XCOM: One Does Not Simply "Shoot" a Cryssalid...

[KillianHawkeye]

Wow, I'm so glad this thread is here! I had no idea that Bullet Storm allowed you to take 2 attacks; I thought it just allowed you to shoot and still move rather than the other way around. I'm definitely going to try this ability on my next Heavy now.

[Zevox]

Originally Posted by king.com

I was saying thats my reasoning behind putting an assault in ghost armour. If your talking about psionics, the entire game becomes a cakewalk once they show up. The game unfortunately has a crumbing difficulty curve in the late game...

I don't think I agree with that. I mean, I'm at the latest portion of the game at this point - I can equip whatever I want on my troops, have researched everything (both labs and foundry), have almost all my troops at Colonel rank (about four at Major), and I still don't exactly have an easy time on missions. The late-game units are just that good - Sectopods, Muton Elites, Berserkers, Ethereals. You can take them down fast if you play your cards right or get lucky, but if they get a good position on you or get particularly lucky, you can still be in trouble quite fast. Perhaps not one-shot kill trouble (thank you, Titan Armor), but the danger of losing troops remains quite real.

Psionics, while quite handy, I'd by no means say make the game a cakewalk. Mindfray is useful since it's almost guaranteed to hit most enemies, but it doesn't do enough damage to be a serious threat to high-end units on its own. And while its debuff effect is nice, I've certainly seen enemies hit my units despite being affected by it. I'm actually in a situation right now where I've found that my third sniper is psionic, but she's not ranking up her powers because it's almost always a much better idea to have her shoot than use Mindfray.

The defensive powers are handy, but plainly not game-breaking. Panic I honestly haven't yet used in any particularly effective way - I've tried it on Berserkers a couple of times when I couldn't take them down fast enough, but I think they're immune to it, because even when I don't get told it missed (which happens surprisingly often for something that has an 80-some percent chance to hit), the Berserker doesn't seem to be affected by it.

Mind Control is probably the most potent power, but even it I wouldn't call game-breaking. Most of the time it just gets your enemies to waste an action or two killing their former teammate, which is very good, but unless the engagement was quite small, not fight-winning. When they don't you get a decent and completely expendable ally for a few turns - but once mind control wears off, that alien gets to act for a turn before you can do anything about it.

Originally Posted by Anarion

The sniper at max height with squad sight thing only works for outdoor enemies, correct? I believe the shot is blocked when they go inside.

Correct - you need line-of-effect to the target to shoot it. Squadsight just gives you line-of-sight, not line-of-effect. Although I think the game can be a bit generous when calculating whether you have LoE, since I've often seem my troops and aliens seem to shoot through solid objects (not just cover the target was currently using).

And aliens seem not to need LoE at all when shooting civilians in terror missions, but that doesn't apply to you, it's just annoying.

Originally Posted by Anarion

Unfortunately, aside from snipers, I've found flight armor to be generally subpar, and much worse than the original X-com's flight armor. What made flight armor good in the original is that it also had the most actual armor, and flying was just a perk. Plus, anyone could fire at any distance as long as there was a clear line of fire, so flying was always good in the original. This time around I don't see much advantage except for snipers at max height, as everyone else does way better with ghost or titan armor.

I'd have to disagree. I find flight is extremely useful in a lot of situations. Perhaps the biggest benefit is simply that it negates terrain as a concern, since it takes no actions to activate. This is immensely helpful in alien ships, allowing you to ascend floors or cross gaps when you'd otherwise have to go around, and it can be useful in situations with less dicey terrain as well. Flying also gives you a defense bonus equivalent to what low cover gives, so if you don't have enough cover to go around in a particular part of a battlefield, or need a soldier in a particular position but don't have cover in a good position there, just using it takes care of your problem.

Just last mission I had an Assault and a Support using flying armor take down a Sectopod between them with no damage. The Sectopod was on the roof of a building, alone save for a drone, so they ascended to maximum height and flew in near it. The Support suppressed it, and the Assault rapid-fired it. Between the suppression and the flight bonus to defense, it missed every shot it fired at them. A few rounds of that later, it was dead, never having accomplished anything - the only time I can say that's happened when I've fought a Sectopod.

Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye

Wow, I'm so glad this thread is here! I had no idea that Bullet Storm allowed you to take 2 attacks; I thought it just allowed you to shoot and still move rather than the other way around. I'm definitely going to try this ability on my next Heavy now.

I thought the same, from the description, which is why I took holo-targetting no my first heavy. I decided to try Bulletstorm on my second, and was shocked when I saw the game would let me shoot a second time thanks to it. I've taken it on every heavy since.

Zevox

[king.com]

Originally Posted by Zevox

I don't think I agree with that. I mean, I'm at the latest portion of the game at this point - I can equip whatever I want on my troops, have researched everything (both labs and foundry), have almost all my troops at Colonel rank (about four at Major), and I still don't exactly have an easy time on missions. The late-game units are just that good - Sectopods, Muton Elites, Berserkers, Ethereals. You can take them down fast if you play your cards right or get lucky, but if they get a good position on you or get particularly lucky, you can still be in trouble quite fast. Perhaps not one-shot kill trouble (thank you, Titan Armor), but the danger of losing troops remains quite real.

Psionics, while quite handy, I'd by no means say make the game a cakewalk. Mindfray is useful since it's almost guaranteed to hit most enemies, but it doesn't do enough damage to be a serious threat to high-end units on its own. And while its debuff effect is nice, I've certainly seen enemies hit my units despite being affected by it. I'm actually in a situation right now where I've found that my third sniper is psionic, but she's not ranking up her powers because it's almost always a much better idea to have her shoot than use Mindfray.

The defensive powers are handy, but plainly not game-breaking. Panic I honestly haven't yet used in any particularly effective way - I've tried it on Berserkers a couple of times when I couldn't take them down fast enough, but I think they're immune to it, because even when I don't get told it missed (which happens surprisingly often for something that has an 80-some percent chance to hit), the Berserker doesn't seem to be affected by it.

Mind Control is probably the most potent power, but even it I wouldn't call game-breaking. Most of the time it just gets your enemies to waste an action or two killing their former teammate, which is very good, but unless the engagement was quite small, not fight-winning. When they don't you get a decent and completely expendable ally for a few turns - but once mind control wears off, that alien gets to act for a turn before you can do anything about it.

After I unlocked my psionics I lost a single soldier for the rest of the game. At the hands of a sectopod, which is the only thing thats dangerous at that point (which makes me want to give heat ammo to every heavy from now on). Muton Elites are negliable, they are mind controllable and dont have the movement to catch ghost + sniper combo so its about moving in with a lightening reflexes guy, sniper and kill 1 to 2 a turn and then pull back. Rinse and repeat. Beserekers are only a problem with the panic but thankfully the protective power of the psionic rank 2 helps you with that. Their charge is often a disadvantage to them, so you pull them to your shotguns/heavies or towards a car you can rocket to death for 12 points of free damage. With a psionic its a mindfrey + mind control for 100% chance without psy armour.

Etherals are almost always hanging out in a closed environment which mean their big power, the rift storm, doesnt get used bbecause of the friendly fire. So you move in, mind control the bodyguard (almost always a muton elite) and then everyone alpha strikes the etheral. With titan armour everyone can take a hit from their attack but their AI really wants to mind control if everyone is in cover. So keep yourself covered for a turn, then everyone run to point blank and finish.

Everything is about getting just enough line of sight , moving JUST far enough and then mind controlling it with all your guys. Im terrified to think just how godly powerful a sniper with psionics is as that would mean squad sight applies? So its just a roaming mind control with a ghost assault providing sight. Im guessing thats how you get the Etheral under mind control achievement.

Sectopods are really the only threat thats left but usually its 1 or 2 at most so its more about good scouting with a ghost and then moving everyone to a position to jump them.

You say that 1 or 2 turns to shoot their team isnt critical but thats 2 turns I can drop 4-5 hostiles minimum with a 6 person squad. Anything but a Sectopod cant last more than a turn anyway but having a suicide trooper to pull fire makes things so much easier. Once it dies you pull back, wait for the cooldown timer and then you do it againt and creep forward.

[JMobius]

I've a question regarding psionics: Is it simply a random chance that any given soldier has the Gift, or is it a function of their current Willpower? I only found two soldiers who had it, both of my support Colonels, but I'd been mass-hiring recruits to test, none of whom yielded positive. If it is a Will test of some sort, given that you can only check a given character once, that seems kind of unfortunate.

[tensai_oni]

Originally Posted by king.com

The game unfortunately has a crumbing difficulty curve in the late game...

Just one more thing that stays loyal to the original game!

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by king.com

Im terrified to think just how godly powerful a sniper with psionics is as that would mean squad sight applies? So its just a roaming mind control with a ghost assault providing sight. Im guessing thats how you get the Etheral under mind control achievement.

Doesn't work. A sniper with psionics and squad sight can only use the psionics on stuff that's actually within her line of sight. She can snipe anywhere, but the psionics will be grayed out. The best psion is a support with +3 move speed imo because it gives you the widest possible area that you can affect with a psionic power in a given turn.

The hard way to mind control an etheral is to use some perfectly timed combination of a lucky mind fray, the willpower boost psioinic power, psy armor, and smoke grenades that boost willpower.

The easy, but time-consuming way is to buy the "bonus willpower on rank up" ability at officer training, get a new psion and train them all the way up to colonel. They'll end up with nearly 100 willpower base, or at least in the high 90s, and will have a ~40% chance or better to mind control an ethereal just by wearing psi armor. If you also have them psi boost themselves, it should be around 65% to get the ethereal.

Originally Posted by JMobius

I've a question regarding psionics: Is it simply a random chance that any given soldier has the Gift, or is it a function of their current Willpower? I only found two soldiers who had it, both of my support Colonels, but I'd been mass-hiring recruits to test, none of whom yielded positive. If it is a Will test of some sort, given that you can only check a given character once, that seems kind of unfortunate.

Do you have the upgrade that lets all your new recruits start as squaddies? If you do, then instead of always having 40 willpower, they'll have some variable amount between 40 and 50 because they already have a promotion. The ones with the highest willpower are the most likely to be psionic. Try hiring 10 squaddies and put all the ones with 49 willpower into psionic testing, you'll probably get at least 1 positive. You can then fire the rest and hire another bunch.

[shadow_archmagi]

Originally Posted by tensai_oni

Just one more thing that stays loyal to the original game!

Heh. So true. I remember how flying armor was such great armor, your squad couldn't hurt each other with their laser rifles anymore, so it didn't matter if the enemy had mind control. The weaklings would play laser tag together and it'd all be good fun. Meanwhile, the strong minds would force every enemy to kill every other enemy.

[shadow_archmagi]

I wonder if Aliens can take cover behind an Alloy SHIV....

[NEO|Phyte]

Originally Posted by shadow_archmagi

I wonder if Aliens can take cover behind an Alloy SHIV....

...In theory they probably could, but odds are the alien would go "wait, if I do that, I don't have cover from the SHIV" and never attempt it.

[Surrealistik]

Originally Posted by shadow_archmagi

Heh. So true. I remember how flying armor was such great armor, your squad couldn't hurt each other with their laser rifles anymore, so it didn't matter if the enemy had mind control. The weaklings would play laser tag together and it'd all be good fun. Meanwhile, the strong minds would force every enemy to kill every other enemy.

Naw. 100% variance (0-120). Laser rifles could still injure/kill.

[tensai_oni]

Originally Posted by shadow_archmagi

I wonder if Aliens can take cover behind an Alloy SHIV....

Yes they can! Happened to me two or three times, but always as a reaction to being discovered rather than a normal action later on.

It's quite hilarious. Especially if you still have a move left for the SHIV and decide to shoot the alien, or just drive away and deprive it the cover. That muton must've felt so betrayed...

[Zevox]

Originally Posted by king.com

Etherals are almost always hanging out in a closed environment which mean their big power, the rift storm, doesnt get used bbecause of the friendly fire. So you move in, mind control the bodyguard (almost always a muton elite) and then everyone alpha strikes the etheral. With titan armour everyone can take a hit from their attack but their AI really wants to mind control if everyone is in cover. So keep yourself covered for a turn, then everyone run to point blank and finish.

The problem with Ethereals is their shot reflection power, which can just randomly screw you no matter how likely you are to hit them. Also, they usually have more than one bodyguard - I had one fight in a large ship with one that had three Muton Elites and two Heavy Floaters with it, for instance. Mind-controlling one of the Mutons just meant I had one less of them to deal with, since the Ethereal toasted it in one shot.

And getting one of your units mind-controlled by an Ethereal hurts, a lot, since obviously you won't attack your own unit, but it has no qualms about moving suicidally to deny you cover from its shots.

Originally Posted by king.com

Everything is about getting just enough line of sight , moving JUST far enough and then mind controlling it with all your guys.

Ah, see, I don't have multiple guys with Mind Control yet. I've had only two psionic units for most of the game, and on one of those I took both defensive powers, since I wanted to test all of them. I've gotten a few more recently, but none are at rank 3 yet. So Mind Control is one-shot for me.

Originally Posted by king.com

Im terrified to think just how godly powerful a sniper with psionics is as that would mean squad sight applies? So its just a roaming mind control with a ghost assault providing sight. Im guessing thats how you get the Etheral under mind control achievement.

Squad sight should apply (my psionic sniper is also my move-and-shoot sniper, so I'm not completely sure), as it does to pistols as well as sniper rifles. The question becomes whether there's a range limit on psionics.

Which, seeing Anarion's post, it appears that they do.

Originally Posted by king.com

You say that 1 or 2 turns to shoot their team isnt critical but thats 2 turns I can drop 4-5 hostiles minimum with a 6 person squad.

I said 1-2 actions, not turns. As in individual units attacking. Ethereals will wipe anything in one shot, while other late-game units will just take two to down each other. Unless the computer randomly decides to be stupid or you took a target with a great position, your mind-controlled unit won't have cover, so it's an easy kill.

Zevox

[YakYak]

Research spoiler:

Spoiler

For the last month or so, there was always something I had been wondering about. I knew the Ethereals were going to be there, there was no doubt of that, given their status in the alien heirarchy. But there was somehting else that the developers had not announced, that I wondered if it was there. Having been so overpowered back in its day, I was prepared to not find them, and I didn't. At least, not until my second game and I shot down a battleship UFO. And from the wreckage of the biggest UFO I had ever seen came...

Spoiler

BLASTER BOMBS!

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Zevox

I said 1-2 actions, not turns. As in individual units attacking. Ethereals will wipe anything in one shot, while other late-game units will just take two to down each other. Unless the computer randomly decides to be stupid or you took a target with a great position, your mind-controlled unit won't have cover, so it's an easy kill.

An easy kill that saves your psi-trooper's life, due to the aliens having an easy flanking shot, using up an alien's turn. Also, if an alien dies while mind-controlled, you get his stuff.

[GloatingSwine]

Originally Posted by Surrealistik

Naw. 100% variance (0-120). Laser rifles could still injure/kill.

Laser Pistols couldn't penetrate Flying Armour, which meant that you could give your psychic retard magnets (the aliens always psi attacked the guy with the weakest psi defence that wasn't currently mind controlled, so you carried a few retard magnets to force the aliens to attack who you wanted them to) a laser pistol and and it wouldn't matter when he panicked or got MCd.

[Anarion]

So, I took a couple attempts at classic ironman last night. I knew the numbers were going to be punishing, and sometimes you just lose guys even when you had everyone in high cover. However, I do have a question. Is there any way to consistently tell whether aliens will have a line of fire to you based on looking at the terrain? Several times, I thought I had guys behind a solid wall, only to see what appeared to be an alien shooting through one or more solid walls from nearly max distance and killing the guy.

[nooblade]

This game. So amazing. It's a solid product. I'm usually so picky but I don't see much to complain about yet.

Now if only there were some people I knew IRL who would add more fun in multiplayer or with voice chat. And I do wish there were a cooperative kind of multiplayer--those are usually fun.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Question: what happens if you kill a sectoid commander while he is mind-controlling one of your troops? Does it kill the troop, like with the sectoid mind merge?

Thanks,

Grey Wolf

[NEO|Phyte]

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

Question: what happens if you kill a sectoid commander while he is mind-controlling one of your troops? Does it kill the troop, like with the sectoid mind merge?

Thanks,

Grey Wolf

It doesn't kill the MC victim, no.

[Zevox]

Originally Posted by JMobius

I've a question regarding psionics: Is it simply a random chance that any given soldier has the Gift, or is it a function of their current Willpower? I only found two soldiers who had it, both of my support Colonels, but I'd been mass-hiring recruits to test, none of whom yielded positive. If it is a Will test of some sort, given that you can only check a given character once, that seems kind of unfortunate.

I don't know if it's totally random or a chance based on your willpower, but I can say this: it isn't set in stone. By re-loading, removing a character from the testing before it is completed, and putting them back in, it is possible to get a character that tested negative once to test positive. I did so last night, as I have very few psionics and wanted at least one of the last few members that I had yet to test to turn up positive. After a few tries, I got two of the three.

Originally Posted by YakYak

An easy kill that saves your psi-trooper's life, due to the aliens having an easy flanking shot, using up an alien's turn. Also, if an alien dies while mind-controlled, you get his stuff.

If you put your psi-trooper into a position where she was flanked in order to do a mind control, you're doing something wrong. And yeah, you do get their equipment, which is nice. I wasn't saying that Mind Control isn't good - it very much so is, almost certainly the best psionic power - just that it's not game-breaking on its own. At least not when you only have one trooper capable of it, which seems like it'd be common without abusing what I mentioned above, as characters testing positive for psionics seems quite rare.

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

Question: what happens if you kill a sectoid commander while he is mind-controlling one of your troops? Does it kill the troop, like with the sectoid mind merge?

Thanks,

Grey Wolf

No, it does not. That's the only way to break a mind control, outside of letting its duration run out (which is four turns, so you really don't want to do that).

Zevox

[Anarion]

Originally Posted by Zevox

If you put your psi-trooper into a position where she was flanked in order to do a mind control, you're doing something wrong. And yeah, you do get their equipment, which is nice. I wasn't saying that Mind Control isn't good - it very much so is, almost certainly the best psionic power - just that it's not game-breaking on its own. At least not when you only have one trooper capable of it, which seems like it'd be common without abusing what I mentioned above, as characters testing positive for psionics seems quite rare.

I think he meant that the flanked target is the thing you mind control. In other words, if you mind control a muton, the enemy always shoots at it because it's such an easy shot. Your trooper is in safety. Also, if you have 2-3 psionic troopers and mind control all the mutons at once, often at least one will live, and you can have it throw its alien grenade to destroy all the cover and catch itself in the friendly fire if you want. Then your squad gets to go to town.

Edit: And screen for willpower. It's not like an extra 100 cash to hire ten soldiers is that hard by the time you're trying to do psionics. Then screen the new troops and have the highest willpower ones tested. They have the best chance of being psionic.

[mistformsquirrl]

Well, since I started my storyline research late I'm (plot-wise) far behind everyone else.

I'll spoiler this bit for late arrivals though:

Spoiler

So, I've sacked the Alien Base - which went surprisingly well despite encountering a Sectopod right out of the gate. Said sectopod was down a long narrow coverless corridor too. BUT! Heavy use of smoke and suppressing fire kept the sectopod from hitting anything, and I was able to have 4 units out in the open firing at it without worry.

Most of the rest of the base was a cakewalk, and I managed to capture the Sectoid Commander at the end (again thanks to heavy suppression while my capture-equipped assault moved up).

Ultimately I got through without casualties and with no injury based downtime.

Currently I've decided that since I'm getting my psi-ops lab up and running, I ought to train up a C team of rookies just in case none of my main team are psychic. Well that and I'm concerned that since my A and B teams were mostly trained before I got Iron Will, they may have too little willpower to deal with Ethereals when they show up. We'll see though.

Currently I have Ghost Armor on my sniper; though I have yet to be in a position to use the grappling hook or invisibility - Titan Armor on my other 5, and plasma weapons all around.

Oh and I've discovered a use for the basic pistol - if you have a particular enemy that you want to capture, but are afraid of killing it with your primary weapon, using the basic (bullet firing) pistol to weaken it can be very, very effective! It's accurate, but even on a crit the damage is so low that you're just shaving HP off. That helped me capture a regular Muton, as I was one-shotting them with plasma rifles.

Anyhoo, I'm off to train those rookies (or kill them in the process >.<) - starting them out on a Small Scout UFO crash, hopefully that'll get them some experience.

[Bayar]

Spoiler

The first psionic skill a soldier learns also deals damage so it isn't only a debuff. This was my face when I saw that:

[Zevox]

Originally Posted by Anarion

Edit: And screen for willpower. It's not like an extra 100 cash to hire ten soldiers is that hard by the time you're trying to do psionics. Then screen the new troops and have the highest willpower ones tested. They have the best chance of being psionic.

Considering I was trying to make my team out of specific characters based on the Persona series, I didn't exactly have that luxury. You have no idea how long it took me to get a female assault for my last addition to my team, Mitsuru. Either my luck sucks, or that's the rarest sex/class combination to get.

Originally Posted by Bayar

Spoiler

The first psionic skill a soldier learns also deals damage so it isn't only a debuff. This was my face when I saw that:

Yep, a flat 5 damage every time. Very good if you get it early on, when low-hp units are still showing up. Kind of meh by the late game, when enemies often have more than 10 hp each anyway, and a few varieties are resistant to psionics (or immune, in the case of the couple machine-types).

Zevox

[BRC]

Mindfray is still useful late-game, largely because of it's obscenely high accuracy and reliable damage on most of the common enemy types. It's the perfect way to finish off stubborn enemies you've already damaged.

[YakYak]

I use it to finish off weakened mutons, as I usually have 100% hit with it, as opposed to 60+ with the plasma.

[Anarion]

A story for your amusement. Also called "How I lost a squad in classic ironman to a single thin man and then cried myself to sleep."

Spoiler

Picture, if you will, a beautiful spring day. The scent of alien slime fills the air. In this setting, the shadow counsel has informed me that there is a VIP that needs rescuing, the only survivor of the alien abductions. No problem, I tell them. We've already handled two actual abductions with no casualties and we brought down an enemy UFO and killed all its crew flawlessly, not even a scratch on us.

Cut to the mission. We take the side of the map. A few aliens at a distance cause some trouble, our rookies burn two grenades to get all of them. There was even a couple thin men, but our heavy took care of one and the sniper got the other one. Seeing the VIP, we set up a corridor, sniper on top of a bus, heavy in cover by a statue, rookies playing escort.

We grab the VIP, and a couple thin men drop out of the sky. No big deal, the heavy drops a rocket on one of them to be safe, and nobody can draw a line of sight to the other, so we go into overwatch.

Now, let me go second by second. Out runs the thin man. Rookie fires and misses, no surprise. Second rookie misses, what can you do. Sniper misses, hmm that was unlucky to miss all three, but it happens. Thin man takes cover, aims his pistol and...ignores the rookies that are right near him to critical hit the sniper on the bus cross map. Both rookies panic, one shoots the other one, who was already injured dropping him. Next turn, I shrug, curse my bad luck and have the heavy take aim at the thin man, using bullet storm to fire twice. No dice. Alien turn, the thin man runs right by the rookie and headshots my heavy at point blank range. The VIP is almost to safety, but as he nears the evac, another thin man drops out of the sky in overwatch. My rookie takes one last, fruitless shot at 45%, misses, and dies horribly in the half cover he had found to protect himself.

Total attempts: 3 overwatch shots including a sniper, 2 bulletstorm shots at 55%, one rookie at 45%. Thin man: 2 crits and a regular shot. Squad wiped.

[YakYak]

Dayhm, that's gotta hurt. The worst I've had to date was when I lost 4/6 of the team to a muton ambush literally one mission before the final. I went to the final mission with an assault/psi colonel, sniper major, and 4 squaddies.

[BRC]

Right now I'm sitting on the Gallop chamber, waiting to shoot down a Battleship so I can get the Blaster Bomb. Though I'm pretty much out of things to build/research otherwise. I got kind of scared by the big "THERE IS NO TURNING BACK" thing on the Gallop chamber.

[YakYak]

I saw that, listened to the doctor's little spiel, took a deep breath, and pressed A.

[Zevox]

Originally Posted by BRC

Mindfray is still useful late-game, largely because of it's obscenely high accuracy and reliable damage on most of the common enemy types. It's the perfect way to finish off stubborn enemies you've already damaged.

True enough, though that becomes less common as time goes on. Plasma weapons can one-shot most things that Mindfray gets that guaranteed hit on besides Muton Elites and Heavy Floaters, and even those can be one-shot on crits, particularly from snipers and shotgun-assaults.

Originally Posted by Anarion

A story for your amusement. Also called "How I lost a squad in classic ironman to a single thin man and then cried myself to sleep."

Ow. Awful, awful luck there.

Anyway, I just completed the game.

Spoiler

Final mission was a breeze, although I was a little worried when my two blaster bombs for some reason did nothing to one of the two Sectopods. My sniper with double tap took care of it, though, so all was well. Speaking of, she also took out the entire final room in one round from outside the room itself, since it turns out that killing the lead Ethereal there destroys the other units he summoned when you walked in. Well, I had mind-controlled one of the Muton Elites before that, so I had to wait a few rounds for that to wear off, but he auto-died when it did too, so no problems there.

My final team, all Colonel rank:

Chie "Carnivore" Satonaka. Female Assault, Psionic, the Volunteer.
- Plasma Rifle, Psi Armor, Nano-Fiber Vest.
5th-Gen Labrys, "Steel." Female Heavy, Psionic.
- Heavy Plasma, Archangel Armor, Blaster Launcher, Scope.
7th-Gen Aigis, "Angel." Female Heavy, Psionic.
- Heavy Plasma, Archangel Armor, Blaster Launcher, Scope.
Yukari "Gale" Takeba. Female Sniper.
- Plasma Sniper, Archangel Armor, Plasma Pistol, Med-Kit.
Yukiko "Snow Black" Amagi. Female Support.
- Plasma Rifle, Archangel Armor, Med-Kit, Nano-Fiber Vest.
Fuuka "Juno" Yamagishi. Female Support, Psionic.
- Plasma Rifle, Psi Armor, Med-Kit, Nano-Fiber Vest.

I opted for all the Archangel Armor because the mission was going to be onboard an alien ship, where I've found those to be the most useful. Sure enough, they helped a hell of a lot - I'd count them as the main reason I found the mission so easy. Enemies up on higher terrain didn't matter, period, because so much of my team could just fly up above them in one move anyway. Made it easy to negate their cover as well. And of course it was useful for scouting, too.

I'm pretty sure that who can be the Volunteer was determined solely by will. Even though I had five psionics by the end, only the two I had wearing Psi Armor could actually use it.

I wound up using almost every party member from Persona 3 and 4 for my troops (including Minato and Yu, as the names for the main protagonists). I didn't use Ken and Koromaru for what I hope are obvious reasons to anyone who has played the games. Nor Teddie, partially because I really wasn't sure which class to use for him, partially because I just cannot see him using one of the male character models in this game, at all. Even more so than the others.

I sort of wound up playing the game much longer than I needed to, in order to train up my last round of troops (Aigis, Fuuka, Naoto [sniper], and Mitsuru [assault]). Mostly because I wanted Aigis and Fuuka in my final team, since they were psionic. (Naoto was too, but she was my move-and-attack sniper, and I wanted one of my squadsight snipers instead.) Missions get very sparse late-game, it seems, as I had a couple of months with only three at the end there. Finished in early February 2016.

Anyway, good game. Now, I wonder: should I move my next file up to Classic difficulty, or stay on Normal but use Iron Man mode? Hm...

Zevox