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Prime Hunter
2012-11-14 11:26:10 am
Heavies do tend to have the worst Aim of the bunch, but for me at least they hit enough over the long run for me to be satisfied. Once you get some perks setup for their rockets those can be incredibly useful and game changing if you use them at the right time too, especially if you run with 2+ Heavy soldiers like I started to at the end of that Classic game when I was having trouble keeping my veterans alive. I started giving them Archangel armor so that they could be up above the battlefield raining death with both their plasmas and rockets/blaster bombs. Since height gives you a better chance to hit it balanced out in the end.
tomatobob
2012-11-14 04:41:08 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Of course after complaining about Heavies never hitting anything one goes and oneshots a closed up Cyberdisc with reaction fire and twoshots a Sectopod.

But oh man Battleships are fun! It was pretty routine until the engine room at the end, had a Heavy and two Supports on the right walkway and for some reason two Assaults going left with my Sniper hanging back overwatching. The right side ran into a Cyberdisc and killed it instantly, then I moved one support up a bit an suddenly Sectopod and a whole mess of Drones. So I back off and deal with the Drones as they apporach when a Heavy Floater jumps down from he left side somewhere to attack my Supports and Heavy only to get mauled by the Assaults at which point the Sectopod I guess got tired of this nonsense and blew up the wall the right team was hiding behind. So I run up a Support to suppress it, take a shot with my Heavy and get really lucky as the Pod then missed both of them. The Support was definitely dead if he got hit. Then the Heavy finishes it off. I hold up for a turn for everyone to reload and then move one Support up the ramp to his right to get a better view of the engine room and the other two move to either side of the door and the two Assaults do the same on their side.

All we get for our trouble is a couple Heavy Floaters, Mutons, and Elites all showing up at once! So upper Supports pops dense smoke on the doorway and his buddies open up on the Mutons when the Heavy remembers he's a Heavy and starts missing. The Assaults get to work on the Floaters and the aliens absolutely hammer the guys on the right the smoke definitely saved them but they were way down on health so I pull them back while my Sniper downs a Floater and finishes an Elite he dinged with reaction fire. one Assault moves up kills a Muton and gets suppressed on the alien turn while the other cleans up a Floater. On the next turn she runs up and breaks the suppression so her partner can also get right in that Elite's face and finish him off.

The Assaults then went on to take out the Sectoid Commanders, the first one in almost got both of them on her turn thanks to her automatic reaction shot perk, her regular shot left one of them with one HP. the other Assault missed a 96% shot and one of my Supports had to clean up. But still! That was awesome!

Assaults sort of own. Also in a weird quirk, all of my Assaults are women and all of my Supports are men, and there was a stretch where all of my rookies became Heavies.
Prime Hunter
Prime Hunter
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:15:35 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:14:19 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:13:59 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:13:49 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:13:36 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:12:51 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:07:14 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:06:48 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:06:15 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:05:54 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-14 05:05:42 pm
2012-11-14 05:05:17 pm
I had a really long stretch in my Classic game where it seemed like all I had left were Snipers and rookies. A whole team of Squaddie Snipers (so no squad sight) didn't seem like the best idea so I kept gaining extra Snipers while scrambling to get any of the other classes up a few ranks before they ultimately died.


As far as Battleships go, I've faced three of them at this point, all on my Classic game. I think I'll let my screenshots do the talking here:


1st one: Operation Flying Savior. (Appropriate name) I had no idea what to expect coming into that room, but because I somehow got my guy up above it didn't trigger everything at first so I got a good peak at the chaos that waited for me once I got the team down there.


Another view from my scout. A Sectopod and some drones, 3 Elites, and a Muton/Berserker combo. Not friendly at all.


My 2nd one: Operation Driving Fear. A ton of Mutons, a Berserker, and Heavy Floaters. Oh, and a set of Chryssalids right by the door too!

I'm thrilled that my scout was cloaked when I came into that mess, because it allowed me to pull back and slowly inch into the room again in order to try and activate one group at a time. Pretty sure that didn't work, but the fact that they only had that small doorway to try and get to us saved my team in the end. Of course, I died in the final room so it didn't matter anyway other than grant me a small victory for surviving that far.


Strangely enough I didn't take any screenshots of the 3rd battleship mission, Operation Bleeding Jester, which is the one I managed to defeat. Go figure.
tomatobob
2012-11-14 07:41:41 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Ahaha that last screen shot. Lookit all those dudes.
Poision Envy
2012-11-14 10:10:17 pm
Club 27 Goals
so is the new XCOM pretty good? Haven't tried it yet



This is convincing me to play it
tomatobob
2012-11-14 11:46:42 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
It rules and you should totally check it out.
Prime Hunter
2012-11-14 11:54:53 pm
What he said. As long as you don't expect a carbon copy of UFO Defense or the other early titles you'll be fine.
tomatobob
2012-11-15 12:49:49 am
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Aaaand beat it! My bad ass Sniper turned out to be gifted and also killed the final boss in two shots. They probably shouldn't have put him directly in line with the door lol.
Prime Hunter
Prime Hunter
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-15 01:10:45 am
2012-11-15 01:09:41 am
Yeah I had a Colonel Sniper on my Classic run and ended up using Double Tap on him after trying to take the room a few times with my other guys in previous runs of the final mission. (Thankfully even with Ironman they let you restart the mission with the same crew if you fail to beat it.)

Congrats on finishing the game, though! Sounds like you didn't face too many Ethereals then, which would be just like my 1st game since I went right towards the end after taking on the Overseer ship where the 1st one shows up.

So... going to try Classic? You should be able to handle it easily enough, right? Whistle
tomatobob
2012-11-15 01:59:23 am
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Faced about three Ethereals. Stunned the first one and got surprised by the first one I killed since my Assault was just outside of the explosion range, I don't know what kind of damage it does and I really don't want to find out.

Yeah I plan to take a shot at Classic, I'm feelin a little masochistic.
tomatobob
2012-11-15 05:56:35 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Alright.



Let's do this bitch.
Prime Hunter
2012-11-15 06:18:54 pm
"Good Luck, Commander."

Classic has been slowly crushing my spirits the more I play it lately, so hopefully you'll have better luck than I have.
tomatobob
2012-11-15 08:21:46 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Full disclosure, I restarted a couple times before that post because I forgot how to play with crappy squad with no abilities and shitty weapons.

Fucking everything survives with one hit point left and nobody can shoot for shit.

Got super lucky on the Terror Mission though and landed pretty much right by the aliens and dudes were one point with their reaction fire Floaters and Chryssalids went down before they could really do anything. And my intro to Mutons on the next mission went waaaay better than my Normal game since they were outside a landed UFO instead of hiding in cramped liquor store. Also on that mission a wounded Floater attempted a retreat but by flying up and back he zipped right into the view of my overwatching Sniper who promptly shot it in the back of the head mid flight. It was awesome.
Prime Hunter
2012-11-15 08:37:22 pm
Quote from tomatobob:
Fucking everything survives with one hit point left and nobody can shoot for shit.

Add in super accurate Thin Men and grenade happy Mutons and now you know what I've been having issues with. Seriously, it always seems to be the Thin Men that pull off the amazing shots to take out my guys, and if a Muton has a chance to use a grenade to unleash terror on my troops it always throws one at the worst possible moment.

And to think, before this latest patch my guys had more health because of a bug that gave all new hires after the 1st batch boosted health instead of the reduced number they're supposed to have on Classic and Impossible. Now my guys die even faster, hooray!
tomatobob
2012-11-15 11:41:14 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
I had two dudes close together in smoke on a ledge over my first Mutons and didn't see a grenade, actually. Literally the first time Mutons have been in grenade range of a group of dudes and didn't bother. Probably would have killed one of them too.
tomatobob
2012-11-15 11:45:14 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Thin Men haven't really been an issue so far beyond having four health and thus being unkillable. Thank God for Laser Rifles. Double thank God for getting enough for everyone just in time for Mutons.
Poision Envy
2012-11-16 03:29:41 am
Club 27 Goals
Downloaded the new XCOM. I'd love to play it in the car ride tomorrow, but of course if I tried playing it on my laptop in the car I'd only get an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes out of it.
tomatobob
2012-11-16 06:11:58 am
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Pretty sweet hour though!
tomatobob
2012-11-16 07:56:52 am
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Ok I think I'm not going to play ironman, at least for now. It makes capturing aliens super annoying and I like being able to start missions over should the crazy thing I tried because that Thin Man/Muton/Floater was pissing me off doesn't work out. I am not yet zen enough for this.
Prime Hunter
2012-11-16 10:37:31 am
Pretty sure I'm not Zen enough either given how often I've failed Classic, but I get your point. It can be extremely frustrating when things keep going wrong. I think my playstyle has something to do with it, because I probably take a lot more low percent shots than I should and make a lot of mistakes which can end up costing me a mission. I've got to get out of the mindset that a 40% shot is good like it was in UFO when we could afford to take as many shots as possible and had double the troops to do it.
tomatobob
2012-11-16 05:45:12 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Yeah I think the big thing to learn is when to back off and let the enemy come to you. I spend a lot of effort trying to hold the line, which works in the original when you have have 10-14 dudes who can line up and start shooting, a 4-6 man squad needs to be more flexible.

Also that more aggressive strategy tends to alert more aliens before I'm done with the current group, ask me about triggering three Cyberdiscs in the same turn!
tomatobob
2012-11-17 07:19:32 am
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Hahaha one Abduction Mission had a Cyberdisc come out of nowhere and drop in right in the middle of my squad triggering five reaction shots. If one of them hadn't missed I was going to be very upset. First time I've ever hoped my guys would miss.

Also cleared the base, nice to see the layout isn't fixed. Also holy balls that was a lot of Mutons.

Kinda worried about Light Plasmas being my best weapon still, I've got rifles coming up in a couple days but eeesh. Some tougher enemies are coming up too and we're gonna need to be hitting a bit harder than that.
Prime Hunter
Prime Hunter
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-17 02:23:24 pm
Prime Hunter: 2012-11-17 01:04:08 pm
2012-11-17 12:00:12 pm
Actually there are only two layouts for the alien base from what I've seen. It's certainly better than having just the one map for the base, but I can understand why there aren't any more given that we only have to assault a single base in a given game.


It's strange though, I was complaining about Classic stomping me into the ground and then this time I'm doing rather well other than a few tough spots where the game decided to troll me. I was almost ready to launch the alien base mission sometime in early May, but I wanted things to be absolutely perfect and have all of my best guys together with lasers and Carapace armor and maybe a Shiv or two. The game kept throwing tough missions at me at just the right time so that I almost always had at least one of those vets in the hospital. By the time everything was ready to go it ended up being mid July before I stormed that base.

Everything worked out for me though. Got through the base mission with only two casualties: The best Alloy Shiv I've ever had and my Major Sniper who was killed ON THE LAST TURN by a Cyberdisc (I'm noticing a pattern in our stories here) that floated up into my remaining guys on the balcony as they were waiting for the Commander to get into stun range. All 3 of my healthy soldiers missed their overwatch shots and the disc landed right next to her. Never stood a chance.

The best example of the game messing with me though was this one small scout mission where I had a ton of Floaters come out at once and start decimating the squad with the Outsider providing some support from the ship. I was going to try and make a break for the Skyranger with my two survivors but the Floaters were more crafty than I've ever seen them before, probably because they had the numbers to pull it off. Supressing my guys while launching their guys in the back so they landed between me and the Skyranger, meaning I couldn't go anywhere without being flanked... I was quite impressed with that, actually. Needless to say, neither of them made it back.


It hasn't been a total loss though. I guess I've gotten lucky with my stuns this game because when I went to research Plasma Rifles I had 4-5 of them in reserve afterward, meaning I didn't have to waste all of those resources to make them myself. Apparently I've stunned more Mutons this time around than I thought...
Prime Hunter
2012-11-17 02:23:09 pm
I had to go and jinx myself... d'oh!

I just lost 2 Colonels and a Lieutenant over the course of 2-3 missions. Other than 1 sole remaining Colonel, a female Support that's been around forever (maybe from the 1st mission, I can't remember anymore) my team is looking pretty weak. The best part is, I think it's about time for the Elites to show up, too!
tomatobob
2012-11-17 07:34:02 pm
One shall stand, one shall ball.
As long as you have a couple midlevel guys around still you should be fine barring some straight awful luck, just play it carefully. What's you're typical movement strategy? I've found that having one person on point where everyone else moves either directly in line with or behind, never in front, so if that person spots an alien squad they can all fall back and drop into Overwatch works wonders. They'll come to you next turn so, provided luck doesn't turn against you you can hit them with everything you have on your turn+reaction fire, give those lower level guys scopes and Light Plasmas to give them a realistic chance to hit. Also might consider switching you Assault's shotguns with rifles for a bit, letting them work from mid range is totally viable, Run & Gun remains useful for moblity, and especially if the Assault is on point, Run & Gun retreat to cover -> for an extra gun for your Overwatch trap. When you don't know what to do, retreat and set up an Overwatch trap, running enemies into walls of bullets is effective and amusing!

And don't forget to make full use of rockets, smoke, and suppressing fire. the big thing I learned from my Ironman attempts is Weapon Fragments are infinite so rocket and grenade kills are acceptable and encouraged, open with a rocket on a group of Mutons/Elites/Floaters/a Cyberdisc or any mixture! If it's small group of tough guys or a big mixed group with some tough and some weak, rockets! If there's anyone left and you don't think you can kill them suppress and/or pop smoke! Rookies and Squaddies can get the job done on any mission if you can get them an assist from a higher level soldier or two! You got this!

Quote from Prime Hunter:
Everything worked out for me though. Got through the base mission with only two casualties: The best Alloy Shiv I've ever had and my Major Sniper who was killed ON THE LAST TURN by a Cyberdisc (I'm noticing a pattern in our stories here) that floated up into my remaining guys on the balcony as they were waiting for the Commander to get into stun range. All 3 of my healthy soldiers missed their overwatch shots and the disc landed right next to her. Never stood a chance.

Did it run away when you first spotted it or something? Or did your guys just all miss when you first spotted it? That's like the big thing I'm afraid of with Cyberdiscs, like if I can't get it the turn I get in range or during the free turn if it moves into my range I feel like it's just going to kill everyone. I don't think I've seen one soldier survive a Cyberdisc shot, they are huge jerks.

I love that Floater story though, if that's not a thing the AI can do normally it's the greatest accident I've ever heard of.