Talk:UFOs (EU2012)

Questioning whether it's worth while to copy the 1994 text here? Rather than just a placeholder? A placeholder would be better I think. Spike 08:34, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

I just thought it was a quick and dirty way to start pages and later it can be edited. What is a placeholder? Hobbes 08:55, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

Ah ok, fair enough. Quick and dirty it is! A placeholder would be a stub, something that says "insert text here", that kind of thing. Maybe I will get off my backside and make one, instead of just complaining. ;) Spike 17:00, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

Ah, just didn't knew the term. Well seems OK to me when you have no idea of what text to put, but since the the new game will replicate most pages of the old one I'd really like to start setting up 'skeleton' pages, already following some basic wiki guidelines to ease up work later, and that's why I based this page on the old one - I don't really care about content right but rather to set the basic structure. Hobbes 17:22, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

I hope you are ok with my effort. If not feel free to revert, edit, etc. And thanks for all the work you are putting in to the 'editorial control' of the 2012 content. Spike 17:37, 23 September 2012 (EDT)

Abductors

The page currently says that you'll need an upgraded interceptor with laser or plasma to take these out. However, I can go one on one using a standard interceptor with Avalanche missiles and take it out, without any of the one-time boosts. I don't want to change it in the fear that it might just be a fluke. I'm on normal when I do this, I can't remember how I did on classic.

I managed to take one Abductor down with an unboosted standard interceptor as well; but that was one lucky shot, 0,1 seconds left and about 99% damage on my interceptor. So gotta be lucky to do so.

Similar thing happened with me and a Battleship. A standard interceptor with a plasma managed to take it out, although it was close and I had to burn some boosts to do so. COL Tatticky 03:43, 15 October 2012 (EDT)

Hyperwave Decoder listed the crew size as 14. Curious to see what crew size is returned for the other UFOs. ~ Drakalu 20:05, 17 October 2012 (EDT)

Next one was 12. Will probably add this kind of information once I have a larger sample size.

Ship Classes

I don't think there's a "Medium Scout", only a Small and a Large. Small ones are one-room, and Large have about half a dozen rooms. Also, between Abductors and Battleships there's a "Supply Ship" class. The Overseer and Temple Ship might deserve at least brief mention here as well (even though you never actually intercept the latter). COL Tatticky 03:51, 15 October 2012 (EDT)

Alien Complement

I've noticed that later in the game, UFO compliments appear to contain the same number of aliens but the type changes. For example, a Small Scout was disabled (EMP cannon) and contained 3x Muton Elite, 2 Heavy Floaters, and 2 Sectoid commanders. Possibly the UFOs contain a leader unit/group and either a number of miscellaneous groups or break them down into scout and soldier groups and then level them up depending on the appropriate technology/escalation level. Now that I'm disabling more UFOs I'll try to test this further. ~ Drakalu 11:25, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

This is the case. The number of alien groups and aliens-per-group stays pretty constant, even though the number of aliens varies. I have noticed that once Outsiders get replaced with Sectoid Commanders, you almost always get 2 Sectoid Commanders (even though you might have only gotten one Outsider previously). --Drakmon 12:14, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Do the numbers stay the same regardless of difficulty level? Off the Rails 17:00, 19 October 2012 (EDT)

Supply Ships

The text says that supply ships only seem to come after the alien base mission is complete, however, on my last game I encountered it before I completed the alien base mission.-Krikit386

They can appear before that, but it's not terribly likely. I've only got two games done so far but it seems to get Supply ships to show up before the base, you need to be dragging your feet on the plot a bit. Arrow Quivershaft 16:00, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, I did take my time with the alien base. I think it was a year, maybe about 7 months.

It's realistic that at least on Normal, you can finish the game in less time than that. So yeah, I expect that it's more a time-based thing than anything, and that most players so far have not seen them until after the alien base. Remember, the game's only been out a week. There's stuff we STILL don't know about the original, which would be old enough to vote if it was a person. ;) Arrow Quivershaft 16:14, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

I updated that section to clarify that it is time based, rather than mission trigger based. Also, I've removed references to specific alien types. Rather, I'm referencing just groups of "alien troops" and the number of "command aliens" on the bridge. Drakmon 16:20, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

On normal i just had a mission with landed supply ship: i've updated the numbers for possible salvage. I had 18 aliens: 1 Ethereal with 1 Muton Elite - the command squad, 3 chryssalids, 1 sectopod with 2 drones, 1 cyberdisk with a drone, 2 mutons, a muton and a berserk, 2 Mutons Elite. I think it's possible to have more than 6 troop choices or Muton Elites counts as command squad. Beltorn 14:41, 18 October 2012 (EDT)

Updated format

I've added sections for crew complement as well as likely salvage. Please populate.

Also, if we have any details from the strategy layer on how long you have to engage the UFO when intercepting or any other stats, this would be appreciated. Drakmon

From what I've seen, Terror missions and Council missions have operational windows of less than a day. I'd expect UFOs are similar; the cancel option exists mostly if you want to roll some stuff out of engineering to bring to the party. Also, please remember to sign talk page edits with your name (three tildes ~) or name and date(four ~s). Arrow Quivershaft 16:33, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

I'm actually referring to number of seconds that you have during the interception minigame to shoot down the UFO before it escapes. Drakmon 16:36, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

Oh, that. So far it seems to be about 15 seconds with a small scout, 10 with a large, and 5 with a Overseer, if using an Interceptor. I can look into more research a bit later, but that's what sticks out in my memory. Arrow Quivershaft 16:39, 16 October 2012 (EDT)

It looks like the real benefit from having a Firestorm, other than the extra hitpoints, is an extra 10 seconds added on to the engagement timer. The Overseer had a timer of 15 seconds for me, as do Battleships Drakmon 10:41, 18 October 2012 (EDT)

Ufo immage

If you want you can use my screenshot

Large Scout (no damage)http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=103088875

                      http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/558704160261631077/9C896E61930C19C6713A401035A646222DB04546/

Kayato 05:18, 17 October 2012 (EDT)

UFO Missions

Added this section to the page. Note that you need a Hyperwave Decoder to see UFO missions. We'll need to do some observation to see what UFOs actually do on their missions, if anything. For example, when hunting satellites, do they actually find and destroy them? Do they only succeed at this if you fail at intercepting them? UFOs appear to have a separate set of ground-based missions (the UFO lands) as well.

I am about to finish game on Classic (I have a Gollop Chamber and a soldier with high will). Everything researched, about 20 Colonels, 6 psi soldiers with Mind Shields, 10 Firestorms with Fusion Lances etc. I have not lost any country, all are covered with satellites and I have stealth upgrade. I have noticed two things:

• Battleships do not appear until I ignore to intercept a smaller UFO (there are only large scouts, abductors and supply ships, no small scouts for the last few in-game months)
• Once I ignore to intercept a smaller UFO, the Battleship appears with mission "destroy satellite" and destroys the satellite despite the stealth upgrade

Jarcionek 18:10, 18 October 2012 (EDT)

large scout crew

On one of my last missions I had 2 sets of mutons with a berserker and two ordinary mutons. And then a third set appeared of a normal berserker and muton. There were also a squad of two thin men making 4 sets of men whereas the limit on the page states that there are 2-3. I lost before making it to the navigation room, but I do not think any of them were a leader class group --Ditto51 16:07, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

I've seen the same. I was expecting to find an Ethereal since I had recently shot the Overseer UFO and captured the Psi Link but instead only Mutons. Hobbes 16:15, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

Was this a landed UFO, or a crash site? A crash site mission seems to randomly remove various aliens from the ship, depending on weapon used. This does seem to include command staff. And unlike the earlier version, where they were killed by Power Source explosions, in the new game it just removes them from the spawn table entirely... Arrow Quivershaft 17:30, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

• 2 muton elites(1 group)
• 6 heavy floaters(2 groups)
• 1 cyberdisc
• 2 drones(1group with cyberdisc)
• 1 outsider (Command)

landed UFO on normal difficulty, with 1 command alien and 4 squads of aliens --Ditto51 18:23, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

As far as I remember I've always seen the command staff on crashes, that's why this particular mission was strange. Hobbes 21:31, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

An Outsider is classified as a Command-level alien. After the Alien Base raid, they'll be replaced by Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals. Arrow Quivershaft 22:32, 29 October 2012 (EDT)

I just finished a supply ship and there appeared to be an 2 extra group of aliens

• 1 muton and berserker x3
• 2 mutons
• 2 heavy floater
• and 2 sctopods
• plus the two outsiders I had expected as the command units --Ditto51 08:43, 30 October 2012 (EDT)

This happens on Impossible for me all right. Had 3 packs of pods, 3 heavy floater and 1 muton. Did it happen for you on Classic or lower?Istrebitel 03:23, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

On Normal --Ditto51 18:35, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

Added new info

I added new info on crew sizes, editing old data. In case anyone wonders as to my sources:

I mostly played classic, and i always got ufo come in kinda same order

• Small Crash 2
• Small Land 3
• Large Crash 2
• Abductor Crash 2
• Large Crash 3
• Large Land 4
• Abductor Land 4
• Supply Crash 4
• Abuctor Land 5
• Supply Land 5

I never got over 5 packs of aliens on Classic. Also I never got any real deviation, except Large Scout crash getting upped from easy to moderate difficulty (2 -> 3).

When I started playing Impossible (right now I play Impossible from month 3 onwards, before I play Classic) I started getting several new "upgrades" in difficulty:

• Large Scount landed with 5 packs
• Supply Barge landed with 7 packs

Didnt notice any other UFO's except battleship going over 5 packs of aliens (like, landed Abductor).

Since Hyperweave Relay only shows crew of the ship after its crashed, and my observations, I think there is actually no algorithm that "kills" groups of aliens depending on what weapon is used. Its just two separate missions with separate difficulty tables (crash landed or landed on its own).

Istrebitel 03:18, 3 November 2012 (EDT)