It's already bad when the game makes the Skyranger land beside an UFO, raising the chance of a lot of enemies spawning just around you; it's even worse when you realize they're Snakemen, with their pets along.
As soon as the first soldier got off, a Chryssalid was under the belly of the craft. Luckily it was not difficult to shoot it down, but as the other squadmates started to come out and make a better bearing of the surroundings, the situation was clear: two more Chryssalids coming from different sides, and
four Snakemen nested in a small building just in front of the Skyranger, two on the ground floor, two on the upper floor.
Of course, the priority was to kill the Chrysses, while still managing to get enough cover behind the wheels and wings of the Skyranger. After the most immediate threat was removed, it was a matter of tearing down some walls to expose the Snakes and shoot them down one by one; at the same time, I sent as many soldiers as I could flying, to get the hell out of the the range of other Chrysses - there was only one left, and I kept a couple soldiers watching the back of their mates as they engaged the Snakes.
Afterwards, it was much simpler inside the UFO, sending a soldier with Stun Bombs along with two as an escort, acting as spotters and door openers, and capturing the highest ranking Snakes there.
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This happened while playing with the
Terrain Pack and
Supply Ship Door mods.
The Skyranger landed close to the Supply Ship, too close: its tail looked towards one of its doors. So, it was not really a surprise to spot a Muton right on the first turn, from the sensors of my new Plasma Hovertank, on its second mission. They started engaging but the Muton was in a tough corner; it was a matter of letting the turn pass and hope it didn't damage the Hovertank much. However, more Mutons started to pour in from the inside and outer sides of the UFO; since the scenario was a lush green forest, it almost looked like they were coming out from the foliage and grass.
The situation turned very uncomfortable and showed that, as much a lifesaver Tanks and Hovertanks are, they can also become traps in tight spots. Attempting to move forward triggered reaction fire from the Mutons, while the squad was completely unable to do anything but stay behind the tank. However, after a lot of damage and a couple kills, the tank finally managed to leave enough space for the soldiers to walk down on the ramp and turn the tide; five dead Mutons around that door.
After all that tension, the situation turned almost comical. I sent two soldiers, one of them with Stun Bombs, on the roof of the UFO, while the Hovertank went to the cargo door on the first floor and... just stayed there as a doorstopper, to let the soldiers enter without wasting TUs for opening. I had made the grave mistake to rush the other soldiers to the front door, without checking the surroundings first; a Muton Navigator came out from the corner and may have killed one of them if a guardian angel, standing on a corner of the UFO's roof, didn't reaction-fire a Stun Bomb. Cleaning the inside of the ship was a quick job.
Not content with being Hero Of The Day, the Hovertank was tasked to Bug Hunt for the last remaining Muton: tucked in a corner of the map, among the trees, I almost saw it trembling.
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This last is a memory of when I first played the vanilla game in 1998. It was a Terror Mission and was an absolute madness, as the game had spawned a lot of enemies in a single portion of the map or made them move towards there. A soldier who was sent as an explorer ended up trapped between buildings, attacked by Floaters from all sides. His entryway cut off, he first tried to run away, ending up even further from reinforcements who were too busy with Reapers. As Floaters came closer, he fought back. Covered by the same buildings that trapped him, he killed three of them, got injured, and killed three more before being blasted by the last one. He will never be forgotten.
