Messages

16

Tactics / Re: What's your favorite weapon?

« on: March 08, 2013, 01:22:23 am »

I found plasma ammo fairly useful. A decently experienced soldier will severely injure even ortnok in medium armor on range roughly 10 cells or less with full auto. The 3-round burst is excellent RF tool if you can set it up properly late in game when you have no good 8 TU weapon for RF. Of course, PB weapons are better, but their ammo is limited to what you can scavenge.

RPG is mostly heavy sniper for me, generally restricted to killing aliens near walls and sometimes using the splash as indirect damage. Due to its huge and heavy ammo, I often issue spare rockets to soldiers who have some spare carry weight, so in the end I sometimes have like dozen rockets distributed throughout my squad.

Machine guns...well, they're not that bad. 5-round burst is good as heavy support for a RF soldier when in close quarters and you need to take down something in medium armor or such, and full auto is good for crawl around the corner-fire-crawl back kind of action, like in small street map for example, or long range "tagging" aliens to induce bleeding. Early on, this is IMO best way to take down some aliens at dam map.

17

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 10:49:01 pm »

Odd. I'm sure I had aliens flashbanged from various angles.

18

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 10:26:53 pm »

If you shoot down UFO, some aliens will spawn injured or partially stunned, so they go down easier. I've had an alien go down stunned after just one hit from assault rifle. But they will still bleed after they are stunned, I've seen a few die this way.

19

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 09:59:13 pm »

I'm not sure about the chance of hit.

Flashbangs have area of effect similar to other grenades. It doesn't matter if it explodes in front or behind alien, as long as he's close enough.

20

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 09:43:50 pm »

Bleeding and stun seem to be funny statuses. I had a situation in my game just a while ago where alien, apparently injured and shaken by the crash, got hit by machinegun fire, bled a while, this stunned him, then he awoke, the bleeding stunned him again, he awoke again, and then died.

The stun mechanics from crash are interesting, I haven't used any stunning weapon yet and I have 8 live aliens+2 who died before I researched alien breathing apparatus.

21

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 08:49:55 pm »

If you are facing alien and can't outmaneuver him before shot, drop a flashbang or smoke grenade instead.

22

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 07:59:28 pm »

Actually, plasma rifle, needler or assault rifle with EP ammo, set on 3 round burst/short burst mode, can be quite devastating later on when soldiers are experienced enough to make those hits count, and armored enough to force aliens use some more TU-hungry fire modes. Shotgun and later plasma blaster set on ball can be useful too. I've even scored some kills with 5-round burst RF from machinegun....

Pistols are actually quite useless for RF, since you get off a shot quick but it won't kill the alien. Not even two pistol rounds will do, and by the time he gets to fire those two shots, he'll be full of plasma.

23

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 06:10:31 pm »

Only map where I actually fired more than one magazine of sniper rifle ammo per soldier was dam. I never ever had need for more than one reload for most weapons except rocket launcher.

24

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 04:05:56 pm »

Medikit and secondary weapon right off the training, that's not a good idea. Start off with just bare minimum, maybe just drop the medikit (2 kg), and maybe spare mag for pistol or if you want to keep medikit, don't give him pistol yet. I found that I never use them anyway, at ranges they're remotely useful it's better to lob a flashbang followed by frag grenade. If you select your recruits well (I recommend taking only 30+ mind, 20+ accy and speed, 35+ strength, 20+ assault or sniper skill), they'll quickly gain enough strength to carry whole load (around 20 missions max to get over 40 strength). I do this: choose just the recruits that fit these criteria and add some fodder to fill whole team, and gradually month by month I replace fodder with better recruits. Losses of fodder are irrelevant.

25

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 14, 2013, 07:35:38 am »

That's odd, every recruit starts at 30+ strength, that's enough to wear combat armor, sniper rifle, spare reload and couple of grenades, that's bare minimum you need. So you are either playing a game started before the weight was implemented so your soldiers have too low strength, or you are trying to reach the TU bonus, and that limits your loadout options too much to make the snipers effective.

26

Tactics / Re: What's your favorite weapon?

« on: February 12, 2013, 07:09:55 pm »

2.5-dev: Assault rifle with EP ammo and sniper rifle with EP ammo.

27

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 11, 2013, 01:42:57 pm »

Best weapons for early close range engagements are SMG and riot shotgun. But after aliens deploy first armor, they become ineffective.

28

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 05, 2013, 11:33:19 am »

Speaking about that, how is RF actually working in these two cases:

Plasma blaster. I noticed that aliens sometimes use ball mode, sometimes single shot for RF, based on distance. Do they choose their RF mode during their turn, or is it actually selected in the moment RF triggers?

Hovernets/combat hovernets (and maybe bloodspiders, but I never had bloodspider actually get into such situation): I noticed that their firing doesn't trigger RF unlike all other aliens, how is that, do they have some special TU calculation for their fire modes?

29

Discussion / Re: 2.5 sucks completely

« on: February 04, 2013, 03:42:53 pm »

1. Reaction fire IS working. You either did not activate it or alien didn't spend enough TUs within field of fire of that soldier to trigger it. It's a common tactic for them to walk behind your soldier before firing so he doesn't see them firing, thus not triggering RF. Positioning, proper choice of weapons and mode for RF will help.

2. Flashbangs. I've noticed that when they explode exactly on same cell as alien is, they fail sometimes. If they explode next to alien they usually work. Also, use the same trick as aliens to avoid their RF if you can. The game isn't supposed to be easy, use some tactics and you'll do okay.

3. You need to do some compromises, especially early on when your soldiers have just few missions. But even starting soldiers can carry armor, weapon, sidearm, one reload for both, IR goggles and couple grenades, barring some heaviest weaponry. Medikits are usually reserved for troops with lighter weapons like assault rifle, but if you select your troops properly, troops with lighter weapons will be able to carry full backpack within dozen of missions. Of course, then new, heavier armors become available and you'll need more trained soldiers to carry the same gear with heavier armor. Learn to do compromises, think about what you really need (my soldiers don't need more than one reload for mission barring extreme circumstances).

4. They're fast, but dumb. You also have the benefit of medikits and after mission, hospital that now heals quickly. Little tactics are enough to get casualty rate to less than 1 per mission. This isn't supposed to be walk in the park.

And finally, learn to use less exclamation marks, question marks and caps. People will take you more seriously.

30

Tactics / Re: retaliatory fire

« on: January 29, 2013, 03:44:10 pm »

The TU counter for RF runs individually for each soldier, so if alien spends 8 TU in sight of two soldiers with RF on with 8 TU mode they'll both fire.

It seems like for each action taken by alien, soldier can use only one action. So for example, if alien uses 24 TU attack when in sight of soldier with 8 TU RF activated, he'll fire just once. But if he uses two separate 12 TU attacks, soldier will fire twice, IF he had at least 16 TU left at the end of his turn.