Alien mission question

[BBHood217]

Is it ever possible to stop an alien mission from completing?  My experiences say no, as all I can ever seem to do is prolong the missions.  For example: Once a country's targeted for infiltration, it's guaranteed that I'll lose it; it's just a matter of delaying the inevitable by shooting down all the involved UFOs ASAP.

UFOpaedia.org claims that alien missions can be stopped completely, but I don't buy it.

[Warboy1982]

not as far as i'm aware, i'm with you on this one.
ufopaedia needs some kind of source citation/fact checking system.
(yes i realize that's not really possible.)

[Hobbes]

Taken from UFOPaedia's page on Alien Infiltration:

In the main Infiltration wave, a Large Scout will appear, followed by a Terror Ship, Supply Ship and two Battleships. It has been shown that shooting down any of these craft before they slow down will delay the next craft by a couple of days; if the craft are ignored even for a short while, long enough to slow down, the sequence proceeds extremely quickly. It has been conclusively shown that shooting down the UFOs or assaulting the landed ships will NOT stop the infiltration from succeeding. Shooting down the earlier ships will delay, but not entirely stop the second Battleship. The moment the second battleship appears in Earth's atmosphere, the infiltration is successful and complete. If the month ends before the second battleship arrives, the infiltrated country will still fund the project normally.

I can imagine that on other pages it's claimed that infiltrations can be stopped (specially on the strategy pages) by shooting down the UFOs but there doesn't seem to be any wrong info on the Alien Infiltration page.

Keep in mind that nearly all contributors on the UFOPaedia (and the XCom community in general) didn't had the skills or access to the original game code so all they had was repeated observation (which has its own flaws). It's easier now to point out the factual errors (and that's what wikis are for) but 10 years ago ingame observation was the only method available. Looking into the game's code (which can have its own flaws btw) has only been available recently.

[Warboy1982]

undoubtedly, still, wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of infallible verification system.

[Hobbes]

undoubtedly, still, wouldn't it be nice to have some kind of infallible verification system.

Yeah, but hoping for it to be infallible is unrealistic. Wiki's strengths, and weaknesses, rely on their contributors. You need people who are willing (and capable) of doing fact checking, after someone adds a new page or content.

[Warboy1982]

hence why i suffixed my original statement

(yes i realize that's not really possible.)