Cyrus
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Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 30, 2013 10:35:39 GMT -5
I know that Templars only get 4 squares of sight when moving, or 5 with Atreus.
Berserkers seem to get only 3 and Atreus doesn't add to that. If Atreus doesn't work for Berserkers, then why are there armors and shields that have it?
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 30, 2013 3:01:22 GMT -5
A berserker seems to only have a sight range of 3 while moving. I don't know if this is intended or not. However, what clearly can't be intentional is that armor or shields with the Atreus system don't extend this range! I equipped my Berserker with all combinations of default Leviathan (no Atreus), Berserker Powerarmor (Atreus), Leviathan Shield (no Atreus) and Null Shield (Atreus). No combination gave any other result than 3 sight range. This is compared to 4 range for all other Templars and 5 range with Atreus. The stationary sight range is 6 for all of them, including Berserkers. Pics or it didn't happen: johndramey, you are using a high AP Berserker too I saw, are you getting the same result?
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 29, 2013 16:32:55 GMT -5
Heh, I'd noticed some parallels to Dune too. There's pilots using Spice, the war against AI/thinking machines, the great Houses and trade organizations struggling for power, an order of mystics that are on a millennia long breeding program to create superhumans, and a prophet too!
It seems to be mixed with that other game that shall not be named, which has seen a geat fall in technology after war destroyed the homeworld and has genetically engineered space marine brotherhoods with powered armors and very heavy handed tactics for controlling the civilian population when confronted with traitorous cultists.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 29, 2013 16:14:25 GMT -5
I just finished the campaign too on Brutal. I used a Scout Captain, 2 scouts and a Hydra throughout the campaign, since those were the only well-trained units I had, with about 80 battles under their belts before starting ND.
The early missions were not too hard, especially the ones with xenos or corrupt FDF. The Narvidians themselves are nasty, every type in its own way. The normal ones with 7-8 HP and high defense just soak up your bullets and the scout drones sometimes fly up to 5 squares per move, then attack with a ranged melee attack (?!?) which kinda is my scouts' weakness. Finally, the Narvidian cannons made me curse time and again with their tendency to sneak up at the last moment and kill a Templar two turns from the extraction point.
Then I got to the "Perimeter Landing" mission. 3 objectives, not even that far away from the middle, but each had about 3 new Narvidians spawn around it every turn. Ammo ran out and some hallways were so clogged with drones you could hardly move 2 squares per turn. Each try would see two objectives succeed and one get bogged down until a Templar got killed. More than 10 attempts ended in failure, no strategy seemed to work. I was about to abort the campaign, having decided Scouts weren't good enough for this. Finally I thought "Screw this, they're scouts, let them run!" and sent one scout running for the southeast objective, not stopping to shoot except when the path was blocked. By some miracle, he made it back alive despite having been attacked many times, often from the back.
The next mission was fairly easy again and then came "Patrol Alpha". Like the missions before it had spread out objectives, some good secrets in out-of-the-way corners and lots of Narvidians. On turn 2, a single shot from a Cannon drone took one scout down to 1 HP. Instead of aborting right away, I decided to scout the level for secrets by just running at breakneck speed (8 squares per turn). To my amazement, it took the Narvidians another TWENTY turns to kill that 1 HP scout, chasing him around the entire level. After that I switched my tactics to run much more wherever it was possible, ducking around corners to avoid the ranged enemies. This was quite successful, though every so often I'd run into a bad situation. This left the Hydra a bit less useful than before, since he could only move 5 per turn. But usually I found a route for him that let him fry lots of corridors to reduce the stream of Narvidians some.
The last two missions made me decide to only go for the secrets that had weapons/armor or were along the route (after a suicide scouting run of the level), since the risk of losing a templar was getting bigger the longer I stayed in the map. I won't spoil the last map, but let's just say it was not what I expected.
I knew going in that this was hard, but I hadn't expected needing at least 3-4 restarts for *every* mission, and more than 10 for the hardest. The annoying thing is that most attempts would go quite well and then out of the blue one Narvidian would take a Templar down in 1 attack. In general it seemed they either hit very hard or not at all. This was probably because of my scouts' low armor, but the Hydra with 5/8 armor seemed to be affected just the same. Even with 8 shielding he got one-shot by Narvidian Cannons on several missions.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 29, 2013 15:35:35 GMT -5
contributor thanks for the treasure trove of lore! You've answered a lot of my questions. Shalun being a (human or Zendu) prophet and leading the exodus explains a good deal, especially why "Shalun Law" is so strict. It's a martial law that was established to keep the fleet together, not some spiritual teaching by an invisible deity. I had been wondering how a Templar order ended up with strict laws on Narvidian artifacts and smuggling. I also mistook the Templars hostility towards ancient and Narvidian tech for Luddite technophobia. It seems they're hoarding it for themselves and studying it, there are many occurrences of that in the Narvidian Dawn Campaign. They destroy working tech (they can't control) but then study the remains. I wonder if Shalun Law forbids development of new weaponry.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 29, 2013 8:37:46 GMT -5
Thanks dayan and contributor, that's a some nice info. I bet that when the tickets to the exodus fleet were handed out all the faction politicians and CEOs made sure they and their families had some and they forgot to bring scientists and engineers (apart from a few low-wage maintenance workers). Boom, instant dark age! Now the Quadrant is full of feuding politicians and anything-goes star traders. Not to mention religious fanatics that practically worship their guns and armor.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 29, 2013 1:15:43 GMT -5
After playing through quite a few campaigns I've seen lots of little hints about the Templars, Narvidians and Star Traders. But I'm wondering about some of the basic "facts" of the game world: - What are the basic tenets of the Templar religion?
- Are there female Templars? Are the Templars wives waiting at home? Do they clone new Templars?
- The best weapons seem to be ancient. How did the Templars lose the ability to make those superior weapons? Did the Narvidians design and make the weapons before the war with them?
- Do Templars hate all technology, or only computers/AI? It seems strange that they can build and operate starships but not improve on some ancient weapons and armor. They pursue all ST Captain that deal with Narvidian artifacts, yet at every turn they study them in the field.
- What does FDF stand for? I'm guessing Fleet Defence Force?
- How do xenos move through space? Most campaigns show them as infesting Star Trader ships (hiding in cargo?) But Roavin says they arrived in a great fleet. Is it known whether they are guided by something else or work with human cultists or are intelligent enough to organize a fleet?
- Does a Templar have to physically move the Leviathan's arms and legs or is his movement translated to servos that do the actual movement? I'm thinking the former, since a Templar's strength and quickness make a difference, but how would a Templar be able to lift something on a high-gravity world unless the Leviathan did the actual lifting?
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 28, 2013 17:26:39 GMT -5
Here are three maps from Narvidian Dawn. I was going to mark them with +XP / +H / Wpn / Arm, but I've played about 4 missions on the same map now, so I forgot which one is which. Now it's just orange markers where the secrets are. Squad Rendezvous Supply Drop Patrol Alpha Squad Rendezvous has an incredible 6 valuable secrets, Supply Drop has plenty of "Empty cargo pod" blurbs, but only 2 secrets that I could find.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 27, 2013 5:10:11 GMT -5
Yeah, I've been thinking about restarting with a different captain, but 90+ battles is a lot to abandon. I'm hoping the Templar Chaplain will be available sometime soon to at least fix my "one unlucky hit = restart" problems.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 27, 2013 3:52:10 GMT -5
I know this is an old thread, but I didn't find any better match for my question. It seems that Templars can clip corners when facing "north/south", but not "east/west". This happens at ranges of 2, 3 and 4. Is this a known issue already?
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 27, 2013 3:11:29 GMT -5
Yeah, I've found relic Neptune and Incinerators so far and two armors, though I think one didn't actually get added to my inventory
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 27, 2013 1:15:20 GMT -5
I'll probably join in the fun after I manage to survive Narvidian Dawn. I'm going to train some new recruits, so I might as well map out the secrets then. Narvidian Dawn is full of secrets btw, I'll record the bigger ones.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 27, 2013 1:06:10 GMT -5
My melee-only squad was a one-off, just to see if it would make an interesting challenge. I've been playing on Brutal for a while now with my favorite composition, 2 Scouts and a Hydra. Even with Long Devastators, it can take anywhere from 1 to 4 shots to kill the 7-8 HP Narvidians that pop up everywhere, so ammo is always in short supply. I use the scouts mobility to close in and use melee whenever practical just to make the ammo last longer and most of the time it works pretty well. It's just defensive fire where things fall apart.
With my Hard difficulty squad my Templars could shrug off hits easily, but on Brutal I found that doesn't work anymore. Even with 40+ evasion they get hit regularly and while I know the scouts 3/4 armor/shielding isn't meant to stop a lot, my Hydra is running around with 5/8 and also takes big hits if I leave him exposed for too long. It seems the enemies have a minimum crit rate of roughly 5%, so 1 in 20 hits will ignore your armor and usually eat 4-5 HP, ensuring the Templar's death. Also, the Narvidian scout drones seem to have a ranged melee attack, showing the melee animation even when attacking from 4 squares away, so I figure you need Plating, not Shielding against that.
In fact, just after I posted the above, I ran into the first mission ever that made me feel my Scouts just aren't powerful enough. I had to restart "Perimeter Landing" more than 10 times due to Templar deaths and ran out of ammo even with ammo kits. It's one hell of a mission, with crazy numbers of Narvidians spawning. In the end I played to my Scouts strength and had one perform a suicide run, weaving through the Narvidians to the objective and back. Surprisingly, it worked on the very first try!
I'm definitely going to train different Templars after finishing this campaign, so I'll try your heavy armor strategy too.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 26, 2013 13:00:24 GMT -5
Well, it *is* Narvidian Dawn on Brutal difficulty, frustration is practically the name of the game ;-)
The strength and sheer numbers of enemies here means I've had to rely on melee much more and against ranged enemies too. Only under those circumstances does this issue really become pressing (at least pressing enough for me to write a post about it). The thing that bothers me is that what should be a good tactic (luring ranged enemies into melee range by hiding around a corner) becomes useless because facing to where the enemy will be means you have no AP and facing towards where the enemy currently is means facing a wall, so you have AP but use them up turning towards them. Just standing in the hallway facing a ranged enemy is really not an option either when you can't shoot them.
If you examine my arguments and decide you like things the way they are now, that's fine, I'll be content that you are aware of it and just adapt my tactics. I know you've put a lot of thought into the mechanics and I wouldn't even have posted this if I didn't think the melee disadvantage was something that might have been previously unexplored because melee was less prominent before Berserkers were added to the game.
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Cyrus
Hero
Hydras rock! BURN BABY BURN!
Posts: 159
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Post by Cyrus on Aug 26, 2013 9:19:07 GMT -5
You will get Prestige just fine in the old version, since it's based on stats that are already in the game: total kills and missions for Templars and completed campaigns for your team.
An experienced squad will start out with quite high Prestige as soon as you get the new version.
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