(Mod Update) XNT Into Darkness V5.3 - "The Firebat" (DISCUSSION THREAD)

. When you give a new sulfur to soldier - it is not loaded with ammo and if you forget about it you start mission w/o ammo

This has to do with how stupid game's system handles multiple types of ammo,nothing we can do about it for now

. Sulfur love to hit obstacles in square right near soldier. Why sniper can shoot freely from corner of bus or automobile but rpg love to hit on nose.

Well beside LoS system,it's rpg isn't it ?Also it has such low accuracy that this weapon is very risky because you can end up blowing yourself up more times then hitting your target.

. When you shoot with sulfur at critical far range - sometimes rockets are not shown at all and nothing happens. Sound of shoot go, ammo dissapear but no hit sound and no boom at all.

I didn't know this.

This happens very rarely.95% of times Vortex doesn't do any damage to vehicel .

In my game it hapens at least twice. I moved vehicle so he wasynt able to one shot me, then 2-3 turns later another alien with vortex did what first one coudnt cause i cheated and reloaded save.

I think that because I referred "weaker" vortex weapons this brought confusion .You are probably facing with "advance" vortex weapons which are much more capable of their weaker counterpart.

Guys I have a question.Since with this patch we are halfway through of "modulising" whole mod,I got offer for assistance to make whole core package modular.Tomorrow experimental patch will be released as official and installation rules I wrote still applie.However if this and when this happens patch will become redundant and core package will have new installation procedure which I wrote for patch.

This basically means next thing.Instead of first overwriting vanilla files with core package and then using mod launcher to install small updates/patches,you will use mod launcher to install XNT:ID core package (not overwriting vanilla files) and apply every small update/hotfix that comes in the future in old way but overwriting XNT:ID files and not vanilla files.

In other words you don't need anymore to make separate copies of the game and you can remove and install our mod by pressing one button and don't affect vanilla files at all.So are you okay with that ?

So are you okay with that ?

do it

What about difficulty curve? I've tried this mod today and I'm having trouble dealing with Vipers and Gargols on Veteran. Aren't they supposed to be auxiliary troops? They pose far more greater threat than intelligent aliens with advanced weapons. Gargols hitpoints require like 4-5 soldiers to bring in down one turn, which is a bit WTF.

What about difficulty curve?

What about it ? I stated (and TD) that this mod is brutally hard.If you can't handle on vetaran difficulty try different difficulty and get use to the mod because it provides very different experience from vanilla.

There are numbers of way to deal with Gargol with only 2-3 soldiers and there number of tactics you can use to successfully complete GC. However,I will be straight with you and tell you that this mod is not for everyone.Casual players will struggle with difficulty (and that's why easy or normal are recommended for first playthrough ) and even vet of mod get in dire situations.But it's all about trials and errors,unless you rage quit because you expect to be walk in park like vanilla is (and it is).

As for aliens you are wrong.Gargols are mindless while Vipers are ultimate hunters.And to be frank they are the weakest of new aliens.IF you can't or you are not willing to learn how to handle them now,there is no point for you to continue playing this mod because as you progress further you will run into more tough enemies.

For what is worth once you get to research advanced technology everything will start going smoother.This mod is design to be very tough for 1-2 months in order to present difference in strength between aliens and humans.

I've been playing the mod and have gotten to Cruiser UFO encounters so far.

Its amazing.

The new content, the challenging alien troops, new artwork and even lore additions are top notch.

Seriously, the beginning was brutal, but once you get past a certain point of technology to have basic armor and some advanced ballistic rifles, then the fun really opens up.

Tip for those who start off in the beginning:

USE GRENADES AND ROCKETS. LOTS OF THEM. BLOW THEM UP.

Do that until you get advanced ballistics, from where you can actually use rifles to take out aliens fairly reliably.

Also as a personal tweak, I chose to change the soldier starting stats to have 80-90 accuracy when you hire them.

This puts more emphasis on tactics and less reliance on RNG, which makes the whole experience much less frustrating.

Ok, first a biggg thanks to the mod's team, this one is AWESOME.

i was playing whit 1.07 + 5.22, but now I'm testing the 1.07 + 5.31.

I already unlock (research) the "endgame" mission, but I could never research the last aircrafts (Saracen, Marauder & Fury).

[ATTACH]5157[/ATTACH]

Is there any way to fix this whitout starting a new game?

Thanks.

PS: Same problem here (1.07 + 5.22), but this is fixed in the "Firebat" version.

@Piakio

Hi, i have a strange thing, when a soldier wear a heavy armor (coyote or wolf), his health down a few, not with a jackal o basic armor,

????,

anybody can help me??

greetings

Oh yeah that could be problem.Even though I checked last hotfix for v5.22 and that shouldn't happen.Try to delete everything and re -apply XNT:ID over fresh install copy.

save.sa.sav

save.sa.sav

Difficulty Level: Normal – Iron man

Mods:

Kabil map pack (for test but Skitso’s are better)

Kabil FItH (I never used any blowing charge though)

Blood mod

Air Combat

Air combat is even better than before. Ufos can change target and they do that very often.

Since aliens do not follow stupidly one plane all the time, your planes are in real danger now. It’s not chess anymore. One mistake and you are out. So it’s better to auto resolve battle whenever its possible instead of trying and risking loss of some planes. Which sounds like a bug buts it’s not constant air battle would be boring and game balance seems to be intact by that so everything is fine.

But when Aliens send ships escorted by fighters? Then the fun begins. First squadron have to destroy fighters and escape without loses, second attempt will destroy main craft. You cannot “auto resolve” it you have to play that out. And it’s difficult but the proud and satisfaction will recompense everything.

Sometimes though aliens are “thinking” so hard that my CPU is overheating and fps ratio drops down to 2-3 frames. Strange.

Apollo is still useless and his best purpose is to keep hangar spot warm until better plane come. (no I’m joking his real purpose is to looks nice in Xenopedia )

I was trying to over smart aliens. But I failed. Condor – 3 got hit cause I made dodge maneuver to late and Su-Cheburashka is too far away and won’t be useful in upcoming seconds. Aliens lost one fighter already but because of my mistakes fight will end up 3 to 1 for aliens.

Special Encounters

One of the new features introduced recently are Special Encounters. It’s like a special bonus for aliens that might happen in every single crash or landing site. Chances are low but when it takes place aliens are supported by a big fella.

But funny part is that you don’t know it until you spot this alien. You are starting a mission and then out of nowhere BOOM – BOSS FIGHT!. Like a Tank from the Life for Dead (who played knows). Excellent. Too bad music is not changing during this but it’s not a big deal.

Generally idea is brilliant. I was shocked completely every time I encountered those “things”. And they can spawn even at Scouts. Be aware. Battle are less predictable now. Boss can be around every corner and trust me running away from them it’s like riding on a rollercoaster not everybody can handle that. It varies the difficulty and makes every battle a question mark. Will I won or not?

Sometimes „Diablo” himself goes down on Earth to support Aliens. As long as you don’t have any Angels like “Tyrael” on your side don’t even bother yourself about fighting with him. He is immortal so just turn around and run to your Drop ship as fast as humanly possible.

Also good thing is that authors put some indicators to allow more perceptive players to know about Big Viper being around before he will actually show up. Just look at vipers and if they behave strangely (heads up, suspicious smile, walking on 2 legs) it means they are happy because they have a muscle nearby who can (and WILL) easily won battle for them.

Unfortunately such a great idea has been overdone to certain extend. After a while u will realize that even at normal difficulty u can’t match enemy boss. No matter if you send normal troopers or elite (nom nom taste delicious), bring normal or alenium grenades with you (nom nom candies) m16 or Zephyrs or even laser weapons (more nom nom) you will lose. Screen above shows a battle where I decided to fight (aliens made some mistakes, it was my elite squad, best weapons, best equipment, best armors available) and only one soldier went alive out of this.

I was completely surprised by how much damage resistant this one stupid alien is. Completely nothing can do a single point of damage to him. He is resistant to fire, explosives, both ballistic and laser weapons (also no matters if it is a sniper rifle or a normal rifle). Everything looks like a water gun when used against him. The only weapon that actually do damage to him is Bazooka.

Even if I would have killed him with that one soldier continuing the mission was impossible cause half of the alien group was still waiting for me in the UFO.

I seems like mechanism sums up to be nothing more than “I win button” for aliens. When they press it you have to run, there is nothing else to do, sorry pal.

I think either Special Encounters should be more randomized (in terms or difficulty they add to mission) or bosses should be weaker to avoid “I win button” impact on the game.

As always it's nice to read your feedback but before I address other matters from your feedback I will just say that that sadly isn't "Special Encounter "."Special Encounters" are really special and rare,they are more like hidden eastern eggs in current build

I was completely surprised by how much damage resistant this one stupid alien is. Completely nothing can do a single point of damage to him. He is resistant to fire, explosives, both ballistic and laser weapons (also no matters if it is a sniper rifle or a normal rifle). Everything looks like a water gun when used against him. The only weapon that actually do damage to him is Bazooka.

Even if I would have killed him with that one soldier continuing the mission was impossible cause half of the alien group was still waiting for me in the UFO.

Yeah this actually has to do with reaction modifier making it completely immune to reaction fire.In earlier builds you could kill this monster by isolating him from the rest of the group and have all your squad to trigger reaction fire shoot as long as you have Advanced Ballistic Weaponry .As it stand back then he couldn't pass "reaction modifier" check system and he would receive reaction shot even from sniper (if soldier who is carrying has enough TU for that).Depending on circumstances you may even get to kill him without single loss and that's why he has that much resistance and so on.

But giving current circumstances (when this creature is so resistance to reaction fire also ) I and TD will reconsider that beside lowered reaction modifier (which is lowered by the way in upcoming small update) we also find an alternative which would still make that creature ultimate enemy but also not present "I win button”. (Though this will have to wait for next big update when we take a break).

P.S If you had vehicle you could kill him with minimal casualties and still finish the mission.

Apollo is still useless and his best purpose is to keep hangar spot warm until better plane come. (no I’m joking his real purpose is to looks nice in Xenopedia )

I think that this really depends on your style of gameplay.However you are partly right,that aircraft is in tough spot right now and we are still trying to secure his role in the mod.He is still decent scout and can deal with fighters and light scouts so it's not "useless" as you described it

Sentelin, TD maybe it would be best to make a little reconsider in first post of the thread and to ADD, that:

- All new Aliens, all new curcimanses, all threat and "WTF" toughtness - is NOW vanila's-like, but - the Normal XNT toughtness is 3x higher than vanila, so don't try to complain that its hard ever...

and for some reasons... i doesn't see than insane is impossible. No complains about hardness... the balanse is tested for good and long time.

heh... i even dream about great army of even more than 16 soldiers and so aliens more too and big maps even with big number of civ forses and zealots (civ forces of alien side), where i could see the real big warfare!-)) hm... the map open in terror mission is a good thing - so i like to see how not only my soldiers operate.

wonderful... dreams)))

Only i got this problem or it's normal. Enemy shoot trought the wall. they shoot iside bulding and hit my soldier outside (no window on the way). I cannot shoot trought the wall so i don't have much chance to hit them becaus i need enter bulding.

Any sugestion what is wrong?

Write to defs it vanila stuuf sometimes aliens shoot trough walls.

The ammount of bugs in this game draws me crazy its difrent story but I understand how this game was made so i try to not compain.

- URGENT: Both Core pack and latest hotfix Researches.xml:

under Researches.AdvancedLasers:

have an extra space [ Rep laceItem("AV.GSZ_MARS","AV.JUPITER"); ], which is preventing the unlock of all techs / xenopedia entries after the error!

- Has anyone encountered the plasma battery bug after the latest hotfix? I'm still playing without it, and haven't got it after changing Aphazer ammo from 500 -> 5, and in some missions with a lot of those weapons, I'm getting barely any plasma batteries, so they can't be unrelated?

- To deal with Delta vipers in the mid-early game, I use... C4 and electroshock grenades, though you might not have the latter depending on your research path. Also, it's a good idea to help civilians... to use as human shields against vipers. But yeah, they are a bit OP right now, by which I mean that the instant I spot one, instead of sweeping my way carefully across the crashsite, I have to gather everybody to deal with that one threat. At least early on.

- About the shooting through walls... I think what you're seeing is the result of the weapon... pathing? If you look carefully when your own troops fire, the projectiles can start from outside the tile they are standing on, so you can come across situations where you can fire around corners and not be fired upon from the target position, and vice versa. I actually wish this was more pronounced, so you can take cover behind building corners and not 1 tile back. Incidentally, you can totally shoot at a wider angle than the unit can actually see around corners.

I'm getting barely any plasma batteries, so they can't be unrelated?

Battery ammo capacity has nothing to do with that bug and 500 value wasn't mistake it's intentional.I think I did few quick tests and post screenshots where I face 3-4 aliens all carrying Alphaser and at the end of each mission I get 1-9 batteries ( I left ammo capacity unchanged it was 500).

But then again I won't force anyone to play by this rules.If you feel like it go ahead and change to 50 or 5.

As for error in Research file that's good to know and I will fix it when uploading of modulised Core Pack build is finished.

Delta Vipers can be dealt with. You "just" need to have your whole team ready for concentrated fire, hopefully including either Sulfurs or lots of lasers ( plasma weapons should work too I think, just arrived there and still building ).

Once I even got one down with a team of 4. That was in an alien base though and my team was opening a door at full TU with the Viper right behind it.

You really get to fear them if they come in a group. My veteran team got slaughtered in a base when 3 of those came around. I lost 6 of 8 in a single turn. Granted, the Cesean elites drawing my reaction fire and those damm teleporting telepaths making one of the survivors go berserk didn't help either... that base just sits there till I can come back with more firepower!And I will

Once I even got one down with a team of 4. That was in an alien base though and my team was opening a door at full TU with the Viper right behind it.

Wow thats impressing. 4x Sulfur? And btw what difficulty level? Do you save load a lot?

Normal

And no Sulphurs. I Leave those at home when assaulting bases.. close spaces and burst fire explosives are something I try to avoid

It was one Laser sniper,one laser rifle, one laser carabine and one advanced ballistics rifle. But it was only 2 tiles away so next to no misses, and that makes the carabine extremely powerfull.

On another note: I got a feature suggestion: Could the time to transfer stuff be made dependent on the travel distance? As far as I know it always takes 24h, no matter the relative position of the 2 bases in question.

On another note: I got a feature suggestion: Could the time to transfer stuff be made dependent on the travel distance? As far as I know it always takes 24h, no matter the relative position of the 2 bases in question.

Right now it's not possible but that may become one of X:CE features.

good mod !

Difficulty Level: Normal – Iron Man

Mods:

Kabil map pack (for test but Skitso’s are better)

Kabil FItH (I never used any blowing charge though)

Blood mod

Everything written here is just a suggestion and my feedback. Ok lets go.

=== Game flow, difficulty and lack of balance ===

Here we go. I will explain to you how my game was going.

I started with 2 bases. And relatively fast I have built 3rd one. Small and normal Scout were a piece of cake for me. Free grind. Boring but necessary. It’s absolutely important to do all the scouts crash sites. Sometimes u can get even 300k gold from Scout but normally it’s about 100k. So Air striking is like throwing away 100k on purpose don’t do it.

I was trying to get as huge advantage as possible. So I captured living Seb and Ceasan. Then I even managed to capture Seb officer and harridan. Every special encounter I escaped to not lose too much. Losses were affordable. Meanwhile I invented Coyote armor, advanced ballistics, lasers. Just everything that can be invented from up to Corvette.

And a disaster happened. I lost all my elite soldiers by fighting against Big Viper (mentioned in my previous post). Then I reformed another squad and send it to fight against enemy Terror Site – again a complete disaster. Terror mission are impossible please tell me how the fuk can I kill blue andron with Rocket Launcher?

Then I send another team to Corvette. Andron’s rocket exploded directly inside my Dropship.

I tried to capture enemy base 3 times. All time fault. I tried to do a Terror Site 3 times as well but all attempts failed. I was not able to capture stupid Landership so my technological progress stopped.

My hope that by equipping all soldiers with lasers and by this take back the initiative turned out to be a huge disappointment. Lasers were as shitty against better aliens as the rest of the weapons.

It looks like I would have a chance. Trust me I’m in an agony. Nothing really can I do. This game is so hard that the best I could have done was winning a Corvette mission. Now I cannot capture any Aliens’ bases as well as I cannot win any Terror mission. I can only watch how Aliens slowly piece by piece are destroying my defense. Any victory made by my units only makes the waiting for the inevitable death longer. It’s a “psychological horror” not a strategy game.

This one battle against Big Viper was like the Midway for Japanese or the Kursk for Germans during World War Two. Complete turning point. From “I can beat aliens wherever I want” to “Aliens beats me wherever they want”.

But why it is like that? There is couple of reasons.

New comers cannot be equipped with anything, they are too weak to carry an armor and too weak to carry a weapon. Also their low accuracy and time units makes them complete useless.

I suggest adding at least +5 STR and + 5 ACC to every new soldier. At least. Or make new building – training facility that trains your soldiers up to level 3.

Also please don’t allow soldier to be generated with TU, STR and ACC lower than 40 pls… They are pathetic and it looks like Xenonauts (elite unit) would have started to hire homeless or retired people.

Other statistics are fine but those three are crucial.

I can understand that Koraghan is super heavy but advanced pistols? Please make them lighter just for those poor guys with 35 STR.

Coyote Armor gives extra 10 TU but somehow are still more heavy than jackal. WTF is this? Make it more expensive less powerful (but still better than Jackal) but lighter.

But it’s nothing in compare to the other problem. Technological progress.

Whenever alien invents a new technology difference is significant. For example, green andirons can be melted by one single flamethrower when blue one is completely resistant. Blue Androns are also better equipped.

Whenever human forces invent a new technology difference is equal to… zero. My absolutely amazing Super Sniper Rifle 9000 did ONE POINT OF DAMAGE to blue Andron. Amazing.

It’s stupid. Aliens Tier 2 is ten times better than mine. My super sciences not only invent weapons that are as useless as their predecessors were but also heavy as fuck like their would base their calculations on giants. Please explain to me what makes lasers better than advanced ballistics cause by my observation I could not get it.

And now lest summarize.

Aliens’ Tier 2 is way better than yours. Aliens can produce veteran soldiers (better stats) you cannot. After losing elite squad you have to continue war effort with losers.

Finally new soldiers are so pathetic that they can’t even use “new better equipment”.

WTF is this? Soviet Russia? Battle Stalingrad? “Some of you have rifles rest have an ammunition. You go in pairs, when one of you dies other takes equipment. Understood?” “OK FORWARD COMRADES HURRRRRRRRAAA!”

It’s almost like that but you can send only one drop ship and enemy not you have a numerous advantage.

All those factors basically makes any Terror or bigger UFO missions impossible to be done.

=== Others ===

Basic armor for women changed into something better good job.

Rifle laser also looks better. Another very good job.

Flamethrower is amazing. I’m not sure how it goes with balance but I decided to abandon shields pistols and shotguns (maybe it was a mistake I don’t know). But again something is weird. You can easily kill small Viper in one shot but “standing on 2 legs viper” is completely resistant to fire. Same for Andrones, basic Andron can be melted by one shot, blue one is completely resistant. It looks so ridiculous. It would be better to standardize it somehow for example all the vipers are vulnerable to fire and all the Andrones are resistant.

Is a pure pleasure to burrrrn down some aliens. But one mystery remains unrevealed. What kind of magic makes vipers so resistant to fire when standing on two feet.

Again I’m not sure about tanks. They cannot hit at anything nor suppress anything (not to mention their bullets particles flies sooo slooow).

First of all you have to build a garage for tanks (waste of money) then you have to invent a Scout Car (waste of time) and finally you have to produce them (waste of time and money) to have what? Junk on the wells?

Let’s compare what is better 2 soldiers (let’s say rifle and flame thrower) with grenades, medic packs, flexible, able to learn, not able to stuck on an obstacle like a tank and finally just cheaper OR tank hmm. At easy missions like scouts you don’t need tanks because those missions are so easy that is just better to send 2 extra troopers in order to give them opportunity to learn. Later with bigger ufos tanks becomes obsolete so there is even less purpose of using them.

Suppression works funny – Sebilians just don’t give a damn about anything – I guess it’s because they are so brave, nevertheless suppression is not about breaking your morale. Suppression is about shooting so many bullets that you do not have time to lean out or change position. So I guess 5 men shooting should have some impact.

=== The Final Battle ===

February 24, 1980. Indochina.

The war is going to the end.

Three continents are already lost, human capitulation is just a matter of time and is scheduled at March 1st. However last of the Xenonauts forces concentrated around the base “Indochina” despite having no land operational capacity still continue to fight in the air trying to inflicts maximum damage to the enemy air fleet supplying Alien’s base near Sydney. Skilled Xenonauts pilots could avoid enemy large ships then isolate and destroy even enemy Corvettes or Landerships.

This situation was very uncomfortable for Aliens and relatively easy to solve. Upcoming events was so easy to recognize that both sides were preparing themselves for this battle for a number of weeks. Obviously for humans due to huge lack of supplies preparation was highly limited and after all nothing really significant could have been done.

At 5.45 AM enemy Battleship (recognized as UFO-177) commenced landing operation. Two missile defense systems immediately started to shot at approaching ship.

Despite losing 1/5 of troops during landing, aliens were still able to throw 28 elite units into battle mostly equipped with lethal rocket launcher. Paradoxically human officers made a similar choice although due to a very different reason – rocket launcher was the only weapon, from those which were available, able to pierce Andron’s armor.

This amazing sequence of events turned this battle into one the biggest and the most spectacular battle in the entire war with rockets flying everywhere around and with ground completely covered by explosions, fire and smoke. Both sides were using advanced tactics like blocking the passage by Scout Car wreckage used by Humans or teleporting Wraiths over the wall to break the defense from inside by Aliens.

Despite the heroic effort the fact that base garrison numbering 15 units has been completely wiped out in a matter of hours and that Aliens’ Landing Group has lost only 8 units in total with only 2 actually lost during ground combat, clearly exposed huge disproportion in power between human remains forces and alien army at that time.

This final battle won by Andron #3462’s Landing Group calculated to destroy human remaining forces before they will actually surrender, meant to break human morale and ability to fight once for all, was a huge success. And for many, many years mental wounds made by this battle were cicatrizing making any thoughts about resistant nearly impossible…

=== Summary ===

So I survived at Normal – Iron Mode until 25 of February 1980. Can someone beat me ?

I guess most of you can. Anyway I’m proud of myself and it was a great experience.

Atmosphere in this mode is amazing! Regardless everything I still love this mod. Great job XNT Team!

I don't feel good (I got fever),so I will keep this brief and you will get more detail response from TD.

About blue Andron and Androns in general.They are resistance to energy and ballistic weapon equally but they are most vulnerable to explosives and shock grenades.That's why I made special weapon for dealing with them ( well with early Androns and it will unlock after you meet first andron) and that weapon is very good against any heavy enemy unit (well up to Officer ) but requires to be handle by veterans and it's quite risky weapon because it's very powerful (It is also incredibly good in destroying small and medium covers and can one shoot minor vipers and Ceasans ... ),for example no matter how good your soldier is you can use it only once per turn.You will most likely waste 2 turns before get to fire a shot but result will make it worth while (Anti-Material Rifle).However I didn't get a chance to include in this build but it will be in next major update and it's just one of the new weapons we planned.

As for now you can kill them most efficiently by loads of explosives.Explosives will eventually destroy their armor and weaken them down.All in all we planned on adding additional weapons to fill the gap you explained in such detailed way.

News

-------------------------

I also have good news.Modulised core pack is ready but I will first test few things before I share link.

This also means that installation procedure changed (look in patch installation notes to get familiar ).

Also you need clean copy of the game now (only vanilla files) otherwise there could be problems.

And most important thing is that this will break your saved game.So if you have game in progress finish it before applying new Core Package.Small patch that I uploaded other day is included in package so I won't release it as separate official download because there is no reason for it

Thank you Radek

Always usefull feedback. The tanks are the best counter against any viper, as xenopedia entry says.

I will take in consideration all your feedback specially for Ironman dificulty.

Wait a bit for my complete response.

I'm playing on normal Veteran and mid second month first Corvette proves that I need fast tech to lasers or something, cause Zephyrs make no damage against green aliens and only sniper rifles can damage them somehow. Also I still consider Gargols too fast too be balanced. Their great hp must be balanced by a bit slower speed.

What changes brings the patch. Iam 4 month in game time after 50+ GC missions and realy realy I dont wana start to grind again, and as Radek mentioned you cant afford to waste so much $ and exp for your squads so you have do do every GC mission. (at least i did it- exept those I coudnt reach- for testing I have changed range of droopships to encourge myself to buld more then 1 of each type in entire game)

I will write my normal feedback when i play another month or 2 but now just few things to Radeks.

First of all you have to be insane to play on iron men the game with such a ammount of bugs- if they gone then I may go for that but no untill it wil be done - so probably never - Radek I admire u:P

To avoid lossing elite squad I did this- I decided to not have such a squad. All my soldiers develop slower but almost all equaly.

I was hiring as much soldiers as posible each month so at the moment i have over 40 and only 3 bases. I play with them untill they reach aboout 2 ranks( my ranks are 2x slower comparing to vanila) and then swap to another rookies. This way after 3.5 month and 50+GC missions i have soldiers that can carry coyote and advenced balistics(there is of course penalty in TU but they always have it over 50).

About they atribiutes I think they ok- but as I said i did hire good xenonauts every months so I had good chunk off them- hirng them when needed may be flustraiting.

About blue androns ARL can usualy deal with one 1 shot, but to get it u have to catch 1 or 2 tricky aliens alive (i think) but it is a lot of help.

About weapons- yea it looks like some weapons are to heavy.

Viper delta yea hmm - yea hhmmm what to write best tactics 80% efective - if u fast enough your entire squad can survive- viper too of course so guess the tactic.

But now less hummor.

C4, c4 and lots of c4s + flamer to triger c4+ ARL and +luck and luck and a bit more luck( normaly c4 not explode becasue of fire - but I cant say yea lets himm kill all my squad i will not use the bug)

I think I have twice use my first tactic- I was vigilannt becasue I spoted walking vipers and He is always with them so i have succesfully runed back to the dropship. Once I have meet him dead in ufo- I fought walking vipers staying concentretaed and waiting for the moment when He will appear- but he never did and I saw his corpse in ufo.

And last time I used my second tactic but luck was involved in that.

He appeared out of nowhere when I was aproaching ufo - already all aliens dead exept those in ufo- so when he appeared 1 soldier dead. Fortunately he was caring c4 and flamer guy was close to him so i trigered c4 -over 120dmg- then ARL 3times 50/40/25 and 1 or 2 grenades for about 20-30.

His second turn +70HP(its insane his regen is way to much thats why he is so though)he went for another guy and kiled him again he had c4 in backpuck so I trigered that with flamer -over 100DMG - and i droped 3rd c4 in area where he can be turn 3 which means close to my entire squad. He went for a bait so I was able triger it my turn 3 then shot him with ARL and few grenades did the rest - only 2 dead soldiers - very good result.

But yea he still is they type of - i will kill your entire squad no mater what u will do-guy.