seriously, does cover even matter?

[Muttley]

I'm about 70 days in, have Warden armor, and I'm watching my guys getting 1 shot left and right. while enemies in the open seem to have a nice stroll through the park. XCOM had some brutal numbers, but this is something else. I honestly can't tell if the game expects you to lose a soldier every engagement or what. Like Christ, trying to get in range to use the stungun is a nightmare because everything seems to just have autoaim, even through smoke my guys are just getting 1 tapped

[Keanu Weebs]

If you are playing on the harder difficulties, it is not unusual to see enemies with a base accuracy of 90+. The only real way to combat is to throw lots of flashbangs and have a couple of heavies to suppress everyone. Smoke is great too, but I think suppression imposes an aim penalty on aliens, so unless they are down, they tend to hit and kill your dudes.

[Gamerzilla]

The better question is: Why would you post basically the same thing 4 hours apart?

[AmesNFire]

If you're trying to rush with a stungun, you missed the first half of the name on the gun.
Stun them.

[Muttley]

Originally posted by AmesNFire:

If you're trying to rush with a stungun, you missed the first half of the name on the gun.
Stun them.

Bro I did, then a mantid from apparently around the ship comes out of nowhere and 1 shots him. This game is making me seethe something fierce. Even XCOM I knew what to rely on. In this I'm basically having a single dude carry nothing but smokes and such, with a pistol so I can manage the weight

[AmesNFire]

Originally posted by Muttley:

Originally posted by AmesNFire:

If you're trying to rush with a stungun, you missed the first half of the name on the gun.
Stun them.

Bro I did, then a mantid from apparently around the ship comes out of nowhere and 1 shots him. This game is making me seethe something fierce. Even XCOM I knew what to rely on. In this I'm basically having a single dude carry nothing but smokes and such, with a pistol so I can manage the weight

So you didn't stun the 2nd mantid and throw a smoke in their face since they weren't the stun target?
I'll suggest making sure than on any given turn you can take down (or wait and reaction fire at) all the known enemies and potential avenues for unknown enemies to approach your squad. It's also better to take a slower pace in most tactical battles outside of the timed abduction ones since (assuming max difficult) the aliens will outnumber you and will attempt to flank/overwhelm you if you aren't being careful.

I never try to stun an alien unless it's isolated, suppressed, partially stunned from flashbangs (+ preferably wounded), and if the attempt fails I can just kill the alien. I'll usually send a shield person up with the stunner too if I can.

It's arguably hardest at the beginning of the game for tactical skirmishes; which is almost entirely because the available equipment sucks and the aliens will just have better overall stats at this point too even when compared to possible 'veterans' who survived a few missions.

[AmesNFire]

Originally posted by theworld:

Originally posted by Muttley:

XCOM had some brutal numbers, but this is something else. I honestly can't tell if the game expects you to lose a soldier every engagement or what.

1)Shields
2)Smoke

This works even on Commander difficulty. Heck, it's even viable to equip everyone with a shield.
The only reason I don't do it is because It's not optimal to have everyone with short range weapons. Everyone is packed tight and that can get 3-4 soldiers suppressed, nonetheless the game is beatable even with that composition.

Don't forget the stuns! They can block reaction fire from aliens, which is really useful to moving into better firing positions. I usually split my initial team of 9 into 2-3 groups, depending on equipment and missions. For shields I think the max I ever brought was 3.

On the short range thing, I actually abandoned shotguns after I got laser tech. They weren't all that useful in the grand scheme of things compared to rifles which could be accurate or burst fire instead of only burst firing.
If I needed lots of bullets I'd just bring a LMG and/or a MARS.

[Muttley]

Originally posted by AmesNFire:

Originally posted by theworld:

1)Shields
2)Smoke

This works even on Commander difficulty. Heck, it's even viable to equip everyone with a shield.
The only reason I don't do it is because It's not optimal to have everyone with short range weapons. Everyone is packed tight and that can get 3-4 soldiers suppressed, nonetheless the game is beatable even with that composition.

Don't forget the stuns! They can block reaction fire from aliens, which is really useful to moving into better firing positions. I usually split my initial team of 9 into 2-3 groups, depending on equipment and missions. For shields I think the max I ever brought was 3.

On the short range thing, I actually abandoned shotguns after I got laser tech. They weren't all that useful in the grand scheme of things compared to rifles which could be accurate or burst fire instead of only burst firing.
If I needed lots of bullets I'd just bring a LMG and/or a MARS.

I'm just not use to being fisted so intensely by a game, especially one like this.

[Muttley]

Originally posted by theworld:

Originally posted by Muttley:

I'm just not use to being fisted so intensely by a game, especially one like this.

Try to contact Diddy then. I hear he has baby oil to spare.

Probably works for the aliens

[AmesNFire]

Originally posted by Muttley:

Originally posted by AmesNFire:

Don't forget the stuns! They can block reaction fire from aliens, which is really useful to moving into better firing positions. I usually split my initial team of 9 into 2-3 groups, depending on equipment and missions. For shields I think the max I ever brought was 3.

On the short range thing, I actually abandoned shotguns after I got laser tech. They weren't all that useful in the grand scheme of things compared to rifles which could be accurate or burst fire instead of only burst firing.
If I needed lots of bullets I'd just bring a LMG and/or a MARS.

I'm just not use to being fisted so intensely by a game, especially one like this.

The games treats the players intelligently and allows for mitigation of the RNG because of it.
Which is a huge difference to me after trying firaxis xcom 2's game several times in a row and getting screwed over by the built-in fake dice rolling because every map has a set list of hits/misses regardless of the 'percentage to hit' being shown.

[lelapinou83]

What are you on about with the feraxis games?
They show true percentages?
Well, mostly, there is a mechanic active on every difficulty under the maximum one where the more you shoot and miss one enemy, the more likely you are to hit him (It is a cummulative +20/15/10% hit chance based on the difficulty if I remember right)
There is no such mechanic of the game "forcing" misses
Otherwise, you would miss 100% shots

[Gamerzilla]

Originally posted by lelapinou83:

What are you on about with the feraxis games?
They show true percentages?
Well, mostly, there is a mechanic active on every difficulty under the maximum one where the more you shoot and miss one enemy, the more likely you are to hit him (It is a cummulative +20/15/10% hit chance based on the difficulty if I remember right)
There is no such mechanic of the game "forcing" misses
Otherwise, you would miss 100% shots

There actually is such a system. It's called a map seed. Usually only people that savescum often notice it though. If you fire a shot and miss, and then reload the turn and fire from the same spot with the same character at the same point in the turn, you will always miss. You would have to change the seed by changing the order of character actions or the location of your shot to change the outcome. Many turn-based strategy games use this system, which is why some games add an option to disable it.

[AmesNFire]

Originally posted by Gamerzilla:

Originally posted by lelapinou83:

What are you on about with the feraxis games?
They show true percentages?
Well, mostly, there is a mechanic active on every difficulty under the maximum one where the more you shoot and miss one enemy, the more likely you are to hit him (It is a cummulative +20/15/10% hit chance based on the difficulty if I remember right)
There is no such mechanic of the game "forcing" misses
Otherwise, you would miss 100% shots

There actually is such a system. It's called a map seed. Usually only people that savescum often notice it though. If you fire a shot and miss, and then reload the turn and fire from the same spot with the same character at the same point in the turn, you will always miss. You would have to change the seed by changing the order of character actions or the location of your shot to change the outcome. Many turn-based strategy games use this system, which is why some games add an option to disable it.

Firaxis2 it didn't matter if you shot with a different character in a different order. That specific soldier's shot, regardless of location or weapon or 'accuracy percentage' would always miss due to the seed list.

[lelapinou83]

Oh that
That's different and has existed even back in the original XCOM from what I remember
This is different and not quite how you think it
And no, that's just false, the accuracy does matter, and the reason the seed exists is actually rather simple, aside from it being there to prevent savescuming, it also exists to allow you to roll back your turn by loading it and get the same results, in case, for example, you misclicked
And yes, it changed if you moved, the seed is rather complex how it works and I can't explain it
This is a rather common thing in turn based strategy because RNG *sucks*
This is one of the few times where I agree with Zilla, didn't think of that at the moment, but yes, he is right here

[sgt.greywar]

I still use a ton of Shield troops with pistols even into the late game. Saves a ton of frustration on missions where you must advance.

[chorion]

Originally posted by Muttley:

I'm about 70 days in, have Warden armor, and I'm watching my guys getting 1 shot left and right. while enemies in the open seem to have a nice stroll through the park. XCOM had some brutal numbers, but this is something else. I honestly can't tell if the game expects you to lose a soldier every engagement or what. Like Christ, trying to get in range to use the stungun is a nightmare because everything seems to just have autoaim, even through smoke my guys are just getting 1 tapped

Come back in 5 years.....it will prob be finished and patched by then