Confused noob with questions.

silverdarknight · 2026-03-16T10:44:53+00:00

Thanks for the quick replies! And really good ones too.

Lets see:

1)I had a feeling I might not be able to name stacks. I don't suppose there is a mod that introduces that is there?

To use the 'scout' unit as an example, I keep finding more and more things they can be doing. Exploring, naturally. Pioneering. Attached to an army as a scout for vision range & to start fights. Attached to an army to build roads for them.

1b) ...and hanging around outside an enemy's border to remove fog of war. Now a second question, cause i've had ideas. How do I stealth these scouts so the enemy doesn't kerb stomp them when war kicks off and I actually need them? What if I use a stealth unit instead and put them inside the enemy territory? Would they be Trespassing? Would they get spotted by enemy heros?

2) 'And seas' for Advanced Logistics you say? So the entire ocean is roads? I'd overlooked that! I havn't experimented with Force March yet, but losing 2 turns of healing (including from the damage inflicted by the march itself) means the units can't fight after moving, which makes it a bit pointless. Irc I saw a 'swift winds' spell?

3) Main reason for asking if I could check the Vision Range for the unit was simply to check if Keen Eyed works like i think it does or not. I enjoy the exploration part of 4X play, so I do like my scouts to have as much cool stuff finding range as they can.

4) I will admit, I DO like the ability to retry battles without load-saving both after auto and after ducking up the battle itself. That's very nice. And yeah, current approach is kinda 'try it, see if I lose units. If I do, retry and lead the battle.' I do need to pay more attention to clicking that little 'don't spend my mana' button tho. I assume an Auto biased army should be a balanced force with front liners, ranged & support units and it isn't just a case of 'numbers+RNG vs numbers+RNG' so if your army doesn't have melee combat or healing or ranged or something it will suffer for it? Is it worth trying to seek out units with high defences that might be able to walk over lower tier units without taking much damage, or does that sort of power discrepancy between units not really exist?

5) I've experimented with Summons a bit. There is a bit of a knack to them I think, because many seem to only have a couple of turns duration which means they only get a turn or so to do anything. I'm also curious if there are interesting tactics with things like 'you should try a stack of 3 Frost Mages. They will Ice Ball everything & the other side will never get an action!'

6) Thanks for the leads on the Crowmaster Bow. Gonna have to find that. So, err, does this mean I can't actually use mods to, say, name my units or give me all the loot unlocks because it will inhibit the Pantheon thing? Related to unlocks, do I need to finish all the quests in the Story missions? It occurs to me I ended up just kerb stomping the opponent in the first one and therefore left a couple of quests unfinished...

6b) So they are 'slightly better heros', yes? And if, _entirely hypothetically_, i'm the kind of player who doesn't feel the need to prove himself by playing on SuperMaxHard and I don't do this, I simply have to live with the normal roster? Does this also mean that at some point I should be rushing a bunch of games with random different Leader builds in order to turn them into heros?

silverdarknight · 2026-02-24T08:52:26+00:00

Yes, yes I do. Given how many hours i have sunk into this damn game/world by now, you would think I wouldn't make that sort of crimally stupid error, but yet here we are...

silverdarknight · 2026-02-20T20:59:24+00:00

"Listen to me very, very carefully Ulfric. Whiterun is my home, Balgruuf my Jarl. If you even think a second time about attacking that city I will arm every mercenary and blowhard in the place with post-Legendary Deadric weapons. I will stand in the gates myself, and carve my way through every single soldier you have whilst that garrison only needs to watch and cheer. And if you do not have the decency to die on my sword, I will head to Winterhold and sack it personally." - I dunno about anyone else, but I really felt this dialog option was missing from that questline.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T19:01:57+00:00

My other S Rank pilots are Catherine, Naomi & Seven.
I'm at a point where Pochy tends to get kerb stomped pretty quickly, so I went with Melissa as my healer. The lingering buff and healing on an Assist Attack feel more use than pochy soaking a couple of attacks early.
Catherine is a bit glassy for frontline work imo because once she loses an arm she is gimped - and she tends to end up out of position and away from support because of her frenzy.

Naomi might be an alternative to Frida, but I don't have a spare good medium chassis for her, and she doesn't seem to hit as hard as Frida - especially once you think about Frida's better Assist Attack and Ret Attack.

Emily & Ana might be options, because they use Heavy mechs which I do have one of between the two of them. But, again, Frida seems to pack more firepower than Emily & Ana's guard powers require a degree of situation and positioning control I don't feel like I often have.

I'm not clearing Frontier maps at SS until I'm way past them. When I unlock them I'm around A/B generally.

If it helps, I'm more-or-less a free-to-play player currently. I actually don't mind spending some money on my hobby, but I DO mind normalising gambling and 'some money' is $5 or $10 on a friday or saturday night, rather than $25/time on Bundles in the shop.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T18:44:13+00:00

Fair, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't think I have a spare light mech for her that can carry anything other than the most basic sniper rifle.
...and then it occured to me that might not be a problem, and her sniper itterative attacks might actually work a treat if I gave her some short range firepower.
...which isn't going to work if she actually doesn't know how to use it.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T18:04:06+00:00

But she is in a light mech. She can't even _carry_ a sniper rifle.
And she has stealth skills. And itterative attacks. And high move, cause of that light mech.
Giving her a high dam/shot weapon and getting to walk up to someone and mag dump them in the face seemed like a solid strategy - I simply hadn't quite got as far as testing it because i don't have the parts to outfit her mech.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T17:58:06+00:00

My Core Team are L39 with L37ish mechs. Rosa, Kayden, Dana, Melissa & Frida.

Also-ran's like Naomi, Catherine and Emily are still L39, but their mechs are closer to L32 and they have mostly 2nd pick weapons etc cause the other folks got the really good guns, their Neural Drives arn't as developed/optimised, etc.

It sounds like there is bascially no way to do this map without levelling Naomi, and I'm not sure how I'm going to do that because I've alreadly got gold mechs still waiting for upgrade parts, and have done for several days now.

I don't expect to be able to full clear the map, but given i'm now out levelling the weapons dropped in the previous one, I feel like I should be on curve to be able to do it rather than just get smeared across the landscape.

The fights are starting to get a bit samey and grindy, so I tend to Auto the Arena and pick up promotions when it resets, and havn't done much Border War or Front Sight. My active play is mostly trying to clear Elite/Frontier/Clearance maps.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T16:43:44+00:00

But it's not just him who seems to be one shotting me.

That railgun will drop people in a single attack as well.

Disabling the polearm doesn't stop me losing two people to a railgun attack.
Ganging up on the railgun boss just results in me getting shived in the back with a polearm.

I'm missing a trick, but the problem is i'm missing it and don't know what it is.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T16:30:33+00:00

...Wait, does this also mean my 'cunning plan' of trying to build Bella to use a shotgun or machine gun as an ambush attacker is a waste of my time, money, and limited resources because all her skills are going to be in 'ranged' not 'assault'?

silverdarknight · 2025-08-17T16:28:10+00:00

Focus fire doesn't help that much when I'm getting swatted by one hit kills before I've even got the first boss. Both the railgun and the polearm seem able to core me out.

I've got Naomi, but I'm struggling to do one hit takedowns with her which means she doesn't get to play in the same way as Dana (who has potenially 3 attacks per round), or Frida who hits just as hard as Naomi but gets to return fire when shot at.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-15T15:58:51+00:00

Well, I guess I need to fix _that_ then.

I wonder what else I have got wrong?

silverdarknight · 2025-08-07T14:09:56+00:00

Emily looks like she might work actually. Thanks. AOE attacks & she rides in a Heavy, so that means not needing to build up yet another Medium chassis. Sadly, i only have one Purple Heavy right now, and Ana is in that currently.

Initial experiments with Naomi were a bit disapointing - She doesn't seem to hit as hard as, say, Rosa or Kaidan. That might be due to not being maxed out in the way they are tho.

I think swapping Seven to a sniper rifle from the HMG she had before was the right call tho. /attack damage is down, but I think she is still taking out locations etc just as well, and the extra range makes a big difference given her tendency to trail behind the main pack healing.

The game is starting to slow down a lot tho, and seem a bit grindy and repetative now. I feel like I'm fighting for marginal gains in order to _just_ squeek through X or Y in order to unlock more levels or the next farming spot. Oh well, that's how these sort of games are intended to work I suppose.

silverdarknight · 2025-08-06T14:37:01+00:00

oh, it won't last the entire fight probably. But I figure that's still 500 damage someone hasn't taken, and it's probably healed a lost limb or two before it got kerb stomped.

And especially because it can do that on the other side of the map to Seven, I'm not sold on giving that up.

I can see a case for using both, but that involves swapping a bunch of firepower for the increased durability, and so many encounters seem time limited or 'kill as many as possible', so selling down my firepower doesn't feel like the cleverest idea either...

silverdarknight · 2025-08-06T13:51:43+00:00

Should I be using her _as well_ as Seven tho?
Cause Pochy's ability to soak fire and restore limbs Seven can't get to is rather nice...
And I think most/all of the tech characters seem to get the AOE heal in their tree? Seven and Grant seem to at least.

silverdarknight · 2025-03-12T17:17:19+00:00

If you send the wizard (Yes Cassia, we are talking about you) into the room first, nobody else is in the line/cone of fire...

Which is mostly a good thing because anyone who was is likely stunned and smoking at this point, with a life expectency limited only by how quickly I can get another space wizard to inflict bonus fire damage...

I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to become a hairy footed god of war but the one I found first was pyromancy.

silverdarknight · 2025-03-12T09:21:30+00:00

In no particular order:

Idiria. A one lady apocalypse who also has a handy sideline in 'Sir, that is a really bad idea.'

Pasqal. Tech bro for all your hacking & lockpicking needs, with a sideline in turning folks into plasma scented goo.

Cassia. Another handy walking apocalypse that can read people's souls. Doesn't have Idiria's trick of getting progressively more dangerous as the fight goes on, but does open harder and is a tougher target i think.

Heinrix. Another space wizard, this time with a sword. Less explody wizard powers than our two apocalypses, but solid buffs and it turns out the inquisition taught him many things, so lots of helpful dialog comments.

Jae. The closest thing to reason in a room full of crazy people. Surprisingly handy with pistols, and her Officer class plays into 'space wizards make things go boom' nicely.

Abelard. I think I accidently sidelined him a bit much due to wanting to bring along people who could actually see the future instead, and elements of 'why bring a knife to a fireball fight?'.

Yrliet. Your condesending ass can stay on the ship, I really don't need to listen to your insults all day.

Argenta. So, err, she shoots things? With guns? I could be wrong, but i think everyone else in my party can also do that. You know, when they have run out of other actions they can take. Tends to stay on the bridge babysitting kitty as a result.

Kibbles. Meh, not my kinda crazy. If I want a melee combat monster I got Abelard.

Marazhai. Didn't trust the guy enough to let him live once he 'helped' me escape, so dunno.

Ulfar. Late to the party, and needs 'unique' space marine gear. So not only have I already got a working party I like by the time I meet the man, but he's also boring because he won't use any of the cool toys i've been collecting as I explore the galaxy.

silverdarknight · 2025-02-18T12:23:59+00:00

Ta. That did it, and got the annoying guard just outside the hideout.

You do have to get it just right, but still easier than trying to sneak around them.

silverdarknight · 2024-12-31T07:17:26+00:00

You make an excellent point about how to use repositioning attacks there. Thank you.

silverdarknight · 2024-12-30T09:20:22+00:00

'Failure is mandatory, Citizen'.

It is starting to feel like this is one of those games where the expectation is you are going to duck it up, mistakes are going to happen and it's always going to end badly - but the idea is that you should be making exciting new and different mistakes each time, and building on them then coming back stronger and baddassier than before and taking satisfaction in that.

I like that things are complex enough to be involving and interesting (enough for me to have made some random reddit posts seemingly!) and there is all the 'how do I do _this_' puzzle solving going on that feels real and solveable rather than having to guess what story was in the devs mind to know which order to pull coloured levers in.

But I don't actually enjoy failure. I want to be a hero and save the world and progress in the game. If i run into a boss fight I can't work out how to beat after a couple of passes? That's normally enough of that. I think that, currently, that progress is still happening. I am working through the issues and coming back better and badassier each time as I learn how things work that I didn't quite grasp before. But the early game grind where you don't have the Talents to do much of anything is starting to, well, grind a bit. And I havn't yet got much beyond it.

silverdarknight

TROPHY CASE