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necrobobsledder
Mar 21, 2005
Lay down your soul to the gods rock 'n roll
Nap Ghost

Operant posted:

Xcom tip: gently caress suppression, take 2 heavies with HEAT ammo and shredder rocket, make it rain every battle. Heavies are MASSIVE damage dealers with bullet swarm, a heavy plasma and two rockets (like 20 damage a turn massive).
Suppression is only useful against early enemies because everyone has special abilities to use otherwise. The other problem is that your heavy will usually be out of ammo after suppressing until you're well into mid-game and have ammo conservation. Really, they're just two - sectoids and floaters that are worth suppressing. Everyone else can freely use abilities. The hard part of late game for me is around ethereals and tracking which bastard threw that grenade so I can take out the others to avoid more grenades.

necrobobsledder fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jan 19, 2013

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Dr Christmas
Apr 24, 2010

Berninating the one percent,
Berninating the Wall St.
Berninating all the people
In their high rise penthouses!
🔥😱🔥🔫👴🏻
One small detail that might be nice for the FAQ on stunning enemies. While you can upgrade the the ARC thrower to capture drones, there's no interrogation for doing so.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

ulmont posted:

I think you should copy the "quick satellite guide" from the previous thread here...

Mind linking it? I'm actually not familiar with what you're talking about.

amanasleep posted:

Another great include is http://www.thatgoblin.com/xcom_calculator.php. This is an MP calculater that is great for theorycrafting MP builds out of game. It has a few bugs and doesn't reflect the most recent changes to MP point costs, but I find it very useful.

Also, FWIW I find MP incredibly fun even though I agree that it is a buggy, unbalanced mess.

Good stuff, thanks.

Fister Roboto posted:

You should probably mention in the gameplay section that you can build more than one satellite at a time, since that seems to be a big stumbling block for new players.

Okay!

Dr Christmas posted:

One small detail that might be nice for the FAQ on stunning enemies. While you can upgrade the the ARC thrower to capture drones, there's no interrogation for doing so.

Done.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Jan 19, 2013

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

quote:

You should probably mention in the gameplay section that you can build more than one satellite at a time, since that seems to be a big stumbling block for new players.

It would be worth mentioning too that you can build multiple at once, but it's worth it to, instead of having one order of three satellites, have three orders of one satellite. This allows you to cancel individual ones to get cash back if you need it. It's good to have several in reserve in case one gets shot down and well.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

RBA Starblade posted:

It would be worth mentioning too that you can build multiple at once, but it's worth it to, instead of having one order of three satellites, have three orders of one satellite. This allows you to cancel individual ones to get cash back if you need it. It's good to have several in reserve in case one gets shot down and well.

I already did! :)

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

D'oh! In that case never mind. Also, great OP! I learned why I don't see abductions any more; I have full sat coverage of all remaining member nations! This wasn't necessarily good, though, due to my resource shortages.

Karpaw
Oct 29, 2011

by Cyrano4747

DrManiac posted:

I remember in the last thread somebody posted a mod that removed the Hit percentage and crit bump enemies got on classic, anyone got that?

http://xcom.nexusmods.com/mods/46

Wildtortilla
Jul 8, 2008
Does the US bonus reduce the cost of satellites or just aircraft and aircraft weapons?

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

If someone can vouch that this works with the most recent patch I will add it to the mods post.

Wildtortilla posted:

Does the US bonus reduce the cost of satellites or just aircraft and aircraft weapons?
Air and Space does not reduce cost of satellites. However, remember that it also halves maintenance on your air force. This is a BIG DEAL on higher difficulties, as Interceptors are extremely unreliable as long as they've got Avalanche Missiles and it behooves you to have 3 on each continent.

Wildtortilla
Jul 8, 2008

Coolguye posted:

If someone can vouch that this works with the most recent patch I will add it to the mods post.

Air and Space does not reduce cost of satellites. However, remember that it also halves maintenance on your air force. This is a BIG DEAL on higher difficulties, as Interceptors are extremely unreliable as long as they've got Avalanche Missiles and it behooves you to have 3 on each continent.

Ah poo poo. I don't know why but I thought satellite costs were reduced. I was planning to start a new game on North America for cheap satellites and make a beeline to get Africa covered for the bonus income. I guess I'll just keep trudging along in my current game.

Thel
Apr 28, 2010

Following up something from the other thread:

GodspeedSphere posted:

That's exactly right. If you overwatch someone from a flanking position, they won't even attack. Very good way to manage Impossible aliens.

This is true. Unless they themselves have a shot on a flanked xcom soldier, then they'll shoot them.

Also, more generally, an alien that can see a xcom soldier in overwatch will never move. Then having someone flank them seems to break their puny alien brain or something.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Wildtortilla posted:

Ah poo poo. I don't know why but I thought satellite costs were reduced. I was planning to start a new game on North America for cheap satellites and make a beeline to get Africa covered for the bonus income. I guess I'll just keep trudging along in my current game.

Nothing reduces satellite costs except more engineers, sadly. Still, North America is one of the two really solid starts I'd recommend for most people on higher difficulties. The other is Asia.

Thel posted:

Also, more generally, an alien that can see a xcom soldier in overwatch will never move. Then having someone flank them seems to break their puny alien brain or something.

This is a well known AI bug. I'm refraining from mentioning it in the OP because its usage is largely considered a personal taste sort of thing.

QuantaStarFire
May 18, 2006


Grimey Drawer

Coolguye posted:

Nothing reduces satellite costs except more engineers, sadly. Still, North America is one of the two really solid starts I'd recommend for most people on higher difficulties. The other is Asia.

Why Asia over Africa?

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

I've heard that it can on Normal, but are Ravens able to shoot down the Overseer on Classic or Impossible, or is it completely mandatory to build the Firestorms? I can't tell if it's just bad luck or what, since I ran out of track/aim/dodge buffs trying.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

QuantaStarFire posted:

Why Asia over Africa?

Africa is amazing to pick up later when +30% funding is a matter of a couple hundred bucks, but early on it will be worth roughly 30-50$/mo to you.

Asia will save you hundreds almost instantly when you build the OTS. And holy CHRIST is the OTS a big deal in Classic/Impossible.


RBA Starblade posted:

I've heard that it can on Normal, but are Ravens able to shoot down the Overseer on Classic or Impossible, or is it completely mandatory to build the Firestorms? I can't tell if it's just bad luck or what, since I ran out of track/aim/dodge buffs trying.

The specifics probably depend on how many corpses you've engineered into buffs. I'm positive it's possible to splash the Overseer UFO with an Interceptor, but the question becomes whether it's a good idea. You can either spend a ton of corpses (and therefore, money) on buff matrices and still be unable to engage Battleships when the time comes, or you can just solve the drat problem when it comes about.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jan 19, 2013

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

RBA Starblade posted:

I've heard that it can on Normal, but are Ravens able to shoot down the Overseer on Classic or Impossible, or is it completely mandatory to build the Firestorms? I can't tell if it's just bad luck or what, since I ran out of track/aim/dodge buffs trying.

Depends on your guns I'd say. With "just" Plasma they certainly can't.

Coylter
Aug 3, 2009
What is the point of being able to make multiple save game if you can't get away from lovely RNG? Isn't it basically just letting people save/load but using a sneaky programming trick to make sure you can't really change the outcome.

I mean wouldn't it be simpler to not let you reload at all and just antosave in real time. At least you wouldn't be under the illusion that the save / load function serves a purpose. Am i missing something?

QuantaStarFire
May 18, 2006


Grimey Drawer
But that 30-50 bucks is another potential satellite, at a time when having lots of satellites is a big deal. It just seems like an odd tradeoff, especially when you could use that satellite in securing Asia for the bonus.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

ChronoReverse posted:

Depends on your guns I'd say. With "just" Plasma they certainly can't.

Yeah, plasma's best I've got. What gives EMP Research again?

Viridiant
Nov 7, 2009

Big PP Energy

Coylter posted:

What is the point of being able to make multiple save game if you can't get away from lovely RNG? Isn't it basically just letting people save/load but using a sneaky programming trick to make sure you can't really change the outcome.

I mean wouldn't it be simpler to not let you reload at all and just antosave in real time. At least you wouldn't be under the illusion that the save / load function serves a purpose. Am i missing something?

I use it if I'm screwed over by bugs or if I make an extremely stupid mistake that I wouldn't have otherwise made if I wasn't completely spacing out, such as not moving a soldier next to an obviously burning vehicle.

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

RBA Starblade posted:

Yeah, plasma's best I've got. What gives EMP Research again?

The same tech that gives you the Firestorm =(

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Coolguye posted:

If someone can vouch that this works with the most recent patch I will add it to the mods post.
Anything with a file date of october is out of date with the current gamecore. Not a whole lot has changed -- the only thing I know about is tweaks for second wave, but I didn't get the game until November myself so I don't know if a previous patch had more changes. It should still work just fine, in that it won't cause problems.

I could make some new versions of hybrid normal-classic gamecores for the thread based on the latest patch.


RBA Starblade posted:

Is there any way to handle supply barges that doesn't suck? It's one big open area. I inch forward, and trigger 3 heavy mutons, cyberdiscs, and drones at the same time, moving one tile.
Was that take 1 step in the deployment area and spawn all that crap, or take 1 step into the ship? Because if it was the former, that sounds like the teleport / spawn bug, there shouldn't be spawns triggerable from the starting zone like that. File it under reasons-not-to-play-ironman.txt

If the latter, the backside of the ship is nasty. There are likely to be multiple groups in there. On the maps that set you down in the rear, you can try to flank around to either the side doors or the "head" of the ship.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

QuantaStarFire posted:

But that 30-50 bucks is another potential satellite, at a time when having lots of satellites is a big deal. It just seems like an odd tradeoff, especially when you could use that satellite in securing Asia for the bonus.

The contribution of satellites is relatively limited without the air power to defend them (NA) and the land power to recover their spoils (Asia). You also can't even use them without the requisite engineer base (Europe).

Rushing satellites is critical to success, but it has to be balanced with the rest of the dozens of demands you have on you in the early game. I will routinely sell off almost the entire first UFO I splash to keep up with the financial demands. An extra 30% on the first couple countries is not going to make a ton of difference.

Don't get me wrong, starting in Africa is not a bad idea (I'd argue that the only truly 'bad' place to start is SA), but I just don't prefer it since the bonus only makes a lot of sense after you've got some steam going.


RBA Starblade posted:

Yeah, plasma's best I've got. What gives EMP Research again?

Amusingly, researching firestorms. Also, this question prompted me to add a link to the tech tree in the second post.

Pomp
Apr 3, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Coylter posted:

What is the point of being able to make multiple save game if you can't get away from lovely RNG? Isn't it basically just letting people save/load but using a sneaky programming trick to make sure you can't really change the outcome.

I mean wouldn't it be simpler to not let you reload at all and just antosave in real time. At least you wouldn't be under the illusion that the save / load function serves a purpose. Am i missing something?

It's not a programming trick, it's just an RNG seed. You can change the outcome by reading the loving OP.

To your second question, there's an option for that when you start a new game.

Decrepus
May 21, 2008

In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.


Save/load all you want as long as you don't do it during combat. Get the result you want or replay the whole thing imo.

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

Coolguye posted:

Don't get me wrong, starting in Africa is not a bad idea (I'd argue that the only truly 'bad' place to start is SA), but I just don't prefer it since the bonus only makes a lot of sense after you've got some steam going

I personally dislike the EU start the most. You don't even get to have Russia for free!

QuantaStarFire
May 18, 2006


Grimey Drawer

Coylter posted:

What is the point of being able to make multiple save game if you can't get away from lovely RNG? Isn't it basically just letting people save/load but using a sneaky programming trick to make sure you can't really change the outcome.

I mean wouldn't it be simpler to not let you reload at all and just antosave in real time. At least you wouldn't be under the illusion that the save / load function serves a purpose. Am i missing something?

You can change the outcome of a given shot, but you have to perform your actions differently if you want the outcome to change. For instance, let's say I have an assault, a heavy, and a sniper all shooting at a Muton. First, I save my game, and then I fire with the sniper, and it hits and does damage. Then, I fire with the heavy, who misses, followed by the assault, who also misses. Now I'm out of shots, but I really wanted the Muton dead, so I reload. If I do everything in the same order as above, I will get the same outcome, guaranteed. So instead, I decide I'll fire with the heavy first, and it hits. Then I fire with the sniper, which also hits and kills the Muton, leaving the assault free to do something else, or maybe it ends the mission or whatever. In any event, by simply changing the firing order, I've changed the outcome to something more favourable than the original sequence of events.

Basically, to savescum in this game, you save, try something, and if it doesn't work, you reload and try something else.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Coylter posted:

What is the point of being able to make multiple save game if you can't get away from lovely RNG? Isn't it basically just letting people save/load but using a sneaky programming trick to make sure you can't really change the outcome.

I mean wouldn't it be simpler to not let you reload at all and just antosave in real time. At least you wouldn't be under the illusion that the save / load function serves a purpose. Am i missing something?

You can advance the RNG and therefore recalculate shots by taking almost any action. If you have 3 soldiers and you know Soldier A is going to miss a 90% chance to hit shot, simply move Soldier B or Soldier C, then go back and tell Soldier A to fire again. He will probably hit this time.

I discourage this sort of savescumming for a few reasons though:
  • It's colossally un-fun. What is fun in this game is moving tacticoolly, murdering aliens, and making poo poo blow up. It is not nursing an RNG. If an outcome is truly unacceptable to you, reload a few turns back or, better yet, from the beginning of the mission.
  • It hamstrings your development as a player. One of the appeals of a game as challenging as this is is getting better at the game and loving up the AI at its own tricks. If you don't have some :xcom: moments and get nailed, you're going to keep making the same mistakes.
  • It's boring.

Nephilm
Jun 11, 2009

by Lowtax

Coolguye posted:

Asia will save you hundreds almost instantly when you build the OTS. And holy CHRIST is the OTS a big deal in Classic/Impossible.

Asia is a terrible starting continent.

The starting funds difference between Asia and NA on Impossible is §110. How much money does the halved OTS costs save you for the critical early game upgrades? 62 bitcoins between Squad Size I & II. 125 if you add Wet Work to the equation.

It's barely worth it if you, for some reason, decide rush an OTS on the first month, and if you're not doing that then why are you even starting there? The liquid cash available from NA would help your first month more than an imaginary discount you're not using.

The best starting options are NA and Africa. NA because of all the money, and Africa because its bonus is good, initial funds adequate, and starting there means you'll hold down the bonus while being able to focus on other countries due to panic concerns. Europe and South America have a case with Marathon on, however. Asia is always lovely.

Nephilm fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jan 19, 2013

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Nephilm posted:

Asia is a terrible starting continent.

The starting funds difference between Asia and NA on Impossible is §110. How much money does the halved OTS costs save you for the critical early game upgrades? 62 bitcoins between Squad Size I & II. 125 if you add Wet Work to the equation.

Iron Will is an absolutely god drat critical upgrade in Impossible so toss that in there too.

You're also not including all the soldiers you have to replace because you're taking fewer casualties with extra soldiers on the field. Trust me, that's DEFINITELY a thing.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Coolguye posted:

Africa is amazing to pick up later when +30% funding is a matter of a couple hundred bucks, but early on it will be worth roughly 30-50$/mo to you.

Asia will save you hundreds almost instantly when you build the OTS. And holy CHRIST is the OTS a big deal in Classic/Impossible.
You are insanely low on the math for the Africa start. Month 1 it's worth $30, Month 2 you should grab the US and 1 other country worth at least $100, and the bonus is at least $125 even if you couldn't afford 3 sats. That's an entire extra country! From there is just snowballs up. Africa is worth at minimum twice any other bonus over the course of the game.

The Asia bonus is, financially, the worst bonus. Yes, even worse than Europe. If you bought everything from the foundry and OTS, it would be worth $1550. But you can't buy everything from the foundry because it doesn't reduce the cost in alloys or fragments. It does let you rush some OTS upgrades faster than normal in the early game, which is nice. But it's completely outclassed as a starting location by Africa's bonus or NA's starting cash.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Coolguye posted:


Amusingly, researching firestorms. Also, this question prompted me to add a link to the tech tree in the second post.

:negative:

quote:

Was that take 1 step in the deployment area and spawn all that crap, or take 1 step into the ship? Because if it was the former, that sounds like the teleport / spawn bug, there shouldn't be spawns triggerable from the starting zone like that. File it under reasons-not-to-play-ironman.txt

If the latter, the backside of the ship is nasty. There are likely to be multiple groups in there. On the maps that set you down in the rear, you can try to flank around to either the side doors or the "head" of the ship.

Yeah, that one. It's also the one where the front of the ship has one log for cover, and that's about it besides the sides of the craft. I thought I was being clever by going around back and grappling to the roof after poking my head in once to take out a cyberdisc. My poor sniper. He had 130 aim by the end with a scope, and was the sole survivor of a previous clusterfuck. On the plus side, I learned that aborting a mission means it won't raise panic.

quote:

I discourage this sort of savescumming for a few reasons though:

I savescum out of habit, and it really is a lot more fun to roll with the punches, even if it means certain death at times. I don't regret doing normal and reloading on occasion, though.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Klyith posted:

You are insanely low on the math for the Africa start. Month 1 it's worth $30, Month 2 you should grab the US and 1 other country worth at least $100, and the bonus is at least $125 even if you couldn't afford 3 sats. That's an entire extra country! From there is just snowballs up. Africa is worth at minimum twice any other bonus over the course of the game.
By the end of month 3 you should reasonably have enough of an infrastructure going to cover most of the map. 3 satellite control centers with adjacency bonuses is 8 sat capacity, which is more than enough to cover both Africa and Asia (presuming an NA start), plus a spare to fight panic.

Over the course of the game, I think you're correct that Africa's bonus does contribute more to your victory than anything else. But that doesn't mean you should start there, unless you are scared of losing a country there (which is legitimate - I, personally, am generally not, though).

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jan 19, 2013

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Coolguye posted:

Mind linking it? I'm actually not familiar with what you're talking about.

Jesus, this took forever to find.

misguided rage posted:

1) Do the first mission
2) Start excavating the spot directly to the right of your starting lift
3) On your first abduction mission, pick engineers
3.5) If your first mission doesn't pop up with at least 24 days until the report (unlikely, but it happened to me once) you might as well restart
4) Build a workshop in the spot you excavated
5) Hopefully you get a UFO down with at least 21 days left until the report
6) Sell everything, except for weapon fragments. You can hang on to alloys as well, if you don't think you can raise enough cash to put out another satellite
7) Build 3 or 4 satellites, one at a time
8) Do nothing until 15 days left on the report
9) If you're lucky you've had a fourth mission by now; if you haven't, you'll probably need to cancel a satellite (which you ordered one at a time, right?) to afford the uplink. Build it adjacent to the starting uplink
10) On the last day before the report, launch the satellites
11) Fill a swimming pool with your cash. Don't forget that you only have 6 days to build another workshop, and 10 to start satellites, if you want to have anything ready for the end of the second month.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3508281&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=616#post411010774

Konsek
Sep 4, 2006

Slippery Tilde
How often do you guys capture aliens on Classic/Impossible? I rarely get more than one per mission since it seems far too dangerous to leave enemies alive for the extra turn it takes to get a soldier with an arc thrower close enough.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

Coolguye posted:

By the end of month 3 you should reasonably have enough of an infrastructure going to cover most of the map. 3 satellite control centers with adjacency bonuses is 8 sat capacity, which is more than enough to cover both Africa and Asia (presuming an NA start), plus a spare to fight panic.
And by the same token, it's pretty easy to afford the good stuff in OTS during month 3 even if you don't have the Asia bonus. For example, Iron Will is cool, but are you really getting it in the second month?

I'm not against the Asia start, but to use it to the same effectiveness as Africa or NA, I feel you have to blitz on both the OTS and the foundry. The other thing is the benefits are all about the battlescape. I have the impression that most people think that in Impossible difficulty, the geoscape is a harder problem than the battlescape.

ChronoReverse posted:

I personally dislike the EU start the most. You don't even get to have Russia for free!
I play EU start, but out of perversity. :shepface:

The interesting thing about the Europe bonus is, it's actually the second best, money-wise, after Africa. Half price workshops mean you can poop them out as fast as you can dig the space and power them. Lots of engineers mean all the equipment you buy is cheaper, saving you more money. But it takes a while to spool up, so you don't really get the ROI until the mid-game. By then most people have their finances in hand, so it's not as big a deal.

I have spreadsheets for xcom. :suicide:

Nephilm
Jun 11, 2009

by Lowtax

Coolguye posted:

Iron Will is an absolutely god drat critical upgrade in Impossible so toss that in there too.

You're also not including all the soldiers you have to replace because you're taking fewer casualties with extra soldiers on the field. Trust me, that's DEFINITELY a thing.

I don't think you're understanding.

Are you getting an OTS in the first month or not?

Zellyn
Sep 27, 2000

The way he truly is.

Konsek posted:

How often do you guys capture aliens on Classic/Impossible? I rarely get more than one per mission since it seems far too dangerous to leave enemies alive for the extra turn it takes to get a soldier with an arc thrower close enough.

I learned the hard way that it's fairly important to capture a regular sectoid as soon as possible. They disappear relatively quickly if (like me) you burn through research to get to titan armor and plasma weapons. Why are sectoids so loving important? Plasma Pistols. There is no way to reverse engineer one of these from light plasma rifles or whatever (which is so dumb), which leaves your snipers user laser pistols and no access to Improved Pistols III. Vital? No, but if you're in a level where you can't leave your snipers hovering half a mile away to squadsight murder everything it helps.

Now, I have a question about ironman classic tactics. I haven't yet done the first base mission because I keep losing soldiers and I'm trying to beef up my ranks a bit first, but I'm already pretty much maxed (all nations are covered except Argentina, RIP) and now I'm facing off against muton elites and heavy floaters pretty commonly. I usually run 2 assaults, 2 supports, 1 heavy, 1 sniper. The problem I have is that, for muton elites especially, I have fuckall chance to hit them as even light cover + defense gives me at best a 30-40% chance of hitting them. If I try to close in and flank them (Run & Gun + Rapid Fire with an Alloy Cannon is one of the most reliable tactics) then I usually end up inviting some buddies to the fight and then I'm almost guaranteed to lose 1-2 soldiers. Should I just be trying to pull them backwards by breaking LOS? They seem perfectly happy to huddle up and snipe with their insane hit chances for-loving-ever.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Nephilm posted:

I don't think you're understanding.

Are you getting an OTS in the first month or not?
If you're in Asia, yes. If you're in NA or elsewhere I'd probably put it off to month 2.

Klyith posted:

And by the same token, it's pretty easy to afford the good stuff in OTS during month 3 even if you don't have the Asia bonus. For example, Iron Will is cool, but are you really getting it in the second month?
Yes? Any later and most of your initial crop of officers will be big liabilities against Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals. Early Iron Will saves you the effort and risk involved in training a late game A-Team. Even with early IW your first officers will be inherently inferior, but the extra Will they get is a Big Deal.

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Nephilm
Jun 11, 2009

by Lowtax

WeaponBoy posted:

I learned the hard way that it's fairly important to capture a regular sectoid as soon as possible. They disappear relatively quickly if (like me) you burn through research to get to titan armor and plasma weapons. Why are sectoids so loving important? Plasma Pistols. There is no way to reverse engineer one of these from light plasma rifles or whatever (which is so dumb), which leaves your snipers user laser pistols and no access to Improved Pistols III. Vital? No, but if you're in a level where you can't leave your snipers hovering half a mile away to squadsight murder everything it helps.

Now, I have a question about ironman classic tactics. I haven't yet done the first base mission because I keep losing soldiers and I'm trying to beef up my ranks a bit first, but I'm already pretty much maxed (all nations are covered except Argentina, RIP) and now I'm facing off against muton elites and heavy floaters pretty commonly. I usually run 2 assaults, 2 supports, 1 heavy, 1 sniper. The problem I have is that, for muton elites especially, I have fuckall chance to hit them as even light cover + defense gives me at best a 30-40% chance of hitting them. If I try to close in and flank them (Run & Gun + Rapid Fire with an Alloy Cannon is one of the most reliable tactics) then I usually end up inviting some buddies to the fight and then I'm almost guaranteed to lose 1-2 soldiers. Should I just be trying to pull them backwards by breaking LOS? They seem perfectly happy to huddle up and snipe with their insane hit chances for-loving-ever.

1. Your tech progression has nothing to do with the enemies that show up.
2. If you're facing Muton Elites and Heavy Floaters already then you've held off on doing the Alien Base for way too long.
3. This has nothing to do with the Alien Base since you should apply such tactics to all missions, but yes, pull back to set up overwatch traps or blow their cover.

  • Locked thread