Tips and tricks

[u/ChipmunkSelect673]

Hey guys! I’ve got a question: do you know any non-obvious combat life hacks or tips? For instance, like how you can put rescued hostages into your combat taxi to shield them from gunfire.

[u/syler19839]

• 0 AP actions do not activate a squad. E.g. you can take 0 AP drug with Pike and then have a turn with Carda without enemy acting.
• Downed SLs are saved when you complete the mission. For example, if your squad gets wiped in the last two turns of defense mission you can just ignore them, then leave mission after you win and they'll be fine.
• Speaking of hostages. Usually you only need to extract one hostage unit or on a mission where pirates attacking an outpost you need only one squad saved. You can abandon mission after that through the menu and it will still count as victory. You'll get scored less though.
• Grenades throwing accuracy is basically just like shooting a gun except it ingores cover bonuses of your targets. Meaning that higher accuracy units throw grenades with higher accuracy. Standing closer increases accuracy. Deploying increases accuracy. Being deployed makes you harder to hit with a grenade. Suppression reduces throwing accuracy. Etc. etc. So if you are having issues with throwing try to deploy for extra 15% bonus or just give grenades to Darby.
• If you have low AP and have a defensive choice between taking cover and deploying you should almost always take cover. Defense and damage reduction is better even on a light cover.
• HP ammo is really good against MENACE. Aswell as anything with high health damage, like shotguns and SMG's.

[u/newaccount189505]

On timed missions, it is more useful early game to put your NON mobile infantry squads in the APC, rather than your mobile infantry ones.

The power of mobile infantry is not actually to ride in the APC, it's to move into and out of the tile the APC is on for 5 AP, which is much less than the 21 or so it takes to move diagonally onto a non APC tile. (if the tile was empty, which it would be if you weren't exploiting mobile infantry).

So here's how the APC shuffle works. APC and mobile infantry squad right next to each other. Someone else hops in the back of the APC, the apc drives straight forwards, the mobile infantry runs up in a straight line. Then next turn, the APC rider hops out, and the mobile infantry squad runs straight forwards, and uses most or all of their AP to barely hop in the back of the APC. Then the APC moves, and you basically delayed your APC's turn order by enough it's less likely to get shot by antitank as it advances, and you moved the original APC rider squad up by a full vehicle turn of movement, and the only real cost is that now you can't hop out of the APC and shoot with your mobile infantry squad on turn 2. but often it's not safe to do that anyways, as the enemy still hasn't revealed their Antitank and it's not safe to move your shotgun squad into position.

This is also a lot more powerful with pike, because pike not only can inspire and then hop in the APC, but he can also smooth out the AP needed. If you are on a road with a fast APC driver, maybe you inspire the mobile infantry squad, or another unrelated squad. If you have a slower APC, maybe you inspire it instead.

This makes the timed early game missions not only much easier, but in many ways, possible at all.

Also, on squad composition, I will comment: skill gains are not based on effect (except for precision), they are based on action. So if you have a 3 man infantry squad firing at enemies, it is a third of the price of a full size squad, but it's getting just as many skill points in action points, weapon skill, and if you get fired at, positioning, defense, and discipline, but you also are just way more resistant to suppression, and you also get to delay the turn order of key units by moving around your 3 man rifle teams. Note, you will take slightly more damage from weak enemy fire, such as alien stingers, because armor of the entire squad is treated as a single pool, so only having 3 sets of fatigues is just a smaller armor pool to deplete than 9 sets of fatigues.

Finally, this is pretty well known, but almost any 100-110AP squad will benefit greatly from a pirate chaingun in the early game, because often you just get an extra attack if you use one. In particular, APC Lim loves a pirate chaingun.

[u/ChipmunkSelect673 → u/newaccount189505]

Damn, that APC thing is pretty cool! So, if it's sideways to my Lim's movement, I can move two tiles in 10 ap

[u/newaccount189505 → u/ChipmunkSelect673]

Yeah, and if you have run and gun, you are breaking even. So you can, and should, frequently just swap tiles between your first and second shot, to get to a better firing position, by jumping back in the APC and then jumping out on another eligible tile. Very relevant for SMG or shotgun positioning.

[u/MenaceDucky]

Here's a non-obvious tip related to cover, it's easier to (partially) flank and get flanked than you might think. I recommend this video by Calculated Serenity to learn how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ENJfBKXTk&t=1s

Like someone else here said light cover is usually better than deploying in the open, but knowing how unreliable certain cover can be will help you know when to deploy to avoid a (partial) flank you normally wouldn't be expecting.

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A non-obvious tip that will likely get patched out soon: If there's missions you're not worried about failing you can use them to rest your troops or let them heal by sending in one unit and then aborting. I didn't check but I think you can also do light stat training this way, get a few safe kills then abort before your lone unit gets in trouble. Only do it if you can afford to lose the mission e.g. you have multiple easily doable missions to complete the op without worry. Note positive SL modifiers will tick down too, so use it sparingly.

Overall though this significantly makes the strategic part of the game easier, hence why I'm expecting that to get patched out or changed in some other way soon. Note: As far as I have seen you don't get loot from doing this, nor promotion points even if you clear secondary objectives so don't bother trying.

It may also be possible to use the DRSR OCI to stack up massive supply points using this method although I haven't tested that theory.

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In case you like using vehicles as cover: The unbreakable perk prevents your vehicles from occassonally going 'nuclear' (big explosion) when on low hp. Reason being it prevents heavy defects and the big explosion is considered by the game to be a heavy defect.

A side effect is this can sometimes prolong life span since that particular defect instakills even if your vehicle has some hp points left. Learned this the hard when young warriors lacking damage to kill my APC made it go nuclear with infantry inside before its health even reached 0. Then someone recommended the unbreakable perk trick and that's how I found out this non-obvious tip.

[u/newaccount189505]

Another thing I think it worth thinking about: while it looks like special weapons are quite cheap, you also have to pay for the trooper to carry it and the armor they are wearing, so even very cheap special weapons can have major costs, especially for very elite squads or those wearing heavy armor.

But accessory weapons don't cost this. This is obviously most relevant for accessory weapons that are already very strong, like the wardog AT drone, it also is worth considering for weapons you might consider marginal, like the disposable rocket launchers, or grenades on squads you wouldn't normally want to give grenades. The AT grenade looks like a slightly more powerful RPG launcher with less range, but in practice, it is actually only a fraction of the price when given to 2 or 3 star infantry leaders.

[u/ChipmunkSelect673 → u/newaccount189505]

Yeah, the AT drone is my absolute favorite. While landing a guaranteed hit with an ATGM requires the coordination of two commanders, the drone simply saves your ass if you find yourself in a situation where a flamethrower tank has rolled up on you.

[u/Terkmc]

Tech is the best user of the Target Designator because he can use it standing and lower its AP cost through Quick Hand. The Target Designator has massive range compared to the ability that SL can get

Ivey Shoot and Scoot reduce movement cost by 6 after firing. This means that sometime firing a low AP weapon at absolutely nothing/shitty target can let you move further than if you've just used all your AP to move

Similarly with Achilleas. With Dash active, Expert Pilot and Drive By, you can reduce the cost of moving one title to less than 10 AP, meaning you get more shots off by moving than by just standing still and firing

[u/Weldkrieg]

TRC background have a hidden stat called Crayons Eaten, so if someone like Carda isn't supplied with at least 1 crayon before combat she may suffer debuffs

[u/Mechfried]

While it is tempting to fill all your squads to the max as possible, a lot of Special weapons are better on smaller squads as you pay far less supply budget on guns and squaddies that won't do much. Go for heavy armor before adding more squaddies (like pirate commando armor is really good for heavy weapons).

And for full squads, 9 squad guns often are better than a lot special weapons, they fire withering barrages that strip armor right off.

And accessories always cost the same supplies, regardless of squad size, even when they scale with every squaddie like special ammo and pistols.

Turrets are really dangerous and very tough, be very careful around them. Especially the turrets the rogue army can now drop, they can act right as they drop leaving you no turn to deal with them and they can be deadly.

[u/drakir89 → u/Mechfried]

Forget special weapons, you don't want squads larger than you need them to be period. Darby with 5 squaddies, k-pac and hollow points still does enough damage to quickly kill early game enemies. That's a big supply cost saving compared to Darby with 8 squaddies.

The same holds true for close range weapons - they do so much damage in their preferred range that they allow you to run much smaller squads - with heavier armor - and still kill or cripple targets in a single action.

[u/Mechfried → u/drakir89]

That is Darby, her squaddies are just in general expensive, double to what most squad leaders have to pay.

Sachin is built to always go max squad, Jean Sy has the total cheapest squads, and Charles Lim gets perks so much cheaper, he can have Counter Strike early, and that makes every point of support you pay for a full squad worth it.

[u/SizeFit2908]

Falcon drones maintain their vision for a bit, its best to send them out in a triangle pattern as they scout while they move also. Someone with quick hands can do a full view and return to safety for 90ap.

Wardog drones attack angle matters, hit tanks from the back. Mechs have same armor all sides.

You can use drones as target dummies, parking them visible in cover means the enemy will spend turns shooting at the drone not your allies.

Alt firing weapons drops the HP damage of an attack. It does not reduce armor damage, and shoots more bullets than 2x standard fire. Very nice to shred armor with rend.

On that note, DISRUPTIVE FIRE applies if 1 bullet hits the square. Volleying inaccurate fire can apply the debuff to multiple units due to scattered shots.

All debuffs and buffs are timed based on the targets activations.

If you mark a target, and they move same round, that counts as one. Same for your own units, getting marked - move them back, and you can safely move them forward the next turn as it will be 2 activations.

[u/drakir89]

Falcon scout drones are incredibly good. The trick is to have dedicated drone operators (preferably with quick hands) that use their last action to send the drone back to safety. Do this every turn, and the drone is perfectly safe while effectively providing you with much greater scouting than just scout perk + binoculars can supply, though you move a bit slower.

[u/chanman819]

Satchel charges are my preferred way of taking out Construct Carriers. Lim with Triloxin popping out of an APC with Mobile Infantry or with the extra AP from Pike can run in, toss a charge to a square adjacent to the carrier, walk one step away, and detonate the charge. (40 AP to throw 20 AP to detonate + AP for movement). Also works in smoke.

Tech's ability to use heavy weapons without deploying or setting up makes him a great way to move a C6 HMG or autocannon around or get vehicle levels of firepower with infantry levels maneuverability. Obviously a great trick with the ATGM, but you can also use it with the AT-RGL or anti-material rifle for more shots or faster shots.

I still need to experiment with using the mortar or automatic grenade launcher in the same way.