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To get personal shields from the aliens, shoot them with toxguns. This babies fire so fast that I get aliens piled up and when I put a soldier there there are a couple of shields to pick up. Just don't let any mines blow up nearby or the shields will be blown up too.

Hello once more... I just started playing X-com apoc again after a long break (I had overplayed it a little). For some reason, however, I can't log in to my account or request my password (the account is still there, you can click on the profile, but the forum claims otherwise when I ask for my password).

Anyway, first of all: The Queenspawn

Three things you should know about the queenspawn:

1) It is a real pain in the lower backside

2) Its meaner than anything except dimension missiles... when apporaching it, stay in cover (when I engaged it to capture it alive, I actually cut through the wall behind it but don't try it, the damn thing is in a cage which is open only to the front and cannot be cut open. Just advance quickly towards it with a few troopers, tons of stunning equipment and always stay in cover.
You may want to try to injure it with heavy weapons first. Save, then see how much punishment it can take. Damage it as far as you dare and then stun it (all other aliens should be dead by then).

3) When / if you research a live queen you can research toxi-grenades. Basically its a stun grenade using the toxins from the toxi-guns, so its only lethal to aliens but very much so. Unfortunately I found it to be a little late in the game to deploy this improvement, the dimension gate chamber blew up before I could even field-test the first prototypes...

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Now to my list of problems. My newly started game is my first on 'superhuman' so I certainly am careful and paranoid. In fact, the game-time is 12:15 on day 1 (i.e. 15 minutes after start) and already my stats are quite impressive:
- Sirius has been hit 3 times in the first 2 minutes, at least 30 dead enemies, 1 dead agent
- Megapol has been victimised using the 'stun-only' raidmethod, marsec has been in for it twice now
- My infantry consists of 12 soldiers (no more available)
- My fleet has been upgraded with the best technology available, I own all elerium and prophet missiles in the city and I have 5 additional hoverbikes, all armed with bolters
- I captured a metric ton of infantry equipment which left me with 40.000 credits, 4 replacement weapons for sniper and heavy and light mg, all the ammo and explosives you can eat
- I was also left with several large rocket launchers, a mini launcher, a marsec armour torso and one of the famed mindshields

Has anyone ever figured out what the mindshield is good for? When I try to call up the ufopedia-entry I always end up with the info about the stunner. It appears to be infantry equipment, has no value and seems to have no effect... is it maybe a piece of equipment the programmers didn't finish?


Also I'm having some trouble with the stun-raids. Being only 15 minutes into the game, I only own 7 stunners and can't get all of them. Since the defenders usually are about batallion-strength I just CAN'T keep them all down with seven people with stunners, so usually I just move in with the seven armed only with a stunner and carrying nothing except that stunner and their armour (I was considering to drop it but then an autocannon went off and the trooper carrying it nearly killed himself hadn't he been wearing his armour).
So what I do is I search the facility stunning and disarming guards as I pass them. This, however, can be very annoying as I not only have to rearm troopers to work as stun-troopers for one of these mission. Also, I have to let them drop all the equipment once I return to my homebase, which can be quite time consuming. Also I have to check every room if there is no equipment laying about which needs stealing. So usually I probably miss a good deal of equipment just because the guards keep running off, hiding etc. I'd prefer it if I could just stun the whole lot to win the mission and get all the equipment (and more) that way... much easier.
Is there any advice on how you can stun an entire factory full of people without them waking up all the time? Note: I'm pressed for manpower, 12 soldiers, 7 stunners.


Finally, something I haven't tried ... ever... for some reason:
Raids with multiple vehicles. I'm trying to put together a large (!) squad since I'm on superhuman. However, they won't fit into one vehicle or, if they do, I don't have any cargo modules available. Can I actually send several vehicles (A cargo Wolfhound, an PC wolfhound etc.) and tell both of them to raid the building / UFO? I.e., when it comes to select which soldiers to send in, can I select both vehicles so that the cargo holds and bio-modules on both vehicles will be used for the loot? If that doesn't work I might be in trouble but at least I can save the money for a second ACP.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Has anyone ever figured out what the mindshield is good for? When I try to call up the ufopedia-entry I always end up with the info about the stunner. It appears to be infantry equipment, has no value and seems to have no effect... is it maybe a piece of equipment the programmers didn't finish?[/b]

Yup, they never finished it.

Is there any advice on how you can stun an entire factory full of people without them waking up all the time? Note: I'm pressed for manpower, 12 soldiers, 7 stunners.[/b]

Play in real-time, for starters. The fools always - ALWAYS - congregate into some sort of bottleneck, which is where you can stun them easily. Whichever of them won't do that, you'll hunt down with motion scanners.

Factories are not the best raid locations at the beginning, and also note that the size of the building varies according to how large and well-trained your squad is.

Re: Mindshield

That's good to know, I guess I'll scrap it then


Re: Raids

Well, I do play realtime and I do miss it that you can't throw bodies around anymore (like in Enemy Unknown, where I just stacked stunned aliens or carried them around in my backpack so I'd know when they wake up (Chryssalids excepted )). Anyway, these almost smart securitans refuse to be rounded up and stunned.
I once managed to use the architecture - i.e. a narrow corridor - and lock a couple enemies in between 4 troopers. Unfortunately one securitan actually dropped under one of my soldiers. When he woke up he stood on the outside of my perimeter... to make it worse a bit later one of my troopers was hit by a stunner and the 'herd' escaped. I suppose I just need more stunners.

By the way, what are the most lucrative targest for raids, assuming I do any variation of the stun-raid (either I pick the equipment up or I manage to stun all enemies, doesn't matter)

I have made three or four raids and the arms factories seem to yield the most loot, especially since there is the occasional armour to be found... in marsec's case this is unfortunate since I intend to play with a 'handicap' if you like, which includes no bioweapons and no flightsuits. If I can I might even try to fight without hand-held disruptor technology. Basically, this time round I want to do almost everything I can different from the last time

[Eagle of Fire]

Use stun grenade. They continue to stun even after the ennemies are on the ground. You can't go wrong with that unless you really, really take your time around.

[chainsoar]

I found an old guide book for this game the other day that came free with a PC gaming magazine my brother bought years ago. I remember reading it and wanting to play the game SO badly.

[The Fifth Horseman]

By the way, what are the most lucrative targest for raids, assuming I do any variation of the stun-raid (either I pick the equipment up or I manage to stun all enemies, doesn't matter)[/b]

For a squad of 7, like you described, the Government-owned Apartments seem the best target. You get a lot of weapons out of that, for instance, and Elerium also happens every now and then. The very construction of these areas includes multiple bottlenecks for you to exploit.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Oct 16 2006, 12:54 PM) [snapback]261548[/snapback]</div>

For a squad of 7, like you described, the Government-owned Apartments seem the best target. You get a lot of weapons out of that, for instance, and Elerium also happens every now and then. The very construction of these areas includes multiple bottlenecks for you to exploit.
[/b]

Eeeexcellent, thank you! I am experiencing the superhuman difficulty on 'half' now, I guess... on the one hand I was hit (i.e. my base was raided) during the second alien incursion but then I live quite happily, I've got stacks of money, my base took no damage and I haven't suffered any casualties (apart from one victim to the sirians) so far. Basically, I'm a fat cat and when I've spent it all the neighbours pay for me. I build base defences, new quarters and a training area so now I run around with 3 squads (each assigned to a seperate APC) and kill anything alien in sight. The rest gets stunned and that is that... easy

Incidentally I've made some decent plunder from some syndicate slums, if somebody else is looking for good locations... three raids total and I actually managed to stun everyone on each raid. Although, twice the defenders actually herded themselves, first time they spawned in a sort of corral with hedges in, so there was almost no space to move (not with 15 soldiers, anyway) so I just had to block the entrance and stun the lot of them, the other time they all spawned in a narrow alley between a perimeter wall and the edge of the map (width one field) ... again, locked 'em in, stunned 'em and nicked their stuff
Also, the syndicates LOVE explosives according to the two dozend heavy and light launchers plus ammo I collected during those raids.. plus lots of other gimmicks



One problem remains, though:
The horrible politeness of my soldiers. This sometimes bugs me when I'm clearing out infiltrators, some civie comes along and just bumps into my soldiers and they start running around just to make way for some panicked git ...
This is REALLY bad though when trying to herd enemy defenders together. I had it time and again that before an enemy was stunned he managed to bump into my soldier who then got up to move out of the way instead of firing. So far I always had to send to soldiers around with stunners (one will get up, the other one will fire befor the enemy can escape... hopefully) but that's not helping since I'm so short on stunners (I can't use stungrenades by the way, I haven't got any left, they're too valuable for real missions). Is there any way to stop this 'politness'? It would make my job a lot easier By the way, my soldiers are always set on aggressive... they're still the polite types...

Thanks again and in advance, too

[Eagle of Fire]

You needs to set your squaddies stance to "agressive". If you do so, they'll (almost) never disobey you and they will stop trying to dodge bullets by moving around while firing. Extremely usefull.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Some of the Slums sectors are very easy to raid, but the buildings are bloody annoying.

Tell you what - a few times I was thinking to try and bring down the entire buildings with explosives... except never really got around to doing that