going into august

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orion_winterfire
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:12 pm

going into august

Post by orion_winterfire »

I am playing my second-ever (veteran) long war game now. (Played eu/ew on console.) My first lw game I quit 2/3 through because it looked like I had set myself up for a long ugly slog to the end.

So now the clendar's about to flip to august, and I feel like things are going fairly well, but I'm gonna fish for opinions in case I'm missing something, and so I can increase my chance to complete this campaign before I die of old age.

The map: 6 regions contacted, 2 liberated (for the free towers and Asia's continent bonus). Feels like 6 contacts is low. Contacts maxed, but comms on the way. Next contact will be blacksite region. Iirc I had the black site done sooner last time.

The avenger: gts, awc, lab, proving ground fully upgraded. 8 scientists, 5 engineers.
Shadow chamber will complete Aug 1, and within a week of that, the psi lab, comms, and workshop will complete.

Tech: a few days away from coil research completion. Aside from trooper/officer, I believe I've only done instant autopsies, so I have a few less toys. Mostly my gear is predator armor, alloy plating, nanoscale vest (couple of hazmats), mag weapons (still using some laser too), incendiary & frag grenades, talon & ap rounds.

Troops: I run 4 semi-fixed squads (though they're due for some tweaking). I have a couple of master sergeants, a core of tech/gunnery sgt, and a large pool of rk-sgt young blood. I fear I have have overdone it a tad, though I have had periods of a full infirmiry that made me glad for it.

Hopefully that's enough info without being overkill. Any of you kind folks wanna toss me an opinion? Do you notice any glaring "uh oh" points?
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: going into august

Post by stefan3iii »

Looks like you're on your way to winning. You have more regions than I did at that point, I only had 4. I wouldn't bother contacting any more, except to reach facilities and golden path missions.

Get the officer skulljack asap if you haven't. It can be hard to find a codex in the end game, so you want to be ready for the opportunity when it presents itself.

I'd suggest getting Shredder Cannons once you unlock coils, requires 7 engineers.
Psieye
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Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: going into august

Post by Psieye »

Coil by August is the first threshold and you've met it.

The advice I hear is "Kubikiri snipers for when Sectopod/Gatekeeper is part of everyday GOp missions" which is November-ish. You still need to collect Intel to finish the Golden Path so don't doing Intel missions.

4 squads feels slightly on the low side but not fundamentally bad.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
orion_winterfire
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:12 pm

Re: going into august

Post by orion_winterfire »

stefan3iii wrote:Looks like you're on your way to winning. You have more regions than I did at that point, I only had 4. I wouldn't bother contacting any more, except to reach facilities and golden path missions.
Interesting. I was considering trying to liberate a couple more along the way for the towers. Bad idea? Of my 4 non-liberated regions, 2-3 now have high vigilance (15-17). Does that change anything?
Get the officer skulljack asap if you haven't.
Got it. Though dealing with codices is already annoying me.
I'd suggest getting Shredder Cannons once you unlock coils, requires 7 engineers.
Thanks for the tip! I'm curious - why shredder cannon over extra rocket/flame uses?
stefan3iii
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Re: going into august

Post by stefan3iii »

orion_winterfire wrote:
stefan3iii wrote:Looks like you're on your way to winning. You have more regions than I did at that point, I only had 4. I wouldn't bother contacting any more, except to reach facilities and golden path missions.
Interesting. I was considering trying to liberate a couple more along the way for the towers. Bad idea? Of my 4 non-liberated regions, 2-3 now have high vigilance (15-17). Does that change anything?
Get the officer skulljack asap if you haven't.
Got it. Though dealing with codices is already annoying me.
I'd suggest getting Shredder Cannons once you unlock coils, requires 7 engineers.
Thanks for the tip! I'm curious - why shredder cannon over extra rocket/flame uses?
Liberating extra regions seems fine, if you're comfortable with the risk of doing HQ missions. I did 3 in my campaign, the second 2 mostly for the corpses, and the fact that it reduces doom clock by 1 tick made me feel like I wasn't wasting too much time doing it.

Shredder cannon is much more powerful than a rocket, it does more damage, shreds 4 armor, and has a massive AOE and range.
Psieye
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Re: going into august

Post by Psieye »

orion_winterfire wrote: Interesting. I was considering trying to liberate a couple more along the way for the towers. Bad idea? Of my 4 non-liberated regions, 2-3 now have high vigilance (15-17). Does that change anything?
Means they're useless for generating certain missions. But they're excellent for keeping Advent strength stuck somewhere you're no longer interested in. High vigilance also means the Avatar project is slowed down.

Note that you only have to do the network tower to get the free tower. Actually doing the HQ is not necessary.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
orion_winterfire
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Re: going into august

Post by orion_winterfire »

Psieye wrote:Coil by August is the first threshold and you've met it.
Nifty.
The advice I hear is "Kubikiri snipers for when Sectopod/Gatekeeper is part of everyday GOp missions" which is November-ish.
Working on that already. Thanks!
4 squads feels slightly on the low side but not fundamentally bad.
4 semi-fixed squads. I have had up to 5 running at a time iirc, and I have enough soldiers for 6 (though I'd be barrel-sraping a bit most likely).

How many squads do you run? How many of those are well-equipped?
orion_winterfire
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Re: going into august

Post by orion_winterfire »

Psieye wrote:
orion_winterfire wrote: Interesting. I was considering trying to liberate a couple more along the way for the towers. Bad idea? Of my 4 non-liberated regions, 2-3 now have high vigilance (15-17). Does that change anything?
Means they're useless for generating certain missions. But they're excellent for keeping Advent strength stuck somewhere you're no longer interested in. High vigilance also means the Avatar project is slowed down.

Note that you only have to do the network tower to get the free tower. Actually doing the HQ is not necessary.
Oooh now that will save me some trouble for sure!
orion_winterfire
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Re: going into august

Post by orion_winterfire »

stefan3iii wrote:Shredder cannon is much more powerful than a rocket, it does more damage, shreds 4 armor, and has a massive AOE and range.
I was not aware that it was so badass. Thanks! It definitely will go on the priority list.
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WanWhiteWolf
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Re: going into august

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

Psieye wrote:Coil by August is the first threshold and you've met it.

The advice I hear is "Kubikiri snipers for when Sectopod/Gatekeeper is part of everyday GOp missions" which is November-ish. You still need to collect Intel to finish the Golden Path so don't doing Intel missions.

4 squads feels slightly on the low side but not fundamentally bad.
Sectopods start showing up in October.

Kubikiri is really good in taking them out. To Kubikiri a Gatekeeper is usually more difficult due to its +40 defense.

Your goal should be always 100% crit - or close to it. Breakdown:

- 10 % Base Weapon
- 25 % Steady
- 10% Talon
- 20% Get Some

So you are sitting at 65% chance no matter what. To get the rest of 35%, you have to make some choices:

- You go with Laser sight instead of scope (15%)
- You use mind merge / greater mind merge (15% / 25% - if I remember correctly)
- You take Agression instead of DeadEye

I think DeadEye is really powerfull on Snipers and it combos well with having extra aim (means you need the scope most likely to use it efficiently).

So the best way to build Kubikiri is to keep the scope, use DeadEye and have a PSI with Greater Mind merge. This will land you on 90%. I think 90% to delete a sectopod is quite powerful. The "A" team usually has a Sniper with 100%; but that means picking one of the AWG skills that give you 10% crit chance ( I think there are 3 perks that you can get - steady hands is probably the most powerful).

On a Gatekeeper a bit harder to get 100% crit because of his 40+ inherited defense. Basically you a Sniper with 100+ aim and scope. Vs Sectopods you can drop the scope in favor of lasersights. I usually do this before December - unless I have a Greater Mind Merge PSI in my squad.
Exquisitor
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Re: going into august

Post by Exquisitor »

Looks like you're set up for a win.

Re additional HQ liberation: I really like these missions so I tend to do 3-4 to completion. They also get easier with your troops gaining more experience and better armaments. Plus what's not to like about more supplies and materials and reducing the avatar timer?

Re 4 squads: I tend to run 2-3 main squads but have around 36-40 troopers by August, with roughly 4 of each type plus some extras for haven advisors, as replacement cadres, etc. I think it's more about trooper exp, armaments and avoiding damage by August. I run somewhere between 4-6 officers, most of these are specialists, but a few are techs or shinobis.

Coil weapons by August is great! Plasma is now even better in LW 1.4, in fact once your troopers are MSGT and have plasma, it's pretty much a done deal. I put shredder on rangers, crit build the snipers and then Gatekeepers and Sectopods are far less intimidating.
orion_winterfire
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Re: going into august

Post by orion_winterfire »

Awesome. Thanks for the perspective!
stefan3iii
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Re: going into august

Post by stefan3iii »

For comparison, I don't use kubikiri. Well I have a sniper with Kubikiri, but he doesn't have aggression, and I don't use Psi, so I'm not having much success with it.

To deal with sectopods I use sting grenades, 50% chance of stun. If that doesn't work I plow red screen rounds into it, commanding to take additional shots if necessary and then either capture it with Full Override or just shut it down. Shutting it down, gives plenty of time to kill it. I shred the armor with shredder cannons.

Cyberballs are more annoying, even a freeze grenade only takes away one action and they have high sting resistance. I've killed most of them the turn I meet them, but one time I ate a hit from it's giant AOE psi attack which hurt. I find they are pretty rare though, never seen one on a GOP, I think if I did I'd just run for it as killing it with 5 soldiers sounds rather dangerous.

I rag on Psi, but Stasis would be the goto solution in my mind for dealing with Cyberballs, and it'd be great against sectopods too. If anyone has other tactics that work, I'd like to hear them. Maybe spreading your soldiers out so it's AI chooses not to use it's giant AOE attack, which btw Suppression doesn't prevent.
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WanWhiteWolf
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Re: going into august

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

stefan3iii wrote:For comparison, I don't use kubikiri. Well I have a sniper with Kubikiri, but he doesn't have aggression, and I don't use Psi, so I'm not having much success with it.

To deal with sectopods I use sting grenades, 50% chance of stun. If that doesn't work I plow red screen rounds into it, commanding to take additional shots if necessary and then either capture it with Full Override or just shut it down. Shutting it down, gives plenty of time to kill it. I shred the armor with shredder cannons.

Cyberballs are more annoying, even a freeze grenade only takes away one action and they have high sting resistance. I've killed most of them the turn I meet them, but one time I ate a hit from it's giant AOE psi attack which hurt. I find they are pretty rare though, never seen one on a GOP, I think if I did I'd just run for it as killing it with 5 soldiers sounds rather dangerous.

I rag on Psi, but Stasis would be the goto solution in my mind for dealing with Cyberballs, and it'd be great against sectopods too. If anyone has other tactics that work, I'd like to hear them. Maybe spreading your soldiers out so it's AI chooses not to use it's giant AOE attack, which btw Suppression doesn't prevent.
Frost grenade takes away 2 AP. All units in the game have 2 AP with exception of Sectopod, Gatekeeper and your Spark , which have/can have 3 AP.

That's why Frost leaves the Sectopod or the Gatekeeper with 1 action (e.g. either move or shoot).

I am not 100% sure on Sectopods since I always kill them with Kubikiri but I do know that the "Last Gift" Sectopod takes one shoot even if you freeze him. I would imagine it's the same with all sectopods.

Stasis is different. Locks all AP for the entire turn. That's valid for alien rulers as well - whereas with frost he might get out by the end of your turn.

As for gatekeepers, I usually kill everyone else and leave the gatekeeper at the end. This means I shreed / make take 1-2 shots before I send him into stasis. Next turn I have a full squad to take him.

On GOP you rarely see Sectopods or Gatekeepers. I've seen them only in Lib3 - which is usually an assassinate rather than capture end game. They can also they drop as Reinforcement (happened to me 2 times). That's usually when you run to evac, regardless of objective status.
stefan3iii
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Re: going into august

Post by stefan3iii »

WanWhiteWolf wrote: On GOP you rarely see Sectopods or Gatekeepers. I've seen them only in Lib3 - which is usually an assassinate rather than capture end game. They can also they drop as Reinforcement (happened to me 2 times). That's usually when you run to evac, regardless of objective status.
I have seen sectopods on GOPs 3 times, I don't think any of them were liberation missions.
1) Jailbreak VIP, I just ran from it, I would've made it too, but apparently sectopods have squadsight, and sniped my VIP from across the map.
2) Destroy relay to counter dark event. bluescreen bomb + 2 red screen round shots + full override and I just captured the sectopod.
3) As a reinforcement. Luckily I was evacuating that turn, so I didn't have to deal with it.

That said, the fact that a sectopod RNF is possible on a 5 man GOP is a little crazy. At least when it's on the map, you can hear it and decide how to deal with it, or to just run for it. But to have it drop on your head out of the blue while engaged with other enemies is brutal.
Dwarfling
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Re: going into august

Post by Dwarfling »

stefan3iii wrote:I rag on Psi, but Stasis would be the goto solution in my mind for dealing with Cyberballs, and it'd be great against sectopods too. If anyone has other tactics that work, I'd like to hear them. Maybe spreading your soldiers out so it's AI chooses not to use it's giant AOE attack, which btw Suppression doesn't prevent.
You will have a decent chance to stun it for a whole turn with an Advance Arc Thrower up close, even better if you took Stun Gunner (been giving it a whirl, it's good) or Holotarget. Just don't be too close when it explodes.
stefan3iii
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Re: going into august

Post by stefan3iii »

Dwarfling wrote:
stefan3iii wrote:I rag on Psi, but Stasis would be the goto solution in my mind for dealing with Cyberballs, and it'd be great against sectopods too. If anyone has other tactics that work, I'd like to hear them. Maybe spreading your soldiers out so it's AI chooses not to use it's giant AOE attack, which btw Suppression doesn't prevent.
You will have a decent chance to stun it for a whole turn with an Advance Arc Thrower up close, even better if you took Stun Gunner (been giving it a whirl, it's good) or Holotarget. Just don't be too close when it explodes.
Ah yeah didn't think of that, good idea. Advanced stuns for 3 turns, so it shouldn't be able to do anything.
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