0% Supply Raids are... really hard

[SouthpawHare]

From all the talk I've heard from people about how they break the game if you do too many of them, it's filled my head with images of people just casually doing them as some sort of cheaty auto-success.

I gotta say, though, that in my experience, they are unbelievably difficult. Not even like regular difficult, where I could maybe win but I'd have to think carefully (this is the norm for LW2 during regular missions, in my experience). Rather, they seem like they're all but completely out of the realm of possibility.

I just tried one last night, about midway through the campaign, using my best team. I was playing Ironman Veteran, but this was the first thing that made be crack and use the console to Bronzeman it, restarting several times. It was impossible to not activate less than 15 enemies by the end of the first enemy turn, and we're talking the toughest, most high-tech units of the day. There was no real way to "take it slow" and pace ourselves, the enemies are just too numerous, too alert, and too powerful. Eventually I had to just cheat my way back out of the mission entirely.

I have trouble seeing how something this risky can be gamebreaking. I don't think I'd ever be willing to even attempt one again, knowing that it's probably better than 50% odds to just be throwing away my entire campaign in a single stroke.

[JoINrbs]

Here's one I beat with seven soldiers on Legend/Ironman: http://imgur.com/a/wjL7M

They're a tricky thing to balance because if someone can beat them they trivialize other parts of the game.

[josna238]

I agree, to me overcrowded missions are pure hell. I don't think I am the best player in the world neither the worst, but I can't figure how the hell people are consistently winning these.

And worse, it seem that they talk like if these missions were a piece of cake and had to be hardened in order to balance!

[LeaderEnemyBoss]

0% Supply Raids take some practice. What you describe is actually somewhat normal and not as bad as you might think it is, if you play it correctly. In my experience you definitely need the following:

• A good position, ideally one where you can funnel lots of enemies through a small space. Highground is a nice bonus. Alternative: a wide open area were almost all available cover got destroyed ("No Mans' Land").
• Good crowd control. Usually I take at least two gunners on supply raids. You will activate multiple pods (as you noticed) and your job is to neuter all active enemies until they are dead. A Rifle-Assault with Arc-Thrower skills can also be nice. Bring Flashbangs (and maybe some smokes)!
• Strong Aoe Damage ...ideally with many charges (or no charges at all). Gunners, Grenadiers, PsiOperatives mainly can fill this role. Serial-Snipers are also very (!) useful.
• Some form of healing, be it Stasis Suits, a healing specialist or many medikits
• A scout that keeps an eye on incoming pods so you dont activate them prematurely while moving around. A High Level Shinobi can also be very useful as a flanking damage dealer if it is necessary (and reconceal after the fight).

In my experience 0% Raids do get harder as the game goes on, so you probably should practice in a new campaign .

[zula]

In my experience 0% Raids do get harder as the game goes on, so you probably should practice in a new campaign .

They get a lot harder.

At this point I have several Advent Elites, Muton Centurions, Andromedon, Sectopod and Sectoid Commanders in there. Each one at least about 20 HP. I have Coilguns but this is about to get nuts.

My team:
2 Snipers
1 Specialist (Healer)
3 Ranger
2 Technical
1 Grenadier
1 Gunner

[stefan3iii]

0% supply raids, like all timer-less missions, is about picking a good place to fight, and bringing a shitload of damage to clear pods quickly.

10 soldiers can clear or control a 16 enemy pull if they're specced right. For example:
2 sting grenadiers
4 gunners
2 DFA sharp shooters with stocks.
2 assaults or shinobis

Even better if some are equipped with exo suits. This squad will just melt aliens like butter, and the sting grenadiers can help out if you pull too much stuff.

Usually it's best to fight in the corner of a map, to reduce the number of directions you can be flanked from. Finding high ground for your sharpshooters is also very valuable, assuming you've specced DFA.

[chrisb]

There's also a few things that makes the AI go a little squirrelly when there are so many of them. The big one being they sometimes can't find any cover, and flanks are easy to find. The only time I had trouble with pulling 20+ is either being pinned in a corner with no room to maneuver or if they hid behind LOS so I couldn't shoot/control them.

I've never lost a soldier to one, worst hit I took was an 8HP gunner being dropped to 3, and that was from a silly step-out mistake that activated a squadsight turret with elevation bonus after being grazed for all the ablative.

The squad comp is really important. You need lots of control and volume of fire. One of my squad comps for them was 3 Gunners, 3 Infantry, 3 Snipers and 1 Support grenadier full of flash. One sniper was an officer holobot.

The big thing to keep in mind, is that once the fighting starts, it doesn't stop and most of my raids were over in about 5-6 turns after going loud. This is because of yellow alert when pods would see the dead corpses. It would always take them 2-3 turns to get into LOS. By then I had finished the first 2 pods off, reloaded and overwatched. After that it was just the same for every pod. Just wait for them to rush you on their silly yellow alert suicide run. The first pull is the hard part, after that is a killing field.

Should also mention most of my experience with supply raids is march -> may. They are stupid easy at this point in the game. Nothing like a 48/48 flawless 0% in mid april!

[aedn]

From all the talk I've heard from people about how they break the game if you do too many of them, it's filled my head with images of people just casually doing them as some sort of cheaty auto-success.

I gotta say, though, that in my experience, they are unbelievably difficult. Not even like regular difficult, where I could maybe win but I'd have to think carefully (this is the norm for LW2 during regular missions, in my experience). Rather, they seem like they're all but completely out of the realm of possibility.

I just tried one last night, about midway through the campaign, using my best team. I was playing Ironman Veteran, but this was the first thing that made be crack and use the console to Bronzeman it, restarting several times. It was impossible to not activate less than 15 enemies by the end of the first enemy turn, and we're talking the toughest, most high-tech units of the day. There was no real way to "take it slow" and pace ourselves, the enemies are just too numerous, too alert, and too powerful. Eventually I had to just cheat my way back out of the mission entirely.

I have trouble seeing how something this risky can be gamebreaking. I don't think I'd ever be willing to even attempt one again, knowing that it's probably better than 50% odds to just be throwing away my entire campaign in a single stroke.

Just like any mission, you need experience with them, and to build a proper squad to handle them. As you do more and more of them, you become used to the 0% spotting range, how to move around the map, how to create good initial ambushes, and how to complete them with relative ease. My first time i did one i ended up getting swarmed and lost 4 solders, while completing the mission. by the 8th time, i was doing them flawlessly with a squad that was built to deal with the large numbers.

Saying your taking an A- team is really meaningless, as no one knows what your squad setup is. If your A-Team is just high level soldiers, then that is not really an A-team for these types of missions. As an example, taking 1 of each class type, is one of the worst squads for a swarming mission, you lack the reliable damage output, mass suppression, and control needed to deal with multiple groups of enemies at the same time. As noted by others, if you build a squad to deal with the mission, you can easily do them, which leads to being able to do multiples of the same mission, and break any economic balance the game has. When i stopped doing them in my Legend campaign, my core group was 2 snipers, 2 gunners, and 2 rangers. I found anything beyond that was largely pointless, the other 4 slots spent most of the time just throwing smoke, flashbangs, or using rockets as an ambush opener. By doing 14 0% supply raids from April - late June/July 1, i ended up with 1 death due to being lazy, and enough weapons/armor to outfit 30 soldiers, with another 2000 supply worth of resources in my inventory.