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Is it too late to be meat for the grinder?  American, if you please, and I volunteer for MEC duty if applicable. (Punchyfist preferred, flamer is fine.)
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Apr 13, 2015 18:57
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holy poo poo that mission  also yay i am now in position to disappoint everyone terribly by missing with missiles and/or shooting down things I shouldn't 
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Apr 14, 2015 04:19
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 Youtube Link  If your name is EggsAisle, Rogue0071, Fister Roboto, Gridlocked, ChaosDragon, Kaboom Dragoon, Zore, or Ephphatha, please let me know if you're still reading this thread!Not much to say, I think I explain things well enough in the video. Pack at least one battlescanner to find the Thin Man group. Bad Guy Showcase Chryssalids Chryssalids are largely unchanged. They pack together a lot, and are pretty susceptible to AOE and shotguns. Future iterations have more health, mobility, and the leaders will eventually get Lightning Reflexes. They're dangerous when part of mixed groups. Let's Talk About Ranks Long War changes the ranking system in name only, it goes Private First Class -> Lt. Corporal -> Corporal -> Sergeant -> Tech. Sergeant -> Gunnery Sergeant -> Master Sergeant. In that sense, most soldiers will obtain 'enlisted-like' ranks. XP for soldiers works mostly the same as vanilla, the difference being that XP is shown to the player on the soldier stats screen. You get 80-ish XP for living through a (successful) mission, 20 bonus XP if there are no downed soldiers in a mission, and something like 20 XP for a kill. There are some items and abilities that improve how much XP soldiers get. There does seem to be some randomness, because I've had PFCs rank up in missions that they didn't get kills in. In general, one should try to get at least one kill for a fresh PFC. Officer ranks can be given to some soldiers, and this gives them special abilities that help improve units in the squad. I'll discuss this in more detail another time. What I will talk about is who I'm going to make officers. I am going to make 6 officers total (maybe 7 if I need an officer in a pinch). Typically I make officers out of gunners and infantry, as its not a bad idea to take at least one of those classes on a mission, and as shooty classes, they don't benefit as much from becoming psionic troopers. I would like it if the people I make officers are still reading the thread, but if I need someone to be an officer I'm going to make them an officer, and if someone isn't reading the thread I'm not going to shame or browbeat them just because this isn't the LP for them. Here is the current (as of a couple updates from now) list of eligible officers: - EggsAisle - Rogue0071 - Fister Roboto - Gridlocked - ChaosDragon - Kaboom Dragoon - Zore - Ephphatha So if you guys could let me know you're still reading the thread I would appreciate it  And finally, I wanted to save this until the end of the post: Congratulations Torchlighter at making Corporal! Torchlighter needs a nickname!
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Apr 14, 2015 15:41
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ProfessorBooty posted:
Smalls Also yeah, make me an officer I guess.
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Apr 14, 2015 16:30
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Alas I'm not a solider yet, but now I'll be more vigiliant than ever to watch 
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Apr 14, 2015 16:52
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I thought that was a great debut, even though I didn't get a promotion.
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Apr 14, 2015 16:55
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ProfessorBooty posted:
Took me a bit, but I'm gonna toss in Nightlight as Torchlighter's nickname. He did a bang up job lighting up all those alien bastards with a nice hololight in the dark, either for himself or the rest of the squad. As for the mission, it's quite cool seeing the difference between vanilla and long war, especially since you didn't have a MEC yet for collateral damage, though I don't know if MECs get that in long war off the bat. Being able to put shotguns on pretty much everyone, not just assaults, really seems to make this mission a good bit easier when you can just splatter any bugs or zombies that get close. Is the only reason Thin Men were put in the mission so you couldn't just have shotguns on everyone as you stated in the video? It makes sense from a game balance standpoint, but goddamn if it doesn't gently caress with the theme of the level. Evil Kit fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 17:13
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Yes, the thinmen were added to reduce the viability of giving everyone a shotgun. I disagree with the change for the reasons you stated, and besides, with random group placement you can find yourself in extremely dangerous situations regardless of whether or not there's long-range enemies on the map - players are going to game the system to their advantage whenever possible. I guess its not a huge deal, but I had to do this map once where the non-chryssalid group was actually inside the ship, which, coincidentally, is why I take at least one battlescanner with me on this mission.
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Apr 14, 2015 17:37
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Dear diary, Today I blew up a shark. There were a lot of Also they had us all say goodbye to General Antares and everyone was really sad for some reason but she was only gone for, like, a minute? She looked pretty happy when she got to the plane so I guess she must have missed us!
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Apr 14, 2015 17:38
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I'm still reading the thread! Site Recon was one of the best council missions Enemy Within added, and I honestly wish they'd added some more themed missions like it. That being said, its a weird one in Long War. The penalties for skipping it are absolutely ridiculous and the Long War devs seem pretty determined to jack up the difficulty of every setpiece mission with every patch (especially the DLC episodes). Still, its a good map and the Thin Men they added aren't that bad for anyone expecting the chryssalid massacre it usually is. Just be glad they didn't end up going with their original idea to add run'n'gun to Chryssalids Or that they didn't add one of the fun new Chryssalis leaders we'll be meeting later.
Zore fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 17:42
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SaffronKit posted:Took me a bit, but I'm gonna toss in Nightlight as Torchlighter's nickname. He did a bang up job lighting up all those alien bastards with a nice hololight in the dark, either for himself or the rest of the squad. The other big disadvantage for shotguns is that any damage reduction the target has gets multiplied by 1.5 for a shotgun blast. This makes shotguns very poor against mechanical units, especially as alien research increases. I guess another disadvantage is that shotguns are heavily reliant on crits, and a lot of aliens start to get crit suppression as the game progresses. There's another thing that makes shotguns less useful, but that's for later on. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 14, 2015 |
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Apr 14, 2015 18:25
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This has come up in the videos a few times without elaboration, but makes Scatter Lasers so bad, anyway?
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Apr 14, 2015 19:05
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GunnerJ posted:This has come up in the videos a few times without elaboration, but makes Scatter Lasers so bad, anyway? They add +1 damage and give the additional aim of all laser weapons, but: 1.) They only have 3 ammo per clip instead of the 5 of the ballistic shotgun. 2.) The aim bonus is largely irrelevant because if you don't need + aim at any distance where you're going to use a shotgun. 3.) There are very few cases where a crit from the laser shotgun would put down something that couldn't be put down by a crit from the ballistic shotgun 4.) You have to pay 50 spacebux and give up some alloys to build it, whereas the ballistic one is free So basically you're paying 50 bucks, some alloys, and need to reload far more often in exchange for a negligible aim bonus and the ability to one-shot some edge cases. It's just not a real good use of resources or time.
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Apr 14, 2015 20:00
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So Shotguns stay in service until gauss?
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Apr 14, 2015 22:11
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Still reading and very much enjoying. 
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Apr 14, 2015 22:14
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ChaosDragon posted:So Shotguns stay in service until gauss? This reminds me: Is Reaper ammo ever useful? I always found the accuracy penalties super awful, and I could generally make laser stuff by the time I had the foundry to make reaper rounds.
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Apr 14, 2015 23:03
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It's good for shotguns, since you want to be right up in the alien's face to shoot anyway. Add a targeting module (+8% crit chance and +1 crit damage) and go for a crit-heavy assault build, and you've got yourself a stew goin'.
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Apr 14, 2015 23:19
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Need any pilots? Because I am perfectly qualified to be a aggressive interceptor flyer.
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Apr 15, 2015 00:08
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Lotish posted:This reminds me: Is Reaper ammo ever useful? I always found the accuracy penalties super awful, and I could generally make laser stuff by the time I had the foundry to make reaper rounds. the reaper rounds description sucks, because it doubles a guns base range penalties, assault rifles/lmgs don't get range penalties, so there is no drawback other than not having a grenade or something. sniper rifles get their close range penalties doubled for having reaper rounds, so thats basically a null point because don't put your sniper right next to enemies. shotgunners are already going to be up in dudes faces so it's also a null point. in long war, a crit spec heavy gauss rifle using Infantry with reaper rounds and scope will have like a 50ish% chance to crit dudes in half cover, barring hardened ofc. Roobanguy fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Apr 15, 2015 |
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Apr 15, 2015 01:02
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I kind of like "Beacon" as a name for Torchlighter, since his holotargetting acts as a beacon for the rest of the squad, and he does it all the time.
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Apr 15, 2015 01:20
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Crysalid @ 36 minutes is the 1%er.
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Apr 15, 2015 02:02
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I'm perfectly fine with whatever nickname you decide. I do, however, nominate "Coin Toss", given the number of 50% shots I take.
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Apr 15, 2015 02:09
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I for one have been going for a theme with my nicknames. I honestly couldn't think of anything funny so I just went with another thing we had to comfort us when we were kids.
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Apr 15, 2015 02:41
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I'm still reading and watching . Definitely would be glad to be an officer, especially if it lowers my life expectancy. You actually convinced me to try playing through the game again, I had been doing pretty well till last night I apparently decided to ignore everything you discuss and made some really stupid decisions. Things were easy up until the first terror mission. On the first alien turn 6 floaters and two chrysalids wandered into sight of my squad and activated. Thankfully three of the floaters jumped into the middle of the squad and got torn up by the overwatchers and the rest decided the civilians were more interesting. By turn 3 every alien was dead and my squad hadn't moved more than 10 tiles from the drop zone. Riding on a high from that one I decided to try a base assault mission. Moved through the map without much contact till I got to a big open area, so I decided to set up my squad and prepare to sweep through slowly.  happened and 6 mutons, 4 chrysalids, and a large mechanical unit all wandered into vision and activated. The mutons immediately took heavy cover and opened fire on my squad. The remaining aliens ran up to the ledge below the platform my squad was positioned on and were out of sight. I for some reason decided this was an acceptable position to be in and didn't move anyone. Over the next few turns everyone died except my medic who survived and killed every alien by doing what I should've done in the first place, running the gently caress away and shooting aliens as they follow. Decided to try finish the mission and I got up to the last alien on the map then got mind controlled and lost. Given that my A-team is now dead I think I'm gonna be starting yet another new game and trying to suck less.
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Apr 15, 2015 02:53
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I'm thinking 'Half Full' for Torchlighter, as there were a lot of successful 50-ish% shots. Another potential officer is Jimmy4400Nav (whose name I spelled wrong earlier, oops!). But my job is much easier if Rogue0071 answers the call.
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Apr 15, 2015 04:33
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Hah, at first I was excited that I was on the mission, then remembered it was Newfoundland. I lived though! Do I have really high aim or was I just lucky?
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Apr 15, 2015 05:32
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General Antares posted:Hah, at first I was excited that I was on the mission, then remembered it was Newfoundland. I lived though! Do I have really high aim or was I just lucky? Lucky. I chose strict screening. If I had Not Created Equally I would have either sent the junkiest rookie, or a high mobility rookie. Congrats, by the way
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Apr 15, 2015 05:35
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If you're still taking recruits sign me up. I'd prefer to be a soldier but if you need pilots that's fine. Give me an Australian voice if I'm a soldier.
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Apr 15, 2015 07:58
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Don't worry about long episodes I tend to prefer them. Also the general deserves some bravery medals for that terrifying ordeal they were just put through.
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Apr 15, 2015 08:30
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If it's not too late I'd also like to sign up to be a soldier! A sniper if possible.
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Apr 15, 2015 23:41
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MISSION 11 Youtube Link So this is what happens if you don't fully understand the implications of your squad makeup, and don't consider the worst-case map for a given squad makeup (map list here). To be fair, I had a 10% chance of getting this particular map, and any other map would have been fine (but if your life depends on a 90% shot, you need a backup plan). Also, it was really early in the morning when I set up the squad, and looking back I don't quite remember the strategy I was going for, other than knowing I wanted to promote more specialists. Having a sniper would be good, as well as a Sapper engineer, and an infantry. I typically start to bring snipers at Squad size 1 (which I usually plan for at about the 10th of April - lack of early missions has retarded my build orders), and I start shifting toward more sane playstyles with longer range and less... insane tactics in May. Can't complain too much of the results, though. Got all the meld, only two injuries and three promotions. This map is pretty rough even with a good squad makeup, mostly because most of the cover is parallel to the path of the map. I got lucky for many reasons. If one of those groups was a group of Thin Men, it could have been a squad wipe, and the Floater group was taken care of very quickly. Thankfully all the Sectoids did was slow down and frustrate the squad, and there were many lucky misses, but in general the bad guys didn't take as many shots as they should have, and relying on luck is not a good thing. Apologizes for being a grumpy-man. Kidneyman and I are figuring out a new recording schedule, and I was pretty tired at the time. Kidneyman just got off work, and he was tired as well and didn't look at my squad makeup before heading out (Not that its his fault that I'm a dummy, just that his recommendations behind the scenes are nice). This led to him cracking-wise during an ugly situation in which I was stressed and I got snippy as a result. The good news is we found a new, better time to record, just sucks I'll have to change when I edit. Release schedule should be unchanged, though. And also, Squad size 1! So many words to say that I messed up, and I'm sorry  The good news is that Detheros is a Corporal now, and needs a nickname!Officer Training School The Officer Training School is reworked in Long War. Instead of having awards or medals, you can specify some soldiers as officers. They get additional perks to help the squad. In order to reach the Lieutenant rank, a soldier must have been on at least 5 missions, and has reached the Corporal rank as a minimum. Squad Size 1 allows you to bring seven soldiers on a mission, which is ridiculously helpful and something I typically plan on getting a lot earlier, but a slow March and early April pushed this back. New OTS upgrades are gated by how many total ranks you have (a specialist is worth 1 rank, a lance corporal is worth 2 and so on), and money. Bad Guy Showcase Outsiders Outsiders can be nightmarish. They have regeneration, ridiculously high aim, and with Beta 15 they have Jumpy-legs to get around the fact that they cannot climb ladders. They can optionally get a whole bunch of other perks, one of note is Lightning Reflexes. Planning a UFO breech should be taken with extreme care. Activating an Outsider during a UFO landing or crash (or any command pod, for that matter) causes all the groups to patrol into your team, so understanding where the command group is during a UFO mission is important to avoid accidental activations. Outsiders can also show up during regular abduction and terror missions. Finding outsiders in the wild is scary and those situations should be undertaken with extreme care.
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Apr 17, 2015 13:55
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My name is Gridlocked and I read this thread. I just don't post because eh, see new video. Watch new video. Pass out cause its 3am when i watch new video.
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Apr 17, 2015 14:38
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Gridlocked posted:My name is Gridlocked and I read this thread. Thanks. This makes future planning a little easier
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Apr 17, 2015 15:07
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ProfessorBooty posted:Thanks. This makes future planning a little easier I am sad that I am a worthless soldier though. Sorry sir.
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Apr 17, 2015 15:29
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Gridlocked posted:I am sad that I am a worthless soldier though. With that attitude you'd make a great officer.
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Apr 17, 2015 15:43
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As long as he gets nicknamed potty poster should he earn one.
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Apr 17, 2015 16:06
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Hot drat, I finally get back in and I tear up poo poo with a shotgun. Aliens, meet shotgun.  Personally was kind of hoping to grab sniper to see something new, but I am more then happy to As a legitimate question, if you had known what map that was going to be Booty, would you have chosen to make me a sniper instead or would you have kept me going as bullet bait scout? Or would you have swapped someone else out for not shotguns? That mission looked brutal with most of your soldiers being close range with only two gunners that could really only suppress aliens instead of shooting them.
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Apr 17, 2015 16:36
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SaffronKit posted:As a legitimate question, if you had known what map that was going to be Booty, would you have chosen to make me a sniper instead or would you have kept me going as bullet bait scout? Or would you have swapped someone else out for not shotguns? That mission looked brutal with most of your soldiers being close range with only two gunners that could really only suppress aliens instead of shooting them. That's tough to think about, especially in retrospect. I would definitely have brought a sniper, and it probably would have been CongoJack, because its difficult to level a lower-willed soldier as a scout to later become a MEC, whereas snipers are generally safe from nasty things that can occur within line of sight. I wanted to bring you anyway so I probably would have stuck to the Scout role. If my scout corp remains unharmed I think I have a different build planned for you, with the new scout changes to 15c. Scouts and assaults make pretty good independent teams, and given only 6 soldiers I still would have had a shotgun assault and a shotgun scout, to help kill floaters, but I would have held back a lot more. This means I had to make you a scout to take you on mission because you said you were ready One engineer would have been fine for this mission if it was a Sapper engineer. Most maps a non-sapper engineer does a decent enough job destroying cover elements, but in this map the cover could only be destroyed by 2 non-sapper grenades. So either I would have made Superstring a sapper engineer, or brought a different (sapper) engineer. The engineer would have carried an SMG or a carbine for extra mobility. One gunner would have been fine, maybe with an LMG (LMGs give 5 tile squad sight, something I'm going to discuss another time). And finally an infantry. Given any squad I would have pushed everyone to one side of the map to be more stealthy, likely the right side given the location of the meld. Spreading out over that large of a distance was stupid for this map, especially given relatively inexperienced troopers - not a bad idea on OTHER roadway type maps, though. If I had a sniper I would have kept the sniper close to the LZ to get easy squadsight flanks while the rest of the team fights from further up on the right side of the map, pushing to the left against contacts.
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Apr 17, 2015 17:11
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God that map sucks. Though I did kill like five xenos.  Just put me back in when I get back from my brain bleeding out.
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Apr 17, 2015 17:20
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If my squaddie ever survives to corporal my nickname is gonna have to be "Turtle" or something. At least she hit something in the end. Well done keeping it together and keeping everyone alive despite the lovely map, lovely activations, panicky soldiers, and the odd positioning.
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Apr 17, 2015 18:14
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