Mansion Mission Reports (Please Contribute)

[Arthanor]

Well, so I went forward and did it. It was entertaining and refreshing at first to have the new environment and challenge, but it was not as climactic as I expected. Most likely because it was "only" traders. I expected to face some high quality security guards (at least in personal armors) given that the mansion is supposedly super protected, and had brought a whole bunch of acid flasks to deal with them, but did not need them.

Spawning was a bit tricky, in a big open main hall with lots of doors, with most of my gals on level 2, then 2 on 3 and 4, and one on 6. It was one block away from the NW corner of the map, so I decided to clear that direction first, to get one direction that was "safe". The 3 gals on 4-6 met up so nobody would be isolated. Most of the game was peaking around corners and either melee or magnums dispatching targets.

Things of note:
- Didn't need to bring grenades, or much high power stuff. I used 1 grenade to get a GO from the roof, and a few bombs to destroy walls.
- Rippers are great to get through walls. Not super reliable, but infinite shots works well.
- Clockwork guns worked really well, but the reloads (and all the slots they took) were enough of an annoyance that they won't come back. SMGs also didn't work very well for some reason. Magnums were awesome though.
- Pipes performed well, but honestly the opposition wasn't very armored so it wasn't an issue. Anything sort of tough can be taken out by magnums, and at 60ish damage for a good melee gal, all kind of melee weapons should work. I'm thinking I'll just take whatever is fastest next time, or maybe even just fistycuffs (although gotta make sure nothing wakes up after...)
- Enemies were not very well equipped for such a "high security mansion". A few CAWS and shotguns could have done terrible, terrible things to the gals, but mostly I was on the offensive and rarely got shot. After turn 20 it got a bit more tricky, but it was still ok (loved that GO trying to hit a gal with his spiked mace and failing repeatedly, just to get a clockwork gun volley to the fast on my turn).
- The melee gals probably don't need a sidearm at all, it's so tight and cramped that they can often just rush the enemy, or hide and do it next turn.
- I should have gotten a motion scanner per 2 gals and scanned more often.
- There are A LOT of stairs. Much more than I expected. I thought I'd clear the 2nd floor, then work my way through the other ones, which sort of worked, but I did find 5-6 enemies behind my back.
- Given the 18 gals I had, and being able to ignore the two basement floors for the most part, I will probably try to sweep all floors at once next time, especially since the motion scanner gives returns for every floors.

The most valuable thing I found: Close doors behind yourself! The AI never does, so if you do, as soon as you see an open door you've got the trail of an enemy, just gotta keep checking the rooms until you find them. Once I had that idea, it made the mess I was in (having made disjointed progress on a few floors instead of clearing things properly) much more manageable.

Overall, quite enjoyable, but I overestimated the challenge and prepared and packed way too much stuff. I'll take it as a fun change of pace in the future, not as a "OMG can I make it?" mission. It is definitely not snakemen terror site level of tension, that's what my upcoming church pogrom in North America will be, I guess..!

[ivandogovich]

... SMGs also didn't work very well for some reason...

Great Report! Thank you! 

As for the SMGs.... you equipped them with Chem.  I've been pretty underwhelmed with Chem in the SMG my whole campaign, it just doesn't seem to pack a strong punch.  However, I LOVE incendiary rounds.  I repeatedly use them as a fast sidearm for my snipers and take really decent potshots accross the map.  They are terrific for lighting up night missions, and I go really light on electro flares.  And they were standard sidearm on most of the team members for a long time.  Trying an Handle, missing a couple times, still time for a burst of SMG inc rounds and foes drop left and right.  At least for the Traders I've confronted most of my game, they have been terrific.  When you stated taking chem with them in your mission prep post, I thought really?  but maybe he's right about the armor damage... should I be using that more?  Its just that the fire works so well... it so hard for me to pass up.  Try it next time and see how it works for you.

[Arthanor]

Warning: Long defence of Chem ahead!

I forgot why I took the SMGs with chem while I was playing and writing the report. 

The idea was to have a plentiful supply of armor damaging capabilities, not damage. SMGs are pretty inaccurate, so you need to be up close, where you might as well use melee, so the point is not really damage (although I really like your idea of a "melee failsafe"! I will be using that!). In fact, in the mansion, only once did I use the SMG, and it was more out of spite (with a gal that just got injured, to kill her Guild Security attacker, which she did manage to do on front armor) than it was out of reason.

When I prepared for the mansion, I expected at the very least some personal armor type enemies. Marsec or Osiron, depending on the faction I would get (I went in blind as far as faction and deployment were concerned). I somewhat expected enemies similar to church exalts: The rich and mighty may well have fancy "hunting" gear that could also be used to defend their home.. I wanted to be able to tackle those and hopefully reduce their armor enough to be able to stun them and bring them to the Harpies' nest too. I also expected to meet foes that should prove too much for the unprepared, forcing them to perform the mission as presented: Grab loot and run away from too big a challenge, instead of what I (and I think most others) did: Kill and clean. I was intending to try and do the epic fight against such foe to clean the house.

So the idea was to have acid flasks in good supply and SMG-Chem as a side for melee gals and bad throwers. Each burst could do ~8 armor damage if all hit (from very close), since it is 10% of 0-48 damage, so 0-4 -> 2 on average, 4 times. An autoshot is also is really fast so you can have a few gals run in, unload and run out. Since even power armor has "only" 65 rear armor, a few full autoshots to the back can make even that manageable with pipes (~60 damage, so if you bring down the armor to ~40 in a few autoshots, you can then hurt it relatively reliably).

The different SMGs ammos get:
- Chem: 0-48 damage, 0-4 armor damage, supposedly a 10/40/30% bonus damage to Combat/Carapace/Power armors
- Incendiary: 0-40 damage, only 50% armor, supposedly 0/25/85% damage reduction to Combat/Carapace/Power armors

So a chem round should do up to 67 damage on carapace, so you can do up to 17 damage on front armor, up to 37 in the back. Power armor is rear 65 and you do up to 62 damage, so after ~1 burst, you can potentially do damage, and every hit reduces armor, so keep applying it and it will eventually work. That's why I like Chem. And of course, you can eventually just go all in and smash them in the back with a melee weapon. I found some spiked maces and billhooks during the mission, which would totally have allowed me to take on power armor, especially with a sprinkling of chem first. Even pipes will work after a (un)healthy dose of chem with their ~60 damage with 80 strength gals.

By opposition, an incendiary round does 0-30 damage on carapace, which goes against 15-25 armor depending on facing because of the 50%. That means you need better than average damage to penetrate side armor and will do up to 15 damage in the back, down to 5 in the front. Of course, against power armor you can fire until you're out of bullets and they will still be standing. So it works better against low armors, but that's not the problem I was trying to solve.

Obviously I was preparing for a challenge much above what the mansion actually presents in term of combat. The challenge is more one of perseverance to clean up. And since I faced traders, they were actually chem resistant.. But the magnums worked really well and I will take them again. The SMGs.. I'll probably keep them in mansions, not because they work any better than other stuff, but because they will eventually work against anything.

I don't really get how to do a "snatch and grab" though.. there isn't an obvious vault or something, and scouring the whole mansion for valuables will require you to kill most of the enemies, so you might as well finish off the few stragglers..? That seems to go with pretty much everybody cleaning up the place.

[Dioxine]

I tried putting Exalts in there. YOU DON' WANNA. You'll get murdered before you even notice someone's around. Unless you do wanna. I surmised that the map from hell is a challenge enough. But obviously not for a well prepared veteran. Well. Notice it's an early-game mission. Maybe I'll add a special deployment that starts appearing later.

[Arthanor]

I realized I forgot to add: For the enemies in the mansion, API clips in the SMG would indeed have been killier, since they have lower armor and, with the halving of it, would have taken more damage that way. With only up to 35 armor and only 10% bonus damage to chem (or actually a resist to chem for the traders I faced), you indeed get much more out of the API rounds. Good call!

@Dioxine/Re: nastier units
Yeah, I remember going enjoying TftD ship missions as a teen (once I had figured out how to properly equip and split my soldiers in fire teams). I was preparing for something like that. It works great as an early game mission, and it was a nice experience. Too bad you can't save multiple loadouts for the Bonny and crew though, as now I have to re-equip everyone. Which, if I am honest, I will probably enjoy as a way to tweak loadouts..

Difficulty wise, it all depends on what the deployment weapons are for those units. Exalts are tricky, because they are quite fast too, and good melee combatants with good dodging. Give them a billhook and they will be murder, yes. And Exalts are also the most "active duty spyrer" equivalent. I didn't know what to expect, so I prepared for the worst I could imagine. If not exalts, since I agree they are deadly, what about a "mansion patriarch", old dude in high quality personal armor, with a shotgun. He grew old and complacent and thinks he can just walk up to these mutant pests and hunt them like animals? Or the "mansion heir" with a lighter version of the armor, a sword and a pistol, prove to his dad he means business? Stumble on these guys and run, or try for the epic fight?

The only thing I knew wouldn't be there is chryssalids, which in a sense wouldn't be as bad as they are in terror sites, because there aren't civilians to zombify. BUT I don't want chryssalids and I don't think they fit as a "pet" any ways. A reaper "pet dog" though? Totally! And although scary if it sees you first, reapers go down to a few black fire bombs so it's not even that terrible.

Hell, with the description of "super heavily guarded mansion", I half expected Mercs to be the ones doing some of the guarding If OpenXCom could spawn units mid battles, it could be cool to have a Merc strike team arrive on site after.. turn 30? But they'd need to go on normal patrol, not post-turn 20 omniscient AI though... That would be pure murder! Have a big explosion go off in one side of the map to represent the blasting charge, then next turn spawn Mercs goons (soldiers? The lower rank) on patrol as they sweep and clear the place. That'd make us "snatch and grab" instead of "kill and clean"!

TL;DR: Mansions are pretty cool, and they offer quite a nice opportunity for different kinds of challenge. Beyond fighting the map, creating either tension as you run away from a tough enemy or an epic fight as you try to take them down, could add to the experience.

These comments are made from the experience I got with my 18 best team, many of which have outlandish reactions and melee (or firing), and almost all of which have capped strength. Obviously, in such a scenario where equipment is quite limited, gal quality/quantity makes a huge difference and I was lucky enough to have both.

[Dioxine]

Well, setting aside things that are impossible to make in OXC, IMO the only way to make an epic fight is to have an enemy with a ton of HP (like, 500), else he'll just go down to a single Elerium grenade, GG. But something with that much HP cannot be human... Heavily armored troops are a no since this would make the mansion unwinnable with early game equipment.

Also I thought the description makes it clear you infiltrate because of heavy security. If you intended to face said security, why play dress-ups and not attack head-on with full gear? But that would remove any sense for this mission.

I guess if you prepare for the worst, I can only disappoint you

[Arthanor]

Well, setting aside things that are impossible to make in OXC, IMO the only way to make an epic fight is to have an enemy with a ton of HP (like, 500), else he'll just go down to a single Elerium grenade, GG. But something with that much HP cannot be human... Heavily armored troops are a no since this would make the mansion unwinnable with early game equipment.

Fair enough on the armor, and pipedreams. But then is the mansion meant to be a massacre? I thought it was intended as a "grab and flee" mission, where there should be an incentive to flee. In my (one..) experience, grabbing is difficult (loot is scattered everywhere) and fleeing is unnecessary (the opposition is quite manageable). Which leads us to applying the same old XCom hammer solution: Kill 'em all, then sort through the loot. I am just looking for ways of changing the incentives: consolidate loot a bit, maybe have some vault? and add opposition that you should flee from, at least in the early game/unprepared.

Also I thought the description makes it clear you infiltrate because of heavy security. If you intended to face said security, why play dress-ups and not attack head-on with full gear? But that would remove any sense for this mission.

Yes, good point.. but that's why I am looking for different challenges than the usual security units, in spyrer equivalents, or pets. It's just that to me, the heavy security should eventually show up any ways either in the game, or represented as a turn limit, which ends in a win, with all the gals fleeing to the roof just in time when the security shows up. Being able to take my time and sweep the whole place felt odd. How long can it take the security guards outside to respond to everyone inside getting slaughtered?

I guess if you prepare for the worst, I can only disappoint you

Far from it! I had a good time playing the mission, and a great time dreaming up all the terrifying things that could be waiting for me in there before the mission, then trying to prepare for them. This was not disappointing. Look at how much I wrote about it, that's a measure of how I am excited by the mission and the potential I see in it.

Maybe I'll make a "Hardcore Mansion" mod and try to see how that goes! Steal 2 high tech armors from XOps for the spyrers, tweak the deployments a bit (for pets, spyrer and a security head) and see where that goes.

[Dioxine]

Good idea, it's as easy as making new enemies (takes a bit time and mental focus, and usually a lot of sprite pixellating). This can be even the same mission, but threat level rising with time... Need more enemies! Always more enemies!
And yes, I do like the 'Spryer' idea, it fits the piratez world very well.

[Thryllth]

While I do not remember exact enemy count I did my first mansion mission yesterday.  It took over 2 hours to clear the whole place, partly due to my only thinking of using rippers after an hour and a half.  I took the approach of splitting into teams of 2-5 depending on which floor i was clearing and started on the bottom working my way up via the big staircases and ended it after turn 35 on putting down the last Osiron Yeoman.  For me much of the difficulty came from the fact that I had several leakers who got past my gals using the small stairs and then decided to hide on floors that I thought were clear.  Took my best squad of vets with plenty of missions and Dojo time.  I don't have access to any armors that are on the approved attire list so I went in with one gal in the Seductress outfit for dealing with any heavy hitters as I found that a very effective way of dealing with power armor before I had decent weapons and assumed that there would be at least some armored opposition.  The rest of the hands were using the free maid outfits with ranged focused hands firing shiny new smartpistols, new vibrablades for melee troops and anyone with throwing over 50 got a blowgun with one reload due to the armor ignore mechanic.  Looking back this was well more than what was actually needed for the mission as it stands now. 

Next time through I will probably head for one much sooner mainly waiting till I have Rippers and a decent supply of vodka though there is plenty inside already.  Regarding playing this as a smash and grab I noticed 2 rooms on in the basement that each have one entrance and one of the treasure items (money pouch etc.) as the only item in the room.  Were I doing this and things started to go south I would likely send my 2 fastest runners after those while the rest covered the evac route to the roof then leapfrog back and scurry away.  This wouldn't be anywhere near the haul for a full clear but would likely be doable from day 1 with a little luck and rotating back wounded hands while you hold the stairs for the runners though I would certainly use a small pile of smoke if I was trying this as an early game rush.  I feel that the difficulty was good for when I first got the option to do the mission but it was still a nice challenge and a good change of pace to be forced to fight without advanced armor again.  The overall feel was much like the first few ships I knocked off after they landed, A group of effectively naked savages with cobbled together firearms and primitive weaponry against an enemy who had firearms and a decent position.

Oh and it certainly is the map from hell   

[new_civilian]

Reading about the 500hp+ enemy I wondered if it is possible to have a 3x3 or even 4x4 sized enemy.... Or maybe a tileset-based brain with that size, that needs to be destroyed? Doesn't need to be a brain, could be a (living?) computer core or some kind of immobile enemy being, it's the mechanics of the tileset that's important.

[Mattdo]

I played in a mansion occupied by the Church. We took the Bonadventurer, so there were eighteen of us as usual. Five wore thief garb, the rest maid outfits. We mostly had Gauss pistols with no spare clips.

I liked the idea (pistols-only makes a refreshing change from the Juggernauts and Vulcan machine guns I normally rely on), and it was quite atmospheric, but it was just too big. I lost track of how long it took to find and kill/stun all fifty occupants, but it may have been as much as five hours. By the end I stopped advancing cautiously. I split my forces, and moved around as fast as possible, looking for anywhere I hadn't seen before, running out of stamina, and getting shot whenever I did find someone. I think I suffered two deaths. (Maybe I should have brought Aye-Phones, which I don't normally bother with...)

[Solarius Scorch]

Reading about the 500hp+ enemy I wondered if it is possible to have a 3x3 or even 4x4 sized enemy....

Our devs once said about this along the lines of: it's not hard code-wise, but how would the unit turn? There's a lot of design and difficult decisions to be made.

Or maybe a tileset-based brain with that size, that needs to be destroyed? Doesn't need to be a brain, could be a (living?) computer core or some kind of immobile enemy being, it's the mechanics of the tileset that's important.

This mechanic is used in Alien Bases and Cydonia, so obviously it's in. But I have no idea how it relates to the Endless mansion.

[Dioxine]

Reading about the 500hp+ enemy I wondered if it is possible to have a 3x3 or even 4x4 sized enemy....

Nope.

[greattuna]

Mode: campaign, Jack Sparrow difficulty.
Equipment: listed on first screenshot.
Armors: 1 witch, 1 saviour, 1 ghost, 2 seductresses, rest maids.
Opponent: academy.

I started, I faced a few major groups, wiped them out with no casualties (but there were 2 gals close to death) in ~12 turns, then went on to clean the mansion from few panicked and unarmed researchers. Yeah... not much to say here. I used elerium grenade once to kill few cluttered enemies, but the rest of the job was done with various pistols, mini-cougar smgs and rare melee strikes.

[Dioxine]

What the hell with all that Plastasteel, this must be a bug, there should be none

Also CLEARLY mansion needs a major difficulty hike