Losing soldiers

[Saber123]

i need to know in the beging missions what do i need to equip my soldiers with i am having major problems this is before personal armor

[Alan]

*ponders*

 

well, the general trick is get them good guns, and good armour asap.

 

however before i get to that i usually stick to:

Autocannons with HE, works great for those with high strength stats.

Rifles, for those who don't have the strength.

Lasers, as soon as i get em.

medi kits, which are a high priority, cause if you're lucky they can save a trooper.

 

oh, and of course Tanks, just cause they can soak up the damage that would otherwise be hitting your troopers, and they make good scouts

[Tammy]

Three words:

Kneel behind cover!

Do this at the end of every turn and your survival rate will be much improved.

[The Veteran]

The simple answer? I would say just let them die but make sure the casualties are as few as possible. It's always going to happen anyway.

[NKF]

Just adding to the good advice...

 

(Alert: unnecessary verbosity ahead.)

 

Well, from years of playing, I find that it's really how you play that counts, not your equipment. Good equipment helps, but if you keep falling for the same trick over and over, big guns don't help. (Sadly, this doesn't always apply in TFTD, seeing as it has those @%@%## lobstermen)

 

I'm one of those mad people who, at the start, arm half of their soldiers with standard pistols [1], maybe one or two rifles or a rocket launcher for sniper work and maybe an auto/heavy cannon. Any setup will work though, just as long as there's enough firepower to deal with whatever it is you go up against.

 

A tank is always a great investment. Forget what some say that four rookies are a lot cheaper. Money and resources are not an issue after a few months (them heavy plasmas really pile up the green paper thingies). Just don't rely on the tank to do everything.

 

My personal favourite early tank is the rocket tank, since they're easy to maintain (read as: less clicks to perform). I'm just a lazy bugger.

 

Guns are all good and well, but try and make use of grenades if you can't get a direct shot at the alien. Since you can throw grenades over obstacles, the thrower need not be visible to the alien. Also learn the mystic art of the 'grenade relay'.

 

Smoke grenades reduce visibility. Use them. A number of kneeled snipers can wait in a smoke cloud while a tank or a scout wanders out to spot aliens. Once spotted, the fairly hidden snipers can fire back with little harm to their persons (as long as the target alien's visibility radius doesn't extend into the cloud). Until you get power suits, don't forget to move them out of the smoke before they get asphyxiated.

 

Somewhat contrary to the above: Never group your soldiers into tight formations within the same area or elevation level. That's just demanding for a Brown Potato of Doom™.

 

Here's another little something that might help. Aliens have a visibility radius. If you are within this radius, they'll will be able to use reaction fire on your soldiers. This radius goes all around them, which explains why they can return fire even though they're looking the other way. But if you are out of this radius, they won't be able to shoot back. For snipers that are half a map away, this is no problem. But for scouts, it is. What to do then? Well, if it's daytime, and your scout just spots an alien at the edge of his or her visibility range, take a few steps back and look at the alien. Is the glowing marker gone? If it is, then you are out of the alien's visibility range. Pelt away. I've tested this a few times, and seems to be fairly consistent. At least, the alien always has to take one step forward before it can shoot at you.

 

Blah blah blah blah, so on and so forth.

 

And if you can, read Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". Not everything may apply, but it still makes for good reading.

 

- NKF

 

[1] Pistols: Cause almost the same damage as the rifle (26 vs 30). Snapshot accuracy is the same as the rifle, but costs less to perform. It's also single handed. My reasoning: a series of snapshots is just as good as an auto burst from a rifle. Granted, a rifle is still superior at very short distances.

[crispy]

Don't to leave enough time units to fire. There are a few buttons at the bottom of the battle menu that let you stop character movement while retaining enough time units to do single-fire or auto-fire. This can save a lot of lives because when the aliens pop out, your guys automatically fire.

[InsaneLapin]

Huh..... nobody play like me !

grenades kick ass!

[Snikers]

My tactics are different. I use squads of three - two riflemen and an extra, either a

guy with an autocannon or a well-experienced troop. And, oddly enough, I group them

right next to each other and I haven't once felt the brown potato of doom. I suppose I

should keep them one square apart or something at least...

 

So Rifleman =

Special = :bomber:

 

So the squads are usually like this:

 

:bomber:

 

 

I usually stock my skyrangers 10 humans + 1 tank. Many people will agree with me

on this: Tanks are better for scouts than human beings. People will gain experience,

they won't become antiques with time, and with only a couple of ranks they're worth

more pointwise than a tank.

 

So perhaps have a tank, with your top troops behind it, like so?

 

.......

... :bomber: ..............

 

 

.......

 

 

 

Another popular tactic, at least, I like it, is to sneak up on an alien around a building or

the like. Hide around a corner like so...

(note: Ninja signifies your trusty soldier, and the boy with huge eyes is some alien

ready to slaughter some civilian, which is confused about the whole thing)

 

............|

............|

............|

----------+

:alien2:

 

 

Then you run around the corner...

 

............|

............|

----------+

:alien2: ...

 

SPLAT!! Alien is reduced to a cooked skeleton and ninja boy gets a promotion.

 

............|

............|

----------+

...

 

 

 

My personal thanks to whomever made these smilies...

[Carlos the Jackal]

:alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2:

 

:dontgetit:

 

:alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2: :alien2:

 

 

I hate night-time terror missions...

[Bomb Bloke]

I am the maker of these smilys:

 

:alien2: :bomber:

 

Because Pete woudn't. :hmmm:

 

There was a bit of a war about that

 

Anyway. Aliens (and soldiers) won't autofire at what they can't see.

 

So, advance with two troops. When one sees an alien, the other one fires. The result is that the alien doesn't get his autofire (unless he plugs the first soldier when he sticks his head out. But even then, the other one should be able to start plugging).

 

Lasers are weak, but beat rifles. Research laser rifles first off, and stick with them till you have a good supply of Heavy Plasmas. Don't make Heavy Plasma clips: you NEED Elerium 151! Don't waste it on ammo!

 

And grenades. Oh! Grenades! Stuff the smoke, you have to walk out of that anyway, but joe grenade will help you many a day. Alien round the corner? Pops the head of anyone who dares to duck around? Peg a grenade, and cherish the joys of splat damage.

 

And the alien version is even better. :alien2:

[NKF]

Lasers have more stopping power than AP bullets. Even a laser pistol can kill a Chryssalid a lot easier and faster than a point blank rifle on full auto. (From recent experience, mind)

 

The alien grenade is better than the standard grenade, but it's not as good as the High Explosive (BOOM-wise). Okay, so it's heavy, but it's a real joy if you have a soldier with 50 to 70 strength. I've seen a Hi-X pack thrown ten, maybe twenty tiles away. A real crowd pleaser if I do say so myself.

 

One of my favourite use of Hi-X packs (or any big-bang explosives for that matter) doesn't even involve throwing. When you walk around a solid corner and there's an alien suddenly standing right next to you - conveniently looking the other way! Teh horrar! Throwing a grenade will incur its wrath and you'll get shot. Shoot it, there's a chance you'll get shot. Run away, well, there's also the chance you'll get shot, but not as bad as if you shot it. Arming a grenade then dropping it won't anger it. Smartly step behind the corner and let the solid walls protect you. I'll let your imagination take over from here. Later on, with flying suits, you can get even craftier. You're floating right above an alien that just popped out the door? Got 75% TU's left? Arm a grenade and drop it. The grenade will drop way down onto the ground and, since explosions aren't fully 3d, I'll let your imagination fill in the rest.

 

If you use lots of explosives, try and aim to get Power Armour as quickly as you can. It's a real boon. An unarmoured soldier might get crippled by a standard grenade that detonated to close, but someone in power armour would just shrug it off as if it were nothing. (Highly resistant to autocannon he shells too. Not invulnerable, but highly resistant. Great if the autocannon soldier goes berserk or mind controlled).

 

As for the smoke grenade... Actually the smoke grenades do have their use. I find that the number of casualties one gets when leaving the troop carrier in a hot landing zone tends to be greatly reduced when smoke grenades are applied. In a combat sense, well, they can be used as a lame stun-bomb. Personally, I only ever bring one or two. Apart from deploying, I rarely use them, since my grenades and rockets cause more dust particals than the smoke bombs.

 

Anyway, a shooter in a smoke screen need not see the alien to be able to shoot at it. Someone else can, but the shooter doesn't. The alien can't shoot at what it can't see, eh? Gotta love this one. Works in all sorts of situations.

 

Smoke in general has this mystical ability of 'cloning' a dying but still conscious soldier in combat to give the soldier just one more turn to live. There's a 50% chance of it actually working, but if it succeeds, you'll get the announcement that the soldier died, only to fall unconscious immediately afterwards (normally, it's the other way around). One body (You'll probably start wondering 'where'd it come from?' after doing a head-count) will be dead, but the other will be the unconscious body of the soldier, which you can still save if you can get a medikit there in time. Madness, I know, but I've had it happen a couple of times before. I think it's similar to how an almost dead soldier who gets mind controlled on the penultimate turn does not suffer from the critical wounds until control is regained.

 

What's confusing is having a Muton die in flames only to hear a female civilian death cry. Even more confusing than that is the listing of 1 civilian casualty on the tally screen, when the mission was just a standard assault on a harvester (the one with the Bovril™-to-be bovine-onna-table thingy). But this doesn't have anything to do with smoke particles... so, uh, never mind.

 

Just some wild thoughts. Don't mind me.

 

 

- NKF

[Carlos the Jackal]

Help me, my brain fell down

[Jezz]

Good stuff from everyone, i'll just add that i usually pick a couple of mental patients from the stock of rookies and strap them full of heavy explosives. Screw the piddly little human grenades.

 

Especially on the terror mission early on, a rocket tank and some explosives will do wonders to protect your troops. Ofcourse, civilian causualties might be a bit high, but who's fault is it that they stuck around anyway?

[Kiryu-Kai]

i just equip everyone with rifles works fine againist sectoid and floaters. Also i carry some heavy firepower like rocket launchers just remember to have ammo men to carry the rockets as your heavy weapons soldiers will fall behind because of weight problems. just 1 tip get lazer or plasma before you meet snakemen on terrorsite missions or seriously get raped if you dont know what your doing .

[Solfius]

the only time i used a tank was at the beginning of the game (i never got farther) the first time it went into battle it was destoyed by the first shot (and it was a sectoid!)

[The Veteran]

I'm confused...

[Warlord]

About what?

[The Veteran]

Everyones talking crazy talk. They're all crazy! :dontgetit:

I just left for a few minutes and loads of new posts appeared! Where did they all come from?!?!

[NKF]

They came from outer space™.

 

Hmm, probably not, but it sounds more impressive.

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

Still it is possible. It's crazy enough to allow for such a thing to happen in here without us even noticing!

[Ki-tat Chung]

it hardly ever happens to me. no one over here in my timezone exept for the pathetic purple chicken lover

[darkvenom]

I hate night missions cauz even after you get out if you do not see the aliens in the area before they see you:

 

 

 

 

----O ` ` ` `

 

[Spaceman42]

A quote from Full Metal Jacket:

I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.

 

Too bad the rookies don't do this, eh?

[NKF]

I hate night missions cauz even after you get out if you do not see the aliens in the area before they see you

 

Electro flares

 

I know I don't use them enough myself...

 

- NKF

[darkvenom]

Maybe placing headlights on the tanks would be a benefit!!

 

:o