UFO very very early

[magitsu]

Ok, here's another scenario exactly a week later (19 Feb) in the same campaign, but with the kind of equipment Starving Poet is describing. 2 scrubs, 2x small shotty, 1x colt, 1x glock.
They face 13 sectoids of a Lab Ship in the evening. Third has plasma rifles, third alien laser, one toxigun, two canisters, small launchers.

I was baited by the game to see if it was possible. You start with one of them at point blank range. Shotgun kill or return fire lased.
To my surprise it felt much easier than the previous large scout. I had zero panic cycles against these 13 when those 4 previously kept one of my guys "stunlocked" turn after turn. It's incredible, one of these guys have 10 bravery and another 40! Is one sectoid with a mind probe really harder than these several navigators, medics, soldiers, engineer and a leader?

Since I wanted to see whether the initial equipment challenge is possible instead of whether it's reasonable I had a few save/reloads. Mostly to figure out the inital standoff with a bad loadout.
Colt/glock duels outside vs. laser/plasma rifles was a bit tougher than inside with combat knife/shotty. Hardest part was when one stood in the elevator above, because it needed to get shotgunned down with one shot or you get headshotted.

Try if you like a herculean challenge. 4.4M loot including 1 embryo, 119 alloys, 100 e-115.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dunc3i5rWeO5cN5siOYgv5qJfF95txNR (1st turn)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NTvbsiAhyy7Z80vGz_keJuCrzQ7GgL4D (last)

(if you find the initial challenge rough, try crouching - movement to draw reactions seems to be powerful when you can't guarantee a kill, after these two I also sense that evening might work well for against sectoids in denying their long range advantage)

Ty for the Q tip, I was just using middle mouse. I've played X-piratez before and I'm liking this compared to some of its challenges (I don't like ratman rodeo / pogrom at night, or later on mansion type of missions that last for hours).

[sedygrizly]

Are you sure about that enemy weaponry? Lab ship is ussualy very easy becouse its mostly crewed by medics with small launchers loaded by stun bombs. So ussualy all your crew is knocked out during mission, but you have to keep at least one guy awake at time . Stunned guys wake up after 5-10 turns. But panics is weird... there should be leader at lab ship, and sectoid leader can give you quite a hell of psi attacks.
Scout ships are crewed mostly by soldeirs, thats why it is much tougher. They use plasma guns mostly... far more deadly than any other guns aliens use.

[magitsu]

Are you sure about that enemy weaponry?

Of course, that latter link is a save which wins the mission after you put 2x pistol snaps into the last sectoid.

There were 4x Plasma Rifle, 2x Alien Laser Rifle, 2x Canister Gun, 2x Small Launcher, 1x Plasma Pistol, 1x Toxigun, 1x Plasma Subrifle.
3x Medic, 2x Navigator, 1x Engineer, 1x Leader, rest Soldiers.
I think everyone outside the ufo was a soldier with either plasma rifle or laser rifle. So basically this mission had all the same guys from the previous one plus a whole lot more. The only difference being lack of mind probe. Still I'm a bit mystified how sole navigator with one seemed to outperform 2x navigators, leader etc. It doesn't seem possible that I could've broken line of sight after each turn, especially outside.

[Starving Poet]

Glad it worked - definitely a challenge.  If you can get in close range to the sectoids they do go down easily - but that sectoid leader in the lab ship is totally a wild card.  He can camp and PSI attack you until suffer from a panic spiral or just be a chump and pretend he's a soldier.

[sedygrizly]

Haha, just managed to catch UFO at my new playthrough...at day 8 . Try to beat that lol . Escaped with 1 alive sectan..died ofc becouse no alien prison. Only tasers works so early .

[betatester]

colt 45 works well too. Stun rods don't keep them asleep until the end of the mission (at least with my rookies on 7th January). And yes even at level 2 difficulty the only solution was to rush to close combat stun them then kill them or to kill them straight with colt 45. You can put one of your rookie next to the sectoid and shoot with the other to impede his reaction fire with a strength test. Taking out 6 sectoids with 2 rookies at night (and without flashlights equipped in the first rounds because I didn't know how they work; luckily they were in the car) luckily (or not) the UFO was just next the car. It was painful to chase the 2 outside.

[sedygrizly]

colt 45 works well too. Stun rods don't keep them asleep until the end of the mission (at least with my rookies on 7th January). And yes even at level 2 difficulty the only solution was to rush to close combat stun them then kill them or to kill them straight with colt 45. You can put one of your rookie next to the sectoid and shoot with the other to impede his reaction fire with a strength test. Taking out 6 sectoids with 2 rookies at night (and without flashlights equipped in the first rounds because I didn't know how they work; luckily they were in the car) luckily (or not) the UFO was just next the car. It was painful to chase the 2 outside.

Taser kept him asleep for 2 turns lol.... luckily building was close enough to car. Taking out 6 aliens at night...wow, i had trouble to finish Downed UFO at night, like 8 aliens and 15 allies. You must be very patient .
I hoped i made some record, but you beat me by day .

[Bananas_Akimbo]

I got extremely lucky with one of those in my new game.
Two almost-rookies with starting equipment. I intended to just grab one sectoid corpse and his stuff but I just couldn't do the pickup safely without killing most other enemies too and then I just killed them all in the end

The car was parked just in front of a large scout and all but one sectoid spawned either inside or behind the ship. So I had effective cover right from the start. My dudes seemed quite strong against psi, too. Only a single panic attack. Aliens were armed with mostly canister guns and plasma rifles. Most importantly, they had no pistols, so I didn't get much reaction fire. That means I could weaken them (somewhat) safely with snap pistol shots and retreat back to cover, then rush in with shotguns the next round (melee skill was too low). I lost a a guy near the end, when a point blank shotgun blast didn't kill.

That mission made me filthy rich (well, about 1.5 million was a lot of money then). Most importantly, lots of alloys, which I will soon be able to research.


I received a downed UFO mission mission later on and it was much harder even though on paper it should have been far easier.
Just 3 or 4 living enemies, lots of government soldiers fighting on my side and my two trained agents armed with assault rifles this time (unfortunately still no grenades). Sounds good? But it was a nightmare.
The allied soldiers took out an enemy despite their ineptitude, but what they mostly did was to draw lots and lots of enemy fire. This resulted in the map being covered in smoke, which didn't hamper the sectoids at all but it totally ruined my plan of sniping from a safe distance, while the grunts take the heat. So I had to get close, which I wasn't equipped for.
Compared to pistols, rifle snap shots are inaccurate and most importantly in this case, they cost more TUs. The alien's reaction fire was triggered and I had a very bad day.


So, a valuable lesson was learned:
In early missions against sectoids bring pistols, preferably colts, even if you have 'better' equipment available. Shotguns are also useful, but only if you can be assured, that they won't be able to fire back (take out shields first).