UFO Intercept ends my game

[lilyophelia]

I've played 3-4 campaigns so far, and each time I hit a UFO interception, that's pretty much a wipe for me.

There are literally 3-4 pods (difficult-to-kill, heavy crowd control, high damage enemies) to deal with on the first turn, and I get 1-2 more pods every additional turn. By 4-5 rounds in, I'm facing literally 20-30 Vipers, Sectoids, Mutons, Mechs, Stun Lancers, Rocketeers, etc.

Even if I were okay with losing almost all of my soldiers, it's still impossible to defend against the onslaught.

Am I doing something wrong or is this just severely overtuned?

[Narcissistic_Martyr]

Pretty sure that's working as intended.

However... if you can hold out against the first big push you can usually move a couple shinobi to the EMP and start whacking it to death.

[ZenGilgamesh]

I was, with quite the stoke of luck mind you, able to hack into one of the Sectopods near the beacon and simply have THAT destroy it in a single turn, allowing me to keep my men hunkered down on the Avenger pad for easy liftoff after that. We only defended from the league of enemies for maybe 2-3 turns, hiding behind my two turrets and just flashbanging/mowing down anything that tried to bumrush the landing pad. Had a couple Technicals and Shinobi leave the pad only to get some flanks in. Wound up only getting a small group injured for a few days due to a lucky Longbow MEC micromissile.

Would be interested to hear how others have overcome this. If I didn't get lucky hacking the Sectopod I have absolutely no idea how I'd have won because you're right, the odds on that UFO defense mission are quite insurmountable.

[Pandemonim]

Mine actually went a lot smoother than I was expecting, given how brutal some of the other stuff has become. But it also came at an opportune time: later in the game, and my entire A-team was available. There were about 33ish enemies I think, and I had been taking 55 enemy maps relatively reliably. I had a bunch of MSgts and Titan/Coil gear. In fact, I pretty much cleared the map, AND spiked a codex and killed the follow-on avatar.

There's always the tried-and-true vanilla option, though: squadsight sniper and shinobi scout. You'll have to survive the first several turns, but D up and hunker down and it should be doable.

[mattprice516]

Yeah it's really hard. You can also take 12 soldiers though, which is more than practically any other mission in the game so if there weren't tons of enemies it'd be (and used to be) too easy.

[Arcalane]

I'm probably going to have a UFO hitting me soon (Dark Event UFO Hunt that I can't safely intercept, timer's too short) but I have a fully upgraded defense control station.

On the other hand, I'm using Even More Maps - Suffer!, so I might get a terrible map.

This ought to be Fun.

[lilyophelia]

In most of my games, I ended up getting intercepted by a UFO in May/June, and I only had magnetic/laser weapons (and I was just barely able to afford the upgrades).

Vipers in particular are really brutal, because they can't be reliably be killed (with the high dodge), and they love to pull your units out into the middle of everything.

The best I could do was hold back, throwing lots of flashbang, using assault stuns, sharpshooters and trying to grab what I could on overwatch. Any sort of running up towards them just got me instantly killed.

Next time I'll see if I can try a more defensive strategy and see how that goes.

Maybe this is just a problem with very early intercepts and I'm just getting super unlucky?

[Nekojusan]

I think it goes without saying if you have a ufo flying about assume you are going to get hit at some point, so always keep a high geared squad at the ready.
Keep these guys on standby, do missions with your other squad(s) but reign them in (don't take risks; easy missions, decline more)

as soon as you see that thing sell off anything at the black market you don't really need at the time buy as much armor and vests as you can

That being said you'll be unlikely to protect everyone, specialists and snipers can live without them if left at the back and put out of the way (grenadiers too in some cases)

Shinobi with high movement to see exactly what your are facing, this guy is key as he/she can allow you to see flanking opportunities

A shinobi scout plus a sniper or two can help eliminate any high priority targets as does hail of bullets from the gunners( makes me think of trinity in the matrix 'dodge this' moment) for me enemy number one is the rocketeers followed by unflashed vipers and sectoids.

Snipers with holo talents are brilliant as they can make loads of targets much easier to crit and hit for everyone else

With such a large number of targets gunners area suppression is utter king here as is a support grenadier with the first three support talents, don't forget the arc gun from assaults and haywire protocol from specialists.

Iron curtain on gunners can hit and hobble a load of targets.

With a bit of luck and positioning you can shut down and neuter a large portion of the attack and allow you to focus on whittling down the attacking force over the coming turns and allow easier flanking for your shinobis and assaults

Having an officer here is also invaluable, command (give a soldier an extra action) to get a overexposed soldier out of there or to better flank/kill/finish off an enemy, focus fire ( + to hit for everyone on that target) jammer (stop that reinforcement for a turn)

I know most of this is common sense stuff but I hope you will glean some useful info from it to help you next time

[RedAnchorite]

I've had two of these on veteran. One I played poorly and it ended my game (1.0), one I was successful at (1.1). The first, I rushed a few soldiers forward only to realize the peninsula they were on was surrounded, my own dumb fault. The second, I turtled up until I'd killed probably around 25-30 enemies (in which I lost my officer), then pushed out a little to get within sight of the relay, got that pod activated and a single sniper with a beginner sniper rilfe to squad sight the relay while the rest of my squad just focused on keeping the spotter (assault) and the sniper alive. Spotter and sniper could do about 10 per turn if I was lucky. The only serious upgrades that I had at the time were the 2 prototype laser weapons you get, but they ended up being clutch.

End result wasn't pretty but it wasn't completely devastating either:

[dontyouknow]

I snuck a Shinobi over there and shot it with three laser snipers for two turns. I lost one of my snipers who got squarshed by a berserker, but that's it.

[brunodema]

Is it possible to dodge the UFO forever and never get the base defense mission? Or will it happen eventually?

[Thrair]

Overall tactics vary a bit based on time you get it, but there's a few general tips.

-First of all, bring all the demolitions experts you can muster. Every technical you can and any demo grenadiers. Surviving "The Surge" (as I like to call it) is the hardest part of the mission. You'll want upfront and reliable alpha damage, and lots of it.
-Secondly, set up right where you are and bunker up. There's often a pod within blue move, so try to kill it quickly and without wasting your technical rockets. Grenadiers shine for this. Then Overwatch the overwatch guys and hunker the squishy soldiers and get ready for "The Surge". That big group of 2-4 pods rushing in together right off the bat is the hardest part of the mission. After they scamper (and hopefully do little damage with reflex actions), you want to carpet bomb the entire section of the map with grenades and rockets. Level cover and kill as many of them as you can. Forget about loot. Once you clear out the initial set, reinforcements are much more manageable while you find and kill the jammer.
-Thirdly, bring a dedicated Sniper and a scout Shinobi. Put the Sniper as far back as you can and wait for the Shinobi to take the long way around the enemies to spot the relay. It takes a while, but it lets the rest of your squad focus entirely on defense while you chip away at it. However, if you're unlucky it can spawn behind a building or some such, which means you'll have to risk a team on moving up. If this is the case, don't rush for it. Clear "The Surge", then move a team up.

[Niarro]

I'm starting to think ahead to this situation, and I've got a random question: Does the defense matrix take an engineer to staff?

[Sines]

I'm starting to think ahead to this situation, and I've got a random question: Does the defense matrix take an engineer to staff?

Don't know about Long War, but in Vanilla, you could staff it to increase the turrets accuracy (and maybe damage).

Given how direly everybody is talking about this mission, I think I might try to get a Defense Matrix early. To be fair, I'm far more willing to save scum, as this is my first playthrough, but I'd rather be as honest as I can ^_^.

[brunodema]

I Just had my first LW2 avenger defense ever (Veteran): lost 10 guys and one turret

My A/B teams were on missions and I had exactly 12 dudes on the barracks, from which 4 were SGT+ and the rest just meatshields. What I learned: an upgraded Defense Matrix is essential. They do heavy damage and will save you from any stray alien running toward the avenger. And they also distract enemies, making them attack the turrets before your soldiers. And also learned that you need to go fast on taking out the relay, no matter what that costs in terms of soldiers lifes.

[tekronis]

I'm starting to think ahead to this situation, and I've got a random question: Does the defense matrix take an engineer to staff?

Yes, it does.

[lilyophelia]

Another 50 hours or so in (over 200 hours now), and I'll say that I also think that there are plenty of ways to adjust the game's difficulty to fit each player's individual preferences.

Various mods, as well as red fog for aliens only, are great methods to tune the difficulty.