Playing now and a few relevant things popped up immediately..
The first DLC mission is now available. I read up on it and it's apparently very difficult, so I guess we'll ignore it for now.
And yeah that Workshop was a complete waste after all. I thought it'd give you an engineer like in Enemy Unknown, but no, you have to get them elsewhere. Now we have an empty building that does nothing for us until we find an engineer.
There are a couple of non-RNG ways to get staff: the Black Market, when it opens, lets you recruit from what's available using Intel, and every month when Mr. Council checks in, a few things (generally including either a scientist or an engineer) become available from the base using supplies.
Base Management: DLC, Workshops, and the hunt for supplies!
We triggered the DLC mission Shen's Last Gift right away. It's supposedly very difficult, so we will ignore it. If it's not time-sensitive, we'll check it out later.
What I do know of it is that once we complete it, we can have a new soldier class: SPARK. Think mechas.
First month ended and we have supplies! Except not. We actually have to go pick them up first.
And we have some bad news. One of these bad things WILL happen. We will get a choice between which one we want to prevent.
Quick search on the UFO concluded that it will be a base defense type mission. If it's difficult, we could be wiped out completely.
We finished an Advent Officer autopsy and got a new objective. It's going to work like the Arc Thrower isn't it?
We started working on the Faceless autopsy next. A little confused at what WK meant by having to wait for another retaliation mission.
After some thinking, I reckon we need more corpses to make use of the tech. Well, it's quick to research, so we didn't lose much.
Our Workshop completed. It does nothing until we can recruit an engineer.
We hired two more rookies with our supply drop cash. We can now field a full team. We'll probably need to recruit more, but I think we can always recruit right before a mission, so we just need to keep some cash in reserves.
I forgot to name our superstar ex-rookie Shawna. I'll do it once she recovers.
Resistance Goods will sell us a few things every month. They have an engineer for sale! However she is quite expensive (in our current shape).
We don't want to run out of cash again. So what we'll do is first check out at least the next mission. Maybe we'll get a free engineer. And if we get more supplies, maybe then we'll buy her.
I bought this though. It was cheap and exactly what the doctor ordered (hehehe).
We have a Guerrilla Ops mission next. This is linked to the bad events from earlier. We can choose to prevent one, if we manage to beat the mission.
Our two choices:
New Arctic. Reward: A Corporal level Specialist. That's two promotions in. Counters Dark Event: Guarantees Reinforcements on Guerrilla Ops.
East Asia. Reward: 150 supplies. Counters Dark Event: UFO hunting XCOM. That's the base defense mission.
It was an easy choice to me. I chose East Asia. I think the dark event it counters sounds more dangerous, and the supplies are needed.
If the enemy reinforcements only happen in the dark event counter missions like it says, then that should limit the scope of the problem significantly.
(October 11th, 2016, 10:45)Dp101 Wrote: Do you want spoilers as to how the works, or do you want to go in blind?
Gameplay spoilers are OK. I don't want to know everything, but if you think I should know something, feel free to say it.
Playing XCOM blind can be brutal. The base defense mission from Enemy Unknown comes to mind. First time I played that, all my soldiers only had their starting equipment on, so a grueling 3 hour battle ensued and I barely survived it. It was fun and conveyed the feeling perfectly, but on a higher difficulty and Ironman it would have also been game over.
Oops, I deleted a word accidentally, I meant to put skulljack in between the the and the works. Basically, only use it if the situation is under control already. You will find out why.
Dp recovered in time. We rolled out with our two rangers and two new rookies.
Check out the loading tip. They integrated the Aiming Angles option into the main game in XCOM 2. So flanking helps even if it's not a full flank.
Our drop zone was far away from the objective we're supposed to protect. I climbed on the roof while concealed, no enemies in sight. We'll be taking orange moves.
We spotted a pod on the road (top right on the previous screenshot).
We set up an ambush with flank overwatch shots ready.
We couldn't reach both with a grenade so we started it off with a shot by Pindicator. She missed.
Our two new rookies both landed their shots, killing the Advent Officer.
Dp didn't shoot at all. I found out what perk I gave her.. Phantom, which keeps her concealed even if others engage in battle. That's why she didn't react.
The survivor was a new unit: an Advent Stun Lancer. He melee attacked Pindicator and stunned her.
Being stunned meant that Pindicator couldn't make two moves this turn, but she only needed one to use her shotgun.
Dp then finished the job.
A new pod was activated when a rookie moved forward. This was on the same turn we killed the lancer, so we had limited options.
I was trying to frag them at first, but then I noticed something interesting! We can shoot at the gas station. Will that do the trick?
Yup.
I had our other rookie get a bit closer and overwatch. She couldn't reach em with a frag and the hit chance with her gun was only 25%.
The Sectoid ran right into her sight but she missed!
Then she got mind controlled. Strange how the Sectoid goes for the mind control instead of finding cover.
He's crazy too! They're running out of cover to get better shots at us. We were lucky to dodge it.
It was easy to kill them when they were flanked and out in the open. We did miss the Sectoid once, so I used a frag on it. The rookie was then freed from mind control.
We saw this guy through the building. He has taken a few shots at the thing we need to protect, but it's still very healthy.
We made contact with the pod. The Sectoid stayed back in full cover, the stun lancer climbed on the roof. The Sectoid might do the same once it's their turn. From there they get elevation bonuses and probably can flank the rookie too.
When the grenade is just right.
The cover is no more. Now we'll have good shots at them.
Dp kills the Sectoid and a rookie kills the stun lancer.
We did it team! Maybe there is hope for us yet.
Pindicator was gravely wounded by the melee hit she tanked. Once we'll get armor our guys can take some hits without being injured.
The two rookies both got promoted. We now have a new specialist and a sharpshooter.
The last guy we killed drop some loot. We got it even though the mission ended.
(October 11th, 2016, 10:37)Jowy Wrote: We started working on the Faceless autopsy next. A little confused at what WK meant by having to wait for another retaliation mission.
After some thinking, I reckon we need more corpses to make use of the tech. Well, it's quick to research, so we didn't lose much.
Ah, apologies. You can research the autopsy now, but each mimic beacon requires 2 faceless corpses to produce, and you only have 1 atm. Since faceless normally only appear on retaliation missions you'll need to wait until after the next one to build a beacon.
Our new goal is to stop the Avatar Project and prevent the movie from being released.
We finished researching Faceless Autopsy (only had 1 day left), started Magnetic Weapons. It will take 28 days without extra scientists.
We really need better weapons tho. Fights will get much easier when we can kill an entire pod in one turn.
We found the Black Market. We can buy stuff for Intel. There was one deal that I want to take: Rush Research Plated Armor. It will give us the tech for better armor, instantly. We can buy it once we have 70 intel.
I sold 3 ADVENT Officer Corpses for 8 supplies each.
I bought the Engineer Dr. Anne Phillips from the Resistance Goods shop. She manned the workshop and we can start clearing two rooms, gaining some supplies as well from the debris.
I built a new flash bang now that we can afford it. They can buy us a free turn in battle.
It's time for a mission. It will be our first Moderate difficulty one. What could go wrong?
![[Image: wm76N3y.png]](http://i.imgur.com/wm76N3y.png)
