ddopson

A couple of tricks I've learned for dealing with Alien reaction fire: * Simply opening the door doesn't seem to trigger reaction fire. Reaction fire triggers when you move in front of an alien, fire at it, or throw a grenade from a spot where they see you. * Reaction fire doesn't always trigger; apparently, this is partly based on relative reaction points and remaining TUs. Or something. ie, a soldier with 100 reaction points might be able to walk up to an alien and shoot it in the face twice without being shot back. This is more curse than blessing ... Your high reaction points soldier breaches the door, walks in, and straight murders an alien from point blank range (using kneeled cover versus the other aliens). Of the 4 remaining aliens in the room, 3 shoot back and miss. You think reaction fire is done, but no. When your rookie walks in and fires; that 4th alien shoots back and murders your poor low reaction rookie. * Flashbangs help. Even if you are going to kill a group of aliens in the same turn, using a flashbang keeps those aliens from using reaction fire on you. Careful though, if there are 4 aliens, and your flashbang only gets 3, the 4th can reaction fire on the grenade thrower. The major downside is that the guy throwing a flashbang is 1 less guy shooting and if you aren't eliminating the aliens this turn, you gotta get that guy back to safe cover. * Deliberately drawing reaction fire is a perfectly valid strategy. Given the right circumstances (cover, kneeling, 5+ tiles distance), aliens aren't very accurate. Risking non-fatal injury to a high HP soldier wearing armor or a dude with a shield is an acceptable trade for risking another soldiers life. Or if a sniper can trigger reaction fire from a distance where the aliens have 5% hit rate, even better. Once an alien has fired, he's safe to shoot from point blank. Just be aware that 1 alien firing DOES NOT mean the other aliens in the room have crossed their reaction thresholds; those nasties are still a lurking threat. * High TU soldiers are very useful here. They allow you to move in, shoot, and then retreat. The general idea is to END your turns far enough away that the aliens can't run up and shoot in the same turn. In other games, this is called "kiting". * Shields are nice in that they allow you to take shots for free, but breaching can be done without them. One thing I still haven't * Stun grenades are crazy overpowered since they seem to take out anything bio over a massive radius in a single turn before it can fire. I consider them cheating. The Safe Breaching Manual: 0) No one ever ends a turn within 5 tiles of an unopened door. Ever. There is a massive accuracy boost within 5 tiles (15% per tile up to 60%). Aliens aren't very accurate. Staying 5+ tiles away and kneeled means that most aliens will miss more than they hit. Cover is even better. As is being to the side of a door rather than directly in front. 0) DO NOT end a turn with your entire team kneeled in front of a door you have never opened. This seemed like a good idea at first, but led to heavy losses. If an alien bumps the door open (they aren't smart, more like brownian motion), they fire first before your reaction (door open doesn't trigger reaction). If that's a triple-shot, you just lost someone. 0) INSTEAD, assemble a breaching team of ~4+ soldiers that are either 6+ tiles away from the front, ideally with cover, or to the side where I've never seen an alien walk far enough out of the UFO to get a clean shot (plus, you'd have several reaction shots by then). 1) Initial breach-validate-and-prep: approach the door and open it. If there is an alien close to the door, you need to kill him. If your assault weapon is GUARANTEED to do the job in one shot, great. Otherwise, a sniper can draw the reaction shot, or you can flashbang then murder, or use a shield, or whatever. Point is, you should be able to safely take out 1-2 door guards with ease, then slam the door shut again with the confidence that no alien has enough TU's to get to the other side of the door and fire in the same turn. NOW, you can assemble the squad in front of the door, densely packed in rows all facing forward for maximum penetration power. 2) Hit-and-run turns: If you have some high TU soldiers (mainly assault / pistol), you can spend one or more turn in hit and run style. Run in far enough to shoot an alien and make it back outside the door in the same turn (and close the door). The easiest way to do this correctly (ie manage your TU budget) is to walk your guy in to where you want to shoot from, then click on a spot that is back outside the door to check the TU's. If the number of TU's remaining after walking back is > TU-for-shot, then you are safe to fire. Note that if it's within 2 TU's, you have to consider the cost of turning to fire. And don't get shot by reaction fire. Still, if there's a bunch of aliens inside, clipping 1-2 for free is nice. Note that opening / closing a door takes something like 7 TU's, so the hit-and-run squad shouldn't touch the door; that job belongs to a sniper (someone not especially useful for breaching) who is at an angle to the door; gives you 14 more TU's for hit-and-run murder. 3) Penetration: The real fun begins. If you have enough firepower, you can breach all the way to the aliens and murder them at point-blank. If it's a big UFO, make sure you aren't violating door-safety for the next room and that everyone is in a safe spot when the turn ends; alternatively, using an end-of-turn smoke grenade on your TU-less murder squad caught in unsafe spots can give them a bit of protection as well. Or better yet, both safe spots and smoke.