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Completed Let's play Silent Storm!
- Thread starter Azira
- Start date
Thor Kaufman
Arcane
B
Are you using the mod that automatically gives maximum stats per levelup? If not extremely impressive that you got the mech and med skills so high for your experts.
Are you using the mod that automatically gives maximum stats per levelup? If not extremely impressive that you got the mech and med skills so high for your experts.
Not maximum stats, but yes, I'm running the watchdog mod. Elsewise I'd go nuts grinding, by shooting pistols at the teammembers, patching up wounds, planting mines and defusing them.
I did that aplenty when I first played the game back in 2003. I'm only too happy not having to do so again.
I did that aplenty when I first played the game back in 2003. I'm only too happy not having to do so again.
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,036
Not maximum stats, but yes, I'm running the watchdog mod. Elsewise I'd go nuts grinding, by shooting pistols at the teammembers, patching up wounds, planting mines and defusing them.
I did that aplenty when I first played the game back in 2003. I'm only too happy not having to do so again.
Psh no need to shoot teammates, I remember I used to shoot buildings tell they collapsed entirely, probably my most ocd gaming moment ever.
Also, any reason you are firing mostly snap shots over full aim shots targeted to the head? I remember primarily using rifles on all guys with smgs and mgs as backup/crowd control tell i got silenced smgs (solo-scout for easy win).
If you want to train medic skill and VPs, you need someone to take wounds, preferrably small ones.
Snap shots are used if there's a fair chance of still hitting the head. Snap shot means you can fire more than once and/or have APs left to hide/run around a corner.
Snap shots are used if there's a fair chance of still hitting the head. Snap shot means you can fire more than once and/or have APs left to hide/run around a corner.
Overwhelming support for an assault on the warehouse.. Will play the mission, update to come at a later time. 
The mission went surprisingly well. Just out of sheer exuberance did a random encounter as well. Have a whole bunch of screenshots to sort through and then I can get to writing the proper update.
My youngest turns 1 on friday though, so I cannot say for certain when I'll get the time to produce the update. It is coming though, that much I can promise.
Just out of sheer exuberance did a random encounter as well. Have a whole bunch of screenshots to sort through and then I can get to writing the proper update.My youngest turns 1 on friday though, so I cannot say for certain when I'll get the time to produce the update. It is coming though, that much I can promise.
Ashery
Prophet
- Joined
- May 24, 2008
- Messages
- 1,337
The mission went surprisingly well.
My youngest turns 1 on friday though, so I cannot say for certain when I'll get the time to produce the update. It is coming though, that much I can promise.
Still more reliable than Stereotypical Villain.
Sorry for making you look bad.
Seriously though, those grenade flinging renegades are a real pain. I got lucky that most of them were triggered at a safeish distance, so their attacks either missed or did little damage. The katana guy though, he was really annoying with his too-good-to-be-spotted hide skill. I was lucky I could tag him with a 'nade.
With the birthday celebrations done with for now, I've found I might have a few hours for myself this day.
Those hours I will, in part, spend on trying to fabricate an update for you, my dear readers.
I'm tired, got a headache and feel like a fever's coming on. Might as well sit tight and type instead of straining myself doing something physical.
Option B won by a clear margin, so we're headed for the storehouse!
An abandoned bomb shelter. Sounds like an ideal place to hide secrets, eh? Incidentally, this is our first 2-part map.
First, we take a look at the situation we find ourselves in upon entry.
We start already in combat, and soon there are several heavily armed allied soldiers closing on our position, including one carrying a bazooka.
We still outnumber them though, so...
One by one they will fall. This is the first time in this game I see an officer carrying something other than a simple pistol.
The opponents on this map are much stronger than the ones we've been encountering so far. Mayhap except for the ninja squad..
They don't take much longer to incapacitate, but the xp reward is much greater.
Kodex is so close to the ranged criticals skill, and this time the skill gained is a useful one to boot. dexte builds towards the Second Skin skill, which will help when we get some panzerkleins, and Cappen is also building towards his PK based skills.
Mind you, these levelups were after just a single enemy incapacitated.
Another enemy down (the one with the bazooka took priority here) and WetWo also builds towards Second Skin.
Cappen is lightly wounded, and I notice that Loti is also eligble for a levelup. She's building towards the melee criticals build.
Scouts never get to rule in the PK business. Thing is, they don't need to.
The final allied soldiers are put down, and from then on, the true enemies reveal themselves.
It comes as no suprise that this is a renegade controlled place. I do, however, like the fact that they have proper allied soldiers acting as a front.
The renegades are spread over this overland map area. I send in Kodex to flush them out, commando style.
The silenced sniper rifle coupled with a silenced SMG can rightly be considered an I-win button at this point in the game. The hiding mechanism and the ability to remain hidden with silenced weaponry is truly powerful. The silenced sniper will prove next to useless against Panzerkleins as you will eventually see however, so I'm not going to solo this game using only Kodex.
Having cleared most of the map, I stop to take a look at our objectives.
Two, still not uncovered. They're both found in the second part of the map. Speaking of which, there are two entrances to the second part. Either we take the big lift or we look for a service entrance.
Before we proceed though, I want to clear this map. More levelups are already gained.
As if Kodex wasn't broken enough with his silenced sniper rifle. 
This skill isn't a waste though. 30% boost is good, and this means Cappen will surpass Tind in levels very soon. It is also the last prerequisite before the PK based skills. M:
Tind can now remove the bleeding skill with ordinary first aid items.
Just a bit more of a cleanup. Actually, while soloing here, Kodex managed to die once, when he stumbled upon an RPG wielding hidden renegade soldier. Whenever one of your soldiers is sneaking around, should he suddenly become visible, you should hit the combat button immediately and order him to run away as fast as possible.
So while I said this mission went easily, there was a single restart. Not pictured below however.
He's almost hidden beneath the trees, but this last one, that's the one with the RPG launcher.
With the latest killing spree, more levelups were gained!
WetWo and dexte continues building towards Second Skin, gaining slightly useful skills along the way. Loti however is now a speedcroucher.
With the map cleared, we pick up some choice weaponry and advance.
We chose the service entrance for the second area. I felt this approach might be more prudent. Let's see if I were right.
We start out hidden, and we can immediately see that, had we chosen the lift, we'd be facing down the barrels of several MG nests. There's a single MG nest pointed towards our entry point as well though. We'd better go about this quickly and silently.
The only two guards in our immediate area are quickly put down. One of them is labelled as an Engineer, and is only armed with a pistol, the reason of which you can read beneath this spoiler tag.
Anyhow, Kodex goes on a murderous rampage!
In one of these shots, you can see two red damage indicators. The bullet went through one soldier and hit the next one as well. Just love it when the hostiles line up obligingly.
The noise (was it the smashed cistern in the bathroom?) attracted some attention from the MG nest room. I had positioned the rest of the team to cover Kodex' flanks though.
We
silenced SMGs in these close quarters.
Most of this level is cleared solely by Kodex though.
This underground map is divided into two floors. While Kodex is busy slaughtering everybody on the top floor, Loti is guarding the only entrypoint between the two levels.
She hears movement behind her though, and silently breaches the rear entrance to the room with the two MG nests.
All of this killing leads to even more levelups.
Cappen now has all prerequisite skills for his PK skills, plus he can use all engineering items now. Tind just gets more amazing as a medic.
These levelups signify their 9th level. We will breach the two digits during this mission.
I took a screenshot of this rifle, for the simple reason that it spells "Ouch" in Danish.
It's an allied weapon, so we will not be able to readily get new ammo for it. I keep it because of the name.
Kodex continues his rampage, and we finally uncover the first mission objective.
By this time, Kodex also reaches ninth level.
Since Kodex is a sneaky bastard, I'll go for skills that increase his field of vision and ability to spot the enemy before they spot him. No reason not to make him even deadlier.
And here we have some pictures of Loti executing her guard duty:
Seems the Engineer thinks the End of the World is near? His end at least, that much we can agree upon.
Near where Kodex found the first investigation clue/mission objective, he finds some nasty looking grenades in a closet, then proceeds to find the second clue.
Those grenades, with that massive damage potential, will become useful soon enough.
Now that we've spotted our mission objectives, we'll read the documents, see what dirt turns up now.
Oooh, Newhouse, you dirty rotten bastard.
I wonder if we'll get our hands on you again at some point in this game.
Loti and dexte also reach level 9. WetWo is the slowest in our group (has the lowest int score M
These skills aren't too impressive, but still building towards our desired goals.
This also marks the clearing of the top floor of this map.
The ladder leading to the bottom floor is guarded however, Kodex shoots one guard, and Loti sneaks up on the second..
It's a bit of a
that she needed two chops for that, but rest assured, once she masters the "all melee strikes are criticals" skill, that won't be an issue anymore.
With these two down, WetWo manages to catch up with the rest of the group.
That's actually useful.
Meanwhile, on the bottom floor level, Kodex clears out a room containing two renegade engineers and some explosive barrels..
Tind cuts a dry remark here.
With these suckers down, the whole map is cleared. The reason the "leave" button hasn't turned green yet is that we cannot leave from this map. We have to return topside first.
We have our clues so we could leave. We could also loot everything not nailed down. Guess what we did?
First though, there were some electrified bars that looked interesting. The key to getting behind those is to throw a certain switch.
Nothing behind these bars for our Axis group though.
There are several chests in this map that contains stuff we can loot however, so we fill our inventories with the choicest looking parts.
PK weapons, some of them Allies only.. And a nasty piece of SMG work. We take all PK weapons as trophies, even if we can't use any yet. And to spite the allies..
With that done, we're free to go topside and leave.
Medals all around! Note, I promised we'd reach at least level 10 in this mission. Seems I misremembered.
Also, with this place cleared, it becomes obvious that Newhouse was doublecrossing us, so wonder what he is up to now?
Oh! Interesting. Seems rather certain now, that we'll probably run into him again, later.
With the storehouse cleared, a new area is unlocked.
Oh, we have pretty solid indications of what this upswing is about. "Farming equipment" indeed.
Our inventories are more or less overloaded however, so we return to base and unload. Here's a peek at our "Armored Suit Weapons" tag in the armory:
It's not empty anymore. However, we still can't open the door to the PK wing of the base:
I can't remember what the first mission is to get PKs on the Axis part of the game, but we'll get them soon enough.
Instead, I send the squad to the newly opened Switzerland map, and we get lucky and spot a random encounter almost right off the bat.
There are only two possible random encounters in Switzerland, and both of them carry a powerful reward, so naturally, we jump at the chance to enter this map.
First off, things seem oddly peaceful.
Not an enemy in sight. All the soldiers we can see are friendly towards us. But within moments of entering the map, an explosion sounds from the opposite side, and allied soldiers rush in.
Red berets. Are they special forces or some such? Whatever they may be (cannon fodder..), I ignore them for the nonce and run into the mansion. On the first floor of the mansion, on a mantlepiece, you can get this rifle:
It's the sole reason for us doing this random encounter. As you can also see from the screenshot, more allied troops have entered our visible area.
I didn't screenshot all kills as it's getting tedious enough as is, instead I'll just show you the levelups.
WetWo and dexte continue their builds towards the Second Skin skill, Loti builds towards the melee skills. Cappen tags Second Skin as the first in our group, Kodex learns to hunt even better, and Tind, in want of better things to spend her skillpoint on, builds towards being a better shot.
This is how the breach in the wall looks after I'd disposed of all the allied soldiers.
Yes. They were that many. Which accounts for the level gained. In fact, Cappen managed to gain two levels on this single random encounter.
Getting stuck inside an armoured suit lowers your spot skill. This skill partly compensates for that.
The downside of the Sea Devil rifle is that the ammo takes up a lot of room.
3 rounds take up two squares in the inventory. But the damage output makes it worth it, if you ask me.
A good thing about the rifle is that it's not axis/allied exclusive, AFAIR. Stick it in the armory, hit the "rearrange" button, and more ammo is spawned. Just like that.
Oh, and Cappen found a new toy back at base:
This should be amusing.
I didn't take screenshots at the character/medals tabs after these missions, so you'll have to wait until next time for an update. Suffice to say, there are now skills over 100.
So, next time I intend to do some of the missions in the order the game suggests, so we'll be visiting the Urals soon.
Until then.
Those hours I will, in part, spend on trying to fabricate an update for you, my dear readers.
I'm tired, got a headache and feel like a fever's coming on. Might as well sit tight and type instead of straining myself doing something physical.
Option B won by a clear margin, so we're headed for the storehouse!
An abandoned bomb shelter. Sounds like an ideal place to hide secrets, eh? Incidentally, this is our first 2-part map.
First, we take a look at the situation we find ourselves in upon entry.
We start already in combat, and soon there are several heavily armed allied soldiers closing on our position, including one carrying a bazooka.
We still outnumber them though, so...
One by one they will fall. This is the first time in this game I see an officer carrying something other than a simple pistol.
The opponents on this map are much stronger than the ones we've been encountering so far. Mayhap except for the ninja squad..
They don't take much longer to incapacitate, but the xp reward is much greater.
Kodex is so close to the ranged criticals skill, and this time the skill gained is a useful one to boot.
dexte builds towards the Second Skin skill, which will help when we get some panzerkleins, and Cappen is also building towards his PK based skills.Mind you, these levelups were after just a single enemy incapacitated.
Another enemy down (the one with the bazooka took priority here
) and WetWo also builds towards Second Skin.
Cappen is lightly wounded, and I notice that Loti is also eligble for a levelup. She's building towards the melee criticals build.
Scouts never get to rule in the PK business. Thing is, they don't need to.
The final allied soldiers are put down, and from then on, the true enemies reveal themselves.
It comes as no suprise that this is a renegade controlled place. I do, however, like the fact that they have proper allied soldiers acting as a front.
The renegades are spread over this overland map area. I send in Kodex to flush them out, commando style.
The silenced sniper rifle coupled with a silenced SMG can rightly be considered an I-win button at this point in the game. The hiding mechanism and the ability to remain hidden with silenced weaponry is truly powerful. The silenced sniper will prove next to useless against Panzerkleins as you will eventually see however, so I'm not going to solo this game using only Kodex.
Having cleared most of the map, I stop to take a look at our objectives.
Two, still not uncovered. They're both found in the second part of the map. Speaking of which, there are two entrances to the second part. Either we take the big lift or we look for a service entrance.
Before we proceed though, I want to clear this map. More levelups are already gained.
As if Kodex wasn't broken enough with his silenced sniper rifle.
This skill isn't a waste though. 30% boost is good, and this means Cappen will surpass Tind in levels very soon. It is also the last prerequisite before the PK based skills. M:
Tind can now remove the bleeding skill with ordinary first aid items.
Just a bit more of a cleanup. Actually, while soloing here, Kodex managed to die once, when he stumbled upon an RPG wielding hidden renegade soldier. Whenever one of your soldiers is sneaking around, should he suddenly become visible, you should hit the combat button immediately and order him to run away as fast as possible.
So while I said this mission went easily, there was a single restart. Not pictured below however.
He's almost hidden beneath the trees, but this last one, that's the one with the RPG launcher.
With the latest killing spree, more levelups were gained!
WetWo and dexte continues building towards Second Skin, gaining slightly useful skills along the way. Loti however is now a speedcroucher.
With the map cleared, we pick up some choice weaponry and advance.
We chose the service entrance for the second area. I felt this approach might be more prudent.
Let's see if I were right.
We start out hidden, and we can immediately see that, had we chosen the lift, we'd be facing down the barrels of several MG nests. There's a single MG nest pointed towards our entry point as well though. We'd better go about this quickly and silently.
The only two guards in our immediate area are quickly put down. One of them is labelled as an Engineer, and is only armed with a pistol, the reason of which you can read beneath this spoiler tag.
If you play as Allies, this is the first place you can pick up PKs of your own. But if you trigger the base alert, the engineers will run towards the PK suits and enter them themselves, complicating the fight. For Axis however, there will be no PK suits here
In one of these shots, you can see two red damage indicators. The bullet went through one soldier and hit the next one as well.
Just love it when the hostiles line up obligingly.The noise (was it the smashed cistern in the bathroom?) attracted some attention from the MG nest room. I had positioned the rest of the team to cover Kodex' flanks though.
We
silenced SMGs in these close quarters. Most of this level is cleared solely by Kodex though.
This underground map is divided into two floors. While Kodex is busy slaughtering everybody on the top floor, Loti is guarding the only entrypoint between the two levels.
She hears movement behind her though, and silently breaches the rear entrance to the room with the two MG nests.
All of this killing leads to even more levelups.
Cappen now has all prerequisite skills for his PK skills, plus he can use all engineering items now. Tind just gets more amazing as a medic.
These levelups signify their 9th level. We will breach the two digits during this mission.
I took a screenshot of this rifle, for the simple reason that it spells "Ouch" in Danish.
It's an allied weapon, so we will not be able to readily get new ammo for it. I keep it because of the name.
Kodex continues his rampage, and we finally uncover the first mission objective.
By this time, Kodex also reaches ninth level.
Since Kodex is a sneaky bastard, I'll go for skills that increase his field of vision and ability to spot the enemy before they spot him. No reason not to make him even deadlier.
And here we have some pictures of Loti executing her guard duty:
Seems the Engineer thinks the End of the World is near? His end at least, that much we can agree upon.
Near where Kodex found the first investigation clue/mission objective, he finds some nasty looking grenades in a closet, then proceeds to find the second clue.
Those grenades, with that massive damage potential, will become useful soon enough.
Now that we've spotted our mission objectives, we'll read the documents, see what dirt turns up now.
Oooh, Newhouse, you dirty rotten bastard.
I wonder if we'll get our hands on you again at some point in this game.Loti and dexte also reach level 9. WetWo is the slowest in our group (has the lowest int score M
These skills aren't too impressive, but still building towards our desired goals.
This also marks the clearing of the top floor of this map.
The ladder leading to the bottom floor is guarded however, Kodex shoots one guard, and Loti sneaks up on the second..
It's a bit of a
that she needed two chops for that, but rest assured, once she masters the "all melee strikes are criticals" skill, that won't be an issue anymore. With these two down, WetWo manages to catch up with the rest of the group.
That's actually useful.
Meanwhile, on the bottom floor level, Kodex clears out a room containing two renegade engineers and some explosive barrels..
Tind cuts a dry remark here.
With these suckers down, the whole map is cleared. The reason the "leave" button hasn't turned green yet is that we cannot leave from this map. We have to return topside first.
We have our clues so we could leave. We could also loot everything not nailed down. Guess what we did?
First though, there were some electrified bars that looked interesting. The key to getting behind those is to throw a certain switch.
Nothing behind these bars for our Axis group though.
There are several chests in this map that contains stuff we can loot however, so we fill our inventories with the choicest looking parts.
PK weapons, some of them Allies only.. And a nasty piece of SMG work. We take all PK weapons as trophies, even if we can't use any yet. And to spite the allies..
With that done, we're free to go topside and leave.
Medals all around! Note, I promised we'd reach at least level 10 in this mission. Seems I misremembered.
Also, with this place cleared, it becomes obvious that Newhouse was doublecrossing us, so wonder what he is up to now?
Oh! Interesting. Seems rather certain now, that we'll probably run into him again, later.
With the storehouse cleared, a new area is unlocked.
Oh, we have pretty solid indications of what this upswing is about.
"Farming equipment" indeed.Our inventories are more or less overloaded however, so we return to base and unload. Here's a peek at our "Armored Suit Weapons" tag in the armory:
It's not empty anymore.
However, we still can't open the door to the PK wing of the base:
I can't remember what the first mission is to get PKs on the Axis part of the game, but we'll get them soon enough.
Instead, I send the squad to the newly opened Switzerland map, and we get lucky and spot a random encounter almost right off the bat.
There are only two possible random encounters in Switzerland, and both of them carry a powerful reward, so naturally, we jump at the chance to enter this map.
First off, things seem oddly peaceful.
Not an enemy in sight. All the soldiers we can see are friendly towards us. But within moments of entering the map, an explosion sounds from the opposite side, and allied soldiers rush in.
Red berets. Are they special forces or some such? Whatever they may be (cannon fodder..
), I ignore them for the nonce and run into the mansion. On the first floor of the mansion, on a mantlepiece, you can get this rifle:
It's the sole reason for us doing this random encounter.
As you can also see from the screenshot, more allied troops have entered our visible area.I didn't screenshot all kills as it's getting tedious enough as is, instead I'll just show you the levelups.
WetWo and dexte continue their builds towards the Second Skin skill, Loti builds towards the melee skills. Cappen tags Second Skin as the first in our group, Kodex learns to hunt even better, and Tind, in want of better things to spend her skillpoint on, builds towards being a better shot.
This is how the breach in the wall looks after I'd disposed of all the allied soldiers.
Yes. They were that many. Which accounts for the level gained. In fact, Cappen managed to gain two levels on this single random encounter.
Getting stuck inside an armoured suit lowers your spot skill. This skill partly compensates for that.
The downside of the Sea Devil rifle is that the ammo takes up a lot of room.
3 rounds take up two squares in the inventory. But the damage output makes it worth it, if you ask me.
A good thing about the rifle is that it's not axis/allied exclusive, AFAIR. Stick it in the armory, hit the "rearrange" button, and more ammo is spawned. Just like that.
Oh, and Cappen found a new toy back at base:
This should be amusing.
I didn't take screenshots at the character/medals tabs after these missions, so you'll have to wait until next time for an update. Suffice to say, there are now skills over 100.
So, next time I intend to do some of the missions in the order the game suggests, so we'll be visiting the Urals soon.
Until then.
So there's a bunch of level-ups but no character screens? Okay
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,036
I was wondering why I was not seeing images on your latest update, turns out I had accidently blocked all of imgur instead of that single image of the zombie chomping dick in the zafehouse diaries LP thread.
On topic, stealth, like in many other games, is way to OP in the silent storm trilogy. The most fun I had in the game was actually the demo mission when you were given several shitty characters and thrown to the wolfs. I remember only having one guy with an smg to hold one of the fronts and no choke-point to hold. So I did the nonsensical thing of crouching him behind a light pole and watched bullets hitting him and others bouncing of the fixture turn after turn and somehow he came out on top.
Silencers and new abilities, while pretty fun and cool, kind of take away some of the charm of the game and then pks abolish it. That said still one of my favorite series shame Nival is only doing the HoMM series and ruskie cell phone games. Bout time for a Nival Kickstarter, could probably get the rights to the series since Jowood ate it.
On topic, stealth, like in many other games, is way to OP in the silent storm trilogy. The most fun I had in the game was actually the demo mission when you were given several shitty characters and thrown to the wolfs. I remember only having one guy with an smg to hold one of the fronts and no choke-point to hold. So I did the nonsensical thing of crouching him behind a light pole and watched bullets hitting him and others bouncing of the fixture turn after turn and somehow he came out on top.
Silencers and new abilities, while pretty fun and cool, kind of take away some of the charm of the game and then pks abolish it. That said still one of my favorite series shame Nival is only doing the HoMM series and ruskie cell phone games. Bout time for a Nival Kickstarter, could probably get the rights to the series since Jowood ate it.
sorry bro, that was me before knowing how to insert a spoiler tag
I did upload the mined house explosion, did I not? But yes, I will blow shit up in one or another update.
Played two more missions, will probably have the time to do the writeup tomorrow. There were no new levelups, but I will include the character screens this time.
On the second map, I saw some broken AI, and we'll see panzerkleins.
On the second map, I saw some broken AI, and we'll see panzerkleins.
I promised an update, and what do you know, here it is!
Two missions done, and PKs of our own! Will the game become too easy from here on out?
Nope, that was already the case when we found the silenced sniper rifle. And that rifle is found in a compulsory mission, so it's as the developers intended.
Though, to be fair, its damage output is so low that it will be of very limited use against enemy PKs, which I hope to demonstrate soon.
In this update we tackle two missions. The first is in the Ural mountains, and we have a new loading screen to go with the colder climate.
Note that this mission was recommended to be taken before the storehouse, so the enemies here are much lower level than our guys, making the mission a cakewalk. There's no levelscaling in this game.
We start off in a corner, and almost immediately we spot our first investigation clue.
The clue is spotted through the windows. Good eyes on whomever saw that these documents would be interesting.
Anyway, this house doesn't have a back entrance, and all windows seem locked from the inside, so we make our way down the side of the house towards the front. Almost there, we spot a small group of renegade soldiers..
Now, that's how grenades can ruin your day. dexte throwing related skills really made this even easier than it was supposed to be I guess. But I'm not complaining. I know that these explosions might be a bit tame compared to what Lottie was asking for, but more explosions will be forthcoming in later updates, I promise.
With the renegades gone, all that remains are the russian soldiers.
With the first guard down, we shoot an admiring look at the facade of the building. It's not apparent from a single screenshot, but the flags are slowly moving in the wind. It's quite pretty actually.
Just like in the last mission, Kodex goes on a killing spree. With his two silenced weapons, it's almost risk less to send him in, and considering the level disparity, the russian soldiers don't stand a chance..
All that remains after this is civilians. For some reason, the leave button does not turn green, but I find no more hostiles. Maybe the game wanted me to slaughter russian civilians? I never did bother to find out. I picked up an MG for comparison, then the objectives.
Short, easy, slightly bland. Mission complete though, that's what matters. Even with the level disparity, we did manage to wrangle a single levelup.
Tind improves her usefulness in combat. With the skillpoint assigned, we're free to leave.
This time there was no new info-dump after leaving the mission area. I assume the investigation clues we picked up were somehow redundant. Still, this is a completionist run, so I'll leave no mission untouched.
That said, we immediately proceed to the next mission the game suggests. This one takes place in the heart of Germany, specifically at a German weapons factory.
Who would have guessed? Good timing on our part eh? We'd better protect the general though, as he's not finished telling us what he knows, and indeed, protecting him is one of the mission objectives.
The easiest way to protect him is to make sure he can't leave the building we start in.
Here I've positioned Tind in such a way that she blocks general Müller from passing her.
The attacking force was kind enough to signal their approach by bombing the front gates.
So we make our way to the only door leading to and from the general's office. With Kodex and Loti hiding, we proceed to kill off the attacking renegades one at a time.
This is where I spotted a glaring flaw in the AI. The other soldiers will just stand still and watch dumbfounded, as their comrades are hit with deadly fire and drop one by one.
I know that my characters are hidden and using silenced weapons, so OK, maybe the hostiles shouldn't rush directly towards my troops, but it would at least make sense for them to scatter and start searching for the sniper.
That doesn't happen though, so between them, Loti and Kodex clear out the two nearest groups of renegade soldiers without raising any fuss. Well, actually two soldiers from the nearest group tried to inch closer to the doorway but were cut down by silenced SMG fire.
The weather effects seem to be purely cosmetic. I sensed no difference in accuracy.
With the two closest groups of enemies put down, I have Kodex advance as spotter. He sees another group, primarily clad in ghillie suits for some odd reason. Odd, because they're simply standing there..
They are more heavily armed than the previous two groups, but they still happily just stand around, taking the punishment I deal. Except for one sneaky guy..
You can just see the "noticed" icon in the top left part of the screen. I redeploy Loti to surprise the culprit.
I assume his AI told him to try and sneak into the building with the general. Would have worked if we'd all swarmed out like angry ants. Instead, he died where he crouched and didn't get to fire a single round from his MG.
Saddened by the apparent idiocy of their opponents, Kodex cleans up the ghillie group and the last group of enemies, just outside the fence.
The rag-doll physics make for some amusing deaths at times. And the way defeated hostiles drop all the contents of their inventory when they fall also seems silly at times. But hey, loot is loot.
And with that, every enemy is defeated. The only wound taken by our side was when Kodex accidentally grazed Loti with a bullet while she was standing in a doorway in front of him.
An aside, any of you as annoyed at XCOM as I am? Finished the Seven Seas version last night, and one of the gripes I have is that soldiers (and aliens as well) seemingly fire straight through their comrades with no difficulty, to hit targets behind them. No risk of friendly fire (aside from explosives) detract from an already poor game. I was thoroughly underwhelmed.
With that out of my system, I register that all hostiles are dead. This triggers the second cutscene on this map.
So we get to see our first panzerkleins! And they're ours to play with to boot. Before we get all giddy and run amok in our new mini-tanks, Grüber-style, we loot the place.
Bonus pic:
Now to looting.
The mortar shells are the PK equivalent of a thrown grenade. You don't need an actual mortar to use them, one is assumed to be already mounted. The repair tools are for crash repairs in the field. I don't expect to use those. But the PZB cannon is just pure awesome.
We read what the general had to tell us, and pick up the last clue before actually entering the PKs.
The last clue is another redundant. It's because the factory in Switzerland is quite important to the plot. M:
Now is the time to play with our little tanks.
The basic Axis PK weapon seems to be bugged. 0-0 damage? Not very good. Now, when in a PK suit, each soldier now has two VP bars. One for the soldier, the other for the suit, which can take quite a deal of punishment.
WetWo wants a tank too, he jumps into another PK and mounts the PZB cannon.
That cannon wil chew right through ordinary infantry very easily, and it will also make big dents in other PKs. WetWo however is a soldier with an affinity towards burst weapons, so climbs out of this PK and into another.
Yep. That's more like it. The damage per shot might not be too impressive, but factor in that for short bursts, this weapon spits out 7 shots, compared to 3 from most infantry held MGs! I think WetWo just pissed himself out of joy. Let's just imagine the PKs are fully fitted with catheters and everything, to enable long periods of piloting these things..
A final group shot before we leave the map.
Note that while Loti is piloting a suit here, I'll probably keep her and Kodex out of suits due to their high hide skills. You can't hide very well in a Panzerklein.
Thor's Hammer is building a rocket it would seem. It does seem like it would be a good idea to prevent them from completing that thing.
Once we get back to base, the final room is unlocked.
Here you can outfit your PKs between missions, and repair them up to full health for free. If you want to take the PKs with you for a mission, you also need to exit via the hangar bay doors, as the suits wont fit into the rest of the base.
To wrap up this update, here are the character sheets complete with medal tabs for all:
Kodex has the most medals in the team, as I've used him the most. It's the perk of being a sniper with a silenced rifle..
Loti's strength stat reads as lowered here, because she was wearing a PK suit as she entered the base. Wearing a suit will raise strength, while lowering a lot of skills, and raising some.
I've fitted two PK MGs on WetWo's PK, just to carry an insane amount of extra ammo, "just in case".
dexte has a cannon and an ample supply of mortar shells. Of course.
Luckily, I'd scrounged enough cannons to replace the 0-0 damage peashooters that were the base weapons. Cappen also carries his usual mine-removal and door-unlocking tools, but those can only be used if he crawls out of his PK suit. Having a suit on at the start of a mission helps protect him better.
Same as Cappen, Tind carries her first aid items with her, but will only be able to actually use them should she dismount. Being inside a suit of armor will lessen the chance that she is the one in need of first aid.
Note that this mission was recommended to be taken before the storehouse, so the enemies here are much lower level than our guys, making the mission a cakewalk. There's no levelscaling in this game.
We start off in a corner, and almost immediately we spot our first investigation clue.
The clue is spotted through the windows. Good eyes on whomever saw that these documents would be interesting.
Anyway, this house doesn't have a back entrance, and all windows seem locked from the inside, so we make our way down the side of the house towards the front. Almost there, we spot a small group of renegade soldiers..
Now, that's how grenades can ruin your day.
dexte throwing related skills really made this even easier than it was supposed to be I guess. But I'm not complaining. I know that these explosions might be a bit tame compared to what Lottie was asking for, but more explosions will be forthcoming in later updates, I promise. With the renegades gone, all that remains are the russian soldiers.
With the first guard down, we shoot an admiring look at the facade of the building. It's not apparent from a single screenshot, but the flags are slowly moving in the wind. It's quite pretty actually.
Just like in the last mission, Kodex goes on a killing spree. With his two silenced weapons, it's almost risk less to send him in, and considering the level disparity, the russian soldiers don't stand a chance..
All that remains after this is civilians. For some reason, the leave button does not turn green, but I find no more hostiles. Maybe the game wanted me to slaughter russian civilians? I never did bother to find out. I picked up an MG for comparison, then the objectives.
Short, easy, slightly bland. Mission complete though, that's what matters. Even with the level disparity, we did manage to wrangle a single levelup.
Tind improves her usefulness in combat.
With the skillpoint assigned, we're free to leave.
This time there was no new info-dump after leaving the mission area. I assume the investigation clues we picked up were somehow redundant. Still, this is a completionist run, so I'll leave no mission untouched.
That said, we immediately proceed to the next mission the game suggests. This one takes place in the heart of Germany, specifically at a German weapons factory.
Who would have guessed?
Good timing on our part eh? We'd better protect the general though, as he's not finished telling us what he knows, and indeed, protecting him is one of the mission objectives.
The easiest way to protect him is to make sure he can't leave the building we start in.
Here I've positioned Tind in such a way that she blocks general Müller from passing her.
The attacking force was kind enough to signal their approach by bombing the front gates.
So we make our way to the only door leading to and from the general's office. With Kodex and Loti hiding, we proceed to kill off the attacking renegades one at a time.
This is where I spotted a glaring flaw in the AI. The other soldiers will just stand still and watch dumbfounded, as their comrades are hit with deadly fire and drop one by one.
I know that my characters are hidden and using silenced weapons, so OK, maybe the hostiles shouldn't rush directly towards my troops, but it would at least make sense for them to scatter and start searching for the sniper.
That doesn't happen though, so between them, Loti and Kodex clear out the two nearest groups of renegade soldiers without raising any fuss. Well, actually two soldiers from the nearest group tried to inch closer to the doorway but were cut down by silenced SMG fire.
The weather effects seem to be purely cosmetic. I sensed no difference in accuracy.
With the two closest groups of enemies put down, I have Kodex advance as spotter. He sees another group, primarily clad in ghillie suits for some odd reason. Odd, because they're simply standing there..
They are more heavily armed than the previous two groups, but they still happily just stand around, taking the punishment I deal.
Except for one sneaky guy..You can just see the "noticed" icon in the top left part of the screen. I redeploy Loti to surprise the culprit.
I assume his AI told him to try and sneak into the building with the general. Would have worked if we'd all swarmed out like angry ants. Instead, he died where he crouched and didn't get to fire a single round from his MG.
Saddened by the apparent idiocy of their opponents, Kodex cleans up the ghillie group and the last group of enemies, just outside the fence.
The rag-doll physics make for some amusing deaths at times. And the way defeated hostiles drop all the contents of their inventory when they fall also seems silly at times. But hey, loot is loot.
And with that, every enemy is defeated. The only wound taken by our side was when Kodex accidentally grazed Loti with a bullet while she was standing in a doorway in front of him.
An aside, any of you as annoyed at XCOM as I am? Finished the Seven Seas version last night, and one of the gripes I have is that soldiers (and aliens as well) seemingly fire straight through their comrades with no difficulty, to hit targets behind them. No risk of friendly fire (aside from explosives) detract from an already poor game. I was thoroughly underwhelmed.
With that out of my system, I register that all hostiles are dead. This triggers the second cutscene on this map.
So we get to see our first panzerkleins! And they're ours to play with to boot.
Before we get all giddy and run amok in our new mini-tanks, Grüber-style, we loot the place.Bonus pic:
Now to looting.
The mortar shells are the PK equivalent of a thrown grenade. You don't need an actual mortar to use them, one is assumed to be already mounted. The repair tools are for crash repairs in the field. I don't expect to use those. But the PZB cannon is just pure awesome.
We read what the general had to tell us, and pick up the last clue before actually entering the PKs.
The last clue is another redundant. It's because the factory in Switzerland is quite important to the plot. M:
Now is the time to play with our little tanks.
The basic Axis PK weapon seems to be bugged. 0-0 damage? Not very good.
Now, when in a PK suit, each soldier now has two VP bars. One for the soldier, the other for the suit, which can take quite a deal of punishment.WetWo wants a tank too, he jumps into another PK and mounts the PZB cannon.
That cannon wil chew right through ordinary infantry very easily, and it will also make big dents in other PKs. WetWo however is a soldier with an affinity towards burst weapons, so climbs out of this PK and into another.
Yep. That's more like it.
The damage per shot might not be too impressive, but factor in that for short bursts, this weapon spits out 7 shots, compared to 3 from most infantry held MGs! I think WetWo just pissed himself out of joy. Let's just imagine the PKs are fully fitted with catheters and everything, to enable long periods of piloting these things..A final group shot before we leave the map.
Note that while Loti is piloting a suit here, I'll probably keep her and Kodex out of suits due to their high hide skills. You can't hide very well in a Panzerklein.
Thor's Hammer is building a rocket it would seem. It does seem like it would be a good idea to prevent them from completing that thing.
Once we get back to base, the final room is unlocked.
Here you can outfit your PKs between missions, and repair them up to full health for free. If you want to take the PKs with you for a mission, you also need to exit via the hangar bay doors, as the suits wont fit into the rest of the base.
To wrap up this update, here are the character sheets complete with medal tabs for all:
Kodex has the most medals in the team, as I've used him the most. It's the perk of being a sniper with a silenced rifle..
Loti's strength stat reads as lowered here, because she was wearing a PK suit as she entered the base. Wearing a suit will raise strength, while lowering a lot of skills, and raising some.
I've fitted two PK MGs on WetWo's PK, just to carry an insane amount of extra ammo, "just in case".
dexte has a cannon and an ample supply of mortar shells. Of course.
Luckily, I'd scrounged enough cannons to replace the 0-0 damage peashooters that were the base weapons. Cappen also carries his usual mine-removal and door-unlocking tools, but those can only be used if he crawls out of his PK suit. Having a suit on at the start of a mission helps protect him better.
Same as Cappen, Tind carries her first aid items with her, but will only be able to actually use them should she dismount. Being inside a suit of armor will lessen the chance that she is the one in need of first aid.
Two missions done, and PKs of our own! Will the game become too easy from here on out?
Nope, that was already the case when we found the silenced sniper rifle. And that rifle is found in a compulsory mission, so it's as the developers intended.
Though, to be fair, its damage output is so low that it will be of very limited use against enemy PKs, which I hope to demonstrate soon.
Modron
Arcane
- Joined
- May 5, 2012
- Messages
- 10,036
I promised an update, and what do you know, here it is!
...
Two missions done, and PKs of our own! Will the game become too easy from here on out?
Nope, that was already the case when we found the silenced sniper rifle. And that rifle is found in a compulsory mission, so it's as the developers intended.
Though, to be fair, its damage output is so low that it will be of very limited use against enemy PKs, which I hope to demonstrate soon.
PK's were not necessarily required to beat the game with the availability of energy canons, upper tier grenades, anti-tank weaponry, and certain perks. Plus, with the right sniper perks you could potentially one shot pilots through their pk while leaving the pk virtually undamaged (silencer helps here as well because it takes the right kind of critical for it to happen; though higher penetration is preferable of course), one the best ways to attain some of the rarer thor's hammer pks.
I never really bothered to use pks, except when I solo'd the game as a scout. Still, it was kind of fun to hack a machinegun pk to bits with a katana even if it was a bit suicidal at times.
A lovely bit of foreshadowing in that post there, Modron.
We will be getting our hands on some of the rarer PKs, and there will be a suicidal katana attack on PKs. And I will demonstrate sniping an enemy PK. Several times. For all of these.
In other news, with the two missions I just completed and have screenshots of, we're nearing the endgame. Very much so. I will do a single random encounter, for which I'll produce a special update, then I'll do the final two missions in one update.
So, three more to go, then I'll run through the allied campaign to show the subtle differences.
We will be getting our hands on some of the rarer PKs, and there will be a suicidal katana attack on PKs. And I will demonstrate sniping an enemy PK. Several times. For all of these.
In other news, with the two missions I just completed and have screenshots of, we're nearing the endgame. Very much so. I will do a single random encounter, for which I'll produce a special update, then I'll do the final two missions in one update.
So, three more to go, then I'll run through the allied campaign to show the subtle differences.
ironyuri
Guest
A lovely bit of foreshadowing in that post there, Modron.
We will be getting our hands on some of the rarer PKs, and there will be a suicidal katana attack on PKs. And I will demonstrate sniping an enemy PK. Several times. For all of these.
In other news, with the two missions I just completed and have screenshots of, we're nearing the endgame. Very much so. I will do a single random encounter, for which I'll produce a special update, then I'll do the final two missions in one update.
So, three more to go, then I'll run through the allied campaign to show the subtle differences.
Or a German Codex could continue his adventures in Sentinels...?
Oh, I definitely have plans for Sentinels as well, I'll just show off the allied route as well, to round the game up. Same as when I did both light and dark in MM7, though the differences there were more noticeable than they are in this game.
ironyuri
Guest
Oh, I definitely have plans for Sentinels as well, I'll just show off the allied route as well, to round the game up. Same as when I did both light and dark in MM7, though the differences there were more noticeable than they are in this game.
I actually started playing this as the Allies because of your LP, but I got tired of some of the combat and the tedium of certain missions and gave up. So the LP has been a godsend.
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