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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

How Useful Is Cover Really?


anaglyph

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I don't seem to have much luck trying to take advantage of cover. If your agent hides behind a wall or pillar, he's not shooting, which is bad when facing massed skellies with devestator canons before you get shields and everything depends on killing them as quickly as possible before you get mown down. If he hides behind something that he can shoot over, it's going to be destroyed almost immediately by incoming fire. As well as that, using cover limits your ability to place your guys in a good formation. After a few tries at setting up an ambush with my guys nicely placed near cover, either kneeling beind stuff or next to corners they could duck behind, I came to the conclusion it was better to put them on aggressive and forget about cover.

 

Maybe I just really suck at this game.

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Cover saves lives, normally if you have an agent shooting near some cover he will occasionly hide behind it and pop out again which does seem quite random really as he doesnt dodge a lot of bullets/beams. It can help though as it provides a rest-stop for using a med-kit which doesnt work as well in a middle of a firefight. Also if playing turn-based you can reload and prep grenades behind cover.

 

Partial cover is the best cover though, by partial I mean low walls and ledges and small shrubs, firstly you can fire while behind the cover though you can still get hit, but if you go prone you can hide behind the cover to reload or dodge incoming fire. However the greatest thing about partial cover is that it blocks bullets and does protect against beams. As you said when facing hordes of skeles with disruptors/devestators it is quite hard, with partial cover you can fire and chuck grenades at them but if you have faced disruptors/devestators then you know that it only takes a few hits to kill an agent, one hit can kill from a devestator, this means that when hiding behind say a shrub, the shrub that gets hit takes all the hit from the beam and then disintigrates, meaning that it just saved the life and armour of the agent hiding behind it while allowing the agent to still fire back.

 

So basically partial cover can be a free shield against devestators and it works really well against bullets the only drawback is that shots which do hit the agent tend to be headshots or armshots, the former deadly and the latter reducing accuracy. However those are only the shots which hit the agent which tend to be less then when having no cover at all.

 

Sometimes its best not to hide behind full cover but next to it, for example if you shoot through a wall like say in a Cult of Sirius temple you have a great big hole which allows the enemy to fire at you, if you shoot from behind the wall it means that HE Weapons/Grenades might bounce off the wall and it won't affect you unlike crouching by a ledge where they chuck the grenade over you or with no cover where you will just bombared.

 

So to conclude, cover is useful, if you dont use it you tend to die more.

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I must admit, my impression of the uselessness of cover was formed when I originally got the game, so it was probably just as much inexperience as anything. Having just fired it up again I'm trying to play a no-reload game, so I'm kinda scared of trying out new things. :D Guess I could start a game for experimentation purposes though.

 

Still, sounds as if cover is more useful for turn based. I'm playing real time, and a handful of devastator-weilding aliens destroy everything around you in seconds, all the while drawing nearer and hitting the mark with increasing accuracy, not to mention the kamikaze blue guy who'll run out of the smoke and nobly sacrifice himself to lob a grenade. I just get the feeling that every moment spent ducking or moving round a corner is time better spent shooting at the aliens before they get so close they can't miss. The game becomes a real nightmare when the skellies and devastators show up. heh Up until then it was plain sailing.

 

Oh well, I'll give it another go. Maybe I'll have more success using cover now I'm more familiar with the game. Thanks for the advice.

Edited by anaglyph
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I find cover extremely useful when I'm charging towards the aliens. See, I like to get up close and unleash my weapons on them on full auto - this also negates the need to have high accuracy agents. With lots of cover, I can have my soldiers advance from cover to cover until I get close enough for my weapons to be effective and not take on too much return fire in the mean time.

 

As mentioned, cover is a great place to rest (if you're like me, I tend to use up stamina - fast), and also a great way of saving your hide if you suddenly find yourself facing too many advancing aliens at once. You can smartly step behind the corner then wait at a safe distance and mow down any aliens that walk around the corner. Excellent way to utilise power swords in tight corridors, I must say, but will work with any weapon except rocket launchers for obvious reasons.

 

Oh, cover is also a great way to avoid missiles that are fired at a moderate to long distance away from you. If you see it being fired, and there's a wall near you or if you can move behind any solid structure that's between you and the missile, you can let the missile guide itself into the wall. It's hard to do, but it works.

 

And if worse comes to worse, cover is useful if you need to retreat. Jump behind cover and look for ways to retreat.

 

Having soldiers and aliens duke it out in the open with long range potshots is only one of many ways to fight.

 

- NKF

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Aliens do tend to get more deadly as they get closer but it works the same for you, your guys are more likely to hit them so you can put most of your weapons on full-auto.

 

Its good to try and mow down aliens as quick as possible but cover is better used in ambushes, like at a UFO crash site I use those little shrubs to kneel behind so once aliens come out im more protected and accurate then they are. If you don't want the aliens getting to close use prox-mines, or even better use prox-traps. A prox-trap is basically throwing unprimed grenades onto an armed proximity mine so if an enemy activates the mine they get hit by a much bigger explosion (or if you use stun grenades then they get stunned). Any aliens which do decide to close in will get exploded while your guys can stay relativly safe.

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Oh, cover is also a great way to avoid missiles that are fired at a moderate to long distance away from you.

 

Yeah, I remember trying to dodge entropy missiles like that the first time I played. What a shock when they turned up on the battlefield. Not looking forward to seeing them again. Some sort of personal jamming device would have been nice.

 

A prox-trap is basically throwing unprimed grenades onto an armed proximity mine so if an enemy activates the mine they get hit by a much bigger explosion (or if you use stun grenades then they get stunned). Any aliens which do decide to close in will get exploded while your guys can stay relativly safe.

 

Nice trick; I'll have to try that. I used to try to avoid explosives, wanting to preserve the loot and avoid antagonising organisations, but I guess on higher difficulty settings you gotta do what you gotta do.

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As Sharp points out, cover is fantastic when you're kneeling in front of low cover, and come under fire, including guided missiles. Click off the "kneel" button and hit the "prone" button - agents can hit the deck pretty fast this way, almost always faster than a devastator cannon beam at moderate range.

 

As NKF, veritable lord of this forum, points out, duking it out with the aliens on an open field is one way to do it, but not the only way. Certainly by the end of the game, XCOM agents can go toe-to-toe with the aliens in this way and all come home. But it's no way to fight in the beginning and middle stages of the game, not against the aliens, and not against the cult once they start buying MarSec heavy launchers.

 

The low half-walls in the Cult temples are great for pop-up shooting. Kneel an agent behind it, have him/her stand up, shoot away at the cultists in the basement altars, then kneel or lie down to avoid incoming fire, particularly auto-cannon and missile fire.

 

And as NKF says, ducking behind cover while fleeing from an incoming dimension missile is simply a lifesaver. But another great use of those little shrubs and what not early in the game is against the poppers, who must run around those obstacles, giving you more time to shoot them, or toss a well-timed grenade in their path to set them off. That's where the tunneling comes in as well, once you've got sufficient devastators and power swords: making cover when you really need alcoves from those Megaspawns. It's too bad, incidentally, that Megaspawns don't see more action in the insurgent drops. Imagine running around a corner at the Nutrivend Mall and bumping into a couple of Megaspawns. Sheesh!

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  • 4 months later...
cover is pretty damn useful depending on what your going against for poppers and and brainsuckers might as well stand still, they'll only come around the corner for you. However stuff like Anthropods and skeletoids armed with disruptors and devastators? Cover can mean the difference between your captain coming home with a shattered breastplate and him coming home with a fully renovated chest cavity. Things like Megaspawns I've seen them shatter rocks with their weapons. So for them its best to do a running battle: Shoot, run, relocate. Shoot, run, relocate. Wash, rinse, repeat till dead. DON'T EVER face a megaspawn on equal terms I did that one time being cocky because my girl was challenging me to do it and I took 7 agents home in body bags.
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Outlawstar15a2: You do not want to do what I sometimes do against the Megaspawn. Solo android with a pair of shields and a pair of power swords. Up close and personal. The funniest part about this is that the Megaspawn actually turn around and attempt to run away.

 

Very risky and prone to failure, but when it does work it's a real laugh. But that's just me - I'm a nutter in that respect. ;)

 

- NKF

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cover is pretty damn useful depending on what your going against for poppers and and brainsuckers might as well stand still, they'll only come around the corner for you. However stuff like Anthropods and skeletoids armed with disruptors and devastators? Cover can mean the difference between your captain coming home with a shattered breastplate and him coming home with a fully renovated chest cavity. Things like Megaspawns I've seen them shatter rocks with their weapons. So for them its best to do a running battle: Shoot, run, relocate. Shoot, run, relocate. Wash, rinse, repeat till dead. DON'T EVER face a megaspawn on equal terms I did that one time being cocky because my girl was challenging me to do it and I took 7 agents home in body bags.

 

Does your girl like to watch you play the game? My girl can't be bothered. Although she knows that she and all our friends are "in" the game as renamed agents (She's a biochemist, in her case). When base raids happen, she does tell me, "Kill them all!" But your girl likes to watch? What does she think about the game?

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cover is pretty damn useful depending on what your going against for poppers and and brainsuckers might as well stand still, they'll only come around the corner for you. However stuff like Anthropods and skeletoids armed with disruptors and devastators? Cover can mean the difference between your captain coming home with a shattered breastplate and him coming home with a fully renovated chest cavity. Things like Megaspawns I've seen them shatter rocks with their weapons. So for them its best to do a running battle: Shoot, run, relocate. Shoot, run, relocate. Wash, rinse, repeat till dead. DON'T EVER face a megaspawn on equal terms I did that one time being cocky because my girl was challenging me to do it and I took 7 agents home in body bags.

 

Does your girl like to watch you play the game? My girl can't be bothered. Although she knows that she and all our friends are "in" the game as renamed agents (She's a biochemist, in her case). When base raids happen, she does tell me, "Kill them all!" But your girl likes to watch? What does she think about the game?

 

shes like any other woman, she thinks i'm out of mind mind for playing games and she thinks its even worse when i play a game almost eight years old but I dont care. I play this game because since it came out theres been few games as addicting as this. Save Medieval Total, Shogun Total War, and Rome Total War despite its very weak AI. But I must digress she does cheer me on when I kill cultists for some reason it makes her happy.

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shes like any other woman, she thinks i'm out of mind mind for playing games and she thinks its even worse when i play a game almost eight years old but I dont care. I play this game because since it came out theres been few games as addicting as this. Save Medieval Total, Shogun Total War, and Rome Total War despite its very weak AI. But I must digress she does cheer me on when I kill cultists for some reason it makes her happy.

 

I name all my agents after my many friends, many of whom are women. It's surprising how many of them want to know how "they" are doing, what rank they have, how many medals, how many kills, whether they're still alive. It helps that I know a lot of girls from Judo and Jiu Jitsu classes. But I've even got really pretty, "girly" female friends who love the idea of becoming a super-tough special-forces agent. My girlfriend is one of the few who doesn't want to "be" an agent, even though she doesn't mind me playing. She doesn't watch, mind you, but she likes the idea.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I use cover when locating aliens and advancing forward into a mission. Any damage any one of your Agents gets is bad. The more damage one of them takes the less useful they are. So using cover protects them for that reason. I've had to deal with using 30% healed up Agents in missions before and it just limits your ability to last longer in a fire fight. Also, if your using 30% healthy Agents in missions and Poppers start rushing you one after the other, AP grenades, or vortex mines are being thrown at you and go off, then your squad is pretty much dead and you have to start over from your last save point.

 

Cover = use it if you want your guys to live longer.

 

The more agents you have to replace is more money spent on re-equipping the replacement Agent(s) that you could spend on something else.

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Even if you an unlimited credit cash policy with your use of your funds, it's not going to do any good if there isn't anyone to hire. Yes, I was that bad. I was like, "Armour, strategy, defence? That's for psissies! Bugger that!".

 

I'm older now, and hopefully wiser. Bean counting in moderation - works. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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..I dont bean count much except for on Vehicles.. xD..

Ill just buy plasma weapons and throw them on hover bikes, Thats how Ive been getting down all my Ufo's :3

Oh and another useful tip I seemed to find.. Let one race get controlled by aliens, their Tech is always a week or so ahead of the aliens, letting you research the equipment that much faster and get ahead of the aliens. Insteaad of the other way around xD..

 

My basic Breach Stratagy involves 3 groups of 4 and an android using hvy explosives, I heart him <3

Anyhow. I put 4 stun gun mutants out front crawling (Yes Mutants.)

4 android/humans in the middle crouching with Marsec machine guns.

and in the back I put 3 snipers and an auto cannon all standing up.

Why an Auto Cannon you ask? Because its the rapidest rocket launcher shuckeroonies there is! :D

BEWMBEWMBEWMBEWM!

 

Also, it never did hurt to use the Aiming shots in Real time. Especially when firing a rocket or two down a hall way. Tends to make your agents not die ;)

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The rockets are guided, so the only thing the firing modes really do for the launcher is change the firing speed.

 

Still, this is absolutely important, as you don't want to have too many heavy launcher rockets wasted on the same target, and aimed shots should give you plenty of time between shots. Heavy launchers are also incredibly restrictive with the amount of ammo you carry too, so you don't want to waste it all on the same target. Only a small amount legally, that is. If you use the 'ammo stacking bug' to carry more rockets, you'll be severely crippled by the sheer weight of all the rockets, as you're only compressing the space needed, not the weight.

 

I myself recommend keeping keeping the safties on at all times and order manual attacks. You certainly will want to avoid a close range reaction-shot with a dimension missile! The aliens do this all the time. This shows you how smart they are.

 

The mini-launcher on the other hand benefits greatly from having a selection of firing speeds.

 

----

 

One point we need to get verified: Do infiltrated organisations have a different tech-rollout scoretable? As far as I can remember, alien technology used by the city organisations is global and affects all organisations at the same time, so you won't get any one organisation that has better alien tech than another. The alien tech for the city is also always behind the aliens by a few steps.

 

However, that is not to say that you cannot get into a situation where enemy organisations will have alien tech well before the aliens show up with them. It can - if you accumulate a lot of activity points in a short amount of time and get attacked by a city organisations before the aliens do (after the game does a tech update, of course).

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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One point we need to get verified: Do infiltrated organisations have a different tech-rollout scoretable? As far as I can remember, alien technology used by the city organisations is global and affects all organisations at the same time, so you won't get any one organisation that has better alien tech than another. The alien tech for the city is also always behind the aliens by a few steps.

 

However, that is not to say that you cannot get into a situation where enemy organisations will have alien tech well before the aliens show up with them. It can - if you accumulate a lot of activity points in a short amount of time and get attacked by a city organisations before the aliens do (after the game does a tech update, of course).

 

Dude.. if any race is under control of the aliens and you attack them, They have pink disruptor guns xP

Edit: Well in the second week atleast, The aliens never take anyone over in week one, not even if I let them, which I always do to one or two races.

Edited by NRN_R_Sumo1
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For cover though, I find that lying prone is all the cover I need.

 

These days, I've been using the Special Forces 4-man team model, just to make things interesting. I send 4 super-troopers, fully kitted out, on raids. I'm finding that Osiron throws a regular force of 18 alien-equipped fighters against me. My team has one heavy auto-cannon gunner, 1 sniper, and 2 riflemen. I spread them out, use a lot of movement, with agents ducking around corners, then popping out at different times and killing gaggles of gangsters. The agents also carry a flying body piece so they can quickly take high points and rain down death. With standing firing coupled with taking cover and popping out, plus high points, I now can take down full gangster and cult squads, for all the heavy-launcher missiles they fire, without any agent dropping shields. It relies fully on cover, and it's a much more special-forces style game. Sending a ship full of 20 super-troopers to simply wipe out enemies was getting a little too easy.

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  • 1 month later...

I find, if you set people behind eachother using prone crouch and standing positions, The fire is concentrated in the direction of the enemy and, since teh Ai's tend to have bad aim. You can Easily use prone or crouched snipers to take them down, Laying down just sends the accuracy bar skyrocketing. It also helps if its Aimed shots. :D

That makes it all the more fun!

More Agents=More Sniper rounds flying with ultra high accuracy. :D!

Oh Btw, I never use Super Agents. Im too silly and lazy to train them up ^_^!

Just restarting the game every once and a while, The guys are good enough for me. Just use Droids with Double MMg's and a crapload of ammo for covering the corners where Aliens like Hyperworms might run up xD

 

Strategy > Super Agents.

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  • 5 weeks later...
I'd like to add to this thread that cover is essential in my "Commando Supremacy" campaign. I send in one agent to take down a cult temple or gang slum. Cover and movement make this possible. So, cover, can be essential when one agent is fending off up to 4 gangsters armed with rocket launchers, while the others throw vortex mines and blast devastator-cannon fire at the agent.
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  • 2 weeks later...
I dunno man, I still like making my own cover ^_^!

 

Do you mean tunneling into the ground or walls? You'd still need to be near a wall to tunnel into it. I guess I don't like the idea of blasting a hole in the ground and jumping into it, because it'd be pretty hard for a fully armored and armed agent to climb out of a hole if someone tossed a vortex mine in it. I remember in the army how much the weapon, ammo, helmet and web belt weighed - it was more than enough without a suit of armor on top of it. I can't imagine jumping out of a huge hole on short notice. Even when I was an MP, just the police belt and sidearm with extra mags, radio and handcuffs weighed enough to slow you down. So, I'm reluctant to have my agents jump down into holes. I like to have them stand near good cover, so they can move right away. Even kneeling takes them a second to get up before they can run.

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Sad thing about Apocalypse is that while you can jump into holes, you can't climb out of them or climb up any wall that's at full height (i.e. anything other than a step). So this rabbit hole strategy would require Marsec plates.

 

Mind you, this is a wonderful way of trapping an anthtropod or enemy guard in a hole to keep them trapped. There aren't any practical reasons for doing this apart from keeping the map alive so that you can escape from combat with as little loot as possible to avoid gathering too much equipment and activity points.

 

- NKF

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  • 2 weeks later...
Meatshield class agents in my mind would be Teleporting heavily shielded Androids that carry extra supplies for your other agents. I believe it would be an Agent that carries 3 shields. I'm not sure if shields work if you hold them in hand. But I do know that the Meatshield Agent would use a Cloaker...XD Nothing like imaging the expression of your opponent going "WTF?!?!@#?$? my disurptor beam didn't hit?!?!$? GOD YOU CHEAT!!!" LOL
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If you're in Alien Dimension, it comes in handy a lot. You can cut off an area and control a region of the level to fall back on as a safe zone. Of course, you're going to need 2-3 squads for this particular task. I've used a full squad of guys that do nothing but carry extra ammo, grenades and extra weapons in case my stuff gets blown up.
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Also if you might have noticed, if you put a row of crouched agents behind a row of crouched agents, Friendly fire occurs.

if you put crouched behind Prone and then standing behind the crouching, there is never an issue.

Using this tactic you can truly cause a fire beam.

Which by that I mean these three agents can shoot the same target and deal three times the damage.

 

I often do this when long range fighting with Marsec Mg's.

Aiming works very well. ^^'

 

Also, I dont understand why people set the Mg's to Auto fire..

Just wastes ammo since most of the shots dont hit.

 

Snap shot is generally the best for an Mg unless firing with Many of these guns, then Aimed is the best.

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I don't play Turn-Based. But I've often found that placing your Agents around the entrance of a ship that you can use the actual ship as cover and then the aliens come out and get sprayed with weapon fire. =b

 

I've tried the different positions with the Agents. Your right about it.

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Well of course Im right! ^^'

 

Ive tried using almost everything as cover including aliens and Civvys.. The Civvys work fine, but the Aliens are poor fire blockers v.v'

I find the best uses for cover are things that can take several hits before crumbling to pieces on you. Thick walls help. It also helps when you blow up a Popper and if the cover around you is weak enough, it will take it out in the explosion and maybe an Agent or two. I don't like using moving objects as cover. Unless I teleport in the middle of a huge group of Aliens and watch them release a volley of energy beams at my guy and then teleport out of there after I've dropped a Vortex Mine..doing all that on half speed mixed with some pausing.

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When you can move in a horizontal pattern with a civilian, they will absorb the shots easily while you try to escape.

 

Man, Im such an ill mannered person.. those meat shields could be my agents familys! :'(

 

Exactly. :-)

 

I try to save all civilians, and imagine that XCOM is actually trying to SAVE the world, not deliberately use it (them) as a body shield. ;-)

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When you can move in a horizontal pattern with a civilian, they will absorb the shots easily while you try to escape.

 

Man, Im such an ill mannered person.. those meat shields could be my agents familys! :'(

 

You call them meat-shields

 

I call em Target Practice :D

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Hmm, if you spend all your time worrying about what the civilians are doing, you're not going to get anything done!

 

Whatever floats your boat, I guess. ;)

 

- NKF

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Also, I dont understand why people set the Mg's to Auto fire..

Just wastes ammo since most of the shots dont hit.

 

It's awesome in turn-based. You just run right up to enemies and hose 'em down. I kill most cultists this way. Chews up their armor and then the soft chewy part inside in 10 TUs or so. A single agent can take out several cultists if they're packed together. It's also handy if you know there's a brainsucker nearby. Just stand one one square back from a corner you suspect it will be coming around with full auto selected. Reaction fire is easy when it only takes one TU to shoot.

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When you're right up next to the enemy, there's nothing to lose by setting your twin M4000s to full auto. If you're fighting mid to long range battles, then you're much better off using snap or aimed shot. It's really a matter of distance. Up close, there's no reason not to go full auto. In long range combat, switch to snap or aimed. That's it, really. This is the reason why I like to get up close to my enemies (either race up to them, or let them come to me) and switch to full auto.

 

 

The toxigun on the other hand is the odd one out. With two toxiguns on full auto, the second toxigun will not be fired very often because the main toxigun itself is already blistering fast. So you're wasting the second gun's potential. Instead, switch to snap or aimed for the accuracy bonus and still keep the ridiculously fast firing rate by having the second gun fire more frequently. If you've maxed your stats, the accuracy modes will do nothing for the accuracy of the shot, so you're better of ditching the second toxigun in favour of some other weapon or device.

 

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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