V19 SC3 : Game progression/ Am I playing right?

[Hairyscreech]

After posting about the terror missions in the ground combat thread I got to wondering how my game progress stacks up against others experiences, certainly the perception of difficulty can be skewed by game progression so am I winning, losing or progressing as normal?

Date is mid January 1980.

I have 1 main base, this contains 1 charlie, 3 condors and 2 foxtrots.

1 missile defense, 1 radar and 2 research labs.

1 air base with just a radar and 3 condors

1 more air base in the build.

16 troops in the main base with about 6 laser rifles and 7 sets of jackal armor.

2 hunter scout cars.

As for research I am just working on air craft lasers, the x37 fighter is available but not built yet.

(just picked up 10 more researchers to speed my research up a bit).

Alien wise I have been base assaulted twice have taken out a small casien base, fought 6 terror missions and am seeing a mix of scouts, corvettes (rarely now), landing ships, cruisers and heavy fighters.

How does this stack up against others progress?

Personally I think this is a pretty rough time for normal difficulty but about right for hard, no way near nasty enough for veteran.

[StellarRat]

Sounds like you doing about as well as I am. Do think it's a bit tough to be called "Normal" right now. Mainly because I've got a LOT of experience playing all the builds. I'd say whatever is above "Normal" would be the correct setting for the current level of difficulty in the standard 19.S. I think a novice player would probably play once at "Easy" then move to "Normal" and would probably be overwhelmed if the "Normal" setting is how it is now.

If I were to change anything, I'd simply cut the number of alien flights and reduce the number of aliens in ground combat some for the "Normal" setting. Probably 25% less aliens and 33% less alien flights. For "EASY" I'd probably reduce by 50% and 66% respectively.

Edited September 4, 2013 by StellarRat

[Dranak]

I don't have my save game in front of me, so there may be some inaccuracies here. This is in mid to late Nov I believe.

Main base:

1 Assault team. 5 troopers in Wolf armor, 3 unarmored troopers (will be upgraded to Buzzard soon)

Hunter (currently parked because with armored troopers it's not needed)

4ish spare troopers

4 Condors with laser cannons being built

1 Charlie

2 workshops

1 lab

all necessary support structures (med bay, storage, garage, etc)

Second base:

all needed support structures

1 lab

4 Condors (lasers currently building)

1 Charlie

1 Assault team. 4 troopers in Wolf armor, 1 Hunter, 2 unarmored troopers (will be upgraded to Buzzard soon)

3ish spare troops

I'll probably break ground on a 3rd base next month, along with adding on an additional lab/workshop. I'm also at a point where I'm going to skip straight from ballistics to plasma.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Dranak

[Elydo]

The interval between laser and plasma seems a bit short. My first playthrough I had enough time to build two precision lasers then I had plasmas available.

[kabill]

The interval between laser and plasma seems a bit short. My first playthrough I had enough time to build two precision lasers then I had plasmas available.

The last few games I played I didn't bother with Lasers for this reason*. It doesn't seem worth building them when you'll develop Plasma just as they enter the hands of your soldiers. This said, building Plasma weapons in itself takes ages, maybe I'm doing Laser a disservice there. In any case, I suppose I'm happy with the game allowing tech-skipping as a viable strategy.

Don't have a game on the go at the moment, but in reply to the OP, my last game (which was one of the stable candidate builds) was similar to Drank's. By early Decemberish I had three bases - main one with 2 labs, 2 workshops and four planes; another interceptor base with 4 planes and a radar; and a third interceptor base with two planes and more hangars being built. I'd finished Laser weapons but didn't build any; had just finished Corsairs ('cause I wanted to try them with the air combat changes) and was about to start pushing for Plasma. Not sure about soldier levels, but I'd built Wolf armour for everyone. One Alien Base raided, and definitely no more than one terror mission (it's actually possible I hadn't had one yet).

*Also, they're aesthetically my least favourite weapons in the game.

[Elydo]

I actually like the look of lasers a bit more than the plasmas. I am known for being inadvertently contrary.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Nah, I'm with you. The laser's look dope. Plasma's are cool, but in the monvert polishing kinda way. Plasma-caster though: the gun looks brutal and shoots how it looks.

I've never gotten far enough for mag-guns yet.

[Xintrosi]

In my last game to have save games affected by updates (so I never finished), I was either in mid-december or mid-january (really can't remember). I had 2 Air bases and my main base.

Air base: 5 hangars, radar, mix corsair/foxtrot with some marauder on the way

Main base: 2 workshops, 2 labs, 2 living quarters, 7 hangars (1 dropship, marauders/foxtrots), and about 12 soldiers. I only hired more soldiers because I'd just upgraded to shrike.

I had full wolf armor, and was phasing it out in favor of sentinel. I was mostly seeing landingships, but cruisers were making occasional appearances. Had nearly full plasma weaponry for all craft and soldiers. I took out 2 alien bases, and did 2 terror missions.

Unfortunately, I think this was before they nerfed the UFO payoff and upped the initial funding, so I'm not sure I'm a useful data point.

EDIT: I never bother with garages/vehicles. Are they useful later on? I found the default hunter very underwhelming the one time I tried it.

[Josip Broz Tito]

I end up building a few lasers just because they're cheaper than plasmas, yet offer a big boost from ballistics. It makes a difference doing a terror mission with someone using a precision laser vs someone using a ballistic sniper. That said, I make rifles last since I'm sniper/machinegun-centric.

Lasers can easily last you until battleships.

[StellarRat]

I've never gotten past lasers and Wolf because the builds come too fast. Maybe on this go around I might actually get some guys with plasma and power armor. In the OG you could complete the game using only lasers. They were good.

[Hairyscreech]

Setllarat : that's my intention with this stable build, I have been pretty quiet here as I haven't been able to get enough play time in to progress past laser tech between builds, for that reason I have gone back to the stable branch in order to progress further and actually be able to comment past face value.