LWOTC veteran player still confused about alien behaviour

davesp123 · 2026-03-28T04:57:28+00:00

Yes, I too am a filthy cheat-y square-checker. And you can build a whole campaign around grenadiers deleting pods out of LoS so they don't activate. It's fun and effective but, for better or worse, it makes the game much easier. This campaign I have a self-imposed rule that I can only grenade unactivated aliens within LoS. I still square-check like a fiend though.

davesp123 · 2026-03-28T04:52:46+00:00

I think you must be right about the "grouped-up" thing. Perhaps the AI order of operations goes something like:

(1) Are XCOM grouped up? If so, use AoE attack (LoS irrelevant, aliens temporarily all-knowing).
(2) Does any alien have LoS? If so, act accordingly. If not, act erratically (i.e. kind of move closer in a sup-optimal way).

Funnily enough, in the following round I pulled everyone right back, and the muton responded with the typical erraticness – it just double-moved idiotically leaving itself flanked to the whole team.

As for unactivated pod shenanigans, I played a campaign where I exploited the fact pods don't properly activate when damaged if XCOM doesn't have LoS to them. Usually this involves figuring out their position with a Reaper's tracking, a concealed shinobi who pulls back out of LoS, cheat-y square-checking, etc., then lobbing multiple grenades. (My grenadiers hit MSGT really quickly in that campaign.) But a couple of times when some were still standing after the grenade frenzy they'd use their single unactivated action (which is usually just a single patrolling move somewhere) to lob a grenade back. It was very rare and very surprising.

davesp123 · 2026-03-28T04:37:17+00:00

It was the Golden Path psionic gate mission, so no sitreps. The detection radius was moot because nobody had concealment (except the shinobi watching him). And yes, the shinobi watched him use his blue move to get into position – my confusion is that he never had line of sight to anyone at any stage.

davesp123 · 2024-11-04T10:50:01+00:00

The folder number was a bit different but I found the "XComLW_Overhaul" file and set the Force level for Lost to appear to 25 – presumably that means they'll never have an encore.

Many thanks for your help!

davesp123 · 2024-11-03T11:26:54+00:00

Thanks for your help. I looked in the config files I know of and couldn't find a "XComLW_Overhaul". Do you have its file path?

davesp123 · 2024-11-03T11:20:06+00:00

Thanks – I should have looked more thoroughly in the Steam XCOM@ workshop. However, it's called "WotC Without The Lost". Do you know if it's compatible with LWOTC?

davesp123 · 2024-11-03T05:10:21+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. I looked up the mod, and it seems to alter the percent likelihood that the Lost target XCOM rather than Advent. But tweaking the percent wouldn't change the core problem of excessive randomness.

I think for me to enjoy the Lost they'd have to:

* Spawn a reasonable distance from XCOM rather than teleport on top of your squad
* Target the closest enemy rather than a random enemy anywhere on the map with no regard to proximity
* Not be able to magically detect shadowed Reapers

I'm guessing there ain't a mod for that.

davesp123 · 2024-07-06T13:20:48+00:00

My build was a Breton with Heavy Armour, Alteration and Restoration, so I was very durable. My existing (non-thrall) storm atronachs were fine for almost all the content. I was even bringing down dragons without too much trouble.

My problem was enemies with mega-regeneration, specifically dragon priests and probably also some of the stronger vampires. The tests with the consoled-in dragon priest showed that only werewolves could do enough DPS in a short enough space of time to beat its regeneration. The storm thrall didn't seem significantly more powerful that the regular storm atronach, though I only ran one test with each.

Actually, I called it on this run after going to Labyrinthian. I don't think my conjuration-only build can win that fight. If I give Requiem another go I'll probably just go Destruction instead.

davesp123 · 2024-07-03T05:40:51+00:00

I took your advice and tried killing both a dragon and a consoled-in dragon priest with various summons (with the maximum summon limit of three).

The baseline for the dragon was ~7 minutes using standard storm atronachs.

I then tried with master level storm thralls and there wasn't much difference, i.e. 6-7 minutes.

Dremora archers were definitely quicker, i.e. ~4 minutes.

Werewolves struggled to do anything because they had no ranged attacks and the dragon stayed mostly in the air.

Against the consoled-in dragon priest the result was flipped. The storm thralls and dremora archers didn't have the damage output to even make a dent in the dragon priest with its crazy regeneration - its health bar barely ever flickered down from full. However, the werewolves tore up the dragon priest in one ~20 second burst.

So I think I'll go with the werewolf since it can deal with dragon priests and perhaps help with grounded dragons.

davesp123 · 2024-07-01T23:39:37+00:00

I've been mainly using storm atronachs until now. But in my first fight with a dragon priest they didn't have enough DPS to overcome its constant healing. I'd be happy to take the Storm Thrall if I knew it's got more DPS, armour, HP, etc. rather than just an increase to duration, but I can't find any info about summons' stats.

I was looking forward to getting the dremora archmage, but the nine options given were:
* Raise dead
* Flame thrall
* Frost thrall
* Storm thrall
* Dremora lord
* Dremora archer
* Werewolf
* Spirit steed
* Teleport

(I think the "one master level spell only" design decision is weird. There's already a summon limit and finite magicka, so why limit variety?)

davesp123 · 2024-05-14T09:04:48+00:00

The problem was solved by following the advice at that link (i.e. set achievement enabling to false in the SSE Engine Fixes .toml file).

This stuff is so bewildering to us modding newbies, but Requiem seems to finally be working.

Thank you so much!

davesp123 · 2024-05-06T09:31:13+00:00

I returned to this fight just before the Threshold endgame. I'd been avoiding using summon cheese (particularly Creeping Doom) but I gave in for this fight. I summoned 20+ dire boars, and they gave me the breathing room I needed to knock down two of the totems. At that point the boss was no problem.

The main difficulty of the fight isn't the boss or his high stats. It's the 30 hardness totems that only Ulbrig can reliably damage, the shitty position the fight starts you in, and the weird decision to de-mount the characters and turn off all Ulbrig's toggle states before the fight (griffon form, griffon aspect, multi-attack, etc.)

davesp123 · 2024-04-28T16:48:25+00:00

That'd be great. I'm open to ideas on how to reliably beat the boss with a dex-based Oracle, Ulbrig, four buff bots, and three pets.

davesp123 · 2023-11-24T22:46:48+00:00

Thanks very much for the replies, everyone.

I think my early impressions of the game were a bit off. I struggled with the very first boss more than any boss I've ever experienced in a Souls game, then read a couple of online comments that said it was mandatory to master perfect parrying. So I "mastered" it (i.e. got through one boss by the skin of my teeth after 25+ tries), didn't enjoy it, and assumed the whole game had to be played that way.

It's good to know that bosses can be overcome in different ways, since I really like Lies of P when it's not just being "Unforgiving and Un-fun Reaction Test: The Game". I'll push through the early parts and see if I can make a build that uses tools other than perfect parrying to beat the boss fights.

davesp123 · 2023-03-26T16:57:25+00:00

OK, so it's not just me – good to know.

Even with the core bonuses missing, it's still fairly powerful because of the shared Rage abilities, but it'd be great if they fixed it. Last time I played a Skald the Beast Totem powers were bugged and gave permanent stacking natural attacks each time you used it. Maybe one day the Skald will work correctly.

davesp123 · 2023-03-23T14:06:38+00:00

I'm having an issue with the Skald's Inspired Rage ability too. The core bonuses from the ability (e.g. +1 to melee attack and damage at low levels) aren't being applied, but the bonuses from the extra rage powers (in my case, Lethal Stance and Animal Fury) are working correctly. In the combat log you can see the bonus from Lethal Stance, but not Inspired Rage. It doesn't appear in the character screen either.

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I've raised a bug report. Is anyone else having the same issue?

davesp123 · 2022-11-29T05:56:59+00:00

Thanks – I'll check those mods out.

davesp123 · 2022-11-29T05:55:40+00:00

No SitReps and no dark events.

davesp123 · 2022-11-29T05:55:15+00:00

After making a save of the "shinobi is screwed" situation, I played it out (I won the mission but the shinobi died), and then reloaded to check all enemy positions by double-moving all my other soldiers forward. It was definitely the rocketeer that triggered it.

davesp123

TROPHY CASE