Assaults on Phoenix Bases completely broken... and while we are at it, ambush missions as well

  1. First my principle issue with both base assaults and ambush missions… no reward (other than experience which mid game is almost useless… a few paltry SPs)… they are nothing more than a time and resource drain. This is a game! I don’t want to spend time on chores… if I want to do that, I live on a farm… plenty of chores here…

  2. Now as to assaults…

a) They are poorly designed to the point of absurdity… Pandorans always arrive at the flight room in a clustered formation that would certainly invite massacre if my guys were using their 16 or so hours of advanced warning to prepare a reception… so the Pandoran plan of assault should be an absolute disaster every time.
b) As is, my guys use their advanced warning to sit around and play cards, seemingly entirely unconcerned with the incoming enemy… as a consequence my troops are in random disarray when the Pandorans invade apparently catching my helpless lads completely by surprise time and again…
c)To make matters worse… far worse actually… these assaults start to take place every few minutes real time once the Pandorans have advanced a ways… say 25 percent or so… as they are tedious and unrewarding this is unforgivable…

  1. My solution… save the game prior to a base invasion removing all non essential personnel when notified of an assault, and then reload each assault until I get at least one heavy with boom blast in the arrival site, and then I get the above mentioned massacre… this is also absolutely no fun, and a resource drain, but at least it is relatively quick… minus the ungodly long reload times that is… As to ambush missions… I save the game before every exploration and automatically reload when I get one…

Recommendation…

The base assaults need to be rewritten from the ground up… unpredictability must be introduced and the player allowed to establish his defense… I recognize the work required here, but as is what should add a necessary tension to the game merely adds unacceptable tedium. As to ambush missions… either provide a reward, perhaps some weighted additional number of SPs, or get rid of them altogether… While we are at it, base invasions need to be far less frequent, and, again, there must be reward… one idea here would be faction gain…

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Don’t waste grenades, use an assault priest with mind crash and rapid clearance… The viscera clean up crew will also thank you.

Anyway, yes, agreed on base defense missions. It’s basically a matter of whether you manage to get the troops to the base on time.

How about if Pandas borrow into the base from different possible locations and the player has an extra turn to move the troops around until they arrive? Would be nice to have some automated base defenses too.

As to ambushes, I like these missions because they are different, but I think they should have substantially higher XP rewards (at least 10-12 SPs).

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I would not have a problem with ambush missions if the reward were there… and agree on defense missions… adding base defenses has the potential of being a great deal of fun…

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I don’t see why ambush would need more reward, I’d suggest instead that they don’t remove the event, but obviously it’s a design decision to use less events.

Base defenses need a new design, ok. More urgent for design fix is lairs and citadels.

For bases, sure multiple entrance would be a track to improve the design, but probably a bit hard to tune for procedural generation. A base is huge, and some parts can be quite far and with blocked paths. Run after some aliens at other side of the base would be a lot worse than current version.

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Why would you get reward from ambush? By what logic?
You get your reward when you are not ambushed. Risk is part of the game, and IMO one of the good parts.

About base defense missions… yes it can be unpleasant when someone attacks you in war. Unhealthy too.

Simple… more SPs awarded for surviving… say triple the SP award… that would at least make it worthwhile after your teams have hit seven…

As I wrote above… this is a game… I expect reward when I play… perhaps you expect something else…

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Experience or SP would be good “rewards” for these mission types. Otherwise maybe better loot on the bodies of the Pandorans. I still haven’t downloaded the loot mod but it’s on my list if I playthrough again. It’s ridiculous to me that the loot drops are predominantly ammo clips.

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While lairs and citadels are also in great need of work, base defense missions seem to take place every few minutes once the invasion is at roughly 25 percent… among other things they need to be far more rare.

But unlike ambush missions they are an integral part of the game… as such, they could easily be made more interesting and more rewarding… more SPs, equipment left behind… as was mentioned above, base defenses could be built… attacks need to be unpredictable in nature.

As to Citadels and Lairs, you are right, they need a lot of help… Lairs again are tedious, expensive, and unrewarding… I never do lairs, rather I wait until they become citadels. Citadels are as pointless as they can be… drop in a team and rage kill… but at least they are quick.

But a mission that takes place every few minutes real time, back to base defense, should not exist period… how that one made it through quality control is difficult to understand. And I coin it in those terms because, in general, the game is the most innovative turn based tactical platform I have seen in years… and I do look forward to seeing it reach maturity…

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Yes, fun, if the combats or the game isn’t fun, perhaps it would be wiser to play another game.

Re: Base Defense - if you think they need fixing pls vote at Base Defense Options. I would at least like to see the player having 1 free turn to move their units closer to a proper defensive/offensive position. As it is 3 units in the enemies “known” landing zone that can’t move far enough to get close to a proper position. While the other units are usually bunched off in some far corner (playing cards and watching porn). When some folks suggest ways of easily defending (mind-crush) that’s late in the game and I have base defenses way before it’s even possible to get such OP units.

I also think that a successful base defense should be treated as a successful haven defense, reveal the attack base. Successful Base Defense Should Reveal Attacking Base Location

Re: Ambush - If nothing else, one should know where the evac location is at the start. Yeh, I get it, I was ambushed. But, I am in communication with my aircraft and should be able to preset my evac location - not wander around for 3 turns only to be on the furthers end of the map from evac.

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Why would you get more EXP for killing same number of crabs? No logic in that.
You explore sites, sometimes you get free resources, sometimes you get missions where you have to fight for resources, and sometimes you get only fight. Fair enough for me.

From X-com like game I expect challenge. Game would be boring without ambush and base defense missions.
You want to attack crab bases and not to be attacked by them. By that logic in tactical maps you should only be able shoot at crabs and they don’t shoot back. If you like games like that you can play Moorhuhn.

Absolutely agree. They copied Firaxis X-Com in that. But in Firaxis X-com there is a lore that says that alien weapon have self destruct mechanism. Here there is no such lore but they from some reason “borrowed” that mechanics. In original UFO everything was a drop and here should be too.

I use mind control for that. If you mind control triton just drop its weapon to the ground from inventory and it will be loot. I end every ambush mission with few more rifles.

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Again a way of cheesing around a game flaw (IMHO) that is only available later in the game. Ambushes happen all the time with stock units at levels 1-4. Same can go for PP Base defense. Even late in the game if I Mind-Crush most of the Pandorans (or even paralyze them), I am not getting their weapons/ammo.

I kinda understand not getting loot from ambushes (unless one hangs around an cleans the map of enemies), as one is evacuating to save their hide and don’t have time to glean from the dead.

Or perhaps it would be wise to place comments regarding my game play experience in the section of the site titled game feedback… what do you think…?

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You do realize that I wrote that base defense missions were an integral part of the game… more over, no where did I complain that the game was too challenging… so what exactly are you responding to…?

Than I misunderstood something here:

I could justify this in a dozen different ways… prestige of surviving an ambush… etc… the idea is to provide a reward for an in game activity that at the moment is merely a time drain…

Some minor faction boost could be awarded as well…

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It’s an ambush. Reward is that you survived it. I still don’t get why would you get 3x more exp from it.

You get exp for killing crabs, that’s enough reward for ambush. Actually in the early game it is very good way to get EXP for low level soldiers.

For killing few crabs somewhere in crab infested wasteland?

Don’t mind crush them, mind control them then go to their inventory and drop weapon on the ground. Lvl 2 priest can mind control.

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And mind crush is “mind” not “metal” crush.

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