Chryssalids? Scary?

[FullAuto]

Take a gander at this gamespot

 

Gamespot's top 10 game monsters. It seems X-Com is well remembered by more than quite a few people.

[Jman4117]

What do you expect for a hideous creature that slashes your belly open and implants it's larva into you?

[Neorapsta]

its more comiccaly than scary imho

[NKF]

To me, it's not how it looks that makes it scary, it's how it behaves. Flitting easily from soldier to soldier and killing them in one swing does tend to lower the morale of the player, especially after having half your squad neutralised after a single turn.

 

If you know how to keep them off your back while walking on the ground, their scariness does tend to evaporate. But you should never, ever, lower your guard when there are potential chryssalids about, even if you've perfected your anti-chryssalid strategy. I mean, with a psionic alien, you'll know there's one hanging around. But with a chryssalid, you don't.

 

- NKF

[FullAuto]

I'll always remember the first time I fought them. It was a night terror mission (Chryssalids love them!). And I saw some snakemen and killed them, moving through the battlescape, a slow, careful sweep, wondering what the other type of alien was, dismissing it because the snakemen were crap, so how fearsome could their mates be?

And this thing comes out of the darkness, click-click-clicks its way over and did something horrible to half my squad. It was a total and utter rout, and my team was finished off the next turn. I couldn't believe it. I'd got one good look at the alien and been wiped out.

[NickAragua]

Heh. Yeah, the first time I fought one was in the demo (the one where you have six troopers at a snakeman/chryssalid infested terror site). Right off the bat, I started out fighting about three snakemen, but my guys took them down with no problem. Then, as I'm celebrating that victory, I see that little 'pop pop pop', and the next thing I know, one of my dudes is a zombie. Let's just say that I became a victim of the 'chryssalid chain'...

 

What really freaks me out is when you hear one of them nailing a civilian, and think to yourself: Where?! Perfect terror units, indeed.

[Zombie]

NKF Posted on Jun 17 2004, 02:28 PM

I mean, with a psionic alien, you'll know there's one hanging around. But with a chryssalid, you don't.

 

Psionic aliens don't always use their powers - especially if you are very effective in lowering their morale sufficiently (like killing all his brethren). Just as you are getting overconfident that the mission is practically over, *BLING, BLING* two of your sqaud become enemies and start shooting. Next thing you know, those two MC'd soldiers killed 3 or 4 of your squad, and because of those deaths the other half of your troops start to panic or go berserk. It is like a cascading chain-reaction. This is how threads like "Tell me your worst mission story" get started!

 

Seriously, you should know when there is a psionic alien or Chryssalid hanging around. If you are on a Terror Mission/Ship, Battleship or Alien Base just assume that there is at least one there. If you just killed like 15 aliens, and none of them were a Chryssalid, odds are there is at least one roaming around. For those of you with the Official Strategy Guide by Dave Ellis, the book lists how many terrorists/psionicists are possible at a given difficulty level. Just assume the maximum number he gives, and you should not be too surprised... Except on terror missions. In the case of a terror mission with Chryssalids, a good civilian is always a dead civilian!

 

Before you get the Heavy Plasma, Chryssalids are pretty intimidating. If you have a squad armed only with a Heavy Plasma, and their reactions are above like 50, chances are you will see the Chryssalid as more of a curiosity than a challenge!

[Pumpkinhead]

For those who don't have the OSG, I've started compiling a page of the tabular data:

 

Alien Deployments

[SpikeTheLobster]

I started playing the original UFO again just recently and, last night, sent my poor disheveled newbie team to a terror site. It's February of the first year on genius level, so I'm not sure what to expect and only have basic weapons. My tank rolls down the ramp a little and has a look around. The first thing it sees is THREE chryssalids right next to the landing site.

 

The tank takes a shot, kills one, rolls back up the ramp and we leave. *shudder*

[Zombie]

That's a pretty good strategy in my book! Having one Chryssalid around the landing zone is bad enough news. Having 3 lurking around is terrible news! Even worse news? You could possibly see 5 more on this level. Ouch! Dusting off in favor of saving an entire squad is worth it!

[Bomb Bloke]

I fear nothing 'cept etherals on night terror missions, on superhuman.

 

That said, Chys's having being treating me nice lately.

 

On one night terror mission, my tank plugged one with a rocket straight out of the skyranger. It went down, unconcious. I made a mental note to keep an eye on it, and continued deploying.

 

Got all my troops out. After a while, I noticed the body had gone.

 

Given that I had three troops hanging around the wheels of my craft, this was a matter of some concern, so I got one of my troops to look around a bit. Sure enough, the thing was bang in the middle of three of my troopers. Two squares behind one of them, in fact.

 

Bang bang bang.

 

That's the closest one had got for the best part of a year or more.

 

That's odd. I'd expected Shock II's pipe/shotgun hybrids to be higher up that list.

 

*checks the whole list*

 

WTF? It's not on there!!

[Lleshap Johari]

I get the distinct feeling this is about to become to x-com.co.uk top 10 game monsters list...

[Mouse Nightshirt]

Oh I remember the first time I ever saw a Chryssalid, it was on a day-time terror mission, and, guess what... lol...

 

I THOUGHT IT WAS A SECTOID WEARING ARMOUR!!!!

 

And as it had no weapon, I ignored it, as there were plenty of snakemen about to shoot. Boy did I get a suprise on the aliens next turn

[Blehm 98]

First time i see them, they take a couple of my guys, then they aren't scary anymore. I usually don't have much trouble with them. but sectoids and etherials*shiver*

[Jman4117]

Really a pain when they start near the civilians and impregnate them all during the first turn though.

[NKF]

At least they'll start out as zombies. As long as you don't attack them, they're relatively harmless. Well, they can still hurt, but at least it'll be a melee bash attack rather than a melee impregnation attack. And they cannot walk very far.

 

 

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

How many turns does it take for a zombie to transform?

https://ufopaedia.xcomufo.com/pics/zombie_die.gif

[Neorapsta]

As soon as a guy is killed by a chryssalid i think, which is normally less than a second, as they seem to have like 10 hits in less than a second. They guy remains zombied until you kill him, then he transofrmed properly. Makes you fully appreciate flying suits

[Jman4117]

I believe that I've seen them change at around 3 turns on their own before. Most of the time they wait til you "kill" the zombie.

[NKF]

Brilliant! If you've got more TUs than the zombie, it cannot hurt you! Ha hah! Kind of like those ants in Fallout II, as long as you can walk away 3 hexes...

 

Zombies hatching on their own generally have outside help. I've never seen any aliens with critical wounds before, but zombies might get them. Never bothered to check before to tell the truth. Normally it's some misplaced shot or grenade.

 

- NKF

[Pumpkinhead]

I usually leave Zombies intact as they're less trouble than the to-be-born Chryssalid. I just have no idea how long it takes for them to "pop". The OSG says "after several turns", but I'd like to more detail. Unfortunately, my game usually quits to the Geoscape after 1 or 2 rounds, so I can't experiment for myself

[Bomb Bloke]

First Chys I saw...

 

"Funny lookin' Sectoid".

 

It was the second alien type I'd ever seen. I hit it with a rocket, and never saw one again for quite a while.

 

I've never seen a zombie change without being shot.

 

I thought zombies could impregnate?

 

If a Chys makes a troop unconcious, it still creates a zombie. Only had it happen twice, and the troop died soon after.

[Pumpkinhead]

I thought zombies could impregnate? 

Nope, they can't... They just hit you with their hands... and slowly at that

 

Their melee attack uses 35% of their TUs, which means that they can only hit you a max of 2 times, leaving them with only 15TUs to actually get to you, so 3 squares.

 

Even with only one hit, they need to be less than 7 squares away to actually get to you.

 

As NKF said, as long as you've got more than 47TUs, you're pretty safe, whereas the Chryssalid it births, well, we all know about them B)

[Zombie]

The 35% only applies to the beginner level. Just use the 14 TU rule here. It always takes 14 TU for a HTH attack no matter what the skill level you are on.

On the beginner level, Zombies can strike twice for 28 TU. 40 Max TU - 28 = 12 Time Units left or 3 normal squares away.

 

With one hit on the beginner level, 40 - 14 = 26 Time Units for movement. A Zombie would only need to be 26 TU away from you, or 6 tiles! Actually, a soldier can be standing closer and still only have one attack: 40 - 14 = 26 TU, and since an attack is 14 TU you can stand 13 TU closer --> 26 - 13 = 13 TU left. 4*3=12 but this leaves 1 TU for a second attack, so 4*4=16 or you can be 4 squares ahead of the Zombie and still only get hit once! If your soldier was offset from the Zombie, even by a little bit, this adds 2TU extra so you could theoretically be as close as 2 normal tiles ahead plus one tile to the side!

 

On superhuman, the Zombie has 47 TU. So to stay out of the Zombies HTH range you need to be 47 - 13 = 34 TU away, or 9 normal squares. Being offset by one square, you could be as close as 7 plus a tile to the side! And since even the most pathetic rookie has at least 50 TU, the Zombie can never catch you!!!

[Pumpkinhead]

I think that if this game was ever remade (as an RTS or even FPS) then the AI for the Zombie and Silacoid would have to be improved to use stealthy tactics due to the fact that you mentioned: even the slowest rookie can simply outrun them!