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 influence-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 (top-right button) is displayed by a coloured lines which show the ten most problematic organisations. The horizontal Time bar updates from right (recent) to left.

Easy Cleaning

The infested building and others nearby:

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 (then disappear later), 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 originally infested building and the graph will show a different organisation with the familiar flat line and curve at the end.

X-Com must now go 'bug-hunt' another building... until no more infestations appear on the graph.

Ignored

Any infested building present on the graph, and ignored by X-Com may either, after a few hours:

The coloured line may abruptly turn downwards which indicates aliens are dying off and the infiltration attempt is failing.

X-Com can ignore this downwards trend which may eventually return to the baseline of 0% indicative of no more aliens present, or:

A coloured line may show an almost vertical trend after the initial curve upwards but not yet past the mid point of 50%, which denotes an organisation is beginning to accept the aliens and their persuasive methods.

X-Com is urgently needed to remove the aliens from all the organisation's buildings, but if ignored, after a few hours:

The coloured line may continue vertically beyond the 50% threshold indicating that the majority support the alien's agenda.

If X-Com continues to ignore the infiltration, the organisation will finally be completely infected with Micronoids and will:

declared that aliens are they friends and have become allies.

turn immediately hostile to X-Com ...permanently.

Consequences

If an organisation is allied with the aliens, all products on the market are denied for purchase by X-Com.
Aggressive actions such as Illegal Flyer and X-Com-Base Attack will become more frequent than what was previously classed as an 'extreme' action and was rarely considered acceptable.
A technonlogy boost regarding weapons and devices used in any tactical battle. (+3 tech level)

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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