Why a ballroom in alien landing ships?

[henri5]

Why do landing ships have such a large room without any cover except at the back for the aliens? This makes it very difficult to attack a landing ship with 2-4 alien in it, because no grenades can reach the aliens usually hiding behind a panel at the back where they are difficult to hit and have clear shots at soldiers in the door. If one does not have rockets, one should expect heavy losses when attacking this ship.

In my first attack against a landing ship, I was lucky and lost only a single soldier, but when I tried to replay it today, I lost 5 soldiers, including 3 from an alien rocket. Unfortunately I don't remember if I did anything special the first time or if I was just lucky...

[StellarRat]

Doesn't that represent the large amount of floor space needed for all the alien troops? It is a landing ship after all. They do carry a lot of troops enough for a terror strike.

[Huscarl]

I haven't been able to play since V14 but, wouldn't it stand to reason that smoke be your best friend when assaulting? One at the door; then some poor schlob to open the door and, if they survive, maybe toss a couple more smoke inside the ship?

[thothkins]

The ships are quite versatile when it comes to missions so troop transports, abduction storage, base construction materials and base supplies.

I seem to recall smoke used to be more useful, but it was toned down. Much like the stun grenades have just been toned down. But there was a time I wouldn't go near the medium ships without pelting the outside with smoke.

[Mytheos]

The ships are quite versatile when it comes to missions so troop transports, abduction storage, base construction materials and base supplies.

I seem to recall smoke used to be more useful, but it was toned down. Much like the stun grenades have just been toned down. But there was a time I wouldn't go near the medium ships without pelting the outside with smoke.

I believe smoke grenades work off of Alien Accuracy, and the higher their accuracy the more smoke is needed to nullify it.

So it isnt so much smoke grenades were toned down as the Alien were given better accuracy stats.

Its still useful, but you have to expect to need two where before 1 would do just fine.

[thothkins]

That was interesting Mytheos. thanks for that.

[Solarius Scorch]

Why do landing ships have such a large room without any cover except at the back for the aliens? This makes it very difficult to attack a landing ship

Well, why wouldn't such a ship be built for defence?

And it's still nothing in comparison to Terror from the Deep designs.

[ThatSwoleGuy]

I see no reason why it wouldn't have a large bay area just after the doors, good for sending out mass troops or vehicles.

[Voeter]

I had my first landing ship experience and it was a breeze. Some bozo in there decided (probably because he could wallhack and was aiming for me) to fire off a missile, hit one of the ship components and blew itself and who knows how many more aliens to giblets. There was only one alien left afterwards who probably thought it best to get the f*** out of there, and got a nice welcome from my xenonauts by means of melty face by laser. And there was much rejoicing.

As for the ballroom, that's exactly why all my soldiers are equipped with all sorts of grenades and one of them even has a rocket launcher in the event that blowing up some ultra-advanced tech is preferable over losing your 80+ TU xenonauts. Hell, it might even be possible to take some c4 and blow a chunk out of the spaceship wall and assault them from there. Is it? If it is that would be awesome

[thothkins]

I remember my first landing ship. It was a desert map, and there was a whole side of it without a shred of cover. That was really tough to get across, and I lost a couple of guys.

Back then, the aliens would rush out of the UFO if you went too near. So, that's exactly what happened. Lost a couple more guys and the UFO door just closes again.

I didn't really take my time to use a lot of smoke grenades then and I don't think stun weapons were available. Not to mention that Sebillians were tough in that build too. So, it was basically a slaughter.