Just bought the game so I’m super new. On the first mission after the tutorial, some…things…lobbed acid/poison at my squad from halfway across the map and killed 4 out of 6 within 2 turns. Trying it on easy, but…is it supposed to be this hard off the bat?
I hate save scumming type games. Or are soldiers just this expendable?
generally speaking no it isn’t supposed to be very hard at the beginning of the game.
acid at the moment can be overpowering because of the way explosives and acid work (it can do almost nothing…or melt half your team in 2 rounds)
explosives currently have a bug that comes up erratically, doubling the effect of the explosive. this makes any launcher type weapon dangerous. both for the player and against them.
acid eats away at armor equal to its rating, if there is no armor it will deal damage to HP. the base acid launcher applies ~20 acid to all bodyparts it hits. this means that on an armored unit it will eat up to 20 armor from any area it hits, but can deal up to 6X20 damage if there is no armor and all bodyparts have been hit. (note that I say “up to” its actually rare to have all bodyparts affected in a blast)
combine the above and you will get 40 acid (this will eat through practically any armor in the game in 1 turn) and after that up to (40-10)x6=180dmg to HP. this is generally at or above your recruits starting HP.
the fact that acid stacks the damage it does on all limbs before applying it to the total HP pool makes acid extremely dangerous.
this doesn’t mean that launchers arn’t dangerous without the bug, it just makes them significantly more dangerous.
I think I get it now. It’s going to be a pain to counter especially because it seems they can fire it over buildings and hit me anywhere on the map like a mortar.
Looks like my guys will be indoor soldiers for this mission.
Going through the forum, it looks like this has been an issue for a while. So it’s more of a feature than a bug at this point 
Acid became problematic since March 4th 2020 when patch “Leviathan” came out. 
Advice. Keep away from acid enemies. You can check them with left mouse button and selecting “Info” then hovering above their equipment if there is any Acid damage. If there is keep away from them and eliminate them first. It can be tricky, but after some time you will get practice so your soldiers won’t die (they still could be hurt, but that is not a big deal - and actually helps with difficulty later on).
This is what happens when developers become mind-locked on challenge. They completely forget that games are suppose to be fun first, and challenge last. They start to think the game as a battle between themselves, and the customer.
TBH, I don’t think they are mind-locked on challenge.
It’s clear that the explosive Chiron thing is a bug, and it’s also becoming clear that the acid problem was an overreaction to player calls for acid to be more effective, which has ended up benefitting the Pandas more than the players because the devs thought it would be cool to create a Panda acid-launcher at the same time.
The problem with this game isn’t so much mind-lock as lack of balance testing or an understanding of the long-term repercussions of something that looks cool on paper.
The fact that you got an Acid Chiron on your second mission on Easy is indicative of this. It seemed cool to the devs that rather than scripting the introduction of new Pandas over time, all aspects of each mission would be procedurally generated, to make things unpredictable. Problem is, RNGs have a tendency to throw up million-to-one chances 9 times out of every 10. So you just rolled the 1 in a million chance of getting a squad-killer on your first run without training wheels in your training game.
That shouldn’t happen. I and others have long called for things like Acid-Chirons to be completely removed from Easy Mode. But that hasn’t happened yet. And while that remains the case, new players like you are likely to get put off of the game by stupidly random occurrences like this.
I can only speak for myself but I find the game excellent up to the point thing start to get ridiculous. It’s not a normal difficulty progression, the game simply does unnecessary stuff that only serves to kiss off the player. It does not add to the immersion nor the fun. I mean I could understand it on the highest difficulty level but please why do it on easy?
By selecting ‘Easy’ the player has quite clearly stated that he or she want’s to have a easy game. What part of this don’t the developers understand?
We’re changing the way this works in a future patch. Pandoran forces and their mutations will be more linear, though they will still have several unique upgrade paths, tied to their tech tree. The point at which they mutate and which path options are open to them will also be somewhat tied to the player’s progression.
Thanks for the feedback UV. That’s great to know 
Good to know, thanks. Might have to try the game again if this patch comes out (stopped playing due to limited time as opposed to a ragequit).
I’m sorry to hear that. I liked the idea that their progression was based on player performance.
It still will be, to an extent - but with less randomness to the adaptations. This should make for a smoother difficulty progression and remove instances of running into harder enemies in the first missions.
I see that. I just liked the idea that they evolved when they were losing. Thanks for the reply.
And it will be like that, just slower. 
Currently it happens too quickly. Difficulty can be increased with greater number of not evolved enemies first. Then evolved variants can start to appear.
I like this idea. Pandorans are supposed to be an unstoppable wave. Just when the world starts learning how to fight back reports start coming in about newer, tougher versions. Could you imagine the mind bleep?
“What do you mean they are evolving!!!?”