Slythe1

Usually I'll go for laser technology first until I get laser rifles, then alien alloys and personal armor after that so my soldiers have some protection (very important). I then research medkits so I can save any wounded soldiers, then power armor after that for. After that it varies, but usually I'll go something like heavy plasma, plasma cannons (big help for shooting down UFOs), alien grenades, mind probe, flying suit, stun launcher, etc.

Thanks for the heads up about UFO: Alien Invasion; I hadn't heard of it before but just did a search for the site and downloaded and ran the demo. It looks nice so far, but far from finished. It sure would be nice if just one of these many fan projects would be seen to completion.

As I said, I lost count of the cyberdiscs but I remember at least 8. It might've been the maximum of 10 for all I know. They seemed to never end.

I didn't have heavy plasma yet.

I always play at superhuman now. I've never tried firing a rocket into the ceiling, though I know cyberdiscs are rather resistant to rocket fire. To throw a high explosive into the hallway I would've had to go through the door into the hallway and would've been summarily slaughtered, so I saw no other option but to throw a high explosive through the ceiling. The design of starting a cyberdisc in the hallway where it can't move is a bit silly to begin with.

Okay so it was the first month of a game I started. On about the 23rd of that first month I detected a large ship moving across northern Africa (my starting base was in southern Europe). I knew this was about to become the first terror mission, happening a bit early. I immediately dispatched my two interceptors in the hopes of downing it before it actually turned into an actual terror mission. Thankfully I shot it down with no damage to my interceptors. I waited til daylight then sent my Skyranger filled with a rocket tank and 10 soldiers. Since it was so early in the game I had no armor, and 5 of my soldiers had laser rifles and 5 had laser pistols. I also brought along a rocket launcher and auto-cannon as always. On the way to the site I had that single thought running through my head - are they floaters or sectoids ? I don't need to tell you there's a HUGE difference between the two terror ships, especially early in the game with no armor and no plasma weapons. First turn, the tactical screen pops up, focused on my first soldier, and there are two flashing red icons indicating aliens sighted. I scroll the screen over with my mouse and what do I see but a sectoid and a cyberdisc. Oh crap. First turn I fill the Skyranger and the ground around the ramp with smoke. Alien's turn, they don't see inside my ship. That's a good thing. Okay on my turn I unload my tank to scout, fully expecting it to be obliterated. It drops down and sees the sectoid and cyberdisc, then turns towards the back and spots a second sectoid and a second cyberdisc. This won't be easy. By the way, I wish I had kept track of this mission turn by turn, with exact numbers of enemies, but unfortunately I didn't and will have to estimate. Anyway, I move my tank out of the way and oddly enough only take a single opportunity shot from one of the sectoids. I start unloading my soldiers to fire furiously at the cyberdiscs, missing 50% of the time with my laser weapons and needing to score several hits to actually destroy them. I lose one soldier but manage to destroy all 4 aliens. Next turn more aliens move towards the Skyranger and I lose another soldier. My tank scouts once again and spots TWO more cyberdiscs and a sectoid. This pattern continues for a couple more turns. All the while of course I'm being psi attacked by the cowardly leader hiding on the bridge of the downed terror ship. Eventually my tank gets destroyed by reaction fire from a cyberdisc. I lose a few more soldiers to psi attacks and reaction fire. Finally I get to a point where I have to storm the bridge of the ship, or to be more specific I have to go up the lift and kill whatever's left. I move a soldier out the first door into the hall and see yet another cyberdisc stuck in the hallway. Luckily my soldier's not shot so I move him quickly back inside. This is an impossible situation by the way. I would have to suicide a few soldiers to try to destroy it if I was lucky. I have no plasmas that can shoot holes in the roof/floor. Because of this silly design I have to resort to another silly design flaw and throw a high explosive up through the ceiling (something I never do but in this case I had no choice). This kills the cyberdisc and another sectoid. All in all I saw more cyberdiscs than I've ever seen on any sectoid terror mission in all the times I've ever played this game. I lost count but it seemed like at least eight cyberdiscs. I'm not sure what the maximum number of cyberdiscs that can be generated on a terror mission - if there even is one - but if there is I certainly hit it. It was a brutal mission where I lost 5 of my 10 soldiers and my tank, but I actually captured the leader! My goal, once I realized it was a sectoid mission, was to try to capture as many of the aliens as I could in hopes of getting a navigator and/or the leader. I had no mind probe researched so I went after as many as I could with stun rods, capturing two. I was lucky to just lose 5 soldiers I think. It could've easily been much worse.

Ya can't go up against them with weak psi soldiers.

Yeah I use the rocket tanks primarily for base defense and as scouts during tougher missions, and to blow apart all obstructions on tactical maps, like barns and such. Later on in the game I'll usually build blaster tanks for base defense, and if I have enough elerium I'll use them on tougher missions.

I was really just referring to something I noticed in the very beginning of the game when I still had stingray launchers, although it's now happened a couple times later on in the game with avalanches. I had never had a ship repeatedly break off and flee from stingray range so many times until this first game I've been playing at superhuman, so I was curious if it had anything to do with difficulty level. It also just might be coincidence.

Yeah the large and medium scouts are the only ships I employ this tactic with.

Grenades are quite handy, both proximity and alien.

When I've cleared or am clearing the surrounding area, I'll usually toss a proximity grenade outside the door, and station a few soldiers nearby for reaction fire, but another thing I do is have a soldier or two stand 'around the corner' from the door. When an alien comes out and dies, but you know there's more inside, I'll move a soldier around the corner, pick up whatever type of gun or mind probe the alien had on it's body, then move back around the corner. I'll then toss another proximity grenade down and repeat. This way I won't lose all the valuable alien artefacts from the grenade explosions.

I had been picking off the floaters and reapers one and two a turn as they'd exit the access lift then get shot down by my soldiers. Eventually after killing 20 the last few aliens back in the hangars who had dropped their weapons started panicking, including a reaper, leader, and commander, all in the same turn. This is on superhuman. Oh the first thing the reaper did was go berserk. I can't imagine that'd do anything.

It happened. I've never seen it before. My base was attacked by floaters and after killing 20 aliens, their next turn I see the messages that a floater leader, floater commander, and reaper, have all panicked. Thought it was interesting.

I don't think there's anyway to stop the attacks unless you dismantle your defenses, let a ship land, and successfully defeat the aliens inside your base. If you shoot down a ship I think they just keep sending and sending them. It gets rather tiring.

Have you ever noticed ships repeatedly fleeing stingray launch range before you're even able to fire?

So I've always played on easy difficulty until recently, when I jumped to superhuman. A couple things I noticed, maybe just coincidence. First off in the very beginning of a game when my interceptor had one stingray launcher and one avalanche launcher I attacked a small ship and before I could close to fire the stingray, it sped away. This repeated two more times such that I was never able to shoot it down. Usually in my games I'll have a couple radar bases, perhaps with a hangar and interceptor, before I bother stationing troops there. I found out how risky this strategy is, and ultimately not worth it. An alien battleship somehow located my base and destroyed it outright. Remind me to always put soldiers at bases as soon as possible. Oh a little sidenote I lost more soldiers on a mission than I have in a long time. I had just started a game so no armor and only normal rifles and autocannons, assaulting a landed floater ship in the jungle on superhuman. It turned out to be one of those situations where several floaters started just out of visual range of the LZ and turn after turn moved into range, spotted a soldier kneeling, fired one shot hit and killed the unarmored soldier. Lost 6 out of 10.

Among my favorite games are X-COM Thief 1 and 2 System Shock 1 and 2 Deus Ex the various Ultimas, particularly 6-8 Planescape: Torment Masters of Magic Masters of Orion 2 Half-Life Alpha Centauri Colonization back when I used to play Quake 2 LMCTF online Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Everquest used to be

Coincidentally enough I just finished a base defense mission. I'm actually playing on superhuman for the first time ever, it's the beginning of April, I'm doing okay but I'm losing a soldier a mission on average, and my primary base was somehow located by the aliens and attacked...maybe it was that battleship that passed directly over it. First turn I spin all my soldiers around to see if any aliens started among us, which should of course never happen but sometimes does. Fortunately I had rearranged my base so three hangars and an access lift were isolated from the rest of the structures. No aliens spotted. Okay, I move my tank and all my soldiers inside all the modules along the path 'south' of the access lift, with my tank at the southernmost part. With this setup I'm able to use my tank to move out and spot the aliens, then retreat and move soldiers out for the kills. It's too bad most of the aliens when they move out into the base reserve enough TUs for a reaction shot, so my tank is always in danger. Okay second turn my tank moves out and spots a sectoid....damn....I was hoping for floaters, heck even snakemen. It's only early April so no mutons or ethereals yet. I'm already dreading the psi attacks and cyberdisks. Oh I almost forgot, I had 20 soldiers at this base, 1 rocket tank, laser rifles, a few autocannons, and 1 rocket launcher. I had just researched alien grenades but I reached the total item limit apparently because none were available to me. Maybe it was the 20 heavy plasmas and 50 clips that I hadn't researched yet. Remind me to transfer all but a few to another base until I actually finish researching them. So I know I'm dealing with sectoids and cyberdisks. My soldiers are completely untested psionically, except for the one terror mission where I watched a couple soldiers consistently panicked or controlled. Too bad I never sacked them. The defensive setup I had worked wonderfully, but unfortunately the psi attacks resulted in a couple deaths, and the necessity of shooting a few cyberdisks in a tight hallway resulted in a couple more. At the end I won but lost 6 of 20 soldiers, one of which was MIA because it was controlled on the last turn by the last remaining sectoid leader who just stood far back in one of the hangars, having dropped its weapon turns before. It had nothing else to do but psi attack every damn turn. I can see this will be a tough game. I had just started building the final 2 of 6 bases, which basically means a radar and hangar. I have psi labs and hyperwave decoders researched and I'm researching heavy plasma right now. I've noticed on the missions that my accuracy seems reduced and the aliens seem smarter. By the way I've always played on the easiest level before now...and now I'm playing on superhuman. I'm learning that if I really want to reduce casualties and win I should just demolish every single obstruction on the tactical map. I've seen too many situations where either an alien walked out from behind something and fired a single shot and killed my soldier in power armor, or where my soldier walked past an open window or around a corner and met the same fate. Oddly enough I've also seen many times where a soldier took a shot from a heavy plasma and took no damage, and no fatal wounds. Here's hoping that the 2 or 3 remakes of this amazing classic game that are going on right now are completed and successful.

I didn't think a soldier could fire a blaster launcher as a reaction shot.

I recently ran into a rare but very nasty situation. I land with a skyranger, first turn drop a smoke grenade in the skyranger and also toss a high explosives at the bottom of the ramp. Seems fullproof enough. The smoke grenade goes off, the high explosive makes a satisfying boom in the area....on the alien's first turn a sectoid walks up to the ramp sees my soldiers shoots and kills one. Completely unavoidable, and very frustrating.

I usually send about 10 soldiers, no tank except for tough missions like terror sites or larger UFOs when I want a disposable scout. My soldiers will be equipped with the best armor I currently have researched, and laser rifles up until I research heavy plasmas. I also usually bring along a couple auto cannons, 1 rocket launcher to take down obstructions, and all my soldiers have grenades and proximity grenades. Oh also a few medkits and a couple high explosives, and stun rods if I'm out to grab a navigator or sectoid leader. This is of course all before I've researched stun launchers and blaster launchers. Edit: I hit reply just before NKF had posted so I hadn't read his post. Hey NKF I'm curious, do you always obliterate the LZ before disembarking ? Because I'm thinking I should start doing that. Most of the time tossing a couple smoke grenades then exiting works, but at times there just happens to be too many aliens surrounding the LZ and I wind up pinned down and lose soldiers.

I just got done with a floater mission that was among the toughest I've had with them. I downed a terror ship and went to recover it, threw out a smoke grenade around the landing area and exited. Well as it turned out almost the entire floater crew were surrounding my skyranger but just out of visual range from the smoke. For the next several turns I struggled to fend off an onslaught. One of my soldiers was shot and killed, and at one point a floater tossed a grenade wounding two soldiers, one of them having just 1 hit point remaining. The reapers though, have never been a threat. On a side note, of the two soldiers I had wounded from the grenade, neither had any fatal wounds, one had about half his health removed and the other had all but 1 hp removed. Their recovery times were almost identical however, 16 days and 17 days.