I've thought of a technique to defeat those nasty rocket launcher grays from reading the strategies you used that were posted in the forums. Haven't tested it yet, but it may work!

Many of you have mentioned sending the fastest guy to run around, acting as bait for the rockets. So I guess it may be possible to eliminate the grays launching them. It's quite simple, just send your best runner, armed with a plasma shotgun or any other devastating short-range weapon. Send him/her up TO the first rocket gray you see, dodging his missiles along the way. As they're usually in groups of 4 or 5, it'll guarantee the success of this tactic. Once your guy gets to the alien, the Reticulan won't shoot his projectile at your soldiers since he's too close and will hurt the shooter, too, BUT the other ones will, expecting to kill the terran. Just run away from there and watch the alien go KABOOM! :devil: Repeat the process with the remaining aliens to eliminate them all, using the powerful shotgun to kill the last one.

NOTES:

- Watch out for the other grays, the one wielding lasers or plasma weapons. Kill them with the rest of the team while the rockets are launched at the runner.
- This tactic only applies to open spaces, since there's not much space to run in an UFO/base.

Tell me what do you think!

sorry to rain on ur parade but the Reticulan will shot at u even at point blank range, I had a similar strategy, i thought if i run up the the peanut head with the missle launcher and drill him with an mp7 he will never fire it at me from point blank. Oh how wrong i was!
Also it never seems to work out that u have a situation where u have 2 missile Reticulans in two seperate locations to take advantage of them in that way.
Dont get me wrong it is a good idea! but alot depends on circumstance and its not usually in ur favour

+for me if some alien has spotted my squad and my soilders are cramped togheter and rocket launching greys are in the somewhat around, they tend to shoot at the cramped squad instead of my solo guy even if he is closest

With the bio armor my troops have, I can sustain a rocket shot and laugh at them as I blast back a concentrated volley of well-aimed fire (if outside) or seven well-placed bursts (if indoors). This way, they never get off a second shot, and I smoke 'em before they ever even had a chance to THINK about a second rocket.

Of course, if I'm crouching around a corner and surprise them in ambush, they don't even get a chance to fire off the first rocket... use that cover, and use the element of surprise!

Yea point to remember is that they fire at the ground where there target was, so when u move its still gonna hit that point.
Although with a little more thinking ur taccy just might work, with small alterations.
Bear with me while i type this, if its utter trash then ignore it

Ok, point 1: the aliens fire at the 1st trooper they see.
Point 2: if u move that trooper they then fire at the closest trooper.
Point 3: they aim at the ground so anything slower than very good speed will get hit when u try an move ur team outa the blast zone.
Point 4: When u see them it normally means there is a group of them together, this is a definate in later missions.
Point 5: By the time u have seen them an time has stopped the rocket has alrdy been fired, thus needing urgent action.
Point 6: An i don't know if this is implemented in the game, but do they run otua ammo or not??? if yes then that means they have 1 shot in weapon, can fit 1 on belt an 5 in backpack. If this is not in game then they have a lot more ammo. But for this we'll say they have 7 shots MAX.
Point 7: Max range is 45m, effective range is 27m with a dmg of 200.
Point 8: Theres normally a couple of them in same area roughly so times that by how many there will be, be it 2/3 or more.

Ok seeing as they fire at the ground where the selected target is ur gonan need an exceptional runner, HEROIC is preferred for this.
The closer u get the more likly u will be to get hit by a blast radius.
The aliens will only shoot that guy if there attention is on him so u need to annoy them somewhat if poss.
This is where ur own team comes in, with the aliens attention now diverted manouver 2/3 guys around the side outa there line of sight an into some cover where THEY (ur troopers) can't see the aliens, MAKE SURE THEY ALL HAVE GERNADES. HE INC mainly even acid if u want more the merrier.
If u have other members of ur team try an keep them at there max range from the targets so there chanace of hitting is like 10% or less, rifles only no mp7's or the like. Snipers preferred if poss.
Now with ur bait guy running his head off around in a kind of consistant circle an ur snipers/rifle men shooting at max range u8r other guys with the gernades should be approaching there target area. Next bit is simple lob gernades over the wall an don't stop, pause after each throw an alternate where they land so make it random behind the wall.

As i was typing this i treid this idea on the russian base mission an killed 5 rocket aliens an my bait guy had 3quarter health.
Now only problem is that the russian base has a wide open space before the walls
so this won't work properly on other situations.
but the bait idea to get there atention is 1 of the better choices, or if its in a street fall back an use the map to ur advantage, lure them in an with ur guys in different areas create a crossfire with gernades an weapons.

Now this works for me so i really don't expect it to work for everyone, although on 1 of the missions on a base ship 4 rocket aliens surronded my squad after the 1st 5 secs, thats a no win situation jsut live with it unfort.

Sorry for the amount of jibberish i have type here if u can make sense of it an make it work it works wonders.

Just found out by experience that my technique sucks...

I tried it in that damn mission where you have to get the biomass node material and the laser/psi grays turned my runner to shreds before he could even get close to one guy... Well, I guess I'll be stuck on this mission forever... BTW, I'm playing on Normal.

Any USEFUL (unlike mine) strategies...?

PS: 5/7 of my guys have Sun Armor, the rest have Combat Armor. All of them are at least Lvl 10 (max for my team is 12), they have Excellent speed, except for three who have Heroic speed. I use Alien Laser Rifles and G-36s for outdoors fighting and Shotguns and MP5s for indoor combat (I have one MP7, but I only have 9 clips...)

Well,

I'm sorry to say: At the moment i need to capture an interstellar spaceship... From the first turn after the start i have to get past TWICE the amount of greys youget at the russian base mission. It's hell! Even with the bioarmor. I'm trying a warp medic tomorrow to give my team more time to shoot back... But it's gonna be REAL hard...

1) Aliens run out of ammo, they even drop weapons they have no ammor for (kind of nice feature) and rl ones usually have a backup in for of laser pistol.

2) In mission where you have to capture alien ship warp medic is almost a must. Other thing is to have 2 close quarters soldiers to rush the enemies and draw their fire and a psi one to take back your troops.

3) Neostead is the fastest killing machine in whole game, aliens rarely need more than one shot at close range from it to go smell the flowers.

4) rocket spitter with inc ammo works miracles on groups of greys, it seems to deal far more damage than stated, or aliens just simply keep burning after being hit

5) bio armor wins the day as you only have to fear own troops with mp7/neosteads or inc rockets from aliens (and they use very little of those in late stages)

Well i have a screenshot of an old attempt at that mission where i blew a section ofthe wall out so i could run like hell to the enter base area.
my 1st guy is almost dead an there r 3 MORE rockets alrdy heading in his direction, this jsut is overkill an thats from 3 aliens with rockets.
I don't have a place where i can post a link to pictures so if anyone can for me then let me know an i'll send u the piccy its only small like. But u'll see my point with multiple rocket aliens. And if i can drag myself away from this forum i will put to praccy another taccy idea i've got.............if that is

I DID IT! I may have not used my tactic, but I DID IT!

This is what I did, simple, without lowering the difficulty nor using cheats nor anything:

All I did was equip ALL my guys with sniper rifles and sent a runner to draw the rocket fire. I admit I had to try a few times until all the aliens got smacked. Once inside the UFO, two seconds after I deployed my troops, two aliens show up, one with Basic Alien Armor and an Advanced Laser Pistol and the other one with Sky Armor and a mysterious device I didn't know. I kill the blue-shielded gray first (he couldn't even hear the shots coming ) because it seemed more dangerous and then the other one. I sent Raven (my red guy) to pick the mysterious device from the ground: "Alien Psi Projector".

"Um...? What does this thing do?" - I mumbled to myself.

Then I ordered him to scout the ship, backed by Fox (my cyan girl, armed with a plasma shotgun). After some scouting, I came across a Plasma Gun gray in Sun Armor.

"Hmm... Let's try this" - I said anxiously.

I ordered Raven to "fire" the newly discovered weapon and *PLING*, the alien's health bar turned yellow still being full and the peanut head got surrounded by a strange halo...

"What the hell's that?" - I thought, disappointed.

Then I noticed the alien's head in my guy's portrait, and got confused for a split-second. After this I realized I had MIND-CONTROLLED the gray! Suddenly, a raging yellow bloodthirst invaded me as I noticed there were like 3 more aliens in the same room as the one I had under my control. I commanded my peanut-headed servant to shoot his mates! :devil: When he got killed, I controlled another one, repeating the process until the last one remained under my control after killing his last mate, and then he/she/it recieved a full plasma bolt from Fox's gun, splattering golden gore everywhere! :devil: Mwahahahahahaha!

Then the mission continued normally, since I kept mind-controlling the peanuters until I ran out of ammo and, fortunately, won the mission with the last control.


PS: Longest post ever!

I find two things are great for killing rocket launcher aliens:

1) Power Turtle.

An enhanced heavy armor guy with lots of strength+willpower and a Gattling gun. He may get hit by rockets, but they barely make a dent on him. When the Gattling starts... Bye bye aliens. I killed all the aliens in a base defense mission with a single power turtle + a support medic.

2) Alien Microslug Accelerator.

Once you get it, the Alien Microslug Accelerator is way kewl for killing those nasty rocket launcher aliens at close quarters. It has terrific damage and a firing rate that kills anyone before they blink.

If you do not have either of those, loads of grenades, MP7s and a medic or two should be enough.