Thongsy
5284
Aliens move around. Definitely on terror missions but also on downed UFO and abductions. Sometimes they’re at the very edge of my LoS and just barely moved into it. And if I get closer or a better LoS on them it seems to activate the alien group that it is a part of. For example say there is a group of 3 mutons and one inches slightly ever so close to my guy so I see him and know he’s there. But then on my turn I move closer to take try and take him out it activates him and his buddies and they get that free move. Also sometimes they’ll come bursting through a door I haven’t open yet on a downed UFO as I’m setting my guys up.
No.
Aliens that are unaware of the player don’t take normal turns. You can observe this closely if you use Battle Scanners, Ghost Armor or Mimetic Skin to observe them without being seen in return. Some groups remain fixed in place, usually in tight groups, while others move around as patrols, again in tight groups. If it’s a terror mission they can attack and kill civilians while still unaware of XCom.
When a group first sees you, it’s painfully obvious. You get a voice prompt (i.e. “we’ve got company!”), a closeup cinematic of the group as they activate, and they get one free action to move to cover. In Enemy Within, alien robots that can’t take cover go into Overwatch instead. What aliens cannot do on activation is shoot at you. Unless you take the Itchy Trigger Tentacles, in which case robots might shoot at you instead of go into overwatch.
Being aware of the difference between aware and unaware groups becomes crucial if you have an unaware group under observation. You cannot, for example, move an assault in to flank an unaware alien unless he’s using Ghost Armor, because the alien will activate and move away after the Assault moves. Sometimes it’s wisest not to shoot at an unaware group with a Squad Sight sniper or hidden soldier, because wounding or killing one is not worth alerting the remainder.
Unaware groups are safe until activated. If they move toward your group and see you, they’ll get the activation move instead of a full turn. An ideal ambush situation is one where your guys are on overwatch, the aliens see you during their turn instead of during your move, you get a full round of overwatch shots, they take cover, and then you get a full turn to attack before the aliens can take their first real action.
They key point is that this Sectoid shot my rookie. Only aware aliens can do that, yet I did not see the group or get the activation cinematic. Which means they saw my soldiers without my soldiers seeing them, which is a bug.
That happened to me. Three chrysalids busted out of a door, just as I was setting up my team to breach it. Not ideal, as you can imagine.
routlaw
5287
Gus-There is one particular map, Street Hurricane ( http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=StreetHurricane_(EU2012) ) , where there is a bug in the spawn that can happen on the right side of the map that causes them to activate before you see them (at the start of the map, essentially). I believe I have also seen it very rarely on some other maps, but it was hard to know if it was a bug or just me miscounting activated pods or not seeing a second alien pod activate. It doesn’t happen often (I have 250+ hours in EW,all on Impossible) but it does happen on that map nearly 100% of the time.
The rules of pod activation and revealing work correctly as you stated almost all of the time, thankfully.
Oddly enough, if you have 6 men, this is ideal. You’re in a tight group at point-blank range, they’re not allowed to attack during that initial action, and they’ll snuggle adjacent to your troops. Generally this means you have 100% chance to hit, and you should have enough firepower to guarantee kills on all of them unless you’re mostly assault rifles. Snipers also have trouble at point blank range, though Gunslinger and a laser pistol contributes enough damage as well.
The bad thing is if you get a group like this while you’re otherwise engaged. You have to prioritize the Chryssalids because any that survive will probably kill people, which means you have to leave whatever else you are fighting alone for a turn. It’s also very bad news if you have only 4 soldiers, because you usually need two attacks per Chryssalid for a kill.
That was the map, and it was indeed on the right side. I wasn’t aware that there was a problem with that particular map, since this is the first time I’ve seen this happen.
routlaw
5290
I lost a soldier more than a few times before I figured out I couldn’t trust that map anymore, so I feel your pain. Like the bugged Cyberdisc at the end of the of the final Slingshot DLC mission, it’s one of those things that doesn’t get a lot of attention but heavy players of the game do have to learn to deal with.
I tend to just play the first part of that map very differently, assuming that they are overwatch camping near the police car. If there is a pack there they will usually reveal themselves through moving up towards you on turn 3/4. Meld is a lot more tricky on that map because of this.
Yes, would have been ideal but this was early in the campain, so mostly assault rifles in the squad…
OK, finally fielding some Firestorms with plasma cannons, able to shoot down Overseer ships with targeting. Ran into my first alien MEC and the damn thing cheats. Fires multiple times per turn, shrugs off dmg like crazy. Had to reload my first mission I in a looong time when I ran into it outside the downed ship and had my squad too scattered across the map.
Lost two of my seniors last night. One Medic Lieutenant and one Heavy Captain during the initial firefight in front of an abduction UFO. All my fault: I was focusing on capturing a Berserker and figured I could get a few of the Mutons as well (to get some free plasma rifles). In the end, I captured one Berserker and one Muton, but to the loss of two veterans.
Quit for the night after that, so I still have to clean the rest of the UFO with my now 4 man squad…
Enemy mechs–2 things make them easy. Psychics, and Heavies that have HEAT ammo. They don’t cheat…don’t you have abilities that let you shoot twice in a turn? Why shouldn’t they?
In the first half of the game, make your soldier roster depth a priority. Sticking with a crack 6 man crew with put you in a bad place if one diews, one is hurt, or you are upgrading them.
Mechs- The mech that gives the stealth bonus is great for teams, and I usually also convert a heavy for the armor shield. I then give that one the power glove and run up and smash things. Mechs become less awesome in the late game, where a couple of super soldiers that are psychics become awesome. Nothing like a psychic assault guy that can stealth, jump and has an aim bonus…
I’m not a big fan of either Heavy or Support MECs. Sure, +10 defense is very nice, but it usually doesn’t matter because the aliens shoot at the MEC instead because it’s easier to hit anyway. It only works if your MEC is out of line of sight, which means it’s probably not contributing anything but the defense bonus. The Heavy defense bonus is awfully mild, even Sectoids have enough aim to regularly hit Heavy MECs, and it only works on the closest enemy anyway. Sniper MECs are superior to either one just for their better aim, even if they advance and lose the +10 aim bonus for Platform Stability.
Umm, because I don’t like it. :)
I just finally got the psi ops chamber built, probably should’ve started it sooner, and have to start throwing squaddies into it for the 10-day test period. I’m at 300 meld and not sure what to do with it. I’ve genetically modified my squad leader like crazy and have one tier 3 MEC. So save it for the psychic stuff, build a 2nd MEC. . . .?
Alan_Au
5297
With “extra” Meld, I like to give a my high-level psi soldiers secondary heart and/or neural damping, along with mimetic skin on a couple of soldiers.
Really high-level psi soldiers don’t really need neural damping - if they’re strong enough, they’re not going to get mind controlled, so neural feedback probably makes more sense.
Neural feedback’s actually not bad. The way I look at it, it’s extra free damage. If the target does get mind controlled, the damage done makes it easier to kill the controller before it does anything with the target. I’ve even had Neural Feedback kill the attacking Sectoid outright.
On an unrelated note, my take on early Mimetic Skin is that you can do either a MEC in month 1 or a Mimetic Skin soldier in month 2, but not both. At least not with a South American start. Cash is short, and if you’re going to launch 3 satellites at the end of month 2, you have enough to fund one or the other but not both. Starting on any other continent means you must spend time doing the Seeker autopsy, or cover South America at the end of month 2 and get Mimetic Skin at the start of month 3.
Mimetic Skin does make Confounding Light (Slingshot #2) much easier. If your lead runner is invisible and stays invisible, they can get to the head of the train well before the deadline. You lose a little firepower if you make a point of never shooting with your invisible soldier, but you gain some from a Squadsight Sniper on top of the end of the train, since you can shoot at Thin Men while they’re still diddling about in the open and not behind cover. The information you gain about the precise location of those Thin Men is valuable as well.
Running a MEC on top of the train is handy as well. You gain the height advantages, and the MEC can’t take cover anyway. Just take care to only confront one enemy at a time with the MEC, since the MEC’s main defense is to kill targets before they can shoot back.
zombo77
5300
I went with an early (built cybernetics lab before officer school even though I started in asia) assault based flamethrower MEC in my last game on impossible/savescum. Having one guy who could survive a thin man crit was great and collateral damage turned out to be very useful for blowing up cars and killing whatever takes cover behind them in a single turn.
I rarely use Collateral Damage since it requires a full magazine and leaves the MEC defenseless, but I didn’t know it could cause an immediate car explosion. Grenades generally don’t, they usually just set it on fire. That does mean the aliens must leave cover or die, but usually they find other cover and attack anyway.
I think it makes sense to make one flamethrower suit for the early game, and then abandon it in favor of a kinetic strike suit once robotic enemies with lots of HP like Cyberdiscs and Mechtoids show up. It’s not so much that the flamethrower doesn’t kill late game enemies, since sending them into a panic is just as useful for neutralizing them when there’s a crisis, it’s that it’s completely ineffective on the biggest threats.
Alan_Au
5302
My experience is that grenades do make cars explode, so I’m not sure if this is a change with EW or something.
Grenades sometimes make cars explode immediately, but you can’t count on it. I’ve deliberately grenaded a car and had it just catch fire instead. Of course this means it explodes at the end of the Alien turn, but that was a bit too late.
