Any Of You Ever Shoot For Early Psionics?

[Pherdnut]

It's mighty challenging but if you get Sectoids on the first terror mission, it is possible to capture a leader and get psionics much earlier in the game. Nothing reduces the scary factor of Mutons and Ethereals than having 3-4 elite trained psionicists telling them all what to do.

[Dover]

Of course! In fact, in higher difficultys, I consider it a must.

[[stewart]]

Aliens psionics is overrated, all it means is that you forfeit reaction fire because you drop weapons and kneal every turn. It's a pain, to be sure, but not really much more than that.

[Guest Azrael]

Aliens psionics is overrated, all it means is that you forfeit reaction fire because you drop weapons and kneal every turn.  It's a pain, to be sure, but not really much more than that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<_< I think you're forgetting Mind Control, I recall an Alien MCing my Rocket Launcher soldier, the one that was at the back of the skyranger, BOOM, mission over.

[[stewart]]

DROP weapons, kneal.

[Pherdnut]

I've had plenty of guys die to panic fire. But man, getting that Psionic Leader off of the first terror mission is TOUGH. I usually have to reload a bunch of times. I don't know if I could pull it off in an iron man game with reloads, although I have gotten lucky in some games and had the leader standing right outside the Skyranger. I usually shoot for laser rifles and mind probes in the first month. It's tough when you have to face more than one cyberdisc at a time though.

[Guest Azrael]

DROP weapons, kneal.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How was I supposed to know that there were psionic aliens in that terror mission?? <_<

[JoeJoe]

The only thing you have to capture the leader in the first terror missions is the stun rod. I def make sure i have laser rifles for the first terror mision, and then i work on having plasma and power a week or two after.

[Kharille]

I always go for early Avenger. It's important to me to be able to catch and eliminate all UFOs even if it means 95% troop losses.

[Pherdnut]

Detection is more important than the Avenger for shooting down UFOs, IMO. Get those hyperwave decoders first. I only use avengers on Battleships and I've heard people saying that interceptors can take down Battleships with no losses if you attack with multiple ints simultaneously.

[Quantifier]

In my current game, I detected a Terror Ship in the middle of February, going for second terror site in the game, and managed to shoot it down with 2 Interceptors armed with dual Avalanches and Avalanche/Stingray. Of course I captured a Sectoid Leader on the crash site. Now I have Psi Laboratory in construction, and it will be ready for March 30th. I think it's quite not bad for a superhuman game

Although Sectoids are already scouting for my base, and definitely will be there before I have psi trained soldiers. I must try "drop weapon" strategy, but why kneel every round? And what about grenades, wouldn't there still be risk of possessed soldier to use them?

[Pherdnut]

In my current game, I detected a Terror Ship in the middle of February, going for second terror site in the game, and managed to shoot it down with 2 Interceptors armed with dual Avalanches and Avalanche/Stingray. Of course I captured a Sectoid Leader on the crash site. Now I have Psi Laboratory in construction, and it will be ready for March 30th. I think it's quite not bad for a superhuman game

Although Sectoids are already scouting for my base, and definitely will be there before I have psi trained soldiers. I must try "drop weapon" strategy, but why kneel every round? And what about grenades, wouldn't there still be risk of possessed soldier to use them?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If you get really lucky you can pick up a Terror ship before it lands at the end of January. That way you can have Psi up and running by the end of March. Short range radar is really weak at picking up alien ships. If you constantly keep one of your interceptors up in the air near your base, you will find a lot more alien ships.

 

I'm not sure how effective an interceptor on patrol is but it seems like it's at least as strong as a large radar system for detecting aliens. Using this strategy, I've sometimes run across the first terror ship as it tries to land near my first base or not too far away. If it shows up at the right time when the patrolling interceptor has enough fuel to catch up with it and both interceptors are equipped with Avalanche missiles, you can easily shoot down the first alien terror ship that always shows up in the last week of the first month. I usually find it easier to capture a Sectoid leader from a terror ship that has been shot down than from a terror mission.

 

Mind controlled X-Com agents can use anything from their inventory in my experience, but the aliens don't use grenades that frequently. I think the AI is too dumb to do it right.

 

I'm not sure what you are talking about with the kneeling thing. Kneeling is useful, but only for certain situations. If you kneel, you are harder to hit and have a better accuracy increase. It's best to kneel a soldier if you are expecting aliens to come through a door or if it's dark and you want to hide. Otherwise, it takes 8 TUs to get back to a standing position and that can be a waste if you are moving from one place to another and want to be able to react faster if an alien shows up unexpectedly.

 

Against sectoids in farmland environments, kneeling is very important. Sectoids are short. If you are standing, you can't see them on the other side of a fence. If you kneel you will spot them immediately if they are in visual range.

[[NKF]]

I suppose you can look at it this way: If the soldier is mind controlled, that's 8 TUs less once it decides to move the soldier to a new location. For a soldier with max TUs of 81, that's 9.8% less TUS (well 8 of 80 is 10%). That's not much, but it's still denying the aliens a few TUs.

 

On a less related note, the TFTD TU Bleed button (or using up all your TUs in UFO) will not prevent mind controlled units from moving. But it will stop berserking soldiers from going bananas on your allies. Mind control automatically replenishes TU.

 

And yes, the AI does know how to use grenades. It seems more prone to using grenades against tight packs of soldiers rather than lone units. It's a bit dumb when it comes to flying units. It doesn't know they're flying, so it'll waste the grenades by throwing it at the ground underneath them.

 

Speaking of getting early high ranking aliens:

 

If you get a base attack, you should get a sectoid commander somewhere in the mix. I got my base raided quite early, about the second mission into the game on a brand new Superhuman game and found one.

 

I've told this story several times before, but the last alien I had to hunt down turned out to be a commander (it panicked - which told me what it was). I got a leader earlier by pure luck, so I was a bit stoked. To get Cydonia or Bust before the end of Feb would've been quite a feat, along with access to the Psi Lab to boot. Not a bad bargain. Alas, I'd run completely out of ammo except a couple of smoke grenades - which did not work. This taught me one nasty lesson. High rank, good armour and superhuman difficulty renders aliens almost immune to stun damage from smoke (regular smoke inhalation). Had to restart this game too.

 

But yes, the point I was trying to make was that base attacks are also a source of high ranking units. I cannot vouch for the easier difficulty levels, however, so you may have to experiment.

 

- NKF

[Pherdnut]

I'm a bit rusty, so have been playing veteran lately, but I get the impression that the very first UFO is always a small scout trying to find your base because it never lands. I find ships earlier by doing the alternating patrolling interceptors thing and the first ship I usually find is that one, usually within the first day or two. I think the odds of that ship finding your base right off the bat are pretty low, but maybe on superhuman not so much. If there is some kind of hack I could do to start off with Hyperwave decoders, I would love to try that out. Sometimes I'm surprised at the disparity between how much and how little UFO activity you run into in the first 2-3 weeks.

 

It also seems like if you shoot that first small scout down it slows them down a bit. In one recent game I didn't find any UFOs after shooting down that first scout until the 16th of January. I already has laser rifles building. Not my ideal game. I'd rather be bagging lots of small ships for more money and researchable goodies.