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The change in difficulty as soon as heavy floaters appear is brutal. gently caress their grenade throwing, high defense, HEAT weapon asses.
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Feb 8, 2015 10:37
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The experience of fighting heavy floaters can be summed up by flipping a coin a couple dozen times. Every time you get two consecutive heads, congratulations, you just killed a heavy floater. Every time you get two consecutive tails, eat poo poo, you just lost a high level soldier. Repeat this on every turn of every mission from this point on (since heavy floaters are utterly omnipresent) because the devs didn't pick up on the fact that the sub 50% hit rates at the beginning of a campaign are only OK because the defense on normal aliens is entirely conditional and possible to negate through multiple means, and instead stacked so much unavoidable defense on the fuckers that well played max level troops kitted to the nines fair worse than ballistic rookies with a deathly aversion to taking cover raiding a March 2015 landed supply ship.
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Feb 8, 2015 13:35
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Meat Miracle posted:The experience of fighting heavy floaters can be summed up by flipping a coin a couple dozen times. Every time you get two consecutive heads, congratulations, you just killed a heavy floater. Every time you get two consecutive tails, eat poo poo, you just lost a high level soldier. Repeat this on every turn of every mission from this point on (since heavy floaters are utterly omnipresent) because the devs didn't pick up on the fact that the sub 50% hit rates at the beginning of a campaign are only OK because the defense on normal aliens is entirely conditional and possible to negate through multiple means, and instead stacked so much unavoidable defense on the fuckers that well played max level troops kitted to the nines fair worse than ballistic rookies with a deathly aversion to taking cover raiding a March 2015 landed supply ship. I just fought a heavy floater with tactical sense 
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Feb 8, 2015 14:28
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My favorite HF experience is my very first in LW. It was something like september 2015 and I was raiding a landed raider. It might have been an ambush, because it had an 8-strong pod of heavy floaters that patrolled into me and overwatch pinned me, while I had two troops panicking thanks to some sectoids I'd met earlier. It's not fun staring down the barrel of eight plasma rifles and knowing that you're a turn away from wiping. I did what I could, popped smoke and started running. My scout went first and ate an immediately fatal crit, but cleared the way for the rest of the squad. Next the floaters murdered the panicked troops and started coming after the rest. With some luck I got out with only three KIA. Heavy floaters are basically a psi check. As in, "gently caress you if you can't take a troop with psi panic on every mission at this point." Otherwise the best way to take them on that I can figure out is to shred with rocketeer, run your tanky mec in to draw fire and hope you can kill the one with HEAT ammo. Flamethrowers help if you're lucky enough to have some cluster close to the ground.
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Feb 8, 2015 18:22
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Heavy floaters are kinda BS in that I'm almost certain they start with A LOT more perks or they show up late enough that even minimal research gives them a lot of perks or something. Dunno if that's intended or something, but my first encounter with them they already had 16-21 hp despite the other aliens like floaters only still at 6-10, and mutons averaging out at 10-12. I could only guess what perks they have. They're certainly the alpha strike/focus fire targets if they do show up. I'll have to encounter more and see where that takes me but at a certain point in the game after HFs appear you run scared that even a simple mission might roll HFs, where they will poo poo on your lower ranked troops. Flying is 30def plus most of the time they already have 10def innate, they almost never land, throw in DGG for another 10def ... yikes. Floaters can get this bad later on but all they do is shoot most of the time. That's why I'm kinda excited for the next beta, since they're directly and indirectly buffing supports just shooting. Aim progression is being flattened, and so are items that grant aim, which is fantastic in so many ways. Enemy defense progression is also getting nerfed in response in the same vein. It just means aim differences between TSGT-MSGT troops and dead end rookies even at CPL should not be super drastic, which means that at the very least even something like CPL infantry can at least still be useful later in the mid-/late-game when they can at least shoot and hit something and not be dead weight/grenade hauler/scouting/running meld. That also means the support classes are getting buffs to their OW parts of their tree which make speccing a medic/engineer/rocketeer as a riflemen rather than super specialized troops viable.
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Feb 8, 2015 18:26
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I've come pretty close to editing the ini to nerf the flying defense bonus, specifically because of Heavy Floaters, but I can't bring myself to do it and totally puss out.
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Feb 8, 2015 18:27
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Fuzz posted:I've come pretty close to editing the ini to nerf the flying defense bonus, specifically because of Heavy Floaters, but I can't bring myself to do it and totally puss out. It's not necessary. The whole point of Heavy Floaters is to provide an enemy that forces the player to change tactics from aim stack and focus fire. Suppression by itself can deal with a single HF, while a pod of them can be neutralized using 2 Rocketeers.
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Feb 8, 2015 18:34
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amanasleep posted:It's not necessary. The whole point of Heavy Floaters is to provide an enemy that forces the player to change tactics from aim stack and focus fire. Suppression by itself can deal with a single HF, while a pod of them can be neutralized using 2 Rocketeers. Yeah, of course, the pair of rocketeers that I always bring to all missions. You know, everytime I see a post like that I look left and there is a high chance (but not enough to hit a HF) of it being you defending some of the more shitastic stuff in the mod with the "yeah, that's why you bring X to the fight" argument. BTW, I got four 7-pods of HF in my base assault in whatever month it is that HF first appear. trucutru fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 19:51
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The one saving grace vs heavy floaters is that mimic beacons completely trivialize them. Throw one down with a decently high will psi trooper and they will gladly spend all their moves running to it and making a nice compact grouping for your rockets, grenades, and flamethrowers. The trouble is that you'll probably need to have braved many pods of heavy floaters before you get to that point. Lots of smoke grenades and high aim infantry/snipers/MECs helped me with that, but I'm playing on Normal. Tarezax fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 20:12
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What accessory items do you guys all use on MECs? Other than Weapon Gyros, Elerium Turbos, and Carbide Plating, I mean.
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Feb 8, 2015 20:55
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For my goliaths and such: Allow belts, battle computers, tactical sensors. I like to enjoy really high defense before it gets nerfed in the next version. Pathfinder (and some other MECs that are going to be shooting a lot) gets accuracy and damage items. In general my favorite item after the turbos has to be the battle computer.
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Feb 8, 2015 21:07
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trucutru posted:For my goliaths and such: Allow belts, battle computers, tactical sensors. I like to enjoy really high defense before it gets nerfed in the next version. Don't you want your Goliaths to have low defense so that Aliens will selectively choose to shoot at them vs everyone else?
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Feb 8, 2015 21:09
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So how exactly does one manage the air game? Do I just need to accept that I need to let some UFOs go by and take the panic hit and lose a satellite every month? Even with 6 interceptors there's so many UFOs that at some point all my birds will be undergoing repairs and that's after being forced to skip a transport and a raider because I didn't have enough birds for those. Is there an early weapon or defense upgrade for them to make dealing with this poo poo easier? I already did the research to make the fighters better against scouts and raiders but they still get pinged at least once most of the time.
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Feb 8, 2015 21:26
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Any suggestion for the XCOM HQ surprise attack mission? I'm having real troubles going trough it, since there are way too many aliens to deal with, and half of my soldiers are just recruits.
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Feb 8, 2015 21:54
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:I'd like to borrow $200M
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:So how exactly does one manage the air game? Do I just need to accept that I need to let some UFOs go by and take the panic hit and lose a satellite every month? Even with 6 interceptors there's so many UFOs that at some point all my birds will be undergoing repairs and that's after being forced to skip a transport and a raider because I didn't have enough birds for those. Is there an early weapon or defense upgrade for them to make dealing with this poo poo easier? I already did the research to make the fighters better against scouts and raiders but they still get pinged at least once most of the time. The key to the early air game is indeed to let some UFOs go and take the panic hit, saving your air force for the UFOs you can actually take down. For the purposes of satellite protection this means always having Interceptors available to take down Scouts. Do not challenge Fighters or Destroyers unless they are on Sat hunting missions, and even then you should consider just spending the 140 to have a sat in reserve at all times. There is no way you should be trying to take down Transports in the early game. RattiRatto posted:Any suggestion for the XCOM HQ surprise attack mission? I'm having real troubles going trough it, since there are way too many aliens to deal with, and half of my soldiers are just recruits. The base defense is only something you can prepare for, not something you can really deal with after it hits if your forces are not ready. Keys in preparation are HEAT ammo gunners, Infantry, Alien Grenades, and doing the Foundry upgrades for your Blue Shirts. Although the Base Defense can theoretically happen any time after September or so, it is far more likely to happen after you execute a Base Assault. Early Base defense enemies are somewhat easier, while Base Defense after Q1 2016 or so can be much more difficult. I usually try to level my early troops to be ready for a Base Defense, and as soon as I have the Blue Shirt Upgrades and AGs I start working towards my first Alien Base Assault to try and force a Base Defense while I am prepared but before I get into late game alien tech. amanasleep fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 22:03
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RE heavy floaters - they're not too bad as long as you unload absolutely everything you have on them. Use rockets and grenades to hurt them and blow up any cars they're hiding behind. You should have a good psi trooper on every mission, and psi panic from a good psi trooper is pretty much a guaranteed panic on a heavy floater. Have your sniper use disabling shot. Heavy floaters are drat annoying, but they're only a real threat in numbers. If you can kill/panic/disable the pod down to one or two active floaters, they're pretty simple.
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Feb 8, 2015 22:21
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amanasleep posted:The base defense is only something you can prepare for, not something you can really deal with after it hits if your forces are not ready. Keys in preparation are HEAT ammo gunners, Infantry, Alien Grenades, and doing the Foundry upgrades for your Blue Shirts. Although the Base Defense can theoretically happen any time after September or so, it is far more likely to happen after you execute a Base Assault. Early Base defense enemies are somewhat easier, while Base Defense after Q1 2016 or so can be much more difficult. I usually try to level my early troops to be ready for a Base Defense, and as soon as I have the Blue Shirt Upgrades and AGs I start working towards my first Alien Base Assault to try and force a Base Defense while I am prepared but before I get into late game alien tech. Sounds like i'll have to start over if i don't manage to pass that. I did the alien base assault too early, i really didn't expect this attack as response!
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Feb 8, 2015 22:41
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I just saw a 2-story-tall 'lid with 60 hp on a terror mission. Terror indeed.
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Feb 8, 2015 22:48
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Wardende posted:I just saw a 2-story-tall 'lid with 60 hp on a terror mission. Terror indeed. Wait until you see the Sectopod version...
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Feb 8, 2015 23:10
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I read that as "Sectoid" and now I really want to see that.
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Feb 8, 2015 23:12
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Wardende posted:I just saw a 2-story-tall 'lid with 60 hp on a terror mission. Terror indeed. I got my first monster Chryssalid in my current game on the ruined warehouse map. Turn one, move my units from the LZ into position. Turn two, open the the big door and there's the monster Chryssalid and his five little hungry friends. I had no units with Shock Absorbing Armor and no Absorption Fields, so tanking it was out of the question. The map is too narrow to kite it, so I promptly noped the gently caress out of that terror mission. According to Steam, I have almost 800 hours into XCom and that's the first time I've ever had to straight up abandon a terror mission. The panic increase cost me South Africa and Egypt, but it was better than losing an entire squad.
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Feb 8, 2015 23:12
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Deuce posted:Wait until you see the Sectopod version... You can't Disable Shot or EMP or chem a Godzilid nor can you use HEAT ammo for a damage boost.
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Feb 8, 2015 23:15
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 My Gunner is in heavy cover, suppressing a Muton. Dense Smoke on top of him, the muton is flashbanged and acided from both my other engineers - maybe I can move in and capture him. At this point I've done this like a few dozen times as part of my capture procedure.NOPE, the motherfucker goes balls out and shoots my gunner, leaving him at 1HP.  I guess.I guess now I can stop putting off making Goliaths. edit: then again in the same mission I literally captured 2 berserkers on the same turn. Them's the breaks. Sober fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Feb 9, 2015 |
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Feb 9, 2015 00:09
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Fuzz posted:Don't you want your Goliaths to have low defense so that Aliens will selectively choose to shoot at them vs everyone else? I run lots of long-range units and use the Goliath as a super-scout to run overwatches. He's is usually left in a position where he'll be the only one targeted anyways. If he's ignored then even better, so he can go around BBQing stuff. On other news, after three hours of playing, I cleared a mission on the river valley supply barge by using the bullshit terrain against the enemy. I wasn't planning to cheese the place but, hey! 13 mutons, 5 thin men, and some seekers activated when I dared move like 2 steps during a firefight in the river with some mechtoids (where a sectoid commander survived without me noticing). So I ran like crazy to my spawn area close to the cargo hold, hid my Marauder in one corner and set up a sniper trap.  Nobody can see the MEC on that position (but they know she is there, goddamn cheaters) so they are really scared of pushing forward. On my turn I would move the MEC one step and use her to spot for my snipers, then she would hid again. My other troops in the upper-left -left of the cover in the pic- and from that position you can actually shoot the aliens using the ramp to the right. It cannot be seen clearly on the pic but there are at least 15 bodies in there. You can also see that the distance that thinmen fly after getting shot in the goddamn face by a railgun is very consistent. I only won because I managed to throw one scanner next to a roaming pod of heavy floaters at the start and, from then on, I could keep track of them and move the gently caress away when they got close (this was at the start of the mission). When I finally cleared everything else I set up another firing range and finished them.  After that it was just a matter of clearing the outsiders. I wish in the zone wasn't so inconsistent or else I would have killed their asses more easily, instead, one of them managed to hit my MEC so now it has to stay in the hospital (or is it the mec shop?) for a while. 2 disks 3 drones 13 mutons 10 seekers 5 thinmen 2 mechtoids 1 sectoid commander 7 outsiders 2 heavy floaters 5 floaters All this with the aliens down to 3 meld per canister, on November. 
trucutru fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Feb 9, 2015 |
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Feb 9, 2015 00:34
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Antti posted:You can't Disable Shot or EMP or chem a Godzilid nor can you use HEAT ammo for a damage boost. Doesn't have the DR or defense of the UltraPod, and flashbangs/flamethrowers still work.
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Feb 9, 2015 00:37
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trucutru posted:On other news, after three hours of playing, I cleared a mission on the river valley supply barge by using the bullshit terrain against the enemy. I wasn't planning to cheese the place but, hey! 13 mutons, 5 thin men, and some seekers activated when I dared move like 2 steps during a firefight in the river with some mechtoids (where a sectoid commander survived without me noticing). So I ran like crazy to my spawn area close to the cargo hold, hid my Marauder in one corner and set up a sniper trap.
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Feb 9, 2015 01:26
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Did they change how MEC suits work? I built a third MEC-1 and then upgraded one of the three to a MEC-2, now I have a MEC-2 and 3 MEC-1s. Do the MEC-1 suits not get eaten up when you upgrade to a 2?
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Feb 9, 2015 02:18
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trucutru posted:Yeah, of course, the pair of rocketeers that I always bring to all missions. You know, everytime I see a post like that I look left and there is a high chance (but not enough to hit a HF) of it being you defending some of the more shitastic stuff in the mod with the "yeah, that's why you bring X to the fight" argument. That's really the biggest complaint I have with long war. They went and added a bunch of cool extra stuff then undermined that with balance fixes that ensure you get hosed if you deviate from the one true path envisaged by the founders.
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Feb 9, 2015 03:07
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Fuzz posted:Did they change how MEC suits work? I built a third MEC-1 and then upgraded one of the three to a MEC-2, now I have a MEC-2 and 3 MEC-1s. Do the MEC-1 suits not get eaten up when you upgrade to a 2? You miscounted?
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Feb 9, 2015 03:12
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Heliotic posted:That's really the biggest complaint I have with long war. They went and added a bunch of cool extra stuff then undermined that with balance fixes that ensure you get hosed if you deviate from the one true path envisaged by the founders. Mine is more that amanasleep has this amazing recommendation for a hundred different nasty situations and apparently no understanding that the rest of us aren't psychic  I need another three or four troopers to handle all your recommendations, dude! Ultra Skyranger foundry project! edit: I suppose in B15 we can use commander's choice to make the team all rocketeers. There is no problem that can't be solved with sufficient ordnance. Deuce fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Feb 9, 2015 |
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Feb 9, 2015 03:21
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I'm stuck (as in, 10+ tries) on this goddamn UFO landing random mission. The second I move anywhere the aliens start pouring in; multiple berserkers, a squad of heavy mutons and one of normal ones, TWO squads of heavy floaters, a sectopod and two cyberdisks. Like, they pop right there next to wherever my guys are and waltz in. They don't all spawn at once but they will be coming in a pretty solid stream once the first discover me. I can't do this bullshit, I can't take cover when they come from three different directions. What kind of sin did I commit to be condemned into this (buggy?) hell, XCOM? WHAT?
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Feb 9, 2015 03:53
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Deuce posted:Mine is more that amanasleep has this amazing recommendation for a hundred different nasty situations and apparently no understanding that the rest of us aren't psychic There's nothing wrong with LW throwing situations at you that can't be handled. But I hear a lot of complaints saying "X is unfair bullshit that nobody can handle!" and I don't really see it. There are certainly some things that have come along in various incarnations of LW that were unbalanced. And, TBH, I have been the first person over on Nexus arguing for those things to be modified, nerfed, or buffed to make a better game. If you really believe you have found something that is objectively BS about LW in any way, I encourage you to post it on Nexus and JL, Ellatan and even Amineri are likely to engage with you on the issue if you are respectful and lay out a well-considered argument. It happens all the time and many, many great things that we take for granted about LW today are the result of player feedback. In this forum (which is not monitored by the devs), I mostly chime in to provide a corrective to "that's impossible!" by showing that almost any situation is possible to deal with. You don't need to be psychic but you do need to consider the likely threats during various time periods of the game and you do need to develop your roster and arsenal intelligently to have the right tool available. Let's take late game HF spam. This is not a new issue. By the time you get to them you should have multiple ways of neutralizing airborne high defense enemies, and multiple ways of inhibiting or resisting Bombardier Alien Grenades. I mention Rocketeers not because I think everybody needs to bring 2 Rocks on every mission to counter HF spam, but because having them plus maybe Recoilless Rifles and some suppression is an effective counter without needing any other high tech weapons development or high level soldiers. Therefore, if you have Mimic Beacons, or flying armor, or super aim stacking, or Flamethrowers, or Psi Panic, or any of the other stuff that also counters Heavy Floaters, use that. But if you only have Rocks and Suppression, then you can go heavy on that when they appear and still muddle through.
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Feb 9, 2015 03:56
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Good god the resource crunch in lategame LW is real. Finished my 2nd alien base assault and got enough materials to do one research project and build a single firestorm. Still using mostly gauss and 2 pulse weapons. I forsee a long period of farming ufo's.
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Feb 9, 2015 04:15
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amanasleep posted:There's nothing wrong with LW throwing situations at you that can't be handled. But I hear a lot of complaints saying "X is unfair bullshit that nobody can handle!" and I don't really see it. I still think 8 rocketeers is the best option 
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Feb 9, 2015 04:19
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8 msgt bullet wizard gunners, just mass suppress everything you come across forever
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Feb 9, 2015 04:22
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Indecisive posted:8 msgt bullet wizard gunners, just mass suppress everything you come across forever It would be a fun (and very, very long) LW challenge to do a "single class challenge" playthrough for each class. I can see making it through with infantry, engineer, and maybe rocketeer squads. (bullet wizards and sheer volume of explosives, respectively) Snipers could be doable but the lack of explosions/suppression/disabling capacity would be hard. Scouts too, lacking the raw damage output and the ability to disable. I bet gunners would work , as you could infini-suppress most threats unless you got badly outnumbered, and wouldn't be lacking for firepower. Mech would melt with the constant application of shredder+HEAT. Assault teams would be incredibly mobile, and could mix rifle/shotgun builds. ...Medic is going to be a problem. Although your teams would be incredibly durable!
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Feb 9, 2015 04:32
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I think my first LW campaign is over. I've been losing troops due to playing like an aggressive moron, so when trades have been coming up for new troops I've been taking them pretty much every time. I had a period where most of my good troops were in sick bay and had a trade request for laser rifles for a soldier come up. I queued up a new batch of rifles and saw that there'd be about a two day window where I don't have laser weapons. No problem, I'll just not take any missions during those days right? My troops need rest anyway and I'm doing well on panic, so it's not a problem. So of course this 2 day window is where I get the first base defense of the campaign. I've got two good assaults (who don't always spawn), and some rocketeers (not that good for base defense) and otherwise a bunch of pretty low-mid level guys and no lasers vs. like 8 mechtoids and a handful of every other nasty alien. I think I've been pretty behind on research for a while though, not really close to getting gauss or pulse online yet so the campaign is probably doomed in the long run. I want to play some more but might wait until B15. LW really is long.
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Feb 9, 2015 04:34
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lineofsight dot jpeg This makes no sense to me.
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Feb 9, 2015 06:15
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Sober posted:This makes no sense to me. "If I close my eyes, maybe they can't see me either!"
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Feb 9, 2015 06:22
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Sober posted:lineofsight dot jpeg Well, she's obviously looking the other way. Maybe there is something interesting happening there?
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Feb 9, 2015 09:29
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