How are people liberating regions so fast?

AegixDrakan
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 11:18 pm

Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by AegixDrakan »

Holy cow. I JUST had my first supply drop like 4 days ago, and I just whacked a VIP for LIB 3. If my memory serves, the network tower is ALREADY OPEN. 0_o

If you get lucky with a lead right away and really boogie on the essentials and commit to stealth, you really CAN get super far really fast. :o
dstar3k wrote: I've been following this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. I've done I think three or four network tower missions so far, the first of which was relatively early, and I have _never_ managed to reach the access point concealed. In fact, I've never managed to get within two dashing moves of the access point without breaking concealment.

I must be doing something wrong, but every time the enemy patrols have made it impossible to reach the access point safely.
I've had bad luck most of the time too. SUPER tight patrol routes (Bonus points if there's 3 pods patrolling an area in one big chain) or setups where you have no choice but to break stealth (One side has only glass with no doors, the other side has a pod that's trapped in a doorless building), etc.
Ithuriel
Posts: 176
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 10:18 pm

Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Ithuriel »

AegixDrakan wrote:Ok, so I just had my first game over. I lagged a lot at the start, and then a ton of problems happened, and I only liberated my first region in November. On mostly Rookie (Started in Veteran, then dropped down because I didn't like the no-flare-reinforcements)

Cue Doom Tracker filling up completely with red. And the Blacksite is 3 whole hops away from any territory I control. Coming back was impossible.

So, I know I'm supposed to free a region quickly to get the doom Tracker and Blacksite visible and to get safe guaranteed supplies ASAP, and I've seen people on Commander and above saying they freed their first region in like 3 months.

How is that even possible, though?

Doing the network tower mission in a strength 2 region in October with everyone using Mag weaponry was insanely hard, and this is after the disastrous Strength 3 laser gun raid in a nearby region in August. There's just too many enemies for 5 people to fight without Mag weapons, and the network towers are typically PACKED with mecs, heavy mecs dropping in, Sectoid commanders and muton centurions, even at 200% infiltration. (To say nothing of there being a lot of crappy map layouts that force you to break concealment early because one path needs you to break glass, and the other path has 4 guys running in circles inside a building with no doors)

And the HQ mission? I sent in 10 guys with the best magnetic weaponry supplies could buy, and while no one died, we had a few REALLY close calls because there were pods of like 8 enemies at once in some places, not to mention berserkers and 20+ HP commandos and stuff all over the damn place. How the hell do people survive this mission before getting full Mag weaponry on 10 guys?

So yeah, considering the luck factor in finding the right Lead early on, PLUS the difficulty getting your economy and research rolling at the start, plus how insanely hard Network Tower strength 3 is in August (3 heavy mecs at once), PLUS the huge army that's waiting at the HQ...How the hell does anyone liberate their regions so quickly?

Advice from fellow commanders please?
So for what it's worth, I liberated in under 3 months. I got fairly lucky with liberation missions, so was able to hit network tower/HQ fairly fast. Frankly? I ran both the network tower and HQ- my first in the game- with pure ballistic weaponry. My second network tower and HQ were ran with mag rifles, but no advanced mag weapons. In regards to the luck factor about lead- A) the corresponding mission will be "Fina a Lead" but not reward an Intel package, B) try not taking missions you don't care about as much, and B) focus all your intel gatherers in one region to increase your chances.

AegixDrakan wrote: I've had bad luck most of the time too. SUPER tight patrol routes (Bonus points if there's 3 pods patrolling an area in one big chain) or setups where you have no choice but to break stealth (One side has only glass with no doors, the other side has a pod that's trapped in a doorless building), etc.
Yeah, this is my exact experience. First Network tower there were 3 patrols cycling around a walkway I needed to get passed in a chain. Side note though- is there any time limit on the Network Tower mission before you break concealment?
Jadiel
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Jadiel »

No, in my experience there's no time limit. I've definitely crept around in stealth for around 20 turns before breaking concealment without anything happening.
Goldenmonkey
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Goldenmonkey »

dstar3k wrote:
Goldenmonkey wrote:Well, to me it sounds, the getting spotted part was the important thing. IMO you need to open up by hacking. No reinforcements and you have 2 full turns to kill them, without cover or the need to be careful.
I've been following this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. I've done I think three or four network tower missions so far, the first of which was relatively early, and I have _never_ managed to reach the access point concealed. In fact, I've never managed to get within two dashing moves of the access point without breaking concealment.

I must be doing something wrong, but every time the enemy patrols have made it impossible to reach the access point safely.
Really? How did you try? We are not tlaking about the whole squad, just a shinobi, preferably with ghost walker. Also, the shinobi only has an smg and maybe 1 flash (he never should have more imo). The rest of the squads stays back at the spawning point until you have the patrol routes and the shinobis is in place.
Access is usually easiest thorugh the roof btw.
I do not consider myself a very good player and I had 0 trouble.
Goldenmonkey
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Goldenmonkey »

AegixDrakan wrote: I've had bad luck most of the time too. SUPER tight patrol routes (Bonus points if there's 3 pods patrolling an area in one big chain) or setups where you have no choice but to break stealth (One side has only glass with no doors, the other side has a pod that's trapped in a doorless building), etc.
I never had that, maybe I am just blessed by the game..
But I never tried to get in through the doors anyway, I always got on the roof without any trouble. But, I only tried with the shinobi with ghostwalker.
AegixDrakan
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 11:18 pm

Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by AegixDrakan »

:o

April 1st, only like 2 days away from a 200% network tower. Laser weapons 1 is 10 days away. Region is still at STR 1.

...Holy cow. If you really move hardcore on the liberation missions and focus on avoiding any and all fights you don't critically need, then yeah, you CAN push liberation along really really fast.

Sheesh. I mean, I love the mod and think it's an improvement in every way, but wow you need to blitzkrieg at the start if you want to stand a chance in the late game. For a "marathon, not a sprint", you REALLY need to sprint at the start.
Jadiel
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Jadiel »

You don't need to sprint. On Legendary, you can't do any liberation missions for the first month, so it's not like you need to liberate a region in April to have a chance of winning. But yes, the reason you can't do it on Legendary is very early liberation has a big effect on how far ahead you are, and tempts players to restart until they can get an early liberation.

If you're finding that you can only get into the late game with a very early liberation, you probably need to work on your midgame play.
Elder_Basilisk
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Elder_Basilisk »

Just because you can liberate regions quickly in Long War 2 doesn't mean you have to. I started off not understanding a bunch of aspects of Long War 2 (didn't run stealth missions, didn't appreciate some of the good perks and selected some really bad ones, built a workshop first and didn't get guerilla tactics school or AWC until several months in) and ended up delaying my first liberation till August (advent strength had spiked in the region by the time I got the network tower mission so I was too nervous about running the mission). Even so, I was able to mostly recover. It's now December, I'm sitting on an almost full rollout of coil weapons, have two combat squads worth of warden armor and a bevy of master sergeants with AWC training and officers and backup officers for all six combat squads and three stealth squads. I'm infiltrating for the codex coordinates mission, researching a black site location which will probably put me up to 6-8 pips of Doom tracker breathing room and am ready to research the forge location in a few days.

I got off to a slow start but it seems like I'm in good shape to go into the end game even with the huge batch of 1.0 and 1.1 permanent dark events that Advent is sitting on.

And that's without doing the 0% supply raid thing that supposedly is the way to punch the game to easy mode. (Whenever I've tried it always ended up being an easy way to waste hours of game time and then lose a bunch of soldiers to injury and death).
cerebrawl
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by cerebrawl »

I focus a lot on intel and I do every liberation mission that comes up, no matter what...

I've got about 4 regions fully liberated by end of may/early june.

And when I get home for work I have a 0% liberation 1 waiting for me. I found it with 2 hours on the clock. It's ok though, I sent in a 10 man squad with 4 sharpshooters, with full mag weapons, warden armor and nobody under TSgt. It's my supply raid squad. :)
AegixDrakan
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by AegixDrakan »

Elder_Basilisk wrote:Just because you can liberate regions quickly in Long War 2 doesn't mean you have to.
It took me until about July last time on Veteran to even start working on liberation, and by that point, enemy troops types were ramping up REALLY fast and region strength was escalating way too quick.

My primary 12 dude haven was constantly under attack or suffering mini-retaliations, and when I tried to do the Network tower, I was up against a small army with multiple Heavy Mechs that just ruined my day. :s

And if you don't do a network tower or liberate a region, you can't start hitting the Avatar bar. I lost the game in November because by the time I actually managed to do a network Tower, the blacksite was way too far away and by the time I liberated my first region, the Avatar Bar was basically completely full.

Hence me wanting to sprint this time to get that essential need dealt with early.
dstar3k
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by dstar3k »

Goldenmonkey wrote:
dstar3k wrote:
Goldenmonkey wrote:Well, to me it sounds, the getting spotted part was the important thing. IMO you need to open up by hacking. No reinforcements and you have 2 full turns to kill them, without cover or the need to be careful.
I've been following this thread with a certain amount of bemusement. I've done I think three or four network tower missions so far, the first of which was relatively early, and I have _never_ managed to reach the access point concealed. In fact, I've never managed to get within two dashing moves of the access point without breaking concealment.

I must be doing something wrong, but every time the enemy patrols have made it impossible to reach the access point safely.
Really? How did you try? We are not tlaking about the whole squad, just a shinobi, preferably with ghost walker. Also, the shinobi only has an smg and maybe 1 flash (he never should have more imo). The rest of the squads stays back at the spawning point until you have the patrol routes and the shinobis is in place.
Access is usually easiest thorugh the roof btw.
I do not consider myself a very good player and I had 0 trouble.
Units on the roof and in the building in one case, turret over the door on one side, a pod patrolling on the other side in a pattern that makes it impossible to stealth by them with even a single person in another, I forget the rest.

Probably just horribly bad luck.
trihero
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by trihero »

Units on the roof and in the building in one case, turret over the door on one side, a pod patrolling on the other side in a pattern that makes it impossible to stealth by them with even a single person in another, I forget the rest.
I have literally never been in a network tower mission where a ghostwalker/covert shinobi couldn't get to the console room concealed. And I have probably by now played about 50 of the things on a wide variety of difficulties, with a wide variety of advent strength (I just did a level 9 strength with no issues whatsoever).

A turret over the door does not prevent you from going in while maintaining concealment. If you activate ghostwalker, you can walk right up to the door with the turret right above your head and open it without the turret seeing you. I do this ALL the time. Maybe this is the one issue that makes you think it's impossible.

Units patrolling around shouldn't present an issue, just wait for ghostwalker, be patient, watch their patrols. Ghostwalker + covert makes them only be able to detect you if you are literally within melee distance (assuming no dark event, and 200% infiltration, maybe you don't even have to be that high on infiltration but I always do to make the mission safer in terms of number of enemies anyways).

It's completely unnecessary, but having a grappling armor can speed things up or make things a little bit easier (like you can grapple over the first room if it's one of those stupid glass wall obstacles, but again, it's completely unnecessary as there's always another way around)

I don't think your problem is bad luck. The only issues I can think of are:

- you don't have ghostwalker/covert. I tried this both with and without many times because I wanted my shibobi to be a blade spec to help kill things. I eventually ran into one network tower mission where, with a blade shinobi, it was impossible to progress without ghostwalker/covert because the mob was just sitting there on one side, and there was a turret on the other. With ghostwalker/covert I could easily have gone through the tower door, but I found out the hard way it's required if you want 100% certainty of concealment success.

-you are trying during a dark event vigilance (increased enemy detection radius)

-you are trying less than 200% infiltration (probably doesn't make a big difference, but enemies have 1/6 less sight than usual at 200% compared to 100% and you might knock off one or two patrolling groups at max infiltration compared to 100%)
RealityMasque
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by RealityMasque »

I'm new to LW2. I finally got the Secure Network Tower mission, but when I click Launch Mission to get to the Squad view, the Squad view says "Need to infiltrate to at least 100% to launch". However, on the GeoScape screen, the mission doesn't have the option to infiltrate. What am I missing?
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8wayz
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by 8wayz »

You approach it as any normal missions - go to squad view, select your squad, they click on Launch. It will infiltritate for quite some time and then you will be notified that all is good.

Are you using any additional mods that tinker with the missions ?
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by stefan3iii »

There is a safer way to do network towers than stealth. Just use run and gun, Oscar mike, and command. That let's you sprint halfway across the map, and hit the button.

Super reliable. I usually go hit the button once I've killed a pod or two, or if I get into trouble.
RealityMasque
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by RealityMasque »

8wayz wrote:You approach it as any normal missions - go to squad view, select your squad, they click on Launch. It will infiltritate for quite some time and then you will be notified that all is good.

Are you using any additional mods that tinker with the missions ?

nope, no mods. well, don't I feel silly. I'd just never seen that message before in the squad view... Thx!
Zyxpsilon
Posts: 274
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 1:26 am

Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Zyxpsilon »

I'll be adding a specific article section to my LAByrinth mod about this...

qUIck preview of some principles;

Image

Stay tuned for more!
Antifringe
Posts: 226
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Antifringe »

I like those mission icons. I already use some of your UI mods, but I don't have those. Which mod uses them? Or are those not released yet?
SouthpawHare
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by SouthpawHare »

AegixDrakan wrote:Doing the network tower mission in a strength 2 region in October with everyone using Mag weaponry was insanely hard

...

And the HQ mission? I sent in 10 guys with the best magnetic weaponry supplies could buy
Keep in mind that these missions scale with time like everything else does. You seem to be waiting until you're appropriately powerful to take on these missions, but the enemy is getting more powerful too, possibly faster. If you did these missions as soon as possible, even before laser weapons, then the enemies will be proportionately weak - just some regular ADVENT troopers and maybe some vipers.
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Cogo
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by Cogo »

I drink red bull when I play. That seams to speed up things! :D

Seriously though, I think having more smaller teams, even with rookies for "easier" mission, helps with getting more done, faster.
I tend to have a solid team that I take good care of, which didnt work at all, so I started over with several teams. Much easier!
Cogo Hatemachine - The one you love to hate
----------------------------
Hero: "- If I pull that mask off, will you die?"
Me: "- It would be extremely painful...."
Hero: "- Yer a big guy"
Me: "- ..for you"
SouthpawHare
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Re: How are people liberating regions so fast?

Post by SouthpawHare »

AegixDrakan wrote:For a "marathon, not a sprint", you REALLY need to sprint at the start.
The "marathon vs sprint" analogy probably doesn't much apply to strategy games like this. In races, there's not really an inherent benefit to gaining an early lead vs gaining a lead right at the end, where as in many strategy games involving growing your power, early leads cause a snowballing effect. So if you really want to use the analogy, it's be like sprinting at the start of the race in order to be the first to get to a car that you then get to drive the rest of the race in if you get to it first.
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