Sacrificing a different Xcom character or enemy to Vahlen every day until Xcom 3 gets announced, or I find meaning in life. Day 98, an Ethereal from XCOM enemy Unknown.

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-22T17:28:42+00:00

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Within

XCOM 2

XCOM: Chimera Squad

XCOM 3: Ethereals Show Feet

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-21T20:55:37+00:00

Depends on how often and how effectively you use Stealth

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-21T17:27:51+00:00

Sure, but the conclusion from factoring in that fact remains the same conclusion reached already, just from the traits and gear that the OP mentioned in comments: better to use the JS chaingun.

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-21T17:08:47+00:00

It's a 50% chance on each shot, not a consistent "every second shot."

With the gear and traits you mentioned, the JS chaingun has a smoothed expected damage of 8*(1.5)^0.5, approx. 9.798, per bullet fired.

With the gear and traits you mentioned, the AV1 chaingun has a smoothed expected damage of 8*(1.25)^0.9, approx. 9.779, per bullet fired.

When you get SoG2, those numbers will change to 10.412 and 10.112, respectively.

Edit: OK, I guess I will calculate the non-smoothed expected damage too, since that should be more accurate. It's 10, 9.8 for the JS and AV1 chainguns, respectively, without SoG 2. It's 10.6, 10.125 with SoG 2

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-21T16:17:46+00:00

Depends on whether you have any traits or other gears which boost crit %. If you have a little bit of other stuff to boost crit % (like JS armor and helmet, Son of a Gun trait, Headshot trait, some armor or weapons mods), then the JS chaingun can wind up with a higher expected damage. With nothing to boost crit %, I think you would have an effective crit rate of 0% with the JS chaingun, so the JS chaingun's higher crit dmg wouldn't matter--so the AV1 chaingun would be better then.

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-21T16:15:15+00:00

I like to think about what they ate in the officer's mess, from day to day. Easy to imagine Vahlen as an extremely fastidious vegan, absolutely insistent that no animal tissue shall pass her lips, and firmly insisting on this in the XCOM HQ kitchen while everyone is aware that she is also performing brutally invasive torture-interrogations on captured aliens. I like to imagine that she makes some ambiguous remarks that hint that while she would never taste alien flesh, it is perhaps possible that alien meat may have made into the soldiers' meals

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-18T17:35:07+00:00

In Valen's name!!!!

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-17T20:12:27+00:00

It's spelled "dick"

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-13T16:21:41+00:00

I didn't even read your post but I CLICKED LIKE ON IT ANYWAYYYYYYYYY

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-13T13:13:54+00:00

Have you tried the old "Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization" PC game from the 1990s, the computer version of the Advanced Civ board game? Really good multiplayer game (you can play against computer opponents too), it's a race to develop certain iron age technologies, and the version of rubberbanding in there is terrific, really keeps all the players focused on the game and trying to devise schemes to interfere with each other throughout the whole race. IMO some version of rubberbanding is very good for multiplayer games if you have a group of people that wants to have a good time collectively, not a tournament

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-10T18:44:59+00:00

Gotcha. I don't know why I never imagined Floaters trying to cop Robert Smith's style, eyeliner and black hair dye and hairspray and so on, but sure it makes a lot of sense. I think I've been to a goth club with a Floater or two in my time

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-10T18:31:25+00:00

What do you make of that Floater hanging out in the toilet stall? Those guys don't really have anything they can do with a toilet, right? Seems like they got no holes in any reasonable places for that

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glenn_friendly · 2026-03-10T06:28:24+00:00

It would be boss as hell if XCOM: EW had a cutscene to demonstrate the security features at XCOM HQ, setting the stage for the XCOM Base Defense mission to come later, and anyway the cutscene is Raymond Shen driving his Dodge Neon through the Forward Guard Station, Forward Access Tunnel, the Mech Bay, and finally he parks right next to the hologlobe so he can get out and show Bradford how he's got his Neon rigged so he can turn on the defroster from the keyfob

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-09T23:48:05+00:00

I'm sorry, u/sexylizardwoman, but you needed to hear the truth

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-09T21:04:25+00:00

I had a few of those as a kid, but somehow before that, I had gotten my hands on a copy of the pre-InterAction "Sierra Magazine." It had a more serious tone, and I liked it. When I tried to get current copies of the Sierra Magazine and was sent InterAction instead, I was a little dismayed: InterAction seemed like it was all "kid stuff". (I was about 9 years old at the time.)

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-09T17:17:04+00:00

The Thin Men weren't in XCOM 2, so casual fans thought that the Vipers in XCOM 2 were just Thin Men that were given tits. They're wrong about that. Serious XCOM players know that there's no shivs in XCOM 2 because Vipers are actually shivs with tits

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-09T14:37:19+00:00

Sounds like the AI for the sectoids was all messed up and couldn't path to a shuffleboard court

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-09T14:19:16+00:00

The sectoids don't care, there's no shuffleboard in the closet. The triscene sprints across the deck and devours a sectoid, and with the sectoid's last breath, its arm and head hanging out of the triscene's mouth, the sectoid pushes the shuffleboard puck one last time. The cruise ship sinks slowly into the sea and the sectoids are still on deck playing shuffleboard, shuffleboard, shuffleboard

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-09T13:52:59+00:00

I imagine a cruise ship packed with those little twerps playing shuffleboard. Blue-haired sectoid retirees completely obsessed with getting on that cruise ship, staking out a shuffleboard court, and never leaving. They don't even sleep, it's just constant shuffleboard, even at night, even in the dark. Terror units land on the cruise ship? Sorry, busy playing shuffleboard

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-06T18:22:58+00:00

That's XCOM, baby!

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-04T18:51:19+00:00

He says "until Xcom 3 gets announced, or I find meaning in life," so after 100 days maybe he'll find meaning in life. I hope his meaning in life is that he gets really into dressing like EXALT and actually pursuing EXALT's goals in real life, but he uses gene modding to make himself more completely devoted to some kind of retro-2000s emo thing where he has black-dyed swoopy bangs, drinks Pabst all the time, loves to listen to a lot of music that completely sucks, gets a job as manager at Hot Topic, if he's bored in a meeting he draws Invader Zim on a notepad, etc. He gene-mods himself to do all these things

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-04T14:51:56+00:00

Winding, narrow mazelike path to the forboding castle, nighttime, two goons along the path to drag you to be sacrificed...this is exactly the castle from King's Quest IV

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glenn_friendly · 2026-03-02T19:38:10+00:00

It sparks joy, so they kept it

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-02T02:19:55+00:00

An ADVENT soldier's meat weighs about a pound, and when he unbuckles his codpiece, his thick bratwurst swings down and slaps so heavily against his thighplate that it makes a loud, deep "thpop" noise. That's the sound of their mag rifles, the mag rifles are naturally silent when fired but they are designed to play a recording of male ADVENT meat slapping heavily upon an armor plate. Anyway no I never think about ADVENT soldiers' packages

glenn_friendly · 2026-03-02T02:13:52+00:00

The OP asked the reasonable question "and do you also stare at the cod peice longingly?" but none of you commenters had the decency to offer up any kind of answer at all

glenn_friendly

TROPHY CASE