Hacking

[Skyfire]

The issue is that, unless you for some reason don't want rewards, specialists are mandatory on ~all missions. In fact, with the class and mission design as is right now, I'd be pretty comfortable in stating that a team full of specialists is the most sure-fire approach to any mission, with no strategic downsides.

Emphasis on the key point

Letting specialists/shinobis have sole access to one particular thing isn't an issue in-and-of-itself; there are a lot of things that are limited to two or three classes. Want to hit enemies beyond visual range? A sharpshooter or javelin-rocket tech is 'mandatory'. Want reliable AoE enemy-control? A gunner or support-grenadier is 'mandatory'. Want highly-mobile short-range burst damage to kill high-value-targets in an emergency? Bring an assault or sword-spec shinobi. Stealth is limited to shinobis and some sharpshooters, and so on, and so on.

An AWC perk for hacking (call it Script Kiddy and give +25/30 to base hack) would be nice, to allow soldiers to get a random boost to hacking in the same way that they can get random boosts to most of the other class-specialties, and I'd like to see assaults and technicals get in on the skull-jacking thing. Both of those are a long way from a universal buff to base hacking skill, though.

There is one key difference: specialists (and shinobis to a lesser extent) are the only class with an ability to directly affect things on the strategy map with their actions on the tactical maps by recovering supplies/alloys/intel from hack objectives. If you remove the strategy-layer-resource entries from the tables of hack rewards, however, the whole question instantly disappears; none of the tactical-layer rewards are nearly special enough to make a specialist mandatory. They're nice, sure, but why obsess over a one-use Run-and-Gun when I could bring an assault and do it every three turns? Phrasing it that way shines a different light on things: it's not that the problem is 'only specialists can get advanced hack rewards' - that's just a class specialty, and we've got loads of those. The (potential) problem is that advanced hack rewards might be too good, since they are the only class specialty that has persistent effects beyond the current tactical mission.

Whether that's something that needs fixing depends on exactly how significant the extra income actually is. My guess is that the answer is 'it's not that big a deal' - it seems like farming supply raids is a much more significant source of resources, and specialists aren't exactly mandatory for that. The hack rewards are certainly useful, but foregoing them is hardly a game-breaking disadvantage - XWynns' Legendary playthrough on youtube is pretty much 'Missing Out On Hack Rewards: The Movie', and it doesn't seem to be doing him too much harm.

[ConradKurze]

And not just fire, but be the best overwatch frontliner in the game.

They can't...
Rangers are better than them. Higher aim progression, Rapid Reactions gives 3 shots over Sentinel's 2, and Grazing Fire makes them more reliable.

[DuskNite]

And not just fire, but be the best overwatch frontliner in the game.

They can't...
Rangers are better than them. Higher aim progression, Rapid Reactions gives 3 shots over Sentinel's 2, and Grazing Fire makes them more reliable.

Specialists have an aim progression of 2 per rank. Ranger gets 2 and 3 alternatively. While that isn't a major change, a typical player would usually select a unit with better hacking (and very possibly worse aim) unit as a Specialist, and a unit with better aim as an Ranger. Hence, we can assume that at most cases, Ranger aim > Specialist Aim.

Both Ranger and specialist gets Cool Under Pressure, Suppression, Ever Vigilant, Killzone. Specialists get Sentinel, while Rangers get Rapid Reaction. However, Rapid Reaction requires a hit (or graze) to do another shot. However (x2), Rangers also get Grazing Fire, while Specialists get an irrelevant ability (irrelevant to overwatches and reaction fires).

Specialists will always get 2 reaction fires.
Rangers has 50% chance to get 2 reaction fires, and 25% chance to get 3. IF THE RANGER HAS 0 AIM AT THE TARGET.

A good unit would usually have ~60-70 base aim at reaction fire, depending on weapon range.. It is possible to bump it up by 15 with a hair trigger, and bump it up by maybe 10 from NCE. This gives an average of ~90 aim, not counting the enemy's defense and dodge. Assume that the enemy has 15 defense because of perma dark events, cutting it down to 75 aim.

Sounds nice, right? But when factored with dodges, which hovers between 15-25 for most late game enemies (Since we're looking at MSGT units), and the graze band, you would actually only have like ~50% chance to hit fully, and ~30% more to graze.

This means that a Ranger has 90% chance to land a hit or graze at every enemy. Almost guaranteeing him 3 overwatch shots.
While Specialists do not get this bonus.

Also, Rangers get the option to drop kill zone for combat fitness. While specialists get the option to give himself extra 20 dodge every 3 turns in exchange with one less overwatch shot. (I assume that threat assesment does not give sentinel overwatch. I might be wrong here).

You can disagree, and you can say 'Sentinel is better than Rapid Reaction' again if you like.


Anyways, now that I got that over with, let me get on topic... Actually I wont. The rest of this topic is a person talking about a problem that never existed, while the others tried to explain the fact that the problem never existed, and then he said that he fixed the problem that never existed with a solution that never existed, because the problem never existed.

[The Boz]

Well, rewards are not mandatory, there are just a bonus. Like the Dark VIP mission - if you capture him, good on you, but nobody is forcing your hand.

You don't need a mandatory Assault to be able to KO a dark VIP...

[The Boz]

And not just fire, but be the best overwatch frontliner in the game.

They can't...
Rangers are better than them. Higher aim progression, Rapid Reactions gives 3 shots over Sentinel's 2, and Grazing Fire makes them more reliable.

Marginally higher aim progression. Rapid Reactions comes a level later, and is outright worse than Sentinel.

[8wayz]

@ The Boz

You do like quoting a single sentence out of context.

The rewards are not mandatory. An Assault on a Dark VIP mission can certainly make it easier, both for clearing out the guards and then for carrying the VIP (with all the tanky perks).

Same goes for hacking mission objectives - your chance of getting the extra reward is higher with a Specialist or Shinobi. But they are not mandatory, you can still in theory get the rewards with any soldier.

In the end it is your choice to bring Specialists with you or not.

Like I said, there is certainly a tinge of greed in your posts. There are higher value missions and rewards than the hacking ones though.

[JulianSkies]

And not just fire, but be the best overwatch frontliner in the game.

They can't...
Rangers are better than them. Higher aim progression, Rapid Reactions gives 3 shots over Sentinel's 2, and Grazing Fire makes them more reliable.

Also, Rangers get the option to drop kill zone for combat fitness. While specialists get the option to give himself extra 20 dodge every 3 turns in exchange with one less overwatch shot. (I assume that threat assesment does not give sentinel overwatch. I might be wrong here).

Actually, the passive overwatch buffs (both Sentinel versions and Rapid Reaction) all trigger with Threat Assessment

[ConradKurze]

And not just fire, but be the best overwatch frontliner in the game.

They can't...
Rangers are better than them. Higher aim progression, Rapid Reactions gives 3 shots over Sentinel's 2, and Grazing Fire makes them more reliable.

Marginally higher aim progression. Rapid Reactions comes a level later, and is outright worse than Sentinel.

You can keep saying RR is worse than Sentinel all you want, but until you provide some evidence I'm gonna go ahead and say its better.

Look at that, we've both put the same amount of evidence into our arguments! Except of course for the other poster who demonstrated mathematically that Rapid Reaction gives more shots than Sentinel on average. Oops.

[code99]

Specialists being best at overwatch ? Better than rangers? What is this nonsense im hearing?

Specialists are ok at overwatch, rangers are better. Period. If you like specialists over ranger at overwatch then thats your thing but in reality rangers are better than specialists no matter how you put it.

A boost to hacking for all classes is a needed change i feel BUT it has to be a small boost. Specialists need to remain the goto class for hacking effectiveness.


The Boz, devs will most certainly not make the changes you suggest and I think its clear a lot of ppl agree with this. If you REALLY want these changes, they are easy to do and it has been explained how to do it in this very thread so go and change them. Each to his own i guess.

[Sir_Dr_D]

No matter how you put it, even if other classes have the same hacking stat as the specialist, you will still want to use the specialist for hacking. The fact that is remote makes a big difference for the stealth missions, the advanced gremlins give hack bonuses that are not possible to other classes, and you want every opportunity for them to gain that +10 hack award.

But I boosted it on others just so that the hack stat doesn't look so ridiculous. 5 or 7 on most characters compared to 50+ on the hacker makes the stat seem out of place. And the jump from 5 to 40+ on the squaddie specialist promotion makes the starting hack seem irrelevant.

And if you think it is unrealistic that anyone can hack those mission rewards, I say that the real hacker is all of this is Lily Shen. It is her equipment that interfaces with the alien technology that does most of the work. The operative just needs to connect it and guide it a little, applying information gained from the intel and infiltration time. If you are going to be breaking into something you figure out how to break in, before you go. And these are not soldiers. They are insurgents who break into high security places all the time. They need to have a rudimentary understanding of everything involved. That includes stealth, and using Shen's devices to break into things.

And if the specialist has a 60% chance to get an award, it seems more interesting if the least hacking knowledgeable operative has a 20% rather then 2%. You still try to use the specialist , but if the specialist is unavailable, at least the hacking stat of the operative who does do it has some meaning. And some like the technical should have close to the same chance as the specialist. It adds more interesting flavour, and makes the team feel like a more cohesive unit among other things.