Hack work station on advent train on L/I in wotc

[Abrakadabra]

I don't mind that you have to abort some missions. I like it actually.

But this mission I just had was just desigend badly. There were no chosen dropping in. I had 7 turns. Even had as many turns as I wanted as long as I stay concealed. So I move forward with Dragunova scouting ahead. I see a turret and a pod of three. Muton, Priest and advanced trooper.

I get as close as I can so once Im revlealed I have a headstart.

Kill the pod and the turret without using any grenades or tools.

Another pod is on the other side of the train. Its turn 6 now.

I activate the pod, kill it and reinforcements drop in. And a third pod patrols into my squad. I shoot and kill every turn killing stuff pretty effectively. Only misjudge the esplosion of Dragunovas remote start. She isnt hit but the ceiling she was standin on collapsed (she was standing at the border of the explosion, out of range, but I should have anticipated that the roof might collapse even though that specific section wasnt touched by the explosion) and she took 2 dmg.

Apart from that everything went smooth. I ran ahead and killed pods every turn.

I even used Mox grappling hook to move him much faster. In the end I saw that no matter what I did there wasnt enough time to reach the work station. Used a mimic beacon (only one I have atm) and dashed him as close to the wagon with the station as possible.

He would have reached it in time. Was one tile short.

Im not annoyed by the fact that theres a lot of enmies and I might have to tank a few shots. Or even have one of my soldiers killed.

But there was literally no time to reach the work station cause mox hat to first run all the way past the wagon then enter the dood and then ran back into the wagon to the work station.

That placement of the work station made it basically impossible to reach it.

I dunno how anybody could have saved enough actions to get their in time.

Im telling you. I was fighting every turn and i was pretty happy too cause my soldiers didnt miss anything. Nothing. I had holotargeting, 2 superior scopes, those were LTs, one Captain, Mox is a Sergeant.

It was impossible to reach the work sattion in time. The only way to do it would have been to dash each turn. Only dash.

But thats suicide.

It wasnt that it was difficult. i would have taken risks. i did take risks. I ran as fast as I could.

The placement of the worksation turned the mission from very hard to impossible.

I even managed the reinforcements. And 4 pods. One pod only mutons with armor and a turret on top of that. There were three turrets in total. 4 pods.

5 Pods with reinforcemnts. I had a mimic beacon. Mox took the final dash and its a miracle he surived and was uninjured in the end.

Still. The placement made it impossible.

Thats kinda sad.

Whats your experience with those missions?

Ill avoid them from now on. No other mission has ever given me as much trouble on L/I.

This train mission was impossible. Seriously, I doubt anybody would have been able to accomplish that in early midgame (I have gauss weapons, most soldiers LTs or Sergeants. Two Cpatains. Few corporals and squaddis). Not with that layout.

With they would rework those missions.

You cant reach the work sattion if its hidden in the back of the wagon and you have to first run all around in 7 turns and kill 20 enemies and 3 turrets.

Show me a video how anybody, literally anybody would finish the map I just did with the tools and soldiers I had.

I couldnt believe how lucky I was with shots. I hat a number of crits, I think i didnt miss any shot except one single pistol shot with lighting hands. I was super lucky and thought 'omg, this went better than I could have ever hoped. But even with that luck and running as fast as I could, killing all pods, it was impossible to reach it. If possible at all ill completly avoid those missions from now on.

They are unfair.

[red255]

theres a second wave setting to double the amount of turns on timers. theres also some resistance orders to increase timers.

Game does have some timers that are more unfair due to random map generation.

usually I'll be able to beat a map within the allotted amount of timers.

but I feel timers are just there to prevent you from sticking your finger up your bum and overwatching and altogether not having a good time.

as long as you are moving toward the objective at a good clip you should be OK to take the double timers option.

Would probably fix your issue with legend ironman.

95% of the missions I beat with the regular amount of time, its just a few that for whatever reason the map makes absurd.

its like golf, some holes should be par 3 and some are par 5. but XCOM they just treat them all as par 4.

Official way of fixing it is just to double the timers and not use the extra time if you don't need it.

[Fringehunter7719]

One option is that you could bring a plasma grenade and specialist to hack the terminal at range. With a reaper you can almost certainly avoid activating at least one of the pods until after the objective is completed that way. You can also use the reaper itself to do the hack if the console is tucked away out of line of sight, with no timer ticking before breaking concealment and the reaper's added mobility that would mean there was enough time.

20 enemies is also too many for a mid game mission. With reinforcements the most you can get (before turrets, codex splits and zombies) is 16 unless you have a dark event like "show of force" active, which still doesn't take you to 20 enemies. So perhaps that's down to a mod?

One option in mid game is to pick guerilla ops that are rated as difficult (11 enemies) instead of very difficult (13 enemies).

[learnedhand]

I'll agree that train maps can make these missions more difficult but bringing a specialist could have easily saved you two turns. Given the tools you had at your disposal, I have a hard time believing that this mission was "impossible".

Impossible would be if a gatekeeper or sectopod camped on top or nearby the workstation, but even then you can remote hack just before getting the kill.

[Identimate]

Blast away the side of the train with a grenade(launcher) so you don't have to doubleback?(carefully so you don't damage the thing that needs hacking)
Perhaps even sneak past some enemies and save them for after you complete the objective?
Bring a specialist which can hack from a long distance if it is able to see the hackable objective?(see above)

Hope it helps.

Cheers

[talemore]

It was an issue with xcom2 vanilla but you can fix it with the options. There's something called random number generator and there's no way to tell how long time it takes to win a single battle, it can take 1 to 20 turns depending on how much exploitation of the game a player want to spend time to explore.

[red255]

Not if the sectopod chose to walk over the terminal during activation.

Was like OH COME ON.

[wboson]

WOTC have some useful perk also, use teamwork to move the last tile;) Saved me once(not in L\i but still).

[Khan, Binary of None]

This is why you always take specialists on hacking missions. No need to get close.

[red255]

On train missions the hack terminal is inside the train car, which is rather durable not not reliably able to be opened with a frag grenade.

specialists help minorly with hack range here. you have to get close if you want to hack it.

[Abrakadabra]

The only thing I could have done is to use Dragunova to leave team and cloak her way to the terminal. There was a pod right at the entrance though. They moved sometimes up ontop of the car, sometiems behind it and so on. I thought about it and there were missions when I did it but it was open ground and she was rather safe completly split off.

This scenario would have been risky.

I decided against it. Its the furthest I have gotten in legendary ironman. I was too lucky before too. Dragunova was attacked by a faceless who attacked her from a floor below, smashing the floor she was standing on (and herself as well) from below.

And she fell down...

When I saw that I was 100 % sure she was dead. But she was only badly injured and bleeding out. I could save her and she had to recover for like 40 days.

Same with Mox when one of the chosen interfered in the tunnels. We killed the chosen but Mox was bascially, clinically dead.

And Dragunova is so valuable. Same with Mox. I dont wanne risk them for this. Unless I have to.

I will avoid those missions from now on unless I get the card which adds more turns.

7 turns was enough for all other missions (even though its much easier now that I can stay concealed and edge closer to the objective before timer starts) but not this one.

Thx for the input though.

[Fringehunter7719]

Originally posted by red255:

On train missions the hack terminal is inside the train car, which is rather durable not not reliably able to be opened with a frag grenade.

specialists help minorly with hack range here. you have to get close if you want to hack it.

Rockets and plasma grenades, however, do destroy those cover elements. Since he described having gauss weapons and facing a full pod of mutons (force level 10, 11 or 12) that means if he wanted either or both of those he could have them at that point in the campaign.