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Indepth Battlescape Gameplay
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I want to capture everything of value alive, so that means I need to play a melee game in the beginning. Melee game at day is hard, but at night it is quite easy. You are already close when you spot them and you only need to retreat a bit after taking one down to be safe enough. You just have to be careful of light sources. Your starting Airbus has no lights, so you can safely deploy in darkness even on the first turn.
This gamestyle needs mobility and reaction, which is why I found the Tribal outfit the most useful at the start. Tribal has bonus to stamina and +40% energy regeneration. You can run most of the time without needing to worry about energy. You are mobile enough to get into melee and back into cover. The reaction boost is also helpful to not get shot at while moving through the occasional light source or when approaching an enemy head on. Not being shot at is the best defense. The other armors you get early can't really replace Tribal. Pirate is nice because it increases your handle damage (+moral, +melee), but it lacks the reaction bonus and energy regeneration. Rouge is nice in theory, but you need about 80 bravery or your moral keeps dropping, and it also lacks the energy regeneration. Gym Suit has more inventory space than Tribal, but only +20% energy regeneration and no reaction boost. I've found that the 40% stamina regen on Tribal is dearly missed on other outfits, so their benefits are not worth that downside. Swimsuit finally has also 40% stamina regen, but no reaction bonus. So Swimsuit is only something for the elite gals with high enough reaction. Warrior armor is useful because it has high enough armor values to actually matter, especially vs shotguns. But you lose the mobility, so I only have one or two gals in Warrior. I use them as frontline damage blockers where enemies might come around a corner and shoot at me.
The best weapon for stunning in the early game is the handle. It scales with bravery and has at least 50% hit chance, so anybody can use it. When you wear Tribal (increased combat stress) and only do stuns (no moral from kills) you will get 60 to 70 bravery very soon on every gal. Also, it does just enough health damage to not kill, but keep the target down. Stun regeneration is tied to health percentage, at half health you will not recover from stun anymore. Fact is, most things you stun with a handle stay down.
The handle beats the other melee stun weapons by far when targeting civilians and similar. The ballbat may do more dps on some high strength low bravery gals, but the health damage is too much (maybe a rebalance here to make it more viable?). It can be useful on a Shambler hunt though, but not for stunning civilians. Fistycuffs deal unreliable damage (0-200% damage range, handle has 50-150%) and can also deal too much health damage. Stun baton can do more dps than handle with high reactions, but it does no health damage so targets may get back up. Cattle prod is similar. Also, most civilians go down from one handle hit anyway, so a cattle prod with it’s high TU cost is a waste of TU, despite the higher damage. I’ve found some use for the leather whip, but just as a training tool. 1 tile range snapshots almost always hits no matter the accuracy and because of the low damage.
My gamestyle changed when I got access to rubber bullets for the domestic shotgun. At night civilians have a sight range of 9, so you can shoot from 10 tiles away and they won’t shoot back because they don’t see you. Once you built up your accuracy, you can hit from a longer distance. Kneeling is the key. Rubber bullets don’t deal much damage, but it’s saver to use than melee. It also builds up your accuracy, which is more useful on dangerous missions. On tougher missions like Pogroms and Ratman Rodeos, stunning everyone is too dangerous, and then you need to be able to hit things with your rifle.
For civilan shippings, all you need to do is sit outside the ufo door in the darkness with rubber bullet shotguns. Anything that steps out is hit by reaction fired rubber bullets. You train reaction and firing at three shots per turn. You train your gals very fast that way, because one reaction fired bullet is enough to get TU, stamina and strength xp for the mission. You don’t even need to hit anything. So from two civilians you can get xp for the whole squad if they all reaction fire but miss. To deliberately make most of your quad miss, simply equip another item in your other hand and your accuracy will drop. The domestic shotgun can still be fired with one hand.
This tactic is easiest to use with civilian shippings because most of the time they spawn in their ufo and the ufo is a light source. Electroflares are a good addition to this tactic. Throw them some 15 tiles away, so you are still in darkness. If you see no enemy, run to the flare and put it in your inventory to kill the light (NOT in the hand. They still emit light when in your hand. Ankle slot is best because it cost the least to put it there from ground.).
Night missions become difficult once you meet enemies with better night vision than you (Osiron Security, Reticulans). Here Guerilla outfit saves the day. Guerilla has 5 camouflage, which is subtracted from enemy night vision. Osiron Security night vision gets reduced from 16 to a manageable 11. Reticulans still have 15 night vision, but I prefer that to the 40 vision range at day. The argument is simple: at day, everything you shoot at will shoot back at you. At night, only Reticulans at 15 tiles or closer will shoot back. I can use flares so I can see them at any distance. In the past I would have preferred a day mission and used smokes, but since these particular enemies can also see through smoke, night is the only way to reduce their vision range to something manageable. For night missions, camouflage on armors is so useful that once you have that option, you don’t use anything else anymore.
At day, Guerilla is still a good choice because the high reaction bonus means you can pop out of cover, shoot, and get back into cover without triggering reaction fire. Sadly, the harpoon gun aimed shot takes too much TU for that. But you can do it with rubber bullet shotguns :-)
For the tougher enemies like Osiron Security, Academy Medics and Guild Security, rubber bullets have reached their limit. So my gals have a Harpoon with stun clips as a backup weapon in the backpack. Also a Cattle Prod for the Osiron Security or Fisticuffs if their melee skill is high enough. I still prefer the rubber bullet shotguns to the harpoons because they fire faster. More hits means more training xp. Also, rubber bullets can be bought and don’t cost runt time. The damage output vs civilians is actually kind of equal, as the domestic shotgun can shoot three times per round and you need 2 – 3 hits to down a civilian. The harpoon has better range though.
So my basic setup in June, first year for a mission where I want to capture is: Guerilla outfit, domestic shotgun with rubber bullets in hand. Handle in quickdraw slot. Harpoon with stun clips in backpack, together with a cattle prod.
I’ve more or less stopped using smoke grenades. The only mission where I actually used them was a landed Government Gunship at night. I probably would find them useful on a bandit terror mission, but I’ve had only one terror mission with Nazis so far. At Ratman Rodeos I might use a smoke grenade, but there is enough cover that I don’t really need it.
