Pre-Invasion questions

[karry299]

1. How do i know which craft weapons are any good, and does it even matter ? I meah the machine guns you put on small helicopters, LMG, MG, BOMG, etc. Do their stats matter at all ? Or just slap any random 4 MGs on that heli and dont bother thinking too hard about it ?

2. MG descriptions say they "strip armour"...is that a joke or am i misunderstanding how armour works ? What can damage 25 and 5% pre-damage do against a minitank ? Is there a way to just repeatedly shoot an enemy with minigun for 0 damage to lower their armour ?

3. Speaking of minitanks and armoured cars...what can i even do against them ? Light cannons give 0 damage. Grenade launchers and Milkors give 0 damage. Miniguns - 0 damage. EMPs ? Minitanks take 40% damage from EMP, meaning it would take at least 3 EMP grenades per minitank, and that doesnt help with armoured cars at all. High explosives (that i have a very limited amount now with no way to get more of) ? My only Gauss pistol with a single clip that doesnt even have a reduce armour stat ?
Granted, i killed some vampire knights the other day with some sniper fire, but they are melee and there were civilian distractions as well, it took quite a while.

4. Speaking or armour, early on you get Bio-Exo suit...what is it for, exactly ?

5. Speaking of dubious items, does the knockout grenade -slash- gas grenade do anything special ? Or is it just as it appears - a small patch of concentrated smoke that enemies leave immediately with no ill effect ? Or, for instance, smart shotgun, a very late 2-shot low-damage 3-range little thing...i dont see the niche for it, over say, BO SMG.

6. Speaking of knockout, i got some dart muskets here, am i correct that bio damage has to get through armour first to do anything, but electric damage ignores armour completely ? So to capture armoured targets bio darts are useless ? And what is the point of poison darts, exactly ?

7. What is the name of that mod that puts weapon tags in the main description, like "concealable", "sporting gear", etc ? I've seen that in youtube videos, but cant seem to find it on the mods list page.

8. Are dogs the only real way to spot stealth units ? Is there anything else i can do ? Like, peppering the terrain with fire or proximity mines...err...

9. Will there later be a better\faster way to increase the usefulness of AI drones ? Because in my opinion you dont have enough time really to raise it's accuracy the hard way before the invasion starts. Outrunner armor is a complete liability in harder, more enemy-rich missions, so you can only take it on very occasional easy walks, and i'm finding myself almost at invasion with AI barely over 60 accuracy.

Thank you.

[envLight]

1. How do i know which craft weapons are any good, and does it even matter ? I meah the machine guns you put on small helicopters, LMG, MG, BOMG, etc. Do their stats matter at all ? Or just slap any random 4 MGs on that heli and dont bother thinking too hard about it ?

I personally think early aircrafts are completly useless, tho you right in that matter, it's really dosen't matter whatever you gonna put on them, if you wanna be really sure just check their stats idk.

Speaking of minitanks and armoured cars...what can i even do against them ? Light cannons give 0 damage. Grenade launchers and Milkors give 0 damage. Miniguns - 0 damage. EMPs ? Minitanks take 40% damage from EMP, meaning it would take at least 3 EMP grenades per minitank, and that doesnt help with armoured cars at all. High explosives (that i have a very limited amount now with no way to get more of) ? My only Gauss pistol with a single clip that doesnt even have a reduce armour stat ?
Granted, i killed some vampire knights the other day with some sniper fire, but they are melee and there were civilian distractions as well, it took quite a while.

Just keep shoting you gonna get there eventually. If you not sure, use explosives and dynamite, in case of minitanks if i remember EMP grenades are cheap and good way. The psycho weapon is the way as well, check other type of damages other then ur favorite powder-sticks

4. Speaking or armour, early on you get Bio-Exo suit...what is it for, exactly ?

I have a theory, but that would be a slight spoiler. Let's say... there's could be an agressive enviroment where you need some protection. Better then nothing.

6. Speaking of knockout, i got some dart muskets here, am i correct that bio damage has to get through armour first to do anything, but electric damage ignores armour completely ? So to capture armoured targets bio darts are useless ? And what is the point of poison darts, exactly ?

See, every armor has a resistance to something. Most often it's either to kinetics or something else, a huge number of enemies have no defense against gas or psi damage for example. Again, see the characteristics of enemies and your own armor. Weapons usually say what type of damage they do, it's even color-coded.

8. Are dogs the only real way to spot stealth units ? Is there anything else i can do ? Like, peppering the terrain with fire or proximity mines...err...

I mean you can just see them, you just need to get a bit closer. Agents have a highly functional detecting sensor called a... eye. :p You can also use motion detector, if you have problem with like finding them.

9. Will there later be a better\faster way to increase the usefulness of AI drones ? Because in my opinion you dont have enough time really to raise it's accuracy the hard way before the invasion starts. Outrunner armor is a complete liability in harder, more enemy-rich missions, so you can only take it on very occasional easy walks, and i'm finding myself almost at invasion with AI barely over 60 accuracy.

You gonna have transformation for AI later in a game, just like for your other agents, however i personally find usage of AI until pretty much late game and outside of tanks completly useless.

[envLight]

You know, i just remembered, i was dealin damage to tanks just with nitro express and high accuracy dmg bonus, you doing something very wrong.

[karry299]

Just keep shoting you gonna get there eventually. If you not sure, use explosives and dynamite

How does that work ? If i got my mechanics right, armour only ever decreases if unit receives health damage. Therefore 1000 shots of 0 damage will never "get there eventually". And i've tried explosive rounds for grenade launchers and light cannons, it gives 0-0-0-0 result.

See, every armor has a resistance to something.

That really wasnt my question.

[envLight]

How does that work ? If i got my mechanics right, armour only ever decreases if unit receives health damage. Therefore 1000 shots of 0 damage will never "get there eventually". And i've tried explosive rounds for grenade launchers and light cannons, it gives 0-0-0-0 result.

Okay, first of all i am not sure how exatcly does this work. I only noticed that after some period of time the armor on my soldiers start to fall off a bit, i don't know at what exactly rate it happening with the enemies. Again, the mini tanks got 65 armor in front, and 60 on sides, just find something that do more damage.

[psavola]

1. I haven't seen much difference which gun(s) you put on LITTLE BIRD. I've usually put just some machine gun with the biggest damage.

2. Yes, one of the functions of miniguns is to reduce the armor so that subsequent shots (from the same direction) get through. You can even take down enemies with 100+ armor if you wear them down with enough minigunning first. But you don't need to use miniguns at all in the game if you don't want to.

3. Before Promo-III, you usually only need to deal with Red Dawn Armored Cars. I usually deal them with high-explosives. A shrapnel rocket might also be OK. Multiple auto-sniper rounds could also work. After Promo-III, for example in the rogue minitank factory, I suggest RPG launcher with anti-tank rockets. Those usually one-shot them.

4. Bio-Exo suit may be helpful against cutting damage (i.e. Black Lotus dudes). But the biggest importance it that it serves as a dependency for Aqua-plastic suit, which you definitely want for underwater missions (and it's also useful overground).

5. Gas (CHOKE damage) can be quite effective especially against humans. I have never used those myself. But TAC grenade launcher with Gas grenades is probably the nastiest early-mid game weapon of all.

6. None of those are not really worth wasting research and manufacture time.

7. No idea. But I think you can get this info from stats for nerd IIRC.

8. For dealing with black lotus assassins, dogs and rats will do (usually you don't have bats at this time) and are the best. Motion scanners are also OK but often you may not have researched and manufactured them yet.

9. AI units can be trained a little bit as craft pilots (e.g. a LITTLE BIRD hunting manor spawns). When you get flying drone, you can use it for training in monster missions. Once you get X-Com Seeker Drones, they actually become very useful (20 night vision, 100 % thermal vision, huge amount of TUs and attacks). And a laser tank is really useful in ghost missions. Outrunner is rather fragile and I always skip it.

[Nerro]

2. https://xcf.trigramreactor.net/master/article/STR_LIGHT_MINIGUN

Armor Degradation (Raw Damage)   0.05

It means the weapon deals 5% of its damage to the armor before the actual damage calculation.
With 12 shots at 25 damage, that's up to 15 armor damage (multiplied by the target resistance to kinetic) per autoshot.

[karry299]

2. Yes, one of the functions of miniguns is to reduce the armor so that subsequent shots (from the same direction) get through.

Is it unique to minigus ? Can you see it somewhere in the info stats within the game ?
BTW, i remember there was a bug in the original game that allowed one to see the stats of enemies. Is there a similar debug function in OXCE ?

3. Before Promo-III, you usually only need to deal with Red Dawn Armored Cars.

There's an armored car in the jarhead terror mission.

I suggest RPG launcher with anti-tank rockets. Those usually one-shot them.

Okay, so...95 damage * 0.75 resistance = 71 damage. 75 armour * 0.75 piercing = 56 armour. So 15 damage at 100% efficiency. Does rocket explosion count as covering all 4 enemy tiles from point of impact ? If yes - 60 damage out of 75 health for minitank. If not - even less. Correct ?

4. Bio-Exo suit may be helpful against cutting damage

Well, my confusion is mostly at the very early point of it's appearance. There's no real reason to use it that early, and later on it's no good for it's poor stats. Like, it's too weak to protect against, say, chupacabras.

[psavola]

Is it unique to minigus ? Can you see it somewhere in the info stats within the game ?

No, there are others. But they are the earliest ones.

There's an armored car in the jarhead terror mission.

At the early stage it may be difficult to deal with the mission anyway. The timer can be tight (you might not be able to get there with bigger craft), and there is a large number of enemy units. If I get it early, I usually grab the closest jarhead there is (if any is close enough) and run. The biggest benefit of the mission is an early access to EMP tech.

Okay, so...95 damage * 0.75 resistance = 71 damage. 75 armour * 0.75 piercing = 56 armour. So 15 damage at 100% efficiency. Does rocket explosion count as covering all 4 enemy tiles from point of impact ? If yes - 60 damage out of 75 health for minitank. If not - even less. Correct ?

Explosions do damage to every tile of the unit. Not getting into calculations, the point is, anti-tank rockets and other explosives can deal with a lot. Shrapnel rockets are usually even more devastating than concussive damage.

Well, my confusion is mostly at the very early point of it's appearance. There's no real reason to use it that early, and later on it's no good for it's poor stats. Like, it's too weak to protect against, say, chupacabras.

There is very little that can protect against the strongest monster melee attacks. They can destroy you even while wearing the best armors in the game. But Bio-exo suit could protect you against assassins throwing knives at you, for example. But it's not a big deal, of course, which is why I almost never manufacture them myself (but still always prioritize researching them, in order to get to aqua-plastic suit).

[Nerro]

Okay, so...95 damage * 0.75 resistance = 71 damage. 75 armour * 0.75 piercing = 56 armour. So 15 damage at 100% efficiency. Does rocket explosion count as covering all 4 enemy tiles from point of impact ? If yes - 60 damage out of 75 health for minitank. If not - even less. Correct ?

You are missing the Armor Degradation (0.3 in this case).
That means, first armor is reduced by 95*75*0.3 = 21, then the unit takes 71 - (75 - 21)* 0.75. That's about 30 damage.

Edit: Actually, I'm not sure if the armor pre-damage is taken into consideration in the calculation of the same hit or not. It may only be applied at the end, doing 15 health damage and 21 (0.3 pre-armor) + 1 (0.1 after-armor) armor damage.

[karry299]

You are missing the Armor Degradation (0.3 in this case).
That means, first armor is reduced by 95*75*0.3 = 21

Are you sure that 0.3 is applied to the damage of the weapon and not to the armour on it's own ? What is the formula ?

Explosions do damage to every tile of the unit.

That's why i said 4 times 15 is 60. Which is below 75 health.

6. None of those are not really worth wasting research and manufacture time.

Why not ? For example, just now i two-shot a minitank with a taser cannon, which should be doing 33 damage at 150% efficiency not counting power degradation. So even if it says it has 70% armour efficiency - it really feels like electric damage bypasses armour more than it says somehow. So is it not worth getting electric darts for getting through the armoured targets, since it's the only long ranged capture option

[Empiro]

1. How do i know which craft weapons are any good, and does it even matter ? I meah the machine guns you put on small helicopters, LMG, MG, BOMG, etc. Do their stats matter at all ? Or just slap any random 4 MGs on that heli and dont bother thinking too hard about it ?

I always use the HMGs, and it seems to be overall the best

2. MG descriptions say they "strip armour"...is that a joke or am i misunderstanding how armour works ? What can damage 25 and 5% pre-damage do against a minitank ? Is there a way to just repeatedly shoot an enemy with minigun for 0 damage to lower their armour ?

Whenever you see the white flash on a hit, some armor has been reduced even if no damage was dealt.

3. Speaking of minitanks and armoured cars...what can i even do against them ? Light cannons give 0 damage. Grenade launchers and Milkors give 0 damage. Miniguns - 0 damage. EMPs ? Minitanks take 40% damage from EMP, meaning it would take at least 3 EMP grenades per minitank, and that doesnt help with armoured cars at all. High explosives (that i have a very limited amount now with no way to get more of) ? My only Gauss pistol with a single clip that doesnt even have a reduce armour stat ?
Granted, i killed some vampire knights the other day with some sniper fire, but they are melee and there were civilian distractions as well, it took quite a while.

Dynamite is a bit easier to obtain than HiEx and can deal reliable damage, though you might need more than one. Miniguns work if you keep shooting. HMGs can get through their armor, but can be risky to use if they survive. Snipers can also work, but takes patience.

You shouldn't have large numbers of tanks to deal with before promo 3, so it's definitely time to break out those limited quantity weapons you might get.

4. Speaking or armour, early on you get Bio-Exo suit...what is it for, exactly ?

It provides great protection against cutting and chemical attacks. Against monsters, they can allow you to survive a hit or two. Not too bad to take out against Black Lotus when hunting for assassins. They're also more or less required for certain missions.

5. Speaking of dubious items, does the knockout grenade -slash- gas grenade do anything special ? Or is it just as it appears - a small patch of concentrated smoke that enemies leave immediately with no ill effect ? Or, for instance, smart shotgun, a very late 2-shot low-damage 3-range little thing...i dont see the niche for it, over say, BO SMG.

Knockout grenades provide a reliable way to KO most human and monstrous enemies you will encounter before 1999.

Gas grenades are absolutely deadly against all human enemies and even decent against aliens. They are some of the best weapons you can use when you get them.

Both grenades are extra useful during night missions, where you don't want to directly shoot your target and get auto-revealed to all the snipers on the map.

6. Speaking of knockout, i got some dart muskets here, am i correct that bio damage has to get through armour first to do anything, but electric damage ignores armour completely ? So to capture armoured targets bio darts are useless ? And what is the point of poison darts, exactly ?

They're all just damage types. Different enemies are weak against different attacks. Electric Darts deal more damage because it deals 50% health, and 75% stun (compared to the Bio Dart's 10% health, 100% stun). Both have to get past armor first.

8. Are dogs the only real way to spot stealth units ? Is there anything else i can do ? Like, peppering the terrain with fire or proximity mines...err...

Look for the anti-camo stat. Dogs are decent. Scout Drones and Rats are better. Motion Scanners can help too. Utilize the scout-retreat tactic to minimize your risks -- move 66-75% of your TUs forward with a rat or whatever, and run back toward safety.

9. Will there later be a better\faster way to increase the usefulness of AI drones ? Because in my opinion you dont have enough time really to raise it's accuracy the hard way before the invasion starts. Outrunner armor is a complete liability in harder, more enemy-rich missions, so you can only take it on very occasional easy walks, and i'm finding myself almost at invasion with AI barely over 60 accuracy.

I've found that the Minigun Tank will increase their stats ridiculously fast. I usually wait for that.

I've never built Outrunners, but I feel like there are plenty of cakewalk missions to train them up.

[karry299]

Knockout grenades provide a reliable way to KO most human and monstrous enemies you will encounter before 1999.

How do you define "reliable" ? Against cult humans, i would say taser cannon is reliable, one-shots just about anyone i ever encountered. One knockout grenade does not drop a beginner level goon with a bat, in my experience. He just leaves the cloud next turn and keeps attacking. How many knockout grenades per target would you say is "reliable" ?

[Nerro]

Are you sure that 0.3 is applied to the damage of the weapon and not to the armour on it's own ? What is the formula ?

Look for "ToArmorPre": https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Ruleset_Reference_Nightly_(OpenXcom)
The documentation says it uses the "Primary damage rolled". I'm not sure of the exact formula, but this is clearly using the damage of the weapon and not affected by the armor. ("ToArmor" is the value that is affected by the armor.)

[Empiro]

How do you define "reliable" ? Against cult humans, i would say taser cannon is reliable, one-shots just about anyone i ever encountered. One knockout grenade does not drop a beginner level goon with a bat, in my experience. He just leaves the cloud next turn and keeps attacking. How many knockout grenades per target would you say is "reliable" ?

Grenades can be thrown much further and you can carry a lot more of them. You don't need a dedicated agent to carry them either.

They do have a tiny radius, so it basically needs to land at their feet. I don't think I've ever seen a basic goon survive a direct hit, but it's not too hard to throw a second one to make sure.

Overall, I find them more useful than the taser cannon. I still use the basic taser and blunt rounds more though. Once you have agents with lots of TUs, melee works even better.