Do "Protect the Device" missions become impossible mid game?

[Polycrastinator]

I'm on a Commander level playthrough, midgame, and just lost my second "Protect the Device" mission in a row. In both cases, the aliens shot the device first turn and set it on fire in the process. Second turn as you make your way across the map, they shoot it again. And on the third turn, the fire destroys the device, even if you manage to take out the aliens tasked to destroy it. In both cases, I've save scummed like crazy to try to find a solution and the earliest you can activate that alien pod in the hope they'll go for you not the objective isn't early enough to save the device, and assuming you had repeaters on everyone and executed on every shot you made, you still couldn't wipe out all the aliens fast enough to succeed on the mission.

Is the design just such that it's not possible to win these missions? I'm hardly an amazing player, but I don't see any way to win these, you just can't cover enough ground fast enough. That seems like a ... problem.

[Polycrastinator]

So, what, you miraculously wipe out every alien on the map in 2 turns?

[Polycrastinator]

Weird. I'm not using any mods and never have done. 2 guerilla missions in a row fire's destroyed the device for me.

[King Hornucopia]

Unfortunately, i dont think theres anyway to stop the fire if it occurs. Ive had this happen to me twice thankfully not on ironman.

[SamBC]

Originally posted by Flammie:

But, I've never personally seen fire damage the device. Burn right next to it, yes, but it never spread to the device. It's annoying to have a Gatekeeper or a Sectopod spawn right next to it though, as they do such high damage.

Or walk through it, I'm told.

[marshmallow justice]

you can try using this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634951246&searchtext=configurable

[josephdw106]

sometimes luck is just bad...the cpu decides somethings going to catch fire and be destroyed and sometimes fire will die out right away before burning anything. heck i just had a great turn of events during a ufo event... i was heading out to shoot out the tower that disabled the avenger from flying and i psypanicked an officer and he shot at a tanker next to the tower and the tower caught fire and blew up next turn!!! i was still miles from the tower but was like hey success just walk back in the avenger and take off!!!

[Khan, Binary of None]

No mission is impossible.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=629306798

[Algol]

Originally posted by Duo Vandal:

No mission is impossible.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=629306798

Any mods?:)

On topic, while I never lost a "protect the device" in three playthroughs (Veteran-Cmdr-Legend), I do understand the OP and the problem s/he is having. It is very possible that this particular mission type simply doesn't match specific playstyles/squad compositions/other individual preferences. I say if it seems impossible to you, choose another mission type from Guerilla Ops. That, of course, will force you to set different priorities for your strategic management. Every reward you get from an op (be it intel, supplies or personnel) can be obtained in a different way. As for dark events...

- Avatar Project breakthrough may be one of the nastiest. Still, it's manageable. Save your avatar facilities and/or story missions for the time when it is almost the end. Like, 2-3 days before aliens win.

- Additional chryssalids or faceless can be a problem too, so consider training additional soldiers to replace those wounded by the damn bugs. Because there will be wounded. Having several and not one combat-effective squads is always useful.

- Intel cost increase is a dark event I personally consider to be the most problematic. It practically locks you down from expanding for a month which is vital for early and mid game. However, the chances that you will get "protect the device" and intel cost increase at the same time are small. If you still got it... well, you know what they say, "that's XCOM, baby":)

[Khan, Binary of None]

Originally posted by Algol:

Originally posted by Duo Vandal:

No mission is impossible.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=629306798

Any mods?:)

The Stop Wasting My Time Mod. Otherwise I don't use a lot of mods, have cosmetics (Reach, Advent, Star Wars).

[Algol]

Originally posted by Duo Vandal:

Originally posted by Algol:

Any mods?:)

The Stop Wasting My Time Mod. Otherwise I don't use a lot of mods, have cosmetics (Reach, Advent, Star Wars).

Very nice then! I never managed to get zero civilian deaths on a retaliation mission. I was close once, but the buggers killed 1 civvie and there was nothing I could do.

[Nasarog]

I think they are the toughest when a powerful enemy like a gatekeeper and/or Sectopod spawn next to them.

[Polycrastinator]

So here's a more hypothetical thought then: how fast is too fast for the transmitter to be destroyed?

As I said, in both cases I lost on turn 3 (in both cases the transmitter was actually destroyed turn 4, but by fire - the aliens didn't actually shoot at it that turn). In the second of these two missions, I probably could have gone faster had I been willing to sacrifice a soldier or two, but I got an unfortunate reinforcement group in my rear and slowed down to deal with them.
The first one, though, even running it took 3 turns to reach the transmitter in the first place. I just see no way to resolve that one: I played through it 3 times with varying degrees of recklessness and because of the fire lit on turn one, from the moment you touched down there seemed to be no way to stop it.

[Nasarog]

Since I don't use the mod that increases the life of the transmitter, I tend to skip these.

[259]

The biggest problem is in vanilla, the device's health doesn't scale with the enemies the longer you play the game. When you start off, enemies will do about 3 damage and the device will have enough health to last about 12 turns if they shoot at it once every turn. That's plenty of time to reach it and take out everyone.

Once you get to the late game though, enemies start doing over 10 damage per shot to it, but it still has the same health as it first did so you may only have less than 4 turns to not only get to it but to also take out everyone to prevent further damage. This is why people tend to avoid "Protect" missions in the late game because of how impossibly difficult it could become.

Highly recommend you get the configurable device mod so that its health can properly scale to the enemies's damage if you are still wanting to do this mission type.

[Khan, Binary of None]

Originally posted by Algol:

Originally posted by Duo Vandal:

The Stop Wasting My Time Mod. Otherwise I don't use a lot of mods, have cosmetics (Reach, Advent, Star Wars).

Very nice then! I never managed to get zero civilian deaths on a retaliation mission. I was close once, but the buggers killed 1 civvie and there was nothing I could do.

It helps when they only try to kill one civilian a turn and miss.