Talk:Alien Missions
I'm curious, can people tell me if the aliens will ONLY retaliate against bases if the player is shooting down UFO's, and won't retaliate against the player always attacking UFO's while landed.
Having recently tried Superhuman for the first time, I was caught off-guard when the aliens retaliated against a base in early March for me shooting a single UFO down (in February, I think) near that base. It wasn't even in the same country... I got the impression that simply being in the same world-region draws the attack.
I decided to restart the game from scratch, disbanded all my interceptors, and only attacked UFO's using Avengers following them until they landed... this actually worked extremely well... I have the alien menace under control so far, and I've saved tons of money by not having interceptors, avalanche missiles, hangars, and all the other support infrastructure.
However, I'm actually a little disappointed that the game lets you get away with this no-intercept strategy. I think next game I will come up with a strategy to go back to interceptors with "hardened" bases very early in the game (though how I'll get cash for that, I have no idea).
If I were to come up with one improvement to the game, it would be to make air-superiority more essential throughout the game... I would make the UFO's "aggro" vs. Skyrangers -- if they spot a nearby Skyranger they will attack and destroy it! Later in the game, I would make the Battleship ALWAYS attack any SLOWER craft it spots in the air... the idea is to wear down the player's air assets and knock him out of the sky. As the game currently is, you really don't need air-superiority if you have ground-superiority!
I've had more or less the same experience as you with Retaliations: after shooting down only one UFO, I got regular visits from a Retaliation scout on that continent.
Ground Assault-only works pretty well, but there are several cases where Interception is preferable:
- When the UFO doesn't make a landing at all (Retaliation scouts don't, for instance, and bigger ships often don't know where to land if you kill their scouts beforehand);
- Infiltration missions (4 or more ships show up at once, and unless you have 4+ Skyrangers, you'll need to shoot down one or more craft); Harvesters often show up in pairs, too;
- Distance (unless you've got multiple Skyrangers posted around the world, you might not be able to reach a UFO before it takes off again);
- Night missions (If the UFO arrives at its target at dusk, it'll probably leave before daybreak; it's easier to down it, then storm it at your leisure);
- Terror Ships (I bloody hate terror missions).
--Ethereal Cereal 10:31, 12 July 2006 (PDT)
To be fair, after running a few non-related tests that involved getting a HWD from the very start, I have noticed that the very first UFO you spot can begin on retaliation mission.
Interceptions - or rather - shoot-downs do attract them, that's for sure.
- NKF