UFO: Enemy Unknown, remake by Firaxis

[Polycrates]

My other 2 snipers had squad sight ability, which I don't think is worth it. The opposing choice on that rank is the better choice imho- allowing you to move and overwatch or fire in the same turn. I don't seem to get much benefit out of squad sight.

I would say that squadsight is by far the most powerful skill that any of your soldiers can take, by an absolute country mile. You barely even need to move your sniper on a lot of the maps - stick him up the back of the map somewhere with good firing lines and just let him go to town. The range penalties are minimal for the sniper rifles and snipers have the best aim anyway so you should be hitting a lot even from halfway across the map. And he's the best overwatch shot in the business, perfect for covering your whole squad. Give him archangel armour later on and it just feels like cheating.

The move-and-fire skill really just turns your sniper into a sub-par support guy, it seems to me. And -20 aim! If you really need to move, better to sprint him up one turn and shoot the next, I reckon. Or move up to a good spot and hunker down (and snipers get the light cover counts as heavy skill too). Or move and shoot with the pistol - a sniper with your best pistol is surprisingly useful in a pinch, doesn't get that -20 aim penalty(!) and if nothing else is great for finishing off wounded aliens.

I often like having two squadsight snipers even in the more confined maps, they're so useful. They usually get almost as many kills as the rest of the squad combined (especially once they get double tap!).

For the final mission I'm bringing 3 support. My support guys seem to do pretty good. I like the critical hit power of assault, but I don't like getting in close. Although I love that free shot assault guys get when an enemy closes within 4 tiles. That has bailed me out a few times. Main reason I'm bringing 3 support is last time I did it, I was running low on med pack uses. Is it possible to bring 2 med packs? I just realized I never tried that.

Pretty sure you can only have a single medpack per support guy (ie three healings). I like to have two assaults - a rifle assault with a scope who doesn't do anything too silly (most of the time) but can lay down some heavy firepower from a reasonable range with his two shots and is my primary flanker; and a shotty assault with the chitin plating for the banzai charges right to their face when something absolutely needs to be dead right now, but who also has a good pistol for kill assists from range when charging forward would be overly foolhardy.
But yeah hard to go wrong with more supports on that looooong final mission. Two snipers, two supports, one assault and one heavy worked for me on the last mission.

Also if you're frustrated with your to-hit chance on classic, have you tried taking more scopes? I always give one to at least one of my snipers (they can't really take anything else useful, except an emergency heal-the-healer medpack if I'm only taking one support), one to my heavy with his terrible aim, and one to my rifle assault with his rapid fire aim penalty. Rookies get a grenade, but squaddies get a scope. And light plasma rifles get a nice aim bonus as well - it's worth trying to capture thin men to get a bunch of these asap, I reckon.

 

[Disgustipated]

I think my squad sight is broken. I find myself never having line of sight, and constantly having to move around my sniper.

I started a new game (normal hardcore), it's fairly easy. On my 3rd sniper I gave him squad sight, but it just doesn't seem to suit my playstyle. When I needed it last mission, for some reason it wasn't available. I had a nice long street, and he couldn't seem to shoot down the entire street. Whatever. So on sniper number 4 (I change their last names to Sniper 1, Sniper 2, etc.), I gave him snap shot again.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I agree that squad sight seems more powerful. At first I was addicted to the move-and-fire promotion... But I managed to get rid of the habit. What you can do is if you need to move, switch to your pistol (it allows you to use oversight, so it's not a completely lost turn).

That being said, I agree with Disgustipated that my experience with squad sight is that it didn't trigger THAT easily. Line of sight is rather fickle in this game. When you think you have it, you don't, then next thing you know your guy shoots another dude through a wall. Even with the archangel armor I kept wanting to yell at my scream "OH COME ON YOU CAN DEFINITELY SEE THAT GUY". Still, squad sight does trigger often enough to make it much better than the other promo.

 

[Polycrates]

Huh, well I dunno, I guess that's just not my experience with it. I'm often surprised by just how many guys my snipers can actually see - although I'm pretty anal about target management, and never taking a shot until I've checked who can see what, so that I don't kill my sniper's only target with someone else or anything. And if I'm not currently in combat, I'm happy to overwatch my other guys and burn a few turns moving my snipers somewhere better.

And while the line-of-sight can be a bit finicky, with essentially unlimited range there's a very good chance that any moving alien is going to come into a clear line during their movement, and a squadsight sniper is utterly lethal on overwatch.

And if nothing else, it means fewer guys who have to share the often-limited forward cover, and so less grenades in the face.

 

[coanda]

Sniper LOS is part of my pre-turn checklist every turn. Part of what I go through is "where can my snipers see? Where can they not see?" Once I've figured that out, it tells me if I need to play it cautious this turn, just holding position with my front guys while I reposition my snipers, or if I can push forward again.

If, for some reason, I find myself in an actual firefight and my snipers can't see aliens to shoot at, I just pull the rest of my squad back until the snipers can help.

So Squad Sight is definitely a skill that makes me slow down my progress, but also makes it a heck of a lot safer.

 

[sherbz]

So my second play through on classic ironman didnt go so well. Aside from the ridiculous situation I found myself in on the supply barge (see previous screen shot earlier in thread), I lost a council mission, losing all my soldiers, and then i tried to take on a battleship. I managed to down it, but due to huge numbers of aliens inside, I got pasted.

RE the battleship though i have a few questions. Has anyone ever managed to down one before and clear all aliens? I was slightly hamstrung by the fact that I killed a cyberdisk, which then exploded, and covered the narrow pathway further in to the ship with fire. Consequently my heavy, who was wearing ghost armour, couldnt get through. Everyone else was wearing titan armour and coukld pass. But I was a bit annoyed that the fire didnt go away.

Did you mange to down it with just the 1 firestorm? I managed it with 1 which had plasma cannons as load out, but my feeling is that this was lucky. A better loadout would be EMP cannons as well as dodge and tracking buffs.

What loot do you get? Does it unlock any special types of resources?

I think its far more challenging to down and clear this type of ship than the temple ship.

 

[Pikkis]

Has someone done the second Slingshot mission on Classic without massive casualties? It seems to me that to take on that kind of enemy setup in mid-April would require perfect game that far and still carry a big chance of failure. (With Ironman option, of course.)

A non-related observation: it seems that XCOM recruits male soldiers far more often than female soldiers. Has this been addressed anywhere? Is it for realism (I would assume there are more male than female soldiers) or something else?

 

[Disgustipated]

So my second play through on classic ironman didnt go so well. Aside from the ridiculous situation I found myself in on the supply barge (see previous screen shot earlier in thread), I lost a council mission, losing all my soldiers, and then i tried to take on a battleship. I managed to down it, but due to huge numbers of aliens inside, I got pasted.

RE the battleship though i have a few questions. Has anyone ever managed to down one before and clear all aliens? I was slightly hamstrung by the fact that I killed a cyberdisk, which then exploded, and covered the narrow pathway further in to the ship with fire. Consequently my heavy, who was wearing ghost armour, couldnt get through. Everyone else was wearing titan armour and coukld pass. But I was a bit annoyed that the fire didnt go away.

Did you mange to down it with just the 1 firestorm? I managed it with 1 which had plasma cannons as load out, but my feeling is that this was lucky. A better loadout would be EMP cannons as well as dodge and tracking buffs.

What loot do you get? Does it unlock any special types of resources?

I think its far more challenging to down and clear this type of ship than the temple ship.

My firestorm was able to take one down with plasma cannons (on my last game which was classic regular). I took heavy damage though. But I figure 1 firestorm per continent is sufficient to handle any threat. I keep a couple dodge's available just in case.

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

My firestorm was able to take one down with plasma cannons (on my last game which was classic regular). I took heavy damage though. But I figure 1 firestorm per continent is sufficient to handle any threat. I keep a couple dodge's available just in case.

Sounds good to me, I've taken down a few battleships on Normal & Classic with a single firestorm with plasma, damage has varied a lot though, sometimes only light and sometimes quite heavy. Disgustipated's got the right idea maybe, use a dodge if your firestorm is taking too many hits. I never seem to have them to hand when I need them

It's worth downing a battleship and clearing it fully, just to get access to the best 'Rocket Launcher' in the game (toned down from the original game, but still very good!)

 

[Disgustipated]

yeah I miss the blaster launchers of the original game.

I have a couple bugs on the final mission.

First bug I was unable to get 2 soldiers through the final door to the final room with the uber ethereal. I looked online, and some said it might be because some mobs are still left alive. I looked all over, and couldn't get any more aliens to spawn. I was able to get one guy (my sniper) through using the archangel armor and flying over. But the other guy is stuck.

Next problem I have is the uber ehtereal is reflecting every single attack. Why is this happening? This is my 3rd game, and I never ran into these issues before. I can't win the game if he reflects every single attack. Or did a recent patch change this? Should I defeat the other mobs first? Or does the uber ehtereal keep on respawning more aliens for you to fight? I can't beat my 3rd game I guess. I only have 5 guys for this, because 1 is stuck behind the door, but I think 5 should be enough.

 

[sirtommygunn]

yeah I miss the blaster launchers of the original game.

I have a couple bugs on the final mission.

First bug I was unable to get 2 soldiers through the final door to the final room with the uber ethereal. I looked online, and some said it might be because some mobs are still left alive. I looked all over, and couldn't get any more aliens to spawn. I was able to get one guy (my sniper) through using the archangel armor and flying over. But the other guy is stuck.

Next problem I have is the uber ehtereal is reflecting every single attack. Why is this happening? This is my 3rd game, and I never ran into these issues before. I can't win the game if he reflects every single attack. Or did a recent patch change this? Should I defeat the other mobs first? Or does the uber ehtereal keep on respawning more aliens for you to fight? I can't beat my 3rd game I guess. I only have 5 guys for this, because 1 is stuck behind the door, but I think 5 should be enough.

With the reflecting attacks thing: I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a small chance of reflecting attacks. You could just be getting amazingly unlucky.

 

[Disgustipated]

yeah before it always seemed a small chance. I did manage to get 1 out of 6 shots to connect. Very poor odds.

Funny thing on a reload- no way I can play iron man with these bugs, the body of my unconcious solder fell off the side of the ship. No way I can revive him now.

And changing the difficulty seems to have no effect on this game. hmm.

edit: I finally got this battle. I ended up doing it on classic difficulty since changing the difficulty appeared to do nothing. My chance to miss and be reflected appeared unchanged when changing difficulty levels. I can't see how anyone can do this on iron man mode. First few times, I had all 3 guys mind controlled, leaving only 2 able to fight. Not good. Still funny how my guy fell off the side of the ship. So much for him.

 

[coanda]

edit: I finally got this battle. I ended up doing it on classic difficulty since changing the difficulty appeared to do nothing. My chance to miss and be reflected appeared unchanged when changing difficulty levels. I can't see how anyone can do this on iron man mode.

I've never had particular trouble with the uber ethereal, but I can see how a run of bad luck could make it far worse. However, for those circumstances... I think I heard that failing the final mission on Iron Man lets you just restart that mission.

 

[Gzz]

Well, I found that the Uber Eheral cannot reflect the attacks a SHIV.... try with it.

 

[sherbz]

I've never had particular trouble with the uber ethereal, but I can see how a run of bad luck could make it far worse. However, for those circumstances... I think I heard that failing the final mission on Iron Man lets you just restart that mission.

You know i wondered what happened if you failed the last mission on iron man. The 2 times ive been there - on normal and classic, I won with relative ease. Although on classic there was a slightly hairy moment when 1 of the sectopods critical hit my psi guy behind full cover, then fired again at the same guy, but fortunately missed .

One thing I have noticed post patch (this might have happened before but i didnt notice) is that Sectoid commanders have the ability to call on reinforcements. When you kill one or injure one, instead of when your turn ends and your troops say they are falling back, they say they are calling on reinforcements instead. To my knowledge its only sectoid commanders that do this.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

What did the laetst patch do to class probabilities ? I know I've complained about this several times, but I seem to be getting twice as many snipers as any other class now. WTH am I going to do with six snipers ? They only get wounded when I really screw up, meanwhile I constantly find myself in situations when I could reallly use an assult but all of them (both of them) are wounded. I had to abort a game because of this crap. Try raiding an abductor with only heavies and snipers and one support.

 

[sherbz]

What did the laetst patch do to class probabilities ? I know I've complained about this several times, but I seem to be getting twice as many snipers as any other class now. WTH am I going to do with six snipers ? They only get wounded when I really screw up, meanwhile I constantly find myself in situations when I could reallly use an assult but all of them (both of them) are wounded. I had to abort a game because of this crap. Try raiding an abductor with only heavies and snipers and one support.

I think it must be bad luck. In my game I have the opposite problem. I only had 1 sniper for ages, until my 22nd soldier became one. Then I had to wait until my 32nd soldier to get my next. I think they should let you choose the classes. Its annoying having it random. Maybe if they put a limit of 3 on who you could take on the missions from the same class? Seems a better way of limiting soldier types if thats what they want to do. But even that i dont think is worthwhile.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

my first impressions of xcom (got it 2 days ago): % chance to hit feels completely random. I was right next to a guy with my pistol enabled and it said 37% chance to hit. there was no half-cover or any barrier between the tiles. and again i was right next to a buy with half-cover around a corner and it said 1% chance with my shotgun. a few times i'd look to see what the % is then half-move to better LOS and see that it's less than my previous spot, like from 57% to 25% kind of difference. that kind of intuitive strategy make NO sense to me. i do realize that snipers get worse % for being closer and that shotguns get worse for bein further away but typical pistols/rifles i dont understand at all.

i also missed 3 times in a row with 91% chance to hit. i also crit'd several times on 25% shots but not 3 times in a row, haha.

 

[Maniacal]

I haven't played this, but I agree about the % chance feeling random, its one of the main things that completely ruined civ4 and its combat.

 

[GrayingGamer]

my first impressions of xcom (got it 2 days ago): % chance to hit feels completely random. I was right next to a guy with my pistol enabled and it said 37% chance to hit. there was no half-cover or any barrier between the tiles. and again i was right next to a buy with half-cover around a corner and it said 1% chance with my shotgun. a few times i'd look to see what the % is then half-move to better LOS and see that it's less than my previous spot, like from 57% to 25% kind of difference. that kind of intuitive strategy make NO sense to me. i do realize that snipers get worse % for being closer and that shotguns get worse for bein further away but typical pistols/rifles i dont understand at all.

i also missed 3 times in a row with 91% chance to hit. i also crit'd several times on 25% shots but not 3 times in a row, haha.

While I'm sure it's my own human error (failure to understand game mechanics), I really felt like there were a couple situations that were simply bugged regarding cover. My guy leaning around the corner to take the shot SHOULD have complete vision of his target, but since the target was next to a wall, and my guy was technically shooting from the next tile-layer over, he received the full coverage bonus.

Minor but irritating, since the whole game is about setting up and taking shots.