Jump to content

Tips for breaching UFOs?


Recommended Posts

The biggest mistake I see people do in screenshots is to line all their soldiers up right at the door. It is even worse now that aliens use grenades properly. I suggest keeping your guys well back (7 squares). I like to have 2 shields that act as forward men in missions, in ship breaches they act as mobile cover for my 2 snipers. Line these 4 up in front of the doorway (7 squares back, shields kneeling in front, snipers behind). 1 shield carrier should have a smoke nade in their hand, pistols do little damage and you need smoke for emergencies. The other can have whatever you like (i prefer a different type of nade).

If you have an mg place him next to your snipers, they are great for suppression. A rocket guy is also good here as well, just make sure these 2 are a square back from the shields so they dont take too much fire. OK so now your setup do the following;

1) Blow the door with C4 (it may take 2 goes)

2) Assess the situation, if you cant see any aliens move your shotguns closer to the sides (2 squares from the door) DONT RUN THEM INTO THE DOORWAY. Wait and reaction fire on any alien that comes into view.

3) If you can see aliens then the fun starts, how many aliens do you see? if its only one or 2 and they are a way back then fire with your snipers, they have good chances to hit, deal decent damage and can cause suppression. With a little luck any reaction fire will hit the shield bearers. You can try suppressing them with mg fire as well. In fact once aliens start being suppressed you can almost guarantee supression by firing an mg at them. ONLY if they are suppressed move your shotguns to the doorway, blast and retreat. If you screw up and cant retreat a shotgunner because you miscalculated TUs dump smoke on him!

4) If you see lots of aliens Dump smoke on the doorway and blast through it with rockets!

5) If you want to capture an alien, soften them up a bit with the regular tactics then dump smoke on the doorway and fire stun smoke rockets/nades in everywhere

This is just my method, but I find it works well on veteran difficulty. Like you i find smoke as much a hinderence as a help, dont get me wrong its a must have defensive item on every soldier I have. But I pretty much only dump it on exposed soldiers to save lives. Plenty of other ways can work so try them as well! Also as new versions come out some tactics might need changing! This could be especially true now aliens fire from further ranges than before!

[EDIT] Yep I was right.. The aliens are now much more accurate and dangerous with the latest build.. Keep your men well back, the 7 tiles mentioned above is too close.

Edited by Dead Dread
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you so much for your very detailed reply! I will give that a try. I think I need to rethink my tactics completely. I was doing exactly what you said and lining up right in front of the door with my shields and shotguns behind the shields. Im really not thrilled about how smoke works now. I will give your method a go and be a little more liberal with explosives inside the UFO. Thanks again!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Research alien biology(you need to see two types of aliens in combat to get that) and then stun weapons. It will give you gas grenade and gas rocket to play with. These simplify things a great deal. You can gas em to death without getting hit once, just ask to throw someone who is not in LoS to aliens. You don't need to throw grenades right under alien's feet.

You may as well look closely what enemy holds in their hands. Heavy plasma is basically a shotgun and won't deal any damage from 15 squares, and plasma cannon can't reaction fire at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest mistake I see people do in screenshots is to line all their soldiers up right at the door. It is even worse now that aliens use grenades properly. I suggest keeping your guys well back (7 squares). I like to have 2 shields that act as forward men in missions, in ship breaches they act as mobile cover for my 2 snipers. Line these 4 up in front of the doorway (7 squares back, shields kneeling in front, snipers behind). 1 shield carrier should have a smoke nade in their hand, pistols do little damage and you need smoke for emergencies. The other can have whatever you like (i prefer a different type of nade).

If you have an mg place him next to your snipers, they are great for suppression. A rocket guy is also good here as well, just make sure these 2 are a square back from the shields so they dont take too much fire. OK so now your setup do the following;

1) Blow the door with C4 (it may take 2 goes)

2) Assess the situation, if you cant see any aliens move your shotguns closer to the sides (2 squares from the door) DONT RUN THEM INTO THE DOORWAY. Wait and reaction fire on any alien that comes into view.

3) If you can see aliens then the fun starts, how many aliens do you see? if its only one or 2 and they are a way back then fire with your snipers, they have good chances to hit, deal decent damage and can cause suppression. With a little luck any reaction fire will hit the shield bearers. You can try suppressing them with mg fire as well. In fact once aliens start being suppressed you can almost guarantee supression by firing an mg at them. ONLY if they are suppressed move your shotguns to the doorway, blast and retreat. If you screw up and cant retreat a shotgunner because you miscalculated TUs dump smoke on him!

4) If you see lots of aliens Dump smoke on the doorway and blast through it with rockets!

5) If you want to capture an alien, soften them up a bit with the regular tactics then dump smoke on the doorway and fire stun smoke rockets/nades in everywhere

This is just my method, but I find it works well on veteran difficulty. Like you i find smoke as much a hinderence as a help, dont get me wrong its a must have defensive item on every soldier I have. But I pretty much only dump it on exposed soldiers to save lives. Plenty of other ways can work so try them as well! Also as new versions come out some tactics might need changing! This could be especially true now aliens fire from further ranges than before!

Oh yes. I'm just waiting for the game to be ready and have no idea where It is now, but let's just say your post makes me happy :)

So many memories from the original...when I discovered the utility (and clever use) of smoke granades all changed (especially on that damn ramp, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about :D)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yeah, smoking the ramp was mandatory in the OG. Have you got up to an Andron terror mission... after my 3rd move i had 8 Androns, 1 heavy drone and 2 light drones come into view at once... I had almost every guy dump smoke & ran like a sissy back to the chinook... leaving a trail of C4 in my wake :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stuff's mostly been covered, but flashbang use, especially during the early game, needs to be emphasized more. On light scouts, you can usually suppress everyone inside with a couple bangs if you've got troops diagonally-adjacent to the door. In that position, the only alien hidey-hole you have to worry about is the front-corner of the room across from them, and you'll usually have at least one corner free to bang without reaction fire. Combine that with snipers outside visual range firing straight in and you should be golden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

throwing flashbangs into a ship from outside it is bugged tho.. the first flashbang does very little suppresion which is why i dont use that method. if you are going to throw flashbangs you will need 2+. try to throw them in with your soldier at an angle to the door so that they can get them inside but are out of line of sight and therefore dont expose themselves to reaction fire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This UFO breaching is seriously killing me. Mostly it's because of the way grenade mechanics seem to work. In the original X-COM you had a lot of flexibility with throwing grenades, you could accurately place them at almost any tile. In Xenonauts, it seems like grenades can only be thrown in a "3-point line" arc, which means it will be blocked by the roof.

Breaching in real life is more of an underhanded toss through the door frame, without exposing the body. I can't get a grenade into the craft and hit the aliens without doing some Charles Barkley stuff, which means getting annihilated by reaction fire.

This issue, plus smoke grenades forming a wall that reduces all accuracy to 1%, makes breaching a craft, which is already a disadvantageous situation for the attackers, EXTREMELY costly. It would definitely be easier to shoot rockets at it, but that's not a good strategy for the salvage part of the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...