Newbe questions

[Zippicus]

I was told killing everyone wasn't hard. I begin to suspect that there was some unspoken caveat of "as long as you bring forty gals".

I've been moving my 8 around in teams of 2, and they're starting to get worn down - should've gone with teams of four, but then I couldn't possibly cover as much ground, and it'll all take forever...I think mansion missions aren't for me. Way too much suspense for my poor old heart.

Can someone explain what the "armor" value in the ANAL screen means, when viewing weapons?

40 would be a bit much heh.  I usually do mansion missions with the menace craft so 12-16 gals depending on which codex I picked.  You don't have to kill everyone, once you put a nice dent in their numbers they all start to panic.  You're not required to do mansion missions but there's a ton of sweet loot in there that's hard to pass up, it's nothing unique but it's totally worth the effort IMO.

[AgentFransis]

Most notably you find treasure chests that contain gems which are extremely rare (or buyable from Jack at extortionate prices) and needed to make most of the special endgame outfits and weapons. And yeah, if you roll them up fast enough they start to panic and eventually surrender.

[Shrugger]

Can they surrender before the "cavalry" appears?

Also, any tips on actually finding people in that huge place? Can't fine-tooth-comb it with only 8 gals, parrots are no good in those tight passages and I can hardly bring animals when my troop capacity is already so low. I'd say blow out all the walls, but I don't see any way for 8 gals to carry the wrecking equipment.

[AgentFransis]

Yes.

You can comb it. Don't sweat it, take your time and clear it floor by floor. Basically there are rooms where people a guaranteed to be, areas where people are likely to pass and places that you can skip but I'll leave it to you to figure it out.

[Zippicus]

It's hard to give anything but general advice since the mansions are fairly randomized, there's some stuff that's static but not a whole lot.  Like was mentioned there are rooms where a lot of the enemies spawn and rooms where they don't.  The first couple mansion missions can be a bit overwhelming but after you get a few under your belt it's a lot easier to deal with.  I used to use TK projectors to blast away walls but I think they're harder to get now, or at least it takes longer to navigate the research tree to gain access to them.  Lately though I make due with grenades since I don't need to make as many holes in walls anymore to get the job done, although using explosives can be a bit tricky so use caution.

[ivandogovich]

Of course the other great tactic for Mansions is Ayephones.  Holding alt after scanning with one, now shows the location of the blips in the battle map itself.  You still don't know for sure which floor they are on, but it can still be a big help.  As you get toward the end of the mission and more of the mooks are panicking, its likely that they will freeze in place so the ayephone isn't fool proof. 

Also great is the Novice outfit, as you have 3 sense so you can spot the enemy and ID them through other floors.  I like to have 3-4 of these, and base a 3 man team around them.
A couple other pointers:  Always do them during the day.  Night mansions are worse. Just don't.

Factions:  Academy, Church, Guild.  Academy is the worst because they will spawn with a few drone units that can't surrender.   Everyone else on the whole map may have panicked or berserked, but until you find and eliminate that last drone you are stuck.  I think early Academy is the only faction I might be tempted to bail on.  The other factions are all manageable.

[Dioxine]

Church is hard too, if you're not lucky to get all the Matrons and Priests early on. And especially if you try early Mansion storming and buy Laslocks to that end

[Solarius Scorch]

Aren't Zombies the hardest faction?

[Shrugger]

'twas a church mansion. Managed to make do by ditching the self-charging pocket lasers (but keeping the full-size lasguns) in favour of whatever guns the enemies dropped. And piping a few in the head.

Ultimately the winning strategy was sticking to the ground floor and camping the intersections. I spent my initial 10 turns tactically oeprating into all the larger rooms on all the floors with two 4-gal-teams, just shooting everything that moved. Then I spent 20 turns in increasing distress as the last few enemies refused to reveal themselves. Eventually I was just running around randomly, my gals slowly going insane, ignoring reaction fire and just hoping to draw out the last hostiles.

Ultimately they showed up on intersections on the main floor. Shoulda just stayed there. The last ones were mostly matrons and priests, too - I honestly got pretty lucky when they all missed their shots. 6 enemies surrendered in the end.

0/10, would not do again for all the enriched weapons-grade fissibles in the world. Mansions of Madness. What insanity. Who thought of these horrors? I'll never complain about wide-open coverless areas during the daytime again. Better to get shot to crap on turn one than to clear house for 30+ turns and only avoiding an out-of-time mission fail and squad wipe by a few turns on pure luck.

Shame on whoever invented mansions. My poor nerves.

[ivandogovich]

Aren't Zombies the hardest faction?

Amagerd.  Zombies are just wrong.  I've never gotten them and I hope they never will.  I really need to figure out MissionGeneration and work up a mod to exclude zombie missions.  Thats just too much of a "Screw You!"  for even me.

[AgentFransis]

I kinda want to try a zombie mansion now, with shock'a'fists and XG pistols. Just thinking of running into it early game is spooky as hell though. Technically I can edit my save and add one to the alienMissions list yeah? Or do I need to replace one of the existing ones?

Shrugger, try it again some time later after you get your menace craft and some properly good SMGs like the mini-cougar. Also try adding a nurse and a seductress or two.

[Dioxine]

Shame on whoever invented mansions. My poor nerves.

Thank you, too bad I am incapable of feeling shame

[HT]

Shame on whoever invented mansions. My poor nerves.

Thankfully, mods fixed it!

https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4600.msg64291.html#msg64291

A "smaller mansions" mod which should work even with newer versions. Backup your saves just to be sure though.

[DaEMon]

Hi everyone, A simple mechanics question. I had a church base mission going on, and I captured the battleship while landed (I mean the very large ship I just don´t remember how it´s named in this mod). Then the base didn´t spawn. Do "Alien" missions behave diferently than vanilla because I should have that base.

[ivandogovich]

Which version are you running DaEMon?  There was a bug a couple versions back where Secret Base missions did not spawn the enemy bases.   Infiltration missions did, however.