UFO Ground Assault
Briefing
Explore landing site and, if possible, gain entry to the UFO. Mission will be successful when all enemy units have been eliminated or neutralised. Recovery of UFO, artefacts and alien corpses can then be initiated.
Breaching UFOs
Most of a UFO ground assault is like any other mission. Use smoke grenades to disembark; illuminate the exterior in night missions with flares or fires; and use fire team tactics for Sweeping the Battlescape. The moment of entry into the UFO can be a unique challenge, however, as the first soldier inside a UFO strongroom is often a guaranteed casualty. Several measures can be taken to reduce the agony of this crucial (and sometimes climactic) phase of the battle.
1. Rookies ("puppets") first. It never hurts to deliberately take a few rookies or underachievers to absorb enemy reaction shots and/or psionic attacks. (You end up with a lot more Sergeants as these guys are rotated in and out of the Skyranger.) One of these should be sent first through UFO doors.
2. Cover the point. Have the rest of his fire team positioned a few squares behind with plenty of TUs to fire over his shoulder. They may be able to throw explosives (or even smoke) into the room, or even shoot all the aliens inside. They risk shooting the point (the rookie who entered the door), but the aliens are more likely to do that if you don't kill them all first. Any TUs the rookie uses to kneel, escape, or fire may get him shot. The aliens will have a harder time returning fire against shots over his shoulder (hitting the UFO wall etc).
3. BANZAI!! (Note: Without the right equipment, this can be considered a "sacrificial rookie" tactic; but with the right equipment the rookie stands a good chance of survival. Consider a Power Suit and and Auto Cannon with explosive ammunition for for this purpose, at least for the frontline rookies .)
The point may have to take one for the team. The worst case scenario is that the entire team misses the aliens, the aliens kill the point, and come out to shoot the team (who burned all their TUs up covering the point). Even if the point tries to retreat, he may be shot, and if he is using a rifle-type weapon, he may still get shot after killing one alien. The solution is to use whatever explosives he is carrying to kill as many aliens inside as possible before dying, or upon death. Sufficient armor will allow him to do this with minimal personal risk. If he is carrying a grenade, prime it and move him as far toward the group of aliens as possible. In a small room, he will be in their midst by the time they shoot him. If they don't kill him, and he has 2 TUs left, he can drop the primed grenade. This also works with smoke if the aliens are far enough away. If he is using rockets or explosive ammunition, fire at point blank range and blast everything in the room (preferably targeting the rear wall or alien). If he is wearing a power or flying suit, then ordinary grenades, AC-HE, and HC-HE ammunition will be nearly harmless. The edge of a rocket blast is also much less dangerous in armor. He or someone behind him may be able to bombard the room with minimal risk. Of course, in a small UFO the power source and elerium may be nearby, so the use of extreme measures to clear the room in one turn may be at the expense of valuable resources.
4. Make a new hole. A second entry in a UFO exterior created by a Blaster Bomb (or Heavy Plasma for interior walls) is generally safer than a preexisting door. The aliens are usually paying attention the UFO doors instead; they only gang up around the new holes if they see you coming.
Note: Proximity grenades may occasionally kill the aliens inside when one steps out, but this isn't always the case, and proximity grenades have other limitations (especially deep inside big UFOs).
5. Shoot the rookie. Send one rookie, wearing Coveralls, through the door. If he survives (which he often does, thanks to the mutual surprise rule), he can safely turn around to spot any aliens, as turning does not provoke Reaction fire. Unfortunately, taking any other action will likely prove fatal. So shoot him - with a Stun Bomb. With any luck, he'll drop to the floor, Unconscious - but alive. Snipers can then shoot through the door at spotted aliens, from outside their sight range. This tactic works quite well when assaulting a Large Scout with destroyed interior; firing a large rocket through the open door and into the back wall has a good chance of killing the aliens who tend to lurk in that area.
The rookie could also carry a primed Smoke Grenade. This will go off after the rookie drops (for whatever reason), providing cover for the next soldier through the door.
Assaulting Supply Ships with JFG
After staking out a Floater base and getting a recovery craft set up, I was hijacking a Supply Ship every week for a month, and be darned if I wasn't starting to follow a pattern. I had a modified Firestorm stalking them, with 6 soldiers and a HWP; after clearing the outside and sniping a few at the exit, I'd breach with a team of 3 at each door; clear the one or two aliens usually at the grav lifts, quickly peek into the engine room in passing (150 units of intact Elerium-115 waiting, sweet); send one guy straight to the top floor to hide by the door, while the other two on his team go halfway up and bust open the shaft with plasma rounds; five guys sweep the middle deck. Usually the floaters are starting to panic by now. Then all six troops re-converge on the lift, head for the upper deck, and advance on the control room. First guy out of the lift turns right; the second turns left, checks the corner, then turns to stand next to the closed door to the south; third advances past second guy to snipe towards control room; fourth (if time) enters closed door to the south. Then it's just a matter of leapfrogging most of the team up the north corridor towards the control room with overwatch while one or two do a quick sweep of the narrow south corridor, perhaps opening a shortcut across the waist of the ship with heavy plasma along the way.
Occasionally I'd vary this routine by hitting the floor of the control room from below with HE-HC or stun rounds, but that could be considered cheating. But not as exploitative as the time I shoved a brick of HE up through the floor of the control room. A quick way to end the mission. Also fun is tossing HE or alien grenades into the diagonal walls at the back of the ship, near the lifts, from outside, with a long delay; if timed right, this kills anyone near the lifts inside just before the breaching team gets there. In mountain terrain, this might even destroy the outer wall at the waist of the ship! Easy lift access if I had stuck around!
And all that procedure comes from harsh experience, like the time I forgot to check the corner after coming out of the top level lift and was shot in the back.
And it got me a sectoid leader for Psionics, too, once I had identified my weakest link and given him a standard pistol and smoke grenades. The decoy was being alternately panicked and controlled somewhere out in the forest right up until the powersuits kicked in the control room door and hit the preoccupied leader with stun rounds at point blank range. Previously, every attempted sectoid supply ship hijacking or sectoid base raid had been a psi-attacked disaster.
--JellyfishGreen 14:26, 23 May 2005 (BST)
Note: This was on Normal difficulty. At Superhuman difficulty, there's a few more aliens around, and it becomes wiser to stand in the lift (since aliens don't shoot down well) than to hide by the door. --JellyfishGreen 01:35, 26 Sep 2005 (PDT)
Notes
- In THE ABOVE EXAMPLE "I had a modified Firestorm stalking them, with 6 soldiers and a HWP" indicates a modified game using XcomUtil. In an unmodified game this is just an interception craft.
- If you want Elerium, don't use explosives near the power cores.
- If you have stunned a 'soldier' class and don't want it, relocate it and grenade it, or use medikits to awaken then shoot.
- If you assault craft that are landed you get more things to sell, but there may be more aliens to shoot your head off.
For medium-sized and larger UFO's in the later game, your best friends are some flying suits and a blaster bomb. Use the blaster to make a hole in the topmost level of the craft--only blasters can pierce the outer walls of UFOs. Then send in your flying units. This will let you take out the alien leader sooner-- which I believe adversely effects the morales of the enemy-- and lets you attack from an unexpected angle.
In general, it's best to make new doors inside a UFO than use the existing ones, since the aliens have a tougher time setting up ambushes that way. Use heavy plasma to shoot open internal walls (see Destroying Terrain). --Papa Legba 13:09, 22 Nov 2005 (PST)
If you feel like you absolutely must use a lot of explosives, you can save the elerium by shooting the power source (with a non explosive weapon), and then picking up the elerium crystal in the inventory. I don't find it worth the time to do, but if you must use explosives then it's better than losing 50 elerium ~~ Blehm