I generate thousands (!) per day just by flying from haven to haven and trading resources. This has allowed me to build 7 additional aircrafts by the end of the first month, and have 11 bases, without a single raid ever. I play on Veteran though.
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Oh yeah? I’ve actually heard of that before but have yet to try it. It sounds like another way of getting through the game but with less SP in the end. I’ve only ever done the trading with havens I’m flying by on the way to doing other things (which also involved raiding) but never strictly tried to organize a series of endless trades. I’m going to try that starting now at least (and maybe more in a future run) because I don’t really think I need any more SP/special resources and I’m pretty sure the 4 soldiers I’ve nurtured throughout the game will be all I really need for the end.
It’s not really clear what I’m going to need or how much time it’s going to take or how much of humanity I need to protect, and I’m probably over-preparing… but I haven’t seen a Pandoran evolution in a while and putting the best of what I have together tend to overcome all I’ve come across so far. Tobias West’s Fortress construction is taking 5 days real time with how many missions I still do, and I’m not yet sure what it has to do with anything! I’m sure the end of the game is right around the corner, and it’s probably time to speed this up.
Let’s see how this turns out.
I feel dumb. I’ve never thought of doing the math and seeing if I could use trade as a source of income, I thought that we probably did all trades at a loss.
That must be boring though =/
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I’m playing on Legend without raiding, or abusing trading, and I’m finding I have enough resources (I do sometimes capture Pandorans for food, but I don’t go on full blown hunts).
How?
I follow 2 basic principles:
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I’m not the caretaker of the world: I have activated just enough bases to get around and have some resting stops (I have 9 bases, so minus the initial base and the Pirate King base, I have only activated 7 Edit: checked and I have only 7 in total, so I only activated 5
). I let entire areas of the world go, and yet I have 100% allied status will all the factions. -
In the first month I prioritize fielding as many teams as possible, in whatever shape and with whatever equipment I can find. For a while I had a Thunderbird flying with a noob team armed mostly with raider weapons and armor. Eventually those that survived got gud and I manufactured some proper gear for them.
Now that I have 4 teams with top gear I will get into the DLC (I already built 3 labs and excavated all the ruins). I’m expecting a windfall there because IIRC each ruin gives a 1000 Gears after defeating the Guardians.
This is not to say that I’m happy with the way resources work in the game - it’s very meta, and tied into the diplo meta: I’m basically taking advantage of my knowledge of the game to get the most amount of resources with the least amount of grind, and it shouldn’t be like that.
That’s interesting. It’s almost as if it really doesn’t matter what you end up doing?
Now if I were to lose an entire squad wiped in a mission (which is honestly really hard to have happen anyway on everything but those ancient missions with the evac on the other side of the map) I’d still have 9 other squads I could use and maybe only lost 1 good soldier. How would a squad wipe affect you at this point? Also I spread most of my SP out among a large amount of soldiers so I imagine that balances somewhat with your fewer soldiers being concentrated on fewer missions overall?
Well, it’s not much fun, but it takes less time than a single raid per day. Just remember than paying anything less than 10 materials/food for 2 technology is profitable.
17 сент. 2020 г., в 22:04, sectoid_br via Snapshot Games Forums snapshotgames@discoursemail.com написал(а):
| sectoid_br
September 17 |
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I feel dumb. I’ve never thought of doing the math and seeing if I could use trade as a source of income, I thought that we probably did all trades at a loss.
That must be boring though =/
Thanks. I’ll look into that when I need resources, right now I’m swimming on them because I’m holding armor choices until I get to see the last mutation options - never got to those.
In terms of ultimately winning the game, it doesn’t matter.
You can win the game activating every single base, fielding a dozen teams and aircrafts and trying to protect every Haven, or you can do like I’m doing on this playthrough, which is “I will do the HDs that I can and go aggressively against Pandoran bases when I find them, but I will not attempt to maximize scan coverage (and thus defend every Haven/destroy every Pandoran structure)”.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the fact that this is so - you can put a lot of effort into slowing down the Doomsday Clock, or focus more on beating it.
What I don’t like is that whatever approach you choose you can’t base your decisions on reasonable expectations, but rather need to have preacquired knowledge of how some rules that don’t make a lot of sense end up operating.
For example, if you want to protect as many Havens as possible you have to aggressively raid them to obtain the necessary resources. And if you pay attention to the diplo rating you can increase your rating with all the factions as you are raiding their Havens. Or alternatively, you can engage in some commodity arbitrage, which although could actually make some sense thematically in the PX universe (the factions can’t trade between them due to their animosity, so PX takes advantage of its neutrality) is just a very tedious exercise with no risk, no opportunity cost, no interesting decisions…
At the same time, to do what I’m doing, I need to prioritize diplo relations (because Haven reveal, resource rewards and research dump) and exploration, because once I know where the Havens are, most of the other POIs have resources, if not as scavenging missions than as text adventures.
It’s the worst for the new player, or the kind of players who don’t concern themselves with figuring out the arbitrary rules that govern the game (like the diplo rewards and penalties; e.g. that you want to steal the aircraft after you achieve a higher diplo status) and base their decision on what a reasonable person would expect will happen (i.e. attacking a Faction to steal their aircraft murdering a lot of their people in the process may result in war).
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Yeah, for comparison purposes, in my current campaign I’ve pretty much protected the whole world with only 2 teams of soldiers. It gets a little tricky covering all of Europe-Asia-Australia in late Jan/early Feb with just 1 team, but once you get the Citadel tech then you can start pre-emptively destroying Pandoran Nests and from there the balance tips quickly.
Didn’t raid for resources, but I did spend quite a bit of (very boring) player time on trading. If you just want money but want to spend the minimum amount of real-world time getting it, it’s the most efficient way to to do things.
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The worst part of this system for me are the sabotage missions for the factions and their rewards and penalties. Actually I have tried to maximise these around the three factions right from the start. That said, I start a new campaign, accept all 3 sabotage missions from every faction and doing their starting missions. After that I do the first sabotage missions, the one (edit: not against) for the faction with highest reputation to get immediately to the 25% border, in my case Anu. Then making their reputation mission to get all their heavens revealed. After that the first heaven defence appears, so I helped the heaven and taking out the Nest afterwards. Then I complete the other two sabotage missions with the same steps as before.
Result:
Actually I’m on 05.01. and have the last 25% mission in front, after that I can see all heavens around the globe. 
(I don’t know if it would go even faster but I highly doubt it, especially when you only rely on HDs).
The rewards and penalties for sabotage are stupidly uneven, +15 vs -6, and then you also get nice resources as an additionally reward. I didn’t build or recruit anything to this point with the exception of the needed ammunition and have +750/+3400/+2200 only through research and these 3 sabotage missions, I’ve done only one exploration and that was a vehicle, rest of the time murdering some Pandorans on the HD and Nest and many humans on the sabotage missions.
Feels legit … not really. 
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You know, perhaps it’s good that there are different ways to go about it - that you can try to maximize scan coverage and increase number of teams to defend all the Havens (as @Rainer does), or do what you did which is to maximize the scan range to preemptively destroy the bases with as little as 2 teams, or do what I do where I go for beating the Doomsday Clock without making much of an effort to slow it down.
But the resource management and diplomacy are off, the rules governing what happens there defy any common sense expectations the player might have.
Like what @MadSkunky did here, lol:
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Great analysis. Now onward to a Constructive Critique, on how to make the LotAncients much better and less confusing. Maybe? 
Small things, like finding one Epic Weapon or Gear type, and not being able to find a Blueprint Mission, or another drop are driving me crazy. Sure, I can see a Game Balance reptile skulking around that thought. So make a squad that uses only Epic Weapons, fool!
Been there, done that, and the travel times where that squad is most needed, precludes a victory in most cases but the End Game. Make them expensive as heck to manufacture, if you mist. But at least give us that option to choose, please. 
@Odee Of course we posted some ideas here, also in the Council to improve the user experience
Apparently I was tagged as completist, because taking the time to collect and complete every mission doesn’t bore me,
but casual players will try and forget the game or DLC if they have to spend so much time to get the new weapons.
First thing, you can’t unlock blueprints location so early in the game, at least Time Vault, other suggested after Antarctica mission.
More, ancient sites are hard for many players not knowing the drill, that is the reason to postpone those locations too
I never had an issue with resources, playing Legendary or other levels, even after Necronomicon update, except for the second aircraft if I want/need to activate many bases in the beginning but other players do, so Arch. Labs should be even cheaper
Probe system is a mess, UI included, I will change that, no Probes, you build Archaeology labs and that reveals ancient sites, more labs, faster you reveal them
More, Excavations require a manned aircraft in place to initiate it, ok, but you can drop there soldiers and the process to identify and allow the assault becomes faster, 1 day instead of 3
And of course with just 1 soldier you mine, you should not need a manned aircraft in place
Also by design, you get 1000 materials for every new different ancient site under PX control , that should be enough to produce Guardians a new weapons
About blueprints, I would change the way you recover those, perhaps adding different missions, I have not a clear answer here
For Legendary new weapons cost should be increased a lot, exotic and regular resources, that way OP is fine, because you would have only a few for all your squads.
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Agree 
% with your entire post. But I’ll add another 25% to that, for the ones I quote you on. 
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Yes indeed. The Probes are an annoyance to me. Especially considering, at least in the Real World, that Archeology is what is used to ferret out things long since past. That would be the Antediluvian Sites. Ergo, as with Research, we should build more Archeology Labs.
I’d like to see an Adjacency Bonus tacked on to Labs too.
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While I love the concept. The Completist/Realist in me wonders where the Soldiers will be getting resupplied from, and R&R if Assaulted every day.
In my imagination, the supplies could be cached in a Store at the Dig Site, Forge, Lapidary, etc. Peace through Superior Firepower FTW! -
See 2 above, regarding the Soldier. I can no way imagine a solitary soldier fending off an attack a day. They’d have to be like Super Janitors in the old D&D Miniatures games I use to DM.
I can’t see a solo soldier not getting whacked viciously, without some cheats at least. But that (cheats) would kind of nix the way the game was designed to be played anyway.
I’ll add that with the 24 Hour Alarm/Notification, the player can, and should have at least 3 Ready Assault Teams made, and ready to deploy on notice. Works fine for me
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Yes indeed, getting Materials to Deploy a Guardian should not be a problem, once the player has the mining sites and forges running. I’m still puzzled about the Lapidary sites though. What is their function, other than to gut rocks, and make gems? Also, why do they not need an Aircraft/Soldier on site, to keep them supplied and working?
Guardians are tough as Elephant Hide. But not impossible to be beaten down to spare parts, by a concerted assault. Absolutely must have those Response Teams to help it out. Would like to know how Guardians are healed/repaired too. Is it some mechanic aspect of the Sites? Or perhaps they just do that Nanite Repair thing, so often abused in Sci-Fi films? -
Blue Prints could, and should be tied to the Research & Archeology trees. IMO&E at least. It makes sense you would get the mission for them, from one of, or both, the Research and Archeology Labs together. It would be a tidy way to justify having the Labs, and how advanced gear are come by to be manufactured.
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Absolutely agree to at least double, or even triple the cost for Legendary Weapons to be built. Makes them that much more valuable to not get damaged, or lost on the field of battle.
Ah … Speaking of the Field of Battle. I can’t understand why is it that after a victory, we cannot automatically retrieve what the enemy has dropped?
Okay, If you have read my long winded reply this far. You deserve an extra Snack & Beverage of choice. 
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