A question on falling down in network tower and another on advent MECs

[Thumper]

In my last network tower attempt, i moved an assault to one of those ledges on the side of the walkways in the network tower. I was fighting a viper pod and one of them moved and grabbed the assault but right afterwards both of them fell down and died (i think? My assault fell but the viper's corpse just died on top of the platform for no reason). Is this a feature of that map that people can fall down if they are standing on those walkways and get shot/grabbed?

And a little inquire about MEC archers. I was in a mission once where there was one just running backwards and bombing my team. I thought that after the first micro missiles he would be out of charges or have a cooldown, but he proceeded to micro missile me again next turn, so i just had to drop everything and chase it. He just kept running backwards and suppressing the guy i sent after him. Do they have a number of charges on micromissiles? Do other MECs have a number of charges on it? Do i just have to nuke them with snipers or something to make them stop?

[faket15]

There are 3 types of micro-missiles:

Type 1: used by the basic ADVENT MEC. Has one charge per mission and deals 2-5 damage with one point of shred. Environmental Damage is very low (2 points, only enough to destroy fragile cover pieces that can be destroyed even by missed attacks with guns). Maximum range is 20 tiles with a 2.5 tile radius. MEC AI never uses it against a single target.

Type 2: used by Heavy MECs and Superheavy MECs. Two charges per mission and +1 damage but otherwise the stats are the same as the first type. Heavy MECs and Superheavy MECs use micro-missiles even against a single target.

Type 3: used by MEC Archers and MEC Longbows. Similar to the second type, but with three charges per mission, double the maximum range and better environmental damage (7 points, still less than the 9 from a frag grenade, but enough to reliably destroy 5 HP cover pieces). Longbows have the Biggest Booms perk for extra damage.

The micro-missiles ability has a very short Global Cooldown that prevents multiple MECs from using them on the same turn, but you can still be hit by one per turn until the charges are depleted.

[Thumper]

Ah, very informative. thank you. Not considering him a big threat was a huge mistake by me.
Do they also bombard lone targets like the type 2?

[Psieye]

Ah, very informative. thank you. Not considering him a big threat was a huge mistake by me.
Do they also bombard lone targets like the type 2?

Yes, and they'll do it at squadsight range. Due to the arc of their missiles, they can't shoot when they have a ceiling right above them.

[Thumper]

Okay, thank you!

Any idea about the other question? Has anyone had people falling to their deaths in the network tower mission?

[Psieye]

I'm aware units can fall down, wasn't sure what happens if it's your unit. Snek grab is known to destroy terrain at times and I think that network tower's ledges are linked: once the nearby walls are destroyed the ledge goes out too. Not sure why snek's corpse stayed behind after dying - not the first graphics glitch.

[8wayz]

From a game-engine point of view, when the floor tile beneath a unit gets destroyed, they suffer fall damage, which depends on how many levels they fall down.

Since there is no bottom floor on parts of that map, they will for all intents and purposes die when falling. Alien bodies regularly fall down as well, but sometimes they get stuck in the scenery and look like hovering in thin air.

Beware of ledges !

[Thumper]

The viper did appear to have done massive environment damage with the grab (lots of debris appeared in the air), but the grating stood firm there. Maybe it's a graphical issue though and the floor did disappear since i didn't try moving anyone there afterwards to see if it was possible.

I guess i'll just try to stay away from snakes and ledges next time...