LeFire

I don't know about cultist drones, oddly haven't encountered those yet. And I think (hope) up to 30-40 cultists may turn up with a combi of ACM and Heroic, haven't had time to play a Cultist mission today yet. Btw Okim, seems like Aftershock doesn't need MS office to be installed. My machine uses Open Office and Aftershock is pretty stable (only crashes if I fire a 40mm directly at an enemy). I found the following 7-man team setup the most flexible and successful, might be helpful to anyone looking for a balanced team for ACM games. 1st Section / 2nd Section (two 3-man teams) Fast Rifle (FR) 1 and 2: (Trooper/Sniper/Gunman) Heavy (HV) 1 and 2: (Gunman/Sniper/Technician) Long Rifle (LR) 1 and 2: (Sniper/Leader/Medic) Stay-In-Landing-Pod / Backup medic Medic: (Medic/Sniper/Leader) - All troopers have sniper training (usually sniper 1 training asap so they can use the +25% scopes) and eventually do kneecap shots to knock down at any range. All also have either Gunman or Leader HP bonus for survivability. All wear medium armor and med helmets (with int boost). - Fast Rifle 1 (and 2) uses a 5.56mm weapon with the fastest aim time possible, underslung 40mm explosive grenade and agility mod on his armor. The purpose of FR1 is to move forward first, take a spot of cover, then allow HV1 and LR1 to move up parallel to his position. Then FR1 moves forward again. FR1 can take down solo targets if they can be dropped with 1 burst (eg unarmored rets), but otherwise, FR1's job is to simply draw fire... Once the enemy aims at FR1 (he stops and raises his gun), FR1 breaks line of sight, forcing the other guy to reaim. By then, HV1 and LR1 are already firing. In panic mode (FR1 runs into a big crowd), he fires the explosive 40mm (for mass knockdown) and runs like hell (eventually, Gunman 3 will stop knockdown, allowing point-blank 40mm fire). FR's train Trooper 1, then Sniper 1 first. - HV1 uses a machinegun and carries landmines. Since FR1 always draws fire first, this gives time for the slower MG to be aimed. HV2 uses a dedicated sniper rifle, e.g. a 50 cal. The purpose of the HV is to deal with hard targets (e.g. cyborgs with gunman 3, wargot power armor) that can't be knockdowned. Raw damage is preferable for those foes. HV's train Gunman 1, then Sniper 1. Armour usually has strength mods for their heavier weapons. - LR1 (and 2) carry longer ranged 7.62mm type weapons. Their purpose is to give supporting fire and leader auras to FR1 and HV1. The longer ranged 7.62 allows them to hang back a little (they are not knockdown-proof). LR's train Sniper 1, then Leader 1 and 2, then Medic 1, 2 and 3. - Pod medic simply acts as a fallback plan in case both LR's get killed. Trains Medic 1, 2 and 3 first. - I don't use melee weapon specialists, they break the immersion of my game.

Btw, I tried it out and it worked perfect. Had 20 rets against my 7 man section. More challenge, a little more exp, and one of my troopers actually received a light laser rifle injury (hadn't had any injuries for the last 10 or so missions).

Hi Okim, Would just like to thank you for adding so much to this game. I'm running a Superhuman-level ACM 1.9 / ironman (no tactical saves or reloads for losses) / human-troopers only style game and am enjoying it greatly. It was admittedly difficult at the start, requiring me to constantly rotate troops to replace the wounded (the muckstars being the greatest cause of sickbay visits, since they tend to see and shoot you first), but now I have hit a pretty good stride with a platoon of 24 experienced troopers (including 2 level 3 medics). Casualties are 6 KIA (including 2 of the 4 originals), 2 released due to severe injuries / irritating voices (1 of them from the 4 originals) and uncountable WIA... Every single one of the 24 has been wounded before. Stuff I really love are: 1.) The helmet and armor injectors: Amazing stuff. Allows troopers to get training done a lot sooner than before (due to the temp stat boosts qualifying them). Yeah, it may feel like a little 'exploit' getting trainings earlier than they should, but it adds to the RPG fun of getting specialised troopers early. 2.) The handheld injector kits: A +3 punch to a stat is a big jump in combat ability. However, I limit myself to just 1 hit of intelligence booster per trooper, as more than 2 hits turns experienced troopers into critical hit killing machines (no fun in that). 3.) The printing of the aiming speeds in the weapon description: This was the biggest plus that converted me into an ACM user . Time management is critical for high level play, and ACM provides the right info for it. I use a lot of fire-and-movement to keep my troops alive. By knowing which weapons are fastest, I can constantly make sure a covering buddy with a sufficiently fast weapon is always in range to drop any threats spotted ahead by a moving soldier. However, I feel that I need a harder game to keep things exciting Can I combine shadowarrior's Heroic Assault mod with ACM and not break my game?