The Firaxis XCOM Series

They never said it was never going to come to consoles. IIRC, one of the first interviews said that they wanted to concentrate on making a good PC product first, then they would work on console ports. Looks like that's finally coming to fruition.

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All right it probably totally is MECs/SHIVs then

Bought the game on sale. Any tips I should know to progress through the game smoothly? Played the first Enemy Unknown game, so I know the basics of combat. Engineers seem to be really limited this time around.

Specialize your soldiers. In EU/EW you could pick perks from both sides of the skill trees and get a badass soldier. In 2 however a soldier's skills syncs very well with other abilities on the same side of the tree.

For example, take the sharpshooter class. The left side of their skill tree all boosts their effectiveness with the sniper rifle, while the right side boosts their effectiveness with the pistol. Spec them to be with their rifle and you got a unit that can one-shot most enemies and lockdown entire battles while being nowhere near it. Spec them on the right and you got someone who can plink enemies to death, attack nearly a dozen times a turn, and all around get right up into an enemy's face and live. Spec them on both and they can do none of these.

Except Return Fire. Feel free to skip that. Hitting an Overwatch out of your soldier's sight definitely beats probably missing a guy in cover shooting them first.

I wouldn't go so far as to say you should always stick to one side of the tree. You'll usually end up picking most skills on one, but some skills just aren't worth it and some are too good to pass up. For example, I like to have lightning hands on all my sharpshooters, regardless of if they're gunslingers or snipers. And though some people like chain shot, I always pick heavy ordnance on all my grenadiers as well as suppression since demolition is a bit unreliable. Haywire protocol is also much more all around useful, even on medic specialists.

Also, build a Guerrilla Tactics School and then the Advanced Warfare Center (unlocked by researching alien biotech) very soon after that. That way you can get AWC bonuses much sooner.

edited 11th Jun '16 11:04:38 AM by Nerevarine

Yeah, Deadeye isn't a great ability. It'll rob you of 100% shots in most cases and in a game of RNG, you want certainty where you can get it.

So something fricking cool indirectly related to XCOM and not related to Firaxis

I figured out that creating thread for that would be pointless since most of tropers don't remember Gollop anyway even though he has done cool stuff

I like how it has a bit of Apocalypse flavour, with other factions and a more dynamic and reactive enemy. Good to see Gollop back in action.

He's apparently touting for some publisher assistance as well - would be interesting if Take 2 got involved and absorbed the game into the XCOM brand (It would be a competitor game, after all)

Just to note, Gollop HAS been back in action last few years, this is the point where I point that Chaos Reborn is good game and you should check it out

Anyway, I like how it isn't just xcom clone, how it actually does new things xcom clones and new xcom should have done ages ago. Like actually expanding on the "damage to body parts" thing from old xcom instead of just removing it

Yeah heard about CR - definitely need to give it a go. I know that some people riff on how Gollop is just doing "the same stuff again" but really he's reiterating and improving on a concept. Which is good for us.

I'm loving the procedural enemy talk and the limb damage options. How we can't and won't be able to just fall back on our Alpha team solution. Here's hoping the interface makes things relatively easy to manage!

So Shen's Last Gift is out. Featuring GIANT ROBOTS!

edited 30th Jun '16 10:24:41 AM by Ninjaxenomorph

Johnny Five's revenge has come

Welp, thats a suprise, but given that I am making an eight hour flight tomorow, it is a welcome suprise, now I have something to do on the plane.

And my second playthrough (trying out mods) is almost wrapped up... I should go do that...

I got a few voice pack mods, the Long War team's mods, a few cosmetics and gameplay speed-ups. I greatly enjoy the Freeman voice pack, though. Pity his "YOU'RE THE REASON WE INVENTED NAPALM!" line didn't trigger when I firebombed a pack of chryssalids, though...

Shen's Last Gift downloaded.

Time to Hug That Shit one more time.

I didn't even realize the DLC came out. Still haven't finished a game with the previous DLC....

So with this DLC...I think it's time for Shingeki no XCOM 2. Possibly even make a Let's Play out of it.

We'll still keep the rule where the initial squad is the 104th training squad, and we are only allowed to hire rookies until we fill it out. It is permissible to use intel to purchase veterans, but only until the point at which we've filled out all the experienced Survey Corps members (so...Levi and his squad), capping our army at 20 or so people.

No using heavy armor, everyone must either run the standard armor or the light armor.

Robot can only be used when Eren dies, at which point it replaces him. I suppose the three Alien Rulers can be the three Titan Shifters. Thus, if one appears, and its corresponding Shifter soldier is on site, no using them in combat. If we kill it, no using the corresponding soldier again.

Any other rules you can think of for doing an Attack on Titan themed playthrough?

Can the new mechs take cover/are repared fast?

I want to know how viable a team of only them are.

Speaking of mechanical units, I just realized that the SHIVs are completely absent in XCOM 2. Never really used them, hence why it took me this long.

Do you need to start a new game to use the DLC or get the story?

SPARKs are repaired by being staffed in the engineering bay (where Lily is found). You can therefore only repair one at a time. They repair at the same rate as soldiers heal in a staffed AWC. One of the Spark skills allows it to repair itself (or another Spark) for 6+ damage 2x per combat. Unlike regular soldiers, you can redeploy a damage SPARK any time.

SPARKs cannot take cover. They can howerver provide cover. It seems that they do count cover for the purpose of maintaining concealment however, though I am not fully clear on that.

Also note: SPARKs do gain callsigns like regular soldiers.

ON the DLC overall Sparks are fun, but sort of lame we only get one story mission. And not even any resolution on the Dr. Vahlen stuff from Alien Hunters...

edited 30th Jun '16 9:46:08 PM by Ghilz

Good lord, the Last Gift mission is ball-crunchingly hard. Then again, I was playing on Commander difficulty with only three rookies with conventional gear... Still,I'm glad I wasn't playing on ironman. I lost the game twice over, only fervent reloading saved me.

But yeah, don't do that. Don't make my mistake. My advice is to wait a bit, bring in a full squad with magnetic weaponry. It is well worth it, though.

edited 30th Jun '16 10:06:07 PM by Ninjaxenomorph

Without cover, and the unique healing, are they usable?