XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

CEJ wrote:
cej wrote:

A bunch of stuff about sectopods

[*] Heavies with the HEAP skill mess these things up. However, they need to get close or around their flanks. [/list]

At Paleocon's suggestion I've been playing around more with Ghost Armor. I've found that this is the most effective way to deal with a sectopod. Heavy + Heavy Plasma Repeater + HEAP + Activated Ghost Armor - run up right next to the sectopod for max aim, Ghost Armor gives the automatic crit for 30 Damage, one shot kill. Snipers and the rest of the gang clean up any drones or whatever that might get at the Heavy while he's vulnerable (ostensibly since he finished his turn right next to the sectopod he's out of cover).

I've also been messing around a lot with Archangel Armor + Snipers. It's pretty ridiculous. I'm having a bit of a hard time making it work well on UFO missions with lots of indoor spaces, but when it does work well, its ridiculous. Definitely going to get the Foundry upgrade for it next to have more movement flexibility.

Dysplastic wrote:
CEJ wrote:
cej wrote:

A bunch of stuff about sectopods

[*] Heavies with the HEAP skill mess these things up. However, they need to get close or around their flanks. [/list]

At Paleocon's suggestion I've been playing around more with Ghost Armor. I've found that this is the most effective way to deal with a sectopod. Heavy + Heavy Plasma Repeater + HEAP + Activated Ghost Armor - run up right next to the sectopod for max aim, Ghost Armor gives the automatic crit for 30 Damage, one shot kill. Snipers and the rest of the gang clean up any drones or whatever that might get at the Heavy while he's vulnerable (ostensibly since he finished his turn right next to the sectopod he's out of cover).

I've also been messing around a lot with Archangel Armor + Snipers. It's pretty ridiculous. I'm having a bit of a hard time making it work well on UFO missions with lots of indoor spaces, but when it does work well, its ridiculous. Definitely going to get the Foundry upgrade for it next to have more movement flexibility.

Yup. Also, if you have a high level assault with close combat expert, park him right next to the drones prior to taking the stealth shot from the heavy and watch in awe at the display of the Gun Kata.

Dysplastic wrote:

Paleocon's ideas on Ghost Armor

So, I got my first set following the initial base attack & council meeting (i.e.: payday). I need to invest more in it for my assault crew.

I have the archangel armor for my sniper but have yet to use it properly.

Paleocon wrote:

a high level assault with close combat expert, park him right next to the drones prior to taking the stealth shot

Oh man ... I love this idea. Also, that close combat expert skill (perk?) is awesome vs Berserker.

Keep in mind that Ghost Armor includes a passive defense +20 bonus, as well as +2 movement. This makes for exceptionally fast sprinter-Support soldiers, who end up with a whopping +5 bonus to movement.

The Close Combat upgrade is extremely useful when dealing with Chrysallids. However, be very cautious if your Assault trooper gets mind-controlled, because it sucks taking an alloy-cannon reaction shot to the face.

Itsatrap wrote:

Keep in mind that Ghost Armor includes a passive defense +20 bonus, as well as +2 movement. This makes for exceptionally fast sprinter-Support soldiers, who end up with a whopping +5 bonus to movement.

The Close Combat upgrade is extremely useful when dealing with Chrysallids. However, be very cautious if your Assault trooper gets mind-controlled, because it sucks taking an alloy-cannon reaction shot to the face.

What does Passive Defense +20 actually mean? Is that enough to take partial cover to full? Full to hunkered down?

CEJ wrote:

What does Passive Defense +20 actually mean? Is that enough to take partial cover to full? Full to hunkered down?

Ghost armor won't protect you from being flanked, but yes, it's the equivalent of being in low cover all of the time. It makes low cover function as high cover. It makes high cover a bit better.

Hunker Down is a 2x multiplier, but I don't know if it just affects cover or if it affects total defense. Hunker Down also negates critical hits, so it partially protects you if you're flanked. Hunker Down is totally an underrated ability.

If you're trapped in the open (maybe because of a failed stun attempt), Ghost Armor + a smoke grenade can keep you from getting shot up too badly.

My Killer Psi squad is nearly trained to my satisfaction.

My heavy and med-first support are at colonel level and maxed out on Psi levels. My two snipers are at major level and my two assaults just made lieutenant. The snipers are level two psionics, but the assaults have maxed out. Their tendency to get up close and personal gives them more opportunities for psi kills. When the assaults got to sergeant level, I felt confident enough in their abilities to keep out of trouble to put them on very hard missions. The first one was kind of rough.

My squad arrived in Nagoya, Japan after receiving a distress call over an alien terrorist mission. Immediately, upon deploying, my ghost troopers went stealth and rushed into the building rescue civilians. This revealed three chryssalids, two drones, and a dreaded sectopod.

They stayed in stealth as the snipers moved laterally toward the front of the building, but still outside of activation range of the aliens. My heavy uncloaked and fired her shredder rocket at the sectopod from her fusion launcher. This took out the two adjacent drones, but also took out the wall behind them -- revealing three heavy floaters and three more chryssalids. Crap.

My snipers took out two of the six chryssalids. My support took out another. And my two assaults ran up to virtual knife range and fired at the sectopod. Both missed. Double crap.

The two of the three remaining chryssalids wasted a turn killing off civilians while the third closed on my heavy and took a swipe at her. Chitin armor limited the damage to two points. The three floaters tried to get the angle, but fired three whiff shots at my assaults. Unfortunately, the sectopod still had his turn to go and fired its cyclops laser right at my assault at pointblank range. And by some miracle, managed to miss clean. It did, however, cut loose with its secondary area effect weapon and take my colonel level assault and heavy down to half health (along with killing the chryssalid that managed to close into melee range).

The next turn, one of my snipers took out one of the heavy floaters with his plasma sniper rifle while the other did the same for a chryssalid. My heavy fired her heavy plasma twice at the sectopod and despite having 88% odds managed to miss both times. The support used his mind control ability to take over one of the heavy floaters and in so doing revealed the location of the third floater. The two heavies fired at the sectopod again from pointblank range. This time, they managed to take it down.

I was afraid that the remaining aliens would concentrate their attacks on my wounded colonel heavy, but, instead, all three attacked the mind controlled floater. First, the floater fired its plasma at it taking it down to three health. Then the bugs ran up to it, but didn't seem to have enough movement left to attack. Last, a zombie came shambling down the stairs and landed right in front of one of my assaults.

At this point, I clicked on the injured floater, pulled the pin on an alien grenade and suicide bombed him. This severely injured the two chryssalids as well. The snipers finished off the other floater and one of the bugs. The assaults took out the last remaining bug and the zombie.

Mission accomplished, but both colonels in the infirmary for three days.

Five days later, a small scout landed in France. My crew was healed up and rested, so off they went in the skyranger.

Again, the ghosts ran toward the landing site. This time, they revealed three muton elites. The snipers went to the sky in their jet packs. I ended the turn without activating them. They remained stationary.

Next turn, I stealthed again and ran my troopers past the mutons and revealed three heavy floaters. Again, I ended my turn without activating them.

Next turn, I fired a squadsight headshot round from my plasma sniper rifle that splattered the contents of the muton elite's brainpan all over the landscape. The other two immediately went for cover, but in doing landed right in front of my entire squad. My heavy fired two shots. The first severely injured one of the mutons. The other killed one of the heavy floaters. The support used his mind control ability to take over the uninjured muton. The two assaults used mind fray to injure and addle the two remaining floaters. The other sniper missed his shot at one of the injured floaters.

The floaters attempted to retreat and fire at my assaults, but the result of the mind fray attacks made their attempts ineffective. The injured muton, however, fired his heavy plasma and hit one of my snipers for five damage. She returned the favor with a 100% shot that splattered his body over the trunk of a tree. The other sniper took out one of the floaters. One of my assaults took out the other. My other assault went into ghost mode and ran him into the craft revealing two sectoid commanders. My heavy and support, likewise, went stealth and ran into the craft from the other side. Finally, I ran the mind controlled muton into the craft causing the sectoids to react.

I ran the muton to knife range with one of the sectoid commanders to set up another suicide bombing the following turn. They had both of their commanders in overwatch and tagged him both times with plasma pistols, but did not do enough damage to matter. One of my assaults ran up to one of them and blew his brains out from pointblank range with his alloy cannon.

The sectoid used his turn to fire again from pointblank range at the muton elite for another four damage. The muton responded with suicide alien grenade that damaged them both, but did not kill either.

The next turn, the muton elite came out of mind control, turned around and fired at my heavy for a 12 point critical. Bastard. The sectoid fired at her as well for another 4. Double bastard. But with their wad spent, I rushed them with alloy cannon equipped assaults. The first blew the sectoid away. The other mind frayed the muton for 5 points killing him from the inside out.

When I got back, the two assaults had made lieutenant. Now they have rapid fire.

Just did a terror mission, after my guys actived all the chryssalids and one muton, my sniper took over. With them all in the open, he moved to a good postion and started taking shots and killed all 7 of them, in one turn. God I love In the Zone.

onewild wrote:

Just did a terror mission, after my guys actived all the chryssalids and one muton, my sniper took over. With them all in the open, he moved to a good postion and started taking shots and killed all 7 of them, in one turn. God I love In the Zone.

I toyed with taking In the Zone, but figured that Double Tap was going to be more utile in the long run. Being able to take out a sectopod with a combination of head shot and double tap makes it all worth it.

Alien activity has slowed down a bit and the missions seem to be getting easier for some reason. The last three missions have involved small or large scouts instead of the supply barges and battleships I have encountered the last few months. I am not complaining too much since I am still trying to train up my Psionic Warrior Squad, but I find it a bit odd that there seems to be a marked de-escalation.

I have two firestorms with fusion lances on each continent and am building a third for each armed with an EMP cannon just to take out smaller craft without damaging the goods. I haven't lost a trooper since my major level support was killed during a terror mission early on. The Council loves me and have given me straight A's since my third month. Panic levels are code green everywhere.

I still haven't researched the SHIV technology at all and wonder if, at this point, pursuing that would do anything more than give me the Steam achievement. I can't imagine a robotic trooper would do as well as any one of the troopers left on my roster (all Lt. level or above and equipped with the most advanced gear available). Does anyone know if a captured drone would be able to repair SHIV damage?

The last couple times I have assaulted alien crash sites, I found that mind controlling muton elites and using them as alien shields drastically reduces my exposure to fire. For some reason, aliens seem to freak the fcuk out when they encounter mind controlled aliens and go completely bug nuts on them with everything they've got. As a result, they are the perfect way to spoil an alien ambush. And now that I have three Psionics with the mind control ability, taking over an entire trio has now become my usual opening move.

The main concern I have with using mind control is that the experience mechanism seems only to reward kills. And if your successful use of mind control results in your subject becoming a martyr in defense of the Earth, you don't seem to get any experience at all. It won't matter once they get to colonel level, but I have four troopers that need to get up to the level cap (two Lt. Assaults, two Maj. Snipers) before I feel comfortable taking down the Overlord craft.

You are going to find the final mission a cakewalk...

Moggy wrote:

You are going to find the final mission a cakewalk...

It was rather anticlimactic for me. At the very end...

Spoiler:

I triggered the boss with one of my heavies who was the first one to tiptoe into the boss chamber. Name of boss: Uber Ethereal. Really Firaxis? You couldn't come up with anything better than that? The boss hopped to the side off his platform, and at the same time got shot in the head because my squadsight sniper way back at the door could see him. I moved the heavy into cover as his second action. Then moved the rest of my team closer, all cloaked, all in cover with no vision of the enemies. New turn. Select heavy, fire a rocket at the place where I saw the boss move. (I still have no vision and can't see any enemies, this is a blind shot) Boom. MISSION COMPLETE. That's right, the one rocket destroyed ALL OF THE ENEMIES in a single hit.

The mission ended SO FAST that the boss's dialog got cut off in mid stride and the ending cinematic bugged out and had no music or sound. Except for the voices which seemed like they were being spoken into an empty cave. Way to go Firaxis. AAA performance.

That's an annoying bug for sure. You could maybe just Youtube the ending?

Duoae wrote:
anyone wrote:

To protest against the lack of mod support (and enforcement against it) I will not buy the DLC, at least until it goes on sale ;)

wait, they are taking action against modders?

Things like putting all values from ini files that could be changed in the demo inside the exe.
Contacting their server to download certain files so you could not used your modded ones (probably to protect achievements and multiplayer)
Using the Unreal upk format with a secret extension that avoids working easily with the files

Still the mod community has done amazing things, but most involved modifying the exe which in this era makes no sense. Also coming from Firaxis awesome mod support for Civ I was really expecting a different scenario.

Enough rant, it is just that it makes no sense to me, the worst thing is that they call this way of launching a game a success when it could have been so much better.

CEJ wrote:
cej wrote:

A bunch of stuff about sectopods

After much deliberation (and prayer) I sort of have a handle on these:

  • a couple of assault troopers with move and fire and rapid fire skills can close and drop some hate
  • knowing what to look for on the area attack is key (the tell is pretty obvious if you pay attention). Also, if you kill it after it sets the area attack (attack occurs after your next turn), then the attack doesn't happen.
  • I have not been able to pull this off yet, but a snipe with the disabling shot skill supposedly can (a) hurt it and (b) keep it from taking its shot with the primary weapon (i.e.: of the three I have ran into, I have lost three XCOM troopers; 2 rookies and a corporal)
  • Heavies with the HEAP skill mess these things up. However, they need to get close or around their flanks.

I borrowed my strategy for dealing with Sectopods from Mel Brooks:

Knight jumps the queen.
Bishop jumps the queen.
Pawns jump the queen.
GANGBANG!

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the experience system works? Do your troopers get experience, for instance, for contributing damage, successful psionic attacks, and/or stunning/hacking an enemy? Or are "kills" the only things that count? Also, are all "kills" the same?

I can't imagine that killing a sectopod would be equal to killing the drone next to it.

Game number 47 won, on classic ironman.

It feels like the difficulty changes are less of an issue in the later game. The first three months are definitely the hardest part on classic, but I feel like if you can keep getting satellites up and cope with all the new aliens up to mutons, you can do okay.

I was also using a policy of "abort any game if it goes bad and doesn't look like there's a way to recover", which is all too common in the first month on classic difficulty.

Paleocon wrote:

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the experience system works?

As far as I can tell, experience is rewarded for killshots and completed missions. I have never seen anyone gain more than one promotion per mission, but I don't know if it's actually capped.

Tamren wrote:
Moggy wrote:

You are going to find the final mission a cakewalk...

It was rather anticlimactic for me. At the very end...

Spoiler:

I triggered the boss with one of my heavies who was the first one to tiptoe into the boss chamber. Name of boss: Uber Ethereal. Really Firaxis? You couldn't come up with anything better than that? The boss hopped to the side off his platform, and at the same time got shot in the head because my squadsight sniper way back at the door could see him. I moved the heavy into cover as his second action. Then moved the rest of my team closer, all cloaked, all in cover with no vision of the enemies. New turn. Select heavy, fire a rocket at the place where I saw the boss move. (I still have no vision and can't see any enemies, this is a blind shot) Boom. MISSION COMPLETE. That's right, the one rocket destroyed ALL OF THE ENEMIES in a single hit.

The mission ended SO FAST that the boss's dialog got cut off in mid stride and the ending cinematic bugged out and had no music or sound. Except for the voices which seemed like they were being spoken into an empty cave. Way to go Firaxis. AAA performance.

Spoiler:

If you kill the ethereal, all of the other enemies in the room die instantly. So your rocket probably only got the boss, but was good enough to get the job done.

Itsatrap wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the experience system works?

As far as I can tell, experience is rewarded for killshots and completed missions. I have never seen anyone gain more than one promotion per mission, but I don't know if it's actually capped.

Hmm. Are stun "kills" considered kills? Do area effect kills count as kills? And if you blow up an explosive alien (e.g.: cyberdisk, sectopod, drone) and it kills another alien, does that count?

It seems to me that the most effective way to advance troopers is to use colonels to "soften up" enemies and finish them off with troops that have not hit the level cap.

Also. Has anyone here ever gotten a perfect score on an alien terror mission? I consistently rate excellent now with my Uber Death Squads(tm) but the best I have managed to do has been 17/18 civilians saved.

Paleocon wrote:

Also. Has anyone here ever gotten a perfect score on an alien terror mission? I consistently rate excellent now with my Uber Death Squads(tm) but the best I have managed to do has been 17/18 civilians saved.

Yep, I actually managed to do it on my very first Terror mission in a Normal campaign.

IMAGE(http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/1135164277640494071/7F0423FAAF3877FB77F58D31D727CCA565791A53/)

In the very first turn I somehow triggered all the aliens and they rushed my soldiers. I was able to soften up the Chrysalids before they reached my assault who had the that close combat perk so everytime one ran up, he automatically put them down. And the floaters all concentrated fire on my soldiers even though there were lots of civilians around. For some reason they appeared to ignore them once I was engaged with them. It was all over in just a few turns.

I imagine it would be pretty near impossible to do on Classic.

Unfortunately, I am so late in the game now that alien terror missions usually have between 12 and 18 aliens and they always include at least one sectopod and a combination of bugs, muton elites, and heavy floaters.

I guess one way to deal with them would be to rush forward whilst cloaked and mind control a whole mess of them the next turn. This would buy a little time while they deal with the chaos.

MoonDragon wrote:
CEJ wrote:
cej wrote:

A bunch of stuff about sectopods

After much deliberation (and prayer) I sort of have a handle on these:

  • a couple of assault troopers with move and fire and rapid fire skills can close and drop some hate
  • knowing what to look for on the area attack is key (the tell is pretty obvious if you pay attention). Also, if you kill it after it sets the area attack (attack occurs after your next turn), then the attack doesn't happen.
  • I have not been able to pull this off yet, but a snipe with the disabling shot skill supposedly can (a) hurt it and (b) keep it from taking its shot with the primary weapon (i.e.: of the three I have ran into, I have lost three XCOM troopers; 2 rookies and a corporal)
  • Heavies with the HEAP skill mess these things up. However, they need to get close or around their flanks.

I borrowed my strategy for dealing with Sectopods from Mel Brooks:

Knight jumps the queen.
Bishop jumps the queen.
Pawns jump the queen.
GANGBANG!

This may be the best application of Mel Brooks to a strategy situation that I've ever seen! Bravo sir, Bravo.

Okay. The uber squad is just about ready. My snipers made colonel last night after a series of snappy craft raids. My assaults have a little left to go but are advancing quickly. One is a major. The other a captain.

The snipers are the only ones not at the top of the psionic skill tree. It seems a little harder getting psi kills when your MO is to pop your enemies from across town using squad sight.

The escorted the Argentine scientist mission was a psi killfest as thin men are both weakwilled and physically fragile. And the combo of six psionic troopers with either ghost or archangel armour pretty much meant I could count on three psi kills per turn.

Paleocon wrote:

Also. Has anyone here ever gotten a perfect score on an alien terror mission? I consistently rate excellent now with my Uber Death Squads(tm) but the best I have managed to do has been 17/18 civilians saved.

I really have no idea, because I cared so little about saving civilians.

Operation Hot Hawk...

I wonder if Operation Hot Mother is one the random name generator will put together.

IMAGE(https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXwC9BXEpPD55R9KWGKCqgSVa8rCsu8vhIotwczSHR_ftoTKV76w)

Itsatrap wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Does anyone know how the mechanics of the experience system works?

As far as I can tell, experience is rewarded for killshots and completed missions. I have never seen anyone gain more than one promotion per mission, but I don't know if it's actually capped.

It's possible to earn two promotions from the same battle.

Is there any penalty for not completing a council build request? I no longer need any scientists, money, or engineers since I am pretty well flush with all of that. And though I have plenty of raw materials for making the plasma rifles that Nigeria wants to use to commit acts of ethnic cleansing or the Arc Throwers that Argentina says they need for political re-education, I sort of feel bad for sending them.

Nope, no penalties for those little provide X number of rifles to this country type of requests if you don't do them.

I really look forward to you completing the game and seeing your final stats screens. I think you may have a record for the longest running game. What month and year is your game in?