Report of my veteran (own experience and also difficulty) playing style

[MadSkunky]

A little delayed report from yesterday, in-game time 08 - 09.03.2047 and this time again with some pictures I took yesterday.

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First the current situation on the geoscape, viewing the area where I focus my activities, close to my starting region:

The three arrows shows the LotA gathering sites and the corresponding resources (anything linked to the PP wiki).

• Blue = Living Crystal Quarry
• Yellow = Orichalcum Mine
• Purple = Protean Mutane Field

In all the campaigns that I’ve started since the LotA DLC is released I got at least one of each gathering site close together, this time also the corresponding Preocessing Sites in east Asia, central and west Africa. This helps to defend them and also concentrate my teams on this region.

As can be seen in the picture above I also have no problems with resources even when I didn’t do any raids, rarely trade and also respond rarely to haven defences in the last weeks since the Citadel is researched. The reason is pretty simple, I still have only 9 soldiers and also I didn’t do all the scavenging missions in the early game, at the first stage I just go on to explore, and now I do these one after another with my 2nd or reserve team.

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Speaking about teams, I have rearranged them to put all soldiers in two teams and the needed aircraft’s to gather the LotA resources now have only a vehicle. For this I built a Thunderbird to put the 4 not so highly trained soldiers together with an also newly built Armadillo.

• The OP and main A-Team in their Helios:
  
  All of them are fully maxed out, OP as hell (except maybe the Infiltrator / Priest) and equipped mainly with ancient weapons.

  One of the OP Heavies, text and pic copied from another thread:
  

  
  • The new Vidar grenade launcher, 1 AP with the downside of being as weak as the starting Odin grenade (50 damage / 10 shred) and has only 1 shot.
  • Boom Blast, the Vidar can launch grenades for 0 AP, reloads for free and 50% more range (30 instead of 20).
  • Sneak Attack, now the damage is pretty good.
  • Trooper makes the Heavy / Infiltrator proficient to use the Vidar.

  Only limit is the Inventory and resources to refill the ammo …

• The newly build reserve or B-Team:
  
  These are also in a good shape but not as highly trained as the A-Team. I decided to also go the OP route with them because I already come slowly to the end of this campaign and I don’t want to recruit any more soldiers.
  As described above, this team currently does all the scavenging sites one after another and so gains SP for all of them.

• The “gathering” Teams:
  
  Enough for their job and additionally the Helios with the Armadillo could be used to strengthen the A-Team if necessary (not really needed to be honest).

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The endgame has also already been initiated in research, my goal is to reach the end with Synedrion, i.e. direction “Moon Mission Preparation”:

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What else happened:

• I have build several food production facilities just because I can and for later when no scavenging site is left over to make the trades a bit less tedious. (I have done this after taking the above OP Heavy screenshot, but it is seen in the geoscape and research picture, currently +46 food per day).

• Some base and LotA site defences with my A-Team and they also destroy any Pandoran base that arises. These are routine tasks for them they do pretty quickly and for this save me at least time to do these tedious repetitions.

• Diplomacy still all on 100% and I think the faction wars will arise in the very near future.

[MadSkunky]

Short intermediate report, 12.03.2047:

@MadSkunky

I think the faction wars will arise in the very near future.

Now it happened, Anu declared war on NJ as Synedrion did just an hour later (after completing the Command Fortress research):

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Edit, 17.03.2047:

Something happened that I didn’t expect. Anu is now not longer at war with NJ, they are back to “Agressive”:

I thought this could never happen and I have never seen it before. I am a little bit surprised.

Or a bug?

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Edit, 19.03.2047:

Nothing essential happens in the past days. I had some base and ancient site defences, 3-4 Pandoran bases destroyed and also helped Synedrion to not get overwhelmed by NJ. Honestly, they have no chance but declare war to them? They attacked 5-6 NJ havens and only got one successfully done, but almost every NJ attack on their havens would end in a loss when I wouldn’t help them.

The Moon Launcher Site is under construction but needs some days to finish (AFAIK the time to get this ready is bugged, so I assume 4-6 days to go):

Then this campaign also comes finally to an end, I think in the next session, I hope … the endgame is pretty lame, repetitive and often no real fun to play.

[MadSkunky]

Another intermediate report, this time not really short, in-game date 19.03.2047:

In the time Syndrion need to get the Moon Launcher Site ready I almost sit around waiting for new bases or an haven attack in the vicinity where I can react in time. I let other havens far away simply go, population is still OK so that I don’t bother about some lost havens.

Now I thought to myself, this is a good time to try something that I always wanted to test: The conquest of an ancient site with only one soldier, of course fully levelled and with what I think is the most OP build in the game.

Because I have absolutely no idea about video creation, it will be another picture story with text descriptions and, as well as I managed it, step by step, but not every single move, just the important ones.

Here the mission:

It is day light, so no problem to spot the guardians early enough.

The “Squad” selection:

I wanted to test this with an Assault / Infiltrator because I think this is the best build for this sort of mission.

This squaddy more in detail:

I already described this build in the past (see above this report), here some additional infos:

• Now full levelled, Speed is 24 with all of his equipment and personal skills and also 100% stealth thanks Thief.

• With IMO the best equipment in the game for this build, Scyther, Crystal Crossbow and Shardgun, all of them ancient weapons and on its own already very strong if not OP. He also has the Self defense specialist perk so he could use the Gorgon Eye A but in the last missions I didn’t used it so that I switched to the ancient crossbow with lower damage but much more accuracy. The Vidar light grenade launcher is only a tertiary weapon and also pretty seldom in usage. Main weapons are the Scyther and the Shardgun, mostly for overwatches, because it can kill an Umbra with one hit.

• The motion detection module. Although the name suggests it would detect “motion”, it is actually able to detect also the sleeping guardians as the description also indicates:
  Locate all nearby enemies, even behind obstructions
  “Locate” or “detect” means that you get the red blips as when one soldiers hears something close by. AFAIK this module is the only way to detect the inactive guardians, hearing seems to not work because, I guess, they don’t do something and the Priests Mind Sense also doesn’t work, I assume because these guardians have no “mind”.

Now let’s start this:

My initial plan was to first spot the upper left corner as well as the most part of the upper side, I should have a good vision to the the whole area. After this move I want to go into the direction of the plateau and from there along this plateau in the direction of the upper right corner.

On the way to the first position I spotted the Cyclops on the other side of the map as well as 2 Hoplits on the way up to the plateau.

I used the second turn to move closer to these 2 Hoplits:

One of them is lying on the ground level and the other on the first elevation, that implicates for the next turn to kill first the upper one and then jump down to kill the second. I assumed that my movement points wouldn’t be enough to get them the other way around and I didn’t want to use more WP for a Dash, Vanish and Rapid Clearance already cost 9 but here I can get “only” 4 back by killing these two Hoplits.

At the end of the 3rd turn these two were cleared with enough movement left over to go to the lower right corner on the plateau:

Nothing there, so the next moves are along this Plateau in the direction of the Cyclops and looking if there are some Hoplits on the way.

It took me 3 additional turns to spot the whole plateau, but nothing was there, it seems that all the guardians are grouped together by the Cyclops, except the two near my spawn.

In the mid of my move in the 6th turn I spotted one Hoplit and got another 3 blips from other Hoplits nearby, perfect circumstances for a Rapid Clearance move that I can start immediately:

Vanish would bring me close enough to the nearest target for a Scyther attack and so 2 additional AP for all the rest.

The end of the 6th turn:

In the area of the red circle were all in all 5 Hoplits and so enough to move closer to the Cyclops and spotting 2 additional Hoplits.

For the next turn I planned to kill the one Holit further away as first, then moving a bit closer to the Cyclops to kill the second Hoplit and finally I should have enough AP to kill also the Cyclops.

It worked out with one Dash to close the distance to kill the first Hoplit and after moving in melee range to the Cyclpos, killing from there the second Hoplit I got the 4 AP needed for the final strike:

The last srike …

No more guardians left, mission done:

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A little review:

Assault / Infiltrator with Thief, Vengeance Torso and Scyther is OP as hell. POINT!
IMO it is currently the most OP build in the game, at least for my play style.

Now, was this challenging?
I would say it was at least a good thrill, because when the soldier gets only one time spotted and for this revealed, it would maybe end in a disaster. Losing only one soldier isn’t normally a real disaster but for me in this campaign loosing THIS soldier by only 9 soldiers all in all would mean at least a major setback.

And it was fun, more a tactical puzzle ala “Mutant Year Zero” and a welcome variety from all the routine missions of this last phase of the campaign.

[VOLAND]

@MadSkunky

Now, was this challenging?
I would say it was at least a good thrill, because when the soldier gets only one time spotted and for this revealed, it would maybe end in a disaster. Losing only one soldier isn’t normally a real disaster but for me in this campaign loosing THIS soldier by only 9 soldiers all in all would mean at least a major setback.

I think a key element here is that this was a challenge run with a single soldier. Doing this “with backup” would give it a very different feel. My feeling when I was trying out this sort of builds was that I typed in a cheat command

[MadSkunky]

@VOLAND

Doing this “with backup” would give it a very different feel.

“A cakewalk it is” Yoda said …

[walan]

@MadSkunky

Assault / Infiltrator with Thief, Vengeance Torso and Scyther is OP as hell. POINT!
IMO it is currently the most OP build in the game, at least for my play style.

Yes it’s crazy OP, maybe the most OP, but you need at least some player skills to build this one and use this one.
For my Boom Blast bombard (even without the new 1AP bomb launcher) you need no brain at all. Only (2-3) heavy mono classes + scouts.
Edit: And you can beat with this super easy builds the game on legend, I prove it. But not like you with one man hidden Rambo

[MadSkunky]

@walan

For my Boom Blast bombard (even without the new 1AP bomb launcher) you need no brain at all. Only (2-3) heavy mono classes + scouts.

Yes, this one is the no-brain-OP side of the game

But I still think just take away the 0AP shot/launch of the mounted weapon could help here, it is still strong, but 1/3 of its overall strenght would be gone.

[MadSkunky]

23.03.2047 and I did it again, but this time with the moonshot mission, the final Synedrion mission to get to their end.

I didn’t took much pictures because I thought that this will end in a disaster … but it didn’t.

But first things first, Synedrion got their launch site ready:

Starting the mission:

Here I had all soldiers selected, but before the start I decided spontaneously to try it with the same single soldier as in the ancient site mission before.

I took one screenshot at the very first turn:

It was a long fight and after killing the first Chiron outside the building and playing cat and mouse with the Pandorans a few turns without attacking them, they were all suddenly alerted without my squaddie being revealed. Two different Tritons fired at him from distance and it seems to me that at least the Triton AI is shooting at detection blips because they hardly hit with their Daimos, although he was standing in the open without cover and was still only slightly wounded afterwards. The Arthrons only came closer but did not shoot or use their grenades. But the one left over bombard Chiron launched its grenades and at that moment I thought that was it. But my little guy was lucky, all of the grenades missed him.
In the next turn he was able to eliminate everyone who tried to attack him, including the Chiron. Another round later the last two Arthrons were also killed, they came a little late to the party.

I really didn’t expected that this would end successfully, but:

And now only one step left to go to the great final:

But not today, this has to wait until the next session.

[MadSkunky]

26.03.2047:

@MadSkunky

And now only one step left to go to the great final:

I forgot that there is another research afterwards, so THIS should be the final step to the end:

Nothing happens, game speed is on full, 2-3 havens were destroyed by pandorans and I destroyed one of their lairs. Bad deal but the population is still no problem.

To be continued and end today …

[MadSkunky]

The final report, 27.03.2047

Spoiler-warning: Don’t read ahead and don’t open the unfolding segments! This report is full of end game spoilers!

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Research to get the final mission is done:

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Prepare for the mission:

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The three soldier types of my Squad (2 Assault-Inf, 2 Heavy-Inf and 1 Priest-Inf), the different types are all similar equipped (except the Danchev AR for one Heavy, the other uses the Crystal Crossbow:

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The mission in more detail:

After collecting the retrovirus injector near the spawning area my 5 squaddies walk fearless around the first big wall into position. 100% stealth is very nice in this first part of the mission, no enemy get alarmed and so they simply stand at their starting positions (100% stealth on its own is IMO not too OP, but the mission design is just bad. Honestly, they only stand at their positions and do nothing for several turns before the player starts the murdering? IMO simply bad):

The plan is straight forward:

• The Priest casts Frenzy so the whole squad gets boosted.

• One of the Heavies starts the slaughter fest with vanishing closer and rage bursting the Scylla in front. He will probably not kill her but damaging enough to be an easy kill for one of the Assaults.

• The second Heavy vanishes and runs closer to the second Scylla by using most AP but having at least 1 AP left.

• One Assault starts his killing chain more in the back to kill the Chirons and Tritons there and to gain enough AP to Onslaught the second Heavy so he has enough AP to rage burst the second Scylla in the back.

• The second Assault starts his killing chain at the front enemies and should have no real problems there including the rest of the first Scylla.

The first rage burst:

… and the result:

The second Heavy sneaked through all the enemies to the second Scylla:

The Assault onslaughts the second Heavy after killing the first foes:

The second Heavy aims his rage burst to the second Scylla:

… and his result (not as much as the first one, but a bunch of virus, though not necessary ):

After doing all the mop up work the two Assaults overwatches the single Umbra spawn point (lucky me not getting more, for this, one OW should be enough, but safety first):

The OW kill of the Umbra:

In the second chamber it was mostly easy, one of the Chirons got killed by massive crossbow fire from almost all of my squaddies with some misses.
The second Chiron and also the 2 Triton Praetorians (special type only for this last mission with 660 HP) got killed by my Assaults as they close the distance to the Yuggothian Entity (YE) followed by the rest of the squad.
Both heavies got Marked of the Void from the YE on their way but no problem to this point, just holding distance to not damaging the buddies.

Some single shots on the YE on the way and then the first rage burst from one of the Heavies:

The result was not really super good but good enough and after another 2 turns, 2 additional rage bursts and some single shots from the other squaddies the YE was down to receive the final shot:

Mission over after placing the injector, this is the end of this terrible threat (we hope so):

Little remark: 0 of all the medkits used

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The final result pages, no further comments:

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A little summary:
All in all this was partially a funny campaign, the first for a long time where I not recruit as much as I could but focused mainly on few recruits. Many missions after having the main team up to OP status were easy going and routine jobs, but the time before was really nice and is probably also the most interesting part for more inexperienced players. I would say up to end of January early February the reports could be a help to anyone that has no idea how to start and get the first stage done without having to resort to abusing mechanics.

Comment are still welcome and also questions.

[walan]

It seems to be possible to get the last mission without capturing any panda (especially siren)?
Never knew that even after 3 playtroughts.

[MadSkunky]

I captured almost all except the 2 worms and the one siren with psychic scream. These are not important to get to the end.

[walan]

Look at second victory screen

[MadSkunky]

This must be a bug, look at the previous report, not much left over to research short before the end:

Or the 2nd result screen shows only all captured that are left in the containment? I simply make them all to food, none left.

[oSiyeza]

I can confirm that the final summary screen is bugged (a lot) and does not show captured pandorans. Also many other stats do now show accurate information (in particular I am mostly sure that recruited soldiers, missions and kills are not accurate), though is hard to verify the displayed info.

[MadSkunky]

Yes, reviewing my result page, then recruited soldiers is wrong for sure, because I have definitely recruited soldiers and it states 0.

[josefromeo122]

@MadSkunky

s time a not so long bullet-point report, the in-game date is 21.02.2047:

Many days have passed since the last status report, I have done almost only some routine work, but some important milestones and missions have also been completed.

• The first Citadel was destroyed and research started immediately and was finished a few days later. With this I can now see all Pandoran bases as soon as they appear in the scan area of ​​my bases.
• Almost all POIs have been explored, only a few are left over.
• I was able to capture a Scylla in my second citadel. It was a long and tough fight as I only had the Neurazer. But thanks to my biochemist Heavy, the Scylla was in constant panic. Nevertheless, I had to fight the permanent reinforcements during the many turns until she was finally paralysed. As a bonus, I also paralysed and captured two sirens.
• I worked through all the missions to get the blueprints for the ancient weapons one after the other, that took up the most time. The research for these weapons are now also finished and the whole globe was scanned for the ancient sites. Next step will be to conquer at least one mine of each type and the corresponding processing sites.
• Several Pandoran bases were destroyed, so I am now 100% with all factions. The research of the Citadel has paid off, it has been quieter for a few days, there are fewer haven attacks. Still, I couldn’t prevent some of the havens from being destroyed. However, the population is still within reasonable limits at 72%.
• I’ve build one more Helios and manned it with the Armadillo, the Technician (level 6) and the starting Sniper (now also level 7). It will be a serve as a fast response team. Currently they didn’t see any action, but I’m curious how they will work together.
• The Phoenix Point story line is short before the “Seeking Dr. Symes” parts.
• The latest Pandoran evolution report brings the next hurdle to the scene, the Umbra Arthron. Also the Goo Chirons are introduced, time to capture one to get the Goo shoes

In the midst of advancing through various missions and milestones in the game, including the destruction of the first Citadel and subsequent research achievements, the recent developments have been both rewarding and challenging. Notably, the successful capture of a Scylla amidst intense combat, aided by strategic tactics and the specialized skills of a biochemist Heavy, stands out as a significant accomplishment. Additionally, the completion of missions to obtain blueprints for ancient weapons and the subsequent scanning of the globe for ancient sites mark crucial progress in the ongoing campaign. Amidst these strategic endeavors, the mention of “coinmasterlinks” catches attention, hinting at a potential avenue for additional resources or rewards within the game’s dynamic universe. As the storyline approaches pivotal moments such as the “Seeking Dr. Symes” parts, and with the introduction of new Pandoran evolutions like the Umbra Arthron and Goo Chirons, the challenges ahead promise to test strategic prowess and resourcefulness in equal measure.