The problem with that is plasma riffles will also kill anything but secotopods if both connect and heavies with HEAT ammo take care of sectopods.

I'm still on the fence about skele's sure I want them for my snipers and maybe for one or two others, but pound for pound extra hitpoints is more important to me then movement and defense. Fast mvoement just isn't enough of a priority because your so seldom on the clock and are instead rewarded for moving methodical.

Anyone know what the actual changes from normal to classic are? Trying to understand what playstyle changes i'm going to have to make before making the jump.

Lurker... think of it this way... that 1 extra HP doesn't need to be used if you don't get hit.

Skeleton armors power is the ability not to get hit... You get defensive bonuses for high ground and cover.

That +3 movement is big for actually flanking things to remove their cover while staying in cover yourself. So that +10 normaly turns into +20-40 defense. So instead you have +3 HP and the ability to make them miss you twice as often. Damage which doesn't connect is damage you don't need to soak.



So just to use an example... I have a medic in skeleton armor... it's 1AP move range is 12... I shoot a grapple to within that move range and end up on a roof flanking the target. Now I fire... I've removed his cover. (+20 to hit for half...) I'm on high ground (+10 to hit)... so I fire and probably hit... since I've swung the odds from 50/50 to 80/20. Meanwhile if I do miss... the suit gives +10 defense... and +10 defense more for being on high ground.. despite standing in the open I have a +20 to defense as if I were standing in half cover! (if I can get to half/full cover... this can easily be +40 or +60.. snipers with the half counts as full in skeleton are almost impossible to hit on high ground).

If we're talking about an assault... run and gun now you can cover 18 instead of 12 squares... huge difference early on until you can get the power armor which actually gives +10HP.

Remember peace through superior firepower is a viable defense strategy.


Also remember the game is percentile based... if your base odds to hit are 50%... +20% moves you from 50 to 70... If the starting odds to hit are 20%... -10% from the skeleton suit changes that to 10%... halving the damage inflicted. (50% -> 40% is a 20% reduction in damage).

Actual changes I know for the early aliens. Soldiers get -1HP, Thin men get +1 HP +10 aim (which yes, with their light plasma rifles makes them BASTARDS) all aliens get +10 crit chance.

Also seems to be more aliens, initial mission i think usually has 4 aliens, now seems to have 8 more often then not.

Eight? HA! I wish there was that few! I'm surrounded by grenade-tossing Mutons more often than not!

Part of the problem with that is the more you move the more likely you are to stir a new cluster of aliens. So unless your reasonably sure your fighting the last group on the map more often then not when flanking you just seem to kick up more stuff then you would have otherwise.

This is very true. On higher difficulties your best bet is to have a support with sprinter and skeleton armor move forward, stir up aliens, and run back into the Fog of War. Then set everyone else in position and overwatch.

Pretty much my method for Muton Berserkers. They have a free move at anyone who attacked them, so you just take one shot at them while rest of the team waits on overwatch. As soon as the Berserker gets in range, BAM! his 20 HP evaporate before he manages to do anything.

One containment is all you need... I rebuilt my containment in a different spot.

Then went out with two stunbunnies... I captured a muton elite and sectoid commander alive. Both were available for research afterwards. So you don't need one containment per alien like you used to in the old days.

The most hilarious bit from yesterday's session:
Terror mission. My support accidentally stirs three Chryssalids and manages to bail out in the nick of time... leaving the team's sniper (Michael "Psycho" Sykes, plasma-wielding British bastard) just barely out of Chryssalids' range. Luckily, there are two other team members on overwatch who take out two of the Chryssalids. Around the same time, a Sectopod locks on at where the sniper is standing.
Next turn: sniper uses the Skeleton Suit's grapple to escape to a nearby roof. Two team members fail to hit the Chryssalid, standing next to a pickup truck. Suddenly, KA-FUCKING-BOOM! The pickup truck evaporates, along with the Chryssalid. Nobody from my team gets hurt. Helpful Sectopod is helpful. Mission outcome? 14 civilians saved, the whole team survived (despite my combat-oriented support getting shot by the Sectopod).

Also, on a different terror mission, I managed to save 16 civilians out of 18, while armed mostly with Light Plasma Rifles, wearing Skeleton Suits and facing a Cyberdisc and at least two Mutonserkers. My whole team survived. There was a lot of running like crazy involved, to say nothing about my sniper sneaking right under a Mutonserker's nose and running across the whole map, and it ended in an epic last stand on a restaurant's patio.
Oh, and I love the Plasma Sniper Rifle. That thing can one-shot a Muton Elite, and if the sniper happens to have the In The Zone skill while rest of the team misses often with more damaging weapons and wrecks the opponents' cover, the results are killarious. Three shots in one turn, 10 damage each, at ordinary Mutons? Bwaaahahahaha!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/file...s/?id=102487526 - Battle Sensor hunch.

One terror mission inmy last game, turn two for me .... I moved one soldier, and stirred up SIX Chrysalids (two groups of three). Thank god for excessive use of overwatch, two of them died lickety-split. However, when moving a Heavy to flank another target? Another spawn of Chrysalids. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I "woke" no less than eight chrysalids in a single frelling turn! And I didn't have any advanced armor yet!!

Two things saved me. ONE, I was playing on "easy". TWO, I had just upgraded everyone but the sniper to Laser weapons (the sniper had a laser pistol, but I was still researching Precision Lasers).

My team survived, we rescued 12/18 civilians, and killed all eight chrysalids (and the six zombies they spawned, AND three Thin Men), winning the day and earning a chance to change my underwear with a modicum of dignity. ;D

My solution is a sniper with double tap. Use the increased crit chance ability. I regularly shave off 19 or 20 hp.

--

I had a killarious mission yesterday while play. I had recently built my Hyperspace Communication Beacon, or whatever it is called, and got a V. Difficult mission. The enemy I had to deal with include 12 Sectoids. That's it. Sectoids which deal 2 damage a hit to my guys. Assaults who have around 22hp with Titan armor. Heavies and Support that have 20hp. Snipers that have 14hp. I had fun on this mission.

I also have gotten 4 psi gifted troopers include my top sniper (funny story, both my top snipers are Israeli). I wasn't too pleased by that at first when I saw the initial ability, but it's actually been a lot nicer than I would have expected. It makes my sniper much more useful during UFO missions when you just can't get those long shots aligned up.

Just recently took out the cloaked ship. Total casualties so far 5 troops (x2 Squadie, x3 Recruit) with a total of 1 kill and 6 missions among them plus one of those mobile cover tank things that I lost in the first mission I deployed it on while getting a feel for its capabilities.

Heh i had a Council mission to protect councils database in the end stages of the game, opposition being ~16 thin men who have 3hp, my 2 heavies with heavy plasmas and damaging suppression fire both took out 3 thin men with one supression

These are the sort of battles where I have fun with rocket launchers.

My elite psi sniper has over 75 kills now. More than twice any of my other colonels.

I've found that tag team kiting the berserkers works pretty well too. I just keep hitting them from alternate directions and he ping pongs around w/o ever actually getting in range to lay down the hurt. 2 Colonel Snipers w/ Double tap seems to make most things pretty trivial as well as long as I can get them well positioned and I don't do anything stupid.

That chrysalid terror mission was a total pain in the ass for me. I finally just gave up on trying to save all/most of the civillians and embraced the zombie apocalypse rocket launcher style.

How much is left of the game after using the Ethereal Device? I'd like to complete a few more Foundry projects before the end game, is this locked out after I use the Gollop Chamber?

It warns you that the Gollop chamber starts the endgame.

Yeah that's why I asked

Just a single big ass mission then?

To put it mildly.

I'm leaning towards restarting, owing to a fairly serious strategic error early on: I kept using the same troopers over and over again throughout the early game, which leveled them up fast, but means that now they're my only high-level troops, with everyone else being Squaddies (and that only because I bought the Squaddie upgrade at OTS). I've got four Colonels, a couple of Majors, a couple of Captains, and everyone else is a Squaddie. One bad mission, and I'm hosed.

Pff!

Do a mission with x6 SHIVs.

Yeah, I wish they would have done something to fix that.

I had the same thing happen to me, but it was all chrysalids. When the second group spawned, two of the three ran away from the group and just went to town killing civilians, who then turned into zombies, so there was just this long flow of zombies shambling down the street that took too long to kill. (Even at one shot kills, it's slowing you down just to shoot at them) By the time I offed the last Chrysy, There were only 5 folks left. Even if I wanted to replay that mission, Im not sure I could handle it differently. If I chose to ignore zombies and sprint ahead, there's a good chance the chrysy charges one of my dudes and zombifies him.

I got three countries back out of the Council, I'm chronically underfunded and UFOs are flying up and down Africa, the only continent without an XCOM fighter contingent. That and the tutorial. I think I'll start from scratch, this time with no tutorial to offer me underpowered starter characters.
I'm gonna miss Psycho, Typhoon and Bonesaw, though. A badass crew if I ever saw one.

Deploying a Satellite reduces panic in a country by 2. That leads me to believe that you can tactically deploy satellites to help with panic or you can deploy them in mass to get funding levels up. I never really paid attention to the grey market early on. Most, if not all damaged alien bits can be sold without worry since they aren't used in research or engineering. There's other alien components that can be sold as well like stasis chambers and food. It's a nice supplemental income but those are only gained when you go after UFOs.

Had full satellite slots, no money and barely any equipment. I couldn't save that anyhow. Bad early-game decisions (no satellite over the US for example) bit me in the ass really badly.
But a Firestorm with a plasma cannon fucking up a battleship with two shots was something I haven't expected.

VIP extraction mission. The team successfully made contact with the VIP, and were halfway back to the Skyranger. A Thin Man kills a trooper. Another trooper panics... AND KILLS THE VIP. Cue ragequit.

I've been contemplating trying the Ion weapon, but I'm not cash strapped to need the extra loot. I'm more bottlenecked on materials as I'm trying to get a full hanger of Firestorms. I don't know how others handle equipment, but I never order more than 6 of any piece of equipment. After each mission I go through and put everyone back to their default equipment. I know the wounded swap back into what they had so I also clear my gear when they come back. Then I just assign gear for each mission.

So right now I'm using an all star team though I'm trying to raise a Sergeant up because he's psionicly gifted.

Colonel Aliza 'Drifter' Levin. Israeli Psi Sniper with 28 missions and 81 confirmed kills.
Colonel Fei 'Hulk' Shen. Chinese Heavy with 30 missions and 43 confirmed kills.
Colonel Leah 'Stacks' Thompson. British Support with 20 missions and 35 confirmed kills.
Colonel Tariq 'Santa' Stevens. American Support with 24 missions and 30 confirmed kills.
Colonel Magnus 'Spitfire' Larson. Norweigan Psi Assault with 15 missions and 29 confirmed kills.
Sergeant Ye 'Coney' Lin. Chinese Psi Assault with 4 missions and 6 confirmed kills.

One possible solution: bring your main crew, but swap one or two out for your Squaddies. Let your high-rank guys carry most of the weight, and try to make an opening for each squaddie to get at least one kill.

Do that for a few missions, and you should have at least a few mid-ranked "second stringers".

What do you gotta do to get people to become assault troops. I get a billion support, some heavies and snipers and no assault.

Seems totally random to me so far. I seemed to get tons of assault and heavies, several snipers, but had to rely on a mission reward to get a third support.

according to the XCOM wiki:

Using a Rookie to kill an enemy at close range, preferably with a rifle, should unlock Assault class for them.

Using a Rookie to kill an enemy with grenades should unlock Heavy class for them

Using a Rookie to kill an enemy at extreme range should unlock Sniper class for them.

Using a Rookie to heal allies with a medkit should unlock Supportclass for them, although if a Rookie manages to level up to Squaddie without killing any enemies they'll often default to Support.

This would seem logical but doesn't seem to work for me.

I think I've used a sum total of 1 grenade across 2 games and have had 6 different heavies promote while repeated healing w/ several rookies while actively trying to get a third support squaddie produced no support squaddies. I might just be particularly unlucky though.

YES! Took the Alien Base with 2 casualties, both five days in the medbay! Plasma Sniper Rifle FTW!!!

Honestly that seems like so much hogwash in my experience. I've had a rookie kill a guy at point blank range and unlock as sniper and support respectively. I've unlocked supports without even giving my guys medpacks etc. I seldom if ever use grenades.

Yeah, I'm calling BS. They are randomly determined as far as I'm aware as I've saved before I ended a mission and got differing results for every character, despite playing it out the same.

I'm calling BS too, as I usually operate at longer ranges, I rarely use grenades and yet I still get assaults and heavies somehow.

It seems like the answer should be to get the auto-promote training and just recruit a bunch of squaddies.

That takes advancing in ranks, this training requires at least a Major IIRC.

Dozer (my tutorial heavy) is still alive! Lots of kills to.

Is the heavy laser or scatter laser worth building? I'm thinking I'll keep rocking the LMG until I get to whatever is beyond lasers.

Unless you're only using your heavy for suppression or rocket fire, I'd suggest the Heavy Laser. The scatter laser is preference for your assaults, but I'd give them either the scatter laser or laser rifles.

I tried hanging on to ballistic weaponry, but was severely gimped in damage output, don't try it unless you have lightning fast research speed.

I skipped lasers (aside from pistols) entirely in my second pass and went straight for Plasma. There was a pretty decent period of time (2-3 months) where my heavies, assaults, and snipers felt pretty gimped until I had enough cash to outfit all the different plasma versions. Still haven't had a chance to test out the plasma rocket launcher.

The Light Plasma Rifle is a very effective weapon for everyone save Heavies and Snipers, and can typically be researched fairly early if you stun a lot of mooks early on. (Thin men are my usual targets.).

So far, the only lasers I've used are the Heavy Lasers and the SHIV Laser. The Alloy SHIV is worth it's price as well, due to being mobile cover. Perfect for when grenades and rockets have trashed the area.

Panicked chrysalis are.... interesting to say the least.

I didn't even know the aliens had morale.

It doesn't give visual indications when their panicing, but generally if their falling back and not shooting that's what they are doing.

Haha, I remember that time when my Alloy SHIV rolled straight up to a Muton, unloaded a burst into him, and the doofus couldn't hit it point blank (to say nothing of the one trying to snipe it off a ledge a couple of squares away). Also, light plasma rifles are indeed pretty good, maybe they don't do as much damage as normal plasmas, but they hit hard enough. That and both Heavy Plasma and Plasma Sniper Rifle take some time to research and cost a lot (it's not a problem with Heavy Plasmas if you're insane enough to go and stunstick Muton Elites).
Also, too bad you can't sell the gear you produce on the grey market and the Council Requests appear rarely.

Generally yes. Occasionally panicked individuals will attack friendlies. I'm still trying to figure out if a Chrysalis can zombify xenos and what happens if a mind controlled chrysalis does it....

On the other hand, mind control seems like an awesome method to explore the map and if I'm not mistaken weapons held by mind controlled Xenos do not shatter when they die.

So far this has been my biggest 'in-game-world' gripe. I should be able to sell this crap I'm building. As it is, I feel like this game wants you to be perpetually broke, or way behind on gear and facilities.

I agree with that, the game seems to go to great lengths to keep you resource starved. It's really robbed it of some of the immersion for me. I can get weapons blowing up, but the fact that I can no longer sell weapons bugs me, and the fact that alien corpses are a requirement to make so many items and there is NO OTHER WAY to reporduce those items if you don't have the requisite corpses just bugs me. There's resource management and hard choices and then there "my multinational coalition devoted to stopping the alien threat can't spare the cash for a second sky ranger and for me to actually get off the ground properly".