Hmmm, I love the tanks, they're cheap, disposable, good firepower and if they are damaged don't take a month to heal. I usually put 2-3 on each transport. I send them out first so if they do get destroyed, who cares? Buy another one, they're cheap. They're great for just shooting in the general direction of an alien because their rockets are reasonably powerful and they're faster than most soldiers. So if I'm attacking a large ship I send the tanks circling around the map with 1 soldier each following it, the others go straight for the doors to the ship. You can also have one of your soldiers open the UFO's door, drive the tank up and launch a rocket or two inside.

:blink:
Well I dont thing that tanks were so good.In fact one trooper in flying suit with heavy plasma is almost as good as plasma tank AND:deplete a less space,can go in smaller Ufo without depleting a lot of ammo,will get better through the game,and is a LOT cheaper than tank.New soldier costs 60 000(plus some weapons that you have so or so on stock anyway).And btw you must build tanks in workshops anyway, which take time that could be used on much important things.As you can guess I am not big fan of tanks.

I'm not so fond of tanks either, but I usually send one out first, especially on terror sites. I hate it when I have trouble getting my soldiers out...
But unless I've got plenty of elerium, I simply use one of the initial rocket launchers: no manufacturing needed and they don't consume elerium.

However, my experience with tanks is that they get killed about as easily as any soldier wearing some kind of suit.

The only tank I hardly ever use is the rocket tank (perhaps plasma on those Muton missions). Cost more than a Rookie, yes...but if you have a few Captains and Colonels along...um yeah. Takes months of combat to turn them into top notch guys, easily worth $500k a piece. Where the tanks really come in handy is when you need to move a big gun around quickly. The average rookie will take over a month to get up to 70+ TUs and is also vulnerable to psi, which a tank is not.

I use tanks coz i dont get sad when i lose one i know thats :crazy:

A tank IS the best way to go in UFO they can take more damage they dont get wounded they dont panic they dont turn into monsters and if u use ur research wisely ull c that at evey stage of the game ull have a tank that can take out an alien in asingle shot + high time units and good reaction.

TO let a rookie become a colonel which i prefer over a tank ull need to sacrifice tanks and not crew to get there.

I agree with Lightning is a good craft.
Arm it with laser-gun and you have a perfect elerium-hunter, hunting down small crafts, and jumping them on impact.

Regarding tanks.. one of the most evil ways of killing the aliens "tanks" is to MC one of the 4 squars of a cyber-disc, and either move it one square so it reaction-fire on itself, or use it to kill aliens.

Blaster-launcher is en EXELENT way to deal with Secoid craft where only the leaders have psi-powers.
On battle-ships, Terror and surply-ships the leaders is ALWAYS at the same starting-room for theire class, so you only need to bring 2-3 guys with 1 blaster and 1 round loaded.
Send out a scout, locate the UFO, use one blaster-round to open the roof from above, next right down, and yet one more to be sertain that you got them all :)
Or use the same tactic if you have flying suite, to equpits 2-3 of your men with stun-launchers.
just place them at level 4, if the roof is level 2-3, blast the roof open, and have them fire down at different angels, and then drop a prox-nade down... if they are not stunned, they will die if they move :)
On all missions beside terror-sites, brute force is usualy the best way.
Aliens also Panic due to low moral if you manage to knock some leaders pretty fast, and keep the kill-count at a decent rate.

A Large-scout site shouldn't take more then 10 turns.
Use Prox-nades and laser-rifles at the start, and switch to heavy P and prox-nades later.
If you are trapping a door to KILL, place the nade 1 square outside.
If you wanna get the alien alive, and just wanna use it as detection-device, place it right next to the door or wall you wanna cover, or right around a corner, where the blast won't reach the targeted alien.

I ONLY use high-explosives to take out buildings, never inside ufo's, since the blast-radius is too greate, and will destroy too much stuff and put your own men at risk.

If you wanna REALY learn how to use nades, try and start a game @ easy, with all rookie soldiers, and at your first large-scout mission, arm your men ONLY with Proxy and smokers, along with Pistols for close combat.

Realy.. the ONLY aliens you need alive is; 1 navigator ONCE, 1 leader and commander ONCE.. and then TONES of Medics :)
I always try to take every harvester/abductor with blasting the leader if it's sectoid, and hit the medics with stunners, and then place a smoke-nade with 8 turns delay.. seems like it keeps them down longer.. smoke stuns :)

ha for real..... i never noticed that! :guns:


----------Dragonlancer

sry that last post was me (i forgot to login)

For small ufos I've shot down, I do use high explosives inside them: if there's a large hole in the roof already (caused by intercepting the ufo), there's no power source inside anymore. So I pop in a few high explosives through the roof, rather than going in and getting shot in the doorway :)

Sometimes you will have killed all aliens inside the ufo, and there's still one out somewhere. The last time I played UFO, I posted a soldier over any stunned aliens (usually only a few); this prevents them from getting up again. I don't know if stunned aliens that awake ever pick up their weapons again, but if I have to leave them alone, I take no risks: take the ammo, including that in their weapon.
Also, if their plasmas (or heavy plasmas) have been fired already, you'll lose all of the ammo in the gun at the end of the mission. So you could as well use it up instead of firing your own full rounds.

Actually, you do not lose all of the ammo if you unload the weapon.

What you do is, on the last turn, if your guys have (for example) laser rifles and have picked up plasmas or whatever, go to their inventory and click the weapon on the 'unload' button. (a gun with a clip dropping out of the bottom)

This way, you don't have to waste your precious elerium to make more clips.