Losing soldiers

[JellyfishGreen]

Yeah, I think the light area around your units is supposed to represent what you can make out in the blackness. It would give the aliens an awful advantage if your troops actually glowed in the dark.

 

Standing near an electroflare can't be good for either side, though. Can aliens see you better if you're holding an electroflare? Or only when it is on the ground, that is, activated?

[Fox]

I believe the electro-flare is a duplicate of a soldier's view that can be thrown. So as to whether or not an alien can see you better, I would say no, because things in your habnds are not active unless activated, in the flare's case, thrown. It would be interesting to use XCOMUTIL to play the aliens and see if this is true.

[darkvenom]

I believe they should have alocated stunn damage if a gun or a bomb is thrown at a person... it would make it fun if u ran out of ammo...

 

 

"TAKE THAT YOU FREAK"

 

"OUCH"

 

:devil:

"HELL YEAH"

[Zombie]

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

[NKF]

One point where bunching up would be useful is if you've got flying suits and you're out in the open. Hovering in the air and huddling together is a good way to make the aliens waste their grenades. But it makes you a larger target for ordinary firearms and blaster bombs.

 

Following the line of thought that the ramp is ground level + elevation offset (this counts for most slopes too), some guides recommend setting off two smoke grenades before deploying. One at the base of the ramp, and one on the equipment pile. Personally I don't think the grenade inside the Skyranger is necessary at all, unless you want to have your troops fly out the back. Also if anyone's not wearing armour, you're likely to get them knocked out. Otherwise if everyone's on foot, the ground level smoke grenade will cover you while on the ramp - the smoke screen on the upper level won't have much of an effect. Any reaction shots that you attract will be from aliens that are just too close by (a good reason to invest in at least one motion scanner and some high explosive packs). Also the top of the ramp will probably on a thin edge of the cloud, unless you placed the smoke grenade exactly at the base of the ramp.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Probably right about the smoker in the 'ranger, NKF. It usually doesn't do any good. If you aren't wearing a Flying Suit, you'll walk down the ramp - and even one step would place you in the smoke cloud on L0. I wonder if a smoke cloud does any good if it is centered on L0 at the ramp and an alien is further out, say, 17 tiles away? Would the smoke block LOS for the alien, or would it be able to peer over the top of the cloud and see inside the transport?

 

The only time it may be beneficial to have smoke inside the transport is when you are moving soldiers around inside and an alien is on an elevated position near your craft (like a hill or a farm building). That might help to conceal what is going on and give your soldiers some time to exit the craft. Here again, if an alien is in an elevated position and a smoke cloud is between it and your soldiers on the ground, does it do any good? It probably does. But how often are aliens up high? Even the flying aliens prefer to stay on the ground.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

If an alien is on the ground, then to see into the craft, it's LOS will go through both L0 and L1, spending a roughly equal amount of time within each level. Hence a smoke bomb set off on the equipment pile is just as effective as a smoke bomb on the ground when it comes to preventing stray rounds entering the dropship (it really sucks having a stun bomb launched in there, by the way).

 

Though as mentioned, a L1 smoke bomb won't help soldiers on the ramp at all.