Launch Interceptors!

[darkvenom]

I've only every successfully recovered two 'very small scouts' with cannons (and when u say missiles you must mean stingrays)...

 

The odd thing is, and i am not lying here, i saw a red muton!?!

 

This was on the PSX version of UFO: Enemy Unknown... can anyone reconfirm this to be true..? I know it might sound odd but i am going to try and get a picture of it again if i can, thats why i was asking for the best strategy to gun down 'very small scouts'

[NKF]

Try arming an inteceptor with one empty cannon and one laser cannon. Or buy a brand new ship and then only arm it with one cannon. Either of these setups will ensure that you do not obliterate the scout in one shot (hah!).

 

Or you could just wait for one to land.

 

But as far as I can tell, all of the small scouts I've assaulted were always manned with a 'soldier' class alien.

 

- NKF

[de_freak]

gotta agree wit that um........... does a lazer cannon bust the ships up as badly as a plasma cannon coz at first i equiped my intercepters with 2 plasma cannons then i downgraded it to 1 plasma and i cannon to try and not blow the hell out it and loss so much elimum (cant spell to save my life if u hadnt guessed!) but still about the same any ideas wit out lossin the range of the plasma cannon

[NKF]

Well, let's see here...

 

Cannon: 10, 10km

Stingray: 70, 30km

Avalanche: 100, 60km

Laser cannon: 70, 21km

Plasma cannon: 140, 52km

Fusion Ball: 230, 65km

 

For a small scout, an avalanche is generally too much, but one stingray or a laser cannon should be strong enough to shoot it down without destroying it. The small scout has a pitiful plasma cannon, so it's probably safe to use the cannon or the laser cannon and get up close to it. A stingray/laser cannon combination should be weak enough to not blow it to smithereens. Dual cannons would be the best combination though.

 

For medium scouts, dual plasma cannons generally wipes them out in one burst if both shots hit simultaneously, so one plasma cannon or an avalanche should be enough.

 

Most of the larger ships shouldn't get blown to bits by anything with the possible exception of dual fusion ball launchers hitting at exactly the same time for the killing blow.

 

I find the level of damage caused to each shot-down ships differs from battle to battle, even when attacking the same ship. So, sometimes the power units survive, at other times there's a big hole where the engine room should have been.

 

If you're planning to get more elerium, capture intact ships instead of shooting them down. Since elerium is stored in that purple pod at the base of the power units, ships with only one power unit tend to never have any elerium since the engine's gone. However, a few of the power units in the larger ships like the battleship tend to survive.

 

Of course, you could always encourage the floaters or the snakemen to build a base near one of your own. The regular supply ships that come along tend to make a great source of elerium.

 

I still wonder though.. are they picking up, or dropping off? Hmm.

 

- NKF

[de_freak]

lol thats a very valid point coz they seem to be the same no matter what! another quick question if u attack a base while a supply ship is droping off do u get the stuff from the ship as well and/or do u have to fight the against the supply ship too?

[Cadmus]

Avengers, Twin Plasmas

[NKF]

No, the supply ship will still be there until its time for it to leave. I don't think the supply ships land on or in the base. Just near it -- hence why the alien base sentinals are completely oblivious to whatever happens to the crew of the supply ship when its attacked, and vice versa.

 

- NKF

[darkvenom]

i've actually had a supply ship bugger up once when i destroyed a base because it went over the spot where it was supposed to drop off tha goods and then it just stayed there for a while, my ships made short work of it...

 

in the end it actually did fulfil its job as a supply ship, ehrm!...

 

FOR ME!!!!

[EclipseDog]

In regards to what to use to land those small UFO's... it's been mentioned that Avalanche are overkill and will always destroy them.

 

This post is to refute that claim. My original strategy way back when had been to set up interceptors in extra bases with nothing but avalanches in order to intentionally slam those smaller crafts to the next dimension since I didn't realise at first that my skyranger could cover that far of a range without running out of gas.

 

Imagine my surprise when 4/6 attacks caused the things to crash-land anyway!

 

Now here's the real kicker... I actually have more ships get destroyed by my 2x cannon interceptor than by my 2x avalanche... totally sick I tell ya!

 

Maybe I just was lucky/unlucky enough to have my avalanche routinely crashing rather than blowing up those small things, but I doubt you'll get results much different than that.

 

Just curious but has anyone actually tested those plasma or laser on the very small and small ufo's or are we all just going on the assumption that the damage would blow them up like what we all assume would make sense? Cause if that's the case someone should test it since the avalanche/canon thing proves to me that sometimes the damage/destroyed ratio really does not make sense so assuming that it would might be overlooking the obvious.

[kai]

Laser cannons will obliterate small scouts :devil:

Laser Cannons will pummel medium scouts (just lob a grenade in the UFO on 1st turn) :devil:

Laser Cannons will blow the reactor of large scouts

 

Plasma will destroy small and medium scouts and pummel mediums (abductors)

 

I've found that plasma cannons often destroy reactors

[cyrus]

And what attack method did you use ED when you land those small UFOs?

 

If this was cautious attacks, then maybe you had some chance of landing them instead of destroying. This is because cautious attack causes the least damage to UFO.

 

Nevertheless, I'd never managed to land the smallest UFOs (those which state very small when you click on them) with Avalanche. Every time I destroyed them with a single hit.

[Squaddie01]

And what is the point of forcing a small scout to crash land?

 

Heck I try only to engage small and medium scouts over water so I don't have to deal with them crash landing. Even large scouts I sometimes don't care to engage on land. I just prefer missions where there are a lot of aliens. (except of course in the first month when you are poorly armed and trained.)

[EclipseDog]

Actually, cy, I almost always use aggressive but in this case I'm not positive since it was a long time ago which means you could well be right. I only recently restarted playing my old X-Com game but I'll try and fixiate those results with some playtesting.

 

Squad, actually you'd be surprised at the value of those small and very small scout missions. Often there will only be 1 or 2 aliens alive at the most yet when you kill them in 3-5 turns you come back to base with 15-30 alloy, 1-3 alien grenades, 1-5 each of heavy plasmas, plasma rifles, plasma rifle clips, and sometimes even score some mind probes. All totalled you can make 1 mill profit or more per mission and with very little effort, and since those small scouts are so plentiful you can often become richer off of those than off the big boys since it takes so much less time for that reward.

 

All that said, however, my reason for putting those twin avalanches on-board in the first place had been because I too did not want to have the small scouts surviving... my earlier post was regarding my experience when I tried to intentionally kill those only to find them surviving more than they did with cannons.

[cyrus]

Personally, I prefer to destroy the smallest UFOs, because it gives you more points. You gain 100 points for the destruction and only 50 for landing, plus around 20 to 30 points for the recovery mission. And as I go for every UFO spotted, I usually have enough money, so don't bother myself saving this small ships.

[NKF]

Just some notes:

 

Attack modes only affect the attack range. It doesn't affect damage strength. Just thought I'd mention it for those who don't know.

 

I cannot stress this enough: The damage of the UFO on the ground is completely random. Try it. Save before landing at a UFO you shot down with a single cannon, then enter the battle multiple times and investigate the UFO. Damage will vary from insignificant damage all the way to ... well, tons of damage. A cannon can obliterate the interior of a medium scout just as easily as a plasma cannon.

 

Destruction of a UFO only occurs if the UFO's is damaged well into the negatives. (sort of like how in some 3d shooter games units get blown to chunky bits when they are very heavily damaged).

 

A laser cannon can sometimes shoot down a small scout without destroying it. I've seen it. So there! Since a laser cannon is just as powerful as an avalanche, I don't see why the avalanche cannot safely disable small scouts.

 

As for cannons dealing more damage than rockets, look at it this way. The cannon has quantity over quality, and gets many-many chances at damaging its target. The rockets on the other hand have less chances, though they do deal considerable damage on successful hits. So when the Avalanche is empty, the cannon is still spitting empty shells out of its chamber, dealing continuous damage to the enemy ship. The same can be said about the laser cannon too - though it's a tad slower.

 

- NKF

[cyrus]

Attack modes only affect the attack range. It doesn't affect damage strength. Just thought I'd mention it for those who don't know.

Well, I was referring to USG by Kasey Chang when speaking of different attack modes damage. Not 100% sure of it, but I have the fealing that it's right. Noticed, that on agressive UFOs went down much faster (and also the firing speed was faster - this is true!).

 

About the damage of UFOs on the ground. I think you're right NKF

 

Most probably, the damage is calculated at the time the mission is generating (not only the damage of UFO, but also it's crew - something like the game places all alien units on the battlefield and then simulates the reactor blow which causes damage to nearby units).

[NKF]

Well, technically, the USG may be right. Look at it this way. The shorter the range, the more the craft weapons will open fire on the target, thus doing more damage over a certain amount of time. If it's out of range, the guns don't fire, so they deal less damage over time. Also, the shorter the range, the better the chance that a fired missile or bullet will reach its target. On cautious, your ship tries to shoot at the enemy at the distance of the weapon with the longest firing range. The UFO can easily pull out, causing the shot to miss, particularly annoying for missiles, which have slow projectiles. With aggresive, when the UFO is right up next to you, but decides to pull out of range of your guns, your missiles still have a chance of connecting with their target.

 

See, the craft weapons work like this. If a target is out of range, they don't do anything. But as soon as the enemy target is in their firing range, they open fire on the target and will continuously fire on the target until the weapon runs out of ammo. If you edited one of the craft cannons so that it has a range well beyond the standoff range, the gun will open fire even if you aren't in any attack modes. I've never seen any particular increase or decrease in weapon damage with any of the attack modes either. This is what leads me to the conclusion that weapon damage is independant on attack mode.

 

- NKF

[cyrus]

But this is trivial!

 

No, I've meant the other thing. First of all, USG stated it clearly: cautious attack causes least damage PER ATTACK. Well here it is:

 

Cautious Attack: causes least damage per attack but remains at the longest range and therefore has the least chance of getting counter-attacked. Cautious attack is useful when you want a not too badly damaged USO (just enough to "sink" it) and your weapon outrange the USO's.

 

Well, it's about TFTD, but I don't think there is a difference between the two. Also, as I said before, I'm not absolutely sure it is so, but tend to believe in it.

 

And on aggressive the rate of fire is really a bit faster. I mean the shots go off in less seconds. I've checked that out and it's true.