zombo77
5304
They do but IIRC you need two grenades to blow up the car in the current round, one just sets it on fire and the aliens will move away during the next turn before it explodes.
Having bad luck finding squaddies with Psi powers. Thrown 3 into testing so far and nothing. On the plus side I’ve now researched plasma weapons, the alloy cannon, and the particle blaster for my MEC. And I have multiple firestorms with plasma cannons across all continents, my satellite nexus finally went online and all of the Americas and Europe have coverage, with only Egypt and Japan remaining.
I think I’ve done about a dozen Exalt missions now. Do they continue coming until you accuse a nation of harboring their HQ?
Yes. With that many Exalt missions under your belt, you should know precisely where it is.
You also have to assault the Exalt base and defeat their forces.
Sweet. I enjoyed the base defense mission so this one should be fun.
I’m at the point in the game where we’re detecting UFO landings to assault. Also have a very large purple alien ship that’s been hovering over the Atlantic for the last few weeks, so I’m assuming the end-game content is close.
Yeah, the big purple ship is the end game. It is, unfortunately, not a very good mission.
I’ve seen teleporting patrols several times now, so the bug, which I previously wondered about, definitely still exists. Twice now I’ve seen groups I’ve been observing with a stealthed soldier move from point A to a point far across the map in one move - in one case, from in front of my group to the edge of the map, behind me. It hasn’t been a problem since they didn’t teleport into my soldiers, I just had to re-adjust my strategy.
It’s a little weird that you can continue to see unaware patrols that you’ve sighted long after they move out of your line of sight. Once you’ve tagged a group, you can see them forever until they become aware of you - and then normal line of sight rules re-assert themselves.
Is there another tier of weapons above plasma? Because I’m out of stuff to research.
Also, anyone ever use a SHIV as a squad member? I’ve yet to build one, but tempted to just to see its capabilities.
Lantz
5312
Yeah, the end mission is pretty weak. I just finished a play through with the expansion and was really hoping they would have at least tweaked that last mission.
Finally got a psi soldier, threw her into some psi armor and doing another Exalt mission. Threw the genetic mod of neural feedback on her so she can go head-to-head with psionic enemies.
zombo77
5314
Capturing a battleship lets you research an upgrade for the rocket launcher.
Once you’re out of things to research, there are a couple of items that require that you capture an alien battleship, as Zombo said. Otherwise you’re pretty much done.
You use SHIVs pretty much the way you use MECs - they can’t take cover, so they’re easy to hit, but they have a lot of HP. You want to engage only one target at a time, and hopefully kill it before it can shoot back. The Sentinel upgrade in the Foundry helps a good deal, since it gives infinite regeneration (at 2 HP a turn) and a free close quarters reaction shot like Close Combat Specialist. SHIVs have decent aim, about on par with Support or Assault colonels. They’re essentially obsolete once you get Titan armor better.
I’ve never used them in earnest, just experimented with them. Ideally you want them when you’re still struggling to get lasers + carapace armor, since they provide the same kind of boost to your squad that you get from an early MEC. The problem is that getting them up and running early is too expensive. Foundry + research SHIVs + build at least one will run you at least $270. Starting in Asia will knock $35 off that, which isn’t much. It’s much more cost-effective to spend early cash on a MEC and squad size 6. By the time you can blow cash on that, or have built the Foundry for Tactical Rigging, you probably don’t need SHIVs anymore.
How do you capture a battleship? EMP it out of the sky?
F’n Germans were harboring the Exalt. Sending my best squad in, Delta force-style. Their mission: kill anything that moves, even the younglings.
Eventually one will show up, and you blow it out of the sky, same as other UFOs. You’ll always find the stuff you need once you do the UFO assault mission. Generally speaking you want a Firestorm armed with Plasma Cannons to take down a battleship.
I’ve decided that I don’t like either Not Created Equal or Hidden Potential. Not Created Equal gives to large a boost (up to +15 Aim), and does it right at the start of a soldier’s career, so it’s eventually just a matter of using the good troops and ignoring or sacrificing the bad ones. Hidden Potential doesn’t change things enough. It’d be kind of interesting if it varied Colonels as much as Not Created Equal varies rookies, but for the most part troops end up feeling pretty much like vanilla, only Snipers get hobbled a bit since they lose that +10 Aim on promotion to Squaddie. They eventually make it up, but Squaddie Snipers really need that boost since they’re so limited until they reach Corporal.
Training Roulette is interesting, though. If you’ve played the game enough, the skill decisions get monotonous, and it feels like there are really only maybe 9 classes - MEC, and maybe two flavors of the other classes. Each tends to have a basic choice (Squad Sight vs. Snap Shot, Medic vs. Smoke and Mirrors, Lightning Reflexes vs. Up Close and Personal, Shredder Rocket vs. Suppression) and the rest of the choices fall in line with that. Training Roulette makes each soldier something of an individual. I had a Support who was a total Overwatch specialist because he had Opportunist and Rapid Reaction, so it was actually a good idea to forgo a direct shot in favor of Overwatch unless I was sure the enemy was staying put. He made having Flush on another soldier worthwhile, which is something I almost always forgo in favor of Rapid Fire.
Yep likely saved that for the 2nd expansion
Well, with all nations covered and the Exalt wiped out, I’m now spinning that globe quite a bit waiting for a battleship to show up. Which it finally did. My firestorm w/plasma shot it down in 2-3 hits, took no dmg.
I’m assuming having a Psi character activate the gollop puts the game into its final content.
Weird. That LoS bit definitely seems like a bug.
As for the teleporting patrols, I’m surprised they didn’t change it so the teleporting is disabled when they’ve been observed (or maybe they tried to change it and you’re just seeing another bug?)
Anyway, I’m curious: When you say that they teleported behind your squad, was that on an edge of the map near your insertion area, or was it further towards the ‘back’ of the map? I’ve always wondered whether the patrol routes are highly dynamic or somehow preset on each map, and I’ve wondered how ‘aggressive’ the patrols are meant to be (i.e., are they meant to sometimes act as an attack on the players near their insertion zone, or are they primarily meant to add some variation in the defense perimeter around downed UFOs?)
From my experiments with save-reloading (referenced a few pages back), I was convinced that the patrols do change their routes on reloads, but I didn’t test it enough to know if it was really random or just a selection from a few preset waypoints. If it was really random (and if it weren’t for the game-breaking teleportation), I’d love for the aliens to be using mostly random walks around the terrain. That would greatly increase the chances that they’d stumble into your flank or rear, and it would give greater motivation for players to use hedgehog formations or spread out in a line (like I often did) so they could sweep areas with broader LoS.
Lantz
5322
Yeah, the game will give you a warning that it’s the final mission.
They teleported to the insertion area, right on top of the Skyranger.
