A couple questions

[0zzymandias]

This is my first time playing X-COM and I find much of it pretty intuitive. However I'm having a little trouble understanding the combat systems. Firstly, intercepting UFOs in the Geoscape interface. My question is when the Interceptors finally close with the UFO and the "Intercept" window (I believe) pops up it seems it only appears for a short time and then quickly disappears. Then the UFO moves away from my aircraft. Is this playing out as intended? Is it that I'm suppose to know the buttons before hand and make a decision as to a method of attack as fast as possible? Or am I just doing something wrong? Secondly, I think I managed to down one UFO but it may have just landed on it's own (altitude read "ground"). I sent a sky ranger to investigate with 8 soldiers on it. I had 2 of them move down the ramp who were killed in short order. I didn't see any aliens or anything. What did I do wrong? Just unlucky, or bad preperation? Any help anyone could offer would be appreciated, thanks.

[Zombie]

This is my first time playing X-COM and I find much of it pretty intuitive. However I'm having a little trouble understanding the combat systems. Firstly, intercepting UFOs in the Geoscape interface. My question is when the Interceptors finally close with the UFO and the "Intercept" window (I believe) pops up it seems it only appears for a short time and then quickly disappears. Then the UFO moves away from my aircraft. Is this playing out as intended? Is it that I'm suppose to know the buttons before hand and make a decision as to a method of attack as fast as possible? Or am I just doing something wrong?

No you are doing everything correct, and it is working as intended. See, the smaller UFOs don't really like to duke it out in the air. They are built for reconnaissance and optimized for speed and acceleration. If you do happen to engage a smaller UFO, most of the time it'll pull away as soon (or sometimes even before) your shots even connect. The Interceptor is a slow, lumbering, clumsy beast in the air no matter what weapons are loaded. To prevent those UFOs from escaping your wrath, equip the interceptor with dual Avalanches and prey. The other way is to build a hybrid craft. These are able to keep up with the UFO in most cases. Putting your craft in an "aggressive" stance is always a good first move though.

 

Secondly, I think I managed to down one UFO but it may have just landed on it's own (altitude read "ground"). I sent a sky ranger to investigate with 8 soldiers on it. I had 2 of them move down the ramp who were killed in short order. I didn't see any aliens or anything. What did I do wrong? Just unlucky, or bad preperation? Any help anyone could offer would be appreciated, thanks.

A bit unlucky and a bit bad preparation. Try make it a habit to toss a Smoke Grenade at the base of the ramp at the start of every mission. Then when you step off the craft, your movement is concealed within the cloud which should reduce/eliminate untimely reaction fire from the aliens.

 

By the way, welcome to the forums!

 

- Zombie

[0zzymandias]

I really appreciate the quick reply thank you! So I did manage to shoot the UFO down and was just caught by reaction fire attempting to disembark? I wasn't aware of smoke grenades I'll have to try that next time I manage to take one down. Thanks for the warm welcome too btw

[NKF]

Feel free to stick around and ask as many questions as you need. We'll help where we can. This game is quite complex despite its simplicity.

 

Before you disembark, I highly recommend that you wait at least one turn inside the Skyranger. See, the first turn is a bit of a killer for disembarking because all of the aliens will have 100% of their TUs. This is where tossing a smoke grenade becomes a good habit to get into, as you are forced to wait a turn anyway for the grenade to take effect.

 

One thing that'll really help you in the ground battles is to get a rough understanding of the reaction fire mechanics. It will be one of your biggest hinderances when you are making your move.

 

Your reaction level and your remaining time unit percentage are very important stats for both defending against reaction fire during your turn, while are used to make reaction shots during the aliens' turn. In general, your unit's initiative (or overall reaction score) is the unit's reaction level * unit's current TUs / unit's max TUs. So if you're at 50% of your TUs left, your reaction level will be at 50% of its listed value. The side with the greater level of reactions will get to make the move. As long as your level is higher, you can move about in full view of an alien - until it drops under it. Exhausting all of your TUs literally turns your unit into a reaction fire magnet!

 

To improve the odds of being able to take a reaction shot, leave 100% TUs at the end of the turn and arm a weapon with a fast snapshot (pistol, laser pistol and laser rifle for example). Putting yourself in a position where the alien must spend a lot of TUs before they come into view also helps tremendously.

 

One of the conditions for reaction fire is that the enemy must be able to see your unit in order to take the reaction shot. Visible range for aliens is 20 (yours is the same but gets dropped to 16 at night). As long as the shooters are beyond this range, you won't trigger reaction fire.

 

There is also the mutual surprise rule where reaction fire is generally negated if both units spot each other at the same time. This is one case where you can act before the aliens even if your initiative is low.

 

You can see why I mentioned at the beginning that you should wait a turn before disembarking. With the aliens starting at 100% of their TUs, they have 100% of their reactions to work with. On top of that, the aliens often have much better reaction levels than you, so they are at a major advantage. Waiting a turn eliminates this.

 

If that's eye glazing, don't worry. You don't have to keep an exact track of your score levels at all times. It's just good to keep in mind. What I'm getting at is to conserve your TUs as much as you can. Front line units (the ones closest to the danger) should move slow, take only the actions that you need. If you must use all of your TUs, do so if you're absolutely sure you aren't being observed by an alien. Saving lots of TUs improves your odds of being able to take reaction shots during the alien turn.

 

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

The different intercept buttons make your craft sit in different ranges and fire at different rates. Basically you just push one and watch what happens. At the start of the game "aggressive" covers pretty much all situations (though it's a really bad idea to attack battleships with your starting craft). As you get better weapon systems for your interceptors, the other attacking options become somewhat more feasible. Don't worry about it, feel free to take your time over the course of however many intercepts it takes you. Start a new game and fast forward between radar contacts especially so you can practise it, if it makes you feel any better.

 

UFOs will land on their own (if you get a radar reading pop up on your screen stating "ground", this is exactly what happened). They'll typically take off shortly after if left alone for a while, and resume flying around.

 

Green crosses on the Geoscape map indicate landed UFOs. White crosses indicate UFOs that have been shot down. Shot down UFOs will disappear after a much longer time period, but won't fly away - they just "dissolve" (presumably the local farmers cook 'em up for a barbecue or something).

 

Battleships are best followed with a drop ship, you really don't want to fight them in the air. Let them land on their own and attack on the ground. If they don't land, then don't worry too much about 'em. You won't nab every UFO you see.

 

If you DO shoot a UFO down though, take advantage of their land-bound state - because they can't fly off again, it's entirely up to you when the ground mission will take place. That is to say, you DON'T need to scramble your drop ship and get troops over there ASAP. That sort of thing leads to night missions, and you are at a GREAT DISADVANTAGE when it's dark (it limits how far you can see, but the aliens have night vision - you're likely to get riddled with holes before you spot one of them). Wait until the sun comes up before starting the fight, you'll find things far easier.

 

The same is also true for terror missions (kinda). So long as a drop ship is heading towards one, they won't disappear. With a bit of practise, you can use this to make sure the drop ship will always arrive at day time (without having the site disappear before you get there - something that's VERY BAD for your score, far worse then, say, turning up and leaving right away!).