The Firaxis XCOM Series

Think of it as simulating how confusing combat actually is when you're trying to yell at your troops "Enemy, right of bush, left of arc!"

No, fuck that, game is hard enough.

I've seen this behavior all over this LP video (Shen's Last Gift DLC spoilers). If this was brought by the new patch, it makes any Ironman game unplayable until they issue an emergency patch to correct it.

edited 10th Nov '16 4:58:14 AM by Medinoc

Not the only one experiencing it on the Steam forum. It's a real Game-Breaking Bug with the new patch. I'm also seeing minor issues like game pad prompts and the targeting cycle being backwards.

Does anyone else find Sparks to be really underwhelming? Their Aim is bad, and you can't improve it with PCSes or weapon upgrades, for one thing. None of its abilities seem all that useful. The melee Strike has a ridiculous cooldown for its strength and accuracy. I didnt use Nova once my entire last campaign. They don't have the durability or damage output MECs in EW could get. They don't really offer any particularly effective abilities to manage enemies if you can't kill them outright.

In EW MECs were such a potent asset I would frequently tailor my whole battle strategy around them. Sparks seem like they're just a step above SHIVs but without the expendability.

edited 10th Nov '16 11:08:09 AM by shigmiya64

I thought the very same. That's why I downloaded a workshop mod that allows the modification of SPARK weapons and has custom SPARK passive abilities.

How frequently is this bug kicking in? I was thinking of streaming a rematch with L/I in the near future, but if it can't be easily worked around, I feel like this will make the game not worth my time.

Re: SPARKS: Yeah, they're pretty bad. Takes too much effort and risk to get them early. Getting them later leaves them woefully behind in XP. Then their Aim sucks and Overdrive does them no favour there. Oh, and they also can't bring utility items. One thing of note is that they can get pretty durable, temporarily toting around 6 armour, but that requires heavy investment in Chasis and getting the SPARK to the equivalent of Colonel. They're just too inflexible for what they provide.

I think for them to be worthwhile and have their own niche to fill, they'd have to have a very low production cost and then the ability to recover the memory chip of a defeated SPARK, which could then be applied to a new body. This would allow them to tank with less fear and the significant amount investment to keep their gear updated would be off-set by not losing ranks when the unit goes down.

What is the deal with loot drops? They seem to vary wildly from playthrough to playthrough. On my current run I've gotten ONE Superior anything and I've just built Powered Armor. Last playthrough I was getting plenty of Superior equipment before I was even able to build Plated Armor. One time I got a Superior Stock on like the second month, which is crazy because you're still fighting enemies that can be killed from full with that three guaranteed damage.

They're completely random. Sometimes the mod drops are super overpowered. Other times, the enemies drop nothing but useless Elerium Cores (since it takes a while to get anything up that can use them).

If it was actually completely random I wouldn't notice these different trends between playthroughs.

Small sample size aside, what trends? Looks like you're just getting a mess of whatever whenever.

It's XCOM. It is ALWAYS RN Gesus' fault.

So I've been away from the game for 6 months...do Psi Ops no longer get the AWC hidden perks?

You need to go to their Armory -Skill page to force the AWC skilldrop to proc.

Always thought they couldn't access that by design. Maybe it's time to hunt for a mod that unlocks it automatically.

I did that coz I remember that how it worked in the past, but now I have a Magus Psi with no AWC perks. I haven't kept up the last couple of months so I don't know if it's been patched away. And I have the retroactive AWC mod as well.

edited 5th Dec '16 7:58:18 PM by nightwyrm_zero

I don't remember ever seeing a psi-op with AWC perk. In my last two playthrough, I did the "check their perk page every time they unlock a power" thing and they still didn't get any AWC perk.

Got to scroll between trooper pages there with the arrows to force the AWC to proc.

I once had a Psi Op with Phantom. It was sick. But that was 6 months ago before all these DL Cs came out.

Wow, that sounds like a pretty annoying oversight. I just always assumed they never got any of those perks. Made littler difference to me, though, since the psi abilities are so powerful that standard gun-fighter perks would have had very limited application.

Does anyone know how the Avatar project progress works? I would be 3 or 4 blocks away from the bar being filled and then an alien facility gets built, a series of breakthroughs would then follow with pips added to already existing facilities and the mid-ocean alien base. In just a day, I would go from 3 or 4 blocks being empty to the doom clock counting down. I checked my Dark Events and there were no Breakthrough events in the queue. I don't remember the game filling up the Avatar bar this fast...

• The Dark Event "Minor Avatar Project breakthrough" increases progress by 1.
• The Dark Event "Major Avatar Project breakthrough" increases progress by 2.
• After several weeks an Avatar Project Facility will increase progress by 1.
• When an Avatar Project Facility appears it will increase progress by 1.
• Every several weeks progress will increase by 1 no matter the facility or dark events.

Several of those are on separate timers (who vary on difficulty levels), so it's possible for you to get the "Automatic 1 tick" then "1 tick for new faciltiy" then several ticks for each of the existing facility (who tend to all tick at the same time). Add a Major Breakthrough and you can rank up 6 ticks at the same time if you've not been diligent removing facilities.

edited 7th Dec '16 6:53:33 AM by Ghilz

So all the facilities have separate, individual timers? That's pretty rough...

edited 7th Dec '16 7:22:02 AM by nightwyrm_zero

I am not 100% sure, but I believe it's separate timers, coz I've had them both all tick at once, and tick separately.

It's probably fairer than a single timer where you'd constantly gain 1 to 4 ticks at once.

edited 7th Dec '16 7:28:56 AM by Ghilz

It's just annoying that they would all activate at the same time. I look at the empty blocks and thinks I have a bit of time to train/re-train my dudes or build stuff and then suddenly I have to hit a facility right now or I die.

Oh yeah, the UFO that's been hovering around hunting me for the last month or so decides that NOW is the perfect time to actually attack....