Part 35: Operation Deadly Canadian

Operation Deadly Canadian


Polsy



A fairly easy mission today, as it is every day when EXALT are involved. Skippy joins us to chat about things like Mimetic Skin, playing wiffle ball as a kid, and Ricky Gundersons mother.



Since this the first field test of Mimetic Skin, may as well talk about it some. Mimetic skin turns a soldier invisible under certain conditions. Conditions that are pretty easy to follow, but have one or two details to be aware of. The first is that the soldier needs to be out of sight of any enemy units at the start of their move. The second is that they need to end their turn in high cover, and yes, this combines with Low Profile for possibly the most broken skill combo in the game. Lastly they need to stay in cover. If a stray shot or explosive blows away their cover then the soldier will lose invisibility. Obviously aggressive actions like shooting will reveal them as well.

The way Mimetic skin works was really counter intuitive to me, and I'm curious why they chose to implement it as they did. Requiring you to not be seen beforehand make a little sense I guess, but then it cloaks you as you very likely run through open space with nothing to hide against even as you charge right next to an enemy. I just always figured it would make more sense for Mimetic skin to cloak the soldier after their move, instead of before it. I suppose in practice this would only make it take one movement more to set up perma-invis running around, but its always felt a little weird how it works now, cloaking before you move into the high cover you're supposed to be using to camouflage yourself with.

The tactical opportunities for invisible soldiers is pretty obvious right away. It makes covert operation missions very, very easy. Not that they really needed it before, but if you sweat the small stuff like operative extractions then it is there. For your main body of soldiers though it is invaluable. Being able to safely dash forward (as long as you can find a piece of high cover) in reveal the map if you're in a hurry is great. Even if you're not in a hurry finding and not activating a pack of aliens because you spotted them with an invisible soldier is great and really lets you set up and prepare to ambush them. Invisible people also make the best spotters for Squadsight snipers, and better still if they are ITZ as you pick one off before activating the group. Or rocket/grenade a spotted group of enemies before they activate. Essentially Mimetic skin lets you get the jump on the enemies in a lot of circumstances and comes in handy in a wide array of situations.

The only downside to Mimetic Skin now is the cost. The Meld cost of it was significantly rebalanced at some point. Before it was the hands down best gene mod to put on every soldier, and didn't cost too much to make a 4-6 man squad of invisible soldiers. Now at 65 meld per soldier it's a pretty hefty investment of resources, and something you will unlikely be able to apply across the board to your soldiers. If you still want to go for it, I'd suggest sticking it on assaults primarily for the times when they need to move a long distance, scouting, closing on an enemy but don't have a shot that turn, or just for the critical chance boost from attacking while cloaked. After that, maybe supports to keep your medics safe from enemy fire so they can patch people up. Your uses and applications may vary.