Red Dawn Cult Manors are crazy!

[CaptainVietnam]

If you are counting on flares, that is not what I'd call an "Ironman-safe" strategy as you agents will happily yeet a flare into the back of the head of anyone in 10 yards lighting up your team and getting you instantly gun down. Sure, it you are save scumming, you can undo the sillier behaviors of thrown items, but in an ironman run, every thrown item is spinning the wheel on a squad-wipe

I'm sorry but your grasping at straws with that one lol. just pick up flare and throw it alternatively move away from the light. Wouldn't pre primed grenades be worse then since now you blow your own people up?

Dogs have better vision, but so what, they can't reaction fire, enemies are real dumb, they walk to the point they can see you and open fire, with superior night vision, that'll be from outside of your range, so no reaction fire before they drop a rocket on you, unless you have surrounded yourself in rings of flares

Surround with flares and shoot them, yes. throw frags to avoid snipers like I have been saying. Dogs don't shoot they are scouts bite is a nice addition but there abilities are better they see things run away and you flare those things and shoot them.

which is a bit of a craps shoot if you are running ironman. In my experience, the best way to survive is to kill anything that could shoot at you

Would love to see you kill everything that can shoot you turn 1 on a manor that would be insane. otherwise things will shoot you.

I don't know why you keep saying if you stand in the light you get gunned down and squad wiped instantly when in the day you always stand in the light, Do you get squad wiped instantly then? you get shot at night if you stand in a light source but that's about the only time they even shoot at you if you play your cards right.

It's not exactly a hot take to say fighting cults at night is far better. I'm pretty sure it's universal knowledge.

[Juku121]

...as you agents will happily yeet a flare into the back of the head of anyone in 10 yards...

If you're throwing flares (or grenades) so that someone's head is even theoretically in the way, you're doing it wrong (or have grenade-proof armour).

Dogs have better vision, but so what, they can't reaction fire...

Dogs actually can reaction-bark. It's not useful in the same way as reaction fire, but it's definitely a useful feature.

In my experience, the best way to survive is to kill anything that could shoot at you and force anything that could get in range to have to walk far enough to lose their ability to fire.

Well, yes. And if a fella having 1-3 more tiles of vision is enough to give them the ability to walk close enough and fire, you were never safe in the first place.

This is incidentally also why mortars are so awesome in manor missions.

...because a reinforcement wave spawns 1 tile behind you and rips you apart.

Didn't that get changed so they never come from the side you spawn from?

I don't know why you keep saying if you stand in the light you get gunned down and squad wiped instantly when in the day you always stand in the light...

+1

It's not exactly a hot take to say fighting cults at night is far better. I'm pretty sure it's universal knowledge.

Not for me, since I play with reduced grenade/flare ranges (12 tiles max). So I can't do the 'ring of fire' very well, and I definitely can't just lob grenades to kill enemies long-range. If I have the armour and transport capacity, gunning them down faster than they appear is the order of the day, and that is far easier to pull off with daytime shooting ranges. If I'm undergunned, night is an option. But a more risky one.

[SBBurzmali]

Didn't that get changed so they never come from the side you spawn from?

It did, it prevents them spawning immediately on top of you from what I can see, but move one tile forward and they can spawn behind you. Basically, you need to leave at least one agent standing in the deployment area to block it, leaving by even one tile opens it to reinforcements spawning there.

[Juku121]

Are you sure? I just tried, and all four reinforcement waves spawned away from the deployment tiles. The closest they got were the 'SW' and 'SE' corners.

If this is true, there's something wrong on the OXCE level. Doubly so, even, since they are not supposed to spawn closer than 10 tiles from your agents. I'm sure Meridian will want a save for that.

[SBBurzmali]

Are you sure? I just tried, and all four reinforcement waves spawned away from the deployment tiles. The closest they got were the 'SW' and 'SE' corners.

If this is true, there's something wrong on the OXCE level. Doubly so, even, since they are not supposed to spawn closer than 10 tiles from your agents. I'm sure Meridian will want a save for that.

I had it happen with someone 5 tiles or less from the edge, saw that Meridian made a change, and then left someone on the deployment zone for every manor I played after that. So, no save at this point.

[Juku121]

Uh, 5 tiles from map edge is okay. I even had a soldier near the 'north' edge when I tested and nobody seemed to spawn right next to him. It's 10 tiles within an agent that's questionable.

Also, when was all this? And what change are you referring to? I don't see anything related to reinforcements in the OXCE changelogs from the last three months or so.

Edit: In fact, the manor reinforcement change is post-7.8 (early Nov vs late Oct), the last full release of OXCE. Even more puzzled now.

[the nomad]

The game is very possible on Iron Man (at least on the middle difficulty), but naturally you have to restart a few times to get the game. I progressed quite far without save scumming enough so that now I find save scumming pointless and tension-breaking. Sure some huge f*ckups can occur (my favorite being being blasted by a reaction fire rocket right in the transport craft at turn one, many agents and equipment annihilated instantly) but you nearly always have a chance to progress.

In my opinion the biggest problem in Iron Man are enemy crafts shooting down your transports. That is a full-on rage moment and the only part that is not a good aspect of an Iron man game in my opinion. You can take precautions and be cautious, but a UFO can suddenly spawn with no warning, you have no way to foresee that with the aliens.

[Juku121]

In my opinion the biggest problem in Iron Man are enemy crafts shooting down your transports.
...
You can take precautions and be cautious, but a UFO can suddenly spawn with no warning, you have no way to foresee that with the aliens.

I'm pretty sure a hunter-killer UFO randomly spawning close enough to your transport as part of an alien mission has an astronomically low chance of happening. I mean, why are your transports out at some random hour before the UFOs show up, anyway?

You do know you can escort your transports, right? And that some transports are uninterceptable due to being part of general civilian traffic?

[the nomad]

I'm pretty sure a hunter-killer UFO randomly spawning close enough to your transport as part of an alien mission has an astronomically low chance of happening. I mean, why are your transports out at some random hour before the UFOs show up, anyway?

You do know you can escort your transports, right? And that some transports are uninterceptable due to being part of general civilian traffic?

Well it happened to me two times in the first months of invasion if I remember correctly. Obviously the transport is out on its way to a mission far from the base and I don't know when the UFOs are going to show up, you make it sound like I should know when the heck they are going to fly around. This same problem also occurs when I don't know a cult manor had a base around the area I was flying but that's on me and is preventable by frequent scoutings.

I know I can escort them but the fighter crafts have a huge chance of being destroyed again in the early stages. And yeah, naturally I know the undetectable vehicles, which are useless on tough missions where a transport are definitely needed.

[Juku121]

Well it happened to me two times in the first months of invasion if I remember correctly. Obviously the transport is out on its way to a mission far from the base and I don't know when the UFOs are going to show up, you make it sound like I should know when the heck they are going to fly around.

No, I'm saying that it's pretty unlikely that your post-invasion transport (so not something glacial) is running around unescorted and far from any friendly base and at exactly the same time and roughly the same place where a mission with hunter-killer UFOs spawns. And you have no good interceptors yet, and the transport can't outrun the UFO, so there's a limited time window, too. Not impossible, but unlikely, since you need so many things to go wrong at the same time.

I get that when it does happen in an Ironman run, it'll scar you for life.

You could also try to run back home and send out interceptors to take the heat or serve as bait. Not a guarantee since these UFOs are pretty fast, but it's at least something.

Or you could just escort everything. It's not paranoia when they really want to shoot hot flaming plasma at you.

I know I can escort them but the fighter crafts have a huge chance of being destroyed again in the early stages.

They can try to kite a bit, at least. And a fighter+pilot is cheaper than losing your equipment pile and your transport, most likely.

[the nomad]

Yeah but if the Interceptor is destroyed the Transport is destroyed anyway, I can't disengage only one of them. Otherwise I'd have no problem with the issue, I'd sacrifice a fighter and an agent in a heartbeat if I could. They have a chance of ejecting anyway.

How else can I escort them? Maybe I can send the fighter first or keep it around the transport and lure the UFO to it? I think you mean that. It could still catch my transport after the fighter is destroyed depending on where the UFO spawned but yeah it'd increase the transport's survival odds drastically.

Again, agree it is highly unlikely but likely enough that it happened two times in a campaign, in two months window, but I guess with this luring tactic the disaster'll be even more unlikely.

[psavola]

I have not played X-Com Files, but another mod (TWoTS) with SH/IM where HKs are equally an issue. So maybe a couple of general tips might be useful here.

The strategy there is to use escort functionality (first send out a transport, then select the transport as the target of the interceptor). With TWoTS settings on SH difficulty, one interceptor is not enough, you'll have to use at least two. And you'll have to pick weapons that are quick enough and have a sufficient range. The only possible craft weapon in early-mid game (before sonic oscillator or PWT launcher) in that mod is Squall launcher, others are useless. You'll want to select a pilot who is not a coward, so that the interceptor can approach fast and fire before the HK kills it. And even that is not enough, if the HK ship is shielded. Also, if the HK is programmed to prefer attacking transports instead of interceptors (rare but possible), you're also screwed. But I have completed SH/IM a couple of times, so it's doable. You'll also learn to be more cautious when you don't have "reload" possibility.

If the HK targets your interceptor, you'll have some time in the meanwhile to act. You could make the interceptor attack the HK (or move in the opposite angle) and make the transport back away. However, transports are typically so slow that they might not be able get out the range of HK, so if the interceptor is destroyed, the transport might be chased off and killed as well.

Destroying the interceptor does not kill the pilot (at least with typical settings), the pilot ejects and returns to your base a few days later.

[Juku121]

I did mean separating the escort and the transport when the HK is spotted, trying to fly the transport back to base and using the fighter as bait. Even Thunderstorms have trouble with non-tiny HK UFOs one-on-one, never mind Battleships and their ilk.

Though XCF seems to have UFOs default to hunting transports and a coin toss when on Flyby or Retaliation missions. So that might not always work.

I'm not sure how fast a TWoTS transport is, but mid-game XCF transports usually have 1000-2000 speed, so not that slow.

Destroying the interceptor does not kill the pilot (at least with typical settings), the pilot ejects and returns to your base a few days later.

I just recently gave Solarius the idea that not all pilots may survive...

[the nomad]

I just recently gave Solarius the idea that not all pilots may survive...

Isn't it already like that? My pilots do not always make it back after being shot down.

[Juku121]

I have no idea, I use my own variable settings for a lot of things. But when I looked at the ruleset, 'pilotsEmergencyEvacuationSurvivalChance' seemed to be unset, so it should default to 100, i.e. 100%. Look into your vars_XCOMFILES.rul, is it present and what's its value?

If it isn't, perhaps the default has been changed, or maybe there's some other factor I'm not aware of.