a few newbie questions

[Rittstar]

Questions below

first of all hi there, i really enjoy the mod, its totaly different game now.. wonderfull

i just give up my first playthroug on commander in July, cause i could not manage to research lasers, armor, just finished proving grounds and no GTS either i spam whole time intel in 4 regions, but really lacking important missions or they was that short thats impossible to deal with, even if i spent Intel on that, thats the main reason lacking buildings and research, cause busy research datapads all the time, i even spend lots of supplies in the blackmarket for more datapads

as far as i thought the campaign did well, i mean i made 14 GOps in June alone and lost only 1 Rookie the whole campaign, in july finally came more and more missions i could no longer deal with the lack of equipment

so i decide to read lots of here in the forum and found the holy moly godfather of XCom2 Longwar 2 Xwynn playlist, which i really enjoy too

i started my second campaign on commander again, with the better knowledge of things works good so far

one of the first missions i got was Lib1, i get smash and grab 2-3 times a month and got my first supply raid end of april, which i had to save/load a lot to complete the 22 Alien Hive with 5 guys standard weapons:)

but i have still some questions where i did not find the best answer to it, so is ask by myself

1. there are some fire control PCS to craft, if i understand the info right, they really dont fire below the desired hit percentage in OW? i mean a lower hit percentage could still bring a hit, but this totally stop OW from firing at all or will it then defitinely be a hit? if it fires then?

2. Supplies, if i spend some of my Havens guys to supply, it will generate income okay, but it looks somehow like intel that they collect it overtime and then you get it when the month is over, so basically the income shows me what i could get if i leave everything like it is right now and dont increase or decrease the guys on supply patrol?

2.1 it feels like that the supplies i generate from these Haven Guys are saved for the next month? Example, i managed to make an income 50 first month and did not touch anything, feels like second month it will be 100 income then, and third month 150 income?? numbers are not correct, just to give idea

3.Perk Salvo, the one which stated if used you throwing grenades will not and your turn, it never worked for me.. even first whatever action hit these salvo, throw grenade, turn is over? something wrong with that or is the tooltip wrong?

4. Intelpool, i read that specific missions require a value of intel to show up, is this regarding to the produced intel of a region, or of a region produced intel over the whole time or will the stored intel in the intelpool also count for that, Example if i would always spend my intel on missions like i did in the first play, and always have max 25 intel in the pool, i could never get these 100+ intel missions?

5. Network Tower, i got this one right now 4th May, i already send a Team to infiltrate which could be a mistake, because i have not watched Xwyyns Network Tower Mission to get an idea, so what happens if i abort the misison? is the mission gone? i really want to staff a new Team with more Area of Effect Damage to deal with the scum, i dont think my Team Build which almost finished infiltration right now is best for that, 2 Specialist, 1 Ranger, 1 Sniper, 1 Shinobi and no one is an Officer

thank you for your time

[Dwarfling]

You really shouldn't be researching Datapads so early, and definitively you shouldn't be using supplies to buy them. On the contrary, you probably should be selling them all. You get 5 (?) after a you liberate a region, and later when you buy Vulture you'll get even more. Your supplies should be going either to Scientists (or engineers if you couldn't rescue any), equipment or buildings (GTS, AWC, Laboratory...). Also you shouldn't be using Intel to boost missions and instead using it to expand, unless the missions is extremely important (supply raid, UFO hack, liberation 3). If you don't have enough time to infiltrate a mission with a team you know you'll succeed with, you should let it pass.

1. The soldier will only use a reaction fire shot only if it the odds are equal or better than the module description. They can still miss. There're better modules to use tho.

2 + 2.1 The UI shows you how many supplies you'd get at the next Supply Drop if the rebels are kept on the Supply job. It changes after you get the Supply Drop because either they weren't working all the days for the next Supply Drop, or some of those rebels leveled up and now generate more supplies.

3. It needs to be your first action, dunno if using free actions or cancelling, etc. interfere with this skill like it does for Ever Vigilant.

4. There are two types of Intel. Intel (resource), the one that shows on the UI next to Supplies and Intel (job), that is generated in each region by a rebel set on Intel job. The Intel pool that you refer to is inherent to every "mission", not something that you accumulate in a region. Basically what happens is that a mission is generated in a region, but it's not revealed yet. The mission has an intel bucket, and every rebel in the intel job puts intel "points" in the mission bucket every 4 hours. Once the bucket reaches a breakpoint, you start rolling dice every 4h to see if the missions gets detected. The more intel you have in the bucket after the breakpoint, the better the chances to detect it (I think). How intel is split (or isn't) when there're multiples missions on a region I dunno. This also means that if you have detected all the current missions on a region (2 GOps, 1 Liberation, plus some additional ones), rebels on the Intel job are sort of useless.

5. Network Tower will always be up until you complete it. And yes, I recommend a team heavy on AoE (Grenadiers, Technicals) and a Shinobi (stealth preferably) to get to the console undetected. Still, the mission can be done the "traditional" way, but you have to work your way fast to the console before reinforcements start dropping.

[Rittstar]

thx for the answers, this clarify things a lot

btw i made the Network Tower with my initial Team took me a lot of save/load, but well, i am used to it since i played the franchise since 1994 and dont like to lose any soldier at all

[WanWhiteWolf]

The tower is usually very light / light , depending on your infiltration and STR in that region.

From what I've seen, you are up against 4 pods, 1 pod at the console.

Easiest way to do the mission is to have a stealth shinobi.

- The shinobi gets close to the console
- Make sure you are close to the 3 pods outside the console room; even if you split soldiers.
- HACK -> you have 3 turns to do whatever you want -> focus on killing all 3 pods; leave the console pod at the end.

After the stun expires you have only 1 pod at the console. That's basically 1 pod vs 5 non-harmed soldiers.

When you go into the mission, you have to think: "How can 4 guys kill 3 pods in 3 turns". You also have to keep in mind that not all pods will be clustered , so you might need to spend 1 turn with someone just to get close to them.

For Shinobi you need Covert and high mobility (15+) - otherwise it might not be possible to stealth it / very risky to attempt it. Ghost walker helps as well but it's not mandatory once you have a bit of experience. I usually have 1 stealth shinbi who gets to do all the tower missions.

The class that is the most effective is the critical assaults. With cone attack you can wipe out a pod in a single shot. So 2 assaults can clear that mission. However, I find breacher assault path more useful overall in the game, so same as the stealth shinobi, I only have 1 crit assault who gets all the tower missions.

[nmkaplan]

How intel is split (or isn't) when there're multiples missions on a region I dunno.

The intel generated by rebels isn't split at all. It goes into a global bucket for the region. Each mission type has a threshold of intel that needs to be in the bucket to even have a chance of being detected. Once that threshold is met, the bucket continues to fill, and you the get roll to detect every x hours, with the chance of detection being higher the further over the threshold you get.

Some missions have a threshold of 20 intel, for instance, while others have something like 100 or 150.

Again, this is COMPLETELY separate from the "intel" resource that you spend on things like boosting and contacting new regions. To make things more confusing, putting a lot of rebels on the intel job will ALSO generate a very small amount of the intel resource every few days.

[Zork]

About point 4, it targets partially a question I have. I get shocked to have 3 missions in a row (almost a row, 2 in a row, then a 3rd a short time and 3 missions later) that was missions increasing Advent level or at least important all with about 1 day for infiltration. The missions was 2 intercept enemy battalion, 1 stop enemy convoy supply.

So I started wonder if it was just ugly RNG or bad management.

The context is I found all Havens but one, but freed only 2 areas. I'm right before next progression phase (last armors and weapons) with enemies with 14+ life, overall I didn't progress much the two main story threads, I can hardly make a mission above Moderate level, and at Moderate not without a ton of wounded.

I checked my current Heaven management and the reality is it's nothing strict past the case of new Heavens or Heavens with less than 10 rebels. Roughly it depends on the Advent level:
- 1-3 Advent level, minimal Hidden, leader depends, everything else vary a lot until 20+ then I stop or make minimal the recruit, for Intel
it varies from 30% to 70%.
- 4-6 Advent level, 1/3 Hidden, otherwise more or less like above.
- 7+ Advent level, at least 1/2 Hidden, otherwise more or less like above except leader tend be a soldier in case.

Then there's:
- The scanning but I stop bother because I failed see any logic with time for infiltration for new missions.
- I know missions that attract Advent attention will lower it for some neighbors, but it's not directly linked to time for infiltration.
- I already noticed that paying more intel for a mission can improve advent level of this mission.
- I didn't knew but discovered recently I could try some one man missions with a high end Shinobi.
- The core problem is I lost track and can hardly make missions with Moderate level, or not without a ton of wounded/a lot of luck. So see that brutal Advent level increase was rather unpleasant.

So any clues to increase time for infiltration of missions? I mean more clues than already in the thread.