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

[mastroego]

Well I do use SHIVs, I can live with losing a few XPs.
I will probably use them less later, but in the early game you're sort of supposed to use them in Rebalanced: they can absorb damage a lot more than poorly equipped soldiers and they'll help you a lot against damage resistant enemies.

Anyway, I was referring to the fact that Shivs need to have the full action available when you Abort (meaning you have to have them reach the extract point a turn earlier) or you'll lose them.
This simulates the difficulty of loading the SHIV on the transport.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well I do use SHIVs, I can live with losing a few XPs.
I will probably use them less later, but in the early game you're sort of supposed to use them in Rebalanced: they can absorb damage a lot more than poorly equipped soldiers and they'll help you a lot against damage resistant enemies.

Anyway, I was referring to the fact that Shivs need to have the full action available when you Abort (meaning you have to have them reach the extract point a turn earlier) or you'll lose them.
This simulates the difficulty of loading the SHIV on the transport.

Ah, I didn't know this. Nice info if I will ever need to retreat with shivs. I guess MECs don't have this weakness?

Also so far on classic difficulty I didn't find I need SHIVs to do missions. Maybe they are required for higher difficulties. Also it might be because I turned off all the time punishing mechanics, I play slower and safer and don't need SHIVs to tank for me.

 

[ArchAngel]

Hmm I went on this mission, every enemy rushed me at the entrance lol. I killed 4 sectoids, 5 thin men, 3 chrysalids, 4 mutons and 3 of those stealth squids. Lost nobody. I don't have a clue how to deal with Outsiders now at the command point, especially if there are 3 or more in Large UFO.

That mission where 2 Outsiders wiped me on Medium UFO put a real fear in me :D

I brought a Scout, Sniper, Gunner, Rocketeer, Infantry and Medic on this mission. Sniper has been MVP so far.

 

[Zeriel]

I always liked shotgun assaults for Outsiders. If they've got crit immune perks in LW that could suck, but I vaguely remember them working pretty well on pre-rebalance LW, you just sometimes had to do a lil finagling first before going for the insta kill.

 

[ArchAngel]

I always liked shotgun assaults for Outsiders. If they've got crit immune perks in LW that could suck, but I vaguely remember them working pretty well on pre-rebalance LW, you just sometimes had to do a lil finagling first before going for the insta kill.

Does not work in LW Rebalanced. They gave Outsiders perks for Close Combat and Covering Fire. If they do overwatch they will hit you twice if you try to get too close. Or just once if you try to move within 4 squares of them.

 

[ArchAngel]

Eh, in the end the command pack was 2 Outsiders and 2 Thin Men lol. I guess I was scared about nothing.

 

[mastroego]

Ah, I didn't know this..

Because you skipped the readme ;P

Eh, in the end the command pack was 2 Outsiders and 2 Thin Men lol. I guess I was scared about nothing.

Yeah but you never know, really.
I got a council mission after the one I had to abort.
Played it steady and perfectly for a good while, having decided that the best chance was to tower-defense from the Observatory keeping my cool while enemies attacked from all angles.
I was also trying a Hit & Run Scout build, though: equipped with Gauss Rifle and Penetrating Ammo, it worked WONDERS, one-shotting no less than 4 full-health enemies with quick flanking sorties (followed by a retreat back into the safety of the observatory).

When I was finally confident I had won the mission flawlessly, I moved my Rocketeer out only to find TWO Thin Men overwatching right outside the door.
Two blasts in the FACE and 42 days of Infirmary.
Could have gone worse, too...

 

[ArchAngel]

Yea, I kind of love how aliens sometimes use overwatch trap tactics vs your team :D

 

[ArchAngel]

I am enjoying my playthrough on Classic. It is not too hard and not too easy. Lost 2 soldiers, few ended up on 20+ day recovery sessions.
Exalt mission where all you get is 1 covert + 2 soldiers was crazy, way too many Exalt soldiers show up. Lucky I had my Alloy SHIV with new gadgets ready for that mission.

Mutons are now part of almost every mission. I am soon expecting Berserkers or those alien MECs to start showing up. I am afraid of Cyberdisks showing up, I can only imagine what kind of buffs LW gave them.

I now have access to my MECs, but I don't know if I should bother with Paladin 1 versions since I got that tech later. Which classes are good for MEC usage with LW rebalanced?
Also I have been putting off making Psi Labs for a while now, not sure if it is a must to get that up and running ASAP.
Atm I am just trying to level up 3 6 man teams (+ some extra), each with one Scout officer (scout because that is one class that goes on all missions as their enemy sensor, low cover boost and holo targeting is just too useful). And I am dabbling a bit into gene modifications.

 

[mastroego]

Exalt missions can be tough that way.
Best to bring Rocketeers and generally soldiers who can shot twice, infantry, double tap guys or assaults.
I use rockets liberally now.

I am afraid of Cyberdisks showing up, I can only imagine what kind of buffs LW gave them.

From the LW Rebalanced description:

Spoiler

• Cyberdisc mobility to 16 (from 18), AI will fire at long range, starts with Covering Fire, Awareness, HEAT Ammo, HEAT Warheads, and Opportunist, aim to 100 (from 70), will never use death blossom, damage to 8 (from 9)
• Mobility reduction helps accommodate for the weaker capability to pin them with suppression
• Covering Fire + Opportunist makes them harder to pin down in overwatch mode
• AI changes allows them to fire when they are at long range instead of forcing them to either move or overwatch
• Aim is to increase it's ability to hit units in heavy cover or just to hit at all when being suppressed
• Death blossom would often lead to a CTD that could ruin some campaigns by locking the player into a bad save game

I don't use MECs, sorry, I've got no hints for them.
I did start meddling with Psionics early, I'm about to enjoy the effects hopefully, with the first Psi Panic coming online, and gengeneering of course.
Already killed quite a few wounded Aliens with Mindfray by soldiers who would have been without other usable weapons otherwise.
Oh, and I like scouts for capturing aliens, too And Hit & Run ones

 

[ArchAngel]

Fuck, everything went well and then in July I get a swarming Abduction mission where I trigger 2 packs of mutons on turn 2 with my last soldier and lose 2 guys to them. Then I decided to abandon mission and lose one more while retreating
At least I saved my scout officer..

How does the game expect to win these missions with 5 guys only... I barely win these in UFO missions where I got 6 guys set up and on bigger maps..

EDIT: Fucking game. Sends a craft to blow up my satellite, I manage to down it but 3 planes get damaged. And then 2 days later game sends another craft on same continent to kill the satellite and I got no craft ready to fight it.. this is fucking unbalanced shit design.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

F
EDIT: Fucking game. Sends a craft to blow up my satellite, I manage to down it but 3 planes get damaged. And then 2 days later sends another craft on same continent to kill another one and I got no craft ready to fight it.. this is fucking unbalanced shit design.

Life is brutal and full of zasadzkas and sometimes kopas w dupas

 

[ArchAngel]

THis fucking game hates me. A heavy damaged and suppressed Muton with 1% hit chance just hit my guy lol...

Also in past days I had situations where I missed 4 70%+ hit chance attacks in a row..

 

[mastroego]

Fuck, everything went well and then in July I get a swarming Abduction mission where I trigger 2 packs of mutons on turn 2 with my last soldier and lose 2 guys to them. Then I decided to abandon mission and lose one more while retreating
At least I saved my scout officer..
.....
EDIT: Fucking game. Sends a craft to blow up my satellite, I manage to down it but 3 planes get damaged. And then 2 days later game sends another craft on same continent to kill the satellite and I got no craft ready to fight it.. this is fucking unbalanced shit design.

Come on you're not new at the game, this is the most balanced LW has ever been, imho.
Sure, there are spikes but in part it's by design: the aliens do try and amass resources to concentrate in heavy punches now and then.
You're supposed to get lulled into an illusion of safety, or rather I should say: you're supposed to stay on your toes.
Sure, it can't always work.
For a player who hasn't even read the readme, it seems you're doing quite fine :D

THis fucking game hates me. A heavy damaged and suppressed Muton with 1% hit chance just hit my guy lol...

Also in past days I had situations where I missed 4 70%+ hit chance attacks in a row..

Yeah happens to me as well, even the 1% hit/misses. Also supposed to happen with hundreds and hundreds of shots.
It still sucks, I'll agree to that. :D

 

[ArchAngel]

Luckily I knew to have extra satellite already built in case something like this happens. Except aliens decided to bomb that country while my satellite is trying to get online and now it is close to full panic

 

[ArchAngel]

And it continues, Cyberdisk one shot crit my sniper through heavy cover while doing the covering fire reaction shot... I am not enjoying these cyberdisks, you either have high level gunner or you are fucked if they show up. And number of reaction fire Sectoid mechs get is crazy.

 

[mastroego]

I shit my pants now when I see Chryssalids, Metchtoids or Cyberdisks.
And everything else.

Really, consider bringing around a soldier with an Arc Rifle as a standard practice since mechanicals are now showing up in your game.
10+ damage per shot and you deal even with Cyberdiscs easily.
Of course, the Arc Rifle remains close to useless vs biological units (but not entirely so), so you might want to give it to someone who can do something else with his turn.
A medic, or a Grenadier, a Psionic, or someone who can carry one of the heaviest pistols (the ones that come with a minor mobility penalty) and use them to some effect.

Then there are always engineers, mayhem snipers, HEAT rocketeers, disabling shot scouts and heavily armed SHIVs.
Plenty of ways to kill them, but they're dangerous of course.

 

[ArchAngel]

For now I am no longer afraid of Chrysalids, now I always got a rocketeer or engineer in my team so I can blow them up. Also I carry a few more alien grenades with other team members just so I can blow up Chrysalids if they show up.
And yes, it seems I need to start using Arc rifle in all my missions. Although killing them has not been so hard, them having retaliation shots is what is the problem. Also Cyberdisks love to put themselves into positions where you cannot see them or shoot them..

 

[mastroego]

The problem with Chryssalids is that they show in Terror missions and rockets hit civilians.
Also you kinda want their carcasses, so I try to finish them with standard weapons when possible.

Just did a crazy Terror mission anyway.
Three freaking disks together. Two at the same time at the very start, with cover completely out of reach (even out of the orange move for some soldiers).
The sniper never even GOT to cover in the entire mission.
Luckily I had a HEAT engineer/grenadier with me, an infantry/grenadier too, I could use the SHIV as bait (almost destroyed), and my medic scored a CRITICAL Arc Rifle shot for 18 mechanical damage.
Then it was a matter of cleaning up everything else with rockets, grenades (mostly for the mutons) and sniping before the poor infantry/grenadier, heavily hit by one of the 3 disks, bled out.

In the end I even saved 16 civilians, and no soldier lost, not even the SHIV!
Sure, the infirmary time is going to be crazy for the soldier.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

I kinda want to try Nucom. Are you all talking about the first or second one? Cuz the discussion makes it sound fun as hell.

 

[mastroego]

The first one, + Long War mod + Long War Rebalanced modmod.

LW changes the game entirely, and LW Rebalanced changes Long War entirely.
I honestly don't know if it's advisable for a new player to go directly with the doubly modded setup, but perhaps it is, I think I'm coming to the conclusion that this is the best version period.

 

[mastroego]

Well, well.
Second aborted mission.

Abduction, "swarming".
Just the time to move the second soldier and afaik EVERYTHING on the map comes to kill me.
2 berserkers (you'll see what these guys do), one Cyberdisk and at least 4 Floaters, 4 Mutons and 3 Drones.
The freakin' graveyard map.
No chances in hell to deal with any of that, not when you'll likely need a full turn from the whole (reduced size!) team to deal with just ONE Berserker.
The only possible result was to get surrounded.

I decided to sacrifice the ALLOY Shiv and pull out immediately.
Some infirmary time for the officer, too :-/
The shiv gadgets were just damaged, though.
I guess the best interpretation is that the SHIV gets shot at while you try to load it onto the transport.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well, well.
Second aborted mission.

Abduction, "swarming".
Just the time to move the second soldier and afaik EVERYTHING on the map comes to kill me.
2 berserkers (you'll see what these guys do), one Cyberdisk and at least 4 Floaters, 4 Mutons and 3 Drones.
The freakin' graveyard map.
No chances in hell to deal with any of that, not when you'll likely need a full turn from the whole (reduced size!) team to deal with just ONE Berserker.
The only possible result was to get surrounded.

I decided to sacrifice the ALLOY Shiv and pull out immediately.
Some infirmary time for the officer, too :-/
The shiv gadgets were just damaged, though.
I guess the best interpretation is that the SHIV gets shot at while you try to load it onto the transport.

When you abort missions but at least one of your guys survive you don't lose any items, they just get damaged. There is a second wave option that makes it so you do lose all items for KIA or abandoned team members.

I had a landed Transport ship where I met my first Berserker, it was nasty :D. As you said, it took my whole team of 6 to kill him.

Also the mission itself was kind of tough as I got surrounded by Mutons and Berserker from one side and Cyberdisk from another as I was trying to move by the side of the ship to get to its main entrance.

 

[mastroego]

You're right of course but I guess I expected this new "Rebalanced" mechanic to mean you lose the SHIV entirely if you don't give it extra time to load onto the transport.
But of course it makes sense it works that way, it's probably hardcoded stuff too.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I kinda want to try Nucom. Are you all talking about the first or second one? Cuz the discussion makes it sound fun as hell.

first one, with long war mod (i haven't tried this rebalanced, but it sounds good).
vanilla is an abomination.