So what do you think about the Alien Life Scanner? Personally, I think it verges on game breaking as it reveals the location of all the aliens on the map. No more guessing, no more searching, just run and gun. I have been using it with great success to train up rookies in a few short missions, once you get LOS on an alien, you can drag it back to your trainee who kills it. The only other major problem I have with this item is that it doesn't work very well with levels: for instance, it will not detect a unit in the air if your soldier is on the ground (well, hello there Larva!).

 

- Zombie

I agree, it is borderline ground breaking. While it does take away the need to have to hunt down every alien (which saves time), it does take away the mystery of where that last alien is lurking about. Guess it just depends on how fast you want to get the mission over with. I think something like the scanner in EU worked would be nice, get within a certain range and it shows a blip, I guess sort of like a fish finder.

 

-NoX

I find the scanner excellent, for the turn per turn game can too often be boring long for almost nothing.

(That's a reason why I prefer the UFO:After games)

Well, it sure makes hunting down that last alien a lot easier. Though like I said earlier, the scanner doesn't detect aliens on a different level so you'll still end up hunting down Larva who stay floating or aliens who camp out in upstairs rooms.

 

- Zombie

As a late edit to this, if your soldier can fly and also has a life scanner you'll be able to detect aliens on that level. So you can go up and down with that soldier to scan all the levels of the battlescape or have separate soldiers on different levels with a scanner to check. Both are viable. The first option is really for when you only have one scanner while the second is when you have multiples.

- Zombie