Equipment

[rsgong]

Another question to help beginners.

When you upgrade your equipment, should you start with armor or weapons?  And what class order do you upgrade, i.e. Captain, scout, then soldier? Or in other ways? 

Thanks.

[johndramey]

Here I think my answer can be a little more in line with most people. The thing that I rush for when it comes to upgrading is I try to grab Plasma Rifles for all of my ranged builds. At 500 honor a pop, these weapons are cheap, accurate, and pack a relatively good punch. After grabbing Plasma rifles I'll generally save up for Thunder Fists for my melee builds. A little more expensive at 600 honor a pop, but still a nice upgrade to their punchyness. After the weapons upgrades it's a long save for Leviathan Powerarmor. The extra AP they give my soldiers is nice and all, but the plating is good too! The price? 2,500 honor a pop. Long save indeed!

[slayernz]

I agree the Plasma Rifle is a damn good buy for a first upgrade. If you're considering the Long Leviathan, don't waste your honor - the cost outweigh the benefit. That is the cost is you have 2 less attack bonus (think of Attack Bonus being a +x to your "Ranged" attack level), AND you have 2 less ammo.

Why the Plasma rifle? In TA, range is king. If you can hit a target 4 squares away, you have a better chance of not having to take scrapes on your armor.

I buy the plasma rifle for all of my primary squad excluding specialists.

From there, I hold out and save hard. Because I have usually got one Neptune specialist in the squad (during the training/buildup phase), I save for the Heavy Neptune. Yes it's 3000 Honor, but with it, your specialist has great damage, great range, and 55 ammo. Also, by the time you're able to afford the Heavy Neptune, you'll have built up your ranged accuracy, and be able to take out entire waves with the Neptune specialist all by him/herself. The first map of the Siege of Roavin is a classic example of how good a neptune specialist can be. In the 5 waves of Xeno's, a Neptune specialist with the Heavy Neptune will be able to deal death to every single Xeno. that's 30 - 36 kills in one battle ... to one knight!

After that, I save up for some Storm Fists. Storm Fists are 300 honor more than Thunder Fists, BUT you get +2 damage and +1 Attack bonus. This makes a difference!

Armor?
For my captain (who is almost always a scout), and the scouts I have, I try and live with the stock armor for as long as possible. yes, that's why I focus on offensive rather than defensive XP distribution. I'm a sadist, but I hold out until I can afford a Relic Scout Powerarmor. I buy them one at a time and give them to my captain, then the remaining scouts on my team. This armor is frickin awesome. It gives my scouts +1 AP (and as I've said, "AP is king"), and gives you Atreus (longer view range), and warding! Not bad for the mere price of 4900 honor.

Likewise, I also hold out for the Neptune Powerarmor. -1AP is bearable, but +6 for both Melee and Ranged protection is great. I wouldn't go for the Neptune Void armor just because -2AP is too much.

Longer game, I will have built up a specialist team of scouts (Captain scout + 3 scouts). I would have upgraded the weapoons to 4x Long Devastators, and 4x Force Gauntlets.

Don't be afraid to buy Relic Ammo kits. They will help out with some longer missions where more than fists are needed. I've never bought a Venerated Ammo Drum before, but once I have more Honor than I know what to do with, I'll invest in those too

[rsgong]

How do you upgrade your officers weapons? 

Oh, and I am kind of confused about the secondary objective of destroy all xenos. It appears that they constantly re-spawn, so how can you destroy all of them? 

[slayernz]

you can upgrade all of your squad's weapons. Simply unequip their existing ones, and then equip the new ones.
"destroy all xenos" is pretty much an impossible secondary objective. Maybe it was Cory's sense of humor?

[rsgong]

LOL. I was basically looking at all of the swords, and wondering if I should wait to by the Devastator, or get a lower valued one. I thought it best to get before the armor.

[slayernz]

If you use the captain like the game creators expect, then yes, you'll get the biggest sword you can. You could do it two bites (get the glove to begin with, then the Devastator next). You'll need a secondary weapon that doesn't act like a pea-shooter, but there are a few good ones for the captain.

Me, I prefer giving my captain a high damage weapon with lots of ammo or range (hence Long Devastator), and the best fist/glove that he can can buy. That way he can melee to about 80% as good as a sword, but have decent range capabilities too.

Now there is one thing to take into consideration. If you are even remotely considering a lone-wolf type of captain, then go for the biggest blade you can because no matter how much ammo you can carry, you're going to run out when it's only you vs the world

[Lt. Hathaway]

If you look through your starting regular warrior troops carefully, you'll often find one or two that for some reason were issued scout starting armor. If they take it off, they can't put it on again, but it's the fastest armor (+1AP) they'll have for a long time.

[rsgong]

Thanks. That helps.

[Cory Trese]

I always spend my initial Honor on Range 4 right away.

[slayernz]

Yup ... Range 4 makes survival just that much easier. That's why the plasma rifle is such a steal

[rsgong]

And you only have to actually buy 3 of them. As long as you make sure that all the troops going on the mission have one of them.

[Cory Trese]

Jul 6, 2013 20:11:04 GMT -5 rsgong said:

And you only have to actually buy 3 of them. As long as you make sure that all the troops going on the mission have one of them.

I am guilty of doing lots of re-configuration of gear for each mission.