Tech Rush = Tougher Aliens?

[fodase]

This is the tragic tale of how I lost my base to a LOBSTERMEN raid by the end of February.

 

I always took it easy on the research. My regular research order went like this:

- Gauss Pistol

- Sonic Pulser

- Sonic Pistol

- Armor/MC Lab

- Ships

 

Recently I decided to ignore Gauss and go straight to Pulsers/Sonic Pistol. The first game I tried that, I took it easy (as always) and had 30 scientists for the first month, 50 for the second and 100 for the third. Even with such a low number of scientists I found out that by ignoring the Gauss Weapons I was able advance the tech tree much faster. By the end of march I had MC Labs built, Ion Armor and Sonic Rifle.

 

Then, I got my first ship terror site and when I get in there I had to fight a mixed crew of Tasoths, Aquatoids, Calcinites, Biodrones and Triscenes.

 

 

I heard about people getting tough aliens early in the game and I did get Lobsterman in my first ship terror site rarely (when I openned the door of the Triton and saw a Biodrone I thought: great, lobsterman...), but a mixed crew like that was my first time. I didn't give much tought to that and after a long struggle I won with 2 guys left. It was a superhuman no-reload game by the way.

 

I advanced a little on that game and decided to start a new one, but this time I would aim for 50 scientists by the first month, 100 by the second and 150 by the third. To get that much scientists I had to sacrifice a workshop and had only 30 engineers.

 

Things were going very well. By the end of the first month I already had sonic pulsers and sonic pistol + clips. By the middle of the second month I already had Ion Armor researched (but with only 30 engineers, production was going very slow).

 

Then I went to what I thought was going to be a routine crash site recovery (it was my 9th USO recovery if that has anything do to with it) where I would have to pound some silly aliens. But instead I got owned bad by those LOBSTERMAN bastards! I mean, come on. They took 5+ hits from the sonic pistol to die. Only my Lt. that had Ion Armor managed to survived (he run away to the Triton like a little girl and left 2 rookies behind). I thought that was just bad luck and moved on. Then at the next crashed USOs those LOBSTERMAN show up again. And again! (Mind you, that was still february!). And by the end of February I got my base assaulted by none other than LOBSTERMAN! I had just returned from a terror site where I lost 10 soldiers and learned that my Lt. was weak to MC. I had 10 rookies to defend my base and 3 were wearing Ion Armor. I only had sonic pistols and pulsers and It goes without saying, I lost bad.

 

So is going on? Does that have anything to do with how many USOs I shot down? Is that just bad luck? Or the aliens get tougher as you progress in the research tree? I searched the forums but couldn't find an answer. I'm thinking about doing some tests so please let me know if that was just bad luck so I won't have to spend my time for nothing.

Edited May 8, 2006 by fodase

[[dipstick]]

The key point is that you are playing at Superhuman level = bad aliens early on

[testarossa]

Aliens are also usually assigned certain areas of the globe, for example gill men may appear mostly near Japan, whereas Aquatoids mostly near North America. That's really not too early for Lobster Men, I've had to fight then with gauss rifles before. The combination of Superhuman and you building your base in the wrong spot is why you're encountering them.

[Tyr]

Hmm... I'm with the original poster on this one, I've no proof, but it's always felt to me that it does behave that way. However, it also seems that the really nasty aliens can be avoided if you can keep the aliens score down as low as possible (check those graphs regularly).

 

Maybe its just superstition, but a few years ago I learnt not to research sonic pulsers, since it seemed whenever I did, lobstermen started showing up a lot. I dont mind, I actually prefer human grenades, the blast radius on a pulser is just plain silly, give me a magna blast any time, much more precise and pretty good against anything but a lobster. This is on beginner however, on the harder levels the armour of the aliens may make them essential, I dunno, I've still yet to beat beginner hehe.