Pissed about an X-Com FPS? Firaxis hears ya...

[Polysorbate80]

The bomb disposal missions are easy as fuck, or am I missing something ?

They force you to keep moving forward instead of baiting the aliens back towards you.  That + thin men + squishy low-rank squadmembers = dead squaddies (at least for me.)   After the first month, yeah, they're easy as fuck.

I've learned to compensate by taking along at least one sacrificial rookie to eat enemy reaction shots.  I even name him "Redshirt"

He did live once--the thin man on overwatch missed, and then every squadmember missed his/her shot.  The aliens then decided to murder my support instead.

[koro]

The difficulty of bomb disarm mission is almost directly tied to how far along in the game you are. If you get one as your first Council mission in late April? You're probably kinda hosed. If you get it in late May or early June when you're maybe rocking better gear? Not so bad.

Also some maps are far easier for bomb disposal than others.

[Trippy]

I've only had to do 3 bomb disposal missions so far but they've all been pretty easy cause there are plenty of opportunities to deactivate power sources along the way. So I never felt really rushed. This is on Normal diff.

[koro]

It didn't help that my first bomb disposal mission was in the big huge wide-open graveyard map, which is a shitty map for it.

[Polysorbate80]

Yeah, that's the only bomb disposal I've actually totally failed.  My closest squadmember was about two move short of being able to reach & deactivate the bomb before the counter ran down, and everyone else was out of move from failing to shoot thin men.

Which also meant that he was too far away to get back out to the extraction point in the three-round time you have to run for it  

[Goumindong]

The difficulty of bomb disarm mission is almost directly tied to how far along in the game you are. If you get one as your first Council mission in late April? You're probably kinda hosed. If you get it in late May or early June when you're maybe rocking better gear? Not so bad.

Also some maps are far easier for bomb disposal than others.

Bomb disarms on classic and below aren't too bad depending on the map. If you get it early you will actually face some sectoids rather than all thin men... which is a saving grace for a first mission.

However, on impossible difficulty i cannot see them going well at all.

[Merusk]

I had a bomb disposal as my first council mission on my first game, Classic Difficulty.  It wasn't hard at all, BUT it was the railway map.  That one's a lot easier because of the few places the game has to place the timers and the short lines of sight.

Plus I wasn't afraid to use grenades and missiles.  Fuck those thinmen & sectoid corpses, living is my priority!

[eldaec]

But ... but ... while explosives are very effective at killing aliens, they also destroy the artifacts vee arr trying to recover.

Just something to consider, commander.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, I usually tell the good doctor to "get fucked" when she says that.

[lamaros]

I find the game pretty repayable in general, however it could be much more so if they fixed a few things.

I wish there was a way to turn all the npc voices and camera hijacking off permanently. And I wish the tactical game had an 'aliens as as revealed from map start' mode. I am sick of the 'reveal and kill' method - its somewhat easy to cheese.

I won't expect any possibility of such things until an expansion though, which is a ways away.

[Shannow]

Shannow's XCOM Rule no. 1: If you are only going to have one person carry a medkit it is a guarantee he will be the first and only person the aliens will shoot at.

And down goes my Support major.

[eldaec]

I was kind of disappointed when I found there is no way to loot a dead body for that exact reason.

[Shannow]

I was kind of disappointed when I found there is no way to loot a dead body for that exact reason.

[HaemishM]

I had more reason to be thankful I'm not running Classic Ironman anymore. Got into a terror mission in Argentina that was apparently at some military base (shittons of tanks sitting around). Did all right at first, a team of 5 with 1 rookie and a squadsight sniper. Started saving civvies, but kept hearing the screams of other civvies getting eaten. Funneled myself into a corridor with tanks on either side and no baddies in sight - at least until the zombies started appearing. RETREAT!!!! RETREAT!!!! Between the zombies and Chrysallids pouring down the corridor, I got overrun, especially when my rookie got eaten by the chrysallid that sprouted from a zombie I'd waited one turn too long to kill. It all snowballed after that, as the rookie came back to life all zombiefied.

So I said FUCK THIS and reloaded, skipping that terror mission. Yeah, I lost South America but fuck them. Then I got a small scout landing site mission and cleared it, losing only my Cpl. level sniper. Killed everything on the map, but for some reason, it wouldn't end the mission. I searched every corner of the map but couldn't find that last alien to kill. Had to abandon the damn mission but at least I got the salvage and the experience.

[eldaec]

I know the one you mean. Fuck that map.

I think the best you can do is stay turtled outside that corridor and kill the zombies as they approach. As soon as you enter the corridor you get fucked unless you have flying snipers and similar.

[lamaros]

Just stagger your units behind the tanks and retreat back as they come. I've had that map heaps and never lost a unit on it, even when rescuing only 4 civs.

The trick to terror missions is to ignore all the crap the devs said about having to play aggressively. Play as normal and just save the rockets for any oh shit moments.

[Ingmar]

There seems very little upside to actually rescuing people.

[Megrim]

There seems to be some correlation between the number of civvies saved and the amount by which the Panic Level drops. I could be wrong though.

[lamaros]

Some. IIRC you get an 'excellent' for 13/18+, a good for 7/18+, and a poor for anything else. Even just getting a poor will lower it though. And you rarely need to get anything more than a simple lowering, purely because of how the strategy layer 'works' (Jake said he had a lot of trouble getting the strategy layer to work, and it's unfortunately clear).

[koro]

I believe Excellent ratings for civilian survival net you 2 panic reduction for the country and 1 for the continent, Good gets you 1 panic reduction for both country and continent, Poor gets you 1 for the country and none for the continent, and rescuing none gets you no panic reduction at all (but no increase; it's a wash).

[Ironwood]

Terror Mission in Glasgow and there were tanks everywhere.

Where exactly in Glasgow are these aliens landing ?

[apocrypha]

Terror Mission in Glasgow and there were tanks everywhere.

Where exactly in Glasgow are these aliens landing ?

Drumchapel.

[Tebonas]

In the Tank Battalion competence center for the New Scottish Republic of course. Duh!

[Ironwood]

I only ask because if they get it wrong and land in Springburn I'll have to go an rescue the Chrysalids.

[DraconianOne]

Had an abduction mission in Leeds. Didn't recognise the location at first but after I'd levelled most of it with grenades and rocket launchers it started to look a little more familiar. 

[Ironwood]

Got Psionics last night (damn, though, that it's random) and crushing a sectoids head WITH YOUR MIND is everything it ought to be.

The random bit annoyed me because I skipped ahead and my Sniper was a Mentlar and when I reloaded fresh the next day, he wasn't, my assault was.  Yes, it's better for an Assault to be a Psi, I guess, but my Sniper is my Captain Cool, so I wanted him to be Mr Special.

I'm also kinda glad and kinda sad to see that of 15 sojer boys, only 2 actually have a gift.  That's....realistically low.

[Jeff Kelly]

I love this game rather much. It has led to only getting 4 hours of sleep for the last week.

It has the same draw as the original XCOM or TFTD but it is a diferent game. This doesn't make it worse at least for me. They kept enough "XCOM-ness" that I liken it and they removed a lot of things from the originals that just simulated tactical and stretegical depth but were more of a bother or tedious work.

Fighting against Etherials, Sectopods, Chrysalids and the lot feels like a real thrill even on normal.

I especially like the idea with the nicknames, I grow quite attached to my soldiers over time.

There are a few things I rather dislike though.

Enemy surprise round/overwatch mechanic. They should have gone with the original and included a more sophisticated game mechanic for "saving actions for surprise rounds".

On the one hand I don't like that I don't get a bonus move to sprint to cover when aliens surprise me, on the other the overwatch mechanic is kinda flawed.

Overwatch can both be brilliant but also utterly useless when your whole squad decides that it wants to shoot the poor floater instead of the huge sectopod just because the floater moved first and the sectopod was lucky enough to move around the corner second.

It also means that you can't ever surprise aliens because they implemented the scatter/run for cover mechanic to prevent "reveal aliens and nuke them from orbit" style gameplay.

They should have made overwatch an interrupt where you then can choose certain actions but not to make that choice for you.

Then I could decide whether or not I wanted to take a shot (and who takes it) or whether or not I want to do something else instead like running to different cover. Make it so that only select actions are possible during overwatch/surprise rounds (take a standard shot, move x squares/activate certain abilities) and not others that would break the game/take too long (like using the rocket launcher).

Give the aliens the same option. Limit what they choose/what they can do depending on the difficulty level. On easy and normal difficulty aliens could behave exactly like they do now (scatter and run for cover) or they could decide to move normally and then they'd be in the open with their pants down when you reveal  them.

On harder difficulties they could have more options if they select overwatch/surpise. This change would be offset by the fact that you too can do more and different things during overwatch.

It would also give you more tactical options during combat and it would make the experience more diverse.

For a "one use only" item the rocket launcher has a ridiculous range. That thing should be flying in a straight line until it hits something (obstacles, civilians, aliens, unfortunate squad members).

As it is now heavies have very limited utility. Their aim is crap, even compared to a supporter and their weapons have a very limited range. You also get the replacement for the rocket launcher (blaster launcher) so late in the game that it really doesn't matter any more.

Right now I'd rather take a S.H.I.V. on a mission than a heavy. If they use the LMG or heavy plasma they miss a lot (which makes even holo targeting of limited usability) and the few times I could have really used the rocket launcher the intended target is out of range even though the heavy can see it and I could shoot at it with normal guns. Making it so that you can't move and use the rocket launcher does make it even worse.

A sniper with ghost or archangel armor, squad sight and in the zone or double tap is a god compared to the "spray and pray" approach of my heavies and even my veteran field medic has more kills.

The alien upgrades to the standard base facilities are mostly useless. By the time you have the resources to build them you already have built enough of the normal base facilities and replacing old facilities with upgraded ones seldom makes sense. There is also at least one standard base facility that has no purpose (laboratory).

Why should I buy a $300 elerium generator that costs me precious alien artifacts more useful for weapons, armor or firestorms if three thermal generators provide enough power for my needs? Also by the time I can build a satellite nexus I should have most if not all of my satellites in orbit already or I will have to deal with serious global panic (especially on classic and over).

Channeling those resources into weapon and armor manufacture, building firestorms and foundry projects is much more useful.

[DraconianOne]

Laboratories become more useful later on as an easy and relatively cheap way of reducing research time. 2 labs will cost 250 credits (or 125 with Europe bonus). You only need 5 scientists throughout the whole game but research will be very slow - doubling the number of your scientists will halve time taken. So by the time you have 20 scientists, it'll take either 20 more scientists or 2 adjacent labs to improve the speed by 50%.

Example:

Time taken to research Titan armour:

5 scientists, 0 labs, 0 research credit = 80 days
10 scientists, 0 labs, 0 RC = 40 days
20 scientists, 0 labs, 0 RC = 20 days
40 scientists, 0 labs, 0 RC = 10 days
or
20 scientists, 2 adjacent labs, 0 RC = 10 days
20 scientists, 2 adjacent labs, 1 RC = 5 day

But yeah, I only ended up building one lab late in the game and that was purely because I had cash to burn and to get the achievement.

[Ironwood]

Not so much.  Scientist grow naturally anyway and by the time you 'need' investment into Labs, you'll have more than enough scientists and perks that 8 days should be the maximum research time anyway, so why bother cutting that shit down any ?

I actually agree that the Lab is something I haven't bought at all in my current playthrough and it's a waste of time.

I agree with the overwatch criticisms.  There's nothing worse than watching 4 soldiers pulp the same alien and then 3 others get off Scot-Free.  Even an 'initiative' marker would help enormously.  Simultaneous fire just wastes the soldiers time.

(Also, Ghost armor is your friend if you wanna take aliens by surprise.)

[lamaros]

Heavies are the difference between success and failure on the hardest difficulty level. They are really good. My heavy only got overtaken for most kills after the sniper picked up double tap, and even then it was close. On easier difficulties heavies probably aren't as useful because... The game is easy and doesn't balance on the edge.

All the classes are really well done in my view and are one of the best elements of the game (perks could use some work).

The alien scatter makes the game much easier. I wish it wasn't around for vastly different reasons to you Jeff.

Yes, Elerium generators and Satellite Nexuses are mostly useless. As are labs. Yes you should build a lab late game when you can spare the cash, but it is never necessary. If you get says early the science gain from the councils and research credits will make everything fast.

[Zetor]

Yeah, even on normal two heavies were a godsend. HEAT ammo and the 'shoot twice per round' perk meant lots of dead cyberdisks (and later on sectopods). Explosives are crazy useful if you have muton problems.

[Merusk]

Yeah, I can see that with the heavies.   A large part is how you build your team's perks and how you want to play.  I built my heavies as support for other shooters.  Making them the main shooters for late-game would require a different build but would have made them much more the focus of my team than the assaults & supports were.

Support + movement perk + deep pockets + ghost armor getting Psionics was hilariously OP.  Run half the map ghosted, drop a psionic storm on the start of next turn and ghost to run back.  Things get ugly you have stims and a medkit for yourself.

[Jeff Kelly]

OK, so my main assault team uses 'run and gun' and the supports usually get 'sprinter'. So either I limit my movement to let the heavies catch up or make the heavies dash a lot. Dashing adds to the risk of accidentally pulling something that at least the run-and-gunning assault can shoot at or react to.

If I use run and gun and sprinter to my advantage (especially if I combine it with e.g. close combat specialist or other abilities) and limit dashing both the assaults and the supports end up in tactically advantageous positions, preferably with full cover.

If I do use those abilities however then the heavies and the snipers will usually lag behind by a few squares. This doesn't matter as much to the sniper, who has a high enough aim so that he can hit from further back and if I give them squad sight then it doesn't really limit the number of enemies they can shoot at (and usually hit, too) further.

The heavy however has a mediocre hit percentage even when he/she is up close and personal. Especially against later enemies like Muton elite, Berserker and Ethereals. If he lags even a few paces behind I end up with a hit percentage of 40% or 30% maybe even with a S.C.O.P.E.

This makes most of the perks only slightly useful because with the exception of holo targeting they require the heavy to hit something.

Mayhem, Heat Ammo and Danger Zone sound great on paper. To use those abilities to my fullest advantage however the heavy would need to hit a damn thing or at least have a rocket that has a higher range than a plasma rifle. Since both my heavies even manage to miss huge sectopods regularly, I tend to get more mileage out of my snipers which when you combine headshot with the crit bonus from ghost armor manage to kill a sectopod in a single turn anyway.

YMMV but mine at least tend to waste a lot of ammo not hitting enemies. They even manage to pull more aliens by missing since they tend to hit something explodeable on the other side of the map with their huge heavy plasma guns.

On one mission my heavy missed a shot so spectacularly that he hit the car the council guy hid behind even though it was still obscured by the fog of war. That car promptly blew up during the alien turn and blew up my chances of completing the mission.

They aren't even great at suppressing enemies since heavy suppression drains the ammo in one turn.

Maybe I'm using them wrong though

[HaemishM]

Funny enough, until my current playthrough, I thought assaults were worthless because I never got one past squaddie level. My heavies were THE BOMB though. One of them (the late Big Momma) could hit anything she fired at.

[koro]

I love my Heavies, but they can't hit shit. That 75 max Aim hurts them so badly.

My Assaults have been having shit luck recently too; lots of maps with poor cover, and no real opportunities to get "safely" close to shotgun xenos to death.