Tropp Column, corpse problems and spike in dificulty?

[pipelad]

Good day to all, currently playing 1.3 campaign (1.4?) and ive goten to the point that my capacity to deal with "simple" missions is getting to much to deal with. I havent been able to get any troop column or supply raid, so i have an absolute deficiency on corpses, havent been able ot make much of the equipment, managed some kind of autopsies with some rendezvous but that's about it. How do i spawn and detect troop columns? can the difficulty of detecting them be modified in the ini file?.

With out many of the equipment that derives from corpses and autopsies i've felt a huge spike in difficulty, now trying to deal with m3 troopers with tons of hp, and only mag weapons, almost no secondary stuff, less option on amo, grenades, and so forth.

Have any of you felt the same effect? any pointers?

[ThePokepika99]

Currently on October on my Commander campaign and oh boy enemies are tough now. Elite Officers have 23 HP, Great archons have 38 HP and just encountered my first Sectopod on Invasion mission with 83 HP and 5 armor. I took my entire squad of 10 people to bring it down, since only my Gunner had Bluescreen rounds. Overall the mission was brutal with only Coilguns, I really want those new Beam weapons soon.

[pipelad]

ugh, i mean yeah, that is so harsh. i like the challenge, but it seems the spike was to abrupt. guess i'll fail my current campaign and start a new one and see how that one goes.

[LordYanaek]

Good day to all, currently playing 1.3 campaign (1.4?) and ive goten to the point that my capacity to deal with "simple" missions is getting to much to deal with. I havent been able to get any troop column or supply raid, so i have an absolute deficiency on corpses, havent been able ot make much of the equipment, managed some kind of autopsies with some rendezvous but that's about it. How do i spawn and detect troop columns?

I had my first troop column and supply raid with enough time to infiltrate in June and July respectively. The trick is you need a high strength region (for Troop Column) or one where you've ran many missions (for Supply Raids) and a lot of Intel generation which means a large Haven (ideally 13 rebels) and (almost) faceless free as they really cripple your efforts. This last point can be really tricky as you depend on Rendezvous missions.
From what i've seen Troop Columns are easier to infiltrate (5 days base rather than 6) so your best bet for corpses is to keep a lot of Intel in a high str region, probably your starting region. I ran some supplies in mine when str quickly rose to 5 in order to let it cool down but it was probably a mistake as those missions are much harder to get now.
I think Supply raids need some luck. I've detected a lot of those but only one with more than 1 day to infiltrate.

can the difficulty of detecting them be modified in the ini file?.

Yes, you would have to edit XComLW_Activities.ini and increase the value of DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome for those missions :

Code: Select all

[ReinforceActivity X2LWAlienActivityTemplate]
iPriority=40
AlertLevelModifier=1
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=75.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=3.5

MissionTree[0] =    (   MissionFamilies[0]="SupplyLineRaid_LW", \\
                        Duration_Hours=144, \\
                        DurationRand_Hours=144 \\
                    )

and

Code: Select all

[TroopManeuvers X2LWAlienActivityTemplate]
iPriority=55
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=20.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=10; This is augmented by TROOP_MANEUVERS_BONUS_DETECTION_PER_DAY_PER_ALERT using alert level in region in code
MinAlert=4
MaxAlert=15
MinVigilance=3
MaxVigilance=15
MissionTree[0] =    (   MissionFamilies[0]="TroopManeuvers_LW", \\
                        Duration_Hours=216, \\
                        DurationRand_Hours=72, \\
                        BaseInfiltrationModifier_Hours=-24 \\
                    )

I would however advise trying to learn how to get good missions first and only rely on edits if it's absolutely not fun because 1.3 was a very large balance pass with a long testing phase so it's more likely that we need to adapt than the game being totally unbalanced.

With out many of the equipment that derives from corpses and autopsies i've felt a huge spike in difficulty, now trying to deal with m3 troopers with tons of hp, and only mag weapons, almost no secondary stuff, less option on amo, grenades, and so forth.

Have any of you felt the same effect? any pointers?

Not that far yet. I'll see what corpses i can get from my first HQ (in July)

[pipelad]

I would however advise trying to learn how to get good missions first and only rely on edits if it's absolutely not fun because 1.3 was a very large balance pass with a long testing phase so it's more likely that we need to adapt than the game being totally unbalanced.

Yes, i agree this is the best approach, that's why the first portion of my query was pointed in how to make it happen, because i tried, had a region with strength 5 and 6+ rebels on intel, and about 4 on supplies. but this spawned so much retaliations and data taps it was becoming unmanageable.

So i would ask further, do i need even more than 5-6 rebels on intel to detect these columns with enough time to infiltrate a decent squad?

[bilfdoffle]

I continue to put a full 13 on Intel if I'm looking for missions in a region. Add a scientist and avenger scanning for good measure.

[DerAva]

Until you get that Retaliation and then you're scanning with 7 rebels

[Alketi]

Until you get that Retaliation and then you're scanning with 7 rebels

^^ Yep. Intel retals are "easy" until you get two out of the three pods spawning on both sides of your rebels, while your overpowered landed force is four or five dashes away dealing with a single pod. I lost all four (ballistics) rebels to a MEC/Viper/Stun Lancer combo last night and my adviser escaped with 1HP.

[bilfdoffle]

If a retal wipes out most of the rebels then switch to recruit instead and move on to the next region.

[DonCrabio]

Rebels seems to be just expendables in 1.4, I will not even bother to place advisers in high strength regions in this patch.

[LordYanaek]

So i would ask further, do i need even more than 5-6 rebels on intel to detect these columns with enough time to infiltrate a decent squad?

Yes, that's why i said you need a large haven. As i also posted another important aspect is to be (almost) faceless free. If you have three of those you'll never do a good job at detecting hard to detect missions.

A global note : fear of retaliations is not an excuse to hide everyone. If a retaliation occurs and you loose rebels you'll no longer be able to gather supplies/intel for some time and will have to recruit instead to grow again but if you hide to prevent this you're actually acting like the retaliation already occurred and wiped your haven!
There is a place for hiding if you want to allow str to drop in order to get easier liberation for instance but you can't prevent retaliation completely in 1.3/1.4 except by keeping everyone hidden forever so live with them.

[gimrah]

Troop columns will only spawn in regions with strength 4 or higher.

Supply raids can I think always be detected but it's a low chance and you probably need a lot of rebels on intel. You shouldn't count on getting them. Regular supply comes from smash and grabs now, which are common. Corpses are harder to come by but you don't strictly need a lot of corpses, especially early on.

You also need to pay attention to the strength of the region you're operating in. Rnfs come faster in high strength regions for example. And they are more likely to have more enemies (e.g. be very light vs extremely light). Some mission types may get harder than others.

However, high vigilance / strength regions are also more likely to spawn missions to prevent dark events. Those are usually well worth doing and can normally be detected with very long timers so you can overinfiltrate if necessary.

[LordYanaek]

Short update as i just finished my first (July) HQ raid and got this :

-Screenshot-26-05-17-001.jpg (93.05 KiB) Viewed 20455 times

HQs will probably be very important for reliable corpse acquisition now. I think i was "lucky" not having access to a fast liberation chain (my starting region got too much str before i could liberate it and i had to skip a lot of lib2/3 in other regions due to short infiltration) so i got a very nice mix of corpses. However i think trying hard to pursue other liberation is important now even if you liberate one region very fast. It's not 1.2 where you would liberate one region and then stop bothering to rush the storyline and i think it's a welcome change.

[Dwarfling]

So far I had to work around the corpse distribution. I haven't gotten as many Troop Columns as I want, in part because of I'm controlling Strenght by hiding and also because they're harder to detect.

- I got only one holo-sharpshooter and I don't even use her.
- My shinobis are mostly flank shooters (SMG).

Haven't had any problems with Officer and Sectoid corpses, mostly because Rendesvouz give Officer corpses, and Sectoid corpses don't have many uses so you keep them stored.

What I noticed tho is that since SnG missions are fairly common, I got enough Alloys and Elerium when entering the late game to build coil weapon tech and Combat armors to most of my barracks, the limiting factor being mostly the Supplies.

[pipelad]

thanks for all the pointers, will take them in to account. I get that if you don't find corpses you need to try and figure a way to deal with stuff, still, many of the secondary stuff that comes from corpses help you keep the pace with the increase on enemy power.