Last Alien Hunting!

[ShadowBlade]

So, what do you guys think? Which is the worst? In my humble opinion, I think thw very worst is hunting the last alien in a Cargo Ship, especially in the second part, since there are LOTS of little spaces where the damn bastard may be hidden. Seconded by the Cruise Ship missions. Oh, I HATE those little bedrooms! :crazy:

[BreakMage]

Cargo, because things love to hide in the closests of the deck part of the ship. It was annoying, I spent about 50-100 turns looking for a BioDrone hiding in a closet.

[Bomb Bloke]

There a plently of hiding places in cruise ships. I vote for them, 'cause in all my years of playing tFTD I've only been faced with one cruise ship. Hard to believe, eh?

[M. Hoz]

Yes it is hard to believe.So hard to believe,that I really don't believe it.

In my less than three years playing TFTD,I've been faced with TWO

cruise ships.

[NKF]

For me it's a tossup between the Harbour town terror mission, or the interior of a colony/artefact site.

 

It happens all over the place, but the ones that give me the biggest headache would have to be the ones I listed.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

Mm... they don't take as long... it's not missing the aliens is the problem... just the time for a full sweep...

[Jman4117]

Colony or Artifact Site

 

LOTS of hiding places. O.o

[NickAragua]

Definitely colonies. The bottom levels have these little 1-square nooks with closed doors, where Tentaculats and whatnot just love to hide and stay still, not show up on motion scanners, and not react to anything going on around them. One time, I really needed the loot for cash, and so I spent about an hour systematically combing the entire base, floor by floor. Having gone through the four floors back and forth, I got a little upset, and fired up XComUtil to find me that last frickin' alien. Of course, it was a tentaculat, hiding in a 1x1 room.

[Lleshap Johari]

I'd have to say alien colony. I've given up on even trying to do the cruise ship missions after spending a full day getting slaughtered repeatedly on my first attempt. Hooray for newbiedom...

[cyrus]

Hmm, haven't had very much trouble finding that very last alien in TFTD (same for UFO). Maybe on rare occasions. And for that the cruise ships are the perfect places with all their cabins and bathrooms. It's a good way to spend your units stamina up to the last point leaving them nearly breathless. And what is funny is that the stamina isn't recovered automagically when you start the second part of the mission. So if your soldiers are tired searching for that last alien and finally find it, it's better wait when everyone regain stamina before attacking it.

 

And I cannot say anything about cargo ships, 'cause haven't yet engaged in such type of mission.

[Fox]

I chose artifact site mission because I always get slaughtered by them early in the game. For some reason I never really get trouble with ship defense missions... they take a long time but I don't find them particularly challenging. Artifact sites = uber hard for me. Damned Tentaculats.

 

I think island defense missions are the most fun out of them all. Urban combat always strikes my fancy for some reason.

[MildCat]

UGH!

 

It once took me about fifty turns to find one of those triscene (sp) things, FIFTY TURNS, ON THE PSX!!

 

It was hellish...

 

It's also annoying on some of the urban levels where you get these towere things with boxes on the top and there's only a narrow stairway up... and a third of the time there's some stupid civilian standing in the way not letting you pass, and if you blow up the stairway then you have to spend ages blowing up the top... That's always annoyting.

[NKF]

I have a few low-tech solutions for the blocked/damage stairs for the metal tower problem. It needs grenades and gas cannons.

 

Use the grenades (or long range fire) to deal with anything on top of the tower. Then use the gas cannon with HE shells to deal with the aliens inside the tower by shooting at its floor. Even if the floor does not get destroyed, most aliens standing on it will crumble after a few hits with the HE shells.

 

Lobstermen can be a problem. For them, you could try setting them on fire, as fire damage ignores armour, though it goes at a very slow rate of two or four hitpoints of damage per turn if it sticks to the target. But since it cannot see you and you cannot see it, the slow but continual damage might be worth it.

 

A higher tech solution would require sonic cannons if you just want to blast the floor out from underneath it, or sonic pulsers. You don't need to make a hole in order to throw grenades through the ceiling - but do make one if it helps your conscience.

 

- NKF

[cyrus]

I've got used to think, that phosphoros ammo isn't very effective against Lobyman. For me, the fire always went out on the next turn not dealing even a bit of damage to the enemy.

[ShadowBlade]

Hand-to-hand weapons like the Heavy Thermal Lance make lobster cream out of those nasties in just one drill!

[cyrus]

HTH is a sure thing on lobbies, but if you manage to get that close to one in a single piece.

[NKF]

That depends on the map where wide open spaces aren't very prominent. Even so, you'll often take a step around a bend and run smack into a lobstermen, looking the other way!

 

Getting back to you about phosphoros rounds - they're useless underwater. Useless, though they make allow you to see for a turn or two. I'm sure you'll find the chemical flares to be far more useful in this role.

 

But on land they stay around for much longer and appear to be much more effective. The real trick is setting the aliens on fire and making sure that they have nowhere to run while at the same time not getting yourself spotted. That's too much to ask in most normal circumstances, but for knocking out snipers it's not too hard to pull off (of which the port terror mission has several places that this can be done).

 

Nothing like killing a lobsterman instantly though. Phosphor's just takes too long.

 

- NKF

[cyrus]

And I presume, that shooting more phosphor rounds wouldn't add to the effect? Speaking of the underwater, yes it looks so (that it's ineffective, though that strange - the phosphor should remain effective underwater, I think so). The flares are much more useful, but one or two phosphor clips wouldn't be useless, in case all your flares are deployed and you need some more light.

[NKF]

Hmm, in case like that, I like to redeploy deployed flares.

 

Well, the initial impact of the phosphor rounds may work as intended, but the area effect, which is its main effect, don't last very long underwater. I mean, you set a patch of coral on fire (hah), and after a few turns, it's out. On land, you set fire to a group of boxes, they'll burn until there's nothing left.

 

On the other hand, area effect weapons in general are more effective on land. I mean, look at the Triton. While submerged, it cannot be harmed by explosives. On land, a few sonic pulsers can turn it into a flying carpet with a roof (and yes, you still get to fly home on it).

 

And to think phosphor is the main component of flares... not that the game knows this.

 

- NKF

[cyrus]

About redeploying deployed flares... yes, if you can get to one. Or phosphor can be useful if you want to lit the place, where you cannot through the flare, for example beneath some coral reef. Although I haven't had much problems with flares, with 10 of them you don't need any more light, I've managed to go along with even five. So, practically, I never used phosphor for that purpose.

 

As for the phosphor not lasting very long. On the other hand, the underwater currents may dissipate the cloud quickly, thus the effect is limited to only one turn.

[Maugan Ra]

I just hate the cruise ships, don't know why though...

[Spiro]

I think cruise ship is hardest to clear if you miss that one toilet with lobsterman. It's not so hard if you go room by room (cca 50 turns).

Cargo ship is hard to clear, especialy if few grenades make damage to stairs and you don't know how to get to top of the ship.

[NickAragua]

Yeah, the cargo ship's second level can be a pain especially if the aliens take out the stairs leading to the top of the cargo containers in the starting area... and you can't use blaster bombs to flush them out, so basically you can't even figure out where the bloody aliens are, 'cause they always seem to camp out up there...

[Ki-tat Chung]

ha! even worse, before i reinstalled my game, as may of you know, i lost all my weapon clips sans one or two in second stages. and i hadn't reaserched sonic weapons yet, so i couldn't scavange. my really good sniper just ran out of ammo and got killed, and im left with four guys with a granade each, i use up all my granades, and i had to abort, cuz i only had two guys left, and two sws's, and the aliens were hiding in the upper start part and in the engine room.

[Zombie]

Lots of good answers here.

 

I'm going to add my 2 cents worth about the Heavy Cruiser. See, I killed all the aliens on the map and inside the ship itself but the game wouldn't end. Swept the battlefield again, very thoroughly this time still nothing. Great, that means the alien is in the ship somewhere. Swept through there very thoroughly as well. Eventually I went in one of the rooms with an elevator and tried to go down. It wouldn't let me. The other lift worked fine, so why not this one? My guess was that an alien was blocking the lift but I just couldn't see him. Well, how the heck am I going to get him out of there? Tried to flush him out by exiting the room and waiting 50 rounds but no luck, the Tasoth was rooted to one spot. I was getting desperate at this point, so on a whim a tossed a Sonic Pulser near the room (outside the craft) to see if that would make a hole big enough to see through. Bingo. There the prick stood. Killed it with Sonic Cannon shot to the horsie's cranium. Aaargh! Quite annoying to say the least.

 

My guess is that you can't see down or up lifts like you can in Enemy Unknown. I might just do some editing in the game files to allow this again, because you should have a proper way of getting an alien out of a room with a lift as the only exit.

 

Anyone else here have trouble with the Heavy Cruiser?

 

- Zombie