Operations Last Gift (Spoiler Alert)

[BadgerBravo]

This seems to be a game breaker for me. 4-5 missions in and I think i'm doing well until we recover the Spark unit and have to escape the building and UI.
I hate games that ease you in and then cheat at ramping up the difficulty by making you fight 6 enemies instead of 4. Or in this case unlimitted.
I was really looking forward to this game but its too tough. And i'm playing on easy...

[HVS5b]

Most people wait for mag weapons unti taking on that mission. I also wait for stage 2 armour. Don't forget to abuse Shens combat protocol, cap discharge and haywire. If u wait for bluscreen and six soldiers it's a cake walk.

[Waeress]

Originally posted by Tony:

This seems to be a game breaker for me. 4-5 missions in and I think i'm doing well until we recover the Spark unit and have to escape the building and UI.
I hate games that ease you in and then cheat at ramping up the difficulty by making you fight 6 enemies instead of 4. Or in this case unlimitted.
I was really looking forward to this game but its too tough. And i'm playing on easy...

Easy is often okay how ever you play it, though the game is tough compared to other games and many players need to take their time to learn that and adjust their gameplay accordingly.

But I have to say Xcom is very much designed to throw a stone in your face at unexpected places. Punishment of the player is part of the design, but it isn't about "hey, take this sucker. this is difficult and you cannot progress if you don't make it", it allows failures and encourages adaption. Loosing soldiers does not mean game over.

I'd also say that if that is a game breaker for you then you have a lot of similar events to expect.

[Mirage]

I did that mission pretty early on with mostly squaddies and stock weapons and armor, mainly because I had no idea it was a special mission as the game doesn't tell you this at all, I just started playing the game and doing whatever was popping up in the area.

(Sadly I also started the alien hunter stuff with my basic squad so now i'm having so much fun with queen berserker running through my missions.)

I don't really know how the spawn mechanics work after you get the spark, but I started by taking out all the turrets, only that caused the infinite amount of robots to spawn, so I don't know if it really a good idea to take them out or if its just turn based and they keep stacking.

I just stayed in that room untill I took out all the turrets, then I moved slowly and took out the robots as soon as they spawned, they don't have that much HP luckily, and they also needed a few turns to get up to the sides, I kept most of my soldiers around untill everyone was getting close to the elevators, taking out as much as possible before sending them up.

By the time everyone was out I almost got overrun but it's a pretty defensive position up there.

[Waeress]

Originally posted by Mirage:

I did that mission pretty early on with mostly squaddies and stock weapons and armor, mainly because I had no idea it was a special mission as the game doesn't tell you this at all, I just started playing the game and doing whatever was popping up in the area.

(Sadly I also started the alien hunter stuff with my basic squad so now i'm having so much fun with queen berserker running through my missions.)

I don't really know how the spawn mechanics work after you get the spark, but I started by taking out all the turrets, only that caused the infinite amount of robots to spawn, so I don't know if it really a good idea to take them out or if its just turn based and they keep stacking.

I just stayed in that room untill I took out all the turrets, then I moved slowly and took out the robots as soon as they spawned, they don't have that much HP luckily, and they also needed a few turns to get up to the sides, I kept most of my soldiers around untill everyone was getting close to the elevators, taking out as much as possible before sending them up.

By the time everyone was out I almost got overrun but it's a pretty defensive position up there.

The turrets in there are pretty bad at hitting their target even on higher difficulties, so I usually take out the first few that spawns on one of the sides while starting to move on that side towards elevators. Hacking one on that side, or prefferably the other side, with Shen or other specialist if available. Taking a turret is good since a lot of enemy shots will go against that turret.

Key is imo if you find it difficult, as in the whole mission from the first big room with continous spawns, to always move forward every turn. You want to get out of there as fast as possible given that the situation of that battle is what it is.

[gregoryk64]

The first two levels of this mission are easy compared to when you make it to the roof for evac. I despised Sectopods in the first XCOM, and I hate them even more now.

[Zehm]

Take a gunner with the shredder perk for the final battle.
Assaults with anti mech arch throwers are great.
Snipers and rangers with AP ammo are great.
Specialists are ok, but you get Shen, so two might be overkill.
Save your Sparks big gun for the final battle.

Avoid Grenadiers and Technicals since they'll run out of resources and end up useless before long. No need for a shinobi either.

[BadgerBravo]

Thst's part of the learning curve / diffuclty for me is that the game doesn't explain that this is a tough / special mission. I was doing fine until I reached the roof after loosing my sniper.
Anyhow, just picked up X-COM 1 for $10. Gonna give that a go for a while. :)
Thanks for the replies / support guys.

[Mirage]

Yeah the game doesn't really tell you anything, I did both Shen's gift and Alien hunter stuff only a few hours into my first time playing as they just show up near your base.

[76561198322429733]

It's pretty easy. The mission just ups the difficulty for every phase.

phase1 -> MECs
phase2 -> MECs+reinforcements
phase3 -> Turrets
phase4 -> Turrets + reinforcements
phase5 -> Julian + reinforcements

see the pattern?

Also, as others have said, the longer you wait on this mission (enemies don't scale), the easier it becomes.

Some ways to make things easier:

Better weapons, higher ranks, bigger squad, etc.

My comfort zone is squad size 4+shen and mag weapons. Ammo mods or armor not really neaded.

[Pillow]

Originally posted by Tony:

Thst's part of the learning curve / diffuclty for me is that the game doesn't explain that this is a tough / special mission. I was doing fine until I reached the roof after loosing my sniper.
Anyhow, just picked up X-COM 1 for $10. Gonna give that a go for a while. :)
Thanks for the replies / support guys.

Have fun with Xcom1 it's also a great game. Xcom2 is great also. When you return to it just take notice of missions that will disappear have an expiration on them if you hover on the task bar. Plot missions and the special dlc mission of shen's gift and alien hunter's don't have an expiration so you can do when your ready. Of course you do have the avatar doom counter eventually, but the game tends to make it more urgent then it really is early game. If you do dlc missions early it also tends to aid some tougher enemies on missions, so be aware of that.

[M0ntS4intM1chel]

Originally posted by graystripe:

there are two units that are best for this mission.

sniper and specialist.

sniper is a game changer itself.

Cheers, that's exactly what i did and it works pretty well.