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Feinne posted:Say, for example, that both their arms and legs were cut off for being terrible at shooting guns. Just so long as this is done so he can have more punch
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Sep 1, 2014 22:47
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My last partial run through the game I was making myself take one snapshot sniper for every squadsight sniper just to force myself to have some variety. Also because as lovely squadsight is 80% of the time, I was just the worst at getting good angles inside bases and battleships so my normally super murder snipers would sit around all sad at the "shot blocked despite him being in the air, or out in the open, or-" moments. Plus, it made me appreciate Squadsight more instead of taking it for granted. Though I loved my stupid "Laser Snapshot Sniper + Laser Shotgun Assault + filler" setup in multiplayer way back when I was playing it. If only to spite the four most common setups I'd see (I have not tried MP post Enemy within). I need to try MP again, because the half of the time you didn't get samey "Archangel Plasma squadsight sniper camps the sky all match" or something, you got tactical clusterfucks that were gloriously  Spoilers for Vanilla X-Com enemies not yet introduced. http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/558704944580214065/3862A9127A6B482ED94E147D0093690D7A2B0016/ http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/558704419707609580/33812D2F9C412EC6C48F09DE507C1FDA7A5CF0E5/ Floaters are also not allowed to open doors, like the wooden one at the back of the bar. On top of their inability to step down from 1 tile tall locations they can easily step up onto with normal movement 
Section Z fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 22:53
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Feinne posted:Say, for example, that both their arms and legs were cut off for being terrible at shooting guns. At that point it wouldn't matter, though. I think we're talking more about mission profiles, so to speak.
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Sep 2, 2014 00:23
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XCOM PART 6: Murder Street!  Commander, South Africa has requested a satellite like the prototype we have over America. They’ll pay us a substantial initial fee, along with monthly compensation and the occasional technical staff member. Great. If only it didn’t take us most of a month and all our money just to build one…good thing we’ll have one ready in a few days. We need that cash immediately.  We have noticed, Commander, that the aliens have studiously avoided any abductions in the United States ever since the first satellite went up. We believe that they know when they are being watched and will not attempt abductions in countries that are covered by XCOM’s satellites. Therefore, the Council of Nations has resolved to pay you an increase in funding for every single nation you are able to protect. Sheez, they’re being really petty about protecting the earth. Every country has guys who just want to look out for themselves first and foremost, so they won’t throw us money until they know for sure we’ve got them covered. There will also be… geopolitical effects… for managing to keep entire regions of the world safe. Africa is a land of many untapped resources, and its waters are vital trade routes. Keeping it safe will stabilize the global economy, magnifying all funding available to you. Some of the oldest and most respected academies of science and cooperatives of industrial engineers work within the European Union and Russia; the Council will provide your workshops and laboratories with much-needed spare parts for maintenance if you clear their skies. Asia has some of the most cutting-edge tech sectors in the world, and Australia’s officer corps is one of the most efficient and progressive; they were the first country to allow female submarine officers, for example. Improving your electronics and training your officers will all be much easier with their help.  Ah, and we can’t forget South America! Some of the world’s best biologists spend their entire careers studying Amazon life forms; my own mentor, an exobiologist, is working out of South America. It would take almost no effort at all for her to help us, but first we’d need the local governments’ help to even find her in the jungle. So much to do, so little time…okay, we’ll try to send our first satellite to South Africa, and then see if we can’t clear the skies over South America entirely. We do need to understand our enemies better. The Genetics Lab is finished, Commander! We need only spend some money, time, and meld to begin splicing useful traits into our soldiers. Money is really tight right now, Dr. Vahlen, I just had to sell a bunch of Sectoid bodies on the Gray Market to make ends meet. I want regenerating health! How does it work? Where do I sit? You’d need to spend three days soaking in a container filled with meld, during which the nanites would alter your body according to the genetic material attached to the suspension. Your body would partially liquefy, then reform with the new organs. …liquefy!? Have you tested this!? I don’t want to be a meat smoothie! I have tested it on a couple of chimpanzees, yes. You own a super-monkey!?  The Cybernetics Lab is also complete. Who would make the best candidate for becoming a cyborg, Dr. Shen? The best possible subject would be someone whose coordination has been trained to its limits. Getting used to the new body would require a high learning curve, and I don’t think their aim would get much better once they were converted… So the best possible candidate would be someone who already has a really high aim score… …that would be me. *sigh* How much of my body would this procedure replace, Dr. Shen? Your limbs and many internal organs would be amputated to make way for the new augmentations. Don’t worry, though: I have plans in place that would allow you to do anything with your new body you could do in your current one, even civilian activities or… er… carnal needs. This sounds…really goddamn extreme. Give me a few weeks to consider volunteering. No problem, Bar-Lev, we can’t even afford to augment you yet.  Alright, you wannabe saviors of humanity. Welcome to your new Officer Training Program. Today’s lesson is HAND SIGNALS. That’s a quick, nonverbal way of communicating with your squad so you don’t fumble over instructions like a bunch of dumbasses in the heat of the moment. Well, sir, the first fruits of my labor are available to you. This is a computerized targeting system that integrates with your weaponry. The only issue with it is, it requires a lot of hardware to be physically worn on the body of the soldier, so it will fill their pockets with miniaturized computer equipment and sensors. This will limit what else they will take into the field. Ooh, I’ll take one of those! I don’t need grenades. Truth be told, my vision’s gone a little blurry ever since I was exposed to meld…I think I may have inherited the genes of someone with worse eyes… Great, a sniper who needs glasses… I don’t need glasses! I just…squint a bit…Time Passes  Commander, more abductions from around the globe! Simultaneously, again. We have to go for Japan. Most of Asia’s politicians are still freaking out about our inability to help them from the last time. Plus, this incentive of new engineers looks too good to pass up. Squaddies, move out!  You know, it’s kind of a shame, culturally speaking, that aliens are invading. Culturally? Scientific discoveries are great for new forms of scifi, but they’re also really bad for others. When we went to the moon and discovered nothing, well, so long to all the scifi about moon monsters. So on and so forth. And nobody’s going to make any movies about space aliens for the next ten, twenty years. It’ll be “too soon.” And I’m sure once we have real talking robots, nobody will want to make any more Terminator movies because they’d be considered racist… Exactly!  The rainstorm’s turning this whole street into a river! Long, narrow areas are my specialty. Let me get set up and I can try to shoot at anything you guys see. Though I’m not a miracle worker. Noted. Everyone but Princess, move! Watkins, take point. AAAH! Help! This is a bad angle and they’re in hard cover…no promises… poo poo. I need a better position. There’s no high ground to take here. I’m popping smoke! Keep your head down, Watkins. More sectoids over here! gently caress! I wish you had told me before! They’re doing the glowy magic thing again! I think it makes the other one tougher or a better shot or something! They’re shooting at me! AAAAUUUGH! poo poo! FFFUCK! How bad is it? BAD! loving piece of poo poo aliens almost kill me and make me leak blood all over my uniform! DIE! Just fragged the other two doing the glowy stuff, but I count two more out there! Make that FOUR! AUUUGGGH! HELP! Got the one that shot ya, Bar-Lev! Good shot, Princess! I’m fragging the one by the truck to the left! There’s two more camping up by that meld, nobody can hit ‘em… aaauuugh… what do I do? Gggg…nnnn… Naomi, move up to the truck. It’s closer to the aliens, but in high cover. I’ll toss a smoke grenade, they’ll never be able to hit you. Try to get in close after that and you can just blast them out with your grenade. I’ll…try… I can reach at least one if I sprint over there! I got one! Last one, Naomi, it’s right in your sights! So much blood…die! All…targets…down…*collapse* Naomi! Ugh…*thump* You saved me… Quick! We gotta get them medical attention!  Amazing work, both of you. You’ve more than earned promotions. The doctors say you’ll both pull through, though there’ll be some rather bad scarring…Leroy’s in worse condition than you, I’m afraid. She saved me…C-commander…I volunteer for the cyborg procedure… Bar-Lev, are you sure? S—sure…just get these broken limbs off my body. They’re not doing anyone any good now… To be continued! Speedball fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Sep 8, 2014 |
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Sep 2, 2014 02:43
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Ahah, taking advantage of one of my favorite features in Enemy Within: MECing a wounded trooper resets their heal-time to the time it takes to complete the procedure, completely negating the much longer heal time. 'Emergency conversions' became a common feature of my Ironman runs.
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Sep 2, 2014 03:01
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Faster, stronger, redder.
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Sep 2, 2014 03:06
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Does Murder Street still have the bug where all the aliens activate at the start of the map? It's a meat grinder even without that, minimal heavy cover and nowhere to hide.
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Sep 2, 2014 03:51
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Bruceski posted:Does Murder Street still have the bug where all the aliens activate at the start of the map? It's a meat grinder even without that, minimal heavy cover and nowhere to hide. Yeah, I ran into a couple of preactivated sectoids the last time I had that map. Didn't know of the bug at the time, so it came as a pretty nasty surprise.
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Sep 2, 2014 07:39
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It's better getting Murder Street now when you can still use frags to one shot most sectoids as opposed to later when the aliens are much harder to kill.
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Sep 2, 2014 07:56
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Maaaaan. This is a fun LP. It's making me really want to pick up X-COM again, haha. I never got super far in the base game, but it looks like Enemy Within adds a lot of good new options to work with.
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Sep 2, 2014 14:32
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Are those Continent Bonuses as good as they sound? Makes it seem like focusing on two or so continents to the detriment of all the others is the most viable early-game strategy until you've got the resources to handle all of them.
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Sep 2, 2014 17:09
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Vicevirtuoso posted:Are those Continent Bonuses as good as they sound? Makes it seem like focusing on two or so continents to the detriment of all the others is the most viable early-game strategy until you've got the resources to handle all of them. They all are really good (some more than others), but it's also possible to be completely locked out of them if one country in that region leaves XCOM. Due to story he also didn't mention that starting in North America gives him a continent bonus as well. He pays half for all aircraft maintenance and purchases. Also one thing that might not be clear is how the panic system works. The country that's hit by abductions that isn't rescued has their panic meter go up twice and when it hits 5 they leave XCOM at the end of the month. This means the reason he chose Japan was to stop this. Another thing is every country in that region goes up by one as well. Meaning had he not chosen Japan both Japan and India would have left at the end of the month as well. The reason I say the end of the month is that you have the ability to save the country with certain things (putting a satellite over the country lowers their panic by two). Unclouded fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Sep 2, 2014 |
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Sep 2, 2014 17:36
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Unclouded posted:Also one thing that might not be clear is how the panic system works. The country that's hit by abductions that isn't rescued has their panic meter go up twice and when it hits 5 they leave XCOM at the end of the month.
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Sep 2, 2014 18:13
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Yeah, starting off in one continent automatically gives you the continental bonus, even if you don't have all the satellites over it yet. South America is one of my favorites because it saves you SO much research time, and inspecting alien bodies or interrogating them is that much more important in Enemy Within, as you get more goodies for autopsies and research times are longer. But you can cover it with only two satellites. Starting in Africa is also a very popular position. The other main benefit to starting in North America besides the planes is that the United States gives the single largest payout for any country, though. On the flipside, some people love or do not love Future Combat or Expert Knowledge, but they are useful as well, and since both of those regions require four whole satellites to cover, getting the continent bonus for them by starting as them is a lot easier.
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Sep 2, 2014 18:19
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FredMSloniker posted:Slight correction: their panic meter has to have been at 5 for 14 consecutive days, including the end of the month. So if a country panics on the 30th, you have some time to fix it. Additional correction: if end of month panic is at 5 there's still a chance they leave even if it was at 5 for less than 14 days, there are reports of countries getting to 5 on the 30th and then leaving ( ). It's not 100% however.
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Sep 2, 2014 19:17
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Vicevirtuoso posted:Are those Continent Bonuses as good as they sound? Makes it seem like focusing on two or so continents to the detriment of all the others is the most viable early-game strategy until you've got the resources to handle all of them. That's usually true, though if you're really trying to avoid losing countries then you don't always have that option. It's also important to note that each continent needs its own interceptors to shoot down anything the satellite spots - this can be expensive when money is tight in the early game.
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Sep 2, 2014 20:43
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I believe you can reclaim countries in Long War, which kind of sucks, imo. It's hard to do, and sort of invalidates the whole point of panic management (do I go to this country offering the supplies I desperately need, or this country that will leave the Council if I don't help them?). In my purely subjective opinion, I usually try to go Asia -> South America -> Africa -> North America -> Europe. Getting Tac Rigging from the Foundry is a huge game-changer for soldiers, and insta-interrogations/autopsies can supply research bonuses, making everything else much quicker.
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Sep 2, 2014 21:24
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The panic game is immeasurably different in Long War, though - you don't get three abduction missions at once, for one thing, and they can be in areas you're covering with sattelites. Aliens also have the nous to focus on one country at a time before moving onto the next, and do stuff to raise panic like bombing runs. It's more a case of managing nation requests for stuff like weapon fragments, because requests come thick and fast from multiple places at once, and fulfilling them helps that country resist future panic increases. Anyway I am enjoying your lurid technicolour LP, OP.
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Sep 2, 2014 22:14
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Bogart posted:I believe you can reclaim countries in Long War, which kind of sucks, imo. It's hard to do, and sort of invalidates the whole point of panic management (do I go to this country offering the supplies I desperately need, or this country that will leave the Council if I don't help them?). Long War only has one abduction at a time, so you don't have mission dilemmas popping up that way anyhow. Instead it throws 90 billion more missions at you and penalizes you for using a soldier twice in a row too quickly; LW panic management is less "okay, do I take a vacation to Russia or Japan?" and more "oh my loving god I have had 6 missions in the last week I only have 2 experienced soldiers, 4 lovely rookies, and a basic SHIV left, can I afford to go on this swarming abduction mission?" Also the aliens can do bombing run missions that raise panic without letting you send a skyranger out to capture their mans.
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Sep 2, 2014 22:15
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Well, that was an excruciating day out. How long until you can take a shot or to and not get gravely wounded?
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Sep 2, 2014 23:01
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Glazius posted:Well, that was an excruciating day out. How long until you can take a shot or to and not get gravely wounded? Pretty much never. Late-game soldiers may have 2-3x as much health as early-game squaddies (due to better armor and higher ranks), but of course the enemies' weapons also improve. You go from being able to take at most 1 shot before the next is fatal, to being able to take at most 2 shots before the next is fatal, but you'll still end up with some significant injury time for all but the weakest attacks.
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Sep 2, 2014 23:11
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Pretty much never. Late-game soldiers may have 2-3x as much health as early-game squaddies (due to better armor and higher ranks), but of course the enemies' weapons also improve. You go from being able to take at most 1 shot before the next is fatal, to being able to take at most 2 shots before the next is fatal, but you'll still end up with some significant injury time for all but the weakest attacks. There is the upgrade you can get at the Officer Candidate School that reduces recovery time by a half, but yeah, you can't really mitigate getting Gravely Wounded. Sure, you eventually get better armor and your soldiers gain an extra unit of life every time they rank up, but alien weaponry also scales up. Sectoid Plasma Pistols might not be as big a threat when you have better troops and armor, as while they still hurt, you'll have a lot more life bars to absorb damage, but by the time you've researched the better armor and manufactured it, the aliens will be packing heavier ordinance. Also didn't know this until it was pointed out to me somewhere (it might've been at the Commander's Guide LP), but every time one of your soldiers comes back from a mission Gravely Wounded, or has to be stabilized or revived on the battlefield, they'll take a permanent Will penalty, making them much more likely to Panic if they get hit by enemy fire or see another squad member get killed, along with other detriments that we'll eventually see as we get deeper in the game. Only way to increase Will in your soldiers (that I'm aware of) is via rank ups, so it can be a pretty big hit if your guys keep coming back Gravely Wounded.
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Sep 2, 2014 23:28
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Glazius posted:Well, that was an excruciating day out. How long until you can take a shot or to and not get gravely wounded? When you replace all your humans and mechanized troops with cold emotionless automated robotanks 
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Sep 3, 2014 00:21
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Troops with regenerating health will also recover in a third of the time. Combine that with Rapid Recovery from the Officer Training School and they're outta the hospital in no time. Drawing a little art to go with the next update.
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Sep 3, 2014 00:24
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Oh, just for discussion: What's your favorite character class?
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Sep 3, 2014 00:49
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Assaults. I love the mobility and my best soldier in my own playthrough was an Assault, and Geronimo was just loving great. I find Snipers really boring even if they're mechanically amazing, and they're probably my least favorite.
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Sep 3, 2014 00:55
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Speedball posted:Oh, just for discussion: What's your favorite character class? It would have been Sniper... except that I found out that you can't move and shoot in the same round. Ugh. Would have been Assault... except my Assault seems to spend most of her time in the hospital than on missions. I'm not seeing the value of Support or Heavy outside of Smoke nades and a big loving gun just yet. (It's been sitting in my Steam Library untouched for who knows how long, got it in a Steam Sale/Amazon sale, I'm basically playing along.)
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Sep 3, 2014 00:56
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Honestly I got a lot of mileage out of Heavies. They can get up to four rocket shots per mission, which do good damage, have fantastic range, rarely miss, don't require line-of-sight on their target, and are absolutely devastating against certain otherwise-painful enemies. It probably helped that the one survivor of the tutorial mission was a Heavy and just happened to have fantastic accuracy. But really, if you aren't deploying with at least one of each class, then you're limiting your tactical options severely. Sometimes you need an Assault to run up and plaster an alien in the face with plasma buckshot. Sometimes you need a Heavy to blow something up. Sometimes you need a Sniper to shoot down enemies from long range without exposing your units to answering fire. And you always need a heal bitch.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:20
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Speedball posted:Oh, just for discussion: What's your favorite character class? For some reason I always got pretty amazing supports, both in Original Flavor, and in the expansion where I played witht he randomized abilities. Though if you have to get technical,t he real favorite would be Rocket Fist MECs
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Sep 3, 2014 01:22
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Speedball posted:Oh, just for discussion: What's your favorite character class? An Assault run through the MEC trooper upgrades.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:24
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A top-tier Sniper that gets their arms and legs hacked off after they max out their aim. It's wasteful, really, but being able to count on never, ever missing with your giant  guns just makes the later bits such a breeze. Plus they're tanky enough to be frontliners.Otherwise Heavies. They're a get-out-of-squad-wipe free card, until enemies get a little beefier (even then you can make rockets hit harder to counter that!) Shut up forever Vahlen, explosions rock.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:28
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Heavy Suppression gets really useful when you can't get good shots on an an enemy, and just need to lock them down for a turn to get others into position to take the threat out. The guaranteed damage off the top (depending on the weapon) is just the icing on the cake. Never was really rocket happy, but I always got good use out the the Heavy I got after doing Slingshot. Don't have EW, so I can't comment on the classes added in it. GhostStalker fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 01:33
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In EU it would be the heavy. They don't average as useful as other classes what with the low accuracy, but when their rockets are handy they're VERY handy. For EW it would have to be cyborgs. Of course the team mascot is the SHIV. It's probably due to a lifetime of little robot sidekicks like R2-D2, V.I.N.CENT and Tachikoma but I just find the little guys adorable.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:35
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Assaults. 420 run and gun ev'ry day. And sure, you could have your MEC shoot the enemy soldier mans acurately. or you could just punch their face right the hell off.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:52
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Assault is my favorite just from an incidental "Easy to use proactivly so they incidentally rack up the kills fastest". Good snipers are amazing, Terminator Heavies are cool, Supports can book it across half the map saving lives armed with the free looted rifles you have collected. But Assault is just that much more user friendly, especially at the low ranks and low tier equipment. When I double assault one ends up 'Arc Thrower sucker' based on either lower rank, or a literal coin flip. Heavy used to be my favorite class despite their godawful accuracy. Before EW nerfed HEAT Ammo (combined with a BUFF to Sectopods, halving all damage they take) stripped away a chunk of their Savior Of Team effectiveness for me in practice against such things. From an earlier game standpoint I also still hate Cyberdisks far more than a certain new EW enemy. It was usually my Assaults who finished off the first spoiler anyways (because Line of Sight wonkyness would always keep my snipers from shooting them despite 3/4 of their body being in view). I have always had a soft spot for supports. Never a Favorite, but I keep finding myself bringing a pair of them every so often when going through rotations because damnit, we've been on twice as many missions as that Major Assault (our third one) but us supports are still struggling to hit Lieutenant to unlock revive, and getting blown up by grenades after we just used out last healthpack on someone else.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:58
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It has to be MECs for me. They have more life than any class, crit-resistance, extremely heavy damage with the kinetic strike (and sometimes even more mobility than other classes due to that), double high-damage shots, huge AOE heal potential that is superior to medics in a lot of ways, the ability to nuke cover or make it explode with grenades from across the screen, big will bonuses that make it tough for them to get status ailments and sometimes even completely disable the toughest enemies in the game for a turn or two and you've got a soldier that does just about everything that (almost) all the other classes do in one package, only arguably better in a lot of cases. Their only issues are the huge money and Meld sink that makes it hard to field more than one and their bizarre ammo management. For just base EU, I'd have to take the sniper since they dramatically alter the game after they get Squadsight. They hit hard, and they don't get injured much so odds are you can have one ready for almost every mission. They can hit almost anything reliably, and hit them hard. What they can't hit, they can disable, saving lives and making captures a lot less dangerous. Once you get In The Zone, a sniper can completely dominate the battlefield as long as you know how it works and how to take advantage of it. There's a reason they are complete kill-hogs. They are boring, but they are pretty much mandatory (I think). Mootiman fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 02:01
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I'm gonna have to go with the eye-rolling option and say that I love all my little classes equally. Some of them may have more spectacular moments than others, but none of those moments would happen if they weren't all there to help.
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Sep 3, 2014 03:05
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Speedball posted:Oh, just for discussion: What's your favorite character class? I'm partial to supports myself, but then again, I can't stop playing with the skill roulette. It makes things so much more... interesting!
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Sep 3, 2014 03:08
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Skill Roulette kinda makes this point moot for 90% of it, but Support is my favorite class.
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Sep 3, 2014 03:08
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My favorite class is by far the sniper, they are flying angels of death.
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Sep 3, 2014 04:33
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