Scout Ship conducting an infiltration mission into a building.

Animation frame of a Transporter dropping aliens

Alien Infiltration occurs when the aliens directly deploy alien lifeforms into a building with a grey smokey tube effect from a UFO hovering directly above the home-cell. Observable in the isometric view.

Alien Infiltration is the ultimate goal. To sustain the Micronoid lifeforms with more suitable hosts... humans!

Infestation

Aliens Infiltrated (dropped) into a building (an infestation) may spread to adjacent buildings using the people tube network ⊗, influencing and infiltrating other organizations to continue life of the Micronoid at the detriment of their unwilling hosts. Aliens dropping into buildings is the only way to get close to humans and it is the most urgent of tasks X-Com must prevent.
⊗ People Tubes are not necessary. After a short time, aliens lifeforms will spread about Mega-Primus automatically irrelevant of valid, or not, tube connections.

Infiltration Graph

Alien lifeforms present in any building will always attempt to influence the owners into supporting the Alien's agenda. If initial progress is made, others yet not 'convinced' by the alien's rhetoric (overtaken by Micronoids) will clandestinely inform X-Com of alien interference. This information is made into a graph, updated multiple times per day. The button: "Alien Infiltration Graph"

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The graph is split into two: below the 50% mid-point, and above. Infiltration progress is displayed by a coloured lines which show the ten most problematic organisations. The horizontal Time bar updates from right (recent) to left.

Initial interference will show a flat line with a curve upwards at the beginning (if checked often).

X-Com must determine which building is most likely to be infested and then go land a squad of agents to clean up that infestation. If all aliens are successful neutralized, after a few hours:

Infiltration progress for that recently cleaned organisation will either disappear or curve downwards, or:
If the alien clean-up was partially successful with some aliens escaping, after a few hours:
Alien presence is detected in a building which is near the

The aliens may send, in the near future, additional craft to re-inforce the original drop squad (if not immediately killed off by X-Com). The building involved and others nearby may appear in the listing with the Infilration Graph. The button to view the graph:

via the available Infiltration Graph and indicates which organisation has just begun to 'have problems'. Immediate investigation by X-Com agents at faIf ignored, and after about 24 hours roughly with possible "Alien Spotted" alerts, the graph will show a further upward trend (line) for organisations local to the drop zone, then alien infiltration (and conversion) is progressing. If the alien presence is ignored, it will slowly convert the organisation into becoming more tolerant of the aliens (the graph denotes an almost vertical upward trend but under the 50% threshold).

If the inflitration graph shows an abrupt curve downwards for the line, it means that the aliens are dying off due to their short life span and from lack of re-inforcements. This organisation will slowly return to baseline of 0% Infiltration without any assistance from X-Com. If alien reinforcemnts are available (future drops or by aliens moving back from nearby buildings), the organisation may pass the 50% threshold for infiltration. If X-Com ignores this situation after the 50% marker is passed, infiltration towards 100% is almost certain. The converted (100% infiltrated) organization will fall under total and irreversible alien control. They will be allied with the Aliens and obviously hostile to X-Com. Other effects include an embargo on trading if they provided goods on the market, gaining a boost in weapon technology (+3 tech level (...and will use the most agressive setting of 'diplomacy' via the Megapol/Gangs settings for criminal actions (Illegal Flier and Base Attack), however, this escalation is never known to a player).

Prevention

To stop the aliens at their subversive actions, it is vital to shoot down any UFO (especially Scouts, Transporters and Assault Ships ) before they complete their 'grey tube' animation. That is, the animation consists of: the craft starts to hover (wobble), makes the grey smokey tube, the bulge moves down, retracts the tube, pauses for a moment, then moves off (typically slight faster than when first appeared in the city). Anytime a craft is stopped (destroyed or going to crash land) from completing the animation to the end, it means that the drop was unsuccessful! Often, if a UFO is sustaining damage past its internal threshold of 'massive damage, abort mission, returning to alien dimension', the drop animation may be completed but no aliens will be inserted to the building. To make sure there are no aliens in the building, an X-Com search of the building for infestation should be of the highest priority.

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.

Infiltration Information

The effectiveness (as listed in the tables below) of converting humans and how quickly infiltration will progress (time before 100% is reached) depends on:

the type of building.
the company/organization involved.
the type of aliens dropped.
if an X-Com mission to kill the aliens was unsuccesful and some aliens remain.
some alien entities returned to the building (via the people tubes) after escaping when X-Com undertook a Search.

Building	Infiltration Potential
People Tube, Road	None
Appliances Factory, Arms Factory, Astrodome, Car Factory, Construction Factory, Flyer Factory, Hydro-Farm, Large Flyer Factory, Power Station, Recyclotorium, Rescue Station, Robot Factory, Sewage Works, Slums, Water Purifier, Warehouse	Low
Apartments, Hospital, Luxury Apartments, Offices, Police Station, Procreation Park, School, Sensodrome, Shopping Mall, Space Port, Temple of Sirius	Average
Corporate HQ	High
Senate	Very High

Organization infiltration speed

Organization	Infiltration Speed
S.E.L.F., X-COM	0%*
Government, Mutant Alliance	50%
Cyberweb, Energen, Evonet, General Metro, Grav Ball League, Lifetree, Marsec, Megapol, Nanotech, Nutrivend, Sanctuary Clinic, Sensovision, Solmine, Superdynamics, Synthemesh, Transtellar	100%
Diablo, Extropians, Osiron, Psyke, Technocrats	150%
Cult of Sirius	200%

*These organizations are completely immune to infiltration.

Alien infiltration weight

Alien	Infiltration Weight	Influence
Chrysalis, Multiworm Egg	0	none
Brainsucker, Hyperworm, Megaspawn, Multiworm, Popper, Queenspawn	1	weak
Anthropod, Micronoid Aggregate*, Skeletoid, Spitter	2	strong
Psimorph*	3	not used

*These aliens are not normally deployed for infiltration missions.

Alien Infiltration (Apocalypse)

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