Long range firefight or close combat?

[Strzelec]

Hello everyone,

I am curious about one thing: do you prefer long range firefights or do you go for close combat? For me close combat has generally lack of sense and I prefer fighting at at least 100 meters with accurate rifles (but in this game I sometimes approach very close and I still keep at least one soldier with shotgun, I doesn't seem bad for,me because it is a strategy, not mindless shooting even at a close range) but from what I can observe most players prefer fighting at close, very close ant point-blank range in FPS games, they seem to have problems with aiming. Now I want to check if general trend of shooting from less than 20 meters also appears in a tactical game.

[hwoarangmy]

I also prefer long range fights because aliens have much more TU than your soldiers and you are likely to have losses (and you won't be able to choose which soldier to expose) on close combat.

[anonymissimus]

Long range whenever possible. Stay smoke covered, always scout out of the smoke in every turn to keep the area around it free of aliens. The snipers have very high survival rate then, allowing for high precision long range shots.
Short range is just insane, because you will be attacked, which basically means you are guaranteed to die, after possibly wounding the killer. But more often than not reaction fire will fail. I only use cannon fodder for short range combat. If you are lucky and/or are scouting well you can attack first and very well kill an enemy but that killer is likely to be killed in return as well.

[Strzelec]

I'm glad I'm not alone with my thoughts about PROPER range of shooting.

[Adler]

I prefer long range also.

In some cases I changed tactic and avoid smoke cover.  Sometimes its better to have at least one soldier visible to draw attention of aliens in range. If that soldiers is covered by boxes, lamp poles and so on, there are good chances he will survive one or two hits (medium difficulty) with armor. The alien is mostly an easy target after doing so. For me it works sometimes better then smoke and hide, because aliens remain hidden and I have to go after them. But it depends on situation.

Another strategy I discovered with long range weapons (and high skilled soldier) is the followin: If there is just one one main direction where enemies can encounter your soldiers and free space, just build a line of 4+ kneeling experiencend soldiers (i use a combination of laser and plasma atm) and use autofire. First time I tried I managed to kill 3 enemies in one turn with 5 soldiers, not even a scratch. It's hard to deceide when it's wise to do so, but in the right situation it can be less risky then smoke and hide.

[Strzelec]

I know something about line of kneeling soldiers and use it as well, also I try to go to the roof if possible, but I prefer sniper rifles than laser rifles because they are stronger and a little bit more accurate. I also use assault rifles for long range firefights (human's or alien's, sometimes I still go for human's because it requires less action points to fire), but only as a support for snipers, although sometimes they operate alone if they are skilled enough. I have never used smoke or flashbang grenades, rarely frag, because I prefer to stay far rather than approach at all cost using everything to go just a few meters further. All in all, maybe in this game players prefer long range. Sadly it is not true in FPS...

[TBeholder]

I use 2 teams, each with MG and sniper. There are long streets, tunnels and whatnot. Against plasma pistols and melee/grenade loadouts reaction fire works nicely, against rifles it's playing whack-a-mole as a mole no matter what weapons you use - but with long-ranged ones you just don't need to cross open spaces that much.
Practically, you can't just sit it out and crawl on - civilians will be massacred if you don't get into smoke grenade range fast.
So there's also at least 1 shotgun/flamethrower plus flashbangs to advance and at least 1 GL to pick off an odd enemy on the roof or other cover, of course.
2 others end up with assault rifles and grenades. I don't like it, but they need something useful at long range without being too slow or relying on a single scout plus support to move on.

[Strzelec]

It is not true that civilians will be killed if you don't approach quickly. You rather have to kill aliens quickly so you have to have good riflemen at long range. Of course,you can't fire when an alien stays out of your sight, but if it is far and out of sight civilians will be killed anyway, no matter how fast you move, so I prefer to at least save my soldiers. Yesterday when I played my sniper died... He was worth more than all the other soldiers (expect other snipers). I replaced him with new one and painfully discovered how much did the accuracy decreased. However, I still use one soldier with a shotgun and if he dies I can replace him with a soldier who has even very low close combat skills, but in battle I can use him as good as the previous one.  This shows me that close combat does not require much skill and this is true not only in this game for me.

[anonymissimus]

It is not true that civilians will be killed if you don't approach quickly. You rather have to kill aliens quickly so you have to have good riflemen at long range.

For saving civilians, other than disabling aliens quickly, soldiers need to be visible so aliens choose to shoot at them instead of civilians. This of course conflicts with the need to keep soldiers to be able to attack. Carefully balance own losses against aggressiveness of trying to save civilians. If too many soldiers are dead already, more civilian losses have to be accepted...
Always make sure uncovered soldiers crouch, there's a good chance shots will miss; better than for civilians posing in the open like shit.

[Strzelec]

You didn't have to tell me that since long range is the only proper range for me. Even my first shoot in the first battle after downloading the game first time was after kneeling down. The only thing missing is the possibility to lay down...

[TBeholder]

It is not true that civilians will be killed if you don't approach quickly. You rather have to kill aliens quickly so you have to have good riflemen at long range. Of course,you can't fire when an alien stays out of your sight, but if it is far and out of sight civilians will be killed anyway, no matter how fast you move

Farthest one perhaps, but for those in the middle run-and-smoke extends the survivable area.

I still use one soldier with a shotgun and if he dies I can replace him with a soldier who has even very low close combat skills, but in battle I can use him as good as the previous one.  This shows me that close combat does not require much skill and this is true not only in this game for me.

At point-blank range, accuracy changes little, of course. But at the limit of slug range it's not quite so easy, yet it's still close enough for plasma pistols and grenades, thus missing is very likely to get the scout killed either in RF or aliens' next turn. Not that hitting is guaranteed to help if the alien has armor, of course.
But the way RF works, the best solution is still to bomb the enemies into whom the scout ran with indirect attack from someone else - no line of sight, no reaction. I have one AR soldier following the scout and lobbing grenades as needed, and since GL has a decent range, especially with bounce mode, it often can help even if it's in the other team (on the closest flank).

For saving civilians, other than disabling aliens quickly, soldiers need to be visible so aliens choose to shoot at them instead of civilians. This of course conflicts with the need to keep soldiers to be able to attack.

That's where snipers help - they have to lag behind to save TU for shooting anyway and early on, the range gives them a good chance even against plasma rifles, once scouts and GL pick off the nearest aliens.

Always make sure uncovered soldiers crouch, there's a good chance shots will miss; better than for civilians posing in the open like shit.

Yup. Much like back in DOS game.

[Strzelec]

At point-blank range, accuracy changes little, of course. But at the limit of slug range it's not quite so easy

I don't use slug rounds, because they are too weak. I found flechettes acting more like classic shotgun ammo and I use it at point- blank range and for further distances I give my soldier a plasma pistol.

Farthest one perhaps, but for those in the middle run-and-smoke extends the survivable area.

At mid - range it is even easier to pick off aliens with sniper and assault rifles, laser weapons are also excellent at this range.

[hwoarangmy]

For saving civilians, other than disabling aliens quickly, soldiers need to be visible so aliens choose to shoot at them instead of civilians.

In most of the games I play, I usually hide my soldiers into smoke and let some cannon fodders exposed to see aliens and try to save civilians. However, when my soldiers are crouched, most of the times, aliens don't shoot at them and prefer to kill civilians instead. I guess it comes from them not shooting when hit chances are too low. From my experience, this strategy is very soldier-expensive as aliens usually shoot when high chance to kill only.

[anonymissimus]

Even on very hard, there are 25-30 fresh recruits every month on maximum nation happiness, so soldier expensive is no issue.
Aliens prefer shooting at soldiers most of the time for me, even if the soldier is somewhat farther away, partly covered and crouching, a nearby civilian is ignored. Unless the soldier is really much farther away, maybe twice as much or more, or the alien has to do something it really doesn't like in order to attack the soldier, such as moving through fire or standing very ready to be attacked at the end of its turn...

[Strzelec]

Even on very hard, there are 25-30 fresh recruits every month on maximum nation happiness, so soldier expensive is no issue.

It is a VERY BIG issue, because new soldiers aren't as skilled as veterans so it is not worth to let a lot of soldiers die every mission.