Part 36: Operation Noble Huscarl
Operation Noble Huscarl
Polsy
Nothing hugely spectacular on the mission front here, but some neat things going on the side. Guava points out some risks in base management and air coverage. Some of our soldiers get put into glowing purple tubes. We try out our brand new version of Fred. It can fly. And I prove within the shadow of a doubt that Guava is actually British.
I do enjoy the map selection for this mission. I think the fan base really spoke up about UFO recovery missions. Until EW it seemed like all of the UFO's crashed in the woods and there wasn't enough variety. I still wish there was a little more, like deserts for Egypt or tundra for Russia, but this map is at least a good start in mixing up UFO crash sites. Not only is it aesthetically different but the unusual broken structures really make navigating around it a lot different than the usual forest map. Since each map is hand made by the game devs, it's understandable that there are not a lot of area specific maps but I think that is something that would have been worth the time. It adds a nice touch and a personal touch of flavor to the game. I of course say this with no idea what the development cycle looked like and how much time they might have had to make it happen.
I forgot so you get Felinoids notes on this one. With a few changes by me.
Felinoid posted:
Absorption Fields
+Takes any shot that would do more than 33% damage of the max health of the MEC, and reduces it to 33% or less
+Important note: that's 33%, not 1/3. An 8 damage shot on a 24 health MEC will do 7 damage instead, because it can't do 7.92 damage
+Acts before any other damage reducing skill is applied (Damage Control or AssaultMEC perk), and thus pairs with them very well
---MECs have so much health that this won't end up doing much normally. Unless you abuse it...
Reactive Targeting Sensors
+Essentially a free Overwatch shot
+Did I mention it's a free shot?
+Jade Says Works great with Heavy MECs Body Shield. Force an enemy to take a poor shot, and then get shot back in return.
-Non-sniper MECs don't usually have the best aim, often leading to wasted ammo (crucial for MECs) against targets firing from high cover Jade Says Stop hiring low aim people then, you scrub. Screen for high aim people to be MEC'd. Low will doesn't matter as much when they are a MEC. Also low ammo count on MECs goes away by Colonel level. Expanded Storage + Ammo Conservation.
-Keep out of sight of aliens you want to capture
Reactive Targeting Sensors is the clear winner here because it'll actually do something. I Agree.
BUT, if you want to really use Absorption Fields, you can get creative. Since it's reducing to a percentage of the MEC's total health, their health total doesn't matter much. This means that a Colonel in a MEC-1 suit can take 2 or 3 shots just as well as if he were in a MEC-3 suit. Where it gets interesting is if you add Damage Control, a flat reduction, on top of that. A Classic Sniper Colonel or Impossible non-sniper Colonel will have 7 health without Hidden Potential. +8 for a MEC-1 suit is 15 health. When they take a shot, Absorption Fields will reduce the damage to 4. When they take a second shot, Damage Control kicks in too, reducing that shot's damage to 2. This means that you can take any 6 shots (4+2+2+2+2+2=14) and still stay standing, far more than any other thing in the game. This becomes even more ridiculous with Hidden Potential and a 4 health Colonel (only possible on Classic+) resulting in a 12 health MEC, as they will take 3-1-1-1-1-etc. Only the tenth shot will bring them down. Crazy. Plus if you stick this on an Assault MEC, chryssalids and berserkers are basically neutered (though you cannot ever reduce a hit to 0 damage as far as I know).
The obvious question then is: "What if they don't hit quick enough to keep Damage Control up?" Medkits work fine on MECs, and doubly so on these low health MECs, since you can repair up to 4 hits (10 health) with one. If you get a pause in the battle and your MEC's taken damage you'd probably be healing them anyway. Meanwhile 4 hits on a regular MEC would simply mean destruction, and those medkits may be healing only one hit at a time on them, thus you'd be using them just as frequently, if not more so. Don't be afraid to pour on the healing between encounters just because they're not damaged as much as you can heal.
The downsides are naturally that you lose the abilities and extra Will of the MEC-3 suit, the build really only works at Colonel and with people of specific health amounts, and on anything below Impossible, making a tank MEC just isn't necessary. On the upside it costs a quarter of the Meld to get them into full fighting shape (50 Meld vs. 210), and it's really amusing to have a MEC that gives even less shits than normal. Watching chryssalids and berserkers barely scratch the paint is hilarious.
Pretty much on the spot, though Felinoid undersells Reactive Targeting a little in my opinion. Then makes up for it by way over thinking Absorption Fields. It's impressive that could be done, and could be scary useful. Most of the time however it doesn't seem like that it would ever be necessary. A MEC that can take ten hits is impressive, but normally if you are running a mission and actually get hit ten times, then something is going very very wrong. Ten hits is a squad wipe most of the time. It's still impressive thinking by Felinoid to create a super tank like that, but I'd say it's unneeded. I'd rather get the extra gadgets that come along with MEC upgrades.