Tips for UFO breaching?

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I'm currently setting up my snipers and heavies about 8 tiles from the door (I heard that enemies have bad aim past 5 tiles) and I use shielders to open the door then fire like crazy with my team then shut the door. Then sometimes the aliens come out and we get more kills but after that they camp in the back rooms and reaction fire when I try to move in

Usually my shields are really battered at this point so I can only rush through with any shields I have left and try to get a flashbang in there but it still gets a lot of people killed

I've got like 1 heavy with 70+ TU but my other guys die a lot so they never get high TU, I'm near the end of month 2 atm. 1-3 casualties per mission (average 2, usually my shielders, and my snipers rarely ever get kills whereas my heavies and assaults hog the kills)

Can I put C4 on the outside walls and kill them with the blast? And if so then will it destroy the engine?

[Imanoob]

You can put c4 outside the door and it will blow through it and deal full damage because of a bug, think it might just be Xenonauts: Community Edition though. I don't know how many C4 it would take to destroy the engine room, but it would be 1-2. You could also try flashbanging the room or setting up your MG outside and have them spray into the room, which would also pin any enemies inside. If you want to keep the engine room intact so you can loot it, destroy the outer door and have your guys ready to reaction fire when the alien opens the inner door.

For the future, I would recommend giving shotguns to all of your shields if they can deal with the extra weight, it would prevent the situation you described above where you have some shields with a pistol and a severely battered shield. Shotguns are slightly lighter than rifles, and you will not need to give them any extra ammo since it is just an emergency weapon. I learned that one from the Xeno-Fu guide. It's a really good guide, even if you're experienced, since it showcases a lot of alternate and effective loadouts for your soldiers, like the bazooka sniper: hand a strong sniper a rocket launcher and a sniper rifle and they can blow up any aliens they can't kill directly.

EDIT: On second thought, you should grab an extra shotgun/carbine clip later in the game when maps are larger

[Vidopoulos]

I have done the Rocket Sniper before, but... Shotgun shield.. never thought of that .. Good idea!

[The Silver Santana]

You should have stun gas by now; pack your heavies with a backup rocket launcher full of the stuff. Open the door, fire inside, toss gas grenades into corners not covered, close door. This should clear the first room. When approaching second door, cover the door in gas (and if it has a corridor, rush to open the first door so the gas fills it then retreat out) and the enemy won't be able to enter the first room, giving you time to set up. The final room can then be gassed in same way.

This stops working eventually, but while it does it's the best way to deal with UFOs.

When it does stop working, you'll rely on elite troops with strong armor, breachers with shields, and shotguns to rush in after they take the reaction fire. No other way to really do it. It will be obvious when it stops working (I don't *think* you're there yet) but until then you can train an elite squad up.

If you're at that point, then invest in strong armor. If neccessary, put off building a third base until you have at least once fully kitted out squad.

And in the end, as long as you're clearing the UFO's, 1-3 casualties is fine. You wont' be able to take on bases or breach larger UFO's, but you can, to a degree, accept that and play catch up until your tech is superior. You will have a few dicey missions, and a bad terror mission can break you, but it's possible to make up lost ground late game.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I always give my shielders shotguns with quite a few flashbangs and smokes. If they're weak I just give them a shotgun since they have never needed to reload anyway. I do sometimes have to recruit rookies with like 40HP in which case I give them assault rifles instead of shotguns so they can stay with the ranged squad if they survive their shield being ruined

I give all my snipers assault rifles, this is because theyre usually too far to use a shotgun, and although I could give them the MG I see their sniper as the weapon they use if they dont need to move and their assault rifle the weapon they use if they need to move a lot to ge an angle.

My Heavy MGs all either have shotguns or Assault rifles, the squishier ones have rifles because I dont want to risk mving them in til their HP gets higher but like the 60 reflex 70HP 70TU one has a shotgun so he can potentially run them down


I buitl 3 bases pretty fast. They all have 2 condors and a foxtrot but I was preparing to get more foxtrots. My friend also recommended I get 30 scientists so I just started a living quarters and lab. I think I'm researching the tech for the first decent armour right now (wolf?) but I'm not sure if I can afford it, might get it on next months budget. I assume the stun gas is from alien bio right? Maybe I'll get it in time to be useful when the new labs are going

Tyvm for all the advice

[Sky Wolf]

Steps to breaching a UFO:
1) Destroy the front door (e.g. with rover's MG, or heavy weapons, explosives)
2) Gun down any aliens visible through the opening
3) Move your breaching team into the UFO and clear it by whatever means necessary

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I used to do that but it went very badly for me

Recently I've found that if I move my squad into position by the door I can move someone up the side of the UFO and open the door, shoot anything inside then shut the door and run away. I keep doing this til no one is in sight and then I park a shield guy right in front of the door and keep opening it every so often to see if something is coming.

Eventually I move everyone up to the door, open it, and then charge through and clear it with shotties/assault rifles

[Sky Wolf]

I'm not sure how destroying the door and shooting aliens through the opening (with MGs, snipers, and whoever else has line of sight) could go "very badly" for anyone, compared to tediously opening and closing the front door. Care to explain?

[✚ Mariel ✚]

Ok, for the first one I would open the door and shoot in but they wouldnt really stay in plain sight. Then I'd approach and they'd pop out to shoot me while I approached. I'd end up inside with low TU getting shot at and losing people, and then the last one would keep running out of the engine room to shoot at us.

For the second one, well I noticed there seems to be a sort of aggro threshold. When someone is in range of sight of the door then 1 or 2 aliens come out and I can kill them but then none other will come. When I have someone right outside the door then 1 or 2 more come to the door and I can open and fire with full TU then just shut it to prevent retaliation. Then finally the last one wont come to the door so I stand right in front of the door facing towards the craft, then on my turn open it and use my full TU to rush straight through, usually I send a private or shield through first to take the reaction fire then send my 80 TU monster heavy in to finish it

[Sky Wolf]

You don't seem to be responding to my question about your initial position that destroying front doors goes "very badly" for you. The first sentence of your response pertains to the opening and closing of doors, not the destruction of them.

Anyway, so you argue that by camping outside the front door, you can lure the alien AI into stepping outside. The problem with your argument is that you can also do that with a destroyed front door. The alien(s) start walking out of the UFO towards the front door and your units would reaction fire into the UFO. I can confirm this is what they do.

I'll buy your TU argument. You could save up to 15 TUs by standing in front of the door, vs. to the side of a destroyed door.

Your strategy to UFO breaching might be termed "wait-and-rush".

My strategy to UFO breaching is "destroy-door-and-room-clear-slowly".

[✚ Mariel ✚]

What I mean is, my initial strategy was blow the door, shoot anything I can see then rush in and waste all my TU getting inside.

Second strategy was to lure some out. I hadn't considered that I could reaction fire them if the door was blown though. Might give it some more tries but that would just make killing the first 2 easier and the next 2 super dangerous without a door to break my line of sight til my turn

[Sky Wolf]

As long as you can move your breaching team into position further into the UFO (out of enemy LoS) and wait a turn, there is no TU concern. That is, unless the 2 remaining aliens poke out and throw a grenade or something during their turn...

[The Silver Santana]

Blowing the door is a bad idea if the problem is with breaching the UFO.

First off, it percludes stun gas as a go to method. That's a fail condition right there. I will say it again; Stun Gas is your friend. The AI is absolutely stupid enough to run through a cloud of it even if they have no reason to. It remains useful until late into the invasion on at least some missions.

Second, it removes a fantastic bit of cover from your men. The door is deployable and controllable cover. One guy to the side opening and closing it as you wish is superior to having a hole there.

Third, there is a small chance of destroying precious tech or sellable alien equipment.

The one time it's useful is if, on the *approach* to the UFO, you're getting shot by aliens using the same tactic. Once you have control of the outside of the UFO, the door becomes a wonderful thing for you. If you need to destroy the outer door then, something odd is happening.

Additionally, there are tactical situations *inside* the UFO where blowing a door might be an equally good idea, but these are superseeded by Tech concerns. If you're still progressing up the Tech tree, need money, or need resources like Alenium, then blowing up interior doors is risky.

If you're just training troops as the primary goal for the mission, give everyone rocket launchers and level the map. Don't even bother with breaching the UFO, just throw rockets at every door and into every room that isn't a broom closet. If you have to teleport up a level and it's too small in the receiving room, throw C4 blocks in instead then run out. There is no reason to have half-measures.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

That sounds like really good advice!

Btw Europe and Russia just dropped me funding by 200k because 2 terror missions happened while I was on my way back from a UFO crash. Can I get them to put the funding back up? They didn;t withdraw but now my income is barely more than my expenditures. Should I consider building a fourth base in Russia for more radar coverage and interceptors so I can absolutely catch every single UFO? If I spend everything I earn on it this month I can probably get a base, 1 radar, 3 hangars, 2 foxtrots and a condor (assuming I get good hauls on the UFOs)

Should I be tracing UFOs til theyre over land to hit every single UFO crash? I've been trying to shoot them down over the sea a lot to avoid endangering my ground forces but we just got full wolf armour and its beastly so maybe I should hit tons of UFOs now to catch up before the aliens bring out the big guns?

[The Silver Santana]

For future reference, you can force missions to occur while your transport is in the air. I.E. you can order an in-air transport to go to a terror mission. I've managed three missions while in transit before, though it was nasty on the last one (everyone was injured, some of them so injured they shoudlen't have been capable of being sent on a mission normally, I beleive).

Raiding UFO's does not improve funding. Shooting them down does. So shooting them down over the ocean is fine. However every late game UFO is maybe 70000 dollars, so they act as wonderful suplementary funding (ten of them can fund a base as I build them).

Where are your bases located? Good base location can cover 7 regions and half cover 2 others with only three bases. For future reference; Central USA covers North America and Central America, middle of Indochina covers Indochina and eastern Russia, and southern Italy/Sicily covers Europe, North Africa, Middle East, and Western Russia. Indochina also semi-covers Australia (enough for Marauder interceptions) and Sicily half-covers South Africa (ditto).

If you have those three bases, the only uncovered region of Russia should be the very middle and the Artic sea, but even then you should be able to track *detected* UFO's into those regions.

If you're bases are positioned wrong, even then I suggest not trying to fix it. The costs are too high. I may be wrong though.

[✚ Mariel ✚]

I have a base in Italy, a base in Mexico and a base in Indochina. 2 radars each currently. Was planning to finally have 3 radars in each but Russia and USA decided to be asses so now they get hit by UFOs I could've spotted if they had funded me :(