Yeah that thing is beastly. A nice side effect of not needing ammo, is not needing reloads. So your sniper/infiltrators can fire all of their willpower off in a single round without stopping to reload at all.
But, with the other crossbows, I seem to recall trying exactly that (a backpack completely full of ammo). Perhaps I’m remembering it wrong, but I remember having trouble with the weight of all that ammo on my low level soldiers.
Presumably you used the poison x-bow until crystal was available. Was killing them with the poison proc at the beginning of their turn fast enough to stop them from alerting all of their friends?
In fact I use(d) mostly the normal crossbow, more direct damage is more likely to kill and the difference in damage was 120 to 100 with sneak attack (now 95 to 75) and the ammo is cheaper. I will test how it is now with the new Sneak Attack, maybe I switch to the poison one, will see. For my Sniper/Infiltrators I still prefer sniper rifle and pistols, the crossbow only as third alternative and rarely used (+ not so much ammo needed). But my Assault/Infiltrators use them pretty often and they have also no problem with reloads thx to Ready for Action.
Hmmm. Interesting.
More notes on the detection system. I just did a mission against ancients. I had 4 technician/priests hanging way back behind full cover, with 2 technician/infiltrators roving ahead placing and picking turrets. One of the T/I’s stumbled on a robot hidden around a corner. My guy vanished and backed off to moderate distance (a little over 15 I think). The robots absolutely opened up on that one but ignored the other infiltrator/technician (who was behind cover but within LoS). Thankfully he survived with only his head disabled. Next round the robots did seem to ignore both T/I’s and started heading for my T/P’s. Given the inconsistencies I have seen, I can see how your experience might have been different from mine.
This is not inconsistency but logic in the terms of the given detection system as I understand it.
The first T/I was detected by the ancient Hoplit as he stumbled over him, afaik vanish will not ‘erase’ this detection so they don’t see him, but they know the position of this T/I and can shoot blindly (probably they not detect the other T/I). Then the detection is new calculated in your next turn, your T/Is were far enough away, so they didn’t know about them and head to the ones that were visible, the T/Ps.
But again, there are some assumptions even in this explanation and so it is not sure if all of this is correct, but at least it is logical for me 
The description for vanish says “disappear from view for the next turn (or until spotted)”. My T/I was not spotted at the beginning of my next turn. It’s more like ‘disappear from view AFTER the next turn’.
The description should be ‘disappear from view and the status ends with the end of the players turn’, in the enemies turn he is back to normal.
Technically vanish gives +200% stealth and disables the auto reveal at 5 tiles until the end of the players turn except he went into mist clouds, these ends the vanish status immediately.
Your Infiltrator was not spotted because at the beginning of your turn no enemy was in range to reveal him.
“Must have been the wind.” – Skyrim
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Hmmm. This was against ancients. There were no mist clouds. Maybe the +200% stealth on top of my 100% stealth caused it to loop back around to zero. I have seen that sort of mistake in a lot of games. I’ve done some c++ programming for a mod in another game, it is not hard to make that sort of mistake.
No, it does not loopback, you can go in the info screen of your soldier to check the stealth value. It works pretty much as I described also against the ancient guards, I have done this mission with one single Infiltrator/Assault (but with the old double damage SA, so now it is probably not longer possible).
I have done a more detailed post about that mission in my campaign play through thread (with many hints and tips about stealth gaming): Report of my veteran (own experience and also difficulty) playing style - #23 by MadSkunky
There is also a report of my final mission in this campaign with 5 full stealth operatives, but of course plenty of spoilers, so be aware 
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Thanks. I will take a look at that.
That is a cool build. I suspect vanish using AP now, would also change it, although possibly not prevent it entirely. If it was killing the cyclops solo, I’m pretty sure it must out damage blowing through all willpower on a sniper/infiltrator spamming quick shot with the crystal crossbow.
I will have to reconsider that motion sensor thing (especially for ancient missions). I’ve always used the mist eating one (repeller module), to prevent mist from revealing me or restricting my movement. Which is, of course, useless in ancient missions. I wonder if the motion detection module is compatible with the echo head (the mist eater is, it’s probably not supposed to be, but it is).
What would your tactic have been for the cyclops if there hadn’t been enough nearby trash to feed your rapid clearance when attacking it? I didn’t go through the numbers, but it doesn’t feel like the scyther would be able to finish it without that.
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Without regaining AP it would not be possible with the Scyther, I’m pretty sure. If there were be no Hoplits nearby I would’ve stay on distance, first disabling its head and legs with the shardgun, then he should be immobile and out of range of his stomp pretty harmless to chip him down. It would be more of a gamble and taking 2 or 3 turns, but with the old Sneak Attack I’m pretty sure it would also work this way.
The bionic augmentations allow any module and these will work as described. Only mutated augmentation restrict the usage of modules in general, they simply can’t attached to mutations.
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You must have used vanish on that final turn as well? Otherwise you would’ve been revealed and lost sneak attack.
Not when he stays away more than 5 tiles, then he can shoot without get revealed. He would be detected (position) because this build has no Echo Head but he would not loosing stealth.
Lol. That always seemed backwards to me. The imagery on the modules makes them look organic.
No no. I mean in the actual mission you described in your report. It didn’t mention using vanish on the last round, but you closed in to melee 2 hoplites and the cyclops.
Ahh ok, yes, for melee vanish is absolutely necessary.
The new rebalance of Vanish and SA hits this build pretty hard, but IMO it is reasonable because this build is (was) OP as hell.
It looked it. I’m sorry I missed out on it. It looked like the fun kind of OP, rather than ‘make the game boring OP’
Did they ever put in a square you could melee the end boss from? My last playthrough I just sniped him with scorpions from outside that last archway, and I had taken a break from the game before that. I’ve always thought that melee builds could be interesting and fun, but I also wonder how many people rage quit the game forever when their melee build got to the end boss and was entirely helpless. lol
Exactly!