Haven advisors

[Tuskau]

I'm having a hard time deciding who I should set as an advisors for the different. Do we have any information how much an affect the 3 types have on the haven? (soldiers, engineers and scientists)

I'm mainly curious about soldiers. Does their rank and/or class have an effect to the point where you should train certain classes for the role to maximize the effect?

[JLtheking]

As far as I know class doesn't matter. Only rank does.

A soldier liaison provides a flat bonus to Recruit. This is so havens with zero rebels still can be saved with enough time. After that, each soldier rank provides a multiplier. Officer ranks too, I think. Bonus helps with recruiting and detecting sneaky sneaky spies

Scientist and Engineer liaisons provide 1.2x multiplier to all intel and supply gathering operations.

[Tuskau]

Ah, thanks for the reply. So soldiers will usually be the clear winner unless you're swimming in scientists/engineers (hah unlikely)?

[JLtheking]

It's probably good to station soldiers in your havens until they are fully liberated / have the max-ed out 13 rebels / absolutely sure there are zero infiltrators left in your haven. Perhaps even all of them! That's what I do, anyways.

[GavinRuneblade]

Remember that your haven troops are all rookies with assault rifles. So pick an advisor who helps in battle vs faceless and advent.

I like to drop my slowest troops as advisers because the missions are not timed. Also I can load up on utilities.

[trihero]

Easy simple rule of thumb is officer soldier advisers are always the winner, because of retaliation and also you can't easily be sure if you get rid of all faceless. Also the recruiting is very helpful so you can spend the other rebels on intel (or supplies if region liberated). As the game gets to the later stages retaliation happens a lot so station high ranking soldiers in any regions that have high advent strength OR are adjacent to a region with high advent strength (I just had advent retaliate in October against my home region which was liberated back in April or May; it was adjacent to a region with advent strength 7. Glad I never put an engineer there!)

[Arcalane]

Remember that your haven troops are all rookies with assault rifles. So pick an advisor who helps in battle vs faceless and advent.

Or SMGs, or shotguns.

But yes.

I'm liking grenadiers as advisors, myself. They can wreck cover and deploy flashbangs and such, on top of officer abilities, to help even the odds in favour of your squishy haven forces.

[trihero]

I like assaults or technical advisers. Technical rocket is amazing for wasting one of the pods from concealment, and then you can torch the faceless. Assaults are good at flanking since you usually with only one "real" xcom soldier in these faceless missions, your ways of getting past high cover are limited (and hence why I would steer away from sharpshooters, gunners, and specialists). I can see grenadier working with cover destruction, shinbois should be ok as well.

Remember to update your soldier advisers weapons from time to time particularly in frontline zones (and zones adjacent to frontline). Stiletto rounds are pretty helpful too since the vast majority of the mobs in these missions are organic (exception being drones, which aren't TOO bad since they seem to stay at tier 1 and your rookies have nades to shred armor if necessary).

[dodger]

I read somewhere here that psi operative advisors also grant additional bonuses as advisors, though I'm not sure that even if that's the case you'd want to devote them to this duty. It would make sense that they could detect faceless and possibly recruit better too.

[Valaska]

Remember that your haven troops are all rookies with assault rifles. So pick an advisor who helps in battle vs faceless and advent.

Or SMGs, or shotguns.

But yes.

I'm liking grenadiers as advisors, myself. They can wreck cover and deploy flashbangs and such, on top of officer abilities, to help even the odds in favour of your squishy haven forces.

Ranger's are pretty amazing as advisors, two shots against advent tier troops, two shots against faceless, and then the double barrels can take care of most issues.

[LordYanaek]

I like assaults or technical advisers. Technical rocket is amazing for wasting one of the pods from concealment, and then you can torch the faceless.

But this would prevent you from recovering a large part of the loot and corpses no?
With most missions now being "extraction" type with no body recovery, those faceless missions are a nice source of bodies.

[fowlJ]

I like assaults or technical advisers. Technical rocket is amazing for wasting one of the pods from concealment, and then you can torch the faceless.

But this would prevent you from recovering a large part of the loot and corpses no?
With most missions now being "extraction" type with no body recovery, those faceless missions are a nice source of bodies.

The flamethrower doesn't actually deal enough damage to directly kill the faceless, though, and burning to death doesn't destroy loot. Being on fire also prevents regular enemies from taking any actions, not sure if that applies to melee only enemies, though.

The other corpses have enough other sources for me to think destroying them is worth saving haven personnel.

[trihero]

The other corpses have enough other sources for me to think destroying them is worth saving haven personnel.

Exactly. When you get a group of 4 rebels and half have shotguns, 1 has an smg, you might not be able to overwatch the first pod reliably to death, hence you risk injuries/death on the counterattack. The technical makes the mission very safe even if you have to rocket some advent troops to death. Flaming/rocketing 2-3 faceless is also pretty huge unmatched dps for low ranking troops. Safety first! : )

[LordYanaek]

The flamethrower doesn't actually deal enough damage to directly kill the faceless, though, and burning to death doesn't destroy loot.

Right, i forgot the DoT effect. Is it a guaranteed fire or some chance to catch fire btw? I rarely managed to actually use the flamethrower on those mission i used the tech, i hope the upcoming changes will make it better as currently even a smal 1 tile low cover totally blocks the flames

Being on fire also prevents regular enemies from taking any actions, not sure if that applies to melee only enemies, though.

Worked this way in vanilla because melee attack was a special action and not a simple fire effect thought they might have changed it.

The other corpses have enough other sources for me to think destroying them is worth saving haven personnel.

Well, i'm still early in the game, but so far the only corpses i got for any sort of enemy were from gatecrasher and those faceless missions. I replaced the tech advisor i had in my first haven because of this.

[NephilimNexus]

It's probably good to station soldiers in your havens until they are fully liberated / have the max-ed out 13 rebels / absolutely sure there are zero infiltrators left in your haven. Perhaps even all of them! That's what I do, anyways.

I've seen 16 in one haven before.

[trihero]

13 is the maximum working rebels, you can have more than that total if the extras are in hiding