What am I doing wrong? Commander Ironman

[Maxx86]

Hey there everyone, I'm looking for some help on trying to defeat the game, but since 1.3 dropped and I can't run 0% infli supply missions anymore, I'm struggling really hard, and my campaign all fail miserably within the first 3/4 months.

Here's what I'm doing:

- Resarch: Alien comms - modular weapons - alien biotech - hybrid - lasers - armor - adv laser
- Resource allocation as in priority: - GTS, AWC, The 2 perks in the GTS that award extra kill exp and extra loot when it drops, weapons and equipment, and if I have a lot spare, scientists and new soldiers.
- Resistance management: all into intel, on every region I contact, until I have around 8 guys doing that. Once that is settled, I assign somebody to recruitment.
- Recruiting: I really don't get many of them. I'm using the ones i get at the beginning, plus more guys from rescue missions now and then, I rarely recruit new staff. Is this a problem? Other than that, when training them in the GTS, I always carefully look at their stats and choose a fitting class for them.

Here's what's happening on my missions:

I never let anyone stay in a half cover, unless I'm sure he's safe (like no LOS with enemy, or specialist support + smoke grenade) but:

1. aim debuffed enemy units, with a flash bang on them, or with a defensive smoke grenade on my guys, keep hitting (with scratches mostly, full hits sometimes) my full cover soldiers about 70% of the times, starting from the very first mission (how many missions have I played since 1.3... 150?). What am I missing here? should I always ensure to have BOTH of these effects on at all times? This, amongst all, is the biggest of the problems. It really feels bad to spend turns to crowd control enemies, to achieve absolutely nothing. What the hell is wrong with them?

2. I seem to get overwhelmed by pods very often on timer missions. I'm not using military scanners atm, should I? Do you guys do it? Is there a way to stimate pod positioning for missions? And if you guys play it very safe, how do you handle timed missions? Do you always run along the borders? Not to mentions stealthy drones spawning on a yellow move distance of my squad drop point, always hidden in that single one invisible square behind an unprobable pillar.

3. I still feel like I quickly get too much behind in tech. When vipers and mech start making their appearances, I've only just resarched laser weapons.

If you could spare some time to help me, I'd really appreciate it. If you need more information to figure what I'm doing wrong, just ask!
Thanks in advance

[stefan3iii]

Should get advanced lasers before armor.

From your description I'd guess you're getting into long fights, trying to control enemies. Instead I suggest making your first priority to kill everything the turn you meet it. Think of every turn as a little puzzle, figuring out how to deal maximum damage.

CC in the early game is pretty weak, since you don't have sting or incendiary, but generally your soldiers also won't be one shot, you just have to be willing to take the occasional wound. It's much better than getting into a long fight, and having another pod come in.

That also means you need to bring the right team. Plates on everyone. 2 Grenades on rookies. Bring at least some assaults, shinobi, and technicals to every mission, they're very strong early game. I do usually bring a couple of flash bangs. In month 3/4, bring incendiaries on a heavy ordinance grenadier to every mission. Always think about how much damage your soldiers do, and bring 3+ high damage classes on every mission.

I'd also recommend exo suits after lasers and incendiaries, they're very strong.

[Psieye]

- Resource allocation as in priority: - GTS, AWC, The 2 perks in the GTS that award extra kill exp and extra loot when it drops, weapons and equipment, and if I have a lot spare, scientists and new soldiers.
- Resistance management: all into intel, on every region I contact, until I have around 8 guys doing that. Once that is settled, I assign somebody to recruitment.

We've been having some discussion in the "Science Strategy" thread on optimal opening builds. To summarise, what I've picked out of the current strategic meta is:
- 1st 4 days of game: scan in home region with all rebels on intel.
- Once first 2 GOps have spawned: switch all rebels to Recruit and go find Black Market, then start (but don't finish) contacting 2nd region.
- Once first 2 GOps have been cleared in home region: all rebels should be back on intel by now. Scan with them to spawn next 2 GOps.
- Once next pair of GOps have spawned: finish contacting 2nd region, set everyone to intel there, scan with them.
- 'Build' order is: Scientist, Scientist (after 1st supply drop), GTS.
- If you build AWC early, don't put a scientist in there. Want to reduce wounds time? Build nanovests.
- Research order is: Res. Comm, 1st basic research, some essential earlygame tech, 2nd basic research.

[LordYanaek]

- Resource allocation as in priority: - GTS, AWC, The 2 perks in the GTS that award extra kill exp and extra loot when it drops, weapons and equipment, and if I have a lot spare, scientists and new soldiers.

I did the same in my campaign (commander, semi-honestman 'cause sometimes it's tiredman then reloadman ) but that leads to very slow research if you're unlucky with rescue missions like i was. I got Laser really late.
I agree with stefan3iii, you should get Adv laser before armor, adv laser is probably even more important than basic laser.

1. aim debuffed enemy units, with a flash bang on them, or with a defensive smoke grenade on my guys, keep hitting (with scratches mostly, full hits sometimes) my full cover soldiers about 70% of the times, starting from the very first mission (how many missions have I played since 1.3... 150?). What am I missing here? should I always ensure to have BOTH of these effects on at all times? This, amongst all, is the biggest of the problems. It really feels bad to spend turns to crowd control enemies, to achieve absolutely nothing. What the hell is wrong with them?

Are you sure of that? 70% seems extremely high, did you actually track the hits/misses and conditions of every shot or is it just a "global feeling". Be careful with confirmation bias.
That being said, a basic officer have 75 aim, high cover gives 45 def, smoke adds 20, this leaves 10% chance to hit or 20% to graze with default value for graze band so about 1/5 shot will do some damage. If that same officer have marked you i think it adds 15% chance to hit so it would be 35% chance to deal some damage (1/3 shot) which is not negligible. You will take damage from CC enemies behind full cover.

2. I seem to get overwhelmed by pods very often on timer missions. I'm not using military scanners atm, should I? Do you guys do it? Is there a way to stimate pod positioning for missions? And if you guys play it very safe, how do you handle timed missions? Do you always run along the borders? Not to mentions stealthy drones spawning on a yellow move distance of my squad drop point, always hidden in that single one invisible square behind an unprobable pillar.

Battle scanners can be useful, never move with your shinobi first (so at least you'll have someone to scout if you get spotted) and try not to be too "greedy" with your moves (never dash and if you move a fast moving soldier, don't go full blue move either, he'll have to wait for the rest of the squad anyway at some point).
There are some glitches with the fog of war that sometimes allow you to see the health bar of enemies (when the camera zooms to an objective, sometimes when you move your guys). This can help you estimate where they are.
For timed missions the trick is to move fast but not too fast, not really easy to explain and i fear you'll have to get a feeling for what is safe and what isn't.

3. I still feel like I quickly get too much behind in tech. When vipers and mech start making their appearances, I've only just resarched laser weapons.

See other answers, try to get more scientists early. That being said Laser is perfectly capable of taking down vipers.
There are other tools beside main weapons.

[Psieye]

That being said, a basic officer have 75 aim, high cover gives 45 def, smoke adds 20, this leaves 10% chance to hit or 20% to graze with default value for graze band so about 1/5 shot will do some damage. If that same officer have marked you i think it adds 15% chance to hit so it would be 35% chance to deal some damage (1/3 shot) which is not negligible. You will take damage from CC enemies behind full cover.

Add soldier def variation too. If I want to explicitly tank non-flanking shots with someone, that soldier should be hunkering down (or I don't mind wounds). Which is why Sectoids exist from the earlygame: to screw with hunker-creep.

[WanWhiteWolf]

You are focusing to much on controlling the battlefield.

Early game you don't have the tools to do so; and even if you build around that, it's a mistake since postponing the kill increases the odds of another pod running into you. Then you will have no cc tools available (you already used them) and you fight more enemies than the round before.

You have to play an aggressive game early. Yes, some soldiers will get wounds; some may even die on really bad RNGs - but that won't affect you to much on the long run.

In order to be effective on an aggressive gameplay, you have to make sure you don't trigger multiple pods. You mentioned then need of scanners; therefore I think you are not using the Shinoby to its full potential.

You can watch some of the xwyns videos. I think they are quite good for those stepping on higher difficulties. I saw him doing in August some missions in 4-5 guys with lasers on legend; so July with lasers on commander is not the end of the world.

[stefan3iii]

- Resource allocation as in priority: - GTS, AWC, The 2 perks in the GTS that award extra kill exp and extra loot when it drops, weapons and equipment, and if I have a lot spare, scientists and new soldiers.
- Resistance management: all into intel, on every region I contact, until I have around 8 guys doing that. Once that is settled, I assign somebody to recruitment.

We've been having some discussion in the "Science Strategy" thread on optimal opening builds. To summarise, what I've picked out of the current strategic meta is:
- 1st 4 days of game: scan in home region with all rebels on intel.
- Once first 2 GOps have spawned: switch all rebels to Recruit and go find Black Market, then start (but don't finish) contacting 2nd region.
- Once first 2 GOps have been cleared in home region: all rebels should be back on intel by now. Scan with them to spawn next 2 GOps.
- Once next pair of GOps have spawned: finish contacting 2nd region, set everyone to intel there, scan with them.
- 'Build' order is: Scientist, Scientist (after 1st supply drop), GTS.
- If you build AWC early, don't put a scientist in there. Want to reduce wounds time? Build nanovests.
- Research order is: Res. Comm, 1st basic research, some essential earlygame tech, 2nd basic research.

I don't do the second basic research, takes over 2 months to pay off. If someone is having trouble with the early game, should skip the first basic research too, get nano vests ASAP.