Supply Missions

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Methexis
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:18 pm

Supply Missions

Post by Methexis »

Hey guys,

Can someone explain to me how I can produce supply missions with a decent time frame to infiltrate?

I have read many posts about the LW2 strategy mechanics, but still I don't get it. Btw, I have modded my game so that I won't be losing from the Avatar project. It felt too frustrating to me, I never could manage to expand fast enough to catch up with it.

Thanks in advance.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by LordYanaek »

Methexis wrote:Hey guys,

Can someone explain to me how I can produce supply missions with a decent time frame to infiltrate?
What do you mean by "supply missions"?
Are you talking about Supply Train raids where you try to intercept moving ADVENT troops? Those are supposed to be hard to detect so it's normal you have a hard time detecting them with a good timer. You'll get a bunch of those by the end of the campaign but don't count on them. Troop Ambushes are much easier to detect and faster to infiltrate so it's your main source of corpses. Those will appear in regions with at least 4 Strength and the higher the strength, the easier they are to detect so you have to keep running Intel when Str rises rather than hide your rebels in fear of retaliations.
faket15
Posts: 111
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:41 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by faket15 »

You don't. Even with 216 Mission Intel per day (the absolute maximum for non-liberated havens, a number you will probably never reach) the chance to detect the mission with at least 6 days remaining is around 30% and the chance to detect with at least 4 days remaining is around 55%. You can't reliably detect supply raids no matter what you do, but you can focus on Intel in high vigilance regions that you know will get reinforcements and compensate the low detection chance with sheer volume.
Methexis
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:18 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Methexis »

Both excellent and very fast replies. Thank you.
Dwarfling
Posts: 524
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 12:16 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Dwarfling »

Reliably? No, but it goes like this:

- Get a region with over 10 rebels (not a hard cap). The more the better. Everyone on intel job. Also use Avenger scan.
- Spike vigilance to get the ADVENT AI to move troops to it. Propaganda missions work best. Bunch of missions + Liberation chain works too.

This might get you at least some doable Supply Raids. But even better is that with the severe vigilance spike, the UFO precursor mission will spawn. It's a mission that looks identical to Liberation 1 but comes with a +strenght bonus (so more enemies than usual) and usually really short infiltration window. Get that one done and a UFO mission, usually with 7d-8d to infiltrate, will spawn. Super profitable, also has a terminal you can hack, and gives +1 contact.

You probably don't wanna do this early game tho, or even mid game if you haven't expanded much, because the vigilance spike will increase strenght a lot on the region you're baiting the legions in and seems like the others around it too because I think successful Supply Raids and UFO add vigilance to neighboring regions. This will make it harder to keep regions at low strenght to do your Ex.Light and V.Light missions. Also since you'll probably have to use Intel boosts on these missions, you'll have less Intel to expand and head to the Blacksite. If you go for this kind of strategy then, try to cut it short early and not get too greedy or you'll have a harder time completing the campaign, even if you'll be better equipped.
Methexis
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:18 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Methexis »

Dwarfling wrote:Reliably? No, but it goes like this:

- Get a region with over 10 rebels (not a hard cap). The more the better. Everyone on intel job. Also use Avenger scan.
- Spike vigilance to get the ADVENT AI to move troops to it. Propaganda missions work best. Bunch of missions + Liberation chain works too.

This might get you at least some doable Supply Raids. But even better is that with the severe vigilance spike, the UFO precursor mission will spawn. It's a mission that looks identical to Liberation 1 but comes with a +strenght bonus (so more enemies than usual) and usually really short infiltration window. Get that one done and a UFO mission, usually with 7d-8d to infiltrate, will spawn. Super profitable, also has a terminal you can hack, and gives +1 contact.

You probably don't wanna do this early game tho, or even mid game if you haven't expanded much, because the vigilance spike will increase strenght a lot on the region you're baiting the legions in and seems like the others around it too because I think successful Supply Raids and UFO add vigilance to neighboring regions. This will make it harder to keep regions at low strenght to do your Ex.Light and V.Light missions. Also since you'll probably have to use Intel boosts on these missions, you'll have less Intel to expand and head to the Blacksite. If you go for this kind of strategy then, try to cut it short early and not get too greedy or you'll have a harder time completing the campaign, even if you'll be better equipped.
Thank you man!
I'm not yet at the late game, but I'll try to make this happen. Especially with the UFO mission you mentioned and haven't seen one yet through my 4 campaigns (just Veteran ones). Sounds like fun :-)
Also you helped me understand a bit more of the underlying mechanics. To tell the truth, I didn't even noticed the propaganda missions and their impact.
Is there a way to measure the vigilance of a region? Is that info (as a number) somewhere that I have missed? I'm guessing it's different than the Advent strength which you can clearly see.
Dwarfling
Posts: 524
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 12:16 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Dwarfling »

Vigilance is hidden by design, so you can only guess, successful missions increase it, propaganda missions increase it a lot, I think all or most liberation missions increase vigilance higher than normal. Vigilance decreases with time, the less rebels working (hiding), the faster it decreases, the more rebels working, the slower. ADVENT will try to make strenght = vigilance.

You can reveal vigilance with this mod:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =925598042
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WanWhiteWolf
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 10:09 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

Producing a supply mission is relatively easy. Just do more mission in the same region without hiding rebels after. Advent will try to reinforce the region by sending supply raids.

In order to detect them, you need a lot of rebels (10+) to have a decent chance of finding them with a good timer. By good timer, I mean 4-5 days.

I've played 3 campaigns in LW 1.3 - 1.4 and I've never seen a supply raid with more than 5 days. I probably did like 20 by now. It's possible but very unlikely.

If you want to do the mission you have to intel boost or send 3 people in a mission. Later in the campaign, you can do the mission with 3 people (e.g. a monster PSI) but early, you spend intel or skip the mission.

On higher difficulties it's not worth most of the time trading the intel for the corpses, so the mission itself is pretty much unused content.
Methexis
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:18 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Methexis »

Dwarfling wrote:Vigilance is hidden by design, so you can only guess, successful missions increase it, propaganda missions increase it a lot, I think all or most liberation missions increase vigilance higher than normal. Vigilance decreases with time, the less rebels working (hiding), the faster it decreases, the more rebels working, the slower. ADVENT will try to make strenght = vigilance.

You can reveal vigilance with this mod:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =925598042
Thank you Dwarflink. I don't believe I could have found this mod without your guidance. Installed and I'll try it tomorrow.

Thank you WanWhiteWolf too. The thing is that I don't like much the smash and grab missions and I like to play a defensive tactical game (2-3 Rangers etc.) so the supply missions are my favorites to gather Elerium and Alloys. I'll follow your plan guys, you've been very helpful.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by LordYanaek »

Methexis wrote: I'm not yet at the late game, but I'll try to make this happen. Especially with the UFO mission you mentioned and haven't seen one yet through my 4 campaigns (just Veteran ones). Sounds like fun :-)
Something that's good to know. If you can complete the liberation chain up to the Network Tower mission, it will give you a free Radio Relay in the region that will improve the efficiency of all your rebel jobs by (i think) 20% which is significant. It will also rise Vigilance by a good amount so if you want to catch UFOs it's probably the way to go as the pre-UFO missions is also hard to detect and will probably spawn with low timer even with max Intel and a Relay. In my current campaign i've had several occasions where i was able to intercept 2 UFOs in a row (the normal and the super emergency UFO) but i have a dedicated stealth squad to take care of those short infiltration timer Hack missions and it was always in regions with a Relay.
Is there a way to measure the vigilance of a region? Is that info (as a number) somewhere that I have missed? I'm guessing it's different than the Advent strength which you can clearly see.
Vigilance is really not a difficult concept : if you do a lot of missions in a region you'll attract ADVENT's attention and they will move troops there. If you do a lot of missions everywhere they will divert resources to reinforcing their army and this will slow down AVATAR. That's it!

Unfortunately some mathematically inclined and very influential streamers (who are also very good players) made it appear more important than it really is, people started to complain it was hidden because they wanted some mechanism to blame for their campaign losses and the above-mentioned mod was created, reinforcing the illusion that displaying Vigilance is important.

The really important number is the strength that will determine how hard your missions are. Vigilance have an impact on what missions might become available but every mission is valuable. Some are better early, others are better later but once vigilance start having an impact you should have contacted enough regions to have all the variety of missions available anyway.

I would also be careful trying to reveal it, there is a reason it was hidden to begin with. I think it takes a really good understanding of the game mechanisms to really benefit from having Vigilance displayed, and at that point you probably don't need to show it anyway. If you try to exploit a revealed Vigilance without correctly understanding what you're doing there is a risk you'll complicate your strategy and end up doing something that's not very good in the short or long run. Keep it simple : the best strategy is almost always to complete as many missions as you can anyway.

Smash and Grab Those are extremely valuable and if you ignore them you'll likely won't have enough resources. They take a totally different approach but i suggest you try to learn how to complete them. I think a good squad would have a Shinobi to do some scouting early (as you start revealed) who can fight when he have to (so not a full scout) and 1-2 Snapshot Sharpshooter to activate the pods revealed by the shinobi. An assault can help as they do a lot of damage. I also like an OW specced Specialist or Ranger. The Ranger is slightly more powerful but the Specialist's ability to remove an enemy and add an ally shouldn't be overlooked on any mission where you need to quickly get rid of enemies with a limited squad. Be careful with explosives as they destroy the loot crates.
Methexis
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 5:18 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Methexis »

Thank you too LordYanaek for the very informative reply.

To tell the truth, I haven't met a more helpful forum than this one. Cudos for you guys. And since I haven't done it yet I must extend my thanks to the creators of this great (again) mod. I played the game when first out, but this mod made me come back and enjoy it a lot more.

Your tips too were very helpful, I already did 2 Smash & Grab missions and indeed they worth the trouble. I'm not sure how easy they will be after the early-mid game I'm now (just unlocked magnetics).

I'm far away from the UFO missions but I'll visit that post again later in game. Btw, I don't watch streamers videos. I prefer to participate to the forum (especially when it's that good heheh).

Okay, back to the game. Feeling like a semi-pro now after all the help :ugeek:
orion_winterfire
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:12 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by orion_winterfire »

Methexis wrote:To tell the truth, I haven't met a more helpful forum than this one. Cudos for you guys.
^^ this.
I must extend my thanks to the creators of this great (again) mod.
^^ & this.

I'm not sure how easy they will be after the early-mid game I'm now (just unlocked magnetics).
My experience (Veteran) is that they're not bad. One of the easie4/more fun mission types all around imo.
Feeling like a semi-pro now after all the help :ugeek:
That'll change soon enough! Lol
Exquisitor
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed May 10, 2017 4:50 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Exquisitor »

LordYanaek wrote: Something that's good to know. If you can complete the liberation chain up to the Network Tower mission, it will give you a free Radio Relay in the region that will improve the efficiency of all your rebel jobs by (i think) 20% which is significant. It will also rise Vigilance by a good amount so if you want to catch UFOs it's probably the way to go as the pre-UFO missions is also hard to detect and will probably spawn with low timer even with max Intel and a Relay. In my current campaign i've had several occasions where i was able to intercept 2 UFOs in a row (the normal and the super emergency UFO) but i have a dedicated stealth squad to take care of those short infiltration timer Hack missions and it was always in regions with a Relay.
That right there is useful info. I had a supply mission pop once with a long timer, I bet it was because I was still running missions in an area with a controlled network tower. Once I get the network tower mission I tend to stop doing all but the final HQ mission in the region. This info would indicate that it would be worth continuing the intel scanning there.
Kwic
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:13 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Kwic »

LordYanaek wrote:
Methexis wrote:Hey guys,

the higher the strength, the easier they are to detect so you have to keep running Intel when Str rises rather than hide your rebels in fear of retaliations.

good to know ! Are you sure on that ?
Dong101
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 1:03 am

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Dong101 »

Exquisitor wrote: That right there is useful info. I had a supply mission pop once with a long timer, I bet it was because I was still running missions in an area with a controlled network tower. Once I get the network tower mission I tend to stop doing all but the final HQ mission in the region. This info would indicate that it would be worth continuing the intel scanning there.
Once you completed the tower mission, will delaying the HQ mission caused STR build up to a much higher level and make the HQ mission too difficult?

Then again may be it will be a good STR sink?
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Psieye »

Doing Network tower raises vigiliance. Whether that actually results in STR increase is down to what else is going on in the map. Mind, I find it strange that people include HQ when thinking "high STR = harder mission". Technically it's true, but it's HQ: the difficulty is similar whether you face 30 or 40 enemies. You don't change how you play them.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Zork »

Number of enemies definitely change a lot the play of a mission, at least with my play style. This influences:
- pods size,
- how much a map is filled then increased possibilities to get 2 pods at same time or have two pods close by coming the turn after and no need use any AOE
- Limited resources use from healing to combat protocol, grenades and even soldiers shields/armor/health.

Just between Extremely Light and Light there's a significant difference.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by LordYanaek »

Kwic wrote:
LordYanaek wrote: the higher the strength, the easier they are to detect so you have to keep running Intel when Str rises rather than hide your rebels in fear of retaliations.
good to know ! Are you sure on that ?
Unless the code doesn't use some values found in the config files, yes. There have been a few cases of unused values left in the config files so it's not 100% sure (i would have to dig in the code itself, which i might try to do another day but no promise) but very likely.
You can find this in XComLW_Activities.ini

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
and

Code: Select all

TROOP_MANEUVERS_BONUS_DETECTION_PER_DAY_PER_ALERT=0.25  ; This is % detection per day, per alert level in region
Basically, it means that you need to accumulate 20 "Mission Intel" to start detecting a Troop maneuver and once you reach 100 you have 10% chance to detect it.
A level 1 rebel on the "Intel" job produces 1 such "Mission Intel" (not to be confused with the Intel "currency") every 6 hours (4 per day) (1.5 for level2, 2 for level 3, 4 for the Avenger scanning).
A Str 4 region (the minimum for Troop Maneuvers) would have +1%, a Str 8 region would have +2%. I'm not sure how the bonus for alert level (Strength is called "alert" internally) is calculated but if it's a flat value the difference is significant during the first days of the activity (after you reached 20 "Mission Intel" but before 100) as the detection chance rises linearly until you reach 100 (if i understood correctly). If this is a multiplier, then it would have a bigger impact when you reach 100 and above. Anyway, even if it looks like a very small value it's still significant especially considering you roll for detection 4 times/day.
faket15
Posts: 111
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:41 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by faket15 »

LordYanaek wrote: Basically, it means that you need to accumulate 20 "Mission Intel" to start detecting a Troop maneuver and once you reach 100 you have 10% chance to detect it.
It only counts the amount of Intel above the minimum (in this case 100 - 20 = 80). Calling the second number a chance per day per 100 Intel like the config files do is actually wrong. It's actually a chance per roll per 400 Intel above the minimum with rolls happening every 6 hours.
LordYanaek wrote: A level 1 rebel on the "Intel" job produces 1 such "Mission Intel" (not to be confused with the Intel "currency") every 6 hours (4 per day) (1.5 for level2, 2 for level 3, 4 for the Avenger scanning).
The numbers are 25% higher than this. It's 5 per day for level 1, 7.5 per day for level 2, 10 per day for level 3 and 20 per day for the Avenger.
LordYanaek wrote: A Str 4 region (the minimum for Troop Maneuvers) would have +1%, a Str 8 region would have +2%. I'm not sure how the bonus for alert level (Strength is called "alert" internally) is calculated but if it's a flat value the difference is significant during the first days of the activity (after you reached 20 "Mission Intel" but before 100) as the detection chance rises linearly until you reach 100 (if i understood correctly). If this is a multiplier, then it would have a bigger impact when you reach 100 and above. Anyway, even if it looks like a very small value it's still significant especially considering you roll for detection 4 times/day.
Yes, it's a flat bonus. A STR 4 region would give +0.25% per roll and a STR 8 region would give +0.5%
merkmerk
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2017 3:29 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by merkmerk »

These missions are usually traps

I just ruined my current campaign with a semi A team by doing a moderate-heavy one with a few warden suits + coilguns etc

But I just can't hang with the 3 rainbow pods where 2 come rushing in at once

At this stage in the game they have too much health

I think that's a problem with LW2 in general - there doesn't seem to be a happy medium between the nonstop spam of 6-9 Gops and heavier missions

With the map size and the whole '8 man pod' thing you're often just dealing with an unwinnable situation

HQ Assaults seem to have it right - you deal with one maybe two rainbow pods and the rest is just lots of 3-4 man pods to be wary of.
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Zork »

LordYanaek wrote:
Methexis wrote:Hey guys,

Can someone explain to me how I can produce supply missions with a decent time frame to infiltrate?
What do you mean by "supply missions"?
Are you talking about Supply Train raids where you try to intercept moving ADVENT troops? Those are supposed to be hard to detect so it's normal you have a hard time detecting them with a good timer. You'll get a bunch of those by the end of the campaign but don't count on them. Troop Ambushes are much easier to detect and faster to infiltrate so it's your main source of corpses. Those will appear in regions with at least 4 Strength and the higher the strength, the easier they are to detect so you have to keep running Intel when Str rises rather than hide your rebels in fear of retaliations.
Ok but what's the negative to not do those missions? They are shown in red so it looks very important ha ha. Just finished in advance another mission to try one with an infiltration time shorter than I would like, and with an experimental team setup. Well I think I can call the evac.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
JulianSkies
Posts: 301
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:17 am

Re: Supply Missions

Post by JulianSkies »

Zork wrote:
LordYanaek wrote:
Methexis wrote:Hey guys,

Can someone explain to me how I can produce supply missions with a decent time frame to infiltrate?
What do you mean by "supply missions"?
Are you talking about Supply Train raids where you try to intercept moving ADVENT troops? Those are supposed to be hard to detect so it's normal you have a hard time detecting them with a good timer. You'll get a bunch of those by the end of the campaign but don't count on them. Troop Ambushes are much easier to detect and faster to infiltrate so it's your main source of corpses. Those will appear in regions with at least 4 Strength and the higher the strength, the easier they are to detect so you have to keep running Intel when Str rises rather than hide your rebels in fear of retaliations.
Ok but what's the negative to not do those missions? They are shown in red so it looks very important ha ha. Just finished in advance another mission to try one with an infiltration time shorter than I would like, and with an experimental team setup. Well I think I can call the evac.
Supply Raids, the ones that show up in red, are ADVENT Strength moving from one region to another.
So say you have a region with 7 strength bordering one with 3 strength. Sometime during the month you notice one went down to 6 and the other up to 4. That's a Supply Raid that you failed to do. That's all there is to it.

Supply Raids are, to the prepared player ready to face some amazing fights (seriously who the hell thought double sectopod 8-man pod+rainbow pod+andromedon*2 and advent+6-man mech squad all within one blue move of eachother was fair :<) they give great rewards in bodies and supplies as well as destroying a point of Strength, but 90% of them you don't even detect anyway.

As a note, in the example I gave before, the Strength of said supply raid is 7, it uses the highest strength rating of either the region it's departing from or arriving to.
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Supply Missions

Post by Zork »

Thanks for the details, well Supply Raid is a very bad name, it's clearly Intercept Troops, Supply is just the greedy point of view, but rather wrong because there's multiple missions types providing supply.

Are those the only mission decreasing the global number of troops? I know some invisible UFO increases it and probably quite slowly at Easy, but I noticed rather often drop down of the global number of troops, but not that each time it was linked with an Intercept Troops mission done. I remind more skip those because of the too low infiltration time.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
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