Variation on the usual poll...

[Rattler]

Okay I tried to post last night, but it didn't work. So I'll this post short and simply say. I went with the Crysillid for previously said reasons, but for my my second choice would be snakemen. Cause other then the terror units they're actually different from the other aliens. Mutons are big humans, Ethreals are skinny humans and so forth.

 

 

And I agree with JFG that the crysillid probably runs up to someone, stabs them, spreads their claws apart to make a bigger wound, the egg comes out from between the claws along with some virus then retracts it's arm and wanders off. While the poor sap rolls on the ground writhing in agony as the virus takes over and the egg grows bigger.

[JellyfishGreen]

XMIB: "A black and shiny alien, you say?"

Lieutenant: "Yes, but we can handle one little alien. It ran into that warehouse. My men are bringing it down now."

XMIB: "No, Lieutenant. Your men are already dead."

 

 

"Bulldog-2! Come in, Bulldog-2"

"BraaAAIns..."

[Pumpkinhead]

I wanted to find out where each Alien ranked in a combat situation, so multiplying all of the relevant stats on a Superhuman difficulty, the ranks come out in this order:

 

1. Sectoid

2. Zombie

3. Floater

4. Snakeman

5. Silacoid

6. Celatid

7. Reaper

8. Muton

9. Ethereal

10. Cyberdisc

11. Sectopod

12. CHRYSSALID!!

 

Note #1:

This includes a damage stat in which I gave all the main aliens Heavy Plasma...

Note #2:

I left out Psi-skill purely for a "fighting" rating, but if it's included it brings the Ethereal to #12, beating the Chryssalid!

[maxoman]

I have choosen the floater due to its scary look. I mean, if you were seeing it, in reality, for the first time, with it's heavy surgical changes, this metal stuff in it and it's watchable organs you really would crap your pants. Of course, as soon as you realise what tough shit you have to bring on to defeat it (like pushing it's teddy, or calling it names ) you laugh your ass of when you see them.

[EclipseDog]

Oooh someone besides me noticed the fear potential at first glance when dealing with floaters! Glad to see another who sees it my way, max, although just like you I doubt anyone would even have to take a full second glance to realize that they were all show and no action.

[ShadowBlade]

In my opinion, the Reaper is the most intimidating alien in UFO. It's a big, red-eyed bull-like creature that comes charging against your troopers. :devil: Seconded by the Chryssalid, which lurks in the dark and its dark armour plus nasty appearance makes it look really dangerous. (and it really is! :o )

[Bomb Bloke]

Maybe a chys-zombie wearing personal armor...?

 

...

 

I voted before I read the first post... oops... chose etherals... https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/sad.gif

 

I still remember how un-scary my first chys encounter was...

 

"Funny looking sectoid... let's send a rocket his way... scratch one alien..."

 

Wasn't till many missions later that I had my second encounter... https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/sarcastic.gif

 

They really don't bug me much, but they are the ones I'd least like to meet face to face. Big grinning metal thing with claws.

 

Think about it - they take control of your troops, same as etherals. Only their way is permanent.

[kai]

Here is a good way of stating some of the points so far:

 

1) Sectoids are scary because this is the classic image of aliens, and to emphasise the point of how scary they can be, here is a variation on my scary story with improvements to content and style (The veteran seemed to like the imagery in the original, unless that was sarcasm)

 

Situation: Night time raid on UFO, rural area, location undisclosed, 14 March 1999

 

You are a new recruit with X-COM, you enter a barn alone. After entering, you see there are no hostiles and out of sheer stupidity you holster your sidearm. You walk a little further in to the barn, tension disipates. You hear a noise and turn to the door and there is a figure standing the door, it is a little dark and you have trouble making out details but as your eyes adjust, a sense of horror fillls you. It's a sectoid! You freeze with fear, you stare in to its cold, calculating eyes and start to hear whispers, you can feel it in your mind, it sees what you see, it feels what you feel, it knows what you know and fear. Adrenaline rushes in and you overcome your fear and draw your sidearm. Before you can fear, you see that it is brandishing a small plasma pistol. Thre is a flash of light from the weapon. You feel light, almost disconnected as you fall to the ground. As you look down, you can see a gaping wound in your gut from the gun, the edges burnt from the boiling temperatures of the plasma. The sectoid calmly and emotionlessly walks out of the barn as the pain sets in, just as you realise what has happened and panic sets in, you pass out.

 

(Anyone want the next part of the story, it will get good, hopefully )

 

2) Ethereals are scary because they know and see all with their minds, like sectoids to the power of 10 (and they have sinister robes)

 

3) The prospect of being impregnated by a chrysallid is enough to strike fear in to anyone (scarier, what if it does find an orifice, ouch!)

 

4) Reapers are big dumb animals, some good big guns will take them out

 

5) Snakemen? Big snakes? Kill the slimey critters!

 

6) Mutons, they are built a tank, they're scary, especially if you have a little gun (aim for the eyes, direct path to the brain)

 

7) Silicoids. You will be confused when you see them, you will fry if they get too close, make sure you kill them before they get close, other than that, not too scary

 

8) Weird floaty thing that looks like a kidney, they are confusing and may look scary to a noobie but I doubt that a veteran would be intimidated

 

9) Floaters. Hovering is sinister but no psi as far as I know so not scary if you take pot shots at them

 

10) Cyberdiscs. They look like mini UFOs and they shoot plasma, that is pretty scary! (plus sectoids do remote mind control)

 

11) Sectopods. Really like a tank, plsama has little effect and they are tied in to the ethereal minds, HELP!!!!

 

By the way, does a cyberdisc or sectopod actually have a brain inside?

[Bomb Bloke]

I think the sectopod might, but the cyberdisk, no.

[JellyfishGreen]

Electronic brains that take their orders through artificial psi-receivers, both of them. At least that's what my scientists tell me.

[kai]

After recently watching Alien, I have a fresh fear for chysallids. Seeing the alien burst out of the guy makes you realise, the xenomorph and the chryssalid are both like male birth, the fear of it anyway.

[EtherImp]

Sectopods..

 

Yes, Ethereals have psi.

 

Yes, Crystallids reproduce.. and are scary looking..

 

But neither of them can take the kind of punishment a sectopod can. The only thing that makes short work of Sectopods is Laser tanks and Heavy Lasers.. And neither of them have auto-fire. Oh, and blaster launchers.. But that's different. You can't ALWAYS fire blaster launchers.. Sectopods can also fire Plasma, instead of just having a melee attack.. The only 2 things they can't do are fly, and use Psi.. But that which they lack, the Ethereals make up for. Perfect combination, some might say.

 

Plus, can you imagine the kind of crunching sounds a sectopod makes as it wonders around in a warehouse slaughtering civs?

[kai]

Maybe it would sound like the hunter-killer robot/cyborg from robocop2

[EtherImp]

Exactly what I imagined.

[kai]

Robotic creations are scary. But an alien is more scary. Anybody seen sphere? The most likely reaction to somthing alien is absolute terror

[Zombie]

Heh, I found it! Ok, time to bump this thread a bit.

 

I wanted to find out where each Alien ranked in a combat situation, so multiplying all of the relevant stats on a Superhuman difficulty, the ranks come out in this order:

 

1. Sectoid

2. Zombie

3. Floater

4. Snakeman

5. Silacoid

6. Celatid

7. Reaper

8. Muton

9. Ethereal

10. Cyberdisc

11. Sectopod

12. CHRYSSALID!!

 

Note #1:

This includes a damage stat in which I gave all the main aliens Heavy Plasma...

Note #2:

I left out Psi-skill purely for a "fighting" rating, but if it's included it brings the Ethereal to #12, beating the Chryssalid!

I used my alien stats spreadsheet to figure out how each race/rank compares against each other by adding these stats together: TU, Hea, Sta, Rea, Str, FA, TA, Melee, Armor (Front+Left+Right+Rear+Under), Energy Recharge, PSk, PSt, Agg, Int and Bravery. Also, I added Flying Ability, Largeness and finally Victory Points (as a tie-breaker). All stats were from the core - not a specific skill level. This is what I came up with (from most dangerous to least):

 

  Rank			Alien		 Value
1	  Sectopod Terrorist	1433
2	  Ethereal Commander	1091
3	  Ethereal Leader	   1045
4	  Cyberdisc Terrorist   1024
5	  Chryssalid Terrorist   997
6	  Ethereal Soldier	   994
7	  Muton Engineer		 897
8	  Silacoid Terrorist	 879
9	  Muton Navigator		873
  10	  Muton Soldier		  849
  11	  Reaper Terrorist	   839
  12	  Celatid Terrorist	  834
  13	  Floater Commander	  810
  14	  Snakeman Commander	 797
  15	  Snakeman Leader		751
  16	  Floater Leader		 729
  17	  Sectoid Commander	  720
  18	  Sectoid Leader		 705
  19	  Snakeman Engineer	  694
  20	  Zombie				 691
  21	  Snakeman Navigator	 690
  22	  Snakeman Soldier	   687
  23	  Floater Engineer	   652
  24	  Floater Medic		  648
  25	  Floater Navigator	  646
  26	  Floater Soldier		643
  27	  Sectoid Engineer	   641
  28	  Sectoid Medic		  637
  29	  Sectoid Navigator	  635
  30	  Sectoid Soldier		632

Ignoring the ranks, I just averaged the aliens in each race together and came up with this:

 

  Rank	   Alien		 Value
1		Sectopod	   1433
2		Ethereal	   1043
3		Cyberdisc	  1024
4		Chryssalid	  997
5		Silacoid		879
6		Muton		   873
7		Reaper		  839
8		Celatid		 834
9		Snakeman		724
  10		Zombie		  691
  11		Floater		 688
  12		Sectoid		 662

Obviously, this doesn't tell the whole story. For example, the Silicoid is marginally better than their masters, the Mutons. But Mutons carry weapons whereas the Silacoid can only attack hand-to-hand. Big difference there. Also, this doesn't take into account the Cyberdisc's massive explosion when killed, the Chryssalid's nasty habit of zombifying humans, or accuracy/damage of integrated weapon systems/melee. Still, the list looks pretty true.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

It does make sense, actually. Although I feel that lots of us may put the sectoids a little higher up from the floaters, due to their psi. But from pure combat, they're right down there.

 

The general trend appears to indicate that the terrorist units are more powerful than their masters. Makes sense, the terrorist are war machines made to cause lots of destruction. Even the reaper, although a lot of players underestimate them. It's still compensates for having lots of stats. The zombie's the exception - it's just an interim stage for the Chryssalid. The sectopod's a veritable stat powerhouse.

 

Here's an idea, make two lists - the primaries and the terror units. Put in an additional weight on the primaries that takes into account the terror unit they're associated with (i.e. the placing of the terror units in their respective list).

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Here's an idea, make two lists - the primaries and the terror units. Put in an additional weight on the primaries that takes into account the terror unit they're associated with (i.e. the placing of the terror units in their respective list).

I thought about this before but wasn't sure how to handle it. The problem is that Mutons have two associated terror units while the other races only have one. Simply adding the terrorist point total in to the "master" race would thus skew the results too far into the Muton realm:

 

Rank	   Alien		 Value
 1		Muton		  2586
 2		Ethereal	   2476
 3		Snakeman	   1721
 4		Sectoid		1686
 5		Floater		1527

The only good thing about this arrangement is that the Sectoids now jump up a level which I think many would feel is more appropriate. What I ended up doing is averaging the Silacoid and Celatid together (ignored the Zombie as it doesn't really play a role). Then I pooled all the point totals for the terrorists together and figured out how much each terror unit contributed to the total. This is a nice and neat percentage which I then multiplied by 1000 (just an arbitrary constant on my part, but 100 was too low to play a factor). Then I added that number to the alien master race. And here is the result with Value1 being contribution weight and Value2 being a simple sum:

 

Rank	   Alien		 Value1	 Value2
 1		Ethereal	   1322	   2476
 2		Muton		  1039	   1730
 3		Snakeman		917	   1721
 4		Sectoid		 861	   1686
 5		Floater		 851	   1527

Guess I don't see anything really wrong with this approach as the list is better now.

 

This order checks by just inspecting the numbers from the last table in my previous post. We'd expect the Ethereal to be #1 since the Sectopod had a lock in the points. The Muton was the next alien on the list and since it's terrorist units were clustered around it stayed #2. Obviously, the Snakeman will be #3 as the Chryssalid was high up on the list. The Sectoid sneaks past the Floater because of the Cyberdisc obviously.

 

- Zombie

[Danial]

... would thus skew the results...

I've never seen any but H. P. Lovecraft use the spelling "shew"

[Zombie]

skew = biased or distorted. At least that's the context I was after. Don't know what "shew" means. Must be British.

 

- Zombie

[Danial]

lol In my tiredness I misread it My bad

 

FWIW, "shew" is the ye old english way of spelling "show"