New To This Game? Read This Brief Guide First!
1. Right near the beginning of the game, you will be trying to cross several windowed gaps while an alien gunship is trained on you. There is a well-known movement glitch here that can cause a lot of unwarranted frustration if you don't know what to do.
In conjunction with the standard keyboard method for this type of movement, I found that a quick way to traverse these initial gaps is to first rotate your field of view TOWARDS the windows, then hold down the [F] key and tap [L-SHIFT]. The approximate viewing angle you should achieve is shown below:
So, in other words, you're not facing forward to cross these particular gaps -- you're facing outside.
And, as you can infer from this, the same concept applies elsewhere in the game, whenever you need to cross a gap in cover...
2. The [space bar], normally used to jump in most other games, is bound to the Battle Focus Interface mode. In case you miss the on-screen help message near the beginning of the game, press [w] [L-SHIFT] [L-SHIFT] to jump over or onto things (yes, awkward, but that's how they designed it...). The game will not allow you to rebind the jumping action to a single key...
3. Of the four Class types available, emphasize Recon and Commando for your agent choices:
This is particularly important later in the game when the battles get a lot tougher. Both of these classes are probably best-equipped to handle such challenges and will help ensure your survival, as well as the successful outcome of any particular mission. (However, this does not totally preclude the other two classes for consideration. Experiment and see what works best for you...)
4. Of the many types of Equipment Packs, try just sticking with either the Standard Medical Pack or the Endurance Pack for each agent:
One thing to remember about managing a squad: no matter what kind of specializied equipment they may be carrying in their backpack, they are no good to you if they are constantly bleeding out and needing assistance. Nothing is more aggravating than to have to stop what you are doing in the heat of battle and play Medic, only to return to your plan of attack and find the enemy has now flanked you and is rapidly closing in on your position. Enabling your agents with additional health and endurance from the get-go will help prevent this.
Of course, as with the Class choice, you can experiment with the other Equipment packs to see if one or more give you an additional edge. Maybe some will. But, in order to earn the fairly rare No One Left Behind Gold Medal achievement at the end of the game, you need to prevent any of your agents from completely bleeding out and dying. So, keep that in mind...
5. If one or more of your squad members starts taking too many hits from suddenly exiting his cover and running out into battle, just press [F2] to command an immediate regroup at your position. This prevents the often recurrent chore of having to go find them and personally restore health if they have bled out and are now incapacitated and requesting help. A real pain because it means that once you've administered the health -- and your temporary shielding ends -- you could literally be an arm's length away from a Muton, who could then just clobber you. Potentially very frustrating. So, don't hesitate to make use of this function key as often as the situation requires...
6. Learn the timeouts for the various abilities that are bound to the buttons on the Battle Focus Interface. Aside from the ones used to command your agents, probably the most important is the Heal button (the cross at the far left) which performs a 'global' health regeneration (that means you, too):
This function resets fairly quickly (about a minute), so make sure you use it often, especially when one or both agents are in low health and are at risk of being incapacitated. Remember, if one of your agents bleeds out completely and dies, you will have to make do with just that one remaining agent and yourself until the end of the battle, which could be a real challenge if the agent is somewhat new. So, basically, you can't call in reinforcements (i.e. recruit another agent) until after the battle...
7. Emphasize the alien weapons as soon as you can. This includes when they become available as upgrades for your squad members! There are some that fire quickly and have relatively large magazines (e.g. Laser SMG first then, later on, the plentiful Laser Pulse Rifle). One in particular that is especially useful not just for close combat with armored targets, but also makes quick work of the gunships, is the Rotary Plasma Cannon, as seen here:
This weapon has a somewhat slow spin-up time but its rate-of-fire is high, total ammo huge (450) and damage devastating. As soon as you find one of these, hang on to it for good!
8. Later on, when one of your agents (Recon class) reaches Level 5 rank, you'll get the Fire Mission ability (i.e. aerial bombardment), which will allow you to target a certain area with a localized artillery strike where the aliens have temporarily clustered:
This one doesn't reset as fast (about 2 minutes) but is WAY more valuable than just having agents set mines or you throwing Sticky Grenades (the latter of which should be reserved for other things, which I will explain below...) Works indoors, too! So, watch for it and make use of it when it becomes available via the BFI...
9. After each battle, police up the area and pick up any remaining Sticky Grenades that you can find until you reach your max (6). When encountering the various armored aliens (e.g. Sectopods), carefully aim and then toss one of these right at the midsection of the target. As the name implies, it will 'stick' there, for maximum effect:
All it takes is 3 or 4 of these in rapid succession to quickly soften up armored targets for easier takedowns. Otherwise, the risk of running out of ammo becomes high, especially against Mutons.
That's all I can think of for now. Hope these pointers help.
Now go kick some alien @ss !
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=304844545
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