Battlescape tactical missions commonly follow certain Alien actions within Mega-Primus. Certain mission types may be started by X-Com, as well.

In General

The battlescape environment is randomly generated from segments according to the building type. The final size is dependant on the mix and quantity of aliens, civilians, building security (cultists, gang members, police and guards), and X-Com units. A lesser total amount of units = the smaller the map.
The maximum size of any tactical battlescape map is 3x3, randomly made up of different sized segments.

Infested Already!

At the start of X-Com Apocalypse, there is an alien infested building! It is unknown where, and there is no way of knowing until a security force somewhere finds evidence of aliens within their buildings. An "Alien Detected" alert will be issued and is displayed for X-Com's immediate attention, with the building in question circled in red on the overhead cityscape view. The alien menace must be dealt with immediately!

Notes

There is no way of knowing which organsiation is in trouble (unless you save/load). Searching random buildings is not worth the effort nor the decrease in reputation of such action, however, searching your own building has no negative effect... and you might detect aliens!
The 'alien detected' alert will slowly fade away if you ignore it (ultra-fast time, overhead view centered on the building with the red circle) but the hostiles present may not.

First Assault

The first mission can be dangerous or benign. Kill all aliens since you do not have a bio-transport module yet.
Note: the aliens present at the start will always be the same, but they will carry weaponry matching your score. Don't get hurt.

Dangerous

Brainsuckers!!
Use all agents. Equip with a mix of weaponry available at the start (or more purchased) and a lot of ammuntion. Armor may be necessary if you use Autocannons with high explosive rounds. Once the alien cleanup begins, direct your fire (RMB on the enemy) towards the closest Brainsucker. Any trying to attach to your agent's head must be targeted immediately. If a pod lands near your agent's feet, quickly access their inventory and pick up the pod to stop it bursting open. The brainsucker pods can be thrown away (preferably into fire) to hatch them in a controlled manner. Kill the Anthropods before they launch more pods.
If an agent has been brainsucked, they are as good as dead. Kill them all!

Benign

An Android is a humanoid robot and does not have a biological brain. One robot with one weapon and ammo is that is needed. Leave all humans and hybrids back at base. At mission start, find the Brainsuckers, find the Anthropods and shoot them all dead from close range - they are no threat whatsoever.

Search And Investigation

A search for alien infestation inside buildings will be necessary to eradicate aliens and to cease their infiltration and subversive actions. If aliens are detected, a battlescape mission will immediately start with the objective to kill the alien menace (without damaging the structure too much). If no alien lifeforms are found, the organisation inconvenienced by such a disturbance will file a protest by becoming slightly more hostile.
When alien lifeforms are detected, building security guards will only appear if they are hostile to X-Com:

If the owner of the building is allied with the Aliens, security guards will join the alien side to fight against X-Com.
If the owner of the building is hostile with the Aliens, guards will attack both, hence, a firefight between the aliens and security is possible. (don't interupt!).
Removing stairs, ramps, floors around grav-lifts or even digging trenches can trap hostile forces (no escape from the battlescape) or to funnel them through a choke point.

To complete the mission succesfully, any hostiles must be neutralized (except eggs and coccoons). Any damage to the building, irrelevant who did it, is blamed on X-Com and may affect relations. Aliens that escape the combat area during the battle will move to nearby buildings via the people tube network. If X-Com abandons the battlescape (blue exit tiles), infiltration may progress further.

Raid

The Basics

Select the "Raid building" option when X-Com agents are at a building to start a tactical battlescape mission.
A raid is equivalent to a Base Defence mission except X-Com is the aggressor and the 'base' is the internals of the cityscape building. The purpose of a raid is explained at the Briefing screen: Destruction, death, theft and hostility!
A unique feature of raiding a building is the opportunity to steal randomly generated items which are placed at particular locations relevant to the building's battlescape segments. The type of items available to steal depends on which organisation X-Com is raiding. Any organisation, allied to hostile, can be raided:

If a hostile is raided, a firefight obviously will commence.
The time elasped (the number of weeks passed in the game) determines the technology used by guards, not score.
Friends of the targeted organisation may have a negative opinion the attackers, and could become hostile.
Take the items before you start the demolition.
Damage to the internals will negatively affect the organisation's funds.
Structural damage at foundation sections (or anything holding up something above) will cause catastrophic collapse of such structures. Don't get ~~hurt~~ squashed.
Incendiary and explosives and in great quantities, however, a fire only has to start...
Aliens will not be present during a raid even if the company is 100% infiltrated.
X-Com cannot raid itself.
Score will increase (too) quickly if many raids are preformed.

To complete the raid succesfully, any hostiles must be neutralized.

The Tactics

Score will increase from completing many raids. The technology available to the alien horde is based on your tactical score and not time elasped (as with Building Security).

To limit score, escape from the map before all you neutralise everyone.
One X-Com agent can hide better than a squad of troopers shuffling about trying to evade the hostiles. Use an agent with the best speed and stamina.
One agent can cause a massive amount of damage with a mini-launcher and a backpack full of explosive ammo.
cut foundations with dual power swords to demolish the larger structures.
standing on the roof and toss explosives or stun grenades towards hostiles detected on motion scanner.
set fire to storage boxes (which may hold something explosive).
blow up the dropped items of hostiles and maybe get a chain reaction cook-off.
blow up fragile fuel stores.
blow up missiles
blow up... everything!

The Purpose

A raid of a hostile organisation is dangerous! The real objective of raiding is theft!
Raiding should be limited to theft of ammunition, Psiclones, Elerium, and items not currently available on the market, (if ever). Theft is easier when raiding an organisation that is not hostile, since a non-hostile company tolerates the presence of X-Com agents in the building and will not attack (relations do not change unless someone damages the building). However, if the building security forces are injured by weapons or explosions, they may attack in response, hence, become hostile immediately.

X-Com agents increase their accuracy and reactions faster by shooting something rather than training back at base. A stun-grapple-shooting-gallery will increase other stats as well.
A 'peaceful' raid will not anger the hosts.
Building damage is always blamed on X-Com.
Items on offer to steal may not be available to purchase.
Along with item placements, security may carry more of what you need.
Using mind control allows underhanded subversive actions.

The Mechanics

The destruction of the internals of buildings and the decrease in available funds does not influence:

the quantity of security guards.
the quality or quantity of weapons carried by the guards.
the capacity to perform a Base Attack against X-com (if they are hostile).
the amount of product available on the market.
the type of craft available for Illegal Flier action or vehicles to defend the cityscape structure from attack.
the speed of repair of the damaged cityscape structure.
the amount of money asked to "Repair Relations".

but

the money you get from the Government at the end of the week depends on their liquid funds, so don't destroy the government buildings because you are just destroying your money... still in their pockets.

so, a raid for the purpose of destroying the insides of a building doesn't do much except make (more) hostiles.

The Conclusion

A raid is only for theft. It is pointless to damage the internals, kill the guards or anything else.

Building Bombing

Alien version: Alien Bombing
Company version: Illegal Flyer
X-Com version: Cityscape Bombing

Attack

A building can be attacked with vehicles to cause collapse and financial loss (Note: funding does not matter, see above: Raid:The Mechanics). X-Com can target (Attack Building button) any building for destruction, including non-building infrastructure such as people tubes, trees and parklands, city walls, roads, and any pillars or supports, with manual vehicle control.
Any damage of Mega-Primus attributed to X-Com or Aliens will be noted immediately in the Performance Log information window as "Damage To City" ...always a negative number!
Government funding for the new week is assessed by the total score, and usually, city damage is the largest contributing factor for reduced funding, being excessive when aliens are responsible.

Damage

Buildings have different tolerance to damage and can collapse completely with only one hit. Slums are the weakest structures and may cause a cascade of flattened buildings far from the initial impact.
Severe destruction of a structure may disable the building as a viable destination for battlescape missions until (partially) rebuilt, and destruction of the home cell will immediately disable the building. X-Com base locations are best chosen to be under Warehouse styled structures due to their resistance to damage.

Defense

Any sustained building attack will be countered by the organisation by launching air combat vehicles to fight the attackers until their own craft's destruction or the attackers retreat. Defenders of the structure will never retreat and may follow the retreating attacker across the whole cityscape causing further damage by missed shots.

Consquences

Only weapon impacts from either X-Com or the Aliens influences your Damage To City score, that is, negative score is 'awarded' for each hit and not what happens to the building as a result of that impact.
X-Com's score and diplomatic relations will not be affected by:

Illegal flyers and police action.
Organisations hostile to each other fighting in the cityscape.
Impacts into surrounding buildings or infrastructure from defending craft when X-Com attacked.

Tactics

To compromise a positive diplomatic standing between Aliens and an alien-friendly organisation:

Attack a UFO so it will retaliate.
Lead the alien craft towards a building owned by the organisation.
Loiter around the structure at a low to medium altitude.
Set your craft attitude to evasive.

The alien craft will fire at your vehicle and if it misses, the shot will impact the building. This will cause the relationship to deteriorate until that organisation will eventually become hostile to the aliens. Once the organisation is no longer friendly with the alien menace, future actions by X-Com against the aliens will be viewed as positive. When the company is no longer hostile to X-Com (as shown in the Organisations bar), monetary compensation can be used to further influence diplomatic relations towards the postive. This is the only reliable method to convince Transtellar to resume transport of personel and transferred goods, if they are under Alien control, they are lost.

Base Attack

If you need to defend a newly purchased X-Com base and are waiting for the Living Quarters to finish, move an agent to that building. If the building is targeted for a Raid (or Alien drop), the agent(s) present will defend the struture as if it were an X-com Base Defense mission.

The only type of mission X-COM does not initiate, a Base Attack will occur if either a UFO drops aliens directly into an X-COM Base (aliens spreading to a base through the People Tubes must be found through investigation) or if a hostile organization randomly decides to "raid" or "storm" one. Megapol, the three gangs, and any infiltrated organisation are three times as likely to perform a Base Attack compared with other organisations. If there are no X-COM units present at the base whatsoever (even technical personnel), the raid will automatically succeed and destroy the base; otherwise, this will result in a Tactical Combat Mission.

Funds may be stolen due to the presence of invaders. Base facilities damaged are automatically repaired at the end which may further impact funds into a negative amount. X-Com may initiate a raid of any building, hostile or not, at any time. The funds of the X-Com targeted organisation (either you are attacking or being attacked) does not matter. The equipment of the enemy is based on the week. The quantity of enemy present will be always the same. It will be reduced if X-Com uses many agents to attack, or they are many scientists and engineers along with agents and turrets present at a base defense mission.

In these missions, you control not only Agents, but also any technical personnel at the base. If there are more than 36 X-COM units at the base, who you get is random - it is unfortunately possible to receive no Agents at all even if there are a couple present. X-COM's units will, however, be assisted by any Security Stations at the base, although the turrets are unfortunately not manually controllable.

Base Attacks will occur inside an X-COM Base itself, with terrain varying depending on what modules you have in the base. Intruders will spawn inside the Access Lift and/or any Vehicle Repair Bays; X-COM units can spawn in any completed module except Vehicle Repair Bays (the Access Lift is not excluded).

To win the mission, kill or subdue all intruders. You will lose the mission, and the base with it, if all your personnel flee the battle or are killed - Security Stations don't count. If you lose your last base this way, you will get a Game Over.

UFO Crash Site

If alien craft are shot down in Mega-Primus (by X-COM or, rarely, others), they will usually crash-land. Sending a manned air vehicle to the crash site (with "Go to map point") will initiate an attempt to recover the wreckage. If the craft is a Probe or Scout Ship, this will occur instantly and automatically (as there are no crew). Attempting to recover any larger craft, however, will result in a Tactical Combat Mission.

Note that only air vehicles can perform crash site recoveries, as road vehicles cannot leave the road to reach the crash site. Additionally, only one vehicle can perform the recovery - this is a powerful incentive to keep a Valkyrie Interceptor or Hawk Air Warrior available until hybrid aircraft are developed.

These missions will occur on a special map, with the crashed UFO in the middle and all aliens initially on board. The map is always the same for a given type of UFO, and is not randomised. Opposition consists of the UFO's crew.

To win the mission and recover the UFO, kill or subdue all the aliens. Note that you have only one chance to succeed per UFO; if you retreat from battle, the aliens will blow up their craft (and themselves with it) to avoid capture. This will also happen if you ignore a crash site for more than a few in-game minutes.

Alien Dimension

The Alien Dimension is a dangerous place. Don't Get ~~Hurt~~ Shot Down.

Do not move agents from a landed craft to the building.

A large force is preferable (+24 agents) armed with the best. Aliens killed will drop useful items also.

To start the building assault once landed at a building, select "Investigate Building" or "Raid Building". Both buttons do the same thing.

A typical alien building battlescape occurs on a large map (3x3 battlescape segments), with a single 2x2 segment being the spawn spots for alien forces, and two 1x1 segments for X-Com. The other three 1x1 segments fill out the battlescape.

The "orange pad" terrain feature found in most buildings is an alien device for re-inforcements to spawn in at regular intervals, with the alien type relevant to that particular building's purpose. The orange alien spawn device is robust and can only be destroyed by Vortex Mines (or accidently by the Queenspawn). To halt such re-inforcements, all orange pads present at one device must be destroyed to disable it.

To complete your objective, all of the targets outlined in the Briefing must be destroyed. The message bar will display "Building has been disabled". To finish, evacuate the condemned building via the exit tiles or kill off all remaining aliens.

To unlock the Alien World Incursion missions, one must first visit the Alien Dimension with any hybrid craft. After that, the Quantum Physics topic The Alien Dimension will appear, which in turn unlocks the first of a series of Biochemistry topics named "Alien building". Completing this topic allows the first Alien World Incursion mission to be performed, which will unlock the next "Alien building" topic, and so on. As such, these ten missions must be done in order.

Note that, when one of these missions is completed, the associated structure will collapse on the Alien Dimension Cityscape. Do not launch your craft until the animation is complete, or it will be "destroyed by collapsing building".

As the final alien structure and thus the final mission of the game, there are a few differences between the Dimension Gate Generator and the other nine Alien World Incursion missions. See its page for details.

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Tactical Combat Missions (Apocalypse)

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