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How to deal with aliens firing from inaccessible rooftops?


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What it says really.

I'm a very experienced XCom / TFTD player and so far this game is exactly what I hoped for, but I am finding it a PITA when my ground teams get sniped from rooftops to which I have no access. I have no flying suits yet (whatever they're called now) so all I can do is try to capture the alien ship without my guys getting shot as they run to it.

I have tried tossing grenades onto the roof but there is a huge area in the middle you can't get a grenade to. Ctrl-firing into it the roof from the floor below has no effect because the roof is impenetrable.

What do others do?

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I've personally never encountered your situation, but I have encountered sort-of similar situations where an alien shoots from a impassable 2nd floor. For that reason I usually take a vehicle with me as they have the firepower to level buildings.

Edited by Max_Caine
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Same here, never encountered your situation. And I've finished a veteran ironman run! :D Do you have extra maps on, because the vanilla maps will not often give you this situation I imagine. Also, if some Harridan kept going back and forth at a roof I would try to get vision however possible and then snipe him down. If u cant get vision, I really have no idea what you could do (except have really unsafe reaction fire I suppose).

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It's one of those things with the antennae taking pot shots from a roof, dodging around the ducts and stuff. It was sniping and hitting my guys who were facing it but unable to see it.

Suppressing machine-gun laser fire didn't work, it was all blocked to 0% effect by the air conditioning ducting.

Eventually I tossed more or less every grenade I had onto the roof and the fire ceased. At the end of the mission I was told I'd killed all the aliens, so obviously the plastering with grenades worked, but at no stage did I see the actual alien, just bolts of fire during the aliens' turn. Very annoying.

I have a tank now, so maybe that will help another time. Failing that, I'd just have to capture the ship, and wait out till I win that way. The trouble was, this alien shot my guys in the back as they ran from cover to the ship. And if Rooftop Sniper Guy didn't kill them, someone else did as soon as the doors opened.

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I've encountered this numerous times, and what I've done is what you do: take the UFO and hold it for five turns. I've had limited success in drawing them to the edges of the roof-tops, where I might get a shot at them, but this involves placing agents where those harridans can get at them, too. In cover, of course, but still. But thank Go[l]d[hawk] for the option to win by waiting it out in the UFO! If you played the original XCOM EU and/or TFTD, remember what those bug hunts used to be like.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I've had this happen to me quite a few times before. Absolutely not fun times. But it's true that vanilla maps are a lot less likely to put you into such situations. The bad experiences I've had so far are all on maps from Skitso's Map Pack (the one that's now included in the Mod Launcher by default). Some of them have really tall buildings (utilizing all available elevation levels in the game if I'm not mistaken) with absolutely no rooftop access at all. My personal suggestion is really just ... if you're playing on Easy or Normal and want to enjoy the ride, then by all means, do whatever you think will help or what our friends above have mentioned. But if you're on, say, Insane Ironman, you really won't enjoy all this rooftop sniping business. So avoid the map packs and any Industrial maps if you can help it.

Never forget: Industrial maps WILL kill you, either with Harridans or with Reapers.

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Never actually encountered your situation this much. Either you got people who can fly up and give vision, or you just snipe the harridan down as they almost always are reasonably on the edge of the building. They do not go to edge, shoot, and back like humans probably would, and even then, the collision system gives you a lot of leverage to shoot them, right?

But if you're on, say, Insane Ironman, you really won't enjoy all this rooftop sniping business. So avoid the map packs and any Industrial maps if you can help it.

Never forget: Industrial maps WILL kill you, either with Harridans or with Reapers.

I feel like this only applies to reapers honestly. They're like the only ones who you can't 100% know for sure they won't instakill you. There could easily be a reaper around the corner waiting to charge your best soldier and oneshot him, while with all the other aliens you can safe-play really easily by spamming smoke grenade (except sebs) or just having shielders (aka meatshields) on your squad's most dangerous fronts.

I had a game on a desert (original) map at a crash site with a corvette where, I didn't see the enemy for two turns, only having heard gun shot from civilians. I go close to a building where no enemy will most likely charge me (they will kill the nearby civilians first anyway, right) and then of course a random reaper from a corner inside of a building charges at my highest ranked soldier and one-shots him. There is no other alien that does this sort of incalculable business.

Edited by theforgot3n1
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