5244

I always save the base assault for the last day of a month.

5245

Yeah, doing the base assault late in the month is a good idea due to the panic reduction. However, you don’t want to cut it too fine, since it takes time for the Skyranger to reach the base.

5246

Just double-checked and I have carapace armor and laser weapons, and a 6-man team (one is a MEC and the other, my leader, has 3 genetic mods). Might give it a try later in my month, I’m on the 20th right now.

5247

I just did the By Our Powers Combined and Rise of the Machines achievements by fielding a 6 man squad with a MEC of each flavor and two SHIVs. It was incredibly expensive in terms of Meld - I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if you did it with MEC-1’s, but I was fielding MEC-3’s. Hence I was just grinding out missions long after I’d finished everything but the Temple ship to get Meld and to get experienced troops to convert.

It’s a little weird pounding along like a bull in a china shop, completely ignoring cover since none of the robotic troops can use it. The Sniper MEC was the only one with a decent chance to hit anything with its primary weapon, so mostly my guys were pounding stuff with the Kinetic Strike module.

5248

Got my first Exalt mission. Sent a guy in to go covert, and then got forced into another abduction mission before his actual mission would kick off.

5249

Yeah, there’s usually a delay of maybe a week or so before you run the actual mission to extract your operative, and in the meantime he or she is out of commission. Hope you didn’t send your best sniper. I’ve taken to using squaddies for those missions, since the operative is more useful for running around hacking things than for actually shooting anyone.

5250

Heh, no, I sent my backup support person with a laser pistol.

5251

Yeah, a Covert’s main purpose in life is to hack those com towers. Either because it’s the mission objective, or to force them to reload their weapons if it’s the zone-defense mission. Since they can’t wear armor, you don’t want to expose them to enemy fire. The ideal Covert is a soldier with mimetic skin to keep them invisible, and you never use them to attack. Even a Sniper with Gunslinger can’t contribute all that much to your firepower.

A Major or better Sniper with mimetic skin can make a particularly good covert agent if you can spare him, because Low Profile gives him a lot more places to hide. Other than that, Supports make good Coverts because they can use smoke grenades and medkits to help with combat meaningfully even though they don’t have armor or rifles. Heavies and Assaults don’t have much to contribute without their weapons, though grenades can sometimes help.

5252

You actually can’t send a Heavy as a covert operative-- they don’t have a pistol.

I usually pick some rookie to serve as the operative, and even though I never take them on other missions they usually end up a fairly high rank by the time EXALT’s destroyed. It’s not a bad way to get a soldier some safe XP.

5253

I normally send a support trooper since he has Sprinter, an enhanced movement ability, that comes in handy.

5254

I mostly avoid using the covert operative in combat, but after rendezvousing with the rescue team, a high-level gunslinger operative can dish out a lot of damage at low risk. The key is being able to kill any nearby Exalt in one turn with massed fire, which offsets the operative’s lack of armor.

5255

I got a random UFO landing mission (+20 meld) right before the extraction mission came up, and I upgraded my MEC and finished the rigging option for all armor. I’m probably behind on my weaponry, I have laser pistols and rifles but no heavy guns yet. That’ll be finished in another 6-7 days, but May (my current month) will expire so not sure if after the Exalt extraction mission if I’ll tackle that alien base or not. If I can hold onto all nations when the month flips, I’ll go in with better weapons.

5256

Assaults are pretty good too, you can hack terminals after using run and gun.
In my last C/I game with training roulette I got lucky and ended up with an assault that had both low cover and gunslinger. She kicked ass as a covert operative and would have been even better with mimetic skin but sadly did not survive an encounter with two mechtoids during the base defense mission.

5257

Just researched stealth satellites so I’m wondering if that applies to existing ones already in service?

Just finished rigging and heavy laser weapons, plus the rail gun, so I’m feeling like my 6-man squad is pretty bad ass right now.

5258

Anyone know when or if a patch for Enemy Within is supposed to release? I just lost a C/I game due to a game-ending mission bug. My second lost Ironman game. Out of two. I suppose I should stop playing Ironman, though it kind of makes me feel like I should just stop playing.

5259

Everyone here sounds like they’re using a lot of laser weapons: Was that common for most people with EU, or has the teching balance changed a lot with EW?

I’m asking because in my Normal game on EU, I almost completely skipped laser weapons since they seemed too expensive to produce (other than one Laser Rifle just to test them out, I focused my resources on base building, satellites, and the officer school instead). It was a bit tricky for a while, but I’d been pretty successful at capturing aliens so I’d (unknowingly) built up a stash of light plasma rifles that I could use as soon as I researched some of that tech.

I know I played my normal game differently in other ways too (e.g., I made minimal use of the Grey Market sales because I was never sure which resources would be needed for future research or item production), so that might’ve had some effects too. Still, it just felt like the laser weapons were too expensive (and the research for plasma came too fast, especially with my alien captures and interrogations) to make them worthwhile.

5260

Skipping lasers is only really viable if you’re playing on a low difficulty.

5261

On normal difficulty on EU I pretty skipped lasers each time I played. I never played Classic difficulty in EU. Here in EW on classic I use lasers each time.

5262

I’ve been messing about with trying to prioritize Mimetic Skin over an early MEC. My reasoning was that I’d start in South America, so I could get Mimetic Skin immediately after killing my first set of Seekers, and the early stealth would make it easy to capture stuff, which syngerizes well with South America’s interrogation.

It didn’t work out that way. I just never seemed to have the money for a Genetics lab and a bunch of Skin. Skin’s pretty expensive for the early game at $75 a pop, a South American start is awfully short of cash, and it felt like getting squad size 6 was a higher priority than the first stealth soldier. By the time I’d finally gotten around to making stealth soldiers, I was pretty advanced anyway - lasers and skeleton armor. The real trick is finding strategies which improve survival before you get to squad size 6 and laser / medium armor, because that’s normally the turning point where squad wipes are unlikely.

One thing that skewed this a bit was that I advanced rather more rapidly than normal. I took Scientists first instead of Engineers because I wanted an early Arc Thrower, and I did capture a bunch of aliens early for some very helpful research boosts, despite not following through on obtaining Skin properly. Engineers first is the common wisdom, yet it’s not really that hard to end up with 10 Engineers early in month 2 for your second Uplink even if you don’t go Engineers first.

Maybe I should try it again, this time forgoing an early OTS for that first Skin soldier. That works for a MEC, since an early Sniper MEC improves your squad survival significantly, but a single stealth soldier is at least as expensive as a MEC, and doesn’t bring any more firepower or durability, just a probable first strike on a single alien. Which can be a guaranteed kill if the stealth soldier is an Assault with a shotgun.

Also, I’ve found that taking Close Combat Specialist on a stealth soldier is bad news. More than once I’ve had one reveal her position by taking a potshot at an alien that got too close. I’ve also had teammates blow up her cover during overwatch several times, leaving her visible and exposed. It’s a wonder she’s still alive.

Yes, it does. It’s usually not terribly important, though. The only time there’s a threat to your satellites is if you cannot take down a UFO. If it escapes, a little while later a battleship shows up and blows up your satellite unless you have Stealth Satellites. Presumably you can’t take on the battleship if your interceptors aren’t good enough to handle the earlier ship. Unless the timing is particularly poor, though, you can put up another satellite, and that will push the country in question out of panic-5.

It’s common on Classic and above. Lasers really aren’t that expensive to produce, and it takes too long to research Light Plasma Rifles on higher difficulties - by the time you’ve got the tech, you’ve taken serious losses because you’re trying to handle Mutons and Chryssalids with conventional weapons.

5263

I really need to tackle that alien base soon, a ton of my nations are at 4 blocks of panic. Haven’t lost one yet, but France is at 5 and I just got an abduction choice thrown at me with 2 of the 3 nations already at 4 panic. So the one I didn’t choose (went with Argentina over Egypt) I might lose.

I’ve done both types of Exalt missions, I like using a support person for those since they can stay back and heal.