Cityscape Fighting (Apocalypse)
Cityscape actions within Xcom Apocalypse. Analysis of battlescape missions is here: Tactical Missions
Alien Infiltration
A UFO will hover over a building's home-cell to drop/insert aliens via a 'grey smokey tube'. If an X-Com Base is hidden in the basement of that building, a Base Defense mission will immediately commence.
Alien Search
A UFO will hover over a building and drop blue particles with the sole purpose of scanning the building for an X-Com Base. If a base is detected, proceeding Alien Search styled missions will have one UFO hover over the known X-Com base to drop aliens into the basement which then immediately becomes an X-Com-Base Attack. Other UFOs present will continue searching (dropping their "blue rain" over random buildings). If multple bases are known, only one will be targeted for a Base Attack for any future Alien Search missions. Any further Alien Search missions will be NOT suspended. Alien Search missions will still be scheduled like normal irrelevant if one or many bases are known. but only one X-Com base is targeted if many are known to the aliens.
Note: The blue particle effect was typically called "Micronoid Rain". (see "Note", below)
X-Com may initiate a search by having X-Com agents at a building (home-cell or vehicle in their launch tube). Select the building in the Cityscape view, select your squad and LMB the top-right button: "Investigate building for alien activity".
If an alien presence is detected, a battlescape mission will commence. If no aliens, the organisation will file a protest by becoming very slightly more hostile.
Bombing Buildings
Hostiles will target a building with their craft and attack it with the purpose of destroying it. If the building is above a hidden X-Com base, and if the topside structure sustains massive damage, it can destroy the base underneath. A base will be lost (message: "X-Com Base Destroyed") if more than a three-quarters of the tiles are destroyed. If the home-cell is destroyed, any units present will all be killed and along with damage or destruction to any road vehicles. A base is not lost with destruction of the home-cell only. Other buildings within Mega-Primus which have a destroyed home-cell will not be able to be Searched or Raided (message: "Cannot investigate/raid as building destroyed").
Attack
Any building can be attacked by anyone with vehicles to cause collapse, financial loss and destroyed good relations. X-Com can target ("Attack Building" button) any building for destruction, including (using manual vehicle control) any non-building infrastructure such as people tubes, trees and parklands, city walls, roads, and any pillars or supports. If any part of the city that is not within any property outline, it is not owned by anyone. Damage to these areas will not change relations with any organisation however, "Damage To City" score will become more negative as expected.
Government funding for the new week is assessed by the total score. City damage is usually the largest contributing factor for reduced funding, and may become excessively negative when damage is caused by fighting alien crafts.
Damage
Any damage of the cityscape attributed to X-Com or Aliens, but not other Mega-Primus organisations, will be noted immediately in the Performance Log information window as "Damage To City" ...always a negative number!
Cityscape buildings have differing damage tolerances which depends on its construction.
Any building hit by a weapon, the tile impacted will either be destroyed, or not. Damage is not cumulative. If destroyed, any section directly above the now missing tile will collapse in a pan-cake fashion, and in severe cases, will lead to a chain-reaction destruction of adjacent sections until the whole building is a pile of rubble. Slums, being derelict buildings, are structurally weak and prone to catastrophic collapse from even the weakest weapons.
Severe destruction of a structure (more than three-quarters destroyed) or (except X-Com bases) if the home-cell is destroyed, this will disable the building as a viable destination for battlescape missions until (partially) rebuilt. X-Com base locations are best chosen to be under Warehouse styled structures due to their resistance to damage.
Defense
If any building has been impacted by a weapon (even accidently), the owner will become slightly more hostile to the organisation which caused the damage. Further 'accidental' impacts will quickly anger the company. If a building is under sustained attack (message: "...building under attack by..."), the building's owner will launch craft (if available) to defend the building and destroy any attacking hostile air or road vehicles in the vicinity.
Any impact is regarded as an attack. It does not need to destroy a tile or collapse the building.
These accidental impacts can be used to turn two friendly (with each other) organisations into two hostiles. eg:
- Attack a building owned by one (hostile to X-Com) organisation until defenders are launched or attack an escort-roleΔ UFO to attract its attention.
- Lead the craft(s) (use evasive attitude or zig-zig movements) to a building which is owned by the friend of the organisation which currently chasing your vehicle.
- Loiter around their friend's building at a low to medium altitude in a location that will not damage your craft if parts of the building collapse, but will allow the hostile-to-you craft's missed weapon shots to impact their friend's structure.
- Wait (stationary or do short random movements with your air craft) around the building. Your attackers will shoot at your vehicle but may end up missing, hitting their friend's building enough times that their 'friend' (now hostile) launches craft to defend the building. If that message appears (mentioned above) but no craft have been launched, it does not matter. They are now hostile to the organisation which caused all that damage!
- The company that caused the damage will not be hostile to their 'old friend' until they start to be attacked by their former friend. The two, once friendly organisations are now hostile to each other!
This bait and dodge tactic can be used to change relationships. Aliens can be forced to be hostile to anyone (including Cult Of Sirius), Transtellar can switch back to be able to transfer equipment again if they are hostile to aliens, resuming the purchase of goods from hostile companies etc. and any inter-organisation relationships can be soured just because!
- Relations work on a simple principle: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If X-com attacks one organisation, any hostile companies to the victim will like X-Com more, whereas friendlies of the victim will hate X-Com.
Δ The named UFO: Escort does not have offensive weaponry.
Consequences
Only weapon impacts from either X-Com or Aliens will influence the 'Damage To City' score, that is, negative score is 'awarded' for each impact. What happens after that impact is irrelevant.
X-Com's score will not be affected by:
- Illegal flyers and police action.
- Organisations hostile to each other fighting in the cityscape.
Illegal Flyer
Illegal Flyers are vehicles which any organisation in Mega-Primus will use to attack a building. An alert is immediately generated (if enabled) when these vehicles are detected (message: "Illegal Flyer detected"). If these illegal vehicles pass close-by to any Police Hovercars parked randomly about the city, the police will engage in battle. If able to attack their designated target, the owners will retaliate by launching defenders using various styles of air vehicles. Road vehicles are never used. The illegal flyers are usually out-matched and are quickly eliminated. Intervention by X-Com is not necessary unless a base is under attack.
An illegal flyer detection always involves one or two vehicles which are selected from the organisation's vehicle park according to the following priority list:
1. Police Hovercar
2. Phoenix Hovercar
3. Hoverbike
4. Valkyrie Interceptor
5. Hawk Air Warrior
Police Hovercars which are selected to attack a building will not trigger the "Illegal Flyer" alert since their actions are justified as "upholding the law", however if Megapol uses a Valkyrie Interceptor or Hawk Air Warrior, the alert will be generated as normal.
Raids
Organizations unfriendly or outright hostile to each another may conduct actions as listed in the Message Bar as either "Raided by" or "Stormed by" or "Attacked by" or repair relations as "Treaty Signed". This has no relevance to X-Com however if a building targeted for a raid contains a hidden X-Com Base, a Base Defense mission will occur. X-Com bases cannot be 'stormed' or 'attacked' in any fashion as mentioned in the message bar.
A raid of a building cannot be avoided in any way since it is a scheduled event and the player has no indication that one will occur. Hostile vehicles arriving at a building is a random event and has no relevance to the possiblity of future enemy action. Destroying hostile company vehicles does not influence the schedule.
Overspawn Terror
The aliens intensify their assault in Mega-Primus by choosing to create terror and destruction along with typical infiltration. Motherships will drop a single Overspawn each into Mega-Primus with the intent of massive damage and destruction of its buildings, roads and infrastructure.
Apocalypse Mission
When X-Com destroys the Control Chamber in the Alien Dimension, it eliminates their ability to grow new UFOs. The alien horde now realise their imminent defeat... with a final act of desperation they will send the remnants of their fleet to Mega-Primus. All remaining UFOs in the alien dimension (except probes) will swarm into Mega-Primus on the next scheduled mission with the aim of total destruction.
Random buildings will be bombed and shot at, vehicles and infrastructure targeted for collapse and anything left standing ...bombed again!
The critically important Control Chamber is destroyed and no more UFOs can infiltrate Mega Primus, the alien's ultimate objective of sustaining the Micronoid lifeforms with human hosts has essentially failed.
Special Note: If all UFOs in the Alien Dimension are constantly destroyed by X-Com craft at the start of each week, the Apocalypse Mission will proceed as usual but since their are no UFOs to send, nothing in-particular happens.
Note
A common misconception was that Aliens could perform a "100% subversion" of an organisation by dropping 'blue rain particles' over a building and was typically called: "Micronoid Rain". It was believed that such action of the UFO above the target organisation's building would immediately infect the inhabitants with Micronoids (hence "Micronoid Rain") and result in immediate 100% infiltration. This micronoid rain definition (in any variation) was proven to be incorrect. The purpose of the UFO and its 'blue-rain-effect' is to scan the building for an X-Com base (for future elimination). The blue-rain-effect does not do anything except Alien Search (as listed above).