03-05-2018, 04:34 PM
What a difference a day makes! That little bit of late-night planning payed some HUGE dividends!
I basically went with the plan I formulated last night, with a few alterations: 1) I neglected to send Price in as my medic because Yuan was still slotted in the Skyranger; and 2) I think I also forgot to equip my dodge-boosting combat sim... why? Because once again, I had to wait until the women in my life went to bed before I could save the freakin' world, and it's currently 12:55AM, with my alarm set to go off in just over six hours, so I gamed instead of slept and wasn't performing at peak levels... anyway, I'll try my best to be brief-yet-compelling as we continue along this little jaunt.
One of the really cool new features of this particular flavour of XCOM - and I touched on this earlier but didn't expand on it - is that you can collect battlefield loot (if you're fast enough) in the form of scopes, laser sights, extended magazines, etc, so you can customize the weapons equiped on your troops. It adds a whole lot more to factor in and plan for *IF YOU TAKE THE TIME* (which, really, seems to be the root cause of the headaches I got on previous attempts at Ironman-style games).
With the gear I had obtained so far, I boosted my squad with the following: "Lights Out" Khumalo, my lead Sharpshooter, traded out the Advanced Scope on his main weapon for a Superior Extended Magazine; meaning I gave up a 10% aim boost for DOUBLE my shot capacity before needing to reload... I rationalised this my saying that as an Lt, his Aim stat had gone up significantly since he started as a humble rookie. The old scoped sniper rifle went to Kaczmarek, the Polish corporal, whom I'd decided to include on this mission instead of the junior Grenadier... it was really a coin toss, but the deciding factor was that I'd lost so much custom gear (smoke grenades, flash-bangs, etc) from the failed mission earlier that I didn't have any good stuff to equip the troops with for this fight: virtually everybody had the standard grenade on their belt (except for Kaczmarek - she got the Battle Scanner). Other than that, the cupboards were bare - there was no extra incentive to have the demolitions guy present. Next, my two shotgun-toting rangers had Advanced Laser Sights slapped onto their primary weapons for a 10% boost to critical damage. Now, the shotguns already have increased critical chance, so this was a blatant min/maxing of the stat: if they were gonna hit, they were guaranteed to hit HARD. Rounding out the squad was my purveyor of Ancient Chinese Medicine, Corporal Yue Ying Yuan. I slapped the scope from Lights Out's rifle onto hers and gave her my lone medkit... she was there for support, but her Aim stat was low, so my logic was that if I needed her to shoot at something, it'd be a boon if she actually hit.
One final piece of background: because of previous play-throughs, I knew that if I have the Advanced Warfare Facility built on the ship, any soldier who levels-up has a chance of randomly getting a bonus ability from another class skill-tree. Sick, right? That's why it was the first room I built on the Avenger.
Anyway, I happened to overlook that Lights Out has the "Ever Vigilant" perk... meaning if he spends all of his action points moving, at the end of my turn he automatically enters Overwatch! I'm keeping my eyes open for any other troops that may have little extras that I missed in my earlier haste, and making notes on those that get awarded boosts in the future...
So... the battle... my eyes are getting heavy, and the weekend is over now, so I'll try to sum up the over-all BUTT KICKING I LAID DOWN ON THOSE EVIL-DOERS!!!
Basically, I spawned near a hill/cliff feature next to the village that was getting stomped on, so I immediately sent the snipers to the high ground. I aggro-spawned a Lancer and basic trooper right away, but a lucky shotgun blast from a distance (truly, it had no right connecting) dropped those jerks quick. Next I deployed the Battle Scanner, and boy howdy, can that thing travel far... it can also reveal "Faceless" aliens, these shape-shifting baddies that pose as civilians-in-distress and reveal their ugly selves only once you run up right next to them... jerks, one and all!
So, knowing (legally!) where the next clutch of aliens are lurking, a smartly deploy, flank and destroy... I also encountered Mutons for the first time this game, but because everybody present had a basic frag grenade, I was able to eliminate his cover and take him out quite handily...
Bottom line: Flawless victory, and my civilian save count, while not perfect, was probably one of my highest ever recorded. Promotions almost all around, and some cool nicknames earned (Black Widow? Tombstone? Sweeeeeet....)
A good time was had by all!
That's it for now, and because we're heading into the work week I can't predict when the next update will be, but I'm feeling pretty good.
Next time, folks!
I basically went with the plan I formulated last night, with a few alterations: 1) I neglected to send Price in as my medic because Yuan was still slotted in the Skyranger; and 2) I think I also forgot to equip my dodge-boosting combat sim... why? Because once again, I had to wait until the women in my life went to bed before I could save the freakin' world, and it's currently 12:55AM, with my alarm set to go off in just over six hours, so I gamed instead of slept and wasn't performing at peak levels... anyway, I'll try my best to be brief-yet-compelling as we continue along this little jaunt.
One of the really cool new features of this particular flavour of XCOM - and I touched on this earlier but didn't expand on it - is that you can collect battlefield loot (if you're fast enough) in the form of scopes, laser sights, extended magazines, etc, so you can customize the weapons equiped on your troops. It adds a whole lot more to factor in and plan for *IF YOU TAKE THE TIME* (which, really, seems to be the root cause of the headaches I got on previous attempts at Ironman-style games).
With the gear I had obtained so far, I boosted my squad with the following: "Lights Out" Khumalo, my lead Sharpshooter, traded out the Advanced Scope on his main weapon for a Superior Extended Magazine; meaning I gave up a 10% aim boost for DOUBLE my shot capacity before needing to reload... I rationalised this my saying that as an Lt, his Aim stat had gone up significantly since he started as a humble rookie. The old scoped sniper rifle went to Kaczmarek, the Polish corporal, whom I'd decided to include on this mission instead of the junior Grenadier... it was really a coin toss, but the deciding factor was that I'd lost so much custom gear (smoke grenades, flash-bangs, etc) from the failed mission earlier that I didn't have any good stuff to equip the troops with for this fight: virtually everybody had the standard grenade on their belt (except for Kaczmarek - she got the Battle Scanner). Other than that, the cupboards were bare - there was no extra incentive to have the demolitions guy present. Next, my two shotgun-toting rangers had Advanced Laser Sights slapped onto their primary weapons for a 10% boost to critical damage. Now, the shotguns already have increased critical chance, so this was a blatant min/maxing of the stat: if they were gonna hit, they were guaranteed to hit HARD. Rounding out the squad was my purveyor of Ancient Chinese Medicine, Corporal Yue Ying Yuan. I slapped the scope from Lights Out's rifle onto hers and gave her my lone medkit... she was there for support, but her Aim stat was low, so my logic was that if I needed her to shoot at something, it'd be a boon if she actually hit.
One final piece of background: because of previous play-throughs, I knew that if I have the Advanced Warfare Facility built on the ship, any soldier who levels-up has a chance of randomly getting a bonus ability from another class skill-tree. Sick, right? That's why it was the first room I built on the Avenger.
Anyway, I happened to overlook that Lights Out has the "Ever Vigilant" perk... meaning if he spends all of his action points moving, at the end of my turn he automatically enters Overwatch! I'm keeping my eyes open for any other troops that may have little extras that I missed in my earlier haste, and making notes on those that get awarded boosts in the future...
So... the battle... my eyes are getting heavy, and the weekend is over now, so I'll try to sum up the over-all BUTT KICKING I LAID DOWN ON THOSE EVIL-DOERS!!!
Basically, I spawned near a hill/cliff feature next to the village that was getting stomped on, so I immediately sent the snipers to the high ground. I aggro-spawned a Lancer and basic trooper right away, but a lucky shotgun blast from a distance (truly, it had no right connecting) dropped those jerks quick. Next I deployed the Battle Scanner, and boy howdy, can that thing travel far... it can also reveal "Faceless" aliens, these shape-shifting baddies that pose as civilians-in-distress and reveal their ugly selves only once you run up right next to them... jerks, one and all!
So, knowing (legally!) where the next clutch of aliens are lurking, a smartly deploy, flank and destroy... I also encountered Mutons for the first time this game, but because everybody present had a basic frag grenade, I was able to eliminate his cover and take him out quite handily...
Bottom line: Flawless victory, and my civilian save count, while not perfect, was probably one of my highest ever recorded. Promotions almost all around, and some cool nicknames earned (Black Widow? Tombstone? Sweeeeeet....)
A good time was had by all!
That's it for now, and because we're heading into the work week I can't predict when the next update will be, but I'm feeling pretty good.
Next time, folks!
They say Hitler loved dogs; that doesn't mean I want to travel back in time and discuss the merits of the Border Collie with the guy. He's still an a-hole.