- If you're prone to making mistakes that you regret, consider using the pilot Isaac Jones. His ability allows you to reset your turn an additional time, giving you two mulligans.
My favorite pilot and the one that I always carry between games is... hmm, I can't remember her name, since I haven't played in months... the girl who can't be webbed. That's such a useful ability. I usually put her in my artillery unit, since that unit usually can't attack adjacent squares, meaning that it can't escape a webbing by killing the webber.
Shareefruck said:
- Reactor cores are probably your third highest priority (since they're immediate upgrades that take three whole reputation credits to buy), which make time pods super useful (they're easy to get because enemies don't target them, and they often come with a reactor core + a pilot/upgrade).
When I first started playing, I would capture the time pods as soon as possible. It took me a while to realize that that shouldn't be a priority. Not only will enemies not attack them; they also won't land on them as part of their turns. There are plenty of ways for the time pods to get destroyed (enemies or your mechs being pushed onto them, enemies being made to attack their square and so on), so it's generally a good idea to capture them, but it should be saved until it's safe to do so. It's often not safe to capture them in the first round because you have a lot of enemies attacking your buildings to worry about.
Shareefruck said:
- Block enemies from emerging from the ground if you can afford to. The ideal outcome is to push enemies into spawning areas so that they're hurt/killed by it AND another enemy does not emerge. But otherwise, standing on them yourself and repairing when appropriate is a useful strategy too. If I'm not mistaken, when one spawning point is blocked, more don't appear. Enemies spawn in close groups of three/four, so if you have one enemy running around with three more emerging, a smart thing to do is to let one pilot deal with the enemy running around (even if all three pilots could kill it faster) while the other two block spawning points (they can usually deal with the remaining enemy that's about to spawn right next to them pretty easily, often while remaining on a spawning point and continuing to block enemies). If you have a choice between blocking a spawning point and attacking a damaged enemy that isn't an immediate threat (even if the hit will kill it), it's probably smarter to block the spawning point instead (because the former will result in taking a hit and just dealing with one damaged enemy, whereas the latter results in dealing with one full health enemy and possibly a damaged one on top of that). Standing on top of three spawning points without any other enemies on the screen basically wins the mission, because you can basically just keep doing that while repairing until the turns run out.
This is one of the biggest tips in the game. It's very often the difference between having the mission completely under control and having it spiral out of control, at least on the harder difficulties. You simply cannot afford to have 4 enemies spawn when you still have enemies above ground. One of the holy grails of moves is to land on a spawn location and attack and kill another enemy, since you're figuratively killing two birds with one stone. Another holy grail move is to push an enemy onto a spawn location, especially if the pushed enemy has only one bar left.
Shareefruck said:
- When choosing missions, don't bite off more than you can chew. Usually, the missions that just involve protecting a building are easiest, because that's what you're trying to do anyways. Also, missions that only have a few buildings on the map concentrated in one area tend to be pretty easy. Missions with hazards sound like something to avoid, but it's actually kind of an advantage, because you can avoid them pretty easily and have more ways of killing enemies quickly. The worst missions that I always avoid are the ones that involve protecting something that's trying to attack the city or that spits out things that attack the city.
The worst missions are the ones that indicate a high level of Vek activity. Even though I play on Hard (or maybe because I do), I generally don't take those missions (unless I'm feeling masochistic or cocky) because it's nearly impossible to avoid taking massive building casualties on them. You'll usually get an extra power unit or reactor core for those missions, but that reward is just not worth losing half your power bar for. If you're struggling with the game, avoid those missions like the plague.
Shareefruck said:
- I find that spending reputation points on new upgrades and weapons are way less useful than spending them on power and reactor cores (unless you get lucky and find one that's super useful). Chances are, it will take a while to beef up the weapons that your mechs already come with by default anyways, so buying a bunch of weapons only delays your ability to become competent. In fact, my strategy is usually to sell every extra pilot or upgrade that I obtain other than the default ones for reputation points, and then spending all of my reputation points on reactor cores to beef up those default weapons (unless I'm desperate for power units).
I spend points on weapons and abilities only if I'm unhappy with the ones that I have or have empty slots. Unlike in other games, you don't really upgrade your weapons by buying new weapons. You upgrade them by buying reactor cores, installing them and using them on the weapons that you have to make them more powerful. As you suggested, you'll be much better off with a fully upgraded weapon, even if it's not your favorite weapon, than if you keep replacing them with barely upgraded weapons that you like more.
I think that Shareefruck mentioned this, but try to make enemies attack themselves whenever possible. That's another "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" situation, since you're protecting a friendly asset
and dealing damage to an enemy.
