ysbreker

XCOM 2

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I think that might depend on what level you are playing on? My current Commander campaign even with Vulture I've only had about 4 drops in the last 8 or 9 missions, and only one of those had one core. You definitely get more at the start which tails off later in the game. And yes, I have Vulture - it was my second unlock after the squad size increase. 

Yeah I can only speak for veteran. Didn't even know the drops were less common on higher difficulties.

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might I recommend picking up vulture asap to get swimmin in cores+weapon upgrades

Yeah, I didn't see the use at the time, but now I really wish I'd picked it up early.

Edit: *Sigh* It is now getting pretty obvious that I'm outclassed by most fights now. I wouldn't mind starting over again, but man each and every mission just takes so long.

Edit2: I just defeated the Gatekeeper. Can anyone give me an idea of what a "good" income would be at this point? I'm starting to wonder if that's where I failed.

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Yeah I can only speak for veteran. Didn't even know the drops were less common on higher difficulties.

Last night I did a supply raid. It gave me 8 cores......

I think it might need smoothing out a little!!

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I had a corrupted save on the final mission! I beat it anyway; it actually benefited me, having to revert.

 

Anyway, the game's done on Veteran. The plot was dumb as hell after the first hour or so (I've decided that Firaxis' writers generally have no handle on good stakes in fiction, about on par with late-era Blizzard, and that the XCOM games bring this out into the open even more than the disappointing writing in Civilization: Beyond Earth) but the ending cinematic was actually quite excellent... except...

A "terror from the deep" expansion got teased very explicitly. I don't know how I feel about that, not at all.

 

I'd been dying to know what was in that spoiler for two weeks.  Now I know!  Final mission finally done.  It's certainly tougher and more climactic than I remember EU's end being. 

 

I've only messed around with original X-com a couple of hours total, I've generally found it to be just too dated for me to take the time to learn all its systems. And I've never touched Terror from the Deep. So I don't know that I mind retreads given that it would all be new territory to me.

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The original X-Com is tolerable with the Open X-Com mod, but really Xenonauts captures the feeling quite nicely.

I started over and I'm already getting half the income I had and I'm only in the second month. I think I understand what I'm supposed to be doing better this time.

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Regarding the ending of XCOM 2...

 

I didn't read it as a hint for the next game. I just thought it was Firaxis lightly trolling the players. At any rate, I laughed pretty loudly when I watched it.

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Regarding the ending of XCOM 2...

 

I didn't read it as a hint for the next game. I just thought it was Firaxis lightly trolling the players. At any rate, I laughed pretty loudly when I watched it.

 

I took it as a hint towards a possible sequel, though not by any means one that they would fee obligated to follow if they came up with a better idea (given how they threw the "ending" of a successful campaign out the window with 2.  I would think that going to a third game in this iteration would require something new though, a further retread of the alien forces and strategic layer we know I think might start feeling stale with a third game.  And with the mod support they've delivered, 2 can continue to grow and evolve as a game people play for years while they take the game in a new direction.

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Started up a CommIronman run this evening, and decided to activate a few mods.  I was tempted to do some content mods like the SMGs, but ultimately decided I still wanted to play it straight for another run.

 

Stop Wasting My Time - Fucking brill, makes me wonder why the little dramatic pauses were ever there in the first place

Evac All Button - Fucking brill

Overwatch All Button - Fucking brill

Bob Ross Voice Pack - Meh, mildly amusing for a mission, but I'll probably turn it off next time I play, it's just kinda weird and distracting. 

 

I already like how much more desperate each fight feels.  I'm the worst at enforcing Ironman type play on myself, so even with the risk of a corrupt save, it's still a better way to play to stop me from trying to save soldiers and force me to play carefully to deal with the consequences of my actions. 

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Started up a CommIronman run this evening, and decided to activate a few mods. I was tempted to do some content mods like the SMGs, but ultimately decided I still wanted to play it straight for another run.

Stop Wasting My Time - Fucking brill, makes me wonder why the little dramatic pauses were ever there in the first place

Evac All Button - Fucking brill

Overwatch All Button - Fucking brill

Bob Ross Voice Pack - Meh, mildly amusing for a mission, but I'll probably turn it off next time I play, it's just kinda weird and distracting.

I already like how much more desperate each fight feels. I'm the worst at enforcing Ironman type play on myself, so even with the risk of a corrupt save, it's still a better way to play to stop me from trying to save soldiers and force me to play carefully to deal with the consequences of my actions.

I'm exactly the same. I'm doing the final mission at the moment on my Commander play through and yeah, it's tough. Save scumming ahoy at the moment.

As for the mods - I've been using the SMG mod and to be honest it doesn't make that much difference I don't think. The extra movement doesn't pay off well for the lose of damage from the SMG. Mind you I'm probably just playing my rangers all wrong.

The evac all, overwatch all and Stop wasting my time mods though - surely these are going to patched into the game soon?

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Decided to try this game out after all, and so far I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I have completed three proper missions on normal, and have managed to avoid casualties (with minor save scumming). My biggest concern was that since most of the missions now have some sort of a timer, I would be forced play way too recklessly for my tastes. So far this has not been the case, and I have completed the missions with many turns still left without taking too many unnecessary risks. I had to get rid of my overcareful move-overwatch-move-overwatch routine of the previous game, though. How brutal does the timer get later on?

 

You were right about the between missions stuff being completely overwhelming at first. I've done some reading on how to proceed with research and so on, but there are just so many things to take into account. Oh well, I guess I will figure out what I should have done eventually.

 

The performance is quite sketchy at times, but I haven't encountered any serious bugs yet. There is definitely some weird dead time during battles, though. Hopefully the Stop Wasting My Time mod fixes at least some of that while waiting for the patch. Thanks for the tip!

 

There is something about the "feel" of this game (and its predecessor) that I really like. It's hard to describe what it is exactly. A sort of well-oiled gun feel of the movement and action perhaps.

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I wish the stop wasting my time mod worked for me, but if anything it made the performance of the game even worse on my machine. :-(

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I think I experienced a really nasty bug tonight, anyone else seen anything like this?  All my research and build timers reset from their current time to their original build time. 

 

I had just looked at a bunch of my stuff, and was just 1 day out from a supply drop.  Gauss Weapons were going to finish researching just seconds after the Supply Drop.  The PsiLab was going to get built about 3 days after that.  And a Skulljack was at like 4 days in the proving grounds.  After going through the summary screen for how the month went with council dude, I looked back at my build queue and Gauss Weapons were at 7 days (original time), Skulljack was at 7 days (original time) and PsiLab was back to something like 9 days (not original time).  I also had the timer for clearing debris off an Elerium power thingy reset, though I don't remember the exact numbers (which super blows since it is the longest excavation).  This all hurt really bad, since I should have had my Gauss weapons going into my next fight, but I didn't, and things went to hell.  Squad got it done, but everyone was Wounded with multiple Gravely Wounded. 

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Lots of save scumming ahead to make sure that she never dies...

2016-03-03_00001.jpg

 

I still have no idea what I should be doing in the map view, and if, for example, I can somehow hire more engineers.

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I still have no idea what I should be doing in the map view, and if, for example, I can somehow hire more engineers.

 

Engineers will come as rewards for a small number of missions, they can be bought for supplies from your base (you have to fly there and click the button next to it if you haven't realized there's a store there) or from the Black Market for Intel.  Those are the only ways to get more of them.  Buying them for Intel is better than buying them for supplies, imo.

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I'm six missions in and I have only one engineer. I got a message about engineers and scientists being available for recruiting, but couldn't figure out where I was supposed to hire them, although I went through every room in my flying base thing. Having to fly over your non-flying base thing to recruit staff seems a bit random. Will the black market open up later on or am I just missing it as well?

 

Also when should I do the first alien facility mission (or whatever it is called.. that red one)?

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I don't know what the condition for the Market appearing is, if it's time, research, Intel quantity or what, but it should be showing up very soon for you if you've done six missions.  It will show up on the map as a place you have to explore (kill 5 days sitting on the ground next to it), and after that it will be permanently available to visit. 

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So is right side of grenadier tree straight up inferior?  Grenadiers have pretty poor aim but more than that, you can bring so much grenades that I have yet to run a mission where I have to fight a pod without bunch of grenades to shred armor and deal aoe damage.

 

I really want to make use of machine gunner themed grenadier but man grenade spamming is just so good.

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If you are struggling getting engineers in the early to mid game it is totally worth building a workshop in a middle square in the base building section. The workshop gets some drones that get to act as bonus engineers. I would prioritize something like that over a foundry.

 

Once you have some power armor you should be in good enough shape to take on the first alien facility mission I think.

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So is right side of grenadier tree straight up inferior?  Grenadiers have pretty poor aim but more than that, you can bring so much grenades that I have yet to run a mission where I have to fight a pod without bunch of grenades to shred armor and deal aoe damage.

 

I really want to make use of machine gunner themed grenadier but man grenade spamming is just so good.

 

Man I don't agree with that at all. Shredding enemy armor is way more important than having a bonus point of armor (and explosive damage is too infrequent to prioritize). Supression and demolition are both kinda good, I wouldn't prioritize one over the other. Holo targeting is supremely useful though, it just makes the rest of your team better. If you combine that skill with a weapon upgrade that gives the grenadier a chance at a 2nd action you can sometimes holo target two enemies, and that can turn a really bad fight into a fight where suddenly you have an overwhelming advantage (personally experienced this, not just speculating here).

 

I definitely think salvo is way beter than hail of bullets though.

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Man I don't agree with that at all. Shredding enemy armor is way more important than having a bonus point of armor (and explosive damage is too infrequent to prioritize). Supression and demolition are both kinda good, I wouldn't prioritize one over the other. Holo targeting is supremely useful though, it just makes the rest of your team better. If you combine that skill with a weapon upgrade that gives the grenadier a chance at a 2nd action you can sometimes holo target two enemies, and that can turn a really bad fight into a fight where suddenly you have an overwhelming advantage (personally experienced this, not just speculating here).

 

I definitely think salvo is way beter than hail of bullets though.

 

My take on all the skills are:

 

I think Salvo just ends up making an explosives build the far superior one, if it didn't exist I'd be more prone to agree with you.  My heavies are mostly for knocking down cover and softening up targets for others to finish off.  I think the explosives tree favors that role better. 

 

Shredding is absolutely better than Blast Protection though, in every way.  Shredding is also in the pool for other units to pick up!  My sniper just got it in my current playthrough, which is rad as fuck. 

 

Demolition vs Suppression is kinda a coinflip, though ultimately I value Suppression more as a way to pin down the occasional troublesome target we don't have any way to take out in a round. 

 

Salvo lets you fire twice in a round, but only if a heavy weapon or grenade is fired first.  This is a massive increase to the devastation a Heavy can bring to bear.  Hail of Bullets just can't hold a candle to an ability that lets a unit do a double attack 3-4 times a mission.

 

Heavy Ordinance lets you get a double shot off an extra time during a mission, that, to me, is more valuable than the Holo-Targeting bonus.  By late game, my snipers and Rangers were my units to finish off things, and there were very few times where they needed an extra +15 to do that.  That said, it is potentially more value in the early to mid game before you have a variety of aim bonuses to bring into play.  I think another reason Holo-Targeting fails for me is that my Heavies are either my first units to fire, because they're using grenades to destroy cover or my last units to fire because they are using Suppression to pin down an enemy the rest of the squad couldn't finish off.  Holo-Targeting just doesn't end up playing well with their turn in the firing order generally, for me.

 

Volatile Mix is a fixed increase in damage on an unmissable attack, which is one of the things I value heavies for.  Sometimes you just want to know that, no matter what, you're going to do a certain amount of damage.  It also increases the average damage per attack by making it even more likely to get an extra one or two enemies within the AoE of the explosion.  The AI seems to try and space themselves to keep units from being with the base Grenadier explosion radius, so bumping that up breaks part of their tactics. Plus even more cover destruction.  Yah!   Chain shot is only valuable if the first shot hits, and it is against an enemy who needs two shots from a Heavy to kill it in the first place. 

 

Saturation Fire vs Rupture is a coinfip.  Rupture can show up on other classes thanks to the Advanced Warfare place, and it is FUCKING GODLY when a Sniper or Ranger gets it.  But it's hard to argue with the multiple target damage that SatFire can do in the right situation. 

 

 

 

 

Of course, my personal bias is I really love making things go boom.  If I had enough, I'd be tempted to run a mission with all heavies just to make all the things explode.

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Yeah, those are fair points. To be clear, it isn't that I think the ordinance path is bad, but there are a lot of things from the machine gunner path that I really like. I don't prioritize grenades as heavily in my play style because I tend to favor raw damage output, and that's the one things grenades don't provide. Volatile mix is really good, and chain shot seems underwhelming by comparison, except for some of the larger mech units in the later game (that are hard to miss since they are large targets) and that is when chain shot becomes a god-like ability. Situational though, granted.

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Man, I definitely am seeing you guys talk about some stuff I barely touched during my first big play. I really need to examine what I'm doing on the strategic layer.

 

 

Decided to try this game out after all, and so far I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I have completed three proper missions on normal, and have managed to avoid casualties (with minor save scumming). My biggest concern was that since most of the missions now have some sort of a timer, I would be forced play way too recklessly for my tastes. So far this has not been the case, and I have completed the missions with many turns still left without taking too many unnecessary risks. I had to get rid of my overcareful move-overwatch-move-overwatch routine of the previous game, though. How brutal does the timer get later on?

 

The timer is an ever-present stress. It is especially bad in terror missions (which don't have a timer up top, but still have a time limit of a sort.) If there's one change from XCOM:EW that's most notable, it's this. I think it's a better game for it, but it does definitely take getting used to.

 

 

So is right side of grenadier tree straight up inferior?  Grenadiers have pretty poor aim but more than that, you can bring so much grenades that I have yet to run a mission where I have to fight a pod without bunch of grenades to shred armor and deal aoe damage.
 
I really want to make use of machine gunner themed grenadier but man grenade spamming is just so good.

 

The most notable advantage that the gunner tree has over the grenadier tree, it is still useful when you are out of grenades. It does happen, I've gotten into a couple of long fights where I've completely used up all my consumables. I mean look at some of those screenshots up higher in the thread. I think one of them had 40 alien kills on it?

I usually keep one skilled gunner, and then send the rest up the explosives tree.

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I mean look at some of those screenshots up higher in the thread. I think one of them had 40 alien kills on it?

 

That's a good point, in the final mission, which is the longest mission, my heavy was out of 'nades halfway through.  The machine gun path would have ended up being the far more valuable path for that mission alone, and might be worth considering making one machine gun specialist specifically for it and maybe a couple of other potentially really long missions. 

 

 

 

I'm curious how y'all build your specialists, as that's the tree that has almost no bad choices in my opinion.  My default has become a hybrid of both combat and medic, but specializing in one or the other is really good too. 

 

Medical vs Combat Protocols - Both good, remote healing allows for an extra heal and allows for a lot more flexibility in movement since you don't have to put two units next to one another.  But Combat protocol once it starts doing 4 damage to organics (eventually 6) is magical, since it is a guaranteed hit at very long range, perfect for finishing off wounded enemies at no risk (you do not need gun line of sight to use Combat Protocol, which is an easy thing to overlook, I've used it before where I did not have a shot on an enemy) . 

 

Revival vs Haywire Protocols - Again, both good.  Having someone knocked unconcoius is a nightmare on a timed mission, where you then may have to pick them up and lose another person's attacks to carry them.  But Haywire is a lifesaver just for knocking that Sectopod out for a round even if you don't take the risk of trying to take it over. 

 

Field Medic vs Scanning - Scanning is okay, but its hard to argue against 2 extra heals.  I did run one specialist last game who didn't carry a medkit, but ultimately I think Field Medic is the best call in almost all situations. 

 

Covering Fire vs Threat Assessment - Both are good, Threat Assessment is amazing for giving a ranger or sniper Overwatch after they've already fired.  Covering Fire pairs well with the Specialists Guerilla school passive and both of the next two options though. Threat Assessment stacks with someone who is already on Overwatch, and stacks with Guardian if used on a Specilaist with it (I havne't tried this, but it is what the wiki says, I was double checking it to see if there was anything I didn't understand about these abilities). 

 

Ever Vigilant vs Guardian - Ever Vigilant is great, and I've had it show up on two non-Specialists and love it.  Guardian won't come into play as often, but is potentially lifesaving and I did see it proc a few times in my previous playthrough.  Both pair well with Covering Fire and the GTS passive.  I think Ever Vigilant gets the nod though, especially useful on timed missions when you need to advance quickly.

 

Restoration vs Capacitor Discharge -  Eeeerrggghhh, these are both so fucking good.  Restoration can save a squad wipe.   Capacitor can single handedly turn the tables in a bad encounter. 

 

I really don't have a set combination I love yet.  

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Though I haven't gotten all the way up the specialist tree, on this playthough I've been running with two specialists in every mission, one with all the medic skills and the other with all the hacking skills. When I tried to mix and match, I found myself getting confused which person had what, so I've stayed pretty rigid.

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I did that all the way up until I had a good Psychonaut.  At that point, I started running more or less this squad:

Ranger - Non-stealth options (blade, run-n-gun, etc)

Heavy - Explosives

Sniper - Sniper tree

Specialist - Hybrid

Psychonaut

 

And the 6th slot would go to whatever I felt was most valuable for the mission, but more often than not it was my Pistol Sniper with Bluescreen ammo to finish off weakened enemies and murderize the fuck out of robots.  Bluescreen Ammo + her triple shot is so fucking good against robots.

 

 

 

 

Edited to add: I am very disappointed someone hasn't made a mod yet to be able and skin Psi soldiers as Raz. 

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