Page 1 of 1

about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 1:32 am
by VanTheMan
"Difficult" is an understatement.

I'm on force level 4, I've managed to make exactly 3 beam weapons and no armor so far, don't have a guy above SGT yet. Commander difficulty, but I made ini adjustments to slow down the UFOs increasing FL/Vig. According to the mod telling me vigilance, it's at 18 in the region where the supply raid was. I don't know if that's high or low or what yet, not enough experience using it.

The commander pod was a big mess of like 3 mutons/centurions, two berserkers, 2 advent heavy mecs, one longbow mec, a shieldbearer, and I think a trooper or two.

Meanwhile in the rest of the game I haven't fought anything larger than a snake yet.

So is the intention to put a rock hard wall between me and fighting supply raids on swarming with the biggest squad possible? In my two previous LW2 campaigns those were the only supply raids I ever did - even if I maxed intel in a region and had a squad highly spec'd for infiltration I could only rarely get a reasonable ratio of enemies to soldiers without going in full strength. I can learn to play this way, I guess, only doing supply raids and UFOs once in a blue moon.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 2:38 am
by DaviBones
For the sake of clarity: ADVENT Strength is per-region and visible, and slowly moves towards regions with high Vigilance. Vigilance is per-region and hidden (visible with the mod you are using, of course) and is caused by XCOM activity. Force Level (FL) is hidden and global; There is one value for FL between 1 and 20, and it determines the types of aliens and ADVENT that show up on missions.

I say all this because you said you were on FL 4, yet hadn't seen snakes yet, which I'm not sure is possible, so I'm assuming you meant that the region you did the mission in had an ADVENT Strength of 4.

Now, for the sake of curiosity: Seriously?? Damn, screw Muton Centurions that early... What level did you infiltrate to? If you were under-infiltrating, then it's definitely WAD, however if you were at 100% infiltration or more I wonder if something needs tweaking....

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 3:37 am
by mattprice516
What was your infiltration level? Supply raids in 1.3 are extremely dangerous to do at 0% infiltration by design.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 4:21 am
by Plockets
As Matt said, your infiltration % affects the Alert level of the Supply Raid, meaning the command pod is super super nasty at low infiltrations, and it has a +1 Force Level bonus regardless. Be glad you are facing the already slightly nerfed version, based on tester feedback. ;)

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 11:00 am
by VanTheMan
Infiltration was about 35%.

And no, the mod that shows vigilance also shows force level, so I mean force level 4. I said "anything larger than a snake" meaning I have fought snakes. I forgot that regional advent strength was relevant (because it's been a completely ignorable variable to this point), but it was also, coincidentally, at 4.

Yeah, I assumed it was a design decision. This means a large percentage of supply raids are tactically unbeatable, and there's new incentives to sprawl into new regions (to get materials from easier supply raids). Smash and grab replaces some of what's lost from doing less supply raids, maybe it's a balance change for that. In all honesty, I was doing 0% infiltration swarming supply raids left and right in my last campaign, it got repetitive, it's probably for the better.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Wed May 17, 2017 12:26 pm
by Clibanarius
Now that lower infiltration means higher effective alert/strength levels, it doesn't surprise me that there's crazy-strong boss pods when you under-infiltrate. It's a little rough encountering the first time, but it's easy enough to adapt to in the future.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 1:43 pm
by VanTheMan
Here's another point to bring about it: getting early access to tech if you beat it.

Started a new campaign since I made the original post (had some mod conflicts in the last campaign), and with some careful planning and a few good technical rockets, I brought down the command pot.

Now I'm at force level 4, have two regions, a few beam weapons, nobody above sergeant. And what else? Berserker, muton, shieldbearer, and mec corpses to autopsy. I won't be able to make most of the things I research since I don't have access to the corpses in quantity, but once I do, I'll be able to have that research complete already. I'm not sure as this will even be much of an advantage, but time will tell.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 2:00 pm
by Gilbert
I just did a supply raid, Apr 21, strength 2 region. I had a command pod that I definitely didn't expect.

Infiltration was 97%, normal alert when timer hit 0. Was moderate or light mod I think.
I boosted, got 145% infil. Went to light or very light, can't remember. There were 15 enemies on map for sure.

The command pod was a long bow mec, heavy (m2?) mec, muton, muton centurion, and shieldbearer. I'd have not been surprised if I'd under infiltrated, based on other posts I've seen. But I thought this was a bit much with 145% infil. Intended?

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 2:45 pm
by VanTheMan
Yeah, pretty sure that's the way it's designed to work, but it seems imba when even in your case of a player playing "safe" gets a mess of strong stuff. Unless you're playing with some other mods, it's really hard to get through that much armor and health in the phase of the game where everyone's still bringing frag grenades for guaranteed damage because nobody can aim yet. If you saved the grenades you can shred some of it, but there's still the problem of all the health they have, and they do so much damage.

On one hand, I want to quit whining because it's nice to have a tactical challenge in there. I'll be looking forward to it in the late game when I 0% the supply raids with an AWC-perk-dream team anyway.

On the other hand, if this is showing up at high infiltration in low strength regions, that seems pretty unpredictable. I feel like infiltration should tone it down more than that, if not just make it go away outright at low strength, since high infiltration usually means your side of the fight doesn't have anything quite so ridiculous.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 4:11 pm
by mattprice516
Gilbert wrote:I just did a supply raid, Apr 21, strength 2 region. I had a command pod that I definitely didn't expect.

Infiltration was 97%, normal alert when timer hit 0. Was moderate or light mod I think.
I boosted, got 145% infil. Went to light or very light, can't remember. There were 15 enemies on map for sure.

The command pod was a long bow mec, heavy (m2?) mec, muton, muton centurion, and shieldbearer. I'd have not been surprised if I'd under infiltrated, based on other posts I've seen. But I thought this was a bit much with 145% infil. Intended?
This sounds a bit off. I don't think you're supposed to get a command pod like that with a strength 2 supply raid at 145% infil. Do you know the strength of the neighboring regions? If it was coming from a region with very high strength that might've played into it.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 7:20 pm
by Gilbert
mattprice516 wrote: This sounds a bit off. I don't think you're supposed to get a command pod like that with a strength 2 supply raid at 145% infil. Do you know the strength of the neighboring regions? If it was coming from a region with very high strength that might've played into it.
The neighboring region was strength 5 I believe, so that could have something to do with it. I thought it was a bit odd as well, I had done 1 previous supply raid, also boosted to just over 100%, very light, and it was all "normal" enemies.

Re: about this change: "Supply raids and UFOs will have a difficult command pod on higher alert levels"

Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 11:02 pm
by Saph7
Supply raid strength is the higher of the source region and the destination region. So make sure to check the activity level before you queue one up - just because the region's strength is low doesn't mean the Supply Raid's strength will be!