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Jade, how are you getting so many hidden abilities? I have like, 5 colonels on my file and a bunch of other high level dudes and exactly one squaddie has ever rolled a hidden ability.
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Apr 1, 2017 22:27
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Montegoraon posted:It's still pretty odd that the UFO was coming from over 13000 miles away, which is farther away than half the circumference of Earth. So, it somehow had to be farther away than the opposite side of the planet. Now that I think about it, I've run into this same problem when I neglected to handle rotational variables properly. For example, say the Avenger is set at 90 degrees longitude and the UFO is set to be at -260 degrees. -260 is the same as +100 so they're actually only 10 degrees apart. But if you don't put them in the same frame of reference before you start your animation, the UFO is going to travel all of 370 degrees to get to the Avenger, passing right by the Avenger in the process. It's a relatively easy fix, but if you get too zealous and forget longitude and latitude don't work the same way, then: Wheany posted:the Skyranger would some times warp from the north pole to the south pole
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Apr 1, 2017 22:32
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Veryslightlymad posted:Jade, how are you getting so many hidden abilities? I have like, 5 colonels on my file and a bunch of other high level dudes and exactly one squaddie has ever rolled a hidden ability. Mod. True AWC or something like that, guarantees you eventually get a hidden unlike the base game crapshoot.
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Apr 1, 2017 22:57
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I really prefer randomly getting special abilities instead of everyone getting one, it makes it feel more special when a soldier rolls something cool.
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Apr 1, 2017 22:58
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chiasaur11 posted:Mod. True AWC or something like that, guarantees you eventually get a hidden unlike the base game crapshoot. Doesn't True AWC just make sure it retroactively applied? Aka doesn't lock soldiers out of their hidden abilities, if they do have them, if you didn't have the AWC by the time they would unlock?
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Apr 1, 2017 23:05
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Oh, mernf. I didn't realize it was that low of a chance to proc. Incidentally, if you DIDN'T try to bring the shield bearer on the ship with you, Central will actually yell at you and tell you you have left an ally in the field. This happened to me last night when I did the mission and I was panicking and then I realized he was referring to my good friend the andromedan.
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Apr 1, 2017 23:42
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Yami Fenrir posted:Doesn't True AWC just make sure it retroactively applied? Aka doesn't lock soldiers out of their hidden abilities, if they do have them, if you didn't have the AWC by the time they would unlock? Yeah. All it does it make it so the first soldiers you train up aren't automatically worse for having ranked up before building the AWC.
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Apr 2, 2017 00:32
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Yup. Fix your game, Jake!
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Apr 2, 2017 01:13
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Veryslightlymad posted:Jade, how are you getting so many hidden abilities? I have like, 5 colonels on my file and a bunch of other high level dudes and exactly one squaddie has ever rolled a hidden ability. Hey, the good luck that's been building up whenever the Doom Counter Fuckery happens has to go somewhere.
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Apr 2, 2017 17:59
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The AWC is not a random chance. Every Soldier has their perk and rank already assigned when the AWC is built. However, if they are already past that rank, say you get a guy up to colonel, then build the AWC, and the soldier's AWC perk is set at the Sergeant rank, then no perk for him. That kind of thing is the only scenario where a soldier will not receive an AWC perk. The "True Retroactive AWC" allows soldiers to pick up their perk even if they've passed the rank it gets attached to.
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Apr 2, 2017 20:31
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BlazetheInferno posted:The AWC is not a random chance. Every Soldier has their perk and rank already assigned when the AWC is built. However, if they are already past that rank, say you get a guy up to colonel, then build the AWC, and the soldier's AWC perk is set at the Sergeant rank, then no perk for him. This reminds me of something from the previous game - anyone trained up before you got the Iron Will upgrade would end up with a poor will score compared to newer soldiers. On top of that, they were far more likely to get shaken. XCOM 2 kept the shaken mechanic but made it removable. I love that little bit of game design. It's effectively have a bonus mission objective - don't let the shaken guy take damage - which helps them get over their mental issues. It's a great way to make you care about your soldiers instead of just treating them as more meat for the grinder. ..and then the non-retroactive AWC goes and repeats the old mistake. It may not be as big a deal as a horrendously low will score, but I really don't like the result: that the best way to play is to leave the oldest soldiers at home.
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Apr 6, 2017 11:25
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zyxophoj posted:This reminds me of something from the previous game - anyone trained up before you got the Iron Will upgrade would end up with a poor will score compared to newer soldiers. On top of that, they were far more likely to get shaken. eh, not necessarily. If you're min-maxing like crazy, maybe, but I don't think the game needs that. the AWC abilities are so random that just getting an useful one like shredder on a sniper is far too random to be reliable. I'd much rather have the high level soldier with all the base skills at hand.
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Apr 6, 2017 11:56
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Or, if you really care about the AWC abilities, prioritize it's construction. Though I forget how it works with reward/purchased soldiers who start at a higher rank? A higher rank soldier is often going to be better than a lower one with an extra abilty, but in some ways it can be a catch-up mechanic meaning you are less screwed if you do have to stop using your normal dream team.
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Apr 6, 2017 13:12
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Tylana posted:Or, if you really care about the AWC abilities, prioritize it's construction. Though I forget how it works with reward/purchased soldiers who start at a higher rank? It depends on what ability they get. For example a ranger who gets aim does not radically change much. On the other hand if they get serial you now have the single most broken combo in the game.
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Apr 6, 2017 13:15
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Hunt11 posted:It depends on what ability they get. For example a ranger who gets aim does not radically change much. On the other hand if they get serial you now have the single most broken combo in the game. Oh God yes. Serial on Rangers is the absolute best. Also since firing a shotgun is one action you can activate it, move and then fire and then move again due to Implacable! Hell activate Run and Gun for more actions! The activate Serial, move and then fire should work for any non sniper with serial. Doesn't Empanada have it as his AWC skill?
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Apr 6, 2017 16:30
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 Operation Flying Fire Not the mission I hoped this update would be; I get a supply raid opportunity before being able to manufacture plasma lances so the Madagascar plot mission will have to wait a little while longer. Truthfully there isn't anything super special about this one other than it's the first mission where I don't bring the SPARK in a long long time. I also make Guava happy with Faceoff so now he can shut up about it for the rest of the LP. The rest of the LP, you hear me Guava? Grenadier Colonel rank skills: Saturation Fire vs Rupture Saturation Fire will target every enemy in a cone and take a shot at them, with the added possibility of destroying cover. It's kind of a mix in mechanics between the cone of fire you get with Killzone, and the 'shoot everything you see' of Faceoff. It uses a lot of ammo but combined with an accurate grenadier and/or holo-targeting this skill can put out a lot of damage or at least holo-mark a number of targets at once and leave them out in the open to be cleaned up by the rest of the squad. Rupture deals a critical hit and applied a status effect where all future shots against the ruptured target deal an additional +3 damage. This is great against high HP enemies like Gatekeepers, Archons, and Sectopods. Combines well with Holo-Targeting and Shredder as a lead off attack versus a large high HP armored target, potentially leaving the enemies giant robotic crab more easily targeted and taking large sums of damage. Winner: It's close, but I'd give it to Rupture. Saturation fire is great for dealing with numerous smaller threats while Rupture is great for dealing with a giant robotic crab. The final consideration for me is that by Colonel level there are already many other ways with dealing with a large number of average threats; grenades, Suppression, Killzone, Faceoff, Stasis, hacking mechanicals, etc. while Rupture does something wholly unique which I think gives it the edge. Either skill may suffer a mission where the circumstances aren't ideal for it's use, but that applies equally to both of them I feel. As a general note since there isn't a whole lot to say about a routine late game supply raid mission, let me at least say this following my thoughts on the above skill choice; Jake and the team did a much better job at balancing the skill choices in XCom 2 than they did in the first game. In the first game there were many level ups where the choice was automatic because one ability either sucked completely (Flush, Snapshot, etc) or where one skill choice was so much better than the other (Rapid Fire, Bullet Swarm, etc). There were even a couple of times where both skill choices pretty much sucked (Support skill choices that only affected their smoke grenades). Now having said that and hopefully jogging your memory on those times and maybe even the times I called it out in the previous thread let me say that Jake and his team did much better this time around. There have not been many instances where I have felt like saying skill A is always the best pick here because skill B is garbage. Blast Padding vs. Shredder is about the only one I can think of, because blast padding really does kind of suck and you get so much mileage out of shredder. Other pretty mild skills would be Aim (hunker down gives +20 aim on the next turn) and Deep Cover (Hunker Down after sprint). But I just scanned the wiki to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything and those were the only three skills I can really give any amount of poo poo for being bad choices. Everything else, even with how much I hate gunslinger builds, have good choices for a soldier if you choose to operate your soldier in a certain way. I may not particularly fancy Phantom Rangers (coming around on it though, I've enjoyed the use I've gotten out of Talow) or Gunslingers (Duke's doing better than I thought it'd go, but still would rather have a Sniper and just use an Assault Ranger for the close up stuff instead) but I can't fault the skill tree for making those class choices suck. They're pretty well balanced and accomplish a combat role that Jake and the team set to flesh out. So in a LP full of 'Jake, fix your game' I'd like to take a moment to say 'Jake, you did a good job on this one'. ...Okay moment over. Now go fix your game, Jake.
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Apr 6, 2017 20:40
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Yeah there aren't really any trap options this time around when it comes to skill picks, even the ones where one skill is obviously better you can still get mileage out of the bad one (Blast Padding, Aim, Deep Cover), it just isn't as good as the one you should pick. Unlike in EU/EW where the bad choices were seriously bad.
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Apr 6, 2017 21:30
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When it comes to shipping tons and tons of material over land through a fixed route, trains make a lot of sense. If you need to ship more cargo, you just throw more wagons on, up to the limits of your locomotive's maximum weight capacity and your country's infrastructure - your bridges need to be able to support the weight, after all. There's no generalized situation where air or road transport beats rail transport in cost effectiveness for bulk goods over a distance, although it's limited by your rail network (which has an upper limit to how complex it can be). At some point goods have to leave the train by truck to their final destination, unless that destination is actually one of the stops on the rail. When Detroit was actually still a big manufacturing center, there was a freight rail line that went in a big half-loop around the city, enabling local businesses (such as automotive manufacturers) to operate with more or less direct access to freight lines, instead of needing to ship products and materials to and from train stations.
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Apr 6, 2017 21:34
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Kwyndig posted:Yeah there aren't really any trap options this time around when it comes to skill picks, even the ones where one skill is obviously better you can still get mileage out of the bad one (Blast Padding, Aim, Deep Cover), it just isn't as good as the one you should pick. Unlike in EU/EW where the bad choices were seriously bad. Although with how often this game runs like it's held together with duct tape and prayers, I'm amazed that Face Off didn't target the dominated Archon as well, given that the game allows you to target it with normal actions. But hey, at least we picked up a fancy looking emergency elevator in the process.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:07
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Jade Star posted:I also make Guava happy with Faceoff so now he can shut up about it for the rest of the LP. If you really want to see the power of Faceoff, put fire or poison rounds on the sniper, and put a 15% repeater on the main weapon. Yes it works, and it really shouldn't, since there are at least 2 bugs being exploited here.  Jade Star posted:Saturation Fire vs Rupture Both excellent skills - as they should be, considering their position at the end of the promotion tree. One nice thing about Saturation Fire is that it doesn't need line of sight and is quite capable of damaging an alien that is behind a building. Of course, once it's been fired, the alien probably will have line of sight back to the grenadier. And while destroying cover is nice, the grenadier's own cover is not immune.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:34
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AradoBalanga posted:Although with how often this game runs like it's held together with duct tape and prayers, I'm amazed that Face Off didn't target the dominated Archon as well, given that the game allows you to target it with normal actions. But hey, at least we picked up a fancy looking emergency elevator in the process. I briefly wondered if Face Off would target the exploding thingy that everyone was standing around.
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Apr 7, 2017 15:16
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If I recall correctly, Saturation Fire also nearly always sets your grenadier on fire, at least if they use it from cover. (this may have been fixed at somepoint). Admittedly, being the kind of boring person that doesn't use Not Created Equal or things like that my grenadiers Aim didn't inspire confidence in hitting anything in the situations where it might seem cool. Faceoff can shoot dominated targets if you pick them as the first target, IIRC. Might do the same for explosives.
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Apr 7, 2017 16:31
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Saturation fire pretty much always destroys whatever cover your grenadier is standing behind, same as all other cone/beam attacks that have destruction capacity.
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Apr 7, 2017 17:38
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Green Intern posted:Saturation fire pretty much always destroys whatever cover your grenadier is standing behind, same as all other cone/beam attacks that have destruction capacity. Getting to cover after razing a swath of the battlefield: just one more fantastic use for Salvo (in heavy weapons) and PSI Inspire (otherwise). Honestly, PSI inspire is really underused so far in the LP- if you don't need to move your PSI op or can get a free move, you can get a free extra action for anyone in the op's sight on a 3-turn cooldown. It's a single action that doesn't end the turn!
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Apr 7, 2017 17:49
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Zomborgon posted:Getting to cover after razing a swath of the battlefield: just one more fantastic use for Salvo (in heavy weapons) and PSI Inspire (otherwise). I like that you formatted it as though it were learned by a character in Earthbound.
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Apr 8, 2017 23:25
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PSI Advent Burgers
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Apr 9, 2017 01:14
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Olesh posted:your bridges need to be able to support the weight, after all. Can you space out the loaded wagons so the front of the train is off the bridge by the time the back of the train is on it?
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Apr 9, 2017 02:22
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The Lone Badger posted:Can you space out the loaded wagons so the front of the train is off the bridge by the time the back of the train is on it? There are some places here in the US that do that, one short lines that don't have the money to replace the bridges, or in industrial trackage where the impacts of taking the track out of service to replace the bridge isn't worth the benefits, and plenty of empty cars are around anyway. But usually its just cheaper/easier/more efficient to replace the bridge.
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Apr 9, 2017 04:30
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This LP will resume when the NHL playoffs have concluded. RIP Guava Moment.
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Apr 12, 2017 23:45
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National Hockey? League
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Apr 12, 2017 23:50
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Why does Guava have to watch every Hockey game ever?
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Apr 13, 2017 00:16
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quote:Jadestar: some time when there isnt hockey we need to xcom RIP Skurpy Granerler and his banjo
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Apr 13, 2017 00:18
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Lunethex posted:Why does Guava have to watch every Hockey game ever? because in Canada it is illegal not to.
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Apr 13, 2017 00:56
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Thefluffy posted:because in Canada it is illegal not to. The Viper King is truly a Firm but fair ruler
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Apr 13, 2017 08:52
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Do a banjo episode. I mean a Skippy episode.
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Apr 13, 2017 10:24
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Jade Star posted:This LP will resume when the NHL playoffs have concluded. RIP Guava Moment. Someone buy him a DVR so he doesn't have to watch them all live.
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Apr 13, 2017 10:39
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But if you don't watch them live, the only other thing to talk about up there is moose.
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Apr 13, 2017 12:10
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I didn't watch today's hockey, but i heard in the car that my Sharks beat Guava's Oliers in the first game. So suck on that Guava! Also I got skippy to cover the next episode. Don't worry, there totally wasn't a tone of new and awesome poo poo happening constantly in the video, oh wait, there was and you missed it.
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Apr 13, 2017 12:51
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Zebrin posted:But if you don't watch them live, the only other thing to talk about up there is moose. Well,there's also our lovely Prime Minister. Speaking from experience.
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Apr 13, 2017 13:47
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Jade Star posted:I didn't watch today's hockey, but i heard in the car that my Sharks beat Guava's Oliers in the first game. So suck on that Guava! Also I got skippy to cover the next episode. Don't worry, there totally wasn't a tone of new and awesome poo poo happening constantly in the video, oh wait, there was and you missed it. 
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Apr 13, 2017 14:03
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