XCOM V4: "Svinnik - Why is Shen's daughter asian, when Shen is black?" - Games

[QUOTE=archival;49738971]Escort mission. VIP is in hard cover about 5 tiles behind the rest of the squad, hes hunkered and out of any sight line. Muton decides that instead of doing anything reasonable like not running out into 2 overwatches, hes going to do just that and then after somehow surviving, while standing completely out in the open, throw a grenade at his max distance and kill the VIP. Seriously fuck this games AI[/QUOTE] They do this really really really often. Like every AI they have infinite line of sight on everything, except the game doesn't even try to play it off and broken shit like that happens. I don't even move the VIP. I keep 3 dashes worth of movement between him and any aliens because it's 3 times now that someone did a 5 mile sprint and grenaded him/critted him through full cover.

[thumb]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/321248998107384448/317046495FCFC1279898924EE7FBA57E67039055/[/thumb] One of my Avenger's crew is like one of those [URL="http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/781528/111664010/stock-photo-hacker-111664010.jpg"]hackers in stock photos[/URL].

Who the hell designed the Andromedons and thought "yeah these things are fun to fight against".

[QUOTE=Demoness;49739089]Who the hell designed the Andromedons and thought "yeah these things are fun to fight against".[/QUOTE] Anyone with psi ops or combat hackers, what other unit can you control twice, with an ability that trashes cover and doesn't have a cool down?

[QUOTE=Rents;49739098]Anyone with psi ops or combat hackers, what other unit can you control twice, with an ability that trashes cover and doesn't have a cool down?[/QUOTE] Yeah real fun when you get 2 of them in the same pod along with immediate reinforcements of 2 advent mechs and you have no idea what they even do so they kill 3 of your best soldiers in 1 turn and ass-fuck another with DOT acid.

[QUOTE=Demoness;49739133]Yeah real fun when you get 2 of them in the same pod along with immediate reinforcements of 2 advent mechs and you have no idea what they even do so they kill 3 of your best soldiers in 1 turn and ass-fuck another with DOT acid.[/QUOTE] That's XCOM, baby! It's not a challenge if you never lose. As long as you can get more men and keep the Avatar project from completing you can always bounce back. Don't get mad at video games, roll with the punches and learn from your defeats. That's what XCOM has always been about. Andromedons are definitely one of those enemies that is always dangerous, but now you should be able to form a plan to beat them.

Keep some good spacing among your squad and the AI (generally) won't use grenades against you. That's very important with the Andromedons.

[QUOTE=Wolfos;49739154]learn from your defeats[/QUOTE] I don't think there's much to learn from being forced up to a place with horrible cover, getting your top soldiers instantly killed and then getting the absolute worst possible patrol and reinforcement combination while you have only 8 turns to complete the objective in the first place. That's just really bad RNG/balancing.

Also invest in Psi-Operatives as early as you can, the bag of tricks they bring to the table is just SO worth it. I normally have an Andromedon or two in my team every match because of my two favorite Psi-soldiers, domination is just such a fun skill.

Andromedons are tough early on, but later on they're alright as long as you split up and keep your distance. Their punches very rarely hit you as they got a 40-50 percent chance to miss.

So, had my first Defense mission... First pod activated by my advancing Psi had a Codex. Dominated the Codex first try, teleported it to the EMP Spike right away and shot at it once. First reinforcement was a Sniper, who then Squadsighted the Spike. GG.

[QUOTE=Demoness;49739178]I don't think there's much to learn from being forced up to a place with horrible cover, getting your top soldiers instantly killed and then getting the absolute worst possible patrol and reinforcement combination while you have only 8 turns to complete the objective in the first place. That's just really bad RNG/balancing.[/QUOTE] Some guerrilla ops really are fucking impossible with the wrong map and pod RNG. If you're playing ironman i guess the lesson is that you might be better off taking a loss and trying to preserve your soldiers.

[QUOTE=Ax3l;49739249]Andromedons are tough early on, but later on they're alright as long as you split up and keep your distance. Their punches very rarely hit you as they got a 40-50 percent chance to miss.[/QUOTE] Only problem with Andromedons is how long they take to kill. On later game "Protect the Relay" missions you can lose the damn thing in 4 or 5 turns if you're unlucky. If it was more like Enemy Within and Exalt where you had a small run to the point then hold it as enemies advanced on you it wouldn't be an issue. Andromedons are impossible to one shot and chances are most of the high level pods are gonna spawn around the encoder you're trying to protect anyways.

So I have a fully trained psi-operative with the alien psi amp, and I get an over 70% probability of dominating a gatekeeper. Now I see why people are saying they're so OP.

[QUOTE=pebkac;49739505]So I have a fully trained psi-operative with the alien psi amp, and I get an over 70% probability of dominating a gatekeeper. Now I see why people are saying they're so OP.[/QUOTE] Get them shaken a few times and then break them out of it, and it'll increase the characters will even more. 90% chance to take control of Gatekeepers man, it's honestly insane.

I thought psi abilities were based on their psi skill, and resistance was based on their will now.

[QUOTE=Cows Rule;49739544]I thought psi abilities were based on their psi skill, and resistance was based on their will now.[/QUOTE] Oh right! yeah you are correct, can't remember how I got them to 90% for gatekeepers and 100% for everything else, might be the wraith suit mixed with the Alien-psi amp, or perhaps there psi skill increases over time or something I dunno.

I've never had any troubles with andromedons save for my first encounter with one. Psi-ops with domination and they end up being extremely helpful against sectopods and gatekeepers.

Is there anything tougher than a sectopod? I think I was supposed to investigate the advent forge a lot later than I was supposed since sectopods were endgame enemies in EU/EW. Fuck Codexes. Please tell me there's no upgraded version of them later on

Mimic beacons [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKSqNHp4zfw[/media]

[QUOTE=jonu67;49739563]Oh right! yeah you are correct, can't remember how I got them to 90% for gatekeepers and 100% for everything else, might be the wraith suit mixed with the Alien-psi amp, or perhaps there psi skill increases over time or something I dunno.[/QUOTE] Wraith suit doesn't confer a psi or will bonus. My friend had similar domination chances but was using the second tier psi amp. I had a fully powered psi op and alien psi amp, but I don't think my domination chances got that high for anyone. I'm a little surprised we didn't get another psi armor equivalent.

[QUOTE=Rents;49739620]Mimic beacons [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKSqNHp4zfw[/media][/QUOTE] One thing that annoyed the shit out of me with this scene was that the bullets magically disappeared when hitting the hologram instead of having the soldiers shoot eachother.

[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;49739036]They do this really really really often. Like every AI they have infinite line of sight on everything, except the game doesn't even try to play it off and broken shit like that happens. I don't even move the VIP. I keep 3 dashes worth of movement between him and any aliens because it's 3 times now that someone did a 5 mile sprint and grenaded him/critted him through full cover.[/QUOTE] Yeah, line of sight feels kind of broken at the moment. I'm never sure what the pull range is, since sometimes I can get fairly close and other times I'm spotted super far away.

Yeah I missed the psi armor quite a bit. It's a shame you don't interrogate aliens any-more, would be a good Intel gathering mechanic, plus imagine using domination on an advent dude and getting him to willingly climb-aboard the sky-ranger for bonus Intel.

fun fact for you all: moving burning troops into a stream will put the fire out [editline]14th February 2016[/editline] as in the ones on the wilderness maps

[QUOTE=Skyward;49736893]This thing [img]http://i.imgur.com/isnoJwq.png[/img] It just occurred to me that you don't actually pick where it is.[/QUOTE] Damn I didn't even know you could start not in India like my playthrough

[QUOTE=jonu67;49739563]Oh right! yeah you are correct, can't remember how I got them to 90% for gatekeepers and 100% for everything else, might be the wraith suit mixed with the Alien-psi amp, or perhaps there psi skill increases over time or something I dunno.[/QUOTE] When you make someone a Psi Op they roll their psi skill, some people end up with pretty high early rolls. The psi skill gain on each level is set so you can tell who your most powerful Psi Op is right away.

[QUOTE=Ghost101;49739914]Yeah, line of sight feels kind of broken at the moment. I'm never sure what the pull range is, since sometimes I can get fairly close and other times I'm spotted super far away.[/QUOTE] Line of sight gets especially screwy once sectopods appear, I've found. Like, sometimes the camera moves to a space I have no vision over and then after a few seconds I can see the pod that's there. Then they activate. The same kind of thing happened in EU. You'd think Firaxis would learn after the first time. I really, really hope they patch the game soon.

[QUOTE=fulgrim;49739944]Yeah I missed the psi armor quite a bit. It's a shame you don't interrogate aliens any-more, would be a good Intel gathering mechanic, plus imagine using domination on an advent dude and getting him to willingly climb-aboard the sky-ranger for bonus Intel.[/QUOTE] Well we have skullmining which is pretty close. And you can spend intel on research boosts so the system is definitely there. Come to think of it, you could probably buy a lot of extra stuff at the black market if you were mindful of skullmining ADVENT troopers whenever you could. By the time you're done contacting regions you probably won't need to buy anything at black market. [QUOTE=Janus Vesta;49740048]When you make someone a Psi Op they roll their psi skill, some people end up with pretty high early rolls. The psi skill gain on each level is set so you can tell who your most powerful Psi Op is right away.[/QUOTE] I have a save that I can effectively play indefinitely, I can look into seeing if there's any particular range that their psi skill can start at unless that's more accurately available in the code somewhere.

Black market is super duper useful for getting weapon mods and PCS. I really underused skullmining and intel in general in my first playthrough.