Opinions: Decent Team?

[RiseOfTheGeckos]

Alright, so here's the info on a team I whipped up for a few quick fights. I like it, so I figured I'd share it:

 

4 Scouts:

 

Flying Armor

80 TUs

80 Energy

60 Health

 

3 Artillery:

 

Personal Armor

60 Health

80 Firing Accuracy

40 Strength

1 Heavy Cannon

4 HE Ammos (one loaded, two on belt, one on leg)

 

8 Riflemen:

 

Personal Armor

60 Health

80 Reactions

80 Firing Accuracy

1 Plasma Rifle

1 Plasma Rifle clip (loaded)

 

Any and all stats that aren't specified are as low as they'll go, and any equipment not specified do not exist.

[Hobbes]

IMHO, this is what i think:

 

- I love scouts with 80 tus and stamina, plus armor. Scouts tend to attract a lot of reaction shots and the armor helps to keep them alive. But unarmed scouts (if I understood it correctly) is taking a lot of chances, even if they take weapons from dead enemies. It can be quite easy for them to get really close to the enemy and in those situations you will wish that they had weapons, otherwise the armor (and their rather $$$ cost) will be wasted.

- The artillery looks nice, although I have my doubts if you really need 4 clips. Besides the weight they will be slow units and to me 3 clips are enough (if you run out there's all those dead bodies to loot...). One advice: keep the extra clips on the shoulders. It costs less TUs to move them from there to the hands than from the belt.

- The riflemen are the ones that I have more quarrels with, but it is a matter of personal choice. I never assign reactions to my soldiers because there are few situations where reactions work (to me this means firing at the enemy who pops into view, killing it and surviving the counter fire from the other enemy units). I prefer to assign tus instead to allow for them to move right behind the scouts to secure a position and to act as substitutes for the scouts, in case they're all dead.

- And finally, how much does that team cost? It looks like 20 to 25k, which makes for a long nice fight but there are ways to reduce its cost. The plasma rifle is the best weapon in the game but it is very expensive. Laser rifles can be more cost effective (and you don't have to worry about running out of ammo, something usual when you autofire the plasmas a lot) and fly suits are only a little better than power suits (more 10 points of armor).

Edited April 21, 2005 by Hobbes

[RiseOfTheGeckos]

Hah! I saw you in the server a tad earlier. AFK robbed me of not one, but TWO chances to take a crack at ya. Oh cruel fate...

 

Anyhow the team costs ever so slightly under 19K, making this the most cost-efficient team I've been able to slap together to date. When I first started up I got all excited and blinged my troupe up to the point that I could only take like 8 of them into 15k battles. I have since learned my lesson.

 

You called it on the Scouts. Them being unarmed for now is a disciplinary measure for myself more than anything. Being spoiled by the original UFO enemy unknown I got used to sending in uniform troopers, all of whom would alternate scouting, firing, and other tasks based on nothing but their position. Kinda hard to break that "everybody does everything" habit, so the unarmed scouts helps me remember that they are not meant to seek and destroy on their own. They are strictly information gatherers and when I get used to thinking of them like that I might start giving them pistols or something. For now, though, they only cause death towards the very end of matches when there are weapons on the ground for them to pick up.

 

I'm still in a personal dilemma with the riflemen myself, too. I go back and forth between reactions and TU for them while feeling out my style. You could say giving them 50 TUs is another disciplinary thing, where I'm trying to force myself not to have them scrambling all over the map and trying to teach myself to learn to put them into positions have them act in a more coordinated manner. That and I get somewhat envious of enemy reactions and feel the desire to pop off my own, especially if I find decent perches for my riflemen. I wanna get used to saving up TUs instead of playing around on my turn and winding up with sitting ducks at the end of it. I'll probably mold and remodel these fellas as I decide more strongly on how to go about my field tactics.

 

I started out this game using laser rifles, but as I played and got less paranoid about ammo limits, I got used to plasma rifles, particularly under heavy use of snap shots. It's a lot more reliable in making kills than laser rifles in my experience, and single decisive shots tend to go a lot farther in this game than a flurry of laser shots. Since I only snap shot with plasma rifles anymore, by the time I run out of ammo, I can pilfer dead enemies or allies for more killing means.

 

As for those heavy units, I stocked 'em up mostly because I found that when using autocannons before, I blew 14 shots too quickly for comfort, and I don't usually send in all three artillery men if it's a 15K match or something. Besides, they're cheaper than my other units anyhow, so I'm feeling them out and trying to keep them safely stocked on ammo. It would suck, especially in a city, to run out at a crucial moment.

[Citral]

If this squad fits your playing style it can be a very good team, it wouldn't fit my playing style though, but that doesn't say a lot.

 

I myself tend to use little armor, since even flying armor can be easily pierced by a plasma riffle. Of course, having unarmed scouts with expensive armor is a waste! If it's a disciplinary thing, I respect that, but perhaps it would be better to simply take care of where you deploy your scouts on the battlemap at the gamestart.

 

Imho it's not all that bad to have 80 reaction fire, because you can't always choose who gets to defend, who gets to scout, or who gets to charge when your opponent messes up your plans. Perhaps 80 on all of your men would be a bit too much, TU's are important too.

[Battlesquid]

i'm really quite a noob, however i also have to point out that the artillery carries too much ammo. and i like smoke grenades so i'd trade off some ammo for one SG on each unit

[Archaon376]

How many points is that in total?

It looks pretty good I'd say, but I've only been playing x-com for like a month now haha