The Exquisite Corps: XCOM: Enemy Within - Part 05

@vinny: I absolutely meant you were doing it accidentally, not on purpose at all. I'll happily delete that bit though.

I don't want to engage in play-by-play commentary and this series should be all about three different commanders each playing differently and getting better individually (and so far the commander's have been much more comfortable in their second episodes), but others have pointed out a few general things; some of which you've learned.

-Snipers can't move and then shoot their primary (without an ability, which you declined in favour of Squadsight)

-MELD timers are going from the start of the mission, and you need them for mec-suits. There's usually an easy one and a hard one.

-Those hard, green, alien boxes are some of the best cover in the game. They don't block the enemy seeing you, but cannot be destroyed and are always high cover.

-Players can TAB through their characters in map view, and TAB through enemies when aiming.

-If cover is destroyed, that character is no longer in cover. Laser weapons and above can do this when they miss, and explosives are very useful for exactly this.

-Cars blow up after a turn aflame, so you should be able to use them as cover and still get away if you need to. (a big enough explosion will detonate them immediately, but at the moment only your heavies have the rockets for that)

-Oversight has an aim penalty, and cannot crit. 45% is a perfectly valid chance to hit.

This is an excellent series, and I really do look forward to it going as long as it can. There are some very special missions I want to see you tackle.

I'm sorry I was rude Vinny.

Commander Navarro is the only reason those other two jokers are even in this fight. Straight up.

Great job, guys. But now for....

The Ryckening.

Very promising episode! Let's see how Dan can possibly mess this one up ;)

@smackosynthesis said:

I have no idea how he's going to react to his character being dead. Maybe just go full blown chaos and become even less of a tactician? :p

I commented on the last video that if it were me I'd be compelled to do a little practice in my free time to get better at the combat and have a little more information going in. I'm glad Alex did just did that! It seems to have helped immensely. :D Still my favorite series on the site, keep it up commanders!

BEST ADVICE INCOMING:

Soldier #1, take first move, SWAP...

Soldier #2, take first move, SWAP...

Soldier #3, take first move, SWAP...

Soldier #4, take first move, SWAP.

Now that you have revealed more of the map, you can spend your second moves reacting to new threats.

*Exception: move your sniper(s) last, once your sure they can't get a shot with their rifle.

I think both Abby and Alex are getting a little annoyed with the constant "advice" and disapproving noises when said "advice" is not taken right away and then more noises until they decide that it's just easier to go along with Vinny. Make another series Vinny with you playing, without the middle people, I'd be interested in your strategies, just as I'd be interested in Abby, Alex and Dan's if you'd let them play like they would play by themselves. It's obvious you love this game, Vinny, let the others fall in love too.

@vinny@alex@danryckert: I'm sure it's been mentioned a dozen times elsewhere already, but just in case... Overwatch has a flat 30% aim penalty. It's intended only as a last resort option when you are stuck out of position with no good shots. Flank early and often for better hit and crit rates.

Well done Alex....now lets see what Commander Reckless does! ...you know i love you Dan, but dont fuck it up ;)

Omnipresident Vinny

An exemplary performance, Commander Navarro! Well done!

Good Stuff.. still the best feature going..

Yeah, you get 'em Alex!

You're not going to get meld when being this cautious but a good job none the less.

The switch back to keyboard+mouse saddens me.

I cannot endorse this strategy enough. Please learn to do this Beastcrew.

I played a round where I found some aliens on the first turn and a firefight ensued that lasted several turns (including stumbling across even more aliens), so all the while my poor sniper was planted right out in the open where he started the mission. There were Floaters, Sectoids, and Mutons. It worked out really well, but it made me SO nervous. I just didn't want to give up a single sniper shot, I needed everything I had.

Awesome job Alex. It definitely helps that he's been playing off camera. And Vinny's advice on this one was ON POINT. My only criticism/advice would be to use those grenades. They are OP as fuck, especially in situations like the first part of this episode when those sectoids were all in full cover and you had to rely on 35% shots.

The part where they realized that they needed to build a satellite and that it was going to take 20 days was hilarious. Thats why you need to start building satellites immediately. Before you build the uplink. Like the second you start the game. And the game doesn't tell you that which means that nobody actually does it in their first playthrough.

Reading through the comments, there's quite a lot of backseat gaming going on here and frankly a lot of it Is straight up wrong. For example: People saying "don't overwatch in the middle of combat" --- uh, if you are facing seekers you should absolutely be overwatching in the middle of combat. Likewise, there are plenty of times when facing thin men (who drop right on top of you), chrysslids (who have ridiculous movement speed so they will frequently enter range after your turn), and floaters (who can drop right on top of you) that overwatching during combat will save your life.

Other bad advice: "don't listen to vinny". Not taking anything away from Alex but Vinny is a big part of the reason that this episode went so smoothly. He gave advice like "maybe take a turn to reload everyone before advancing" or "I'm afraid that if you dash out into unexplored map with your last turn, you might trigger another pod" or "maybe move the guys in the back up before advancing your front line more" or "I don't think you should split your squad". These are things that got Abby's entire squad killed because she didn't do them.

More bad advice: "you need to play more aggressively if you want to get the meld". Dude, they don't need meld right now. They need soldiers who survive missions so that they aren't fighting with entire squad of rooks. Alex did a phenomenal job in this ep of simply completely missions without any casualties. The meld can wait untIl they have more than four people on a squad, a support who can move further / use three medkits , a sniper with squad sight who can pick off any accidentally triggered pods and an assault with run and gun plus lightning reflexes to get out of tight spots.

So glad they remembered the Officer Training School at the end.

Holy crap, great work Alex! Really enjoying watching these. Just picked up XCOM2 and i'll be jumping into that ASAP.

Oh no...the thumbnail for the next episode.

Watching this and contrasting it with my playthrough of Long War highlights its faults. In Long War, there really is no coming back or redemption, since aliens get stronger as you get weaker. Which I guess does have its appeal to hardcore XCOM players that want the next level of challenge, but it's a bummer when you spent 20+ hours into a 100+ hour campaign.

Well I guess at least one person definitely reads the comments!

@chaser324 said:

Oh no...the thumbnail for the next episode.

The ultimate Dan move would be he dies to a chrysalid in terror mission and then becomes a zombie and kill the team.

I am both disturb by Dan's childish behavior, yet excited for that scenario to happen!

Maybe they shouldn't assign names to soldiers until squaddie if not sergeant when nicknames unlock.

In fact, it actively tries to warn you away from doing it. "Whoa buddy, slow down, you don't have an uplink built yet. Are you sure you wanna do that??" Yes, dammit.

Is that the Hanzo voice actor?

I don't think anyone was trying to say there are no situations where overwatch is useful. Most people were just pointing out that passing on a 45% shot in favor of just overwatching is generally not a good idea.

I've been saying this since the second episode @vinny is obviously an enemy spy. Other people have already put down the actual gameplay improvements necessary and all that, but all I'm saying is I can't wait for the Alien Vinny heel turn in a few episodes. The only question is.. is Commander Ryckert in on it or is he the secret hero the Earth truly needs?

MVP Poll

It's killah time.

@ppompnmn: Well, maybe they should just let him do it, haha.

Great series, it inspired me to start my Enemy Within Classic playthrough today with my team named after the GB staff.

Alex is the only one I have faith in at this point, don't let me down Navarro.

Alex is good at video games

Playing through XCOM 2 (with WOTC and all DLC's) for the first time makes me appreciate how fecking tough these games are.

@gregalor:

Yep I just started playing again because of this series and totally forgot about that. Guess what my first bloody random quest was? Launch a damn satellite, in 20 days :/

Alex is trying so hard to hold this team together. The change of commanders really does make a great dynamic.