Alien Bases

[Josip Broz Tito]

Yeah, it's more economical to use gunfire on doors, or c4. Rockets don't seem to do their full dmg on doors IMO. Machine-gunners seem to level up faster than riflemen for me at least. Bet that guy of yours is accurate as heck.

Paint slurs and vulgarities on those warheads and let the aliens see them up-close : ) GL!

I haven't been able to dig into this build as much as I wanted w/ the new semester starting up. With how the plasma shotguns for aliens are though= no casualties is a no go for me too, even with taking much more time than others and expending an armory's worth of ammo.

[StellarRat]

Vehicles in a base could be interesting, although they seem like they would be hard to use effectively given the tight quarters.

They can crush a lot of the objects in a base. I haven't been able to get one past the Great Room yet because of the damaged floor tile bug. I imagine you'd probably have to blast some of the object for the vehicle to get through though. Like I said above, if the vehicle could clear the Great Room and one or both of the next rooms it would be well worth it to bring it along.

[lemm]

And yeah, there's really no "sneaking" in alien bases.

It depends on the base.

You just have to slog your way through the small base, but that one doesn't have very many aliens, so it's not too bad. In the large base, however, the halls are mostly empty because the aliens seem perfectly content staying in their rooms, which allows you to avoid most of the aliens by crawling through the vents.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Yeah, now if the devs had the time to code in some research or artifacts tied specifically to bases= we'd now have a great decision: do I use heavy weapons to win the day, or do I risk my troops to capture the contents of the base intact?

It'd be better to have each type of base and each species have different artifacts available to research inside. This would prevent the 'capture one base= seen them all' problem and keep you thinking for the first few bases.

Floor tile bug...hope it gets fixed soon. It'd be cool to see how well vehicles do. Scimitar and hyperion should get the extra hardpoints to make them more viable than 2x veterans: especially for situations like bases. Having them ram cover= nice niche for them.

Edit: Lemm, I have had a few medium bases where I could avoid the central room (except for holding it's doors to prevent aliens from coming in) and work my way to a side shortcut to the reactor. Is this what you mean by vents? It might be a nomenclature issue since I see them as hallways...cuz they are : )

[Ishantil]

I haven't ever seen a base that is not the small one. Are the larger ones working in V19S_HF?

[StellarRat]

All the bases I've been to are the same layout just different critters in them.

[lemm]

Edit: Lemm, I have had a few medium bases where I could avoid the central room (except for holding it's doors to prevent aliens from coming in) and work my way to a side shortcut to the reactor. Is this what you mean by vents? It might be a nomenclature issue since I see them as hallways...cuz they are : )

The ventilation ducts are the single-tile wide passages that require you to shoot open a grill for entry. Take a look at the large base in the map editor. There are also locked doors that can only be opened through the use of weaponry, although these open up into hallways.

[Xintrosi]

I have an entire squad of Captains, Majors, and Commanders all with lasers and jackal armor.

I had a squad full of commanders that I got total party wiped in the end of October. It was a poor strategic decision to go in when I did, without laser weapons or wolf armor. As a result I let the base sit for most of November, so I'm a bit behind now.

Do you find offensive power is better than armor? "Best defense is a good offense" and all that? I usually focus wolf just because it's so relatively cheap, but being able to annihilate the enemy before they get shots off would be preferrable.

EDIT: The "take cover in the Great Room" idea has one big problem in my games: I tend to blow the hell out of everything in that room and there's not much cover left.

@Josip: I agree with everything you said. After that bad party wipe due to not being prepared, I've basically given up on this save, but want to see how well sub-optimal equipment (almost no lasers, basically) can perform with my necessarily inexperienced squads. If I can pull through despite it all, then I'll definitely consider "normal" a forgiving difficulty as intended. Last base assault was almost all privates (kept the veterans home, as they earned some rest) and I only lost 2 of them with ballistic equipment (except precision lasers, because they are usually a one-hit-kill weapon). I would have upgraded to all lasers, but I lost most of November (some other bad strategic decisions) as an income source and I've been throwing most of my money at base expansion/secondary bases/secondary strike squad (possibly also bad strategic decisions).

Edited September 6, 2013 by Xintrosi

[Elydo]

You can never be certain that you will be able to though. You have to assume that you will be shot at, and it's safe to assume some of those shots will land.

[StellarRat]

Do you find offensive power is better than armor? "Best defense is a good offense" and all that? I usually focus wolf just because it's so relatively cheap, but being able to annihilate the enemy before they get shots off would be preferrable.

I used to until Aaron gave them those F-ing heavy plasma shotguns. Now you HAVE TO have Wolf, IMO. There is just about no way around it. With the plasma shotgun the damned misses are almost as dangerous as the hits. You usually can't disperse your squad enough to escape some accidental hits. You need the full array of defense and offense to take a base, IMO. I wouldn't even get fancy and try to save any infrastructure in the base. Use the biggest, nastiest, weapons you've got and just pancake the whole place. Until you have electroshock grenades I wouldn't even bothering trying to capture the base commander. I suppose if you can get to the CnC room and you've whittled them down a couple guys you might try a stun baton charge. Better have four or five guys remaining and charge with at least three because one or two of them will probably end up dead.

I'll take a terror mission over a base assault anytime!

Slightly off topic: One interesting trend I've noticed is that the ground combat is starting to look a more "realistic" as the game is developed. As it gets more dangerous for the Xenonauts my tactics are morphing into a lot more cautious type of playing, poping around corners and taking single single snapshots, staying behind cover at all times, a lot of shooting with few hits, blowing stuff up instead of closing, shooting where I think a target is without visual...it's quite interesting.

Edited September 6, 2013 by StellarRat

[Dranak]

Do you find offensive power is better than armor? "Best defense is a good offense" and all that? I usually focus wolf just because it's so relatively cheap, but being able to annihilate the enemy before they get shots off would be preferrable.

I generally find armor > weapons as a priority. Keeping your veteran troops alive is paramount in ground combat.

Just cleared my first small ceasan base this playthrough, with ballistics and 5 troops in Wolf armor. Had one KIA (which was entirely my own fault for being sloppy) and several wounded troops (some of which was also blatantly my fault. Hello primed C4 in your pocket...)

[Ishantil]

@StellarRat: I have noticed the same trend in my combats. It's moved from the classic "X-COM sweep, multiple lanes of fire" into the "encounter, retreat, flank, neutralize" tactics.

I often use the rocket launcher to break up cover or even blow holes in buildings to get at the aliens inside. Doors are for sissies.

[Xintrosi]

Until you have electroshock grenades I wouldn't even bothering trying to capture the base commander. I suppose if you can get to the CnC room and you've whittled them down a couple guys you might try a stun baton charge.

Last time I was in a Sebillian base, either the AI broke somehow, or their reflexes didn't make a saving throw because I was able to rush with 3 guys without smoke and stun both the commander and the last guard without reaction fire.

I'll take a terror mission over a base assault anytime!

In my craptastic November I let 2 Terror missions go unanswered. That was really stupid, because they are a LOT easier than even small base assaults. Jackal/ballistic works for terror missions. Not with alien bases. Definitely learning to use better tactics as the game punishes my gimmicks.

Also, Andron bases suck. I want my suppression, dammit!

[Ishantil]

I promised a shot of the reactor of those who have not seen it:

[Josip Broz Tito]

Only nice thing about andron bases are that they use cover poorly. Plus, you can tend to camp in good cover areas while most of them walk at you...although they sometimes show signs of sneakyness.

[Josip Broz Tito]

On topic: how do you guys go about finding alien bases? I would say I'm not doing as well at it as others in this thread.

What I try to do is send out interceptors as scouts in the flight paths of past UFO's, or to spots where UFO's landed. I occasionally find a base.

[EchoFourDelta]

I just run fairly continuous combat air patrols, with the aircraft flying horizontally across the map, separated by their radar range.

[Elydo]

The descriptions of your playstyle make me feel woefully inadequate E4D.

What's that? "At the game?" Yeah, let's go with that.

[lemm]

There seems to be a distinct pattern of three medium UFOs that converge on a base, possibly to resupply it.

[thothkins]

I generally wait until I'm up to three bases, to provide coverage. I wait until a wave is over, so I have craft to spare. Then I run patrols as per E4D's post.

I do run them in interesting patterns though to alleviate the boredom of systematic patrols. It's slightly less effective, but the pilots are happier.

[Xintrosi]

Do you wait until you have corsairs or marauders to patrol? The flight range of condors is so limited and I don't like sending foxtrots out solo, so I've never bothered to send out aircraft without a known contact. I figure there's not much need to patrol unless I see a marked drop in funding level from one of the funding blocs that isn't explained by the alien activity scroll.

[Ishantil]

I wish there was cool charts on alien activity like there was in X-COM.

[EchoFourDelta]

I wish there was cool charts on alien activity like there was in X-COM.

That thing was like... HALF the battle in fighting an alien base in the OG.

[Ishantil]

Yes, that's exactly my point. You knew where to look, if you knew how to suss out the data from the charts.

[Max_Caine]

If there are alien bases on the map there is a high probability of one or more resupply missions. Look for unescorted signals of medium class or higher, travelling in a purposeful direction that will not intersect a city. Follow those signals to their destination. A supply ship will land for a while, then take off again and very quickly escape. Landing ships are extremly common supply ships, and make great raiding material if you feel like hoisting the jolly roger.

You know, when the ACA is done, I think I will do something with UFO missions.