Beginner TIPS

[SolidSpiegel]

its my first time playing today any beginner tips ???

[ConG]

Complete all the objectives on the first mission before extracting, this should make atleast 3 of the 4 marines in your first squad lvl 3 unlocking their class specifications.

[JefferyNothing]

Dont waste days (later on in the game) waiting on your best guys to get better and then deploy. Use another squad as soon as you can to do the next mission (even if they're not as good).

[grey goon]

Keep an eye on your stress. I didn't realise but each stress level comes with heavy penalties. Try to keep it at level 0 as much as possible.

[Soul]

Keeping your marines ALIVE is more important than pushing just a little further, ♥♥♥♥ can go very bad very fast lol
1. Bring a Recon Class point man to take stealthy sniper shots asap and maintain your stealth, makes things a lot easier.
2. Unlock mines as they can allow you to shape a battlefield ahead of time.
3. Flamethrowers also allow you to control enemy movement to a degree and are fantastic against humanoid enemies in cover.
4. Out of Ammo? Get out of there.
5. Use piles of motion scanners to bait enemies into your APC or out of the way if you need to get through fast.
6. A Max level Tech Marine will let you open doors that require tech tools for free. Also bring an absolutely amazing little drone to the field that can scout the terrain ahead of you so you can get the layout of a place before charging in... do some route planning, know where the supplies are at... huge intel.
7. A Max Level Recon reduces Detection time by 25% and makes the whole squad move faster
8 A Max Level Sergeant reduces stress incurred by marines, can temporarily prevent stress buildup (Absolutely Vital to have) and finally can increase stress removed by resting by 50%
9 A medic can heal squadmates faster and heal everyone by 1 point on each rest.
10 Last but not least, use intensive training to bring every rookie marine up to Level 4 before bringing them to the battlefield.

I don't know what the Max level Medic perk is since every single one of my veteran medics have met a gruesome death so far. Latest one got picked up and torn in half by a queen during a certain ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fight with like 30 synths and a queen.

My Current A and B Team Squad Loadouts:

Tactical Assault Squad
- 1 Recon on Point
-3-4 Sergeants
For When I absolutely must finish a mission in 1 Go with maximum combat potential when needed but an emphasis on stealth... laying a massive creep of mines as I go that do a lot of work for me.

Flexible Balanced Squad
- 1 Recon on point,
-1 Sergeant,
-1 Gunner,
-1 Tech Marine,
-0-1 Medic. Bringing every tool to the table, nothing can stop you if you are clever enough to use every tool you've got.

Job opening for Medic on my B team right now if anyone wants ♥♥♥♥ wages and tons of stress. Previous Employee moved on to better opportunities.

[[ALT] RoseAilton]

I'd suggest going stealth as much as you can during missions, so that the hive don't raise it's "awareness" levels, making the level a lot easier.

If you follow the above suggestion, try making your squad composition be 1 recon, 1 gunner, 1 sargent, 1 tech. Later on add a medic.

For level up traits, focus on the ones that makes your marines imune to being tired, automatic trauma point removal and accuracy first. This will allow you to focus on one squad and have it available almost aways (without tired and exausted debuffs). If you manage to stay mostly stealthy throughout the levels, they will most likely receive little damage, which and be removed by "using" the medics on the OTAGO.

For upgrades you have to purchase with materials, I sugest waiting for you to be able to choose your marine classes, as this will unlock exclusive upgrades for each class, which tend to be better than the generic upgrades. I recomend the Silent Sniper for recon, the one from sargent that increases your command points, and the gunner ones that are not the tripod one, as it is not that usefull. For the generic ones, upgrade your squad accuracy then go for what you prefere between extra tools and medkits or ammo.

Always try to have one marine with the basic pulse rifle on the squad, as it jave the grenade hability, which is quite good for stunning charging foes and AoEing xenos packs, specially when you have facehuggers preparing to leap.

With this I managed to complete the majority of the missions in one deployment, making the late game a bit more forgiving.

[Nikas Zekeval]

Early adivce? You are not the top of the food chain. Try to sneak around as much as possible. Stealth is your friend. Related to this kills from mines and sentry guns won't trigger a detection.

Take a good hard look at the various flaws and what you want to suffer with on the mission.

The map is your friend, keep checking it for stuff your marines saw and you might have missed, like datapads, ammo, etc. Also pan around the flashlight to check the corners for stuff to pick up.

Remember your sentry guns. Take some time to set up, but the extra firepower can be a literal lifesaver.

When on mission, I tried to push to at least get a promotion for everyone. XP comes from objectives, saving survivors, and killing the rarer and more powerful aliens, the drones and facehuggers that make up the bulk of their forces get you nothing. Unless you trigger enough hive agression to get an onslaught, surviving that is worth an XP.

Watch your stress, besides the lingering stress points? Going over 100% also gives a temproary debuff.

On upgrades to buy? I gave everyone I was deploying expanded pouches first. Take a couple tookits and medpacks each to start and live off the land.

Scouts, Silencers and Night Vision Goggles. The former allows stealth kills, the later if you pan around will show enemies, even through walls.

Sergeants? Get the radio pack and it's upgrade right away.

Teckers? Get the drone first. Besides a remote scout, the default mode of following your marines around gives it 360 vision, so you can sweep a room for stuff just by walking through. The other two upgrades (welder, then SMG) are more down to preference

Weapon wise? I'd ignore sidearm upgrades, at least not favoring them over other weapon upgrades and marine upgrades. Unless I had to carry someone, I was either firing a main or secondary weapons such as the shotgun or sniper rifle, or reloading my main gun.

The first tier weapons otherwise are all good. Sniper rifle and smart gun are class specific. Incinerator (Flame thrower) and mines are highly recommended.

Mines offer traps and ability to kill by stealth by putting one in the patrol path of an enemy and letting them die while you are out of sight.

Incinerators are for area control. Some aliens, like face huggers will try to run through it, others will attempt to detour around it. Also the timing might be tricky, but you can roast Alien eggs with one and not trigger a hunt. Flame and back off. The ability to sweap means multiple aliens eggs can be roasted, vs a single kill from a sniper.

Tier 2 non-sidearm weapons are more situational. The heavy pulse rifle hits a bit harder, but you want to keep the grenade launcher so someone should always carry a pulse rifle. More of a side-grade.

The RPG is for when you want to hunt big game. One or two of these to the face of an Alien Queen will make her regert her life choices. But the smaller blast area and longer firing delay means it can't fill in for the grenade launcher.

To wrap up secondary weapons? Like the pulse rifle, you never abandon the shotgun. Despite your best efforts you will have close encouters either from surprise or just a large enough wave of drones crawling over their own dead. It is your fallback when thing get that bad.

Finally you have the plasma rifle. Not sure if the gunner's abilities work with it, but a great weapon. Also a late game weapon, because it requires a max XP marine to use, and someone has to have a pulse rifle to keep the grenade launcher.

On traits, Unbreakable Will (Marines don't get tired) and Redemption (remove negative trait) should always be taken when available. After that? Improving gunnery skill (Sharpshooter), crit chance (Deadeye), and bravery (Bold?) are the next tier. Resourceful (free ammo for each rest) is useful. Some are not worth it. Fast for example is a skill that your Scout will have and the two don't stack. And the scout version applies to the whole squad.

A bit into the game you can open up the training room. Two things about it that aren't well explained. One, it only takes your marines up to level 4, or one XP into it if you need one to be promoted and are in intensive training. Put any rookies into that to level them up and get abilities. Two, I'm not sure if this is a bug, but while the game warns you that a marine being taken off intense training results in them being exhausted? If you have or gain Unbreakable Will, the immunity to tied apparently extends to exhaustion.