How do you protect the device?

[GizkaFreechman]

especially when it's on the otherside of the map and there is 2 Advent Mecs shooting at it

[Fornax The Lazy]

Rush someone in and throw a meme beacon.

[Peachtree Games]

I've learned that if the battles leading up to the device are dragging on too long, to go ahead and try to pull that pod that's attacking the device. They'll usually drop what they're doing and join the battle.

It could be as simple as revealing the pod, or you could lob a hail-mary grenade over there and hope you catch one of the units.

[Mashpit]

You think the MECs do a lot of damage? Wait 'till you get andromedons shooting it for 10 damage per turn...

You have to move fast and establish a line of sight to the pod that's shooting the device. Once they see you, the hardest hitters (in your case, the MECs) will redirect their attention to you. They'll only continue to shoot the device if there's nobody else left on the alien side to shoot it, or if they can't see your squad from where they're standing.

[Erebus]

Run as fast as you can and engage them. Not all missions starting in stealth are meant to be about setting up an attack. Just need to use it to cover as much ground until you are close enough to get their attention and bring it to yourself. Especially necessary when you are dealing with enemies who can deal serious damage to the devices, like Gatekeepers or Sectopods.

And I suppose a mimic beacon would help too, I never used them though.

[Mashpit]

Originally posted by WeaponErebus:

Run as fast as you can and engage them. Not all missions starting in stealth are meant to be about setting up an attack. Just need to use it to cover as much ground until you are close enough to get their attention and bring it to yourself. Especially necessary when you are dealing with enemies who can deal serious damage to the devices, like Gatekeepers or Sectopods.

And I suppose a mimic beacon would help too, I never used them though.

you have no idea what you've been missing out on

[Erebus]

Originally posted by Mashpit:

Originally posted by WeaponErebus:

Run as fast as you can and engage them. Not all missions starting in stealth are meant to be about setting up an attack. Just need to use it to cover as much ground until you are close enough to get their attention and bring it to yourself. Especially necessary when you are dealing with enemies who can deal serious damage to the devices, like Gatekeepers or Sectopods.

And I suppose a mimic beacon would help too, I never used them though.

you have no idea what you've been missing out on

Oh I'm sure, and I already can see how IMPORTANT they will be on harder difficulties. At Veteran, I could wing it well enough, though I already know a few times a distraction would have been useful.

[エノシマジュンコ]

Originally posted by WeaponErebus:

Originally posted by Mashpit:

you have no idea what you've been missing out on

Oh I'm sure, and I already can see how IMPORTANT they will be on harder difficulties. At Veteran, I could wing it well enough, though I already know a few times a distraction would have been useful.

Meme Beacon is so ridiculously broken lmao. Almost all the enemies will 100% tunnel on the Meme Beacon, I've only had this not-occur TWICE in my entire playthrough (once was a Berserker so thats understandable). The best part is that enemies miss it quite often, so that means it just soaks up even more of the enemies' remaining actions.

[Solarstrike]

Firaxis is ruining XCom just like the aliens are ruining Earth.

[Serm]

My current Ironman I just blow the device with alens with my rocket launcher. The EPIC mistake I ever made. (the game didn't notice me for friendly fire)

[Veterok]

For me, protecting device is the easiest mission. Nothig too wory about even in late game. Just go to it and kill all enemies. (Legend/terminator). Much harder is to destroy device and hack the terminal, because all emenies will often be near it and immediately trigered.

[Fornax The Lazy]

Originally posted by Solarstrike:

Firaxis is ruining XCom just like the aliens are ruining Earth.

What does that have to do with anything here?

[Mashpit]

Originally posted by Serm:

My current Ironman I just blow the device with alens with my rocket launcher. The EPIC mistake I ever made. (the game didn't notice me for friendly fire)

I've had my share of whoopses ever since I started equipping blaster launchers on volatile mix grenadiers.
I'm fairly certain that at some point, Bradford gave up on warning me about not blowing up the supplies on the supply raid missions.

[Valmighty]

Everybody says this is the easiest mission sure plays on veteran or lower level difficulty. On commander and legend, the device is almost always destroyed on 3rd to 5th turn.

How do you deal with that? Just dash and rush? You just emphasized that you're playing on easier difficulty.

[Erebus]

Originally posted by Valentino:

Everybody says this is the easiest mission sure plays on veteran or lower level difficulty. On commander and legend, the device is almost always destroyed on 3rd to 5th turn.

How do you deal with that? Just dash and rush? You just emphasized that you're playing on easier difficulty.

Not really. Sure, I have only beaten the game on Veteran, but I've started up playing on Legend, and have dealt with that situation. And frankly it is still the same. It's just a case of before breaking cover, placement is a lot more key, maximizing hard cover, especially before you have any tech that will make it easier. And even then, I've seen no indication it will be destroyed that quickly, some turns they don't even take a shot even before I engaged, even on Legend, and their damage output against it isn't really any higher than the lower difficulties. By the time they are dealing the damage to destroy it that quickly, your own equipment should be much better, and as they said, Mimic Beacon will do wonders once available, at least based on the information I've found. It's not an ideal situation, but it's no different than having to deal with the missions with hard timers on the harder difficulties. In the end, you still have to take more risks then you'd like, if you have any hope of accomplishing the mission within the time available to you, and those risks are only magnified on the harder difficulties. An oversimplification, but if you are in the situation, it should make sense, we aren't writing indepth pro-level strategies here, just offering suggestions of what has worked for us.

Also, only one person said it was the easiest mission. I know I never implied it, just that you are forced to be more aggressive than you'd probably like, and someone else suggested using one of the more broken items in the game. Far from everybody. And besides, would help if you played the game before you started criticizing others who have at least done it.

[Valmighty]

Well, they fix it, now the device has a reasonable HP. That proves that this mission was indeed unbalanced.