Good god.... havent picked up UFO in sooo long.... was going quite well had all original members of my squad. havent encountered any psionics and its august of 99... well.... shot down a terror ship... with etheriels... yeah went in with a plasma tank and 10 troops in flying suits... came out with 2 troops... but i beat them ^_^... kinda crippled me for the rest of the month though

Fun

You don't have to send ground forces to every ship you shoot down... I often leave the larger etheral ships.

heh.... yeah after my encounter with an Etheriel Battleship ive decided to skip 90% of the larger etheriel ufo's... then i decided to take out an alien base and go figure etheriels buuuuut as i ended a turn then heard a blaster bomb heading for my guys a great wonderful thing happened. The etheriel blaster bomb didnt make it. it just blew up prematuraly. This killed 9 etheriels and 2 sectopods. then i just blaster bombed the control center killing anoter 5 etheriels. then after that just hunted down the last etheriel and killed him. nonetheless lost 4 troops and a tank in said excursion -_-'

lol But i am guessing the benefits outweighed teh losses?

yup ^^. going against alien base 7 now... which i figure is an etheriel base as all the supply ships and battleships land on it have etheriels.... but yeah.... soon soon ill be able to do stuff ^_^

There are benefits to fighting etherals... but they tend to be one-offs. Once you've kicked their butts enough times, you can leave them well alone. It all depends what you want to research, really.

pretty much finished all the research just formatted comp though so have to reinstall stuff. But yeah i still avoid etheriels until i get enough psi strong troops... only have 3 so far :S

Tanks should help. I usually bring one to any mission, but if you want the extra firepower (and you don't want it going mad), bringing them in extra numbers might help.