A few questions

[snakeye]

Hello all,

 

I have being playing UFO:AS for a few days now. Have started 3 games so far trying out things.

 

On my last game I run into the cultists and it seems to me that having only light armour and simple weaponry they killed my guys in a flash.

 

I also saw that by refusing missions and reinitiating them, I can avoid aggression against the other factions.

 

I have 2 questions:

 

Do I have to have some advanced weaponry before attempting to defend against cultists? Things like medium/heavy armour, etc

 

If I keep refusing missions till i get the friendly ones, is that hurting my faction/game?

 

Thank you in advance...

[Darkfyre]

It varies on the mission refusal. Refusing to do missions where you have to capture someone of an allied faction or take their province by force doesn't seem to affect things, however, refusing to assist them in times of need drops your relationship with them a fair bit and potentially screws you over as well because the Cultists might take the province from the allied faction.

 

On the weapons front, I've confronted and beaten cultists in light armour, however I used level 7+ troops with training and manufactured weapons. You really need to get armour, be able to create your own weapons and ammunition and have a squad of fairly strong soldiers. Also, having someone with a machine gun comes in handy, as do snipers. I've had a psionic sniper kill reticulans in one or two shots and units armed with XM8s kill them in a single volley.

[Accounting Troll]

The cultists often use armour piercing ammunition and weapon addons like gyrostabilisers, which can make them dangerous.

 

If their rifles are more powerful than yours, consider the possibility of having a couple of guys with submachine guns ambushing the cultists in a confined space

[snakeye]

It varies on the mission refusal. Refusing to do missions where you have to capture someone of an allied faction or take their province by force doesn't seem to affect things, however, refusing to assist them in times of need drops your relationship with them a fair bit and potentially screws you over as well because the Cultists might take the province from the allied faction.

 

On the weapons front, I've confronted and beaten cultists in light armour, however I used level 7+ troops with training and manufactured weapons. You really need to get armour, be able to create your own weapons and ammunition and have a squad of fairly strong soldiers. Also, having someone with a machine gun comes in handy, as do snipers. I've had a psionic sniper kill reticulans in one or two shots and units armed with XM8s kill them in a single volley.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank you for the helpful reply. My problem is that in my game they appeared quite early where most of my guys were struggling for weapons and only had what we recovered. Although I have built multiple labs and factories, production seems very slow (1-2 days for 1 light armour). In all honesty I attacked the cultists with nothing more than 3 soldiers. Maybe I need more muscle. But from what I saw, they were kitted out, while I am struggling to discover weapons....

 

....hmm back to the design board for me I guess.....

[Slaughter]

Confined spaces with Spas shotguns if you have any. Make sure you use burst and snapshot

[snakeye]

Confined spaces with Spas shotguns if you have any. Make sure you use burst and snapshot

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Just to let you know, i took your advice and success! I had 3 guys: 2 short-range specilists and 1-rifle specialist. Used the fastest guy to pull them behind a corner where the other 2 were waiting with shotguns armed!

 

It was a slaughter! The medium/heavy armour those cultists had did nothing to stop my guys filling them with shotgun goodness! One by one, they fell on the same spot!

 

Cleared the whole map and got me some sweet spoils of war! and I mean sweeeeeeeet! Amongst them a laser sniper rifle with gyrostabiliser and can castrate a fly a mile away!

 

Thank you again!

[Slaughter]

Glad to hear that mate!

 

And now that you have a sniper rifle, it's time to train a few. 3rd level snipers with the ability to target bodyparts are MEAN!

[Darkfyre]

Even a first level sniper with a good enough "Long Range" skill is nasty. That Psi/sniper I mentioned in my last post? I had her up in what looked like a watch tower structure the first time I took her equiped with the las-sniper rifle and she killed three out of four reticulans on that mission in one shot, the fourth took her two or three, but still... and she can currently hit things around 85m away compared to the 70 the rifle has as the base range.

[Paranoid Jack]

The Cult is the best supplier of weapons no matter what stage you are in. You can get every weapon you could possibly need from them... if you want it that way.

 

I also learned early on to lead them into an ambush or if you have them cornered frag them with an incendiary grenade. Then pick up all their nice weapons.

 

I can't wait to restart again after I finish so that I can try new approaches.

 

I have yet to manufacture any armor other than light and I had no issue taking out the cult with level three to five squads. The key is speed and cross-fire.

 

I got my first Sonic Weapon yesterday from a Cultist Borg. I was there to help him but I liked his weapon so much I knocked him out and took it. The list at Mission Successful didn't show it but it appeared in my inventory none the less.