when to do shens last gift

[markdb92]

should I wait till t2 gear or can I do with t1 stuff?

[Soran]

i want to know if its timed, or not. like, can i wait or do i have to do it asap or it will be gone?

[Mister Maf]

I'm only partway through and had to stop due to crashing problems, but you're going to be fighting a neverending wave of kamikaze MECs that have 3 armor and 3 HP. Shredder grenadiers help a lot. It can be done in T1 but T2 guns would definitely make it a lot easier.

[Cpl.Facehugger]

It's doable with T1 gear, but it's really dicey. Ideally you'd bring tons of shred, preferably in the form of grenadiers.

Sparks are amazing though so it's worth doing the mission.

[Dammekos]

I did it with T1 on Ironmode 2nd difficulty. Obviously I make no claims about my skill. It was pretty breezy up until the boss and at that point I made it through by the skin of my teeth. If you consider yourself pretty badass at this game, then its very doable.

[Belhedler]

For some reason got the mission on april 15th. That is to say I almost had at best 3 buddies team caporals plus Shen. So basically one stealth Ranger, sniper, rookie and Shen (and of course the Spark when had it). My only heavy was gravely wounded in the mission before. Yet, not knowing what the mission was about, I got through the levels up to the boss, not without some damages. My sniper + stealth ranger sure helped a lot here. I destroyed all the turrets too but man that was by the nick of a thread (yeah I'm pretty dumb at time and prefer to destroy things endlessly than escaping like you are urged to). After seeing that many ennemies and yet not the end of the tunnel I started thinking I missunderstood something but well...

However fighting the boss is just plain dull with such low grade team. This mission is a nightmare when you have only the starting stuff and not enough firepower to blow the explosive in the stage (which deals pretty good damage to the sectopod and removes its annoying armour - much faster than Spark claiming to remove it and... fails to do so!). So in the end, I was able to get the sectopod to below half health, which is quite crazy when I think that my best weapon deals 5 damage when lucky. Also, this includes one successful hack on the sectopod. It lost 2 turns but sadly I was a bit busy dealing with these - kamikaze - robots dropping everywhere. But that's all. Pretty dumb fight. No win. Reload and go home. One cool stuff was my promotions were raising like crazzy. I think I had 2 to 3 promotions per fighter except for Shen ;)

[Belhedler]

The mission happens at random. I got it as my 3rd mission including the initiation one so...

Originally posted by CombatMist:

You probably wont have a proving grounds yet so...

I don't even have the first building.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Im trying to remember if shens electric discharge is on limited number or cool down but both rock and will 1 shot enemies.

4 turns cool down. To use when in a pinch or there is a real opportunity to do so. Very handy though.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Sadly her other gera is T1 but with combat protcol you 1 shot the non boss which im pretty sure is how your meant to do it.

In normal difficulty almost anything OS them. What is a pain is their kamikaze style. However if you control one and then go kamikaze the next turn you can wipe a group of them easilly. On top of that they tend to target the newly hacked robot.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

For stage 2 just keep everyone there fighting and wait till they stop rushing you then send everyone.

I tried this but got overwhelmed too soon.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

The boss early game you cant beat in 1 turn. Ive tried several times. You can 50-75% kill it in 1 turn but just cant do it unless you lvl up more or get better gear.

Seriously how? The first turn at best I'm removing all of its armour and dealing up to 20 HP which is far from its half.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Sadly there is no cinamatic when you finish the mission which I thought there would be at least as much as destroying black sites.

The most upsetting thing was to take all your team to the evac points and say ok God now its finished and then see a new stage unfolding before your eyes.

[Darkrage_nl]

You want to be able to deal 6+ damage per shot before you go there (or have blue screen rounds).

The boss can be executed by repeaters so if you bring a couple superior ones you might kill him on the very first turn even on the highest difficulty. I killed him on the reaction shot when he appeared with shen the very first time. He did not even have time to finish his line (talking about anti climatic).

If you fail the mission on ironman you can just restart the level (it is not a game over).

[Belhedler]

I've just beat it. 4 heavy wounded Spark included. My ranger actually got through this unscattered. Just wow. Spark 3 HP remaining. OK it took me 17 saves though. Also something is definitively wrong with the probability of hacking: 28% success resulted in 73 saves to get a success (was doing a bit of testing here). WTF?

The kill counter said 48/54 kills. Crazy. lol.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Sharp shooter = does not matter much. Just try to kill things with sniper rifle and know it may not. Shadow caster at least is more aim but the damge is a problem.

My best killer by far in this mission. Got equiped with scope+ and comboed with stealth ranger.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Grenadier

It would have probably been better than the dumb, yet alive but scared to death, rookie I had with me. 2 damage at best with him. Blast...

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Specalist

Had only Shen but yes I see I should have taken one more on this mission, especially in place of the rookie.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Alien hunter gear I got a few days befor the mission which was vital.

It would have help but beside an advanced scope on my sniper riffle (early happy loot from random sectoid along with a great cache - thanks to him), I had nothing worth mentionning.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Ok so stage 1 = Put squad on overlooking plat form. Kill all and move with overwatch.

Actually I did the 1st stage and the first half of the 2nd stage the same way: stealth ranger discover units, hacks and self-kamikazes if in group, snipes anything else with squad size and overwatch for leftovers. The first turrets were laughable in that respect because they couldn't fire at all and so were the first reinforcements. I actually waited until the turrets were spawning INSIDE the safe area to jerk out of it to tell you the full story :p

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Stage 3 = You need to start this phase ready! This stage is all about killing boss as soon as possible. Dont even try grinding Derilec Mecs. Its too risky. They can spawn in too many spots and hard to get clear shot of them from any 1 spot.

They spawn at designed positions though, and for opener behind your neck. I actually removes them asap with few 'selected' overwatchs the first turns, usually with this useless meat of rookie (it takes the overwatch plus its active turn to deal with one). One good thing to know is that they don't even trigger if not in LOS. It was the case with the upper right corner where some MECs were sitting. So basically if a overheating robot is coming your way shoot it before it reaches (or hack it and send him on the sectopod next turn)

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Put spark on top of 2nd floor in middle of map at close to where boss comes.

I did that but in the end I think it gets shot far too easilly by the Sectopod where as 'hidden' behind some of the covers a bit upside actually lessen the number of hitting rounds.

As for my winning placement, I placed my ranger near the left coil machine, the sniper on the left high ground, the rookie and Shen on the right high ground (which was not so bright of an idea since the roof took fire due to intense fire of the Sectopod directed to Shen - who evaded the shot though). I managed to get the Sectopod on the explosive spot but didn't have the men to blow it up (only Spark had LOS on it) so I couldn't blow it at all during the whole fight. Pity.

Hacking a robot and use it to suppress the Sectopod might have been a deal too. And sadly I had use my rocket on another level. Bad idea but well first playthrough :p

[Darkrage_nl]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

I've just beat it. 4 heavy wounded. Spark 3 HP remaining. Took me 17 saves though. Also something is definitively wrong with the probability of hacking: 28% success resulted in 73 saves to get a success. WTF?

That is normal due to how its RNG work. The game uses seeded RNG to determine rolls before they happen at the start of every turn. This means if you keep doing the same actions over and over in the same order you'll keep rolling the same numbers.

You either use a mod what breaks the seeded rng or reload the turn before that one if you want to savescum.

[Belhedler]

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

That is normal due to how its RNG work. The game uses seeded RNG to determine rolls before they happen at the start of every turn. This means if you keep doing the same actions over and over in the same order you'll keep rolling the same numbers.

Not too sure since I did roll different values, even one which could have passed the first stage of hacking at 72% (but I was trying the more difficult one at 40% success which failed)

Ah also the end result said that it was 62 turns in total. Holy cow, that took me long enough for sure.

[Belhedler]

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

You either use a mod what breaks the seeded rng or reload the turn before that one if you want to savescum.

I don't have mod. Playing vanilla. I don't remember the difficulty but I think I'm on Veteran since I've seen in the description that its for XCOM users.

Edit: verified I'm indeed in Veteran difficulty.

[Darkrage_nl]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

That is normal due to how its RNG work. The game uses seeded RNG to determine rolls before they happen at the start of every turn. This means if you keep doing the same actions over and over in the same order you'll keep rolling the same numbers.

Not too sure since I did roll different values, even one which could have passed the first stage of hacking at 72% (but I was trying the more difficult one at 40% success which failed)

Ah also the end result said that it was 62 turns in total. Holy cow, that took me long enough for sure.

That is partially cosmetic I believe. After all if you miss shot it also do not tell you how much you missed it.

[Belhedler]

That's possible. It could explain why I managed to hack pinpoint it at the most crucial time next turn. I would have been screwed if not for that success.

Might be of interest to someone. I found quite efficient, if Spark actually hits that is, to put Spark on overwatch with defense protocol on the first turn you activate the Sectopod. You can take two consecutive shots as the Sectopod just leave the bay and that means two armour shreded immediately (mine had 6 armours at starter). Then go overload, reload and discharge another few rounds. This may reap almost all of its armour in the first active turn.

Ouch the aftermath is a bit serious though: 3 of my guys are out of commission for 22 days for the most critical of them.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=766153845
And well as you can see I had a sergent specialist waiting in the barracks... hate myself.

[orion winterfire]

Originally posted by Belhedler:

Originally posted by Darkrage_nl:

That is normal due to how its RNG work. The game uses seeded RNG to determine rolls before they happen at the start of every turn. This means if you keep doing the same actions over and over in the same order you'll keep rolling the same numbers.

Not too sure since I did roll different values, even one which could have passed the first stage of hacking at 72% (but I was trying the more difficult one at 40% success which failed)

Ah also the end result said that it was 62 turns in total. Holy cow, that took me long enough for sure.

The hacking slider will show success or failure but where it lands is actually not at all representative of the actual hacking "roll."

[Belhedler]

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Belhedler congrats!

Thanks but now I must do the retalation mission with this roaster :p