soimadeanaccount

I lol when the UFO mission shows up and there's only Dave/Dan standing by himself.

Selling the power sources and flight computers aren't good, but not the worst thing considering. There are better corpses to sell yes, but they won't known which ones are vendor trash at this point unless they really know the game (Seeker, Thin man, and Muton). They know that some item cost corpses to make, the game also warn them when something is not research. While the alloy and elerium reserve is sizable, it isn't enough to carry the entire game, yes they will likely get more, but they should still not be selling them in mass.

The issue does not lie in just reading the tool tip, because it doesn't tell you the whole story, nor should it, but there's also that abysmal tutorial... The satellite game really isn't mention at all other than one off hand comment at the very beginning. It isn't as simple for someone who doesn't know its importance, they mention it a few times, but really no one really went ahead and think about the hoops they have to jump through. It is a monthly endeavor that takes predictions and timing based planning to do. The game never spell that out. You either look it up somewhere or learn it by plotting out the timing, and trial and error. Satellite rush works is because players know the hidden layers of the game. Abduction, take engi, ufo (ignore first ufo if classic or higher), council mission, etc. Build satellite on the 9 or 10 base on if it is a 30 or 31 days month (or if it is February, but that's a full year away from the start of the game; almost as if it is done on purpose.) Uplink takes 14 days, workshop is 10, combine is 24. Meaning you start your workshop if you need it, then build satellites before you even have the uplink or you chance another abduction mission and pray for engi reward. Money will likely get burn up each step, you are betting that mission/money will available before the next deadline hits. There's still a need to plan out where to put everything for adjacent bonus, excavation, lift, power, that's extra time and money. The space, money, and power spent on cyberlab, augmentation, and building the mec suit, despite everyone's raving about it, is the antithesis of going after satellite.

MECs can only punch adjacent not diagonal, I wonder if they actually pick that up. Converting an early sniper (Jeff) into a MEC is a poor choice, but there's no way they would know about that. The game doesn't mention stat growth nor inheritance. The life line for the MEC lies in the support feeding it medkits, tier two mec requires power source research and more resource. Swery is the only support high level enough to carry 3 medkits currently, if they are going to get 2 MECs in rotation, not losing Swery (even to injury) might be more important than the MECs themselves.

@comradesolar:

Ah yes, forgot about that. Oh well, by the time they should get around to that stage of the game, the soldiers reward would have been minor hopefully. I think only the support and sniper are worth it. The assault is ok, Annette herself is rather poor.

Also gave the 2x2 satellite end of April uplink a try. It is possible in theory, I actually missed it by 3 in game minutes! Globe doesn't stop on the dot! Will likely need to save scum mission reward and timing to get enough engineers, so not reliable at all.

Going into May with 8 satellite covered nations is doable in Normal, an even more skilled player might be able to push it to 12, I never really thought about the route to get a 2x2 grid going along with satellites by the end of Apr. seriously, I usually only managed 8. By the end of May however 15 satellites are possible, effectively halting abduction missions, the roll over of engineers with workshops should allow two uplinks to be build in that month, satellite Nexus might be possible also, but I think that's a waste. They walked in with 2 are looking at 5 by the end of this month, essentially month one progress of a focused game.

The raw money issue was a problem since missing satellite by Apr. 10 a few episodes ago. Panic is a coin toss, no one is in the red and it is already the middle of the month, but a few of them are one step away.

With Exalt looming (or they might get lucky and it gets push to June) stockpiling money is a bad idea, buying and selling should be done in tandem to reduce the amount they could steal. Carapace armor seem to be the immediate buy, weapons are all over the place since soldiers are coming and going, sell and buy them as mission pops up. They need to double up on interceptors in each continent to be on the safe side, at the very least they need to be able to contest each ufo even if they can't shoot it down. The lacking of experienced soldiers is an on going issue, Assault especially, this is beyond the lightning reflex stage and in need of Rapid fire to really lay down the damage. Light Plasma is a hard research, capturing a muton would help, the +10 aim will help rookies which they should also stock up on.

Capturing an Outsider is for the most part a non-issue, they should not do alien base assault, they don't have the experienced troop for the follow up defend mission, and the follow up portent council missions. multiple Cyberdiscs will likely show up. It is ok as an option and one less light plasma to buy, but shouldn't really sweat over it. With carapace armor they should learn to love fighting outsider as minimal experience boost.

Research is where it is since scientists are rarely a priority to begin with so there's a limit to how far behind one can really get, and normally no one really has time/money for labs. They are however missing out on the monthly scientists from council report. Finish all the laser research if they want. Floater autopsy is the most useful autopsy right now and it is on the way, have they done sectoid autopsy yet? The rest are probably worth more as corpses sold than projects that they can't do except for chryssalids. Flight computer and power source are tough call, they worth decent money, and the ultimate goal of them is Flight computer + power source > Firestorm (long research time, might not be able to build, and high fragment cost), and power source > elerium > titan armor (long research time). Light Plasma might be better as the next step.

This is the fucking reason why you half reload and half overwatch two turns after engagement THEN move forward. Armor should have gone on assault is obvious, but Dan stacking heavy armor on "himself" is also just as obvious.

The Cyberdisc in this mission always spawn like this, I don't blame them for not knowing since there's no way they would know. Barging through the second set of door (left or right) and getting first shot on you is common in this mission. I don't know how to counter it properly either, setting up OW up front by the door doesn't really work since the disc sort of shows up for one step and won't trigger OW. Keeping distance and it will move up above the railing. You can sort of set up back in the three pillars area and hope for the best. Prepare to eat one shot from it and then try to kill it in one turn is probably the best you can do. Maybe bailing out a grenade and eat 5 damage across multiple soldier is better than getting focus fire on.

Austin had bullet swarm so he technically had two shots by not moving.

Disabling the quest objective will trigger spawn, so it is actually better to do it while clear. Sometimes I wonder if it is wise to not disable any of them until the very end. 6 objectives, 6 soldiers what would happen if they were all disable on the same turn?

Also MECs aren't really all that good, not at this stage of the game for them, it is too expensive for them to go hard on. Only heavies should get convert to MECs at this stage of the game and their aims are terrible. Early MEC and late game MEC are different, so they don't scale very well. It would have been fine if they were still fighting sectoid, floater, and thin man, but with muton the armor is only worth one hit until damage control at Sgt. rank, and even with Body shield we are looking at 30 defense against the closest enemy and 10 to the rest, pretty much less than half cover on average assuming they don't dash into multiple pods.

Get 6 soldiers with either skeleton armor or high density muscle gene mod and breeze through site recon...but site recon reward sucks so maybe skip it. In my games, I don't even get to touch meld until June the earliest. Research for weapon, armor, and firestorm always come first; money are all spent on satellite, uplinks, and workshops.

They think they have a lot of weapon fragment, alloy, and elerium because the numbers are high. They don't know the sheer quantity they need. Also low level corpses are 5 bucks each at this point of the game, it really isn't that far off from the 3 of elerium and 2 of alloy. The corpses are also tagged with not researched because who has time for autopsy right now.

Disable shot and I think suppression could override overwatch. Regular attacks or rockets don't, I don't think grenade works also. Some claim destroying cover of the enemy is behind cancels their overwatch, but I tested it on a muton elite and it doesn't work. However green muton might use intimidate after getting hit which could override their overwatch.

Capturing Muton would have been tough in this mission, they are all on overwatch with plasma rifle which will likely one hit their rookie if hit. They don't have an assault with lightning reflex to break OW or to handle the capture.

Heat Ammo is good, considering there will be a cyberdisc in the up coming council mission, but the 50% nerf is hard and there's also the silly Sectopod buff. Double reaction with heavy's aim isn't reliable, but it might come in handy in Site Recon.

It seems like turn order is still confusing them, especially when there are interactables and abilities involve. Pressing button does not kill a turn. If you were parked next to a button previously, you can press the button then still have both moves left, you can also use your first move to move up to a button, press it, then fire/grenade/reload/move again.

Class specific turn order:

Basically treat rocket and sniper rifle as the same thing. Heavy with bullet swarm move and shoot is the same thing if it is the first action. Run and gun only allow shoot or overwatch after activating. There's a dirty trick where you can have sniper move then go on pistol overwatch, and then manually click him again then hit the switch weapon key...

Everyone goes crazy about MEC, but mimetic skin changes the game. Jumping and/or skeleton armor is also good for Site Recon.

Keyboard and mouse is fine, it is just standard WASD position with your left hand. Mouse handles cursor and most camera, scroll wheel for up and down elevation. Press and hold mouse button for grid and path view. The majority of the time you are using cursor is for movement location inputs the mouse is superior in that regard. You rarely need to zoom in and out specifically, elevation zooms is typically enough already. Q and E for rotation is the only keyboard camera inputs sort of like lean in fps. Numbers for ability selection (typical weapon select in fps), Tab to cycle soldiers/targets and confirmation with space bar. X to switch weapon is also easy to reach. Space bar also default to shoot when no action selected. Backspace to force turn end, you want that one out of the way.

For Site Recon the chryssalids that spawn before activating the transponder will eventually stop. I like to camp out at the bow of the boat and keep as much distance as possible and kill them as they come. Then carefully set up everyone to gain maximum distance as soon as transponder is hit then dash as far as possible for the next few turns. The Chryssalids that spawn after the transponder will eventually catch up, there will be around two half turns or so lost to fighting, bring rockets and grenades. Supposedly the fish that trigger after the transponder could get blown up by explosives preemptively, but I never tried.

I thought Normal difficulty terror mission gives 10 enemies? Oh well if XCOM gives you a break you take it!

Squad sight works base on who the team can see in that moment. Mary retreating back to Swery therefore losing vision to the other muton caused Dan/Dave to not have a shot of the enemy. The retreat should be done after Dan/Dave try for a shot.

The corner of the laundromat is a fairly common surprise in that map, I was wondering if that corner was actually safe haha.

Zhang with holotargeting should shoot at a target before the rest of the team fire on the same target, granting aim bonus to everyone toward that same target.

Plot out everyone's move before executing. Who can go where, who has what shot, who should shoot first, if made then what? if fail then what? Are question you should be asking.

Melee units don't care for cover, so chryssalids, zombies, and berserkers, are either in range or not. Seekers are a little more unique, they do have a gun (same as sectoid I think), and they will use it if there's no one for them to strangle and they have a clear shot...which they usually will regardless since you rarely see them and know where they are.

I think Site Recon (the Chryssalids mission) might be coming up, if this is the first game for this install(?) Kind of a dick move that the game spawn the mission the way it does. Confounding Light should be up also with Gangplank right after assuming success. This month should be popping with action, Exalt activities might start also or they might stay quiet until June, well not like there's money for them to steal.

Which brings us to Gray Market, generally speaking NEVER sell weapon fragments, avoid selling Alien Alloy, Elerium should also be banked, but of all three it is probably less bad to bleed a little elerium, split with alloy if really have to sell a small handful.

All DAMAGED flight computers and power sources are made to be sold. Alien surgery, food, stasis tank, damaged or not are all vendor trash. Fusion Core, use for making upgraded rocket launcher, should ideally be saved and treasured until it is ready for use, early in the game however it might be ok to sell them since you don't have the rest of the material and research, typically no more than 2 is needed, with some exception base on team composition and who your top 6 are...

Intact flight computers and power sources...are tricky. At this stage of the game they should really be banked for research and building Firestorm, but money now is money now.

Corpses:

Selling in the Gray market should be done in a need to bases, never excess, especially not now with threat of Exalt potentially stealing cash.

The satellite race is still on, but money is tight. A foundry even with just tactical rigging would be useful for a team of 6, instead of deciding which one item each soldier could bring, they can decide which 2 to bring. Along with the option of two grenades, for Zhang that's potentially 4 grenades. A muton capture could nab an alien grenade.

Terror mission only shows up once a month.
This Australia one could be a blessing in disguise. A good, not just survive, but good outcome, as in actually manage to save 9 or more civilians could drop panic across all of Asia, therefore preventing anyone from leaving, saving 14+ would bring even more reduction.

Surviving the first terror mission with their line up is doable, only one civilian need to survive. Zhang is fortunate enough to have shredder rocket, which can one hit anything besides chryssalid at this point of the game. Chryssalids need normal rocket and a grenade. With two heavies and enough grenades they can almost blow through everything. Most early enemies also prioritize hunting civilians over soldiers so you can sort of use them as a shield.

Saving 9 civilians however is harder. Blow up everything strategy doesn't work very well when friendly fire is involve. A good balance of rushing to save and kill versus holding back and set up wall of defensive fire which enemies trigger a lot in terror mission mean there'll be some luck and some decisions making on the fly involve. Failure means Australia drop along with Japan(?), survive means only Japan(?) leaves, good outcome or better everyone stays...however there are bigger issues ahead.

They barely have any income, with only USA and China with satellites they will only get 280 spacebucks net not counting upkeep. They haven't cap their satellite capacity yet, 2 more satellites are coming with one more open slot I think, but they don't pay out until next month (June) even launch (unless they get a REALLY lucky council request). I don't know their engineers count, so they might or might not have enough for another uplink ($100) or they might need a workshop ($130). Then to actually build the satellites by the 10th or 11th. Selling alloy and weapon fragments kind of screwed them over also. At this stage selling elerium is better at small quantity. All thin man corpses can probably go at this point. Keep one seeker for autopsy, then sell the rest. Firestorm research is technically within grasp with flight computer and power source, but can they even build any? Maybe better off selling the parts as well? Power source eventually lead to titan armor, but they still need to research carapace, a floater capture would speed that up. (Mid month satellite launch for South America bonus? the money sucks tho)

Standard weapon against muton is fine when they come in pairs, but should get out of that situation sooner rather than later. A capture could make light plasma rifle actually achievable which will be a big deal. Then there's the two back to back DLC mission which...might be better off abandon depending on soldier's rank and equipment at that point. They also need an assault...a leveled assault (mission reward?)