Downing Ufos...

[rattle]

Hello,

 

I'm new to the game and the forum as well so by this I say hi...

 

 

I've read up alot on this game but there's still something that bothers me. How the heck do you make UFOs to crash land?

 

In my first game ever the first wave of UFOs crash landed after shooting them, but I didn't know how to 'collect' them so never mind. In my current game enemy UFOs (type 1 and 2 that is and 2 and 3 by week two) get destroyed over and over again and I can't figure out what's wrong. I'm using the amount of purchasable hover bikes that were available from the beginning (about 4 to 8) equipped with Janitors to counter these pesky UFOs.

 

Well they always are destroyed in mid-air. Sometimes I'm lucky to recover at least a type 2 UFO, without surivivors of course, though I've never been able to get a type 1 or >2. Thus I don't even know if it's important to research type 1/2 UFOs. Then again I couldn't defeat the bigger ones and by the next week (week 3) the size increased again. So how am I supposed to research one if I can't bring one down.

 

Do they have to be shot over the city? Or on clean tiles, or outside the city?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Guest Azrael]

That's weird, I actually very rarely got to destroy UFOs, usually only when I had Annihilators with massive firepower, never with the standard ships (maybe the weak ones with Valkyries or Air Warriors).

[[NKF]]

Try scaling your weapons down a bit if you find you keep destroying them. They're unmanned, and pretty much the weakest ships you'll ever face. Heck, even a hoverbike equipped with its standard issue 50mm can knock out a Type 1 or 2 by itself.

 

As I said, scale your weapons down a bit. Multiple janitor missiles can deal quite a lot of damage if they're all fired at a type 1 or 2 and hit at the same time. One of the shots ends up disabling it, the remainder will take the rest of its health out and blow it to smithereens.

 

I'd recommend using bolter lasers (my favourite no-maintenance gun for hoverbikes) or use the standard cannon that comes with it. Either weapon can knock it down safely. They do quite well against most UFOs except the ones with really thick hulls, like the fast attack ships and the two capital ships.

 

Also, use less bikes. One per type-1 or 2 is more than sufficient.

 

If you choose to use much stronger weapons (and you will, later on, for taking out the medium sized ships), like the lineage plasma cannon, use only one bike.

 

---

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the type 1 and 2 for now. The type-3 alien transporter on the other hand is essential, and only appears for a short amount of time, and then appears very rarely after that. You must capture one at all costs during the first few weeks while it's still available.

 

The fast attack ships that escort them however can be left alone for now. In fact, I highly recommend you avoid them at all costs until you have a few Hawk Air Warriors, a flotilla of hovebikes or at the very least medium distupter beams. They're quite powerful and can turn most of your starting vehicles into minced meat very easily.

 

Don't fret about shooting down every UFO you see. If you cannot handle them, have your ships break off and retreat to the nearest launch tube. At the moment, just concentrate on dealing with the terror sites that the transport ships generate. Bide your time, get what you can but don't over do it, and wait until your fleet is large or strong enough to wipe out their entire fleet in one fell swoop (or two).

 

As long as you're pulling in positive weekly scores, have acquired a type-3 UFO at the earliest opportunity, are gathering and researching tech at a reasonable rate (tech release is score related, by the way), and not losing too many of your own resources, and keeping stable relations, you will do fine all the way till the end-game.

 

- NKF

[[dipstick]]

Are you absolutely sure that you are destroying them? I am not trying to patronise you, just that they could crash behind a building or something without you realising.

 

Most likely is the missiles are too strong for them (as has been said above)

 

I would highly recommend buying and STORING prophet and janitor missiles for later weeks, as they become very scarce. Then use lasers to start with, and slowly change to missiles as the UFOs become tougher.

 

I have tried games where I used the basic cannon to begin with, and then switched over to missiles. This can be quite effective, especially against Type 1 and 2 - as the cannons can rip through them. However, when they become reinforced with shields and other types of UFO - the cannon becomes useless eventually.

 

A last option is to use long range missiles - I used these effectively when I kept getting obliterated by multiple UFOs (and later ones). Arm your bikes with a single long range missile, and make them all go to a building. Ensure they are set to passive mode, so they do not fire. Then, tell one bike (possibly two, I cannot remember) to fire at each UFO and watch the fun. You just have to be careful that they are flying as high as possible so that the missiles do not hit any buildings, as they are pretty dumb missiles, it has to be said. One missile should be enough to wipe out a UFO, and make it crash, though the later transports would require two or more. This technique is not as effective against fast flying fighters as they tend to dodge the missiles pretty effectively.

 

Hope this lot helps

[Yoni]

What I do is play those battles on the slowest time-advancement. I keep an eye on the ufo's health in the enemy ships tab, and when the health is nearly depleted (1/5th or so) I pause the game and deactivate all heavy weapons (all rockets and some beam weapons if I have many ships attacking one target). The ship gets damaged a lot slower in the last few seconds, but it won't be blown to smithereens. Now and then I still get a ufo destroyed, but not often.

[rattle]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Yes I figured some of it out yesterday night on my own. I simply sent them to the nearest building or back to base to cancel orders when UFOs were at 1/4th hitpoints.

 

 

Another thing is that I found during a warehouse stun-raid some funny looking thing on the floor which turned out to be a mine

For some unknown reason did miss boo-boo bleed to death, even though I let her treat the crit wound.

 

And when would it be good to raid CoS temples, it is almost impossible without major losses right from the start (lost half the team once due to rocket pistols and heavy launchers but acquired 5 psi-clones). Even later on when everyone was quipped with akimbo disruptors my people died like mayflies. I probably just need to get used to the realtime game as I was used to round based XCOM1/2 and Fallout and I'm sick of it.

 

 

But it's good to see that a reasonably active XCOM community still exists, thought I was lost with this one FAQ on gamefaqs

[rattle]

Are you absolutely sure that you are destroying them?  I am not trying to patronise you, just that they could crash behind a building or something without you realising.

 

Most likely is the missiles are too strong for them (as has been said above)

 

The latter... because I use the overhead map to navigate anything and everything in the cityscape

 

I'll start over and try out the basic cannons now. The small and large lasers weren't as useful than I thought the first time I used them, maybe it's just me but they barely hit.

 

 

What really is annoying are the random crashes that happily appear after successful missions. Just had the heck of a fight and then: back to desktop. Just have to get used to the fact that quickly saving and loading games is possible during a fight, other than the predecessors.

[[dipstick]]

I would recommend looking through the threads around here to check if any particular 'symptoms' of your game are highlighted. We are a pretty reasonable bunch here, and many of us have had problems at some point. That said, there are a few of us who sadly have had to put up with a couple of bugs in the game.

 

I rarely do raids - and never stun raids, I usually get enough aciton from the aliens to worry about. I usually have several men, if not an entire squad out injured.... so a raid is usually impractical, as I usually lose entire squads to their mini missiles.... But then, when I pack multiple mini missiles, things get interesting Especially against UFOs!

 

I don't like lasers, it has to be said. They miss too often, and usually aim directly for buildings, which decreases your score, andmakes organisations angry with you. Not a good mix.

[Yoni]

About your mine: yup that's probably a proximity mine. It's one of many weapons that can't be bought during the first or even the second week, yet can already be found ruring raids on the organizations that produce them.

 

Boo boo blead to death.... I've noticed it too in my own game. In turn-based mode your soldier is healed the moment you've used the med-kit. In real time however, it takes a bit of time to heal a wound, and while the soldier is still busy healing it, his/her health keeps dropping.

 

Raiding the cult: I suggest raiding them on turn-based for the moment. In real-time the computer dares placing your units in tight squads near the enemy now and then, giving you no chance of spreading them before-BANG MISSILE-

It's also very annoying when your soldiers tend to spot those guys just after they launched their missiles. (It happens in my games all the time, enemy units seem to spot me one to three seconds prior to my units spotting them, regardless of distance or smoke; making them already firing or throwing at me when I get a visual)

[[NKF]]

The longer you play, the more daring you'll get with your strategies.

 

Speaking of the medikit in real-time, the medikit, when active, is meant to slow the flow of blood from that particular limb as long as it's active (although as noted, it's not always 100% successful), and then after a few seconds, stop the flow of blood completely and you get healed. If you move, however, or if you're already on the move and activate the medikit, it will not work. You have to be still for it to work. Also, if you're flying, you have to land in order for it to function.

 

Quite restrictive, but it works. I think the wait is meant to mimic the TUs spent in a turn based game, although I'm sure in turn based, healing works a lot faster.

 

Tip: If you're badly wounded with multiple criticals, have a comrade borrow you another medikit and activate both of them. This will let you heal two different limbs at the same time.

 

- NKF