AliensMustDie

I usually take 9, but 10 is fun too. 3 guys who are my flyers/scout squad. Good shooters with a mix of toxiguns and devastators. Next two squads are mostly devastators with one toxigun guy in each. The only unusual thing is that the last 3 man squad is all androids just in case I run into any of the psi troublemakers. The androids are crappy shots, but in the case of psi aliens, that isn't a big deal since those aliens have no other attack than mind control which doesn't work on androids. Hey J'ordos, how do you manage 14 hoverbikes with plasma cannons? I can never buy enough elerium ammo for that amount of guns. Are you getting it somewhere else? How? Thanks

Well, it does go against my basic instinct which is to fry the little buggers :flame: Or fill them full of holes :uzzi: :uzzi2: . But I am playing this game working the toxin/alien gas chain of research. Do you think it is worth it? Is alien gas a real kick a** weapon? How do you use it? A grenade or is it another toxin for your water pistols?

Howdy! I know this subject is buried somewhere here, but I could not pull up what I am looking for through a search. What are your suggestions for capturing this big guy alive? :monster: I think I read somewhere that one player put all his guys on top of the UFO and waited for the megaspawn to come out the front door and then nailed him a bit with weapons before using stun gas grenades (I think- not sure but it would seem impossible to get him with a stun grapple given his weapon accuracy and high damage). Also, does the megaspawn only appear in one type of UFO or in several types? I just encountered one in a type 8 UFO so I am curious. Thanks

How does mind control work in XCOM 2 in terms of improvement? Is there a max number of improvement points per mission? I notice my guys are getting better, but how does it work? Can I just MC one alien and then over and over MC them in the mission to boost stats? Or do you have to go MC other aliens to get the stat boost? As to MC'ing an alien is it a straight skill vs strength thing i.e. if my guy has a higher skill than the alien's strength I will MC the alien or is it somehting more complicated? The strat guide doesn't really have that much on this topic so I curious. Also, is there any alien that cannot be MC'd? How about a tentaculat? Thanks!

I dunno about XCOM 1, but it for sure is not the case in XCOM 2 . It is a favorite tactic of mine to set up a "firing range" by mind controlling aliens and then bringing them into range so that my weak soldiers (or good ones for that matter) can practice their aim. Kills while they are mind controlled does not count against you.

From what is being said here about TU's to use the HTL, I am guessing there is (i) a difference in time units to use the HTL depending on the difficulty level or (ii) a tweaking of the HTL time units in the CE edition. TU use for the HTL in my game at the experienced level and off the CE edtions varies but it is never more than 17 and it can be as low as 12 TU. At 12 TU, why would you ever use a vibro blade? With an experienced soldier having 60+ TU you can move a good distance and still have enough TU for at least 2 good attacks. I have had experiences using a vibro blade and 3 or more attacks to put them down is not unusual with that weapon. Never have I had to use more than 2 HTL attacks for a lobbie and probably 80%-90% I use only 1. The experience of 20+ TUs to use the HTL talked about in an earlier post is not something I have encountered.

I'm not sure that a zombie ever turns into a tentaculat without getting killed first. Did an experiment in TFTD and after 10 turns still no change. Maybe XCOM 1 and the chryssalids are different? The zombie does have a nasty HTH attack if it "sees" you. Its coded perception is pretty weak as you can go around a corner and it will "forget" where you are. But if it does nail you, watch out. In a recent colony mission I had a zombie seriously injure a top aquanaut in magnetic ion armor in one turn and outright kill him in two turns ( I left him there to see what would happen since I had always run away from zombies before). I still cannot get over what a "secret" weapon the HTL is in the game. I see now why the designers made it so tricky to obtain as it is an absolute "must have" weapon in the game. Don't you love the colony missions when you scuttle across the room to one of the small closet type rooms, open the door and whamo, there is a tentaculat waiting to do you in? Never fear with the HTL. You can be down to 11 action points with some guys and that is enough to use the mighty HTL. I no longer fear the lobstermen as they are just so easy with the HTL. One "poke" and it is lobster bisque! Yesterday evening I cleared the entire second level of a colony using no more than my HTL weapons. Never fired a shot of any other weapon. 50 dead aliens total for the colony. Booty was worth over $8M. Sweet.

Thanks. I still think they "tweaked" the code when they did the CE because you used to be able to "cheat" and put an extra ammo round in one hand of your soldier in XCOM 1 or 2 even though the blaster/disrupter is a two handed weapon. Now if you do that in TFTD the missile won't follow the waypoints at all. Take the ammo out of his hand and voila, the waypoints work as they are supposed to (about 90% of the time- see my other post) Seems to me when I played the DOS version of TFTD when I did a colony mission on "veteran" I got hit with several missiles along with MC attacks right when I got out of the ship. Must be lots of fun on superhuman. I think I'll try that next game just so I can feel really frustrated.

Yep, one well placed sonic grenade and it is "night night " for the big dino. Ditto for the Xarquid snail/squid thing. Forget wasting ammo on these things. A disrupter missile also words quite well. The HTL is a must with lobstermen. I usually don't even bother with anything else. They aren't that great of a shot and don't move around much so usually you can work your way up close and get your HTL attacks in with little or no damage. I use the HTL with Tasoths as well as they can be pretty tough to put down in the close quarters of a sub or base.

Not sure if this is a bug or just an effect of porting a DOS game to WIN. Seems to me when I played the DOS versions of XCOM 1 and 2 the blaster bombs/disrupter torpedos were 100% accurate when you did the waypoints correctly. I've had more than one instance playing the Windows CD version of TFTD where the disupter missile just goes haywire and totally disregards the waypoints. Maybe 10% of the time. Is this an "error" factor newly figured in or just a bug in the port? Not sure what level I am playing on (maybe "experienced"?) but I am surprised that the aliens don't use their disruptor missiles more. They sure throw a lot of grenades, but not many missiles. At what level do they get real aggressive with these things?

Can you just play this game forever without going to T'leth? Or will the aliens eventually stop sending ships so that you run out of zrbite to power your snappy new subs? I have beat this game a few times so I am just enjoying playing it out slowly, but I am wondering if the game at some point forces you to go to T'leth. Any thoughts? :happybanana:

Sorry, I probably wasn't too clear. One guy got nailed by a tentaculat and turned into a zombie. So standing at the beginning of the turn side by each was a zombie and a tentaculat. I moved my other guy right in front of the tentaculat and killed it with an HTL attack. End of turn. Next turn with the zombie standing right next to my aquanaut, I killed the zombie with another HTL attack and, as we all know, after the zombie died he turned into a tentaculat. I then killed the tentaculat on the same turn with another HTL attack. I could never have pulled that off using guns or it would have been far riskier as I would have needed 3 perfect snap shots in a row.

I voted for the Hallucinoid. The aquatoids early on are nothing, but later in the game, like on artefact sites, they sneak up like ninjas and throw piles of grenades with deadly accuracy. Big problems esp. if you go at it at night. So they are wimpy initially, but they can be deadly as time goes on. The hallucinoids have never even damaged any of my guys. Usually they just sit there like a big floating target with a big splash once you wipe them out.

I love the HTL. Let me give you an example of how handy they are. Yesterday I was in the middle of an artefact site assault. Near the control room I had a hapless aquanaut get nailed by a tentaculaut and zombified. I had a dude pretty far away, but I did some calculating and realized he could get there and still have about 13 points to use on a HTL attack. After moving him over, the HTL attack killed the tenataculaut. Next turn, with the zombie doing nothing, I used two attacks, one to kill the zombie and one to kill the tentaculaut. No way would that have happend if I had used my sonic cannon. Also, in the tight corners of an artefact assault, I have used the HTL many times to save my a** after whipping around a corner only to find an alien and me very low on turn points.

I played a strange TFTD game awhile back where I also didn't get Ion armor due to my igorance on the research tree. Lots of saves and reloads, but eventually I researched the right lobster guy and boom, I got magnetic navigation and then magnetic ion armor without ever researching ion armor. Weird. that research tree sure is a strange duck.