Alien Morale

[Captain Bipto]

First off, I have to say that this game, both 2.2.1 and 2.3 have to the best x-com style game I have played ever since the first x-com, I love the models, the weapons list, the campaign and the maps.  I cannot wait until the next release (i played the dev 2.3 and had some fun with it).  Okay, on to my post.

So I was playing on the industrial map (the one with the big factory in the center) in Russia and I just blew the snot out of the aliens on this map as their plasma weapons were no match in range for my laser troops.  Well I had the last alien cornered in a building and was slowing moving forward to rush the building and bust a cap in him.  During these rounds I got the impression the alien was freaking out because of all his side's casaulties and was frozen in place...


I was wondering:
1. are you guys planning on allowing aliens to surrender when their morale breaks?
2. does alien morale follow the same rules as human morale? (i.e. throw down guns, run away or start shooting randomly?)

I loved the fact that this alien was just freaking out because it turned the mission into a mop up which I felt was pretty realistic. 

[BiggAl]

Hmm - I have had a crash mission where I ran out of flashbangs and surrounded the last alien on the map with stun troops (with machine pistols as secondary) - it was a tamaran and it dropped it's weapon - I had a sniper watching the whole thing with reaction fire set to multiple shots, but he did not shoot, asking it an easy stun next turn.

[mutant]

I'm very sure aliens can panic and run just like your own troops can.

[Captain Bipto]

Yeah be careful cos I pwned an "unarmed" Ortnok with the stun rod but not before he threw a grenade at me!

[JerryLove]

I'm confused.

They don't respond to torture or threats of death because the hivemind doens't care much about an individual: but they can be demoralized.

While perhaps a fun game mechanic (and another reason for flamethrowers, which should be very demoralizing), I'm not sure how that makes sense.

[Mayhem]

I'm confused.

They don't respond to torture or threats of death because the hivemind doens't care much about an individual: but they can be demoralized.

While perhaps a fun game mechanic (and another reason for flamethrowers, which should be very demoralizing), I'm not sure how that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense if you think about how the hivemind works.
They are not getting demoralised, but as the aliens in a group get killed off, the remaining ones suffer a drop in intelligence.  It may effect some more than others, but a lone alien will be running on almost pure instinct without much actual thought - for some, that may include fighting on but for others it will result in hiding in a corner in a panic.