Boltcaster sucks a ding dong?

[Ithuriel]

@Ithuriel -

Seems you encountered the Doom reinforcements.
As a rule of thumb I would always take 3 soldiers on any stealthy mission, just in case. You can always boost using Intel to make for the extra infiltration time.

What does taking 3 soldiers give you? Frankly I'm not sure they would help the timing that much- the reason I took so long was that I spent 15+ turns scouting pod patrol patterns XD Something about having 2 guys meaning that more than one pod is suicide...

For each soldier, the experience from the number of enemies faced is divided by the larger of 3 and the number of soldiers in the squad. So if you take less than 3 soldiers, you're losing out on experience that mission could provide. Of course, you still have to handle the larger infiltration time.

Oh, that's fascinating! Where did you learn that? On a separate note, what is the weighting between killing enemies and missions completed? I know that it's a lot heavier on the "missions completed" side of things but I have no idea how much. Finally, is there any way we can tell (or any plan to show us) how much exp a soldier needs for the next level?

[LordYanaek]

And what are these "doom" reinforcements? ...honestly when I saw this crap the only thing that seemed to fit was the idea of hard enrage timers from WoW- if you take too long the boss effectively decides you are dead. I felt like the game was going "You take too long, time to die."

Many (most) non timed missions have a hidden timer bringing lots of reinforcements a number of turns after you first break concealment. It's most often encountered on the network tower mission but it's present on others as well. You can take as much time as you want to scout first, but after you go loud, you have a limited time before things become really hard on your men. I think it's something like 16 turns on legend so usually it's plenty of time but if you start playing cat and mouse for too long, you'll loose eventually. I think it can be reduced by low infiltration.

I first ran into that timer on a 1% infiltration VIP extraction to counter a tactical dark even. I went heavy with a 10 men squad as the mission showed with something like 16 hours left. I managed to kill all 33 aliens and free the VIP but then 8 men reinforcements started to drop every turn and i had to flee for my life as fast as i could. Fortunately for me, smoke grenades helped cover the escape and most of my men made it to the (fixed) evac but i really couldn't hope to stay longer. I used a couple of interventions on that mission of course, but i think it wasn't 16 turns before they dropped which is why i suppose low infiltration reduces that timer.

[Manifest]

Kind of off topic, but the entire Alien Hunters dlc is garbage with LW2.

I'm playing on rookie even, doing very well. The instant Viper King shows up, total squad wipe.

We made the Rulers less crazy in LW2... they don't get a reaction every XCOM turn any more. O_o

Oh I thought my nest mission was bugging out, it was a MASSACRE for the viper king with 2 laser rifles. Of course that was back in 1.0, I think it'd be trivial with how late it is now.

[8wayz]

The Doom Counter has two variants:

On missions with a soft timer (like the VIP extraction), the timer starts running once you have broken concealment and reached the objective, i.e. extracting the VIP.

The Doom timer is 12 turns on Commander and 8 on Legend.

On missions with no timer (where there are reinforcements attached to the mission) the Doom timer starts when you break concealment.

It is :
Rookie - Never
28 - Veteran
24 - Commander
20 - Legend

The Doom counter is not influenced by anything. It will start exactly when you complete the conditions set for that mission.

[Ithuriel]

On topic, though: I can confirm, boltcaster is stupid on a stungunner Assault with high aim. Take a rookie with high aim/lowish defenses, like a Ranger candidate, or just pick an Assault you have who has base aim of 65+. It's pretty dumb tbh- I think on the last mission he got 6 kills and didn't miss a shot with the boltcaster, while also killing two Psi zombies because he disoriented the Sectoid and stunning a few people. Run and Gun lets you take 2 actions then shoot- so you can reload the Bolt Caster, move, and then shoot. You can also, in successive turns, shoot -> reload/taze -> move/shoot, rinse and repeat.

[8wayz]

Yep, once you get the hang of it, it can be very fun playing an Assault focused on using the Arc thrower and Bolt Caster.

[LordYanaek]

On topic, though: I can confirm, boltcaster is stupid on a stungunner Assault with high aim.

Well, it might be for a month or two, but as soon as you have laser rifles they are just plain better than the boltcaster. They are merely missing the 20% stun that's too low to be really useful (you can't count on it) and the shredding effect. Boltcaster might become useful again once you reach magnetic weapons (i'm just there but haven't upgraded it yet) but there is a rather lengthy part of the game where it's just a rifle with shred but only one shot and worse no weapon attachments!
My stungunner have used a regular laser rifle in every mission since i reached the tech.

[8wayz]

The 20% chance is still good enough and what is more important is that it has that raw damage and additional aim at each tier.

Since you will want to be firing your Arc Thrower every other turn, the limited ammo is not an issue. If the Bolt Rifle stuns one target you can focus on another one next turn, which lets you extend your advantage on the battlefield.

The main idea behind such a soldier is not the damage but the stun utility. It also has a better stun chance against alien rulers.

[Ithuriel]

On topic, though: I can confirm, boltcaster is stupid on a stungunner Assault with high aim.

Well, it might be for a month or two, but as soon as you have laser rifles they are just plain better than the boltcaster. They are merely missing the 20% stun that's too low to be really useful (you can't count on it) and the shredding effect. Boltcaster might become useful again once you reach magnetic weapons (i'm just there but haven't upgraded it yet) but there is a rather lengthy part of the game where it's just a rifle with shred but only one shot and worse no weapon attachments!
My stungunner have used a regular laser rifle in every mission since i reached the tech.

Two things- firstly, I agree to some extent; I think that the fact that upgrades are powerful and plenty in LW2 means they arguably need to buff the Bolt Caster; my suggestion was to give it one or two upgrade slots, obviously disallowing Extended Mag and Autoloaders. However, the weapon is still precise and powerful. I can't confirm, but I suspect that it literally can't graze the target. I know it ignores target dodge completely, so screw sneks, but out of 6-7 shots it's missed once and all other times been a solid hit; I suspect it may ignore the graze band?

That said, though- I'm planning to rush Mag tech in my current campaign (My first campaign I abandoned a week ago in mid-August, because I wanted to restart with DLC content, and be able to use the greater variety of AWC perks 1.1 allowed). My first campaign I actually entirely accidentally rushed Mag because by the time I got around to researching Weapon tech I had Mag or Lasers available already... XD This also has the significant advantage of meaning that I can immediately upgrade the DLC weapons as soon as I research the tech. I'm also fairly heavily reliant on Rangers, and so I can allow a few Mag Rifles to carry me through the early midgame. This strategy may allow the Bolt Caster to scale better.

Side question- I've heard rumors it's possible to find more copies of the DLC weapons, but that it's a bit buggy; it sets your # of weapons in inventory to 1, so you only gain another weapon if some soldier has that weapon equipped e.g. you only get another weapon if you have none in your inventory. Can anybody confirm or deny?

[trihero]

I confirm, I had a grenadier with a frost bomb infiltrating when I got the bugged second copy of the weapon POI, and indeed I got another frost bomb so now I have two total.

[Ithuriel]

I confirm, I had a grenadier with a frost bomb infiltrating when I got the bugged second copy of the weapon POI, and indeed I got another frost bomb so now I have two total.

Are you certain it's a bug, though? Perhaps a bug that you only get one of weapons not in your inventory, but tbh given the nature of Long War- with both bigger squads and multiple squads out at once- I think it would make a lot of sense balance- and gameplay- wise to allow multiple, if few, copies.

[LordYanaek]

If it was a feature, this would probably be a proving ground project to allow building more like the weapon add-ons.
I waited to scan my 3rd Recovered Cargo PoI until i had all weapons equipped on infiltrated soldiers and got a 2nd boltcaster (and every other Hunter items) but they are T1 even if you already upgraded so you have to pay big price to upgrade them again. Still, 2 fusion axes can pack a lot of power

I have upgraded the boltcaster now and it looks useful again. The real issue i think is the laser tech vacuum when BC is just a 1 shot no add-ons rifle. Maybe it can't graze, if it's true it's a good point against Vipers but it's not documented anywhere so i don't.

[trihero]

I confirm, I had a grenadier with a frost bomb infiltrating when I got the bugged second copy of the weapon POI, and indeed I got another frost bomb so now I have two total.

Are you certain it's a bug, though? Perhaps a bug that you only get one of weapons not in your inventory, but tbh given the nature of Long War- with both bigger squads and multiple squads out at once- I think it would make a lot of sense balance- and gameplay- wise to allow multiple, if few, copies.

It certainly sounds like a bug. Storywise they are unique. Even if you don't believe that storywise, why have an awkward mechanic that would only give you duplicates if they were equipped on your guys?

[wadeanthony]

I confirm, I had a grenadier with a frost bomb infiltrating when I got the bugged second copy of the weapon POI, and indeed I got another frost bomb so now I have two total.

Are you certain it's a bug, though? Perhaps a bug that you only get one of weapons not in your inventory, but tbh given the nature of Long War- with both bigger squads and multiple squads out at once- I think it would make a lot of sense balance- and gameplay- wise to allow multiple, if few, copies.

It certainly sounds like a bug. Storywise they are unique. Even if you don't believe that storywise, why have an awkward mechanic that would only give you duplicates if they were equipped on your guys?

It's a bug, I currently have a save with 2 Alien nest locations. I have no Idea what happens if I complete one and try and do the other.

[Devon_v]

There's already a mod that allows the weapons of the hunt to be duplicated, so if Pavonis really wanted multiple copies they wouldn't make it a wierd glitchy method that gives you nothing if you don't do it "right".

Personally they might as well be available for manufacture, aside from the Frost Bomb in limited quantities I don't think I'd build any.

[Ithuriel]

There's already a mod that allows the weapons of the hunt to be duplicated, so if Pavonis really wanted multiple copies they wouldn't make it a wierd glitchy method that gives you nothing if you don't do it "right".

Personally they might as well be available for manufacture, aside from the Frost Bomb in limited quantities I don't think I'd build any.

I was wondering if the glitch was that it required the items to be equipped, not that you could get more period. Again, it just feels like given that in LW2 you can have over 8 soldiers deployed at once, unlike previously, it would make sense to be able to access limited copies.

I have upgraded the boltcaster now and it looks useful again. The real issue i think is the laser tech vacuum when BC is just a 1 shot no add-ons rifle. Maybe it can't graze, if it's true it's a good point against Vipers but it's not documented anywhere so i don't.

So I think I can confirm the "can't graze" thing unless somebody has a counter example- I've taken way too many shots by now without grazing for me to believe it's coincidence. I'll test later with Perfect Information to tell you- but if the Bolt Caster simply is coded to register grazes as hits, then it has a hidden +10 aim bonus to it (since the entire graze band of +/- 10 registers as a solid hit).