[2.17 - General] Cleaners are treated as Aliens by the game.

[Avaren]

As title says, the Cleaners are treated as Aliens by the game, the only thing(s) to the contrary is what the lore tells you.

Things that happen in game that say they're aliens:

1. Just started a new play-through and had armed civies spawn in vs Cleaners... and I guess they really don't like suits, because they shot at the Cleaners, and the Cleaners shot back.
2. Upon killing a Cleaner, you get the achievement for killing an Alien.
3. The post-mission debriefs counts Cleaners as Aliens.
4. Killing Cleaners counts towards that soldiers kill count and can help unlock the different kill metals.

 

[Kouki]

14 hours ago, Avaren said:

As title says, the Cleaners are treated as Aliens by the game, the only thing(s) to the contrary is what the lore tells you.

Things that happen in game that say they're aliens:

1. Just started a new play-through and had armed civies spawn in vs Cleaners... and I guess they really don't like suits, because they shot at the Cleaners, and the Cleaners shot back.
2. Upon killing a Cleaner, you get the achievement for killing an Alien.
3. The post-mission debriefs counts Cleaners as Aliens.
4. Killing Cleaners counts towards that soldiers kill count and can help unlock the different kill metals.

 

I'll have to verify this with Chris as he knows the most when it comes to these issues. Although I think some of these aren't necessarily bugs.

1. This is intended behaviour afaik, as cleaners are still classified as enemies and aren't exactly subtle in their actions during cleaner missions. (There are improvements being done to civ AI that will be live on milestone 3.0, so if you think this should be different I highly suggest providing feedback on the general discussion forums!)

2. I'll have to double check this with Chris as I recall there were some issues with achievements that were fixed on a patch sometime ago.

3. I think Chris is aware of this, it's just a rather low priority one to fix, but we'll get around to this eventually.

4. I believe this is intended behaviour as well, but I'll have to bring this with him just to be sure.

[Chris]

18 hours ago, Avaren said:

As title says, the Cleaners are treated as Aliens by the game, the only thing(s) to the contrary is what the lore tells you.

Things that happen in game that say they're aliens:

1. Just started a new play-through and had armed civies spawn in vs Cleaners... and I guess they really don't like suits, because they shot at the Cleaners, and the Cleaners shot back.
2. Upon killing a Cleaner, you get the achievement for killing an Alien.
3. The post-mission debriefs counts Cleaners as Aliens.
4. Killing Cleaners counts towards that soldiers kill count and can help unlock the different kill metals.

Thanks. 1) should be fixed in our next major update, 2) I've fixed just now by updating the achievement to read "hostile units", and I'll fix 3) to refer to hostile units too. 4) is intended behaviour.