First Black Site mission on Legendary (Black vial) = 24 ENEMIES !?!?

[PatientLandBeaver]

Just did my first story mission on Legendary to retrieve the black vial from the Advent Black Site. I'm pretty early in the campaign and still using stock weapons and armor with a squad of five soliders. I ended up facing 24 enemies during this mission (only one set of reinforcements were called in while moving to the extraction zone). There were numerous sectoids (8+), advent soldiers and commanders, etc.

I have to think this is a bug as the difficulty spike was insane. I was lucky to survive but the amount of enemies and how close they were clustered together was ridiculous. Is this normal!?

[.O.]

doesn't really sound all that difficult tbh considering you're playing on legendary. You get ~18 enemies on commander I think, so ~24 on legendary is well within expected range.

[SmokingBuffalo]

pretty sure that's normal. You get more enemies on Legendary.

[Malice]

Amount is normal and proximity of pods is just bad luck. Yesterday i had three pods so close that my ambush almost wiped them out in one turn. Next turn, an archon king came out of nowhere and did the same thing to me with his double destruction trick. As i said - luck.

[merccobb]

On Legendary I'll usually wait until I have mag weapons at least before doing the Black Site. The map is fairly predictable, there is always building providing high ground in the first half of the map, then the railroad with all the crates and "coffins" out front of the facility, and then the facility itself. Take the high ground, eliminate any packs prior to the train while hopefully keeping at least one ranger concealed (or having them reconceal afterwards). Set your sniper up on the high ground and scout the area in front of the facility, patiently picking off any pods that pop up and drawing them towards your troops that can also be set up on the high ground. Be careful to keep your scout in a position where he wont be revealed.

It is untimed, so the number of enemies shouldn't be too big of a problem if you carefully engage on your terms. The hardest part is breaching the actual building, as those are some tight quarters. Hopefully you saved some explosives! Always assume there is a group that will be revealed as you move toward the vial, there tends to be at least one camped out behind the facility. Don't approach the vial with your last move!

Obviously, sometimes all of the best laid plans go completely wrong and you find yourself surrounded by three packs of mutons, but that is why Legendary is fun! :)

[Kraggs]

Originally posted by merccobb:

On Legendary I'll usually wait until I have mag weapons at least before doing the Black Site. The map is fairly predictable, there is always building providing high ground in the first half of the map, then the railroad with all the crates and "coffins" out front of the facility, and then the facility itself. Take the high ground, eliminate any packs prior to the train while hopefully keeping at least one ranger concealed (or having them reconceal afterwards). Set your sniper up on the high ground and scout the area in front of the facility, patiently picking off any pods that pop up and drawing them towards your troops that can also be set up on the high ground. Be careful to keep your scout in a position where he wont be revealed.

It is untimed, so the number of enemies shouldn't be too big of a problem if you carefully engage on your terms. The hardest part is breaching the actual building, as those are some tight quarters. Hopefully you saved some explosives! Always assume there is a group that will be revealed as you move toward the vial, there tends to be at least one camped out behind the facility. Don't approach the vial with your last move!

Obviously, sometimes all of the best laid plans go completely wrong and you find yourself surrounded by three packs of mutons, but that is why Legendary is fun! :)

do the same on any ironman run, why even bother wiht the blacksite before mag. Its also very nice to let the avatar timer to start running then use the blacksite as a very easy way to stop the timer

[PatientLandBeaver]

I guess I did the Black Site too early but the timer was already 2 away from max so figured it was time. It takes so long to research mag weapons and pred armor that I didn't think I'd have time to wait. :/

[Lydian]

Yep. Legend mode is pretty awesome, huh?

[PatientLandBeaver]

Originally posted by DarkGam3r - M.I.L.F.:

Yep. Legend mode is pretty awesome, huh?

Ha, yep. I almost gave up on it but I'm really enjoying the change of pace and increased challenge now without being too overly punishing (only after I was 'finally' able to upgrade to predator armor and mag weapons that is :).

[merccobb]

Everything takes longer in Legend, including the Avatar bar filling. So you had time. Plus, once filled, the Legendary countdown clock will start with 20+ days the first time, so that buys you a little more time to finish at least one of mag/predator.

With the new patch not letting the clock reset, you just have to make sure you are always keeping an option open later for when the bar refills again. The minimum 7 day clock does not guarantee you enough time to make contact with a region that has a facility

[marshmallow justice]

20 enemies on Gatecrasher is the real (fun) struggle

One of the mods I had mixed up the time for certain units to start spawning, opened the door to the Blacksite mission for the last couple of pods and met with a Berserker in the second month -after- one hell of a slog through 20 odd enemies.

When you finish Legend, try all the enemy adding mods :D fun to be completely outnumbered and win

[PatientLandBeaver]

Originally posted by merccobb:

With the new patch not letting the clock reset, you just have to make sure you are always keeping an option open later for when the bar refills again. The minimum 7 day clock does not guarantee you enough time to make contact with a region that has a facility

So the second time the bar gets full it starts counting down from 7 days? Is this on Legendary only? Does it reset and remove bars as normal if you take out an Advent site?

[NzFox]

24 is about normal, I get that on commander as well. You are only taking them on 3-6 at a time anyway so numbers are not a huge deal unless you are letting them get a lot of shots off. The only difference between doing it latter with better tech is that the hostiles you encounter will be of a higher 'tech' level (IE advanced trooper vs normal trooper).
The 'best' time to do it imo is when you have just got a significant edge, like just upgraded to mag yet the aliens have yet to field stronger units, or you just upgraded your squad size and have good ranking troops etc

[MANA]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=670464689

[PatientLandBeaver]

Originally posted by NzFox:

24 is about normal, I get that on commander as well. You are only taking them on 3-6 at a time anyway so numbers are not a huge deal unless you are letting them get a lot of shots off. The only difference between doing it latter with better tech is that the hostiles you encounter will be of a higher 'tech' level (IE advanced trooper vs normal trooper).
The 'best' time to do it imo is when you have just got a significant edge, like just upgraded to mag yet the aliens have yet to field stronger units, or you just upgraded your squad size and have good ranking troops etc

The big issue I had was default armor and weapons, so my soldiers had 5 health, and many of the enemies had double that along with armored turrets. For some reason the pods were all clustered outside and just inside the main building so I had to deal with up to 3 or 4 pods at a time (I'm guessing there's no limit on legendary?). I've completed the game on commander/ironman and never had a battle quite like this one.

Currently my legendary campaign is going much better now and I almost have plasma weapons. I just feel that first story mission is a bit too difficult.

[merccobb]

Originally posted by PatientLandBeaver:

Originally posted by merccobb:

With the new patch not letting the clock reset, you just have to make sure you are always keeping an option open later for when the bar refills again. The minimum 7 day clock does not guarantee you enough time to make contact with a region that has a facility

So the second time the bar gets full it starts counting down from 7 days? Is this on Legendary only? Does it reset and remove bars as normal if you take out an Advent site?

When the bar fills the first time, you should get your normal ~16 days on Commander, or ~25 days on Legend. When you lower the bar, it will save whatever the state the clock is in and restart from that same position the next time it fills, UNLESS you are under 7 days.

I have only done a Commander run so far since AH dropped, and I can confirm that minimum the countdown clock will start at is 7 days. There was a tweet from a developer that said 7 days was the minimum for Legend as well, I don't know about other difficulties. 7 days is plenty on Commander if you just need to make contact with one territory, but it is sometimes not enough on Legend since it can take up to 8 days to make contact.