Alien Battle Drills for better AI

[Chollirem]

In the linear ambush the enemy gets on line, usually using cover like the long fences in some maps, once the enemy comes in range they simple react fire, once their turn starts, the aliens free aim on the closest target to take out soldiers with over whelming fire superiority.

Its important to note they can move forward on line like this sweeping an area, the other option is the right half moves up, ends turn then the left half gets on line and ends turn, and they repeat, its slower but exposes less of the alien forces as they advance and leaves the side standing to free aim targets the moving side spots for them

IMPORTANT, the "bait alien" starts with his group, then moves out away from the group half his AP and then run back

This can be used with any ambush

The L shaped ambush is set up to remove your ability to have effective cover, no mater what you do, one side of the L can shoot at you in most situations.

Once this is engaged the aliens should wait 1 or 2 turns and just shoot at you, if you try and advance then they fire away, if you retreat they should fall back and try something new or hold this ground if its all they got

Again, this will work well on fence lines so they have some cover

The Z shaped Ambush is a modification of the L shaped ambush, when the aliens have no clue what direction you may come from, this gives them 360 Degrees of adjustable fire power to bring to bear on you. If the Xenonauts come from the left or right of the formation shown, the 3 aliens there should engage the enemy and the aliens behind and out of sight should set up the proper ambush or advance if they horribly out number the xenonauts 3 to 1

The Y shaped ambush, best in your game when the lower aliens in the Y can be hiding behind a building so as you walk past they are close, can react fire, and shoot at you, normally you would have groups making up each leg of the Y with cover or massive numbers for fire power if out in the open

IMPORTANT, the "bait alien" should run to the middle of the Y once he sees any one with a gun, wait 2 turns and then go looking for armed enemy civs/xenonauts again





X Shaped Ambush (since I'm limited to 5 pics per post and I need 6 Ill draw it out here for you)


..................a..............................................................a...................................







.................a..................................................................a




.....................................................x
......................................x..............................x
.......................x

This in your game will work best indoors with aliens taking up the 4 corners of a room and waiting for xenonauts to walk in. If smoked or flash banged they should try and head upstairs, out of the building or stand and fight 33% across the board on chance the alien group pick option 1, 2, or 3

If aliens can lean around corners then buildings outside allow the use of this ambush style

IMPORTANT, like the Y ambush the "bait alien" runs back to the center of the ambush once he sees armed cix/xenonaut so in this set up he would run into the building that they are holding (figure the lizards with poor eye sight and aim would use this a lot)


MOVEMENT DRILLS

so...we went over how the aliens wait and bait, lets talk how they move



This is a rolling linear ambush,
a1---->

a2---->

a3---->

a4---->

1 based on cover alien 1 moves first
2 if no targets are seen the rest move up on line
3 if a target is seen, the aliens in the back shoot at the target

3a if all targets killed, lead alien goes forward to his pre picked cover
3b if targets still active, lead alien falls back to his line

start of next turn the AI get goes back to doing 1 2 3


Next is the basic army wedge, the idea is you expose the smallest number of your group to the enemy while maintaining easy 360 degree fire arc with little chance of shooting your own. Again you use the lead element to find and point out targets for guys in the back

a1--->

.......a2--->

..............a3--->

a4--->

in this mock op, A3 moves first, followed by a2 then a1 then a4

as above
1 Lead alien moves to a pre picked spot
2 if no targets are seen the rest move up
3 if target seen the aliens in the back shoot at the target

3a if all targets killed, lead alien goes forward to his pre picked spot
3b if targets still active, lead alien falls back so he cant see the target (unless no good cover is in range then he runs to what ever cover is around and holds it).

from here aliens get on line and push up 1 scout so the boys in back can shoot the target

NOTE with both of these set ups, the lead alien doesn't move forward until his team catches up, so after combat they get back into formation if they win and resume mission



Hope this helps
if not in this game then the next

Edited January 7, 2013 by Chollirem

[Chollirem]

ya I'm new to pictures in this forum, sue me : P

As for us players, you can use all of these to good effect on alien forces simply by making 3-4 man teams and "moving" the ambush around the aliens

I often use the linear ambush and move it acrost the map. As you find and kill aliens one side of the line always gets slowed down, meaning the faster side forms the flanking side of the L shaped ambush

the slower units gets on line and holds its ground as the faster troops make the flanking side of the L(flanking side) and then push across with flank fire from the slower soldiers who are now on line and shooting at aliens

(If this is confusing let me know Ill fraps a video, put it on you tube and link it to here)

but it looks like this

FIRST

...a...a

a....a....a

x............x............x.............x...........x.............x.................x

SECOND

.............................................x

...a.....a.................................x

a...a....a

..........................................x

......................................x

x..........x..............x...........

THIRD

x

x

dead aliens

x

x

x........x................x

keep in mind even my small scouts have 20-30 aliens so I have lots of business and business is good

Edited January 4, 2013 by Chollirem

[Max_Caine]

A small note, you can use tags - just host the image on a site such as photobucket. Site like photobucket also usually include a tagged line you can copy and paste.

[Gorlom]

I'm wondering if too effective aliens will really be that fun. What tactics do you have in mind to counter the tactics you have already mentioned?

[TornadoADV]

I'm wondering if too effective aliens will really be that fun. What tactics do you have in mind to counter the tactics you have already mentioned?

Given the situation and real world results, the Xenonauts would either have to find the tail of the ambush line and roll it up, classic flank. Assuming a vehicle was deployed, you could deploy it to soak up the intial shots and have the infantry move up after it and clean house. Deploy Snipers/Sharphooters or heavy weapons such as the Rocket Launcher/Machine Gun along with a "bait" trooper to draw out the defenders from their hiding spots, classic hunter/killer.

Or simply absorb the losses and fight CQB in typical house to house urban combat.

[Chollirem]

yup, as tornado said, In short to beat a lot of this you would use a lot of this with diff weapon configs be it tank to spot for snipers, flash bangs to clear houses if its a inside x shaped ambush. And as you play around you will figure out other fun tricks to use.

but basically i would use a rolling linear ambush like I do now, find the enemy, and figure out from what I see how to kill him best.

We like 3 to 1 numerical advantage against a enemy IRL, so I would use that as well

I use the army wedge a lot to

x --->

......x --->

...........x --->

x --->

gives good 180 degree fire arc and the wider the better, lets the far end soldiers have mild flank on targets in front of the lead soldier

often used when im sending 4 troops from corner a to corner b

the rolling linear ambush below is also good

x --->

x --->

x --->

x --->

used when going left/right, or up/down on the map

finally stuff like this will separate your game from the posers, you can be all like we actually HAVE military strategy in out game, SUP! lol

Edited January 5, 2013 by Chollirem

[HoboRed]

The baited ambush lol.

I love the Geoscape AI, for the Alien UFO's. They tried to lure me out of my base with a baited ambush. Had 2 unprotected scouts in the border of my radar, and the UFO fighter's kept hovering round a little closer to my base. But I outsmarted them by sending out 1 craft to a waypoint and back to distract the alien fighters, then immediately sending another squadron to intercept the non-escorted scout UFO. Soon as I shot it down, I flew back to base before the fighters could catch me. The Alien's then proceeded to camp outside my base for 24 hours. I waited it out, the crash site was still active. Soon as they left, sent my chinook with 2 escorts.

Edited January 5, 2013 by HoboRed

[Chollirem]

Ya Ive seen that, have to send my chopper with fighter escort ever place now (they shot my chopper down!)

... on the topic of air combat, can we like hold shift and click way points we want our fighters to follow, this air combat could get very deep from a strategy stand point. Its a lot of fun dealing with 3 alien fighters and the like too.

can we send more then 3 fighters on a mission though?

p.s. max_caine...your the man

[Tacobandit]

Of course tactics can go to hell once the blaster launcher equivalent in this game is added. Then it's a matter of finding the aliens before they find you (cough stealth AI cough).

[Max_Caine]

Thankfully there will be no blaster launcher or guided missile/nuke equivalent therin of. Many people have asked for a blaster launcher, or a cut down version of the blaster launcher. Chris has stood resolute. It ain't hapnin'.

[Chollirem]

Ya, as I understand it the current AI system doesn't allow this sorta stuff : (

but I can hope

what sort of nasty tricks would you guys like the aliens to pull?

[Max_Caine]

Chollirem, there's a very long discussion with the AI developer (17 pages long!) as well as a few blog posts by the AI developer which I think you can integrate into what you've already written. Hope it helps!

[Tacobandit]

Thankfully there will be no blaster launcher or guided missile/nuke equivalent therin of. Many people have asked for a blaster launcher, or a cut down version of the blaster launcher. Chris has stood resolute. It ain't hapnin'.

So... we'll just mod the regular rocket launcher then is what you're saying?

[Max_Caine]

You can mod the blast radius and the damage caused to nuke-like proportions, but there isn't any code in the ground combat for a guided missile. There have been various solutions proposed, such as making the missile like a squaddie, but nothing concrete has come out of it.

[Gorlom]

So... we'll just mod the regular rocket launcher then is what you're saying?

Chances are you are not going to be able to mod it unless Goldhawk puts the possibility of it into the code first, which isn't looking all that likely.

You simply can't mod in functions like that without access to the core/decompiled code.

[Chollirem]

Thanks again Max! that was good intel

Max, how to you increase blast size of rockets/grenades? they are painfully small right now

Is there a way to increase visual range for everyone as well?

[Max_Caine]

You need to edit the weapons_gc.xml file. Scroll down to weapon.rocketlauncher, and then you can edit the blast radius of every rocket type. Look for "impact spectre" then "radius". A word of warning - if you don't like spoilers, then don't scroll down much further than that!

Visual range and cone of vision is determined by armour type (therefore scout style armour types will have a higher cone of vision and visual range than other armour types. These can be edited in armours_gc.xml (basially, if it ends in _gc that's to do with ground combat).

[Chollirem]

ohhh spoilers! hmmm lets see scroll scroll OMG how did she put THAT in THERE! 0.0

but still, nice spoilers