Alien Pod Mechanics (LWR)

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Alien Pods

Pod Composition

Pods are comprised of one pod leader (who can be upgraded into an Alien Leader and gain several perks and stats) and several regular troopers whose type is often related to the leader (also called followers, who can also be upgraded into Alien Leaders from AL6 onwards).

Pod composition is dependent upon the leader, with leaders tending to contain supporting troopers of the same or lesser type. For instance, Mechtoid pods tend to contain several Sectoids, whose Mind Merge ability can empower the Mechtoid with a powerful Psi Shield, while Cyberdisc pods tend to contain Drones which focus on repairing damage dealt to the Cyberdisc; conversely, pods led by Sectoids often contain units of the same type as the leader. The quantity of aliens in a pod is dependent upon overall Alien Level as well as the total number of aliens on mission; pods are rolled randomly and random numbers of aliens are added to said pods until all available units have been assigned.

Pod Behaviour

All pods begin not activated, that is, aliens move or stay together and don't attempt to take cover or shoot XCOM soldiers (though they may shoot civilians, if any). An exception is drop-in pods, arriving during a mission, which activate immediately upon arrival if they see any XCOM soldier, but may activate or not, randomly, otherwise. Activation can't ever be undone, even if line of sight to XCOM soldiers is completely broken. XCOM is aware of every activation, with a close-up scene playing, even if none of the pod aliens are seen by soldiers. Upon activation, a pod scampers, which may cause chain activation of other pods in the area.

A pod activates immediately if and only if any of its members at any point in time: sees an XCOM soldier (but the reverse visibility doesn't matter) or sees another pod that just got activated this way, is significantly affected by anybody (direct hit, explosive damage including friendly fire, suppression, holo, etc., but not battle scanner), is shot at and missed. A pod activates at the end of the alien's turn if any of its members sees another activated alien or notices a corpse of an alien killed during the mission. Note that unactivated pods are not activated by aliens calling for help nor by bumping into other unactivated pods.

While members of an activated pod do not coordinate among themselves any better than disparate aliens from different pods would, there is one significant mechanic which is pod-dependent: retreat mode. If a large portion of aliens of a given pod are destroyed (usually all but 1-3, depending on the original size), the surviving members of the pod will begin to fall back, retreating out of sight of XCOM and toward good cover or other, unactivated pods. The aliens will remain in retreat mode at least until they can see XCOM again, though destroying more units from the pod is sufficient to resume the retreat. Aliens entering into retreat mode will be identified by visual and auditory cues; the camera will pan toward the alien shouting or talking, and one of your soldiers will mention that they're falling back. Note that retreating aliens never call for help, but they activate any pods they run into all the same, see chain activation.

Conversely, if XCOM is pushed back and out of sight of the aliens, they'll call for reinforcements to hunt XCOM soldiers down. In general, if active aliens exist on the map, aren't in retreat mode, and none of them has any XCOM operatives in sight range at the end of the aliens turn, they'll call all unactivated pods on the map (aside from the Command Pod, if any) to help them hunt down XCOM. Each unactivated pod will begin moving toward XCOMs current location inexorably, will activate at some point in a normal way and attack the soldiers, and short of retreating or being wiped out, the only possibility left for XCOM is to defeat all such enemies.

Pod Size & Distribution

A single pod can contain any number of aliens between 1 and 8. While increases in pod sizes do not necessarily lead to more aliens on missions, extra aliens rolled that can't fit into any available pod are discarded. This has the largest effect during early Large UFOs, which typically call for way more aliens than can fit in their Small Pods. To partially compensate, missions taking place while pod sizes are small typically get an extra pod or two to work with. Larger pod sizes typically means the same amount of aliens overall, just compacted into less pods.

As well, while most of the time these pod restrictions are followed, various factors can lead pod sizes to vary from the general trend.

The number of aliens on every mission is restricted to between 3 x Num_pods to 8 x Num_pods, and a minimum of 3 aliens.

Pod Types

Pods come in three basic types: Soldier Pods, Terror Pods, and Command Pods. Soldier pods pull from a pool of most aliens and comprise the vast majority of pods encountered on all missions; Terror Pods pull from a slightly different pool. Command Pods only appear in UFOs and have relatively rigid compositions. Lastly, for Covert Operations, Exalt have special mechanics which govern the quantity and size of their pods.

• Soldier Pods: Soldier Pods are the most common type of pod, appearing as the majority pod type in every mission except Terror Sites & Covert Operations.

• Terror Pods: Terror Pods are a special type of pod that only appear in Terror Sites, Large UFOs, Alien Base Assault, and Retaliation missions. They tend to have a greater probability of being higher-mobility aliens, usually spanning Chryssalids and Zombies.

• Command Pods: UFOs additionally have a special pod called the Command Pod which contains a fixed number of aliens based on UFO type. They consist entirely of Outsiders.

• Exalt Pods: While Exalt have a chance to show up when following a Sectoid or Sectoid Commander, they appear most often in Covert Operations. All covert operations include drop ins of lone Exalt operatives who may or may not appear in cover and will overwatch