In Ship Tactics

[pistolpete]

I have just recently started playing again, and had been pretty proud of my record of keeping soldiers around. Once I got laser rifiles/Heavy Plasma I went several missions without losing any soldiers. Even the guys I designated as Dead "M"eat were surviving. It just so happened that most of these missions ended with me taking out the aliens without entering their ship. The last 4 or 5 missions have been absolutely brutal for my troops. I lost my overall commander as he stepped of the ramp(2nd man out), and everything has been down hill since. I can stomach a loss while unloading from the skyranger, but the lionshare of my losses have come inside or immediately outside an alien ship.

 

I often leave 3 or 4 soldiers on "overwatch" of the alien hatches as the rest of my team clears the rest of the map of aliens. I had one mission where all four of these overwatch guys got wiped out over the course of a couple of turns. An alien pops out, takes the prox grenage hit, and proceeds to drop the two closest soldiers. One of the remaining squaddies reaction fires, dropping the alien, but he is then gunned down from inside the ufo. The next turn two aliens pop out the the hatch and while my remaining guard took one out, he didn't survive the turn. What do you do to protect your guys as they guard the alien hatches?

 

Another thing, My tactics for boarding need some improvement. I usually enter with 4 or 5 soldiers. Usually a couple armed with laser pistols and a single heavy plasma guy, the balance of the boarding party using laser rifles. Eventhough I make good use of motion detectors, I still quite often find myself in a situation where an alien walks into the whatever little room I am occupying, and mows down two or three of my guys before we take him out. This scenario has gone down a couple of missions in a row now, and losing 6 or 8 real veteran soldiers has smarted.

 

Are these types of losses expected? If not what do you do to avoid them. I do pretty well clearing buildings and outdoor terrain. I almost never lose a guy in those types of skirmishes, but just getting near an alien craft is making me nervous now.

[Maverick]

well, here's how I do it:

 

Small ships are easy - cover the doors from as many angles as possible and as much cover as there is to be found, then send the rookie to press the "open" button Usually he dies from the shots from inside. I have a second guy standing close behind him -- its a risk to have him there because should the alien come out while you're planning this assault, they may very well both die from autoshot fire -- it usually works though. I send the second rook into the room and let him do what damage he can before he leaves and the snipers do what they can from outside. If I can't even get through the door because there are so many aliens...well, its grenade time. A rook primes a grenade and bum-rushes the door once inside it kills almost everything in the room and panics whatever's left. The downside to this tactic (and the reason its a last resort) is because you don't get any equipment.

 

Larger ships - just set up a perimeter, make sure there are no aliens outside so that you don't get jacked with a grenade in the skyranger while you are trying to pillage their ship (while you do this have your 4 best snipers watching the doors from as far away as possible). Then move your men in teams of 3 (with backup teams following closely) throughout the ship. You will probably lose a couple of men, just make sure you aren't attached to the men you are gonna lose. If you really want to take charge, send one guy ahead as "scout" with a primed grenade in one hand and a weapon that does splash damage in the other (large rockets come to mind :devilsmile: ). sure he might miss and blow half the ship up, but should he die on the next turn, just hope the alien ran for cover.

 

Battleship - easiest one of all. Early in the game when you find a battleship it spells M-O-N-E-Y like none other. Nothing beats cashing out on a mission with 200 elerium, and equipment to boot. It's a waiting game, this is the most sure way to never lose. Just wait outside until you've killed more than 10 aliens, then it is a toss up between 2 left and 8 left, your guess is as good as mine. "what if they aren't coming?" you ask. well is it turn 45 yet? It might take that long. If you are impatient, try priming grenades and throwing them to the second floor, that usually stirs things up. The other option is to use the motion detector every turn and track their movement.

Late in the game when you have flying suits and blaster launchers the fastest victory in a battleship comes from blasting a hole in the roof of the battleship and launching a second one to kill all the ranked aliens in the first turn. In case you didn't know, their morale works just like humans, i've had aliens panicking on their first turn. Invade from the roof after you made the hole and work them from both sides. If you spot something and don't have the TU's to kill it, MC him until next turn -- then kill him. I do this when I don't really care about catching the commander, there are plenty more where he came from right?

 

good luck protecting your soldiers.

[Spaceman42]

Motion Detectors are invaluable.

 

So is "Get your guys behind cover" and "Camping on the UFO roof, just in front of the door, with a kneeling Heavy Plasma guy in a Flying Suit."

 

Oh, and put your guys a bit further away, so the alien doesn't see them as it exits the UFO.

 

XComutil's sort function might help with the "Commander gets killed on the ramp" thing. I mean, it's stupid to have your high-ranking officers RIGHT where they're most likely to get killed immediately, no?

[Maverick]

the other solution is good old fashioned smoke grenades -- by tossing them out the door as you exit you create a smoke screen that provides some space as you exit that can be used to manually sort the men out.

[Trevelyan]

yep best thing to do... i do it on terror missions some times... dispite having to hear:

 

Bang

Bang

oaaaaggghhh

 

Bang

 

oaaagggghhhh

 

*door open*

 

 

Bang

oaaaaaghhhhh

[Leo]

Yeah, never forget (as stated in the unofficial strategy guide, elsewhere on this site): a live grenade will not explode until it's dropped; shooting accuracy increases when the other hand is empty and if the soldier is kneeling (also makes a smaller target), so your guards can be farther away; don't throw the proxgrenade directly in front of the door: it will blow when the door hasn't opened yet.

Maybe you could drop a smoke grenade just outside the door AND place a proxgrenade, so the first alien will be fried and the sniper-ones inside can't see you?

[Guest stewart]

In ships stun rods become useful too! But that's because I like to prolong my ground assaults so I can train.