Pavonis Interactive Forums

Antifringe wrote: I run 4-5 man squads, and aim for a barracks of about 40 soldiers before psionics. That supports around 8 parallel missions. You'll do less, because of wounds, but it's still a lot. Use infiltration to pick up mission with short timers or to quickly resolve pending missions to free up soliders for new missions.

Wow, can you really get 40 soldiers that early while you're not running heavy recruit. You start with 20 and have 3 more available to recruit, you get 3-4 from black market in 3-4 drops (early on there is only 1 at the BM). You need to get 14 from the 3-4 jailbreaks you'll get (if you're lucky enough not to detect them when they have only 1 day left) assuming you don't loose anyone

stefan3iii wrote: This may just be me, but I never ever sell alloys, I'm short alloys the entire game. That's probably because I like to build a lot of EXO suits which are very alloy intensive.

I will gladly give up on EXO suits if it means getting out more competent bodies right now (just had the 1st supply drop). I have 8 rookies I'm hesitant to randomly promote as they have some astounding stats. My GTS can start as soon as these two Smash & Grab missions complete (both at 100% infiltration when I stopped my latest play session) and I sell not-yet-useful stuff in the black market. Maybe I can afford it just by selling cores.

LordYanaek wrote:

Antifringe wrote: I run 4-5 man squads, and aim for a barracks of about 40 soldiers before psionics. That supports around 8 parallel missions. You'll do less, because of wounds, but it's still a lot. Use infiltration to pick up mission with short timers or to quickly resolve pending missions to free up soliders for new missions.

Wow, can you really get 40 soldiers that early while you're not running heavy recruit. You start with 20 and have 3 more available to recruit, you get 3-4 from black market in 3-4 drops (early on there is only 1 at the BM). You need to get 14 from the 3-4 jailbreaks you'll get (if you're lucky enough not to detect them when they have only 1 day left) assuming you don't loose anyone

It depends. 40 is a goal, not a requirement. What I'm really aiming for is 4 of each class, which is a more modest 32, but I like to collect extras as spare parts/haven advisors. By month four, you will have been able to hire four soldiers. You are likely to have gotten several soldier VIPs, and I usually get a lot of rookies from jailbreaks. You get a lot of jailbreaks if you expand fast and run lots of intel. Cycling through the GOps as quickly and efficiently as you can allows for even more GOps to spawn and the whole things starts to balloon.

I might do a game log when 1.5 comes out if people are interested.

LordYanaek wrote: Wow, can you really get 40 soldiers that early while you're not running heavy recruit. You start with 20 and have 3 more available to recruit, you get 3-4 from black market in 3-4 drops (early on there is only 1 at the BM).

You have 0 to recruit on Legendary, unless my mod install is broken. Also in my experience purchasing the first BM recruit is a huge waste - it's much better to invest that money into a building or a scientist/engineer. Even the LCPL recruit in April is questionable.

I believe there are many good arguments to support the suggestion to purchase a scientist instead of placing a building in March. Purchasing a scientist takes effect immediately, while building takes ~8 days(when you subtract the time to scan initially and then for the BM). When you finish a GTS or AWC, quite often you will have no one to put in it - they finish at just about the time when you're getting your second round of missions, and you should be running as many soldiers as possible then to maximize your chances and minimize risk. April scientist is usually more expensive than the March one, but the GTS/AWC will cost the same.

Hmm how do you get so many corpses, especially office corpses. You would need to luck out with several faceless missions or supply raid. By mid may i rarely have officer corpses let alone wrecks for research.

Antifringe wrote:

LordYanaek wrote:

Antifringe wrote: I run 4-5 man squads, and aim for a barracks of about 40 soldiers before psionics. That supports around 8 parallel missions. You'll do less, because of wounds, but it's still a lot. Use infiltration to pick up mission with short timers or to quickly resolve pending missions to free up soliders for new missions.

Wow, can you really get 40 soldiers that early while you're not running heavy recruit. You start with 20 and have 3 more available to recruit, you get 3-4 from black market in 3-4 drops (early on there is only 1 at the BM). You need to get 14 from the 3-4 jailbreaks you'll get (if you're lucky enough not to detect them when they have only 1 day left) assuming you don't loose anyone

It depends. 40 is a goal, not a requirement. What I'm really aiming for is 4 of each class, which is a more modest 32, but I like to collect extras as spare parts/haven advisors. By month four, you will have been able to hire four soldiers. You are likely to have gotten several soldier VIPs, and I usually get a lot of rookies from jailbreaks. You get a lot of jailbreaks if you expand fast and run lots of intel. Cycling through the GOps as quickly and efficiently as you can allows for even more GOps to spawn and the whole things starts to balloon.

I might do a game log when 1.5 comes out if people are interested.

Antifirnge, those are some great thoguhts. Just to be sure, we are talking legendary? Ironman possibly?

No, I play on Commander, but I'm probably ready to start Legendary. I acknowledge that Legendary is a different game and might change some some of these tactics.

I don't play Ironman because I like being able to painlessly strip and review my weapon mod collection, and also to play What If? at crucial junctures with different strategies. I do play honestly. I wish there was an option that was like Ironman, but only for the tactical layer.

Doing a strategy level game log is starting to sound fun. I've already collected notes for the first month, and I'll start a thread about it later today. Everyone can laugh at me when I totally fall on my face

Antifringe wrote:Doing a strategy level game log is starting to sound fun. I've already collected notes for the first month, and I'll start a thread about it later today. Everyone can laugh at me when I totally fall on my face

I really wished more games had some sort of log to track game events and player actions. I've done so with written notes, but that slows down my play of the game. But some logging either by the game or the player is almost always essential to analysing, learning, and improving play.

Antifringe wrote: I might do a game log when 1.5 comes out if people are interested.

Cool, I'm looking forward to your After Action Report. There are streamers and youtubers, but not so much write-ups with month-by-month action.

Antifringe wrote:Doing a strategy level game log is starting to sound fun...

Was it ever!
When i was developping a special article for --LAByrinth-- to cover that very subject.. three theory gameplay summaries were used to expose various Strategy layer conditions. Here's the third (European start & a quest for CB) and its details/infos reference image. Only for XCom2 gameplay though.. but, i'm planning to create something similar for LW2 with Liberations & Intel expenses as focus.



Of course i've limited them to bare-bones elements -- yet, the Pedia-Concepts were wildly fun to track down while taking precise notes and then write up the contexts.

Just some data for posterity (to maybe help someone up):

Patch: 1.4
Difficulty: Legendary (Ironman)
Research Path: R.Comm > M.Weapons > B. Research > Biotech > H. Materials / Soldier Atp. > Laser > Adv. Laser > Officer Atp. > Combat Armor (finished on May 20th)
Purchase Order: Scientist > Scientist > GTS > AWC > Proving Grounds
Future Projects: Incendiaries finishing on May 23rd, Battle Armor finishing on June 1st. Excavating Power Coil (6d) for Lab.
Personnel: 3 Scientist, 3 Engineers

Overview: I'm kinda fuzzy on the 3rd Scientist, I'm not sure if it was a rescue or a purchase. I got 3 engineers from rescues (and a specialist). Fuzzy on the order between H.Materials and the autopsies too, I don't have the best memory. Anyways I did the scan order inspired by joinrbs, got tons of viable missions, promoted all my rookies thru them. Vigilance spiked hard tho. So I got my home and 2nd region sitting at strenght 4, but the 3rd is at 1, so it's all good. (contacted at strenght 4 ). And since I already went thru Intel Raid and a Full Retal I can try to find some Columns. Only got Lib 1 done on home and queued on the 2nd region, the timers were just bad.

No KIA yet, but got really close, thanks to yellow alert. Had to eat some severe wound times without AWC. Key to my success so far: Grenadiers, Technicals and lots and lots of frags. That's about to change tho, with Adv. Lasers, Incendiaries and EXOs. After I finish Battle Armor I'll head straight to Mag, I don't think I'm gonna do Psi since I only got 1 sectoid corpse and I'm gonna need to build Comms.

Mutonophilia wrote:Hmm how do you get so many corpses, especially office corpses. You would need to luck out with several faceless missions or supply raid. By mid may i rarely have officer corpses let alone wrecks for research.

I always get one from gatecrasher, and then rendezvous, though that one might be random. Your first ambush should provide an officer corpse. Be very careful not to blow up officers, faceless, and stun Lancers.