left on a map are mind controlled, the map should end. Either as a capture or as the controller telling the controlee "shoot yourself in the face"
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Jan 30, 2013 16:51
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Disabling shot works too, but it feels pretty wasteful to pop it before you take control of a dude. Really, the bugs don't bother me (bugs are hard to solve) as much as the "you can't shoot a mind controlled alien" does. That's just a horrendous gameplay oversight.
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Jan 30, 2013 19:03
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Game beaten on classic ironman. I...I lost 2 soldiers. I hadn't had a non-squaddie die since month 2. My heavy got blown the gently caress up by 2 sectopods when damage roulette gave me 2 consecutive hits of < 4 damage with HEAT ammo. My assault got mind controlled by the final boss. Not sure if killing the boss killed him or if I accidentally caught him in my rift. Either way, I'm not sure I beat that mission without rift.
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Jan 31, 2013 05:23
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To be clear, when I said I had 2 soldiers die, I meant on the last mission. I had like 5 or 6 die otherwise over the course of the game. Mostly rookies and squaddies in the first couple months. I usually roll with 3 heavies in the first couple of months. NONE of your dudes can hit people worth a drat, but a 90% rocket can solve a lot of problems. 3 heavies, 2 snipers, 1 assault (to spring overwatch traps w lightning reflexes). The assault should use a rifle until he gets an alloy cannon. Seriously--use the poo poo out of explosives and don't worry about Vahlen bitching at you. Until you get a couple characters capable of hitting poo poo (hidden potential and not created equal can occasionally give you an assault with absurd aim which combines with rapid fire), just blow up EVERYTHING. If you can't blow it up, supress it with your heavies. No shredder rockets. Supression all day every day. The first foundry project you should study is ammo conservation. Nothing is more important than ammo conservation. Once you've gotten some decent characters you can scale back on the heavies and start adding in supports. Supports will keep your no-longer-fodder officers from dying. This is also usually the point where I start giving my assault and heavy an arc thrower since they can absorb a hit at point blank range.
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Feb 1, 2013 14:02
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OK, trying ironman impossible with every second wave option turned on is literally impossible. What mods should I have turned on for a fair but incredibly challenging I/I game?
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Feb 2, 2013 06:57
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Does the alien rocket launcher (I forget what it's called...blaster launcher?) interact with shredder rockets in any way other than "100% hit chance?" I've always found supression more useful on heavies AND supports. Supress EVERYTHING. Blow their cover with supression.
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Feb 6, 2013 05:32
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Wait, I'm pretty sure supression ends turn. You really can, in the same turn, do supress-->shoot-->reload?
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Feb 6, 2013 14:16
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Pau posted:No, no. I meant you supress in one turn, then the next turn you shoot and then reload. Why would you do this? You might kill a thing by shooting first and then not even need to supress.
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Feb 6, 2013 17:55
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A berserker that's supressed will also just stand there if you can't kill it on the current turn. Or at least all the ones I encountered did. Impossible is still a brick loving wall for me. Maybe it's because I'm playing with randomized starting and level-up stats, and the dudes I get in the opening mission frequently have < 60 aim. It also didn't help that my promoted heavy missed a rocket that would've killed 4 sectoids.
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Feb 7, 2013 14:00
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Swear to god that needs to be patched out. Or at least make it so you can target mind controlled aliens. Also: how the hell do you guys get started in I/I? I find Classic's a cake walk because I can just grenade sectoids to death for the first month, but once they have 4 HP it's just a damned nightmare. None of my units have adequate aim to make guns worthwhile, and even if they do, they won't kill in 1 hit.
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Feb 7, 2013 22:10
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Man, gently caress the teleport bug. Maybe if it wouldn't occur in the first 2 months of my I/I game, but 4 rookies/squaddies just can't handle more than 1 group at a time. Not fair spawning something right into the middle of my dudes when they're already working on a bunch of sectoids.
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Feb 11, 2013 04:58
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Shoefish posted:
What in the gently caress? How is that possible? 29? ...on the other hand, that's a lot of Chitin Plating.
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Feb 12, 2013 00:52
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I...I might actually have something going in I/I. 5 promoted units (though sadly, 2 are assaults and assaults are worthless to me until I get lightning reflexes), 2 successful missions. Have a 95 aim (with a scope) heavy with bullet swarm. Unfortunately, I skipped the first UFO in hopes of getting a medium to shoot down. No problem on downing the medium, I'm sure, but a 2nd abduction mission has popped. Can't ignore it, but there's probably a really good chance I'll come out of that mission with key injuries  Oh well. 
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Feb 15, 2013 15:24
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Hey, what's the pre-req for beam weapons? I thought it went fragments-->beam weapons, but all I got unlocked was Experimental Warfare. Which is also nice since I'd like upgraded scopes, but what I really need are weapons that will drop 4HP sectoids in 1 hit.
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Feb 15, 2013 16:34
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Alright, that explains that then. I punted on the first UFO so I could get the larger one. Which whoever pointed out as safer was probably right about. The real threat is the Outsider, and I can spawn him precisely when I want to on a medium ship. Then he can eat a rocket.
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Feb 15, 2013 17:20
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Trast posted:What's a good rule of thumb for the amount of satellites you need to throw up while being balanced on research? I've seen posts about ignoring the first ufo to get a second larger one only to sell off everything from it. I've also seen it stressed to take engineer rewards and to build a workshop in the first month to lower the cost of the satellites. You literally can't have > 2 satellites without 10 engineers (you can't build your first dish without it). Don't buy more satellites than you can get uplinks for (and since uplinks are limited by engineers, and workshops are ALSO limited by engineers, make sure you're budgeting correctly) Also, make sure you can station at least 2 interceptors in any continent you're building satellites in. A satellited country with no interceptors is Real Bad.
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Feb 15, 2013 21:56
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dud root posted:I just got the juiciest council reward- it was something like $400 for 3 laser pistols. Playing on classic & this has boosted my sat coverage at such a key time. I feel a bit too lucky as this will make next month easy due to all the extra funding I got like 3000 once for like 6 plasma rifles, which I wasn't even using. I'd been outfitting most of my dudes with arc throwers for most of months 3-5.
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Feb 15, 2013 23:13
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Beaglerush's LP really is fantastic. He's tremendously entertaining and informative. I wish I could do Ironman Impossible. The furthest I've ever gotten is the terror mission in month 2. Beat it, but with just 2 supports left standing and that's not enough to deal with the Mutons that come in month 3. The teleport bug doesn't help, though. Neither, perhaps, does playing with randomized stats and randomized level-ups. When I get an 85 aim soldier, they have 20 will and poo poo themselves at the sight of an alien. Then they use their 85 aim to drill their own guys in the head.
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Feb 19, 2013 06:11
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The sniper's disabling shot is great for pairing in tandem with your capture guy. Supress + Disable and they won't even throw a grenade b/c they're too close to the failed capturer.
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Feb 21, 2013 21:08
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I may actually have a winnable Impossible Ironman game going! But I have absolutely no more room for error. 7 countries down, and the US has a satellite and 4 panic (the abductor showed up in month 3 and I couldn't take it out). Have 6 men in my squad (though the game keeps giving me assaults; I don't want a 1/1/1/3 team but that's what I have). Everyone has skeleton armor. Everyone but the heavy has a laser rifle. I've researched fuckin' everything since with randomized rewards I got 6 scientists in my first abduction mission, then followed it up with 4 scientists for 3 scopes. That made for 2 laboratories in month 1. What I don't have is much ability to deal with tougher UFOs. Or an alien jail. Month 4 of my campaign is going to need to include capture alien, capture outsider, assault the alien base. Yikes.
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Feb 22, 2013 14:16
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Also it just occurred to me that my I/I game hasn't yet faced Mutons. I can't wait to watch my squad panic every time they shoot a muton and it uses intimidate. A couple of my soldiers don't have will scores higher than like 50 
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Feb 22, 2013 15:52
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Slashrat posted:What those people probably experienced is the mini-patch Firaxis put out after releasing Slingshot that made the DLC mission offer come up in already in-progress games that were started before slingshot was installed. I could easily believe that it just made the offer reappear again in all games regardless of start-date as a onetime thing as long the DLC content hadn't been started in that game yet I've definitely turned down Slingshot in new games and had it offered to me in like month 6. I also had an amusing bug on a failed I/I game where I took slingshot in month 1 (it's very easy, and Zheng is a godsend in month 1). Everyone missed their shot on one of the overwatched thin men, Zheng bit it, and my team just evacuated. Two weeks later, Slingshot mission 1 pops again and Zheng is magically back to life.
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Feb 22, 2013 23:09
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How much panic will a country incur is you ignore a UFO landing (a LANDING, not "fail to shoot something down" or "shoot something down then ignore it") on impossible? My I/I game just captured the ethereal device, but I lost my support colonel and one of my assault colonels in so doing. My heavy is in sick bay. That leaves me with 3 competent soldiers vs. a small scout that just landed in north america. 12 aliens, including heavy floaters and heavy mutons. I really should have some SHIVs to handle this sort of disaster. If I can ignore them, I can collect some more $ heading into the next month and get ghost armor for my whole team. If I have to try the mission, so be it. I...think it'll go pretty badly, though. If it'll cause the country to hit 5 panic, though, I have to do it. My doom tracker has been at 7 since the end of month 2.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:26
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Got into a cycle of sandbagging in my I/I game. Came to a crashing halt in November. I lost almost everyone (literally down to 1 sniper corporal) in the final terror mission. The following month, a battleship came and hosed my north america satellite, causing immediate panic. I couldn't build a satellite in time, but I could send my sniper corporal to the Gollop Chamber. I knew I had no loving chance, but the game would literally be over at month's end with nothing to be done for it. 1 hover plasma shiv, 1 psionic sniper sergeant, and 4 squaddies entered the temple ship. None returned.
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Feb 24, 2013 05:24
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nnnotime posted:Have you upgraded the squad-size to 6 with the OTS? Then send along 3 more rookies with your 3 competent soldiers. 12 aliens are nothing (just giving you some pep-talk). 3 rookies (well, squaddies given the New Guy research) can't do much of anything in late game impossible beyond "die horribly"
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Feb 24, 2013 15:39
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OK, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Ironman Impossible is literally impossible unless I suck it up and do the "get 4 satellites up in month 1" routine. Which kind of feels like cheating to me since I'm abusing scripted events. But whatever; it's difficult enough that I guess it's reasonable for me to abuse the game a bit.
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Feb 25, 2013 20:57
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I actually really like Impossible difficulty and I'm quite certain I can beat it (my last 2 tries had me reach the final mission with an unprepared crew in a race against the panic clock, and a failed assault on the Alien Base in month 3 for similar reasons). Really, that first game would've been winnable had I bothered capturing a Sectoid Commander and gotten psionics before assaulting the Overseer ship. A good psionic can trivialize any mission with Muton Elites--including the breach of ships with 2 elites + 1 Ethereal in the cockpit. You can waste the Ethereal's turn murdering the Muton.
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Feb 25, 2013 21:13
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Impossible is the best difficulty. Went for the "get > 1 satellite up in month 1" opening yesterday by avoiding the first UFO. I'm in Europe for the cheaper workshops (seriously, a 3x3 block of workshops if you can get Elirium Generators or a good steam location or something is amazing), and also playing with a bunch of the second wave mods. I got 5 engineers as a random reward for my first abduction, meaning I didn't even need to build a workshop to get my uplink up and running. Lost my sniper on the large scout mission b/c 9 sectoids popped at once and I had 0 cover, but I've got 2 assaults, 1 heavy, and 1 support who are all pretty good. My 2nd assault, however, has a relatively low willpower score (another random mod from second wave) I did Slingshot in month 1, and was doing great. 6 enemies down, no injuries, no use of consumables or abilities. The 7th enemy was a thin man who spawned in overwatch RIGHT NEXT to one of my guys in high cover. I figured poison wasn't so bad, and certainly better than getting shot (I don't have lightning reflexes yet). So I shot that guy right in his face. He then exploded, poisoning a dude. This was terrifying apparently, and with no enemies on the map to shoot at, he 1-shot Zheng who was hunkered down. Mission immediately ended. No slingshot for me. On the plus side, at least it wasn't a bomb disposal mission; I'd usually skip that anyway.
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Feb 26, 2013 16:57
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revtoiletduck posted:You'll get the chance to do it again next month, so I'd say you made the right choice. I won't do it again next month; I'll take a regular council mission. Whether the game realizes it or not, Slingshot is a failed series of missions in this playthrough. Which is fine, honestly, b/c I otherwise would've skipped the 2nd mission in month 2 and left council missions on perpetual hold. It's kinda cheating, but that train mission is a loving NIGHTMARE. Especially given that I'll be lucky to have even 1 squadsight sniper available by the time it pops. No, I'll go dispose of some bombs or something. Or pray I don't get the overpass mission which is a deathtrap if you don't have a squadsight sniper.
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Feb 26, 2013 17:18
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I really want someone to hack the mission names so that every mission is operation Hot Brother or operation Hot Mother
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Feb 27, 2013 14:10
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Orgophlax posted:I really really wish you could sneak in this. It's pretty ridiculous that a group of trained marines just plod around as loud as possible, alerting all to their presence. The best is when there's a perfectly non-loud route to get where you want to go. But no, better run through a loving window!
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Feb 27, 2013 16:02
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I love how everyone thinks a different continent is the best continent. Except South America. South America is unequivocally the worst. For my own part, I love the Europe bonus: allows you a 3 country buffer, same as Asia, and lets you start deploying workshops and labs at breakneck speed. In the late game, you can basically produce whatever you want for free since a 3x3 block of workshops has an insane refund bonus.
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Feb 28, 2013 05:36
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