Terror Mission

Large numbers of aliens have landed in a major city! The population panics! There are special large "Terror Units" we haven't seen before!

Funnily enough, these seem to be more of a trap for your squad than a political move by the aliens... Oh well, into the breach once more...

Briefing

Mission will be successful when all enemy units have been eliminated or neutralised. You must attempt to save the lives of any civilians in the area by neutralising the alien menace.

A Debriefing

An excerpt from a soldier's journal who shall remain nameless:

'-- it's very strange. The aliens don't appear to want to kill the poor citizens they're terrorising. At least not at first. They won't hesitate in the least and will immediately open fire on the civilians the very moment our dropship lands in the area and lowers its access ramp . If we ignore the terror alert for a few hours, they'll kill the townsfolk anyway.

They appear to know when one of our ships is en route to the site, and will patiently wait for us to arrive. I wonder if we have any moles in the organisation, or if the aliens just have awfully powerful scanners? They just know. I guess that's all there is to say about it.

Sgt. Mikhail Okabe says it all boils down to psychological warfare. They want to break our morale by making us watch helplessly as they slaughter the people we're sworn to protect. If we arrived and all the civilians were dead, we'd probably not think twice about it, or at least not as much if we were to watch them being murdered before our very eyes, or having to listen to their tormented screams.

The aliens also seem to do something to the civilians before we arrive. At every terror site I've been to, the locals always appeared to be in a rather addle minded state, and walked about as if they're in a dream. They'll merrily walk through a hail of flying lead just to let the aliens get a better shot at them, and yet they won't seek shelter in nearby buildings or the relative safety of our dropship.

The third time they attacked Novosibirsk, I remember trying to protect an old woman from one of those furry bipedal aliens that was chasing after her. Instead of getting behind me for protection, she stared at me with a vacant smile, turned around and walked towards the alien and... That happened only a week ago, but every time I try to rest, my sleep is plagued with the same nightmare. If this keeps up, the base commander's going to need to find a new firearms instructor, and I'm going to be sporting a new jacket with very long sleeves.

But I think that's not the worst of it. If we knock out any civilians during the battle with our shock sticks, they just change. I don't really know how to describe it, except that they become someone.. no something else. . I've a feeling these people, who are in a very weakened mental state, are holding onto their minds for their dear lives. Any interference on our part just causes them to lose concentration and are thus defenceless against whatever it is that enters their heads and practically kicks them out so that it can then make itself at home.

These posessed civilians are harmless when awake, but we are still required to deal with them somehow. No matter how we decide to do that, our Damage Control specialists jump in and 'vanish' any of the affected persons. It's a very hush-hush matter. Even the inspection team from the UN who come around to assess the damage aren't made aware of the posessed civilians, so we are not credited or discredited for this little mistake of ours.

After the aliens have been dealt with, the rest of the civilians seem to recover after a few hours, and have no recollection of what had just happened to them. This is rather convenient and saves having to lug all the brainwashing equipment out there. But one does have to wonder how Damage Control is going to explain the big crater where the old gas station should be, or what's up with that inside-out vege-mart. "

-- User:NKF pasted by JellyfishGreen 13:18, 25 Apr 2005 (BST)

Alien Deployment

Rank	Beg./Exp.	Vet./Gen.	Super.
Soldiers	4-5	5-6	6-7
Navigators	1	1	2
Medics	1-2	1-2	1-2
Engineers	1	1	2
Leaders	1	1	1
Commanders	0	0	0
Terrorists	2-6	4-8	6-10
Totals	10-16	13-19	18-24

Civilian Deployment

The number of civilians spawning during a Terror Mission is between 0-16. Generally, expect between 8 and 16 civilians to still be alive when you arrive. However, if the aliens have wiped them all out, they'll still happily combat your squad.

Tips & Tricks

• The Terror UFO isn't anywhere to be found during a terror mission.
• Urban Terrain (city/suburb).
• In a terror site - worry about your soldiers first. Civilians later. Very important. This is a game, so you can choose to be a bit heartless.
• The gas pumps are explosive!
• All buildings in the cityscape are very weak. Light gunfire can destroy fences and walls.
• To save a few more civilians than usual, try limiting HE rounds.
• TIME is NOT on your side. If you want a half-decent score, expand quickly and secure. The quicker you kill aliens or get them to panic, the more civilians you'll save overall.
• The aliens will have grenades and heavy plasma, but they never bring blaster bombs along on terror missions. I suppose they don't want to end it that quickly.
• Bring lots of heavy rockets and high-explosive. First people off the transport should create a "free fire" zone around the craft with them. You aren't penalized for property damage, so level the place.
• You can get a rough idea for how many civilians are left by gauging the length of the alien turn (Civilians move after aliens.) The other way to determine is to save your game, abort the mission, check the debriefing tally of killed civilians, and then reload. Some may view the latter method as cheating.

UFOs with Terror Missions

The city-raiding terror mission mentioned above occurs only when a Terror Ship is sent on an Alien Terror mission and lands on a city.

But before this happens the aliens will send a Small/Medium/Large Scout which will show on a Hyper-wave Decoder as on a Terror Mission. The ship will land randomly, in some non-urban area, and behave much like you would expect to see on a an Alien Research or Alien Abduction mission. Unlike a city raid, these scout terror missions will not include Terror Units.

If this scout is shot down by X-COM craft and/or assaulted on the ground, chances are that the following Terror Ship will not be able to target any city when it arrives at its target region. It will then wander around for some hours on the area before finally departing back to its hidden base. To know if a Terror Ship will attack a city watch for its flight pattern: if it immediately heads towards a city after arriving at a region then it will perform a Terror Mission.

While the city-raiding missions cannot be ignored because of the drop in X-Com's funding and esteem that it would cause, they can be largely avoided by shooting down the scouts. Another alternative, perhaps more risky is to try to shoot the Terror Ship before it lands. However, both might risk some sort of Alien Retaliation.

See Also

Terror Units
Alien Missions
Urban Terrain