The Firaxis XCOM Series

Nope. Quest. I just finished researching a Codex brain in the Shadow Chamber and now the next part of that quest-chain wants me to skulljack a Codex itself. But I haven't seen one in a long while.

#IceBearForPresident

Skulljacking an officer should spawn one.

But each skulljack has only one use, so you'll need to bring two.

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Just completed an Avatar facility sabotage despite having only Specialists and Sharpshooters (one of them just one rank above squaddie) available (which means no scout).

I used a pulling tactic: Send in one of the specialists until she procs an alien group with a blue move, retreat out of sight so they'll be forced to move to find me, and set a double killzone on their location (+ the junior's overwatch). Plus an Aid Protocol on the away specialist, with Threat Assessment.

In the end, only one of my specialists got hurt, caught in a snake's tongue.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Lucky for me there was a Codex in the very next mission. And when I skulljacked it an Avatar spawned.

And suddenly Xcom was an anime.

#IceBearForPresident

Well, it's not a proper animu without adorable pretty girls (and/ or boys) and big amount of fanservice. Yuri Genre optional, but ensures profit.

And no, Pectoid butt and snektit didn't count.

....

...We really need Magical Girl mods. Preferably after someone modding younger body type.

All my chick recruits have pink hair, all my boy recruits have blue. Except my psychic troops, they have white hair even though they aren't old geezers.

Xcom is totes an animu.

#IceBearForPresident

I got you guys.

That only spawns one the first time, and you can't get the quest to skulljack a codex until after you autopsy that first one. So you just have to wait for them to randomly appear.

For reference, you can only skullkack twice in the entire game, both times for quests. You can skullmine any Advent trooper whenever you want, but that's never necessary and only gives you some intel or random hacking bonuses.

edited 14th Feb '16 8:23:59 PM by Clarste

thats stupid, I am in december, and have never seen another codex.

Pushing forward with Legend.

FE: Genealogy Story Run 7PM PT Sun, Mon, Fri; Expert Unicorn Overlord 7PM PT Wed, Thurs: http://www.twitch.tv/kuroitsubasatenshi

In my game they started to spawn every mission once they were objective <_<

They're incredibly common as midgame enemies (seen in the same sorts of places as Vipers, usually). Most likely you waited too long to spawn the first one and now the enemy levels are too high for them to spawn randomly very often.

edited 14th Feb '16 9:01:46 PM by Clarste

Yeah, they were out of enemy rotation for a couple months, but after I got the quest to skulljack one I now see them in every mission. Even though I already completed that quest.

It's actually kind of amusing to see a Codex/Viper pod back in rotation now that Archons, Andromodons, and Elite Advent are the norm now. Reminds of how Council missions would pit me against Thin Men and Sectoids even though normal missions saw me fighting Elite Mutons and Heavy Floaters.

#IceBearForPresident

I managed to use the skulljack in a mission twice - first on a Codex, then went and brutalised a Captain with the same person again a turn later.

Then I blew up a fuel tank to take out and enemy pod. And used a Shredder cannon to kill that annoying Avatar.

Finished last night on Veteran. Had no Magi. Found the psi troopers to be a bit hit and miss, especially as one of mine has their starting power be insight and their first trained power to be insight as well. SUPERUSEFUL.

Not sure that separating them out as a class was the best idea, but I never really developed them that much. The last mission however - COMMANDER BADASS. The rift power saved my ass.

As did mimic beacons.

But the final fight, jeez it was brutal. But it did make me realise that, with good use of cover and items, you can tank a LOT of enemies on the field.

My Ranger took down the Final avatar. Had to reload the mission as it'd glitched - killed an avatar whilst they were "hidden" (Out of LOS) with a blaster bomb and it didn't teleport them / register as a kill. So got endlessly spawning enemies and nothing else)

I lost Dieter, my sniper. Had him all the way through., He found through PTSD, survived with the most kills across the campaign, had one shotted sectopods. And got taken down by a Big Daddy's across the map shot.

My Spanish sniper, Smile Jack, Mind controlled twice, survived. As did my Norwegian Valkyrie specialist who basically HELGA'd here way through the map, short circuiting robots and overwatch killing everything.

They really got the intensity down pat.

So, bets that the sequel is going to be a TFTD remix? I'd like a mix of Civ and XC Om with an apocalypse remake, which would make more sense in this continuity of rebuilding the world

Going to start a harder run through again, try to get the psi guys early, so I can see if I can make use of them. Not sure if I'll stick it as I've "done" the plot now. But still, amazing amazing game.

Well, to cement my place as the worst XCOM player who ever lived, I've lost the game.

I'm too stupid to successfully plan the Avenger and I built both soldier facilities first. I trained one rookie, ever, one leader, ever, and earned one off-spec skill. For that, I've completely and utterly crippled myself for the rest of the game, spending all this time farting around Africa waiting on resources and timers to try and catch up.

I also wasted time farting around with autopsies instead of rushing...whatever it is that I'm supposed to rush to win the game.

So, I finally built the proving grounds by mid-July, finally got my skulljack with three blocks left on the Avatar project. By the time I equipped my men with Gauss guns, plasma weapons were researchable, just barely researched psionics. One relay up, least of all continent bonuses, no access to any facilities. Only destroyed one facility. I only have three engineers, haven't finished excavating the ship, didn't build for adjacencies...

I am way too fucking stupid to play this game.

Also, so hoiw much do you guys cheat with Save Scumming? I wouldn't have made it past the first mission without it. I don't reload every missed shot, but I do hate missing with entire ambushes or pulling three pods at once. Only lost the two tutorial clowns since I don't play the game fairly.

So, how do you play the game correctly? Win the campaign and lose soldiers left and right like you're supposed to?

I keep 3 saves: Geoscape, Tactical (start of mission only), and Gamble (When I'm about to do something stupid).

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

Used engineers to clear off every room as fast as possible, built satellite coms among first buildings and thats pretty much it. This was tutorial run so I had just one save instead of multiple for tactical missions and geoscape(I did have one backup save in case though)

My first 2 playthroughs were on ironman on veteran then commander respectively. Definitely lost some people early game in the commander run; not so much on veteran. The basic concept I played with was to have no injuries. Tried to only activate one pod at a time with concealed ranger scouts and tried to murder the aliens the turn they activate so they never get a shot off. Ideally they run into overwatch on my turn, but doesn't always happen. Then it's liberal use of grenades to remove cover, then shooting them, then stasising or mimic beaconing any survivors if I couldn't kill them all in that turn.

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Welp, I apparently haven't been paying enough attention to this thread, because the surprise Codex from skulljacking an Advent officer took out Kelly, my grenadier corporal, and my rookie who was about to promote into something or other. That one returning sniper's gonna have some hella high PTSD.

Beaglerush's just uploaded a lot of Live and Legendary :D

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

That encounter was nearly fatal for me as well. 4 of my 5 soldiers suffered grave injuries after that, as I triggered the Codex while fighting a couple of Mutons. It was a damn miracle nobody died.

Speaking of which, I feel the game is kinda easy, playing on veteran. Even when I mess up and trigger multiple hard enemies simultaneously I rarely in real danger and so far I lost only a single soldier. On the other hand, I've heard difficulty also increase costs/decrease supply and make hacking harder, and those are always tight to me, so I don't know what my ideal difficulty would be.

edited 15th Feb '16 8:33:49 AM by Heatth

I play on Commander and this is my advice for that difficulty level:

On the tactical side:

Try really hard to not lose people in the first few missions. Unstable Equilibrium is in full effect. You need those early troops to rank up and snowball. Once you get the squad upgrades, send a team to missions with a core of high level soldiers and one or two low level dudes to help give them experience. On that note, don't bring rookies beyond the first few missions though. Put them thru the GTS before taking them anywhere. Grenades and other items are extremely required. Use grenades to remove cover and flashbangs/mimic beacons to buy yourself extra turns during firefights. I consider a mission has gone well if I flattened half the city.

On the strategic side:

I build GTS -> AWC -> Power Relay -> Comms -> Workshop/Proving Grounds.

You want as many engineers as you can. Put them on digging out the Avenger to get more room and supplies. On the world map, you want to expand quickly since that gives you more supplies but you want to do it in the direction of the revealed Facilities. Budget some Intel for expansion but don't be afraid to spend it at the BM for more supplies or rush research. 40ish Intel for >100 supplies is a good trade and I find myself more blocked by supplies than Intel in the early game. That said, don't fork out 120 Intel for a contact, build Relay Towers to lower the Intel cost and also gives you more supplies.

edited 15th Feb '16 8:54:38 AM by nightwyrm_zero

Which reminds me I still haven't contacted the Black Market (and my AWC is still building).

I'll have to purchase Vulture as well when I get the supplies for it, (I get a halved supply drop practically every month because I don't want to let ADVENT increase their detection radius...)

At least I have full squad size, Wet Work and the two-turn mobility increase for concealed missions.

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I can only concur to the "don't lose anyone in first missions" thing: It's very important to quickly get a scout, long watch sniper, and specialist capable of remote-defusing timers.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

hacking is awful at the start, you really need to push your hacking people and take the risks to hopefully get the increases. It took getting level 3 gremlins to really make it worthwhile though.

I agree that Veteran seems a bit too easy. Only areas where people died I honestly felt it was justified and not RMG nastiness. Only time I reloaded was when it glitched or it was a genuine moment of WTF-ery. Or I wanted to perfect a strategy to try something out.

Next run may try Iron man, to see how many turns before I get turned into Soylent Avatar.

Black Market is awesome, unlock as soon as possible. It is particularly great when you need to upgrade your weapons/armor as you will need a lot of supplies to pull it off (rushing the tech is not bad either).

How do you push to get for more hacking? Just upgrading the gremlins? I already have skullmining on my specialists.

edited 15th Feb '16 9:16:59 AM by Heatth