Warning: Not Like This!

[_Relerium]

I'm currently playing a no-load game with veteran and psi disabled. I've had some pretty heavy setbacks earlier, but this one just dropped my jaw. I stuffed my mighty Avenger full of soldiers, beefed up with hover tank / plasma and 3 blaster launchers in addition to usual heavy plasma & alien grenade equipment. The first turn I popped down the elevator with one of my guys, who spotted a Muton there, who in turn got Blaster Launchered immediately after. I tried to advance with caution and only ran to level 1 with 2 of my troops. They didn't see anyone there. So I ended the turn. The very first thing I saw next was the good old purple blaster launcher bomb racing towards.. I had the time to think: Shiit they wasted the 2 troops on lvl1, well that's not so bad. Yeah right.. Of course the badass-muton got himself 20 frags and 1 hover tank kill with that single projectile.

 

 

Well atleast I got those 2 persons on the lower level back up so I didn't have to lose the Avenger.

[x0563511]

... ouch?

[Jamaru]

You got slaughtered?

Thats why you should spread apart. If I was the computer then I would of gotten every man.

 

Hmm...the muton with the blaster launcher is now my hero.

[Kratos]

As abyssion says...crowding together isn't very idealistic for a win. Edited August 16, 2005 by Kratos

[j'ordos]

In the alien base acces lift you automatically start with everyone cramped together like that, although it seems to me xcomutil forces the game to spread the troops around 2 acces lifts, I'm not sure if it's because of xcomutil though?

[Zombie]

I've heard that blockading the lift with your men or a HWP might save you against Blaster Bombs. Apparently the aliens can't fire the Blasters straight up, or the physics of the game is messed up a bit. In any event, if something is blocking the lift upstairs, the bomb prematurely detonates at the feet of the soldiers. Since explosions are 1 dimensional in X-COM, the full force of the blast is restricted to Level 0 (the lowest level in an alien base). Personally, I have never tried this but countless others claim it works. My preferred strategy is to not let the aliens even fire off that Blaster Launcher in the first place.

 

If you bring along Blasters in an alien base raid, use them. Sometimes you are lucky and one of the exit points is located near the command center. In this case, use NKF's "Surgical Strike" strategy: fire off a Blaster Bomb to go through one of the windows of the outer command section, then guide it to go up on an angle. The blast will usually take out 2 out of the 4 command tables and a good chunk of the aliens stationed above. Now send a bomb through the other window and up again. This should destroy the remaining 2 tables and any aliens left standing from the first blast. If all the table segments get destroyed, the mission will end right there as the objective is complete. If not, another 2 bombs during the next round should do the trick.

 

An after-effect of nuking the tables is the death of many high-ranking aliens. This lowers the morale of the remaining aliens making them much easier to kill. It also prevents the aliens from firing off blaster bombs at your troops because they are too busy panicking.

 

If you cannot locate the command center, nuke the surrounding modules connected to the exit lift structure(s). This should either kill some aliens stationed there, or create a nice smokescreen to deploy your troops without being spotted.

 

[Edit: Yep, XcomUtil is the culprit which causes all your troops to show up in the same area].

 

- Zombie

Edited August 16, 2005 by Zombie

[[Blehm 98]]

ahhh, i was wondering about that, that is good to know in a bad way

 

*slaps Xcomutil*

[[NKF]]

XComutil (the one I've got, at least) also doesn't know how to distinguish the quarters of the tank, so it splits up and places each quarter in a soldier spawn slot. It fixes itself once you move it.

 

Zombie: The plugging of a 2x2 lift is only theory at the moment. Plugging a 1x1 lift works very well, on the other hand.

 

Also, for the surgical strike to work, you have to rush to the exit pads and abort the mission. Assuming you got all 4 tables (16 table segments), you should get the base destruction score (500 points, I think) and the base will no longer be on the map. Absolutely awesome against snakeman or ethereal bases if you're not ready to trade blow for blow against said aliens.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Zombie: The plugging of a 2x2 lift is only theory at the moment. Plugging a 1x1 lift works very well, on the other hand.

And now, this is no longer just a theory. I tested this out on 1x1, 2x2 and 3x3 lifts with the same results. Blaster Launcher wielding aliens cannot shoot up lifts without killing themselves in the process.

 

To determine this, I MC'd all the Snakemen and Chryssalids on an alien base mission. Then I kept 2 Snakemen (carrying the Blaster Launcher) under mind control while the rest of my troops polished off the remainder. By doing it this way, the 2 Snakemen had 100 for morale.

 

Now I plugged a 1x1 lift with a soldier and placed the 2 Snakemen underneath. After releasing them from mind control, I waited. One of the Snakemen shot off the Blaster Launcher, killing himself and his friend in the process. My soldier was still alive.

 

Did the same thing with a 2x2 lift and 4 soldiers. Result: the aliens died after one tried to launch a BB upstairs. For giggles, I plugged the 2x2 lift with a HWP. Same thing happened.

 

For the final test, I moved all my soldiers and HWP's upstairs in the command center with the 3x3 lift. The aliens were kept below. Then I plugged the lift with 9 soldiers or a HWP and 5 soldiers. Same results.

 

So if you are in a pinch, camp upstairs in a lift. If an alien attempts to blow your troops to smithereens, it might die if it is too close to the lift. This could be a good tactic for beginners of the game, but I prefer to play a little bit more aggressive. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[Blood Angel]

Pwned.

[[dipstick]]

How about rethinking that no-reload policy??

[SaintD]

Zombie: The plugging of a 2x2 lift is only theory at the moment. Plugging a 1x1 lift works very well, on the other hand.

 

The plugging a 2x2 lift with soldiers theory is hearby disproven.

 

(Dos version with XCOMUTIL) Had A few guys spread around the alien base. Making good progress. I had most of my units upstairs due to chryssalid threat. Not to mention having 4 guys descend, full auto burst, ascend each turn was taking a heavy toll on the aliens.

 

Incoming blaster bomb from the base commander. One seargent and 8 rookies: .

 

The remaining 5 rookies, once they got done panicking, did manage to clear the remaining snake men. I had already gotten the chryssalids, thankfully.

 

Edit: Perhaps the CE version blaster bomb bug is at work for Zombie? Also, the snake man that got me launched his bomb around 8 corners or so... Way out of the blast radius.

Edited February 1, 2006 by SaintD

[[NKF]]

It has always been the CE blaster bomb bug at work here so no, you'd definitely be blasted to bits when testing this theory in the dos version.

 

There is one thing I recall regarding the grav lifts that works in both versions without fail. Aliens cannot shoot or throw grenades up or down a 1x1 tile wide lift, but they'll gladly shoot up or down any of the larger elevators. Your troops on the other hand can easily shoot or throw objects up or down the lifts.

 

This means plugging lifts in the supply ships is a brilliant strategy that'll allow you to take on the rest of the ship at your own pace (not counting early psi scenarios). Normally I just let all the aliens file out of the ship and take them out at the doors, but I sometimes charge a few soldiers in and quickly secure and block the grav-lift landings.

 

This doesn't appear to work in TFTD as the landings in that game are much more solid than the ones in UFO.

 

- NKF

[blue123]

I tend to always put a laser tank in the grav lift. So far, it has lasted 12 missions and 300 hits.

[[stewart]]

Maybe you should turn PSI back on ROFL