grossbier

Wow not bad :), well i guess ill be watching some more of your videos and give the game another go! I think one of the reasons i fail is im useing too much shield guys. I miss out on a lot of firepower that way. Also i miss out on lots of reaction shots that way. Thx for the links to your playthru, its very educational!

Oh okay! Do you remeber what version you used last Base assault mission? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHwawTJeIDM&index=90&list=PLeCeI44U8FluG907nkx12YrLDtNZTl6kk if you are on the same version as me this mission, it seems i do have a bug or something, as i always have 40 aliens in a base or in a terror mission. 40 is just too much to handle. Maybe i need a clean install... edit: oh sorry you did a mission with 40 aliens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy-AtaBzKYk&list=PLeCeI44U8FluG907nkx12YrLDtNZTl6kk&index=86 nice one!

@Marandor1 Wow cool playthru. You are playing an earlier version tho (due to the playtru is a little older). Enemies inbound. Try the Terror from the sky version, its much more harder. I raided a Alien outpost in phase 2 as well, but there were 42 Aliens. In your base there were only 26 which is much much more sane. Also the terror carrier fight: in my version one drone immediatly downs a foxtrot. In your version your foxes survive one hit. It seems to me that you are playing a version which is a little easier. Also the Sebillian Soldier seem a little bit easier to fight in your game. In terror from the sky 2 Sniper shots are usually not enugh to down a Seb Soldier.

after a lot of hours into xdiv (and loving it) i gave up my game again in phase 2. I think this mod needs some serious balancing before i can play again. Here is my feedback: Phase1: This phase feels really balanced. You can iron man this phase if you are careful and smart. Even terror battleships are possible to bring down, but at a price. Androns are really tough and you want to pull out more often than not, just collecting some corpses and weapons. You really just want the andron hub for the alienElectronics research. I love the different specialist per race. There is usually always somebody worth capturing. Its difficult but very rewarding! Love it, dont change it :-) Economics doesent really feel that balanced, but its not that bad either. As soon as Medium Ships show up and you manage to capture the cores you can handle finances (choosing between money or disassembly for more aircraft). May need some tuning but i think its overall okay. Rookies and Ironman: I love playing xcom ironman style! It is really tough if you loose a Lt or even Col to a hidden reaper or lucky shot through smoke and cover. In the old xcoms this is very sad but you can manage. If you have the right equipment you can manage small missions even with rookies. In Phase one you can do that too. Even rookies with Laser snipers are decent, and machineguns are possible too. Base attacks and Terror Missions: I have yet to see anyone manage to do a terror mission on veteran ironman in Phase 1. You cant even setup a halfway decent defending position, as you get immideatly overrun. I think this needs some serious balancing. Also Alien Base attacks i cant do at all. even if i set up inside the landing zone, there are just too many aliens for only 8 guys and a tank. they flood the entrance in 3 to 4 turns dropping xenonauts like flies. The agressive ai is a little too agressive. If you have to fight like 20 agressive aliens with only 8 guys, you just get overrun. In the old xcoms you could go with more numbers to even it out, but not so here. Phase 2: This phase is kicking my butt every time im getting to it. You now kind of have to have minigunners because without them you just deal too little damage. This would be fine, but i have yet to find a decent strat for not loosing people every mission. I can handle my shield guys dying but when i dont have enough minigunners i can end the game. Rookies just have too low str to be of any use other than shield guys with jackal armour. This is very limiting if you are out of strong ppl. You have loads of awesome equipment but cant use it because its just so freaking heavy and your soldiers are just too weak. I thnk this has to change. Either ramp up the str for rookies +20 or even +30 or make the equipment lighter. I can only imagine how the game will fare in pahse 3 as every new tech weighs more and more. The airgame on the other hand is very fun and rewarding! I managed to get 5 bases up and running with los of foxtrots and aseirus. Im able to down most of the ufos with only minor losses. This seems kind of silly: ruling in the airgame and geoscape, but loosing the tactical combat. As it stands i cant see how anyone can finish the game ironman veteran. I like the challage but there has to be a way of coming back fro a squad wipe (or just loosing some high ranked ppl every now and then) or loosing a base. You have to do lots of missions if you want to stay in the game, so having one bad mission should not result in the end of the whole game. There are some ways i can see these issues being resolved: 1. Weight of weapons should stay mostly the same over the types. Laser sniper the same as Plasma sniper, laser pistols same as plasma pistol and so on. Armour seems too heavy too. There should be an armour per phase which a rookie can comftably carry. 2. Rookies have way higher str. 3. (this is my favorite) Have a training facility in your base which would allow your soldiers to train a stat to a certian trainingmaximum (for example str can be trained up to 75 or something. Or (this might be easier to implement) have your engineers "build" a xenonauts training program which costs a million or so ( a little but like the shield one time upgrade). After completion rookies have higher stats. this way when loosing soldiers, you have to think about investing a little bit more in your recruits. In a war this would totally make sense! Losses are part of it. After a new phase hits such a program would be appropriate. Reflect on the phase one and educate all possible recruits in the way aliens are fought. 4. Reload of weapons should cost % of TUs not a fixed amount. Sometimes you have rookies with only 48 Tus which means you cant even reload certain weapons. 5. Have an armour and a Rifle per Phase and Damage type which a rookie can comftably carry. This way, worst case scenario you have bunch of rookies with only rifels but they can survive if played carefully. Surviving rookies can then be promoted to snipers or other roles over time. Some other balacing issues i find to be problematic and too difficult: - Queens: Those one shot my soldiers in wolf armour (it says they do only 45 dmg but the soldier falls anyways, bug?), have incredible reactions and extreme high health. This would be okay, but tthey also appear in the smallest of crafts. I encountered one in a landed shuttle, which is kind of rediculous. The ship which should be easiest to train some of your rookies, has the toughest alien in it. Along with 2 Pretorian Xenomorphs. I wonder how they even fit inside this little shuttle, it must be cramped in there ;-) . - Andron Server: to capture one of them you have to sacrifice one soldier. I cant see how you can do it otherwise. They reactionfire with a minigun and always stay in a control room or the ship. I like sacrifying solders :-) but as stated above this is no valid strategy currently. - Resistances: I really like the way every race has other resistances, which forces you to have the right equipment for the right job. This means that you have to have a squad with every damagetype. This would be fine except you are struggeling even if you have the right tools for the job with you. Either you bring along all the weapons in the backbacks or you try to fight with the wrong weapon type. If you go with the first you dont have enough space for anything else useful and are in danger of loosing soldiers in turn one(as most of your crew wont have enough tus to do anything to prevent this). If you go with the 2nd this works until phase 2. The wrong damagetype sniper is useless. Only weapon which works for all in close combat is the minigun. This can be countered in 2 ways i think: 1) have the quantum decrypter ( or whatever its called) be available in phase 2. I checked and you need a andron Terminal for that which appears in phase 3 i think. 2) Have the armour midigation go across all types of damage: if you fire your ballistic MG on a ceasan his armour should be damaged also for laser weaponary, so a laser sniper could finish him off. Right now if you bring laser snipers for a ceasan ship they are quite useless except for xenomorphs. - accuracy: I used to have 3 snipers with my crew in phase 1. They were all extremely accurate. most of the time they have a 95% chance to hit. I noticed that they miss more often than not. I always thought this is the real chance to hit displayed, but it seems that all of the obstacles are not calculated into that. Do i have to calculate that myself? For example: my sniper has a 95% chance to hit but in the line of fire there are 3 bushes, every bush is displayed as 10% chance to hit. Does that mean my CTH is just 65%? Or is this a kind of number overflow bug? - Advanced smoke grenades: this should be a one time upgrade like the Shield upgrade. Smoke grenades and shileds are youre liveblood, so they should both be always available. - Rifles are quite useless. They need a serious accuracy boost, or another significant advantage. I have yet to see a solder hit at mid range. - Base attacks: Sometimes im not able to bring down an terror assault ship. All my secondary bases are soldierless so if i miss a ship i loose a base. I played quite a lot and tried with a crew of 16 and a garage to defend a base assault. In phase one you can manage but in phase 2 you need better weapons. 16 of them per pase, which is incredible expensive both in money and resources. Also you then have to fight the aliens with only rookies which limits you to very few weapons and armour (because of the weight of the advanced equipment). Also the agressiveness of the aliens usually gets you overrun. We need some tools to deal with that. Also the likelyhood of a base attack is too high imo. I get a base attack every 2 waves. My suggestions: 1) Make it possible to at least send my dropsip over to the attacked base, so at least 8 experienced soldiers can join the battle. The way i would love to see that would be a very fast dropship which can only transfer soldiers and their equipment. Right now a soldier transfer takes 24 hours which is not nearly enough to get some higher ranks to the mission. Realism wise it would make sense to have a concord-type airplane which can reinforce the attacked bases. 2) less agressive ai. You will get overrun extremely quickly even with 16 soldiers 3) have aliens enter the base only on one side or only through your hangars. i loved that in the old xcoms: You could layout a base to better handle the assaults. 4) have bases without hangars be not attackable. This way you could build a research base or just radar bases. You would only have to defend your bases with your airplanes 5) aliens have to first scout the base. For example: if you manage to bring down all scouts and dont let them land, the aliens are not able to attack your base in the next wave. Makes prioritising ships to bring down much more important. 6) For a terror ship to assault a base it needs at least 30 hours. This way you can figure out how to deal with it. Either try to bring it down with all your airforce or transfer much needed equipment and experienced soldiers over. You would have to be prepared nevertheless. Every base would need a garage and living quarters to be viable. 7) Missile batteries are useless right now. to ease your pain while base defending, the batteries need to be able to hit more accuratly. Ether just increase the cth or have more diverse Batteries. For example a Laser battery can do lots of damage but only has a cth of 50%. An avalance or alenium Torpedo Battery has a chance of 100% but can only fire once, doing only little damage, but guaranteing a little bit easier mission. You could then prioritise how you want to defend your bases: Man it with equipped soldiers or have lots of batteries to get a terror ship guaranteed down, limiting your base layout significantly in the process. Maybe missile Batteries which have a cth of 100% will even take 2 spaces of your base, limiting you even more. All in all you really did a great job with this mod and i sunk lots and lots of hours in it already! I hope my feedback is of help and some of it is taken into consideration. Tell me what you think of my suggestions! best regards and keep rolling, grossbier

@therealdantheman Wow thx for the tips! with minigunners i do have a much easier time! Also the spare shields are really important. at least on the cruisers and landers! I have a general question tho: I can still handle the terror ships so its not that much a problem, but how do i counter those drones that get sent out from it? my Foxes only get 1 - 2 Torpedos off before they get destroyed. Maybe there is a way to destroy them? i tried to send a heavy fighter with 2 Foxes with a anti-missile but this doesent seem to shoot those drones. Any hints on beating the Terror ships without those heavy losses (12 Foxes atm. even Lancers get downed with one of those drones)?

@therealdantheman How are you faring in phase 2? what strat/loadout do you use? Im having big trouble with phase 2. I usually have 3 Shield guys with smgs 2 Heavys (mk3 ballistic) and 3 Snipers (laser mk3). Phase one i managed to get by with few losses, but in Phase 2 i get one shotted extremely often. even through smoke. Those ceasan Xenomorph queens (encountered one in a light shuttle!) are just so hard to beat. they one shot any soldier if they hit (even if the damage says something like 45 and my soldier has 90hp, he dies instantly if hit directly). AND they reaction fire and have crazy vision range. Also the alien weapons are so powerful even my wolf armor often doesent protect anything (even at the begin of the mission) Some more questions for phase 2: - I cant build any Hunter anymore, is this intended? I usually have a defender or a Siege Vehicle but when im low on fibres i have to fall back to hunters. In my game i cant build them anymore. Is this a bug? - Str on rookies: If you have to use rookies you cant use your advanced equipment. Which means the rookies die very quickly, even if they wouldnt have to. A Rookie with a Enhanced Shield cant cant carry anything else, which kind of sucks. I would very much appriciate if the rookie str is raised at least 10-20 points. - Base assaults: Whats your strat to defend your bases? My strat is to intercept the terror ships. Im phase one i need 8 Foxtrot with alenium torpedos for this. i sacrifice all of them but downed 2 Terror ships (already have a firebird in my arsenal which is quite awesome) In Phase 2 i need 12 Foxes to down a terror ship. Til now it worked very well. My bases have 3 aseurus and 3 foxes. As soon as the massive Ship appears i transfer all aseuirus to other bases and equip the 2 bases near the terror ship with 2 Wings of foxes, then attack (and loose all of them ^^). I cant imagine to defend my bases any other way in phase 2. I would have to equip my soldiers with new weaponary, which is extremely expensive and with 5 bases not really doable. Any tips for that? best regards

@LittleEgret Hi there! Im not a pro at all with the mod, but im pretty comftable in the early game. To your questions: 1. Charon the developer just started an awesome and very educational veteran ironman playthru on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/charon117/videos/all This is the way i do it early game: Strat1: Supress or destroy the door. Meaning 2 Heavy machinegun salves per turn (sometimes even 3 for sebillians) to supress everyone behind the door. Sometimes the door breaks, which is good too because u can now see whos supressed and whos not. Additionally you can then position your snipers so they can kill the supressed aliens from a distance. Strat2: position your heavy hitters on each side of the door so u can shoot a salve in each direction. Have your highest reaction guy with a Pistol and a shield open the door. The weapon you use affects your reaction: in the soldier equip screen in geoscape you can hover on the weapons available. Every weapon has a "reaction modifier". A Cannon for example has a modifier of 0.0 which means that no matter how high your soldiers reactions are, he looses the reaction compare. Snipers and heavy weapons are 0.5 i believe. Shotguns and rifels have 1.0 and pistols are 2.0, so always try to open doors with pistol guys. 2. As far as i know no it doesent. Moving something from the floor to the backpack takes 10 TUs from the backpack to the hand 4 TUs. I think. Have to check that tho. Either way weight should not affect the cost of the transfers. 3. I wondered that myself but i guess its a balancing thing. In vanilla nobody was ever standing. 4 TUs is very cheap. Now you have to think about who needs to kneel and whos better with full TUs to run to the next psoition. I for example usually only crouch my Snipers and troops i think are in danger best regards

Hi everyone! Im in month 2 from my ironman veteran X-division 0.99.42 playthrough, and sadly i now have a corrupted save! I played my first ground combat mission with my second Crew on Chinhook-2. Everything went perfect when suddely the game crashes and was unresponsive during the alien turn. I even had to restart my computer. Now everytime i load the save, i get the same freeze. I realize that im using the additional Mods of X-Division, which may have caused the problem, but maybe its a Bug in the CE too? I installend x-div over a clean install of the steam version of the CE with the amient sounds active. I tried turing them all off, but that didnt help either. I read in some other thread that maybe a bugged map can cause such freezes? I come to love Ironman, because if i play with saves the temptation to reload after a big squadwipe is often too great. So i would regret having to go back to savegame mode. if anyone could help, i wold really appriciate it. best regards AutosaveIM2017-11-20_14.16.05.sav