XCOM 2

[Hurlshort]

I'm super stressed about armor.  I sold a few of my advent trooper corpses, thinking 3 would be enough for most things, but now it turns out I need 6 to upgrade.  Bleh.

[Vaeliorin]

Did you guys do any kidnapping missions yet?

You mean kidnap the VIP or rescue kidnapped troops?  I've done a kidnap the VIP mission.  It's really not much different than a friendly VIP mission where you have to find the VIP first, except you bring a rookie along to carry the dude (well, assuming you have any rookies.  I don't anymore...need to get some if I ever want some psi troopers...that and a psi lab.)

 

I haven't had to rescue kidnapped troops, because I've not left any behind.

 

Has everyone else had the avenger layout identical each time they start?  I've had power coils in the bottom center and bottom right both times.  Those seem like definitely the best place to build power.  I know facilities built on them don't cost power, but the most power hungry I've seen is 5 power, and you get an extra 7 (10 instead of 3) by building on a power coil.  I'm doing better on power now that I had a scan thing that upped my power by 3, but it's still a hugely limiting factor.

[Darkpriest]

Did you guys do any kidnapping missions yet?

 

Yeah i had it, super fun to riflebutt someone

[melkathi]

My power coil is middle right. Currently still ok power wise by having upgraded my starting power thingie with an elirium converter.

I need some rookies as well, for when the Psi Ops is completed.

 

But right now I am playing with my Untouchable ranger. Kill something with her getting the killing blow. Then park her in front of a Viper/Berserker/Archon/Whatever. The enemy will waste their go trying to hit her and miss. Of course the idea is to not have someone else try to kill her as well

[Vaeliorin]

Ah, I haven't had the funds to upgrade my power.  I don't know if I should have held off on some upgrades, or what, but I'm always broke.  Hopefully, things start to get better as I expand.

[Gorgon]

I've been putting off upgrading most things in favor of excavating the base and building one of every facility two pips remaining in the doom ticker which I hope will be enough to make contact and eliminate another base. Dunno what I'll do when I run out of power but it looks like you get power bonuses on the campaign map for setting up cells covering a whole continent so that will be my strategy. 

[Darkpriest]

Be sure to utilize workshop and gremlins, they are perfect for resistance comms and power facilities if next to them. I usually build a workshop on middle lvl3 if it is not a power grid, gremlins can excavate, they can manage res comms and power so for 2 engineers in workshop you can fully cover power plant and res comm

[Gorgon]

What gremlins. You can use your hacker's drone in the base  ?

[ShadySands]

You get them from building a workshop in the base and staffing it with an engineer (two with upgrade) and you get two gremlins per engineer which can be used in place of actual engineers but only in adjacent facilities

Edited February 7, 2016 by ShadySands

[melkathi]

My gremlins are running comms and advanced warfare at the moment.

[Vaeliorin]

I lost. It was my own stupid fault, but it was at least exciting. It was a race between the countdown timer, and me establishing contact with a region with an advent facility (first having to finish building comms and come up with 8 more intel.)  I wasn't thinking and picked up New Indonesia and New Australia (which had no facilities) instead of picking up NA, which had 2.  But I had tier 3 gear (except shotguns...researched, not built) and lots of other cool stuff.  I could reload a save and be okay, but I think I'll start a new campaign.  Maybe up the difficulty a notch, as I only lost one soldier (though I'll admit, I did savescum a bit.)  My ranger and sharpshooter were neck and neck for kills (63 versus 64, same number of missions) but I think my sharpshooter would have pulled ahead, as he was starting to get pretty good at destroying enemies with his plasma lance.

 

Had a partially trained psionic.  Seemed pretty cool, Inspire is great for when you absolutely need an enemy shredded and you miss your shot.  Pretty sure training turned her hair white, though.

 

Think I saw most of the enemies.  Won't discuss them further so as not to spoil, but man, some of them are super scary.  So, so glad I had gremlin healing.  That, and haywire protocol saved my biscuits a lot.

 

Pretty sure the only facility I didn't build was a lab.  Didn't seem necessary, and the supplies were better spent elsewhere.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Vaeliorin

[Gorgon]

You get them from building a workshop in the base and staffing it with an engineer (two with upgrade) and you get two gremlins per engineer which can be used in place of actual engineers but only in adjacent facilities

too late for that. I would have to place the workshop in a corner, which kinda defeats the purpose. I guess I'll just buy an engineer every month.

[melkathi]

Blew up my second ADVENT facility. Now I need to establish contact with the american continent. There must be two facilities there that I'd like to pay a visit.

 

On another note:

been trying out combat protocol, which I had originally ignored in favour of better heals. The double damage to mechs while ignoring armor is actually awesome. My gremlin can one-shot turrets and seriously weakens MECs. With my Psi-Op ignoring armor on human enemies, last mission was quite a breeze.

Edited February 7, 2016 by melkathi

[Darkpriest]

I think that game favors offense a bit too much. I rarely see the need for hunkering and healing is less valuable, unless going for alien facilities. I'd like a bit more balance so defensive play can also have some merit.

[Gorgon]

I barely do anything but place 4 snipers to the rear and and have two green squaddies engage close and hunker down. They never last long but there is not much choice, I need the firepower of my snipers. They are the only max level I have. 

[Sarex]

The game is buggy as hell.

[Gorgon]

Just got my entire squad wiped out by giant laser war walkers and reanimating bioshock armors

 

I guess the endgame difficulty hit. 

[melkathi]

My sharpshooter just got Chain Shot and my Heavy got Implacable.

Good thing I hide behind an army of hacked and mind controlled minions. Otherwise I'd be taking a hell of a lot more damage.

[Hurlshort]

My troops are always getting injured, and I've got about 5 folks shaken up.  

 

So when Xcom EU came out, I thought it was a decent reboot and replaced my need to play the original every year.  EW improved upon it.

 

Xcom 2 might be good enough to replace my yearly Jagged Alliance 2 playthrough.  It is fantastic.  Every mission feels special.

[Vaeliorin]

Huh.  I would have said that grenadiers were far and away the most important troops (and always shredder...almost everything later in the game has armor) and I was less than impressed with sharpshooters.  The heals have saved me more than once (stupid aliens can shred too ), especially when a viper poisoned the VIP on one mission.  Thinking my preferred squad would be 2 grenadiers, one of everything else.  Still need to try out a gunslinger (I only really leveled one sharpshooter in my loss) but until you get the high-end pistols, I'm not sure they'd be worthwhile.

[Hurlshort]

My gunslinger has been pretty awesome. The free and retaliation shots he get add up to some great moments.

[Vaeliorin]

Yeah, seems like there might be potential, but I just look at the damage pistols do (and the amount of armor scary enemies have), the fact that all of the abilities have cooldowns, and have a hard time believing they could compete with a dedicated sniper.  It'd be like trying to beat the game with ballistic weapons (which, admittedly, I think there's an achievement for.)

[Hurlshort]

The game is buggy as hell.

 

I've encountered zero bugs in 20+ hours, except for one countdown ticker on the map that went into the negatives for a day.

[Heijoushin]

I've seen one or two minor bugs (mostly graphical), but nothing game breaking.

 

I love the level of detail for soldier customization! Just wish they had voice sets for all the languages. 

[melkathi]

Yeah, seems like there might be potential, but I just look at the damage pistols do (and the amount of armor scary enemies have), the fact that all of the abilities have cooldowns, and have a hard time believing they could compete with a dedicated sniper.  It'd be like trying to beat the game with ballistic weapons (which, admittedly, I think there's an achievement for.)

 

Gunslingers are great to take out all those enemies who had their armor broken by the grenadier first. Grenadier lobs an acid grenade - takes off two armor of the ADVENT patrol. ADVENT start shouting, and run for cover. Sniper shoots them all with Kill Zone (or what it's called). Gunslinger finishes them all off with Lightning Hands, Quickdraw and Face Off/Fan Fire.

 

Best thing that has happened to me in this game though is Hail of Bullets on my dedicated sniper. She can use it after moving to still fire with her rifle (and at 100% accuracy). Though the best thing might also have been getting a permanent +20 hacking on my specialist. Two best things.

Edited February 8, 2016 by melkathi