Part 12: Operation Sacred Prophet
Operation Sacred Prophet
Polsy
New Mission Type
Terror Missions! Love them or hate them, they're a standard of any X-Com game. Lots of aliens in a populated area with civilians running around and dying. What's not to love? In the old X-Com they were usually a players first introduction to the terror units the main alien races could be accompanied by. In Enemy Within the old ways of pairing up races for terror missions is replaced and terror sites are now make up the majority of the time Chrysallids are seen. The purpose of terror missions stay the same though, save the civilians before the aliens kill them all. How you go about this and if you truly need to care about the civilians remains questionable.
In Enemy Within each map is given 18 civilians scattered around the map. All that is needed to rescue them is to move beside them and they flee to the Skyranger. The more civilians you save from a terror mission the more the panic level in that country will decrease after a successful mission. Rescue enough and you may even decrease panic levels from other countries in the same continent, often making saving a lot of civilians well worth the effort. This can force players to rush or move through the maps quickly, potentially stumbling upon multiple groups of aliens in the process. It can be a big risk vs reward face off in some terror missions. Sometimes it depends on the map, some go slower and you'll lose civilians just as time ticks by, and sometimes you may find all the aliens very quickly and kill them to end the map with minimal civilians lost.
It feels strange to say, but terror missions are always a good thing. They always happen in countries with high panic levels. They aren't like abduction missions where panic will rise somewhere else. Terror missions are a free chance to seriously lower panic in a country that might be freaking out otherwise. The downside I suppose is that failing a terror mission or ignoring it completely results in the country abandoning the X-Com project because you were unable to protect their populace. They can be hard missions to deal with, but on the global management side of things every time a terror mission pops up it benefits you.
New Enemy Type
Chrysallids, you know them, you love them, and they're back. Perhaps they aren't as fearsome as the old X-Com but they still serve the same purpose. Terror, death, and absolute punishment of anyone caught by them that isn't 100% ready for it. Chrysallids can be absolutely punishing in the early game. They have 8 health which can mean 3 shots from regular rifles. Their melee does about 6-8 damage, and if you live through the melee attack it poisons your soldier in the same way that Thin Men spit does. Of course if the melee strike kills a soldier or civilian they get up a turn later as a zombie. The zombie has 10 health, punches for 10 damage and three turns later the zombie will turn into a new Chrysallid.
Chrysallids are fast and fearsome at the beginning of the game. Their movement range is pretty huge, and they can jump to scale over or through buildings. If they weren't fast enough on their own, often times they get a very generous 'free move' when they are revealed, which can put them even closer to your soldiers. Perhaps the only good news is that Chrysallids do not become tougher over time. As X-Com gets better weapons and armor a 8 HP alien that doesn't use cover becomes less and less of a threat. In the early game though they are nasty, usually taking three hits to kill and are capable of one hit killing your soldiers, which leads to a zombie and only furthers your problems in dealing with them.
Dealing with Chrysallids can be tough, but you can occasionally buy yourself time with them. Being a melee foe leads to certain fundamental weaknesses. They are fast, but they follow the same rules we do, if they move twice they can't attack. So if you can run far enough away to get out of a Chrysallids single move range than you have one turn of safety to shoot it with everybody. This can be dangerous since you are playing life and death by guessing just how far they can move their next turn. Often times they bunch up too. If multiple Chrysallids target the same unit they can often end up clustered together for easy grenade or rocket hits. Take advantage of that.
Lightning Reflexes vs Close and Personal
Ideally you would take both of these skills. They're both very good. Lightning Reflexes allows the assault to automatically dodge the first overwatch shot aimed at it. Close and Personal lets the assault take a standard shot at a target within 4 tiles with out costing an action. Close and Personal does not combine with Run and Gun sadly.
Lightning Reflexes
+ Safely drawing an overwatch shot off an alien can help in so many situations.
+ Great protect for scouting ahead.
Close and Personal
+ Allows your assault to do even more damage.
+ Free action. Take the shot, then do whatever else you'd like to do with your turn.
- Doesn't combine with Run & Gun
- Requires enemies be close already, or within a single moves range for use.
It's almost a hard choice. Both options are so good. It's hard to put into words how amazingly useful Lightning reflexes is though. It means you can scout forward and never worry about a hidden overwatch shot. It means you can intentionally draw fire off an alien in overwatch and then go about your turn as planned. It is just so useful that it beats out Close and Personal just by sheer value of use. Lightning Reflexes will not only keep your assault alive, it will keep the rest of your team alive because you'll never have to worry about being pinned down do to overwatch.
Close and Personal is still really good, and I've enjoyed it a lot on Training Roulette games. The only bad thing to say about it is that it doesn't work with Run and Gun. It also requires your assaults turn not to be over before use, meaning you can't dash the assault to within 4 tiles of a target and still get your free shot off. It's a bit of a bummer, because one way its a bit like a more limited Run & Gun that you could use every turn, and would probably be over powered. The way it is now is great for close quarters combat, but requires your assault to make a single move to get within 4 tiles for the free shot. It just seems rare to me that enemies are within single move range to get the full use out of this. Still though, a great skill.