Tactical Combat With A Side of Salt About Percentages — XCOM 2 Thread

[robowitch]

Hey, folks! I figured it was a good time to get all of the non-series XCOM 2 chat out of the Tactical Tuesdays thread – and, coincidentally, I’ve started digging into XCOM 2 myself.

XCOM 2

XCOM 2 is Firaxis Games’ 2016 sequel to 2012’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown, expanding on the earlier game. Taking place in a timeline in which the player was defeated in Enemy Unknown, the aliens have taken control of Earth and installed a puppet regime, ADVENT. You reprise your role as The Commander, brought back twenty years after being captured in order to take control of the Resistance (no hashtag here) in an effort to win back the planet from its invaders.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

Released in August 2017, War of the Chosen is an expansion pack for XCOM 2. It introduced a new range of classes for your team, soldier bonds, and a trio of potent foes in the Chosen, partially-procedurally generated enemies who stalk your team throughout the campaign.

---

Useful Posts

• Wazanator’s Tips & Recommended Mods Roundup

---

That’s quite enough for general information – I now want to open the thread up for you! Have you been digging into XCOM 2 lately? How did you find it? Have you been roped back in by Tactical Tuesdays?

I’ve been playing my first campaign after catching a handful of streams & I’m definitely a little hooked. I’ve never been totally fussed on XCOM’s style of tactical combat, but I’ve been having a decent amount of fun with this game – despite not heeding the advice of my friends and digging into War of the Chosen as my first go-around, I think it adds some fun variety and tension to the missions. Plus, Templars bang.

One thing I would point out is that there is currently a free XCOM 2 DLC pack available for people who own War of the Chosen; this is the ‘Tactical Legacy Pack’, available for free until December 3 and will go up to being a separately-priced DLC after that.

(I will take a better suggestion for the thread title – let me know if I missed any key points to cover in the OP, too!)

[Wazanator]

Y’all need to check out this mod if you haven’t yet called Wave COM because I just discovered it and I’m hooked.

The concept is pretty straight forward, turn XCOM 2 into a wave base survival game.

You start with 4 rookies and try to defeat increasingly difficult waves of aliens. After each wave you get some cash that you can then use to do the normal over world stuff right there in the map including research tech, buying new rookies, and trading on the black market. In addition between waves you are given 3 turns to basically reposition, heal up, and reload your troops. At the end of a wave all skills/supplies are refunded as well so it really encourages you to just go ham on the aliens, you may want to instruct your men to exercise restraint when using explosives so you don’t destroy all your loot tho.

The only downside is that it’s for Vanilla XCOM 2 so no hero units or newer enemies like the Chosen.

There is a beta for WOTC https://github.com/bountygiver/WaveCOM-WOTC/releases/tag/Beta4

Stick it in your steamapps\common\XCOM 2\XCom2-WarOfTheChosen\XComGame\mods directory.

[Hermie]

Bit late, but I promised @robowitch I would upload some of my Friends at the Table custom soldiers in the chat of the last stream. So here they are!

(The nickname field was criminally short)

Pretty happy with Declan’s Corrective.

[Wazanator]

Came across another great mod, this one lets you have more control over the mission generation for the Operations so you can essentially just play rougelike missions over and over again with different scenarios.

So if you want to just have a squad of nothing but Reapers and try to do a full stealth run you can.

[robowitch]

@Hermie

Poster_018.jpg800x1200 429 KB

Pretty happy with Declan’s Corrective.

These are great – is there an easy way to share these beyond me mirroring your creation?

This Declan’s Corrective is good – back right, right?

(P.S. I’ve shuffled a few posts from the Tactical Tuesdays thread to this one as it’s the kind of post that is ‘off-topic’ for the other thread but would fit better into this one.)

[branwen]

I’m sad that I started playing X-COM 2 on PC, as it means that I don’t have a clip of the best bit of luck I’ll ever get.

Early-ish mission with a mid-level squad. Moving up to objective whilst in concealment, and get eyes on a Sectopod so everyone scatters into cover in the hope that next turn can kill it without it getting a shot off, including my specialist.

It trundles through a building, giving LoS to my specialist who had the "Sprinting will end your turn in overwatch perk. She pops a shot off which was super annoying, but her rifle had a repeater on it. Which insta-killed the Sectopod. Never going to see that again!

[Wazanator]

@robowitch

These are great – is there an easy way to share these beyond me mirroring your creation?

Yes!

XCOM 2 - How Does The Character Pool Work? [Importing, Exporting, Modifying]

---

Check here for current best price and price history

The only DLC that isn’t worth getting is the Resistance Warriors Pack because the cosmetics are honestly subpar and most mods do better.

---

With the start of a dedicated playing XCOM 2 thread and having now put in wayyyyy too much time into this game I think now would be a good time for me to just basically knowledge dump things that do not spoil the game.

This is a mod collection for first playthroughs

It is a collection of mods to basically smooth out the rough parts of the game such as UI and bugs. These are also mods I consider essential and use on every single playthrough.

Info you should know

There is actually an indicator if an action will end your turn that almost no one knows about

If you see >| that is a turn ending move.

You should be careful about the Avatar Project progress but you shouldn’t be deathly afraid of it. In the event that it does get filled the game has a safety net mechanic that gives you a chance to climb out of the hole.

Smoke grenades apply their effect to both friendlies and enemies but flashbangs only affect enemies.

Do not be afraid to use explosives to destroy cover.

Mutons can counter melee attacks including those of a templar.

Here is how cover works

Lightning Tutorial: XCOM 2 Cover System

What if I don't like really long campaigns but still like the battle gameplay?

Good news you have a few options now!

• Skirmishes: These are one off customized tactical operations. Real fun if you just want to get a quick battle in or just try something silly like an all Templar squad

• Legacy Operations: These are kind of roguelike runs where you start with a small squad and gain more units and tech over the course of 7 missions. Comes with 4 premade ones that have a story but you can also generate your own

• Daily Challenge: A new challenge every day for you to try and get a high score on.

• Challenge Archive: These were some of the daily challenges they had in rotation all now in one place for you to try as many times as you want.

• WaveCome: This is a mod that turns the game into a wave survival. Pretty fun, if you are starting to notice a slow down after several waves press escape and look for the “Change Location” button to move your squad to a new map and reset buildings.

Mods

As a forward when using mods you should expect the need to start a new campaign in most cases in order for them to take effect. Mods do not disable achievements if that is a concern of yours.

Cosmetic

Unrestricted Customization

This is IMO a must have mod as it allows you to fully customize your soldier

Longer Names V2
Lets you bump name length to 30 characters (or more if you edit the INI file)

Random Weapon Name Button
Adds a button that you can click to give your weapon a random name.

Propaganda Poster Pack
Adds 14 new backgrounds for your photos

Creative Xenos’ Community Pose Pack
This adds 97 new poses to the photobooth. Content Warning it does contain some “meme” ones that are offensive including some for implied suicide

Female Hair Pack
Adds 73 new hair varieties

Ketaros Tattoos Pack
60 new tattoos

XXL Tattoo

Fire Emblem Hair

Wrestler Facepaints

Ketaros Makeup Package

20 new face paints that apply makeup

Ketaros Scar Package

More Hair Colors

More Armor Colors

More Eye Colors

More Skin Colors

SliWhists Spark Customization Pack
Gundam skins for your Sparks

Dropship Propaganda Variety
Now you can hear even more of the lines

Centrals Sweater
Because it gets chilly out sometimes

Custom Face Paints

Military Camouflage Pattern

Mercenary Plasma Weapons

Quality of Life

Yet Another F1

This is the #1 mod I recommend. What this mod does is let you press F1 when you have ANY unit selected and gives you a breakdown of everything you need to know to not misplay because you did not fully understand what it was they could do.

Cost Based Ability Colors

This makes it a lot easier to tell exactly at a glance how many action points something uses.

Quick Soldier Info

Adds icons on the top right for each unit under your control and displays valuable information such as health, action points, armor, status, etc

New Target Icons

Adds more target icons for regular, WOTC and modded enemies

Misclick Confirm
Adds a confirmation pop up whenever you order a soldier to move somewhere without cover

SHOW GTS Class Counts
Shows you the current soldier count for all your classes inside the GTS as well as how many are actually ready for combat.

Smooth Scrolling

Blackmarket Usage
Displays possible useage of items on the blackmarket sell screen so you know if you can sell that corpse or not. Can be configured to hide spoilers.

Bug Fixes

Insider Knowledge Fix
Fixes a bug with stocks and laser sights not benefitting from insider knowledge

Chosen Dark Events Fix
Prevents events being created that are related to the chosen if the chosen no longer exist

Defense Matrix Sabotage Fix
The facility is supposed to lower the chance of the chosen being able to do a sabotage action but the code was never fully completed but the text remains.

Revival Protocol Fixes
Revival Protocols in game text says it can bring a soldier out of a stun, it can’t. This mod fixes that.

Loot Mind Control
Fixes a bug where killing a mind controlled alien doesn’t give you any loot. Also fixes a bug where loot carried by people who were not your dedicated soldiers (e.g. you have an event that gives you a resistance fighter) got deleted on the end of a mission.

SPARK Repair Fix
In game description for the BIT say it gets increased healing with newer models, this is a big fat lie. This mod corrects that big fat lie.

More Effective Blast Padding
Makes explosions from cars and other destructible objects (think gas tanks) be affected by blast padding.

Gameplay Mods

Augmentations
This is a really cool mod that adds a condition where if a soldier becomes gravely wounded there is a chance you have to give them an agumented body part before they can be used again. These aguments can have drastic gameplay changes like being able to use your cyber arms grappling hook.

More Traits
Adds more negative traits but also adds positive traits. The way you gain positive traits is to have a negative trait then instead of recovering from it in the infirmary you send them on a mission where they do not get injured after the mission they will then get a random positive trait and lose the negative one.

Scientist staff slots
Replaces some engineering staff slots with scientist ones to help balance out the RNG of not getting engineers for the first two months

Restored SITREPs
Restores cut SITREPs including Ambush where ADVENT will launch multiple reinforcements once XCOM completes the mission objective

Metal Over Flesh Redux
An overhaul of SPARKS that gives them more upgrades and a utility slot for things like ammo

Jetpacks
Give your units jetpacks so they can dynamically deploy mid mission and do other cool things like rocket punch an alien

A Better ____
A major mod series that changes the game extensively by modifying both the alien units, adding new units, their AI, as well as changes to player mechanics.

[okonomichiyaki]

XCOM 2 is directly responsible for me getting back into PC gaming and Tactical Tuesdays is also how I got into following Waypoint’s work, so I have a lot of feelings about it! (hi long time lurker new forum member )

I played a lot of vanilla XCOM 2 and WOTC on PS4, but I wanted to play Long War 2 and get into modding, so I bought a gaming PC. The experience of taking a game I loved dearly and making a tiny contribution to the community in form of some quality-of-life mods was deeply satisfying. There is also something deliciously board game like not only in XCOM’s gameplay but also in the code itself. You’re dealing with tiles and units and abilities in a way that is easy to understand and reason about in the same way board game rules can be clean and easy to reason about (sometimes).

I’m almost finished with the Tactical Legacy Pack missions and although I have enjoyed them a lot I’m excited to start a new campaign afterwards and get back into it. I want to finally complete a Commander and/or Ironman run but I know that means a lot of dead campaigns in my future

[alexl]

by accident, this is one of my favorite games of this console generation, despite the horrific bugs in the console version that make war of the chosen unplayable in ironman mode. i think it’s uniquely built for emergent storytelling, and its gameplay model is so wonderfully dynamic.

but, seriously, if you can, buy it on PC. the console versions still barely work, no matter how many promotions they throw.

EDIT: also, Orth and Ibex.

[robowitch]

@Wazanator

Yes!

This is great to hear – if folks are playing on PC, I would love some .bin files of either folks’ OCs or their custom-designed characters (like the Friends at the Table-esque ones).

[okonomichiyaki]

oh hey! um I missed this post earlier. I’m the author of Misclick Confirm, and that was my first mod. thanks for the shout out

I have still been meaning to go back and improve that, like make it show a popup on breaking concealment from a move. This might or might not have been inspired by Tactical Tuesdays, who can say

[robowitch]

As I said in the OP, I’ve been digging more into XCOM 2. I think I’m not doing very well? Managing my Avatar Project clock while getting other things done has been pretty difficult, especially when I need to jump four sectors from my initial one to hit my next base after the Blacksite. If I don’t start getting resets or other ways to turn back my clock, I suspect I’ll be struggling or really needing to hot-foot through the rest of my campaign.

[Wazanator]

@robowitch

If I don’t start getting resets or other ways to turn back my clock, I suspect I’ll be struggling or really needing to hot-foot through the rest of my campaign.

I should probably add this to my post but I wouldn’t stress too much about the clock as there’s a saftey net mechanic. That said you still shouldn’t ignore it, just know that if the progress bar becomes full it’s not game over.

You will still be in deep trouble but it essentially gives you a last chance to bail yourself out.

[robowitch]

Finally beat my first Chosen Stronghold. It’s a little marred by the amount of saving and reloading I had to do in the final confrontation – a combination of slightly poor strategic decision-making when it came to deployment (not enough medkits) and this mission hitting a point of progress where the game suddenly threw four new kinds of enemies at me in one mission, three of which started spawning during the sarcophagus phases of the final confrontation. After losing my only Grenadier with shredding armour to my first encounter with an Andromedon, the sight of a Heavy MEC on that instant spawn forced me to reset on-sight, as I just didn’t have the resources to take it on in a fair fight.

While I think it was a combination of bad timing and me being fresher to the game than most people who ‘should’ be playing War of the Chosen, it still felt unfair enough that I save scummed pretty aggressively to get through it. I hope not to rely on it, but I’ve made my peace with doing it for my first playthrough while I learn the ropes of the game.

I tried to ironman my first XCOM EU game (as it is my honest preference in both this and games like Europa Universalis IV), but I think I have to make my peace with doing it if I don’t want the run to end in failure from party wipes.

[Wazanator]

You shouldn’t feel bad/guilty about save scumming. It’s honestly expected in the larger XCOM community I’ve found that your first time is basically you learning the game and that you should save scum so that you can learn the game.

[Hermie]

What Waz said. The game tries its to give you information about as much as possible, but there’s so many different interaction that are non-intuitive, that your first time through you almost need to be save/loading. Even in TTuesdays there’s so much they have to figure out or learn from chat, and they have played the game before.

As for my FatT characters, I’ve tried to extract them, but something is funky with the install of the game. I even tried redownloading and reinstalling the whole thing, but it still gives me the same error that some .dll file is missing. Wondering if it’s something with my Windows installation. =/

I’ll keep trying, cause I want to post them, but grrr.

[robowitch]

@Hermie

As for my FatT characters, I’ve tried to extract them, but something is funky with the install of the game. I even tried redownloading and reinstalling the whole thing, but it still gives me the same error that some .dll file is missing. Wondering if it’s something with my Windows installation. =/

Oh no! That is a bummer. I have no real guidance but that sounds really frustrating.

I just did my first Alien Facility (which has taken forever to get to – I probably should have made more of an effort to prioritise Resistance contacts and power earlier) and met the Viper King. I feel like I’ve run into the game’s story out-of-order, as I had Tygan and Central giving me pretty strong guidance that I should already know how Dr Vahlen is looped into the story. Oops!

[Hermie]

Nah, that’s a weakness of the way WotC integrates the smaller DLCs. There’s missions estsblishing Vahlen’s work and mech soldiers/Julien, that WotC ignore if you tick the ‘integrate DLC’ box when starting. =\
The rulers and everything else flows more smoothly in the campaign gameplay-wise, but you lose out on story.

I would suggest making a new side/after-campaign and rushing those missions later, if you are interested.

[Wazanator]

New awesome mod out that involves jetpacks!

[Wazanator]

The recent uploads of Austin and Robs XCOM 2 adventures that I missed the streams of pulled me back in. So after spending a day figuring out which mods I wanted I present the posters for the first 3 inaugural members of XCOM 2 campaign 39.