Dimension Gate Generator help (final mission)

[Nilex]

I basically stopped playing in 1998 just after entering Alien dimension. Returned in 2005 and made short work of the Aliens, until I quit again because the final mission was a bit too much to handle. So today at my third attempt (with same saves I've been carrying this whole time) all my wisdom accumulated of the years still proves insufficient to beat the last building.

 

There is a catch though, I probably could beat it - I just don't want ANY injuries... Unacceptable.

 

My soldiers (20) all have Disruptor Armor with Marsec torso (flying), Devastators, Cloak and 2x Shield. Four guys have Dimension Missile Launcher instead Devastator. Total cookie cutter, no brain cells required, killer squad - until this last mission. The problem is on the open fields Aliens eventually just spam Dimension Missiles beyond visual range (despite cloak) and I can go F myself. Getting mind controlled don't help either. Feel totally powerless. Turn based is even worse. Game is beaten in every other way, money is non-issue, everything is researched, etc.

 

Is there a way to cheese through this? Specialized gear perhaps? Go wild, Thanks.

SAVEGAME.zip

[Nilex]

LOL OK... Nevermind.

 

After some tries I got lucky with the North spawn (safest in my experience) and Aliens arrived in manageable fashion. So I KILLED EM ALL!

Time to finally watch my well deserved end animation for the first time ever. Who said patience doesn't pay off?

 

Btw, seems getting hit by enemy fire lights your soldiers for Aliens from across the map. Then they fire and chain reaction starts... The trick was not getting spotted and quickly kill those that try come near. Move fast but in short intervals and wait. Stay further away from corner Alien spawn tubes so they can't instantly spot you.

 

Case closed (after 22 years)

[magic9mushroom]

I basically stopped playing in 1998 just after entering Alien dimension. Returned in 2005 and made short work of the Aliens, until I quit again because the final mission was a bit too much to handle. So today at my third attempt (with same saves I've been carrying this whole time) all my wisdom accumulated of the years still proves insufficient to beat the last building.

 

There is a catch though, I probably could beat it - I just don't want ANY injuries... Unacceptable.

 

My soldiers (20) all have Disruptor Armor with Marsec torso (flying), Devastators, Cloak and 2x Shield. Four guys have Dimension Missile Launcher instead Devastator. Total cookie cutter, no brain cells required, killer squad - until this last mission. The problem is on the open fields Aliens eventually just spam Dimension Missiles beyond visual range (despite cloak) and I can go F myself. Getting mind controlled don't help either. Feel totally powerless. Turn based is even worse. Game is beaten in every other way, money is non-issue, everything is researched, etc.

 

Is there a way to cheese through this? Specialized gear perhaps? Go wild, Thanks.

Using all Disruptor Armour (rather than the Marsec chest piece) significantly improves survivability vs. Dimension Missiles. With all Disruptor Armour, you can shrug off half a dozen direct hits (they'll still take out shields, though, so an Entropy Pod is bad news).

 

Toxin B and especially Toxin C are far more potent than Devastators due to both simple firepower (one-handed gun, and fires 5x as fast as the Devastator) and the fact that they go through shields. Skeletoids usually get one-shotted by Toxin C. This matters even for stopping their BVR fire, because the AI doesn't cheat; they need a spotter just like you do.

 

The other trick to that mission is simply to speedrun it. The objectives are right in front of you and you only have to blow up half of them; you can win the mission within a minute if you put your mind to it.

 

I've beaten that mission via killing all aliens with toxins, and without toxins I've speedrun it (that was harder). I was using larger squads, though (24 or 28).

 

Also, yes, getting hit reveals cloaked units. This applies to you and to aliens.

 

EDIT: Toxins also make Psimorphs cry, because they bypass your shields without damaging them and then bounce off your armour (all X-COM armour has a 70% resistance to toxins).

[magic9mushroom]

To clarify on the armour issue - Disruptor Armour has a 40% resistance to explosive damage. 6 direct hits from Dimension Missiles is 12 instances of damage (missiles do damage on impact and then again on explosion), so that's 2 hits to each body part and 3 to 2 parts. Let's be pessimistic and say they're to the arms.

 

The helmet and chest plate are armour rating 75. 66 damage after resistance does no bleedthrough and 2 points of armour damage per hit. No health damage after just 2 hits.

 

The arms and legs are armour rating 65. 66 damage after resistance does 1 bleedthrough and 3 points of armour damage, the second hit does 4 bleedthrough and another 3 armour damage, and the third does 7 bleedthrough and another 3 armour damage. Adding up 3 hits to each arm and two to the legs gives 29 total health damage; bruised, but no critical wounds and still definitely kicking.

 

On the other hand, the Marsec chest plate is rating 35 and only has a 20% resistance to explosives. 88 damage after resistance does 53 bleedthrough and 7 armour damage; a single hit to the chest is a serious health hit and two is death.

 

(It's a little more complicated than this, as there's a damage roll for the impact damage. But you get the point.)

[NKF]

Completely agreed on wearing full suits of Disrupter Armour.

 

As for cheesing the final mission, as long as you know what you're doing, it's easy enough to do. The easiest is probably with teleporters if you've played long enough to unlock them. Chain teleport your team around one of each generator pair, disable them and then teleport back to the landing area and leg it out of the mission.

 

To cheese it without teleporters, good old dakka is all you need. A bit of mass synchronized blind firing of highly inaccurate dual Devastator Cannons from the landing areas in the general vicinity of the generators should work. You might need to reposition a bit to get better angles.

[Nilex]

Yeah me returning after 20 years, being clueless and right in the hornet nest didn't help.

 

I just grind it out and got lucky. Read about the Toxin C before making this topic but situation didn't get desperate enough to switch from Devastators. And from quick glance I don't remember even having it available, only B. Would require some more investigating but I just wanted to get it over with ASAP! Remember, completing the objectives wasn't an issue, it was doing it without anyone getting injured (even loss of shields was unacceptable - looks too crappy in the UI ).

 

Thank you both for advice!

[magic9mushroom]

highly inaccurate dual Devastator Cannons

 

Funnily enough, at high Accuracy they're actually not very inaccurate at all. The penalty for autofire and for dual-wielding two-handed weapons both only apply to the inaccuracy term from agent inaccuracy, which becomes negligible past Accuracy of 90 or so - at that point, all that matters is the inaccuracy of the weapon itself, and Devastators are more accurate than anything else except the Laser Sniper Gun.

 

I just grind it out and got lucky. Read about the Toxin C before making this topic but situation didn't get desperate enough to switch from Devastators. And from quick glance I don't remember even having it available, only B.

 

Toxin C is a pain to get, yes. However, my table says that even B is 3-4x the firepower of the Devastator (and that's not including the fact that it ignores shields). C is more like 5-6x.

 

The Toxigun is horrifyingly lethal.