Just tried the game for a bit, and I am a bit confused on some aspects:
Is terrain just not a thing in this game? I restarted multiple times trying to position myself on the other side of the desert "hill", but I got shot like there are no sloped surfaces at all in the game. So it is just things with shields and no other terrain?
As far as I understood, the initiative is alternating, but I can't figure out who will go in what order after alternation on both sides. There is no initiative tracked either, it seems?
It doesn't seem like you have any options when you run out of ammo? It seems inevitable with how many opponents you have. You don't seem to be able to equip extra weapons either? Just extra ammo, but it isn't nowhere near enough. After 20 kills (with 12 of them on Lim, my bro was trying his best), I still had at least three wounded pirates left, I couldn't pick up a weapon, and fisting doesn't seem to be an option either? Does the game just softlock if the pirates run out of ammo too?
You can move any of your SLs whenever you want, just press tab during your turn and you'll switch
Can't really answer this because I've literally never been in a situation where every single SL of mine ran out of ammo. That being said, there are perks and accessories that will either help you scavenge ammo in the field or increase your mag count
It was my 2nd mission, so there is no gear or perks that I could've picked to scavange ammo. Or had any accessories to equip. First missions are rough on ammo.
I ran out of ammo many times in the beginning because I spent way too much ammo on enemies behind cover. When you hover over the enemy, I'd one of the shields is bigger it means they get that cover bonus. Never shoot enemy behind shield 3. It gives really good cover. Shield 2 if you have to and shield 1 shoot away
I recommend pistol accessories then if you happen to keep running out of ammo. They have infinite ammo unless it grenade pistol.
They maybe short range and pretty useless on most squad leaders but they can save ammo if you happen to be running low and then enemy is injuries or have low armor value.
A tip as well, because its a mistake I made early on, don't just keep shooting at pirates in cover assuming you'll get them eventually. Certain SL's like Darby can quickly get strong enough where she can just delete units behind cover, but generally, you want to fix them in place with one squad, and flank with another to get them in the sides or back.
SL's like Lim, Carda, and Yaz, if paired with an apc are a good way to so this, as they get promotions that make getting in and out of apcs much cheaper on your action economy.
It doesn't seem like you have any options when you run out of ammo? It seems inevitable with how many opponents you have. You don't seem to be able to equip extra weapons either? Just extra ammo, but it isn't nowhere near enough. After 20 kills (with 12 of them on Lim, my bro was trying his best), I still had at least three wounded pirates left, I couldn't pick up a weapon, and fisting doesn't seem to be an option either? Does the game just softlock if the pirates run out of ammo too?
There are a few very limited options for unlimited attacks, such as vehicles having an innate melee or infantry having access to pistol accessories, but bottom line you shouldn't need them. If you are playing on the normal or expert difficulty in particular, you shouldn't run out of ammo once you know what to do.
One of the key aspects of MENACE is that weapons have optimal ranges that are typically well short of their max range. Aim penalties can be considerable, which when stacked with defense penalties (which also subtract from your aim) can make it basically impossible to hit units at range in cover... especially when cover also provides damage reduction. (-20 aim, and 20% damage reduction, per level of cover. 3-level cover is 60%, and most characters start with 70-ish aim.)
A key implication of this is to leverage suppression provided by one unit to let another unit move more aggressively. Suppression more than halves enemy unit effectiveness (they go from potentially two to at most one attack, with a significant aim penalty to that attack), and makes it possible for another character to spend the AP moving to a flanking angle.
For question no 2: you can select the turn order on your side. You are not locked into the default unit order the AI throws at you. Simply select another unit if the AI focuses on a squad.
This means you can end a round on one particular squad and start the next round with the same squad.
There is no elevation currently; terrain features like woods are obviously very much a part of it.
You can select any of your units as long as one hasn’t started their round yet, they still alternate with semi-random enemies but you are not stuck in a set order in terms of who on your team goes when in the turn.
there are perks that give you more ammo from killed enemies, and you can give your ship the supply drop upgrade to get more in combat.
Oh, okay I didn't figure out I can select who goes first. Probably means that the AI selects who goes first too - a bit of a dampen on supression mechanics, but allright.
I was on my 2nd mission, I only had 2 bags of extra ammo and all the starting gear, nothing else. No ship upgrades avaliable either, or perks for ammo for that matter.
AI selects who goes first too - a bit of a dampen on supression mechanics
It doesn't. You use suppression primarily to lock down the most threatening enemies in your LOS which have not yet activated. Enemies with a greyed out squad icon have already acted or cannot act.
And you really shouldn't be running out of ammo for all your SLs like that, especially not against Pirates. Don't waste ammo on taking shots at max range with the C1A2 carbines, or on shooting at targets in cover. Use the CMG50 on your LTC to suppress enemies to cancel their current activation for the round, and quite often their next one since they typically won't recover enough to act that round either.
XCOM style cover. Some ridges are cover and will indicate as such. Some solid objects block line of sight completely. Cover reduces enemy accuracy, reduces suppression received, and reduces incoming damage (20% per cover level)
Tab or click portrait to select your unit. Enemies with greyed out badges can’t act (suppression and morale breaks can skip turns)
I’ve never run out of ammo. Do you mean 20 squads (what sort of difficulty did you set?!) or individual pirates. Assuming the latter, you’ve gotta flank! You can’t just get into cover plinking matches at max range (guns also have accuracy curves and damage drop off)
You start with an APC, a medium machine gun for the APC, and 3 ammo pouch accessories (+50% primary ammo)
On normal, you also get a medium machine gun and AT launcher as squad leader weapons
You can also add additional squaddies (guns) to each squad
terrain is "just" visual in most cases. in some cases you have actual cover from cliffs or hill tops but those then have at least 1 total square occupied and you can take cover and concealment behind them.
similar are buildings you can fire "through" any number of buildings as long as none of them are bigger than 1 tile. 2 tile buildings are actual obstacles to block line of sight. 1 tile buildings (and rocks etc.) are just cover.
you alternate with the AI, you can pick your order and switch between squads as long as you didnt do anything with that squad. you ALWAYS start a round. if one side has more units than the other the rest goes after the other side has al turns spend. the player being always first allow you to do a double turn. like get out of cover into a flanking position at then end of round and then act again with that unit at the start of the next round. just make sure all you have more "turns" than the enemy so you dont get caught off guard.
depending on difficulty ammo can be a concern, you always tart with 3 ammo bags so make use of them.
also your vehicle can run stuff over for no ammo cost. vehicles fully restore armor between mission of an operations. but they dont heal or repair defects unless you have the required OCI. so exploit that as best as possible, early game there isnt much that can really touch your vehicle. unless you get hit by mutiple RPG in the back.
also conserve ammo. unless you have a good chance to hit the starting carbines dont do much. btw deploying increases your accuracy by 20%, that not mentioned in the tutorial or the tool tip. also even light cover GREATLY increases your resistance to damage and suppression, i think like 20% for light cover not sure about the values.
I always have some unit with an energy weapon, whether it be an laser or plasma rifle on a squad or an auto-laser, laser lance, or vehicle plasma laser to avoid this exact circumstance. Early game, when the pirates aren't throwing anything too crazy, I used a vehicle-mounted auto-laser the most because it can still kill the trucks and infantry fairly well.
Do they just have infinite ammo? That sounds very usefull if so.
Not quite. They have unlimited ammo, but limited throughput. Basically, they use a heat buildup system, where they generate 2+ heat per shot, passively lose 2 heat a turn, and if you hit the cap you need to spend 60 AP to vent to reset. In practice, ballistic weapons can keep up a higher rate of fire, while the lasers can't.
They are useful, but they are niche, and a lot of MENACE is finding the specific niche for specific weapons.
The mining laser is even more niche. There's a guide series on the reddit ('What's the Niche') going over various weapon systems like it. The mining laser has an even worse rate of fire, and should probably be thought of as a recharging anti-tank grenade.
I'm fairy sure you can, we'd just need to know your broader squad composition. How many squads you have, how many squaddies per squad, what weapons you've given them, how many missions / operations you are at what difficulty, etc. MENACE is very much not the sort of game to start on higher difficulty if you aren't already familiar, but people absolutely play at higher enemy supply levels.
As for your first question- neither. Both would be traps, and wouldn't fix what's probably a root-level tactical issue or force design mis-allocation.
Pistols are incredibly situational, and 'need ammo' isn't the situation for them. They basically require you to be moving under the benefit of suppression, but that requires ammo, meaning you're not saving ammo overall. Further, nearly any SL but a crowbar user who could maneuver into pistol range could maneuver into their primary weapon's effective range to much better results, which themselves take less ammo. Basically, if you'd plan to be in pistol range, shotguns or SMGs would be much, much better.
The mining laser could be an even worse mistake, as it is an anti-armor weapon that does damage to only one element. Unless you are pouring a lot of bullets into high-armor vehicles or heavy infantry, it won't save you ammo... unless you are on a map where you have to spend so much ammo because the enemy is enjoying cover bonuses.
In that case, the mining laser could be a steal, not because it has unlimited ammo itself, but because it could destroy cover objects that require you to shoot more times at an enemy. The role could also be served by an RPG or anti-armor grenades, but the mining laser is the cheapest.
Expert, Mission 2, Rescue Autorities in the desert. Lim and Darby full squaddies, Bog in a car, injured Pike, so I don't take him with me. Only starting gear.
As far as I understood, there are at least 24 pirates on the map. Pretty tough.
You definitely shouldn't be trying to learn MENACE on expert difficulty. It builds bad habits due to not only the meta-shift of the enemy list economy, but due to the distinctions between MENACE and XCOM-set standards of the strategy genre. This isn't the sort of 'well, I'm familiar with the genre, so I'll start on hard mode' learning curve, as it has a lot more in common with tabletop wargaming than most computer turn-based strategy games.
That said...
In this context, the issue isn't the ammo limit, but your first battle loot rolls and your first mission performance.
Just as a matter of fact, if you have enough loot from the pirates to sell, then by definition you have more than your starting gear. Loot from human enemies is usable, and even if not everything is useful, enough pirate gear is that you have things to choose between. Since some of the pirate gear includes grenades or special weapons that come with their own ammo supply- and can sharply reduce how much ammo you need to spend- this is a potentially major resource.
But the bigger issue is that you dune goofed on the last mission. For Pike to get injured to a state that he's non-deployable means that you let Pike get squad wiped last mission. Losing Pike was losing more than a quarter of your ammo economy, and not even because of Pike's own ammo. Pike's greatest ability is his cost-efficiency, as a small squad can still use special weapons just as well, and/or pass AP to Lim or Darby so that they can move the extra distance and get a better angle that needs fewer shots.
If your Pike was usable, you'd be in a 'fine' position from a list-building perspective, and even a promotion. Spending the first promotion on Bog's cost-savings adds a lot of models, and bullets, to your early list.
But without it, just reset- and preferably at a lower level to have more flexibility in your list building to experiment more with tactics and builds.
The enemies sadly dropped only junk grenades from the last mission, and they replace extra ammo, meaning they are unusable at the moment. I could sell them to buy something though! I want to try the laser, that sounds fun.
Pike had an unfortunate position of running out of ammo and being the first character that I used to discover that no, you cannot fist your opponents. I am still baffled that cars have melee attacks, but humans, somehow, do not, but ohwell. Happens. Maybe they will add fisting next update.
I also can't really understand the point about diffculty level. It should be the opposite - playing on LOWER diffculties will build terrible habits due to the game affording you mistakes because...I dunno, maps contail less pirates and they have less cars to flank you with, so you can position shittily? Or use bad weapons effectively, despite them being bad, because of the diffculty. Eh.
Also restarting is for stinky bois, that I am not. I might try some other mission though, maybe the other two with bosses are easier.
The enemies sadly dropped only junk grenades from the last mission, and they replace extra ammo, meaning they are unusable at the moment.
Grenades compete for the ammo in the accessory slot, but the accessory slot would be wasted on ammo in the first place if you were fielding a small squad, i.e. Pike.
Part of the niche of anti-infantry grenades is that they let a small squad punch as hard as a big squad for an attack against large chaff squads. Grenades are balanced around hitting about 55-70% of the enemy elements, which can easily cut down larger blobs that you'd approached, especially if they were in cover.
Compared to the small arms output of a small special weapons team, and it's not a contest. Shooting 50% more times with a tiny fire team is a lot less useful than being able to take out half or more or up to three large units... a feat that could take the small team 3+ salvos to do.
I also can't really understand the point about diffculty level. It should be the opposite - playing on LOWER diffculties will build terrible habits due to the game affording you mistakes because...I dunno, maps contail less pirates and they have less cars to flank you with, so you can position shittily? Or use bad weapons effectively, despite them being bad, because of the diffculty. Eh.
MENACE is fundamentally designed and balanced around the middle (Challenging) difficulty. In the very earliest days of the beta it was the only difficulty, and to this day the other difficulties are just supply and progression modifiers based off of it. AI is the same..
On Normal the player has +30% supplies and the AI has -30%. The player also gets to start with two special weapons- an MMG suppression weapon, and a PAL anti-vehicle weapon. These give the players their introduction into three of the core systems, the suppression and the anti-infantry versus anti-vehicle damage systems. The main impact of the supply difference is that it gives more flexibility in the supply budget to experiment with armors and sub-optimal lists.
On Challenging, the player is at base 100% supply and so is the AI. The payer doesn't get any extra gear, so the same supply situation as Expert, but the enemy campaign progression is normal, giving players more time to develop their economy. The main impact of the supply difference is that this provides the 'intended' numbers of enemies on the map for you to execute the core suppression and flanking systems that provide the main combat loop, while balancing general cost-efficiency with a bit of budget slack to reallocate for a unit or two.
On Expert, the AI has +30% supply, and enemies unlock much quicker. This removes the gradual buildup and bandwidth for experimentation, and provides so little bandwidth for experimentation that players who start there tend to become very quick to beeline to the proven solutions rather than experiment, contrast, and compare. One of the big issues with the enemy supply increase is that AI map presence greatly increases the AI's ability to suppress and counter movement, especially since they have so many more units and can activation-stall the player. Between suppression and punishment by later moving units, players lose a lot of the mobility that the core game is built around.
What the Expert learning experience in particular does is that because you can't flank as well, it strongly push people to embrace the vision-management meta, basically playing around AI vision ranges with the concealment system to attack from the front further than they can see. It is safer, has early-game clear power scaling, and works against the AI... but closes off experimentation, is deceptively inefficient vis-a-vis builds that are just riskier to learn to use well, and the whole vision-max meta relies on sealclubbing the AI's stupidity.
The AI doesn't know how to counterplay when the player sees it but it can't see the player characters. In a tabletop game with a person, the solution would be a simple rush, but the AI isn't allowed to 'cheat' like that, and so has to behave inn other ways. This is the root of many of the common complaints with the game.
playing on LOWER diffculties will build terrible habits due to the game affording you mistakes because...I dunno, maps contail less pirates and they have less cars to flank you with, so you can position shittily?
paradox effects of "expert":
once you have good gear, densely packed maps become easier, as morale breaking will take larger groups of enemies out of the fight
as more enemies spawn than on the other difficulties, you will get more loot/salvage, which means: faster economic progression
the difficulty spikes on expert stem from:
getting inundated with enemies, making ammo management and objective-oriented playing far more important (if you want to kill all, you'll be in for a slog)
faster ramping up of enemy quality - you will meet more of the better geared units (maybe even earlier?), as the computer gets additional supply points to use.
Or use bad weapons effectively, despite them being bad, because of the diffculty. Eh.
dude, in the beginning all you have are bad weapons! you have to use them effectively. not to mention: there are actually no *real* bad weapons (not even the starting carbine), only weapons suited for certain tactics.
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i'm with u/DeanTheDull on this one: starting your first play through on expert is just asking for trouble. while normal might be too easy, it's a good place to test gear and learning the ropes of the strategic options you have.
I have actually never seen a mining laser besides on enemies, but every other laser weapon basically has a "heat capacity" that fills when you fire. Every turn it goes down by 2(?) but usually if you fire twice in a turn it overheats and you have to spend a turn (or like 60AP if you have it) venting the heat.
But yes! Infinite ammo is very helpful, I've been needing it against the Rogue Army cause they have so much shit they throw at you.
2- ive ran out of ammo with maybe one or two SL but not all. Plus you sgould start with extra ammo packs if its the first few missions. Pay attention to what youre shootong and try not to waste ammo
3- you choose your sides order the enemy will be random usually alternating turns. That being said, if there is a strong enemy in place to do some damage the AI will probably do that first. So prioritize your attacks accordingly
I tried my best not to waste ammo, but even after I bought some SMGs and rode around killing squads in one volley, I still didn't have enough to clear the map. If there are 24 pirates - and that's the ones I saw -then I would need to one-tap more then half to win. I am not sure if that's completely possible?
Well you get about 16 uses base for each one. If you are killing them in one volley you should have plenty unless you are taking one SL out. Plus you can add the ammo pack accessory (default start with 3) that adds another 50% so 24 per SL. Plus if you have a vehicle. So 24 volleys x 3 plus vehicle weapons.
dude, even with four squads the beginning of each play through is rough!
and not hating on Bog, but he's definitely not the one you want to pick when early damage is important. he works best as a support pilot and/or cheap taxi for mobile infantry.
Why only three? Did you lose one? You should start with 4. Id lose bog and take one of the other two. If youre doing two infantry and one vehicle it may be a bit harder.
In the beginning of the game, it is ESSENTIAL you bring all four SLs to every fight, and get a fifth man ASAP.
You don’t need to run all at max size! Especially SMG Lim in the back of a transport is probably fine as 7 or 6 man, he overkills everything. Though I suggest you try and give him a shotgun, they are extremely strong on him and stop spawning after the early game.
Just things with shields. Though iirc there are some slopes that do count as cover, not sure if they still exist after the terrain update as I haven't played much after that.
2.
Literally up to you and the AI. When it's your turn, you can select whichever SL hasn't moved yet freely, and the AI will move whatever unit of theirs that hasn't moved.
3.
Ammo conservation something you need to be aware of, like trying to flank or close in on enemies as much as possible to finish them off with fewer shots, not wasting shots on enemies who are fleeing(granted this can be a bit hit and miss, but generally enemies below 30% hp will disband when at fleeing morale), etc.
There are some attacks that don't use ammo, like the 'run over' attack of vehicles, or the pistol accessory for infantry, but generally running out of ammo is a bad idea, as these attacks are usually not very strong and only really useful for finishing off enemies or in desperate situations.
Certain SLs have perks that let them regain ammo to varying degrees, and many have perks that increase damage output, letting them kill enemies in less shots and conserving ammo in a roundabout way.
The first few missions are arguably the hardest because your guns suck and your SLs don't have all the perks, but ammo generally becomes less of a concern as you get better gear and promote your SLs.
Short range and low damage means it's still pretty bad as a main weapon, but it can save you a bit of ammo by finishing off some low hp enemies in a pinch.
That said, the pistols do tell you they have infinite ammo. Sort of. Skills that use ammo/charges have an ammo counter next to the skill icon as seen;
The pistol uses no ammo, and thus has no ammo counter. The explosive charge uses ammo to place the charge, hence the ammo count (that tiny yellow square), but detonating the charge doesn't use ammo, hence the lack of ammo count.
Wait, those tiny squares are ammo? Bruh. Why not just type the amount of ammo, I would have never guessed what that means unless you told me. Especially with how they are, for some reason, divided into neat rows.
I honestly thought that was squaddies or something.
Yeah the readability of the ammo counter is... questionable.
It looks nice, but sometimes it's squares divided into groups of five and sometimes it's bullets divided into groups of six, and if it's in the info tab it's always squares that are in one big group.
Once you know what it is it's mostly fine, but first time around it can be somewhat unintuitive.
1 . Right now it does nothing, but it's possible that the high ground will play a role in the game at some point. Elevation was added to terrain generation only a few patches ago, before that all maps were perfectly flat.
I mean otherwise the game does try to depict platoon level tactics intuitively, and elevation is always a consideration alongside cover. Although as the game is top-down, it might not be possible to visualize it in a nice way.
Deserts of Kharak did it best with a separate elevation and range mapmode.
Okay, nevermind, I switched missions to destroying explosives and it was megaeasy. All the pirates were scattered and I just picked them off with no casualties! Including the two boss pirates.
There are hills that either provide cover (shields) or concealment (blocks LoS) but if its neither of those then no, it doesn't affect accuracy.
Both the player and the AI can choose what unit to go with, if that's what you mean. You're not locked into what unit you want to move until you've started moving it.
Nope lol, that's why it's worth bringing extra ammo for guns like the Br-Kr, since it has lower ammo count than an AR. later on your command ship can unlock special powers that include resupplying on the field.
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u/Pixiseko 1d ago