KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is it me, or is New Jericho the strongest faction overall?

Ehhh, they're certainly the strongest faction to go up against, but imo their weapons are pretty bad. I much prefer synedrion lasers to nj weaponry, and I am not a huge fan of NJ armors as well, preferring speed and accuracy. That being said, flame grenades and mounted weapons are crazy good.

Synedrion has really good basic weapons and armor, but their high tech tactical stuff is kinda shitty. Mist repellers are great however, and their vehicle is a really good support/stun tool.

Anu is kinda the worst imo. Don't like their armor or their weapons, although the priest is god tier support.

At the end of the day, every faction you can have on your side is extra strength.

That's kind of what I mean. Early game Deimos and Pythagoras is amazing, but late game when you start coming up against heavy armour they start to suffer from a damage drop off.
NJ late game tactical tech is a lot better.
The Bulldog rifle is indeed crap though. I tried using it for my assaults and I kept wishing I had a deimos instead. The Piranha is decent though, but as it's mid/late game tech it should be.
That special piercing PDW isn't worth it either; the gorgon seems a lot better, even against heavy armour due to its 40 damage as opposed to that PDW's 20 damage 20 piercing. The gorgon is more accurate too.

 

[Jaedar]

The Piranha is decent though, but as it's mid/late game tech it should be.

I don't think I ever used it. At a certain point I just start using snipers/bersekers against high armor targets, or still prefer the accuracy of the synedrion weapons to target the less armored parts. If something has 40 armor, you're still only doing 25 damage per shot (ie 100 per burst if everything hits), which is not a lot. Meanwhile the deimos will shred 6 armor per burst, and the bulldog 8. So if you have to shoot something with multiple bursts the piranha just falls off quickly, and it benefits less from teamwork (where you might use an initial grenade or shredding attack to remove the armor, or shred the armor with AR to finish it with a shotgun or machinegun).

the gorgon seems a lot better

It should be, since it requires both jericho and synedrion tech. The laser mounted weapon is also insanely good, as it has essentially infinite accuracy, letting you pick off specific limbs at higher ranges than a sniper rifle. The anu actually suffer from this quite a bit, as their combination techs are not very impactful, so if you have to ditch someone, they're the best option.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

You don't use the piranha to shoot things that have 40 armour, you use to shoot things that have 15-25 armour, which would be several late game triton and arthron types.
That way your snipers can deal with threats that do have 40 armour.
You could shred the armour first, but why waste AP shooting the target with a bulldog or deimos to get rid of the armour first, when you can deal damage now and potentially cripple a limb?

 

[Jaedar]

, you use to shoot things that have 15-25 armour

I'd rather use the shardgun for that and instakill them.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

, you use to shoot things that have 15-25 armour

I'd rather use the shardgun for that and instakill them.

Ancient weapons are on another level of their own and require farming for a bunch of resources and having to deal with annoying enemy types. Using them as a standard is pretty unfair, imo.
Every weapon is rubbish compared to them. Why use any sniper rifle other than the scorpion?

 

[Jaedar]

, you use to shoot things that have 15-25 armour

I'd rather use the shardgun for that and instakill them.

Ancient weapons are on another level of their own and require farming for a bunch of resources and having to deal with annoying enemy types. Using them as a standard is pretty unfair, imo.
Every weapon is rubbish compared to them. Why use any sniper rifle other than the scorpion?

Maybe. And I guess it depends on how your campaign goes, but the piercing rifle comes pretty late so it's not too far fetched that you're about to pick up ancient weapons around the same time.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Perhaps, but to even use them you need the Legacy of the Ancients DLC, which also introduces umbra type enemies.
I absolutely hate those, I think they are a buggy, broken enemy type that exists to screw you over, so I prefer not to activate that DLC.

I don't know how they are in terror from the void, but I hope it introduces counterplay that actually works instead of fire working only some of the time if you're lucky. Like, I dunno, fire just removing the umbra ability outright or removing it when you cripple the pandoran's chest.

How to do you stop Acherons from using resurrect? Apparently none of the body parts it has gives it that ability.

 

[Parabalus]

ArchAngel how long until TftV gets out of Beta?

Is it any good already?

 

[Jaedar]

Perhaps, but to even use them you need the Legacy of the Ancients DLC, which also introduces umbra type enemies.

Pretty sure the umbra is from corrupted skies or tainted horizons or something. It's a later dlc for sure. Legacy just adds the super weapons, excavation maps and the mechanical enemies you find there.

Is it any good already?

Yeah! It's not as massive as a rework as I expected, but it was good. I made a fairly lengthy post about it a few pages back.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Perhaps, but to even use them you need the Legacy of the Ancients DLC, which also introduces umbra type enemies.

Pretty sure the umbra is from corrupted skies or tainted horizons or something. It's a later dlc for sure. Legacy just adds the super weapons, excavation maps and the mechanical enemies you find there.

Is it any good already?

Yeah! It's not as massive as a rework as I expected, but it was good. I made a fairly lengthy post about it a few pages back.

No, Legacy of the Ancients adds the Umbra. The Umbra is literally the result of Pandorans being exposed to one of those special resources it introduces. Legacy also introduces crystal type enemies that deal more damage the more you hurt them and a type of Siren that has even more armour (orichalcum siren or something)
I'm playing Corrupted Horizons and Infested Skies right now without Legacy of the Ancients and they do not appear, and the game is so much better for it.

Umbras are a cool concept and I understand that they are meant to be a Chrysallid analogue, but they are so incredibly inconsistent and cheap.
I've seen them die as soon as they walk through fire, I've seen them wade through fire as if it was nothing.
I've seen them not spawn when a pandoran dies to fire damage, I've seen the pool form in a lake of fire.
It doesn't help that the wiki tells you that if the host dies to fire it will not spawn, which apparently is only true sometimes but completely false other times.

It doesn't help that they spawn right after you kill the enemy on the enemy turn will full AP, meaning that with their high movement points they can run up to a soldier and instant kill him with up to 3 90 damage 20 piercing attacks. Even if you war cry it it can still potentially make the distance and cripple a limb.
It doesn't help that the bastards spawn everywhere. Lids at least would only spawn on terror missions and enemy bases. Umbras can be found anywhere, even in nests where is worse possible place to fight them due to close quarters. Nests with Legacy active are actually harder than lairs or citadels for this reason.

It's just a poorly designed and buggy enemy type that is more frustrating than challenging. Smaragdus Chirons and Scyllas encourage you to go for big hits instead of a lot of small ones to counter it's damage buff. Siren Armis encourages you to take a lot of acid and shredding weapons. Umbras encourage you to save scum in case the fucker decides to spawn in a lake of fire.
Gollop should have continued working on the game to refine it instead of releasing it early on Epic like a greedy bugger, and fucking over his kickstarter base in the process.

 

[Jaedar]

No, Legacy of the Ancients adds the Umbra.

Weird. I played with legacy only long ago and never encountered them. I did encounter them in my full playthrough, but that was with tftv, which redesigns umbra from scratch. My bad apparantly.

fucking over his kickstarter base in the process.

Speaking as a kickstarter backer, I don't feel especially fucked over, as I got all the dlc for free. It sure took a long time to get there, but that's kickstarter for you.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

No, Legacy of the Ancients adds the Umbra.

Weird. I played with legacy only long ago and never encountered them. I did encounter them in my full playthrough, but that was with tftv, which redesigns umbra from scratch. My bad apparantly.

fucking over his kickstarter base in the process.

Speaking as a kickstarter backer, I don't feel especially fucked over, as I got all the dlc for free. It sure took a long time to get there, but that's kickstarter for you.

Fair enough, still think it needs some work though. Apparently the Clarity Module is still broken, even after the last patch, and the haven defense briefings are...wildly inaccurate.

How does TFTV redesign Umbras?

 

[Jaedar]

How does TFTV redesign Umbras?

Umbras are redesigned as corruption effect (and corruption mainly comes from doing missions in misted areas, not attacks from acherons?). You can tell which enemies will spawn umbra ahead of time, and umbra damage scales with corruption (down to 0 on non-corrupted characters). They also don't do that much damage in general, even a character with 50% corruption will survive a full turn of being beaten on (although you'll likely want to give them medical aid quickly after that so they don't bleed out).

Fair enough, still think it needs some work though.

Pretty sure there won't be any more official work, only mods.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How does TFTV redesign Umbras?

Umbras are redesigned as corruption effect (and corruption mainly comes from doing missions in misted areas, not attacks from acherons?). You can tell which enemies will spawn umbra ahead of time, and umbra damage scales with corruption (down to 0 on non-corrupted characters). They also don't do that much damage in general, even a character with 50% corruption will survive a full turn of being beaten on (although you'll likely want to give them medical aid quickly after that so they don't bleed out).

Fair enough, still think it needs some work though.

Pretty sure there won't be any more official work, only mods.

That sounds a lot better than how they act in vanilla.
Yeah, which is a pity that they stopped patches, because there's still stuff that's broken. Maybe there's a mod that fixes the clarity module.
Still, Workshop support is nice.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How many teams do you use for good global coverage? In my previous and current game I have 3 effective teams, one to cover Europe one to cover the Americans and one "elite" squad to take out citadels, but I feel that that's not enough. Is the optimal way to have one team per continent or something?

Also, return fire with sniper rifles is hilarious. I've been giving assault-snipers hawks and whenever they get shot at they end up instantly killing or crippling the attacker. I should have tried that in my first hero game.
Technician turrets are pretty fun as well and I would love to go full mechanized, but some maps really hate vehicles. Such as lairs.
Shock rods are absolutely amazing and I wish I had them in my previous hero game. They would have made fighting sirens so much easier. Any soldier who can use a melee weapon gets one, because they are that great.

 

[razvedchiki]

in vanilla i tried to have 3 or 4, creaming off a couple of experienced soldiers to build the new ones.
it was hard though to keep them all leveled up, usually 1 team was above the others in terms of xp due to doing the main quest missions.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, that's what I noticed. Your first team will generally end up being your "elite" squad, and everyone else would just be local responders in case the elites can't get there in time.
Also the Americas are surprising underpopulated. Most Havens seem to be in Europe and the Middle East. You'd think North America would have tons of havens but there's only like 5 or so. South America is basically a waste of base slot, only good for making a bridge to Antartica. I think I might scrap down those two South America bases.
Ditto for Australia; It's pretty isolated and there's like 3 havens in it's zone of influence. 2 of which are destroyed.

What happens exactly when you lose a base defense? I never lost one so I don't know. Is it like xcom where you just outright lose the base?

Also, Mutoid jumps don't seem to work and I don't know why. Instead of hopping to the next floor like what Arthrons do they insist on using ladders and waste AP in the process.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Any tried Terror in the Void overhaul mod? How is it?

 

[Jaedar]

How many teams do you use for good global coverage?

I think I only had 2 in my last game, but they both used helios to get around. It wasn't really enough, but it was good enough to not die.

Any tried Terror in the Void overhaul mod? How is it?

Yeah. Quite good, but not as revolutionary as one might hope. I posted lengthy impressions a few pages back.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, I don't like using helios as task force craft because of their small size, so two teams isn't enough for me.
7-8 soldiers or 1 vehicle + 4 soldiers feel a lot better to use than just 5 or even 6.
Though 5 is ok for nests or low alert missions (well, unless the briefing lies to you and drops like 2 sirens in a "low" alert).

I guess I could spam helios, but I don't like micromanaging.

 

[Jaedar]

Yeah, I don't like using helios as task force craft because of their small size, so two teams isn't enough for me.

Depends on what you use them for. Haven defence and small lairs is usually very doable with a team of 5, especially if 3 of them are a vehicle. I also used some extra craft (the airforce has nothing to do when the behemoth is sleeping, or is dead) to ferry vehicles to larger lairs ahead of time, as that hits the cap of 8.
Lategame in tftv I swapped them out for bio-skyrangers. Tftv also makes vehicles cheaper by default (but -3 squad size without a module), so it becomes more reasonable to use spares to cart vehicles around.

I guess I could spam helios, but I don't like micromanaging.

Yeah, I really wish there was a way to combine 2 helios into one for control purposes.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Oh yeah, Masked Manticores (I'm assuming that's what they are called in TFTV?) are great. I don't know how they are in TFTV, but in Vanilla (and by Vanilla I mean with Festering Skies, obviously) they are actually cheaper than normal manticores with higher capacity.
A standard manticore costs 150 tech 1200 mats and carries 6
A masked manticore costs 120 tech 800 mats 500 mutagen and carries 8 (the wiki is completely wrong about the price, I just checked in my current game).
As it's a lot easier to get mutagens than the other two resources and there aren't that many uses for it unless you go nuts with mutoids and mutations, the masked manticore is effectively cheaper and more effective.

If I didn't already have a bunch of thunderbirds in my current game and you could sell vehicles I would just have a fleet of masked manticores.

 

[Jaedar]

I don't know how they are in TFTV, but in Vanilla (and by Vanilla I mean with Festering Skies, obviously) they are actually cheaper than normal manticores with higher capacity.

I don't remember their cost, but they seat 8 people with the passenger module and are as fast as a normal manticore (so the 2nd fastest ships). But base ship cost doesn't matter so much in TFTV as the passenger module is ~half of the total cost. It does make the upgrade cheaper though, since you can just move the modules around.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I think I actually prefer hero difficulty.
Veteran is actually super easy. Like, I killed the Behemoth way before the abbadon started to spawn and I'm already up to the last bit of New Jericho tech without a harrower in sight, and I don't even need it.
Hero difficulty's tech progression felt a lot more natural and getting new tech and weapons feels a lot better because the pandorans tech up so damn quickly there compared to veteran.

Maybe I'll do another hero run with the same combination of DLCs. Except for legacy because Umbras are bullshit and the imo the ancient weapons kind of screw up what they were going for by having a class of weaponry that's just better than anything else. If it was just one copy of each I'd understand but you can mass produce them if you have firm enough control over the ancient sites.

 

[ArchAngel]

ArchAngel how long until TftV gets out of Beta?

Is it any good already?

I think they are getting close to it but I was not able to follow it closely recently due to lack of time.

But I think it is good enough already if you are looking at something new to play. I think bigger changes to vehicles was one of the planned additions for full release but the guy doing that also ran out of time so it will be just more of campaign and base mechanic changes and more UI improvements for full release.