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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Rookies V.s. Med Scout


SaintD

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[Edit: Whoops, meant to post this in "Xcom 1 Strategy and Tactics: Battlescape "]

 

UFO: Meduim Scout (intact)

Difficulty: SuperHuman

Crew: 14 random rookies with personal armour

Terrain: Farm

Enemy: Sectoid

Equipment:

  • 10 Laser Rifles

  • 4 laser pistols

  • 4 rocket launchers with 2 rounds hvy rocket each.

  • 10 hi explosives (not the XCOMUTIL UFO breaching kind)

  • 10 prox grenades

  • 8 smoke grenades

  • 2 med kits

  • 1 motion scanner

 

Area is clear except for UFO. It's time to bust down the door. There are at least 3 sectoids in the UFO.

 

The challenge: Storm the UFO, take out the aliens and have a reasonable chance of zero deaths. Is this possible (and repeatable)? What's your strategy?

 

I started a new game and so far I haven't recovered a single UFO without losing at least one rookie.

Edited by SaintD
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I have no tactic that works for 100%, but there is one idea. Use a motion scanner to catch the lucky moment: all aliens have moved a lot and some of them stay behind the UFO power source. Enter the UFO. If all sectoids are turned away from the door, the rest is easy -- enterer runs away and someone launches a rocket inside.

 

If sectoids are turned to the door, it is a bad luck. However, soldier with laser rifle usually kills sectoid in such close range with autofire burst.

 

 

The main trouble is to open that door and not to cause reaction fire from aliens. In XCOM 2 doors can be opened without stepping inside, it is better.

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My tactic was always just patience. Seemed to work fine in the past. Wait long enough and the aliens will eventually leave the craft. (This is kind of backed up by a recent discovery that the aliens get a free look around the map at turn 20). So to boil it down, I'd just wait a few more turns to see what happens. ;)

 

If that doesn't work, then you may need to take a more direct approach. Unfortunately, "direct" usually means putting soldiers in harms way so there may well be casualties. You just have to minimize them. Like Fomka mentioned though: use the Motion Scanner to see (approximately) how many aliens are inside the craft and their location. Aliens may not move though, so be aware. If that was my team, I'd send in a soldier with a Laser Rifle and a proxy first. If there are any aliens facing him, shoot them first and ignore the other ones. If you are lucky and none of the aliens are looking at the door it's fairly easy to end the mission without a single death: saturate the inside with plenty of big explosions.

 

You could always kill as many aliens as possible on the map, then haul everything back to your transport and abort the mission. Or heck, if you don't want to risk it, just ignore the Medium Scouts altogether. Nothing says you have to visit every mission. In fact, I rarely visit Medium Scouts when I have an Avenger with dual plasma beams. Just shoot them down for the points and forget about loot or Elerium. You'll make it up with the other larger ships. :)

 

Edit: moved to the correct forum.

 

- Zombie

Edited by Zombie
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The problem with storming the medium scout early is the proximity you'll be in. There's no way you can open the door without coming face to face with an alien. Even if you get saved by mutual surprise, you're stuck in a position where you're facing multiple aliens who've got a higher initiative than you. Any action you take such as running away or even fighting back (and taking some down in the process), the others - often the ones that are out of immediate view - will be in a ripe position to react against you. Not a good prospect at all.

 

Luckily you won't have to face any psi users amongst that bunch, so there's no rush to get the mission over and done with immediately. Just go the patient route and let them come to you. Better to fight on your terms rather than theirs.

 

If you don't mind abusing an exploit there is also the the 'wall-that-is-not-quite-a-wall' trait of the west and north hull segments that you can use to your advantage. Fire explosives or toss grenades into them and that'll wipe out a generous chunk of the interior of the UFO for you. Stun bombs or even repeated shelling with AC-Incendiary rounds will do the trick too.

 

Or a more unusual variation is to walk into these walls by walking into them from a different elevation. Of course, with all the setup time required, the aliens will probably have ambled out of the ship anyway. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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The problem with storming the medium scout early is the proximity you'll be in. There's no way you can open the door without coming face to face with an alien. Even if you get saved by mutual surprise, you're stuck in a position where you're facing multiple aliens who've got a higher initiative than you. Any action you take such as running away or even fighting back (and taking some down in the process), the others - often the ones that are out of immediate view - will be in a ripe position to react against you. Not a good prospect at all.

 

Luckily you won't have to face any psi users amongst that bunch, so there's no rush to get the mission over and done with immediately. Just go the patient route and let them come to you. Better to fight on your terms rather than theirs.

 

If you don't mind abusing an exploit there is also the the 'wall-that-is-not-quite-a-wall' trait of the west and north hull segments that you can use to your advantage. Fire explosives or toss grenades into them and that'll wipe out a generous chunk of the interior of the UFO for you. Stun bombs or even repeated shelling with AC-Incendiary rounds will do the trick too.

 

Or a more unusual variation is to walk into these walls by walking into them from a different elevation. Of course, with all the setup time required, the aliens will probably have ambled out of the ship anyway. ;)

 

- NKF

 

I have been experimenting with the seige strategy. I had one mission without a loss that way. Saddly my laptop was unplugged and it went into hibernate before I saved the game. CE doesn't like that and I had to do the mission again. I didn't do as well and lost my best guy when I put directly in front of the door only 10 squares away. Alien shot him, the squad all reaction fired and killed it.

 

I don't exploit the walls and I have mixed feelings about the waiting till turn 20. I also don't like to blow up the goodies in the UFO if I can help it. I will wreck the bridge of a supply ship with PSI aliens, but otherwise I like to leave them as intact as possible. For some reason I have no issues laying seige to a battleship.

 

This game needs a flashbang grenade to reduce the enemy TU to 50% to give you the advantage when you storm a room.

 

@Zombie at this stage in the game the meduim scouts are my ATM machines. I am still using interceptors and avalanche missiles. Later once I have a juicy supply convoy I would leave scouts shot down on the ground to be picked apart by the scavengers.

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I don't exploit the walls and I have mixed feelings about the waiting till turn 20. I also don't like to blow up the goodies in the UFO if I can help it. I will wreck the bridge of a supply ship with PSI aliens, but otherwise I like to leave them as intact as possible. For some reason I have no issues laying seige to a battleship.

Long before I even knew the turn 20 theory existed I camped my soldiers outside the craft and killed the aliens as they exited. (Sometimes one or two don't though). So for me it's not really an exploit, it's a viable strategy. The wall thing, yes, that's an exploit which I never use.

 

Way back when, I played without using any explosives for much the same reason as you: more loot. In fact, I still favor the finesse of ranged weapons over the brute force of explosives. But the Medium Scout is a tough nut to crack. Employing explosives is about the safest way to go. :blush1:

 

@Zombie at this stage in the game the meduim scouts are my ATM machines. I am still using interceptors and avalanche missiles. Later once I have a juicy supply convoy I would leave scouts shot down on the ground to be picked apart by the scavengers.

LOL, I know what you mean about the Medium Scouts being a temporary ATM. But Large Scouts show up almost as often and with that ship there are fewer worries about barging through the door and being mowed down by reaction fire from a group of aliens. It's a ship much more conducive to raiding than the Medium Scout by a long shot.

 

- Zombie

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Large Scout... a ship much more conducive to raiding than the Medium Scout by a long shot.

 

I disagree. I tend to lose more people on the larges. It's tough to get people into the contol room without getting someone shot. Punching a hole through the engine room with heavy plasma helps some. The mediums are tough, but if you can open the door with a lot of tu's and a laser pistol you have a decent chance.

 

The aliens seem to like to hang out inside the larges a lot more as well. They do make a better ATM though. I just managed to storm one with the floaters own stun weapons and get an engineer.

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The large scout bridge can be tough to storm if you get the rare alien that's stuck inside the bridge. It won't move out no matter how long you siege the ship. Same effect as the alien in the Abductor's bridge - it'll have a clear shot at anyone walking through the doors. I used to get this alien so often that I thought it was standard practice. Recently though I don't get it as much. Not sure if it's because I used to play in Dos mainly before switching over to CE, or if it was just luck.

 

In any case, I do recall though that this alien can be baited out of the bridge by moving your troops up towards the first set of doors down the left passage and ending the turn. If you listen, you'll hear the alien move towards you. You can then barge into the next room and find the alien without any TUs to respond against you. Either in the room or beyond the second set of doors. Even if this is not the case, it's safe enough to attempt the first part just to see if it works. If not, there are other options available.

 

I'm not entirely sure what criteria the AI uses to tell the alien to look towards the nearest soldier. If you can figure out who the alien will prefer to look towards, you could have this soldier loitering outside to distract the alien while you move into the bridge. Using smoke grenades at the doors and letting some smoke through after a 2 - 3 turn wait may be of assistance just to get you inside and behind cover. The heavy plasma alternate doorway is obviously a better solution as you can make a hole into the engineering room, then make a hole into the bridge to fire an area effect weapons into the bridge from a safe angle. Or even cut into the engineering room then have someone face the general direction of the target. On the next turn, have someone else just off to the side cut a hole with a heavy plasma. That, in theory, shouldn't initiate reaction fire.

 

Way back when, I played without using any explosives for much the same reason as you: more loot. In fact, I still favor the finesse of ranged weapons over the brute force of explosives. But the Medium Scout is a tough nut to crack. Employing explosives is about the safest way to go. :blush1:

 

I'm reminded of an earlier rocket-launcher (and later cannon) campaign where I didn't have too much trouble generating cash from loot. It's a big test of self restraint, you just have to remember to use them once and only once in the same spot, and be mindful not to use them when there's loot around. Or rather, you can fire multiple times at the same spot - but only until an alien falls, then you have to move on. Not something you'd do normally, but just another micromanagement task to take on.

 

You know, that just reminded me of something: the Small launcher.

 

If you breach the medium scout with a small launcher, get saved by mutual surprise, you can then save the soldier's life by launching a couple of stun bombs right at the soldier. If you cannot knock the soldier unconscious - just fire more as it'll probably have some impact on the other occupants. Once the soldier's down, you should be able to get a clear shot inside. Destroying some chairs may help too - they're taller than they look (or the sectoids are shorter than they look). ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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  • 3 weeks later...

One tactic which I've been using lately (Unsure if it's 100%) is throwing a smoke grenade against the outside wall of the medium scout UFO, OR the Engine room of a Large scout. I've only done this a few times but each time I have it's resulted in the aliens facing the opposite direction of the door when I charge in with a laser pistol wielding man with high reactions.

 

Assuming you've got a decent amount of TU's, high reactions, and a laser pistol, it's not unrealistic to think you can charge in and even if an alien IS facing you, you can take him down. Have a grenade primed on hand. This way even if your recon guy DOES die, he drops it and hopefully the nade takes out the remaining aliens. If he doesn't die he can toss the nade at the remaining aliens and usually have enough TU's left over to exit the room and allow for people with rifles/HP's to pick off any aliens still in LOS.

 

One question..

 

Does fire from INC rounds go through walls like smoke does?

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