UFOpaedia - User contributions [en]

User talk:Zombie

2025-08-31T23:52:52Z

Xuncu:

== Ping ponging with PNGS==

Zombie, while you're replacing some of the jpegs with higher quality png's, might I recommend using an optimizer to crush the file size down? Ken Silverman's [http://advsys.net/ken/utils.htm PNGOUT] is one compressor that I've been using (as it has an irfanview plugin). Takes a moment to compress each image, but it does shave off some kb's on larger images. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:11, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

:Sure, I ran a few of my HQs through just now and it averages a 80% drop in file size. It's slow going though doing them all one by one in a directory. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:38, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

:Just uploaded PNGGauntlet (a front end for pngout) to StrategyCore's files section [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=754 here]. The nice thing about it is that it is windows-based and allows drag-'n-drop. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:53, 25 October 2009 (EDT)

----

Here is a recent discussion from the main page about images. Instead of deleting it, I decided to add it to my talk page. Conclusion reached was that PNG's are the preferred image choice for the wiki as most X-COM screenshots are well-suited to this format and are smaller than a GIF. JPEG's should only be considered for pictures as the quality sucks. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 13:45, 25 June 2006 (PDT)

== Image Types ==
I was fooling around with images today and decided I should show everyone what an image looks like in a particular format. Just for this example, I used the Level 0 view of the Small Scout. Here are the images (don't peek, just look at them and try to figure out which is which for now):

<center>[[Image:Scout GIF.GIF|GIF image]] [[Image:Scout PNG.PNG|PNG image]] [[Image:Scout JPEG.JPG|JPEG image]]</center>

From what I can tell, the image quality of a GIF and a PNG is minimal. Both look very good. The PNG image seems a tad bit lighter over the GIF, though. Not bad. But compare either a GIF or a PNG with a JPEG and there is a huge difference. The JPEG has "artifacts" strewn all over the place and has a "mottled" appearance. Ugh! Terrible! That's all for the image quality aspect. (So does anyone know the technical difference between a GIF and a PNG? Please explain.)

Let's move on to size. The GIF image is usually the largest in size. In this case the GIF image of the Scout example is 7897 bytes. The JPEG is 6784 bytes (or 86% of the GIF) while the PNG is 6090 bytes (or 77% of the GIF).

Finally, compare size against image quality. PNG wins hands down. Not only is it smaller in size, but it also has an image quality equaling that of a GIF. JPEGs are smaller than a GIF but the image quality sucks. Granted, in some instances a JPEG is fine (especially if the background is a dark color), but in all the comparisons I did they were bad.

So, have you figured out what is what? The first image is a GIF, the second is a PNG and the third is a JPEG.

I implore everyone to consider uploading either a GIF or a PNG image type over a JPEG. The quality is better in those formats. If you have a choice, PNG is better because of the size on disc. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 19:40, 11 June 2006 (PDT)

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The most important difference between PNG and GIF is GIFs can only use 256 colors. I think most graphics from Enemy Unknown are in 8-bit color, so it doesn't cause a problem, but if you ever converted a normal photo to GIF, it'd look horrendous. PNGs can handle "truecolor" (24-bit), and as you said, they tend to compress better too.

JPGs can have different "quality settings" which reduce the artifacts but increase file size. JPG tends to compress photos better than PNG, but PNG is great for non-natural images, such as cartoons or computer graphics. For graphics pulled from X-COM, PNG is probably best.

--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 21:43, 11 June 2006 (PDT)

----

PNG's can vary in size depending on the size of the palette used. A standard 256 colour image would allow PNGs to be more or less the same if not better than GIFs. 'True Colour' PNGs are generally abominations.

For more information on the PNG format: [http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ Portable Network Graphics ]

GIF and PNG provide lossless compression while Jpeg's offer lossy compression. GIF and PNGs are best used when the image is generally small and contains a limited number of colours. X-Com screenshots fit this bill perfectly.

Jpegs tend to lose image accuracy every time you save the image and it gets worse the higher you set the compression. However, that said, Jpegs are best used when your image is full of colour and minor losses in image quality will not matter.

For example, the above pictures are best done with GIF/PNGs (especially if you intend to include transparent pixels). However if you had a cut out shot of the action in the battlescape, it probably wouldn't matter too much if it were saved as a Jpeg.

Now if you want an image with transparency pixels, you will most definitely pick GIF and PNG. I actually hadn't realised the PNG format allowed tranparencies, but it does.

Just use what's best for the occasion.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

----

''In Which an Uneccessary Discussion of Formats Ensues''

PNG's not only do transparency, but they are capable of doing alpha channel-- that is, partial transparency. A GIF can only do normal colors (completely opaque) or complete transparency. PNG's can do all this, as well as allowing color that are partially transparent (say, a red tint with the background showing through).

I put this in mostly to hear myself talk. There are two limitations to these neato PNG effects:
* For X-Com screen shots, it's not needed-- X-Com 1 and 2 never did such fancy tricks.
* Alpha channel PNG's are, last I checked, not supported by Internet Explorer-- IE will let PNG's mimmick GIF-style transparency (that is, an 8-bit palette with all-or-nothing transparency), but nothing more sophisticated. Firefox and the Mozilla-derived browsers can do them (including Safari, I think), but it's not much good when most of the traffic is still using IE. Yes, I'm bitter about this.

PNG's are in every respect superior to GIF's. In matters of compatibility and filesize, the PNG can be set to work just as well or better than GIF). The only reason you use GIFs is to cater to people with seriously archaic browsers. Widespread PNG support has been around for several years now.

[http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/ PNG transparency test]

''Edit: IE7 does complete support for PNG alpha, but of course it's still in beta testing. Even when it's out of beta, sensible web designers will have to wait until the majority of users switch over to it to start designing with it in mind.''

--[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 20:36, 14 June 2006 (PDT)

--------

GIF was originally made waaaay back in the late 80's. The format recieved an update around 1990, but has not been upgraded since. (Although Microsoft Paint will save lossy GIFs, I don't think this is an attempt to restandardise the format).

Later JPG came along, which really made high color images practical because it compressed so well. That compression came at a cost, however - quality is lost when you save a JPG file, <i>no matter how high you set the quality</i>.

PNG was designed with the intention of replacing GIF. A lot of people started using it once the original GIF copyright ran out - It was re-registered by a company who demanded royalties for anyone who used the format! (Which would only have affected you if you lived in America - of course.)

Although I gather that bit of patent madness has been overthrown, returning GIF to the populance at large, a lot of people still use PNG when possible. JPG files still yield better compression when images have a lot of color depth, however, PNG files do not lose color information, so it's the best format to use whenever quality is important.

I'm not sure if PNG supports multiple images in the one file, however. We've all seen animating GIFs, but I'm sure I've never seen an animating PNG.

One feature I've always wanted added to web browsers is the ability for HTML to referrence individual images loaded into GIF files. That way, you could put all the images into one file, as opposed to lots of little ones. This would improve page load times no end. One example where this would be useful is your average forum skin.

- [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

One attempt to animate PNG is MNG. However, development on that appears to have stopped in late 2004 when Mozilla abandoned the format (only one implementation, so hard to catch bugs in the specification).

Regarding PNG transparency/IE5,6: I don't think this is completely portably solvable in MediaWiki. Even if (contrary to what I would expect; need to check documentation for other reasons) JavaScript was enabled in MediaWiki, the general solution is to use that JavaScript to define whether to use HTML-standard, or IE extensions that do render PNG transparency. I haven't tested how to do this with inline images [img tag], but it should be possible to do this inline. Background images require using the JavaScript to define a CSS class, which should be done in the head tag: disallowed.

EDIT: MediaWiki Technical FAQ intimates that JavaScript should be stripped. So, cross-browser PNG transparency not possible by legitimate design for security.

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 11:49, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

I just started a discussion on the main page about this--people are still adding nasty JPGs to the wiki, and I thought we should add a notice somewhere obvious. [[User:Phasma Felis|Phasma Felis]] 10:57, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Super-old, but wanted to chime in in case you or anyone is curious on some technical details:
* .gif is, basically, the image format that early game developers would want their sprites saved as: the file information only holds the colors used in the picture, so it's great for images with a limited palette of swatches with common colors (ie; game sprites), as gifs are limited to a 256 color swatch limit in a 24-bit RGB pallette. Like any screenshot tool from a game emulator that's for the 16-bit era and earlier might save as .gif, and the file will only be like 20-50kb max. Find any gaming site like ''Spriter's Resource'' or a sprite-based webcomic like ''Bob & George'', you'll typically see gif or png. Even ''Shovel Knight'' screenshots might not exceed 50kb, and 15-second animated clips might not even break a megabyte.
* .png is a fatty of a file format, designed to be a loss-less rasterized format. Anyone's got Photoshop, 'rasterizing' a vector line prolly gets what this means: it saves a lot more information, so it's good for artists and, say, the Enemy Within/XCOM2 screenshots. However, it saves every bit on information as a rasterization, hence why the files are typically much larger.
* .jpg - putting compression as a priority, it often blends or degrades images in order to save space. That weird speckling and duller colors often result.
* .bmp - Hell no.
Lastly: depending on the era and the game's artist, some sprites were actually *designed* for CRT, vs the LCD monitors that we use nowadays. The idea was that using the 'gaussian blur' natural to CRT pixels blends the colors in a way that makes for smooth transitional tones. Or at the very least: it's a guarantee the art was at least *made* on a CRT. Here's an in-depth video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sxKJeYSBmI
--[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] ([[User talk:Xuncu|talk]]) 07:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC), updated 2025

----

Zombie: Just so you know, armor for aliens is only one of two values. In Beginner, it's 50% the base armor score listed in the game files; in Experienced/Veteran/Genius/Superhuman, the armor rating for aliens is the base listing. This is also why [[Chryssalid]]s spawned from Zombies are actually MORE dangerous than mission-spawn Chryssalids in Beginner mode, because the Zombie-spawned critters have twice as much armor! (In all other difficulties, Zombie spawned Chryssies are weaker; the armor is the same, but they don't get the above 100% modifiers for their other stats, like TUs, Stamina, Psi Strength, etc.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 00:43, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:Why do you mention this? I of all people should know about [[Alien Stats]]. Ahem. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:02, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

I thought you did, but your comment to the Stun Rod page about "Veteran-Superhuman" Sectopods kinda threw some doubt on it; so I figured that it was better safe then sorry. Guess I jumped the gun, apologies. (Also, I need to try that "Aliens Own Earth" thing.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 01:04, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:Sorry, it was a mistype. Experienced it is. :D --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:09, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

Sorry for jumping on you like that. >_> [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 01:17, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:I probably deserved a good beating for a rookie mistake like that. If you catch me doing strange stuff, feel free to edit. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:28, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

== New Milestone. ==

With my previous edit, I now have 2,000 contributions to the Wiki. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 22:25, 20 December 2008 (CST)

:A little over twice as many as me! (This'll be edit 1010). Incidentally, looking at your recent record, it seems you've had a few days off. Busy Zombie, you definitely don't sleep. Wanna leave some editing for the rest of us? ;) All you need to do is ask...or point. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 23:34, 20 December 2008 (CST)

:: Do we get a counter? Never noticed that before. One thing about the millions of recent edits: Some of the older and probably less visited articles are brought to the surface again. Some of them are long overdue a bit of preening and pruning. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:42, 21 December 2008 (CST)

I didn't realize there was a counter till the last upgrade to the wiki software. If you go to My Preferences and look at your user profile it'll say how many edits you have under your screen name and ID#. @AQ: Yeah, I had a couple days off in the last week due to finals and a heavy snowfall which basically stopped everything. All I've been doing here recently is updating the pages to reflect the nomenclature in-game. Maintaining this consistency is necessary for people trying to find something in a hurry. And my work ethic has always been that if I want something done, I might as well do it myself. With an aging mind, it better to get stuff done while it's still fresh in my memory too. Don't worry, there's still plenty to do around here. There are a lot of articles floating around with little to no text, which need a spell checking, or even a rewrite. TFTD in particular needs some attention. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 16:35, 21 December 2008 (CST)

:I got that same snowfall, still being only a few hours north, and yeah, we got shut down too. :) As for TFTD, I know it needs attention, but I've never been able to get TFTD to run half-decently. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 16:49, 21 December 2008 (CST)

And now I'm up to 3000+ edits. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:01, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

== The New Templates. ==
Hey Zombie, great job on these new templates, and now we even have a stub template! If possible could we get a template about adding more pictures? If so, thanks! If not, oh well, it wasn't the biggest deal here yet. It would be nice if we did have pictures for every page though. [[User:Muton commander|Muton commander]] 19:35, 8 January 2009 (CST)

:Thanks, the stub template already existed, I just reused it to create pages which needed something in them. The reason for the other templates is to aid in navigation and also cut down on the number of orphaned and dead-end pages (currently 7 and 60 respectively). Eventually I'd like those numbers to be as close to 0 as possible. Anyway, I created a stub picture template out of some of our other table templates. All you need to do is put <nowiki>{{PicStub}}</nowiki> in a page and it'll show up to the right side of the screen. If there isn't much text in the article, you may want to put a clearing break ( <nowiki><br clear="all"></nowiki> ) after it to keep the template from continuing into the "See Also" heading, for example. Other than that, it's pretty simple to use. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 23:10, 8 January 2009 (CST)

== Site database problems? ==

Hi Zombie

Some weird stuff going on with the site I think. I got an email saying you posted an Update to Talk:Incendiary, but when I view the page there is nothing there, nothing on the history/diff since Jasonred's post about 8 hrs ago.

I'd been noticing a lot of slowness with the Special:Recent Changes page and wondered if the database needs maintenance. But then I put it down to my flaky internet connection. Now I'm not so sure.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 17:05, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

:Yeah, I posted an update to the Incendiary talk page, but now it's gone. Ah well. Anyway, as you may know, StrategyCore is hosting UfOpaedia now. Pete (the admin and owner of StrategyCore) switched hosts for SC about a week ago and mentioned this wiki would also have to be moved to the new location. I asked him to kindly give me a heads up of at least 24hrs so that I could mention it here. Well, this morning I briefly saw a message saying something like the site is down for maintenance and should be up again on the 14th (I think that's what it said at least). I know Pete was talking about putting a message up so I figured he just shut the site down and moved it to the new host. Have no idea if that actually happened as he hasn't contacted me at all. Might have been a dry run, but since my post disappeared I'm thinking we are on the new hosts server. I'll try and send him an email to confirm what is going on. Looks like everything is showing up in the Recent Changes now, so the worst is probably over. One contribution missing by me is a small price to pay. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 18:44, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm still unable to post to Talk:Incendiary, I get a 500 Server error. I've tried rebooting my computer, using IE instead of Mozilla, logging out and in from the Wiki, no joy. I seem to be ok to post to other pages, but maybe that's a coincidence. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 07:59, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I also have email alerts for another update that is not visible on the wiki, suggesting the database is still in flux:
*Talk:Firing_Accuracy_Testing by Bomb Bloke at 02:05 GMT, 03:05 system time (10 hrs ago - the server must be on British Summer Time)
[[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:08, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

:The talk page for Incendiary is 40kb long (huge), so maybe we should cut some of it back. That may be what is causing the problem, especially if you are attempting to add long rambling posts to it. The email thing is probably a delayed reaction after the move. The site probably generated the emails before the move, then were unable to be sent out. When we moved over and everything was running again, it probably sent those emails out, even though the id code for the contribution didn't exist anymore. That's my guess. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 11:17, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

::That sounds right, I was trying to add a lot of text. Should be ok to clean up the older part of the discussion. I will do that if I get time. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:13, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

The server change must've occurred just before I went to bed last night. Thought I'd give the recents a scan and was rather dismayed to see a whole day's worth of edits just go. Spent some time reinstating the few of mine that I could remember. This morning those edits were gone and the old ones were back. Strange experience indeed. Shame to see some of the new material that was added during the "lost" day that we just lost again - didn't get round to reviewing it. Oh well. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:01, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

----

Shame indeed. In hindsight, and in future, during maintenance can we put a big notice on the home page so that people can wait to post until after the maintenance is done? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 01:45, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

:Well, there was a message telling people the site was having maintenance done. The only problem was that it only was up for 5 min at most. Supposedly Pete had put some locks down to prevent people from posting but those didn't work for some reason either. In addition, I never received a message from him telling me the move was happening, otherwise I would have plastered a big "Do Not Post Today" banner across he front page. So it was a "Perfect Storm" of unfortunate incidents which led to this. I made it perfectly clear to Pete that issues like this CANNOT happen ever again. I don't like to see stuff like this and I'm sure most of you feel the same way. On the positive side, this is the last server/host move we'll be making for a long time. At least I hope so, as this move was a total disaster in my book. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 02:08, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

==Welcome back!==

There's a name I haven't seen in a long, long time. I thought you'd gotten out of the game. Glad to see that isn't the case. :) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] ([[User talk:Arrow Quivershaft|talk]]) 22:33, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
: Yep. I concur! Nice to see you here! #OldXCommersNeverDie --[[User:IvanDogovich|IvanDogovich]] ([[User talk:IvanDogovich|talk]]) 23:08, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
I was surprised too. Pleasantly. You know more about the guts of X-Com than anyone besides the Gollops, methinks, and it's been like a dark age without you around. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] ([[User talk:Magic9mushroom|talk]]) 04:01, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
:Thanks guys! I haven't given up on X-COM, it's my favorite game of all time! To be honest, I haven't contributed here for a number of reasons, primarily because I felt like an old relic now that XCOM/XCOM2 came out and also because my mother died late last year. I either couldn't contribute anything new or didn't feel up to it. I began to realize though that there is still work to be done in the X-COM area and that I could be of assistance. Hehe. So yeah, for a while there I just lurked. As always though, you can find me at StrategyCore. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] ([[User talk:Zombie|talk]]) 02:55, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Annette Durand (EU2012)

2021-04-27T08:07:21Z

Xuncu: /* See Also */

[[File:Annette (EU2012).png|thumb|Annette Durand|left]][[File:Annette alternate face.png|thumb|Annette Durand|right]][[File:Dramatic shot of Annette.png|thumb|Annette breaks free|right]][[File:Annette Ingame.png|thumb|Ingame model|right]]'''Annette Durand''' is a unique French [[Soldiers (EU2012)|soldier]] of [[XCOM_(EU2012)|XCOM]], recruited after completing the second of three [[Progeny (EU2012)|Progeny]] missions. Her voice is not available to any other units, and she can only be partially customized and is the only soldier which isn't assigned a nickname.

Initially a French civilian under the protection of her country's military, she is [[Portent (EU2012)|captured]] by [[EXALT (EU2012)|EXALT]] after an assault on a convoy carrying her and given to the [[Alien Life Forms (EU2012)|Aliens]] who discover her latent [[Psionic (EU2012)|Psionic]] powers and use them to assault the [[XCOM Base Defense (EU2012)|XCOM HQ]] through mass mind control. Afterwards EXALT changes their attitude and mounts an assault on the aliens to recover her for their own proposes, later resulting in her [[Deluge (EU2012)|rescue]] by XCOM operatives. Convinced that XCOM is capable of stopping the alien menace Annette then joins XCOM as a random [[Classes (EU2012)|class]] soldier [[Soldiers_(EU2012)#Ranks|ranked]] at Sergeant.

Although Annette is slightly weaker than the average soldier due to her non-military background and training, she will test positive for Psionic powers. However, she is expendable and can be killed in battle after recruitment. That being said, because of her already insanely high starting Will, if you have the Iron Will OTS upgrade, Annette is capable of achieving an obscenely high Will stat, easily getting over 100 without the aid of [[Psi Armor (EU2012)|Psi Armor]] or [[Mind Shield (EU2012)|Mind Shields]].

Due to her lack of combat experience, her spoken lines during tactical missions will show a certain uneasiness with combat situations, along with a peculiar French accent.

After joining XCOM as a Sergeant, Annette will have the following stats:
* HP: 5 (Equal to -2HP Easy / -1HP Normal / +0HP Classic / +1HP Impossible for Sniper, otherwise -3HP Easy / -2HP Normal / -1HP Classic / +0HP Impossible for all other classes)
* Defense: 0
* Will: 80 (Significantly higher, even with Iron Will OTS upgrade, ignoring Second Wave options)
* Aim: 70 (Moderately lower for all classes except Heavy & MEC Trooper)
You will be able to customize her abilities as you see fit.

Since Annette is guaranteed to be Psi gifted, test her after you have finished testing your core soldiers - the chances of your normal soldiers testing positive will be reduced by already having Annette as a psionic, while Annette's chances are 100% regardless of how many psionics you've already found.

==See Also==
* [[Progeny (EU2012)|Progeny]]
* [[Anna_Sing_(EU2012)|Anna Sing]] - a unique civilian rescue in the base game, removed from the EW expansion, and whom likely was some conceptual basis for Annette.
<br>
{{XCOM Units (EU2012)}}

[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Enemy Within DLC (EU2012)]]
[[Category: Progeny (EU2012)]]
[[Category: Characters (EU2012)]]
[[Category: Soldiers (EU2012)]]

Anna Sing (EU2012)

2021-04-27T07:44:28Z

Xuncu:

Anna Sing is an escaped abductee who XCOM is sent to [[Extraction (EU2012)|rescue]] from [[Boulevard (EU2012)|Boulevard Road]] in order to find out how she escaped and what the [[Alien Life Forms (EU2012)|Aliens]] want with the Abductees.

As her and her mission were removed from the Enemy Within expansion, the similar first name, and the method of their recovery: it is evident Anna is the conceptual basis for [[Annette_Durand_(EU2012)|Annette]] and her story line.

{{Ref Open | title = Anna Sing}}[[Image:Anna Sing (EU2012).png|right|200px|Anna Sing]]
"You're looking for an Anna Sing, the only person known to have escaped from alien captivity. Our mission is to locate her somewhere on that block and get her out of there."
{{Ref Close | source = XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012)}}

==Anna Sing's Quotes==
*"You have to help me! There's, there's just so many of them. They're... everywhere! We have to get out of here!!"
*"Help me! Over here!
*"Over here! I'm here!"
*"Where are you?! Help!"
*"Why did the aliens even come after me? What makes me so special?"
*"I dunno who you are, but I'd probably be dead right now if you hadn't shown up."
*"Those...things...they had so many bodies in there ...I just don't understand it!"
*"Thank god you found me! I would have ended up just like...all the...others."
*"Nooo! I won't go back! Why did this happen!? No! Stay away from me!"
*"Thank you! Oh my god, thank you so much!"

[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category:Characters (EU2012)]]

Sectoid

2019-12-14T08:07:52Z

Xuncu: /* Other references */ - finally found sprites of the LS origionals!

{{EU2012Version}}
{{BureauVersion}}

'''In other languages: [[섹토이드|한국어]].'''

{{Ref Open | title = Sectoid}}[[Image:sectoid.png|right|Sectoid]]
The Sectoid hierarchy ranges from soldiers to leaders with powerful [[Psionics|psionic abilities]]. These psionic powers can be used to demoralise soldiers in combat, or even take control of their minds.

They tend to indulge in human abductions and cattle mutilation. The abduction is used to extract genetic material for cross breeding and developing clones for infiltrating human society. The cattle provide both nutrition and genetic material.

This race appears to want to develop superior genetic hybrids to increase the efficiency of their hive-like society.
{{Ref Close | source = UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown Ufopaedia}}

Sectoids look like the stereotypical alien abductor - skinny, grey and with big black eyes.

Sectoids are usually the first alien species a Commander will come across. They are lightly armoured and will usually go down after taking one or two direct hits with standard Earth pistols and rifles.

Though weak, high ranking sectoids such as the Leaders and Commanders have the ability to use [[psionics]] to mentally attack and disrupt the activities of [[X-COM]] squads. Just one Sectoid with psi powers can be a deadly threat to even the toughest of squads if there are any weak links in their mental defences.

This race is often involved in [[Terror Mission|terror attacks]] and is supported in these endeavours by the [[Cyberdisc]].

Capturing a Sectoid Leader or Commander will allow R&D to further their research into the field of [[psionics]]. An [[Ethereal]] of any rank will also allow this.

==Statistics==

{{Ref Open | title = Sectoid Autopsy}}[[Image:sectoidautopsy.png|right|Sectoid Autopsy]]
The autopsy reveals vestigial digestive organs and a simple structure. The brain and eyes are very well developed. The structure suggests genetic alteration or mutation.<br><br>The small mouth and nose appear to have little function. The webbing between the fingers and the flat feet suggest aquatic origins.<br><br>There are no reproductive organs and no clues as to how this species can reproduce. They are most probably a genetically engineered species.
{{Ref Close | source = UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown Ufopaedia}}

{{Unit Stat Wrapper Open | title = Sectoid }}

{| border = 0
|- valign = "top"
|

{{Unit Stat Box |=
| time_units = 54-62
| health = 30
| energy = 90-104
| reactions = 63-78
| strength =30-32
| bravery = 80
| firing_accuracy = 26-64
| throwing_accuracy = 58
| close_combat_accuracy = 76
| psi_skill = 40-58
| psi_strength = 50-69
}}

|

{{Unit Stat Box 2|=
| armour_front = 2-4
| armour_sides = 1-3
| armour_rear = 1-2
| armour_under = 1-2
| energy_recovery = 30
| victory_points = 10-25
| aggression = 0-2
| intelligence = 3-8
| height_standing = 16
| height_kneeling = 12
}}

|
{| {{StdTable}}
|- {{StdDescTable Heading}}
| colspan ="2"|Valid Ranks
|-
| Soldier
| Yes
|-
| Navigator
| Yes
|-
| Medic
| Yes
|-
| Engineer
| Yes
|-
| Leader
| Yes
|-
| Commander
| Yes
|-
| Terrorist
| -
|}

|}

{| {{StdTable}}
|- {{StdDescTable Heading}}
! colspan ="8"|Damage
|- {{StdTable Sub Heading}}
|AP
|In
|HE
|Laser
|Plasma
|Stun
|Melee
|Acid Spit
|- align = "center"
|100%
|100%
|100%
|100%
|100%
|100%
|120%
|160%
|}

{{Appearance Box
|50.00%
|50.00%
|26.66..%
|15.00%
|26.66..%}}

{{Unit Stat Wrapper Close}}

==Other references==
* Sectoids firstly appeared on [[wikipedia:Laser Squad|Laser Squad]], the predecessor to UFO Defense, on mission 5 'Paradise Valley', where they are mentioned as "A sentient race known as the Sectoids tend to collect and store weaponry taken from humans unfortunate enough to meet them, and they have the ability to use these weapons as well." Visible [https://www.androidarts.com/xcom/ls1-7_rip_clean_reordered2.gif| here] on the lower-right of this sprite rip, the original Sectoids may possibly be the inspiration of the otherwise unseen buglike creature in the [https://www.mobygames.com/game/x-com-ufo-defense/cover-art/gameCoverId,447128/| European boxart].

==See also==
{{Aliens Navbar}}
[[Category:Alien Life Forms]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Air Combat (EU2012)

2016-11-07T07:56:31Z

Xuncu: /* Interception Tactics */

==Air Combat Mechanic==
===UFO Detection===
[[UFOs (EU2012)|UFOs]] can only be engaged after they are detected by [[Satellite (EU2012)|satellites]] and these will never detect UFOs on [[Alien Abductions (EU2012)|Abductions]] or [[Alien Terror (EU2012)|Terror]] missions.
There can be two UFOs each month, with the second UFO having a 50% or 100% chance of being generated, depending on the number of missions - see [[Missions (EU2012)#UFOs|Missions (UFOs)]]. UFOs will be detected either flying or landed - see [[UFOs (EU2012)#UFO Missions|UFO Missions]] for details.

===Dogfight Minigame===
Once the Interceptor has been launched, you will watch it chase the UFO on the world map until it catches up, at which point you will enter the dogfight minigame interface.

[[File:InterceptionEX.jpg|450px|thumb|right|A Raven intercepts an Alien Supply Barge UFO. The Raven has taken about 20% damage and has Aim and Dodge modules active, indicated by the highlighting.]]

Key:
# Time to loss of contact. If this reaches 0, the UFO will escape the Interceptor and will have to be re-engaged with another interceptor, if one is available.
# The Interception craft.
# The UFO. With practice you can learn to identify different UFO types in this interface.
# Damage meter. When hit, this fills from the bottom. If this turns all red, the Interceptor is destroyed. You'll get a warning from the pilot at about 75% damage accumulated.
# Abort Interception. Break off the interception and return to base. Useful if the Interception craft is getting pounded.
# Engage [[UFO_Tracking_(Boost)_(EU2012)|UFO Tracking module]], if one is available. Freezes Loss of Contact clock for five seconds, and decreases approach time for close range weapons.
# Engage [[Uplink_Targeting_(EU2012)|Uplink Targeting module]], if one is available. Guarantees next two attacks from Interceptor hit UFO.
# Engage [[Defense_Matrix_(EU2012)|Defensive Matrix module]], if one is available. Allows Interceptor to dodge next two attacks from the UFO that would otherwise hit.

===After Action Report===
After the minigame ends, you will receive an Interception After Action Report. This will summarize the results of the interception. This is divided into three categories.

*Result: This states whether the UFO escaped pursuit, was shot down, or the interception was aborted.
*Crash: If the UFO was shot down, this will indicate that crew was seen moving at the crash site, allowing a Crash Recovery mission.
*Interceptor: This indicates what happened to your interceptor. It can receive NO damage, LIGHT damage (1-33%), HEAVY damage (33-66%), SEVERE damage(66-99%) or have been shot down altogether.

===Multiple Craft Interception===
Unlike the original XCOM, you cannot use multiple craft to simultaneously attack a single UFO. Instead, multiple craft serve as sequential opportunities to shoot down the UFO, with each aircraft being deployed one after another to attack the UFO.

If the 1st interceptor fails to shoot down the UFO, you can still launch more craft to try to shoot it down. However, after the 1st attempt the UFO will immediately try to escape and success in posterior attempts will depend on your craft and the UFO's speeds, their relative positions and the escape route chosen by the UFO.

==Craft & Armaments Stats==

{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
|+ Craft Stats
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Craft'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Range'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Size'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Default Weapons'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Speed'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Engagement Speed'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''HP'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Armor'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Armor Penetration'''
|- align="center"
| Interceptor||25||Small||Avalanche||1500||10||2500||5||0
|- align="center"
| Skyranger <sup>1</sup>||25||Small||N/A||2000||10||8||0||0
|- align="center"
| Firestorm||25||Small||Avalanche||3500||20/20/15/15||6500||25||34/34/16/16
|- align="center"
| Small Scout||25||Small||UFO Plasma I||1500||20||800||0||7
|- align="center"
| Large Scout||25||Medium||UFO Plasma I||1800||22||1600||0/0/0/2||7
|- align="center"
| Abductor||25||Large||UFO Plasma II||2000||17||1800/1800/2200/2200||5/5/10/13||3
|- align="center"
| Supply Barge||25||Large||UFO Plasma II||2500||25||2000/2000/2400/2400||16/16/30/36||4
|- align="center"
| Battleship||25||Very Large||UFO Fusion||3000||40||2400/2400/2900/2900||52/52/42/52||20
|- align="center"
| Overseer||25||Medium||UFO Plasma I<br>UFO Plasma II||3500||60||2500||64/64/45/52||25
|-
| colspan="9" | <sup>1</sup>Although the Skyranger isn't used for air combat, the game files have values for it.<br> Values in brackets display differences between difficulty levels (Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible)<br>Source: XComStrategyGame.upk game file, XGItemTree class, [[XCOM: Enemy Within DLC (EU2012)|Enemy Within DLC]] version.
|}

{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
|+ Armament Stats
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Weapon'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Range'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Firing Time'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Damage'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Armor Pen'''
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''To Hit'''
|- align="center"
| Phoenix Cannon||85||1||350||11/11/6/6||95%
|- align="center"
| Avalanche||100||2||400||0||70%
|- align="center"
| Laser Cannon||85||0,75||400||25/25/25/28||85%
|- align="center"
| Plasma Cannon||100||1,25||800/800/700/700||48/48/33/33||85%
|- align="center"
| EMP Cannon||85||1,25||1200||44||100%
|- align="center"
| Fusion Lance||100||1,5||1400||44||90%
|- align="center"
| UFO Plasma I||101||1,25||300||0||75%
|- align="center"
| UFO Plasma II||101||1,25||400/400/400/500||20||75%
|- align="center"
| UFO Fusion||101||1,25||1200/1200/1250/1625||25||75%
|-
| colspan="6" | Values in brackets display differences between difficulty levels (Easy/Normal/Classic/Impossible)<br>Source: XComStrategyGame.upk game file, XGItemTree class, [[XCOM: Enemy Within DLC (EU2012)|Enemy Within DLC]] version.
|}

===Damage Formula===

Damage from the shots is calculated according to the following formulas:

0.05 * (Target Ship Armor - (Weapon AP + Firing Ship AP) = Final Mitigation (value clamped between 0 and 0.95)
Target Ship Damage = Weapon Damage * (1 - Final Mitigation)

===Damage Table===

Matchups proven winnable without the use of modules:

<div style="text-align: center;">
{| class="wikitable" width="100%" style="text-align: center
|-
! width="10%" | Difficulty
! width="22.5%" | Easy
! width="22.5%" | Normal
! width="22.5%" | Classic
! width="22.5%" | Impossible
|-
|[[Small Scout (EU2012)|Small Scout]]
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|-
|[[Large Scout (EU2012)|Large Scout]]
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
(misses and timeout may require 2)
|-
|[[Abductor (EU2012)|Abductor]]
|Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles
|Interceptor w/Phoenix Cannon
or Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles x2 (x1 possible)
|Interceptor w/Phoenix Cannon x2 (x1 possible)
or Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles x3 (x2 possible)
|Interceptor w/Laser Cannon
or Interceptor w/Phoenix Cannon x2
|-
|[[Supply Barge (EU2012)|Supply Barge]]
|Interceptor w/Phoenix Cannon
|Interceptor w/Phoenix Cannon x2 (x1 possible)
|Interceptor w/Laser Cannon
|Interceptor w/Laser Cannon x2
|-
|[[Battleship (EU2012)|Battleship]]
|Interceptor w/Plasma Cannon
|Interceptor w/Plasma Cannon x2 (x1 possible)
|Firestorm w/Laser Cannon
|Firestorm w/Plasma or EMP Cannon
|-
|[[Overseer (EU2012)|Overseer UFO]]
|Firestorm w/Laser Cannon
|Firestorm w/Laser Cannon x2 (x1 possible)
|Firestorm w/Laser Cannon x2
|Firestorm w/EMP Cannon (1 w/Plasma Cannon possible)
|}
</div>
In Enemy Within, UFO "hit points" seem to be slightly higher in Classic, and significantly so in Impossible. The listed matchups are still possible, but for ''regular'' success against Impossible Abductors, Barges, and Battleships, a module (or luck) may be needed on top of these matchups, or another Interceptor to make up the difference. The Battleship's Fusion Lance seems more potent, as well.

==Interception Tactics==
===Time...===
Note that it take 3 days to transfer either Interceptors, or to buy a Raven, 14 (or 7 days with [[Foundry (EU2012)#Advanced Construction|Advanced Construction]], a late-game Foundry project) to build a Firestorm, and 24 hours to equip either kind of Interceptor with any type of weapon. Weapons removed from an Interceptor immediately become available for installation on other Interceptors, and if you dismiss a ship, its weapon will be automatically returned to your inventory. A detected UFO (landed or in-flight) will remain on the map for about 6 hours before leaving, often spawning a [[Battleship (EU2012)|Battleship]] that is scanning to destroy your hard-earned satellite, if it is not subsequently intercepted itself (if a satellite is destroyed, that country immediately goes into full [[Panic (EU2012)|Panic]], and the whole continent's panic levels also rise). You can idle on the [[Mission Control (EU2012)|Mission Control]] screen at the speed of about 1 minute a second, if it comes down to the wire. Beyond the Battleship (which can destroy satellites), letting a UFO go only affects the monthly score (which itself does not affect game play), and gets you nagged at by [[Bradford (EU2012)|Central]], and possibly the [[The Council (EU2012)|Council]] representative during the Monthly Report.

===...& Money===
For cost's sake: only bother putting an Interceptor on a continent with at least one satellite on it, as otherwise it cannot be called to action, as you will not be able to detect any UFOs at all over it. North America's Cover Bonus (3 satellites needed, or setting your home base there) is '''Air and Space''': "All aircraft and aircraft weapons cost 50% less to purchase, build and maintain." Note that the basic maintenence cost is §20 for a Raven and §10 for a Firestorm: it may not be cost effective to splurge on Ravens in early months, particularly if you find yourself regularly hurting for credits. Thus, it's more efficient to have one or two well-equipped Ravens (ideally per continent) rather than the cost of maintaining (and possibly replacing) a bunch of Ravens with just Avalanche Missiles for your early months. If save-scumming, you may be able to get away with only building one or two of the latest Interceptor weapons, and slapping it on the appropriately located Interceptor (or moving just the one well-equipped Interceptor around), if there's enough time between a UFO appearance and a preceeding save state. Ravens cost §40 to buy (or §20 with the Bonus). Lastly, when constructing Firestorms: initial credit and resource cost is reduced by the number of Engineers and the aforementioned Cover Bonus, and if you have Workshop base facilities placed next to each other (Enemy Within: the Foundry and the MEC Lab included), you will get refunds of credits, alloys, and Elerium once the Firestorm is completed.

===Practice===
You begin all games with two Ravens at your home base equipped with Avalanche Missiles, and for the first and second month, this will be all you need, even on Impossible Difficulty: Scouts and Large Scouts will fall easily enough to one basic Raven. If the first satellite you put up (besides the one already up as your Home Base satellite) is on another continent, consider moving the second Raven to that continent's hangar the same day, so both will be ready on the same time (and do so about 4-5 days before the end of the month: if a country is covered ''before'' the end of the month, Abductions will no longer occur on it, making you potentially 'waste' the -3 Panic that placing a satellite gives).

If Panic levels and your satellite strategy allows it, focus on covering only two or three continents at first, instead of spreading out your monitor network: since detected flights will only be over those few areas, and thus covered by two or three hangars, you'll need fewer Interceptors and armaments to have coverage. Fortifying your existing network is a lot faster, safer, and cheaper than trying to expand too quickly, and risk spreading your resources too thin (while also making a move on those continental coverage bonuses).

However, when [[Abductor (EU2012)|Abductor]] ships begin to appear...

Keeping pace with Interceptor-related research is ideal, so that even if you don't have the resulting items on hand, that with enough time between a save state and the appearance of a larger UFO, you can buy and install a stronger weapon, and/or at least buy another Raven for that continent. If you have 2 or more Interceptors on one continent, then like earlier games, you ''can'' send them both after a single UFO - just not at the same time: the Interceptor you send out before the next has to either return to base, or be destroyed, before sending the next one. Besides a missed UFO summoning a Battleship, it is a rare -- but not unheard of - occurrence that two UFOs will appear over a continent within a few days of one another, and repair times are much kinder than in the 1994 game: though if you can afford it, two interceptors a continent is still good for peace of mind and for just-in-case.

If you don't mind a bit of save-scumming when you need to send multiple Interceptors after one UFO: the runs aren't seeded, so you can reload/redo untill your ship has a good run (ie; the pilot doesn't decide to catch every plasma bolt with his face, while attempting to shoot with his ass clenching the yoke), and then save before sending out the next Interceptor.

Worst case (but still winnable) scenario is having to wait 5 hours for weapon installations to be completed (ie: [[Phoenix Cannon (EU2012)|Phoenix Cannons]] on two Ravens), sending the first Interceptor to the larger UFO (Abductor) and letting it attack until it is destroyed, then sending the second right after it, which may or may not reach the UFO, depending on the completely random path the UFO takes (even if savescumming right before, a UFO doesn't take the same path, though it will always be over the same country: UFO appearances are pre-chosen at the start of each month). A reload may place it on a more favorable flight path for your Interceptors, if you find that the UFO escapes your window of opportunity to attack it.

Naturally, researching for a Firestorm is a priority (complete both the [[UFO Flight Computer (EU2012)|Alien Navigation Computer]] and the [[UFO Power Source (EU2012)|UFO Power Source]] projects, then the [[New Fighter Craft (EU2012)|New Fighter Craft]] research), and you should hoard recovered Flight Computers and Power Sources away from [[Grey Market (EU2012)|Grey Market]] sales or Council requests until you have at least 1 Firestorm for each continent. Don't forget that a Thin Man Interrogation gives a research credit to UFO Tech, and the Heavy Floater Interrogation gives another credit to Flight Research (though you easily can (and should) complete the Firestorm's research, and even get a few Firestorms out of Engineering, well before Heavy Floaters begin to show up).

You need 2 Computers and 1 Power Source per Firestorm. You may also be more likely to have a surplus of the Computers than Power Sources, so you may risk selling them, especially if you reach, say, a 10 Computer/5 Power Source quota (or however many left to put a Firestorm on each continent)-- though depending on how you're doing on Panic, you might find it more worthwhile to hold off on getting another Firestorm, and put up a [[Satellite_Nexus_(EU2012)|Satellite Nexus]] instead. Note that Firestorms will always be built on your Home Base, so plus the Interceptor you should always have there, that means you can only build up to 3 at a time (or, spend up to two weeks without an Interceptor over your base's continent. Obviously, a bad idea), and that it is also another 3 days to transfer, and one more day to give it the latest weapon.

Consider that the Hyperwave Uplink also takes 14 days to build: if your game and research has gone well, you may unlock the construction of both around the same time. A possible advanced strategy is to order your Firestorms at this time. After about 5 days, begin building the Hyperwave facility. When the Firestorms are complete, move one to each continent you have active satellites on, then give them your latest armament when they arrive. Thus, their preparation and the Hyperwave facility should be complete at the same time. As the completion of the Firestorm research unlocks the EMP Cannon Research, that armament is perfect for bringing down the Overseer UFO. And as mentioned above, concerning fortifying only 2-3 continents: therefore, you will only need the 3 Firestorms that can be built without leaving your home base hangar empty. Ideally at this point, you also have some Workshop adjacency bonuses going for you, allowing you to recycle some of the credits and materials into more Firestorms, which you can move at your leisure before moving on to cover the remaining continents.

The best way to get Firestorms out to each continent without gimping yourself at home is usually to first get [[Plasma Cannon (EU2012)|Plasma Cannons]]. Then, put two Ravens at your home base with Plasma Cannons and order two Firestorms. These two Plasma Cannon equipped Interceptors should be enough to bring down anything that comes your way while you wait for the Firestorms. Equip your first two Firestorms with whatever weapon suits your fancy (Plasma Cannons, [[EMP Cannon (EU2012)|EMP Cannons]] or [[Fusion Lance (EU2012)|Fusion Lances]]). Once they're ready, move the two Interceptors elsewhere, along with one of your new Firestorms, leaving your other one at home. Build three more Firestorms. Equip them and send them out. Provided you have enough materials, this can get you one Firestorm on each Continent with whatever weapon you so desire in 33 days:
*Day 1: First two Firestorms are ordered.
*Day 14: First two Firestorms are completed and equipping begins.
*Day 15: First two Firestorms are equipped. Hanger is cleared, next three Firestorms enter production.
*Day 18: Firestorm shipped off from home continent arrives, 2 continents covered.
*Day 29: Second batch of Firestorms are built, begin equipping.
*Day 30: Second batch of Firestorms are equipped and sent out.
*Day 33: Second Batch of Firestorms arrive at destinations, all 5 continents are covered.

Your weapons for Interceptors have to be researched and, as mentioned, it is good to at least research them in advance, so that you can buy them from [[Engineering (EU2012)|Engineering]] (while it's a 24 hour ''installation'', their ''construction'' is immediate) as needed (though, of course, if you can afford it, you should equip all craft with the latest available weapons ASAP). As stated, Avalanche Missiles are sufficient for [[Small Scout (EU2012)|Small Scouts]] and [[Large Scout (EU2012)|Large Scouts]]. The Phoenix Cannon is also good, though your interceptors may get battered closing the distance required. Once in range, the firing rate and accuracy tends to outweigh the risks of approaching. The Phoenix Cannon will generally add some peace of mind if you find yourself really stretched thin on Interceptors in the early parts of the game.

If you manage to capture and interrogate a [[Muton (EU2012)|Muton]] during their first appearance (at earliest in the 3rd month-- or if Slingshot is activated: depending on Difficulty and if in Enemy Unknown or Enemy Within, possibly as early as the 1st or 2nd month), they give a research credit to Plasma Weapons, starting with the [[Light Plasma Rifle (EU2012)|Light Plasma Rifle]], then to the long-distance, medium-rate, high-damage Plasma Cannon, often 'sequence breaking' over the short-range [[Laser Cannon (EU2012)|Laser Cannon]], especially if you find yourself wanting for Plasma Weapons for most of your troops rather than Heavy Lasers for only the Heavy class (though, in Enemy Within, due to the larger reseach times required, the Laser Cannon does become the more realistic choice to proritize).

The Plasma Cannon itself is a highly effective weapon that will quickly become your go-to weapon for your Interceptors and you wouldn't be harming yourself if you equipped every plane you had (Firestorm or Raven) with Plasma Cannons and called it a day. By about this time, you may be completing the research for the Firestorm, which leads to the ability to research the EMP Cannon, a must-have for recovering max amounts of alloys, computers, and Power Sources - though at the cost of leaving more aliens alive (note that, unlike earlier XCOM games, there is never any DOA/Instant Win occasions of a UFO Crash having no survivors, or exploding outright). Lastly, the Fusion Lance, used by alien Battleships, found only after destroying a Battleship (or with the [[Slingshot DLC (EU2012)|Slingshot DLC]]) and usable only by the Firestorm, is for making sure the UFOs die and stay dead. Not even a Battleship will be able to withstand a Fusion Lance.

Modules are of moderate use, but can be helpful for your early-game dogfights. Their construction requires the corpses of [[Sectoid Corpse (EU2012)|Sectoids]] and [[Floater Corpse (EU2012)|Floaters]] (for Targeting and Defense, respectively), both of which tend to disappear late-game, and [[Cyberdisc Wreck (EU2012)|Cyberdisc wrecks]] for Tracking.
*The [[Uplink Targeting (Aim) (EU2012)|Uplink Targeting]] module is of somewhat unpredictable use, as it guarantees the next two shots, which may or may not have hit anyways, possibly 'wasting' it. The Avalanche Missiles are the most inaccurate weapons by a large margin; while they would benefit the most from this module, you should be phasing the Missiles out at the earliest opportunity anyways. The higher accuracy of all other weapons reduces this module's usefulness fairly early into a campaign.
*The [[Defense Matrix (Dodge) (EU2012)|Defense Matrix]] module guarantees that the UFO's next two shots miss: more useful in that it's more likely that you are to be hit than you are to miss, the ideal time to use this is when the next shot the aliens take is likely to destroy your Interceptor, particularly for a Battleship's slow Fusion Lance shots.
*The [[UFO Tracking (Boost) (EU2012)|UFO Tracking]] module extends the time your Interceptor is allowed to actually fire on a UFO before being forced to return to base. It also shortens the approach time for your short-range weapons, so you can get firing sooner and (ideally) take less damage meantime. Not too useful if you keep up with research, and get Firestorms ASAP: only the [[Overseer (EU2012)|Overseer]] UFO and Battleships have a chance of outrunning/timing out a Firestorm, so one with a Plasma/EMP/Lance won't even need this.

Speaking of which: the Overseer UFO, like the Alien Base Assault, is a one time [[Storyline (EU2012)|storyline]] mission, and you can (somewhat) dictate when it will appear (a few hours to a few weeks after completion of the [[Hyperwave Relay (EU2012)|Hyperwave Relay]] base facility). It is recommended to take it down with a Firestorm equipped with Plasma Cannons or better, as the UFO has both a small and a double-Plasma Cannon, and fires both of them with impunity. It does carry a large supply of Elerium (equal to a Barge), stored in two unique pairs of "Double Generators", so you may want to use EMP Cannons for the sake of this resource. You actually might not find modules to be of much use against this UFO: as said you shouldn't be using low-accuracy Avalanche Missiled against this craft, even with the Aim module, using short-range weapons is incredibly risky, so the Boost module may not be needed, and this UFO fires so rapidly, that the Dodge module will be used up in less than a second.

Also, since all continents have their hangars in a roughly centralized location, and only South America has a small "surface area" for UFOs to be engaged in, you may find it hard to attack fast UFOs like the Overseer with Ravens alone: often they'll simply make your first Raven chase them for too long, to the point that a second Raven will not have time to intercept before the UFO flies out of range entirely (Case in point: the hangar whose Interceptors will have to cover all of Russia's airspace seems to be in Poland).

The first UFO contact is always a Small Scout, and in the next month of April, you will begin to encounter Large Scouts, both of which should be easy prey for your starting 2 Ravens, even with the basic missiles (unless you're having a really unlucky day). Abductors will be the first UFOs you may have trouble with, starting in May. [[Supply Barge (EU2012)|Supply Barges]] tend to appear in June, and have a significant firepower increase over the smaller UFOs. Battleships are also on equal footing with a Firestorm equipped with Plasma, EMP, or Fusion weapons, but fortunately, don't appear randomly until very late game (more often in August than July), and a speed-run (or lucky) game may not see them at all: otherwise, you can allow a UFO to escape if you feel confident about attempting to take one down, for the sake of completion and resources and experience, as it attempts to destroy your [[satellite (EU2012)|satellite]] network (incidentally, UFO's that are an active risk for attacking your satellite will be noted by [[Bradford (EU2012)|Bradford]] to be having "a strange signal, like it's searching for something", and will be on the map with a scanning highlight (concentric rings)).

===Perfect===
The ideal endgame Interceptor situation is two Firestorms on each continent (or three if you want to feel redundant): one with a Fusion Lance, the other with either another Lance, or EMP cannons if you wish to farm UFOs (ie: more aliens to kill to level the Psi soldiers you've been buying with the money made on Grey Market sales from Computers, Sources, Elerium, and Alloys) (and the third with Plasma Cannons, because why not? Not like you can sell, say, those Phoenix Cannons you no longer need). With the strategy of sending the first Firestorm to soften the target (and abort ''before'' it gets destroyed), then sending the second to finish it off, even Battleship interceptions can become routine, without the use of modules, negating the need for the now-rare Floater and Sectoid corpses (incidentally: on Impossible Difficulty, Cyberdiscs also become rare in late-game months)(Enemy Within addendum: Sectoids will still be regularly fielded throughout a campaign as supports to Mechtoids). However, having 1 or 2 (depending on how many Firestorms you have) regular Interceptors with Plasma Cannons can add a safety net to your coverage. These can deal with smaller threats without risking your heavier hitters giving you some peace of mind for when XCOM decides to be XCOM and immediately throw a Battleship at you after you splashed a Small Scout.

As a final note, never hesitate to abort an interception, especially if you have more planes waiting in the wings, your interceptor is equipped with something stronger than Avalanche Missiles or your interceptor is a Firestorm. As long as the UFO dies, you won't have a problem with the Council, even if it takes all 4 Interceptors, and only if you have extraordinarily bad luck will you get a second UFO over the same continent before any of your interceptors are back on their feet.

==See Also==
* [[UFOs (EU2012)|UFOs]]
<br>
{{Craft Armaments (EU2012)}}

[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Aircraft (EU2012)]]
[[Category: Guides (EU2012)]]
[[Category:Strategy Guide (EU2012)]]

Talk:Air Combat (EU2012)

2016-10-31T05:35:22Z

Xuncu: /* Matchups proven winnable */

I think Armor Penetration is how much the UFO gets shot up, IE, the scarring and holes visible on the crashed ship during the Recovery mission. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 21:37, 19 December 2012 (EST)
:Hmm, since the EMP Cannon has high armor penetration and produces the least shot up UFOs, that doesn't sound right. [[User:Binkyuk|Binkyuk]] 11:56, 20 December 2012 (EST)
Yeah, I thought of this, but there's always a lot of external scarring.... [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 13:41, 20 December 2012 (EST)
==Overseer Interception==
I just had a game of Impossible on EW where a single Firestorm with a Plasma Cannon failed repeatedly to bring down the Overseer, even with all the modules, due to running out of time. I had to build a 2nd one, which then brought the UFO down with a single shot. [[User:Hobbes|Hobbes]] 23:03, 13 December 2013 (EST)
:Y'mean that you sent it after the first, and it finished it off, or that somehow it managed to one-shot the Overseer? Hm, if I still have the save, I'll retest myself. At least for the regular ships, I remember testing them one by one (yes), usually several times, and wrote it so if it won at least ... I think I did two or three out of five (it's been a while). Haven't been able/desired to test every last matchup again in EW, since what Firaxis said sounded like only Classic and Impossible would have a difference, and the matchups I've managed to retest seem to have lower success rates, but successes with the same ships/weapons/difficulty, nonetheless. RNG seems to be more of a bitch, tho: one trial, Overseer got off 3-4 hits for 2-3 seconds before my interceptor would even fire a damn shot! Then a miss, miss, dead. Send the next one...... waiiiiting, miss, miss.... fucking... At any rate, didn't have the save early enough to test it's first appearance. and it's second would shift around if I moved ships. Shoved Ravens with Plasmas on every hangar slot: no matter what continent, hangar location and Overseer's flight path mattered (over Russia, could only get one Raven to intercept, over Brazil managed to get three), so often it would take too long for one Raven to intercept to send out another before it'd zoom off and I'd get the "contact lost" message (so, since that's not really a matter of HP/damage, that's why I'm calling it as "Unaided Ravens cannot take down the Overseer, period (or at least not reliably)"). I actually didn't get to test my results for Normal and Classic for the Overseer as much as I'd like.--[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] 03:43, 14 December 2013 (EST)
::Okies: One Firestorm, Plasma Cannon, Impossible EW; test 1 no, 2 yes, 3 no, 4 no, 5 yes, 0.4 seconds remaining on both successes. F/Lx1, Normal EW, also 2/5 success, hm. F/Lx2, Classic EW, every time. Easy EW, F/P, 5 tries, never won (and who would have Phoenix Cannons as their best armaments at that point, anyways, let alone put them on their Firestorms)... hm, I belive I've asked before, but ''is'' there "UFO HP" in the coding? Oh, and I remember when I used to dump all three modules for the Overseer fight: the targeting one doesn't really affect Plasma's 85% accuracy anyways, the Tracking one only really helps for the short-range weapons (and doesn't stop it from ''firing'' during that extra time), and it fires so fast that the Defense one barely lasts a second. --[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] 04:22, 14 December 2013 (EST)
:::I looks like UFO's HP increases with difficulty. I tried to intercept same UFO in different difficulty(with reloading), UFO lasted longer on higher difficulty. Also XCOM interceptors have less HP in higher difficulty. [[User:Moyang|Moyang]] 13:13, 15 December 2013 (EST)
::::Naturally, but I meant "EU vs EW", do they have more hp? --[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] 02:45, 16 December 2013 (EST)
::::It also feels a bit like Firestorms in general have gotten a bit of a nerf in terms of HP in Enemy Within, even at lower difficulties. They just seem to get chewed up a bit faster, even against smaller UFOs. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 14:55, 15 December 2013 (EST)
:::::Another question that could be answered by looking into the coding, if possible.--[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] 02:45, 16 December 2013 (EST)
==Matchups proven winnable==
I am wondering what exactly Damage Table describes. What "Matchups proven winnable" means? Every fight can be lost, if you are really unlucky. For example, Interceptor w/Avalanche Missiles is proven winnable with Large Scout on Classic difficulty, but I calculated, that chances, that Interceptor with Avalanche Missiles will shoot Large Scout are 74.431%, assuming that Interceptor isn't shot down. These aren't too high chances for "Matchups proven winnable". --[[User:Miteusz|Miteusz]] ([[User talk:Miteusz|talk]]) 12:32, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
*I answered this in the old discussion above: that when I was testing it, it won 2 or 3 dogfights out of 5. And the ones in parenthesizes happened once, but could not duplicate reliably (maybe like 1 out of 20). --[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] ([[User talk:Xuncu|talk]]) 05:35, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Avatar Project (XCOM2)

2016-10-10T17:43:49Z

Xuncu:

The Avatar Project is the end goal of the aliens. Figuring out what it is and stopping it comprises most of the plot of the game.

==Avatar Progress==

On the Hologlobe, the Avatar Project, once revealed, will take a spot at the top center of the display, where its progress is represented by a bar of 12 paritions, or 'blocks'. This bar will fill when the Aliens make progress on the project, and be drained when XCOM makes progress against the project.

If the aliens manage to fill all 12 blocks, the display is replaced by a countdown timer. If this countdown reaches zero, XCOM will be defeated and the game will end. The timer can be halted(and returned to the normal display) by reducing Avatar progress before the countdown ends.

==Reducing Avatar Progress==

Each Alien Facility on the map, as well as the Avatar Progress master counter in the Pacific Ocean, will have a number of blocks under it. Those are the blocks which that facility devotes to the Avatar project; destroying an alien facility will eliminate all progress the aliens are getting from that facility.

Furthermore, you can reduce Avatar progress simply by progressing through the plot. The following actions reduce Avatar progress by the stated amounts.

*Steal Blacksite Vial: 1 block
*Steal Forge Stasis Suit: 2 blocks
*Skulljack an Advent officer and kill the resulting Codex: 1 block
*Steal the Psionic Gate: 2 blocks
*Skulljack a Codex and kill the resulting Avatar: 3 blocks

There seems to be a small amount of micro-managing possible if a Reduction action is completed shortly before timed Avatar progression is made during scanning: if a save shortly before the notification is reloaded, and one of the above actions is possible and completed, it resets the internal timer count, retroactively buying you extra time. In other words: if it takes X amount of time for the aliens to fill a pip on the counter, and you unlock a reductive action in 50% of that time, wait until it's 90% complete before actually doing it, as it will still take X amount of time again for the aliens to catch back up again, making them waste 40% of X amount of time. This may not always work, however.

Avatar Project (XCOM2)

2016-10-10T17:42:10Z

Xuncu:

The Avatar Project is the end goal of the aliens. Figuring out what it is and stopping it comprises most of the plot of the game.

==Avatar Progress==

On the Hologlobe, the Avatar Project, once revealed, will take a spot at the top center of the display, where its progress is represented by a bar of 12 paritions, or 'blocks'. This bar will fill when the Aliens make progress on the project, and be drained when XCOM makes progress against the project.

If the aliens manage to fill all 12 blocks, the display is replaced by a countdown timer. If this countdown reaches zero, XCOM will be defeated and the game will end. The timer can be halted(and returned to the normal display) by reducing Avatar progress before the countdown ends.

==Reducing Avatar Progress==

Each Alien Facility on the map, as well as the Avatar Progress master counter in the Pacific Ocean, will have a number of blocks under it. Those are the blocks which that facility devotes to the Avatar project; destroying an alien facility will eliminate all progress the aliens are getting from that facility.

Furthermore, you can reduce Avatar progress simply by progressing through the plot. The following actions reduce Avatar progress by the stated amounts.

*Steal Blacksite Vial: 1 block
*Steal Forge Stasis Suit: 2 blocks
*Skulljack an Advent officer and kill the resulting Codex: 1 block
*Steal the Psionic Gate: 2 blocks
*Skulljack a Codex and kill the resulting Avatar: 3 blocks

There seems to be a small amount of micro-managing possible if a Reduction action is completed shortly before timed Avatar progression is made during scanning: if a save shortly before the notification is reloaded, and one of the above actions is possible and completed, it resets the internal timer count, retroactively buying you extra time. In other words: if it takes X amount of time for the aliens to fill a pip on the counter, and you unlock a reductive action in half of that time, wait until it's 90% complete before actually doing it, as it will still take X amount of time again for the aliens to catch back up again. This may not be 100% effective.

Murphy's Laws (X-COM)

2016-07-16T20:28:43Z

Xuncu: /* XCOM 2 (Tactical) */

==[[Battlescape|Battlescape (UFO Defense)]]==
===[[Soldiers]]===
*If a soldier can miss, he will.
**If a soldier can hit another soldier while missing, he will.
*If a soldier has a high explosive, then he will have to commit suicide for the group to win.
*If a soldier can panic, he will.
**If he is holding a primed [[Proximity Grenade]], he will drop it and start running.
**If he is holding any other primed explosive, he will drop it and stay right there.
**If he is holding something else, he will drop it and run right next to an alien.
*The probability of a soldier getting MCed is proportional to the lethality of the weapons he is carrying.
*The probability of a soldier going berserk is proportional to the number of friendly units he can hit from where he's standing.
*Your troops invariably display better accuracy and reactions when mind controlled than they do under your own orders.
**The opposite is true when you mind control an alien.
*The soldier you gave your shiny new heavy weapon to will turn out to have shitty Psi Strength and/or Morale. You will discover this the hard way.
*If a soldier has a [[Rocket Launcher]], he will get MCed while still in the craft.
*Your first unit out is always shot down.
**Your first unit out is always your commander.
*A wounded soldier will always die just before you find the last alien.
*As soon as you get better armor, the aliens get better weapons.
*[[Electroflare|Flares]] will always land where they cannot be picked up.
*If your base is attacked, you will always get [[Electroflare|flares]] instead of [[Heavy Plasma|Heavy Plasmas]].
*You will always end up short 1 TU for the action you wanted to do.
*If there is a single square where an alien grenade can hit all your soldiers at once, that is the square it will land in.
*The soldiers with the worst stats will always be the first to get promoted.
**When you build the [[Psi Lab]], you will always discover that your highly-trained officers are psi weaklings.
*On [[Ethereal]] [[Terror_Mission|Terror Missions]], you will always get the maximum number of [[Sectopod|Sectopods]] possible.
*When you have finally perfected the art of UFO assaults - [[Initial_Deployment|safe initial deployment]], proper [[Scouting|scout]] and [[Sweeping_the_Battlescape|sweep]] tactics, [[UFO_Ground_Assault#Breaching_UFOs|correct breaching methods]] - that will be the mission an enemy commander shows up with a [[Blaster_Launcher|Blaster Launcher]] and nukes your entire team while it's still on the [[Skyranger]]
*The only thing your soldiers are good for is warning each other about the Blaster Launching-wielding alien right around the corner.
**Considering the laws above, it's pretty easy to guess exactly how they warn the rest of your squad about said Blaster Launcher.
***They warn your squad with an explosion, followed by a scream.
*If a proximity grenade can land on a soldier, it will.
*A soldier with pockets full of pre-primed grenades will fall unconscious right next to your Commander.
*That point-blank reaction shot can be guaranteed by giving the guy a Rocket Launcher.
*The chance of soldiers panicking and running out of the access lift on Cydonia is relative to the amount of soldiers in the access lift.
**And into direct fire from a cyberdisc.

===[[Civilian|Civilians]]===
*If a civilian sees a fire, he will run into it.
*If a civilian sees an alien, he will move right next to it.
*If a civilian can block your line of fire on an alien, he will do so.
*Civilians are attracted by armed proximity grenades.
*Civilians inevitably block the doorway you need to use right before you get there.
*If a civilian is near an alien, any attempt to save him by shooting the alien will hit the civilian instead.
*Civilians will go out of their way to get shot in a Terror Mission.

===[[Alien Life Forms|Aliens]]===
*If an alien can hit, it will.
*If an alien tries to MC you, it will always succeed.
*Alien commanders will always kill themselves (with their [[Blaster_Launcher|Blaster Launchers]]) when you're on track to capture them .
*If there are [[Chryssalid|Chryssalids]], you will get at least one zombified soldier.
**You never want to know the answer to "Why did the Chryssalid cross the road?".
*If a dying [[Cyberdisc]] can blow up one of your men, it will.
*Unconscious aliens with melee attacks will wake up when you least expect them to.
*If you open a door and turn left, the aliens will all be on the right.
*Aliens are smarter than they look.
*This one is universal for all of the series:
**"Gaahh! Come back here and let me stun/melee you, you little shit!"
*Aliens can smell proximity grenades.

==[[Geoscape|Geoscape (UFO Defense)]]==
*When you need money the most, your funders will sign treaties with the aliens.
**The first country to drop funding is always the one that gave the most money.
*As soon as you get a new base built, it will be attacked.
**As soon as you get a new base fully equipped and operational, UFO activity in that area will drop to zero.
*If your fully developed base with 12 [[Missile_Defences|Missile Defences]] is successfully weathering a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] every couple days, the 1-in-30 battleship that makes it through will inevitably do so when all your experienced soldiers are out on missions.
*The more money you've saved, the higher the chance the aliens will do something that forces you to waste it.
**The amount of money you lose is proportional to how badly you need whatever you were saving up for.
*[[Alien Terror|Terror sites]] always appear at night.
**Or at noon, located conveniently so that night falls the second you arrive.
*If there is one tiny lake in the middle of 100 km of dry land, your [[Interceptor|Interceptors]] will inevitably shoot the UFO down over that exact spot.
*The chance that a crashed UFO's [[Elerium]] survived is proportional to how much you already have stockpiled.
*Landed UFO's will always take off before you can get to them.
**Unless they're filled with a species of alien you aren't equipped to deal with, in which case they will stick around forever.
***And when you finally get the equipment to deal with them, they fly away, never to be seen again.
****Until you have none of that equipment left to deal with them, because the base closest to them was destroyed.
*UFO's will always arrive while your [[Skyranger]] is refueling from a two day patrol.
*If you have forgotten to save the game for at least 3 missions, the game will crash.
**The game will always crash when it is the least convenient.
*If your craft is carrying no [[Electroflare|flares]] whatsoever, it will inevitably arrive five minutes after nightfall.
**If you've wasted half your [[Managing_the_Item_Limit|80-item limit]] on [[Electroflare|flares]] and incendiary ammo, you will arrive at high noon.
*[[Small Scout|Alien UFO scouts]] will always outrun your [[Interceptor|Interceptors]].
*Building a new base where there is heavy UFO activity? Seems like a good time for the Aliens to stop all activity in that area, and move it to a new area.
**That new area consists of the highest-funding countries.
*It's always exciting downing a UFO on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Too bad it's always an Ethereal-filled Battleship.

==[[Cityscape (Apocalypse)]]==
*If you're almost broke after buying a new flagship for your fleet, it will be destroyed in the next UFO incursion.
*The pride of your fleet is always stuck in alien dimension when you get attacked by a Mothership.
*UFOs carrying infiltrators always spawn at the gate you don't have covered.
*Griffon AFV is tough. The road under it is not. The tracks are just for show.
*There are only two types of vehicles that are always in abundance on the market: Blazer bikes and Stormdogs.
*While en route to a building, your craft will shoot at a Cult civilian car and demolish half of the city trying to hit it. However, the car will survive.
*Megapol is useless.
**Transtellar is annoying.
***Everyone else is both annoying and useless.
*Government's weekly paycheck will buy you a Lawpistol clip. Maybe two.
*If your base is in a slum, a single stray shot from a light disruptor will destroy it all.
**If your base is in a warehouse, said stray shot will still hit the tile with your agents.
*A hoverbike swarm is a good idea. Too bad they'll all get shot down anyway because of sheer dumb luck on the aliens' part.
*Research will always be completed right after when you needed it the most.
*After a firefight in the city, the only one to be blamed for the devastation will be you, even if it was an Overspawn that did it.
*The Overspawn will coincidentally be dropped right at your doorstep.
*The Overspawn will never, ''ever'' get hurt from falling debris. Unless you drop the said debris and level half of the city with it.
*People Tubes can collapse from an angry glare.
*You're the only one who has a problem with the aliens. Every other corp gets along with them fine.
**Transtellar in particular will always be dying for a chance to jump in bed with the aliens.
*Subversion attacks ''will'' succeed, 100%.
*Your carefully built Dimension Probe will be welcomed by a volley of Heavy Disruptor Guns.
*Your very first invasion of the Alien Dimension will require an hour's savescumming to get it right without being reduced to scrap metal.
*You ''will'' forget to not to move the X-COM craft when you succeed in destroying an alien building, killing everyone in the process.

==[[Battlescape Overview (Apocalypse)|Battlescape (Apocalypse)]]==
*If your base is raided, there will be as few of your agents spawning as possible.
**Said agents will spawn as far away from the access lift as possible.
***Guess where the scientists will appear.
*If you're raiding a building, there will always be a trigger-happy idiot with a heavy launcher.
**Despite your best efforts, he will manage to fire at least one missile.
***And he will do so even if you're breathing in his face.
****There is no way to avoid the missile and injuries or casualties from it.
*****Even if you somehow actually manage to avoid the missile, it'll bring down the building on you.
*Live explosives are seemingly attracted to large concentrations of dead cultist bodies with all the loot you came here for.
*If an agent in a squad gets attacked by a brainsucker, the rest of the squad won't hit it at point blank range.
**Or they'll fire a missile launcher. Guess the results.
*If you turn around the corner where you think that last alien is hiding, it'll turn out to be half a dozen of Anthropods. All armed to the teeth.
*A berserking agent will cause more chaos and destruction than all of your other agents put together. And it won't be directed at the enemy.
*If someone throws a Boomeroid at an agent, he'll try to run away from it.
**Because it will always turn out that you forgot to set him to aggressive mode.
*If you try to capture a Megaspawn, it'll die before you can stun it.
**As will half the agents trying to stun the damn thing in the first place.
*You'd wish you gave that mind controlled agent a Toxigun instead of a Dimension Missile Launcher.
*You'll encounter cloaked and flying Skeletoids much more often than you'd like to.
**Cloaking never works for you. Neither does flying, actually.
*Good stuff always comes too late.
**Personal teleporters do not exist.
*Psi attacks are only successful when they're not necessary.
*Dynamic music always ignores what you're actually doing.
*That agent you sent to scout ahead will always be the one without a motion scanner.
*Every raid is a horrible decision between causing property damage and greed. Either way, you lose.
*The agent with a Mind Bender won't see the enemy <s>until he's standing right next to it</s> at all. Period.
*You will forget to capture a live Micronoid aggregate.
*Toxigun ammo, Vortex mines and Personal Shields come in only two varieties: "not enough" and "none".

==[[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|Strategic (Enemy Unknown)]]==
*When you need §§§ the most, the US and Russia (which you have satellite coverage over) will pull out of the XCOM project.
*Your satellites will always be available one day too late to prevent a country from withdrawing.
**Even if it shows up before "Council Report" on the event list.
*When you do have satellites available, you will never have enough Satellite Uplink/Nexus space for them.
*When you do have Satellite Uplink/Nexus, you will never have enough satellites.
*If you have one more satellite to go before getting a continent's bonus, that last country will pull out of the XCOM project.
**The one continent's bonus you don't want to get? The aliens will ignore that continent.
*You will always be at least §1 short of buying the next level of armor/weapons for all your troops.
*If a Colonel can be checked for having the Psi gift, he won't have it.
*If a Rookie can be checked for having the Psi gift, he will.
*Your interceptor will always lose contact 0.1 seconds before the enemy UFO is destroyed.
*Your interceptor will blow up one round of fire exchange after you press the Abort button.
*Your interceptor will miss every shot.
**The UFO will have perfect aim and land every single hit.
***After an interceptor lands a few hits on a Supply Barge it's shot down. So you sortie another interceptor and it's shot down/loses contact without hitting the damaged UFO even once.
*Just a bit more than a day from getting your Colonel out of the medbay? Time for a Terror Mission!
*Just a bit less than a day from getting your Colonel out of the medbay? Time for a Terror Mission!
**Fast forwarding will result in the Terror Mission succeeding for the aliens before you can react to your Colonel getting out of the medbay.
*Just a bit more than a day before your latest and greatest research completes? Time for a Terror Mission!
*Any other time it's inconvenient? Time for a Terror Mission!
**Followed by abductions less than 24 hours later.
***Followed by a council mission less than 24 hours later.
****Followed by a Battleship coming to destroy your satellite less than 24 hours later.
*****Oh, you recently finished the Hyperwave Uplink? Here, have the Overseer UFO, 12 hours after that battleship.
******On the same continent as your surely-damaged Firestorm.
*******And once you lose ''that''... Time for a Terror Mission!
*Steam vents will be placed in inconvenient locations.
**Second floor steam vents will block your 2x2 Satellite Uplink block.
***The remaining steam vents will be on the 4th floor.
****In the corner.
*****Behind 3 solid squares of rock.
******The vent's spot is also solid rock.
*Research or Foundry upgrades will be completed one day after a critical mission appears.
*The only way you can afford the next item or facility you need, is to sell materials on the grey market.
**Specifically, just enough to not have the materials left to build it.
*When the option to start researching the various Plasma Weapons becomes available, you will not have enough Weapon Fragments.
**Heavy Floaters will also start appearing on your next mission.
**You'll also be trying to research the Firestorm.
*You will forget to equip your shiny new weapon.
**If not, your save (or at least when you last saved) may forget for you.
* .......................... Time for a Terror Mission!
*Oh, three steam vents all set up for awesome adjacency bonus! Too bad that two of them are directly underneath the Satellite Uplink!
*The only time you miss-click when accusing a country of hosting the EXALT Base, is when that country provided the most money.
**It is also the eighth country to leave!
***On Impossible difficulty.
****Ironman Mode was also on.
*****And you decided that right after you destroy the EXALT Base, you would go right on ahead and assault the Temple Ship!
******Not that you would have survived, anyways, everybody was panicking!
*Special: If you're trying to test something for this very 'paedia, the situation you're after will never occur.
**Instead, something else will happen that will give you another idea to test. Guess what will happen then.

==[[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|Tactical (Enemy Unknown)]]==
*If a soldier's chance to hit is <99%, he will miss.
**Especially if the target is at 1 HP.
***Doubly so if that's your last action for the turn.
****Exponentially so, proportional to how dangerous the target is. Like a Sectopod that's now flanking several soldiers.
*If a soldier's chance to hit is 100%, he won't do enough damage to kill the alien.
**If a soldier's chance to hit is 100%, the game will glitch and turn that full-face Alloy Cannon blast into a spray of harmless confetti.
*The left mouse button is context sensitive; it will always do exactly what you didn't want it to.
*If a soldier's a heavy, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy.
**The range and blast radius of a heavy's rocket launcher will be a few tiles away from the nearest alien.
***Your heavy will never be in range to fire off a rocket.
*If a soldier's a sniper, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy FOR MOST OF THE GAME.
**A sniper will have squad sight on either a heavily wooded UFO crash/landing sight or a Terror Mission with one or two buildings that cover the entire map.
*If a soldier's an assault, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy EVEN AT POINT BLANK RANGE.
**If you activate Rapid Fire, both shots will miss a point blank Sectopod (Who has only eight health bars left) despite the second shot's hit chance being 85%.
*If a soldier's a support, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy WITH ANYTHING BUT A S.C.O.P.E. AND A LIGHT PLASMA RIFLE.
*If an alien's chance to hit is >1%, he will hit.
**If an alien's chance to hit is <1%, he will destroy your full cover.
*If an alien's mind control chance is >1%, it will work.
*When aiming at an Ethereal with the last shot of your turn, it will reflect it.
**''Especially'' if that soldier has only 1 HP.
*If the vehicle that your soldier is dashing to for cover can be set on fire, it will be.
**That is, if the soldier survives the alien Overwatch shot that will set the vehicle on fire.
***If so, then the vehicle's explosion will finish him/her off.
****Not to forget that this specific soldier, was your Colonel who had been with you since the first mission.
*Your soldier will always have the exact amount of health for a vehicle to blow him up.
*You will always reveal new enemies on your last move of the turn.
**Who will then take up flanking positions behind anyone who dashed.
*The more soldiers who perform an Overwatch reaction shot against a single alien, the more likely they will all miss.
**Soldiers who hit the alien will barely kill the alien.
***The alien, in turn, will kill your highest-ranking soldier.
****After killing the highest-ranking soldier, the other aliens will come in and mop everyone else up.
*When you have your whole squad on overwatch they will all shoot one floater.
**And then all die to his Chryssalid buddy.
*Your Revive spec medic will always be the one critically wounded.
*When trying to capture a commander with one stunner, he will be the one MCed,
*Aliens will always hit soldier's hunkering down behind high cover.
**The alien will do just enough damage to not kill him, but to cause him to panic.
***The panicking soldier will kill a soldier and start a panic chain.
*Panicking soldiers will always have 100% to hit.
*Smoke grenades will always improve alien accuracy.
**Mutons and Floaters will always throw grenades into smoke.
*If a soldier can panic, it will.
**Soldiers that panic will aim for the highest ranking officer he can see.
***Even behind high cover, on a higher elevation, and covered by a smoke grenade, a panicking rookie will still be able to kill the "protected" Colonel.
*Rockets will always fly off target.
**ESPECIALLY when you squad is surrounded by explosive vehicles and forklifts.
***At a gas station
****Then everything will explode
***** Then everything will explode and everyone will panic
******Even your SHIVs
*******And they will shoot your highest-ranked soldier
********And he will die
*********He will also have the psionic gift
**********He also has one of the highest starting and leveling Will/Aim scores you ever got, in any playthrough.
***********And he/she will also be named after you.
************And he/she will be carrying your only medic kit.
*Aliens will position themselves right outside the radius of a grenade throw.
**If a grenade can clip through and explode harmlessly under ground while you are trying to aim it, it will.
*When it is time to face Sectopods or Cyberdiscs, your HEAT ammo heavies will not be with you.
**When it is time to face Sectopods or Cyberdiscs, your HEAT ammo heavies will miss every shot.
*When it is time to face Muton Elites, your psionics will not be with you.
*Your soldiers are always one grid point away from moving to safely flank an alien.
*When a large UFO lands and you assault with your elite squad you will fight 3 Floaters, 3 Sectoids and a Sectoid Commander.
*When a moderate alien abduction comes up and you assault with a squad comprised of your Col. Sniper, squaddies, and rookies for training purposes, you will fight 9 Mutons (who will each throw their grenades asap), a Cyberdisc, and 2 Drones you just can't seem to hit.
*Even when you use the rookie to scout ahead, he will always stumble on no less than every enemy on the map on a single turn, who will then, with most of the laws stated above, wipe your elite squad before you can say Jenkins.
*You decide to research offensive tech first and the Arc Thrower later only to find that Sectoids have been removed from the alien roster. But after killing 7 Mutons on a map you decide to zap the last two for their weapons only to have the last group be a trio of Sectoids.
*The Overseer will only appear when you have no Firestorms.
**When you build your firestorm with dodge matrix, fusion lance, and uplink targeting, the Overseer will appear in the continent your new Firestorm is NOT stationed in
*Your MCed alien will always run out of usable turns before they can bust the asses off of some of their little alien friends.
**ALWAYS
***Especially on the final mission of the entire game.
*MCed aliens will always activate no less than two squads that were just behind them.
*Your sniper with Snap Shot will never be useful for anything, ever.
*Your sniper with Squadsight will never be in a good position.
**And when he is, a tree will block his line of sight to finish off that one alien flanking your soldiers.
*The alien with a grenade will go first. He will toss the grenade , without moving, negating any troopers on Overwatch, and removing cover from you forward trooper.
**Next alien will kill your now-exposed trooper.
***You will then have to wait 2-3 minutes for the other 9 or so Aliens to take their turn and batter your remaining troops.
****Also, it's been 5 rounds since you last saved.
*The range for a soldier flying with Archangel Armor will always be "One less than it takes to get into cover, or out of range."
*On a Battleship raid, there will always be one alien that runs away, forcing you to have to chase them down.
**Backwards.
*The game has no problem sending and activating every alien squad in an Abductor or Supply Barge at you in 1 turn.
**If not, that's because the high-level alien squad somehow noticed you from the other side of the ship.
*The council mission reward will always be either what you don't need, or not enough of what you do.
*When fighting Thin Men, you will always activate 2 squads at a time.
*When fighting Floaters, they will always Launch to flank just tiles away from your Sniper. No soldier will be close enough to help her.
*When fighting Mutons, you will activate a squad ''after'' you have finished moving at least two soldiers. Who you placed right next to each other.
**If you think two soldiers were just far enough apart to not both be hit by 1 grenade: turns out they weren't.
***Both of their cover is now gone, fyi.
*When fighting Chryssalids, they will always be at least close enough to hit your soldiers from a diagonal tile, if not closer.
*When fighting Cyberdiscs, when they are open, your hardest-hitting soldier will not be able to attack them.
**Because it opened up to kill said soldier in the previous turn.
*When fighting Sectopods, the answer to "Which soldier are they going to fire at?" The answer is always "the one taking cover behind something explosive."
**On the rare chance that it's Chest Cannon misses, the shot will still hit something explosive.
***Specifically, something that another soldier is taking cover behind.
****Whom it will then fire upon.
*When fighting a Sectopod, after your two troops have been battered by both Chest Cannon blasts despite being behind full cover and in the middle of a smoke grenade cloud, one moves and triggers a Reaction Shot.
*When fighting an Ethereal, it will either:
**Be in a different room than usual.
**Become activated when you pass within 10 feet of the door.
**Become activated when your last turn is to MC an Elite Muton or Heavy Floater that would be flanking it's buddies.
***Which it will then immediately kill.
*Your first shot with a shiny new weapon will miss.
*Despite bipods being visible on several weapons, your soldiers do not seem to recognise their existence for steadying and making more accurate shots.
*Your Support with Sprint and a Skeleton Suit or Ghost Armor will always be one movement short of saving a civilian.
*Your soldier will make a crazy-ass, low-percentage, gun-pointing-the-wrong-way-for-some-reason Overwatch shot with your currently-most powerful weapon.... on a wounded Sectoid.
*At the point in the game when you have all continents armed with Firestorms all with Fusion Lances (Highly unlikely, especially considering the laws above) that is the only time when the Aliens give up on sending the big UFOs and start sending small scouts
*On a Battleship raid, you send in a rookie to investigate the main room, thus activating all 20+ Aliens who just "happened" to spawn in there. They will then all hide, and when you think yourself so clever for taking up positions for multi-pronged attack on the main room, it turns out, they were all on Overwatch.
**And yes, each Alien is just so positioned so that each one of your soldiers will have a chance to get shot at.
***This will occur more often on Ironman Mode.
****On Impossible Difficulty.
*****It turns out, this was also supposed to be the day that you got the only Psionic Soldier you ever found got strong enough to become the volunteer.
******Afterwards, the game will glitch so that you will never find another Psionic Soldier in your whole playthrough
*******Not that it matters, your entire elite squad got wiped out, when they had all their fancy armor and weapons.
*"Don't shoot the Elerium, don't shoot the Elerium---- shit."
**"Don't blow up the power source, don't blow up the power source ---- crap."
***"Blow power source! Blow! Blow! ---- come on!"
*Your soldier will miss the alien and shoot the meld instead.
**Especially if you have them flanked.
*When your favorite soldier gets critically injured, you clear out the Muton Elite that hurt him. Too bad there is a group of sectoids all the way across the map.
**It will take a full turn of dashing for your Sprinter support in a Skeleton Suit to reach them
***They will all proceed to hide behind full cover just out of your sight.
****When you finally see them for your Squadsight Sniper with Double Tap will hit two of them, however, there are three sectoids
*****Not that it matters, they were all on overwatch, and considering the laws above, they will all get critical shots on your soldier, and kill her
******That is, IF you find them.
*Have Frag Grenades? Any aliens in range will have four HP left.
**Alien Grenades or Mind Fray? Six.
***And it will be your only viable action: any attempts at firing a gun will miss.
****C'mon: it's not even out yet, but you just ''know'' that the only time you'll have the Needle Grenade with you, aliens WILL take cover in such a way that only ONE would be affected by it at any time.
*Speaking of Enemy Within: you shall soon become familiar with the sound of exploding Meld canisters.
**Which is Dr. Vahlen annoying voiceover.
*Two words: naughty tentacles.
*Alien: "You brought a soldier with a Med-kit, I'll just Critically wound him then..."
*"Ooh look, the last meld canister.. and..... that's a group of Muton Elites... And a Cyberdisc... or three"
*Need 5 more Meld? Check out that Heavy Floater with only one health left!
**Looks like it's running away, no biggie, you'll just follow it.
***And activate its Mechtoid Buddies!
*While you are almost finished with Confounding Light, you have one turn left to activate the train, too bad the only soldier that can make it is being Overwatch-camped by that Muton who was just air-dropped.
**Even though that move would have required a dash!
***He was also an assault that was gonna get promoted that mission. Guess which Rank.
*The mission where your Squaddie Sniper levels up is alaways the mission that Sqaud Sight would have been supremely useful for.
*Don't EVER pick favorites, they'll just die anyways
*"Ok, gene mod do-- mission, ok, reload to get my soldier. OK, mission done, now to gene mo-- damnit, 'nother mission... ok, done, finally. Allright---- oh come the fuck on, Council, I'm busy here! Now what do you waaa'''AAAHHFUCKCHRYSSALIDS!!'''"
*Yes, Meld Canisters provide full cover. If you're actually using them for that, you have only yourself to blame.
*Enemy Within. Because Sectopods really needed the ability to outright ignore half of all incoming damage.
**AND be able to freely and deliberatley target your cover: "That'ssssssssssssssssssss a nice wall you got there~!"
*Your Heavy will never be in a good spot to launch a mission/life-saving rocket.
**Eventually, you'll fire it, because "might as well."
***'''Then''', and only then, on the ''next'' turn, will they be in the perfect situation to fire that shot you just wasted.
*Training Roulette:
**You'll either get abilites that're near-useless to that class, or
**You'll get high-tier abilities on the same Ranking, forcing you to choose between them.
***Doubly so if they're abilites that would otherwise work well together.
****The game will also pick the most useless skill for that soldier when he gets promoted to Major, like close combat specialist on your sniper.
*Damage Roulette:
**Any time you need to do ''just enough'' damage to weaken an alien so that you have the maximum capture chance, you'll kill it instead. Maybe even crit it.
**Any time you need to ''very definitely'' kill an alien (like the Chryssalid that wants to eat your Medic) you'll knock it down to 1hp.
***The chance of this occurring increases significantly if this is the last action of your turn.
**Any time the aliens shoot at your soldiers they'll do the maximum possible damage, especially if they're in cover and not flanked.
**Any time the aliens shoot at your SHIVs they'll do the minimum possible damage... unless that SHIV is being used '''as''' cover.
*Hey, see that high-ground, full cover spot right over there? That looks like a ''great'' place to attack those aliens from. Go on over, pal.
**Whoops, now they're out of line-of-sight. Tough break there, buddy.
*If you find yourself needing Revive, you're doing something wrong. Too bad you always need it thanks to all of the laws stated above.
*After spending some 3-5 rounds setting up a nice blitzkreig for the bridge of a UFO, ''just'' when you're ready to open the door, the alien CO pod will 'teleport' either halfway across the map, or in the perfect spot to counterattack.
**This includes any other escorting pods, after the CO pod takes the Alien turn to open every door, revealing every soldier.
*The soldier with the arc-thrower will always be in the opposite direction that an alien you're trying to capture decides to run in.
**Followed by spending the rest of the mission chasing the alien like the LAPD. Benny Hill theme optional, but recommended.
*The international symbol of the red cross on med kits is apparently the Inter''galatic'' symbol for "Shoot me first."
*Any UFO that crashes into the ocean will be in a heavily forested area.
*The last alien alive will be a cloaked Seeker, that is now panicked and running away, in a large map. Good #&@%ing luck finding it.
**Or hasn't panicked, but it's a Terror Mission and the lone Seeker's AI has decided to kill as many civilians as possible before going after your agents. But if you split the team up to rescue more at once...
*If an alien hides behind something explosive, one of several things will keep you from taking advantage of it:
**Either you don't want to blow up the object,
**Or a soldier is in the blast zone,
***Especially if they're out of move, or there's no other safe place to move to.
**Or you don't want to destroy it's equipment/fragments.
**Or two of the above.
**Or all three.
*The farther and more obtusely placed a Meld canister is, the more likely it is that stray fire will destroy it from the other end of the map.
*Trying to overwatch-spam to let Adaptive Bone Marrow heal non-armor HP? Here, have a crit to the face.
**Courtesy of that wounded Sectoid that either only took 1 step into your POV, or didn't move at all.
*You will have the perfect Overwatch trap set up.
**You will have a pod you didn't know was there walk into it.
***You will batter the approaching aliens to a bloody pulp.
****You will have the game lock up in Alien Activity.
*****You will have your last save be just before this. Any attempt to Overwatch Trap again will result in a lock up, again.
*Your full 6-man team of one specific nationality will be carved up by an Ethereal MCing half of them and deflecting all your plasma shots.

==[[Long_War|Long War]]==
*You will always learn the hard way what new perks and Gene Mods the dev team has given the aliens.
**To wit: Jumping Berserkers.
*Even if you did have the muscle to take down Abductors, their flight path will only be long enough to send one interceptor against them.
**If at all.
*If you feel you're doing well: your confidence is ill-deserved.
**The alien pod with two Mechtoids, a Sectopod, several drones, and a Sectoid Commander on the other side of that door will gladly demonstrate this.
***Followed by the mixed Muton pack that just came up behind you.
****And then by those cyberdiscs that decided to say hi.
*The first two shots in Air Combat will always be critical hits.... on your interceptor.
*There are, essentially, three results to Air Combat: the UFO crash lands, it DOAs, or your interceptor is KIA.
**The result that ''will'' happen will be one of the two that you don't want.
*The first alien base will always appear (and remove a Council country from) the continent who's bonus you were hoping to get next.
*When you need meld the most, the game will glitch out and think you are doing good for some reason... so you will only get 3 meld per canister.

==[[The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified|Combat (The Bureau)]]==
*The agent you sent forward to flank one alien will then be fired upon by EVERY alien.
**Any agent sent forward will be flanked. Twice.
*Any attempt to make a Sectopod turn around (so you can hit it's weak point) will fail to make it turn sufficiently, if at all.
*You'll run out of ammuntion at the worst possible time.
**That includes just reloading, and flat-out running out of bullets alltogether.
*Even if you're replaying, you'll fail to notice the new weapon, or ammo sachel, that would have been really useful in the skirmish you just barely won a few seconds ago.
*There are the best kinds of weapon for a job, when entering a new skirmish. You will not be carrying it.
*You forgot to check a side-path, and just passed a checkpoint: and now you can't go back to check for ammo or backpack schematics.
**By the way, you'll need that ammo in about 5 seconds.
*Even though Battle Focus slows down time, and it's just one click, it still won't be enough time to finish hitting Heal and save an agent from dying.
**That goes double if the Agent in question is Carter.
*Like any other XCOM: An alien's location is ''always'' equal to: grenade toss range, plus explosion area, plus "just enough to not get caught in the blast."
**Meanwhile, aliens toss like they pitch for the Dodgers.
*When attepting to interact with something, the θ of the angle that will allow you to do so is inverse to how ugently you need to do it.
*The agent ability you need right now? You still need to wait for it to reload.
**When it does load, the only aliens left on the field are Sectoids and low-level Zudjari.
***When, out of frustration, you use the ability to finish off the weakling: that's when the second wave of aliens shows up.
**** They are led by a Commander, or Muton (Elite), or Sectopod, or Gunship.
*When attempting to snipe, the alien will always move at the last second.
*The distance between an agent and a Muton will aways be less than the length of it's arm.
*Alien shields and heals ''will'' go up in the span of time between firing a kill shot, and when it would've hit.
*God help you if you have a wireless keyboard/mouse, and haven't charged the battery in the last 24 hours.

==[[XCOM2|XCOM 2 (Strategic)]]==
*Shen's dead, baby. Shen's dead.
*You will get greedy in going for the random supply discoveries, and forget to progress with Resistance activities.
*You will start building your resistance network.... in the wrong direction to the closest Blacksite.
*You will get a priority mission JUST before completing a scan.
*The rare time a soldier gets a cross-class training Perk... it'll be something useless for how you play that soldier.
**And you'll already have six people lined up for retraining.

==[[XCOM2|XCOM 2 (Tactical)]]==
*You will be distracted by Snek Tits at inopportune moments.
*Sectopods are basically Metal Gears now. Have fun with that.
*Hours worth of careful sneaking will be ruined by an unfriendly civvie walking around the corner.
*The procedurally generated map for that critical mission will be as follows:
**ADVENT stronghold: a high-terrain fortress with turrets, high cover, and choke points.
**Your cover: cars.
*If the Sectoid on the map decides to mind control anyone, it will be your Ranger
**You will always be in slashing distance of this Ranger
***The Ranger will always be your Blademaster
*The one time you get 4 damage with a grenade is on the soldier that drops loot
*Your Repeater won't activate on a Berserker but it will sure as hell execute a basic soldier
*You will never get Blacksite Intel drops
**Particularity when the Doom Counter is nearly full.
*** When you do get one: expect the next site to be somewhere you've already made contact with.
* You will learn that the game has chests with random loot in them only after finishing Legendary Ironman run.
*The Alien Leaders will always spawn on a timed escort mission.
**Doubly so if the 'reduce turn limit' Dark Event is active.

[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]
[[Category:TFTD]]
[[Category: Apocalypse]]
[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Bureau (2013)]]

Elerium-115

2016-06-08T23:37:08Z

Xuncu: /* Elerium in reality */

'''In other languages: [[엘레리움-115|한국어]].'''

Elerium, otherwise known as element 115, is the energy source for all alien technologies. Mined from reserves near [[Cydonia]], it has a variety of uses. However, it cannot be found on Earth.

This item appears in ''[[X-COM|UFO: Enemy Unknown]] (1994)'', [[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|XCOM: Enemy Unknown]] (2012), and [[The Bureau: XCOM Declassified]]. For the ''[[TFTD|Terror from the Deep]]'' equivalent, refer to [[Zrbite]].

== Stats ==
<table><tr><td>[[Image:BIGOBS56.GIF|left|64 px]]</td><td>
*Size: 1 high x 1 wide
*Weight: 3
*Sell Price: $5000</td></tr></table>

== Obtaining Elerium ==
Elerium cannot be synthesized on Earth; it can only be obtained from [[UFO Assault]]s or [[Alien Base Assault]]s. Elerium is housed within [[UFO Power Source]]s, and is very fragile. If upon starting a UFO assault you find a UFO Power Source to have been destroyed (as a result of a crash landing), its Elerium will surely have been destroyed as well. Be careful about using explosives near intact UFO Power sources, as the Elerium within is easily toasted!

At the end of a successful mission, any Elerium contained within intact UFO Power Sources will be automatically collected and returned to your base. If for some reason you need to end a mission prematurely, you can still collect Elerium by hand, by shooting open a UFO Power Source (generally with a plasma weapon). For more on securing Elerium in this way, see UFO Power Sources.

Perhaps the most efficient way to gain a stock of Elerium is to find an Alien Base and attack the [[Supply ship|Supply Ships]] as they land nearby. Leave the base intact to attract more supply ships, as the Elerium is worth more than the score penalty (150 units per intact Supply Ship). See details [[Supply ship smash and grab|here]].

UFO Power Sources can also be found in ''some'' Alien Bases, if they have a particular base "module". You can raid such a base without having to win the mission, and have a soldier carry the Elerium back to the entry lift and then abort (see [[Alien Base Assault#Smash And Grab]] for more details). Attacking the base's Supply Ships is likely to be a safer and more reliable source of Elerium, however; see [[UFO Recovery Values#Alien Base Assaults]] for more details.

On the map, Elerium appears as a purple ball (the same graphic as a [[Stun Bomb]] on the ground). This object is worth 50 points of Elerium. During [[Base Defence]], some of your own Elerium from stores may appear on the battlescape. This is a Good Thing™ if you win the mission, as each unit is represented as a pod and can be recovered for ''fifty'' units. This is probably a bug and appears to be absent from the Collector's Edition.

== Uses ==
Don't sell Elerium. Although you do have the option to do so, this is to be discouraged. It is used to fuel the [[Firestorm]], the [[Lightning]], and the [[Avenger]]. It is also used, in varying amounts, to [[manufacture]] most [[Alien Artefacts]], [[Flying Suit]]s, and various other technologies. Given that you can only obtain Elerium in the battlefield, selling it is not a good idea. Furthermore, the market price is a real rip-off, it will only fetch you $5,000 per unit. Consider that the highly abundant Alien Alloys are worth $6500 each. Furthermore, which would you rather have, 1 Blaster Bomb or $15,000? 1 Stun Bomb or $5000?

==Other Games==
===Enemy Unknown (2012)===

See [[Elerium (EU2012)]]

===The Bureau===
[[Image:Elerium-ore-The_Bureau.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Raw Elerium ore, as depicted in [[The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified|The Bureau]].]]

While not a resource itself in this squad-based shooter, the energy packs serving as ammunition for laser and plasma weaponry almost certianly are Elerium-based power cells. Furthermore, it's stated that the invading alien forces have been on Earth for some measure of time, and have been seeding Elerium into the Earth, to prepare the planet for terraforming operations. Indeed, the first level is in Groom Range, Nevada (AKA: Area 51), where the United States has been conducting research into Elerium technology: we see the Outsiders dropping generator "Seeds" into the ground, which absorb the surrounding Elerium-enriched land, terraforming the areas and using the crushed materials to grow massive Towers that are central to their invasion.

In the first level, which passes through an Elerium Lab, a sample of unprocessed Elerium can be seen bouncing violently inside a containment unit: a green glowing substance, caked with dark brown clods. It is unclear whether this is pure Elerium in it's true form, or the result of Elerium contaminted with local earth (or vice versa).

== Elerium in reality ==
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium Ununpentium], the temporary name for synthesized element 115, was only created briefly in atomic laboratories in 2004 and is not the subject of much research. Research in 2013 again confirmed the existence of element 115.[http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/28/world/europe/new-chemical-element/]. As of June 2016, the IUPAC has given the proposed name of [http://iupac.org/elements.html Moscovium].

It's inclusion into UFO mythos, and thus, into X-COM's lore began when UFO 'researcher' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar Robert Lazar] made several [http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html claims] about E-115 in the 1980's. For example, he claimed that it would be the only element that had a gravitational field extending past it's own atomic 'shell'. This deviance from the normal rule would be so significant that perhaps the technologies seen in the [[X-Com series]] could become a reality - anti-gravity devices used for both flight and particle acceleration.

However, the basis for Bob's presumption is based on his misunderstanding (or [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Element_115 outright lie]) of the relativistic effects involved in large atoms, specifically that of Element 83, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismuth Bismuth]. The relation to 83 to 115 is based on the fact that some elemental properties of atoms can be predicted based on the number of protons (which define the Atomic Number), reflected in the organizational system of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table Periodic Table]: Element 115 would be placed directly below 83 and within the "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_metal Poor Metal]" Series and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pnictogen Group 15] elements (and thus, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununpentium#Extrapolated_chemical_properties should share some properties]). Thus, 83 was chosen because 115 would be just outside the known, well-researched, and easily accuired elements, but potentially in the theoretical [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability Island of Stability], putting it in a realm of (conditional) plausibility, but well outside the range of casual experimentation (as opposed to, say, the ease of disproving the "magical" effects of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy homeopathy] or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy magnetic bracelets]).

==See also==
{{Equipment (UFO Defense) Navbar}}

{{UFO Navbar}}
[[Category:Equipment (EU)]]
[[Category: UFO Components]]
[[Category:Research (EU)]]
[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]

Meld Recombination (EU2012)

2016-05-23T07:02:37Z

Xuncu:

{{Ref Open | title = Meld Recombination }}[[Image:Meld Recombination (EU2012).png|right|100px|Meld Recombination]]
This amazing material's most salient feature is its versatility. In early testing, we were able to devise several methods that allow for direction manipulation of the Meld substance and its physiochemical properties. While searching our records for any references to a material with similar properties, I uncovered a number of redacted data stores created in the 1960s, but much of that information appears to be lost. In any case, the advances we've made should allow for a wide range of applications in the fields of genetic modification and cybernetic enhancement, although we will need to build dedicated facilities to enable these potential research pathways. It is probable that the invaders are most familiar with Meld than we are, and may already be fielding combat elements that take full advantage of its capabilities.
{{Ref Close | source = [[XCOM: Enemy Within DLC (EU2012)|XCOM: Enemy Within DLC]] [[Research (EU2012)|Research]] Archives}}
==Notes==
* Completed research allows construction of new [[Base Facilities (EU2012)|base facilities]]: [[Cybernetics Lab (EU2012)|Cybernetics Lab]] and [[Genetics Lab (EU2012)|Genetics Lab]].
* Research also unlocks the [[Gene Mods (EU2012)#Hyper-Reactive Pupils|Hyper-Reactive Pupils]], [[Gene Mods (EU2012)#Adaptive Bone Marrow|Adaptive Bone Marrow]] and [[Gene Mods (EU2012)#Depth Perception|Depth Perception]] Gene Mods.
* It also allows for [[Engineering (EU2012)|manufacturing]] of [[Warden (EU2012)|MEC-1 Warden]].
* Finishing the project also grants 40 [[Meld (EU2012)|Meld]] units for further usage.
* The mention to "redacted/lost '60 data stores" is in reference to [[The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified|The Bureau]], most likely to the 'Sleepwalker' pathogen that is one of the primary motivators of those events: the disease has psychological and physiological effects, and one scene suggests it can be used to transform humans into psudo-alien hybrids, much like Meld does.
<br>
{{Research (EU2012)}}
[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Enemy Within DLC (EU2012)]]
[[Category: Research (EU2012)]]

User talk:Zombie

2016-05-11T07:03:35Z

Xuncu:

== Ping ponging with PNGS==

Zombie, while you're replacing some of the jpegs with higher quality png's, might I recommend using an optimizer to crush the file size down? Ken Silverman's [http://advsys.net/ken/utils.htm PNGOUT] is one compressor that I've been using (as it has an irfanview plugin). Takes a moment to compress each image, but it does shave off some kb's on larger images. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:11, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

:Sure, I ran a few of my HQs through just now and it averages a 80% drop in file size. It's slow going though doing them all one by one in a directory. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:38, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

:Just uploaded PNGGauntlet (a front end for pngout) to StrategyCore's files section [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=754 here]. The nice thing about it is that it is windows-based and allows drag-'n-drop. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:53, 25 October 2009 (EDT)

----

Here is a recent discussion from the main page about images. Instead of deleting it, I decided to add it to my talk page. Conclusion reached was that PNG's are the preferred image choice for the wiki as most X-COM screenshots are well-suited to this format and are smaller than a GIF. JPEG's should only be considered for pictures as the quality sucks. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 13:45, 25 June 2006 (PDT)

== Image Types ==
I was fooling around with images today and decided I should show everyone what an image looks like in a particular format. Just for this example, I used the Level 0 view of the Small Scout. Here are the images (don't peek, just look at them and try to figure out which is which for now):

<center>[[Image:Scout GIF.GIF|GIF image]] [[Image:Scout PNG.PNG|PNG image]] [[Image:Scout JPEG.JPG|JPEG image]]</center>

From what I can tell, the image quality of a GIF and a PNG is minimal. Both look very good. The PNG image seems a tad bit lighter over the GIF, though. Not bad. But compare either a GIF or a PNG with a JPEG and there is a huge difference. The JPEG has "artifacts" strewn all over the place and has a "mottled" appearance. Ugh! Terrible! That's all for the image quality aspect. (So does anyone know the technical difference between a GIF and a PNG? Please explain.)

Let's move on to size. The GIF image is usually the largest in size. In this case the GIF image of the Scout example is 7897 bytes. The JPEG is 6784 bytes (or 86% of the GIF) while the PNG is 6090 bytes (or 77% of the GIF).

Finally, compare size against image quality. PNG wins hands down. Not only is it smaller in size, but it also has an image quality equaling that of a GIF. JPEGs are smaller than a GIF but the image quality sucks. Granted, in some instances a JPEG is fine (especially if the background is a dark color), but in all the comparisons I did they were bad.

So, have you figured out what is what? The first image is a GIF, the second is a PNG and the third is a JPEG.

I implore everyone to consider uploading either a GIF or a PNG image type over a JPEG. The quality is better in those formats. If you have a choice, PNG is better because of the size on disc. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 19:40, 11 June 2006 (PDT)

----

The most important difference between PNG and GIF is GIFs can only use 256 colors. I think most graphics from Enemy Unknown are in 8-bit color, so it doesn't cause a problem, but if you ever converted a normal photo to GIF, it'd look horrendous. PNGs can handle "truecolor" (24-bit), and as you said, they tend to compress better too.

JPGs can have different "quality settings" which reduce the artifacts but increase file size. JPG tends to compress photos better than PNG, but PNG is great for non-natural images, such as cartoons or computer graphics. For graphics pulled from X-COM, PNG is probably best.

--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 21:43, 11 June 2006 (PDT)

----

PNG's can vary in size depending on the size of the palette used. A standard 256 colour image would allow PNGs to be more or less the same if not better than GIFs. 'True Colour' PNGs are generally abominations.

For more information on the PNG format: [http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ Portable Network Graphics ]

GIF and PNG provide lossless compression while Jpeg's offer lossy compression. GIF and PNGs are best used when the image is generally small and contains a limited number of colours. X-Com screenshots fit this bill perfectly.

Jpegs tend to lose image accuracy every time you save the image and it gets worse the higher you set the compression. However, that said, Jpegs are best used when your image is full of colour and minor losses in image quality will not matter.

For example, the above pictures are best done with GIF/PNGs (especially if you intend to include transparent pixels). However if you had a cut out shot of the action in the battlescape, it probably wouldn't matter too much if it were saved as a Jpeg.

Now if you want an image with transparency pixels, you will most definitely pick GIF and PNG. I actually hadn't realised the PNG format allowed tranparencies, but it does.

Just use what's best for the occasion.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

----

''In Which an Uneccessary Discussion of Formats Ensues''

PNG's not only do transparency, but they are capable of doing alpha channel-- that is, partial transparency. A GIF can only do normal colors (completely opaque) or complete transparency. PNG's can do all this, as well as allowing color that are partially transparent (say, a red tint with the background showing through).

I put this in mostly to hear myself talk. There are two limitations to these neato PNG effects:
* For X-Com screen shots, it's not needed-- X-Com 1 and 2 never did such fancy tricks.
* Alpha channel PNG's are, last I checked, not supported by Internet Explorer-- IE will let PNG's mimmick GIF-style transparency (that is, an 8-bit palette with all-or-nothing transparency), but nothing more sophisticated. Firefox and the Mozilla-derived browsers can do them (including Safari, I think), but it's not much good when most of the traffic is still using IE. Yes, I'm bitter about this.

PNG's are in every respect superior to GIF's. In matters of compatibility and filesize, the PNG can be set to work just as well or better than GIF). The only reason you use GIFs is to cater to people with seriously archaic browsers. Widespread PNG support has been around for several years now.

[http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/ PNG transparency test]

''Edit: IE7 does complete support for PNG alpha, but of course it's still in beta testing. Even when it's out of beta, sensible web designers will have to wait until the majority of users switch over to it to start designing with it in mind.''

--[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 20:36, 14 June 2006 (PDT)

--------

GIF was originally made waaaay back in the late 80's. The format recieved an update around 1990, but has not been upgraded since. (Although Microsoft Paint will save lossy GIFs, I don't think this is an attempt to restandardise the format).

Later JPG came along, which really made high color images practical because it compressed so well. That compression came at a cost, however - quality is lost when you save a JPG file, <i>no matter how high you set the quality</i>.

PNG was designed with the intention of replacing GIF. A lot of people started using it once the original GIF copyright ran out - It was re-registered by a company who demanded royalties for anyone who used the format! (Which would only have affected you if you lived in America - of course.)

Although I gather that bit of patent madness has been overthrown, returning GIF to the populance at large, a lot of people still use PNG when possible. JPG files still yield better compression when images have a lot of color depth, however, PNG files do not lose color information, so it's the best format to use whenever quality is important.

I'm not sure if PNG supports multiple images in the one file, however. We've all seen animating GIFs, but I'm sure I've never seen an animating PNG.

One feature I've always wanted added to web browsers is the ability for HTML to referrence individual images loaded into GIF files. That way, you could put all the images into one file, as opposed to lots of little ones. This would improve page load times no end. One example where this would be useful is your average forum skin.

- [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

One attempt to animate PNG is MNG. However, development on that appears to have stopped in late 2004 when Mozilla abandoned the format (only one implementation, so hard to catch bugs in the specification).

Regarding PNG transparency/IE5,6: I don't think this is completely portably solvable in MediaWiki. Even if (contrary to what I would expect; need to check documentation for other reasons) JavaScript was enabled in MediaWiki, the general solution is to use that JavaScript to define whether to use HTML-standard, or IE extensions that do render PNG transparency. I haven't tested how to do this with inline images [img tag], but it should be possible to do this inline. Background images require using the JavaScript to define a CSS class, which should be done in the head tag: disallowed.

EDIT: MediaWiki Technical FAQ intimates that JavaScript should be stripped. So, cross-browser PNG transparency not possible by legitimate design for security.

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 11:49, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

I just started a discussion on the main page about this--people are still adding nasty JPGs to the wiki, and I thought we should add a notice somewhere obvious. [[User:Phasma Felis|Phasma Felis]] 10:57, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

Super-old, but wanted to chime in in case you or anyone is curious on some technical details:
* .gif is, basically, the image format that early game developers would want their sprites saved as: the file information only holds the colors used in the picture, so it's great for images with a limited palette of swatches with common colors (ie; game sprites), as gifs are limited to a 256 color swatch limit in a 24-bit RGB pallette. Like any screenshot tool from a game emulator that's for the 16-bit era and earlier might save as .gif, and the file will only be like 20-50kb max. Find any gaming site like ''Spriter's Resource'' or a sprite-based webcomic like ''Bob & George'', you'll typically see gif or png. Even ''Shovel Knight'' screenshots might not exceed 50kb, and 15-second animated clips might not even break a megabyte.
* .png is a fatty of a file format, designed to be a loss-less rasterized format. Anyone's got Photoshop, 'rasterizing' a vector line prolly gets what this means: it saves a lot more information, so it's good for artists and, say, the Enemy Within/XCOM2 screenshots. However, it saves every bit on information as a rasterization, hence why the files are typically much larger.
* .jpg - putting compression as a priority, it often blends or degrades images in order to save space. That weird speckling and duller colors often result.
* .bmp - Hell no.
--[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] ([[User talk:Xuncu|talk]]) 07:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

----

Zombie: Just so you know, armor for aliens is only one of two values. In Beginner, it's 50% the base armor score listed in the game files; in Experienced/Veteran/Genius/Superhuman, the armor rating for aliens is the base listing. This is also why [[Chryssalid]]s spawned from Zombies are actually MORE dangerous than mission-spawn Chryssalids in Beginner mode, because the Zombie-spawned critters have twice as much armor! (In all other difficulties, Zombie spawned Chryssies are weaker; the armor is the same, but they don't get the above 100% modifiers for their other stats, like TUs, Stamina, Psi Strength, etc.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 00:43, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:Why do you mention this? I of all people should know about [[Alien Stats]]. Ahem. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:02, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

I thought you did, but your comment to the Stun Rod page about "Veteran-Superhuman" Sectopods kinda threw some doubt on it; so I figured that it was better safe then sorry. Guess I jumped the gun, apologies. (Also, I need to try that "Aliens Own Earth" thing.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 01:04, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:Sorry, it was a mistype. Experienced it is. :D --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:09, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

Sorry for jumping on you like that. >_> [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 01:17, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:I probably deserved a good beating for a rookie mistake like that. If you catch me doing strange stuff, feel free to edit. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:28, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

== New Milestone. ==

With my previous edit, I now have 2,000 contributions to the Wiki. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 22:25, 20 December 2008 (CST)

:A little over twice as many as me! (This'll be edit 1010). Incidentally, looking at your recent record, it seems you've had a few days off. Busy Zombie, you definitely don't sleep. Wanna leave some editing for the rest of us? ;) All you need to do is ask...or point. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 23:34, 20 December 2008 (CST)

:: Do we get a counter? Never noticed that before. One thing about the millions of recent edits: Some of the older and probably less visited articles are brought to the surface again. Some of them are long overdue a bit of preening and pruning. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:42, 21 December 2008 (CST)

I didn't realize there was a counter till the last upgrade to the wiki software. If you go to My Preferences and look at your user profile it'll say how many edits you have under your screen name and ID#. @AQ: Yeah, I had a couple days off in the last week due to finals and a heavy snowfall which basically stopped everything. All I've been doing here recently is updating the pages to reflect the nomenclature in-game. Maintaining this consistency is necessary for people trying to find something in a hurry. And my work ethic has always been that if I want something done, I might as well do it myself. With an aging mind, it better to get stuff done while it's still fresh in my memory too. Don't worry, there's still plenty to do around here. There are a lot of articles floating around with little to no text, which need a spell checking, or even a rewrite. TFTD in particular needs some attention. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 16:35, 21 December 2008 (CST)

:I got that same snowfall, still being only a few hours north, and yeah, we got shut down too. :) As for TFTD, I know it needs attention, but I've never been able to get TFTD to run half-decently. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 16:49, 21 December 2008 (CST)

And now I'm up to 3000+ edits. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:01, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

== The New Templates. ==
Hey Zombie, great job on these new templates, and now we even have a stub template! If possible could we get a template about adding more pictures? If so, thanks! If not, oh well, it wasn't the biggest deal here yet. It would be nice if we did have pictures for every page though. [[User:Muton commander|Muton commander]] 19:35, 8 January 2009 (CST)

:Thanks, the stub template already existed, I just reused it to create pages which needed something in them. The reason for the other templates is to aid in navigation and also cut down on the number of orphaned and dead-end pages (currently 7 and 60 respectively). Eventually I'd like those numbers to be as close to 0 as possible. Anyway, I created a stub picture template out of some of our other table templates. All you need to do is put <nowiki>{{PicStub}}</nowiki> in a page and it'll show up to the right side of the screen. If there isn't much text in the article, you may want to put a clearing break ( <nowiki><br clear="all"></nowiki> ) after it to keep the template from continuing into the "See Also" heading, for example. Other than that, it's pretty simple to use. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 23:10, 8 January 2009 (CST)

== Site database problems? ==

Hi Zombie

Some weird stuff going on with the site I think. I got an email saying you posted an Update to Talk:Incendiary, but when I view the page there is nothing there, nothing on the history/diff since Jasonred's post about 8 hrs ago.

I'd been noticing a lot of slowness with the Special:Recent Changes page and wondered if the database needs maintenance. But then I put it down to my flaky internet connection. Now I'm not so sure.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 17:05, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

:Yeah, I posted an update to the Incendiary talk page, but now it's gone. Ah well. Anyway, as you may know, StrategyCore is hosting UfOpaedia now. Pete (the admin and owner of StrategyCore) switched hosts for SC about a week ago and mentioned this wiki would also have to be moved to the new location. I asked him to kindly give me a heads up of at least 24hrs so that I could mention it here. Well, this morning I briefly saw a message saying something like the site is down for maintenance and should be up again on the 14th (I think that's what it said at least). I know Pete was talking about putting a message up so I figured he just shut the site down and moved it to the new host. Have no idea if that actually happened as he hasn't contacted me at all. Might have been a dry run, but since my post disappeared I'm thinking we are on the new hosts server. I'll try and send him an email to confirm what is going on. Looks like everything is showing up in the Recent Changes now, so the worst is probably over. One contribution missing by me is a small price to pay. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 18:44, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm still unable to post to Talk:Incendiary, I get a 500 Server error. I've tried rebooting my computer, using IE instead of Mozilla, logging out and in from the Wiki, no joy. I seem to be ok to post to other pages, but maybe that's a coincidence. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 07:59, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I also have email alerts for another update that is not visible on the wiki, suggesting the database is still in flux:
*Talk:Firing_Accuracy_Testing by Bomb Bloke at 02:05 GMT, 03:05 system time (10 hrs ago - the server must be on British Summer Time)
[[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:08, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

:The talk page for Incendiary is 40kb long (huge), so maybe we should cut some of it back. That may be what is causing the problem, especially if you are attempting to add long rambling posts to it. The email thing is probably a delayed reaction after the move. The site probably generated the emails before the move, then were unable to be sent out. When we moved over and everything was running again, it probably sent those emails out, even though the id code for the contribution didn't exist anymore. That's my guess. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 11:17, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

::That sounds right, I was trying to add a lot of text. Should be ok to clean up the older part of the discussion. I will do that if I get time. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:13, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

The server change must've occurred just before I went to bed last night. Thought I'd give the recents a scan and was rather dismayed to see a whole day's worth of edits just go. Spent some time reinstating the few of mine that I could remember. This morning those edits were gone and the old ones were back. Strange experience indeed. Shame to see some of the new material that was added during the "lost" day that we just lost again - didn't get round to reviewing it. Oh well. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:01, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

----

Shame indeed. In hindsight, and in future, during maintenance can we put a big notice on the home page so that people can wait to post until after the maintenance is done? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 01:45, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

:Well, there was a message telling people the site was having maintenance done. The only problem was that it only was up for 5 min at most. Supposedly Pete had put some locks down to prevent people from posting but those didn't work for some reason either. In addition, I never received a message from him telling me the move was happening, otherwise I would have plastered a big "Do Not Post Today" banner across he front page. So it was a "Perfect Storm" of unfortunate incidents which led to this. I made it perfectly clear to Pete that issues like this CANNOT happen ever again. I don't like to see stuff like this and I'm sure most of you feel the same way. On the positive side, this is the last server/host move we'll be making for a long time. At least I hope so, as this move was a total disaster in my book. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 02:08, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

==Welcome back!==

There's a name I haven't seen in a long, long time. I thought you'd gotten out of the game. Glad to see that isn't the case. :) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] ([[User talk:Arrow Quivershaft|talk]]) 22:33, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
: Yep. I concur! Nice to see you here! #OldXCommersNeverDie --[[User:IvanDogovich|IvanDogovich]] ([[User talk:IvanDogovich|talk]]) 23:08, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
I was surprised too. Pleasantly. You know more about the guts of X-Com than anyone besides the Gollops, methinks, and it's been like a dark age without you around. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] ([[User talk:Magic9mushroom|talk]]) 04:01, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
:Thanks guys! I haven't given up on X-COM, it's my favorite game of all time! To be honest, I haven't contributed here for a number of reasons, primarily because I felt like an old relic now that XCOM/XCOM2 came out and also because my mother died late last year. I either couldn't contribute anything new or didn't feel up to it. I began to realize though that there is still work to be done in the X-COM area and that I could be of assistance. Hehe. So yeah, for a while there I just lurked. As always though, you can find me at StrategyCore. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] ([[User talk:Zombie|talk]]) 02:55, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

User talk:Zombie

2016-05-11T07:01:35Z

Xuncu: /* Image Types */

== Ping ponging with PNGS==

Zombie, while you're replacing some of the jpegs with higher quality png's, might I recommend using an optimizer to crush the file size down? Ken Silverman's [http://advsys.net/ken/utils.htm PNGOUT] is one compressor that I've been using (as it has an irfanview plugin). Takes a moment to compress each image, but it does shave off some kb's on larger images. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:11, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

:Sure, I ran a few of my HQs through just now and it averages a 80% drop in file size. It's slow going though doing them all one by one in a directory. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:38, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

:Just uploaded PNGGauntlet (a front end for pngout) to StrategyCore's files section [http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/index.php?dlid=754 here]. The nice thing about it is that it is windows-based and allows drag-'n-drop. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:53, 25 October 2009 (EDT)

----

Here is a recent discussion from the main page about images. Instead of deleting it, I decided to add it to my talk page. Conclusion reached was that PNG's are the preferred image choice for the wiki as most X-COM screenshots are well-suited to this format and are smaller than a GIF. JPEG's should only be considered for pictures as the quality sucks. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 13:45, 25 June 2006 (PDT)

== Image Types ==
I was fooling around with images today and decided I should show everyone what an image looks like in a particular format. Just for this example, I used the Level 0 view of the Small Scout. Here are the images (don't peek, just look at them and try to figure out which is which for now):

<center>[[Image:Scout GIF.GIF|GIF image]] [[Image:Scout PNG.PNG|PNG image]] [[Image:Scout JPEG.JPG|JPEG image]]</center>

From what I can tell, the image quality of a GIF and a PNG is minimal. Both look very good. The PNG image seems a tad bit lighter over the GIF, though. Not bad. But compare either a GIF or a PNG with a JPEG and there is a huge difference. The JPEG has "artifacts" strewn all over the place and has a "mottled" appearance. Ugh! Terrible! That's all for the image quality aspect. (So does anyone know the technical difference between a GIF and a PNG? Please explain.)

Let's move on to size. The GIF image is usually the largest in size. In this case the GIF image of the Scout example is 7897 bytes. The JPEG is 6784 bytes (or 86% of the GIF) while the PNG is 6090 bytes (or 77% of the GIF).

Finally, compare size against image quality. PNG wins hands down. Not only is it smaller in size, but it also has an image quality equaling that of a GIF. JPEGs are smaller than a GIF but the image quality sucks. Granted, in some instances a JPEG is fine (especially if the background is a dark color), but in all the comparisons I did they were bad.

So, have you figured out what is what? The first image is a GIF, the second is a PNG and the third is a JPEG.

I implore everyone to consider uploading either a GIF or a PNG image type over a JPEG. The quality is better in those formats. If you have a choice, PNG is better because of the size on disc. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 19:40, 11 June 2006 (PDT)

Super-old, but wanted to chime in in case you or anyone is curious on some technical details:
* .gif is, basically, the image format that early game developers would want their sprites saved as: the file information only holds the colors used in the picture, so it's great for images with a limited palette of swatches with common colors (ie; game sprites), as gifs are limited to a 256 color swatch limit in a 24-bit RGB pallette. Like any screenshot tool from a game emulator that's for the 16-bit era and earlier might save as .gif, and the file will only be like 20-50kb max. Find any gaming site like ''Spriter's Resource'' or a sprite-based webcomic like ''Bob & George'', you'll typically see gif or png. Even ''Shovel Knight'' screenshots might not exceed 50kb, and 15-second animated clips might not even break a megabyte.
* .png is a fatty of a file format, designed to be a loss-less rasterized format. Anyone's got Photoshop, 'rasterizing' a vector line prolly gets what this means: it saves a lot more information, so it's good for artists and, say, the Enemy Within/XCOM2 screenshots. However, it saves every bit on information as a rasterization, hence why the files are typically much larger.
* .jpg - putting compression as a priority, it often blends or degrades images in order to save space. That weird speckling and duller colors often result.
* .bmp - Hell no.
--[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] ([[User talk:Xuncu|talk]]) 07:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

----

The most important difference between PNG and GIF is GIFs can only use 256 colors. I think most graphics from Enemy Unknown are in 8-bit color, so it doesn't cause a problem, but if you ever converted a normal photo to GIF, it'd look horrendous. PNGs can handle "truecolor" (24-bit), and as you said, they tend to compress better too.

JPGs can have different "quality settings" which reduce the artifacts but increase file size. JPG tends to compress photos better than PNG, but PNG is great for non-natural images, such as cartoons or computer graphics. For graphics pulled from X-COM, PNG is probably best.

--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 21:43, 11 June 2006 (PDT)

----

PNG's can vary in size depending on the size of the palette used. A standard 256 colour image would allow PNGs to be more or less the same if not better than GIFs. 'True Colour' PNGs are generally abominations.

For more information on the PNG format: [http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ Portable Network Graphics ]

GIF and PNG provide lossless compression while Jpeg's offer lossy compression. GIF and PNGs are best used when the image is generally small and contains a limited number of colours. X-Com screenshots fit this bill perfectly.

Jpegs tend to lose image accuracy every time you save the image and it gets worse the higher you set the compression. However, that said, Jpegs are best used when your image is full of colour and minor losses in image quality will not matter.

For example, the above pictures are best done with GIF/PNGs (especially if you intend to include transparent pixels). However if you had a cut out shot of the action in the battlescape, it probably wouldn't matter too much if it were saved as a Jpeg.

Now if you want an image with transparency pixels, you will most definitely pick GIF and PNG. I actually hadn't realised the PNG format allowed tranparencies, but it does.

Just use what's best for the occasion.

- [[User:NKF|NKF]]

----

''In Which an Uneccessary Discussion of Formats Ensues''

PNG's not only do transparency, but they are capable of doing alpha channel-- that is, partial transparency. A GIF can only do normal colors (completely opaque) or complete transparency. PNG's can do all this, as well as allowing color that are partially transparent (say, a red tint with the background showing through).

I put this in mostly to hear myself talk. There are two limitations to these neato PNG effects:
* For X-Com screen shots, it's not needed-- X-Com 1 and 2 never did such fancy tricks.
* Alpha channel PNG's are, last I checked, not supported by Internet Explorer-- IE will let PNG's mimmick GIF-style transparency (that is, an 8-bit palette with all-or-nothing transparency), but nothing more sophisticated. Firefox and the Mozilla-derived browsers can do them (including Safari, I think), but it's not much good when most of the traffic is still using IE. Yes, I'm bitter about this.

PNG's are in every respect superior to GIF's. In matters of compatibility and filesize, the PNG can be set to work just as well or better than GIF). The only reason you use GIFs is to cater to people with seriously archaic browsers. Widespread PNG support has been around for several years now.

[http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/ PNG transparency test]

''Edit: IE7 does complete support for PNG alpha, but of course it's still in beta testing. Even when it's out of beta, sensible web designers will have to wait until the majority of users switch over to it to start designing with it in mind.''

--[[User:Papa Legba|Papa Legba]] 20:36, 14 June 2006 (PDT)

--------

GIF was originally made waaaay back in the late 80's. The format recieved an update around 1990, but has not been upgraded since. (Although Microsoft Paint will save lossy GIFs, I don't think this is an attempt to restandardise the format).

Later JPG came along, which really made high color images practical because it compressed so well. That compression came at a cost, however - quality is lost when you save a JPG file, <i>no matter how high you set the quality</i>.

PNG was designed with the intention of replacing GIF. A lot of people started using it once the original GIF copyright ran out - It was re-registered by a company who demanded royalties for anyone who used the format! (Which would only have affected you if you lived in America - of course.)

Although I gather that bit of patent madness has been overthrown, returning GIF to the populance at large, a lot of people still use PNG when possible. JPG files still yield better compression when images have a lot of color depth, however, PNG files do not lose color information, so it's the best format to use whenever quality is important.

I'm not sure if PNG supports multiple images in the one file, however. We've all seen animating GIFs, but I'm sure I've never seen an animating PNG.

One feature I've always wanted added to web browsers is the ability for HTML to referrence individual images loaded into GIF files. That way, you could put all the images into one file, as opposed to lots of little ones. This would improve page load times no end. One example where this would be useful is your average forum skin.

- [[User:Bomb_Bloke|Bomb Bloke]]

One attempt to animate PNG is MNG. However, development on that appears to have stopped in late 2004 when Mozilla abandoned the format (only one implementation, so hard to catch bugs in the specification).

Regarding PNG transparency/IE5,6: I don't think this is completely portably solvable in MediaWiki. Even if (contrary to what I would expect; need to check documentation for other reasons) JavaScript was enabled in MediaWiki, the general solution is to use that JavaScript to define whether to use HTML-standard, or IE extensions that do render PNG transparency. I haven't tested how to do this with inline images [img tag], but it should be possible to do this inline. Background images require using the JavaScript to define a CSS class, which should be done in the head tag: disallowed.

EDIT: MediaWiki Technical FAQ intimates that JavaScript should be stripped. So, cross-browser PNG transparency not possible by legitimate design for security.

--[[User:Zaimoni|Zaimoni]] 11:49, 17 June 2006 (CDT)

I just started a discussion on the main page about this--people are still adding nasty JPGs to the wiki, and I thought we should add a notice somewhere obvious. [[User:Phasma Felis|Phasma Felis]] 10:57, 12 June 2008 (PDT)

----

Zombie: Just so you know, armor for aliens is only one of two values. In Beginner, it's 50% the base armor score listed in the game files; in Experienced/Veteran/Genius/Superhuman, the armor rating for aliens is the base listing. This is also why [[Chryssalid]]s spawned from Zombies are actually MORE dangerous than mission-spawn Chryssalids in Beginner mode, because the Zombie-spawned critters have twice as much armor! (In all other difficulties, Zombie spawned Chryssies are weaker; the armor is the same, but they don't get the above 100% modifiers for their other stats, like TUs, Stamina, Psi Strength, etc.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 00:43, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:Why do you mention this? I of all people should know about [[Alien Stats]]. Ahem. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:02, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

I thought you did, but your comment to the Stun Rod page about "Veteran-Superhuman" Sectopods kinda threw some doubt on it; so I figured that it was better safe then sorry. Guess I jumped the gun, apologies. (Also, I need to try that "Aliens Own Earth" thing.) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 01:04, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:Sorry, it was a mistype. Experienced it is. :D --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:09, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

Sorry for jumping on you like that. >_> [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 01:17, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

:I probably deserved a good beating for a rookie mistake like that. If you catch me doing strange stuff, feel free to edit. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:28, 29 October 2008 (CDT)

== New Milestone. ==

With my previous edit, I now have 2,000 contributions to the Wiki. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 22:25, 20 December 2008 (CST)

:A little over twice as many as me! (This'll be edit 1010). Incidentally, looking at your recent record, it seems you've had a few days off. Busy Zombie, you definitely don't sleep. Wanna leave some editing for the rest of us? ;) All you need to do is ask...or point. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 23:34, 20 December 2008 (CST)

:: Do we get a counter? Never noticed that before. One thing about the millions of recent edits: Some of the older and probably less visited articles are brought to the surface again. Some of them are long overdue a bit of preening and pruning. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:42, 21 December 2008 (CST)

I didn't realize there was a counter till the last upgrade to the wiki software. If you go to My Preferences and look at your user profile it'll say how many edits you have under your screen name and ID#. @AQ: Yeah, I had a couple days off in the last week due to finals and a heavy snowfall which basically stopped everything. All I've been doing here recently is updating the pages to reflect the nomenclature in-game. Maintaining this consistency is necessary for people trying to find something in a hurry. And my work ethic has always been that if I want something done, I might as well do it myself. With an aging mind, it better to get stuff done while it's still fresh in my memory too. Don't worry, there's still plenty to do around here. There are a lot of articles floating around with little to no text, which need a spell checking, or even a rewrite. TFTD in particular needs some attention. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 16:35, 21 December 2008 (CST)

:I got that same snowfall, still being only a few hours north, and yeah, we got shut down too. :) As for TFTD, I know it needs attention, but I've never been able to get TFTD to run half-decently. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 16:49, 21 December 2008 (CST)

And now I'm up to 3000+ edits. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 01:01, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

== The New Templates. ==
Hey Zombie, great job on these new templates, and now we even have a stub template! If possible could we get a template about adding more pictures? If so, thanks! If not, oh well, it wasn't the biggest deal here yet. It would be nice if we did have pictures for every page though. [[User:Muton commander|Muton commander]] 19:35, 8 January 2009 (CST)

:Thanks, the stub template already existed, I just reused it to create pages which needed something in them. The reason for the other templates is to aid in navigation and also cut down on the number of orphaned and dead-end pages (currently 7 and 60 respectively). Eventually I'd like those numbers to be as close to 0 as possible. Anyway, I created a stub picture template out of some of our other table templates. All you need to do is put <nowiki>{{PicStub}}</nowiki> in a page and it'll show up to the right side of the screen. If there isn't much text in the article, you may want to put a clearing break ( <nowiki><br clear="all"></nowiki> ) after it to keep the template from continuing into the "See Also" heading, for example. Other than that, it's pretty simple to use. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 23:10, 8 January 2009 (CST)

== Site database problems? ==

Hi Zombie

Some weird stuff going on with the site I think. I got an email saying you posted an Update to Talk:Incendiary, but when I view the page there is nothing there, nothing on the history/diff since Jasonred's post about 8 hrs ago.

I'd been noticing a lot of slowness with the Special:Recent Changes page and wondered if the database needs maintenance. But then I put it down to my flaky internet connection. Now I'm not so sure.

[[User:Spike|Spike]] 17:05, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

:Yeah, I posted an update to the Incendiary talk page, but now it's gone. Ah well. Anyway, as you may know, StrategyCore is hosting UfOpaedia now. Pete (the admin and owner of StrategyCore) switched hosts for SC about a week ago and mentioned this wiki would also have to be moved to the new location. I asked him to kindly give me a heads up of at least 24hrs so that I could mention it here. Well, this morning I briefly saw a message saying something like the site is down for maintenance and should be up again on the 14th (I think that's what it said at least). I know Pete was talking about putting a message up so I figured he just shut the site down and moved it to the new host. Have no idea if that actually happened as he hasn't contacted me at all. Might have been a dry run, but since my post disappeared I'm thinking we are on the new hosts server. I'll try and send him an email to confirm what is going on. Looks like everything is showing up in the Recent Changes now, so the worst is probably over. One contribution missing by me is a small price to pay. ;) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 18:44, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

I'm still unable to post to Talk:Incendiary, I get a 500 Server error. I've tried rebooting my computer, using IE instead of Mozilla, logging out and in from the Wiki, no joy. I seem to be ok to post to other pages, but maybe that's a coincidence. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 07:59, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

I also have email alerts for another update that is not visible on the wiki, suggesting the database is still in flux:
*Talk:Firing_Accuracy_Testing by Bomb Bloke at 02:05 GMT, 03:05 system time (10 hrs ago - the server must be on British Summer Time)
[[User:Spike|Spike]] 08:08, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

:The talk page for Incendiary is 40kb long (huge), so maybe we should cut some of it back. That may be what is causing the problem, especially if you are attempting to add long rambling posts to it. The email thing is probably a delayed reaction after the move. The site probably generated the emails before the move, then were unable to be sent out. When we moved over and everything was running again, it probably sent those emails out, even though the id code for the contribution didn't exist anymore. That's my guess. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 11:17, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

::That sounds right, I was trying to add a lot of text. Should be ok to clean up the older part of the discussion. I will do that if I get time. [[User:Spike|Spike]] 12:13, 15 March 2009 (EDT)

The server change must've occurred just before I went to bed last night. Thought I'd give the recents a scan and was rather dismayed to see a whole day's worth of edits just go. Spent some time reinstating the few of mine that I could remember. This morning those edits were gone and the old ones were back. Strange experience indeed. Shame to see some of the new material that was added during the "lost" day that we just lost again - didn't get round to reviewing it. Oh well. -[[User:NKF|NKF]] 01:01, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

----

Shame indeed. In hindsight, and in future, during maintenance can we put a big notice on the home page so that people can wait to post until after the maintenance is done? [[User:Spike|Spike]] 01:45, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

:Well, there was a message telling people the site was having maintenance done. The only problem was that it only was up for 5 min at most. Supposedly Pete had put some locks down to prevent people from posting but those didn't work for some reason either. In addition, I never received a message from him telling me the move was happening, otherwise I would have plastered a big "Do Not Post Today" banner across he front page. So it was a "Perfect Storm" of unfortunate incidents which led to this. I made it perfectly clear to Pete that issues like this CANNOT happen ever again. I don't like to see stuff like this and I'm sure most of you feel the same way. On the positive side, this is the last server/host move we'll be making for a long time. At least I hope so, as this move was a total disaster in my book. --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] 02:08, 16 March 2009 (EDT)

==Welcome back!==

There's a name I haven't seen in a long, long time. I thought you'd gotten out of the game. Glad to see that isn't the case. :) [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] ([[User talk:Arrow Quivershaft|talk]]) 22:33, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
: Yep. I concur! Nice to see you here! #OldXCommersNeverDie --[[User:IvanDogovich|IvanDogovich]] ([[User talk:IvanDogovich|talk]]) 23:08, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
I was surprised too. Pleasantly. You know more about the guts of X-Com than anyone besides the Gollops, methinks, and it's been like a dark age without you around. [[User:Magic9mushroom|Magic9mushroom]] ([[User talk:Magic9mushroom|talk]]) 04:01, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
:Thanks guys! I haven't given up on X-COM, it's my favorite game of all time! To be honest, I haven't contributed here for a number of reasons, primarily because I felt like an old relic now that XCOM/XCOM2 came out and also because my mother died late last year. I either couldn't contribute anything new or didn't feel up to it. I began to realize though that there is still work to be done in the X-COM area and that I could be of assistance. Hehe. So yeah, for a while there I just lurked. As always though, you can find me at StrategyCore. :) --[[User:Zombie|Zombie]] ([[User talk:Zombie|talk]]) 02:55, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Air Combat (Long War)

2016-05-11T06:37:08Z

Xuncu: /* Interception Strategy */

<div style="float:right">{{Header (Long War)}}__TOC__</div>

==Overview==
UFOs are tougher, faster, and much deadlier in Long War. Along with that, your crafts and armaments are significantly less potent, at least at first. You will need to cycle your craft regularly like your soldiers. UFO kills will grant experience to your pilots and provide a bonus to accuracy. Your pilots will learn UFO flight patterns and weaknesses, therefore they will become much better at shooting down alien craft: sortie experience provides +3% to hit per kill (up to + 30%) and +1% damage per kill (with no top limit). Also, you will find that both your craft and UFOs may sometimes get 'critical hits', with UFOs being downed in a few hits, or your undamaged Interceptor immediately going into near-full red damage indicator.

At the start of the game your fresh pilots are equipped with Avalanche Missiles, which now have an abysmal 40% accuracy. While it is still possible to down the first Scout with one Interceptor, this is an incredibly unlikely event. It's more probable that it would take two, or even three interceptions to bring down even the most basic alien craft. It is also a good idea to switch some of your aircraft armaments to Stingray missiles at the game start, details on that below.

Players should exert caution and pick and choose their air battles carefully. You will not be able to bring down every single enemy UFO. Sometimes attempting high risk interceptions against tough targets would be detrimental to your campaign due to the highly unpredictable nature of the engagements at the start of the game. Your early game goal should be to get experience for some of your pilots and advance your air-warfare technology in order to keep aliens at bay on the battleground for the Earth's skies. In case you overreach too early, you might quickly find yourself crippled with long repair times and unable to stop alien operations.

There are Research and Engineering projects that will assist in aerial sorties. There are multiple foundry projects to improve your interceptors. There are also three consumables that remain from Vanilla.

As you progress, each type of UFO's statistics also increase, from general 'health' to firing rates, as to keep you on your toes; so don't expect to ever truly dominate the skies. Plus with the added variables to air-interception, there is no clear-cut "UFO X can be brought down by Interceptor Y" table. As such, the Long War's [[UFOs_(Long_War)|UFO]] page will be your general guide for how--- or if-- to attempt to engage these potent UFOs.

If the aliens send a UFO and it is damaged, destroyed or lost, the aliens will pay resources for it, limiting their options in the next month.

===Damaging UFOs===
It is not necessary to shoot down enemy UFOs in order to prevent them from completing their mission. Doing damage to them is sometimes enough to spoil their plans or reduce their effectiveness. The damage that UFO sustains is stored between interceptions, therefore multiple interception attempts is a good idea to limit the damage to your own Air Force. When a player does more than 50% damage to a UFO, you will start seeing explosion effects around it.

Some UFOs will wander about a country's airspace before zooming off. For these, it is sufficient to get the yellow effect described above. Those effects signify that UFO sustained enough damage to prevent it from completing its mission, such as an Anti-Satellite hunt. Note however that you still have a chance to prevent the UFO's mission while doing less than 50% damage, which is simply linear (i.e., the UFO abort mission chance is 0% at full health, 100% at 50% health, and in 2x% general at (100-x)% health). Otherwise, when they leave detectable airspace (whether you have a satellite over the target country or not), there will be a notification of the damage they did in the minor notices that play alongside the Hologlobe during in-game time progression.

Other UFOs will have a set flight path, and a narrow window of opportunity to intercept: to disrupt these missions entirely, these need to be shot out of the sky. Cases like this include Assault Carriers and Abductors.

Long War mod brings back a mechanic from previous generations of XCOM: UFOs can now have full DOA crashes (with minimal Alloy recovery, and no corpses or other artifacts), so in some cases you may want to pull your punches. To compensate, the Council will give cash rewards for UFOs obliterated in flight. The harder hitting weapons have a greater chance of reducing UFOs to a pile of smelted alloys: specifically, it is the strength of the killshot that determines the UFO's survival.

According to johnnylump on the [http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2967954-beta-15e-final-feedback/page-41 Nexus Forums],

* When a UFO lands it is either conducting a harvest mission (gain resources) or a research mission (gain research). Research missions happen only in countries with satellites -- this is an alien recon-in-force that's a direct attempt to engage XCOM.

* Harvest missions *try* to avoid countries with satellites, with a greater chance when alien aggro is high, but they pay a resource penalty when they do (representing a second-best, safer option.)

* Damage to UFOs, or losses on the ground, have no bearing on research points or resources gained from the mission ... if the UFO survives, it gets full value.

* Damage to UFOs in the air does deduct resources as a repair cost, which is calculated separately from harvest gains.

===Interceptor Weapons and Stances===
Air-to-air weapons now have three main damage statistics - Damage, Rate of Fire, and Armor Penetration. UFOs have different armor levels, which reduces the damage done by a weapon if its armor penetration isn't high enough. For example, you start with a choice between Avalanche missiles (medium damage, low armor penetration) and Stingray missiles (low damage, medium armor penetration). Avalanches will be better against unarmored and very lightly armored UFOs, while Stingrays will be better against more armored UFOs.

When launching you can set a combat stance for your interceptors as they launch on a mission:
* Aggressive gives +15% to hit for both you and the UFO. You may not use the dodge consumable when aggressive.
* Balanced plays out like normal.
* Defensive gives -15% to hit for both you and the UFO. You may not use the auto-hit consumable when defensive.
Mathematically and not accounting for interception time, this means that Aggressive is the most efficient stance when your Interceptor aim is lower than UFO aim, while Defensive is strongest when your Interceptor aim is higher than UFO aim. These effects are stronger the bigger the difference.
However, Interception time is an issue as UFOs will just leave after some time. Obviously, Aggressive is the most time-effective stance.

===UFO Flight Patterns===
UFOs can fly at three altitudes: "High", "Low" and "NOE" ("Nap of the Earth,"). The altitude is a clue of what mission the UFO is going on - UFOs flying at NOE altitude are most likely to land, are performing bombing runs, or will generate an Abduction or Terror mission immediately upon arriving at their destination. UFOs at high altitude are most likely to be hunting satellites. UFOs at low altitude are likely to be scouting satellites, so they must be dealt with. Unless playing in Ironman, you may want to see if a UFO will land before shooting it down (and reload if it does not): while a landed UFO is always more dangerous, an intact UFO and it's material components is a valuable prize, given how fragile Power Sources and Flight Computers are from being shot down in Long War.

Once you successfully raid a UFO type, either landed or crash landed, you can research that craft for a damage bonus against it in future.

===Strategic Plan===
* You start with the Avalanche and Stingray missiles. These will work for small and medium craft for a while until Aliens research better upgrades for their craft.
* After some time, sticking with conventional weapons will leave you totally outgunned. Next you'll want to upgrade to Laser and Phoenix cannons: Laser Cannons are built for accuracy, so a pilot can still reliably hit UFOs on Balanced or Defensive stances, while the Phoenix Cannon is built for armor penetration and higher rate of fire. You would likely need multiple interceptions with frequent use of boost modules to reliably bring down larger UFOs.
*Eventually, you may be able to purchase the Guass/Coilgun and Supercapacitor Foundry projects for the Phoenix and Laser Cannon: these vastly upgrade every aspect of these mid-level aerial weapons
* The Plasma Cannons need to be built from Alien Rifles. Once the Mutons start fielding them, you would want to build up a cache of those items to convert to plasma cannons for your Interceptors. The EMP Cannon is built from 1 Sectopod wreck each. It has a higher rate of fire and lower damage than Plasma which increases the chance of UFOs not being destroyed outright. It also increases the chance for more resources to remain intact for UFO crash-site missions.
* Last, but certainly not least, the Fusion Lance is the most powerful air to air weapon that can only be used by Firestorms. They're built from Fusion Cores, and the only way to get Fusion Cores is to take down Battleships and Assault Carriers... or save the cores from [[Slingshot_DLC_(EU2012)|Slingshot]] mission. Though once you do get them set up, you would have a good chance to disrupt even the Terror Mission ships.

===Interception Strategy===
* You can have more than six interceptors when you defend one continent. store your spare interceptors on the other continents and make them rotate.
* Choose an appropriate stance based on your equipped weapon, researched upgrades, and UFO type.
* Always be prepared to cancel an interception if the engagement is not going well for you. Losing an aircraft with an expensive weapons can be devastating to your resources.
* Consider aborting interception if your first shot hits while UFO misses. You can refuel within an hour and try again or send another bird out with the same hit and run tactics.
* Pressing escape instantly after aborting, reselecting mission control and the UFO will allow you to send a new interceptor out without having to wait for the first one to fly back to base. If the interceptor you aborted with wasn't damaged, you can even send the same interceptor back mid-air and instantly re-engage, without having to fly back & forth and refuel.
* Consider aborting when a satellite hunter displays explosion effects. You have prevented the destruction of the satellite, so you might not want to risk additional damage.
* Use modules in tough situations when you need an extra boost to get the job done.
* Although Wingtip Sparrowhawks are an ''expensive'' investment, they are an option to consider pushing for as soon as you can:
** Their Foundry project can be unlocked fairly early.
** They don't have any artifact costs, like rare Power Sources or a high number of corpses.
** The long development time means you want to get them underway as soon as you can.
** The mass-firing tactic they present for inaccurate pilots helps in early-game, when just causing damage is difficult.
*** Especially for dealing with Satt-hunting UFOs: when you just need to get them to 50% health as soon as you can so they leave your satellites alone, while giving the aliens less time to damage your own craft (ie: DPS race).
** Lastly: they are a permanent upgrade to all current and future XCOM craft, which only needs to be made once, and can't be lost alongside downed interceptors.
* Have an idea of how many interceptions are possible before UFO completes its mission or attempts to escape. For example Scouts usually can only be engaged twice with Ravens.
* If/once you get enough EMP Cannons to be distributed throughout each continent's squadron, remember that higher damage weapons have a greater chance to outright destroy enemy craft. Plan your engagements around that fact and consider which ground tactical missions you would rather go on.
** Consider saving craft equipped with more damaging weapons to go against larger UFOs, while EMPing the smaller craft may be a better risk/reward scenario, given that their full compliment of aliens won't be much larger than if shot down with other weapons.
* Late-game, you may find that the aliens favor sending more and the larger UFOs to one continent/country in particular (more commonly whichever continent/country has the highest Panic level, but attention of whichever one has XCOM HQ is also to be expected), meaning that you'll remained burdened by repair times: simply cycle out damaged fighters with fresh fighters from other continents.
** Transit time puts repair times on pause, but transfer time will almost always be far less than the days it'll take to repair a single fighter.
** This will also help you by evening out experience between your pilots, and spreading them out between each continent, so you don't get blindsided by, say, a Battleship appearing in a continent with an inexperienced squadron.
* The modules are much more worthwhile-- nearly essential-- in Long War. As said, Dodge cannot be used in an aggressive stance and Aim cannot be used in a defensive stance. And as they do take time to build, it pays to maintain a stock of them.
** The Aim module is fairly cheap, and is useful throughout a campaign. Keep a large stock of Floater corpses to make these. While an aggressive stance means that all shots have more accuracy, using an Aim module early in a normal stance dogfight means drawing first blood while being a little harder to be hit yourself.
** The Boost module can be used in any stance, and only extends time (as all air-to-air weapons now are counted as 'long range', approach reduction time no longer is affected). More useful in early game, when you need more time to do enough damage with the weaker weapons and less experienced pilots.
** The Dodge module is exceedingly useful, and still hard to make, due to the necessity of Cyberdisc wrecks needed to construct them.
*As mentioned, the aliens will most often focus their efforts on wherever they have the greatest foothold: expect Terror Ships and Assault Carriers on any country that's in the red, as the aliens commit Terror Missions in order to send a country over the edge to withdraw from the Council. So, be prepared to swap out any of your aircraft with those stationed in other continents, even if it only got dinged on a smaller UFO: this screening tactic the aliens may use can lead to you trying to fend off the larger UFOs with insufficient weapons and craft.
**Ergo: If repair time is longer than transit time, swap it.
**That goes double if it's been a while since you downed one of the larger UFOs: that may be a sign that they're making the down payment on the resource cost to send something big your way.
**So once you got a Firestorm built: guess where it should go?

By swatting UFOs out of the sky, you may be able to keep Panic tempered down: a UFO brought crashing to the ground is a pack of aliens not completing missions in the cities, and a smoking impact crater is a mission your soldiers don't need to get fatigued/injured on: heavy weapons obliterating the smaller UFOs may be desirable, at least to avoid the 'Fatigue Spiral.' If you've managed to take by the sky for a month, you may have a easier time in the next, as the aliens recoup their losses... unless you've managed to ''really'' piss them off. In which case, expect them to come a-knockin' on your base's door soon...

==Damage Calculations==
*Armor Mitigation = 0.05 * (Target Armor - Armor Penetration)
**0 is the minimum Armor Mitigation and 0.95 is the maximum
*Base Damage = Weapon Damage * (1 - Armor Mitigation)
*Crit Chance = (Armor Penetration - Target Armor) / 2
**5% is the minimum Crit Chance and 25% is the maximum
*A successful Crit multiplies damage by 2
*total damage is then randomized to between 100% and 150% of its current value.
*For XCOM Aircraft:
**If the appropriate UFO analysis has been researched, total damage is multiplied by 1.1
**total damage is also multiplied by (Pilot Kills / 100) + 1

Examples:
* Avalanche Missiles (340 damage, 0 armor penetration) vs Fighter (armor 12): no armor is penetrated, so 12×5=60% of damage is blocked, and the avalanche has an effective damage of 136-204.
* Laser Cannon (290 damage, 5 armor penetration) vs Fighter (armor 12): armor mitigation value of 12-5=7. Consequently, 7×5=35% of the damage is blocked, and the cannon has an effective damage of 188-282.
* Stingray Missiles (200 damage, 10 armor penetration) vs Fighter (armor 12): armor mitigation value of 12-10=2. Only 10% of damage is blocked, the stingray has an effective damage of 180-270.

Note that in the above example while the Laser Cannon and Stingray Missiles are about equal on a per-hit basis, the Laser Cannon is more effective in combat due to its higher rate of fire and higher accuracy.

==Tables==
===UFO Types===
{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
! width="10%" align="left" | UFO Type
! width="3%" align="left" | Durability
! width="3%" align="left" | Armor
! width="60%" align="left" colspan="1"| Description
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Scout.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Scout'''|| Low || None || The speedy Scout-class UFO is fortunately within Earth's native capabilities to shoot down ... on occasion. It appears to be used for general reconnaissance, resource-gathering and research.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Fighter.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Fighter'''|| Low || Light || The alien Fighter, while similar in outward appearance to the scout, is much better protected. Armor-piercing weapons like our Stingray missiles will be helpful in bringing these craft down. This class of craft is used primarily for air raids and anti-satellite operations.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Raider.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Raider'''|| Moderate || Very Light || The Raider class of UFO seems to be a multirole craft that thus suffers in combat power. The aliens appear to use it for reconnaissance, research and resource-gathering operations.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Destroyer.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Destroyer'''|| Moderate || Moderate || The deadly Destroyer present a much greater threat to our aircraft than its sister class of ships. Armor-piercing weapons are required to defeat this craft. It appears to primarily be used for air raids and anti-satellite operations, although we may see it conduct reconnaissance missions as well. Our analysts note the presence of unused hardpoints on some images of this craft, so we should look out for upgraded versions with even more killing power.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Abductor.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Abductor'''|| High || Heavy || Abductors appear to be much better protected than other ships of this size. Perhaps the aliens particularly value the abduction and research missions they are used for.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Harvester.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Harvester'''|| High || Moderate || The Harvester class of UFO seems to have one role -- to recover important biological materials and minerals from Earth in support of other alien operations. We should try to interdict alien harvest operations whenever possible to slow the alien advance. These craft may be vulnerable to a concentrated attack.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Transport.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Transport'''|| Very High || Heavy || This ponderously slow craft will be a tough nut to crack. It appears to be primarily used in alien terrestrial resource-gathering but could also be used in support of other major alien operations.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_TerrorShip.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Terror Ship'''|| Very High || Heavy || The rarely encountered Terror Ship appears suited for rapid deployment of alien shock troops. They appear to presage alien terror missions, but they may be used for alien research on XCOM as well.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_AssaultCarrier.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Assault Carrier'''|| Highest || Heavy || The assault carrier, while built on a battleship hull, lacks some of its sister's firepower and may be easier to shoot down. Nevertheless, we expect to see the aliens use this craft only against high-value targets, so it should be taken seriously whenever it is detected.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Battleship.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Battleship'''|| Highest || Very Heavy || An unbelievably dangerous piece of hardware, these UFOs never appear to land but are used in bombing, anti-satellite and air superiority roles.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Overseer.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Overseer'''|| High || Very Heavy || This class of ship appears to be used as a airborne command center for the ethereal race of alien. Only our strongest weapons will be able to penetrate its armor.
|}

===Aircraft===
{|class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
!rowspan="2" {{Item name (Long War)}}!!rowspan="2"|Health!!rowspan="2"|Armor!!rowspan="2"|Penetration!!rowspan="2"|Speed!!colspan="2"|Prerequisites!!colspan="6"|Cost!!Maintenance
|-align="center"
|{{Research required (Long War)}}||{{Engineers required (Long War)}}||{{Credits cost (Long War)}}||{{Alloys cost (Long War)}}||{{Elerium cost (Long War)}}||{{Meld cost (Long War)}}||{{Items cost (Long War)}}||{{Time cost (Long War)}}||{{Maintenance cost (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Skyranger.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Skyranger]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Skyranger]]'''||colspan="4"|Can't be damaged or destroyed||colspan="8"|XCOM starts with one, unable to produce more||title="Cost in Credits"|20
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Satellite.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Satellite]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Satellite]]'''||colspan="4"|Increases funding and provides unique bonuses|| ||10||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|200<br />(300)|| || ||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(7)|| ||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|25 days<br />(12.5 days)||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Interceptor.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Interceptor]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Interceptor]]'''||2500||5|| ||10|| || ||title="Cost in Credits"|200|| || || || ||title="Duration in days"|3 days||title="Cost in Credits"|40
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Firestorm.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Firestorm]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Firestorm]]'''||4000||25||5||15||[[Research (Long War)#Materials and Aerospace|Alien Propulsion]]||75||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|750<br />(1125)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|180<br />(270)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|120<br />(180)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|10<br />(30)||8 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Devices|UFO Flight Computers]]<br />4 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Devices|UFO Power Sources]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|28 days<br />(14.0 days)||title="Cost in Credits"|50
|}

===Interceptor Weapons===
{|class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
!rowspan="2" {{Item name (Long War)}}!!rowspan="2"|Hit chance!!rowspan="2"|Damage!!rowspan="2"|Penetration!!rowspan="2"|Firing<br />cooldown!!colspan="2"|Prerequisites!!colspan="6"|Cost!!rowspan="2" {{Sell value (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|{{Research required (Long War)}}||{{Engineers required (Long War)}}||{{Credits cost (Long War)}}||{{Alloys cost (Long War)}}||{{Elerium cost (Long War)}}||{{Meld cost (Long War)}}||{{Items cost (Long War)}}||{{Time cost (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|[[File:Avalanche Missiles Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Avalanche Missiles]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Avalanche Missiles]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||340<br />(170 per second)|| ||2.0 second||colspan="8"|XCOM starts with an unlimited supply||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Stingray Missiles Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Stingray Missiles]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Stingray Missiles]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||200<br />(133 per second)||10||1.5 second||colspan="8"|XCOM starts with an unlimited supply||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Phoenix Coilgun Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Phoenix Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Phoenix Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||140<br />(183 per second)||5||0.75 second||[[Research (Long War)#Materials and Aerospace|Alien Materials]]||15||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|120<br />(180)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|12<br />(18)|| ||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(5)|| ||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|10 days<br />(5.0 days)||48
|-align="center"
|'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Phoenix Coilgun]]'''|| ||230<br />(307 per second)||18|| ||[[Foundry (Long War)#Aerospace Improvements|Phoenix Coilguns (Foundry)]]|| || || || || || || ||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Laser Cannon Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Laser Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Laser Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|40% / 55% / 70%||290<br />(290 per second)||5||1.0 second||[[Research (Long War)#Laser and Gauss Weapons|Advanced Beam Lasers]]||25||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|160<br />(240)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|30<br />(45)|| ||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(6)|| ||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|10 days<br />(5.0 days)||64
|-align="center"
|'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Pulse Cannon]]'''|| ||300<br />(400 per second)||11||0.75 second||[[Foundry (Long War)#Aerospace Improvements|Supercapacitors (Foundry)]]|| || || || || || || ||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Plasma Cannon Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Plasma Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Plasma Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||650<br />(650 per second)||22||1.0 second||[[Research (Long War)#Plasma Weapons|Vehicular Plasma Weapons]]||95||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|500<br />(750)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|50<br />(75)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|60<br />(90)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|5<br />(19)||1 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Weaponry|Alien Rifle]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|14 days<br />(7.0 days)||200
|-align="center"
|[[File:EMP Cannon Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|EMP Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|EMP Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|15% / 30% / 45%||310<br />(563 per second)||30||0.55 second||[[Research (Long War)#Laser and Gauss Weapons|Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons]]||100||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|575<br />(862)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|60<br />(90)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|160<br />(240)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(16)||1 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Sectopod Wreck]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|20 days<br />(10.0 days)||230
|-align="center"
|[[File:Fusion Lance Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Fusion Lance]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Fusion Lance]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|15% / 30% / 45%||1200<br />(960 per second)||26||1.25 second||[[Research (Long War)#Plasma Weapons|Fusion Weapons]]||120||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|800<br />(1200)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|70<br />(105)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|120<br />(180)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|40<br />(62)||1 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Devices|Fusion Core]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|25 days<br />(12.5 days)||320
|}

===Modules===
{|class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
!rowspan="2" {{Item name (Long War)}}!!rowspan="2" {{Special properties (Long War)}}!!colspan="2"|Prerequisites!!colspan="6"|Cost!!rowspan="2" {{Sell value (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|{{Research required (Long War)}}||{{Engineers required (Long War)}}||{{Credits cost (Long War)}}||{{Alloys cost (Long War)}}||{{Elerium cost (Long War)}}||{{Meld cost (Long War)}}||{{Items cost (Long War)}}||{{Time cost (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|[[File:UFO Tracking Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|UFO Tracking (Boost)]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|UFO Tracking (Boost)]]'''||Increases the duration of this air combat||[[Research (Long War)#Materials and Aerospace|Alien Materials]]<br />[[Foundry (Long War)|Aircraft Boosters]]||12||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|15<br />(22)|| ||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(1)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(3)||2 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Drone Wrecks]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|5 days<br />(2.5 days)||6
|-align="center"
|[[File:Defense Matrix Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Defense Matrix (Dodge)]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Defense Matrix (Dodge)]]'''||Dodges the next two incoming attacks||[[Research (Long War)#Alien Autopsies|Cyberdisc Autopsy]]<br />[[Foundry (Long War)|Aircraft Boosters]]||50||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|25<br />(37)|| ||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|2<br />(3)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(3)||2 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Cyberdisc Wrecks]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|5 days<br />(2.5 days)||10
|-align="center"
|[[File:Uplink Targeting Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Uplink Targeting (Aim)]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Uplink Targeting (Aim)]]'''||Automatically hits the next two attacks||[[Research (Long War)#Alien Autopsies|Floater Autopsy]]<br />[[Foundry (Long War)|Aircraft Boosters]]||35||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|20<br />(30)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(1)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(1)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(3)||3 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Floater Corpses]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|5 days<br />(2.5 days)||8
|}

==See Also==
* [[Foundry (Long War)#Aerospace Improvements|Aerospace Improvements]]
* [[Hangar (Long War)|Hangar]]
* [[UFOs (Long War)|UFOs]]

[[Category: Long War]]

Air Combat (Long War)

2016-05-11T06:34:29Z

Xuncu: /* Interception Strategy */

<div style="float:right">{{Header (Long War)}}__TOC__</div>

==Overview==
UFOs are tougher, faster, and much deadlier in Long War. Along with that, your crafts and armaments are significantly less potent, at least at first. You will need to cycle your craft regularly like your soldiers. UFO kills will grant experience to your pilots and provide a bonus to accuracy. Your pilots will learn UFO flight patterns and weaknesses, therefore they will become much better at shooting down alien craft: sortie experience provides +3% to hit per kill (up to + 30%) and +1% damage per kill (with no top limit). Also, you will find that both your craft and UFOs may sometimes get 'critical hits', with UFOs being downed in a few hits, or your undamaged Interceptor immediately going into near-full red damage indicator.

At the start of the game your fresh pilots are equipped with Avalanche Missiles, which now have an abysmal 40% accuracy. While it is still possible to down the first Scout with one Interceptor, this is an incredibly unlikely event. It's more probable that it would take two, or even three interceptions to bring down even the most basic alien craft. It is also a good idea to switch some of your aircraft armaments to Stingray missiles at the game start, details on that below.

Players should exert caution and pick and choose their air battles carefully. You will not be able to bring down every single enemy UFO. Sometimes attempting high risk interceptions against tough targets would be detrimental to your campaign due to the highly unpredictable nature of the engagements at the start of the game. Your early game goal should be to get experience for some of your pilots and advance your air-warfare technology in order to keep aliens at bay on the battleground for the Earth's skies. In case you overreach too early, you might quickly find yourself crippled with long repair times and unable to stop alien operations.

There are Research and Engineering projects that will assist in aerial sorties. There are multiple foundry projects to improve your interceptors. There are also three consumables that remain from Vanilla.

As you progress, each type of UFO's statistics also increase, from general 'health' to firing rates, as to keep you on your toes; so don't expect to ever truly dominate the skies. Plus with the added variables to air-interception, there is no clear-cut "UFO X can be brought down by Interceptor Y" table. As such, the Long War's [[UFOs_(Long_War)|UFO]] page will be your general guide for how--- or if-- to attempt to engage these potent UFOs.

If the aliens send a UFO and it is damaged, destroyed or lost, the aliens will pay resources for it, limiting their options in the next month.

===Damaging UFOs===
It is not necessary to shoot down enemy UFOs in order to prevent them from completing their mission. Doing damage to them is sometimes enough to spoil their plans or reduce their effectiveness. The damage that UFO sustains is stored between interceptions, therefore multiple interception attempts is a good idea to limit the damage to your own Air Force. When a player does more than 50% damage to a UFO, you will start seeing explosion effects around it.

Some UFOs will wander about a country's airspace before zooming off. For these, it is sufficient to get the yellow effect described above. Those effects signify that UFO sustained enough damage to prevent it from completing its mission, such as an Anti-Satellite hunt. Note however that you still have a chance to prevent the UFO's mission while doing less than 50% damage, which is simply linear (i.e., the UFO abort mission chance is 0% at full health, 100% at 50% health, and in 2x% general at (100-x)% health). Otherwise, when they leave detectable airspace (whether you have a satellite over the target country or not), there will be a notification of the damage they did in the minor notices that play alongside the Hologlobe during in-game time progression.

Other UFOs will have a set flight path, and a narrow window of opportunity to intercept: to disrupt these missions entirely, these need to be shot out of the sky. Cases like this include Assault Carriers and Abductors.

Long War mod brings back a mechanic from previous generations of XCOM: UFOs can now have full DOA crashes (with minimal Alloy recovery, and no corpses or other artifacts), so in some cases you may want to pull your punches. To compensate, the Council will give cash rewards for UFOs obliterated in flight. The harder hitting weapons have a greater chance of reducing UFOs to a pile of smelted alloys: specifically, it is the strength of the killshot that determines the UFO's survival.

According to johnnylump on the [http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2967954-beta-15e-final-feedback/page-41 Nexus Forums],

* When a UFO lands it is either conducting a harvest mission (gain resources) or a research mission (gain research). Research missions happen only in countries with satellites -- this is an alien recon-in-force that's a direct attempt to engage XCOM.

* Harvest missions *try* to avoid countries with satellites, with a greater chance when alien aggro is high, but they pay a resource penalty when they do (representing a second-best, safer option.)

* Damage to UFOs, or losses on the ground, have no bearing on research points or resources gained from the mission ... if the UFO survives, it gets full value.

* Damage to UFOs in the air does deduct resources as a repair cost, which is calculated separately from harvest gains.

===Interceptor Weapons and Stances===
Air-to-air weapons now have three main damage statistics - Damage, Rate of Fire, and Armor Penetration. UFOs have different armor levels, which reduces the damage done by a weapon if its armor penetration isn't high enough. For example, you start with a choice between Avalanche missiles (medium damage, low armor penetration) and Stingray missiles (low damage, medium armor penetration). Avalanches will be better against unarmored and very lightly armored UFOs, while Stingrays will be better against more armored UFOs.

When launching you can set a combat stance for your interceptors as they launch on a mission:
* Aggressive gives +15% to hit for both you and the UFO. You may not use the dodge consumable when aggressive.
* Balanced plays out like normal.
* Defensive gives -15% to hit for both you and the UFO. You may not use the auto-hit consumable when defensive.
Mathematically and not accounting for interception time, this means that Aggressive is the most efficient stance when your Interceptor aim is lower than UFO aim, while Defensive is strongest when your Interceptor aim is higher than UFO aim. These effects are stronger the bigger the difference.
However, Interception time is an issue as UFOs will just leave after some time. Obviously, Aggressive is the most time-effective stance.

===UFO Flight Patterns===
UFOs can fly at three altitudes: "High", "Low" and "NOE" ("Nap of the Earth,"). The altitude is a clue of what mission the UFO is going on - UFOs flying at NOE altitude are most likely to land, are performing bombing runs, or will generate an Abduction or Terror mission immediately upon arriving at their destination. UFOs at high altitude are most likely to be hunting satellites. UFOs at low altitude are likely to be scouting satellites, so they must be dealt with. Unless playing in Ironman, you may want to see if a UFO will land before shooting it down (and reload if it does not): while a landed UFO is always more dangerous, an intact UFO and it's material components is a valuable prize, given how fragile Power Sources and Flight Computers are from being shot down in Long War.

Once you successfully raid a UFO type, either landed or crash landed, you can research that craft for a damage bonus against it in future.

===Strategic Plan===
* You start with the Avalanche and Stingray missiles. These will work for small and medium craft for a while until Aliens research better upgrades for their craft.
* After some time, sticking with conventional weapons will leave you totally outgunned. Next you'll want to upgrade to Laser and Phoenix cannons: Laser Cannons are built for accuracy, so a pilot can still reliably hit UFOs on Balanced or Defensive stances, while the Phoenix Cannon is built for armor penetration and higher rate of fire. You would likely need multiple interceptions with frequent use of boost modules to reliably bring down larger UFOs.
*Eventually, you may be able to purchase the Guass/Coilgun and Supercapacitor Foundry projects for the Phoenix and Laser Cannon: these vastly upgrade every aspect of these mid-level aerial weapons
* The Plasma Cannons need to be built from Alien Rifles. Once the Mutons start fielding them, you would want to build up a cache of those items to convert to plasma cannons for your Interceptors. The EMP Cannon is built from 1 Sectopod wreck each. It has a higher rate of fire and lower damage than Plasma which increases the chance of UFOs not being destroyed outright. It also increases the chance for more resources to remain intact for UFO crash-site missions.
* Last, but certainly not least, the Fusion Lance is the most powerful air to air weapon that can only be used by Firestorms. They're built from Fusion Cores, and the only way to get Fusion Cores is to take down Battleships and Assault Carriers... or save the cores from [[Slingshot_DLC_(EU2012)|Slingshot]] mission. Though once you do get them set up, you would have a good chance to disrupt even the Terror Mission ships.

===Interception Strategy===
* You can have more than six interceptors when you defend one continent. store your spare interceptors on the other continents and make them rotate.
* Choose an appropriate stance based on your equipped weapon, researched upgrades, and UFO type.
* Always be prepared to cancel an interception if the engagement is not going well for you. Losing an aircraft with an expensive weapons can be devastating to your resources.
* Consider aborting interception if your first shot hits while UFO misses. You can refuel within an hour and try again or send another bird out with the same hit and run tactics.
* Pressing escape instantly after aborting, reselecting mission control and the UFO will allow you to send a new interceptor out without having to wait for the first one to fly back to base. If the interceptor you aborted with wasn't damaged, you can even send the same interceptor back mid-air and instantly re-engage, without having to fly back & forth and refuel.
* Consider aborting when a satellite hunter displays explosion effects. You have prevented the destruction of the satellite, so you might not want to risk additional damage.
* Use modules in tough situations when you need an extra boost to get the job done.
* Although Wingtip Sparrowhawks are an ''expensive'' investment, they are an option to consider pushing for as soon as you can:
** Their Foundry project can be unlocked fairly early.
** They don't have any artifact costs, like rare Power Sources or a high number of corpses.
** The long development time means you want to get them underway as soon as you can.
** The mass-firing tactic they present for inaccurate pilots helps in early-game, when just causing damage is difficult.
*** Especially for dealing with Satt-hunting UFOs: when you just need to get them to 50% health as soon as you can so they leave your satellites alone, while giving the aliens less time to damage your own craft (ie: DPS race).
** Lastly: they are a permanent upgrade to all current and future XCOM craft, which only needs to me made once, and can't be lost alongside downed interceptors.
* Have an idea of how many interceptions are possible before UFO completes its mission or attempts to escape. For example Scouts usually can only be engaged twice with Ravens.
* If/once you get enough EMP Cannons to be distributed throughout each continent's squadron, remember that higher damage weapons have a greater chance to outright destroy enemy craft. Plan your engagements around that fact and consider which ground tactical missions you would rather go on.
** Consider saving craft equipped with more damaging weapons to go against larger UFOs, while EMPing the smaller craft may be a better risk/reward scenario, given that their full compliment of aliens won't be much larger than if shot down with other weapons.
* Late-game, you may find that the aliens favor sending more and the larger UFOs to one continent/country in particular (more commonly whichever continent/country has the highest Panic level, but attention of whichever one has XCOM HQ is also to be expected), meaning that you'll remained burdened by repair times: simply cycle out damaged fighters with fresh fighters from other continents.
** Transit time puts repair times on pause, but transfer time will almost always be far less than the days it'll take to repair a single fighter.
** This will also help you by evening out experience between your pilots, and spreading them out between each continent, so you don't get blindsided by, say, a Battleship appearing in a continent with an inexperienced squadron.
* The modules are much more worthwhile-- nearly essential-- in Long War. As said, Dodge cannot be used in an aggressive stance and Aim cannot be used in a defensive stance. And as they do take time to build, it pays to maintain a stock of them.
** The Aim module is fairly cheap, and is useful throughout a campaign. Keep a large stock of Floater corpses to make these. While an aggressive stance means that all shots have more accuracy, using an Aim module early in a normal stance dogfight means drawing first blood while being a little harder to be hit yourself.
** The Boost module can be used in any stance, and only extends time (as all air-to-air weapons now are counted as 'long range', approach reduction time no longer is affected). More useful in early game, when you need more time to do enough damage with the weaker weapons and less experienced pilots.
** The Dodge module is exceedingly useful, and still hard to make, due to the necessity of Cyberdisc wrecks needed to construct them.
*As mentioned, the aliens will most often focus their efforts on wherever they have the greatest foothold: expect Terror Ships and Assault Carriers on any country that's in the red, as the aliens commit Terror Missions in order to send a country over the edge to withdraw from the Council. So, be prepared to swap out any of your aircraft with those stationed in other continents, even if it only got dinged on a smaller UFO: this screening tactic the aliens may use can lead to you trying to fend off the larger UFOs with insufficient weapons and craft.
**Ergo: If repair time is longer than transit time, swap it.
**That goes double if it's been a while since you downed one of the larger UFOs: that may be a sign that they're making the down payment on the resource cost to send something big your way.
**So once you got a Firestorm built: guess where it should go?

By swatting UFOs out of the sky, you may be able to keep Panic tempered down: a UFO brought crashing to the ground is a pack of aliens not completing missions in the cities, and a smoking impact crater is a mission your soldiers don't need to get fatigued/injured on: heavy weapons obliterating the smaller UFOs may be desirable, at least to avoid the 'Fatigue Spiral.' If you've managed to take by the sky for a month, you may have a easier time in the next, as the aliens recoup their losses... unless you've managed to ''really'' piss them off. In which case, expect them to come a-knockin' on your base's door soon...

==Damage Calculations==
*Armor Mitigation = 0.05 * (Target Armor - Armor Penetration)
**0 is the minimum Armor Mitigation and 0.95 is the maximum
*Base Damage = Weapon Damage * (1 - Armor Mitigation)
*Crit Chance = (Armor Penetration - Target Armor) / 2
**5% is the minimum Crit Chance and 25% is the maximum
*A successful Crit multiplies damage by 2
*total damage is then randomized to between 100% and 150% of its current value.
*For XCOM Aircraft:
**If the appropriate UFO analysis has been researched, total damage is multiplied by 1.1
**total damage is also multiplied by (Pilot Kills / 100) + 1

Examples:
* Avalanche Missiles (340 damage, 0 armor penetration) vs Fighter (armor 12): no armor is penetrated, so 12×5=60% of damage is blocked, and the avalanche has an effective damage of 136-204.
* Laser Cannon (290 damage, 5 armor penetration) vs Fighter (armor 12): armor mitigation value of 12-5=7. Consequently, 7×5=35% of the damage is blocked, and the cannon has an effective damage of 188-282.
* Stingray Missiles (200 damage, 10 armor penetration) vs Fighter (armor 12): armor mitigation value of 12-10=2. Only 10% of damage is blocked, the stingray has an effective damage of 180-270.

Note that in the above example while the Laser Cannon and Stingray Missiles are about equal on a per-hit basis, the Laser Cannon is more effective in combat due to its higher rate of fire and higher accuracy.

==Tables==
===UFO Types===
{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
! width="10%" align="left" | UFO Type
! width="3%" align="left" | Durability
! width="3%" align="left" | Armor
! width="60%" align="left" colspan="1"| Description
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Scout.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Scout'''|| Low || None || The speedy Scout-class UFO is fortunately within Earth's native capabilities to shoot down ... on occasion. It appears to be used for general reconnaissance, resource-gathering and research.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Fighter.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Fighter'''|| Low || Light || The alien Fighter, while similar in outward appearance to the scout, is much better protected. Armor-piercing weapons like our Stingray missiles will be helpful in bringing these craft down. This class of craft is used primarily for air raids and anti-satellite operations.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Raider.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Raider'''|| Moderate || Very Light || The Raider class of UFO seems to be a multirole craft that thus suffers in combat power. The aliens appear to use it for reconnaissance, research and resource-gathering operations.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Destroyer.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Destroyer'''|| Moderate || Moderate || The deadly Destroyer present a much greater threat to our aircraft than its sister class of ships. Armor-piercing weapons are required to defeat this craft. It appears to primarily be used for air raids and anti-satellite operations, although we may see it conduct reconnaissance missions as well. Our analysts note the presence of unused hardpoints on some images of this craft, so we should look out for upgraded versions with even more killing power.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Abductor.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Abductor'''|| High || Heavy || Abductors appear to be much better protected than other ships of this size. Perhaps the aliens particularly value the abduction and research missions they are used for.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Harvester.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Harvester'''|| High || Moderate || The Harvester class of UFO seems to have one role -- to recover important biological materials and minerals from Earth in support of other alien operations. We should try to interdict alien harvest operations whenever possible to slow the alien advance. These craft may be vulnerable to a concentrated attack.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Transport.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Transport'''|| Very High || Heavy || This ponderously slow craft will be a tough nut to crack. It appears to be primarily used in alien terrestrial resource-gathering but could also be used in support of other major alien operations.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_TerrorShip.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Terror Ship'''|| Very High || Heavy || The rarely encountered Terror Ship appears suited for rapid deployment of alien shock troops. They appear to presage alien terror missions, but they may be used for alien research on XCOM as well.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_AssaultCarrier.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Assault Carrier'''|| Highest || Heavy || The assault carrier, while built on a battleship hull, lacks some of its sister's firepower and may be easier to shoot down. Nevertheless, we expect to see the aliens use this craft only against high-value targets, so it should be taken seriously whenever it is detected.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Battleship.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Battleship'''|| Highest || Very Heavy || An unbelievably dangerous piece of hardware, these UFOs never appear to land but are used in bombing, anti-satellite and air superiority roles.
|-align="center"
|<div style="background:#333333">[[Image: UFO-Analysis_Overseer.png|center|128x64px]]</div> '''Overseer'''|| High || Very Heavy || This class of ship appears to be used as a airborne command center for the ethereal race of alien. Only our strongest weapons will be able to penetrate its armor.
|}

===Aircraft===
{|class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
!rowspan="2" {{Item name (Long War)}}!!rowspan="2"|Health!!rowspan="2"|Armor!!rowspan="2"|Penetration!!rowspan="2"|Speed!!colspan="2"|Prerequisites!!colspan="6"|Cost!!Maintenance
|-align="center"
|{{Research required (Long War)}}||{{Engineers required (Long War)}}||{{Credits cost (Long War)}}||{{Alloys cost (Long War)}}||{{Elerium cost (Long War)}}||{{Meld cost (Long War)}}||{{Items cost (Long War)}}||{{Time cost (Long War)}}||{{Maintenance cost (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Skyranger.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Skyranger]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Skyranger]]'''||colspan="4"|Can't be damaged or destroyed||colspan="8"|XCOM starts with one, unable to produce more||title="Cost in Credits"|20
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Satellite.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Satellite]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Satellite]]'''||colspan="4"|Increases funding and provides unique bonuses|| ||10||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|200<br />(300)|| || ||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(7)|| ||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|25 days<br />(12.5 days)||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Interceptor.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Interceptor]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Interceptor]]'''||2500||5|| ||10|| || ||title="Cost in Credits"|200|| || || || ||title="Duration in days"|3 days||title="Cost in Credits"|40
|-align="center"
|[[File:Inv Firestorm.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Firestorm]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aircraft|Firestorm]]'''||4000||25||5||15||[[Research (Long War)#Materials and Aerospace|Alien Propulsion]]||75||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|750<br />(1125)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|180<br />(270)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|120<br />(180)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|10<br />(30)||8 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Devices|UFO Flight Computers]]<br />4 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Devices|UFO Power Sources]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|28 days<br />(14.0 days)||title="Cost in Credits"|50
|}

===Interceptor Weapons===
{|class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
!rowspan="2" {{Item name (Long War)}}!!rowspan="2"|Hit chance!!rowspan="2"|Damage!!rowspan="2"|Penetration!!rowspan="2"|Firing<br />cooldown!!colspan="2"|Prerequisites!!colspan="6"|Cost!!rowspan="2" {{Sell value (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|{{Research required (Long War)}}||{{Engineers required (Long War)}}||{{Credits cost (Long War)}}||{{Alloys cost (Long War)}}||{{Elerium cost (Long War)}}||{{Meld cost (Long War)}}||{{Items cost (Long War)}}||{{Time cost (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|[[File:Avalanche Missiles Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Avalanche Missiles]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Avalanche Missiles]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||340<br />(170 per second)|| ||2.0 second||colspan="8"|XCOM starts with an unlimited supply||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Stingray Missiles Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Stingray Missiles]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Stingray Missiles]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||200<br />(133 per second)||10||1.5 second||colspan="8"|XCOM starts with an unlimited supply||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Phoenix Coilgun Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Phoenix Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Phoenix Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||140<br />(183 per second)||5||0.75 second||[[Research (Long War)#Materials and Aerospace|Alien Materials]]||15||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|120<br />(180)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|12<br />(18)|| ||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(5)|| ||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|10 days<br />(5.0 days)||48
|-align="center"
|'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Phoenix Coilgun]]'''|| ||230<br />(307 per second)||18|| ||[[Foundry (Long War)#Aerospace Improvements|Phoenix Coilguns (Foundry)]]|| || || || || || || ||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Laser Cannon Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Laser Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Laser Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|40% / 55% / 70%||290<br />(290 per second)||5||1.0 second||[[Research (Long War)#Laser and Gauss Weapons|Advanced Beam Lasers]]||25||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|160<br />(240)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|30<br />(45)|| ||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(6)|| ||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|10 days<br />(5.0 days)||64
|-align="center"
|'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Pulse Cannon]]'''|| ||300<br />(400 per second)||11||0.75 second||[[Foundry (Long War)#Aerospace Improvements|Supercapacitors (Foundry)]]|| || || || || || || ||
|-align="center"
|[[File:Plasma Cannon Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Plasma Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Plasma Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|25% / 40% / 55%||650<br />(650 per second)||22||1.0 second||[[Research (Long War)#Plasma Weapons|Vehicular Plasma Weapons]]||95||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|500<br />(750)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|50<br />(75)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|60<br />(90)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|5<br />(19)||1 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Weaponry|Alien Rifle]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|14 days<br />(7.0 days)||200
|-align="center"
|[[File:EMP Cannon Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|EMP Cannon]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|EMP Cannon]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|15% / 30% / 45%||310<br />(563 per second)||30||0.55 second||[[Research (Long War)#Laser and Gauss Weapons|Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons]]||100||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|575<br />(862)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|60<br />(90)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|160<br />(240)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|0<br />(16)||1 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Sectopod Wreck]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|20 days<br />(10.0 days)||230
|-align="center"
|[[File:Fusion Lance Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Fusion Lance]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Weapons|Fusion Lance]]'''||title="Def / Bal / Agg "|15% / 30% / 45%||1200<br />(960 per second)||26||1.25 second||[[Research (Long War)#Plasma Weapons|Fusion Weapons]]||120||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|800<br />(1200)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|70<br />(105)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|120<br />(180)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|40<br />(62)||1 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Alien Devices|Fusion Core]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|25 days<br />(12.5 days)||320
|}

===Modules===
{|class="wikitable" width="100%"
|-
!rowspan="2" {{Item name (Long War)}}!!rowspan="2" {{Special properties (Long War)}}!!colspan="2"|Prerequisites!!colspan="6"|Cost!!rowspan="2" {{Sell value (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|{{Research required (Long War)}}||{{Engineers required (Long War)}}||{{Credits cost (Long War)}}||{{Alloys cost (Long War)}}||{{Elerium cost (Long War)}}||{{Meld cost (Long War)}}||{{Items cost (Long War)}}||{{Time cost (Long War)}}
|-align="center"
|[[File:UFO Tracking Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|UFO Tracking (Boost)]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|UFO Tracking (Boost)]]'''||Increases the duration of this air combat||[[Research (Long War)#Materials and Aerospace|Alien Materials]]<br />[[Foundry (Long War)|Aircraft Boosters]]||12||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|15<br />(22)|| ||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(1)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(3)||2 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Drone Wrecks]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|5 days<br />(2.5 days)||6
|-align="center"
|[[File:Defense Matrix Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Defense Matrix (Dodge)]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Defense Matrix (Dodge)]]'''||Dodges the next two incoming attacks||[[Research (Long War)#Alien Autopsies|Cyberdisc Autopsy]]<br />[[Foundry (Long War)|Aircraft Boosters]]||50||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|25<br />(37)|| ||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|2<br />(3)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(3)||2 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Cyberdisc Wrecks]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|5 days<br />(2.5 days)||10
|-align="center"
|[[File:Uplink Targeting Long War.png|128px|link=Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Uplink Targeting (Aim)]]<br />'''[[Hangar (Long War)#Aerospace Modules|Uplink Targeting (Aim)]]'''||Automatically hits the next two attacks||[[Research (Long War)#Alien Autopsies|Floater Autopsy]]<br />[[Foundry (Long War)|Aircraft Boosters]]||35||title="Cost in Credits
(Cost when building quickly)"|20<br />(30)||title="Cost in Alien Alloys
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(1)||title="Cost in Elerium
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(1)||title="Cost in Meld
(Cost when building quickly)"|1<br />(3)||3 [[Alien Artifacts (Long War)#Corpses|Floater Corpses]]||title="Duration in days
(Duration when building quickly)"|5 days<br />(2.5 days)||8
|}

==See Also==
* [[Foundry (Long War)#Aerospace Improvements|Aerospace Improvements]]
* [[Hangar (Long War)|Hangar]]
* [[UFOs (Long War)|UFOs]]

[[Category: Long War]]

Andromedon (XCOM2)

2016-05-01T10:17:39Z

Xuncu:

Think "Bioshock."

A hulking tank of a unit, this beast is actually an alien from apparently some acid-world, in an environmental suit and with a plasma rifle. Presumably from the Andromeda galaxy, though it may just be a name and not give any clue to the origins of any of the aliens. The main element in the fumes and fluid of this enemy is Argon, which explains the fairly quick evaporation of any spills involved with this unit. It far outstrips the Muton in terms of threat level for several reasons:
*High armor
*High HP
*Immunity to acid, fire, and poison
*Launch a glob of exploding acid. 3 turn cooldown.
*Walks through objects, destroying cover.
*smash people with melee attack.

And lastly, after killing the rider inside, ''the suit itself'' will begin to attack independently with melee attacks, all while trailing the corrosive fluids of the former rider's homeworld all over the ground, obstructing your path. Fortunately, it can only smash at this state (and inaccurately at that), cannot fire its guns, and is fairly slow. It also loses it's armor pips and immunities, and counts as a robotic unit, so it can be hacked to be disabled or controlled: so take out the rider with the rest of your team, and stun or turn it with your Specialist.

Mind controlling the Andromedon is interesting: if it dies under the influence of your mind control, the "suit" will turn on you.

T'leth

2016-05-01T08:20:17Z

Xuncu: /* General Information */

== General Information ==

T'Leth is the game's final mission where aquanauts must fight through three levels of enemies to reach the leader of the invasion fleet and put an end to it. It is implied that this massive craft came alongside, or perhaps even ''as,'' the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event asteroid impact] that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs--- and the rise of mammals, and eventually (and ironically): humans.

Note that this is a do-or-die mission. If you fail or hit abort at any time, the entire campaign is lost. Be sure to take the time to make all the necessary preparations and assemble the finest squad and equipment before launching this mission.

To access T'Leth, you need to have built a [[Leviathan]] sub and complete the "T'leth the alien's city" research topic. Once the research topic is complete, any Leviathan selected in the Geoscape will have an additional '''T'Leth ''' button added beside the launch button.

=Alien City Level 1=

{{Ref Open | title = T'Leth Level 1 Mission Briefing}}
We are entering the unknown, from here on in there could be anything waiting for us. We know there are 2 further levels to the Alien city and your squad must race to the exit on this level to enter the next. Place all aquanauts on the exit and click the 'Abort Mission' icon to advance. Aborting elsewhere will terminate the mission.
{{Ref Close| source = Terror From The Deep T'Leth mission briefing}}

==Description==

This level looks like the second part of an [[Artefact Site]] mission, but the map layout is different and there are only two levels (or "floors"). You must kill all aliens as you move your units to the lift (bright yellow floor) and press the "abort mission" button. Note that this lift is on the upper level (l1).

The map consists of three very large rooms and a multitude of smaller chambers. Most of these are connected to 3-4 other chambers, which makes them good for setting ambushes - watch your back! The large rooms are usually filled alien power generators, hibernation chambers and the like, and are less likely to hold aliens. Instead, most aliens will reside in the smaller rooms, either patrolling around the lower floor or hiding on the upper one. The aliens are not very aggressive; most will hole up and MC your troops.

Because almost all the aliens have [[Disruptor Pulse Launcher]]s and MC ability, it is prudent to use your SWSs for the initial scouting. After that you can use your own MC-capable aquanauts to take control over the Aquatoids and use them for scouting.

Aliens encountered:
*Aquatoids - all armed with Disruptor Pulse Launchers
** On Veteran difficulty: 5 Soldiers, 4 Navigators and 4 Commanders
*Hallucinoids (3 on Veteran difficulty)
Note: This is identical to the number of aliens on the upper level of [[Cydonia]], with Aquatoids standing in for Sectoids, and Hallucinoids for Cyberdisks.

===Complete Layout of T'Leth - Level 1===
[[File:TFTD tleth1-L0.jpg|right|thumb|T'Leth Level 1 L0]]Map of t'Leth Level 1 - L0. <br clear="all">

[[File:TFTD tleth1-L1.jpg|right|thumb|T'Leth Level 1 L1]]Map of t'Leth Level 1 - L1. <br clear="all">

=Alien city level 2=

{{Ref Open | title = T'Leth Level 2 Mission Briefing}}
Further into the unknown, from here on in there could be anything waiting for us. We know there is a further level to the Alien city and your squad must race to the exit on this level to enter the next. Place all aquanauts on the exit and click the 'Abort Mission' icon to advance. Aborting elsewhere will terminate the mission.
{{Ref Close| source = Terror From The Deep T'Leth Mission Briefing Screen}}

(Note that the briefing is almost identical to the previous one)

==Description==

Looks like the the second part of a [[Colony Assault]] mission, but again there's only 2 levels. The map layout is fixed and is always the same from game to game.

Once again, you need to kill all aliens or find the access lift to the third level. This can be difficult, because to do it you must first climb to the upper level, cross to the corner of the map opposite your starting location, and then descend to the ground level. Another problem is that some of the corridors will be too narrow for your SWSs - use Sonic Cannons or Disruptor Pulse Launchers to widen the door and corridors.

This level is a real maze, and it can be time-consuming and frustrating to find the right way. Much of the path is linear, following a counter-clockwise spiral pattern into the central area.

Use Disruptor Pulse Launchers carefully, so as not to make additional routes for the aliens to ambush you. Since the corridors are often narrow, it might not always be practical to use SWSs for scouting. Try to use MC-ed aliens instead. Luckily, none of the aliens on this level are MC-capable.

Note that the exit lift has only room for 25 aquanauts, so if you took Leviathan crewed with 26 men to the mission you must either kill all the aliens or be prepared to leave someone behind. If you take the mission slowly and follow the route that you are meant to follow, and explore the occasional side paths, you should meet every alien there is to meet by the time you reach the exit.

However, if you brought any SWS, room is not a problem, because out of the 4 spaces occupied by the tank the game sees the top one as the tank's location. As long the top of the tank is in the target area, the bottom-left or bottom-right half can stick out, saving you two spaces.

WARNING: You cannot save the game on Level 3. Make sure you save right at the end of Level 2.

Aliens encountered:
*Aquatoid Soldiers (4 on Veteran difficulty), armed with a mix of Disruptor Pulse Launchers and Thermal Shokk Launchers
*Lobster Men Soldiers & Squad Leaders (4 of each on Veteran difficulty), armed with a mix of Disruptor Pulse Launchers and Thermal Shokk Launchers
*Deep Ones (3 on Veteran difficulty)
*Tentaculats (2 on Veteran difficulty)
*Hallucinoids (4 on Veteran difficulty)
*Xarquid (2 on Veteran difficulty)

===Complete Layout of T'Leth - Level 2===
[[File:TFTD tleth2-L0.jpg|right|thumb|T'Leth Level 2 L0]]Map of t'Leth Level 2 - L0. <br clear="all">

[[File:TFTD tleth2-L1.jpg|right|thumb|T'Leth Level 2 L1]]Map of t'Leth Level 2 - L1. <br clear="all">

=Alien city level 3=

{{Ref Open | title = T'Leth Level 3 Mission Briefing}}
The end is in sight, from here on in we are searching for the crypt of the Ultimate Alien. Destroy the 8 power feeds to the tomb to finish off the Alien threat. Don't give up now! Aborting will terminate the mission.
{{Ref Close| source = Terror From The Deep T'Leth Mission Briefing Screen}}

==Description==

The map is roughly a spiral leading to the Ultimate Alien's coffin. Aside from not being able to save, your overhead map will not function properly! You won't be able to see the terrain, only your aquanauts, aliens and dropped items. Also, your SWSs can't move through the doors unless you knock them down with Disruptor Pulse Launchers. You'd need a LOT of ammo to knock down all the doors you need to pass to reach the end.

Fortunately, the map is mostly straightforward, with only a couple of dead-ends. It's also quite large, so your agents will run out of energy if you advance too quickly.

None of the aliens use MC-attacks, so this level is really kind of a pushover. It's certainly a lot easier than the lower level of Cydonia.

When you reach the central chamber, be careful of Tentaculat ambushes. Remember that, unlike in Enemy Unknown, you can't kill the alien mastermind. Instead, destroy the power cylinders around him to win.

Aliens encountered:
*exactly the same as in part 2.

===Complete Layout of T'Leth - Level 3===
[[File:TFTD tleth3-L0.jpg|right|thumb|T'Leth Level 3 L0]]Map of t'Leth Level 3 - L0. <br clear="all">

[[File:TFTD tleth3-L1.jpg|right|thumb|T'Leth Level 3 L1]]Map of t'Leth Level 3 - L1. <br clear="all">

[[File:TFTD_tleth3-destroyed_power_cylinders.jpg|right|thumb|destroyed power cylinders]]Image of destroyed power cylinders around the alien mastermind. <br clear="all">

==Tips==

*It goes without saying, bring the best troops you have. As many as possible should have Mag. Ion Armour. You'll have a much easier time if your Aquanauts have high MC ratings. Because of the 80 item limit, 26 Aquanauts is probably impractical, so it's probably a good idea to take along 2-3 Displacers.

*You can take some MC-weaklings along, as long as you keep them unarmed (or armed with Gauss Pistols) on the first level. The vast majority of your opponents there will be Aquatoids, so you don't need powerful weapons anyway. After the first level there are no more MC-capable aliens, so your MC-weaklings are no longer in danger.

*The aliens are armed exclusively with Disruptor Pulse Launchers and [[Thermal Shok Launcher]]s. This means you can't rely on scavenging Sonic weapons or ammo. So be careful, as your Sonic Cannons may run out of ammo if you don't bring reloads. Instead, grab every Shok launcher and Disrupter Pulse Launcher that you can carry with you as you make your way to the end.

*The 80 item limit really hurts. So make sure you only bring along stuff that's essential. As per the previous note, Disrupter Pulse Launchers and Thermal Shok Launchers are plentiful and can be scavenged off the aliens, so you will not need to bring great quantities of them in. Concentrate on the essentials like MC Disruptors, Medi-Kits, Sonic weapons, ammo and close combat weapons. Additionally, there are few [[Sonic Pulser]]s in the T'Leth levels, so be prepared to bring an extra helping of them if you wish to use them.

*Spread out! Especially on the first level. You don't want a Disruptor Pulse Launcher to take out half your squad, do you?

* There's more light than on Mars's surface, so incendiary ammo is less useful (though not completely useless).

* The level 2 map is always the same layout. If you have enough sonic cannons or disrupter pulse torpedoes, you can cut a short-cut through to the exit of this map. From the entry point, head south and once you reach the first large hallway with the rail on the upper level, head up and cut your way through the rail and through several walls to the east. In time you will arrive at the final stretch that leads to the exit chamber, a large brown room with an open floor and drums spaced evenly along the walls. Note taking this path instantly takes you through the most dangerous part of the map, the area where the tentaculats and deep-ones reside.

* The life support batteries around the coffin in level 3 can not be damaged by melee weapons or thermal shok bombs. Be absolutely sure that you reserve some ammunition or explosives to deal with them or else you will not be able to complete the final mission.

*Tactics to deal with specific enemies:

:Aquatoids: dangerous but very vulnerable. On the first level they all have MC abilities and Disruptor Launchers. Luckily, they almost always die in one hit, and won't survive even on the outskirts of an explosion. On the other two levels they're more of a nuisance, as no longer have MC and most have Thermal Shok Launchers. Still, one or two might be toting a Disruptor Pulse Launcher, so don't ignore them.

:Lobster Men: dangerous and very tough, but no MC ability. They usually survive even a direct hit from a Disruptor Pulse Launcher! Most of them are coincidentally armed with just that, but others wield Thermal Shok Launchers and are therefore less dangerous. Your best bet is to use MC attacks and Melee weapons against them. The Thermal Shok Launchers they carry are also useful at quickly disabling them, consider picking up a few along the way. Don't forget they have a natural melee attack!

:Tentaculats: as dangerous as ever, Tentaculats are surprisingly rare in T'leth. Just like in Colony Assaults, they tend to hide in small rooms and nooks and ambush nearby aquanauts. Particularly in the central area of level 2. Be alert, and let Displacers or MC-ed aliens do the scouting.

:Xarquid: rare on level 2, but feature heavily towards the end of level 3. Xarquids tend to keep their distance and snipe at your men.

:Deep Ones: a weak and common enemy in T'leth from level 2 and 3. Chances are you haven't seen them for a while. Unlike most aliens here, Deep Ones have neither explosives nor a melee attack. They're vulnerable to just about anything you throw at them, so they're unlikely to cause you any problems unless you are visible to them during their turn. Though a weak alien, their electrical attacks are very lethal to humans.

:Hallucinoids: although they have a strong melee attack, Hallucinoids are no more than a nuisance at this point. Just blast them with whatever is at hand. They are particularly vulnerable to area effect weapons.

==See Also==
{{Mission Types Navbar (TFTD)}}
[[Category: TFTD]]

Thin Man (EU2012)

2016-04-09T19:28:34Z

Xuncu: /* Trivia */

[[Image:Thin Man 2 (EU2012).png|right|300px|Thin Man]]

The Thin Men are agile, quick, and elusive alien creatures. Designed to look human so that they can successfully infiltrate society, Thin Men are responsible for handling the more secretive operations of the alien invasion, although some aren't exactly subtle, such as planting huge alien bombs in the middle of urban centres. Their human-like appearance doesn't fool XCOM troops, who have no trouble identifying Thin Men as hostiles.

Thin Men are one of the deadliest units in the early game. They have increased accuracy and mobility, making them ideal for long-range sniping at your soldiers while moving to outflank them. Their Leap ability allows the Thin Man to jump incredibly high, allowing it to scale entire buildings and take up an elevated position. This can be very dangerous against [[Sniper (EU2012)|Snipers]] who are unable to fire.
Against soldiers in high cover, they'll make use of their Poison Spit to reduce their aim, mobility and possibly causing them to panic. Even upon their death they can be dangerous since they'll release a poison cloud that can affect any soldier that moves through it.

<br clear="all">
==Info==
{{Unit Stat Box (EU2012)
|picture=[[File:Thin Man 1 (EU2012).png|150px]]
|appears=March (Council missions)<br>April (all other)
|hp=3/3/4/6
|aim=65/65/75/75
|defense=0
|will=15
|move=15
}}

{| class="wikitable" width="70%"
|+ Thin Man Armaments
|-
! width=""50px" align="center" | Weapon !! Damage !! Critical Damage !! Critical Chance
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|- align="center"
| [[Thin Man Light Rifle (EU2012)|Thin Man Plasma Light Rifle]] || 4-6 || 7 or 9 || 10
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable" width="70%"
|-
|+ Thin Man Abilities
|-
! width=""50px" align="center" | Ability !! Description
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
|- align="center"
| [[File:HEAVY SUPPRESSION.png|24px]]<br>'''Suppression''' || ''Can fire a special shot that grants reaction fire at a single target if it moves. The target also suffers a -30 Aim penalty.''
|- align="center"
| [[File:ALIEN_POISON.png|24px]]<br>'''Poison Spit'''|| ''Spit poison at long range, causing a noxious cloud to remain briefly on the battlefield.''
|- align="center"
| [[File:ALIEN_LEAP.png|24px]]<br>'''Leap''' || ''Allows vertical leaps onto elevated surfaces during movement.''
|-
|}

''' Notes'''
* Thin Men start appearing on April on Abduction and UFO missions, but they can also be encountered in March during Council missions.
*On Easy and Normal [[Difficulty (EU2012)|difficulties]], Thin Men deal less 2 [[Damage (EU2012)|damage]] than normal.
*Poison Spit damages [[Soldiers (EU2012)|soldiers]] by 20% and damages their health by one point each turn, and can be active up to 3 turns. Soldiers equipped with [[Titan Armor (EU2012)|Titan Armor]] or a Medikit are immune (even if the Medikit has no more uses left). Other soldiers can be cured by using a [[Medikit (EU2012)|Medikit]] on them.
** Also, upon dying, the Thin Man will explode, leaving a poisonous cloud that will poison any soldiers that move within it and voiding a small area of cover.
*If killed during a successful mission a [[Thin Man Corpse (EU2012)|Thin Man Corpse]] will be recovered.
** Researching Thin Men corpses will unlock the [[Foundry (EU2012)#Improved Medikit|Improved Medikit]] Foundry project and, in the EW DLC, the [[Gene Mods (EU2012)#Muscle Fiber Density|Muscle Fiber Density]] gene mod and the [[Gas Grenade (EU2012)|Gas Grenade]].
*If [[Arc Thrower (EU2012)|captured]] during a mission and [[Interrogate Thin Man (EU2012)|interrogated]] afterwards they will provide a [[Research (EU2012)#Research Credits|reduction]] in the time required to research all UFO Technology ([[UFO Flight Computer (EU2012)|Alien Nav Computer]] and [[UFO Power Source (EU2012)|UFO Power Source]]).
** Capturing a Thin Man will also recover intact its Light Plasma Rifle, which can be used later by your troops after it's researched.
==Trivia==
*The Thin Men are one of the few aliens in Enemy Unknown 2012 that do not have a direct 1994 equivalent. However, their reptilian origin suggests a conceptual link to the [[Snakeman|Snakemen]].
** And with [[XCOM2]] having the human-alien hybrid [[Viper_(XCOM2)|Vipers]] being direct descendants of the Thin Men: it essentially confirms that this species was, in fact, formerly Snakemen.
*Thin Men are caricatures of [[Sid Meier (EU2012)|Sid Meier]], head of Firaxis. He has a history of showing up in games by Firaxis.
<br>
{{Aliens (EU2012)}}

[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Aliens (EU2012)]]

Storyline Missions (XCOM2)

2016-03-18T19:25:30Z

Xuncu: /* Alien Fortress */

===Tutorial===
The tutorial mission is entirely scripted, designed to introduce you to various concepts. There is no way to change the events, and you will always finish the mission with two casualties, and one soldier (Jane Kelly) on your roster at Squaddie rank. It's recommended to play through your first time with it on, since it also contains plot exposition that you otherwise miss.

The Commander of XCOM (you) had been captured a few weeks into the campaign of the war in 2015: having been in stasis for 20 years, the tutorial will guide you through with Bradford himself pulling you out of an ADVENT facility. As you leave the area, an electrical surge burns out the remaining equipment, and a strange, seemingly electromagnetic being with circuit patterns on it's skin appears and takes note of your disappearance...

You are taken to the Avenger, where Dr Tygan performs an operation to remove an implant from your brain to restore you to health. You are then encouraged to browse the history database and then are introduced to Tygan and Shen.

You will quickly be launched in to a second mission to obtain a power core for the Avenger to make it flight ready. This mission is not scripted.

If playing with tutorial off, the game will instead start in a 4-person mission to destroy an ADVENT monument. The Avenger is already fully functional and the mission to recover the power core doesn't occur.

===Initial Research===
You will have a research topic available to research the implant removed from your brain, then a similar implant taken from the [[ADVENT Officer (XCOM2)|ADVENT Officer]]. Researching this will reveal that all of the ADVENT troops are linked together by these implants, and that accessing a still-living officer's implant could allow XCOM to pull information from the aliens' psychic network. You then need to construct a [[Proving Ground (XCOM2)|Proving Ground]] and research the Skulljack. This will give an objective to skulljack an ADVENT officer in the field.

Meanwhile you will be contacted by the former XCOM Council Spokesman, who will inform you of a "Blacksite" that seems to be a focus of alien activity. You need to research Resistance Comms to contact other regions and contact the region containing the Blacksite to gain access to the mission, after which you can launch it at any time.

===Blacksite===
This is a retrieval and extraction mission. Your squad is inserted some distance from the Blacksite in concealment. Upon approaching the Blacksite you will see that it's a processing facility for humans in to some sort of liquid, and you must recover a vial of this substance and extract. This mission has more enemies than missions so far, and is likely to be your first encounter with a [[ADVENT Mech (XCOM2)|Light Mech]], and (less significantly) [[ADVENT Turret (XCOM2)|ADVENT Turret]]s.

Completion of this mission allows the research of the Blacksite vial. This requires building a [[Shadow Chamber (XCOM2)|Shadow Chamber]] facility first, and completing the analysis unlocks the Forge mission.

===Skulljacking an Officer===
Upon skulljacking an officer, a [[Codex (XCOM2)|Codex]] will teleport in. A Codex is likely much stronger than anything you've encountered so far (depending on how long you put off skulljacking), so you'll want to wait until things are quiet before doing the skulljack. Killing the Codex will reward you with a Codex Brain to research. Note that you will recover the Codex Brain after the killing the Codex even if you extract from the mission.

Analyzing the Codex Brain requires the Shadow Chamber facility. Completing this analysis unlocks the Psi Gate mission, and skulljacking a Codex in the field.

===Forge===
Analysis of the Blacksite Vial in the Shadow Chamber will reveal the presence of another alien facility. Infiltrating this facility, you discover an environment suit similar to the one you were imprisoned in, and you are tasked with recovering the suit and occupant and extracting with it. This mission is guaranteed to contain a [[Sectopod (XCOM2)|Sectopod]].

===Psi Gate===
Researching the Codex Brain unlocks this mission to investigate the point of origin of the Codex. You approach in infiltration and find a Psionic Gateway, guarded by a great many [[Chryssalid (XCOM2)|Chryssalids]] and other enemies. In addition, when you get close a [[Gatekeeper (XCOM2)|Gatekeeper]] will come out of the gateway to defend it. You must defeat all enemies to secure the site.

This will allow you to install the Psi Gate in to the Shadow Chamber. Researching the Psi Gate shows it to be a gateway to the aliens' base of operations, but efforts to send a probe through fail due to needing an organic key of some sort.

===Skulljacking a Codex===
After completing research on the Codex Brain, Tygan will ask you to skulljack a live Codex in the field to allow further access to the aliens' psionic network. Skulljacking a Codex spawns an [[Avatar (XCOM2)|Avatar]] enemy, at reduced health. Killing the Avatar allows its autopsy.

===ADVENT Tower===
Analysing the Avatar corpse requires all other storyline research to be complete (notably the Psi Gate and Forge Suit). This will trigger ADVENT to accelerate their plans for humanity and start processing all humans in to genetic material in the gene therapy clinics. The Spokesman will contact you with a plan to assault the ADVENT central network tower to subvert it and broadcast the truth to the population, and also to divert ADVENT from an XCOM assault through the Psi Gate. The assault on the ADVENT network tower will then be unlocked, though you don't have to accept it yet if you don't want to.

Launching the assault on the ADVENT network tower locks you in to the end-game sequence, so be sure you're ready to finish the game before doing so. The ADVENT tower assault is a small penultimate mission, where a small squad of infiltrators must attack the tower. You can spend any remaining Intel you have on bonuses to make this mission easier. You must fight through the tower's defenders (a relatively small number of high powered enemies) to hack the network tower's control panel and extract.

===Alien Fortress===
After the network tower mission, you will immediately launch in to the final mission of the game. You can field wounded soldiers in this mission, including any wounded in the network tower assault.

XCOM launches an assault through the Psi Gate to the aliens' base, accompanied by an Avatar controlled by you, the Commander, personally. Losing your Avatar in this mission immediately loses the game. As you move through the level, Central, Shen, and Tygan will keep you updated on the situation here and on the revolution across the Earth, while the Speaker (somehow not beaten to a bloody pulp), a female-sounding 'Angelis Ethereal', and a more agressive male-sounding one attempt to persuade and goad you. After fighting through a variety of enemies, you will reach the final room, full of psionic gates.

After a cutscene, an alien Avatar will be on a raised platform up high in the middle of the room-- and can be flanked from the left path, being spotted by a soldier in concealment and a Sharpshooter squadsighting from the full cover pillar near the statuary. It will move to engage you when spotted/wounded (and the game may glitch if this first one Executed via a Repeater before waking the pod up). After a turn or two, two more will spawn in from the other portals, accompanied by alien pods of varying composition and threat level. Killing all three Avatars wins the game, so keeping away from the other aliens to focus on the Avatar may work as a last stand, even if means continuously falling back through the level to keep ahead of the aliens.

With the last enemy Avatar destroyed, the psionic network holding the Gates active begins to destabilize, with the alien base starting to self-destruct from the strain. The Gate in front of you collapses, but you manage to wedge it open with Psionic power and send your troops back through. With no other options left, the Ethereal bodies glow from their 'coffins' strewn about the room, and attempt to overwrite you from the Avatar body. Fortunately, they have greatly underestimated you, and you are able to hold your own against the full squad of Ethereals, singlehandedly. Blasting back the wraith-like entities they have become, you also manage to get your own consciousness back, and wake up in your real body-- with an otherworldy sound not unlike when Asaru contacted Faulk, Wier, and Weaver...

The true leaders of ADVENT destroyed, and their Control Tower down, and their atrocities exposed, the main batch of ADVENT forces still attempt to suppress the now exponentially more empowered and numbered Resistance, and are losing badly: the people have awoken and are striking down ADVENT, taking back their world. Mission complete, Commander!

''Meanwhile...''[https://youtu.be/Unzc1sMxlZA?t=214]

''The ocean had rushed in, the immense pressure destroying the alien base, leaving debris and alien bodies all about the seabed. The last bit of light leaves as the Ethereal 'coffins' flicker and go out... save for from one fissure in the rock, where Psionic energy seems to stream out of the gap in the Earth. Is this truly the end of the Ethereal invasion? Or is this a sign of a new rising '''Terror From The Deep'''? Only time will tell...''

Storyline Missions (XCOM2)

2016-03-18T19:24:07Z

Xuncu: /* Alien Fortress */

===Tutorial===
The tutorial mission is entirely scripted, designed to introduce you to various concepts. There is no way to change the events, and you will always finish the mission with two casualties, and one soldier (Jane Kelly) on your roster at Squaddie rank. It's recommended to play through your first time with it on, since it also contains plot exposition that you otherwise miss.

The Commander of XCOM (you) had been captured a few weeks into the campaign of the war in 2015: having been in stasis for 20 years, the tutorial will guide you through with Bradford himself pulling you out of an ADVENT facility. As you leave the area, an electrical surge burns out the remaining equipment, and a strange, seemingly electromagnetic being with circuit patterns on it's skin appears and takes note of your disappearance...

You are taken to the Avenger, where Dr Tygan performs an operation to remove an implant from your brain to restore you to health. You are then encouraged to browse the history database and then are introduced to Tygan and Shen.

You will quickly be launched in to a second mission to obtain a power core for the Avenger to make it flight ready. This mission is not scripted.

If playing with tutorial off, the game will instead start in a 4-person mission to destroy an ADVENT monument. The Avenger is already fully functional and the mission to recover the power core doesn't occur.

===Initial Research===
You will have a research topic available to research the implant removed from your brain, then a similar implant taken from the [[ADVENT Officer (XCOM2)|ADVENT Officer]]. Researching this will reveal that all of the ADVENT troops are linked together by these implants, and that accessing a still-living officer's implant could allow XCOM to pull information from the aliens' psychic network. You then need to construct a [[Proving Ground (XCOM2)|Proving Ground]] and research the Skulljack. This will give an objective to skulljack an ADVENT officer in the field.

Meanwhile you will be contacted by the former XCOM Council Spokesman, who will inform you of a "Blacksite" that seems to be a focus of alien activity. You need to research Resistance Comms to contact other regions and contact the region containing the Blacksite to gain access to the mission, after which you can launch it at any time.

===Blacksite===
This is a retrieval and extraction mission. Your squad is inserted some distance from the Blacksite in concealment. Upon approaching the Blacksite you will see that it's a processing facility for humans in to some sort of liquid, and you must recover a vial of this substance and extract. This mission has more enemies than missions so far, and is likely to be your first encounter with a [[ADVENT Mech (XCOM2)|Light Mech]], and (less significantly) [[ADVENT Turret (XCOM2)|ADVENT Turret]]s.

Completion of this mission allows the research of the Blacksite vial. This requires building a [[Shadow Chamber (XCOM2)|Shadow Chamber]] facility first, and completing the analysis unlocks the Forge mission.

===Skulljacking an Officer===
Upon skulljacking an officer, a [[Codex (XCOM2)|Codex]] will teleport in. A Codex is likely much stronger than anything you've encountered so far (depending on how long you put off skulljacking), so you'll want to wait until things are quiet before doing the skulljack. Killing the Codex will reward you with a Codex Brain to research. Note that you will recover the Codex Brain after the killing the Codex even if you extract from the mission.

Analyzing the Codex Brain requires the Shadow Chamber facility. Completing this analysis unlocks the Psi Gate mission, and skulljacking a Codex in the field.

===Forge===
Analysis of the Blacksite Vial in the Shadow Chamber will reveal the presence of another alien facility. Infiltrating this facility, you discover an environment suit similar to the one you were imprisoned in, and you are tasked with recovering the suit and occupant and extracting with it. This mission is guaranteed to contain a [[Sectopod (XCOM2)|Sectopod]].

===Psi Gate===
Researching the Codex Brain unlocks this mission to investigate the point of origin of the Codex. You approach in infiltration and find a Psionic Gateway, guarded by a great many [[Chryssalid (XCOM2)|Chryssalids]] and other enemies. In addition, when you get close a [[Gatekeeper (XCOM2)|Gatekeeper]] will come out of the gateway to defend it. You must defeat all enemies to secure the site.

This will allow you to install the Psi Gate in to the Shadow Chamber. Researching the Psi Gate shows it to be a gateway to the aliens' base of operations, but efforts to send a probe through fail due to needing an organic key of some sort.

===Skulljacking a Codex===
After completing research on the Codex Brain, Tygan will ask you to skulljack a live Codex in the field to allow further access to the aliens' psionic network. Skulljacking a Codex spawns an [[Avatar (XCOM2)|Avatar]] enemy, at reduced health. Killing the Avatar allows its autopsy.

===ADVENT Tower===
Analysing the Avatar corpse requires all other storyline research to be complete (notably the Psi Gate and Forge Suit). This will trigger ADVENT to accelerate their plans for humanity and start processing all humans in to genetic material in the gene therapy clinics. The Spokesman will contact you with a plan to assault the ADVENT central network tower to subvert it and broadcast the truth to the population, and also to divert ADVENT from an XCOM assault through the Psi Gate. The assault on the ADVENT network tower will then be unlocked, though you don't have to accept it yet if you don't want to.

Launching the assault on the ADVENT network tower locks you in to the end-game sequence, so be sure you're ready to finish the game before doing so. The ADVENT tower assault is a small penultimate mission, where a small squad of infiltrators must attack the tower. You can spend any remaining Intel you have on bonuses to make this mission easier. You must fight through the tower's defenders (a relatively small number of high powered enemies) to hack the network tower's control panel and extract.

===Alien Fortress===
After the network tower mission, you will immediately launch in to the final mission of the game. You can field wounded soldiers in this mission, including any wounded in the network tower assault.

XCOM launches an assault through the Psi Gate to the aliens' base, accompanied by an Avatar controlled by you, the Commander, personally. Losing your Avatar in this mission immediately loses the game. As you move through the level, Central, Shen, and Tygan will keep you updated on the situation here and on the revolution across the Earth, while the Speaker (somehow not beaten to a bloody pulp), a female-sounding 'Angelis Ethereal', and a more agressive male-sounding one attempt to persuade and goad you. After fighting through a variety of enemies, you will reach the final room, full of psionic gates.

After a cutscene, an alien Avatar will be on a raised platform up high in the middle of the room-- and can be flanked from the left path, being spotted by a soldier in concealment and a Sharpshooter squadsighting from the full cover pillar near the statuary. It will move to engage you when spotted/wounded (and the game may glitch if Exectuted via a Repeater). After a turn or two, two more will spawn in from the other portals, accompanied by alien pods of varying composition and threat level. Killing all three Avatars wins the game, so keeping away from the other aliens to focus on the Avatar may work as a last stand, even if means continuously falling back through the level to keep ahead of the aliens.

With the last enemy Avatar destroyed, the psionic network holding the Gates active begins to destabilize, with the alien base starting to self-destruct from the strain. The Gate in front of you collapses, but you manage to wedge it open with Psionic power and send your troops back through. With no other options left, the Ethereal bodies glow from their 'coffins' strewn about the room, and attempt to overwrite you from the Avatar body. Fortunately, they have greatly underestimated you, and you are able to hold your own against the full squad of Ethereals, singlehandedly. Blasting back the wraith-like entities they have become, you also manage to get your own consciousness back, and wake up in your real body-- with an otherworldy sound not unlike when Asaru contacted Faulk, Wier, and Weaver...

The true leaders of ADVENT destroyed, and their Control Tower down, and their atrocities exposed, the main batch of ADVENT forces still attempt to suppress the now exponentially more empowered and numbered Resistance, and are losing badly: the people have awoken and are striking down ADVENT, taking back their world. Mission complete, Commander!

''Meanwhile...''[https://youtu.be/Unzc1sMxlZA?t=214]

''The ocean had rushed in, the immense pressure destroying the alien base, leaving debris and alien bodies all about the seabed. The last bit of light leaves as the Ethereal 'coffins' flicker and go out... save for from one fissure in the rock, where Psionic energy seems to stream out of the gap in the Earth. Is this truly the end of the Ethereal invasion? Or is this a sign of a new rising '''Terror From The Deep'''? Only time will tell...''

Avatar (XCOM2)

2016-03-18T18:43:49Z

Xuncu:

As the UberEthereal had once admitted, their own bodies have degenerated to a substantial degree. The goal of the ADVENT/Alien Avatar project is the perfection of this entity: in effect, it's the 'ultimate' form of the Volunteer that never was, and a new, strong, combat-ready body for an Ethereal 'soul' to inhabit.

Physically, it actually resembles your own Psionic soldiers, save for a shock of wild, white hair, and a detail-obscuring faceplate, and it's own unique Psionic Repeater rifle. In actuality, it is a hybrid creature: the genetic soup of countless human beings have been processed and integrated with the DNA of both the Ethereal elders and various alien races.

Like the Codex, it is capable of teleportation, and will do so after every time it takes damage. Fortunately, it is not capable of cloning itself. It makes up for this by having a much heftier health pool. it does have a tendency of staying close with it's reactive teleports, giving you a chance to move in for a high-damage flank with other soldiers. It has the Dimension Rift ability, as well as Mind Control.

Your first encounter with this being will be after you're prompted to Skulljack a living Codex: much like how you encountered the first Codex after Skulljacking an ADVENT Captain, the Avatar will appear in response to this latest objective (and like the Codex 'brains', even if the mission ends with an evac, you do recover the corpse automatically). Fortunately, this will be the only 'random' encounter with it.

The only other time you'll encounter enemy Avatars is in the final room of the [[Storyline Missions (XCOM2)#Alien Fortress|final mission]]. Three alien Avatars will attack you, and defeating them completes the game. In the final mission, you also control an Avatar of your own, inhabited by you, the Commander.

[[Category: XCOM2]]

Avatar (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T10:57:37Z

Xuncu:

The goal of the ADVENT/Alien project is the perfection of this entity.

Physically, it actually resembles your own Psionic soldiers, save for a shock of wild, white hair, and a detail-obscuring faceplate, and it's own unique Psionic Repeater rifle. In actuality, it is a hybrid creature: the genetic soup of countless human beings have been processed and integrated with the DNA of both the Ethereal elders and various alien races.

Like the Codex, it is capable of teleportation, and will do so after every time it takes damage. Fortunately, it is not capable of cloning itself. It makes up for this by having a much heftier health pool. it does have a tendency of staying close with it's reactive teleports, giving you a chance to move in for a high-damage flank with other soldiers. It also has the Rift ability, as well as Mind Control and Psi Lance.

Your first encounter with this being will be after you're prompted to Skulljack a living Codex: much like how you encountered the first Codex after Skulljacking an ADVENT Captain, the Avatar will appear in response to this latest objective (and like the Codex 'brains', even if the mission ends with an evac, you do recover the corpse automatically). Fortunately, this will be the only 'random' encounter with it.

After killing it, you are prompted to complete any and all other Blacksite/Avatar-related Shadow Project research, then doing a final project to unlock the last two missions: one to hijack the main ADVENT control tower to expose the Administration's evil (you will have only 3 soldiers on this mission), and another to assault the underwater alien base, in perhaps a callback to the battle of [[T'leth]]. In this final mission, ''your'' mind will be 'riding shotgun' in the Avatar corpse, and will be a seventh soldier in this final battle: much like the Volunteer, Your Avatar must live to the end of the final battle.

At the end of the Alien Base, you will encounter a room with many areas of cover, more portal gates, and multiple Avatars. After a cutscene, the first one will be on a raised platform up high in the middle of the room-- and can be flanked from the left path, being spotted by a soldier in concealment and a Sharpshooter squadsighting from the full cover pillar near the statuary. It will move to engage you when spotted/wounded (and the game may glitch if Exectuted via a Repeater. Then as the turns progress, more will spawn in from the other portals, accompanied by alien pods of varying composition and threat level. Killing all the Avatars wins the game, so keeping away from the other aliens to focus on the Avatar may work as a last stand, even if means continuously falling back through the level to keep ahead of the aliens.

[[Category: XCOM2]]

Codex (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T10:51:00Z

Xuncu:

You may first see this creature at the end of the tutorial mission. Apparently the physical manifestation of the alien's psionic/data network, it is an electric yellow female-humanoid being, seemingly made entirely of electricity, save for a metallic skull and a bit of spinal column.

You will first fight it after you attempt to Skulljack a ADVENT Captain: you may want to make sure that Captain is otherwise the last enemy on the map. It has high health, a high dodge rate (so even point-blank shots may 'graze' it for partial damage), and high accuracy. For the storyline requirement, the best time to fight it is when there's no turn counter or anything keeping pressure on you.

It's abilities include:
* Teleportation: The Codex will usually teleport instead of physically moving. This has a better-than-average movement range, doesn't trigger overwatch, and the Codex can still fire or use other abilities as its second action. This ability means the Codex will almost always get a flanking shot every round, unless it uses another ability.
* Rift: The Codex can summon a psionic rift. This disables weapons of XCOM soldiers in the area (mechanically, it reduces their ammo to zero). The rift will detonate next turn for medium damage to anything still in the area of effect. This usually costs the turn of any soldier caught by it, since reloading and moving out of the area of effect to avoid the damage is a full turn of actions, though there are options that don't rely on the primary weapon, such as a Ranger's Slash, the Sharpshooter's pistol or using an item.
* Clone: Whenever it takes damage the Codex will clone itself; the remaining HP will be divided between the two clones, rounding down (so if it attempts to clone at 1 HP, it's basically a single teleport). Try to hit it with a high damage attack first if you can, at least so that the clones can be more easily killed themselves.

Flashbangs and other causes of Disorientation greatly reduce it's threat, and seem to restrict it from using it's special abilities. Killing your first Codex reduces Avatar progress by 1, but afterwards, they will spawn in regular enemy pods. In terms of threat level, physical makeup, and plot significance: it is fairly equivalent to the Long War iteration of the Outsider.

After a plot point, you will be tasked with Skulljacking a Codex itself (which, in kind with your first Skulljack of a ADVENT Captain, summons the [[Avatar (XCOM2)|Avatar]]). After this task is complete, all future Codices can be Skullmined, offering a low-hassle way to one-hit-kill one without allowing it to clone itself (unless you swing and miss, of course).

Having two soldiers close enough to be Rifted will almost always bait the Codex into doing that, leaving 2-3 soldiers with empty primary guns: at least it causes no damage (as long as you move those soldiers out of the bubble), and gives you a chance to counter-attack. By clone or Teleports, the Codex will tend to at least stay in LoS, thus within range of attack of your squad. A high-ranking Sharpshooter is perhaps best suited to facing them: Standoff shoots all enemies in range (so no matter how many times it clones itself, if they're at low HP, you may be able to take them all down: the Sharpshooter's higher aim helps prevent misses, as well), and Serial can let you snipe-kill several in a row (check your ammo levels, though).

Chryssalid (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T10:40:17Z

Xuncu:

Chryssalids are still part of the aliens' arsenal, and the aliens will still deploy them against resistance bases, though not quite as commonly as previously. They have however made some changes to the chryssalids that make them even more deadly. Rather than injecting an egg in to a victim and zombifying them if they kill their victim, they inject their victim with chryssalid toxin with their attacks. As well as the damage suffered from the initial attack, the toxin does heavy damage over subsequent turns unless healed, and if the victim dies for any reason while afflicted it will turn in to a chryssalid cocoon. This cocoon will spawn chryssalids in subsequent turns unless quickly destroyed, spawning up to 3 newborn chryssalids. Chryssalids born this way have low health, but can act on the turn they spawn, probably infecting others and causing the situation to get out of hand very quickly. Healing a toxin victim quickly is essential, and if no healing is available, evacuating them to the Skyranger is preferable to allowing them to die while toxified.

In addition to their new life cycle, chryssalids also have the ability to burrow. Chryssalids can be found in roaming pods as usual, but can also deploy as single units that remain burrowed most of the time. If an XCOM soldier approaches close enough they will unburrow and attack that soldier on your turn. Burrowed chryssalids will pop up occasionally, giving you a rough idea of where they are, and can be forced to surface with battle scanners, the Gremlin's Scanning Protocol, or any AoE attacks. They ''can'' move while burrowed; you will hear the gravel churning during Alien Activity. If the 'battle music' is still playing, then the chryssalid's hole is still in sight radius: you may want to have some of your squad in overwatch as you move forward, ideally leading with a Ranger with the Bladestorm ability to counter.

ADVENT Security Tower (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T10:36:37Z

Xuncu:

ADVENT Security Towers act as watchpoints in all advent cities, they are able to reveal your troopers if you step in their sight radius. These towers can be remote hacked to obtain different combat bonuses such as concealment, immunity to enemy attacks, and a variety of other skills, and on occasion various resources. If you successfully hack a tower you will obtain the bonus and disable the sight radius, if you fail your whole squad will be revealed.

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T09:53:11Z

Xuncu:

Title, description, minimum Difficulty requirement, notes/advice
* First Blood | Complete the tactical tutorial | - | Toggled on starting a new campaign
* Like Clockwork | Complete a successful ambush | - | In concealment, simply have a soldier make an overwatch shot when another fires to break concealment.
* Rumor Hunter | Complete a Rumor | - | Often after a mission, you'll receive one of these scanning objectives for the Hologlobe
* Locked and Loaded | Upgrade a weapon | - | Unlocked after researching ADVENT weaponry
* Rise of the Resistance | Make contact with a region | - | Unlocked after "Resistance Communications" research
* Come Back To Me | Kill a Sectoid who is currently mind controlling a squadmate | - | -
* A Horrible Truth | Recover the Blacksite Data | - | Story progression
* Tinker | Build an experimental item in the Proving Grounds | - | -
* Breathing Room | Kill a Viper who is strangling a squadmate | - | -
* With Extreme Prejudice | Skulljack an ADVENT Officer | - | Story progression
* Grim Key | Recover a Codex Brain | - | Story progression: picked up automatically on any Codex kill, even on Evac'ed missions
* Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger | Apply a PCS upgrade to a soldier | - | Daft Punk. Semi-rare random drop from enemies, sometimes sold in the Black Market.
* Rebel Radio | Build Resistance Comms | - | -
* Car Wrecked | Cause an enemy to die in a vehicle explosion | - | -
* Room to Grow | Upgrade a facility | - | -
* Heroes of the Resistance | Beat a Retaliation mission with less than 3 civilian deaths | - | Easier modes reduces enemy chance-to-hit and damage: unlike EU/EW, enemies will more prioritize attacking XCOM soldiers once a pod is activated. So, this may require rushing to engage as much as possible, putting your soldiers at risk. Given that it takes about 3-4 turns to cross a Retaliation map, and you're only allowed two civvie deaths: the moment you see a MISS! during Alien Activity, that is your cue to rush to get this achievement. Keep on top of your save states, as well.
* Cyberlord | Earn a second tier hack reward | - | The locked doors and containers of certain mission objectives, and the 'light poles' in cities have lower hack scores than, say, a Sectopod
*Bring It Down | Sabotage an alien facility | - | Discover and destroy a Blacksite
* Have a Nice Trip | Cause an enemy to fall to its death | - | Grenading a roof-mounted turret is an instant kill: all other enemies (save the Archon and Gatekeeper, who float) take an average falldamage of 2 (ignores armor pips).
* Codebreaker | Build the Shadow Chamber | - | Story progression
* A Better Human Being | Recover the Forge item | - | Story progression
* A God Falls | Kill an Avatar | - | Story progression
* Stop Hitting Yourself | Kill an enemy with a hacked turret | - | Grenade another enemy to soften it and remove it's cover
* Now Am I Become Death | Kill 3 enemies in a single turn, with a single soldier, without explosives | - | Ranger's Reaper, Sharpshooter's Standoff, Specialist's Capacitor Discharge, and the Demo ''can'' use any of the 'special effect' grenades (acid, poison, fire), as long as the ''effect'' does the kill during Alien Activity
* Meat Over Metal | Kill a Sectopod on the same turn you encounter it | - | Focused fire works. Also, luck of the draw with a gun equipped with a Repeater upgrade
* Mechlord | Hack and take control of a Sectopod | - | Best done after doing the 'autopsy,' as it unlocks the Gremlin MKIII for a better hack score; softening it with Bluescreen ammo and EMP grenades helps.
* A Dark Doorway | Recover the Psi Gate | - | Story Progression
* David and Goliath | Kill a Berserker in melee combat | - | Only the kill needs to be done, with any tier blade. Softening the target beforehand is HIGHLY recommended.
* Excalibur | Completely upgrade a beam weapon with superior grade weapon upgrades | - | -
* A Line Crossed | Complete the Avatar Autopsy | - | Story Progression
* Pile 'Em Up | Kill 500 aliens. (does not have to be in same game) | - | ADVENT units count
* A Final Stand | Create the Commander's Avatar | - | Story progression
* Shen's Legacy | Build a facility in every Avenger slot | - | -
* Earth Avenged | Overthrow the aliens at any difficulty level | - | Win.
* Shadow Broker | Sell goods worth 1000 supplies to the Black Market (Can span multiple games) | - | The black market Merchant will have 3 item types per month that it will buy at a high price
* The Sun Never Sets | Build a radio relay on every continent | - | The Relays cost more Supplies for every one built globally, while reducing Intel costs to sectors in proximity to it: leapfrogging a good tradeoff, and some continents require 1 or 2 Relays to unlock their bonuses.
* Global Resistance | Get all of the continent bonuses available in a single campaign | - | See above
* Brutal Collection | Skulljack each different type of ADVENT soldier(does not have to be in same game) | Captain is story progression, as well as the Codex, which also counts: that leaves the footsoldier, the Shielder, and the Lancer
* Nick of Time | Evacuate a soldier whose bleed-out timer is still running | - | A purchase in the AWC increases chance of Bleedout vs death. The cheap way to get this done is on a mission where you can call an evac at will, and use AoE attacks on your own grouped soldiers (with one out of the way; unharmed and on standby), and wait for one to go into bleedout. Them simply call for evac, and have the healthy soldier carry out one of the wounded. Save before doing that, then you can just reload and do the mission as normal.
* The Most Dangerous Game | Win a multiplayer match. | - | If you have had trouble getting matches at all, let alone the achievement appearing: while mods are not supposed to ''disqualify'' achievements, there '''have''' been reports of ''bugs'' for this one. If the Ranked Match option is not open to you, this applies. You may need to delete your local game files and do a fresh download of XCOM2. Once linked to another player for a match, and you can press the ready button (or once in actual battle), you can try pressing J to open up an ingame chat with the other player, and ask politely if they would let you win, if you cannot do so legitimately.
* Defender of Humanity | Overthrow the aliens on Commander difficulty | Commander | -
* Beginner's Luck | Beat a mission in June or later using only Rookies | - | Best done on easier modes
* Valhalla | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty in Ironman mode | Commander | Practice
* The Untouchables | Beat the game on Commander+ without losing a soldier | Commander | -
* Immortal Commander | Overthrow the aliens on Legend difficulty | Legend | Practice
* Heavy Metal | Kill an enemy with every heavy weapon in the game (Doesn't have to be in the same game) | Rocket Launcher comes with the EXO suit, rest are Proving Ground projects, with more unlocked once the W.A.R. suit is developed: Flamethrower, Hellfire Projector, Shredder Gun, Shredstorm Cannon, Plasma Blaster, Blaster Launcher.
* The Few and the Proud | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty without buying a Squad Size upgrade | Commander | Specialists can hack mechanical enemies for a time, and Psions can MC enemies for whole missions, alleviating fire on your own forces
* Overpowered | Beat a mission on Commander+ with a squad composed entirely of soldiers of the same class (but not Rookies) | Commander | -
* Exquisite Timing | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty by July 1st | You'll pretty much be limited to plot-centric research, and will need as many scientists as possible, and perhaps a laboratory or two: in fact, a Lab should be your first and immediate construction. Not also to unlock the plot, but to rush for unlocking better weapons and armor for the final mission. Second priority is the Shadow Chamber, to discover the location of the Psionic Gate (research the Codex) and the Forge (Research Blacksite vial), as you need to make contact with local resistance to take on these two missions. The penultimate mission, the ADVENT Tower, can be accessed regardless of where it is, as is the final mission. After fighting an enemy type enough (and you have at least one body), some autopsy researches will be instant.
* Who Needs Tygan? | Beat the final mission using only conventional gear | - | Best done on easier modes: save a state on the Avenger before the final mission on your Exquisite Timing run (for less advanced enemies-- and experience fighting this mission with lesser tech: but take the extra time to max out those ranks), then redo it with the stater gear on Easy mode. Exact details for disqualifying equipment have already been pulled from game files [https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/4611ix/psa_requirements_for_who_needs_tygan_achievement/], effectively: only starting equipment (including base Psi Amp, thus Psi Magi are OK), Plasma Grenades and Nano Medkit and Smoke Bombs (since they can't be 'rolled back' from being an upgrade to those starting items), and the Nanofiber vest. Any tier weapon attachment or PCS is OK, so Superior Repeaters are a good go for those rare insta-kills, with Psionic soldiers with all abilities (particularly for the Dominate mind control ability, if they can bag a Gatekeeper or Andromedon).

[[Category: XCOM2]]

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T09:31:41Z

Xuncu:

Title, description, minimum Difficulty requirement, notes/advice
* First Blood | Complete the tactical tutorial | - | Toggled on starting a new campaign
* Like Clockwork | Complete a successful ambush | - | In concealment, simply have a soldier make an overwatch shot when another fires to break concealment.
* Rumor Hunter | Complete a Rumor | - | Often after a mission, you'll receive one of these scanning objectives for the Hologlobe
* Locked and Loaded | Upgrade a weapon | - | Unlocked after researching ADVENT weaponry
* Rise of the Resistance | Make contact with a region | - | Unlocked after "Resistance Communications" research
* Come Back To Me | Kill a Sectoid who is currently mind controlling a squadmate | - | -
* A Horrible Truth | Recover the Blacksite Data | - | Story progression
* Tinker | Build an experimental item in the Proving Grounds | - | -
* Breathing Room | Kill a Viper who is strangling a squadmate | - | -
* With Extreme Prejudice | Skulljack an ADVENT Officer | - | Story progression
* Grim Key | Recover a Codex Brain | - | Story progression: picked up automatically on any Codex kill, even on Evac'ed missions
* Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger | Apply a PCS upgrade to a soldier | - | Daft Punk. Semi-rare random drop from enemies, sometimes sold in the Black Market.
* Rebel Radio | Build Resistance Comms | - | -
* Car Wrecked | Cause an enemy to die in a vehicle explosion | - | -
* Room to Grow | Upgrade a facility | - | -
* Heroes of the Resistance | Beat a Retaliation mission with less than 3 civilian deaths | - | Easier modes reduces enemy chance-to-hit and damage: unlike EU/EW, enemies will more prioritize attacking XCOM soldiers once a pod is activated. So, this may require rushing to engage as much as possible, putting your soldiers at risk. Given that it takes about 3-4 turns to cross a Retaliation map, and you're only allowed two civvie deaths: the moment you see a MISS! during Alien Activity, that is your cue to rush to get this achievement. Keep on top of your save states, as well.
* Cyberlord | Earn a second tier hack reward | - | The locked doors and containers of certain mission objectives, and the 'light poles' in cities have lower hack scores than, say, a Sectopod
*Bring It Down | Sabotage an alien facility | - | Discover and destroy a Blacksite
* Have a Nice Trip | Cause an enemy to fall to its death | - | Grenading a roof-mounted turret is an instant kill
* Codebreaker | Build the Shadow Chamber | - | Story progression
* A Better Human Being | Recover the Forge item | - | Story progression
* A God Falls | Kill an Avatar | - | Story progression
* Stop Hitting Yourself | Kill an enemy with a hacked turret | - | -
* Now Am I Become Death | Kill 3 enemies in a single turn, with a single soldier, without explosives | - | Ranger's Reaper, Sharpshooter's Standoff, Specialist's Capacitor Discharge, and the Demo ''can'' use any of the 'special effect' grenades (acid, poison, fire), as long as the ''effect'' does the kill during Alien Activity
* Meat Over Metal | Kill a Sectopod on the same turn you encounter it | - | Focused fire works. Also, luck of the draw with a gun equipped with a Repeater upgrade
* Mechlord | Hack and take control of a Sectopod | - | Best done after doing the 'autopsy,' as it unlocks the Gremlin MKIII for a better hack score
* A Dark Doorway | Recover the Psi Gate | - | Story Progression
* David and Goliath | Kill a Berserker in melee combat | - | -
* Excalibur | Completely upgrade a beam weapon with superior grade weapon upgrades | - | -
* A Line Crossed | Complete the Avatar Autopsy | - | Story Progression
* Pile 'Em Up | Kill 500 aliens. (does not have to be in same game) | - | ADVENT units count
* A Final Stand | Create the Commander's Avatar | - | Story progression
* Shen's Legacy | Build a facility in every Avenger slot | - | -
* Earth Avenged | Overthrow the aliens at any difficulty level | - | Win.
* Shadow Broker | Sell goods worth 1000 supplies to the Black Market (Can span multiple games) | - | The black market will have 3 item types per month that it will buy at a higher price
* The Sun Never Sets | Build a radio relay on every continent | - | The Relays cost more Supplies for every one built globally, while reducing Intel costs to sectors in proximity to it: leapfrogging a good tradeoff, and continents require 1 or 2 Relays to unlock their bonuses.
* Global Resistance | Get all of the continent bonuses available in a single campaign | - | See above
* Brutal Collection | Skulljack each different type of ADVENT soldier(does not have to be in same game) | Captain is story progression, as well as the Codex, which also counts: that leaves the footsoldier, the Sheilder, and the Lancer
* Nick of Time | Evacuate a soldier whose bleed-out timer is still running | - | A purchase in the AWC increases chance of Bleedout vs death
* The Most Dangerous Game | Win a multiplayer match. | - | -
* Defender of Humanity | Overthrow the aliens on Commander difficulty | Commander | -
* Beginner's Luck | Beat a mission in June or later using only Rookies | - | Best done on easier modes
* Valhalla | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty in Ironman mode | Commander | Practice
* The Untouchables | Beat the game on Commander+ without losing a soldier | Commander | -
* Immortal Commander | Overthrow the aliens on Legend difficulty | Legend | Practice
* Heavy Metal | Kill an enemy with every heavy weapon in the game(Doesn't have to be in the same game) | Rocket Launcher comes with the EXO suit, rest are Proving Ground projects, with more unlocked once the W.A.R. suit is developed
* The Few and the Proud | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty without buying a Squad Size upgrade | Commander | Specialists can hack mechanical enemies for a time, and Psions can MC enemies for whole missions, alleviating fire on your own forces
* Overpowered | Beat a mission on Commander+ with a squad composed entirely of soldiers of the same class (but not Rookies) | Commander | -
* Exquisite Timing | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty by July 1st | You'll pretty much be limited to plot-centric research, and will need as many scientists as possible, and perhaps a laboratory or two: in fact, a Lab should be your first and immediate construction. Not also to unlock the plot, but to rush for unlocking better weapons and armor for the final mission. Second priority is the Shadow Chamber, to discover the location of the Psionic Gate (research the Codex) and the Forge (Research Blacksite vial), as you need to make contact with local resistance to take on these two missions. The penultimate mission, the ADVENT Tower, can be accessed regardless of where it is, as is the final mission. After fighting an enemy type enough (and you have at least one body), some autopsy researches will be instant.
* Who Needs Tygan? | Beat the final mission using only conventional gear | - | Best done on easier modes: save a state on the Avenger before the final mission on your Exquisite Timing run (for less advanced enemies-- and experience fighting this mission with lesser tech: but take the extra time to max out those ranks), then redo it with the stater gear on Easy mode. Exact details for disqualifying equipment have already been pulled from game files [https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/4611ix/psa_requirements_for_who_needs_tygan_achievement/], effectively: only starting equipment (including base Psi Amp, thus Psi Magi are OK), Plasma Grenades and Nano Medkit and Smoke Bombs (since they can't be 'rolled back' from being an upgrade to those starting items), and the Nanofiber vest. Any tier weapon attachment or PCS is OK, so Superior Repeaters are a good go for those rare insta-kills, with Psionic soldiers with all abilities (particularly for the Dominate mind control ability, if they can bag a Gatekeeper or Andromedon).

[[Category: XCOM2]]

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-03-17T09:28:55Z

Xuncu:

Title, description, minimum Difficulty requirement, notes/advice
* First Blood | Complete the tactical tutorial | - | Toggled on starting a new campaign
* Like Clockwork | Complete a successful ambush | - | In concealment, simply have a soldier make an overwatch shot when another fires to break concealment.
* Rumor Hunter | Complete a Rumor | - | Often after a mission, you'll receive one of these scanning objectives for the Hologlobe
* Locked and Loaded | Upgrade a weapon | - | Unlocked after researching ADVENT weaponry
* Rise of the Resistance | Make contact with a region | - | Unlocked after "Resistance Communications" research
* Come Back To Me | Kill a Sectoid who is currently mind controlling a squadmate | - | -
* A Horrible Truth | Recover the Blacksite Data | - | Story progression
* Tinker | Build an experimental item in the Proving Grounds | - | -
* Breathing Room | Kill a Viper who is strangling a squadmate | - | -
* With Extreme Prejudice | Skulljack an ADVENT Officer | - | Story progression
* Grim Key | Recover a Codex Brain | - | Story progression: picked up automatically on any Codex kill, even on Evac'ed missions
* Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger | Apply a PCS upgrade to a soldier | - | Daft Punk. Semi-rare random drop from enemies, sometimes sold in the Black Market.
* Rebel Radio | Build Resistance Comms | - | -
* Car Wrecked | Cause an enemy to die in a vehicle explosion | - | -
* Room to Grow | Upgrade a facility | - | -
* Heroes of the Resistance | Beat a Retaliation mission with less than 3 civilian deaths | - | Easier modes reduces enemy chance-to-hit and damage: unlike EU/EW, enemies will more prioritize attacking XCOM soldiers once a pod is activated. So, this may require rushing to engage as much as possible, putting your soldiers at risk. Given that it takes about 3-4 turns to cross a Retaliation map, and you're only allowed two civvie deaths: the moment you see a MISS! during Alien Activity, that is your cue to rush to get this achievement. Keep on top of your save states, as well.
* Cyberlord | Earn a second tier hack reward | - | The locked doors and containers of certain mission objectives, and the 'light poles' in cities have lower hack scores than, say, a Sectopod
*Bring It Down | Sabotage an alien facility | - | Discover and destroy a Blacksite
* Have a Nice Trip | Cause an enemy to fall to its death | - | Grenading a roof-mounted turret is an instant kill
* Codebreaker | Build the Shadow Chamber | - | Story progression
* A Better Human Being | Recover the Forge item | - | Story progression
* A God Falls | Kill an Avatar | - | Story progression
* Stop Hitting Yourself | Kill an enemy with a hacked turret | - | -
* Now Am I Become Death | Kill 3 enemies in a single turn, with a single soldier, without explosives | - | Ranger's Reaper, Sharpshooter's Standoff, Specialist's Capacitor Discharge, and the Demo ''can'' use any of the 'special effect' grenades (acid, poison, fire), as long as the ''effect'' does the kill during Alien Activity
* Meat Over Metal | Kill a Sectopod on the same turn you encounter it | - | Focused fire works. Also, luck of the draw with a gun equipped with a Repeater upgrade
* Mechlord | Hack and take control of a Sectopod | - | Best done after doing the 'autopsy,' as it unlocks the Gremlin MKIII for a better hack score
* A Dark Doorway | Recover the Psi Gate | - | Story Progression
* David and Goliath | Kill a Berserker in melee combat | - | -
* Excalibur | Completely upgrade a beam weapon with superior grade weapon upgrades | - | -
* A Line Crossed | Complete the Avatar Autopsy | - | Story Progression
* Pile 'Em Up | Kill 500 aliens. (does not have to be in same game) | - | ADVENT units count
* A Final Stand | Create the Commander's Avatar | - | Story progression
* Shen's Legacy | Build a facility in every Avenger slot | - | -
* Earth Avenged | Overthrow the aliens at any difficulty level | - | Win.
* Shadow Broker | Sell goods worth 1000 supplies to the Black Market (Can span multiple games) | - | The black market will have 3 item types per month that it will buy at a higher price
* The Sun Never Sets | Build a radio relay on every continent | - | The Relays cost more Supplies for every one built globally, while reducing Intel costs to sectors in proximity to it: leapfrogging a good tradeoff, and continents require 1 or 2 Relays to unlock their bonuses.
* Global Resistance | Get all of the continent bonuses available in a single campaign | - | See above
* Brutal Collection | Skulljack each different type of ADVENT soldier(does not have to be in same game) | Captain is story progression, as well as the Codex, which also counts: that leaves the footsoldier, the Sheilder, and the Lancer
* Nick of Time | Evacuate a soldier whose bleed-out timer is still running | - | A purchase in the AWC increases chance of Bleedout vs death
* The Most Dangerous Game | Win a multiplayer match. | - | -
* Defender of Humanity | Overthrow the aliens on Commander difficulty | Commander | -
* Beginner's Luck | Beat a mission in June or later using only Rookies | - | Best done on easier modes
* Valhalla | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty in Ironman mode | Commander | Practice
* The Untouchables | Beat the game on Commander+ without losing a soldier | Commander | -
* Immortal Commander | Overthrow the aliens on Legend difficulty | Legend | Practice
* Heavy Metal | Kill an enemy with every heavy weapon in the game(Doesn't have to be in the same game) | Rocket Launcher comes with the EXO suit, rest are Proving Ground projects, with more unlocked once the W.A.R. suit is developed
* The Few and the Proud | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty without buying a Squad Size upgrade | Commander | Specialists can hack mechanical enemies for a time, and Psions can MC enemies for whole missions, alleviating fire on your own forces
* Overpowered | Beat a mission on Commander+ with a squad composed entirely of soldiers of the same class (but not Rookies) | Commander | -
* Exquisite Timing | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty by July 1st | You'll pretty much be limited to plot-centric research, and will need as many scientists as possible, and perhaps a laboratory or two: in fact, a Lab should be your first and immediate construction. Not also to unlock the plot, but to rush for unlocking better weapons and armor for the final mission. Second priority is the Shadow Chamber, to discover the location of the Psionic Gate (research the Codex) and the Forge (Research Blacksite vial), as you need to make contact with local resistance to take on these two missions. The penultimate mission, the ADVENT Tower, can be accessed regardless of where it is, as is the final mission. After fighting an enemy type enough (and you have at least one body), some autopsy researches will be instant.
* Who Needs Tygan? | Beat the final mission using only conventional gear | - | Best done on easier modes: save a state on the Avenger before the final mission on your Exquisite Timing run (for less advanced enemies-- and experience fighting this mission with lesser tech and ranks), then redo it with the stater gear on Easy mode. Exact details for disqualifying equipment have already been pulled from game files [https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/4611ix/psa_requirements_for_who_needs_tygan_achievement/], effectively: only starting equipment (including base Psi Amp, thus Psi Magi are OK), Plasma Grenades and Nano Medkit and Smoke Bombs (since they can't be 'rolled back' from being an upgrade to those starting items), and the Nanofiber vest. Any tier weapon attachment or PCS is OK, so Superior Repeaters are a good go for those rare insta-kills, with Psionic soldiers with all abilities (particularly for the Dominate mind control ability, if they can bag a Gatekeeper or Andromedon).

[[Category: XCOM2]]

Codex (XCOM2)

2016-02-29T14:34:32Z

Xuncu:

You may first see this creature at the end of the tutorial mission. Apparently the physical manifestation of the alien's psionic/data network, it is an electric yellow female-humanoid being, seemingly made entirely of electricity, save for a metallic skull and a bit of spinal column.

You will first fight it after you attempt to Skulljack a ADVENT Captain: you may want to make sure that Captain is otherwise the last enemy on the map. It has high health, a high dodge rate (so even point-blank shots may 'graze' it for partial damage), and high accuracy. For the storyline requirement, the best time to fight it is when there's no turn counter or anything keeping pressure on you.

It's abilities include:
* Teleportation: The Codex will usually teleport instead of physically moving. This has a better-than-average movement range, doesn't trigger overwatch, and the Codex can still fire or use other abilities as its second action. This ability means the Codex will almost always get a flanking shot every round, unless it uses another ability.
* Rift: The Codex can summon a psionic rift. This disables weapons of XCOM soldiers in the area (mechanically, it reduces their ammo to zero). The rift will detonate next turn for medium damage to anything still in the area of effect. This usually costs the turn of any soldier caught by it, since reloading and moving out of the area of effect to avoid the damage is a full turn of actions, though there are options that don't rely on the primary weapon, such as a Ranger's Slash, the Sharpshooter's pistol or using an item.
* Clone: Whenever it takes damage the Codex will clone itself; the remaining HP will be divided between the two clones, rounding down (so if it attempts to clone at 1 HP, it's basically a single teleport). Try to hit it with a high damage attack first if you can.

Flashbangs and other causes of Disorientation greatly reduce it's threat, and seem to restrict it from using it's special abilities. After the first successful encounter, they will spawn in regular enemy pods, no longer in response to Skulljacking/Skullmining. In terms of threat level, physical makeup, and plot significance: it is fairly equivalent to the Long War iteration of the Outsider.

After a plot point, you will be tasked with Skulljacking an Avatar itself (which, in kind with your first Skulljack of a ADVENT Captain, summons the [[Avatar (XCOM2)|Avatar]]). After this task is complete, all future Codexes ("Codi?") can be Skullmined, offering a low-hassle way to one-hit-kill one without allowing it to clone itself (unless you swing and miss, of course).

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-28T19:29:57Z

Xuncu:

Title, description, minimum Difficulty requirement, notes/advice
* First Blood | Complete the tactical tutorial | - | Toggled on starting a new campaign
* Like Clockwork | Complete a successful ambush | - | In concealment, simply have a soldier make an overwatch shot when another fires to break concealment.
* Rumor Hunter | Complete a Rumor | - | Often after a mission, you'll receive one of these scanning objectives for the Hologlobe
* Locked and Loaded | Upgrade a weapon | - | Unlocked after researching ADVENT weaponry
* Rise of the Resistance | Make contact with a region | - | Unlocked after "Resistance Communications" research
* Come Back To Me | Kill a Sectoid who is currently mind controlling a squadmate | - | -
* A Horrible Truth | Recover the Blacksite Data | - | Story progression
* Tinker | Build an experimental item in the Proving Grounds | - | -
* Breathing Room | Kill a Viper who is strangling a squadmate | - | -
* With Extreme Prejudice | Skulljack an ADVENT Officer | - | Story progression
* Grim Key | Recover a Codex Brain | - | Story progression: picked up automatically on any Codex kill, even on Evac'ed missions
* Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger | Apply a PCS upgrade to a soldier | - | Daft Punk. Semi-rare random drop from enemies, sometimes sold in the Black Market.
* Rebel Radio | Build Resistance Comms | - | -
* Car Wrecked | Cause an enemy to die in a vehicle explosion | - | -
* Room to Grow | Upgrade a facility | - | -
* Heroes of the Resistance | Beat a Retaliation mission with less than 3 civilian deaths | - | Easier modes reduces enemy chance-to-hit and damage: unlike EU/EW, enemies will more prioritize attacking XCOM soldiers once a pod is activated. So, this may require rushing to engage as much as possible, putting your soldiers at risk. Given that it takes about 3-4 turns to cross a Retaliation map, and you're only allowed two civvie deaths: the moment you see a MISS! during Alien Activity, that is your cue to rush to get this achievement. Keep on top of your save states, as well.
* Cyberlord | Earn a second tier hack reward | - | The locked doors and containers of certain mission objectives, and the 'light poles' in cities have lower hack scores than, say, a Sectopod
*Bring It Down | Sabotage an alien facility | - | Discover and destroy a Blacksite
* Have a Nice Trip | Cause an enemy to fall to its death | - | Grenading a roof-mounted turret is an instant kill
* Codebreaker | Build the Shadow Chamber | - | Story progression
* A Better Human Being | Recover the Forge item | - | Story progression
* A God Falls | Kill an Avatar | - | Story progression
* Stop Hitting Yourself | Kill an enemy with a hacked turret | - | -
* Now Am I Become Death | Kill 3 enemies in a single turn, with a single soldier, without explosives | - | Ranger's Reaper, Sharpshooter's Standoff, Specialist's Capacitor Discharge, and the Demo ''can'' use any of the 'special effect' grenades (acid, poison, fire), as long as the ''effect'' does the kill during Alien Activity
* Meat Over Metal | Kill a Sectopod on the same turn you encounter it | - | Focused fire works. Also, luck of the draw with a gun equipped with a Repeater upgrade
* Mechlord | Hack and take control of a Sectopod | - | Best done after doing the 'autopsy,' as it unlocks the Gremlin MKIII for a better hack score
* A Dark Doorway | Recover the Psi Gate | - | Story Progression
* David and Goliath | Kill a Berserker in melee combat | - | -
* Excalibur | Completely upgrade a beam weapon with superior grade weapon upgrades | - | -
* A Line Crossed | Complete the Avatar Autopsy | - | Story Progression
* Pile 'Em Up | Kill 500 aliens. (does not have to be in same game) | - | ADVENT units count
* A Final Stand | Create the Commander's Avatar | - | Story progression
* Shen's Legacy | Build a facility in every Avenger slot | - | -
* Earth Avenged | Overthrow the aliens at any difficulty level | - | Win.
* Shadow Broker | Sell goods worth 1000 supplies to the Black Market (Can span multiple games) | - | The black market will have 3 item types per month that it will buy at a higher price
* The Sun Never Sets | Build a radio relay on every continent | - | The Relays cost more Supplies for every one built globally, while reducing Intel costs to sectors in proximity to it: leapfrogging a good tradeoff, and continents require 1 or 2 Relays to unlock their bonuses.
* Global Resistance | Get all of the continent bonuses available in a single campaign | - | See above
* Brutal Collection | Skulljack each different type of ADVENT soldier(does not have to be in same game) | Captain is story progression, as well as the Codex, which also counts: that leaves the footsoldier, the Sheilder, and the Lancer
* Nick of Time | Evacuate a soldier whose bleed-out timer is still running | - | A purchase in the AWC increases chance of Bleedout vs death
* The Most Dangerous Game | Win a multiplayer match. | - | -
* Defender of Humanity | Overthrow the aliens on Commander difficulty | Commander | -
* Beginner's Luck | Beat a mission in June or later using only Rookies | - | Best done on easier modes
* Valhalla | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty in Ironman mode | Commander | Practice
* The Untouchables | Beat the game on Commander+ without losing a soldier | Commander | -
* Immortal Commander | Overthrow the aliens on Legend difficulty | Legend | Practice
* Heavy Metal | Kill an enemy with every heavy weapon in the game(Doesn't have to be in the same game) | Rocket Launcher comes with the EXO suit, rest are Proving Ground projects, with more unlocked once the W.A.R. suit is developed
* The Few and the Proud | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty without buying a Squad Size upgrade | Commander | Specialists can hack mechanical enemies for a time, and Psions can MC enemies for whole missions, alleviating fire on your own forces
* Overpowered | Beat a mission on Commander+ with a squad composed entirely of soldiers of the same class (but not Rookies) | Commander | -
* Exquisite Timing | Beat the game on Commander+ difficulty by July 1st | You'll pretty much be limited to plot-centric research, and will need as many scientists as possible, and perhaps a laboratory or two: in fact, a Lab should be your first and immediate construction. Not also to unlock the plot, but to rush for unlocking better weapons and armor for the final mission. Second priority is the Shadow Chamber, to discover the location of the Psionic Gate (research the Codex) and the Forge (Research Blacksite vial), as you need to make contact with local resistance to take on these two missions. The penultimate mission, the ADVENT Tower, can be accessed regardless of where it is, as is the final mission. After fighting an enemy type enough (and you have at least one body), some autopsy researches will be instant.
* Who Needs Tygan? | Beat the final mission using only conventional gear | - | Best done on easier modes: save a state on the Avenger before the final mission on your Exquisite Timing run (for less advanced enemies), then redo it with the stater gear on Easy mode.

[[Category: XCOM2]]

ADVENT MEC (XCOM2)

2016-02-25T02:45:52Z

Xuncu:

ADVENT Mechs are fully automated units, with high health and heavy armor. Their weapons however are only slightly better than a normal Mag Rifle, but the fact that they're tough and don't need to pay attention to cover means they can easily get flanks with them. Mechs are also armed with cluster missiles that do medium damage, but have a wide area of effect and very effectively destroy cover. They also can jump, so keep that in mind if you think staying on rooftops will keep you safe from flanks.

Shredding the armor from a Mech with explosives will make it a lot easier to take down. As fully mechanized units, Mechs are immune to psionics, but are vulnerable to the Specialist's Haywire Protocol ability.

ADVENT Mechs will be supplemented by ADVENT Heavy Mechs later in the campaign. There seems little difference between the models except for increased stats, and an additional salvo of missiles.

Faceless (XCOM2)

2016-02-25T02:44:30Z

Xuncu:

A hulking sack of flesh and internal chitin, this enemy accomplishes what the Thin man failed to do: perfect mimicry of human appearances. Faceless appear in Reprisal missions, mimicing civilians to be rescued. when approached for evac, they will change into their true form. With high levels of health, they are a force to be reckoned with, with a surprising amount of movement, and a AoE claw attack. As you'll often discover them right in front of the soldier who just tried to rescue it, they are highly dangerous traps set out for you.

To detect them ahead of time:
*Use a Battle Scanner or the GREMLIN scan ability.
*If there's an alien or ADVENT trooper nearby who is curiously uninterested in shooting at them, they're probably a Faceless. You can reveal it with an AOE attack.
*Faceless don't count towards the counter of unrescued civilians in a mission, so if the green counter says there's one civilian left, and there are two in front of you...
*Cheat like a little bitch and reload your last save after getting surprised by one.

Faceless will transform on your turn if you try to rescue them. If an XCOM soldier is close but hasn't come close enough to rescue, they'll transform during Alien Activity, and can immediately act on the turn they reveal. There is a Dark Event that may place Faceless in missions other than the Retaliation Strikes, so keep an eye out for that one. If all other aliens are killed, any hiding Faceless will automatically transform. Also keep in mind that they can jump, so elevation and ladders are not obstacles for them.

ADVENT Security Tower (XCOM2)

2016-02-25T02:41:47Z

Xuncu:

ADVENT Security Towers act as watchpoints in all advent cities, they are able to reveal your troopers if you step in their sight radius. These towers can be remote hacked to obtain different combat bonuses such as concealment, immunity to enemy attacks, and other skill. If you successfully hack a tower you will obtain the bonus and disable the sight radius, if you fail your whole squad will be revealed.

ADVENT Turret (XCOM2)

2016-02-25T02:40:58Z

Xuncu:

ADVENT turrets are fully automated, stationary guns. They have high armor, but low health, such that it may not be worth shredding their armor since they usually go down in two hits anyway. Turrets can fire twice per turn. Turrets are vulnerable to the Specialist's Haywire Protocol. As the story progresses, they do acquire more yellow armor pips.

On occasion, you will find turrets located on top of ADVENT facilities: for an easy kill, smack 'em with a grenade and they'll smash through the floor for an instant kill (also completing a Achievement).

Talk:Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-24T21:38:59Z

Xuncu: Created page with "'Kay, so needs a table, and the Steam Acheivement pictures. --~~~~"

'Kay, so needs a table, and the Steam Acheivement pictures. --[[User:Xuncu|Xuncu]] ([[User talk:Xuncu|talk]]) 16:38, 24 February 2016 (EST)

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-24T21:38:05Z

Xuncu:

Concealment (XCOM2)

2016-02-24T10:01:56Z

Xuncu:

Concealment is a new mechanic introduced in XCOM 2. In certain mission types your squads will start concealed, which means that the enemy wont be aware of your presence, and will patrol the map without knowing precisely where you are. The best about this new mechanic is the possibility of setting ambushes. To set an ambush just distribute all your soldiers in good cover and put all except one in Overwatch, then use the last soldier to attack, this will break concealment and hell will break loose-- though be aware that any survivors may then be primed to counter-attack.

It is effectively impossible to full stealth a mission, as either you will need to clear the area of enemies, or the site of an objective will be camped by an alien pod: even if you get close, doing the required action will reveal you. The only Concealment-centric Achievement is to simply set up an ambush.

Normally, the area shown around a patrolling pod is roughly the movement range: remaining outside this range will usually ensure that you won't be spotted in the next movement. However, one Dark Event, Vigilance, increases the LoS/Alertness radius of enemies while in concealment mode (but won't increase movement range).

==Breaking Concealment==

As said before, attacking will break concealment, but that is not the only thing that will break it. Stepping into an enemy or civilian LoS will break concealment too, also failing a hack attempt or a patrolling enemy flanking you will reveal your squad: they will also get a free shot on the flanked soldier. Also, running through windows or doors breaks concealment; but if you take cover next to a door first, you're allowed to open it without breaking cover.

==Getting most of Concealment==

There are certain skills that can be used to boost the effectiveness of Concealment. Rangers excel with Concealment, their first three Scout skills allow it to remain in concealment, get an aim and critical chance bonus when in concealment and also enter Concealment again once per mission, you will be able to flank, attack and most probably kill an enemy in the same turn.

Sharpshooter´s Kill Zone and Grenadier¨s Saturation Fire will get most out of this game mechanic, since enemies will be out of cover so you will have the bonus to Aim and Crit with each shot when attacking with those AoE skills.

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T23:06:52Z

Xuncu:

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T23:06:33Z

Xuncu:

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T22:57:59Z

Xuncu:

Achievements (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T22:56:31Z

Xuncu: Someone make a table, would you?

Missions (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T07:28:02Z

Xuncu:

One of the big differences between XCOM and XCOM 2 are mission types. Instead of Abductions you have Guerrilla Ops, and instead of Terror Missions you have ADVENT Retaliations (losing and ADVENT Retaliation mission wont make you lose that territory, but it will decrease the supplies income).

{| class="wikitable" width="100%" style="text-align: center"
! Mission !! Timer !! Start Concealed !! Objetives !! Reward !! Observations
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| Guerrilla Ops || - || yes || Varied || Varied + Countering a Dark Event || You can only choose one at a time. Hidden Dark Events can be revealed with Intel, either on the first popup, or by clicking the tag under the Avatar Progress counter. Choose based on what is a greater threat to you (usually the 'free +1/+2 Avatar Progress' events).
|-
| Supply Raid || - || yes || Neutralize all enemies || Alloys + Elerium || Beware of AoE attacks, don't destroy the resources: they are the glowing boxes. Keep in mind that vehicle and other object explosions have some range.
|-
| Secure VIP || 12 || no ||Extract VIP and all soldiers || VIP + resources || VIP starts with you
|-
| Rescue VIP || 12 || no || Extract VIP and all soldiers || VIP + resources || VIP doesn´t start with your soldiers: may appear locked in a cell or an ADVENT van: bring a Specialist.
|-
| Neutralize Dark VIP || 12 || yes || Capture or kill Dark VIP + extract all soldiers || Supplies + Intel || If you kill the Dark VIP you don't get the Intel. On proximity, you get the 'Knockout' command, then Carry option: soldier carry rules are in effect.
|-
| Protect Device || - || yes || Protect the device and kill all targets || Varied || Late game this mission might get hard due to powerful enemies attacks
|-
| Destroy Device || 8 || yes || Destroy the device and kill all targets || Varied || The ability to MC or hack control of an enemy unit makes this easier
|-
| Hack/Recover Device || 8 || yes ||Hack/Recover the device and kill all targets || Varied || Bring a Specialist: their ranged hack makes this significantly easier: LoS is range.
|-
| UFO Recovery || 6 || yes || kill all targets || Alloys + Elerium || After you break concealment a beacon will activate, you have 6 turn do deactivate it
|-
| ADVENT Retaliation || - || no || save at least six civilians and kill all targets || Supplies income increased || Like in Enemy Unknown/Within; living civvies still on the map are auto-rescued once all enemies are dead.
|-
| ADVENT Facility || - || yes || Plant the X4 and evacuate || AVATAR progress decreased by point amount displayed under facility on map || Expect drops once the charges are set, and another on your way to extraction.
|-
| Avenger Defence || - || yes || Destroy the Disruptor, don't let enemies inside the ramp || Not losing the game || Defense Matrix helps a lot to camp the ramp, upgrade if you can. MCing and/or Hacking is VERY useful: have the controlled enemy unit take out the Disruptor, while your soldiers retreat, as ADVENT will be airdropping new enemies first every other turn, then eventually ''every'' turn.
|-
|}

Missions (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T07:24:28Z

Xuncu:

One of the big differences between XCOM and XCOM 2 are mission types. Instead of Abductions you have Guerrilla Ops, and instead of Terror Missions you have ADVENT Retaliations (losing and ADVENT Retaliation mission wont make you lose that territory, but it will decrease the supplies income).

{| class="wikitable" width="100%" style="text-align: center"
! Mission !! Timer !! Start Concealed !! Objetives !! Reward !! Observations
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
| Guerrilla Ops || - || yes || Varied || Varied + Countering a Dark Event || You can only choose one at a time. Hidden Dark Events can be revealed with Intel, either on the first popup, or by clicking the tag under the Avatar Progress counter. Choose based on what is a greater threat to you (usually the 'free +1/+2 Avatar Progress' events).
|-
| Supply Raid || - || yes || Neutralize all enemies || Alloys + Elerium || Beware of AoE attacks, don't destroy the resources: they are the glowing boxes. Keep in mind that vehicle and other object explosions have some range.
|-
| Secure VIP || 12 || no ||Extract VIP and all soldiers || VIP + resources || VIP starts with you
|-
| Rescue VIP || 12 || no || Extract VIP and all soldiers || VIP + resources || VIP doesn´t start with your soldiers: may appear locked in a cell or an ADVENT van: bring a Specialist.
|-
| Neutralize Dark VIP || 12 || yes || Capture or kill Dark VIP + extract all soldiers || Supplies + Intel || If you kill the Dark VIP you don't get the Intel. On proximity, you get the 'Knockout' command, then Carry option: soldier carry rules are in effect.
|-
| Protect Device || - || yes || Protect the device and kill all targets || Varied || Late game this mission might get hard due to powerful enemies attacks
|-
| Destroy Device || 8 || yes || Destroy the device and kill all targets || Varied || The ability to MC or hack control of an enemy unit makes this easier
|-
| Hack/Recover Device || 8 || yes ||Hack/Recover the device and kill all targets || Varied || Bring a Specialist: their ranged hack makes this significantly easier: LoS is range.
|-
| UFO Recovery || 6 || yes || kill all targets || Alloys + Elerium || After you break concealment a beacon will activate, you have 6 turn do deactivate it
|-
| ADVENT Retaliation || - || no || save at least six civilians and kill all targets || Supplies income increased || -
|-
| ADVENT Facility || - || yes || Plant the X4 and evacuate || AVATAR progress decreased by point amount displayed under facility on map || Expect drops once the charges are set, and another on your way to extraction.
|-
| Avenger Defence || - || yes || Destroy the Disruptor, don't let enemies inside the ramp || Not losing the game || Defense Matrix helps a lot to camp the ramp, upgrade if you can. MCing and/or Hacking is VERY useful: have the controlled enemy unit take out the Disruptor, while your soldiers retreat, as ADVENT will be airdropping new enemies first every other turn, then eventually ''every'' turn.
|-
|}

Missions (XCOM2)

2016-02-23T07:13:19Z

Xuncu:

Murphy's Laws (X-COM)

2016-02-22T04:34:33Z

Xuncu:

==[[Battlescape|Battlescape (UFO Defense)]]==
===[[Soldiers]]===
*If a soldier can miss, he will.
**If a soldier can hit another soldier while missing, he will.
*If a soldier has a high explosive, then he will have to commit suicide for the group to win.
*If a soldier can panic, he will.
**If he is holding a primed [[Proximity Grenade]], he will drop it and start running.
**If he is holding any other primed explosive, he will drop it and stay right there.
**If he is holding something else, he will drop it and run right next to an alien.
*The probability of a soldier getting MCed is proportional to the lethality of the weapons he is carrying.
*The probability of a soldier going berserk is proportional to the number of friendly units he can hit from where he's standing.
*Your troops invariably display better accuracy and reactions when mind controlled than they do under your own orders.
**The opposite is true when you mind control an alien.
*The soldier you gave your shiny new heavy weapon to will turn out to have shitty Psi Strength and/or Morale. You will discover this the hard way.
*If a soldier has a [[Rocket Launcher]], he will get MCed while still in the craft.
*Your first unit out is always shot down.
**Your first unit out is always your commander.
*A wounded soldier will always die just before you find the last alien.
*As soon as you get better armor, the aliens get better weapons.
*[[Electroflare|Flares]] will always land where they cannot be picked up.
*If your base is attacked, you will always get [[Electroflare|flares]] instead of [[Heavy Plasma|Heavy Plasmas]].
*You will always end up short 1 TU for the action you wanted to do.
*If there is a single square where an alien grenade can hit all your soldiers at once, that is the square it will land in.
*The soldiers with the worst stats will always be the first to get promoted.
**When you build the [[Psi Lab]], you will always discover that your highly-trained officers are psi weaklings.
*On [[Ethereal]] [[Terror_Mission|Terror Missions]], you will always get the maximum number of [[Sectopod|Sectopods]] possible.
*When you have finally perfected the art of UFO assaults - [[Initial_Deployment|safe initial deployment]], proper [[Scouting|scout]] and [[Sweeping_the_Battlescape|sweep]] tactics, [[UFO_Ground_Assault#Breaching_UFOs|correct breaching methods]] - that will be the mission an enemy commander shows up with a [[Blaster_Launcher|Blaster Launcher]] and nukes your entire team while it's still on the [[Skyranger]]
*The only thing your soldiers are good for is warning each other about the Blaster Launching-wielding alien right around the corner.
**Considering the laws above, it's pretty easy to guess exactly how they warn the rest of your squad about said Blaster Launcher.
***They warn your squad with an explosion, followed by a scream.
*If a proximity grenade can land on a soldier, it will.
*A soldier with pockets full of pre-primed grenades will fall unconscious right next to your Commander.
*That point-blank reaction shot can be guaranteed by giving the guy a Rocket Launcher.
*The chance of soldiers panicking and running out of the access lift on Cydonia is relative to the amount of soldiers in the access lift.
**And into direct fire from a cyberdisc.

===[[Civilian|Civilians]]===
*If a civilian sees a fire, he will run into it.
*If a civilian sees an alien, he will move right next to it.
*If a civilian can block your line of fire on an alien, he will do so.
*Civilians are attracted by armed proximity grenades.
*Civilians inevitably block the doorway you need to use right before you get there.
*If a civilian is near an alien, any attempt to save him by shooting the alien will hit the civilian instead.
*Civilians will go out of their way to get shot in a Terror Mission.

===[[Alien Life Forms|Aliens]]===
*If an alien can hit, it will.
*If an alien tries to MC you, it will always succeed.
*Alien commanders will always kill themselves (with their [[Blaster_Launcher|Blaster Launchers]]) when you're on track to capture them .
*If there are [[Chryssalid|Chryssalids]], you will get at least one zombified soldier.
**You never want to know the answer to "Why did the Chryssalid cross the road?".
*If a dying [[Cyberdisc]] can blow up one of your men, it will.
*Unconscious aliens with melee attacks will wake up when you least expect them to.
*If you open a door and turn left, the aliens will all be on the right.
*Aliens are smarter than they look.
*This one is universal for all of the series:
**"Gaahh! Come back here and let me stun/melee you, you little shit!"
*Aliens can smell proximity grenades.

==[[Geoscape|Geoscape (UFO Defense)]]==
*When you need money the most, your funders will sign treaties with the aliens.
**The first country to drop funding is always the one that gave the most money.
*As soon as you get a new base built, it will be attacked.
**As soon as you get a new base fully equipped and operational, UFO activity in that area will drop to zero.
*If your fully developed base with 12 [[Missile_Defences|Missile Defences]] is successfully weathering a [[Alien_Retaliation|retaliation mission]] every couple days, the 1-in-30 battleship that makes it through will inevitably do so when all your experienced soldiers are out on missions.
*The more money you've saved, the higher the chance the aliens will do something that forces you to waste it.
**The amount of money you lose is proportional to how badly you need whatever you were saving up for.
*[[Alien Terror|Terror sites]] always appear at night.
**Or at noon, located conveniently so that night falls the second you arrive.
*If there is one tiny lake in the middle of 100 km of dry land, your [[Interceptor|Interceptors]] will inevitably shoot the UFO down over that exact spot.
*The chance that a crashed UFO's [[Elerium]] survived is proportional to how much you already have stockpiled.
*Landed UFO's will always take off before you can get to them.
**Unless they're filled with a species of alien you aren't equipped to deal with, in which case they will stick around forever.
***And when you finally get the equipment to deal with them, they fly away, never to be seen again.
****Until you have none of that equipment left to deal with them, because the base closest to them was destroyed.
*UFO's will always arrive while your [[Skyranger]] is refueling from a two day patrol.
*If you have forgotten to save the game for at least 3 missions, the game will crash.
**The game will always crash when it is the least convenient.
*If your craft is carrying no [[Electroflare|flares]] whatsoever, it will inevitably arrive five minutes after nightfall.
**If you've wasted half your [[Managing_the_Item_Limit|80-item limit]] on [[Electroflare|flares]] and incendiary ammo, you will arrive at high noon.
*[[Small Scout|Alien UFO scouts]] will always outrun your [[Interceptor|Interceptors]].
*Building a new base where there is heavy UFO activity? Seems like a good time for the Aliens to stop all activity in that area, and move it to a new area.
**That new area consists of the highest-funding countries.
*It's always exciting downing a UFO on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Too bad it's always an Ethereal-filled Battleship.

==[[Cityscape (Apocalypse)]]==
*If you're almost broke after buying a new flagship for your fleet, it will be destroyed in the next UFO incursion.
*The pride of your fleet is always stuck in alien dimension when you get attacked by a Mothership.
*UFOs carrying infiltrators always spawn at the gate you don't have covered.
*Griffon AFV is tough. The road under it is not. The tracks are just for show.
*There are only two types of vehicles that are always in abundance on the market: Blazer bikes and Stormdogs.
*While en route to a building, your craft will shoot at a Cult civilian car and demolish half of the city trying to hit it. However, the car will survive.
*Megapol is useless.
**Transtellar is annoying.
***Everyone else is both annoying and useless.
*Government's weekly paycheck will buy you a Lawpistol clip. Maybe two.
*If your base is in a slum, a single stray shot from a light disruptor will destroy it all.
**If your base is in a warehouse, said stray shot will still hit the tile with your agents.
*A hoverbike swarm is a good idea. Too bad they'll all get shot down anyway because of sheer dumb luck on the aliens' part.
*Research will always be completed right after when you needed it the most.
*After a firefight in the city, the only one to be blamed for the devastation will be you, even if it was an Overspawn that did it.
*The Overspawn will coincidentally be dropped right at your doorstep.
*The Overspawn will never, ''ever'' get hurt from falling debris. Unless you drop the said debris and level half of the city with it.
*People Tubes can collapse from an angry glare.
*You're the only one who has a problem with the aliens. Every other corp gets along with them fine.
**Transtellar in particular will always be dying for a chance to jump in bed with the aliens.
*Subversion attacks ''will'' succeed, 100%.
*Your carefully built Dimension Probe will be welcomed by a volley of Heavy Disruptor Guns.
*Your very first invasion of the Alien Dimension will require an hour's savescumming to get it right without being reduced to scrap metal.
*You ''will'' forget to not to move the X-COM craft when you succeed in destroying an alien building, killing everyone in the process.

==[[Battlescape Overview (Apocalypse)|Battlescape (Apocalypse)]]==
*If your base is raided, there will be as few of your agents spawning as possible.
**Said agents will spawn as far away from the access lift as possible.
***Guess where the scientists will appear.
*If you're raiding a building, there will always be a trigger-happy idiot with a heavy launcher.
**Despite your best efforts, he will manage to fire at least one missile.
***And he will do so even if you're breathing in his face.
****There is no way to avoid the missile and injuries or casualties from it.
*****Even if you somehow actually manage to avoid the missile, it'll bring down the building on you.
*Live explosives are seemingly attracted to large concentrations of dead cultist bodies with all the loot you came here for.
*If an agent in a squad gets attacked by a brainsucker, the rest of the squad won't hit it at point blank range.
**Or they'll fire a missile launcher. Guess the results.
*If you turn around the corner where you think that last alien is hiding, it'll turn out to be half a dozen of Anthropods. All armed to the teeth.
*A berserking agent will cause more chaos and destruction than all of your other agents put together. And it won't be directed at the enemy.
*If someone throws a Boomeroid at an agent, he'll try to run away from it.
**Because it will always turn out that you forgot to set him to aggressive mode.
*If you try to capture a Megaspawn, it'll die before you can stun it.
**As will half the agents trying to stun the damn thing in the first place.
*You'd wish you gave that mind controlled agent a Toxigun instead of a Dimension Missile Launcher.
*You'll encounter cloaked and flying Skeletoids much more often than you'd like to.
**Cloaking never works for you. Neither does flying, actually.
*Good stuff always comes too late.
**Personal teleporters do not exist.
*Psi attacks are only successful when they're not necessary.
*Dynamic music always ignores what you're actually doing.
*That agent you sent to scout ahead will always be the one without a motion scanner.
*Every raid is a horrible decision between causing property damage and greed. Either way, you lose.
*The agent with a Mind Bender won't see the enemy <s>until he's standing right next to it</s> at all. Period.
*You will forget to capture a live Micronoid aggregate.
*Toxigun ammo, Vortex mines and Personal Shields come in only two varieties: "not enough" and "none".

==[[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|Strategic (Enemy Unknown)]]==
*When you need §§§ the most, the US and Russia (which you have satellite coverage over) will pull out of the XCOM project.
*Your satellites will always be available one day too late to prevent a country from withdrawing.
**Even if it shows up before "Council Report" on the event list.
*When you do have satellites available, you will never have enough Satellite Uplink/Nexus space for them.
*When you do have Satellite Uplink/Nexus, you will never have enough satellites.
*If you have one more satellite to go before getting a continent's bonus, that last country will pull out of the XCOM project.
**The one continent's bonus you don't want to get? The aliens will ignore that continent.
*You will always be at least §1 short of buying the next level of armor/weapons for all your troops.
*If a Colonel can be checked for having the Psi gift, he won't have it.
*If a Rookie can be checked for having the Psi gift, he will.
*Your interceptor will always lose contact 0.1 seconds before the enemy UFO is destroyed.
*Your interceptor will blow up one round of fire exchange after you press the Abort button.
*Your interceptor will miss every shot.
**The UFO will have perfect aim and land every single hit.
***After an interceptor lands a few hits on a Supply Barge it's shot down. So you sortie another interceptor and it's shot down/loses contact without hitting the damaged UFO even once.
*Just a bit more than a day from getting your Colonel out of the medbay? Time for a Terror Mission!
*Just a bit less than a day from getting your Colonel out of the medbay? Time for a Terror Mission!
**Fast forwarding will result in the Terror Mission succeeding for the aliens before you can react to your Colonel getting out of the medbay.
*Just a bit more than a day before your latest and greatest research completes? Time for a Terror Mission!
*Any other time it's inconvenient? Time for a Terror Mission!
**Followed by abductions less than 24 hours later.
***Followed by a council mission less than 24 hours later.
****Followed by a Battleship coming to destroy your satellite less than 24 hours later.
*****Oh, you recently finished the Hyperwave Uplink? Here, have the Overseer UFO, 12 hours after that battleship.
******On the same continent as your surely-damaged Firestorm.
*******And once you lose ''that''... Time for a Terror Mission!
*Steam vents will be placed in inconvenient locations.
**Second floor steam vents will block your 2x2 Satellite Uplink block.
***The remaining steam vents will be on the 4th floor.
****In the corner.
*****Behind 3 solid squares of rock.
******The vent's spot is also solid rock.
*Research or Foundry upgrades will be completed one day after a critical mission appears.
*The only way you can afford the next item or facility you need, is to sell materials on the grey market.
**Specifically, just enough to not have the materials left to build it.
*When the option to start researching the various Plasma Weapons becomes available, you will not have enough Weapon Fragments.
**Heavy Floaters will also start appearing on your next mission.
**You'll also be trying to research the Firestorm.
*You will forget to equip your shiny new weapon.
**If not, your save (or at least when you last saved) may forget for you.
* .......................... Time for a Terror Mission!
*Oh, three steam vents all set up for awesome adjacency bonus! Too bad that two of them are directly underneath the Satellite Uplink!
*The only time you miss-click when accusing a country of hosting the EXALT Base, is when that country provided the most money.
**It is also the eighth country to leave!
***On Impossible difficulty.
****Ironman Mode was also on.
*****And you decided that right after you destroy the EXALT Base, you would go right on ahead and assault the Temple Ship!
******Not that you would have survived, anyways, everybody was panicking!
*Special: If you're trying to test something for this very 'paedia, the situation you're after will never occur.
**Instead, something else will happen that will give you another idea to test. Guess what will happen then.

==[[Enemy_Unknown_(EU2012)|Tactical (Enemy Unknown)]]==
*If a soldier's chance to hit is <99%, he will miss.
**Especially if the target is at 1 HP.
***Doubly so if that's your last action for the turn.
****Exponentially so, proportional to how dangerous the target is. Like a Sectopod that's now flanking several soldiers.
*If a soldier's chance to hit is 100%, he won't do enough damage to kill the alien.
**If a soldier's chance to hit is 100%, the game will glitch and turn that full-face Alloy Cannon blast into a spray of harmless confetti.
*The left mouse button is context sensitive; it will always do exactly what you didn't want it to.
*If a soldier's a heavy, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy.
**The range and blast radius of a heavy's rocket launcher will be a few tiles away from the nearest alien.
***Your heavy will never be in range to fire off a rocket.
*If a soldier's a sniper, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy FOR MOST OF THE GAME.
**A sniper will have squad sight on either a heavily wooded UFO crash/landing sight or a Terror Mission with one or two buildings that cover the entire map.
*If a soldier's an assault, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy EVEN AT POINT BLANK RANGE.
**If you activate Rapid Fire, both shots will miss a point blank Sectopod (Who has only eight health bars left) despite the second shot's hit chance being 85%.
*If a soldier's a support, he/she is going to have terrible accuracy WITH ANYTHING BUT A S.C.O.P.E. AND A LIGHT PLASMA RIFLE.
*If an alien's chance to hit is >1%, he will hit.
**If an alien's chance to hit is <1%, he will destroy your full cover.
*If an alien's mind control chance is >1%, it will work.
*When aiming at an Ethereal with the last shot of your turn, it will reflect it.
**''Especially'' if that soldier has only 1 HP.
*If the vehicle that your soldier is dashing to for cover can be set on fire, it will be.
**That is, if the soldier survives the alien Overwatch shot that will set the vehicle on fire.
***If so, then the vehicle's explosion will finish him/her off.
****Not to forget that this specific soldier, was your Colonel who had been with you since the first mission.
*Your soldier will always have the exact amount of health for a vehicle to blow him up.
*You will always reveal new enemies on your last move of the turn.
**Who will then take up flanking positions behind anyone who dashed.
*The more soldiers who perform an Overwatch reaction shot against a single alien, the more likely they will all miss.
**Soldiers who hit the alien will barely kill the alien.
***The alien, in turn, will kill your highest-ranking soldier.
****After killing the highest-ranking soldier, the other aliens will come in and mop everyone else up.
*When you have your whole squad on overwatch they will all shoot one floater.
**And then all die to his Chryssalid buddy.
*Your Revive spec medic will always be the one critically wounded.
*When trying to capture a commander with one stunner, he will be the one MCed,
*Aliens will always hit soldier's hunkering down behind high cover.
**The alien will do just enough damage to not kill him, but to cause him to panic.
***The panicking soldier will kill a soldier and start a panic chain.
*Panicking soldiers will always have 100% to hit.
*Smoke grenades will always improve alien accuracy.
**Mutons and Floaters will always throw grenades into smoke.
*If a soldier can panic, it will.
**Soldiers that panic will aim for the highest ranking officer he can see.
***Even behind high cover, on a higher elevation, and covered by a smoke grenade, a panicking rookie will still be able to kill the "protected" Colonel.
*Rockets will always fly off target.
**ESPECIALLY when you squad is surrounded by explosive vehicles and forklifts.
***At a gas station
****Then everything will explode
***** Then everything will explode and everyone will panic
******Even your SHIVs
*******And they will shoot your highest-ranked soldier
********And he will die
*********He will also have the psionic gift
**********He also has one of the highest starting and leveling Will/Aim scores you ever got, in any playthrough.
***********And he/she will also be named after you.
************And he/she will be carrying your only medic kit.
*Aliens will position themselves right outside the radius of a grenade throw.
**If a grenade can clip through and explode harmlessly under ground while you are trying to aim it, it will.
*When it is time to face Sectopods or Cyberdiscs, your HEAT ammo heavies will not be with you.
**When it is time to face Sectopods or Cyberdiscs, your HEAT ammo heavies will miss every shot.
*When it is time to face Muton Elites, your psionics will not be with you.
*Your soldiers are always one grid point away from moving to safely flank an alien.
*When a large UFO lands and you assault with your elite squad you will fight 3 Floaters, 3 Sectoids and a Sectoid Commander.
*When a moderate alien abduction comes up and you assault with a squad comprised of your Col. Sniper, squaddies, and rookies for training purposes, you will fight 9 Mutons (who will each throw their grenades asap), a Cyberdisc, and 2 Drones you just can't seem to hit.
*Even when you use the rookie to scout ahead, he will always stumble on no less than every enemy on the map on a single turn, who will then, with most of the laws stated above, wipe your elite squad before you can say Jenkins.
*You decide to research offensive tech first and the Arc Thrower later only to find that Sectoids have been removed from the alien roster. But after killing 7 Mutons on a map you decide to zap the last two for their weapons only to have the last group be a trio of Sectoids.
*The Overseer will only appear when you have no Firestorms.
**When you build your firestorm with dodge matrix, fusion lance, and uplink targeting, the Overseer will appear in the continent your new Firestorm is NOT stationed in
*Your MCed alien will always run out of usable turns before they can bust the asses off of some of their little alien friends.
**ALWAYS
***Especially on the final mission of the entire game.
*MCed aliens will always activate no less than two squads that were just behind them.
*Your sniper with Snap Shot will never be useful for anything, ever.
*Your sniper with Squadsight will never be in a good position.
**And when he is, a tree will block his line of sight to finish off that one alien flanking your soldiers.
*The alien with a grenade will go first. He will toss the grenade , without moving, negating any troopers on Overwatch, and removing cover from you forward trooper.
**Next alien will kill your now-exposed trooper.
***You will then have to wait 2-3 minutes for the other 9 or so Aliens to take their turn and batter your remaining troops.
****Also, it's been 5 rounds since you last saved.
*The range for a soldier flying with Archangel Armor will always be "One less than it takes to get into cover, or out of range."
*On a Battleship raid, there will always be one alien that runs away, forcing you to have to chase them down.
**Backwards.
*The game has no problem sending and activating every alien squad in an Abductor or Supply Barge at you in 1 turn.
**If not, that's because the high-level alien squad somehow noticed you from the other side of the ship.
*The council mission reward will always be either what you don't need, or not enough of what you do.
*When fighting Thin Men, you will always activate 2 squads at a time.
*When fighting Floaters, they will always Launch to flank just tiles away from your Sniper. No soldier will be close enough to help her.
*When fighting Mutons, you will activate a squad ''after'' you have finished moving at least two soldiers. Who you placed right next to each other.
**If you think two soldiers were just far enough apart to not both be hit by 1 grenade: turns out they weren't.
***Both of their cover is now gone, fyi.
*When fighting Chryssalids, they will always be at least close enough to hit your soldiers from a diagonal tile, if not closer.
*When fighting Cyberdiscs, when they are open, your hardest-hitting soldier will not be able to attack them.
**Because it opened up to kill said soldier in the previous turn.
*When fighting Sectopods, the answer to "Which soldier are they going to fire at?" The answer is always "the one taking cover behind something explosive."
**On the rare chance that it's Chest Cannon misses, the shot will still hit something explosive.
***Specifically, something that another soldier is taking cover behind.
****Whom it will then fire upon.
*When fighting a Sectopod, after your two troops have been battered by both Chest Cannon blasts despite being behind full cover and in the middle of a smoke grenade cloud, one moves and triggers a Reaction Shot.
*When fighting an Ethereal, it will either:
**Be in a different room than usual.
**Become activated when you pass within 10 feet of the door.
**Become activated when your last turn is to MC an Elite Muton or Heavy Floater that would be flanking it's buddies.
***Which it will then immediately kill.
*Your first shot with a shiny new weapon will miss.
*Despite bipods being visible on several weapons, your soldiers do not seem to recognise their existence for steadying and making more accurate shots.
*Your Support with Sprint and a Skeleton Suit or Ghost Armor will always be one movement short of saving a civilian.
*Your soldier will make a crazy-ass, low-percentage, gun-pointing-the-wrong-way-for-some-reason Overwatch shot with your currently-most powerful weapon.... on a wounded Sectoid.
*At the point in the game when you have all continents armed with Firestorms all with Fusion Lances (Highly unlikely, especially considering the laws above) that is the only time when the Aliens give up on sending the big UFOs and start sending small scouts
*On a Battleship raid, you send in a rookie to investigate the main room, thus activating all 20+ Aliens who just "happened" to spawn in there. They will then all hide, and when you think yourself so clever for taking up positions for multi-pronged attack on the main room, it turns out, they were all on Overwatch.
**And yes, each Alien is just so positioned so that each one of your soldiers will have a chance to get shot at.
***This will occur more often on Ironman Mode.
****On Impossible Difficulty.
*****It turns out, this was also supposed to be the day that you got the only Psionic Soldier you ever found got strong enough to become the volunteer.
******Afterwards, the game will glitch so that you will never find another Psionic Soldier in your whole playthrough
*******Not that it matters, your entire elite squad got wiped out, when they had all their fancy armor and weapons.
*"Don't shoot the Elerium, don't shoot the Elerium---- shit."
**"Don't blow up the power source, don't blow up the power source ---- crap."
***"Blow power source! Blow! Blow! ---- come on!"
*Your soldier will miss the alien and shoot the meld instead.
**Especially if you have them flanked.
*When your favorite soldier gets critically injured, you clear out the Muton Elite that hurt him. Too bad there is a group of sectoids all the way across the map.
**It will take a full turn of dashing for your Sprinter support in a Skeleton Suit to reach them
***They will all proceed to hide behind full cover just out of your sight.
****When you finally see them for your Squadsight Sniper with Double Tap will hit two of them, however, there are three sectoids
*****Not that it matters, they were all on overwatch, and considering the laws above, they will all get critical shots on your soldier, and kill her
******That is, IF you find them.
*Have Frag Grenades? Any aliens in range will have four HP left.
**Alien Grenades or Mind Fray? Six.
***And it will be your only viable action: any attempts at firing a gun will miss.
****C'mon: it's not even out yet, but you just ''know'' that the only time you'll have the Needle Grenade with you, aliens WILL take cover in such a way that only ONE would be affected by it at any time.
*Speaking of Enemy Within: you shall soon become familiar with the sound of exploding Meld canisters.
**Which is Dr. Vahlen annoying voiceover.
*Two words: naughty tentacles.
*Alien: "You brought a soldier with a Med-kit, I'll just Critically wound him then..."
*"Ooh look, the last meld canister.. and..... that's a group of Muton Elites... And a Cyberdisc... or three"
*Need 5 more Meld? Check out that Heavy Floater with only one health left!
**Looks like it's running away, no biggie, you'll just follow it.
***And activate its Mechtoid Buddies!
*While you are almost finished with Confounding Light, you have one turn left to activate the train, too bad the only soldier that can make it is being Overwatch-camped by that Muton who was just air-dropped.
**Even though that move would have required a dash!
***He was also an assault that was gonna get promoted that mission. Guess which Rank.
*The mission where your Squaddie Sniper levels up is alaways the mission that Sqaud Sight would have been supremely useful for.
*Don't EVER pick favorites, they'll just die anyways
*"Ok, gene mod do-- mission, ok, reload to get my soldier. OK, mission done, now to gene mo-- damnit, 'nother mission... ok, done, finally. Allright---- oh come the fuck on, Council, I'm busy here! Now what do you waaa'''AAAHHFUCKCHRYSSALIDS!!'''"
*Yes, Meld Canisters provide full cover. If you're actually using them for that, you have only yourself to blame.
*Enemy Within. Because Sectopods really needed the ability to outright ignore half of all incoming damage.
**AND be able to freely and deliberatley target your cover: "That'ssssssssssssssssssss a nice wall you got there~!"
*Your Heavy will never be in a good spot to launch a mission/life-saving rocket.
**Eventually, you'll fire it, because "might as well."
***'''Then''', and only then, on the ''next'' turn, will they be in the perfect situation to fire that shot you just wasted.
*Training Roulette:
**You'll either get abilites that're near-useless to that class, or
**You'll get high-tier abilities on the same Ranking, forcing you to choose between them.
***Doubly so if they're abilites that would otherwise work well together.
****The game will also pick the most useless skill for that soldier when he gets promoted to Major, like close combat specialist on your sniper.
*Damage Roulette:
**Any time you need to do ''just enough'' damage to weaken an alien so that you have the maximum capture chance, you'll kill it instead. Maybe even crit it.
**Any time you need to ''very definitely'' kill an alien (like the Chryssalid that wants to eat your Medic) you'll knock it down to 1hp.
***The chance of this occurring increases significantly if this is the last action of your turn.
**Any time the aliens shoot at your soldiers they'll do the maximum possible damage, especially if they're in cover and not flanked.
**Any time the aliens shoot at your SHIVs they'll do the minimum possible damage... unless that SHIV is being used '''as''' cover.
*Hey, see that high-ground, full cover spot right over there? That looks like a ''great'' place to attack those aliens from. Go on over, pal.
**Whoops, now they're out of line-of-sight. Tough break there, buddy.
*If you find yourself needing Revive, you're doing something wrong. Too bad you always need it thanks to all of the laws stated above.
*After spending some 3-5 rounds setting up a nice blitzkreig for the bridge of a UFO, ''just'' when you're ready to open the door, the alien CO pod will 'teleport' either halfway across the map, or in the perfect spot to counterattack.
**This includes any other escorting pods, after the CO pod takes the Alien turn to open every door, revealing every soldier.
*The soldier with the arc-thrower will always be in the opposite direction that an alien you're trying to capture decides to run in.
**Followed by spending the rest of the mission chasing the alien like the LAPD. Benny Hill theme optional, but recommended.
*The international symbol of the red cross on med kits is apparently the Inter''galatic'' symbol for "Shoot me first."
*Any UFO that crashes into the ocean will be in a heavily forested area.
*The last alien alive will be a cloaked Seeker, that is now panicked and running away, in a large map. Good #&@%ing luck finding it.
**Or hasn't panicked, but it's a Terror Mission and the lone Seeker's AI has decided to kill as many civilians as possible before going after your agents. But if you split the team up to rescue more at once...
*If an alien hides behind something explosive, one of several things will keep you from taking advantage of it:
**Either you don't want to blow up the object,
**Or a soldier is in the blast zone,
***Especially if they're out of move, or there's no other safe place to move to.
**Or you don't want to destroy it's equipment/fragments.
**Or two of the above.
**Or all three.
*The farther and more obtusely placed a Meld canister is, the more likely it is that stray fire will destroy it from the other end of the map.
*Trying to overwatch-spam to let Adaptive Bone Marrow heal non-armor HP? Here, have a crit to the face.
**Courtesy of that wounded Sectoid that either only took 1 step into your POV, or didn't move at all.
*You will have the perfect Overwatch trap set up.
**You will have a pod you didn't know was there walk into it.
***You will batter the approaching aliens to a bloody pulp.
****You will have the game lock up in Alien Activity.
*****You will have your last save be just before this. Any attempt to Overwatch Trap again will result in a lock up, again.
*Your full 6-man team of one specific nationality will be carved up by an Ethereal MCing half of them and deflecting all your plasma shots.

==[[Long_War|Long War]]==
*You will always learn the hard way what new perks and Gene Mods the dev team has given the aliens.
**To wit: Jumping Berserkers.
*Even if you did have the muscle to take down Abductors, their flight path will only be long enough to send one interceptor against them.
**If at all.
*If you feel you're doing well: your confidence is ill-deserved.
**The alien pod with two Mechtoids, a Sectopod, several drones, and a Sectoid Commander on the other side of that door will gladly demonstrate this.
***Followed by the mixed Muton pack that just came up behind you.
****And then by those cyberdiscs that decided to say hi.
*The first two shots in Air Combat will always be critical hits.... on your interceptor.
*There are, essentially, three results to Air Combat: the UFO crash lands, it DOAs, or your interceptor is KIA.
**The result that ''will'' happen will be one of the two that you don't want.
*The first alien base will always appear (and remove a Council country from) the continent who's bonus you were hoping to get next.
*When you need meld the most, the game will glitch out and think you are doing good for some reason... so you will only get 3 meld per canister.

==[[The_Bureau:_XCOM_Declassified|Combat (The Bureau)]]==
*The agent you sent forward to flank one alien will then be fired upon by EVERY alien.
**Any agent sent forward will be flanked. Twice.
*Any attempt to make a Sectopod turn around (so you can hit it's weak point) will fail to make it turn sufficiently, if at all.
*You'll run out of ammuntion at the worst possible time.
**That includes just reloading, and flat-out running out of bullets alltogether.
*Even if you're replaying, you'll fail to notice the new weapon, or ammo sachel, that would have been really useful in the skirmish you just barely won a few seconds ago.
*There are the best kinds of weapon for a job, when entering a new skirmish. You will not be carrying it.
*You forgot to check a side-path, and just passed a checkpoint: and now you can't go back to check for ammo or backpack schematics.
**By the way, you'll need that ammo in about 5 seconds.
*Even though Battle Focus slows down time, and it's just one click, it still won't be enough time to finish hitting Heal and save an agent from dying.
**That goes double if the Agent in question is Carter.
*Like any other XCOM: An alien's location is ''always'' equal to: grenade toss range, plus explosion area, plus "just enough to not get caught in the blast."
**Meanwhile, aliens toss like they pitch for the Dodgers.
*When attepting to interact with something, the θ of the angle that will allow you to do so is inverse to how ugently you need to do it.
*The agent ability you need right now? You still need to wait for it to reload.
**When it does load, the only aliens left on the field are Sectoids and low-level Zudjari.
***When, out of frustration, you use the ability to finish off the weakling: that's when the second wave of aliens shows up.
**** They are led by a Commander, or Muton (Elite), or Sectopod, or Gunship.
*When attempting to snipe, the alien will always move at the last second.
*The distance between an agent and a Muton will aways be less than the length of it's arm.
*Alien shields and heals ''will'' go up in the span of time between firing a kill shot, and when it would've hit.
*God help you if you have a wireless keyboard/mouse, and haven't charged the battery in the last 24 hours.

==[[XCOM2|XCOM 2 (Strategic)]]==
*Shen's dead, baby. Shen's dead.
*You will get greedy in going for the random supply discoveries, and forget to progress with Resistance activities.
*You will start building your resistance network.... in the wrong direction to the closest Blacksite.
*You will get a priority mission JUST before completing a scan.
*The rare time a soldier gets a cross-class training Perk... it'll be something useless for how you play that soldier.

==[[XCOM2|XCOM 2 (Tactical)]]==
*You will be distracted by Snek Tits at inopportune moments.
*Sectopods are basically Metal Gears now. Have fun with that.
*Hours worth of careful sneaking will be ruined by an unfriendly civvie walking around the corner.
*The procedurally generated map for that critical mission will be as follows:
**ADVENT stronghold: a high-terrain fortress with turrets, high cover, and choke points.
**Your cover: cars.
*If the Sectoid on the map decides to mind control anyone, it will be your Ranger
**You will always be in slashing distance of this Ranger
***The Ranger will always be your Blademaster
*The one time you get 4 damage with a grenade is on the soldier that drops loot
*Your Repeater won't activate on a Berserker but it will sure as hell execute a basic soldier
*You will never get Blacksite Intel drops
**Particularity when the Doom Counter is nearly full.
*** When you do get one: expect the next site to be somewhere you've already made contact with.

[[Category:Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense]]
[[Category:TFTD]]
[[Category: Apocalypse]]
[[Category: Enemy Unknown (2012)]]
[[Category: Bureau (2013)]]

XCOM2 Table

2016-02-22T04:29:07Z

Xuncu:

<table style="padding-left:20px;">
<tr style="vertical-align: top;">
<td colspan = "5">
{| {{stdTable}} title = "XCOM2" width = "100%"
|- {{stdTable Heading}}
| colspan = "5" | '''XCOM2'''
|-
|}
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="vertical-align: top;">
<td style="width:220px; border:1px gray solid;">
{| {{stdTable}} width="100%" style="border:none;"
|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:XCOM2_Resistance_Logo.png|30px]] '''Overview'''
|-
| [[Info (XCOM2)|Game Information]]

: [[XCOM_Base_Location_(XCOM2)|Base Location]]

: [[The Resistance (XCOM2)|The Resistance]]

: [[Difficulty (XCOM2)|Difficulty Levels]]

: [[Achievements (XCOM2)|Achievements]]

|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:XCOM2_Resistance_Logo.png|30px]] '''XCOM'''
|-
| [[Avenger (XCOM2)|Avenger]]
|-
|
: [[Bridge (XCOM2)|Bridge]]

: [[Research (XCOM2)|Research]]

: [[Engineering (XCOM2)|Engineering]]

: [[Proving Ground (XCOM2)|Proving Ground]]

: [[Advanced Warfare Center (XCOM2)|Advanced Warfare Center]]

: [[Living Quarters (XCOM2)|Living Quarters]]

: [[GTS (XCOM2)| Guerrilla Tactics School]]

: [[Shadow Chamber (XCOM2)|Shadow Chamber]]

: [[Hangar (XCOM2)|Hangar]]

: [[Situation Room (XCOM2)|Situation Room]]
:: [[Finances (XCOM2)|Finances]]
|-
|}
</td>

<td style="width: 220px; border:1px gray solid;">
{| {{stdTable}} width="100%" style="border:none;"
|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[Image:Lone_Wolf_(XCOM2).jpg|30px]] '''Soldiers'''
|-
| [[Soldiers (XCOM2)|Soldiers]]
: [[Classes (XCOM2)|Classes]]
:: [[Ranger (XCOM2)|Ranger]]
:: [[Grenadier (XCOM2)|Grenadier]]
:: [[Sharpshooter (XCOM2)|Sharpshooter]]
:: [[Specialist (XCOM2)|Specialist]]
:: [[Psi Operative (XCOM2)|Psi Operative]]
: [[Armor (XCOM2)|Armor]]
: [[Equipment (XCOM2)#Portable Equipment|Equipment]]
: [[Weapons (XCOM2)|Weapons]]
|-
|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Head red 2.png|30px]] '''Advent Coalition'''
|-
| [[Alien Life Forms (XCOM2)|Alien Life Forms]]
:[[Alien Stats (XCOM2)|Alien Stats]]
:[[Alien Deployment (XCOM2)|Alien Deployment]]
|-
| [[UFOs (XCOM2)|UFOs]]
|-
|[[Alien Artifacts (XCOM2)|Alien Artifacts]]

|}
</td>

<td style="width: 220px; border:1px gray solid;">
{| {{stdTable}} width="100%" style="border:none;"
|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Skyranger Pilot (XCOM2).png|30px]] '''Missions'''
|-
| [[Missions (XCOM2)|Mission Types]]

[[Maps (XCOM2)|Maps]]

[[Gameplay Mechanics (XCOM2)|Gameplay Mechanics]]
: [[Concealment (XCOM2)|Concealment]]
: [[Aim (XCOM2)|Aim]]
: [[Dodge (XCOM2)|Dodge]]
: [[Cover (XCOM2)|Cover]]
: [[Critical Wounds (XCOM2)|Critical Wounds]]
: [[Damage (XCOM2)|Damage]]
: [[Overwatch (XCOM2)|Overwatch]]
: [[Suppression (XCOM2)|Suppression]]
: [[Movement (XCOM2)|Movement]]

|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Bradford Small (XCOM2).png|30px]] '''Guides & Tips'''
|-
|
[[Strategy (XCOM2)|Strategy Guide]]
: [[Avenger Optimization (XCOM2)|Avenger Optimization]]
: [[Economy (XCOM2)|Economy]]
: [[Air Combat (XCOM2)|Air Combat]]
: [[Storyline Missions (XCOM2)|Story Walkthrough]]

[[Tactics (XCOM2)|Combat Tactics]]
: [[Squads (XCOM2)|Squads]]
: [[Class Builds (XCOM2)|Class Builds]]
: [[Abilities (XCOM2)|List of all Abilities]]

[[Survival Guide (XCOM2)|Survival Guide]]

|}
</td>

<td style="width:220px; border:1px gray solid;">
{| {{stdTable}} width="100%" style="border:none;"
|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Shen Small (XCOM2).png|30px]] '''General DLC'''
|-
|
[[DLC (XCOM2)|General Information]]

: [[Elite Soldier Pack DLC (XCOM2)|Elite Soldier Pack]]

|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Meet New People Then Kill Them (XCOM2).jpg|30px]] '''Multiplayer'''
|-
|
[[Multiplayer (XCOM2)|Multiplayer]]

|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Happy to Oblige (XCOM2).jpg|30px]] '''Miscellaneous'''
|-
|
[http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/268500/manuals/XCOM2_Manual_English.pdf?t=1454378153 Game Manual]

[[Game Credits (XCOM2)|Game Credits]]

[[Storyline (XCOM2)|Storyline]]

[[Glossary|Glossary of Terms]]

[[Murphy's Laws (X-COM)#XCOM 2 (Strategic)|Murphy's Laws (XCOM2)]]

|- {{stdTable Sub Heading}}
| [[File:Combat Ready (XCOM2).jpg|30px]] '''Technical Information'''
|-
|

[[Patches (XCOM2)| Patches]]

[[Bugs (XCOM2)| Bugs]]

[[Mods (XCOM2)| Mods & Suggestions]]

[[Wiki Tips (EU2012)|Wiki Tips]]
|}
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<noinclude>
[[Category:XCOM2]]

Avatar (XCOM2)

2016-02-22T04:18:59Z

Xuncu:

The goal of the ADVENT/Alien project is the perfection of this entity.

Physically, it actually resembles your own Psionic soldiers, save for a shock of wild, white hair, and a detail-obscuring faceplate, and it's own unique Psionic Repeater rifle. In actuality, it is a hybrid creature: the genetic soup of countless human beings have been processed and integrated with the DNA of both the Ethereal elders and various alien races.

Like the Codex, it is capable of teleportation, and will do so after every time it takes damage. Fortunately, it is not capable of cloning itself. It makes up for this by having a much heftier health pool. it does have a tendency of staying close with it's reactive teleports, giving you a chance to move in for a high-damage flank with other soldiers. It also has the Rift ability, as well as Mind Control and Psi Lance.

Your first encounter with this being will be after you're prompted to Skulljack a living Codex: much like how you encountered the first Codex after Skulljacking an ADVENT Captain, the Avatar will appear in response to this latest objective (and like the Codex 'brains', even if the mission ends with an evac, you do recover the corpse automatically). Fortunately, this will be the only 'random' encounter with it.

After killing it, you are prompted to complete any and all other Blacksite/Avatar-related Shadow Project research, then doing a final project to unlock the last two missions: one to hijack the main ADVENT control tower to expose the Administration's evil (you will have only 3 soldiers on this mission), and another to assault the underwater alien base, in perhaps a callback to the battle of [[T'leth]]. In this final mission, ''your'' mind will be 'riding shotgun' in the Avatar corpse, and will be a seventh soldier in this final battle: much like the Volunteer, Your Avatar must live to the end of the final battle.

At the end of the Alien Base, you will encounter a room with many areas of cover, and more portal gates. The first one will be on a raised platform up high, and will move to engage you when spotted. Then as the turns progress, more will spawn in from the other portals, accompanied by alien pods of varying composition and threat level. Killing all the Avatars wins the game, so keeping away from the other aliens to focus on the Avatar may work as a last stand.

[[Category: XCOM2]]

Avatar (XCOM2)

2016-02-22T03:52:21Z

Xuncu: Created page with "The goal of the ADVENT/Alien project is the perfection of this entity. Physically, it actually resembles your own Psionic soldiers, save for a shock of wild, white hair, and ..."

The goal of the ADVENT/Alien project is the perfection of this entity.

Physically, it actually resembles your own Psionic soldiers, save for a shock of wild, white hair, and a detail-obscuring faceplate, and it's own unique Psionic Repeater rifle. In actuality, it is a hybrid creature: the genetic soup of countless human beings have been processed and integrated with the DNA of both the Ethereal elders and various alien races.

Like the Codex, it is capable of teleportation, and will do so after every time it takes damage. Fortunately, it is not capable of cloning itself. It makes up for this by having a much heftier health pool. it does have a tendency of staying close with it's reactive teleports, giving you a chance to move in for a high-damage flank with other soldiers. It also has the Rift ability, as well as Mind Control and Psi Lance.

Your first encounter with this being will be after you're prompted to Skulljack a living Codex: much like how you encountered the first Codex after Skulljacking an ADVENT Captain, the Avatar will appear in response to this latest objective (and like the Codex 'brains', even if the mission ends with an evac, you do recover the corpse automatically). Fortunately, this will be the only 'random' encounter with it.

After killing it, you are prompted to complete any and all other Blacksite/Avatar-related Shadow Project research, then doing a final project to unlock the last two missions: one to hijack the main ADVENT control tower to expose the Administration's evil (you will have only 3 soldiers on this mission), and another to assault the underwater alien base, in perhaps a callback to the battle of [[T'leth]]. In this final mission, ''your'' mind will be 'riding shotgun' in the Avatar corpse, and will be a seventh soldier in this final battle: much like the Volunteer, Your Avatar must live to the end of the final battle.

At the end of the Alien Base, you will encounter a room with many areas of cover, and more portal gates. The first one will be on a raised platform up high, and will move to engage you when spotted. Then as the turns progress, more will spawn in from the other portals, accompanied by alien pods of varying composition and threat level. Killing all the Avatars wins the game, so keeping away from the other aliens to focus on the Avatar may work as a last stand.

Codex (XCOM2)

2016-02-22T03:26:04Z

Xuncu:

You may first see this creature in a cutscene at the end of the tutorial mission. Apparently the physical manifestation of the alien's psionic/data network, it is an electric yellow female humanoid being, seemingly made entirely of electricity, save for a metallic skull etched with circuitry, and a bit of spinal column.

You will first fight it after you attempt to Skulljack a ADVENT Captain: you may want to make sure that Captain is otherwise the last enemy on the map. It has high health, a high dodge rate (so even point-blank shots may 'graze' it for partial damage), and high accuracy. For the storyline requirement, the best time to fight it is when there's no turn counter or anything keeping pressure on you. In terms of threat level, physical makeup, and plot significance: it is fairly equivalent to the Long War iteration of the Outsider.

It's abilities include:
* Teleportation: The Codex will usually teleport instead of physically moving. This has a better-than-average movement range, doesn't trigger Overwatch, and the Codex can still fire or use other abilities as its second action. This ability means the Codex will almost always get a flanking shot every round, unless it uses another ability.
* Rift: The Codex can summon a psionic rift. This disables weapons of XCOM soldiers in the area (mechanically, it reduces their ammo to zero). The rift will detonate next turn for medium damage to anything still in the area of effect. This usually costs the turn of any soldier caught by it, since reloading and moving out of the area of effect to avoid the damage is a full turn of actions, though there are options that don't rely on the primary weapon, such as a Ranger's Slash, the Sharpshooter's pistol or using an item.
* Clone: Whenever it takes damage from a direct attack, the Codex will clone itself, the new one appearing not too far away with a Teleport; the remaining HP will be divided between the two clones, rounding down (so if it attempts to clone at 1 HP, it's basically a single teleport). Try to hit it with a high damage attack first if you can.

Flashbangs and other causes of Disorientation greatly reduce it's threat, and seem to restrict it from using it's special abilities. After the first successful encounter, they will spawn in regular enemy pods, no longer in response to Skulljacking/Skullmining, occasionally consisting of all three being Codexes (Codi?). In dealing with them: while Explosives are always a good opener to doing all-around damage to a pod, layered Overwatch hits when they scatter will not trigger their Cloning ability until their movement is finished, giving you a chance to kill them in one move. However, this relies upon the other aliens in the pod not taking the Overwatch shots themselves. If it hasn't gone too well, and you find yourself surrounded by a number of low-health Codi, soldiers with chain kill abilities are very valuable: the Ranger's Reaper ability can chain melee attacks, and the Sharpshooter's Face Off ability shoots once at every visible enemy with their pistol: if you're lucky, you can get a clean sweep on all of them. The Stock gun part deals guaranteed damage on a miss, so a soldier equipped with one can be assured to always at least ding it.

After a certain point of plot progression, you will be required to Skulljack a Codex (and in turn, summoning [[Avatar (XCOM2)|The Avatar]], spoilers ahoy). After this, you can freely Skullmine any Codex enemies for an instant kill whenever needed.

Alien Life Forms (XCOM2)

2016-02-18T07:30:24Z

Xuncu: /* Commanders */