I've actually never played the Long War mod, so I can't really give you any advice. From what I know it's very different from the base game in a lot of ways, so any advice I have from that would possibly be useless. That said, my personal favorite class in the first game is Assault or Support, so combining the two of them is usually pretty helpful. I had, if I remember correctly, two of each along with a Heavy and a Sniper. I had Assaults specialize in CQC, and Support was focused on healing to keep the squad alive. Other than that, I suspect all my advice will be uesless.
I just got through the base game on 360 myself recently, and my team setup had 2 Heavies, 2 Supports, an Assault and a Sniper. Both Supports and one Heavy were also Psionic. The Heavies were both spec'd to assist as well as deal damage--holo-targeting, suppression and its upgrades, HEAT ammo to help with robots (that was my main method to kill Sectopods). The Supports were medics all the way, three medikit uses for 10 HP each is a solid setup by the end. The Sniper and Assault were both death machines, pure and simple; the final missions were a lot easier when I could have someone dash in and fire two shots point-blank into something with an alloy cannon, and feel comfortable she'd survive thanks to 25 HP and immunity to crits.
I mentioned HEAT ammo as my go-to for killing Sectopods, but my go-to for setting that up was having a Sniper with Disabling Shot. Take out the damn tank-bot's main gun and it's basically a sitting duck on the battlefield.
Don't know how much of that translates or helps, but it's my two cents. As for science, I usually did whatever was cheap, quick, and available, usually favoring armor and the like over weapons to some extent.
I'm in another game where Kristophe is the GM, and he mentioned that he's currently out on National Guard duty helping with the recent flooding in Louisiana. He wasn't sure when he'd be back or when he might have internet access to post in anything, so I'm going to take control of Kristophe until he's back to keep things rolling. If he hasn't had a chance to post by tomorrow evening when I get to my hotel, I'll roll for him for this round and keep us moving along. I'm going to try and give him some time before the last round of the dramatic task to roll and finish it up for us, but ultimately I'm going to try and keep us moving while he's out helping with the relief effort.
Expect an update tomorrow, the start of school has kept me busy.
It's kinda weird, because Gavril is the GM of another game I'm applying for, so now I feel like this game is part of the application. Makes me feel tense, and it's already hard to effectively roleplay the Cold Sniper archetype.
So Jon, I have my own injury story to share. Went mountain biking on Sunday and woke up in the hospital. Have no recollection of any part of the ride. Don't even remember driving out to the bike trails. Must have been unconscious for two hours. Amazingly no broken bones or torn ligaments. Not even a fracture. Some serious abrasions and lot of intense pain. Hit my head and slide down a 15ft dirt hill. Left shoulder is jacked.
Damn, that sounds like it could have been really bad. You have a concussion?
It's kinda weird, because Gavril is the GM of another game I'm applying for, so now I feel like this game is part of the application. Makes me feel tense, and it's already hard to effectively roleplay the Cold Sniper archetype.
Haha, don't worry about it. I like Jackalyn here, I think you've done a fine job with playing her, and I was impressed with her backstory from the first time I read it. Plus I have to say that I like Gauntlet, she's got neat stuff going on and her backstory is very solid.
Also echoing Rosa's sentiment to you, Borax--that's a definite yikes, and glad to hear that you're alive and well enough to post.
Yeah. That's rather rough. But hey, on the plus side you may have fallen through a portal, saved an alternate dimension, and had your memory wiped as the price of victory over the Big Bad?
I did suffer a concussion. Must have failed my soak rolls because I was out for about 2-3 hours. First time I've had a gap in my memory despite having done stuff.
NOOOO!
No no no no no NO!
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Long War completely killed my XCOM.
Now I have to uninstall, reinstall, and lose all of my progress.
I'm sorry to hear you hurt yourself, but I'm glad it wasn't anything too serious (considering you're able to post here instead of, you know, being in a coma or something similar). I hope you're feeling 100% by now.
On another note, sorry for the delay; as you can see, this post was a long one. I wrote the entire thing up the other day, and I forgot to save it before submitting it, and I lost the entire thing because I'd taken too long to write the post. I was so discouraged and hadn't had the time to write it all out again until now. Also, while I'm normally not much of a stickler, I ask that none of you read each other's spoilers; what plays out here should be secret unless the player chooses to reveal it.
If you haven't guessed yet, I've taken it upon myself to lampshade every alien cliche that this game can throw out.
Hey look, I learned a new spell! It's called Jonathan's Wall of Text!
Man, these wizards will make a spell for anything.
So, a bit of bad news:
My flash drive self-destructed last night, which contained all of the stat blocks for the aliens I've devised for the campaign. I'll have to re-design all of them at some point, so this may mean a short hiatus if this conversation with the general ends before I have the spare time to redo all of that work. If that happens, I'll let you all know, but I'm hoping there won't be any kind of delay on your end.
That sucks. Reminds me of a professor at school who had all his work stored on a USB flash drive. Well, those things have read/write limit and during the school year, it failed.
Ouch.
Store everything to the cloud, always. And, have backups of your backup.
Google Drive is my best friend, as it syncs with folders on my work PC, Home PC, laptop and my phone.
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I can't stress what Niles said enough. But hey, I study Computers Engineering so I unserstans fully how volatile data is.
The things that are truly important to me always go to the laptop, dropbox, drive and a pendrive. And that's when I can't have a hand written copy too.
You can't never have enough backups.
I refuse to use Cloud storage as my main storage location.
I actually do have a back-up, but unfortunately it's on my home computer several hours away, and if I remember correctly it's an outdated version. I normally keep better track of my files, but recently I've been kind of overwhelmed, so I forgot to transfer it onto my laptop. Fortunately there was nothing of real consequence on there that I can't redo or replace, but it's still an annoyance.
I hope you don't mind me interjecting to say--this is an awesome idea, and it's been a pleasure to read your story up to this point. Keep it up!
Hey, there's a game I'm in on the forums currently looking for another player. It's a Star Wars SAGA Edition game, which is a 3-way PvP game between the Jedi, Sith, and Imperial Knights. The game is set in the Legacy Era of Star Wars, so almost all the books are legal. The GM is asking that you take over the character of the person who left for the time being, but you can swap out your character for someone new after you've cleared this part of the game. The spot that is open is for the Jedi party, and is occupied by a Droid. The Jedi party is currently embroiled in a PvP situation with the Imperial party (which is the one I'm in, coincidentally). If you're interested, I suggest you check out this thread and comment that you'd like to play. If you've never done anything with SAGA Edition, it's sort of a hybrid of DnD 3.5 and 4E, so the rules are easy to pick up. I can get you the books if you want them.
PS: Gavril is in the Sith party as well, so it'll be like a big happy family of people trying to kill each other.
And, just as I make a post about it, someone finally says they're interested. If anyone was interested in it, let me know and I'll shoot you a PM if we ever need another new player.
If I don't get any response from Jacob by tomorrow, I'll move us along. Their conversation is more or less finished, but I wanted to give him the chance to close it if he wished to.
Just wanted to say that I'm enjoying this, Jon. Having done my own homebrew, I know how challenging it is flesh out a large enough canvas and plausible plot lines.
I appreciate that, actually. I would love to have more time to devote to this game and post more frequently, but my semester has been very hectic as I'm taking seven classes and involved in a lot of extracurricular stuff along with working. Still, not only is the semester winding to a close but I'm getting better at juggling it all, so that will hopefully be changed at least somewhat.
Hey all, just checking in. It's been a little bit since I heard from you all, and typically you're all pretty quick on the reply when I post; I know this time of year is typically pretty busy (I know both myself and Gavril, at any rate, have final exams this week) so I'm not really concerned or anything, just wanted to check in and make sure that was the reason for the lack of posts.
Yeah, busy. Sorry.
It's no problem! I expected something of the sort, I just wanted to make sure. Happy holidays everyone, just post when you can find the time (I understand completely if that's not until after the holidays).
Still here. I will be out of town from December 26 through January 8th, so my ability to post may be limited If you feel I am slowing down the game, feel free to bot me.
At this moment? No, you don't have any sort of means to make something like that. However, Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 (I think) both feature deployable drones for your squad after you manage to research some more alien technology. Once some specific alien units start showing up in this game, if you're interested in having something like that designed I can draw up stats for them. I'll let you know when that time comes. On another note, if any of you have questions about any of the technological goodies you'll have access to or want to know if it would be possible to make something from scratch, let me know and we can talk about it.
Okay...what was the situation with weapons and gear? What was available?
Also, did we level up after the last battle?
The Skyranger was loaded with the same arms and armor you originally had in Basra; in addition, you have access to two fragmentation and flashbang grenades each. You also have the Arc Throwers, and Jacob procured a grenade launcher. The launcher has a 20/40/80 range, and uses Shooting instead of throwing for grenades and uses the grenade damage. It holds six grenades in an integrated drum, and you can't double-tap or use a three-round burst with it. However, it is semi-automatic. As for other equipment, ask and ye shall (potentially) receive; pretty much all the modern military equipment in the Core Rulebook is potentially available to you in terms of infantry weapons. Beyond that, ask and we can talk about it. Most weapons from the games that involve alien tech will eventually be available for use, but none are at the moment.
Also, I forgot to give you all XP after the final fight in Basra. As a total, your XP should be 19, so one shy of an Advance and reaching Seasoned rank.
In addition, I've updated the Campaign Info tab. You'll find listed a short summary of events in all past operations carried out by your squad, as well as what has currently happened in whatever active operation you're working on. I'll keep a running tally on XP there as well, to avoid situations like this. However, if you all can keep track of what you took for your advances on your sheets I would appreciate it.
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Copy'd Commander! Jacob will boost his Smarts to d10 next advance, as he intends to boost Notice and Repair to d10 next one.
Just so you guys know, unless I change my mind follow up advances would be boosting Agility, boosting Shooting and Stealth and later picking edges to have more initiative cards/act faster and/or the dges who improve your ability to not give a f#!+ about pain, fear and spooky stuff.
I simply think that suits the madbomber nice and wanted y'all to know so even if there's some overlapping we don't step in each others turds.
Apologies, guys, but I'm going to have to drop this game. Trying to juggle seven games at once is a bit of a pain, and although I love this game, it's just not as much of a priority as the others.
That's unfortunate, but I understand. I'll go ahead and remove your alias from the game. I'm sure I'll see you around... you know, considering we're in two other games together anyway.
Hey, I hope you all have had a Merry Christmas (and/or insert your winter holiday for your religious preference). I've sent out a PM to Kristophe to make sure he's still around, but he's a GM for a game I'm in and he mentioned he's been super busy with the holidays, so I'm assuming that's likely what's keeping him. Some time soon, I'll be asking around my other games--and in Recruitment, if necessary--to find a replacement for Jackalyn.
So, good news and bad news; I've spoken to Kristophe and he is dropping this game, but after talking to Jackalyn she's planning on rejoining the game in a month or two. I'll be taking control of her character for the time being, but I will re-open recruitment to fill Kristophe's spot. I'll let you know when I open recruitment and I'd appreciate if you all gave feedback on what submissions you did and didn't like. Also, one of my Pathfinder games, a Kingmaker game, has lost a player and I'm interested in recruiting both a replacement and some more players. Here is the gameplay thread, I'll be setting up recruitment within a few days. If interested, you're more likely to get a spot if you were to take over the missing player's character, as I'd like to preserve some continuity and not have a mass of old PCs running around.
If you're interested, recruitment will be up in a couple days. I'll also be opening recruitment for a Shadowrun 4E game and another Pathfinder game in the coming weeks.
Sorry to hear about Kristophe, I thought he had a good temperament for group leader.
Are you running Pathfinder in PFS mode?
I was sorry to hear Kristophe was leaving as well, but he's made his decision. I have lined up another interested player whom I've played with before, who is familiar with Savage Worlds. However, this does mean that from here on out Borax would be the group's most senior member, since I'm not going to keep Kristophe around as a member of the team indefinitely.
No, my Pathfinder game isn't eligible for PFS credit. I use a lot of house rules and such that pretty much immediately disqualifies it from being played as such. If you're still interested, I'll be throwing up a recruitment thread for that within a few hours I think, so feel free to check it out or apply; I don't guarantee spots to people I know, but I generally show them preference as I know them fairly well and understand how they play, stuff like that. Also, it's worth mentioning that both Rosa and Gavril are playing in that game as well... in fact, they're the only two players of the original private group that was going to be in the game.
To those who are interested, here's a link to my Kingmaker recruitment.
Oberleutnant Stein reporting for duty!