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Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
Rename thread to XCOM 2: Terrorists from the Deep posthaste.

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Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Friction posted:

That presentation did not help my hype levels at all. Bursting at seams, send halp

I'm so hyped I'm actually reading this lovely tie-in book.

The prose reminds me of the narrative poo poo you used to find occasionally in instruction manuals. It definitely feels like it was produced in a factory to meet a very strict deadline, but it's not hilariously bad. Just meh.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Beagle posted:



(Thank you Heti/@fartknuckle)

That's got to be part of the intro for your XCOM 2 vids.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
Only mod I want Day 1 is to be able to name my Gremlins and swords.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

Bernie Sanders voice pack.

Donald Trump already spends a lot of time ranting about illegal aliens, he'd be perfect for a voice pack.

In fact, somebody should be on this right now.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Excelsiortothemax posted:

Answered lots of time. Xcom only shot down a scout and the supply barge that would become the Avenger before the council bailed and Xcom was shut down.

The Commander and Vahlen disappeared leaving Shen and Bradford to carry on the fight for 20 years.

In the interim years the Avengers is brought online, they recruit rogue Advent scientist Tygan as head of the research team.

Shen dies of old age. His younger daughter takes over the engineering department.

Bradford finds out that the aliens have captured the Commander and are holding them in stasis. He mounts a rescue missions and succeeds, hoping that you, the Commander, can pick up where you left off.

Good luck, Commander.

I know I'm a legendary Commander and all, but I'm not sure how the hell I shot down a supply ship in March.

A battleship would actually have made more sense. Gangplank happens, you and your buddy Chilong drive off in a drunken haze with an Alien Battleship, the aliens go "holy poo poo we gotta shut these guys down NOW" and just invade the whole planet. XCOM is thus a victim of its own success, not cowardly undercut by the machinations of noted alien sympathizer Goodluck Johnathon.

And Mohamed Morsi, that EXALT traitor.

Vengarr fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jan 31, 2016

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
Anyone want to bet on who talked first?

Leaders of Funding Nations in 2012:


Africa:

Egypt: Mohamed Morsi
Nigeria: Goodluck Johnathon
South Africa: Jacob Zuma

Asia:

China: Hu Jintao
Japan: Yoshihiko Noda/Shinzo Abe
Australia: Julia Gillard
India: Manmohan Singh

Europe:


France: Nicolas Sarkozy/François Hollande
Germany: Angela Merkel
Russia: Vladimir Putin
United Kingdom: David Cameron

North America:

USA: Barack Obama
Mexico: Felipe Calderón
Canada: Stephen Harper

South America:


Argentina: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
Brazil: Dilma Rousseff

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Unlucky7 posted:

So for the people who read that XCOM 2 prequel novel thing, was it incompetence on XCOMs part that caused the council to panic, bad luck, or just plain corruption within the council?

There was a fan theory that I always kind of liked that said that XCOM was a "Worst of the Best" sort of deal, in that the nations that make up the council aren't contributing their absolute best because they want to hedge their bets, which makes XCOM not as effective as it ultimately could be.

I haven't finished it yet but in the prologue Bradford implies that it was a betrayal, one of the Council nations rolled over on XCOM to try and protect themselves. It wasn't like the game over in EU where the project gets shut down by the Council, XCOM HQ gets raided by the aliens super-early and that's when the Commander was captured.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
Just finished the novel, and I gotta say, it does get better about halfway through. The more they focus on the poor dumb grunts, the better. All the Forrest Gumping they do to set up the beginning of XCOM 2 just detracts from the best part of any XCOM narrative--the hatred you feel towards stupid loving rookies who miss every shot, your amazement when some of them actually do cool poo poo, and how shattered you are when they die to a random thin man through full cover.

It also does a pretty good job of demonstrating why the average person thinks ADVENT are the good guys. They have an excellent PR Department.

Vengarr fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Feb 1, 2016

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
So the three mods the Long War team are going to have out at launch are submachine guns, an officer version of the Muton and a Squad Leader class.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Fuligin posted:

Trying to decide between the normal and deluxe preorders. Is this reinforcement pack just cosmetic goodies or does it touch on gameplay? It's hard to tell from the description.

The reinforcement pack is just a season pass for their first three DLC. The first DLC is cosmetic-only, the second and third have new classes and enemies and event maps and poo poo.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
I think this thread has conclusively proven that there is no such thing as "too disabled to shitpost".

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Thyrork posted:

A failed terror mission ending in a nuclear strike was 100% :stare: material.

It absolutely has its charms, but its not that cheesy UFO + 90's comic book charm and instead is more like older sci-fi "everything is a human in a rubber suit" Star trek charm.


Combined with Science Guy being the best NPC, I can agree this is the fairest view on Xenonauts.

I liked the Engineer too. Da comrade, we can build it.

The base getting more and more sophisticated as you advance in tech was also a really neat touch.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
My pre-order soldier is a "survivor of the Kiryu-Kai disaster" :perfect:

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
The doom clock was ticking down. There was a region next to me with an ADVENT facility, but I was making GBS threads my pants hard since I had to make contact with the region first. Of course I get the longest possible timer. Five days to make contact, five days left on the clock.

Ended up raiding the facility with a full hour to spare :cool:...although I did have to skip a Retaliation mission and a Guerilla Ops mission. The Spokesman was not super pleased with me, but gently caress him.

My first campaign is in cruise control right now, but I had to reload quite a bit because of bad bugs. I've only lost three soldiers "legit", the rest were all LOS bugs or weird poo poo like randomly falling through floors when there was no fire/acid or enemies active.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Sylphosaurus posted:

Yeah, a lot of players really need to learn when it's time to cut your losses and evacuate but I guess it goes against the whole "must ace all missions :pwn:" mindset that seems to be pretty common.

Annoyingly, the one time this campaign where I went "well this is hosed, time to go" was a VIP escort mission where I couldn't just EVAC.

I might have lost everyone, but the alien AI bugged out and all of them stopped moving. They wouldn't even scramble-on-reveal :lol: That's how I managed to skulljack a Codex, and defeat the Avatar. Cheesy as all hell, but the game owed it to me for putting the objective all the way across the map guarded by enormous blocks of HP.

HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:

Just grab the upgrade that increases the likelyhood of downings instead of deaths.

You can't grab that upgrade until you have a soldier reach Major, which is dumb. By the time I have a Major, my troops aren't regularly dropping dead.

Mod plz

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

SniperWoreConverse posted:

1: i'm pissed fuckin power conduits are staffable and it never told me. I would have prob tried to put it next to a workshop (not that I can afford one)
2: what's the deal with advanced war center, it just increases healing rate or lets you change what perks you picked, that's it? kind of a rip off imo seeing as you don't get extra heals unless it's staffed

The Advanced War Center also gives your guys a bonus perk outside their speciality. It happens once randomly on level-up.

So you can get a Sniper with Guardian or a Ranger with Serial. Both of which are pretty crazy.

Besides, with wounds being so common and heal times so long, the 100% heal boost is almost mandatory. It was the first building I built and I don't regret it in the slightest.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
So...is there any downside to expanding your territory? I played it really conservative early and didn't extend myself at all because I thought there might be some traps there, but now I'm leading half the planet with no obvious negatives. Should have done this from the start.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
On missions where the objectives are "Secure package" and "eliminate all hostiles", can you still win if you grab the package and then evac?

I finally had a mission where I had to bug out or lose everyone. 1 Gatekeeper, 2 Vipers, 1 Elite Captain, 1 Elite Trooper, 1 Elite Stun Lancer, and 1 Elite Shieldbearer all attacked basically simultaneously, alerted by a failed hack attempt. Then reinforcements landed two Heavy MECs and one Elite Trooper almost on top of the objective. :yikes:

I miggghhht have been able to gank the package before bugging out, but people would have definitely died, and gently caress doing that if Bradford is just going to bitch me out for not exterminating all the xenos filth.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Mister Adequate posted:

Mimic beacon putting in the work



godspeed little decoy :911:

Soldiers screaming and crying when a Mimic Beacon dies never fails to make me smile. I like to think that they've been fooled too.

Does Vengeance proc off Mimic Beacon death? Because :laffo: if that's the case.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
Swords in general need a rebalancing relative to shotguns.

Making them 100% chance to hit like Rose did is a start, and fair considering they can still be dodged, but they need more to really be viable.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Demiurge4 posted:

Replace Blademaster with an ability called "To the Death". When used on an enemy the ranger runs up and engages in RULES OF NATURE where only one man or alien can be left standing. Success chance is based on relative HP and equipment.

Some sort of "Duel" ability that taunts melee aliens into charging you would be cool. Good potential synergy with Overwatch and Blademaster.

If the melee guy reaches you, both you and the alien melee attack each other with a coinflip deciding who goes first.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
First campaign was a win! That final mission though :stare:, poo poo was brutal on Commander. Legendary must be an absolute bloodbath.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

RBA Starblade posted:

My specialist hacked a workstation for a mission, failed to get a useful bonus (the only one I've gotten so far was to disorient ADVENT for two turns, which would have been useful had the squad been anywhere near me), blew up the alien knockoff mec that is apparently invisible to scanners, and his reward was he got better grenades from the AWS. Nice.

Disorient All Enemies is awesome because it will tell you the number and name of every single enemy left on the map.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

FuriousGeorge posted:

OK I have a little dilemma here.

I'm finishing up the Avenger Defense and trying to extract all my guys.

They're all on the ramp, I have one soldier carrying an unconscious guy, the Recover Soldiers counter says 0, but I'm getting the warning that I'm going to leave someone behind if I liftoff. Can you not extract unconscious soldiers, or is this a bug?

I'm on Ironman and I'm afraid to click and see what happens. :ohdear:

Did you use mind control at any point in the mission? Bradford gets very attached to mind controlled aliens and will complain if you try to leave them behind. Even if they're dead.

oswald ownenstein posted:

^^ burning is such a rough mechanic. I wish general 'heal' would get rid of it, instead of needing to burn a 'revive'

A regular Heal does cure burning, along with acid and poison.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

ZearothK posted:

What Vengarr said about mind control. I also got this bug because for some reason my GREMLIN was still out in the field after being used for haywire protocol, sending it to aid someone removed the message.

I think maybe Turrets count too? If you have a Defense Matrix.

Speaking of which, I made sure to have a fully upgraded and staffed Defense Matrix...the turrets are a little underwhelming. Barely any health, sub-par accuracy and damage. If you can't win with nine of your finest asskickers out there, four dinky turrets aren't going to do much lifting.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Strobe posted:

I solved this problem by always countering the UFO Hunt event. Fortunately, it hasn't come up against stiff competition in the "Holy poo poo that sounds horrible" games. Usually I counter the UFO Hunt, Vigilance (never again), or Infestation. Anything else is basically 'eh, I can live with it' even if it's not terribly pleasant.

The reason for this particular fixation on not doing an Avenger defense is that I have neither a Sniper nor a Conceal Ranger. It would just be pain.

I never had a UFO Hunt Dark Event and it still spawned a UFO after I took out the Codex Brain site. I had already done the Forge site, so maybe it appears after you do both of them?

Vib Rib posted:

Too bad it goes up against revival protocol, right? I found that one particularly alluring. Especially since as far as I know it's the only thing that can cure unconsciousness, which can utterly gently caress up a mission, especially if it happens early on.

I had a bunch of guys get knocked out early, so I rushed Revive Protocol aaand...never had anyone knocked out again.

I would always grab Haywire, so many of the most dangerous enemies are mechanical. And for some dumb reason, Revival Protocol only gets one charge regardless of how many medkits you have. It's very situational whereas Haywire is going to be useful on every mission.

Vengarr fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Feb 9, 2016

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Internet Kraken posted:

Jesus christ this was scary.



So I sent my concealed ranger to flank that sectopod and pals after they got triggered from deeper in the facility. I figured that because the sectopod can see several soldiers, there's no way it would randomly walk in the direction of my ranger, right?

Well I have no idea why but it did. It ignored all the targets in front of it and instead ran through the wall to the left. That's when I had the horrible realization that it was going to expose my ranger and also step on the car he was using as cover. So I get this horror movie-esque sequence in which one of my specalists fires 3 guardian overshots, desperately trying to save his comrade from the rampaging sectopod. Of course that doesn't kill it though. So after it blows up the car, the stun lancer tagging along runs up and clonks my ranger leaving him at 1 hp. So that could of been disastrous as opposed to just really bad. Managed to pull out without him getting killed but drat I never had a scare like that in lategame EW.



Sectopods are a menace when you don't get the drop on them.

That's an extremely appropriate mission name.


Alkydere posted:

You're worrying too much about the Avenger Defense. I had 3 people run ahead (2 Rangers, 1 Specialist) while everyone else manned the defense. The hardest part is reaching the target, but once you do it has hilariously low HP (about 10 if I remember correctly, gently caress those horrible health bars) and you can just NOPE right back to your buddies holding the ramp. I probably could have done it a turn faster if I'd replaced the Rangers with Grenadiers and their hilarious bombardment range.

It has 11 health. Explicitly because the Blaster Bomb does a maximum of 10 damage and you can hit the spike with it from the spawn :getin:

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

LightWarden posted:

Do you have medical protocol, field medic and a medkit equipped? If so Revival should share medical protocol's charges.

Restoration also will fix unconsciousness, while healing fixes damage over time effects and solace fixes all mental conditions, so I could see the value in a medical protocol/haywire protocol/field medic/threat assessment/guardian/restoration build for covering all your bases with a single specialist, though most of the other options are good as well.

I did, but it is Stabilization that shares medkit charges. You only get one Revival no matter what.

It's not like in EU where Revive just replaced Stabilization. If someone starts bleeding out, you have to Stabilize them first. Then they become Unconscious and can be Revived. Presumably with only 1 HP, so you'd have to heal them again...If you're on any kind of timer at all it's impractical. Either MEDEVAC them, or stabilize them and carry/leave them for later.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

CapnAndy posted:

Today I learned that if you're on the you-hosed-up countdown, any black site will reset it, not just the one they give you when you gently caress up. Hooray for me, I have bought few more precious weeks for humanity.

Fun fact: there are pips underneath Alien Facilities. They represent how many points of Avatar Progress the Aliens will lose if you destroy the facility.

So just because the Aliens build a new facility doesn't mean it will always appear for you on the map, right? Otherwise, what's the deal with the "Alien Facility Lead" hack reward?

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
Skullmining is great. The feedback effect isn't terrible (does about 3 damage to the hacker, but the ADVENT guy still dies), so it's worth risking it for a facility lead.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

SynthOrange posted:

How do continent bonuses work? There are multiple lights for the countries in the continent but you only need one radio tower?

You need a certain number of radio relays (the round white dots) and all of the countries.

Resistance HQ counts as a radio relay by the way.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

SniperWoreConverse posted:

I have no loving idea what the pips next to the green bars do, then.

That's how many towers you need. It's either 1 or 2 depending on how many countries are in that region (and maybe depending on the bonus?)

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

SniperWoreConverse posted:

Yeah but if HQ counts as a radio tower, and it's in Asia with my other two contacts, and India also has a tower, why does my status bar for Asia have three out of four green blocks and one out of two pips lit?

You're missing a region, Asia has four territories in it. (Unless it's randomized? I thought the territories were hard-coded but the linkages were random)

Post a picture.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
I feel like you can safely delay the GTS a bit, because the first Squad Size upgrade doesn't open up until Sergeant(?) and that takes a while.

My next game I'm thinking Workshop-->AWC-->Power Relay(?)-->GTS-->Comms.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Internet Kraken posted:

What exactly do bluescreen rounds do anyways? If they add flat damage I might use them on my gunslinger just because almost every dangerous enemy in the late game is partly mechanical.

+5 flat damage, and increases the chances of hack attempts on that target being successful.

Bill Gates' finest contribution to mankind.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

With the laser sight add-on, is the crit bonus increased by getting closer or further away from the target? Just wanting to know if I should put it on my prize Ranger or Sharpshooter.

Closer.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Musluk posted:

That's not quite optimal tho, starting with a workshop. You'll get better returns with GST - which you can already start building with starter supplies. You'll also be losing out on the 4th gremlin later on, and it won't be able to help with excavations above it while you're still doing those since there's nothing on top of it.

So, you start with enough power for 2 buildings and 2 contacts. What you want to do is to get 2 buildings>power>radio so you can keep expanding. My first two levels will probably look like this:

code:
   GTS   |   AWC   |   Power
Proving  |   wksp  |   Comms
Workshop will be able to help with 3 excavations, plus once those are done it'll be able to help with 2/4 buildings. In the meantime, whenever you heal all your soldiers to full, you can move a gremlin out of AWC to wherever it's needed.

Opportunity cost is a thing--the longer you wait to build the workshop, the less value you get out of it. It's at its best when you only have one engineer. Build it first, you get max value.

You won't lose out on the 4th GREMLIN if you put the comms building next door, it can staff the 2nd slot. Two in the Comms building, one on power, one in the AWC. Once you have an extra engineer handy, you can put him in the AWC instead of a GREMLIN and upgrade the power relay to take a second engineer.

Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon

Kooriken posted:

Searched the last 10 or so pages, doesn't look like anyone has posted this gem yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qehLhqLx6Ak


Holy poo poo, that really is the Spokesman. I thought it was just someone doing an amazing impression.

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Vengarr
Jun 17, 2010

Smashed before noon
I learned today that you can get missions as a scan reward.

Jesus game, I've run 3 missions in less than three game-days, I don't need any more. That's not a reward, that's a punishment.

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