General > Discussion

capture live alien?

<< < (2/3) > >>

anonymissimus:
If you consider smoke overpowered...that's your fault then.

Hard missions are ambushes. If I'm lucky there are not so many aliens, several are already visible and/or they are pre-wounded. Then I generally press them hard, with good survival rates of civies and soldiers.

hwoarangmy:
In my opinion, this game is just not playable without using smoke grenades. First, you sometimes start in such bad position that you are sure to get a reaction fire even if you only move and don't fire. Moreover, your soldiers will be exposed most of the time and you will not have the ability to show only 1 cannon fodder to get shot and see where aliens are.
Last (but not least), you will move so slowly from a not too exposed site to another that you are sure that no civilian survives.

From my experience, I would say that if you don't want to use smoke, there is no way you an win (at least on high difficulty levels - I never tried easy or very easy).

Rodmar:
I answer late because one point in the first post was overseen as it seems.

--- Quote ---Every mission I send a soldier with a stun rod and every mission he just gets killed. Aliens don't like to be touched and react violently when you approach. Also I lose a lot of soldiers trying to keep a alien alive while my stun rod soldier is trying to get into position to do his thing.
--- End quote ---
Aliens won't react if they have spent most of their TUs. If you stick to the rod, make them react before the melee attack (I precise this point because it's the same if you have to send someone in the open and you now several enemies have a LOS on him).
The few times I used the stunning rod, I tried and wounded the target with small arms (or a grenade for Ortnoks), but only in the last turns, so that all the team could be affected at this task, and attacked it with two soldiers with TUs to be sure to knock it down (after reaction fire phase was over).


--- Quote ---That being said, the autopsies->live alien->alien mind etc research tree is way overestimated. It is of very little tactical value in the campaign, aside from the gas grenades, but these alone are insufficient to justify investing so much research time. The memo you get about that it's important to capture live aliens is wrong, as of current development at least.
--- End quote ---
So true, and I'd say it's clearly a left-aside topic in the current development. I mean, while the Alien Mind research tree is not done. Seeing as the X-Com live aliens management was far more involved, and guessing that this implementation would mean more code and research handling (For example, there are no ranks nor functions among the Aliens, only different mission teams.), I understand this. But wouldn't have a higher required number of prisoners (and a more varied composition between species) been simply feasible, while the research tree is still in WIP? Currently, as you said, neither stun rods nor stun grenades are mandatory to reach this number.
If the number was higher, perhaps, stunning rods would become an option (even with the same research incomes, for the present).
Stun grenades keep being useful (until you reach interesting reaction stats) to help fending ambushes off from unarmored Shevaar, though.
In my opinion, a dedicated base would be needed to thoroughly study live aliens (as back to X-Com).

madrsihands:
I don't bother with the stun rod at all.  Latter in the game as my weapons get more powerful there is a chance I can stun aliens just by shooting at them, especially since I still use the Sniper Rifle late into the campaign.  The challenge of course is finishing the level before the alien bleeds out.

One time I tried using the electro stun gun on an Ortnok, but the bastard ended up reviving himself and killing two of my guys.  Since then I just find it better to shoot-to-kill then try to stun any.

hwoarangmy:
I usually equip my cannon fodders with stun rods (and plasma blades) to stun civies to avoid them to get killed too easily. And, if I'm lucky and find a taman alone in a closed space, I try to stun it. In this case, to avoid him to wake up and kill my team from behind, I let a cannon fodder on its tile so that it cannot wake up.

Concerning the research tree, I agree with you all as it doesn't unlock much interesting stuff while requiring many research time. Moreover, the text says that it is very important to find an alien alive while there is no much benefits to do it.
But that's not the only flaw with that. When you do the research, it is said that aliens die in the process while no alien is lost in the containment for example. I guess this part of the game needs some love ^^

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page