Machines and BMans Mod

[GalacticOrigins]

Machines and BMan's Mod

If you have the mod, and the AI setting is above normal-disabled, this will group the aliens. A nice, tougher challenge even against normal low-level aliens. However, once tougher aliens show up the war will become even harder. This is a good thing, since a hard game is fun (as long as it is beatable).

Now, here is the deal: Early on, when you first meet the machines, you cannot fight them very well in the open. Even with the AI on normal they can be a little tough. With the mod, the aliens will GROUP and SHOOT-n-RETREAT. If you have to fight a wide open map, such as a City with many streets, your best bet is to retreat early. You cannot win easily. Give it a try. I lost 3 terror missions in a row against the machines. They are in groups of like 2, 4, and 6 (and they rally well together). With those heavy hitting ions they have, one hit drops a soldier with 72-80 health. Just one hit. Also, they have the capability to take out 4 of your troopers in one turn, each turn. Since they take so many early tech rifle hits to kill, like 10 or more, taking on 6 at a time is rough. Even with the right weapons. They will fire from a building and then retreat, (nice tactics!), and cover each other well since they are grouped.

Now, this is not a bad thing. The aliens are supposed to be a dangerous menace. Later on, you will get better weapons that can be used against them, but initially they are a serious problem. Bear that in mind, when you meet them in wide open terrain.

The game is kinda hard your first few missions, right? Then it gets kinda easy for quite a while. Well, when the next level of monsters show up past slither serpents, it will get hard again. As in a seriously tough fight. Caution and proper tactics will win the day.

In bases and smaller craft, such as Fighters, there are less to deal with. But if you had to fight like 20 as in Terror or 30 as in some base assaults, be careful! [:D]

[bman654]

Any grouping and retreating you see is due to CC's programming.  I didn't make any changes to that yet.  I've not actually gotten far enough to see any machines so I don't know how they act with normal AI much less my improved AI.  But I haven't seen anything in the code which suggests they intentionally retreat or group.
 
Good news is I am working on some changes to have aliens intentionally form into small tactical groups. [;)]

[GalacticOrigins]

By the way, I thin my greatest hardship is two-fold:
 
A. The monsters are more grouped at the beginning, which is fine.
 
B. On the HARD difficulty setting from main game, ALL monsters are harder to defeat. (er, I mean aliens). The Flamethrower used to kill a certain target in one hit, very rarely two hits. Now, on hard, it almost always takes two hits to get that kill. And not just those targets, either. When I went from Normal to Hard, oh yeah! ALL aliens were harder!
 
I would like to confirm this. I have not played on EASY mode. Anyone?
 
Well, I wanted a challenge, guess I have one! [8D]

[jimwinsor]

I've just hit the robots. Gawd almighty.
 
What kills these things? I mean, seriously...I've seem 'em take 6 plasma rifle hits (point blank range, burst), shrug, and then ion blast my troopers on the next turn. Do they have any weakness?
 
The autopsy report offers no clues; basically restates the obvious...armor hard to penetrate by any known element (projectile, fire, corrosive, etc etc etc..). Stupid scientists...  [:@]

[GalacticOrigins]

Actually, Plasma is very good. Ion and fire work well, tho.
 
By the way, with lasers it takes a lot of hits, like 10+, and since you get something like 2-4 xp per hit it adds up fast.
 
Mechis are nice XP monsters!