How to clean-up a UFO without entering it...

[BlakSpek]

If like me, hate to enter a UFO to clean it up, just try this...

 

First clean the crap that are on the land.

 

After you put all your man in front of the doors of the UFO.

 

Make some turn pass and wait for the aliens to come out.

 

If 5 turn pass without any aliens coming out, just throw a grenade on the roof of the UFO and wait... All the aliens on the UFO will get out withing 10 turn if not, just throw another grenade on the UFO' roof

 

I clean all the UFO like that and never has to enter inside one.

 

Have a nice day!!!

[Pete]

Interedting... they must reac to to the nearby explosions or something...

[Bomb Bloke]

Works even better when there's a hole in said roof...

[Zombie]

Anyone ever tried to clear out a Large Scout when the aliens refuse to leave the bridge? I think most of us have a problem with this. The one thing that seems to help lure aliens out is X-COM movement or activity. Having a group of "static" or unmoving soldiers sit outside the ship waiting round after round for the aliens to come out and play is a complete waste of your time. You must lure them out by doing something.

 

The least risky way is to just open the main door of the spacecraft. Next round, listen for aliens opening the internal doors. Now peek inside and see if any aliens are visible. If not, you may need to wait another round for the aliens to investigate. Opening the door of the UFO every round to check if aliens are visible just adds fuel to the fire! The more you open that door, the more curious the aliens become.

 

Another more risky way is to lure them out by blowing a good portion of your soldier's time units. This makes you vulnerable, and the aliens will obviously try to take advantage of this fact. (If you have a group of soldiers outside the UFO, everyone in that group must have just enough TU for a snap shot, but no more). By having few TU during the aliens round, there is a greater chance that the aliens will pass the reaction fire test. They get to shoot first, so it gives them the upper hand.

 

If neither tactic helps to draw them out, use a combination of the above. Using grenades will help, but I think it has more to do with blowing TU in the priming/throwing phase, rather than the explosion drawing them out. I'll have to test this more rigorously to see if this is what happens!

[Bomb Bloke]

I didn't know the aliens tried to take advantage when they thought you'd used all your units. That's new.

[Zombie]

The alien AI is very intelligent. Sometimes.

While they can take advantage of certain weaknesses in your troops, they still haven't figured out how to use that damn Blaster Launcher effectively! Misplaced waypoints are still the leading cause of sudden alien death syndrome (or SADS)!

[Bomb Bloke]

Just as freakin' well. Last I figured, if the alien played the way the player can, well, the first few turns would involve heavy shelling of the starting area(s).

[NKF]

The alien in the bridge on the large scout? For an intact large scout: I've mentioned before that it can be lured out by simply having someone move up the left passage (or the one that goes south) and waiting in one of the corners. Unless it's some other alien that's been waiting, this alien will generally move towards you. As long as it doesn't have copious amounts of TUs (like a chryssalids - but that's very unlikely), it should end up standing just in the next room, exhausted. Meaning you can then walk through the door safely and not worry about reaction fire. Hopefully it'll be standing right on the other side of the door, or at least to the side.

 

Just repeating this bit of advice again for those who missed it the first time.

 

And as for alien self kills with blasters: It's worse in the collectors edition where the bug that sends the blaster bomb south whenever it tries to move between vertical waypoints. As the aliens only know how to move them vertically through lifts and things, it's not surprising how easily the aliens end up killing themselves. I think they may know how to use angles in larger open areas. But not confined areas, like alien bases.

 

Also, in reply to the first post:

 

5 turns? I think that's far too short a wait. I'd suggest waiting somewhere around 40, 80 or even more turns before doing something (80 turns go by very quickly when you just keep ending the turn when nothing much seems to be going on). As all aliens that aren't rooted to one spot will still move about and eventually leave the ship. This is not the case in TFTD, but it is so in UFO. (Actually, if you waited forever in a Lightning before stepping out, you might find that almost all the aliens will be waiting outside. Had this happen to me several times in battleship missions when I was a bit overzealous in pre-arming my huge arsenal of grenades that normally get loaded onto a Lightning (with only 2 - 3 soldiers, that is). Lots of fun with area effect weapons, but at the same time, incredibly dangerous!)

 

Not all UFOs have an alien that will not move. The only ones that I can think of that have them are the large scout and the abductor. For these, you have to go in (but there are several 'tricks' of the trade that can let you deal with them effortlessly. They all involve an explosive of some kind). The supply ship seems to have one that likes to stay in the bridge too, but I don't think it's a stationary alien like the one in the large scout or the abductor.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

The alien in the bridge on the large scout? For an intact large scout: I've mentioned before that it can be lured out by simply having someone move up the left passage (or the one that goes south) and waiting in one of the corners. Unless it's some other alien that's been waiting, this alien will generally move towards you.

Sure, that's all fine and dandy, but you still have to enter the Large Scout itself to draw the alien out of the bridge. And how do you know when an alien gets into that small room? Just hearing door sounds are misleading. There is still that door leading into the Power Source room. Frequently, the alien engineer likes to enter and exit said room during his turn. And if you do go into the small room to check for an alien and one is not in there.... You have one of two options to consider:

 

1) Retreat, and hope that the alien will not follow. If you blew all your TU to open the door, then turn around and retreat, you will be vulnerable to reaction fire if the alien comes out.

 

2) Stand your ground and hope you pass the reaction fire test. Again, this is also dangerous because the alien might be waiting right outside the door which leads into the bridge. If it opens the door to investigate, and finds a soldier with low reactions and practically no TU left standing in the small room.... well, let's just say the results are not going to be pretty.

 

I am talking about drawing the alien out into the large room which has the door going outside the craft. This is a much safer place to lure the aliens to. You will have many soldiers near the outer door to help if things get sticky. Also, if your soldier shoots and misses the alien, he can duck back out of the craft and let his buddies play pass the reaction fire test with that alien. Usually your soldiers will win this test easily!

[BlakSpek]

I always use the grenade on the roof trick on a landed Supply Ship or a landed Battleship and I never enter the UFO and finish the mission before 80 turn passed. I use like just 5 grenades for every mission, taking it on dead aliens body to not over charged the soldier that throw it on the roof...

 

Making that soldier to run out of TU every turn, maybe it's this that make aliens to come out of the UFO

[NKF]

Zombie: Yes, it is entering the ship, but I never tackle that last alien until every other alien on the map has been dealt with. (same goes for the one in the abducter)

 

Almost every time I moved a soldier into one of the corners, the alien always ends up walking towards the soldier. I would then find it in the next room, completely vulnerable. I've done this so many times now that I find it a useful enough tactic to repeat again and again without fail. The only time I messed up was when I went in too early and the guard had a buddy with it.

 

At least this works very well against sectoids, floaters and snakemen. Now, superhuman level Mutons and Ethereals, not having had enough missions with them, may prove to be a different story.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: One other sneakier method is to just shove a high explosive into one of the the corners near the guard. You don't even have to step into the ship then.

[kai]

Zombie, if you don't like those pesky aliens hiding in the bridge, you might want to try a little trick i use.

 

Send 3 soldiers in to the UFO, 2 of them go to the left and one to the right. Use the 2 soldiers to clean the small room and have them camp either side of the door to the bridge. Have the isolated soldier wait by the far door to the bridge. Next, send one of the 2 in to the bridge, when you can see an alien, send the isolated one in. He will probably get cut down so use a soldier you don't like. have the soldier in the bridge start firing at aliens and have the other soldier helpout. If the isolated soldier hasn't been killed, obviously use that soldier to kill more aliens. then fall back for if there are any in the reactor room.

[Stewart]

Large Scout. Hole in roof. High Explosive. Nuff said.

[Zombie]

No explosives.

No Flying Suits.

No hole in roof.

What does a guy do now?

See, I preclude the use of explosives from my missions simply because I can recover more stuff.

 

kai: I use a modified version of the way you describe. But only with vets having lots of time units. When you have rookies, sometimes you can't retreat simply because you are out of TU from shooting. Then what? A dead rookie. I suppose, that's life, but I like to bring my troops back in one piece!

[Psy Guy]

If you want to remove an annoying camping alien inside a large scout and don't mind using "under handed" tactics then....... Take 1 rocket launcher, a few large rockets, and fire at the diagnal walls of the UFO. The blast travels through the wall hurting (and hopefully killing) any aliens inside and the fact that the inside devices (navigation, power supply, other junk) aren't damaged from the blast. (not even a single scourch mark on the inside).

 

Another more.... honorable (not really but still) tactic is to send a rookie into a ship with a primed hi explosive in his/her backpack. He dies alien dies. He kills alien then he gets promoted.

 

With the use of Psi you can mind control an alien and give it a primed Hi Explosive. Run into ship untill it dies. BOOM. Rinse and Repeat untill cleared

[NKF]

You know what, I'm actually starting to want to set up a large scout scenario with everything you'll ever need to do pretty much any test you want at removing that last alien in the bridge to your heart's content.

 

So, what would it need? Equipment and unit-wise? I know I'm going to put in at least one unkillable soldier (well, as in all-round 255 armour), a weapon of some sort, a high explosive and a rocket launcher. Perhaps a HWP?

 

It's just that if I can get a listing of everything I need to put in beforehand, it would make creating the testing grounds so much easier and keep the manual file editing to a minimum.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Good idea, NKF.

 

To start out, that is pretty good. The Rocket Launcher, and High Explosives are givens. Hmm.. Let's see. What else? I'd like to see some Incendiary Rockets too. How about some Smoke 'nades? Maybe a Small Launcher with some stun bombs to test out spillover stun. The gun you mention should probably be the Heavy Plasma with a couple of spare clips to "burn" through the engine compartment in order to get to the bridge.

 

As for the units, a Tank/Rocket Launcher and/or a Hovertank/Launcher would be good. (I'd prefer the Hovertank/Launcher to the Tank/Rocket Launcher). Flying Suited soldiers are also a must. They probably should have high TU, FA and Strength. Throwing accuracy and Reactions are not that important so you can leave these alone. Or just crank up every stat to be on the safe side! That's about all I can think of right now for soldiers and equipment. Blaster Launchers? You could put one in there, but I won't use it.

 

Just remember to make the alien an Engineer because that is usually what is standing on the bridge. Also, the alien's Morale should be set to 100 (we don't want to affect its behavior too much). Do not "root" it to one spot either, let it roam around naturally. Make it either a Snakeman or a Sectoid. (Floaters are immune to smoke damage). And that is about it, I guess!

[NKF]

The only problem is that if the alien is of the roaming variety, it'll eventually leave the ship anyway, in which case you needn't even go in. Oh, if you mean root it to a spot by setting its stamina recharge to 0, no, of course I won't. In fact, I'm not planning on touching the unit stats except for the one soldier I plan to give tons of armour. This soldier is merely in case you want to see how the alien will behave without having to your worry about being slaughtered right off on your approach.

 

My thought was to load a ship with the desired kitset, have a selection of soldiers (3 on foot, 3 flyers maybe - the flyers can double as ground troops) a tank or two and head to an intact large scout. Any alien type, although I might try for a sectoid ship. Then, as soon as the mission starts, I'll eliminate the unnecessary aliens via critical wounds (as soon as I locate the one standing in the bridge) and tweak a few stats (the last alien's morale) and that's pretty much it.

 

Whatever alien turns up in the bridge will be the one we'll work with. It'll probably be the engineer.

 

I really should set aside a test campaign that starts from the very beginning but with all the tech ready to be researched or even ready to be built. Would come in real handy for setting up a test campaign such as this. Did something similar for TFTD when I was figuring out some of the bugs in the research tree...

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

You have a handle on the situation NKF. I was just worried that over-modifying an alien might lead to false conclusions. Even one stat change might alter behavior, so it's a good idea to leave everything alone.

 

Being as polite as possible, do you think you can modify the X-COM soldiers to have 80 TU, 100 Stamina and 70 for strength? That's the usual numbers for a maxed out soldier. The increase in Time Units will make it easier to set up different tests within the game and not running out midway through. If a soldier is going to be carrying a Rocket Launcher plus 2 Large and 2 Incendiary Rockets, he's going to need at least a 42 strength rating. By cranking it up to 70 he can haul more equipment, and take on multiple roles, instead of being a dedicated rocket man. It would also be nice if the FA of the weapon guys is over 100. At least the shots will go where they were intended. Pretty please. You may leave the other stats alone, if that will save a bit of time.

 

I'm thinking that the Tank/Rocket Launcher can be left off the ship. See, a Large Rocket has more power than the tank's, and is more accurate too. Keep the Hovertank/Launcher though. It has 1.4 times the damage of the Large Rocket, while still weak enough not to punch a hole in the UFO's hull. That might come in handy.

 

I'd really like to test out Smoke Grenades and Stun Bombs. And 2 of each is probably not enough. Five smokers and five Stun Bombs should cover it. Also, maybe 5 normal Grenades to test out the theory that the alien will be lured out by the explosions. To round out the equipment list, the final thing I'd want is an Auto Cannon with 2 HE and Incendiary clips. Jeez, this is starting to sound like a wish-list to Santa!

 

If you are unable to cram all this equipment on six soldiers, bring a few extra guys along. The removal of the Tank/Rocket Launcher should free up 4 more unit slots.

[knight_of_the_ravens]

i tend to stock my troop ships with a buttload of heavy weapons or high explosives and imediatly destroy all houses,forests, or anything aliens could possibly hide in and open the entire map up with lots of FIRE!!!! and smoke and stuff...and when it comes time to raid the crashed bug, i just toss a few proximity mines near the door,unless of course the ship is damaged when the troops arrive, then i don't care for the parts....i only request a huge fix of elerium...

 

blaster launchers are the BOMB!!!!....literally.

[Bomb Bloke]

Here's a thought...

 

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the case that if you open a door and go through it, you risk taking a shot, but if you simply shoot the door up that can't happen?

 

Surely that could have some use in a bridge rush? Use one unit to 'open' the door, while having another standing in a good position to see through the new gap into the bridge area.

 

Even if the door opening can be reaction fired upon, I suppose he could stand in a spot where he is not going to be seen.

 

Of course, it does depend on you being able to destroy those doors with your weapons...

[Zombie]

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the case that if you open a door and go through it, you risk taking a shot, but if you simply shoot the door up that can't happen?

That depends. If the alien is facing the door and has enough TU and Reactions, it can fire back at you. Say you shoot the door using an Auto Shot from a Heavy Plasma. If the alien is facing you, and the last shot destroys the door, he could fire back. Then again, how do you know that alien is standing directly behind the door? If it were off to the side, you'd still need to crash the bridge "proper" anyways.

 

I'll give a different example: The alien is standing behind the door but faces away from you. Say the second shot from the Heavy Plasma Auto Shot knocks down the door. The third shot connects with the alien standing behind it, but isn't a kill shot. If the alien has enough TU and Reactions, it will turn and fire its gun on your soldier. That's just as bad.

 

Psy Guy did have a good method though. Shooting at the diagonals of the Large Scout with a Large Rocket does kill aliens that are standing nearby. I tested this out at a damaged Large Scout today. The Power Source had detonated, eliminating the engineering room. When I shot a Large Rocket at the diagonal part, it killed the Snakeman inside. I'm not sure if this works on an undamaged Large Scout, since the engineering room gets in the way a little. But NKF's test game should shed some light on the subject!

[NKF]

You can also toss grenades into the diagonals as well as any of the north and western walls (same walls that you can walk through, by the way).

 

I think Bomb Bloke means placing a soldier right in line with the door (but not necessarily in a straight line with it). Then on the next turn, after that unit has replenished his or her TUs, another soldier, off at an angle, blasts the door away.

 

This in effect will have replicate opening a door in TFTD without wasting TUs. The only difference being you cannot close it again afterwards.

 

So, the only thing stopping the alien from killing the unit that it can see will be a direct competition of reaction levels, as both units will have 100% TUs.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

Not quite...

 

If the alien can't see the unit that destroys the door, he won't reaction fire, right? Even if he can see units he could not before, if I am correct, he'll only fire on units that just did something.

 

Is that right?

 

If so, the second unit (who should be able to see into the bridge) is free to fire at least three shots before he can be fired upon, with no walls between him and his target.

 

If there is no visible target, then that's a bit of a problem. The same thing can then be done by the units you set up by the second door, and if they see nothing, then there's nothing for it but to use some sort of area of effect weapon, if you want to guarentie no alien reaction fire. Something small, so as not to trash the nav units.

[NKF]

Hmm. The test savegame's almost ready. Thankfully, my Solo-floater-base-assault-blah-blah-blah challenge provided me with instant access to most of the tech needed (and a good deal of veteran soldiers). Just had to speed through 2 months of ignored missions to get the blaster, fusion hovertank and small launcher (50 scientist team and a 200 engineer workforce. Go figure...).

 

I've found a large scout and saved just before landing, but my last few landings turned up with ships that did not have that alien that waits in the bridge for some odd reason. Maybe if I played the game properly for a few rounds.

 

Alas, time is short, so I won't be able to do that just yet. But fear not, the test game is almost complete!

 

Maybe I should set one up for the abducter as well. Can't think of any other ship that has an alien that refuses to move from its spot.

 

- NKF