UFO very very early

[betatester]

it's only my second game, and I have early restarted the first one so I'm very very newbie on this mod.
All I have read about this mod is that you can take some time to grow and the first game was ok (even if I restarted on mission 3 after beginner mistakes) but on my second game after a classic crop circle mission, the second event was a small ufo landing, taking down rowellitos with magnum bullets was possible but 6 vs 2 newbie agents on a night mission .... wtf !!!! (luckily I had plenty of ammo in the car)
I thought it was just bad luck and that the next mission will be easier but no another ufo lands and my mudranger team I have bought just in case this thing happens again is still waiting gear delivery. Yes agent 5 you will go on mission with a knife, please make you bravery check !!!!  Oh and other bad news mt first research medicine is not even ready yet so don't get hurt. Also spare your ammo because delivery is on the way...

Do I need to restart a game ?

Oh and just in case you wonder I'm one level below veteran... and it's January 7th

[PltSgtMac]

Early UFO landings are just aliens doing research and can be totally ignored if they are too difficult. In my current game it has been 14 months and I haven't fought any aliens at all. You have to pick and choose your battles.

[krautbernd]

Do I need to restart a game ?

No, early game UFO encounters are supposed to happen (can't remember, these mgiht even be hardcoded), but you usually only get two or three, and it's quite easy to miss them entirely since early game transportation is quite slow.

As for using knifes, I've found them actually to be more useful than guns, provided you can catch the aliens (is it always sectoids?) unaware. They are quite deadly from a range, but easy prey when you manage to get into CQC.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well let me tell you honestly, if your attitude is "must complete every mission", then you won't get far... Here, or in pretty much any bigger X-Com mod.

[sedygrizly]

Btw when you have some solid equipment like some assault riffles and kevlar vests at least, pre-invasion UFO is VERY VERY valuable target, becouse of alien alloys. Once you get that, heavy tritanium armor allows you to finish every mission against humans quite easily. + if you get alien alloys welder, you can research personal armour as well, very valuable at Aliens missions. And i think that welder artefact is common at science ships, common pre-invasion ship which is crewed by many medics and less soldiers = perfect target.
Also dunno if its common, but at my Veteran playthrough first encountered alliens were Floaters, and with theirs AntiGrav modules you can get Hovertanks, which is practically invulnarable at humans missions. Also its pretty decent tank against plasma weaponry as well. I think this should be change, it makes game very easy. Sectoid is perfectly fine first alien enemy imho.

[betatester]

Solarius even if I abandon some missions sometimes I really like to finish missions.
And I was just surprised to have ufo landing mission on a mod that was described as slow paced. I opted for caliber 45 because on my previous run the glock seems too light again gorillas (4 gorillas at least so I gave up the mission) (and because my first reflex was too recruit 10 scientists I gave up the game too when I realized there's no employment for them I gave up my first run too)
And on my first run I never see an ufo on several months and on my second run 2 at 7th of January so I wonder if I was very unlucky (if I mess) or very lucky (if I win) and wondered if the general invasion can happen so early

[Solarius Scorch]

Solarius even if I abandon some missions sometimes I really like to finish missions.
And I was just surprised to have ufo landing mission on a mod that was described as slow paced. I opted for caliber 45 because on my previous run the glock seems too light again gorillas (4 gorillas at least so I gave up the mission) (and because my first reflex was too recruit 10 scientists I gave up the game too when I realized there's no employment for them I gave up my first run too)
And on my first run I never see an ufo on several months and on my second run 2 at 7th of January so I wonder if I was very unlucky (if I mess) or very lucky (if I win) and wondered if the general invasion can happen so early

So? The mod is fairly slow paced, at least early on. What would contradict this?

It's hard to catch a UFO with a goddamn Volkswagen Transporter anyway, but if you really try hard and are lucky enough, who would I be to stop you? But it doesn't mean you are "meant" to do this mission. It's a player's choice.

[Arcalane]

The main invasion won't start until a specific date (mentioned in your archives from the start, IIRC?) but the aliens have been peeking around for a very long time. We have abduction stories for a reason!

One of my favourite missions really early on though, was taking a Dragonfly out to raid a landed UFO (IIRC it was a two-level abductor). I did a smoke-grenade-heavy smash and grab, and managed to abduct a live Floater who spawned too close to my LZ. Unfortunately I didn't have Alien Containment yet, so the effort was wasted. But it was still a fun challenge and a very nonstandard mission by XCOM standards.

[Mr. Mister]

Yeah, as Solarius said, you are not "meant" to complete early UFO landing missions.

Hell, you aren't really "meant" to be able to get to them in time until you get the private car. It's not very probably for one to land in time-range of pubilc cars, and even less so in range of public vans.

Though no one but statistics and an overwhelming difference in firepower is going to actually stop you from completing one such mission, you can consider it a moderately-manageable victory to kill an ayylmao, grab it and its equipment and GTFO with the loot. It's been a while since I've played, but I seem to recall something with the early alien autopsy allowing you an early unlock of a facility that adds 5 more lab slots to your base, doubling your research speed earlier than you would do otherwise.

[TheCurse]

there´s other ways to get the research facility. easier ones.
its possible to win a ufo mission with 4 guys in a van. not any ufo mission, but some. that being said, its possible to win the lottery too. chances are comparable 
the big bonus you get is a lot of alien tech you can't research til a few years later. and alien alloys...

its basically like chess. except all you got is 4 pawns. and every time you move or even sneeze someone is gonna get shot by plasma. also the board is on fire, but the aliens don't care.
and your guys might not put up with the stress and kill each other. oh and did i mention plasma shots... >_>

[Niewiem]

UFOs probably appeared but you did not detect them in your first game. You need a lot of luck to detect UFO early on, even more luck to get to it in time, and even more luck to successfully finish the mission.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah, as Solarius said, you are not "meant" to complete early UFO landing missions.

Hell, you aren't really "meant" to be able to get to them in time until you get the private car. It's not very probably for one to land in time-range of pubilc cars, and even less so in range of public vans.

Though no one but statistics and an overwhelming difference in firepower is going to actually stop you from completing one such mission, you can consider it a moderately-manageable victory to kill an ayylmao, grab it and its equipment and GTFO with the loot. It's been a while since I've played, but I seem to recall something with the early alien autopsy allowing you an early unlock of a facility that adds 5 more lab slots to your base, doubling your research speed earlier than you would do otherwise.

[Starving Poet]

Early game UFOs are very very hard to accomplish - like others have said, you can ignore them even if they land in range of the car.

Mister is 100% correct, the only 'objective' you should have for the first ufos is to get a single corpse and drag it home.   I have a save with a landed large scout I'm seeing if I can finish with a normal car and starting weapons and I still haven't been successful even knowing their starting positions due to the discrepancies in firepower, enemy numbers, starting stats, and readiness.   It's a fun side challenge, but not one I would even consider in a real game.

Think of it as a little tutorial on knowing when to leave - like how the Firaxcom tutorials kill half your team by design.

[magitsu]

I got lucky rng to be able to test this in my first 1.0 game.

12 Feb 1997 - Landed Ufo-1, a small ufo landed in Northern Scotland, my base is at Bulgarian/Romanian coast.

I had gotten 2x AK-47 with 4 clips from a previous raid (1-3 missions before this one). So I thought why not try.

Turns out that "the very best there is" according to Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown can work also on Sectoids with flickering shields. You need 2 crits at a minimum, usually 3 hits.
The hardest thing is not to get one-shot with return fire. Not to mention the dire straits trying to recover that loot since they might stick closer to the ufo/friends than you'd like.

You also need blessed rng in maps. Plains day map would be impossible for ambushing. I got a evening cityscape which allowed hiding inside buildings/popping in and out.

My haul was 2x Plasma Rifle, 3x clips, 1x Mind Probe, 1 Alien Grenade, 2x Sectoid corpses.
Now I'm wondering whether I ruined the learning/test campaign Perhaps I should at least test which if any things those single items actually give or am I still heavily locked out by dependencies. Any advice on which way to proceed to test how fast I could utilize any of them?

Here's the save if you want to bash your head against the same wall (difficulty 3):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ifjvwoXJmn4g-hky9VjrFP1OJWo9hHxl

(https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PEA0dNxSRmIvwV789MxBTkVp0wNwPz7O - ready to evac)

I think it would've been wise to settle for just one corpse. Morale/readiness spiral is crazy, which made the last challenge about having both of your troops TUs to run for the exit on the same turn. That took several turns, clearly the hardest hurdle. Evac at 1 corpse and if it hadn't drop almost right next to the ufo (very far) would've been much easier.

Technically doable, but realistically not without forcing near ideal conditions.
For early heroics the storyline of hammer vs. armored car is a more appealing (and repeatable btw campaigns) story of growth.

edit: Took another pass, it's much easier with melee cqb. 4 S killed. 2 with Axe, 2 with AK. Loot 1 ps, 3 nav, 39 aa, 50 e-115, 4x pl rifle, 8x clip, 1 alien gr, 1 mindprobe, 1 multitool. 2.06M worth/201 points.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=19I7qTpKy2sQYHrNUAMFHesicXIRkT_Ex

[Arcalane]

Well, I gotta give you props for pulling that off if nothing else! I don't think you'll be able to use the plasma weapons for a long time, so you can either hold onto them or sell them off for a quick cash injection. Alternately sell off all but one. By the time you're able to use them you should have plenty more.

The UFO components, alloys, etc. will all be well worth hanging onto though. You should be able to make use of the alloys relatively soon to make tritanium armour (which is great against 99% of ballistic/man-made weapons) or tritanium ammo (which is basically standard ammo but a little stronger). The multitool is probably the nicest find there though as it's fairly important in the research path.

You can hit Q on the geoscape to bring up a tech tree viewer with a search function - up to you if you want to use it or not. It can be quite spoiler-y in some respects.