Easiest Alien

[The Demi-Godly One]

Well it is possible, it's just that the aliens refuse to move after a set number of turns. So YOU have to go to THEM.

[Squaddie01]

Well you could do a mission where you only kill them by reaction fire, but it helps if you can mind control them. You would need troops with good reactions, I'd say minimum 50. Use troops with PSI Amps to control aliens and dump all their weapons, including grenades. Then herd all the mind controlled aliens to a spot and have your troopsers with good reactions around the aliens. Then stop mind controlling, and on the next turn as they run they get shot by your troopers.

 

End result = increase in trooper reaction stat and accuracy stat. Now the key is positioning the aliens in a way that they don't just panic or go beserk and just stand there. If that's the case, your troops won't react. To me the optimal spot to place aliens is in a row, about two squares from a saucer door. The aliens usually will try to run in through the door. That action triggers your troopers to gun them down.

 

This is the tactic I liked to use in the past to "train" my troops in preparation for Cydonia. Using the PSI Amps to mind control does make the game way too easy, but if you want to improve your stats quickly this is a good way. Oh and switch your weapons from plasma to weaker weapons like laser rifles. Since the lasers are weaker, you may not kill as often with a single hit, thus allowing for more reaction fire from your troops.

[NKF]

Hmm... has anyone actualy done a complete mission by only using reaction fire?

I wonder if it's possible?  

 

I guess you'd need some soldiers whith pretty high reaction points.

 

I have tried it a few times. It's hard if you're just starting off, but you needn't have very high reaction points (although it helps!) -- just a lots of soldiers with lots of free TU's left over. That way, once the alien uses up most of its TUs , the lesser reaction soldiers get a much better chance of firing of a shot, even if the soldier's reaction is worse than the alien's. Something to do with the a unit's remaining TU percentage factoring into determining reaction fire order. So if you have a lot of soldiers at 100% TUs, and if they all see the same alien, the sheer amount of of returning opportunity fire is rather spectacular to watch, especially with low TU weapons like the laser pistols.

 

Most of my UFO assaults are cleared out with reaction fire. However, there's often one alien that's created that won't move and will wait in a spot until you trigger it -- thus you cannot use reaction fire on them and have to take direct action. Because they don't move, their chance at using reaction fire first is so much greater than yours, making it hard, if not impossible, to approach them directly without getting shot at.

 

- NKF

[Fox]

Motion Scanners, man! They always save the day. A bit overlooked they are, unfortunately. But invaluable they are as well.

 

Medi-kits are the same way in the beginning as well. I always forget to research them until one of my best guys dies from a wound. Then I do it.

 

Overall I think the three first research topics are key. Research them before anything.

[The Demi-Godly One]

The very first thing I always research are laser weapons. They are invaluble. (SInce my strategy is having one scout and about 7 snipers, once the scout spots the enemy everyone shoots at the alien. If terrain is in the way, I blast it! Whcih takes ammo. So if you have infinite ammo it helps)

[sluissi]

I managed to do a terror mission once, floaters and reapers, all by reaction fire. I started off landed right next to the edge of the map with a open grassy spot next to the skyranger, it was surrounded almost totally by fences or no window buildings leaving very few openings where the aliens could come through(and only one big enough for reapers). I spent about 50 turns just sitting there waiting for aliens to come though, got most of them. I then sent out 2 2 person teams(out of a total of 8) to search for any stragglers. I don't know if this disqualifys me, but I then spotted the last alien running behind a building. And I threw a grenade at the corner, hoping it hadn't gone too far behind the building. But the next turn he ran out again and my soldier shot him via reactions. Then the mission ended.

[Psy Guy]

Almost all my kills in X-Com 1 are based off of reaction kills. With a UFO i just camp outside the entrence and when a bugger leaves the craft *POW*. Its possiable to have an entire mission with only reaction fire but getting off the ship is the tricky part. Also aliens tend to stop moving after 10 turns without seeing any x-com/civilian units. To get them moving just lob a gernade or take out your trusty laser rifle and fire a few rounds off, that usally gets the ETs on there feet (and out that ship door into the middle of a well planned ambush). While out of the thousands of x-com missions ive played I don't recall ever noteing a reaction only victory but im sure ive done a few (expecially those small scout missions).

 

-PSY GUY-

(Try to do a gernade kill only mission (no proxies). Its harder to do than it seems)

[Jman4117]

I've beat a floater terror mission with one guy who had about 20 HE charges. It's a pain when they will not land.

 

You can put prox. grenade at door on medium scout, throw a standard grenade at the back of it, and it will flush the aliens out. Works good with anything but Mutons. Once had about 5 Mutons come out at one time and they killed my entire reaction fire team.

[The Demi-Godly One]

For a muton force you might want to put a highly explosive weapon on top of the proximity grenade. That way the explosion will be as strong as the item you threw on top.

[NKF]

That doesn't work in UFO.

 

The initial explosion from the proximity mine will destroy every ground object on its tile and all nearby tiles, including the explosive weapons and any armed grenades. Since these items were destroyed before they could explode, well, they're wasted.

 

It'll never work in TFTD because of the ridiculously high armour values the grenades have in that game. They're practically indestructable. But this does allow you to throw multiple grenades at an alien on the same turn and not have the other grenades get destroyed after the first one explodes. It also removes one of the two possible methods of removing a misplaced proxy mine -- i.e. destroying it.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

Hmm, I must be thinking of Apocalypse. It does work in Apocalypse, right?

[Fox]

Yeah when you destroy stuff in Apoc, it blows up in whatever way, an AP grenade will explode, a Devastator Cannon will shoot a bunch of beams, etc.

[The Demi-Godly One]

I thought as much, although I've never seen it work with a stun grapple...

[sluissi]

Ok, I'm not exactly sure now, what the easiest alien would be, but I'm sure now, in the wrong situation, reapers can be killers. Picture it, 1999, A skyranger lands in the middle of Noviserbirsk(sp?). A squad of 4 runs out and takes up landing security positions while a 5th soldier throws out a smoke grenade from inside the craft. End turn. A reaper runs out from the shadows, stops turns around a couple of times, another soldier sees a floater come out a door into a one space wide alleyway. X-Com Turn. I shoot the floater, it dies. The other 3 soldiers shoot the reaper. It stands, My heavy weapons guy with a incendiary HC comes out but doesn't have enough tu's to fire. My heavy weapons scout with the AC w/IC ammo also comes out and fires a snapshot, doing nothing. End turn, 4 more reapers come out of the shadows, and about 9 shots come from floaters in places I can't see, I think from windows and maybe more in the alleyway. Rest of the battle consists of useless rifle and pistol fire, a few HC IC rounds till the reapers get too close, and then zap zap zap. Bang bang, zap zap, and by this time, I fire the IC rounds anyway, 2 of my guys killed by my own fire, and it's not even worth it. They still come, eventually it comes down to one guy who luckily for him, never got out of the skyranger, and about 4 reapers(out of 6 total) and an unknown amount of floaters, I know there's at least 3 though. Since I'm actually writing this at the time of the battle, I've still yet to decide if I should turn tail and run, or try to take out the rest with my final guy. All of the reapers are on fire at least, so they should go down easily, if I wait a little bit. But it's my final guy, and all he has is a rifle and a pistol. Oh well, it was a good ambush set up by the aliens, i've never been on a mission where they did something like this before. Of course, once I saw those other 4 reapers come out, I shoulda aborted right then.

 

A little off topic, but oh well.

[Groovechamp]

Elerions, during daytime when they're floating around - Strangely, it takes to shots from my laser-rifles to bring down those skinny dudes..

 

Champ

[Fox]

Sluissi: I would say that you should wait until the reapers die from the fire, so you can get the points from killing those. Then if it's feasible, you could run your guy out, grab some alien artifacts, and bring them into the Skyranger. But ultimately, retreat. The chance for failure is too high, and it isn't worth the Skyranger.

 

Elerions, during daytime when they're floating around

What is an Elerion?

[Jman4117]

Save game and just see if that guy can take on 4 reapers and 3 floaters. If he dies, reload and abort.

 

It's actually quite amazing what 1 guy can do. Try setting up an ambush. Get to one of those small buildings (near gas pumps). The door is one space wide (reapers can't get through). Wait on floaters to come and get you. Kill them with reaction fire and prox. grenades.

[NKF]

You ought to use HE shells and grenades rather than incendiaries to deal with reapers. They do take more damage from incendiaries as the ufoapedia says. Four times in fact. But the same applies for all the other area effect weapons. Incendiary effects work over several turns, but HE effects are instant.

 

Standard pistols and rifles, while very nice in some respects, are the least practical weapon to fight reapers with. In my solo attacks on a floater base, I often had to spend an entire pistol clip or more on every reaper. So if that's all you have left, then a tactical withdrawal is highly adviseable. The cannon AP shells aren't too bad.

 

Elerions == Ethereals, methinks.

 

I was rather surprised when I compared a mind probe scan on an ethereal against a muton in a superhuman game. They have almost identical armour. So it's no wonder they're so tough. Though I think Mutons have an additional weapon resistance. I think it was against AP bullets, but I could be wrong.

 

- NKF

[Rosstoid]

The reaper is pretty easy. They can't enter one tile spaces, and they frequently run around in circles or dash in front of my men.

[The Demi-Godly One]

Although I guess they can be deadly in an ambush, they are pretty tough.

[sluissi]

deadly in an ambush is right, anyway, I gave it up for lost, I tried just firing at the aliens I could see from inside the skyranger(the reapers wouldn't enter.), but a floater got a lucky shot in, and I lost him. I later found out I had accedentally loaded my "test" game, the one where I set it on superhuman. I normally just play it on the middle setting. Oh, and there was no leaving the skyranger, for one thing the ground all around it was on fire, and there were 3 more reapers and who knows how many floaters out there. But thanks for the advice.