Let's Play: X-COM Long War beta 15

[Kiro]

Hello everyone, Want to see a slightly informed yet still pretty new player tackle the latest iteration of X-COM Long War with no savescumming? Well, you've come to the right Commander.

My stream is at http://www.twitch.tv/kirowind

X-COM Long War beta 15 was released today and I think I will give it a legitimate go. What this means is no savescumming meaning if I make a mistake or RNG doesn't go my way, I do not reload to a previous save to try to make things right. What happens is permanent. I may reload if a major bug occurs, but considering my relative lack of knowledge of Long War mechanics, I may not even recognize a play bug if I see it. What's the extent of my X-COM knowledge? Well, completion of X-COM EU and EW on Classic difficulty and a brief foray into beta 14 up to September 2015 (I hadn't even gotten MECs done yet). And I've spent some time browsing the X-COM subreddit and have gained insight to how other people play and for some reason, it killed my interest in completing my current run.

So, how can you participate? Well, if you want to become a soldier in my campaign, feel free to post and say so. I will use any nickname you want me to give you, otherwise, I will stick with your forum name. You can also give me a first and last name to use and I will rename it, otherwise I will stick to the default names. Also, if you want a particular class, you can call it out and I will name the next of that class as you, otherwise, it will go to the soldier I need that earns a nickname (based on Commander's Choice mod). May you achieve everlasting glory in the fight to save humanity.

I don't know what kind of a schedule I can keep, but for now, let's do 8 PM (GMT-8) for the next few nights. Meaning I start in under half an hour. I will update this thread with interesting screenshots and summaries as I progress through my campaign. Preemptive thank you for your support.

[Ghaleon]

I can't imagine not save scumming it for at least the aerial combat portions. Even the weakest of enemy ufo's can shoot down two interceptors and stay flying if you aren't lucky...as in, you don't even need horrible luck, just SLIGHTLY bad luck and you'll be going thru interceptors like hell.

[Kiro]

I can't imagine not save scumming it for at least the aerial combat portions. Even the weakest of enemy ufo's can shoot down two interceptors and stay flying if you aren't lucky...as in, you don't even need horrible luck, just SLIGHTLY bad luck and you'll be going thru interceptors like hell.

Yeah, I realize that the airgame is very RNG-ish and almost completely out of my control. Regardless, I don't think any viewers want to see the player reloading an interceptor fight 20 times just to get something shot down. Since I plan to run the Dynamic War option, the campaign will be shorter so I can get to the later parts sooner and realize if/when I need to abandon the campaign sooner without investing too much time into the early months.

[Stuffman]

Sign me up for X-COM!

I'd actually like to have a SHIV named after me, if you plan to use them.

For those not familiar with Long War classes, if you want to pick one that suits you:
Assault: murder aliums with shotguns at point blank!
Infantry: start shooting and don't stop until all aliums are dead!
Rocketeer: blow up half a dozen aliums with your rocket launcher in one turn! or miss and kill your team!
Gunner: shoot aliums so hard they can't shoot back!
Sniper: shoots aliums from across the map!
Scout: distract aliums so your friends can kill them dead!
Engineer: blow aliums up with grenades!
Medic: doesn't shoot aliums, boring.

[Raitaki]

Yep, totally in! Scout, please, and not gonna force you to play in any particular way, but if my Scout ever goes on a mission without a marksman rifle/strike rifle-type gun, necks shall be snapped. - v-

Also doing a fresh LW b15 run on Dynamic War myself. First month was actually rather easy (probably just the lower frequency of missions speaking), but somehow after making the first 2 Specialist rookies I got Scouts, I'm getting no snipers. ; v;

[Kiro]

So after 3 hours of streaming, 4 missions complete. No flawless mission as of yet, but not too bad overall with the exception of:

[attach=1]

The 3rd drone in the pod was inside the building and had enough of a move to fly over the dumpster and flank crit my guy for 5 HP. Sadness.

Sectoid autopsy almost done (due to US "We Have Ways" bonus) and a Satellite Uplink is going up without enough money for the 2nd satellite because I don't have enough scientists to get a 2nd Laboratory going. My first Corporal is a female Gunner so anyone who is interested can start calling for nicknames, otherwise, I will leave them as default. There isn't too much interesting going on in today's VOD, so hopefully the next missions will see some screenshot worthy action.

Any comments on my casting or whatever is appreciated. And no, I don't have a webcam set up.

[Bardiche]

Sniper. I liie doing it sneakily. Should look into this Long War business!

[Yugian]

Hey Kiro! Best of luck with your XCOM Run! You'll be the first to do a B15 run between the two of us, and i'll come support your stream the best i can.

I simply cant handle it right now, I had a run from B13-B14 that i was hyped to stream again as the long runner it was, but it was too bull shit that every patch literally nuked my strategy- up and to literally killing the Amercia and Africa bonus at the same time (Only thing keeping me afloat), soooo im going to wait until a patch comes out, and we can figure out the .INI stuff so that getting shot across the nose in the sky doesn't make you wait two goddamn weeks.  :V

But... Yeah. Airgame in Long War is such Tosh, that i reserved the right to scum it as i deemed fit- or otherwise reload to save my Interceptor. I also put on Cinematic mode- Simply because FUUUUUUUUUCK the Airgame. The only reason I lose 80% of my long wars is my shitty luck- combined with the fact that i dont rush air game, so i get utterly raped. Thank god B15 put a cap to them, so EVENTUALLY, you can equal out and win.

If you could- Ianaandru Meredith; Infantry Psionic. Will High, Aim doesn't need to be so great.
http://i.gyazo.com/32ed18e8733aea3a23c2c363d6505cc4.png
http://i.gyazo.com/73d5195abfad7753dd196dd3b4a6f014.png (I'll take Tactical Sense over Lock and Load- Honestly. As said, Long Runner Campaign. XD)

If you want some tips man-
1. Rocketeers are garbage. Sadly so- Sure, its earlier access to heat warheads, but you CANNOT reliably get them to hit what you want. So unless you need a shredder REALLY badly, only keep like... one or two around. HOWEVER, If you like MEC's and plan to use them regularly- Rocketeers make WONDERFUL MEC's. They're called Archers. They fling grenades half way across the map. Base.  :V

1.5. Though, speaking of Shredder... Its REALLLLYYYYY good. As in, you want it. Assaults can eventually get a box of shredder ammo, and Gunners can take Shredder ammo over HEAT Ammo (A debatibly hard choice, believe it or not.). I think Valk MECS can pick it up as a perk too, but just keep your mind open, and you might be pleasantly surprised.

2.FILL UP YOUR OFFICER BALLOTS. Every guy with stay frosty is one more day you dont have to wait for your badasses to get back into the fray- and it starts building up your Officer roster. Their 'Extra' class fills up on missions achieved- so the more missions you can feed into officer cabinet, the better. For who you SHOULD pick to be an officer, your medics and snipers work wonderfully for this role- depending on what bonuses you want. You can also OCCASIONALLY feed a high will solider into roster, simply to jack up the will of others, but you want to save those guys for Psionics. Low Will on the other hand, should be saved for MEC conversion.

3.Capture EVERYTHING you can. Bring a Sacrificial monkey every round- and load him up with Arc Throwers. I cannot state how important it is to get your Autopsies and Interrogations done early on. The Council Pays THROUGH THE NOSE for live aliens, and getting Plasma Cores early means you can sell them off in emergency situations when your strapped for cash- Or have a nice little stockpile for when you have to build weapons out of them; You cant make them raw anymore.  :V

4. SCIENTISTS OVER ENGINEERS. I learned this one the hard way- but its FAR more important to get your research done (Especially when Labs got gimped hard) then to efficiently make it. Once the enemy starts snow balling, they will snow ball to ridiculous degrees; and you will need power armor sooner then you think if you want soldiers to not eat it when they get sneezed on.

5. TACTICS- Your early goal should be a heavy offense. This is the early game your still in. You are still in a position that the enemies havent leapt miles and bounds ahead of you. Your Assault Rifles will do the trick, and WILL mess up some aliens if you get a flank on them. Bring grenades to blow up their cover- make sure your shooters are as accurate as they can be (give them Scopes), and just keep pushing them back. However, this DOESNT mean go activate every pod you see on the map; it simply means you dont have to set up Overwatch Kill Halls and hope they run into it because you need 80+ shots to kill the 50+ HP unit. This simply means that strong shows of force will get you through the day with Minimal casualties.

HOWEVER, once the Aliens start getting ridiculous, Switch immediately to survival and defensive tactics. Take your time- Missions can start to take upwards of 50 turns now; simply because you KNOW the second you have one man move out of position and you'll call down the fucking thunder on your ass. Move each unit for one, then Mass Overwatch with EVERYONE (Y Key for a shortcut there). Unless you have a Sniper, then have him focus his aim, because he NEEDS to fucking hit whatever nasty ass buffer or commander unit they've got, or else your all dead.

6. UNIT COMP! I wouldn't run into battle without TRYING to get a Medic, Officer and Scout out there. Medics are simply too important for long war- and should never carry anything  that isn't a medkit. If you want to get revive, you can train a line of Gene Soldiers with second heart to work with this guy- Or just have him train up Future MEC Candidates.

Officer for above said reasons.

And Scout because the aliens love Overwatch as much as you do- Give him some good body armor, a chest plating (or the Chameleon Suit when you can get it), and then the second item is up to you. Personally, I ether give him a grenade to set up shots for my other fighters by blowing up cover- or a battle scanner to keep eyes on a battlefield. But this pick is up to you- and you cant really go wrong with most picks. Hell, Give him a medkit even- and have him pull Thin-Men Fire, he'll laugh it up. Hooowwweeeverrrr...

7.B15 Bullshit- The Respiratory collar is... basically mandatory now. why why why...  :colonveeplusalpha:
Its too good of an item- and has too much attached to it to pass up on it. Works functionally as both Medkit immunity- A second Heart without Will saving AND without it- you cant see bleed out timers anymore. That solider COULD have 1 turn on his bleed out- and you'll never see it. I guess dont get shot to death- Your item slots will already be raped; and you have NO room for this stupid thing without a tactical rigging... and that could be saved for key item slots, such as more grenades for the Engineer, or More medkits for the Medic. Argh.

[Raitaki]

Or you can be a man and never let anyone die, thus negating the need for respiratory collars C|:^ )

I'm gonna argue against Rocketeer being useless though, They start out with Shredder, and it's FREE, FREE! The scatter is compensated by the fact they hit like two HE grenades (or one AP with shredder), and on some open maps (Site Recon council mission, most UFO landings, the gas station, etc.) you can position your Rocketeer where a Sniper would sit, and toss out rockets at max range with no more than 2.0 scatter (if it's the first action of the turn). They're very useful against chryssalids (especially on maps where they tend to end up on different heights when they reveal so your engies can't 'nade all of them at once), and with HEAT nerfed they'll help greatly with dealing with Cyberdisc pods as well.

[Ghaleon]

I think rockets are slightly more accurate too if you opt to use a carbine over a rifle. But yeah, I find them only situationally useful, particularly because like half the time they would be good you dont want to use em cuz they will blow up valuable goods.

And I didnt notice NA had we have ways.

I do wish they fixed one thing I hate about xcom mod or not, how crysid packs basically guarantee at least one death if you discover them on your move instead of theirs. The damn things ALWAYS conpletely surround the poor schmuck who spots them during that initial discovery move thing, and there is no way to kill em all before their turn. I deal with it by reloading, and "setting up" the perfect spot, but without reloading I just dont see how they are fair at all.

I think they should have some kind of racial penalty where they move less during that initial spot phase or something.

[Yugian]

I'm gonna argue against Rocketeer being useless though

But i said Garbage, not useless D:
But absolutely they have their uses! dont get me wrong! its the Ridiculous scatter that ruins them- Otherwise, They'd be so much better.  :derp:

And the Heat nerf hit everyone i thought. Base HEAT damage down to 50%?

I think rockets are slightly more accurate too if you opt to use a carbine over a rifle.

Sadly not. They removed that in B14, given everyone just threw them laser carbines.

I do wish they fixed one thing I hate about xcom mod or not, how crysid packs basically guarantee at least one death if you discover them on your move instead of theirs.

Aint that the truth there? If you dont have Anti-Melee armor- or arent a mec, your FUCKED.  :V

The mod just makes them worse, and forces a turn where you HAVE to deal with like... 6 of them, with buff as shit armor, and if you miss, your units die.

[Kiro]

Thanks for all the tips Yugian.

I do like Rocketeers for that raw AOE damage. I did a lot of scumming on my last run because I didn't realize you should be positioning them and then steadying to end the turn to reduce scatter. I'm excited to use them if I can base my team's movements around them, like a Starcraft siege tank. And they're fantastic against Chrysallids of course.

I guess one thing I really need to think about is who should be wearing the lighter high mobility armor and who should be wearing the heavier armor. For instance:
Scouts: I assume they start light and then can go a little heavier armor once they get Sprinter so they can survive the rare times Lightning Reflexes miss.
Assaults: Should they go light so they can get into range better or go heavy because once they are in range, they may have to take some shots?
Infantry: They are sort of frontline because you park them somewhere and they kill or be killed. Light to get to the best cover more easily or Heavy to make sure they can survive?

[Yugian]

Scouts: I assume they start light and then can go a little heavier armor once they get Sprinter so they can survive the rare times Lightning Reflexes miss.
Assaults: Should they go light so they can get into range better or go heavy because once they are in range, they may have to take some shots?
Infantry: They are sort of frontline because you park them somewhere and they kill or be killed. Light to get to the best cover more easily or Heavy to make sure they can survive?

Personally, i slapped EVERYONE with heavy armor, simply because the aliens were doing FAR too much damage to me to justify lighter armor, save a Hook for a spare unit or extra run speed for my capture monkey (the Extra defense helps.)

However, Class-wise...

Scouts- I use heavy, because they WILL eventually get shot. However, I can easily see a case for why light armor can be used- they are skirmishers and should be treated as such (Until they get some monster flanks).

Assaults- Heavy. If they cant kill their target in ONE shot (And the CCS fails to save their ass), they NEED all the HP they can get to not die. Run and Gun is there for a reason- dont take a shot you cant bank on.

Infantry- Heavy. They are your DPS and anything you can do to make the enemy NOT shoot them is good. Plus, they can get Extra Conditioning- This makes them INSANELY healthy with heavy ass Armor.

Engineers - Depends on his role. Light armor if he has Repair (and as thus, can stun 4 times with 2 arc throwers), Heavy if he's serving a combat role.

Medics- HEAVY. If they die, your FUCKED.

Snipers- I use Light- The faster he gets into position, the faster he rapes the field with High Accuracy Death.

Rocketeer- Always light. You want to bring the bang? They need ALL the movement they can get.

Gunner- Heavy, because obvious reasons.

[Raitaki]

Hmm, I found I could justify light on everyone who doesn't already have ~15-16 mobility from levelups/Sprinter, at least for early game. With a couple of level ups just about anyone can survive 1 alien shot, but can't survive 2 without heals, so the extra point of HP isn't worth 2 mob imo. If anyone needs more HP still, I still give them tac vest, then a ceramic plating on top of that (or better platings once I research and make them). It's usually worth losing an inventory slot; squadsighters aren't under fire often enough to need armor, Scouts on marksman/strike/arc rifles are accurate enough to get armor instead of SCOPE, medics are intentionally expendable by virtue of me just getting more of them, and engies can abuse line of sight to survive even on tac vest and no armor, since they're better off nading and providing support. The main problem is with assaults, since they need both survivability and mobility to be useful, not to mention being the most likely candidates for carrying the 2-weight arc throwers. Personally I pick fast assaults to just wear plating or armor + empty inventory, and high-HP assaults to wear vests and just the arc thrower. All an assault needs to cause major mayhem are their stats and their shotgun, so no grenade nonsense that slows them down. Might suffer lategame since special ammo becomes important though, though hopefully by then their level ups would have given them some more mobility.

But hey, I'm a dude who lives on the edge, so might not be the best method for you :V

Also am I the only LMG Gunner user around here? ;_; They're basically snipers without snap shot and steady weapon, but has suppression, holo-targeting, HEAT, good overwatch and insane damage. All they need is the lightest armor I have, a SCOPE and a laser sight (or alien trophy if low Will) and they become dakka god.

[Ghaleon]

geeze I just started playing last week, and they release a new version already that says it suggests a new game? #%@%#. I'm curious about the blurb about terror missions adjusting civilian kills after some aliens are discovered. I had a rather BS terror mission just recently in month 3. By turn 3... 3... I mean the first turn I did nothing but go full out sprint in one direction without finding anything, turn 2 I found a 4 floater pod, and barely got to shoot twice, turn 3 a 4 pack of crysalids came interrupting me...Note by the end of turn 3, I EFFING MIRACULOUSLY managed to kill ALL the aliens I saw, without them killing a single civilian... What was left in the map? just 3 more crysalids, which were another 2 full turns of sprinting away. I killed them in 2 turns since my slower sprinters couldn't reach shooting range on the first... I cannot IMAGINE how I could have POSSIBLY done it faster... and I only saved 5 civilians.. BS.

Also how do you reduce panic? I look at the wiki and it says you reduce it by 2 by saving an abduction, and that it has a *CHANCE* of going down by like 1-5 if your panic is at 90+ IF you have a satellite... that's it... So am I right in saying that you bacially have no reliable means of reducing panic below 90 if it gets that high? Kinda bummed since my US panic went off the charts after that BS panic mission (especially since they were the victims of my previous month's panic mission, which wasn't as bs but I still had 7 civs die).

Anyway I like LMGs too so far, though I suspect I'll switch to their more mobile counterpart later on. The thing about the game I've noticed is that all the weapons seem to increase their damage by 1 per tech tier. So the damage bonus of an LMG and the other one (forgot the name) when damage is 5 or 6 is fairly large...but by tier 5, the difference between 9 or 10 isn't quite as large. However one thing I like about LMGs is their built in squadsight, which lets me treat them kinda like snipers, who can also kick ass if someone decides to stupidly enter close range to them...unlike snipers. Heat is also going to be nice too I reckon, but I thought bumped into any cyberdiscs or whatever yet...speaking of which, I wonder if cyberdisc # is increased yet. I finished xcom vanilla, and EW once each, and both times I only encountered 2 cyberdiscs for the entire game, not including the ones in that final mission where the spawn count is fixed. I'd fight like 20 mechtois though... or were they called sectopods, I forget...the big ones that shoot indirect fire rockets, overwatch, and fire big railguns all during each turn.

I'm not having any luck finding out what the point of marksman rifles are for. I'm not noticing them having any boost to range or accuracy over ordinary rifles, and even with that targeting sensor thing that grants squadsight and stuff, I still am not able to fire at enemies directly in front of me (but at range), that my LMG gunner CAN fire at, WITHOUT any accessories to help with just that.

[Raitaki]

@Ghaleon: You don't have to actually save civs in terror missions, just end the mission before they all die. Saving a civ just makes them leave the map so that they can't be killed by aliens later. Panic is only dependent on how many civs the aliens manage to kill.

Panic reduction in Long War mainly comes in many small doses; shooting down UFOs and successfully raiding them reduce some panic I think. Also of note is the fact UFOs cause 2 panic in countries they past if they go a whole trip without getting shot once, so early on you want to only intercept aggressively so you get at least one shot in before they escape. 2 panic isn't much, though, so you can choose to ignore it if too many inters are damaged and you want a couple ready to fight fighters (the medium UFOs that does the flashing thing as it flies around the hologlobe), which usually go after your satellites. So in Long War, instead of granting a big panic reduction on deployment, sats instead "reduce" panic by allowing you to intercept passing UFOs to prevent the 2 panic increase. And UFOs show up fairly often.

I think council missions reduce panic by a fair amount, since I've had countries with panic around 60 go down to like 20-30 in a short amount of time and council missions are the only explanation.

After EXALT starts running mission, if you feel confident in fighting them without crippling your army, let them run their covert operations. Sometimes they max out panic in one country, and leave you enough time before month ends to launch a covert operation and kick their ass for a panic boost. Not sure if this results in net panic reduction, but for the whole duration of the ordeal the maxed panic country can't get any more panic since they're, well, already maxed.

Marksman rifle does have more range than every gun but sniper rifles and LMG (36 range vs 30 range), though it's not very noticeable since obstacles and whatnot block line of sight so soldiers don't get to fire at max range very often. They also grant some crit and 1 more average dmg, so they're basically battle rifles that trade close range accuracy for not getting the nasty -12 hit penalty, and with marksman scope they turn your scouts into more or less snap shot snipers. I find them pretty useful for "safe" flanking manuevers where the scout flanks and shoots enemies while staying outside their vision range so their buddies can't flank the scout back without double moving. They also let your non-snap shot snipers "gain" snap shot in exchange for some crit and loss of infinite range, and they'd still be able to use all their usual sniper perks on a marksman rifle while "snap shotting", pretty useful for missions where you need a sniper but also need them to move often, like EXALT missions.

In my opinion, LMGs aren't a situational weapon choice for gunner, but pretty much divide the Gunner class into separate build path, one that adds survivability and evasion (since taking any damage at all stops their extremely useful suppression) and one completely glass cannon build path. Although SAWs would mean 1 more mov compared to LMG, picking LMG means you can opt the Gunner out of heavy armor and extra plating, resulting in faster Gunners, although their mobility is now limited by the shooting vs moving tradeoff rather than running range. LMGs also get rid of the aim and crit penalties on Suppression shots that SAWs get, so that's another plus. LMG Gunners are what I look to for pure firepower, while SAW Gunners are better as (slow) front line support.

[Ghaleon]

oh yeah, I rarely bother actually MANUALLY rescuing people. I only do it if they are 'on-the-way' towards me killing the aliens. I mean just listen to my story, I killed 2 fairly dangerous (for month 3) packs of 4 each within 3 turns, where the first turn was just me sprinting out of the deployment zone, and then I had to spend 2 more turns of hard sprinting towards the last pack, where I killed it the turn after Is aw it...there was no time wasted rescuing people there, but I still lost alot.. It was just a freak occurance, but one that made my US panic levels go from like 20 to 90 (wiki says people gain 2 panic per civ killed.. it lies.. lieees).

Likewise I see that it says marksmen rifles shoot 6 further than LMGs, but yeah, I swear.. I had both my scout and gunner sitting side by side on a hill as the rest of my team was exploring the perimeter of a crash site, and my LMG could shoot at 3 different enemies in diff positions, but my scout couldn't shoot 1, even with that weird accessory that grants them squadsight. I even had the little alienhead icons appear on the bottom right of my screen during my scout's turn, but I still coudln't shoot them. I thought that meant that is how many enemies you can fire at during that turn, but apparently not. Maybe there's some weird bug or feature where LMG gains distance with height better? I dunno..cuz they were quite significantly higher than their targets, and on that very same mission I was qqing about, My LMG dude was on the roof of a building with my sniper, and that final pack that was 2.5 turns of sprinting away seemed WAY more than 30 squares away, but he was still able to shoot them down.

[Raitaki]

The head-with-crosshairs icons are just targets in your squadsight that you have an unobstructed shot at, but not necessarily in range, I think. LMGs and marksman rifles should have the same range, so no idea why your scout couldn't shoot. Maybe wiki stats are wrong? *shrugs* I've found scouts are still better near the front line despite using what amounts to a mini sniper rifle, so I've never really noticed.

I've no idea what is up with the terror mission you described, though. It sounds like most of the kills would have been from the last chryssalids, but then the map would have been crawling with zombies/baby chryssalids so It's like the civs just died from heart attacks or something. The only explanation for the massive panic spike that I can guess is if you were playing with Dynamic War on then maybe they adjusted panic to make it change faster to compensate for lower frequency of missions or something. I dunno, for panic to spike that much all at once would take like, 3 of the biggest panic-spikers in the mod at the same time (sat crashing, not winning an abduction mission, and/or losing a shitload of civs in terror mission), not counting temporary spikes such as a terror mission starting or EXALT completing a covert operation to induce panic (which the game tells you as soon as it happens).

Also, the country where terror missions happen also suffer from the continental panic it generates, so in reality it's gaining 3 panic/civ death total.

[Kiro]

So, today's session featured no soldier deaths and 2 flawless missions. Also only seeing medium UFOs and while I deterred UFO-2 (got it to at least half HP), it took 3 interceptors to do so sending them all to the shop. Repair times in Dynamic War are 20-35 days, argh! UFO-3 and UFO-4 had to be ignored, 4 leading to an abduction mission in Canada. I am slightly alarmed that a Meld Canister netted me +14 meld. I don't know if there's an adjustment in Dynamic War, but that feels like a crapton of meld for the aliens to be sitting on in mid-April. Raitaki and Morikage are now active and I'm counting on Raitaki to lead us to victory. Because tomorrow, we jump right into Portent.

[Yugian]

Sorry i missed the stream today- I was doing FNAF 3.  :ohdear:
Glad to hear im not dead though!  :3

14 Meld? I'd be... Worried. VERY worried. Meld is a indirect way of measuring the alien resources. usually, early game- they give 4-6. The fact they've got 14+ to give you means uh... They've got a CRAP TON of resources. It could be Dynamic war- But Thats BAAAAAAAAAD. Pray you can deal with the coming storm- because this is just the calm before it.

Edit- Lol, im South African XD

Edit 2-  @Terror Missions
Personally? If its a nation thats about to leave- i dont bother. Otherwise, if i got a lot of PFC's or other lower ranks, I use them as training missions; pure and simple. The spawns being weighted to more terror units give them (Ironically) a better chance to survive, whilst the officer or Heat gunner can deal with the big ass Robot NPC's. Bring Chem Grenades and Flashses to season.

[Raitaki]

I don't think it's that alarming, over my end they have 12 in a can and I'm not running into too much trouble (aside from a freaking UFO power source randomly blowing in a raid and sending my best sniper to hospital for 50 days). I think everything just gets more fast-paced in Dynamic War, and trust me you'd need the meld, Dynamic War eats currency resources and corpses pretty fast. Though it probably also means you're gonna get your first terror mission soon, aliens kinda like doing that when they have cash to burn :V Have an engie and an infantry stand by just in case.

Also, interesting detail to note. Pre-b15, when terror mission notification pops up, the victim country immediately gets full panic (probably to warn you that if you don't do it, that country is just gonna leave), but now the game doesn't do that any more. Dunno if Terror missions got tweaked more than what I gleaned from the change logs.

And yeah, as Ghaleon said, Terror mission changes kinda hurt. I think pods you haven't revealed just automatically decrease civ count every turn instead of having to run around looking for civs to kill, on my first turn the civ count immediately dropped by 3 without camera panning, despite the nearest pod being literally next door. This means no tripping over zombies everywhere, but also faster civ deaths when you're not engaged in combat with a revealed pod.

[Kiro]

TL:DR for Session #3 of my campaign: Completed Portent but Raitaki died to my own stupidity.

So I start the mission and say out loud, "I'll probably aggro a pod if I move one tile forward." Lo and behold, 3 Thin Men. I get greedy and set Raitaki in half cover and Steady Weapon so she can fire next turn. She gets shot, and acided. I try to salvage the situation but can't kill the Thin Men. She gets critically wounded and starts to bleed out. I clean up the first group including a much needed Overwatch kill as shown below:

[attach=1]

However, Raitaki bleeds out. Course I aggro a second pod of 3 Thin Men, halfway through a later turn, but that is taken care of with far less tension. By this point, I've probably blown through 2/3s of my grenades in the entire team. There's plenty of hiding and trading fire, but I start to get through the mission. The hostage is picked up and it's a slow steady crawl back along the right side of the map as I try to efficiently pick off arriving Thin Men. The 3 Rockets I had helped a bunch at this juncture. My Gunner intentionally eats an overwatch to ensure the VIP doesn't and takes 4 damage. The VIP gets to the Skyranger and I go back and hunt the remaining 2 aliens. All in all, it took 90 minutes to complete Portent.

[attach=2]

RIP Raitaki. BUT IT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!!! By the end of the stream, I'm reviewing how things go and I was pointed out that I could have stabilized Raitaki (the medic was close enough). The reason I didn't was because I saw the Heal icon was grayed out so I assumed the Medic hadn't learned how to stabilize yet. And I forgot to check for the Stabilize icon which I believe is on the left. I WAS UNAWARE THAT ANYBODY WITH A MEDKIT CAN STABILIZE!!! There is blood on my hands and for that, I am sorry Raitaki.

o7

Zhang's mission is next. 2 Council missions one right after the other. I still don't get to play with my Arc Thrower yet; these missions are way too critical to try captures on.

[Raitaki]

Oh, yeah, next time you find a scout for me, I'd prefer they were a guy :V

[Ghaleon]

So far arc throwers are causing me far more grief than good. And the poor us got a terror mission for a 3rd time and bailed.

Question, can I still ge NA's bonus if I have sats over every portion if they arent supporting xcom? I eant na bad because we have ways and I have like 6 diff autopsies and interrogations to do.

[Yugian]

So far arc throwers are causing me far more grief than good. And the poor us got a terror mission for a 3rd time and bailed.

Question, can I still ge NA's bonus if I have sats over every portion if they arent supporting xcom? I eant na bad because we have ways and I have like 6 diff autopsies and interrogations to do.

Arc Throwers are really bullshit in LW. 45-54% Chance on One HP creatures, and given how much HP everything has... 

And no. If a Council has left the country, you cannot get the Cont bonus until they come back into the fold. it sucks, but you know
gotta make you do those base raids somehow. 60+ HP aliens cant bullshit themselves now!  :V

[Kiro]

Day 4: Friends in Low Places completed successfully. Lots of various clutch kills from all the soldiers at various times. I almost got Zhang killed when I got him past the end gate and the final Thin Man spawned in the area and overwatched. However, my Scout clutching the last flashbang I had got it off and Zhang scooted off to the evac point.

[attach=1]

Shot down UFO-6 and took my Arc Thrower for a test run. Attempt to capture Sectoid..... SUCCESS! Medic almost died trying to set up the capture by getting fired upon twice in a slightly disadvantageous position and took 5 dmg. Then, I was actually worried I could potentially lose the mission because the 10 HP Outsider literally could not be hit in cover and I had blown both my flashbangs trying to corral the Sectoids for capture earlier. It took about 5 total turns to kill the Outsider, the first 4 being me missing continuous 35% and 20% shots. Finally he moved out into an area I could flank him and he was brought down.  And I had my 3rd casualty, another PFC who could not avoid 2 shots while hunkered in half cover.

Sectoid Interrogation already completed meaning I'll need to capture an Outsider eventually. Working on Alien Materials research, then I can finally get all the basic starting research done and get to work on Beam Weapons. With the 3rd satellite online soon, I'll get the NA bonus and will try to push for a more powerful Air Force and have interceptors ready for the next continent I want to take which will probably be Asia.

The next mission takes place in what I would imagine to be Long Beach, CA as it's an alien abduction in a waterfront map. The mission will see my first Officer lead the way to hopefully reduce fatigue timers for everyone else.

[Yugian]

Ow. 24 Days. What did they drop me to, 2 HP?  :derp:

Still, G'work! The first capture!
That might make you a plasma pistol down the road!  :3

[Ghaleon]

70 days?! what the goodness!?
even when my troops get ko'd and I have to stabalize them their downtime is only like 45-50..and I'm *NOT* using the shorter war 2nd wave option.

I still have yet to finish interrogating my first sectoid, and I'm in month 3... or is it 4 now? I don't know if I'm progressing slow or something, but I don't feel like it. I mean meld canisters only give me 5-7. none of this 17 or whatever you said. I mean I did put off getting the arc thrower until AFTER I got lazor guns (I wanted the accuracy on top of damage so bad, good thing I got it too because assault rifles hit enemies for 0 sometimes now).

I did capture an outsider already some time ago though. Actually it was the very first thing I managed to snag, was kinda easy since it spawns in a pod all by itself (well in most ufo's. there was that one that spawned 3, and a giant one with 20 hp instead of 10) instead of a pod of 4 or whatever.

[Raitaki]

Injuries actually last longer on Dynamic War, so I guess 70 days is possible if the soldier gets critically wounded or something. Ian's 24 days is prolly just him losing like half his HP or something :V

Capping Outsiders is pretty scary for me. They're "easy" to lockdown since they're alone, yes, but if the arc thrower misses the arc thrower person is kind of fucked since Outsiders kind of have insane aim for the early game and might still very well kill them while suppressed and flashbanged on 1 HP in red fog mode >_>

[Kiro]

Ow. 24 Days. What did they drop me to, 2 HP?  :derp:

A Thin Man acided my Gunner and you were just on the edge of it but clearly not in it. You fired at something, missing your shot and not getting acided. Then you fired again, hit your target and got acided. I said screw it at that point since you'd have an injury timer and reloaded and you fired shots later so you took about 3 dmg that mission.

70 days?! what the goodness!?

Like Raitaki said, it's just a consequence of missions being more spread out so that the 70 days goes by much quicker on Dynamic War. It's early May and I haven't even seen my first Terror mission yet. No Exalt introduction yet either.