Do you have to take engineers on the first abduction?

[ositodefelpa]

(Just for the record, this post is rubbish: see red255's post below.)

Playing classic difficulty. I've been trying taking scientists on the first abduction (in preference to engineers), but I have found, more than once, that I don't get offered any more engineers in time to get another satellite uplink built before May. This leads almost inevitably to the loss of a continent bonus.

I appreciate that you can still beat classic with only two satellites up until May, but is seems to me that if you want to guarantee building a satellite uplink before May you absolutely have to forego the scientists and take the engineers as soon as you can.

The problem is that can leave you going into May still using rifles.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

[George Kerman]

http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Satellite_Rush_(EU2012)

The answer to your question is shortly put yes.

"The problem is that can leave you going into May still using rifles."

It can but it shouldn't.

[ositodefelpa]

Interesting, thanks for the link.

I've often heard complaints about the RNG in the tactical layer, but I have no problem with that: it seems about right to me, and you can control it.

But I must admit, after some more first month playthroughs, I'm finding what kills this game for me is the strategic layer RNG. For example in my current playthrough in March I have to lose either the US or the African continent bonus. It's simply not possible to keep both. And that is purely down to totally uncontrollable RNG.

[yuri simp]

Honestly, it depends. If you're going for a satellite rush, then yes, first engineers are basically required due to needing workshops early.

I'm not a big fan of the satellite rush; it's too cheesy for me. I prefer plasma rushing, which requires a lot more scientists and laboratories, so yeah.

Unless you know what you're doing do, it's usually a safe bet to go for engineers, unless you see a really good early expansion possibility and need the extra money to fund now.

[George Kerman]

Originally posted by ositodefelpa:

Interesting, thanks for the link.

I've often heard complaints about the RNG in the tactical layer, but I have no problem with that: it seems about right to me, and you can control it.

But I must admit, after some more first month playthroughs, I'm finding what kills this game for me is the strategic layer RNG. For example in my current playthrough in March I have to lose either the US or the African continent bonus. It's simply not possible to keep both. And that is purely down to totally uncontrollable RNG.

You are correct here. There is RNG in the strategical layer and there's nothing tactical that you can do about it. The first abduction can fall after March 7th thereby ruining the sat rush build. The first UFO can come on March 11th at 11:50 PM or later; the first council can give you no money and so on. After the first month the strategical RNG has less impact but it can indeed prevent you from saving all the countries.

Later edit: There's not much to be done about strategical RNG except for starting a new game :D.

[Stardustfire]

even with a MEC rush strat and with the SW option for random abduction reward numbers u can still save all nations in c/i runs in vanilla EW. it just need some smarts and some forplanning on the strategic layer, including that u plan the worst case that u dont get any engenier rewards. aiming for engenier rewards is a good way to fail saving all nations btw, because u need to look where u next abduction mission is a must, not where u get the reward u want most. so every engenier reward after the first is only legit when it helps panic control the most of the the 3 mission options.
taking that in mind together with a "cover only complete continents with one sat wave" doctrin makes it easy to cover all nations.

[ositodefelpa]

(Again, just for the record, this post is mostly rubbish: see red255's post below)

@Stardustfire:

I think we're actually in agreement. I'm not saying that you need to take engineers after the first abduction (at least that wasn't what I intended to say). What I intended to say was that you must take engineers at the first abduction, otherwise, with bad RNG, you will definitely lose at least one country in March or April. This is because if you don't take engineers at the first abduction, you may not get more engineers in time to build a second uplink before May.

In the game I'm now playing, I took engineers at the first abduction, then scientists at the second abduction, because I really wanted the research boost. However, this led to the inevitable loss of a country at the end of March. To avoid the loss of a country, I would have to have taken money or a sergeant, instead of the scientists. I decided to lose the country, since it was on my home continent, but it could just have easily been on another continent.

Admittedly, none of these choices is a game-loser. In my previous classic game, I didn't get a third satellite up until the end of May, and although I lost two countries, they were in my home continent, and didn't really matter. I was then wiped out in the x-com base defence mission, because I didn't realise how brutal it would be in classic difficulty in September. I mean: one Sectopod, four shielded mechtoids, 2 heave floaters, 2 chrysalids, 2 mutons, and a beserker on screen at once against my team of two colonels with lasers and four also rans with rifles? Ok, I admit that was bad planning on my part.

[happy]

strategical RNG is the only RNG issue this game has.

it tends to kill either immersion or ironman games and is the sole reason why i didn t play a lot of vanilla.

you have no real choice but to cheese out the game.
sat rush remains the best strategy, and it sucks.Other things can work on diff other than impossible, but at the cost of losing countries.

Xcom's strategy layer is a failure. Longwar mod somewhat changes that.

[red255]

Originally posted by ositodefelpa:

*snip*

Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

No.

Ok, so month 1. you make one satellight, and you get 1 engineer month end from it (at least) unless you stick them both in Europe for some REally bad reason, lets assume 2 in Asia.

No Council requests no abductions. Make a workshop, you can still get your nexus in month 2 if you stick scientists first abduction and soldier second abduction and get the OTS and squad size up.

Month 2 you need 5 engineers to make a second workshop you get 3 from slingshot and progeny council missions. 2 from satellight rewards.

Worst case scenario.

So if you can place 2 workshops you are set for the first 2 months.

Month 3 you have slingshot giving you 4 engineers, meaning you have 3 months to get 3 engineers from satellights or random sources. and 3 workshops to place.

you'll also need $$ to dig and place them and the power to support them, but worst case scenario, you'll get 7 engineers from DLC council missions and 15 from workshops and power to place them.

Worst case scenario. I'd not like you'll run out of base space, you just have to plan to dig that far down.

Hardly the end of the world to leave it to RNG.

BArring thermals base would look like:
OTS UP UP LIFT CYB POW POW
WS1 UP UP LIFT FON POW POW
WS3 NX AC LIFT WK2 POW POW

Leaving the bottom floor for gene labs and psy labs and gallop chambers and hyperwave beacons and whatnot.

[Icenforce]

Sattelite rush? Never tried that. Funny how I'm still learning new stuff about this game!

[ositodefelpa]

I take your point red255; apologies also to Stardustfire, whose post I clearly misunderstood. Rather than delete my posts above I have amended them.

For some reason, which in retrospect makes little sense, I hadn't realised that it only takes six engineers to build the workshop. So in fact, if you start in Asia, say, you can build a workshop right at the start of April, and still guarantee getting 5 satellites up by the end of April.

That actually solves a lot of the perceived issues I had with the RNG of the strategic layer. Obviously there's still some luck, because there's no way to guarantee 5 satellites by the end of March, but it's not even close to the end of the world if you can't manage that (and, indeed, I find the satellite rush strategy [i.e., going for 5 satellites by the end of March] to be somewhat constraining).

Thanks for the help.

[Stardustfire]

@Osi i play with the SW option where the Reward divers in numbers, means when i get Engeniers as reward they are 2-6 exept the normal 4, and when i only woud get 2 at the first abduction i sometimes take another one with better reward or more fitting for future panic control. So u can say it depends on the SW options as well if the first reward choise is ever engeniers.

[red255]

Originally posted by ositodefelpa:

I take your point red255; apologies also to Stardustfire, whose post I clearly misunderstood. Rather than delete my posts above I have amended them.

For some reason, which in retrospect makes little sense, I hadn't realised that it only takes six engineers to build the workshop. So in fact, if you start in Asia, say, you can build a workshop right at the start of April, and still guarantee getting 5 satellites up by the end of April.

Thanks for the help.

It takes 5 but the game won't give you the tool tip until you ...hit 6 I think. but you can still build it with only 5.

[ositodefelpa]

Originally posted by red255:

Originally posted by ositodefelpa:

I take your point red255; apologies also to Stardustfire, whose post I clearly misunderstood. Rather than delete my posts above I have amended them.

For some reason, which in retrospect makes little sense, I hadn't realised that it only takes six engineers to build the workshop. So in fact, if you start in Asia, say, you can build a workshop right at the start of April, and still guarantee getting 5 satellites up by the end of April.

Thanks for the help.

It takes 5 but the game won't give you the tool tip until you ...hit 6 I think. but you can still build it with only 5.

Are you sure about that? When I was testing what you said in your first post I noted that when I had just 5 engineers I had no option even to build a workshop (it didn't show up on the facilities list at all). Then, when I popped a 6th engineer at the beginning of April, the option to build a workshop appeared, and the tooltip did say that the workshop needed 6 engineers.

[red255]

; Engineering/Workshops
NUM_STARTING_ENGINEERS=5
WORKSHOP_MINIMUM=6
WORKSHOP_MULTIPLE=10

Ok. you are correct, you START with 5 engineers and you need 6 to make a workshop (one additional)

I thought you started with 4 and needed 5. still you only need one from satellights.