Accuracy versus Explosive.

[Selvhan]

I did try to enter a large scout ship a few minutes ago and it went terribly bad. My soldier were having less than 20% on their aimed shot ( sniper included ). I think the worst was to see the alien doing some burst at a high distance and kill 1 trooper every turn.

So I wonder if the only "safe" way to clear the alien ship are to just use rocket launcher and grenade ? You launch a rocket to suppress them. Then you throw all the grenade you can. Repeat as long as needed.

Why ? Because the accuracy of our soldiers is so bad in the beginning. I mean, you have 3 to 4 alien behind 50% cover with gun that 1 shot kill your soldier. You have weapons that take around 3 to 4 shot to kill an alien but you have less than 20% ...

I would like to know what do you guys do to clear the large scout in the beginning ?

[Jebediah]

I find the best way to go (usually only results in one casualty-guess who it is) is to use smoke to try to bisect the room, so that you can handle one blind corner at a time. Following that, I send in someone with a shield to try to cope with the reaction fire, then try to baton/gun down the people in that corner. Finally a barrage of flash/frags to the other corner to try to suppress whatever happens to be over there before their turn starts.

[Max_Caine]

Selvhan, may I suggest telling us what you did, what happened, when, so we can comment on it? There's not a lot of info to go on, you see.

[ventuswings]

Also, the accuracy formula is sure to be adjusted on next candidate so unsure the advice given will have much sustainability.

[theblazeuk]

The aliens were probably behind cover. Maybe even two lots.

There are ways and means to destroy that cover...

[Dranak]

Yeah, some more info on the tactics you tried would be helpful. It sounds almost like you just had troops standing in the open exchanging fire with unsuppressed aliens in cover.

[Selvhan]

Ok I will try to describe what happen.

Setup :

I had 2 snipers, outside the alien ship with a LOS in the left corner. I had 2 Hvy machinegun, 1 square away from the door but not in front. I had 2 Rifleman in front of the machinegun, ready to open the door and to throw flashbang. 2 other soldiers were already dead due to alien reaction fire in the map previously.

What happen :

I had 1 rifleman open the door. He died due to reaction fire. The other throw a flashbang to suppress the 3 aliens who were in the left corner. 2 of them behind halfwall ( 50% cover ) 1 in the open with no cover.

My 2 snipers shot on the 1st alien behind cover ( They could not see the other. ) 21% both of them and they miss. Which is not so bad. It happen. I also had 2 machinegun that fired on the alien in the open. 19% to hit both of them. They hit him once on 10 shot.

Alien turn :

Since they were supressed, they fired 1 snapshot at my snipers. 1 dead, and miss the 2nd. The 3rd alien ran away in the back of the ship through a door.

My turn :

My sniper miss again with 21% ( he was crouched all the time ). My Rifleman enter and take cover on the right side of the ship ( 50% cover ). My both machine gun try to hit the alien behind cover but they did not even destroyed the half wall. Well they broke the glass on hit. Only 1 alien got suppressed.

Alien Turn :

The 1st alien ( suppressed ) kill on of my machinegun through the ship ( I had no line of fire on him but the alien does ). My other Machinegun panic. The 2nd alien burt and snapshot my rifleman ( Inside the ship ) but miss. He then run in the open !? The 3rd alien did not comeback.

My turn :

I try to suppressed the 2 aliens with my rifleman but only the one in the open was suppressed. Then my sniper miss again. My hvy is still in panic.

Alien turn :

The suppressed alien hit my rifleman and then close in a little. The other alien shoot at my sniper and miss but my sniper panic. The 3rd alien comeback and shoot my rifleman and miss. My rifleman is now suppressed and in panic.

My turn :

My hvy shoot at the 2 alien in the open. Hit one. I hide him a little away this time.

Alien turn :

They kill my rifleman. They kill my sniper.

My turn :

I try to bring back my hvy but he was shot down in reaction fire.

[Max_Caine]

Hmm...

Okay, from your description, may I make a couple of suggestions that I think will assist you?

Opening the door

As far as I see it. there are two "safe" ways to open the scout door. The first "safe" way is to blow it open. Rockets, High-Ex, even bullets will do it (especially if you have two heavy machinegunners). By destroying the door, you deny your opponent the chance to shoot at someone in front of the door. Of course, the problem with that is by shooting the door, you use up your troops APs and might get caught out, so if you want to blow the door, you may want to take your time and use several packages of High-Explosive over several turns.

The other "safe" way is to use a guy with a combat shield. Now, the combat shield doesn't always block shots (which is very annoying), but even if a combat shield is destroyed by the reaction shot, your guy will not die.

Using smoke to block alien fire

You don't mention that you used smoke at all in that engagement. Perhaps you don't feel it's useful, but I believe it would have been very useful to help your soldiers. Take, for example, your snipers. A smoke grenade thrown so that there it a tile's width of smoke between the snipers and the border would have made it impossible for the aliens to shoot back, and the snipers would have been able to reposition in safety. Smoke clears quite quickly, so you wouldn't be waiting around for a long while in it.

EDIT:

Having thought about it some more, here's more suggestions.

Stacking up in front of the door

Through hard experience, I've stopped stacking up in front of any doors I have to cross. The chance for carnage is just too high. Scout doors are annoying in that you can't get diagonally to the door, so it can't be opened by a squaddie. But if you stack up in front of a door you know aliens are behind, a lot of people are going to die, so I've stopped doing it.

Playing the long-range game

Half your team in that engagment were equipped with weapons better suited to longer ranges than you were using them. It's possible to look in almost all of the scout interior from the outside. It may have been better to stay back and use the range advantage. After all, you're going to be at the same to-hit wherever you place your troops, so why not place them as far back as you can?

Edited November 7, 2013 by Max_Caine

[StellarRat]

Sounds like you might have been suffering from the effects of the two known accuracy bugs in the current build too. My guess is that your guys should have had a lot better chance to hit than they did. That would have changed this engagement drastically. Wait for the next build. Things will be better.

[Max_Caine]

Having just done a mission with a scout, I thought you might find it useful to see what I did. This was the first mission, using the default troops.

In my setup, I have 2 shield guys, 1 sniper, 1 heavy, all the rest are riflemen.

Okay, I set up by having 2 shield guys on opposite sides of the door. The sniper was covering one angle, the heavy covers the other. The riflemen are standing back, at least one tile away from the door so they can't be seen. Then the left-hand guy opens the door.

Straight away, I've got one guy in my face, with another two hanging back. Thankfully (this time) they're all out in the open. So let's exploit that. I use the left-hand shield guy to take a shot at the two Caesans standing back. That triggers reaction fire from both of them (it should do, they have massively high reactions and the pistol is a x2 multiplier!). The shield absorbs the damage, the Caesans have wasted their shots, and I am free to respond.

I use rifleman #1 to kill the Caesan standing in the door. If Rifleman #1 had failed, then I would have drawn the Caesan-in-the-door's fire with the right-hand shield guy, then killed him with the other troops. This time, #1 did his job, and killed the Caesan.

I then moved both shield troopers into the Scout and behind cover. Very important to do this, as they're blocking fire for everyone else. Left-hand shield guy doesn't have enough APs to do anything after he gets into cover As I got lucky with #1, I order the sniper (marked #3) to shoot the Caesan he can see. He hits, but doesn't kill. Thankfully, the other shield guy has some APs left, (28 APs left) so another 2 shots and dead! Even if the pistol guy had failed, and the sniper had missed, between the pair they did enough suppression damage to suppress the Caesan, which would have been good enough.

Now onto the other Caesan. I'm not so lucky this time. I order the Heavy to kill the Caesan, he fails but suppresses it. I then order rifleman #5 to fire a burst at the Caesan. This suppresses the shield guy, but I did that on purpose. The shield guy is now kneeling behind cover, so he's quite safe from attack. I could get the final rifleman to shoot at the Caesan, but now I'm relying on one solider who'll have difficulty shooting a crouched soldier, so I shut the door, ready for the next turn.

I must confess, I got lucky this time with the way the aliens were set up. But even if they had been set up differently, my setup with my soliders is flexible and can take changes, while presenting what I believe is the minimum risk to my soldiers.

[Selvhan]

Thanks for the reply guys. Just a little precision, I was fighting 3 Lizards. So there were pretty hard to kill.

But those tactic are nice. Does they work in the middle and end game ?

[Max_Caine]

Yes and no. That particular tactic works well with the scout. You have to change things up for the mid-game corvette and the landing ship. I consider it important to lead with shield guys in any breach situation, as they stand the best chance of surviving. WIth the corvette, you have to walk through a corridor to get to the cockpit, which fans out both sides and (surprise, surprise) the aliens generally form up on both sides of the cockpit. That means I toss a smoke after I open the inner door straight away. That way, I can clear the entrance without getting shot up.

The landing ship is easy-ish to start with. The main cargo hold is massive and there isn't much to hide behind. If you blow the door, you can shoot straight down it. Heavies and snipers can win any shooting war into the main hold. The power plants to both sides are difficult. Each houses a reactor that's worth a lot of money, so you don't want to shoot them. But inevitably, you'll get aliens that hide behind the reactor! The safest option I've found is to toss a smoke grenade in, then send in a shock-baton armed trooper. As you're both fighting in the dark, you'll be able to get some swings in and it doesn't take many blows with a baton before any biological alien goes down.

The next time I get to a corvette or landing ship, I'll take some pics to show what I do.

[Bulbasaur]

I just use flashbang and smoke like a motherf*cker. When in doubt just C4 the hell out of it .

Something you can try when you have stun weapons is just to have your high TU guys get behind cover and pick them off one by one with the baton. If you have shield you can duck behind cover 2 squares away from the alien, if you face it it won't be able to do much damage with direct fire, it'll wreck your assault shields though, so carry at least one spare...

If you want to be really safe just have rocket launchers and snipers at distance and breach the door using 2/3 turns timed C4. Might take a bunch of shots, but should be able to take them out as long as your weapons have more range than theirs.

Edited November 9, 2013 by Bulbasaur

[Max_Caine]

The most important thing I've found when storming a UFO is don't faff about. Don't have people hanging around in the doorway. Don't have people standing out in the open. Get in, clear a side, try and clear the other but have someone ready with a smoke grenade to cover any mistakes. It's very useful to have just one guy whose only job is at the end of the turn to toss smoke. A smoke grenade can cover a multitude of sins and make up for a crap turn.

[Selvhan]

I currently use the Hunter with the Laser Cannon. Once out of ammo, I use it to cover my troops.

[Commissar Pancakes]

I would also like to remind everyone that sniper rifles LOSE accuracy at close ranges, so it is never a good idea to bring him/her/it into the ship itself.

[Daezz]

The most important thing I've found when storming a UFO is don't faff about. Don't have people hanging around in the doorway. Don't have people standing out in the open. Get in, clear a side, try and clear the other but have someone ready with a smoke grenade to cover any mistakes. It's very useful to have just one guy whose only job is at the end of the turn to toss smoke. A smoke grenade can cover a multitude of sins and make up for a crap turn.

Something like the above. Rush them. I use flashbang and possibly a frag grenade followed by 2-3 guys with combat shields/pistols to soak up reaction fire and take down the closest target with pistol fire. Behind the breaching team are 2 guys with shotguns who walks right up to their targets and blast them literally point blank. 12-gauge blow aliens away like you wouldnt believe (including lizards). Works every time.

I usually let my 2-3 strongest guys field Assault rifles for clearing up to the UFO, then switch to shotguns before breaching. Use the confined quarters of the UFO to your advantage.

[Chris]

I would also like to remind everyone that sniper rifles LOSE accuracy at close ranges, so it is never a good idea to bring him/her/it into the ship itself.

Sniper rifles don't actually lose accuracy at close range, but they get a accuracy penalty if you move before shooting them (they are "heavy" weapons).

[GlyphGryph]

Why no mention of shotguns?

2x Shields (one with pistol, one with nothing in other hand), 2x Shotguns and and LMG - that's me breaching approaching.

Lead with shields, fire pistols to draw reaction fire, hide behind cover, so on so forth. If there are more than three aliens, they will flashbang a group of them (or, once we get it, electroshock instead). If there are three or less, we advance, and the shields hold enough actions to throw a grenade each.

Then the shotgunners head in, move right next to the enemy and fill it with lead at short range. Each shotgunner should be able to take out an enemy - if they don't, the both of them will almost certainly kill at least one. And the best way to prevent an enemy from damaging your soldiers is for that enemy to be dead.

Now, for the LMG - he acts last, because depending on how things have gone he might do different things. Were there three aliens, and we killed two? Then depending on distance he either advances to point blank range and opens fire, or takes cover and opens fire. If there are still two aliens alive, he smokes the shotgunners and takes cover, at which point the shield dudes throw flashes at the survivors unless an alien dies.

But basically - shields to eat enemy reaction fire, followed by point blank shotguns and lmgs to kill enemies, with grenades (smoke and flash/electroshock) to minimize risk from survivors.