Anybody like using SPARKs in combat?

[Janthis]

They just don't seem all that great to me. Their weapon accuracy seems lower than most of my other guys', and the fact that they can't use cover is like having a giant target painted on them. Always damaged after missions, and they can't even benefit from the AWC. Right now, they just don't seem worth the investment of resources needed to build and upgrade them.

Maybe it's because I waited too long to get one, and they would have been more useful in the early game...?

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Originally posted by fireborn:

His argument was that his grenadiers had better abilities then a new spark.
What kind of squaddie grenadier would have more useful abilities.... ?
And to point out the answer... None.

That's just your opinion. But when you first get sparks your grenadiers will be higher ranks than your sparks, and have the ability to carry items, use armor upgraded for a whole squad while resources are tight, carry additional explosives, take cover and use weapon mods means that grenadiers having less useful abilities is simply yet another rehashing of the same conclusion.

Its not an opinion though. A squaddie grenadier can only launch a grenade.

And you say that your grenadier are sergeants by the time you get a spark... Ok?
But that is an unfair comparison since your build order obviously is not intended to rush out a spark.
And you need to take into account the spark does indeed have enough time to rank up all the way throughout the course of the campaign... The game is not that short unless you are playing easy mode or something.

I can get a spark long before you can with my build order apparently and long before i even get near a higher rank with a human soldier... So your argument is tat.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by fireborn:

Its not an opinion though. A squaddie grenadier can only launch a grenade.

Yes, it's an opinion, you think unit A is better by some unspecified method of comparison than unit B. That's an archetypal matter of opinion.

And again, launching grenades is not the only thing a squaddie grenadier can do. Because they can equip weapon mods, carry ammo types, carry heavy weapons and take cover as well. If you constantly ignore relevant factors in a comparison then you will constantly reach flawed conclusions.

Originally posted by fireborn:

And you say that your grenadier are sergeants by the time you get a spark... Ok?
But that is an unfair comparison since your build order obviously is not intended to rush out a spark.

Incorrect. I was being generous saying that they would be corporal or sergeant. In fact you have to complete two separate research projects (alien biotech and advent officer autopsy) and a 28 day construction project (proving ground) before you can start rushing out sparks (which then have a build time themselves and delay other important proving ground projects), if you're doing it via build order. That's enough time to get grenadiers to sergeant and even beyond.

If someone then chooses to compare whether to field a spark that they actually have, or a soldier that they actually have, that's one of two things that might arguably be called a fair comparison (the other being the slightly more hypothetical rank for rank with a bit of fudging to account for the other issues that arise). But, you will hopefully note, it's not the comparison I made, so it won't help to get super hung up on the issue.

Originally posted by fireborn:

I can get a spark long before you can with my build order apparently and long before i even get near a higher rank with a human soldier... So your argument is tat.

Perhaps rather than offer a boast you can offer a screenshot of the date you can accomplish this on? Or an explanation of what you build in what order and how long it takes and what the trade offs of that are?

I'll gladly admit that I've never built a proving ground before I've done two research projects and a 28 day construction - for the very simple reason that you can't*. I'll gladly explain that my normal research order starts with Alien Biotech, Advent officer autopsy and Advent trooper autopsy because I want battle scanners at the first retaliation and to build my proving ground from day ~17 to day ~45**. This follows from a GTS as soon as possible to train squaddies and get squad size 1 at the earliest opportunity. But at some point it would be nice if I could get a similar accurate and at least partially detailed explanation in return instead of these comments about "lol", "tat" and so forth, which honestly add very little to the discussion.

*You can of course scale the rank ups and build times for other difficulties if you wish, the grenadiers still have had multiple missions in the specified interval.
**Approximate due to the possibility of construction boosting and the exact date of first engineer acquisition. You can shade this by a few days in some situations, but there are trade offs to doing so. 28 days is the base project length on legend.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Incorrect. I was being generous saying that they would be corporal or sergeant. In fact you have to complete two separate research projects (alien biotech and advent officer autopsy) and a 28 day construction project (proving ground) before you can start rushing out sparks (which then have a build time themselves and delay other important proving ground projects), if you're doing it via build order. That's enough time to get grenadiers to sergeant and even beyond.

Well an engineer will cut that construction time of both the spark and proving ground in half.
I also save my starting supply to build the proving ground since all that is done before your first supply drop.

Even if you somehow fail the engineer mission or dont have one its still not that long of a build honestly.
Those first 2 techs are simple low tier techs and take very little time.. You build the proving ground right afterwards.

I get a spark out within the first real time hour of playing a campaign on average.

[Airatome]

Guys....guys.... isn't all of this psuedo pointless conjecture and opinions based on playstyle? My *preference* is to field 2 Sparks over a Grenadier(s) ; why? Their compliment of abilities for each tree largely compliments my play style. So when I field my Sharpshooter Sniper, my Blademaster Ranger, one of each Specialist tree, and flank them with a Spark that can heal sparks or that Sectopod I hacked last turn, launch a plasma blaster, and still have a third action remaining to punch something for 10 damage or cover my squad in a defensive barrier while the OTHER Spark launches it's BIT all the way accross the map and then fires a shred cannon heavy weapon with increased ranged, width, and damage that wipes out a whole group of Advent while I decide what to do with it's third action?

It's hard not to be happy with the results.

Can these satisfactory results be mimicked with flanking Grenadiers? Absolutely! I mean...we had to use *something* before SPARKS came along, right? 'better' will almost always be a matter of perspective and playstyle however....and my personal perspective is SPARKS over Grenadiers.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by fireborn:

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Incorrect. I was being generous saying that they would be corporal or sergeant. In fact you have to complete two separate research projects (alien biotech and advent officer autopsy) and a 28 day construction project (proving ground) before you can start rushing out sparks (which then have a build time themselves and delay other important proving ground projects), if you're doing it via build order. That's enough time to get grenadiers to sergeant and even beyond.

Well an engineer will cut that construction time of both the spark and proving ground in half.

As I clearly stated in that post, I listed the base time. Yes, you can trade off other benefits to rush construction - but this is exactly the kind of specific cost I asked for details of.

And, you will note, that even doing that it is still perfectly possible to have corporal and sergeant ranked grenadiers.

Originally posted by fireborn:

I get a spark out within the first real time hour of playing a campaign on average.

Exactly what do you think that matters? By what in game date? What exactly is preventing you having corporals by that time? If you want to brag about how quickly you can get sparks and how horribly slow I must be, I think you should be able to do rather better than this.

ETA: No need to answer by the way, I looked up when you had sparks deployed in the commander difficulty run you've uploaded at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVvUmqesg7k and found that even with those reduced times and the handicap of pushing back the GTS by a whole month you only had a (improved by alterations you made to the class in a mod) spark ready to go after 28 days (well outside of an hour's play time incidentally, it's more than an hour into the vid that skips the first two weeks worth of the campaign including multiple missions). That's probably all the details I need, or anyone else needs, to get to the bottom of the facts here.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Airatome:

... that can heal sparks or that Sectopod I hacked last turn...

I think your post is generally reasonable, but I have to ask - why would you want to do that? It's tricky enough to stack enough +20 hack rewards to get decent risk/reward balance on sectopod hacks in the first place, but once you do, isn't wasting actions and limited resources on making them tougher to kill 2 turns down the line generally not something you want?

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Originally posted by fireborn:

I get a spark out within the first real time hour of playing a campaign on average.

Exactly what do you think that matters? By what in game date? What exactly is preventing you having corporals by that time? If you want to brag about how quickly you can get sparks and how horribly slow I must be, I think you should be able to do rather better than this.

Its just my way of giving some sort of example our build orders have a dramatic difference other then going into the game and wasting my time writing down an exact date my first spark gets done.
Its just quick for me to build a spark is all im saying.. And yes you can have a corporal by that time but i still think a basic spark is superior for all the other reasons i stated before.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by fireborn:

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Exactly what do you think that matters? By what in game date? What exactly is preventing you having corporals by that time? If you want to brag about how quickly you can get sparks and how horribly slow I must be, I think you should be able to do rather better than this.

Its just my way of giving some sort of example our build orders have a dramatic difference other then going into the game and wasting my time writing down an exact date my first spark gets done.
Its just quick for me to build a spark is all im saying.. And yes you can have a corporal by that time but i still think a basic spark is superior for all the other reasons i stated before.

Yeah, pity it wasn't true.

Don't worry about it now, I looked up your video to find the answer and edited it into my post above since you didn't seem forthcoming.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

Yeah, pity it wasn't true.

Don't worry about it now, I looked up your video to find the answer and edited it into my post above since you didn't seem forthcoming.

And you are flat out wrong about me being wrong.

In that video i am playing a modded campaign with increased difficulty. I had to spend resources to build other things at the start of the campaign.. I needed to capture a chryssalid alive and needed an arc charger and was short on supply to build my proving ground as quick as i wanted.
Arc chargers cost alot of supply.
I think i said this already that people should not be bringing up my videos in my arguments since my videos are modded and do not reflect at all what i am stating here.. I make those for fun and to hang out with my friends and not to prove any points.

As you can see at the start i have "1" arc charger built.

[Fringehunter7719]

But they do prove points nonetheless - and rather better than a series of untrue claims here do.

You haven't modified the length of the build projects, you didn't delay them relative to the sequence you advocated here and yet it took you waaaaaaaaaay longer than the hour you chose to brag about, in place of attempting a sensible answer to a reasonable question in the first place. Sure you've built an arc charger too, but the proving ground wasn't completed before day 20 on commander difficulty even so. You want to factor in the research and construction difference to legend to come up with a sensible answer instead? Please, be my guest - because it can hardly fail to be better than an estimate of "the first real time hour" that turns out to be blatantly untrue.

It probably isn't surprising that you don't want people to look at video of you actually playing the game that demonstrates that many of the things you say here simply are not true. Who would? But why not just own up to the facts? Sparks aren't just instantly available at the start of the campaign, they aren't competing with rookies for a spot, and whilst they aren't terrible in the early stages by any means, there are serious trade offs that have to be made to get them in the way you describe, and the benefits are smaller too (not to mention that as you point out you're playing a modified campaign in which you've made them better - perhaps because you felt at the time they could stand the improvement).

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

It probably isn't surprising that you don't want people to look at video of you actually playing the game that demonstrates that many of the things you say here simply are not true. Who would? But why not just own up to the facts? Sparks aren't just instantly available at the start of the campaign, they aren't competing with rookies for a spot, and whilst they aren't terrible in the early stages by any means, there are serious trade offs that have to be made to get them in the way you describe, and the benefits are smaller too (not to mention that as you point out you're playing a modified campaign in which you've made them better - perhaps because you felt at the time they could stand the improvement).

Calm down cupcake.
The arc charger costed too many resources to build to create the proving ground as fast as i had wanted. It would have been done much quicker but i had to wait for more supply before creating it.. I think i said that already.
Feel free to try my build order yourself. It is quick to push out a spark in a timely manner.

The reasons for the modded sparks are explained within the commentary of the stream... Which is completely off-topic and irrelevant to this discussion of vanilla mecs.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

I think your post is generally reasonable, but I have to ask - why would you want to do that? It's tricky enough to stack enough +20 hack rewards to get decent risk/reward balance on sectopod hacks in the first place, but once you do, isn't wasting actions and limited resources on making them tougher to kill 2 turns down the line generally not something you want?

Well...my example comes from the optimal end of my current Ironman mode on the average difficulty. Aside from Ruler Armor, as I have yet to kill them all; I am at the end of every single upgrade and tech tree possible. My Hacking specialist can, 75 percent of the time, take over a Sectopod (i'm not sure if increased difficulties make this even harder to accomplish) as the game has been quite generous in handing me permanent hack reward buffs during certain missions. If I feel the need to heal such a sectopod or Elite Heavy Mech, it is only so it can soak up more of the enemies attacks and once it finally DOES break out of hack status I have a Sniper with Armor Piercing Rounds and my 'medic' that takes continuous overwatch shots (50% of the time) with Blue Screen Rounds.

Sectopods (and any other robotic unit) are the least my worries now a days and provide me with fun cannon fodder to throw at the other enemies.

I only stress that this has been an optimal play through, (which is often rarely the case, particularly on Ironman mode) because I am in no contest and just stating that, for ME personally; I enjoy what the SPARK units offer my team. I use Granadiers until I can replace them with SPARKS later in my campaign. I have grown comfortable and strategic in their use. I was in no rush, not racing against the clock, and have taken quite a while to reach this comfortable position where I have covered every continent and am now pursuing the Ruler Aliens before I complete the final leg of the campaign.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by fireborn:

Originally posted by Fringehunter7719:

It probably isn't surprising that you don't want people to look at video of you actually playing the game that demonstrates that many of the things you say here simply are not true. Who would? But why not just own up to the facts? Sparks aren't just instantly available at the start of the campaign, they aren't competing with rookies for a spot, and whilst they aren't terrible in the early stages by any means, there are serious trade offs that have to be made to get them in the way you describe, and the benefits are smaller too (not to mention that as you point out you're playing a modified campaign in which you've made them better - perhaps because you felt at the time they could stand the improvement).

Calm down cupcake.

Honestly, you're just being deliberately insulting with the precise reverse intention to calming me down.

I'm not honestly sure what you find non-calm about a couple of paragraphs of text that include no insult, expletive, expression of frustration or similar. But I don't suppose it really matters.

If you'd rather call me cupcake than answer a question, there's probably no further benefit to conversing. According to you, you're drunk and going to cling to your beliefs regardless of the facts.

Originally posted by fireborn:

The arc charger costed too many resources to build to create the proving ground as fast as i had wanted. It would have been done much quicker but i had to wait for more supply before creating it.. I think i said that already.

I think you said it as well. But, alas, it wasn't true. You could have shaved a couple of days off at most, not done it much quicker, and this is pretty apparent, I think, to everyone.

You still have to do those same two research projects, you still have to get that engineer, you still have to wait out the construction time of a proving ground. On Legend that's going to be 25 days or more, even for someone willing to make all those sacrifices such as pushing back every other building (including the GTS with its attendant squad size benefit) of the campaign by a full month. And you still actually have to build the spark at that point, and it'll still be multiple ranks behind your soldiers.

Originally posted by fireborn:

Feel free to try my build order yourself. It is quick to push out a spark in a timely manner.

I already know how long it will take to get a spark out, I described it, in detail. I know how long it takes to get a proving ground up and running because I've done it before, first in the build order, second in the build order and third in the build order. I've settled on optimal solutions (i.e. second) for giving advice based on that experience. That recommendation can be justified by facts that are rather more accurate than plain untruths about how much I can do in an hour of playtime or how I can condescend to people for allegedly not knowing how many times a rookie can be promoted.

Given that you're not willing to spend the time, or consider the evidence of your own campaign and that your estimates are wildly out of contact with reality, it really doesn't seem worth my while to spend additional time to prove in game that you can get sergeants before 25 days are up, when anyone* who has ever played the first retaliation will have had a sergeant by then, and can notice the date is ~Mar 22. I'm pretty sure that's everyone - including you.

*Please note that this word is written in the "mild hyperbole" font, and indicates not that literally everyone has done it, but that it will represent the overwhelmingly most common experience.

[dq_177]

Nah Sparks are pretty lame gameplay-wise, MECs were way better.

Honestly none of the expansion content for 2 has been all that great, the Alien Rulers aren't fun to fight and after the first playthrough with them I've declined to undertake the signal missions to activate them in every following playthrough.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by Airatome:

If I feel the need to heal such a sectopod or Elite Heavy Mech, it is only so it can soak up more of the enemies attacks and once it finally DOES break out of hack status I have a Sniper with Armor Piercing Rounds and my 'medic' that takes continuous overwatch shots (50% of the time) with Blue Screen Rounds.

It's ok, my comment was only semi serious. Suffice to say that I'm not sure how much use it really is to heal an enemy and then shoot it the following turn or so.

Thanks for the full explanation of where you were coming from though, it's appreciated. Context is always nice!