Poll: XCOM 2 is Nigh - Prepare Your RNG Holes

[GothmogII]

I was a bit worried about the Avatar clock myself and considered modding the .ini, I was about three pips away from doom and hadn't done any darksite missions yet, luckily I had two revealed on the map and managed to contact the resistance in one just in time. Things kind of snowballed in my favor after that as I got a few missions that dropped the Avatar by 3 pips each and then some singles.

Also, I'm only playing on normal, and this may be a bug but some missions I've had to save scum hard on, especially when most of my
A-team got knocked out and left me with mostly rookies for a darksite. Anyway, I've noticed if you take your turn, then save and reload just before the enemy takes their turn, when you reload you sometimes get to take your turn again with damage still being applied to enemies. It sometimes takes a few reloads but it's worked consistently for me, yeah probably an exploit. x)

 

[Don Incognito]

This game is kicking my ass. Fuck those mech robot things with the mortar, fuck sectoids, fuck mutons, and double fuck those fucking codex things.

 

[DoPo]

Btw, do you wish for a MIB Mod, eh? It would be sweet!!!

Definitely. Mods I'm actually looking forward to at this time are mostly minor improvements:

- the health bars in this game...well, they suck. In the previous one, you at least had them in groups of 5 so you could easily find out how much health an enemy has. Now it's just one really long bar and for tougher enemies, you just have to count them one by one. There is this mod [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=617015579] which shows health values and I'm going to give it a go, however, I rather liked the previous system. Personal preference. Dunno if it's possible to bring it back.
- Strip Primary Weapons [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618504171]. Yes, this mod exists. Right now, there is a slight problem with it, so I'm mostly looking forward to it being fixed. I have no idea why it wasn't included in the base game, though - it seems like such an obvious omission.
- Add all countries. There is one mod that adds all Eurapean nationalities [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618891146] and that's cool, I just want to see all of them. I don't necessarily need voice packs (though they'd be cool) but at least country flag + pool of names for each.
- and finally, please, please, please get rid of the damn circles for civilians and similar. If a soldier has to stand inside some area, just shade and highlight the exact tiles, similar to how the enemy drops work. The circle is atrocious, as it doesn't actually show you the area - you have to be fully inside it, not in a tile where the line passes through. Or at least that's how the first game worked - maybe it's expanded to include those here - I don't know. I'm not wasting a movement point to find out. I've done it enough times in XCOM. Just give me the actual area.

 

[SweetShark]

snip

I really need A Greek Voice Pack like in Worms games. It was glorious back then.
........
How hard is to make a voice pack?

As for another Mod, as I said in a Thread we need a Massive Crossover Mod.
Aliens from Halo, Gears of War, Crysis, Dead Space, Duke Nukem, Fallen Haven, Xenonauts, Quake 2, Half-Life, X-Mercs, UFO: Aftermath, UFO: Extraterrestrials, Breed, etc are VERY WELCOME!!!
Just a Alien Type from each game or even a weapon/Armor is enough.

 

[DoPo]

snip

I really need A Greek Voice Pack like in Worms games. It was glorious back then.
........
How hard is to make a voice pack?

I don't actually know. If it works the same way as Worms did (and i doubt it's that much different), then it would be very easy. What you need is, essentially, a microphone, if you want to do it yourself, or any sound files otherwise. In Worms, you just needed to put them in a folder somewhere under Sounds or Audio or whatever (possibly called "Voices" or something. It was fairly obvious) and also name the files exactly as the other voice packs. So there was stuff like "oops.wav", "oops2.wav", "amazing.wav" and so on. As long as you had the corresponding files in the folder you could choose that voicepack and it'd work in-game.

Source: I've made a few of voicepacks for Worms. One was with my voice, one was me with a friend of mine, and one was purely sound clips from Counter-Strike. The only "difficult" part was to not have them too long - the game assumed a length for each sound clip 1-3 seconds, or so, depending on which one it is, and then if the clip would play, it'd wait that long. So if you made them longer, they would just sound a bit odd - either cut short or another sound file could start before yours had finished.

 

[SweetShark]

snip

I really need A Greek Voice Pack like in Worms games. It was glorious back then.
........
How hard is to make a voice pack?

I don't actually know. If it works the same way as Worms did (and i doubt it's that much different), then it would be very easy. What you need is, essentially, a microphone, if you want to do it yourself, or any sound files otherwise. In Worms, you just needed to put them in a folder somewhere under Sounds or Audio or whatever (possibly called "Voices" or something. It was fairly obvious) and also name the files exactly as the other voice packs. So there was stuff like "oops.wav", "oops2.wav", "amazing.wav" and so on. As long as you had the corresponding files in the folder you could choose that voicepack and it'd work in-game.

Source: I've made a few of voicepacks for Worms. One was with my voice, one was me with a friend of mine, and one was purely sound clips from Counter-Strike. The only "difficult" part was to not have them too long - the game assumed a length for each sound clip 1-3 seconds, or so, depending on which one it is, and then if the clip would play, it'd wait that long. So if you made them longer, they would just sound a bit odd - either cut short or another sound file could start before yours had finished.

Interesting.
I guess you used a Voice Recorder Program as well for this. Which one did you used back then?

 

[SweetShark]

OMG!!!! I have a idea!!!!
We need a "Edge of Tomorrow" Mode!!!!
We need at least one soldier which could have the ability to return back in time if you play in Iron Mode and you don't want to fail in an important Mission.
Glorious if this happen!!!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't actually know. If it works the same way as Worms did (and i doubt it's that much different), then it would be very easy. What you need is, essentially, a microphone, if you want to do it yourself, or any sound files otherwise. In Worms, you just needed to put them in a folder somewhere under Sounds or Audio or whatever (possibly called "Voices" or something. It was fairly obvious) and also name the files exactly as the other voice packs. So there was stuff like "oops.wav", "oops2.wav", "amazing.wav" and so on. As long as you had the corresponding files in the folder you could choose that voicepack and it'd work in-game.

Source: I've made a few of voicepacks for Worms. One was with my voice, one was me with a friend of mine, and one was purely sound clips from Counter-Strike. The only "difficult" part was to not have them too long - the game assumed a length for each sound clip 1-3 seconds, or so, depending on which one it is, and then if the clip would play, it'd wait that long. So if you made them longer, they would just sound a bit odd - either cut short or another sound file could start before yours had finished.

Keep in mind all audio barks for the voice packs need recording for the different personality types as well, or they'll come off as very flat compared to the existing voices.

 

[DoPo]

I guess you used a Voice Recorder Program as well for this. Which one did you used back then?

Audacity [http://www.audacityteam.org/download/], though, to be honest, I could have used the recorder built into Windows. Still, Audacity offers some nice features, mostly, how easy it is to chop out unneeded bits from the audio, or chop up a longer soundclip into several. It also offers addition of sound effects, like speed up/down, or reverb and so on. It's free and it fulfilled my needs.

Actually, Worms did have its own tool for creating voice packs. I found it AFTER I had actually found out how to do my own voicepack. It does pretty much the same, really.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The circle is atrocious, as it doesn't actually show you the area - you have to be fully inside it, not in a tile where the line passes through. Or at least that's how the first game worked - maybe it's expanded to include those here - I don't know. I'm not wasting a movement point to find out. I've done it enough times in XCOM. Just give me the actual area.

The circle is atrocious, but from my experience you can now be in any tile within the circle, even those that are only "partial" and the civilian will run off to survive.

 

[Zhukov]

Still on my first run.

Commander difficulty. Unofficial ironman. (Loaded a couple of times for mis-clicks and bugs.)

Just got powered armour, almost got plasma weapons. Still no deaths.

Almost fucked everything up by letting the avatar progress sneak up on me. Went from half full to full in two months. Went all the way into the countdown. Had to make a mad expansion sprint across the map to start hitting blacksites, even ignoring guerrilla ops to make it in time.

 

[DoPo]

Almost fucked everything up by letting the avatar progress sneak up on me. Went from half full to full in two months. Went all the way into the countdown. Had to make a mad expansion sprint across the map to start hitting blacksites, even ignoring guerrilla ops to make it in time.

Yeah, I had a similar issue. Thankfully, I got a drop in a mission that was a blacksite lead. You can research it and it allows you to attack a facility without actually having made contact there. That saved me, as I was on the last box of the Avatar project, now I'm three behind and heading towards the other facility.

I think you can also get that intel from hacking, so specialists seem to really be worth it. Also, I just got a bonus from hacking that said that all the scan times for the Avenger are going to be halved for a month (I think it was a month - a couple of weeks, at least). That's huge, I thought the bonuses from hacking were just confined to the mission or occasionally getting some Intel (the resource). Oh, and also, I had one of my Specialists hack a bonus to her hacking ability. +30 permanent hacking...yeah.

Next playthrough, I'm definitely going to keep some specialists around.

Speaking of, I'll also definitely get scout rangers as well early on. I made the mistake of going for a couple of blademasters but scouts just rock - the first scout ability makes them start concealed even if the mission doesn't give your team that bonus. Them, along with a long range sniper or two make everything so easy.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yeah, I had a similar issue. Thankfully, I got a drop in a mission that was a blacksite lead. You can research it and it allows you to attack a facility without actually having made contact there. That saved me, as I was on the last box of the Avatar project, now I'm three behind and heading towards the other facility.

I think you can also get that intel from hacking, so specialists seem to really be worth it. Also, I just got a bonus from hacking that said that all the scan times for the Avenger are going to be halved for a month (I think it was a month - a couple of weeks, at least). That's huge, I thought the bonuses from hacking were just confined to the mission or occasionally getting some Intel (the resource). Oh, and also, I had one of my Specialists hack a bonus to her hacking ability. +30 permanent hacking...yeah.

Next playthrough, I'm definitely going to keep some specialists around.

Speaking of, I'll also definitely get scout rangers as well early on. I made the mistake of going for a couple of blademasters but scouts just rock - the first scout ability makes them start concealed even if the mission doesn't give your team that bonus. Them, along with a long range sniper or two make everything so easy.

Scouts are great...almost essential really, particularly on some missions...but Blademasters play a very important role once Chrysalids make their re-appearance. Try to have one on staff for those Chrysalid missions.

Despite having an ace specialist, I never once succeeded on the + to hacking skill check and was only offered it twice through the entire campaign. Reduced scanning times was only seen once, and it was up against the + to hacking skill. You were exceptionally lucky.

Figure I'm no more than a handful of missions from the end of the campaign. Tech trees are exhausted and I appear to be at the end-stage of the story missions. Similar campaign length to EU, with a similar issue regarding an early game difficulty hump. Unlike EU, XCOM 2 doesn't trail off into a victory lap, but it definitely eases off once you get certain tools. The Mimic Beacon is game changing.

 

[DoPo]

Scouts are great...almost essential really, particularly on some missions...but Blademasters play a very important role once Chrysalids make their re-appearance. Try to have one on staff for those Chrysalid missions.

Yeah, I went with blademasters first because I thought they were more powerful. More damage and that. And then...well, pretty much all enemies can survive a sword slash now. Or even two. Or sometimes more. But anyway, the sword had an edge[footnote]heh[/footnote] very early on, however, I found that later I just equipped my rangers with assault rifles and had them mostly shoot. Occasionally going to slash an enemy, if that doesn't place them in too much danger. Having a shotgun is not as useful most of the time, since if you're close enough for a shotgun, you can also use a sword. But if you can't get close enough, you're better off shooting from afar.

Despite having an ace specialist, I never once succeeded on the + to hacking skill check and was only offered it twice through the entire campaign. Reduced scanning times was only seen once, and it was up against the + to hacking skill. You were exceptionally lucky.

I know, right? Actually the +hacking thing was on something like 17% chance. I went for it because there was no downsides to losing[footnote]I think it was a guard tower that I was hacking and on failure my squad would have been revealed...only they were already revealed, so whatever[/footnote] and the other option for hacking wasn't really worth it.

I've had an exceptionally lucky run. By all accounts, I should have been defeated but I managed to somehow avoid that. Through no skill on my part - I'm talking about situations where I couldn't have really helped. The first Codex I fought flanked my sniper and then missed. Twice.

I still think I'm going to lose but at least I'll know what to prepare for.

On a different note - I love fighting berserkers. Place the squad on a roof, put a soldier on top of each ladder/pipe and then just take potshots at it from above. Much tactics, such genius!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yeah, I went with blademasters first because I thought they were more powerful. More damage and that. And then...well, pretty much all enemies can survive a sword slash now. Or even two. Or sometimes more. But anyway, the sword had an edge very early on, however, I found that later I just equipped my rangers with assault rifles and had them mostly shoot. Occasionally going to slash an enemy, if that doesn't place them in too much danger. Having a shotgun is not as useful most of the time, since if you're close enough for a shotgun, you can also use a sword. But if you can't get close enough, you're better off shooting from afar.

They're not great, and the other tree feels strictly better, but for a couple of considerations.

1. Bladestorm is the anti-Chrysalid. The burrowing is pure concentrated bullshit, but having a Bladestorm Ranger in place (preferably with the hellfire armor or whatever it's caused) will caused any incoming 'lids to self-destruct, sparing you a lot of headaches. Time between terror missions, where they're most commonly seen, is sufficient to heal your sacrificial lamb up.

2. While shotguns are far better than swords in 90% of situations, swords aren't terrible, and if you want a fast Ranger the best combination available is a SMG toting Ranger with a + movement PCS and Wraith Armor. You can leg it across half the map in a single turn. That might sound silly, but triggering a pod and then running out of reaction range and back into cover/a well laid trap is possible. And you still have 80% of the killing power of an ordinary ranger because sword.

I've had an exceptionally lucky run. By all accounts, I should have been defeated but I managed to somehow avoid that. Through no skill on my part - I'm talking about situations where I couldn't have really helped. The first Codex I fought flanked my sniper and then missed. Twice.

I dithered around starting the plot (and almost died to Avatar project because of it), so by the time the Codex appeared I was packing magnetic weapons and improved armor and it was scary but not lethal. I pity the play through that triggers it early with ballistic weapons and a screen full of active enemies.

On a different note - I love fighting berserkers. Place the squad on a roof, put a soldier on top of each ladder/pipe and then just take potshots at it from above. Much tactics, such genius!

Nice tactic. Speaking of roofs, shooting the floor out from under baddies is FANTASTIC. Insta-kills turrets, and does significant falling damage to troops.

 

[DoPo]

On a different note - I love fighting berserkers. Place the squad on a roof, put a soldier on top of each ladder/pipe and then just take potshots at it from above. Much tactics, such genius!

Nice tactic. Speaking of roofs, shooting the floor out from under baddies is FANTASTIC. Insta-kills turrets, and does significant falling damage to troops.

Oh yeah, I agree, it's amazing. Destructible floors are just so sweet - not only for the tactical uses, but purely aesthetic, as well. I shot a rocket at the side of a building and there was a GIANT GAPING HOLE THERE. Affecting three stories. It looked like...well, it looked like somebody shot a rocket there. But, you know, it didn't look like that before.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Oh yeah, I agree, it's amazing. Destructible floors are just so sweet - not only for the tactical uses, but purely aesthetic, as well. I shot a rocket at the side of a building and there was a GIANT GAPING HOLE THERE. Affecting three stories. It looked like...well, it looked like somebody shot a rocket there. But, you know, it didn't look like that before.

Finished campaign. Got the "Untouchables" perk for finishing on Commander with no losses. Was a close thing though, my Sniper was down to a single hit point. Last battle is absolutely absurdly difficult. Won it almost by accident with a series of exceptionally lucky plays.

Best class in the game...by far...is the Magus. Psionics are ridiculously powerful. After that they're all kind of tied, although I think Specialists fall off a bit in the end game other than Sectopod wrangling, as most of the truly dangerous enemies are organics.

Roughly 35-40 hour campaign, putting it on par with EU. Handled the difficulty curve better, although I still think Lancers show up too early, and your troops lack effective tools for dealing with threats until mid-game.

 

[Don Incognito]

I dithered around starting the plot (and almost died to Avatar project because of it), so by the time the Codex appeared I was packing magnetic weapons and improved armor and it was scary but not lethal. I pity the play through that triggers it early with ballistic weapons and a screen full of active enemies.

I triggered my first one during a retaliation mission that also featured the first appearance of mutons.

It, uh, didn't go well.

 

[Zhukov]

You can research it and it allows you to attack a facility without actually having made contact there.

Wait, you don't need to make region contact if you get a blacksite location from a hacking lead?

Well, I know what my next research task is going to be!

I think you can also get that intel from hacking...

You can. I got mine from a skullmine. I've seen them as options from hacking objectives and those evil lamp post things. Usually with very low odds.

Also, I just got a bonus from hacking that said that all the scan times for the Avenger are going to be halved for a month (I think it was a month - a couple of weeks, at least). That's huge,

Got one of those on my second mission. Helped accelerate my early game nicely.

Oh, and also, I had one of my Specialists hack a bonus to her hacking ability. +30 permanent hacking...yeah.

Lucky bastard. I saw how powerful hacking could be in previews so I trained my first specialist specifically as a hacker hoping to start stacking those bonuses. So far I haven't even seen the option for one, let alone got one.

Scouts are great...almost essential really, particularly on some missions...but Blademasters play a very important role once Chrysalids make their re-appearance. Try to have one on staff for those Chrysalid missions.

Honestly I'm not entirely sold on scout rangers.

I mean, yeah, the phantom perk is nice to have. Especially on terror missions since you can scan for faceless and rescue civilians without breaking stealth.

However, if the mission gets tricky I'll need to bring my scout out of stealth for the extra firepower or utility. And if the mission isn't that hard then chances are the scout wasn't necessary anyway.

Besides, many of the options on the other side seem a lot better to me. Shadowstep will be useful every time an enemy is on overwatch while shadowstrike will be relevant for a maximum of twice per mission, and then only if you get the conceal perk while means you have to miss out on the almighty run-and-gun. Once again, conceal can be used only once while run-and-gun can be used every three turns.

Implacable is nice, but hardly amazing. The extra action can only be used for a move and nothing else, not even a reload or a hunker. It's theoretically great for popping in, killing a key target then running out to cover, but if I don't get the kill then my ranger is in trouble and if I do kill whatever I was after then I probably don't really need to get out.

Deep cover is highly situational, only useful if you don't attack and at risk of coming under fire, which should be a rare occurrence. Whereas untouchable can be triggered every turn and lets you pull off things like run-and-gunning up next to a berserker and killing her trooper buddy and baiting her into wasting her next round, like a kind of single-attack mimic beacon.

Speaking of which...

The Mimic Beacon is game changing.

Game changing?

Sir, I believe the term you are after is "overpowered as fuuuuck".

When I read the description I thought it just gave the aliens an extra target. Seemed like a waste of a utility slot. Made one and brought it along for the hell of it. Deployed it during an ugly entrenched slugfest that was threatening to make me miss my evac. Every single enemy proceeds to waste their turn shooting it, including a couple who flanked themselves to get a better shot. It's like it makes the AI treat the beacon as the only remaining target, forgetting to even account for your squad when positioning.

Now I take two on every mission.

Speaking of roofs, shooting the floor out from under baddies is FANTASTIC. Insta-kills turrets, and does significant falling damage to troops.

I didn't know you could do that.

Until an advent officer threw a grenade at three of my guys clustered on a rooftop, dropping them two stories. It hurt.

I retaliated by skulljacking him. Which unexpectedly spawned the first codex flanking my severely battered squad.

Shit got messy.

 

[SweetShark]

Ok, now the game kick my ass even in Normal....
I have a couple of questions:
- How I prevent the Dark Events taking place? I only manage stop one and I don't even know how I did it.
- How I get more power to built more facilities?
- It is important to use my days in Intel HQ?
- Was there a more easier way to kill

Spoiler

Codex? It Teleport and Cloned itself life f*cking Rabbit.

- Is it matter how I will built my facilities?

Thank you for your time.

Audacity [http://www.audacityteam.org/download/], though, to be honest, I could have used the recorder built into Windows. Still, Audacity offers some nice features, mostly, how easy it is to chop out unneeded bits from the audio, or chop up a longer soundclip into several. It also offers addition of sound effects, like speed up/down, or reverb and so on. It's free and it fulfilled my needs.

Actually, Worms did have its own tool for creating voice packs. I found it AFTER I had actually found out how to do my own voicepack. It does pretty much the same, really.

Thank yu for telling me. Maybe even XCOM 2 have a Voice tool as well. You never know.