Heavy Floater (EU2012)

Tough. Accurate. Mobile. Deadly. Heavy Floaters are hulking monsters, with a ton of health and a powerful degree of firepower to match. Flank attacks from these hovering horrors usually end in a tough fight and a lot of corpses. If these corpses turn out to belong to the Aliens or XCOM soldiers is up to the XCOM Commander and a little bit of luck.

While ordinary Floaters may seem dumb or reckless and are easily dealt with, these larger counterparts are smarter, tougher to kill and will coordinate their attacks better against your soldiers. At higher difficulty levels these aliens are addicted to using alien grenades to blow up your soldiers' cover. And if your units are behind indestructible cover they'll just keep lobbying grenades, so be aware.

Info

1st Appearance	August December (Marathon)
HP	12/12/14/16
Aim	70/70/80/80
Defense	10
Will	25
Movement	12
Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible

Heavy Floater armaments

Weapon	Base Damage	Critical Damage	Critical Chance
Heavy Floater Plasma Rifle	6-8	10 or 12	10
Alien Grenade	5	NA	NA

Heavy Floater Abilities

Ability	Description
Suppression	Can fire a special shot that grants reaction fire at a single target if it moves. The target also suffers a -30 Aim penalty.
Flight	Flying units can bypass ground obstacles. They can remain in flight if they have sufficient fuel. Heavy Floaters have 35 fuel.
Launch	Move anywhere on the battlefield in a single turn. Launch cannot be used indoors. Will end the Heavy Floater's turn.
Evasion	Enemies targeting this unit when it is airborne suffer a -20% Aim penalty.
Bombard	Throw or launch grenades over exceptionally long distances.

Abilities

• Suppression: Can fire a special shot that grants reaction fire at a single target if it moves. The target also suffers a -30 Aim penalty.
• Launch: Move anywhere on the battlefield in a single turn. Launch cannot be used indoors.
• Bombard: Throw or launch grenades over exceptionally long distances.
• Flight: Has 35 fuel.
• Evasion: Enemies targeting this unit when it is airborne suffer a -10% Aim penalty.

Notes

• Heavy Floaters are always considered to have at least half cover even in the open or when flying, unless in proper cover and flanked. This bonus does not stack with existing cover bonuses - they only receive the best cover.
  • Researching Heavy Floater corpses will unlock the Advanced Repair Foundry project.
• If killed during a successful mission a Heavy Floater Corpse will be recovered.
• If captured during a mission and interrogated afterwards they will provide a reduction in the time required to research Flight technologies.
  • Capturing a Heavy Floater will also recover intact its Light Plasma Rifle or Plasma Rifle, which can be used later by your troops after it's researched, as well as its Alien Grenade, which can be used immediately without any research required.
• Heavy Floaters first appearance will commonly be on the first Supply Barge that you raid.

Trivia

• According to this link [1], Floaters were created via the Ethereals using Meld (present in the Enemy Within DLC expansion) to fuse organic and inorganic materials together. Recovering an Heavy Floater corpse on EW will also provide a small quantity of Meld.