5064

I sacrificed two of my veteran troops trying to capture a muton alive yesterday. After one of my best guys died trying to capture him, I was determined his death would not be in vain. So the second veteran ended up going down but I did get him. Unfortunately looks like what I got out of it was totally not worth it.

This could be the turning point where my game goes South. Plus that Assault Alien base button is always up there. So tempting to press that, but I’m scared to.

5065

…as opposed to my run last night where I snagged a live Muton like it was scripted. Bing, bang, boom. No losses, full meld, one live Muton.

BTW besides the St. Johns mission in Enemy Within, there is a mission that will make many of you cry when you run into it. It comes out of nowhere, ended my last Ironman run, and made me sad that I routinely stripped equipment for redistribution each mission.

5066

I just wanted to share a charming magical moment I had with this game.

First time I’ve tried a S.H.I.V., and I was trying one out on a Large Scout downed UFO. At one point, with the creepy tension and the weeoooo s-f music, just in front of the U.F.O., while I was sending my doughty wee S.H.I.V. in to scout around a bit, with my men strategically place in Overwatch, and doing that “did you hear that?” thing, I had a sudden wash of the feeling I used to get as a kid when watching that absolute classic, Forbidden Planet - sort of a “yay for human technology and bravery, and our mechanized buddies”, or something around that area of feeling, and I had that exact same feeling in the game just at that moment. A right Proustian whiff of it.

Just a silly thing, but a testament to the deep immersion this game offers.

As general thoughts (since I’ve never laid out any thoughts on this), it’s stupidly addictive, but sometimes feels a bit board-gamey in its abstractions (I think this has been mentioned). But it’s one of those “flawed gem” games whose faults and limitations are in a queer way an integral part of the fun (like the original C&C for example). I played a bit of the original years ago, and played enough to appreciate what people were banging on about, but alas by that time I was a committed graphics whore, and couldn’t stand the eye-bleed, so for me it’s really nice to have it spiritually updated.

I mean I can imagine all sorts of ways to smooth it out - e.g. not to make getting satellites a.s.a.p. the ONLY path to success, for example, that just seems like bad game design (no choice-point there). And I generally prefer “realism” in my games - I’d much rather game designers just miniaturized and compressed what you’d expect in real life (or real-life s-f or real-life fantasy), and make you competent and heroic (but not godlike) in that world, and have that be the “rules” - I mean surely the technology’s nearly there ffs :)

But whenever I play an old skool game like this, I recall that there’s also a certain charm in absurd gamey (and sometimes technological) restrictions too, they sort of narrow down your world and your focus, kind of dumb you down and focus your thinking, but in a way that makes the immersion quite deep.

And also of course the silly difficulty and the hair-pulling, monitor-spittle inducing, dev-cursing moments - they’re all part of the fun, and make thost fist-pumping victories all the sweeter :)

5067

The bonus to plasma research is either really nifty if you get it before you do any plasma-related research, or no value if you’ve already done it all. There’s also the plasma rifle you get out of the deal, which can save you a lot of cash. In my current game - which I haven’t lost yet! - I captured one, used it a couple of times, and then sold it to Japan for $638. Totally worth it given what a boost that cash was for my base-building.

I just had the base defense mission myself recently, and I was very glad I’d heard it was coming in this thread. I kept my guys equipped, but I still ended up with one heavy with a laser weapon but only base body armor. I don’t know how that happened.

I lived, though. In fact, I didn’t lose anyone but security guards, despite never having seen it before. I really enjoyed it, though I’m sure I would have hated it if I’d lost people or worse lost the game. It was a great change of pace, and I found the expendable security guards really handy. They can scout and die and that’s OK, and they can be an easier target when one of your soldiers is vulnerable. They can handle sectoids by themselves, and they have grenades which can be very useful even if they’re only 3 points of damage each. When the big group of flyers came in from the back a couple of security grenades took out all the repair drones and floaters, leaving just the cyberdiscs.

5068

So that’s why I have laser rifles and pistols in my inventory even before I researched them? Btw, it said I’d get a boost to my plasma credit, but it was still showing the same 15 days to research plasma pistol that it was before I captured the Muton, so that’s why I thought it was useless. I’m just confused now.

Btw, I ran into my first cyberdisc and drone today. Will this game ever stop throwing new kinds of enemies at me that I’ve never seen before?

Also, it looks like neglecting my fighters has really come back to bite me in the ass in a major way. Every UFO I fight now kicks my fighters’ ass. And not researching Stealth satellites also meant that I got a satellite shot down too. Now Russia is panicking and all the fighters I have assigned there are destroyed too. Sigh. I’ve got a sinking feeling about this game now.

5069

Not from aliens, no. The aliens drop plasma weapons, and only if you capture the alien. When you kill them, the weapons blow up into fragments, which you need for research.

You can get laser weapons from EXALT troops, and those don’t blow up. I’ve got a huge inventory of EXALT laser weapons now. Only if you’re playing Enemy Within, though, EXALT doesn’t exist in the base game.

There are lots of different aliens you haven’t seen yet. There’s only really one repeat, a tougher version of an alien you’ve already seen. Enemy Within adds more aliens as well.

Welcome to XCOM. That sinking feeling has always been a defining aspect of the series. I remember playing XCom: UFO Defense in '94, and how shocking it was that your guys died like flies before you got armor. Learning how to sacrifice the FNG’s was the only way to get experienced troops.

5070

“All you need to know, rookie, is how to prime a grenade.”

“…and throw it, right?”

“Not so much.”

5071

I finished the EXALT storyline (again, on Classic / Ironman). The covert missions are a welcome change of pace, and not too difficult. I found the data extraction missions tougher than the agent retrieval missions. While it’s true they tend to rush in, there are a lot more troops in those missions, and the zone you have to defend is often a bit lacking in cover. Having a MEC along for those helped because the MEC can’t use cover anyway. It’s interesting to be playing defense for once, since almost all other missions are assaults.

I’m kind of ambivalent about MECs. Their inability to take cover makes them more fragile overall than anything but soldiers in basic body armor. It’s just that now and then having a soldier who won’t die immediately if out in the open is handy, as in the EXALT missions. The flame thrower and primary weapon aren’t that great, but the pile-driver fist is fantastic. 100% to hit and more damage than anything else. Can’t-miss is always a big deal in XCOM, and the extra movement is really handy as well.

Most of the MEC abilities, both trooper and armor, kind of suck. Expanded Storage, Overdrive, Reactive Targeting Sensors, and the Proximity Mine Launcher all seem pretty good. Electro Pulse looks like it could be an OK anti-robot attack, specifically against Sectopods, but I haven’t built a suit with one yet. Overall I think a normal Colonel in decent armor (Titan or Ghost) is more useful than a MEC-3 Colonel. The MEC is a bit of a specialist, like the Heavy - in the late game you take one along for all that cover-destroying area-effect explosive firepower, not for sheer offensive or defensive ability.

5072

Col snipers turned mec are monsters. I typically have an early mec that I scrap after getting carapace. Later on I add the sniper/mec for extra firepower.

5073

I intend to try a Colonel Sniper MEC at some point, since the benefit is much higher Aim than normal. My first MEC was a Heavy for the defensive benefit - no critical hits from one-on-one engagements is a big help to survival. My problem is that at present I like my Colonel sniper too much as a sniper. If I get a second one that I feel I can spare I’ll try a MEC.

5074

I started playing Enemy Within over the weekend and so far I’m really enjoying it; I’m just playing on Normal at the moment, and I kind of wish I could tweak the various knobs of difficulty separately. I’d like to be able to make my guys take longer to advance and recover from wounds, maybe have the aliens be a little tougher, but I don’t want them to have the ridiculous aiming and cover bonuses that seem to happen when you go to Classic or Impossible. What I really miss about the original is needing to worry about having an A-team, and a B-team, and C-team, and being ready for base defenses…EW still forces you down the “BUILD ALLLLL THE SATELLITES” path too, which is disappointing.

I haven’t messed with the genetics stuff yet, but it does seem like the MECs are a bit limited for how much they cost. A fully-upgraded MEC will run you a chunk of cash and 210 Meld (over the amount for the Cybernetics Lab itself), and then it can’t use cover and its weapons seem to have ridiculously low ammo capacities. On the other hand, most of their abilities seem pretty great; the power fist is almost a guaranteed kill, and the electroshock attack and flamethrower are great against clustered weak enemies. I just wonder if getting 210 Meld worth of genetic upgrades for my A-team would really have been better in the long run.

5075

I still use layered teams, so if I have a particularly bad mission I don’t lose all my experienced guys. I’ll take one Colonel per mission, and after that I’ll go down the list by rank, taking one soldier out of two. So, if I have two Lieutenants I only take one of them.

Full satellite coverage is still THE path. Once you’ve got 9 of the 16 countries covered, you pretty much can’t lose. I’m in month 5 and I have 16/16 covered, so I know it’s just a matter of time.

Most of the gene mods aren’t that great, so I’m not sure the high Meld cost of MECs is a huge drawback. The standout gene mods are the mind-control immunity - huge! - and Mimetic Skin. Mimetic Skin is a bit much, but it’s not really worse than Ghost Armor. Sure, it’s unlimited use, but it’s far more restricted than Ghost Armor, since once you move into enemy LOS you reveal yourself if you move.

The other thing to consider is that if a heavily gene-modded soldier dies, all the money and Meld you spent on him is gone. If a MEC dies, it’s only $10 and 10 Meld to make a replacement, plus the suit repair cost. I’m not sure if that’s expensive for MEC-2 and -3 suits. When I lost Warden-1’s, it was like half the cost of a new suit ($12 / 20 Meld).

Probability of soldier death is ridiculously high with basic body armor, somewhat common with Carapace, and an infrequent thing with Titan / Ghost but still a possibility. I’ve lost a lot of MEC-1’s, but no MEC-2’s or -3’s yet. Yet. I’ve been close, down to 5 health.

5076

I made the nearly game-ending mistake of cultivating my B-team without knowing the timing of the base defense, so my A-team was fielding basic equipment vs. Mectoids and Cyberdiscs. Yeah, that sucked.

As for genemods, the nice thing is that you can spread them out and buy individual mods as needed. That 210 meld can equip an entire squad with a few key upgrades. Neural damping is nice, as is the secondary heart (as insurance against permanent will loss).

5077

Or death. I just lost a fairly heavily gene modified Colonel assault to a Sectopod. I could have taken Secondary Heart, but I took the Adrenal boost instead.

Speaking of Sectopods, they’re a bit ridiculous now. They were tough before, but now the 50% damage reduction means they take 60 points (!) to kill. In hindsight, going toe-to-toe with it was dumb, I should have plinked away at it with my Squad Sight sniper instead. Part of the problem was that my plasma-rifle equipped Assault kept missing at 3 squares range.

There’s an achievement for fielding 4 MECs of different classes in one mission. I can’t imagine how I’d accumulate that much Meld, unless they were all MEC-1’s.

5078

I don’t find that to be true at all. If anything their huge hit point pool makes them very survivable. Just get them through a combat round and heal them back up to full health, then move on. Unless you stupidly charge them forward and place them in range of multiple enemies (something you should never do), they are beasts and very hard to take out. At least that’s been my experience.

5079

The thing about MECs is that they get hit. Pretty much all the time. Hostile fire often misses soldiers in high cover, particularly once you’ve got a few extras to boost defense even higher. It’s at least a 2:1 difference. Fielding a MEC really requires that you bring a medic Support along for repairs, and possibly smoke.

5080

Sectopods are also more difficult because HEAT Ammo is now only +50% damage against robotics, not +100%. In the base game a Heavy with Bullet Swarm, HEAT Ammo and a bit of luck could kill a Sectopod in one turn. No chance now.

They’re also a lot more common in EW. I had a terror mission that was one small group of Chryssalids and four Sectopods.

5081

Maybe you’re playing on Classic vs. my Normal (?) but I’ve never had the problems you describe above. I’ve never had a MEC lose more than 30-40% of its health in a round of combat and that was rare when it happened. Most enemies never get the chance for that many shots at my MEC’s.

5082

The foundry research that preserves ammo helps quit a bit, I didn’t have too many problems with ammo after I researched that.

Nearly done with my first Enemy Within run now, on Normal-Ironman. Aside from some heavy losses in the base defence mission, including a colonel, and a (mostly rookies-)wipe in that fishing village it’s all going rather smootly, which makes me think Normal got easier with the expansion. I’ll try Classic again after this (and probably find it too hard…)

One mayor improvement to me is the added maps: the variety is much bigger now, and it’s a huge relieve that a UFO-mission doesn’t automatically mean the same damn forest map. And I also like the Exalt-missions, even if they are relatively simple. Now if they could just add a few more accents, specificly Asian and Scandinavian, it would be perfect!

5083

One nice thing i found found, since mec troopers cant take cover, if you place them behind full cover they are basically invisible to the enemy unless they are almost flanking it.