Seeking X-Division phase 2 tips and advice

[Zell]

Xdivision has, very firmly, reminded me I am not nearly as good at strategy games as I thought i was. I have had to restart the game before 3 months something along the lines of 6 times before feeling like I actually had a foot in the door. I managed to, finally, with great effort and the sacrifice of 9+ aircraft, take out a terror craft and raided it. I had the satisfaction of raiding 2 more... then phase 2 hit, and all feelings of progress are gone again. I got plenty of new research, and stuff I can make, but they all seem outclassed by the current aliens. I just leave at this point in any mission that is robot-centric, due to every unit being a massive ammo sponge. I get that it's supposed to be hard, I just have some questions.
A: When do the phases start? And when do the phases start when using the slower invasion addon mod?
B: "backstabbing" a ceasian from the tile directly behind it to avoid it's shield only seems to work some of the time, is this normal?
C: How in the world do you take out a phase 2 terror ship? It's bullet range is longer than the gravity torpedo range, in addition to it's awful homing-missiles, that only ships with anti-missile gear can live through.
D: How many bases is one expected to maintain, and how many troop sets? I currently have 5 bases, and 1 base with people that i rotate through a group of 16 or so people as needed.

[Andante]

B. I think with burst weapons, the ceasian has a chance of turning around after being hit with the first projectile. A hard hitting single shot weapon like shotgun or sniper hitting the back of a ceasan will avoid the shield since it will die before turning.

C. I use 2 sets of 3 lancers each to take out a phase 2 terror ship with plasma torps. 1st set takes it down to 49%-58% damage and 2nd set kills it. I lose all 6 lancers though. Trick is to come in diagonal at full speed right at the edge so you can dodge the lasers and engage the battleship with 1st set of torps right away, then slow down the speeds of your lancers so that you can get a 2nd volley of torps to launch before the missiles hit. If you pull if off right you can get a 3rd torp out of your last lancer since the battleship only launches 2 missiles at a time. Oh also very important, you want the battleship to be going full speed at your lancers that way your torp range comes in contact with the battleship quicker, so you sometimes have to afterburn away from the battleship and turn around to re-engage when the battleship is facing towards your lancers. I'll admit, taking out a phase 2 battleship with only 2 sets of lancers is very tricky, if you don't "get" any of the concepts I'm talking about it might take you 3-4 sets of 3 lancers to kill the battleship instead of just 2 sets.

D. I had 4 bases at start and 5 bases at start of phase 2. I only had 1 set of troops at beginning of phase 2 and I chain missions with this set. But I had alot more reserves, every month I'd cherry pick the best stat recruits and hire them for the eventual 2nd team and their back ups. My main team is pretty much almost maxed out at this point and I swap in new recruits into the team of max out troops to train up recruits so I can have a 2nd set of troops ready in the middle of phase 2. Key is I try to "train" specifically my under developed troops, for instance purposefully let my troops with lower accuracy try to kill off aliens so they get more shots in to boost up accuracy stat. You'd be surprised how fast you can train up the accuracy stat by giving a soldier a shotgun and getting him opportunities to unlock shot after shot into an alien. I also set up my troops for reaction fire training if I know a zombie is going to come in, I train my troops reaction fire with reapers too if I'm confident my firepower is enough to kill the reaper. Also surpressed aliens with weak weapons or stun weapons are a good way to train reaction fire too.

Also pro tip, research and build shock weapons asap, i think it's available phase 1? for phase 2. EMP damage is unmitigated by androns, the robots. You can pretty much almost 1 shot an andron robot with 1 burst from a shock rifle. Shock rifle accuracy isn't half bad either, troops with good accuracy can take out andron soldier with a shock rifle in one or 2 bursts from half a screen away. Shock weapons specifically the shock rifle are also great for taking out anything mechanical like tanks, flying saucers, robodogs, ect. They also make capturing aliens super easy.

Also laser miniguns are your best friend for organic enemies, I use laser miniguns all the way to phase 3, they are super reliable in suppressing aliens. They are also great for androns too, if I need something dead I walk up to it with a laser mini gun and burst it down (obviously I try to keep my distance if it explodes).

[Zell]

Thanks, those are a TON of tips! I hadn't gotten plasma torpedoes yet, so didn't know the range. I was also unaware how training stats worked till now. I knew about the laser minigun punch move (melee range minigun shreds damn near anything up to mid phase-2). The Shockgun is also superb for capturing. I'd gotten decent at ship combat, kiting and teasing in shots at the phase 1 terror ships. I actually started a new game, and am up to mk2 laser weapons in November, though I'm cutting the monthly budget close this way, having 5 functioning bases and strike teams.

[Charon]

B.

Should work all the time, though your definition of "behind" may vary.

<Shield angle="90" angle2="45" stoppingChance="60" stoppingChance2="100" />

If you split a unit into 2 180 degrees than you should be able to 100% get through the "behind" part of that 180%. the two side arcs have a 60% stopping chance. Just like your shiields.


5 Bases sounds about right, you can get more later on.

[Chaos Marine]

Originally posted by Andante:

B. I think with burst weapons, the ceasian has a chance of turning around after being hit with the first projectile. A hard hitting single shot weapon like shotgun or sniper hitting the back of a ceasan will avoid the shield since it will die before turning.

C. I use 2 sets of 3 lancers each to take out a phase 2 terror ship with plasma torps. 1st set takes it down to 49%-58% damage and 2nd set kills it. I lose all 6 lancers though. Trick is to come in diagonal at full speed right at the edge so you can dodge the lasers and engage the battleship with 1st set of torps right away, then slow down the speeds of your lancers so that you can get a 2nd volley of torps to launch before the missiles hit. If you pull if off right you can get a 3rd torp out of your last lancer since the battleship only launches 2 missiles at a time. Oh also very important, you want the battleship to be going full speed at your lancers that way your torp range comes in contact with the battleship quicker, so you sometimes have to afterburn away from the battleship and turn around to re-engage when the battleship is facing towards your lancers. I'll admit, taking out a phase 2 battleship with only 2 sets of lancers is very tricky, if you don't "get" any of the concepts I'm talking about it might take you 3-4 sets of 3 lancers to kill the battleship instead of just 2 sets.

D. I had 4 bases at start and 5 bases at start of phase 2. I only had 1 set of troops at beginning of phase 2 and I chain missions with this set. But I had alot more reserves, every month I'd cherry pick the best stat recruits and hire them for the eventual 2nd team and their back ups. My main team is pretty much almost maxed out at this point and I swap in new recruits into the team of max out troops to train up recruits so I can have a 2nd set of troops ready in the middle of phase 2. Key is I try to "train" specifically my under developed troops, for instance purposefully let my troops with lower accuracy try to kill off aliens so they get more shots in to boost up accuracy stat. You'd be surprised how fast you can train up the accuracy stat by giving a soldier a shotgun and getting him opportunities to unlock shot after shot into an alien. I also set up my troops for reaction fire training if I know a zombie is going to come in, I train my troops reaction fire with reapers too if I'm confident my firepower is enough to kill the reaper. Also surpressed aliens with weak weapons or stun weapons are a good way to train reaction fire too.

Also pro tip, research and build shock weapons asap, i think it's available phase 1? for phase 2. EMP damage is unmitigated by androns, the robots. You can pretty much almost 1 shot an andron robot with 1 burst from a shock rifle. Shock rifle accuracy isn't half bad either, troops with good accuracy can take out andron soldier with a shock rifle in one or 2 bursts from half a screen away. Shock weapons specifically the shock rifle are also great for taking out anything mechanical like tanks, flying saucers, robodogs, ect. They also make capturing aliens super easy.

Also laser miniguns are your best friend for organic enemies, I use laser miniguns all the way to phase 3, they are super reliable in suppressing aliens. They are also great for androns too, if I need something dead I walk up to it with a laser mini gun and burst it down (obviously I try to keep my distance if it explodes).

What do you need to research shock weapons? I've gotten lasers and captured live lizard and grey men. I just got my second terror mission and those Androns seem to soak up everything I throw at them.

[LurCellant]

A: Phases last around 4-5 months from what I can tell and probably 6 months with slower invasion.

B: Units turn around when hit even if they can't see what shot them so projectile speed actually makes a difference here. Units usually turn faster than bursts can fire so a Caesan can redirect where it's shield is aiming to block shots after the first hit.

C: I used mass Foxtrot with Alenium torpedo tactics. 2 waves of 3 Foxtrots for terror carriers in phase 1 and 3 waves of 3 Foxtrots for terror battleships in phase 2. I played on NG though which lowers UFO hp regardless of what airgame setting you're on if I'm reading the game files right so you might need more Foxtrot waves on NG+1 and NG+2.

D: I built 5 bases with enough radars to cover most of the ground right at the start. I built 3 bases purely for hangars at the start of phase 2 to help keep air dominance and one extra base filled with nothing but labs since you tend to either have 1000 things to research at once or nothing for long periods of time.
I formed two troop sets right at the start as well since it's VERY easy to make super-soldiers thanks to the changes to how many stat-ups you can get per mission. IIRC you can get +133 TU, +33 Accuracy, +99 Reflex, +100 HP, +5 Strength, and a lot of Bravery per mission. 1-2 missions and you have max TU, Accuracy and 70+ HP depending on how much HP you hire them at for every soldier which are probably the most important stats.

I got fed up with how annoying X-division was near the end of Phase 2 so take my advice with a grain of salt.

[Shimazu]

Shock weapons are Phase2 i think. Best bet is Laser weapons or just rockets to handle androns. Laser minigun on short range does the trick quite well.

Balisitc weapons. Are almost useless vs them early on.

[Chaos Marine]

My first run ended at the first terror mission because I had only been getting the sebillions and had a single caeson (or however you spell them) so all I had were the basic ballistic weapons.

[Shimazu]

Well you can just skip it. Just land and leave instantly. Less Minus than Not responding at all