Squad Leader Archive

Just played for about five or six hours with my MBH/MM/MSL toon running missions out of the imperial outpost on talus. The group was 4 players, including myself, and occasionally two pets. It started out as an experiment to see how fast a group could grind xp, and turned out to be a real blast.

Observations:

• Solo grouping is dead, dead, dead. It's now counter productive. You get more mobs at a lair with a larger group, just like always, but since everyone gets full xp if they do enough damage you actually earn xp faster cooperating with others.


• My initial impression is that income will go down. Missions take longer, even with a good sized group. On the up side you're no longer splitting the mission payout.


• You can't just run missions on autopilot, the creatures you actually get xp for are too dangerous. If someone decides to start hotdogging it, the group will probably get in real trouble.


• Squad Leader may not be vital, but it is extremely useful. I don't think I used /formUp once, but I was using rally a lot. I also used /retreat more than once to help a teammate get out of a bad situation.


• /rally doesn't seem to interfere with harvesting anymore.


• /rally combined with duelist stance seems to be a pretty good defense


• Get good stimpacks or bring a medic/doc/combat medic.

I'd also like to say that a big fear of mine was put to rest. Combat levels in our group were: 80. 67 ( I think ) 17, and 5 or 6. Obviously the less advanced characters couldn't deal as much damage, but they weren't nearly as fragile as I was afraid they would be. It is definitely possible to have a group with disparate combat levels and still be effective. Your mileage may vary.