I'll add one of my own tips at the end, too, lol.

Originally posted by dixonjonny:

A few thoughts from my recent playthrough:

Guns:
Every researched gun is almost universally better than the prior. There's no reason not to go to toxigun unless you need a gun that explodes the terrain.

They don't hurt humans. Well, they do, but it's so miniscule it's really not effective. If your entire squad is equipped with toxiguns and that's all you have when some cult of sirius raid happens, you are ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Always have a backup option that is not a toxigun.

Toxin type B is effective enough to take you through the rest of the game vs aliens though, super powerful stuff, especially dual wielded in real time its insane rapid fire spray of extremely powerful bullets. Hardest part is capturing a multiworm alive, but it's not a difficult task. Get in there with stun grenades and stun grapples, you'll get it.

Originally posted by dixonjonny:

- Rumor is that dual-wielding guns is effective in realtime. I tried it to minimal effect, but you might until you have to switch out of realtime because of explosives.

IIRC this is a bug. You have to actually enable them to dual wield fire their guns. They don't do it by default so would have only been firing 1.

From what I remember, what you have to do, is for EACH soldier that is dual wielding, you have to left click and select their guns to create that red box around it, the one that allows you to manually aim a shot and changes your cursor to the aiming cursor. You then have to click the other gun, so they both have red boxes around them. Basically like you would do if you were trying to manually fire both guns at the same time on turn based.

Then cancel it with right click IIRC back so there are no red boxes around the guns.

After you do this they fire with both weapons in real time. I mean I haven't seriously played this game since I was young, but that's what I had to do to get them to do it. I assume it hasn't changed, why would it?

They really don't do it by default even with 2 guns equipped. If you change any of their guns out, too, like you pull a grenade out or something in 1 hand and then put your gun back, you have to do it again or they will only fire 1 gun even though 2 are equipped.

You can test this easily by giving them 2 entirely different guns. E.g. toxigun and devastator, or machine gun and mini launcher. You'll notice only the primary gun actually fires until you do this. The one on the right iirc is the Primary.


I will say though that doing this has a MASSIVE effect on your soldiers accuracy. I do not recommend dual wielding unless your soldier has the skill to do it and still hit anything.

All guns are definitely not equal when it comes to this. Dual wielding toxiguns (pistols) are a lot easier to do than for example dual wielding pigsnouts (devestator cannons). And some guns won't be affected at all, like mini launchers. No reason not to have 2 of these, lol.

There is actually a grey bar below the weapons iirc that shows your accuracy with it. Watch what happens to it when you dual wield, it goes to ♥♥♥♥. You need to have a lot of accuracy stat to keep that grey bar at least 1/3 or 1/2 full to actually be accurate. It will literally be 0 if you don't have enough accuracy to compensate for the dual wield penalty of the gun.

Originally posted by dixonjonny:

- Mutants are a toss-up. They will have the weakest combat prowess, but some people love psionics. I had a couple, but really it was only more for cool factor than usefulness.

Psionics are seriously overpowered. You can do stuff like, mind control an anthropod, arm it's vortex grenade to 0.0 seconds, drop its personal shield (or throw it at your soldiers) and then drop the vortex grenade on the ground killing itself and anything around it.

How long did it take you to do all of this? 0 seconds in real time, lol. Arming and dropping the grenade and dropping the shield and weapons on the ground also use 0 TU in turn based.

Use what ever TU or time left on your mind control it does have, to throw things you want to keep for selling / research etc at your soldiers first before you drop the grenade.

Mutants will generate slower combat skills and faster psionics and vice versa for regular humans. However, with enough dedication, provide regular humans PSI AMPS and mind scan (probe? I forget the name of it) everything you see with them, even regular humans can become psionic powerhouses, you just need to have the commitment to follow through with it and grind it up every chance you get.

Originally posted by dixonjonny:

- Androids are universally better out of the gate, and very useful at the beginning. But they don't grow.

The only use for androids is to suicide them. Useless. Yeah, slightly higher starting stats than humans. But only until you've ran a few missions. Useless, no growth, pointless soldiers, do not invest. Use as suicide bombs. They are immune to PSI but enemy PSI really doesn't matter worth a ♥♥♥♥ in this game compared to previous X-Coms. Mainly because it requires line of sight and you can deal with that directly.

Originally posted by dixonjonny:

Armor
Marsec is great because of flight, but it comes at the cost of defense. I would stick with Megapol until you get shields or you will see more deaths.

The speed and weight reduction on Marsec is underrated. It will have a massive and direct effect on your mobility and I don't just mean enabling flight.

Also, to gain the flight power, you only need the chest piece. No reason not to just give everyone a marsec chest if one is available, it's a pretty powerful tool to have when it literally nullifies half the enemies on the map that can't shoot, though keep in mind you suffer an accuracy penalty when your feet aren't on the ground.


MY TIP:- One that even veterans may not know.

J for Jump.

If you hold the J key and left click an adjacent tile, you can make your guys jump off ledges, out windows etc. Beware that you might be opening yourself up to take fall damage from large heights, but a floor or 2 is generally fine. Sometimes a better choice than letting that popper or swarm of multiworms run right up to you, eh? :)

Originally posted by Eightball:

MY TIP:- One that even veterans may not know.

J for Jump.

If you hold the J key and left click an adjacent tile, you can make your guys jump off ledges, out windows etc. Beware that you might be opening yourself up to take fall damage from large heights, but a floor or 2 is generally fine. Sometimes a better choice than letting that popper or swarm of multiworms run right up to you, eh? :)

Are you pulling my leg right now? I've been playing this game since it came out, probably on average about twice a year, (plus I owned the Prima strategy guide) and never knew about this.

Originally posted by Gumpo:

Originally posted by Eightball:

MY TIP:- One that even veterans may not know.

J for Jump.

If you hold the J key and left click an adjacent tile, you can make your guys jump off ledges, out windows etc. Beware that you might be opening yourself up to take fall damage from large heights, but a floor or 2 is generally fine. Sometimes a better choice than letting that popper or swarm of multiworms run right up to you, eh? :)

Are you pulling my leg right now? I've been playing this game since it came out, probably on average about twice a year, (plus I owned the Prima strategy guide) and never knew about this.

Try it, lol. It works, I kid you not. I guess I was right that even veterans might not know this ;)

I can't believe I never knew about J for jumping. I may need to replay to test that out! Why has no one mentioned how OP Toxic guns are against shields. Do everything you can to have them before the aliens have shields. Best way to get free shields for your troopers and to counter the aliens having them.

Originally posted by MaebeKnot:

I can't believe I never knew about J for jumping. I may need to replay to test that out! Why has no one mentioned how OP Toxic guns are against shields. Do everything you can to have them before the aliens have shields. Best way to get free shields for your troopers and to counter the aliens having them.

Yep, 100%. I think I never mentioned as I just take this for granted lol.