[The E]

I've split out the drama. Please continue your regularly scheduled XCOM talk.

[crizza]

My post was no drama 
But heck, that guy got a powerfist 

[Lorric]

Heh. Neither was mine.

I'll just pop it back in:

"This is stupid on the part of whoever made that game. Why don't they just take a page out of KOEI's book with Dynasty Warriors' Xtreme Legends expansions?"

[Phantom Hoover]

you know lorric it'd help a lot if you actually explained what you think is better about their expansions

[Lorric]

Ah sure. They tend to retail at half the price of a full price game. You buy one, and I guess the disc contains everything. However, when you load the game, unless you only want to play expansion features (the games are also standalone for the expansion features) you'll have to select "Original", and then it will want to read your original disc, so you take the expansion disc out, put the original disc in, it reads the disc, and then you put the expansion disc back in and get access to everything with the new features merged with the original game.

I never bought DW7 Xtreme Legends, but I think they improved it with that one, you don't have to do this every time, I think you do it once and it lasts a few days before you have to do it again.

EDIT: the whole disc-swap procedure takes less than a minute. Probably about 20secs for me.

[NGTM-1R]

New achievements are out. We are confirmed for base defense at the least. Possible human enemies as well.

[crizza]

Finally. It always itched me, that the Aliens were not able to attack the base.

[NGTM-1R]

There's a new trailer out that has the base attack in it, something about "covert missions", and most importantly, Central Officer Bradford pistol-whipping somebody.

Oh and a gameplay video.

Your previous directive to preserve all human life on Earth has been rescinded. You are to use all available resources to locate and eliminate these traitors.

Welp!

[Scourge of Ages]

This gon' be good.

[deathfun]

So is this good?
Haven't got it myself yet, and just realized it was released

[NGTM-1R]

Punchin' Chryssalids through walls, awwwwww yeaaaah.

(Yes, it's awesome.)

[NGTM-1R]

You know, just when I think my cybernetic death machines have stopped being impressive, I find new hilarity they can inflict upon the enemy.

There's an upgrade to the KSM. I don't even know why. It already is the single most powerful attack in the game, but screw it! Let's make it 50% more powerful! Punt that sectoid 25 feet instead of 15!

[Fury]

The furthest I ever made it in the XCOM was sometime after I assaulted alien base and captured its commander. Do you think I should finish the original campaign before getting the expansion?

[NGTM-1R]

Not strictly necessary. The campaigns play out in a very similar fashion, really, so it might be better not to.

[Fury]

I have concluded that MECS are useless. They might look pretty cool, but they have severe issues.
1) MECS require a ton of Meld to build and especially upgrade. I learned this the hard way when I decided to deploy three MECS. I feel the Meld is much better spent on genetic enhancements.
2) They have even higher aim penalties than Heavies do. I mean seriously, I feel like they can't hit a barn door unless they are standing right next to it.
3) Despite being mostly machine now, they are still subject to mind control unlike SHIVs.
4) They gain experience slower.

Meld is much better spent on genetic enhancements, especially on Psi troops. Psi assault and support troops with neural damping, hyper-reactive pupils, adrenal neurosympathy, bioelectric skin and adaptive bone marrow are absolute terminators. Equip them with ghost armor, alloy cannons and plasma rifles and end-game becomes laughably easy. Heavies and snipers are a lot less useful. Snipers do have convenient squad sight, but it is way too situational and it's really up to luck how useful they will be in a mission where map is random. Archangel armor negates this somewhat, but I think I'd rather give the slot(s) to either assault or support instead. Heavies used to be easier to pick with their +100 HEAT bonus, but now that it is down to 50% in the expansion, why don't I just pick assault or support instead? Assaults deal just as much damage and support can take over suppression role from heavies and still be able to heal.

4 assaults and 2 supports is my preferred go-to squad. High mobility, high utility, high versatility and doesn't lose in sustained firepower. A MEC that can hit with its particle cannon sure deals nice burst damage, but when it misses half the time...

[Hades]

1) You're not meant to field so many at a time, I think. They're fairly specialized and powerful.
2) I've not noticed this. The MEC I made from an assault trooper has nearly sniper-level ability to hit stuff, in fact he's managed 160~ kills over 32 missions
3) I have also NEVER had mine mind controlled. Not a single time, while my psi-support and assault get mindcontrolled.

[StarSlayer]

I like them simply because they can tank damage for the rest of the team and can go toe to toe with any zenos enemy I've encountered. 

Plus there was a little council mission in Canada that would have been an absolute nightmare if not for having MECs.  I don't think even my First Team from Enemy Unknown could have pulled it off without casualties.

[IronBeer]

I'm going to parrot Hades on the first point- MECs work best as a lone disruptive force with a team to back them up, not as the team themselves. I wound up preferring to make them from Heavies and building them with close-range damage and survivability. Perhaps it was just my trooper, but I noticed that accuracy was somewhat lower than other soldiers though still acceptable, and mind control was a significant problem despite the augments' Will boost. Maybe I just had bad rolls on Psi defense.

That said, I do think genemods are the stronger investment in the long run, but there are pros and cons to either regime. Gene-enhanced troopers can be killed (albeit at great difficulty if you've played your augments correctly), wasting all the Meld invested in them. MECs have a certain degree of security in the armor itself, though Meld used to augment the trooper will be lost on death and the armor will need some for repairs. Conversely, MEC armor requires a lot of Meld up-front to hit the top-level gear, and genemodded troops can invest their Meld at a more controlled pace.

It mostly comes down to preference since both regimes open up whole new worlds of tactical options..... but I used the word "mostly" due to one as-yet unconsidered factor: Psi. I'm pretty much certain MECs cannot become Psykers, and that kinda hurts their lategame potential in my book. The sheer tactical havoc that strong Psykers can wreak is all but unmatched.

[NGTM-1R]

It mostly comes down to preference since both regimes open up whole new worlds of tactical options..... but I used the word "mostly" due to one as-yet unconsidered factor: Psi. I'm pretty much certain MECs cannot become Psykers, and that kinda hurts their lategame potential in my book. The sheer tactical havoc that strong Psykers can wreak is all but unmatched.

This is semi-negated by the Progeny content, which gives you at least one and I think actually four of them for sure. So the end result is that you can actually do both, if you want.

[IronBeer]

So the end result is that you can actually do both, if you want.

My first Enemy Within run was actually done more-or-less just like that. I didn't use any of the Progeny Psykers, but I did have an full-minus-one squad of heavily genemodded Psykers backing up a max rank "brawler" MEC. While the Progeny Psykers did have outstanding stats, they received classes that I already had covered elsewhere, and I didn't feel like training them up.