Pavonis Interactive Forums

For these missions, I tend to bring a Specialist with Guardian I hadn't considered the overwatch specialist at all. Yes, that would be a valuable asset in a raid, I guess. Less of a bag of tricks, more of a slightly less-shooty ranger who can hack if needed. Do you bring a dedicated medic with Revi...

Specialist: Disqualified since you want them using double abilities as much as possible. Shinobi: Stealth focused shinobi is probably the best option. You can position yourself just ahead of your battle line where you aren't seen and just spam commands as enemies come in. I don't agree that the Spe...

The topic / title is misleading. LW3 would be a mod for XCOM 3, which is still a twinkle in Jake Solomon's eye.
You mean patch 1.2 or 1.3.

Wondering what Gunnery Seargent ability to pick for a hacker officer. My choices so far are: Combat Protocol - Revival Protocol - Air Drop - Failsafe - Trojan. In vanilla, Threat Assessment used to be the auto-pick super-ability for me, but since a lot of you favor Scanning Protocol, I wonder if the...

Shinobis are good choices for officers because the officer abilities do not break stealth. You almost always want a shinobi anyways, and it gives them something quite useful to do during concealment. Since you always want a shinobi, and you always want an officer, why not shinobi officer? That is a...

Does Incoming! make a difference, etc. I found Incoming very helpful, especially early on. Several times, I pulled a Mech I couldn't take out in my turn, so I activated Incoming. As expected, it fired its mortar/rockets/whatever at my guys. The damage was minimal to nonexistant. Once, a single sold...

You mean like in vanilla, where every soldier would get access to the new level of weaponry and armor? As far as I know, the answer is no. The proving ground projects only create a prototype which you can then mass produce cheaper in engineering. You still have to build every item individually, thou...

I don't think it is a bug, it clearly says reduces evac time placed by flares. You don't place flares on retal missions. Well, at least on the officer school screen it says "The Skyranger will arrive 2 turns sooner during evacuations". I narrowly interpreted that as only applying to that ...

Reddit tells tales of Fall Back soldiers moving forward leaving himself flanked and triggering new pods. I can imagine, I had one or two "Where the hell are you going?!?" scares myself, luckily without devastating consequences so far. However, I would still argue in favor of Fall Back!, s...

I was not able to get air controller to work on retaliation missions (the evac timer was not affected for me); apparently you have success with this, how did you do it? I didn't - just theorizing a bit. I never got around to building that dedicated retaliation expert, because I had to start a third...

Maybe this is obvious, has already been covered and I'm just a lousy forum searcher, but here it goes. 1) Oscar Mike vs Focus Fire . Seems to be a no-brainer. Focus Fire for every officer except Shinobi mini-striketeam leaders who may need to induce some extra speed into a comrade to make it to the ...

I experienced the same bug. Took control of a drone, it got fired at and was left with two health and one armor. When the hack ended, it lost its turn, but didn't receive any damage. Playing on ironman, though, so I have no savefile to offer.

Thanks, that explains it. One followup question: When you say "Retreating away from the Gunner (or the alien who is suppressing you) will negate the Suppression", I assume you mean being at the very edge of the gunners firing range when area suppression is placed and stepping into a square...

Just beginning to see the incredible usefulness of Area Suppression. I'm not sure about one aspect, though. Do you suppress a specific area istelf (if so: will enemies who enter a suppressed zone during their turn become subject to suppression?) or just the indicated people who are in said area at t...

Thanks, a very helpful, comprehensive and sensible answer as usual.

I always seem to have several Advent datapads lying around. Since there is never a lack of stuff to research, I rarely get around to decrypting one of them. They sell well on the black market, though - is it reasonable to do so or will there come a time when every drop of intel is of supreme importa...

What exactly are intel packages, btw? Are they actual items like an Advent datapad that must be researched? If so, do you have to find them on a body or do you get them as an automatic mission reward? And are they a possible piece of loot on any mission or just those mentioning an intel package? (I ...

I just did the first supply raid. I had 2,5 days to infiltrate (baseline light-moderate) and decided to only take 8 and not 10 people so that I'd get at least a little infiltration going on. I ended up with roughly 25% and played a swarming mission, which was a lot of fun, but cost me one soldier. W...

Eh, I fundamentally disagree with the premise. The standard rocket is not just nice, it's a lifesaver and the first two perks (accuracy, crits) make it reliable. To me it's the other way around - the flamethrowers are nice, but it's weird to spec a soldier into a skill that is essentially only used...

I'm not sure how to make the most of the Technical class. Sure, the standard rocket is nice, but as has been said before, it seems weird to spec a soldier for a skill only usable once (granted, twice with special armor and thrice at the very end of his career - but still!). I find the flamer-side mo...

Whom do you have to use skullmining on to find Advent facilities? Officers only or will any kind of enemy do? Do you have to use it in region where a facility is located or can it be anywhere?

I find it rather pointless to discuss builds if people are going to do it in a vacuum. Aliens immune to overwatch, most often the naughty snakes. Indeed, which is why they are dealt with before the end of the turn. I tend to set them on fire, crispy critters don't bother me for at least two turns. ...

Now I'm curious how your main squad is made up. If the Ranger wasn't worth their salt, that would be a shame. I like the Ranger. The idea of the classic G.I. with their trusty assault rifle shooting a burst here, shooting a burst there somehow appeals to my sense of aethetics. The question is: would...

I was just thinking about a weird way of pulling off assassination missions with this technique. You use two shinobis (one with medkit) and a sniper. You take the shot with the sniper, which ends their move. Then you sedate them with the first shinobi (who afterwards reconceals), pick them up with t...

That's a shame, actually. It would be a nice way of keeping you on your toes, having to avoid certain regions you would like to scan or start a mission in, or preventing you from leaving a region until the UFO passes over. I find the Avenger assault a bit too brutal to be completely up to a single r...