Is predator armor a necessity?

[SeattlePoliceman]

I got this game recently and am currently about 12 hours into my first playthrough. However I realized I kinda screwed myself over and sold a bunch of my Advent trooper corpses to the black market early on in the game. I'm now at the point where troopers don't really spawn in any more so getting the predator armor upgrade seems pretty much impossible. Is the armor vital enough to warrant me starting a new campaign or is it still doable without it?

[gimmethegepgun]

Not having upgraded armor for your soldiers is really bad. You can craft some light or heavy armor in the Proving Grounds to cover for it though. They won't have the extra utility slot but the light armor (Spider Suit) has a grappling hook that allows for free movement and the heavy armor (EXO Suit) has a heavy weapons mount that initially comes with a rocket launcher.

Also there will be trooper spawns, just not quite as many of them.

[Mrvecz]

Well if you dont get it, then pretty much your troops will be killed instantly by the first attack they get hit with. Or the first AOE attack will reduce them to near-death state if not killing them instantly.

While weapons are more important, what is dead cant hit you, not every time its possible to nuke them all in a single turn and you will regret it when that moment comes.

[Yogol]

I would start again, yes, because later in the game, you will need the extra utility slot, it will add quite a lot of damage once you have the ammo.

[Infinite Monkeys]

It depends on difficulty. On commander and lower you can exploit the hidden bonuses and AI behavior and come out on top without any armor. On legendary, skipping predator armor is not as strategic. In fact, on legendary, I usually try to get predator armor before magnetic weapons, if I am able to.

[Commander Gorda]

You dont need armor if you manage to alpha strike but extra utility slot and Health defintly helps. You Will get advent corpses eventuelly just keep going.

[Fringehunter7719]

Not strictly a necessity, but I find it the most important single upgrade in game, much more so than weapons, or third tier upgrades.

Advent troopers continue to be deployed throughout the game though, you just get advanced and elite ones as time goes on, so all may not be lost.

[Bryan=0101]

You are playing an constant arm race.

You need to level your soldiers and gear.

[Sabaithal]

In the base game predator armor is more important that LW2. Still, it can reduce a hit from an "life-threatening or insta-kill" shot to a "moderately wounded" shot.

Probably best to use them for your high profile squads primarily, until you get warden armor.

[Abrakadabra]

Yeah, its a huge upgrade. You can already see how effective one more dmg can be on one soldier. With armor/an extra slot you dish out a lot more dmg. Bluescreen rounds do +5 dmg vs any mechanical unit. Predator gives you a lot more health, allowing your soldiers to usually survive intital attacks (as long as they dont get hit 2 or 3 times) which unarmored soldiers wouldnt survive, specially vs tier 2 and 3 enemies. You get way more dmg with armor, more utility itimes like mimic beacon and also a significant upgrade to survivability.

On higher difficulties and especially once you play with mods later on, you wont survive without predator. Even with the extra dmg you might struggle. But without blue screen/ammo vs very angry sectopods, alien ruler clones, exalted custodians.....youd just melt. No chance to take them out without ammo before very late game.

[SeattlePoliceman]

I kinda just skipped the predator armor all together and ended up going straight to warden armor.

[red255]

yeah its not REQUIRED per-se, but if you unlocked it you should get it.

Beaglerush went straight to warden armor on a similiar issue, but he;s not a novice player.

the second tier of armor allows you to carry two items to battle. Alternatively you could use elerium cores (which are valuable) to make a few sets of exosuits.

I normally don't bother with the exosuits until War Suits. but if you can't do predator armor they might be useful.

but I would just hard focus research on power armor to get thru it.