Author Topic: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)  (Read 116822 times)

Offline ohartenstein23

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #225 on: December 05, 2016, 05:59:18 pm »
Man, all those pre-primed proximity mines makes me nervous.  One soldier goes down from smoke inhalation or another panics with one in hand and you're in for a fun time!

Offline Lion66six

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #226 on: December 05, 2016, 07:04:36 pm »
Man, all those pre-primed proximity mines makes me nervous.  One soldier goes down from smoke inhalation or another panics with one in hand and you're in for a fun time!

I'm just a man that likes a bit of drama!
I don't want to depend on them too much but they are very useful :-)

Offline ohartenstein23

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #227 on: December 05, 2016, 07:16:25 pm »
I just started a new standard X-Com campaign, and boy is it fun to incorporate all the high-explosive fun.  I understand why pre-primed can make it much quicker, but I've been reminding myself to have patience when high-ex'ing farms :P  Also, I love your tactic of proxy mining the ufo door as soon as you see it, I've started doing that too to make breaching a easier.

Offline Lion66six

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #228 on: December 05, 2016, 07:37:44 pm »
Aye that can work out quite well. The way I'm now seeing the proximity grenades now is that they can easily protect your troops from nasty surprises. A normal nasty surprise is an alien coming out of a door and shooting you if your reactions don't help. I've stopped depending on reactions wherever possible.

I do have a concern when I'm up against stronger aliens. You have alien grenades for the harder ones, or bigger rockets but not stronger proximity grenades. Perhaps a chance here for that, using alien alloys to make alloy proximity grenades, or Elerium for Elerium Proximity Grenades.

Offline ohartenstein23

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #229 on: December 05, 2016, 07:57:16 pm »
Well, then proxy mines are just a warning that something's coming, and is probably a bit wounded.  Hide far enough around the corner of the UFO door or in deep enough cover it doesn't come looking for you, so you can pop it on your next turn!

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #230 on: December 05, 2016, 08:39:43 pm »
Two new episodes are now live.

[LP]Hardmode Expansion [EP31] - Into the darkness - https://youtu.be/WCK6anUfHwg
[LP]Hardmode Expansion [EP32] - USA Team on top! - https://youtu.be/OntONjHggEw

Double Feature!

Uhhhh looking forward to that!!! Just got my new Internet access at my new apartment today. Finally i am back online =)
The pre-primed proxy mines can backfire in a bad way.

Are there any suggestions so far what could be changed for future release?
I am still working on the new version, so everything I get now as feedback will probably be implemented.

Offline Lion66six

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #231 on: December 05, 2016, 11:06:23 pm »
Uhhhh looking forward to that!!! Just got my new Internet access at my new apartment today. Finally i am back online =)
The pre-primed proxy mines can backfire in a bad way.

Are there any suggestions so far what could be changed for future release?
I am still working on the new version, so everything I get now as feedback will probably be implemented.

Welcome back. Life without proper internet sucks.

Feedback :
I do have a concern when I'm up against stronger aliens. You have alien grenades for the harder ones, or bigger rockets but not stronger proximity grenades. Perhaps a chance here for that, using alien alloys to make alloy proximity grenades, or Elerium for Elerium Proximity Grenades.

I will think about some others and let you know :-)

Offline Drasnighta

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #232 on: December 06, 2016, 05:06:37 am »
I have always been a fan of the "Pull-and-Run" Nuclear landmine....

Offline Starving Poet

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #233 on: December 06, 2016, 08:00:09 am »
Just want to add I'm a fan of your proxies as well - I found myself using them in my last TFTD campaign as doorbells - they were unlikely to damage a lobsterman, but they let me know there was someone nearby.

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #234 on: December 06, 2016, 04:50:23 pm »
Welcome back. Life without proper internet sucks.

Feedback :
I do have a concern when I'm up against stronger aliens. You have alien grenades for the harder ones, or bigger rockets but not stronger proximity grenades. Perhaps a chance here for that, using alien alloys to make alloy proximity grenades, or Elerium for Elerium Proximity Grenades.

I will think about some others and let you know :-)

Well you also loose a lot of loot due to how you use the grenades.
Use a spotter, let your men still in smoke let shoot the spotted (with Rifle Snap or Autofire or Sniper Rifle), with draw the spotter back into the smoke screen to keep him save.

Using proxies works for now, but you need real teamplay within your team to survive Mutons and especially their Terrorunits.

I think you should turn of "Instant Grenades" and play normal :) Grenade relay is often very useful, it also limits the usefulness of grenades a little bit since you do not get direct results.
I usually use grenades as a weakening option on enemies I can not kill in the current turn. As I told you before, X-Com is like chess.

Also I really recommend burning turn 1 and debark completely on turn 2, your soldiers can run! (Alternate Movments Methods) They still can exit the Skyranger and can fire use this to your advantage.
My troops usually get clustered around the landing gear, thats a grenade magnet of course, but with smoke and killing all visible aliens nearby the chance of getting grenaded is really really low.
And you start turn 3 with all your men ready to shot (probably kneeled also), so your TU potential for killing is much much higher (more TU to shot).
I always do it like this and in 99% of cases it works and having a cleared landing zone free of enemies on your turn 2, will let you scout quicker on turn 3 and kill more.
Even on 60x60 maps with Drones/Tanks you can mostly clear the outside within maximum of 7 turns, you just need to see the aliens, know were they are, artillery can take care of them.

You really should at least try to repair the tanks at base, the can still be used for base defense (as long as they have ammo!).
I will add some upgrade options for Tanks, so a Tank Canon can be made in a tank Laser Cannon and then be equipped with HWP Alloy Armor and becoming a Alloy Tank/Laser Cannon (which can fire 2 3 shot bursts of a powerful Laserbeam (doing 100 Damage).
Currently you have to build a completely new Tank, but upgrading them seems the better and more cost effective way i think. I always ended up selling the initial tanks once ig got the Alloy Armored ones.

Ok long post :D

Offline Lion66six

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #235 on: December 11, 2016, 06:58:10 pm »
Next two episodes are up, links below:

[LP]Hardmode Expansion [EP33] - Average deaths per mission is - https://youtu.be/_TZRv83vdiQ
[LP]Hardmode Expansion [EP34] - Green Wall time soon yes? - https://youtu.be/XemfJ937FH4

Let me know what you think :-)

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #236 on: December 12, 2016, 03:06:01 pm »
I really enjoyed the new episodes you uploaded yesterday evening.

And i noticed that you are going to run out of research, probably.
I will address this in next release and changing the dependencies of early game research.
The only research contained in the Alien Data Slate will then be the Laser Weapons and the Medikits.
I am thinking of making the Armor research totally independent, but being built on top of each other.
Possible Research Order:
 - Alien Alloys:
          - Alloy Ammo
          - Alloy Vest:
                   - Improved Interceptor:
                                   - Alloy HWP Armor:
                                            - Personal Armor

The idea behind this approach is that you start with big and clunky stuff like a craft and move to finer structures like Armor for Tanks and then to personal Armor.
Would be reasonable right?

So you could switch to full Alien Alloy Equipment, without the alien Data Slate.
Retaliators would also be earlier available and you could actually go and attempt to shoot down some Terrorships, even thou Retaliators need a Interceptor for Production.
So you can get better Equipment and have more Research available, Laser Weapons and Medikits would still require the Alien Data Slate.

I advise you to research the corpses of Snakeman and Chryssalids, you will need them to get access to medikits.
And yes a green wall is incoming, you will experience it this month, even thou it is not Mutons, you will see Mutons beginning of June.
So get the Lasers going!

Offline Lion66six

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #237 on: December 12, 2016, 04:11:48 pm »
Glad you are enjoying the latest videos, particularly with the flash back to the previous episodes :-)

Aye research is becoming a bit of a problem, which i think isn't helping by the slow start on getting the alien data slate. The current delay is the alien containment, and then capturing some aliens, getting the language learnt, then decode the slate, get lasers, make the damn things and see where we go from there. I am concerned that its just not in time for the month of muton, and that I will have to adjust my tactics somewhat to handle them.

I like your updated research tree, it makes quite a bit of sense. At the moment I'm avoiding interceptors since they aren't effective for what I need, even small UFO's can take it out. Perhaps the improved one will be useful, will have to see. At 600k a month, its still pricey and has to bring in some benefit for it to be worth it. For now my tactic of taking them out even when its a night mission is being quite effective. I'm also enjoying being able to run 2 teams at the same time, might try and invest in a 3rd team. More loot = More money = Better / Faster Development = Save the world faster.

I didn't bother with an outro for the videos for now.

Offline hellrazor

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #238 on: December 12, 2016, 05:37:50 pm »
Glad you are enjoying the latest videos, particularly with the flash back to the previous episodes :-)

Finally you made a proper intro, now also add a short good outro! Also reading the research articles is a good idea, some provide hints.

Aye research is becoming a bit of a problem, which i think isn't helping by the slow start on getting the alien data slate. The current delay is the alien containment, and then capturing some aliens, getting the language learnt, then decode the slate, get lasers, make the damn things and see where we go from there. I am concerned that its just not in time for the month of muton, and that I will have to adjust my tactics somewhat to handle them.

You will have to deal now with it somehow, but currently you have a lot of Snakeman incoming and I am assuming you now what they will have with them right?
The original UFOpaedia text for Chryssalids did state that they are slightly more vulnerable to explosives, which in vanilla was not the case, in Hardmode they actually are.
Ramp up Elerium Rockets, they can take care easily of some Claw and Charging problems ^^.

I like your updated research tree, it makes quite a bit of sense. At the moment I'm avoiding interceptors since they aren't effective for what I need, even small UFO's can take it out. Perhaps the improved one will be useful, will have to see. At 600k a month, its still pricey and has to bring in some benefit for it to be worth it. For now my tactic of taking them out even when its a night mission is being quite effective. I'm also enjoying being able to run 2 teams at the same time, might try and invest in a 3rd team. More loot = More money = Better / Faster Development = Save the world faster.

Retaliators (the Improved Interceptor) are pretty durable, they can go 1vs1 against all Very Small and Small UFO's.
Medium Sized ones will require two of them to safely shoot them down.
Large Ones need 3 or 4 of them.
Well Very Large Ones, you know the drill avoid shooting them down :D

A Retaliator only costs 300k per month in Rent, instead of the 600k.

I didn't bother with an outro for the videos for now.
You should! Definitely!

Offline Cooper

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Re: [LP]Hardmode Expansion - Glory or death! (Likely much of both)
« Reply #239 on: December 15, 2016, 06:27:28 am »
Is it still possible to sign up as a soldier?
I'm way behind, but I'll catch up!