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WHAT? Thats hilarious.

 Grey Templar wrote:
WHAT? Thats hilarious.

I reloaded that turn to see if it would happen again. It did. Only this time the zombie mimic beacon remained!

Be careful guys, Sectoids apparently have the ability to form ACTUAL FLESH out of holograms.

Also, I did discover that you can hack Andromedan shells...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Wow, that really sucks. Does it normally take you that long to download steam games?

However, you might not have to redownload it completely. You might be able to Verify the Game cashe under the game options, which will reinstall only the corrupted files.

Says they're all validated but the download is still just as bad.

Also yes all downloads this big are this slow. Internet sucks balls for me I guess.

 Nostromodamus wrote:

I reloaded that turn to see if it would happen again. It did. Only this time the zombie mimic beacon remained!

The Mimic Beacon is a great way to deal with Sectoids.

I have also discovered another interesting bug. If you upgrade a weapon with a repeater (which grants a chance of instant kills) and also equip them with Venom shells their poison damage over time effect also benefits from the chance of instant death as an unfortunate Muton just discovered, presumably this also works with dragonshells (or what ever they are called).

Ok it's almost re-installed. Jeez this is brutal (having to re-install xcom 2).

Don't mock the zombie mimic beacon it will put the hurt on you!

I found a weird bug.

So if a Viper uses its grab attack on a stunned soldier, it seems to bug out with the Viper moving a couple squares forward, showing its coiling animation and then the game gets stuck.

So many bugs, so little time to explore them all. Best bug of yesterday was when Viper pulled my Ranger. Ranger's blade storm triggered as he was suddenly in close combat, animation for strangle triggered, blade storm did damage which broke the strangle, however the trooper remained in strangled pose. He ran around until the end of the game in a rather awkward pose.

So i don't even know how I fixed the game on my computer but I did. I had to delete all local files and then tried to re-install. Oddly enough it did a first time setup and then just automatically worked like that. I'll take it. After days of not playing the ability to play now is glorious.

I'm doing ok right now. Will say the avatar project seems annoying. So basically you will lose period if you don't do the last mission. It's a bit crappy that even if you have all the best gear and all the world and take out the research facilities that if you don't do the end-game fast enough you will lose.

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Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).

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Anyway I'm not sure if it's effecting my head at all but I need sleep and I'm still sorta sick. Guess i'll play more xcom 2 later.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).

If the Advent meter fills up you have about 3 weeks to bring it down again so its not the end of the world.

Is it just me or have more people expecrienced the bug, that causes your heavies to launch grenades or missiles into the blue yonder, when you try to use them? That and the stability of this game is ass when you run it with mods

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).

If the Advent meter fills up you have about 3 weeks to bring it down again so its not the end of the world.

Yeah, if you hit a facility during the last 21 days count-down you knock the meter down 1 square.

Its still annoying how fast the damn thing fills up. On veteran difficulty by the time I have predator armor and mag weapons, and North America and Brazil, they've filled it up and I'm desperately trying to get across the Atlantic so I can hit more facilities.

 Trondheim wrote:
Is it just me or have more people expecrienced the bug, that causes your heavies to launch grenades or missiles into the blue yonder, when you try to use them? That and the stability of this game is ass when you run it with mods

It's not just heavies, it's anyone afaik, happened a few times trying to select a nade/rocket.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).

If the Advent meter fills up you have about 3 weeks to bring it down again so its not the end of the world.

Yeah, if you hit a facility during the last 21 days count-down you knock the meter down 1 square.

Its still annoying how fast the damn thing fills up. On veteran difficulty by the time I have predator armor and mag weapons, and North America and Brazil, they've filled it up and I'm desperately trying to get across the Atlantic so I can hit more facilities.

The amount it goes down seems to be based on how many blocks the facility has accrued (i.e. taking down a facility with 2 blocks under it reduces the progress by 2)

Well in case anybody wants to know how much alien progress goes down the blacksites show how much you can knock down for destroying them with dots under the blacksites. If there are 1, 2 or 3 dots under a blacksite that's how much goes down for destroying it.

Also yeah xcom became ineffective in my 2nd playthrough so I have to try for a 3rd. Fairly hard for the 2nd difficulty but the thing is I didn't realize how similar the tech tree was in some ways. I'll have to learn some of it as finding out who gives access to what weapons and equipment is a big deal. Some are probably gonna be more obvious than others like sectoids giving psionics.

I have had a bug where a soldier gets shot, he lays down for a bit, and the floor drops from under him.
But, he stay where he was, and cannot move, as it thinks he fell through and is really below him.
I reloaded from the last autosave, and he was OK, standing below where he was, and able to move.

I also found out, much to my amusement, that you can destroy floors with explosives!

And sweet mercy, Andromodons are STUPID strong!.

I just ran into them. Nasty, but stage 2 can be useful.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I also found out, much to my amusement, that you can destroy floors with explosives!

And sweet mercy, Andromodons are STUPID strong!.

Yeah, explosives are amazing, they're pretty much the cure all to any situation. 3 Elite advents on the highest floor possible? Blow up the floor, let 'em die from fall damage! Armor? Explosives! Groups? Explosives! Heavy cover? Explosives!

Tempted to drop my ranger actually and get a 2nd heavy for more explosive fun.

Just get everyone exo-suits/war suits. Then everyone has a rocket(which seems to have infinite range).

One thing I am finding frustrating now is that it seems like no enemies are dropping Elerium Cores anymore. So I can't do any projects in the Proving Grounds. I was able to make 1 war suit, but then suddenly I stopped having cores. And I'm collecting all the drops.

By the way, weapon upgrades are actually super useful.

The floor bug happened to me once with an andromedon smashing it I think.

Btw did you guys know that not only can you blow up a 2nd floor with explosives but also use them on turrets on said floors and have them drop all the way to first floor? I'm pretty sure the fall damage goes through armor too as one I did it to was destroyed instantly.

Exo-suits are fun. Did you ever get experimental heavy weapons? The shredder cannon is amazing. It tears through cover, a crap ton of armor and does like 7-8 damage in a cone.

I also found out what burning does to you. Apparently it disables special abilities meaning if you face plenty of bio units with special abilities (like psychics) then you can pretty much deny all their abilities and force them to use their guns. I'm not entirely sure if codexes are immune but I'm hoping this helps vs avatars which I still can't kill on 2nd hardest difficulty before getting squad wiped.

Does anybody else hate facing stun lancers early? Holy crap do they have range with their runs and the damage, disorient, stun or worse incapacitate is the worst. Meanwhile the faceless and some other aliens suck in comparison. I have yet to lose a guy to a berserker but those freaking 3-4 stun lancers can really kill. Same can be said for vipers. If you have a guy low on health they will pick him out and usually manage the strangle.

Perhaps this game is so hard for me because it's 2nd hardest difficulty (commander) and I play it like it's ironman mode.

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I have mixed feelings about hacking. Sometimes I hack a terminal or something and a freaking advent patrol gets called down on me. All the while I have to march forward and complete the mission in a time limit and that sandwiches me between both opponents. I'm wondering if I should leave the terminals alone and yet some rewards are alright. Still I dunno if it's worth it. Usually the random number generator and the mostly low percentages really hurt.

That said I absolutely love the random loot drops from enemies. Sometimes they drop elerium cores (fairly awesome), data caches (which can be great), weapon upgrades and PCS boosts. Normally the loot drops are nice. The only thing I fear is letting them expire when fighting the enemy and the fact explosives can destroy them or at least if you kill an enemy that has a loot drop then the loot is destroyed. Could be useful for people that like finishing off enemies with explosives.

So I have gotten to the last stage, and by Odin how disapointed I am. I wonder if Fireaxis even botherd to conisder something else than this sorry excuse for a end level.
That and I really, really find these damned rinse and repeat levels of Xcom 2 boring, and worse they feel lazy and rushed. Something I find sad as the combat is smooth, the enemies have some manner of varity between them and I really liked the stage leading up to the final assult.

----------------

Stun lancers are a real pain I can agree with, same with Andromedons. Althougth I find that equiping repeaters helps as they offer a chance to excecute the devils. Had my sniper do that to two in a row, much lolzs where had

I'm getting too old for RNG. Endlessly annoyed by aliens standing right in front of my guys, close enough to...well, here's a 9gag picture that perfectly sums up my main gripe of the game:

No problem understanding that one Sigvatr, it can be very annoying indeed.

Yeah, that really sucks. Especially when other troopers will sometimes have 100% chances of hitting at the same or even longer ranges.

I have a sniper who pretty much has a 100% chance of hitting anything lower than he is.

For me 'Dodges' are the new 'Failed to Crit'. Hey nice to know you hit and did critical damage but wait you only grazed him for 3-4 damage tops *sigh*.

I enjoy the new ammo types. One that improves aim by 10, dragon rounds and one I had that did +20% crit. chance. I think I had an enemy flanked with a shotgun with those rounds and was around 80-90+% to crit. though sadly the hit chance was god awful. The rounds do help though. Only thing more annoying than failing to crit. is failing to hit (esp. doing the least damage you can with an attack) and grazing the enemy.

Yeah, the new rounds are great, I like bluescreen rounds the best though, put those in a gunslinger sniper with fan fire, and he can pretty much take down a sectopod by himself (fan fire, the skill that allows him to fire a pistol and not the end the turn, + lightning hands = 5 shots that deal 8 to 11 damage each to machines!)

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I have mixed feelings about hacking. Sometimes I hack a terminal or something and a freaking advent patrol gets called down on me. All the while I have to march forward and complete the mission in a time limit and that sandwiches me between both opponents. I'm wondering if I should leave the terminals alone and yet some rewards are alright. Still I dunno if it's worth it. Usually the random number generator and the mostly low percentages really hurt.

I'm of the opinion that there's no point even trying to hack a terminal until you get the Gremlin II.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I enjoy the new ammo types. One that improves aim by 10, dragon rounds and one I had that did +20% crit. chance. I think I had an enemy flanked with a shotgun with those rounds and was around 80-90+% to crit. though sadly the hit chance was god awful. The rounds do help though. Only thing more annoying than failing to crit. is failing to hit (esp. doing the least damage you can with an attack) and grazing the enemy.

I have a sniper with an 80% crit chance and very high aim. He has a lot of kills.

Terminals aren't worth hacking, the chances of getting a buff are generally pretty small and the usefulness of the buff is heavily outweighed by the (much more likely) consequences of failure. When you have colonel specialists with Gremlin IIIs they become quite easy but by that stage its not exactly difficult to just sweep the mission the old fashioned way. The only worthwhile hacks are mission objectives as they generally have permanent stat boosts or strategic map bonuses.

I am about to go wild with fire.
There is the flamethrower I got from the proving ground. A range 24 cone of roasty goodness.
And, there's the spiky flame vest. I'm waiting to use it with a Ranger, and to get a Muton to hit me back.

I'm torn on explosives.
They are guaranteed hits, but negate accessory drops, IIRC.

They negate a drop if the mob is killed by a blast, thats not that common outside of certain proving grounds items. Explosives are great at removing cover, shredding armour and doing a bit of damage.

I love the autokill upgrade on the guns.
It is like this huge gift when that percentage comes up.
I tend to put that on my Specialists since they seem to do the most shooting while everyone else needs every little bit of the other upgrades.

I have a particular dislike for Andromedans just for them making me load up on protection for acid... there are so many projects I would rather have running.

I have a specialist that I use specifically to take on Andromedans: He has the acid protection, he is Gordon Freeman, he wears an orange suit... he has no crowbar though.

I think my sniper has done more kills with his side arm than the rifle (He tends to get that last shot in after they took a couple hits). I changed his name to "Tex", maybe it should be "Vulture".

This game is HARD, I love it so.
Never have I been so rewarded and punished all in one game.
If I have another "what now?" moment, I will have a strong sense of paranoia for the rest of the game.

Proving grounds research is deadly slow, I mean literally if I do not get my stuff fast enough.

Anyway, yes, explosives are the go-to for when it all goes bad.