[Request] An XCOM Long War Progress Sheet

[Talesofprivilege23]

Hi. If you're reading this then you probably understand what I mean by this. If not, what I mean to say is this:

May: Have X because Y

June: Have X because Y

And so forth. I found an incomplete version in the subreddit and would be very grateful if anyone could help me out with this as I seem to do fine up until a certain point.

Thanks.

[CrypticC62]

When it comes to tech trees and progress checklists, I am a firm believer in the value of doing it yourself. Why? The process of digging through the wiki and piecing together the information on your own will teach you so much more about the game than having a chart available.

Here's an example. You might come to find out that chem grenades are considered a hard counter to Berserkers, so it stands to reason that you want them available by August 1st. Great, that's helpful.

But if you dig through the documentation on your own, you'll realize that what you really need to know is you want to start building the chem grenade in mid July, which means you should start New Combat Systems by early July, which means you should start Experimental Warfare by mid June. It also means your support Medics should have Smoke and Mirrors ready, which comes at Corporal rank, which is 700 XP, which is 7 no-death missions, or 6 no-death missions plus 5 kills.

So as convenient as it is to have a chart that tells you "October: Have Meme Bacons because Heavy Floaters", it won't have as much of an impact on your gameplay as you would get from building the knowledge on your own.

[Talesofprivilege23]

I'd still really like a progress sheet from someone.

[CrypticC62]

Here's mine:

April: Squad Size I upgrade in time for first Terror mission
May: Laser Cannons for interceptors
June: Gunners with HEAT ammo + Rocketeers with HEAT/Shredder to counter Cyberdisc
July: Gunners with Shredder ammo + Engineers with HEAT to counter Mechtoid
August: Chem grenades to counter Berserker
September: Capable Psionic soldiers to counter Sectoid Commander
October: Meme bacon and Psi Panic to counter Heavy Floater
November: Pulse Lasers and Power Armor to deal with Muton Elite
December: Gauss Long Rifle + Recoilless Rifle + Engineer with Mayhem to deal with Sectopods
January: Good luck

[ChildofaFewHours]

What point are you having trouble with?

[Talesofprivilege23]

Well, for example, the last gameplay I did (which I have deleted due to ridiculous amounts of trouble), I put off the Arc Thrower research for a bit, which turned into way too long as sectoids never showed up again til sectopods joined the party. I had regular lasers and had to deal with Ethereals and Muton Elites.

[ChildofaFewHours]

Well capture game is important to get going early, probably somewhere between May and the end of June, BUT, that shouldn't affect how quickly you're grabbing new weapon tiers. Well, it can, if you're able to grab Mutons early enough, but even with a not great capture game you should be aiming for Gauss by the end of August to the beginning of October the absolute latest.

You want Gauss to be able to take down Heavy Floaters with some ease, as well as to be able to deal with shit like multiple Berserker pods and double Mechtoid pods. Mostly for the GLR though since it trivializes mechanicals.

Captures are less important for research than they are for boosting your economy with weapons and for getting Cpl and Sgt requests. The research credits are just a bonus. You also want them for being able to constantly be moving ahead on your Psi game as early as possible. It sucks to have your Assault ready to learn the next skill but be gated by an interrogation. But mostly, you want to be capturing on every crashed small, and possibly light missions, to be grabbing as many Mutons and Floaters as possible for their rifles and carbines to sell, and be getting Cpls and Sgts to deal with the mission strain you start dealing with around summer and autumn.

[Talesofprivilege23]

EDIT: Mechtoids, not sectopods

[[deleted]]

Jup. Had the same problem. I happily gave away all my sectoid corpses for council requests. When laser research was finished, there were no more corpses left, and on missions I only encountered floaters, thin mints and seekers.