This Game Gets Frustrating Sometimes

[anaglyph]

So, I'm into week three of a no-reload game. Things are starting to heat up. All but four of my agents are being treated for wounds (some of them hanging on by the skin of their teeth) and I can't buy extras for a couple of days until some living quarters have been built. A recent UFO sortie has infected several slums with critters. So I think okay, I'm not going to be able to clean up with only four healthy agents, so I'll just try and contain things till I have a few more back on their feet.

 

I get an alert and send the four out and it's a really horrible deployment position. It's the walled slum and the damn game puts my guys half way down the far right wall with only the one square wide path between the wall and the edge of the map. I decide to send them around the top to get to at least two square's-width manoeuvring room and because of the entrance right next to the bottom right corner, which seems too dangerous to approach from this position. My guys get round the top corner and run into a couple of bloody civvies running around like headless chickens in their usual manner. I can hear at least one skelly approaching so I decide to shoot the annoying pests before they start getting in the way and forcing my agents to move while the the battle's engaged. (I'll resist ranting about having to sit there and watch your heavily armed and carefully positioned force politely stepping out of the way for the... the... citizens during a life or death struggle with alien invaders.) Unfortunately, before I can dispose of the headless chickens two skellies appear. Despite Mega-Primus citizenry's best efforts to thwart XCOM they manage to dispatch the skellies quickly. Now I can just feel the poppers closing in, so I decide to make a run for the road. But too late. No sooner have my guys started moving than a popper appears out of nowhere (hiding behind the bastard civvies presumably) and severely wounds all four agents.

 

So now I'm left with no healthy agents at all to combat a fairly serious infestation. I give in to my frustration and reload the mission. This time I get a more reasonable deployment and finish it with no casualties.

 

I don't mind a bit of a challenge, but when a game presents a completely artificial challenge (in this case arbitrarily deploying your guys in practically the most tactically retarded position possible and compounding that with the stupid civvies getting in the way) it gets really frustrating. It's annoying enough that you have no control over how your guys get deployed in the first place. Guess it could be worse - you could get dropped in the middle of a dozen poppers.

 

I suppose this is a fairly pointless post, but I just had to get it off my chest. Now I'm debating whether to abandon that game having broken and reloaded.

Edited September 8, 2006 by anaglyph

[[NKF]]

True that. Although, you should spend as much time as you need to get your troops in position. There's no real hurry to deal with the aliens, and the effects of letting aliens escape is not as bad as one might immediately think. Just watch out for any immediate threats like brainsuckers and poppers.

 

It's not too bad in the city. But in UFO assaults, where you do have a limited time to set up an ambush outside before the aliens start streaming down the lift, then the squad positions can be a blessing or a curse.

 

4 healthy soldiers are actually quite sufficient to deal with a lot of missions. It takes a bit more work and a bit more cooperation between the soldiers, but I do it all the time. Better still, small squads start together so they don't get isolated on some silly far away locations on the map, forcing you to divert your attention between the split squads until they link up. But hey, different players different strokes, eh?

 

As for your civilians - companies don't care about the civilians. Just the buildings. Feel free to deck any annoying headless chickens with a stun grapple. No one's going to mind.

 

- NKF

Edited September 12, 2006 by NKF

[Robo Dojo 58]

Uh, you don't actually HAVE to win absolutely every single thing. You don't HAVE to respond to every alert. The aliens will still be there if you need to wait a day or two. Check your alien infiltration graph. As long as it's below the line, you are peachy. It's okay to lose a few organisations to the aliens. That's what the challenge in the game is about. Just like in UFO, you are supposed to win before the aliens completely overrun everyone who can support your project. You're SUPPOSED to be overwhelmed, on the losing side of the war. And when all apprears lost, then you turn around and pull a victory from underneath the aliens.

 

Not like that really happens for most people. Just reload and purge the city.

Edited September 8, 2006 by Robo Dojo 58

[anaglyph]

4 healthy soldiers are actually quite sufficient to deal with a lot of missions.

 

When the tactically challenged like me are in charge of XCOM they have a harder time of it. Once the aliens start using beams I don't seem to be able to get through a single mission without at least one wounded.

 

Uh, you don't actually HAVE to win absolutely every single thing. You don't HAVE to respond to every alert.

 

True. It's not the losing I mind though, so much as the losing when a game pulls something that seems unreasonable, such as dumping you in the sort of starting position that no one would choose. It's sorta like someone else taking your first move in chess for you and moving a rook pawn. It just irks.

 

Ah well. So it goes.

Edited September 8, 2006 by anaglyph

[Sharp]

When the tactically challenged like me are in charge of XCOM they have a harder time of it. Once the aliens start using beams I don't seem to be able to get through a single mission without at least one wounded.

 

Cover

 

Always spend time on starting up, the mission you posted seems like a bit of a crappy starting place but if you have disruptors which you should do then feel free to blow holes into walls to make new passageways. Height is always an advantage, not so much as in XCOM-1 as Apoc actually has fall damage. Once you find a good location to start from you can move your agents safely.

 

When going through any map I try and sweep the map, first outdoors then indoors or room by room making sure there is no way for aliens to flank me. Use the motion scanner to detect where aliens are and to prepare for an ambush. Also there is no penalty for erm.... accidental civillian deaths. Also the motion scanner is good for finding terrain as when you are moving you detect the terrain on the scanner allowing you to browse areas you cant already see for potential cover.

 

Unless I am just sending a pair of agents I always use multiple squads, in the situation you posted two squads of two, the squads can provide each other with cover and should you be victim to a popper attack only two agents are affected rather then four. Of course it has the disadvantage of reducing firepower in a location and can cause one squad to be overwhelmed, but the aliens are dumb and dont really rush out in a group.

 

Tis a shame on the reloading, you have effectivly lost it as you have reloaded and there is nothing you can do to bring it back as you will always have some hindsight. Of course there is nothing wrong in having a game where you rarely reload but you can just start all over again with your experiance.

[Cornuthaum]

Cover is good and nice, but what to do with the corporate HQs situated around the senate (technocrats, superdynamics and another one i think)

 

unless all your guys have marsec body pieces you're pretty much forced to take the stairs - and given that you spend almost a minute at Running speed to get there, the aliens -always- lie in ambush there waiting to boomer-vortex-devastator-popper you to death.

 

 

there's no cover, there are miserable lines of sight, poppers -do- come out of nowhere because the game takes 3 seconds to show you what your agents see, and skeletoids have the nasty ability to fly in the gaps of the upper levels and throw down boomeroids and vortex mines.

 

ofc, once you have power swords and marsec armor, you can always float up to lvl 9 and tunnel down, which is perhaps the most satisfactory experience i've ever had in apoc (catching six shielded skeletoids in the back with stun'nades)

 

 

the game is so -unfair- towards newbies. I bioresearched in the wrong order, starting with the bigger lifeforms.... 3 weeks of having to battle shielded skeletoids with devastator cannons caused me no ends of trouble (since you can double the amount of skeletoids when they've got shields to get their actual number) .... now that I simultaneously finished personal shields and the toxigun, I'm in heaven.

 

pew-pew-pew, skeletoid dead, shield secured. only the ammo consumption is severe >_< :c

[Tsereve]

I use squads of 2-3 usually, am I doing something wrong?

 

Seems to be working alright though, especially in the endgame...

[[NKF]]

If it working for you, then you're doing something right. If not, well try new things.

 

The corporate HQ - is this that large office complex with the large yellow steps, and your troops generally start around the far end, underneath the building amongst the supports?

 

- NKF

[Cornuthaum]

exactly those - except for marsec-powersword tunneling i know no way to get around the brutal shootout at the stairs (they wont come out, so I have to get in)

 

smoke grenades dont help much if i need the field clear for poppers and hyperworms >_<

[glen_es]

exactly those - except for marsec-powersword tunneling i know no way to get around the brutal shootout at the stairs (they wont come out, so I have to get in)

 

smoke grenades dont help much if i need the field clear for poppers and hyperworms >_<

 

I like the brutal shootout on at the stairs, I much prefer having the aliens come to me than me than having to hunt them down in the sprawling corp. HQ, full of doors and rooms.

 

I make sure I get my guys Marsec flying suits asap, raiding the Marsec arms factory. For the corp. HQ gunfights here's what I do - position guys with Marsec suits to level 6 among the front pillars waiting to shoot in the lobby behind the doors. Have a guy with a rocket launcher (early in the game) or a devastator cannon (later in the game) blast the doors down and as much of the walls surrounding the doors as possible. Then just wait. This is in RT play.

 

You don't get nasty surprises of enemies popping out of the doors to attack, with the doors and walls gone, your guys in flying suits can see them in lobby behind the doors and have lots of time to shoot.

 

Anybody not in flying suits waits at the bottom of the stairs to lend fire support, or up a couple of levels on the stairs to provide more support.

 

 

 

Side note - the last few games I've played I have only had 10 or 12 or so fights in buildings in Megaprimus before winning the game. I read somewhere to land my craft at buildings surrounding dimension gates, even the Cult, you can store your craft. Have them wait there, and as ufos emerge from the gates, your craft can down them before they offload aliens. What a great tip that was. You still have gunfights at downed ufos if you want, but hardly any buildings to clean out. Later in the game Retaliators and Annilators (which don't have fuel) can hover near the dimension gates which is even better, they attack immediately, don't have to launch from a nearby building.

 

It's a way of avoiding fights at Corp HQ altogether.

[[NKF]]

I generally make a mad dash to the stairs, rest up a bit by the sides of the stairs (where it's safe) and then pick off any aliens on the steps. You generally have a bit of time to do this, so don't rush too much. Then I burst through the doors and set up a barricade inside the foyer and pick off all aliens coming down the grav lift or from the conference room to the right. I don't get too many aliens coming from the library behind the reception desk, but it doesn't hurt to be watchful. Be mindful of where all your soldiers' attention is being directed. If poppers come down the lift, concentrate fire on them, set up proximity mines or if all else fails, have your closest soldiers armed with stun grapples set to full auto (and manually order the attack yourself - do not rely on the reaction stat to deal with poppers).

 

The one flyer in my team (I mostly stick to ground troops for the added protection) may occasionaly cut through to the conference room to ferret out any aliens that may be minding eggs, but otherwise most aliens will funnel down the lifts and you never need go to the upper levels.

 

You can also fight from the doorways and use them for cover, but this restricts how much lead you can have in the air at any given time and if you stay behind cover too much you'll often get nasty surprises in the way of poppers.

 

I suppose you could just let all the aliens funnel down the stairs - and have two teams on either side of the stairway. Unfortunately, that lacks a certain drama, or style.

 

- NKF

[Cornuthaum]

the problem is, I -can't- avoid corp. hq fighting, and in week 2 I only got 2 marsec body units, not the 8 I needed >-< (although my two hitmen managed to sneak up and grenade-flush the aliens out, instead of me having t o do a costly storrming :X)

 

if there're 6 alien crafts, three assault ships and three escorts, I can at best shoot down two of each, and those still manage to drop off their troops (even though there's no "tube" thingie visible)

 

Oh well, with Shields & Stealth units the game becomes trivial (toxigun C + 2 shields + stealth unit + 8 clips, and three men can clear out a battleship in no time at all)

 

really, the toxigun is so overpowered >_< if one man can shoot down a megaspawn in four seconds something is amiss (and that was with the B toxin - I think 97 accuracy helped with that )

 

 

parking craft near the DimGates: if they wouldn't change their layout every two days, yes, that might've been useful

[[NKF]]

A normal raiding fleet will consist of armed escorts and dropships. The armed escorts generally consist of three fast attack ships, and the dropships tend to vary from 2 large ships to 3 scouts.

 

Concentrate your fire on the transports and ignore the armed escorts. Once you've shot down the dropships, make a break for it until the fast attack ships give up and leave.

 

As for the moving gates, let them move. You just have to have ships scattered all over the map at strategic points. When a UFO pops up in one area, have all ships parked in the nearest sectors deploy. This has the advantage that your ships will appear in several different directions.

 

---

 

In the end, just put up with the UFOs until you get a couple of dimension hopping ships that can arm medium disrupters and fit a few dimension shields on them. Conduct weekly raids on the alien dimension and annihilate the UFO fleet(Send ships through the gates on Sunday night - the point where Sunday changes to Monday is where UFOs are respawned). You'll never have another alien mission in the city ever again, except those that you purposefully let through.

 

- NKF

[Cornuthaum]

I made a point of only shooting down the escorts and any transport closing in to a corporate HQ - I enjoy the combat missions way too much to bother with cleansing the alien dimension

 

And shooting down the transports -after- they deposited their payload is also highly satisfying (since you get double the loot, from the aliens inside the building and in th e ufo - and once you have toxiguns anything short of megaspawns and psimorphs is cannonfodder, even with toxin a (ok, skeletoids still need a good pelting, but still, 4 shots that go through the shields are better than 6-7 hits with the devastator cannon before they keel over dead)

 

alas, thanks for the advide

 

BTW, what kind of ufo is type 5? I've got 1 (probe, 2 (scout, 3 (fast attack), 4 (not researched and too lazy to get the old savegame folder back into the apoc directory) and 6 (assault)

 

I think I need that one for either biotrans or explorer, and I'd hate having to shoot down things in the alien dimension with a biotrans (if that is actually possible)

[glen_es]

I'll raid the Marsec arms factory a lot the first 5 minutes of the game to get 3 or 4 body armour, and to get 4 or 5 mind shields. The body armour I'll use right away, the mind shields later in the game to give my troopers 100+ permanent psi defense.

 

Week 2 you get to buy several more Marsec body armour giving me 7+ troopers with flying ability at beginning of week 2.

[Cornuthaum]

raid marsec?! and how in the name of god could I get back to at le ast neutral!?

 

stunraiding marsec on anything higher than novice in week 1 is nothing short of impossible, since the amount of cash involved to get to Allied is enormous (160k on medium >_<)

[glen_es]

You can stun raid them limitless times with no affect on relations. Soldiers armed with stun grapples is what I use. No guns, no one gets killed, no worries. The odd time a proximity mine might go off, but doesn't seem to hurt relations any IME.

 

You find when you stun raid an organization your relations with them are adversely affected?

 

eta - I usually play the normal difficulty setting - level 3 difficulty.

Edited December 28, 2006 by glen_es

[Cornuthaum]

the problem is not stunraiding, that is the easy part - the problem is getting ALLIED with them, so their guards won't shoot me!

 

allying with them on medium (difficulty 3) in week 1 would've cost me about 140.000 cash (60k on step 1, 80 on 2)

 

>_<

[glen_es]

Why do you need to be allied to them?

 

The guards won't shoot at you in a stun raid. They run around and point their weapons at you, never fire, let themselves get stunned. So you stun them all, win all the loot in factory. Leave hopefully with body suits, mind shields and early in the game power swords which you can't buy until wk 3. No gunshots fired by them or you.

 

I never have Marsec allied to me, just leave them at neutral.

[[NKF]]

Actually, the proximity mines do have an effect. It's minor at best, but it can still tick the company off. They really take notice to any damage done to the upholstery, but don't seem to take any notice to guards commiting suicide by jumping off buildings (and not under mind control when they hit the ground). Well, I suppose I could be wrong about that, but the effects on damage to the building have always been much more pronounced than what happens to the staff accidentally.

 

Oh, and you don't need to be allied to stop the guards from shooting you. Just get them out of hostile status. Bringing them back up to a good standing without buckets of money however requires that you attack an enemy organisation that's hostile with Marsec and not many friends. The aliens generally do well for this, until some idiot company suddenly decides that the aliens are their "friends".

 

I hate to admit it, but I do go on a few runs through the Marsec arms factory to locate a power sword on the first day of a new campaign. Power swords are such rare devices and they generally appear a little too late for comfort.

 

- NKF

 

edit: Cornuthaum, the Fast Attack Ship isn't the type 3. The good old purple Alien Transporter is the type 3. That is one of the critical ingredients for the Dimension Probe, which in turn unlocks the Bio Trans. If you're well into the game by now, you may never see a type 3 ever again. This is one aspect about this game that I truly despise - just as bad as the Deep One was for TFTD.

Edited December 28, 2006 by NKF

[glen_es]

Hey if the scrooges at Marsec hold back on weaponry, steal, steal, steal, it.

 

Isn't that part of being a smart soldier - scrounge anything and everything - just don't get caught

 

 

The down side with stun raids is driving up your score early in the game. This used to be a problem until I mentioned upthread I adopted the strategy (most of you probably use) of parking my craft in buildings near the dimension gates. Now that I don't have infected buildings to clean out, my weekly score is quite low, my score can take the hit of winning stun raids.

[Cornuthaum]

Nah, I got all types save 8, 9 and 10 now (which I'm grateful for - I only have six double-Rendor and two Lineage-Lineage-Medium Disruptor hawks right now, strapped for cash as i am >_<)

 

And I consider stunraids a form of cheating ... HOW likely is it that trained elite security WONT shoot you when you go and stun their buddies and sell the loot?

 

Sigh... and what are power swords good for aside from digging through walls? I research the toxigun as fast as I anyhow reasonably can, and dual plasma pistols / devastator cannons make short work of anything else.

 

I wish that UFO interception would be as easy as that ... but noooo, my stupid crafts just HAVE to unload 3/4 of their payload into the marsec arms factory right NEXT to the godsbedarned ufo >_<

 

Hm... and I just ended up with 65535 Large Disruptor Shields... why not small ones ... >_< ... stupid transtellar ;_;

[Tsereve]

Well, Hawks and Valkyries, I've found, are fairly poor interception craft. I use a Valkyrie as a transport early in the game, and never find myself with a Hawk. For taking down UFO's or, really, anything at all, get a bunch of hoverbikes (10-20 is good), arm them with Janitors, Prophets, and Rendors (Bolters too early on), and just swarm whatever you want. Collateral damage is minimized as long as you put the laser/plasma-carrying bikes at lowest altitude, and the missiles at the highest. This makes the beam weapons shoot up at the UFO's (missing the buildings) and makes the missiles arc down at the UFO's (plenty of room to circle).

[Cornuthaum]

Oh... cool idea

 

Well, I'm getting bored with medium (I have to let all the enemy crafts through on purpose now to get any action >_<), so methinks I'll just start another game on hard this time and see how I can survive there :x

 

as for arming hoverbikes with plasma guns: they get one-shot by everything in the game, and ammunition is so damnably rare (150-300 elerium a week at best >_< that barely suffices for two lineage armed hovercars)

[[NKF]]

Hoverbikes with lineages are awesome, but for practical reasons I like to use bolter laser cannons instead. They may pinprick the UFOs to death, but they mainly act as a distraction while the Hawks/Explorers/Annihilators bear down on them with the medium disrupters. Pow!

 

About the powerswords - these weapons are bloody brillaint devices, but they take some getting used to. They are more slightly more powerful than devestators cannons and are faster and are compact for what they can do. They only lack a larger battery and they've got laughable range (which can be extended if you swing wildly at an angle above you). Of course, by the way I play, I'm always in close quarters so the range is not a problem. Combat around corners and doors (or if you run from cover to cover) is made easy with the swords.

 

If you get up close to a shielded anthropod, pull out two swords on full auto and cut loose, you'll tear the anthropod to ribbons in 3 hits (I'm also talking about a superhuman difficulty anthropod).

 

Sure you ruin the shields, but you're not going to need shields all the time once you've got your assembly line up and running. There are also plenty of aliens that do not wear shields. Even then, the toxigun or anti-alien gas grenades are small enough that you can carry them with swords with no trouble. Now with teleporters, the swords take on a whole new lease of life.

 

I always use a lot of stun grapples in the early game (they're too good!), and the one stolen sword I use to deal fatal damage to enemies that have more than 180 hitpoints to bring them down to a stunnable level.

 

But that's just my opinion. Play the way you want to play for now, but later on give the swords a second chance. Maybe challenge yourself and try and get the hang of a small melee unit.

 

- NKF

Edited December 29, 2006 by NKF

[Cornuthaum]

Heh, I -love- swords for indoors fighting, especially when it comes to police station cleanup

 

And for Agent Equipment: what does your late-game agent look like?

 

Hand 1 : Toxigun-C

Hand 2: Stealth Field

Shoulder 1: Smoke Grenade

Shoulder 2: Smoke Grenade (They are so bloody brilliant when you've gotta get through that door

Backpack: Shield, Shield, Powersword, 4 Toxigun C clips on top

Leg 1: Vortex Mine

Leg 2: Vortex Mine (two out of ten soldiers discard 1 VM for a Medikit)

Belt: 2 Stun Grenades, 4 Toxigun-C clips, spare toxigun (if I ever need to mow down big amounts of aliens I drop the stealth and go dual-wieldy madness)

 

Or if I contend with non-alien forces, replace toxigun and stealth with Devastator cannons - purple doomlasers everywhere

[[NKF]]

Late game? Well, this is just a guide, not a rule. My troops tend to consist of:

 

Full disrupter armour

Twin shields in backpack

Medikit on one leg, Vortex mine in the other

Left pocket full of stun grenades

Right pocket full of AP grenades (brainsucker countermeasure and pile detonator)

Top left shoulder a smoke grenade

 

 

The weapons will vary a little. In general, soldiers will carry two devestator cannons, two toxiguns (for those who have little accuracy) or one devestator and one toxigun. With toxiguns, all the gaps in the backpack are filled. Devestators are discarded when I need a free hand.

 

This makes up the bread and butter of the troops.

 

Specialists will replace equipment as necessary. For example, rocket soldiers will remove one shield for extra ammo and only carry one launcher (or two for minilaunchers). The obligatory flyer for the whole squad will wear a Marsec torso plate (swapped with other troops in the field as necessary). One soldier will carry a motion scanner. Vortex mine mules will carry as many vortex mines as they can carry with the shield (or shields) held in their hands. Shield mules carry four shields. Psi units will have the vortex mine or medikit replaced with the mind bender. Etc. It really depends on what I need for any particular mission.

 

You might notice that cloaking devices don't feature too heavily in my setups. It's not that I don't use them, I just pick them up in combat when necessary.

 

- NKF

[Cornuthaum]

I've never, ever found much use for PSI in apocalypse - aside from getting live poppers and skeletoids (psi resistant or not, four 70 energy/60 attack mutants make short work of any popper, and then I just have someone step onto him)

 

psi resistance comes from marsec... *g*

[[NKF]]

I use psi as an a violence free means of acquiring disrupter shields or temporarily disarming the shields (i.e. throwing it up in the air or off to the side), and to get enemy units to set all their munitions to blast-on-impact and have them all dropped. I then watch the fireworks display with glee. Their scanning ability sometimes comes in handy, and you won't believe how easy human guards are to manipulate. Reversing mind control sometimes works. It's almost sad.

 

It's really the next step up for the stun-raid too, when the stun grapples are thwarted by the disrupter shields and you don't want to use up your dwindling supply of stun grenades. Not that you really need to even resort to stun raids if you've managed to reach this point of the game.

 

But like psi was in the first two games, it's a fun extra, not a necessity.

 

- NKF

Edited December 29, 2006 by NKF

[Cornuthaum]

Gah! Boom-On-Impact? The grenades can do that? I'm desperately trying to get the timing just exactly right (so that the 'nade goes off right in the megaspawns face, for instant)

 

Could you please dispense the knowledge of how to do this to this unworthy peon? :x

[[NKF]]

Right-click rather than left click the grenade.

 

This very same blast-on-impact shortcut is available in turn-based too, although you do get the option in the timer settings there. It's still faster.

 

- NKF

Edited December 29, 2006 by NKF

[Cornuthaum]

Oooooh thank you .... grenades with timers are nice and all ("look, a popper is coming down the assault ship gravlift! lets lay down several 6s megapol nades at the exit!"), but I seriously missed BoI (Boom on Impact)

 

too much jagged alliance, I guess :x

[Tsereve]

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242027451

 

[[Blehm 98]]

my usual layouts are as follows:

 

1)standard soldier

Full armor (megapol or disrupter, but i've never gotten disrupter so yeah...)

Dual Devastators

two shields

medikit in one leg, vortex mine in the other

3-5 megapol grenades

3-5 stun grenades

2 or 3 smoke grenades

 

2)Psionics...

Full armor

One weapon, usually devastator or toxigun, but occasionally minilauncher or cloaking device depending on my mood

everything else is the same as standard

 

3)Sniper

Full armor

Devastator

Cloak

everything else is the same as standard

 

4)Explosives

Full armor

Dimension/Marsec Heavy/Mini launcher

one shield

sometimes medikit and vortex mine, sometimes dual vortex mines

As many missiles as i can fit. The extra hand either gets rockets or a devastator, or occasionally a cloaking device (for fun)

 

edit: These four should really be all you have in a game, except for early on, or if you include autocannons. But these are the only four i ever have later on in game

Edited December 30, 2006 by Blehm 98

[Cornuthaum]

interesting

 

My group layout in the beginning:

 

12 people with full megapol, marsec m400, 2 clips, 2 megapol AP, Stun and Smoke grenades and a medikit each

 

later on:

 

6 people with dual Toxiguns, 8 spare clips, 1 Shield, 1 stun grapple, megapol limbs/marsec body, 2 stun, 2 ap, 2 smoke grenades, 2 medikits for 6 soldiers

 

late-game:

full disruptor armor, dual toxiguns with 8 spare clips (or if I "visit" transtellar, nutrivend or the cult, its dual devastator cannons), 2 vortex mines, 2 shields, 2 vortex mines, 2 stun grenades, 2 smoke grenades, 1 medikit on 6 soldiers.

 

 

never ran into a situation that required more than 6 soldiers so far (okay, except for the mothership where I took one android to stun-capture one psimorph - he died, but I got what I wanted )

 

dual toxi on autofire with B or especially C is insta-kill for anything short of a megaspawn (And even those die quickly)

[[NKF]]

Here's a tip for dual toxiguns: Don't use them with auto fire. Because a single toxigun is already a blistering fast weapon in its own right, the seconadary toxigun barely gets fired as often. That's wasteful that is.

 

Switch to snap or aimed shots to get the accuracy boost and keep the same firing speed with the help of the second toxigun. For soldiers without 98 accuracy, the added accuracy is a real plus.

 

- NKF

[Cornuthaum]

dual toxiguns on snapshot setting from a 6-man squad (the six men I exclusively use from the moment I get toxiguns to get their accuracy to the high ninety values) mow down anything within second - autoshot is only really applicable later in the game when there are two megaspawn stomping your way in a small corridor and you know that you can mow one down before he annihilates double disruptor shields

 

frankly, XCA only poses to be a problem until one gets the toxigun, and gets neglegibly eas after getting body shields (still, st anding in a heap of alien corpses where 20 vortex grenades and a dozen dimension missiles are lying on the floor and then one stray anthropod throws one boomeroid .... >_< .... training 5 new people is no fun )