Am I supposed to leave the lairs alone?

I entered a lair with 6 level 4-5 soldiers, I sort of tried to see if I could scout something out but got hit by 3 mortars to face next round, those that shoot from the opposite side of the map, got spotted by an alien.

There was this big wall in front of me with aliens on both sides and two mortar launching beasts I could under no circumstances target as they were as far away as possible.

I tried to overwatch as I couldn´t go in for the kill, my snipers didn´t have enough movement to get into position, just got the visible guy out of the way. The overwatches failed to kill and I was hit by 6 more mortar shells, each fire 3.

I didn´t actually manage to fire a single bullet … I am on easiest mode, am I supposed to stay out of those lairs?

I made an immidiate evac at 3rd round … this guy won´t make it, he never fired a single shot, you can see the wall I have to go around but it is impossible while getting mortar shelled.

The game says I need to kill a lair … yeah … fat chance of that happening. I am meeting aliens with 40 armor all over the place and my guns do 30 damage.

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There are plenty of ways to deal with this. Most notably guns that do more than 40 damage (Snipers, Heavies) as well as using Grenades to shred armor. The Heavy’s default weapon also shreds armor. I think one of the shotguns shreds armor as well. Also, check every body part, just because the torso might have 40 armor doesn’t mean the armors, legs or head will.

As for the Chirons, I agree it’s a little OP that they can fire from the other side of the map. They definitely need a nerf.

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I could have dealt with the aliens charging me if the mortars weren´t killing me. Remember that to hit those juicy parts you also need a clear view of the alien which I couldn´t do in that map, simply wasn´t given the time to line up my snipers for anything.

The dude in the picture was my scout … he ate 3 more mortars to the face as an alien managed to cross the map running and spotting him when I pressed end turn.

Am I supposed to leave those lairs alone? I can´t see any way of beating that.

As far as I can tell, you are supposed to start taking down the lairs as soon as you can, it’s just that the game’s difficulty progression is horribly broken right now.
There’s no point waiting until later anyway, there aren’t actually better weapons or armor to get. As far as I can tell, once enemies with 40 armor become routine, it’s time to arm every one of your soldiers with a cannon/sniper rifle, as assault rifles simply don’t do useful damage anymore against those enemies unless you use 3-4 grenades shredding their armor first.

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Yeah, in one of the games I got one thing I had to destroy and a few aliens, then it was over. This is however insane and no way I am going to continue this game. There is little point, I can´t pass that freaking wall without getting shredded to pieces.

In words of encouragement, I would say persist. I came up against exactly the same scenario in BB5 a couple of times, and couldn’t complete the missions where multiple mortar Chirons are laying into you from the other side of the map, while numerous Arthrons with machine guns approach on foot. I couldn’t even take shelter in a building, as the building just collapsed on me.

I haven’t seen this in v1 yet, although I totally believe you. My first nest was a pushover, but the following lair was a whole different ball game. The maps have been revised to give very little cover, and what I thought was going to be a case of urination in the park turned into quite a tense and thrilling episode against three Sirens and a Chiron. It did seem like the Arthrons and Tritons were infini-spawning though, which I’m definitely not a fan of. Lost a sniper from the eight-strong team, but I was happy with the result in the end.

Quite a lot of folks have mentioned the game being unfair, and I can see this point. In one way, I’m inclined to agree when it comes to the type of scenario you encountered. In another way, though, I also like the idea that when you take stock of a situation and see the odds stacked against you, there is no other course of action but to evac and retreat, and I think some players forget that this is also a valid tactical option.

I think on balance, I like the idea that every mission might not be winnable, given the player’s current progress. An unknown here is what the enemy lineup would be if you retreated from the mission, then started it again, either immediately or later on. I’m guessing it would be different, but this is conjecture.

I say don’t give up. Have another pass at it, but do something other than the lair mission next. Then go back and see if it’s any easier. I think you’ll have better luck, and remember you can always try to run away if things are going badly - ain’t no shame in it.

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After a certain point in the game, assault rifles become obsolete.
Unfortunately I can’t play the game currently but in BB5 my team was:

  • 2 snipers to kill Chirons and Sirens from afar (2 shots with “quick aim”)
  • 3 assaults with shotgun to prevent any threat from approaching
  • 1 heavy for grenades and rockets (once you have those)
    with a team of 8 I would add a sniper and a heavy.

Snipers are very good against armor.

Now, with the new cost in willpower for the abilities I’m not sure if it would work well. Especially if you get 3 Chirons at the same time with no building to hide inside.

I remember proposing during BB5 to make rockets use 5 virtual AP (which would mean that you need to aim during one turn and it would fire only on the next one). You can use 3 AP to position yourself then aim a rocket, on next turn you can do nothing. Or use only 2 to position and have 1 left on the next turn. It would add a bit of gambling to this ability on where the opposition is going to move (of course no indication for the opposition on where the rockets are going to go).

Unless they add places where to hide, having rockets fire in the same turn makes others look like sitting ducks.

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The thing is:

I am playing on the lowest difficulty and the game should reflect that, if I need a good challenge I can simply up the difficulty. “Rookie” should be learning the ropes, not getting bombed to oblivion.

No game should ever rely on save/reload as part of it´s difficulty, especially on newbie mode.

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Well, I guess you got me there. No, I suppose it shouldn’t. My only recourse would be, as stated, if the game mechanic necessarily comprised discernment on the part of the player on when to bail. It might yet do, but I do feel you, brother.

Stick at it, there’s gold here, somewhere.

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This is what my Team also looks like… but I reached the point where 2 Quickaims no longer kill anything. Not even Trit’s or anything. Siren’s Heads take by now 3 hits… so if 2 of them come around a corner my 3 Snipers are not allowed to miss a single shot.

Yeah I jumped from higher difficulty to rookie too, still getting my ass kicked by sirens and their mind control.

On that note I was to say how amusing it is to see my mind controlled heavy with the Hell-something weapon, who misses most shots when he’s himself, shredding my own troops with perfect placed shots. I guess I should be trying to recruit the sirens instead to have them improve his aim.

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Yeah, I had that. The difficult escalates really quickly. Probably too quickly. Often, you don’t get the choice of recruit to make some of the options work. My current game has a sniper desert. Assaults and infiltrators with the occasional heavy and berserker.

When you have 6 or more in a squad I’d always send two snipers, three if you’ve not managed to unlock a missile launcher for the heavy. But you’ve got to recruit them first or get far enough that you can add secondary abilities…

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The problem really is just the Chirons with damaging attacks (not the ones that shoot worms) with unlimited range. One or two hits and most of your weapons are trashed and your group is wrecked. The issue with them is there is no counter. You can’t even get against walls and avoid the damage (which the enemy can definitely do to avoid your grenades). There doesn’t seem to be any cover you can use - even though cover is definitely present on these maps (again, because the grenade launcher experiences it).

Challenging mechanics are a very good thing - even some that feel borderline impossible or very difficult to deal with (mind control, for example). The issue comes when there is no reasonable counter to a mechanic - which I feel is the case with the Chirons with damaging bombardment attacks (again, just these - I have no issues with the ones that throw worms or goo bombs).

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Yep to this.

Effectively, in those scenarios, the enemy gets to teleport damage onto your squad with zero comeback. You absolutely cannot counter three mortar Chirons - it’s impossible. I don’t care what the ‘git gud’ crowd say, it’s poor gameplay, at any difficulty level .

That said, retreat is always an option, but I do think this scenario should be nerfed.

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If you reload from the world map, as far as I can tell, in ANY mission, you get a different map layout and enemies.

Yeah, I thought this was the case. Ta.

Having same problem, especially with Chiron with explosives.
Siren and other unit so far i can win with kiting and good positioning and some save scumming.

But when I got spotted by a single enemy unit and they can lob artillery across entire map and kill me that is just not fun.

If the Chiron had to have direct line of sight, or a one turn delay to firing i could accept that. If the point of this unit is just to be anti-camping that fine, but getting spotted on enemy turn and than lobbing artillery on the same turn is not fun.

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Woah, I’m glad I didn’t witness what you did. I’d probably throw my monitor through the window.
Alas I don’t know what is worse, dealing with this or having absolutely no way to punch through a very narrow chokepoint with Arthron/Triton Overwatch sentries. Oh and did I mention there are Sirens lurking behind the rocks? Pure bullshit… Not even save scumming saved this Fubar

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Some incredibly sloppy design in certain areas of the game while there is absolute brilliance in others.

I feel at times they havn´t worked with difficulty at all which I know they have, it´s just incredibly imbalanced atm.

They should perhaps work with one of the Xcom 2 developers on difficulty, I always play on easy with Ironman mode on (willingly), I simply hate reloading … it´s not an option. Xcom 2 has a near perfect difficulty increase.

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