Yep, taking down that alien base really did drop panic around the globe. Those Exalt sure are a-holes though.
The Exalt can do three things to you: raise panic, steal money, or delay research. The money loss seems to be a percentage of your treasury. I had them take $350 once because they struck early in the month. That hurt. Panic usually isn’t so bad because you get it back when you finish the mission, but of course you’re screwed if it happens near the end of the month.
The missions themselves aren’t so bad until the Elites show up. I always seem to finish off Exalt before I manage to get heavy armor, so those laser weapons are enough to kill my guys if things go bad, particularly the sniper attacks. They’re never as bad as early Thin Men, though. Unless they use rockets or grenades, in which case you’ll probably lose someone since you lose cover, but only use explosives occasionally.
OK, just got my first HQ base defense mission and the game gave me a bunch of rookies who’re using the default armor and weapons. I think I’m hosed without a reload.
The guys in blue are security. They’re always rookies with basic equipment. At most, they can have two frag grenades if you have Tactical Rigging, but otherwise they’re completely standard.
You only start with 3 of your regular soldiers. On turn 2 you’ll get another, and as the scenario goes on you’ll get another two, one at a time, assuming you’ve got the squad size upgrade.
Yeah, I’ve been at a 6-man squad size for months. I’ll give this mix a try, I got my squad leader, my MEC, and my sniper, so I should be in decent shape.
Just hit a new month and launched another 3 satellites, giving me the continent bonuses for S America and Asia (along with N America). I need to build a satellite nexus next, but needed more power. Got like $1300 for the new month, and since you talked about Exalt hacking my bank accounts I spent it all on Foundry and base upgrades except for $300 (plus upgraded MEC armoring).
Love this game. Probably my 2013 game of the year at this point.
What Gus posted is correct. The best I could do was to equip all the troopers on my roster as best I could prior to the assault on my base. Light plasma rifles beat the basic assault rifle any day!
Just beat the base defense mission, took about an hour. Didn’t lose anyone from my main squad, but 4-5 red shirts took dirt naps. F’n hard mission, probably 30 enemies, if not more. And lots of tough ones. The game gave me a good 7-8 days afterwards though, and lots of research finished up, stuff like laser sniper rifles, heavier armor for my MEC, etc. Next mission is a French dam that started with 6 turns to reach the convoy.
I really like the base defense mission. There’s something liberating about having red shirts where it’s OK if they die, and it’s very different from most missions, though man, they do throw an unfair amount of stuff at you.
That dam mission is not as bad as it looks, though timed missions are always annoying. You get additional time for opening valves, but opening valves also results in enemy spawns. I just barely finished it on time the first time, but I’m generally getting it done with 3-4 turns to spare now. Getting a Squad Sight sniper into the first tower helps a lot with the rest of the map.
Of the council missions, I think the #2 mission from Slingshot (“Confounding Light”) is the worst. The time limit is severe and you don’t get additional time as you do with Bomb Disposal. Next is Bomb Disposal - Bomb Disposal is brutally hard when you have basic equipment, and a walk in the park when you’ve got a couple of Mimetic Skin or Ghost Armor soldiers to speed up snagging the nodes. The Council missions where you don’t have a time limit (VIP escort, the other DLC missions) are generally OK.
Tony_M
5272
That first Exalt investigation mission with all the Thin Men is the one that frustrates me most. I like the setting of the Dam mission, but I’m never going to warm to those parachute-in enemies. The first time through they feel unfair, and on later attempts it invites blatant metagaming that is tactically unsatisfying and makes it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief.
I treated the red shirts pretty badly. If I saw an enemy go into Overwatch, the next turn I’d move one into range so they’d eat the free shot and let one of my main squaddies move and position unfettered.
I don’t care for the parachuting either, though overall I wish the enemies would move around more than they do, patrol the grounds outside a UFO crash site, etc.
I took another run at an “early Mimetic skin” starting strategy. I won my first try, but I delayed my mimetic skin soldiers so long that it was really more demonstrating that ignoring MECs entirely and focusing on the squad size expansion, lasers, and Skeleton armor is a viable approach. If you’re not getting Mimetic Skin soldiers early in month 2, they’re not really early.
A MEC is definitely a stronger start, because you can get a MEC so much sooner. Even if you start in South America for instant Seeker autopsies, you’re can get a MEC much sooner, and an early MEC is a bit cheaper than your first Mimetic soldier.
On the other hand, I think it may make sense to prioritize Mimetic Skin over getting squad size 5. It’s about $50 cheaper, and if you have a Squad Sight sniper, can be stronger than a 5th trooper. Knowing where the enemy is tends to reduce casualties, and you can often pop an alien without exposing anyone to enemy fire because your Mimetic Skin soldier is spotting and your sniper is doing the shooting. I took one UFO by keeping the Mimetic Skin soldier inside, watching, while the sniper killed off Thin Men through the doorways.
On an unrelated note, while Scientists First is actually moderately strong, since it just about doubles your early game research rate, your second abduction really must be Engineers. I prioritized panic instead for my second abduction, and I didn’t get a third in the first month, so I found I could not loft any additional satellites in month 2. That was a serious setback.
I breezed through the dam mission with plenty of turns to spare (though I am playing on Easy). In fact, I think only one squaddie took one hit. I just did another Exalt mission, defensive in nature, kill all enemies, and didn’t take a single bit of damage. Got my squad around the laptop and kept them in overwatch, scorched every fanatic who parachuted in. Definitely have to play on Normal next time.
garin
5276
Due to a lack of Engineer discount on satellites/equipment, it’ll also cost you at least $30 in the first month. Which can sometimes be significant.
It’s now clear that sometimes alien groups activate without you seeing them. I just started a game, and did my usual tactic of overwatching in a tight group without seeking cover, which is a safe tactic according to the standard rules. On turn 2, a Sectoid walked into visual range, but stopped immediately so there was no Overwatch activation, and then fired on one of my exposed rookies, killing him. This I’d expect if I had “Itchy Trigger Tentacles” enabled, but I didn’t, so it was a clear case of violating the normal rules.
This instant-death situation was pretty standard in the original XCom, because aliens were always active from the start of the mission, and had longer sight ranges than your soldiers both night and day, so first contact with the enemy was often a shot out of the darkness killing the lead soldier. That’s why you always brought disposable rookies on every mission until you had armor. It’s a lot more serious now when one casualty is 25% of your squad, and often sends the rest into panic - in this game, 2 of the remaining 3 rookies panicked.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Quite a few times I’ve had a soldier spot an enemy group without activating them, even though the soldier didn’t have invisibility of any sort. This is the first time it’s been obvious that the same bug sometimes works the other way.
I ragequit, of course. It didn’t help that I had just quit out of a series of starts because my performance on missions 1 or 2 was too poor. I thought I knew the early game, but I’m still clearly making errors, or don’t know how to handle some situations properly. I’m finding myself trapped into situations where I’m exchanging gunfire, which I know is a bad idea in the early game, or I’m activating an additional group while flanking, where the additional group is in a position to pretty much guarantee a soldier death.
My theory is that a good Classic or Impossible player avoids any possibility of a soldier death while setting up sure kills. Sure kills are explosives and point-blank flanking shots. You avoid soldier casualties by staying out of line of sight entirely, or if that’s impossible, hunkering down in full cover, which reduces their chance to hit to 1%. Which can still be death if it’s fragile full cover and multiple enemies are shooting, since the first shot will often take down a thin wall or anything obviously easily destroyed like a tall shrub.
Just got my MEC upgraded to tier 3 and slapped Titan armor on the rest of my squaddies (hit the grey market with excess Exalt weapons and sundry items for the necessary $$$). Closing in on the Exalt HQ location too. Still need to build a satellite nexus though, hopefully I’ll have enough engineers here soon so I can provide worldwide coverage.
These days, I don’t build Titan armor at all. Ghost Armor comes very shortly after Titan, and +20 Defense alone is worth the 4 HP you give up vs. Titan armor, let alone the +3 movement and invisibility. About the only exception is maybe Assaults who expect to point-blank attacks where the range bonus + inherent aim is over 120 total, and thus cannot miss even with the Ghost Armor bonus. Which really means Sectopods, since an Assault with a shotgun-class weapon and Rapid Fire can kill anything else in one action.
I looked up how Hidden Potential works. Normal progression follows a somewhat irregular schedule, with the biggest boost being Rookie -> Squaddie. On average, though, per level it’s:
Normal Hidden Potential
Aim HP Aim HP Move
Heavy 1.4 0.6 1.0 0.6 0.1
MEC 1.4 0.6 not mentioned
Assault 3.4 0.6 3.0 0.5 0.2
Support 3.6 0.6 4.0 0.5 0.2
Sniper 5.7 0.4 6.0 0.5 0.2
Unless I’m misunderstanding, Heavies and Assaults get shortchanged on Aim, and Snipers get a bit extra. But most significantly, move can go up, which is normally fixed at 12 unless you get Sprinter. Heavies can in theory get a bit more aim (79 vs. 75 at Colonel) if they’re very lucky, but on average they get less (72).
To get sharpshooter Heavies (i.e. a Colonel Heavy with Aim 90) requires Not Created Equal, where you can get rookies with aim 80 (!). Not Created Equal is a much more significant rule.
I think I’m researching ghost armor now. I assumed it was just stealth with a name like that, I’ll have to check it out.
Entered into my 5th month and immediately got 2 UFOs I couldn’t shoot down, even with the upgraded alien craft. Happened over 2 continents and all my air coverage over them is now down for days. Just when you think you’re getting on top of things. . . .
By month 5 you really want Plasma Cannons on all your aircraft. Regular jets will do OK with those against anything but battleships, which really require Firestorms + Plasma Cannons.
The descriptions of stuff when you’re buying or researching it often leaves out some details. I didn’t know that Respirator Implants gave +2 HP until it got mentioned in this thread. It’s not in the purchase description, but it is in the loadout description.
I know when I was playing on Normal I didn’t realize how important the +10 defense you get from Skeletal Armor and the +20 you get from Ghost armor are. Even against high-aim enemies, that’s often the difference between a 45% chance to hit your guy and a 25% chance.
Hmm, I’m a bit confused.
So, you’re saying that, previously, you thought that enemies never, ever, moved until you’d seen them?
I know that’s definitely the dominant alien behavior, but I’ve also read about these alien patrols (which seem tied to the teleportation bug), so I’ve always assumed that, at least on some maps, there are some squads of aliens that actively move around.
From my experience, I think I’ve seen multiple instances of aliens moving without my seeing them.
On terror missions, for example, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen aliens moving around (and killing the civilians) without my seeing them.
I’ve also had experiences when approaching a downed UFO where it seemed like the aliens would activate and charge out. I can’t remember the exact circumstances, so maybe I’m mis-remembering or I had just misinterpreted the situation.
