Ground Combat Guide For Beginners

[StellarRat 12]

This is my first edition of a basic ground combat guide to get beginners through their first few missions. If anyone has suggestions for improvement or corrections just post here and I'll take a look at them. Please keep in mind that this is what works for me and is not intended to be a all encompassing manual. There many ways to approach most things in Xenonauts. I'm just trying to give a beginner a method to get through the first few recovery missions.

Get it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/45esdbi8nsua7ud/Xenonauts%20Ground%20Combat%20Guide%20for%20Beginners.pdf?dl=0

Edited February 9, 2015 by StellarRat

[ViewThePhenom 10]

I would include crouching to fire over adjacent units, a tip on how to avoid accidentally suppressing your own troops with the LMG and a tip that smoke is useless against Sebs. Otherwise, good work for information on a tutorial mission.

[StellarRat 12]

OK, I'll keep that mind for version v1.1

[larkvi 10]

I personally find the LMG to be more of a danger to my team than the enemies, never reaction fires, and the LMG specialist is constantly getting suppressed, meaning that she does not have the TU to fire. I find it interesting that you make it the core of the team.

[ViewThePhenom 10]

LMG is really good if you protect the user and use it in a supporting role.

[StellarRat 12]

I personally find the LMG to be more of a danger to my team than the enemies, never reaction fires, and the LMG specialist is constantly getting suppressed, meaning that she does not have the TU to fire. I find it interesting that you make it the core of the team.

My LMG is always behind my assault troops, so it is less likely the aliens will fire at it. It's a support weapon. Maybe I should have pointed that out more clearly in the manual, noted. The examples always have it in the back. It will reaction fire if you put a troop with really high reflexes on it, but troops with high reflexes, bravery and strength are hard to come by. Edited July 2, 2014 by StellarRat

[Tyro3 10]

I have found it not to be a good idea having a reaction firing LMG behind my other troops!!!!

[StellarRat 12]

I have found it not to be a good idea having a reaction firing LMG behind my other troops!!!!

Yeah, that's why I usually don't put high reflex troops on it AND I have my men to either side of it's line of fire. It's pretty rare for them to reaction fire in general though.

[momerathe 10]

I've gone for a sniper/rifleman centric mix so far, but reading this guide has motivated me to try out the MG build instead. I've got a few heavies in the barracks, so I'll crank out a few scatter lasers and see what's what.

[theSovereign 10]

Why take 1 LMG trooper if you can have 2?

Personally I found rifles to be generally lacking, they tickle the enemies at long range (although that is less of a problem) but they are horrible for breaching UFOs.

[StellarRat 12]

I've used both one and two. On terror missions two is definitely better.

[momerathe 10]

Why take 1 LMG trooper if you can have 2?

why not 4?

[StellarRat 12]

why not 4?

I actually tried that on a terror mission once. Didn't work out too well, not enough reaction fire, Reapers charging round corners, rend, rend, bad...

[MKDELTA 10]

I think you should definitively add something about how to avoid getting hit by friendly fire. The crouching thing, positioning your troops so that reaction fire won't hit them, avoiding getting supressed by own MGs and so on.

[StellarRat 12]

I think you should definitively add something about how to avoid getting hit by friendly fire. The crouching thing, positioning your troops so that reaction fire won't hit them, avoiding getting supressed by own MGs and so on.

Yeah, that's coming in v1.1. Possibly out tonight. I'm trying to avoid getting into loads of little details to keep it short, but valuable. However, the points brought up so far will all make in there.

[Kiel 10]

There's a tooltip, which says 'press 'm' to use meele weapons' (or something like that). What does it mean? It's like I can hit an alien with the rifle's butt?..

[StellarRat 12]

Yes, you can whack them over the head with your rifle.

[ViewThePhenom 10]

Yes, you can whack them over the head with your rifle.

Seriously? What's the purpose of this attack?

[StellarRat 12]

Seriously? What's the purpose of this attack?

Let me preface this with "I've never used this attack." - But, I know it was included in the code and I think it's strictly for desperate situations where you're out of ammo and the enemy is close. It does "real" damage, so you can't use to stun aliens. It's intended to kill them. I think each hit does 5 points of damage or something like that. You'd have to look it up. Don't know how much TU it costs either.

[StellarRat 12]

Version 1.1 of the Guide is out now. I've incorporated the suggested changes in this thread. Thanks to the posters that made some excellent observations!

Get it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/45esdbi8nsua7ud/Xenonauts%20Ground%20Combat%20Guide%20for%20Beginners.pdf

Edited July 4, 2014 by StellarRat

[LKx 10]

I'm a bit confused, is the sniper rifle truly an heavy weapon? It doesn't say that it's capped by strenght

[ViniJones 10]

But m16 looks awesome!. Seriously though the weapon itself is not that bad, considering your lmgs can only fire once in a hundred years.

I often find it better to take 3 shields with shotguns in the backpack, rather than having my assaulters run around asking for an instakill. Your basic resources are unlimited, use them, fill those backpacks.

Good illustration, though the wedge formation might be going too far, youre gonna get so friendly fired there.

Now I could argue that bravery is useless and reaction, ap and accuracy is your only concern, but I dont think a beginner would start on a high difficulty and if you can load the game, anything goes.

Its good to see your approach and many points are spot on, especially the spot, suppress and kill. What I would add is adding 2 and 2 together like "I see a sebillian, this means no psionics are gonna bug me." and so on... later in the guide, should you choose to expand it(which you should).

Im surprised theres not more of these out here.

[ViniJones 10]

I'm a bit confused, is the sniper rifle truly an heavy weapon? It doesn't say that it's capped by strenght

The sniper rifle is considered a "hw" in the guide which means its in the back with the heavies, out of sight, but not out of mind. Str doesnt influence it and it does sound a bit confusing in there now that you mention it. Maybe a "long range" sounds better.

Edited July 5, 2014 by ViniJones

[Gantrakk 10]

I would probably call the heavy plus sniper "support" as it is reasonably descriptive of their roles and shouldn't be able to be confused with anything I can think of.

A suggestion for the LMG if you find you use up a lot of ammunition, give one ammo box to each of your other soldiers to drop next to him when he needs it. A similar distribution of ammunition can be used for rockets to get a good supply without overburdening one man, after all if they want their fire support they can damn well carry the ammo.

[NemetZzZ 10]

A very nice guide. Did you think about posting it on Steam?