|
Fast-moving supports are great for any mission that requires running around, I find. Bomb disposal, terror mission civilian rescue, etc.
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 05:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 19:20 |
|
|
GuavaMoment posted:Now you say you find them very useful. I'd like to know why! What's your battleplan that uses Supports effectively? For disclosure, i just finished EW with my final mission team of a sniper, two assault, two support, and a Mech, because i wanted to try out the new toys. Given the chance to do it again, though, i'd take a straight 3-2-1; three assault, two support, one sniper. And it's not so much a specific battleplan as a general list of advantages.
So, if you want my battle plan, it'd basically be that supports are my eyes and guardians. They can scout further than anyone else who can take cover, and overwatch on avenues of advance while assaults run and gun / rapid fire everything to death. If there's something assaults can't shred in one turn, they can move to mop up; and if they can't mop up, then they'll be on hand to repair the damage afterward. Having two supports is essential so that if one goes down, my ability to put my assaults in terrible cover and glue their arms back on afterwards remains above zero. Meanwhile, my sniper sits in the back on top of a truck, murdering 1d3 xenos per turn. Ceebees fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 05:28
|
|
|
Ceebees posted:Support Stuff Basically this. Supports are boring, supports have no flash, supports are dull. Supports are reliable and have the stats to continue to be reliable and relevant throughout the game. They aren't the best, but their stats are high enough that they can help carry the team. Every other class excels at some situations but has glaring weaknesses in other. Supports are like their weapons, the generic automatic rifle, where they have no huge situations where they excel but at the same time they really don't suck at any situation situation.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 05:41
|
|
|
Bobbin Threadbare posted:Anybody else just get Kenny Loggins stuck in their head?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 06:59
|
|
|
How are you guys finding the meld to field more than one mec and have gene mods on more than a few soldiers anyway? I usually get at least one container of it a map and end up with a single fully tricked out mec, a gene soldier with most or all (doesn't really matter, a lot suck) mods, and a couple more with mimetic skin.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 07:03
|
|
|
RBA Starblade posted:How are you guys finding the meld to field more than one mec and have gene mods on more than a few soldiers anyway? I usually get at least one container of it a map and end up with a single fully tricked out mec, a gene soldier with most or all (doesn't really matter, a lot suck) mods, and a couple more with mimetic skin. On Classic I can average 1.25 to 1.5 melt cans a level and I really don't have trouble eventually fielding 2 MECs and 3-6 XCOM XMen. If you don't try to get everything all at once at the start you can eventually build up the goods. It helps that certain mid-game enemies that EW added do drop MELD since they're obviously based off of MELD technology. If you're really having problems getting enough MELD, it helps to have maybe one continent you've written off to farm abduction missions. Satellites prevent abduction missions from happening in their countries, so you cover the world you reduce the amount of missions where MELD is available.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 07:16
|
|
|
I never farmed Meld, instead i think i missed maybe 3 canisters throughout the game. The time limit is there to reward you for playing more aggressively, so play aggressive!
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 07:19
|
|
|
I'm going to say something controversial. I actually think the Sniper is the least useful class. Now, I know, that sounds absolutely insane. The Sniper can put out damage on par with a Heavy, at much better accuracy, and twice a turn with a cooldown or multiple times a turn if his targets aren't behind cover. Flying armor coupled with DGG means he never misses, and Headshot means he can instantly kill most things if it's not on cooldown. But here's the thing about Snipers. They fill the same role as an Assault - high single-target damage - or a Heavy - clearing groups of weakened things. And each of those classes has something else they can do to supplement that ability. That Assault, for example, can also draw out the first round of reaction fire, letting the rest of the squad move up. They can move to unexpected positions and land a flanking shot. They can negate critical hits, just taking normal damage, and they make aliens that like to get in close pay in blood for that. Meanwhile, the Heavy has guaranteed destruction of cover, which also applies an aim bonus to the entire squad (if you take that perk), can increase the damage a spawn group takes from all your soldiers' fire, and is the one soldier uniquely equipped to rip apart mechanical enemies. The Sniper is a one-trick pony. All he does is kill. He's very good at killing, but you've got two other classes that are just as good at it - three, counting the MEC Trooper - and don't suffer the downside of being a juicy, isolated target for a particularly brainy alien. As far as Supports themselves, they're the all-rounder class of the game. They have defense in their smoke grenades and medkits, speed from Sprinter, high enough aim that they're very likely to hit a target unless it's behind full cover, and the fact that their guns deal the lowest base damage but still have decent ammo capacity means they're great for giving suppression to. EW makes them even better, as now you can have one trained to carry three grenades and another with three medkits and lategame you're bringing 6 uses of healing and 4 smoke grenades to a map - more than enough to cover the inevitable screwup that you'll make. They don't have the overwhelming firepower of the other classes, but they provide the defense those classes lack, and couple it with a flexibility that makes them useful in any situation.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 07:57
|
|
|
I thought snipers were for handing awesome pistols to and scouting half the map with a couple scanner grenades, and as an added bonus they also lug around a big-rear end rifle they get to use occasionally. Gunslinger 4 lyfe.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 08:05
|
|
|
Pvt.Scott posted:I thought snipers were for handing awesome pistols to and scouting half the map with a couple scanner grenades, and as an added bonus they also lug around a big-rear end rifle they get to use occasionally. Gunslinger 4 lyfe. The main problem with scanner grenades is they're a front-liner item given to a back-liner unit. I find them a lot more useful when I play with Training Roulette and they wind up on an assault or heavy. Works well with gunslingers, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 08:13
|
|
|
Pvt.Scott posted:I thought snipers were for handing awesome pistols to and scouting half the map with a couple scanner grenades, and as an added bonus they also lug around a big-rear end rifle they get to use occasionally. Gunslinger 4 lyfe. I stacked a sniper with pistol skills and the cloaking mod and she became the best goddamn infiltrator on the face of the planet. And to the earlier comment about heavies dropping off in usefulness in the late game, that's only because you aren't using them right. Between the bonus radius they can pick up from their class and the blaster launchers they can pick up from a battleship, they can absolutely flatten even late-game enemies.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 08:32
|
|
|
Bobbin Threadbare posted:Between the bonus radius they can pick up from their class and the blaster launchers they can pick up from a battleship, they can absolutely flatten even late-game enemies. Weren't blaster launchers really hard to get before EW?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 08:34
|
|
|
GuavaMoment posted:I am a Danger Zone Shredder Rocket kinda guy. Why suppress when you can kill? Suppression removes overwatch. Relatively situational, extremely useful. edit: Covering Fire Suppression Support is also handy when in a pinch El Perkele fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 08:46
|
|
|
Ceebees posted:Weren't blaster launchers really hard to get before EW? They're hard to get without Slingshot. IIRC battleships don't show up unless you miss shooting down a scout, and by the time they show up you should be reliably shooting down scouts. Slingshot gives you a guaranteed battleship though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 08:46
|
|
|
Cronocke posted:I'm going to say something controversial. I'm going to go ahead and say it's easy enough to throw out a lot of dialogue about how snipers are maybe on paper the least useful class, but when you realize that they can kill literally every alien on screen in a round (fairly easily done with support from the rest of the squad,) then all of that is pointless. All snipers can do is kill when killing is 90% of the game and they're far-and-away the best at it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 09:15
|
|
|
Operation Rotting Shroud Now with the first mission out of the way I can rename my soldiers and pick the four I want to take on the mission. Two of the previous soldiers were quite nice and get renamed and I bring up two promising looking rookies from the roster to be renamed in honor of our sign ups. Our first four soldiers of the war are:  Nitten Stomperud Rookie 39 Will 80 Aim  Ricky Gunderson Squaddie Sniper 51 Will 83 Aim  Tony White Squaddie Support 61 Will 85 Aim  Catalina Sprahl Rookie 35 Will 75 Aim Congratulations on making the cut to join X-Com, soldiers. Already most of you should see why I like Hidden Potential and Not Created Equally. The second mission of the game and my worst soldier I'm taking into the field has 75 Aim. That is pretty incredible. This is a great batch of starting soldiers and I even have a few more 70+ Aim rookies in the barracks. If I can keep them alive their natural talents will make things in the future much easier on me. Following the first intro mission there isn't much you can do at the base. At this point the game locks you out of the Situation Room until your first abduction mission. So there is little more to do than scan for alien activity on the globe until that happens. For us, it happens on March 4. We are offered three choices of where to go, Egypt, Argentina, or China. We can only respond to one of these missions at a time and the other two will be left unattended. Each mission offers a different reward, the rewards being 200 X-Com bitcoins, 4 engineers, 4 scientists, or a new recruit for your barracks of a predetermined rank and class. Abduction missions are also the primary cause of Panic management. Panic will go down in the country we take the mission in, but it will rise the other two countries significantly. Not only will panic rise in the countries that you don't go to, but every country in the same continent as those two ignored countries will rise slightly. This can lead to a lot of juggling and management to prevent countries from panicking and leaving the X-Com project. Often times choosing which abduction mission to go to isn't about the reward they offer, it's about managing the panic levels. If done right you should never have to worry about having a country withdraw from X-Com. This is the first abduction mission in the game, and panic levels are all at their lowest levels. This is one of the few times I will be able to choose which mission I want based on reward versus based on panic management. Given the choice between 200 X-Com bitcoins, 4 engineers, or 4 scientists, I pick the engineers. The full reasoning of this will be typed out later, and is covered in the video as well.  Polsy Topics discussed in this video: Aggressive and Defensive Strategies Guava and I have very differing mindsets about the nature of our tactics. Guava explains his hyper aggressive strategy essentially as the best way to stay safe is to kill the aliens as quickly as possible. My mindset is that the best way to stay safe is to ensure the aliens have zero, or as near to zero, ways of harming your soldiers. While my way may including killing the aliens as a defensive measure, it also means I am happy with a situation where I do not kill everything I see the turn I see it so long as I make sure none of the aliens can harm me. They don't need to be dead, they just need to be ineffective at hurting me. I'm glad Guava is alongside me to offer his perspective because neither strategy is wrong so long as they are executed well and I'm glad my audience will hear a more aggressive point of view during the course of the LP. Very quickly into the video we see my more defensive mindset playing in as I hunker back and make half moves forward and do not take the risk of going for the first Meld can. I think I made the right choice in the end. I could have potentially triggered a second group of sectoids and left Tony White flanked from either pair of aliens. All for a lousy 10 Meld. Over all I didn't think risking a 85 Aim squaddie was worth the 10 Meld. Ever player will have their own judgements to make on risk versus reward. Every player will have a different stand on aggressive versus defensive tactics. I won't say either is better, because if it gets the job done and no one dies, then it works. However my play style that will be seen in the LP will be very defensive. Just keep that in mind and if you have a more aggressive lean to things you will have to adapt your own preferences to anything you might learn in this LP. The Overwatch Trick Guava spells this one out in the video. The trick is to get your sniper to overwatch using their sniper rifle. This normally requires snapshot. Snapshot is a terrible skill. Don't ever pick it. To get a sniper to overwatch with their rifle is easy. First select their pistol. Then command them to overwatch. You then have about a half second to click on the lower right part of the UI where the weapon switch icons are. Just click on the picture of the rifle. Your sniper will go on overwatch and then swap weapons. This can be done with out the time sensitivity of the previous method as well. Switch to a pistol, and overwatch. Make sure your sniper isn't the last person to move on your turn so your turn doesn't end there. Switch back to your sniper who is now on overwatch and holding a pistol. Click or press the change weapon key. Your sniper will swap weapons and the game will immediately shift focus off your sniper and to the next solder with actions still remaining. This bug/feature has been in the game since the first release. It is not new, and it has been known for a very long time and yet remains in the game. If Jake Solomon hasn't fixed this problem in all this time, I say it is now a feature. 
Jade Star fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 09:21
|
|
|
Cronocke posted:I actually think the Sniper is the least useful class. I think you're probably underestimating just how much better the sniper is at killing things than the heavy. In the end game a blaster bomb heavy will have to hit 2-4 targets to exceed the damage output of a double tap plasma sniper, and can only do so 1-2 times per mission while the sniper can do it every other turn and with better range. EW throws it even more in the favor of the sniper, since Sectopods now have like 60 EHP and the HEAT damage bonus dropped from +100% to to +50%. Yeah the heavy has its gun in addition to the blaster launcher, but their Aim stat growth is awful and Snipers routinely get 100% shots in the end game. Throw in the perfect "In The Zone" setup and its no question. No class in the game is useless, and you can certainly beat it with whatever squad combination you find most fun to play, but fine tuning class balance wasn't really their priority in the game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 09:37
|
|
|
Nittien Stomperud? I approve!  Nittien is Norwegian for ninety one. 91 Stomperud is a Norwegian comic, first released in 1937. It features the title character, number 91 August Stomperud, as he is drafted for national service. This is what he looks like:  Stomperud is actually a translated work of the Swedish cartoon, 91:an (nittiettan) Karlsson, which was first published in 1932. Stomperud is still being published in Norway, though mostly for Christmas specials. I hope Scribblykins will forgive me for explaining the reference. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 11:04
|
|
|
Fanzay posted:Stomperud is actually a translated work of the Swedish cartoon, 91:an (nittiettan) Karlsson, which was first published in 1932. Stomperud is still being published in Norway, though mostly for Christmas specials. Yeah I was wondering why I almost recognized that when I read the first part of your explanation. Wasn't even aware that 91an was available in Norway. I am sorely tempted to sign up for XCom just to see how long my guy will last this time around.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 12:28
|
|
|
With the meld canisters are they always counting down or only after you "see" them?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 13:21
|
|
|
RichardA posted:With the meld canisters are they always counting down or only after you "see" them? They're always counting down.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 13:28
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:This is fine until you consider the opportunity cost, which you just did at the end of it. A Danger Zone suppression might be pretty cool, but a Danger Zone rocket is AWESOME. Like Guava also sort of alluded to, Supports don't really have much of a place on the battlefield if not doing stuff like this to enemies, too. Heavies, meanwhile, are always in demand because rockets are always awesome. Rockets are great, but they do keep you from collecting weapon fragments and corpses. Sometimes a dude needs his corpses. I agree that heavies are still preferable with maximum boom.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 14:19
|
|
|
Ceebees posted:For disclosure, i just finished EW with my final mission team of a sniper, two assault, two support, and a Mech, because i wanted to try out the new toys. Given the chance to do it again, though, i'd take a straight 3-2-1; three assault, two support, one sniper. I have some counter-points.
apostateCourier fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 14:23
|
|
|
Oh nice, my dude got picked! Godspeed, Ricky Gunderson. I've been able to perform a similar trick to that sniper overwatch thing, allowing anyone to reload after dashing. I think it may have been patched out in EW though, as I never got it to work once I swapped over from EU. It involved hitting the reload hotkey while the unit was still in transit. Saves a few turns over the course of a mission, but I wouldn't recommend doing it unless you are certain you're not walking into an ambush. Green Intern fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 14:32
|
|
|
Ha! Thank you for the explanation. I figured someone just wanted to make sure I'll never be able to pronounce their soldiers name. Ever. And then Guava fucks up Buenos Aires and I feel so much better forever.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 14:57
|
|
|
Jade Star posted:This bug/feature has been in the game since the first release. It is not new, and it has been known for a very long time and yet remains in the game. If Jake Solomon hasn't fixed this problem in all this time, I say it is now a feature. On top of that, another overwatch bug that squadsight snipers have is that they can use their pistols at squadsight ranges. It doesn't come up much, but it's something for those gunslingers to utilize.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 15:32
|
|
|
When a soldier double kills sectoids by killing the mind melding one does that soldier get experiance as if he killed 2 sectoids or just 1?Green Intern posted:Rockets are great, but they do keep you from collecting weapon fragments and corpses. Sometimes a dude needs his corpses. I agree that heavies are still preferable with maximum boom. You still get the corpse just not the weapon fragments, notice in jades video he still got all 8 sectoid corpses.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:19
|
|
|
Base Management After our first real mission it's time to do a little work around the base. Proper base management helps make the most out of your resources. There is a lot to build over the course of the game and there is never enough money to get everything you want right away. Right now my priorities are keeping my soldiers alive, and getting as much satellite coverage as possible. More Satellites means more money and an easier time controlling global panic levels. So the first priority my money is going toward will be satellites. Remember how I didn't build a satellite at the end of the first video? Well that was to save money. A satellite right then would have cost me 100 X-Com bitcoins. Let's go visit Shen and see what the costs are down to now.  Down to 77 X-com bitcoins, nice! That's a savings of 23 X-Com Fun Dollars. 23 Dollar-Pounds this early in the game is quite a bit. Enough to excavate a tile or two of the base, it builds another medkit, it covers the recruiting cost of 1.5 soldiers, or is 25% the cost of power generator that will be needed to be built soon. Speaking of, let's go digging!  Here is the base layout. I've already ordered excavation going across the top level and started building a power generator. Managing your base layout doesn't have a lot of variables game to game. The only thing that can differ are which spots are pre excavated for you at the beginning of the game and where you get steam vents and how many of them you get. This game I'm pretty lucky with two steam vents right next to each other. They are down there on the third level though, so getting to them early is going to be a bit expensive. It will cost 100 X-Com bitcoins just to build the access lifts to get there, and then another 80 X-Com Fun Bucks to excavate the two tiles. Lastly each steam generator costs 200 Dollar-Pounds. So it's going to be really expensive to get down there. For now though I only need the first thermo generator so my costs will be about 340 X-Com bitcoins. That's a lot this early, not going to lie. We need the power. Just starting out the game we use 22 of our available 30 power units. The remaining 8 units of power is enough to build two things, maybe three. Each conventional power generator costs 60 X-Com bitcoins and only provides 6 units of power. That is terribly space inefficient and would lead to something like one power generator for every two useful structures we build. A single thermo generator gives us 20 power, and putting two next to each other will likely provide us with all the power I will need for the rest of the game. The conventional power generator I am building is to ensure I have the power to build the lifts down to the steam and have some spare power left over to build other useful things at the same time.  Here is the situation room, where we can keep tabs on global panic. We can see the effects on global panic we had by choosing the mission to Argentina and ignoring the missions in Egypt and China. Egypt and China are now highly panicked, and their neighbors are also slightly more panicked as well. Countries exist in a binary state though, either they are committed to X-Com or they aren't, and the only level of panic that matters for this is a full five bars. If they aren't at five bars at the end of the month then they aren't going anywhere. It is for this reason that it is best to save your satellites until the end of the month. Launching a satellite over a country will reduce its panic level. The strategy then becomes to do your best every month at panic management and then if you have countries at five panic bars you launch a satellite over them to calm them down. This is ideal for panic management, but maybe less ideal for quickly covering up your favorite continent for bonuses or for launching satellites over the individual countries that offer the most funding.  Polsy Last for now is that research on Meld Recombination is complete. We can now build a cybernetics lab and a gene lab to make use of the meld we capture. The full potential of these two labs is not yet realized however and will require much more research to unlock the full array of abilities and upgrades that can be purchased. Right now my money is tight and I am investing a lot of what spare income I have toward getting thermo generators up early. Once I have the resources to build these two labs I certainly will and will cover what can be done there in detail. For now though my base management is a bit hectic and I may have to do with out for a while. There is a lot to do in the first month or two, and it's all expensive. I want thermo power. I want the cyber lab and gene lab. I will want a foundry. I will want an Officer Training School and it's goodies inside it too. I have to build satellites and a new uplink every month. All of this is expensive and you have to prioritize where your money goes. It's going to be rough, but that's how it is at the start and that's why I went with USA as a starting base. To give me the most starting money in the first couple months to deal with this crunch as much as possible.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:31
|
|
|
SpRahl posted:When a soldier double kills sectoids by killing the mind melding one does that soldier get experiance as if he killed 2 sectoids or just 1? I have no idea why I thought you destroyed the corpses with rockets.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:33
|
|
|
SpRahl posted:When a soldier double kills sectoids by killing the mind melding one does that soldier get experiance as if he killed 2 sectoids or just 1? It counts for two. It's an auto-level for a fresh rookie basically.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:41
|
|
|
So I made a thing... I just thought it would be nice to save that for the future. Or insert into other games at appropriate or inappropriate times.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:48
|
|
|
As I was watching the latest video and the meld video I kept thinking "Why does the music remind me of DXHR so much?". Turns out the music was composed by Michael McCann who did the DXHR music. Jade Star posted:So I made a thing... Well done.  A pretty excellent one to boot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 16:48
|
|
|
Jade Star posted:So I made a thing... There's no such thing as an inappropriate time for you to use that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 17:38
|
|
|
Oh hello new morning alarm. If that doesn't scare me out of bed, nothing will.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
You are building more than one satellite at a time, right? RIGHT?!?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 18:47
|
|
|
On the same note as not being able to click after sprinting on Meld, it is incredibly frustrating to scramble a second interceptor. And yeah. You get corpses, you just disintegrate the weapon fragments. Snipers have one bit thing over heavies and assaults. They're (usually) reliable for their 1d3 kills per turn. Heavies and Assaults tend to miss or get shot with alarming regularity.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 18:50
|
|
|
Fister Roboto posted:You are building more than one satellite at a time, right? RIGHT?!? ...but bought individually, of course...
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 19:02
|
|
|
My biggest problem on classic is having a roster survive long enough so I can get lazors and then armor. My soldiers are like tears in the rain. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 19:35
|
|
|
Fister Roboto posted:You are building more than one satellite at a time, right? RIGHT?!? Not this month. I have only one uplink and it can support two satellites. One is already above the USA so I only have capacity for one more by the end of the month.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 19:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 19:20 |
|
|
Mighty Dicktron posted:I'm going to go ahead and say it's easy enough to throw out a lot of dialogue about how snipers are maybe on paper the least useful class, but when you realize that they can kill literally every alien on screen in a round (fairly easily done with support from the rest of the squad,) then all of that is pointless. Burzmali posted:I roll Classic Hardcore, so early game I run a support because my assaults tend to catch bullets with their faces until they learn kung fu. Late game, I tend to bring along a gene modded psionic support because someone has to keep up with the assault ninjas and mechs draw too much attention. MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Feb 7, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2014 19:43
|
|
