X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

[Raghar]

Androids were legit, but lying down wasn't.

Well they were susceptible to sympathetic detonations, thus even near, or in case of rocket launchers far, miss was enough to dispose of them. Nobody is saying these explosives should be shot point blank.

 

[Average Manatee]

If a popper is running at you they will be fast enough that point blank is often the first shot your soldier is able to make. Or at best, the 2nd. And accuracy in XCOMA is so bad that even a legendary veteran with 80+ accuracy will miss 80% of the time beyond mid range.

 

[Heresiarch]

XCOMA's turnbased combat is messed up anyway. Brainsuckers on TB are a horror and on RT they're basically harmless. Similar to poppers, on TB it's next to impossible to stop them from running at you before getting weapons capable to one shot them i.e. Devastator Cannons.

When I played XCOMA I relied on M4000 machine gun and masses of AP grenade. Just spam the 1TU/shot machine gun and throw grenades at anything that look remotely dangerous.

Using androids isn't a bug because they have no (fully organic) brains for brainsuckers to, er, suck.

 

[Average Manatee]

For Brainsuckers, you need to position your "bait" soldier in view of the direction the Brainsucker is coming from while your another character covers them. The cover character shouldn't have view of where the Brainsucker is coming from. This way, the covering character will save their TUs up until the Briansucker is within view (at which point it will be very, very close to them), then open up with all of their reaction shots to usually kill it.

I don't have a huge problem with the TB/RT balance. While Brainsuckers are much harder on TB, everything else (especially Anthropods) are significantly harder on RT. In TB you can sprint into a room, run up right next to your enemy, and unload 10 machine gun shots on auto fire, then repeat with 3 or 4 other enemies before running out of TUs. And ammo consumption in general is far, far harsher in RT.

 

[Brinko]

What the fuck is the Enemy Unknown pre purchase DLC that shows up on steam? I just bought this game because fuck it, it's cheap and I'm bored but what the hell is it? I thought it was the soldier pack but that shows up as well.

 

[Heresiarch]

What the fuck is the Enemy Unknown pre purchase DLC that shows up on steam? I just bought this game because fuck it, it's cheap and I'm bored but what the hell is it? I thought it was the soldier pack but that shows up as well.

It shows up here too despite my version already has soldier pack + slingshot unlocked. Don't bother with those pre purchase DLC.

 

[Brinko]

Well I searched around on the steam forums and it comes from the elite soldier pack as they lumped the armor deco pre order dlc into the solider pack.

 

[Average Manatee]

Haha, training roulette IS great. My first Assault character picked Bullet Storm, Close and Personal, and Rapid Fire as the first 3. 5 shots in a turn is pretty neat. Can't imagine how imba combos like that could be on a sniper.

Seems like most of my characters are more powerful overall, though getting a proper medic build is basically a crapshoot.

 

[Galdred]

Training roulette is great, but it makes support pretty worthless as the only guaranteed skills are the smoke ones (and not the medic ones).
The other options (not created equal and hidden potential) are not as good from my point of view, as they basically gives you soldiers you don't care about losing, and some über early game cheese machines (I had 2 rookies with 75% aim for mission 1).
It gave some funny results though, with all my poor aim rookies becoming crappy snipers, and some marksmen who would panic as soon as anyone got hit in the squad.

It is much harder to cheese I/I now: The nerf to squadsight and to experience gains makes early SHIV a must now (I used to have 3 squadsight snipers 1 support for spotting, and 2 heavies for leveling obstacles). That and it requires much willpower from the player not to take unecessary risks to grab meld.

Overall, I like the changes, but they frontload the difficulty even more (longer research time + squadsight nerf + lower experience gain), while the endgame is no more difficult.

 

[anus_pounder]

Training roulette is great, but it makes support pretty worthless as the only guaranteed skills are the smoke ones (and not the medic ones).
The other options (not created equal and hidden potential) are not as good from my point of view, as they basically gives you soldiers you don't care about losing, and some über early game cheese machines (I had 2 rookies with 75% aim for mission 1).
It gave some funny results though, with all my poor aim rookies becoming crappy snipers, and some marksmen who would panic as soon as anyone got hit in the squad.

It is much harder to cheese I/I now: The nerf to squadsight and to experience gains makes early SHIV a must now (I used to have 3 squadsight snipers 1 support for spotting, and 2 heavies for leveling obstacles). That and it requires much willpower from the player not to take unecessary risks to grab meld.

Overall, I like the changes, but they frontload the difficulty even more (longer research time + squadsight nerf + lower experience gain), while the endgame is no more difficult.

Probably my biggest criticism about the game at this point. Late game is still no more difficult or particularly fun.

Still had fun with the xpack though. Would buy a second expansion.

 

[Average Manatee]

Training roulette is great, but it makes support pretty worthless as the only guaranteed skills are the smoke ones (and not the medic ones).
The other options (not created equal and hidden potential) are not as good from my point of view, as they basically gives you soldiers you don't care about losing, and some über early game cheese machines (I had 2 rookies with 75% aim for mission 1).
It gave some funny results though, with all my poor aim rookies becoming crappy snipers, and some marksmen who would panic as soon as anyone got hit in the squad.

It is much harder to cheese I/I now: The nerf to squadsight and to experience gains makes early SHIV a must now (I used to have 3 squadsight snipers 1 support for spotting, and 2 heavies for leveling obstacles). That and it requires much willpower from the player not to take unecessary risks to grab meld.

Overall, I like the changes, but they frontload the difficulty even more (longer research time + squadsight nerf + lower experience gain), while the endgame is no more difficult.

Yeah, I agree about the support class being useless. Does anyone use smoke grenades? Anyone?

Ironically my support has godlike levels of accuracy gains, with 101 base accuracy as a lieutenant. I was practically trying to get her killed for most of the early game until she survived and became one of my best soldiers by pure stat power. Sadly most of the rest of my team has mediocre accuracy stats. I have yet to find another rookie with higher than 70 base accuracy. My multi-shot assault got the +3 movement ability though, which just makes her even more godlike.

You use SHIVs? I find them useless. Also Meld/MEC seem quite underwelming. None of them have the damage output of a decent soldier and it's not like they can tank. Biomods seem pretty meh and just a minor late game luxury. Medals/randomized stats/tactical rigging are where the imba is. Take someone with already above average stats, pin up to +25 accuracy to their chest, let them have a SCOPE and still carry the grenades you want. Tactical Rigging is probably the most important tech to rush after getting the squad size upgrades.

 

[Galdred]

SHIVs and MECs Useless? I beg to differ: You can get MECs in March, and SHIV in april. They both allow you to tank much better because :
- The AI will priorise exposed MECs over soldiers in cover.
- SHIV and MEC both have better damage than the early weapons you can get (they almost reliably one shot thin men).
- They have low downtime compared to wounded soldiers
- My alloy SHIV was able to sustain 2 thinmen hits and still continue to the objective in the second slingshot mission :it's really great to defuse bombs with a SHIV too (you don't care much about losing it, it is fast, and it can survive focus fire from a group for 1 turn).
- Their mobility is awesome, and makes them perfect spotters for the sniper.
- They don't panic, and losing a SHIV does not cause soldiers to panic, which is the main cause of squad wipe.

The +10 aim bonus of the aliens in impossible makes high HP more reliable than cover when it comes to surviving, and I much prefer have a SHIV for the aliens to target than a squadie with low stat I have to put in low cover as bait to protect my elites, when I failed to eliminate all aliens in range.

MECs most powerful ability is the cover AOE removal. I don't really care about their other capabilities (I usually put the support with the worst stats in a MEC suit, to take hits that would have killed someone else, and to destroy cover).
Heavies cannot do that while moving, and only carry 2 rockets each before colonel.

Gene mods can be quite potent too, especially the infamously broken mimetic skin you can get as early as april (if you manage to get South America bonus, harder otherwise), but I cannot really afford them in march/april anyway if I go Mecs.

And if you want to suppress, a SHIV is much better than a soldier, as you do not benefit from its firepower, and you prefer the SHIV to get targeted.

I like turning support into MECs, as their ability makes targeting other soldiers even worse.

SHIVs and MECs are what made it possible to survive april for me. I start in Asia, though, so I guess it would be less appealing otherwise, but I see little reason to start anywhere else: South America has a terrible eco, despite having a great bonus, Europe has a useless bonus, and NA too) : I find the satellite rush too risky in Impossible difficulty.

Their greatest asset is that they make timed missions much more manageable, as they are disposable.

I suppose that once you have titan and plasma + some colonels, SHIV and MECs are not that hot anymore, but the game is basically won at this point anyway, and I think they really help carry the team forward.

In my current playthrough, I had a rookie with 135 base stats (75 accuracy, 60 will). I had such great plans for her, but she got killed by a sectoid water pistol the mission after she turned assault squadie... That was pretty depressing.

 

[Average Manatee]

I can't see how you can possibly get either of them in March unless you completely ignore satellites, which is stupid/suicidal. Even April is pushing it. Unless you are forgoing the officer training school, which I hope you aren't.

If the alien can shoot you in impossible, you have already lost. The aliens should either have 0% chance to hit because you either aren't there or (early on) you are hunkered down behind full cover for a -80% hit chance.

Not having grenades = huge problems with damage. Seriously, for the first two months grenades should be responsible for 75% of your kills. Grenades have 100% accuracy and two of them will kill anything early on. Two soldiers who can kill 2 or 3 thin men with 100% success> 1 MEC trooper who might hit and might kill with 1 shot. And if the MEC trooper fails, 2 plasma shots can take them down even without crits.

MECs going into close range is literally asking the game to shove a foot long dildo through your eye by triggering another group activation or two. No thanks. So I So far by the end of May I've only lost three soldiers. Two were unavoidable (stealth machine faggotry and special mission popup faggotry). The other was when I accidentally triggered more than one group at the same time (which, funny enough, happened when one of my snipers missed a shot and destroyed a wall revealing more enemies).

I can see collateral damage being useful, but that's just about it. And SHIVs really have nothing

 

[Average Manatee]

Oh wow, I didn't realize Memetic Skin only required you to not be seen BEFORE moving. That's not a chameleon effect, that's outright cloaking (and makes the midgame a cakewalk since you can scout for snipers easily). Makes Meld gathering a piece of cake too. And it works with the ability that makes half cover count as full. Better than Ghost armor IMO (ignoring the ghost armor's defense bonus, of course).

Running 3 snipers/2 heavies/1 assault seems to work well. Tactical Rigging really is imba. A free slot for medkits on the snipers makes support class unneeded, while the front liners can easily pack Chitin Plating + whatever they like (arc thrower/grenade/scope). Being able to utilize 3 double tap snipers is kind of silly.

 

[Galdred]

I can't see how you can possibly get either of them in March unless you completely ignore satellites, which is stupid/suicidal. Even April is pushing it. Unless you are forgoing the officer training school, which I hope you aren't.

If the alien can shoot you in impossible, you have already lost. The aliens should either have 0% chance to hit because you either aren't there or (early on) you are hunkered down behind full cover for a -80% hit chance.

Not having grenades = huge problems with damage. Seriously, for the first two months grenades should be responsible for 75% of your kills. Grenades have 100% accuracy and two of them will kill anything early on. Two soldiers who can kill 2 or 3 thin men with 100% success> 1 MEC trooper who might hit and might kill with 1 shot. And if the MEC trooper fails, 2 plasma shots can take them down even without crits.

MECs going into close range is literally asking the game to shove a foot long dildo through your eye by triggering another group activation or two. No thanks. So I So far by the end of May I've only lost three soldiers. Two were unavoidable (stealth machine faggotry and special mission popup faggotry). The other was when I accidentally triggered more than one group at the same time (which, funny enough, happened when one of my snipers missed a shot and destroyed a wall revealing more enemies).

I can see collateral damage being useful, but that's just about it. And SHIVs really have nothing

So you use 4 nads to kill 3 aliens, you still have to find a way to kill the remaining 9 (it gets more manageable with deep pockets, though, but you cannot alway easily close the distance to grenade throwing range without leaving yourself open). Many maps make withdrawing not that great anyway, as you can have very early contact with the aliens, or you have little time to complete the mission.


I now think it is too risky to make the early game even more punishing by buying satellites instead of things that make the tactical layer manageable. Even before EW, this strategy could very well be impossible to follow because of badly timed missions, and now I find it even worse.
If you go satellite on I/I, you have a very high chance of not being able to pull it out anyway :
- Bad timing of first UFO interception
- Squad wipes
- Bad timing of first abduction mission
The satellite rush (which I used before btw, to complete the base game in I/I) strategy has a horrible win/loss ratio for these reasons : you sacrifice your early tactical advantage for long term strategic advantage, when late game is already trivially easy, and early game murderously punishing. Who cares about 6 countries leaving XCOM? It's much better than losing 97% of the time, and saving every countries the remaining 3%.

My tech order is :
Gene research
Alien materials
The tech that gives the foundry
carapace armor (for alloy SHIV)
...
weapon fragments
laser
alien containment tech

My build order is :
1st Month
- Cyberlab
- Power Gen
- Foundry
- OTS (after getting sergeant as mission reward)
2nd Month
- workshop
- Satellite relay
- alien containment

It is possible to pull out a mixed strategy of building 3 sats first month, and SHIV early April, but you need huge help from the random mission timing and rewards, and you have to sacrifice early MECs, and your tech progression is horrible because you had to pick engineers instead of scientists, so you have to use ballistic weapons even longer.
SHIV have 70% accuracy, don't eat up you soldiers' cover, can survive 2 to 3 LPR hits and can suppress. I hadly see how you can consider they have nothing for them.

I don't run MEC into short range : If I see I cannot kill every alien, I pull everyone back in OW and let the 1-2 advancing aliens have LoS on the MEC. Thus, I don't have to find high cover for everyone as they will target the MEC anyway. Anyway, its weapon is 4-6 which is better than both the heavy MG and sniper rifle.
Another use of MEC and SHIV is overwatch eater : Sometimes, when thinmen materialize into horrible locations, you really want to take them out of OW and you don't have anyone in position to suppress without being flanked the bonus defence and HP are really great in these cases the alternatives suck even more. Now on regular missions, SHIVs and MECs are not as hot as on council missions, but I really really like the cover eating attack of the MEC and the suppression of the SHIV (easy, risk free alien capture).

An added bonus of collateral damage is that it instantly makes cars and other explosive cover explode.

3 squad sight snipers would work well indeed, but how are you ranking 3 snipers to corporal in Impossible with the recent nerfs to XP? There are not that many easy UFO missions, and even with deep pocket, they remain a dead weight. I consider myself lucky when I get 1 before april.

It is not my strategy anyway (I used to satellite rush too, but found it pretty frustrating) I borrowed it from this guy : you can find more details about it here :
http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php...-I-win-(video)-review-amp-skill-picks-reasons

That said, mimetic skin is so powerful it might work better with gene lab early and mimetic troopers.

 

[Average Manatee]

So you use 4 nads to kill 3 aliens, you still have to find a way to kill the remaining 9 (it gets more manageable with deep pockets, though, but you cannot alway easily close the distance to grenade throwing range without leaving yourself open). Many maps make withdrawing not that great anyway, as you can have very early contact with the aliens, or you have little time to complete the mission.

More like I use 2 grenades to either kill all 3 aliens or kill 2 aliens and destroy the cover of the 3rd.

SHIV have 70% accuracy, don't eat up you soldiers' cover, can survive 2 to 3 LPR hits and can suppress. I hadly see how you can consider they have nothing for them.

70% accuracy is squaddie level. Not really amazing.
Finding cover shouldn't be a problem, just look around. Other than a few story missions specifically designed to be irritating there should never be problems finding full cover.
Surviving 2 hits when you can't use cover and will therefore get hit nearly 100% of the time is a bad deal. Hunker down behind full cover and your soldiers can survive *infinite* shots from sectoids and thin men who literally can't hit an 80 defense soldier with their puny 75 accuracy. Infinity > 2.
Suppress is one ability thats OK. Trouble is, 2 classes already get that ability pretty early and they'll have tons of other worthwhile abilities as well.

I don't run MEC into short range : If I see I cannot kill every alien, I pull everyone back in OW and let the 1-2 advancing aliens have LoS on the MEC. Thus, I don't have to find high cover for everyone as they will target the MEC anyway. Anyway, its weapon is 4-6 which is better than both the heavy MG and sniper rifle.
Another use of MEC and SHIV is overwatch eater : Sometimes, when thinmen materialize into horrible locations, you really want to take them out of OW and you don't have anyone in position to suppress without being flanked the bonus defence and HP are really great in these cases the alternatives suck even more. Now on regular missions, SHIVs and MECs are not as hot as on council missions, but I really really like the cover eating attack of the MEC and the suppression of the SHIV (easy, risk free alien capture).

If something's on overwatch you should just snipe it away with your squad sight sniper. And if you go straight for armor and tactical rigging you'll have all the HP and medikits to eat plenty of shots whenever necessary.

An added bonus of collateral damage is that it instantly makes cars and other explosive cover explode.

You mean instantly as in before the alien can move? If so that's pretty helpful, didn't know that.

3 squad sight snipers would work well indeed, but how are you ranking 3 snipers to corporal in Impossible with the recent nerfs to XP? There are not that many easy UFO missions, and even with deep pocket, they remain a dead weight. I consider myself lucky when I get 1 before april.

I had 2 squad sight snipers mid-April and by the beginning of May I had "New Guy". There should be plenty of XP if you prioritize letting them get the finishing blow.

That said, mimetic skin is so powerful it might work better with gene lab early and mimetic troopers.

Yeah, Mimetic Skin is basically an I-Win button. It's absurd how easy it makes things.

 

[Galdred]

There are plenty of maps where full cover is not that easy to come by. SHIV and MECs don't make easy missions easier, but they really help on these situations where you were dealing with 1 group, then your rocket revealed another one or another one patrols right there just afterwards. These encounters end with the SHIV destroyed instead of half of the squad down.
I think about both SHIV and MECs as catastrophic scenario mitigation units :
They allow for a much more aggressive play (I guess 6 heavies would work too, but I barely managed to get 2, including Zhang, on both of my SHIV playthroughs).

You cannot both hunker down and do something useful on your turn, and except for grenades, all your shots, even rockets, have a non negligible chance to miss. The added bonus of MEC over healing a trooper is that MEC do not spend time in the medbay, and SHIV can auto repair 2HP/turn as soon as you autopsy drones (and it's not like you would lose any core ability when they are out) : so both can tank much better on the long run, as long as you don't take more than 2 hits/turn.
Hunkered down scouts can still be flanked if you don't manage to get rid of the surrounding aliens on the next turn.

Concerning suppression, as I play with training roulette, I had little access to it so far, and on classes it would synergize little with. I much prefer it on a SHIV. And 70 Accuracy is sniper squadie level (without not created equal and hidden potential), but a SHIV is much more useful than a squaddie sniper.
Even though I really love snipers, there are many times when they don't have visual on the recently teleported aliens on overwatch, unless you know exactly where they will teleport. I can always count on a SHIV to remove the OW.

Yes, collateral damage makes the car explode right at the time you use the ability, which is pretty amazing. Now if only we had the map layout before selecting the squad...

 

[anus_pounder]

Maybe its just my experience but a sniper who lucked out with not-created-equal and hidden-potential seems to be way more useful with snapshot than squad-sight. To be fair, Its been quite a while I used a squad-sight sniper on account of how much of an I-win button I found them in vanilla EW.

 

[Galdred]

That might be possible : I have a sniper I regret not taking snap shot with as he got sprinter and extra conditionning with training roulette, which won't do much for him as a squadsight sniper. With NCE, you can have snipers that have ridiculous aim over 100, so the snapshot and short range malus still allow them ridiculous accuracy.

 

[Monocause]

I really like how training roulette + not created equal combo changes the dynamics of the game and forces you to level up more rookies for better flexibility - also, if you luck out, you can get a supersoldier losing whom will hurt. Had that happen to me on ironman and I ragequit - good times!

 

[Galdred]

There is a discussion on the forum examining the benefit of sattelite rush (which requires US start) vs early SA bonus :
http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php...er-of-Scientists-Interrogations-on-Impossible

Balance:
Month 1.
- 400 credit saving -for not building sat up link, workshop, power generator, 2 sattelites
- 100 credit less - for not picking north america
blanace: +300 credits ahead
Additional bonus: research is much faster

Month 2.
- 400 credit savings for: not building sat uplink, power generator, 3 sattelites, 2-3 interceptors.
- 400 credits behind - 2 sats less in the sky, 100 for not picking north america, 100 for NA bonus.
Balance: 0

Month 3. (I assume that with North America I would assault Alien Base end of month 3 so I would not benefit from the funds gathered in month 3).
- 800 credits bonus - 600 for invading alien base early previous month, 200 for saved maintenance of uplink, generators, workshops, excavations etc.
- 800 credits less - for having 6 satellites less, 100 for having norh america, 100 for North America bonus.
Balance:0 (more or less)

Note that this is very rough. In other words. In first three months you save approximately 300 credits picking south america and have research twice as fast. It will probably take you as long as 4 months to get ahead in terms of funds when starting with North America... but you will not be ahead in terms of research... and let's be hones. At this point it doesn't matter.

Additionally South America makes start much easier with Mec on day 20 and no need for first abduction in first 6 days.

Yes, I see error of my ways now. Hands down.

The thing with MEC and SHIV is that they won't really make the crawl and shoot approach better, but they allow new tactical options that are very welcome on some maps (like road fight or most other killing fields with little hard cover, most council missions, especially gangplank, where it is not that convenient to break LoS from the teleporting thinmen). They allow for aggressive tactics that would not be possible at all without them, from late march. Of course, if you develop SHIV or MECs later, they lose most of the appeal : once you have carapce armor, and before upgrading the MEC suit, he is only as tanky as the other ones, but without cover (alloy shiv is great, though : 30 defence, hardened, 18HP...).

 

[Zero Credibility]

I found MECs very useful indeed in my game. My two best killers are MEC troopers, followed by a sniper. I got them as soon as I could (in the second month so that I could use them for the alien base) and with the right promotions (like damage control and they were created from heavy / assault classes so they got some extra durability from that) they can play the tank role up to a point. It is certainly much more difficult to lose them compared to losing a normal solder, even with carapace armor. All it takes is a cyberdisk or something like that flanking you (something that can happen easily if you can't take it out in a single turn, the cyberdisks don't care about cover themseves and will move to flank your troops freely) and bam - if your soldier doesn't have a fuckload of hit points he's as good as dead. MECs give some tactical flexibility in that you can send them ahead to scout / draw fire from other vulnerable targets and reasonably expect that enemies aren't going to tear it to pieces in the next round. They can't soak fire for more than a round or two, but they are going to outlive the other side and you can heal / repair them afterwards.

Plus, they are quite fast (especially after the foundry upgrade) and their special abilities are very useful. Punch means a straight 12 damage, no to-hit rolls - very useful for softening or finishing those tougher enemies like cyberdisks and enemy mechs and also one-hit kills on bugs and mutons. Flamethrower - again, 6 damage guarantied in a wide cone and even better, it causes panic. A well positioned hit with a flamethrower can easily put an entire muton group out of the fight and chryssalids just love coming straight at you after triggering them, putting them in a perfect position to just hose them with fire. So MECs are ok for me, especially since they allow you to change the game from normal crawl from cover to cover and play more aggressively when needed.

 

[Psquit]

once you destroy the alien base and survive the base attack the game goes down hill.

 

[Raghar]

once you destroy the alien base and survive the base attack the game goes down hill.

Oh god it also adds in 3 barbarian factions and auxiliary troops and mercs as well as a shit campaign.

Love reading the features that they are jerking off about that should have been in the main game like seasons. Will search for the flames of butthurt for maximum lulz.

Boys are you even talking about the same game?

 

[Brinko]

yeah fucked up posting in the wrong thread