Best research path?

[Lampros]

I eventually plan on doing Legendary, and I am wondering what the ideal research path is - given that you cannot afford to make any mistakes at that difficulty. Details would be great, but any general "must have" tech advice would also be welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Lampros:

given that you cannot afford to make any mistakes at that difficulty

You can afford some, just not that many.

Originally posted by Lampros:

I eventually plan on doing Legendary, and I am wondering what the ideal research path is - given that you cannot afford to make any mistakes at that difficulty. Details would be great, but any general "must have" tech advice would also be welcome.

Thanks in advance!

1) Modular weapons
2) Start alien biotech
3) Do resistance comms ASAP and contant the black site region.
4) Finish alien biotech
5) Magnetic weapons
6) Gauss weapons or Armor
7) Armor or Gauss weapons
8+ Depends on your playstyle and resources.

Depending on your overoll situation you may want to do an officer autopsy somewhere after 4) but before 8+

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

1) Modular weapons
2) Start alien biotech
3) Do resistance comms ASAP and contant the black site region.
4) Finish alien biotech
5) Magnetic weapons
6) Gauss weapons or Armor
7) Armor or Gauss weapons
8+ Depends on your playstyle and resources.

Depending on your overoll situation you may want to do an officer autopsy somewhere after 4) but before 8+

Thanks. In my Commander games, I tend to go for whatever comes up Inspired or Breakthrough - but I suspect this isn't the way to go at Legend difficulty. And even on Commander, I find myself often running behind schedule...

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by Lampros:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

1) Modular weapons
2) Start alien biotech
3) Do resistance comms ASAP and contant the black site region.
4) Finish alien biotech
5) Magnetic weapons
6) Gauss weapons or Armor
7) Armor or Gauss weapons
8+ Depends on your playstyle and resources.

Depending on your overoll situation you may want to do an officer autopsy somewhere after 4) but before 8+

Thanks. In my Commander games, I tend to go for whatever comes up Inspired or Breakthrough - but I suspect this isn't the way to go at Legend difficulty. And even on Commander, I find myself often running behind schedule...

You only go for inspiration if you were going to research that tech next anyway.
Sometimes you have SEVERAL options as to the "next", all valid. Then inspiration might be the deciding factor. Otherwise just ignore it.

As for breakthroughs, only + weapon damage ones are worthwhile. And only for weapons you actually use.

[Tschudy]

I usually go for psionics ASAP so i can get a couple of good PSI operatives training in the background. Bonus points if one of them rolls domination or null lance early.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by The Guy in Shades:

I usually go for psionics ASAP so i can get a couple of good PSI operatives training in the background. Bonus points if one of them rolls domination or null lance early.

What are the earlier pre-requisites to Psionics?

Edit: Never mind. It's on Wikia. http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Psionics

[red255]

are we doing WotC or vanilla? occasionally you get a research breakthru to a tier of weapondry, which is +1 damage with that tier.

Normal weapons -> mag is +2 damage, so a breakthru is half a point and doesn't cost you any credits.

Did legendary once, Gatecrasher is a tad obsurd, theres an extra pod with a sectoid in it. I remember that fight getting pretty bad, I tried to bust his cover, took some flanks at 65% was out of grenades, and eventually burned thru his cover apparently,

the rest of the game not as hard as 4 rookies vs all those pods. something like 7 advent troopers and 1 officer and 1 sectoid as I recall. with 4 rookies

[Lampros]

Originally posted by red255:

are we doing WotC or vanilla? occasionally you get a research breakthru to a tier of weapondry, which is +1 damage with that tier.

Normal weapons -> mag is +2 damage, so a breakthru is half a point and doesn't cost you any credits.

Did legendary once, Gatecrasher is a tad obsurd, theres an extra pod with a sectoid in it. I remember that fight getting pretty bad, I tried to bust his cover, took some flanks at 65% was out of grenades, and eventually burned thru his cover apparently,

the rest of the game not as hard as 4 rookies vs all those pods. something like 7 advent troopers and 1 officer and 1 sectoid as I recall. with 4 rookies

WotC.

Sectoid and an extra pod in Gatecrasher? Jesus.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by The Guy in Shades:

I usually go for psionics ASAP so i can get a couple of good PSI operatives training in the background. Bonus points if one of them rolls domination or null lance early.

The thing is, you need lots of power for psi lab.
As such, you are unlikely to be able to build it before you build your power relay. But at that point you might as well excavate a row 3 power coil and build psi lab on it.
But with THAT in mind you can actually finish tier 2 weapon and armor before you do psionics and still finish psionics by the time you have the slot for the lab.

[red255]

unless you get a excavation research breakthru and manage to get to a power coil in 10 days.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by red255:

unless you get a excavation research breakthru and manage to get to a power coil in 10 days.

You still need to excavate row 2 slot to get to power coil slot and that takes 30 days even if you somehow started on day 1 (you can't, since you don't have an engineer).

So I agree that the breakthrough may change the timing somewhat, but at that point it raises the questions of psi lab X days earlier at the cost of X more days without tier 2 armor.

[learnedhand]

The only "must have" research path I would recommend for legendary is mag weapons, as Tamiore said. Not right off the bat, it takes too long with 0-1 scientists and you won't lose much time if you get a few low level techs before. I like unlocking the proving ground with officer autopsy (?). I aim for mag weapons by midApril to early May.

Really all you need is shard guns, because they are by far the most offensive bang for your buck inthe early game. With good ranger play, you can regularly get crits that will do more damage than a normal tier 3 weapon hit and rangers are also great because you gain accuracy the closer you are, mitigating bad early game aim. AFter that, its really up to your taste. Early psi lab rush is fine, though I too don't really like doing it because it just takes too long to train up psi soldiers on legendary and it has a steep opportunity cost in power and avenger space.

Other than getting ahead of the power curve with mag weapons early, there is actually a lot of different strategies that work just fine. I've done a lab start a number of times on LI, and it is actually a pretty strong opening start. It really speeds up your research in the late spring and summer months. But I wouldn't recomend it unless you have good command of the strategic game because it will delay other important buildings forcing you to know how to cut corners on power, resources, and avatar clock pressure..

[red255]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by red255:

unless you get a excavation research breakthru and manage to get to a power coil in 10 days.

You still need to excavate row 2 slot to get to power coil slot and that takes 30 days even if you somehow started on day 1 (you can't, since you don't have an engineer).

So I agree that the breakthrough may change the timing somewhat, but at that point it raises the questions of psi lab X days earlier at the cost of X more days without tier 2 armor.

Best case scenario its straight down, and only takes one engineer in the slot to go down, which is 10 days on commander and 20 on legendary no?

I've done it on commander. started the break thru started digging, breakthru happened as I dug, then I selected the power coil and it dug out instantly saving me 30 engineer days.

[Tamiore]

Originally posted by red255:

Originally posted by Tamiore:

You still need to excavate row 2 slot to get to power coil slot and that takes 30 days even if you somehow started on day 1 (you can't, since you don't have an engineer).

So I agree that the breakthrough may change the timing somewhat, but at that point it raises the questions of psi lab X days earlier at the cost of X more days without tier 2 armor.

Best case scenario its straight down, and only takes one engineer in the slot to go down, which is 10 days on commander and 20 on legendary no?

I've done it on commander. started the break thru started digging, breakthru happened as I dug, then I selected the power coil and it dug out instantly saving me 30 engineer days.

I'm pretty sure it's 10 days for row 1 slots and 30 days for row 2 and below on legend.
You can, however, speed it up with skirmishers HQ BONUS.

[Tschudy]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by red255:

Best case scenario its straight down, and only takes one engineer in the slot to go down, which is 10 days on commander and 20 on legendary no?

I've done it on commander. started the break thru started digging, breakthru happened as I dug, then I selected the power coil and it dug out instantly saving me 30 engineer days.

I'm pretty sure it's 10 days for row 1 slots and 30 days for row 2 and below on legend.
You can, however, speed it up with skirmishers HQ BONUS.

Yeah, I had that plus I rolled Heavy Equipment (excavation speed 50%) Resistance order in my first group, so getting down to the power coils took somewhere near a month and netted me a nice surge of supplies and alloys early on.

[learnedhand]

Originally posted by Tamiore:

Originally posted by red255:

Best case scenario its straight down, and only takes one engineer in the slot to go down, which is 10 days on commander and 20 on legendary no?

I've done it on commander. started the break thru started digging, breakthru happened as I dug, then I selected the power coil and it dug out instantly saving me 30 engineer days.

I'm pretty sure it's 10 days for row 1 slots and 30 days for row 2 and below on legend.
You can, however, speed it up with skirmishers HQ BONUS.

Yeah, on legendary first row is 10 days by default, second row 30 days, third row 60 days and bottom row is 90 days. The skirmisher HQ bonus is really good early game and makes for an interesting starting faction if you exploit it.