Requirements for ceasing base assault attempts?

[Tsathoggua]

Been getting a LOT of really, really seriously pissed off aliens of late, due to the constantly obliterating every effort they make to engage in any activity, from the smallest scout craft to a pack of dreadnoughts backed up by cruisers, they are immediately detected by the network of bases with hyperwave decoders, rarely ever losing track, and if it does happen, its usually brief, since there is a craft that somehow got bugged and left with 0% fuel, now assigned to permanent, constant patrol. It has no ammunition left, since unfortunately, rather than high-capacity sonics its equipped with a pair of PWT launchers, the ammunition for which was long since expended, although its of more use with the magazines empty as a patrol, scouting and tireless follower of craft to keep them in sight.

 

They did just get a base up, but that is about to be trashed, little sods built it without the usual swarm of craft engaged in construction, so about to send in a strike team and wipe their brand new base off the face of the earth. Only, the little shits are really determined to make some trouble, and are sending in dreadnoughts in ones, twos and more at a time to try and invade a base.

 

What does it actually take for them to piss off and things to calm down for a while, whilst I build a few manta attack craft to replace the three barracuda recently lost? A detection and attempted landing, successfully shot down by the automated PWT defences? or an actual invasion and them sent packing?

[sp1ke]

If I remember correctly you need to find and take out their base(s) to stop the assaults on your base. Otherwise they will continue non-stop

 

[NKF]

It's not so much the presence of the alien colonies. They mainly attract supply ships. Rather the team of aliens assigned to attack the X-Com bases will keep scheduling Dreadnaughts until they can get one of the squads into the base. Only then will their launch-base-attack flag clear.In short: let them in and deal with them on the ground.

 

Note that clearing one base attack will not necessarily stop another one from happening right away if other teams have been scheduled to attack the base. Deal with them one at a time.

 

There's a small percentage chance that you'll attract a base attack every time you shoot down an alien sub. This is part of the game's mechanism for ramping up the difficult if you're being too successful. Perhaps ease off on some of the interceptions and only deal with the ones that have a direct negative impact,such as infiltration, base attack or terror.

 

- NKF

[magic9mushroom]

There's a small percentage chance that you'll attract a base attack every time you shoot down an alien sub. This is part of the game's mechanism for ramping up the difficult if you're being too successful. Perhaps ease off on some of the interceptions and only deal with the ones that have a direct negative impact,such as infiltration, base attack or terror.

 

- NKF

 

On Superhuman, particularly TFTD Superhuman with the increased difficulty increment, it's rather a LARGE chance. Found that out the hard way when I shot down the Survey Ship on January 1 and got my main base destroyed a few days later.

 

If you're playing on Superhuman and you don't want to be drowning in Floating Base Attack attempts (which isn't necessarily the case; it's free money and XP, after all):

 

a) Don't shoot down subs unless you have to. You "have to" for Floating Base Attack scouts and Battleships on Alien Surface Attacks missions (those don't land, so the only way to recover the sub is to shoot it down) and you probably should for Alien Infiltration since it slows down the Infiltration's progress.

 

b) Build M.C. Generators, but no other base defences. Once a sub finds your base, the aliens will keep sending Dreadnoughts until a Base Defence mission happens. You have to let that happen to clear the flag - which means you eventually need a garrison at every base.

[Tsathoggua]

They landed. Did get slapped by a few PWT warheads on the way in although it wasn't enough to wipe out the dreadnought.

 

Garrison was totally green, no armor, and a mixture of gas cannon, sonic rifle, with a fair few shock launchers, plus enough explosives to wipe out a city. Aquatoids, thankfully, bringing calcinites along with them. Thankfully the aquanauts (only about 6-7 of them held their own with only one rookie dying (torn to pieces by a calcinite) were the race invading, had it been tasoth or anything nastier, there would have been a real tough fight on their hands. A few heavy sonic cannon were available, and thankfully, I'd had the foresight to station two sonic displacer tanks and a pair of gauss cannon tanks (taking advantage of the free ammo in base defence situations, once the displacers became available the tanks were immediately switched out for front line assault duty whilst the older gauss tanks (which I'd actually keep using were it not for the massive ammo consumption (btw, if one doesn't fire a single shot, and returns with a full magazine, does the engine still not return the shells ?) were assigned to other bases needing garrison duty. The displacers and gauss tanks really proved their worth as force-multipliers, and turned the tide of the fight, especially against the calcinites which can take a fair bit of abuse when the weapons used were mostly gas cannon and HE or phosphorus rounds. But they didn't stand up to being engaged at very close range by the improved coelacanth models with their heavy gauss weapon mounts, whilst the pair of displacers proved themselves perfect for scouting, marking targets for the aquanauts to practice their skills on, only opening fire once the aquanauts had exhausted their TU firing.

 

Question-when a base invasion begins, and when engaged by automated defense emplacements, does the attacking ship taking a non-lethal barrage of fire reduce the numbers of aliens that appear in the base? that is, are some killed by the initial defensive fire before landing, as in when a USO is engaged by interceptors and shot down, the crash (usually) killing some number of the crew? or is it an all or nothing thing?

 

I'm playing on genius, not superhuman. And make infiltrator craft my first priority, those get engaged immediately and brought down no matter how many craft need sending out given the importance of wiping those out. Alien interdiction missions also have high priority as do terror ships. In fact I've not had a terror site occur in so long it would almost be a good thing in terms of variety, since no terror ship has survived long enough to actually start, well, terrorizing.

 

One that I remember did manage to land, a dreadnought, or other very large craft, but it was spotted landing by a patrol craft and it made the mistake of doing so close to the base my main team is stationed at, and a troop transport immediately sent out, caught the bugger on the ground and managed to take the crew out without them ever getting to fire a shot. Aquatoids or gill men, forget which, but they didn't stand a chance against the team I sent, almost entirely extremely strong psykers and armed to the teeth with heavy weapons, every aquanaut carrying some form of close combat weapon, a vibroblade for the weakest in strength, the strongest carrying heavy thermic lances and tazers (I generally give the thermal tazers to the strongest troops with the most TU since it costs so much more to attack with one compared to even a heavy thermic lance whilst even a relatively weak soldier can usually manage a sonic rifle, a couple of sonic pulsers, maybe a dye grenade and a vibroblade, or else at least a vibroblade, sonic pistol and a bunch of grenades) and packing an awful lot of explosives. Wasn't so much a raid, as a massacre.