I know this is a pre-alpha, to catch bugs and test balancing issues, but I think it’s worth saying that my Squad feels a tad OP at the moment.
I actually have 2 Squads:
ASSAULT SQUAD: 1 Assault with AR + GL+ Shotgun; 3 Heavies with Rockets + MGs; & a Sniper.
ARMADILLO SQUAD: 1 Assault with AR+GL+ Shotgun; Tech with AR+GL; Heavy with R+MG; & a Sniper.
These seem able to clean out any Scavenging site or mount a Haven defence with barely a scratch on the Armadillo’s paintwork, and when I combine them to raid a Nest, the worst I have suffered so far is a broken arm to one of the Assaults, who simply swapped out a pistol with one of the Heavies and kept on going (couldn’t fix the arm with the Tech because he’d healed himself back up to full HP and the Tech refused to register him as broken).
It’s fun, but hardly challenging at the moment. Looking forward to the day when the Crabbies start evolving to neutralise my tactics, as Julian hinted at in his early PR.
Given how powerful Rockets and Grenades are right now - and they need to be against a Queen - might I suggest one possible Crabbie evolution being Ablative Armour? This would be a very heavy carapace that acted like a shield against explosive damage, but which could only protect the Crabbie’s back, say. So an evolution against my favoured tactic of Rockets & Overwatch with surgical strikes by fast Assaults backed up by Tech Will, would be to hunker down behind Shields with Ablative Armour protecting the unshielded back. Suddenly, I can’t just blow the bejazus out of them and mop up the rest later: I have to start picking them off with head shots and targeting their exposed weaponry.
Not sure how you stop the Armadillo though - especially with the Tech being able to hop out-repair-and hop back in again.
You’re literally playing against nothing but month 1-2 enemies right now. There’s going to be stuff that will shred an armadillo in a couple rounds. It certainly doesn’t take much to get ahead of the current build (armadillo not even required), but I don’t think it’s even a remote concern for the future.
I totally get having it in the back of your head, it’s just a lot of that stuff is so far from complete or mature that it’s not really worth thinking about at the moment. This being a Gollop game, it being too easy is one of the very least concerns I’d have. Mostly though, we’re basically still playing tech demos, there’s so much balance effecting stuff that’s not implemented, that worrying about the current balance is just sort of immaterial is mainly what I mean. Balance is important, there’s just not enough implemented systems to make an informed decision on balance yet.
8 Troops, 2 of each kind and 5 full manticores of them. No, I don’t feel overpowered when swarmed by 22 crabmen from the first round. Even at this stage it’s bloody hard a lot of the time.
So do I Gunlord. I trust that Julian knows what he’s doing and the final game will be as satisfyingly difficult as the whole XCOM franchise has been (both his old and the new versions). I currently play LW2, but I’m so useless at it, I can only just about survive on Veteran ;0)
I just thought it was worth mentioning, so that they can get a sense of how this is balancing.
Dangermouth: that’s what Rockets are for. Frag one flank so that all the Crabbies there bleed out on their first turn, then take cover against the other flank and set up an Overwatch cordon. Don’t open fire on your turn unless they have Shieldmen with pincers, in which case take them out - using grenade launchers is best, because the Machine Gunners don’t seem to RF against those. Your snipers will probably one-shot the first wave, and your Assaults will then RF against any machine gunners who take pot-shots at you. If you’re lucky, you’ll only take a few scratches, as long as you concentrate on taking out any Shieldmen in charging range.
Yeah I’m already worried about fighting those and we haven’t even seen what they are capable of yet I have a feeling some of the later enemy types and mutations will leave our troops feeling very squishy
Crabmen are silly enemies. Don’t overestimate them. They are not supposed to pose high threat. Especially when you have explosives. But until the moment where you will be short of explosives they will be nasty.
In final game you will not have soldiers with equipped Grenade Launcher + Assault Rifle + Shotgun. It is a glitch. Of course you will be able to take those items in the backpack but you will need to spend action points to prepare those items and you will make your backpack little messy.
And right now you don’t need to heal your soldiers or repair their stuff and they have good weapons and skills. If you will take those mechanics into account you will find it will be difficult to prepare full squad of well trained soldiers. At least for some part of the game.
In BB3, at least. But in the final game, I can imagine crabs being highly dangerous from the start, as we don’t know how the Phoenix Project is starting its campaign. Will we have access to snipers rifles and missile launchers from the get go? Considering balance issues, I would start the game with a bunch of PP operatives meeting in a PP base, driving around in a simple car, and each carrying single pistols and some kind of rudimentar explosive. And that would be that, until we start to ally with factions. The fancy weapons and such would come later.
Well, now I remember some interview Julian gave, where he said the aliens will be much behind the player regarding the tech trees? So it will be the reverse of FiraXCom?
I assume he was referring to the fact that they start off with nothing but basic strains and get more and more advanced through mutations as the game progresses.
Try a scavenger mission on a small map with 10 machinegun crabs starting in sight of your starting position and NO full cover available. I’ve spent two days trying to survive it even with a heavy with 4 rockets! I can’t fire a gun or I take 6-8 reaction shots. I’ve counted 5 facesuckers so far.
Now THAT sounds like a challenge! Do you have GLs, or is the Heavy your only area fire guy? If the latter, then I agree, you’re underpowered.
With what I have, I’d go in there with 3 Rocket-armed Heavies, 2 GL/AR Assaults, 2 GL Techs & a Sniper - liberally spray Napalm around with my Heavies while sprinting for cover with my Assault/Sniper combo, Exert the Assaults to GL anything in range , Rally Will with one of my Techs, then put the Assaults on Overwatch to react to anything that’s left - oh, and if my other Tech has a Turret, that’s deploying onto the best multiple sightlines I can find.
Sounds like I’ve just been lucky with the kit & squaddies I’ve picked up.
I am determined to do it. I may have to leave it until I do have those launchers. I found a couple of the missles but not the launchers yet. It is an interesting challenge. Too bad I can’t stick the saved game file here for others to try it.
Yea, really sounds like your Squad’s not ready for that yet.
TBH, I expect your experience is closer to the final game experience than mine is at the moment. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve explored most of Northern Europe and found a lot of stuff.
i’m kinda nerfing the game to test what’s possible and pass on the experience as playtest feedback to J & the team, so that they can see what’s OP and what’s not as things currently stand.
It’s fun - in a ‘let’s make hay while the sun shines’ kinda way - but I’d be really surprised if this was anything like the final game experience ;0)
I have a feeling some of the later enemy types and mutations will leave our troops feeling very squishy
…in the mist.