Are scientist haven advisers worth it?

[khumak]

I've been toying with different haven management strategies lately and one of the frustrations I've been running into is that I have never seen an infiltration time longer than about 30 hours for a supply convoy raid. That's with me scanning on a haven with 13 resistance people on intel and none of them faceless.

Would putting a scientist in there as an adviser allow me to find them soon enough to not face close to 40 enemies with massive hp/aim/dodge bonuses? It would be a big hit to research early on, but I figure if I do basic research right after resistance communications that gets me the equivalent of a scientist for research while I can leave my actual scientist on intel for better missions.

I haven't seen a supply convoy raid yet but I've definitely been noticing significantly better infiltration times on the missions I have seen with the scientist.

I actually want the supply raid for the corpses more than anything. The steal corpses mission from the ring seems like that could help except it's random corpses so I might get something I need or I might not.

[khumak]

So this could be luck, but after putting my first scientist on intel duty in my first haven I found a supply convoy raid early in the 2nd month with a little over 3 days infiltration time which is more than double the time I have ever seen before and I only have 10 resistance people so far in that haven.

Was not able to fully infiltrate but close enough (90ish percent) that a 4 man squad could complete the mission taking out 15 aliens and getting enough trooper corpses for instant autopsy research on them. Definitely seems like it's worth it so far. Will have to see as the game progresses.

I built a lab as my 2nd facilty so I could put my 2nd scientist to work there and get my research progress back on track.

[joebruce185]

I never use scientists as haven advisors. I would rather have them researching or helping with psi/infirmary. I generally have all rebels except one on Intel, and the one is on recruit. Soldier as advisor.

Supply raids are hard to detect, especially early game. Troop column ambushes are not, and once the region is strength 4 you can find those. That's where I get most of my corpses. Soldier advisors also detect faceless, and you get corpses from those missions too.

I also prefer to have soldiers as advisors for the inevitable retaliation missions; they go much better with that extra soldier. Having a scientist out there is a liability.

Having a network tower in the region boosts your scanning detection, as does having the avenger in the region.

[khumak]

My strategy was similar initially as well. I would put 1 or 2 of my highest rebel count havens on 100% intel and the rest on recruit with a high rank soldier as adviser in each haven. But with the scientists as advisers I seem to get a better variety of missions and with better timers as well.

In my current campaign it's early in the 3rd month and I already have 6 engineers, 6 scientists and enough intel that I can use it to boost infiltration fairly frequently when I see a good mission that has a questionable timer. I only actually paid for 1 engineer and 1 scientist. The rest came from missions.

3 months isn't really long enough to tell for sure of course. I might just have gotten lucky in my current campaign, but I'm definitely seeing a much higher frequency of missions detected. So I can focus on doing the best ones and ignoring the other ones.

I did train up a few specialists specifically for haven duty giving them both scanning protocol and a battle scanner so I can rotate them around my havens to root out any faceless. I put whichever havens have the most rebels on intel with a scientist adviser and the rest on recruit with scanning protocol/battle scanner specialists as advisers.

[khumak]

After playing around with this some more I think the Scientists help a lot before I have my rebel count maxed out but are less important once I get to 13. When my havens have a rebel count around 6 or lower they just rarely find any missions with playable timers. I'm not going on a mission that's swarming unless I have a god tier squad to send which isn't happening early in the game.

The other issue I was running into sometimes without the scientists with low rebel count havens is that I would sometimes just not find anything usable at all for weeks at a time. Slower research is annoying, but having my soldiers sitting around doing nothing for 3 weeks is worse IMO.

Scientist advisers frequently give me missions that have a timer of more than 10 days and almost always more than 5. I also find some of those harder to get missions like UFO landings and supply convoy raids with a timer of more than 3 days so I can actually do it.

I'm not using any scientists as advisers right now but all of my havens are maxed out at 13 or more so they all produce missions with good timers without the scientists.

[Heau]

If you get a lot of early scientists, and you have focused haven management (basically only those havens that don't meet the conditions for retal will be on full intel, otherwise hide all but 2), scientists are definitely worth it in the one or two main mission hubs. Mission discovery odds are based on total intel generated since the mission was created in the background and 20% increase IIRC on the intel generated by your resistance staff will really improve mission timers overall. It's still RNG. Bad rng can happen. My last playthrough I had plenty of scientists and still didn't get a single UFO precursor missions with more than 3 days left to even push for it.

But if you don't get early scientist rescues and have to buy all those from BM, you hardly can spare it. Otherwise the advent force will outpace your research too much and you'll have a painful midgame transition (around magnetics timer).

[Sabaithal]

I never use scientists as advisors either, mostly because they're too valuable with their normal jobs.

And generally I will have one liberated region with an engineer, and the other regions all having about 6-7 rebels on intel. This does the trick for detecting missions, as having any more rebels on intel or scientists for that matter doesn't really contribute to detection after that.

[khumak]

I think the problem I was running into before with mission selection is that I had too many of my havens doing nothing but recruit duty and relying exclusively on my initial haven for intel until I got other havens to 13. In my current campaign I started spreading the love around a bit more with each haven having 2 rebels on recruit duty and the rest on intel. So I still get some missions with bad timers but I find so many of them now that some have good timers as well.

I do still put my first scientist on haven duty until I have my first 3 missions in progress because I want the best chance I can get for getting decent timers when all I have is squaddies and rookies. After that I swap them out for soldier advisers now.

[Element UK]

I find The Technical rocket and flame soldier best. Give him a med pack and asap....a battle scanner to stop the Haven Assault's

[khumak]

I've decided that scientist advisers are not worth it after playing more on commander level. Research takes long enough that I need all of my scientists on research duty. In fact a lab is usually the 3rd facility I build after the GTS and the Psi Lab.

I've accepted that there are times where I will have zero missions running because I haven't found anything with a timer longer than 3 days in awhile. It's more important to focus my intel on the regions with the lowest strength until I've got at least 2 or 3 full teams of high rank soldiers with mag or better weapons. I usually do still have at least 2 or 3 squads on missions most of the time even in the first few months.

I don't want to get stuck doing retaliation missions with a bunch of lance corporals with conventional weapons and kevlar armor. I also don't want missions with higher level enemies due to high advent strength level.

In the first few months I want relatively easy missions that I can use to level my first 3 squads up to staff sergeant or higher. Then I can start doing some harder missions when I have troops that can reliably kick some ass.

I'm actually starting to think psi ops might make the best haven advisers since they're better at rooting out faceless. And since I usually do a psi rush, I always have way more psi ops than I do of any other troop type.

[Sabaithal]

While psiops are, just in terms of numbers, the best at tracking down faceless, its not by a huge amount. Getting any officer troop in charge of the haven is the main thing, as long as they're even rank 1 it increases the odds of detection significantly (don't bother going past rank 3, returns not worth it).

I still use technicals as advisors because they're just better at dealing with faceless rendezvous missions that almost any other class, at low levels too. Their flamers can make a mess of a pod if they manage to get the first action in (especially with napalm-x), and their rocket is an "oops" button incase things don't go your way.

I almost never lost any rebels when using technicals on those missions.

[Heau]

I thought specialists with the scanning skill were best at tracking faceless. Not exactly the best at the rendez-vous though. They become good at it as overwatch specialists once they get the dash into free overwatch talent.

I really only build RLabs if I low roll scientist rescue missions and am tied to only 1 scientist purchase per month from black market on commander, and I frequently make one a haven adviser, generally for a short term, in the main area where I want to do missions.

If you have to skip mission cycles due to poor intel, research being ahead still won't cut it because you'll be behind on level and lack the aim and skills to deal with rough situation. Good intel also means more intel to spare to boost mission timers to snag a short one in.

And well promoted psi ops generally let you succeed at missions while behind on tech for quite some time. I typically only start panicking about tech if I encounter my first sectopods with mag weapons.

[khumak]

I start worrying about being behind on tech if I start consistently encountering advanced versions of advent with 10-12 health or more or things like mechs and mutons with 2 armor while I still have conventional weapons. I've had that happen as early as April sometimes if advent strength for all of my territories goes up above 3, which I have had happen before.

I tend to like the Psi rush because they start with soulfire right from the start which is basically the equivalent of a cannon that never misses and then they continue getting additional options that are guaranteed as they level up like null lance, stasis, etc. So as you said, they help carry my teams through the early part of the game while I'm still scrambling to get laser weapons researched and built and nobody has good enough aim to consistently hit everything.

Since I almost always do a Psi rush it means I'm almost always low on scientists unless I get very lucky on mission rewards. I want 6 scientists asap so I can have 2 in the psi lab speeding up upgrades on my psi ops and 4 in my lab doing research. I usually train my first psi op sometime in April.

I don't usually play legendary. I like commander with A Better Advent. Gives me tougher enemies than usual for LWOTC without such a huge time and cost penalty for everything.

I believe Psi ops have the same chance to detect faceless as a specialist with scanning protocol and then both of them also benefit from a battle scanner if they have one. I consider scanning protocol kind of a waste of ability points since I almost never use it on missions. So it's only real use for me would be haven adviser duty, and I pretty much have a specialist on every mission so I don't have extra specialists to spare for haven duty like I do with psi ops.

My secondary options for haven duty are usually either technicals or grenadiers. Technicals are a bit questionable to me since faceless missions yield corpses so I never want to use a rocket or a flame thrower if there's even the slightest chance of destroying a corpse. So a grenadier with needle grenades works better for that IMO. Once I get mag weapons then it's not as important since some of my rebels will then get laser weapons instead of conventional.

[Heau]

Originally posted by khumak:

Since I almost always do a Psi rush it means I'm almost always low on scientists unless I get very lucky on mission rewards. I want 6 scientists asap so I can have 2 in the psi lab speeding up upgrades on my psi ops and 4 in my lab doing research. I usually train my first psi op sometime in April.

So I worked on psi lab rush / laser skip into fast magnetic for several runs until my first cmdr win with that opener. What slowly changed in my playthroughs was to

1. stop buying the psi lab upgrade
2. trying to avoid assigning scientists to the psi labs as much as possible

I just try to avoid picking an end game skill that takes forever to train too early on the psi ops but ultimately, even if they are awaiting a promo and go on a mission, they still earn exp. I think they minimally need to do 1 mission after a promo to level up again but I'm almost positive that the exp earned between contributes to the next level. Like, despite that slow early promoting, I still had 4 MSGT psi ops before I had 4 MSGT of any other class in my one win game.

The struggle with that opener is in the last few weeks before magnetics unlock where you still have basic weapons and start to encounter stronger enemies as you pointed out. This is the only point in the game I occasionally skip missions or an entire mission cycle to avoid major injuries/deaths but it's still generally possible to do 7-9 missions with 5-6 units if you bring 1-2 psi ops on them (excellent or flawless).

Originally posted by khumak:

I believe Psi ops have the same chance to detect faceless as a specialist with scanning protocol and then both of them also benefit from a battle scanner if they have one. I consider scanning protocol kind of a waste of ability points since I almost never use it on missions. So it's only real use for me would be haven adviser duty, and I pretty much have a specialist on every mission so I don't have extra specialists to spare for haven duty like I do with psi ops.

For much of my learning playthroughs until my first win, I would tend to have fairly rigid class builds because it's easier to mishmash a viable comp this way. And in that setup, all of my specialists were strictly healing bot(top row) officers so I would only have scanning protocol if I played with the option to buy skills with xcom ap. But I would never have put a healing officer as a haven adviser (or at least never have done the faceless mission with such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shooter). I played with Commander's Choice mod so it was easy to have all very low aim specialists.

In more recent playthroughs I'm trying to flex setup a bit more with like stealth shinobi officer, technical officer, grenadier officer, holo bot officer which leaves more creative build space for other classes. A decent base aim overwatch specialist is a pretty decent unit for scanning protocol and scanning protocol is insanely valuable on missions. At least if you play without reloads of any sort it can save your ass on shinobi reveals or spare you a double pull on an already hard pull.

Basically, if I play with the option to buy extra skills with xcom AP, 100% of my specialist get scanning protocol because it's that useful as a free action. It's just that this tier is otherwise extremely build defining for the class and so scanning protocol is always 2nd best pick for the healer and hacker builds.

[Element UK]

Only the battle-scanner stops haven assaults by routing out the faceless early on

[khumak]

Originally posted by Heau:

So I worked on psi lab rush / laser skip into fast magnetic for several runs until my first cmdr win with that opener. What slowly changed in my playthroughs was to

1. stop buying the psi lab upgrade
2. trying to avoid assigning scientists to the psi labs as much as possible

I just try to avoid picking an end game skill that takes forever to train too early on the psi ops but ultimately, even if they are awaiting a promo and go on a mission, they still earn exp. I think they minimally need to do 1 mission after a promo to level up again but I'm almost positive that the exp earned between contributes to the next level. Like, despite that slow early promoting, I still had 4 MSGT psi ops before I had 4 MSGT of any other class in my one win game.

So one of the nice things about psi ops is training them up from a rookie takes significantly less time than training any other class in the GTS. So you can quickly ramp up to a decent number of psi ops once you get the psi lab. I only put scientists in the psi lab when I have 2 psi ops in training. If I only have 1 then I just let them train without a scientist helping.

The struggle with that opener is in the last few weeks before magnetics unlock where you still have basic weapons and start to encounter stronger enemies as you pointed out. This is the only point in the game I occasionally skip missions or an entire mission cycle to avoid major injuries/deaths but it's still generally possible to do 7-9 missions with 5-6 units if you bring 1-2 psi ops on them (excellent or flawless).

I tend to prioritize fuse on my psi ops since it's a free attack. So the combination of soulfire and fuse on most of my early psi ops gives me a very effective means of guaranteed damage until I ramp up to laser weapons. I don't skip laser to go straight to mag because both are required if you want your rebels to have a chance for their weapons to be upgraded. Also mag requires elerium to build and lasers don't. Early on I am VERY low on elerium and on commander or higher I really can't afford to spend supplies on elerium in the black market.

Also to me the first 2 months is really devoted to getting my base set up. I spend almost all of my supplies initially building a GTS so I can buy wet work and vulture, then building a Psi lab, a Lab, a workshop, and a power relay. By May I usually have my base done except for the shadow chamber, defense matrix, and infirmary. That's when I really start pouring supplies into weapon upgrades. So early May is rough for me usually, but by late May I've got lasers for everyone and am working on Mag.

May is usually also the month where I start the ball rolling on proving grounds projects. So I'm getting both weapon upgrades and proving grounds upgrades starting in May.

For much of my learning playthroughs until my first win, I would tend to have fairly rigid class builds because it's easier to mishmash a viable comp this way. And in that setup, all of my specialists were strictly healing bot(top row) officers so I would only have scanning protocol if I played with the option to buy skills with xcom ap. But I would never have put a healing officer as a haven adviser (or at least never have done the faceless mission with such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shooter). I played with Commander's Choice mod so it was easy to have all very low aim specialists.

I use commander's choice as well because of the built in "not created equal" component of LWOTC. I also pretty much always take the 2nd wave option to allow buying extra skills in the training center. So initially my specialists all get combat protocol and trojan to deal with robotic enemies and then after I build the training center they also get healing protocol. All specialists get field surgeon, that's just a no brainer for me. Most of my troops end up pretty cookie cutter unless I get a combination of xcom row perks that makes different choices more viable. Drones are actually surprisingly annoying on commander or higher. It's not uncommon for me to need 3 attacks to kill 1 drone if I don't have a specialist. A specialist can 1 shot it guaranteed.

In more recent playthroughs I'm trying to flex setup a bit more with like stealth shinobi officer, technical officer, grenadier officer, holo bot officer which leaves more creative build space for other classes. A decent base aim overwatch specialist is a pretty decent unit for scanning protocol and scanning protocol is insanely valuable on missions. At least if you play without reloads of any sort it can save your ass on shinobi reveals or spare you a double pull on an already hard pull.

I've tried overwatch specialists, but I'm not a fan of relying on the RNG so much and hoping that my units randomly kill stuff when it's not my turn. I usually only use overwatch when I just don't have any good shots. If my choice is between a 25% shot or going on overwatch I'll pick overwatch. I usually make most of my officers shinobis since in the majority of missions, my shinobis remain concealed for the first 2 pods for scouting. Being an officer allows them to contribute offensively without revealing themselves.

If I really want to rely on overwatch I find sparks a better option personally, but I don't tend to build them most of the time since they're generally eclipsed in power by regular troops later on. They do start off stronger than regular troops though.

Basically, if I play with the option to buy extra skills with xcom AP, 100% of my specialist get scanning protocol because it's that useful as a free action. It's just that this tier is otherwise extremely build defining for the class and so scanning protocol is always 2nd best pick for the healer and hacker builds.

I could see getting scanning protocol if you don't use stealth scouts but I almost always have a stealth scout on every team whether that's a shinobi or a reaper. So Scanning Protocol is only of any real use to reveal the Assassin. Not a good enough reason to take it IMO. The psi op perk that helps for revealing faceless is one they get automatically when you first train them. So there's no tradeoff there, and they get it sooner than the equivalent specialist perk. Now if scanning protocol remained in effect for the rest of the mission after activating, or maybe for 2 or 3 turns after activation then I'd be more likely to take it.