Tower missions: any tips?

[juplaa]

My first one was quite disastrous as I barely made it out, and pretty much everyone in ended up in the med-bay. I forgot what the map layout on towers was like. I destroyed the cover to cross the bridge, had low mobility and the reinforcements had me pincered. Good thing I always bring a good amount of flashes!

I was thinking high squad mobility, lot's of AOE's and flash-bangs to plow though the enemies.

Anyone know some good strategies/ squad compositions/ ... ?

[mattprice516]

Those missions are indeed quite hard.

Protip: hacking the objective stuns every enemy on the map for 2 full turns.

[Arcalane]

The team I used for my first tower op;

Ranger Officer - Standard shooter build. I used him to pin enemies, take tough shots, and generally kill things/use officer support powers.

Sharpshooter - Fast-holotarget shooter. She stuck at the far back of the map for pretty much the entire op, picking off HVTs and the like.

Specialist - For healing, status clears, and hacking synthetics. Nothing fancy here.

Shinobi - I had originally intended to use my Shinobi to sneak all the way to the objective, but I had to call her back to provide flank support one the second reinforcement pod arrived. I expected the hack to result in some kind of final wave situation, so I didn't want to fire it off too early.

SPARK - Pugilist custom class. One flaw of SPARK primaries is their frequent need to reload, so having a strong melee focus was good here. SPARKs are tough and also surprisingly evasive for their size. The Pugilist eschews gunplay for punching, so he was reliably taking down at least one enemy per turn which was (as you can imagine) pretty handy.

Under the circumstances things went pretty well, although reinforcements were definitely unpleasant surprises.

[aiedail]

I did it fairly early (May), and I got extremely lucky with a couple of the shots, but I used two Rangers, two Technicals, and one Assault. The Rangers had Laser Rifles and the Techs had Laser SMGs. It was Light readiness at Veteran difficulty.

The main strategy was to sneak past the first patrol, get close to the Command room, activate the second and third patrol with a Flamethrower, possibly killing/disabling at least half of them, and deal with the rest with Flamethrowers, Rockets, and Ranger shots.

I did manage to sneak past the first patrol of four ADVENT, and hit the three Viper pod with a Flamethrower, which killed one outright and left the other two burning to their inevitable deaths. The MEC + 2 ADVENT pod was activated at the same time, and I took out the MEC with two Ranger shots, a Scout with a Rocket, and the Gunner with the other Ranger.

The next turn the pod of two Sectoids, a Trooper, and a Muton inside the Command Room activated - I blew up the cover of the Muton and a Sectoid with the other rocket, and shot them to death with a Ranger. The other Ranger killed the Trooper. The Assault ran as close to the Command Room as he could to get ready to hack. The other Tech Flashbanged the first ADVENT pod that unfortunately activated on that turn as well - it would have been much safer if they had gone further away.

Then the Assault used Run&Gun to get within a blue move of the objective and flashbanged the Sectoid. The others went back to deal with the Disoriented ADVENT, killing two of them.

Then the Assault made the hack, and with three stunned enemies left on the map, it was basically over.

I think the Reinforcements start coming a certain number of turns after you lose Concealment, so I think the most important thing here is to only break Concealment when you're fairly certain you can hack and kill the remaining enemies soon-ish, so as to avoid Reinforcements altogether.

[Valaska]

I like to hole up in one of the buildings, and clear the first pod, then slowly advance or bait the next pod into me. I also use the ambush mod, so usually I get a free kill, alien activity happens they scatter and my overwatch happens on their turn, or I manage to actually kill them and hide for another turn lol.

A sharpshooter would do really good on these maps, there's a lot of full cover on the roofs. Rangers are amazing, Shinobi had a lot of cover to stay in after stabbing, and have a CRAP TON of flashbangs, especially for the archons. Archons suck and ruin all your cover.

My medic had to revive my hacker specialist three times in a row, specialist had medkits too so she healed herself each time lol. She got gravely wounded for 30 days even with a scientist in the AWC... I wish I had a grenadier or gunner but both of them are stuck in infiltrating atm for me, but my ranger was absolutely invaluable, the technical I had... I dunno I don't really like the class yet. But my set up was (not optimal as a huge portion of my troops are stuck in infiltrating)

1 Shinobi (Officer)
1 Ranger (Shooty Shooty with Magnetic Rifle)
2 Specialists (1 Medic(Mag) 1 Hacker(Las))
1 Technical (Meh, could do with a ranger or a gunner instead)

This set up got me through pretty decently. Having two haywires were invaluable to shutting down those effing hunter drones and then mec's. Lots of flashbangs.

[Arcalane]

One thing I found handy, incidentally, is the skeleton suit's grapple can do horizontal movement, not just upward. This allows you to zip across the building rooftops with ease -- and the suit itself gives +1 mobility. It doesn't work for the 'ground' level you start at, as far as I'm aware, though any raised area is fair game.

Those suits are really just fantastic. Any kind of movement as a free action is basically too good to pass up. That goes for Implacable, too -- any trooper with Implacable, a melee weapon, and a grappling hook can potentially do up to 4x move and still attack. Those reliant on ranged weapons can still do 3x move and attack, it's nuts.

I also had one of my SpecOps troopers use it to great effect in the Blacksite Op, grappling his way up and out of the final building to Fleche strike an ADVENT Officer that was trying to cut my team off from the exfil point.

[juplaa]

Those missions are indeed quite hard.

Protip: hacking the objective stuns every enemy on the map for 2 full turns.

This is indeed good to keep in mind.

The team I used for my first tower op;

Ranger Officer - Standard shooter build. I used him to pin enemies, take tough shots, and generally kill things/use officer support powers.

Sharpshooter - Fast-holotarget shooter. She stuck at the far back of the map for pretty much the entire op, picking off HVTs and the like.

Specialist - For healing, status clears, and hacking synthetics. Nothing fancy here.

Shinobi - I had originally intended to use my Shinobi to sneak all the way to the objective, but I had to call her back to provide flank support one the second reinforcement pod arrived. I expected the hack to result in some kind of final wave situation, so I didn't want to fire it off too early.

SPARK - Pugilist custom class. One flaw of SPARK primaries is their frequent need to reload, so having a strong melee focus was good here. SPARKs are tough and also surprisingly evasive for their size. The Pugilist eschews gunplay for punching, so he was reliably taking down at least one enemy per turn which was (as you can imagine) pretty handy.

Under the circumstances things went pretty well, although reinforcements were definitely unpleasant surprises.

Most unpleasant, especially when they spawn on you flank. This is similar to what i had actually, safe for the SPARK. That should make a big difference.

One thing I found handy, incidentally, is the skeleton suit's grapple can do horizontal movement, not just upward. This allows you to zip across the building rooftops with ease -- and the suit itself gives +1 mobility. It doesn't work for the 'ground' level you start at, as far as I'm aware, though any raised area is fair game.

Do you recall what research is required? That does sound very handy

I did it fairly early (May), and I got extremely lucky with a couple of the shots, but I used two Rangers, two Technicals, and one Assault. The Rangers had Laser Rifles and the Techs had Laser SMGs. It was Light readiness at Veteran difficulty.

The main strategy was to sneak past the first patrol, get close to the Command room, activate the second and third patrol with a Flamethrower, possibly killing/disabling at least half of them, and deal with the rest with Flamethrowers, Rockets, and Ranger shots.
...
I think the Reinforcements start coming a certain number of turns after you lose Concealment, so I think the most important thing here is to only break Concealment when you're fairly certain you can hack and kill the remaining enemies soon-ish, so as to avoid Reinforcements altogether.

Yeah I wasn't able to sneak past the first one, they had my technician trapped and didn't show any inclination of moving.

I like to hole up in one of the buildings, and clear the first pod, then slowly advance or bait the next pod into me. I also use the ambush mod, so usually I get a free kill, alien activity happens they scatter and my overwatch happens on their turn, or I manage to actually kill them and hide for another turn lol.

A sharpshooter would do really good on these maps, there's a lot of full cover on the roofs. Rangers are amazing, Shinobi had a lot of cover to stay in after stabbing, and have a CRAP TON of flashbangs, especially for the archons. Archons suck and ruin all your cover.

My medic had to revive my hacker specialist three times in a row, specialist had medkits too so she healed herself each time lol. She got gravely wounded for 30 days even with a scientist in the AWC... I wish I had a grenadier or gunner but both of them are stuck in infiltrating atm for me, but my ranger was absolutely invaluable, the technical I had... I dunno I don't really like the class yet. But my set up was (not optimal as a huge portion of my troops are stuck in infiltrating)

1 Shinobi (Officer)
1 Ranger (Shooty Shooty with Magnetic Rifle)
2 Specialists (1 Medic(Mag) 1 Hacker(Las))
1 Technical (Meh, could do with a ranger or a gunner instead)

This set up got me through pretty decently. Having two haywires were invaluable to shutting down those effing hunter drones and then mec's. Lots of flashbangs.

I suppose I was unlucky with the reinforcement spawn then. Because I dealt with the first pod fairly easy. Problem was I activated aliens across a long narrow bridge the next turn. Then the reinforcement came right behind me, activating on arrival.

I was definitly bringing at least 1 specialist for for Haywire. I can see why 2 could be powerful. You can let the first try to take control, and the secand as baclk-.up to stun if you fail.. A hacked Mech should draw fire away from ym soldiers and allow me to move up.

[Arcalane]

One thing I found handy, incidentally, is the skeleton suit's grapple can do horizontal movement, not just upward. This allows you to zip across the building rooftops with ease -- and the suit itself gives +1 mobility. It doesn't work for the 'ground' level you start at, as far as I'm aware, though any raised area is fair game.

Do you recall what research is required? That does sound very handy

I believe it is something like Mobility Armour, and it's unlocked after you've researched the Predator Armour. Not very hard to get ahold of, and fairly inexpensive to build too.

[MacroNova]

A Let's Play I was watching led me to believe that Enemy Reinforcements start dropping a set number of turns after the mission starts whether you break concealment or not. Anyone know if that's true?

The strategy appears to be trying to get to the objective as fast as possible to stun the enemies and cut off reinforcements. Then find a good spot to camp and mop up the survivors.

[gormack82]

I only did one tower mission so far and it was pretty easy. I managed to sneak all the way to the objective (hacking the turret in front of the building didnt break concealment for me) and hack it. Like others said it stuns the aliens for 2 turns. I took out the stunned pod on the roof and took position on that roof while I picked off the aliens as they approached the building. I never saw reinforcements, after the hack my objective was to neutralize all remaining enemies.

So I guess go sneakysneaky and bring a good specialist for hax.

[Jadiel]

A Let's Play I was watching led me to believe that Enemy Reinforcements start dropping a set number of turns after the mission starts whether you break concealment or not. Anyone know if that's true?

The strategy appears to be trying to get to the objective as fast as possible to stun the enemies and cut off reinforcements. Then find a good spot to camp and mop up the survivors.

I'm almost certain this is false. I stayed in concealment for a long time trying to sneak as close to the objective as possible (about 12-15 turns?) and never saw any reinforcements.

[Arcalane]

I only saw two pods of reinforcements on Rookie (which was, admittedly, two more than I expected...) but def. not infinite reinforcements.

They also did not start appearing until after I broke concealment.

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

I used a shinobi, 2 gunners with the +1 tile suppression upgrade, and 2 specialists

Gunners suppressed and destroyed cover, specialists overwatched, aided, etc, and shinobi stabbed the aliens in the face many many times on the way to the terminal.

Doubt that'd work where I am now though considering most of the big guys can face tank a couple suppression shots and then kill a squad member pretty easily.

[ZenGilgamesh]

IMO I actually go into these missions without a Specialist. I have had some measure of success bringing a crack three-squad of Gunner-Ranger-Grenadier (G-R-G) to hunker down on the first roof of the first building we come across while a high-aim Sharpshooter camps back at OUR spawn the entire time, holo-targeting and picking off any guys in the back of pods that the G-R-G can't get a shot at.

While those four work and make noise, I have a Shinobi ghost his way to the objective and pop that. If there are enemies in the way (say in the tower itself in front of the console for instance) I can usually Squadsight shoot them with the Sharpshooter all the way back home and trigger that pod to start dashing into my G-R-G killzone. The Shinobi hides while they run past and then he runs in. If there is a turret, by that point it's no problem to have the shinobi just break concealment because the turret; he's going to run in and stun the turret immediately anyway.

Been pretty successful with this so far.

[trihero]

I tried 3 assault - 1 shinobi - support grenadier, but I came home with 2 wounded soldiers. Maybe that is fine. I find it is a little bit tough if you activate 1 more pod than you can handle, and this happens a lot if you get up close with assault, and it's really annoying if they have a double viper + naja squad in the control room.

On the other hand assaults are excellent for sustained close range dps and for cleaning up mobs stunned by hacking the controls, and I use smoke on them when they get flanked.

I also don't like to take assaults on HQ raids anyways so it's ok if they get wounded. And I have more assaults than other classes so if I wanted an assault I could take one from another squad.

I kinda like Gilga's idea, ranger/gunner have a pretty high damage output and the sniper can pull mobs into you one at a time from long range when the shinobi is scouting. I wonder what you do though when they drop reinforcements on top of your sniper who's all alone at the inital spawn.

[ZenGilgamesh]

Hahahaha. That has yet to happen, Trihero... Thanks for bursting my bubble. I need to use Assault more often.

Then again, I guess that's the beauty with the randomness of this game (and this mod). It's tough to think that you're ready for anything.

[Hazelnut]

I only did one tower mission so far and it was pretty easy. I managed to sneak all the way to the objective (hacking the turret in front of the building didnt break concealment for me) and hack it. Like others said it stuns the aliens for 2 turns. I took out the stunned pod on the roof and took position on that roof while I picked off the aliens as they approached the building. I never saw reinforcements, after the hack my objective was to neutralize all remaining enemies.

So I guess go sneakysneaky and bring a good specialist for hax.

This can go badly wrong if the single route has a window that the only way round is a roof with a sentry on it. I ended up surrounded which led to a pitched battle across a bridge that had no cover cos I destroyed it behind me. Very hairy and next time I will kill as I go I think.