Better to do or skip Lost and Abandoned?

[SenMithrarin85]

As title.

[Fringehunter7719]

The lost kills don't matter much as the third mission is a lost or horde sitrep if you turn off lost and abandoned, so you can farm your kills there instead if you want to.

As others have said you always start with one hero unit on gatecrasher, which makes that easier.

The big hurdle though is that you'll meet a chosen on your first retaliation, instead of with a double hero unit six man squad and no other objective or enemy in sight. Pulling that off is simply brutal, I've actually given up hope of doing it reliably (without losing the mission or losing soldiers) and adopted a tactic of voluntarily letting the chosen interrogate to clear them off the playing field as the least worst outcome.

Incidentally, Skirmisher HQ start is hugely powerful, since you can get your resistance ring built by day 12, because it has the best scanning bonus - construction boost, that will give you a massive leg up on every other aspect of the game.

[Tenshin51]

Meh Gatecrusher is easy, the only good having a hero unit quite early will be that stupid tunnel mission that mission is freaking hard especially a timer mission.

Also lost and abandoned is freaking easy, rookies could do it except for increased health mode.

[Hannibal Barca]

why skip it so easy

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by SenMithrarin85:

Originally posted by st88:

Again, the debatable part is if it's better to start with reapers and grab templar ASAP or the other way round.
I agree that both are strong.

I found reapers to become a lot weaker outside of the early game. Once enemies evolve to 7-8 HP+, they become incapable of outright killing anything unless you get lucky with proximity to explodable objects.

Claymore deal 8 damage, and you can kill anything that has less HP REMAINING than your vector rifle damage with silent killer without dropping the shadow.
So even rank 4+ reapers can still kill anything with less than12 HP, not 7-8 HP.
Long story short — no, reapers not only remain strong, they actually get the most damaging single-target ability in the game (banish).

[SenMithrarin85]

What exactly does the High. Very High etc on the soldier bond system affect? Is it purely the time it takes to raise the bond to the next threshhold, or does it some how affect the bond abilities themselves once you get them?

[David]

Just the bond time (cohesion raise) afaik.

[Chaser324]

You should do it the first time you play WotC for the sake of seeing the plot setup for the factions, but past that, you're probably better off disabling Lost and Abandoned for the sake of adding some extra variability.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca:

why skip it so easy

That's one reason to do so, lots of people play for a challenge.

[Белый Кот]

If you skip this mission, you'll get regular faction mission. I found 3 types:
1) Enemy - Advert. Engineer/scientist waiting in the room, when you get to him, you'll get 3-4 waves of enemy reinforcements, then evac zone will appear. Reward - Engineer/scientist + Intel
2) Enemy - Lost. Engineer/scientist using turret to hold back the lost, one of soldiers is unconscious near him. You need to get to them in X turns, and them return to start location. Reward - Engineer/scientist + Intel + soldier, if you could bring him
3) Enemy - Advert + Lost. There are 3 people in different points of the map - one Engineer/scientist + 2 soldiers, both soldiers will join and fight when you reach them. Exit point is on the other side of the map. Reward - Engineer/scientist + Intel + 2 soldiers

Anyway if you skip L&A tutorial, you'll be in big advantage:
- Faction warrior from the start. Gatecrusher is not a big deal on legend, if you have a reaper with you!
- L&A has no reward, while these missions pays nicely

As for connecting second faction it's quite the same - with L&A you need "find Skirmisher" covert mission and then jailbreak, without L&A - "find Skirmishers' HQ" covert mission

[Karasukan]

Originally posted by shady:

Originally posted by Astasia:

If you disable Lost and Abandoned then the lost mission modifier starts showing up right from the start, so your first mission after the intro could have lost which you could farm if you wanted.

hey can u pls tell me how the f i can disable it??

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2570255844

just un-select it.

[Zeonista]

"Lost and Abandoned" is a good story, but it's the same story every time, with the same foes. If you feel you've played it too often, you can remove it from the game story in the new game startup. That leads to the following changes.
1. You get one (1) random faction soldier for Gatecrasher, at Squaddie level. Faction soldiers from the Pool will be prioritized, but it's possible to get a new one if you allow for new recruits. So far I haven't gotten any of the three faction heroes though. Gatecrasher is a lot less difficult now!
2. The appearing soldier's faction becomes your starting faction, in that region, and has a randomly selected Chosen as their foe. I've started with all three Chosen in that role. It makes the game a little different and challenging.
3. The designated Chosen shows up for the first retaliation raid. It replaces one of the pods, and can be a pain if you're not expecting it. Make sure the faction soldier stays healthy and goes on the haven defense mission! For mission strategy, keep everybody close and don't chase refugees. When the Chosen comes after the squad it becomes a priority target! If your squad has the Hunter weapons equipped the fight won't be too hard. Then feel good about getting the 5 points in the first month.

[Stardustfire]

lost and abandoned has many characteristics of a tutorial. it rails you in some way and it kills replayability by nailing the choosen start skills and start factions, and it also denys you a second faction for longer by taking the skirmisher hero by story script. not to mentation you cant start with the best hero class (templar) and get it only as last faction instead.

[Senor Cinco]

I disable it and start with a Reaper every campaign. It fits my playstyle and a Reaper bonded with a Sniper is akin to cheating open maps.

Add in the crazy OP of Remote Start, and with a lil patience, unhindered from a timer, can almost clear a map in some cases.

Reaper spots, Sniper agros and if it doesn't outright kill, the Reaper can Silent Kill for the finish w/o breaking concealment. The enemy generally with move towards the line of fire and usually leaves themselves flanked by the Reaper.

However, that Templar is a wrecking crew on it's own. Bonded with a Nader, it's even worse for Advent. Just running those two pairs in a quad limited crew, and your Sniper will hit 100% across the map, due to the targeting/dmg boosts.

[psychotron666420]

I typically disable it. Keep it on for a first play through, but I like my new play throughs to have more random elements. Don't want to run into the assassin first every time with the same abilities, and get the same hero classes in the same order

[Charlemagne]

A new player would want to keep it for two reasons: 1. the story, 2. It's easier to face your first Chosen in this mission than in a Haven assault. If the first Chosen on the haven assault is the Warlock, that is very, very bad. He becomes easier later but in a Haven assault when all you have is 4 rookies he's horrible.