Alien "camping"

[dark2025]

What I want to know is, what is the best way of getting rid of aliens who just sit around behind a door and camp there. In one mission I downed a UFO and killed every alien outside of the control room, which was about 7 or 8, with the loss of 1 of my men. Then as I got to the control room, this alien came outside, killed my guy, went back in. Happened again with the next guy I sent to investigate. I finally gathered all my men outside (he can't kill all of them at once... I thought), all this time I took almost 1 casualty per turn. Finally, I opened the door, bam, guy gets shot & dies. Next guy goes in, since I thought the alien's TU's are gone, then bam, gets shot by another alien watching the door and dies. Third guy tosses grenade in, runs away. Unfortunately grenade didn't do much, next turn alien comes out and bam guy's dead. The last 3 members of my team starts panicking and kills one of my own guys. So that turn was wasted, and the next turn aliens come out, kill my guy, goes back in, the last guy on my team panics again, and he dies next turn...

God I hate this cheap tactic. Two aliens defeating 13 men, that's just not right. How would you guys handle this situation?

Edited July 17, 2005 by dark2025

[j'ordos]

A proxy grenade near the door seems like a nice idea

Barring that, a smoke grenade in front of your guys can work wonders on improving your soldiers average combat lifespan too

Or get your soldiers to reaction fire at the alien as he opens the door, make sure that those with high reactions have a clear line of sight and have as little TU's expended as possible, since more TU's means more chance to react in time (i.e. before they're shot themselves )

[Hobbes]

Send 4 to 5 units at the same time. Expect heavy casualties though.

[[Blehm 98]]

I used proxy grenades probably twice, until i learned that every time i use them the alien do NOT move at all for the rest of the mission, so i have to go and sacrifice a soldier so i can go in and kill him. I have never used proxy grenades since, they don't work for me

[j'ordos]

Instead of running a soldier over, try tossing a primed grenade near the proximity grenade, or fire some HE shells. Much more, shall we say, 'rookie-friendly'

[[Blehm 98]]

well, once i get heavy armor it doesn't make much difference

i have used smoke grenades before though, but i worry about aliens just sitting there and shooting me as i walk out of the smoke

[j'ordos]

If you toss the smoke grenade right next to a door, half the cloud will form at the other side of it, even when closed.

[[Blehm 98]]

yes, i always liked that

what you could do is wait for the aliens to come out, and if they don't then have a soldier walk in, look around, step aside, and snipe into the ship

 

TFTD has a way better feature where you don't have to walk in to open the doors, which is one of TFTDs best features

[[NKF]]

Ah, the 'lemmings' effect.

 

The best way to beat this strategy used by the aliens is to ambush them with their own strategy.

 

All aliens, except the ones that are fixed to one spot in the UFO bridge, will eventually move towards your nearest soldier in time. If for some reason they've stopped, they can indeed by persuaded by luring them out by moving a soldier up close to them - usually near or in line with the door.

 

For most UFOs, you can easily set up a semicircle of soldiers around the door (or doors). Your best bet is to scatter the soldier in such a way that they are NOT lined up or bunched together - both of which always attracts grenades. You don't want that. Have them scattered all over the place but within sight of the door (or doors - in the case of the Terror Ship, Harvester and Supply Ship). If you've got flying suits, have some soldiers hover in the air in a scattered formation. Just remember that you have to be able to get a clear line of sight towards the door and not hit your friends in the back.

 

Now, 4, 6 or 8 soldiers armed with laser rifles, or laser pistols, will literally rip anything that walks out to shreds. Because these weapons have such a low snapshot cost, the amount of reaction fire that you can get off will be enormous.

 

Then wait. Wait for as long as you want. Reposition your soldiers if you think they're in mortal peril - especially from aliens standing behind the one you just gunned down. While doing this, have a soldier or two, or maybe a tank, scour the map for survivors. After they're dealt with, wait some more. Wait and wait until no more aliens come out or the mission ends. If nothing at all happens, then go in. But now, having decimated the majority of their troops, the ship will be a cakewalk - except for the portions where there's a guard fixed to one spot. Ships that are quite notorious for this guard generally include the Large Scouts, Supply Ships and Abducters. There are ways of tackling these aliens with ease. They generally involve a heavy plasma (make a hole on the other side of the room), or to use an explosive type weapon - moving underneath the guard and firing up at the ceiling. Or in the case of the large scout - tossing a high explosive or firing a large rocket into one of the western corners of the ship.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Lots of good strategies here, guys!

 

My usual strategy for Large Scouts is simply not to open that bridge door. It is just much too dangerous, especially if there are multiple aliens inside the reactor room. Instead, I wait outside the bridge "proper", in the large area near the main entrance. Most likely, the aliens will come to you.

 

If you absolutely have to go inside the bridge to kill an alien (or aliens) in the engineering section, throw a primed Proxy near the door. Now bring your highest reaction troops in and station them to the North and South of the central room. If an alien comes out to play, not only will it trigger the proxy, but if it comes near your soldiers camped out on either side it might get shot also. This is usually insta-death.

 

Getting impatient? Move those high-reaction soldiers so that they can see the door. Instead of having them stand, have them kneel down. They are smaller targets, and get an accuracy boost too. Or like NKF mentioned, use a Heavy Plasma to poke a hole in the central area, then swarm your troops in. If you don't care about the Elerium or Power Source, use a High Explosive pack. Otherwise, incendiary shells or stun bombs fired into that room will help. Itl takes longer than a direct approach, but the results are much better: lower casualties. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[[Blehm 98]]

hmmmm, if you have xcomutil then bomb the small room that is between the entrance and the bridge's door with a High explosive, that will take out a lot of the wall, and i don't think it will hit the power source, i don't think it has good enough range

my Large scout is even tougher since the power source is in its own seperate room, which branches off, and alien can spawn and move around in the space between the main part of the ship and the engine room, nasty place for ambushes

[Dark Archon]

A proxy grenade near the door seems like a nice idea

Barring that, a smoke grenade in front of your guys can work wonders on improving your soldiers average combat lifespan too

Or get your soldiers to reaction fire at the alien as he opens the door, make sure that those with high reactions have a clear line of sight and have as little TU's expended as possible, since more TU's means more chance to react in time (i.e. before they're shot themselves )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

smoke grenade enhances my ppl's lifespan to....about 3 seconds

[[Blehm 98]]

well, from what i've noticed, smoke grenades don't help much on the lower difficulty levels because the aliens aren't very good, so if you can hide from them you would have already done so, but if you couldn't have you would have seen them

[Dark Archon]

well....even on harder difficulties, my men live....about three seconds out of the Skyranger

[Camille]

How do you manage to get ride of this problem. Alien doesn't move

 

1st soldier get in the room get shot

2nd soldier get in the room get shot

3rd soldier get in the room get shot

End of turn

Same thing when you open the door you get pwned. And you can't thow a grenade in the room.

 

What do you do, except try to blow completly the walls ?

Edited November 8, 2005 by Camille

[Hobbes]

Here's one strategy for the medium scout:

 

- 1 of 2 rookies (pick the guys with low morale for this) prime a grenade on the turn before and both wait by the door.

- Next turn, open the door with rookie without primed grenade. Rookie gets blasted in the process.

- Fire with other soldiers from outside to kill aliens facing the door.

- Send 2nd rookie with primed grenade to move and stand close to the aliens. Drop grenade.

 

Repeat as long as there are rookies/aliens still standing.

[[NKF]]

There are only a few UFOs where there's a dedicated camping alien. About the only one that's I can confirm is the Abducter. The Large Scout occasionally has one, depending on where it spawns in the bridge. Otherwise, all aliens will eventually leave the ship to go and search for you. So you should never let yourself get into the lemmings trap and keep sending soldiers in.

 

Solution? Just do what they do right back at them. Have lots of soldiers scattered around outside the door (never line them up - that's just demanding a grenade or a blaster bomb) and wait. They'll come. If they don't, you can often entice them to walk towards the door by having someone move up close to it.

 

This doesn't work in TFTD, as their wandering mode tends to stop after so many turns. In UFO, all wandering aliens will eventually head towards the nearest X-Com controlled soldier.

 

A few solutions if you really must walk through the door:

 

- Have someone stand in front of the door and then with a soldier on an angle from the door blow it away with a heavy plasma.

 

- Blow away a wall - from the opposite direction from the door, or perhaps at a 90 degree angle. Then enter or toss a grenade through.

 

- If the room is above ground level, you can shoot up and toss a grenade through (well, due to a bug, you can throw the grenade up anyway) the hole, or you can arm yourself with some sort of area effect weapon (stun bomb, Autocannon HE shells, Rockets, etc) and fire right up at the ceiling.

 

- Use smoke grenades before entering. Detonate one near the door. Smoke will go through it to an extent (Zombie, MikeTheRed - just a spanner to toss into the explosive experiments: could the amount of smoke travelling through certain walls (a door is a wall) be influenced by HE block?)

 

- Have the soldier with the highest Reaction and TU level stand in front of the door. Wait a turn then step through. Reaction shots are a battle of reactions and time unit levels.

 

- If the last one fails, having someone stand right behind the hapless soldier that's about to step through the door. As long as a misfired shot doesn't kill this soldier as well, you should have a clear line of fire into the room. Personally, I'd rather just wait for the aliens to leave.

 

---

 

Now for aliens that refuse to leave the bridge:

 

* Large Scout - if you walk up the left passage and wait in one of the corners, this tends to attract the alien to you. It's not guaranteed that there'll be an alien waiting in the bridge, but if there is one, then this is the best way to lure it out. Once you hear it move, immediately look for it once you regain control of your troops. It'll be out of TUs, and unable to react. I recommend trying this only after you've waited a while an no more aliens have left the ship.

 

* Abducter- bring an autocannon and some HE shells. Fire at the offending alien from underneath and your job is done. Or if you must step through, smoke grenades help - use them within the first 3 turns after detonation), or use heavy plasmas to make a new route. There's an experiment I'd like to try to see if a camping alien is attracted to the nearest soldier to it at the end of the last turn. I know this happens for wandering aliens, but I've never quite seen it for these camping aliens.

 

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

- Use smoke grenades before entering. Detonate one near the door. Smoke will go through it to an extent (Zombie, MikeTheRed - just a spanner to toss into the explosive experiments: could the amount of smoke travelling through certain walls (a door is a wall)  be influenced by HE block?)

Nope. Smoke affects the same diameter (13x13 in a desert landscape) whether it is detonated out in the field or in the UFO itself. However, since the smoker is placed outside in this instance, it will extend into the craft by only 6 tiles (approximately).

 

Now for aliens that refuse to leave the bridge:

 

* Large Scout - if you walk up the left passage and wait in one of the corners, this tends to attract the alien to you. It's not guaranteed that there'll be an alien waiting in the bridge, but if there is one, then this is the best way to lure it out. Once you hear it move, immediately look for it once you regain control of your troops. It'll be out of TUs, and unable to react. I recommend trying this only after you've waited a while an no more aliens have left the ship.

Another way is to throw a primed grenade through the NW/SW corners. Any alien stupid enough to be standing outside the engine room might take some damage. High Explosive packs work well, as do rockets or even Stun Bombs. Heck, if you have enough incendiary ammo along, that works too (though slowly). :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[Dover]

UFOs used to give me trouble, but after I develop the blaster launcher, I don't even need to use the door anymore. I can make my own and decend from above. Camping mutons never expect that.

[gufu]

I use blaster launcher for this situations.

[Oldblue153]

I rarely get through a mission without at least 1 casualty especially early in the game so theres no shortage of rookies who get told "hey your gernade-boy this mission"..Gernade boy? whats that..."here take this gernade...prime it...cool now go inside that room and kill the alien in there"...but i'll blow up..."nawww not if you shoot him first you wont"

[Dover]

Speaking of grenades, there's an old glitch where you don't even lose men. You can throw grenades straight through the roof above you.

 

Although this is damn worthless in Large Scouts, it becomes 871946 times easier to clean out an Abducter or Supply Ship.

[[NKF]]

Well, with the large scout, you can throw it 'into' the walls near the bridge to take out that one alien that occasionally waits in there. All east facing walls and south facing walls have the same properties as the corners. It means you can just toss a high explosive or fire a rocket/stun bomb into it towipe out a significant portion of the bridge without even entering it.

 

- NKF

 

P.S.: When I say east and south walls, that's relative to when you're outside the UFO. Inside the UFO, they'll be the western and northern walls.

[Blitzen]

Hey NFK mabey you could draw a pic to help the explaination?

 

 

I rarely get more than 2 ufo's before I have Fly suits on atleast 3 of my men that is even on impossible. Also, whenever I have a camping alien, I just walk through the door, 9 times out of 10 it won't have anything heavier than a plasma rifle and a power suit can take that NP. Another way to do it is Psi attack him... but that comes later. (P.S. I'm not sure what triggers it, but you can sometimes psi control an alien then go to one of your men then go to his hands arms,legs screen and cycle through all your men and all the alien... makes Cydonia a breeze, just psy control one alien and have the rest drop primed grenades and have the aliens shoot each other...)

[Oldblue153]

how do you get flying suits so fast? i often have 2 missions in the first 12 hours and definatlty 2 by the first week..usually end up having a terror mission by the 25th or so too....whats the trick?

[Kharille]

I was thinking of starting up a new topic. Just lost a Colonel just there to one of those abductors. Runs in with his flying suit. Right into a surgery room with 3 floaters playing cards. Blasts one to heck and gets wasted.

 

Then I realized I should've drilled a hole into the room with my trusty heavy plasma. With that I can pick my holes and fling in a grenade without stepping into the damned room.

 

TFTD must be fun if you can drill through the sub walls. Seriously, surely its possible to drill through the sub hulls with those close combat weapons? These large scout vessels tend to find me running in and wasting the navigator first thing.

 

Reminds me of Aliens...

 

Hicks: "Shoot it out!"

 

Blam!

 

Hicks flies in through the window....

[Hobbes]

Then I realized I should've drilled a hole into the room with my trusty heavy plasma.  With that I can pick my holes and fling in a grenade without stepping into the damned room.

 

Often enough there will be an alien on the surgery room facing the wall that will react and shoot the guy who just opened the hole...

[Pherdnut]

Smoke grenades are a good way to get aliens moving if they're just hanging out. Usually though, they will come out eventually. I had one superhuman mission where there a small scout chock full of mutons that were camping. Only one was outside. I shot out the walls of a nearby building so I could have all my guys facing the UFO from the side where aliens couldn't spot them right away and planted a proximity grenade right by the door. It took something like 29 turns before six of them decided to step out the door but the resulting explosion and laser fire was a sight to behold. Six Mutons and they all went down to laser fire in the reaction phase.