Post Milestone 7 Non Ironman Commander Campaign Thoughts

[Bookshelf11]

After some issues with stability, performance and crashing, first time I've finished a campaign in both non ironman mode AND on Commander, glad I chose to turn it off since I could of easily had some game ending bugs multiple times without being able to reload. Definitely harder than the prior difficulties, not entirely a fan of all its changes which I'll bring up, also first time I've seen the ending cinematic, a Wraith wearing clothes was far cuter than I expected. Also experimented with some things I ignore usually like the stealth suit and fielded more Colossus than usual to see how their buff ended up. I think I enjoy Veteran difficulty more but I still enjoyed this run a lot, it just felt like it dragged more with more enemies causing longer missions and possible performance issues and no auto resolve air combat meaning every single UFO had to be downed manually. 

Commander Related:

• Biggest issue I had was the sheer amount of enemies you have to go against. Some of the maps felt overloaded and even some crashed scouts had clown car amounts of aliens, especially with terror missions where you have a good 6 or 7 enemies crammed in the same building. Excessive did really feel excessive, some missions 
• I didn't really notice the extra 10% accuracy bonus on enemies really, suppression and smoke made it where the accuracy boost wasn't noticeable enough to matter
• Air combat wise, it was actually quite fun to be able to reload and practice the air game for once when not ironman but the lack of auto resolve got a tad repetitive, I wouldn't mind being able to auto resolve weaker UFOs/UFOs I've downed x number of times or delegated to just reduce it since once you get a Gemini with dual Blasters, you can do almost any ship with 0 damage with almost no difficulty, that teleporting ability is crazy good
• Focusing on the air game like always is the key, once I got good at doing intercepts, I was able to reliably keep most areas at extremely low panic, speedrun phantoms and missile tech and you're good, I was still using Angels filled with missiles or torpedoes against Cruisers and interceptors because you can use a Phantom or Gemini to bait the rockets to keep the rest safe while they one shot a Interceptor with 4 missiles, the extra 25% UFO damage wasn't really noticeable  

 

Tactical Changes Thoughts: 

• Really REALLY liked the changes to Colossus armour, ENDGAME I ran 4 of them because they're that fun, they really are like tanks in that you need to support them with infantry but they fit that sort of door kicker and wall smasher role perfectly, being able to shoot and scoot or even fire multiple times while tanking reaction fire and being unable to be supressed as the first one in really helped it having it work as a end game addition to shields
• Colossus fists are a neat idea but they feel very lacking in power both in damage done and sound, felt like I was slapping a alien in the face rather than breaking its jaw with a power armoured punch
• Stalker armour I used for the first time, I like it but honestly snipers as a role are very niche with how close quarters most missions are, I'd probably use it again but it feels weird really, like I don't know where to put it in the progression, I'd like if it could be upgraded to give more ap so snipers can reposition or more movement for better scouting, reduce the cost of sniper rifles or get a 2nd tier that makes it more protective, it just feels like the odd duckling right now
• Definitely noticing the extra health aliens got, Mantid eating a MARS cannon wasn't expected and made some enemies take a inordinate amount of fire power to bring down considering the amount of them

 

Campaign Thoughts:

• Definitely wish we more mission types, even variations like wave defence terror missions while civilians evacuate or breaking a assault on a local military base with lots of friendly support, I absolutely adore UUO 1 missions because they're both so different
• Mantid bio rifles early game really sting, they can overwhelm you so quickly even if they miss, especially on excessive enemy amounts
• The grenade launcher I never used, not even once, still seems very much not worth it to me
• Snipers not being able to fire twice feels poor when snipers need good positioning to be worth anything, especially from my experience that sniper rifles aren't that strong and I found that they weren't that useful vs a rifle that can burst or fire and relocate

Pleased to see how far it's come nearly 3 years from EA, will be looking forward to post launch content and mod tools, I can see all sorts of cool stuff possible in the future.

 

 

[fusion-waffle]

Agree with your point about colossus armour -- balance-wise it's in a good place. The current design encourages running teams with a healthy vanguard-colossus blend, instead of a monoculture of either. Also agree with your point about the relative uselessness of the power fist, which is a shame given the amount of dev work that's gone into the colossus-specific custom inventory logic & fixing all the entertaining power-fist related bugs. I've found the power fist to be situationally useful once, not to apply significant damage, but to trick an overwatching alien into rotating when the heavy didn't quite have enough TU left for a proper three round  burst.

Regarding mantids, the new bio-cannon with the 2-round biter bust is great. You have to treat overwatching bio-cannon mantids with considerable respect. If I see one it generally becomes the number one target. With a little bad luck or poor tactics (engaging on too many fronts & not being able to tell when a retreat is warranted), I suspect those mid-late game mantid+reaper+sebillian terror sites have potential to get completely out of hand, in terms of number of active aliens, but I haven't quite had it happen to me yet. I got completely swarmed once in a 6.x stable terror site with that mix of aliens & regular bio rifles.

Taking 1 grenade launcher can be useful in the early game, mainly to remove cover & strip a little armour. For the missions where you need to leg it, the grenade launcher soldier struggles to keep up with the assault/shield/rifleman pack, but I often find it more useful than a sniper (who is generally completely unable to contribute usefully at all) as the indirect fire grenade arcs let it shoot & contribute quite often when a sniper would have a blocked shot and need to waste their entire turn relocating.

Sniper is perhaps in a bit of a challenging place -- if you let snipers shoot twice per turn, would snipers always get drafted ahead of a rifleman?

 

What are your tricks for keeping soldiers lost to less than 10 over an entire commander campaign?  I usually lose around 30-ish on commander & the best I've managed is losing about 15. I've never seriously tried using vehicles.

[Bookshelf11]

9 hours ago, fusion-waffle said:

What are your tricks for keeping soldiers lost to less than 10 over an entire commander campaign?  I usually lose around 30-ish on commander & the best I've managed is losing about 15. I've never seriously tried using vehicles.

Heavy flashbangs and smokes use honestly, if the enemy is alive then attack until they're dead or supressed, if not dead or supressed then flashbang, then if they're still capable of shooting, throw smoke in the line of sights to targets. I also got lucky with a lot of the enemy spawns, lot of Sebs and Mantids rather than Wraiths and Androns, heavy weapon Sebs can be supressed and rendered mostly harmless. 

Also managed to keep the panic low enough via focusing on interceptor coverage that I could skip some terror missions fully and tank the panic increase, because those are always the biggest cause of deaths. Landed at a terror mission, saw a entire building that was full of Androns and Wraiths directly out of the ramp and then saw even more on both sides of the dropship and realized that the panic increase wouldn't be big enough to be worth risking a ton of deaths when I don't have the resources to replace the gear, so I just left.  

I use heavy armoured MARS a lot, end game around 2 ARES clad in heavy plating to provide heavy damage via canons and cover for assaults, canons are vital for taking out Cyberdrones and big threats while the MARS can be used as a cheap and tanky scout that triggers reaction fire. They also can't be supressed so they're great for breaching doors and being able to create paths through walls is so valuable it's unreal. A good MARS shot can 1 shot a Mentarch or nearly outright kill a cyberdrone if you bypass the armour via the rear. 

[Bookshelf11]

9 hours ago, fusion-waffle said:

Sniper is perhaps in a bit of a challenging place -- if you let snipers shoot twice per turn, would snipers always get drafted ahead of a rifleman?

I think it's fine if it required almost all of your TUs to fire twice, to reward good sniper positioning, while not encroaching on rifles and their niche of advancing fire and suppression. A good burst fire from a riflemen at the close ranges of a UFO or alien base is always better than a single good shot from a sniper, and advancing in a UFO means they'd only ever get the one shot. 

[ih8california]

Yes, I hated the nerf to sniper TUs not being able to snap shot twice at high levels w/vanguard armor. i dislike nerfs to late-game tech/strategy that is very niche and requires careful planning throughout the campaign to train snipers to be able to do that.

I usually skip late-game terror missions since there is no real benefit aside from panic reduction. You are too likely to get a sizable portion ofyour team killed because you get spawn camped by a dozen advanced-game enemies.

[Skitso]

Snipers do feel a bit too weak, yeah. I would increase the movement penalty even further and allow two snaps a turn.

Also, excess accuracy could be traded for additional damage. What I mean with that is, that even if I have a super high acc sniper with a nice, clear shot, the hit chances are still always capped to 100% with no extra benefits. Excess accuracy over 100% could buff the damage dealt in a way that the default random 50-150% damage variation would skew towards the top end of that scale (100-150%), simulating better chance of head shots.

I would also argue that sniper penetration is too weak compared to shotguns. Shotguns shouldn't have penetration power or only very low penetration.

Edited March 18 by Skitso

[Bookshelf11]

2 hours ago, Skitso said:

Also, excess accuracy could be traded for additional damage. What I mean with that is, that even if I have a super high acc sniper with a nice, clear shot, the hit chances are still always capped to 100% with no extra benefits. Excess accuracy over 100% could buff the damage dealt in a way that the default random 50-150% damage variation would skew towards the top end of that scale (100-150%), simulating better chance of head shots.

Having it where shots that are 100% accurate make the damage range start between 1x to 1.5x rather than between .5x to 1.5x, so well aimed shots do a guaranteed amount of damage with a much higher chance to actually do more, would help snipers alongside being able to fire twice, since then they'd feel like a sharpshooter who could take out priority threats effectively when right now they don't provide as much killing power and very little suppressive ability or grenades since they're mostly isolated. 

2 hours ago, Skitso said:

I would also argue that sniper penetration is too weak compared to shotguns. Shotguns shouldn't have penetration power or only very low penetration.

Once I get lasers, I sort of ignore a lot of penetration simply because it's just more viable to soften armour with laser pistols and rifles to the degree that penetration isn't necessary to secure a kill, snipers especially since with their one shot I use them in missions to secure kills so most of the time they're firing into injured and armour removed enemies. 

[fusion-waffle]

9 hours ago, Bookshelf11 said:

I use heavy armoured MARS a lot, end game around 2 ARES clad in heavy plating to provide heavy damage via canons and cover for assaults, canons are vital for taking out Cyberdrones and big threats while the MARS can be used as a cheap and tanky scout that triggers reaction fire. They also can't be supressed so they're great for breaching doors and being able to create paths through walls is so valuable it's unreal. A good MARS shot can 1 shot a Mentarch or nearly outright kill a cyberdrone if you bypass the armour via the rear. 

Thank you for the thoughtful response!  I'll have to try out a vehicle-heavy campaign, I think I've been prejudiced against vehicles based on memories of playing ufo enemy unknown some years ago (fork out $$$, vehicle gets shot and explodes, ...).

If I think about my own play style, maybe I could get losses across a campaign down from 15 KIA to around 10 KIA by making fewer unforced errors (e.g. if you're planning to have the last soldier throw smoke atop overextended troops, double and triple check that a specific soldier being kept in reserve actually has (i) smoke (ii) enough TUs (iii) a plausibly high hit% grenade throw. The number of times I still get that wrong, hah...)

[Bookshelf11]

49 minutes ago, fusion-waffle said:

Thank you for the thoughtful response!  I'll have to try out a vehicle-heavy campaign, I think I've been prejudiced against vehicles based on memories of playing ufo enemy unknown some years ago (fork out $$$, vehicle gets shot and explodes, ...).

If I think about my own play style, maybe I could get losses across a campaign down from 15 KIA to around 10 KIA by making fewer unforced errors (e.g. if you're planning to have the last soldier throw smoke atop overextended troops, double and triple check that a specific soldier being kept in reserve actually has (i) smoke (ii) enough TUs (iii) a plausibly high hit% grenade throw. The number of times I still get that wrong, hah...)

If the MARS doesn't die due to explosives, you get the wreckage when it's killed and you can rebuild it for half the price and I think half the time, and doesn't require any alien resources to rebuild either so past a certain level of progress it's better to risk a MARS by putting it in danger since it's more tanky and economically better than lose a Guardian wearing elite soldier. They can also use a smoke launcher as well that uses less TUs so they can be used as spearheads that lay down cover for the rest of the squad. Also don't have recovery time at base so you can go back to back on missions with them and never get supressed or mesmerised, mind controlled or panic so they're very useful when things go wrong. 

My shield and assaults all have multiple flashbangs and smoke grenades, same with the riflemen, with the shields using flashbangs to disable reaction fire when opening doors and going into rooms or alternatively triggering reaction fire using the shield or a MARS instead depending on danger. Actual damaging grenades are worth far less than a flashbang in the right place at the right time, outside of triggering Wraiths decloaking. Just because a enemy is supressed doesn't mean they're completely harmless unless they're a Seb with a heavy weapon, a Wraith who's got 50% TUs but crouched can very easily nail shots at close range, but he can't throw grenades or get a angle on you so either lay down smoke between them and you, kill them or actively remove your troops from its line of sight since if they can't see you they'll spend their TUs moving instead.

Also abuse thermal damage, all of my shields and assaults have laser pistols once I get them so they can make sight lines and paths in buildings and UFOs and destroy cover/obstructions for other troops to land their shots while spending very few TUs and the ammo regens. 

[fusion-waffle]

We are absolutely on the same page when it comes to flashbangs & smoke grenades, having a plan of how to deal with suppressed aliens & the value of laser pistols. All great tips. Cheers for sharing your MARS piloting advice.

[Chris]

Thanks for the thoughts. I'll boost the damage numbers on the Colossus melee weapon because it does indeed seem quite low compared to late-game weapons. I'll have a think about perhaps dropping the TU fire cost for the cheaper sniper shot to be 49%; if I lowered the Accuracy a bit it might increase the weapon's potential damage scaling in the hands of a high-Accuracy soldier without being overpowered in the hands of less experienced soldiers.

[fusion-waffle]

Quoting from the freshly-baked 7.12 changelog:

Quote

Colossus Power Fist melee attack Damage increased from 50 to 60, added 40 Stun Damage, and Armour Penetration increased from 20 > 40. The way that stun damage works means this is actually quite a substantial buff to melee damage against biological enemies.

Interesting!  Directionally, I like it.  60 damage + 40 stun + 40 armour penetration seems like it should hit like a truck. But, not absurdly so:

• often there will be enough TUs for a 3 round burst, which is likely still the move with higher expected damage: I forget the exact numbers, but each advanced fusion round is good for around 100 damage, so 3x100x50% hit chance = around 150 expected damage for a 3-round fusion burst (within a range of 0 -- 450)
• actually getting a punch to connect with an alien while wearing a big clumsy colossus suit is challenging due to the x0.5 reflexes penalty
• punching alien robots with 0 reflexes is much less of a challenge (androns can be punched with 100% hit chance...)
• unclear how viable punching cyberdrones will be!  need another soldier to distract them & then there's that small issue of the drones exploding

[Rakiii]

20 hours ago, Chris said:

Thanks for the thoughts. I'll boost the damage numbers on the Colossus melee weapon because it does indeed seem quite low compared to late-game weapons. I'll have a think about perhaps dropping the TU fire cost for the cheaper sniper shot to be 49%; if I lowered the Accuracy a bit it might increase the weapon's potential damage scaling in the hands of a high-Accuracy soldier without being overpowered in the hands of less experienced soldiers.

More damage is an interesting but you will have problem to hit smth with nerfed reflexes (wearing Colossus).

I think sniper rifles are very strong, especially early on (bcos of accuracy). I would rather give Stealth armor -10% TU bonus to operate weapons for the players who want to focus on more stealthy/sniper style of playing. It would also make this armor more attractive in general.

 

On 3/18/2026 at 5:32 PM, Skitso said:

I would also argue that sniper penetration is too weak compared to shotguns. Shotguns shouldn't have penetration power or only very low penetration.

I wouldn´t say it´s weak ....

Fusion sniper rifle has 30 pene which is more than enough to bypass most of the alien´s armor except androns.

In fact I think the highest rank of aliens (Praetorians) should have better armor protection.

I can agree that shotguns shouldn´t have high penetration (if any att all) though.

I also think that fusion weapons should have rather more armor destruction than penetration.

 

I like an idea of aliens having different resistances on MS 7+ but bcos of power of advanced fusions weapons there´s really no pressure to use anything else...

Maybe upgraded gaus weapons could be a bit stronger or aliens having more resistances?

I also think there should be project to upgrade magnetic weapons (the only weapons without an upgrading project)

Edited March 20 by Rakiii

[Skitso]

21 hours ago, Rakiii said:

I also think there should be project to upgrade magnetic weapons (the only weapons without an upgrading project)

Yeah, upgrade path from magnetic to object penetrating railgun might be an attractive option. Even if the damage wasn't improved, being able to penetrate cover, hit unsuspecting enemies through a wall or multiple enemies standing in a row and bypass all armor could make it a really intresting weapon type.

Edited March 21 by Skitso