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Cobbsprite posted:(Don't leave them in Overwatch... Thin Men don't trigger it when they drop into sight.) Is this a difficulty thing, because I can confirm that they do trigger in normal difficulty.
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Feb 8, 2013 04:51
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Cobbsprite posted:(Don't leave them in Overwatch... Thin Men don't trigger it when they drop into sight.) They totally do, but it's iffy. When they drop they usually get hit by overwatch fire immediately. Be ready for the first few thin men to drop early, and then keep the VIP mostly back. Since the thin men drop as you move the VIP forward, you can keep him relatively safe back at the starting point. When you've dealt with the normal aliens, you can go ahead and spread out and overwatch so that you'll blast them into tiny chunks the moment they appear. This is on all difficulties (WELL i didn't try impossible but whatever, probably)
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Feb 8, 2013 04:53
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If I recall, someone said (probably in this thread) that the thin man / overwatch thing is similar to other aliens not triggering overwatch: your soldiers have to see them move twice. Game mechanics-wise, thin men spawn way up in the air, step forward, and fall down. If your soldiers can only see where they fell to, they only see that one movement, so no overwatch shot. If they can see where they spawned, as well, they see the step and the fall, and you get shots off.
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Feb 8, 2013 04:57
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Finished Iron Man on normal. It was pretty easy. My biggest loss was a Cpt Sniper early on to a Muton who moved despite overwatch and no cover, ran in the middle of 5 dudes, caught sight of the sniper who was just moving up to take new high ground, and one hit crit him. Other than that it was pretty chill. My final group was a Heavy, Assault, Sniper and 3x Supports. I swear that sometimes the game takes away my 2nd action when I make a single move and awake enemies. I almost lost my Assault when I did what I thought was a single move, awoke a cyber disk and a muton, and ended up without a 2nd move to run away or activate ghost armor. She did take a close combat shot on the cyber disk, but that normally doesn't take up her 2nd move.
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Feb 8, 2013 05:05
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Quick question about panic increasing in abduction missions on continents I didn't take. Does panic go up by 1 on Normal, 2 on Classic, and 3 on Impossible? I need to plan this out to avoid a catastrophic council report, but if the panic doesn't shoot up as high as I hope, I can go for the better reward and put satellites up later. EDIT: On Classic, not doing an abduction mission on a country raises its panic by 2, and the rest of the countries in that continent by 1. Olive Branch fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 05:07
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Is there a way of playing without hearing story based plot poo poo all the time? I'm on my second way through on my first hardcore game and I'm sick of hearing about stuff I wasn't very into the first time around.
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Feb 8, 2013 05:50
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Nah, no way to turn off Vahlen complaining about your use of explosives or Shen providing his expert opinion as a scientist into every new species you encounter.
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Feb 8, 2013 06:06
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Well I just did the final UFO I'm going to do before I head into the final mission. A battleship showed up just as I was getting ready, so I figured I'd give it a go. Seemed like both a horrible idea as I'm on my classic/ironman run, yet also a great one since I wanted those fusion cores for blaster launchers to nuke some robots. Things went pretty well up until the last room, where in the middle of working on offing a sectopod, the etheral decided to run out of his command center and mind control one of my heavies. It didn't help he brought along a full assortment of mutons.  I somehow managed to pull it off with abuse of mind control on mutons to make them decoys, double tapping and a good three rockets. The really scary thing about it all was three of my soldiers ended the mission with 1 HP left. That assault, heavy and support all deserve a medal. Now to decide if giving my assaults ghost armor will be worth it for the final mission or if I should keep them titan'd up for the huge health.
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Feb 8, 2013 07:09
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Never not ghost everyone. Well, except snipers who're happy with archangel.
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Feb 8, 2013 07:13
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Olive Branch posted:Quick question about panic increasing in abduction missions on continents I didn't take. Does panic go up by 1 on Normal, 2 on Classic, and 3 on Impossible? I need to plan this out to avoid a catastrophic council report, but if the panic doesn't shoot up as high as I hope, I can go for the better reward and put satellites up later. I reviewed the game's DefaultGameCore.ini file to determine those values.
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Feb 8, 2013 07:30
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Nephilm posted:Never not ghost everyone. Well, except snipers who're happy with archangel. Give ghost armor to Snipers for even more guaranteed crits. With double-tap, headshot, and ghost armor, a Sniper can basically murder anything in the space of a single turn.
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Feb 8, 2013 08:03
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Annnnd I just finished the final mission, getting trophies for classic, ironman and the one for having a soldier on every single mission. I am definitely glad I both went all ghost armor and glad I put up with that battleship. That pair of sectopods never knew what hit them since my blaster rockets hit them from out of their range while my cloaked sniper spotted. And the only damage any of my squad took was a alien 'nade from a muton. It'll be nice to be able to save whenever I want next time. Though doing classic ironman sure has drilled into me how to Actually Play.
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Feb 8, 2013 08:37
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wuffles posted:They don't even support the current game with any conviction, so my feelings are mixed about a sequel. There are so many bugs that have been reported over and over, yet they remain long after the game was released. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but stuff like this (a new bug to me) is really irritating: Bugs are bugs, but they are probably not fixing them because they are busy working on the new DLC. Which was going to be another DLC like Slingshot, but because of general dislike for the direction of the DLC (which Jake Solomon took the blame for) they scrapped their planned 90-day DLC and instead are working on something completely new. Something that might enhance the experience, I hope.
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Feb 8, 2013 09:18
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Voyager I posted:Give ghost armor to Snipers for even more guaranteed crits. With double-tap, headshot, and ghost armor, a Sniper can basically murder anything in the space of a single turn. The only armor snipers should never bother with is Titan. They kick rear end with ghost and archangel both, really. Archangel + In The Zone is a pretty choice combo, for example. But with archangel and an upgraded SCOPE my flying colonels tend to get crits more often than they don't.
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Feb 8, 2013 16:23
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Cobbsprite posted:I don't understand skipping the first UFO. I have enough guys to usually take them both down if I'm willing to throw grenades around willy-nilly (and you SHOULD on Classic or Impossible). If you ignore the first UFO (small) then almost immediately you get a second (medium) that has more aliens (more xp, more weapon fragments, etc) and more salvage from the ship. Skipping the first council mission is a matter of weighing risk/reward. At that early stage, 5 hp thin men can wreck a squad and wipe out an otherwise solid game in 2 turns if one thing goes sour. I know where all the thin men come from on all the maps when they drop in (that's the easy part), its clearing through the map at first that's risky. As a personal example, I had a run end when my entire squad got wiped on the escort mission starting in the observatory. I cleared the starting building and moved 2 squad sight snipers to the roof of the observatory (far back from the middle of the map). I reveal a group of 3 thin men over by the storage tanks, miss 3 or 4 ~80% squad sight shots (among other unfortunate misses from the rest of the team)as the thin men destroy my squad with poison and plasma fire as they advance. Perhaps its poor play on my part, but the reward is rarely juicy enough for me to justify taking those kinds of risks when those missions become much easier to complete in month 2 (and if its not a bomb disposal - which I always skip - you don't pay any penalty for ignoring it besides a disappointed faceless XCOM dude at the end of the month.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:59
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wuffles posted:If you ignore the first UFO (small) then almost immediately you get a second (medium) that has more aliens (more xp, more weapon fragments, etc) and more salvage from the ship. The larger scout ship that shows up has more sectoids, but to me the REAL threat is the outsider at the end. With the small scouts, the outsider activates as soon as you get close to the craft. Larger scouts have rooms, though, don't they? So in that case the outsider would just be chilling in a room waiting for you to bust in SWAT-style. Just another reason to let the first UFO go.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:15
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wuffles posted:If you ignore the first UFO (small) then almost immediately you get a second (medium) that has more aliens (more xp, more weapon fragments, etc) and more salvage from the ship. Skipping the first council mission is a matter of weighing risk/reward. At that early stage, 5 hp thin men can wreck a squad and wipe out an otherwise solid game in 2 turns if one thing goes sour. I know where all the thin men come from on all the maps when they drop in (that's the easy part), its clearing through the map at first that's risky. You don't have to send the A-team on every mission. Rookies can do bomb missions just fine.. or they get wiped but who cares. You start with plenty of soldiers, the unranked ones are entirely expendable. My last month 1 bomb mission on ironman classic had 4 rookies going in 3 squaddies coming out
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Feb 8, 2013 18:45
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Man, sounds like I have to learn to be heartless to step up to higher difficulties. I've heard of people deliberately using rookies as scouts. Poor newbies. And seriously there's no penalty for skipping or failing a bomb mission?? edit: Also, I'm not sure I really understand the workshop rebate bonus. What exactly does it apply to? Any building I build adjacent to the shop, plus foundry projects and "vehicles." (shivs and fighters I assume?) What about just buying armor from engineering and whatnot
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Feb 8, 2013 19:08
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Deuce posted:Man, sounds like I have to learn to be heartless to step up to higher difficulties. I've heard of people deliberately using rookies as scouts. You know how people generally treat civilians during terror missions? The whole, "Better them than me, and if aliens attack them instead of my soldiers then awesome"? Rookies might as well be civvies with a gun and grenade. Throw that grenade, earn your stripes, but if the aliens wipe out a rookie then it's better him than any of the more talented soldiers. I'm out the 15 credits to replace him, much better than losing the time spent on your favorite heavy.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:23
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Deuce posted:Man, sounds like I have to learn to be heartless to step up to higher difficulties. I've heard of people deliberately using rookies as scouts. In the original Xcom game, the optimum strategy was to send rookies as forward scouts and spotters and then have your ranked guys blast from a mile away. Often they'd hit the spotter. It was also common to load them up with high explosives and charge them into crowded rooms as suicide bombers, or to bomb Chrysalids. Against psionic enemies I sometimes sent rookies out with explosives and no actual weapons because I couldn't risk their dumb asses turning on me. Rookie liberation has come a long way.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:28
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Deuce posted:Man, sounds like I have to learn to be heartless to step up to higher difficulties. I've heard of people deliberately using rookies as scouts. No, if its a bomb disposal and you fail/ignore it you will take a panic hit, but not for the other council missions. hhhmmm posted:You don't have to send the A-team on every mission. Rookies can do bomb missions just fine.. or they get wiped but who cares. You start with plenty of soldiers, the unranked ones are entirely expendable. My last month 1 bomb mission on ironman classic had 4 rookies going in 3 squaddies coming out That's actually a good bit of advice, thanks.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:31
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Against psionics the optimal was to bring an unarmed rookie weak to them, to serve as a kind lightning rod for all the panic and mind control.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:31
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Nephilm posted:Against psionics the optimal was to bring an unarmed rookie weak to them, to serve as a kind lightning rod for all the panic and mind control. You're not considered full Xcom until you've pissed your pants in shrieking incoherent terror. And then they slap some stripes on you and give you a gun and act like it never happened. edit: Unemployment makes it a lot easier to finish games so I finally got through my classic run. I really like the end reveal and how it answers some questions you might otherwise have to chalk up to it just being a video game. Next up, Ironman Impossible and drinking myself to death! Nehru the Damaja fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 19:45
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A little confused about what to expect from base management: Is it turn-based too, like the combat, or not. I get the impression that this part of the game is not turn based. I would prefer if it was.
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Feb 9, 2013 16:35
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Jarl posted:A little confused about what to expect from base management: Is it turn-based too, like the combat, or not. I get the impression that this part of the game is not turn based. I would prefer if it was. It's just time based. Everything is given an ETA in days, and you can wait or go on missions to pass time. If you arn't waiting or going on a mission, the time stands still.
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Feb 9, 2013 16:40
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Jarl posted:A little confused about what to expect from base management: Is it turn-based too, like the combat, or not. I get the impression that this part of the game is not turn based. I would prefer if it was. it's not, but functionally it is.
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Feb 9, 2013 16:40
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Jarl posted:A little confused about what to expect from base management: Is it turn-based too, like the combat, or not. I get the impression that this part of the game is not turn based. I would prefer if it was. It's "Real Time," but during that Real Time you are essentially paused whenever you would have to make any decision of any kind, so there's none of the twitch reflexes required of real time games involved.
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Feb 9, 2013 16:56
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Spiffo posted:The larger scout ship that shows up has more sectoids, but to me the REAL threat is the outsider at the end. With the small scouts, the outsider activates as soon as you get close to the craft. Larger scouts have rooms, though, don't they? So in that case the outsider would just be chilling in a room waiting for you to bust in SWAT-style. Early game, what I generally like to do is run a guy up to trigger it and then lob a grenade at it so its cover gets destroyed. Then the other three squad members can put it down. Letting the first one go is something I hadn't considered before, but it makes sense. Gonna try that on my next playthrough.
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Feb 9, 2013 17:16
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As much as I like this game the bugs can be a bit infuriating at times. My latest annoyance is that my build times for my base were altered after a terror mission- I had a satellite uplink scheduled to finish building right before the month's council report (along with 3 satellites to put up). Imagine my surprise when after the terror mission I then had the council report and proceeded to lose 3 countries- then have the uplink finish building right afterwards. To check on this I went back and loaded a save from just before the terror mission and skipped it. This time the uplink finished building before the month was up and I can get my three satellites up before the end of the month! Has anything like this happened to anyone else?
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Feb 9, 2013 17:54
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Yep, in at least 2 games. I now schedule my uplinks or satellites to complete at least a day before the end of the month. I believe that one of the updates for the game introduced it, since I never had the problem on the original version off the game.
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Feb 9, 2013 18:01
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loving Thin Men. Maybe I should have played a nonferrous Classic game before attempting Classic Iron Man. (I successfully put three sats into space before the end of the first month, but my troops kept getting wasted by Thin Men.)
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Feb 10, 2013 05:00
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Interesting variation of the teleporting glitch. Just went through the alien base again. Map had 22 enemies total. 21 of them managed to teleport into the beginning anteroom over the course of three turns. Didn't take a single point of damage. Had two heavies and didn't even use any rockets.  It was the slightly nicer variation of the teleport where they don't take an immediate free turn after scattering, otherwise everyone would have died horribly. There was a somewhat dicey part when I tossed dense smoke for cover against the ~7+ floaters, and three chrysallids popped in, and all walked straight into the dense smoke. Fortunately, half the floaters backed off for some reason. It seems like the ai is really lenient towards you when you're massively outnumbered, at least on classic. Afterwards, I just dashed straight through the rest of the level, and it was completely empty except for the commander. Edit: Not teleport related, but another pretty bs mechanic is that the step out animation that plays when you fire from behind full cover can trigger enemies. RIP Harry Mr. Clean Jones. animatorZed fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Feb 10, 2013 |
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Feb 10, 2013 08:46
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Cobbsprite posted:loving Thin Men. Maybe I should have played a nonferrous Classic game before attempting Classic Iron Man. Now imagine they have 2 more HP, +10% chance to crit, and all your soldiers have one fewer HP. Hence skipping the first council mission on impossible (though I guess you could take 4 rookies and just see what happens).
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Feb 10, 2013 10:10
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Whoever made the "Uber ethereal" introduction video unskippable is a person I would cheerfully murder.
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Feb 10, 2013 12:43
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Dudley posted:Whoever made the "Uber ethereal" introduction video unskippable is a person I would cheerfully murder. I'd like to add to that list how the people you rescue in council missions take away your ability to do anything while they're talking. GET OVER HERE DON'T LET ME HAVE ALL THE FUN. 
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Feb 10, 2013 12:52
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So I'm starting again to finish my classic playthrough. Is the DLC mission pack that came out worth it?
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Feb 10, 2013 15:01
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DrManiac posted:So I'm starting again to finish my classic playthrough. Is the DLC mission pack that came out worth it? Edit: I should also mention that dear leader ~*Jake Solomon*~ has mentioned they switched gears for the later DLC, after seeing the lukewarm reaction this one got. So if you're looking for the goods, the bad news is it's not here yet, but the good news is it's coming eventually Soup du Journey fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Feb 10, 2013 |
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Feb 10, 2013 15:05
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Routah posted:I'd like to add to that list how the people you rescue in council missions take away your ability to do anything while they're talking. GET OVER HERE DON'T LET ME HAVE ALL THE FUN. Also doors spontaneously opening when someone next to them does something unrelated to the door, like overwatch.
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Feb 10, 2013 15:57
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Holy poo poo classic ironman can be brutal. I play the first few missions several times to get a feel for classic, then put on ironman and go for it. Opening mission with my four rookies, first set of sectoids get wiped out. Second is awkwardly placed so they spot me from a long distance and take cover. I take down the first one, no problems. Then one of them runs around a corner, shoots one of my guys, doesn't even kill him, and the entire team freaking panics. First panic shot actually kills the sectoid, but a teammate panic shots and seriously injures another teammate, which makes another panic.... I'm just pretending this is nethack and this is how it's supposed to go.
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Feb 10, 2013 17:27
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I had mopped up everything on a map but then I started getting overwatch hits from a muton that I absolutely couldn't find. I had all my guys swarming the area from where he was shooting but nothing. I eventually found a spot of ground next to a ramp that I should have been able to move to but it wouldn't let me. Not knowing what else to do I chucked a grenade at the ramp and sure enough a muton appeared and died in the explosion. So was that a bug or do mutons eventually develop the ability to cloak? If so are explosions the only way to reveal them?
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Feb 10, 2013 17:36
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