XCOM2 - Glorious PC Exclusive (for now)

Shiminay

Another mission there on lunch and another total no-show for my sniper. I deliberately left the pickings for her to get final hit/kill XP and she still didn't level up. Coulda had another 3 plasma grenades at long distance along with a mag cannon that'd shred armour instead and I think I'd have been much better off.

I did get my first successful hack on a MEC and was very disappointed to see that my team still considered it an enemy and so I accidentally leveled a volley of Mag Rifle at it. He did his job though, blew up some cover with micro-missles and aggro'd an Archon to keep him from battering someone over the head with his pole arm.

d31b0y

A ranger who can conceal mid map and a sniper with squad site (which I think is granted by default to snipers) is a great combination early game.

Shiminay

Rangers ability to re-conceal themselves is probably the best skill in the game

J Mysterio

Nody wrote: »

Snipers can work; esp. early game but yea they are definitly weaker. You have the Sniper overwatch zone (take a shot on every enemy in the zone), you have free pistol shot for no action, the shot every enemy once with pistol (great way to finish off several badly hurt units) and then the final ability of 3 pistol shots at one target. The main problem with snipers is that they need 1 turn to "set up" basically for the same damage and no proper double tap

Dont forget 'Death from Above' - kill from a higher elevation get a bonus attack. My best soldier was a sniper.

BKtje

My two best soldiers are snipers. Bluescreen rounds with triple tap is like 25 damage to a Sectopod. I use one of each sniper types whenever they are available. Long range means they don't generally get injured either. Pretty sure I have aim mods of their weapons though. Regularly around 100‰hit chance, especially from high ground.

thegame983

Snipers for me are essential. maybe it's a carry over from Enemy Unknown. Also the gunslinger is great craic

Mike Litoris

BKtje wrote: »

My two best soldiers are snipers. Bluescreen rounds with triple tap is like 25 damage to a Sectopod. I use one of each sniper types whenever they are available. Long range means they don't generally get injured either. Pretty sure I have aim mods of their weapons though. Regularly around 100‰hit chance, especially from high ground.

I've recently got to that stage where now and again my Sniper pops up and kicks all ass. It's a beautiful thing.

Generic Dreadhead

And here I am on some missions using 3 Grenadiers :P

Shiminay

Yea, I'm always taking at least 2 grenadiers (in Exo Armour) and 1 of each kind of specialist. I'll then fill the remaining 2 slots with either another grenadier and a ranger or maybe I'll take a sniper instead of the third grenadier.

Generic Dreadhead

I actually found the early game snipers to be extremely underwhelming, they come into their own about half way down the skill tree, but by then Grenadiers are even better.

2 Plasma Grenades, 1 Acid/Emp Bomb and 1 Blaster/Shredder > Any Sniping

Especially given how armour-centric the late game gets.

Sure a sniper can wreck a sectopod in 1 shot, but I've always found doing huge AOE damage to be better as you take down 3 or 4 units cover and armour and then just pick them off.

Salvo, the extra grenade radius, a magazine with either 2 or 3 extra rounds or 2 or 3 free reloads and you're set.

My Build:
2 Grenadiers (both specced for Huge AOE damage), one with Acid, one with EMP, one with a 6-shot mag and blue screen, the other with a War suit and Shredstorm.
1 Sniper, built to play the pistol game, with a Vest (of some shape or size) and blue screen rounds
1 Specialist Medic with medipacks, "Hit for 3 on misses" and mimic beacon (hang 5th from the front of the line, sniper behind often)
1 Specialist build for hacking, with Skulljack and some sort of vest (no fire/acid)
1 Ranger build for large sword damage with Reaper etc, with A healing Vest and Wraith Armour

degrassinoel

Ahh lads and ladies, i have a functional Garrus Vakarian voicepack mod of my very own making in the works - it's nearly complete, been testing it in the actual game and it needs some "calibrations" but it's almost done

tried as best i could to get the picard one up but 9 times out of 10 anytime he says something awesome it's masked with background music or random bridge noises that it's unusable

degrassinoel

heh, blatent self-promotion

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=627176059

It's not perfect, but it's working at least! Fairly chuffed with that tbh

Kiith

Great idea. Would be cool to have the entire Mass Effect cast in there, get some N7 armour and go to town on some Reapers

degrassinoel

Working on Jack next,though it will definitely be a smaller voicepack as she doesnt have as many lines as Garrus or Tali and, i've been told there's a Tali voicepack in the works by someone else

So yeah, that dream is a very likely possibility really soon!

Vicxas

degrassinoel wrote: »

heh, blatent self-promotion

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=627176059

It's not perfect, but it's working at least! Fairly chuffed with that tbh

If he doesn't say Calibrations at least once every 10 seconds its a grievous fail.

degrassinoel

i was sorely tempted to have him do that

i relegated it to hunker down though, so he should have a few calibration lines when he's hunkering

I also updated it this morning to include specific lines of dialogue for the Killzone ability for sharpshooters - had to be done

Shiminay

Is there a definitive list of the lines you need for each character and class? I had volunteered to do some VA for Long War but never got around to it. The guys had a fairly extensive list of all your lines. I'd love to put together a Boardsies list

degrassinoel

there are an enormous amount of dialogue actions that use specific voices

but i can get those for ye if ye want to see them - thing is, it's a gargantuan undertaking to get all those lines done and done right - ye definitely need a a quality mic and recording software, and around a full day or two to get just the recordings done - Then... sort out an equal level of volume for non-concealed and whispery type concealed ones plus all the misc stuff...

Some of it can be reused as a generic voice in the affirmative - like "Roger that", "Yes", "On it" etc.. so you can basically reuse a cluster of 5 wavs for maybe 8 actions - and ye can randomise it so it will attempt to use a random wav from that cluster of wavs each time a specific action is performed


But yeah, there's all that and...
Ye have another day or two modding it - or maybe less depending on how awesome you are with unreal editor and modbuddy(i'm still learning about it as i go but modbuddy is easy enough, unreal is unreal in terms of difficulty for me)

If ye want to go ahead and get the recordings done or ye know.. decide if it's worth it, i can volunteer to slap them into a boards mod for ye or hell, a proper Irish Accent Mod

Though keep in mind - Each accent would require it's own mod. ie: Irish Accent 1, 2, 3, 69 etc..

degrassinoel

That's about 1/5th of the entire list of voicecues - the actual lines themselves.
There's another voicebank thats not shown there which is even bigger than that one

If you're still up for it, let me know and i'll sort out the full list

Shiminay

Wow! That's about twice as much as EW/Long War needed. We'll put it on the long finger till you're more familiar with the process and can knock them out in no time :P No pressure I have a decent mic that I use for podcasting, so that'd be grand.

degrassinoel

well technically ye could reuse the same wav for multiple actions - so ye could cut the list down down a fair bit

it'd still be a substantial amount of effort from a recording side of things though

I'm totally game for making the mod though

Lone Stone

Aw thats a nice one Deg YOINK !

degrassinoel

I may have a companion for Garrus later this evening - prototype is in a working state atm

https://youtu.be/4OnEMXpYNgc

degrassinoel

Tali is done, first draft anyway

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=627892339

Enjoy

degrassinoel

jaysis, 3000 subs between those two mods already!

must've done something right xD

Lone Stone

they add a lot of character to the game, although i was a bit like were not in a citadel when my guy called him self garrus and said it was his favorite place or something.

degrassinoel

i've updated it there again, should be working a bit better now

Rebel Rebel

on the 3rd of February, after 51 missions, I save the Earth so I did

Generic Dreadhead

Finished the last mission there, I save scummed my way through the game, that last mission was really tough.
I'm amazed at how people have done it on Ironman
Will wait for the game to be patched and optimised more before going back for a 2nd play through on Ironman with more mods

degrassinoel

So, We've got 5 mass effect voicepacks in the collection now

Garrus
Tali
Wrex
Mordin
Zaeed

We should have some more in a few days too Two of us working on them now too.

thegame983

A few questions for you late game veterans out there.

I take it plasma weapons are the highest tier of weaons? (like Enemy Unknown)

Can you grind forever if nessessary before the final mission to level your soldiers up?

How long is the late game? Ive just unlocked the first 2 missions you get from doing the shadow chamber research, been attacked by a UFO and killed my first sectopod if that's a good indicator

degrassinoel

I think it's just until the doomclock countdown hits Zero - so if you're floating over the doomclock with a bar or more left you can take your time and get everything done, soldiers levelled up, ammo, grenades, research if ye still need it etc..

But the game will tell you when it's going into the final phase and that there's no turning back after that point so you get a lot of warning prior to it

Zillah

Set up an ambush on my first mission. Three fire from overwatch, everyone misses. One advent shoots one of my soldiers, who panics, runs into cover, and then throws a grenade on top of her three squad mates, instantly killing them all.

Lads, are you sure I'm the commander you were looking for?

degrassinoel

I'm gonna stop talking about my own mods... right after i tell you all something :P

Most popular mods today

My 'Jack voicepack' is in first place

K, i'm done - sorry for derailing again

Dave_The_Sheep

degrassinoel wrote: »

I'm gonna stop talking about my own mods...

Tried Wrex and Garrus today. Not extensively, only a few missions. Garrus, I really like. "It's never 100% is it?" particularly.

Zillah

This game is so god damned hard.

BKtje

Got to the last mission on commander Iron-man. Got to what I presume is the last bit and got overrun. Started again since some of the equipment I brought was next to useless and should have done some more leveling up before starting it. I guess I really should have done a normal run through first to get an idea of the last levels.

This run things are going much more smoothly, Iron-man campaign number 29....this is the one, I can feel it.

Shiminay

I've been making solid progress, have fought my first

Avatar

which was terrifying as I'd aggro'd a Codex with 2 Sectoid buddies as well as 2 Mutons and an Andromedon and then in the process of fighting all that, a third cluster with a Sectopod and some Advent troops appeared (and the Sectopod practically levelled a building making a bee-line for my mimic beacon (also, mimic beacons really are your best friend).

thegame983

Shiminay wrote: »

I've been making solid progress, have fought my first

Avatar

which was terrifying as I'd aggro'd a Codex with 2 Sectoid buddies as well as 2 Mutons and an Andromedon and then in the process of fighting all that, a third cluster with a Sectopod and some Advent troops appeared (and the Sectopod practically levelled a building making a bee-line for my mimic beacon (also, mimic beacons really are your best friend).

That horrifying moment when you realise that you haven't equiped any of your mimic beacons...

degrassinoel

Gotta love them mimic beacons for stun lancers xD

They work hilariously for vipers too

Shiminay

I do finally have a couple of psychic troopers to help out too, next play-through, I'm building the Psi Lab a lot sooner.

Nody

Looking back here is another gem I think they missed and I hope modders will pick up: Less than full group missions

We only had 1 mission and they could easily have done more like that or have 5 units split in five different areas to do 5 switches or similar

BKtje

Just realised that there is a multiplayer element. Anyone given it a shot?

Vicxas

BKtje wrote: »

Just realised that there is a multiplayer element. Anyone given it a shot?

Considering how broken the Single player is, might want to wait a bit.

Shiminay

The multiplayer didn't even slightly work in EU/EW. Tried it numerous times with friends on Steam and it never worked.

Zillah

Ok I've learned the hard way that it is not ok to just keep soldiers alive. Taking serious damage is a real problem even if they're still alive. Cover cover cover.

degrassinoel

My rangers always seem to take a massive beating, even with agility sims and the GTS increase to those sims

Nody

degrassinoel wrote: »

My rangers always seem to take a massive beating, even with agility sims and the GTS increase to those sims

Invulv ability is king for this; do finishing move with melee, can't get damaged (and will soak because enemy is stupid).

degrassinoel

Yeah, i normally pick that skill, and reaper to go with it, the problem is getting a ranger to that rank first

They take a right hammering unless you shotgun it all the way, which is self-defeating particularly in early game or when you've lost your star quarterback ranger

Killzone on sharpies and reaper-rangers are lethal

Nody

degrassinoel wrote: »

Yeah, i normally pick that skill, and reaper to go with it, the problem is getting a ranger to that rank first

They take a right hammering unless you shotgun it all the way, which is self-defeating particularly in early game or when you've lost your star quarterback ranger

Killzone on sharpies and reaper-rangers are lethal

I was not that impressed with reaper to be honest; I think the best streak I got was 4 and that was setting it up intentionally only.