Suck or Bad Luck???

[SixPack]

I'm playing on the easiest difficulty and up until now the first mission Dead Hills was indeed easy. But once inside the Mines I find it impossible to make any progress at all. One Massive Onslaught after another with Hard Agressive Hunts inbetween, my marines are dropping like flies. Is this the end of the level and is that the reason why difficulty has gone up so bad?? How does one even finish the first mission if Story Mode is that difficult???

[DropShot]

lol neither. You just need to learn some mechanics. Use the Deployable Motion sensor overload. It will draw them to wherever you place it. ABUSE this through the entire game

[Jadawin]

You need to hide better, this game is as much about stealth as it is about gunfights. Don't just rush in bumping into xenomorphs, pay close attention to motion sensor to avoid them. If they are hard to avoid, use deployable motion sensors overload to redirect them, get mines, place them as you go, watch patrols blow up.

Don't be greedy and retreat to Otago if aggressiveness levels are too high. It's much better to take lightly wounded marines back and have them ready to go in couple of days than push and end up with them out of commission for a while or even dead/abducted.

[MassImpact124]

end.

[GBR Warrior]

Are you trying to stay hidden as much as possible? In this game you want to avoid combat unless it is absolutely necessary. If your hunt difficulty has gone up to hard, consider extracting your marines and redeploying for a 2nd Run. You have to strike a balance and decide when you want to pull back or take a risk

[Dregora]

Judging from your infestation level on hard, it means you've been too aggressive. Believe it or not, you'd want to avoid combat 99% of the time unless you absolutely can't.

[WhitePhantom]

Try going to the ARC and retreating for the day. When you come back with a fresh squad the Alien aggression will be reset, so hopefully it won't be as hard to make progress.

[LukanGamer]

Its beyond easy of a game except on max difficulty suppose but that does not count.

Just learn the mechanics, you get more then enough days/time even when day timer comes up, too retreat back to base and heal up etc... if you really struggling
(all can be beaten in 1-2 goes eventually even on max aggression though suggest retreating if it reaches that point, but so long as you have a decent team and turrets even its not huge issue in most cases)

Worse/easiest yet is fact you have choice of looting everything and ending game with 100s too spare or just rushing it as much as you want since almost nothing after like 3rd-4th "level" will be a issue any more

[alex010300]

You do know you can extract out and come again when the hive aggression level is back to easy ?

[alex010300]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Judging from your infestation level on hard, it means you've been too aggressive. Believe it or not, you'd want to avoid combat 99% of the time unless you absolutely can't.

Can't do that in the later missions, there will be a huge number of aliens and one last undeniable onslaught from 360 angle just before the last mission. It is better to have 2 gunners and learn how to place your sentries with high level weapons and gear.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡]

finish nightmare dead hills using 4 turret

[Sifer2]

The way they designed this game it punishes you heavily for trying to finish the entire mission in one go. Or for just running around getting spotted too much. Once the aggressiveness gets to Hard it's difficult to get anything done due to constant waves. And yes the Mines is the end of the level. You will notice a running theme where the end of every level has really linear designed where it's hard not to be spotted. That's why I say they really tried to force you not to be able to do the mission in one go. Though the Mines is one of the more forgiving end sections. You actually can sneak there but will still fight a boss.

[SixPack]

Is there a fixed number of aliens that I need to kill in the Mines or do they constantly respawn? If I decide to retreat and come back with another team, won't the aliens have respawned so that all my previous work was for nothing??

[Arani]

Like others said, it sounds like you're missing some basics. No shame in that, it's different from most games and there's a billion tutorials with no search function so it's not easy to find whatever you're looking for. I got bored trying to read through them all too. Now I don't remember what level my marines were in that mission as it's so long ago, but a few things to take note of:

• The game is a lot easier if you stick to stealth as much as possible. Don't fight every alien, but rather try to get around them, hide, and when you unlock stealth kill abilities try to use them as much as you can. The Sniper for the Recon class has a stealth kill upgrade, letting you kill stuff before you're detected without starting combat / hunt. The mines can be deployed at any time near spawn locations or on chokepoints where patrolling aliens tend to go, and they don't alert the enemy either. The Techie classes drone also doesn't aggro aliens (it does humans tho) so you can scout almost everything while keeping your squad safe and out of sight, letting you know what parts are worth fighting for, and what rooms are empty and just there to waste your time. Also, as others said, the deployable motion sensor is insane. Set it up somewhere out of your way, and just let it sit. When you need it, it's there.
  
• Manage your stress. Never let it rise above 100% and onto the next level if you can help it, better to make a saferoom and rest before then. Whenever you're in a fight or hunted and the aggression meter keeps rising. You can stop it in its tracks by making a safe room (welding doors shut, always try to use rooms with a single open door to save tools), or by using the elevator. You can also burn medkits by chugging pills to reduce your stress by 100 for a single soldier. A good idea is to use this whenever you find extra medkits that you have no space to carry, and no soldier needs healing, so it doesn't go to waste.
  
• Speaking of aggression, I'm on mission 11 or 12 right now and only twice have I ever let it rise to Hard. That's the point where I always withdraw and come back to fight another day. Constantly getting onslaughts isn't normal, unless it's part of the mission (there are some missions with infinite onslaught sections).
  
• Whenever there's a big fight coming, use your sentries. A lot of the story fights have fixed spawn locations that you can only know after experiencing it once, but after loading game you know how to prepare so take advantage of that. Having 3-4 sentries covering an entrance or a corridor basically means nothing will get through. Especially if you use suppression too. And *always* use suppression during onslaughts and big fights. They slow the aliens down by 50%+ which makes all the difference.
  
• Queens and big aliens have telegraphed attacks that tend to hurt most when you're all bunched up together. Just keep your eyes open and the moment you see the red telegraphed attack come (or a text like "charging"), make your soldiers run away or to the side to dodge it. Just doing this right 1-2 times is enough per fight and by that point it will be dead.
  
• Flamers are excellent zoning weapons. If the enemies can come from many directions, make a wall of flame where you don't want them to come from, so you can direct them into your killbox with sentries etc. As long as the AI has a path that doesn't go through flames, they will run around and take it.

Be patient and keep trying, you will learn! The game takes a bit getting used to but once you understand the mechanics it's actually quite easy. The biggest issue are the bugs that may sometimes force you to reload prior saves, but I've only run into a few so far.

[Slightly Dead]

Originally posted by SixPack:

Is there a fixed number of aliens that I need to kill in the Mines or do they constantly respawn? If I decide to retreat and come back with another team, won't the aliens have respawned so that all my previous work was for nothing??

They constantly respawn if you want a map of the mines go back the map terminal were you first started and it will give you a fuil map of the mines so you can plan the route as others have said use the motion trakers you can put down to lure aliens out of your way to get to the back of the mine.

[Dance Magic]

It's simple. Setup a choke point with sentry guns only (1 from 1st mission and 1 from gunner is enough). Send your marines away from LOS so that the aliens don't spot you and you don't see them. This will not increase stress. Then send a drone around to bring all the aliens to your guns. Stress free slaughter. Pop out when things are quiet then take cover when your sensors or drone detects an alien.